Arthrex hosted its annual Years of Service awards ceremony for Inc. and AMI on Tuesday, October 7 and recognized an impressive total of 118 employees celebrating five years of service, 21 employees celebrating 10 years, eight celebrating 15 years and an amazing 20 years of service from one employee everyone knows and loves - Maintenance Technician II Charlie Cremin!
![Charlie Cremin]()
During Reinhold's presentation of Charlie's Years of Service plaque, he spoke from his heart about how he met Charlie more than 20 years ago on a fishing charter that Charlie was working on at the time. Charlie asked Reinhold if there might be a job at Arthrex for him and Reinhold gave him his business card. A year later, after meeting Reinhold again on his charter, Reinhold hired Charlie on in inventory and the rest is history. Over the years, Charlie has held several jobs at Arthrex, including working in Receiving driving a forklift, assembly in the machine shop, performing maintenance duties on the facilities team and in recent years, Charlie has taken on the role of lead shuttle driver for employees and guests traveling between buildings on the Inc. campus.
"Charlie is the best ambassador for Arthrex with his friendly demeanor and warm smile," said Reinhold. "Throughout his 20 years at Arthrex, he has always come ready to work with a smile on his face each day. Charlie knows just about all of our employees and always does his best to make the shuttle ride fun and enjoyable, including telling our guests about the history of Arthrex."
Charlie's knack for names is in fact, inspired by Reinhold.
![Charlie Cremin and Reinhold Schmieding]()
"It's been a pleasure working with Reinhold - he's always led by example. I've learned from Reinhold the importance of being personable, being a good listener and remembering people's names. Just to see his work ethic and drive over the years has been amazing."
It seems Charlie has also learned from Reinhold that persistence pays off. Reinhold shared how impressed he was that when Charlie took his 20-year trip to Europe over the summer, he made it a point to stop by the new GmbH office in Freiham, Germany and waited for two hours to see him while Reinhold was in a meeting. "I would have waited a lot longer," says Charlie. "It's always been a goal of mine to see Germany and it was an exciting time to be there with the new office opening."
Charlie says what he has liked best about working for Arthrex over the last 20 years is he's had the opportunity to do a wide variety of jobs and has gotten to meet so many guests and people at all levels in the company – from new hires to VPs.
Since last January alone, Arthrex has already hired 367 new employees and we look forward to celebrating the success of many more employees in the years to come. Thanks to all Arthrex employees for their dedication to Arthrex and for the contributions made each and every day to healthcare product innovation and Making People Better.