Join Kosta and his guest: Camron Rudd, Chief Operating Officer of Hörmann North America. Hörmann is a German-originating manufacturer of doors, garages, door frames, and gates for commercial and private real estate. Operating globally, the family-owned business is Germany's largest door producer and the fourth-largest door manufacturer in the world.
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is recorded in Cookeville, TN.
Find out more about Camron and Hörmann North America:
https://www.hormann.us/
Find out more about Kosta Yepifantsev:
https://kostayepifantsev.com/
Join Kosta and his guest: Camron Rudd, Chief Operating Officer of Hörmann North America. Hörmann is a German-originating manufacturer of doors, garages, door frames, and gates for commercial and private real estate. Operating globally, the family-owned business is Germany's largest door producer and the fourth-largest door manufacturer in the world.
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is recorded in Cookeville, TN.
Find out more about Camron and Hörmann North America:
https://www.hormann.us/
Find out more about Kosta Yepifantsev:
https://kostayepifantsev.com/
What I find fascinating about AI in the workplace is that we've seen a major shift in the worker, you know, when I first started walking the manufacturing floor, you would bring in a piece of automation and there was this suspicion toward the piece, right? And you're like, I don't want that, you know, it's gonna take our jobs. Now, it's funny because I walk on the production floors and all of our facilities and somebody's like, why am I doing this? Can't you get a robot to do this? But they're saying, look, I can be utilized in so many better ways than the stand here and just do this one repetitious, you know, a task all day long.
Morgan Franklin:Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Hey, y'all, it's Kosta. Today I'm here with my guest, Camron Rudd, Chief Operating Officer of Hörmann, North America. Hörmann is a German originating manufacturer of doors, garages, doorframes, AND gates for commercial and private real estate. operating globally. The family owned business is Germany's largest door producer and the fourth biggest door manufacturer in the world. Cameron, before we get into this episode, I want to ask you about the very specific degrees you received that helped propel your career to the place it is today. Collectively, we have a bad habit of telling students what they should and shouldn't study when a career can be built from any degree. That being said, Well, you tell us about your degrees and how they brought you to Hörmann?
Camron Rudd:Yeah, so I went to Tennessee Tech, and I studied mechanical engineering and German as a combo. So I have bachelor's degrees in both of them. It's an interesting combo, I would think it's a little bit outside the box for some folks. I don't know if it's really that far outside the box. I mean, when you think about Germany, you think about precision, you think about high quality, and that sort of thing. And that kind of aligns pretty well with mechanical engineering, I think because you have to think about things and 1000s of an inch and precision that comes with the language, I think is sort of embedded in it. So I think it was a pretty good, pretty good mix. People do think it's strange, because it's very much like left brain right brain like it's worse. It's a little bit more like outside the box in that sense. But I'm hardly the only engineer in the world that speaks two languages. So So
Kosta Yepifantsev:did you go to like a career fair? And Herman was there and you decided I want to work for that company? Or did you actually just pull two degrees that you were interested in out of the hat and say, no, they're
Camron Rudd:completely air? What happened? Yeah, what happened was, so my, my Sunday School teacher when I was a kid was a German lady. So as a typical stories, she was a, you know, a spouse of a former military guy, who moved her back to Tennessee. And so when we were kids, we would go to, you know, we sang Christmas carols in German, and we would get candy when she would come back from Germany. And so I had sort of an interest in it. And then when I started at Tech, you know, you're required to take a foreign language, and I took German sort of out of honor for her, she actually passed away my senior in high school. And so I took the class, and just really enjoyed it, like I was good at it. And it was this sort of like, ying and yang completely different from the engineering department, you know, it was engineering was all about math and science, and, you know, right and wrong answers, and you go to the Foreign Language Department, it was a lot more like, let's say artsy, and people were interested in a lot of it are very creative, you know, and so it was a very different environment. And I was good at it. And I did it, you know, semester after semester, and after about four or five semesters, the director of the Foreign Language Department at the time, I got the name of Dr. Philip Campania, he still lives in town, he kind of tapped me on the shoulder one day, and he's like, I think you ought to be a German major. So we looked at my schedule. And sure enough, you know, I was kind of on a track by accident to do both degrees. So he kind of talked me into sticking it out and doing it. And so
Kosta Yepifantsev:you graduate, and let's just guess you move to Germany and you start knocking on business door.
