94 Business View - March 2015
The previous experience made him aware of the niche
that existed, and the reality that a lot of companies
qualified to fill it weren’t enamored with the idea of ex-
tra regulation and paperwork. He was an executive di-
rector with American Warehouse Systems from 2003
through 2011, then took over the entire operation
when he purchased the company and became chair-
man and chief executive.
Another division, American Warehouse Supplies,
serves as an online material handling store.
“We do projects all over the world. Wherever they need
us to go,” Juelich said. “In fact, business has been
pretty good in Afghanistan of late. I don’t go, but we
have guys that just love going over there.”
Governmental organizations typically prefer to mete
out their project contracts in one sizable chunk, he
said, rather than parsing the work out to several spe-
cific vendors.
As a result, the American Warehouse Systems model
was set up specifically for that approach.
“They prefer to work with one company that can do the
whole thing,” Juelich said.
“We basically run our projects like a general contrac-
tor would, and that’s a big difference from many mate-
rial handling distributors. They sell supplies and then
install those supplies. When we approach a project,
we have to do it basically as a general contractor –
because we have so many different components, like
the HVAC, the fire suppression, the electrical systems
and such.”
The contract tweaking/adjusting process is perpetual,
as is the search for new contracts – whether short or
long term – a reality which puts heavy emphasis on
the company’s ability to market itself.
American Warehouse Systems has emerged as a lead-
LOGISTICS
