21. Samages with Sam Hoopes

Andrea and Griff are joined by Sam Hoopes, who talks concrete chemistry, laundry, drones, old man soccer, and RCC. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to Loaded, the Hawn Ready Mix Podcast with Andrea Meyer and Griffin Hahn and producer Lex with a special guest today.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Mr. Sam Hoops. How's it going?

SPEAKER_03 0:20

It's going very well. What an honor to be here with you guys. The honor is ours. Yeah. Yeah. I think it might be too many family members. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

I was just going to say that. I frequently am the odd man out around here, but extra out of the family right now.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

I feel like I probably should have shaved my head in solidarity with my bald brothers.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I hardly ever see you without a cap, and you are well on your way.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Receding. Yeah, it's certainly receding. And uh if you get a good look at the top of it, it's not pretty.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Let's just say dominant gene. Are there any of you that are not bald? Ben.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Ben has got a very good head of hair.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

He got all of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Yes. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

That's great. Well, we're really happy you're here. Uh who who are you? How about an introduction?

SPEAKER_03 1:09

My name is Sam. I am uh fulfill a variety of different roles. I'm not specifically one manager. I am a backup third string manager for a number of different spots. So when I initially started, it was with Darren primarily, but that's kind of morphed into working with uh BJ and covering Jimmy for materials dispatch and just kind of here, there, and everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Lots of sales stuff, Brian there. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Okay. Well, let's uh before we get too far into the interview, let's discuss uh our announcements as usual. And actually, Griffin's been out of the office so far this week. So why don't you tell us about your adventures abroad?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah, so I don't have a ton of like announcements, announcements because I haven't been around this week, but we are part of a ReadyMix peer group with six other ReadyMix companies from around the country. We get together two or three times a year and kind of compare notes on what's working, what's not working, problems we're having and seeing in the industry, and and those solutions we can kind of collectively come up with to solve those. So awesome, awesome time. We were in Seattle this year or this this meeting. We had a great time out there. The weather was awesome, which is pretty uh rare, I think, for Seattle. We didn't get to see much of the the city itself, but we spent two very long days in meeting rooms just kind of going through what's we call our burning issues. And so that was that was really good. We brought a bunch of stuff home on how we can do things a little differently or make tweaks and some good solutions. So yeah, I'm excited. I'm always come back energized from that.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

And we always look forward to that kind of.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

I also we have to you know present some of the things that we're doing. And so we presented the podcast and I subjected them to listening to our longest episode over lunch.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

So they're are they going to invite you back again?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Yeah. Maybe they'll just say you're out.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Well, it's poor timing. You should have had me on that podcast. Oh, yeah. Should have waited for the best episode. Yeah, I should have waited for the best one. You're right. Might have won the best idea in that case. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

How was the birthday party?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

The birthday party was great. Uh Joe came out with his truck and he had 2,000 gallons of water in the back of it, and we dumped in a hundred ducks and dumped all the water and ducks out on the kids, and it was a riot. They had a they had so much fun. So appreciate that, Joe. That was great.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Very good. While you were gone, we had a small incident in Eldridge where we were out of internet service. Did you see that?

SPEAKER_02 3:58

I did see that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Do you know why we were out of service?

SPEAKER_02 4:01

I do not.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

If I told you that a mouse ate through the internet wire that is servicing Eldridge, would you believe that?

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Of course I would, because anything that can happen.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yes. Yes. I feel like we're personally victimized by the rodent population around here, but uh it's a good time to remind everyone how important housekeeping is. Please do your part to keep trash picked up and keep food put away and just any clutter that is attracting pests, it will come back to bite us. And now we know just how uh catastrophic that can be. So please, in your trucks, also, there's a lot of wires in trucks that mice like to eat. So trucks and offices and plants, let's keep them clean.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

And it's just it's just kind of a pride thing, right? Of having it look nice. And you know, I know there's a few people that go out of their way to go pick up trash. I know Dan does across the street all the time from the office here, and that makes a big difference on everybody come to uh work in a place that's clean and well cared for, that reflects, you know, on the community, on our customers. They they see that or they don't see that, you know. They see both so we need to we need to make sure we're doing better on that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

And the only other thing I'm gonna bring up again is putting your keys where they go. We had another incident today where we had a couple of guys that had to dig through trucks and ended up finding keys in a glove compartment of a truck. They have to go on the board. Otherwise, we're all just wasting our time. So please remember to do that.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

That's a good one. I had a couple quick things. First, for our dedicated regular listeners, we've had some technical difficulties with episode 20, last week's value episode on Strive for Organizational Excellence. We are working with the podcast host company to try to get that resolved. So if you struggle to get episode 20, hopefully by the time that this episode is live, you'll be able to go back and listen to it. So apologies for that.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Yeah, it didn't affect everyone if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or some of the other different players, but definitely Spotify and if Buzz Sprout directly was having issues.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

