Best of Built with A-State: Better, Not Bigger for Sustainable Growth

The disconnect between corporate expectations and workforce readiness remains the single greatest bottleneck to localized economic growth. When major industrial operations, retail empires, and manufacturing plants cannot find talent aligned with modern technical realities, expansion stalls and regional economies plateau. In this special highlight episode of Built with a State, host Todd Shields brings together the very best strategic insights from a powerhouse lineup of Mid-South business titans, featuring executives and founders from Hytrol, Nucor-Yamato Steel, the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, and Gearhead Outfitters.

We sit down to review the core operational blueprints that drive multi-million dollar supply chains and massive manufacturing facilities. This curated deep dive covers the technical mechanics behind processing 75% of global e-commerce shipments, the circular economy logistics of running North America's largest steel recycling operation, and the ground-level impact of two-week micro-courses for programmable logic controllers. The unique secret sauce woven throughout these highlights is a radical commitment to hyper-local collaboration, demonstrating how embedding private industry leaders directly into the curriculum design process fundamentally transforms raw regional talent into highly specialized operational assets.

The unvarnished reality of managing high-growth organizations means making hard, unglamorous choices, such as intentionally halting expansion to fix backend supply chain inefficiencies or challenging rigid academic funding formulas that favor four-year degrees over rapid, weekend technical training. Viewers will walk away with an actionable understanding of how to structure an organization around adaptability, hire for core behavioral traits rather than paper credentials, and leverage targeted partnerships to solve immediate staffing constraints.

If you care about commercial scaling, regional economic development, and practical workforce infrastructure, you’ll get a lot from this curated showcase. Please make sure to subscribe to the channel and share this episode with an entrepreneur, educator, or business leader in your network. Which executive's perspective on tackling the talent gap resonated most with your current operational strategy? Let us know in the comments below.

@arkansasstatemedianetwork.com.

0:00 - Introduction to the Best of Built with a State

0:27 - Hytrol: Material Handling and Supply Chain Logistics

5:09 - Nucor-Yamato Steel: Clean Manufacturing and Innovation

10:00 - State Chamber of Commerce: Fixing the Workforce Gap

13:31 - Micro-Certifications and Immediate Wage Growth

15:34 - Gearhead Outfitters: Culture and Scaling Smarter

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Hello and welcome to Built with a State. I'm Todd Shields, Chancellor here at Arkansas State University. And I'm very excited today to welcome Philip Poston, who is Chief Development Officer at Hytrol. Todd, thanks so much for being with us here today. Yeah. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Why don't you let's transition a little bit? Why don't you tell us a little bit about Hytrol and where Hytrol is going, what you see coming on Hytrol's radar right now?

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Sure. So I've worked at Hytrol for 27 years now. Congratulations. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Been around the business my entire life. You know, we create material handling technology and relationships that move the world. Yes. Ultimately, the way we do that, or the way our guys in the factory would say that, you know, the way that really translates is we make conveyor and conveying systems for companies all over the world. A lot of companies that everybody that's listening to this would know, and a lot of companies that those same people would see as brands that they love. So that's all happening here in Jonesboro and in Fort Smith. Yes. Um, but we are getting the opportunity to uh help customers make package and ship products to uh businesses and customers all over the world. You know, the way I make it relevant for the individual who says, why do I care about conveyor? Is I I ask them, when's the last time you ordered something online? Right. And most every one of them says within the next day. Yeah. And I say, from the minute you hit click on that order until it shows up at your door, uh, we're involved in about 75% of that process. Wow, 75%. The equipment we make is involved in about 75% of making that happen. And so that's fantastic. Um, you know, it it it makes it a lot bigger than just showing up and designing conveyor and and producing the conveyor every day, which is what we do, but we do it with a purpose that's much bigger. And it's about getting that ball glove to that young gentleman who's or you know, getting that ball glove to that kid who's wanting to go play baseball or softball. Right. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

You're making dreams come true there, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah, you know, and that's it's not just about the the conveyor, it's about what that conveyor brings to you to make your quality of life better, actually.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

But are you seeing their needs, this kind of change in your incoming workforce that you have to address or develop?

