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The Valve Stem
Inside the Stem:
Front Page - New Employees’
General Manager - Page 2
Plant Manager/Spotlight - Page 3
Editor News - Page 4
Wedge Coat - Page 5
Environmental - Page 6
Alabama Students - Page 7
Birthdays/ Anniversaries - Page 8
Newsletter Comments ?
Tommy Fielder Managing Editor
(256)-741-6242
Pam Greene Assistant Editor
(256) 741-6246
Christy Mabry Receptionist
Ron Denson
Foundry Maintenance
Supervisor
Oscar Lopez
Cleaning Room
Utility
Kennedy Cooper
Cleaning Room
Utility
Please welcome our new employees, See page 3 for additional new employees. Any stories or pictures you want to share in our paper please contact Tommy Fielder
Casey Milstead
Cleaning Room
Utility
Robert Edmondson
Cleaning Room
Utility
Ivan Lopez
Cleaning Room
Utility
Iron Man Reflects
Iron Bowl 2013
Mickey Benadum
Cleaning Room
Utility
Juan Perez
Cleaning Room
Utility
Stephen Carter
Cleaning room
Utility
1st Quarter
2014
Page 2
From the Desk of Tony Orlowski
Being Average is Brutal
Football fans love to follow their favorite players and often dream of playing in the NFL themselves. With all that
money and fame, could there be a better job? In my opinion, the answer is, “Yes. Lots of them.” We typically see only
what we want to see (in this case a star’s success), but not every player in the NFL has the same experiences as your
heroes.
I used to pay close attention to preseason, watching good athletes fighting tooth and nail for a job. It’s a sobering
statistic that the typical NFL career lasts only about three years. That means an average player is always on the bubble,
making decisions that may be harmful to his long-term health just to keep a roster spot, and constantly wondering after
all that when someone is going to take his job. In short, the “average” NFL football player has a very hard, stressful life.
In fact, the guys who never make the cut may be better off since they’re then free to pursue things they may excel in
rather than hanging onto football by their fingernails.
“Interesting” you may say. “But is this just another newsletter article that doesn’t have anything to do with working at
M&H?” Of course, as always, the answer to that is – it depends entirely upon you. However, I will say that if you think
this only plays out in the NFL, you are very wrong. It happens in every business, every day, including ours. Like
football players, there are three basic types of organizations, and it’s a conscious decision which they are.
An organization can decide to be poor, with poor service and quality and costs that are above what customers will pay.
Poor organizations don’t make the cut and eventually go out of business, but working at them can be okay because no
one demands too much and the low pay is good for what little is required of you. It also makes a fine place to kill time
while you consider what you’re going to do when it all ends.
A more common decision is to be average. This is an easy decision because it allows management to be undemanding
and set minimum performance standards that an average employee could hit. Hiring is easy because there’s a large pool
of average people to choose from. The problems start when those standards collide with market expectations. The
market is brutal. It’s hard working for an average business because being constantly on the bubble leaves little room for
profit, so there’s very little the company has to offer you other than the opportunity to show up tomorrow for another
very long slog. You’ll probably survive but go home beaten up every day, and the money available to pay you will
never seem like it’s worth the beating.
The final choice is to pursue excellence. It’s difficult finding, retaining and developing people committed to doing an
excellent job, and they command high wages. It’s also not fun being critical of people for areas needing improvement,
or holding them accountable and setting high standards and stretch goals. That makes employees and their managers
uncomfortable. The upside is that costs, quality, service and profits sail over the bars set by the average firms. Working
at excellent firms is challenging but fun with lots of growth opportunities, and the company can afford to treat you like
the valuable contributor you are.
I’ve been in all three types of firms, and overwhelmingly I choose the last. Are we there yet at M&H? I don’t think we
can say that, but we are committed and on the way. And as we work toward being excellent we need to make sure we
all get into roles that we enjoy and are good at. Like football players who don’t make the cut that go on to be successful
broadcasters, lawyers or whatnot, the brutality of being average pushes us to where we are above average. Just your
average group of people who are all above average working for a great company. Sounds like a recipe for success to me.
Tony Orlowski
Page 3
Steve Norman started his career at M&H Valve on July 28th
1997. Since then he has worked in the foundry, machine shop,
and most recently in the shipping department. Steve was mar-
ried this month, and is the proud parent of three children. -
-Steve’s favorite pastime is coaching basketball at Gadsden
State, which he has done for the past eight years.
