Author: Richard Williams, CEO, Ram, Inc.
- About Richard Williams
- Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing, Cisco, Texas
- West Central Texas Workforce board member
- Big Country Manufacturing Alliance (BCMA) Business to Education Committee Chair
- 40 year business executive – turn around and mergers and acquisitions
The BCMA and the Workforce Career & Education Outreach Program are hoping to engage in a robust dialogue with educators throughout our region. We want to build relationships from which we can inspire our students to become their best, to realize the incredible gifts they hold within themselves, and to help them navigate the next chapters of their lives. In some ways, parents hand their children to teachers when they are 5 years old and then teachers hand them to businesses when they are 18. All three of us- parents, teachers, & business leaders- are entrusted with leading and mentoring these incredible gifts of humanity. I hope we can work together as good stewards of these gifts.
Our students will soon take the next step toward postsecondary education and working careers. Whether postsecondary education is formal or informal, 4 year degree or certificate – this lifetime education is a part of the fabric of successful and personally rewarding lives. As a business leader, my belief is that each person on my team has a unique creative voice that, when encouraged, brings the potential of extraordinary value.
It is often said that manufacturing work is a continual series of problem-solving challenges. Put another way, continual process improvement or innovation and creativity are primary keys to success in manufacturing. We hear statements like, “If it was easy anyone could do it,” or, “mastering the difficult separates us from our competition.” In the manufacturing plant, everyone on the team has the ability to continually improve (innovate) and thereby bring value to all parties including the customer, supplier, shareholder, and each other. As individuals on our team bring creative/innovative value, they find personal satisfaction and financial rewards. The same can be applied to our lives in general. When we engage in a lifetime of continual improvement, we are inspired with hope and fulfil the promise of the gifts we have been given.
Manufacturing in the Big Country is diverse, highly technical, and international in reach and impact. The BCMA offers and participates in student tours (plant visits), student internships, educator externships, and classroom presentations. All of these activities are designed to build relationships and connections and to expose students and educators to world class manufacturing right here in the Big Country. We hope you will reach out to the BCMA to schedule a tour or to invite an executive to present to your class. You and your students may find something different than what you expect!