Chris Reed's Journey at ATEC

I attended a job fair in Mission Valley in 2007; Mrs. Berg was in one of the rooms in this hotel and there was a sign that said Advanced Test Equipment. I said, “Test equipment? Like scantrons?” I didn’t really know what test equipment was. Then I walked in and I thought, “oh yeah, instrumentation.” I worked for Horiba Instruments, Mitchell Instruments, and KVB Air Pollution Monitoring test equipment. We didn’t call it test equipment; we called it instrumentation.

So, I didn’t even make the connection until I walked in, and Mrs. Berg asked, “Well, great, have a seat.” She said, “How does your background fit?” And I said, “Well, look at items 2, 3, and 4 on my resume, it was a great fit.” And she offered me the job pretty much right after that.

I started as a rental agent in the bullpen on the floor where the marketing department is now, and really enjoyed the process of helping people get their testing done. It was pretty satisfying being able to help them line up the equipment that we have available for their test; that was fun.

I actually got interested in the technical support side of the business as well. So, after being a rental agent for a while I was technical support for a year and that was very challenging because the same customers had higher level emergencies.

And then they asked me to be the rental supervisor. After that Gabe took over tech support and I did rental supervisor and then rentals manager for quite a while and that was interesting because that was during a very fast growth period of the company. I think over the period of time that I was rentals manager our revenue tripled.

And then, at a certain point in time, the company decided that we needed a business development department. What was great about that was that I was able to see customers face to face at all the trade shows and visiting customer sites.

Most recently, marketing didn’t have a manager, so they asked me to run marketing for a while and that was a fantastic experience based on the staff that was there. It was really a great team to be involved with. That was the journey, and it has been almost 19 years.

Probably the rentals manager because sales people are very focused in their own worlds and to get them to work together as a team and really focus on the customer’s solutions took a lot of personal growth. That was when I spent a lot of time with Mr. Berg and learned a lot from his lifetime of leading this company. I think that’s the time when I really appreciated how unique and special the test equipment rentals business is.

It was a pretty small operation in 2007 and I think we had the financial change, the financial crash in 2008, so right when I was getting involved deeply in the sales, there was a big change in the world, but the advantage of renting equipment also became more poignant for the customers because all of a sudden they didn’t have the cash to do what they needed to do, but they still had to get the test completed.

When we got the 17025 accreditation. I think that was really important to put the finishing touches on the fact that we are a technical and qualified resource for these companies.

The relationships with customers. It’s really easy to get focused on the transactions and all of the complications associated with getting the test equipment out the door, but having that focus on relationships with these customers is why they keep coming back.

More and more information is available online. One of the benefits that we’ve always enjoyed is the fact that we’ve had a lot of good technical content on our website. When we first started, a lot of it was telephone-based, a lot of phone calls coming in, and then customers became more comfortable getting the information. It was nice because Google would serve them our website because the technical content was there and now with AI, it’s nice to see AI appreciate that same technical content and bring us up to that level.

I don’t think it’s changed that much. I think we were such an early performer on the internet, where we would come up so often near the top of the rankings. The rest of the world’s sort of caught up to us and it’s becoming more of a challenge to stand out. But combining that content and that availability online with the face-to-face interactions that we have at trade shows and customer visits has been a really powerful combination, and continuing to leverage that is something that hasn’t changed.

The fact that we still invest heavily in having trained rental agents that learn a specific niche of the market. When a person calls in and they need to get a test done but don’t know exactly what they need, to be able to successfully know what we have will actually do that test and get it to that customer is a wonderful win on both ends, and that is something I hope we never lose.

At a tradeshow, we’ll have someone come up to the booth and then they’ll see what we’re presenting and say, “I didn’t know you could rent that.” To be able to provide that high-tech, very expensive solution the next day is super valuable.

Technical expertise is the key that builds that trust. A delay in testing for that customer is much more impactful for them than the cost of the rental. It’s important that when we recommend a solution, we’re right.

The fact that we can stay on that cutting edge and understand how things evolve with the different markets. That’s one of the important things about being so tied into the different industry associations and the different shows.

It’s just understanding the vendors and the markets and those different trade associations, engineering associations, and everything. Where they’re going, what’s important, and then the pulse of that industry niche.

Being able to take the test and measurement approach to the business side of this, see trends, and then implement that. How to help business development or marketing or sales understand how things are changing in real time and how do we react, respond and keep growing in all the different markets.

Yeah, for CRM basically. When I got here, it was a transaction device. It was where you posted orders. I saw the fact that a customer relationship management tool could really be leveraged to drive business by using it more in depth. If you just post the order, that’s just the end result.

Tracking the inquiries and the performance of what we quote, how often we quote, and what equipment we are able to help with. Expanding all of that and making sure that it’s actually useful information, that was something that I was happy to bring to the company.

It just got younger. And I got older. It’s exciting to see all of the young enthusiasm that’s on board. I am very comfortable retiring at this point. I just feel like I’m leaving the company in really good, capable hands and it’s exciting to see the personal growth of everybody on the team.

I’ve seen competitors rise and fall over the last twenty years. They see the transaction and they forget now you’re helping somebody accomplish very important tasks and amazing projects. As long as you stay focused on that, everything else falls into place.

We never got caught up in any one specific market. I’ve seen competitors focus on one market and when that market changes, because all markets change, you put all your eggs in one basket and you drop that basket, you’ve got a mess, right?

This week’s headline is: I was interviewed by the most amazing marketing team I’ve ever seen assembled!

It’s gotta be the Phoenix Day parties or the Christmas parties because you really get together as a family when you do those things and you see the other side of people.

Bright.

Satisfying.

Mountains.