Page 24 - CMA PROfiles Fall 2018

20 YEARS 20TH ANNIVERSARY NOW AND THEN of a computer drawing all day.
GOING
STRONG
Celebrating
1998 2018 It went so well that I pulled several guys
from the shop and did the same thing.
The personality test was a great
opportunity for us to learn how to be
more efficient, but it was also a good
bonding experience to understand each
other’s personalities and why we are the
way we are.
On a personal note: The exercise gave
me insights about my personality and
how I can improve my interactions on the
job. I’m pretty much Type A and tactical;
I don’t mean to be rude, but I can come
“Any shop that is struggling to find good help needs to start across that way because I’m a “give me

developing a relationship with local shop teachers. If your the facts, nothing but the facts, let’s
area schools don’t have shop programs, start working with make a decision and move on” person. I
hate small talk, but this made me more
them to help implement programs in their local schools and aware of the need to recognize that other
trade schools. It’s been awesome for us.” people are more social. It’s helped me to
— Matt Wehner slow down with some of those people
and nurture that bond with them. (And
by the way, I was the butt of all the jokes
after the tests!)
helped us deliver that for our clients. off a design task to do something else LEAVING BEHIND “FAKE IT ’TILL
that somebody needs right away, it takes YOU MAKE IT”
GETTING CREATIVE ABOUT a minute to regroup and think, “Where
MANAGEMENT did I stop?” One thing that hasn’t changed over the
At the time of the article, we had 20 years is our desire to come up with
employees, and now we have 33. Back The technical designers (TDs) can now solutions to give the clients what they
then, our project manager/designers focus on drawing, and the project want. Back in the beginning, from 2007 to
handled everything from the beginning managers (PMs) can go out and sell more 2014, our motto was “fake it ‘till you make
– when a client walked in needing projects once they’ve passed off a job. it,” and that’s what we did because we
blueprints or estimates or ideas – through We just implemented this a few months weren’t cabinet makers yet; that wasn’t
the step of getting a job ready to send to ago, and we’re already seeing the benefits. our background.
the engineering department. By 2014 when we did the PROfiles
Before we split these roles, we did a interview, we realized, “We’re doing this…
Since then, we have split up that job. Now personality test exercise because there
we have a project manager who meets were a couple of people who were on the we can do it!” But we still didn’t know
with a client, consults, takes notes and fence about whether they would enjoy everything there was to know about
then passes a project off to a technical the technical designer role. After the cabinet making.
designer, who runs with it from there and exercise, some said, “Yep, I’ll be a technical I think being humble and knowing we
then passes off to engineering. don’t know everything has really helped
designer because I don’t really like dealing
We made this change because we realized with the public,” and others realized they us out. We continue to strive to learn
that our old setup meant a lot of stops were better-suited to be project managers more and more.
and starts for the employees who had because they preferred being social and CONNECTING WITH THE FUTURE
those combined roles. If you get pulled interacting with clients to sitting in front The challenge of finding skilled workers is

22 PROFILES FALL 2018