If you want an inside look at the inner workings of the Food Safety and Sanitation industry, look no further than Gil Truesdale. As the Vice President of Sales and Corporate Accounts for ORR Safety, Gil has over 30 years of experience developing and implementing initiatives that keep post-production facilities safe and compliant.
Tell me about your experience working in the Food Safety and Sanitation industry?
Gil: “I have over 30 years of experience working in the food sanitation industry on a global level and started back in 1986 when I was creating strategic safety plans for post-production food plants. Post-production food is where most of my experience lies.”
What are the biggest pain points or challenges you’ve been able to solve for customers within this industry?
Gil: “In a food facility you are protecting the product from the people. If the product becomes contaminated, you can’t sell it. In a lot of cases, they are unable to determine where contamination ends and begins, so they throw it all away and start over. Profitability goes down each time they don’t have a good process in place. That’s where we come in. It’s important for us to understand what issues and recordables each customer is facing because problems cost money, money costs time, time costs production, and production is money. ”
How do you establish trust with each customer and help them overcome these obstacles?
Gil: “By making sure the customer clearly understands that we know their business, and are available to drive compliance and solutions to their safety and sanitation needs. Their time is limited in a production facility, so coming in prepared to listen to their issues, and setting a timeline for resolution is a critical factor in the credibility and success of our program.”
What do you find the most rewarding about your job?
Gil: “The process of evaluating customer needs and delivering solutions that keep their employees safer than before they called ORR, is a personal win for me, a win for the customer, and an ultimate win for ORR Safety. There is a lot of satisfaction in this job.”
Out of the other companies you’ve worked for in the past, how does ORR set itself apart from other safety companies?
Gil: “ORR Safety is not just about selling products. We focus on solutions, which are driven by products. We are nimble enough to tweak a program to fit the customer’s needs, and not every distributor can offer that. It is our focus, and deliverable that sets us apart.”
CLICK HERE to learn more about the 5S Lean Manufacturing Method.
FOR MORE INFORMATION and sanitation manager resources, click here.
