UNITY — At some car dealerships, the faces of the staff can change as often as the vehicles on the lot. However, that is not the case with the local dealership Unity Motor Products. Current office manager Colleen Smith is celebrating 29 years at the business.
Smith and her husband, Scott, moved from Lloydminster to Unity in the late 1990s. Armed with an accounting with management diploma, she began working at an accounting office in Lloydminster. There, she learned a lot about meeting deadlines and working with various customers. Once settled in Unity, Smith set out looking for a job. Smith’s first day was June 2, 1997, when the Ulmer Auto Group purchased Don’s Motors.
“When I applied for the job of accounting assistant, the former accounting staff were told to hire the youngest applicant. Since I had an accounting background and was the youngest applicant, the General Manager started getting me trained to do month-end books and year-end,” said Smith.
Over the years, Smith moved from accounting assistant to her current role as office manager, gaining additional education throughout the years from GM University. Although she may not work directly with customers on a day-to-day basis, she still enjoys answering the phone, chatting with customers in the waiting area and helping those who need copies of their invoices or finance contracts.
With almost three decades of experience at the dealership, Smith has seen many changes throughout the years — not only with staff changes, but with technology.
“I’ve been here so long I can remember manually inputting vehicle costs in a ‘washout’ book. Everything was done manually, then posted into our system. It used to take me three days to pay the bills, handwriting each cheque, and now I can do it in four hours, and we are five times busier than we were back then,” she laughed.
As technology was integrated into daily operations, Smith had to learn how to use certain programs and stay on top of changing procedures. Even with the introduction of multi-factor authentication across many of the programs she uses, Smith says her job is always changing and that having the ability to multitask is a great asset for anyone looking to work in the administrative side of any job.
“You end up doing several different tasks at once and begin to love what you do. Then the job becomes a career. UMP is a fun place to work now, and I love what I do every day,” said Smith.
Smith said retirement is on the horizon for her, but she is not sure when that will be yet. Until then, she will continue to enjoy her time at Unity Motor Products with the customers and staff she has gotten to know.
