Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Servant Leadership in Manufacturing: Ed Determan's Approach at Pallet Service Corporation | Manufacturing Series

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Servant Leadership in Manufacturing: Ed Determan's Approach at Pallet Service Corporation | Manufacturing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:17
today's guest is Ed Dennerman, plant manager at Pallet Service
0:21
Corporation PSC. They have been a trusted wood
0:25
product supplier for over 50 years, offering new, recycled
0:29
and remanufactured pallets along with custom crating and
0:33
recycling services across multiple locations in Minnesota
0:37
and Wisconsin. Now, Ed has been managing plant
0:40
operations at PSC since 2011, overseeing safety initiatives
0:44
and implementing efficiency projects that have boosted
0:47
performance. Before joining PSC, he led
0:51
shipping operations at Sealy and managed the lumber yard at
0:54
Menards, gaining valuable experience in logistics and team
0:58
building. Under Ed's guidance, PSC reduced
1:01
lost time, injuries, facilitated a cutting edge inventory ERP
1:06
system, and upgraded production equipment without extra labor.
1:11
He also supervised a major plant remodel at Sealy, finishing
1:15
ahead of schedule and demonstrating his leadership
1:18
skills. Now before we get into all that
1:21
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
1:52
today, the plant manager at PSC Pallet Service Corporation's Ed
1:56
Determan. I appreciate you making the time
1:58
to Share your story today. I appreciate you having me.
2:01
Thank you. Absolutely.
2:03
So, Ed, how did the opportunity to join PSC first come about?
2:10
I was working at Sealy Tempurpedic.
2:15
I was the shipping and receiving lead at that point.
2:19
And the plant Superintendent, his name was John Roberts.
2:27
He wasn't at the time, but shortly after he he became my
2:33
mentor and we're still very close friends, but he got an
2:39
opportunity to run pallet service, Maple Grove facility
2:44
and within a month of him leaving Seeley and taking that
2:51
role, he he poached me and brought me over as a supervisor.
2:57
Gotcha. And so how many facilities does
2:59
PSC have? We currently have 4.
3:03
OK. And are you doing the same thing
3:05
at each location or the services, the products a little
3:08
bit different? It is a little bit different at
3:11
each location. Each each location has something
3:16
unique to itself. We have two in Minnesota and two
3:21
in Wisconsin. The facility that that I run and
3:26
operate, all we do is cut the components for pallets.
3:30
So we don't actually build any pallets.
3:34
And so you get the lumber in, you're cutting it into the right
3:38
dimensions and then you're shipping it where?
3:42
We're shipping it all over the mainly the Midwest.
3:45
We go a little bit outside the Midwest, but a majority of it is
3:49
the Midwest. We were originally back in 2011
3:53
when we opened this facility, it was originally supposed to just
3:57
be like a distribution Center for the other two facilities
4:00
that were actually building pallets.
4:03
And we quickly realized that we had more capacity than what we
4:09
really needed to service those two facilities.
4:12
So we started dabbling and selling to other pellet
4:15
manufacturers in the area and that really took off and turned
4:18
into a huge business for us. So if somebody is an outsider,
4:22
I've never been inside a facility, it seems to me like,
4:26
well, why wouldn't everybody just cut their own lumber and
4:30
put it together? Clearly it's more complicated
4:33
than that. It is you, it's not difficult to
4:36
find and and buy the equipment. There's, there's a lot of
4:39
different brands and manufacturers out there that
4:42
sell pallet component cutting equipment.
4:48
But the real trick is getting good and efficient at it because
4:53
there's so little margin in the lumber itself that if you're not
5:00
efficient at it, your labor costs are going to just swallow
5:03
it all up. And so a lot of smaller pallet
5:06
manufacturers, they, they just can't get efficient enough or
5:10
keep it running long enough for it to pay for itself.
5:13
And it's actually cheaper for them to go find the component
5:17
somewhere else. It's really interesting to me
5:19
because obviously there's extra freight involved, right?
5:23
I mean, by the time the cut lumber gets to whoever's going
5:26
to assemble it, there's been the freight of the raw lumber
5:29
getting shipped to you and then you guys have to cut it and
5:33
you've got your, you know, own margins to make there.
5:35
And then there's the additional freight of now having to ship it
5:38
out again. But the efficiencies, what I'm
5:40
think I'm hearing you say the efficiencies that you guys are
5:43
able to bring to the table and labor and I'm guessing also like
5:48
lack of material waste makes this cheaper for folks to to
5:54
just buy from you and do the assembly part themselves only.
5:58
Yep. And then the third part to that
6:00
pyramid is we have a sales team that are so good at cultivating
6:09
relationships that they've been able to get into some bigger
6:13
lumber mills that most pallet manufacturers can't get into
6:17
because they're not big enough, they're not well known enough.
6:20
So we've we've gotten into these mills and we built these
6:24
relationships. And so we're we're able to bring
6:28
in volumes of lumber that that most others aren't at, at
6:33
potential cheaper prices. Are you guys impacted or likely
6:39
to be impacted by any tariff talks that are going on?
6:42
Yeah, yeah. You get this question a lot.
6:44
Yeah, yes and, and no, it's, it's, we're, we're really just
6:49
kind of riding the wave to see what's what's going to happen.
6:54
It, it could benefit us because a lot of my competition for
6:58
pallet componentry is out of Canada.
7:02
And so that portion of it could potentially help us, but a lot
7:07
of the raw material that we use comes from Canada.
