SPEAKER_01 0:34

All right, welcome to the Info Tech Podcast. My name is Jimmy Huber, and today we have a guest with us from Newsbound Newsbaum Transportation, Bill Wettstein. Bill is the president and CFO, and we want to welcome him here today. Thanks, Jimmy. Hey, you bet. So if you're in central Illinois, you probably know Neussbaum truck. I almost said Newsbound trucking. It's Neussbaum Transportation. They've been around for a long time. And Bill and I, you we've known each other. We're neighbors in the Carlock area, which is kind of a suburb, I guess you could say, of Bloomington. So he was nice enough to come in today. And I'll have to say there's there's all kinds of questions that I have, Bill, but you've got some notes here. So let's go back to the beginning. We were talking before, and you had mentioned that you've actually been at Newsbound quite a quite a long time. So you've got personal history with it. So tell me a little bit about that, your background, and kind of bring us up to speed wherever you want to start.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Okay, sure. So I've been uh at NewsBaum since 1998. I started, graduated from college here at ISU in accounting, worked at Heineld Banwert and uh a CPA firm in East Peoria, and um they're now sickage. But I worked for them for a year, then came over here to Newsbaum, paid the bills, um, really had a good opportunity. I was in my early 20s, um, married, uh young child, and um the the controller CFO at that time hired me and said there's he's gonna retire in three years, and then I would take his spot. And that's that's what happened. And so that was in 2001. He retired. I became CFO. At that time, we were primarily an LTL company. We had a truckload division, which truckload you pick up a full load, full semi-load at point A delivered to point B. But we were primarily LTL, which um means you send all these trucks out every day. They go and they pick up a little bit here, a pallet there, and two pallets here. They go all over these, and then they come back right to a dock, you unload everything, send it out on a different truck the next day. Um, it's a complicated business. It's currently it's probably run by just a few large LTL companies, but we were primarily LTL till 2001. We were a union company, and so then in 2001, we were struggling profitability-wise, and so we tried to negotiate with the union, and um basically um we wanted our employees to vote on some benefit changes, and that did not go well, so the division was shut down. Um the LTL division was shut down, so the company, about two-thirds of the company, um we shrunk by two-thirds. And so then we're uh um a union truckload carrier, which was very rare. There's very, very, very few of those. So in 2009, um we hadn't grown a whole lot, but um at that point we became a non-union company. And then um it was bad timing from the point of that was in early 09. Well, remember the Great Recession of 08? Of course, sure. Yeah, so the housing bubble burst and and all that. And so when we went became non-union, we had to pay we incurred a huge unfunded liability from a union pension plan. At the same time, UPS had d like four billion dollars. They did the same, they incurred that liability. Ours had a lot less zeros than theirs, but uh it put us in a rough spot then at the same time we had this recession. So we we were a short haul uh truckload carrier with a a huge mountain of debt, and uh we needed freight. And so instead of pricing freight to uh be profitable, we priced freight to make bank payments. Oh wow, basically, and so we became a long-haul carrier, essentially a crisis, don't waste a good crisis type of thing. So we became a longer haul carrier at that time. Okay, and we've kind of never looked back, we're kind of going a little back more towards some regional stuff, but our average length of hall is 600 miles. So our drivers, most of them are out all week.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Okay, wow, there's a lot there that I I did not know because you drive by, you know, your office, you're always expanding, like it's gorgeous, you know, and you never know the history of what got you there.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

It's the last 10 years that that happened, basically.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

So I mean, in my 24, it's been the last 10.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Okay. So that's really interesting because we haven't we've talked about the pandemic a little bit in previous episodes, we've touched on it, but not to the point what you just brought up was that a lot of times people don't see the opportunities in crises. Not that we want crises all the time, but those that can succeed and figure out and maybe pivot sooner. Is that kind of what you guys did? It sounds like right.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Yeah, that's what in fact we probably pivoted too hard because one of the large customers at that time that we bid on, we got really aggressive and they called Brent Newsbaum and said, I just want to make sure is your pricing correct. Because we were obviously left money on the table, but we we felt like we had to almost too low. Yeah, we had to swing for the fences.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Um well it seems to work out. So it worked out. Tell me a little bit about that because everything these days we were chatting before, like the inflation's crazy. So this this is being recorded in 2022. So we've got basically hyper hyperinflation, I think you could call it. I mean, wages are up.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

