Werner President Craig Wiedemeier
Photographs by Shane Van Boxtel, Image Studios
“The pace of change is never going to be slower than it is today.”
As president of Werner, Craig Wiedemeier is fond of this mantra. COVID. Artificial intelligence. The Amazon effect. All have accelerated that pace, and all have shaped what Werner has become today as the company steps out from behind its longtime label of “electric supplier.”
“When people hear ‘Werner Electric Supply,’ they think about pieces and parts, distribution, lighting — you know, electrical outlets,” Wiedemeier says. “They don’t necessarily think about information. They don’t think about cybersecurity. They don’t think about robotics.”
Werner prides itself not just on products and technology but also on leveraging its long-term relationships, both with its 350 suppliers and its 2,000-plus customers, which put the company in a unique position to understand and solve industry’s next biggest challenges.
“We’re going to build off the expertise we have,” Wiedemeier says, “and marry that with taking time with our customers to best understand where they want to go.”
Those customers represent two major industries, manufacturing and construction, that are economic cornerstones but also are staring down major challenges in the realms of labor and technology.
Wiedemeier says partnering with those industries for the future, as more than just a supplier, is the next frontier for Werner, which rebranded with the simplified name last month.
And with Werner’s unique position on the supply chain, a commitment to talent and technology growth, and a 77-year history of building partnerships and trust, he is confident in the company’s ability to stride after change and win the race.
Electric evolution
Walter Werner would not likely recognize the company that bears his name today. He started the business in 1948 as a modest appliance shop in Neenah and began partnering with Allen-Bradley in 1955 to help supply local companies. Werner died in 1961, at which point the reins were passed to his son, Lynn, who ran the company until his death in 1984.
With no succession plan in place after Lynn Werner passed away, then-Vice President of Sales and Marketing Lynn MacDonald saw opportunity in the firm, which in his mind had not yet reached its full potential for expanding into territories and markets. He purchased Werner Electric in 1986.
On MacDonald’s watch, Werner grew to 12 locations and significantly diversified products and services. In 2016, the company opened its new headquarters in Grand Chute and a year later, MacDonald passed away. The MacDonald family retained ownership, but Werner has been run by Wiedemeier, who grew up on an Oconto County dairy farm and at one time worked and studied under legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch, since 2020. Wiedemeier spent a dozen years with GE and two years with Plexus Corp. before coming to Werner as VP of operations in 2012.
An industrial engineer, Wiedemeier says the opportunity to jump into the field of electrical distribution was intriguing to him.
“Supporting the industrial space in our region was of interest to me, being a Wisconsin kid but also with my manufacturing experience,” Wiedemeier says. “And I saw the opportunity to come in with an owner who had a vision of growth.”
Among MacDonald’s growth visions was the commitment to build the current Grand Chute headquarters, which Wiedemeier says he was charged with overseeing and which has had a transformational impact on business growth.
Customers like Hans Bachmeier, president of CMD Corporation, regularly visit Werner’s facility and consider it an important business asset.
“They have some interesting labs and spaces to simulate the technology, so we can get over there pretty quickly and see demonstrations,” Bachmeier says. “That has taken our relationship to more of a partnership level than ever before.”
In addition to MacDonald’s vision to build the new headquarters, Wiedemeier says his vision to expand into the commercial construction space was also a major game-changer in Werner’s history.
“That has become a focus over the last few decades,” Wiedemeier says. Today, manufacturing represents a little over 50% of Werner’s business and construction is just a little under 50% — for all intents and purposes, an even split.
“Right now we have to rethink how we do construction on the commercial side of things,” Wiedemeier says. “We have to find ways to do that and make it more efficient, and take out time that’s required for work on a job site. That’s a paradigm shift that didn’t exist 13 years ago when I started.”
One of those construction customers is Dave Kievet, CEO of The Boldt Group, who says Werner is much more than a supplier for his company. Werner’s team has provided critical insights on integrating manufacturing solutions into construction operations, Kievet says, as well as adapted its products and services in ways that have saved Boldt time and resources.
“Our biggest problem we have in construction right now is we’re going to be losing 40% of our workforce in the next five years,” Kievet says. “With [Werner] prefabricating and manufacturing for us, they’re helping solve that labor problem.”
Dirt to data
Today’s Werner, says Vice President of Sales and Marketing Brandon Day, serves customers from “dirt to data.”
“If we have a customer who’s going to start pushing dirt around for a new facility, we can start working with them,” Day says. “Then we can follow them through their entire journey to the point where they’re pulling data off their manufacturing lines.”
