Women in Manufacturing - Caltronics’ President - Cindy Houdek
In this final post in our monthlong series on women in the manufacturing industry, we’re going to catch up with Caltronics Design & Assembly’s founder and president, Cindy Houdek. Having a hand in production, accounting, quality, and building the company culture, the president position can easily be argued to be the toughest position at the company. Cindy routinely proves she has the right experience and gumption to be a leader who is approachable while still maintaining the professionalism required to create a business that doesn’t just stay open, but grows every year. Read on to get a clearer idea of her story as a woman who has been a leader in the industry for almost 30 years.
How long have you been president of the company?
Since August 1995, when we formed the company.
What was your work experience prior to this position?
No experience in electronics. I did bookkeeping/financials duties for 16 years. Following my kids getting settled into school, I went back to college and obtained a BA from St. Thomas in Quantitative Methods in Computer Science.
What initiatives have you overseen to improve things at the company?
To always be growing. Not just sales and the number of people, but exploring ways for my employees and I to grow as individuals. People stick around when they feel invested in, and I know that knowledgeable people are more likely to make informed decisions, so one of my main initiatives has been to explore training beyond the required certifications. To take helpful ideas from my employees and implement them. They know what is needed to improve our processes and workplace. I’ve been around long enough to know I don’t always see those things.
So we don’t go down 29 years of initiatives I’ll share one more recent one. When Covid-19 hit our supply chain was hit hard, as happened for everyone in our industry. So, we had to get creative and be as smart as we could with our purchases and inventory. Four years on now, and while the pandemic has subsided and the supply chain is in a vastly recovered state, the changes we made persist. Having talked with my team, we’ve improved the accuracy and efficiency in how we do inventory, and now we have a leaner and smarter operation. Being able to tweak processes in the face of economic problems has been crucial to our staying open through the 2008 crisis, the pandemic in 2020, and I’m proud to say our team’s ability to adapt to any situation has been the success of the company for nearly 3 decades.
What has been your biggest takeaway from being a leader in the workplace? What do you feel you have gotten out of it?
The hardest lesson to learn was that I can’t do everything myself. I learned to surround myself with people that were knowledgeable about all the things that I was not. To simply let them do their thing and to know that they are doing it well. The struggle to lead in a mostly man’s environment, was real. I was blessed to have my husband as a partner/minority owner, but so many people always assumed he was the president and would pass right over me, that there were times it led to frustration. I feel I get the strength of others to push me into being a better leader, to be humble instead of “proud”. For me, and perhaps the business world over, I feel the term leader has changed over the years – from being the one in “power” to being the one “empowered”. I love my team!
From our Trailblazers to Yours
Caltronics is lucky to have Cindy blazing a trail as our president and we can’t wait for her and the rest of the team to help you with your next project as you blaze your own trail. To get started, contact us for a quote or with questions today.