I thought it's only eight percent, Jimmy.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Well, it it it's all relative. It was two of something for like the last 10 years. It's it's bad. Stuff's more expensive now.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

So here's my point on that. I was teasing you, but yeah, in my 24 years there, the our our prices that we charge our customer is up more in the last 27 months than my previous 22 years. That's crazy. Yes, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

And yet you're still you're not losing customers. I mean, I obviously you're still successful at that. So what do you contribute what do you contribute that to?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Well, what was it a few years ago? And I'm no economist, but a few years ago we had a um what a jobless recovery. And is this not a full a full employment recession, or what is this? I don't know what we're at.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Maybe I certainly would say it's something like that. I mean, you get into politics, they're a little bit in labels because they don't like to say that word, but I think if you talk to any economist, sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

So yeah, so our cost, our labor cost has gone up tremendously. Um, probably our wages are up 25, upper 20 percent, probably, especially with the driver force.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

I mean, it's been so that's been huge. So I don't expect those prices to recede much, right? The prices that we're charging, because our underlying costs have gone up. And I don't expect the American uh employee, consumer, to accept a wage decrease because if you went out to eat or went to the grocery store or to the gas station or anywhere else, right? So maybe it's here to stay, in other words. Yeah, so I'm not sure. But uh that speaking of a crisis, so we thought we were fairly bright for hauling quite a few tires, and we don't really haul very many to manufacturing plants. A lot of them are, you know, tires, you replace the tires and you pick up or whatever. And so we thought even in recession, those are good, right? Because people, if they don't buy a new car, they still need new tires. Well, the pandemic, April 2020.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Oh, nobody was driving.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah. Oh man. Lar, well, there's a large tire manufacturer who used to do 300 loads a month, it goes to 140 or 120.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

I never would have seen that come. I was like, how can you how can you prepare for this? Well, sure. So what'd you guys do? So we I panicked, right? That was I tell people my worst time of my career was April 2009, trying to recover from uh the uh Great Recession then, and then the second worst time was April 2020. But we did have the PPP sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, that that came through. But um, but then so what happened was March was crazy for trucking, March of 2020, toilet paper shortage for some reason, right? I don't know why we needed more of that, and then it was really busy, and then April and May, it it was dead and essentially, and then in June it came roaring back until probably five months ago, so it was just screaming, and so now it's almost almost leveled up. Different problems because now you gotta hire and scale and it's crazy busy, and we couldn't grow because we could not get trucks or whatever, grease or whatever else, right? Oh, yeah, supply chain issues.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

