Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 330: Culture is the Advantage with Scott Watkins

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Episode 330: Culture is the Advantage with Scott Watkins · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  You.
• 0:03
  Welcome to The Growth Project, a podcast brought to you by AMP blows.
• 0:08
  Doctor Drew Brandon here. I'm excited about this conversation today.
• 0:12
  We are joined by Scott Watkins, senior vice president of manufacturing in market leader here in Greenville.
• 0:19
  Scott, welcome to the Growth Project. Great to be here. Yeah. Even though you're an Auburn fan, I'm still I'm still excited for you to be on here today. Yeah. It's, you know, sometimes, depending on what weekend it is, we can't quite be as good of friends, but, thanks for having me on.
• 0:34
  Appreciate the invite. No. It's great. It's great to be here, and it's going to be fun to talk through, your path and your philosophies on leadership. And then some of the neat, I think, things that you guys have done at Clay Co and continue to do at Clay Co to amplify your people and your culture. And there's no doubt that it is a big component of what has driven the success of your organization over the years.
• 0:57
  So we will get into all of that before we do. I want to start with, you know, we talk a lot on here on our On the Growth Project about people and their journey, and they're kind of walking along their path. And one of the questions that I'm always most fascinated by is how you got clarity around what you wanted to do with your life.
• 1:17
  So let's start there. Like tell us a little bit about I know, Clark, I was in the engineering and in construction industry. How and when did you get clarity that like that's the direction you wanted to go?
• 1:27
  Yeah, I would say I mean, it was definitely before college. But, you know, growing up in a small town, south Alabama, Troy, Alabama, a small college town essentially,
• 1:36
  I would say pretty young age.
• 1:38
  I was always very fascinated about how things were designed or made. If we had some old power tool or phone, whatever it may be, that was broken, I always wanted to get it before it went into trash, because I wanted to take it apart and hopefully never put it back together. That was very young.
• 1:55
  none of my family was really in construction.
• 1:57
  I did have an uncle I'll talk about in a second who was, civil engineer. But, you know, like my dad, my grandfather, you know, had other business. But we we had property, and we had projects constantly around the farm, essentially.
• 2:10
  It could be building a dock, fixing a bulldozer or running a backhoe, building a dam.
• 2:16
  So learning work ethic and just kind of having smaller project that at that age,
• 2:22
  was just good exposure for me.
• 2:24
  When I was probably 13 or 14, my dad took a long time to plan, an eight week road trip out west. We went to pretty much all of the western states and saw all kinds of sights, which was great, but the most impactful to me was visiting the Hoover Dam out of everything we saw at that age.
• 2:41
  fast forward to, high school, I was working with my, my uncle, a civil engineer in town in the summers and kind of figured out I wanted to try engineering. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to succeed at it. It's a pretty challenging program at Auburn. And then, you know, applied at Auburn, went to school there,
• 2:57
  you know, met my amazing wife, Jenny there.
• 2:59
  So it was a great, great decision to go to Auburn and ultimately, you know, through kind of right before, I guess towards the end of my high school, I was like, I think this is what I want to do. I want to go kind of explore the design and construction space. And then actually at Auburn, a pretty formative experience for me was co-opting, and so I think it was my sophomore junior year of college,
• 3:25
  took a co-op for a company up in Chicago.
• 3:27
  And that was my first exposure to commercial construction. So as a small town Alabama kid going to Chicago to a union project, it was pretty eye opening. Fit right in. Right? Yeah, yeah.
• 3:38
  Driving an Alabama pickup in Chicago was, nice.
• 3:41
  But it took me on my comfort zone. And that was, I would say, one of the bigger catalysts for me to kind of solidify this was the path that I wanted to take.
• 3:49
  So as you big. I mean, it's neat to hear about you kind of pieced together those experiences of the Hoover Dam. Right. And then with working with your uncle and just thinking about what you wanted to do with your life. What was it about the, the bringing together of material in in pieces and things in, like, building?
• 4:10
  Like, what was it about building in forming that that really struck a chord with you? Do you remember?
• 4:15
  I always like being able to see the fruits of my labor. Real time in construction constructions, an industry where you can do that. Yeah. You know. Right. A little different in psychology, we don't always get that benefit.
• 4:23
  Right. So it didn't matter if it was a small project building a dock at the pond. I mean, you're going to see the progress that you're making, and then being able to use that, is pretty rewarding. So I figured out pretty early on that, you know, this was something I enjoyed doing and being able to, see that progress being made real time.
• 4:42
  Was this part of that? Yeah.
• 4:44
  construction is by no means not. It's not the only industry. But I have a lot of people I talk with and I'm like, gosh, I'm so jealous of, like, you get to see exactly what you're producing, right? And it's not quite that that clear black and white in the field of psychology.
• 4:58
  We do see some things and we hope. Right? Yeah. A little different. But to be clear, when when you talk about engineering for me, like, I mean, it did school did not come easy. I had to work really hard at it. And so there was no guarantee I was going to succeed at that. I think maybe a third of engineering students that get through the program, you know, actually started in the program.
• 5:19
  A lot of them, you know, don't make it through. Really? Yeah. Wow. I did not know that. I remember vividly in our introduction to engineering class, he said, look to your right and left. Either you or both of them are not going to be here, you know, three years from now. So people really do that. They did back then.
• 5:34
  Yeah. I mean, because you have heard you hear that in different fields, right? They do it in law. They do it in medicine. So that I've never had that experience. But they really do that, Yeah. Gosh, what an uplifting way to start. Yeah I was hoping I wasn't one of those. Yeah, that's you. I know you turn to your right and said for you and turn to your left and said for you didn't you.
