For New Puerto Rico DC Manager, Customer Service Comes First
Six months into his new role as Puerto Rico Distribution Center manager, Angel Torres is more eager than ever to bring the benefit of his 34 years of Exchange retail experience to the DC.
“I believe everything we do is based on customer service,” Torres said. “My retail experience helps me do my job, because I know what the stores need and how fast they need it. I understand that doing it right and doing it fast helps the organization in the long run, because it helps the stores serve our customers.”
Angel Torres assumed the role of Puerto Rico Distribution Center manager in September. Since then, he has led his team through a successful holiday season and worked with Fort Buchanan officials to allow Exchange drivers to fuel up on post, an effort that will save the Exchange time and money.
Torres assumed his new role in September. Right away, he was in for a challenge: Still relatively new to distribution center operations, he was just a couple of months away from the busy holiday shopping season.
Torres soldiered on, quickly learning the ins and outs of his new job and securing temporary help from Dan Daniel Distribution Center associates to ensure his first holiday season at the facility’s helm went off without a hitch.
“At the beginning, I was kind of nervous,” Torres said. “I thought I wasn’t going to make it with all the containers coming. But I had the support of my superiors and the management at Dan Daniel, which helped us do the job correctly and on time.”
Torres was born in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. His father served with the National Guard for nearly 20 years, but it was the evening work schedule that drew Torres, who was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in accounting, to start working for the Fort Buchanan Exchange as a custodial worker in 1986.
After graduation, Torres stuck with the Exchange, serving in management roles at various Fort Buchanan Exchange facilities over the next three decades. In 2017, while he was store manager of the Fort Buchanan Express, Torres helped the installation’s Logistics Readiness Center secure diesel through the Exchange’s fuel contractor in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, a time when the installation could not source diesel through its normal suppliers because of the storm’s impact on the fuel supply chain.
While Torres didn’t know it at the time, the relationships he formed with Fort Buchanan officials after the hurricane would ultimately lay the groundwork for his first major accomplishment as DC manager: In March of this year, Torres worked out an agreement with the installation in which Exchange drivers can now fuel up at on-post diesel pumps normally reserved for Army vehicles, a move that will save the Exchange valuable time and money.
“We used to drive a few miles to another town to get diesel fuel, sometimes with a load so we could keep things going out,” Torres said. “Through this new agreement, we only have to drive about one minuteand we are paying less for the fuel itself. We can fill up every truck in 15 to 20 minutes, whereas it used to take about an hour.”
While Torres is pleased with his accomplishments during the first six months on the job, he credits the DC’s successes to the hard work and dedication of his team.
“I probably had more staff in past positions, but here, every person is key,” Torres said. “There’s a lot to do, but everyone here knows what to do, which makes my job easier.”
While the job is certainly a departure from retail positions Torres has held in the past, at the end of the day his goal remains the same: Providing excellent service to the best customers in the world.
“This job is a lot of work—you can’t stop working or you get behind right away,” he said. “I’m at the beginning of a big process that ends with the stores providing good customer service to our shoppers, so it’s a big responsibility. I have to do my part so the stores can do theirs in serving our customers.”
