Business Credit Magazine July/August 2014 | Page 10

MEMBER PROFILE

Meet Your O.D. Glaus Credit Executive of Distinction

Gary Gaudette, CCE, ICCE

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The O.D. Glaus Credit Executive of Distinction Award
(formerly the National Credit Executive Award) is one
of NACM’s highest honors, and to receive it is no stroke
of luck, no fluke, no sleight of hand. A credit professional has to have proven excellence, helped his or her
company and had a profound impact on their companies and other credit professionals alike. Just a 12-year
veteran of the credit industry, Gary Gaudette, CCE,
ICCE, senior treasury analyst at Hypertherm, Inc.,
embodies it all. You’re just much more likely to hear
about his accolades or his tremendous mettle from
credit colleagues and his wife than from Gaudette, who
admits he’s not a fan of talking about himself.
“It was humbling just to be nominated,” Gaudette said.
“I had no idea someone would think to nominate me. It
was amazing to me that someone would do that. I know
there are people better or smarter out there, but I want
to push myself whenever possible. It’s like when I’m
playing hockey, I want to try to score the most goals.”

“There are just a lot of interesting
components to credit,” he said. “It’s not
just that I had invested a lot of time in it.
I liked the customer interaction, and I
didn’t want to lose that. You get to see
more of the business as a whole.”
Gaudette, a native New Englander who lives in New
Hampshire not far from Dartmouth College, seemed to
have gleaned much about work ethic from his parents.
Growing up, Gaudette’s father owned his own business,
which included servicing machinery at any time of day,
and his mother worked the third shift. Watching the
two of them made an impression and continues to permeate his lead-by-example demeanor. “You can’t expect
people who work for you to do something you’re not
willing to do yourself,” he said. “You want to be remembered as someone who is going to try to make sure
nobody outworks you and tries to do things the right
way. Everything you do has an impact on your company. It’s not just about reducing DSO.”
Gaudette began working for Hypertherm more than a
dozen years ago, when he heard about an opening at a
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B usiness C redit J uly / A u g ust 2 0 1 4

well-regarded Fortune 500 company
that had a reputation as being a good
place to work. Soon
enough, he made
his way in the credit
area, where there
was no dedicated
credit
manager
position—employees wore several
hats at the company.
It was a bit of a double-edged sword:
there was no one inhouse to serve as a
credit mentor, but
there was also a
somewhat
clean
canvas on which to build strong credit policies. “I had to
learn the hard way, so I took classes through NACM,”
said Gaudette, who also earned a master’s degree at
Franklin Pierce College during the same period. “There
wasn’t the international business knowledge within the
company that we needed as we were expanding. I wasn’t
going to get what I needed to learn in-house.”
During his years at Hypertherm, Gaudette had a chance
to leave credit to go into marketing, but Gaudette found
himself hooked on the profession. “There are just a lot
of interesting components to credit,” he said. “It’s not
just that I had invested a lot of time in it. I liked the
customer interaction, and I didn’t want to lose that. You
get to see more of the business as a whole.”
The future NACM chairman continues to seek education. After attending Credit Congress in Orlando in June,
he promptly traveled to Dartmouth where he was part of
the inaugural class of the Graduate School of Credit and
Financial Management International (GSCFMI) developed by the Finance, Credit and International Business
Association (FCIB). The international program was held
in conjunction with NACM’s traditional Graduate
School of Credit and Financial Management (GSCFM).
“You can’t stop learning. There’s always so much to
learn. Plus, the people you meet here, with their differ-