Meet Dennis Walsh, CCE, CEW.(B/E Aerospace Inc.)(Interview)

Dennis Walsh, CCE, CEW is Director of Credit for B/E Aerospace, Inc.--and like many members, entered the workforce with expectations of a different career; originally planning to become an accountant. However, his first job out of college was Controller for a plumbing wholesale company, where he was responsible for credit and collections. He found that he enjoyed credit work much more than accounting work--and two years later, moved to another company as the Credit Manager. "I haven't looked back since," he said.

Dennis' career has spanned several industries. As Controller for Ferguson Enterprises, whose main business is selling wholesale plumbing supplies, Dennis says "I learned that the credit manager must position himself as high on the collection food chain as possible ... liens, escrow accounts and letters of credit are a few tools I was exposed to during this time: many customers in this industry work with very tight cash flow." Dennis first learned about NACM when he was working at Ferguson, and attended a lien law class sponsored by NACM.

As Credit Manager for Piedmont Publishing Co., which publishes a daily newspaper, Dennis approved credit and collected outstanding invoices for advertisers. "I learned how to work in a fast paced, large volume environment. The most challenging part of this job was teaming how to manage people: I had a small staff of three who tormented me at every opportunity! Learning how to deal with HR challenges was an extremely important lesson," said Dennis.

Dennis now works for B/E Aerospace, a multi-national manufacturer of aircraft interiors for commercial airlines. "The aviation industry is going through enormous restructuring, with most major domestic airlines filing bankruptcy in the past few years ... the challenge has been to manage credit exposures in light of a high risk of bankruptcy," said Dennis. "I've learned the intricate details of how bankruptcy works, and ways to protect the company; both pre- and post-petition." He said it has also been a great learning experience in terms of how to manage people and processes remotely, and in different cultures. "I've traveled the world visiting customers and B/E manufacturing sites ... it's been invaluable experience contributing to my growth as a credit professional," he added.

Dennis has a B.S. degree in Accounting from the Univ. of North Carolina and an MBA in International Business from the Univ. of Miami. He also completed NACM's Graduate School of Credit and Financial Management at Dartmouth College. "Each of these educational milestones helped me in unique ways," he said. "The accounting degree helped me understand how to extract, crunch and decipher financial data needed to survive in the credit field. The MBA helped me better understand business dynamics, and GSCFM helped me refine my "credit" perspective ... providing specific financial analysis tools, instruction on important legal matters, corporate strategy, applied business economics and other topics, which ...