On St. Patrick’s Day, Cobalt will be having a 15th anniversary party in celebration of its expansive growth as well as the hard work and dedication given by the company’s employees, both new and longstanding. Within Cobalt, there are 50 people who are given a badge of honor for their venerable commitment to the success of Cobalt. They are dubbed Cobalt DieHards and have been with the company for nine or more years.
Community Counts
Over the past few months, I have had the privilege of getting to know a few of these well-respected and enthusiastic DieHards. They have shared with me their stories of Cobalt’s past and present and are certainly on board for the future. Cobalt’s exponential growth within the past decade and a half is undeniable and couldn’t have been accomplished without them.
“Seeing us grow from dot com to big company is amazing. Throughout the ten years I’ve been with Cobalt, no matter what department, there’s a feeling of close-knit, small community. I love working at Cobalt because of the people I work with as well as our strong leadership,” said Ben Patawaran, account advocate.
DieHard Dedication
In Part One of this article, I wrote about the amazing transformation Cobalt underwent from using dial up connections and hard-copies of websites to being first in line for dealer and OEM digital marketing. One thing that remains consistent with Cobalt, despite new technologies and the ever-changing automotive industry, Cobalt has held true to its motto of “work hard, play hard.”
“During the 2001 earthquake, I was the safety coordinator for my floor and had to make sure everyone evacuated. I ran through the floor to double check; and there was still one person typing away at her desk. She just had to send off one email before leaving. That’s dedication!” said Patawaran.
Room for Even More Growth
Many of the DieHards began when Cobalt had fewer than 100 employees. Now, the company has grown to over 1,000 strong, expanded their offices across the nation and gained large accounts with Lexus, GM and Volkswagen.
“Winning GM was definitely one of the greatest accomplishments we’ve had at Cobalt. We were in the right place at the right time. After that moment, we doubled revenue, hired 350 employees and did 5,000 websites. The aftermath of that sale was incredible,” said Matt Muilenburg, vice president of enterprise marketing solutions.
With its efforts to double innovation, the company’s growth trajectory will not taper for quite sometime. Cobalt remains on the pioneering end of digital marketing for the automotive industry with its unique and successful digital ad packages that coordinate marketing messages from the brand to the dealer.
Work Hard, Play Hard
Another point that rings true for Cobalt’s corporate culture is its strong sense of community. Aside from company parties, events and celebrations, trust and camaraderie is the foundation of Cobalt and one of the reasons why the company has so many DieHard employees. In everything they do, DieHards and newer employees, alike, work hard and play hard.
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