• 5:51
  Yeah. Not definitely not your style. Okay, so you get on this trajectory and you, you are at Auburn studying engineering. You do the co-op, following graduation, you know, jump into the industry, spent several years working with some other companies and then started at Clay Co beginning when,
• 6:08
  will be seven years next month. So that was an 18.
• 6:10
  Okay. So let's talk a little bit about that. You I know we don't need to, to give every detail of the previous stints, but you were in a good situation and yet when Clay Co began to pursue you, there was something about the company that was appealing to you. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah. There was just an inherent curiosity.
• 6:32
  I didn't know much about Clay go. I didn't know anybody at Clay Co, so, they reached out. Actually, I think it was a month before our youngest, Hazel, she's now seven, but, before she was born. So obviously there was a lot going on. I was not looking,
• 6:45
  but I was intrigued, and, you know, kind of felt like, you know, I was with the same company for 12.5 years, essentially, at that point,
• 6:54
  which was very comfortable and incredible experience, incredible learning experience.
• 6:58
  What I was exposed to and the investment that, you know, my mentors made in me was, was massive. But there was also a part of me that's like, you know, I kind of feel like there's more, more of an opportunity out there. It's very uncomfortable looking, but I think it's something that's, that's worth exploring. So it took a, a while, probably about eight months to kind of get through that,
• 7:21
  internally in my mind and obviously with, consultation as well.
• 7:26
  But yeah, there was, you know, I kind of found through my experiences, whenever I take myself out of my comfort zone, that's usually a pretty good catalyst for growth. And so that was the part of it that was that kind of kept me somewhat hooked, as I felt like the opportunity was good. It was going to be a risk.
• 7:43
  But I felt like it was one worth taking. It did require you to come to beautiful Greenville, South Carolina, which I don't know if that was an upside or, well, a downside. It that's actually that was so we were already here at that point. Okay. I had opened an office here in Greenville back in 14 for a company I used to work for.
• 7:59
  And so that was kind of the easy part is I, I'd already kind of plugged in in the community. And so when, when Clay go came looking for kind of that person for the office, that part was relatively easy to make that pivot. It was more so the culture of the company. And, it was just foreign to me.
• 8:17
  I just didn't know much being a midwest based company, it just had not it had much exposure to Clay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, and let's get into that a little bit because, there are some staggering if I think about the history of Clay Co and some the foundation that was laid years ago, there's some incredible stats. So 84 is when it was founded.
• 8:38
  Is that correct. Yeah. We just had our 40th anniversary. Summer.
• 8:42
  I want to I want to mention a couple things for our listeners, because I know we have a lot of listeners that are in all different industries. We're trying to grow your business and trying to propel your organization upward, and that's not always easy to do.
• 8:53
  Right. And so, founded in 84 by a gentleman by the name of Bob Clark, who still sits on your board, correct? Correct.
• 8:59
  Which is neat to think about his continuing involvement in this. So in year one, when Clay Co was able to do 1.2 million in revenue, which is great. Seems like a great year to me. Yeah.
• 9:09
  For for your one right there early 80s. Yes. That was that was pretty big. Yeah I would think that's that was quite a accomplishment in year one. And then the thing I also wanted to point out is that, in the first 16 years the company existed, they saw 40% growth or more in nine out of those 16 years, which, Scott, I don't care what industry you're in, that's in credibly difficult.
• 9:34
  Yeah. It's scary growth. Yeah. I mean they must have been adding people like in droves and to pull that off. Yeah. And a lot of those people are still there. It's pretty amazing that I get to still work with day in, day out with folks that have been there, you know, for over 30 years.
• 9:50
  Which is pretty incredible.
• 9:51
  And quite honestly, the last few years the growth has been in that range as well. And so it's hard to maintain the culture and what makes the, the company what it is. Yeah. And great when you have that type of growth. Yes. So let's get into this a little bit specific like because so our belief at AMP was we're never shy about this.
• 10:13
  We truly believe that invest in humans in people. Growth is what we call the competitive advantage harnessed by the highest performing organizations in the world. Essentially, we feel strongly that organizations that are forward thinking, understand the value and the importance of investing in culture, growing people, etc. talk a little bit about it. Just kind of big picture, Scott, in terms of the when when you guys talk about culture and clay co and you talk about your values and you talk about kind of who, who you guys really are foundationally, share some of that with us so that people can better understand what has powered a lot of this growth.
• 10:54
  Yeah. So when you talk about the people I mean, in construction generally, it's I mean, it is a people business, that is our biggest asset is the people that we have. When you talk about, you know, what it is and what it takes to accomplish what we do on a daily basis. It's really that's the most influential part.
• 11:13
  And that's how we create value for our clients is the people that we have. So investing in that asset is is the critical thing we can do. But you have to do it in a way where you have a culture where that's easy to provide, an environment where they can grow, where they can succeed. Have opportunity. And then ultimately, you know, the the company benefits from that,
• 11:33
  As does the employee. Right. So, you know, that was something that really struck me early on when when I was having conversations with Clark, I was there was a lot of things that I was hearing about the culture here that's like, this is kind of unusual. Is this really, you know, the case? Is this really true?
• 11:50
  And so that's what took so long for me to kind of get comfortable with making the decision, come over here. And then when you have an innovative culture. And Bob, you mentioned, you know, Bob Clark, our, our chairman, our founder, he's still very actively involved in the company. And, and I really credit his vision for the culture that we do have.
• 12:10
  And it's one where it's easy for people to assimilate. You come in the door with a lot of trust and it's a very collaborative and innovative culture. And so that's a really good recipe when you're focused on finding the best people in the industry, it's amazing what you can accomplish as an organization, but you have to have the fundamental parts where when you bring those key people in, they're able to come in immediately and, and be a part of the, the team, essentially the Clay go team.
