The Challenges and Vision of a Regional Manager

What does it take to lead more than 100 people, manage complex operations, and shape the future of a construction division? In this episode of On the Surface, Seth Stevens and Jordan Janet talk with Daryl Masingale, Regional Manager of Construction, about the realities of high-level leadership and the vision required to succeed.

You’ll learn:
 ✅ How Daryl transitioned from hands-on roles to leading at scale
 ✅ The biggest challenges of managing people, strategy, and performance
 ✅ Why culture, collaboration, and efficiency matter more than ever
 ✅ How future-focused thinking drives growth in a competitive market

If you want an inside look at what leadership at scale really means—and how to balance day-to-day operations with long-term vision—this episode is packed with insights for aspiring leaders.

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

*Transcript automatically generated by AI*

Seth Stevens (00:06)
Welcome back to On the Surface, where we're talking all things heavy construction, material supply, and general business. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week Jordan and I welcome Daryl Masingale who is the regional manager for our construction operations at Delta. During our conversation, we learn about Daryl's career, discuss transitioning from hands-on task-based roles to leadership roles, and explore the importance of planning for the future.

Let's go.

Daryl Masingale (00:39)
Daryl Masingale. I've been working for Delta for 28 years now, if you can believe it's been that long. Started out, went to college.

started out in biology and I was big into the outdoors. So it just made sense. I'll be a wildlife officer, right? Or get a wildlife management degree. Went and did that. And the year before I graduated, there was huge cuts in the government and Game and Fish was the biggest cut. So a job that had paid, you know, starting out 25, 30,000 was down in the teens. And I just couldn't, I couldn't make it. And so my father,

He was in construction as well and I guess kind of fell back to those roots and happened to talk with a gentleman with Delta and he said, I've got a project or a job I'm meeting to fill here. Somebody with a good education. I said, what is it? He says, quality control. said, something's going to be big coming up. He said, would you be interested in it? I said, I'll be interested in it. You'll show me what it is. anyways, he showed me what it was.

He didn't have a lot to tell me other than, know, it's above his head and he needed somebody that could handle it. And I said, I'll her a try. And so that's how I got started in the business. ⁓ Started out there and worked up into plant management after about a year. And, but I always had a, I guess a background in QC, was still kind of managing the quality control program at the same time I was doing the truck, or I'm sorry, the asphalt plant.

And that kind of stemmed into trucking as well since I was, you know, having to deal with the trucks every day. So at one point I was the trucking manager, the plant manager and the QC manager. at that point in time, I finally told John and Rick, said, Hey, you know, I got a lot on my plate. need to, I'm not, I can do it all, but I'm not doing any of them any justice. I need some help here. So anyways, I was able to hire Andy West and, and he took over the quality control and I stayed with the plants and the, and the ⁓ trucking for another place, six or seven years.

And, and I guess it's been like, asked him, we had quality control issues in Illinois and some stuff going on Missouri. And, and Rick came to me and said, would you be interested in being the quality control manager for all of Delta? I said, yeah, sure. whatever you need me to do. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm here for wherever you need me. And so I kind of took over that position and, ⁓ did that for probably another eight or nine years. And then, of course, John Bennett retired, was looking at retiring and, ⁓ he came to me and he said, ⁓

Would you be interested in a regional manager's position? And I said, well, yeah, of course. That's where you need me. I guess that was always my answer. I'm here for whatever Delta needs. But I said, always up for the challenge. It was a little bit different than what I'd done. through all the work I'd done, I'd been around plants. I'd been around the quality control. I'd been around the trucking. I'd been around construction. I'd seen all this stuff. And he said, you know it.

This isn't something that, you know, it's gonna be completely different than anything you've ever done, you know, so of course, accept the challenge and here we are, you know.

But it's been a fun ride, no doubt. It's a challenge every day. That's something that somebody asks, know, what do you like about it? And I said, you know, it's something different every day. It's not the same old mundane thing day in, day out. So, and as things have progressed, of course, you know, when I started here, it was, it's pretty simple, you know, and it's gotten more complicated with all the technology improvements, you know, like the autonomous paving, you know, something that wasn't even thought about, you know, 20 years ago. So.

⁓ No doubt been a challenge and a lot of fun.