So, do you what do you feel like you're at now? Have you guys leveled out again? I mean, or are there still challenges?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Like, yeah, margins are getting squeezed, we're getting equipment, we can get labor. So you need yeah, and trucking. I always say you need three things you need equipment, trucks and trailers, and you need freight, and you need truck drivers. Those are the three constraints. Sure. And um at the beginning of the year, we couldn't get really labor. Labor was really tight and equipment was tight. Well, now we can get those. Equipment's coming off the line, we're getting new equipment, we can get access to to labor to drivers. Um now freight is drying up, right? So sure. But we couldn't grow when we were when we had those other issues with equipment. So now we're gonna try to grow a little bit now, which maybe is the bad time.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah. I don't know. Well, I have a thousand questions, but for the sake of our audience, let me just kick it to you and ask it this way. Through all of that, I mean, I I try to tie things back as much as I can to our audience, which is I have no idea yet. But you know, if there's a young entrepreneur or somebody that's that's wanting to learn and grow, I mean, that's kind of my space, right? I'm a millennial, but I I I know enough to know that I don't know anything really. I just try to look at older people that are gone before and they're wiser than me, right? So you fit that. What would you tell that young person who maybe is is in mid-level management or somebody that's just get you know cutting their teeth and yet maybe they haven't seen their first crisis? I mean, you've been through multiples and you've been able to lead out of that. What have you picked up along the way? Are there are there tidbits or things, or what would you say to that that person who's like, man, or is it just you got to experience it and figure it out during?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, that's a good question. Um boy, I would say uh keep your ears open and stay humble. I mean, I feel like they keep changing the rules, right? Like I never knew you could keep America home. Like, what? I mean, I never knew that. And so yeah, and it changes so fast. I feel like when I started in in business at Newspawn, the cycles were were pretty um pretty long. Could be um a year or two of good times, a year or two of rough times, a little bit of in-between on both ends of that. And then in 2020, um we had okay times, awesome times, and terrible times in a matter of um January through like a roller coaster. Yeah, sure. It's like we had a whole business cycle in five months, yeah. And so um I don't know, just make I I'd say this gets overused, but networking, like you have to get out and be with people. Sure. You have to, yeah. They kind of chop that off, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Unless you want to do Zoom all day. I mean, it's not the same.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Don't even get me started on remote work and all that. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Well, you guys, I mean, yeah, I would assume you were a central industry, obviously. Yes, right. And you've got, you know, your truck drivers are basically remote workers. Yes, yeah. So I guess let's talk about that a little bit. I mean, this is a tech podcast. Um, I mean, I think, you know, talking with ag leaders and other industries that are in the field, they're just as much technology driven, I think, if not more so, today than ever. So um, you know, when I see your red trucks going down the road, I see tires are different. I see you've got stuff on the sides, I assume for aerodynamics. You got big wing things on the back of them. Like that's just because I like there's trucks all over, but you guys are unique. And I I feel like that's that's innovation there. That's not by accident. I'm assuming you've got tracking in all your cabs. Like, talk about some things that you feel like might differentiate newsbound because from the lay person, you know, trucking companies could be consider or transportation in general could be considered a commodity almost.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

But I think you guys are breaking that mold, at least from what I can see. And that's a limited you know, viewpoint.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

But yeah, it's interesting. So I would say um fuel economy, or I would be hard pressed to find a a fleet that gets as good a fuel economy as we do. So that you mentioned the aerodynamics. So I think in um right now we're probably 9.2 miles per gallon for our fleet. There's 9.2 for a semi? For a semi. So there's oh my goodness. 400 and some drivers on the road today, I hope, right? Sure. And so I think our competition's quite a bit below that. I don't know, seven-ish. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Seven is the average I've heard. Okay. So you guys are way ahead.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

So how does that happen, right? So a driver, some of this is high tech, some of it isn't. All of us have some miles per gallon between our brain and our right foot. Whether you're driving a semi or whether you're driving a Honda, whatever, right? Yeah. I'm telling you. Yeah. Um, so we have that. Like you don't always need to be on either one or the other, right? There's sometimes you don't need to be on the gas or the brake. More time than we know.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

So, okay, so, but then we have um a lot of aerodynamics with the what we call the skirts, and we used to be tails, now they're a little bit different on the back. Um, the gap between the truck and the trailer is a big deal for aerodynamics. That's not real techie. But if you see these good looking trucks with all the chrome, they got this six, seven-foot gap between the truck and the trailer. It's not doing anything. It's not helping their MPG.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

But technology, so our rear-end crash avoidance, right? There's things that'll apply the brakes if we're closing the gap too quick. Um, lane departure, it beeps at them just like it beeps at you and your car, maybe when you cross the line, right? Um we have the uh ours is our vendor smart drive, but event recorders. So it's a camera looking out and coming back that's on them all the time. So they got a camera on them all the time, which was hard to process to get used to, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Like Big Brother, probably.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Maybe maybe you can't do nothing and you're getting watched. Well, it's only sending us the re only sending us that recording when there's an event. So when there's an event that Excelomers triggered because of a, you know, a sudden impact or a sudden change in motion, then it's 12 seconds before and like four seconds after, or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

It's kind of like when somebody walks into your camera at home, it takes a it starts recording then.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah. Yeah. So if we get if we're slowing down for construction and somebody runs into the back of us or whatever, it would show us the 12 seconds before and the few seconds after.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

