record_id: 2b3f8b3e-f83d-816b-8c2c-d1129616f8e1
created_time: 2025-11-22T00:10:00.000Z
title: 11-21 Interview: Brendan - Operations Leader
source_url: 

[TRANSCRIPTION]
Speaker 1 00:01:32
Oh my-
Speaker 1 00:07:24
Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:08:57
Hi Brendan how are you? I'm doing well how are you? I'm doing great thank you so much for meeting me this Friday morning oh thanks for having me yeah so Brendan tell me a little bit about yourself, well I'm uh I think that if if you want to get to know me it's it starts with my my um how I started my father owned a trucking company I won't tell you all my life story but uh yeah yeah but but my my dad owned a trucking company and I kind of grew up in it um you know I learned how to drive.
Speaker 2 00:09:29
a forklift when I was when I was eight I was running the uh the warehouse during the summers when I was 13 and so um as a very start I went to work with it full-time at 19. I learned business, from the entrepreneur everything I do has always been this is my money this is my this is my business this is my stuff, And then I've been able to take that into different transportation aspects, manufacturing,
Speaker 2 00:10:01
did manufacturing for 15 years, took a step away from that and COVID hit. And then I went to work for a family company, which is Triune, because they wanted to scale the company. But most importantly, I'm an operations guy. I believe that if you want a successful operation, that it all starts from the top, is that as a leader and empowering from the ground up. So educating, holding people accountable, ensuring that processes are adhered to and.
Speaker 2 00:10:38
creating a culture where... your people are just as passionate about the process as you are just as passionate about maybe not even the process but the product um yeah because because the processes are always changing right so we want to go what's what's a better way oh i you know i i don't want to be creating the the better ways uh usually i am but um but i i love it when that when my people are coming to me and going hey can we do this differently um and so as a leader i'm i'm.
Speaker 2 00:11:14
somebody who is trying to build that but also trying to do it in such a way that's not as much as as much emphasis as people want to put on feel um it's got you can't manage what you don't measure and so we have to bring everything down to a number the company has to be profitable um we have to do it in a way that's not um jeopardizing quality, and so defining a framework and a system around all of that understanding, what everything means what the root cause of each item is and then how.
Speaker 2 00:11:47
understanding how to adapt that in a way that where you don't jeopardize quality you don't jeopardize uh your people and um and and you're ultimately profitable that's great so let's go through.
Speaker 3 00:12:01
your experience i know you said you kind of started out um at your dad's place in a trucking company, um what about the next one talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 00:12:14
please at uh united van lines or at reconcert so united van lines what's that go ahead no sorry go ahead, so my dad ultimately ultimately sold the company um, the uh took a few years but but he ultimately sold the company and uh as as i'm, you know nobody wants to turn everything over to a 24 year old and thinking that that he knows everything so um i had well i had decided i wanted to go back to school so i didn't have my college.
Speaker 2 00:12:49
degree at the time so i kind of did a double double take on on how everything wanted to go i decided hey i need to rework my career go back to school at the same time i got a job as a dispatcher, um over at united van lines um from there they're at the time they were mayflower they got purchased by united van lines yeah and they were running 48 states and i was able to just basically look at at i i went from having 50 drivers and being able to route them just in one location to having.
Speaker 2 00:13:25
10 and not having to check in with those guys for several days and so it was a matter of just, Determining what the most profitable loads were, determining how quickly my guys could get everything done and I just started looking at, I kind of partnered with the drivers to be able to say, what do you need, what are you trying to accomplish, how hard do you want to run and then I was able to kind of rework because of my experience not only at Eagle Truck Lines but also in the warehouse.
Speaker 2 00:14:01
quite often we were able to take multiple you know quote truck loads and combine them into one truck and so now this guy's getting you know twice the amount of of pay because we were able to.
