Pushing Towards Growth

Tonya Pivarnik, COO of BlackHawk Industrial, surrounds herself with people who are competent , inspiring, and passionate enough to tell her when she’s wrong. This is one of the brilliant qualities that guide her into becoming a successful leader of a growing and high-performing team. She expects operational excellence and is driven to deliver an exceptional customer experience.

The steadfast leader has a profound appreciation of the company’s internal systems, both technical and financial. This knowledge has developed over years of intentional study and critical thought; it serves her and her team well. Tonya gathers information, assesses the variables affecting outcomes, and quickly moves to remove issues and optimize performance. She also has an uncanny ability to bring relevant stakeholders together to advance issues/programs.

Those qualities above, are what she uses to inspire and enhance her team members to become great leaders of tomorrow. She motivates her team members to take calculated risks and not be rigid in decision-making. She supports them in decision-making by always having their back, with no retribution for those decisions, just course correction. Tonya has been leading with a fearless attitude – showing boldness to press the edge of the envelope – giving her team the confidence to challenge their own barriers to achieving success.

“Success to me is coming to work every day and contributing value to that organization. In any position I have held, my goal was always about understanding the business and how can I make an impact,” says Tonya. “My best weeks are the ones where I felt productive and something good happened because of my impact whether that be cost savings, time savings, or just made someone’s day!” But whether being a woman leader is challenging, Tonya asserts, “you shouldn’t focus on whether you belong in that position or not. You should focus on leveraging your strengths and being the best leader that you know how. Everything else will fall into place. It’s ok to bring what some would call natural female characteristics to the leadership position.”

With this fearless attitude, Tonya has been taking the company to new heights. BlackHawk Industrial is a leading industrial distributor marketing over 2.5 million products from the industry’s top brands with a heavy emphasis on metal-working products such as cutting tools, abrasives, and fluids.. The company also provides a full line of MRO, industrial fasteners, and packaging products. BlackHawk is an industry leader in creative design and build supply chain solutions with custom industrial vending solutions.. The highly technical sales staff strives to deliver world-class service and cost savings across the customer’s production floor. “Our growth story – we started in 2010 with the acquisition of a single distributor and have now grown to near $600M in sales and we aren’t stopping there,” says Tonya.

But one of the most important goals for Tonya is to be the best human she can be and contribute value to the company she works for. “We have several projects that I am looking forward to completing and realizing those benefits within the business,” explains Tonya.

“I am aiming towards continued growth for both me and BlackHawk. Every day is a learning opportunity, and we constantly question if there a better way. We continue to push the organization in that direction. Never be content with the status quo.”

BlackHawk Industrial recently announced it has successfully completed the acquisition of Thomas Industrial Supply, Inc. ("Thomas”) in Schofield, Wisconsin. BlackHawk has been accelerating its acquisition activity in recent years and bolstering its capabilities by aggressively expanding to reach more customers across the country and around the world. The company is different from other distributors, and it shows. Today’s deal is part of a flurry of acquisition activity BlackHawk has planned to expand into new categories and increase its product assortment to better serve customers.

BlackHawk intends to create additional value for industrial manufacturers by expanding into new geographic markets to reach more of its production facilities, expanding its product offering to provide fresh products and services that end-users value, and investing in sales channels that improve the effectiveness of its technical sales resources. This acquisition is just one of several pieces in BlackHawk’s growth strategy to build the only distributor, Big Enough to Serve | Small Enough to CareTM.