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Charles Mays: 57 years of service and still going strong
Shining star after 57 years at Diamond H
Charles Mays gives new meaning to "employee retention"
— Jeff Seaver
Diamond H Recognition is a landmark among Fort Worth businesses and its longtime employee, Charles Mays – 57 years of service and still going strong – is the company’s soft-spoken beacon of dedication. The company in business to help other businesses recognize their employees through service-award programs, Diamond H is now recognizing one of its own.
Mays, 84, started on the ground floor as a salesman at Diamond H in 1949. He rose to sales manager and, 24 years after joining the company, was elected to run it as president, a post he maintained until 1988 when he retired.
Well, sort of.
Asked to stay on as a consultant, Mays has since fulfilled something of a dual role. As president emeritus, he works out of the office for several hours usually three times a week and maintains accounts of some of his longest-held clients.
As in-house historian and ambassador, Mays welcomes all new employees with a personal tour of the company’s jewelry manufacturing plant and a colorful, firsthand narrative.
“I’m just so pleased that I can visit with them,” Mays said. “They’re interested in my past and I’m interested in letting them know what the future will be for them, particularly now that the company is growing and doing extremely well.
“You want to brag about it and make them feel like they are very fortunate to be with a company like this. And, of course, it’s just nice to be around these younger people, getting to know their way of life and they’re interested in hearing me talk about things that took place years ago.”
Mays has spent the majority of his life living in Fort Worth. He attended Paschal High School and then Texas Christian University. He met his wife, Virginia, in Fort Worth after three years of service in the Army Air Corps, and married her in 1949, the same year he took the job that launched a career he never could have predicted.
“You rarely hear of someone who has worked for the same company for 57 years anymore,” said Pete Chambers, Diamond H president and CEO. “It’s cause to celebrate, especially for us, because we’re in the business of helping companies retain employees and recognize them for their years of service.”
Located just northwest of downtown, Diamond H’s services have varied through the years as the company’s ownership has changed.
“For many years, we made all the college rings for Baylor, TCU and Texas Wesleyan,” Mays said. “We competed in the Fort Worth area for making high school rings. In the late ’60s and ’70s, we were making thousands and thousands of high school rings.”
Today, the company strictly focuses on corporate recognition awards. Now with more than 90 employees, Diamond H has clients in Texas and across the country. For instance, last year, Diamond H added San Antonio-based H.E. Butt Grocery Co., to its list of significant clients that includes Valero Energy Corp., Nokia, Geico and Centex Corp.
Diamond H’s services include tracking employees’ anniversaries, distributing service certificates and award-selection brochures and shipping personalized gifts, including the corporate-logo lapel pins that were the primary award to honor years of service back in Mays’ early days.
Like the gifts, which now include anything from golf clubs to camping equipment to the custom-made jewelry the company has specialized in for years, technology has changed in astounding ways. Those are some of Mays’ favorite stories to share with new employees.
“In terms of thinking way back, we didn’t even know how to spell the word computer,” Mays said. “Everything is done on the computer. I can remember we would do a full-color brochure and we would have to go to the printer, we’d have to make all these transparencies and different things. Now they do all that in-house right there on the computer. That’s amazing, the things I have seen, the changes throughout the years.”
Yet, some things just remain the same.
“I’m going to be pretty busy soon getting all the orders in and doing things for the Stock Show,” Mays said. “This will be the 58th year I’ve handled the Stock Show.”
For all those years, Mays has counted as a client the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show, first working with the late W.R. Watt Sr., and for years now, W.R. “Bob” Watt Jr., the show’s president and general manager.
Mays oversees Diamond H’s manufacturing of about 1,400 badges worn by the show’s many officials and board of directors, plus numerous awards distributed throughout the 24-day Stock Show.
“He’s very professional, very accommodating and has just done an outstanding job in looking after our business over the years,” Watt said. “He’s certainly had a lot of pride in his work and the job that he’s done over the years.
“Obviously, there are other people that manufacture the badges and awards that we need, however the quality of our badges, there is no other show that has a quality badge like we have. We don’t shop our business around much. When we find someone who does a good job we stick with them.”
Much the way Diamond H has stuck by Mays.
“I enjoy doing it,” Mays said. “It’s not a full-time thing, but it gives me something to do and, really, it’s a two-way street. It helps me a lot, but also having been around so very long, they’re frequently asking me, ‘Did we ever do this or do that?’ because most of the people there now haven’t been there very long.”
Ambassador, historian, loyal employee, Mays will be there as long as he likes.
Contact:
Brad Bennett
Inspirus
817-332-6765 x222
bbennett@inspirus.com