Meet Gary Stoneback: The Extended Interview

GAWDA’s 62nd President gets up close and personal.

Gary Stoneback was inaugurated at the 2007 Annual Convention as GAWDA’s 62nd President. He serves as operations manager for Metro Welding Supply Corp. in Detroit, Michigan. At age 38, he is the association’s youngest-ever president. Here he talks about work, family, Young Executives and even—dare we say it?—Kid Rock.

How does it feel to know you are GAWDA’s youngest-ever president?
You know, I really hadn’t put much thought into that. Up until I took office, Jack Butler, who served as president in 1992 and was 40 when he was inaugurated, held that record. His reign as the youngest GAWDA president is certainly going to be a lot longer than mine, because Britt Lovin comes in as president next year, and he will be even younger than I am!

How do you balance work, family and association leadership?
I get into work around 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. so I can address association matters. A lot of things we do as a board are via e-mail, so I can take care of those concerns first, and then concentrate on business. I don’t like to take work home with me, whether association- or business-related, but if I do, I’ll work on it once my kids are in bed. So it’s a challenge to balance, but so far I think I’m doing a good job.

What is a favorite book you’ve read recently?
Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough, an excellent biography of Teddy Roosevelt. He was a pretty impressive man, and there were a lot of interesting things in the book about how unique an individual he was and all the attributes he had outside of running the country. Aside from being president, he was a big hunting and fishing guy, very into adventure and exploration, and he spent a lot of time in Africa, which interested me because I’m going to be in Africa next summer.

What takes you to Africa?
My two sons and I will be accompanying my father on a hunting trip to Tanzania. It’ll be a great opportunity to see an entirely different part of the world. I’m very excited about it.

What’s on your mp3 player?
Well, I’ve got some country music on there, because my wife loves country music and she listens to my iPod, so I’m growing to like it as well. But I’ve also got Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Kid Rock and the Grateful Dead, among others. It’s a pretty wide variety.

What sort of role will the Young Executives program play in the coming years for GAWDA?
At one time, we didn’t have a lot of young executives in the pipeline to run our association. That was a concern of the board’s going back to the early 2000s. I think in the past there may have been some feeling of intimidation, or maybe young executives weren’t involved because they didn’t know how to get involved. With the Young Executives program, we’ve opened that door, and we’re getting great feedback from both distributors and suppliers. The meeting in San Francisco was terrific. And now that we’ve given young executives a platform, I think we’ll continue to see fresh input from them, and it’s going to be great for the association.

What else do you foresee for the Young Executives?
One thing we would like to do is at some of the Young Executives meetings going forward—including the Chicago and Miami SMCs and the Annual Convention in the Bahamas—is to include some non-Young Executives, like Past Presidents, who can come in and do a presentation on what GAWDA has meant to them and how they see the association. That way, the Young Executives can learn from the history of what some of the previous generations of leaders have done.

As a Young Executive yourself, what advice do you have for other Young Executives?
Get involved, and don’t be intimidated. We’ve got a great group of people in our association, and we’re looking for more people who want to be involved. Once you do, you’re going to find out that this is one of the better things you can do personally, and for your business as well.