Episode 1: The Early Years

Episode 1 of Built to Last features former CEO Wally Smeby reflecting on the early years of Metalcraft and his remarkable career with the company spanning more than six decades. Hosted by former CEO Steve Doerfler, the conversation begins with Wally joining Metalcraft in 1959 as Assistant Controller, when the company had just 20 employees and approximately $300,000 in annual sales.

Throughout the episode, Wally shares stories about Metalcraft’s early growth, the company’s culture of ownership, and the leadership philosophy that helped shape the organization over the years. He also discusses some of Metalcraft’s earliest manufacturing innovations, including custom production systems, adhesive development, and products that helped fuel company growth during the 1960s and 1970s.

The conversation offers a unique look at the people, challenges, leadership lessons, and innovative thinking that helped build Metalcraft into the company it is today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hello, I'm Steve Dorfler. I've had the privilege of leading Metalcraft as CEO from 2013 through 2023, and I'm currently chairman of the board. You know, Metalcraft is celebrating 75 years of being in business, which is a milestone itself. But beyond that, we remain private and local, which is truly rarefied air. And I thought it would be great for me to host a session where we get a deeper dive into the history of Metalcraft through the lens of three CEOs with a total experience ranging from 1959 all the way through 2023, 64 years of our history. So it's going to be an excellent series of four different segments. And the four segments are going to be the first one is entitled The Early Years, and that's going to be with Wally SmayBey. I'll be moderating that. The second one, and that's from uh roughly 1959 through 1979. The second one is going to be entitled uh The Pivotal Years, The Future of Metalcraft, and that's going to be with Wally again. And Doug Peterson will join us, and that'll be from the years of 1980 through mid-2006. And the third session is entitled The Buyout Keeping Metalcraft Private and Local. And that will be with Doug Peterson, and the years will be mid-2006 through 2012. I'll be moderating all three of these sessions. In the fourth one, our current CEO, Kyle Bermel, will be moderating, and that'll be on the growing into our new building and succession with me as CEO from 2013 through 2023. So with that, I'd like to kick off our very first session, which is the early years, and I want to welcome Wally SmayBey. Wally is a giant in the history of Metalcraft. Wally first started as an assistant controller in 1959. His career spanned from 59 to when he stepped down from the board of directors in 2020. So we're talking about a career of 62 years. He was president and majority owner of Metalcraft from 1993 to mid-year 2006. So Wally, it's great to have you here at this uh fireside chat, if you will. And I'm really looking forward to delving into some of this history with you so we can share it with uh with everybody. Uh and with that, I'd like to kick it off with uh the very first question I have for you. 1959. Uh you're fresh out of college from Luther, and you end up at Metalcraft. Tell us how and why that happened.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Well, thank you, Steve. I'm happy to be here. It will be a fun, uh, fun session. In 1959, Irv Wizette, who had been connected with uh Metalcraft for quite a number of years, he decided to uh take his business elsewhere, actually got into uh Airstream out in uh Oregon. And uh so he uh he got out, he sold his interest in the company, and uh Alan Patton orchestrated by getting him bought out, and then uh uh Alan then became uh the uh uh the CEO and he uh hired uh Don Lampy, who was the controller at that time. He hired him to be the president, so that then opened up a spot for uh the controller spot, or uh I was too young to be thought of as a controller, so I became the assistant controller. And uh I started in uh August uh uh 17th of 1959.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Well, you know, it was interesting. You talked about Irv Weisseth uh getting into the airstreams. It was interesting because Doug and I, we ran into some historical documents of his communication because he had, you know, he had the ownership. And it was just interesting how he was communicating, uh, and and they were determining the price of his shares. Uh it was just an interesting part in the history because he basically left and said, You you guys figure it out, whatever happens, happens, kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Aaron Powell Yeah, and I wasn't uh with Metalcraft at that time, but uh my my wife was working there at that time, so I I did get some feedback on what was going on, but of course she wouldn't have been on the inside of things.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Sure. Um so you you start off on uh as an assistant controller, and um it how do you recall how big we were in in terms of roughly maybe how many people we had?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Well, there was about 20 people and 300,000 in sales.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