Seth Stevens (04:15)
Yeah. Do you feel like that's like a pretty natural progression looking back?

Daryl Masingale (04:22)
Yeah, I guess I'm first one I know that's kind of came up through the quality control side, the plant side of necessarily to the position I'm at the majority of everybody I knew before was coming up through the construction side of it.

which just makes sense. I that's something I didn't get involved with as much as I wish I would have. Looking back now, I wish I'd have been more involved on the construction side of it. It would have made life a little easier as far as making transition from what I did to the regional manager. But I always was involved enough that I knew what was going on. mean,

Back when we had the office, you know, where five people was in one office area, I got involved in a lot of stuff that I probably wouldn't have had or not had the opportunity, but. ⁓

That's something we always tell all of our employees that when you start here, you you look at John Bennett. He started, he was holding the flag day one, you know. ⁓ I was in quality control, but you know, still I held a flag within the first week that I was here. So I mean, it's definitely ⁓ a way to progress up. And that's what we always look for within our operations is, we're looking for the next leaders. ⁓ The man that hired me, you the first day he hired me, he I'm looking somebody replace me.

you know, someday. He said, I think you could be that guy, you know, and I was thinking back then, I have no chance of that, know, but here, okay, here I am, you know, I'm in his position. So it's, there's just a lot of truth to it.

Jordan Janet (05:47)
I like that we embody that though, that I mean, I think anybody could say as they progress in their career that they wish they had more experience at doing something that they didn't have as much experience in. But I like that we've got people like you that, you know, maybe don't necessarily fit what you would assume the mold looks like. And it does exemplify that what we're looking for is leadership and what we're looking for is the person, not necessarily the progression.

Daryl Masingale (06:16)
That's something that I think we've always done. I've always been able to take on as much as I wanted here. If at some point in time I would have said, hey, I want to be a construction foreman, I'm sure John Bennett would have made a position for me. we've always looked at that way as well. We're looking for the employees to come and say, hey, I want more. I want to be better than what I am right now. That's what you look for. You look for those up and comers that are eager, that want to be more.

Yeah. Not just the ones that's here for the 40 hours a week, 50 hour week paycheck, you know. Yeah. We can get those everywhere, right? Yeah. And so we're looking for those people that want to be more. I told Brian this story several times, you know, every day that first, probably two years I worked here, I would stop by that guy's office and ask him, say, anything else you need from me today? You know, and after about two or three months, he said, you come by every afternoon and ask me.

Is there anything I need? And I said, well, is there anything you need from me? And he's, I remember it was on Friday afternoon that day there. He said, if I tell you to come out here Saturday morning and shovel underneath the ⁓ asphalt plant over here and clean up all the oils down there. He said, would you come do it? I said, that's what you want me to do. That's what I need to do. That's what I'll do. know? He kind of laughed. He said, that means a lot to me. He said, you don't have to come out tomorrow and scrub underneath the plant. But you know, I guess it's.

That's just the way I was raised, as Brian said about his father before, know, work ethic. was just something that was instilled in me. I loved working for Delta and I wanted to make Delta a better place. So that was just kind of the way I approached it.

Seth Stevens (07:51)
Yeah. Yeah, I think to Jordan's point, we've kind of talked about this like during interviews and stuff. You can't really teach like work ethic and personality and attitude and grit and stuff like that. You can teach all the technical skills. So it's, we always really like to lean towards, okay, well this person is who they are.

Speaker 4 (07:55)
And, ⁓

Seth Stevens (08:20)
Like this person they they have this attitude and this personality and all that kind of stuff, right? And we can teach them what we need them to know about the position rather than being very technically skilled, but just don't have the The grit or the attitude the drive to fit into what we're trying to do. So Now that's What So you've done that for

Speaker 4 (08:41)
⁓

Seth Stevens (08:50)
Two years. Two or three to get lost track of time.

what's been like the most surprising thing about this position that you weren't expecting or didn't know beforehand?

Daryl Masingale (09:07)
I mean, I guess every time you move up from position before, especially when you started working, you was held a position where you did something, you fulfilled a task or you you as a technician or you as a laborer or whatever it was. As you get up to management, it comes less about what you physically do and more about what you manage. And I think that's been more surprising about this one here is it's

sometimes you get a little frustrated, I don't get to do nothing, you know, you're not accomplishing necessarily anything physical. It's all you know, as Brian said, you're talking about looking at future, you know, where the company is going, you where we're going to be, where do we need to be focusing on stuff like that. So it's just a different mindset that I guess it was, you know, the first six, eight months, it was a nice struggle, but a little bit get used to, so to speak.

