Global Fastener News

Earnest Machine’s 50-Year Employee Offers Advice to Fastener Freshmen

John Wolz

Editor’s Note: The following are excerpts from a FIN interview with Tom Barrett. The full interview will appear in an upcoming issue of FIN.

“I was going to work for a year and make a few dollars and then go on to school,” Tom Barrett recalled of the start of his 50-year career with Earnest Machine Products. So he began delivering fasteners for Earnest in a 1956 Chevrolet pickup truck.
Instead of leaving after a year, Barrett advanced through the ranks and by 1972 became executive vice president in 1972.
Barrett plans to retire in March 2007 at the age of 69 and plans to spend more time with his wife, Maureen, at their Sarasota, FL, home.

Advice for the Next 50 Years

“It is vitally important to have an interest in what you are doing,” Barrett advised those just starting their own 50-year fastener careers. “If fasteners are not a labor of love than it can be tedious.”

Barrett urges fastener freshmen to “spend the additional time to learn as much as you can. Keep up and keep ahead.”

Barrett counseled newcomers to “understand peoples’ problems. When you help someone, maybe someday it will pay off.”
Trying to help doesn’t always work. Barrett recalls advising a customer to buy 300 pieces at the bulk rate of 80 cents each rather than $1.60 per unit on a 200 piece order for a $80 lot savings. But the buyer insisted he was authorized to purchase only 200 pieces and a change “would have to be cleared by 20 people,” Barrett recalled. “He’d be fired for changing the order unilaterally. ”

Tom Barrett can be contacted at Earnest Machine Products, 12502 Plaza Dr., Cleveland, OH 44130-1083. Tel: 216 362-1100 or 800 321-3064 Fax 216 362-9970 E-mail: tpb@earnestmachine.com Web: .earnestmachine.com �2006 FastenerNews.com