300,000 in sales and 20 people, wow. Uh very pr pretty small organization at that point. Uh and and we'll talk about that growth throughout the years. And you know, it wasn't an it wasn't uncommon at all uh back in the day for once once somebody started working for a company to work for that single company their entire career, but would you have ever imagined having a career that spanned 62 years at that point?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Well, basically uh that uh was uh really never entered my mind. Uh I uh I I grew up on a farm that uh dad owned, and uh uh and and he had a couple of farms, and uh so I uh uh always had that uh background of wanting to be an owner. And uh I really didn't think of it as a career. I thought of it as uh here I am, a business person having a chance to uh eventually buy shares. And uh uh so so I I was just interested in uh growing the business, me growing into it more and more as I bought shares. And Al Patton, I think he had stock offerings about annually. And uh some of the times he would offer X number of shares. Each person would have a right to buy so many. If they didn't buy all the shares, then he'd offer them to me. And I always bought those shares.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Really? Okay, let's let's jump to that more because um, and then we'll come back and I want to I want to uh find out a little bit more about product, but uh well, let's skip over to that. And you were uh you were on what I refer to as a fast track because uh you you were hired as assistant controller, uh you became controller in 62, I believe, and then you were elected to the board of directors in 65, uh, and all this before age 30, uh, right? I mean you were still you weren't even 30 yet. Yeah. And uh one of the things I wanted to do is how did you um how did you gain such trust with Alan? And and uh plus he'd offer you these the the shares. Uh tell us a little bit more about this trust that he had with you at that time.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

First of all, uh Don Lamy was he was only there about two years, and he was a little bit of the victim of there was uh pretty much a recession at that time, so uh that kept the company from really growing. Uh plus uh we didn't have what you call really good marketing at that time. So then uh uh Don Lamby decides to take uh his uh career someplace else. He actually ended up at Grinnell College and uh was in the uh like a controller for years. And uh so then Alan Patton, he came down to uh Metalcraft and he became the president and CEO, and uh uh he was operating that. Well, we had uh we had political change in uh 62. So uh all of a sudden uh the government's uh passing regulations that you you need to identify everything you own. And so schools were a big market because they owned a lot of stuff and it carried over uh to government. Almost anything that was related to government had that requirement. So it uh really opened up the market pretty fast, and and we grew uh good during that time frame, but also the uh the economy was growing at that time.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah. Uh when did you first become an owner? Uh, because you you talked about that very early on, and that you when you came to Metalcraft, you wanted that the opportunity to be to to own, which is kind of interesting because that's how I came to Metalcraft too, with that attitude. But tell us when you became that owner and what it felt like.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Well, uh the only thing I can really remember was after either in 62 or shortly after, I think. Uh I I I can't answer it better than that.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

But 62. Wow. Uh what and what did it feel like when you had that opportunity and you wrote that check for those shares?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Well, it's it's just the power of ownership. Yeah. I I uh I mean that's what I I I got that from dad and uh well and uh uh Alan Patton, he he wanted us to be owners. Uh he had always he also always had people surrounding him that were owners.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

So he obviously felt like uh people if he had owners, he would have that mentality. They would have a real dedication and a connection to growing the business, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:47

No doubt. Yeah, he was a quiet man. Uh I I wouldn't have heard him talk about it a lot, but uh action.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

