From the Ground Up: Leadership, Learning, and the Aggregate World

In this episode of On the Surface, Seth sits down with Kris Latham to unpack a career built from the ground up—one shaped by engineering roots, hard-earned lessons, and a deep respect for people, process, and perspective. From growing up around construction sites in central Florida to leading operations in the aggregates industry, Kris shares the winding path that took him through engineering, finance, consulting, and ultimately into leadership.

Kris walks through his early career choices and pivotal moments, including earning his engineering license, navigating layoffs, working through an airline bankruptcy, and finding his way into the aggregates world. Along the way, he explains how those varied experiences—civil engineering, corporate finance, M&A, performance improvement, and operations—shaped how he approaches problem-solving today. His story highlights an often-overlooked truth: careers aren’t linear, but every stop along the way can become a critical building block.

Together, Seth and Kris explore what stays consistent across roles and industries—solving problems, understanding people, and learning how to influence rather than dictate change. They unpack the difference between advising from the outside and leading from within, the challenges of credibility and trust, and why the “good idea fairy” approach rarely works without strong relationships. Kris offers candid insight into influencing operations, simplifying communication, and meeting people where they are—especially when the day‑to‑day pressures on the ground are very real.

The conversation also spotlights the aggregates industry itself: why it’s misunderstood, why it’s essential, and why it offers durable, meaningful careers that won’t be outsourced or automated away. Kris explains the pride that comes from building something tangible, the importance of safety culture, and how one powerful safety moment reshaped his perspective forever.

Throughout the episode, Kris emphasizes one recurring theme: success is built as much on who you know as what you know. From mentorship and networking to being dependable, likable, and willing to earn your stripes, he shares advice for young professionals—and a reminder that careers are built over time through relationships, curiosity, and consistency.

It’s a thoughtful, grounded conversation about leadership, influence, and growth—one that goes beyond titles and resumes to focus on the people, experiences, and values that truly shape a career.

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome back to On the Surface. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week I sit down with Chris Latham to discuss his path to leadership, the aggregate world, and the importance of building your network. But first, let's talk about feedback. If you haven't already, please go follow, rate, and review our show on whatever listening app you're using. Additionally, please share it with your friends on social media, tagging Delta Companies or any of us individually. This really helps spread the show and recommends it to others. So y'all can be a big help to us in that regard. All right. Let's get into the conversation with Chris. What's up, Chris?

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Not much, man.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

How are you? Good. So we know a bit about a you and your past just from hanging out with you lately, but what's what's your story in total?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Uh my story, so um you know, I I grew up in Central Florida, a small beach town, um, New Smyrna Beach, about 30 miles south of Daytona. Um Is that Central Florida or Eastern Florida? Central Florida. Okay. That's Central Florida. Um, you know, typical stuff. Uh my dad was in construction. My dad was a uh equipment operator and a superintendent on a bridge crew. So we stayed in one spot and he traveled all over the state to where the work was. Um pretty interesting summer vacations. You know, go to work with your dad, and I would sit on a five-gallon bucket in the crane cab and watch him drive sheet piling all day. I don't think OSHA would smile on that now. Um, but that was what we did, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Um, learned how to run. A dad taught me how to run machines when I was like first, second grade. I'm running a D4, trying to do grading work. I don't know if I could still do that now. That'd probably disappointing. Um, but uh mom's a nurse there in town. We just had a had a normal, what I guess was a normal childhood, right? So grew up, um, played sports, Boy Scouts, um, went to high school, figured out that I was pretty good with math and science. So it was either um, you know, it was maths, math, physics, and history were my three strongest classes. So it was either go be a teacher or go study engineering. So I sold out and decided that uh, you know, uh economics was a good thing. So I chose pursuit engineering. Um went to the University of Florida, graduated from Gainesville in '97, got to have a, you know, that was a coming from a small town from a with a pretty structured life growing up to being turned loose in the middle of a huge party school for five years was a bit of a was a bit of a life change. Um rocking your gator shirt today, too. Um, so we, you know, then it ended up in Houston, working for a civil engineering shop, did that for a few years, uh, got married, we moved to Atlanta. Uh Atlanta's kind of like a second home. Uh we were there for, I was there a total of what, 17 years, uh, two different stints. Both my kids were born there, Northside Hospital. I went to grad school there at Emory. Uh, first big job in this industry was uh with a now defunct producer there um in Atlanta. Uh my first job in this industry was with the RMC Industries, uh concrete producers doing corporate finance. Uh they always joked in Atlanta that the RMC stood for Rednecks Making Concrete. So uh yeah, I did that for a while. Um went through the road out of the Great Recession in the aggregates industry. And that was uh that was fun. A lot of good learning experience there, kind of trial by fire. Uh again, that business was sold in 2012, and I moved to the Northeast to go work for the different producer. Spent about five years uh in New York State, and then uh came back to Atlanta, worked there in a performance improvement engineering role for a while, and then got recruited in 2021 by a friend to come join Coloss. And uh at first I was a bit, you know, I was a uh I don't want to use the word skeptical, but I was a bit uh intrigued by the company. Did some homework and um you know, came on board in uh summer of 2021 as the aggregate's performance manager. So spent the last little bit going all over the country trying to help people solve problems in their with their aggregates businesses. And it's been a great move. I think this is uh this is a really good place. I'm really, really happy to be here. And uh, you know, it's it's like tell people all the time it feels like you're working for a small company but the support of uh multinational resources. So it kind of it it of all the places I've been, it's the best of both worlds so far. And uh, you know, just moved up here the first of the year to be the regional man manager of manufacturing and looking forward to uh looking forward to getting this thing moving.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah. Nice. Well, we're glad to have you full time. We had you here and there with the performance manager role through coloss. But all right, you went through you covered a lot of ground on your professional stuff. You said your first role, your first job out of college was in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

My first job in this industry. Oh, first job in the industry was yeah, that's right. Okay. Was doing finance in Atlanta. Yeah. You were an engineering major. So civil? Sorry, did you say that? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