SPEAKER_02 2:32

So when you talk about what an employer looks for in somebody coming into the workforce, right? Um, you know, we could go down a list of technical skills. And, you know, for us, it's about um understanding how to read a tape measure and look at a drawing, um, being able to understand the critical components of being able to do those different jobs, right? Um, do them well. Right. Um the other thing though is is, and this would apply to not only the people who are coming in on the front line, but our engineers who are graduating from Arkansas State and coming into our design group, um, uh, and even the ones that are um helping us in the technology center. Right. But being able to problem solve, have critical thinking skills, use some of those uh tools to be able to determine what it looks like today. Because right now, there are so many tools out there that can shortcut what you're doing. In order to make sure that you can take advantage of those, you've got to be able to know are they giving me the right answer? Right. The only way you get that is through being able to work through um programs that are developed to give you that gut feel as to whether or not that tool is producing the right answer. Right. Um, and you know what, you can turn around and use those tools to grow your capacity as an individual. Some of our best um A state grads come through our internship program. And I know we've got several that uh I could mention right now that are very impressive. Right. Um, they represent the school well, but they represent Hytra well out in the industry. And it's the ability to come in and learn who we are, right? It's similar to what we talk about when you when you uh are working in a uh a program that provides that same environment. If you're in an internship that has that same environment, you're getting to meet those people and you say, hey, you know what? I kind of think this company's cool. I'm I'm gonna join this company. I want to be down at the tech center um designing conveyor. Um I'd love to stay in Jonesboro. Right. I see all the great things that are going on around campus and around town. Uh, I want to I want to be able to do that. I want to stay in this city and make an impact for the people who built the the things that I'm enjoying now. Um the students who do that are gonna be wildly successful. You're gonna call them leaders, is what you're gonna call them.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Right. Today we are we are fortunate to have with us Vice President Zach Moon of Nucore Yamato, and we're so glad you're here. Zach, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Pleasure is mine. Let's talk a little bit about innovation. Um, you know, we hear a lot about steel mills, and I'll be honest with you. When I when I first moved to A-State, my incorrect vision of a steel mill was, you know, the movie Rudy and you know, things that I had seen before, and what I had visited Pittsburgh when I was younger and that kind of thing. And so I was envisioning, you know, the smokestacks and I was envisioning coal and I was envisioning things like that. But the it's really a green industry now. Um, and I don't know if you could comment on that and then maybe what you think some more innovation may be happening, if that's planned, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

Yeah, and just on the you know, the green steel initiative and how clean it is. We're the largest recycler in North America. We recycle more, use metal than anyone else in in North America. So it's uh kind of a circular process. We use scrap, we produce steel, the scrap that comes out of it, we put back in our process and melt more steel. So um recycling is a part of who we've always been, not a kind of not kind of a new trend to you know on a sustainability train. It's right kind of what we do to run our business.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

When I think of steel, I mean I'm not very sophisticated. So I'm steel, you know, but then there's just so many different types of products or who you're selling to, you know, and you talked about the mixes and then the the hardness of the steel, and is it going to be the heat or cold or what's it gonna do? You talk a little bit about that because or maybe what your niche is and that kind of thing, because it's just something that it was so fascinating to me to realize, yeah, we use steel everywhere, but it's not all made the same way.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

That's right. And and you think about uh just say kind of on the theme of innovation, one of the one of the end uses that all of Newcore products go into is a data center. Okay. Newcore can now produce about 95% of the steel and components that go into a data center we produce as a company. Wow. Now, all that's produced differently, right? It's different grades, it's different forms. We produce structural steel at Newcore Yamato, which is an I-beam, or if you see a truck going down the road with a load of beams, it's a good chance it came from Nucore Yamato. Right next door, Newcore Hickman produces sheet steel, and it's in coiled form. So if you see a truck with a big coil on it, maybe it came from from Newcore Hickman, but that may be going into an automobile or into an appliance. Yeah. So those take different grades. It makes different chemistry requirements, different strength requirements, right? Um, but different applications for different products across Newcore.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

You know, I don't let's tell talk to our viewers a little bit about how Mississippi County itself has just really become the steel capital of America. I tell people we're the steelers now, and they say, no, we're not.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

Well, we kind of sort of read.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

It's it's it's funny to think about, but now Mississippi County, I mean, when I started in 1998, it was evolving from a cotton field into a into a steel mill or two. And uh now it's the largest steel manufacturing county in the U.S., which is quite a change over the steel capital of America in less than 30 or so years since I started. It's it's crazy. Wow. Uh, but there's so many opportunities now in the steel industry in Mississippi County, um, with A State. We partner with you guys and ANC on a lot of stuff. And uh there's some really, really good opportunities that y'all have partnered with us on to make sure that people in this area who won't want to work in the steel industry can stay in the area, have really good, meaningful jobs, take care of their families for uh a long time to come. And my family has certainly benefited from that.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Um, so one of the things that we're trying to do is really make sure that the labs that we build aren't just, you know, labs that are theoretical or in an ivory tower, but they're labs that, you know, are exactly like what the kids would be using or people upskilling on. Um, and again, going back to our partnership that's real, not just a brochure, but so talk a little bit about like how important that type of partnership is for your workforce development and and people joining with the skills they need to succeed.

