Episode 1 | The Story of PWI

In the first episode of The Forge, Ryan Miller sits down with his brothers, Darren and Kyle Miller, co-owners of PWI, to share the story behind the business their father started in 1979. What began as a small operation in Nappanee, Indiana, has grown into one of the nation's leading manufacturers of lifting, storage, and safety solutions.

Together, they reflect on growing up in the shop, carrying on their father's legacy after losing both of their parents to cancer, and what it's really like leading a family business. 

The Forge With Ryan Miller is a podcast created to help develop company cultures that result in strong teams and create lasting business growth. Real conversations with business owners, manufacturers, and leaders about what it actually takes to build something. Hosted by Ryan Miller, CEO of PWI a leading manufacturer of lifting, storage, and safety systems based in Indiana.

New episode every Tuesday — subscribe so you never miss one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

This week I was transferring a lot of files in that I had personal files that were on my work you know system, so I was transferring over to my personal uh Google Drive and I found some letters that I wrote to to uh to a dad. Um and uh so good morning.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Welcome to the forge, Darren and Kyle, my two brothers. Um it is good to be here. Um it's exciting to be here. We've been working on this for a long time, and um, and it it feels crazy to even be down here because things are so busy back at the office that uh it feels like we don't even have time to to be investing in this. But I want to I just I want to introduce my my two brothers, Darren and Kyle. I'm Ryan Miller, um, and my two brothers, Darren and Kyle. Darren is my second brother. Darren is about five years younger than me, right, Darren? I am 40 years old. 40 years old, I'm 45. Darren is Kyle is like 34, 34 years old. So um we're three brothers, the only three brothers in uh the uh Miller family. Uh um and we also have three sisters uh that grew up in the the family business as well. Um and so uh today just wanna talk about uh uh about how we got here in family business, how we started doing all this stuff that we're doing today. It didn't certainly didn't start uh the way that it looks today, right? So um um and we'll we'll talk a little bit about about some history, where we came from, uh, where we're going, what we're trying to build here as a as a company, and then also um digging into maybe just the relationship between us three brothers and and and the challenges we face there sometimes. And then thirdly, is kind of ending maybe with where we're at today, state of state of PBI today, uh state of um business today, and what we're wrestling with today. And we we we have challenges. And so um as as small businesses, uh, you know, uh, you know, um we everybody's struggling. And so we we we want to make sure that we're we're we're um you know, we're wrestling with the exact same stuff that everybody else is. It doesn't matter if if it's HBAC or if it's fabrication shops or if it's construction companies or working alongside those guys every day in the trades, and and we we get it. Like we we freaking get it. It's really, really, really hard.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

None of this is anything to do with us having it figured out. No kidding. We don't have it figured out. We're we're trying to figure some things out. We had a couple things that worked for us a little bit, but uh generally speaking, we are at the very, very beginning of trying to build something here, yeah. And uh, and obviously all with God's help and and can't do anything without him. And uh I I was I was watching a video the other day. Uh uh the guy's the guy said um that he he had a hit a Lamborghini, he was showing up at a school to pick up some kid that was getting bullied or something, and uh, and uh it was just being kind to them. It was really cool, uh like uh kind of you know, one of those you know, heartfelt moments type videos. And one of the other kids that was at the school said, Man, is that your car? Is that your car? And he said, He said, uh, no, it's actually it's actually God's car. He's just let me borrow it for a while. And I and I love that uh way of saying it, and that's literally what we feel like our company is for sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

We're stewards, right? I mean, I I I I always say, you know, this thing's way bigger than me, it's way bigger than us, and uh, and uh we wanna we want to honor God and what we're doing. You agree with that, Darren?

SPEAKER_04 3:41

Yeah, this actually the timing of this is pretty uh crazy. So one of the things we're doing right now, and we'll get into it probably later, uh, in our business is we are um um we're getting a whole new operating system. So we're we're going a whole new ERP. And through that, this week, um, part of the part of the yeah, part of that uh part of those uh changes are going from our our our first system to the new system. So this week I was transferring a lot of files. In that I had personal files that were on my work, you know, system. So I was transferring over to my personal uh Google Drive, and I found some letters that I wrote to to uh to a dad. Um and uh I I told him uh thank you for because dad passed away a couple years ago and about eight years ago, actually. And so I I thanked him for all the things he taught us, and um I just remembered um so so how we got there is we all we all worked um in the shop, including our sisters. All of us uh six kids worked in uh in the shop in different in various roles. But the the importance of what we were uh what we were taught was the the importance of everything we was was we he let us dad let us try things out and he didn't he did not tell us he he he he gave us advice when we wanted it and he would tell us if something was dumb some of the times, but as other times he would he would um he would just let us fail. Um he let me fail often, actually. Um and when the one one uh cool story I have real quick here is is uh my brother Ryan here. Um this is my favorite, this explains my dad the best, is that um um so uh we had a sp I was welding something in the shop one one day and I was I was fixing something for a customer because we do a lot of repairs. We had a three-man, four-man shop. So I was doing a repair or making a bracket, and I had welded something up, and so so the paint shop was right there. The paint shop was in the shop. So you grabbed the spray can and you the fab shop was the paint shop, right? Yeah, right. And so we so we we would we would paint this thing. So so I was getting a brand new cane. It was a spruce spray uh spray can. Uh this the brand spruce, they were five or six bucks apiece. I'd grab this spray can, it's hard to shake it up, but to remove the cap, there's several ways to remove that cap. I was probably you know 13 or 14, so you know, child labor, child labor basically, you know. So um, and um, and to remove the cap, I was you could either twist the cap really hard, or you could um take a screwdriver. And Ryan and Ryan said, you know, take a screwdriver, put it in the little slot, yeah, and pop the cap off. Or that's truly the right way to do it, by the way. That's what Ryan told me at the time. Uh sorry, and uh, but or if you're cocky like me, you could take the spray can and and take it on the side of the workbench and just slap, just slap the thing, yeah, it'll pop the cap off.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

But you hit the cap, the plastic part of the cap. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Yeah. But but but but half the over half the time you'll break off the nozzle, yeah, and and which which which the whole can is junk. Yeah. Okay, but I was cocky. I'm not cocky anymore. Definitely, definitely have that's true, yeah. Right, definitely. Exactly. And um, and I and I went, I went, I was shaking the can, I went up to knock the can off, to do do it my way, and then Ryan stopped me, and Ryan's like, no, no, no, use the use the screwdriver method. And dad was there, and dad was like, told Ryan, no, let him let him do it his way. So I so I was like, yeah. And so I smacked it on the side of the table, and and it broke the kid off, it just broke the thing off. It was a five-dollar can of paint, and we tossed in the trash. And then dad said, now you learned your lesson.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:25

And so that was a powerful, uh, because because I am uh my my personality is really strong and and my way is the best.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Um, but I learned which is which is really what we still wrestle with today. We uh we all three, um, we're all we're all three high DIs on the disc profile. Um and we all three have opinions. That's what makes that's what makes working with family, working with your two brothers so hard. I'm gonna I'm gonna dive this, I'm gonna pull this back to 1979. Okay. So so uh our parents, uh Paul and Susan Miller, uh bought a two and a half acre property uh south of Napane, Indiana. Nobody knows where that's at, but that's in the middle of a cornfield in Indiana, uh, about as flat and as boring as you can get. Uh maybe not quite as bad as Kansas, but cornfields uh essentially. So better than Kansas. So it's better than Kansas? Okay, better than Kansas. Easily. Um so uh my dad grew up on a farm and and and he wanted to he wanted to he liked the repair side of the business. The the repair side of the farm worked better than he did working in the field. And so he left his family uh business and started this company with my mom. And so a huge risk. It took a huge risk, took a huge risk. Um and so and we're grateful that he did that, but it but but quite honestly, didn't have a lot of vision. He called it Paul's welding and repair in those early days. That was the big sign up by State Road 19. Where also grandpa, also grandpa did did help him get started too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little cash or a little inheritance early uh investment, whatever that was, to help start the business. So essentially, I uh we we all grew up in the business. I mean, I'm the oldest son. I was born in 1980 the next year, and you know what, five, six years old, I was out there in the shop helping my dad welding. Um, I'm not sure the other brothers were quite as early as I was because uh my dad needed me uh in the shop. How old are you? I think I was six years old when I was welding out there. Not every time you say that, it gets a little bit more. Not for customers. I was. I was welding. Not true. Not true. So so dad would always give us all the free steel we wanted to, if we wanted to have to to be able to play with stuff and build stuff. And I'm and I'm talking about just building stuff, just welding stuff together and playing with, you know, making a pitchfork or something. Just big guns. Yeah, whatever. Big guns. I was building, yeah. So tell us a little bit, Kyle, tell us a little bit about about the you know, Kyle came along, uh, you know, the latest of all bulbs. So so that's that was the early years in the 80s of our dad starting to trying to build this welding shop business, which is a lot of farm repair. Let's just kind of cover the 80s a little bit, Kyle. You were born in in 92. So let's let's actually hit Darren for that question. What do you what do you remember in the 80s? Those are 85, so I don't remember. I mean, uh probably 90s, but I remember the so fast forward then, I mean, that's what you know, there were two or three employees in the shop. Uh, and and let's fast forward into the nineties then. So in the mid-mid mid-90s, um, there were still only four or five employees total in the shop, uh, maybe only three or four, actually.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

