Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Brad Belden on Fifth-Generation Leadership and Manufacturing Innovation in Brick Industry

Transcript

Brad Belden on Fifth-Generation Leadership and Manufacturing Innovation in Brick Industry · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
• 0:17
  and today's guest is Brad Belden, president and COO of the
• 0:21
  Belden Brick Company. Founded in 1885, they are the
• 0:26
  largest family owned brick manufacturer in the US, known
• 0:31
  for creating high quality bricks that bring both durability and
• 0:35
  beauty to commercial and residential projects.
• 0:38
  Under Brad's leadership, the company continues to grow and
• 0:42
  remain A trusted name in the manufacturing world.
• 0:45
  He's been with Belden Brick since 2004 and has helped steer
• 0:49
  it through various challenges and expansions.
• 0:52
  Before joining the company, he worked as a Markets manager at
• 0:55
  JP Morgan Chase from 2000 to 2004.
• 0:59
  He also serves on several boards, including the Canton
• 1:01
  Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Manufacturers
• 1:05
  Association, where he shares his expertise in driving industry
• 1:09
  innovation. Today, Brad will share insights
• 1:12
  from his journey and talk about his passion for leading a
• 1:15
  company with a rich heritage. But before we get into all that
• 1:19
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:22
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
• 1:26
  unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and
• 1:29
  fiscally optimized for your bottom line.
• 1:32
  Imagine being able to give your employees free access to
• 1:35
  doctors, therapists, and prescription medications.
• 1:38
  And here's the fun part. The program actually puts more
• 1:41
  money in your employee's pockets, and the company's too.
• 1:46
  One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per
• 1:50
  employee per year. Results vary for each company,
• 1:54
  and some organizations may not be eligible.
• 1:56
  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 1:59
  AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
• 2:02
  today, President and COO of the Belden Brick Company, Brad
• 2:06
  Belden. Thanks for making the time to
• 2:07
  Share your story today. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
• 2:11
  So Brad, the family business has been around for 140 years, which
• 2:16
  is almost unheard of. Yeah.
• 2:18
  With that kind of legacy, was it always understood that you would
• 2:21
  become a part of it? No, not really.
• 2:27
  I don't think any of the any of us that are working here today
• 2:30
  that are in part of the family were expected to come back to
• 2:34
  the company. It wasn't really understood at
• 2:37
  this point. We're fifth generation, so
• 2:41
  there's a lot of options. Of course, most of us that work
• 2:45
  back here had a father that worked here.
• 2:48
  So I think there's always some of that.
• 2:49
  You always look up to your father and, and want to do what
• 2:52
  they they did. And but I just, I think things
• 2:55
  sort of lined up that it, that it worked out over time.
• 2:58
  And I think, I think our fathers admit that they got a little bit
• 3:01
  lucky that we all came back and I wanted to have a job at the
• 3:05
  company. So it's, it's worked out so far.
• 3:07
  But yeah, and there's really not an expectation that any of our
• 3:10
  kids are, are going to come back and work here either.
• 3:13
  Of course, you know, at some point we're going to have to
• 3:15
  figure that out, maybe the next 5 or 10 years.
• 3:18
  What is it that you think is so special about the company that
• 3:22
  has allowed it to not only survive for 140 years, but to
• 3:27
  thrive? It's a, it's a good question.
• 3:31
  We always wonder the same thing ourselves.
• 3:33
  I think it's we're just in a in a good pocket.
• 3:37
  I think Brick's been around for a long time.
• 3:40
  So we have a product without, you know, has been successful as
• 3:46
  a building material. It's probably that we'd say the
• 3:48
  best building material that's that's around, even though other
• 3:51
  people try to copy it or or imitate it in some other way or
• 3:55
  improve upon it. It's really just that that good
• 3:57
  of a system that, you know, provides durability and beauty.
• 4:03
  So a company like ours, we have the right product and but it's
• 4:08
  not something that's so flashy that that we make so much money
• 4:12
  that we're going to, you know, move on to other things or sell
• 4:14
  out. And we just sort of like, we
• 4:16
  sort of like what we do. We, we get a lot of satisfaction
• 4:20
  in some of the building to get built with our product and it's
• 4:23
  a it's a great environment to work.
• 4:24
  So I think that's just really it.
• 4:26
  Now there's really. Not a lot of flashy that it's
• 4:29
  attracting a lot of competition either.
• 4:32
  Right there you go. It's it and it's a one of the
• 4:34
  it's manufacturing, it's a very capital intense and labor
• 4:39
  intense business. And yeah, so there's not a bunch
• 4:41
  of brick companies popping up all over the place.
• 4:43
  It's really more the the alternative building materials
• 4:46
  that they try to attack our place.
• 4:48
  And some have some success for a while, but people remain in the
• 4:54
  wanting brick and we continue to see and and surveys that brick's
• 4:59
  still the number one most sought after desire brick cladding.
• 5:04
  What? What's maybe the?
• 5:05
  One or two alternative products that recently have have tried to
• 5:10
  come in and eat some of your lunch.
• 5:14
  I'd say some of the the concrete stone players, so cultured stone
• 5:18
  they call it, there's a bunch of different names for it.
• 5:20
  So it's really just concrete that looks like stone.
• 5:23
  There's James Hardy, there's the cement board that looks like
• 5:27
  wood. So again, when you're when
• 5:30
  you're talking about there's run that a lot of things replicating
• 5:33
  the brick look, but I think the the stone gives a masonry
• 5:37
  appearance, even though it's just sort of a we call it sticky
• 5:40
  stone. It's just sort of stuck on
• 5:43
  versus, you know, brick system has a an air gap in the back.
• 5:48
  So it's going to, you know, take care of moisture and more sound
• 5:53
  and be more durable and just last a long, long time.
• 5:56
  I. Want to hear more about that
• 5:57
  sort of the differences that set brick apart.
• 5:59
  I mean, obviously that the there's the the cosmetics,
• 6:02
  right? Like you said, brick is what,
• 6:05
  you know, the most highly sought after building material.
• 6:08
  But but say more about some of those structural benefits, the
• 6:12
  air gap and the lack of moisture.
• 6:13
  These are things that you're not finding with like the the Hardy
• 6:16
  plank or with the the sticky, what did you call it?
• 6:19
  Sticky stone, Sticky. Stone yeah, so yeah, those
• 6:23
  things are just sort of on a mastic they're they're kind of
• 6:26
  they put more on the back and stick it right onto the house.
• 6:29
  Brick has does have a a couple of inches an inch or two air gap
• 6:33
  behind it. So it's sort of, we call it like
• 6:35
  a living breathing system. So we know that water is going
• 6:39
  to penetrate through the mortar or, you know, the brick has some
• 6:43
  absorption to it. But usually the water is going
• 6:45
  to find its way through, you know, header joints or, or the
• 6:48
  mortar system somehow. But there's enough of a gap
• 6:51
  between your, the, you know, the plywood and the, you know,
• 6:54
  there's usually a, some sort of synthetic barrier between the
• 6:58
  outside and the inside, but that water is going to drip down the
• 7:00
  back of that wall. And then on the bottom of your
• 7:03
  house, you've got these things called weep holes, but that
• 7:06
  allows air into that back of that wall and so that you'll
• 7:10
  never really have water building up in there.
• 7:12
  So as long as the flashings right and the Masons right, you
• 7:16
  should have a a really nice wall for for years to come versus if
• 7:19
  you get water behind any of those other systems, you could
• 7:22
  end up with some trouble. Because they don't have sort of
• 7:25
  that breathing mechanism built into them.
• 7:29
  Correct. Water is always going to be the
• 7:30
  enemy of you know how any sort of structure standing for for
• 7:35
  decades and centuries. OK.
• 7:38
  So let's hear a little bit about your history and you know, we'll
• 7:41
  get back to kind of the Belden Brick Company, what you guys are
• 7:44
  doing today. So you went to school at Boston
• 7:46
  College and then from there when you graduated, went to Chicago
• 7:50
  where you learn to trade options.
• 7:53
  What's a memorable experience there that has provided you
• 7:56
  skills that you continue to use today?
• 8:00
  Yeah, yeah. I was a finance major, so always
• 8:03
  was interested in how the markets worked.
• 8:05
  And so that was and I was like the city of Chicago.
• 8:08
  So I was kind of a good two for two for one there.
• 8:12
  When I went to Chicago, I'd say the biggest thing I've learned
• 8:16
  there was just learning how to be independent and making money
• 8:21
  on my own, having to show up to work on time.
• 8:25
  And some of the skills I learned there were a lot of, I'd
• 8:28
  actually balance their books too.
• 8:31
  I worked for a, a market maker. So there was only like 9 or 10
• 8:34
  of us at a given time working for this small firm.
• 8:37
  And so we'd go into the, the trading pits and the traders
• 8:41
  would trade all day. We'd have to make sure that the,
• 8:43
  the positions were known to all the traders so that they knew if
• 8:47
  we were long or short a position, how to close that up.
• 8:51
  But then at the end of the day, we'd have to, you know, figure
• 8:54
  out if you'd made money or lost money and, and, you know, make
• 8:57
  sure all those those we're tied out.
• 9:01
  So that's what I did. So, but I had just learned a lot
• 9:04
  of independent living and and having to show up on work
• 9:07
  outside I'd say was the biggest. Thing big boy job out of college
• 9:10
  and so. Exactly.
• 9:11
  You learned how to stand on your own 2 feet.
• 9:13
  So from there then I think you went on to JP Morgan Chase where
• 9:16
  you worked in credit markets. Can you say more about what you
• 9:19
  did there? Yeah.
• 9:21
  So when I moved to New York, it was less about being on the
• 9:24
  floor of a, you know, the New York Stock Exchange or something
• 9:27
  like this. It was a more of a corporate
• 9:30
  banking job, but it was the investment bank on the credit
• 9:33
  market side. So that's that has to do with
• 9:36
  more about loaning money to people and in the form of money
• 9:40
  markets or bonds. So there was bond originations
• 9:43
  or secondary market credit markets so that, you know, I
• 9:49
  just had to basically organize all the trades.
