Monday 23 December 2019

Ted Fick: Turning Loss into Profit


As VP of Commercial Tire Systems at Goodyear Tire (2001-2003), Ted Fick executed a successful turnaround that included turning $20 million in annual losses into $45 million in annual profit. Ted Fick also drove a 20% increase in the business unit’s OEM market share, and led the turnaround of a 200-branch operation network threatened with closure from $25 million annual loss to more than $13 million in annual profit.


























Also, read the following posts
https://tedfick.wordpress.com/2019/12/23/ted-fick-what-to-include-in-your-strategic-plan/
http://ted-fick.mystrikingly.com/blog/ted-fick-2000-01-svp-at-hino-diesel



Thursday 5 December 2019

Ted Fick: The Benefits of an Effective Product Development Strategy

Why develop new products?

As accomplished senior executive Ted Fick knows, having an innovative mindset and an efficient, effective product development process in place can do wonders for an organization—and can often provide the lift a struggling company needs to turn things around and regain a lost competitive edge. 



The Benefits of an Effective Product Development Strategy

As President at Thermo King Corporation, Ted Fick led the development and launch of the Tripac auxiliary unit—an innovation that forever changed the organization and the trucking industry, and which was key to the company’s eventual multimillion-dollar transformation.

Having spearheaded such an effort, Fick knows the benefits an effective product development approach can have for an organization, including:

· The opportunity to win more business and increase revenue through new innovation.

· The chance to improve your brand’s reputation for quality.

· The opportunity to reduce production costs through the refinement and improvement of existing products.

Thursday 28 November 2019

Ted Fick: Front-Page Coverage


Ted Fick has stood out as a results-driven senior executive and leader throughout his career. The driver of multiple multimillion-dollar business transformations over the past 20 years, Fick garnered front-page coverage in the Wall Street Journal for his work at Polar Corporation, where he served as President & CEO for four years (2009-2013). As President, Ted Fick oversaw significant improvements in top-line EBITDA and sales.



Sunday 24 November 2019

Ted Fick: Trucking Manufacturer Leadership


Customer-centric executive Ted Fick was recruited in late 2018 to take on the role of CEO at LTA Manufacturing. A manufacturer and marketer of high-quality truck covers and cargo management solutions for trucks, vans and utility bodies, LTA (Light Truck Accessories) is made up of four distinct brands, including ATC Truck Covers, Jason Truck Caps, Ranch Fiberglass and LoadMaster.



Wednesday 13 November 2019

Ted Fick: Key Elements to Include in Your Strategic Plan


As a transformative leader and senior executive, Ted Fick knows that for any successful turnaround to work—particularly at the corporate-level—a robust, comprehensive strategic plan must always be in place.

As such, great care, research and evaluation must be performed to ensure that strategy is not only tailored to the organization’s unique situation, characteristics, and goals but also has the focus and framework that provide the best opportunity at successful, sustained execution.
Key Elements to Include in Your Strategic Plan


Key Elements to Include in Your Strategic Plan

As Ted Fick knows, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to business strategy; though, every strategic plan should at the very least include several keys elements, such as:

·         A mission statement that clearly defines why your organization exists.

·         Guiding principles or attributes that describe which behaviors are acceptable and which aren’t throughout your organization.

·         Value propositions that explain the value you offer your stakeholders.

·         Clear goals that show where you want your organization to go.


·         Focus areas that define how you’ll get your organization to the next level. 

Tuesday 15 October 2019

Ted Fick: Optimizing Your Company’s Profitability


Ted Fick has been orchestrating multimillion-dollar transformations throughout his career, providing organizations the decisive, visionary leadership needed to build high-performance teams, achieve dramatic growth and implement the operational excellence.

And one of Ted Fick’s most notable leadership strengths, and a key to much of his success has been his uncanny ability to optimize company profitability—something he’s accomplished as chief executive at such firms as Polar Corporation, Port of Seattle and more.



Optimizing Your Company’s Profitability

An accomplished senior executive, Fick knows that optimizing company profitability—no matter your size or industry—generally begins by:

· Analyzing and adjusting your operational costs. Identifying areas where expenses can be cut back or even eliminated, such as with overhead, can help improve your expense-to-revenue ratio.

·  Evaluating your prices. Regular review of your cost structure helps you determine if the markup on your products is sufficient—particularly with rising costs of raw materials, labor, etc.

Wednesday 9 October 2019

Ted Fick: What Are the Core Elements of a High-Performance Team?


As a transformative business leader, Ted Fick knows that no organization can get very far—much less turn things around—without the work and dedication of a great leadership team at the helm.
Having orchestrated the successful turnaround of numerous high-profile companies during his career, Ted Fick understands the value high-performance teams not only for improving productivity and profitability in the short-term, but also to sustaining and adding to organizational progress for the foreseeable future.


