Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / The Sky Is The Limit In The Elevator Trade! | Cory Hussey

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The Sky Is The Limit In The Elevator Trade! | Cory Hussey · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you get out of this business what you put into it, you know, and the more effort you put in, the more time you put in.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's just tons of people out there in this industry that love to teach and love to uh impart their knowledge on other people.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're willing to absorb that, but the sky's the limit, really.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: You can there's so many different things you can do in the elevator industry.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're talking with Corey Hutsey, the chief operating officer of Stanley Elevator.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Corey's father, Neil, played a key role in building Stanley Elevator during the 70s and 80s, and eventually he purchased the business from Richard Stanley.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Corey essentially grew up in the business and was fortunate to work in different areas of the company during high school and college.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: After college, he started working in the business full-time to pay for law school.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Corey quickly fell in love with the elevator industry and has never looked back.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Corey, welcome to the show.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me, Matt.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you taking some time to talk.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been intrigued by Stanley Elevator.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I heard I've just heard little bits and pieces about how kind of how it was started.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious, how did how did Stanley Elevator start and how did you come to to be the COO?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well boy.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I wasn't around when it started.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So this is these are uh stories that I've been told.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: But as uh the legend goes, uh the business was started in 1951 by uh Irving Stanley.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: People called him called him Jake.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and Jake worked for Payne Elevator for a period of time and was laid off due to a slowdown in the construction business and um was looking for things to do and knew knew the uh the priest who ran St.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Ansom's College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I guess St.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Anselms at that time needed an elevator installed, and Jake had a a slightly used elevator in his garage.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Not quite sure where that came from, but uh so the the priest ended up hiring Jake to install that elevator in the building up at St.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Anson's.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Jake ended up installing the elevator for a lot less than than he had charged the school and went back to the the priest to try and give him the the the balance back.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the priest said, you know, I I I think you should take that, keep that money and take it and start your own business.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the uh that's a story everybody's been told, but and how the how the business started, and then uh that's cool.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Jake ended up uh bringing his three sons in, Warren, Bill, and Richard, and ended up uh Richard bought out the two brothers down the line, and then uh my father got involved and so obviously a multi-generational venture through two families so far, and and it sounds like you've kind of grown up knowing uh you know being inside the the business.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is that accurate?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was I was over here while at our uh the building that they that Stanley was in for many, many years when I was very young.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have I have very uh vivid memories of being a little guy uh running around the building at Christmas parties and sure, probably messing with messing things up, and then worked uh was fortunate enough to be able to work in the summer during high school uh at the business in the shop and then through college and joined full time like two days after I graduated college because I didn't have any money left, so I needed to needed to get in the on the employment game real quick there.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when was it that you said, hey, I want to be in this business?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: When I was getting done with college, I didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and like a lot of people who don't know what they want to do, I was like, Well, maybe I'll go to law school, right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like sure.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I my father said, Well, if you're gonna go to law school, rather than borrow money to do it, why don't you work during the day?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you can there's a school in Boston called Suffolk and you can could take night classes, and so I started doing that and and not thinking I was ever gonna work for my father or or the elevator business, but I'd save a a year or two in started to really enjoy it and uh haven't looked back since.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that is awesome.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that you love most about the industry?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I really like how dynamic the business is.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, from the outside, people who aren't in the industry probably think, you know, it's elevators, it's boring, it's straightforward.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I always tell people I sit down on Sunday nights pretty religiously and put together a plan for the week.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And by 9 a.m.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: on Monday morning, that plan's totally uh out the window.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I just it's uh there's every day brings something totally different, a new challenge.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the challenges are although difficult sometimes, they're they're rewarding too.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think you feel a pretty good sense, sense of accomplishment uh getting through the day-to-day things in the business, but not for everybody, um, certainly, but I think for the right type of person, this is a really uh engaging business for sure.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say makes Stanley different than some of your competitors?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're you know pretty strong there in the Boston area, but you're competing against multinationals every day.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it it's pretty simple.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like I mean, I mean, I think we just treat people well uh or try to treat people well.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we give people the ability to do their job and do it at a high level.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're not managing on a short-term basis, uh, you know, financials on a short-term basis.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: We take the long view, which I think if you look at the elevator business, it's really you have to take the long view, and we're competing against a lot of people that can't do that.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, I think our our people are by far the biggest differentiator for us.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: We bring in folks that care a lot about not only Stanley, but but of course our customers, and and you know, when when somebody's elevator is down, people take it personally and and do everything they can to make sure we can be there for them and get it up and running uh as quickly as possible.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's pretty much.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, other than that, we probably look pretty similar to everybody else.