• 9:51
  So the main thing I learned at that job was, you know, I was a
• 9:56
  little bit young, so I was familiar with spreadsheets and,
• 9:59
  and I was able to, I guess, change the way they did some of
• 10:02
  the processes to make it more efficient.
• 10:05
  Can you say more about maybe one of the bigger changes that you
• 10:08
  made to introduce some efficiencies there?
• 10:11
  I think it would, they had a lot of some paper based stuff and
• 10:14
  e-mail and I, I made it a little bit more networked through,
• 10:18
  through a spreadsheet. So we just kept it more
• 10:20
  organized. Started learning some stuff,
• 10:23
  some, some of my colleagues at the company and, and learned,
• 10:26
  you know, I, I took some Excel classes at, at school, but
• 10:31
  learned kind of delved into the formulas and some of the
• 10:35
  organization features on Excel there.
• 10:37
  So was able to keep a lot of keep track of all the trades
• 10:41
  that way. OK.
• 10:42
  So from Chicago, New York, big cities, now you feel called back
• 10:47
  to Canton. How did that take place?
• 10:50
  Yeah, so living in Chicago and New York in your 20s with no
• 10:54
  children may be a little bit easier to do than when you get a
• 10:58
  little bit older and and have to start figuring out.
• 11:00
  OK. Like as your career advances, do
• 11:04
  you want to stay in New York or Chicago or a bigger city?
• 11:08
  And can you afford to live in the city?
• 11:10
  Do you want to live in the city with, with younger children or
• 11:14
  do you want to commute every time?
• 11:16
  But you know, I'm still coming back to can a decent amount for,
• 11:19
  to see friends and family. A lot of weddings were happening
• 11:22
  and it just felt very comfortable every time they came
• 11:25
  back. And so I met my wife in New York
• 11:28
  City and I did warn her that I was from Ohio and that we I
• 11:31
  might end up back here someday. So we, we decided to move out
• 11:37
  here. We can, you know, your, your
• 11:38
  money goes a lot farther and you know, it's a lot easier to play
• 11:42
  golf and do some of the things you enjoy that are harder to do
• 11:45
  in New York. So, you know, again, you know,
• 11:49
  you get a little bit older and your interest change.
• 11:51
  Ohio seems like a a pretty good option.
• 11:54
  And so you decide you're coming back.
• 11:56
  You want to be closer to family, friends that you, you know, you
• 11:59
  have back in Canton, OH. What about the job front?
• 12:04
  Was it just assumed that, OK, Brad's coming back, there's a
• 12:07
  spot for him at the Brick company?
• 12:10
  No, it was a, it was a, it was a nice process.
• 12:13
  So I, I, you know, I called my dad, let him know that hey,
• 12:16
  we're making this decision to come back to Canton.
• 12:20
  I don't know if Northeast Ohio anyway, and just said, hey, is
• 12:22
  there a spot? Is there something you guys
• 12:24
  could have me do or, or are you guys full and you're good to go?
• 12:28
  So it wasn't, it was a low pressure situation on all
• 12:32
  parties. You know, I was happy to go, you
• 12:35
  know, just apply for jobs at a bank or, you know, at a
• 12:40
  brokerage firm or what have you. But yeah, I came in, had a nice
• 12:44
  conversation with my dad and his two first cousins who were the,
• 12:48
  you know, president and CEO at the time.
• 12:51
  And yeah, we, they found a spot for me that they, there was a
• 12:54
  need and I think they recognized just like we're, we're starting
• 12:58
  to recognize ourselves that, you know, as we're getting older, we
• 13:01
  need to figure out who's going to be the next generation of
• 13:03
  leadership. So we had a nice conversation
• 13:07
  and and here I am. And So what was the role that
• 13:10
  you first started in there? The first, So I came from the
• 13:15
  banking world and they were like, well, what do you think
• 13:18
  about environmental health and safety?
• 13:22
  And, you know, I, I guess I'd always been in recycling and I
• 13:27
  was always sort of, you know, could wanted to save the planet
• 13:30
  and all that sort of thing too. So I was like, yeah, I'll give
• 13:33
  it a shot. And so yeah, I came back.
• 13:36
  And the other interesting thing was, you know, we have our, our
• 13:39
  Canton office here as our headquarters, but all the, all
• 13:42
  the actions really down in Shooter Creek, Ohio, where the
• 13:45
  factories are. So the job for environmental
• 13:48
  safety is, is in Shooter Creek. So I really got to learn the
• 13:52
  business when you get into when you're the environmental manager
• 13:55
  and the safety manager for a company.
• 13:58
  And there were some other people working with me in that
• 13:59
  department. I didn't just do it solo.
• 14:02
  So I did learn some from some other people, but you really get
• 14:05
  to to learn the all the different processes because they
• 14:08
  all need to be permitted and and done safely.
• 14:13
  OK. So I want to hear a little bit
• 14:15
  more about your progression through the company.
• 14:17
  But first, let's dive into more of the details about what you
• 14:21
  guys do. What sets you apart?
• 14:23
  How are you? Or are you just kind of making
• 14:25
  the same bricks as everybody else?
• 14:27
  And it's a relationship thing and you've got relationships
• 14:29
  with this distributor and that distributor.
• 14:31
  And so that's what's allowed you to be successful.
• 14:35
  Yeah, I'd say what when it comes to build and brick, the thing
• 14:37
  that we always our motto's been for a long time, the standard of
• 14:40
  comparison. So there's different in any
• 14:43
  industry really. There's different models.
• 14:45
  You can go down, you can be the the mass production, have very
• 14:49
  efficient processes and you're going to you know, and maybe
• 14:53
  have the lower price, but you're going to make it up your revenue
• 14:56
  and volume. And then you have some other,
• 14:58
  you know, people like Rolex or, you know, Cadillac.
• 15:02
  We always say it's like the Cadillac.
• 15:04
  So we're a little bit more, we, we focus more on style options
• 15:09
  to for an architect. So we're more on the commercial
• 15:12
  bent and, but even our residential stuff, we try to be
• 15:15
  a little bit more unique. So we offer more sizes, colors,
• 15:21
  textures than most of our competitors do.
• 15:24
  So there's a few of us that live in, in a similar space that we
• 15:27
  do. But then there's a lot of other
• 15:30
  brick companies that you know, kind of are more than mass
• 15:33
  producers and offer lower price. But we're we're set very much on
• 15:38
  on high quality and a lot of different options.
• 15:41
  And you said you're more on the commercial side.
• 15:43
  So does that mean you don't really like if I'm building a
• 15:46
  house I'm not going to use BELD and brick?
• 15:50
  Now we still have, we just focus, I'd say we're 80%
• 15:52
  commercial, but we still have a good 2025% in the residential
• 15:56
  space. So yeah, please, if you're going
• 15:58
  to build a house, give me a call.
• 16:01
  And the commercial side, so these are more like office
• 16:04
  buildings, retail environments. Pools I'd say is a big one for
• 16:09
  us. So whether that's, you know,
• 16:11
  just, you know, the high school locally or across the country or
• 16:15
  if you're going to a lot of the universities also if you go to a
• 16:19
  any campus for universities, they have these beautiful
• 16:22
  buildings. And so those are a lot of times
• 16:25
  come from our products. And they're going with you
• 16:28
  because you've got different color and texture options or
• 16:31
  there's some other advantages too.
• 16:33
  Yeah, absolutely. Sizes, colors, textures, we, we
• 16:37
  are fortunate and that's partially why we're in Ohio is
• 16:39
  our clay source. We have two different clay
• 16:41
  sources that give us a lot of color options.
• 16:44
  Of course, there's coatings and all sort of other things that we
• 16:46
  do as well. But so between our raw materials
• 16:50
  and some of the coding capabilities we have, we can
• 16:53
  offer a lot of different textures and colors.
• 16:56
  Then we do a lot of different sizes too.
• 16:58
  So some people like a long linear look.
• 17:00
  Sometimes they'd like sort of the more utility and bigger,
• 17:03
  bulkier. And then shapes.
• 17:06
  Shapes is another competitive advantages of ours.
• 17:09
  So if you want something that you know, moves or arches around
• 17:13
  your windows, just different design features, we do a lot of
• 17:18
  shapes. Sometimes they're mass produced,
• 17:20
  but a lot of times they're made by hand.
• 17:22
  And so some of those mass production companies don't
• 17:25
  really offer the same shapes that we do.
• 17:28
  And we'll do custom shapes with drawing those from, you know,
• 17:32
  with an AutoCAD guy that's full time.
• 17:34
  You you said that you have options that move.
• 17:38
  Did I hear that? If a wall isn't just maybe a
• 17:40
  box. So if your if your wall is,
• 17:43
  maybe you don't want it to be a 90° turn at the end of the wall.
• 17:47
  Maybe you want it to be a little bit more WAVY or a curved in a
• 17:50
  circular pattern or or maybe just a, you know, 135° turn.
• 17:59
  And we can do make shapes that'll hit those hit those
• 18:02
  corners. Gotcha.
• 18:03
  So it's not. Actually moving once it's in
• 18:06
  place, it's just you're able to. It's a sense of movement, right
• 18:10
  with your eye and you look across the wall.
• 18:12
  It's just not. You're not building a box
• 18:14
  anymore. You want to You want to do
• 18:15
  something a little bit different.
• 18:17
  And I'm going to guess, you know, when you guys are making a
• 18:20
  lot of these specialty items that it the, the consistency,
• 18:25
  the color consistency is really important too, which is probably
• 18:29
  why you lean a bit more towards the commercial side because
• 18:32
  they're making this huge giant building and they want, you
• 18:35
  know, the color pattern to be the same, not like have a new
• 18:38
  color. Like I had to replace the wood
• 18:40
  floors in my house or like a portion of them and it was
• 18:43
  really hard to like match up the boards.
• 18:45
  You know, they'll get the colors just right.
