How Family-Owned Rivals Joined Forces to Keep Independence Alive!

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the High Pressure Podcast with me, George Rodderman, and me, Marie Williams,

Speaker C: brought to you by Reliably Routerman, bringing

Speaker B: you industry news and trends, plus insightful

Speaker C: conversations with industry leaders.

Speaker B: Let's get to today's show. Well, welcome to another episode of High Pressure Podcast. This one's a little different. This is so exciting, because normally any one of these folks would be a podcast in itself. I mean. Well, we have three. Three of the folks in the industry. When you go to the trade shows, you go, oh, my gosh, there's Jason Kirby, or there's Kevin Faulkner or there's Joe Francis. Any one of those folks you'd want to run up there and ask all kinds of good questions to. But today, we have all three at the exact same time on High Pressure Podcast. So I actually got to tell you, I don't know if you guys like opera or not. I personally love opera, and I kind of, like, look at this as, like, the Three Tenors. You remember that when they had the Three Tenors, you had the best of the Three Tenors. They went and they had the Golden Gate, not gold. It was in New York City. They had the big park there, and all the folks showed up. Oh, my God. I would have done anything to be at that. So I kind of feel like we got the Three Tenors here. So, um, here's the thing. I think it'd be fun. What's that?

Speaker D: I said I'm honored.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You guys can start singing now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker E: Oh, boy.

Speaker B: So what is really kind of cool about this and why we have three people here. But before we talk about why we have three people here, Marie, I think a really cool thing is that maybe we get a little bit of the background from Kevin and Jason. Maybe a good 30 seconds, 45 seconds of where you've been, and then we're going to talk about where we're at today. So, Kevin, we'll start with you.

Speaker F: All right. Um, hi. Uh, yeah, the Three Tenors. I'm the other guy. The two people are really well known. And then there's that third ambiguous person. I'm happy being that person. Um, Kevin Faulconer with Minneapolis Oxygen. Third, um, generation, uh, president and owner of Minneapolis Oxygen. I've been with the company for 25 years, uh, in various roles, um, always based here in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Um, yeah, just, I think, uh, you know, I. I've served in a couple different capacities with G. So I know all you guys through that organization.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker F: And, uh, yeah, just real Happy to be on with you guys and, uh, with my co tenors here.

Speaker B: Yeah. Fantastic. And Jason, we've known Joe for a real long time as well. And. And, uh, why don't you give a little history of what up till now and then we're gonna have the big disclosure after that.

Speaker E: So, Jason Kirby, uh, for all of you that I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet. I've been in the industry going on 25 years. I started, uh, in the industry two years after I got out of the Marine Corps and worked, uh, my way up through operations, distribution, sales, sales, management, and I'm currently the President and COO of Central McGowan.

Speaker B: Fantastic. That's great. Thank you. And Joe Francis, I know we knew have a lot of these. We were talking the other day about painting cylinders and painting ceilings and all kinds of stuff in the industry starting out. Um, bring us up.

Speaker D: Yeah. So Joe Francis, been in the industry for, uh. I'm the young guy of the group, uh, 20 years, uh, starting when I was 16. And to your point, I think I've painted every square inch of our St. Cloud company, uh, headquarters, uh, got. Got a little bit thrown into leadership and ownership of the business back in 2011, um, but have done a variety of roles, uh, within the organization over those years. And, uh, now here we are to talk about some of the exciting things that we have in store for us in the future.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm gonna go back to my analogy with the three Tenders. You know, any one of those guys you go to and watch in concert, and it was fantastic. And then. But something brought them all together and they said, man, we are going to put on the best concert you could possibly think of. And they did. So when we talk about today, tell us a little bit about the unique situation you have that, that's. That you have. Well, really the combining and what that's about. So maybe I'll start with Joe. Let's start with you, Joe Francis.