• 12:37
  So who who does well at Clay Co, you talk a lot about the people and you guys have thought a lot about the types of humans that you're looking for that are going to drive the organization forward. How do you guys think about that as far as the profile of a great teammate? Yeah, it's really important. So you know, it's we're going to be around seven and a half.
• 12:57
  I think last year were around 7.5 billion in revenue. So it's you know close to 4000 people as an organization, this large organization. And so I think it's just we're kind of remarkable about the culture that we have here. And so we're hyper focused. You can be a really great high performer, but if you don't have the right attitude or mentality when it comes to this business, you might not be a good fit.
• 13:23
  And so we're really focused on screening for those in the qualities that fit great go people have. A good example is is our, CEO Steve. He, he essentially interviews every single operations person that comes into the company. It doesn't matter if you're, you know, an intern all the way up to, you know, a senior level person.
• 13:44
  That's one of the things he's primarily focused on is making sure they have the right, innate qualities that are a good fit here. And he's one of those people that's been here, you know, well over 20 years. All right, let's pull on that for a second, because I want to point out something here for our listeners.
• 13:59
  So this, this were or this term might be something that people think of as like a negative connotation, but it's not in the research. There's a concept in organization just called gatekeeping. And we tend to think of gatekeeping as like, I'm going to make sure no one gets in here in like a kind of punitive way. That's not what it's intended to mean.
• 14:17
  And so what you just illustrated, there is an example of very thoughtful gatekeeping of we're going to say, hey, we're going to have a we're gonna have a strategy, and it might not work for everyone or makes sense for everyone. I can promise you, there are lots of organizations where the CEO is not doing that, but I have found that you won't have a culture that's winning consistently.
• 14:38
  And what I mean by that is they're producing results. People like being a part of what they're doing. They stick around. It's almost impossible to have a winning culture if you don't have some quality gatekeeping mechanism. Right? Because everyone's going fast. Everyone's busy. If you are not slowing down enough to very much, think through, talk through plan and understand, how are we welcoming people to the organization?
• 15:06
  How are we practicing selection, all of that? You got to do that. Well, yeah. And you have to really, you know, that's that's how you protect the culture when you're when you have that type of growth. Exactly. You're if you're highly focused on getting the right people then then that's how you protect and make sure you preserve what makes the company great.
• 15:25
  Because I think that's where a lot of companies, you lose that control over that culture. Yeah.
• 15:30
  The other part that makes the organization great is having that humility combined with the collaborative culture, because, you know, we we like to call ourselves a company of immigrants. Most of the people that that are here and even in leadership positions have spent considerable time elsewhere.
• 15:43
  So they bring in perspectives that are valuable and things that you want to emulate and things you want to avoid, you know, from lessons learned elsewhere. So you have to have that humility. There has to be grace, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of pressure in the construction business on what we do, and we how we have to deliver and execute the plan for our clients.
• 16:03
  But it's a human enterprise. And the thing that's consistent about all companies that have people is there's going to be mistakes made. Oh, yeah. So you have to you have to expect that, you know, we like to call it this is from our, you know, former CEO Russ Burns. He always called it tuition. So if you have the right people, high performers, you know, they're going to look at making those mistakes as that's just part of what's going to happen is being a human being.
• 16:29
  But if they're the right type of people, they're going to be doing everything they can to number one, avoid making that mistake again. And number two, helping others learn from and from their own mistakes. I like that. Let's go back to that tuition. So say more about what that has meant in the organization. That's interesting. Yeah. So there's all kinds of challenges I construction projects adversity that that we encounter every day on all of our projects.
• 16:54
  And so you have to make decisions. You have to be decisive. And sometimes those are going to be the wrong decisions. You just really need to make a decision at the moment. You can't, you know, can't always just sit there and wait and, you know, and analyze it to death. And so, with people, you know, we have to kind of work through those challenges on these, these projects and decisions have consequences.
• 17:16
  You want them to be positive. In most cases they can be. But sometimes you make the wrong decision based off what you know at the moment. And that's just kind of the nature of the business. So, but, you know, you also need to be able to empower your people to make decisions and, and, you know, lead their teams in the project and in the way that it needs to be.
• 17:35
  And that's ultimately, you know, owning that objective, owning that role on those projects. And and so when we say tuition is kind of like education, you know, in the future we're going to benefit from from that investment. We're paying for it now. Right. You know, it'll show up and produce results from an ROI standpoint. I like that you term.
• 17:53
  Okay. Let's get into a little bit of when we talk about engineering and we talk about construction, those are big umbrella terms. Obviously those are huge and massive, massive industries that exist internationally. I want to narrow down and talk in more detail about some of the niche areas that calico is in, and maybe the best place to do that would be specific to your market that you're a part of.
• 18:15
  So talk a little bit more in detail about the types of projects that you guys are engaging and the nature of the work that you're doing. Yeah. So I guess just to kind of set the table for that. So, you know, construction and design and construction is just primarily an assembly process. You know, it's not like you're building or assembling a 70 or $80,000 BMW or, you know, a $200 million aircraft.
• 18:38
  You're you're essentially doing one off projects where our clients essentially sign us up for, design a scope and a schedule. And we have a contract, obviously, that outlines that, that transaction essentially. So it's pretty challenging when you're when you're trying to assemble something that's a one off in the elements. And it can be anything from a, you know, a $30 million foundation package, for a rocket engine facility to a multi-billion dollar battery plant.
• 19:06
  So, and then one thing that's always the case is the team is going to be different on every one of those projects. So. Okay, hold on. Pause. So if my interpreting this correctly so everything you're building has never been built before there will be similarities. But in reality, you know when you talk about manufacturing facilities there's going to be variability on every project.
