Building Legacy, Not Just Value: Divya Behl on Redefining ETA & Generational Value

Video Version: https://youtu.be/GgH9oDkyRmI

In this episode, host Bo Kemp sits down with Divya Behl, a rising star in the world of entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA), who’s breaking the mold — and building a 100-year business, not a quick exit.

As the leader of PFA Friction Products, Divya is taking a long-term, values-driven approach to business ownership. Instead of consolidating companies for a fast flip, she is focused on building a family legacy through purposeful acquisition and enduring operations. With roots in the automotive, manufacturing, and engineering industries, she’s now applying her experience to grow something that will last for generations.

Bo and Divya explore why Divya views ETA not as a transaction, but as a path to generational value, how she identifies acquisition targets where she can preserve the legacy of original owners, the unique lens women — especially women of color — bring to entrepreneurship and succession planning, the SDA’s initiative to build a cohort of women ETA entrepreneurs to transition profitable businesses from retiring Baby Boomers to next-generation operators, and how Divya is turning PFA Friction into the foundation of a family empire, focused on long-term value creation, not short-term exits. 

This episode is a powerful look at how entrepreneurship can preserve jobs and communities, and how one woman is doing just that with vision, strategy, and heart.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Are you ready to grow your business, build
wealth, and spark transformationin the South Suburbs of Chicago?
Visit Southlanddevelopment.orgtoday and sign up for our
newsletter to stay connected,get the resources, and be the
first to hear about the achievedside, where entrepreneurs,
developers, investors, andchange makers come together to
ignite growth and opportunity.

(00:21):
Don't just watch change happen,be a part of it.
Join the movement atSouthlanddevelopment.org and
start building your legacytoday.

(00:52):
Diviya is redefiningentrepreneurship through
acquisition, not as atransaction, but as a path to
generational wealth, legacy, andlong-term impact.
This is the conversation aboutownership, responsibility, and
building something that trulyendures.
Hello, and thank you for comingto the First Million is Always
the hardest.

(01:13):
I'm excited to have you, Divya.
And for the benefit of everyonewho is listening and watching,
just tell us your name, tell usa little bit about what you're
doing right now and a bit ofyour background.

SPEAKER_01 (01:25):
Oh, it's so nice to see you in person again.
You and I met a couple weeksago.
Um, and I can't believe we'rehere again.

SPEAKER_06 (01:31):
But we were quickly here.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
Yes.
Thank you so much for having meon the show.
Um it still all feels surreal todescribe what I do today.

SPEAKER_05 (01:38):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
Um but I am the founder and CEO of BKV Holdings,
um, and then the CEO of ourfirst acquisition under that
group PMA Friction Products,which is a 40-year-old
manufacturer of customengineered friction material.

SPEAKER_06 (01:52):
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
Um I'm new in this space, so we just started this
journey in July of 24.
Um, I started a family business,and uh, I'm excited to talk
about it here with you today.

SPEAKER_03 (02:02):
I was one of the things that you said that really
piqued my interest was that youwere intentional that you were
starting a family business.
And you were intentional aboutcreating a holding entity that
would in fact be the vehicle, orin part at least the vehicle for
your kind of ETA, as they callit, entrepreneurship through
acquisition.

(02:23):
Um how did you determine, a, Iwant to start a family business?
What was a driver that made youdecide that that was important
to you?

SPEAKER_01 (02:32):
Great question.
Loaded question.
Um So I am like, I am the fur,you guys can't see me on a
podcast, but I am the Well, theycan see you.

SPEAKER_03 (02:40):
This is on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 (02:41):
Oh, okay.
I am the oldest daughter, right,in an Asian family.
So I have always felt like andmade to believe that I get to
carry the torch.
And so when I started down thisjourney, and we'll talk a little
bit about the movement from youknow public to private, um, but

(03:04):
my dad and my mom always taughtus raise the tide.
So if you're gonna do something,do it together.
You know, I'm as competitive asI am, I'm really bad at board
games.
Because I can't win in spite ofsomebody else.
I I can't do it.
I like to win as a team.
So when I went on this journeyand thought, okay, I'm gonna

(03:25):
start this.
Um, I brought my brother-in-lawand my dad along.
And my dad's still in meetings,everyone kind of looks and talks
to him, and my dad's like, no.
I'm not in charge.
That's I that's not how itworks.
She started it and she broughtme along.
And but I I did it as a familybecause I just I believe in my
family.

(03:45):
And I always, you know, to myhusband and my father have
always felt like I want to standshoulder in shoulder and say,
Hey, I got this.
You know, to my husband, it'sanything ever happens to you, I
got our family.
And to my dad, I always wantedto say, if anything happens to
you, I've got the nextgeneration.
And that's not just my four,that's your 13.

(04:06):
Wow.
And so I brought mybrother-in-law along, um, and my
dad along.

SPEAKER_03 (04:10):
So, what your parents have 13 kids?

SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
13, meaning there's three of us.
So I have a good great question.
Um, three there's three kids.
So I have a little sister, she'sa GI, she's a doctor.
Um, I have a brother, he's alawyer, um, but they're kids.

SPEAKER_02 (04:26):
I see.

SPEAKER_01 (04:27):
So, you know, for my nephews, I have six nephews.
Um five nephews.
We have one daughter, and thenall the next six are boys.

SPEAKER_06 (04:35):
Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 (04:36):
But for them, and that that's where I say, not
just for my four, our immediatefour, but act, you know, in the
eyes of my dad to say, am Itruly raising the next
generation of our family?

SPEAKER_03 (04:49):
So I would imagine, because I have four kids as
well, that the fact that you'vedone this and brought your
father in gives you a lot ofreason to be able to stand at
the Thanksgiving table andannounce to your brother and
sister that I'm clearly my dad'sfavorite.

SPEAKER_06 (05:04):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (05:04):
Because my kids constantly ask me, even though
they are adults, which one isthe favorite all the time.
So does that ever cause any kindof friction within the family?

SPEAKER_01 (05:13):
Yeah, great, great segue.
Ironically, my sister isprobably my dad's favorite, um,
because she just has a heart.
She's a really good thing.
Yeah, always.
And then my brother's my mom'sfavorite because he's like the
gem of a child, and she can hecan do no wrong for all of us.
Um, but even though, you know, Istarted the company, my dad's a

(05:33):
huge reason why we could dothis, right?
He's our biggest investor, he'sour biggest sponsor, he's our
biggest mentor.
Um so we still owe.
Sure, I started the company andthe idea, but it, you know, it's
all because of him.

SPEAKER_03 (05:47):
Well, I'm sure he's just insanely proud of the fact
that he gets to work for hisdaughter in that process.
And, you know, startingbusinesses can be complicated
with family.
There are some people whobelieve you should never mix
family and business.
Um, and I was raised with thatas kind of an ethos, um, and it

(06:08):
kind of a track that you hearalways in music and you know,
film and all that.
What I experienced when I gotblessed enough to be around
people who were truly wealthy isthey do the exact opposite.
Like truly wealthy peopleactually do business within
their family and with theirfamily.
Um and were you ever at a pointwhere you were doubtful whether

(06:30):
or not you should do businesswith your family, or was it
natural for you to just say, no,obviously I'm gonna rise all
these boats.
I feel, as you said, and I likethe way you put this, I get the
opportunity to kind of carrythat load as opposed to I'm
burdened with it.
And so I'm moving forward here,but was there ever a moment of
doubt about that?

SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
Very good question.
And I no, not for a second.

SPEAKER_03 (06:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (06:54):
You know, and there's there's a couple now in
this world I've met otherpeople, and even they say that
the family business, they're sokind of strict that it just
carries on like through thechildren and no spouse is
involved, you know, and it'skind of that line.
And for me, my partner is mybrother-in-law, you know, and
who can I love more than he wholoves my family, right?

(07:19):
And so I really want it to be afamily thing, and it really
wasn't wasn't a second, secondthought for me to bring my
family in.
And my brother-in-law, who's notfrom manufacturing, and my dad
are the whole reason that we canwe can do this.
You know, they jumped in and hadthat trust and faith that okay,
she's gonna lead this.

(07:40):
That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 (07:41):
Is your dad an engineer also?

SPEAKER_01 (07:42):
He is.
My dad isn't, but he's inacademia, so business is new in
our family.
We're not businessmen, you know.

SPEAKER_06 (07:49):
Um, you're business women.

SPEAKER_01 (07:50):
We're business women.
That's right.
We sure are.
Um, he's an academia.
So he was a dean at uh NorthernIllinois University for a very
long time.
And um grew up in that.
Was gosh, what everywhere I go,it's still do you know Dean
Borah?
You know?
Um that's my dad.
So he's uh not and then he wentinto the private world after he

(08:12):
retired from there, but he's anengineer, so he's a big, big
part of why I went intoengineering.

SPEAKER_03 (08:17):
That's amazing.
And and you went to Northern aswell.
I did, yeah, that was smart too.
I'm sure that was like you savedme a little bit of money.
Yeah, you sure did.

SPEAKER_01 (08:24):
You know, and I always I say um that my dad and
I actually next week are beinginducted in the inaugural Hall
of Fame class at Northern.

SPEAKER_02 (08:33):
Oh, that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 (08:34):
Um so there's four of us, and I don't know how I
made the list.
Um my dad obviously is on thelist, and um that's what I
shared with them is he loved theschool so much and he believed
in what Northern could do somuch that he was like, well, you
gotta go here.
So I have two degrees fromthere, and then my for my PhD I
went.
They didn't have it at the time.
So I think that's the firsttime.

SPEAKER_03 (08:54):
Were you at the Notre Dame game by any chance?