So that was really the thing there. It's more about having the vision, ⁓ where do we need to be thinking a year in advance? Because if you're thinking of today, you're behind all the time. So just having that foresight.

Seth Stevens (10:15)
Yeah. So now as a region manager, so you were over all of Arkansas. Great. And I mean, we're still kind of finishing that year out like that. So that meant that you had construction services, ⁓ including like Brian as construction manager working for you and then all of the asphalt plants and.

Speaker 4 (10:40)
⁓

Seth Stevens (10:42)
What and and now we'll be transitioning to you being region manager of construction as a whole, which means that you're going to have Brian still working for you as an operations manager, handling the whole construction execution arm. You'll have a chief estimator and Cecilia working for you that's managing the whole estimating department. And then you'll have Scott Kane working as a.

shop manager to manage all the equipment and shop expenses for that construction arm. what I guess has been, what has this position looked like on a regular basis? Like what is it that you do if you extrapolated it to like a week to week basis?

Daryl Masingale (11:33)
From week week basis, mean, ⁓ ultimately, like you said, you you've named all the key players there that will be, you know, overseeing those, their facets, I guess, that they're working on. You know, as a regional manager, you're more just to, I guess, guide the team necessarily. So, you know, I'm still looking at a lot of the same stuff that Brian looks like as far as jobs, but maybe not on the day-to-day side of it. It's more of a, you know, the week to week, month to month.

and then as well, you know, looking at what's coming up. you know, ⁓ it's more about, you know, the managing the people than it is necessarily the work. So, you know, I do have lot of conversations day to day with each, lot of the people in this different stuff. You know, my door's always open. That's why I've...

At the end of the day, look sometimes like, I didn't get much done today, but I had conversations all day. You know, once again, that goes back to that. I didn't accomplish anything. So I didn't feel like, but yet I had those conversations that needed to be had. so that's, that's, that's a lot of it there is just, you know, managing the people and making sure that they are taking care of really the day-to-day side of it. And then just make sure that we're all pulling in same direction and to meet our goals.

Seth Stevens (12:48)
We had, ⁓ Jordan and I had a similar conversation about like the more leadership management roles that you get into, the more like crucial conversations you're having and less task-based and stuff. And it's just tough to shift your mindset to that. when you're very task-based.

Daryl Masingale (13:12)
It's yeah,

like I said, that's something that, you know, as I worked my way up, it was all a lot of task based. And of course, every step I've gone up, it's been less the task more the management and you know, this position I'm in now, it's like I said, it's 90, 95 % of just your management. know, it's something to, it's just tough to get out of that mindset, you know, that I accomplished this and be more focused on my team accomplished this.

That's main thing, I guess.

Seth Stevens (13:43)
So you mentioned looking at metrics, just not on as regular basis as like a day-to-day manager, construction manager, whatever, and then having conversations with people. So whether that's like, I don't know, probably problem solving or career progression or making sure that they have all the tools and data and information that they need to do their job. Well, what consumes kind of the rest of your time

Speaker 4 (13:51)
⁓

or

Seth Stevens (14:14)
What things do you work on as a region manager?

Daryl Masingale (14:18)
That I mean.

Like I we've been very heavily into the DOT work. Right now, we're looking to expand that, just to grow our business, looking outside the typical, just waiting on the next letting to come out. We're looking at where opportunities are. What are we not being involved in out there? We see a lot of this GC work goes on that we have not been involved with in past. That's something that we're going to start focusing on more. We do want to be that contractor that these GCs will call and say, hey, we've got a project here.

we know you all have expertise, need you to help us accomplish ⁓ this project. So that's something we're going to be focusing on moving forward. ⁓

trying to be a step ahead of the competition necessarily. And I think it's something we've done with autonomous paving and O'Brien's been very heavily involved in that this year. But that's the kind of stuff that we want to put out there to separate ourselves from the other contractors. just once again, creating those ⁓ relationships with these other contractors, ⁓ the public out there that has got the next job we want.