I think I think you should mention Ryan Dad was a farmer, and so he was fixing farm stuff because of the relationships he had and and the things he knew about farming. Yeah. And so that's what it was just natural. And then he would build small things sometimes like like uh you know, like a custom uh whatever type the type of implement for a tractor, something that a cut that a farmer needed, but he also knew kind of how that was. Yeah, and so he it was kind of his skill set because he was a farmer, you know what I mean? But so just general fabrication was what he was learning, but he knew the farming.

SPEAKER_04 10:34

So it's important to note the farming industry is a lot different back then than it was today, as as everybody probably knows that. But like, so back in the day, the the farmers did not have much of a repair shop, they really didn't have a welder, maybe a stick welder, but probably their own their own shop. They're to go in repair things, yeah. So so they would come to the shop every literally every other day. But there's local farmers that I would see every other day in the 90s. Yeah. Um, and and and so so they would come and that would that's where they bought steel. That's where they got their their breakfast, which was a candy bar in the Mountain Dew, and that's where they that's where they got their PTOs fixed, hydraulic poses, so everything was there. They wouldn't go to nap in town, they would stop in and get a hydraulic hose made. Yeah um every every two or three hours.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Which is a really key point because that's that's where that's probably where we were we learned relationship from from our dad. It was was was he dad had a very, very good relationship with with all the local farmers and and and construction workers, people that would come in to get things repaired.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Um on a rainy day, on a rainy day, the farmers would, if they were bored, they would come and play basketball at the shop. I learned that recently. Yeah, yeah, which is my dad playing basketball was also uh hard hard to fathom.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Yeah, yeah, I get it. So, so those are those are the early years. Losing my voice here. Those were the early years of the of Paul's welding, which is now PWI. Uh, and PWI uh you know stands for Paul's welding incorporated, at least it used to, uh, but today it's just PWI, those, those uh, that those three letters. Uh but uh let's go back into the 90s. So so into the 90s, I I we talk about this a lot, and and Kyle, you were just you were just a kid, you were just a baby in the in the 90s, but it's somewhere in the mid-90s, uh what I always say is is is the manufacturing places of northern Indiana, which which is a lot of manufacturing. So we we are in the middle of a cornfield. Uh that that hasn't changed in in five decades, but but what has changed a lot is that you know manufacturing has just grown a lot. And so you had the Utilomasters and you had the uh you know um uh holiday ramblers, which was then Monaco, which is now part of Thor, uh RV industry that was growing there. Uh you had Newmar uh branching off and building their own first plant. You had Keystone firing up uh late 90s, I believe. So so all some of these, some of these RV plants and other manufacturers were really getting getting growing. And so what happened is they would call our dad um in those early years and say, hey, can you can you weld, put a beam in the ceiling for in of our building? We put them trolley. Guys uh yeah, modular housing is also a big deal in our in our community as well. So that's really how it started was was hey, can you weld this this lifting beam into our ceiling? And we, you know, we're a welding shop, so dad would say, sure, why not? And so we we you know, in those days we had one truck with a with a with a portable miller bobcat generator welder on the back, and we would go install uh that stuff. And you know, we'd a couple guys would leave the shop. There was no install crew or crews, uh, they would leave the shop and go install that stuff. And so uh I remember my mom dropping me off after school in the in the mid-90s, setting up Newmar's first big you know assembly plant, uh which which was which plant seven, which was just uh you know about a mile from our school. Um and so uh and I would help at 15, 16, you know, after school help with that job. So that's kind of how we got started. What are some other things you guys want to add, Darren? What do you want to add to that? Because you were remember more than Kyle would.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

One story, uh uh uh Monaco or Holiday Ramware back in the day, um, and Walcarusa was putting a plant up, and we're doing a big job there. And um, I remember um dad had a new truck. Um, dad bought a fairly new truck, which Ryan poked holes through it within the tailgate. A few times. Yeah. Um uh forklift holes right through the back of the tailgate, which that was just one of his mistakes. We'll get to more of them later. Yeah, I probably should have.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

Um, anyhow, but we didn't have the certified cards yet at that point. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Um, but we were so so from Walkaroosa to Napa to south of Napanee is about you know 13 miles or 12 miles, whatever that is. And so so we would work all day. Um, Ryan, dad, and myself would uh work all day up there, and then on the way home, I was still like 15, which how is that legal? I don't know, but I was there working. So and then on the way home, Ryan was.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

Oh, it was not quite as stringent back in the 90s, let's just put it that way.

SPEAKER_04 14:47

Right. And so we so on the way home, we would drive. So I was I was so I was 15, I was all anxious to drive, but I didn't have my license. So as a single cab Ford F-150, long bed red truck. And so we we I sat in the middle, Ryan was on the passenger side, dad was driving, they were both tired, but I was wide awake because I could drive. So I would drive, so dad would put the cruise on, and I would just I would drive and they would both sleep, and I would have my cruise, the cruise control with the speed with my left hand, and I was wide awake because I had 12 miles of driving experience.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

So oh my goodness. I mean those those were the early and safe years of PWI for sure. So um, so let's let's let's jump jump into the 2000s here. Um, and so again, the first the first two decades of the business were were virtually the same as far as uh employee count, as far as what we were doing. Now keep in mind in the 90s, as we were, as we were doing some of this industrial work, we were still fixing farm repair stuff. So in the middle of building, you know, one crane, we would still we would fix a combine the very next day, you know.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

And it was just it was just but it was also I was gonna mention, right? Do you got to explain a little bit maybe people that aren't in this area, in this Elkart County area, which we're in Casquiasco County, but very close in service, most of our work is in Elkart County. Sure. And uh in this in this area.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Our regional work, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

And uh so in Elkart County is is not in the most populated county in the US or anything like that, but for the people that do live there, it is the most dense area in the U.S. for manufacturing. So people working in manufacturing, you know, per thousand is the number one in the U.S. So it's it's an incredible amount. If you're the the chances you're working in an RV factory or a modular home factory or other bunch of other industries is the highest percentage in the in the whole US. So even though it's a smaller population, it's not Houston, it's not Chicago, it's not uh, you know, wherever you pick some of your Philadelphia, whatever, it's still high, high, high density manufacturing. Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

One thing I want to note too is that so so before we get into manufacturing is so one thing that we we'll get into later is is that we in the early uh well in the 90s, we s with Dad did a lot of he tried a lot of production parts. So he so we did we built the cable sealers for anhydrous applications. So built we built thousands of those.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Remember those days, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

Um and that was a uh a uh reusable part or a um what do you call it? Consumable consumable part of an anhydrous application uh in a field, so it would it would cover up the dirt uh as an hydrous was injected in the ground. So we're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Farming related and our dad understood farming.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

So we built we built mint we built mint wagons for for Jeff Fervados, uh uh, and there's and they're still in business. And so Jeff Fervida's still farming mint. Yeah, right now I'll be able to do that. Um so we built we built a lot of those um um repeat items. And we and dad, dad tried, dad did a lot of um uh he tried uh building mechanisms for doors for buses, and he did he tried to get into high quantity, high volume stuff, some and then and then I um and then and so so can kind of fast forward to to to how we got into more custom. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

I I would I wanted to I wanted to hold that thought a little bit. So so let's just fast forward into into early 2000s. And so um what what one of the things that that's that that'll just break the news to you now is that both of our parents have died died from cancer, and that was one of the hard things that we wrestled with as a family. So fast forward to early 2000s, I got married in 02. Uh my mom passed away from cancer in 04. Um and what I always what I often say is that is that I I kind of checked out or my dad kind of checked out at that time in 04 as well. I always say when I when I lost mom, I kind of lost dad as well. We kind of lost dad as well emotionally. Um he was there, uh, he was around, but but his his drive for for business and the growing the business kind of kind of died along from with my mother.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

