Mike “Pencil” Ferraro: Taking Part in Major NCC Initiatives

Today, we’re celebrating Mike “Pencil” Ferraro, Mechanical Engineering Team Leader with NCC Automated Systems, who has been with the team since 2012. Actually, if you count the internship he had with us before he was hired full time, he’s been with us even longer!

Pencil got his nickname in college. There were five Mike’s on his floor in the college dorm. He became “Pencil Mike” for always having a pencil behind his ear. Over time, it just became “Pencil.”

One of our in-house superheroes and rising young stars, Pencil is perpetually coming up with ideas to improve the business and our products. He has a high-energy, positive outlook towards everything that he does which makes every meeting with him a positive experience. His analytical mind, love for all things Excel, and Ownership approach to the business are infectious and a tremendous asset to NCC. For more on our core values, click here.

Throughout his time at NCC, Pencil has gotten to work on many of the large initiatives at NCC over the years. He is most proud of helping to roll out and develop our EPDM system, our ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, and even help develop our GGOB (Great Game of Business) system. When asked what he loves about his career, Pencil says that the challenges he gets to help solve are a driving factor for him. He adds, “There is a constant flow of challenges that we get presented from customers to try and tackle, and it is great to be a part of solving those challenges.” Reporting to “the Zona Master” (Marty Zona) in the Mechanical Engineering Department, Pencil loves the crazy difficult jobs. He said, “We recently did a Tastykake project that got to really stretch the design muscles,” and that was one project he’s especially proud of. 

It’s clear that Pencil loves his work at NCCAS. When asked what makes us different from other employers, Pencil says, “This is hard, as there are so many things that separates NCCAS from other companies, so I will pick two: NCC legitimately cares about every single one of its employees, and I mean cares. And, NCC is a village of true warriors that will stop at nothing to ensure that the customer gets exactly what they need to be successful.”

Offline, Pencil has a woodworking hobby. In fact, if he were to retire today, many at NCC are already aware that woodworking is what he’d do as his encore. He also says, “I have a beautiful wife, Jackie. She is an absolutely amazing mother and is very definitely the better half of the two of us. Jackie and I also are blessed with the most amazing and perfect daughter that has ever existed. Sophia is two, and is the happiest little girl you could ever meet. We are currently expecting our 2nd child in the end of March, and are very excited to welcome Vincent to the world in 2021. We also have the most handsome and tubbiest of dogs named Zeke.”

Our Employee Spotlight series celebrates our phenomenal co-owners at the NCC family of companies, highlighting one person and their contributions to our team.