Business Trip to Native American subcontractor near Christmas time

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Bob and I were friends and work mates for a Fortune 50 Company in the greater Baltimore area. I was the Materials Manager and Bob was the Logistics Manager. The company was in difficulties because the printer/readers that had been sub-contracted to a minority contractor in Wyoming.

Production, in the Maryland factory, was running hand to mouth due to the shortages of this key sub- assembly component. It seemed that no matter what was done it was impossible to get ahead and meet customer demands. Customers (like Bloomingdale and Carson Prairie Scot) for “point of sales terminals” were growing frustrated and were threatening to cancel orders if we didn’t get caught up and start maintaining the schedule.

As the Christmas holidays were quickly approaching and no one in senior management wanted to lose vacation time and/or work overtime, nor travel to Wyoming to address the situation. Something had to be done, so Bob and I volunteered to travel over the weekend and be at the minority manufacturers first thing Monday. Things needed to be handled with care.

On the way to Riverton Wyoming Bob and I discussed the situation and developed our plan for the addressing the minority supplier on a reservation. Knowing that the printer/reader for the 421 Point of Sale Terminal had quality and design problems right from the Engineering release a number of quick fixes had been initiated. So with these fixes in mind we were going to see what we could introduce into the manufacturing process.

Did I mention that this was home to the Shoshone and Arapaho Indians and our presence was not widely welcomed? But in any event we pressed on and executed our responsibilities. As it turned out we were able to pack and ship them exact amount of products required back in Maryland. In addition to that we were able to trouble shoot some problems and offer suggestions that enable the plant in Riverton Wyoming to ease their production problems.

Sunday morning Bob and I went to a small diner for a meal and had the BEST BREAKFEAST EVER, consisting of cut-thought trout, eggs, squaw bread and coffee. The trout came from the creek in back of the restaurant and were caught at 6AM by the owner’s son 12 to 14 inches each and so delicious. Dinner that evening was venison or buffo steaks (Bob and I each split them) and cleaned our plates.

By 6:30 AM Monday, Bob and I were waiting for the Ops Manager to open the plant so we walked around outside killing time. Riverton Wyoming at 6:30 in late December was cold at 20 below zero. As we made our way around the grounds I kicked a rock that had caught my attention. Well at 20 degrees below zero the rock flew 20 feet or so and broke in half. I picked up the light brown dusty rock pieces and was shocked. Calling Bob over we stared at the jade inside the dumb rock. How cool was that! No more jade was found but my feet hurt from kicking rocks in the cold.

We were in the Operations Managers office 1st thing and got a quick tour, performed an inventory of finished product, did a triage on the semi finished products and make some decisions “on the fly”. With the Manufacturing Manager in tow we explained the major issues and introduced the quick fixes. By 8AM when the production line workers arrived we had a plan. The Manufacturing Manager quickly began implementing the rework and repair.

And in a final ditch effort to help the Maryland facility out we gathered about 2 dozen semi finished printer/readers and packed them up into 2 blocks of 24 inches square. These units were to go along with us as our luggage on the airplane and would serve the plant as repair parts so as to ship some additional terminals to the customers.

As it turned out, everyone was happy. But it was touch and go on for awhile but Monday evening Bob and I were off to Casper to catch a flight to Boise Idaho, then Chicago and Baltimore. Here we thought that everything was as fine as frog hair when we learnt that our flight was cancelled due to mechanical issues. Oh shit, and here we were two days before Christmas. We both had families and children at home and it looked as if we’d miss Christmas.

We put our heads together and came up with getting a charter flight. So off we went and luck was with us again. A small plane was available but we could not afford to pay for it by ourselves. So we look around and found 2 more people to go in with us.

The pilot picked me to sit in the co-pilot seat and a really small woman to sit in the very last seat, which left Bob and this chubby Eskimo woman in the middle.

Later Bob told me that he held his breath from Casper to Boise Idaho because the Eskimo woman parka hadn’t been cleaned since it was new. But after 2 more connections we finally landed in Baltimore on Christmas eve and like Santa we got home about midnight. And again like Santa we snuck into our houses and ended up spending Christmas with our families and had a story to tell them all.

By Philippe R Hebert

From: United States