record_id: 30af8b3e-f83d-815a-8113-cb8046dcaa77
created_time: 2026-02-17T22:49:00.000Z
title: 02-17 Interview: Plant Director Selection at Home Chef – San Bernardino, Progress vs Perfection, Culture-First Leadership
source_url: /

[TRANSCRIPTION]
Speaker 1 00:00:02
The film was shot in the city of Tbilisi.
Speaker 1 00:00:37
I'm not sure if I can do it.
Speaker 1 00:01:59
Through that you can build a system that confines and then holds everything, you know, you're trying to accomplish. That holds your operation.
Speaker 1 00:02:29
I'm highly focused on measurable results.
Speaker 1 00:03:03
I'm not sure if I can do it.
Speaker 1 00:03:35
The most common cause of death is sepsis.
Speaker 1 00:04:10
The film was released on 24 July 2015.
Speaker 1 00:04:45
The film was shot in the city of Krasnodar.
Speaker 1 00:05:16
The city is located in the central part of the island.
Speaker 1 00:05:48
I don't know. I'm going to go ahead and put this in the oven.
Speaker 1 00:07:28
The film was shot in the city of Tbilisi.
Speaker 2 00:08:45
Hey Brandon. Hey John, how are you today?
Speaker 3 00:08:49
I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 2 00:08:51
Can't complain. It's another day in paradise.
Speaker 3 00:08:54
There you go. Well, I'm excited to talk to you about our Plant Director role in San Bernardino. So we're going to sort of jump right into it. I'll introduce myself, My background and then kind of kick it over to you for a rundown of what sort of your resume and then what brings you to interested in this role? Soum. John Klos, I'm the senior director of operations for Home Chef. So I've been with Home Chef it'll be eight years in April and I've worn a lot of different hats. I started my career prior to Home Chef as a process engineer working in kind of bulk ingredient manufacturing and then joined Home Chef doing capital projects and some work on our maintenance systems before taking on a few more.
Speaker 3 00:09:41
A brief stint as maintenance manager, then some capital projects to build our new facilities in Baltimore and Atlanta. Before kind of getting back to my process engineering roots with the continuous improvement. And then prior to this role, I led our Bedford Park plant. So I was plant director there for about 14 months. And then I've been in this role for about nine months, overseeing fulfillment of our kits product as well as continuous improvement on the kits side, which is, Basically, where we take all of the raw ingredient materials, assemble those into meal bags so that our customers can cook them at home. Nested inside of that, inside of our ops org is our Tempo operation, which is our new brand that's about three and a half years old. So that would be operating within the site but is not direct line of oversight for our plant directors right now. It's more dotted line as we support that brand but they're. 
Speaker 3 00:10:38
Kind of a smaller, More nimble org that can move as quickly as a startup, sort of needs to be able to move. Okay. So, a little bit about me and my background and what I've done with Pumptrack. If, you wouldn't mind kind of walking me through yours, and then we'll get into it. Sure.
Speaker 2 00:10:55
I am I've been in operations leadership for over 20 years. It's primarily been manufacturing logistics. I grew up in logistics, parents owned a trucking company and, Through that, I am a big culture guy. I believe culture is extremely important. I try to align performance and quality safety with culture, and then try to build a system around that, and then try to develop leaders to go into that. And, so my formative probably, what's been most formative for me, was my time at Reconserv. Reconserv is a. 
Speaker 2 00:11:37
Bakery waste recycling company, so they're they're picking up um, They're picking up the bread waste from from companies like or wheat bimbo, uh Sara Lee Frito Lay Mission Foods, and they're turning it into. They've got two assets, two facets. Primarily, they're turning it into animal feed, and then they've got a small um. They've got a little small offshoot company that that makes breadcrumbs for human consumption. Um.
Speaker 2 00:12:08
It's a high variability aspect because all of your raw inbound inputs are, you know, whatever you get is what you get. And so you're constantly having to adjust, you know for for what's coming in. Try to deliver the same product uniformly throughout the entire time, and then obviously do it efficiently. So um when I when I went there they were, They weren't even when I started with them. They weren't profitable at all. They were struggling because the plant there is in South Central, Watts, where all the growing up, all the rappers were talking about. So that area was was difficult. It had been since nineteen sixty two, so with them, I was able to establish KPIs take them from thirty tons an hour to fifty tons, an hour really dropped their term usage and electrical usage. And.
