Vern Fleming is a visionary business consultant with 20+ years of experience driving strategic market expansion, new service offerings, and customer acquisition strategies to revitalize key accounts, secure high-value contracts, generate exponential revenue growth, and boost profitability.
Vern Fleming’s love for engineering first garnered national acclaim in 1984, when he won first place in the National Tooling and Machining Contest, in Houston Texas. Fleming went on to earn his Associate’s Degree in Mechanical Technology as well as a Bachelors in Business Administration in (year). He worked at Ten Cate Enbi Corporation in Rochester as Plant Manager, and less than three years later became the Engineering Manager of New Product Development for the company rising the corporate later in half the time of his predecessors.
Fueling his need for challenge, Fleming became the Manufacturing Manager at CEN Electronics in 1997 and brought a new level of efficiency to plant operations including cutting lead-time in half and reducing utilized inventory by 30%. In 1999 he was promoted to General Manager after finishing first in his class in Chlorides MBA program held at the GEC Management College in Dunchurch England.
Vern knew that his innovative ideas for new technologies, and dedication to excellence could change the face of CEN for the better as well as bring it into a new age. He and his wife Tammy acquired CEN electronics in 2000 and renamed it Applied Energy Solutions. With the Applied Energy Solutions team and Vern’s guidance they are recognized as the industries applications experts providing innovative advanced technology charging solutions for material handling applications.
Vern’s philosophy toward business is simple “if you can solve problems and help make your customer’s operation more efficient you will earn their business.”
During his tenure in material handling he has visited well over 200 million square feet of warehouse operations. His expertise in material handling is unsurpassed as he can quickly asses an operation and make recommendations for optimizing the operations. Under Vern’s leadership AES is a key partner supplier to several fortune 500 companies including, Amazon Robotics, Hannaford Foods, Dollar General, Sysco Foods, Walmart/Sam’s club, and many others.
He is well known in the distribution world as a problem solver and innovative thinker. He has connections to resources for all material handling equipment used in industrial and warehousing applications.
In 2016 he founded VPF Enterprise to provide expert advice and guidance to organizations to help them improve their performance, efficiency, and overall success.
Since founding his company he has advised numerous companies leading them to success.
A few of his key accomplishments include:
- Revitalized a previous customer into a $2M annual account and secured 12+ new clients within 14 months at Weco while surpassing second-half 2023 bookings by 6% and achieving a 59% increase in bookings for 2024 compared to 2023.
- Surpassed the first-year order target by 20% at Bowmar and successfully revitalized a major $7M stalled program with Lockheed Martin through strategic negotiations.
- Secured 2 new contracts at Bowmar, including a $1.2M 2-year agreement with Free Flight Systems at a 35% gross profit margin and a negotiated proposal with General Dynamics for a $1.2M program featuring a 40% gross profit margin.