A lot of people waiting on the edge of their seat, I'm sure, for that episode to show up.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Is that a result of Griffin not being here to upload it? Or very likely.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

I mean it's just I think it's just timing. It really I really don't think he does anything special.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

I'm not trying to throw producer Lex under the bus or anything.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

I'm just all comes razor. Says that one thing changed and something went wrong. And the simplest solution is probably the It's coincidental. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

My fault.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

It's also this week, this episode's dropping is Bix week. So thank you for the drivers that are going down. We always put some trucks on the Bix route. If you are not driving, go say hi to those guys and and enjoy a good time with that. That's a bit a big deal around these parts. So really looking forward to to the BICS this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Always a really fun time. Sam, you're running the BICS this year?

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Yes, it'll be my first time running the BICS. So somewhere between miles four and six, there'll probably be a hairy guy looking like he might die. So if you see me, pick me up, give me to the fit.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

I will give you a beer between miles four and six. Yeah, but since you backtrack on the same route, so after the halfway point, I literally am right after like the four mile mark.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Well, I don't think a beer is gonna help.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

No, right as you cross that go up that hill, that's that's what you need at that moment is a beer at the top of that hill.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Or a mixer to hop into for a mile or two and then drop me back off. I think I can finish the last mile. It's mostly downhill.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

So yeah, yeah, you can roll down if you want to.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

Yeah. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

All right, well, let's get into this. Okay. You ready? I yes. All right. I am ready. Give us a little bit of your background. Where'd you come from? What'd you do before you came to Haunready Mix? Because you've been here a year and a half now.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Uh it'll be two years on my birthday, September 19th. So we're we're getting close to two years. Uh time's kind of flying by. So prior to this, I uh I worked at Phelps Uniform for about 15 years. I drove a straight truck for about four and a half, five of those years. They brought me in as a as a plant supervisor, and that kind of morphed into just the plant manager role there. Worked a lot, the work-life balance really wasn't there. And my kids are little, so you know, being able to be at home more often is nice.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

So you saw the ReadyMix business and you were like, oh yeah, those guys are coasting all there. Jump into that.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

It has been awfully slow in the uh nearly two years that I've been here, according to everybody else. So I don't know what it was like before when we were doing three, four thousand yards every day or somewhere around there. But you know, when we get busy, I I I do enjoy the busy time and I don't mind working, but right now I wish we were a little bit busier. Oh, yeah. That's not a result of me being in the sales.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Another coincidence.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Yeah, you know, I leave, the podcast doesn't work, you show up, we get slow.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

I don't know I don't know. I have a feeling you're gonna get to see some busy times coming up this year.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. We've got a lot of projects uh that are gonna be rolling out here pretty soon. So my guess is it's probably all gonna go at once, and we're gonna be wondering how in the world are we gonna get this all done.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Absolutely. So being kind of new to this industry, what surprises you most? Like what what's what's I know you probably obviously, so in case anybody don't know, we're we're cousins, right? So you've been aware and around the the family business, right? You worked for us before a long time ago.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

I I would say the thing that that probably surprises me the most is the amount of mixed designs and things of that nature. I can't I remember when I was in a truck, I don't recall a scenario that was like this is a 72-hour mix with super and this and that and the other. It was I was just loading my truck. I mean, this was 18 years ago. So I I don't know how much things have changed since then, but just all the different intricacies and all the different things that go along with it. So I remember the the first week when I came in and I was joining in on the three o'clock meeting and looking at the command track, it was like a foreign language to me. Yeah, it was it was wild. And everybody else in the room, they knew exactly what they were talking about. They've been doing it for up to 25, 30 years, and it's it's it was uh it was hard to digest at first, but sure over time you you learn a lot.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

And uh Well, you picked it up real quick, I think.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Yeah. Well, I think all the the classes that uh I've gone to and all the opportunities that I've had to learn have been helpful. It was a lot in a short amount of time, but you know, I think I'm I got a hold of it now for the most part.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Absolutely. Yeah. Do you think there are some skills you learned in your previous job that really translated well? Bring it over here.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

In terms of concrete itself, the laundry industry and concrete, I I mean they're they're vastly different, but it's the formulas are kind of kind of the same. So in laundry, it's it's time, it's temperature, it's uh chemicals. Yeah, and you have to have the right amount of all three of those things to get a garment clean.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

And concrete's kind of the same thing. You know, it's perishable product, temperature is going to make a big difference on your set, right? And your chemicals can make your concrete vastly different depending on what you're doing. So uh the chemistry is kind of similar in that way when I look at it. But things that I've taken from my role as kind of a plant manager and overseeing things, I've just always been like a people manager.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

It's weird because you're such an introvert and you know hard to talk to.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

It's weird that you would identify that as a I enjoy, I enjoy talking to everybody. It doesn't matter who it is. I garnered a lot of patience from my previous job. So even when things are kind of going wrong, I'm able to try to keep a level head. Except for one experience with RCC Open Eldritch, where I may have The infamous infamous sandwiches. Yes, I did double load the uh twin shaft mixer, and I may or may not have put a walkie-talkie through a pizza box on the table. So that was bad. Alex was there to see it. That was a not my tough day.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

That was a tough day. I was gonna ask you, what's the toughest thing you've done since you've been there? Was it is that it?

