I walk in and within a few minutes, it begins. It could be a phone call from another department, or maybe an email, voicemail, or a manager walking in. “We have this!” ”We have that!” ”We need this!” ”Can you help with that?” And the list goes on.
I’ve been called Speedy Gonzalez or the Flash because I move pretty quickly and efficiently throughout the facility. People often ask, “Where did he go? He was just here!” “Didn’t I just see you down the hall? How did you get here?” And so my story begins.
At the age of 21, I was working part-time at a petroleum storage production facility and playing in a traveling musical band full-time. I quickly realized that this was not the career path I wanted. I started looking for other opportunities and found out about Stuller. My younger brother, who still works here in the model department, shared with me how great the company was to him and said I should try to join the team. The oil field happened to be in a down turn, and I was laid off from my part-time job. I quickly turned in my application and gave the band a 3-month notice that I was leaving. It worked out pretty well and in August of 1989, I received the call that I had been selected for the assembly solitaire assembler position.
It wasn’t too long before I was assembling more than 400 solitaires a day and learning about all types of jewelry assembling processes. In 1991, I transferred into the model department and began that journey. After working as a model maker for several years, I was promoted into management. This role gave me the opportunity to learn about the bigger picture of model making and allowed me to engage with many areas of the company. I was able to understand how what we did affected the way others did their jobs, and helped them overcome many challenges in production. In the evenings, I had a shop at home. I did jewelry repair and new set work for both Stuller associates and local stores. In 1999, I moved from being the model department manager to the assembly department director. I immediately began sharing skills I had learned in model and implemented team training.
In 2004, at the request of manufacturing leadership, my colleagues and I were introduced to a new manufacturing production system. We began the journey of transforming our system. In 2007, two colleagues and I attended a one week Kaizen (continuous improvement) workshop. We learned how to focus on safety, quality, delivery, cost, waste elimination, process improvement, pull and flow improvement, lead time reduction, cleanliness and organization.
In 2008, I became the Director of Cellular Manufacturing. At this time, we merged a variety of production manufacturing departments: Assembly, Pre-finishing, Finishing, and Final Quality Assurance. The objective was to empower our associates, improve quality, refine process flow, and reduce lead-time with the goal of lowering inventory levels and costs to better meet our customer’s needs.
Since 2010, I’ve served as the Stone Setting/Stuller Studio Director. My career here at Stuller has been an incredible journey for me. There is never a dull moment.
Although my work keeps me very busy, I find time to continue my favorite hobby, which is playing music! Sometimes, I can be seen on weekends in local restaurants playing a little music. I have a passion for learning and improving. After 26 years of working at Stuller, I still have the passion and feel I have so much more to learn. I love our people and our customers. I have been called the “associate whisperer” and even the “customer whisperer” at times because I am able to handle some of the tougher and more delicate situations. I will do whatever it takes to get to the root cause of any challenge and situation to eliminate it from happening again. When we have to make something happen, our team is usually called on in the last hour. I don’t mind being the “Firefighter” to make it happen. I constantly teach to be the ultimate servant for each other in the company and our Stuller customers. We have to be proactive in our approach to overcoming obstacles and situations and become the “fire marshals” in order to give our customers the ultimate experience.
