Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / 40 Years in Elevators: Lessons from an Industry Veteran | Mark Boelhouwer

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40 Years in Elevators: Lessons from an Industry Veteran | Mark Boelhouwer · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: What surprised me the most was how little I knew about the elevator industry.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um because, you know, let's face it, a company like Otis, there was an HR department, a legal department, a tax department, a risk management department.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's people that took care of things, right?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you get to your own company and you look around the room and it's like, well, is it you or is it me, Bill?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you had to learn an awful lot fast.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you also realize the small companies don't enter into the mathematics of a big company, right?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was a big competitive world out there, and it was an awful lot to do.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was difficult to get started.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: What we didn't plan out was like, hey, we're gonna be really successful, we're gonna really grow this company, and our issue is not like avoiding problems, our issue is gonna be like, who wants to lend this$25 million to each market?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think knowing where you're going and having some realistic scenarios of like not just the bad pays, but really good pays, planning for those was a very early lesson I took away.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Elevated Careers podcast brought to you by the Allred Group.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Matt Allred.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: When talent is mission critical, call the Allred Group.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: With industry expertise, top talent, and exceptional customer service.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: You need the Allred Group on your side.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your priority is our priority.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Call now 404-90045.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is Mark Folkauer, a respected industry leader whose career has been Otis, Oracle Elevator, Vantus, and the founding of American Elevator Group.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Mark has helped shape the modern elevator landscape through hundreds of acquisitions, decades of leadership, and a front row seat to the industry's biggest kick.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, he shares lessons on growth, leadership, talent, and why the future of the elevator business is still full of opportunity.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Mark, welcome to the show.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to you have me.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I I appreciate it.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I know you've been traveling a lot.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was good to uh catch you in at Long Beach a few weeks ago.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh, you know, before you take off again, we can take a few minutes to chat.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So appreciate it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I wanted to just kind of start with you know your your journey into the elevator industry.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: How did you get started in this place?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it's sort of uh like a lot of things in life, uh a lot of serendipity involved and you know, good luck and hard work.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I started as a as an attorney out of law school with uh United Technologies Company, which is the parent company of Otis.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when I graduated from school, I went to work at Otis Elevator, which is uh in Farmington, Connecticut, where I still live.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So if nothing else, you know, it's it's changed my life dramatically.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's where I chose to live, raise my children, have a family.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And Otis, uh, very lucky for me, sent me to Paris, France to be the head of the European, where the European division of Otis was based.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's right before the Soviet Union started to collapse.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: You speak French then?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Was that is that something you had to pick up?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: As bad as I do today, but yeah.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and Otis was an amazing place in Paris.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: There must have been people working there from 50 or 60 different countries.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it really was a I'll say it wrong, a Tower of Babel, right?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Where and English was the common language.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: So my my French did not improve uh because your the currency was English all day long.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, uh it was a very active period for Otis.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Otis, of course, very well known.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: They always have said they want to be first in every market.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think they still do business in every country they're allowed to.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: We did lots of acquisitions throughout Europe and the Soviet Union at that time.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Extremely exciting time.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I came back to the United States, came back to Farmington, Connecticut.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Otis bought a company called Delta Elevator in Boston, and that was the start of buying almost 100 elevator companies that I went on to lead called North American Elevator Services for the next 15 years.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we built a$400 million company, and I stopped being a lawyer and started being a head of that division.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh was very lucky for me.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something I wanted to do at the time, but I was encouraged to do.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So when you when you came on as an attorney, obviously UTC is a huge company, but they they basically said, well, we want you in Otis and and we want you on the acquisition team.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you you pretty much did that all the way through.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is that that correct?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: That would just become part of part of what you did every day.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's been part of who I've been for the last 40 years.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm not completely immodest.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have skills.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I'm particularly good at MA.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've gone, I don't even know, I've lost track.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get a lot of people.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: You've had a lot of practice, is what I'm hearing, right?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's you're I probably bought bought or sold around 300 elevator companies in my lifetime, and it's what I enjoy.