Matthew August

CEO Lacks Leadership, Education, Direction and Experience The salary and benefits are well below market average. Salary was $20k less, had less than average holidays off, one week of vacation, no retirement plan to speak of (company doesn't have a match program but only a voluntary contribution...when they volunteered to contribute it was 0.3% of salary), no equity or bonus opportunity, and no tuition reimbursement program. Employee appreciation and recognition is non-existent. I was amazed to find the company doesn't provide drinking water (except out of the kitchen sink) for employees. It is a small company with a small revenue and profit margin so opportunities for advancement are severely limited. In general, the company has long tenured employees with little to no education and little to no experience in any other company so if you have any, it's not regarded too highly or considered. These employees seem to be protected regardless of performance. They are perfectly nice but lack some basic skills that their roles need to be successful at. They could be developed but it is much easier to bring a new professional employee in who not only already has these skills but has demonstrated experience using them successfully. CEO is highly emotional and boarders on reckless with decision making. He has no education or experience in a role of this magnitude and it shows. He is bright and knowledgeable of the product and industry but not savvy with management or leadership. He too often is worried not about what's best for the company but what's best for his ego. He'd rather be right than do what's right. He also likes to reinvent the wheel when there are proven methods and products that have already successfully been proven to work. Relationships and outside of work fellowship weigh more importantly than proven results (ie office politics). There were examples where liked employees didn't perform and were preferred over employees who did perform but just weren't best buddies outside of work. His communication skills are lacking severely and, in my opinion, he is holding this company back tremendously. His chosen IT strategy is unsustainable as it is a proprietary developed system supported by one company which is expensive and they don't provide good service. The overall company business of customization is difficult but doable. However, with the current philosophy, it isn't scaleable as there are fundamental bottlenecks in product development (part numbering structure, document control, BOM/DWG creation, etc.). There is no way the company grows without addressing these issues and it would take a complete overhaul of the way business is currently done because no one there has experience or has seen how every other company does this successfully. The Board of Directors and the CEO are NOT on the same page. Whereas the Board seems to know what they are doing and emphasize evaluating staff and holding them accountable and results are more important than the social aspect of work, the CEO is exactly opposite and values social aspects over results and doesn't hold employees accountable for their poor performance. There is high turnover here in every department and the only ones that stay really don't have any other option as they have no education or experience outside of this company to fall back on. Eventually, the CEO will be found out by the rest of the board but until then, it is a very unstable environment to work in.