Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Metal, Ministry, and Mentorship: Shaun Eller's Multifaceted Career at Ohio Gratings | Manufacturing Series

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Metal, Ministry, and Mentorship: Shaun Eller's Multifaceted Career at Ohio Gratings | Manufacturing Series · 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 Sean Eller, chief business officer at Ohio
• 0:22
  Greetings. Founded in 1970, they specialize
• 0:27
  in steel, aluminum, and stainless steel bar grading
• 0:30
  products for a variety of industrial and architectural
• 0:34
  applications. Their dedication to safety and
• 0:37
  durability has earned them a trusted reputation within the
• 0:41
  industry. As the Chief Business Officer,
• 0:45
  Sean focuses on community engagement and nurturing synergy
• 0:49
  across all of Ohio Grading's entities.
• 0:52
  Over the years, he has taken on multiple roles from drafting
• 0:56
  design and logistics to human resources and sales.
• 1:00
  He also acts as the company's ambassador, working to
• 1:03
  strengthen relationships within the communities Ohio Grading
• 1:07
  serves by launching several outreach programs.
• 1:10
  He has shown a strong commitment to giving back and supporting
• 1:13
  local initiatives. He is a licensed minister, once
• 1:17
  served as the company's dedicated chaplain, and penned
• 1:22
  The Balance in 2019, a book which offers insights into
• 1:27
  balancing the demands of an insistent society with personal
• 1:30
  development. Now, before we get into all that
• 1:33
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:36
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
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  and some organizations may not be eligible.
• 2:00
  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 2:03
  AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
• 2:06
  today, the Chief Business Officer at Ohio Gradings, Inc
• 2:09
  Sean Eller. I appreciate you making the time
• 2:12
  to Share your story today. Thank you very much.
• 2:14
  Honored to do it. OK, Sean.
• 2:17
  So I got to say this is almost unheard of these days.
• 2:20
  You've been working with Ohio gradings for 30 years.
• 2:24
  Tell us first how the opportunity to work there came
• 2:28
  about. Yeah, that's a great story.
• 2:31
  And once again, thank you so much for taking the time to
• 2:33
  interview me. Hopefully I'll do my I'll do my
• 2:36
  best to make it interesting. You said interesting people.
• 2:39
  I'm not sure how interesting I am, but we'll try.
• 2:42
  So 30 years ago, I was working and really just need a job.
• 2:48
  I had taken vocational drafting in high school at Temkin Senior
• 2:52
  High School here in Canton. So I had not done drafting for a
• 2:55
  couple years, applied for an ad in the newspaper back then
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  that's how you found jobs and you didn't have the Internet to,
• 3:04
  you know, look up a company. So I've there's an ad in paper
• 3:08
  and it was very simple. It said looking for a drafts
• 3:11
  person must have metal experience, must have the most
• 3:15
  recent version of AutoCAD and must have a two year degree.
• 3:18
  I didn't have a two year degree. I'd never done anything with
• 3:20
  metals and I hadn't used CAD in two years because I was working
• 3:24
  for a land surveying company, so didn't meet any of the
• 3:27
  qualifications. I went ahead and put it mailed
• 3:29
  in my resume and got an interview, got a second
• 3:33
  interview, got a third interview, third interview.
• 3:36
  David Bartley, who was interviewing me, said I don't
• 3:40
  know why I keep talking to you, you don't meet any of my
• 3:42
  qualifications. So he then asked me to come meet
• 3:45
  with his brother John met with him and had a great conversation
• 3:50
  with him and they, they made me an offer for a job.
• 3:52
  So I had, I got, I tell everybody I got home from my
• 3:55
  interview. My wife said, is there, you
• 3:56
  know, what's grading and is there enough of it to keep you
• 3:59
  busy? I said, well, I have no idea
• 4:01
  what grading is. And if I quit my job, hopefully
• 4:03
  they keep me busy. Well, 30 years later, they've
• 4:05
  kept me really busy and I know a little bit more about grading
• 4:07
  than I used to. So.
• 4:09
  So it's, yeah, it's been, it's been a great ride.
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  Start off in drafting. Soon after that, they asked me
• 4:15
  to move into sales. So I moved into sales.
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  I did pastor church for about 11 years and for part of that time
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  I did work part time at Ohio gradings and part time at the
• 4:27
  church. And during that time I did all
• 4:30
  kinds of different positions here at Ohio gradings.
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  Worked in outside service, coordinating outside services,
• 4:37
  worked in quality, worked on the shop floor quite a bit, you
• 4:41
  know, running punch presses, helping fabricators, ring saws,
• 4:46
  loaded and unloaded trucks, did some purchasing.
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  So it really got me a really nice broad background in all
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  areas of the company. As it you know said in the
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  intro, I did some time where I was doing evaluations and
• 5:03
  helping with hiring and, and then I did work as the first
• 5:08
  chaplain we had. We've had one ever since.
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  But after a few years as chaplain and pastoring, the
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  owner asked me to come back full time.
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  And actually he came in one morning.
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  I don't know, it was three or three or four in the morning.
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  And I was out on the floor running a press.
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  And he's, you know, double did a little double take.
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  What are you doing? I said, I've been coming out in
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  the morning, you know, to, you know, I picked up this habit
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  called eating and had to figure out a way to keep eating.
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  So working some extra hours. And he was like, if you're going
• 5:39
  to be here, I don't want you running the press.
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  I, I want you to, you know, help run our detailing department and
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  get into, back, you know, into management role if you'd be
• 5:50
  interested in doing that so. You were kind of working
• 5:52
  multiple roles at this point. Yeah, when I when I asked to go
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  part time once again I was in sales, I'd already been in
• 5:59
  detailing drafting. Detailing is in the steel world
• 6:04
  the the name for drafting. So some people think detailing
• 6:07
  it's clean your car, but it's, it's really AutoCAD.
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  So I was, I had done both of those roles.
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  So when I went part time, they're like, well, we can't
• 6:15
  really have a part time salesperson.
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  So they kind of just put me wherever and I filled in and
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  sales. Some people on vacation, I
• 6:22
  filled in and detailing and run that time.
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  Or actually our plant manager got cancer and he went out and
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  when they did, they just told me basically to move into the
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  general manager's office and do anything I can to help.
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  So. That's sorry.
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  I'm, I'm gonna sorry to interrupt you, Sean, but.
• 6:39
  Absolutely. There's a couple of questions
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  that come to mind. First of all, kind of going back
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  to the beginning, when they first hired you, like you said,
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  you didn't meet any of those 3 criteria.
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  Why do you think they kept meeting with you?
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  Why do you think they eventually offered you the job?
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  What? What was it that they saw in
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  you? You know, that's a great
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  question. I don't know.
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  Hopefully they don't regret it. They kept me around for 30
• 7:02
  years. I tell people they move me in so
• 7:04
  many positions because I can't find anything I'm good at.
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  So hopefully probably one of these days they find something I
• 7:08
  can do right. But it's I, you know, I think
• 7:12
  you know, part of it. I, I think God just opened the
• 7:16
  door and made a connection that was meant to be, is a, is a big
• 7:20
  piece of it. And in my opinion, you know, one
• 7:23
  of the things it was kind of interesting to me, you know, I,
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  I was a youth pastor at the time.
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  And when I had my third interview, I said, you know,
• 7:33
  David want me to meet his brother.
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  And when I did, he, just, when he saw youth pastor, he lit up.
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  He's like, I have a vision. I, I want to have a chaplain
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  someday. I just, you know, and I had a
• 7:44
  third interview at another company in the area at the same
• 7:48
  time. And when the, it was, you know,
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  kind of similar, I'd met with the hiring manager three times
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  and then they, they wanted me to meet the owner.
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  When he saw my application and saw youth pastor, he just went
• 7:59
  total opposite when so negative. And he was, he was like, you
• 8:03
  know, so you're going to want Fridays off for your Kitty
• 8:05
  trips. And, and it was just like such
• 8:07
  a, a smack in the face. And compared to the third
• 8:11
  interview here where, you know, like I said, John just lit up
• 8:14
  like I, I have a vision for this to be a ministry too.
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  And not just a, not just a company, not just grow business,
• 8:20
  but make an impact on people's lives and, and do something
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  different, which, you know, obviously really resonated with
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  me and, you know, my, my desire to, to help people and make an
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  impact on people's lives. So John, you know, I think that
• 8:33
  connection really, really helped.
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  And I, you know, I did use CAD in high school.
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  It just been a couple years since I'd used it.
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  So I was a little rusty or rusty.
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  I had, I had a nice portfolio drawings and stuff I'd done, but
• 8:48
  honestly, I hadn't, I hadn't used CAD in a couple years.
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  I've been out in a field crew doing a land surveying.
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  So it was yeah, if I, I think it just the right connections and,
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  and I, you know, I now in my new role, what I do now as chief
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  business officer, I do a lot of work in the community, as you
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  said, I do a lot of work with schools.
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  I talk to high school students all the time, junior high
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  students and I tell students all the time that story because, you
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  know, if you, if you apply for a job, you don't have the job now.
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  So what do you lose? You know, I didn't have the job
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  when I made the application. If they didn't hire me, guess
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  what? I didn't have the job.
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  But I tried. I learned something.
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  I grew. I improved my skills.
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  I learned how, you know better interview I So what's it hurt?
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  Try it. And I love this.
• 9:34
  You still don't have the job. So I, I love this message, Sean.
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  I want to take a moment and just, you know, give voice to it
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  because I think so many times in life, and I've been guilty of
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  this myself, where it's like there's a door that we we could
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  knock on, but it's like I'm not big enough for that.
