Bigger than Gentex: Scott Heerema’s Career in Facilities and Public Service Featured Image

Bigger than Gentex: Scott Heerema’s Career in Facilities and Public Service


If you work at Gentex, or have visited the campus in Zeeland, you may have interacted with the Facilities department’s work without even knowing it. The wide-ranging team maintains all of Gentex’s physical assets and infrastructure, from the roofs and floors to the electrical and plumbing, to the driveways and parking lots. For the past 17 years, Director of Facilities Scott Heerema has been overseeing all of it.

“At Gentex, I’m responsible for overseeing and managing the physical assets and infrastructure of the company. That involves facility planning, project management, maintenance and operations, housekeeping, utilities, and the technology and audio-visual infrastructure,” he said.

Managing a facility portfolio the size of Gentex’s is no small task. For Heerema, however, it’s a natural evolution in his career that started with smaller responsibilities after college. After earning a degree in construction management at Ferris State, he coordinated projects for a small construction firm in Zeeland, followed by a stint managing projects end-to-end for a local cabinet company. The Christman Company reached out to him during that time, and he spent the next decade with Christman overseeing progressively larger construction projects in West Michigan.

“The Grand Rapids Press printing facility along I-96 was probably the most memorable project I worked on,” he said. “From coordinating the delivery of the presses from Germany, all the way to watching the first printing production – it was an amazing process.”

In 2006, Gentex approached Heerema to see if he would take on the Director of Corporate Facilities role. He has been here since, managing a team that makes sure projects get done, that facilities are all up-to-date and useable, and that Gentex’s many buildings are maintained for the team members who come to work here every day.

“All of our work on the Facilities team is done to create a safe, functional, and productive work environment for the organization,” said Heerema.

The nature of the work means Heerema gets to interact with people from all over the business on a variety of tasks every day, which he very much enjoys. 

“The best part of my job at Gentex is working with the people here, and the constant change and challenges that we encounter every day,” he said.

Many days, however, you’ll find Heerema applying the same passion for solving challenges and serving the needs of others in his work in the community. As Captain of the Park Township Fire Department, as well as a reserve officer for the Zeeland Police Department, he finds ways to assist the public in the community, beyond the Gentex campus.

“I wasn’t one of those kids that always wanted to be a firefighter,” he said, “But I have always had a desire to help other people. That desire was what drove me to stop at the local fire department nearly 25 years ago now.”

His role at the Fire Department grew over time, and he was promoted to Lieutenant in June of 2005, and Captain in December of 2005. Heerema acknowledges that balancing his role with the Fire Department and Police Department can be challenging – there are days where he comes home from Gentex, only to be pulled away on an emergency call before he even gets out of his car.

Thankfully I work with some great people at the Fire Department, and we all work well together helping balance home/work/FD life,” he said.

Beyond the opportunity to help those in his city, and the people he works with, Heerema also loves the community aspect of his work with the Fire Department and Police Department.

“One of my favorite parts of the job is being able to interact with the people of the community outside of the emergency calls, during special events and parades in the city,” he said.

And while those special occasions are a perk of the job, the day-to-day situations he faces during emergency responses hold many similarities to the work he does at Gentex. 

Similar to the Fire Department, here at Gentex there are normal days interspersed with hectic moments – From a house fire that requires you to make quick, effective decisions as the command officer, to a broken water pipe that needs an immediate response,” he said. “The work is all about having the ability to remain calm, see the bigger picture, and direct resources to where they are needed to resolve the issues you have at hand.”

There’s another connection Heerema points out between his emergency response work, Gentex, and the people he interacts with daily: the sense of community he feels when he’s working in any of his roles.

“I love the fact that Gentex is a large global company, based out of West Michigan, with a hometown feel that we get from being rooted in the City of Zeeland. I also enjoy the facilities team we’ve developed over time, it feels like an extension of family. When people ask me about Gentex, there is one thing I always tell them: There’s never a day when I don’t feel like coming to work!”

 

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