Lou Stricklin
One summer, during his break from college, Lou Stricklin took a summer job at the Muratec distribution center in Dallas, Texas.
“I remember doing everything from binding power cords to moving pallets in the warehouse to reconditioning thermal fax machines,” he recalls. “I enjoyed the atmosphere at the company and moved into the product marketing department after college.”
Although he is no longer required to binds cords or move pallets, Stricklin seems like the type who is comfortable doing just about anything to help. Today he is the director of marketing and sales support at Muratec America, but he also manages to find time to be the treasurer of the MPSA. He describes a typical day as “controlled chaos and a lot of fun.”
“There is rarely a boring day at Muratec,” adds Stricklin.
It is his talent, likeability and willingness to devote time to industry causes that drew so many of his peers’ appreciation. Striclkin says that he’s truly honored to be recognized as a Difference Maker and to be mentioned alongside “so many wonderful people in our industry.”
For his part, Stricklin wanted to recognize MWA Intelligence’s Mike Stramaglio and his own mother-in-law, CandE Wright, for being role models and making a difference in his professional career.
“Mike has been extremely supportive over the years and I’ve always admired his ability to transform businesses and find ways to make business opportunities a win-win for everyone involved,” he says. “Plus, Mike is one of the most generous and outgoing people that I’ve met and provides daily examples of how to treat people.”
Stricklin discloses that it was Wright, at the time the CFO for Muratec, who helped him land that summer job at Muratec over 20 years ago.
“CandE has an extremely keen business sense and simply doesn’t allow barriers to stand in her way,” he says. “Rising to the ranks of C-level in a Japanese company was not common for women during her tenure. However, her work ethic, communication skills and commitment to excellence accelerated her business career and has served as an example to me throughout mine.”
Stricklin is optimistic about the state of the industry. He views this as a period of transition and opportunity and he’s pleased that many companies are now offering products that take advantage of these growing opportunities.
“Traditional office printing is flat — or declining — depending on how you view page shift,” he states. “However, there are some very cool printing solutions emerging that I believe will enable our channel to transition and create additional revenue opportunities — specifically products being launched in the digital label and wide format markets, from folks like Muratec, Konica-Minolta /MGI, Oki and others.”
Whatever path the industry takes, it is clear is that Stricklin will always enjoy the challenges necessary to help drive it forward. He cites the relatively small size of their division for allowing him such a diversity of experience and opportunity.
“Although it can be overwhelming from time to time, I really enjoy that my work day dramatically varies from day to day,” he says.