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  I don't have the right skills, the personality, the education,
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  whatever it is. And like you said that you had
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  nothing to lose. Like you send in your
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  application and if you don't get a call, you don't get an
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  interview. You're in the same place, but at
• 10:07
  least you took a shot, right? You know you miss, you miss 100%
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  of the shots you don't takes. That's the.
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  Truth Yep. And and you know, any I, I
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  always try to I can learn something from anybody.
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  You know, it doesn't matter who I interact with.
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  There's there's a lesson that they have.
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  So if, you know, I met, even if it was just meeting a great, you
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  know, person, a leader at a company, there's things that I
• 10:31
  can learn and grow from. And even the company that once
• 10:34
  again interviewed me three times and, and they had actually made
• 10:36
  me an offer as well. After that, you know, the, the,
• 10:41
  the fourth interview with the owner in both situations, Ohio
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  gradings in another company, you know, one was very +1 was 1, you
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  know, kind of had a negative slant there, but obviously they,
• 10:52
  they still both made me an offer.
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  And, you know, from my standpoint, you know, well, this
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  one definitely aligns with my, my, you know, moral compass and
• 11:01
  in my belief system. And that's, that's, you know.
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  That was a big determining factor.
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  For you easy decision where, where the way to go so.
• 11:09
  I want to explore the faith piece here for a moment if you
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  don't mind. Sure it it is surprising to me
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  that the other company who shall remain nameless had such a
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  negative take on your faith background, you being a a youth
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  minister. I mean, even if faith isn't
• 11:29
  something that is integral to your own life, I would think
• 11:34
  that somebody would see that and say, oh, this guy's probably a
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  pretty upstanding individual. He probably has, like you said,
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  a pretty good moral compass. Like even if I don't have the
• 11:45
  same belief system as him, that's the type of person that,
• 11:49
  you know, we would want kind of on the inside of our walls here.
• 11:53
  And then with the the Bartleys saying, you know, the complete
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  opposite, which was this is amazing, like this fits into our
• 12:01
  bigger plan. I kind of want to talk a little
• 12:03
  bit more about this in my experience and tell me if I'm
• 12:07
  just naive. It's a little unusual for a
• 12:10
  company to sort of want their even bigger mission to be more
• 12:17
  of what was the word that you used, a ministry?
• 12:22
  Yeah. And, you know, I, I, that's, you
• 12:26
  know, why did the other company take the negative, say, I don't
• 12:29
  know, maybe they had a bad experience.
• 12:30
  Maybe someone, you know, wasn't you maybe ripped them off by,
• 12:35
  you know, cutting out early or something.
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  I don't know. I don't know what drove it other
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  than the fact that it was a great sign to me that this is
• 12:44
  where I need to go because I was probably leaning a little more
• 12:46
  towards the other company until that interview.
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  Honestly, just from, you know, the three interviews I'd had
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  each placed, you know, and now, you know, I'm grateful I made
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  the decision I made that, you know, John is John's the owner
• 13:03
  of Ohio gradings and the other entities that we have, the
• 13:06
  acquisitions he's made, he's made it.
• 13:09
  He's he's been very intentional with, he wants this to be a
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  Kingdom class company. That's, you know, really
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  glorifies God is, is honoring to God.
• 13:20
  And, you know, it's a, it's, it's a, you know, monumental,
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  unachievable, but always something to strive for and
• 13:30
  something to kind of motivate us to get better every day.
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  So it's it's, it's definitely, you know, sets a high standard
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  and, you know, unfortunately we don't always make it, but we
• 13:40
  keep trying and. So what does that look like
• 13:44
  internally? Like what?
• 13:45
  What does it look like the Kingdom class that, you know,
• 13:47
  make this a ministry? What, like what's, what's the
• 13:50
  employee experience like, you know?
• 13:52
  You know, we do spend a lot of effort on culture.
• 13:55
  So we have a cultural officer. We do have a chaplain, full time
• 13:59
  chaplain now. When I was chaplain it was part
• 14:01
  time, but we have a full time chaplain now.
• 14:04
  We offer the class called Tepuku, which basically is an
• 14:10
  acronym. The only person you cheat is you
• 14:13
  and it's the chaplain teaches it setting goals and all of your
• 14:17
  life. It's not just about work.
• 14:20
  It's, you know, financial goals, relationship goals, spiritual
• 14:24
  goals, work goals. And it's the employees get paid
• 14:30
  to come to the class if they want to come, not forced to, but
• 14:34
  it's, it's open. You know, they, you know, in our
• 14:39
  lobby we have a book about Jesus.
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  You know, it's free to anybody, any employee that wants it, any
• 14:45
  guest or visitor that comes in just to, you know, once again,
• 14:49
  it's not forced down anyone's throat.
• 14:51
  It's, it's just, it's available if that's what you want.
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  You know, a chaplain and, you know, I played in that chaplain
• 14:58
  role. I won't say played in it, but I,
• 14:59
  I, I served in that chaplain role, I guess is better term for
• 15:04
  probably four years, 4 1/2 years.
• 15:06
  And it's, you know, coming from a, you know, strong faith
• 15:09
  background and, and, and family, you know, things that that maybe
• 15:15
  were more natural to me were or not, not everybody has that.
• 15:20
  So, you know, you get a lot of people that have no faith
• 15:23
  connection at all. And then when someone, you know,
• 15:25
  they, they lose a family member or, you know, the way I remember
• 15:28
  one incident in particular, one of our associates had a heart
• 15:31
  attack and his wife, they never, they never were involved in any
• 15:35
  church. And his wife called me and she's
• 15:37
  like, can you just come to the hospital?
• 15:39
  I'm, I'm a mess. I'm a, I'm a basket case and I
• 15:42
  don't know who to go to. I don't, you know, I don't have
• 15:44
  family around. And and so just to go sit and,
• 15:47
  you know, serve the role of what a pastor would do was was
• 15:52
  extremely meaningful to to those those, you know, the people that
• 15:56
  we served through the years, you know, and doing a funeral when
• 16:01
  someone passes in in an associate's family, you know,
• 16:05
  they don't know who to go to. They don't know.
• 16:07
  So I know just recently our chaplain did a funeral for one
• 16:13
  of our associates who had a family member pass away and they
• 16:16
  didn't know who to go to. So that's stuff I did when I was
• 16:20
  chaplain, stuff that our chaplain now does once again,
• 16:23
  serve the associates and, and be available.
• 16:26
  And you know, once it doesn't mean we're perfect.
• 16:28
  We got a lot of things to work on and strive for.
• 16:29
  But trying to set that culture to where once again, how do we,
• 16:35
  you know, it's something else. And if I'm running rambling on,
• 16:38
  just stop me. But, you know, in the role as a
• 16:43
  chief business officer and what we do with schools, you know,
• 16:45
  last year we hired 4040 high school students from local
• 16:50
  career tech programs, worked around there.
• 16:53
  You know, we really strive to work around their schedule.
• 16:55
  We wanted them to have #1 you got to graduate.
• 16:58
  That's the most important thing. And we're going to help you
• 17:01
  graduate. We're going to help you, you
• 17:03
  know, if you want to play, it's your senior year, high school,
• 17:06
  if you want to play sports, play sports, if you want to play in
• 17:08
  the band, play in the band. If you got activities, do those
• 17:10
  activities. That's important.
• 17:13
  And we know and, and you know, the owner we've talked about it
• 17:15
  is they're not all going to stay with Ohio Greens.
• 17:17
  They're not going to have a career here.
• 17:19
  But let's make an impact on their life in a positive way and
• 17:22
  see how we can help them as they transition to adulthood and, and
• 17:27
  how they're going to grow and develop as people.
• 17:30
  And if we can have a place in that, I know they're not going
• 17:32
  to stay, you know? But even if you can just sort of
• 17:35
  bend the arc of their life just a little bit more in a positive
• 17:39
  direction, Yep, what a great thing.
• 17:41
  Do something, do something positive to make an impact on it
• 17:43
  so. You know, Sean, I get to talk
• 17:46
  with a lot of business leaders, a lot of folks who faith is very
• 17:52
  important to them, who, you know, make a lot of their
• 17:55
  decisions based on their spiritual beliefs.
• 18:01
  But I think this is the first company that I've come across
• 18:03
  that has it so integrated into their culture.
• 18:08
  You know, a full time chaplain. Look at, you know, the company
• 18:11
  is, you know, becoming a ministry.
• 18:15
  And again, like you said, not not in a way where it's being
• 18:17
  forced down people's throats, but it's there and it's
• 18:20
  available for them. And it sounds like this,
• 18:24
  obviously, it's a huge part of your belief system, but John
• 18:27
  Bartley is the one who's really, you know, sort of been driving
• 18:30
  this from the beginning. Yes, absolutely Yep, it's
• 18:33
  definitely part of him and his wife Karen.
• 18:36
  They're both very involved in business and it's definitely
• 18:39
  part of their belief system and and what they want to do.
• 18:41
  That's their vision for the company.
• 18:43
  So I'm I'm in a lot of ways to face.
• 18:46
  I get, which is kind of sad. I couldn't found it, found a
• 18:50
  better one, but I am out in the community a lot, do a lot, you
• 18:54
  know, a lot of times I'm the one out front, but they're they're
• 18:58
  definitely behind the scenes and and that's the vision they want
• 19:02
  for for Ohio. That's really cool.
• 19:05
  I'm glad we got to explore that a little bit.
• 19:07
  Now. I want to help people understand
• 19:10
  what gratings are, why they're important, where do they get
• 19:14
  used? Help educate us.
