Careers in manufacturing and engineering present a wide variety of interesting and exciting roles which play an essential part in our economy. In this blog, Exponential Power is featuring female team members throughout our organization who help make us a leading provider of stored power solutions and who encourage other women to consider a career in this important industry.
Nikki Felske, Production Supervisor
What does your role entail?
I oversee production. This includes building and testing forklift batteries, problem solving, training our team members, and keeping the warehouse on schedule.
What skills are required to do your job well?
I would say the best skill to have in this role is multi-tasking. Being in a supervisor role you get pulled in a lot of different directions. Other skills needed for this position would be communication, problem solving, being self-motivated and staying goal oriented.
How long have you worked in the manufacturing industry?
Exponential Power is actually my first manufacturing job. I’ve been here for 9.5 years.
What’s your favorite thing about the industry?
Being able to do something different every day and getting to see the product as a whole from start to finish.
What’s your favorite part of working at Exponential Power?
Even though we are a larger company, we still have that family feel. Everyone is a team player and willing to help each other out when needed. It’s a great feeling to work for a company when upper management takes the time to get to know their employees and makes everyone feel welcomed.
If you could give one piece of advice to women considering a career in manufacturing, what would it be?
Don’t be afraid to dive right in and get your hands dirty.
Cindy Leist, Chief Operating Officer
What does your role entail?
My job is to operationally execute on the strategic direction of the business and provide oversight of the business’ operations. Specifically, my focus is supply chain, production, applications engineering, services, warehousing and customer service.
What skills are required to do your job well?
Experience and listening to input. Being able to draw on my various supply chain career experiences helps me address challenges through various methods. Having strong team members at my side is equally important, because they have their own experiences and skills from which we can all draw.
How long have you worked in the manufacturing industry?
I have worked in Operations over 20 years.
What’s your favorite thing about the industry?
Energy storage is a rapidly growing, evolving industry. It is exciting to explore new offerings for our customers in battery chemistry, storage offerings and making a positive impact on our planet.
What’s your favorite part of working at Exponential Power?
Our passionate team. Our employees work closely with our customers and suppliers to ensure critical power is available when needed. Our entire team, across all departments, plays a critical role in the solutions that right now are keeping industrial applications operational, utilities providing electricity, data protected, telecom centers running and energy and motive applications operational. Very powerful and exciting.
If you could give one piece of advice to women considering a career in manufacturing, what would it be?
There is no barrier to entry for a woman in manufacturing. Do it! To be successful, put in the work, take every opportunity to learn first-hand all you can about production planning, labor management, supply sourcing and lean methodologies. Throughout my career I've learned the necessary skills alongside great team members. I draw on those experiences and partnerships daily to provide the best solutions for our customers.
Stephanie Hebbe, Production Planner
What does your role entail?
This role has grown over the years. It entails inventory checks, entering all new sales orders and confirming ship dates to sales and scheduling the new builds for production, creating work orders for the new builds for production, making sure production meets all deadline dates and working with used equipment/rentals.
What skills are required to do your job well?
nowing the product/inventory and the time it takes to build the product to plan and commit shipping to the sale/customers. Communication with the customers, sales and most importantly my production team is critical to our success.
How long have you worked in the manufacturing industry?
This is my first job working in the manufacturing/engineering industry. I have been with Exponential Power for five years now.
What’s your favorite thing about the industry?
It’s an industry that continues to grow and there’s always room to advance.
What’s your favorite part of working at Exponential Power?
My favorite part of working at Exponential is the people. Everyone works well together and brings a family type of feel to the workplace.
If you could give one piece of advice to women considering a career in manufacturing, what would it be?
I jumped into this job with no background or experience, and it was one of the best decisions I have made. Don’t hold back and believe you can adapt and succeed in manufacturing/engineering.
Kristi Longshore, Eastern Regional VP of Sales
What does your role entail?
I provide strategic direction and lead sales activities for the Stationary Power division in the Eastern Region of the United States.
What skills are required to do your job well?
One must have the ability to build strategic relationships, do business development, assist with closing complex projects in a fast-paced environment, and manage across teams to help with ensuring delivery of a quality product. It’s also important to have a successful history of exceeding metrics and a high level of product, industry and market knowledge.
How long have you worked in the manufacturing industry?
I’ve worked in the industry (DC Backup Power) since 2006.
What’s your favorite thing about the industry?
The people we serve are my absolute favorite! There is so much joy in helping our customers achieve the results they desire by providing them with appropriate solutions.
What’s your favorite part of working at Exponential Power?
Our team is comprised of some of our industry’s smartest and most passionate people.
If you could give one piece of advice to women considering a career in manufacturing, what would it be?
You are more than capable of exceling in this industry, and there’s a pathway to a great career trajectory. I recommend joining one of the many industry groups that focus on helping women in the technical fields advance in their careers.