So not not that his work ethic died, no, but his his his his his uh yeah his drive. Yeah, he was he he worked he was We were both 49 when when mom passed.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yeah, she was 49 years old. So it was it was early and it it was it was a whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

Dad kind of re- So Dad lost his CFO, he lost his you know office manager, office manager, he lost his business business partner, really.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

So rightfully so, it was just it was just it was some really, really hard years. Not that not that you know um you know they're not all hard, but but but uh and challenging in their in their own ways. But just want to just want to kind of set that that time frame. So 2004, we're 20, you know, 25 years into the business, whatever that is, and and we still were probably only uh 10 employees at that time, whatever that was. And so um what year? Uh 2004. Maybe maybe eight or nine, but but let's say build I'd say sub-ten uh team members of that time. So what what what happened there's I'm the oldest brother um in and I dropped out of high school uh to do this. Uh and and I'm I'm thankful. In fact, we all three did, uh, which is which is something that I used to be ashamed of talking about because I didn't have my diploma and all that. But I I really look at it as a as part of the story, part of part of the God story. If if I had finished high school uh as the oldest brother, again, Kyle was a little baby, I mean a little kid, right? So still is Kyle still is a little bit babies, right? So um, but but uh if I if I had finished high school, if I had gone on to college and done something else, came back at 22, 23, uh, I would have never ever been ready to to work in the business and somehow lead the business uh after my mom died, and my dad obviously checked out. So, or our dad checked out. So uh that's what kind of that's that's that's a pretty pretty massive time timeline stamp there is is 2004. And so we're there, and and and by the way, Ryan, uh myself, terrible leader. I was I was I was trying to be a boss. I was pretty arrogant about what I knew and what I didn't know, uh, and not not very open with what I didn't know. And so so just there's some there's a lot of stories around that era of time that I think we could hit. Darren, what are some other memories you have around that that very time? Around uh you you were working in the shop in 04?

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Yeah. Uh well, I would do, I would do in 04-ish, I would do, I would work in the shop. I mean, I did I was the paint, I was the I would weld things, I would weld stairways, I would weld work platforms, um, that are basically scaffolding for uh for industrial or for RV factories. Um, and I would uh then I was the paint guy. So when we had a a paint day, a paint day was a big deal because we didn't have a paint booth, we didn't have an area, uh a specified area to paint in.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Um so we would shut down the shop and we would put plastic over all the machinery, um, basically a half day of prep to paint to paint in one project because it was a big deal.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

We'd throw pat plastic over the saw and over some other areas.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

And then we would we'd get it all set up.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

That was a cup gun, right?

SPEAKER_04 21:22

It was a cup gun with uh first it was, and then we and then we would switch to an airless spray. Oh, yeah, I forgot about it. That took about two or three hours to clean out for me. Not that I'm the fastest, but so that was I forgot that you painted, yeah. Yeah, it was a big deal. And then I would do and then I would do um on-site installs too. It was kind of kind of the full that really that was a huge part for me because I was able to fab, paint, install, hook up trailers, deliver, deal with customers on site, gives you a full spectrum of of projects.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

It does. So so I want to clarify. Kyle mentioned about what what our county, and and I just want to just say the blessing that Elkart County is to our to, you know, the the fact that we're here in this area was. Is massive because we could be stuck in the middle of Missouri where there is no manufacturing, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Um we just we're crapping on Missouri and Kansas. I love what you pick.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

I have I have some friends in Missouri. So I so so no yeah, Missouri's fine. I mean Kansas But there is there is areas like in like Nebraska where it's just literally farming. There is no manufacturing anywhere. Uh some of the big cities do, but but but legit, we are in the hub of manufacturing, as Kyle said, number one manufacturing spot in the in in the U.S. And a lot of those are density, dense density. Correct, correct. Yeah, density. Uh mean it's not the biggest county, not the most populated county, but but of the percentage, uh it's the highest density. So um, but just just want to shout out here to the RV industry customers that got us started. I mean, there is uh today we we we still work for work for all of them for forest river and for coachman and for Newmar and for Winnebago and for Brinkley, all those guys, Thor, Thor, Keystone, Dutchman, Crossroads, uh Airstream in Ohio. Uh, but those guys really, really um gave us a shot in the early years. I shout out to Keystone RV, which was one of my first big customers, uh, was Bob at Keystone. And so Bob Pettett. Yeah. And so uh Bob gave me a shot in the early years there. Uh 03, 04, still a customer today, right? Uh, but him and Brent gave me a shot and and back in the day when we had you know under a under a dozen team members and and we were figuring it all out. And so that that really then in the early 2000s and growing into 2000s really gave us a platform to say we kind of are creating a product line, Darren. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

Yeah, so so what so one thing that I was um so I I went uh this is this is probably in 2008 or not, probably yeah, at least 2009. Um I was I was uh well no, it'd be it'd be later even than that. I mean, but probably 2010. I I I I came into sales in 2010. Um I got married in 2010. So that year I came into sales. And um, and I went I went to dad and I I was sitting down, I was telling dad, I was like, Dad, we need a product line. I was thinking, you know, I look at all these other manufacturers uh in the area. There's there's there's uh other other manufacturers in the area too, like other industries, like um attachment industries or sure um um skill attachments or whatever. And I look out there and and they're and I look at their uh I look at their uh lots and they're full of just you know you know two different part numbers, just just just just mass production. And I'll and I'm like and I was envious of that because I was like, man, that's that's that'd be so cool because we could if we could sell a bunch of them, then we can make a bunch of money and it'd be easy. We draw it once and go. Yeah, you were getting weary of the one-offs because I I asked Dad, I said, I said, I said, I said, why what we need a product line? I said, Dad, we need a product line. Okay, now I was thinking let's just let's find this one thing and go. And obviously, uh you know, mass production uh of mass producing you know products is also a good industry, it's just different. And dad told me he said he said that we have a product line. And I was like, and as soon as he said that, I was like, it hit me, it hit me, it gave me a whole new perspective to what he was, what what he what he was what he had been working on very hard to to work on, and he needed help to develop, but like that gave me the a clicked.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Kyle, explain what the product line, what Darren's referring to. What was that product line that that that dad was referring to?

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Well, I want to I wanna back up a little bit because I didn't say I got into business too before that, but but uh in 08 I dropped out of high school at 16, I was I finished 10th grade. I have one more grade than Ryan and Darren, so obviously I'm a lot smarter. A little bit worse. I got my GD too, which I've never had to use for anything, but I did I did get my GD. Well, 08 was crazy. I dropped out of out in 08, and 08 was was you know crazy downturn in the economy, especially around here. I think if the national uh unemployment rate was about 10%, uh Elkhart County rate was about 20%. So it was it was a it was rough times, very, very rough times. Remember Obama visiting and that kind of thing to to uh to you know talk about it all. But basically, when I got when I dropped out, all of a sudden there was no work. And so I worked for a couple weeks. I was working part-time in the summer, I mean full-time in the summer and then part-time in uh in the winter before that. But then now I'm 16 and want to work. And then dad, uh, I think at that point there was about eight or nine guys, if I remember right. And then a cup uh, we had to do a layoff, and I was one of them. And uh when I got laid off, I said, Dad, okay, it's I'm I'm gonna go get a job at McDonald's or something like that. I remember specifically sitting in his office telling him that I'm I'm gonna go get a job at McDonald's. I'll I need to do something. And he said, Well, you can't go, you're laid off, but you can't go work at McDonald's because we still need somebody to paint. And so, and I said, Well, what does that even mean? So I'm not getting paid. Yeah, just deal with it. I said, Okay, so so you know, obviously he was paying for my for my my food and my clothes, so I couldn't, you know, I didn't your house, yeah. I didn't really have to do much else. So, but anyway, so I I ended up uh painting for free for a couple months, I think. And then I did not know that. And then uh officially I bet he got paid. I I bet dad like handed him, you know, yeah, because I was a baby, so dad will take care of that. He's always the baby, yeah. But I think that what's uh uh also happened, like just this is the the the recession times, scary times, no work, all that kind of stuff. And then just right around the corner from 08, when I when uh we bought our first CNC machine, I think it's very, very important that that you took before we get into product lines. We you don't, as a business owner, you don't know what you don't know. Yeah, you don't know what you're missing out on if you don't have it, and so you you don't believe it until you're using it and it's part of your workflow. Yeah, and so when we bought uh a Vicon Plasma Automation uh uh CNC 5x20 HD Plasma uh in 2009. We still have it. We still have it, it's still working every day. It's I thought it was 2007. It's still in nine. Was it really? And uh, because I was the first guy running it, I would have still been in school.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Yeah, I literally thought that was 2007.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

