ISSUE NUMBER 19

SEPTEMBER 2023

A MESSAGE FROM NICK HARITOS

Team,

During times of hardship, sometimes good things happen.

I’m pleased to announce that through your contributions and a $10,000 donation by AIS we raised close to $20,000 for the Leominster Flood Relief Fund. The United Way is also matching our donation. So all in, together we helped to raise close to $40,000.

At the Johnny Appleseed Festival, countless people thanked me for all that AIS does for the community and I want to pass that thanks on to you. You are the people making the difference. It’s an absolute pleasure to be a part of the AIS team. 

Thanks for all you do.

MEMBER APPRECIATION DAY

Outing at Canobie Lake Park Welcomes AIS

Fun, food, and fellowship were on the agenda for AIS' member appreciation day as more than 1,400 employees and families converged on Canobie Lake Park. ​

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Thrill rides, arcade games, a water park, and full lunch buffet offered a special thanks to the AIS team who knocks it out of the park contributing to our phenomenal growth! ​

OUR PEOPLE

Welcome to AIS - New Hires

Anya Moseley

Customer Service Rep.

amoseley@ais-inc.com 978.562.7500

New to New England, Anya joined the CSR team in July and is responsible for servicing our dealers. She previously worked as a project manager for furniture manufacturer in her hometown of Fort Lauderdale where she collaborated with design firms and purchasing agents for hotel redesigns. Anya holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in animation from Savannah College of Art and Design. An artistic person by nature, she has a passion for fashion and interior design, draws and paints, and enjoys art museums and hiking.

Mariah Culwell

Designer

mculwell@ais-inc.com

Mariah Culwell tjoined the AIS design team as a fulltime designer supporting our dealers. She brings five years of dealer design experience having most recently worked for the largest Teknion Dealer in the country in New York City. Mariah attended Wentworth Institute of Technology where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in interior design. Originally from the north shore, Mariah now lives in Brooklyn where she enjoys hosting dinner parties, going thrifting, and being bossed around by her cat. She travels back to New England often.

Vanessa Torres

Quality Control Manager

vtorres@ais-inc.com

Vanessa joined AIS in August as quality control manager on the quality and performance team. In her short tenure, she has implemented many improvements and is working aggressively with her team to positively impact all facets of product quality on the factory floor. Vanessa brings much experience and understands rapid growth having helped her former company through significant growth. Originally from Colombia, Vanessa now lives in South Boston with her husband, dog Kevin, and cat Mickey. She's enjoys movies, traveling, and oil painting. She holds a BS degree from SNU.

Lenore Watson

IT Applications Developer

Lwatson@ais-inc.com

As a member of the IT department, Lenore is responsible for development and support of DealerNet, our exclusive dealer website where she is helping to complete site development and assisting with platform fixes. Lenore’s experience includes Umbraco sites, back-end programming, and end-user support. She holds bachelor’s degrees is software development and mass media arts and journalism. Her has several certifications and works in multiple programming languages and databases. Lenore enjoys spending time with her Brittany Spaniel, Cora, playing golf and video games, hiking, and couch time. Originally from Pennsylvania, she now lives in Milwaukee.

Brianna Ankstitus

Junior Industrial Engineer 

bankstitus@ais-inc.com

Brianna is part of the factory’s engineering team where she is responsible for process audits, time studies, and assisting with process modifications. Brianna earned her bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She completed her major qualifying project at AIS and is pursuing a master’s in management from WPI. Brianna is passionate about music and sings in an a cappella group and school choir and plays guitar. She is a roller coaster enthusiast, enjoys painting, sewing, and art. She plays soccer and tennis and is a cat person.

Jack Devoe

IT Intern

jdevoe@ais-inc.com

Extension 307

Jack joined the IT department as an intern working on cybersecurity projects including data loss prevention and data security for the least privileged accounts. He will also assist with development projects, specifically, converting legacy applications to modern platforms. Jack will graduate from Endicott College with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science this coming May. Jack is the brother of Tami Devoe, a member of the AIS customer service team. Jack enjoys hockey and basketball, along with spending time with his family, friends, and his dog Travis.

