Fourstar Connections Blog

Thirty Years of Interconnect Solutions

Posted by Phil Holman on Jun 7, 2017 2:23:51 PM

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Building Loyal Relationships Is the Fundamental Foundation

cake.pngWe couldn’t be happier to be celebrating this upcoming milestone: our 30-year anniversary! Fourstar began in 1986 as a low-volume assembly contract manufacturing shop. Keeping our heads up during two recessions, we learned to be nimble and adapt to economic circumstances. Through the years we have evolved, redefined ourselves successfully, and grown along the way. Fourstar has been delivering the highest quality cable assemblies, wire harnesses, electronic assemblies, and full-turnkey complex box builds to our industry-leading customers for 30 years. Now, we are a fully integrated interconnect content solutions provider, helping companies reach their new product introduction (NPI), time-to-market (TTM), and design for manufacturing (DFM) goals.

This perseverance has brought us to the Fourstar we are today: innovative, solutions-driven, and focused on social responsibility and sustainable growth. We can’t say enough about the loyalty and dedication shown by our family, employees, customers, and supply chain partners. We owe a debt of gratitude to everyone who has believed in us and contributed towards our common goals as a team. As we say in our mission statement: success is validated by customer loyalty, employee commitment, and our standing in the community.

Time to Celebrate!

We will be hosting a private event later this month and have invited many of those very people to celebrate with us. Former employees—many of whom we still enjoy close relationships with—loyal customers and supply chain partners, and state and local representatives will be joining us on this day. Guests will enjoy refreshments and appetizers and be taken on tours of our facility. We will be giving a donation of $1,000 to a local charity—the monies were raised by our employees, with a match from Fourstar—one of many employee/community initiatives we support. Along with the state and local dignitaries, we have asked some of our former employees, customers, and supply chain partners to speak at this event.

In preparing for the anniversary celebration, they have shared some of their thoughts with us, and we’d like to share them here. We work as hard at the elements it takes to build and maintain solid relationships as we do with every cable assembly, wire harness, electronic assembly, or full-turnkey complex box build. True collaboration is a part of any great solution. I think you’ll see that it shows in their insights.

Loyal Customers Count

Butch, who is buyer, has been in purchasing for 30 years. In his long tenure as a buyer, he has learned that loyalty and “your word” are the two biggest factors in establishing a partnership with any vendor. Butch is a long-standing loyal customer of Fourstar, so he knows the principles we foster. Butch offers, “Once the trust and loyalty are gone, it really affects the relationship. So being loyal to your word goes a long way.” He relies on Nubelia Pimentel, Account Manager for his company, to give him accurate and dependable quotes and delivery dates—knowing that when she says it will be there, it is. He says Nubelia provides the “trust factor” in the relationship and goes on to state, “The quotes that I receive are competitive and trusting.”  

Couldn’t Do it Without Solid Supply Chain Partners

We are able to offer reliable interconnect solutions to our customers because we’ve also built strong, trusting relationships with our supply chain partners. We couldn’t do it without them. Frank Flynn, President of Sager Electronics, heads up one of those fruitful relationships. Frank says that this relationship was “solely based on trust” 30 years ago, as Fourstar had no credit history when we were first seeking suppliers. Part of forming that trust was to openly offer financial results and provide updates on our business performance, which we did. As Frank says, “Thirty years later, we continue to win together based on that foundation of trust.”

A good relationship with our supply chain partners directly impacts the relationship we have with—and the products we deliver to—our customers. About this, Franks offers a distinction that Fourstar has within the industry: “Fourstar cares deeply about its customers and strives to deliver the best possible service. That can only happen if they work closely with their supply chain partners to ensure a continuous, timely flow of products to the production floor. By taking full advantage of the supply chain and financial services we offer, they improve their time-to-market while keeping their total cost of ownership competitive.”

Another supply chain partner we spoke with, who will also be speaking at our anniversary event, is Dale DelVecchio, District Manager–Northeast, at Heilind Electronics. He speaks of the transparency we operate with (internally and externally), saying, “Fourstar has always been open with us about the challenges they are facing, and involves us in solutions.” His thoughts on Fourstar’s working model are summed up nicely: “honest, loyal, and professional.”

unity.pngFourstar Is a Family Business—Inside and Out

Fourstar is a family business—we like to think the functional kind! We have retained many relationships with former employees and are very proud of the accomplishments they have gone on to make. Jerry Treem is now the Director of Sales at Amphenol Global Interconnect Systems. When asked about his most remarkable memory as an employee here, his lengthy answer (every line of it) speaks of the relationships he made with Fourstar employees—many of whom are still here. His overarching response is, “No question that the answer to this question is my colleagues and the friendship that we created.”

We were curious about the impact Fourstar had in furthering his career. To this he says, “I grew up there. My children were born during my time there. I matured and learned how to manage people through respect, and fine-tuned the self-discipline and level of accountability needed to manage a team effectively. Twenty-five years later and I am still using lessons learned in leading large groups of people.”

Another former employee experienced one of the most memorable moments in anyone’s life at Fourstar: he met his future wife here! Rich McIlvene, now Store Development Manager at Starbucks Coffee Company, notes meeting Zaira as his most remarkable memory; with a close second being “given the opportunity to develop and execute a sales plan that contributed to growth and success of the organization.” He credits the “knowledge and skillsets” that he gained while here with providing him with “a solid business acumen that I still benefit from today.”

Most notably, he speaks about Fourstar’s company culture, and says, “The culture at Fourstar, when I worked there, was one that instilled shared values and promoted a true sense of family. The grass roots of the organization were, and still are, deeply planted in the community from which the company operates.”

Quality of Life = Quality of Relationships

It is said that the quality of your life can be measured by the quality of your relationships. We’re pretty happy about the overall quality of our life at Fourstar and are grateful to the many people who continue to commit to loyal relationships with us. As you can see, we have formed many life-long friendships in the process.    

We pride ourselves on a working model based on collaboration and transparency. We empower hands-on leadership and keep learning and adapting to market shifts and demands. To mirror sentiments offered by Frank, we challenge ourselves to evolve by introducing new ideas, and implementing process improvement whenever we see the need. It’s not unlike the work it takes to thrive in any relationship. And the pay-off is trust, loyalty, and 30 years later, tipping our hats to—hopefully—another 30 years to look forward to. Seems to us that the interconnect business isn’t just about cable assemblies, wire harnesses, and box builds—the most fundamental element is in building human connections first.

Our tagline, “Finding a Better Way,” applies to all aspects of our business, impacting our growth … and yours. We’ll be here, happy to help you with all your cable assembly, box build, time-to-market, and new product introduction needs. Contact us when you’re ready to find a better way.

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Topics: new product introduction, design for manufacturing, Interconnect Solutions

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Finding a Better Way

Fourstar partners with leading companies to problem solve, innovate, and find better ways for New Product Introduction (NPI) and Design for Manufacturing (DFM) initiatives.

What you get:

  • Our project management and manufacturing expertise
  • Comprehensive range of products and solutions
  • Advanced IT systems
  • Exceptional customer support

From cable assemblies to complex box build solutions, we can quickly ramp up to meet target dates and volume requirements. We are dedicated to helping you improve program efficiency, enhance product performance, speed time to market, and lower total cost of product.

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