That's 2009, January 2009. I remember very specifically uh is when we started.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

I remember unloading it on off the truck.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Yeah, that was a it was a big day.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

It was our first nice machine.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

I think it cost about 120 grand, something like that. And it was a massive purchase, especially in a down economy. And uh, we had no clue how to run a CNC, you know, piece of machinery. And so I started learning, and the the guys out there they're in Meadville PA, uh great guys, they basically trained me how to run how to be a CNC operator, and uh and anyway, but it it totally changed the the idea of what we could do, what we could produce. If you could accurately produce parts every time from a CAD file to to you know to actual product, it changed so much back into what Darren thought about.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

At the time we had we had I remember talking about that purchase, we had thought, well, we could probably keep the machine busy one day out of out of out of five. You know, was our was our thing. We justified it. ROI that's a lot of things. And we used to and and we also uh back in the day, we mentioned this too, but like we when we bought our hem our first hem saw, um, it was a vertical bandsaw, we would we we used to do custom uh saw cutting for one of our suppliers. Yeah um and and it was it was so we would we'd get three-inch shaft in and we'd cut it, we'd be cutting for days. I'm sure we made a little bit of dollars on that. Yeah, you know, um, but it it it's we tried some of that repetitious stuff, and and and we soon found that it's not not fair.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Well, what is what what what it was crazy is I think I think that's that's a really good point, guys. I I I think what's crazy, and I I this is triggering things in my memory that I that I've haven't thought about for years, honestly. Like, like I remember like the ROI justifications that we did. We were like, we're gonna buy this hem saw, which I think was 1995, that was in the 90s. That that thing was old already. It was old in in the area you're talking about. But uh, but every time we would do this this justification saying we're going to do X amount of work for other people and justify that machine with that. But what what what happened really, really quickly is it was it was cutting our own products. It grew really quickly. It grew our business, and we have the equipment to do it in-house and it gave us control to do that. And uh, you know, we're kind of control freaks, and so we we we today have have really tried to gain control of every area of the business so so we're able to keep promises to customers as much as possible. Um so let's let's go back to okay, we're now we're now we're in now we're in the in the middle two thousands here, um late 2000s. Kyle, you're you're you're saying 09 was was when you kind of came on then full-time. Oh eight, yeah. Okay. And so so where does that take us to? We're we're we're we're in that era then uh we have at that point, uh, I would say, guys, I I my memory's rough here, but 20.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

No, no, no, it was 10 or 11. 10 or 11? Yeah. I think we had 25 employees by 2012. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

Uh, but so it's yeah, I have this chart I've this chart back in my office that I look back at sometimes, but it's always blurry on what what years were were what. It's hard to remember it all. But um it's it's give us a little little bit a little different peak, Darren, from that area, from from that era from your perspective. So you you had gotten married, you're married a couple years now. I remember I remember you were 2010. So I so let's just go to that that that moment there. So I remember Darren talked to me about you know, what am I gonna do in the business? What am I gonna, you know, what's what's my role in the business? And and you know, I was I was the the general manager-ish. Again, remember dad had kind of checked out, so I was kind of running the place, but dad was there every day. Uh he was there guiding, directing, um, and but as far as dealing with employees and hiring and all that there, that was that was on me.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

You missed it, we missed a big uh pivotal thing thing was uh the big the big the big shift was uh way back, Ryan, when we when when when those consultants came. That story is the most pivotal.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Yeah, I think I think we'll hit that a different it's it's that's that's a whole episode by itself. I want to do that, I want to do that about sales. We basically what Darren's saying is we learned the importance of sales. And there'll be a there'll be an episode coming in in probably in a few weeks here where we're talking about the importance of sales, and it's a really big deal.

SPEAKER_04 31:45

Sales and just and just uh delegation, right? So delegation and and putting yeah, putting people in the right spot.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Yeah, we're we're blowing past a lot of stories, a lot of a lot of lessons that we've learned the hard way, for sure. But uh trying to give a little bit of history about how how we got to 2026.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

So then 2010, so I was in sales, and I I love I love custom. I love so I I'm in I'm VP of engineering now, so um, so I have a great team. That's I don't do my myself. I have about 20 20 engineers on my staff, and uh, and we just had our first P2. So we have our we have uh P on staff and um and we have I have a great fantastic team um the to to to do design all kinds of custom stuff. But one thing I I love doing I love figuring things out so I loved so when I got into sales, I I I gravitated towards um the weirder the better, basically. Um I did some some standard stuff, but I is that true, Kyle?

SPEAKER_02 32:37

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 32:37

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

It was Darren, Derek, Darren could sell Darren would sell something for half price, it's kind of like dad, half price and three times as more complicated than he than he planned for. It was as a regular, and then it would, you know. I remember getting into sales when I first got into sales in 2017, taking over some of Darren's existing projects. Oh my goodness. One of them was to a local company uh Polywood, you know, and I I went through something, I think we charged them seven thousand dollars for it. And when I went through it and quoted the way it actually got built, it was probably like 25 grand, you know. But that was just a normal Darren. That's why Darren's no longer in sales. Darren was not a profit generator, no, but he thought he is.

SPEAKER_04 33:10

But quite honestly, though, it wasn't either that. It's still a very good customer. They are, so you earned their trust and fantastic based off my foundation that we I started after all the losses, yeah. No, but so I gravitate towards uh uh the more custom stuff. So one one of the one company that we we ran into was uh Unifrax, and and they're and they're still in business. I think they changed their names uh possibly, but they're up in in New Carlisle, Indiana. And they uh they build a big new data center, yeah. Yeah, close to the new and they and they make um high temperature installations for like uh for like uh firewalls in in in cars and fire and also um aerospace stuff. So really, really, really, really complicated project. So we started off doing a project there. Um Jack got Jack got us in there, Jack, uh Jack Corbin got us into there. Oh sure, one of our sales guys, and um, and then I took that count over because it and then we dove into really custom fabrication, pressure vessels, all kinds of stuff that we I learned a tremendous amount about. Um, and honestly, we just after several years of doing that kind of work and after a lot of failures, and they were gracious to work with us, yeah. Um we but we we we we we we went down that road too far, way too far into this specialty into the custom the custom world, yeah. Um and then and then with customers like like Boyant Beauty, like Kick, uh Kick Custom Products and Lkart, um they they we did a lot of a lot of uh custom for them, but they they kind of have a lot of products that are kind of in our wheelhouse still. So it it with with with mezzanines and platforms. We just kind of had to find we we were in the process of finding what our niche is and where where the where the outsides of our boundaries are.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

Yeah, so I want what I want the the listeners to the audience to to feel here is that it it it's it's it was two, three decades of wrestling, at least actually at least three, of wrestling with with who we are and and what we're gonna do to make a buck, right? And and the honestly, making a buck was really, really hard in the early years. Like like we grew up with absolutely nothing. I mean, I I I never felt poor, but we drove a wrecked 86 Mazda B2000 pickup five speed that I wrecked again. Yeah, my dad got a fit. We bought it wrecked, my dad fixed it all up, I wrecked it again. I mean, just shortly after.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

We went out on an out west trip when I was seven or eight years old, and dad took a personal loan out for that.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

Yeah, I think he he borrowed $10,000 because he couldn't afford to take our family on a Western trip. Yeah, but he wanted to do one big trip with the family, and and the business was not very profitable. Dave Ramsey's wrong on that one because it was the best money ever spent. So knowing what we know now, uh, with parents both being gone, of course, uh, best investment dad had ever made. There's a three-week Western trip. We never did things based. We worked, we grew up working evenings after after dinner, after supper. We'd uh we'd go out and work, we'd go out and sweep the shop, sweep.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Our house was about 300 feet. It's still there, that house is still there. We none of us live there, but yeah, but uh it yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

On the current property where the where the business is at.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

I don't think people that know PDBI today understand how much of a you know farm service thing were. I remember all the time farmers knocking on our door at 5 45 at night saying uh hydraulic hose busted out in the field. I need to go because I didn't finish because it's raining tomorrow. Yeah, it was so common, it was just what we did.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