7:10
So I don't know if it's going to be a gain or a loss or a wash or
7:14
or what. Just some uncertainty right now
7:17
is sort of the best way to put it.
7:18
Yeah. OK.
7:20
So when you got poached from Sealy to come over to PSC,
7:24
remind me again the the position that you came in at?
7:27
I came in at the first shift, 1st shift Gunnail supervisor was
7:35
my title. OK.
7:37
And now you've worked your way up to plant manager.
7:40
So you've correct, you're overseeing the entire shop
7:42
operation. Yep.
7:45
How many sort of steps along the way inside of PSC were there
7:50
before you got to where you are today?
7:52
So I was that, that first shift supervisor for about 8 months
7:58
and pretty much the same time that I got hired was the same
8:03
time that they opened the Little Canada facility and they just
8:06
started bringing machinery in. And we're kind of trying to make
8:09
it take off. And they had a, a hiccup with
8:17
the leader that they had put in place and they needed to refill
8:22
that spot. And so they, they offered me an
8:25
opportunity to come over as the production manager.
8:30
And at that time, it was just 8 employees.
8:33
The, the building itself and the property was still owned by
8:38
Drywall Supply and we were leasing from them.
8:43
And then shortly after I got here that that relationship
8:47
flipped to where they were leasing from us.
8:50
We had bought the property they were leasing from us and then
8:52
they eventually moved out a couple months later.
8:56
And then once they moved out, that gave us a lot more space to
8:59
be able to upgrade the production floor and start to
9:02
grow that a little bit more. And within the first two years
9:09
of being here, we went from those eight employees up to
9:14
close to 3032. So it was a real rapid growth.
9:19
And it sounds like that rapid growth came about with the
9:21
realization that you didn't just have to supply these components
9:25
to, you know, PSC sort of internally at the different
9:29
locations there were you you had extra capacity and there were a
9:32
lot of other folks out there that could benefit from what you
9:34
had. Correct.
9:35
Yep. And so you put a, a salesperson
9:39
on, hey, let's start calling people, let's start finding the
9:42
folks that maybe like our competitors that you know.
9:45
That was, that was kind of the unique part was we, we've been
9:51
dabbling in it long enough that that we really didn't need to go
9:56
out and pound doors. There were people asking for it
9:59
and we were just trying to catch up with the curb to fulfill it.
10:03
And it wasn't up until a couple of years ago that we actually
10:07
got to the point where we said, OK, we we actually need to go
10:10
out and aggressively find business.
10:12
Wow, you'd spent that much time just trying to catch up with the
10:16
demand that already existed? Correct.
10:18
That's fascinating. And so now in the last couple of
10:21
years as you're going out to look for new business, what does
10:24
that process look like for you guys?
10:27
I, I, I can't really speak to it a whole lot.
10:30
I, I, I deal with sales from a capacity standpoint and telling
10:37
them what we, what we can achieve and, and kind of where
10:40
we are in that plan as far as filling or not filling it.
10:44
But from their end, I know that we've, we've definitely added to
10:51
our sales team the last couple of years And I know that we have
10:53
a couple of salesman that didn't necessarily grandfather into
11:00
accounts. They were basically hired to go
11:03
out and cold call and start knocking on on doors and and
11:08
expanding a little bit because like I said, we're we're mainly
11:11
in the Midwest, but we're starting to dabble in in and
11:14
outreach to the rest of the United States.
11:18
You know what, actually, maybe we'll take a step back real
11:20
quick and I presume that everybody listening understands
11:23
what a palette is, but maybe that's not a safe assumption to
11:27
make. Can you just give a real basic
11:29
definition of what what a palette is, what it's used for?
11:32
Yeah. So there's really, there's
11:36
really just a handful of different types of of what we
11:39
call a standard pallet. The the most common is a a GMA
11:44
and that is basically a 40 inch by 48 inch pallet that has three
11:49
runners and then a bottom deck. And that's there's multiple
11:55
different grades of a GMA, but that is typically what I would
12:03
say 60% of manufacturers are using to ship their products on
12:09
within that, that class of pallet.
12:12
You get into the, the recycle. So some are buying new and
12:17
you're rebuilding to new and then some are are OK with
12:21
reusing older pallets. And so that's where you get into
12:26
fixing damaged boards and then creating it based on how bad
12:31
that pallet really is. And there's different price
12:34
points to each. So basically it's a platform
12:38
that people can use to move their products around.
12:43
It's a sort of a, a shipping platform so that it's easy for
12:47
people to get a tow motor forklift underneath and move
12:50
this heavy collection of items, put it onto a truck or you know,
12:53
onto some shelving, etcetera. And so you mentioned that you've
12:59
got new and you've got sort of these rebuilt is in what
13:03
circumstances would somebody say, oh, I have to have new, I
13:06
don't want rebuilt 'cause it's not like, correct me if I'm
13:10
wrong, like these aren't going to, they're not sitting out at
13:14
trade shows, right? There's not like a, a cosmetic
13:17
appeal to these. This is like forming.
13:19
This is like function. Correct.
13:21
But there definitely is a line or a market that says we, we do
13:29
need it to, to be new and we need it to be clean.
13:34
So a lot of food grade type of industries or medical type of
13:41
industries, they are very particular about the, the type
13:45
of pallet that they get. You can't, you can't have bark
13:49
or wane from the board, can't have mold.