So I I did civil design for probably five years. Okay. Sat for my license, got my PE, did all the things that you're supposed to do. But I knew when I came out of undergrad I wanted to do something, you know. Uh engineering, I would encourage anybody that wants to, if if you think you can go through it, um, which it's really not as bad as it's advertised, to go study engineering because engineering is fantastic for teaching you how to solve problems. But then take that problem, take that set of skills for solving problems and then go apply it to business or apply it to law or go apply it someplace else. So I worked for, I don't know, I guess I'd been out about seven years and I went uh went back to school and got a business degree. So that's what opened up the door for me to move into finance.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

So you had that business degree before moving into the finance role.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Well, I yeah, I graduated and then moved into finance. And it was and it was a bit of an interesting, you know, bit of a checkered start. I my second day on the job at the concrete company, we were acquired by Cimex and I was laid off. So it was uh I mean, literally I got a phone call from my boss. He says, Hey, I know, you know, I know we we were said that IT was gonna set your computer and your phone and everything up, and you got all your paperwork filled out yesterday. And, you know, but hey, did you have you read the Wall Street Journal this morning? And when I said, well, no, Phil, I hadn't. I got a bit of a lecture for, you know, how serious can you be as a finance professional if you don't have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal? Okay, fair enough. Whoops. But uh, whoops, and then he and then and then he told me that uh that SEMX had acquired us and that I wouldn't need to come in today. He said they'd pay me for two days and that would be it. He said that they were, they basically canned the entire finance department with the acquisition. So everybody that was there still, when I went to turn my fob and a few things back in, everybody was everybody was on the phone with recruiters, everybody was trying to find a job, everybody was trying to get out before the uh before the deal closed. So I I uh So I ended up working for Delta Airlines. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I spent a little over two years with Delta Airlines, and it turns out they were losing a lot of people because of the impending bankruptcy that was so that would have been in 2000, end of 2005, beginning of 2006, and they filed sorry, end of 2004, beginning of 2005. So they filed, I want to say it was sometime in the fall of 2005 for bankruptcy. And a lot of their staff was leaving because they didn't want to go through the bankruptcy process. I needed a finance job. I had um, you know, I had a six-month-old son at home. So when they said, hey, we've got a job offer, I said, Hey, I'm your guy. So I spent a little two and a half years going through I started right before the filing, and I left to get back into this industry uh about two months after they came out of bankruptcy. So I mean it was a crash course in You were in it in finance. So everything from contract renegotiation, dealing with vendors, cash flow management, what the the the bankruptcy, the um what'd they call it? Is that like the control committee or some name like the debtor's committee that would see like what the cash flow was that because they had to meet certain covenants while they were going through the bankruptcy, and you know, we all got moved around like every year they put you in a different spot. So I think I was in um I think I was in three different spots. So I was in fuel management for a little bit, and oil was like back then, oil was like $125 a barrel, and most airlines weren't hedged, like Southwest, I think was the only one that had a big hedge position. So there was a lot of analysis around, you know, how far can we fly, what can we put on the plane, what should we not put on the plane, you know, how much price can we, how much can we raise prices? Um you know, I was uh in the onboard services group for a bit. So that whole $7 beer thing, that was one of the things that came out of that exercise that we were involved in that putting that business case together. Uh it was a very airlines are very interesting. And like Warren Buffett said it best, you know, if you want to be a millionaire, start out as a billionaire and buy an airline. So um it was uh, you know, I I had been recruited while I was in grad school to work for a um a metal mining business um internationally, and it just didn't work because we were having a baby and whatnot. But the idea of the combination of the engineering with finance, yeah. Um that HR gentleman that was an HR for that particular mining company, he ended up being the head of HR for the the now defunct company Lafarge there in Atlanta. And uh he called me about halfway through my tenure at the airline and said, Hey, just want to let you know there's some reorganization stuff going down. It may take six months, may take a year, but we definitely want to talk to you when it's all said and done. And uh July of 2007, I uh started on my journey in the aggregates business, started uh started as a MA analyst, so looking at acquisitions and whatnot. Again, trying to start with the finance skills. And then once once I got in the door and uh just kind of took off. Yeah, you know, it's been uh it's been a really good, been a really good ride.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

I think there's some important pieces uh in and you said it, you know, as a message to maybe college students or even new graduates, and something that I used to talk about with some of our colleagues here at Delta when we were early on in our career, and that's you know, you could you get your foot in the door maybe with a degree or with a technical skill or even just with a good interview, with a good solid interview, right? Um, but then what you learn is how to take those problem solving skills. You used engineering as your example, but really any degree, if you can take those problem solving skills, learn how to combine those with how do you put to work for you building relationships with people. Right. Because that's another big piece of it, right? If you can put those two things together, I mean that will help you in your career advance your career as you go. And the further along in your career you get, the more of a business people manager you become. Because now, I mean, your engineering skills and even, I mean, your finance skills are obviously being put to work right now. But uh, because as a regional manager, you're you're looking at that all day most days. But uh anyway, I just think it was an interesting point and a good message to college students and new grads. That's what we're that's a that's the formula, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Well, and the thing I would add to that is you know, go someplace where you can get your foot in the door and learn those things. And don't be, you know, don't be ashamed to say, hey, I work for a bankrupt airline or whatever, right? Because I'm learning, I'm learning the things now, I'm putting the work in now that's gonna set the stage for, you know, maybe five, ten years later, it's gonna set the stage for success.

