60 Seconds with Brian McNamara, Southworth Americas

Title: President and CEO

Location: Portland, Maine

Experience: 39 years at Southworth, 4 years as a Material Handling Institute Trustee, 18 years as a member of the MHI Board of Governors, and 4 years as an MHI Roundtable Representative.

Modern:You’re coming to the end of your materials handling career, but let’s take a step back to the beginning. When and how did you enter the industry?

McNamara: In 1981, I was a steel salesman, and Southworth had been one of my customers for a few years. One day, Dan Quinn, who was their newly promoted vice president of sales, offered me a position as a regional sales manager. Five title changes later, I became the president & CEO in 1992, a year after Dan, who’d held the position, moved to a different segment of our industry. The steel industry offered a great career, but I was looking for a something bit more interesting than selling pounds for dollars, and I certainly found it.

Modern: During your time with Southworth, how did the company grow and change?

McNamara: Southworth was founded in 1890, and like many older New England companies, it evolved as opposed to growing to a plan for the next century. The company had recently been acquired by only its third ownership family. The new owner wanted an exciting, fast-growing company that had to be a great place for people to work. That was the formula that made my 39-year career so enjoyable.

Modern: What were the most important changes in the industry in recent years?

McNamara: Early on, Southworth embraced ergonomics as its religion and distribution to sell its Bibles. Seriously, we saw the opportunity to do the right thing by making work faster, safer and easier for many tough jobs in factories, warehouses and, more recently, in stores. We were encouraged to hire great people and give them a sense of purpose. The textbooks are right, it creates a wonderful environment to manage.

Our ownership also encouraged and supported my volunteer time in our industry trade association, MHI. This participation was very beneficial for the company and me. MHI’s ability to host shows and its commitment to education provided super channels to effectively deliver our company message, while I personally benefited from my observations and interactions with many of the brightest players in our industry.

In terms of changes over my career, I have come to see the core objectives of our industry to be constant and timeless while the resolutions are always evolving and timely. Specifically, we have always been tasked to move the right things to the right place at the right time by the most efficient, safe and secure means. How we do it has evolved from wheels and rollers to data and automation with lots of developments in between.

Modern: When I think of Southworth, I think first of equipment that assists an associate and allows them to do their job not just more efficiently, but more safely. Historically, that’s meant providing assist devices to prevent physical injuries. Will the industry have to start worrying about disease prevention? If so, any ideas on how?

McNamara: I never pass up an opportunity to comment on workplace safety. Yes, the importance of safety will continue to grow. As factories and warehouses move goods faster and faster by automating processes, the demands on humans increases. There’s a reason we still use people. Associates bring flexibility, programmability and scalability to the job, and are able to easily grasp almost any item.

That will keep workers essential in operations and generate new opportunities for safety solutions through improved ergonomics. I do not think our technologies will ever prevent disease, but good work positioning is critical to effective workplace distancing, which is likely to become an important deterrent to the spread of disease.

Modern: What’s next?

McNamara: I have a growing next-gen family to enjoy, a couple of Southworth related projects to organize and hopefully an opportunity to start giving back after enjoying a really good life thus far.