CS for Owners: GM/Engineering Manager - $10mm boat seating manufacturer

Entrepreneurs sometimes have a challenge “replacing themselves” or delegating key responsibilities to a member of their executive team.  

Career Solutions for Owners is our management consulting service to help a founder / owner / CEO develop a role & job description to fill a key position in their company.  We call this a “career solution” for an owner because we see every entrepreneur’s ultimate goal being to build a company that they can walk away from and the business still profitably functions as if they were there.

One Owner / Founder / CEO that Career Solutions worked with had already created a senior leadership role reporting to him, but needed to replace a long time employee (and friend) who moved into retirement.

Key Position: GM/Engineering Manager - $10mm boat seating manufacturer

Situation Summary: The Owner/Founder/President of a boat seating manufacturing business with sixty employees needed to hire an experienced General Manager / Engineering Manager to replace a longtime employee who had retired.  The manufacturing operation had both automated & manual sewing machinery and assembly operations.  The GM/Engineering Manager is responsible for both production operations management and technical / manufacturing engineering.  There is not a specific requirement to have sewing technology experience, but general experience with semi-automated equipment in a volume oriented production environment.


CSG Approach & Search Process

The President wanted to keep the salary for the position under $100,000 and did not want to relocate someone for both cost and culture reasons.  Career Solution Group’s research of a universe of potential candidates for this position was to identify the Engineering Managers and General Managers at small to medium sized (25 to 200 employee) manufacturing plants within a one hour drive of our client’s location.  We started our interviewing process with over 125 potential candidates, planning to screen them for a technical or engineering background which could eliminate many of the General Manager titled  candidates.  


The Solution

The President and his Controller personally interviewed eight candidates that Career Solutions’ recruiters had submitted.  Each potential candidate had a written interview summary and resume.  After the first round of interviews, two were selected for final interviews.  The hired candidate was a Production Manager from an automotive manufacturing plant who had a prior background in Process Engineering.  He had about 15 years of total experience and a BS in MET.



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