Loaded: The Hahn Ready Mix Podcast

A podcast for the employees of Hahn Ready Mix

Loaded: The Hahn Ready Mix Podcast

72. Midyear Already?

July 13, 2026 • Griffin Hahn & Andrea Meier • Season 1 • Episode 72

0:00 | 21:22

Andrea and Griff review the first half of the year through the scorecard, talking about the numbers Griff is proud of, the ones he is watching, and what small daily decisions can do to move the company in the right direction.

Also: hidden costs, what employees may misunderstand, and a not so rapid fire question and answer.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to Loaded, the Hahn Ready Mix podcast with Andrea Meyer, Griffin Hahn, and producer Lex.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

How's it going?

SPEAKER_01 0:15

We're all here. Two weeks in a row.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

All here, two weeks in a row? This is great. We did have to record this early this week. Lex and I'm gonna be out of the office uh the rest of the week. So we're it's on a Tuesday, which is a little unusual for us.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

I like that you're in your matching uniform shirts today.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Oh, I didn't even notice. What do you mean we plan that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And I haven't seen any tears or anything. I thought you guys would be sad today after your soccer loss yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Sad, angry. That's like the seven stages of grief, right? I'm not sure where we stand in it, but it's it was not pretty. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Sorry for your devastating loss.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Thank you. Nothing I have to say is appropriate for this. This family-friendly podcast. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

What what are the other updates on the whole soccer situation? I'm on the edge of my seat dying to know.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Uh so yeah, so the US is out, which is a shame. Um on our pool, Chris Jurgens is still winning.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Great.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Uh and dub's in second. It's starting to, as we talk now, there's only 10 games left in the tournament, so it's starting to run out of time for others to catch him. So Chris is looking pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Great.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Uh I think we should probably update everybody on the race last week down John Fell Road.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yes. Yes, we should.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

So uh we got the interested folks available or together. Um, and we were looking for the fastest female and well, the fastest female, the fastest male, and then the two fastest of whatever gender, right? Yes. And um I think we have our team and I'm excited about it. Uh I'm not, I didn't make the cut.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

That's the headline.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

That's the headline.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Uh if anyone's surprised.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah. So we we had to run it twice because Andrew decided to misfire. Yeah, not listen. And so uh we had to run it twice. So my legs actually still hurt from running that last Thursday. My quad still hurt. So uh sprinting two hundred meter dashes in a row.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Overall, I thought we were faster as a company than I expected across the board. I thought you were faster than I expected. I mean, still not fast like everyone else, but you were faster than I thought you would be.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

You know, I've had I've had like 10 people tell me that when they've seen your video, like, wow, you're faster than I thought you would be, which is the most backhanded compliment ever. It's like you unathletic buffoon, you actually know how to run weird.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Not bad for an old guy.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Something like that. Yeah, well, I'm in pain from it. So anyway. Lesson learned. Lex did qualify, even though he was windmilling his arms like crazy person.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Was that part of the strategy? Is that part of your fast running mechanics? Is to use your arms?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

So we'll see that again.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Crossing the finish line. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

We'll see that again at the at the actual race. It'll be televised. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

I better get warmed up. Yeah, I don't know. So we've got Lex, we've got Angela, we've got Chris Hole, and Sam.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yes. So it's funny though, there's people, you know, coming out of the woodwork now saying they should have been included in the race.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah, Dubbs was saying he was the fastest person in the company. Several others.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Jake thinks he could win the race. Yeah. There's there's a few that want a chance.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Next year. Next year, show up for the the tryouts. I gotta work on beating Lex by next year, so I don't I don't know. Maybe if I have a broken leg. Wow. We can we can guarantee that if you bites. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Trying to get us back on track here. Uh work related, we started a cool project where we're recording some training videos.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

If anyone who started prior to this year remembers the videos that you watched during training that were a 1997 recording from the NRMCA.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah. Lex, I feel like you should insert some music here from like the like the whatever those videos that you know, you know what I'm doing, the really harsh-sounding artificial, like a guitar off court or something.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

So we before my time. He doesn't even know what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

