Your Ally For A Better Business

Capable. Honest. Effective. Noticeably able to see what is amiss, honest with his judgements.

Biography

With business as the strict teacher that it is, Stephen Heckman learned many lessons as the owner of a painting and decorating business that he built from a one-man operation. After serving two tours in the U. S. Air Force as a jet fighter crew chief and maintenance instructor, he was hired as a paperhanger trainee. Within a year he bought the papering business from his boss and developed it into an award-winning, standard-setting painting and decorating business serving the most discriminating clients in the area.

The solid reputation Heckman's business enjoyed came from understanding what his clients wanted and expected. They came from all all demographics, from a young couple with a 2-bedroom home to mansions of the affluent - but each of them received the same standard - a high quality product with staff that were trained to his demanding expectation of quality and conduct.

After 17 years he sold the business to his trusted friend and foreman. Heckman sought consulting opportunities by focusing on "the trades", who, at that time, had a notorious reputation for frustrating their customers. While momentum was building, an opportunity to work as the Human Resource & Safety Manager for one of his former clients at his family's 83-year old business was offered to him. The warehouse and distribution business was labor-intensive in a difficult, challenging industry with over 200 union and non-union employees, $200 million in annual sales, and a fleet of DOT/FMCSA trucks delivering temperature-controlled, warhoused product regionally. It was an enormous undertaking.

Heckman reported directly to the three owners, who, with their combined experience eclipsing 100 years, mentored him with invaluable business tenets. Coupled with the vast duties of his position, all of these elements added experience that substantially broadened his understanding of a larger-scale businesses.

In retrospect, pausing his consulting dream to work for his client came with enormous dividends. Heckman remained at the now 100-year old company for 17 years until he resigned to pursue consulting in 2023 - but this time with a much broader scope.

Both businesses were vastly different. Both presented broad exposures to tasks and responsibilities that had been previously unknown to Heckman. Nearly everything he did had to be learned and mastered. The process included adversities and achievements, failures and successes, but insight, knowledge, understanding and "how things ought to be" values emerged in him. He recognized an inherent insight had formed inside of him and he cultivated it. That forms a core aspect of his approach.