Who We Are
Does it still qualify as a “we” on a solo-prop? Well, we will
leave that here for now with the intent that like all things – this too will
grow.
Professional
I guess it all started nearly 20 years ago. I was a material handler at a
growing company named UV Color and that position quickly evolved into working
there over a decade across multiple positions, growing along with the company.
When I started, there was no actual inventory management system – it was
literally a small section of warehouse racks that held EVERYTHING needed to run
the day-to-day. It was chaos and I immediately saw room for improvement. I
worked with some amazing people, and we took the excel sheet I built up to
manage a cycle count system (still in use today with a few modifications) and
turned it into a full warehouse management system within the ERP we were using
at that time. As this system grew, my position changed, and I eventually became
the inventory control coordinator. We took our inventory management from a once
a year, very expensive loss type situation (over 100k write off at year end the
first year). To a well-defined system that we ran counts on weekly. Granted,
this allowed us to spread that write off out over the year and the first year
after implementation we were under 8k write off at year end. But more
importantly were the efficiencies made throughout the year. We were able to get
ahead of situations where it would be a Friday and we realized we were out of
stock – resulting in an insanely expensive emergency order from vendors. We
were able to identify some key points of failure within our processes to
improve job planning and engineering and also were able to build out a fully
functional warehouse system to support it all. This was all while growing
myself personally, leading a team of 25+ and mentoring them as they grew within
their careers and personal lives.
From there, I moved over to the shipping department within the company,
managing my own warehouse and running a fulfillment system for some of our
multi-million-dollar clients.
The other bonus of this warehouse location – it
was in the same building that our internal IT team was stationed, and I knew
they were beginning to scope a rebuild of the systems I was using daily. Being
able to work directly with them, I was able to start testing what they had
scoped for the rebuild, while also having a key role in helping them to define
the project overall. I also happened to be just finishing up my bachelor’s in
computer science, so the timing worked out perfectly. When the option to move
over into an IT role came up, I was one of the first options and my career in
IT began. The next few years there was a lot of learning, from a variety of
tech stacks to management styles, project planning and management.
Unfortunately, a lot of it was learning what not to do by watching things fail,
and there was constant change from an overall company perspective which led to restructuring
and changes at all levels. Until there was just me, another team member, and
some “outside” support. I say that loosely, as that lead to being
pulled into multiple projects which in hindsight were cool. I did some work on
Cubic (public transit system in the Chicago area), a touch of work on the RFID
bands for Disney and a few other projects. But those also pulled me around
while I was trying to focus on what would later turn into some of my greatest
passions- teaching, leading, mentoring. During this time, the other person on
my team was supposed to be managing the tickets for our internal system. We’d
get a ticket and would have to go in through the database side usually and make
a few SQL changes to correct. However, they also wanted to start learning
development, so we began. Given our history at the company, we knew all the
stakeholders for all of the divisions, so we started setting up meetings to get
actual requirements. We took pieces off the monolith application that was built
and made them more streamlined and efficient resulting in massive improvements
to speed and functionality overall. We followed an agile methodology still, ran
our tests both at a TDD and QA/functional level and we were able to make large
strides in the progress of the application after it had stalled out. During
this time, I had also started helping on the side with a small start-up in the
human services world.
That small start-up was initially the result of a conversation over
lunch. The owner was looking at taking on some new services, so I asked what
their client management system was currently. The stack of manila folders was a
bit less than ideal, so I began building up a small application to help them
manage things a bit easier. The goal was to service 50 clients within the first
year, 6 weeks later they had surpassed that and my transition to a full-time
position there was offered.
Initially, I was managing all the IT aspects solo
there while developing a custom CRM on a low-code platform. As the company
grew, so did the team under me and I was back to mentoring and leading. I had
input with the overall company direction and helped manage growth through some
troubling times as we continued to develop and grow the initial platform. As my
team grew, I was able to hand off a lot of support portions and focus on
building the application to meet the needs across divisions. We knew when we
went with the existing low-code application that there were a few short falls,
but we needed something functional, scalable, and easy to build fast. This
system was in place for a while and helped as we went through a large national
accreditation which allowed the company to continue to expand. We even received
a few specific call outs on how our system helped us achieve the 3-year
approval on the accreditation! However, we knew there were better options, so
we started again. We scoped options and eventually decided on an open-source
CRM system. This would result in a massive decrease in costs, while giving us
full access to the code, database, and other features that were missing on the
low-code system. Within 6 months we went from scoping to a fully developed
replacement system that allowed us to make massive strides in automating the QA
around the system, managing new hires and new services with ease, and freeing
up a lot of our internal time to continue development. Again, with the restructuring
– due to some financial issues within the company, my time here was cut short
unexpectedly, so I moved on again.
Around this time, I was chatting with another previous co-worker and friend,
and they were amid another start up. My time was open, so I began helping a bit
here and there. I was able to take a few members of the team and we began
working on a potential custom CRM / ATS system that we may use in the future
here. All this being done while recording the training sessions for potential
use as upskill courses, while also being able to teach a few new friends some
of the basics of programming. I was able to evaluate the current systems in
place, and we made a few changes to lower cost options of software. We are
doing some rework on the company website, in talks of setting up a conference
for next year and being back to helping set the path for the company and its
future growth options. This is also giving me a bit more exposure on learning
the recruiting process as we find some top talent across multiple industries,
and further growing my network along the way.
Personal
As apparent throughout my different tenures at multiple positions, I have
always had a passion for leadership. Not just being in charge type of
leadership, by mentoring and servant leadership. I love finding places where
people feel challenged, then helping guide them throw the processes and
watching them succeed. I have taken a large personal interest in not only
leadership, but effective communication, growth mindset and an overall desire
to continually learn and develop. I am married, have been for over ten years
now and we have 3 amazing but sometimes crazy kids. I enjoy watching them as
they grow and seeing their own personalities and passions develop. I have a
very active part in the home schooling of our youngest, and love watching him
learn new technologies which is where his passions are currently. Usually, if
I’m not in my office working on one project or another. I’m out tinkering with
something, either in the garage, around the house or just being outdoors.