OPERATIONS: GARY RICHIED – Page 6
Here it is the last week of December, just a day or two before Christmas, and as I look forward to next year I can’t help but reflect on 2018. I’m sure you will recall we had a very poor start to the year with business at a crawl, and bad weather. I felt prepared for these challenges but then right off the bat in January we were faced with the challenge of hiring a replacement for our Interstate Operations Manager Position and the possibility of losing a third of our Interstate Fleet. Tom Hornbaker, a wise old man who used to work here, once declared that just when you have all the answers, they change the questions. Not the way I had envisioned the start of a new year.
Now anyone who was looking at our Operations Department from the outside in, might come to the erroneous conclusion that I was some kind of Department Staffing guru the way everything came together. You see a few years ago we had added the positions of Intrastate Dispatch Assistant, and then last year we added an Interstate Dispatch Assistant, both because of the way our company was growing. This proved invaluable as we were able to re-staff the Operations Department from within the company.
Jeff Abbs accepted the opportunity to manage the Interstate Operations along with Fortino Cervantes, who was already in place as the interstate dispatcher, in the scheduling of our interstate fleet and all of our interstate shipments. Ryan Thies then stepped up from dispatch assistant to take over the position of Intrastate Manager and all the responsibilities that go along with it. We were then fortunate enough, with the blessing of Krystle Czerwinski, to have Canaan Bartz join us as the new dispatch assistant from his job of service coordinator in sales.
These all turned out to be natural fits as Jeff, with the now re-engaged Fortino, minimized the loss of committed long haul contractors to our fleet and have actually recovered a couple of drivers, to the point where we are still in Allied’s Top 10 for hauling volume. Ryan, while being very familiar with duties associated with the Intrastate, has made the transition seamless, with the aid he has received from Canaan’s knowledge and experience of servicing the interstate business. Of course all of this was made possible by the rock solid foundation we have of Cyndee Reckert as Operations Coordinator, Isabel Griffin as Warehousing Manger, and Abel Ruiz as our Naperville Branch Manager, and Judy Fisher Managing our claims.
So now you decide. Was it my genius in putting this all together, or just a very lucky set of circumstances that brought it all about? Either way I really don’t care because all I know for sure is that I am a very Blessed person to have this team of dedicated employees to work with in what is the best Operations Dept. in the moving industry.
At our Annual Awards banquet I had the distinct pleasure of recognizing all of these people. I also had the daunting task of selecting one of them as the Operations Department Employee of the Year. This choice gets more and more difficult every year as they are all so great at what they are asked to do. Jeff Abbs was the winner this year for the way he took charge of what is probably the most complicated part of our business, and along with Fortino turned what could have been a disaster into a winning combination.
The other two awards that I am privileged to present are much easier to assign as the criteria for their achieving these is not really in my hands. All I do is gather all the information regarding their job performance from the different sources of; cargo claims, vehicle accidents, personal injury, and most importantly the rating of our customers. This year’s Mover of the Year is Jose (Ivan) Garcia. Ivan had as near a perfect year as you can get with no claims, no moving violations, no injuries, and a customer service rating of a 4.9 on a 5 point scale. This is undoubtedly why there is not another service provider that is requested more he is. Frank Russell distinguished himself, once again, to earn the honor being our Independent Contractor of the Year. Frank like Ivan had no cargo claims, no moving violations, no injuries, and he even beat Ivan out with a perfect 5.0 customer service rating.
We will not be the only ones recognizing Frank for his outstanding job performance. We were contacted by Allied Van Lines who wanted to nominate him for the AMSA Driver of the Year. However, after learning that Frank had been presented with this award twice already, it was decided that they would nominate him for the AMSA Lifetime Achievement Award. Another great honor, that he so richly deserves.
Here are the Outstanding Service Providers that were recognized at the awards banquet and who were presented with over $30,000.00 in commissions for this achievement, as a group.
| CONGRATULATIONS AND SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR OUTSTANDING PERFORMERS | |||
| Martinez, J. | Lemus, M. | Badillo, A. | Reyes, B |
| Guzman, A. | Youngman, J. | Broaster, M. | Paige, M. |
| Bachar, B. | Francisco, N. | Schlueter, J. | Lockett, Q. |
| Murillo, P. | Wagner, K. | Burke, S. | Flowers, R. |
| Garcia, J. | Medrano, M. | Ayala, A. | Corey, S. |
| Estrada, R. | Gorostieta, M. | Lascano, J. | Ocegueda, J. |
| Olmedo, H. | Pereda, A. | Romero, J. | Saucedo, O. |
| Sims, R. | Andrade, V. | Garcia, M. | Griffin, D. |
| Mungia, R. | Rosales, J. | Chisem, J. | Corral, N. |
| De La Cruz, A. | Nechi, Z. | Padilla, A. | SiFuentes, J. |
| Torruella, C. | Trujillo, J. | Arreguin, R. | Bueno, A. |
| Sandoval, F. | Zapata, M. | Colin, D. | Gallarzo, J. |
| Gonzalez, H. | Lopez, J. | Lopez, K. | Delao, E. |
| Lopez, D. | Torres, J. | ||
Henry Drummond once wrote: “You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.
May the Love of the newborn Christ Child bring you and yours Peace, Happiness, and Joy now and throughout the New Year.
Peace and Prayers
Gary