Speaker 2 00:12:59
I think establish a culture that basically said, we stand for something. And you know, At that location, they were the biggest thing I ever. Somebody asked me when I was hiring a plant manager for that facility. They said, what's your biggest problem here? And I said, the biggest problem here is everybody here growing up doesn't believe that they can. And so getting somebody to reach for the stars was extremely difficult. And eventually we had a system where, you know, I could go. I was starting to be asked to go off and hey, go fix Ontario. Go fix the sister plant Top Notch Foods, where I could go and be gone for two weeks at a time, and nothing missed a beat. So was able to increase standards there. Currently I am working for a family owned business called Triune Pools We're delivering literally, I am not exaggerating here some of the nicest. 
Speaker 2 00:13:58
Largest pools in the world, so essentially it's it's the high end market. It's the niche market. Everything's custom. I was last week, I was at the heiress of Walmart's house where it's completely different, but it was family owned. I was asked to come in, and he wanted to scale based on everything that he said, you know. Operationally, I've always wanted to work with you. Can you come in and just make it happen? And well, how are you guys doing? How's your crews and everything's great. We just have a couple things we need to, you know. And when I came in there, they got one half where the culture is awesome, but they don't know how to lift anybody up. And the other half where it was a terrible culture, and they were kind of pushing everybody down.
Speaker 2 00:14:53
And I had to kind of come in and replace completely the culture on one side, and unfortunately that meant that the leader had to go, which ultimately led to a complete rebuilding of the entire crew. But through that, I was able to kind of you know what was most interesting about taking on a system like this? I'm not a construction guy. Um, so but I had to learn why we were making mistakes left, right and center. And, the thing about construction is when you when you make a mistake in construction, it's it's not just the initial installation. You got to tear back out and then you got to redo it. Um And so I think that this really cemented um what I believe about lifting up employees, because the biggest thing is, if you've got the right people.
Speaker 2 00:15:52
It's not a matter of, you know, I hear this well. He's been here for three years. I don't know why he's not doing this this right. It's really a matter of well, why do we do what we do? How did we get there? You know, I am teaching guys who've been doing this for twenty years how to measure. Hey, did you notice that when you bend it this way you lose? You know and everything's got to be within a sixteenth of an inch or something like that. So, it was really interesting for me to be able to kind of take what I did. On a manufacturing side and kind of prove this this ideology that I have. It says, no. If, we can, if we can help if you get the right people, and you can come up with a system where we understand why we're able to accomplish the things that we're able to accomplish. Then you can actually take that and implement it into almost any system. And, if you got the right people and they're messing up, usually it's an educational issue, not a negligent issue.
Speaker 2 00:16:51
And so, after a bit of work, We've actually got a guy who's running the entire team right now, who was a helper two years ago. And not only is he delivering every single time, but now he's actually training the helpers himself into installers. So and so from here, Honestly, I thought that this was going to be a thing that I'd run with my cousin. And. And everything would be hunky dory. And he's got an MBA, he's got great vision. And it didn't work out quite, it hasn't been as fun as I wanted it to be. And I'm not trying to throw anybody under the rug there, but I got a call from a door company that said, hey, you want to come and interview for this job? It was manufacturing. And I started letting myself think about it again and I realized I really, really miss manufacturing.
Speaker 2 00:17:50
And so here I am. I am at a point now where it's like, okay, I've helped him got his teams doing what they need to be doing. Now I want to jump back into manufacturing.
Speaker 3 00:18:03
Sure, makes sense. What beyond manufacturing is there? What sort of brings you back to food? And it reconserving being maybe a little bit different, but I think probably a lot of similarities with some of the, Even like the variability. What do you what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 00:18:25
So like, What is there anything about food manufacturing? Or just sort of broadly manufacturing that sort of energizes you for this? This return to uh I guess reconserves not directly food manufacturing, but I would imagine some similarities to the food industry. Right right? Yeah. So with reconserved, we we had to follow a variation of SQF and and HACCP rules. Um. Top notch foods was SQF because it was for human consumption. I think that I'll be honest with you from my current exposure to, you know, was I really excited about breadcrumbs? Not really because they weren't excited about it. They were excited that they could make a lot of money off of it. And for the animal food part of it, I was. 
