My Life, 5 Year Snapshots (1985 thru 1989) 1/2

 

CAREER

1985 marked my first full year at Waltco Truck Equipment Company, where we manufactured and installed hydraulic tailgate lifts for trucks and trailers. How did I get there and what about my teaching career? I will explain.

After getting out of college, I was employed at a small Christian school where I wore the hats of a teacher, a coach and an athletic director. Jeana was the school secretary. I loved what I did as I bonded with my students and the athletes whom I coached. But man… it was a real struggle trying to survive in Southern California on a near poverty level paycheck.

For we teachers, one of the rituals at the end of each school year was to find summer employment. Our small school couldn’t afford to pay us when tuitions were not flowing into the coffers. So I would find odd jobs as I attempted to keep us financially afloat.

The summer after my third year of teaching, I was talking to a softball teammate named Ken after a game one night. I was lamenting the fact that I had yet to secure a summer job and felt a bit of desperation starting to set in. Ken shared with me that he was the foreman in the injection molding department at a manufacturing company in South Gate called Bowers and that he could get me on there. I asked him about the fact that I was only looking for about 3 months of employment. He responded with, “I see no need to share that with anyone at Bowers.”

Great! I had my summer gig on the shop floor of a large manufacturing company. This was a whole new world for me. I traded in my coat and ties for blue jeans and work boots. The pay wasn’t great at $4.15 an hour but it was similar to my school salary. Lunch pail in hand, I started the very next week.

My first impressions at Bowers were 1) I was only one of a very few white boys on the shop floor. I’d estimate that the demographic was at least 93% Hispanic with the other 7% made of Caucasians and African Americans. Why did I take French in high school instead of Spanish? And 2) The mindless repetitive work of assembling electrical outlet boxes for 8 straight hours a day was torture and I needed something to challenge me or I would go mad!

I began asking Ken questions about our department’s metric objectives… like, how many boxes of parts were we expected to produce and pack? He told me there was an objective but he never really made a significant push to meet those goals with the employees in the department. He just filled out a daily production report and turned it into management.

I asked him if I could get a chalkboard for the department with the goals listed at the top and then each days’ packing numbers listed below it. I wanted to see if we could rally and motivate the troops to meet and then beat the objectives. Ken thought it was a great idea and we implemented the plan.

The strategy was hugely successful and the daily records seemed to get broken regularly over those first weeks. I still hated the redundancy of the work but I felt great satisfaction that as a newbie to this type of work, I was able to make a positive impact.

Shortly after the “chalkboard experiment,” the Plant Manager, John Holdridge, came out to the shop floor to meet the employee that spearheaded the effort that led to the ever rising efficiency numbers. I liked John immediately and I felt he liked me too. From that day forward, John would come out and pick my brain on a regular basis.

As the summer started drawing to a close, I knew my time at Bowers was coming to an end. Or so I thought. In one of my conversations with John, I informed him that I would be giving my 2 week notice shortly. John, with a devious grin on his face and with a 3 pack a day smoking habit induced gravelly voice said, “Oh no you won’t!”

He asked what it would take for me to stay. I told him more money and a pathway to a job off the production floor and into the office. John told me the first part was easy. He would transfer me to another department that had a higher pay structure and that he’d work on the second part of my request. I asked for a couple days to ponder my decision. This was a real “fork in the road” type decision. Ultimately, I decided to do what I thought was best for my family long term. Working for a large company with chances for advancement and a great benefits package, I decided to stay at Bowers and end my career as a school teacher.

And thus… I stumbled into my career in the manufacturing world. A world that I would remain in for the next 42 years.

Over the next months with Bowers, John would bring me into the office to work on special projects. The projects always had something to do with metrics, calculations, and efficiency objectives… basically everything that dealt with numbers. I loved it! I thrived in that environment and my bond with John continued to grow.

Unfortunately, the shop workers were union and every time John pulled me into the office, the shop union steward would get wind of it and he would inform John that I didn’t have the seniority to get a special project in the office and that I’d have to return to the shop floor. John would fume and cuss a blue streak, telling the union steward that the highest seniority shop employee wasn’t qualified to do what he had me doing. Didn’t help.

The funny thing is that John would wait a few weeks and then pull me into the office again. He figured that each time, he could get a couple days’ worth of work out of me before the union guy would come charging into the office. It was both amusing and frustrating at the same time.

A year into my tenure at Bowers, I grew frustrated with the lack of movement regarding an opportunity to move into the office. John told me that there was a hiring freeze in the office but that as soon as it was lifted, he’d give me an opportunity.

About that time, one of my close friends, Mark Johnston, informed me of an opening at the company he worked for. Mark was a salesman for Waltco Truck Equipment Company, a manufacturer of hydraulic tailgate lifts. He asked me if I could schedule production. “Absolutely!” I fibbed.

I interviewed for the job and apparently sold myself effectively enough to receive an offer of employment. I became a “Production Scheduler.” Once again, I was working numbers, which I loved almost as much as I loved my wife… (I said “almost”). It didn’t take long for those in upper management to notice my work and when a promotion opportunity presented itself, I immediately threw my hat into the ring and was chosen as the new “Inventory Control Manager.” I got an office and was allowed to hire an assistant… and I was off to the races.

Over the next several years, I continued to learn and grow. I joined a group called the “American Production & Inventory Control Society,” (APICS). This was an international organization with numerous local chapters that held monthly meetings where we could learn from others in our chosen field and build a network with employees who worked in a manufacturing environment. I also took APICS classes at Cal State Dominguez Hills to sharpen my skills. I felt that I had found my niche and I poured myself into it.

During my time at Waltco, John Holdridge, from Bowers, kept in contact with me. He told me that his objective was to steal me back, which was flattering but I just laughed it off. One day he called and asked if I could meet him for lunch. Happy with an opportunity to see my old friend, I accepted his invitation.

After we ate and finished up with our small talk… John offered me a job. “Quality Circles” became all the rage in the 1980’s. It was a system by which all employees were divided into small groups that would discuss their departments, their objectives and where they could forge some meaningful improvements to their processes and efficiencies. John thought that with my background in teaching that I would be a natural to head up the “Quality Circle” program. He had already been given the authority to hire me on the spot if I wanted the position. He offered a small increase in pay from what I was making at Waltco.

I declined the offer. It was certainly tempting but I felt that the duties didn’t fall within the employment path that I was forging. I told John to keep me in mind if anything in the “material control” field opened up. He assured me that he would. And he did.

In 1988, when I had 4 years under my belt with Waltco, a Swedish lift-gate company bought us out and it didn’t take long before some of the changes instituted began to rub many of us the wrong way. I just tried to just do my job and power through the frustration. But then John called… again. He told me he had a “Materials Supervisor” position open and the salary offer was significantly more than I was making at Waltco. This position did a little bit of everything… scheduling production, inventory control, procurement and supervising all the forklift drivers.

When do I start!

I gave my two week notice at Waltco and made my way back to Bowers… in the office… without worrying about the shop union steward ordering me back onto the shop floor.

To be continued...