If you ask Will Sidebotham, Program Manager at Gentex, what has kept him focused and engaged during his 25 years at the company, he will bring up his connections to the people at the Company immediately.
“It's always been about relationships, and it always will be about relationships with me, with everything,” he said.
Will grew up in a family with a long history of military service. His grandfather had fought in WWII, and his father served in the Vietnam War. His brother who had enlisted ended up serving in the DMZ on the North Korean / South Korean border.
So, on his 18th birthday, Will enlisted in the Army and flew to Georgia to start his training. His first station in Kansas at Fort Riley gave him a chance to meet new people from various backgrounds outside of West Michigan.
Then, in 1991, he was assigned to a Patriot missile escort in the Middle East.
“That was my first exposure to a different part of the world. Coming from West Michigan, it was a heck of a culture shock,” he said. “It started to build this curiosity on my part about other cultures and other people.”
When he returned home, Will joined Gentex as a Technical Team Leader to keep his West Michigan family close.
Once on the job, he loved the interactions he had with employees but quickly learned his people skills needed to adapt to Gentex.
"It wasn’t like the military, where if I tell you to do something, you just do it,” he said. “I had to learn the art of investing in people, and getting to know what motivates them on an individual basis. Once I understood how to lead civilians, it was great.”
His dedication to understanding others and building relationships was an asset when he interviewed for an internal Electrical Engineer position, and later on, his current Program Manager role. His interviewers were surprised at the time to see an established Engineer looking to move to Program Management.
“I wanted to take my electrical skills, and the knowledge and relationships I’d built up from the Production floor, and then utilize and work on my people skills, those intangibles that are harder to quantify.”
His experience in navigating cultures and people is an asset to his work today. On any given day, Will works with customers from around the world managing Gentex deliverables and keeping customers up-to-date on progress. “I don’t actually make or produce anything these days, but I facilitate a lot of work,” he said.
In recent years, Will felt it was time to once again try something new at Gentex. “I saw the V.E.T.S. board posting, and thought, I have time, my kids are getting older. I realized I could do more,” he said.
The V.E.T.S. group provided a natural fit for his people skills. He has leveraged his time on the Board to connect veterans to resources available at Gentex and in the community, bringing his journey from the military full circle.
Looking back on his 25-year career, Will is quick to note that Gentex gave him the opportunity to try new things, take chances, and craft his career and life around the relationships he established – at work, in the military, and in his own family, too.
“The autonomy that you have here at Gentex to not being pigeonholed gave me that latitude to build my career,” he said. “I feel like I've gotten the best experience that I could here at Gentex. Each role that I've had has had its challenges, but also each one has brought me joy in a different way.”