• 19:16
  Like I said when I first started I had no clue and now it's just
• 19:20
  a still boggles my mind how much of it there is in the world.
• 19:23
  And hopefully you'll never be able to walk down the sidewalk
• 19:26
  and not see it grading again after today's interview or if
• 19:29
  you listen to it, because it's truly everywhere now.
• 19:32
  You know, I drive out of my way on vacation to go see grading
• 19:35
  applications and drive my wife crazy.
• 19:37
  But it is it's it's deep rooted into US.
• 19:40
  So one of the places you'll probably most commonly see
• 19:43
  grading is if you know for the general public would be on city
• 19:47
  sidewalks. If you know if the any, any big
• 19:50
  city, especially if you go to like New York, NY City subway
• 19:54
  systems, underground utilities. Every city has underground
• 19:59
  utilities. If you got tall buildings, you
• 20:01
  can't put. You know, Transformers on power
• 20:03
  poles, so they put them underneath the sidewalk.
• 20:05
  Those have to breathe. So the most common.
• 20:08
  A lot of times people think that drainage is the most common.
• 20:12
  That's what popped into my mind. Usually it's venting is is truly
• 20:16
  the most common reason venting, but drainage is another factor,
• 20:20
  but it's more about airflow. And that's the biggest reason
• 20:23
  you see grading. And the most common place you
• 20:26
  might see it would be once again, if you're walking down
• 20:28
  the street in Columbus, there's going to be Transformers
• 20:31
  underground. Those probably have grading on
• 20:34
  top of them and that's so that they can vent those, you know,
• 20:37
  famous pitcher Marilyn Monroe walking across the great and
• 20:40
  they're dressed flying up as cost grading.
• 20:42
  And that was subway grading actually.
• 20:44
  So if you think about pushing a train through a tunnel, that air
• 20:47
  has to go somewhere. You know, if you stand beside us
• 20:50
  on the street and the bus goes by, you can feel the the wind
• 20:52
  from the bus. Just think about a train in the
• 20:54
  tunnel. That's a pushing a lot of air
• 20:57
  and somewhere that air has to escape.
• 20:59
  So they put big, you know, sections of grading in the
• 21:02
  sidewalk to let the air from a subway escape.
• 21:06
  And that's, that's another big application that you might run
• 21:08
  into. Most grading, though, as far as
• 21:11
  you know, the amount of tons we ship is industrial flooring.
• 21:16
  It's a, it's a very inexpensive way to floor multiples levels of
• 21:19
  an industrial facility with access to equipment, piping, you
• 21:24
  know, maybe valves or other things they need to get to for
• 21:27
  maintenance. Catwalks in factories, stadiums
• 21:32
  have grading in them, bridges, bridge decking.
• 21:37
  We own a company in Alabama called Frontier Gratings and we
• 21:40
  also have a company here, O GI Bridge and Transportation that
• 21:43
  focuses on bridge decking. So if you ever drove across an
• 21:46
  open deck bridge, great chance that we made it.
• 21:50
  And why? Why would you use that rather
• 21:51
  than just, I don't know, laying down concrete or asphalt?
• 21:55
  Great question. And it's all about weight.
• 21:57
  So most open deck bridges are lift bridges, swing span
• 22:01
  bridges, draw bridges. So when you get to a bridge that
• 22:05
  has to be a movable or what they would call a heavy movable
• 22:08
  structure, weight becomes extremely important.
• 22:11
  And that's why they use open deck bridging and they don't.
• 22:16
  People don't like driving across open deck bridges much, rather
• 22:19
  drive across concrete because they feel a lot more
• 22:21
  comfortable. But when weight becomes a huge
• 22:23
  factor because they have to move the bridge, that's why they use
• 22:27
  open deck bridging. So.
• 22:29
  Would it be correct in assuming that an open graded bridge is
• 22:33
  more expensive to produce than like a concrete or an asphalt?
• 22:37
  Or do I have that backwards? Well, the whole bridge.
• 22:39
  The whole bridge would be more expensive because of the movable
• 22:41
  system, right? But the actual grading is
• 22:44
  cheaper than than a concrete system and much lighter.
• 22:48
  So now if they we do some, especially out of Fort Payne, AL
• 22:53
  the frontier gratings is the company will down there.
• 22:55
  They do what's called an exodermic fridge deck and it
• 22:59
  actually gets a concrete fill in it that is more expensive
• 23:03
  overall, but the durability of it.
• 23:05
  So it's a grating that's been got pans in it where they can
• 23:08
  pump concrete on top and so you get a full coverage surface, but
• 23:12
  you get the durability of the concrete plus the grading.
• 23:16
  So that's kind of like a duplex system?
• 23:18
  And why would you want that? Where would be the use case for
• 23:20
  that? The biggest reason is because
• 23:23
  it's going to last so much longer.
• 23:24
  So if you think about rebar in concrete.
• 23:27
  I was just going to ask, is this like putting rebar in concrete
• 23:29
  to kind of reinforce? It's like rebar on steroids in
• 23:32
  concrete. So you're putting a whole
• 23:33
  grading system with the concrete.
• 23:35
  So it's going to last way, way longer than just concrete with
• 23:38
  rebar. And that's why.
• 23:41
  So if you got a bridge, you know, once again, say New York
• 23:43
  City, where it's so expensive to shut the bridge down, it would
• 23:48
  become very feasible for them to use an exodermic deck that's
• 23:54
  made, you know, with like split I beams and then put concrete
• 23:57
  over it. So you get the concrete fill, be
• 23:59
  more comfortable with it, but it's going to last for for a
• 24:02
  much, much longer time than just concrete with rebar.
• 24:04
  That's the biggest reason. So the other, the other big
• 24:07
  reason is, is they can do precasting.
• 24:10
  So when when they say shut down a lane for just, you know, 8
• 24:15
  hours a night, because the traffic patterns are so
• 24:18
  important where they can only take out so much and put down so
• 24:21
  much every night. They can do all the work off
• 24:23
  site, precast it into an exothermic deck and then.
• 24:26
  Drop it. In yeah, drop it in overnight
• 24:29
  and get as much bridge replaced as they can during.
• 24:32
  You're not waiting for it to cure and dry on site, that's
• 24:35
  already been taken care of off site.
• 24:37
  Yep, and and high traffic areas. That's important.
• 24:40
  Yeah, Sean, you know the name of the company, at least the the
• 24:44
  core company is Ohio Gradings, but I've already heard you
• 24:46
  mention other facilities, other locations.
• 24:50
  Where all are you guys located? Yeah, So we as I, I joke around,
• 24:57
  John goes shopping and I get more work.
• 25:00
  But John, John has acquired a number of companies over the
• 25:04
  last few years. Frontier Gradings is in Fort
• 25:07
  Payne, AL and we also built another plant there in Fort
• 25:13
  Payne. We just did a grand opening on
• 25:15
  Wednesday this week. So that was exciting. 45,000
• 25:19
  square foot light duty grading fabrication facility.
• 25:22
  So now we have both those facilities in Fort Payne, AL to
• 25:25
  give us a better presence down in the southeast of the United
• 25:30
  States. So it's Fort Payne's, a small
• 25:32
  community about 50 miles from Chattanooga, about an hour and
• 25:37
  45 minutes from Nashville, Birmingham and Atlanta.
• 25:41
  So kind of tucked up in the Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama
• 25:45
  corner there. We have a plant in Houston, TX.
• 25:48
  I spent eight years as general manager of that plant.
• 25:50
  So John moved me down there for a while to to run that facility.
• 25:55
  It was a start up. I went down about a year after
• 25:58
  it started up and then kind of had responsibility for
• 26:02
  everything there for, for I was, I think I was there almost eight
• 26:05
  years and then he moved me back to Ohio as a COO at that point
• 26:10
  and then move me to CBO. We got a company in Leola, PA
• 26:13
  called K Bar Products. They build the frames for Con
• 26:17
  Edison, which is New York City's electric company.
• 26:22
  So we build the grading, they build the frames, and then they
• 26:26
  buy the grading off us. We got a company in Baltimore,
• 26:29
  MD called Waco Products. They do sewer treatment gates
• 26:34
  and water treatment gates. They do a lot of Department of
• 26:37
  Defense work, ship platforms and Navy ships, gangways on ships.
• 26:44
  Got a company in Twinsburg, OH called KD Products.
• 26:48
  They do ornamental grading so they do some bronze grading, do
• 26:52
  stainless steel revolving door specifically for revolving door
• 26:57
  entrance waste and they do if you ever you you've walked
• 27:01
  across it for sure. Target, Walmart, Culver's banks
• 27:08
  where there's strips of carpet schools, a lot of schools have
• 27:11
  them. Entrance mats where there's
• 27:13
  actually strips of carpets and aluminum pans so it gets the
• 27:16
  dirt off your feet on the way in.
• 27:18
  They, they manufacture those as well up at KD Products.
• 27:21
  And then we got some sales offices and engineering offices
• 27:23
  across the country as well. So given the the size and the
• 27:28
  weight of the products that you produce, I would guess that each
• 27:32
  of these facilities, the business tends to be more
• 27:35
  regional because freight would become a big issue.
• 27:38
  Is that true? Yeah, freight's a big issue.
• 27:40
  Ohio. Ohio is the big manufacturing
• 27:43
  hub for everything. Here in Canton, we have about
• 27:45
  800,000 square feet. So and that's kind of a cool
• 27:50
  transformation story. But you know, when I started, we
• 27:52
  had, you know, 5050 some people and about 85,000 square feet.
