Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Up and Running in 24 Hours: Teddy Hazelwood on Smyrna Ready Mix's Revolutionary Acquisition Strategy | Building Materials Series

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Up and Running in 24 Hours: Teddy Hazelwood on Smyrna Ready Mix's Revolutionary Acquisition Strategy | Building Materials 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
0:12
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:15
adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi,
0:18
and today's guest is Teddy Hazelwood.
0:20
He serves as the Chief Information Officer at Smyrna
0:23
Ready Mix Concrete, a leading provider of ready mix concrete
0:28
and construction materials. Founded in 1999 and based in
0:33
Smyrna, TN, they operate plants, quarries, and terminals across
0:38
22 states, always focusing on delivering top quality products
0:43
with unmatched service. Now as the CIO, Teddy drives the
0:48
technology strategies that have enabled SRM to become a standout
0:53
producer in the industry. He joined the company in October
0:57
2017 as Director of Information Systems and stepped into his
1:02
current role in February 2020. Teddy brings over 30 years of
1:07
experience leading technology teams in distribution,
1:10
manufacturing and logistics. And in his role at Smearna Ready
1:15
Mix, Teddy earned honors as an Enterprise finalist in the 2024
1:21
and 2025 Tennessee Orbee Awards, recognizing exceptional
1:27
leadership in IT. Now before we get into all that
1:30
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1:33
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:02
today, the Chief Information Officer of Smyrna Ready Mix
2:06
Concrete, Teddy Hazelwood. I appreciate you making the time
2:10
to Share your story today. Thank you.
2:12
I'm glad to be here. All right, so Teddy, when did
2:16
you first realize that you had an aptitude for tech?
2:20
When I was a junior in high school, no, that was back in the
2:24
80s. So there wasn't a lot of
2:26
personal computers. Smartphones definitely wasn't
2:29
around, so there wasn't a lot of technology.
2:33
Most computing training you got was on green screens and things
2:37
like that. Being part of an organization
2:42
Office Education Association of America, I got selected to go to
2:48
a computer competition. And in the regionals and states
2:52
here in Tennessee, we got to bring our own equipment.
2:54
So it was the green screen, Tandy TRS, 80s or whatever, you
2:58
know, that we had in the classroom.
3:01
And when I won regional and then I won first place in state, I
3:07
got to go to national competition.
3:09
But at national everything was on personal computers and which
3:14
we didn't have any at my high school.
3:16
So they sent me to Murray, Ohio Lawn Mower Manufacturing company
3:21
there two or three days a week to, to get some training on
3:26
personal computers. And I went to nationals, but,
3:29
and I ended up coming in like 17th, I think it was in the
3:32
nation. And that let me, you know, that
3:36
kind of led me to the ideal that I, you know, maybe I have a
3:40
knack for computers. And then my senior year in high
3:43
school, I got to do the only computer aided drafting class
3:47
because we only had one PC. Finally the, the high school got
3:50
a computer my senior year and I got to build it, set it up and
3:54
set up CAD and everything in it. I didn't see the handwriting on
3:58
the roll where I went to college for computers, right?
4:01
I've got my degree in electrical mechanical engineering.
4:04
So all the way through college, I worked my way in the computer
4:08
science department and working in a data center.
4:12
So I got a lot of experience through work and through
4:17
hobbying in computers, but got my degree in something else when
4:21
I graduated from college. That's when my career really
4:23
kicked off in in computers. So when you were doing this
4:27
computer competition back in high school, what was the actual
4:30
competition? Were you building a computer?
4:32
Were you showing how you could use it?
4:34
No, it was all office based. So back then it was just, you
4:37
know, playing with spreadsheets. So it was, you know, setting up
4:42
formulas and you know, they give you a, a project to do and it
4:46
was ever who could design it the fastest and give good, clean,
4:52
legible results in a good format.
4:56
They didn't give you a format to turn it out.
4:57
They they wanted you to come up with the format and everything.
5:00
But it was so it's kind of speed, but it was also on
5:03
aesthetics too, of how how you did it.
5:05
So. And what was the difference back
5:08
then between a personal computer and a green screen?
5:11
A lot. The green screen was more, it
5:18
was more, you know, loaded up, you're playing off of disks.
5:21
You didn't have a hard drive or anything like that.
5:23
You weren't really. You had an application, but it
5:27
wasn't rigid. When we got to the personal
5:30
computer, then you had applications like back then it
5:33
was Lotus 123 by IBM and that so it was, it was a total different
5:39
structure you had to learn. Whereas setting it up on a green
5:43
screen was more I guess command line based and you would write
5:47
it kind of in code and then you would present it in a
5:50
spreadsheet fashion. Fascinating.
5:54
And so would it actually display on the green screen in a
5:56
spreadsheet or would it be a print?
5:58
Out or. It would.
6:00
Column or just like a spreadsheet.
6:02
OK. So you know, you mentioned that
6:07
you've got a lot of your training sort of on the job.
6:10
You know, that's where you did a lot of your learning.
6:12
What was maybe the most impactful job along the way
6:16
before Smyrna and why for you? Borders Books I was started off
6:23
as a network endless at Borders and worked my way up prior to
6:30
the company closing in 2011. Work my way up to being the the
6:36
manager overall of the logistics of distribution.
6:39
IT. We were an international
6:41
company, so it got me opportunities to travel to
6:46
foreign countries, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, different
6:50
places like that to learn different cultures, but also to
6:57
drive different technologies and, and changes and, and see
7:01
the actual evolution of computing of the, the early 90s
7:07
all the way through the 2000s. And, and how it progressed, you
7:11
know, from year to year and, and how that progression actually
7:16
speed up and how it became more rapid.
7:19
You know, you used to a generation of computers was, you
7:24
know, four to five years in technology was somewhere between
7:29
7 to 10 years. You could still work off of it.
7:33
That's, that's going down to a lot of times in months,
7:36
especially when you start talking about applications and
7:39
and different things like that. If you are too slow and
7:43
implementing whatever you're implementing today, if you're
7:47
too slow at it is already been replaced by something new and
7:50
better. So it, it really helped me
7:54
develop an adaptability to change and how to implement
7:58
change and and different things on a regular basis in a moving
8:02
environment because you can't never take your systems down.
8:05
You just have to implement it while you're on the go.
8:07
So that was probably my most influential time.