• 18:47
  Is it similar in the brick world?
• 18:50
  Absolutely. It's similar in the brick world.
• 18:52
  And so, you know, in a lot of a lot of homes, you know, there's
• 18:56
  fewer bricks, you know, in a in a structure.
• 18:58
  So some of those more mass produced guys will do just great
• 19:03
  on a on a home. But if they wanted to build, if
• 19:05
  you wanted to build a stadium and you got a million brick, you
• 19:08
  know, you want to make sure that that looks the same.
• 19:10
  That first brick laid looks exactly like the millionth brick
• 19:13
  that's laid. So yeah, we've done a lot of
• 19:15
  stadiums in our day too. So like Saint Louis Cardinal
• 19:19
  Stadium, University of Michigan, Notre name Boston College
• 19:24
  Stadium are all Belden brick, you know, Philadelphia Phillies.
• 19:27
  So I could keep keep going. But a lot of those larger
• 19:30
  structures, a lot of brick select us as their as their
• 19:34
  supplier. Are we going to see on the new
• 19:36
  Brown Stadium too? Soon, we're gonna, we're trying,
• 19:39
  we're gonna, we're hopes. And so, yeah, we don't like
• 19:41
  these stadiums that don't use a lot of brick, so.
• 19:48
  So you guys have been, you know, like over 100 years, over 100
• 19:55
  year old company. You guys have obviously had to
• 19:58
  kind of reinvent yourselves and continue to innovate over the
• 20:01
  years. And recently you've been
• 20:05
  automating plants, putting robots in.
• 20:08
  Tell me more about that. I mean any time a guy.
• 20:10
  Hears a story about. Robots.
• 20:12
  He wants to learn more. How are you guys putting robots
• 20:15
  in? Yeah.
• 20:18
  So we've, you know, it's funny, we when I first started in 2004,
• 20:21
  we had a new plant called Plant 2 that was fully automated.
• 20:26
  It was the first time and it's still the only plant we have
• 20:29
  that's automated front to back. So nobody, we don't have any
• 20:32
  what we call peace workers, which peace workers are
• 20:35
  employees that we have that are literally moving a brick from
• 20:37
  one place to another. This plant is all automated from
• 20:41
  front to back. Of course, that's no longer a
• 20:44
  new plant. That's a 25 year old plant now,
• 20:47
  but in the meantime, we've been putting in automation at other
• 20:52
  plants, existing plants, 50 year old plants, 60 year old plants
• 20:55
  and recent, most recently we put one in in a 95 year old plant.
• 20:59
  So it's going to be that plant was built in 1927.
• 21:03
  So we got a a couple of years until that plant's 100, but we
• 21:07
  just put some robots into it. So, you know, as you go, and
• 21:13
  especially after COVID, it was, it's, it gets more difficult to,
• 21:16
  to find people that want to move a brick from one place to
• 21:19
  another. We're thankful for all the
• 21:21
  employees we have that do that now.
• 21:23
  But we know over time, you know, the, the workforce is shifting
• 21:27
  from wanting to do that type of work to operating machinery.
• 21:31
  So a little less physically taxing, maybe a little bit
• 21:36
  mentally challenging to do some of that stuff.
• 21:39
  And the, you know, the, the, the challenge you have with that is
• 21:43
  figuring out what to do when, when they're not operating
• 21:46
  properly. So you have maybe less
• 21:48
  flexibility, but you have, you know, fewer employees that you
• 21:53
  have to constantly hire to, to move brick from one place to the
• 21:56
  other. So.
• 21:58
  I have, no, I've never been in a brick factory before.
• 22:02
  Kind of paint a picture for us and what the manufacturing
• 22:04
  process looks like. OK.
• 22:07
  I always tell people on a tour that, you know, we're basically
• 22:11
  making spaghetti. So once you get the clay out of
• 22:14
  the ground and you crush it and you screen it into a powder, you
• 22:18
  add water. So it's kind of like making
• 22:20
  pasta where you're, you know, have flour and you're adding
• 22:23
  water and eggs or whatever. And then if you're making
• 22:26
  noodles, you're just extruding it through a smaller, a smaller
• 22:30
  opening, right? You're pushing a lot of material
• 22:32
  through a small opening. That's sort of what brick making
• 22:35
  is like. So we make essentially a, you
• 22:38
  know, a noodle of clay and then you have different ways to cut
• 22:43
  that piece of clay into the individual brick sizes.
• 22:46
  And we have a bunch of different dies to make different size
• 22:50
  noodles essentially. So that's what we get all the
• 22:52
  different sizes. So we can go.
• 22:54
  The largest one we make is the 15 and 5/8 inch across brick.
• 22:59
  You know, the most typical bricks that people are used to
• 23:02
  seeing are 7 5/8 inches long. So these are, you know, about
• 23:06
  double the size and, and length. And then of course, you can cut
• 23:10
  them tall, you can cut them short, you can kind of thin, or
• 23:14
  you can cut them normal. So that's how that works.
• 23:16
  And once that, once those are cut, once that noodle is cut,
• 23:20
  then you can start stacking those essentially onto a table
• 23:25
  that has wheels. So we call those kiln cars.
• 23:27
  So it's just a flat table made out of refractory brick that can
• 23:31
  get burned over and over, travels through the plant, get
• 23:35
  those brick, get dry before then they go into the kiln.
• 23:38
  Once they go into the kiln, they're traveling very slowly
• 23:41
  through that kiln over the course of two to three days, and
• 23:45
  they're seeing temperatures of up to about 2000°.
• 23:48
  And that's where all the magic happens.
• 23:50
  So the the chemistry changes, there's a quartz inversion that
• 23:53
  happens and it makes something that's that's malleable into
• 23:58
  something that's very, very hard.
• 24:00
  So you talk about making pasta and cutting it and molds.
• 24:04
  Here's what I'm envisioning. You've got this giant VAT of
• 24:08
  this, you know, clay solution and you've got like these huge
• 24:12
  trays, these these molds that this gets poured into.
• 24:16
  So it has the the shape and the size of the brick that you want.
• 24:21
  And then it, I don't know, it's somehow it gets stamped.
• 24:23
  Is that and that's the cutting process.
• 24:25
  Am I understanding this? Yeah.
• 24:26
  So maybe let me describe it in a different way.
• 24:28
  So you have a a constant feed of material into something that's
• 24:32
  mixing up this material. Yeah.
• 24:33
  So it's kind of like a a through of clay, right?
• 24:36
  That's just constantly getting mixed and it's actually just
• 24:38
  getting forced forward, you know, with kind of like a drill
• 24:42
  so that the material keeps getting forced forward and goes
• 24:45
  smaller and smaller and smaller all the way down into like maybe
• 24:48
  an area on this side and it's just getting forced out in one
• 24:50
  long noodle And think of like play DoH and.
• 24:54
  Then it gets cut at the end of that.
• 24:57
  Yeah. So that that noodle would just
• 24:59
  keep going. Then we have conveyor belts on
• 25:01
  the end of that to carry that away.
• 25:03
  So that if we made a conveyor belt a mile long, you could just
• 25:06
  extrude a a noodle a mile long if you had the clay in the
• 25:09
  conveyors to do it. But we end up cutting it and
• 25:12
  then start stacking them up. So that's one way it's.
• 25:16
  Cut before it goes into the kiln and then it goes through.
• 25:20
  Like a it gets cut almost right away after after it comes out of
• 25:23
  that extruder, it gets cut right away and then you start moving
• 25:27
  it around and start stacking it up.
• 25:28
  OK. You mentioned and so the parts
• 25:32
  that you guys are now creating the automation for this is where
• 25:37
  maybe somebody took the kiln dried bricks and had to move
• 25:41
  them from one location to another.
• 25:43
  And now that's no longer the case.
• 25:44
  Or even like moving those noodles people used to do
• 25:47
  manually. Yeah.
• 25:48
  So that noodle always would come out and get cut.
• 25:51
  And then you have, we still have people that will grab those cut
• 25:54
  pieces and start stacking them up onto those tables.
• 25:58
  We still have that, but some of the automated plants don't.
• 26:01
  So they'll take those, those pieces that have been cut and
• 26:04
  then you have robots that'll grab them and stack them up.
• 26:07
  So that's the main difference. Then of course, you're right
• 26:09
  after they're through the, the kiln and they're bricks now and,
• 26:13
  but they're still stacked up. You need somebody to take them
• 26:16
  them off and then put them onto a pallet or put in them, put
• 26:19
  them right into a machine that makes our our packages.
• 26:23
  And you mentioned, you know, the automation is nice because fewer
• 26:26
  and fewer people want to do this kind of, you know, heavy manual
• 26:30
  labor work anymore. But when the machines breakdown,
• 26:35
  now you've got a problem, right? Everything comes to a halt cause
• 26:39
  your whole workflow has been built around these machines
• 26:44
  moving the materials. So are you guys turning the
• 26:48
  plants off every so often so that you can do regular
• 26:50
  maintenance or, or what happens when when a machine goes down,
• 26:54
  how do you guys bounce back? Yes, The way our our factories
• 26:58
  work for the most part is the kilns are going 24/7 for years
• 27:03
  if you can help it. I mean, every once in a while
• 27:04
  something happens to a killing, you got to shut it down and
• 27:08
  investigate. But we have kilns that have been
• 27:11
  on for years and and they don't stop.
• 27:13
  So that's a 24/7 process. Making the brick is more of a
• 27:18
  regular shift. So like one shift five days a
• 27:21
  week. And you're doing just just
• 27:23
  working those five days and you're building up enough
• 27:25
  killing cars to feed that, killing all, you know, 24/7.
• 27:29
  But you can, there's a, it's fast enough that you can do that
• 27:32
  in five days working about 8 hours a day.
• 27:37
  Yeah. But when, when a machine, you
• 27:41
  know, malfunctions and stops working, you know, sometimes
• 27:45
  that's on the noodle making side, the wet where we call that
• 27:48
  the wet brick making side. And then sometimes it happens on
• 27:51
  the the dry side of the packaging side.
