After over 27 years at Temperform, and much longer in the metals industry, Plant Manager Gloria Webber is retiring.
Gloria has a long, storied career in the industry, guiding Temperform through thick and thin and gaining an immense amount of knowledge along the way.
Gloria Webber’s Career
Gloria graduated from Michigan State University in 1982 with a business degree.
Her first job out of school was at a steel service center where they processed materials that were already cast or continuous cast and sold that to tool and die shops.
Gloria’s schooling didn’t end when she graduated from Michigan State… while in the metalworking industry, she went back to school to take courses like chemistry, metallurgy, machine shop, drafting and more. She also took advanced metallurgy and heat treatment courses through ASME, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
“I was just fascinated with how things worked,” said Webber. “So, all these industries make products that have to fit together into some type of larger equipment. The fascination with how things work, how things are made, what is this product going into, it just spiraled into my natural curiosity of how things work, keeping the world running.”
After working at the steel service center, Gloria worked in the forging industry in sales and estimating.
She took a sales job at Kurtz Steel in Detroit. Gloria was an outside sales rep for Kurtz, eventually traveled and worked at their Dayton, Ohio facility and then transferred back to Detroit a few years later.
After Kurtz, which years later was acquired by Alro Steel, Gloria worked for Steel Industries, which is now AF Global.
She started her career at Temperform in October of 1997 in sales and marketing. She quickly worked her way up to the Sales Manager role in 2000. Then in 2019, she was named Director of Sales at Temperform. Three years later Gloria was hired as the General Manager at Temperform and has been in that role ever since.
Gloria’s Impact on Temperform
When Gloria first started at Temperform, it was a much smaller operation. She has been able to see and help the steel foundry grow over the decades.
“I think my biggest accomplishment is when we were really, really busy and had a couple of record months where we shipped about $2.76 million,” said Webber.
She went on to say it was the site’s absolute biggest shipping volume ever.
“We had many things we had to put in place to get to that,” said Webber. “It was having to pull the whole team together to make that happen. Trying to motivate everyone, keep everyone focused and have everything work to push that much product out the door.”
Gloria has always been committed to employee health and safety. When she took over as General Manager, she immediately implemented a whole process improvement plan on Temperform’s safety program.
“You have to set the example as a manager at any level,” said Webber. “You always follow protocol if you want people on the floor to follow protocol. So, it’s important we as a management team are always compliant.”
Gloria was proud of Temperform’s nearly 1,000 days without an incident. She said the last incident was an injury that happened over time unfortunately, but since that, Temperform is now close to 700 days without another incident.
Temperform was a Huge Part of Gloria’s Life
“It means a lot, I put my heart and soul into this company,” said Webber. “It means a lot to have a team of people you’re really close to. I mean I spend more hours with the team I work with than with my own family.”
Gloria is a self-described “people-person.” She always found it advantageous to develop relationships with all of her workers and peers, as well as with Temperform’s customers.
Gloria said many of those relationships will last long after her retirement and she looks forward to staying connected with the employees at Temperform, as well as a lot of her long-time customers.
She had some advice for the folks who will be leading Temperform once she is gone.
“It’s a gut punch a day,” joked Gloria. “You have to roll with the punches and you can never, ever give up. The foundry industry is always going to throw you lemons and you have to make lemonade out of them. You have to find a way to turn things around and move things forward.”
The Future of the Foundry Industry
Gloria sees a bright future for the foundry industry and for Temperform.
She talked to us about why more young people should be interested in this industry and career.
“You’re never making the same thing over and over and over. It’s really fun to be involved in problem solving, working with a team to create a product that maybe didn’t exist before,” said Webber.
Webber went on to say you never get bored at the foundry. You work with a team to develop new products and it’s really rewarding when that finished product heads out the door.
Thanks to Gloria’s decades of experience and her willingness to share her vast knowledge with the future of Temperform, the site is in good hands.
“Because we have an awesome team, I had a succession plan to hand the place over to some younger folks and they’re in good hands,” said Gloria.
Joel Yates will be taking over as Plant Manager at Temperform. Joel began his foundry career in 1994 and has a background in metallurgy, business, quality and continuous improvement. That includes a degree in engineering, a Masters of Business degree and a PhD in Organization and Management.
Gloria’s Plans for Retirement
After decades in the fast-paced metals and foundry industries, don’t think for a second that Gloria is going to sit still in retirement.
She plans to spend a lot more time spoiling her grandchildren and more time at her summer home in Northern Michigan with her husband Jim.
Gloria also hopes to get involved with kids who got left behind during Covid and are struggling to keep up in school. She plans to do some free tutoring to help those kids with reading and math.
She told her current co-workers she would be on speed dial if they needed her help.. and she plans to have plenty of lunches and visits with the folks at Temperform, as well as with some of her long-time customer connections.
Gloria’s last day of full-time work at Temperform was on Friday, August 8th.
We wish Gloria the best in retirement and thank her for her decades of dedication to Temperform.