8:13
If you zoom out and you kind of look at the timeline of the time
8:19
that you've been involved with technology going all the way
8:22
back to green screen to today, what would you pick out as sort
8:27
of like the biggest inflection point in tech, You know, green
8:33
screen to PCPC to, you know, mainframe?
8:36
I don't know. Yeah, well, I mean, you know,
8:39
PCs came out in the in the 80's, the late 80s and getting on on
8:45
every desktop. So just watching that
8:48
progression and you know, I remember when wow 64 K, that's a
8:54
lot, you know, and your dial up modem, you went from, you know,
8:58
24K to, you know, 56, you know, compressed and it was like, wow,
9:04
this is so much faster, you know, but and now we're talking
9:07
gig speeds. I mean, you know, and so that
9:12
whole transgression is one thing, but then you just take
9:17
that compute power and everybody's got a computer in
9:19
their hand now with a smartphone, right?
9:20
I mean, so it, it's how all that technology is condensed into
9:26
such a small and more efficient platform that as long as your
9:33
eyes can see it, I mean, you, you can get the compute almost
9:37
as small as you want it these these days.
9:40
And, and data the same way. I mean, you know, on just a very
9:44
small microchip, you can get terabytes of, of data now where,
9:49
you know, used to, you had these huge disk or reel to reel tapes
9:53
and different things and very, very minimal storage capacity.
9:57
And, and now it's like the Sky's the limit if, if you can, if you
10:02
want to do it or if you imagine it, it, the technology's there
10:06
to support it. How did the opportunity at
10:10
Smarina first become available to you?
10:12
How did that come about? Well, I've known the owner for
10:16
almost 30 years. We went to church together for a
10:19
long time. He was a finisher in concrete.
10:22
He and I are the same age and he started off finishing concrete
10:29
and Nashville went through a big boom in the late 90s.
10:33
Titans was coming to town. Predators Indoor Stadium was
10:37
being built downtown Nashville, so a lot of construction jobs
10:43
from the commercial standpoint was causing a congestion in the
10:49
availability of time slots. And it got to where he was
10:53
waiting on concrete so much he decided to open up his own
10:56
plant. You know, these conversations
10:58
started in like 98. And so I helped him on, you
11:03
know, going through the the whole zoning process and meeting
11:09
with different committees and different things during the
11:14
voting process. And then when we finally got
11:17
everything zoned, I helped him open up the first plant.
11:20
I wired the network in the phone system and different things like
11:25
that set up the PCs for it. So you were helping him on the
11:29
tech side, but you were also helping him with like committee
11:32
meetings and zoning and things that are sort of outside of what
11:36
I would, you know, figure a, a tech guy to to kind of.
11:39
Yeah. And it was mainly a yeah.
11:41
And it was mainly a friendship thing.
11:42
You know, back then we had talked about, you know, I was
11:44
going to come in to to work for him and everything.
11:47
But you know, we had four kids at home.
11:49
I was used to insurance and the benefits.
11:52
He was self-employed. So he was already used to, to
11:54
not having those things. So it was a sacrifice that at
11:58
that time I made a bad decision and didn't take him up on it and
12:02
staying with him. But hindsight 2020, I got to
12:07
learn a lot of technology that in 2017 when I did come to work
12:10
for him that I was able to bring and and actually help the
12:13
company out. So it it worked out in the long
12:16
run to be good overall. What was the first big project
12:19
that you got to tackle when you came in full time?
12:22
Oh wow. It was the we were supported or
12:28
SRM was supported that time by a third party MSP and they didn't
12:34
realize it, but shortly after they hired me, that was in
12:37
October and these by December that company was closing and and
12:42
they, I think they saw the handwriting on the wall.
12:45
They didn't realize it was going to be that fast.
12:47
So I had to come in and learn a lot and do a lot of self
12:53
discovery and what they were already doing.
12:55
Now granted back then we were smaller company.
12:56
We had about 50 locations, about 58 plants.
13:00
Some of our locations have, you know, couple plants on them.
13:03
We were only in the concrete business.
13:05
We weren't in quarries, we weren't in cement distribution
13:08
or making our own trucks or any of the other things that we're
13:11
doing now. So we were a lot smaller scale.
13:16
So coming in and learning it was was a lot easier than it would
13:21
be, you know the size we are now.
13:24
But yeah, just had to come into my own discovery or what was
13:28
going on, learn the softwares off the off the bat because
13:32
there wasn't a very much of A transition between me and the
13:37
MSP that was supporting them to to in the past.
13:41
So. So get us up to speed, kind of
13:44
paint a picture of the products, the services that Smyrna
13:48
provides today, who uses them, What for?
13:52
Yeah. Well, our our main bread and
13:54
butter of course is our concrete.
13:56
That's what my gotten business for and I like to describe it
14:00
that we're reversed upper mobility or whatever you call it
14:11
the because we start off with the finished product and then we
14:15
added to all the things that it takes to make that finished
14:17
product. So we we start off in the ready
14:21
mix. Now we're in the quarry
14:22
business. So we mind our own sand and rock
14:25
in a lot of the regions that we're in.
14:29
We have strategic, strategic partnerships too with other
14:33
quarry companies in areas where we can't supply our own rocker
14:36
sand. And then we started getting in
14:40
cement distribution. We're the number one cement
14:44
importer in the in the country as far as you know distributing
14:48
our own. We we sell to competitors as
14:50
well in both of those side of the business and we've got
14:58
strategic cement distribution terminals in eight locations
15:03
right now and that's a rapid growing side of our business.
15:07
On those locations. We have product stores which are
15:12
basically your concrete finishing centric hardware
15:16
stores where you can get the tools that it takes to to
15:19
finish, finish concrete hammers, trials, that type of stuff.
15:26
And then a few years ago we bought a manufacturing facility
15:30
in Avila, Indiana where we manufacture our own trucks,
15:33
Hollingshead Mixer Company, HMC. So we make our own trucks now as
15:38
well. And as of recent, our most
15:41
recent acquisition is in sunny California.
15:46
We bought a company called Jonell Engineering and it
15:50
specializes in the construction industry as far as an ERP system
15:57
or order management system, as well as batch controls that it
16:01
takes inside block plants. Making blocks, which is another
16:06
side of the business we're in as well, is making blocks and
16:10
septic tanks and culverts and anything you can make out of
16:12
concrete. And so we purchased Jonell.
