CFO winner Endecott shows value in versatility

Morgan Endecott likes to garden. The wife and mother of two loves animals and rides horses. She enjoys reading.

She also holds a third-degree black belt in taekwondo, knows her way around fighter jets and is Plastics News' 2015 CFO of the Year.

The award honors financial leaders at North American plastics processors who have helped their companies achieve growth and financial success. And that she has done, presiding over 47 straight quarters of profitability at Innovative Injection Technologies Inc., also known as i2tech.

Endecott also is responsible for information technology, strategic and tactical purchasing, continuous improvement and the firm's 401(k) committee. She has learned what she needed to know along the way.

“Being with a smaller company, you have to do that. I love it,” she said. “I like to get involved in so many things; it keeps you growing. When I'm given another task … I look at it as a chance to do something new.”

One of the biggest challenges the company has faced, she said, came in 2010 when i2tech switched over to new enterprise resource planning software in just four months.

“It was one of the most stressful times here,” she said.

Growing the business

The injection molder in West Des Moines, Iowa, employs 162. The company just took delivery in May of press No. 33, a 2,500-tonner that will help fill out its range of 40-3,300.

The firm's main market is agriculture (Deere & Co. is its largest customer), followed by recreation (ATVs, snowmobiles and personal watercraft).

The agriculture industry is suffering, which definitely affects i2tech sales, but thanks to an uptick in the recreation industry, “we haven't seen that much of a drop-off,” Endecott said recently by phone.

I2tech Chairman Robert Janeczko credits her with growing sales from $18 million in 2003 to about $40 million this year. He also notes Endecott's role in the firm's 2013 entry into the automotive market, which now accounts for about 5 percent of i2tech's business.

When Janeczko first sought to form Innovative Injection Technologies in 2003 by buying the sole remaining plastics operation of Morton Industrial Group Inc., where he was an executive, Endecott “engineered a financial syndicate to provide funding,” he said in nominating her for the Plastics News CFO award.

He praised her risk-management skills and said she verified hundreds of Six Sigma suggestions, approving more than $3.2 million in cost savings. She also lowered borrowing costs by renegotiating $15 million in loans.

She received a public service award in 2008, the same year i2tech was named PN's Processor of the Year.

Fortune.com reported in February that, while the number of female CFOs is increasing, women hold only 11.6 percent (58) of the CFO positions in Fortune 500 companies.

Endecott is the only woman among the company's top executives, but said her gender has never been an issue at i2tech.

“I worked on F-15 fighter aircraft. I know how to work with men in a field that's typically male-dominated,” she said. “I had to fight my way to the top there, and I thought, I can do this just as well.

“They respect me for my knowledge and what I can do.”

Janeczko described Endecott as a “selfless leader” who has “used her military discipline and experience to focus on company missions and strategic and tactical objectives.”

Endecott entered the U.S. Air Force as an airman in 1982 and left in 1987 as a staff sergeant. Her time in the military helped her overcome her “extremely shy” nature, she said.

While stationed in Germany, she traveled around Europe, which taught her to appreciate adventure and helped her mature, she said.

A family atmosphere

In August, Bob Janeczko sold his controlling share in Innovative Injection Technologies to his son, Joshua, who is now the sole owner.

Endecott said she considers both men her mentors and admires them for the way they operate the privately held business.

“We really care about the people who work here,” she said. “We realize we impact their jobs and lives. We try to look at our business that way: We do what's right by the employees, but accommodate the business as well.”

Adding to the family atmosphere, Endecott's husband, Darin, joined i2tech in September as chief operating officer.

Oh, and about her gardening? There's a little more to it than that. It's actually a hobby farm — one that's not run to make a profit — complete with chickens and goats. And the horseback riding? Endecott does love riding, but also puts her passion to work at a nonprofit designed to help adoptive, foster and at-risk children by allowing them to work with horses that have been neglected or abused.

I2tech has donated funds and equipment to the charity, called Healing Hearts with Horses, in Runnels, Iowa. Healing Hearts' rescue operation rehabilitates, retrains and eventually adopts out the horses. Endecott has helped raise more than $100,000 for the charity, according to Janeczko.

And about that black belt … she actually teaches taekwondo and earned third-degree status in April along with her now-college-age son.

“We both came up through the ranks. He started when he was 6. That was really fun for a mother,” she said.

Endecott, who said she has always been very analytical and good at math, received her MBA in the mid-90s from Western Michigan University. Before joining i2tech, she was Eaton Automotive's controller for eight years.

Check out profiles of other CFO nominee, Jon Dill, Paul Manley and Roger Vang.