SPEAKER_04 9:28

Sure, yeah. Especially around the labs, you can imagine there's a lot of testing that goes on with our finished product. And customers uh require certain grades or certain uh tensile strengths be met or Sharpie tests, and there's a there's a breadth of that, but it's also pretty specific to the steel industry. Yeah. So the more that we can have uh maybe an education or teammates aware of what it takes, and it's uh, to your point, more of an exact replica, right? Not in generalities, but that's something that could benefit the industry in Mississippi County for sure. Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

Today we are very fortunate to have with us Randy Zook, who's president and CEO of Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce. Randy, thank you so much for being here today. Appreciate it. Appreciate you so being here to talk. And we've known each other for a long time, but we got to reconnect again recently at an event that we took a risk on and put together called Catalyst, where we were really bringing in industry from around this region and then making sure that high schools and two years and four years and we're all involved so that industries are talking to each other and then that higher ed's talking to them too. And we really think that that's kind of a great place to start getting ideas going and relationships going. And wanted to know what you thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Well, first of all, it long overdue, but but uh gosh, it's a it's exciting to see it begin and and get off the ground. It's exactly what we need to be doing in other parts of the state as well. Um get the people who can make decisions, who have who have control of resources, who can stroke a check, right, who can change direction on on learning something, get those thought leaders and decision makers in the same room, and good things are gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Um, you know, we hear a lot about workforce development, and you know, we're doing a lot with Crest, our Crest Center, career readiness education skill development. Um, and we're partnering with ASU Newport and ANC. Um, and we want other partners to come help with that too. Um, but I also hear a lot from industries about what they this is not my term, but they call it a workforce continuum. Um, and they need a lot of that type of training. And then they're saying to me, well, hey, we need accountants too, but we need accountants that know the industry and we need supply chain people that know the industry, we need marketing, we need everything that a business would need, but we need some training. And that's a gap that higher education hasn't always filled. Um, but there's no reason we can't. I'm wondering if you're hearing the same type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

No question about it, Todd. All over the state, uh, industries are screaming saying, look, I I need somebody who particular pieces of equipment. Yeah. I need to be able to get somebody trained up for a couple of weeks. This is one of the pools in the slow on the funding formula for higher ed. I know it's a challenge for y'all because the way we allot money from the state and and the way academic um uh the academy has always financed it. So it's around degrees and it's around numbers of hours, classroom hours. Right. But a lot of the learning and the opportunity for some of the, especially like ASU Note Newport and and uh Arkansas Northeastern in the other two years, right, is industry specific, skill specific, technology specific, short-term courses.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Boy, that is the that's the magic sauce that we've been seeing. The people saying, you know, industries, different industries are saying, we really need this. Can you do that? We'll help you build it. And we're like, let's partner. Um and and you know, I don't mean a partnership like a brochure where a partner, but like really embedded in and helping them make the curriculum and helping make exactly this what they need to have. And you're right, it can be it can be over weekends, it can be over a seven-week period, it can be a month, it can be that kind of training, and it can really change a family and their kids' lives.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

I it just has stuck in my mind for like 15 years now, walking through a training area in a two-year and there was a kid over in the corner messing around with a device, a training device. And I walked over and I said, I asked him, I said, What are you doing? And he said, I'm learning how to program a PLC. And I said, Well, what's a PLC? And I knew what it was. He said, It's a program logic controller. Right. There are about 3,000 of these things in our plant. And if I learn how to program one, I'll get a $5 an hour bump and pay. I said, How long is it taking you to learn how to do it? He said, Well, it's a two-week deal. I come at night from six to eight. Love it.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Love it.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

That's that's yeah, that's economic development building.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Absolutely. Right. So we're hearing a lot. Um, just elaborate on that more. We're hearing a lot about, hey, can we add some courses here and there? And like you're saying, they're not necessarily a degree, they're a certificate or their level of proficiency, but in automation or in AI or in cybersecurity, because a lot of the people in the areas that they need, they can become so much more efficient if they understand how to use AI efficiently and safely within cybersecurity, that kind of thing. And we're having a lot of industries come and say, Would you put this together for us? And absolutely we will. And putting an AI together in a healthcare industry is a little bit different than in a steel mill or in a manufacturing plant. But we're tailoring it toward those industries, and then they're like, This is helpful. This is really help not only for the kids that are coming out, but for the people that for me that go, well, you know, I need to take this because I need to figure out how to do that as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

How do you ask the right question?

