A Strategic Leader | Kevin Closky | MPC Plating Inc

The similarity between Accutec Blades and MPC Plating is Kevin Closky. A strategic leader who is responsible for their transformation from struggling organizations to profit-inducing ones.

As the COO of Accutec Blades, in four years, Kevin helped them negotiate a 4-year union contract, double the plant footprint in Mexico from 150 people to almost 300 people, add 25% more hourly jobs and 20% more salary positions in the Virginia branch, while increasing annual blade production from 640MM blades to 1 billion blades. These are no tiny feet but rather significant accomplishments for a company drowning with no resolutions.

As soon as Kevin was on board, he put in operating KPIs and processes in all areas, from Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Customer Service, Engineering, and Demand Planning, increasing performance on all metrics by 20-75%. Purchased/Implemented a new ERP system (On Time and in Budget). He reduced labor costs and operating costs every year per unit. He developed the next tier of leaders to take over and keep the momentum. This was about leaving a legacy for the company and people, and Kevin did what he had promised.

In the case of MPC Plating, Kevin’s ideology and hard work bore witness to him becoming the company’s CEO in just a month. From being on-boarded as a consultant to steer the company in the right direction to making tactical decisions, incorporating accountability tools, and coaching people to hone their skills, MPC saw significant improvements to service, quality, delivery, and costs. “I took the offer and created an accountability and coaching/mentoring environment. Training leaders by showing them and leading them to do the right things, guiding them by having discussions to change their train of thought and how they look at a business,” says Kevin. “I changed the daily meetings to one of transparency with numbers, trends, and a wholistic picture of the business. This way, they understood how their decisions impacted the entire operations and company.”

Kevin’s courage and perseverance have allowed the company to see hourly doing twice as much per hour as they thought was capable, using half of the salary people they had because people are better trained and understand where they are trying to get to along with what they are attempting to impact. Setting the right goals, they increased annual sales not by new customers but by taking better care of existing customers.

Kevin’s achievements do not end here. The pioneering leader incorporated his consulting company, Mentorship Consulting, as several companies in Pittsburgh requested his assistance owing to his Vistage 12-15 C level accomplishments. On weekends, he has been helping numerous organizations, including an 80-year-old family-owned 70Mn dollar company in Pittsburgh. Owing to Kevin’s commitment as a CEO in MPC, he had to decline the company’s offer to take over as a CEO. Still, he has been helping them through his mentoring in removing the past dues and significantly increasing the performance of actual costs to standard costs.

Culminating into A Leader

Kevin is an experienced senior executive who creates real enterprise value by accelerating revenue growth, increasing profitability, and achieving operational excellence. He is performance-driven with extensive leadership experience and a 30+ year track record achieving exceptional operating, service, and financial results that tie to EBITA growth, individually and through others, in all industries. He has been successful in the US, Canada, South America, Africa, the UK, Mexico, Asia, and Europe, fueling all turnarounds, small markets, and market-leading businesses.

A persuasive leader adept at converting ideas into actions, building effective strategies and priorities, building winning teams, and executing well-thought-out plans with a high sense of urgency, Kevin has a strong history of developing executives at all levels.

Kevin is a leader who takes risks and can see the potential in people and company. He states that few know how or what to do because of life experiences. Still, those who want to learn are sponges, and helping change their lifestyle by mentoring them and watching them improve allows them to earn more money and be worth more value to themselves and other companies. “As they grow, and they can provide for their families as I have is reward itself. It is now about me leaving a Legacy. I must be busy helping others grow versus worrying about leaving early, going out for dinner, and watching them grow,” he elucidates. “I encouraged people to take risks but talk about them first. Understand what the downside is, what could go wrong, how they plan to minimize it, and how to work with customers/employees to work together, not point fingers creating a blame game.”

The pioneering leader has numerous inspirations, but Kevin’s wife is his role model. He is in awe of how she manages the household when he has taken care of everything 5 days a week for 38 years and takes care of everything without excuses. But he also gets inspiration from everyone around him. All those eager to learn, mature, prosper, and, most importantly, make an effort. “It is not about the money. It is about getting up every day and figuring out what you can do to add value and improve things daily/weekly. My first thing is making the owners money so they keep the doors open; then I look at how I create a secure environment for my hourly employees who rely on the company to make it a great company so they have job security and their families do not have to worry about putting food on the table, then I can worry about others and myself,” states Kevin. “Through my years as a Management Consultant, I have worked in about every industry and found it does not matter what you make or service; it is how you create a leadership team and create alignment.”  With this mindset, Kevin is taking the company to new heights daily.

Building A Great Company

With over 40 years of plastic plating experience, MPC has remained a one-stop job shop plater, investing in world-class equipment and developing a team capable of producing products that meet the demanding specifications that the customers require in the automotive, appliance, heavy truck, recreational vehicles, and many more industries.“MPC’s chrome plating process has been tested and proven it will outlast the vehicle life. This is revolutionary and is the pinnacle of transforming the industry,” adds Kevin.

As a job shop plater, MPC has remained flexible, developing a business system that can deliver the highest quality interior or exterior plating in multiple finishes with a quick turnaround. “Our mission is to grow MPC to one of the best Chrome Plating companies on plastic in the world. I am taking it there through mentoring and developing others to do the right things and be aligned to get there,” says Kevin. “By visiting customers and being transparent to show them our journey so they see we are human but moving in the direction with them for them, no matter if it is our issue or theirs. It is a partnership with our customers, not an invoice.”

While other companies have passed on significant cost increases for labor, metals, shipping, and materials, to name a few, MPC has been absorbing much of them by improving internally and focusing on capabilities versus sales. “We want to build our partnerships first and be world-class,” adds Kevin. “When I went on to MPC Plating and in the first year, we were able to increase the EBITA to 150% of Plan. And for the road ahead, I want to continue developing new leadership teams and setting them up for future growth. Have reduced costs and Quality, while improving On Time Delivery.” Kevin also wants to concentrate on sales growth and rebuilding old partnerships while investing back into the process, mentoring future leaders, and putting in a profit-sharing plan. “The future looks bright with numerous opportunities, and Iwant to grasp those opportunities and transform MPC into a brilliant place to work and work with,” says Kevin.