Applied Control Reviews

The company's business is heavily influenced by the oil and gas market making it volatile. The company culture and morale have declined in the past 4 years since new ownership/management took over. Additionally, poor business planning and two layoff events in Sept. 2015 and Jan. 2016 have further impacted morale negatively. The downturn in economy has exposed week upper management. Pay is lower than for comparable jobs in other industries. New employees are left to fend for themselves as there is no formal and consistent training program which leaves people to experience great struggles when initially on-boarded. Career paths are not outlined well or at all, as it is for some cases, by management. Promotions seem to be more aligned with who you know and appear to be more weighted on things subjective in nature. The leadership team struggles to represent well the company core values they promote. Generally speaking, the leadership team is disappointing overall and challenged and lacking in their leadership and management skills.

Where to start... First, ACE has a taste for highly educated engineering graduates from Colorado School of Mines, CSU and others. These grads have degrees that should be applied to complex engineering applications, with careers that advance into tacking the engineering challenges of todays world. At ACE, these sophisticated degrees are dumbed down to basic valve sizing and selection. Does your valve cavitate? What trim should you use inside this valve? How fast do you want this valve to open and close? Mastering these concepts is the absolute HEIGHT of ACE complexity. Yaaaaaaaawn. Well, maybe there would be an opportunity to come up with creative solutions to how these process automation solutions are applied, right? Oh, no no no. All of that creative spirit was squashed long ago. This is an Emerson store front. Nothing more. Lastly, you have virtually zero MEANINGFUL career track at ACE. There's basically three steps: Sales Associate, Sales Manager and Business Line Manager... that's it. You can size valves, manage a small group while you size valves, or manage managers of small groups while you size valves. Want to transfer outside of this career into another that would be meaningful, perhaps in consulting engineering? Sure! Go right ahead, and you'll be paid at the entry level just like the rest of the college graduates who start there fresh from school. After all, valve sizing and selection is just a small piece of what a real engineer does. So, consider this place a career delay.