13:53
A lot of them, I mean, they don't even want to see any
13:55
sawdust from the the the cutting of the material.
14:00
And we've had customers in the past that are have been so
14:03
detailed about that, that they would lay out a white sheet on
14:07
the floor and the dock as they're unloading our stack of
14:10
pallets and they'll take the first couple and just drop them
14:14
on that white sheet to see how much dust actually falls off.
14:18
Wow, I had no idea. I I think of pallets and the
14:22
environments. I've seen them.
14:23
They're rugged, they're dirty, they're getting the job done.
14:25
But nobody's taking a white glove to him.
14:28
So it's interesting to hear that.
14:30
Yeah, of course, there's a market for that kind of thing.
14:32
Food. Medical, right?
14:33
Yep, and then the other end of the spectrum, we do business
14:38
with some sod farmers that you could have mushrooms growing on
14:47
the side of the pallet. They don't care as long as
14:49
they're paying the absolute cheapest price.
14:51
Yeah, Yeah. That's good to be able to
14:54
service those different ends. And so as you're manufacturing
14:57
the boards for sort of these different use cases, are there
15:01
different parts of your manufacturing facility where,
15:06
OK, hey, this is where we do sort of the the medical grade or
15:10
is that you can kind of process them all on the same machinery?
15:13
No, you can process them all on the same machinery.
15:17
OK, Yeah. Tell me if I've got this right.
15:24
You've LED efforts to reduce lost time injuries to just a
15:30
single one over the course of three years among 120 employees.
15:36
Is that correct? The short answer is yes.
15:44
I was tasked about six or seven years ago to develop the, the
15:50
company's safety committee and safety culture.
15:55
And so through doing that at my facility, we went a full three
16:03
years without any type of recordable injury.
16:07
I can't speak for the other two facilities.
16:09
I'm not sure. But I do know that it it made a
16:14
vast improvement over what we were doing and it was in an
16:18
effort of trying to make sure that we were incentivizing the
16:22
employees to do the right thing. Can you get into more specifics
16:27
of what that looked like? There are safety programs out
16:34
there that that basically say if you're safe for the whole year
16:39
and you don't get injured, then we're going to give you some
16:41
type of a bonus for that, which incentivizes the complete wrong
16:45
behavior. What an employee's going to do
16:47
is get hurt and then try to hide it so that they can still get
16:52
their bonus. And so the effort with the
16:58
culture that we wanted to build was trying to incentivize, but
17:04
do it in a way that the employees are going to think
17:07
forward about how to prevent injuries or what could
17:10
potentially become an injury and take care of it before whatever
17:14
happens. And So what does that look like
17:19
in a practical sense? How do you sort of align
17:22
everybody's goals so that you're keeping the injuries down, but
17:26
you're not incentivizing people to to hide it?
17:30
Well, from an operational standpoint, we, we still look at
17:34
the three major metrics of recordables and I'm sorry of
17:46
first reports, recordables and then indemnities.
17:50
But then from the employees standpoint, we're, we're
17:57
incentivizing off of what we call a radar and a near miss.
18:01
So a near miss is, is defined as something that that happened.
18:08
Luckily nobody got hurt, but the incident happened.
18:12
And then we, we want you to report it.
18:14
We want you to explain everything that happened.
18:16
We want to do a little bit of a, an investigation to see what
18:20
kind of led up to it. And then we want to document it
18:22
so that hopefully we can look back and make sure that we're
18:26
taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.
18:29
And a lot of times the example that that I will use for this is
18:37
if you have two production cells next to each other and somebody
18:41
needs to use an extension cord for, for one of their tools, but
18:47
the closest outlet basically runs through the other cell and
18:51
then someone trips on the cord, right?
18:54
So it happened. It could have been serious.
18:56
Luckily it wasn't. But then what do we need to take
19:00
for action items to make sure that we don't have that problem
19:03
again? And then the the other portion
19:06
of it we call radar. So we want you to recognize,
19:18
assess. Oh, I'm blanking.
19:26
I'm sorry. It's so ingrained you do it
19:29
every day without even thinking or pulling the the acronym from
19:33
your head. But you you know what the steps
19:35
are. But more than anything, it's
19:38
it's looking forward to to catch things before they happen.
19:42
And, and my example of this is if, if there's a stack of, of
19:48
lumber out in the yard that's 5 units high and you see that it's
19:52
really leaning heavily, before you race in trying to fix it, we
19:58
want you to stop, assess what you're doing.
20:01
Think about it. Maybe the right answer is to
20:04
have three different forklifts go and assist, you know, to make
20:09
sure that the 1 doesn't get stuck while you're trying to get
20:11
put. You know, just put a little more
20:13
thought into just racing in and doing something about it and
20:18
then take care of it and then record the results after.
20:23
Yeah, And this has been incredibly successful.
20:27
I mean, you've taken incidents down to almost 0, which in an
20:31
environment like yours, I don't have standard industry metrics,
20:35
but that sounds really impressive.
20:38
Now let's talk about the inventory ERP system that you
20:44
helped to implement. That sounds like a a major
20:47
undertaking. What what were some unexpected
20:49
challenges you faced in that? Well, first of all, there really
20:56
isn't an inventory system out there for what we do, right.
21:00
And so we found the closest thing that we could at the time,
21:04
this was getting close to 9 years ago, I think 9 or 10 years
21:08
ago. But it's, it's designed for a
21:12
pallet manufacturer. So it, the, the major function
21:17
around it is the, the bill of material.