16:16
So I guess from that standpoint, you could say we're an
16:19
international company now because they actually have
16:21
international customers. But SRM as a whole is is US
16:28
centric. So a few things to unpack there.
16:31
Did I hear you say that you're the largest importer?
16:35
Of of yes of cement, Portland cement.
16:39
And where does it get imported from?
16:40
It sounds like with the quarries that you're you're mining
16:44
everything that you need, but that's not the case.
16:46
We import from Egypt, UAE, a lot of it's coming from the the
16:52
Mediterranean. OK.
16:55
And that's because we can't get it here or it's a different
16:58
quality there or it's there's there's some advantage.
17:02
Kind of both. There are there are cement
17:09
manufacturing plants in the US, They're typically owned by a
17:15
whole summer C Max someone that he knows in the cement industry.
17:21
We buy from the foreign country because a pricing the the trade
17:29
it, it's a lot easier. There's a good quality coming
17:33
out of that part of the world too, of cement.
17:35
We get some of the some of the best cement in the world from
17:38
there, so. And and help a layperson
17:40
understand the difference between cement and concrete.
17:43
Cement is the ingredient. It's the powder.
17:46
It has silica and some other things in it scientifically that
17:50
when it reacts with water, it heats up and it solidifies and
17:59
that's the bonding agent. Concrete is a mixture of cement,
18:06
which is your cement cementitious products.
18:09
Now that can be a mixture of cement and what we call slag,
18:12
which is metal shavings or ash, which comes from a coal fire.
18:17
Or you can just have straight cement.
18:19
And then you have your aggregates, which is your sand
18:21
and rock, and you mix those components together with water
18:26
and that gives you your concrete.
18:28
And so why are there different formulations of concrete?
18:32
Strength, like when we're doing a high rise in New York, then
18:38
you know it has to have the sway of without cracking for the for
18:44
the tall skyscrapers that you do bridges again, you're talking
18:49
about expanding and contracting long spans across water.
18:53
One of our big projects is the Gordie Howe Bridge in Michigan
18:57
connecting Michigan to Canada over the over the lake there.
19:01
And so you know, you have again, the sway factors of it, it being
19:06
expanded, the traffic coming across it and just different
19:09
things like that. So you know, a normal, a typical
19:13
sidewalk could probably handle a 2500 PSI, you know, because it's
19:17
just foot traffic. Your driveway at home is, you
19:21
know, maybe a 3000 or 3500. Then when you start getting into
19:25
roads or parking lots where large trucks are going to be
19:29
parking and driving to keep down on that crack, you need a higher
19:32
strength. Same way with buildings.
19:35
The higher you go up with the building, the higher the
19:37
strength of the concrete has to be to support that.
19:40
And so what's the key ingredient to make concrete stronger?
19:44
It's the mixture of, of the amount of cement you use in it
19:51
versus the, the rock and the sand ratio that you put in
19:58
there. And then there's the chemicals
20:01
that you had. There's a whole science behind
20:03
it. I'm not going to pretend I know
20:04
the science. I'm a computer guy, right?
20:06
But there's a whole science behind that and how to determine
20:12
your strength And, and you know, there's a, the water factor is
20:17
called slump. That's how wet the concrete is
20:20
when it shows up and. And you know, the wetter the
20:23
concrete, the lower it's going, you know, it has the potential
20:26
to lower that strength some and create issues and stuff.
20:30
So again, we're getting into the science of it that I won't
20:33
pretend to to know a whole lot about, but I know enough to
20:36
support it. Fair enough.
20:39
I, I just want to kind of highlight here for a moment and
20:42
talk a little bit more about how vertically integrated it sounds
20:45
like you guys are. I mean, to the point of, I mean
20:49
quarries, that's a big step and that makes a lot of sense.
20:52
And then you guys manufacture your own trucks.
20:55
And if I understood the acquisition out in California,
20:58
it sounds like some kind of a a software company that supports
21:01
what you guys do is that? We have used Jonelle for years.
21:05
They have a whole suite of softwares that manages order
21:11
management where you can take concrete orders, aggregate
21:14
orders, product store orders or block orders.
21:18
And then they have app phone app tools.
21:24
One of them is Clutch mobile where you can go in and you can
21:27
monitor your day, track your day of how the orders are going and
21:30
different things like that. As well as E ticketing where
21:36
instead of printing out a paper ticket, it shows up on a tablet
21:39
in a truck and they can get signed on glass technology from
21:44
the customer, the foreman that's on the job.
21:46
So there's a lot of technology there.
21:48
They do from that standpoint. Then they have another side of
21:50
the business that is in the control.
21:52
So it's the actual PLC panel that goes inside the plan itself
21:58
that controls all the conveyors and the weighing up of all these
22:03
admixtures and the ingredients that we just discussed in going
22:09
into the truck and actually making the concrete.
22:13
So what could possibly be next in terms of integrating
22:16
vertically? Well, it's hard to say.
22:21
I mean, it's hard to say. It sounds like you guys have got
22:23
all the bases covered. Well, yeah, there's the CIO and,
22:27
you know, as my computer department, you know, I've got a
22:29
good team and everything, so we get to support everything that
22:33
the Hollingsheads have ventured into.
22:35
So we've got, you know, all that and then we've got a hospitality
22:40
side. That's the Smyrna airport, it's
22:42
Hollingshead Aviation and then a couple of golf courses here in
22:46
the local market that we support.
22:49
They have their own construction company where they build houses.
22:52
We have an air conditioning company where we install HVAC
22:56
systems. We have here locally, we have
23:00
our own explosive company that goes out to the mines and does
23:03
the drilling and and sets the explosive charges for for the
23:08
quarries and, and we support that as well so.
23:11
We get to be such, you know, a huge size and scale like you
23:14
guys are. It increasingly makes more
23:17
financial sense to either acquire these capabilities or to
23:22
develop them internally just if nothing else to support your own
23:26
ventures. But then obviously you know
23:28
things that you can offer to competitors too, right?
23:30
It is, I mean in our, our internal mission is to be the
23:34
largest construction manufacturer in the country.
23:38
And right now we're in 23 States and we're marching toward that
23:42
50 mark, right. So, but with that, you know, we,
23:46
we like to bring the markets up that we're in as well, you know,
23:51
because we believe in a healthy competition and, and everything
23:55
because there's, there's always work to be done other than
24:00
water. I think concrete is the the
24:02
number one natural resource of consumption.