• 19:27
  And in some projects it's it's considerable. So to get back to your question, a lot of what we're doing, our first of a kind serial number one type facilities, we're kind of in the middle of a new industrial revolution where you have a lot of technologies being scaled up for the very first time. So, there's a lot of rapid prototyping essentially that's being done.
• 19:48
  And you have to be in a situation where you have to understand there's going to be changes to this facility. They're constantly happening, and yet we still need to try and figure out how to execute on time. Okay. So let's put a pin in this for one second. We got it. We got to take a quick tangent because this is it's relevant right now.
• 20:05
  So I want to talk about it right now. We talk a lot about confidence psychological confidence really in any context. One of the biggest puzzle pieces that builds confidence for people or bolsters confidence for people is history of like, I know I can do it because I've done it before. How do you guys get gender? How do you generate confidence on projects that are groundbreaking, like you're talking about, like you haven't done it before?
• 20:30
  They talk about how do you do that and how do you instill that across a team? Well, it really goes to the mindset of how we approach our projects. So when you look at our, you know, I just mentioned our mantra. So what we say is we are the art and science and building. We are the art and science, and we are going to build beyond these walls on our projects.
• 20:50
  And so to start with the ladder part beyond these walls, with manufacturing facilities, it's much different than building just a shooting shelter, like an office building, for example, or hospital. You're essentially providing a place where people can be manufacturing facilities. It's all about what ultimately that's going to accomplish. And so for us to do well on projects and it may even be a project we've never, you know, have an experience with that specific technology before.
• 21:18
  The fundamental approach is the same. And so when I talk about beyond these Walls, we understand that what is going on inside this building, once we are done with it, is much more important than the construction itself. And so in order to set ourselves up to succeed, we need to take ownership in what our client's challenges are to accomplish that objective.
• 21:37
  So we have to have that empathy and take ownership, just as if we're an employee of our client. Right? We have to own the quality expectations, the schedule, the cost expectation. And that facility May 1st day be, you know, creating a brand new technology to help us go to space more efficiently or we have a project that's in the quantum computing space.
• 21:58
  This is going to be one of the first the very first utility scale quantum computers completely could be, you know, change, change the world. So wow, that fundamental approach is the right approach. And then when we talk about, the art and science, what that means is really the art is kind of the leadership approach, the mindset, the philosophy on how we're going to approach that project.
• 22:18
  And then the science is the systems and the processes and the technology we're going to use to to accomplish our objectives on project. So what I hear you saying there, Scott, is that there's a there's a transition or probably the better, whereas there's a transfer of their purpose becomes yours, right? The purpose of the client becomes your objective and your purpose as well.
• 22:37
  Right? Whether it's space travel, whatever it might be. Yeah. Because manufacturing facilities are so different when it. Yeah. One thing is always the case is the form of the facility follows the function. But the function may be very different. You know, how you build an automotive facility is totally different than how you build a battery that goes into the automotive to the car.
• 22:57
  So but that's also part of what I enjoy about it because, you know, you have a front row seat to kind of you have a much better appreciation for what it takes to build that car, build that rocket engine, that computer, whatever it may be, because you actually, you know, have the opportunity to to peek behind the curtain on their process.
• 23:14
  So they have a lot of trust in you. Right? Because the pressure I mentioned that earlier, you know, some of these projects we may have, you know, 50 to 70 million a day in revenue for our client. That's that essentially, until we can facilitate our part of them hitting a start, a production, that's the operating revenue that they want to accomplish.
• 23:32
  We're you know, we're trying to get our project designed and built in a way that allows them to start that as soon as possible. They're generating 50 to $70 million a day in revenue in these facilities. Some of these facilities, yes. That makes Bob's first year not look quite as stellar. Scott. Yeah, that was 84. That was 84.
• 23:50
  That that's yeah, I mean that is significant to think about the pressure involved for you guys to deliver on time and on budget with what they're trying to do. Right. And so if you bring the right mentality to this project, maybe a new technology, and then you combine that with taking the ownership in the process and, and their objectives, you know, that's that's really the the recipe that you need to be successful, you know in the industry.
• 24:15
  Okay. So let's jump back on our our line there that we were a minute ago pertaining to nature nuance and then project. And so you mentioned this could be everything from a $30 million. What was the example of the rocket engine rocket. Okay. Sorry a foundation package. Foundation package all the way up to a multi-billion dollar battery plant.
• 24:34
  Let's talk about the battery plant. If I'm driving down the interstate and I happen to look over and it's like, wow, that's a big building, that very well could be a battery plant. And into the naked eye for someone who's uneducated, uninformed, you just see this, like massive, massive, footprint of a building where they're manufacturing batteries.
• 25:00
  There's a lot that's gone into it to get into that picture. Okay? And at least I know that, although I don't know much beyond that, like start somewhere. And I'm just really, really curious. I can only imagine all of the variables and complexities and factors that go into fulfilling that, like bringing that to life. Can you kind of start somewhere and walk us through how a multi-billion dollar battery plant comes to life?
• 25:27
  Yeah. So there's been a lot of growth in that industry of late. A lot of the projects we do in that space are for what we call FDI clients or foreign direct investment clients. So you're, you know, there's a vision that they have to be in production. You're by a certain date. And normally those companies, when you see that battery plant, it had to be built on a schedule that allowed them to provide those batteries to, if it's an EV battery to an auto facility by a certain date.
• 25:56
  And so what can be challenging is right out the gate is it may be a company that's doing their very first CapEx project in the United States. So they've never even been involved or, you know, been able to plan for a project in the States. So, okay, so possible. So they've promised to deliver batteries to someone on a schedule.
