Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/563465
Hey's. e building encompasses 7,500 square feet of office space and about 11,000 square feet of assembly floor, which is important to C3 because the client can bring in its material and test out the machines. "When you get out on the floor in the production world, if it's not perfect and it doesn't run from day one, those operators will never accept that machine," Van De Hey says. "It's like driving a car off the lot and you have problems within the first 10 miles — you're going to bring it back and you're going to have that bad feeling forever." Van De Hey says to provide the best work for a manufacturing company, it's necessary to understand what they did yesterday, what they're doing now and where they'll likely go in the future. Farm to factory I f land prices had been more affordable in the 1980s, C3 might never have happened. Van De Hey is the 12th of 15 children of Wrightstown dairy farmers — a pathway he had hoped to follow. Instead, he attended DeVry University in the Chicago area, earning a bachelor's of science degree in electronics engineering. But the influence of the farm stuck with him, both in work ethic and in problem-solving skills. "You had to make do with what you had and you had to figure it out, otherwise it wasn't going to get done," Van De Hey says. "You learn how to tackle things: Say the power went out. You still had to milk cows, you still had to feed cows. ere's always something to be done, and you still had a schedule to meet." at kind of ingenuity led Van De Hey and his brothers to be entrepreneurs. "Believe it or not, all of my brothers today are owners of their own businesses," Van De Hey says. Some of the brothers took over the farm. Two others started their own farm. One is in the roofing business. One is in insurance. All brothers live within a few miles of the family farm, and the sisters all live within the state. One of his siblings, Lois Smits, followed him to C3 early on, wearing many different hats until landing her current position in customer and project management. "It's been 21 years, but it's exciting because it's always a different market, a different avenue, a different piece of equipment," she says. Smits says her brother is great for leading C3 because of his enthusiasm for figuring out how to solve problems. "He wants to get his hands dirty — he wants to be involved," she says. "e light bulb goes off so quickly. Customers tell him one thing, I can tell already, you just look at him and you can see the wheels are spinning." He also cares what his employees have to say about a project, she says. He surrounds himself with innovative thinkers; a walk through C3's offices and floor turns up a lot of young faces. Each year the company brings in engineering interns from UW-Madison, UW-Platteville, MSOE and Michigan Tech who are ready to share their ideas. C3 Project Manager Josh Vande Hey (no relation) is a UW-Madison graduate who interned at C3 and started last May. He says C3's creativity, innovation and its people make it a success with its customers. "e nicest part is being able to look back and say, man, we were really able to take that need that they have and put an answer to their need," he says, "and now they're doing so much better because of it." w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m S e p t e m b e r 2 0 15 • I NSIGH T | 27