Submitted by gwiener@quicksc... on
I have often told people how I started Quickscrews over 25 years ago. Rarely do I ever explain why I did it. As a young man coming out of college at age 24 with a degree in business I started out working in a construction company as a cost analyst. I worked for a small privately held company where the owner and his partner were very active in running the company. I worked in the operations department which was responsible for running the crews that were doing the building. I learned a tremendous amount on that first job but the most important lesson I learned was that in small companies much work that needed to be done was simply not assigned to any one person and if your were ambitious like I was you could simply take over the work and make yourself more valuable as an employee. The other lesson I learned is that is not always a good thing to try and make or suggest improvements in your company, or in other words tell your bosses what they were doing wrong. As I moved on from that job I began to realize that I had a penchant for seeing the weaknesses in each company I worked for, and continued to inform my bosses about those weaknesses. Again not exactly the politically correct thing to do. So it began to become apparent to me that possible I wasn't quite suited to work for others. Although I was a high producer and tireless worker, I also could not keep my mouth shut about the flaws and continued to point them out to everyone who would listen. I became a blessing and a curse for those I worked for. As I continued to find myself at 27 I ended up at a small private company selling nails and staple to a wide variety of industries including the Woodworking industry. I was and still am a very good salesman. I opened a great deal of new accounts for the company and since I was on commission I controlled the amount of money I could earn by working hard. I liked being out on the road daily and interacting with a wide range of individuals and businesses and felt this was something I easily understood. However as usual I couldn't stop myself from trying to tell the owner how to run his business. In the end it was this trait that tipped him off that I was going to leave and start my own company. In December of 1986 I had decided that I could no longer work for others and began the thought process of how I would start my own company. I continued to work diligently at my job while planning for the future. In early July of 1987 my boss called me in and asked me what was up. I wasn't quite ready to quit so I kind of played like I didn't know what he meant and then he said this: " Look since the day you got here you've been telling me what to do; how to run my business and so forth and so on, then for the past 3 months I haven't heard a peep from you, so I know something is up! Are you going to work for my competitor? Are you starting your own business?" So I told him yes I want to start my own company with his help. I would buy the product from him and continue to sell that product to the customers I had created while working there. He saw the logic in that and agreed. That company was Natco Fasteners and the owner is Dave Natali. I am proud to say after 25 years we continue to do business together, I buy and resell some of his product and his company buys and sells some of ours. I will always be grateful to Dave for he gave me the ability to start Quickscrews.