Staffers on the Move

PROMOTIONS

Rob Cormier

Manager of Quality and Performance

rcormier@ais-inc.com

508.736.6793 

Rob was promoted to this new position in July and now manages the quality supervisor, labor claims, quality engineer, field services, and project management departments. Rob began his tenure with AIS just under two years ago as a project manager before moving into quality control. Now leading the company's efforts in this regard, Rob continues to make improvements taking this department to the next level. His experience in the industry spans many different roles, most recently at the former Wright Line in Worcester.

Matt Carmody

General Accountant 

mcarmody@ais-inc.com 978.401.2683 

After several months on assignment in the accounting department, Matt officially joined the team as a general accountant where he manages accounts receivable portfolios for commercial, state, and government customers. Previously, Matt completed a summer internship at AIS in 2021. Matt holds a bachelor’s degree in general business with concentrations in finance and accounting from Nichols College. Matt enjoys watching sports and is a fitness enthusiast. The son of Deb Baker, formerly in the AIS accounting department, he continues the family tradition.

Tammy Walsh

Payroll Manager

Senior Accountant

twalsh@ais-inc.com

Tammy was promoted to the position of senior accountant where she will continue to handle payroll for the company but will relinquish her HR duties. In her new role, Tammy will perform accounting duties including accounts payable, accounts receivable, and general ledger for Pan Pacific Sourcing. You will find her in the same office, just outside the entrance to the factory on the second floor. A native of Leominster, Tammy has been with AIS for more than five years. As part of the AIS Boost committee, she also assists with employee and volunteer activities. For payroll questions please use the email address: payroll@ais-inc.com

Elsa Gomez

Casegoods Production Support

elsagomez@ais-inc.com 978.962.2152

Elsa is responsible for reviewing orders in IMOS, processing them through Cutrite optimization software, and production release. She has been at AIS for six years first in the paint department followed by her work in the casegoods department. After that, she became a team leader in drawer box assembly where she has worked for the last five years. In that position, Elsa also supervised the ASPiRE! Team from Seven Hills Foundation for two years. Elsa has a certificate in accounting and computer systems. In what little spare time she has, Elsa enjoys listening to music and gardening.

Help Us Find New Talent

Earn an Employee Referral Bonus!

Earn $500 for EVERY referral – there’s no limit on the amount you can earn. Employees who refer a candidate that is hired for a full-time position will receive a referral bonus of $500. Half ($250) will be paid out 30 days from the referred employee’s start date, and the second $250 will be paid when the referred employee has worked for 3 months. In order to qualify, both the referred candidate AND the AIS employee must be currently employed at AIS.

Sales Hero

Erin Carr  |  Four Departments and Counting: CSR, Sales, PM, PLM

Engagement Survey Update

Continuing Improvement to Create Even More Employee Engagement

The human resource department is pleased to report that 88% of our employees participated in this year’s engagement survey. However, when we look at the results of our engagement survey, we need to focus on the overall employee engagement which was 76%. What this means is that based on survey results, 76% of our employees are engaged. Employee engagement is an emotional state where employees feel passionate, energetic, and committed toward their work. When employees are engaged, they invest more of themselves in their work. 

Our goal is to continue to increase employee engagement. As leaders within AIS, it is important that we continue to take strategic action based on the survey data. Over the next few months, leaders at AIS will continue to work with ALL employees in response to our engagement action plans for each department. Areas of focus will include communication, employee voices, managing stress, and workloads.

Please be sure to work with your leaders to help drive positive results. When employees are happy and engagement is high, our business thrives, as do each of us individually, in so many ways!

Welcome to the World!

New Arrivals to Celebrate

WELCOME

BABIES!

Pink Flamingo Day was celebrated at HQ on June 23, the official day Leominster recognizes the city native who created the iconic pink flamingo lawn ornament popular in the 1960s.

The newly installed lobby furniture features products from our lounge collection. Pictured are the Soft Bench and Club Chair.

