Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Fifth-Generation Family Elevator Business | Sammy Kolker on Leadership and Creativity

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Fifth-Generation Family Elevator Business | Sammy Kolker on Leadership and Creativity · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the nice thing about our industry and these smaller companies is that it's okay to not know everything and to ask for help.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that actually is how you get to know people on a different level is when they can help teach you something, you learn from them, and then maybe down the road you're teaching them something that they don't know.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry, to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Today our guest is Sammy Culker with Maytaw Corporation.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sammy represents the fifth generation of family members to work at Maytop, which is 135 years old this year, and she is pleased and honored to be part of this family legacy.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sammy loves what she is doing and is thriving in an environment where she can really bring value and express her creativity.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sammy also sees the necessity of inviting honesty and vulnerability into the workplace.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: By taking mentorship seriously, she is growing while also helping those who come after her to thrive.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sammy, welcome to the show.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to chat with you today.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm super excited to have you here and obviously wanted to continue the conversation after we met out in Reno.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I want to start with one of my favorite questions, which tell me how you got involved in the elevator industry.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I probably have a very similar answer to a large portion of the people in our industry, but I was born into it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um kind of grew up watching my mom and my aunt be the fourth generation in our family business.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we manufacture dumb waiters.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we're a supplier for a lot of these elevator companies to install our dumb waiters.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I just sort of grew up watching my mom and my aunt being very close with my grandparents who were the third generation and just sort of like obsessed as if May Path, like another family member, like growing up, just always being like curious, running around the shop floor, wanting to work there during the summers, even if I was just like doing digital note team.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: So Thanksgiving dinner, you're talking about this person named Mayta.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: My my cousin Mayhat.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I came in during COVID um on our sales and marketing team, and I've been here ever since.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So did I mean, as a child, did you think, no way do I want to do that?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or I mean, what was your and your thought?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny because I didn't grow up like, oh, I want to be the president, I want to be a firefighter.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really have like a specific dream of something that I wanted to do.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I always knew honestly, around like 2008, I started to develop like a a deeper care for Mayta and like its success and making sure that it did well during the housing crisis.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just the first time that I had any fears for it.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, like, okay, if this is something that I actually care about, maybe it is something that I could have a future in.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I also really liked like fashion and creativity and designing and just creating anything.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, how am I gonna make this a duo that I can do for life?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as I started going through college and studying, I studied business and journalism.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I studied a little bit of family business and what it takes to start those and you know, function within those.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I started to become more curious on like the actual business side of a family business.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then once I was out of college and working for large corporations, I really was like, okay, not only do I not care that much about these companies deep down, but I know they don't care about me.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that really helped me in my head be like, okay, this is a real viable option for me to go into, and it's something that I need to obviously think really hard about.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then COVID came at the perfect time for me to be like cut ties with the corporate world.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when you actually decided to join, was when COVID came and was wreaking havoc on most of the world.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pretty much.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So and I'm guessing your your your business kept going because it was essential and and needed to operate, and so you were able to join and just kind of make it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember my work was shutting down, and basically we were all like, what's gonna happen?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I drive back to my parents' house and I'm like, okay, I guess I'll be here for a bit just hanging out.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember the first morning that that two-week shutdown was in order, and my mom was on the phone all day, and she was like making sure that everyone had proper notices that they can come and that they wouldn't get in trouble.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: But they were determined to be a um essential business right from the start.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So they were they didn't have one single day closed down.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: We really didn't have any cases either of COVID.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we took major precautions around that.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: We we added dividers between everyone, we staggered offices, we really kept all the office employees home for the most part.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then our essential workers down on the floor, you know, they were not missing a beat with that.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone was in and we were all happy to be there.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's when I was like, okay, wow, this is not only like something that is needed, but right now it's something that we're able to keep working through and actually we're like busier than ever during that time.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's incredible.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: So let's let's step back in time just a little bit.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me a little bit about how Maytout started, how you know, what's the the family story on all that?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So in 1888, my great great grandpa, I believe, great-great grandpa Duffy, was a wood fabricator.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we worked with wood and he was out here in Chicago, and he was designing and fabricating basically ice boxes and ice houses for some of the old and original beer companies.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it was either in a big ice storage house or it was like a small box for like a saloon.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they'd get their weekly delivery of like one large chunk of ice that they chiseled out all week.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of how they started, you know.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Early days, if you look at some of the photos, we were delivering everything on our horse and buggy.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was labeled like DA Mate.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the guys on the shop floor were wearing top hats, three-piece sets, and monocle, and and the little like monocle glasses.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the photos are crazy.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then he was like, I love woodworking.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: What else can I make with wood?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there was no real like dumb waiters at this time, but there was a need at this time to transport from like where the food is being prepared to where they're serving the diners, mostly like in old homes where they were entertaining people.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Or did they keep the maybe they kept the ice down in the in the cellar?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then yeah, he identified a couple needs.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, let me just try to make this wooden box with a rope, and you just pull it between floors.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that was like his original design, never patented it, but kept going with it.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then that became his prime focus for fabrication.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he just started working on developing the perfect dumbwaiter.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh, as generations kept coming in, they started, you know, working with steel, and as things started innovating in in the manufacturing industry, that's when they were able to start innovating the products.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really always been dumbwaiters.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: We grew to like material lifts, other larger vertical reciprocating conveyors.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the basis of design though has pretty much been the same.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: I remember seeing an old an old wooden dumbwaiter in Biltmore in North Carolina.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, I wouldn't have thought at the time to to look for your your company brand on it, but I'm just wondering if you know whether that's uh a company product or not.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: It probably was.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you see an old wooden dumbwaiter, it was probably one of ours.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll have friends that text me photos, they'll be like, at an old air Airbnb turned done in breakfast, and they're like, Why is there a Mayot wooden dumbwaiter pulling the rope?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's crazy.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Send us photos.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're if anyone's in the Chicago area, you can come see what the original ones look like we have in our lobby.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: But they're they're they still are functional, people still have them.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the one of the big tricks of family, you know, businesses, especially multi-generational, as I understand it, is just kind of the handoff from generation to generation.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh C Bruce McKinnon said it best, and he said that you know, the first generation makes it, second generation takes it, third generation breaks it, but you've obviously moved beyond that.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm curious what are some of the family dynamics that you've seen when it comes to not not just generationally, but but even between siblings.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you mentioned your mom and her sister run it.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, are there other siblings?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, are there issues around that?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just love for you to talk about that.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think early on, I think it's very helpful.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's so many pros and cons to family business, but it really, when you're young and you're growing up in that atmosphere of family business and all your family lives within a 10-minute drive of one another, you're spending every single weekend together and they're spending every single day together, they are developing their own like business communication between each other that I think they learn how to and how to not do from the generation before them.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, and it makes sense why the third generation breaks it.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard when you're the one that starts at first generation and it's your baby, and there's so much that's tied into that that's based off of your own creative endeavors and your your own blood, sweat, and tears.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the second generation, I think, is pretty respectful of that and grew up watching that so closely and in the world in which they created it, that if they do decide to step in, they're pretty much keeping in line with the goals and the vision that their predecessor had.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it makes sense to me that it's then that third generation that maybe there's a little entitled man or maybe there's a little, oh, it's a family business, it's an option.