Making a Positive Difference Together: Brian Scholten | Steelcase

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

My name is Brian Scholten, I’ve been with Steelcase for 35 years and I’m a Director of Operations. My favorite story happened back in around 2005. We had a large project going on in the wood plant and we realized we were gonna need resources that we didn’t have. So I called, I don’t remember if It was Bob or Fred, but I called somebody at DISHER and I’m like do you ever have manufacturing engineers that you put into different companies and they were like, no, we really don’t do manufacturing engineers. And I said, oh that’s too bad because I could sure use some help and they were like, wait a minute, wait a minute tell us what you need. So I said, I need, this was a Wednesday, I said I need six manufacturing engineers who could start on Monday. And they were like, okay, let us go to work.

So a day or two later I got a call and they were like, yeah, we found you some manufacturing engineers that can start, we got the resumes for you. Do you wanna set up an interview? And I’m like, I trust you, you know what I’m looking for, I need ’em by the front door Monday morning. So I came to the front door Monday morning and the engineers were there. The project was a great was a great success thanks to partners like Disher.

I think that DISHER has the same values that Steelcase has and I think that the leaders at DISHER has the same values that I have and so I know when they recommend somebody to me that it’s gonna be somebody that I would think highly of as well because they look for the same things in a person that I would look for. I remember 20 years ago, believe it or not, I remember when Bob Soeters first came to us and told us what DISHER was gonna be doing, and it wasn’t a very common thing back then to do, contract engineering help, I don’t even know if Steelcase had any contract engineers back then. And, for sure, they were a good partner in helping us to do something different. Steelcase was going through a little bit of a tough time back then, we had reduced resources a whole bunch, but the project load didn’t get any lighter and so we needed people like DISHER who could help us figure out how to make more of that workforce variable so that we could accomplish the things that we needed to accomplish. You know I just think it’s been a really strong partnership over the years and I would imagine that’s gonna extend forward into the future as well. So, you know, DISHER provides a value to Steelcase in what they do and then the people that they bring here so.