Speaker D: Oh. Oh, boy. All right. Try not to. I'll try not to take all the time. Um, so what George is alluding to, uh, was really the merge of central McGowan, uh, and Minneapolis Oxygen. Um, you know, if I'm kind of, kind of staying in queue a little bit. We, uh, Kevin and I have known each other for, uh, you know, as long as we've been in the industry, essentially, um, they have been competitors, um, all of that time. I would say friendly competitors. If you, if you, you know, put some comparison around the spectrum, ah, of competition, um, we've We've shared best practices. Yes. We've. We've taken customers from one another. Um, I would say in a positive, you know, as positive a way as you possibly can. Um, you know, and then time progressed, and ultimately, you know, we continued conversations about, huh, huh? You know, well, I'd like to buy you. Or maybe I'd like to buy you. Or, you know, the best. The best case scenario is for a little bit of, you know, independent consolidation, but not the consolidation people hear about, you know, via, uh, national companies or private equity. But why can't two independents, you know, put their businesses together in a way that isn't just an acquisition? Um, and it was more so Kevin, that pushed on the merge idea. And it came kind of on the heels of, uh, Ark 3, who many in the industry know. Um, so I'll call them out as the idea generator. And we saw the success happen there, which ultimately sparked that kind of creative conversation amongst Kevin and I. And it took by Kevin, I don't know, the last 10 years maybe, of conversation for us to get to this point. Um, and ultimately we just realized we'd be stronger together. And, um, a lot of detail work happened to get us to that point. But, uh, we are today now stronger together.

Speaker B: Yeah. So here's a. That was a really good response, by the way. But here's a question I have for you. So, Joe Francis, your CEO. Is that correct?

Speaker E: Correct.

Speaker B: Visionary.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker B: Kevin Faulkner, you are president, is that correct? And CEO of.

Speaker F: No, I'm. I'm currently president of, uh, you know, uh, Jason and I kind of share the same roles, uh, at Central McGowan and Minneapolis Oxygen. But, uh, my role will change, uh, after our integration goes go. You know, over the integration period. And, uh, I'll be more of a probably executive vice president role, but sitting, uh, sitting right next to Joe and the board of directors as the two owners of the.

Speaker B: Okay, gotcha. Okay. And then Jason, you're president, is that correct?

Speaker E: Correct.

Speaker B: Okay. Okay. And the reason I'm asking is a lot of people find it really fascinating how does that all meld and how does that work? And here's a question. Have you found yourselves actually surprised at how, like, you're thinking, or have you found that there's a one person has a strength and a person has a little bit of weakness that helps meld those two together? I mean, what's. What's that been like so far?

Speaker D: So I'm gonna. I'm gonna answer that, George, and bring, um, us back just to that decade of time, uh, So I think, you know, that. That time period that Kevin and I had to kind of come up with this idea, you know, we're both third generation. Right. Uh, there's, there's a lot of history, there's a lot of transition process that needs to take place, albeit we. We both had different paths to, to leading and owning our businesses.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: Um, we both got it to a point where we were ready to make the next move. You know, I had hired Jason and to central McGowan about a year and a half ago, give or take, really, because I wanted to. To kind of step into that visionary role and I needed that counterpart. And Jason. Jason became and is that counterpart today. Well, it worked out perfectly. And I'll speak for Kevin because Kevin, I think was in the same place taking over ownership, taking over leadership of MO2, you know, ultimately wanting, you know, to step more into that visionary role. Okay, well, it worked out perfectly coming together because we had, we had the one person, you know, we had the piece of the puzzle, I. E. Jason, um, and Kevin and I get along really well and have very similar thinking. To answer your next question, in terms of people, customer, so, uh, on and so forth. And so, you know, ultimately, organization today is set up. There's a holding company. Unknown.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker D: That owns both.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker D: Central McGowan, Mo2 and a couple others that we haven't talked about. Um, Kevin is president of MO2, Jason is president of Central McGowan. They both hold corporate titles, you know, an executive VP and COO. And then as we integrate and bring kind of the brands together and come out with a branding strategy and integration process will happen where those, you know, teams will come together and everything else. So I figured I'd just take a minute to give a. Yeah on some of that.

Speaker B: And Kevin.

Speaker F: Yeah, I, again, Joe nailed it on the head. Um, you know, I, I'd always, you know, m. Um, the history of. Of our company is the owner was always the president. I saw a different path for myself. I just was. It was taking longer and longer to get there. You know, you get. You get stuck into the day to day of the business. And um, and I really like that. But I always envisioned having somebody like a Jason being the president in the face of MO2. And, um, when. When Joe and I were talking and he hired. He hired Joe and I just was so congratulatory. I was just like, great. Get. He's a great guy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker F: Um, and I, you know, truthfully, I don't know if, um, we'd be here today if If Joe hadn't made that hire and Jason wasn't sitting in that role, we. We both agreed he was the right guy for the job, albeit Joe hired him and he was president of Central McGowan. Um, but I couldn't. I couldn't have picked a better person to run my business as well. And so the fact that we were able to come together with the two businesses and now have Jason sitting in that seat and being the leader, that was really, um, a clincher for me, to be honest.

