Jim Schrempf

However, the company has rebounded in record-setting fashion, and the Dubuque plant is playing a key role in the recovery.

The local team behind the rebound has as its "head coach" Jim Schrempf, a 29-year veteran of Deere who became Dubuque's general manager in August 2003.

Here are highlights of the TH's interview with the Deere executive.

TH: John Deere Dubuque Works is in the 60th anniversary of being in the community. What does that mean to you, as general manager of the facility?
JS: It's a great thing, I think, for Deere overall. Actually, this year, it's the 170th anniversary for the company, so we're one of the oldest companies in the United States. But from a Dubuque standpoint, it is good to be here on the 60th anniversary. Obviously, the 50th and the 75th are the big ones, but we're excited about this year's anniversary.

TH: I think that the anticipated turnout at your private anniversary event speaks well to the impact Deere has had on the Dubuque community over the last 60 years. Although fewer number of employees, it's down from its peak, in the early '80s.
JS: Right. It was about 8,000 in the early '80s, and we're down to just under 2,000 now. But back then, we did everything. We had a foundry here, we had an engine factory here. We did everything - put the transmissions together, did gearing, did everything. Today, we just have settled in on our core competencies.

TH: Recently, Greater Dubuque Development announced a new campaign of the next phase of an employment campaign. One of the pieces of that is to recruit more people to the community, have increased population. How critical is it to John Deere Dubuque Works to have a larger labor pool?
JS: I think it's very important. If you look since 2003, we've hired here in the vicinity of 800 people. About 600 on the production workforce and a couple hundred on the salary workforce. Now, a lot of those were to replace people that retired, so it wasn't just net growth. The significant portion was replacement. But still, the people that retired, they're still in the community for the most part. There's other people coming in and there are good jobs. We've done a lot, we think, to help bolster the community. The new initiative, I think, is very good because the growth that we've seen in the last few years - and I'm on the board with GDDC - the growth we've seen has been a lot of expansion of the businesses that are already here. So we would like to see new businesses come, new opportunities that people can see. I think it's a good thing.

TH: We spoke offline about your goals for this facility. Tell me more about that.
JS: When I came to Dubuque, I was asked what I might want my legacy to be. My simple answer was, I want this place to look different, feel different and get better results than we have ever achieved. The "look different" was two pieces. First, it was bringing the buildings and the operation up to today's standards. You can see the improvement we've done here. We have made significant changes to update and modernize the office areas, break areas, cafeteria, equipment and restrooms throughout the facility. Second, the "look different" also includes changing the face of the workforce. We need to prepare the workforce for the future. A lot of our current employees have the option of retiring within the next several years. We need to develop the leaders of the future to build upon our success and take us to the next level. In addition, our diversity is changing. For example, our production employee diversity has improved nearly four-fold over the past five years. We have also seen continuous change with the total workforce. So that was that side of it. The "feel different" is creating an environment in which people want to come to work and are excited about it. We have achieved this with improved communication, career opportunities and development, and creating an environment fostering innovation. The final piece was getting results much better than they have been in the past. The results speak for themselves on this one. The results in this division have been significantly improved over the last several years in every area, and that didn't happen by chance. We made significant changes to our organizational structure, our processes, and have been able to sustain these changes throughout large fluctuations in our business. Our people stepped up to the challenge and our results are a testament to their efforts.

TH: What jobs are the toughest to fill right now in this community and in this facility?
JS: I think we've had some difficulty with engineering jobs. We do have an engineering development program that we hire students while they're still going to college. They come in and do different assignments for us and rotate through different opportunities. As we've brought in the forestry operations, we had such a need that kind of overwhelmed us. At any point in time we have, on the salaried workforce, 30 to 40 open jobs all the time. It's not so much attrition, people leaving the company to go elsewhere, because we have very little of that, but we have people that will get promoted, they'll go to different divisions within the company, which we do a much better job than we have in the past. As they transition, or some retire, then we continually have that churn. Which is kind of a good thing; it keeps our HR people hopping and keeps our practices up-to-date, because for a long time there, when we did no hiring, you kind of forgot how to do those things.