• 27:57
  Now in Canton we have 800,000 square feet and across all the
• 28:01
  companies were about 870 people. So it's been a great growth
• 28:05
  story, very exciting. Never a dull moment.
• 28:08
  I tell people if you're bored here, it's your problem because
• 28:11
  there's definitely something to do.
• 28:13
  So always more to do than we can get done.
• 28:17
  But so, so having a regional fabrication facility, all the
• 28:22
  manufacturing is here, but we will, we send, you know,
• 28:25
  truckloads of panels to Houston and Fort Payne, AL and that's
• 28:28
  where they fabricate them. We do also a lot of the raw
• 28:31
  material for the other companies such as you know, KDK Bar, Waco
• 28:36
  and Frontier Gratings since you know, we buy coils of steel, you
• 28:41
  know, 50 to 60,000 LB coils of steel slid them and make bar
• 28:46
  here in Canton. So we provide the bar for all
• 28:49
  the facilities as well. So it's those are the synergies
• 28:52
  between companies and and that's kind of the other part of my
• 28:55
  role is the community stuff and the synergies between the
• 28:59
  businesses and especially I'm really focused on KD in
• 29:02
  Twinsburg, Fort Payne, AL and Texas.
• 29:05
  Those are all ones that I spend a lot of time with.
• 29:09
  So, you know, this is an industry that myself, a lot of
• 29:14
  other folks probably never thought about, never knew
• 29:17
  existed until today. But now that you're talking
• 29:20
  through it, it's like, oh, of course I can see these use cases
• 29:22
  and the need for them and Ohio gradings and all the different,
• 29:26
  you know, entities that John's gone shopping for are clearly
• 29:29
  not the only ones out there. So I'd like to explore a little
• 29:34
  bit about what sets you guys apart from the competition.
• 29:37
  And this may be a good time to talk about, you know, some of
• 29:40
  the trademarks and the patents that you guys have filed for
• 29:44
  products like all Grip on grip wheels and heels.
• 29:48
  Can you give voice to some of this for us?
• 29:50
  Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know that that's
• 29:53
  one of the things that really sets us apart is just we, we
• 29:56
  call it solutioneering, engineering a solution.
• 30:00
  So example, there's a bridge, Gross Hill bridge in Michigan,
• 30:04
  and they called us movable bridge, three 1300 foot long
• 30:08
  bridge, 300 feet. So a whole football field spins
• 30:12
  or swings to let boats go through swings back.
• 30:15
  So they basically called and said, Hey, we got this bridge.
• 30:17
  The bridge decking is, is falling apart.
• 30:20
  It's only 20 some years old. We need a solution.
• 30:23
  We can't increase the weight of the bridge though, because we
• 30:27
  can't replace all the mechanical systems.
• 30:29
  So it has to be, it has to weigh less.
• 30:31
  So find a solution that's going to weigh less.
• 30:34
  And we were able to, you know, come up with a, a riveted bridge
• 30:37
  deck where every other bar is lighter to make the the load
• 30:41
  less still handle the traffic pattern based on the supports.
• 30:46
  We as a sidewalk was a concrete sidewalk, obviously very heavy
• 30:51
  through the years. You could see the rebar rusted
• 30:54
  through it and people were scared walking across it.
• 30:57
  It was chipped and falling into the river.
• 31:00
  I went up the I was a project manager at the time.
• 31:03
  I went up to the bridge of the day, shut it down.
• 31:05
  You could really literally pull bars right out of the bridge
• 31:07
  decking. They welded plates all over the
• 31:10
  place. It rattled, it was loud.
• 31:12
  It wasn't a very good situation. The sidewalk was, you know, kind
• 31:16
  of scary. You're walking your kids across
• 31:18
  the sidewalk and it's, you know, got busted pieces and you could
• 31:20
  see down into the river and underneath the bridge.
• 31:23
  There was an inspection walkway 2 two by 10s that the inspection
• 31:26
  had to walk on in icy conditions in Michigan.
• 31:29
  So not ideal. We have a light eye bar which
• 31:34
  is, you know, at that time we were the only ones that used
• 31:37
  made that product and it's like little eye beams made out of
• 31:40
  aluminum that we were able to replace the inspection walk away
• 31:43
  with and give them a three foot wide.
• 31:45
  So it makes it lighter, but is it still strong enough?
• 31:48
  Yes, actually stronger, lighter and it was a wider, you know,
• 31:53
  they walked on 2/2 by 10s. Now they had a three foot wide
• 31:55
  walkway that actually weighed less than two, two by 10's and
• 31:58
  also allowed for drainage so it wouldn't get ice filled up on
• 32:01
  it. And it was a slip resistant
• 32:03
  surface, so it wasn't slippery. So much, much safer for that
• 32:06
  inspector. Sorry, I want to hear the rest
• 32:08
  of the story, but how do you make it slip resistant?
• 32:10
  So that's some of our our products that we have on grip
• 32:13
  and all Grip are what we call traction safety products.
• 32:17
  So they are on grip is a spray. It's a trademark name.
• 32:21
  That one's not patented. All Grip is patented.
• 32:24
  It's actually like a Weld stud. We use a metallized powder and
• 32:30
  shoot a laser into it. It's a patented process,
• 32:33
  patented product. We can put them on bars or on
• 32:35
  plate. And you know, friction is all
• 32:39
  the Co fiction of friction is what is really the the kind of
• 32:43
  the the measurement for slip resistance and our on grip and
• 32:49
  all grip products are off the charts as far as the slip
• 32:55
  resistance. You know, a lot of a lot of you
• 32:57
  know, products might be in the .4 point fives all grip and on
• 33:02
  grip consistently test in the upper point eights and in the
• 33:05
  .9. So on a scale up to 1.
• 33:09
  So it's, it's once again very, very, very, you know, slippery.
• 33:13
  And this coating that you put on, is that the all grip or the
• 33:16
  on grip product? Both.
• 33:17
  Either one of them we could. Both are coating and the coating
• 33:20
  is durable. Is it last?
• 33:21
  Yes, it's it's actually a metal. So the the on grips of metal
• 33:25
  spray. So if you can almost envision 2
• 33:27
  Weld wires get shorted out, heated above the melting point
• 33:31
  and embedded into the metal. So they've become a very, very
• 33:34
  resistant. It's a metalizing.
• 33:36
  Once again, a lot of people do that.
• 33:38
  Our trademark is on grip. All grip is the patented one.
• 33:41
  We run a metalized powder, shoot a laser into it and it becomes a
• 33:44
  Weld stud. That Weld stud is harder than
• 33:47
  the base metal. So it's very, very durable.
• 33:50
  It's going to last forever, you know, as long as the the
• 33:54
  structures there that that all grips won't be there.
• 33:57
  We actually, we were limited on how we can cut it after we put
• 34:01
  all grip on it because it's so hard.
• 34:03
  It destroys us all glade in no time.
• 34:05
  So we we have a other cutting options we have to use due to
• 34:10
  the the hardness of that material and how durable it is.
• 34:13
  Are you also using lasers there? Because anytime you use lasers,
• 34:17
  that's just a cool part of the story.
• 34:18
  Yeah, yeah, we have a couple laser tables.
• 34:20
  We got A2 Blazer and we use lasers in the all grip process.
• 34:25
  So yeah, we definitely use a lot of lasers.
• 34:29
  Okay, so this project. If you ever want to come see it.
• 34:33
  You got me. I love to see manufacturing
• 34:35
  processes come. Check us out.
• 34:37
  There's that. There's that show that they used
• 34:40
  to do on History Channel. I think it was how it's made and
• 34:43
  they show like the manufacturing process for something common
• 34:46
  like a pen or, you know, food or something.
• 34:48
  And I'm just fascinated at the automation there.
• 34:51
  So yeah, I'm going to take you up on that offer, Sean.
• 34:53
  Open invitation. So, OK, so you had this this
• 34:56
  interesting bridge product and Michigan that had some really,
• 35:01
  you know, tight specifications. You got to make it lighter.
• 35:04
  You know, you guys ended up making it wider and lighter,
• 35:07
  stronger because they couldn't replace the mechanicals and you
• 35:10
  guys were able to hit all their requirements.
• 35:12
  Yes, yeah, we were. And one of the things that was
• 35:14
  kind of interesting when we when you know, it's a public bid,
• 35:17
  it's a county owned bridge, so obviously open bid.
• 35:21
  But we had a, you know, big competitive advantage because we
• 35:24
  helped write the spec on, on all of it and it was we were the
• 35:29
  only one the bid spec. Everybody else did alternative
• 35:31
  products which weren't working well, which is why they came to
• 35:36
  us. So that's, that's one example of
• 35:39
  solution earring. You know, we engineered a
• 35:40
  solution. We work with the customer, we
• 35:42
  listen to the customer. You know, what are your true
• 35:44
  needs here? How can we help you come up with
• 35:47
  a solution? It's going to work in the long
• 35:48
  term. And and that's, that's just one
• 35:50
  example that the utility grades is another example.
• 35:53
  And, and another patented product is our wheels and heels
• 35:56
  rating. Wheels and Heels is wheel
• 35:59
  capable and high heel friendly, but they're ADA compliant.
• 36:02
  ADA stands for American with Disability Act, so the.
• 36:06
  And So what is the grading just like very like the openings are
• 36:09
  very small. So there's, yeah, there's a lot
• 36:11
  of requirements to go with ADA to meet ADA requirements.
• 36:15
  You can't have elongated openings.
• 36:17
  A wheelchair could get stuck in the the the biggest ones are
• 36:21
  it's got to be slip resistant. You can't have an opening over
• 36:25
  1/2 inch. You can't have openings that run
• 36:28
  parallel to the primary direction of travel.
