SAM employees awarded with vouchers and a crystal bowl to celebrate remarkable milestone
SAM has recently celebrated two 20 year service awards to Company Directors. Sales Director Gerard Wilson and Technical Director Mark Kirkpatrick have both reached the milestone. This week, to celebrate the remarkable milestones, both were presented with the SAM long service awards. We chatted to Gerard to see how he came to work for SAM. Gerard started working at SAM in May 1995 as a Business Development Manager. Initially, Gerard’s role was to start growing business opportunities in Great Britain. At this stage, MDF was a growing market and therefore the product was being well received.
Moreover, SAM listened to what customers’ wanted rather than trying to manufacture what was easy. In turn, ensuring that the product and service aspect was well received by new customers. In response to this, Gerard was offered external training through Invest NI. This was in a bid to help with the transfer from education to the business world, so he was assigned a mentor within SAM.
Moreover, as the business grew and became established in the UK market, volumes increased and partnerships were formed with the leading builders’ merchants. Therefore, this provided a need for a Key Accounts Manager – a role Gerard was happy to deliver. After a number of years Gerard was promoted to Sales Manager and as the team expanded, he bought into the SAM and became Sales Director.
Gerard commented, “I was lucky to come straight from education into an innovative and also ambitious company. Here I was able to grow and develop both professionally and personally over the last 20 years to be where I am now. – Sales Director for a market leader within the construction industry.”
SAM Celebrating long time service in 2018
10 year Service
Craig Buchanan – 29th January
Richard Macleod – 1st February
David Creighton – 3rd March
Brian Gurney – 2nd June
