In this installment of the AD Report, Justin Dunscomb, AD’s president of the PVF Division, connected with Jeff Camuso, president and CEO of AD member/owner Charles D. Sheehy (CDS), headquartered in Avon, Mass. 

Independently owned and operated, Charles D. Sheehy has proudly served the New England mechanical and plumbing contracting industries since 1951. Over the past 73 years, it has provided an unmatched level of service while maintaining an extensive level of inventory, making it a premium supplier of pipe, valves, fittings, plumbing and mechanical equipment in the greater Boston area. 

Recruiting and maintaining top talent are paramount in maintaining the level of service it prides itself in. The training and education it offers to employees demonstrates its commitment to serving customers from Maine to Nantucket and all areas in between. 

Since joining AD in 2013, Camuso has been an active member on committees, offering insight and knowledge on opportunities for business growth with AD suppliers. As an owner, CDS makes the most of the AD membership: participating in networking, attending meetings and taking advantage of AD Power Buy opportunities and promotions. 

In 2020, Camuso also joined the AD PVF Division board, helping to shape the overall strategic direction of the division. His is always a confident, resounding voice guiding the conversation on policies and procedures relating to divisional activities. AD is thankful for CDS’s support and guidance over the last decade.

Justin Dunscomb: Jeff, thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share with us some of the special sauce that makes CDS such an amazing company. As an AD owner/member, you are very active in the AD community, serving on various boards, committees and task forces. Can you share how that experience is for you? How do you feel you have helped to shape initiatives at AD?

Jeff Camuso: I could never overstate the value that AD has provided both Charles D. Sheehy as an independent entity, and myself as an executive. You have so many tracks within the PHCP space, each with their own challenges and nuances. AD has done a nice job carving out venues for the thought leaders from each track to not just network and share ideas, but to come up with solutions that can permeate throughout all our companies. 

I don’t view board involvement at AD as volunteerism so much as a duty — an enjoyable and rewarding one. There are so many units across the AD spectrum, including electrical, bearings and power transmission. Each unit includes unique challenges and opportunities. I am fortunate to be part of a group representing the interests of our owner/members on micro and macro policies and interests. The AD boards are hyper-focused and while our opinions vary, we share common ideologies and expectations. 

Finally, the AD staff operates at a high level and their preparation and research allows the boards to make informed decisions with confidence.

JD: This year is the 73rd anniversary for CDS; congratulations on an impressive milestone! What are some of the key factors that have contributed to your success and longevity? 

JC: Primarily, Charles D. Sheehy has never lost sight of the fact that we work for our clients. We have always been a high-touch, high-service firm. I would argue that we dovetail with our contractor-clients better than anyone in our space. In doing so, we found a niche in working with the top players in our market.

If we were in the finance space, we would proudly embrace being a boutique shop. I am so fortunate to be the custodian for this legacy company that prides itself on finding, attracting and retaining top talent. We invest more in education and training than our peers and offer above-market wages and a culture that embraces our differences and rewards performance.

Over the last 10 years, we became supremely focused on where we want to sit in the marketplace. We don’t look like other distributors. Emotionally, that can be shocking to industry veterans and outsiders. However, our clients don’t look like a lot of our peers’ clients, either. Our market has great opportunities that we will never partake in because they would likely be a bad fit. As a sales guy, that is hard to reconcile, but as an executive, it is easy and satisfying. 

JD: You are currently in the process of a company rebranding. Can you tell us a little more about this?

JC: As the steward of a 70-plus-year company, I take our brand and image seriously. So, it isn’t often that we embark on a rebrand or revision. 

Understanding that, it was time to make our branding more consistent with who we are: modern, uncluttered, streamlined and focused. We try to make decisions that will serve us well into the future. This is an exciting opportunity to set the right tone for CDS for the next 20 years.

JD: Navigating in today’s ever-changing business climate is tricky, and our industry knows about the importance of adaptation. How has AD eCommerce helped your company become equipped with the skills you need to run your business in today’s climate?

JC: Well, I’ve always beat the drum that the PHCP industry underuses our valuable data with alarming disregard, including here at CDS. One of the main reasons is that we have no single, industry-wide format to adopt. This is an area that electrical has lapped us repeatably. AD’s leaders and previous boards had the foresight to build the “Rosetta Stone” that would afford us the framework to start using our data in a meaningful way.

As individual firms, we have more than a 100-year head start on the national entities, but their focus on transactional data puts them in an enviable position to perform critical market research and analyze the buying habits of our clients. By leveraging the e-commerce tools AD has built, we can focus resources and bandwidth on emerging tech such as augmented reality, artificial and ambient intelligence. 

JD: We have heard owner/members voice that the additional buying opportunities with suppliers AD leverages to elevate sales are a helpful bonus to AD membership. How do you best use these tools?

JC: While the networking and value-adds provided by AD are strong, the buying opportunities underwrite everything we do. These opportunities are compounding because they allow regular financial incentives to work with AD suppliers, but also allow us unfettered access to supplier leadership, facilitating synergies both long and short-term. 

For many years, CDS subscribed to long-standing industry standards on purchasing, focusing on maximizing turns and terms. AD suppliers are a creative bunch and have carved out mutually beneficial opportunities that are unique to a malleable, independent distributor.

JD: As you are aware, this year we have taken an initiative to revamp and refresh AD networking with members to raise the bar and continuously provide value. How has your AD network been a beacon in the way you operate?

JC: Upon joining AD, I was placed in a network of men and women who had accomplished everything that I hoped to over the next 20 years. Having access to leaders who had solved challenges I thought were exclusive to CDS was calming and critical to our success during our growth. 

I enjoy the quote by Abraham Maslow: “In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” Over time, AD has correctly identified the need to attract the change-makers and influencers to provide newer, richer discussion. While these changes can be unsettling, they are always made with the intent of enriching the membership.

JD: I know you take pride in your brand and the way you operate day-to-day as a company. Tell us a little bit about the Sheehy Standards and what those mean to you and your employees.

JC: The Sheehy Standards are more than just essential expectations of our team members. They are 35 principles that guide us from the most basic tenets of being on time and respecting one another to finding meaningful ways to give back to your community and assume positive intent from your peers. Rather than creating a single mission statement subject to the brutality of time, the Sheehy Standards offer us 35 small bites on how to be better citizens. 

Justin Dunscomb is the president of the AD PVF Division. He has been in the PHCP industry for 30 years, the past 18 as an AD executive. Through his tenure, he has seen much growth and success among the AD divisions he has touched and been a key leader. He has also been fortunate with his experience in developing countless long-term industry relationships, providing exposure to numerous ways to raise the bar for distributors and suppliers.