24:07
Oh, that's wild to think about. Amazing.
24:10
I, I want to talk about the Tennessee Orbee awards.
24:14
I think it was 24 and 2025. Can you share first of all what
24:22
those awards mean and and how you came to be a part of them?
24:26
Yeah. You know, I've never heard of
24:29
the Orbeez or Inspired network that it's part of.
24:32
It's until I got nominated and it's, it's basically an award of
24:39
your peers. You know, you're nominated for
24:42
it and then other CIOs that are part of the organization get
24:48
together and, and vote on who the winner is based off of, you
24:52
know, interviews and that that we do, you know, through the
24:57
organization and different things such as that.
25:02
But I, it's a, it's a good honor.
25:04
I love it, you know, the fact that I was, you know, thought of
25:08
as that, but it's also a team A-Team thing, right?
25:11
I mean, I didn't do all this by myself and I'm by no means
25:16
supporting a, a company with 570 locations, you know, but on my
25:22
own, I've got a team of 16, which when I tell a lot of
25:26
people that they're like, wow, that's small and it, and it is.
25:29
And, but I expect a lot from my team, just like the company
25:32
expects a lot from me. And when we do from all of our,
25:34
whether we're C-Suite, whether we're managers or whether we're,
25:38
you know, hourly employees, whatever, there's not one thing
25:42
that we don't expect from our employees that we don't expect
25:46
out of ourselves. Our ownership, Mike, Jeff and
25:50
Ryan, they're getting in trucks and delivering concrete on a
25:54
regular basis. They'll jump in a yeah, they'll
25:57
jump in a 18 Wheeler and deliver semen if it's needed.
26:01
So even though we're a large company, we still do our very
26:07
best to operate it in that small family environment.
26:11
My, my guys, you know, they'll witness me jump in on a, a
26:15
server that's down or a switch that's down or Sonic, you know,
26:18
a firewall that's down, whatever the case might be, crawling
26:22
around on floors, installing new equipment on acquisition day.
26:26
Our acquisitions, you know, are, are unique, the way we do things
26:30
and the way we grow and it, it's an all hands on deck type thing.
26:34
So it's it. So getting back to the Orbeez
26:39
with all that being said, I, I think it's just that environment
26:43
that set me up for the honor is, you know, it's, it's definitely
26:50
an award of your peers. And, you know, whether it's my
26:52
vendors or fellow C level, you know, tech people that I've
26:58
worked with or came in contact with, they get to see that first
27:01
hand and, and work with that first hand.
27:05
So. Teddy, as you think about the
27:08
kind of explosive growth that Smear has gone through in the
27:10
last 20 plus years, what special role do you think technology has
27:18
played in that? It has played a big role
27:21
considering how what our strategy is, right?
27:25
A lot of companies when they acquire a company, it's like,
27:29
OK, we bought it, but we're going to operate on these
27:32
disparate systems for X number of months.
27:36
That may be 12 months, maybe you know, 48 months, maybe six
27:41
months. Our strategy is we go in, we buy
27:44
a company regardless how big it is.
27:46
The next day they're operating on our system.
27:49
So yeah, we close on Monday, Tuesday, all sales are on our
27:53
systems. So it's a big challenge.
27:54
I mean our our largest acquisition today was 94 plants
28:00
and we brought 94 plants live in a, you know, 24 hour period.
28:05
And everybody says, how do you do that?
28:09
And believe me, companies, when we acquire them and we tell them
28:13
this is what we're going to do, they stand back, they cross
28:15
their arms and we've got to see this because they're expecting
28:18
this huge influx of failure about to happen, right?
28:23
But technology has went a long way in that.
28:26
And you know, and, and I like to, to, I'm proud of the, the
28:31
strategy that we came up with. You know, we, we use a what I
28:35
call a cookie cutter process. We everybody's on the same like
28:39
equipment. We take our equipment in there,
28:41
we get it stood up. A lot of times on those big
28:44
acquisitions, we do get to go in a couple weeks ahead of time and
28:48
start installing like our network.
28:51
We can't break their network because they're still working,
28:53
but we can install our side by side and and I have a process
28:58
where we set up our network and even with Internet that's
29:02
isolated to us so that we can create our hub and spoke
29:08
communication coming back to us so that when we a during cut
29:14
over week, the company knows we're buying them.
29:16
They have access to our system. They can start putting orders in
29:19
our system, right and stuff like that.
29:21
But it allows us to go in on cut overnight and change all the
29:24
equipment over to the new network in pretty rapid time.
29:29
And so with that being said, it allows us to have all sales, all
29:34
KP is all that stuff immediately being measured internally by by
29:40
us and by our systems. And then it lets us as as the
29:45
supporting groups, whether that's IT, whether that's
29:48
financial accounting, whatever, to do the cleanup on the back
29:51
end, you know, transferring numbers, transferring accounts
29:54
and stuff like that. So we take the Ernst on
29:57
ourselves to do the cleanup on the back end of it for the sake
30:02
of having all the order management and the processing
30:05
and and accounting processing and billing being on the front
30:10
end on our systems. So we can start off from day one
30:15
knowing where, you know, we need to, to get that EBITDA up to
30:19
and, and all those different things because we're not working
30:23
in disparate systems. We're not trying to pull KPIs
30:27
and numbers from one system and compare it to this system to see
30:30
how this acquisition is compared.
30:32
It operates all as one company and they, they just fall right
30:36
into other plants that are in that region unless it's a new
30:39
state, you know, and then it, you know, they start building
30:41
their own. Just the process of getting the
30:45
data from one company's software, you know, they're,
30:50
they're, they're a lot of times they're not using the same
30:53
platforms, right? That's right.
30:55
Just that process of getting the data from one platform to
30:57
another. I mean, I'm an outsider, This
31:01
isn't what I deal with, but I, I would guess that that typically
31:04
takes weeks, if not months. Like how are you guys
31:07
accomplishing even just that tiny slice of it?
31:10
So it takes, it takes days and weeks and a lot of times it's
31:13
taking spreadsheets and it, it's going through them and it, it,
31:16
it's hours. I mean, but it's just the
31:18
dedication from our leadership team, whether that's in
31:21
operations, it's in financial accounting or within IT.
31:25
We, we all come together and do the due diligence.