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, the expression if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's variations on that, right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So for sure.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Left left to my own devices, I will go buy another elevator company.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I got that chance from Otis, and that was wonderful.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and in the E9 Technologies was a big company, global company, exactly, yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Carrier air conditioner and Pratt Whitney jet engines, of course, the helicopters, a lot, a lot of a lot of clout.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, lot of a lot of different directions you could have gone.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um I just remember back in my college days, you know, there was uh, you know, looking ahead and looking at these big companies, right?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So many divisions.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: At any point did you say, you know what, I think I'm gonna work for Otis for a couple years and maybe I'll pop over to Pratt and Whitney and then I'll go over to, you know, Carrier or whatever.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Did that ever cross your mind?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or did you just kind of get get situated with Otis and you're like, no, this is where it's at?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think that's an excellent question.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, with these big companies, there clearly was an expectation within United Technologies that if you really wanted to get promoted, you would change and go from Otis to Sikorsky Helicopter or whatever other division as the next logical step so that you become more well-rounded in matters United Technologies.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: However, in my case, um I kind of got kicked out of the legal department when I discovered how much I enjoyed being on the operating side of the business, you know, uh the running of day-to-day.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And like I think you probably I I listened to some parts of some other talks you've had, Matt, with you know, really talented and people with with worthy careers.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you just uh you kind of go where where it feels, you know, it feels right.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing I will tell people about the elevator business, and I'm sure you've heard this, is that somehow you kind of know early on if that's what you're gonna do, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it either embraces you, which sounds you know, kind of like out there, but you you kind of figure out if you're an elevator person or not.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then once you do, once you get in this business, it's hard to leave.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I see a lot of the younger people at the show, like we were there together.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, if you're there past 30 and you've got five years in, you know, it's not that big a leap of faith to see yourself as someone in their 60s like me that spent their whole career doing.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably gonna still be there.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the way I say it sometimes is it gets in your blood.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like there's nowhere else you want to be, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna be here because I love it, love the people, love the the market, the industry, and there's nothing else I want to do.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I firmly believe uh that I could go anywhere in the world today, uh, either for social or professional.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just call up most other elevator companies and say, hey, I'm in town, I'd like to visit you, or even, hey, I could use a little help.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in a little bit of trouble here in this country for whatever reasons, right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that community would respond, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a pretty tight global community.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always been enjoyable.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I've heard that internationally.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't experimented internationally to go to Germany and call an elevator company.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not, you know, I'm not uh as knowledgeable as somebody like yourself that's that's been in the trenches for years and years, but I've heard people talk about that, right?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Moving from had one gentleman, you know, moved from uh Australia, was traveling through Europe and and was able to get jobs and you know, work for different companies and and all kinds of really cool experiences just because he had the knowledge and had worked in Australia.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, all right, you're part of the club, you're part of the family, then you know, welcome.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, you know, I I I at one point uh pre-children, my wife and I visited Australia.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: I called up some counterpart or similar role at the Australian headquarters, and they said, Oh yeah, come on over.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's uh it was something called they called Thirsty Thursdays, which meant that every Thursday that had a day of the month that ended in a five meant you could start drinking at one o'clock.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he said you better get here by 1 30 because if if you don't, you're gonna be three, four beers behind.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So not that they don't work hard there, and this this was the 90s, maybe a different time, but the nicest group of people, we you know, we still end up talking elevators forever till like probably 10 o'clock at night.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So sure.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's awesome.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's a nice community.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's it is amazing.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and obviously you've you've stayed in it for the the 40 years.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So what what is it you're doing these days?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you worked at Otis for many years, you uh built Oracle, you built AEG, uh Vantage, GL, and some of those.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: But uh what what do you find yourselves doing these science find yourself doing these days?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's nice of you to ask, Matt.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm still involved with the company I started in 2020 called American Elevator Group.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um American Elevator Group was that name didn't exist at the time.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and you know the timing was kind of interesting being on the cusp of COVID.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea was to build a nationwide elevator service company, sort of like what I'd done with Oracle, but even on a bigger scale.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I want I didn't I didn't want to do that forever.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I did it for five years.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: We built, you know, American Elevator Group to be a 350 million a year service company in 25 states.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm no longer the CEO, but I'm on the board and the founder, and I have significant interest in uh the well-being of the company and nurturing the people there and and growing that company.