Latest / AccessCo Leaders Career Conversations / Moore + Jeff Kenton
Transcript
- speaker-0: Welcome back to AccessCo Leaders Career Conversations. I'm Ilyne I get to host this session with our incredible co-hosts. Welcome back from a whole mock trial season, students in Oklahoma, and amazing guest, someone I know pretty well from previous interviews, Jeff Kenton, who is the Vice President and General Manager ⁓ at Welcome back, Jeff. Good to see you. speaker-1: Glad to be here. speaker-2: Good to see you all. speaker-0: Awesome. Jeff, can you tell us what is Diversiy? And what are you doing as a vice president and general manager there? speaker-1: So Diversiy, we're part of a larger company called Solenus. And I run the Diversiy business, which is about a $600 million business. And we have about 650 employees. But we janitorial, sanitation, and hygiene chemicals for ⁓ hotels, resorts, food buildings, ⁓ retail. everybody's seen our products or probably used our products or been in an establishment that uses them. So yeah, it's kind of a ubiquitous product, but ⁓ something that's very necessary and keep the world cleaner and safer. speaker-0: So a couple of things here, ever since I met Jeff and understood what his business does, I cannot walk into a bathroom and not realize, know, Jeff's people, Jeff probably had his hand in on this. Jeff, now did you wake up as a young child thinking, this is what I want to do. I want to create sanitizing equipment. Tell us, how did you get there? speaker-1: Well, it's funny because, know, when I grew up in Southern Louisiana and I've moved, I've lived in nine different states. So, my family had always been in the chemical business. So when I got ready, when I was in high school, my dad said, if you want to go to college, I'll pay for either chemical engineering or chemistry. I was like, wow. So I said, which one is easier? So he's a chemical engineer and he said, well, chemistry. And so I became a chemist with all that ⁓ planning right there. ⁓ And as I was in school, I struggled to know what to do. And then I had a professor that was, had been a technical chemical salesperson. He had worked for DuPont and I ended up taking a job with a company called Hercules at the time. And then I have spent my career in different chemical roles and then got involved in distribution. And then when I was recruited for this role, it's kind of a perfect mix of chemistry and distribution. so, So yeah, I started with this company about 10 months ago. I love it. It's exciting. It's hard and I work a lot, it's been very rewarding. speaker-0: Very rewarding. love hearing that. Now what I was hearing is a lot of your chemical background, but then some business stuff. Can you take us back to middle school and high school and tell us a little bit about what kept you busy outside of school? And I know there's some little bit of business experience back then. speaker-1: So I had a really good friend named John, and he and I started a lawn mowing business. And he was a little bit older than me. And I think I was nine years old when we started. so we would use our parents' lawn mowers at the time and mow grass and do things like that. And it was hot down in Southern Louisiana, as you can imagine. And then we got more more prosperous. We ended up buying our own mowers and kind of branching out. And we named the company J & J Enterprises. By the time he was old enough to drive, we got signs on this old dilapidated car that we would drive around. So it said J & J Enterprises, but it was a great way to understand customers, business, accountability, all those things at a young age. speaker-0: What you didn't mention is the relationships that you form. Now, last time we talked, I think you and the other Jay in the business were able to connect. Tell us about how many years of friendship that's been. speaker-1: tomorrow, so 3 10, over 50 years. And so he lives in Dallas, Texas. And he and his wife came up and visited my wife and I about in October. And I just love this guy. We still keep in touch. We talk about, we laugh about a lot of things that we did and did wrong and tried to do right. And so it's amazing that you can have a friendship that can exist over five decades. speaker-0: love that and I hope our students are hearing that those friendships that you form way early in life, you can still take it. Vinessa and I were just talking earlier about this was pre social media, right? So you're still back then we had to work a little bit harder to maintain those friendships. We had to wait for a letter in the mail and make those dial in the phone numbers. So you have it much easier. Remember those friendships that you have in those relationships. I want to go ahead and shift it over to our students. Mallory, you get the first question. What do you have for Jeff? I would like to know, like, what's the hardest part of your job? speaker-1: think the hardest part of my job right now is that I just have to make decisions where I'm the only person that knows all of the facts or all of the things that went into it. So when you go to make that kind of decision, it may be hurtful or it be difficult for other people to see or to understand, they don't have all the facts. And for ⁓ reasons or ethical reasons, or just ⁓ protect somebody's ego, speaker-4: I sometimes speaker-1: not gonna ever have all the facts. But sometimes you have to make tough decisions that everybody doesn't know ⁓ why made that decision and you need to build up ⁓ a enough, credible enough bond with the people that you work with so they understand, hey, I may not know all of this, but ⁓ believe Jeff and the decision he made. speaker-0: building that rapport and that trust. Wow, that is a challenge. It's always the people-y things that could be the best part of your day and make the business and also can be the challenging parts. Thanks for sharing that, Jeff. Let's go over to Maddie. What do you have for Jeff? mentioned chemicals and stuff like that. since ⁓ work that kind of stuff, did you ever get some sort of chemical parents from that? speaker-1: chemical what? speaker-0: Chemical burns. speaker-1: No, okay, chemical burns. safety is very important to what we do. And it's the, ⁓ begin every meeting with safety. We ⁓ about it because we have ⁓ large chemical facilities that be chemicals or take dangerous chemicals