Behind the Scenes – Supplier Staff Profile

Name: Danielle Torres Position: Director of International Sourcing

When Danielle Torres applied for a position in order processing at Dard Products nearly four years ago, she was asked to come in for an interview. A good sign, she thought – until she walked into the conference room and realized she was being interviewed at the same time by the company’s executive vice president, CFO, office manager, and the customer service manager. “I remember thinking, What have I gotten myself into, I ought to just go to school to become a dental hygienist like I had planned,” says Danielle, laughing. But she talked easily and made a strong impression. And when the company called her the next day to offer her the job of customer service representative – a higher-paid position than what she applied for – she gave a resounding yes.

From the beginning Danielle proved to be a good fit for the supplier. Within four months, Danielle boasted an impressive collection of letters praising her performance from distributors around the country. Her supervisor joked that she must have been paying these customers.

Not long after Danielle was presented with Dard’s first Customer Service Rep of the month award. Then she was promoted to Assistant to the Director in the company’s new-but-growing-quickly custom manufacturing division, led by Bonni Sandy, Dard’s Executive Vice President. It didn’t take long for Bonni to realize how talented her young protégé was, so when the division’s director resigned, she offered the position to Danielle. But Danielle turned it down flat.

“Too much responsibility! I was worried I’d fail. I was intimidated. I didn’t even care that it was a salaried position,” says Danielle, “and I’m a single mother of two. I think Bonni was shocked that I said no.”

Bonni spent the next month interviewing candidates, both inside and outside the organization, but came up empty. She approached Danielle again, arguing that Danielle was already handling some of the responsibilities that came with the new position. Finally Danielle said yes. And since the fall of 2003, Danielle has happily held the position.

A typical day begins at 7:15 am when Danielle gets “slammed with e-mails from overseas.” Her responsibilities range from researching pharmaceutical drugs so she and her team can develop and pitch product solutions for distributors’ healthcare clients, to monitoring the production of 40-50 custom orders of 15,000-1 million pieces. She leaves by 5:00pm to pick up her kids but by 7:30pm she is usually back online and doesn’t sign-off until about 11:30pm or midnight. And she loves every minute of it.

“I wake up excited,” says Danielle. “And I like being put under tough circumstances – like when distributors have clients with practically impossible deadlines or demands. My co-workers say, ‘Here, this is a Danielle call.’ I tell them, ‘Give me the mean ones.’ It’s hard getting orders delivered on time and every day is stressful but I can handle it. I love being able to solve people’s problems.”