So, What Are the Core Elements of a High-Performance Team?

Successful leadership teams that continually meet and exceed expectations are grown from team-based company culture, one with a strong focus on such elements as:

·         Values. A high-performance team believes in and adheres to a shared set of meaningful values, those both aligned with the company’s and specific to the team’s unique needs and characteristics.

·         Results-driven performance. Strong leadership groups are always pushing for consistent results, which are used to measure team progress and performance.  

Thursday 3 October 2019

Ted Fick: Finding Opportunities for Growth


Ted Fick has the proven ability to locate and capitalize on opportunities for improving revenue, profitability and productivity. An experienced senior executive and CEO, Ted Fick has utilized this talent to drive dramatic improvements and growth at a number of high-profile firms, including Port of Seattle, Polar Corporation and Ingersoll Rand. Fick is responsible for spearheading numerous successful company transformations during his career.




Monday 2 September 2019

Ted Fick: Building the Team that Delivers Superior Results


Ted Fick has managed the successful transformation of multiple multimillion-dollar organizations during his career, including such notables as the Polar Corporation, Thermo King Corporation and the Port of Seattle.
An accomplished senior executive, Ted Fick knows that without the right team in place, executing such a transformation—or achieving any long-term organizational goal—is impossible.

Building the Team that Delivers Superior Results

A proven leader and CEO, Ted Fick knows that building a high-performance team is integral to enhancing productivity, increasing profitability and laying the foundation for future growth.
Putting together a team that delivers superior results involves:

Looking within. Great teams are often comprised of those who’ve already shown promise within an organization—and who have the ability to bring a fresh perspective to existing projects and processes.
Demonstrating trust. Providing teams the latitude needed to do their jobs and execute tasks in accordance with their skillsets is key to building confidence and getting results.

Tuesday 27 August 2019

Ted Fick: Steps for Improving Employee Productivity


Ted Fick has overseen the transformation of numerous high-profile companies during his career, including Port of Seattle, Polar Corporation and Thermo King Corporation.

A senior executive with more than 30 years of top-level leadership experience, Ted Fick empowers underperforming businesses with the visionary, proactive approach and strategy needed capitalize on opportunity, improve performance and enhance profitability.



Steps for Improving Employee Productivity

As Fick knows, a productive workforce is key to executing any successful transformation. And some of the keys to increasing that productivity include:

Providing the right resources. Maximizing employee productivity means supplying your staff with the tools they need to succeed, such as the right amount of training and the best tools for communicating and collaborating effectively. 

Encouraging autonomy. Trusting your team to complete tasks and providing the freedom to perform and grow on their own typically leads to better results.


Saturday 24 August 2019

Ted Fick: What Elements Make Up a Powerful Strategic Plan?


Ted Fick has designed and overseen the successful transformation of multiple, multimillion-dollar organizations throughout his career—including such notable names as Thermo King Corporation, Polar Corporation and the Port of Seattle.


Behind each of these transformations has been a comprehensive, well-designed strategic plan—one not only carefully developed, but which also provided the roadmap each the multi-layered organization needed to achieve company goals and realize its full potential.

What Elements Make Up a Powerful Strategic Plan?

A proven senior executive and strategic planner, Ted Fick knows the components essential to include in any comprehensive plan-of-action. 

These include:

·   Vision and mission statements that clearly define the company’s purpose and long-term goals.
· A thorough SWOT analysis that examines the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to determine existing status and gaps to address.
·         Methods for executing the plan and measuring its progress along the way.


Saturday 17 August 2019

Ted Fick: Phases of New Product Development


Senior executive and seasoned CEO Ted Fick understands the transformative impact new product innovation can have on an organization—as well as the impact new product development can have in terms of driving rapid growth and increasing market share.

Phases of New Product Development

As President at Thermo King Corporation, Ted Fick was responsible for expediting the development and launch of the Tripac auxiliary power unit—an innovation that proved both profitable and essential to the company’s significant growth and transformation.

And as someone who knows the product development process, Ted Fick knows the steps or phases that go into such a process, including:

· Ideation—the initial stage of sourcing for ideas and laying the foundation of product development.

·Screening and concept development—the process of screening through potential innovations to identify which are worthy of pursuit, and to develop those that show promise.

· Actual development—where the product enters the design and manufacture phase before being tested on the market.


Tuesday 23 July 2019

Ted Fick: Innovation, Opportunity and Performance


Ted Fick has worked at the highest levels of corporate leadership throughout his more-than-30-year career. He has the proven ability to identify and capitalize on opportunities for driving growth, continuous improvement and innovation through sustained contributions to productivity, revenue, and profitability. 