• 26:17
  Correct. And they haven't started building the facility to manufacture the batteries. Correct. That's usually when that starts. Wow. Okay. This is getting interesting. Yes. And then you have all kinds of, you know, standards and expectations that you have from doing business and building facilities in their own country and in some cases, a lot of facilities. And so we have to kind of work with them to bridge those time zones, to bridge the language gaps.
• 26:40
  The cultural differences, to to ultimately understand what their objectives are, in most cases, were involved in the design of those facilities as well. In some cases were not. But we have to, you know, essentially create a plan. And that's a lot of what I spend my time on these days is you have that vision from your client. And then ultimately, you know, we have to essentially build a plan to execute the design and the construction of that facility on that timeline with all kinds of, you know, challenges in between that we have to overcome, because those types of projects can have, you know, over a thousand people, 1500 people, 2000 people on one project, 2000
• 27:17
  people. So it's basically a team with 2000 people, right? Trying to bring this building to life. Right? Yeah. A lot of pressure, you know. I mean, where do you, as a psychologist sit in the room here? And I know the complexities of people pretty well. Gosh, I think it's hard enough to kind of keep a football team of hundred and 25 guys kind of aligned, you know, not 2000 people.
• 27:38
  Yeah, well, you know, it's like I was saying earlier, you know, for me, what's really rewarding about it is if you can figure out how to accomplish those objectives and then earn an endorsement from your client at the end of the project, that goes a long way. Yeah. You want your clients essentially, to have the kind of trust in you that that they will endorse you and recommend you to other clients in the future.
• 28:03
  And if you, you know, apply that framework I was talking about earlier and being successful in these building these types of facilities and then ultimately earn that endorsement on projects that have really high expectations, a lot of pressure. That's pretty rewarding as a place you want to live as a company. And it's, it's a it's tough.
• 28:21
  You know, there's going to be all kinds of adversity that we have to overcome on these projects. But, if you can build really a one team atmosphere with your client and essentially the we it's yeah, you're all together. It's not a contractor or a design or owner. It's you all have to be one team, and you have to make the decisions collectively to facilitate, you know, the project that they want to have done in a certain period of time.
• 28:44
  All right. So let's talk about the mental side of. There's one part of this I'm particularly curious about on the mental side of executing this project. And that is and this is where, you know, we laughed earlier about I'm saying, gosh, I'm jealous of the industry because you get evidence of your, you know, kind of the fruits of your labor.
• 29:00
  Well, from the time you guys, scope and schedule a project, I would imagine there's a very definitive timeline that's created of like, okay, we have all these milestones and we're hitting or aiming for hitting these milestones along the way.
• 29:14
  I'm sure you don't hit every milestone. Okay. So so things come up some of what you can control.
• 29:20
  Some of them you can't. But can you share about kind of the mentality and how this is coached and how this is implemented in the organization where, okay, I have my, my my scale and my scope and my timeline in my hand here, and I see my milestones and we're not hitting them right. And when we're not hitting them, I would imagine there could even be some financial implications for you all.
• 29:43
  And certainly for the client as well. But like, what is the mindset that's taught in how do you guys try to leverage the right skills mentally when we're falling behind or something popped up we weren't planning on? Yeah, especially in the current market really post-pandemic. That supply chain has been really challenging for construction. So, you know, I talk about the word adversity a lot because they're just they're just is in the industry.
• 30:09
  And that's one of the ones you have to hit head on is, is, you know, are we going to be able to get the materials on site as quickly as we need? Are we going to be able to get the labor that we need for this project? So, you know, one thing that's every project's going to have challenges.
• 30:25
  I mean, that's consistent. I know you and I have kind of talked about, you know, I'm involved in an organization here in the upstate that's focused on, helping Navy Seals transition out of military. And they have a saying that, you know, no plan, survives first contact. Yeah. And so construction is very similar because you may have a great plan for how you're going to execute this project, but there is absolutely going to be challenges where you need contingency plans, as many as you can possibly think of oftentimes, because you'll be in a situation where you may be expecting critical components on a project, and then you find out, hey, that's going
• 31:02
  to be a month and month and a half late. Oh, and then you got to start figuring out how to put in contingency plans to prevent that, because it may be like a critical piece of electrical switchgear that if you can't energize the facility, there's no way that they're going to even be able to start prepping for a start, a production date.
• 31:19
  And so you have to work with, with your team and, and ultimately a lot of the subcontractors, because, you know, we we can't do this all by ourself. We do have the ability to self perform quite a few scopes, which is, which is great because it allows us to kind of control our destiny a little bit more or influence our destiny.
• 31:35
  But we have to work together with a lot of other entities that are not clear, go to figure out how to overcome these challenges and that really gets to the relationship part of it. You got to have a way of inspiring the entire team to do what it takes to to accomplish these goals. Yeah. And so those things I think about the importance of chemistry and mutual trust, and just kind of being able to instill across the team the belief that we're in this thing together.
• 32:04
  We're for each other. I don't see any way projects like that get executed without a healthy dose of some of those things. Yeah. And you, you know, when you think about it like subcontractors on it doesn't matter if it's in a manufacturing project. But yeah, you know, their bottom line is directly tied to our ability to have a really good plan to execute.
• 32:24
  And, you know, us being able to hold accountable the other subcontractors that are working in there to a schedule, for example. And so if you're, you know, a, a design builder like Klitschko that has a reputation for executing to plan and doing a good job of kind of managing those sites well, being efficient, then it's ultimately going to help everybody on the project, do better as a company.
• 32:52
  You really have to treat we treat all of our jobs like it's a small business. I mean, that's really how they have to run. And the decisions we make on a daily basis on these projects absolutely affect all the other companies, big and small, that are working, you know, alongside of us to, to help build these projects to reality.
