When his family incorporated the company back in 1978, current CEO Leopoldo Gomez had no intention of having a hands-on role in the business. Instead, he took his qualification as a certified public accountant and got himself a job in the government’s Bureau of Internal Revenue. He always kept one eye on the printing business, but he was happy at the bureau. Then, in 2003, fate stepped in. “My manager and his family decided to emigrate to the United States,” Leopoldo says, “and so I had no choice but to take my optional retirement from the Bureau of Internal Revenue and to continue the operations of Holy Family.”
Leopoldo knew nothing of the technical or operational sides of the printing industry, but he knew he had good staff working for him. “My number-one assets are my people—my operators and technical people. I make sure that when my employees are open to me as to what to do and how to run the business, I listen and learn from them. That’s how I learned the operations side of the business—from my able operators and staff at the time. That’s the way I operated Holy Family Printing.”
Leopoldo’s staff respond well to this level of respect and appreciation, and he has managed to keep his core nucleus of staff from those early days. “We have been very fortunate,” Leopoldo says. “My employees are a happy family! I treat them as members of the family because they are my number-one support and I always give them credit where it’s due. I need to have them happy, and I need to see to it that they are responsible and accountable for what I assign them. I ensure that they are doing their job well with proper incentives and promotions; always giving what is due to them in the form of not only promotions, but sometimes rewards. They are my number-one asset in the organisation. The machines are the secondary assets—the people are very much the best asset I have. Each year, I invest in training programs being conducted by the printing companies. I see to it that the manager or supervisor attends and that’s one way for giving them the incentives—to travel to various exhibits and expos to learn about the latest technologies. This year, we are heading to Germany for a trade show to keep abreast of the latest developments.”