• 36:31
  So all of the greats in the city sidewalk, the bars are the top
• 36:35
  surface. Bars are supposed to be
• 36:37
  perpendicular to the main lane of traffic.
• 36:42
  So those are some of the big requirements with grading when
• 36:45
  it comes to the ADA compliance. So we developed wheels and heels
• 36:49
  and it's been over, you know, I'd say over a decade.
• 36:53
  And a lot of it's been work with engineers, architects, utility
• 36:56
  companies, they need access to it.
• 36:58
  So how do you get into the utility vault to work on my
• 37:02
  transformer? So we've actually just this year
• 37:05
  rolled out some products we call Greater Balance that actually
• 37:10
  have lifting devices built into the product.
• 37:13
  So, you know, before the doors of these are so heavy, they'd
• 37:16
  have to bring a truck with a crane on it.
• 37:18
  And then you'd have to have a service truck.
• 37:20
  So they would bring you 5 or 6 people out to, to work on a
• 37:23
  transformer, a couple trucks. And you know, that's been a lot
• 37:27
  of Labor and cost. Now with these greater balance
• 37:30
  options that we have, we build these, you know, utility vault
• 37:35
  covers and one person can actually, so they can bring a
• 37:38
  pickup truck with no crane and two people for safety reasons.
• 37:43
  They, they have two people work on it one up top while one's
• 37:46
  down and they can actually open it by themselves.
• 37:50
  You know, I think it's like 30 lbs of force to lift a a 600 LB
• 37:54
  door. How is that?
• 37:55
  Is there like some sort of a a winch or a motor or something
• 37:57
  that's built? Into like piston put underneath
• 37:59
  it. So you think about your
• 38:01
  hatchback or or you know in your car they they have it.
• 38:04
  This is just beefed up. So beefed up lift assist system.
• 38:08
  Some of them are mechanical with like a little hydraulic pump
• 38:11
  where they can actually plug in to open it.
• 38:15
  And now with with, you know, Homeland Security, they have to
• 38:18
  have locking devices so that terrorists can't get into our
• 38:21
  power grid and and, you know, destroy Transformers that are
• 38:24
  powering skyscrapers. So through many years of
• 38:29
  developing these products and seeing what's the utilities true
• 38:32
  needs, you know, we've engineered some products that
• 38:35
  are not patented that, you know, utilities across the country
• 38:38
  want because it saves them a lot of Labor.
• 38:41
  It's very safe, it's secure. It doesn't get destroyed when
• 38:44
  the UPS driver drives down the sidewalk and runs across the
• 38:47
  grading and and ruins it. It's ADA compliant, so it keeps
• 38:50
  the liability from them. So they're great, great products
• 38:53
  that we've done and those are some of the things that really
• 38:55
  separate us. We've, I think a lot of you
• 38:58
  know, the, the, the backbone of grading is, is what they call 19
• 39:01
  W 4. It's industrial grading 1 by 4
• 39:04
  basically openings and you know, carbon steel and that we do a
• 39:10
  lot of it. Everybody, all the competitors
• 39:12
  do that. But we do a lot more specialty
• 39:15
  products than they do. We've been more solutioneered
• 39:20
  to, to do products that that others don't.
• 39:22
  They just focus on the commodity.
• 39:24
  I want to talk a little bit more about this because I think it
• 39:26
  dovetails into another question that I wanted to ask in terms
• 39:30
  of, you know, what you guys have found to be really good growth
• 39:33
  strategies. Obviously there have been a
• 39:35
  number of acquisitions made and that helps, but even your core
• 39:39
  facility there and Canton has grown considerably.
• 39:44
  And so you know, I heard you say that, you know, you on that that
• 39:49
  Michigan bridge project that you helped to write the spec and
• 39:52
  then you've used the term solutioneered.
• 39:55
  And so I'm wondering, is this sort of a big part of your sales
• 40:02
  and marketing strategy is, is to kind of get into the process
• 40:06
  like early on so that you're kind of steering the
• 40:10
  specifications to be stuff that, you know only Ohio gradings can
• 40:14
  be? Yeah, that's definitely part of
• 40:16
  it. You kind of got 2 avenues and
• 40:20
  that's the specialty products. We're definitely getting in
• 40:23
  early getting with engineers, architects, finding solutions.
• 40:26
  We have an architectural division that, you know, does
• 40:29
  grading that really isn't walked on.
• 40:31
  So like sunscreens on buildings, handrail infills, trash
• 40:36
  enclosures, stuff that needs to breathe, but yet visual blocks
• 40:40
  is, is part of what you would see there.
• 40:43
  And you know, a lot of architects like the metal look
• 40:47
  that grading can provide for the outside of a building.
• 40:50
  So that that's part of it. The other part would be, you
• 40:53
  know, just kind of the the day-to-day grading and, and a
• 40:56
  lot of the growth there for the industrial grading, the
• 41:00
  commodity type stuff that we've done has been vertical
• 41:04
  integration. So, you know, when I started, we
• 41:06
  bought it from someone else and fabricated it.
• 41:10
  We manufactured aluminum, we manufactured some of these
• 41:12
  specialty products, but we didn't manufacture the backbone
• 41:16
  of grading, which was the, you know, this, the commodity, big
• 41:20
  industrial. So you've got big industrial
• 41:22
  plants, they have, you know, massive amounts of grading in
• 41:25
  them. We just fabricated them after we
• 41:27
  bought them someone else through the years we vertically
• 41:29
  integrated where now we slid our own steel, make our own bar, you
• 41:34
  know, Weld the grading paint resistance, Weld the grading
• 41:38
  panels, not not big Weld. So we've got, you know, a lot of
• 41:41
  equipment vertical integration through the years and that's
• 41:43
  that's really been that side of the growth.
• 41:46
  So the special products growth and offering more solution
• 41:50
  driven products is part of the growth.
• 41:54
  The other part is, is you know, getting more market share in
• 41:57
  commodities by vertically integrating and and taking more
• 42:01
  control of our costs and you know, lead time and, and, and
• 42:07
  capabilities. I would imagine and correct me
• 42:11
  if I'm wrong, Sean, that a big part of sort of your sales and
• 42:14
  marketing has to be education, letting folks know that, hey,
• 42:19
  there are different options than the commodities that maybe
• 42:22
  you're accustomed to, especially since you guys have so many
• 42:25
  patented products. Am I correct in that assumption?
• 42:28
  And if so, how do you go about that education process?
• 42:34
  Well, we, we, I don't know it was before the interview started
• 42:37
  or, or we talked about the studio and part of that's lunch
• 42:41
  and learns. We do a good bit of lunch and
• 42:44
  learns trying to get into architects space and engineer
• 42:48
  space, offering an opportunity to educate them, get continuing
• 42:52
  education credits at times depending on the the session to
• 42:57
  educate them on, on the different aspects of grading and
• 43:01
  what we can do. And a lot of it's, you know,
• 43:03
  just listening, listening to our customers, what are the needs?
• 43:06
  And, and, you know, the, the, the city sidewalk market, which
• 43:10
  we talked about with the wheels and heels is just such a perfect
• 43:13
  example of it because, you know, I can go back 20 years ago where
• 43:17
  we did some wheels and heels in their infancy.
• 43:24
  And, you know, the first versions of it, you know, they,
• 43:27
  they, the feedback was it met the specs, but it was ugly.
• 43:31
  It's got welds all over the top. We don't like it.
• 43:35
  So then it was like, OK, we thought it was great, you know,
• 43:39
  but listening to them, you know, I don't want that over my
• 43:41
  utility vault. I want something that's gonna
• 43:43
  look better. Well, you know, and then so
• 43:46
  it's, it's constantly revising, adjusting, listening to the
• 43:50
  customer, finding out what they need and being flexible, you
• 43:54
  know, then, you know, as Homeland Security becomes more
• 43:57
  and more, I have to have locking devices.
• 44:00
  I have to wait to lock this so that no one can just jump, you
• 44:03
  know, get into one of my utility vaults and open a open a vault
• 44:08
  access panel. But then, you know, so we come
• 44:12
  up with locking devices, we come up with better hinge devices so
• 44:15
  that the grading lays flat when you open it up instead of
• 44:18
  standing up or there's a way to keep that so it doesn't shut,
• 44:21
  you know, and put someone in an unsafe situation.
• 44:24
  So, you know, listening to them continuing develop, what's the
• 44:27
  next steps? And you know, now to where even
• 44:30
  greater balances is, you know, part of what we do, where, you
• 44:33
  know, they can send a, a truck with two, two technicians to go
• 44:37
  out there and open it by themselves with, you know, 35,
• 44:40
  35 lbs of force to open a 600 LB door.
• 44:43
  And just, you know, continue to find what's the next innovative
• 44:46
  step that's going to make them more efficient and also provide
• 44:52
  something that their customer likes as well.
• 44:54
  You know, the, the building owner that has to, you know, put
• 44:57
  in a utility vault to the, the utility company's going to
• 45:01
  control the spec of what they want, but the util the, the
• 45:04
  owner of the building wants it to look good too.
• 45:06
  You know, they just put up this beautiful, you know, building
• 45:09
  for their offices. I don't want some ugly vault out
• 45:13
  there. So it's got to be functional.
• 45:16
  It's got to look good for the building owner and it's got to
• 45:18
  be functional for the utility and and just listening through
• 45:21
  the process to to come up with a solution that's best for
• 45:24
  everybody. And you guys have solutions that
• 45:26
  check all those boxes which is? Trying keep keep keep.
