Trussville, Ala. – SPOC Automation welcomes Reed Simms as their new Mid-Continent Sales Manager. Simms will be responsible for leading business growth and advancing brand credibility. He brings more than 10 years in sales, account management, and customer service.

We did a little renovation on our house this year. Sometimes growing quickly presents bigger challenges than not enough growth. We added a fourth building to our complex, which we use to store inventory, freeing up production space in our other buildings.

This past year was an important year for our company. We grew. We made more drives and served more clients than the previous year. But we did something else that might be even more important.

We decided to put down in writing the core values that define what we believe and will guide us in the future. We grew this year, a lot. We added a number of talented people to our team. We expect that we will grow even more in the coming years. We felt that it was critical, as we grow, that everyone who joins our team understand the soul of this company, so that together we work toward a common goal. 

Our leadership team spent a lot of time talking about these ideas.

There was a lot of debate. We might have argued some. But in the end, we came to 100 percent consensus on five ideas.

Committed. We are dedicated to completing our work the right way, on time, every time.

Caring. We respect and care about our employees, our customers and our suppliers. We invest resources to make them better.

Passionate. We are competitive and motivated to succeed. We take pride in helping our customers win.

Solutions Focused. We are an innovation company. Creatively, we solve challenging problems in the best way.

Gratifying. We believe work should be fun and we enjoy delivering world class products for our customers.

But the best way to understand what a company believes in is not to read their corporate documents. It’s to watch the behavior of its people. At SPOC, our core values are not just words on paper. They are beliefs that we live out every day.

So this year, in addition to formalizing our values, we decided to create awards that honor the members of our team who embody these values every day. A few weeks ago, we recognized three extraordinary people. And maybe the most extraordinary thing about each of them is that they would tell you they are only doing their jobs.

Randy Nelms. Randy is one of our earliest employees. He sets high expectations, for himself and everyone on his team. He expects people to work their hardest, to be honest, and to give our customers more than they expect. He is just a rock-solid individual, both personally and professionally. 

The thing you notice first about Jake Hinkle is his attitude. He approaches every task, every job with great enthusiasm. He is eager to learn, and most importantly, he cares about giving his best to every challenge. We’ve challenged Jake often and he always rises to the challenge.

Oren Arzad has an equally winning attitude. He is driving to be the best in everything he does, both personally and professionally. That’s why he’s been an Olympic athlete and why he is one of SPOC’s champions.

Looking at these three people, we can confidently say that we’ve been fortunate to attract great people to our company. Without doubt, that’s the biggest reason for our success and the success of our clients.

One thing we’ve always taken pride in at SPOC is how many of our best team members have been with the company for many years. We value loyalty, of course. We’ve worked hard to build a company that rewards the people who move us (and our customers!) forward with new and bigger opportunities.

Every great company has a purpose. A reason to be. ‘To make money’ is rarely a powerful enough purpose to drive a company to greatness.

Trussville, Ala. – Andrea Huels has recently been named as SPOC Automation’s Director of Growth & Innovation. She will be responsible for developing and driving the company’s strategic business planning in her new role. 

Trussville, Ala. - Andrew Denard has recently been named as SPOC Automation's Industrial Engineer. He will be based out of the Trussville corporate office.

Jolley has more than 20 years of experience in the field of logistics and operations.

One idea that is core to who we are as a company is the notion that we will never stop trying to improve what we do, and by extension, improve our products and how they work for our customers. This idea shows up in a number of subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) ways. Like simply labeling the wires inside our drive, so you never have to wonder which is the correct wire to work on.