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Our invocation was offered by Kathy Austvold. Presiding officer Zack Stach called upon Dave Johnson to introduce our student guests from the High School, Aiden Shern and Nicholas Flugstad, both with a long list of accomplishments and currently playing boys' tennis. Aiden intends on going to college in the Boston area while Nicholas will be enrolled at Augsburg University. Randy K reported that 235 Josh the Otter books had arrived, with distribution to be made over the next couple of weeks. Keith O was the first to brag, talking about his recent trip to Italy and getting to meet a lot of Rotarians because he had reason to wear his Rotary jacket. Brian T talked about only being about $6,600 short of our $80,000 fundraising goal for the Splash Pad, while Buzz L pointed out that Wally C had observed that the four other people at his table were all wearing plaid shirts, but Wally had missed the note to do so. Wally Cole bragged about enjoying choir and orchestra concerts at the high school in which two of his granddaughters were participants, but he didn't seem as happy about his recent surgery for his "dumb teeth." Zach also commented on a plaque received from the Salvation Army for our club's service to it. Dean Monke introduced our speaker of the day, Jeff Ackerson, President of Vector Windows. Jeff serves with Dean on an advisory board helping to place student in job settings as interns; they are also both on the Pioneer Care Board. Jeff told us that Vector Windows intends to be here long term and that it aims to improve the quality of peoples' lives by the product it builds. Its vision is to be a multi-location manufacturer respected in its communities and to be recognized as a preferred regional window and door solution provider, all to be measured by its Net Promoter Score, or "NPS". This is a mechanism to monitor and improve customer satisfaction, with the possible range of scores starting in the negative and going up to 100. Right now, Vector's score is 45. It also measure's employee satisfaction on a similar scale and right now the company scores around 20. One thing Vector does is give each employee eight hours of paid time to provide volunteer services. The company's core values are to do things the right way, respect and support each other, aspire to excellence and honor its commitments. The company was founded in 1995 in Fergus Falls as Vinlylite Windows. In 2004 Granite Partners bought 75% of the business and brought in capital, buying out the original owner entirely in 2009. Right now, Granite Partners owns 85% of the company while local officers own the remaining 15%. Sales have increased every year since 1995 except in 2009 during the Great Recession. In 2016, a new product line called "Invision" was introduced that meets or exceeds all applicable energy codes. Their product is for buildings of five floors or less in height and the market is the upper midwest. It stays away from selling through big box stores. Jeff said the three things that Vector Windows strives to accomplish is delivering on its commitments, providing high quality service after the sale, and giving customers a great experience. It competes based on the service it offers -- not the product as product differentiation between different manufacturers is minimal. Jeff showed us a new product which was a flex screen which can be grabbed and pulled together but returns to its original shape when the pressure is removed. |
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