"I have known and followed Ray since he was a student of mine at the University of Michigan. He had an outstanding career at General Motors and in other positions following GM. I would characterize Ray as a coach leader. His focus was always on the team and not himself. As I saw in his student days, Ray is very intelligent and not just from a theoretical basis but also as a 'hands on' person. He is a classic 'systems thinker' who always keeps the big picture in view as he works on details. Another attribute of Ray is entrepreneurial approach to life. He is always looking for better ways to do things; to fill gaps that need filling. Ray is true communicator. He has connected with me often throughout his professional life which is quite unusual for engineers who tend to be quite introverted. "

Ray Koopman was engaged by Uniprop to manage a portfolio company located in the suburbs of Chicago, IL. The company was a CNC machine shop that produce various component parts for customers like Caterpillar and Boeing. Uniprop purchased the company from the family that had owned it for decades, along with a managing partner that was clearly not qualified to operate the business; in need of help, Uniprop hired Ray Koopman.

Mr. Koopman assumed full-time management responsibility and was instrumental in the restructuring of the company. He implemented new work flow procedures, he evaluated talent at all levels, and he interfaced with key customers to explain the transition. He totally changed the “culture” and focused the company on quality and on-time delivery. The results were impressive and Uniprop benefitted from the success. I personally want to endorse Ray Koopman for his integrity, business acumen.

We started working with Ray in 2016. Ray has always been extremely diligent and has continually poured into us. His deep industry knowledge has proven time and time again to be a staple for us in the areas of Business Development and Manufacturing. I would like to personally recommend Ray to anyone needing an edge in business.

"Ray Koopman has the skills that are needed for effective leadership coaching - competence, vision, encouragement and accountability. I reached out to Ray for leadership and business coaching during a time that I became Executive Director for a non-profit organization that was in a financial crisis. Ray asked good questions, listened, assessed the organizational structure and finances and assisted with putting together a long-term plan for future success. A strength I see in Ray is his steady, dependable support and ability to reassess and redirect as needed during the process of restoration. Ray was instrumental in my journey as a leader during the most difficult financial time in the history of the organization. I would recommend Ray as a mentor and coach to anyone who is ready to face the hard work of becoming a more effective, successful leader. "

When I was facing a difficult situation in a manufacturing environment and was unable to attend to it myself, I wanted to bring in a trusted leader who could get the facility back on track until a full-time site leader could be hired. The first name that came to my mind was Ray Koopman.

When Ray came into our facility in the US Midwest, he quickly assessed the situation and the team and developed a map of the gaps in both. He engaged the workforce through personal conversations, team building, games and extensive shop floor presence. He recognized the need for the team to understand what “winning” looked like on a daily basis and, together with the team, he set daily success targets and tracking. He coached the team and celebrated their successes, and he also worked with them when they missed their goals to understand what was needed to turn the performance around. He significantly enhanced the visualization on the shop floor so anyone walking through the plant could see the progress. 

While Ray brought forth extensive operational knowledge, he also needed to work closely with the commercial team to adjust the expectations of the customers, prioritize production, and ensure that we were improving customer responsiveness in a systematic way. In a very short time, he assessed the current situation with the customers and was able to realign the production priorities with the customer needs – finding a balance between raw material stock, cash management, on time delivery while ensuring product quality was uncompromised. The work that Ray did was done with a top focus on safety and respect for the team – critical values in the organization.
Ray’s work with us ended when a full-time site leader was hired, but his impact continues. The team continues to talk about the things that Ray put in place that began the turnaround – and the results in the subsequent 10 months have continued to build on the targets set by Ray and the team during his tenure.