So that's a big deal, and we can coach off that, right? So you have a close call and it goes off, and you're kind of get an email from one of your friends in safety that we, hey, we need to talk, right? Sure. And walk through that. Um, other technology that we have, um, we're toying with what they call mirror. It's um instead of in the big mirrors on the side of a semi, you'll see some of our trucks that just have a little apparatus over the driver's side and the passenger side door with a camera. And then on your pillar by your windshield, there's a screen, and that is showing you Oh, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

So that's not an actual mirror. It's just it's a camera for the camera with a mimic a mirror.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

And of course, with that camera, you can pan that thing and sure. If you turn on, you can get a different view that you couldn't see with a standard mirror.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

So well, that sounds like bleeding at stuff. I mean, it's pretty expensive, yeah. Yeah, but there's I'd say that's an investment, right? Yeah, it's I mean, your guys are gonna be safer. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Sure, sure. Takes that blind spot away.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

And so, but also with with the information we're getting from that, we we know their speed, what percentage of the time they're in what speed, and so they're bonused on that. We know that's how much we know how much they're using their throttle and their brake. We know how much they're speeding, and we know how much they're how close they're following other people. So they're safety. So they want to get a 10 out of 10 on safety. And if you're always riding somebody's bumper, yeah, you're eventually going to make a mistake.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Sure. Right? Sure. Yeah, they're humans driving it. Not all robots yet.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

But if you have enough space, you're gonna limit, you're gonna be a safer driver. So driving um defensively, yeah. When you're 70 feet long.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yeah. Well, that's a good segue into what I want to talk about next, which is your culture. Um, we've got several mutual acquaintances uh through our church and other places that work with you at Newspum, you know, uh whether it's HR or drivers or in the office, whatever, IT even. Um you guys have a culture that I think it can't be beat. I mean, the fact that you can have, you can go through what you have and yet continue to grow to get truck drivers to buy in on the safety and all the technology. I know like at InfoTech, some of our clients are just they're not technical people. You know, we do construction, we do healthcare. I mean, they're doing their jobs, they don't care about their tech. They just want stuff to work so they can do their job, right? Right. I would think truck drivers would be the same thing. I just want let me drive my truck. I don't want to have to mess with all this other stuff, you know. But it seems like you guys have cracked the code, at least from my perspective. Correct me if I'm wrong. Can you talk about your culture and and how you guys have been able to succeed and get everyone that seems to be on the same page and and growing? Or am I just way off there?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

That's a good question. So I asked this question to a group of managers today, like, yeah, we all like our culture. Um, I do too. So, how did we get the culture the way it is? And um, how do we continue it? And my next question is what is culture, right? So, what is it? It's what we believe in how we uh how we treat each other. Great question, right? Yeah. And uh so our mission, purpose, and vision, I'm gonna get them all mixed up, but I'm gonna tell you what I know, right? It's uh that we don't own the business, God does, we're stewards of it, right? And then the other thing is we want every person to be in a better place for having interacted with us. And if we can live that out by the grace of God, right? That's a big deal. And so but I think of a big part of the culture, and um I don't know, I get really passionate about this, but the secret I think of that Brent Newsbaum taught me is uh one of the secrets is in a business, especially I think small any size business, but you have try to build relationships with your people and have expectations with them fairly clearly set, um, both on their job and what they need to do, but more importantly on how they treat each other. And if those expectations are not being met, you you have to address them in a kind way with the right motive, right? With a pure heart. And if you the only thing more painful than addressing something like that is to not address it, right? And I stole that from Patrick Lincioni.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah, you bet. That's a great one.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

