FEATURE
“In my previous life, I was a ballroom dance instructor. I realized
I probably couldn’t teach dance for the rest of my career, so I went
back to school,” she said. Following her father (Piling Products
founder Gary Johnson) into the steel business 22 years ago, she has
never looked back.
“I love dealing with people, and I would say I learned most of
that teaching dance,” she said. Although she questions whether
being female influences their working methods, she says that
she and Honeyman make a point to build a relationship with
their customers.
“We get to a personal level with our customers; we know their
babies, their grandbabies, where they’ve been on vacation. Women
tend to connect a little differently,” she said.
As for her personal objectives, she says she follows the path laid
out for her,
“My goals are really just exceeding the goals that people have
set for me,” she said. “I have to have a purpose to wake up every
day and delivering sheet piling to the customers gives me that
motivation. Since Meever took us on, they have a growing rental
business, so our job is to increase that and grow it exponentially:
we are back to having fun and selling sheet piling.”
Stephanie Conklin, R.W. Conklin Steel Supply, Inc.
Stephanie Conklin seems to have been born for her position as
chief innovation officer with R.W. Conklin Steel Supply, Inc. in
Ohio. Her grandfather worked with U.S. Steel for three decades
before founding the family business in 1983. The company passed
to her uncle, Philip J. Conklin, and her father was also involved for
a time.
She pursued studies in accounting and finance, imagining she
would work for a Fortune 500 company, but her interest in the family
business eventually drew her back.
“I was brought in to come up with strategic ideas and streamline
our processes,” she said. “Technology is advancing every six
months; with every bit of new technology, there’s a way to update
and improve old practices.”
“I consistently want
to be challenged.”
– Errynne Bell, MBA, EIT, Nucor Skyline
Pile Monitoring
instrumentation: measurements you can trust
CELEBRATING
For quality, reliability and service for over 40 years.
To learn more, visit: www.geokon.biz/PileDriver
| Lebanon, NH, USA | +1.603.448.1562 | info@geokon.com
48 | EDITION 5 2019 www.piledrivers.org
/PileDriver
/www.piledrivers.org
link
