(Senior Buyer - Saint Louis Office) - For St. Louis-based Senior Buyer Brad Grohmann, life at Datamax trickles down to two key words: Culture and communication.

First: a culture that understands and supports your responsibilities to your family outside of the workplace in addition to your responsibilities to Datamax. Second: The emphasis on communication between employees, departments, and office locations. It’s what makes his job move at the rapid speed it must to keep up with business in 2021.

The 20-year Datamax veteran speaks candidly about how his experiences here have molded his professional life — and that outside of it.

What led me to Datamax?

Right out of college, Brad entered the mortgage lending industry in a sales role. It was super competitive, and somewhat unstable. Three years later, he and his wife made a decision that it was time to make a move.

“Three years out of college and we were ready to start a family,” Brad says. “I was looking for job stability after spending the last few years in a volatile mortgage lending industry. Datamax (then Sumner Group) seemed to promote a stable work environment, judging by the long tenure of many of the employees in the St. Louis office, and had the make-up of the family based company I was interested in.”

As he learned more about the company throughout his interview, he was impressed by the size of the company (larger yet still privately owned), and the tenure of those who worked there. At the time, numerous employees in their 40s had started there in their 20s.

Brad took a job in the leasing department as a credit analyst, a role he kept for seven years. An opening came up in the purchasing department, and Brad seized the opportunity, a position he holds today.

Brad, an avid hunter and golfer when he gets the chance, oversees the procurement of equipment and supplies, and works closely with supply vendors, supplies sales people and individual office warehouse teams for in-house ordering.

My experiences at Datamax:

When Brad came to Datamax at 25, he mentions at that age, one is still fairly impressionable. The Datamax culture has played a part in his personal development.

“When you’re young and have little experience, work habits and impressions get passed on to you that can be good or bad. I feel that being accountable for your work (at Datamax) has translated to how I handle myself outside the workplace…..if you’re maintaining that kind of structure on a daily basis with your job, it’s only natural for you to take that home with you.”

He also credits the office to office communication — and absolute necessity in his role.

“We’ve made some changes in the last six months, especially on the supplies side, where we are drop shipping supplies right to our customers.
Instead of processing few stock orders a day, I’m doing anywhere from 60 to 100 drop ship orders in a day. Having that rapid, two-way communication on these orders (or any changes to the orders) is so critical right now.”

What makes me want to stay at Datamax?

Communication and Culture starts with people – and Brad raves about the people he works with every day.

“The family type atmosphere within the office, donuts on your anniversary, potluck lunches, company outings, etc. That’s one thing that makes me want to stay here,” Brad says. “To be honest, there’s 7 or 8 people that are working here today that were here when I started 20 years ago. That speaks volumes. That’s the truth in it all.”