Yeah, you're you're right. I it it's but I but I want to set the tone or the saying, and like like this has not been a you know, Dave Ramsey talks about this a lot. He talks about you know, overnight success, overnight success. No, he said, I've been doing this for three decades, and finally we're realizing uh a little bit of a little bit of profit and and some success all of a sudden, but it's not overnight. And we spent three decades trying to figure out who we are and what we do and what makes money. And and it was it was very, I remember being very, very discouraged in in even even in the 2000s, uh early 2000s, where like I saw my friends, business owners, uh my in-laws, my my other other companies I worked with buying new trucks, buying brand new F-150s, and and buying a Lariat or a King Ranch truck. And I was like, how, how is it even possible? We're we're working our butts off, we're working twice as hard as they are to get half the profit. How's that even you know it didn't seem fair? It didn't seem and so and but we wrestled with that, wrestled with that. And and finally, you know, uh we have we have found some things that work, right? And and and and and so I want to fast forward now to um to 20 um 17.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

So in 2013 is when we gave up pro uh farming you know once and for all. Like we didn't do farm repairs uh after after 2013.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

Yeah, I would have not known that year, Kyle, but we were doing a lot of other stuff up past 2017. So let's just fast forward, you know. So just picture this three decades of business, very small. Uh when when Trevor, uh Trevor, who is who was my assistant, hired him in 2019. Um awesome dude, jumped in. He he always that that that 2019 time frame always helps me understand. We were we were uh employee, he was he was like employee 57 or 59 in that in that at that point. So just so go back to 2019. Go back to 20, that was 2019. But 2017, uh my my dad has been alone for for uh for 13 years. Uh my mom had passed away again in 04. Uh he'd been he'd been alone for 13 years. He gets diagnosed uh with cancer. But that story is a story in itself, but uh he he he didn't have his will figured out, he didn't have anything figured out as far as his his um his estate plan or his trust. Nothing was figured out. And I I uh I was driving uh again, I was the general manager, president-ish in in 2016, 2015, those years. And I was driving with a friend back from Pennsylvania one day, and he he scared, he scared me to death and said, If your dad doesn't have stuff figured out, Ryan, your business is actually growing now. It's actually there, you actually are building some value. You actually, there actually is some assets now to start talking about. And and it was like, yeah, I I guess, you know, whatever. So, well, you know, he's I said, well, dad's perfectly healthy, he's 59 years old, 60 years old, whatever he was. I said, I said, I don't, I don't, you know, yeah, yeah, there's there's no plan. He said, Well, you got you go back to your you go back to your uh to your dad's office tomorrow morning and you make sure that he figures some things out. So um, and so uh I did. I did that Monday morning. This is that was on a Sunday. Mon Monday morning went back to my dad's office. I said, Hey dad, I I was talking to you know a friend of mine and and uh a person that my dad respected as well. I said, you know, he his dad also passed from cancer. So I I just I won't I think we should be working about working on what's next and what would happen if you get hit by a bus tomorrow. What'd happen if you get cancer? I mean, what that'd be terrible. And how are we gonna deal with that? And and dad was always very um I I will say he wasn't the the savviest business person in the world. He was fantastic at relationships. And so dad, dad really was open to product design in in relationships. He's really good at making a buck. He cared a lot more about relationships, relatives relationships than making a buck. It was always a much uh more important thing to him than that. People would sit in his office for hours, right? So I sat in his office that morning and said, Dad, we gotta figure something out here. And you know, I'm the oldest.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Can I applaud you one? I think it was very important from 2004 to 2017. It wasn't like dad wasn't super involved in the business. He was incredibly involved in the business. He just didn't, he just didn't um Ryan had the vision, especially in the later 2000s and uh and then to especially 2010s, had like, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep pushing this. Yeah, dad, dad was always in support of what Ryan was doing. Sure. Um, but it it wasn't like Ryan dad was completely dad was still very excited about putting a new building up, uh, whatever it was.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

It was as excited as he could be. Yeah. Is that fair? Well, it was, but there's there's shadow hanging over him all the time. You'd go in his office. I mean, what you don't understand, Kyle is I was trying to run the business and he was supposed to draw this project up that I had just sold. And I'd go to his office at 10 45 in the morning and he's bawling his eyes out. Yeah. And that last and I was like, I don't even want to do. I got I I I got a customer here. I uh so I walked back out. And I it was it was a lot of dramatic emotions for a decade or more. It was just rough.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

He just wanted to go to heaven to be with mom. Yeah, that was what it was.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

And his heart was his heart kind of left. And and again, he was there every day. Uh and so, and I'll get to that that part of the story. I mean, so when he when when you know when he was gone, we felt his loss massively as well. So it's not like he wasn't there. It's just um it was just it was a challenge to run a business and grow a business with uh the owner and CEO at the time and chief engineering officer uh to to you know to be in that state of mind because it was it was rough um for for him and and for us. So uh I want to throw in there that you know, th through all the through those years, we started having kids and he was a great grand grandfather. I mean, uh our kids have you know, so he dumped his soul into our kids and and loved them. Our kids absolutely adored their grandpa. So uh that gave him a lot of energy when we started having some kids. Uh me my sister and I and others, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:51

Yeah. So so one so one thing that I uh I uh I uh one thing I always remember from dad is that he so years ago, our neighbor, our neighbor Mike, had an excavator he wanted to sell, an old excavator that he wanted to um that dad wanted to buy. And it was a it was a mid-size Kubota excavator. And and dad said, he wants to buy this thing. And it was not much money. And so, but I was like, I said I said, I said, I told dad, I said, it doesn't make any sense. I said, this is like this is like maybe fift 2015 or so.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:21

I said, so dad, I said, it just doesn't make any sense. I said, why don't you just if you want to play around the dirt, then just then just uh call call the rental company and have them deliver you know uh an excavator over the weekend or for a week and you can buy a brand new one and and and and why are you buying why you why do you need an excavator? I said I said dad, it doesn't make sense. Yeah, and then and dad said, Does it have to make sense? Yeah, I said, Oh, well, now that you say that, no, it doesn't. And so like, like, I'm learning that I'm 40 now. And so, like, the question is, you know, when it's when it comes to when it comes to giving or doing things or buying things or enjoying life, you know, does it have to always make sense? Financial sense is a is a is a interesting thought.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

It it is so so let's let's jump into that uh into 2016 now. Remember, I I talked to my dad that morning uh about about writing his will, his his goals, and it's just him and I talking about. I mean, again, Kyle was really young, Darren was still pretty young as well. And so, so dad said, I'll work on it. So I pushed him really hard uh for the next six months. Uh I said, Dad, you know, where are you at this week? And I said, you know, I I I I didn't bug him daily, but probably weekly for sure. I said, Where are we at? We gotta work on this, we gotta work on this. And and I'm just I just don't want something to happen here, and we have a mess, you know, in our hands here, uh, you know, with what you want. I and and by the way, I I had I I had no strings attached to that at all. I I I had no idea what he had in mind. I said, If you do you want me to run this place? Do you want us to buy you out? Do you want us brothers and sisters to we remember we have three sisters uh who had worked in the business, you know, in the in the early years, uh as we all did. And then we have, you know, there's three of us brothers, of course. So I said, what, what, what, what should we do here? So, so uh fast forward to like July 17th that same year. This is February when I started talking about it of 2016. Yeah. And uh and fast forward to July. Uh, and he sent me, you know, and and dad never could type, right? So uh uh he also was a high school dropout. Uh I guess it kind of runs in the family. Uh but he he was he was a hunt and peck, you know, cut typer. So it kind of drove me nuts because he he couldn't type. He was probably the hat the fastest hunt and peck guy I've ever met in my life, but he was still slow. So he would write this email in Microsoft Word or I don't even remember, it was WordPress back in the day. Dad could have used AI to type emails. Oh yeah, goodness. He'd have loved it. He was on his computer, and and he wrote me this one-page uh PDF document or a word document that he dropped into an email, sent me an email in in the middle of July of 2016. And it basically just said, his this is this is the plan I have for the business. This is what I want to happen. Uh, if something should happen, I'm only 60 years old, but this is how I think the evaluation should look like. Uh, this is the you know the value that I think we should do this year. I think the brothers should ride the sisters out so y'all don't kill each other. And that was that was kind of his thing. He said, I just I just don't think it's gonna work to have six siblings running the business, especially if the sisters aren't working in the business. That's kind of his heart. And I I got that email. I was like, sounds fair, I guess. Sure, sounds great. And I it's good. I saved the document on my desktop or whatever, and so it wasn't on the server, so it was kind of private. No, dad was also really bad at file management.