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Uh well when you aren't batching for a while and then the next day you're batching 700 yards of RCC and you think you you think you got this and you get about 150 yards in and then you double load the thing.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

It's it was a very frustrating day.

unknown 13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

That on top of the generator going out numerous times.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

So that was a tough day. But you know what? We learn the most from the tough days. Yeah, that is true. And we get great slogans like sandwiches. Which is certainly going to be the episode title for this week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

But I'm trying to make up for those by doing some good things here and there.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

You're doing lots of good things. Okay. If you could wave a wand and instantly fix something in this industry, what would you change?

SPEAKER_03 13:58

If I had a magic wand, I would make the plant and muscatine disappear and a new one be there.

unknown 14:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

That would be a very popular answer.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

That is good. Magic trick. That is it. I'll let you try. Yeah. Well, maybe with a bulldozer and stuff, maybe give it a try. We have a magic wand and we can change one thing. I guess I would uh get a magical tape measure that measured grades and the actual size of placements that contractors are pointing, so we never run short. Because I I know it's really frustrating for the customers when they're running short.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

And it's hard for us when we're busy.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Yeah, you gotta have a truck go back out with one yard. It's not a win for anybody.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

No, no. If there is a way to magically know exactly how much concrete you needed every single time and know that that exact amount was in the truck every single time.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

So we didn't have all the waste and all those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

I suppose that's what I would go with.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

What about you, Griff? If you could wave a magic wand, what would you do?

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Well, come back to that in a second. Let me have a uh first. I th I think you know sometimes I our customers do get frustrated. They think them it doesn't happen a lot, but occasionally they might think that we're something's not right and we're shorting them. And uh not to say that's never happened. We've had plants get hit by lightning and and the calibration on the scales get get out of whack, but it's pretty rare. And the thing I always point out is like we are losing so much money when we send that one-yard call back. It is financially, we're way better off on you having enough the first time. That that is never uh anybody in our industry, it's it's never the intention to to run the yield so tight that you run short. But definitely for me, if I could wave a wand, it would be to have all the engineers that are going to be working with concrete actually wake up during their materials engineering class in college and have a little bit more expertise than they currently do. Because, and uh I know Lux feels this way as well, but there's there's so often that we have to go fight these battles with engineers that you know they know the whole pie of the construction industry better than we do, for sure. But we know our slice so much better than they do. And it's it gets frustrating at times when you know they want to dictate how things are or tell us to do things completely wrong just because that's their interpretation of how things should go. And um, that happens way more often than it should in this industry.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Aaron Powell I feel like you would be so bored if you eliminated that part of like that's your favorite thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Aaron Powell That's true. That is that's a fair point.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Aaron Powell Take your own joy out of your own life.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yeah. Find something new.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Oh, yeah. He would find something else to argue about if it wasn't this.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Well, I I guess another thing, if I did have a magic wand, we would be able to track our inventories spot on 100% of the time. That would be something special. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

To know what we have and know what we need and know what we've used. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

That would be the amount of time spent in meetings and those sorts of things to try to translate what happened or trying to figure out.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Is this the same thing where you're trying to get rid of your favorite part of your job?

SPEAKER_03 17:28

Uh flying the drone, being a drone pilot is kind of. That's cool. Yeah. So if you see me running around, and it's usually two days a month, I get to be a drone pilot. Yes. And that's what I'm doing. Even though the things are pre-programmed and I only have to press two buttons, uh it's still a good thing to do. We we've come a long way since I've started.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Not to say that your equations or formulas were incorrect in any way, Griff.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

The drone is going to be so much more accurate. Yeah. The drone is.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Just don't tell Kurt that, Anolito.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Yeah. If we're talking magic wands, I would also love like one of those gigafactories with a million yards of concrete to just land right, you know, right by one of our plants. That would be a pretty good deal.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Yeah, it wouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

So okay. Let's get back to reality. So aside from being a drone pilot, a one-button drone pilot, what's your favorite part of your job?

