Frank Yamamoto bio

I started my working career in the military after graduation from the University of Idaho. 

I was assigned as an executive officer and then a public information officer.  In each instance I had enlisted men working for me in each of the departments. 

This was the beginning of my leadership training. 

Upon my honorable discharge as a 1st Lieutenant, I was hired as a department manager for a large department store, managing six employees on a daily basis.  The job included scheduling, approving hours, approving overtime hours and monitoring daily sales figures. 

I was promoted as a buyer of men’s clothing, doing the same work as a department manager, but adding the buying of clothing and keeping a specific budget. 

I negotiated purchases that would benefit the store and improve our profit margins, set up advertising budgets and insured we kept our labor costs at a minimum. 

My next job was with one of the largest national domestic transportation companies as a dock supervisor.   I was promoted to an operations supervisor then on to a sales position and then to a branch manager. 

As a sales representative I increased my territory over two hundred percent of the previous employee.  This was done by hard work and understanding how to sell to everyone from the shipper clerk in the back room to President of the company. 

During my time as a supervisor I had to supervise the work of twenty union workers during my shift, which was to be an important learning experience.  As a branch manager of a small facility, I wore all the hats of manager, sales and operations along with supervising two office personnel and four union employees. 

The budget or profit and loss statements were a part of a monthly review and determined our profitability and profit sharing.  Obviously, the more income we produced the more profit sharing we enjoyed. 

At one point, my branch was the most profitable out of 600 branches in the system.  This was due to tight controls and smart planning, but also included securing needed revenue to operate on.
 
Moving on to a larger facility of eight staff employee and 40 union employees, I was able to improve the profitability of this facility as well, utilizing the same techniques only on a larger scale.

During this time I was also the employers representative for the city on the labor grievance committee handling union grievances against the various transportation companies. 

I became very adept at working with union officials and negotiating settlements to the benefit of both parties.  

I was hired by a competitors company and did many of the same things, but then became a divisional sales manager for a newly created international division. 

The country was divided into four divisions and each division was responsible for the sales by training our existing sales force of nearly 300 sales people. 

In each division we hired additional sales, appraised our existing sales and staff and created a new budget line item. 

At the same time, I developed a way to integrate international sales with domestic sales and implement a reporting structure for the people and revenue. 

With sales having dual reporting structure it was important that communications and clear instructions where of high priority, along with having a good working relationship with all the branch managers. 

Setting up the operations portions was another task that was incorporated to take advantage of the already coast-to-coast network of the domestic side. 

Special markings and destination codes had to be implemented and extensive training of dock supervisors and union personnel was a challenge. 

The ability to get this off the ground and make it run profitably took several years of direct supervision, training and constant follow up. 

This was followed up by forming my own international company and utilizing my experiences to own and operate a successful company.  I was one of 1700 FMC licensed companies in the country.  

During this period I was sought out by a multinational company to turn their company around.  I had three offices in the US with the parent company overseas. 

As the General Manger I had complete control over all the operations and sales of all locations in the US, including the profit and loss statements. 

I made several changes in the operations so that we could effectively handle the business and improve costs.  Once the operations were as it needed to be, the concentration on our sales was at the forefront. 

As we secured more business, our profits grew and after a year and half we began to see our profits move into the black. 

Growing the business in a controlled mode gave us time to make sure it was handled properly and efficiently, plus it gave the staff confidence in their abilities and to see that the changes were for the good.