Speaker 3 00:14:12
efficiently load it all up and whatnot so yeah i want to pivot a little here to your operations background it seems like um you know through 2020 through 2022 you were an owner of an e-commerce manufacturing venture which is great tell me a little like why you know did you sell the company did you move away what what's what happened there yeah so um most of my operations background.
Speaker 2 00:14:37
i'll actually say it comes from reconserve um but i left reconserve and basically wanted to take six months to figure life out that was january of 2020. three months later covet hit, and i i found myself at at home with three little boys and so i decided to try to i i, i had this um i wanted to start something i wanted to i wanted to own my own company i was i was uh burnt out a little bit um i found later that i was burnt out more because of.
Speaker 2 00:15:12
of leadership of my previous company than than more so because and and so um i i tried something i i started up a service which was basically we were but through analytics defining or determining what items would sell properly and what where i could sell them online on e-commerce amazon etsy, so on and so forth i would design them i would source it and then i would plan it all out we.
Speaker 2 00:15:42
test it and we create we market it and then create a uh a way to sell it and i was doing really well with that but ultimately if i'm being honest the economy started hitting me all of a sudden my costs are going crazy, you, my kids are back at school now and it wasn't it wasn't fun um okay so let's talk direct reports how many how many direct reports did you have at reconverse at at reconserve i had um i had.
Speaker 2 00:16:19
four direct reports and uh that consisted of a transportation manager um transportation manager a office manager and then i had a um essentially a plant manager over at our sister company top notch food and another plant manager over at uh at our ontario facility okay and have you ever.
Speaker 3 00:16:45
overseen any field technicians or any kind of folks out in the field at all absolutely um at.
Speaker 2 00:16:51
every how many sure um at reconserve i had three um at uh, um, Currently, I have four at Triune Pools because we do maintenance as well. So, we're running around taking care of all those customers.
Speaker 1 00:17:10
Okay.
Speaker 2 00:17:11
So, and then I've always run, I've always overseen the vehicle fleet as well. And so, as needed, we might be sending those guys out to take care of something that breaks down on the road or whatnot.
Speaker 3 00:17:24
Okay, great. And why are you looking to leave your current organization. 
Speaker 2 00:17:28
Well, I went to work for family. Yeah, that's hard. As much as I, you know, I went to work for them, it's actually been the hardest thing I've ever actually done. Probably because of family, but also at the same time because at some point in time, you just don't know what you don't know. And if I can't convince you, then I can't convince you. So, but I, I miss, I miss operations. I miss the chaos of it all. I'm, I'm, uh, I, this company's fine. It's, they're doing wonderful, wonderful things. I can show you pictures of some of the most beautiful pools ever. And I like what I'm doing, but it's honestly, it's, it's too small. Um, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:18:19
So let me tell you a little bit about Total Warehouse and what we're looking for in this role, and we'll go from there. So obviously, I know you've done a little bit of research on Total Warehouse. Yes. We have about a little under 200 employees across the West Coast. So we're operating, we're headquartered here out of Anaheim, but we also have operations in Utah, Texas, Arizona. Phoenix is our second largest office. Third would be Las Vegas.
Speaker 3 00:18:49
So we continue to grow. So we have quite a few field technicians. I have a little over 50 field technicians that manage those forklifts kind of across, again, that West Coast area. So I'm really looking for somebody to come in who has operations experience with a large P&L and significant direct reports. All these people are obviously not reporting directly to you, but, you know, we have four field service managers that oversee the various different locations, right?
Speaker 3 00:19:28
But it's a lot of direct reports that fall underneath you. You know, obviously, all of them are out in the field. That presents a challenge, just being really honest, right? They're not within four walls. And so any communication or any process changes or anything like that can be difficult to really... implement because everybody's in a different place different location right different time zone different clients everybody has their own kind of needs.
Speaker 3 00:19:60
across the board the needs of my folks here in Anaheim are not the needs of my employees out in our employees out in Utah and so that obviously presents a challenge look Brandon you had a fantastic interview with Abby she highly recommend you and I totally see why you have great experience my concern here though is that you haven't operated in the company this large with this many direct reports and so in full transparency I just want to be really.