Fick is adept at building and executing on strategic plans that root out inefficiencies, drive higher company performance and deliver successful organizational turnarounds.

Sunday 14 July 2019

Ted Fick: Former President of Thermo King


Ted Fick once directed the Thermo King Corporation, Americas division of Ingersoll Rand Ltd. The President of Thermo King from 2004 to 2007,  Ted Fick drove significant growth in sales and profit during his tenure—including a leap in profitability of more than 136 percent ($70 million to $205 million). Additionally, Fick spearheaded the development and launch of Thermo King’s highly successful Tripac auxiliary power unit. 


Thursday 4 July 2019

Ted Fick: Opportunity and Reward with LTA Manufacturing


Ted Fick was approached for the CEO role at LTA Manufacturing only a short time after accepting the role of COO with Norca Engineered Products.

Made an official in December of 2018, Fick’s service as CEO of LTA (Light Truck Accessories) promises to continue well into the future—and to present both Fick and the LTA team opportunities to grow and thrive in the truck accessories the industry for years to come.

A Closer Look at LTA

As LTA CEO, Fick serves as a leader at the company’s Kansas City headquarters and of LTA’s four major brands—including Jason Truck Caps, ATC Truck Covers, LoadMaster and Ranch Fiberglass. LTA products are made from two manufacturing plants in the Midwest region (Ottawa, Kansas, and Elkhart, Indiana), and the company currently ranks as the number 3 market share player in the industry.



To learn more about LTA’s four brands, click here.

Wednesday 26 June 2019

Ted Fick: Driving Project Success


Ted Fick has led and driven a number of successful, large-scale projects throughout his career. A proven senior executive and the former head of such firms as Port of Seattle, Polar Corporation and Thermo King Corporation, Fick provides the decisive, visionary leadership major capital projects and companies need to thrive. As Port of Seattle CEO, Ted Fick was responsible for spearheading a $2 billion improvement project at SeaTac International Airport.



Tuesday 11 June 2019

Ted Fick: Tips for Launching a New Product


Ted Fick has managed significant turnarounds and multimillion-dollar company transformations throughout his career—most notably as a senior executive at such firms as Polar Corporation (2009-2013), Port of Seattle (2014-2017) and Ingersoll Rand (2004-2007).

An accomplished leader and executive in the business community, Ted Fick has enjoyed the opportunity not just to turn underperforming organizations into reinvigorated, newly-competitive enterprises, but to also be a driving force behind a number of important process and product innovations—including the development and launch of the TriPac auxiliary power unit as President of Thermo King Corporation.


Launching a product: what to know

As Fick knows, launching a new product can be a complicated process, though it’s important to keep several things in mind as you prepare to put your innovation in the market, such as:

  • You’re solving a problem. When developing something new, it helps to approach the process knowing you’re not only creating a product—you’re providing a solution that can potentially resolve an important customer problem.
  • Experience is your product. From clicking on the advertisement to actual use of your product, it’s important to consider the entirety of the experience when developing and launching the new item.

Thursday 6 June 2019

Ted Fick: Former CPI Card Group President/CEO


Ted Fick was recruited to serve as President and CEO of the Littleton, Colorado-based CPI Card Group in 2007. Hired to drive the company’s expansion and position CPI for a prospective public offering, Fick oversaw an increase in company EBITDA from $16 million to $33 million during his one-year leadership tenure. He was also responsible for implementing Lean initiatives that resulted in a drastic improvement in on-time delivery.



Wednesday 29 May 2019

Ted Fick: Truck Accessory Manufacturing


Ted Fick recently joined the leading truck accessory manufacturer and marketer LTA Manufacturing. As company CEO, Fick oversees the four LTA brands, including LoadMaster, ATC Truck Covers, Jason Truck Caps and Ranch Fiberglass. LTA (Light Truck Accessories) currently manufactures their products from two manufacturing plants (Elkhart, Indiana, and Ottawa, Kansas). They are headquartered in Kansas City and specialize in fiberglass truck covers and cargo management solutions.



Read also: http://ted-fick.strikingly.com/blog/ted-fick-what-goes-into-strategic-planning

Tuesday 14 May 2019

Ted Fick: Experience Prior to LTA Manufacturing


Prior to accepting the position of CEO at LTA Manufacturing, Ted Fick served as the COO at Norca Engineered Products—a role he held from August to December of 2018. 

He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Truck Protection, Inc. (NTP) and Premium 2000—industry leading providers of warranties for commercial trucks. 