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm very active with that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh the fun thing for me is, and kind of nice to some of your listeners if they're you know towards the end of their career versus the beginning, is there there's still uh a lot of demand for people that have experience, no matter what their their age is.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I always thought, you know, as a young person that you hit 55, you became unmarketable.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're far more knowledgeable on these topics than I am, Matt.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: But but it's not the case.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: People really want to take advantage of it.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm on the I'm on the board of um two other private equity outfits.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: One owns companies in the facility management space, and one in, believe it or not, the adult sports league space.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: These don't these are not elevator related at all, but you know, they do acquisitions and they have people issues and they grow and they have uh you know all kinds of similarities.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I gotta say, it's been very enjoyable to apply what I've learned from all the people and issues in the elevator trade to different trades.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: It would be fascinating to see just how much you know is is obviously transferable skills, but also transferable the knowledge, right?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that this happened here.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, people issues are gonna happen in any business, right?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so so much of what you've learned elsewhere can be brought right in and and applied.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the people issues is a good one, right?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's even though all the basic frameworks for what the issues look like are the same, you know, it's always people, and you know that that that that that's what always keeps a job interesting, right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Getting the right people and keeping them engaged and all of those things, yeah.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and the dynamics are different, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: The business is different.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got somebody who's acting up, but it's uh the situation's gonna be different and their coworkers are different.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it always always keeps it interesting and uh never never a dull moment when it comes to the people issues.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I did want to ask a little bit.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You uh you uh you know mentioned thought maybe at 55 people become unmarketable, but I'm curious for your your thoughts on this because what I'm seeing is so many knowledgeable and experienced people getting ready to retire, got 40, 50 years under their belt and and the pain that causes when when somebody walks out the door and it's like, wow, we we can't get that back.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I know a gentleman in his 70s, late 70s, you know, I asked him if he's gonna retire.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I've tried twice and they keep paying me to answer my phone, right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if if nothing else, I'm I'm answering questions, I'm helping people troubleshoot or solve problems, um, and they're paying me to keep my phone on.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: But what's your experience with exactly that?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: People leaving and taking that knowledge.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that's a great question.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, you know, if you do the calculus, run the numbers on having, let's just say, a 65-year-old mod supervisor, um, you know, who I will put up there as one of the most important, hard to replace persons in any elevator company, versus you know, training a new person to get them up to speed with the judgment and with all of the cliches about younger people and what they're being taught these days and all that.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna keep that, you're gonna keep that person from retiring as long as you possibly can.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I do remember various cycles in my career where we were actively pushing those people out the door, maybe not for the smartest reasons, but because they were higher paid than the younger people and they were eventually going to retire.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: But now they're, you know, they they can make personal decisions, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I I find most of the people that will cry those crocodile tears about being forced to stay and not being allowed to retire.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's of course uh it's a consensual relationship.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the trick is trying to find an environment and a work cadence for them that allows you to pull out all the good value from them without letting them stack rails or anything like that anymore.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, no, I mean I think it's a great market to be in.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you tell me, Matt, I think when I was when I was CEO of Vantage for those years and doing business with every service company in North America, I literally would get one call a day from a customer, which was great.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they would always finish with some variation on hey, if you have a mod team that you know is looking for work, then I'm like, oh yeah, they're just growing on trees back here in the parking lot in the Bronx, you know.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean that that knowledgeable is is so invaluable, and I think that's part of the reason that that it's hard to let it go.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard, it's part of the reason that I think so many people stay, is is once you've put in the time, the effort, the energy, you've learned you can kind of write your ticket so many different ways, right?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, there's uh there's a lot of value in that knowledge.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I don't know how many of the conversations you've had with people that are gonna be way smarter than I am about you know what AI is gonna do uh to our industry and and things like that.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm a novice on those kind of thoughts, right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: But um I do think though, when people talk about what's gonna happen in the elevator trade, we're kind of in a at least for what I can see, a really good situation vis-a-vis AI, because they AI is gonna be able to find a way to do things like examine lots of data and give us better and faster answers and doing the stuff that we never have time to do.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's can think about things, but it's never it's never gonna change the oil in a in a machine room.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's never gonna get on a card top, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for a profession and you're a young person, I think elevator is a pretty pretty good place to be.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't see our jobs going away.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of efficiencies that can be captured, but somebody's gotta still get there and do the work, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's gotta be done.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um well let's let's talk for a minute about uh a little bit earlier on in your career.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm curious what surprised you the most early on as you got into the industry and um, you know, looking at it from outside perspective, of course, and what is this?