and make them less dangerous. So no, so I've personally been involved in anything like that. And we pride ourselves on the fact that, you know, really revolves around being safe first. We want every employee that works at our company to go home from work the same way that they came to work. And so it's a big part of what we do every day. I'm ⁓ proud be of the chemical industry because we sometimes get a bad rap, ⁓ but I can you in all the businesses I've been involved in, our commitment to safety is impressive in my speaker-0: people. Love hearing that. Love hearing it. Kimberly, you get the next question. So when finding people to employ, what kind of people do you usually look for? speaker-3: you speaker-1: Okay, that's a great question because hire culture first. And let me explain what that means. I can probably teach you chemistry, especially what I do. I don't do a lot of it anymore, ⁓ I can teach you about how the company works or how to sell or how to do things. ⁓ what I really want is somebody that is gonna help advance our culture. And when I say that, it means if we have a culture of respect or a culture of accountability, speaker-6: for call. speaker-1: What people are gonna fit in on that? when I interview people, it's more around questions around that and less around technical ability. Now, if you're gonna become an air traffic controller, you probably need to understand how to move airplanes around first. ⁓ for me, it really is around finding people that are gonna advance the growth of our team. speaker-0: So those soft skills that you can kind of pick up from a conversation, not just on a resume, right? So that's good. Great question, Kimberly. Ari, you're next. What do you have for Jeff? ⁓ My question is, do you ever have like hard days? And if you do, how do you manage them and keep and stay motivated? speaker-3: you speaker-1: That is a wonderful question. Yes, I have hard days. sometimes I, last week I particularly had one and I was just exhausted. I felt beat up, the numbers weren't good and I came home I have to tell you, I have a wonderful wife. Okay. And so I would, the first thing I'd say is get a support network of people that you can talk to and rely on and trust and be vulnerable with, because ⁓ are the things when it comes out. But ⁓ the end of the day, ⁓ not, It may be bad, but it's not, it's a day, not a long term. So try to keep it in perspective. If you don't mind, I'm gonna tell a quick story because it happened last night. So my wife was a really good dancer. She was a cheerleader in college and she was very good. So about five years ago, she convinced me to take ballroom dancing lessons. And I've gotten better and better and better. But so I've been doing it for five years. And so every once in a while we do metal testing. And so last night we had metal testing for the cha-cha. We've been working on this routine for a while and I was, I thought I knew it and we got, it was about a three and a half, four minute routine. And in the last 10 seconds, I made a screw up and I turned the wrong direction. so, and when I came off the dance floor, I was so lost. And I walked over there, I looked at my wife and I was like, I feel like a failure. And she, I could tell it upset her, but I went off to go to the restroom and I came back and I was washing my hands and I looked in the mirror and I go. speaker-7: depressed. speaker-1: You're not a failure because you're out there trying to dance. You made a mistake. There's a big difference between being a failure and making a mistake. And so what I'd say, keep in perspective. When you have a tough day, maybe you made a mistake. We all do. It's gonna happen. It'll happen today. Okay, but it's not being a failure. speaker-3: So. speaker-0: love that, Jeff, so often we get to meet people and we talk about resilience. But these are those moments that are so practical. It's going to happen throughout the day. Mistakes get made, but we just pick up and move on. But you're not a failure because you're still moving forward. I love that, Jeff. And now we're going to all have to Google and find some YouTube clips of you doing the cha-cha. speaker-1: I hope they're not out there, but I'm afraid they are. The one from my wedding is really nice. I got married about five years ago and we did a nice dance for that. it's a challenge for me. I tell you, it stimulates my brain, my body, everything. And then to dance with somebody that's pretty good makes it even more difficult. speaker-3: Yeah, I because I don't look as good. speaker-0: Awesome. Well, I'm sure she's lifting you up. Let's go ahead back to Mallory. Your next question. I would like to ask how your business changed from like ⁓ to after COVID. speaker-1: Yeah, so I was with another company, but they experienced the same things here. And I'll explain how it changed. COVID, we'd made a lot of investments in IT, just like we are all remote right now. we thought, ⁓ we weren't planning for the pandemic. We weren't that smart, but we were making those changes anyway. So I'll never forget, my wife and I had gone on vacation. came back like March ⁓ ⁓ on March 12th, we all went home that day. ⁓ we had the capability to do it. I remember the first thing that I told my team was, if we're gonna be talking every day, then I want your cameras on. I don't care if the cat walks across the keyboard. I don't care if your hair looks bad. ⁓ I us to know that we're all engaged with each other. That's what I want because we had a really strong culture. And what happened business wise was that, you know, the world was scrambling for things like ⁓ rubber masks, things like that. And the company that I worked for at the time, we sold ingredients that went into hand sanitizers. So it from overnight, the business just tripled and everybody was trying to get their hands on the products that we had. And so we were scrambling the world remotely to try and do it. it's interesting because as the pandemic eased and things went back to the new normal, all this inventory was there. So then we were stuck with years worth of product that we had to try and get rid of. And it was like a super chat. So we went from the highest at times to the lowest at times. And all these things happened. I, you know, there were a couple of things, like when I came out of there, I thought, man, you know, this remote work