TGIM!

 THE LEGACY BUILDS  PART II

PART I HERE

The shadows of the past often loom large.  You don’t just represent the present…  you are a culmination of the past, and hope for the future.  Your time is now, only because of the toils of past generations.

Life changes.

How often we don’t realize where we are is because of who brought us here.

But sometimes we can, and that perspective can be magical.

Ryan Walsh you see is the 9th generation of dispatchers at our mother ship in Campbellsport.

It is solely the most important position within our organization. He is in control of the one thing we can control. The one thing that adds true value to what we do. Deliveries made in full and on time at our largest and founding location.

This is not to minimize any other position. Billing, estimating, ordering, receiving, purchasing, design, service, installing, selling, and so much more is very critical as well. And of course no location is more important than the other.

But the core of Drexel is our delivering and scheduling services…and it all started on Main Street in Campbellsport.

Everything we do that is right can be made horribly wrong by a delivery or install team arriving at the wrong time with the wrong product. It takes a team of experts to make a load perfect, estimating, the right mix of product quality and price, certainly good service and good billing practices… but one person can make a huge mess out of all it.

Ultimately, it is in the scheduler’s/dispatcher’s hands to make us look good.

That is why the 9th generation of dispatchers is so closely fostered, trained and coached. That person has to be just the right mix of saint and sinner, therapist and enforcer, mathematician and mechanic. With a little magician throw in.

Here are the 9 that have had the reins of Team Blue in the last 30 years, all continue to work here except Dick who left this world much too young, and Nick Leist who left Drexel for personal reasons:

Albert Fleischman

Dick Dornacker

Scott Rosenthal

Joel Fleischman

Jay Enright

Eric Beck

Jake Junk

Nick Leist

Ryan Walsh

Albert believed that we will NEVER say no to a delivery until every person in the company was on one or every truck was gone.  In 30 years we HAVE NEVER had a load that didn’t make it out because we ran out of time.  However, we do say NO occasionally, if it smells weird… it probably is!

NO LOADS HAVE EVER BEEN LEFT BEHIND UNTIL THE NEXT DAY.

Which of course has led to many stories, including…

Kris Ballard (at that time Kris was the secretary AND cabinet designer) taking out a load of 4’x’8′ styrofoam that peeled off the back of the truck like a deck of cards as she drove….

Starting to pull a delivery at 4:30pm on Friday July 3rd…and arriving home just in time for the fireworks in town…  been there…done that…

Receiving material purchased from a freight train that ran off the railroad tracks…

Making deliveries by boat, helicopter, and by hand… to prisons, schools, churches and countless more…

16 hour work days…

I’m sure most of us has a story like this, something we just HAD to do to please the customer.

We’ve delivered to Florida, Nebraska, and dozens of other states…we have done online sales to Alaska.  Our first delivery to Canada is starting next month.

And we will continue to do the un-doable….safely…on time…and complete…

When do you need it by, where do you need it?….and we will get it done by then.  The only thing stopping us is mother nature, and even then we win most of those battles.   We can and we will continue to BE the difference.

It’s simple really.  We are a logistics company.  Taking product from one truck on to the next.  Barb and the flooring team install it too.  At the core, that’s really all we do… we do make this small task, moving materials from one place to its last, fantastically hard!

History has taken us from no communication in any trucks, to a system where you called “base camp”, to beepers and pagers, to cell phones, and now to Drexel logistics.

Our current dispatchers and schedulers are:

Berlin

Corey Disterhaft

(yes that is girlfriend Emma Hargrave)

 

Kiel

Andy Feld

Brookfield

Barb Woolf

Ryan Michalak

Wrightstown

Steve Hermsen

Campbellsport

Danielle Thimming

Thank you dispatchers and schedulers, both current and past, for being the glue that holds the puzzle together. And to all those that surround them… you are all part of what we do. It is the daily “doing” that makes what we do so incredibly awesome.

Being on time and in full takes an army of blue. Each of you make that delivery go perfectly, and currently we are doing it 92.8% of the time. We will continue to improve.

WE ARE ON A MISSION FROM GOD.

* Jake Junk on Ryan:  Where would I start with Mr. Welshy! Ryan is a wonderful person to have on team blue and represents our Core values above and beyond. No matter the task, he always comes to work with a smile on his face and a “Can do Attitude!” It has been a pleasure to work and train with Ryan for the past couple years. He truly bleeds blue!   He’s like  “The Cat In The Hat!” No task to small and always having fun with a smile on his face. And at at the end of the day, the job is done, and the place gets cleaned, no matter what happened from point a to point b.

*Todd Flitter on Ryan:  Pretty simple when it comes to Ryan —Cool, Calm and Collected!!! No matter what the pulse is, how many deliveries there are to do…Ryan always has time for everyone and seems always put a little joke and fun into the mix. Ryan is extremely good(top notch) at what he does. Getting the job done and keeping the flame low is exactly what he provides to his Team day in and day out. Everything you could ask for in a Teammate. I guess there’s a reason he wears the #12 jersey!

 

 

— – Joel Fleischman.  Joel is Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.   Our mission is to be a supplier of others happiness.  I hope this little post did just that.

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