• 27:54
  Any one of those, there's enough wiggle room that the other side
• 27:58
  can keep going and the kilns are OK until you, and so you have
• 28:02
  some time to, you know, and even if it's, if you can fix it
• 28:05
  within the two to three hours, you're fine.
• 28:08
  Everyone maybe has to stay a little bit longer that day to
• 28:11
  get there. You know, the kiln cars that
• 28:12
  they want to do. And that's no fun, of course,
• 28:15
  but you have some wiggle room. But it whenever there's
• 28:18
  something that's a major meltdown or a, or a breakage of
• 28:22
  something, then usually that's going to, that's going to affect
• 28:25
  the entire plant. If it's down for, hey, that's
• 28:28
  got to be down for two to three days.
• 28:30
  We've got to, the first thing we'll do is just slow down the
• 28:32
  kiln. So we're, you know, some of the
• 28:35
  kilns are we're putting in, let's call it 16 kiln cars a day
• 28:39
  and taking out 16 kiln cars on the other side.
• 28:42
  So we'd say, OK, can we can we slow that down to maybe A10 car
• 28:45
  push is how we call it so that you're only putting in 10 a day.
• 28:49
  Is that slow enough to get our problem fixed and then we can
• 28:52
  just ramp back up versus just stopping everything because?
• 28:55
  You just keep that kiln running all the time.
• 28:57
  You don't want to have to stop that kiln because even, even
• 29:00
  it's it's hard on the kiln to take it up and down in
• 29:04
  temperature multiple times. It just wants to stay.
• 29:07
  It's happy. Just that section that's 2000°
• 29:10
  is sort of happy just seeing 2000° a section won't that's
• 29:13
  1000° is happy just being 1000°. It doesn't like changes because
• 29:17
  that you could imagine, you know, things expand and contract
• 29:21
  with temperature and the more you expand and contract things,
• 29:25
  the more that you know they're going to shift over time.
• 29:27
  Gotcha. So you started out in the
• 29:30
  company in this environmental role, which gave you a lot of
• 29:34
  visibility into all the different processes that take
• 29:37
  place. How did your role evolve there
• 29:40
  over time? Well, yeah, so you know, doing
• 29:45
  that job is was very interesting, but over time you
• 29:48
  start, you know, your mind wanders, you want to get
• 29:50
  involved and and other things. So I guess maybe that's, you
• 29:54
  know, my nature as well. So I started looking into some
• 29:57
  of the raw material management and then sort of like how we, we
• 30:02
  do buy other minerals to change the colors of our bricks.
• 30:07
  So we, we do have two really good clay sources.
• 30:10
  One's a shale that burns red, one's a fire clay that burns
• 30:13
  buff. You can mix those two things
• 30:15
  together. You can, you can use the kiln
• 30:18
  to, to change their colors as well.
• 30:19
  But one of the other things that we use is like a manganese
• 30:23
  powder and iron oxide powders to then change the colors of those
• 30:28
  clay and fire clay and shale. So I started looking at some of
• 30:33
  those supplies where we got them from, what they do to I have AI
• 30:37
  went to our lab what we can, we can test things out, maybe try
• 30:40
  to make some new colors out of those things.
• 30:43
  But one thing that ultimately happened was I, you know, I
• 30:47
  started looking for alternative suppliers of those things as
• 30:51
  well. So the natural next place that
• 30:54
  they sort of looked at me and said, well, hey, maybe you
• 30:56
  should be also, you know, working with our purchasing
• 31:00
  manager. So eventually I, I, you know,
• 31:04
  started being in charge of the purchasing department as well
• 31:07
  and some of those processes that that happened, But it all kind
• 31:10
  of started with looking into our raw material management down to
• 31:15
  the fact that we were able to, as prices started rising, we
• 31:20
  ended up putting in our own material processing plant
• 31:24
  because we were able to take industrial byproducts that, you
• 31:28
  know, with the same exact minerals that we were
• 31:30
  purchasing, you know, from, from virgin mines.
• 31:34
  And so we were able to get the same looks with industrial
• 31:38
  byproducts from companies. So waste Annex.
• 31:40
  From from other people who were just going to, I don't know,
• 31:43
  throw them away or dispose of them somehow.
• 31:45
  Yeah, exactly. Some people were there, some of
• 31:47
  this stuff was going into landfills other some other
• 31:50
  things were being recycled in different ways, but the but the
• 31:54
  raw materials were way less expensive because it was
• 31:57
  somebody else's, you know, industrial byproduct, you know,
• 32:01
  so like they they have to pure. Virgin source that you had been
• 32:05
  purchased. It didn't need to be sort of
• 32:07
  that clean. Correct.
• 32:10
  Yeah, for certain things, some things we, we, you know, color
• 32:12
  is that important to us that we, you know, people were even
• 32:15
  skeptical. You can imagine I'm walking in
• 32:17
  saying, hey, I'm going to use someone else's trash to make
• 32:19
  your brick now. And so some of the plant
• 32:22
  managers were at look, it looked at me sideways a little bit.
• 32:25
  But you know, we we made sure that we did it maybe in the in
• 32:29
  the lowest risk products at 1st and then we kept expanding that.
• 32:33
  And so, yeah, some things today still get that need that, you
• 32:36
  know, virgin raw material. Sometimes we're able to
• 32:40
  supplement. So maybe not like a wholesale
• 32:42
  change, but you can supplement it with some of those industrial
• 32:46
  byproducts. Where did the?
• 32:47
  Idea come from you guys hadn't been doing this.
• 32:49
  It's one of those things where now that you talk about it, it's
• 32:52
  like Oh my gosh, that makes so much sense.
• 32:54
  But it will, you know, somebody had to think of the idea the
• 32:56
  first time. I don't know.
• 32:59
  I think it was just I, you know what actually I do, I sort of,
• 33:02
  it is triggered a memory. I, I, what I found out is one of
• 33:05
  the places that we were buying it from got it from an
• 33:08
  industrial by byproduct. So I was like, oh, that's very
• 33:13
  interesting. Maybe I can go.
• 33:14
  And actually being in that environmental role, I knew the
• 33:19
  type, type of reporting we had to do for our byproducts.
• 33:23
  So, and I know that that's all public information if you know
• 33:26
  where to look. So I started looking for those
• 33:29
  same type of minerals as someone's waste products at
• 33:34
  different plants, you know, across the country.
• 33:36
  I just would get on the where you find that on the EPA
• 33:40
  reporting sites. And I just started calling their
• 33:42
  environmental managers because I know even, you know, from my
• 33:45
  perspective, that's a stressor when you have any sort of
• 33:49
  something that you got to dispose of properly, even if it
• 33:52
  is just landfill, you know, that's a cost to your company
• 33:55
  and, and where are you going to put that?
• 33:56
  So I, I called them up versus calling up different people in
• 33:59
  their offices. I knew that they would probably
• 34:01
  when I negotiate it, it would make easier than maybe someone
• 34:06
  you know in their in their corporate office.
• 34:08
  So these raw materials previously these, these waste
• 34:11
  materials, actually, I should say the waste materials they had
• 34:13
  been paying to dispose of, are they now still paying you to
• 34:18
  take it off their hands? Or do they realize, oh, wait a
• 34:21
  minute, the value prop has changed here, And so now they're
• 34:24
  able to make a little bit of money selling it to you?
• 34:27
  Now some of them, you know, they, we made a deal with sort
• 34:29
  of like, you know, they, I know the one company they were just
• 34:33
  like, well, thank God you called because what we just, we took
• 34:37
  it. We, they were like, we'll just
• 34:38
  like we made an agreement where we didn't, they didn't pay us to
• 34:42
  take it, but we just were taking it for free.
• 34:44
  So they saved on their landfill disposals and we saved because
• 34:48
  we were able to take this material, crush it up and and
• 34:53
  then use it into and size it and then use it in our raw material.
• 34:57
  I mean, this is like a win, win, win like.
• 34:59
  When when the. The, the company you're working
• 35:01
  with, that many, they've won, you know, they're saving money
• 35:04
  on the disposal. You guys win the landfill.
• 35:07
  The earth wins. Like this is genius.
• 35:11
  So how big has this program become?
• 35:15
  Yeah, it's, it's sustained us. I mean, we, you know, there's
• 35:17
  only so many things that we, you know, figured out to put into
• 35:20
  our, you know, our brick. I mean, we, you know, we don't,
• 35:22
  it's not too crazy. So there's really just these
• 35:25
  iron and manganese and then that you figure out of over time.
• 35:28
  There's only so many people dealing in this, in these same
• 35:30
  materials, but it's just it's sustained.
• 35:33
  So we've been doing this now for probably about 15 years and we
• 35:38
  have a, you know, a whole, you know, machine and department
• 35:40
  that that work on this. Is there, this is completely out
• 35:45
  of left field, so I have no idea it is there an ability to put
• 35:51
  other waste products in as sort of fillers into the bricks where
• 35:54
  it doesn't have to be clay is that?
• 35:58
  A yeah, we did a lot of investigation.
• 36:00
  When we first started getting into it, that same thought
• 36:03
  occurred to me. It was like, hey, you know,
• 36:05
  people the word started getting out really because you have some
• 36:08
  of the different groups that we are involved with.
• 36:11
  And, and, and so people would we would just try things out in the
• 36:15
  lab a lot, you know, or, or maybe a very small batch just
• 36:18
  see how things worked. But ultimately we didn't really
• 36:21
  find anything that worked that well.
• 36:25
  So yeah, I kind of wish, you know, one of the things that we
• 36:27
  actually did put in there is glass.
• 36:29
  So we found a glass industrial byproduct out of Cleveland.
• 36:34
  Of course, they now no longer make that in Cleveland.
• 36:36
  So we've got a truck it in from further away, which is, which is
• 36:39
  not great, but but glass, I guess the way you can, it's a
• 36:43
  flux. So it's almost like getting a
• 36:45
  free 50 or 100° in your kiln. So, and there's, and we, we
• 36:50
  thought maybe it would be a little bit more widespread usage
• 36:53
  once we discover it, but we found that it's, it's most
• 36:57
  useful in, in a couple of, you know, places in our, in our
• 37:01
  process. And that's what we did today.