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But you're hearing the same type of thing everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

We're we're we're doing little AI things, and it's mainly just to sort of knock down the fear barrier. You know, people are scared to death to punch a button, you know. Yeah. Those of us who are right a little slow coming to all of us are today.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

We are so proud to have Ted and Amanda Hergett here, the heads and owners and founders of Gearhead Outfitters. Thank you both so much for being here today. Not only are they such successful people, but they welcomed us here to Jonesboro with open arms and friends and supporters. Thank you all so much. Really, really glad you're here, and thanks for everything, really, honestly. So now you have how many stores and how many states?

SPEAKER_05 16:01

I gotta look at the paper on that. I mean, it's that's fluctuating. I mean, we're we're sure steady over 20. You know, we're trying to, we just, you know, we're in a the mode we're in right now, it's like get getting better, not bigger. So we're really working on and we'll probably open five, six, seven next year. Um but today, I mean, we're just like getting ready to we're loading the gun. Right. Get I mean, just the back end, our efficiency side is what we I mean as you grow fast, you lose efficiencies, you know, right. Right just more and so now we kind of we're quick to close stores that aren't performing. It's just all ASU keeps pumping out badass kids. I mean, we hire them and they're working in Colorado and working all around. I mean, it's pretty I think we just grew from the staff. I mean, we didn't it wasn't our goal to grow. It just we kept hiring talented kids that were that would graduate. Like, I don't want to go to work, I want to stay here. So that's how that's how we started rolling stores out, more or less, just to keep up with the pipeline of talent we have.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Is that right? That's interesting. Wow, yeah. So do you look for students who are have that outdoor kind of lifestyle already, or are you looking for a different type of talent, or how do you go about that?

SPEAKER_05 17:12

Man, it's generally we always it's like hire the attitude, train the skill, you know, and it it man, in that in our business, I mean the outdoor lifestyles, man, it comes in many shapes and sizes. I mean, it's very true. Right. I mean, being outside is like walking your dog, or it's not climbing a mountain. I mean, that it that's the biggest issue, you know, thing to hurdle to come over, you know, is people always like that I don't climb mountains. There's nothing I can buy in your store. I'm like, you go and drink beer in the afternoon, like, yeah, you can put some comfortable pants and nice shoes and right. Yeah, dude, I gotcha. Like being outside is just being outside, it doesn't matter what you're doing. So I mean that's one of those things, stereotypes, you know, we've been slowly growing out of the last choice to we have. I mean, we've we've we've found it, we've found a good lane and and we're just trying to be the best in it. So that's great.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

Well, thanks for hiring A-state students too. Yeah, like I mean, you know, we're we're so proud, thankful for that. And students are and they love the career, they love the culture there. And you know, I know that I've meet students and say that's where they want to go work, and I'm like, yeah, that's a great place.

SPEAKER_05 18:18

Not that you have a career. I mean, we've got a lot of I'm not gonna say lifers, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but people have been with us for 10, 15, 20 years, and yeah, it's a really cool I couldn't imagine do anything else.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

Yeah. So Amanda, I've heard you talk about like half or a lot of your administrative staff and people are women. And is that something that you've really kind of pushed, or is that happened organically? Is that something that you're thinking about doing? I mean, I think it's unique to that company, and I think it's wonderful, but is that something that you've thought through that you need to have it to represent your customer base, or is that something, again, it happened because you're looking for the talent?

SPEAKER_00 18:53

It was never something that was planned. Ted has always been a huge proponent of anyone that has ideas or has, you know, the work ethic, it doesn't matter their gender, but he's always said women could run the world if they were allowed. And he's empowered me in so many ways to be able to stand for things I believe in. And again, back to these strength finders putting people where they belong. Right. And yeah, so much of our admin and management team are women, but it's not because we need female representation, it's just it really doesn't matter the gender to us, it's who is willing and ready to take that step. And uh, you know, one of our female leaders, she started with us at 19 years old, a student at Arkansas State in the business department. She was sales associate hired by her now husband. Um, but at the time he was the manager.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

Methodism runs. I'm telling you, man, it's this store that's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

We do have a lot of gearhead love stories. It's pretty, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

You two started it off, right? Yes. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

That's right. We, I think there's probably six, seven, eight. I don't know. I love it. Six or seven married couples. But yeah, so um Meg was hired by Heath as a sales associate, and uh they weren't dating at the time, but eventually, you know, she worked her way into management of our downtown store. She started going to market with us, started helping me buy. And she and I did that together for a bit. And then eventually I aged out of that. I realized probably in my 30s, like it's time for me to step down from buying and put my focus on a different area. So Meg took over as female women's buyer.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

And now she runs our entire supply chain. She's the head of distribution, all inventory control. She's the head of the buying team. She's got, I think, five buyers that work with her and in different categories. So it's a really cool success story. But again, it's not because we ever intentionally put women in certain places. It just kind of happened organically. Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Right. That's really awesome.