is really great. We can all be flexible and do that. And then after a time period, I thought, I miss being around my colleagues. I miss being in the office. So I think some benefit in between, but it was just a complete roller coaster because to be honest, none of us really know what we were doing. and we were all trying to make it work every day. so, but that's a great question. I reflect on it a lot because not that I ever want to be in that situation again, I don't, but I really want to be prepared for when things just go crazy. What's happening in the Middle East right now impacts our ability to ship products globally. It impacts our ability to get raw materials from Israel and from other countries that we buy from. So it's interesting that, you know, we see these events that seem like they're so far away, but we have to be prepared for it. So, can never really plan out to that degree, but what you can plan for is how are you gonna be flexible? How are you gonna pivot? How are you gonna respond when a situation changes? speaker-0: That's so good, Jeff. mean, and I hope our students are also picking up that you may come across these headlines and, you know, breaking news, but how is that truly impacting you? And if you don't catch it now, maybe years from now, you look back. You guys are in the 10th, 11th So you were still in elementary school, maybe middle school when the pandemic started, but you're going to remember that when you start writing papers for your undergrad ⁓ and, know, you start telling your own stories. So all of this stuff and having to pivot and as Jeff said, being flexible, those things are important. Thank you for highlighting that, Let's go back to you, Maddie. What's your next question for Jeff? Now there is like an AI uprising, so I want to know if that is somehow impacting your company and if it is like when it probably takes a job. speaker-1: Yeah, let me talk about AI in general first, and then we'll talk about the impact on jobs. And I spent a lot of time on it, and we do a lot. business that I run is very complicated. We have thousands of customers. have ⁓ of products, and they can buy in all different kind of combinations or permutations. ⁓ you literally have hundreds and thousands, millions ⁓ lines of transactional data that happens every month. And when you think about that, it's difficult for a human being to and look at that kind of data on a macro scale. ⁓ using AI to help us plan how to sell, where to sell, and where we're losing business because we work through distributors and so forth. Sometimes it takes months before we even realize that we've lost something. ⁓ AI has been a great tool there. ⁓ personally use it a lot to help with business planning. ⁓ email writing, proposals, things like that. When I want to streamline my communication and so forth, I find it to be very effective in those kinds of ways. we have very strict guidelines around what kind of information we could put on it because it be sensitive and we never know when that information can get out there. But ⁓ I it every day and then we use it for business purposes like I was saying. In the that I'm in, I can't... I'm sure there will be some areas that maybe it could a person or people, but I actually think it's going to expand things because ⁓ can generate all that data and it can put some conclusions together, but we have to go verify that information. And then we have to go test it to see if it's right. If it tells me that, you know, I'm losing business at these retail establishments, ⁓ then I go there and I'm not, then ⁓ predictive analytic capability didn't really work. but it's still gonna take a human being to make that reference and put it together. So I'm not as concerned about AI taking jobs away as I am it opening new avenues and new possibilities for people to look things differently and to respond differently to what's going on. So I'm a fan, I like it. And I ⁓ encourage all to, and you probably much for a long than I am. So yeah, keep doing what you're doing. speaker-0: I'll tell you, Jeff, every single session we have, there's gonna be a discussion about AI and we appreciate that. It's never, use it. It's always, how can we use it to better what we're already doing? So thank you for that encouragement. Let's hop over to Cooper. What's your first question for Jeff? So kind of a question. I like to know ⁓ how tarrifs impact your business? ⁓ speaker-3: Here it speaker-1: Okay, huge, okay. So tariffs are tough because we buy a lot of raw materials globally and then we have to pass these tariffs along. the baseline level, a tariff is a tax basically, okay? And we all pay taxes. assume, don't know if they have sales tax in Oklahoma, we don't have it in Delaware, ⁓ but go to spend something and you have to pay a tax. speaker-4: Yeah, huge! speaker-2: Sorry speaker-1: You make money at a job, they're gonna pay a tax on your income that you make. When you, in a few years, buy some property, you're gonna pay taxes on that property. So tariff is a tax. And the government, whomever we elect, can control how taxes move, how tariffs move, and what happens. And so ⁓ opinion is fairly agnostic about what they are. My ⁓ is, what can we do to minimize the impact, and what can we do? to pass it along because at the end of the day, it's gonna move on if we have tariffs that impact us and all the business. And so what does that do? You buy something, I buy something from China and I put it into the ingredients, it's used at a restaurant and that you go to that restaurant and now the price of the hamburger is more expensive. And then maybe after a while, you stop going to that restaurant. speaker-5: from speaker-1: because you don't want to put it there. it comes back or you say, you know what, I don't like that all these costs are coming to me. I'm to vote differently the next time that I go to the polls or I'm going to do something differently about what we can do. It's a very, the macro economic factors that go into it are huge. But at the end of the day, we all have a personal decision on what we want to do and how we want to spend our money because that's what it comes down to. So yeah, but they impact me, man. I can't tell you how much time I spend on. tariffs and taxes and all kinds of financial things. speaker-0: Thank you for that explanation. feel like it helps me even