Conference room 1A located on the first floor near the kitchenette was updated with a new Calibrate conference table, storage, and Juggle Seating on casters.

EARLY REMINDERS! UPCOMING HOLIDAYS

Factory Birthday Celebrations

Each month, the factory celebrates employee birthdays with pizza and cake.

JUNE 2023

IT Launches 24x7 Support; Multiple Cybersecurity Initiatives

As AIS has grown over the past several years, our approach to technology, security, and support remained largely the same. Over the past year, the IT team has put together a new and strong foundation to support and protect the business through planned growth.

24x7 Support (Helpdesk) - THE OFFICIAL WAY TO REQUEST IT SUPPORT

The IT team has onsite presence from 7 am to 7 pm every weekday, but operations are active 24x7. To provide better support, we have both a dedicated phone number (ext. 411) and email address helpdesk@ais-inc.com. New services will be made available on a regular basis.

NOTE: A dedicated phone extension (ext. 411) from any ShoreTel phone will direct your call to an available IT team member, or a voicemail option if no one is available. Teks for offsite workers. If you are reporting any type of broad system outage, a phone call is mandatory.

Cybersecurity Initiatives

It is an extremely challenging task to stay ahead of hackers, scammers, and other “bad actors” on the internet. Every day, something new pops up and we must figure out how to prevent it from causing issues for the AIS team. There is no single method to secure AIS, so we are working on multiple fronts to achieve our goals. Below are some of the initiatives:

• Digital Signing of AIS Emails (in progress) allows anyone receiving an email from us to verify its authenticity. If the digital signature is missing, the recipient now knows it is fake.

• New WiFi Networks (in progress) have been designed to provide separate and manageable access to employees, visitors, and systems. The necessary objective is simple – know who is connected to our network so we can prevent unauthorized access.

• Web Content Filtering (complete) has been configured to make sure we are able to access “safe for work” websites, preventing access to sites known to contain unsafe and unwanted elements.

• Disaster Recovery Backups (complete) provide offsite copies of critical system data, allowing us to restore our systems should the worst happen. In the IT world, a “disaster” is any event which disrupts - on a large scale - our ability to operate.

• Data Loss Prevention tools (in progress) make sure we don’t lose data. If your computer is stolen, we will still have a copy of your documents and files. If your computer stops working, your information has already been backed up to Office 365. Hard drive encryption ensures that your data can only be access by authorized people.

• Least-privileged Access Rights (in progress) is an approach to computer security that ensures access to what you need but removes security that could make your computer vulnerable to hackers.

All of these initiatives are essential to having a well-defined security defense from hackers and viruses, but there are more initiatives yet to be launched. As we prepare for 2024, we will continue to add and review additional opportunities to enhance our cybersecurity defenses.

REMINDER! Company Policy Prohibits the Sharing of Passwords

If you need access to a password protected resource, please contact your immediate supervisor and request that they submit a Helpdesk ticket for access.

CALLING ALL PRODUCTION AREA STAFF!

Stay in Touch with AIS - Join the Online Community

We realize that not everyone has a corporate email address. So, you're invited to join the AIS community online at WhatsApp.

Note: While this is not the primary tool for employee communications, WhatsApp augments our primary employee communications tools.

AIS VALUES BROCHURE

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION, & BELONGING BROCHURE

WHAT'S NEW IN PRODUCTS

Chicago Showroom Moving to New Location at The Mart

AIS is will relocated its Chicago showroom from the tenth to the third floor of THE MART with the new space opening on June 10, 2024 for NeoCon.

About the showroom:

• Focused on the dealer experience 
• Nearly 10,000 square feet of prime space
• Located on the high energy third floor

Focusing on the dealer experience, the showroom will:

• Highlight AIS’ broad product portfolio and extensive surface materials as well as the evolving office landscape, employee well-being, and our latest designs and finishes

READ THE PRESS RELEASE

Dan Roberts sent us the above photo of the AIS golfball - a favorite pastime of his.

We're pretty sure that he extends his summer just as long as possible!

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