The Fastcap Facility
On August 4, 2014 Kim Lum, Dick Walterhouse, Scott Anderson, Dave Eichten, Lee Hopkinson and JR Gunter took a trip to Bellingham, Washington to meet with Paul Akers, founder and president of FastCap LLC., and author of 2 Second Lean.
Pankow’s team, along with six other companies, was invited to have dinner at Paul’s house. A group of 50 toured his house, where they saw his Lean at Home video in real life.
Paul and his wife LeAnne made dinner for everyone. Before dinner, Paul spent time getting to know his visitors. When dinner finished, he talked about the plan for visiting the FastCap facility the next day and shared his Lean story. All of our leaders came away with a few key takeaways after learning about his journey.
“Paul said multiple times this is a journey for which there is no conclusion. Even for FastCap, Paul is not satisfied with current status. He is determined and passionate about continuing to find and eliminate waste. The rest takes care of itself.” said Dave Eichten.
Dick Walterhouse commented, “Paul was not as crazy in person as he appears in his videos – he is just very passionate.”
“There was so much alignment between FastCap and Pankow,” said Scott Anderson. Examples include:
A. Attitude is Everything = Lead from Above the Line
B. Being opened minded = Seeing the possibilities
C. Client Service is a Core Value = Everything starts with the Client