Day says one of Werner’s biggest challenges is that existing and prospective customers don’t fully understand the breadth of products and services the company offers, including all manner of Industry 4.0 services: smart factories, AI, automation technologies, cybersecurity and more.
The dirt part is easier to explain. The data? That’s a whole other story.
“There’s so much data available today that is not harnessed, right?” Wiedemeier says. “That’s the next step for us, in my opinion — especially for our industrial customers, to rethink how things are happening and leverage that data to allow for real-time decision making by their teams.”
Fred Mauermann, Werner’s vice president of products, operations and services, says Werner can help manufacturers bring together technologies and services that may have been created or managed in their own silos but are increasingly interconnected, especially as cybersecurity challenges heighten worldwide.
“These factories are the lifeblood of the business. Everything stems from the base of the factory,” Mauermann says. “Keeping those safe and secure and keeping those machines running is its own opportunity.”
Not only does Werner pride itself on providing end-to-end support, but it has also grown its educational outreach. Today the company hosts events and trainings, including hack-a-thons and lunch-and-learns, on a wide variety of techy topics.
The biggest example is IN4M, a biannual conference and trade show Werner created in 2015 that is aimed at educating manufacturers about the latest and greatest automation technologies. Last year more than 700 people attended IN4M at Lambeau Field.
“Our strategy is to be that partner that provides information, those opportunities to learn, whether it’s smaller events with 20 to 30 people or it’s IN4M, which is for us really an opportunity to tell our story of that end-to-end capability,” Day says.
Wiedemeier says educational programming has helped Werner position itself as a content expert and that it is an essential component of Werner’s commitment to supporting customers through their entire journeys.
“It doesn’t get any better than when you were a part of a solution for a customer that they’re getting real success with, and they’re coming back to you to help them take the next step,” he says. “Like, that’s super energizing for me. That’s when I know we’re making a difference — when I know we’re changing the game and delivering more than pieces and parts.”
‘I don’t want them to leave’
Day says people are absolutely the differentiator at Werner.
“I tell our team that all the time,” he says. “[Our success] is purely due to the quality of people and the quality of engagement and focus they have on our customers.”
And as keeping pace with technology becomes the company’s predominant charge, talent is more critical than ever. Werner has developed strategic higher education partnerships to help fill the talent pipeline and often invites college students to attend educational events at no charge.
But just as important as recruiting new talent is nurturing the talent that already exists within Werner.
And while Hillary Anderson, Werner’s vice president of human resources, admits that electrical distribution may not be “the sexiest industry out there,” she says it’s also rife with opportunity.
Anderson frequently likens Werner’s career opportunities not to a ladder, but a lattice. Werner employees are encouraged to be cross-functional and try a little bit of everything, and Wiedemeier says he loves the lattice analogy.
“When they come to Werner, I don’t want them to leave,” Wiedemeier says. “I mean, that’s the most effective and efficient way to grow your business from within. We’ve tried to be really thoughtful working with our teams to create career paths and growth opportunities.”
Anderson says the ideal Werner employee values problem-solving and customer relationships. They also have to be open to innovation and change.
“Hiring people who have a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit is important here, just being able to think outside the box and be able to shift and adapt quickly,” she says. “Craig and some others talk about ‘failing fast.’ You know, take a risk on something. If it’s not going to work, at least we know we probably learned something from it.”
Mauermann says Werner has reorganized its technical team so that, in addition to specialists for different types of products, team members are able to analyze operations for customers at a higher level — integrating information technology with operations technology and staying up-to-date on the latest software and technology.
“I love the diversity of the customer sets, and we’ve got an incredibly talented team that’s passionate about each of those given areas,” says Mauermann, who like Wiedemeier came to Werner from GE. “And that’s a level of diversity that maybe I hadn’t necessarily been exposed to in my career.”
From his view at CMD Corporation, Bachmeier can see the depth of Werner’s curiosity and desire to share and apply diverse knowledge.
“They’re very interested in learning about our business and what our priorities are,” he says. “Other relationships are more transactional. You place an order for a part, you get the part. [With Werner] it is truly a strategic long-term partnership because they’re always looking not just at this year, but what do the next three years look like?”
Mauermann says that experience is exactly how the company designs it.
“You have to be fanatical about customers to succeed [at Werner],” Mauermann says. “There’s a real intense focus on making sure our customers are successful on every given project, and I think that’s become part of the employment brand at Werner.”