- I would like to say I have enjoyed working with Steve over
the past years,. He has always had a great personality and an
award winning attitude. By: Tommy Fielder
Employee Spotlight
Above pictured left to right, Richard Miller Foundry Maintenance Manager, Michael
Walker Electrical Engineer, Scott Hartman Core Room Supervisor and Desmond Woodruff Cleaning Room Utility.
Steve Norman Shipping Department
Also Not Pictured please welcome Cleaning Room employees Bryan Garcia Luna, Adrian Fernandez, and Victor Luna
As everyone probably noticed we have several new faces here at M&H and several familiar faces with new opportunities. I feel
very good about where we are and the opportunities we have in front of us. There is no doubt there will be growing pains, but at the
foundation we are still the same great core group of people striving for excellence. To those new faces, we are glad to have you
here at M&H Valve and look forward to the future. To those that have chosen to take advantage of new opportunities here at M&H,
thank you for all you have done and congratulations. To the rest of the team, you have built M&H into the great organization that it
is today. Further, you are the key to teaching and mentoring the new team members we have. Without you M&H would likely fail
as would the new team members. However, together we will build this organization into an even stronger one that is in a position to
succeed for years to come. Mark Willett
From The Desk Of Mark Willett
These pictures were taken of an M&H Valve Hydrant donated to the
“Tigers for Tomorrow” exotic animal park and rescue preserve.
Pictured left to right, Trevor Willett age 7 and Dylan Willett age 3.
Proudly Made In The
U.S.A.
Page 4
Snow Fell On
Alabama As forecaster's predicted a no - accumulation snow day, we were hit hard with temperatures well below the
freezing mark as snow began to fall and no relief in sight throughout the day.
Employees struggled just to get home as traffic was at a standstill, most spent hours on local roads and
highways that were announced officially closed about two hours into the snowfall. Forecasters later an-
nounced one to two inch accumulations were possible, while in reality most were seeing up to four or five
inches. A special thanks to all employees who shared their pictures with us. Steve Munroe’s fire hydrant
picture at his home looked like most of Calhoun and Etowah counties before night fall.
Tommy Fielder Editor
DeWayne Dynasty
Georgia Vinson Laura Cornutt Spent Hours Getting Home
DeWayne, And The Bean Gang
Highway 21 Near Zaxby’s by Adam Hunter
Steve Munroe's Home In Gadsden Well Protected
Road Behind The Plant by Adam Hunter
Mike Fulmer’s Ride Home
Winston Churchill once stated: “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The
optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.” I am looking at it in an optimistic way where the
problems we are having right now are only going to make us a better and stronger operation in
the long run. Wedge Coat operations could be moving along a little quicker to suit everyone
here at M&H; however we are bound, bent and determined to make sure things are right prior
to production. The 8” mold was returned to us and we performed another run off. The 8” Gates
for phase 2 were an improvement over phase 1 but we still saw some issues that must be
corrected. The mold was sent back to Desma for evaluation, and additional machine work will
be completed. Kelsey and Kirk both have been working extremely hard to identify the problem
areas. We are expecting the mold back and another run off to be completed the first part of
March. The 4” mold is behind schedule from Desma. They were plagued with some machine
breakdowns as well as some bad weather such as we experienced.
I received word from Desma that the next Injection Mold machine is on the way. It left
Germany February 14th and is scheduled to arrive at M&H the week of March 10th, but there is
a possibility the vessel will arrive in port ahead of schedule and we could have it a week
earlier. Preparations are being made now to accommodate an early arrival. Desma personnel
plan to be in the plant after the machine arrives for the official installation. All support
equipment except one oven is here and Maintenance is in the process of installing the utility
requirements.
From the production side of things we had a good month, considering we missed some
key production days due to inclement weather. We still produced over 6000 parts and we were
very pleased with our scrap percentage of less than 1%. Thanks go out to Jason and Kevin for
making that happen.
Josh Sweatt from the Cleaning Room was awarded the Wedge Coat Operator position
late February and will be moved to Wedge Coat as soon as possible. He has an extensive
background in production work as well as supervision. His responsibilities will include all
functions of Wedge Coat Operations which I am sure he will excel in. Josh will be a key factor
in helping to satisfy our customer requirements as we continue to grow in our business.
Congratulations Josh! We are all looking forward to you being part of this department.
Thanks , Mike
Page 5
Mike Fulmer
Wedge Coat Mgr.
Wedge Coat
Page 6
Since 2004 McWane has had a website where Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) proce-
dures and work instructions are posted. Each facility has their own EHS work instructions
posted on this website.
