My Career

Since there are few people who’ve been around longer than me, as a public service here’s a list of some of the things I’ve worked on during my 38 years at Ryerson:

Sepco: inside sales at Jim Suggs company, working with fluid sealing gaskets and die cut rings. 1984-1987.

Inside sales at RMP. After I was hired, I was sent out in the plant to train. The receiving clerk had surgery so I filled in for a month out there. Back then all tags were hand written. Every day I went home crying. Then the next month I got to – uh, guess I better shorten this up. But a year or two later Todd Harris was hired, so I helped train him. The rest is history. 1987-1992.

AS400 development: helped design the quote order entry system. Now you know who to blame. Sat in a meeting room on the mezzanine for months. Brain-numbing work. Ever wonder why F2 is on every screen? I can tell you. Steve Apostel didn’t want to go so he sent me. I also worked on the auto-cert program. 1993.

AS400 trainer: helped convert ten districts to the AS400: Greensboro, Norcross, Little Rock, Lawrenceville, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Tulsa, Dallas, Houston, and Orlando. Now you know why you’ve never heard of three of those districts went away. It was in Charlotte where I first met Kevin Richardson. It was my idea to draft Rick Ross and Danny Roberts as trainers, in Chattanooga and Charlotte respectively. Rode roller coasters at Six Flags over Texas with Bobby Rogers and Rick Ross. Favorite quote from someone I was training, after they’d made a mistake: “I thought this system was idiot-proof”. 1994.

Quality manager: worked with Rob Grogan to make RMP the first Tull branch to be ISO certified. Also traveled the southeast conducting audits. Any popularity I once had went down the drain. 1995.

Bar Code Receiving: in the 90’s I helped develop the first bar code receiving program in the Southeast. Designed the metal boxes to hold the computer terminals. Despite rumors to the contrary, I did not invent dirt - or the internet. 1996.

Scheduling Manager: supervised the team responsible for scheduling all the machines at RMP: tube mills, slitter, cut to length lines. Hired Joy Saxon and Patsy Miller. It was during this time John Nicol, Rob Grogan, David Eitel, Ginger Hales, and I were in a fantasy football league – before there was a thing called the internet. My quarterback was ARCHIE Manning. 1997-1998.

Washington Specialty Stainless. I worked in Lawrenceville helping train and convert Washington to the Ryerson AS400. A long commute. 1999.

Charleston Processing: I almost moved to South Carolina to help run Charleston. Not so fast. I did help hire the first batch of employees, including Sam Smalls. Norcross was eternally grateful we transferred Michael Berndt down there. 1999.

Work Order Guru: in 2000 I helped develop the work order system. Worked so well that accounting ditched the old buyout system. Traveled the southeast again, this time training on work orders. It’s taken 17 years and we’re still not finished. My popularity soared. Where I first crossed paths with a young outside salesman named Eric McGill. 2000-2007.

EZGO: when two people quit at the same time I was given a “battlefield lateral move” to the EZGo team. I’ve often said handling EZGo is like holding a tiger by the tail. Our team moved from North Berkeley Lake to our current location, then upstairs with the Program team, then back downstairs. Took me a while, but I always found them. Have out-lived at least 37 other EZGo team members. And you thought Rob Grogan was an old-geezer. 2008-2026.

Cast of Textron team characters through the years: 1 Apostel 2 Michalski 3 Morgan 4 Phillips 5 Wanda 6 Nicolson 7 Shawn 8 old VMI guy Roy 9 Monique 10 Fogle 11 Kanevskey 12 Rohan 13 Dana 14 Evangelista 15 Curtis 16 Sachin 17 Nick (quality) 18 Patricia 19 Bain 20 Yung 21 Brad 22 Rodney 23 Jonathan 24 Howland 25 Nikkar 26 Rachel 27 Angie 28 Shane 29 Eric 30 Kevin 31 Keatley 32 Crawley 33 Sue Utton 34 Murch 35 Leo 36 Antonio 37 Brent.

Everyone likes to be recognized. I try to not draw attention to myself. I'm not always successful at that, and it might not be the best career strategy. I'm not sure I set out to work 30 years for the same company. It just sorta happened. I admit there have been a time or three.

A majority of the coworkers I've worked with over the years have long retired or moved on. Some from other locations that are still here I will be seeking out to say farewell to: Danny Roberts, Lorri Jorgenson, Melanie Williams, Rob Hickman, Marsha Duncan, Jonathan Speicher, Kellie Moran, Sean Ambrose, Ginny Roux, Jeanette Henderson, Michael Berndt, Mike Linebarger, Alan Singleton, ,Jamie Mitchell, Patty Moseley, Tracy Outen, Kaye Hight, Jim Tackett, LaDonna Newell, Jeff Mulkey, Darren Eason, Tim Mulhollen, ,Daniel Sidebottom, Dustin Firth, Mike Blasius, Erin Coleman, Patrick Hall, Jeremy Hartmann, Don Fleschutt, Todd Coulter, Rico Daniel, Jason Blair, Mandy, Keavin, Tyler, Mowbrey, Danny, Antwon, and Scot.