This year’s talented group of under 40’s has already made their mark and are positioned for more adventures in the future office automation universe.
Above, clockwise from top: Meghan Acciavatti, Lindsay Usherwood, Emily Rodriguez, Kyle Lowery, Casey Lowery, Matt Kochanowski
Meghan Acciavatti, Regional Solutions Manager, ACDI
When Meghan Acciavatti, regional solutions manager at ACDI, graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Science in biology, the U.S. economy was caught in the throes of a global recession. With limited job options available, Acciavatti jumped at the opportunity to work for Northern Business Machines, an independent dealership in Burlington, Massachusetts, not far from where she grew up.
“I took what I could get,” said Acciavatti. “But I knew I wanted to be in sales. I knew I had an extroverted personality, so I took the job and worked hard. I made 70 calls a day to potential customers and developed my skills. It was relentless, but I did a good job in a bad economy. I developed talk tracks, I figured out what worked. While I had good managers and mentors, I did a lot of it myself and I’m proud of that.”
The workplace technology world was not new to her. Her father, Roy Forsberg, held senior-level positions at both Nuance and EMC, while her stepmother rose through the male-dominated ranks in engineering at esteemed software developers Sun Microsystems, Novell, and Red Hat.
“My dad talks to me about management strategies all the time,” said Acciavatti. “My stepmom taught me to be bold and fierce, and to not be afraid to ask for what I want.”
Informed by her parents’ strong work ethic and success, Acciavatti made the most of her experience at Northern Business Machines, learning managed print services, pulling in new clients, and helping existing clients manage and reduce printer expenses. After two years, she felt ready to continue her career development in the industry. When an opportunity arose to work for a document management company in New York, she did not hesitate to make the move, adding yet another specialized skill to her résumé.
Through this position, Acciavatti traveled extensively, demonstrating document management platforms for various companies, including Arkansas-based ACDI.
“I had been interested in pursuing other opportunities, and I was interested in what Josh (Lane, president of ACDI) was doing,” said Acciavatti, who had also met numerous ACDI employees on the road. In 2014, ACDI was developing its regional sales approach and Acciavatti joined the team as the company’s first regional solutions manager based outside the Little Rock area.
Covering the Washington, D.C. to Maine, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, territory, Acciavatti packed her bags and traveled extensively, learning how to do quotes, establishing best practices, and showing up for every in-person demo of ACDI’s print management software PaperCut within her territory. It was not unusual for Acciavatti to be on the road for up to two straight weeks at a time. Volumes quickly grew, and ACDI grew with it, building out more teams and departments to better manage the workload.
“Six years ago, the focus was on how you quote, the process for installs, how you train better, how we can do this better, what the basics of putting the solution together and selling it are,” said Acciavatti. “Over the years, I’ve been able to home in on certain partners, really look at the numbers year-over-year, talk about growth with net new customers, and think about where we are seeing success and determining how we can mimic that success.”
Much of Acciavatti’s success comes from her constant commitment to improving how she works and evolving to better sell ACDI’s products, with the biggest challenge convincing customers that solutions sell hardware.
“We’ve changed sales training from a talk track about features and benefits to how we tell a story about success,” said Acciavatti, who works diligently to convey the message of why solutions are integral to deals. “Now, my job tends to revolve around higher level conversations, how to keep the needle moving in the right direction and continue our success. One of the things I love is finding a new salesperson and getting their first new sale and building their confidence. We’re developing skills. It’s teaching them how to fish.”
Acciavatti is focused on working with her tenured and new reps at ACDI who match her commitment, are looking to expand their knowledge, and are actively seeking to grow their business. Acciavatti encourages open communication among sales reps about successful deals, especially in terms of what went right or wrong, and how lessons from those wins can be applied across customers and territories.
As a result of ACDI’s rapid growth, Acciavatti encouraged ACDI to consider adopting a team approach in supporting sales reps in their territories. In 2019, ACDI brought on a regional account manager, Michael Cifaldi, as another resource to help support Acciavatti in her territory. Together, they posted a banner year as one of the firm’s most successful territories, as well as set an example of what a team approach would look like. Clearly impressed with this now-proven partnership and success, ACDI is rolling out this team approach across the company.