31:29
Our accounts receivable department, you know, they go
31:35
through all the AR data, the customers, our operations go
31:39
through all the, the, the mixed designs and all the open quotes
31:44
and P OS that are out there that they're in the middle of the
31:46
projects, they're in the middle of.
31:48
And yeah, it's a, it's a task, but it's something that we have
31:51
now done several hundreds of times.
31:54
And whether it's one plant, and that's what I meant by a cookie
31:58
cutter, because it doesn't matter if it's one plant or it's
32:02
70 plants or it's 100 plants, the process is the same.
32:06
And we all know the process and we all come together and make
32:08
the process work. And and so has most of the
32:12
growth taken place through acquisitions or is there any
32:15
like starting new from the ground up?
32:18
Both we do what we call Greenfield or brownfield.
32:24
Most of ours are actually brownfield.
32:25
We even though we call them Greenfield.
32:28
The difference between those is brownfield.
32:30
It means it already existed as a, some sort of construction
32:35
environment, you know, at one time.
32:38
So it's grandfathered in from a zoning standpoint.
32:40
And we go in and you know, like maybe it was a quarry back in
32:43
the 80s and it hasn't been mined maybe in 1520, thirty years, but
32:49
it's still zoned commercially and everything.
32:52
We'll go in and we'll start mining it again.
32:54
We'll set, you know, we'll bring in new equipment and stuff like
32:56
that. We call it all Greenfield
32:59
because if if it's an operational facility then it's
33:04
an acquisition. If it's not running, then we
33:06
just consider them all Greenfield instead of trying to
33:08
get in the weeds of it. So in our mining started off in,
33:16
in exactly just that it was a, it was a mine that had just been
33:20
used, you know, basically for farming type rock and different
33:25
things like that and was very rarely used.
33:31
And we went in and we put in a, a permanent crusher and
33:34
different things like that. And, and so it was kind of that
33:39
Greenfield type. So it's a, it's a good
33:43
combination of both. But because of the propensity of
33:47
how large an acquisition can be, right?
33:50
Like I said, our largest 1 to date is 94 locations where it's
33:54
hard to Greenfield 94 locations overnight.
33:57
You know that's going to take several years to do 94
34:00
locations. So for us to go from 2017 fifty
34:04
locations to now 570 locations, well over 600 plants.
34:08
Because like I said, a lot of our locations have AB.
34:11
Some of them even have an ABC configuration where they'll have
34:14
three plants on one site. So 570 networks, 570 locations.
34:21
It's good growth and we've enjoyed every bit of them.
34:27
Are there some core guiding principles that you that Smyrna
34:33
sort of embrace as you're taking on this mammoth growth?
34:38
Court guiding as far as limitations or did you say core
34:44
guiding? Core like principles.
34:46
Oh, core principles. Guide you?
34:48
Yeah. We do.
34:48
We have our 5 standard principles.
34:50
We always meet with the new employees that's coming in.
34:52
We tell them what those five principles are and it it all
34:56
stems around, you know, safety, quality, customer service, being
35:02
a go getter and kindness, just, you know, being, being nice to
35:07
one another, treat people the way you want to be treated.
35:10
The the biblical golden rule, right?
35:13
And so we feel like if we treat others the way that they want to
35:18
be treated, the way we want to be treated, and we're kind of
35:22
one another, then, you know, we'll maintain that closeness of
35:26
a family relationship within our environment.
35:30
I like that. How about a tech project that is
35:36
maybe currently underway that you're really excited about or
35:39
something that's coming that you're like, oh, boy, like this.
35:43
This really gets me out of bed in the morning.
35:45
Yeah. My department, my engineers and,
35:48
and we're always laughing because we had, you know,
35:51
projects that we wanted to have rolled out at the beginning of
35:54
the year. And we, we've kind of slow
35:59
rolled on to make sure we have all the bugs worked out, that
36:04
it's working the way we want it to work and has an easiness of
36:09
for us so that when we put it out to the user community, they
36:12
won't have any issues. So we've been using, you know,
36:16
this 10 trust technology that we're we're implementing for
36:20
about four months now in the IT and, and we're getting real
36:25
close probably within the next week or two rolling it out in,
36:28
in the company. And, and then at the same time,
36:31
one of the things we've been architecting is we, we as part
36:36
of our business continuity plan, you know, we have ADR site like
36:42
most companies our size do Dr. disaster recovery.
36:48
So what I'm excited about is I'm like, OK, I've got all this
36:54
money invested in this Dr. this disaster recovery site so that
36:58
my production site goes down. They can come back up like, but
37:01
you know, it's just sitting there and aging and I'm keeping
37:04
them updated and, and, and it's good if ever needed, but it's
37:07
not getting utilized. So what I'm excited about is we
37:13
have implemented our network structure as well as our server
37:18
structure and everything to allow that to be production one,
37:21
production 2 active, active environment.
37:24
So I'm leveraging the hardware at both sites.
37:27
So instead of having to, to do these monthly tests or quarterly
37:34
tests of failing over, they are, they're, they're both constantly
37:38
running, you know, so now you know, the, the failovers just
37:42
basically going to be pull the plug at site 1 and make sure
37:46
everything's running good on site.
37:47
You know, when all traffic goes to site 2 that we're still
37:50
getting the performance that we won't.
37:52
So I'm really excited about that.
37:54
And we're, we're probably, you know, within a month, probably
37:58
we're getting that implemented too.
38:00
So we got a lot of things going on totally the other day.
38:02
We got a lot of balls in the air.
38:04
We just need to make sure none of them fall.
38:07
What is the 10 trust tech that you mentioned?
38:12
It's a product from Sonicwall called client secure Edge and it
38:20
it protects both our hybrid of our hybrid environment, right,
38:23
because we got an Azure Microsoft presence and then we
38:29
got our four wall presence. So we've we've had a a zero
38:33
trust around our four wall a lot.
38:35
We had multi factor acting as our zero trust to our cloud
38:39
present. This puts a true Halo around
38:44
both of those at the same time of being more of just more
38:50
security. Kind of a like a more.
38:52
Security, that's right, more security.
38:54
It's not only securing who the person is that's accessing it,
38:58
but it's also securing the hardware that's.
39:01
Accessing it, OK, it's a book or a podcast or a learning
39:12
resource, a course, a framework, something that's been really
39:16
helpful to you and your career path, Teddy, that you might
39:19
recommend to listeners who aspire to something similar.
