A lot of suppliers in our industry like to fill us in on what is going on with their companies, share insights and, well, let's face it ... even brag a little bit. Such verbiage isn't appropriate for advertisements and/or news releases, so we thought we'd allow such in an new section called "In Their Own Words." Brett Smith kicks off our inaugural edition of this section, letting us know a bit more about S&S than we might otherwise not have known, below. (Rick) BEING AN INDUSTRY LEADER:  IT’S ALL ABOUT CULTURE, PEOPLE, & TEAMWORK Brett Smith President, S&S Cycle  We have a saying at S&S, “If you can’t do it as a team, then it’s not worth doing.” Essentially, the things we want to do won’t happen without the right people working together as a team. And the team at S&S has one thing in common—our corporate culture. That and our people are what make S&S so special. So I’m going to write about our corporate culture, what we do to sustain it and, most importantly, the people that make up the S&S Proven Performance culture. If it sounds like bragging, let me apologize in advance; I’m just really proud of our people and the team I am lucky enough to work with at S&S.  The bedrock for our company’s corporate culture comes from a leadership philosophy based on a Moral Foundation of Honesty & Fairness that fosters trust and commands mutual respect. Each employee at S&S must adhere to the moral foundation to become and remain gainfully employed. As supervisors and/or personnel or project managers, the bar is set higher with Ethical Pillars consisting of Leading By Example (never asking/ demanding others to do something you aren’t prepared to do or haven’t done yourself) & Caring for Others (looking out for subordinates, peers and superiors alike—sometimes making the hard decision with respect to an individual for the sake of the team). The Pinnacle of Leadership is expected of anyone making strategic decisions, but can be exemplified at any level throughout the company. It consists of Having & Effectively Communicating a Vision. Good leaders know where they need to go; the communication ability of exceptional leaders allows others to help them get there. This is where many visionary leaders fail. They forget about half of the communication flow—that communication is the sending and receiving of information. Sharing ideas achieves the most synergistic results and the corporate ownership of a vision. Last, anyone growing as a leader must breathe the Air of Leadership: Mentor and Seek to Be Mentored. Leaders should be excellent mentors, but how many of us consistently seek mentoring? Here’s how we establish and protect our corporate culture:  1) The Existing Workforce: We ensure our workforce understands our culture and reinforce it through our compensation system—particularly bonuses. We address talented employees that don’t fit within our culture and are willing to ask them to move on if necessary. If we didn’t, it would leave people with the perception that culture is subordinated to “performance at any cost.” We evaluate our workforce on Adaptability & Flexibility, Commitment & Initiative, Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Customer Focus, Decision-Making Ability & Judgment, Honesty & Integrity, Leadership & Teamwork, Performance: Quantity & Quality, Professionalism & Attitude and Vision & Innovation—all reinforcing our corporate culture.  2) Customers & Vendors: We focus on strategic alliances rather than transactional relationships. We work toward value creation & sharing versus value extraction. We prefer mutually accountable agreements and avoid one-sided terms. We despise bureaucracy and red tape. Our relationships are personal in nature and most business can be conducted on a handshake. We also seek win-win transactions based on mutually beneficial long term alliances that share a common value system, thus avoiding relationships that might otherwise become stagnant and transactional.  3) Employee Candidates: Our interviews are a two-way street. We attempt to show candidates as much of our company, values and culture as we are seeking to identify in them. Ultimately, we look to answer three questions in our interviews:  1) Does this person have the heart that we desire in our employees? 2) Does this person want to learn and grow; can he/she be mentored? 3) Is this person a survivor; how will he/she react to failure? The tougher and more thorough the interview process is up-front, the fewer opportunities there are for mistakes by decisions made by either party. What does all this mean for S&S and our “industry leading” philosophy? Too often, the “man at the top” or leader of an organization gets all the credit and, while it is true the president or CEO has great influence, it is really quality subordinates mentored and empowered by that leader that take a company to new heights. Take our current VP-Product Development, Scott Sjovall. He started at S&S in 1992 and after he spent ten years with the company, I came along and started to change things. And we all know how engineers avoid change (that was a joke everyone!). Even so, Scott wasn’t comfortable with all the changes, but progressed from supervisor, to manager, to VP as we developed a relationship and learned to depend on and trust one another. Why do I highlight this relationship? Because through it we’ve grown and learned from one another and have become a very powerful combination for this business. Scott is much more than a superior engineer for S&S. His personal development and contributions to our strategic vision and corporate culture exemplify a transformation from a highly competent technician to a passionate, dynamic and visionary leader for our entire product development team.  