We get a chance. We get a chance to make them our own. Um, point out the things that we specifically want our people to be doing every time. So it is cool and it is fun. It's kind of a big project, a big undertaking. So if anybody's interested in helping with that project, if you think you would be great on camera and you could help us out, let Sheldon know or your manager.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Specifically, we want, I think how we're gonna do it for we want to film drivers on specific types of job job sites and how what you do on the job sites. And then it'll probably be too loud on the job sites. So then we'd come back to the office and kind of voice over, like record, like, okay, I was thinking about this when I did this, and I was looking at this, and you know, etc. So uh we are really, really interested in having some folks help us. So let us know if you if you'd like to do that.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Great. We're ready to get into it here.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah, what are we gonna talk about today?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Uh it's the middle of the year, so I thought it was a good time to do a mid-year review. And I knew instantly that you would turn this into a stat comparison. Is that what you came prepared to do?

SPEAKER_00 5:49

I have like twenty five different percentages of stats of things. Yes. You guessed correctly.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Well, as interesting of a podcast as that would be, I thought I would let you use your stats to answer some questions, and maybe that would be more interesting.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

If you say so. I don't agree.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

What do you think, Lex? Would you like to hear the stats, or would you like to put Griffin on the spot to answer some questions?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Does this require an answer? Because I think we already know. Rude again.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Okay. Well, I'll let you pick. I have a few rapid fire questions where you have to just answer one way or the other. And then I have a few, I have a few longer questions where you might be able to insert some of your stats. So do you want to start fast or slow?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, let's let's go. Lightning run.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

All right. What was the best moment of the year so far?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

The best moment of the year. You gotta give me time. Please edit. I might have recency bias, and we talked about it last week, but uh, I was just super happy when I got a call from a customer talking about a non-work situation when when we had there was an accident and Steven Kellenberger went out and was so helpful. And you know, that's bigger than work, right? You know, when when there was an accident and there was a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah, we've had a few of those a few of those where you know Zach was on site for a couple of days and jumped in.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah, Zach, Zach did, yeah. So those kind of things I I they stick with you, right? That's like that's bigger than the job.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

So I think that's we're we're doing our work every day, but we're also jumping in to help wherever we need to in real life, which I think is that's big. All right, I'll let you have that answer. Even though it wasn't a short, rapid fire. Okay, we'll go the other way. What is one prediction you had in January that you got completely wrong?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Oh, uh, I did not foresee fuel prices going big miss. So here I can throw a stat in. Okay. Uh here we go. Um, so our diesel costs are up 49% at the halfway point of the year versus last year at this time. So if you ever needed a reason to not leave your truck running.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

That is it.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

That is one right there. 49%. And that diesel number is a big one for us.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah, something that people are feeling personally too. And then you multiply it times how many trucks we have and how many hours they're running all day.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Ugh. Miserable. Uh, where do you see that going the rest of the year?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

It's so diesel prices are trending down. Uh so you know, we have our fuel surcharge on every load that goes out that is helping us recapture some of that diesel cost, not all of it, but we we are at least it's at least helping. And that is set up on tied to the US energy information website, the Midwest region. And every single week it's dropping into a slower category. So, like our fuel surcharge last week uh was ten dollars a load and it's $7.50 a load uh this starting tomorrow. So it keeps ticking down. So hopefully that'll we have you on record then.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

So when we do this again at the end of the year, you have a chance to redeem yourself.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

I'm I'm hoping that it'll eventually get back to where we were at the beginning of the year. It may take the whole rest of the year to do that. Yeah, yeah, hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

All right. Uh this will be good for your stats too. What's something, an underrated thing, something that happened that we didn't notice it happening, but now that you look back, you one of the things is we seem to have had a lot of truck breakdowns.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

In fact, I'll give you a stat. Uh truck breakdowns are up 48%. But our weekly, our trucks out of service is down 21%. Um, so I think that what that means is we're having less major and less uh the the breakdowns that are happening are they're happening more frequently, but they're not leaving our trucks out of service longer. And so that is represented both in those numbers and our total repair and maintenance costs are down 27%. So that's a huge win. And so that was really good to see a nice surprise.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Good. If the year ended today, if this was the end of the year, what is the headline for the whole year?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

The headline is we've picked up some customers and I think we're doing a good job on the service front. And uh, you know, we were a lot more responsible through the winter. So we set ourselves up to have a a good year this year from a financial standpoint. So yeah, I think things are good and um hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Oh, would you rate it? Yeah, one out of ten. Where where do you where are you in your satisfaction with the year so far?