Speaker 2 00:19:19
Until, you know, the market started changing, and we started putting all this fillers and stuff like that into it. And then it became a, you know, All of the old school guys were were a bit of purists and we start going, hey, you know, it's weird because I remember having a conversation with the owner's son going. I can't knock you for the money. You know, the money makes sense while you're doing this kind of stuff. And even though everybody is sitting there going, I don't know. Maybe it's like that whole Coke deal, right? They've got all the extra junk in it. Is it really hurting anybody? I don't know. People are buying it, yeah. So, but I think that in order to do food and food well, I think what what interests me about Home Chef is. And I am kicking myself in my head right now because my wife said that we used to actually order Home Chef. Yeah, and if I was really smart, I would have actually.
Speaker 2 00:20:18
Eating a meal before I had this conversation with you. You know, I'm really interested to see how well you can make good food, package it and put it on somebody's door. And I think that would be really, really cool. The skeptic in me goes, you know, because I'm a food guy. The skeptic in me goes, I'm you know, I'm patiently awaiting eating one of those. Um, but I think if you could do that and do it well, you know, that would be. I think that's the kind of thing going. Hey, We took this thing that nobody thought we could do myself included, and we did it. Um, sure. And I and I think being able to drive towards something like that, that interests me. Am I am I am i answering your question?
Speaker 3 00:21:09
Yeah for sure. Um, I was i was curious, just as it's like an interesting thing where i don't need a. So much of food ends up being like people live inside of the food industry, and I don't know that that's always like the best thing. Sometimes like diversifying that perspective is really important, but we don't always see it. And. So I think there's like a little bit of the expectations that come along with that. You mentioned the challenging sort of location and flipping that culture. Can you. 
Speaker 3 00:21:42
Go into any specific examples of maybe individuals or or that moment in time where there was an inflection point. What strategies you took to to rally the team around and maybe where you reflected on having to need it, do need to do it differently or or adjust the message to sort of meet the team where they were at.
Speaker 2 00:22:05
Yeah, um, so I, I'll stick with recon, sir. If you want me to talk more about triune, then I'm happy to. Oh no,
Speaker 3 00:22:15
Recon's perfectly fine with that.
Speaker 2 00:22:18
When I got there, they were fixing leaks by wrapping a latex glove around it and going, I don't have time to get there. And. So we'll do that and we'll really do it in a way that's thoughtful. We'll let the leak go inside of the glove so it can hold more. Yeah. And and uh you know, and that was my maintenance technician, who, by the way today is considered the best in the nation. Um yeah, cause he had the capabilities, but he didn't have the quality aspects. And and he actually wasn't hard to bring along because I feel like he knew it, but he was always put under pressure on a level that he couldn't ever keep up. Um.
Speaker 2 00:23:06
But at the risk of not answering your question well, with him I just basically had to come up with a system. We came up with a preventative system where we gave him time to actually fix stuff. And you know, He would fabricate ladders and he wouldn't do it with any sense of plan where we had ladders that were. Not even level, you know. So one side was this way and the other side was that way. It's like, hey man, you know. And so I would constantly have to walk up to him and go, where is your level? But I think the biggest thing when another thing when I got there originally, they said, Hey, this is the first person you have to hire, or you've got to fire. And I said well why are we firing him? Well he never he never actually will do anything beyond his eight hours.
Speaker 2 00:24:02
And I said, well, is this my decision or your decision? Well, it's your decision. And uh, so okay. So after a few days I walked to the shop. I you know, this back when it was 55 cents to get a soda. You know and grabbed a soda out of the machine and walked up to him and handed it to him. And what's this for? Oh just you know and uh hey can you do me a favor? Would you mind staying late today? I need some help. And he goes, yeah, sure, no problem. And I think that that's an area where ultimately people want to be respected first. If you don't respect them, they're not going to trust you. And if they're not going to trust you, they're not going to do anything for you. You want to be able to hold and I haven't given you a great example yet because there was no conflict there.
