Strong Finish
As I look back at my first month as General Manager, I do not have to look far to be reminded how strong of a team we have here at Lou-Rich. 2020 has sure thrown its fair share of curve balls at us with supply chain challenges, pulling out of customer orders, pulling in of customer orders and of course labor shortages caused by Covid-19. Through all this our employee-owners across the company have stepped up to meet these challenges, I will say as good as or better than any contract manufacturer. Our production team have been working many extra hours. Our customer service strives to be as transparent as possible with communication to our customers. Our shipping/receiving departments are working hard to expedite orders as needed. Our procurement team has been diligent sourcing short supply raw materials. Our quality group has been extra responsive to quality issues and many of our support staff have been producing parts on the shop floor. Customer orders remain strong through the end of the year and I can guarantee our team is going to do everything they can to ensure they are fulfilled.
Speaking of our team here at LR there have been some key role changes in our management team over the past few weeks. The first change is Bruce Mullenbach, National Sales Manager, has taken on the responsibility of both the Program Manger and Project Engineering Teams. With his business experience and history in Program Management, Bruce has a great skill set to lead and manage these teams. Bruce has been with Lou-Rich since 2005 and he is very excited for this opportunity. The second change is the promotion of Karl Eggum to Manufacturing Engineering Manager. Karl with be overseeing all our shop floor technical positions including: Manufacturing Engineering, Tool Design, Tool Room, CNC Programming, CNC Techs, Paint Line Tech and Fabrication Programming. Karl has a comprehensive technical knowledge of our manufacturing processes and has experience in supervision and quoting activity. With over eighteen years at Lou-Rich, Karl will be a great leader of these key areas.
I know many of us are looking forward to putting 2020 behind us. I am sure grateful for everyone here at Lou-Rich, our customers, our suppliers, and our sub-contractors. Each one of you still helped make 2020 a good year for us. Looking forward to 2021, it looks to be a great year for Lou-Rich.
I wish each of you a Happy Holidays!
Lee Gulbrandson
