how i did it
“My rule in life is serve, serve, serve, create
value. What I want this to be about is the
ideas, the positive impact that business can
have. I don’t know where this ends up, but I
think small business can be a major force for
good, for community good. We think about
the benefits to society, not just the bottom
line, not just the next quarter.”
officials met with him immediately, and they quickly saw a way to
use surplus surgical fabric to make medical-grade masks.
By the next morning, March 19, Kaas and his team at Kaas
Tailored in Mukilteo were designing and making prototype designs
for masks and face shields. They sent their digital data to business
partners in Holland, who worked through the night (Pacific time)
to build detailed specs.
Kaas woke up the next morning, March 20, as one of the first
American firms to have pivoted to making PPE.
While the opportunity was great, so was the risk. A few days
later, Kaas told a television news station that going all-in meant
that he didn’t know if his company would even survive. For more
than a month they produced PPE at full speed without a contract.
“We were just making (stuff ),” he recalls now. “There were a
whole lot of people in the company asking, ‘will we get paid?’ I
said ‘I don’t know.’”
an opportunity to learn and grow
Speaking to Washington Business by phone early this summer, Kaas
said the contracts came through and his company is on solid footing.
In retrospect, Kaas said, he was a week or two ahead of most
other smaller, nimble firms, and a month or two ahead of the big
companies.
He has created a new division of his company called Kaas Health.
They have items for sale on Amazon, a first for a company that until
now sold furniture directly to aerospace and other large clients.
“The learning opportunities have been insane,” he said. “From a
learning perspective, this will be the chapter of my life where we
learn the most.”
sharing the knowledge
Kaas has always believed in teaching what he’s learned. In this
case, he shared his company’s detailed schematics and production
plans online for free, hoping that other manufacturers would be
able to quickly produce PPE for their local hospitals.
In the early days of his pivot, he was on the phone five to 10
times a day, talking with people who were using his company’s
values:
Believing that “waste is the enemy,” Jeff Kaas leads his company
with these values:
• Know and show the truth: We know and show the truth by
implementing our work plans in accordance with the laws of
nature to influence desired outcomes
• Best for our best: We treasure the opportunity to use our
talent to make a meaningful impact; inspired to give our
best for our best — people and organizations who value our
collective efforts.
• Improve everyday: We understand waste is ever present and
can only be reduced by taking action to improve every day.
about jeff kaas
the job
President of Mukilteo-based Kaas Tailored and lead consultant
at Truth Bit Pull Consulting
age
53
education
Studied business at the University of Washington, graduating in
1989.
family business
The company was founded in 1974 by Larry Kaas and his cousin.
Jeff Kaas, Larry’s son, joined as a teenager in 1983, working as a
production assistant — cleaning the shop, doing light assembly
and delivering furniture. In 1989 he took over as aerospace
manager, helping create and expand a second operational
division that could offset the cyclical nature of furniture
manufacturing, its primary business at the time. In 1997 Larry
retired and passed the company on to Jeff.
eliminating waste
In 1999 Jeff Kaas took his first trip to Japan to study Kaizen, the
philosophy and technique of continuous process improvement
and waste reduction. In addition to running Kaas Tailored,
in 2018 Jeff founded Truth Bit Pull Consulting to advise
organizations on process improvement.
in it together
Effective manufacturing is a team effort, Jeff Kaas said. He
describes his team members as “diamonds in the rough:
individuals who work hard and find joy in discovering new ways
to be resourceful.”
summer 2020
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