Cedric Sankey is a production Team Member in the stamping shop. He joined HMMA 11 years ago, back in July 2004.

“When I started, we were mostly cleaning and training,” Cedric remembers. “It took several months for all the equipment to be installed and all along we were thinking, ‘How will we run all this?’ I remember wondering if I’d get a chance to try.” Even the Team Members in stamping looked a little different back then, he says. “We had to wear hard hats at first, before they introduced bump caps,” he laughs. “I felt like I was wearing a football helmet all day!”

Once things got up and running, Cedric and his fellow Team Members found themselves doing many of today’s automated processes by hand. “None of the automation was in place yet, so we had to do things like move panels ourselves,” he says. “We would take the blanks off the blanking press by hand and stack them on a forklift, then the forklift would drive them to the stamping press and we’d load them into the press by hand.”

Cedric says that in all his time as a Team Member, those automated processes have made a huge difference in the stamping shop, but it’s still up to the Team Members to keep everything running smoothly. “Working on the blanking press, I know the stamping press is my customer, so I’m going to work hard to meet my customer’s needs for that day,” Cedric says. “If I’m giving 100 percent, and the next Team Member is giving 100 percent, and we’re all making our maximum effort, then we know we’re going to meet our goals.”