Camron Rudd:What I did do is I did come across the book, I think a friend of mine had given me this book, she was an exchange student in Austria. And she had given me this book from a job fair that she had went to and had all these companies in there. And so I just started reaching out to them through their HR departments sending my resume and, you know, just applying for jobs, mainly in America and North America, particularly businesses that had some sort of a presence in, in North America, or in Tennessee in particular. And yeah, they, you know, they saw it on my resume, and I got a lot of job interviews, and I got actually had six job offers out of college, and five of them were with German companies, and all of the stories were somewhat similar. They're like, you know, we don't meet a lot of people in the man in America that can speak German. And so that's kind of what, what happened. Herman in particular, what had happened was, they were having a trade show in Nashville, and the owner was in the United States to go to the trade show. And the managing director at the time for the American business, had given my resume to him and said, hey, you know, there's this kid, maybe we should talk to him and we met at the Outback Steakhouse on Interstate drive. I love it. We had dinner and we the whole interview
Kosta Yepifantsev:was at the blooming onion. Yeah, exactly. We just had the whole the whole
Camron Rudd:car reception was in German. And you know, they went to their trade show in the next week, Mr. Harmon called me and he's like, I have no idea what I'm going to do with you. But I think you're a perfect fit for my business and my future plans. And I'd love to have you come on board,
Kosta Yepifantsev:and you speak German fluently. Yeah. And so when you graduated college, you could speak German fluently, right? Yeah, it
Camron Rudd:was a little more broken than it is now. I mean, I've been Herman now over 18 years, and I've been to Germany, probably close to 40 times, man. And so at this point, you know, it's a lot more polished, I would say, than when I first started out, but yeah, I could hold a conversation and do a job interview.
Kosta Yepifantsev:What's your favorite city in Germany to visit?
Camron Rudd:Oh, my goodness, we have a facility in a place called East US housing. It's in the area around effort. So effort is the name of the city. Beautiful little town. There's a place there called the kind of look, it's a bridge where people actually live on the bridge. It's an apartment complex sort of speak that's been there since the 1400s. So it's a it's a nice little town, but so a lot of places Berlin is an extraordinary city, in Stuttgart, Munich.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I've always wanted to go to Berlin. Jessica studied abroad. There's a sister school in Aachen, Tennessee Tech. Yep, yep. And so we've been there twice. Last time we went was in 2013. We were there for the 2010 World Cup. Okay, what it wasn't in Germany. It was in South Africa, but it wasn't in Germany was very good that year. And I think they made it to the semi finals last in the Netherlands who would lose to Spain in the finals, but regardless, beautiful country. Yeah, he went from Aachen to Dusseldorf, to Strasburg, which is technically France, and then to Lake Constance and then to Munich, and Munich, bro, BMW. Yeah, cuz somebody has not visited Munich. You've gotta go because it'd be the BMW facility. They got Rolls Royce, and they have like the old Hofbrauhaus, which is intense. Yeah.
Camron Rudd:It's it's, it's unique as a city I know fairly well, we do a lot of trade shows there. So every other year, I'm in Munich for a week. And so I know, I know Munich very well. It's a great town. You know, once you get to know Germany a little bit, you know, Munich is sort of like is the capital of Bavaria. And Bavaria is like Texas. I mean, it's Germany, but it's
Kosta Yepifantsev:kind of like You Don't Mess With Texas. You don't mess with Bavaria. Right? Exactly.
Camron Rudd:It's just its own little it's not like its own little subculture. They are. Actually Germany is just one into the others. A lot of little subcultures. There's a lot of deep, deep history there. You know, the glug of bead is different than again, Bavaria, or some other places.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Yeah. Nice. So as I mentioned in your introduction, you're the chief operating officer for Hormann, North America. What does that role entail?
