Manufacturing: Jobs Landed

I left an alternative energy startup up company that involved the founder, me, another engineer and a handful of part-time help. All-in-all I didn't feel like it was where my career needed to head and I needed to find a career that better suited me.
 
I started looking for a job closer to Lansing at the time that turned out to be a recession. After looking for 2 years, I eventually found Dowding with some help from people I knew at CAMW! (shout out to Bob Sherer and Kate Tykocki, now with CiesaDesign in Old Town).
 
At Dowding, I'm working in an engineering capacity to help imrove machine downtime, material handling, component quality, and anything else I can help with in an effort to increase plant efficiency.   
One of the things I like most about Dowding so far is the exchange of ideas between managment, engineering, and the machine operators. I also like the hands-on challenge of improving existing conventional manufacturing methods, and that I never have two days identical.

Follow me on Twitter @nochoochoo

While working with Rosler I design, write, produce, implement, and analyze all marketing materials. I implemented and now produce the company's internal newsletter, "Under the Surface". I support Rosler's trade show appearances from an event planning standpoint and manage all sales leads. I also manage the budget for the marketing department.

I discovered my job online, but what made the difference in getting it was that I connected with a former employee on LinkedIn who just happened to share a network with me from my 19 years in Japan.  

What I love most about the work that I do at Asahi Kasei Plastics is the challenge of creating messages and strategies that stick.  My sales background has been useful in this task, as I am constantly evaluating our marketing efforts to better understand what messages are getting attention and ultimately driving sales.  

I am also leading a website redevelopment project that incorporates strategies to help current and prospective clients to more easily connect and engage with our organization.  Our website changes also include a broader more comprehensive strategy with social media efforts as well.

Last but not least, it has been a lot of fun to work at a multicultural company.  Though my Japanese was a little rusty on my initial arrival to the company, it has improved considerably over a very short amount of time.  My latest adventures in language entail learning Spanish to better support and serve the growth we are seeing in our Latin American markets.