A Semco Success Story
Our Sales Manager Filip learned everything he knows about graphite manufacturing through working at Semco – literally everything.
An American Success Story
Filip is from Romania where he worked in the Quality Control/Assurance field. While Romania was the land of his birth and the place where he met his wife, the southeastern European nation offered little economic opportunity for Filip, even with his engineering degree. He and his wife turned their eyes to America, and Filip set out on what he calls his “typical American success story.” Lucky for us and our clients, Filip landed at Semco and is now an integral part of our team and an expert in the field of graphite manufacturing.
A New Beginning
Ten years ago, no one would have called Filip a graphite manufacturing expert, least of all Filip himself. He was hired because Semco leadership recognized a great engineer. He was, in baseball terms, a prospect, one that has paid off very well for Semco. One of Semco’s strengths is the stability of its leadership team and workforce, allowing for the accumulation of an enormous bank of institutional knowledge about graphite manufacturing, from industrial applications to chemical and physical properties of graphite. Semco’s leadership can therefore hire excellent engineers and train them in the specialized field that Semco leads. That is Filip’s story. He was a talented young engineer in Romania, but grew quickly frustrated with the lack of opportunities for advancement and professional growth. On a whim, he applied to Semco, even though he knew little to nothing about graphite manufacturing. After being hired and relocating to Ohio, his first responsibilities at Semco were in the Quality Control department. This is a field Filip knew something about, and he cut his teeth with Semco in this role for several years. Through intense study and training, Filip became more familiar with graphite and its many uses in industry. Watching Vince, Matt, and the rest of the Semco team help clients solve the most tasking problems gave him the experience he needed (determining the exact silver-graphite impregnation ratios for a new class of wind turbines is not something one learns from a textbook) to work with clients himself to solve problems large and small, simple and knotty.
New and Emerging Challenges
Today, consulting with new and existing clients is Filip’s favorite part of the job. As Filip points out about working at Semco, “Every day we discuss a new project. Every day a new customer comes with a different problem.” Years of this kind of problem solving have made Filip the graphite expert he is today.
Filip has no regrets about his family’s decision over a decade ago to move to Ohio, a place as alien to he and his wife as Romania was to his new Lorain neighbors. Even though they only had $2000 to their names, and were barely 20 at the time, Filip had the confidence that whatever field he worked in, he could make his mark through study and hard work. Now, the sense of fulfillment Filip gets from using everything he’s studied and learned about graphite manufacturing makes coming to work at Semco every day a joy. “I like solving problems,” Filip remarks, “and the team here is technically geared toward solving customers’ issues.”
“That is great.”
Indeed. And so is Filip.