Putting Your Customers' Needs First

Preface

How Did I Become a Customer Advocate?

I graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with a degree in Engineering Physics in June of 1966. I interviewed numerous companies and received several offers of employment, but I elected to join Westinghouse Electric in Pittsburgh, PA because they offered their graduates the opportunity to take assignments at different locations before committing to a specific job. After taking several interesting assignments, I elected to take a job in Marketing/Sales at the Semiconductor Division in Youngwood, PA (about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh). This was my first “real job”; one morning after only a couple of days on the job I got a message to go to the Marketing Manager’s office. I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to see me as I had not been there long enough to “screw anything up yet”; in fact, I was still trying to master the phone system! When I entered his office, he was looking at my expense report that I had submitted. Keith Sueker, the Marketing Manager said, “You have 91¢ here for your breakfast … you are going to make all of us look bad”! I quickly explained that I was not much of a breakfast person and I only had orange juice and a doughnut. He laughed…this was his way of welcoming me to the Westinghouse family at the Semiconductor Division. I would go on to hold jobs in Interunit Sales, Thyristor Sales, Assembly Product Sales, Customer Service, Market Research and Marketing Communications. While working there, I also attained my MBA at the University of Pittsburgh’s first ever Executive MBA Program (EMBA I). Keith Sueker had earlier left Westinghouse to join Robicon, Inc. (a major manufacturer of solid-state drives and one of our key customers) as their V.P. of Engineering. One day in my Marketing Communications office, the phone rang, and I answered it…it was Keith on the line. Keith said he had just recently gotten a mailer from Westinghouse Semiconductor that features images of our products and some of the applications that they serve. He asked who was responsible for creating this mailing (as if he did not already know) … I replied that I was. His response to me was that this information was of NO USE to him as a CUSTOMER because it did not HELP HIM do his job and it did NOTHING for Westinghouse either. I could hear a thumping sound over the phone as he dumped the mailer into his wastepaper can and then he promptly terminated the call. I am retired now some 50 years later. A couple of years ago, I attempted to reach Keith to thank him for calling me on that fateful day…but unfortunately all I could do was leave a written message on his online obituary. You see…I wanted to thank him for taking the time to tell me (years ago) that my purpose was to ALWAYS put the CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS FIRST! From that day forward…I DID!