Interview with Sean Fitzgerald VP of Operations

Interview with Sean Fitzgerald VP of Operations Namifiers, LLC

What is it about your personality that has made you successful in your position?

One thing that has helped me along the way is the fact that I don’t spend a lot of time questioning whether something is possible or ‘do-able.’  I spend a lot more time just trying it out.  I have the kind of personality that just attacks problems and goes after them without questioning or analyzing, which backfires once in a while.  This has proven to be very useful to me in my position here.  I’ve also seen this trait in my leaders and quite a few successful people at Namifiers. 

How has learning to manage a large group of employees affected your life?

I believe that I will be able to manage a family with a greater degree of success.  Sometimes I feel as though I have many brothers and sisters, older and younger, and we have to get along and work together.  I feel as though I’ve had a much higher degree of success with my friends and family.  My team management experience helps me work out differences and reach common goals in my personal life. 

What is the most gratifying part of your job?

Seeing other people succeed and accomplish things that they never thought they could.  I feel the greatest pride for my team members or co-workers when I see them succeed in situations that, quite honestly, seemed nearly impossible.  When they pull it off, it’s a pretty substantial moment for everybody.  We get to celebrate, high-five each other, and get back to work. 

What are your hobbies?

My hobbies include a little bit of tennis, quite a bit of home improvement, and spending time with my wife.  We like to plant flowers and gardens, take care of animals, and go to zoos and aquariums.  I also spend a lot time experimenting with various ideas and projects to keep my creative juices flowing. 

What activities were you interested in growing up?

I grew up in California where it was really popular to skateboard so I dabbled in that.  It was not uncommon for me to play musical instruments: anything from snare drums to piano to guitar, to a clarinet which I played for 13 years.  I was interested in some of the fads and pop-culture activities (such as video games) as they came in and went out of style. 

Do you have a knack for building things and fixing things?
I was known to assist my step-father with various home improvement projects.  From a young age, I performed tasks such as running cords under a house into the crawl spaces for cable T.V.  I also learned to install dishwashers and fix cars while working with my step-father as a youth.  Those experiences have been invaluable in preparing me for my position at Namifiers.   

Now, just a few questions about the business:
What is your primary job at Namifiers?
My primary job is to assist in the operations.  As a vice president, I work very closely with Chris Jensen and Bryan Welton.  Our objectives are to fulfill the orders with the quality and efficiency we have guaranteed our customers.  This develops recurring value in the business.  We start projects with machines or products that provide a high and perpetual return over time. 

Another part of my job is to improve the systems, functions, and processes that we use to supply our products to the customers.  I ensure that we are always maintaining and growing so that we don’t slide backwards and we don’t have any new losses.  That’s principally what I do on a day-to-day basis.   

How does your work fit in with the overall goals of Namifiers?

Each vice president at Namifiers has one of the three legs on the stool.  Essentially, there are more legs than that, but each leg on the stool is crucial and my part is just as crucial as marketing and sales.  They can market it, they can sell it, but if the product doesn’t go out on time or if it doesn’t go out with a high level of quality, the whole thing comes crashing down.  So, my job is crucial to seeing that Namifiers reaches its overall goals.   

How do you take a prototype into a fully marketable product line?

We start with a concept for a product.  We find out what is necessary to make that product in a broad strokes planning meeting.  We try to anticipate potential problems or errors.  We start building our system around those potential errors and problems. 

As the product is launched, the volume of orders is small and we can focus our effort on these few orders.  As the production volume picks up, we find more errors and more problems and we then have to go back and restructure the system. 

We design our process so that products can be processed in the same day.  If an order doesn’t ship on the same day, we see that as an error; a problem with the system.  We find out what training and tools are necessary to correct the error and improve the process. 

Over the course of a few months, we have developed a system and a process that needs very little maintenance.  This process is something that we repeat dozens and dozens of times for every product that we sell. 

How do you organize projects so that everything is done on time?

There are a variety of manufacturing techniques.  Namifiers uses a lean manufacturing technique in order to service the client in the appropriate amount of time that we have advertised.  This means we keep the orders in a constant flow.  We try not to have any back orders.  We like to stock enough inventory in the building so that when an order comes in we have all the pieces ready to go.  We don’t have to tell a client that we’re waiting for materials to arrive. We have the labor we need. 

We live, breathe, eat, sleep, and drink the idea that every order can be done today.  Many tasks that take a half a day or a day for our competitors to complete only take us an hour or two.    

How do you prioritize orders?

The more we look at an order and say, “Is this big or small, is this important or unimportant?” the less we fulfill our mission statement.  Here at Namifiers, we set aside the notion of prioritizing.  Every client that has an order in the system is as important as the next.  Our objective is the same, which is to produce and ship that order today.  This is something that Bryan founded the company on, which is the idea that nobody is more important.  No order is too big or too small.   

What distinguishes the processing at Namifiers from that of its competitors?

Over the years, we have developed high-quality accessories which add value to our products.  We have machines and materials that essentially turn a normal nametag into what I like to call the BMW or Mercedes Benz nametag.  Our magnets are stronger.  Our adhesives are stronger, more permanent.  Our inks are thicker and more durable over time.  We are also distinguished from competitors because we process orders faster.  So, most of our customers are impressed by the extremely high quality of our products and that we provide them in a small amount of time.  

What is the most fun or interesting project your team has worked on?

On a month to month basis, we will have orders for companies such as Coca-Cola and Intel.  We processed an order for the president and vice president of the United States just a couple of weeks ago.  These big-name orders excite the team and the executives.  New employees are pretty floored when they see who our clients are.  Some people come in and look at our client roster and don’t believe us.  They think we’re hamming it up but quite literally, we do business with some of the biggest names out there.  And that’s exciting. 

More than that, I think people get really excited and have a lot of fun with their individual areas.  Chris has spent quite a bit of time developing the idea that each person owns their particular part of the system.  They have a high level of ownership, feelings, and behavior.  They feel an extremely high sense of responsibility and pride in the products they create, almost as if their name is on it.  And they get to tell the other processing departments, “We just made Coca-cola’s lanyards, so take that!” and then engraving can come back and say, “Well, we just engraved the president’s nametag, so take that!”  So it’s kind of a fun atmosphere and that creates a great sense of pride and ownership.

August 16, 2007 10 a.m. Namifiers Conference Room

Kelly Forbis interview w/ Sean Fitzgerald, Vice President of Operations. Please keep the comments flowing.