As the economy dips into another recession, Acciavatti remains as committed as ever to her career at ACDI. Supported by her husband Peter and two-year-old daughter Skylar, with another baby due this year, Acciavatti is continuing to grow and evolve, following ACDI President Josh Lane’s lead in committing to doing “better than yesterday.”
“I started off in a really bad economy, and I had success,” said Acciavatti. “And I’ve been through a really good economy, and I’ve had success. Today, I think it makes me flexible in talking to people about how to keep the needle moving and developing a good sales story. I may be young and cast into a millennial bracket, but my experience has influenced where I am today and doesn’t match up with the typical idea of what a millennial is. I’m always thinking about what I can do better, what I can change.” SE
Matt Kochanowski, Product Manager, Epson Inc.
For as long as Epson’s Product Manager Matt Kochanowski remembers, he’s been passionate about learning, having grown up taking computers apart and putting them back together. Fueled by a genuine sense of curiosity about technology, mid-way through high school, he signed on for a job at his good friend’s family business, IT Supplies in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. At the time, this wide-format reseller primarily sold Epson, Canon, and HP wide-format inkjet printers and wide-format photographic printers, but was also expanding into dye sublimation, solvent printing, and DTG (direct-to-garment) printing.
Kochanowski’s role at IT Supplies started with basic office tasks – printing invoices, stuffing envelopes, mailing – and quickly snowballed into providing customer service and some financial analysis, as he worked his way through college. When he graduated from Illinois’ Dominican University in 2009, Kochanowski joined IT Supplies on a full-time basis, giving him the opportunity to be part of a growing small business and fully immerse himself in wide format, a burgeoning area of print.
“As they got into these larger pieces of equipment—these big 64”-wide roll-to-roll machines— the different manufacturers required people to go out install, train, and support those customers,” said Kochanowski. “I not only did that, but then, I built out the team to help support a lot of that commercial business and the growth of that business from a technical support standpoint.”
By 2015, Kochanowski felt ready for the next step in his career. With a firm foundation on the technical side of wide-format printing, he was looking to expand his skillset into product management and learn more about marketing from a manufacturer’s side of the business. Leveraging his connections with Epson, he secured a position with the wide-format product management team. On a cold February day, with about 18 inches of snow on the ground, Kochanowski left Chicago for warm, sunny southern California to work out of Epson’s Long Beach office.
His first project was helping manage the launch of Epson’s S-Series products, 64”-wide roll-to-roll solvent printers.
“It was a seamless transition because I was out in the field, I’d been out in customer locations over the past three to four years, getting a lot of customer feedback, knowing exactly how the customers were using the equipment, and understanding a lot of their pain points,” said Kochanowksi. “I worked directly with the product manager to help him launch those products to the market and continue to beta test the printers, working with him through the whole process.”
Kochanowski soon moved on to rolling out Epson’s T-Series product line, becoming the voice and face of the launch for Epson through numerous press releases and videos demonstrating the product line.
Each opportunity allowed Kochanowski to dive deeper into technology, as well as the inner workings of channel sales. With a background of working for both a reseller and a manufacturer, he is keenly aware of the challenges of selling wide format, but also well versed in how to overcome these hurdles.
“From a customer standpoint, or even a dealer looking to bring on wide format, there’s a fear of not necessarily knowing the wide-format industry as well as they know the A3 or A4 market from a cost perspective, and how to charge customers,” said Kochanowski. “It’s a? fear that they don’t know how to position the product. In reality, the way I describe Epson’s wide-format printers is that it’s just a bigger version of our desktop product line. Printhead technology is the same. Ink technology is same. It’s all really a similar sort of thing, it’s just some of the lingo that goes along with it is slightly different for a wide-format product.”
This past December, Kochanowski moved from the wide-format team to the WorkForce Enterprise product management team, which oversees Epson’s 75 and 100 page-per-minute A3 MFP color and monochrome device product line. Again, with his deep knowledge of wide format and the production channel, it’s been another easy transition to the business inkjet product line, continuing to sell and support the Epson message. And again, his ability to see both sides of the product—from the manufacturer and the reseller point of view—is helping him tackle customer hesitations, including the inkjet bias.
“A lot of people today think inkjet is this old antiquated technology, and they associate it with these old desktop, small printers they used back in the day,” said Kochanowksi. “I’m trying to bring a new perspective of why inkjet is the future of printing technology, similar to how electric vehicles will be the new standard in the coming years.”
