English 3060: Fastsigns Montgomery Fact Sheet For most of the assignments you complete this term, you will be pretending to be an employee of the Montgomery branch of Fastsigns. Since there is no Montgomery branch of Fastsigns, there will be many occasions where you’ll need or want information about your company or your job that simply doesn’t exist. In these situations, you’re always free to make up any information you like about the company. This includes prices, names of clients and employees, and company history. The only restriction is that you cannot make up details about the company that would change the nature of an assignment. For example, if you are assigned to fire an employee for the “Bad News Letter” assignment, you could invent additional company policies that the employee broke, but you could not decide that Fastsigns is downsizing, and therefore simply can’t afford to keep all of their employees on staff. Naturally, if you’re unsure about the details you’ve made up for a particular assignment, you can always ask me. To help you get a sense of the company you supposedly work for, I’ve made up some facts about Fastsigns Montgomery which may or may not be useful for your upcoming assignments: -The Montgomery branch of Fastsigns is owned by Michael Hernandez, who started the franchise in 1998. Hernandez was born in La Paz, Mexico, but he has lived in Montgomery since he was 10 years old and has been an American citizen for most of his life. -Although Fastsigns Montgomery is a franchise, Hernandez has full managerial control of the company. All of the equipment is owned or rented in his name, all decisions regarding company policy are made by Hernandez and his employees, and any copyrights on creative material produced by Fastsigns Montgomery are controlled by Hernandez. -Fastsigns Montgomery has recently expanded from 50 to 75 employees and moved into a newly built facility on Atlanta Highway, near AUM. Last year, they won the Expanding Business Award from the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce. -Fastsigns designs and prints banners, decals, and lighted signs of various sizes. Although the Monrtgomery franchise can technically handle some large projects like neon or monument signs, most it income has traditionally come from small projects such as banners that can be completed quickly on site. Hernandez has always these small projects because, while they make less money individually, they can be completed quickly on site and don’t require renting additional equipment or hiring additional staff. Now that Fastsigns Montgomery has moved into an expanded facility, though, this preference may change.
-The management of Fastsigns Montgomery consists of Hernandez, the Owner and Manager; Wanda Johnson, the Associate Manager, and four Supervisors: - Blake Parker, the Human Resources Supervisor - Chris Billings, the Graphic Design Supervisor - Bethany Smith, the Public Relations Supervisor - Naomi Patel, the Sales Team Supervisor There are also several Team Leaders who supervise 2-10 employees at a time on individual projects. As an entry level employee, you would almost always have a Team Leader to report to at any given time. -Fastsigns Montgomery has been a member of the Minority-Owned Business Association of Montgomery for over ten years, and Michael Hernandez has repeatedly expressed his desire to hire a diverse work force and work with minority clients. -Fastsigns currently has around 40 regular clients who deal exclusively with Fastsigns for the graphic and sign needs. Some of these clients are locally-owned companies, some are franchises of national chains, and some are not-for-profit organizations. These clients make up about 50% of Fastsigns’ business. The rest comes from walk-in clients who order products for a single event or purpose. -Last year, Fastsigns Montgomery billed a total of roughly $300,000 in charges to its clients. This total was up from $285,000 (+5%) in 2005 and $210,000 (+30%) in 2000. For additional information about what Fastsigns does, you should look at the corporate website: http://www.fastsigns.com. You can assume that any of the products advertised on the corporate web site are also produced by Fastsigns Montgomery.