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Seven.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Okay. Which leads to the next question. What's one thing that you're gonna change going forward?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Hmm. We have a number of things that I think are are not awesome. Our when I look at some of our statistics, we keep track of like cubic yards per driver hour and utilization, and those are tracking way down from where we were last year. We've had some issues with battling air that we haven't last year, so definitely trying to get our hands around that. And then yeah, we've we've talked a lot about software changes. We're changing our ERP, right? So there are some things we are changing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

I'm going to change trying to do rapid fire questions with you because it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

You had to give me the give me the questions ahead of time if you want me to be rapid. So I could have thought about this.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Even if you answered faster, you would still use a lot of words. So it still wouldn't be quick. Probably. Okay. You can talk longer. These are the longer form questions I have for you. And I know Lex hates when I talk about things we're proud of, but I haven't found a better word for that yet.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

But I don't hate talking about things we're proud of, just not.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

You're just never proud of yourself. Yeah. You can be proud of other people.

unknown 11:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Okay. So we're looking at looking at the stats in the first six months of the year. What are we, what are we most proud of?

SPEAKER_00 11:55

The stats aren't the things that uh I guess I'm proud of. It's the people that are are making the stats be better. Right. But what I think in general, like I think about we're we're wrapping up the job with Metro and Muscatine, and that job has gone pretty much flawless. I mean, just almost been a perfect job and uh a good job for us. So I'm really proud of the team down there and how they've stepped up and and knocked that one out of the park. And hopefully we get a lot more big jobs right next to a plant.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I agree. That's a great story. Uh when I looked at the stats, things that I liked to see are safety uh injuries, incidents and injuries are, you know, I always want to knock on wood because we're we're doing dangerous things every day, relatively and in comparison to previous years, we're we're doing really well on the safety side. And from the Sam Sarah coaching, I think we're doing really well on those safety stats as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Uh I don't know that I capture everything. So I'm not positive that the stat is correct, but I had our injury number down 87%, which was basically we had I think one this year. So that's uh a huge deal.

unknown 13:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

On the on the flip side of that, anything that stands out to you as areas of concern or what we're gonna focus on now.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

You know, one thing we you know, to follow up on that last bit, our our safety journals, which Sheldon does the majority of, are up 410% over what we did last year. So Sheldon's doing a great job recognizing the folks that are doing things right from a safety standpoint, and then also identifying when things aren't being done right and noting those. We use those, we use journals in general as a way to reinforce good behavior or or good uh feedback in general. Yeah, feedback, uh whether it be positive or negative. And our performance-related journals are down 64%. So that's on me as it is in it on everybody else. But we uh definitely for managers, I would encourage you to do more of that. You know, I've heard a couple of people say, you know, that it feels performative. And and I get that, I do, but it's hard for us to remember everything that happens through a year. So we're kind of memorializing feedback, whether it be positive or negative, is important. And then I think it just hits hard as well when somebody sees something written, either like, oh, I should correct this, or wow, they really saw me do something well. And I completely agree on both sides of that.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

And then from a manager perspective, it's like doing future you a favor because in six months you're going to be doing end-of-year reviews, and any notes that you have out there from the journals are gonna be a a piece of that that's already set for you.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

All right. Did you notice anything like a hidden cost, like something that is adding up that we're not realizing as it's happening? Or that maybe employees don't see or understand?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yeah. So one thing that we didn't track last year, so we don't have comparison is the end-of-day time. Right. So that's that's a big deal that we have folks that take a while to get off the clock at the end of the day, and that time really does add up. In some cases, limits, you know, how much overtime people can work later more productively if we've had long days. So yeah, that that's one that we're trying to get our arms around and and make sure we're managing appropriately. We want people to have time to clean on their trucks. Um, but we just need to make sure we're being reasonable about that and and spreading that time evenly across the group.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah, I think it's even pointing out to us some things that we may need to change or think about as far as efficiency, like when we have so many people that are washed out at the same time. Do we have the proper facilities for washing and fueling and everything else that needs to be done at the same time? So it's good to be able to watch that now. Yeah. Even if it's pointing us that we have to do some things to improve.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Is there anything on your scorecard or your stats that you think is misunderstood or that has become more clear to you as you've been watching it?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Misunderstood.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Or something that you wish people understood that don't get to see it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

