02/07/2013

Leadership Q&A: Alex Wheelock, Vice President of Business Development for Connector Specialists Inc.

FPDA In Motion recently spoke with Alex Wheelock, FPDA’s newly elected Convention Chair. Wheelock is Vice President of Business Development for Connector Specialists Inc.

FPDA: Tell me about Connector Specialists Inc. and your role there.

Alex Wheelock: Connector Specialists is a fluid power distributor of Parker Hannifin products, primarily fluid connectors and automation products. It wasn’t that long ago that we had less than 50 employees, but now we have nearly double that. We are consistently among the largest fluid connector distributors in Parker’s network.

My title is Vice President of Business Development, but as is typical in small- to mid-sized businesses, folks in my position have to wear a lot of hats. Most of my days I spend dealing with different channel issues, branch-over-branch issues and high-level sales issues. But occasionally you have to put on your IT hat or be the guy that has to unstop a toilet. I think I'm not unlike a lot of other distributor principals in that regard.

FPDA: How did you get into this industry, and what do you like best about it?

Wheelock: This company was founded by Ed Sutton, who passed on about ten years ago. I had known his family since my high school days and my family had been friends with his family. So when I decided to get out of the broadcast journalism business, I was looking for the next thing I wanted to do in my life.

The opportunity for autonomy that was afforded to me and the ability to shape the position and the organization was what intrigued me the most. It was already built on such a strong foundation, and really all it needed was a couple of tweaks to take it to the cutting edge. Maintaining the balance between where the industry is heading while continuing to do the things that have made this business so successful for so long has been an enticing challenge.

FPDA: I understand that much of Connector Specialists' business is in oil and gas. How has this market evolved over time, and where are you seeing the most potential for growth right now?

Wheelock: About 80-85 percent of our business is in oil and gas, and a large part of the remaining percentage is affected by it, including the shipbuilding industry on the Gulf Coast and even civil infrastructure and the housing market.

The oilfield culture has historically been founded in risk – both entrepreneurial risks and production-related  risks. Today, more than ever, the oilfield is about managing those risks with systems and processes designed with quality, consistency and reliability in mind.  As far as ISO quality management and similar industry trends affecting other markets, we used to say "that will never happen in the oilfield." Well, it's happened, and it basically happened overnight. So being out in front of that is very important and it's the single-biggest cultural change we've seen in oil and gas.

As far as where the industry is going, it's going deeper. It's going into deeper water and into deeper drill depths, so the cost to extract is only going up. With regard to fluid power, they are spending more and more money these days to get to these deeper drill depths. It also really increases the risks involved, and having all of the backups and controls in place to make sure these systems work requires a great deal of investment in fluid power systems.

FPDA: What challenges or projects have you been focusing on recently?

Wheelock: One of the recent accomplishments we are very proud of is our ability to manipulate and slice our data however we need to at the drop of a hat. In today's business culture, having that ability is absolutely key, and it's allowed us to put a lot of metrics and performance-related data points in front of our employees completely live, from the warehouse to accounts payable or other aspects of operation. It's interesting to see what it's done to productivity, performance and the standard of accountability here. I haven't seen anything like what we are doing in other small, privately-owned distributor organizations, and we're pretty excited to see this project bear fruit.

FPDA: How did you come to join FPDA? What benefits have you gained from membership?

Wheelock: At the recommendation of Parker I got involved, and it really helped me to develop my network. I really benefitted from meeting younger people in the industry and seeing the awesome and interesting things they were doing at their organizations. I was learning the industry and everything I needed to know to be successful in it. It wasn't until that point that I realized that all I really knew before that was what was going on in my building.

I can't even measure its value on the networking side, because many of the group of 20-30 distributors that I am really close with, I talk to on a regular basis. It's invaluable having all those different sounding boards and hearing about how they're overcoming challenges and applying creative methodologies. The benchmarking aspects of FPDA are certainly valuable as well, to see where you stand in the rest of the distributor landscape. Ultimately that knowledge makes your own internal data that much more valuable.

FPDA: As newly-elected Convention Chair, what are your goals for the 2013 FPDA/ISD Joint Industry Summit in September?

Wheelock: The networking aspect of it for many is one of the most valuable things you can get out of being a part of FPDA. Certainly that's the case for me. But that's just one of the three aspects we're most focused on for providing value – networking, education and benchmarking. Our goal is to exceed our members' expectations when it comes to their opportunities for networking and the educational resources we bring to the convention, and we want to continue to push the envelope in terms of benchmarking opportunities.

We haven't yet filled in all the details for the September event, but I am already very excited about the location in Coronado, which is outside of San Diego. Over the last eight years that I've been involved with FPDA, it seems like every event has gotten better than the last. Continuing that trend is my challenge and the challenge of every member of the planning committee, and we intend to meet it.