• 33:10
  What would be an approximate, timeline for how long it takes to, to manufacture, or to build a manufacturing facility like that, you know, really goes back there's some limitations now with the current market and just challenges with mechanical, electrical equipment, lead times. But one of the single most important things that influences that is decision making ability.
• 33:34
  And that's collectively by the, you know, the designer, you know, the owner contracting team. And you can move pretty fast as long as you can get the components, you know, a multibillion dollar project probably going to be usually 20 to 24 months. Just in general. I mean, there's there's some outliers there. We had a project here in South Carolina that's actually on the food and beverage side, that we were able to essentially allow them to start production in about ten months on.
• 34:04
  It's it's actually the largest brewery by volume in the country now. Wow.
• 34:07
  that really accredit the owner with their ability to make decisions extremely quickly and stick by those decisions. Because when you have clarity on what the design needs to be, you have to design a project in a way that what I always talk about is there's a critical path that ultimately is going to get you to the end of the project most efficiently, the fastest.
• 34:30
  Can you have to design the project in a way that facilitates that, because it has to be designed before it can be built. And so we're it's really incumbent upon us to help help our clients understand what's important when it's important, because those decisions ultimately will allow us to build a facility. You know, let's just say if it's a 20 month build, maybe this will allow us to do an 18 months or 16 months.
• 34:53
  So schedule is very critical, but cost also as well. And there's oftentimes tension between those 2 to 2 components on a project. Yeah. All right. So 22 to 24 months is a realistic timeline. You talked earlier and I really I thought that was a really important puzzle piece of what makes y'all great is like purpose right. And so you you get aligned to and behind the purpose of the clients.
• 35:17
  How do you maintain purpose in a project over 22 to 24 months? That's a long time. Yeah it is. And you know, you may it's interesting because, you know, the first part of our team on a project like that may be 2 or 3 people, you know, and you fast forward 14 months and it's 50 people well on site.
• 35:36
  Yeah.
• 35:37
  And then another 14 or 1500 people in the field working. And so, you know, it's it's really important to create a culture as a leader on a project. And ultimately, that's where I started as I was out in the field on projects. You know, kind of we call it in the trenches, essentially, you know, working with those project teams and subcontractors to be successful.
• 35:59
  But you really have to work in a way to kind of inspire your entire team, like our team, you know, our project team to be great. And you have some, you know, some companies. I think we'll approach it from the standpoint of,
• 36:13
  It's just what you do. You know, we're expecting you to, to do a good job, but I think the right way is to try and figure out how to inspire your team to do.
• 36:21
  To do. Great. Yeah. Personally, I don't think that I'll ever achieve my maximum potential in life. I want to be excellent when I what I do, but what's better oftentimes because I think what happens in the industry, unfortunately, is kind of a carrot and sticks mentality with subcontractors. If you don't do this and essentially you're terrible and we're not going to use you again, to me, the better mentality is how can we inspire everybody on the project from our team all the way down to the subcontracting teams?
• 36:51
  On being great and working together as a team because in the construction space, it's just challenging. It's hard to do that when you have a lot of pressure. It's hard to keep the team together and keep the morale. Positive. So we also try and get our clients involved in
• 37:05
  understanding the importance of safety on these projects and quality and those kinds of things.
• 37:10
  It really we have to cast that vision and our role and then make sure we get the buy in from all of our trade partners and people on the project. Yeah. Because that's that's what's so unique and interesting about the challenges here, as well as everyone that's executing on this project doesn't have a calico shirt. Right. And yet the buck stops with you, right?
• 37:32
  With you guys. I mean, you're the ones who've been hired to to get this thing done. And you've got to create and sustain continuity in kind of oneness throughout this time in order to hit the milestones. Right? Yeah. And there's a lot of synergies when it comes to how you treat your relationship with your client and how you treat your relationship with your subcontractors.
• 37:51
  Like I said earlier, we can't do it by ourselves. We don't sell perform the whole job, and it's a small industry. So if you have the reputation of being fair, you know, treating, treating your clients, you know, as if they're your, you, I mean, essentially that's our lifeblood. We also should take the same approach with subcontractors.
• 38:12
  And it's not a, a clay goes down all of this, it's, it's clay Co and all of these trade partners that have been successful in this project. And I think that goes a long way to kind of helping create the right kind of culture, to be collaborative, even in the project execution phase to, to ultimately turn over the best type of facility and put us in the best position where we're going to have an endorsement from our client at the end of the project.
• 38:34
  Yeah, I just I mean, we could talk about that all day as somebody who has worked with a ton of teams and studied a lot about teams, I'm fascinated by the idea of 2000 people who, although they're not, they don't even work for the same employer necessarily are coming together to create this massive, massive thing. It can be over 30 employers.
• 38:55
  When you talk about that group on the project like that, and then you you get in this situation where we may have our, you know, with our trade partners, 14, 1500 people on a project, and then you have the owner starting to bring in their vendors to install the equipment for the manufacturing process on top of that. And then you got to figure out how to work together with them, make sure you're not competing for objectives.
• 39:16
  Essentially, we're all working to the same objective. So it can get pretty challenging. But the most important thing is just having great communication and the right kind of leadership. The next time I have a sales manager telling me he can't get two of his team members to get along, I'm gonna tell them to call you guys and be like, hey, maybe you need to hear a little bit about somebody else's challenges that involve, did you say 30 different employers on a project, necessarily?
• 39:40
  That's wild. Yeah. Okay. Any other things that you think you'd like to mention on what it really goes into executing and ultimately delivering this massive manufacturing facility?
• 39:53
  It's amazing the types of people that you get to work with in this business. That's one of my favorite things is, is you're getting exposure to, you know, some of the smartest people in the world for that industry, whether it's, you know, how to build a, you know, an aircraft engine or a car or, you know, even a building material, whatever it may be, you're talking and communicating and working together with some really amazing people.
