In today’s exclusive AMN Executive Interview we talk with Brian Cohn, president of Multi Parts Supply. In the interview, Cohn talks about the significant milestone of celebrating 25 years in business and the vision his father had for manufacturing quality aftermarket auto parts for the U.S. marketplace, using the best of international resources. He also offers up his plans for the family owned business, MPS’ commitment to industry scholarships and discusses the company’s recent rebranding efforts.
 
MPS is celebrating a significant milestone in 2013 – the company’s 25th anniversary. Please give us a brief history of the business and what this milestone means for your company.
 
Our history dates back to 1988 and Spectrum International, a company founded by my father and the precursor to Multi Parts Supply. To make a very long story short, my father, Barry Cohn, understood that there existed an opportunity for quality manufactured aftermarket auto parts to serve the American marketplace. He also understood that the resources existed to both develop and manufacture the parts, and, with his guiding hand, bring quality parts to market. The real work was in cultivating those early international resources and demonstrating our ability to deliver on every promise we made to those first customer partners.
 
The single, most important aspect of our evolution from 1988 to today was our decision to fully control the process and thereby the quality of the products we provided. We had to become a manufacturer. We also realized we needed the facilities to support all the critical functions in the process, from development through delivery. We fulfilled our vision and today we have the capability, the people, the process and the culture to see an opportunity and expeditiously fulfill it. We do this as expert manufacturers with robust human, technology and facility resources here in the U.S. and across the globe.
 
Reaching the milestone of 25 years means our vision was right. There is staying power in being a quality-driven, true developer and manufacturer of aftermarket auto parts.
 
The company went through a significant rebranding last year, in conjunction with this milestone. Tell us what the company’s new overall theme and tagline "Opportunity: The Sum of Our Parts" means to MPS.
 
The tagline is our constant reminder of who, what and why we are. In our branding exercise, which was exhaustive, we fought, sometimes literally, long and hard to define MPS. We had to define what it is we bring to all our stakeholders, be they a customer partner, supplier or employee. We demanded a tagline that embodied MPS. The last thing we wanted or needed was an empty marketing slogan. We needed a tool. We have one. This tagline is our vision statement.
 
The parts that make up MPS — our culture, our people, our facilities and our process, combine to deliver one thing: opportunity. Making best use of the parts that make up MPS is defined as execution.
 
As part of a family owned business, what are your plans for growing the business for success in the next 25 years?
 
Management development! Actively recruiting and identifying great talent is a huge key for our organization. Notice, I did not say filling positions with quality people. We are on a constant quest to find quality, dynamic leaders. With the right people, we can develop roles that leverage their strengths for the benefit of MPS.
 
Being a family owned and operated business cannot be a ceiling preventing us from going to the next level and the next after that.
 
Next to quality people, it comes down to staying on top of the latest technology and processes to more efficiently run our business and facilities, literally across the world. Our recipe for the next 25 years has very little to do with our stance as a family owned business. We conduct our business as any good business does, hiring and retaining great people, giving them the tools to succeed and getting out of their way, allowing them to make each other and this company better. 
 
As someone who has spent nearly his entire life in the aftermarket industry, what do you feel are the keys to attracting and retaining the next generation ofindustry leaders, especially if they don’t have the benefit of having grown up in the industry?
 
It comes down to an accurate portrayal of theindustry. This industry employs 4 million professionals, a great many at the leadership and executive levels. Our industry positively impacts the economy, vehicle and highway safety and energy consumption.
 
This industry is dynamic. The potential for high-level compensation certainly exists for those willing to work hard. Really, our industry is no different than many of the other so-called growth industries. We are a growth industry in the truest sense of the word. We have needs in technology, supply chain management, distribution, management and finance, to name but a few. Backgrounds in automotive, manufacturing, retail, engineering, finance, legal, legislative and a host of other professional skill sets have a home in our industry. Ours is an international business with the opportunity to travel extensively, putting bi- and multi-lingual skills to use. Our industry has tremendous staying power. Automotive is here to stay.
 
This is the story. The key is telling it in a way that resonates with the next generation of leaders.
 
MPS established a special GAAS Scholarship fund for 2013, to honor customers and colleagues. Tell us how this idea came about.
 
MPS began providing GAAS scholarships severalyears ago. Immediately, upon awarding the first scholarships, we began to hear incredible stories and learned firsthand what the scholarships meant to the individual recipients. Powerful stuff. They were making, and continue to make, a real impact in these recipients’ lives. Then, with last year’s untimely passing of my friend Peter Klotz, I saw scholarships as a way to honor a great man, his legacy and contribution to our industry.
 
When the holidays came, we talked about what sweets or trinkets we’d provide this year. The thought was not very exciting to me and my father, or our management team. So we hit upon the idea of honoring our colleagues and customer partners with a scholarship. We joked, “Why not contribute to our industry’s bottom line instead of our colleagues’ waistlines?” The great thing is how well the idea and the scholarships have been received. That says all anyone needs to know about the women and men who make up our industry.