21:22
So it's, it's set up to say for this pallet, I need this many
21:27
boards and it, it helps track inventory based on the process
21:38
of those pallets. But our problem was we do more
21:41
than just pallets. In fact, 60% of what we did at
21:45
the time was just cutting boards.
21:47
So we needed to go from dimensional board to cut stock
21:51
board, not to cut stock to pallet.
21:56
So luckily we, we got in the infancy of the CRP system.
22:01
It's called Palmate and they, they had a very open forum with
22:06
us and they, they, they took a lot of feedback from us and, and
22:13
we helped kind of develop what their software is today, which
22:18
that does a lot more around boards and lumber and volume in
22:25
general. But it, it gave us most of the
22:31
things that we were really looking for because before we
22:34
had an ERP, we were doing everything paper and pencil.
22:37
So it gave us the ability to do true physical inventories.
22:42
It gave us the ability to verify what we were loading and then it
22:50
gave us the ability to track capacity.
22:55
And so, you know, a lot of times when I hear people talk about
22:58
upgrading their software, it's going from one piece of software
23:03
to another piece of software. In your case, it was you were
23:06
going from paper and pencil to software, which, you know,
23:11
there's different challenges in both systems, but in your
23:15
environment now you're having to teach people how to use software
23:19
for this purpose for the first time, right?
23:22
Yeah. And there was even a period of
23:23
time where and you you got to have the right type of hardware
23:28
to run the software and not having anything established for
23:32
that, we really didn't know what the hardware was that we needed.
23:35
So we spent probably six months just trying different tablets
23:40
and different computers and different scanners.
23:43
And until we, we kind of came up with what we thought was, was
23:47
going to work. And, and then again, through
23:49
attrition over a year, 2 year period of time, we, we learned
23:53
that the, the dust was too harsh on the printers or the scanners
23:57
or, and it, yeah, it just was a huge evolution of trying to get
24:03
all of that to, to function together.
24:07
Tell me about the $220,000 trim. Saw that you upgraded and
24:14
installed without needing any more labor.
24:19
So the original trim saw that we had was kind of a mess up from
24:29
the start. So when, when the owners ordered
24:35
it, it was supposed to be able to cut a 20 foot board and when
24:41
it showed up, the longest board we were able to cut was 18 foot.
24:46
The total length of the saw was 20 foot.
24:49
And at that time we, we just didn't have the financials to be
24:54
able to say well, take it back and fix it and like we needed to
24:57
get started today. So we put it in place and, and
25:02
the best way to cut a 40 inch board is is a 10 foot board
25:09
based on what you can put through the saw.
25:11
We were hoping to be able to use a 20 foot board and get 540 inch
25:15
boards, but now the best we could do was a 10 foot board and
25:18
getting 340 inch boards. So a couple of months after I
25:25
got involved over here at at the facility, I, I just kept seeing
25:30
this 8 foot of saw that we were never using.
25:34
It was just plank and so we we were also cutting the stringers
25:41
or the side panels for pallets. And in order to do that we would
25:46
have to stop cutting the decking, do a full change over
25:50
of all the machinery and then start cutting the stringers.
25:54
But the stringers came out of an 8 foot material.
25:57
And so I found some old conveyors that we weren't using
26:02
anymore and we kind of pieced together our own little
26:05
contraption behind the trim saw and we started cutting the 8
26:08
foot boards on that empty side of the trim saw.
26:13
And we were able to do both products at the same time.
26:17
And we did that for two years and it, it turned into such a
26:24
staple of what we do. We said, OK, we we need to order
26:27
a new saw and it needs to have the ability to do what we're
26:33
doing now. But we also want to make sure
26:35
it's got all the other features for the employees so they don't
26:38
have to be bending and twisting and lifting.
26:41
And because that's what that person on the other side of the
26:43
saw was doing, they didn't have a deck feeding them.
26:49
And so that's kind of where where that purchase came in.
26:54
It's really clever the, the interim stuff that you guys kind
26:57
of came up with to make better use out of the equipment that
27:00
you had. Ed, how would you kind of
27:04
describe your, your management style?
27:07
You're, you know, you're, you're managing a plant.
27:09
You've got, you know, a lot of workers there.
27:13
You know, it's a, it's a, I'm going to guess sounds like a
27:15
tough environment. You know, where you're, you
27:17
know, you're doing physical things, you're moving stuff
27:19
around all day. How do you kind of keep your
27:23
arms around everything, keep everybody moving in the same
27:25
direction? Well, first and foremost, I'm a
27:30
huge subscriber to servant leadership.
27:33
I very much so believe in being hands on and being the type of
27:39
leader that would never ask you to do anything I wouldn't do
27:41
myself. So I don't have to do it as much
27:45
as I used to, but there are occasions where if someone calls
27:49
in or or something like that, where there might be an open
27:55
piece of equipment that I can go run for a couple of hours.
27:58
Not necessarily because I have to, but because AI enjoy it.
28:03
I like getting up from the desk and doing some physical labor
28:07
once in a while, but be it, it really helps tie the back of the
28:10
house in the front of the house together.
28:12
They really like to see me come out and do some of that once in
28:14
a while. When you think about what it
28:19
takes to attract and retain a good workforce, what are some of
28:26
your approaches? What have you found works to
28:29
find good folks, and once you've found them, hold on to them?