• 45:31
  Who? Knows what's next if if we sit
• 45:34
  still. Someone's going to pass this up
• 45:36
  so gotta keep figuring out more. Can't rest on your laurels.
• 45:40
  So you guys at Ohio gradings, you position yourself as a step
• 45:45
  ahead. What does that slogan personally
• 45:48
  mean to you, and how does that mindset sort of show up in
• 45:51
  day-to-day business decisions? Yeah, one of our core values is,
• 45:54
  is transforming ourselves. And if, you know, take just a
• 45:57
  second, five core values that are very important to us.
• 46:01
  First one's character and trust. And it's about treating people
• 46:04
  respectfully, being respectful of other people.
• 46:07
  And that's an expectation here. I tell every new hire when I do
• 46:10
  higher orientation that it's expected that you treat people
• 46:13
  respectfully. And I expect, we expect people
• 46:15
  to treat you respectfully. Well, honoring your commitments,
• 46:19
  which is, you know, if you say you're going to do it, do it.
• 46:21
  Operate with integrity, working with passion.
• 46:23
  If your work, you're here, work hard, do what you're supposed to
• 46:27
  do. The third or fourth one is
• 46:30
  sustaining our future and it's, you know, how you contributing
• 46:33
  to profitability, making a better product and the last ones
• 46:36
  transforming yourself. And that's really where that
• 46:37
  step ahead comes in. Really, I think it really
• 46:40
  applies to all of them, but it's specifically transforming
• 46:43
  ourselves. How, how, what, what are the
• 46:45
  steps we're taking to to stay ahead of not just the
• 46:49
  competition, but just to stay relevant in, in a fast moving
• 46:54
  industry with, you know, automation and innovation is
• 46:59
  extremely important. Modernization of our processes.
• 47:03
  How do we continue to be better than we were yesterday and not
• 47:08
  get comfortable? You know, the the great book by
• 47:11
  Jim Collins, good to great. You know, good is the enemy of
• 47:15
  great. And, you know, if you think
• 47:16
  you're good, you know, you get comfortable with good, you'll
• 47:20
  never be great. And, you know, I don't know
• 47:22
  where we're at in that good to great, but I know we're not
• 47:26
  where we need to be yet. So we've got to keep pushing to
• 47:29
  get better. And you know, I constantly, you
• 47:33
  know, and John and I talk about this all the time.
• 47:35
  And if I can use a biblical analogy, I, I, it's, it's, you
• 47:39
  know, it's so easy to see all the things we do wrong.
• 47:44
  And, and, and every day I, it's like, you know, can drive me
• 47:47
  nuts. I see the things we, we mess up
• 47:49
  on. And I, I, I told John, I've
• 47:52
  talked about this before. You know, after, in, in Genesis
• 47:55
  chapter one in the creation story, every day God saw it was
• 47:59
  good, the Bible says, and you know, it was still a mess after
• 48:03
  day one, still a mess. Stay 2 is still a mess.
• 48:05
  Still, you know, day three is still a mess.
• 48:07
  And but he stopped and said, you know what?
• 48:09
  That was good. And sometimes, you know, John,
• 48:12
  I've talked about that, you know, we got to stop sometimes
• 48:14
  and recognize we've done a lot of good things, but we can't be
• 48:17
  too excited because we got a lot more to go, you know?
• 48:19
  So after he separated light from darkness, he stopped and said
• 48:21
  that was good, you know, so I got to realize that you.
• 48:25
  Know these things can sort of coexist.
• 48:27
  Exactly. You can pat yourself on the back
• 48:29
  and said, wow, we've done something really great here, you
• 48:33
  know? Turn around, kick yourself in
• 48:34
  the butt and. Say and then say we've got room
• 48:36
  to improve. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 48:39
  And and that's, you know, constantly striving to not just
• 48:42
  see the bad, but also see the good and celebrate the good, but
• 48:46
  don't rest on the good. We got it.
• 48:48
  We got to there's. There's a lot more we got to
• 48:49
  work on. So this, this idea of
• 48:52
  transforming yourself, it, it strikes me, Sean, that this is
• 48:55
  something that you have personally done many, many, many
• 48:59
  times there at Ohio gradings in the last 30 years, all the
• 49:02
  different roles that you filled. I'm, I'm curious to hear maybe
• 49:08
  one of those transitions that was, I don't know, the the most
• 49:12
  challenging or surprising for you and why?
• 49:15
  Well, that's a great, great question.
• 49:16
  Hopefully I transformed myself this morning and yesterday and
• 49:20
  day before because I know I've got a lot of things to work on
• 49:25
  and, and a lot of growth areas. There's been, yeah, tons of
• 49:29
  transformation. You know, I started once again,
• 49:32
  didn't even have an associate's degree.
• 49:35
  They wanted someone with associate's degree.
• 49:36
  Through the years, I've, I've been able to get, you know, been
• 49:39
  blessed to get associate's degree and a bachelor's degree
• 49:41
  and a master's degree. And, you know, that's really
• 49:44
  transforming you. And, and a lot of it was, you
• 49:47
  know, I have people ask me, should you know, should I get my
• 49:50
  degree or not? And John's not big on, you know,
• 49:53
  saying you got to have a degree or not.
• 49:55
  It's, you know, make good decisions, work hard, you know,
• 49:57
  do your job. But the biggest things there
• 50:01
  were it 11. I never done anything with
• 50:05
  finance. So I kind of come from my, my
• 50:07
  associate's degree, civil engineering.
• 50:09
  And as I grew in my career, you know, getting into financial
• 50:17
  statements and P&L's and balance sheets, I was totally ignorant
• 50:21
  of, of that side of the business.
• 50:23
  So I really had to focus on, I had to understand it better.
• 50:28
  So getting a degree helped me to grow in the financial side of
• 50:33
  the business. But the other thing is it kind
• 50:35
  of helped me be more confident. You know, some, some, some in
• 50:39
  the back of my mind was, you know, am I just good because I
• 50:42
  landed at the right spot? And, you know, if I went
• 50:46
  anywhere else, it would be, you know, I'm really nothing.
• 50:49
  And I've told John this before. So I'm not saying something that
• 50:53
  I, I don't see myself as all that special.
• 50:56
  You know, I got a good work ethic.
• 50:58
  You know, I'm not not a genius or anything.
• 51:02
  So, but I, you know, I got a good, a good set of skills, you
• 51:07
  know, where I can, you know, work with people.
• 51:09
  I can, you know, common sense is uncommon.
• 51:13
  So it's, it's a little bit of common sense and, you know,
• 51:17
  things that I guess, you know, make me who I am and the
• 51:20
  experiences I've had. And so, you know, it's
• 51:24
  transforming myself. I I think really once again, has
• 51:28
  to happen constantly. You know, part of that was
• 51:31
  getting an education and, and, you know, developing a
• 51:35
  confidence that I was, yeah, I could do this.
• 51:37
  I can do this and, you know, getting an MBA, Let me know.
• 51:41
  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm OK as a leader.
• 51:45
  I can continue to, to grow. Doesn't mean I'm there, but it
• 51:48
  means I've got the tools that can be successful in in
• 51:52
  different positions. Sean, tell me about the balance.
• 51:57
  What is this? So the book, yeah.
• 52:01
  So that's, you know, I've got, we've got 4 kids.
• 52:04
  My wife and I have 4 kids and June will be 32 years of
• 52:08
  marriage. So it's a kid, three of the four
• 52:16
  that wasn't really into sports, but he wanted to write a book.
• 52:19
  And so, you know, I coached my oldest in baseball and football
• 52:23
  and coach, you know, so you kind of had that connection with
• 52:28
  them, you know, playing sports and and coaching them and and
• 52:32
  working with them. But he want to write a book.
• 52:33
  And this isn't, you know, back in when I was pastoring, we, we
• 52:37
  went through a really challenging time and, and don't
• 52:40
  want to drag the story out, but young man in our church got
• 52:43
  cancer a couple months later, died, left four young kids
• 52:46
  devastating situation. And and I did a a message on the
• 52:51
  balance. And I had so many people
• 52:53
  afterwards say you need to write a book on that.
• 52:54
  That would be that would be that would that material was
• 52:57
  phenomenal. You should write a book on it.
• 52:59
  Well, my third child, Elijah wanted to write a book.
• 53:03
  So we kind of did where at least once a month I tried to we him
• 53:07
  and I would go to Panera on Saturday morning and we would
• 53:10
  spend time working on our books. And, you know, he was probably
• 53:13
  7-8 years old and, you know, so, but to him, he got an iPad and,
• 53:18
  and his grandpa gave him an iPad so he could work on his book.
• 53:21
  And him and I would go to Panera and buy breakfast and we just
• 53:24
  sit there and, and I've worked on the balance.
• 53:26
  And it took me probably a dozen years to write it, but it was
• 53:29
  kind of an outline from that message I had have preached
• 53:31
  during that very challenging time for our whole church.
• 53:34
  It was very challenging to see that young mother with four
• 53:38
  little kids. And, you know, he was just an
• 53:41
  alive, active, you know, great guy, athletic.
• 53:44
  And, you know, one day I was actually at breakfast with him
• 53:47
  and he said me and the doctor said I'd get to, you know, go
• 53:49
  get some tests today. And, you know, just that little
• 53:53
  comment. And it was like, you're feeling
• 53:54
  all right. Yeah, Yeah.
• 53:56
  And that night he called me and said I've got cancer stage 4.
• 53:59
  And couple months later, he was passed away.
• 54:01
  And so that kind of is what prompted it.
