Dickson Bertrand

Resourceful, innovative professional with over 20 years General, Operations and Loss Prevention Management experience in a broad range of services and products. Held P&L responsibilities. Expertise in initiating projects and programs that boost productivity and efficiency while increasing sales. A true Hands-on professional with proven skills in analysis, mentoring, organization, development, strategic planning, troubleshooting, and improvement of operations through policies that promote a team-based work atmosphere, creative thinking, superior customer service and a positive effect on the corporate bottom line.

• Turned around an underperforming company location. Observed and analyzed day-to-day operations, and discovered sloppy in aisle in-stock, poor merchandising and a too lean night freight staff preventing day associates from best addressing their departments. Hired more freight staff for both merchandising and grocery, reestablished policies,and increased sales $10M and bonus compensation 75% which improved morale.
• Decreased operational costs in shrink and safety in a company area of 8 locations. Hired 15 loss prevention associates and conducted one-on-one training in shrink investigation and safety awareness, regulations, and accident prevention. Succeeded in decreasing area costs with at least 3 of this team promoted to Loss Prevention, Assistant, and General Managers.
• Mentored an Assistant Manager who felt he would not be promoted despite his brilliant merchandising talent. Worked with this individual on both personal and professional managerial brand image. Gave him exposure to visiting company executives and face time with marketing teams. He was promoted to a General Manager across town.
• Increased revenue to the company by establishing a more formalized project management office to organize the numerous projects current and scheduled for completion. My team was now better focused on the selection of sub-contractors for the weekly project starts while creating more time to finish jobs for end-of-the-month completion. More efficiency and accuracy in projections yielded more money to the P&L.
• Partnered with a non-profit organization coordinator to organize the volunteers, tradesman, and materials necessary to rehab, build wheelchair ramps and provide general maintenance to veteran homes. Succeeded in completing the rehab of 10 veteran homes each year free of charge to the family.
• Successfully managed several big box company locations having revenue over $100M and hundreds of employees in each location. Considered all aspects of the business from inventory to the actual facility operations, employee morale, community relations and customer satisfaction.
• Increased sales and profit margins by working with commodity goods and seasonal plant growers to ensure that the correct amounts of these products were delivered to my company locations for sales without over-buying.
• Finished my master’s degree 2 days per week in night school while working full-time. Wrote my thesis on Employee Motivation in 2016 and graduated with honors.
• Reviewed a pre-inventory reconciliation and identified a trend of locations shrinking out excessively in special order merchandise. Determined there was a training issue in Return to Vendor reporting and how the returns would kick out the credit for the returned products. Implemented new training and partnered with IT to correct and close this loophole.