Profile of a Business Owner: Joseph Pennington
Growing up in a family of steel workers, Joe has metal in his blood. Joe started at Stevenson Company in 1991 in the engineering department and is now president. Working with a team of talented crew members, Joe has forged partnerships among customers, employees, contractors and suppliers.
Stevenson Company, Inc. is a trusted provider inside food plants across the country, creating sanitary design and fabrication services for the world’s best producers of candy, nuts, pasta and snacks. Their hallmark product is the innovative Spiral Chute installed wherever fragile food product is handled.
Joe served on the Apprenticeship Training Committee in Kansas City, preparing the next generation of leaders, and is currently on the Welding Advisory Committee at Washburn Institute of Technology. Joe is a Leadership Greater Topeka graduate and co-founder of Forge -- a development program for young professionals. He is a Washburn University Fellow. He also accepted the Innovation Award presented by Greater Topeka Partnership in 2019.
An active member of the community, Joe can be found giving tours at the Evel Knievel museum on weekends. Joe is married to Erin Bess, and together they have two children, Satchel and Rose.
TK: If you were stranded on an island, what 3 items would you be sure to have with you?
If I'm stranded somewhere, it's probably a work-related trip because that's how I roll. Here are three industry items for a stainless steel guy stuck on an island:
Stainless steel plate to hack down palms and shuck oysters. It's a safe food handling material.
Wire mesh to use as a fishing net by day and snugly hammock by night.
Polished sheet metal will be handy for starting a fire, flagging down help, and shaving. Gotta keep those coconuts happy.
TK: What has been your greatest success?
Stevenson Company has a global reputation for quality work inside food plants. We make a special chute that gently handles fragile product. A Spiral Chute looks like a playground slide but sized for peppermints or potato chips or whatever food you're making.
Talk about finding our niche. It's the space between production and packaging, about five feet long and two feet wide.
TK: Tell about a failure that helped move you to growth, innovation or success
One time, a customer requested we convey their product inside little buckets - think cottage cheese containers -- without spilling. The test chutes we tried were not angled enough to convey the product. The containers landed flat and stayed put. When we made the flights steep, the product would tumble end-over-end. We called the customer to share our results of failure?
Luckily, our customer insisted we could do it. "You'll figure it out," they said. "You guys are the experts." Aren't we lucky to have such customers cheering us on? That night while watching basketball, the sound of squeaking sneakers on the wooden court brought back flashes of the jugs halting and tipping, over and over. Then a commercial for figure skating on next. Aha! From rubber sneakers to ice skates, that's what we needed. The team came up with a design to build a chute using steel rails rather than a flat surface, then fabricated a prototype. The reduction of surface friction worked like a charm during testing, steep enough without sticking. The containers became a whizzing blur, doing the triple Axel all the way down the chute.
Thanks to the customer's insistence - and now popular demand - we offer Spiral Chutes for packaged product as well as naked.
TK: What is the best book you read this year?
"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.
TK: What advice would you give someone wanting to move-up?
Watch the leader you want to be and emulate. Do they greet customers with a smile? How to they treat their teammates? Who's opening the door in the morning? Who's shutting off the lights at night? Does your role model coach others? How do they answer the phone? What does a promise from them mean to you? What does their personal life look like? In all things, be genuine.
TK: How do you recharge?
Volunteering is invigorating. Opportunities are appreciated everywhere, and I've particularly enjoyed giving tours at the Evel Knievel Museum. It has been a great way to just let go of the operations mode, and focus on something else for a change - specifically, the antics of America's favorite daredevil. I get to see cool stuff every week, tell legendary tales, and play with motorcycles. Best of all, people come from around the world whose stories are inspirational themselves.