SPEAKER_05 12:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

And, you know, there was a again, there was a lot that was learned there. And then, you know, the M ⁇ A job with uh there in Atlanta with Lafarge, it was it was a lot of long nights. It was a lot of, you know, hey, put this, put this deck together. We're gonna make a, you know, you we've got to make a pitch to Paris, and so many days you've got to put the deck together to put the model together or whatnot. You know, it you at some point, there's no free ride, right? You've got to put your time in somewhere, someplace. You've got to kind of you've got to kind of earn your stripes. And the sooner you can do that, the better off you'll be in your career. And you just gotta embrace it. You gotta look, you know, keep both eyes open and know that, you know, um I heard one guy, football coach, once say, to be successful, you either have to work harder than the other guy or work different than the other guy. And um I think you gotta, you know, maybe it's a little bit of both, and you just can't be afraid to get in and you know, dive in and go.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Mm-hmm. That's good advice. Now you never know what exposures and experiences that are gonna become so valuable to you in the future that you're exposing yourself to now. So, like your example with working for Delta Airlines in the middle of bankruptcy, I gotta imagine looking back, you had a there's a lot of life lessons you learned real quick and and career lessons you learned real quick in that role.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah, it was uh I'm glad I did it when I did it. Yeah. And I'm glad that I used the experience to move on. That's cool. It was definitely a uh it was definitely a very good experience for me from a standpoint of, you know, I'm coming out of engineering school. I can, you know, I can balance a balance sheet if I have to. I can put a very simple financial model together. But then, you know, some of the the things that we were diving off into to study, to understand, just because of the stakes of what the company was trying to, you know, reorganize and get out from under all the the debt that it had accumulated. So I mean it was uh it was really good stuff. I'm really, really uh at first I was like, are you kidding me? They're gonna go bankrupt. Why do I want that job? But then once you get into it and do it, I mean it was, yeah, to your point, it's a really good experience. Really good experience. So I guess, you know, from an advice standpoint, um, you know, don't judge a book by its cover and don't be afraid to uh you can always learn skills wherever you are. You just need to, you know, you need to put it on yourself to go figure it out. And then uh, you know, no one's forcing you to stay anywhere either, right? So get that experience and then always keep your options open.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Now you you you had made an attempt to be in the finance world in the aggregates industry prior to Delta, correct?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

That is correct. So when I was going through graduate school, I interned with this company. They were a small, well, regional ready mixer, um, mostly in the southeast, a few things out southwest. But they, you know, they had probably in the metro Atlanta area, you know, they probably had ten plants. Sweet. And they were they were a good sized player.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

And um any rock pits or just uh just a couple in Florida.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Okay. A couple in South Florida. But at that time I had no idea. I was focused on primarily the ready mix business. Okay. So we were trying to figure out things to do, like in the Carolinas, things to do in um Yeah, we the the business was wasn't doing great like in Charlotte. So trying to figure out some things to do in the Carolinas that that that uh made sense to improve the business's position. Again, all great learning stuff. Again, you know, people you think you see concrete trucks, you see asphalt pavers, you see holes in the ground where people are mining rock, and you people, you know, young people in particular might drive by and not think anything of it. It's a really durable industry and it's a necessity. I think what is it, the first or the most recycled material in the United States, I think is what recycled asphalt. You know, I mean sand and gravel and stone aren't too far behind in terms of consumption. It's not going away. And once if you can get in, it's a fantastic industry to be in just from the people, the experiences, um, it's it really is fantastic. So anybody uh, you know, anybody that's younger coming out of college, coming out of high school, these are these are these are really good jobs and really, really good place to be. So you know, you know, keep an open mind for sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Another great observation that I think gets passed over often.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

So Yeah, this isn't uh I mean, I think you'll see technology, you'll see technology come in. Right now, there's a lot of you know, autonomous haul trucks are kind of coming off the bleeding edge and becoming more and more of a standard. You'll you'll probably see autonomous loading equipment at some point, fully automated plants, that's been around. Some people have been doing that now for probably 10, 15 years. But uh, you know, in terms of this is not something that's gonna get sent to a data center someplace offshore. This isn't someplace this kind of this this worked, it's not, it's never gonna get offshore just because of the weight and the the cost to get it into the market, the logistical issues to get it into a market, you know, that there's always gonna be the need for what we do, always. Yeah. And uh, you know, it's it's a great industry.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yeah, that's good. So you spent time in several different types of work and for different people. What do you think is the same about like finance operations, performance roles, and what's different?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

I think those roles, you know, you're all trying to solve a problem. You're just trying to come at it from different ways. So finance, it's all about putting things at a some sort of a pro forma and using that format to solve a problem. The performance management pro job, you know, you're using some sort of maybe you're using some sort of a model, you're using maybe a slight a different tool, but you're still trying to get to the same answer. And then operations, like you're there on the ground, you have to live with it. Um, you know, some jobs, finance maybe is maybe, you know, maybe you're looking at things from maybe 15,000, 20,000 feet performance improvement, maybe you're getting a little bit closer to the ground, and then when you're in operations, like you're there having to handle it. Um so they they each bring a little different perspective. And I think I'm I consider myself pretty fortunate in that having sat in each one of those seats, I understand what the different perspectives are and what people will look for. And and I think the similarity, you know, the the common similarity is everybody's trying to solve a problem. Everybody wants to try to get better. They're just using different tools to arrive at it. So, you know, it is it a is it a blend of those tools? Is it, you know, it's the again, I think from my seat, having been through having been through all that experience, you got a pretty good toolbox to use to solve problems. It's just trying to figure out which one is the right one to use that time to solve that particular problem. Yeah. And a lot of the, you know, the performance improvement job, you go to a lot of different places. So before I work here, I work for another competitor primarily covering the southeast in a similar role. And you hear the same thing everywhere you go. You always hear, oh, well, it's different here. Well, it's it's not. And it just it just straight up isn't. And you and it's always the same challenge, right? The pit makes too much oversized. We have too many fines, we can't sell. We have a competitor in the market that's being crazy, you know, not following, being undisciplined with pricing. We have a piece of machinery, you know, the plant doesn't do enough volume to justify overhaul. However, we have to, you know, we're only doing 250,000 tons, but we can't really justify replacing this machine, but we have to get it to do something different. So they're all kind of the same threads that run all through different geographies. It's just now then how do you help solve those problems? There's a lot more commonality than people realize with the, you know, you can kind of put all the problems. There's probably a dozen and you can put them all in one bucket. And they're the same whether you're in upstate New York or whether you're in South Texas or whether you're in Southeast Missouri.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Mm-hmm. That's interesting. Because, you know, I have not I have not uh taken advantage or uh explored the opportunity to see this industry in different geographies and different areas, but the message I hear from individuals that have, like yourself and Brian Spock and anybody else that's seen this business in different geographies, have that same message. And it's interesting to me then because you know I'll buy that and I will and and and I believe what you guys say. What's interesting is then, and what's challenging is getting that ideology to take foothold here locally because we all think, no, we're unique, we're different, we're not gonna change. This is these are excuses, you know. It's what it's it's just interesting in a in a challenge that you dealt with from the corporate level. And now, hey, I got to bring that same message home now, and let's try to get this team bought into that same thing to say, look, guys, we can we can make this work.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

