Page 45 - Flip PDF Test - Client Book - Senior Director Supply Chain

One other thing to note is that in addition to five years of direct supply chain experience, I also have 7-8 years of
sales experience. Sales and procurement are virtually mirror images of one another, and my sales experience has
been instrumental in my supply chain success.

Describe your logistics experience.

In my role as a Contracts Procurement Agent at Boeing, I interact with Boeing Logistics from time to time. I have
worked with Logistics to ensure that suppliers are properly classifying products for international shipments. I also
work with Logistics to ensure that our products are being shipped in the most cost-effective way. One example of
this was recently working with a supplier in Austria to create a plan that supports ocean shipments.

I am not a logistics expert. I think that proper logistics is the result of thinking logically to create the most practical,
cost-effective solutions.

Describe your procurement and vendor management experience.

I have answered this question above under responsibilities and supply chain experience.

What type of company is best and worst for you? Describe a position you held that you should not have accepted.

I have worked at Boeing for five years, and in that time I’ve learned the disadvantages of a matrix-style
organization. I like working for a company that is decisive and quick to adapt to a changing market.

When I graduated from high school, I took a job as a cable tester. I took this job so I could have some walking
around money during the summer before college. The job consisted of taking two ends of a cable and plugging both
ends of the cable into the male mates on each side of the testing machine. If the testing machine displayed the
proper Ohms reading, the cable passed. If it didn’t display a good reading, the cable failed. This was a pretty binary
task. But one way I discovered that cables weren’t good is when one would shock me. It wasn’t enough of a shock to
cause a heart attack (or so they said), but it was enough of one that I would be gun-shy for the next 10-15 minutes
on that testing machine. I got shocked about 25 times by bad cables. From this I learned two things: 1) I wanted to
go to college because I didn’t want to be doing a job like that in 20 years, and 2) I had tested at least 25 bad cables.

So should I have not accepted that position? I’m not so sure. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that story over the
years.

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