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My fellow instructors, managers, and friends:
I was astonished twice in a period of two minutes last week in
Denver. First by the naming of a "manufacturing excellence"
award after my good friend Janet, and second by being named its first
recipient. If life was a movie, I would have walked to the front of
that room and been able to speak a few powerful and well-chosen
words. This E-Mail, composed privately, allows me to say those words
to each of you with adequate time to roll with my emotions.
It seems so wonderfully appropriate to create such an award in
Janet's honor. We all know of companies pursuing a
"Baldridge" or a "Deming" award for quality.
Every major league pitcher longs to have his name associated with Cy
Young's. So too now, we can both honor and remember Janet by striving
for "excellence" as instructors.
 It
was only 5 months ago that her car accident turned elation and
anticipation to tragedy for all of us. I still cannot easily talk or
even think about the magnitude of the loss put upon the people
closest to her. But let us focus on the fullness of her life, not the
tragedy of her accident.
Janet and I were good friends. As good of friends as I guess people
become at our age, and in our profession. The day of going to
elementary and high school and then living and working in the same
town with the same people are forever gone, certainly to people in
our trade. Janet and I met, when I was first hired at Morton
International (my previous employer). The org chart still listed
"Janet Schmidt", and she was struggling with "Janet
Schmidt-Dunn" at that time (I teased her in E-Mails). We were
assigned to different projects, her to small distributed systems, me
to supporting the legacy MRP package, but her enthusiasm (and my
irreverent humor?) lead to us becoming friends. We told stories, and
shared laughs. I still grin when I think of her as a college intern
laying out a Bill-of-Material for a "Super Bird" dinner at
Denny's (I didn't know Denny's even had material engineers!). I want
to hear her, just one more time, retell the story of waitress-ing in
a character restaurant as "Silverado Sue" with her
six-shooter (how-dee!!!). She obviously lived her entire life with
the same joy and enthusiasm that we (those of us lucky enough to meet
her) saw each and every day.
I heard the story of how Ken proposed marriage to her (as I told my
own offbeat tale), and it was me that she confided with when she and
Ken first kicked around the idea of "chucking everything"
and moving to a ranch in Idaho and raising cattle (what on earth
advice could I give her? I told her to trust her instincts and follow
her heart -- I sound like a consultant). It was on a visit to see her
and Ken at the ranch that I first gushed about our company, a
conversation that lead to her inquiries, her interview, and her
eventual joining of the team. She had just recently told me of her
first pregnancy, and had been on the phone the day before her
accident with my wife, talking about babies and children (and husbands?).
This is why I could not find words in Denver.
But the award seems so appropriate. The same
enthusiasms, tirelessness, and attention to detail that I saw in
everything she did, she also gave to our group as an instructor, as a
SPOC, and on several special projects. As Don mentioned at the
ceremony, anyone teaching Engineering (or Inventory) has a high
likelihood of using a descendent of Janet's Labs. I still have E-Mail
answers from her in my "Save-INV" folder.
But her attention to detail, to labs and courseware, never
overshadowed her enthusiasm for people. Her students, her fellow
instructors, her family and friends were always subjects at hand when
we spoke. Her insight into people was always quick and clear and
often hilarious to hear about. And she has now finally stopped
randomly offending company vice-presidents.
I miss her smile, I miss her laugh, and I miss the twinkle in her eye.
Of course, her accident has made her frozen in time. I feel odd about
thinking of her, forever, as a manufacturing apps instructor and
mother-to-be. We will never know just how far or in what direction
her life and career would have taken her. I certainly know that it
would have been far, but I would have never ventured to guess in what direction.
So when I think of the award, associated with her name, it won't be
for the labs and the lectures and the telephone calls. It will be for
the "timeless" aspects of her. Her enthusiasm, her
compassion, her friendship. Her attention to detail, her delivery on
promises, her relentless pursuit of her objectives.
Simply put, her constant striving for "excellence".
While she would have brushed off this letter as "all in a day's
work", that proves the very point at hand. We are all saddened
by the loss, both of who she was at that instant, and for the whole
universe of possibilities that lay before her and her pending family.
And now about me.
I am embarrassed to be the initial recipient of this award. When I
look in the mirror, and think of Janet, we seem so many miles apart.
Yes, I share her love of her students. And I share her love of her
fellow instructors. But I am such a functional generalist, and will
never have her enthusiasm for or attention to details. It is people,
not manuals, that move me to act.
As the recipient of this award, I would like to thank each and every
one of you; for the very honor and privilege of playing on your team,
of standing at your shoulders, of calling you my friends. And I would
like to recommit myself to you, fellow instructors, to call upon me
and use me as a resource (I will tell you when I'm buried under --
assume I am not). If I can help you, not so much with course content
and data field purposes, but with living life and excelling as an
instructor, call me. The Travel department always has my telephone
number. I pick up voice mails on all but the busiest of days (but I
sometimes fall 200+ E-Mails behind).
I will share my experience, and my advice about students and classes
and careers (and screen flows and data fields where I can). I have
seen many people pass your way before you, and I will do anything I
can to ease your own efforts on that same path.
In short, I will do my best to honor Janet in the only way I know
how: by continuing to focus my thoughts and my feelings on you and my
students. Lets make it a great year. |