understand that. All right. speaker-1: had a conversation with an at a company that you would all know that I won't say the name of and we talking about taxes and I went into our tariffs and I went into the whole taxation thing and I said, you speaker-6: our country. speaker-1: It was kind of built on this idea of taxation without representation and all these kinds of things. So I said, the people are going to change what we do and how we do things. So it's up to us to be vocal, to understand it and to really look at how does a tariff from China impact my life as a person that has a phone or whatever that's going on? will impact all of us and certainly businesses. And we really look at it deep. speaker-0: That's so good. You really brought us back 250 years, Jeff. Thank you. All right. Ari, you get the next question. next question is, how do you balance work life and home life at the same time? ⁓ speaker-1: Wow, that is a hard one. I'm extremely organized, maybe almost to a fault. treasure my mornings, so I get up really early, sometimes usually 4.30, 5 o'clock, something like that. I use that time to do a meditation. I get cleaned up. I have a wonderful wife who likes to get up with me, usually do something together. This morning we prayed and then we'll ⁓ speaker-3: Will you? speaker-1: will have coffee or something like that. So I'm really blessed in that. I like to get to the office before the other people get here because I can get things done. And so it allows me to kind of level set for the day and make sure that I have my goals aligned and so forth. And then I'm very organized during the day on, know, into how I spend my time every day. And then I typically target a closing time that's good. And when I leave, I leave. Now I may check my phone for some emails or, but it's usually texts from my friends or ⁓ or things like that. it's, ⁓ I really try to put boundaries around what I'm going to do. When I'm at work, I work hard, I stay focused. ⁓ am driven on what I need to do. ⁓ when I'm with my family, I try to remove the distractions so that I can, I can be fully present with the people that I love and that I want to be around. speaker-0: That's so good. while you were describing your day, I will share with the students that I'm on the receiving end of Jeff's organization. He's just one of those people that are so good about that. It's because he has those systems and that discipline. So keep that in mind, guys, when you start building your own careers, ⁓ there is somebody on the other end will remember those So thanks to you, Jeff, ⁓ on a personal note. All right, Cooper, we're over to you. your first question for Jeff? speaker-3: know companies usually, there's a lot of unexpected things that always happens, some things you can't prepare for. So how do you do your best to be dealing with stuff you usually can't prepare for? Like the tariffs, for example. speaker-1: Yeah, as most of my day, Cooper, I think that's a great question because if everything we encounter were predictable, then you maybe AI work for everything at that point. But but it's it's not. And so I think the biggest thing is to train yourself to think differently. You know, I you I had a degree in chemistry, but I speaker-4: Yeah, that is speaker-1: I had the opportunity to go to a small liberal arts college and I studied aesthetics, philosophy, communications, business, religion, all kinds of things. And I think that sort of varied background and perspective really helps me because I try to look at business issues differently and from different angles and from how they impact the customer, the consumer, the suppliers that we deal with. I that this idea of being open-minded and then training yourself in a system of how am I going to respond to things. I had a meeting about another well-known customer I won't tell the name of yesterday that we're about to do a huge deal with, multi-million dollar. And at the 11th hour, they came back and basically said for a couple of different reasons that I didn't think were valid, that they weren't going to do the deal with us. I was upset, I disgusted, was ⁓ all those kinds of things. And then I kind of sat back, I breathed a little, I'm a big believer in mindfulness and kind of re-centering yourself and getting back there. I thought, okay, let me see it from their angle. Let me see it from my angle again. And where are we missing in between? And then instead of saying, okay, you're right, we're not gonna do the, what can we do? What can we do here? What can we do there? And put together a plan so that we don't stop trying to do things. So I think it's really trying to take in a holistic perspective. giving yourself a decision process that you're comfortable with and that it meets with your ethics, your morals and everything else, and then bringing that back to continuing to move forward even when you're hit with resistance or things that are different. speaker-0: That's such a thorough response, Jeff, and all the strategy that goes behind it. Great question, Cooper. Cooper, do you have a follow-on question for Jeff? ⁓ speaker-3: I know you've talked a bit about AI and about it replacing people, but do you encourage your employees to be using AI or do you think that it's not reliable enough to be used as a helper yet? speaker-1: So I 100 % encourage all my employees to use AI personally and professionally in their day to day job and what they do. And then I can tell you that I literally invest millions of dollars a year in IT initiatives, marketing initiatives that are AI driven. They may be empowered in a different platform or something, but yeah, I'm putting my money where my mouth is on this one. I just think that it gives us capabilities and speed and velocity that we don't currently have. I'm a big believer in its ability to help us identify and address problems. And some point, it's going to become basically table stakes. Maybe that word doesn't transfer, but it's going to be the cost of doing business, ⁓ that our competitors are doing it, our customers are doing it, our future employees are using it. So these ⁓ things, we're not relevant, if we're not staying current with what's going on, then by default, we're going to be behind in a couple of years. So yeah, big. speaker-0: So good. Now, Cooper, was that question important to you to ⁓ deeper a little bit in