Speaker 3 00:20:31
honest with you I don't want to waste your time I very much value everyone's time I just don't think that it would be kind of exactly what I'm looking for at.
Speaker 2 00:20:42
this time so can I can I read about that.
Speaker 3 00:20:46
Sure.
Speaker 2 00:20:47
So you had asked about direct reports, right? And so when I say four, I'm talking about essentially your field operations managers. You know, when I was working for Eagle, you know, we had 50 drivers out there and all of their aspects. At Reconserve, you know, we had 12 drivers running around. I think the real question is about the system.
Speaker 2 00:21:17
And, you know, your drivers are going to be responding, your technicians are going to be responding to your field managers. And there's an aspect of communication, I agree, but the real aspect, I think, is your framework. The numbers, and I'm sure you're going to have everybody respond to you in a way that says, no, no, I can handle it. And I'm sure that's what you're expecting from me. But I think the real question is, is... And everywhere where I've gone, it's been an aspect of this guy is better than the last guy and people not having a real understanding of what are the true needs, what are the true issues, and why aren't they being accomplished?
Speaker 2 00:21:60
And so we look at, oh, well, the KPI is better now, and so we must be good. But it's not always actually getting you the best result and being the most efficient. Each iteration that I've done in my career has really been, what's the root cause? What's going on here? I'll give you a perfect example that has nothing to do with the applicability here except for the framework. At Reconserve, I said, hey, we need to shut down our LA plant, and we need to move all the operations over to Ontario.
Speaker 2 00:22:36
The owner thought it was a great idea. His son, who is now the president, thought it was a terrible idea. No, we need to do the opposite. And here we are, eight years later, they're shutting down the L.A. plant, they're moving to Ontario. The reason why is that they thought, well, L.A.'s bigger, and so it should be able to process more. But at the end of the day, Ontario could do it a lot cheaper, and the regulations were a lot less burdening. And I was able to break that out, which is why the owner liked it.
Speaker 2 00:23:06
But I don't want to waste your time. I don't see a problem that I won't have. Can you tell me maybe a little bit more? How can I answer those questions? Because that doesn't scare me in the least.
Speaker 3 00:23:24
Yeah, so unfortunately for me, it's not necessarily about scaring. You know, I know that somebody that has done it before with 40 direct reports probably can go do it, right? For me, it's just having that experience of that influencing and that able to execution across the finish line with those proven results for that, right? This position is reporting directly to the CEO, right? So my job is to protect the CEO's time, right? And I just, I know he's going to be looking for someone with that experience. So while I very much appreciate your experience, again, I just, I have to have somebody, I have to present to him folks that have had that experience prior. And that, you know, showed the proven results of execution, unfortunately.
Speaker 2 00:24:11
Okay. And so that's only basically they all have to just be in tech services on.
Speaker 3 00:24:17
Yeah, unfortunately.
Speaker 2 00:24:20
Okay.
Speaker 3 00:24:21
Unfortunately. Yeah. But Brandon, thank you so much for your time and I'll keep your resume. And if anything changes or, you know, something moves around, I'll definitely give you a call. But right now, that's definitely what we're looking for.
Speaker 2 00:24:35
Okay. I understand. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 00:24:37
Well, thank you so much, Brandon.
Speaker 2 00:24:39
No problem. Take care. Have a good one. All right. You too. Bye-bye.

[AI_SUMMARY]
Brendan has extensive experience in operations, starting from a young age in his father's trucking company. He has held various roles, including dispatcher at United Van Lines and operations manager at Reconserve, where he emphasized data-driven management and root cause analysis. Currently, he seeks a larger role but was not selected for an operations leader position at Total Warehouse due to concerns about his experience managing a large organization. The interviewer appreciated his background but required proven experience with a similar scale of operations.