The CEO of one among Miami’s main worldwide distribution and world transportation administration corporations earned an undergraduate diploma from FIU in 2004 and shortly after acquired a comeuppance.
He arrived on day one to work on the family-owned enterprise based by his Chilean immigrant grandfather solely to have his personal father query his selection of apparel.
“I got here in a shirt and tie, wanting like a businessman,” Sean Gazitua remembers, “and my father says, ‘Okay. Tomorrow, put on shorts, a T-shirt and tennis sneakers.’”
For the following yr, the corporate scion unloaded transport containers. Twelve months in, he acquired a promotion – to forklift driver.
And his response to beginning out on the backside?
He beloved it, says the pinnacle of WTDC. And thank goodness. Some 21 years later, his firsthand expertise with hauling freight has turn out to be useful, at the least by way of the large image: Over the previous a number of weeks, the chief has juggled a 10-fold development in curiosity in his firm’s providers. That’s a 1,000% improve in home companies in search of to attend out runaway tariffs by parking their incoming shipments in his 136,500-square-foot overseas commerce zone-designated warehouse. There, merchandise corresponding to electronics, IT and networking tools, auto elements and extra can stay duty-free till they enter the U.S. market.
Thrilling instances for positive, however Gazitua has much less to say concerning the monetary and worldwide implications of the worldwide commerce struggle – past that the most recent know-how and his wonderful workers will greater than meet the second – than he does concerning the people-centered tradition he has created as a third-generation chief.
The agency serves as a customs dealer and freight forwarder and final yr moved between $600 million and $700 million in items. (He’s audited yearly by each the Division of Commerce and, for compliance, by the Division of Homeland Safety.) However Gazitua prefers to speak concerning the firm’s “4 pillars” – God and household, well being and training, neighborhood and, lastly, work – that he contends drive the whole lot.
PUTTING HIS MONEY WHERE HIS MOUTH IS
“Your actions converse louder than your phrases,” Gazitua says of how he interprets firm values into the true world.
That begins with investing in his workers, he explains, and making them the middle of his focus.
At WTDC, Gazitua has inspired a month-to-month onsite prayer group for these so inclined and invitations staff and their households to accompany him on quarterly visits to native homes of worship of assorted faiths, donation in hand – “to see that we’re not so totally different,” he explains. He pays 100% of staff’ medical health insurance premiums, together with for imaginative and prescient and dental protection, and defrays tuition for any skilled credentials or associated instructional alternatives anybody needs to pursue. He turned unused workplace area right into a spa for workers, full with a sauna, a chilly plunge tub, a therapeutic massage room and showers. Did we point out the yoga instruction and sound meditation periods he pays for?
“You are at work longer than you’re awake at dwelling with your loved ones and mates,” Gazitua explains of why he makes obtainable high-quality facilities that he believes contribute to workers’ well-being, excessive morale and low turnover.
He additionally supplies gasoline and lunch cash to take the sting out of rising bills and palms bonuses of as much as $250 month-to-month to high performers, a bunch that may embrace totally 50% of his 25-person workers, all of whom are invited to a an awards ceremony each first Friday that features a catered lunch. Gazitua additionally lifts up distributors on the identical occasion by recognizing those that present distinctive trucking or IT providers or the oldsters who hold WTDC stocked with packing containers, wooden pallets and different warehouse provides.
LIFE-IMPACTING INFLUENCES
Gazitua talks up the instance set by his household. That goes way back to his immigrant grandmother, who was from Spain and began the precursor to WTDC together with her husband. She collected clothes and different items and relied on her connections with a cargo transport firm to ship them to the needy in Guatemala, Gazitua recounts.
At this time, WTDC’s deal with giving again stays a precedence. The corporate and its workers take part in pajama, faculty provide and toy drives, hurricane-season water deliveries and Thanksgiving meals donations in help of a residential neighborhood for abused and uncared for children, a shelter for girls and youngsters and a program that strengthens the bonds between the incarcerated and their youngsters. Groups yearly enter 5Ks to lift consciousness of breast most cancers and funds for pediatric most cancers analysis.
One other supply of inspiration: the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity Gazitua joined freshman yr and that he continues to function a basis vp. He credit his membership with complementing a lot of what his household instilled in him.
“We’ve one thing known as the balanced man program,” he says of the fraternity, “sound thoughts, sound physique.”
That motto resonated with him as a result of his father – a Catholic deacon who included a 3rd element within the equation, “spirit” – had at all times emphasised the identical. “That is precisely who I’m,” Gazitua says of the holistic strategy he takes within the office.
TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATION
David Wernick teaches worldwide enterprise and says WTDC “actually walks the stroll.”
Gazitua financially helps the Worldwide Enterprise Honor Society, of which Wernick is the school director, and its undertaking to help girls artisans in India in a self-sustainable microenterprise. He additionally speaks to Wernick’s college students about worldwide logistics and, invariably, his guiding rules.
“Sean loves to debate the human facet to the enterprise, and it is clear that it is genuine,” Wernick says of what usually resonates with the younger individuals in his lessons. “They discover it refreshing that it isn’t solely about making the sale, the quarterly earnings and the underside line.”
The professor says he has despatched upwards of a dozen college students to WTDC for internships, throughout which era they study the nuts and bolts of the import-export business, together with the way to file customs paperwork, clear shipments and transfer cargo from level A to level B. “They get an actual nuanced view of worldwide commerce and an understanding of it that you simply simply cannot actually get from a textbook,” he says.
Senior Fernando G. Menendez began at WTDC as an operations intern and later took a part-time place as an account specialist and ultimately a gross sales and advertising and marketing affiliate whereas finishing his bachelor’s diploma in finance. He has each realized the ropes of the worldwide logistics business and instantly skilled how a forward-thinking chief can embrace company duty.
“With the ability to see the within of the corporate from totally different departments, you get a fairly broad thought of . . . the broader world, the insurance policies that revolve round worldwide enterprise and have an effect on our financials and our buyer base,” Menendez says.
On a private stage, he appreciates that WTDC took an opportunity on him. “I used to be a freshman. I actually did not have that a lot of an thought of what I needed to do with my profession,” he says, “however this gave me the chance develop.” And, he provides, wanting as much as Gazitua and seeing him concerned locally and related to FIU conjures up him to need to do the identical.
TAKING CARE OF FIU
Lately, Gazitua has a large affect on his alma mater because the president of the Alumni Affiliation Board of Administrators. The group strives to create a vibrant and supportive community that contributes to the college’s success. His management has energized the board, says Sara DuCuennois, the affiliate vp for Alumni Relations.
“He’s that person who will get excited, knowledgeable, engaged,” she says. “These are people who don’t hesitate to provide us their time to make us higher. It comes from the guts,” she explains of parents who function ambassadors and advocates for FIU. “Sean is de facto on the heart of that and has been for a very long time.”
DuCuennois credit Gazitua with beginning a “data collection” that commonly brings board members collectively on-line to study instantly from researchers and administrators about tasks and areas on the college too few hear about, together with the standing of campus development and new initiatives.
For the CEO, it’s a labor of affection.
“I’ve gained a lot from FIU and had so many optimistic experiences,” he says of staying lively at the same time as enterprise heats up. “You have to provide again.”
Fortunate for the remainder of us, this devoted Panther considers it a simple carry.