AI? speaker-3: Well, I'm been starting to use AI a lot more in my daily life My robotics group we've started to ⁓ use AI whenever getting ideas and stuff We don't necessarily use the exact idea, but it also helps us get our brains running and Start for where we design a robot It never gives us a perfect design, but it's sometimes makes us sink Hey, this part of the robot may actually work well with what we have to do. I also use it in my daily life whenever having to come up with ideas for like maybe an essay in my reading class. speaker-0: That's awesome, Cooper. Now, I don't have a note here, but I do see that you're in the 10th grade, that you do participate in chess and robotics. So that's why I felt like Jeff's response about some of the strategy closing deals probably sprung a little thoughts there for you. Do you have any ideas, Cooper, what you want to do after high school? speaker-3: Uh, well I have two plans. I first want to try and get into law school, but if that fails I do want to go into engineering. So I- speaker-0: That's excellent. Jeff, do you have any words of encouragement or wisdom for somebody like Cooper who has that technical mind, but also an interest in going into legal? Like, I mean, that's a good blend, both sides of the brain. speaker-1: Yeah, that's a great blend. you know, I think this kind of diverse approach to things is a great way to look at it because, ⁓ know, I got a technical degree, not because I love technology because, you know, was available, ⁓ what I really learned was it's just how do I interact with people? How do I ⁓ this to put myself in a position where I can do business? ⁓ can have more legal interaction. ⁓ have a lawyer on our team. She's fantastic. And I'm so impressed every time I work with her. ⁓ And encourage her to be more involved in the business because the legal aspects. ⁓ So no reason you can't combine ⁓ legal engineering together as well. Because anything ⁓ that about building or doing something is going to have legal issues with it. those are two lofty, great potential So congrats. speaker-0: That's awesome. Cooper, does it make you feel? Do you feel like you have a little bit more clarity heading down those two different paths that you described? speaker-3: ⁓ Yes, I do. speaker-0: Awesome. Well, it's good to have you back on the show. Mallory, coming to you. Mallory is one of our 11th graders. She is also very busy serving in the church, hanging out with friends, being a little influencer with makeup and all. But what she does know is that she shared some time with her aunt that works at a hospital and has decided that she wants to look into being a prenatal nurse. So Mallory, why don't you share with Jeff a little bit about what you plan on doing on the last half of your high school career and you step into What's next? Yeah, so I do want to serve as a prenatal ⁓ I also am looking into doing like some stuff with sonography, being a ⁓ sonographer, nurse ⁓ in aspect. Yeah, I've just always been really helped. Like I loved helping people. I always love helping people. And yeah, I just, ⁓ that's what I want to do. speaker-1: So I love that. I love that because I stopped to get a bagel this morning. It was like 5.30 and I was in the bagel shop, nobody's there. And then a state policeman came in and I was standing there, we were both waiting. And I looked at him, I said, you you probably have the most important job and one of the hardest jobs in the world. And I said, I'm impressed. Thank you for what you do. And then as I was turning around, go, the second most important job. said, I think nurses have the hardest job and the most important job. speaker-4: You speaker-1: Okay, I'll give you that. so I thought that probably wasn't smart telling that to a state trooper. But anyway, I left. But I think being a nurse is a noble calling because it's hard it's my late one out. Sorry. The ⁓ the it's It's challenging. seeing people at their worst. ⁓ And if if you can gain those skills and maintain that compassion that I can tell, I can see, can hear in your voice the compassion that you have. a noble calling. I would, anybody that chooses to go into that kind of profession, I would encourage you to do so for humanity, for all of us. So thank you. speaker-0: Love that Jeff and you know our producer brought up even just at your age being at you know in high school you don't want to be a nurse you specifically mentioned you want to serve as a nurse and that difference and understanding even within you is huge even starting this this early. Mallory do you have any follow-up questions for Jeff? No I think he answered everything I really love all his points that he's made. And just even his comments about like failure, I feel like I could really take that into my own life and apply it into some certain aspects because, you know, being trying to be a nurse, trying to get into schools, I'm going to experience a bunch of failure probably. I just like what he said about, you know, just trying again and just not letting it hold you from doing what you really want to do. That's right. All of that, Jeff, just from your your cha-cha experience. So thank you for sharing it. Maddie, coming to you. share with Jeff a little bit of what you want to do. Now I know that you're also in the 10th grade, so you're almost halfway through high school, and that you're kind of on the technical side too, right? You like to, you enjoy gaming. So what plans do you have? I plan on becoming a court reporter after high school. I just liked the way that the keyboard has a look too. So that's probably one of the reasons why I wanted to do that. But I also kind of liked how it's kind of like this own little language that you kind of you and a few other people around you know that like, it's like, takes like two years to learn. So. Jeff, I don't know if you heard that correctly. Maddie, obviously we shared earlier that this whole cohort of students ⁓ participate in mock trial, but also Maddie shared that she ⁓ wants to go and be a court reporter. speaker-1: Wow, so I don't know anything about that, but I know it's important. Okay, so I think if that, know, follow your dreams. I mean, that sounds like exciting to be in that kind of environment. And again, every person that's talked about a job is important. Okay, and so it's really, that's impressive to me and that gives me