The action he took.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Sure. You you mentioned that sales were uh uh $300,000 for the annual year, and it's kind of interesting because on a on a very good day, uh, you know, a big day for us, that would be $300,000. It would have to be a huge day, but just to give everybody a little bit of perspective about growth, and of course there's inflation in there as well. Um so uh tell us uh you know, you started talking about this mandate to track and control assets with government um and and some of that funding that the government gave. When you came, describe what the product line was. What what did we have for product line?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Well, with the Bosch did Stapler, uh that was a very seasonal thing. So in the last quarter calendar year, uh we'd be really busy getting that out. And um and then of course we had what you basically would call ad specialty uh uh name plates, which is the same thing that was going out for Bostis, because that's what that was, it was ad specialty. Uh but we had our own business on the uh also, and then and then there was the uh indented part of it. All all of the there were metal labels with indented numbers.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Okay, okay. Um in uh in in the late 40s is uh my understanding is I had read some of the history, late 40s, is when we really started employing uh lithography or litho printing as we refer to it as. And it's interesting because we uh we we did lithographic or litho printing for four decades. I and I'd like for you to tell us why you know what were the advantages, why did we do that and for so long?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Well, first of all, uh uh KA, which was the uh first part of the the company going back to 34, they would they did pre-press work, uh which means you were making etchings or the lithographic process. Uh so uh that's I mean basically everything that we did sort of channeled out of because we had a pre-press company. But the lithographer uh lithography gave you sharp images, gave you the ability to have sharp colors, and uh you used a clear coat to protect it.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yeah, it it did give the sharp images. And it's interesting, isn't it? Today, the lithography is so important in the manufacture of integrated chips, and we were using that uh you know back in the in the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s for that matter. Uh so I find that rather interesting. One of the things that uh at that time too, we had we had multiple companies under the Metalcraft umbrella, uh, which I mean, I believe we had a Webster engraving in Webster City, uh, and we had Graphic Arts, which was somewhere in South Dakota. Uh, tell us a little bit more about you know some of these other companies that we had under our umbrella. Because I remember you telling me at one point that uh you had responsibility for closing the books and all these companies, and and they all had different close dates, so it was like you were always closing a company there. Tell us a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Well, uh it stems from uh the guys coming back from the war. Uh they uh they needed jobs, so uh Alan uh uh took care of that by opening these other locations, and those locations were outside of uh KA territory, so you're just kind of like uh expanding the size of your territory. Now, Webster was pretty heavily related to one customer. They had more than one, but they were pretty heavily related to one customer, and then and then there was graphic arts. Also was uh Mohawk advertising, and uh I mean that was still pretty similar. They were uh they were using a lot of those pre-press uh services, and they might be uh printing through uh a variety of printers. Uh and uh well there was at least five companies. One of them was a uh like a holding company. Oh okay. Uh Alan, he sold off the the building, and that's what the holding company had. And we uh uh that holding company was called Latum.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Sold off the building from federal? Uh the the federal building. Oh, 4th Street. Okay, I got it. Okay, so it was after that.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

It was after that moved, yeah. And uh so it was called Latum, which was metal spelt backwards.

unknown 16:14

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

But I still had I had to close close those books. There wasn't much involvement, I hadn't close those books.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Sure. So Webster City, South Dakota, did you travel there then a few times a year?

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Uh I mostly traveled there when they were having problems. Uh probably uh I d in fact I don't know that I ever went to Webster City, but I did go to uh graphic uh in Sioux Falls. The rest of them were in Mason City.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

So even even when you were closing the books, you didn't necessarily need to travel down there.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Uh no, they're they'd mail all their uh work into Metalcraft and that would be posted on uh metal clanging machinery, Mike Collins.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Sure. Okay. All right, very good. Then along comes another point in in that was very pivotal in our history was we made the move from federal to the Fourth Street building, um, which was a three-story building and 40,000 square feet. And ironically, we're there nearly 50 years. So one year shy of 50 years until we moved to this building in 2013. Uh, you were there a long time, Wally. What tell us a little bit of the good, the bad, and the ugly of that of that building, because it there were some war stories with that building.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Well, first of all, it was inexpensive to buy it, so you had that going, but it was probably pretty expensive to uh renovate it so it was usable for metalcraft. And uh uh KA uh moved to the first floor immediately, uh probably because of the plumbing that was needed. And then uh metalcraft operated just on the at uh first level above ground. And we didn't we weren't using the third floor at all at that time, except probably we warehoused up there, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Okay, so just the second level initially uh interesting because when you had uh when you had bought the business, we were and we'll venture we'll venture into a lot of that in the next segment, but you know, the building was getting full, so uh we really grew into that building.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, okay. Um I mean, did you feel that that building was adequate for what we were doing because every everything was on that one level, that second floor level, it was it was sufficient. We didn't have to go to I mean, from a metal craft perspective.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