Seth Stevens (15:27)
So it's fair to say that a decent amount of your time has spent on like more visionary and future focused stuff. So I had the experience of working as a regional controller and with you for, I don't even know, nine months was maybe all we got together or something like that. So like another big part of our roles kind of together turning

Speaker 4 (15:31)
on

⁓

Seth Stevens (15:58)
that future vision and long-term planning into like numbers and paper plans and presentations and stuff like that. So there's a lot of that involved for sure where you're having to like document and ⁓ present on what your ideas and plans are, right? And sometimes that turns into.

Speaker 4 (16:21)
⁓

Seth Stevens (16:22)
fighting for your stance, I guess. But a lot of that stuff kind of goes on behind the scenes and it's not part of the day-to-day job that the majority of our workforce is doing or seeing. there's a lot of ambiguity to it, I think, to a lot of people.

Speaker 4 (16:34)
⁓

Daryl Masingale (16:44)
I mean, you know, we have our G25 meetings, you know, quarterly that, you know, I have to go present, know, I present, you know, where we're at, what we've done, you know, what our future looks like. So you're right. I mean, it's not necessarily just us in my office and take care of the day to days and necessarily what's here, you know, we have to report on up, you know, I've worked through Brad and on up to Zach, of course, as the president of Reeves. So there's more to it than just what meets the eye, as you said.

Seth Stevens (17:12)
Yeah, yeah.

What percent of your time would you say is spent like in the office working on that kind of stuff versus being?

I want to say out of the office,

Daryl Masingale (17:26)
Yeah, I mean...

That is something that I want to work more on. I want to be a little bit more out in the field. You know, we always want to be. asked Brian, said, you know, it's something that you go back to relate to. That's the best way to get out in front of the crew members and stuff like that. Talk to them on their own turf, so to speak. But I'd say, you know, I'm spending 90 to 95 percent of my time in the office right now. I'd love to be more hands on out in the field. know, Coloss is a great company to work for, but at times it can be

daunting you know some of the initiatives and you know that we're trying to fulfill as that goes along so you know time management is a goal of mine this year you know to be more effective in my position and you know sometimes I think that's going to require a little bit more time outside the office you know more of a presence in the field with the the workers out there employees.

Seth Stevens (18:20)
Yeah, it'll be a good time for that for sure. I guess, you know, while you're talking, it kind of made me think about comparing this to like a smaller business where if you were like a regional manager, you may be like a vice president or ⁓ owner or something like that, right? So you could spend the majority of your time in the field or working on stuff that's like directly related to your business. But if you

If you zoom out, like as in your position working for a group like Koloss, like you're still basically a middleman between...

coal loss executives and shareholders and all that kind of stuff that aren't local to us. So you do have autonomy of making decisions at a local level and handling a lot of things, but ultimately, you're having to present and report that up to other levels of management and consider shareholder money and jump through hoops and ⁓ specific.

like guidelines or procedures based on looking out for the best of the shareholders who have no idea who you are versus like ⁓ owning a business where everybody that you'd be working with knows who you are and that you own that business.

Jordan Janet (19:48)
as a regional manager in an organization like this, from the outside looking in, you're kind of playing both of those roles. The trade-off is you don't own your own business, therefore you're not financially at risk. But the benefit is that, and what you're trading that for is that reporting up and playing that middle man. You're playing both of those roles. You're managing the business like it's your own, but then you're reporting up. ⁓ But the benefit of that is...

you get to run your own business. And Coloss looks for those entrepreneurial approaches. ⁓ you get to do that without the financial risk, but you're trading that off for, well, now I've kind of got two hats that I'm wearing.

Daryl Masingale (20:31)
There's pluses and minuses to it, course. The bigger ⁓ corporation like Coloss, there is security in the size of the company we're working with, but also ⁓ that comes with the cost. We can't go out tomorrow and just buy a new paper. It's got to be a plan. You've got to be thinking about this stuff a year in advance. That's some of the difference probably between that and the smaller companies. ⁓

You're right. We're having to manage to two people really, know, to Coloss on the corporate side, somebody that doesn't really know you, but still requires time and effort there. And also, you know, managing your crew that you have here, you know, the employees you have here. So that does require, you know, a presence necessarily. you know, being able to accomplish both of those at the same time, you know, it becomes a challenge at times. But, you know, once again, definitely a benefit to be a part of Coloss Company.

