When our Dad was the National President, ABC started the Award of Excellence in 1990. (Volunteer leader is now called the Chair, and the award has since changed to Excellence in Construction.) So last year, when we found out Willmar Electric had won our first ever Eagle Award (1st place), we immediately knew our Dad needed to be at the ceremony.
The project’s name is the Lower Sioux Intergenerational Cultural Incubator. It is a first-class meeting facility in Morton, Minnesota. The people who worked on-site and oversaw the project’s completion did an excellent job. They represented us well, and we are proud of their work.
But today, we need to focus on the people who came before this project.
The plaque will always have the project’s name on it, and officially, it is the project that won the award. But the systems that made the project successful started in 1920.
At Willmar Electric, we are proud of our core values, brand promise, and purpose statement. They are fundamental to everything we do. We hire people based on them and promote people based on them. All our success is measured based on how we are doing at upholding them.
Purpose Statement
People Making a Difference for People
Core Values
Treat Others the Way You Want to be Treated
Merit Shop
Thrifty
Meet Customer Needs
Brand Promise
On-Time, Organized, Approachable
Our Dad said to Justin and me our Great Grandfather, Grandfather, and Great Uncle would be proud of the company we are running today. We told him he had just as much to do with this project’s success as we did. He laughed, but we weren’t joking.
Of course, it goes beyond the former owners of Willmar Electric. The people who worked on this project were mentored by coworkers who had never stepped foot on this project. Support staff for the project also never made their way to the project site but are part of making Willmar Electric a success.
As someone pointed out, the people who worked on the project didn’t pick to work on this project. The people who work on-site were selected and assigned by managers who considered many factors of who to put on this project. The people who did work on-site did a great job. (Award-winning, in fact.) But we believe if a different group of people had been chosen, those people also would have done an award-winning job.
So, we all share in the award—each member of the team. At Willmar Electric, we consider ourselves to be one team. A group of people making a difference for each other and the people around us.
We thank our Dad for building a solid foundation. We thank our coworkers for maintaining a culture of excellence. Award-winning excellence.