There's a lot of issues there. Uh uh it was cumbersome to go up and down the the stairs. Uh uh we had the elevator, but that wasn't a people elevator. Not that people didn't use it, but uh uh it was primarily going up and down the stairs, unless you had something material to move or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, I um I remember in that building, I I always got a good workout, uh taking two or three stairs at a time. It was it was kind of a good workout, but yeah, not not extremely uh efficient there. Um another another key uh product line that we had uh that evolved, I believe, in 1965, Wally. And uh, and again, when I arrived in 1990 when you hired me, uh we were still producing the risk calendars. Um and that risk calendar product uh which went right on the right on your band here, it provide a monthly calendar right on the wristband. Uh I remember hearing the stories about how we produced, you know, tens of thousands of these things, and it was a huge business. And I'd like for you to share your perspective on that product and what the significance was to our overall business and how long uh did we really roll with that product?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yeah, I I want to backtrack here a little bit first. Oh, sure. Uh when uh when we were in uh uh that uh 4th Street building first, I ended up with an office that sat right on top of the boiler. And uh but literally would get it be 90 to 95 degrees in my office. And I I'd I'd open up a window and just let the cold air flow in, but then of course you'd be freezing after a while. So I I I took care of that. I had them put uh about a two-inch uh foam board, which is probably maybe even illegal because it uh was probably flammable, but it it it immediately cooled my place off anyway, and I was happy.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

But uh going back to the That would have put you that would have put me to sleep if it was like 90 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Uh part of the real problem, you'd go home at night and then your feet would be so hot, I'd have a hard time adjusting to the the feet being like that there. But uh going back to the risk calendar, uh the risk calendar was a a real uh a boom because at one point in time uh Al Allen he had in mind that uh if he could get all the companies to equal $1 million, he'd be uh really thrilled. You know, well, of course, the risk calendar per propelled us past that really quickly. And I I my guess would be we reached probably a a million dollars in sales at one point. Time off of the risk calendar. It was an ad specialty item.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

That's pretty significant back in the 60s, a million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

It was an ad specialty one product, so it ran it ran the course, you know, and eventually we just had to get rid of it. But uh and the retail part, uh we had retail, and I got I got a few headaches out of that too, because uh we uh we allowed returns.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Returns.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

So we maybe sold somebody uh three dozen of them, and if they didn't sell them, they could send them back, and then we updated them. So if they were like uh annual calendar, uh by the time you ship them back, they might be starting in April or something like that. Well, part of the problem was is that keeping track of those coming back and going back out and collecting the money and all that, it was it was painful. But uh uh so but I mean uh and I I doubt if we ever made any money on the retail. I like I said, it was uh it was uh ad specialty item, and uh people weren't they were not used to buying them. It wasn't they were used to getting them for free.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Yeah, yeah, they're used to getting them free. Well, you essentially you are guaranteeing their inventory and sales. Yes. I mean absolutely what what a deal for them, yeah. Not so much for us, though. Yeah, interesting on that. You know, we were highly innovative. Uh as I as I reflect back to our early history, the innovation was was tremendous. And two main things come to mind, and there may be others that I want you to really delve into, but the the two that come to mind are figuring out the advancing the numbering heads, which was critical when we were indenting serialized plates for fixed asset control and property control. And then the second one was that we were buying this solvent-activated adhesive, but then we said, no, we want better quality control, so we're gonna produce it in-house. I'd like for you to address both of those and provide a little bit more of a perspective on that innovation as well as any other innovation that we had.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Well, we were talking about uh our uh feed system for our punch presses. Right. And uh and they were it was a feed system that was air operated, and uh there were buttons on a steel-threaded rod, uh, and uh the height of the nameplate determined space between uh the buttons on the the metal rod. Uh there was an arm uh that was going up and down, you know, kind of like that there as the uh as the feet advanced. Uh in other words, you it would come up so it advanced, and then it came down and latched into place. And that's what did that's how uh uh they they could make it so it punched out the size of the actual nameplate. Uh nobody else had this system. So it was uh it was definitely really a one-up for us that uh that we only are the only ones that had it. And and uh the guy that developed that, he was an old gunsmith, Dick Norton, and uh he he was uh a really uh an intelligent person. And uh that always kind of uh back in those days anyway, you could pick up local people. Uh then they maybe graduated from high school, but they're really uh brainy, and that was Dick Norton. So he did an excellent job on that.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Did you did we patent that pro since we were the only ones? Do we did we did we think about patenting that process? Because that's so unique.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

You know, you know, that was it's just amazing because it was high speed, too. I mean, it wasn't like it was boom, boom, a bit of a compared to yeah, yeah, compared to the other it was what 150, 60 parts a minute we could produce.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Because the other other uh producers, they uh they just sort of like manually pushed it forward.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

So it would be a lot slower, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

