Photo: Woodworking
Lauro Dominici
Lauro Dominici has taken over the helm of SCM Group Canada as vice president of sales for the wood division following the retirement of Richard Bluteau on Nov. 1.
Dominici joined SCM in Canada earlier this year following two years with SCM in Portland, Oregon and Atlanta, Georgia.
Dominici brings some 14 years of industry experience to the job.
Born and raised in Italy, Dominici was first exposed to the industry through his father who worked for a large machine manufacturer there. In 2008, after school, he joined his father and started to work for that company as a factory worker assembling machines. He said it was a good fit for him and his interests in all things mechanical and he learned a lot about machinery and mechanical engineering.
After about a year, Dominici was promoted to work in the office, where he continued his rise in the company over the next 10 years - from sales engineer to global product manager for edgebanding machines worldwide.
In 2016 he was asked if he wanted to work in North America and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina for three years working as North American edgebanding manager.
“North America meant the U.S. and Canada, so in a way that started my preparation for this job,” he says.
In September 2019 he changed employers and joined SCM and moved to Portland, Oregon as Pacific Northwest sales manager.
After almost two years in Portland, Dominici says he had familiarized himself with the complete SCM line, and having previously had discussions about taking on the position as VP of Sales for Canada, the time had come for him to move again.
“So my time in Portland was always meant as a training period for me and in January 2021, when Richard (Bluteau) started talking about retiring, we started the discussion about my relocation to Canada as soon as possible,” he says.
“But because of the border restrictions during the pandemic, I wasn’t able to move to Canada until this September. But in the meantime I moved from Portland to Atlanta to familiarize my self with all the internal company procedures for North America.”
Dominici says the United States and Canada are all part of the same family, which means it helped him prepare for his new job in Canada.
“But finally, in September, I was able to move to Canada and then spent the next six or seven weeks with Richard who helped me familiarize myself with our team here.
“So during this period we were overlapping, Richard was in charge, and I shadowed him and learned from him and slowly started taking over.”
Since coming to North America in 2016 and having been responsible for both markets, Dominici says he was already quite familiar with the Canadian market and moving here was not a big adjustment.
“I already knew a lot of customers and I was familiar with the market and its requirements.”
Dominici says Canada is a step ahead of the U.S as far as adopting new technology and trends are concerned.
It all starts in Europe, that’s where the trends are developed and then Canada is the first to adopt those trends and only then does the U.S. follow.
“I believe Canada is right between Europe and the U.S. when it comes to implementing new technology and design trends. Canada is much more open minded towards “new” things and I feel very much at home here.”
Dominici said ultimately though, “it’s about building relationships with customers and figuring out ways to help their businesses succeed.”
One huge trend right now is automation because that is a very effective way to address labour challenges and that is one of the things SCM is focusing on.
“Two to three years ago a storage system would have been something you only discussed with your biggest customers,” Dominici says, “but today even smaller, five to 10 men shops are interested in that technology. Now everyone realizes that a robotic storage system doesn’t get sick and is always available to do the work. It’s repetitive and reliable and everyone is ready to pull the trigger on that kind of addition and investment to their shop.
“A lot of our customers who came out for Woodworking Technology Days were surprised by the level of technology we were showing during the open house. They want to learn more about it and their return on investment, he says.
“Our plan is to showcase more and more technology like that to help our customers. Either here in our showroom, but also in our customers’ shops. We have many good relationships with customers where we can bring new customers to see the technology in action at somebody’s shop.”
Dominici says SCM is very excited because they are the only company that can offer solutions starting with very small machines for hobbyists all the way to large industrial installations worth millions of dollars.
“That means our customers can continue to grow with SCM, and they don’t ever have to change their machine supplier.”