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: What is this thing?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want to stay here?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you know, I think we touched on a little bit, you know, what what I was really surprised about because I had um I had a lot of formal education.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I wasn't even gonna be a lawyer.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: I had an an MA in economics and an MBA, and then I got my law degree, so my father-in-law was pretty convinced I was gonna stay in school till I was in my 30s.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not really it wasn't at least in the late 80s, a field that um uh that had a lot of formal education, right?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the profiles were, you know, uh super smart people, hardworking people that um generally had worked for an OE an OEM or as I prefer to call them, Matt, the foreign multinationals.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So um the uh was the acceptance you could find, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, uh people were very, you know, they were competitive, but you know, helpful and wanted to push careers.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And well, you know, we'll I'm sure we'll talk about the NAC later through vehicles like that.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: You really had a real chance to dive in with both hands and really further yourself in learning the industry, and people were very willing to help you out.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this may be true in other industries, I just not smart enough to know.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've only known one.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the elevator was great in terms of finding mentors and people that were there willing to help you, you know, get along.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that that was that was such a pleasant thing.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that amazed me was maybe from a personality, personal disposition, or just you know, not having any kind of training background in elevators or even knowledge of basic electricity or any of that, was how easy it was to come and ask questions and also to find out there was still a lot of room for improvement in the elevator trade.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: People do things in our trade because that's the way it's been done.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's still the case today.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, those are nice surprises.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: There was still work to be done, and there was lots of ways to get ahead and enjoy yourself with great people.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've been impressed, having worked in other industries as well.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's I've not found one myself that's that's as open or or that people are as willing to answer questions and help educate.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I'm curious, you know, once you kind of got in and and um realized, okay, here I am, elevator industry.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: How long before you you started to realize, hey, I think I'm gonna spend my life here?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Did it did it take months or years, or you know, when when did things really click for you?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think I think I'd been in about um five years.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh I was sort of wearing two hats as a lawyer doing the deals, and then also like the number two in charge of managing these companies after we bought them, and then you know, from a big company point of view, they want their lawyers to be objective and not be part of the deal team, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and as much as I took offense to the fact that I couldn't be objective, it was the right idea.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I was forced to make a decision whether to continue with a legal department, probably as you correctly noted before leaving and going to a carrier, air conditioning kind of thing.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, I then I went home and I talked to my wife and I said, gosh, I can't imagine anything's gonna be any more fun.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't very lucrative.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: MODIS in the 80s and 90s was a great place to work, it wasn't the high pay place to work, but it was it was good and it's solid, you know, solid day.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it was then.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I said, okay, I'm gonna make a commitment to elevators, and um honestly, you know, the they say the unexamined life, something is not worth living, but I've never I've never looked back down death decision or questioned that ever.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that was gonna be my next question, right?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ever look back?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like, nah, you know, I yeah, you could you could still be in the legal department somewhere else, and and not having accomplished what you have, which you've obviously made a huge impact on the elevator industry and a lot of different companies and and a lot of people's lives for that matter.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you uh it sounds like you quickly spy that, hey, I need to go where my heart is, and and I'm gonna have a lot more fun doing that.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think, you know, um part of part of the equation there, and I'm not really plugging Otis over anyone else.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Otis is the only one I knew for the first, you know, significant chunk of my career.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: O Otis really, and I suspect does today, you you know, really fostered, hey, we're number one in the world, we're a global company, we got great values, we got great product.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, why would you want to work for anybody else?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of, you know.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it worked.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Drank the Kool-Aid, enjoyed it, and um and uh, you know, and it, you know, it was a global company.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was exciting.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm sure you, you know, you'll meet people at the conference, a lot of us, a lot of people in the NAC today or the independent world, or probably a lot of your clients have come from one of the larger organizations, right?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it's great training, you know.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's a great place to learn and yeah, kind of see it from a from a high perspective.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: So at some point though, you decided, hey, I'm gonna leave this and go start Oracle.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: What was it that spurred that uh that courage?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it would take a bit of courage to jump ship and say, hey, let's go create something new.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're you're you're being very charitable with that.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: So really, if I look back on that, Otis uh and I, you know, for the life of me, I can't remember the per particular.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Of what happened in the economy in 2003, but there must have been a downturn in the construction cycle, along with significant upper management changes at Otis, so that my boss and then unknown at the time, soon to be my partner at Oracle Elevator, left.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, Otis decided that it would be instead of having two elevator companies in one town, the one I ran, and plus an Otis, that they would merge them all together.