Are You A Business Leader Seeking Ways To Improve Your Bottom Line Or To Optimize Your Operations?
Lakehurst is dedicated to driving efficiency, cost reduction, improved EBITDA, and increased valuations for businesses through our expertise in Process and Performance Improvement.
At our core, we strive to empower business leaders with operational expertise and proven process improvement techniques, enabling dynamic growth in company earnings, resolving internal issues, and ultimately maximizing profitability.
“To get out of the pit we require an outside view. No chance from the inside. A system cannot understand itself. Understanding comes from outside. An outside view provides a lens for examination of our present actions, policies… Knowledge from outside is necessary. Knowledge from outside gives us a view of what we’re doing, what we might do, a road to improvement, continual improvement.”
Dr. W Edwards Deming in his final interview on 10/23/93 with Industry Week
Our Services
We Offer A Range Of Consulting Services To Help You Achieve The Results You’re After.
Continuous Improvement
- Structured Problem Solving Engagement utilizing Lean Six Sigma Tools
- Operational Excellence Assessment
- Lean Six Sigma Program Development and Deployment
- Training and Coaching
- Responsibility Charting
- Project Management
Industrial Plant Health
- Maintenance and Reliability Assessment
- Maintenance and Reliability Program Development and Deployment
- Training and Coaching
Industrial and Process Safety
- Investigation and Cause Mapping
- Process Hazards Analysis
- Risk Mitigation for High Level Hazards
- Procedures Development and Review
- Energy Institute “Hearts and Minds” Program Training and Consulting
Solutions to Improve Your Bottom Line
Project Management Services
Process And Performance Optimization
Structured Problem Solving
Project Management Services
Operational Excellence Assessment
Lean Six Sigma Program Development
Lean Six Sigma Deployment
Lean Six Sigma Training
Lean Six Sigma Coaching
Responsibility Charting
Understanding
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We bring our specialized knowledge in collaboration with your team, ensuring the successful implementation of a structured problem-solving process. Through our partnership, we guide the establishment of a precise and comprehensive problem definition, fostering a shared understanding that unifies team members. This shared understanding serves as the foundation for building consensus, unlocking the collective intelligence of your organization and paving the way for effective and impactful problem-solving initiatives.
Professionalism
2
We work closely with your team, leveraging our expertise to guide a structured problem-definition process. Through open communication and active collaboration, we foster a shared understanding of the challenges at hand, providing a solid foundation for consensus-building. With this collective agreement, we can effectively address and resolve the identified issues in a collaborative and results-oriented manner, ensuring long-lasting improvements to productivity and profitability.
Expertise
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We understand the criticality of defining the problem accurately and considering the unique characteristics of your organization. This comprehensive understanding enables us to identify and select the most appropriate tools and methodologies tailored to address the specific situation at hand. By applying the right tools in a strategic manner, we can optimize process performance, drive efficiency, and achieve measurable results aligned with your organizational goals.
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Make A Free Consultation With Our Expert Team To Solve Your Prolems.
Recent Blog Posts
The Lessons of Entrepreneurship
One of the most critical aspects of being an entrepreneur is utilizing all the experience you have. You need to learn from the good and the bad and then apply it to your business going forward. Another important aspect of being an entrepreneur is learning from others in the same field. Today, I am sharing with you six of the most important lessons I have learned on my entrepreneurial journey.
💡 The importance of continuous improvement
When you set a goal of continuous improvement you set yourself up for growth and progress. To me, continuous improvement is getting a little bit better each and every day. When you add up those results over one year, it will be amazing to witness how far you have come. If you do not make continuous improvement a goal, you will be stagnant in all aspects of growth.
💡 Show support for your community
I think showing support to the community in which you have built your business is very important. Since moving to Hannibal, Missouri, I began volunteering at the Regional Economic Development Council where I offer training and advice, as well as assist local leaders with facilitating decisions that would best support industry in the city. While visiting Lakehurst Properties in Maine during the summers, my daughters volunteered at the local firefighters’ breakfast fundraisers. I was incredibly proud to witness my children showing community values as well as supporting important community institutions.
💡 Make a plan
Creating a well-thought-out plan that spans multiple years is one of the keys to success when starting your own business. Even if you are self-financing, you should construct a plan as if you are going to investors that includes aspects such as financial projects and business structure. Ask yourself: Would my business plan convince someone to finance it? This practice will ensure your plan is detail-oriented and thorough. If you go into a business without making a plan, you will go in circles. Your business plan should act as a map detailing the trek to a foreign location. You need to give yourself the exact steps on how to get to your final destination: success!
💡 Work as a team
At Lakehurst Consulting, I am the owner and decision maker, but at Lakehurst Properties, I am one of eight partners. With that being said, working as a team is doubly important in a family business because conflict is extraordinarily difficult when your coworkers are also your family! My biggest piece of advice when it comes to working on a team is to divide and conquer. You also must be extremely conscious of strengths and weaknesses when dividing up duties. You should be extremely transparent and specific when dividing up duties, so everyone is aware of their roles. This practice minimizes conflict as well as sets the expectation of clear communication.
