Over the last year, we have been doing mini-profiles on various individuals who make Clearfield the outstanding company it is. One commonality has emerged. When asked “How would you describe the culture at Clearfield?” Almost everyone has responded “It’s like a family” or words to that effect.
This month is no different.
Jim, our Director of Manufacturing who has been with Clearfield for about a year and a half, said, “I would definitely describe Clearfield as a family-like environment. That is another top reason I was drawn to Clearfield.” Matt, who joined the company as Product Manager of Optical Components and Fiber Connectivity in 2012, said, “I feel Clearfield has a family style small business attitude with a big business presence. There’s definitely the small company family-like feeling I get whenever I go into the office. I have been lucky to create some great personal relationships with my coworkers. “
I have always believed that a good business is more like a community than like a family. You don’t choose your family, but you do choose your community. At Clearfield, every individual is here because he/she chooses to be here. That’s why great things happen.
Having said that, I’m also happy that most of our employees feel such a tight, familial bond. I’m even happier that they feel such a sense of pride in their accomplishments as a team. Jim, who’s in charge of outgoing product quality, safety and efficiency improvements for all manufacturing operations, shared an example, “I am most proud of our team and how we were able to build a manufacturing facility in another country, from scratch, in less than nine months — All without a single customer complaint.”
Matt oversees the introduction and setup of new and existing products for the Optical Components and Fiber Connectivity. He said, “Clearfield will listen to the customer, try to recognize and understand the customers issues or hurdles, and then work amongst all the groups involved to deliver a prototype in-hand in a short amount of time. Then, when credit is due, it is celebrated amongst all groups.”
We celebrate in little ways – ringing the bells for every order – and big ways, like the company weekend to a warm climate when we crushed our annual sales number a couple of years ago.
Jim attributes our “crushing it” to a few things. “I believe Clearfield is so successful because we are not only innovative, but we can react swiftly to our customer’s demands. We are a perfect balance of custom job-shop and large scale manufacturer. ”
Taking that one further, I’ll concede that we’re a perfect balance of a caring, corporate community and one very smart family.