Todd Peters knows plenty about working 12-hour days, seven days a week.
And he knows plenty about hard work, executing a plan and turning a vision into a strategy.
Todd has been working in warehouses since he was age 16. He’s progressively moved to bigger and bigger sites and today runs his own warehouse business in Colorado—Kitting and Assembly Solutions.
“It’s satisfying to keep moving up and getting better at your job and growing,” he said. “I take a lot of satisfaction when the orders go out, and when they come in, and everything is running smoothly, and when our workers are happy.
Kitting and Assembly Solutions is a Third-Party Logistics firm that provides a range of services, including Amazon FBA Prep; kitting, labeling, assembly, custom packaging, shipping, receiving, storage and quality control.
Kitting and Assembly Solutions can receive, pack and ship your Amazon products as individual units. The company can also customize boxes and labels for shipment to Amazon; assemble a wide range of products; and store your inventory on-site for future use.
But what customers ultimately rely on is Todd’s strong work ethic and ability to deliver with quality and consistency. That’s what has kept him in business all these years and that’s what keeps his customers coming back.
It’s all been second-nature for Todd since he was a teenager growing up in Texas. That’s when he took his first job, at a fabric warehouse, to earn some spending money.
“I never saw a career in it,” he said. “It was just a job. But I stayed at that first company for 13 years.”
Todd can’t remember for sure, but he was likely paid just above minimum wage to start. He handled shipping and receiving, or as he described it from a teenager’s point of view, “just learning how stuff came in and went out the door.”
A lasting memory from Todd’s time in that Texas warehouse was how well he got along with his boss.
“She was great,” he said. “I knew her kids and we were all just really close.”
That experience is something Todd keeps in the back of his mind today, as a boss with his own employees.
From Texas, Todd moved to Colorado, enrolled in school and earned an associate’s degree in music business. He also worked in another fabric warehouse owned by that same Texas company, but ended up managing the operation. The site was about 500-square-feet with just one employee to oversee, but Todd was working his way up.
He took another job, applying his knowledge of fabric at a furniture warehouse, and ended up managing four employees in a 5,000-square-foot location. It seemed that nothing could slow Todd down.
“It was just time to get bigger you know, and pursue the bigger opportunity,” Todd said, “and more money.”
Todd remained there for about a year and, continuing to apply his knowledge of fabric, managed a 25,000-square-foot warehouse owned by an apparel company. He once again was overseeing four employees, but the scale of the operation was a game-changer.
Todd moved on, shifting positions a couple of times. He ended up managing a 150,000-square-foot warehouse with 50 employees, for a transportation outfit that was also heavily invested in telemarketing.
Todd moved on again, this time to a promotional company that produced promotional schwag for companies. He worked there for six years before the 2008 recession hit and when that company’s Colorado warehouse closed, he was offered a position in Kentucky. He turned that offer down, took a break for a few years and in 2014 opened his own business—Kitting and Assembly Solutions—in his garage.
“I just felt like it was time and I could do it on my own,” he said. “I had enough knowledge at this point and was ready to put in the commitment. I never really was ready to put the commitment in. I didn’t want to put in 12-hour days, seven days a week. But I just finally came to the point where I said, ‘I’m ready now to do that.’ So I just did it.”
Todd launched Kitting and Assembly Solutions in his garage with no employees, no overhead and no customers. But business soon picked up and he ended up working 12-hour days, seven days a week, for three years straight with just 10 days off.
“That’s weekends, holidays, birthdays—you name it,” he said.
And that’s where Todd remains today, running his own business. But he isn’t pulling those long hours anymore, and he’s long gone from his garage. Todd now oversees Kitting and Assembly’s 12 employees in a 10,000-square-foot warehouse he runs not far from Denver.
Asked about what drives his endurance, he said, “Just doing a great job—getting your orders done on time, getting everything out the door. In the end, you just grow comfortable with it and you end up liking it.
“Shipping and receiving all seem the same. But pulling orders, getting them done, getting them done before they’re supposed to be done—that’s the stuff that’s fulfilling for me because I know I made my customer extra happy.”
Visit kittingandassemblysolutions.com to learn more.