Speaker B: So now, uh, it sounds like knowing both of you guys really well, you both are visionaries, both have a lot of vision. Things where you want to get to. So do you have a tool that you use to say, okay, is there a tie? Like, I really think we should go left. No, I think we should go right. Is there a tie? It's one of. One of the things. I was just wondering if you did arm wrestling or what kind of thing. What kind of thing do you do to. To make that final decision?

Speaker D: I've been working out, uh, you know, lots of details, George, um, related to, you know, getting into specifics, such as shareholder agreements, management agreements, and. And we ironed out, you know, a list of, I don't know, 25 to 50 things in terms of, you know, here's the decisions that we're likely to be faced with, you know, and here's who gets, you know, probably the say, and here's what needs to be mutually decided upon.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Um, you know, we haven't obviously gotten to a place where we're making a decision that we're not mutually decided on. I'll say everything we've done thus far, we've been very aligned and in sync. So that. That tells me, I think, and Kevin both what the future looks like or having to make decisions. Um, but it's a delicate, you know, it's a delicate thing. Kevin had some. Some wants and asks and things that, you know, he would want to be, um, a part of the decision. I had the same. And we had to line those. Line those two things up in an agreement to make sure that it was spelled out. Um, but we ironed that out on the front end. You know, we didn't want to leave any ambiguity to any decisions that we might come across and have to make. So whether I'm the CEO, you know, and Kevin's, you know, uh, an EVP in the organization, we're both on the board.

Speaker B: Gotcha.

Speaker D: So there's an ownership hat we have to wear, and then there's the Leadership.

Speaker F: Sure.

Speaker D: And puts the balance, and we balance it out with a board of advisors of outsiders.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Um, to, to really be able to wear both those hats to make good decisions.

Speaker B: Jason, I want to ask you, what is the thing that really surprised you as you're, as you're now in the, in the guts of both location organizations? All this is communication, information, data, all the stuff you got. What was the thing that you found yourself like in a really happy, pleasant, positive way? Surprise. Like wow. What was. Did you have a while?

Speaker E: I really just think it's, it's been uh, my fellow team members at both companies and truly how focused they are on not only taking care of fellow, uh, team members, but also our customers again. And that goes back to the shared core core value, core values that we had that I was talking about earlier. They align almost identical. When we reviewed the four core values of each company, they literally were the same, maybe worded a little differently, but they aligned so much. And I think that was the wow moment for me is you've got two long time independent companies that share the same core values that are focused on taking care of employees, taking care of customers and really want to be the premier, well, uh, independent welding supply, distributor. So it just, that was the wow moment for me when, when I was able to meet Kevin and all of his team members and really get to know them.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's great.

Speaker C: Would someone mind sharing what. Actually Jason, you're the perfect person to ask for this. What was the um, total of employees you had prior to the merge? You've, I think since the merge you've acquired there's a total of three companies you've acquired that correct? In total.

Speaker E: So in, in, in a year.

Speaker C: Uhhuh. Uh-huh.

Speaker E: There's been three acquisitions and one merge.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker E: We went from 140 employees to 260. We went from seven locations to 20.

Speaker C: That's an interesting. So what. I'll start with this question. What was the goal of doing this? I'm sure it's obvious to some, but just to hear it from the horse's mouth. Joe and Kevin, what was the goal of doing this big picture goal of where you wanted this to go?