During this year, M&H will be implementing the posting of environmental work instructions
from this website. They will be posted in the plant near the areas where tasks are to be per-
formed, in an effort to refresh your memory on how to perform environmental tasks.
As an environmental work instruction is posted, your supervisor will have a tool box meeting
with you to cover it. Please be sure to review these and let your supervisor, Che’ George or
myself know when you have suggestions to improve the postings. Thanks Danny
Danny Lewis
Environmental Mgr.
For Generations To Come!!
Page 7
Friday, February 28th a group of eleven STEM students (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) from
the University of Alabama visited M&H Valve Company for a plant tour. M&H is looking to select a student from this
group to participate in a summer internship at the plant.
The University of Alabama STEM program focuses on attracting high-quality undergraduate students majoring
in the science, technology, engineering and math disciplines. The program is an innovative approach to engage students
early on as undergraduates and employ nontraditional-classroom methods to allow top students to complete the MBA in
one additional calendar year. needed to successfully manage businesses.
Tide Rolls In At M&H Valve
Page 8
April
Sue Thornburg - 2nd
James Butterworth - 3rd
Jerry Summerlin - 3rd
Noah Holt - 5th
Susan Johnson - 7th
Dennis Turner - 7th
Bryn Getto - 10th
Donald Baldwin - 14th
Sherrill Burt - 16th
Kenneth Higgins - 19th
Harold Westbrooks - 21st
Steve Griffith - 22nd
Jeffory Young - 24th
Willie Robinson - 24th
Shannon Payne - 25th
Gerome Mixon Jr. - 27th
Larry Mays - 30th
James Wade - 30th
May
Ecky Bryant - 3rd
Josh Seals - 18th
Cecil Beavers - 19th
Greg Davis - 25th
Barry Shears - 27th
Daniel McIntyre II - 31st
June
Donald Haynes - 2nd
Danielle Kiser - 3rd
Jim Meroney - 4th
Angie Robertson - 4th
Darryl Crump - 6th
Larry Bowers - 7th
Che’ George - 8th
Leonard Thomason - 13th
Robert N. Smith - 16th
Susan Roach - 20th
Henry Zastawnik - 21st
Gary Estes - 24th
Travanti Dates - 27th
Jack Williams - 30th
James Hannah - 30th
April : Years of Service
Leonard Thomason 2nd 2 yrs.
Jeff Rasmussen 4th 3 yrs.
Stacy Vree 9th 13 yrs.
Christopher Berta 10th 8 yrs.
Anthony Farfan 15th 18 yrs.
Alkera Garrett 17th 8 yrs.
Charles Sanders 21st 10 yrs.
Susan Johnson 22nd 12 yrs.
Cecil Payne 24th 19 yrs.
Jack Williams 25th 43 yrs.
Greg Hanners 27th 16 yrs.
Cedric Wright 29th 15 yrs.
Ryan Bordinger 30th 2 yrs.
May: Years of Service
David McKinney 1st 8 yrs.
Terry O’Dell 2nd 3 yrs.
Gerald Cheatwood 6th 1 yr.
Glenn Hanvey 8th 44 yrs.
David McPeek 13th 1 yr.
Gary Estes 15th 14 yrs.
Greg Davis 22nd 16 yrs.
James Wade 23rd 3 yrs.
James Butterworth 24th 42 yrs.
Ray McClay 24th 10 yrs.
Gary Ray 24th 15 yrs.
Donald Haynes 30th 8 yrs.
Christopher Morris 30th 14 yrs.
Harold Westbrooks 30th 41 yrs.
Jeremy Felton 31st 9 yrs.
Mark Willett 31st 14 yrs.
June: Years of Service
Mike Humphries 1st 16 yrs.
Steve Griffith 2nd 11 yrs.
David Lambert 2nd 11 yrs.
James Martin 3rd 12 yrs.
Tony Orlowski 10th 18 yrs.
Rocky Lanz 11th 13 yrs.
Frank Musich 11th 13 yrs.
Kendall Rush 12th 8 yrs.
Phillip Smith 13th 9 yrs.
Nicole Ferrebee 18th 15 yrs.
Alan Gaither 23rd 6 yrs.
Terry Heath 26th 12 yrs.
Gerome Mixon Jr. 28th 4 yrs.
Danny Ray Smith 28th 4 yrs.
Dave Acomb 29th 27 yrs.
Walker Hall 29th 4 yrs.
Benu Chakraborty 30th 26 yrs.