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Oh man. I like being on a job when everything goes right. That's for sure. That's one of my favorite things out there.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

You're like the hero, even though you're not doing much. Yeah. That is a great job.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Yeah, like when I go out to TVS and they've been having trouble with dough balls for gosh, that was so fun. And I show up and we have a total of two dough balls over 400 and some yards. Yeah. That felt good, even though I did nothing.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

You were working hard. You just you did it. We weren't addressing the doughball situation.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

No, no. Yeah. Whatever we did previously to that, not sprinkling the piles, that seemed to work. So props to Darren on that one. He he set me up to knock it out the park.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

So Yeah, that was fun to go up to Triver and say, John went on vacation. We had Sam in here, and that's why you don't have doughballs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

No. Yeah, interacting with the customers. I I do enjoy that, which is surprising because when I was a driver, and it could have been a result of me being such a terrible driver, I didn't have a lot of great experiences with the contractors. But it's it's been really good. There's some nice people out there. It's good to spend time with them.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Absolutely. Yeah. What questions do you have, Andrea?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Okay, Sam. My question is what's it like to work with your family? I can't imagine it with my own family, but I see it here and I see really great things and some not so great things. So what's your what's your take on it?

SPEAKER_03 19:58

I I love working with these guys. Uh and especially my brother. Uh getting a chance to work with him has been awesome. So honestly, both of my brothers and and those guys have been there for me my whole life. And it's been awesome to be able to spend some time with them. I I mean, Zach has always been there for me whenever I needed. And getting a chance to see him almost every day or talk to him almost every day. And I know growing up I didn't spend a lot of time with with Griff. He was a little bit younger, but just kind of getting to Lex was a lot younger. Lex wasn't you weren't growing up when Lex was I I kind of spent some time with Lex at at Christmas and that was about it. But um just kind of see how everybody has grown into their own personalities and those sorts of things and working with Bear and getting to see Bones every once in a while. It's nice. I like I like working with the family. And especially when uh I'm down in Muscatine and you're walking around and you got pictures of grandpa and great-grandpa on the wall. Yeah you kind of feel like you're in the right place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Absolutely. And Bones is like some nice dad, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Most people would about uh outside of work?

SPEAKER_02 21:22

What are your what are your hobbies? What do you like to do?

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Well, I don't have a lot of hobbies. I I love sports. I kind of put playing soccer and the old man soccer league on the back burner. Oh, you did? Yeah. Well, I I've been running a lot. I've been training for the BICs and getting ready for the muscatine triathlon and and doing some races here and there, and just trying to improve my heart health. So the uh hoop side of the family has a whole slew of heart issues, especially in the men in the family. So trying To get my heart stronger and keeping my cardio up. I have uh don't know how I've managed to lose more weight, but I've lost about 12 pounds. I'm around 175 now. So nice. Lex likes it.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Lex is flexing on that number.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

Yes. Yeah. So I'm not trying to pump iron and be the most jacked guy in the world. I'm just trying to keep my heart healthy and keep it pumping. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

Well, I was very jealous of your old man soccer league. I wish I could find something like that.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

Well, the second session starts in August. Yeah, but I'm not driving down a muscatine.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Do it.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Oh, come on. It's a 35-minute drive, dude.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

It's going to be too tall of a task.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

We got a spot for ya.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

I don't know if it'll happen. But I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

Okay. Okay. Always gonna use some more players.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

I'm probably they're not that I was ever great, but I'm probably even worse than I used to be.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

So besides, I don't think you're old enough.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

You gotta be 38 or over. Yeah, see, I'm not old enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

All right. We'll talk in a couple years.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Yeah, we can do that. Maybe Lex can play when he gets old. We'll be 55, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

All right. Do we have a loaded question?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

We do. I think we had actually a couple loaded questions submitted, and one of them uh is directed to Sam. So I think that's a good one. I think we should do that one.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

I wasn't prepared for this.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

This is an anonymous question. Sam, who slash what was the greatest influence in your first few months when you started at Hahn?

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Who slash what was my greatest influence? I I'd say that's pretty easy. That was Darren.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

I wonder if he wrote that question. He might have written the question. No, I I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Okay. Well, even if he did write it, it it was it was Darren. I got to spend a lot of time with him in the first couple of months there. Hopefully I didn't annoy him too much with all my questions and my lack of understanding.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

I think Darren likes to teach.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Yeah, if you're if you ask him to do that. He also likes to do and try to teach you after. Okay. But he's he's getting better at that. So explaining the why and how, those sorts of things. So he kind of took me under his wing and uh gave me the direction and put me in the places to succeed for a little while in in those first few roles. Yeah. Not making things too difficult for me, but also challenging me here and there to, you know, just to get me ready for whatever is to come.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, he's a guy, obviously, with a ton of experience that there's a lot to be learned from him there. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

I know Bear would probably say that it's him, but it's not.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

I think that's a great way to wrap this up.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

I like it. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

All right. Thanks everyone for listening to Loaded, the Han Ready Mix podcast. Please subscribe and share this episode with your friends, and we will talk to you again next week.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Thank you. Thank you.