Speaker D: As an independent distributor? I think everybody would agree that you always want to grow. What does growth mean? What metric do you set out for yourself? Is it an annual revenue growth rate? Is it, is it a targeted geography growth path? Is it an acquisition strategy? Personally, I've always been geared towards the acquisition strategy and not just to acquire. To acquire or not in our Case with Kevin, the merge to merge. But really it's about building a strong organization, one that can compete, one that can compete, um, better on, uh, customer service, talent, attraction, family values and a fun, good place to work. Different from our national, uh, or private equity competitors, um, but also one that can compete on price. I mean, in a world where you have Amazons and price competition and price, um, uh, transparency, you have to be able to do both. Being larger helps that, but being larger with the same values is just a rocket ship with that fuel, continued growth. I mean, Kevin and I talk all the time. We want to create, you know, generational opportunity for both of our families and the families of those within our business. And the only way to do that is to have that growth mindset. I mean I, I think I said it on the first podcast, maybe out of place, but if you're not growing, you're dying. Right? Um, and that's true. It's just. What do you define growth? And we like acquisitions. I think we've gotten pretty good at it and we bring a family feel to that process and we've created, you know, stability and ability to acquire, maybe not always paying the highest, highest multiple that you might hear, you know, in the industry today, but bringing value that will support, you know, a good transition to, you know, to, you know, any family business that is looking to have their succession plan include the sale of their business.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker D: So I like that opportunity.

Speaker C: Yeah. And looking at, so going from seven locations to 20 locations, um, you know, doubling the amount of employees you have. Different companies are now acquired as one company. Um, how do you give that outstanding customer service and outstanding, um, you know, feel of coming to work and feeling heard and being able to grow? Um, what does that look like? Are you looking at who, um, amongst your team you're able to promote into those management positions or what are your ideas as to how you can maintain, you know, fantastic externally and internally fantastic service.

Speaker F: So, you know, I think, uh, you know, our, everybody has core values and, and you know, but I think, you know, everybody has one that they, they go to. Right. And, and ours has historically and still is, you know, we're people first. Um, that's employees, that's customers, that's vendors. You know, we put the person in front of anything else and that's how we make our decisions.

Speaker A: And just being a, you know, us being a smaller place, Minneapolis oxygen, with 60 employees, there was only so much room for people to grow in their current, in their roles. Um, you know, especially having long term employees that are you know, in a seat for 25, 30 years, there's only so much movement within it. Within a company like that, that can happen. Um, finding a partner like Joe and how he runs his business, I think, you know, their, their key core value that they, that they lean into is trust. Right. And it's, you trust your people and you put people first. And then you have a larger organization that allows people to move, you know, not just geographically, but also up and down the org chart. Um, and you can, there's so many more seats to fill, and you can find the right seats for those people. When you have an organization that's larger, that keeps those family values, um, at the forefront of the decision making that we make every day.

Speaker D: Yeah. A well organized team, an excited team, a trusted team, is always going to compete better than the alternative and the customer. I mean, I know that sounds vague, um, and there's a lot of detail on how we run and manage our business. Um, but, you know, to Kevin's point, and it's, it's all about people. I mean, in this day and age, you got to have price to some degree. It's probably transparent. Um, you have to have logistical capability. You got to pick up the phone with a smile, with a positive attitude. You got to be able to deliver the product in a timely fashion. I mean, all those things are not now probably value ads. Um, they're just an expectation. So then what can we control? Well, we can control the environment in which our people work, control the environment in which they're allowed to have authority to make decisions for the car with the customer in mind. And that's part of the recipe, I think, that makes that successful.

Speaker C: Absolutely. I also think there's something to be said for founders leading an organization. Um, there's the experience of, I guess, the pain points that have come along with building that company. So if it's third generation running that company, you have three generations of pain points that you have taken to heart that you've learned from, from your father, grandfather, grandmother, whoever it was running that company at the time. And because you have that, like, grit and like, full, um, love for the company, the people that are working with you are more willing to jump in and do that little extra. You know, I guess if you want to use a metaphor of being at the gym, do those extra three sets that they didn't want to do. Right. To, to get us to the end zone. Um, so, yeah, I think that.

Speaker D: Good point, Marie, just for a second.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker D: And I think that's, I mean, myself And I can speak for Kevin. We love our business. I mean there's no other m major company, uh, group that owns multiple businesses or people that can say that they love their company. And it's not just the company itself, it's the people within it. It's, you know, it's the customer that you serve. I have a lot of different customer relationships. I know many of them by name. I know many of the owners of the customers. I know many of the families within the business. I mean we love and care about it. And that just brings a different mentality to the day to day environment that you're creating. Um, you can't replicate it unless you're an independent business like we are today.