Camron Rudd:So when I started with Herman in 2006, no 2005, we had a an importing business in East Tennessee. And so we only had a 65,000 square foot facility. I was like employee number 13, or 14, something like that. And we imported everything from Germany. As time has went on, we have basically purchased other companies. So we purchased first we purchase general American door, which is a company in Chicago, that actually I would move to Chicago in 2006, Northwest door in the Seattle market TNR up in Canada in a company called flex on that we rebranded Herman highperformance. And those sort of all ran is independent businesses. So each one kind of had their own president, their own marketing department I was at I was the president of Herman LLC, which our factory was in Chicago, and we had sales centers on the East Coast. And then we decided to, in 2021, sort of the pandemic was upsetting everything anyway. And we started what we called the stronger together initiative to basically completely reorganize North America, so that everybody's in one organization at that point. So that part part of that reorganization, the president of the West Coast business, became the CEO, I became the chief operating officer. And my role is specifically is to manage manufacturing, and to make sure that all the plants are working together and the distribution of the products into the market.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And just so people understand I mean, Herman is a over 2 billion Euro a year company, yes, which is
Camron Rudd:the fourth largest entry systems manufacturer in the world, it's him. So in North America, we're less than 10% of the market. But you know, we're going to open our 20th sales center, we have five factories in North America already. And I think the plans over the next five to 10 years, we're going to be well over, you know, 40 or 50 sales centers. You know, there's a lot of markets we're still not even really active in so the Herman family wants to grow and grow aggressively. And, you know, when you're the fourth largest, it's kind of hard, if nothing else on your pride to stay the eighth largest market, you know, so
Kosta Yepifantsev:what's the largest door manufacturer in North America?
Camron Rudd:It's a it's called overhead door Corporation and it states its overhead door and Wayne Dalton are the two brands that they rent well, they have Genie as well, which is an operator company, but it's owned by a Japanese company. It's called Sandler shutter and they're the largest in the world. Second largest is a Swedish company called ASSA ABLOY they do locks and all kinds of other you know, hardware systems and stuff as
Kosta Yepifantsev:well. So I got to ask, What's it like living in Chicago?
Camron Rudd:You know, being a Tennessee kid really got old after a while to shovel in the snow and, but wonderful place to raise kids honestly where we were, you know, we were 30 miles west of the city. You know, we had good schools, kids walked to school, you know, they had friends really close by, they could ride their bikes and play in the neighborhood and do all that stuff. So it was a really good, really good place when the kids were little. But we did get to the point where, you know, the taxes and the weather and a lot of that stuff started to get a little bit tough. And then my wife also be in Tennessee, and like I am was like, I really don't want to have grandkids and be stuck here for the next 40 years. So having an opportunity to come back to Tennessee was really great for us.
Kosta Yepifantsev:The only thing that I know about Chicago is the show shameless and Al Capone to an outcome.
Camron Rudd:That was it's a great city. I mean, we we've really enjoyed living there. We have some great friends that are there. There's some things about it that still miss I love how everybody there they wear their heart on their sleeve in Chicago, you know, where you stand with people all the time. And that was probably the biggest adjustment for me coming back to Tennessee was we're a little more tight lipped. And we're not as you know, in Chicago, if they're, if they're not happy with you, they're gonna tell you right away, you know, they're not waiting to pull the punches and, and my wife had to remind me, you know, she's had to tell me more than once she's like, You cannot honk at these people, we probably go to church.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Let's talk about Herman Sparta. This is a 325,000 square foot facility that opened in 2020. In your opinion, what made this area the perfect place to bring a manufacturing facility like Herman,
Camron Rudd:I have mentioned before I was the president of Herman LLC in our facility in Chicago is very much landlocked, so we were have 180,000 square feet there, we still have that factory still run that factor. So what I'm responsible for, but it's, it's sort of hemmed in on all sides, we weren't really able to expand the business. So I went to the ownership. And I said, Look, we need certain product categories that we can't manufacture in this building, we cannot expand it to do it. So we're going to have to start looking at other alternatives. And we kind of opened up the map and we started looking at different places that we could possibly locate. And of course, being from Tennessee, having roots here, and even Herman having some connections with the state when they first started the business in 2002. With the state of Tennessee, it gave us an opportunity to kind of reopen those conversations, in addition to other locations. I mean, we looked at places in Indiana and Kentucky and other places. And when we came here, in particular, we really just course I was I had a little bit of inside baseball like the upper Cumberland offered. And so I wanted it on our list. And so we had a site, we were actually looking at the portabellas site where the tile manufacturing is going in Baxter, but for our particular building, it just didn't fit, you know it, we didn't fit on the site, so to speak. And so we thought the door was going to close. But then the opportunity came up in White County, some folks through TVA kind of had seen the site and was like, hey, this might be an opportunity for you. So we looked at the site, and we're like this is this is a perfect site. We had three Tennessee sites on the list. We had the Sparta site, we had one in Manchester, and we had one in Gallatin. And when we brought the owner over from Germany, Christoph Herman, the guy I mentioned earlier that hired me, we did the tour, right, we did the chamber commerce tour went to each of the sights, and I'll never forget that morning, we got in the car, and we were on our way back to the airport. And he looked at me, and he said, This is Herman city, like, this is the kind of town the kind of location the kind of resources and stuff we look for when we when we locate our buildings, we have 45 factories around the world, he just felt at home, he said, this is this is the kind of place we'd like to be. And it was pretty much it, I closed the deal.