You know, the the challenge is always the people. Always. I mean, the machines will act a certain behave a certain way, numbers behave a certain way. The wild card is always the people. And I think that's you know, the other piece if we're handing out advice is early in your career, you you want to try to put yourself in a position where you can uh deal with, build relationships, um, the the more of who you know than what you. You know. And again, that that becomes exponentially important later on in your career. So um having a good demeanor, being open to ideas, being open to discussion, even though you may you might know or you might have a pretty good idea that you're right, maybe in you know, Jordan, you're way out in right field. I'm still gonna talk to you, I'm still gonna engage you, entertain you, try to understand your perspective before I share my perspective with you. Um, I think that's something else that goes a long, long way with people. And it helps, it helps accelerate change when you're trying to make it.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Cool. Yeah. Uh you also made a point that I just kind of want to reiterate where you were talking about the advantage of being in all those different fields uh has allowed you to understand what is required by those fields, how they're gonna look at it and that type of thing. So anytime that you're in one of those roles, you have the advantage of being able to kind of understand it and see it from all sides, which helps you in conversations, right? Because you're you're gonna know, okay, well, if I'm in an operations role, the finance team is gonna look at it like this, and they're gonna ask me these questions that I'm gonna be prepared for it, or I know how to answer those and like steer them in the right direction, right? So um you did mention that and saying like it's great to have experience in those different roles so you uh just kind of have like a broader scope, right, to help you navigate conversations and issues. But I think that's for sure key. Um so I know that you were saying you like the aggregate industry, the construction industry is here to stay, and that's a good reason to be in it.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

What you know, were you just drawn to it from civil engineering days or yeah, I think a lot of it um I think for me uh a lot of it was that it was being able to say at the end of the day when you go home you've made something.

SPEAKER_05 24:04

Right?

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And you can point to a pile and say, hey, this is what we've done, what we made today. Um it's really cool. You know, when you're uh yeah, what when I was a plant manager in the Northeast, we put I don't remember how many, it was like 250,000 tons of rock in the runway at JFK. So, you know, anytime now if I'm changing planes, flying from point A to point B and I fly through JFK, it's like, yeah, that's that's I know where that stone came from, right? It's pretty cool. Yeah, right? Or you are you like my dad, my dad built bridges all over the state of Florida, right? So and there's some of them still, I mean, some of them still are in service. So you can drive over and be like, you know, yo, you know, hold you know, hold your breath, Dad. Here we go. We're going over one of your bridges. So it's uh it's always um it's good to see that, right? And you get a sense of pride that comes from being able to show that you've you've made something, you've produced something. So I think, you know, aggregates for me, um, well, mining in general, it's just it to me, it's pretty fascinating stuff. You're taking a you know, you're you're there's a lot more that goes into it than just we're digging something out of the ground, right? There's the geology and the evaluation of the geology and the kind of find the market and who you're gonna sell stuff to and you know what machine's gonna break the rock so that we can sell the most of it and have the least amount of waste. I mean, there's a lot that goes into it, way more than most people would casually expect, so to say. Um yeah, I think it's uh I like it for a lot of reasons. I've been you know decided to to stay in it. Again, the people in this industry, one, it's a pretty small industry, so it's pretty you get a pretty good network pretty quick. Um, you'll find that people, even if they're your competitor, hey, it's not it's not uncommon. It wasn't uncommon like in the Southeast for you know, Company X. If Company Y had a crusher meltdown and crusher company X had a part that they had it on hand and company Y couldn't get it for a few weeks, that Company X would say, Hey, if you need it, come get it. You know, people want to help each other out.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Um, yeah, it's just been a it's been a great, been a great industry to be in. Small. So again, you had to be careful. You don't want to burn bridges because you don't know who you're gonna who you're gonna run across next that you might end up working with that you right. So you you gotta kind of manage that a little bit. But beyond that, again, it the aggregates and you know, cement aggregates asphalt at all. It's literally what builds America. It's literally the the roads we run on, it's the buildings we live in, the houses we live in, it's literally all of that. So I mean it's it's uh again, it's if somebody drives by, they think it's you know, redneck's making concrete. But it's really but it's really a lot more sophisticated, you know, it's really a lot more sophisticated and a lot more important than that. And so I'm I'm just proud to be a part of it. Yeah, it's all good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

It's a pretty addicting industry. Every like pretty much everything you're working with is huge too, so it's a little intimidating. Maybe that's why it's addicting. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

I I used to uh when we lived in New York, I was uh you know, worked with the Boy Scouts, I was an assistant scout master, and there's a mining and society merit badge. And I would bring the kids, always bring the kids through the quarry and let them see everything and just the look, you know, you take them to the ready line and they'd see all the you know the hundred-ton haul trucks parked there and just the oh wow, oh, ah, you know, and go see that. And and I think, you know, even when you're whether you're you know, whether you're 13, 14-year-old working on whatever your Boy Scout rank is, or you're a 52-year-old grown man, you see that 100-ton haul truck or a 992. That little that little boy's voice inside your head is always like, oh, wow, ah, it's uh that's true. It's it's pretty neat stuff.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

And it's that's impactful because I'll tell you, I did that as a as a young kid. We did, we toured Bootsy. Um, one of my friends' dads was an engineer over there, and that's exactly what we did. We I and you were talking about the ready line. That's the one piece I think I remember the most is like walking up to the ready line, being like, whoa, big stuff.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

We put a because of the rules at one of the places we operated, we could only in the winter until daylight hours came in the summertime, like July, August, September, you had to blast on Saturday because you couldn't blast until 5 p.m. By 5 p.m. most of the time in that part of the world, it's dark. So we would blast Satur on Saturday mornings. And so we put out the invite, brought all the parents in, put the shot off. We had all the, you know, we had the Boy Scouts and then the parents, and we put the shot off. And, you know, all the parents, it wasn't the kids, it was the parents. The parents were like, wow, that blast was awesome. That beats the that beats the heck out of dance practice. What are you gonna do that again?

