Mace leads international efforts in southwest Missouri

Age 32 is fairly young to be the CEO of a company with 135 employees.

But Guy Colby Mace - the featured speaker at Springfield Business Journal's 12 People You Need to Know breakfast Tuesday morning - knew he wanted to be a part of his father's company, Turblex Inc., from the time he broke his ankle at age 16 and accompanied his father, Guy Mace, on a business trip.

The elder Mace was selling some of his company's aerators and compressors, and his son saw the power that came with the combination of knowledge and salesmanship.

"I saw his mastery of influencing people - he could get them to see his way and sell them on his concepts," Guy Colby Mace said of his father, who retired in 2008. "If a guy could understand the technical details and be able to communicate effectively, that's a powerful combination."

Now that he is the CEO of Turblex, which was purchased by German conglomerate Siemens in 2007, his job requires him to be part businessman and part politician.

"I have more bosses than I can keep track of," he said. "One is domestic and there are several in Europe. Who I talk to depends on the nature of what I'm trying to get done."

Politics go with the process as part of an international corporation that employs 475,000 people and boasts annual revenues topping $100 billion. Turblex is part of Siemens' oil and gas division, working on a variety of fans and blower products for government and utilities.

With the purchase came other changes as well, including a recently completed move from seven buildings into a single 100,000-square-foot facility in northwest Springfield.  

His job requires a lot of travel, which Mace said sounds exciting at first but doesn't take long to lose its luster.

"A hotel room in Germany looks a lot like a hotel room in Springfield, and an airport in Springfield looks a lot an airport in France," Mace said. "International travel loses its sizzle pretty quickly."

Overall, Mace said the languages may be different, and the scope of the projects may be larger - desulfurization projects, for example, that would carry an average $1 million price tag with Turblex now can easily reach $10 million. But one aspect of business has remained constant: the power of communication.

"People," Mace said, "are essentially the same no matter where you go."[[In-content Ad]]