Kosta Yepifantsev:You know, we talked to Melinda key for a couple weeks back, and she gave us some insight into how economic development works. And I know that you're real passionate about that side of government, just give us like a brief snapshot of what your life was like, trying to get a 325,000 foot facility to Sparta.
Camron Rudd:Part of the reason I'm so fascinated by that is because I was so ignorant when I started, you know, because I sort of thought, you know, you call up the town, you say I want to show up, and they're like, oh, they roll out the red carpet, and it's done. But it's a lot like, you know, for lack of a better term is like dating, you know, I mean, you you got to figure out, is that a good fit for the company? Is it a good fit for the community? Do they have the right resources? Do they have the right infrastructure in place for the business? Do they have the right workforce for that kind of a business? The the community is, you know, they've got limited resources to I mean, they've got only so many, you know, pieces of land that they can develop, you know, and when if they're going to pass out tax incentives, of course, that can that can end up being a negative impact. Some, in some cases in the community. Do we even want this business in our area, you know, if it's dirty, if it's stinky, if it's, you know, so there's a lot of conversations that happen, that I was just ignorant to, honestly. And so when we went around to these communities, they would love these questions that were just like, Well, why are you asking me that? But I eventually caught on like, Oh, this is like dating, you know, like, you know, are we going to work together? Can this work? Is this a good fit for us? You know, so that's why I was kind of fascinated by it. It really does come down especially in the state of Tennessee, it comes down a lot to the local leadership, it comes down to their ability to evaluate what's a good fit for the community, and play the game for lack of a better
Kosta Yepifantsev:term through like your experience is Tennessee, probably One of the best states in terms of doing business and like a
Camron Rudd:country mile, I mean, I, you know, I still responsible for the facility in in Chicago, and it's a lot of you know, I should probably read words, yeah. Red tape will go with red tape. But it's just a difficult environment, you know, it's a lot more like a suspicious orientation toward business in those environments. An example is in the Tacoma facility, we're in this little town called Pure Love, which is just south of Tacoma, Washington. And we're building a 40,000 square foot warehouse there right now. And I spent a big chunk of my week this week on the phone with the contractor. And it is 180 degree different experience than what we had here in Tennessee. You know, here, they were very welcoming. They wanted the business they wanted, they want to work and partner with us there. It's like they're judging the diameter of the trees that you're cutting down, and what's the diameter of the trees you're going to plant? And I mean, we had more fees, and just submitting the building permits. So it was amazing. So it's a completely different environment.
Kosta Yepifantsev:How much did it cost to build this facility in Smyrna? Well,
Camron Rudd:the total ticket All told, ended up being around$100 million. Oh, wow. The facility itself, the building itself was about a third of that. But the equipment's where the money was, we have a lot of European equipment that's in the facility that had to be imported, and, you know, installed with, you know, foreign labor from the company that built it
Kosta Yepifantsev:well, and we had the opportunity to tour the facility at the last Highlands economic partnership meeting. And I'll tell you, it is, obviously it's really similar to an Ikea on the outside, just because the colors are pretty much the same. It is the same. Yeah, it's like inside. I mean, one of the things that was astounding to me, and we're about to talk about this at length was this is a huge facility, a huge enterprise, and there was only 70 people working. Yeah, you know. And so, as I was talking to your plant manager, I asked him, I said, you know, what would happen if you guys didn't have all of these machines, how many people would be on the floor right now, if all these machines weren't present, and he obviously threw out a number, it couldn't be exact, but he said roughly about 285 people, that's probably not wrong. And that is astounding. So let's address the elephant in the room when it comes to manufacturing, automation AI, and the future of work is on everybody's mind right now. Whether you're a business owner who sees this as an opportunity to reduce overhead or work or using AI to make a task more time effective, there are so many positive uses for automation. But like all advancements, not everyone is embracing it with open arms to those people, what do you say?
