What’s something Appareo has worked on or achieved this year that you’re most proud of?
Appareo has undertaken a great deal of growth. An organization cannot grow as rapidly as our business is growing without being capable of change. It is a difficult challenge for people, in general, to change. We’re all in our own ways resistant to change, comfortable in our norms.
Over the last year, we’ve undertaken strategic changes, structural changes, and operating changes that have been really significant. We’ve onboarded great new production capabilities through substantial new investments in infrastructure that have changed the shape of how we deliver products. How the whole team at Appareo has worked through change and uncertainty with a growth mentality, understanding change comes with a few bumps and inconveniences but being focused on what we’re growing toward and the organization we’re becoming is something that our whole team should be really proud of.
Can you share something about Appareo that most people don’t know about or would be surprised to learn?
Appareo is a Latin word that means “to appear” or “to become apparent.” The name was chosen because we were a new business, appearing in a new space, with a whole new category of products. As we’ve grown as an organization we’ve never been afraid of appearing, being new, and bringing brand-new things to the world and I think that is really amazing. We’ve created whole new categories of products in multiple industries, breaking new ground in: aviation with ADS-B receivers, flight data recording, and cockpits cameras; agriculture becoming the first company in the world to control equipment with iPads and developing a whole new category of monitoring technologies for seeding, fertilizer application, and harvesting; and in off-highway equipment with the most rugged, longest living, asset tracking products in the world.
I think it is a great privilege to be in the business of creating new things. Many people spend their entire career focused on distribution, service, and support of things that are already in existence but we’re part of a small family of organizations globally that gets to come to work every day and be inspired to pursue, achieve, and deliver the creation of things that make the world a different and better place.
What projects or work is Appareo doing that you’re most excited about?
There is a great deal to be excited about in the products that the business is developing. I can honestly say that there is no one product or project that I’m most excited about.
Really the work that I’m most excited about is the great product development and production operational system that we are building at Appareo. Over the last year we’ve grown more than 30% in headcount and more than 40% in revenue. We’re building an incredible team here, which is in part a testament to the individual capabilities of the people that join the “A Team” but it is more about the way in which the team interacts. We’re constructing a really unique, and special culture that is going to enable this organization to accomplish really impressive things.