Ann Marie Lentz: Constant Re-Invention

Ann Marie Lentz, chief operating officer, Serigraph

Her career path hasn’t been linear — and that’s a good thing.

In forging a career path — not just in the print industry, but in any chosen profession — most of us tend to take a fairly linear approach. We get a degree or technical training for a specific type of job, get our foot in the door, and then continue to learn and refine our knowledge to take on more responsibilities, perhaps becoming a leader at some point.

That is not the path that Ann Marie Lentz, chief operating officer at Serigraph, has taken.

She went to school for chemistry, and, in fact, earned that degree, eventually securing an internship in Serigraph’s R&D department as a chemistry technician, helping to formulate inks with characteristics like better adhesion or fade resistance. She stood out in that role enough that when she graduated, the company offered her a full-time position.

But while she has now worked for Serigraph for more than 20 years, she has not stayed in the chemistry department.

While Lentz worked in the industrial side of the company for many years, she branched out, learning things like Six Sigma, continuous improvement, and training techniques. She moved around in the company for a while, taking on greater roles, helping to train and mentor those coming in behind her, and helping to grow the company. Then, five years ago, she was asked if she would be willing to move to the specialty graphics side of the business to “manage the whole division,” she says.

From left: Angel Seegert, fulfillment manager; and Ann Marie Lentz, in the kit-packing/fulfillment center at Serigraph.

“Many times I’ve had friends ask me why I’ve been there for more than 20 years. ‘Why don’t you go try something new?’ And it’s like, I have been trying something new every couple of years — it just happens to have all been in the same business,” she laughs. “I mean, I went from being an R&D chemist, to a project manager, to inside sales, to continuous improvement, and now to this. I’ve been blessed to have had five or six careers in this 20 years, but all for the same owner.”

That broad range of knowledge has served her well. She notes that just recently Serigraph had a customer come in with a product that wasn’t performing as well as they wanted. Because she had worked on the industrial printing side for so long and knew what equipment and testing capabilities the company had, she was able to send it over and ask for exactly what she needed, gaining the answers that enabled her to solve the customer’s problem. While it’s true she might have gotten the same results without having intimate knowledge of the chemistry department’s capabilities, it likely would have taken a lot longer, and she wouldn’t necessarily have had the background to be able to explain it to the customer as well as she did.

Having that diverse background, she notes, has “trained me to be a good problem solver. It’s few and far between these days when I can put my scientist’s brain to work, but I use [problem solving] all the time.”

Creating the Culture

Lentz notes that she has been very blessed to have the ability throughout her career to work with other great leaders — both male and female — and learn from them. She points out that her generation was right on the edge of when women were starting to get more involved in STEM fields. So, while her older sister, she notes, didn’t see many women in STEM fields when she was first getting started, eight years later Lentz was seeing it become more normal.

“Right between the two of us, we experienced the change of girls being more prevalent in STEM work,” she says. That said, she also notes that she has been very fortunate in many ways. “I don’t know if it’s just the ownership here, but I’ve never felt held back by being a woman in leadership, a woman in print, or a woman in manufacturing.”

From left: Pete Brandsma, production manager; Justin Reichert, director of operations; and Ann Marie Lentz, next to one of Serigraph’s EFI Vutek presses.

Today, she says, it feels as though there is more respect for the fact that men and women have different leadership styles — and that isn’t a bad thing.

“Obviously, it's more stereotypical, but women come across as potentially having some more empathy, or some meeting people where they're at, or changing up their leadership style to accommodate a person who learns in a different fashion,” Lentz notes. “But men have that too. It's just what's more stereotypical, and what they choose to bring out on a day-to-day basis.”

But fostering that kind of inclusive culture where everyone is set up for success doesn’t just happen. Instead, Lentz notes that she has worked to create environments where people can learn from each other — often looking to pair new employees with a mentor outside of their reporting structure who can help answer questions and guide them as they find their footing. Lentz, herself, has “had opportunities to mentor young women — some coming to us mid-career, or even later in their careers — just [giving them] a sounding board. I feel like I might learn more in that process than they do!”

She notes that the topics she tends to talk about include: what to do when they feel like they’ve hit a wall, how to be assertive without coming across as aggressive, and how to make their voices heard. “I find myself having lots of conversations about how you can better align the energy around you, and when you’re developing [the next generation of] leaders, I’m finding it’s more conversations about people management.”

Very rarely, she notes, do those conversations touch on the technical side of things.

Strong Advice

What’s the best piece of advice she’s ever gotten — or given? She notes that recently, during an emerging leaders discussion, that she heard this advice. “I was in a group discussion the other day about emerging leaders and how you categorize those as up-and-coming, high potential folks just starting their career, or people that are going from a highly technical role to people management…. And the discussion we were having with a bunch of seasoned leaders is that we're all emerging leaders — it's not just when you’re first-time leadership. Every time you take on a new role or a new team, you have to reexamine the new context you're in and say, ‘now what's the best use of my skills and what's the most effective use of me?’ Because every time I find my role changing or the people reporting to me changing, it's like I have to reexamine my new context and emerge as a new leader, because every time the role changed, what got me there is not going to get me to the next level.”

She notes that for every new role, or even just getting new people on the team, leaders need to take a moment to do a check of themselves and their team dynamics, to see what the team needs at the time — and that might not be the same types of skills and leadership style that were working previously. A willingness to constantly re-invent herself to ensure she can be the best possible leader and teammate in every situation is what has gotten Lentz to where she is today.

And that process hasn’t stopped. Lentz is fairy new to her role as COO, and notes that she is doing that very evaluation as we speak. “I have an entirely new leadership team, and I’m in the process of figuring out what’s the best use of me in helping them, in giving them the tools they need and then getting the heck out of their way. I don’t want to become a constraint because they might not need me in the same way my last leadership needed me.”

As for what comes next? Lentz notes that her biggest challenge in the coming years is the fact that Serigraph’s labor base is rapidly aging, and roughly 33% of the staff will be retiring over the course of the next five years. “I’m trying to prepare for that,” Lentz notes, “and that is going to take great leadership and great change to protect the legacy and skill sets of our highly-tenured folks, while bringing in fresh new perspectives. The role I see as leader of the division is marrying those two things together — the legacy of what got us here, and the bringing in new folks — and growing the business from there.”

And while having as much as a third of the staff turn over in such a short period of time — taking with them all that institutional knowledge — is daunting to say the least, Lentz is excited about the opportunity, and is already looking for ways to make Serigraph more attractive to the up-and-coming talent of the future. Even today, she notes, many young women don’t think of manufacturing in general, or print in particular, as a career option, so she feels like it is up to the individuals and companies to help spread the word and demonstrate why it’s such a vibrant place to work.

Some of that, she notes, is in ensuring a flexible workplace, where people can follow the same kind of path she did — it doesn’t matter what division they start in. She wants to continue to ensure there are plenty of opportunities for growth in any direction for those looking to build not just a job, but a career with Serigraph and print. Just like Lentz herself.