|
|
|
|
|
Close Up: Alan Vaught
By: Staff
Issue: 2009may
Alan Vaught, chief executive officer of supplier Evans Manufacturing, Inc. (UPIC: EVANS), started working at the Garden Grove, California-based company with his good friend and company founder Bruce Tricinella in 1984. About five years later, Tricinella sold the company to Vaught, who had previously owned several businesses including a metal fabrication company. During the past 19 years, he has grown Evans Manufacturing into one of the industry’s largest suppliers with sales of more than $30 million last year. Today Vaught lives in Huntington Beach, California, with his wife and two children. As a family, they enjoy outdoor activities, and Vaught earned his private pilot’s license and recently began aerobatic training.
How do you like to spend your leisure time? I enjoy boating and flying with my family.
What’s a little-known fact about you? I have never filled out a job application. I’ve always been self-employed.
What person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Jasper Meek, the man credited with starting the promotional products industry in 1886.
When did you know you wanted to work in this industry? I knew it when we sold more chip clips in one week through a promotional products distributor than we did in five years through retail stores (true story).
What product do you wish you had invented? I’d like to have invented WD-40 (Water Displacement formula 40). The name came from the fact that it took 40 attempts to get it right. Other than packaging, it is still sold today as the same formula developed in 1953. It’s a great inventor story about never giving up.
If you had a motto, what would it be? Do the right thing, even when nobody is looking.
What’s your dream vacation destination? The bush country in East Africa (where my wife grew up). We travel there about every other year.
Where do you get creative inspiration? The people I work with inspire my creativity.
If you had to choose a different career, what would it be? I would be a lounge singer. I would have to learn to play an instrument and sing first, but it has always been a dream of mine.
How do you relieve stress? By working in our research and development department. R & D requires total focus and puts me in a zone that takes me away from any stress that builds up. When it comes to in-house R & D, we have the best group of people in the industry. Working with this team is the most rewarding part of my job.
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Archives |
Subscribe |
Advertise |
FAQ |
Feedback |
Contact Us |
Site Map
|
|
|
Copyright (c) 2005-2010 Promotional Products Association International. All Rights Reserved.
Photographs and illustrations as well as text cannot be used without written permission from PPAI.
|
|
|
|
|