A Chat With Harvey Dean, president/CEO, Pitsco
CS: In what ways do you think you’ve succeeded?
Dean: I measure that mostly by the success of the people who report to me. I have four vice presidents, and I really like to see them doing their jobs, feeling their responsibilities, and doing their jobs well. I enjoy the encouragement they give me and being able to give it back to them. I enjoy getting their reports. That doesn’t mean we don’t disagree. It gives me a lot of pleasure to see them grow. I get pleasure from seeing these people succeed. We have a very positive company culture. I enjoy that.
CS: What’s your definition of success?
Dean: Seeing that this year we’ve served 6.5 million students who will use products that we’ve shipped to schools in the U.S. makes me feel successful. Conversely, while that’s a lot, it makes you realize how much potential there is out there. I think that’s another encouragement. If we’re serving more than 6 million, we know we can serve more. It’s not about money. Success to me is knowing that we’re helping students across the U.S. and knowing we have the potential to reach even more.
CS: If a new cataloger asked you to name the keys to success, what would you say?
Dean: I think first, and this may not be the model that most catalogers think of, I think the key is to have some unique selling proposition. Unique and innovative products you can build the rest of your product line around are important. In our catalogs we have several kinds of kits for building a CO2 powered dragster. We started that with one little kit, and now we have 10 or 12 different kits that are versions of that kit. On top of that, we have about 40 pages in our big book of support items for that model dragster activity. Track systems, smoke tunnels, wind tunnels, decals, different kinds of axles, wheels, it goes on and on. We have 40 pages of products that are line extensions of that one good idea.