SPEAKER_03 28:45

We want to come back and watch. So I experienced that and taking tours around our facilities now. That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, it's pretty neat stuff.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Yeah. One other thing that you were just saying is uh you mentioned, you know, it's a smallish industry and not like burning bridges with people because you know you can uh be pretty easily connected and that can lead to other things. And uh last week Jordan and I actually listened to Vulcan's CEO speak at the NSSGA conference, and he was essentially saying the same thing. He I think he said, uh, you know, it's a small industry and just in business in general. There's a lot to navigating relationships and and conversations where you are likable because people like to do business with likable people, and uh just don't be a butthead, basically, is what he's saying. Like don't make anybody mad.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Yeah, I mean that gets back to the comment we made earlier about building the network, having a strong network. I've been very fortunate. Um I went through a reorganization one of the times. Well, it was the reason why we moved out of the Northeast. And because of my network, uh, I was interviewing three days later for a job that I ultimately took to move back to Atlanta. So you you never, you always I think that's a great piece of advice. You want to, you don't necessarily you don't have to like people necessarily, but you have to get along and work with them. And that's good advice for any, you know, work no what you're doing, no matter what you're doing. Um, yeah, I so I would I really would stress the uh the need to maintain that network. So, you know, the other day we were at Vegas for what Conag and uh walked in the door and a guy I hadn't seen in you know five years as an engineer I used to work with. He's literally when I opened the door, he's literally five feet away. And when he turns around and sees me, he's a he's just happy to see me, gives me a hug. We talked for 30 minutes, and the crowd of people I was with, they just were like, Well, okay, I guess he's gonna talk to this guy. So, you know, like Brad and Brian and others, they just went on down the hall. It you know, you it's it's just you you never know. You just you just don't know. And I think that part about being likable is key. You've gotta, you, you've gotta try to um, you've gotta try to be, you know, be likable. Well, what's part about being likable, right? Show up on time, do a good job. A lot of people will, you know, look past other shortcomings if they know that you're dependable, reliable, confident in what you do. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

No, that's great. So uh you were you were with Koloss for a while uh in that performance management role, and then you were visiting here well aware of what we had going on, and then this opportunity came up and you were excited to be a part of it. So knowing that we had our own local challenges going on and like a steep hill to climb, right? What's been the most difficult part about stepping into that role?

SPEAKER_01 31:56

I think one thing is you know, you're you're when you're in the performance management role, you're kind of the corporate consultant, right? So you you you you you come in on Monday afternoon, spend a few days with the local team, and then you leave. So you're you're very um very likely to have some form some bias around just what you see in the limited time that you're there. Small sample size. Very small sample size. And you're not there enough, you know, you're not you don't have enough samples to be statistically significant, so to speak. So I think for me the the challenge is twofold. One, it's now that we're here on the ground, it's a it's a little bit more complicated than what you see coming in and out as a consultant. And I think number two, when you're the consultant, you're the advisor. Well, that changes now. Now we're not the advisor. Now we're the now we're the leader trying to steer the ship to get get get over that, get up that hill and get over it and move on. It the good news is again, going back to having the having some of the experience of seeing how it's been done in other parts of the country, other parts of the world even. This isn't as difficult as it might seem. We're not the first person, the first company that's been through these types of challenges. So again, we start to operate, we're gonna we're gonna manage. We've got a very good mind plan process in place now. We're gonna move on to put a put a much um much uh how would I say much a richer maintenance process in place. We're going to invest in uh bringing in the resources we need to handle the situation, the the pit situation at the you know at the one location. So we're gonna put the processes in place and deploy the the capital that we need to to get through it. And it's it it's gonna take it'll take a little bit of time, but we'll get to the other side. And again, that I wanna that goes back to the feel of a small company with the resources of a of you know a multinational business. We've had we've had people in so far this year from France. We've had our you know, our finance group from Morristown is interested in what we're doing. Um, they're helping out. We've got we've got resources aplenty that want to see us succeed. We just we're gonna use them to get through this.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Yeah. Um I've never operated in a true like consulting or performance management role, but I have found myself in at times or experiences like in a position where I'm not managing but influencing a situation, and it seems like very objective and easy to say, well, yeah, all you need to do is this and this and this. And um when you're actually the one receiving that or dealing with all the day-to-day stuff, you're like, Well, yeah, I agree with you. The objectives are the same, it just is not like it doesn't happen in a week or whatever, right? It takes a lot longer. Do you is that do you agree?