Ted Fick


He served on these boards from 2016 to 2018.

Visit https://issuu.com/ted-fick/docs/ted_fick_from_good_to_great for more information about him.

Monday 6 May 2019

Ted Fick: Key Principles of Six Sigma


Ted Fick has worked in executive leadership—and change management—for most of his career—one that includes leading significant, multimillion-dollar transformations at such high-profile firms as the Port of Seattle, Polar Corporation and a $525 million division of Ingersoll Rand.

And one of Ted Fick’s foremost leadership strengths, particularly in the area of the organizational transformation has been his expertise in Lean Six Sigma—a proven, a well-established method for optimizing business efficiency and effectiveness.

Some of the more notable principles of Lean Six Sigma include:

·         Maintaining a focus on the customer—something which should always be at the heart of the decision-making process.
·         Identifying and understanding how the production process works (how the work gets done).
·         Managing, improving and smoothing the production of the process from A to Z.
·         Taking steps to remove steps with no value-add, as well as waste within the process.


Wednesday 1 May 2019

Ted Fick: Delivering High Performance and World-Class Results


Throughout his career, Ted Fick has come to be known as a transformative, results-driven business executive—someone capable of cultivating strong working partnerships, building high-performance teams and turning around underperforming organizations. Fick has proven himself highly adept not only at managing large-scale capital projects but also of driving continuous improvement, reducing costs, leveraging technology into enhancements in efficiency and developing new products.





Monday 22 April 2019

Ted Fick: Strategies and Initiatives


Ted Fick has been the driving force behind unprecedented results at numerous high-profile firms throughout his career. A transformative leader known for his ability to turnaround under performing operations, Fick is adept at designing and leading strategies and business initiatives that result in significant improvement in revenue, profit and productivity. Currently, he serves as CEO of LTA Manufacturing—a manufacturer based in Kansas City, Missouri.



Monday 25 March 2019

Ted Fick: New Leadership Position

Ted Fick has enjoyed the opportunity to drive dramatic growth and lead significant transformations at such multimillion-dollar organizations as Port of Seattle, Polar Corporation and Thermo King Corporation.

Now, Ted Fick is enjoying the chance to put his skills in executive leadership, strategic planning and profit optimization to work as the CEO of LTA Manufacturing—an industry leader in truck accessories that includes such brands as Ranch Fiberglass, ATC Truck Covers, LoadMaster and Jason Industries.

A customer-centric executive and management professional for more than two decades, Fick looks forward to ensuring LTA maintains its position as a “dominant force in leading designs and innovation, expanded manufacturing capabilities, and premium quality.” With prior experience in manufacturing and distribution—and within the truck industry—Fick promises to be a strong and decisive LTA leader for years to come. Click here to learn more about LTA Manufacturing. 

Friday 15 March 2019

Ted Fick: Methods for Inspiring Innovation in the Workplace

Ted Fick appreciates the value of innovation, particularly as a tool for optimizing operational performance, creating new streams of revenue and helping to drive dramatic growth for the organization.

A senior executive with decades of experience leading multimillion-dollar, multinational organizations through periods of significant expansion and growth, Ted Fick understands the power of innovative ideas, processes, and products to deliver amazing results for a company’s productivity and bottom line.

Cultivating an innovative work environment can itself be a powerful way to inspire new ideas and drive company success. To do so, it’s crucial to:



Learn to embrace failure:

Any type of innovation comes with a certain level of risk. And when your company is willing to accept that risk—and embrace failure from time to time—you’re creating an environment where employees are more likely to experiment and introduce ideas that could one day become breakthroughs for your firm.

Dedicate adequate resources:

Developing innovation requires extensive resources. When you’re willing to commit such resources to shape and testing new ideas, you’re giving great ideas the opportunity to flourish.

Friday 8 March 2019

Ted Fick: What Are the Steps of New Product Development

Ted Fick understands the potential of innovation, particularly when it comes to improving processes, eliminating inefficiencies and creating new resources of growth and profitability. A transformative leader throughout his career, Fick has long prized the value of new ideas and technologies that can provide the organization what it needs to retain its competitive edge and expand its market reach.

As Ted Fick knows, new product development can often be that catalyst—the resource of innovation a firm needs to rejuvenate operation and pump new life into waning revenue streams.

But much like other forms of innovation, product development is a step-by-step process—one that includes:

  • SWOT analyses—those which can thoroughly assess the product’s potential and market viability.

  • Screening—that which can help compare the idea and its potential to similar ideas already eating up market share.

  • Testing—the due diligence phase that tests the concept’s need, desire or viability among consumers.
Visit http://ted-fick.strikingly.com for more information about him.