• 37:03
  Does it change the appearance of the brick?
• 37:06
  It can so you can either do one of two things.
• 37:09
  You know, there's a couple different ways to use the glass.
• 37:11
  You can either burn it shorter amount of time, you can burn it
• 37:15
  at lower temperatures. And the other thing that it does
• 37:19
  is some of the products that we make again, going back to some
• 37:22
  of the innovations that you know, our forefathers made to,
• 37:26
  you know, make a little extra money or it helped us survive
• 37:28
  and and down times is a chemical resistant brick.
• 37:31
  So this goes into processing plants and it's like they need a
• 37:34
  very low absorbing material for their flooring and brake is is
• 37:40
  one of those choices for them. And so we need what that glass
• 37:45
  does is if you burn at the same temperature at the same time,
• 37:49
  then your absorptions will get lower and lower.
• 37:51
  So it definitely helps us make sure we meet that specification.
• 37:55
  What's some new? Technology.
• 37:57
  That is in processor coming that you're excited about.
• 38:03
  Well, one thing we we just invested.
• 38:05
  In it's not quite ready to go, but it's it's in process as a
• 38:09
  digital printer. So this is something that we're
• 38:13
  sort we're excited about. We've been using a lot more
• 38:17
  coatings as the architects in the market, you can call it, you
• 38:23
  know, they get pickier and pickier about what kind of
• 38:25
  shades they have envisioned for, for a, for a building.
• 38:30
  So we've been spray coating different things.
• 38:32
  So they got our natural raw materials and even the additives
• 38:36
  that we're using can make different Grays.
• 38:37
  But hey, they want a cool Gray. So now you have to spray things
• 38:43
  on. So now we literally will get
• 38:45
  Sherwin-Williams paint chips as like, Hey, this is the color I
• 38:48
  want. We're able to, when we're able
• 38:50
  to recreate those in our, in our, in our lab and then and,
• 38:53
  and make those, you know, and, and printing onto the surface of
• 38:57
  the brick. Well, this is a spray booth, but
• 38:59
  now? Printing is the next level.
• 39:01
  That's the thing I'm excited about now.
• 39:03
  So this is just, it's like if you had a printer of your house
• 39:06
  and all it could do was like one color, the whole sheet of paper
• 39:09
  is going to be just that color, right?
• 39:12
  And it can change from this color to that color.
• 39:14
  Now we've got like essentially like an inkjet printer that we
• 39:20
  can print anything on there. We can print geometric shapes on
• 39:24
  there. I think that we can print your
• 39:26
  face on a brick if you want. And then these are these are
• 39:29
  minerals that we've used forever to coat bricks.
• 39:32
  So these are ceramic based materials that they it's not
• 39:38
  like they scratch off or wear off.
• 39:39
  It's not like paint even this is bonded to the brick.
• 39:43
  So it's just that it's putting these things in a very specific
• 39:46
  pattern like your printer at home or at work.
• 39:49
  And so the thing that we're going to use this for
• 39:53
  immediately as some of the, again, we have a vast array of,
• 39:58
  of styles that we offer. One of the most difficult things
• 40:01
  that we have to, to, to do is making them the same every time.
• 40:06
  And because we have so many things, we don't get to focus on
• 40:10
  certain products over and over. We might only make them once a
• 40:14
  year. So you got to hit that the right
• 40:17
  thing every time. And you're, you know, sometimes
• 40:20
  you're using different flashing technologies, which is just
• 40:22
  introducing extra natural gas or or you're drizzling in some
• 40:26
  materials and you're killing as it's happening.
• 40:29
  If we can get away from some of that, this we think this
• 40:31
  printing technology is going to make this very consistent run to
• 40:34
  run. And even when you're doing that
• 40:37
  in your calendar spill over. So even if you only want to make
• 40:41
  10,000 bricks of that color, you really can't do that.
• 40:44
  You've got to make like 100,000 glits in that color.
• 40:48
  And then sometimes you're spillover.
• 40:50
  And so you're you're maybe, you know, ruining another 10,000
• 40:53
  bricks behind those those that lot.
• 40:58
  So this will be very almost like a pinpointed thing where you can
• 41:01
  make 10,000 specifically and they'll be hopefully, you know,
• 41:06
  the idea is that they'll be the perfect color every time.
• 41:10
  I'm sure we're going to run into problems just like we do and
• 41:12
  everything else we do. But in general, we think this
• 41:15
  will be a a big quality improvement.
• 41:18
  So if I'm understanding this correctly.
• 41:20
  Up until now, to get a certain color brick, there's a lot of
• 41:25
  variables. It's the raw materials that go
• 41:28
  into it. It's the temperature that the
• 41:30
  kiln fires at cause all that sort of effects how these
• 41:34
  different raw materials and the chemistry kind of changes that
• 41:37
  that affects the color output. Is that right?
• 41:39
  That's that's absolutely true. OK.
• 41:41
  And so. Now that you've got this digital
• 41:44
  printer coming soon, you should be able to maybe use less
• 41:50
  expensive materials in the brick that maybe before to get a
• 41:54
  certain color you, you know, you had to put more manganese and
• 41:58
  maybe manganese is more expensive and now you don't have
• 42:01
  to put that in. Obviously you've got the added
• 42:03
  expense of now running the the printer on top of it though.
• 42:07
  And so do you see this, I'm sort of thinking this through in my
• 42:12
  mind, is this like a cost savings measure for some of your
• 42:16
  clients? Or is this probably more of like
• 42:18
  a premium up charge and now they've got the consistency of
• 42:22
  being able to get and they can get it in smaller runs?
• 42:25
  Yeah, I, you know, I think a little.
• 42:27
  Bit of both. I think it'll be a cost savings
• 42:30
  for certain material, for certain products that we think
• 42:34
  we can make more consistently and, and in smaller batches.
• 42:38
  But we also see it as a, as a probably a premium upcharge
• 42:42
  because you want something very specific and we're able to do
• 42:46
  that. Maybe maybe you've got a
• 42:47
  building with a, a brick manufacturer, even if it's
• 42:51
  spelled in brick that we no longer can hit that style.
• 42:55
  You know, you're building us from 1942.
• 42:59
  We can't make that color anymore.
• 43:00
  Those raw materials are gone. Those were, those were burning
• 43:02
  coal-fired beehive kilns. We can do something similar with
• 43:07
  today's technology, but if you want something that is hitting
• 43:11
  that exact color, then we can use this digital printing
• 43:14
  technology to to get as close as you know we can.
• 43:17
  But that's probably the closest thing that anyone be able to do
• 43:20
  to match those those old buildings or come up with some
• 43:22
  sort of geometric pattern that some architect wants to do.
• 43:26
  So we see it as a little bit of both.
• 43:28
  OK. And so is this digital printer.
• 43:30
  Going in at one location to start.
• 43:32
  You guys kind of get your feet wet with it.
• 43:34
  Figure out how it works, yes, yeah.
• 43:37
  So it'll go into one. Location, we'll see to what
• 43:39
  degree. Again, that's the place where
• 43:41
  we're doing some of this flashing old old time flashing
• 43:44
  technology that that is, you know, it's hard to be
• 43:47
  consistent. We have too many times we have
• 43:50
  to remake those products for people because they don't come
• 43:52
  out of the kiln white color the first time.
• 43:55
  So interesting. How about are there?
• 43:58
  Any newer sustainability environmental concerns that have
• 44:03
  come about or that you think are coming around the corner in the
• 44:06
  last few years? Really there's, you know,
• 44:09
  carbon's. Probably been the big one, but
• 44:12
  that's been the conversation probably almost since I started.
• 44:16
  Environmentally, we've, I think, you know, the brick industry's
• 44:20
  done a really good job of working with the EPA and, and
• 44:25
  yeah, there's a cut, there's some hazardous air pollutants
• 44:28
  that we have to deal with and that there's a what's called a
• 44:31
  Max rule, which is maximum achievable control technology.
• 44:35
  So some of our plants have scrubbers.
• 44:37
  We have permits that work within, within that, within that
• 44:41
  permitting structure. So we're in compliance there.
• 44:46
  The anything new up and coming would probably be more related
• 44:49
  to carbon. But you know, I, I think if you.
• 44:55
  Had a crystal ball. What do you how do you think?
• 44:57
  That's going to unfold well. Look, I, you know, I think.
• 45:01
  When you look at when you look at environmental compliance or
• 45:06
  just even environmental degradation over time, you can
• 45:10
  see that there's, there's as much of A financial concern or
• 45:16
  benefit to reducing emissions as there is an environmental 1,
• 45:22
  which is why I think you see a lot of emissions over time going
• 45:27
  down. So immediately, even when you
• 45:30
  look at just coal-fired power plants to, you know, moving into
• 45:33
  some of the more, you know, renewables or even just natural
• 45:36
  gas based power plants, you see that financial incentive to do
• 45:40
  so. And we've seen it over time as
• 45:43
  well, like our newest plants are more fuel efficient than some of
• 45:49
  the older plants are. And even some of that even
• 45:52
  automating that 100 year old plant for us is going to make
• 45:55
  we, we already see the benefits of that in some of our testing
• 45:59
  we're not doing. We're not, that's not a full,
• 46:01
  full blown process for us yet. But we see that we're able to
• 46:05
  take time because of the new, the new way that the new
• 46:08
  technology that we're doing at, at Plant 4 is taking time off of
• 46:12
  our burn like a considerable amount of time.
• 46:15
  So these are going to be financial incentives for us.
• 46:18
  So we think we're actually doing the environment some benefit at
• 46:23
  the same time that we're benefiting the bottom line.
• 46:26
  I mean that that's the ultimate is when.
• 46:28
  Those two priorities align because it makes it easier to
• 46:31
  get everybody on board and go in the same direction.