Camron Rudd:Stop being a hypocrite. Okay, that's probably a little rude. But the reality is, is that we, as a consumer, you, you expect automation, like you go to the store, and you want it to be perfect, right? If I buy something, and I open it up my experience when I open when they do I do, what are the unboxing videos on YouTube, right? Like your whole experience is expected to be top level within the same and the same and the consistency, right. And that is only possible through automation. Like you can only do that through the help of the precision of machines, and the data that passes to those machines and that sort of thing. So I get it, I understand that there's some level of intimidation there. But at the same time, the way you live your own daily life, you have an expectation of it. Sure, you know, and so I think you have to you have to find there's a balance there, of course, but I think you have to embrace it on some level, you have to understand that it's necessary to live, you know, the 21st century life that we live,
Kosta Yepifantsev:and I mean, it keeps costs down, right? Imagine if you had to pay 285 people as opposed to paying 70 people per shift like your costs of a garage door would be exorbitant anymore. Same thing with that bag of chips, you know, that gets filled by a machine right?
Camron Rudd:Well, you know, our friend, Lisa uric. Yeah, she likes to say you were in a sands Dimmick, you know that we're that we have a shortage of people. And she's 100% right on that. I mean, we have this situation where, you know, during the pandemic, a lot of folks that were near retirement did retire. I remember when I got into the business, you it 19 years ago, folks that were in the prime of their careers, 45 to 55, were part of the baby boomer generation, right? Well, you know, you fast forward 20 years, those folks are gone. They're retired. And you know, if you look at the demographic graphs, those folks are gone, and they're not coming back, right. So as a business, you have to just embrace that reality and say, Look, those folks are not coming back to work, we're not gonna be able to pull them out of retirement and put them back to service. So we're gonna have to figure out a way to produce the same amount or more and use less people to do it. What I find fascinating about AI and in the workplace is that we've seen a major shift in the worker, you know, when I first started walking the manufacturing floor, you would bring in a piece of automation and there was this suspicion toward the piece, right? And you're like, I don't want that, you know, it's going to take our jobs. Now it's funny because I walk on the production floors and all of our facilities and somebody's like, why am I doing this? Can't you get a robot To do this, you know, because they almost recognize their own worth, or they do recognize their own worth, they're saying, Look, I could be utilized in so many better ways than to stand here and just do this one repetitious, you know, a task all day long.
Kosta Yepifantsev:You know, I literally resonate with everything that you say, especially the sands Demmick. And we're experiencing it in the healthcare industry. So when you say that people left the workforce disproportionately left the workforce relative to other years during the pandemic, and honestly, I don't even think that downturn in the economy is going to bring those people back. So essentially, that's a subset of individuals that are gone completely. And the younger generation is looking for more creative and less structured outlets to be able to earn a living. So oftentimes, they don't want to work in a manufacturing facility in a factory setting. That's not their first choice, right. And I'll point to a younger brother in Atlanta, and he doesn't want to do anything but gig work. He wants to drive Uber, he wants to deliver food, he wants to do all these jobs that allow him to be have a flexible schedule, essentially, the question is, though, how will automation progress? And to what point is it too far when it gets out of balance, because there are very smart people that are going to be able to create systems that can eliminate practically all of the positions that there is in a manufacturing facility. And I say this, because we are currently trying to incorporate some form of automation and technology into the care process, which is an individual, a person caring for another person, just because it's a necessity at this point. So when does it get out of whack?
Camron Rudd:I'm a little more optimistic, I don't think that you can really manufacture I don't think you're gonna be able to completely eliminate everything that is especially like in our business, at least, there's so much, you know, there's so much breadth and to our product palette, like there's so many, if you go onto our website, and you look, the number of colors, the number of options, the number of sizes of products that we make, and you can automate to a degree, the more standard it is, when you start becoming more and more custom, then it's more economical for the business to just have somebody doing that customization. So there's kind of a limit to how far the automation can go. Because the downside of it is that it has to be standardized. You I mean, it really needs to be standardized to sometimes a ridiculous degree. And so people still want something unique, they still want like in our business garage doors. I mean, they're building their house, their dream house, you know, so they have a very specific aesthetic that they're looking for. And when we build the doors for those jobs, they're only for that house, we may never build another door like that. And we have those conversations a lot. You know, we do return on investment calculations for my money in which all of our investments, and there's just times where you know, the sales volume doesn't justify the level of investment required to make it fully automated. So I don't know that it's ever going to get to the point where you're running a true lights out facility unless that lights out facility is just turning out one white widget of a certain size, absolutely hundreds of them.
