Hello DCS Engineering and welcome to our weekly reminder where I do my best to remind us of the purpose of the work we do together. This week I am thinking about our Be Reliable Core Value. I really like that this is one of the values we have at DCS. And being reliable is something I think we all come up short in from time to time, and yet on the whole it is so important. The reputation we have is in large part based on how I show up consistently over time. Not perfectly but for the vast majority of the time. Can you count on me? Can you trust me? Personally, one of my core values is that I want to be trusted. To inspire trust in others, I am committed to being dependable, effective and competent. To me, this means being organized, process-oriented, and data-driven. The evidence of the trust others place in me is increasing leadership responsibility, influence, and autonomy. The result of being trusted means I am able to lead in a way consistent with my belief that all people matter and inspire followership because those in my care know I care about them. I want people to trust in me and in the teams I lead to be well-designed and proven reliable. Reliability has a design aspect to it and it also has a commitment aspect. Which fits nicely with the work we do every day at DCS. Let’s recommit ourselves to being reliably reliable. If we commit, we are going to do it. Have a great week!

Hello DCS Engineering and welcome to our weekly reminder where I do my best to remind us of the purpose in the work we do together. This week I was reflecting on our 2022 offsite in San Antonio and was reminded of one of the presentations where I shared about the word diakonia. Diakonia is a Greek word. And it’s a big idea with a few different elements. It is defined as support, service, or relief. This week I really want to focus on service and the ways in which our work is Diakonia, or service. In our work, we serve our site managers, our project managers, our project buyers, our customers, and our customers’ customers. It’s easy sometimes to maybe say the name of a company, and gloss over the people we are serving at those companies through the work we do. A well-designed system means less stress, less frustration, less downtime, even fewer injuries for the people who work for those companies. And a system that delivers more efficiency and better performance means those companies can provide a better life for those same people. And those same people now get to go home at the end of their workdays healthier and with more energy to enjoy their time with friends and family. Thinking even more broadly, there are people all over the country and all over the world who we serve. They are the people who rely on the services our end users provide to get the food, the medicine, the books, the furniture…to the shelves in their stores or to their front doors. And it’s not just stuff. It’s really making their lives better. So I hope you will remember as part of Diakonia we get to be a part of Diakonia – of serving others…one drawing, one design, one conversation, one project at a time. Thanks for all you do and for the way you do it! Have a great week!!

Hello DCS Engineering and welcome to our weekly reminder where I do my best to connect our mission and values with the work our team does together. I hope you had a nice long Labor Day weekend. This week I’m reflecting on a book I recently read: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived several concentration camps during WW2. His experience and research and practice before and after being imprisoned led him to conclude that life is quest for meaning which leads to fulfillment and happiness. According to Frankl, we find real meaning in three possible places: work, love, and courage. As Hubert Joly, the former CEO of Best Buy says in his book, The Heart of Business, these three (love, work, and courage) often converge. Doing something significant through work often involves caring for others and courageously overcoming adversity. I am so thankful for the many examples I see of this on our team every day. Team members working together to overcome challenges and taking care of each other. And so, I hope you find happiness and fulfillment in the work you do at DCS – that it gives you purpose and focus -- and in overcoming adversity you demonstrate the care for others that makes DCS a special place. Have a great week and thanks for all you do!

Hello DCS Engineering and welcome to our weekly reminder where I do my best to connect our mission and values with the work our team does. This week I’m thinking about our value of being learning oriented—we are always improving. I’ve got education on my mind as we dropped our oldest of our three kids off at college last week. Man! Talk about a trade off. I’m still processing and trying to come to grips with Reagan being 700 miles away and in some else’s care. But then I remind myself that growth and learning often requires challenges and is rarely easy. Reflecting on my own four years of college I remember the challenge and the growth…and I know if we are going to live into our value of being learning oriented, then we must accept the challenges that come with getting better. Not just the interesting things we can learn but how do we apply those learnings to our work and find better and improved ways of working. Even when it’s not easy. Especially when it’s not easy. If you haven’t hit that point in your life where you have the joy and pain of letting go of your own children just take my word for it. Life goes fast. And it’s hard – even harder than you expect. But rest in the knowing that it’s part of their adventure and your adventure and learning and growing together often means adapting to and adopting new ideas, structures, and norms. I guess that’s why the saying is no pain no gain and I guess that’s it for this week. Hope y’all have a great week ahead and enjoy the long holiday weekend coming up!