• 46:34
  Yeah, yeah. Brad, what do you think is
• 46:38
  looking sort of over the history of the company, what's been the
• 46:41
  the biggest reason for the growth?
• 46:42
  What are the biggest levers that you guys have pulled over the
• 46:45
  years that has allowed you guys to continue to go up into the
• 46:48
  right? You know, I think.
• 46:51
  It's really got to be, I think. It's two things.
• 46:53
  It's, it's our product. Number one, you know, we really
• 46:56
  focus on providing the most options and the highest quality
• 47:01
  options. Secondly, I do, I do think it's
• 47:06
  the nature of our, our company. People call us and they get, you
• 47:11
  got a few Belden's working here, you got, you know, my cousin
• 47:15
  John Strab. So people call us up and you can
• 47:18
  get a hold of me, you can get a hold of Brian, you can get a
• 47:20
  hold of Bob T. So I think there's a personal
• 47:22
  touch and deep, you know, long built relationships with our
• 47:27
  distributors and even some of the the Masons and architects
• 47:31
  down the line. We've got some really long
• 47:34
  standing relationships with people in the industry.
• 47:37
  And and we're not, we're not that big, you know, so we're the
• 47:41
  largest maybe family owned business brickmaker in the
• 47:43
  country. But when you look at our total
• 47:46
  volume versus some of the total volume of some of the
• 47:50
  corporately owned types, we're pretty, we're still reasonably
• 47:53
  small is brick A? Mostly regional business is it
• 47:59
  would occur to me that there's a lot of obviously freight costs
• 48:02
  involved. You mentioned that you guys did
• 48:04
  a stadium, I think in Saint Louis was one of the places you
• 48:07
  mentioned. It's not that close.
• 48:11
  I'm going to guess there are brick manufacturers that would
• 48:14
  have been closer to them. Am I seeing this wrong?
• 48:18
  Is it not really like a a regional based business?
• 48:21
  No, I think you're you're absolutely right.
• 48:24
  I think the more commercially focused you are, the further
• 48:28
  your your products. Travel architects have a very
• 48:32
  you know, they're, they're an interesting group of people and,
• 48:34
  and, and thank God forum for our business.
• 48:36
  They have a a vision. They want a certain luck.
• 48:40
  Sometimes we're really we're just the best provider to to get
• 48:44
  the the look that they're envisioning.
• 48:47
  So again, you're talking and there's just not as many of us
• 48:50
  that do some of the commercial type of sizes and colors.
• 48:55
  So I'd say when you when you're looking at track home builders
• 49:00
  or you know, large scale, a mass produced brick and these are
• 49:04
  going to go on homes, I'd say that's a lot more regional
• 49:09
  gotcha because because of the breaks of the items there
• 49:11
  aren't. As many companies that can do
• 49:14
  what Belden Brick does and so they're willing to ship the
• 49:17
  product in from further to get that exact look that they want.
• 49:21
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 49:24
  Bradley Schiffer here. Like to hear about.
• 49:27
  Sorry, you were going to. Say something.
• 49:28
  Yeah, yeah. Even saying that, I'd say we're.
• 49:29
  Still primarily going to be in the Northeast quadrant, but you
• 49:33
  know, yeah, we still get jobs in California, Texas and Florida.
• 49:36
  Oh wow. You know, so we.
• 49:38
  Actually just did a job. In Seoul, South Korea, believe
• 49:41
  it or not, I mean, but it was, yeah.
• 49:44
  But it was, you know, high end client using a New York
• 49:48
  architect that this, you know, we sell a lot of brick into the
• 49:51
  New York market. And that guy was like, Hey, I
• 49:53
  got the perfect brick for you, that man in Ohio.
• 49:56
  And and those people even came to our factory to the to see us
• 50:01
  making their their build the bricks for their building.
• 50:04
  So it is kind of we do get a couple of these types of jobs
• 50:07
  here and there. But again, what's the purpose of
• 50:10
  that building? Is it?
• 50:11
  An office building? Is it a stadium?
• 50:13
  It's a it's a high end retail. Company.
• 50:17
  But, you know, I guess it's right in the middle of Seoul and
• 50:20
  I don't know, I'd love to visit it sometime and see what it felt
• 50:23
  about. Well, that's fun.
• 50:24
  OK, so now. Let's shift gears.
• 50:26
  And I'd like to hear about a serious challenge that you've
• 50:29
  overcome. Brad, what was that?
• 50:32
  How did you get through it? What did you learn coming out
• 50:34
  the other side? Yeah.
• 50:38
  I'd say the first, the first challenge it really, you know,
• 50:41
  it was like, hey, my, my cousins were like, hey, we need you in
• 50:44
  the environmental health and safety department.
• 50:50
  And I was like, OK, that's. Interesting.
• 50:51
  And and they, we had a guy that was close to retirement age.
• 50:56
  So he, he took me under his wing and, and, and you know, Tommy,
• 51:00
  those processes and rules, but I'd say the biggest child, it
• 51:05
  was probably the biggest challenge my career just getting
• 51:07
  shifting gears from Chicago, New York into this and learning how
• 51:12
  to make brick and learning environmental regulations.
• 51:16
  And I, you know, we did some things under, you know, his
• 51:20
  guidance that the EPA didn't like.
• 51:24
  And you know, it was putting in this new, I told you about this
• 51:28
  25 year old plant. It was putting in his 25 year
• 51:30
  old plant because of the environmental implications of a
• 51:34
  new, a new kiln and a new plant. We had to start putting these
• 51:38
  scrubbers on some of the other plants.
• 51:40
  And I and what happened was those scrubbers are were put on,
• 51:46
  but they weren't put on in time. They weren't, they started, you
• 51:48
  know, it was before I got here, of course, but it was they
• 51:50
  started that plant before those other scrubbers were on.
• 51:55
  And so, you know, but it took me a, a few months to realize
• 52:00
  really what was going on. And I was read in some of these
• 52:03
  permits and realized some of the things that we needed to do.
• 52:06
  And then all of a sudden we got, we got hit with a, we got hit
• 52:10
  with a suit from the Attorney General's office of Ohio, you
• 52:14
  know, on behalf of the Ohio EPA. But I mean, there were, there
• 52:17
  were some sleepless nights on my part trying to figure out, you
• 52:21
  know, how to, you know, how to deal with that and how to
• 52:24
  address that. But I'd say that was the biggest
• 52:27
  thing. And you know, we've got, we came
• 52:32
  out of that. I, I really plan to put a lot of
• 52:35
  extra time in to go through the research and go through the
• 52:38
  history before I got there of, you know, understanding what
• 52:43
  the, what led up to that. And then also trying to work
• 52:46
  through a lawsuit with the EPA. And I really think we ended up
• 52:52
  coming out of it with a really good relationship with the EPA
• 52:55
  because I think we almost went way to the other side at the
• 52:59
  same time. I mean, it was, it was the air,
• 53:01
  it was on the air side that we got hit with the lawsuit.
• 53:03
  But the same time we were getting letters on, you know,
• 53:08
  some of our solid waste practices and some of our water
• 53:13
  practices in our mining an ablation.
• 53:15
  So again, there's, there's cracks and you know, almost any
• 53:18
  business you can probably go to and they'll tell you their
• 53:20
  struggles. And luckily, I think because of
• 53:23
  that relationship that, you know, I developed and then I
• 53:26
  hired my, my cousin John Streb to help me out in that
• 53:29
  department. And some of the stuff he's
• 53:31
  continued to do with them. You never got fined on the, on
• 53:35
  the solid waste stuff. And if anything, we've, we've
• 53:38
  done great in that department. That was really related to where
• 53:42
  we, what do we do with some of our bricks that we don't end up
• 53:45
  firing in our kilns. So we, we now actually recycle
• 53:48
  that right back into our right into our brick making process
• 53:52
  where before we put it, you know, back into the, you know,
• 53:56
  there's an argument about whether or not it was really
• 53:58
  harmful, but we put a lot of that stuff just right back into
• 54:00
  our, our mining operation, but then on the water.
• 54:05
  Side we had. These, these mines that they
• 54:07
  were discharging water and you know, we're exceeding permit
• 54:11
  levels, but it was, it was a brand new permit and there was a
• 54:14
  big learning curve. But every time the EPA would
• 54:17
  come out to to inspect us, they were, they were sort of like,
• 54:21
  well, this looks wonderful. Like I think they expected some
• 54:24
  sort of cesspool. And when I come out there and
• 54:26
  they see, you know, deer and Beaver and wildlife and
• 54:30
  Clearwater coming out the other side.
• 54:32
  But we're just in a, in a naturally occurring area, very
• 54:38
  low pH and high metals. But we spent a lot of money, we
• 54:44
  put a lot of passive treatment systems.
• 54:46
  This means cattails and limestone pathways that that
• 54:51
  extend the the time that the water spends on our property
• 54:55
  before it gets discharged into the into the the nearby streams
• 54:59
  to the point now where are discharging are, you know, the
• 55:03
  streams nearby would have exceeded these permit levels, if
• 55:06
  that makes sense. That's sort of some of the stuff
• 55:09
  you end up having to figure out. So even though we had these
• 55:11
  permit levels that we had to meet the stream that we are
• 55:14
  discharging into. Would have been at way over the
• 55:20
  levels so. We were battling this.
• 55:22
  So that's the, the story we had to try to tell the EPA like this
• 55:27
  water in just in this whole area is, is low pH and high metals.
• 55:31
  So, but what we've done on our property is nothing short of
• 55:35
  kind of almost miraculous, something that we never thought
• 55:38
  we could achieve the levels that were that we, we did over time.
• 55:41
  So it but it took a lot of work, time and money to get them to
• 55:45
  get us there. So we have a very good
• 55:48
  relationship with Ohio EPA at this point, whether that's solid
• 55:51
  waste water and and of course our air.
• 55:56
  But it was something that when I first started, it was for sure
• 56:00
  very stressful. Yeah.
• 56:01
  How were you getting through that?