Speaker C: Absolutely. You're not looking for an exit out when things get hard. You're going to put up, you know, roll up the sleeves and dig in. Right. Of how do I make this an even better company to what it is today?

Speaker D: Right. You got to know your numbers, you got to understand your numbers. You got to rely on them. You have to focus on them. You have to be very talented in managing income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement. You got to do that. That's what, that's a necessary. But you have the authority as an independent business owner to then use that knowledge to do what's right within the organization. Which is I think different than many other companies have the ability to do.

Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. I also think, um, one more thing that I'll mention and I'll throw it back over to you, George. But you know, when you look at uh, large corporations that are not family owned, typically what you'll find is middle management that has very, um, they're very generalized. Like the middle management can't really help solve majority of the problems. They have to go get the answers from someone else and someone else and you get that whole runaround. Right. And it feels like especially with, and we should touch on the companies, the other companies you've acquired. It feels like what you guys have set up here is to have teams that are specialists and teams that can rely on each other. Are they trust each other, it's okay to make mistakes. We're going to regroup, we're going to figure out how we can become m the best of the best specialists and not just generalists in what we're doing. Um, which I think really sets you guys apart.

Speaker F: Yeah.

Speaker E: If I could jump in real quick. I was going to say, I think one of the biggest differences between uh, independent and publicly traded is

Speaker F: independents, uh,

Speaker E: have that entrepreneurial flexibility.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker E: You don't have those rigid corporate policies, um, that you have to abide by. And our middle management team is able to have a voice in how we're going to service customers. If they've got an idea on how we improve a process, we um, listen to it. If it makes sense, we're going to implement it. It's that easy. So you know, that really is that for me that's a huge difference. And in working in both sides of, of the publicly traded and the independent, I love the freedom, I love the entrepreneurial flexibility that we talked about, um, and not having to deal with the rigid corporate policies.

Speaker D: Mhm.

Speaker F: Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean that's, I think that's the, that's the secret sauce of an independent is quick decisions and reacting quick to those decisions for the customer. And um, I'm a firm believer that you learn more by making the wrong decision than the right ones. If you're making the right ones all day long, you know, you start to almost feel, you know, like you got this cloak on that you can't be hurt. And um, you've gotta, you've gotta allow your people to make mistakes. As long as they're doing it with the customer, um, in mind and they're trying to do the best thing for the customer. We'll fix any mistakes on the back end, but you gotta give them the freedom to be able to make a decision. And it might be the wrong one, it might be the right one, but we're gonna learn from it if it's not the right one. So, um, and yeah, to your point, um, you know, as being an owner and Joe's point of being, you know, loving the business, like, um, you guys know this better than anybody because the company's name's Ratterman. I mean, you take those, your reputation is everything. And so, you know, you take those personally when you're an owner of a business like that. And, and so it stings on a different level if they say something bad about your company and you, the, you're the owner of that company and um, that, that's something that, you know, I know Joe takes to heart and that's certainly something that I take to heart as well.

Speaker B: And you know, I could really appreciate what you're saying because, you know, years ago we decided we had three things. We had our team all got together. So really, what, what differentiates as a marketplace?

Speaker F: Right?

Speaker B: We came back, well, we have reliable delivery, we have reliable solutions and reliable people. Then we change the name to reliably routerman well, you know, when you put the name reliably Routerman in front of something, you might get to hear about when you haven't been reliable.

Speaker E: Right.

Speaker B: So it's a constant feedback and, and, but it is your, it is your name and, and we're proud of what we do at Router Manufacturing. I like something, uh, earlier. It's a really great point. You know, one of the things we look at is everything comes from a very customer centric perspective. Now our, for us, our customers are internal and external.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker B: And so as long as we're always thinking customer centricly, then we're going to usually probably do the right thing. You know, we have to look at all the other aspects, is it safe? And all the things that we need to look at. But that's what we do as well. We just look say, what's a customer centric? How do we make that happen? And, and take care of the customer? And we know, like you said, take care of your people, you take care of your, you need to take care of the internal customers so they can take care of the customers as well.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, and we're not perfect. I mean, obviously as you grow an organization, you need to create good structure, good process, and there's bumps in the road all of the time when we're shifting things around or making decisions, um, we try our best to listen and we can be nimble in making change. If we've gone down a path and all of a sudden it's not right, we'll make that change as quickly as possible. Whether that's process related or structure related then. And you know, I don't want to always knock all of our competition. You know, there's a place for publicly traded, there's a place for private equities, a place for all these things. You know, obviously we're a little biased, uh, in terms of that there's a great place for independence. Um, but, uh, well, it's good to have competition to keep us on our toes.