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Like from actually sitting in that seat, you have a tendency to think influencing is one of the hardest things that you can do in business, whether you're any kind of advisory role, and you can give all the advice you want, but to give advice that sticks and gets rolled out and implemented, being able to convince somebody, and I think you're you're right. The the the thing there that the the one the places that have the best success doing that or the people that are the best at it, you'll hear the phrase, and and I'm not big on buzzwords, right? But you'll hear the phrase planting seeds, right? They'll come back and hey, well, maybe we should maybe you ought to think about this. And it's a lot slower burn than just come in and well, hey, get this done today. It may take a little bit of time, and I think that's that can be where you get in trouble. To to pull that off. I think you um the the people that are the the best influencers are they're good salespeople. Uh they can sell anything. Um, they're able to sell their idea, they're they're communicating communicate clearly. There's not a lot of you know, engineering talk, there's not a lot of you know they try to keep it the message as simple as they can. As a fellow once told me, if you can't explain it to your five-year-old and have them understand it when they're done, you probably didn't do a good job. So I experimented a lot on my kids when they were little, like trying to explain things, right? Um so yeah, it's the influencing parts the most challenging. And and usually you one, you've gotta you've gotta spend time with the people that you're dealing with. You know, if if you just show up on a Monday and leave on a Thursday and they don't hear from you in three weeks, you're probably not building credibility. You're probably not building a genuine relationship. And people know. I mean, people can tell when someone's trying to get something out of them to accomplish something, and they know when you're trying to be authentic. So I think that's important. That's really important as you try to be, you're you really want to try to be authentic. In the first few meetings, anyway, you're just trying to build some kind of a relationship, right? Like I want to know, your kids play baseball, hey, my kids play baseball, or hey, you're, you know, well, your kids are in scouts. Well, hey, well, my son's an Eagle Scout. Or my, you know, my daughter plays uh, my daughter's on a travel soccer team. Well, hey, your daughter's on a travel soccer team. So you're you're trying to build some rapport and um a a genuine relationship with them before you start to try to turn things. If you just come right out of the box and are like, well, you know, you got to get your you got to get 200 tons an hour more out of this plant, or you know, bad things are gonna happen, and here's how you're gonna do it, you're just wasting your time. Yeah. Because your point, the operations people have, they've got a hundred things to do. And that's the other thing, right? Which you're the consultant, you don't show up at Monday morning, Monday morning at 7 a.m. with you know, you're you don't want the they don't want the good idea fairy walking into their site at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning when they're trying to manage vacations, who called out sick, you know, what did we get done over the weekend? Uh the the you know, the the belts are it's wet, the belts are slipping, whatever. They've got their own little crisis they've got to get through. So you've also got to be considerate of when it's the right time to approach them. And and I know in this industry, a lot of people are early risers. Like they'll get there at four or five o'clock in the morning. Sometimes you have to modulate that because they're trying to get their, you know, the last thing you want to do is have a have the have the area manager or the regional manager be your enemy, right? You're trying to build a relationship with them. So you just got to kind of think through that a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 38:40

That's an interesting observation that I think is could potentially be helpful to those in those operational and and in consulting roles. So like if you're you're kind of looking at two different support, or you're they're looking at two different staffs, right? Operational, uh frontline leaders and people that are boots on the ground, and then you're looking at support roles, right? Maybe consultants and support roles. And I've I've played both roles as well. But I think it's interesting that if you understand both sides of it, it can be helpful because as a consultant, you have to understand that you know you're not you're not in the thick of it with boots on the ground. Uh, therefore, there's other pressures and things that are nearer and dearer to that individual's than might be as the consultant. But if you are that operations manager, you also need to understand sometimes it's beneficial to help re try to remove yourself so intimately involved and look at the bigger, broader scope to make some right decisions. Sure. Right. So it's an it's an interesting and dynamic balance where you have to you have to understand both sides of that to get a full respect for this is the implication of the decision that we're gonna make and this is the right way to go. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's I don't know, it's a it's interesting and helpful to both sides of that equation.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

Yep, for sure. I would agree. That's um I think also another reason to have like a good team of people that you're working with, right? Because it's really difficult just as one person or two people to to zoom out and like try to look at the whole situation. It's that's the benefit of having like a a close team working together from different positions or walks of life that can have diverse views of it and say, hey, well, hey, have you thought about it like this or will it affect this or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Yeah, and I think we've got for the you know I think the team that we've got here is solid. I think we've got a it's a really good group of, you know, the the people that are in the manufacturing organization uh are are really good at that. We've got several people that you know, we bring I think different perspectives to things and it really helps challenge challenge how you think and how you want to how you want to go about solving something.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

Yeah. I think that's the healthy piece of it that I was trying to get to is you you've got to challenge your way of thinking to see things from the other side of it and and and all parties need to do that and then have an open dialogue about it. Uh in that you know we can make a we can make a solid a solid decision that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Yeah. Uh so I heard you kind of declared yourself as a good idea, Fairy.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Well, that was the joke. I mean that that was the I'm kidding. When you when you that was the always the that's the joke, right? When you're in one in one of these process improvement, whatever you want to call it, operational improvement, role process improvement, continuous improvement, whatever, whatever kind of improvement, you will home improvement, whatever kind of improvement you want to call it, that was always the joke, is that people would call you the good idea, fairy, because you're gonna show up and fix everything. And you know, I I think you know, more times than not, more times than not, yeah, you there's some things that you're just not gonna be able to help. But it's it's good when you get a win. And it's good when you're able to work with uh regional managers or the local management, you're able to kind of get you get up able to get some traction. It's good when you can it's good when you can get a win. And we've you know, we've done some of that here. Um we've done a lot of it more in other parts of the country, mid-Ohio, especially. Uh so I just uh yeah, but I had a I had an area manager many years ago tell me that. He called me the good idea fairy, and he said, Let me guess, you're here from corporate and you're here to help. And he kind of laughed at me. And he that he's the one that laid it out. He says, You don't need to plan, especially if you're coming up on Monday, you don't need to plan on being here any later or any earlier than nine o'clock. And let me tell you why. My plant managers are trying to get everything running. You know, it's the weekend, you know, there's things going on with the workforce that happened over the weekend. There's things going on in the plant, maybe they could be down, they're trying to get their paperwork filed for the, especially if it's month in, there's just a lot going on. And you mean well, Chris, you mean well, but they have a day job, they need to get everything up and running, and you need to respect that if you want to even begin to build any kind of relationship with these people. And it was a really good piece of advice that stuck with me. I'm I'm glad that uh I'm glad that Doug laid that on me the way he did. It was good. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

