120 Business View - October 2015
ing for jobs,” he continues, “because the landscape is
changing and we need to respond to the times. Employ-
ees are looking for something different on the job than
they did twenty or thirty years ago and we’re coming to
understand that, maybe a little bit quicker than our com-
petitors. We’re also understanding that pay is a huge is-
sue and comfort level on the job is a huge issue, and if
we can provide that, and we can train our employees to
provide what our needs are, we feel as though we will
have a very low turnover, our cost-of-quality will be very
low, and our profitability will be much higher. And we’ll be
able to sustain that mechanism of good pay, good earn-
ings, and good profit margin. So really, in a sense the em-
ployees are the key to success.”
Barnes also emphasizes the importance of employee
satisfaction and the company’s desire to train and main-
tain its work force: “It’s important that people understand
when they come to work here that there’s a career path
for them. This isn’t just an hourly-wage job. We want to
develop people who want to find a career and be here
for the long-term. So we want to do a good job of defin-
ing employee expectations and letting them know that
this is a career opportunity.” Once again, Michalec sums
it up: “We want to develop our employees by teaching
and training them on the necessary skills to exceed, set
standards, and take care of them both personally and
professionally.”
Finally, what propels The Lindgren Group’s business
model is its continuing desire to find materials and coat-
ings that will help make metal last longer. “Throughout
the last four or five decades,” says Roberg, “it’s been
greatly recognized that there’s a huge loss every year -
trillions of dollars in the world economy - just due to corro-
sion of metal parts. Metal finishing has been a kind of an
asset in the sense that it’s offset that to some degree. If
you can find the magic, like in developments in carbon fi-
bers or the lightweight structure of aluminum, or finishes
on aluminum – all of these things add up to less loss to
the economy and less repair of infrastructure over and
over and over. These finishes came to be because we
want products to last longer. That’s really what it comes
down to.”
Without metal, there would be no modern civilization. By
protecting metals and the many parts and objects made
from them against corrosion, as well as from the normal
wear and tear that occurs within contemporary, me-
chanical equipment, The Lindgren Group, in applying its
sophisticated chemistry and refined procedures, works
daily to make sure that our modern civilization lasts, at
least, a little longer.