You know, the amazing thing is, Wally, that we use that technology up until literally a few years ago. Yeah. Uh so that's decades of of using uh uh of Mr. Norton's uh brain power there. That's just tremendous. Okay, so tell us a little bit more about that solvent activated adhesive.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Well, we were buying it from uh actually the company name was Gerter Process, and uh we had to uh uh buy it pre-cut to whatever we were gonna be putting it on. So it meant you had to have several different widths available.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

So uh and then uh um I mean I was the one who was buying it, so you you tried to get things combined enough to keep the costs reasonable, but you ended up throwing a fair amount away, you know. So then uh somebody, I don't I can't give credit to that, I don't know who it was, but somebody decided we should make our own. And uh so we set the lineup uh and and we were buying the the web that gets coated with uh basically it was raw adhesive coming out of five-gallon buckets from from 3M. And uh uh it's as I think I said, it's air, it was air-dried, so the the system would be uh it'd go up and down, up and down, and so it was drying when that process took place.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

As you as it was producing it drying.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Because uh it uh uh we we didn't want to be spending the kind of money it would it take to uh uh have that all uh have a dryer on it. So we just did it air dry, produced it during the summer months and produced enough uh to handle it, and then uh we'd uh store it in uh refrigeration and uh cut cut orders based on how what we needed.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

So let's I want to dive a little bit more into this because you brought up a couple good points. You're you're buying this solvent activated adhesive, and you're having to buy all these woods, and we're we're having a lot of waste, um, which is a concern and expense. Why were we having a waste? Is there a shelf life to the was there a shelf life to this? Oh, there would be a shelf life, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Okay. So and that's why we once we produced it, we kept it in a cooler because that would that would extend the shelf life of it? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Well, and we produced or no summer months, we produced enough to get us through the next uh season.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

That's some of that farm work coming out in you, right? You you have the produce the crops and that gets you through the next year. Yeah, that's right. Absolutely. Yeah. So from that innovation, uh, I'd like for you to tell us a little bit about other pretty significant challenges that you you were faced with in in the 60s and 70s. Uh maybe you can share a a couple of significant challenges there.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Well, the uh uh uh one of the big things, and I I used to uh think about that in my mind or commented on it uh uh quite a bit. Uh you you didn't have an economy that was on a straight uh up up uh curve. It uh uh as I would call it, we have always facing the old yo-yo effect, meaning that maybe the six months uh it was good and then six months were down, and uh it was always a funny feeling because you could come in, maybe it was like July 1st, you can come into the office and and it could be either way, uh things were either soft or maybe they were booming, but boom, uh a new quarter comes, and all of a sudden everybody either buys more or quits buying. And uh I mean that went on for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Uh how did we uh and you're and you're right, uh sometimes is is is pretty cyclical on that. Um how do we how do we able to cope with that? I mean, was it maybe creating some new markets or creating new products? Was was that um say for instance the risk counter, did that did that help that situation? Did it exasperate it?

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Uh what were your well it it it helped it, but of course by the uh at some point in time it's declining. So I mean uh the the real growth happened quickly. And uh and I cannot actually uh uh speak to uh how how it started decline, but I think it I think what you'd say once it started declining, it just I was sort of on a down slope after that. So that meant uh uh if you were looking at maybe your two million dollar company, you uh you have to be able to have a business growing elsewhere or or you're you're sliding, and of course profitability becomes uh quite an issue, you know. But uh now another thing that was uh uh uh a problem at that time is that it was difficult to uh even though we had this really good blanking system or feed system, it was hard to uh to uh stamp them out and keep them flat. And uh so then you then you that added in the adhesive problem. Uh if they're not flat, uh the adhesive doesn't bond immediately. This is not like one of those quick stick things, you know. They they had to be they had to be on there for a while. So if the customer didn't hold them down, it uh it caused problems.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Okay, so this is all the solvent activated adhesive, right? You're you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yes, absolutely. That's before we really went to pressure solvent.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Tell us kind of the process on that, the solvent activated, because it it's it's with our today's society of instant gratification if you will, you know, you you stick it, you want it to apply. What was the process to apply once a customer got these?

