According to the Department of Labor, the average tenure for an employee in manufacturing is currently at 4.9 years. This number has consistently declined since 2014 as seen in the image below. This is not new information. I still remember when I was interviewing at EXAIR, the next tenure Application Engineer had been here for 12 years. That was in 2010. That made me believe that EXAIR treats its employees well and that people are happy to stay. I was drawn to this because I came from a family where my parents both worked for the same Steel Mill for over 35 years. Seeing a company that had an average tenure in the department I was going to join, sitting at 15 years, was at the top of my list.
At the same time, I was leaving a job I had been in for 5 years and was still learning consistently, just the economy was dropping out, and the industry was struggling. Would I be happy working in an office with this crew? I wasn’t afraid of being a young person and not knowing anything, I was confident I could learn. Well, flash forward through several years of constant learning, and now I am the most experienced Application Engineer. We have had some retirements and then lots of promotions leading up to this point. The one constant has been that I have always had new products, processes, or aspects of EXAIR and the compressed air industry to learn.
I mentioned the comfort crisis in the title because a lot of people I talk to ask me if I stay at EXAIR because I am comfortable. In all honesty, there has been a constant source of growth since I started. Whether it be our continuous product expansions forcing me to learn new materials. Obtaining my MBA from NKU to better understand the business side of EXAIR over the technical side of our products. Taking on different roles or contributing to new processes. Even up to the latest partnership with BETE Fog Nozzles, nowhere in the 15 years has there been a full month of pure comfort.
No one knows where the future will take us. All I can say is that I have been very blessed to make it this far and the future is looking even more exciting than the past. So tune in and stay with me, no matter where you go, let’s see where this ride goes.
Brian Farno, MBA – CCASS Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF
1 – Median Employee Tenure Within Industries – US Bureau of Labor Statistics – Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.t05.htm
