From The Green Room:
Barry-Wehmiller is a multimillion dollar global engineering/manufacturing company you’ve probably never heard of and yet “touch” multiple times each week. Close to 95% of all the cardboard used in the U.S. is made on a BW machine (that’s virtually every cereal box at your grocery store). 80% of the world’s medicines pass through a BW-engineered centrifuge. BW holds the patent on those little metal clasps on our manila envelopes and makes the pull-off tabs that top most soda cans.
They do it all with about 12,000 employees worldwide. But CEO Bob Chapman doesn’t see them as employees. He sees them as “somebody’s precious children.”
Chapman’s been running the company for decades. But his leadership style—which is all about putting people first—dramatically changed when he began to understand the idea of each person’s deep worth as made in God’s image. He learned it through his Episcopal Church. He’d marveled at the good influence his rector had in shaping the lives of the congregants. Then, Chapman realized that he, too, had a “congregation.” In fact, his congregation at BW was larger and instead of having them in his sphere of care just one hour per week, he had them for 40+. Chapman found himself thinking: “What if we used that time we have people in our care to help shape their life and give them a chance to be who they’re intended to be?”