• 54:05
  And then, you know, once again, just spend the time with my son
• 54:07
  was really what drove it. The the the content of the book
• 54:11
  came from the message that that, you know, I I gave during that
• 54:16
  challenging time and encouragement from a number of
• 54:18
  the people in the church that you should put that into a book.
• 54:21
  And, and it my wife and I've always tried very hard to, you
• 54:25
  know, live healthy, live a balanced life the best we can.
• 54:30
  And, you know, there's, there's just so many challenges and
• 54:33
  struggles that we have as individuals and the demands of
• 54:37
  society. And you know that eating well,
• 54:41
  exercising, you know, I believe in, in divine healing, but I
• 54:46
  also believe God gave us a brain to, you know, not eat fast food
• 54:50
  every day and expect, you know, God to heal us when, when we've
• 54:55
  done nothing to take care of ourselves.
• 54:56
  So, so that's, that's kind of some of the emphasis of the
• 54:59
  balance. And you know one of the one of
• 55:03
  the chapters, you know. Finding balance through these
• 55:05
  different elements in your life. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:07
  And just living, living a balanced life, you know,
• 55:10
  relationally and, and you know, with, with God, with our spouse,
• 55:14
  with our kids, work how to balance all the, all those
• 55:19
  demands that we have on us. It's actually a good segue into
• 55:23
  one of my favorite questions I always like to ask my guest,
• 55:25
  Sean, which is I'd like to hear about a serious challenge that
• 55:29
  you've overcome, whether it's personal or professional, maybe
• 55:33
  a combination of the two. What was it?
• 55:36
  How'd you get through it? What did you learn?
• 55:38
  Yeah, actually, you know, from a personal standpoint, I, I
• 55:42
  mentioned it in the book and talk a little bit about it and
• 55:44
  I'm certainly not not an expert at all.
• 55:46
  But I went through a situation with one of our children with
• 55:49
  the mental health and to the point of hospitalization for
• 55:54
  over six months and, you know, over 4 hours away for a
• 55:58
  specialized unit. And that was by far the most
• 56:03
  challenging situation I've ever went through was, was, was, you
• 56:08
  know, dealing with that. And, you know, thank God that
• 56:11
  everything's, you know, done or, you know, through that and
• 56:15
  everything's good. But it was, it was a very, very
• 56:18
  challenging situation. I talk a little bit about in the
• 56:21
  book, mental health is such a hard topic because it's hard to
• 56:26
  wrap your brain around mental health.
• 56:30
  And, you know, a lot of, a lot of, you know, church doctors,
• 56:34
  even medical don't know where to go with, with some of those
• 56:37
  issues and, and challenges. And, and I had no clue what I
• 56:41
  was doing. I was, you know, it was all
• 56:44
  foreign territory to me. So very, very, very challenging
• 56:49
  situation. And you know, and look back on
• 56:53
  it and you know, that old poem about footprints in the sand.
• 56:57
  You know, during the hardest times he carried us.
• 56:59
  And that's the only thing I can think of is, you know, God
• 57:02
  carried us through it because I'm not sure how how we make it
• 57:05
  through sometimes the situations we go through.
• 57:07
  But, you know, been plenty of challenges in business and, and,
• 57:13
  you know, moving to Texas was a big for kids moving all the way
• 57:18
  across the country and taking on a pretty challenging situation
• 57:23
  there. Like I said, they'd started the
• 57:25
  business a year before John sent me there and it was having some
• 57:32
  big issues with management and, you know, personalities and a
• 57:36
  lot of changes needed to take place.
• 57:38
  And, you know, John kind of sent me there to try to try to work
• 57:41
  through it and, you know, figure out what the best steps to to
• 57:46
  continue to help it survive First off and then grow.
• 57:51
  So, so that was a that was a, you know, very challenging time
• 57:55
  right before that. If I go into it for a second and
• 57:58
  once again, just tell me shut up if I'm going too long.
• 58:01
  But we had a situation where Hurricane Ike that hit Texas.
• 58:07
  We were living in North Canton and we just moved into the
• 58:11
  house, only been in there for a week.
• 58:13
  And the we lost power. One of the guys in the church
• 58:17
  brought a generator over and put it in the garage.
• 58:19
  And we had a breezeway. But the way the wind was blowing
• 58:23
  and we would only run it just enough to keep, you know, I had
• 58:26
  some deer meat from the hunting season in my freezer that he
• 58:31
  didn't want me to lose. And I didn't want to lose it.
• 58:33
  So we were just running enough to keep the, the freezer from,
• 58:36
  you know, falling out the meat. So we'd run it for a little bit.
• 58:39
  But unbeknownst to us that the fumes have been building up in
• 58:42
  our house. And make a Long story short, we
• 58:45
  almost all died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
• 58:49
  It was just a total act of God that we got a hold of paramedics
• 58:53
  when we did. But if you look at the stages of
• 58:56
  carbon monoxide poisoning, the last stage, stage 4 is, you
• 59:00
  know, vomiting, unconsciousness and death.
• 59:04
  And I was have been unconscious. My wife have passed out, she was
• 59:08
  unconscious. Both of us have been vomiting.
• 59:10
  I was in convulsions when they found me.
• 59:13
  And that was a big transition point.
• 59:15
  Very, very challenging, took a lot out of us.
• 59:18
  And, and that's right when actually ended up resigning,
• 59:23
  pastoring the church and moved to Texas.
• 59:27
  You know, it was, I think it's just been wearing working full
• 59:31
  time, pastoring full time and then having and having a, an
• 59:36
  incident like that in our in our lives that that really kind of
• 59:39
  just rocked us so. How did how did help come to you
• 59:44
  if you guys had had passed out, you you knew enough to make a
• 59:48
  call before you lost consciousness?
• 59:50
  Or yeah, and, and that's where I wasn't sure how how long you
• 59:54
  want me go in the story. But so our two oldest kids have
• 1:00:00
  went to their grandparents house so they could do home school.
• 1:00:03
  The two youngest kids, 1 was just a few months old.
• 1:00:06
  The other one was 20 months older, so maybe 2 years old and
• 1:00:10
  20, probably 2 years old and four or five months old.
• 1:00:14
  My wife and I were in bed. The the baby have been crying
• 1:00:17
  all night. I felt felt sick.
• 1:00:21
  I got up and, you know, was trying to get to the toilet but
• 1:00:24
  I didn't make it up. I dropped and I remember laying
• 1:00:28
  on the tile floor and, you know, I've been vomiting and, and I
• 1:00:32
  was thinking if I could just get to the carpet, it would feel so
• 1:00:35
  much better than this cold tile floor.
• 1:00:37
  And I couldn't move. I was just like stuck.
• 1:00:39
  And they, you know, when, when carbon monoxide is your brain
• 1:00:42
  just stops functioning. And I remember that specific
• 1:00:45
  moment laying there thinking if I could just get the and I was
• 1:00:48
  only two feet away from carpet and I've been vomiting and, and
• 1:00:52
  I couldn't figure out what's wrong.
• 1:00:53
  And I, I still have no clue other than the hand of God.
• 1:00:56
  I, I somehow made it to my phone and called my parents and we're
• 1:01:02
  both first born. Never asked for help for
• 1:01:03
  anything. So my dad was like, you never
• 1:01:05
  asked me for help. It was 4 in the morning, 3:30 in
• 1:01:08
  the morning, something like that.
• 1:01:08
  And he was like, I better get over there.
• 1:01:10
  We just moved there so nobody else had a key.
• 1:01:12
  And this is the other thing I have no clue other than the hand
• 1:01:15
  of God. Somehow I got downstairs and
• 1:01:17
  unlocked the door. My dad said, you know, if he, he
• 1:01:21
  would have busted a window or something because he said, you
• 1:01:23
  guys, you know, 1518 years of marriage, you've never called
• 1:01:27
  asking for help. So I knew something had to be
• 1:01:28
  serious. When my wife saw she had woke up
• 1:01:33
  and came around the bed to check on me, she passed out.
• 1:01:36
  And so she was unconscious on the floor.
• 1:01:39
  And so my mom went up, found her unconscious on the floor.
• 1:01:42
  I was downstairs, I'd unlock the door and I'd started once again
• 1:01:45
  vomiting and, and I went unconscious again when my dad
• 1:01:48
  came in the house. So they called 911 immediately
• 1:01:52
  and the, the Paramex came in in our room.
• 1:01:56
  And if I remember the numbers, but something like a detector
• 1:02:00
  goes off at like 15 parts per million.
• 1:02:03
  Our room was over 250 parts per million.
• 1:02:06
  And in our blood, our, my wife and I both were, you know, they
• 1:02:11
  said, you know, death is, you know, 1920.
• 1:02:13
  We were at 1920 parts in our blood.
• 1:02:17
  Which one? I'm not a medical guy.
• 1:02:18
  I don't know the details but basically you.
• 1:02:20
  Were right there. No way you should have been.
• 1:02:22
  Alive. You almost shouldn't be here.
• 1:02:23
  Yeah, and you know, my son the the the 2 year old came down the
• 1:02:28
  steps was like sweet a fire truck, I'm going to be a
• 1:02:31
  fireman. But then he ended up passing out
• 1:02:33
  and started vomiting later. But he was in the other side
• 1:02:35
  house, which wasn't as bad. We have brought the baby into
• 1:02:38
  the room with us because he was just crying all night, but
• 1:02:40
  probably because of the effects of carbon monoxide.
• 1:02:43
  So they had to life transport us to Youngstown for treatments.
• 1:02:48
  And you know, once again, how in the world those things happen
• 1:02:54
  physically, I, I don't have a clue, but somehow God got us
• 1:02:58
  where we need to be so. Well, thank goodness.