39:23
Well, it's, it's an old book and, and I say that because I'm
39:29
not a big, I'm not a big reader, you know, just straight off.
39:32
I'd I'd rather listen to a podcast or something like that,
39:37
but but the one thing that stuck out in my mind and and then the
39:42
IT world, it really helps out. It was called if it's not broke,
39:46
break it and basically it goes into change, change management,
39:54
adapting a mindset of change because basically.
40:03
In IT, you've got to be able to, to change.
40:05
You got to be able to adapt. It's changing so fast.
40:09
New technologies are coming in at such a, you know, a high rate
40:16
and, and everything and you got to stay on top of it.
40:19
And you can't allow your systems to become antiquated.
40:23
There's, there's too many bad actors out there that's want to
40:25
take advantage of of antiquated systems.
40:29
And the, the easiest way to, to become vulnerable to that is to
40:33
allow your not to stay on top of all the, the technology that's
40:38
out there that will secure you from those bad actors.
40:42
So it's called if it's not broke, break it Couldn't even
40:47
remember to tell you who the author is right now, but it it
40:51
helped me from a change principles standpoint.
40:55
Yeah, never resting on your laurels.
40:57
Always make sure that you're staying at the cutting edge.
41:01
Just because it hasn't broken yet doesn't mean that it won't.
41:04
So I had that forward vision to kind of be looking for how do
41:08
you improve where the potential weakness is here, right?
41:10
There's always a better way of doing things than the way you're
41:13
doing it. And if you ever get in the
41:15
mindset of thinking, I've got this, I know what I'm doing, and
41:20
this is the only way to do it, then you're setting yourself up
41:23
for failure because there's always an improvement out there
41:26
that you can do something better, and you need to find
41:29
that. Do you see AI being useful to
41:33
your company yet? If so, how?
41:35
If not in the. Future it's funny you asked that
41:38
because yeah, we just jumped into AI.
41:40
We kind of jumped in feet first, you know, we're head deep and,
41:44
but no, we, we are starting to tread the waters of, of ChatGPT
41:50
with an enterprise edition of that to get our departments used
41:55
to how AI works, what they can use it for, what they can
41:59
benefit from it and different things such as that.
42:02
And then throughout May and June, July, we're going to be
42:07
developing and rolling out departmental specific GPTS that
42:12
they can take advantage of, as well as develop our own chat
42:16
bots and, and AI interfaces. AI has been around for years.
42:22
It's just the development now of large language models and
42:26
neuroscience and different things of that kind of puts the
42:29
reasoning into AI so that it can give you better responses.
42:35
We all know the days of getting lost in an IVR, right?
42:38
And call, call up on the phone and you got this robotic voice
42:42
trying to talk to you and it either can't understand you or
42:46
it takes you to the wrong prompt or it thinks that you want to do
42:49
this and you want to do something else.
42:51
You know, whatever the case might be.
42:53
And but the AI today is so much further advanced than than what
42:58
it was. And, but it's all-encompassing
43:02
of, of the old AI, right? The APIs even in EDI and some of
43:07
the other acronyms that we throw around in the tech world fall
43:10
under artificial intelligence now because it's, it's a genic,
43:14
right? You're having an agent in the
43:16
background. That's, that's doing the process
43:18
of what people used to do, whether that's transferring
43:23
orders from system to system or whatever the case might be.
43:26
So it's acting as a, as an agent of, of transferring that data or
43:31
whether or not it's just a, a general aid AI or generative AI
43:35
where you're asking it questions like you used to in a search
43:38
engine and it, but it's giving back detailed responses.
43:42
Now, you know, it's not giving you back this list and you pick
43:45
through the list. It's carrying on a conversation
43:48
we do through text or, or even through an avatar.
43:51
You know, if you wanted to set up an avatar where it will
43:54
actually sit there and talk to you what that response is of
43:57
what you're searching for. So we're excited about AI,
44:01
especially now that we own Jonelle and everything and, and
44:05
seeing not only what we can do in our four walls, but you know,
44:10
as we develop in our four, our four walls and we share it with
44:13
the developing team of Jonel of what possibly could be, you
44:17
know, in the future for, for their software and stuff.
44:21
So. How you can commercialize that?
44:23
Yeah. Think about one specific use
44:26
case of AI that you want to use internally at at Smyrna and
44:30
maybe walk us through that. Well, from a tech standpoint, we
44:34
use it quite a bit in my department.
44:35
I mean, whether it's analyzing, you know, our switching fabric
44:40
or our, our routing fabric, whatever the case might be,
44:44
whether it's layer two, layer 3 or whichever and looking for
44:48
anomalies, you know, in, in our LAG and in our Vlans and
44:52
different things like that. So as well like system logs and
44:56
tell it like hey what what do you see here?
44:59
Exactly. Exactly.
45:02
And then, you know, also just programmatic.
45:07
I mean, you know, I, I love to sit down and write a, a
45:10
PowerShell script or a program or something that'll go out and
45:14
make our jobs easier. And typically I could develop
45:18
one in a couple of hours or whatever.
45:21
I can put the parameters in ChatGPT and say, hey, I want
45:23
this to do this based off of a flat file, blah, blah, blah,
45:26
blah, blah. And just put everything in there
45:29
in 5 seconds. I've got, you know, whole
45:31
PowerShell script. I go out and test it and see if
45:35
it does what I want it to do. And you know, so, and it's
45:38
exactly what I would have wrote, but it would, you know, maybe
45:41
take me, you know, a couple hours to do it.
45:43
So it, it's saving us some time from that standpoint from as far
45:48
as a company, you know, we're, we're wanting a chat bot, you
45:52
know, that our employees, what they got at their fingertips
45:57
now, but just present it to them in a different wrap.
46:02
You know what, how much overtime did I have last week?
46:05
You know, you had 31 hours, you know, or 20 hours or whatever
46:09
the case might be. How much vacation days do I have
46:13
left? You know, just make it
46:15
interactive for our employees and different things like that.
46:18
And the things that they're, like I said, they already have
46:20
it in their app that they can get at their fingertips, but it
46:24
just gives them another wrap of how they can get to that
46:27
information and be presented to them.
46:31
Teddy, I'm going to shift gears here for a second.
46:34
Would like to hear about a serious challenge, either
46:37
personal or professional, that you've overcome.
46:39
What was it? How did you get through it?