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: I still feel like that was the wrong decision, uh, and not one that I wanted to do because of all the families that were impacted by that decision.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I left and with Bill Miller, who uh was this had been the president of Otis, and among other things, uh, we started Oracle Elevator, you know, not because of a desire to really get out there and start our own company as much as a reaction and to kind of thought, well, we we could do this a lot better, right, without having a big company behind us.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't a true act of heroism at all.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was not quite self-preservation, but I had young kids, I needed a job, and uh do something.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: They they had helped you out the door, it sounds like, and it's like, all right, where's my next door?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to create it.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a great spouse, right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, because I went from a really decent living to no income for quite a few years as we built the equity and in Oracle elevator.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that was perhaps a little courageous, maybe overstating it.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, it was a chance, right?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, for sure.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: If I was 40 years old, it was it was the right time to do it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you know a bit about that, right?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: You've taken a chance, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, been there, yeah, starting from from zero and and trying to figure out you know what's what's next.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what what surprised you most as you were starting Oracle?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were starting, obviously you'd been at one of the majors, uh, a union company, and said, hey, let's start a non-union, a large one, right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna acquire other companies.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious what you learned from that that maybe surprised you the most.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, what surprised me the most was how little I knew about the elevator industry.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, let's face it, a company like Otis, if I had a problem with uh, oh, let's just say like a sales tax, we didn't file a quarterly sales tax in Mississippi.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: There was someone that took care of that, right?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there was an HR department, a legal department, a tax department, a risk management department.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: You've worked for a big company, you know, there's people that took care of things, right?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you get to your own company and you got to buy your own healthcare insurance, and you have to provide for educational training for all your employees.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you look around the room and it's like, well, is it you or is it me, Bill?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: You quickly quickly became those departments, it sounds like.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: You had to learn, you had to learn an awful lot fast.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you also realized uh, because a big company is a little oblivious to all the little companies.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: A good friend of mine who was subsequent president of Otis always came and spoke.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: When I was president of the NAC, came and spoke to the we were in a budget crunch, so I got him to be our breakfast speaker.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, look, you know, we think of most of you guys as Riffraf, which got a good laugh and uh, you know, a little harsh, but it it, you know, the the small companies don't enter into the into the mathematics of a big company, right?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I bet you today, even today in a lot of large cities, an OEM employee could have named the other local independents all that well, you know.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so it was it was a big competitive world out there, and it was an awful lot to do.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was difficult to get started, and and then the other thing we learned was being trained as a lawyer to maybe think about the downside of things.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say the big mistake we made back then was you didn't we didn't plan for the upside.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me more about that.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't plan for the upside.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you know, you want to make sure you go you go to the take these seminars, hey, you have to make sure you have enough working capital, you have you know insurance, you don't want to put your mortgage on the line, all these things for when you're starting a smaller company.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what we didn't plan on was like, hey, we're gonna be really successful.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna really grow this company.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And our issue is not like avoiding problems, our issue is gonna be like, who wants to lend us, you know,$25 million so we can grow?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: And what kind of financial statements and operating systems do we have, right?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were quite happy, like saying, oh my gosh, we just added 500 elevators on service last year.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing, right?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing where you're going and having some realistic scenarios of like not just a bad case, but the really good case, and doing a modicum of planning for those was a very early lesson I took away uh and was happy to know when I started AEG, which was to say, like, yeah, I know it's gonna be it's gonna be bigger than we than we might anticipate, is what I'm hearing.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're not gonna be a hundred million dollar company by the end of the first year.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be a$350 million company.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um so that was that was good.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure I you know what we're talking about anymore, Matt.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but that was kind of the thing at Oracle.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and and you know, the times were good, although you know, we had the the financial crisis again in 2010.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that I've lived through my last significant downturn or COVID event or tariff or whatever.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're always gonna happen, but yeah, yeah.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's that that is an interesting comment, just that you gotta plan for the worst, but you gotta plan for the best.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh sounds like sometimes it's it's bigger than you would have guessed.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that that putting food on the table isn't isn't the biggest issue.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you say, coming up with how do we how do we scale this and keep it healthy and well and and unchecked growth can can sometimes be a problem, right?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: It can implode if you're not on top of it, watching you know the finances and the the people issues and everything that goes with that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, thank you.