Pros
Product lineup is interesting and manufacturing is unique in South Florida.
There is a lot to learn from engineering to manufacturing to marketing, as long as you are comfortable with teaching yourself exactly what is expected.
Owner/President is multi-tasking and knowledgeable. Good judge for filtering opportunities from unproductive inquiries, and can provide creative solutions to air pollution control problems.
Currently full of orders, and the trend continues for 2015.
Cons
For management positions:
It is a one man company, where everything goes through the owner and President. This creates a backup and also reduces your freedom and independence in doing your work. Terrible communication and management skills, at times removing any pride from employees in doing their jobs. Employees are yelled at and talked down to.
Very high personnel turnover ratio, which creates inconsistencies in documents, procedures and results in shifting work relationships. When I joined the environment was very toxic, with no team spirit or work collaboration. During a period of 1 yr, five office people left the company (one third to half of the office staff), three of them left on their own, two were let go. The environment has improved somewhat since then, but the large workload on many of the co-workers and the difficult personality of the owner/president continues to affect the work environment. Some departments will experience hiring when needed, dismissal when not needed, then re-hire when new work comes in.
There is minimal training and consistency on established procedures that shift as a function of the owner's mood and memory and minimal documentation for performing calculations. Self teaching is not a problem, as long as your methods match exactly what is expected by the owner.
Everything is in hard copy form and digital information is very difficult to sort and obtain (although there has been an improvement during my stay). Any attempt to use spreadsheets to create tools or to employ current technologies will be met with fierce opposition.
Your work will be micro-managed at times, your computer is under constant monitoring and surveillance.
Very old fashioned, stuck on methods and technology from the 80's.
Although there is revenue and work orders, the business does encounter cash flow problems. Long term future of the company is uncertain.
Medical insurance benefits come with very high deductibles, although the company offers a partial reimbursement policy which helps to offset costs. The downside, is that the reimbursement must be signed by the owner/president and hence offers no privacy on medical matters.