Since joining ADCO Manufacturing at 19 years old, Colin Warnes, director, sales engineering and project management, has had multiple roles within the company’s engineering, sales, and marketing departments. Almost 21 years later, Warnes has seen industry trends shift and new ones emerge, while also learning how to manage and innovate with a new generation of engineers.
PP-OEM: What industry trends are keeping you up at night?
ADCO strives to be at the forefront of sanitary design, but it’s a moving target from end user to end user. The quest toward a more common industry sanitary construction standard would be ideal, which would help us design and train to suit a more universal sanitary design. The other struggle is with finding talented controls engineers. When I started, everything was controlled by a simple PLC and some rudimentary drives, gearboxes, and transmissions. Now, with our machines becoming more mechatronic, we have to control multi-axis servos, robotics, and some of our machines are integrated systems where they coordinate five different functions at a time.
PP-OEM: How does ADCO address the skills gap?
The challenge is who to attract, how to attract, and how to train. Do you hire someone fresh out of college who is moldable, but doesn’t have prior work experience? Or do you hire someone with more work experience, but more habits—good and bad? ADCO is a pretty demanding company. We are always under tight deadlines and our engineers have to be very agile and thorough to complete projects successfully. So we try to hire a good mix of both.
PP-OEM: What are some key attributes that millennials bring to the industry?
Millennials have grown up with technology and they have this ability to quickly search for whatever knowledge they need. They can find parts, vendors, components, and technology that we would have never considered 10 to 15 years ago. Millennial end users and customers are adaptive to working with us to find solutions. In the past, end user companies have had large engineering departments, and now most of our customers have pared back their engineering staff. They are asking us to consult them, and these younger engineers tend to be more open to new, alternative solutions and collaboration. They aren’t coming in and saying, “Our solution is the only solution.” They are open to multiple viewpoints to get the best solution.
PP-OEM: How does the Emerging Leaders Network help to connect millennials?
I was involved with PMMI several years ago on the show committee, but I was one of very few young people. In a way, I didn’t fit in very much. But with the Emerging Leaders Network, we now have a group of young professionals and leaders that I can network with. I have made great friendships and strong business relationships, which allow me to partner with companies that I wouldn’t have before. Some of our competitors are also involved, and it’s been great getting to know them, too. I was on the first group of the Leadership Development Program, a six- to nine-month custom tailored leadership training for each individual in a group environment. It was very insightful, I learned a lot about myself and developed a program to work on my weaknesses and foster my strengths to be a better manager, leader, and coworker.
PP-OEM: What is your advice for those new to the industry?
There is a whole lot of packaging equipment both upstream and downstream. If you want to be successful, you need to learn about it all so you can figure out how to make your equipment work better with other equipment.
More on the Emerging Leader Network
PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, recognizes the importance of professional growth and development for our members. The PMMI Emerging Leaders Network (ELN) was created to provide a forum for the industry’s future leaders to connect. The ELN is a group of processing and packaging technology professionals dedicated to the success and progression of the industry. For further information, visit pmmi.org/ELN or search ‘PMMI Emerging Leaders Network’ on LinkedIn.