💡 Be flexible
COVID-19 was one of the biggest eye-openers on why being flexible is crucial to any business owner. Business owners must adjust their businesses to fit the needs of an ever-changing society. At Lakehurst Consulting, one of the biggest transitions was shifting from strictly in-person communication to telephone and web conferencing. At Lakehurst Properties, due to the state of Maine’s regulations, we were closed from March to the end of June in 2020. When we reopened, we had to rethink our procedures and techniques to minimize exposure, but also give our guests guidance on how to interact while still maintaining social distance. If we had been stuck in our ways, we would have seen a steady decrease in occupancy. But, since we were flexible and able to adjust to what was critically needed for our business, it continued to thrive.
💡 Be passionate and persistent
In my opinion, being persistent means identifying the right thing and then continuing to do the right thing- whatever that may be in your business. For me, doing the right thing is identifying clients and then going out and serving them. Referrals are great for any business, but at some point, they run out, and then you must forge new business all on your own. A business owner needs to be persistent in generating interest.
Anyone embarking on the journey of starting a business needs to be sure they are passionate about it. It’s much easier to work at something that you love than something you don’t. The final advice I leave you with is, to pick what you love.
The Entrepreneurial Journey
The path to becoming an entrepreneur is never straightforward nor uniform to anyone else’s experience. When growing up, I knew that the family business would eventually fall to me and my brothers. But until that inevitable day, I was perfectly content with pursuing my interests and passions. I sought out a path that I found interesting and knew would offer me a good living: engineering.
I had always been fond of math and science, and when I went to an engineering camp the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I knew I would pursue chemical engineering in college. After I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering, I worked at a local plant in Maine. My career eventually took me to West Virginia, where I began my MBA to further my career and education, and later, Arkansas, Colorado, and Kansas.
Eventually, there was a natural break in my career as am executive leading continuous improvement and I decided to pursue the idea that had been kicking around in my brain for some time: opening an independent consulting business. There was never a moment in my childhood where I thought to myself, “hey, I should open up a consulting business!”. That idea came much later in my life, and I was able to see it to fruition because I had a lot of examples in my family and professional orbit that showed me that starting a business was possible. When I saw an opportunity to leave corporate life, I realized that if I don’t bet on myself now, when will I? So I took that leap of faith and began Lakehurst Consulting.
I liked that this change in career paths would allow me to have more flexibility in schedule and location. It has now been three and a half years since I took the chance and began Lakehurst Consulting. Since then, I have worked in many different industries, including aerospace, defense, insurance, and hospitality. I enjoy the challenge of working in different industries and learning new things, while also applying my practical and academic knowledge.
I grew up helping around Lakehurst Properties in whatever way I could. This included helping clean up after large events, as well as helping care for the pigs and chickens that were on the property and tending to the large garden. During this time I was able to observe how the family business was being run. These observations were extremely helpful when I bought into Lakehurst Properties in 2016, because I had a guide of what I wanted to emulate as well as what I wanted to change.
My children are as involved in the family business just as I was at their age. When my family visits the property, my children know to help out in whatever way they can. They know the importance of showing up when help is needed and lending a hand. Growing up in a family that has a 100-year-old legacy family business can surely be daunting, but much like my parents did for me, I am supporting my children in whatever career path they are passionate about and hope that whenever it is time for them to come into the business as partners, they can take the lessons they have learned throughout their life and apply it to continuing the Lakehurst legacy.
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Living the Legacy of Entrepreneurship
Perched on the beautiful shores of Pemaquid Lake, Lakehurst Properties, in Damariscotta, Maine, is the ideal location to escape the distractions and chaos of everyday life. The lake features a private, safe, and shallow sand beach that is perfect for swimming, sunbathing, or simply relaxing and enjoying the picturesque view. Lakehurst Properties is the perfect retreat for the authentic “Maine Experience” throughout the year due to the all-season rental cabins. Lakehurst also features a rustic timber-framed barn facility that is the perfect country setting for any event. Lakehurst has been called “rejuvenating”, “restorative”, and “simply stunning” by past guests.
Lakehurst has a quaint family history which creates a truly authentic, family-oriented vibe. The Pinkham family business began in the 1920s, when the property was bought by Dr. James Cook and his nephew Lawson Pinkham, my grandfather. The property was originally a camp for boys and then transformed into cottage rentals and a dance hall in 1935. In 1965, the property once again went through a transformation when the younger generation of Pinkham’s bought the property and over time doubled the number of cottages on the property, including an island cabin purchased from my grandmother called “The Honeymoon Cabin”. Weekly dances stopped in 1980, and the dance hall became a premier event space. In 2015, my brothers and I, along with our respective spouses, purchased the property and now run it with our parents. It has always been clear that business runs in the Pinkham family!
My parents taught me and my siblings hard work, family values, and how to care for Lakehurst at an early age. I remember being enlisted as a helper for whatever chores needed to be done around Lakehurst, including cleaning up after large events, yard work, washing windows, and helping turnover the cottages. I vividly remember the dances that were popular in the mid-1960s and 1970s. My dad and uncle would shave solid bars of Gulf paraffin wax so that the shavings would fall onto the dance floor and act as lubrication for the shoes of the dancer, which helped the dancers glide across the floor and would wax the floor at the same time!
Many lessons can be learned from a family business that has grown, evolved, and had continued success for over 100 years. I know that family businesses are a lot of work, but it is extremely important to work together and focus on everyone’s strengths in order to be truly successful. From its beginning, Lakehurst Properties has been a labor of love, family loyalty, and proof that determination and hard work lead to success.
