Wachter strives for 'irresistible company'

When Adam Wachter went to enroll in the Accounting 101 class at Ohio University, all the classes were full except for the "accounting majors only" class. Wachter was in the College of Business but was undecided with his major — until that point.

"So, I declared my major mainly just to get into that class," said Wachter, 35. "That class was really what sparked the continued interest in accounting."

Now the chief financial officer of Engineered Profiles LLC, Wachter held internships with PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG and graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration, majoring in accounting and management information systems. Today, Wachter is on Ohio University's accounting advisory board.

Post-college, he started at KPMG as an audit associate and left when he was senior manager. Wachter joined Engineered Profiles four years ago as director of finance and now chief financial officer.

Erik Tait, marketing coordinator of Engineered Profiles, nominated Wachter and noted achievements that include overseeing sales growth of 46 percent "while maintaining the same size of the accounting department through process improvements and leveraging the use of technology to improve the efficiency of the department."

"This included leading the implementation of a new ERP [enterprise resource planning] system in 2014 that was on time and on budget as well as tools to improve its budgeting, reporting, invoice processing and account reconciliation processes," Tait said in his nomination submission.

In addition to the finance functions, Wachter leads the IT and sales support departments within the Columbus, Ohio-based company.

Wachter said it was an initial challenge coming to Engineered Profiles from KPMG, where he mainly audited insurance companies and banks.

"Coming here was my first experience at all in a manufacturing environment and dealing with things like inventory," he said. "It was a big change both in industry experience coming here but also just in general changing from a role where you're an auditor for other companies to actually running, making more business decisions, less of a focus on just how they combine the financials and more on getting your hand in making business decisions. There's certainly an adjustment for both of those things."

Engineered Profiles is projecting around $50 million in annual sales. Wachter said previous year's sales were around $48 million.

Founded in the 1940s, Engineered Profiles previously held the name Crane Plastics. Wachter said the custom profile extruder's current biggest customer has been its biggest customer since the 1950s.

"We have a very long history and a lot of our customers, we're proud of them, and we're proud that a lot of them have been with us for so many years," he said.

Goals for the company, Wachter said, include continuing sales growth, focusing on sales to other manufacturers, refining the process of bringing on new customers and making strides with employee engagement and training. Wachter mentioned the company worked with Ohio's Franklin County on training grants and incentives for job growth.

"We pride ourselves on being one where people can easily move around departments and communicate ideas freely," he said. "Our current head of sales started in our tool shop. Our current training manager started as an operator. Our current head of HR was previously in sales. Our goal is to challenge people, let them show what their best skills are and give them opportunities to grow in whatever way they want to or whatever their skills are."

Wachter said the Engineered Profiles' ultimate goal is to "become an irresistible company to our customer, associates and community."

Wachter discussed six core values of Engineered Profiles, which are also outlined on its website: treat our customers and fellow employees with respect and dignity; ensure that communications are honest and open, upward and downward, providing ample venues of communication; encourage teamwork and a sense of family within the workplace; share the company's success through profit-sharing; strive to be the best place our employees have ever worked; and provide leadership in being stewards to our community.

He also mentioned the company's belief of walking a mile in someone else's shoes, in regards to treatment of its 250 employees.

"I think what makes a great leader or a great manager is someone who can provide oversight and direction to the group without micromanaging everything they do," Wachter said. "A lot of the time, I will find that maybe the way I would do something is not the best way. For me, sometimes, it's hard to get away from how I would do it, but I think a good leader allows people that freedom to learn and develop their own path. I think that's much more beneficial to their full career."

In terms of advice for those who want to follow a career path in manufacturing or finance, Wachter said they should put in the effort to look outside the box of what they see at work.

"It's easy to be handed any sort of task that you have and just do it without thinking about it," he said. "I think the people who really succeed are the ones who take the task, think about why they're doing it, why they're doing it a certain way, challenging that, coming up with a new way, understanding why things are done."

Regarding his current role of CFO, Wachter said he enjoys the size of Engineered Profiles, his ability to dabble in different departments and the team with which he surrounds himself.

He lives in Ohio with his wife, Lisa, and sons Nolan, 3, and Caleb, 1.

"Going from 50-60 hours a week to realizing that, yeah, it's OK to leave for a certain hour and be able to spend time with them," Wachter said, regarding the balance of personal and career challenges. "It certainly puts things in a good perspective when you can see how much joy they get from being able to go down a slide that they never went down before. Whatever problems you're having during the day, they aren't that big of a deal."

'I think what makes a great leader or a great manager is someone who can provide oversight and direction to the group without micromanaging everything they do.'