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Well, uh uh you know, we had we had uh uh application instructions that uh would tell you you know, get get all organized with your materials, and then you uh and we actually shipped like what eight-ounce cans of solvent.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

So they would pour from that into a bottle, and then he would use a dauber to spread the adhesive on there. And uh I was in uh I was down uh south in the Louisiana area. I was working with Milt Havlet.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Milt was a character.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah, my voice for sure, yeah. And uh like to take you to these uh Cajun places. But uh we we were visiting with some of the of our customers, and and they would just tell us right to our face, we don't like this solvent-activated adhesive. It's it's too much mess and too much work. And uh so they were asking for pressure sensitive. So uh eventually, uh, and I I can't really speak sharply to that uh timing thing, but at certain uh some certain time we went to uh uh pressure sensitive HC offering both, you know. But then you had the issue of you got the two different surface energies of materials, and uh that's that created plenty of issues too.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah, I think we actually shifted to pressure sensitive because I became a manufacturer up at 84. I think it was right around that time that we really started shifting. But I just I just remember uh that you had to form part of the instructions is you put the solvent on and then you had to wait until it formed cobwebs. Yeah, and then you put that down. But it was quite a process. Um it it's it stuck well. If you got it down, it really stuck well. But part of the challenge with the rubber-based adhesives was that over you know a period of years, let's say maybe it's 20, 25 years, they it would it would crystallize to some degree and it'd be easy to pick off. That's true. Um so that was that was kind of interesting concept for from that perspective. Uh anything uh other other challenges that um you know you mentioned the economic uh of the yo-yo effect, uh, any anything else that was you know a major challenge for you or the company during the during that period of time.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

That's all I can think of right now.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Yeah, okay. Um the other the other question I had for you, uh, you know, before we kind of maybe wrap up or you share other thoughts, is uh we're we're sitting in what's referred to as the patent room. Uh Alan was a significant part of our history. Uh unfortunately, I didn't ever meet Alan. I didn't know him. I mean, I've heard a lot of a lot of uh great stories about Alan. Um I'd like to have you share uh what you know Alan, his innovative spirit, his leadership, and what he meant to you.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah. Well, he he he showed that leadership as soon as he came down to Metalcraft, but he was a he was a quiet leader. He's not somebody who's gonna be uh uh boastful or something like that. Uh and uh but he was uh he was highly respected by everybody. And uh he he proved his innovation the minute that he came down to Metalcraft. I mean, he was a forward thinker, and uh uh oh another thing too, he he was very active in the community. He was on lots of different boards, uh he was on bank boards, and he was president of this and that. So it just uh he's just a person that everybody thought was uh a gym and and uh certainly was a good man to work for.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

So it really sounds like he was what we refer to today, Wally, as he was a humble man and he was a servant leader if everybody's gonna be able to do that. That's true. I think he would fit in that category. Um how did he help you in your career?

SPEAKER_00 38:03

As I mentioned earlier, uh, right off the bat, he he respected me and and had told me that he was gonna expect a lot out of me. And and uh so that always uh drove me to uh to do better and also uh wanted wanted to be uh an owner, and he wanted me to be an owner. That's that pretty much tells the story about why I I worked, uh respected him and and really enjoyed uh working with him.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yeah, that's that that's a great relationship uh to have. Um and yeah, he sounds like he was uh outstanding leader. Well, we've covered a lot of ground here in this uh about 20 years, right? Uh, and I'm sure there may be, you know, there may be some things that I that I missed or I didn't cover. And uh so I'd just like to ask you if there's anything else that you'd just like to uh to provide us uh that was really important to our to our history during that point in time.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Well, for me it was it was a real honor to be able to uh work for a company like Metalcraft and and and uh hopefully uh we would all look at it. I helped help it grow. And uh, but the the biggest, really the biggest thing of all is that uh i I learned so much about working with people. And uh and uh like uh at one point in time we were holding brainstorming sessions, and I I remembered thinking to myself, wow, I can't believe that. I never thought of that before. So you you would have anybody in the organization that might come up with an idea that I never thought about it. So so the people, that's the big thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

It really taught you the importance of uh you know, you know, collectively we're much stronger than one, right? Absolutely, and the people make a company, which is that's that that that is such a great lesson when you're young in in your years, and certainly as we we cover more ground in our next session, um, I can assure you that that you know I saw that in you as well. Thank you. You know, when I came on board in 1990. Well, I really appreciate uh this uh this chatting with you uh in this first session, uh it's been a privilege for me to sit down with you and just cover this ground and and hear things that, by the way, that I that I have never heard. So it was just uh it was great to do. So thanks, thanks a lot, Walter.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Yeah, and thank you, Steve. I appreciate being here. I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Thanks again.