Interview with the CEO

John: "Hello, this is John with A Plus Warehouse. And in today’s interview, we are going to be hearing all about this company, directly from the founder. Here is Ed Stairman, CEO of A Plus Warehouse."

Ed: “Let’s get to work! Hello John! How are you?”

John: “Good, how are you?”

Ed: “Fantastic, let's rock this thing.”

John: “To start off I want to ask you, why materials handling?”

Ed: “Well John, that’s a great question! My father was in this trade and I learned distributing material handling from my dad. I spent a ten-year apprenticeship learning from him, then after that is when I started my own company, and it has been over 25 years, and it has been a good time! It was a good decision.

John: “Alright, now how and why did you start this?”

Ed: “Well, there is another good question. Well, how I started was by keeping good notes of how my dad’s operation ran. He was a minority owner of a company, and things got interesting between the various families- and he decided it was time for him to retire and for the company to be sold. It was sold, and I was going to run a company and it became clear to me I wasn’t going to run that company because there was a new CEO. I was about 30. I already had my first child. And I figured at the age of 30 it was time to try something and see if you can do it. So, the how is by being too dumb to realize it was impossible, and the why is because I had a family to support.”

John: “Were you nervous at all, and what kept you going?”

Ed: “Was I ever nervous and what kept me going. Well, when you have a little bit of arrogance on your side, you really don’t think you’re going to fail. What kept me going is the fact that I had to.

John: “And what would you say is your favorite part of this work?”

Ed:” I’m a salesperson. I like selling stuff. It is what I’ve always done it is what I always will do. My favorite part of this is dealing with vendors mostly because I get to deal with them over and over and over again. And customers as well because I’m making a new friend.

John: “What sort of personal connections have you made during this work?”

Ed: “I’d like to think that a lot of the vendors we have have become friends of mine. I enjoy talking. I know about their children, grandchildren, who they’re married to, who they’re not married to. Similarly, when I deal with local customers, I like to drop by their operation and see my equipment in use. It’s kind of neat. And staff development is always important to me. I like the fact that people do the work I used to do myself.

John: “When did you know that this was the thing for you?”

Ed: “It has been said that your worst day working for yourself is better than your best day working for somebody else. And I believe that. If he can do that, he puts his pants on one leg at a time so I can do it and I put my pants on one leg at a time. And I was it was for me before I even started the company.”

John: “Would you like to close this out for our viewers?”

Ed: “I guess I would John.  And by the way, John, thank you. This has been a very nice interview.”

John: “Thank You!”

Ed: “Welcome to A Plus Warehouse. It is a fine place to buy warehouse equipment including material handling, storage equipment. Those of you who buy from us, thank you, thank you, and thank you three times. For those of you who don’t, start! It’s a great place. We have great people. Great interviewers here. The whole marketing department. Thank you for the support. Thank you for the business. Thank you, John, for the interview.”

John: “Thanks again.”