28:33
Yeah. That, that's definitely
28:37
developed and changed over the course of time here.
28:41
When when we were really starting up, I used a lot of
28:45
temp services and it was basically all about bodies, like
28:50
if they have a pulse, send them in and that has definitely since
28:56
changed. We about seven years ago as a
28:59
company, we got into traction. I don't know if you're familiar
29:03
with that. Gina Wickman.
29:04
Yep, correct. And the idea of the right
29:08
person, right seat and hiring around core values and and
29:15
really making sure that that they're the right people has
29:18
made a huge difference because three or four years ago our
29:23
retention rate was greater than 40% and last year that dropped
29:29
to 25% and it's still dropping. And I attribute that 100% to
29:36
taking the time vetting the person, making sure that that
29:39
they align with our culture and our core values before we bring
29:44
them in the door. How'd you do that?
29:47
It's a particular question that you like to ask that kind of
29:50
pierces through the veil. I don't do a lot of the
29:53
interviewing anymore. I, I'm trained all of my
29:57
managers and supervisors to be able to do a portion of that,
30:01
but I do sit in on most of them towards the end of the interview
30:05
if this is really somebody that, that you're entertaining
30:08
bringing on. And my focus is 100% on, on our
30:13
5 core values. I asked them very broad
30:19
questions just just to see what their grasp of the core values
30:25
are. And so, for example, our first
30:28
core value is balanced. We we want a healthy balance of
30:34
faith, family and, and work. And even even that there's been
30:42
a learning process to stay. Everybody's going to have a
30:46
different definition of what balanced is for them.
30:49
For me, I have a family, I have children.
30:53
And so balance for me is being able to get to my kids football
30:57
game, you know, but there's other people that don't have
31:01
kids and maybe balance for them is being able to sit all
31:05
Saturday long and read a book. And so it's just understanding
31:12
that that there is going to be a different definition of balance
31:15
for everybody, but making sure it falls within the scope of,
31:20
yeah, you know, I'm really looking to make as much money as
31:24
I can so that I can buy a Mustang.
31:29
Well, maybe that's not going to be the best fit for us because
31:37
because this doesn't. Seem to align with your values.
31:40
Correct. You're you're only interested in
31:43
being here for the money. You're not interested in being
31:45
here for a career. Gotcha.
31:49
As you think about PSC, your location as well as the other
31:53
ones, what you think sets you apart from the other companies
31:55
out there doing similar things? Like the company in general.
32:02
Yeah, correct. So the first thing is, is
32:06
definitely the emphasis around relationship building.
32:13
So customers, vendors, employees, that that's on our
32:18
vision traction organizer and it, it, it's what we all focus
32:23
on is, is building those relationships and delivering on
32:27
promises that we've made and just upholding as much of that
32:33
value as we can. So the, the, the purchasing side
32:38
has been built around those relationships and, and has done
32:44
some, you know, marvelous things for our ability to buy.
32:50
And the pallet industry in general is, it's very
32:55
interesting from the standpoint of, I've never been in an
32:59
industry that's so open. These, these pallet
33:03
manufacturers, they, they go to conventions together and they,
33:07
they invite each other into their facilities and show each
33:10
other what they're doing. And there's been a number of
33:13
times that maybe we bought a piece of equipment that we don't
33:17
already have and we're having trouble with it.
33:20
And the owner will say, well, I know so and so runs one of
33:23
those. Let me call them and see if we
33:24
can go in and get some tips and tricks.
33:26
And it usually happens they, you know, openly do that kind of
33:31
stuff. So it's, yeah, it's.
33:35
It sounds more like a brotherhood than a sort of a
33:37
competitive pit, you know? Yeah, very much so.
33:42
That's amazing. I, you know, kind of going back
33:44
to something you said a moment ago, and I'm curious where your
33:47
inspiration for being a big believer in servant leadership
33:51
came from. I think it's something that has
33:58
always been ingrained in me my that that's kind of the type of
34:03
person that my father was very hands on.
34:07
I'm not afraid to jump in and do anything.
34:11
My mentor somewhat the same way, but he taught me more the, the
34:22
outward focused side of it so that you're, you're more
34:26
cognizant of when you're doing it and why, right.
34:29
So if we have a like an all hands meeting where we're we're
34:34
going to bring in food for everybody, making sure that it's
34:37
something that you can stand up there and serve them, you know,
34:41
kind of putting a real definition to it.
34:46
I like that you've mentioned. Do you know Wickman?
34:51
His his book and his framework Traction EOS has been super
34:55
helpful for you guys. Are there any other books,
34:59
podcasts, any other frameworks that maybe have been really
35:03
helpful to you that our audience might benefit from?
35:09
I I've been through pretty much the entire traction series.
35:13
The the newest one the people book is is really good from
35:18
Building a culture and understanding that right person,
35:21
right seat. I just recently finished It's
35:27
your ship. I'm blanking on the.
35:37
What's it about? What's sort of the core concept?
35:42
Captain Michael ABS off and it's yeah.
35:50
And it's basically his story of being in the Navy, being given
35:56
his own ship to command and then just the the different
36:01
techniques that he used to try to win over the crew.
36:05
He did a lot of one-on-one interviews to get to know
36:07
people. And then he also did some kind
36:11
of inspiring team building type of stuff that for being on a
36:16
ship out at sea was was pretty outside the box thinking.
36:22
So yeah, it was. It was a really good read.
