It's been fairly quiet on KnowProSE.com lately, and that's mainly because of a new company in my portfolio: Rampersad's General Electrical Engineering, Ltd, (RGEE) based out of Trinidad and Tobago. I was appointed as a Director there and, of late, have been trying to figure out how to balance everything. Clearly, the company needs a website - something I expected years before when I registered motor-rewinding.com -but there are a lot of other things that are a little more important to deal with in that business.
My paternal grandfather started the business in 1936. He had a gift; he'd studied in Chicago and despite being offered a scholarship he returned to Trinidad and Tobago where he began the business off the back of his motorcycle - bringing home motors to work on in his 'spare' time. It was the right business at the right time; it grew as the family did. The business sustained and educated his 7 children. Now that the men of that generation have passed on with the exception of one who is incapacitated after a stroke, it falls to my generation to continue the business. When I was asked if I should be considered to be a Director by the Corporate Secretary, I agreed - not really expecting to become a Director. Within a day, I was the Director.
It's taking some time to adjust. Every day that passes, I get a better understanding of what being the Director means. It's a humbling experience but it's also an adventure in and of itself. A company in an industry that the Chinese are spamming with cheap motors that cannot be rewound - throwaway motors unlike the motors of yesteryear that were built to last. But it's still an important industry - competitive even in Trinidad and Tobago, with a national population dwarfed by any major city population in the United States.
Even so, the company is viable and I see a lot of places where modern technologies and documentation processes can increase the value of the work that we do at RGEE. And so much of my time, of late, has been working toward those ends. Almost every change of management that I've experienced has come with some form of reorganization, if only to rename the coffee maker. Because of my experience, I'm leery of any form of reorganization - but the information can readily be reorganized. Structured. Characterized. It can be made more worthwhile internally and externally to clients. Accounting, Sales and Operations will be able to share information in ways that leapfrog the last 20 years of technology shifts. Internal databases. A website that customers can log in to with reports on their motors, and much more.
And so one of KnowProSE.com's first clients, though unofficial, is the family business that my grandfather started and that my father, Uncles and Aunts all contributed to over the years. The pay, at present, sucks - but it's a fun project and one I expect will be rewarding in the long term. It's definitely exciting.