Speaker B: And that's what was really great meal to have you guys today because, you know, it's an unusual situation where you've merged together and you cover a large footprint of an area and you've got, you've what, more than two times the amount of folks working for you in less than a year and up to what, 20, was it 20 locations? 20 locations, my gosh, from seven to 20 locations. That's, that's amazing, right? Just to be able to manage that itself. Um, I do have a quick question. I Like to ask this question because it's really fun to have three folks like yourself on here today. I just wanted. You got 15, maybe 20 seconds to answers.

Speaker F: Okay?

Speaker B: So it's got to be a quick one. What is your absolute favorite thing to do? I don't care if it's working out. What is your absolute favorite thing to do? Jason, what's your absolute favorite thing to do?

Speaker E: My absolute favorite thing to do is to get out of the office and join my sales team or drivers visiting customers. That is my absolute.

Speaker B: That's a good one, Kevin. Your absolute favorite thing to do?

Speaker A: Uh, I, I, I love roaming the halls and visiting our people. I, I, I like going up to the customer service. I, I, you know, that was one of my favorite jobs, was customer service. Just solving a quick problem and seeing a quick smile on somebody's face. Um, going into the sales bullpen and talking with the guys and hearing about a problem and then having a group of us just talk about it and get that quick fix, that quick win. I love that stuff.

Speaker B: Oh, that's great. Joe Francis.

Speaker D: Geez. I, I was gonna say, I mean, I like traveling with the kids and, you know, playing golf. I thought we were going down that path, but. Just kidding. Uh, my absolute favorite thing to do in the business, um, where I get the most energy is talking to other business owners, uh, or our leadership team, talking about strategy, talking about the next big move, talking about an acquisition, talking about another location, you know, dreaming big about, well, here's the big goal. How do we make steps to actually get to that point and connecting, whether it's leadership team or other family business owner, just on a deeper level about, here's what we're trying to accomplish. How do we get there?

Speaker B: Okay, now we got another one. Not quite the opposite, but close. When you, when the thing that you see or watch or have happen, that just gets under your skin, it doesn't have to be a big thing. It could be a big thing. It could be a small thing. Maybe we'll learn a lot about you. Maybe there's a real, real little thing that bugs the heck out of you. I know sometimes for me, clicking a pen when I'm trying to talk, I can, I can't talk somebody clicking a pen. But, uh, but, uh, so what, what is that one thing, Kevin, for you.

Speaker A: Oh, for me? Gosh, I hate when people don't use their blinker. Oh, gosh. Um, you know, I hate spreadsheets. Uh, I hate financial statements. It's a necessary evil when you're sitting In a position that I'm in, but it's not my favorite thing. It does not light me up. It does not energize me. You know, we. I talk about things that are like energy, you know, boosters and energy drains. That's just an energy drain for me. I'm a people person. I like being in a room solving problems, talking to people. Um, but when I. When I just got to sit there and go through. Go through spreadsheets, go through financials, go, you know, start identifying problems on paper, that. That's not my. That's not my forte, and that's not what I love.

Speaker B: Joe, what's yours? Just wrinkles. You get some of your skin.

Speaker D: That's where Kevin and I balance each other out well, because I love all of the things he just said he hates. So this is a match made in heaven. Um. Ah, you know, my couple of things. I mean, the scent, like cleanliness and disorganization just get under my skin. You know, I'm a bit. I'm a type A personality. If it's clean and organized, it's managed. Um, so that's a big thing. And then, you know, if we're. If we're talking about the trio, which now we have solved with Jason, it's talking about these big ideas, and then I leave the room thinking we're, you know, we're moving, and then I come back a month later and nothing's happened. I'm like, what the heck's going on? I thought we made the decision. But solve now with Jason in the room? That was the piece I was.

Speaker B: Jason, what's the thing gets under your skin, just drives you nutty.