46:42
What did you learn? Yeah, so this goes back to high
46:46
school, the when I was in elementary school, I graduated
46:52
salutatorian, right. So, I mean, you know, I was
46:55
second in my class in my in my elementary school.
46:59
Then when I got to high school, something just kind of
47:02
transitioned. I kind of lost focus, went
47:07
through some rough patches at home and different things and
47:12
just had this mentality of being towed long enough that, you
47:15
know, you'll never amount to nothing.
47:17
That, you know, I started living up to that ideal that I would.
47:21
And so freshman, sophomore, junior year, I just kind of,
47:28
yeah, I did class, I did school. You know, this is great.
47:31
You know, I'm going to graduate in a couple years and then find
47:34
out what life has in store for me.
47:38
Then I met my wife, my wife now in my, the last part of my
47:43
junior year, right about the time that, you know, we were, we
47:47
were doing competitions and, and different things in, in OEA and,
47:52
and things like that. And my mindset changed.
47:56
I'm like, OK, I, I want to offer something better for my family
48:00
than what, you know, what my parents have been able to offer
48:03
to me. I had great parents.
48:07
My dad told me a, a hard work ethic, you know, and what it
48:11
means to be dedicated to working and providing to your family.
48:14
We just never were, you know, I mean, I tell everybody we were
48:17
dirt poor because we couldn't afford the dirt.
48:19
We always rented and, and it wasn't high level rent neither,
48:23
you know, I'm talking, you know, $3545 a month rents.
48:26
I mean, it was, it was a very impoverished coming up.
48:31
And but then at my end of my junior year, I'm like, I go to
48:36
my guidance counselor and I'm like, I want to go to college.
48:39
All I got left is my senior year and he's like, there's not
48:43
enough time. You know, I'm like, there's got
48:45
to be something you can do, you know, because go to college, you
48:47
had to have foreign languages. You had to have so much math,
48:50
You had so much of this without wasting a year of remedial.
48:54
And, and I'm like, you know, I'll, I'll do whatever I have to
48:58
do my senior year. So my senior year was packed
49:01
with like two or three math classes and just, you name it.
49:06
I mean, it was probably one of the roughest senior years
49:08
anybody ever took. Most people was like, oh, I'll
49:11
go have a day and then, you know, I'm off a half a day, you
49:13
know, and. It.
49:14
Because they've already done everything except for that
49:16
fourth year of English or whatever.
49:18
I was just the opposite. I had to cramp everything in my
49:21
senior year. And so I ended up getting a
49:24
scholarship. I ended up making it to college
49:27
and different things. And my high school class
49:31
actually voted me most likely to succeed.
49:35
So yeah. So one year turned around from
49:39
not caring, not knowing, you know, what life had in store for
49:43
me, to just changing my mindset. And that's what it all is.
49:46
It's a state of mind. People come from different walks
49:49
of life. But if you set your mind to it
49:51
that, hey, I'm going to do something different and I'm
49:54
going to break the chain and you can accomplish anything your
49:58
heart sets out to do. What was the treasure for you?
50:01
Was it meeting your future, meeting your future wife and
50:04
saying this is a woman I want to build a life with and a family
50:07
with? Yeah.
50:08
And we're still together now, 36 years later, so.
50:12
And the family? Do you guys have kids?
50:14
We have 4 kids and 15 grandchildren as a.
50:17
Oh my goodness, yeah. Abundance of riches.
50:21
Yeah, Quiver Full is the Bible stuff.
50:24
I love that. I'd be curious to hear if you've
50:29
got any advice for folks that are listening.
50:31
You know, you've got 30 years of tech leadership.
50:35
Maybe some folks are listening and they say, hey, I, I'm
50:39
interested in tech. I aspire to be in a similar role
50:43
of leadership in the tech space. As to what I'm hearing Teddy
50:47
talk about what? What advice would you have for
50:49
folks? Well, if you're just getting
50:51
into tech, and I would suggest round, round yourself out
50:58
because tech is, I mean, you know that it's this huge, huge,
51:03
huge thing that we're talking about here.
51:06
And whether that's cyber security developing, you know,
51:12
networking systems, even telephony has its own special,
51:18
special places. But if you just starting off
51:21
round yourself out, know a little bit about it, all of it.
51:26
And then once you get in it, you'll find out what area you
51:30
really want to focus on. I know this probably don't sound
51:37
the same as what a lot of people say, don't chase the buddy, but
51:40
chase your dream. A lot of people say I want to be
51:44
in cyber security because that's the highest paying job right
51:47
now. You may not like cyber security,
51:50
you know, you may get in and you may hate it.
51:52
Then you got a job. You don't have a career.
51:55
But if if you really want to get in tech, round yourself out, get
51:58
in it and know it and find out what area you want to specialize
52:01
in and then go after that. That'll make you a career.
52:08
Powerful. I like that.
52:12
What's one thing you wish more people knew about your industry?
52:17
It's funny because when when you talk about, hey, I'm the CIO of
52:21
a concrete company, they're like, oh, that must be an easy
52:23
job, you know? How much tech could there be in?
52:26
Concrete. How much tech can there be in
52:28
concrete? You know, but you know it.
52:31
It's, it's a highly technical world, though.
52:34
I mean, it, it really is. I mean, and yeah, there are,
52:38
there are some companies that are in it that operate off of a
52:41
low tech, don't get me wrong, but they're, they're not
52:45
building the scale, right. It's, it's a, a localized
52:49
company with two or two or three plants.
52:51
And, you know, and they, they get by with very low technology,
52:55
but they're also at risk, even though they may not realize
52:59
they're at risk, but they're at risk because they don't have the
53:01
security around it and everything.
53:03
They don't have the bull's eye on their back, of course.
53:05
But now, you know, a lot of, a lot of these bad actors that are
53:10
in our, our space, they don't necessarily have to have a, you
53:15
know, a, a, a large company to go after anymore.
53:19
You know, they're, they're going after the, the smaller, smaller
53:23
fish, you know, and a lot of those with, with multiple
53:27
payouts adds up to, to a large sum.
53:30
So, but there is a lot of technology in in making a
53:35
company this size just like it would be with any company a
53:39
success and to keep the wheels turning.
53:42
You think about it, we've got 7500 employees in in our company
53:48
right now, got 570 locations. It's all driven by technology,
53:54
you know, and one, one hour of that down, you're talking about
54:00
millions of millions of dollars revenue being compromised or at
54:05
risk. We do, we do have placeholders
54:08
in place. We have manual processes in
54:10
place to, to help us out in different things.
