02/09/2012

Leadership Q&A: Greg Sidener, President, FPDA, Sidener Engineering Co.

FPDA recently spoke with Greg Sidener, President, FPDA, Sidener Engineering Co., Inc., about his company and his goals as the FPDA President.

FPDA: How would you describe Sidener Engineering? What products do you provide?

Greg Sidener: We're an industrial fluid power distributorship. We're primarily involved in automation, electronic safety products, hydraulic and pneumatic componentry. We've been in business since 1981.

FPDA: What are the company's main markets?

Sidener: We're heavily involved in the automotive industry. We're somewhat unique in that a lot other state's distribution groups are focusing on things like only pneumatics or only hydraulics or only automation. In Indiana, it's not the large OEM state that you experience elsewhere.

Most of the distribution groups here cover it all: pneumatic, hydraulics, electronics, safety, etc. Our largest customers are heavily automotive. We have many medical manufacturers in Indiana, such as Lilly, Cook, Roche, etc. and we do work with them as well, but the biggest share of our business is in the automotive industry.

FPDA: How was 2011 for the company?

Sidener: Our business has been very strong for the past two years, and we really expect that to extend clear into 2013. We have averaged in excess of 30 percent growth in each of the past two years and we expect that to continue.

So far we had the best month we've ever had in the history for our company in January. If it were to continue, which one month does not make a year, we expect to be close to 40 percent growth this year.

After 30 years we developed a reputation of being able to accomplish things some of our competition cannot. We've been able to get involved in some specialty project work for major customers allowing us to perform as a commodity manager for a couple of large users.

FPDA: What are the company's goals and plans for 2012 and beyond?

Sidener: We expect to hire a couple more people, and we're getting more heavily in involved in the electronics and safety marketplace. What we're doing now is simply making sure we can handle the business we have from a performance standpoint.  We are actively pursuing acquisition possibilities as a growth initiative.

FPDA: Can you share more about your career experience? How did you get into the industry?

Sidener: I started out in the '60s in the automotive industry building automation. For about 10 to 12 years I was building automation and developing product for the automotive industry. Then I started working for a distributorship. Then the president of the company passed away in 1980, and I was forced into starting a business myself.

In 1981, I had one product line that I represented. With each year we picked up additional products and now we represent approximately 40 product lines and have 24 people working for us. We started out covering the middle part of Indiana and now we cover the entire state, parts of northern Kentucky and some areas in Ohio and Michigan as well. We have primarily hydraulic and pneumatic products: cylinders, valves, pumps, motors, and electronic safety. We developed and marketed our own hydraulic and electronic safety products.

FPDA: Why did you join FPDA, and what benefit to you hope to gain from membership?

Sidener: I've been a member since we started the company. I have served two terms on the board in the past nine years and have found it to be very rewarding.

Basically, the thing we garner the most from FPDA is the networking opportunities, the relationships we develop, the information we glean from talking with other people that do the same thing we're doing, and networking with the manufactures that belong to our organization as well. It's been the source of quite a few business opportunities for us, and we anticipate that to continue.

There's a lot of other things like the profit analysis and industry information we provide to members. There's a lot of people in your larger organizations that use that extensively. I think primarily what we get out of it, and I think many of our members get out of it, is the networking and relationships they've developed.

FPDA: What future goals would you like to see FPDA achieve?

Sidener: We want to enhance the growth of FPDA. As our industry changes and manufacturers merge, if you will, and distributors merge there are fewer opportunities to have people involved in the organization. Our goal is to develop relationships with our sister organizations that exist in the fluid power industry. That's one of the goals we're pursuing. Our ultimate goal as fluid power industry organizations is to educate, train and perpetuate our industry.