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No matter where he goes, James Heeren usually has a pen in his pocket.
At work, the grocery, even a ballgame. He might take down the score at the end of a quarter or a phone number of a potential contact, or jot reminders. Last fall, his penchant for meticulous note-taking paid off when he landed what so many are desperately seeking: a job.
Heeren, 54, spent 7 1/2 months looking. He got the job one week before his unemployment benefits were scheduled to run out. God closed one door and opened another, he said.
Heeren is now the Fort Wayne warehouse supervisor at Integrated Supply Network Inc., an automotive tools and equipment distributor. He tells the six employees he manages that it’s their job to learn something every day. He thinks it’s his job to do the same, and he has been busy learning the ropes since he started in October.
Heeren was one of six people The Journal Gazette profiled in July for a report called “Economy Class.” The profiles described the effect of the economic downturn on people and their families.
Although Heeren’s search was a couple of months from being over, he already knew it to be “a much tougher environment” than he’d faced in previous job searches.
His efforts ultimately proved fruitful, though the recession that strained his job search continues to diminish prospects for others.
The first time he walked through the warehouse at 2251 Research Drive with branch manager Nancy Fockler, Heeren said, he knew he was home. He has spent 25 of 35 working years in similar positions. Although he took a pay cut – his salary is $35,000, compared with $43,000 at his last job – he’s happy and able to pay the bills.
“Every day, I look forward to going to work,” Heeren said.
Fockler had kind words for Heeren – a kind man without a mean bone in his body, she said.
“He stood out from the other candidates because of his very calm demeanor,” Fockler said. “He just seemed to be able to lead people, but to lead them in a manner that is respectful.”
Heeren is no stranger to job searches.
When he was laid off in February last year along with 29 other Sirva employees in Fort Wayne, it was the fifth time since 1992 he’d lost a job because of corporate downsizing or a plant closure.
But the most recent job search – in a poor economy that pared his prospects – took the longest.
Naturally, he documented his search in painstaking detail. In notebooks, he monitored his progress, recorded setbacks and generated ideas.
According to his written record, he applied for 191 jobs.
He drove 1,821.6 job-search-related miles: daily to the WorkOne Northeast office at Rudisill Boulevard and Clinton Street for job training; to the library; to the BMV for requested records; to 44 interviews at 35 companies – some of them second and third interviews. In addition to looking in Fort Wayne, the job search took him to Huntington, Markle, Columbia City, Decatur, Auburn and Garrett.
For the job with Integrated Supply Network, Heeren flew to Lakeland, Fla., the company’s headquarters, for final interviews and tests. When he got the job, the discouragement and struggles of the monthslong search dissipated.
“I was elated,” Heeren said. “My wife was very happy.”
Van Rockefeller, an employment and training adviser at WorkOne, got to know Heeren during his months of searching.
Most every workday, Heeren was up by 6 a.m. and at WorkOne between 8 and 8:30 a.m.
Heeren has “a very pleasant, warm personality; he just had an easy way of relating to people,” said Rockefeller, an even-tempered former radio reporter.
Rockefeller said Heeren was methodical in his job search, tried hard to find work and was consistent, organized and persistent.
“He didn’t give up,” Rockefeller said.
Today, Heeren continues to take notes. He tracks hours of operation and productivity, compiles work reports at the end of the day and helps with budgets. He documents everything that comes in or goes out of Integrated Supply’s Fort Wayne warehouse.
“Every day, I learn something new about the job and about the position,” Heeren said.
All perfect for a man who keeps precise records.