54:13
But we, my whole team knows the severity of it, you know of a
54:19
plant being down, especially a region or anything like that.
54:22
And we operate at a very low failure rate.
54:28
So we, we embrace the, the new nomenclature of fail fast,
54:34
right? Because you don't have a whole
54:37
lot of time to, to be down in, in our industry because it just
54:42
creates issues. You know, there's a thing in
54:45
concrete called Co joints. You don't want your technology
54:48
to be responsible for a Co joint.
54:49
What that is, is where you delivered.
54:52
You're working on a large job, you delivered some of it.
54:55
And now it's starting to to set up or to cure and there's a
54:59
delay in getting that next truck in.
55:02
So where that new concrete goes against the setting up concrete,
55:05
it has the potentially of creating a coal joint there and
55:10
and which isn't good, you know in the overall.
55:13
Project failure point, right? It's yeah.
55:15
It's exactly, it's a failure point, so you know, it.
55:19
It's that's what I wish everybody knew is that, you
55:23
know? Yeah, we're not scientist, you
55:26
know, from the standpoint of saving lives, we're not doctors
55:29
or anything like that. But you know, we're, we're very,
55:35
we keep the, the, the country going.
55:38
We you know, very few industries was considered during the the
55:43
COVID pandemic, very few industries was considered.
55:52
Essential. Essential, exactly.
55:54
That's the word I was looking for essential and concrete was
55:56
one of them. So we never missed a day of work
55:59
and our plants continue to operate throughout the pandemic
56:03
offering our goods and services. And whether it was setting up,
56:06
helping set up the the pads for the mobile back shops that were
56:12
being set up, providing gravel for the the parking lots or
56:18
different things like that, or getting caught up on a lot of
56:21
road work. A lot of states decided to get
56:23
caught up on road work because there wasn't a lot of traffic.
56:26
So we were considered essential. And that's just because
56:33
concrete's important. Like I said, it's the number 2
56:37
conserved natural resource in the world, so.
56:41
Yeah, that still blows my mind, Teddy.
56:44
Let's say a year from now you and I reconnect and you're
56:46
celebrating something. What would that be?
56:49
Hopefully it's been not just a finalist in the Orbeez, but
56:52
maybe I'm winning, maybe it's grandchild #16 you know, I don't
57:01
know, but it's both. Maybe it's both, and then maybe,
57:04
who knows? Maybe it's the, you know, SRM
57:07
just acquired, you know, another 100 plants.
57:10
That would be great. I just got one more question for
57:14
you, Teddy, But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
57:16
Everyone listening today, I invite you to hit the follow
57:19
button on your favorite podcast app so you can continue to get
57:22
more great content like we have with this interview today with
57:26
Teddy Hazelwood, the CIO of Smearna Ready Mix Concrete.
57:30
Teddy, I also want to let people know, and I'll give you a choice
57:33
here, either the best way to get in touch with you personally to
57:36
follow your story or to follow that of Smearnas.
57:40
What would that be? Well, the follow Smyrna is
57:43
smyrnareadymix.com, smyrnareadymix.com and we keep
57:51
it up to date with, you know what our acquisition, what our
57:54
growth, what our everything that we're doing from a company
57:58
standpoint. You can find me on LinkedIn,
58:01
Teddy Hazelwood on LinkedIn to follow my career path.
58:06
You can send me a invite there as well so that we can socially
58:12
get connected and different things.
58:15
Got it. And we'll include links to all
58:17
those things you just mentioned in the show notes for folks.
58:20
So last question for you, Teddy, as you look to the future, what
58:24
are the exciting changes you feel are coming to your space in
58:28
the next few years? Well, you just mentioned it AII
58:33
mean that's, you know, there's a lot of buzzwords that come into
58:36
ITIT loves buzzwords. You know, we like to throw out,
58:39
you know, like I said a while ago, IDEDIAIVRAI, all all these
58:45
acronyms that stand for something, right?
58:49
But if you remember a few years ago, cloud was a big, big thing
58:54
and oh, we got to move to the cloud.
58:55
CEOs was grabbing it by the horns.
58:57
We got to move to the cloud. Well, cloud infrastructure, you
59:02
know, quickly, just a quick description of it is someone
59:07
else is hosting the data center. There's not a computer in the
59:09
cloud. The computer is sitting the data
59:12
center sitting somewhere, whether that's Microsoft,
59:14
Oracle, AWS, or some other data center that leases out space in
59:22
their rack. And but it got dubbed cloud
59:28
computing and because you accessed it through the
59:31
Internet, AIS, where it's at today is different than AI of
59:37
yesterday. You know, like I said, we've all
59:39
gotten lost in those chat bots and the IVRS on the phones and
59:44
different things like that where the technology didn't really
59:47
understand you didn't take you where you wanted to go.
59:49
And it led to frustration after frustration.
59:52
The AI today is different from that.
59:55
And it just keeps getting better and it's and it's getting
59:58
better. I mean, the AI today is better
1:00:00
than. When chat GPD first came out,
1:00:02
you know, last year or the end of 2023, it's just light years
1:00:07
ahead of where it was even then. And it's just progressively
1:00:11
getting better and better. So in the next few years, that's
1:00:18
going to change drastically, not just the IT space, but the
1:00:24
everyday end user of technology space.
1:00:27
The we all have Alexa or Google or something in our phones,
1:00:33
right? Where we, Alexa turn on the, the
1:00:35
music or turn on the TV or turn on the lights or whatever the
1:00:39
case might be. That's just a touch of how smart
1:00:43
our technology's going to be from a voice response.
1:00:46
We're seeing it in cars, you know, where we can, we can talk
1:00:50
to the car and tell it, you know, where we want to go and
1:00:53
it, it brings up the locations or, you know, we speak to our
1:00:56
phone to call, you know, look up a certain company or whatever
1:01:00
the case might be that that's just the, the tip of the iceberg
1:01:04
where AI is going to take us. Yeah, it's going to be so
1:01:07
exciting to follow. Yeah.
1:01:09
And Teddy, I want to be the first one to thank you for
1:01:11
sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:01:14
I really appreciate it. Thank you, it's fun.
1:01:17
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
1:01:20
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:01:22
today.