This month for our employee spotlight series, we’ve chosen to highlight GCC’s Managing Director for the Northwest, Joe Kane. Joe has only been with GCC for a short time period but has already exhibited so much passion and embraced our company culture. We sat down with Joe to get to know him better and find out why he values being a part of our EOHI family.
What is your role? Briefly describe what you do.
“I am the Managing Director for the Northwest Region. I am responsible for every GCC employee in Seattle, Oregon and eastern Washington. This includes everything from sales to operations to engineering to field service. I oversee anything and everything that happens with more than 30 employees and our customers.”
Who/what inspires you?
“My parents and grandparents are an inspiration to me. My dads’ parents came here from Scotland and my moms’ parents came from Ireland. My parents were the first people in my family to be born in the states. Their parents left with the shirt on their backs and a small suitcase to create a life for their children. Although my parents came from nothing with no higher education, they were able to raise 10 children who all graduated with a college degree.”
If you had to pick one strength you bring to the team, what would it be?
“One of my biggest strengths is the ability to collaborate and pull groups of people together to solve a problem. I can understand what needs to be done and how to pull people who are doing different tasks to take care of customers. I am a firm believer of solving problems together verses doing it on my own. Without customer solutions, we wouldn’t have a business.”
What do you like to do in your free time?
“I have three children who are all involved in different youth sports activities. My 10-year-old does ballet, my 12-year-old plays basketball, baseball and swims and my 14-year-old plays football and lacrosse. Between all these different activities, my free time is dedicated to all their practices, games and performances.”
If you could learn how to do one thing, what would it be?
“I wish I knew how to speak German. When I worked for Bosch Rexroth there were many instances where conversations were being spoken in German, so it would’ve been cool to be able to participate and understand this dialog.”
Where were you born?
I was born in Long Island, New York. I moved to Kent to begin my new career at GCC but had lived in the west coast prior to this move.”
What’s the best thing about your job?
“I love the wide range of applications for products. There are so many different problems to solve each day. One day you can be working in the saw mill with industrial hydraulics and the next day you could be working on farm tractor or fishing boat. With so many different applications, I never seem to get bored.”
What’s been one of your proudest moments at GCC?
“I have only been with GCC for a short period of time but have already seen how all of the employees come together to achieve a goal. When the Kent location relocated, we were able to pick up and move everything within 12 days. We managed to get out of the old building without having to pay rent on both buildings for the next month. We had a lot of people come from Portland and Houston to assist with the move. There were many long days of work to ensure the new location was up and running on time.”
How do you define success?
“Most successful people I know are happy, healthy and self-reliant. Success is not about money. It is truly about knowing where you contribute and feel good about the contribution. It is about living up to your full potential.”
Where is your favorite place that you’ve traveled to?
“It is hard for me to narrow it down to just one place because I have traveled to 5 out of 7 continents and seen about 40 countries. Out of all these places, Kauai has stuck out to me as being one of the most beautiful islands.”