But I've had some major experiences that like some issues where man, I was really nervous to address it. This person had a bad attitude, and um, I've only had to do it two times in my career. And one time the person, I think, um, tried to ask them to, I shouldn't say bad attitude, but just had some things that probably needed tweak, right? And one time they they left, and the other time they changed instantaneously. Wow. And uh and so I think that's made a big difference because if you allow, I'm a firm believer, if you allow somebody with a rotten attitude to continue, it's gonna drag your business through the mud.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, it's like cancer, I think. It is, yeah. I mean, there's there's eight of us over here at InfoTech, but I've had people come and go over the years in my short career that yeah, you don't realize until you make the hard decision what you actually had. You you didn't know how it was. Yeah, you know, and and I completely uh see that. But yeah, but it is worse to not decide, to to not deal with the problem.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

So that's the key to culture, right? If if it's if you have your idea of what you want to be and and know what you want it to look like to mimic the golden ruler or whatever you're you're trying to get to, then when that's not happening, you have to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yeah, yeah. No, I completely agree. And and that's not an easy thing, I think, that doesn't come natural for most people. I mean, you've got to be intentional about those kind of things. Right. And it's obvious you you guys have that built in. Let's talk about business a little bit. Um ASOP. Yes, that is a term that I never heard before I started talking to guys that work at Newspum.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Tell us about that. You don't have to get super technical, but but it is well, tell us what it stands for and then what it means and why Newspoum has that framework.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Okay, sure. So ESOP employee stock ownership plan. So it's a qualified retirement plan. I'd say it's cousins to a defined benefit pension, the 401k, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Hold on, hold on. That was really quick. So it's employee stock stock ownership plan. Employee stock ownership plan. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

So what we one of our advisors, when we said we're going to do this, they're like, you just know you're the you're inviting the Department of Labor into your boardroom, essentially, because we have a trust. We have an external trustee that their job is to make sure that the participants in the plan, there's a lookout for their interest. And so, and they that trustee will is beholden to the Department of Labor. So I think right now, actually, our ESOP transaction from 2018 is when became a partially owned ESAP. 35% of the company was sold to the ESOP. Oh, wow. So I think right now that transaction is being audited by the Department of Labor. So that's just being real. That I think we don't expect any issue, right? But the Department of Labor watches these things closely.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

So you're you're a privately owned company, yet they are still in. Because usually that's only in the public traded companies, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah, it's only public, but it's they're they're not actually doing us, but they're it's the retirement plan. It's a retirement plan.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Ah okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

So so we so 35% of the company was sold to the employee stock ownership plan. And the reason we went that way, right, is we're looking at what's our options. Of course, the our banks come in and say, Man, some large striking companies would pay a pretty penny for you folks. But our the big deal, Brent Newsbaum, you know, the he was no way on that. So obviously there's probably more dollars there, but culture is key, and we don't hear good things about some of them, right? Um, there's some very good companies that we're trying to mimic from a profitability, but we're trying to keep maintain our culture. And then uh so culture, the heritage, the new spawn name, its reputation, the location here, its impact on the community, and then it rewards the employees are the big things that drove us towards the eSOP. So every year we make a contribution to the ESOP. So also from a business standpoint, you sell to the ESOP, the company basically borrows money to buy itself. So we borrow the company borrows money in the bank, pays out the owners, and then the company has to pay that off.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Um, so after four years, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, our drivers that have been here since the beginning of the ESOP, they have about 24,000 in their account. So it's starting to add up. We think after 30 years, half a million, million bucks, if they worked that long, that they'll have in their eSop.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

So it's starting to get buy-in, it's starting to be fun. So they own the house, don't um don't run it. So they're owners, but they can't fire Brent Newsbaum. Sure. It's like owning a stock at McDonald's, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Yeah. Yeah. That's really neat because there's a lot of like my peers that are young families that I don't think would get that opportunity. I mean, there's IRAs and stuff out that they could do themselves, but this is something that you guys have specifically designed. And I would say, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I would say the Newsbaum family and like Brent specifically, he could probably do a lot better on the open market versus what he's doing. And I think that's intentional.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah, it's because of the purpose and the mission.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Yeah, speak to that because that is rare. You don't see that very much, at least it from where I sit, that's commendable.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Right. It's really just to reward the employees and to, and it's part of the we don't own the business, God does, and that what can we do to expand our impact, right? On people, and so the goal would be to go 100% in the next near future, a couple of years. One point. The other point of the ESOP is the employees don't contribute to it, the company does. So that$24,000, they didn't really do anything about it. Not a match or something, yeah. No, they just and they can't buy it outside of ESOP, it's just what's given to them, and it's based on wages. So if Tom earns$80,000 as a driver, and whoever Sue earns$82,000, she's gonna get a little bit more in her ESOP. It's based on wages.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Seniority and all that, yeah. Yep. And wages. Yeah, it makes sense. Um what do your employees say about that?