TH: Could you review what products are currently manufactured here?
JS: This facility, prior to last year, it was just construction equipment. It was backhoe loaders. You see those going down the road. Obviously, everybody in Dubuque should see them on the trucks going out of here because the majority of our stuff goes right through the middle of downtown with our highway system here. Backhoe loaders are one product that's significant for us. Crawlers, or some people call them bulldozers, are another one. And skid steer loaders on the construction side. On the skid steer loaders, we have a wheeled version and a tract version that we call a compact tract loader. Then on the forestry side, we have a tract harvester and we have a knuckleboom loader. It lifts logs and loads them onto trucks. It works out very well for us here. Those products we brought in here late last year. They're in operation now and they fit right into our facility. There are some great synergies that we've been able to get from our people on the forestry side of the business. Some of those people transitioning over have worked out real well for us and I think for the forestry side of the business, also.

TH: What did the Forestry Division do for employment numbers here?
JS: Well, on the engineering and the salary side I would say it was approximately 100 for the products that we have here. On the production workforce it was in the 15 to 20 range. When you sound those numbers out, a lot of times people will say, "Gee, that's quite a different mix there, different ratio of the people," but you have to understand this is the full tree Forestry Engineering Center of Excellence here. So it's not just for the engineering, not just for the products that we produce here, but for also the forestry products that are produced at Davenport Works. The product support and quality engineering, all those things are housed here. Even on the construction side, it's fairly similar. This is the Engineering Center of Excellence for the construction and forestry division, so all the construction products are here, also. So that's why sometimes you look at the numbers and there may be the ratio from salary to production workers looks a little close.

TH: So, the work that is done here, from an engineering standpoint, those designs and instruction plans are sent to some of the other manufacturing sites, too.
JS: You bet, you bet. Our engineering, our product verification validation, all those things are housed here, product support. Supply management. The center of excellence for our supply management organization. Now, the other factories will have some people there also in supply management, but really the core is here, working with our engineering groups on new product development.

TH: You mentioned earlier the employee meetings where you talked about the Most Important Initiatives. What are those?
JS: With the employees, what we've tried to always express is safety is No. 1. We've made some great improvement in safety in the last couple of years. That continues to be the No. 1. We want to have a safe workforce. We don't want anybody getting hurt here and having to go home with an injury. Safety is No. 1. Quality is another one. Again, we've seen some significant improvement here in the last couple of years on the quality side. Then you can go right on down to safety, quality, delivery, productivity, our financial performance. Those are the things that we go through and share with everyone, where we're heading and where we're at and what we need to do to change.

TH: How would you describe your management style?
JS: My style a little bit is more on the leader than a manager. I like to go down that path. I like to set a vision out there. Not just what we're going to do this next year because that becomes real short term, but a vision for three to five years out there. Then I make sure we have the right processes in place, the right people in the processes. We've set some joint strategy. I really pretty much let the group run. I've got a great staff. They do a tremendous job and I sit back. I tell them once we do those, you're in charge, you run. I'm kind of hands-off, but if they run into obstacles and they need some barriers removed, then I'll jump in and be able to help them out or if we get off track and we're not making the progress when we do the reviews, then I'll get involved and we'll see what we need to do to get back on track. But generally, the improvements we've seen here over the last few years, the group has taken charge and our employees have gotten behind it and we've made some tremendous strides.

TH: I guess I should have rephrased that question to say "leadership" style.
JS: Right. I think there's a difference there. I would classify my leadership style as a "head coach." I set the future vision for the organization, draft the players, make sure we have the right plays in place, and working with the team, develop the strategy to win. Then, throughout the year, I make adjustments as required and eliminate barriers and obstacles that might get in our way. The team executes the plays and determines how successful we end up. With an organization this size, my role is a "leader" versus a "manager." I've seen a lot of people fail in some manager aspects because they want to be involved in every decision and nothing can be made without them being involved. You've got to set the vision, make sure you've got everybody, like I said the processes and the people in place, and then let them go and see what you have. If you're looking over everybody's shoulder all the time, what happens then, in my view, is that everybody, first of all, when you're in the room and a decision needs to be made, everybody turns and looks at you. That's not always a good thing because you're not getting the input of the total team. Then if something fails, they also look at you and say, "Well, that's what you wanted us to do."

TH: Especially if it fails.
JS: Especially if it fails. So it's one of those things that if you get the team involved in setting the strategy and executing, then they have the buy-in and they take the ownership and then you can kind of sit back and watch them run, and jump in when you need to. But I've seen a lot of people fail because they've tried to get too involved and think they have to know every single thing along the way. With an operation this size, if you tried to do that, you wouldn't have a chance at succeeding.