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think probably if if there were a competitive advantage, I always like to say like caring is our competitive advantage.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: We we really care a lot.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're certainly not perfect, but we try as hard as we can all the time.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, and that's all you can do.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I've talked to uh you know some of your employees different times of the years.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like you know, they've been there a long time that they that they stick around.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um any idea how long the the person with the most tenure has been with the company?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because he reminds me all the time, my father.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's like 52 years, yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we had we just had a field uh service mechanic who retired with actually 50, I think he was almost 55 years and uh was never uh I don't believe he was ever laid off one time.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty amazing when you think about it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So all the while with Stanley, because I know a lot of times, especially union employees, they can kind of bounce from company to company.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: But this this gentleman had been there at your company the entire time.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: As as far as I know, that was he was uh with us the entire time, and we've had other people right up there um with that type of tenure.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of our, especially with the field, our strategy is to really self-grow people.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: So so we really uh we really try to get apprentices, really good apprentices, and and hope that they spend their whole career here.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we develop them into the service mechanics and the adjusters and the and the high-level uh mechanics that we need to do the job.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, thank you for saying that.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna ask you, what are what are some of the things you do to to develop your employees so they want to stay for 55 years?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we have a pretty well-defined progression, especially in the field with people's careers.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll typically start off in construction.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: We have a decent sized construction business for an independent um as far as the industry goes.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we have a lot of opportunity for green apprentices to get experience in construction.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there, they'll typically work on a modernization team and work into the repair department, uh, and then becoming a mechanic at some point along the line there.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then from the repair department, we're usually promoting people into service, so to take on a route.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we really try to make sure that our folks get typically 10 to 15 years of experience before they're taking on their own service route and handling the service for a hundred or so customers.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So right, that's great.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I've I've heard you talk some about developing within your office staff as well, whether it's a project manager or a sales.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the things you do to really build those people as well, or maybe even help them get in the right seat?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I sometimes see talented people, but maybe they're not thriving as a salesperson, they're really a better project manager.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Curious what you do there and if you see that kind of situation.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, we believe in uh strengths-based management.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I in fact, I I know we've worked together and I usually have a hard time putting uh I the job description is easy, the title's difficult.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so you know, typically people will arrive here at Stanley, join the team, and you know, we assess over a period of time where their skill set fits best.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we're okay with morphing into something different than where we started, you know, especially for the right, right person.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And to be honest with you, that happens uh often.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't necessarily pigeonhole people based on an initial title or anything like that.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think it's it's tough in the hiring process to really get a feel for exactly where somebody might fit.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll work with people.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: We we also most of the management team here also have field experience.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So they uh I'd say three quarters were were mechanics, licensed mechanics at one point in their career.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Another quarter spent time in the uh IUEC management, field management training program, uh which allows them to work in the field.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're able to new new people to the industry, especially, are able to get a lot of knowledge from those folks that we have here in the office.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a another place where we differentiate a little bit.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of a lot of uh technical expertise in management and in the office, which is interesting because uh a lot of other companies that I talk to, it seems like it's getting harder and harder to get technical expertise to want to work in the office.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think it's uh it's been getting difficult over the course of the past 20, 25 years.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: The the collective bargaining agreement has changed, limiting the ability to do some things that you used to be able to do to get uh field employees into management.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: The private market for insurances and uh retirement plans is different than uh than what the union can offer.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, it's but it's it's a challenge.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're we've been able to do a pretty good job navigating that, identifying the right people and attracting them in different ways to kind of jump over to the management side.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's a probably got to be a huge advantage, you know, just knowing what what little I do, talking to others and and maybe struggling to to bring that uh that talent in or to be able to to pay enough or in encourage and send a mechanic to step into a a supervisory role.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean I I I we look at it like we're we're only as good as the field, you know, like uh Stanley's only going to be as good as the people performing the work out there, and so you know, I think it's critical you have people who can support those folks in the field who can empath empathize with them and understand what they're going through and understand their perspective.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's it's critical.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know how people run companies any other way, right?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I imagine that if you you know bring somebody who knows very little or nothing about working on an elevator and they're trying to manage a group of you know union mechanics that have been at it for years, right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's gotta be, I would think it'd be extremely hard.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, the the mechanics I would think would have a hard time respecting someone who really doesn't know what they do or how they do it.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I mean it's it's uh you know, again, it's a type of industry that there's no um there's no textbook you can study to get the knowledge you need.