Kosta Yepifantsev:In your opinion, how can automation and manufacturing and labor help improve our quality of life in the upper Cumberland specifically?
Camron Rudd:Well, on the manufacturing side, we do have the shortage of labor, right, the Saints Dimmick aspect, what we're finding with our blue collar workforce on the plant floor is that they value the variety that we can offer, you know, they're not necessarily doing that one repetitious job all the time, they can move around, and they can be part of a lot of different aspects of the process. And there's a sense of ownership that kind of comes from that, that they're multi tool and not just you know, doing one particular task. And I think that raises job satisfaction and that sort of thing. So where you do have automation and it just as punching out parts, then yeah, set that up, let a robot do it, just run it. But let them get engaged in what I was just talking about, you know, those one off projects, and there's one off applications. That's one of the great things I love about our business I've always loved about our business is that it is a known visible product. You know, I mean, I mean, we've got beautiful pictures over decades of, you know, everything from small bungalows, to multimillion dollar homes with our product prominently part of the face of that house. And that that means it's a much more engaging product to be involved in.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And you guys make like even wood garage doors, like out of real wood. And yeah, I remember you were telling me about like some places in the United States, they have these specific codes where you have to have kind of the historical element preserved. And so you have to build these extremely unique doors to be able to pass codes and
Camron Rudd:these areas you might have to match the exact architectural aesthetic that was there originally.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Amazing. Amazing. So if you were talking to someone that's 18 years old and is going to be a freshman in college, like my son like your son, if you're talking to your son about His future about what he should major in about what type of career he should have? Is it engineering? Is it something more creative in terms of, you know, like, can you like being a creator on social media like an influencer? How do you essentially explain the future of work to your son who's just getting started.
Camron Rudd:So my son is going to study electrical engineering. And he's very much an engineer, we knew my wife, and I knew when he was three, that he was going to be an electrical and are not necessary electrical, he's gonna be an engineer. But, you know, I tell I tell students, especially if they're going into college, that they need to just take a breath and be patient and really just learned the material. You know, I mean, I think what happens a lot of times is that they're looking at, you know, a four year schedule, and I gotta hit so many credit hours, and I gotta hit this particular graduation date. And they don't pay attention to all the other opportunities out there, you know, take a foreign language class, you know, go ahead and add the minor of history or whatever, because you're going to draw experiences from that, that you could parlay into some other economic benefit for yourself in the future. I also think it's very important that people learn how to communicate. So that's the thing about about foreign language, I think that people miss the point on is that it's one thing to be able to speak to somebody in their language. And that's wonderful. But it's also about just how to communicate, you know how to engage the other person, make sure that they're listening, pick up on body language, you know, kind of to be able to build that skill set. Because I feel like if you can do something, if you were an engineer, for instance, and you have a marketable skill set, and you can communicate, you can write your own checks on this world.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So in the next 10 years, what is the most important degree? And what is the most important job?
Camron Rudd:Oh, geez, I have no clue just off. Yes, take a guess. Oh, my gosh, I really have no clue. I still think there's a lot in the in the Computer Space. Okay, be done. I mean, I when I think about areas of the business, we have the hardest time hiring for it's all in some sort of it.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I mean, even though China has, like however many millions of youth that's unemployed. Yeah.
Camron Rudd:And that may be true. The problem is back to the automation, every single business is trying to figure out ways to digitalize. And it's not good enough to just take this out of the box, you know, solution. It needs to be tailored to that business on some level. Yeah, I mean, so even if the program has a lot of tools to it, somebody's gonna have to sit down with that business owner, sit down with that individual and say, Well, what do you need the software to do for your business? And I think that's going to be one area that I don't I don't see that slowing down anytime soon.
Kosta Yepifantsev:As someone who truly understands the value of operations and management, how are you using AI and automation to improve your everyday life personally, but also professionally?
