Campbell takes on challenges for a company in transition

Pomona, Calif.-based Performance Engineered Products Inc. was far from the typical family-owned small business when Ann Campbell joined in January 2008. The previous controller had walked out on the company the previous week and nobody was there to train her on the system or procedures.

Campbell said she was able to close the December books in the first week with the help of the outside certified public accountant.

The long-term chief operating officer died in 2009, and Campbell successfully settled subsequent litigation with the family. The majority shareholder died in 2011, and she worked with the owner's family to buy out the minority shareholders. She was also made an officer of the corporation at the time.

In 2012, Campbell was diagnosed with breast cancer. She worked part time during treatment and then full time. In January 2013, PEP brought on contract CEO Kevin Rafferty, who worked with Campbell and plant manager Diana Krone with keeping the company "lean and mean," Campbell said.

"We worked together to stabilize the company, obtain profitability and find a suitable buyer for the corporation," Campbell said in her CFO of the Year candidate submission.

PEP was trying to figure out how to grow because sales had fallen off, so the company looked for books of business to buy. Campbell worked with the acquisition of injection molder Astro in March 2015, which increased PEP's annual sales by about 20 percent.

PEP is an injection molder with primary end markets in automotive, electrical and electronics, appliances and consumer products and aerospace.

Campbell helped close the deal with Honor Plastics and Molding Inc. to purchase PEP in November 2018 from the estate of Carl Joseph Dispenziere Sr., who founded PEP in 1979 and died in 2011 at age 77.

Plastics industry entrepreneur Dennis Savalia acquired the business and assumed the roles of CEO and president.

Campbell said her current challenge at work is merging two different company cultures. Honor Plastics is moving into the PEP building and using the PEP payroll and IQMS program.

When Campbell started at PEP in 2008, she said, the company was not utilizing all of its capabilities on the financial side with IQMS, which provides real-time manufacturing and production monitoring and financial reporting.

"This program has a million bells and whistles," Campbell said. "Once I got the financials done — because my predecessor just walked out of the job the week before — I started looking at this and said, 'How can we use this really powerful software to help us not just getting the financial statement but in the production somehow to have more timely reporting?'

"We implemented mostly underlying procedures so that we could utilize IQMS better and more timely, like almost daily I could run a really decent financial statement and know exactly where we stood for that part of the month," she added.

Campbell said her greatest achievement has been getting PEP sold.

"When you start a company — I compare it to getting married — some people just need a prenup. They just do," she said. "It's just the same thing in business. You go in with a partner. If things don't work out or if one of us wants to leave for whatever reason, you have some prearranged agreement on how you're going to successfully disband or have the other partner buy out, whatever it is."

Raised in Bowie, Md., outside of Washington, D.C., Campbell said she first fell in love with accounting when she took a bookkeeping class in high school. Her teacher encouraged her to apply to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and she graduated with a double major in accounting and decision sciences.

She joined Coopers & Lybrand in Los Angeles, earned her CPA, and worked in both audit and tax until becoming a controller for smaller businesses and divisions of larger businesses.

While she worked with Boeing, Campbell passed the exam for certified internal auditor and scored within the top 5 percent of the country — while seven months pregnant. Then she joined Ferguson Enterprises, followed by PEP.

Campbell said the business shift should be settled "sooner rather than later" and she will transition out "within the year, probably." She said she is looking forward to the next phase in her career and life and catching up on traveling.

In her spare time, she helps veterans find housing with the San Diego Housing Commission and VASH program, donates blood to the American Red Cross and supports City of Hope, a cancer treatment and research center.

"A lot of women think of manufacturing as, 'Oh, I don't want to do that,'" Campbell said. "But in a way, that's the lifeblood of any country that makes things that people want to use. … Women aren't just in the back office pushing paper around."