Hello DCS Engineering and welcome to our weekly reminder. The purpose of this weekly recording is to remind our team often why our work matters so that each of us can connect the work we are doing every day to the greater purpose, or mission, of DCS. Of course, our mission at DCS is to deliver the best customer and employee experience in the industry. And at the heart of that mission is the experience we each get to create for each other and our customers. I shared this quote at the offsite. It’s from David Brook’s. I’m sharing it again today because it’s a big idea that ties directly into the experience we deliver for each other and our customers. Brooks says: "Never underestimate the power of the environment you work in to gradually transform who you are. When you choose to work at a certain company, you are turning yourself into the sort of person who works in that company." Think about that. The ENVIRONMENT we create every day in the work we do and the way we do it is TRANSFORMATIVE. It is shaping who we each are over time. I’ve worked at different companies and in different teams at different companies and can attest to the transformative power of the environment in which we work. So, think about that this week as you’re doing your work – you’re doing so much more than designing conveyor systems. You are helping to create an environment that is grounded in taking good care of each other and delivering the best employee and customer experience in our industry. I’m thankful we get to do that big thing together and I’m thankful for each of you. Have a great week and see you at our monthly all engineering meeting on Friday!

Hello DCS Engineering! Welcome to this week’s weekly reminder. Thanks to our step challenge in the Spring, I had developed some better habits in exercise earlier this year. And then, while innocently walking across the kitchen one evening I hit a bar stool with my pinky toe. At first I thought I had just jammed it or maybe bent the toenail back. But then I looked down. And there was my pinky toe at a 90 degree angle to my other toes. This led to two months of buddy-taping and way less walking which really derailed the healthy habits I had going. And it frustrated me that such a small thing can have such a big impact. One of the books I read while nursing my toe back to health related a story of a leader who came out of church one Sunday and said to his family – the Pastor gets people for one hour a week. At work we get people for 40 hours a week. Healthy habits matter and spirituality is one of those disciplines I believe in. Still, sometimes it’s the small things – the day in and day out interactions we have with the people we work with that make the biggest impacts. So, as you’re doing the work this week, take time to recognize the impact you get to have on the people you work with and thanks for doing that in a way that aligns with our mission and our values. Have a great week.

Hello DCS Engineering! Welcome to another of our weekly reminders. The goal of this weekly recording is to remind us of the purpose in the work we do as engineers here at DCS. This week, I’m fresh off a road trip with our oldest son. He is heading away to college this fall and so we decided to take a father-son trip. We used to take trips almost every weekend when he was competing in gymnastics. But it’s been about a year now that he stopped competing. So, it was the first one for us in a while. And anyone in my family will tell you I get a little ‘hyper focused and over planned’ on road trips. I like to map out exactly where we are going to stop, which places we are going to eat, where we are going to stay…And over research and over think them all. But it hit me as I was reflecting on this trip (probably the sentimental realization of him heading off to college soon) that the time we have in the car on the way is good time too. The windshield time – the time together talking and listening to music and podcasts – the journey together is really what it’s all about. That’s been true watching him grow up and it was true on our trip together this past weekend. And I thought maybe it was a good reminder for us too. The work we do is important and meeting our commitments is what we do – we are reliable. But let’s also take time to enjoy the time we have together in doing the work everyday. Sharing in the stories and the laughs and making the memories along the way. You probably won’t remember every project or drawing or calculation you do today in 5 years. But hopefully, you’ll remember the impact one of your fellow teammates had on your life and the chance you had to help and support them too. Hey, thanks so much for living our values and our mission. Have a great week – and enjoy the ride together!

Hello DCS Engineering! If you like baseball you know it’s time for the all-star break. And you probably have seen the movie ‘for the love of the game’. Speaking of love. I love this quote from St. Mother Teresa: “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Sometimes I think we sell ourselves short on the greatness of the work we do at DCS. After all, our team tackles some really complex and challenging design problems for very demanding customers in a fast-paced industry. And we work hard to do it in a way that aligns with our values and our mission. Still, there are days when I realize we all probably feel like ‘it’s just conveyor’ it’s not solving world hunger or poverty. But the truth is within our mission to deliver the best employee and customer experience in our industry there is a great opportunity to do great work in a way that shows great love. Love for each other, love for the company and our culture, and yes, even love for our customers. And it’s pretty unique. For those of us who have worked other places with toxic or less great cultures, we can appreciate the opportunity that growth at DCS means for our customers and for one another. To get to work in an environment and in a culture focused on taking great care of people. So, probably compared to Mother Teresa we are doing small things, but let’s do those small things with great love and a commitment our mission and our values. I’m glad we get to do this together and thankful for your commitment to one another and the work we do. Have a great week!