What does being the Plant Manager of a production facility at a company like Dion really mean? Well for Dave Bouley, it’s all about flexibility and variety. In fact, the variety is Dave’s favorite part of his job; he loves that every day brings new challenges and opportunities. Officially, Dave’s responsibilities as Plant Manager include providing support and guidance to everyone working in our Production, Purchasing, Warehousing, and Shipping departments. Unofficially, Dave takes care of a host of other things, including everything from helping out the Marketing team when they need a particular tool to assemble our tradeshow booth to working through technical issues with our phone systems!

Dave has been with Dion for thirteen years. While some lucky people may map out their entire career paths well in advance, Dave (like most of us) initially began his tenure at Dion due to a mixture of chance and necessity. He explains, “fourteen years ago, I worked for Rotometrics as an Inside Sales rep. When they closed their CT plant, I had just bought a house and was expecting my first son. I reached out to my local accounts to see who was hiring, and Dion welcomed me immediately. As is often the case, hindsight revealed that tense situation as one of the best things that could have happened.” And it has worked out well for Dion too, because Dave is an incredible and unique addition to our team.

We asked Dave about his proudest moment at Dion. He recounted a time at the Labelexpo tradeshow when “a woman who runs another label company noticed our shirts. She approached us and went on and on about how awesome Dion is. I did not realize until then how respected Dion is in our industry. We are small(ish), but we are mighty.”

When Dave is not in the office, you can probably find him wrenching something, working in the yard, swimming, having a craft beer, and/or hanging out with family and neighbors. He enjoys Drones, RC cars, and football with his boys. He says, ”I’m not a fan of long walks on the beach…I’ll take something with a motor, please. I like to build things, go fast, and relax hard when it’s time to shut it down.”

Check out these 5 fun facts about him that we love:       

1. He grew up in Maine and relocated in his early 20s.
2. His high school graduating class was made up of 83 students from three towns. He did not attend college. 
3. He’s a big fan of the Oxford Comma.
4. He has a Bengal cat called Lukas. “He’s kind of a jerk,” says Dave, “but he’s my jerk. We also have a couple goats, a bunch of rabbits, enough hens to keep our egg supply stocked, and are soon to have a Standard Poodle. I guess I live on a farm.”
5. My password has never been ‘PASSWORD’.

If you need a helping hand, a bit of technical advice, or even just a laugh, Dave is the guy to see. We’ll leave you with a couple of tidbits straight from Dave: when we asked him his personal philosophy he said, “if the grass is greener on the other side, they probably treat with nasty chemicals.” And his advice to others in his profession? “It’s not always bad material.” 😊