TH: What do you find most challenging about your position here?
JS: The most challenging thing for me is the number of meetings that I have and the travel that's involved. There are times where I may be here one day a week. Certainly, generally, a couple of days a week I'm down in the Quad Cities in some kind of meeting. That's a challenge, not that I can't make the meetings, but I like to get out and talk to people and it limits your ability to do that. I think it's important to be able to walk around and talk to your staff rather than just being in the meetings all the time. That's one thing, if there's one thing I could change, it would be a lot less meetings so I could get out and talk to people.

TH: Do you have a Blackberry, or how do you keep in touch?
JS: I have chosen not to do a Blackberry because generally, your life is pretty much tied here anyway. But I do have a portable computer and I do a lot of that type of work at home to be able to keep up, certainly on the road always. We've got great access that way. Obviously, we all have a telephone so if anything critical comes up that I can certainly get involved in.

TH: And to a degree, being absent regularly does cause some of your team to follow the vision and keep things moving.
JS: Step up. They do and they do a great job of it. Actually, very seldom is there an issue that they don't have their arms around. And that's what I think is great about this group is that generally, they don't bring you problems. They bring you an issue with a potential solution. I think that's a tribute to the workforce here ...

TH: You've talked about some of the challenges. What makes you excited about coming into work?
JS: The thing that's been most exciting to me is the change that you can make. With an organization this size, with the people we have, we can make changes still fairly quickly. It's fun to see that change happen and the results that you get from that. What's been very fun here over the last several years is the amount of change we've put into this place and the results that we've been able to see. The numbers have been outstanding. You can go back and look at our reports and see the improvements we've made as a business. It's, again, a testament to the people and all the effort they put in, but when you see those kind of changes, it makes you excited to want to come and look to see what's beyond that. We've got an operation here now that's clicking on all cylinders.

TH: We've run the reports in the paper with some of the results, not only for the company overall, but especially the divisions that you're responsible for.
JS: The construction/forestry division, mm, hmm.

TH: We're talking double-digit quarterly improvement in some of these quarters and year-over-year as well. Do you ever worry about coming up against your own numbers? What are you going to do next year?
JS: Yes, but our chairman (Robert Lane) has been very consistent in his message. That's the great thing about him and this is that we had to earn our right to grow. So all of the things that we've been doing, it has been putting the business in a position to be able to do that. Now that we're there, you try to sustain the things that we've done, but in addition to that, now we have the opportunity to see what we can do about making the business bigger. That's where there will be more fun that can happen. It is not only taking what you have today and trying to get into new markets and into new geographies, but it's new technologies, innovations, new types of things that we can bring out that will certainly benefit us.

TH: To what degree are you just subject to the construction industry? Is there pretty much a trend line of - the construction industry is up and you're up?
JS: I think if you looked at the things in the past, there are cycles that the construction industry runs through. If you looked at our business in the past, you could look at the numbers and you could see when it went up, we were up, and when it came down, we didn't do as well. I think the difference this time is the effort we put into this - again, following our chairman's strategy - is that we didn't make some of the mistakes we've made in the past on the way up, so then as the business changes, our intent is to still be profitable as we come down as the cycle changes. That's one of the things in the past that, again, we didn't do.

TH: Some of that's going to come from market share?
JS: Well, the significant portion of it is. When we used to go up, we would hire and over hire. Then when we'd come down, we'd have to make adjustments for that. Our spending levels would change considerably. Our R and D levels. So all those things we now have targets that we have at all the different points and we're trying to manage to those. We think that we didn't let it get out of control going up, so now we're much better coming down. Now, obviously, what that created for us was as we were going up the line, our production was pushed, for example, a significant amount of overtime they worked. The trade-off is you hire a lot more people, then you have to lay them off when you come down. So they worked a lot of overtime coming up and then as we're coming down, there's less overtime, it's a little more consistent for them. So we hope to minimize any impacts, not saying that we wouldn't ever get there if the economy totally changed, but our intent is to try to, that those things that we put in place would minimize that impact as we moved down the line.

TH: A couple of years ago, I interviewed (United Auto Workers official) Dan White for one of these Newsmakers. How would you describe the working relationship between the company and the local UAW?
JS: We've come a long way in the last several years. I would say that we work together very well. The workforce, the entire workforce is involved in all the things we were talking about - the safety, the quality, productivity, delivery, those types of things. They're involved hand-in-hand with us to make the numbers better. That was not the case a lot of time in the past. There was more friction there. Now, I'm not saying that it's perfect; that there aren't issues that come up, but we've been able to resolve most of the issues without conflict and we think there's a pretty good working relationship today.