That's fantastic mentoring advice in general. Like uh he could have just told you, don't show up before nine, right? And just left it like that. But explaining the why and taking the time to do it is really pouring into you as a an individual, even though you're not reporting to him or anything, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Well, and and he had a really good reputation for developing teams. Like that was kind of his That was kind of his thing. He took a lot of pride in managing and developing this. This gentleman was a production manager for a business in South Carolina, and he's now a production manager for changed roles for changed companies, but he's still um, you know, very well respected. Expected production manager in the Southeast. And it's a point of pride for him to develop people. And um yeah, I mean, he was very good about. Hey, I'll tell you, I'll tell you exactly what's good about this idea. I'll tell you exactly what I don't like about it. Uh, he was just a really good guy to work with, work for, and learn from. He was really good. Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

Uh, so you were talking about finding common ground and connections. I know from being around you that you're a big movie guy specifically. You love Disney movies, so do I. You constantly quote movies. Yeah. You always catch me off guard. So earlier when you were talking about the mining badges, like I really like the movie Up, so I always think about Russell. Oh, yeah. Russell for sure. Badges come up. But what's your favorite movie in line right now?

SPEAKER_01 44:52

I think right now, uh, I'm not going to use a Disney movie, so I want to let me just straighten things out a little bit. Right. I I like a lot of different movies.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

You know, the Disney movies, okay. I've got a 21-year-old and a 17-year-old. The Disney movies, that's a hook, right? When my my son is 21, he's about to graduate college and commission as a lieutenant in the army. And he's still to this day, like dropping lightning. Like he races. He's on a uh collegiate rowing team. So before his race the other day, you know, he's putting stuff on social media, you know, speed, I am speed. You know, one winner, 42 losers. I eat losers for breakfast, right? He goes to the whole Lightning McQueen band. So, but right now, I think with everything that's going on and all the changes that are going on, I like the penguins from Madagascar.

SPEAKER_04 45:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

And the skippers got the the skippers got the saying readis. Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave. That's kind of how I feel right now. It's just there's a there's a lot going on, and some of it is not pleasant and it's painful, and we're not gonna we're not gonna get wrapped up in wasting a whole bunch of energy in that. We're just gonna smile and wave. We're gonna get we're gonna get great. We're gonna get through it. Everybody, you know, this this organization, we're gonna get through all this, just have to have everybody have some patience. And in the meantime, we're just gonna smile and wave and do our job. Yes, that's that's what it comes down to.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

That's great. Uh you haven't fully moved to Missouri yet, but you've been staying here for extended periods of time. How does it compare to Florida?

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Oh, so you know, where I'm where I grew up, it's a it's it's a small town. So a lot of similarities. Um where I grew up, you know, we had a beach and we had a beach and an uh intracostal waterway, the Indian River. You got the Mississippi here, it's not quite the same. Um I think it's a yeah, you know, I think it's a lot of a lot of the same thing, a lot of similarities. Uh I've spent the last you know number of years living in a townhouse in suburbia with you know that you could hear the neighbors at their block party or you could hear, you know, gunshots or whatever. Um I'm looking forward to just having a quiet place out in the country for a while. I think it'll be great.

SPEAKER_05 47:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

My uh, you know, my daughter, my daughter Scott, uh, I'm sure I will somehow get uh coerced into having some sort of a hobby farm at some point. My daughter will just pressure me relentlessly until there's chickens and a goat and stuff like that. Um I'm looking forward to it. You know, it's I I like to hunt, I like to fish, I do a lot of target shooting. I've done a lot of target shooting growing up. I I I was almost, you know, if I had I I was just to say that I was I I could have gone down the path of competitive rifle shooting when I was 18, 19 years old, but I chose to focus on other things instead. So um I like I like I like firearms, right? I like I like I collect and shoot and all that. So I'm I'm looking forward to being out in the country. Um I really am. I think it'll be good. Small town will be great. And there's a lot going on here. Two hours from St. Louis, two hours from or three hours from Memphis. I it's it's not a bad place at all. And and everybody, everybody says the same thing at first, you know, kind of like the concrete job analogy. Why would you move to Cape Girardeau? And then you start explaining it. Oh, it doesn't sound so bad. And then you the people come up and drive around and look at it, and like, oh, it really isn't that bad after all. So no, I'm I'm looking forward to you know uh just a quiet place where I can have you know, have my own, have a few acres and just and uh just that's great, be you know, peace and quiet for a while.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Good. You were making me think of those like air rifle Olympians, you know, that kind of blew up recently in the last Olympics because they got their own style, you know. They all have our super diverse backgrounds, and then they're all just up there like Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Well, I mean, I so uh UF had a club rifle team. I tried out and made the rifle team.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

I just didn't, you know, when they started laying out, hey, here's how many times you have to practice, here's what we're gonna do, here's why we're gonna do it. I was, you know, my dad made it very clear to me my my priority was get out of college in one piece with a degree. And anything else that was if you thought it was gonna be a distraction, don't do it. So I told them I appreciate the appreciate everything. I enjoyed going through the tryout process, but I'm gonna focus on school and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Yeah. Nice. What's the best piece of advice you've been given?