He, along with innovative engineers like Roy Meyer and Tim Tiller and home-grown managers like Jeff Bailey (Engineering) and Justin Bramstedt (Research & Innovation), are the heart and soul of our company. Here are just a few examples of what their leadership has provided S&S and the industry: 1) The 145-Tribute engine; 2) The first aftermarket dual-O2 feedback fuel injection system; 3) Completely redesigned aftermarket shovelhead (SH-series) and T-series engines; 4) A complete helical gear transmission; 5) A high-performance clutch system; 6) Countless performance exhaust configurations; 7) Numerous ARB, EPA, and TUV certifications; and 8) The first completely proprietary S&S engine, the critically acclaimed X-Wedge that is a 3-cam, 56-degree, pushrod, air-cooled v-twin and will more than likely reshape the landscape in the motorcycle industry. And let’s not forget our customer focus toward OEM customers due to the efforts put forth by Michael Read (sorry to see you leaving us) and his team in OE Support & Services. What about our global racing efforts? The S&S board of directors, especially my race-enthusiast father and G2 owner/crew chief, George Smith, supported the initiative to produce a world class NHRA Pro-Stock Motorcycle engine. However, it was a very humble group, led by Todd Olson, Brian Perkins, Dave Jensen and Dan Kinsey that engineered the basic design for that now dominant, award winning, 160-cubic inch billet engine used by more V-Twin motorcycle teams to procure 1/4 mile wins in North America, Europe and Australia! To top it all off, we have not one, but five World Land Speed Record holders at S&S: Dan Kinsey, Brian Perkins, Jody Anderson, Jeff Bailey and Michael Scaletta (had we not lost Tim Culver to Parts Unlimited, we’d have six)! Manufacturing the number of different products that we do in the volume that we do is a daunting task. People like our first non-family member officer and VP-Manufacturing, Mike Alexander, and Plant Manager, Shawn Arch, have ensured that our production capabilities are state-of-the-art. His team of manufacturing engineers like Tim O’Toole and Jeremy Gilbert are always looking for ways to do more, faster, with less. They then turn to the likes of Randy Williams, Johnny Lucas, or Paul Turgasen to create new programs/fixtures in order to achieve productivity gains—sometimes as high as 50%. And our safety record is nearly impeccable thanks to Aaron Dahlby, our safety manager who just took on the additional responsibility of maintenance because of the relationship he’s built with Manufacturing over the years.  Steve Gregoire and his team ensure our machine scrap rate is no greater than 1.5% in every product line, where it is commonly less than .5% scrap! Previously mentioned third generation family member and Director of Business Development, Michael Scaletta, ensured that we’d maintain even higher quality output with our complete assembled engines by implementing a world-class end-of-line testing (EOLT) cell this past February. Our VP-Logistics, Gary Larson, his Distribution Manager, Pete Marasovich and his Logistics Manager, Tim Burns, ensure that our inventory accuracy hovers well above 97.5% at any given time. With over 30,000 active part numbers, three different facilities with design, manufacturing and distribution activities taking place, we feel very comfortable knowing what we have and where. Who keeps everyone in the industry informed of what we’re doing? Howard Kelly and James Simonelli are tireless in their efforts to promote our company and this industry. The service manuals we created for each of our engine families were all assembled and edited by Howard. We have a phenomenal in-house marketing materials and layout staff consisting of the Voice of S&S, Bruce Tessmer, along with Sherri McKittrick and Angee Williams. It is rare for us to outsource any of our ad, formatting, layout, or editing work. The creative abilities of these individuals keeps our printed material fresh and they still find time to recognize our workforce each year with an annual yearbook for the employees. Add our videographer, Chad Baker, into the mix and we can add history, training, and marketing videos to the mix. Consider Charlie Hadayia, our senior manager of race & customer services, and Kurt Peterson, our customer support manager, these two have traveled all over North America, Europe and Australia with me promoting our company to consumers, dealers and distributors alike. Our prohibition on Internet sales was Charlie Hadayia’s idea and has been one of the most well-received initiatives we’ve established to support our dealer network. Making sure it was implemented and enforced is something Kurt Peterson has taken great pains to oversee the past several years. How about an “800” number and the use of credit cards—something we didn’t allow the first 45 years of business? I may have been the one suggesting we do it, but Charlie and Kurt made sure it would happen, with the aid of Jake Spry from the IS department and Leslie Heding from accounting. Our Training & Certification program was another initiative I gave to Charlie, but one where he received much help from another third generation family member, Tom Smith and a cadre of technical instructors like Jon “Opee” Olson, Jay Olson (who has since left) and Ted Grabowski. We’ve trained individuals and dealers from all over the world since offering comprehensive training in October 2005. Our Warranty & Rebuild program, which has grown nearly 300% each year since moving to La Crosse, has been underpinned by stalwart technicians like Steve George, Curt Johnson and Billy Alexander. Finally, one has got to ask, “How in the world do you assemble such a team?” Mechanically I described that to some degree, but once again it comes down to people like our HR Director, Laura Bodenbender and her assistant, Ian Johnson. Over the past few years, they have hired over 400 people (like our new Executive Controller, Steve Limpert, or Director of Sales & Marketing, Timm Fields), written over 125 job descriptions and made countless improvements to our evaluation, benefit and compensation programs. I think we’ve got the best HR team around. Last, but not least, there’s Bill Wise, our IS manager who is working feverishly to implement our new SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. While it may only take up 25% of the time for each of our supervisors and higher, it takes up nearly 125% of his time. But if you really want to know how we keep it all together, just ask my wonderful assistant, Carla Langyel. She is the one that keeps me straight, on time and reminds me to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home because my wife wasn’t able to reach me on the phone. The bottom line is that if you want to be an industry leader, you must have a business full of leaders. S&S does and I thank God for all of them daily. They help make this industry great and they’re why I come to work each day—without people, ideas are worthless.