Speaker E: I think when somebody comes in with an issue to talk through but doesn't have any potential, um, resolutions.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, okay. That's a good one. Yeah. As you guys look at the gas industry and looked out five years, 10 years now, is there a certain area you think is really the growth area that people should be focused on? I mean, three or four years ago was conversation a lot about hydrogen. Um, today, where do you see that value? You should really. I mean, at one point it was getting into specialty gas. Where are we at today? What do you see as that next frontier? Opportunity.

Speaker E: Yeah, I was going to say, I think, as you see, what's. What's happening with, um, the current president, he's trying to bring manufacturing back to the United States, which I think is great. I think that is going to be where our industry goes over the next five years. As he's bringing Manufacturing back to the United States. That's going to be opportunities for the independents, for sure.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker E: That includes high tech manufacturing, electronics, all of it.

Speaker B: Yeah, all the different elements of manufacturing.

Speaker F: Correct.

Speaker B: And Kevin, what are your thoughts?

Speaker A: To Jason's point, I think, you know, as manufacturing comes onshore, um, you know, whether they choose to do business here or not, you know, this is a R and D. And, uh, the semiconductor industry here in the Twin Cities is pretty strong. The healthcare industry is pretty strong. Um, you got to look at your market segments and see what's there and available. Uh, you know, Joe and Central McGowan has done a really good job on the bev, carb and dry ice side of the business. Um, you know, one of our locations did really good in that. But now together, stronger together, as Joe was alluding to before, like that, that space has opened up quite a bit for us. Um, and so those are going to be markets that we're going to be able to penetrate more deeply, um, than we had before.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's great.

Speaker C: What has been one of the biggest challenges, you know, if you could, like, go back and go, oh, man, I. Oh, you don't even have to say, like, lesson learned, because maybe you're still dealing with it, but I'll just say, ask. What has been the biggest challenge so far for each of you?

Speaker A: I can, I can. Oh, go ahead, Joe. Okay, I'll go. Uh, you know, I think we really tried to work on the communication, um, to our employees. Um, and what we tried to do is we tried to slow roll. We were like, hey, we're going to walk before we jog, before we run. Um, one of the things that we learned is that, you know, we did the communication piece, I think, really well. Um, you know, I think you can never communicate this kind of change, um, enough or effectively enough or often enough. Um, but one of the things that we learned is we tried to show our teams some quick wins, to show them, you know, just how well our teams could work together, just how, how. How much value we could bring to our end users. Um, but one thing that we learned was that once we showed them a couple of those quick wins, we heard from our people, like, they wanted to run. They were ready to. They were ready to run before we were even ready to jog. And so we had to go back as a leadership group and be like, okay, we have to adjust how we're going to try and implement this to keep up with the wants and needs of our team members, our employees. They really wanted to work together so badly and so quickly that we had to kind of. Joe alluded to before, like you make a decision to go down one path, but you hear and you listen to your people and you can pivot really quickly to give them what they want

Speaker F: and what they need.

Speaker A: And so that's one growing pain I think that we're probably still working through is just trying to keep up, but do it in a thoughtful way so

Speaker F: we don't have to go back and

Speaker D: do a bunch of rework.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Um, for our team and our people.

Speaker C: And before I get to uh, your answers, Jason, uh, and Joe, how are you listening to your people? Because that's, I think, easier said than done. How are you giving them a voice so that you're getting that feedback right away? Because I think the most difficult thing in a company as you scale is to get the immediate feedback from your employees. Employees of either customers, uh, satisfied, not satisfied, how they're feeling, how they're working together, cross department communication. So how are you getting that feedback?

Speaker E: Well, I would say first and foremost we all have an open door policy. So we're in the office every day. Um, we're always communicating with our fellow team members, you know, checking in, um, seeing how the morale is going, how's it going, taking care of our customers. Are there any issues that we need to be made aware of? But for the integration, uh, itself, we also set up an email, um, so somebody could send in blind emails with questions, concerns, um, any ideas that they might have to make the organization better. And then we address those. Uh, Kevin and I address those in our weekly, uh, update meetings that we do. So we do a 5 to 10 minute video every week of the progress we've made on the integration. And then we also address any opportunities or concerns that employees have brought up from that previous week.