36:24
Yeah, Ed, shifting gears now, I'd like to hear about a serious
36:29
challenge that you've overcome, whether it's something personal
36:33
or professional. What was that?
36:36
How did you get through it and what did you learn?
36:42
So again, I'm going to go back to the traction journey.
36:45
When I first started in the plant manager role, my belief
36:49
was that I needed a team that fought like me and acted like
36:55
me. And that was that was how I was
36:58
going to succeed. And after a couple years, I
37:02
realized and, and through starting traction, I really
37:04
realized that there's probably some benefit to diversity,
37:09
right? So maybe the next time I fill a
37:12
leadership spot, instead of looking for somebody that is
37:15
going to be hands on, that is going to be the first one to
37:19
jump in and get dirty and help. Maybe what I really need is
37:23
somebody that thinks differently than I do.
37:26
And going into those interviews, I I felt like the more
37:32
uncomfortable I was with somebody, potentially this was
37:35
going to be the the best fit. Interesting.
37:39
So I did eventually hire a manager that was very different
37:44
than myself, was very different than most of us at Pallet.
37:50
And he was, he had, he had some, some quirks, right?
37:54
And it was it was difficult for him to to understand the culture
38:03
that was built. It was difficult for me to help
38:06
him overcome some of his his. To.
38:19
Just to, to communicate with people because his communication
38:21
style was completely different. But the attributes that he did
38:25
bring, one of our bigger goals was to achieve 95% inventory
38:32
accuracy. And we were light years away
38:35
from it. But that was because I, I'm not
38:38
a numbers type of person. I can't sit down and just look
38:43
at item audit trails and crunch numbers for hours, figuring out
38:49
where everything went awry. And that was his thing.
38:53
Like that's what he was good at. So we did act, we, we did get to
38:59
that peak and we've been there for a while.
39:03
But the struggle was keeping, keeping the, the team together,
39:11
more or less. I had a number of meetings with
39:15
my managers where they, they just didn't get long because
39:18
this guy was so different than them.
39:21
And that led to a lot of frustration and just a, and
39:24
there was a point where I didn't want to hold meetings anymore.
39:26
I didn't want the team together anymore and it it did
39:31
unfortunately get to a point where I had to make a difficult
39:34
decision and say this isn't healthy for anybody.
39:37
Even though I'm getting really good benefits from you I it's,
39:43
it's just not a good fit. Yeah.
39:45
And I think that story there says a lot about the importance
39:48
of culture, which sounds like it's super important to you guys
39:52
as well. I mean, hats off to you for
39:55
trying something different kind of outside your comfort zone,
39:59
going where, you know, it was a little bit unusual for you and
40:03
there were some gains from it. I mean, life's complicated.
40:06
Not everything is all good or all bad.
40:09
And so, you know, there were some gains for that process.
40:11
And ultimately, you know, a change had to be made because
40:15
and there's there's nothing that tops culture.
40:18
Culture is. Well, it's, it's, it's what I
40:22
think great businesses are built on.
40:24
And so have you been able to find somebody now that that kind
40:27
of fits that role and helps with the culture or did you did you
40:30
just benefit from having the new systems in place already that?
40:35
Exactly had the shape, the system that he built the, the
40:40
team, the, the, the departmental team that he built was
40:44
fantastic. And so the the person that I
40:48
replaced him with is, is really just sitting back and watching
40:53
it run. So yeah.
40:59
Talk to me, Ed, about daily practices.
41:02
Do you have any habits, rituals, things that you like to do every
41:06
day that kind of keep you centered and on track?
41:10
I, I really don't, a typical day for me, I'll, I'll, I'll get in
41:19
around 7, pull up my reporting, take a look at what happened
41:23
last night, just kind of make sure everything's on track.
41:26
And then I'll I'll get out and about and try to greet everybody
41:30
that I can and then just see where the day goes from there.
41:39
What's something you do for fun, Ed?
41:45
My number one hobby and passion is restoring antique tractors.
41:53
I also, I'm, I'm very involved in my kids lives.
41:57
So I have a son that's 16. I've been his football coach for
42:02
the last five years. So we have a youth associated
42:08
football organization in our town.
42:10
So it's not through the school. So yeah, I've coached him and
42:14
his buddies for for five years and yeah, he just loves
42:19
football. And then my whole family is very
42:24
big into scouting. So I've run the local Cub Scout
42:30
group for 10 years. Three of my 4 kids are are in
42:36
the the scout troop. My oldest is getting very close
42:41
to Eagle. Yeah.
42:43
That's awesome. And then they, they have some
42:46
really, really cool leadership courses for adults that, that go
42:54
outside of the scouting world and really kind of overlap with
42:58
the business world. And a lot of the, the benefits
43:01
that you get from that training are, are much cheaper than
43:03
anything you would find in in the business world.
43:05
So I went through some of their adult leadership training and
43:10
then now I've gone back and I'm I'm actually helping with the
43:15
courses as as part of the staff. Oh, wow.
43:18
And is this training available to anybody or do you have to be
43:22
kind of involved in the Boy Scouts network?
43:25
You do have to register with the BSA, but you don't necessarily
43:29
have to have a kid in scouts. To do it.
43:32
OK, how would somebody find out more about this?
43:35
It sounds really intriguing. Find your local Scout
43:40
organization, but the course is a world recognized course called
43:47
Wood Badge. Sorry, it's called What badge?
43:50
Wood Badge. Wood Badge.
43:51
OK. Yep.
