The Company Story

By Scott Carpenter

This is an entreprenuerial story about a young man (the "Old Man") who started his own company and succeeded. He could not find a job after the Army; nor after completing an MBA. A friend asked him to help install equipment which led to other opportunities. The Old Man started his company by trying to solve problems and takes advantage of many opportunities. Relentless drive leads to success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Carpenter
• Release date: Aug 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301626342

Scott Carpenter

Scott Carpenter enjoys management training, recruiting and helping people succeed in and enjoy their professions. He thoroughly enjoyed his first large training session; a safety class for 130 artillery, maintenance, culinary and truck driver soldiers. He has conducted numerous training sessions on a variety of leadership, management, supervisory and organizational topics since that event. Scott has earned an MBA with an emphasis in management from Millsaps College and the Senior Professional Human Resources and Achieve Global's Certified Trainer certificates. He is certified to evaluate the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment and the Campbell Leadership Descriptor. He has coached youth soccer, enjoys cooking, completed the Kona Marathon and completed Warrior Dash events in 2013 and 2014.

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The Company Story

By Scott Carpenter

Copyright 2013 Scott Carpenter

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License notes

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Table of Contents

Introduction

The Company Begins

The Old Man

Discovery and Growth

The Trip and Thinking

Marketing

Directors of Sales

Robert

Kids's Baseball

$5 Steak

The New Plant

Jason

The End of the Road

Today’s Company Leadership

Old Man

Business founder and Sole Owner

Cynthia

The Old Man’s wife

Accountant with the State Tax Department

Robert

The Old Man’s son

COO of the Company

Celia Warren

Comptroller

Tasha Williams

Human Resources Director

Janet King

Administrative Assistant

Stoney Phillips

Kramer Manufacturing Plant Manager

‘Kooly' Smith

Director of Sales

Shelby Thomas

Marketing Director

Jason Abrams

Retail Store Manager

Introduction

Hot humid air was swirling all around. It was normal for this time of year. We’ve all been there. It hurts to breathe. We look forward to cooler temps and a gentle breeze. But, the routine of it all is overwhelming just as it is today. It’s a little fight just to maintain composure. Then, right on schedule, 9:45am. Monday Morning Staff Meeting is over. Hur-ray! Back to the real work. The air is fresher in the manager’s offices, cubicles, and the Yard than it is in staff meetings.

Everyone comes loaded-for-bear as they say to the Monday Morning Staff Meeting. The Department Heads and staff managers have been thinking over the weekend about the tasks they want to achieve the next five days. Everyone wants someone else’s assistance. Of course, the someone else’s in the group have their own wish lists that are self-prioritized above everyone else’s.

The leadership really does get along well. Better here than in most companies. Supervisors, Superintendents, Accounting, Human Resources, Engineers, Sales Managers, and Department Heads work together well because they all buy into the mission and purposes of the Company and their individual and collective roles within it. This company is a well-known and preferred place to work in the State.

The Company does it all. It manufactures, buys items to redistribute, provides services, and operates physical and web-based retail outlets. It buys and sells internationally.

The Company property is one of the largest in the city’s Industrial Park at 39 acres. The main facility is 219,000 square feet and includes the warehouse, shipping dock, Fabrication Shop, and Front Office. The Old Man’s favorite place is any location other than that Front Office. There are 23 acres of outdoor storage; mostly grassed. An acre of experimental solar panels reduces the Company electrical draw by $127,000/year, increases maintenance and insurance costs by $12,800/year, and multiplies Maintenance Department headaches by 150%.

The Old Man, as the staff doesn’t dare to call the sole owner face-to-face, started this business as he was finishing MBA school in 1970. He went back to school because no one would hire him and school was almost free with the G.I Bill and some scholarship funds. He hoped to attain some strategic skills that a big executive job would need. All he got was some chance opportunities to help a friend install new equipment. Those chance opportunities grew into a venture to start his own company.

Hey, this pays the family bills until I land a big executive job, he thought.

Actually, today, the Old Man would tell you quite convincingly that he is happy with his career. He has grown the core company to $418M in annual sales and has a catalog of several thousand parts and services. The business is primarily B2B. The retail store has annually doubled its sales the past 10 years since hiring that college kid, Jason. Jason brought in revenues of almost $31M last year with a profit margin of 10.9%. The Old Man bought an aging plant four years ago, for cheap. It runs about $157M in annual revenues with a GP of 40%, nets around 15% after tax, manufactures 19 products one at a time, has a staff of 800 people, and operates in a 250,000 sq ft facility on 219 acres. Truck lines come and go 24 and 7 at the plant located across town from the core business.

The Old Man has one son, Robert, who is the Chief Operations Officer of the company. His wife, Cynthia, died last year in a traffic accident. You know the story. The cause of the accident was some drunk guy recklessly driving home from a company Christmas Party the week before Christmas. The Old Man, just like the drunk guy’s family, had a quiet Christmas last year. The judge refused to offer bail until January. The Old Man is the very proud grandfather of six rowdy kids.

This is The Company Story.

The Company Begins

In 1970, the company began by just renting the 12 acres and a 39,000 sq ft abandoned brick building that houses today’s retail operation. The Old Man figured purchasing that property would be a good investment a few months after the business became sustainable. He still has the first sales dollar and first profit dollar from 1970 placed neatly in frames on his office wall.

While in the last semester of MBA School, the Old Man began job hunting. No one was interested in those Vietnam veterans. His instructors were kind to him. They recommended him highly to recruiters. They spoke about his ability to clearly communicate and his understanding of business operations and, especially, his ability to handle great responsibility. Still, no businessman was recommending people who fought in an unpopular war to their company department heads, even if the person had a chest full of medals. Besides, aren’t those people broken?

One day, a college baseball buddy called to get some help installing new equipment at a local business. The job was in town and would last 3-4 days. The pay was the same if it took two days or five days. Being a full time MBA student with a family meant being short on cash.

The next day, and next two days, the pair retold old baseball stories while figuring out how to install the new technology in a three-story building. Afterward, while collecting his much-needed cash, he said that he was willing to help any time.

That’ll be great. I’ll probably have another job or two coming up next month. Do you think you could install this equipment yourself? I enjoy selling. I don’t like installing!

A hungry person enjoys making a few bucks. While he was not hungry, yet, he wasn’t doing anything else. I probably can as long as I have you on a string to call if I have any troubles.

Deal! Heck, you know more about installation than I do. This was just my second install. You did real good.

Thanks. Just give me a call. I’ll handle it. What does it pay?

I split this one with you 2/3-1/3. You’ll get 100% if you do it on your own and don’t harass me too much, ha!

That’ll be great. I need a little Christmas money, too, right now.

"Look, I’ve wanted to send some services