Joseph Blanchard

Joe Blanchard is Director of Enterprise Applications for a fuel distributor, based in Asheville, North Carolina. He runs NetSuite and the integrations, EDI, and tax automation around it, and he is the one finance and operations call when the numbers have to agree.

He came to enterprise software from the operating side. Fifteen years in a glass materials and equipment business, the last six as general manager and its NetSuite administrator, taught him what a system is worth when it helps the people doing the work, and what it costs when it gets in their way. That seam, where systems meet process, is where he does his best work. He still reads the code and writes his own saved searches, and he uses AI the way he describes in his own post: for the busywork, with a person checking the work before it ships.

Lately that work has run straight through an acquisition. When two companies become one, so do their systems: two charts of accounts, two item masters, two versions of the same process, and all of it has to resolve into one set of books while the business keeps selling. He moved the acquired company onto NetSuite in phased cutovers, without a missed close, and it is the kind of problem he likes most.

Away from the keyboard he is usually on two wheels, behind a camera, or somewhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway. He fosters hard-to-place dogs through the Asheville Humane Society, chases good light and good food around Western North Carolina, and has a soft spot for things that are built well, whether that is a motorcycle, a piece of glasswork, or a system that finally makes sense. He writes about most of it right here.