SPEAKER_01 49:42

I like Doug's advice about not showing up till nine o'clock. And not so much that it's just so you can sleep in, right? But I think but I I think it's more just trying to understand the other person, right? Understand the other person in the relationship. I had a a gentleman that was a particularly notorious boss give me a pretty good piece of advice. Uh, he said, don't he said, take 48 hours. If you're really emotional, you're really upset about something. He says it doesn't matter what it is. Yep. Relationship work, money doesn't matter. Take at least 48 hours before you make any sort of before you respond. I think uh I think that's pretty good. And there was a there was an old uh Canadian guy, Mike Pearson, that I worked with years ago when I was working in Atlanta. Uh Mike was kind of a consultant helping us out with some things. And um, you know, Mike said, I'll tell you two things, kid. He said, number one, you know, he says, uh, you know, BS baffles brains. And it's like you think about that, and it's there's a lot of truth to that, that people can kind of get snow you over. Right. So how easily we get can we can get baffled? And the other one was, he said, I'll tell you this, number two, kid, is common sense ain't so common. So I mean, when when you're going through making a decision and trying to communicate something, it's important to keep those things in the back of your mind when you're trying to talk to people. Sure. Um, you know, it's uh I've been really lucky. I've had really good what I would call mentors. There's a couple I could pick up the phone right now. They they work for other competitors. Yeah. If I said, hey, I've got a problem here with machine X, Y, and Z, they'd walk me through. Now, tomorrow morning, you need to do this, then do this, then do this, and then call this person. And um, so I've been really, really fortunate. And a lot of people that I've worked around, um, one couple of them are now, well, a little bit with Zach, not a whole lot with Zach, but you know, Zach's career has taken off. Um, Quig's been good to work with some of his mentorship there, working on projects with him in the Southeast US. Um, but outside the industry, a couple guys that I've had the opportunity to work for are now CEOs for different companies. So they've made it all the way to the top and how they approach problems, solve problems, work ethic, how to talk to people. I think I've got some gotten some pretty good advice from one in particular.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. That's great. I think that's good what you're saying, that advice like BF BS baffles brains, common sense isn't that common, right? Like just relating it to maybe a problem, a problem or something that people are working on is I think people have a tendency to s to over like complicate and over-detail like a presentation or whatever, right? And so I think that's what that is towards is like a lot of times you don't think about just presenting like the basics and walking people through the common sense of the presentation, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:36

You try to glorify it and make it something more than it is, and then I don't like, I mean, you you you go into a room, let's say you're gonna give a presentation to senior managers, right? There's a reason they're senior managers, just in terms of how quickly they process things, kind of the business case judo, so to speak, that they know what questions they're gonna ask, they see a certain number, they're gonna zero in on it and just so to me, when you're presenting something, less is more. I got all the details in the deck, I got all the details in the appendix. I'm happy to sit down and go through this. I think a lot of times when you walk in with a complicated presentation with a lot of information, you're you're almost setting yourself up to get beat up because you're just, you know, you're just there's more, there's a more air time, and someone's gonna someone's gonna zero in on that, and then the questions are gonna start. You're just gonna get keep it simple. Keep it keep it as simple as you can. You know, and that's in an office setting. You know, the guys that do the work on the machine side in the field, they're ways they know way more about that machine you than anybody who's coming from my seat or Tony Wilson's seat or whoever. Those guys know way more about that machine. So you can't fool them. Right. So you again, you gotta try to find common ground, keep it simple, do what you say you're gonna do, work through the problem.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. What uh what advice would you give, you know, 20-year-old do you? Or you think you've lived the perfect life being the good idea, Fairy?

SPEAKER_01 54:10

Oh no, absolutely not. I think uh I think 20-year-old me, it would be more about who you know. And that whole being likable thing. I didn't I didn't really figure that out until I was probably in my mid-30s. So I think it's important coming out of the box that you you do that sooner rather than later. It's never too early to start. Um yeah, and you know, and then also, you know, go buy NVIDIA. Yeah, no joke. Um I think that would be uh again, we all, you know, you go through engineering school and it's all about, you know, who can solve the problems and who can out nerd one another and that kind of thing. It it really comes down to who you know and building that network and the things that you can do to build that network as fast as you can and build a you'll have a quality network that can help you when you're in a tight spot and also help other people when they're in a tight spot. I think that's key. I mean, you you need to know, you need to know certain parts of your craft and be able to do it better than anybody. So that was one of the pieces of advice that was impressed on me when I started working in corporate MA, corporate development for one of those gentlemen that's now a CEO. It was you've got to be able to, I expect you to know this, be able to put models valuation together better than it better than anybody. So you build your craft, but then you also need to have a network.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

Yeah. No, I agree. Good advice. Uh all right. So what we've, you know, we have a tradition that uh the last guest leaves a question for the next guest. So your question is what is a safety moment that changed your perspective?

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Safety moment that changed my perspective. So um the one that always sticks out with me was we had a fatality at one of our sites in New York. Uh this was when this was many, many years ago. And the investigation they interviewed the gentleman, or they interviewed the people that were working with him. He was uh changing a set of screens and a s and a screen changing screen panels and a screen. He had a workaround where he was he had put uh plywood down on the midrail, so he was standing up off the deck using a come-along to try to get the screen panels. They were stuck, they weren't coming out, and he was trying to use a come along to pull the screen out, pull the panels out of the screen. And being that he was elevated, the top rail was right behind his knee and he slipped backwards and he caught that rail and he somersaulted down to the ground and he, you know, he died on his way, died on the way to the hospital, died of injuries on the way to the hospital. When everybody interviewed him or interviewed the survivors, and we're building the, you know, Imship was doing the investigation, everybody said the same thing. Every several people pointed it out that what he was doing was unsafe. And his comment was, I wish you all would just relax. This isn't my first rodeo. So hearing him say, admit to everybody, hey, this isn't my first rodeo. I mean, that's just that's and then 30 seconds later, a minute later, the guy's gone. That's just that kills me every time I hear that. And I think that's you know, we can always we always can slow down, do things right, even if, you know, the the one time you don't think it's when it's gonna get you is when it gets you, and it's always and it's just gonna be horrible. So, you know, I in fact we were at one of the sites yesterday, we were at Williamsville yesterday, celebrating their their quarter one success, and we were talking about safety and work and safety culture and whatnot. And you'll never hear me say that production, you know, if we say we're gonna be down for two hours and we get into something and it's gonna take six, you'll never hear me say, we gotta get up and running, we gotta go, go, go. I want everybody to take the time, do the right risk assessment, make sure we got the right tools, be aware conditions can change. If they do, we need to do another risk assessment. I don't ever want to, I don't ever want to be in a situation where you know, someone, you know, oh well, this isn't my first rodeo we get somebody hurt really bad. I do know. I don't that would be horrible. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 58:35

It's not worth it. No, not at all. If y'all enjoyed the episode, please rate our show and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and check out Delta on all social media platforms at Delta Companies and our website at Delta C O S looks like deltacos.com. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.