TH: And do you see that working relationship impacting on the bottom line? The results?
JS: Oh, definitely. For example, we've had double-digit productivity improvement over the last few years. Those types of things will help us be more competitive going forward. We need to continue to see that. And the quality improvement, the productivity improvement, those things go right to our bottom line. I hope also from the customer perception standpoint of seeing when they get into a product, they don't have to worry about some of those quality issues. It's going to certainly help us from a share standpoint.

TH: What's ahead? What might employees, investors, people in the community anticipate from John Deere Dubuque Works in the next 60 years?
JS: I think going forward, we need to continue to get better at what we do. That's what we're all striving to continue to make this operation better. If we do that, then we've earned that right to grow. So that space, as I've said, we can look at filling gaps and product lines that we have today. We can look at new markets. We can look at growth and share that certainly will help our volumes. We can look at any other thing. If there's consolidation, whatever's out there. You don't know. Today, I don't have a prescribed list that says what will go in there, but it's the smart thing for us to do to not fill that space with inventory or something else and have it available so when something does come along, we're able to adapt and make it happen and not have to spend four months getting it ready.

TH: You listed your hobbies as family, golf and walking. Do you walk when you play golf? Is that what that means?
JS: Well, I do walk when I play golf because I think, otherwise it doesn't make sense. I have some friends of mine that they'll ride when they play golf, but then they'll go home and run two miles. I think, "Geez, why don't you just walk when you play golf?" But I do walk when I play golf, but then I also, during the summertime, when I get off work and go home, I'll take a walk. I'll go a path that's about a five-mile walk. Depending on time, there's shorter ones. It's just to get out and clear your head. I like to walk out; I'm not really a treadmill person, so to speak, so generally when the weather's good, I'll get out and walk around and just get out and enjoy the outside. I think another important thing is having a good balance of friends, not just internal. I think that's what's good about playing golf and other things. You get to meet people outside and it isn't just a Deere discussion. You learn what's going on in the community. I've been able to participate in a lot of different boards and activities out there so I get to meet a lot of good people. I've lived in many different places and my wife and I think that Dubuque is the best place we've ever lived. It's a great town - a friendly town, safe town - and we really enjoy it here. That's a good thing. That's a lot that Dubuque has going for it that sometimes they don't get credit for. It's a real good community.

TH: Well, it says a lot because you have lived in other communities, not too far from here.
JS: We've done the Deere triangle. To Waterloo and the Quad Cities and here. We've been in the major Deere cities. This is just a great place to live.

TH: Still, moving from town to town can be difficult, often more for the family than for the person with the job.
JS: During my moves from Waterloo to Moline and Moline to Dubuque, three of my children were in high school. During the move from Waterloo to the Quad Cities, Ben was a senior in high school and transferred from Columbus High School to Bettendorf High School. Ashlie was a sophomore and also transferred from Columbus to Bettendorf. These were hard moves at that time of their lives. Senior year is quite special. When we moved form Davenport to Dubuque, Ashlie was still in high school and actually stayed with another family her entire senior year so she could graduate from Bettendorf. Allison then had to transfer her sophomore year from Bettendorf to Wahlert High School. As you can imagine, this is a very difficult thing to have happen. If you ask them now, they would all say it was a good experience, but at the time, my wife played a key role in keeping everyone together. My family was there to support me, and my wife, Beth, was a saint throughout the process. Sometimes they do not get the credit they deserve. Beth liked her job in Davenport as IT Manager at Ruhl-Ruhl Realtors so much, she actually kept working and commuted back and forth from Dubuque to Davenport until last year.

TH: As we wrap up, one last question about business. What keeps you up at night? What worries you in this particular job?
JS: Oh, it's the ever-changing competition. I think sometimes you can get the results that we've had and you sit back and pause a little bit and feel pretty good about it, which we should feel good, but the competition continues to change. When you look across the globe at what's going on in China and India and you can look at the ag side of our business and see the competition that's come in from India that we have to be very cognizant of what's going on out there. We have to have our people continue to make improvement so we don't get caught on the short end of that stick. So it's always to keep that out in front of people and continue to improve because we can't sit back and pause or we'll be facing some issues that we don't want to have to deal with.