• 40:20
  And for me, what I can say is I'm a tremendous like, I'm a big I've had a whole lot of investment in me from people I've worked for in the past. Which is I credit my success, you know, with. But also it's been amazing to work alongside people in all kinds of industries and bring their perspective and their knowledge.
• 40:42
  Because ultimately, you know, I'm just, you know, one person, you know, in a massive world. But I want to ultimately learn from a lot of other people,
• 40:50
  and that's ultimately going to make me better as a person. One of the things that I think looking back over my career, you know, I never anticipated being, you know, in a business unit level position in manufacturing for construction company at this point in my career.
• 41:08
  I'm extremely grateful for that. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had. But looking back, I'm just I'm glad I had, people that I worked for that kind of took a risk on me and put me in a position to where where I can succeed, and invested a lot in me, because obviously it's it's not. It's not about me.
• 41:27
  It's about, you know, it's about being in a position where, you know, I can be invested in, see the opportunity, jump on that opportunity. And, looking back, I think what I would tell myself is, don't be if don't sell yourself short, you know, it's do not be in a position where you're just going to be comfortable and safe.
• 41:50
  Yeah. Because you could have done that, right. Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of of off ramps, I think, in a person's career where you can do that. And so for me, I'm glad that I had the courage and in certain, you know, key instances to take that risk. And in hindsight, I wish I would have done that sooner, because that's ultimately, you know, I think I credit that, combined with people's investment in me, as to how I've gotten to kind of where I am.
• 42:12
  Yeah. So let's get into that a little bit. So I wanted to be sure we covered that. Before we have to wrap up here in a little bit, leadership progression, leadership philosophy. So, you know, most of us, I think you and I would probably consider both of us in this, this crowd, if we reflect back and we can even just kind of focus on your time at Glencoe seven plus years, and you think back to, at that stage, your career, it can be pretty humbling because, you know, you have these realizations.
• 42:38
  I know I do where it's like, man, I can't believe I wasn't like breaking anything worse than I was back then, you know, say it's incredible that the train was somehow staying on the tracks with the opportunities that I was getting. Can you share about kind of some of the progression you've seen in your, your leadership? A little compare and contrast of kind of then versus now and like how you've grown, how you're different and then maybe also if you were to kind of try to summarize a little bit about how you think about leadership today, I think all of that is is fair game.
• 43:08
  I just would love to hear your thoughts on that. Well, I think in some ways it goes back to like when I was talking about engineering school at Auburn, you know, I didn't I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to succeed at that. I mean, it's, I had to work really hard to, to get through that program.
• 43:24
  But I was, you know, I'm going to try my best to be successful at this. No guarantees that it'll work. And so that was kind of the first time that I think I had really kind of had to put myself out there and take a risk and see if I could, you know, ultimately succeed at that, know in college, you know, you really don't have that mentorship.
• 43:43
  I mean, you have mentors, obviously, but it's just not the same as environment, same environment as being, you know, in a in the working world, you know, post-college,
• 43:50
  when you're in the position that I'm in now, there's no way I would ever be successful being dropped into this position.
• 43:57
  You have to kind of go through that progression. You have to learn a lot of lessons the hard way. You know, early on in your career, you have to learn from other people's mistakes and, put you in a, put yourself in a position where you welcome constructive feedback and, and ultimately learn from others. I mean, that's really I've never learned anything from myself.
• 44:17
  It's always been from other people. And so I'm grateful that I had, you know, quite a few key individuals that I worked for over my career that that invested in me, and mentored me, you know, through my career. And ultimately put me in positions where I had an opportunity to grow because, you know, that when you combine with, with the mentality of trying to constantly put yourself out there, you know, see if you can go achieve this objective, and construction's all about that.
• 44:46
  You know, this is okay. A year from now, we have to accomplish this goal. And we got to figure out some how to, you know, do it successfully, make money on it, do it safely. And that's a pretty challenging objective. But it also builds confidence because you're able to start repetitively, you know, making progress on these projects and succeeding it at achieving those milestones.
• 45:10
  And so when you get into the position that I'm in now, you have to really have been in in the shoes of the people that are working with you along side. Right, and be in a position where you've had to execute through the adversity on these projects. Because that's how you are able to instill confidence in your clients or confidence that we can do what you are asking us to do.
• 45:32
  You can trust us with this outcome. Yeah, and I know we talked about it, but what you're detailing there, that's one of the most fascinating things to me about what you guys do is.
• 45:43
  The importance of being able to maintain composure and your case continue to lead effectively if and when you're getting literal daily feedback that, like, we're behind or this isn't going very well, right. There's there's no shortage of evidence. And that's a very unique thing about the industry. You don't always get that. I think there are plenty of other industries where it's much more of a less visible, slow creep type thing, and you kind of look up one day and like, wow.
• 46:09
  Like we, we, you know, we missed on Q2 or like whatever it is like, well, you know, like, yeah, it's right there in front of you. Yeah. And I actually I had a project early on in my career. It was my second project, I believe, where
• 46:20
  it doesn't matter what type of, you know, design builder or construction company you are.
• 46:24
  You're going to have a lot of great projects and you can have projects that are a challenge. And I remember having one specifically where, you know, I was way in over my head, did not have anybody mentor. And it was pretty demoralizing. Go into that experience on my own often. You know, in reality, it was it was one of the few people that kind of made it through that project.
• 46:44
  And it kind of made me question if this is something I wanted to do in the future. And so, you know, it, it aged well. It also was a good learning experience for me to understand, you know, what can happen when things are not well planned, when you don't have a good leadership team on those projects.
