New Faces Going Places at Yaskawa

Sharing Their Experiences

Yaskawa has been aggressively pursuing new talent to help the company grow. Two recent additions took some time to share their experiences at the company early on.

Justice Johnson joined Yaskawa in March as a drives sales engineer serving the Florida HVAC, industrial and wastewater customers.

He was recruited to the company while working as a manufacturer’s rep.

“I believe I was one of the first virtual hires, sort of like the guinea pig,” Justice said with a laugh. “I spoke with Cory McHugh, Yaskawa’s vice-president of human resources and she thought I was a good fit. Then I spoke with Jeff Phillips, my regional sales manager. It just felt good.”

“I knew a little about Yaskawa before joining the company. I thought of it as a big company with a great product and a big name in the industry. And, that turned out to be true,” Justice said. “But what I didn’t know coming in was the small community feel it had internally. Even in a remote world, you felt welcomed right away. You even realized that you had a direct line to the main players in the company.”

The company culture validated Justice’s decision to join Yaskawa.

“Jeff jumped right in to make me feel comfortable,” he said. “He drove me around to meet all the customers. I already had knowledge of the territory and Jeff kind of lets me do my thing, but that was a nice way to get started.”

“Another cool part of Yaskawa is they recognize I have a knowledge of the territory, so they let me do my thing. We took off the training wheels early on and they let me go. That gets me excited to see where this job can take me.”

Mitchell Gholson is also fairly new to Yaskawa having joined the team in April covering parts of Alabama, Tennessee, and into the Florida panhandle as a drives sales engineer.

“It’s been a great experience early on,” Mitchell said. “I have this opportunity to really build my career here,” he said. “I’d always heard good things about the company, as far as the products and service, but the camaraderie is really special, too.”

“Even though we’re all pretty remote, which makes it tough to build relationships, you can feel a bond – a common goal – with the other Yaskawa sales engineers. When we feel that way about each other, that carries over to the customers. They see how much we care about working hard to support each other and they know that will benefit them.”

Mitchell said the key thing he has seen so far is how Yaskawa builds relationships. “We learn a lot with our customers. Sharing ideas. Having good conversations. Being responsive. We see what works in some of the more successful relationships and try to work that into others.”