SPEAKER_00 26:03

We think they uh okay. Most of them really like it, right? There's you know we're human, right? So there's some that it takes a while to buy in. There's gotta be something, some catch here. Sure. Somehow I'm getting the wrong end of this deal. Um, but most of them I say really buy in. But it takes a few years because it takes two or three, four years of working there before they start to see an impact. Yeah, and even then it's just on paper. It's a piece of paper that says Jimmy Huber has 12,000 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Like so it takes I would think that'd be employee retention, though. Yeah, you get them in there for the long haul. I mean, hey, if you're wanting to retire, like you know, uh that's gotta be some mutual benefit. I'm hoping golden handcuffs in a few years. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Well, we have just scratched the surface here, but I want to land this plane. What you got some notes there. What have we missed that you would love to bring up? Anything that that sticks out there? I I try to give the last word to the guests, and I don't tell them beforehand I'm gonna do that. So I don't want to put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah, but no, I would just say it's been um, I just try to uh yeah, be count my blessings. I've been blessed to work for a great family, the news bombs, and Brent has been my boss for 21 years. And um try to be loyal and do a good job. And I think a big thing to as if as you get to a leadership position is just to make sure you have time to um spend with your people. Like you have to spend time with them. I I can't shut my door that often. I do more than I should, but you gotta spend time. I I shouldn't have very many lunches by myself. I need to be with people and and work that and um admit when you're wrong and um stay humble and listen. And the other thing I I hear is um I try not to um really try not to elevate myself, even in spite of my position, because that can really be a turnoff and try to be able to relate to whoever and whatever position they're in and take time for them.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

So that's I don't do that perfectly. Um people are listening are probably like, yeah, right, though. But I mean, I think that's thing we do we just have to remember because life is short and it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Oh, we're that hits home. We're we're working through the same stuff on a smaller scale. You know, I'm kind of the equivalent in your position, you know. I I run our help desk and more of the visionary these days, or we're working towards that. I've got guys way better at operations than I do, but it's all about your people. I used to think as customers were were first, and they are super important, but if I'm really honest, it's actually my employees. That's because they take care of my customers.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

I say that every week when we have new employees come in. Like you are the number one customer.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

And so, yeah. And so Brent Newsbaum, he's the CEO, right? So he he leads the charge and he's um very focused um vision and long-term strategy. And then my role is probably more um day-to-day with the sales pricing and operations, trying to get to get really tactical on how we're gonna move the next you know, 60, 120 days.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Well, it works. Uh I have no idea how long this podcast is gonna go, but I would I would love to have people back in the next few years, you know, just to kind of touch and see because you guys are still growing. We're not always gonna be in in the um you marketplace where we are now, like things are gonna change. Um so I hope to have you back, Bill, if if if you'll have me. But um yeah, I've really appreciated the time today. This has been fascinating. Um, so if you're listening out there, how do people get in touch with with Newspound? I mean, are you still in need of drivers? Like what if people want to find out more about you?

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Where we yeah, go to our website that has what positions are open. And what is that? Uh newsbom.com.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Okay. N-U-S-S-B-A-U-M.com.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, that's right. So there should be a page now hiring. Um, yeah, always looking for drivers uh right now. Um, technicians, like mechanics in the shop, lots of those openings, and then uh number of office positions too.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Awesome. Yeah, it's a great culture. Um, who knows what will happen. Maybe you'll you'll catch a few from the tens of people that listen to this so far. Um yeah, I really appreciate your time, Bill, and your friendship. Uh thanks so much for being here. You're welcome. Thank you. Yep. We'll see you guys next time. This has been the Info Tech Podcast.