Speaker 2 00:25:02
But ultimately, you know, I've had both sides of it. I've had I've lost these battles and and I've won them. But I find that you have to front load. i i tell my i've got three boys at 14, 12 and 10. And and I really do believe this. Luckily, i managed for you know, i've been managing so long and kids aren't very much different than your employees. But one thing I try to tell them each is. 
Speaker 2 00:25:33
People are like bank accounts. You have to always be in the positive. Every time you do a good thing for them, you're putting money in the account, and every ask you make, you're taking out. And the second you go below or go to zero, you're done. Um. And so the real question is, is how do you consistently come alongside of these guys? And I don't care if they're frontline guys, I don't care if they're supervisors, I don't care if they're my boss, even though he tends to get more attention from me.
Speaker 2 00:26:03
Um, they need to feel like they're respected. They need to know that you matter to them. And so, um, with with Carol at the top of my head, I am thinking of two issues where you know when I went to Triune, I couldn't get this guy to buy in, and he was more threatened by the fact that I was there. Then the fact that he wanted to do a good job. And so he at one point told me that, I know more about tile, you know, The day that somebody can tell me more about tile is the day that um I can tell a woman how to give birth. And it was like okay, Can you help me understand why we're three quarters of an inch off on that measurement over there? Well I don't know something changed. Didn't you do all of this?
Speaker 2 00:27:01
Well, yes. So help me understand. I'm not here to fix you. I'm just here to help you think through some things. And unfortunately he got disappointed or, you know, he got offended and said, You're just nitpicking me. You're this that and the other. And I said, Wait, I didn't hand you the plans. You know, I didn't do anything. I just asked you to look over your work. And at that point, i kind of said, hey, this is getting a little heated.
Speaker 2 00:27:31
I didn't come here to offend you. You know, let's pause this and let's come back. I'll let you handle that. I know you know what you're doing. We'll talk about it later. Another situation though was with his replacement, the guy I brought up as a helper. And, this is actually an interesting area because we have a two year sales cycle for pools. And, we didn't have we had to pull off a couple of jobs because they were asking us to do stuff that was outside of contract and basically pushed us off. And I said, I am going to use this opportunity to replenish our crew. If if I am not going to have enough work for everybody, the people that want to go can leave. Um, fortunately, I only pushed any one guy out out the window. That was a bad way to say it. Um, But you know, i i uh, you know, i only pushed one guy and the rest. They were all related on some level. And and the rest just kind of.
Speaker 2 00:28:27
Found their way out. So, I am sitting here and I've got two employees, and they don't speak a lick of English. Now, I've got a basic understanding of Spanish, And so as we're going through, you know how to set this up because neither of us had before. I said let's get the laser and, As he's walking away, in Spanish he says, " He always wants to use the laser, and the laser is no good for anything." And I pull him back and I go, "Hey. You don't like the laser because you don't understand how the laser works. You don't understand how to make it work for you. Will, you give me the opportunity to show you why the laser can make your life better?" And he goes, "Yeah. I will. Fine. Show me."
Speaker 2 00:29:23
And, now my$ 1500 laser stays in his car because he doesn't want to go anywhere without it. He doesn't want to lose it. And so and we've actually become quite close. And like I said, this is the guy that ended up being, you know, he's now my number one guy. So awesome.
Speaker 3 00:29:43
One of the things we sort of pride ourselves on, but as a maybe specific opportunity for this site is this idea of, Sort of progress versus perfection, and in our industry sometimes that means we call it like eighty for twenty. So basically we will absorb eighty percent of the value, twenty percent of the effort, And then that last chunk, we'll come back to it when when the time makes sense. How do you how do how do you find that balance? And maybe it's I don't know how well it applies to Treo, but I am curious. But then. 
Speaker 3 00:30:22
More. So as you would be trying to rally a team around the idea that we're going to either make sort of make the most of the progress that we've made up to that point or this idea that we need to do a better like it's our responsibilities to demonstrate why we have to close that gap to perfection. Like we have to sort of prove that out otherwise as a business, we're pretty happy with the progress we've made on a. You know, Whether it's a specific project or a specific piece of tech orum a specificum initiative that we've moved on.