• 47:04
  And so at the time, it was really, really tough to go through. But getting through it to the other side and, you know, I learned a lot and benefit a lot from going through those, you know, two years of a valley. I would say, that made me question a lot of things. But again, it goes back to tuition.
• 47:19
  It was the same. I was your tuition is expensive. And so it was expensive.
• 47:24
  But I learned tremendously from that. You learn from your success. You learn from. Yeah, from, you know, from your challenges. Certainly from your challenges. Yeah. That was Ivy League. Sounds like for you maybe, tuition. Yeah. Okay. Well, I know we need to kind of move toward the finish line here.
• 47:40
  As we kind of wrap up. Scott, anything else on your mind that you might want to share about? What you feel like has really, made you guys unique in what is what has really powered the success of, like, of thinking about back to, you know, 1984 of doing $1 million of revenue and now to be a multi-billion dollar company here in 2025, anything that we may be left out that you want to share.
• 48:03
  when you talk about, the future of where we want to go as a company, you know, it goes back to Bob Clark's vision. I would say that he's done a great job of putting people in key leadership positions that have really carried that vision forward and, you know, taking the right kind of ownership in it.
• 48:20
  You know, the the part that's really hard to find. And a really hard to find in an organization. And I really credit with a lot of our success is, there's not a lot of egos at Clark. You know, we do something do really amazing things as a company. But you're able to come in and assimilate very quickly.
• 48:37
  Like, that was one of the things I was very skeptical of when I joined is, you know, how long is it going to take me for how long it's going to take for me to earn trust, you know, in a new with a new team and a new organization. And so, so that goes back to that culture being put in a position where you can succeed.
• 48:53
  And so it's pretty awesome thing when you come into an organization and people have been here 20, 30 years plus you're working alongside those people, as if you've been here that long, you know? And so I'm really excited about our future as an organization. You know, we're going to continue to grow, but ultimately we want to make sure that we're doing right by our clients.
• 49:13
  And, you know, I'm I'm optimistic. Obviously, there are some headwinds right now in the market in the manufacturing space, you know, some geopolitical stuff going on. And but I'm confident we'll get through this chapter. And, and the future is very bright here. And we're going to continue to focus on bringing in the right kind of people, regardless of what's going on in the economy.
• 49:31
  Economically speaking. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because I was going to try to find a way for us to end that way. And you just did it for me with I was going to make the point the, you know, we talked throughout this conversation about the ways in which Clay Co has, prioritized people, agriculture, that's always the right thing to do.
• 49:51
  And it always shows up and hits your bottom line, whether that was your primary objective or not. It's most apparent when it gets hard. And I think you tend to find two types of organizations out there. You have those that when it gets difficult, maybe there's some economical reasons for that with what's going on in the world.
• 50:08
  They have that reaction of like, man, I'm glad we've been doing this right. And then the other types of organizations, you know, where I'm going with this when it gets hard, they have that reaction of like, we should have been doing that all along, because when it gets difficult and those headwinds, as you mentioned, become an increasing challenge for people, that is the primary recipe through which people often kind of fracture and the team fractures and the culture fractures.
• 50:31
  We have an erosion of of emotional well-being and confidence and belief. Well, not if you've got your culture effectively doesn't mean you're immune to those things. It just means that you have created a foundation in a buffer where your odds of success are much higher. Right? And, you know, it's looking back at our history. You know, there's going to be challenges with the market that we work in, of course.
• 50:53
  And all of us, even before I got here, you know, the the kind of downturn that we experienced, you know, our approach to how we, we navigated that was very proactive. And that was that was a pretty, pretty lengthy period before the economy rebounded, more recently in the pandemic stage, when the pandemic initially hit, we had to kind of implement a similar plan, for a period of time.
• 51:15
  And, you know, it's it's easy to be in a situation like that and put all the focus on, on the business and not on the people. And so that's what we want to try and balance is how can we when things get tough, you know, really focus on navigating this challenge, the market, whatever it may be, the adversity that's there, but also still do right by our people because the the last thing we can afford to do is lose our best resource, which is as people.
• 51:41
  Well said. Well, okay. Well, I don't know how many listeners we have that are in need of multi-billion dollar battery plants. However, if they are, they now know who to call for any other project name. No. Thank you for joining us. It's it's encouraging. You know, I'll, I'll kind of finish our entire conversation this way.
• 52:02
  Everybody talks about, hey, culture matters, right?
• 52:08
  Like every everyone says that some people actually try to do something about it. I have found that smaller organizations, find it a little bit easier to do that. And that's kind of common sense. Why a smaller footprint? You know, less people. All right. Like, what's really impressive to me is the fact that you guys are a large organization with thousands of employees located across the country, and they're doing a heck of a job of of valuing what this is.
• 52:37
  And it's it's no shock to me that you guys have had as much success as you have. And I think you've got good reason, as you pointed out, to think there's going to be plenty of that going forward. So, well done by you and Klitschko. Appreciate it. And, you know, it's, I had the opportunity to go through kind of ten for 12 program last year with amylose, which was phenomenal for me personally, to spend that time with your team and you personally through obviously, you're a valuable friend to me, but also getting to experience what you guys do for companies like Lego, is is amazing.
• 53:08
  And it was a tremendous learning opportunity for me and one that is just kind of a reminder, you know, we constantly need outside perspective for us to improve. You know, you can't be insular and continue to improve. You have to get help, you know, from from others outside of you. And, I really appreciate just the time and, thanks for letting me be on the show.
• 53:29
  Awesome and true pleasure. Thank you to our listeners, as always, for joining us. If you are finding these conversations to be helpful and valuable to you and your growth, we always appreciate your reviews on either Spotify or Apple Podcast. You know where to find us. Thank you for tuning in and we will look forward to doing it again next time soon.
• 53:48
  Take care.