By Gregg Wartgow, Special to AEM —
A decade-long career in the artisan retail business is a far cry from the heavy-duty equipment manufacturing industry. Even when you represent the third generation of a family manufacturing company, there is going to be a bit of a learning curve.
“I had no direct manufacturing experience when I joined Harper, so I had to really get in there and ask a lot of questions to get up to speed as quickly as possible,” said Jessica Penner Race, hydraulic sales lead at AEM member company Harper Industries, a manufacturer of work truck hydraulics and equipment for agriculture and turf management. Penner Race got up to speed quickly, though, thanks to her own work ethic and tenacity, and the willingness of coworkers to mentor her.
The manufacturing business is also in Penner Race’s blood. Her father, Tim Penner, has been the CEO of Harper Industries since 1998, when he helped assemble an investor group to purchase DewEze Manufacturing from its parent company, Owosso Corporation. Penner had been the president of DewEze since 1996, when he took over for his retiring father-in-law, Howard Hershberger, who had been president since 1981.
Penner Race was 12 years old when her father, grandfather, and additional DewEze employees purchased the company and renamed it Harper Industries after the small city in southcentral Kansas where it is located. She remembers it vividly.
“Our family was out to eat,” Penner Race recalled. “My dad said he had an opportunity to purchase the company he was working for. He said it could be a great opportunity for our family and the community, but there was also a lot of risk involved. Even at the young age I was, I remember feeling so appreciative that he was bringing us into that important discussion. To me, that’s the biggest thing that has made him such a great leader.”
The AEM Manufacturing Express, the largest public engagement in the association’s 130-year history, was proud to make a stop at Harper Industries on Tuesday, Aug 6. For more information and to follow along with the tour, visit manufacturingexpress.org.
Hitting the Ground After a Long Time Coming
Penner Race worked the occasional part-time job at DewEze while growing up, often helping in the mail room or at the reception desk. She’d never envisioned working there full-time, though, even after earning her bachelor’s degree in business administration in 2009. It wasn’t until earning her master’s degree that Penner Race started to contemplate joining the family business.
“Prior to getting my MBA, I spent nearly 10 years in the non-profit world,” Penner Race shared. “I even spent some time abroad in Peru, assisting artisans with product development for their retail products. Part of my background also involved co-creating a mobile retail brand.”
Penner Race knew a lot about developing and marketing products, but not much specifically about industrial-type products like the work truck hydraulic kits Harper Industries manufactured. Nonetheless, when an opportunity presented itself with the family business, she decided to take it. She had recently earned her master’s degree in 2019 and was looking for a change.
Penner Race joined Harper Industries in June 2020 as a sales representative for the company’s hydraulic segment, whose products largely consist of engine-driven PTOs that go on vehicles like bucket trucks, tow trucks, and wreckers. As part of her indoctrination into the hydraulics world, she spent several weeks on the shop floor and in the shipping department. That enabled her to put her hands on the products she would ultimately be responsible for selling. Then, her natural business instincts were able to kick in.
“I love the personal interactions that come with this job,” Penner Race said. “I like collaborating cross-functionally with other internal teams in marketing and product development. Most of all, I enjoy building relationships with customers through in-person visits and attending shows.”
The thing is, Penner Race could collaborate with colleagues and build relationships with customers while working for a lot of companies in a lot of different industries. There’s something special about working at Harper, though.
Family Values and the Freedom to Innovate
“In the grand scheme of things, we are a small business,” Penner Race said. “It’s awesome to work in an organization that is more nimble. You can come up with an idea and implement it, without having to go through multiple chains of decision-making. That freedom to innovate has been really rewarding for me. The leadership team is also very young and talented. Harper definitely isn’t a company that wants to simply do things the way they’ve always been done. It’s great to be part of an organization that always wants to be challenged and strive to do better every day.”
Penner Race also appreciates the fact that Harper Industries is a diversified company. While she is assigned to the hydraulic segment of the business, Harper also manufactures equipment for the agriculture and turf management industries. That product diversity enables Harper to better withstand economic downturns, which strengthens its position as a vital employer in rural southcentral Kansas. There haven’t been a lot of downs since Penner Race joined the company four years ago, though.
“Since I joined the company in 2020, growth has just been astronomical,” Penner Race said. Some growing pains have naturally accompanied that fast growth. “But it has been incredible to see people rally together and push through,” Penner Race added.
Penner Race has grown personally, too. After roughly one year with company, she ascended to the role of hydraulic sales lead after the vice president of the hydraulic segment retired. Penner Race attributes much of her success to the invaluable mentorship of her boss, Melissa Bergkamp, Harper’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
“It’s also been helpful for me that the company has a culture of wanting to improve and grow,” Penner Race reiterated. “Also, Harper Industries has a lot of younger people, especially women, who are part of the leadership team. The industries we serve are really important, so it’s great to have many different perspectives that help make our products and company successful.”
There’s one other thing that makes it special to work for a smaller manufacturing company in the Midwest. When Tim Penner and his investment group purchased the company in 1998, there were 58 employees. Today there are 180, 40% of whom travel to work every day from outside of Harper County. In other words, Harper Industries has become a vital part of not only the economy of Harper, Kan., but also the entire surrounding area.
“Being a part of something like that is why I wake up excited every morning,” Penner Race said. “Harper Industries is a family business with strong family values. You can’t find that everywhere.”
Being from the “first family” of Harper Industries has definitely had an influence on Penner Race, even though she spent the first decade of her career working in a completely different industry. Her degrees in business administration don’t hold a candle to the business lessons learned while sitting around the dinner table with her family.
“Honestly, I can’t fully comprehend how much of my life and outlook have been shaped by being so closely tied to Harper Industries all these years – even when I wasn’t directly working there,” Penner Race said.
Even though Harper Industries is a hallmark of her family lineage, Penner Race said the past four years of working there has allowed her to develop a fascination and appreciation for manufacturing in general. Are the work truck hydraulic kits she sells the most glamorous products to the average person? Probably not. But it’s not just the end product that matters. It’s the process of developing, manufacturing, and selling that product to customers who rely on it to live their own lives.
“When I talk with friends about the work I do, selling hydraulic systems for work trucks, it’s often hard for them to really grasp it,” Penner Race said. “I tell them, ‘You know that thing that has this thing that does this thing? Well, that’s what we manufacture.’ Then I’ll often say something like, ‘Remember that time you needed your vehicle towed in the middle of Arizona? There’s a good chance that tow truck had our hydraulic system on it. So you’re welcome.’”
Now those sound like the self-assured words of someone who’s been in the hydraulics manufacturing business their entire life. In a way, Jessica Penner Race has – even though she only joined the company four years ago. She’s really glad she did, too, because it’s been an even more rewarding experience than she’d hoped it would be.
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