hope for the future because those are jobs that are tough. And they can be teased, but you can't make a mistake. gotta, this is the kind of thing where you gotta be good at what you do. yeah, more power to you, Matty. Keep the faith on them. speaker-0: So Jeff, I know that you shared when you were younger, you started a business and you started to pick up all the different things like, ⁓ you were using your parents' equipment and now we've got to upgrade that and doing some marketing. So somebody like Maddie who knows that she wants to do something pretty technical, which requires also kind of understanding a different language, right? Like they're not just taking very specific notes. They have their own language. Can you give some advice or wisdom on the business side of taking a skill like that that may be translatable or even expand her thoughts? speaker-1: Yeah, so tell people when ⁓ advancing in their career ⁓ ⁓ you're really trying to do is develop certain skill sets that you can apply to other parts or other businesses or anything else. Because ⁓ changed ⁓ and jobs and careers, ⁓ once you establish a skill set. So for Maddie, for example, ⁓ you ⁓ this skill set that you learn this ⁓ and physically know how to do this language, What that tells a potential employer is, okay, she's smart, she has the ability to learn and she has the ability to transfer that skill somewhere else. So they may need you to come in and do some coding or go through some analysis ⁓ it'll be like, she's got the skillset to do that. So don't worry about ⁓ job or the place or anything as much as the skillset you can develop. And maybe that skillset is leadership or maybe it's planning. or things like that. So, but once you get those skills, that's how want you to build out your CV, resume. I want it to be set up with skills that you can transfer because, you know, I was talking about hiring a guy this morning he, ⁓ know, the HR person I was working with said, well, he doesn't really have the experience that we need in this certain job. And I said, but he's got the skills and he advances. So, you know, that's the kind of person that I want to bring along to our team. speaker-3: culture. speaker-1: not someone that necessarily has 15 years doing that. You know what? They might have 15 years of bad habits. I don't know, but they could. So I do think that for me, it's really about skill set. speaker-0: skillsets and just really getting to know that person. Thank you, Jeff, for sharing that. Kimberly, we're coming over to you. You're in the 10th grade. You're almost halfway through high school. You are involved in the mock trial team. Can you share with Jeff a little bit what your interests are and what you kind of want, what kind of path you want to start heading towards? ⁓ have a lot of interest. ⁓ feel like I've been ⁓ certain something that I like. really want to do. I'm honestly just going to be driven to whatever wherever I go is where I go. I had interest in law, business, marketing, everything. And I think I'm just going to keep living life and see where it takes me really. speaker-1: Listen, there's nothing wrong with that. I hate, don't hate it. It sometimes shocks me when I meet somebody that's, you know, 15 years old and I say, what do want to do with the rest of your life? And then they're like, I want to be an attorney at a mid-level firm in Manhattan because you don't know. Or whatever the time is. So it's like, you don't know what you want to do. And so, listen, if you had asked me three years ago, hey, Jeff, you want to be in the janitorial sanitation, exciting world of that? speaker-4: You're 15 years old, or? speaker-1: I would have laughed my way out of the room. I love what I do now. I love coming to work. So don't beat yourself up on that. Go back to what it is. What can I learn? What can I learn that I can apply? And then how can I look at different industries or opportunities? Because the nicest thing about that is you build this up and then you see a job that's in the cosmetics industry and you say, you know what? I think that would be an interesting industry that would be ⁓ to be in. Or I see something that's in automotive. ⁓ I have developed skills. I have developed abilities to do things in either of those industries. it does, listen, I was my senior year college struggling. My dad who was a chemical engineer was ready to beat me. And instead, you know, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And but it's turned into just a wonderful career with all kinds of opportunities. And I've changed jobs, I've changed directions. Like I said, I've lived in nine different states. ⁓ just, there are so many opportunities, so many possibilities. keeping your mind open to that and working on yourself and working on your skills that you got to make. speaker-0: Super encouraging. Kimberly, how does that make you feel that somebody with a professional saying, hey, it's OK. Keep learning. It makes me feel really good because I understand that people who are successful with what they're doing now, they didn't always know what they wanted to do. And also, again, I really love what he said about failure as well, because I know failure is going to happen, mistakes are going to happen, and I'm ready for it. I'm just ready to take whatever is going to come because overall I know that. if I'm gonna find something I love and I'm gonna keep going with it. Sounds like her to crush it. speaker-3: Yeah, she is. speaker-1: And you know, could do a whole show, Ilyne, ⁓ failure. We should do that sometime, okay? Because, you I got a list. I got a list of them, all right? And so, and you more from your failures than from your successes, okay? And it's like, I hate that. hate that that's the outcome, but that is the truth. And so I think if we, you think about that, when you have a failure, you know, if we lose a big deal ⁓ or something goes wrong, we'll have a postmortem, And I'll start off meeting the same way. I'll say, listen, We're not here to judge anybody. We're not here to blame anybody. It's not about we can't change the past. But what we can do understand what happened. And then we can look at, are there any things we could have done differently? And those opportunities, they become the top of the next deal that we work on. So failure is a good thing. I hate saying that because it hurts, okay? it