43:53
And what do they take you through?
43:54
What? What's the lesson?
43:56
A lot of it is team building. It's so Baden Paul.
44:03
When he developed the scouting program in the 1900s, it was
44:09
based around the patrol method that the military used.
44:15
So it, it really the fundamental of it is to teach you what that
44:23
patrol method is supposed to look like, but doing it by using
44:28
the edge method to where you're, you're experiencing it as if you
44:34
were a scout. So there's there's team building
44:41
activities that take place, there's classroom presentations
44:46
that are given around dealing with different things like
44:51
diversity, problem solving, just some, some really good
44:59
leadership stuff. They take you through forming,
45:04
storming, norming and performing and they, they connect that by
45:11
using some of the different like team building movies.
45:15
So like October Sky or Remember the Titans, where you can really
45:21
clearly see the four steps. And it, it helps give you an
45:27
understanding of how that whole process works and, and that it's
45:31
not just done when you get to the performing portion, but as
45:38
your team continues to grow, you're going to go through the
45:40
phases again and again and again.
45:44
So that sounds great. It sounds like you're a busy guy
45:48
too. Outside of work. 4 kids football
45:50
coach, you know, scout master refinishing antique tractors
45:56
like what? What is that about Like are are
45:58
you trying to like use these in the field?
46:01
Is are you like showing them what?
46:03
Tell tell me more. Yep, there's, there's shows
46:06
throughout the state and throughout the country that
46:09
typically in the very beginning of fall is when most of them
46:13
happen and you can bring your tractor out and, and show it.
46:19
And the, the most of the shows have a theme based on what brand
46:27
they're, they're going to show for the year.
46:30
My, the brand that I'm partial to is Minneapolis Moline.
46:36
They're, they were based out of Minneapolis from the early 1900s
46:42
through 19, late 1960s. And it kind of ties back to the
46:49
the manufacturing thing because at one point they were one of
46:51
the largest manufacturers in Minnesota, but.
46:56
Is that why you're partial to them?
46:58
They're sort of the local guys. I'm actually partial to them
47:01
because that was the first tractor that I worked on was a
47:05
Moline. It's what my, my dad and my
47:06
grandfather had bought it together 2 years before I was
47:10
born. And so we went through the
47:15
process of restoring it in 2015. That created a really a great
47:21
bond with my, my father and I. My grandfather had already
47:24
passed by that point, but just, he was, he was so excited to see
47:31
that thing run again. And, and it, it didn't look that
47:35
nice when they had purchased it. So he was very proud of it.
47:39
And, and that really got us into, hey, let's go find some
47:42
more of these to do. And then let's, let's start
47:46
travelling to some of these shows.
47:48
And it got to the point where we're doing four or five shows a
47:51
year. And then there's a lot of like
47:54
minded people at those shows that you get more and more
47:59
opportunity to do things sold. Some of my tractors have been
48:02
featured in magazines. I, I've purchased a couple of
48:10
project tractors just because you, you get to talking to
48:14
people and they might have something that they don't want
48:17
anymore and, and you get it for a really good price.
48:20
So yeah, it's just, it's a blast.
48:23
Plus my son's, well, my older son took a, a huge interest in
48:30
it when we first started. And so grandpa bought him a
48:32
tractor and, and it, it, it has kept him away from tablets and
48:37
video games and, and kept him active in something that doesn't
48:44
involve any of that, which I thought was fantastic.
48:47
You've. Cracked the code, but what?
48:49
What every parent's trying to figure out?
48:51
How do I get my kid away from the screen?
48:53
It's good for you. Yeah, write a book about that.
48:56
Right. I'm curious, Ed, if you would
49:00
have much insight on this kind of what the future growth plans
49:04
are for Pallet Service Corporation.
49:06
Is this new locations? Is it just more customers
49:10
servicing out of the same spots, new services?
49:13
How do you guys think about this?
49:15
Yeah. So we did open a new location
49:19
about 18 months ago a little bit further east in in Wisconsin and
49:26
it was it was a big facility. So it's you could take the three
49:31
facilities and the land that they sit on and you can fit them
49:36
all in this one. Wow.
49:38
Yeah. So it's it's big.
49:40
We have 5 separate buildings on that property.
49:44
All of them are bigger than the one that I operate out of.
49:48
One of them we put in sighing equipment to basically do the
49:52
same thing that I do here. In another we put in a couple of
49:57
the automated pallet building pieces of machinery and and that
50:02
whole initiative is to really start driving a little bit
50:05
further E than what we have been plus cut out some of the freight
50:10
that we've been paying to get our product shipped.
50:16
Another big point of emphasis is our our non processed material.
50:22
So when we bring in material from the mills, if we have
50:28
excess volume, we'll we'll sell it to crate manufacturers,
50:31
pallet manufacturers that without processing anything.
50:36
And so trying to grow some of that.
50:42
But yeah, we're we're definitely in a growth mode.
50:45
And I'm going to guess this new facility since just opened 18
50:49
months ago is still kind of ramping up to where their
50:52
production can be. Yep, absolutely.
50:55
Yeah, lot, lots of lots of room for exciting growth there.
50:58
That'll be fun to follow. And if I were to talk to you a
51:02
year from now, what's something you would hope to be
51:04
celebrating? I would be creeping up on my 15
51:12
year anniversary with pallet, so I'd be looking forward to that,
51:20
yeah. Beyond that, I guess I don't
51:21
really know. Obviously you enjoy working
51:25
there. I mean, you, you've been there a
51:27
long time and you have glowing things to say about the
51:31
environment. What specifically about it do
51:33
you think appeals to you so much?