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um got a few more questions before we wrap up.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of them is what would you say is one of the biggest lessons you've learned throughout your career?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've already talked about it, right?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I just wanted to, you know, as you kind of look back over 40 years and biggest lessons.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I learned this lesson a lot earlier than what I did.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I was um I was no longer a lawyer, I was running a division this division of Otis called North American Elevator Services, and I was all over myself in terms of like, you know, um really young to be a vice president at Otis.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and I was also fairly miserable because you know, we'd really grown the company to about 300 million, and you know, was kind of like it was kind of like the ugly cousin to a lot of Otis, right?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: We were independents, and um, so a lot of it was us against the world, or at least I felt that way.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um and you know, I owned a lot of independents who had great marketing and business skills, right?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: But they didn't have the training to do monthly financials for an Otis elevator and things like that.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was trying to do a lot myself and Mike and probably doing all the bad words that you hear about that you're not supposed to do, you know, not delegating, micromanaging, etc.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: etc.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember I came home, uh, it must have been I think Christmas 2002, and I got really sick, some kind of fever, you know, cold at the end of the year.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and this part is true.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of had an epiphany, probably in a fever dream, which was like, this is not working, right?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is absolutely not working.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm miserable, my wife's miserable, probably everybody who works for me is miserable.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I came out of that and I said, the only way this is really gonna work for me as a first human being and for me as a company is to is to make sure that that we recognize, again, a lot of things I say are cliches, but that this is a team effort, right?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you're only as good as your team, and you're gonna have to let go, uh, and you're gonna have to make sure that your focus is making sure your team succeeds, not that they're making you succeed.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, variations on that.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, that came in you know, 15 years into my career, and I think, gosh, boy, if I had picked that up when I was 30, um who knows?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, it sounds like it's absolute gold to learn that, and yet it almost sounds like it it kind of takes you to a breaking point to learn it, right?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even if somebody tried to teach you that at 30, could you have embraced it?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I I've been thinking about this in the scheme of looking.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: You say you look back on your career, right?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even in your personal life, if you got children, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you have those young kids, people say, like, make sure you enjoy it, it goes by fast.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, oh my God, this seems like a lifetime already, right?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then you wake up and they're 25, 30 years old, and you're like, oh my gosh, that went bypass, right?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you you hear the advice from people, right?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Matt, but are they ready?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Are you ready to accept it in a meaningful sense, right?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think uh something can be worked on the messaging on that, perhaps, but yeah, but you don't take it.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't take it or or you or you wish you'd paid more attention to it.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Until it becomes personal, it's almost like it there's no room.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I'm no, I'm no different, right?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are lessons I wish I'd learned earlier, but it's like now this for me it had to hurt.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had to land on my face a few times to learn how to tie my shoelaces, and maybe it's uh a similar situation where it it has to hurt before you can really get it.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's well said.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: What um as as you look to the future, what would you say is the most exciting thing about the future of the industry?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that there's gonna be uh, you know, I'm not a physicist, right?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there's theory that explains the universe at the highest, biggest level, and then there's the the stuff that's you know, the quantum that that that explains the activity at the smallest level, right?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I think what's exciting about elevators is is there's always gonna be an elevator service company in your town, right?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um and what we're doing today is gonna be what's gonna be for 40 years from now.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I bought like 12 companies in 1989, and my boss at the time went on to be my partner in the future, Bill Miller, said, Well, you what are you gonna do when there's no more elevator companies to buy?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Well, I don't know.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll figure that out when we get there.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: And sitting here, you know, 35 years later, there's just as many elevator companies now as there were then.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: That just that that equation has not changed at all, right?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they seem to pop up, right?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as one gets acquired, three or four more pop up to replace it, right?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh, you know, in your Greek mythology, your multi-headed hydra, you chop one off, and then you know, two more grow in its place.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's pretty exciting.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: The industry is always gonna stay vibrant.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, with with the transformation of the information in this world, I mean, even I can get on Chat GBT and get an answer to something pretty quickly, right?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not like knowledge is precious.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're willing to put the hard work and you got a passion, you're gonna be able to make a good living and enjoy the elevator field.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's gonna need it, right?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting older.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um now in the big field, there's gonna be some crazy consolidation going on.