Fecon hosted Senator Rob Portman (Ohio), delegates from the United Way of Warren County and students involved with Fecon’s apprentice program for a roundtable discussion on workforce development.
“I enjoyed my visit with members from the Warren County United Way along with their local partners at Fecon. We had a productive discussion about how best to ensure Ohioans get the skills training they need to succeed in the jobs available today,” said Senator Portman.
The apprenticeship program allows students to work alongside experienced tradesmen and learn from mentors. There are regular opportunities to expand their responsibilities and their pay rate, as well as attend college or trade school, should they choose to do so.
“We recognize the importance of recruiting students early and showing them that manufacturing can be a viable and economically rewarding career path,” said Fecon President Bob Dieckman. “Our human resources, engineering and manufacturing teams have developed a great apprenticeship program, and we’re pleased to showcase this to Senator Portman and the United Way of Warren County.”
The program provides hand-on job training in real-world situations, feedback and coaching by job mentors, reviews every six months and inclusion in all companywide activities.
Weed Man is celebrating 50 years of success in the green industry.
COO Jennifer Lemcke said the lawn care franchise is fixated on the next major milestone ahead, hitting the $2 million mark, thanks, in part, to a 9.1 percent systemwide sales jump in 2019.
Once a small Canadian operation that started with nothing more than a $500 loan and a single pickup truck, the company has grown into a 684-unit operation.
“With the merger last year, we were hard at work unifying the best of our U.S. and Canadian operations,” Lemcke said. “Bringing together our two franchise systems included aligning resources, streamlining communication and ensuring customized business plans remained at the center of our service offering for franchisees.
Jobber was named a Silver Stevie winner at the 14th annual Stevie Awards for Customer Service in the Computer Software — 100 or More Employees category.
This international recognition is determined by an independent panel of judges and industry experts.
“At Jobber, we want to have long-lasting relationships with our customers that are built on trust and a genuine desire to help these small businesses be successful,” said Sam Pillar, CEO and co-founder at Jobber. “Our customer success team goes above and beyond the call of duty every single day in support of our customers and we wouldn’t be here without them. I couldn’t be happier that this team is receiving the recognition it deserves.”
More than 2,600 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry across 48 nations were evaluated in this year’s Stevie Awards competition. Winners were revealed during a gala banquet on Friday, Feb. 28 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nev.
Kioti Tractor continues its commitment to dealer success and development through the growth of its parts department, optimization of on-site training facilities and expansion of dealer training programs.
“At Kioti, dealer success and customer satisfaction are of utmost importance,” said Peter Dong-Kyun Kim, president and CEO of Daedong-USA, Kioti Tractor Division. “We’re proud that the expansion of our parts team and training opportunities will allow Kioti to better support our dealers. Enhanced support and training mean more skillful dealers.”
In late 2019, Kioti completed a renovation of its North American headquarters office space, including a training facility for dealers. Held several times throughout the year, Kioti University has beginner and advanced hands-on, instructor-led training to help dealers and technicians ensure they understand the product and service best practices inside and out; experience new, innovative equipment; and learn to look at problems and solutions differently through collaboration with Kioti employees and dealers from all over the country.
Kioti launched a new online learning management system for all dealers in late 2019. Housing product information, assembly instructions, service bulletins and advisories, the system is an easy-to-use resource center for dealership employees. Training programs can be accessed anytime, anywhere to allow dealers and technicians to continue product training and education in real time.