Speaker 2 00:30:59
So if I'm hearing you right, You're saying how do I properly sell my staff on the idea that 80% is okay? We don't need to get to 100%. Yep. I think my guess is is that the decision that we that, The reason why the decision was made in order to get to eighty percent and not one hundred percent was because that last twenty percent costs way too much money. Or,
Speaker 3 00:31:29
And that could be maybe the example I've been using. I don't know if you are a golfer, but it probably applies like baseball as well. Is like t here is been a lot of hitters that have gotten to like three fifty. No one's hit four hundred since Ted Williams, and the reason is that last fifty points on batting average. And now today we're all hitting home runs so like, Bad analogy, But that last fifty points is like there's so much time to get to the last fifty points. Let's just be if we can make the most of the three hundred and fifty.
Speaker 2 00:31:57
Right, right. What's that uh that movie about the Oakland A'sum with Brad Pittum. 
Speaker 3 00:32:02
Yeah Moneyball. 
Speaker 2 00:32:03
Moneyball That's rightum That's, that's essentially where you're you're going. How do we? Yes, how do we ensure that we're getting the littleum they consistent small gains to get us all the way around? And I think that the more that I mean, obviously there's certain things that you cannot share with employees, certain things that certain numbers you don't want them seeing. But I do think that there are, you know, I'm huge on separating out unit costs. You have to be able to see it. You know, are you doing your best? Yeah, I am based on what do you say that?
Speaker 2 00:32:43
And so, a lot of times you guys, you know, a lot of the times you can actually show somebody and say, hey, let's look at this. And you can be able to piece this out and say, look at these numbers. Here is this. Let me explain this to you. Now if you were running this business what would you decide? And almost always from that perspective You can say, They can go, "Oh, oh yeah, I agree." And then you'll always get a purist that's going to go, "Yeah, but it just doesn't feel right. We should be doing it certain way. " I actually have that issue at Triune, where, after three years I've gotten them to agree. But let me finish this. At, that point in time. The question is, is the customer willing to pay for that extra little bit? When I started at Triune we were lamenting on the fact that we couldn't.
Speaker 2 00:33:36
We are literally the highest price uh pool contractor in all of L A. It's like and and so I started investigating that going why what gives it's like? Oh, well, everybody undersells us because or underbids us because we provide a better pool. Okay. Are we just better in what we're doing? Um, it's like, well, not only are we better in what we're doing, but we're actually offering more services. I won't do a silver standard pool. Okay, well change that then. Does the client know that they're getting silver? Well no. So why don't we offer a silver pool with a gold upgrade? I just don't want to do that. You know, that's not who I am. And after three years you know actually it was I think two weeks ago. 
Speaker 2 00:34:30
You know, I've decided we're going to start offering the base level pool with upgrades. And so again, he's my cousin, right? So it's a family thing. So I go, you do realize that was my idea, right? But I think that is the question. How do you communicate that so that all parties know where everything stands? But then also I think that Because there are some pools that we'll go to and we'll go, no. They're not getting that. You know, that full alignment. Everything's perfect. Everything's tweaked and everything's you know, And sometimes my installers will go But. It would look so good It's like, yes, but they're not paying us for it They. They don't value it enough to pay us for it. So. We're not going to do it And, then they go Oh. Yeah well, they're not going to pay me Will, you do it for free? No No Will you come here on your time?
Speaker 2 00:35:29
And I think when you can break it down that way, you know, it tends to be understandable. But I would say that it kind of all goes full circle to that idea that says, how's your relationship? Do they respect you? Do they trust you? Do you respect them? You know, Because a lot of the times I can get away with saying stuff that says, hey if you really want me to go into it I can. But, You know, will you trust me on it? All right, yeah. You know, And but and a lot of that has to do with what type of relationship you have with your people.
Speaker 3 00:36:08
Yeah, There's an element there of the, you know, let give me a little I went to that one. A lot of like we'll we'll get to the why here we just we're going to move quickly now. And you know, I'll give you all the. The backstory, But you're gonna have to trust that I advocated the exact way that we needed it advocated for, And like this is the best decision for the business because it's it's a sort of constant balancing act. And I think one of the hurdles we've long faced with our San Bernardino site is we're based in Chicago, we'll make decisions here and that hasn't it's.
