So, uh, my my experience was a bit of, um, uncharted. Unplanned ah, path, which I think most people will tell you. That's what happens no matter what you think you're going to dio uh, almost Certainly. That's not gonna be it. Um, So I started off studying mechanical engineering in my undergrad. I thought I wanted to be a design engineer working on snowmobiles. Conducted a senior design project involving snowmobiles, including designing and building a carbon fiber snowmobile chassis. Ah, which was a bunch, which was a lot of fun and really opened my eyes. The fact that managing a team and understanding all aspects including accounting and finance and marketing and engineering and everything was really what I wanted to pursue. And so I ended up moving on do an N b A rather than, um, pushing forward with my engineering career. Ah, between my first and second years of business school, I actually ah landed an internship through a reference at the school. Um, with the company I work for now, which is Hamilton and ah, I was supposed to be there for six weeks and I've been there for almost nine years. Ah, that's a good example of I had no idea that ah, decorative, handcrafted artists in crafted lighting was something I would even be interested in. Ah, having come from what I thought was going to be manufacturing in power sports. Ah, but I was ableto really start to make an impact and, um, get my hands into every aspect of the business because at the time, it had less than 100 people on staff and I was able to learn everything from accounting and marketing and finance toe I t and data systems in manufacturing. Uh, and so I started out as a product manager after I finished, my MBA was then put in charge of new product development, a director of product development, and then managed to work my way into the general manager of Hammers in Studio, which is one of two brands, um, at Hamilton

so in terms of range of responsibilities, uh, I've covered everything from I t two new product development. Ah, Teoh. Um, manufacturing, uh, in the role that I'm in. So on any given day, I could be gathering information from my team on, ah production deadlines and quality issues in manufacturing and helping put that push them in the correct direction doing bi weekly, uh, sprint meetings with the new product development team to make sure that we're hitting short term goals and deadlines. Ah, talking through an executive staff, what kinds of, ah, strategic decisions we want to make what markets we want to go after what designs the styles. We need to be, um, going after or helping the accounting department, uh, get to the bottom of, ah, inventory valuation issue. It could be any Any number of items that might come across my desk that I would weigh in on or help solve those problems in terms of weekly work hours is a fair amount of work that goes into that role having toe manage directly and indirectly 50 plus people, um, and make sure that they're all headed in the right direction as well as tryingto be a hands on problem solver, uh, ends up extending into 55 or 60 hours a week. Pretty often, uh, if you include the time spent reviewing email from home and, uh, and working on stuff outside of the office.

um, one of the one of the biggest challenges in a role like mine, where you've got your hands in all aspects of the business is remembering to communicate. Ah, the biggest thing that happens. One of the biggest challenges that happens is I will have met with five different people throughout the day. I'll have a sense of the problems in manufacturing and quality and, um, accounting and how they all relate. But each of those groups doesn't necessarily meet on a daily basis for have a good understanding of what each of their problems are. And part of my role is really to, ah, facilitate that conversation and make sure that everybody is aware of what each of the groups is doing and how what they do impacts that other group. Ah, it also it also helps, um, keep people motivated and make them help them understand manufacturing, for instance, you could have a problem a two very end of your manufacturing line, and it's caused by something that isn't anybody's fault. It was, ah, issue with sourcing or something of that nature. By the time it gets to that last department, they think maybe something else is going wrong, making sure that they understand where they fit into that puzzle and, uh, how they can help. And frankly, when things aren't their fault and you appreciate that they're working hard.