Kochanowski has worked with Epson’s product management team to develop the company’s three primary talking points to address this massive business opportunity. First is Epson’s heat-free PrecisionCore technology, which ensures lower energy consumption, not only saving costs but also making the technology energy efficient and more sustainable than traditional laser equipment. Compared to laser, Epson claims PrecisionCore uses 85% less energy and about 50% less waste. Second is the high-quality business printing for a wide variety of applications, including cost-effective color printing. Third is Epson’s commitment to high reliability and productivity, with machines that lower service ability and deliver higher up times so that customers don’t have to worry about technicians coming out as often as with a laser machine.
In line with Epson’s motto, Kochanowski is committed to innovation—in promoting Epson’s products and his own career. With the recent rollout of the second generation of Epson’s WorkForce Enterprise products, successfully launched in early March to over 150 resellers at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, Kochanowski is excited to continue expanding Epson’s product line and technology.
“I’m always trying to learn something,” said Kochanowski, who is pursuing his MBA at the University of Southern California. “I’m trying to expand my knowledge on what I’m doing today, but also to become a more strategic thinker and grow my career that way.” SE
Casey Lowery, Director of Sales, Applied Imaging
Casey Lowery always knew he wanted to go into business, but after graduating from the selective Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, he didn’t want to go straight back to his family’s independent dealership, Applied Imaging, founded by his father John in 1987.
“I wanted to get some outside experience, and I knew that selling office equipment was just really, really good sales experience,” said Lowery. “In my mind, I was going to go do that for a few years, get really good foundational sales experience, and then go do something else.”
He moved to Detroit and worked at Ricoh for a few years, but when his wife’s nursing school search had her considering a school in Grand Valley, just a short drive away from Grand Rapids, where Applied Imaging is headquartered, Lowery realized it only made sense for him to go help grow the family business.
After three years as a sales rep at Applied Imaging, a managerial position opened up.
“I wouldn’t say I necessarily felt like I was completely ready at the time to take over a team,” said Lowery. “I was a nervous 27-year-old, and it was a new team that had only started two years before I took over.”
Back then, in the early 2000s, office equipment sales were still primarily focused on the equipment and less on services and solutions. Applied Imaging had a few services available, but they were usually add-ons to traditional equipment contracts, not the main focus. But by the late 2000s, when Wi-Fi and smartphones were ubiquitous even in the most traditional, change-averse companies, everything changed.
“Somewhere in the last six years, I stopped seeing us as a copier company,” said Lowery. “Now, I feel like our goal as a company is to build a great environment where people love coming to work and can be really plugged in. If we take great care of those people, then it doesn’t really matter what we sell. We do happen to sell copiers and printers and IT, but certainly in the last five years, it doesn’t feel like a copier company anymore. It definitely feels like a services company.”
Lowery found that the clients his team had built the closest relationships with were the most open to change, partnering with Applied Imaging in spaces they hadn’t envisioned hiring services for before. High paper-use companies, for example, were early adopters of Applied Imaging’s new shred business.
The key to convincing a client to try new things is to build trust through existing relationships.
“Our goal is to empower the traditional hardware reps to be aware of all the different things that we can do and be able to talk to businesses intelligently,” explained Lowery. “But really the goal with them most of the time is just to be able to open the door. And then, with all of our overlays or SMEs, it’s about getting more in-depth. We try to train and develop as much as we can, and I feel like that’s ongoing.”
Despite the ever-growing importance of expertise in sales, Lowery likes to hire a blank slate whenever he can, so he can train from the fundamentals on up.
“For us, we try as much as possible to look for people without any experience in our industry,” said Lowery. “That’s our mantra. We err on the humanistic side. We try to bring people on that we believe in, that are a good team fit, that have the right attitude. We take a long time to interview people. We want people who are more interested in a career than just a job.”
Company culture is the key to training and retaining good reps in Lowery’s eyes. He’s not afraid to take things slowly, growing a new employee’s talents over time in ways that build confidence and trust. He relies on his more experienced team members to mentor the fresh hires and to show them what success looks like. There’s no shame in being motivated by income.
“Over time, for younger folks that come onto the team, they see these people they look up to and they see how successful they can be,” said Lowery. “It’s like a rising tide. We’ve got people who, long term, have turned into successes that maybe wouldn’t have someplace else.”