Camron Rudd:Personally, I'm probably more of the naysayer. I'm moving away from that I like
Kosta Yepifantsev:using chat, GBT. No, I
Camron Rudd:don't use chat TV. I know. And I And it's funny, because I've had some pretty, pretty insightful conversations about chat GDP just the last couple of weeks. But it's not something that you know, because I do value communication. You know, I'm actually a little bit of a naysayer on the floor, I'll give you the foreign language is a good example. You know, my kids for the longest time would say, Well, why would I learn a foreign language because by time, I'm 2530 years old, I'll be able to put some sort of earbud in and then I'll be able to Google Translate. Yeah, use Google Translate. But I know from my own experience, over years of personal contact with other human beings, I don't know how that will ever happen. I mean, that heart to heart connection with a human being, I just don't know that that ever happens through some sort of filtering of technology. So I'm a little bit of a naysayer that in my personal life, I mean, I read a lot I read a lot in German, you know, I watch films and stuff in Germany, I read history books, I try to like take stuff in on a personal level, and not just depend on the technology. Professionally, though, I think we use it all the time. And if they get that's just going to continue to grow. Marketing uses it for a rough draft copy for, you know, a marketing campaign or we bought a really cool spring manufacturing machine, from a German company that's using AI to do real time adjustments on the equipment while it's running. I mean, the technology is there, we're not going to slow it down, you know, employ it where it's safe.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Sometimes. I wonder though, like when you when you're incorporating this AI processes into your business, I always am concerned that I may go too far. Because when you have efficiencies, you can't help but try to create more efficiencies and more efficiencies and more efficiencies. And the reason that I bring that up is because for example, when we're when we're rolling out this technology pilot with UnitedHealthcare, we are incorporating passive monitoring two way communication cameras using an Alexa show, right? But as you know, in like countries, for example, like China, they have artificial intelligence that works completely passive and doesn't actually alert anybody until it meets a certain number of metrics. And as my brain is rolling, I'm thinking like, okay, that is a huge efficiency for us to not even have to monitor the environment at period with a carrier Ever, whether it's remotely or on site, you have AI that sort of filling in the gaps. I mean, I personally can see a lot of people that are going to suffer specifically entry level workers that are more or less used to a repetitive skill set, I just don't think that there's a future in this economy for them. I believe that one of the things that will be more important than anything else in the next 10 to 20 years are people that are going to be able to sell and be creative, and tap into that human element that as of this point, I don't think AI is able to do, they can, they can look, you know, I'm sure in the next five to 10 years, they're gonna look human. But it's just like somebody that kind of understands how to speak German versus somebody that speaks German fluently, right? Be able to speak a language fluently. I speak Russian fluently, well with an American accent. But it is my first language and I am much more comfortable. And I understand how to communicate with my hands with my, with my facial expressions a lot more than somebody that's studying Russian or doesn't have, you know, 40 trips to Russia, like you have 40 trips to Germany, right?
Camron Rudd:Well, the personal element, though, is so important, right? I mean, I can think about friends in Germany, I have a friend in Germany is named Stefan Lindsey is an engineer works at one of our plants, procollagen. And he and I have known each other for a long time. And, you know, I know his daughter and his wife, and I've go to his house, and he's got a sauna, we go sit in the sauna for a little bit, we go outside. And I think about all those evenings and all those stories that he's told about, you know, on the sailboat with his grandfather, you know, in this sort of thing. I mean, how does AI replace that? I mean, it's a personal connection, you know, I mean, and my experience with the language is that it's not just about, you know, where's the bathroom? How to read the menu, you know, it's about personal connections that I've made with friends that I've built over the years. And I, that's one of those areas where I'm a little bit more trepidatious about that, you know, I mean, we can rely on the technology and all that. But if we lose the human element, or why we're even developing it in the first place, we're missing the boat.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Absolutely. And, and but I think that the service and retail industry, so fast food, I mean, you look what's happening in fast food right now, you may go to a drive thru you obviously the lobby is closed, been closed for three years. It's not reopening, but you go through a drive thru, and very soon, and in some major markets, you're ordering from an AI or intelligent robot, right? In my opinion, I believe that those types of industries are the first ones to go fully automated, without having to employ individuals, but that's a major and that's an entry level job, an entry level profession that a lot of people start, when they're, you know, high school kids, or, you know, they're maybe not going to college, and they need to make ends meet for a little while. And then