Seth Stevens (21:28)
Mm-hmm, for sure.

How do you envision your position changing with the reorganization?

Daryl Masingale (21:42)
You know, right now, I've had the asphalt plants along with the construction side, you moving into this, there'll be a manufacturing manager that will take care of that. So that'll be something that'll be a little bit of a change. As far as the construction side, I don't see a lot necessarily changing. We're not gonna reinvent the wheel. What we're doing right now works. So I don't see any big change there. It's just gonna be this through our reorganization, just trying to become more efficient,

what we have a little bit better to be ⁓ more profitable. ⁓

through the years, we've had that imaginary line on the north and south with Arkansas, Missouri. You know, we haven't shared a lot of equipment. You know, I think it's something that we're going to become a lot better at, you know, as needed. You know, there's no need in having, you know, six shuttle buggies if all we need is four. So, you know, just looking at those efficiencies there. Same way with the construction, you know, the Missouri is still going to do the majority of the Missouri work. But you know, same thing, Arkansas. But if we have opportunity,

where it makes sense and it works out, then we'll cross the state line. That's something we're trying to erase at this point in time. it's looking to make it better, ⁓ looking outside of our normal area. We've been lucky through the years that we haven't had to get too far out, but at same time, that's something we probably should have done years ago. it's something we're looking at now, just looking a little bit more outside of our typical markets.

looking at some projects that we wouldn't have looked at in the past. We've got capabilities just because they're managed by a different government agency or private investors or private companies. We can still perform that kind of work and do a great job. So once again, just trying to erase some imaginary boundaries out there that we've had that we've tried to cross.

Seth Stevens (23:39)
For sure. Yeah, I mean, I could see your, you know, from going from the old structure, you're managing more, larger scope of business. So you're still, I think, looking for efficiencies in that, you know, old structure every day, but it's tougher because there's more things to make efficient, right? So now into the future.

You're, mean, what you hit on this stuff, you're looking, you're more laser focused on efficiencies around construction and then probably even more so focused on growth now and what kind of future work we can do because no matter how much time you have for looking for future and efficiencies and stuff, at some point, some days are just ate up and lost with resolving problems. They're coming up with.

solutions for problems that may happen tomorrow or whatever.

Daryl Masingale (24:38)
That's

something that we're always you're always gonna have that I mean, yes, that's something you ever get rid of That's just part of them. That's just part of everyday work there. Yeah

Seth Stevens (24:46)
Yep. Who was somebody in your career that made a difference or an impact for you?

Daryl Masingale (24:56)
I said the guy that hired me, Jim Mills. He was ⁓ an old friend of the family. My dad worked with him years ago, but ⁓ he was a very business sense kind of a guy. He separated business from family or friends. I can remember once again when he hired me, he I'm looking somebody to replace me. I'm looking somebody to build up. That struck me ⁓ big when I first started on.

And then, know, ⁓ just what something else about him was, you know, he was very business oriented, you know.

If I did something wrong, he was quick to call me out on it and make it a point to point that out. But at same time, he didn't hold it over my head. wasn't personal. he made that comment. I made a big mistake one time. I ordered too much liquid and we had to send load back, which cost money. And I remember him coming over there and I thought, I'm going to get a butt shoe in here. And he came in and he said,

went through the whole spill and he let me know that it angered him, doubt. He raised his voice a little bit, but at the same time, as soon as we was done with the conversation, he said, come on, get in the car, let's go get a soda. And, you know, never was brought up again. You know, he made his point, but I took a lot from that. I you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, all friends and family out here, you know, that he can get his point across, but he didn't hold it over my head, you know.

So there is a difference between that business and friends kind of a deal. So he was one of the bigger ones there. And then of course, know, John Bennett, you know, through the years I worked under him, you know, he was always very level headed kind of a guy, you know, ⁓ watched him as he fell back on a lot of his experiences in the past, you know, on the construction side, you he was very heavily on the construction side.

So was fun working around him and just, you know, Brad, even though Brad is younger than me, I've watched him come up through the ranks and you know, he's very intelligent guy, very, you know, I'd say very fair, but you know, very firm at the same time, you know, he's a guy with a lot of vision. And you know, so I fall back on that as well. It's a lot of fun to work around and then.