Applied Imaging’s reputation as a family company is a big recruiting asset as well. Despite how much the company has grown since its founding in 1987, maintaining that family feel has always been a priority for all the Lowerys.
“When I started, we had two offices,” said Lowery. “We have twelve now. I remember thinking maybe when we got to 150 employees that would go away, but with the focus on culture, it’s even better for the people who are here now. There are more people, but it’s just a bigger family.”
Work-life balance is easier to maintain at a company like Applied Imaging, where reps rarely have overnight travel or “crunch time” that forces them to put work ahead of the rest of their lives.
“I think, in a lot of industries, there’s lots of travel, lots of things that make some jobs difficult on home life, and one thing that’s super attractive in our industry is that, for the most part, you get to come home at night, you get to help out, you get to be flexible,” said Lowery. “If some emergency comes up, it’s usually not an issue.”
At the same time, Lowery is realistic about the fact that not every sales rep plans to spend their whole career at one company.
“Giving them a career path, for people who are just going to treat it as a stepping stone, we’re okay with that,” said Lowery. “If people can take something away from their time at Applied, maybe they come and sell for two or three years, and they look back and say, ‘Hey, that was great, I have experience I wouldn’t have had.’ That’s a win for us as well.”
Since so much of his job is, at the heart of it, about teaching, Lowery chooses his methods carefully, always wary of the fads that sweep through the sales field every few years. He sees better results by avoiding the gimmicks, the trendy sales books and seminars, and focusing on building a shared understanding among his reps so everyone is always on the same page, communicating as clearly as possible.
“I’m not big into the flavor of the month, where somebody throws something new at us, and we switch it up and change a ton,” said Lowery. “Whatever you pick, if you stick with it, you’re better off than trying to continually switch. Part of it is the language you speak and the over-arching sense of where a deal is in the process. As sales change from one person to six people, six stakeholders, it’s important to have that common language.”
Most importantly, Lowery works to ensure that Applied Imaging’s culture is always one where employees at every level feel comfortable communicating with each other whenever they need to.
“It’s all about the relationships within the four walls,” he said. “It’s still that family feel. You can go to the corner office, you can go to anybody and ask them a question and there’s no red tape. I’ve always appreciated that.” KG
Kyle Lowery, Director of Production Print, Applied Imaging
Even though Kyle Lowery grew up with the family business, he never imagined there would be a place for him. He worked in the warehouse to tide him over while pursuing his interests in graphic design and computer programming. Yet, as he rose through the ranks, working onsite with clients as a service technician, he realized that the production print segment of the business was the perfect combination of both those fields.
“When I first moved into the production print analyst role, where I do pre-sales and post-sale support for all of our production clients, that’s really where I felt like I was definitely plugged into what I feel like what I was born to do,” said Lowery.
He put in “a ton of hours” in the early days, a lot of that time spent on location with clients observing their processes, their priorities, and their pain points.
“Some clients didn’t even know what they didn’t know,” noted Lowery. “It felt like we spent a lot of time around 2009 to 2010 doing a lot of coaching.”
Looking back, he feels fortunate to have learned that way.
“When your approach is focused on what the client’s needs are, I’ve found things fall into place the way they should,” said Lowery. “Being more on the front line, you get a good sense of what’s important to the client.”
Listening skills are even more important when selling production print, as client relationships shift to putting less emphasis on one-time sales and more on building long-term partnerships. Lowery appreciates the flexibility Applied Imaging enjoys as an independent dealer, not being tied into one brand or product line. This allows him to let the client’s needs guide his recommendations, rather than trying to “fit a square peg into a round hole,” as he joked.
“Too often the client gets force-fed what the vendor might have,” he said. “We don’t have that issue.”
One of the things Lowery credits his department’s success with is his belief in taking the time to discover a client’s needs, rather than rushing to close a deal, any deal. That’s something he’s had to change a few minds about since it can run counter to the tenets of traditional sales philosophy.
“Some of the reps are so quick to sell something—certainly, the tenured reps,” Lowery said. “We would all be in a bad spot if we didn’t sell equipment, but if you follow the right steps, you follow the process, you actively listen to the needs are of the client, they’ll tell you what you need to do.”
Lowery advises all his reps to find ways to connect with their clients as problem-solvers, not salespeople. Too often when a sales rep walks through the door, people tense up, dreading a hard-sell pitch that can be awkward on both sides.