SPEAKER_04 45:25

Oh, yeah, horrible. Yeah, yeah. So whatever file you got, you you never trusted to know where it is.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

So I mean, sure, I had it saved. So that's July of 2016. Fast forward only four months. It's Thanksgiving 2016, and my dad comes over to my house on a Saturday morning. I was doing something. I think I was putting a swing set in behind the house with the kids. He comes over Saturday morning, brings donuts over, which he did a lot. And he's sitting there on the tailgate of his truck, and he's like, I got this weird growth coming out of, you know, underneath my arm here. And it was like a softball-sized growth. It's getting worse. I'm not sure what to do. I it's probably just a weird cis thing. I don't know what it is. And I said, Dad, you gotta go check that out. That's crazy. You know, you gotta check that out. Remember, this is four months after he wrote his will, right? Uh, never had a will. Um, and um, and he goes to the hospital and uh gets an MRI and all that stuff there, and he is full of cancer uh in in uh in the days a few just a few days before Thanksgiving of that year. Uh terminal. Uh they gave him three months, whatever it was, and with some treatments, um, you know, he he he you know he he could extend that a little bit. But all that to say is is um so so grateful for yeah, dad was that was a very uh dad was very smart.

SPEAKER_04 46:36

Um so when we when he got the first uh you know, this is this is sad, but it's just it's just how dad thought he he uh when we uh Deborah and I and I think Danae, several of us went to to to uh the doctor visit when we got the results back.

SPEAKER_03 46:50

You're referring to your your sisters, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:51

Yeah, yeah, but Deborah's my sister.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

And Deborah, Danae and Valinda are three sisters, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:55

Yeah. And so uh so we went we went there for the for the to get the results back, and the doctor walked in, walked into the room uh without a clipboard. And uh, and he and and uh and dad said, Well, I know what that means. He just walked and I was there, and I doctor he walked in and he goes, Well, I know what that means. He goes, What do you mean? He says, Well, you don't have a clipboard. And then he and the doctor's like, well, you know, he said, and dad said, That means there's no options. And he said, No, you're right. So dad was pretty blunt with that, but it was also Well Dad wanted to know what dad dad loved truth.

SPEAKER_03 47:24

He's he just wanted he wanted to know, tell me, tell me where where it's at. And I remember the other thing he asked one day when I think when I was with him was was he said, Well, it's they said, Well, it's very treatable. We can treat this. He said, He said, Well, is it treatable or is it curable? Like which one? He said, Well, I didn't say curable, I said treatable, right? So we hate the C word, the cancer word. He'd been obviously really, really tough on our family. Uh, you know, you know, mom again in 04 passed away, and then and dad uh by the middle of that next year in 17 passed away as well. And uh, but it was very, very grateful that he was able to talk to all of us siblings about what his goals were for the for the business. And had that not happened, um, you know, we'd be we'd probably be in a much, much different place here. Um if you got hit by a bus, for example, without uh his will uh being written and his plan laid out as well. What's crazy is that what he wrote, you know, one year before, ultimately about a year, you know, uh before, uh, was exactly what we did. I mean, it was there was no there was no changes made to it. Um, and it was fair. It was uh I I think it was fair. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 48:23

You know, and we we we think that Ryan actually got the better than the deal. Oh, I made sure I was covered, of course.

SPEAKER_03 48:28

Right. So yeah, zero coercion there at all. But I it but it was, I think he did a good job of understanding again. Dad was not really numbers guy, but but he really thought through evaluation, you know, you know.

SPEAKER_04 48:39

Dad was not a numbers guy as when it comes to like transactional maybe or whatever or jobs, but he was a really, really good investor, and he knew and he was very smart when it comes to risks, yeah, and stuff. So like investments, risks, and and and um business, yeah, just yeah, business-wise.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

A great example of that would be like the combi lift thing. Uh, you know, a combi lift is a sideways forklift, like the lows trucks you see on the back of a uh uh uh you know of a of a lows delivery vehicle.

SPEAKER_03 49:08

But he but he basically allows you to take a long load right through a doorway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Drive sideways, yeah. Drive sideways. And but dad said, Dad, I think told you, right? They said, you will have we're gonna buy one of these combi lifts. It costs the used one cost 50 grand, something like that. We're gonna buy one and you're gonna have another one in like a couple months. And he did exactly that. It was now we have probably five or six in our facility, and they're they're amazing. You know, we make a joke about that in sales a lot. We we often sell combo lifts. I actually met a combo lift salesman uh in Denver a couple months ago and told him, like, you have no clue how many people have pushed to your product. Yeah, but away from cranes, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:41

But it's meet Kyle, our head of sales. He's he he he doesn't sell things, we sell solutions even if they're not ours. That's right. That's right. And that that is our motto. So so I want I wanna I want to start landing the plane here a little bit here on just the story, okay? Uh uh so so dad passes away in August of 2017, and it was a really, really rough time. And so what what I what I very, very, very transformational, the most transformational moment or months in my life, for sure. You could ask my wife that, um, and and my brothers probably as well. But something happened when when when dad passed away, and I I I felt the loss of him being gone and the weight truly being on my shoulders. It felt extremely heavy to me. And we we now had a business that was growing. Uh I again I'll probably botch the numbers here, but we were in the 40s probably that time, 45, doing 13 million in revenue that year. Um, and so um again, we go back to the early 2000s, we were we weren't even hitting a million dollars. I mean, in in the 2000s, we were still a sub-1 million dollar a year company. Uh, and I remember hitting 989 saying, let's just round it up, let's call it a million, we're gonna freaking win. It's probably a counting error. Or so that's that's that's way that's way. Yeah, Lebrian is really good with big numbers work. Yes, it can make them always always work. Uh, if if it's a rah-rah moment, we we make it work. But but either way, so remember going from one to there. So let's just say 2003, a million bucks in revenue. 2017, we were at 13. So we had experienced some growth, okay? Uh 2017 is is where we're sitting at right now. And I I I I saw pretty quickly that I needed help. And I was I was a boss, not a leader. I was a manager, not a not not a not not a leader uh in any way. Um, and so I called up uh uh Dave Ramsey's organization called Autre Leadership, and I said, I need help, like I don't know what to do. Uh and let's let's just set the tone here a bit for what was going on. I mean, we could probably dig about dig into this into its own episode some other time. We really we really should talking about you know delegation, management management structure and all that because we've learned some things the hard way. But back in those days, I mean that in that era, there would there would be this all office staff meeting. There was no leadership team, there was it was just Ryan the boss, and everybody else did what I said. And uh I was a terrible micromanager, I was a terrible delegator. Uh, but I I just didn't know. I didn't understand what to do. And and and and dad didn't know either. Dad never said he said was, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah. So uh past tense, of course. Um so so really what happens, I went, I went to my very first uh master series event at entree leadership, and I've been we've been very involved with them ever since. Uh and I joined a peer group for the very first time, but never been in a peer group. I've never hung out with other leaders in that way. I didn't do lunches with other people uh prior to that. But I started really, really saying uh uh as John Maxwell says, I am the lid. And that's one of the first books I read was 21 Laws of Leadership by by John Maxwell. And and John says, teaches that you know, you know, you are the lid to the company. You are you the company will always come up against uh whoever the leader is. And and I saw that, it stared in my face. And what was what's ironic is that is that you know, that book that I found off my dad's shelf, uh, you know, dad had begged me to read that book. And dad, dad, he read a lot more than than than I did for sure. Uh uh he read he read a fair amount. And that book he talked about, you know, leaders are readers, Ryan. You need to be leading and you'd be reading. And and so he tried to push me towards that. And I was kind of like, yeah, I don't, I don't need that stuff. Until after he was gone, I said, this is crazy. So I pulled up that book off the shelf in that same year and started looking at the things he had highlighted. It was very, very special. Today John Maxwell's actually signed that very copy for me. It's been very, very special. It's on my shelf here somewhere, I think. Uh, but what happened there is is every single thing about the company changed. Uh and so that so I I'm and I cannot I've told Dave Ramsey this personally. I've said, I've said, Dave, you have no idea what you've done with your teachings of what you've done for our business. And and every single thing has changed. Um starting 2017, into 2018, there, uh, it all changed. And what and what in a in a nutshell, what happened, um, we talked we've talked a lot about product line. I'm gonna I want to end with the product line, what changed there, but but I decided that it doesn't all have to be about Ryan. It doesn't all have to be about uh me gigging my hands into everything. Um and and so I I built the very first leadership team that that we had uh back in the day. And some of those same members are still uh on the team today. We it's grown a lot, it's changed a lot. Uh obviously we're doing this podcast now. So there's a there's a chief marketing officer, Brandon, who's heading this all up. This is all Brandon's uh you know child here, uh his brainstorm. So uh and so we're doing a lot of stuff now that that I that I could have never done with my own capacity. So we put in a VP of sales, and all of a sudden Ryan has no idea, uh has no idea what all we're quoting, what all we're selling. And the first sales guy or sales uh leader was Paul. Uh Paul Hirschberger was his name, not our dad, Paul, different Paul. And so Paul built a sales team out, right? And then and Darren became the VP of engineering, and and and uh Ryan no longer knew what was going on with engineering. Darren hired and fired that built that team up to be that. And and then, you know, the VP of operations. Paul Helmuth, yeah. Right. That's a whole story in itself. Yeah, our dad's name is Paul, and there's multiple polls still in the company today. It's super confusing. They all have nicknames, and uh it's a little confusing. So, but uh, but all that to say is we built this team out. And and and I came back and said, look, uh, after a week at Master Series in Nashville, I said, we need to write our core values. Uh we know what we stand for, we just have never put them on the wall, nobody knows what they are. And so we wrote our first you know, 10 core values, wrote a mission statement for the very first time, and and I started actually truly letting go for the very first time. They might accuse me of being a control freak at times still, and I probably am. Probably yes. Uh but but what what's happened in the last um in the last eight years is is nothing short of God's hand and blessing. Because it's it's it's far it's far exceeded what I've ever thought we could we could ever do, to be honest. And and I I I had big dreams, I thought I had big you know, bhags and goals. Um, we started doing things in that same era, had our very first offsite. Right. So three days, three-day offsite strategy sessions we started doing. And uh, I remember the first one was I think the very next year there, I mean, we got eight, ten people in a room at a hotel, had no idea what to do, uh, but spent two and a half, three days just hammering through what the next year could look like.

