|
|
Edison Student Feature
Typical
Teenager to Successful Business Owner
By Lincoln Rapp
What does it take for someone to be considered successful? Does a
person have to display achievements, money, or fame? Or does the person
simply have to survive?
Seth Angle is in his early forties and lives near Covington,
Ohio. He is married and has five children. He is the owner
of a custom engineering firm called Force Design Inc. in Covington.
Seth bought half of the company in 2000 when one of the previous
co-owners left the firm and the other half in 2002 when the other
co-owner moved out of state. At this time, he had only been out
of college for two and a half years. He became interested in
mechanical engineering during his sophomore year of high school and
enrolled in post-secondary. After high school, he studied at
Edison for two years before transferring to Wright State University
where he earned his bachelor’s degree.
After college, he worked at Dayton Reliable Tool where they make dies
which stamp out aluminum cans. His next job was at Noble Tool
where they design and build automation equipment. After this job
he bought Force Design. However, he had limited experience in
engineering and little or no experience with running a business.
Seth has encountered many obstacles while operating his business but
has been successful in overcoming them. The first and probably
biggest obstacle was owning an engineering business and not having much
experience with engineering or running a business. He was
successful in completing a training course at Aileron, which is an
organization that teaches small business owners how to manage their
businesses. He commented about learning business management,
“It’s not over yet and I’m still learning, but I feel like I have made
a lot of progress in learning how to do the business side of
things”.
Another obstacle was learning how to deal with the normal business
challenges like controlling growth, managing workflow, and finding and
hiring people at the right time. Other successes are watching
employees as they grow and prosper, and having a good experience with
clients by ensuring that they are satisfied with the product they
receive.
Seth gives credit to God for his success and recalls several times when
God intervened, directed, and helped. At the beginning of his
time at Force Design, he was unsure about buying the company, operating
it, and whether they could make enough money to provide income for
their families. There were many times in the first few years
where they had just enough work come in and at just the right time to
be successful.
Another area of direction is through the business associates and
mentors that he has met over the years that have helped him through
times of uncertainty. Seth believes God had a plan for the
business to bless other people and has personally witnessed it
happening throughout the years in many different ways. The
company has experienced two times where work was very slow for an
extended period of time. On each of these occasions, they were
within a week of major layoffs or other changes, but received work just
in time.
God has given him direction many other times as well, such as who to
hire for an open position and whether or not they want to take on a new
client or purchase a new building. He commented that God has
guided him in these tough times and decisions and helped to correct him
when he made the wrong decision.
Seth has benefitted from teaching, advice given by his parents, and
support from his wife. His parents influenced him with their
spiritual teaching and beliefs which led to the moral guidelines that
he lives by today. It also applies to business in the decisions
that he makes and how he treats his employees and clients.
Because of this, he has a high standard of integrity. When Seth
was younger, his dad picked up on the things he was good at, his skill
set, and the things he enjoyed. He then gave Seth several options for a
career that would include these things and could be a fit. He
commented that his parents have been very supportive of his business
and still offer him advice on how to handle problems and big
decisions.
His wife has also been very supportive and willing to help wherever
needed. He mentioned that she is not directly involved with the
business but helps with issues such as struggling business
relationships.
Seth shared good advice that can help teens become successful in their
lives and careers. He stated that parents are the most important
thing in a teenager’s life because the decisions made during this time
can have long lasting effects. Parents can help make these
decisions and give good advice because they have lived longer and have
more experience with life. He also said that young people need to
learn to accept advice from others, especially parents.
Another important thing is to have a vision for life. This can be
done by having a list of goals or thinking about what things you want
to be able to look back on when you are older. All of a person’s
decisions should then be based on this vision.
An important lesson he mentioned is to not procrastinate. He
learned this lesson the hard way after not taking college seriously for
the first few years and then had to cram classes into the last semester
in order to graduate.
His advice to teens on finding the right career was to use every person
or resource available to find the one that fits the best. He
recommended putting money and everything else aside and asking
themselves what they really enjoy doing and could do for the rest of
their lives. They should get input from people who know a lot of
other options, choose the one they want, and figure out a way to make
money doing it.
Throughout his life Seth has encountered obstacles, experienced
successes, and learned many valuable lessons. He believes that
everyone is born with a set of gifts and talents which are used in a
person’s life and career to conquer the challenges they face. He
feels that a person must overcome setbacks or challenges to be
successful because everyone is going to experience them. They are
either going to fail or
succeed.
Editor’s Note:
Lincoln Rapp is a Composition I student at Edison State Community
College, Darke County Campus. This feature is being published with
permission, and was chosen for CNO readers due to the quality of the
assignment submission and relevance of the topic.
|
|
|
|