“Look at the way a client treats a sales rep when they walk through the door versus a service technician,” he said. “It’s, ‘Oh, you’re here to sell us something, not here to help us.’”
His solution? Make the sales reps part of the service team. When a client schedules a new install, he sends his reps in “right there, with all the service folks, so they don’t see a difference between sales and service.” But, he warned, that only works if the reps are committed to attaining a high level of technical expertise, so they can be ready not only to answer clients’ questions but also to ask the right ones themselves.
“The most powerful position anybody on the sales side of our organization and where they can be the most important is where they’re seen by the influencer on the decision,” said Lowery. “That will give you an advantage if you’re speaking the same language that user is. If you’re meeting them with open ears, they aren’t just talking to a sales rep who understands a very small portion of what they’re talking about. You bring a team that has experience in the areas that they are interested in, and we really connect the dots from there.”
One thing Lowery has learned from his years of listening to clients and monitoring the trends in production print, as well as graphic design, packaging design, and marketing, is the increasing importance of quality in printed materials. Today’s consumers, whether they are B2B or end-users, are simply more discerning than they used to be. They recognize quality print when they see it, and they judge companies accordingly.
“One thing people gravitate toward is the feel of the print,” said Lowery. “For the general user, the bar is set pretty high. I almost feel like I can tell if it’s a company that I would consider buying something from or not based on that. If I request a brochure from a manufacturer of forestry equipment, I’m going to expect that the quality of the equipment is reflected in the quality of the piece I get, and that it’s customized to me.”
The gap between generic and custom, between good-enough and great, is where sales are won or lost, and that’s what Lowery, in his role as a trusted expert, tries to help his clients see.
“That printed piece is who that company is, and you can feel it,” he said. “It’s consistent with what their messaging is, and that’s where you’re getting traction.”
And just because he sells production print equipment doesn’t mean Lowery tells every client with production-print needs that buying equipment will solve their problems. For clients with smaller or more sporadic production demands, he sometimes pairs them with a larger client that already has a production-print setup they’re looking to put to greater use. Client A gets their print job done, and Client B gets to improve their print volume—two happy companies benefitting from their partnership with Applied Imaging.
“To me, it’s really exciting to be that problem-solver and help people realize their dreams,” said Lowery.
Once Lowery realized that production print sales could be about solving problems, not just racking up numbers, the creative possibilities of his role started to seem endless. He has a strong interest in traditional printing techniques like woodcuts and letterpress, which for decades would have been impossible to imagine in a modern printing context. However, as the capabilities of production print technology expand, so does the range of ways print can be envisioned in marketing, packaging, and more. He recently had a traditional printer ask him to figure out a way to print on strips from a recycled conveyor belt.
“It was really heavy-duty stuff,” he recalled. “They would split the seam and then re-wind it and seal it, and then, they’d ship it to us. We brought the samples back, and it was just a huge hit.”
Embracing a solutions-oriented approach freed up Lowery to change the conversation from, “Can we do this?” to “How can we do this? This shift allows his partners to reap the rewards.
“If you keep the client’s best interests in mind, good things are going to happen,” concluded Lowery. KG
Emily Rodriguez, Sales Manager, Dealer Division, Hytec Dealer Services
Emily Rodriguez’s career at Hytec Dealer Services in Orlando, Florida, started with a leap of faith. She had been climbing the ladder at a local Florida mortgage company, working in commercial and residential lending, when the company she’d worked at for years was hit hard by the financial crisis. At first, she had no idea what she was going to do. Her career path didn’t just seem delayed, it seemed derailed. Then, a friend told her about a position that might be open at Hytec, a receptionist position. It was a step down from the role she had just left, but Rodriguez was undeterred.
“I thought, hey, I’ve moved up before at other companies,” Rodriguez recalled. “I can do it again.”
Eight months later, she did just that, moving up to customer service rep. Eighteen months after that, she was promoted to team lead, then to supervisor, and ultimately, to her current position as a sales manager. Today, she manages a team of sales reps of her own, selling OEM parts from five different manufacturers to local dealers.
“Dealers use our repair services because we save them up to 70%,” said Rodriguez. “The reason why we stand out and why we’ve been able to partner with the manufacturers is so we can get their support and their schematics. We get genuine OEM parts from them, which is a huge difference. Not only do they keep the dealer UL compliant, which is very important, but those parts are also going to last longer out in the field than a third-party part where the quality’s not going to be there and will just create another service call.”