is a good speaker-0: you, Jeff. And you said something, you guys in your business do a postmortem. So for our students, just so you know, in the military, we call it an after action. So I'm sure with Coach Cliff, in your mock trial days, after each of the sessions and the competitions, you guys came back together and said, what did we do well? How can we do better the next time? So I hope you caught that. We're gonna move over to you, Ari. Jeff, so what I do know about Ari is that she's the oldest of a bunch of siblings, so she's super responsible. ⁓ And ⁓ that she, has this creative streak about her. So Ari, why don't you share with Jeff a little bit about what you enjoy doing. You're in the 10th grade, so you still have some time to decide as well. But ⁓ Jeff with what your plans are after high school. For me, I've had it decided since I was like eight years old. I want to be an architect ⁓ and also want to like focus in interior designing and hopefully one day start my own company. speaker-1: Wow. And now what drives you or what drove you to want to be an architect interior design? What excites you about that? speaker-4: Thank speaker-0: ⁓ Well, when I was younger, my mom would tell stories about how she would make these designs and build them from scratch using the materials she had to use in school. And I loved building things and taking things apart. So I was like, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. I want to be an architect like how my mom wanted to be one. And I also love the creative design of it. And I really want to help people build their own dream home, decorate it the way they want to and everything. speaker-1: So you're a creator and I love this because I've been thinking lately about my passions and things like that and Ilyne knows this but I'm a part-time preacher. and so I But one of my favorite things to do is to create sermons and it's because I love studying the Bible I love replying it to to modern day I love talking about being a sinner not somebody that's good that we're all trying to get to where we're going But the idea of creation is what I just enjoy the most. And it's kind of putting something together. And I know at work, when I'm most in flow, when I'm most focused, it's when I'm creating something. We're working on a new structure or a new strategy or a new business plan. And so it's like, I love that idea of creating. So whether it's architecture, interior design, baking cakes, whatever it turns out to be, I can see that you're a creator. And so don't lose that. Don't lose that passion for creation. And separate creation from creativity. They're very close, but can be creative and not create, okay? But so I ⁓ encourage to ⁓ take idea and it into action. That's creation, so I like it. speaker-0: That's awesome. And so far listeners, you can't see, but Ari has this giant smile on her face. Ari, how does that make you feel that Jeff is saying, go for it? You got this. It's really motivating because at times I lose motivation and I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to like make it ⁓ and like actually like become an architect, ⁓ it's nice hearing encouraging words to like not give up and to not lose that creative spark and to actually put in action. speaker-1: I love it. speaker-0: You're making an impact on these students, Jeff. Speaking of that, Cooper, we're coming to you. What did you pick up in our conversation with Jeff this morning? speaker-3: I learned a bit about AI and how big industries are using it, which I do find useful. And I learn a bit about how to prepare for stuff you can't really prepare for. speaker-0: That's good. That's good. were paying attention. Thanks, Cooper. Mallory, what did you pick up today? What resonated with you in our conversation with Jeff? I think I would just say the whole failure thing again. think, I don't know, it's like, it's kind of like, it's really nice hearing it from somebody that's way higher than you. And you think all these big, important people, they're perfect, they don't fail, they don't have any of these flaws, but then just hearing it. and just like him being vulnerable about some of the certain things that he's like been through in his life and some of the hardships he's had with like the tariffs and all the new things. It's very nice for like, think just like kids like us that go through failure like almost every day ⁓ that, we're not alone, I guess. You're not alone, yeah. speaker-1: love the word that you just used, vulnerable. Because when we're vulnerable with people that we trust, it helps us to grow. And it's so important. And I think as a leader, somebody asked me the other day, what's your secret sauce? And I said, I think it's that I'm transparent and I'm vulnerable. I'll let you know. And so you need to talk about failures and things that happened about 11 years ago or so I got divorced. And that's a public declaration of failure because you made this commitment forever. And it was devastating. It was hard. And then, you know, I've gone through it, was tough, but I've met the most wonderful person, my soulmate that I love dearly, we've been married five years. And so out of failure can come great success. you know, and whether it's personal or professional or whatever, I just encourage you to, to shake it off and learn from it and move forward with a smile on your face because you can do it. speaker-0: That's so excellent, Jeff. thank you, We're coming to you, Maddie. Maddie, what did you hear today that changed how you think about getting from where you are now with just having an interest of being a court reporter to where you want to go? I would say that like, like he says, like not to give up and like, you know, there's always going to be mistakes. So I think that definitely helped me, but I think that I'm going to probably stick with this too, but it definitely is eye opening to hear someone say like, you're going to make mistakes and you're probably going to fail sometimes, but you can always get back on your feet. That's right. Get back on your feet and get back to typing and that court reporter language. ⁓ to you. what stood out to you the most in our conversation with Jeff? You know, something that out to me today was that ⁓ I really loved how we talked about kind of how some negative are kind of more helpful than the good things. Like, for