Samantha Stephens leads Schneller with a focus on community, opportunity

Samantha Stephens paused in the lobby of Schneller, a one-of-a-kind company on Powdermill Road in Kent.

“Look around you,” she said quietly. “Everywhere you look, somebody made this.”

Stephens knows about making things. President of Schneller, she guides one of the few companies on the planet that manufactures the interior flame-retardant laminate material airlines and rail companies use. When you enter an airplane — any airplane — you’re likely surrounded by Schneller.

For the record, Schneller is part of TransDigm, a global designer, producer and supplier of commercial and military aerospace components. The parent company reported net sales of $7.9 billion in 2024.

To be sure, other companies make airplane and railcar flooring and seat coverings, or airplane and railcar wallpaper and ceiling laminates, but Schneller is the only one that makes all three. A detail, but an important one if an airline wants to be sure of a consistent color and design palette. After all, as any crafter or DIYer knows, one company’s royal blue is not the same as another’s.

As Stephens toured the plant, she greeted the employees she saw by name. She explained each step of the process and the purpose of each massive machine.

Fresh from Alcoa, Stephens joined Schneller eight years ago as a business unit manager. She became vice president of sales and marketing, then rose in August to the company’s top job.

She’s also back home. Stephens grew up on a Randolph farm, the daughter of the late prominent local attorney and political strategist Craig Stephens and Ruth Enlow Stephens. She recalled her father coming home from his law practice, donning jeans and work boots, and working on the farm until late at night.

“I hit the lottery with both of my parents,” Stephens said. “They both bring different things to, I think, who I am today. I never met someone other than my parents who worked so much. I remember coming home from college, and if you wanted to catch up and talk with Dad, you had to go pick up a shovel. You had to go do whatever project he was doing and work alongside him. It wasn't, ‘Hey, let's go stop and sit on the porch.’ It was not that. There was always something to do.”

Stephens said her mother’s influence was as important as the work ethic her father imbued. 

“My mom brought out the best in him, and I think my leadership style is more driven from her. She knew how to balance that intensity and kind of showed me that that leadership isn't always just drive. It's about understanding people and getting the best out of them. So I think I'm a good balance between the two,” she said.

Stephens turned to international studies and political science at what was then known as Baldwin Wallace College and recalled telling her parents she wanted to study abroad in Iceland. Her father asked if there were any other options.

“I said, ‘I could do Iceland or I could do Spain, or I could do Cuba.’ And he's like, ‘You need to do Cuba.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Nobody goes to Cuba. Go do that!’ So I studied at the University of Havana for a summer,” she said.

Stephens learned to heed her parents’ encouragement to push herself; she also ended up studying in Costa Rica, France and Brazil.

“Don't be afraid to be different,” she said, quoting her father. “It's going to pay off in the end, because you're going to get a different experience and it's gonna mold how you see the world.”

That constant push to get the job done taught her that even if a task took her outside of her comfort zone, backing down was not an option. To this day, if a project she’s working on with her mom goes sideways, they both hear his voice.

“Dad would just say, ‘I don't care. Just get it done and get it done faster.’ And we have a laugh and we keep going,” she said.

After becoming a Baldwin Wallace graduate, Stephens joined the nonprofit Cleveland Council on World Affairs, but moved to Alcoa because it offered more opportunities to travel. She remembers the “good leaders” who believed in her and gave her the opportunities that prepared her for the challenges of Schneller’s top job. Those mentors, she said, taught her to meet business and science decisions head-on, even though she’d never studied such topics in college.

That travel bug? Still going strong. Over half of Schneller’s sales are international, so the company maintains a sales office in Singapore and employees in the U.S., Dubai, Switzerland and Germany. Stephens estimated she spends about a quarter of her time away from home.

Being a woman in the male-dominated manufacturing world takes a thick skin, but Stephens said she relies on the skills her mom taught her.

“You have to adapt to the room, you have to adjust to different kinds of folks, not to acquiesce, but you have to be that leader and make the change. You have to be adaptable, and I think that's why I've been successful, is I can get along with any type of person,” she said.

There have been awkward situations. Stephens recalled traveling with a male colleague to Japan, only to have the person they were meeting assume her travel companion was the decision maker, not her.

“In the end, after we talked to everybody, they ended up sending some of their female employees out to lunch with me as an example, and they wanted me to talk to them about business and being a leader. They let their female employees go out to dinner with me that night, and that was back in the day when they wouldn't let the women work after they got married. It was an interesting experience,” she said.

Stephens said she believes it’s her job as Schneller’s president to create an environment “where people, not just women, don't have to have those same challenges.” She champions a “culture of opportunity” that stretches beyond her to leaders in every aspect of community and business.

She’d like to place Schneller as a community-minded and connected entity that hosts community events and envisions her employees volunteering in the community.

“I think that's a big piece of keeping people engaged and retained,” she said. “They want to feel like they're part of something bigger.”

As always, she leads by example. Stephens not only sits on the board of Axess Family Services (formerly Family & Community Services of Portage County), but she actually led the merger of F&CS with AxessPointe Community Health Centers.

“That's one of the things I'm most proud of,” she said. “We are one of the first in the nation to create a nonprofit that combines the breadth of social services with the medical side to serve the whole person. Normally, you only have social services or medical, but now that we're together, I think we have an amazing opportunity to have surround care for our underserved populations.”

Clients with health problems can see an AFS physician who may suspect underlying food and or housing insecurity issues. That physician can refer the patient in real time to people able to handle those services, and it's all done under one umbrella, she explained.

An exec through and through, Stephens enjoys relaxing with a good historical fiction novel. There’s a lot to learn about how people in different times, places and cultures dealt with life. Stephens puts that knowledge — and her vast international experience — to use during her frequent travels on behalf of Schneller.

“It gives you a different perspective on how to work with people, and I think that's a piece that you have to understand: where people are coming from in order to motivate them or get the best out of them, or just understand where they sit,” she said.

Her upbringing, education and career experiences have given Stephens her own definition of success.

“It's about the small things you do along the way. It could be when you see people getting promoted or you see other people being successful, it's creating that environment, and that's one of the things I want to do here: create that environment for opportunity, for others around you to be successful, because that ultimately makes us successful. I don't make this company; I don't make this community. But if I can enable people to come together, then that's what it's all about,” she said.

Ever mindful of the position she occupies, Stephens doesn’t see herself at the top of the heap. There’s always more to come, and should another bridge present itself, she said she’ll at least consider crossing it.

Until then, “I'm in the moment,” she said. “I feel very fortunate to be where I am.”