Speaker 3 00:36:48
You know, For a site, that's probably our most sort of process driven and really adheres to the process really well. Well, We'll like go for a fast change or or try something and really live that fail, fast mentality. And that can really be at odds with the way this site wants to execute. And. So there's a mixture of of trust, but also a need to embrace that element because what. It unfortunately begins to manifest and has manifested itself now is sometimes prioritizing the wrong thing and having to bring along a management team that is talented, but also thinking like it's grown from I think we should do it differently to like being frustrated by the strategy. And that that can manifest in poor morale and ultimately some pretty significant dysfunction across that leadership team. Um. 
Speaker 3 00:37:45
The last question I had, and you might have touched on it, But I am just curious if you can kind of walk me through the labor cost reduction, What your inputs were at Tribune and how you sort of landed at that twenty seven percent? And what created that problem and how you solved it.
Speaker 2 00:38:04
Sure. Ultimately construction is especially in tile it is, Seen as more of an art than it is a process. And so, in order to um in in order to get quality um installers, you have to pay a premium. And um like I said, I ended up kind of pushing the installer out and found myself um because every time.
Speaker 2 00:38:41
Every time we ran into, I wasn't able to do this with him. He wouldn't let me. And I don't want to turn this into a long story. I tend to do that sometimes, but he wouldn't let me do it. But you know, some of these pools that we're building, one sixteenth matters. And, you go to any other? The stone guys say that they're perfect, and they're awesome. And they have to get within an eighth. For us, one sixteenth is too much. So when you do those like infinity edges, and when we're doing them, you know a lot of pools are maybe thirty feet forty feet. We did one with a radius. So now it curves around ;. It's one hundred and fifty feet long, and it's got to be one sixteenth inch, no more than one sixteenth inch off the entire way. And we screwed it up, and then we fixed it, and it was wrong again.
Speaker 2 00:39:37
And we fixed it and it was wrong again. And then we decided, hey, we know what went wrong. We went to the next pool and it was wrong again. And which makes a guy like me go, what's going on here? I, even I was smart enough to go, ask the guys that are awesome at this, and they screwed it up too. And so I decided to completely break down the way that we measure things. So to give you an idea, we, We were doing a toe kick and uh toe kicks that little part that goes underneath the bench in a spa had to be I, think we'll call it four and an eighth. And uh so I was measuring four and a sixteenth. He was measuring four and an eighth. And uh I said, what's going on here? And, he, uh, he says, well, you know, this is what I got. So I got down there with him, and I pulled out my tape measure and say, hey, that's four to sixteenth.
Speaker 2 00:40:34
What do you have? I have four and an eighth. Maybe it's the tape measures. Let's switch. So we switch. He gets the same, I get the same. I said, okay, Now I'm going to measure it. And you tell me if I'm doing it right and then you measure it. And I'll tell you if you're doing it right. Okay, well, I put mine up and so what do you see? And he says, "I see four and a sixteenth." Aha! He picked my number! That's good! Said okay now you do it. And when he put it down. Um, he put it down, but just you get that little metal tab that's right here. And he it was just a touch off. Mhm. And I went, That's your problem right there. Um, Now this is a guy that had been doing tile for 20 years, and he went, Oh, I never thought about that. The other aspect is one of the, the the um questions I ask on a uh on our on our um.
Speaker 2 00:41:31
Candidate sites when when people apply for the jobs, what is that little metal tab move for? And that usually gives me it's a quick little filter that I can do to see, you know. And the reality is it's when you are pulling it adjusts, you know, to offset the it's one sixteenth right there. It offsets it. I didn't know this before I went into construction. So and and when you are pushing up against something, It collapses, and that's what makes it even. Well, this same guy I am watching him again. I'm double checking everything, and I see him. He pushes out that little metal tab. And what do you do? He goes, Oh, this is how I was taught to do it. Well, that's why we're off right there. Well, what do you mean? And so I was able to take him through. It's like okay measure that measure it this way, measure it that way. Oh, and what that did from there. If this guy doesn't know how to measure, nobody knows how to measure. Um and so that's when I realized that.
