The
Team's The Theme
Arthur
"Don" Wainwright
Wainwright Industries
If
one didn't know Don Wainwright, it would be tough to pick him
out at Wainwright Industries. Wainwright, chairman and chief executive
officer of the St. Peters-based automotive and aerospace parts
manufacturer, wears the same striped-shirt-and-black-pants uniform
as most of the company's 300 employees. The message is, everyone
plays for the same team--a life lesson Wainwright learned playing
football for legendary coach Dan Devine at the University of Missouri
(including two Orange Bowls and one Blue Bonnet Bowl) in the "power
years," the early 1960s.
"Devine
would say, 'These are the worst athletes I ever coached. The only
thing they can do is move the ball from one end zone to the other.
But it's a great team. They know what their job is, and they go
out and do it,'" Wainwright says. "I really learned a lot from
that. Here at our company, that's the way we work, too."
The
uniforms are just one reflection of Wainwright Industries' team
spirit. There's also the expansive glass wall in Wainwright's
office, "so associates can see what's going on in there," he explains.
"Actually, I ought to be in a cubicle like everyone else." No
one has a private parking spot. And there are no hourly workers;
everyone's on salary.
The
results are a 99.1 percent attendance record for the last 18 years
and numerous awards for outstanding product quality and total
customer satisfaction, including the coveted Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award. "You quickly find there's nothing in a
corner office or close parking spot," Wainwright says. "The aspiration
is to be a great leader and accomplish things as a team."
A native
of Kirkwood, Wainwright never assumed he'd run the company his
father started in 1947. "My father never pushed my brother or
me to join the family business," Wainwright says. "But we had
to prove ourselves." Wainwright's father had two major requirements
for his sons: to become engineers and graduate from Purdue University.
Wainwright earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical
engineering, but "Devine talked me out of Purdue," he says. "Missouri
won more games than any major university during the '60s. Dad
said later, 'Son, that was the best decision you ever made.'"
After
college, Wainwright worked for paper manufacturer Westvaco Corp.
for five years before he felt ready to join the family business,
in 1968. "I asked dad if I could come work here, and he said he'd
have to think about it," Wainwright recalls. Two weeks later,
his father offered him a job--for less money than he was earning
at Westvaco. "I started below the plant manager, in the shop,"
he says. "But I knew if I did the job right I'd get promoted.
It's hard for me to believe I'm the old man now!"
On
his way to becoming the "old man," Wainwright helped expand the
business from 20 to 300 employees and watched
revenues grow to $100 million. This total includes parts manufactured
for Boeing Co., General Motors and other major customers, and
factors in consigned vendor inventories with parts shipped from
a quick-response warehousing facility the company built in the
mid-1990s. "A saying I love is, 'If the world's changing faster
than your organization, the end is near,'" Wainwright says. "You
have to be able to react to the environment. Luckily we realized
this and positioned ourselves over the years to manage accelerated
change."
The company
moved from Fenton to St. Peters in 1979. "I used to go duck hunting
here!" he says, "But there was no managerial bias in the decision.
It wasn't close to anyone's home. It was simply the best industrial
location for us with the best labor market, the best utilities,
close to the interstate and offered good, solid industrial ground."
Working
in St. Charles County, living on an 80-acre ranch in Wildwood
(with his wife, Mary, "and a lot of cats, horses, cattle and wildlife")
and attending Third Baptist Church at Grand and Washington gives
Wainwright a regional perspective that complements his membership
on the RCGA's executive board and Regional Business Council. "Bringing
12 counties together is vitally important for the region's future.
One county or city can't do it alone. It's the team concept again,"
he believes. "With the Rams' Super Bowl win, it's all coming together.
There's a lot of excitement going on. I think maybe this is St.
Louis' time."
Wainwright's
optimism also extends beyond the region. "There are just so many
opportunities in the world," he says. Delivering the commencement
address at the University of Missouri's School of Engineering
last year, Wainwright says, "I told the graduates, 'When I stood
where you're standing 35-plus years ago, I looked at the Cuban
missile crisis, the Berlin Wall, the Cold War. Now you're looking
at the Internet and globalization. I wish I could take the trip
again with you.'"
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