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the world's getting smaller, uh, despite blips or things like there's unfortunately there's appears to always gonna be war, but um, but you know, I mean, you know, there's arguably six, seven large elevator companies, probably on the verge of losing one shortly if LNET is to be believed, Matt.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and um the same is true on technology as as codes and things get harmonized and people start working close together.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of it's kind of exciting.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've enjoyed personally being involved with European companies and owning one, but they're not they're not dramatically different.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: And someday someone's gonna start puzzling and putting all that together as well.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's kind of exciting.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I'm not gonna touch the AI, I don't know where it takes us, but yeah, yeah.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: What what would you say are some of the risks or concerns that you see as you look forward it that you know it'd be good for people to be aware of?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not sure that I have any special insight on that.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think uh, you know, some of the things we talked about before with respect to the elevator industry is that you know, you sit you're always gonna have the risk with large companies that they're gonna do something stupid every 10 years, right?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: And lose your job.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you you gotta stay current, right?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, hard work goes a long way towards that.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think I think I even in one of the interviews I've listened listened to that you've done in the past, right?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the thing about the elevator business is it's not necessarily hard, but it is a lot of hard work.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: So don't you know, don't substitute not being hard with not like having to put a lot of hours in, right?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And look, I I lived through lived through it, sounds like it was a hardship, but look, I when we started, right?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna sound like your grandparents, but there were no cell phones, right?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we learned the cell phone, we had to learn laptops, we had to learn the internet, right?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: And these are all shocks to the system and the way things were done, right?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and Internet of Things, right?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And now we got AI, and it's all all these things change our jobs and what we do meaningfully.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you gotta make the investments to stay young and keep up with that, I think.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I would say, right?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you can stay passionate about what you do, work hard, uh, and always make the investment in yourself.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just don't make your sales plan that year.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Take that class on accounting for dummies or or basics of troubleshooting or what whatever fills that niche to make you more valuable and and your job more interesting.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that and that is a piece I see over and over is those who invest in themselves in their future really have so many opportunities, right?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: They can go so many different directions because there's a lot they can do.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're the their knowledge is valuable and people are gonna hunt them down and beg them not to retire or whatever, whatever the case may be.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: So um so uh final question then, and and again, maybe it's a little bit of a repeat, but any any final advice you would give to somebody who's maybe starting out, you know, maybe they're coming right out of college, maybe they're an attorney, maybe they're a business major, but what's a golden gem you'd give them as they start in the industry or or can are considering it right now?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, when I got to Vantage, I said to you all the people that my goals were simple, right?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um Vantage, of course, was G A L and Hollister, you know, run by a fabled elevator family for decades and decades.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: And who was I to come into something like that?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Just like you're a you're a kid, you know, you're a young woman or man, you're 23, you're entering the elevator.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: It could be it could feel daunting depending on your circumstances, right?
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, rule number one, I always said was do no harm, right?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sit back, listen, learn, work, you know, work hard, put the time in, get to know your colleagues and your other people.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Two was let's do some good.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: So what once you feel like you have an assessment, do some good, right?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Don't always wear, you know, always be the good person, right?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, don't don't take shortcuts ethically or morally or at the expense of other people for your career because it's gonna be a long one.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you're 25, 30, you're not thinking long term very strategically.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you want to wake up, you know, and whether I'm that person or not doesn't really matter, but I like to think I am that at 65, you know, people are like, yeah, I was a good guy.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: He did what he said, you know, worked hard, kept all those things.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so do some good.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: And three, you know, enjoy yourself, right?
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: None of none of the hard work or doing all these other things means that you can't enjoy yourself every day.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: You think about it, I don't know, you know better than I do, Matt.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: You do this for a living with people and placing people, but you know, a third of your life is work, you know, at the end of the day when you tally it all up.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: If that was like a void of no fun and no enjoyment, then boy, that's kind of sad, right?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: So keep it simple.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you gotta love what you do, and if you don't love what you do, maybe it's it's time to find something different.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: But my experience is there's a there's a lot of good here in this space.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you learn it and and love it, then stick with it, and like you say, do some good.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for being with me today.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I appreciate it, enjoyed the conversation.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you very much, Matt.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed it as well.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I appreciate it.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Safe travels, and uh, we'll chat again.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Please like and subscribe, and until next time, stay safe.