Brian as well, for the past couple of years, has impressed me for his age, where he's at, to hear his story, how he came up through it and succeeded. No doubt he will continue to do that here, but ⁓ I ⁓ think of lot of Brian and ⁓ I learn from him. I've always said, every day come to work, it's a goal to learn something. And of course, like I said, with the construction industry,

You know, it changes every hour. Plans change, but also, you you're learning every bit. So, yeah, that's something that I've always looked forward to, you know, in this job is the ability to learn and be better tomorrow than we're today.

Seth Stevens (27:54)
Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. That had me thinking when you're talking about, you said Jim, right? The first one. It's ⁓ a tough, I think, approach and culture to build, but like, sounds like he had high expectations, high accountability while still having good relationships with everybody, which is ⁓ easier said than done for sure. That's a tough line to walk in.

Speaker 4 (28:24)
And, ⁓

Seth Stevens (28:26)
You know, people I think that do it really well have really successful groups of people and businesses for sure.

Daryl Masingale (28:32)
Yeah, Jim was one of them guys that if you didn't know him, he would come across pretty harsh. But that was the business side. So when you had that business side of him, you know, he was pretty cut and dry. You know, he didn't sugarcoat anything. He said what was on his mind and he got it off his mind. And, you know, some people could work with that and some people, you know, took it too personally, you know, and people that took it too personally was the ones that struggled with Jim. And, and, but once again, you know, working with the DOT, you know,

I remember even at a young age in my career, know, lot of the DOT employees didn't necessarily like working with Jim because he was harsh sometimes or a little bit abrasive. But at the same time, they sit on a hard job. They would rather have him as any other contractor out there because they knew he knew how to get the job done. And he was going to make sure he got done right. But, you know, once again, he was just a little bit, he was a different personality, but once again, a great businessman.

Seth Stevens (29:26)
Yeah, that's awesome. so you've been here 28 years. What have you enjoyed the most? It could be any position.

Speaker 4 (29:36)
and ⁓

Seth Stevens (29:39)
than what has been, I guess, something that you enjoyed the least.

Daryl Masingale (29:47)
Enjoy the most.

Actually, of course, majority of my career was spent in the quality control side, but I enjoyed that side of it probably as much as anything because I got to see everything. I mean, I got to see from the plant side to the construction side, the quarries, you name it. You're involved a little bit everywhere because as we've always said, know, quality is like safety. It takes everybody to achieve goal, know, goal zero. In safety, it's no injuries and quality, it's no penalties.

That was always something I enjoyed there, just being involved in all sides of it, from the bidding side of it to the job completion side of it. ⁓ And he said, was what did I like the least?

⁓ yo.

Seth Stevens (30:36)
What

were you maybe the happiest to get rid of moving into a new position?

Daryl Masingale (30:42)
a lot easier there. Yeah. Probably trucking. The trucking side of it. Once again, I'm glad that I got to do it. No doubt about it. Learned a lot from that side of it. it's dealing with a lot of different personalities.

I love the truckers we have, some of them can be very colorful. when I did it, we didn't have the, I guess, the luxury of texting or anything like that. So it was all phone calls. So if I had 75 trucks out there, I had to make 75 phone calls. And then at four o'clock, we had all the plan in place and at five o'clock everything changed. So I had to make 75 more phone calls before the end of the day. And then three AM mornings when it rained out or something like that.

So it was ⁓ no doubt. It's ⁓ anybody that does trucking earns their paycheck. I'll say that. It's a thankless job at some times, but one is very high importance. once again, Bobby's has been taking care of our trucking for several years and he's done a great job. But that's probably be the one that I was glad that I could walk away from.

Jordan Janet (31:55)
find it interesting

that in a lot of the conversations that we've had, ⁓ one common ground that many people have said is their favorite piece is oftentimes that position or that piece that gets them the most exposure to the most diversified job function. know what mean? You get to see the most people, the most...

⁓ When I say most, like numbers, you you're working with more people, you're working with more types of our business. I just find that interesting that that's what that's been a common ground. think a lot of people have said that that's been their favorite part.