the failure. Sometimes failure can help you, know, and I like there's some things he said that really were motivational to not only looking at what I want to be specifically, but ⁓ from now when I'm successful, how I can use that to help me even then because I'm not just going to need it now, I'm going to need it later on too. Awesome. Ari, I'm coming to you. It's a little bit of a trickier question. What's thing you're thinking differently about ⁓ after today's session? Well, when I used to make a mistake, I was like, oh, well, that was it. I'm not doing this ever again. It was horrible. But what he said about mistakes, how even though you might have failed, doesn't mean it's over. It just means that you made a mistake and you can try again and do better. So that's what I got from this conversation was that failure doesn't mean the end of a story. I love it. Jeff, man, that cha-cha story. speaker-1: Yeah, no, and it's funny because the whole dancing phenomenon is not something that I wanted to do or particularly went into with open arms, but I did it because I love my wife and I knew that it was important to her and I wanted to try something together. ⁓ is so hard for me. I can't tell you. ⁓ the one, we try to do it twice a week, but it's the one time that I feel like I just, I'm struggling every time, but I keep going back. Okay, I keep going back. ⁓ so when you try to learn, a new language or how to be a court reporter or how to use AI to build scaffolding to help drive your robotics. It's gonna be frustrating. It's gonna be hard. And there's gonna be a million times that you want to give up. But I promise you, if you can continue to persevere and continue to try and look for the good things that come from the struggle that you're going through and then celebrate the struggle sometimes. We've turned in our Thursday dance class into like date night. So I know if I can just get through this class, that on the other side of that, I'll be able to spend some time with my wife and have a great time. And so it's like, you know, that gives me something to look forward to. there's things that are challenges, but I can tell by the demeanor of the group that I'm seeing and hearing today, you guys have a huge potential, great future. And I'm just excited to share 60 minutes with speaker-0: I love that. Yes, there is huge potential here. And speaking of that, I'd to invite our site liaison, Coach Clifford Hechert. Coach Cliff, what does this mean to you? what having these kinds of career conversations, guests like Jeff mean you as an educator? speaker-7: where application ⁓ meets what we're teaching. I ⁓ my kids this question all the time. said, you know how you want ⁓ make God laugh? Tell them your plans. And just simple way saying that things are gonna change. But like Jeff said, develop the skillset and you can do whatever you want to do. And I was really impressed the fact that Jeff went to school for a hard science. but stepped out of that and started taking classical stuff too. And I've always been impressed with people that can have both sides of their brains and do that. And one of the things I was interested in is, has he seen people that have been successful, regardless of the industry, have the ability to do that? I mean, cause some can just do the hard science and that's it. Like myself, I went to law school, I could do, you know, some of the softer sciences, but the hard science just wasn't my path. Have you seen a trend where... somebody like you that can do both is really the path to success. speaker-1: I think that's, I love the concept because I think about it a lot. you know, this idea of stretching yourself and looking beyond what you know you're good at. Okay. I know I'm good at certain things, but I'm not good at dancing and I'm not good at some other things. But I think what I've learned in my education, so for the students on the panel, learned ⁓ gain a love for reading and writing. ⁓ And, I think that in business or anything, it really comes down to communication and the accountability for communication falls on the person that's trying to communicate, not the person that's trying to receive. So if I do something great and then you go, don't know what he meant, then that's my fault. Okay. And so it really comes down to, so I think this idea of understanding vocabulary, understanding words, understanding reading, and then being able to put your thoughts together to communicate that back is really important. So to me, that's where those soft skills came in because when I go into a new business problem, it could be a legal issue about we were looking at leases and companies that go bankrupt and whether we can protect ourselves and stuff. I have no knowledge of that, but I like to read, I like to study things, I like to go deep on what I'm trying to learn. And so I think in that way, it really makes it powerful. So yeah, it's nice to have a discipline, but I'd be honest, last time I used chemistry, Well, I did a cross word puzzle and there was something about arsenic in there and so that paid off really well. My dad would be pleased that he paid for four years for that. yeah, so but it's been a while. So yeah, but it really is sort of the base. You're a coach, know, it's the basics. It's the blocking, the tackling, all those things are what's gonna make your team, your body team good. And so yeah, I would say, you know, get back to basics and embrace them. speaker-0: Jeff, you are a leader about the people, about the basics, valuing mistakes, not failures. Thank you so much for that. just know that being the vice president and general manager at Diversiy is such a right fit for you, especially in this season. What is the website for Diversiy right now? speaker-1: So the best thing to do would be go to solenis.com. Then you can click on the Diversiy logo and then boom. And if you just type in Diversiy, you'll find us, we're a big company and either one works. ⁓ speaker-4: Good AI, all you guys. speaker-0: There you go. Things so practical. Jeff, thank you so much for being with us and our students from Moore High School, co-hosts with their site liaison, their instructor, their mock trial coach, Cliff Heckert, our students, including Maddie, Mallory, Kimberly, Ari and Cooper. You've been listening to AccessCo Leaders Career Conversations. We'll see you next time.