been an active participant in industry organizations, serving on the Material Handling Equipment
Distributors Association’s (MHEDA) board of
directors and executive committee, including a
term as president. He has also served on the College-Industry Council of Material Handling Education
(CICMHE) Foundation and MHI’s Education
Foundation board of directors.
He recently spoke to DCV Editorial Director Peter
Bradley about his efforts to attract young talent to
the material handling industry and then hold onto
that talent.
QTell me a little bit about the mentoring efforts for which you were recently recognized by MHI.
AI’ve been in the industry since 1980, but around (the year) 2000, I realized there was a significant shortage of people available to bring into the
industry. We recycle people in this industry. That
doesn’t promote new ideas and creative concepts.
So, I made that part of my initiatives as president at
MHEDA and formed a committee at MHEDA to address
the issue. As we saw it, the problem was that we, as an
industry, were fairly transparent to the academic community, to the consumer community, etc. We were kind
of behind the scenes, so when kids got out of school, they
didn’t think about going into the material handling industry the way they might think about going into electronics or
retail. That was the biggest part, the lack of visibility.
So we worked with MHI on an industry awareness initiative. It never got a lot of traction, but what it did was at least
get people to realize there were two issues that the industry
faced. Number one was the shortage of people. The second
was the inverse relationship that existed between the price
that we get for our services and the value that they provide.
We really tried to promote both of those things through
that initiative. When that fell by the wayside, we started
taking a more micro approach at MHEDA. We started tar-
geting schools to work with, and we asked MHI if we could
get involved with CICMHE and sponsor a professor to try
to build bridges with the academic community. We did
that. MHEDA has continued to be involved with CICMHE.
We have coupled that initiative and our relationships
through CICMHE to target schools that we could use as
feeder schools, and we actually initiated a program where
we started bringing professors and two of their top students
to the MHEDA convention every year, which was great. It
exposed members to the kind of talent that these schools
were producing.
That was on an industry level. On a more micro level,
we’ve done the same thing in our own company. We’ve
developed partnerships with three schools in particular—
Loyola Chicago, Robert Morris University - Illinois, and
Northern Illinois University—over the last couple of years.
Now, schools and colleges are not the only ones we’re
working with. Half of our employees have technical backgrounds. We have a whole demographic, the baby boomers,
that’s retiring. There was a good cross section of blue- and
white-collar workers in that generation. It’s a different story
with the newcomers entering the work force. The parents of
those kids pushed them to go to college, which has resulted
in a tremendous shortage of blue-collar workers. So we
work with two trade schools toward the end of making
them, first of all, aware of our industry. At least 80 percent
of our new technicians today are from the trade schools.
We develop our own talent from the ground up.
QThe whole idea of attracting young people to the busi- ness was the first challenge, but then we have an industry that has a high turnover rate. How do you retain people?
AWell, each one of them has to have a mentor who is responsible for making their on-boarding and their
employment experience a successful one. You can’t treat
someone who is new to the industry, new to the business
world, the same way you treat somebody who is 10 years
in. It requires very special handling. Most importantly, the
mentor has to be someone other than their boss. It has to
be somebody who’s going to take them under their wing
and show them the way, show them the ropes, and be
there to answer any questions and help them overcome any
obstacles.
QRelated to all this, you’ve been active for a very long time in MHEDA, MHI, CICMHE, and other groups.
What drives you to that? Why do you think it’s important
for professionals to be involved in organizations like that?
AI believe that giving back, sharing my ideas and best practices with others toward the end of making the
www.dcvelocity.com DECEMBER 2015 DC VELOCITY 29
3MODEL MENTOR: MIKE ROMANO (RIGHT) RECEIVED MHI’S
FIRST MENTORING AWARD FROM MHI CEO GEORGE PREST AT
PROMAT 2015.