Seth Stevens (32:31)
I think a lot of people always want to see the whole picture because it helps you understand

the area that you're working on specifically. And I definitely am a firm believer of that. And you can't make your portion of the business as efficient as it can be or the most helpful to somebody else unless you know the whole picture and how it affects the people that are receiving it and how it affects the people that you're getting the information from and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, even in the like accounting,

and finance teams would try to rotate people around at the different tasks and get them exposed to different sides, financial sides of the business and make sure that they have good relationships with operational managers and.

Speaker 4 (33:24)
⁓

Seth Stevens (33:26)
kind of get their side of the story, know, go spend time out in operations because it's helpful for your job.

Daryl Masingale (33:33)
I don't doubt. That's something I've always encouraged even talking with the people in the office. If you get a chance, out to the plant, go to the lab, go out to the job and see what goes on. Ask questions. know Allie, she said she enjoyed every time she's gone out she learned so much because she sees all these numbers and she understands that part of it but until she goes out and sees it actually happen in the field, it, she gets the aha moment, go, now I understand why that's important. And same way, ⁓ when I manage plants,

you know, the guys at the plants, that's all the only side they ever got to see of it. They couldn't understand why.

why the foreman only need 25 tons and they call back from another 10 tons, they call back from another 15 tons, they say, why didn't they know that ahead of time? So, you know, it's, they need to go out into the field and experience that to understand. And I'm sure they'll have that ah-ha moment, go, oh, now I understand why it's not as cut and dry as it looks. And vice versa, you know, guys on the road coming back to the plant and understanding, you know, how operation of a plant works and why can't you fire up and make me five tons every time I need it, you know? You know, it's just understanding the backside of it and seeing it in person before you

that so it's something I would always encourage anybody you no matter what you do within the company if you have an opportunity to get over and see the other side or something that you haven't seen take advantage of it because it'll no doubt help you in the progression of your career and help you understand the business a lot better.

Seth Stevens (34:55)
Yeah, for sure. You summed that up well. What are you most excited about in 2026?

Daryl Masingale (35:02)
2026 is getting involved more with the Missouri, that side of it. ⁓ I know a lot of them there, but I don't know them on the, I guess, that daily personal side of it. So I'm looking forward to creating those relationships there and then just looking for more opportunity. mean, like I said, we're looking outside our normal boundaries and seeing where we can take that. excited to pick up one of those first ⁓ Corps of Engineer jobs, the first big private job that's more

just a parking lot kind of a deal so excited about that.

Seth Stevens (35:34)
Yeah,

that's good. Okay, so I guess it's becoming a tradition now of ⁓ the guest prior to you leaving a question for you.

Jordan Janet (35:48)
you'll

never know who it was.

Daryl Masingale (35:49)
Hahaha.

Seth Stevens (35:52)
Alright, so the question left for you. What are you intentionally doing to help groom yourself?

Daryl Masingale (35:59)
Not enough. I was actually here when Brian made that question, I thought to myself, wow, that's good question. I need to do more. Really what I want to do more is getting more involved with the associations. Like I said, watching Brian and his progression working with the associations and seeing how it's led to opportunities. That's something that I've not been involved in as much.

So that is something that I want to do. I want to get more involved. I know I'm on the Highway and Transportation Council with the AGC in Missouri now. So that's something I'm looking forward to. I actually get to go to the first meeting I'm looking forward to that. cool. Yeah. Awesome. looking forward and more involved there in that kind of stuff is really what I'd like to do.

Seth Stevens (36:49)
Okay, nice. And so now you get to leave a question for the next guest, which is not sitting at this table, so...

Daryl Masingale (36:56)
⁓ You know something I've always, I think it's interesting and I've had it posed to me a couple times would be you know if you could give yourself ⁓ some advice you know for week one when you started working at the position you're in you know what would it be?

Seth Stevens (37:14)
I like that. In your current position? Yeah. Okay. Nice.

Daryl Masingale (37:18)
If

you could go back and ask yourself at that time, what would be that?

Seth Stevens (37:25)
Yeah from

week one. I like it. Cool Awesome. Well great job. Thank you. Thanks for the insight.

Daryl Masingale (37:32)
Anytime.

Seth Stevens (37:35)
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and check out Delta on all social media platforms at Delta Companies and our website at deltaCOS.com. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.