• 56:03
  I. Mean you're you're starting in a
• 56:05
  new role, the family company, obviously you want to do well,
• 56:08
  put your best foot forward and you're very quickly discovering
• 56:12
  being made aware of as you put it cracks.
• 56:15
  Right there were. Things that were not being done
• 56:18
  the way that they should be done.
• 56:19
  And now this lawsuit, this this giant mess falls into your lap.
• 56:25
  Like, was there somebody you could kind of raise your hand to
• 56:27
  and go, you know, ask for help? Yeah, your way through this.
• 56:33
  Yeah. So I mean, I would.
• 56:34
  I talked. Regularly with my dad and his
• 56:38
  cousins, You know, Bill and Bob were in charge of the company
• 56:40
  and they that's and they didn't, they're like, that's why we put
• 56:44
  you there. Yeah.
• 56:44
  Like they didn't know. They weren't getting all the
• 56:47
  information. You know, the guy before was a
• 56:50
  little bit, I don't know, He, he just was kind of a little bit
• 56:53
  cavalier. Thought he had a handshake with
• 56:55
  the EPA. He's one of those old school
• 56:57
  guys that didn't think it would turn into this because he was
• 57:00
  working on all the all these things.
• 57:02
  It wasn't like he just ignored it, but he didn't think it the
• 57:06
  speed or urgency that it needed. To be addressed?
• 57:09
  Absolutely, that's exactly. Right.
• 57:11
  And a lot of this was new technology to give him some
• 57:14
  credit. And these are the first time
• 57:15
  scrubbers were being put on in the brick industry.
• 57:19
  So this was new technology. I mean, you're putting on a, you
• 57:22
  know, multi $1,000,000 pieces of equipment and you just expecting
• 57:26
  you to turn on and, and work right away.
• 57:29
  We've, we've continued to, to, you know, innovate and, and, and
• 57:34
  make those more efficient over time, But they're not, they
• 57:37
  don't always just work. So, so I'll give them some
• 57:39
  credit too that they didn't work the way that he, he hoped they
• 57:42
  would, you know, too. So even as the timeline got a
• 57:46
  little bit messed up and the compliance got a little bit
• 57:48
  messed up, but yeah, it definitely, you know, woke me
• 57:52
  up. And you just feel again, like
• 57:55
  those those sleepless nights about like, Oh my gosh, someone
• 57:58
  doesn't like us and you know, we're going to get in trouble.
• 58:01
  And it's just not a fun feeling. I mean, I think it says a lot
• 58:04
  for your. Character, Brad.
• 58:06
  And for that, you know, the Belden Brick company in general
• 58:09
  that, you know, when this came to your attention, you didn't
• 58:12
  hide from it, right? It was like, oh, wow, we got
• 58:15
  some stuff to fix here, You know, how can we do that?
• 58:18
  And sounds like you guys made rather large investments and
• 58:21
  continue to do so, you know, continue to innovate and find
• 58:25
  ways, you know, how can we keep the water clean?
• 58:27
  How can we keep the air clean? You know, how can we be good
• 58:31
  stewards of the environment? Yeah.
• 58:35
  Yeah, and I think just more knowledge I think came out over
• 58:37
  time too. I don't think these are things
• 58:39
  and you know, that's why there's an EPAI think a lot of, you
• 58:44
  know, people were just somewhat ignorant to some of the the
• 58:46
  damage they were doing to the environment.
• 58:49
  You know, the the water, the water one in, in in particular,
• 58:53
  we bought a we bought this property because it was an old
• 58:55
  coal strip mine and but they were still some fire clay on it.
• 58:59
  Well, those guys did they like kind of raped and pillaged the
• 59:03
  land, but we were kind of left holding the bag.
• 59:05
  So it was just not a yeah, it was just not a great situation.
• 59:10
  But we, we cleaned it up and again, every time the EPA would
• 59:14
  see the numbers, they thought it was probably just sludge going
• 59:18
  into a Creek and they would come out again and then just sort of
• 59:22
  marvel at how how beautiful the, the area was.
• 59:24
  And now that now we've got the numbers to go along with what it
• 59:27
  looks like. So, but those numbers kept
• 59:29
  coming down, kept coming down, as you know, but it takes time
• 59:32
  to take root. That was the other thing we had
• 59:34
  tried to get the EPA to understand is that you can't
• 59:36
  just flip the switch and then especially on, you know, water
• 59:40
  compliance, you know, you gotta, it takes time for that
• 59:43
  vegetation to grow and to build all those different things with
• 59:47
  using the limestone pathways and all that sort of thing.
• 59:51
  Brad, what's your? Superpower, I don't think.
• 59:56
  I have a superpower. I mean, if, if there's anything,
• 59:59
  I guess I feel like I do as I try to, you know, hear people
• 1:00:03
  out, listen to their problems and and help them get them the
• 1:00:08
  resources they need to, to figure something out.
• 1:00:11
  So whether that's our customers with an issue, whether that's
• 1:00:17
  our employees with an issue. So I'd say it's just what's your
• 1:00:21
  name? Yeah.
• 1:00:23
  And you guys have, you know, a decent employee base, I'm going
• 1:00:27
  to guess several 100 employees based on, you know, the size of
• 1:00:30
  your operation. How do you approach?
• 1:00:33
  And you know, you mentioned before that it's harder and
• 1:00:36
  harder, especially post COVID, to get people into some of these
• 1:00:40
  roles. How how do you guys approach
• 1:00:43
  recruiting? How do you approach retention?
• 1:00:45
  What are some things you guys have tried and found that is
• 1:00:49
  working? Yeah, it's an.
• 1:00:52
  Interesting question, yeah. I'd say it's the environment's
• 1:00:55
  definitely different than when I first started.
• 1:00:57
  When I first started, it was a lot of families are still are
• 1:01:01
  still a lot of families. But I'd say it was like you
• 1:01:03
  almost had. They always say that you had to
• 1:01:05
  know somebody to get a job at Belton Brick.
• 1:01:07
  Now the last few years it's, you know, thankfully we're in a
• 1:01:12
  position now where it's not quite the turnover we had for,
• 1:01:15
  you know, the two to three years after COVID that was sort of
• 1:01:18
  like, you know, war and we just needed warm bodies.
• 1:01:20
  At that point, it felt like you're turning over that same
• 1:01:24
  50, you know, 50 people. So we'd hire 300 people to fill
• 1:01:28
  50 jobs. You still, luckily we had a very
• 1:01:32
  mature management team. Again, now that's something
• 1:01:37
  we're working on to maintain a sort of that 2nd tier like the
• 1:01:45
  managers and training. I'd say we probably lost some of
• 1:01:48
  those during those years. So we're trying to get that
• 1:01:50
  back. Some of the things that we've
• 1:01:53
  done, you know, we offered attendance bonus was probably
• 1:01:57
  the most impactful thing. So that's basically a a dollar
• 1:02:01
  an hour extra if you just come to work, just come to work on
• 1:02:06
  time every day and you'll make an extra, you know, if you're
• 1:02:10
  working 40 hours, we can make an extra 80 bucks every two weeks.
• 1:02:14
  But you know, and I think that that is stuck.
• 1:02:17
  It's still amazing how many people can't seem to do that
• 1:02:20
  when you start, when you look at the statistics.
• 1:02:22
  I mean, there's always going to be something that comes up for
• 1:02:26
  any, even our best employees over the course of the year.
• 1:02:28
  They might not get it for the paycheck or two, but it's
• 1:02:32
  amazing how many people can't seem to get that like I'd say
• 1:02:36
  most of their paychecks. So that is something though that
• 1:02:39
  at least it incentivized that incentivizes them.
• 1:02:42
  We're hoping it's it incentivizes them at the home
• 1:02:44
  too. Or their their wife and kids
• 1:02:47
  might say you need to get to work so you can bring home the
• 1:02:50
  80 bucks. That's one thing we do.
• 1:02:53
  We've offered this for a long time.
• 1:02:55
  We offer some education assistance.
• 1:02:57
  So especially if you're going to go back and learn something
• 1:03:00
  that's going to be applicable to your job here at Dalton Brick,
• 1:03:03
  would you offer some financial incentive to go back to school?
• 1:03:07
  More and more we're doing more training, especially in the
• 1:03:10
  maintenance and like electrician slash programmer, with all the
• 1:03:17
  automation you have now, you need more operators,
• 1:03:20
  programmers, installers of all these things.
• 1:03:23
  So we have, we have like we've shifted people, we've allowed
• 1:03:28
  people to, you know, essentially expand their scope at the
• 1:03:33
  company into some of those types of goals as well.
• 1:03:38
  Brad, you. Spend quite a bit.
• 1:03:39
  Of time being involved with different industry and community
• 1:03:43
  boards. You're a busy guy running a
• 1:03:45
  pretty good sized company. Why do you give your time to
• 1:03:48
  some of these organizations? I think it's just been.
• 1:03:53
  Instilled in the Belden family and many other families and and
• 1:03:57
  Canton especially that you see over and over again.
• 1:04:01
  I think selfishly there's a couple of boards.
• 1:04:04
  I do learn a great deal amount from the other board members and
• 1:04:10
  you get to they're part of our it's a trade association of some
• 1:04:13
  sort, whether that's on the mining side or the manufacturing
• 1:04:17
  side or just a brick, the brick industry side.
• 1:04:21
  Some of the local boards, it's about just, you know, keep
• 1:04:24
  building your community and giving back.
• 1:04:26
  We've all we know here that we've we've been given a lot of
• 1:04:29
  great opportunities and, you know, we want to make sure that
• 1:04:33
  we live in a community that's that's thriving and, you know,
• 1:04:37
  we don't always see that. So we want to make sure we can
• 1:04:40
  do what we can, even if it's whether it's money or time for
• 1:04:44
  sure. But just, I think it's a sense
• 1:04:47
  of pride for our community, a sense of empathy for those that
• 1:04:50
  are struggling. And yeah, we just, you don't
• 1:04:54
  want to give back whenever we can.