• 1:03:01
  Those are some few challenges that we face.
• 1:03:03
  So you. You, you picked out three pretty
• 1:03:06
  powerful ones. And I, I especially appreciate
• 1:03:08
  you sharing the, the story about your son.
• 1:03:10
  I I can't imagine how difficult that must have been,
• 1:03:14
  particularly with being 4 hours away for six months, you know, a
• 1:03:20
  time where you really want to be there and you want to be present
• 1:03:23
  all the time. You know, it takes a stressful
• 1:03:27
  situation, just makes it even more challenging.
• 1:03:29
  Yeah, it's very, very, very difficult.
• 1:03:30
  And a lot of times, you know, due to the nature, there was
• 1:03:34
  only certain times we were even allowed to see him.
• 1:03:37
  And I might, you know, drive up and then they wouldn't let us
• 1:03:41
  see him, you know, and drive 4 1/2 hours.
• 1:03:44
  And, you know, stayed in around McDonald House a lot when they
• 1:03:47
  had room. You know, a lot of times I'd,
• 1:03:52
  you know, visiting was, you know, 7 to 8 and drive up to sea
• 1:03:58
  and, and then drive home, you know, at 8:00, get home at 1:30
• 1:04:03
  to 2:00 in the morning and get up and go to work, you know, or,
• 1:04:07
  or go to one of my other kids football games or you know, so
• 1:04:11
  just a very, very challenging, very challenging time.
• 1:04:15
  I would imagine, Sean, as you went through each of these
• 1:04:20
  challenges with, with your son, the the big move to, to Texas,
• 1:04:24
  you know, recovering from the carbon monoxide poisoning.
• 1:04:28
  Just based on, you know, what I've learned about you today,
• 1:04:30
  that faith was probably a big part of what helped to carry you
• 1:04:33
  through those hard times. Are there other things, other
• 1:04:38
  people, other I don't know, practices that kind of helped
• 1:04:42
  you get through those really challenging times?
• 1:04:46
  Yeah, you know, obviously faith of being the the top one for
• 1:04:51
  sure and and a great wife, so way better than I deserve she's
• 1:04:58
  been. You and I are in the same boat.
• 1:05:01
  Yeah, I'm married way up, without a doubt, so way better
• 1:05:05
  than I deserve. And so she's been, you know,
• 1:05:09
  wonderful partner through all of life and very, very grateful
• 1:05:14
  for, for her, you know, great kids and and, you know, love
• 1:05:19
  them dearly. Great parents Church, you know,
• 1:05:24
  the church family has always been been great, wonderful
• 1:05:28
  leaders in my life and and you know, very appreciative of all
• 1:05:33
  the things that God bless us with.
• 1:05:36
  Any particular daily habits or or practices, rituals that help
• 1:05:43
  get you going, help keep you centered every day?
• 1:05:45
  Yeah, absolutely. And I'm really a over the top
• 1:05:50
  structured person, so some people would say extremely
• 1:05:55
  boring. I like the word discipline.
• 1:06:00
  This sounds better as so I'm, I'm, you know, I, I do every
• 1:06:04
  morning. I try to get up and exercise,
• 1:06:09
  try to keep some weights in the routine, cardio in the routine
• 1:06:11
  prayer, read the Bible every morning, just kind of set my
• 1:06:16
  compass for the day and ask for help because I certainly need it
• 1:06:21
  every day. I, I see myself all the time in,
• 1:06:25
  in a lot of mornings. You know, I'm sure I did this
• 1:06:28
  morning. You know, God, I got some
• 1:06:30
  decisions and things today that I don't know what I'm going to
• 1:06:32
  do or how I'm going to do it. So I need you to bail me out.
• 1:06:35
  So if you can help me out, I appreciate it because I'm this
• 1:06:38
  is I'm I'm in over my head. You know, it feels like I live
• 1:06:41
  over my head. So that's.
• 1:06:43
  Why and Sean, when that when that conversation takes place,
• 1:06:46
  I'm curious how did the how does that help or the answers appear
• 1:06:51
  to you? Oh, you know, I've been so many
• 1:06:56
  times it, you know, I, you know, sometimes it's in, in the word
• 1:07:01
  of God. I'll get in the answer when I'm
• 1:07:02
  reading my Bible. It's like, oh, wow, that's kind
• 1:07:05
  of needed that today. That's that fits perfect, You
• 1:07:08
  know, with what I'm dealing with that sometimes it's just, you
• 1:07:11
  know, kind of that still small voice you see in the Bible.
• 1:07:14
  And you know, I've been sitting in, in, in situations and I'm
• 1:07:18
  thinking, dear Lord, I have no clue what to say or what to do.
• 1:07:23
  And and then, you know, somehow I get some inspiration or, you
• 1:07:27
  know, God brings a scripture to my mind or a thought and it's
• 1:07:32
  like, well, thanks, because that's way smarter than me.
• 1:07:34
  I wasn't, I'm not that smart. So yeah, I don't, I don't know
• 1:07:39
  the, you know, the internal makings of it, but I know he
• 1:07:44
  keeps bailing me out and help me along the way.
• 1:07:46
  So propping me up. That's great, Sean.
• 1:07:50
  I've just got one more question for you.
• 1:07:51
  But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
• 1:07:53
  First of all, for everyone listening, I'm going to invite
• 1:07:56
  you to hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app so you
• 1:07:58
  can continue to get more great interviews like we've had with
• 1:08:02
  Sean Eller, the Chief Business Officer of Ohio Greetings Today.
• 1:08:05
  Sean, I also want to let people know the best way either to get
• 1:08:08
  in touch with you directly or to continue to follow your story or
• 1:08:12
  that of Ohio Greetings. What would that be?
• 1:08:15
  Yeah, so my e-mail SELLER, first, initial, last name at
• 1:08:22
  ohiogreetings.com, ohiogratings.com, cell phone
• 1:08:27
  number 330-418-6255. It's, you know, text or or call
• 1:08:36
  ohiogreetings.com. You can check out the company.
• 1:08:39
  So those are all different ways to to get in touch.
• 1:08:42
  And you know, once again if I can be a help, I'll do my best
• 1:08:45
  SO. That's nice.
• 1:08:47
  The last question for you, Sean. As you look to the future, what
• 1:08:51
  exciting changes do you see coming to the business in the
• 1:08:54
  next few years? You know, that's a that's a
• 1:08:57
  great question. And you know, a lot of things
• 1:09:00
  that I see that we've done, you know, if you would ask us, you
• 1:09:04
  know, 20 years ago, we'd be where we are today and never
• 1:09:07
  would have had a clue how some of this looks.
• 1:09:10
  And you know, one of the things that I love True Kathy, former
• 1:09:15
  president, founder trick Chick-fil-A, he tells the story
• 1:09:19
  one time he was in a meeting with their board.
• 1:09:21
  And I think it was Boston market was one of their big competitors
• 1:09:26
  and was, you know, they were like, you know, the Boston
• 1:09:29
  market taking all kinds of market share and, you know, in
• 1:09:32
  in this space and what are we going to do?
• 1:09:34
  How are we going to get bigger? How are we going to grow?
• 1:09:36
  And he said, you know, they spent an hour talking about how
• 1:09:39
  they're going to grow, how they're going to get bigger.
• 1:09:40
  And finally, he just stopped them and said, you know what,
• 1:09:43
  forget talking about how we're going to get bigger.
• 1:09:45
  Let's figure out how to get better.
• 1:09:46
  And if we figure out how to get better, our customers will
• 1:09:49
  demand that we get bigger. And that's something we've tried
• 1:09:53
  to live by, you know, stealing that from him.
• 1:09:56
  But we just got to figure out how to get better and keep
• 1:09:59
  getting better and keep getting better and keep getting better.
• 1:10:02
  Innovate, automate, modernized, you know, continue to figure out
• 1:10:08
  ways that we can serve our customers and our associates and
• 1:10:12
  our marketplace. And as we serve them, they're
• 1:10:15
  going to keep demanding that we can produce more product and,
• 1:10:18
  and we can get bigger. And you know what that looks
• 1:10:20
  like? I don't know.
• 1:10:22
  Every day I think we're finding new things that can make us more
• 1:10:26
  efficient, can make us better, can make a better impact on our
• 1:10:30
  associates. Our mission is, is to be a first
• 1:10:34
  choice organizations for our associates, our customers in our
• 1:10:36
  marketplace. And we chose that first
• 1:10:39
  associates because we can't do anything without our people.
• 1:10:41
  And you know, we don't have no customers if we can't take care
• 1:10:45
  of our people and produce products that they need and and
• 1:10:49
  you know also our customers in our marketplace.
• 1:10:51
  So what meets the demands of our customers?
• 1:10:53
  What meets the demands of our marketplace and serving our
• 1:10:57
  associates so that we can stay a step ahead and continue to grow
• 1:11:01
  and thrive as a business? So I don't know if that was a
• 1:11:03
  good answer to your question. But it was the perfect answer,
• 1:11:06
  Sean. We got to keep getting better is
• 1:11:08
  what we've got to do and find ways to do that every day.
• 1:11:11
  I. Love it Sean, I want to be the
• 1:11:13
  first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your
• 1:11:16
  story with us today. I really appreciate it.
• 1:11:18
  Well, thank you for the opportunity and, and you know,
• 1:11:20
  hopefully this is this is helpful and you know, please
• 1:11:22
  feel free to reach out if, if I can be of any assistance.
• 1:11:26
  That's great, folks. That's a wrap on another episode
• 1:11:29
  of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:11:31
  today.