51:37
It, it's mostly the, the culture and, and the family, the, the
51:46
winners, the owners of pallet service are amazing people.
51:51
They're super involved. They, they go above and beyond
51:55
all the time. And it's, it's, it's, so it's,
52:01
it's almost a relief to, to know that, that that's the type of
52:07
people that you're working for. And then beyond that, it's, it's
52:13
the culture that we built. And, and I say we, because it,
52:18
it, it, it took our entire leadership team, it took the
52:21
winners, it took, you know, all of us to do it.
52:24
But it's, it's really evolved into a, a wonderful culture.
52:29
And then the industry is, like I said before, it's very unique.
52:36
You get the opportunity to talk to a lot of very interesting
52:40
people and see a lot of really cool things.
52:45
The industry itself I think is probably going to migrate a lot
52:51
heavier towards automation and and as that evolves, it's it's
52:57
going to be fun to see what it all looks like.
53:03
That's actually a question I kind of like to to wrap up the
53:05
show with. And so I'll ask some follow up
53:07
questions on that. But before I do, I want to do a
53:09
couple of things. First of all, I want to invite
53:11
all our listeners to hit the follow button on their favorite
53:14
podcast app so you can continue to get more great interviews
53:19
like we've had today with Ed Detterman of Pallet Service
53:21
Corporation. And I also want to let people
53:23
know the best way either to continue to follow your story or
53:27
to get in touch with you directly.
53:28
What would that be? It would probably be LinkedIn.
53:36
OK, we'll, we'll include the link there.
53:39
But for those folks who are listening, Ed's last name
53:42
Determan is spelled DETERMAN. So it kind of looks like deter,
53:48
man. That's how you can find him.
53:51
Just search for Ed Determan on LinkedIn with Pallet Service
53:55
Corporation. So yeah, and I, I kind of want
53:57
to go into a little bit of what you were just saying there, kind
54:00
of what the the future of the industry looks like.
54:03
You're talking about more automation.
54:06
Are we talking like full on robots?
54:08
Are we talking AI? Like what?
54:11
What's the the landscape look like?
54:13
Yeah, it's, it's probably a combination of both.
54:16
I think the pallet industry in general has been very lacking
54:19
with automation compared to where a lot of other
54:23
manufacturers have gone. Labor I think continues to be a
54:29
problem for everybody in in the industry.
54:34
It's it's not getting any cheaper.
54:36
It's depending on the pool that you're drawing from the, the
54:41
quality of person isn't necessarily getting any better.
54:45
And it's, it just continues to be a problem.
54:49
And really I think automation is, is ultimately going to end
54:55
up being the fix for it. There is, there's a minor amount
55:01
of automation that exists today. A lot of the machinery that we
55:10
used to cut the wood, the the process of the board being taken
55:14
through the saw is automated, but you still have to have an
55:16
operator there to push a button or know what to do if there's a
55:21
jam or, or something along those lines.
55:28
We've seen some, some newer mechanical automation with being
55:35
able to dismantle a pallet, which was, was probably the most
55:38
dangerous operation there is when it comes to pallets, is
55:42
taking an old pallet and dismantling it.
55:46
The the old practice was basically you had a bench
55:50
platform that had a band saw blade that ran between 2 tires
55:55
and you would take the pallet and push it through the band saw
55:59
blade to cut the nails. Oh wow.
56:02
Yeah. And everything was open and it's
56:04
very on guarded, very, very dangerous process.
56:07
And within the last, I'd say probably five to seven years,
56:13
they've developed some mechanical arms that will grab a
56:17
hold of the pallet with a vacuum and it'll run it through that
56:22
same saw to get it all cut apart.
56:25
And then it'll drop all the components and nobody needs to
56:28
be near it while it happens. And a saw is still more
56:32
efficient than just trying to pull the nails out or to try it
56:35
apart. OK, absolutely.
56:39
And so where are you guys in sort of this automation
56:44
conversation thought process? We're definitely more on the
56:51
the, the board or the the cut stock side then we are the
56:54
pallet side where we want to try to take out some of the the more
57:02
laborious manual laborers. Like when we get done with a
57:06
unit of boards, somebody has to put strapping around it and, and
57:11
prepare it to be able to, to go onto the truck and ship.
57:16
And there is some equipment out there now that will automate
57:18
that. And we'll, we'll do that in
57:20
repetition. So we're, we're dabbling a
57:23
little bit in that. It's, it's a very physical job.
57:31
These guys out on the production floor work hard and they
57:35
definitely earn every cent that they take home.
57:39
And it does leave U.S. Open to injury and things like
57:45
that in the future. So there's there's just a ton of
57:48
upsides for for trying to get some, some of it automated and
57:51
and take the person out of it. Yeah, that's going to be
57:55
exciting to follow. And it very much falls in line
57:57
with all the safety things we were talking about you guys are
58:00
committed to at the beginning of the interview.
58:03
Ed Dieterman, I'm going to be the Determan.
58:05
Sorry about that, Ed Determan, I want to make sure I get that
58:09
correct. But Ed, I want to be the first
58:11
one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story
58:14
with us today. I really appreciate it.
58:16
Absolutely. It's a pleasure being here.
58:18
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
58:21
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
58:23
today.