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you know, I uh I think my father always used to say, there's no geniuses, they're just people who've been around a long time here.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I it truly I see new things every day.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, you just gotta kind of slowly incrementally get that experience.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it must be extremely hard for somebody uh new to the business to come in and try and manage seasoned field mechanics.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I can't can't I can't even imagine how it's done.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sure, sure.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say are some of the I mean, we talked about you know this particular staffing challenge, but as a as an independent, I imagine you have some different challenges than than some of the bigger players.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know when I used to be an HR guy for a big Fortune 500, they the attitude was kind of like, hey, people, people look us up, they come find us because they like us and our brand and they want to work for us.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: How does that affect you as an independent player in in your market?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I uh yeah, I I mean, obviously, I I think our name is somewhat recognizable in the industry, but you know, you've got names that people that are recognizable worldwide that we compete against, and sure their ability to attract, especially um talent like Ray out of college and things like that is probably greater than our ability to do that.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: But we just again, I I think we try to do it fly under the radar a little bit, and uh we've had pretty good luck getting uh really great people to come come work here.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh whatever we're doing, I guess I I don't know if it's working, but uh the fact that we can get good people, I guess that's proof that it's that it's somewhat working.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, just just keep doing it, right?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's cool.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the the big changes that you've seen over the last I guess 20 years or so?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And curious what your thoughts are as you carry forward with those changes.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think the uh changes, let's see.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's been a lot of change changes with technology, sure.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um customer demand.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: So uh the customer has changed, especially on the service side.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a lot more paperwork involved, um, a lot more administrative work than there probably was when I started in the business, even you know, 20 or so years ago.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's really ramped up.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, COVID's even accelerated that even more.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's just all sorts of hoops that you have to jump through to access people's sites and construction the same way, a lot of paperwork around safety.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I we end up dealing with a lot more uh administrative type tasks.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we've really got a layer of administrative people, you know, that work in conjunction with the more technical folks.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's been a change.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think regulation has changed pretty significantly in the past uh 20 years.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: I also think the the uh the type of individual that's getting recruited into the IUEC apprenticeship program has changed.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't you just don't see a lot of young folks with mechanical experience.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, where maybe not 20 years ago, but let's say 30, 40 years ago.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Kids in high school worked on their cars.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that was what they did for fun.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now I think kids in school are much more working on computers and things like that.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, they bring certain skills with the computers, but we also have to still service older equipment and elevators are still a mechanical device, and so there's a certain level of mechanical uh aptitude that you need to be to excel in the business.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we've certainly seen a change there where uh we have to we have to work pretty hard to uh help get people up to speed, especially on the mechanical side.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the it's it's like the the mechanical piece of that skill set isn't just isn't as prevalent or maybe isn't as deep as when they're than it used to be in the past.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean I think it's just it's it's uh like I said, uh what what uh young people do now is different than what they might have been doing years before.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then that said, you know, certainly more established mechanics.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we have training with computers for them, and they're really good mechanically.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's just a it's just a change.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure it's negative, positive, it's just different.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no, thank you for for explaining that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Curious if you and and maybe we'll just we'll end with this question, and and that is if you were to give some advice to maybe who's uh somebody who's coming into the trade, or you know, what what would you say to them?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think you and this is probably cliche, but I think you get out of this business what you put into it, you know, and and the more effort you put in, the more time you put in.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's just tons of people out there in this industry that love to teach and love to uh impart their knowledge on other people.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're willing to absorb that, but the sky's the limit, really.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can there's so many different things you can do in the elevator industry.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if I were uh coming out of college life right now, that that would be really attractive to me.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of opportunities and there's a lot of a lot of places to go in the business, and also a lot of opportunity to learn and and figure out your your your path that works best for you.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I I love it.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think for the right people, this is a great business to be in.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, the proof the proof is in the fact that I I know a lot of people that started their careers in the elevator business, and I don't know very many people that ever leave.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: So absolutely I see that something right there.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I see that a lot.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: That yeah, people stay, and I do see to your point, people love to teach, they love to be mentors, they love to to bring somebody up, and so just a willingness to to receive that gift is is what I hear you saying.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It just you know, if you just open your mind, you can you can do all kinds of things because of the Yeah, for sure.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's uh no no uh no limit on opportunity.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a good thing.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Corey, thank you for being on today.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I appreciate the time and uh wish you the very best in your business.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Matt.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: You too.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the All Red Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Please subscribe, and until next time, stay safe.