• 1:04:56
  I like that. I just have one more.
• 1:04:58
  Question for you, Brad, but before I ask it, I want to do 2
• 1:05:01
  things. First, everyone listening, I'll
• 1:05:03
  invite you to pause for just a second.
• 1:05:05
  Go to your podcast app, go ahead and hit the follow or subscribe
• 1:05:08
  button there. It helps to make sure you
• 1:05:09
  continue to get more great interviews like we've had today
• 1:05:12
  with Brad Belton, and it helps other people find the show too.
• 1:05:16
  Brad, I also want to let people know the best way either to get
• 1:05:19
  in touch with you directly to follow your story, or to get in
• 1:05:23
  touch with the company. What would that be?
• 1:05:26
  Well, our website is at. Www.beldenbrick.com So hopefully
• 1:05:32
  that's easy to remember for your listeners.
• 1:05:34
  And then our Instagram is at Beldenbrick Co and we've got a
• 1:05:40
  great marketing person putting up content all the time.
• 1:05:42
  So hopefully if you can kind of geek out on brick stuff like
• 1:05:46
  like we do. But so yeah, if you want to find
• 1:05:50
  us or know where to buy our products, right on our website,
• 1:05:53
  there's a, there's a thing that says where to buy.
• 1:05:56
  There's a pretty good list of all of our our products on there
• 1:05:59
  too, and a lot of photos. So, yeah, that's one of the cool
• 1:06:02
  things about our product is you get to see him go on some very
• 1:06:05
  cool buildings and there's a sense of satisfaction, you know,
• 1:06:09
  after those those buildings go up.
• 1:06:11
  So you can see what those products look like individually
• 1:06:14
  and then of course, how they look on a building as well.
• 1:06:17
  OK, so beldenbrick.com. And at Beldenbrick Co on
• 1:06:21
  Instagram. So last question for you, Brad,
• 1:06:24
  you and I reconnect one year from today and you're
• 1:06:27
  celebrating something big. What is that big thing that
• 1:06:30
  you're celebrating here now, a year from now?
• 1:06:32
  Oh Jesus, I'd say it's. Probably you know on the
• 1:06:36
  business wise thing, you know one of the things that we've
• 1:06:38
  also, we haven't really talked about our distributors a whole
• 1:06:41
  lot. We've owned a couple of
• 1:06:43
  distributors. So again we're the manufacturer.
• 1:06:46
  If you're going to buy our bricks, you don't really call us
• 1:06:48
  directly unless you live in Cherry Creek, Ohio, then you
• 1:06:51
  give us a call, but you call our distributors.
• 1:06:54
  We've owned one in New York and Philadelphia and Detroit we
• 1:06:59
  wholly owned, but we started this new venture a couple years
• 1:07:01
  ago with a with a competing brick manufacturer, but they're
• 1:07:06
  also a family owned brick manufacturer out of Nebraska.
• 1:07:10
  But you know, they do a lot of what we do.
• 1:07:12
  We're direct competitors, but we're very friendly.
• 1:07:15
  It's a kind of a great industry in that way that we're generally
• 1:07:18
  friendly with about everybody in the brick industry.
• 1:07:20
  But we decided to do a joint venture and then partner with
• 1:07:23
  some of our, with some of our favorite, you know, brick
• 1:07:26
  salesman across the country. So we just, we've opened up a
• 1:07:30
  distributor in Indianapolis a few years ago and they've done
• 1:07:34
  very well for us. And then we just recently opened
• 1:07:38
  up two more offices. So it's kind of been a big year
• 1:07:40
  for us. So we now have a, it's called
• 1:07:42
  Premier Brick Sales. Is that the name of that
• 1:07:45
  company? And we just started one in
• 1:07:47
  Chicago and we just started one in Tampa, FL.
• 1:07:51
  So I'm hoping in a year from now that we'll have, we'll be
• 1:07:54
  celebrating some good years out of those folks.
• 1:07:58
  And and so it's a partnership with this group.
• 1:08:00
  In Nebraska in each of these locations and you guys are
• 1:08:05
  jointly selling your competing products alongside of each other
• 1:08:10
  yeah so even in our. Even our New York office, one of
• 1:08:13
  the best things that they offer is our our competitors.
• 1:08:17
  So we don't just sell Belden bricks out of the it's called,
• 1:08:20
  you know, Belden tri-state building materials in, in, in
• 1:08:24
  New York, but they sell a lot of our competitors.
• 1:08:26
  So it's, it's actually kind of nice when I do go see my
• 1:08:29
  competitors, you know, they, they also know that we do a
• 1:08:32
  pretty good job selling their products in the New York market.
• 1:08:36
  So again, it's, it's, it's somewhat incestuous, I guess in
• 1:08:39
  the brick industry. We have other distributors in
• 1:08:43
  different parts of the country that are also our competitors.
• 1:08:45
  They own distribution as well. And so, you know, it just
• 1:08:49
  depends on where you are in the country.
• 1:08:50
  But you know, we do sell each other's products.
• 1:08:52
  You don't want to have just that one product to sell a customer.
• 1:08:56
  So if you're talking to an architect in New York or
• 1:08:59
  Chicago, you want to be able to offer different things.
• 1:09:03
  And so having multiple lines, maybe not every line, but
• 1:09:05
  multiple lines that your distributor is a good thing.
• 1:09:08
  So we partnered up knowing, hey, if you got Belden Brick and
• 1:09:12
  Endicott Brick, you're going to you're going to have a pretty
• 1:09:15
  successful distributor. And then hopefully we can get a
• 1:09:17
  few other lines and different even competing type of materials
• 1:09:23
  or complimentary building materials in those offices as
• 1:09:26
  well. And then of course, there you
• 1:09:29
  go. When they go try to sell that
• 1:09:30
  into the market, you know they're they're going to have
• 1:09:33
  success because they got building brick and then to cut.
• 1:09:36
  So when you go into these new. Markets with this joint venture
• 1:09:40
  with a distributor are you acquiring an existing
• 1:09:45
  distributor business or you guys starting something from the
• 1:09:48
  ground up No, it's AI we. Feel like it's an interesting
• 1:09:52
  concept. We're building something from
• 1:09:53
  the ground up. We're basically, it's nothing
• 1:09:57
  really intentional other than to say, send a message to everybody
• 1:10:03
  in the brick industry to say, hey, if, if you know, if your,
• 1:10:08
  if your distributor gets bought out or if, you know, we go, or
• 1:10:11
  if it goes away or if you move like, you know, we've got these
• 1:10:15
  relationships in the brick industry.
• 1:10:17
  Like if there's just some opportunity, we're not looking
• 1:10:20
  to go buy a company, We're not looking to go take out one of
• 1:10:23
  our existing distributors in those markets.
• 1:10:26
  But if something would happen to them and there's A and there's
• 1:10:29
  somebody, you know, in that market that is, finds themselves
• 1:10:34
  out of a job or wanting to, wanting to do something
• 1:10:37
  different, then they give us a call.
• 1:10:39
  And, and that's sort of what happened.
• 1:10:41
  We we ended up with a couple of these so-called free agents in
• 1:10:44
  these markets and we decided to to invest with them.
• 1:10:49
  Interesting. Is it capital?
• 1:10:51
  Intensive to be a distributor or is it more of a a relationship
• 1:10:54
  thing? It's not like they're they're
• 1:10:55
  probably like stocking some samples to show people.
• 1:10:58
  But yeah, it's like the typical. Brickyard, I mean, so no, not
• 1:11:03
  nearly as capital intensive as a being a brick manufacturer for
• 1:11:07
  sure, but you do need, you know, showroom, some office space and
• 1:11:13
  hopefully, you know, most of them needs at least some yard
• 1:11:16
  helpful. Not not all brick distributors
• 1:11:17
  have a big Brickyard or a Brickyard at all, but most do
• 1:11:22
  and the successful ones do. So you do got to invest in some
• 1:11:26
  real estate and some office space.
• 1:11:27
  But other than that, it's it's mostly these relationship
• 1:11:30
  people, though they they're really good salespeople.
• 1:11:33
  And so I'm in Columbus, OH. Is Hamilton Parker considered a
• 1:11:38
  a Brickyard? Is this a distributor?
• 1:11:40
  OK, And they're one of our distributors.
• 1:11:42
  Yep. So you picked the right one.
• 1:11:45
  They're the good ones. So yeah, if you're in Columbus,
• 1:11:47
  go to Hamilton Parker and you'll find some belt and brick there.
• 1:11:50
  They've been a long time partner of ours.
• 1:11:52
  So again, I, you know, the people at Hamilton Parker don't
• 1:11:55
  have to worry. We're not, we're not looking to
• 1:11:57
  go, you know, invade. You've got a good partner here
• 1:11:59
  in Columbus. This is more about.
• 1:12:01
  Where maybe you guys don't have as strong of a foothold,
• 1:12:05
  correct? Yep, that's that's.
• 1:12:06
  Where you would look to expand with this?
• 1:12:07
  Concept. Yep, exactly.
• 1:12:10
  So who knows, overtime things happen, you know, but we had the
• 1:12:14
  one in Indiana and we would talk about, well, is there anything
• 1:12:17
  else going on? And the IT was a very short
• 1:12:19
  conversation of like, oh, everyone's pretty satisfied.
• 1:12:22
  And then we just a couple of opportunities came to us in the
• 1:12:26
  same year. So yeah, so that's an
• 1:12:28
  interesting question. So in a year, I'm hoping that
• 1:12:31
  we're, you know, quick and some champagne glasses with the year
• 1:12:34
  under our belt and and those and those markets fun stop.
• 1:12:37
  Well, Brad Belden. From the Belden Brick Company in
• 1:12:40
  Canton, OH, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing
• 1:12:43
  both your time and your story with us today.
• 1:12:45
  I really appreciate it. Thanks, Anthony.
• 1:12:47
  Good to see you again. Folks, that's a wrap on another.
• 1:12:50
  Episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
• 1:12:52
  Thanks for learning with us today.