It’s a trust-based business where client relationships run long and deep. Now that she’s building a team of her own, Rodriguez is careful to ensure that all her reps bring the right attitude to sales calls.
“Every new rep that comes in, I tell them all the time, it’s all about relationship building, relationship building, relationship building!” Rodriguez laughed. “We have great products, great quality, but we also have to have that great relationship, so it’s a pleasure to work with us. I make sure that we’re exceeding anybody’s expectations on quality and the customer support that we offer, and the response time as well. Nowadays, everybody wants everything yesterday.”
In an industry where downtime can incur significant losses, not only in productivity but also in damage to client relationships, Rodriguez and her team provide solutions on tight deadlines. Even with COVID-19 shutdowns in place, parts have to ship, and repairs have to happen. With most companies in America having to adapt quickly to a whole new way of working, delays are even more stressful for clients than usual, and repairs are top priority.
“Our service department is currently in the office right now, repairing boards,” said Rodriguez. “Our shipping and receiving department is in as well. We’ve separated the shifts, and we’re making sure they’re social distancing, and one person isn’t right next to the other. We also have the hand sanitizer, the gloves, and the masks.”
There are days when Rodriguez wishes she was still in the office too. Even though it’s a slower period for the industry as a whole, keeping her team connected and motivated is a full-time job. She’s an open-door manager who likes to keep the workplace mood energized, but that’s harder to do when everyone is working remotely.
“I have a big bell outside my office and if everything was too quiet, I’d ring it to wake everybody up,” said Rodriguez. “Because we’re not seeing each other now, I constantly send out communications about any little thing that happens, making sure the whole team is included so we’re all on the same page and moving forward together.”
Rodriguez credits a lot of her management style to her mentor at Hytec, Jennifer Amatucci, vice president of business development. Amatucci, who has also risen through the ranks at Hytec, has always been someone Rodriguez could reach out to for support and advice.
“It’s been very meaningful to me to follow in her footsteps,” said Rodriguez. “She was in my position when she started with the company. It has empowered me to see another woman who has moved up and is knowledgeable about so many things. It let me know that I can do it as well.”
Amatucci’s mentorship didn’t just come in the form of one-on-one advice but structured professional development. She helped Rodriguez find ongoing educational opportunities through online learning and seminars, and most importantly, made herself available to answer the questions Rodriguez would be buzzing with after every class.
“Sometimes I’m like a little kid,” acknowledged Rodriguez. “But why? But why? I like to have as much information as possible so I can be confident in my decisions.”
Rodriguez also wants her team to be armed with as much information as possible because expertise is make-or-break in service sales where clients are often frustrated by a problem they urgently need solved. She expects her team to process large volumes of information and always be ready for more.
“Sometimes my team asks me a simple question, and I give them this huge answer because I want them to understand,” she said. “I don’t want to just give them an answer. I want them to know this is what happened before, this is why I’m saying this, and these are the different scenarios that could happen, so that’s why we’re going with this route. I need them to truly comprehend what’s going on so it can help them in the future and help them train other people. It’s kind of a domino effect.”
But much like in a classroom, Rodriguez’s team needs to feel empowered before they’re comfortable seeking out knowledge on their own. Admitting you don’t know something is acknowledging vulnerability, so her training style can’t work if her employees don’t trust her and each other. For some reps who came up in a more authoritarian, take-your-orders-and-like-it environment, this shift in attitude can be a learning goal.
“I don’t want them to make mistakes because they were afraid to ask,” said Rodriguez. “I tell them I don’t know how things have been with your past employers, but here, I want you to ask questions. If you don’t ask questions, I’m going to think something’s wrong. Asking questions is good because the more you ask, the more you learn.”
Over her tenure at Hytec, Rodriguez has learned how to be a problem-solver, a manager, and a mentor, all because she embraced taking risks, asking questions, and saying yes. Her goal is to always do her best work on every task, no matter how big or small.
“I’ve always been one to say, you go to work to put your best foot forward,” said Rodriguez. “That’s just what I’ve always done.” KG
Lindsay Usherwood, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Usherwood Office Technology
In the spring of 2017, Lindsay Usherwood was sitting at a Syracuse, New York, restaurant with her father, Lou, president of Usherwood Office Technology, and the rest of her immediate family, celebrating her decision to join the family business. Lindsay was wrapping up her second year of law school. After several years of exploring other avenues, including a marketing internship at New York’s LDI Color ToolBox, a move to Germany to study languages, and a clerkship for a New York state judge, she felt confident she was making the right decision to continue her legal career working for the company her grandfather, Charlie Usherwood, started.
