Community involvement: Salvation army, Board member of Committee for Portland.
Born in Ohio
Father was involved in Business solutions and as a result moved around America quite a bit with some moves after 6 months finally settling.
Involved with Kettering Program and went to grad school in General motors, started in manufacturing and then moved to strategic planning and marketing
Picked up on gap in vehicles – Vans – working with Renault alliance and built vans for the market
First 15 years in North America
Next 15 years in Europe – Germany, France, and England. Most places we lived in had a lot of character for the regions in their own right and despite living the beauty of the snow – I still don’t miss it now. First snow of the year is beautiful though. A house we lived in had history back from 1800s as a boarding school transformed into a home.
Left General Motors in 2009 and took a package due to GFC and moved to Australia with only 5 months to find permanent position under current Visa. Found Precision Engineering as a Melbourne based company in Portland, secured a permanent residency in March and bought the company soon after. Became locals in 2018 with purchase of a house at Cape Bridgewater.
Company review committed to business response and quality with a big learning curve at the time, and some really tough days getting the company off the ground with my vision. Focus on:
- Responsiveness
- Best place to work- right team, right wage
- Focus on large industrial clients rather than the small cash business
- Marketing – strong media coverage
Investment in the future with 4 apprentices, stable staff – Increase in permanent tradesmen. Now finding responsiveness is still an important quality of the business, however some issues with resources, and now a broad portfolio of clients.
Portland getting on the map increasingly - with many opportunities for business and our youth to get involved.