Speaker C: I love that idea. That's a fantastic idea. I know a lot of, um, companies will go like the blind survey route or whatnot, but I love getting that immediate. They can send it immediately and then that week gets addressed. That's really cool. Um, and Joe and Jason, I would love to hear from you what your biggest challenge has been throughout this experience.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think, um, to piggyback off of that a little bit too, you know, we're willing to work hard, which means we're willing to listen and take action quickly. To Kevin's earlier point, you know, that was an aha. It's like we set a timeline, walk, jog, run, end of year, ERP consideration and everybody internally wanted it faster and so we sat back and said, okay, well that can we work hard? Can we get it done faster? So it starts with good process, of course, you know, if you get a little more granular. Both Kevin, MO2 and Central McGowan were running on a similar call it the management backbone, uh, Entrepreneurial Operating System Traction or Pinnacle. Um, know we were, we were utilizing an internal management system to run our businesses. And so we were able to really quickly understand the structures, the processes, the measurables, the numbers. We got to put integration team specific to function together immediately. So marketing, hr, it, general ops, general sales with key individuals from across each functional department that we could put together to be kind of the hit team. Like you guys are out of your normal day to day. Forget about what you worked on in your other weekly meeting. We're focusing on integration topics. How are we going to solve this? What are we going to do about this? And leadership's involved Jason or Kevin or myself or others. And so we're listening and we're making quick decisions. Um, all of that together with what, you know, the ahas of the, what Kevin mentioned with the um, open door, the email list, the communication, the weekly meetings. I mean there's a, there's probably a book we should write for ourselves to follow on the next one so that we take all of the best practices from what we've been dealing with for the last few months, you know, compartmentalize it and put it in play for, you know, any future acquisitions or merges that we do.

Speaker C: But um, And Jason, how about yourself?

Speaker E: I guess the biggest thing for me is my owner's not giving me a chance to catch my breath. No, I would say it goes back to um, making sure, as Kevin and Joe both hit on, making sure that we're not leaving anybody behind in the integration process. Doing our best to over communicate, doing our best to address concerns, doing our best to um, take any ideas that they might have to make the company run better and implement that in the integration process. And then lastly, I would say anybody that's had an acquisition or done a merger, there's a lot of work behind the scenes on the ERP conversions that have to happen. And that is making sure that um, the team members that are involved with that feel um, like they've got a voice, they're being heard and you're providing them the support that they need when they request it. Because that's where a lot of the work happens.

Speaker C: Yeah, I can only imagine we're looking at ERP systems right now. And just for Our own. It's like, whew.

Speaker E: So it's a lot.

Speaker C: Um, well, I would like to also ask, and George, if you want to jump in now, you can, but, uh, for the industry and for your customers, what do you want them to know about what this holds for them?

Speaker D: Great question.

Speaker C: Is that too big of a question?

Speaker D: No, I think it's good. You know, we're here, um, we're here for the long term. Um, you know, we're at a scale that can supply and serve with the mentality, you know, of an entrepreneurial family business that, you know, can bring value via trust. And we're going to be here for a long time and we hope, uh, to continue to do what's right for the customers, to do what's right for the industry and, uh, be able to supply products to customers at a good price with good service. Right, Yeah, I think that encompasses it for me.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker B: One of the things I think I loved that I heard it through all this is really the basics. And those basics that you have the core values and who you are and, you know, we all know about the basics and how hard it is to do the basics. Amazing. Repeating it, you know, throughout. And I like what you said there when you talked about the merger. Having a shared expectation, shared values, complementing skills, and having the history and knowledge together, those are really the basics.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker B: But they're, they're hard to. It's really hard to get all those together. Um, so I think that's a really great piece of takeaway from this. When people are thinking about maybe do mergers and how that can bring value, those four things I think really are key. So I really appreciate you guys taking the time today and uh, sharing your thoughts, your ideas with us. And uh, it's really been wonderful to have you on the High Pressure podcast. So thank you so much. Thank you for all the things you do for the industry and thank for all these new Ferrari manufacturing.

Speaker E: Well, thank you for having us. I really enjoyed it.

Speaker D: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, George.

Speaker B: Thanks for watching. Stay up to date with the latest news in the gas and welding industry by clicking on the subscribe button and

Speaker C: check out one of our other videos to learn more. Find out more about reliably radterman@rmiorder.com.