“When you work for the government, you can certainly help people in a certain way,” said Lindsay. “But, when you work for your family’s company, you’re really in the community in which you live. It’s still giving your life to people and enabling them to help support the families of your employees. I could see this through my dad, my grandfather, and my uncle (Charlie Usherwood, corporate vice president and chief technology officer).”
However, during that dinner, Lindsay’s phone buzzed with news she had been offered a congressional internship with John Katko [NY-24] in Washington, D.C. Instantly, she was torn between her passion for politics and her drive to contribute to Usherwood, one of New York’s premier dealerships offering IT services and support. Without hesitation, her family encouraged her to take the internship, move to D.C. for the summer, and finish her final year of law school.
“I had this inner conflict between politics and business,” said Lindsay. “I came home from my internship, and my dad started talking to me about expanding the business into New England. It was an opportunity to be the Usherwood in Boston, as the focal point of greater New England. To be able to come to work every day, to build something, to invest in something and do it with my family, the decision was a no-brainer.”
After she completed her law degree at Syracuse University in the spring of 2018, Lindsay moved to the burgeoning Seaport area in Boston to begin the initial steps of setting Usherwood’s New England anchor. That summer, she studied for the bar and returned to Buffalo to take the exam, since Usherwood’s headquarters remains in New York. Without missing a beat, Lindsay returned to Boston, stepping into the role of general counsel at Usherwood’s newly opened Boston office, along with the company’s regional sales manager, Frank Nomes.
“I didn’t know what I didn’t know,” said Lindsay, who entered the industry from the administrative side, rather than through the sales side. “Usherwood had never had a company attorney. So, not only were we fresh in New England, I was also in a position we’d never had before.”
For the first few months, Lindsay set to work establishing and clarifying Usherwood’s human resources policies, gaining an understanding of how these policies work together to support employees and how the company works from an administrative point of view.
“I spent this time learning the landscape of the business and getting my feet on the ground,” said Lindsay. “It was very exciting. Obviously, being from Syracuse and now living and working in Boston, you walk down the street and you can just feel the opportunity. I woke up every day, so excited to get to work because I was learning so much.”
Though Lindsay had not worked for a private company or in a traditional law office as an attorney, she was able to map her legal role at Usherwood through her own thorough research and by calling on tenured corporate attorneys. She quickly found her way.
After two years in her role, she spends about 15% of her time on legal-based matters, with the majority of her time now dedicated to compliance. Since Usherwood operates across New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, there are myriad laws for the company to adhere to. The recent COVID-19 pandemic is only one example of how Lindsay is balancing each state’s laws to ensure the dealership remains in compliance with each state, as well as keeps its employees and customers safe and healthy.
“Some states are opening faster than others,” said Lindsay. “Some states require masks. Any aspect of the business you can think of, every state has their own rules. It’s something new every day.”
This legal vantage point has given Lindsay the opportunity to also be forward looking about some of Usherwood’s solutions.
“For example, in our managed IT group, there was a law passed in New York state about data privacy,” said Lindsay. “Researching the law, understanding it, and educating the team about it gave us the opportunity to develop a solution that we are now rolling out to our customers.”
Marketing is another area where Lindsay gets involved. Being new to Boston, she has been networking and working with the sales team to spread the word about Usherwood and what the dealership can do for its customers. Lindsay recently organized a ‘dark web’ event at the UMass Club, bringing in law firms from Boston for a lunch-and-learn session. It was a valuable opportunity to connect with local firms and showcase Usherwood’s expertise.
Lindsay also works closely with both of her sisters, Lauren Usherwood, the dealership’s human resources director, based in New York, and Leslie Usherwood, who recently moved to Boston. Together, they are fully committed to not only the company, but also to the dealership’s employees.
“Our No. 1 investment is our employees,” said Linsday. “We are constantly striving to provide them with the tools for their roles, as well as certifications in fields that allow growth in areas where they are passionate. As a team and individually, my sisters and I are all deeply passionate about this industry and have really grown into being a part of the family business.” SE
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