Day #1 – Bruno

Thank you Bill and Bruno!

Bruno was the best company to give us a feel for the experience we will be having in Sweden; it could not have gotten much better than this! Being able to witness these products being made that allow people with limited mobility to have independence again was incredible. On top of Bruno being in the business for 35 years, the company also has 425 employees with 210,000 square feet of administrative, manufacturing, and distribution space. One question that came up was, “What made the founder of the company want to start a business in this industry?” The answer is that the founder knew several people that were disabled and being affected by that with their day-to-day tasks, and the founder, Mike Bruno, knew that this was the way to make a difference in their lives. Bill Belson, the Director of Engineering at Bruno, was the one that made all of the difference with our experience at Bruno. He was able to answer every single question we had and go into depth on everything about the company. He knew every single thing that was happening on the plant floor when we went on our tour and explained it all so well. One thing that I really took away from this presentation was being able to talk and ask questions to the employees after the presentation. The question, “What would you tell these soon to be, young business professionals as they go into the working world?” was asked. One of the employees answered by saying, “Stay curious, stay learning, and do not stay with something you don’t like because life is too precious and short to be doing something that does not excite you!” This stuck with me because we always need that constant reminder that there is not enough time to be doing something you don’t enjoy each day; we need to choose a path that we are passionate about! On that key takeaway, thank you again Bill and Bruno so much for having us and we hope we can come back again in the future! Hej då for now!

Daily Reflection:

– Bruno is in the 97th percentile for on-time shipments

– What makes Bruno different than their competitors is that they put themselves in their customers shoes in order to produce the best products for them

– Bruno built their first scooter lift in 1984

– Bruno has about 400,000 different variations of the vertical platform lifts