SPEAKER_04 56:09

If you don't think if you if if you're a company, I I've and and everything Ryan's saying, you know, um I I will say I disagreed and fought back on some of the stuff and I was and I was wrong.

SPEAKER_03 56:20

Um 100% especially the you guys both said you were wrong. Can we can we could we put that down in the in the annals of history?

SPEAKER_02 56:28

It's been uh it's there's a few yeah, few times in history I've been wrong.

SPEAKER_04 56:33

I I always I always say I'll I'll say I'm wrong, I just don't say it very often.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

Yeah, yeah, we're used to that, Darren.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

Yes the the culture, I think I think we we agree with your executive team push and and all that kind of stuff, but the culture was a hard thing for Darren and I to get behind. The culture shifts were were difficult because it was a lot of touchy-feely. Um it felt that way initially, right? And it just it just felt like I was in therapy instead of running a fab shop, you know, and and and and and a welder, we're welders, you know. What what are we doing here? Yeah, and and I think to a lot of people that come into the company now, even it can feel that way at first. It takes a little while for them to understand what we're kind of about.

SPEAKER_04 57:11

And uh when you so when you're right, but then when a customer comes in and this happens literally for sure every week, um, a customer comes in and they spend and they do a plant tour, and and these are these are these are brand new customers or existing customers for one of years that hadn't that hadn't been to PDBI yet, and they come here and they say the number one thing they say is yeah, it feels different here. Yeah. And and and they're sold, and the the the quote wasn't finalized. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:39

So I I want to just I want to give John Maxwell credit for that because I I I I heard John speak a lot. And Dave Ramsey. I mean, yeah, Dave, Dave preached culture as well. I would I always say I learned I learned the nuts and bolts of how to build a business from Dave. Uh but what John what John Maxwell taught us is culture. John's the one that pushed me on saying, it's all about your culture. If you want to grow this thing, if you want to, if you want to actually build something great, then the culture's everything. It's everything. And and make this place, you know, the best place to work in your community. And so uh, and and that really came over the last four years, is that we we really have transformation uh in our in our culture.

SPEAKER_04 58:13

But the offsite, oh the you mentioned the off-site, yeah. So so so uh the the off-site, the offsite meeting every year you do you should you should if you don't have if you haven't done this, you really should. If you think you don't have much to talk about, trust me, you do. I don't care if you're a a service company, I don't care if you're a um a plumbing company, whatever you are. Um, even uh one of your uh friends uh uh does uh concrete pumping. I was talking to him, yeah, and they and they started doing offset. There's only one day because they I told Greg, start with one day.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

It's okay, start with one day.

SPEAKER_04 58:45

But like, but it's amazing, it's amazing when you get a people in the room, other people than yourself in the room, and you talk about what if you you when you start making an issues list on the board on the wall, yeah, and you will find that you'll have several large lists when you're done of issues, and then you turn those into tasks, and then it takes a year to get them all done. Turn them into goals.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

Who does what by when after that, right? Uh it it so all so we we talked about you know the the things we did. Ryan had to let go, Ryan learned to delegate, and and and we build a team who was doing things in the company uh that I wasn't touching, and and it was a huge, massive deal for us. Then the culture shift happened, and so um, and so over the last eight years, we've we've we've we've grown a lot. We we just cross-tutored employees, we just celebrated uh the tour and employee mark uh yesterday in our all-employee meeting. Another big thing we do for culture is we meet with all the employees in the same room every single uh month. And so it's a really big deal for us to get together in the same room and and for the crews that are traveling, um, it it's uh you know they're it's live streamed for them to watch as well. So we we make it a really big deal. And so I think that's part of the latest win for us is is is culture. And and the culture is also allowing us to grow and expand at a rate that we never thought possible. And so we I wanna I wanna I'm gonna land that story with with well, what else changed? Of course, we changed our culture and we changed and and Ryan started you know delegating, started learning about leadership and reading, actually reading books and actually studying what it means to be the to not be the lid to the company, right? Um, so that's all great. But the other thing that that's that's really massive that we did is we also figured out how to get some laser focus and figure out who we are and what we do. So we we gave you guys a long story. We gave them a long story, gave our listeners a long story about welding and farm repair and and RV industry and all that, and and doing all kinds of weird stuff for weird customers that that we no longer do. For customers that had weird products. Yeah, we had great customers, weird products, custom one-offs, right? Um uh so we we decided one day that that these these this product line that that Darren was referring to, that our dad said you have a product line, and we woke up one day and said, we have a product line. And and it really came in the last decade or we said, this is crazy. Like, why can we not take these products to the nation? What why why are we stuck in in our county here? Why can we, why, why can we not uh serve customers like SpaceX and customers like national customers like Caterpillar and Ford and and other companies that we're working for today that that with the same products? We know how to build overhead cranes, we know how to build lifting solutions and solving space problems and manufacturing plants. We are manufacturers. Uh and so having having some of those solutions, offering them, and again marketing around that. That that's well, that was probably the biggest thing I'd say is that you can't market something that's you know a mile wide. Well, for sure. Uh so you can market things when they're when they're narrow and laser focused, and that's what that's what Brandon, uh chief marketing officer, has done is that he's really, really marketed uh us across the country and and and gotten us gotten us leads that Kyle uh as VP of sales is now is now answering to has built a Kyle 24 25 sales guys now?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:51

Yeah, somewhere in that range. Yeah, I shouldn't know the full number, but yeah. I was also gonna say, you know, Brandon, who uh who is the CMO now, he was also national sales manager for years. Sure. And it was at first, it was just kind of this little side note to the company because it was barely producing anything. No, no, national sales. Oh and and credit to him and his team. You should clarify that, Kyle. We we we have split in two different yeah, make that clear. Basically, because everything was so regional focused to our two-hour radius, uh, you know, a non-hotel job where our guys can drive to and come back, uh, was such was was everything. And then we said, man, what if we did jobs outside of that? We had done some jobs out out of the state out of state, uh, but more with customers that we had origin uh had acquired here locally. And so basically what we we didn't know if we could take this to the country. Yeah, and and and uh and it totally brand and his team, plus operations scaling for that, and and and crews being willing to travel and and you know, costing, figuring out what whatever if this is actually gonna work, was such a pivotal moment for us to realize that wow, we could actually sell around the country and be profitable at it because we thought we could sell across the country, but we weren't sure if we could make it make sense. Yeah, well and you know, the first year then it was 2024, I believe, was the first year that we actually sold more work outside of a two-hour radius than we sold inside it. So for the longest time, national national was anything outside our area, and regional was inside the which was the which was the mothership, which is where all our customers foundationally were.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:24

We still have tremendously awesome customers. Oh, we have great customers here regionally.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

It's it's it's a whole separate sales team still serving our local and regional customers here, but there's also a really big sales team serving customers all over the country.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:35

