Bill Lennie, president of Home Depot Canada told Berry students, faculty and staff along with Rome area business leaders that Home Depot and Berry share many core values. Lennie spoke to the annual Berry Executive roundtable Thursday night. (Doug Walker, RN-T.com)
Berry seniors Anna Blankenship (left) and Morgan Long check in students and business leaders at the Berry Executive Roundtable on Thursday night. Blankenship already has a job lined up with Georgia Pacific, while Long will work for Frazier Deeter after she graduates. (Doug Walker, RN-T.com)
Home Depot Canada President Bill Lennie (from left) speaks with Berry student Louis Joseph and Big Time Products CEO Harry Pierce. (Doug Walker, RN-T.com)
Lennie said qualities on The Home Depot’s wheel of values that are shared with the school include resilience, awareness, good instincts, passion, confidence, perspective and purpose.
“The fundamentals are so closely aligned with the fundamentals of the culture of our company,” he said.
The Home Depot has 180 stores in Canada where, Lennie said, the smaller division allows the giant corporation to be faster to market and more nimble testing pilots. He noted that eight out of 10 LED light bulbs sold in Canada are sold by The Home Depot.
“We’re going to own innovation,” he told the largest Roundtable crowd in five years.
Lennie said the housing industry in Canada didn’t take the dip that the U.S housing market did during the Great Recession. The relative stability kept sales positive, he said, and the company made a concerted effort to keep its employees whole.
“The most important people in our stores are our associates,” Lennie said. “Our obligation is to deal them a winning hand.”
The Home Depot president said that when 2012 year-end numbers are finalized, he expects it to have been the most profitable year since 2007, even though sales volume was down.
Louis Joseph, a senior at Berry from Nashville, Tenn., and president of the Executive Roundtable, said the organization was designed to give students an environment to develop networking skills that are vital to success in the business world and life after college.
The Executive Roundtable hosted a series of events throughout the year that focused on specific elements of networking.
“We hope the program would help develop skills within the students, make them feel more comfortable with networking,” Joseph said.
Students were paired at tables for dinner with local business leaders, putting them in yet another networking scenario Joseph said closely resembles a real-world business experience.
Several of the leaders of the Roundtable have already enjoyed success in finding jobs after graduation.
Anna Blankenship, a senior from Rome, said she attended the Roundtable all four years at Berry. She was able to use skills she developed in a position in the accounting department with Georgia Pacific.
Morgan Long, a senior from Suwanee, said she has also landed a job with the audit team and with Frazier and Deeter LLC, an accounting firm in Atlanta.
Joseph said he is hoping to cultivate a career related to entrepreneurship.
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