Speaker 2 00:42:29
We had two problems. One, the actual execution of measuring properly. And then two, when when we came through and said, hey, we're going to build this pool and we're going to do this. Everything was, hey, do you see it in your head? It's this. And then it's this. And we're just going to go to a quarter inch off of that. And then we're going to come up. There was a point where my boss left, and this is we were I think I had been there for a month. So I was still really just in the weeds. And he looks at me and he says, "Do you get it?" And I go, "No." And I look at the foreman. I go, "Do you get it?" And he says, "Yeah. Yeah." So okay great. You know, I'll get it from him. You're good. You can go. So my boss leaves and I go all right, explain it to me because I don't get it, and he says, "I don't get it either. " I just didn't want to say no, you know. And so sure. Um so from there, i realized no, we're we're.
Speaker 2 00:43:29
The rest of the construction world uses plans. We can use plans too, even if I am the guy that has to do it. And so I was already, I had already come up with a way to quote pools better by drawing a three D model. I learned how to use SketchUp, which is Google's version of three D modeling. And. So I would model the pool and that allowed us to determine most of our material needs. Automatically. And then I said, well, if I just refine it to make sure that it's exact I can export this and give it to my guys. And so even the guy that I was having a hard time with all of a sudden, he starts getting everything right each time. Um and once I was able to do that, along with the idea that now I can teach everybody, how to measure things, how do we do things? Um I was able to determine.
Speaker 2 00:44:26
And unfortunately, at this high level, you can't just YouTube everything. So I actually had to stand there and watch them do things, you know, make a lot of phone calls. And so I realized that no, we need to do everything with control lines. And I'm sorry, this is a long explanation, but what I really had to understand how measuring was done at its root. Because that was the issue. Everybody can tile, There was a couple tweaks I made in the actual system of the process that was creating a lot of issues. But everybody can tile, it's the measuring that everybody was getting wrong. And that was creating a whole bunch of issues. And once and so I taught this one guy, how to measure everything and I said, you're going to be the guy that goes around and eventually you'll teach everybody. But, if I can teach you how to measure and everybody else uses those same skills off of your guides.
Speaker 2 00:45:24
Then I don't need this artist, you know, this artist. And so instead of hiring guys at forty bucks an hour, We're now hiring installers at twenty seven dollars an hour and helpers at twenty two dollars an hour. And then when they show that they can, They've got a few things that they have to show that they can conquer and they get to be, you know, installers after that.
Speaker 3 00:45:46
Nice. Awesome. Appreciate that. Um yeah, that makes sense. Uh we got, Seven minutes left here. What questions do you have for me about the role?
Speaker 2 00:45:57
Um, I would say, what separates your top plant directors from one another?
Speaker 3 00:46:06
Good question. Um, I think it's a two sort of two part answer. One is we are still a very manually driven process. So it's just it's a lot of, Frontline team members and where there's a sort of prerequisite relationship that even as the plant corrector, we rely on uh pretty closely that person's sort of touch and understanding of what's happening on the floor. And sometimes that can be um a stretch for some plant directors or or some plant directors have undervalued that, and that's really come to.
Speaker 3 00:46:53
Create challenges. So, at its baseline, T here is a humbleness required to go out on the floor as the plant director and talk to the frontline team who's maybe taking bulk spinach and portioning it into an eight ounce bag. And, that's the job doing for six and a half seven hours in a thirty eight degree floor, and kind of building relationships with that group and helping. Creating trust with a group that maybe isn't always predisposed to trust uh to trust you or trust individuals in leadership roles. Um. And then the second element is is pushing pushing the like pushing the uh envelope right? The you. 
Speaker 3 00:47:45
We were one of the many businesses that, you know, COVID flipped the world upside down. But for us, it was like the greatest thing that's ever happened to a business. We had a we went from about three hundred and fifty million dollars in annual revenue to nine hundred. And fifty basically at like a light switch. So I had to and what that created was one we, Created a whole bunch of incredible processes to be able to manage that kind of volume, but also we got a little gluttonous and a little complacent with revenue. And when yields were so high, It made some of your other underlying overhead numbers and things like that easier to be comfortable with. And so what our last year and half, last two years has been defined by is client directors who are. 