Yeah, one thing I want to just uh note too is that like like uh we we really appreciate our local customers, um, and I can name a bunch of them, but but there's there's customers here that our sales guys go to every day. Yeah, actually every day. Um, or three to four times a week, put it that way. And and so and so we love being that integrated to part of their process, and part of the community that way as well. Yeah, it gets us really connected with the community and which one thing we're missing here a little bit too is that I want to a big a big huge pivotal point for us was is our automation software and how that how that allowed us. So basically, we started we started with with through the encouragement of a local businessman, uh Len Morris. Len Morris is the guy from ViewRail, uh, he's the one that pushed us into uh uh streamlining our design process. Yeah, and and I fought back on it first, and I was like, I don't know, I don't know where to start. Basically was what it was. And then Ryan said, well, just start with one thing, start with stairways, designing uh uh and so instead of an engineer sitting down taking four or five hours to to design a stairway, because we know you know for a stairway, you change it one inch and all the angles change, everything changes. So we start down this path. Um, finally I got on board and went down this path, and it has completely transformed our and so what we how we design engineer products. Yeah, so what allows us to do is now we have customers actually on our website designing crane systems and stairways by themselves, and every one as soon as they hit go, and if if they purchase it or they approve it, um all of the all every machine file, everything is already done. Uh every DXF, every DSV, it's already on file, ready to go. Unique part numbers, all that stuff is so what's nice about it is that for for cranes, for for crane systems and for stairways, for all of our products, so it it transformed what we're passionate about, but we're passionate about giving custom industrial commercial solutions for customers around the nation. So when you're when you're when you're a countertop shop and you're and you have a vacuum lifter and you're you're moving slabs around, okay, to your okay, okay, your your column centers for your two ton crane uh might have to be 22 foot six because uh the trash can was in the way or the or the doorways off. And so what allowed us to do is our sales guys can run those automations and give quotes to customers without ever talking to engineers.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

solutions yeah to customers that they're never the same right every every application is different you know which is the beauty which which that is that is our product that is that that that's the so honestly right now the the economy is is is uh um is a little a little ups and down right now yeah and um but we're but we're we've been blessed with so uh a lot of orders because we're able to efficiently customize yeah and and i want to say too that that there's maybe uh if we zoom out from all this here our actual like our go-to-market strategy how we're going to market how we're selling our stuff around the country is is important to explain because we are different and we are kind of unique uh in in in the way we do it uh there's a lot of other companies that are doing the same thing we're doing I'm not saying we're we're you know alone but we we don't really subscribe to the dealer the traditional dealer model and and that's so different tell them why tell them why you why we got to that point. So basically uh you know Tesla pioneered this a lot you know as well they said why can't I just go online and and and look at buy a car and buy a car for the for the right price for the good best price right there yeah um with my financing options right there all that stuff and uh and get it delivered and and you know there's even laws around that uh uh that that Tesla can't do it in every state but basically basically we decided that we don't think the traditional especially in the crane world and in the mezzanine world uh that you have to buy it buy the product from a dealer and then and then uh you know then the the crane manufacturer himself assembles those products and then installs it for for someone and in that or or mezzanines and that go to market strategy or direct to consumer was so so so pivotal and is still very pivotal for our for our success and and Kyle you were just in Texas yesterday losing a customer right I mean direct direct to another manufacturer who's building something right basically people are sick of having to go through a dealer. Yeah and Amazon I was I was reminded I was reminded of this experience just very recently um I I wanted to get a uh uh a cover for a pool okay and I I found uh uh automatedpool cover.com okay and went on there and it's literally what it's called is uh I think something like that I it's a couple months ago and I went on there and it said uh it said uh it was in Indianapolis Indianapolis is two hours away from us perfect I could drive down there pick this stuff up you know as is is where it's made and or you know at least you know the warehouse and uh and I I put an RFQ on there and what do you know right away the guy sent an email back within an hour and said hey um I can't sell to you direct I I the the I I want a pool cover this size but you have to work through a dealer and I said so so and I and I instantly was like I don't even know where to start with a dealer and who are you dealers with and you know go with a list look at a map and all this this guy was desperate to try to sell me a pool cover knowing he can't yeah and so all the the middleman his chances of making that sale like like got cut it to 30% it's not easy I think if people now this now this is not 100% through every industry yet yet I think we'll see a massive transformation over the next 23 years where dealers start to to fade away and people want to buy directly from the manufacturer they want to have the custom solution um or not not even custom just right from the manufacturer because the middlemen and what they what the dealers are providing is getting smaller and smaller. Some dealers are still providing a tremendous amount of service and quality of that service and that's great. And for them they'll so they'll survive they'll be great. But generally I mean if if you if you could talk to if you could buy a John Deere tractor right from the factory um you know and and and then save that you know 80,000 or whatever of the on a combine that that the the dealer is taking it'd be really really really nice.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:49

Yeah but you could still go and get that you know you know I think we could do a whole other episode just on that because because we're we're big believers in the in the direct to the customer direct to the consumer sale well we're also yeah one last thing I'll say about that is is that we're all about and and if uh we're all about making it easy so Amazon you got Amazon where you just click on your phone and you buy it and you go mastercar.com which is my favorite website of all time yeah mastercar.com is it's not little plug there are are they sponsoring this this uh this this they should be okay um and and what one one one thing I'll say about them is hey producers over there let's make sure mastercar.com gets us to uh to get some sponsors how awesome they are okay uh on top of their website on the right top right hand corner which I go on their website like almost every day okay and they have a little they have a little button that says how can we improve and I have multiple times typed in there says you can't you're perfect that's all I can say Darren's love affair with with with the vendor because they make it easy are there parts 30% more yes they are but it's so easy I click buy because it's it it's easy. Yeah drawing and and and by the way they're reselling the bonus yeah but but they made it so easy so we're that's our goal.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:59

We haven't reached that but it's our goal so so we got we got to land the plane here and just you know this this is episode one this is the pilot episode uh we're trying this new thing out uh we're trying to figure out how what it looks like to add value to the manufacturing industry to tell some of our story and how God's blessed us in our business and we certainly do struggles and yeah we certainly do not have it all figured out in fact we're wrestling with things right now today in fact uh we probably shouldn't even be here shooting this because of all we have going on back at the office and um and we're we're all we all every iron is in the fire right now and and and some of some of that is just an overwhelming amount of sales coming in uh we had a record sales uh month last month just just celebrated that yesterday with with with the entire team as well um it's a it's a good problem to have and it's still a problem and so so what what we're wrestling with right now is is growing and scaling um fast enough here to to be able to produce all the stuff that we've got sold. Just so everybody understands, you know, Darren Kyle and my brothers they're gonna be regular guests on the show. I'll also be having other guests on the show come on uh you know every other week every three weeks whatever that looks like we're gonna mix things up quite a bit uh I have a lot of friends in manufacturing and a business that have added a lot of value to me that I think could add value to our other our other uh our listeners as well and so I'm excited about what's coming up there. Uh I have I have a guest in mind for next week that's gonna be pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:22

And so uh just some great conversations uh that we have coming up well another thing too we want to say Ryan too like you know we we uh I'm a big fan of Alex Ramosy uh if you haven't ever checked him out definitely check him out online great guy but you know he he kind of made a thing about about how personal content is so important and and he said and don't worry it will be cringy yeah I I like I I know this will be cringy especially people know us you know yeah hard to watch yeah very hard to we're we're actually sorry we put the put you through this uh but but the whole thing is that it's you know we do want to hear your stories as well yeah so if you're if you're if you can comment on our video say hey you know I already figured out that one thing you guys talked about you guys don't know this there's a supplier for this one blah blah blah blah you know that kind of thing in future episodes and that kind of stuff we want to learn from you guys we're three dudes still wrestling through the exact same stuff that all of you all are in your in your family businesses uh we didn't talk a lot about the you know uh we'll talk about more about in the future about just us three brothers getting along you know family working with families very very hard so the forge is about is about being in the forge being in the fire every single day with with what we're trying to build here and what you all are trying to build every single day and it's it's tough it's tough it's tough working alongside a family every single day we're very very passionate brothers about what we're doing and we argue at times and it's and it and it's it's only only occasionally only occasionally uh which is a lie.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:42

And so uh so just we're here to wrestle alongside you guys we're to bring some good uh good content to you guys being honest and transparent with with some of our struggles and where we've come from but today's episode was mainly about telling you the story how we got here today and and what our father Paul Miller started back in 1979. And uh so uh hope you can enjoy this journey with us and just and just hopefully we can add some value hopefully we we've had some value today already in some this pallid episode. Hopefully as Kyle said it's not too cringy as Alex Harbosi says so uh it's been great to have you guys here. Thanks for joining me on the first episode guys it's great. Sounds good. Sounds good