You know, we track, and I don't have the exact stat here, but we track in-person basically sales visits, you know, just they're not sales necessarily, just checking in with customers face-to-face, uh, whether that happens at an office or a job site. And um, we're tracking up on that. And I think those are really important, you know, in in a time of AI and computers and everything, having that personal touch, especially face-to-face personal touch is a big deal, and I think differentiates us.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

So yeah, I love that face-to-face feet. And what I would love to capture more of is the feedback that we get. Uh I think we sometimes come back to the office with a steam behind us, whether it's good or bad, and that kind of influences how we think things are going. But it would be cool to capture more actual data about what what we're hearing on those customer visits or QC or whoever's out in the field.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Future, future goals.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Along that line, what is uh one behavior you want to see more of across the company for the rest of the year?

SPEAKER_00 17:05

One thing that we've had a guess a modest improvement is our water added on site is down eight percent versus last year. Um and we've had less slump rejected loads too. So I think we keep pushing that ball forward. I think we still have you know further to go as far as being more accurate, but we're like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Chime in.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

I just was listened to her question and I was a little uh confused at your response. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Oh so the question was what is it behavior you want to see more of? And you answered was something we're doing well.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah, that's behavior of the.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Oh, you want to continue to see more of that? More of not adding water.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

More of not adding water. More more water accuracy that we I can't wait to see how you edit this.

unknown 17:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

You just leave it at this point. Yeah, no, it's fine. Yeah, we I think we're that stat is showing that we're getting closer to what our customers want as we get to the job site is from a slump perspective.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

To continue to hit the target that we're shooting.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

It's moving in the right direction, but not where we'd like it to be. Got yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

All right. Are there any other hot topics you wanted to talk about that I didn't get to with my questions?

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Just in general, we could do a specific rejected load episode another time, but in general, our rejected loads are about 8% better than this time last year. Now we did have a really, really strong second half of the year last year.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Time to lock in on that.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

So if we replicate that, we will beat our rejected load performance. But we we really knocked it out of the ballpark in the second half of the year. So that's been good. Um keeping an eye on those things. And yeah, we might as well just do it. I got them real quick. So our batch error rejected loads are down 4%, dispatch error down 66%, driver error down 15%, plant breakdown down 15%, slump down 54%, truck breakdown down 27%, and then the two that rose air content, which we had very little of last year, so it's misleading, up 49%. And then other stuff. Last year we had whole other categories. We had three yards, and so that's up 1,433. So we had some stuff that didn't really fit. Uh so that one's up big, but it's from a small number. So it's but so anyway, net, it's down eight percent. So that's that's good.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

All right. So when we look back at the end of the year, what do you want the headline to be, or what do you predict the headline will be for the end of the year? Second half headline.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, I think I guess one thing we haven't talked about is volume is up 11%. And um, I think that we have opportunities to gain again on the rest of the year on on what we did last year. So hopefully uh we have a strong volume year that means more hours for everybody, means the company's in a better place, and we continue to pick up work. So I'm hoping that we, you know, we're not gonna have a a banner year necessarily, but uh have a strong year after really it's been three really weak years from a volume perspective. So I think strong is the goal and and we should be happy with that.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah, it's great to be at this point of the mid-year, still feeling momentum behind us and a lot of things trending in the right direction and still hiring more people and getting the right people in place to carry through what we want to do the rest of the year.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

And uh and we did order five trucks, so that's the thing that every know. So we have some truck.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

What's the expected delivery date for that? Is that a this year thing or next year thing?

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Well, if it's a this year thing, it's like a December 20th thing. So it is not then based on the year end. It's a year-end thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

So definitely still something to look forward to. The best way to move up to a nicer truck is to clean your current truck. Yes. Uh so knowing that there's new trucks coming, that shifts for everyone potentially.