Speaker 3 00:48:41
Building those relationships and pushing through that relationship, able to push what their sites can accomplish to to that next level. Not so dissimilar from the example you gave of sitting down with the guy who wouldn't work overtime and figuring out how to get that gentleman to work overtime, right? Is this this ability to get your two hundred and fifty employees to do five to ten percent more apiece and create. That added value to the business, all while facing, you know, some headwinds on our kits side as we have this. You know, The our growth engine is our ready to eat meal, but we still our kits business, which is 500 million, is still the one that has to be keep keep everyone's uh, paychecks going and keep funding that growth vehicle.
Speaker 2 00:49:30
Okay. Um well hopefully you heard that I I, You know, I actually think that you you kind of need that touch. As as a new manager coming in, You can't afford to not touch everybody because it's the best way to it's the best way to really understand where you are at, because you don't know what you don't know where your support systems are. If it's the if it's the front line, if it's the supervision. So. 
Speaker 2 00:50:02
And I think that the more that you can open your ears by, you know, just talking to people and watching, the more you can understand, you know, where your bottlenecks are. You know where your morale issues are and so on and so forth. So I'm going to ask this. This was my fifth question, but I'm going to jump to it in just because of time. Do you have any concerns about my background and my ability to, Come in here.
Speaker 3 00:50:33
No, you know what? It's an interesting I see a lot. I sort of alluded to it. I see a lot of resumes with a long food manufacturing background. And and I think the there's an element. I was curious about coming into the interview of this would be largely, you know, a lot in new. But i i think you touched on that with going into the construction business and not being. A construction professional, which is probably similar. A lot of people grow straight vertically through that that industry and don't really deviate from it. So, um, no, I think there's it's um been super helpful to understand the approach on culture. And as I just alluded to, that's an element that having specific examples and ultimately a really. 
Speaker 3 00:51:25
Refined approach is is needed for our plant directors because we we are we pride ourselves on our data and our CI and our lean manufacturing and all those great. And they're great I'm, a CI head at my heart. But ultimately, much of my success at my plant was because I went and built relationships with the frontline associates and regained their trust and convinced them that there was a. A reason to trust their plant director and had he was looking out for their best interest in trying to ultimately improve that all while, you know, affecting the bottom line, which isn't always the that our our hourly associate level worker gets from a leader, sometimes that bottom line approach comes in the form of a really callous. And cold operation, which has certainly been done and I think.
Speaker 3 00:52:22
As some new success, it certainly looks good on a balance sheet, but it. I have a hard time seeing that as sustainable. Right,
Speaker 2 00:52:32
Right. Yes, because they they need to be able to believe in you. Ultimately here I'll I'll I am having a hard time getting my top installer a raise right now. And my response to him was. You're using my equity, how much he believes in me to keep him here. But eventually we need, you know, if the guy's worth more money, we need to get him more money. And, but I think the reason why he trusts me is because he knows that I'm going to go fight this for him. Right. Because. So he doesn't need to worry about the money because I'll go fight it. Right It's that relationship back and forth. Yep So okay. 
Speaker 2 00:53:19
Um, I have more questions, but I want to be. I want to be uh you know, I think we've hit our time and and I think you've ultimately you've answered the majority of them. But there's is there anything else that uh. 
Speaker 3 00:53:33
No, I don't think so. I appreciate your time this afternoon, and i have a few more this week, but i'll reach out as we sort of get our next steps. Uh all come out if uh,
Speaker 2 00:53:44
If you were looking in a crystal ball, would you have some sort of timeline on expectations?
Speaker 3 00:53:49
Um, I am trying to move pretty quickly. We have a few stages, so the next step would be a panel, And then after that is our uh our COL followed by um our our CEO. So there's there's a couple weeks here worth of of interviews, but I'm, Want ing to to find the right fit for this site because of the strategic importance, But also because of the the type of leader we need to bring in to to influence that management team. So all of that is to say I'm I'm, it's my top priority to get it filled, but you know a couple a couple weeks. Yeah. Uh interviews and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 00:54:30
Okay. Okay. Well,
Speaker 3 00:54:31
I appreciate that Cool Um, I appreciate your time, Thank you Awesome interview, and uh, yeah Heather will reach out. Great.
Speaker 2 00:54:39
Thank you. You have a great day, John. Thanks, Greg. All right. Yeah, take care. Bye-bye.

[AI_SUMMARY]
No content