Camron Rudd:we're gonna get into a complete conversation about the value of work and all of that you might, you know, my daughter, she worked with us a little bit this summer, she's 17, and she's the new crumble location, she's accepted a position that you know, to work there for graduation is sort of a second job, let's say, and I'm a big fan of that, I mean, you there's a value to the work, you know, what I mean, being able to do that. And so I think that's a real shame when that starts to go away. But it's the natural outcropping of, you know, a confluence of things. One is the repetition of the work. And the other is things like, on the west coast, there's places with$25 an hour, you know, minimum wages, and, and you know, and you're not going to be able to cover the cost of the material and the labor and still provide a product that will sell at a price point that will sell
Kosta Yepifantsev:it goes all the way back to how we started this conversation on AI, which is, it's there to keep costs down. But when we were at the Chamber meeting, I think, I think it was important to know, you know, as for example, the price of care goes up, there's people that are priced out of the market, now the price of care is going up, because obviously inflation, but also because of government's intervention, there's a lot of people that can't afford care. And if you don't have ways of bringing those prices down, less and less people are going to be able to receive the necessary services and shop for items that are within their price range. And dare I say, even, you know, afford to eat, right? Finally, if you could pick one business or industry to come to the upper Cumberland that would complement both Herman and the plentiful resources of our area, what would it be
Camron Rudd:automated machine manufacturing, who, you know, companies like ATC, okay, if it were up to me, we'd have we'd have 100 of those type businesses in this area. I think it's such an excellent fit for this area. You have, you know, Tennessee Tech University right here graduating all kinds of engineers, great skill set right out, bring them into the workforce pipeline. And there's a real need for that. I mean, as you think about things like automation, and all of that. You need engineers, you need programmers, and you have to build that up. And so we bought a lot of equipment from northern Italy, and Germany. And that's because that's where those industries are. And that's where that automation and all that stuff is coming from. And I think this community would be a great fit for a burgeoning industry of that I'm sure ATC doesn't want competition when you have to make those kind actions you have to bring those businesses in. And they have to have a willingness and a desire to expand the business to the air. I mean, it's back to the dating thing again.
Kosta Yepifantsev:They say, I wonder if they have a Tinder profile?
Camron Rudd:Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. But I think that is just such a, first of all, I think there's a need for it, right? I mean, in our industry, I mean, some of the equipment we bought in Germany, we bought it in Germany, because we could not find a single American manufacturer that made it there's just these different types of automated machine manufacturing applications that we just don't have enough in North America and a community like Coke, they'll be. That'd be perfect.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Before we wrap up, can you pronounce the enunciate it correctly? For us? How is it how so I say Hormann during the episode and I say Herman during so what's the right way to say it's
Camron Rudd:Hillman? Okay, from the back of your throat Hill, man. Hit him.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Airman.
Camron Rudd:I always I always used to. I always say that, you know, if you've got a teenage daughter then you know exactly what that sounds sounds like. Because you knock on the door at seven in the morning and they go that's what it comes down, Hillman.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I love it. I love it. Now your daughter is she gonna go to Tennessee Tech to no idea.
Camron Rudd:She'll be 17 in September and she's afraid she's still bouncing around. We'll see. All right now she's gonna make some crumbled cookies. I guess
Kosta Yepifantsev:I love it. So we always like to end the show on a high note, who is someone that makes you better when you're together?
Camron Rudd:Couple of options there. You know, my, my wife for sure. We've been married for 22 years. We met at Tennessee Tech. She pushes me in the right direction. She highlights the positives and suppresses the negatives in my personality. Professionally, I would say Tomas Hillman. He's the 85 year old owner in all those trips to Germany to design the Sparta facility. And he's built 45 factories around the world. And he's just got a just such a wealth of knowledge and just sharpers attack and really knows what's going on and he definitely makes you better when you're there.
Morgan Franklin:Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com. We're better together. We'd like to remind our listeners that the views and opinions expressed during this episode are those of the individual speakers and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of this show its producers or any related entities or advertisers. While our discussions may touch on various topics of interest, please note that the content is intended to inspire thought provoking dialogue and should not be used for a substitute for professional advice.Specifically, nothing heard on this podcast should be construed as financial, legal, medical or any other kind of professional advice. We encourage our listeners to consult with a professional in these areas for guidance tailored to their specific circumstances.