SPEAKER_01 (08:56):
I sure was.
Now my husband is the head teamdoc for Northern.
Oh my goodness.
So we get to go to a lot of thefootball games, and I sit on the
alumni board of directors now.
So we have to keep giving back.

SPEAKER_03 (09:07):
For those who don't know, last year Northern beat
Notre Dame and what was not afluke.
Um, interestingly enough.
I think it's very clear now thatthe coach actually built this
game plan specifically to beatNotre Dame, so much so that the
Notre Dame coach, it wasrevealed later in the season,
called him and said, like, hey,how'd you beat us?

(09:29):
And he told him.

SPEAKER_01 (09:30):
Yeah.
Well, Notre Dame's a aphenomenal team and had a
phenomenal year.
Um it was a very humble victory.
You know, d the Husky fans inthe stadium all throughout the
game were, I think, veryappreciated being there.
Yeah.
Um, and were just humbled by thethat we got the chance to to win

(09:52):
that game.
Um, but it was well played.
It was sure c was close, all theway till the end.
Um, but that's not an arrogantvictory.
That is uh that is an honoredvictory.
And Notre Dame went on to be ayou know phenomenal to be a few.

SPEAKER_03 (10:08):
But now here's the thing.
Um I am sure they will not playyou again anytime.
Yeah, not pay to play us.
Yeah, no, that won't happenagain.
Well, that's amazing that you'rebeing inductive with your
father.
It's such an honor.
And the idea that you'rebuilding this family business,
one of the things that we'rereally interested in, and you
know this, you know, there's ahuge class of baby boomers who

(10:30):
are retiring.
Um, roughly 13, 15 millionbusiness or uh thousand
businesses uh or millionbusinesses are outstanding that
people need to sell.
But only one in ten of thosebusinesses are being sold.
Because a good portion of thosebusinesses aren't ready to be
sold.
The the entrepreneurs have hadsuccessful businesses they've
lived off of, but they neverbuilt that business with the

(10:52):
idea that someone's gonna comethrough and do an analysis and
get ready to sell them.
Some of them, frankly, are justnot as valuable as they thought
they were.
And so there's this hugedisconnect between, and I know
you go through this in your buybox when you're figuring out
what I'm gonna pay for acompany, what they think it's
worth, what someone can actuallyfinance this business uh is.

(11:13):
Uh a lot of them just haven'tprepared for succession.
So even if they're strong andthey've got cash flow
businesses, they're just notthey're just not, you know, sale
ready.
Part of what we hope to do atthe Southland Development
Authority is to move that fromone in ten to three or four in
ten, at least in our market.
We think that there are a coupleof underrepresented groups that

(11:36):
actually could be buyers.
Um women in particular and womenof color, and I said this to you
when we originally met, is thefastest growing of all
entrepreneurial segments in theUnited States since COVID.
Um we think veterans alsopresent a unique opportunity, a
unique skill set that is underrepresented and under

(11:58):
misunderstood moving into thecorporate space.
Um, but you're kind of in thatarea right now where you're
trying to figure out like how doI get to those businesses?
What made you think inparticular that this was the
time to go and start to acquirebusinesses?
Um and given your pastexperiences, which we haven't

(12:20):
talked about yet, but I'm surewe will get to in just a minute,
what were kind of the influencesthat made you think this is what
I need to do to make thishappen?

SPEAKER_01 (12:27):
You know, I sit on the National Association of
Board of Manufacturers.
And I have been a part of thatorganization along with their uh
manufacturing institute for wellover a decade.
And so the visibility to theshortage of manufacturing in
this country that we're gonnahave over in the next two
decades has been front andcenter for me for a very long

(12:50):
time.
And so, gosh, now I feel likeI'm late already, right?
Not so much that it's time, butwe have to secure that
investment for our people, forour country, for our
communities.
I mean, manufacturing in localcommunities is incredible,
right?
It's it's an incredible part ofthe GDP.
It brings back um supplementaljobs, and it's great healthcare

(13:13):
benefits, it's great jobs, it'slong-term tenures, it's
retirement benefits compared toother industries.

SPEAKER_03 (13:18):
National supply chain resilience, there's a
whole series of things.

SPEAKER_01 (13:21):
It's so much.
And so for me, I felt like, youknow, and we'll get through the
story of how I personally gothere, but my gosh, we need to
accelerate that securing ofmanufacturing in the United
States quickly.
And so if I can be a part ofthat, well, so you you took it
upon yourself to go and do this.

SPEAKER_03 (13:40):
And it's interesting given the background that you
just described.
Um, you know, I'm curious.
One of the things we find in theSouthland, because we've got,
you know, well over a hundredmetals and manual metals and
manufacturing businesses thatare operating.
The average business is about 48years old.
Um they have less than 20employees.

(14:01):
The average employee has beenthere for 15 to 20 years.
Um, but when these entrepreneurstypically retire, um, their
businesses don't get sold.
And what they do instead ofselling the business is they
pack the business up.
They literally will sell off anypieces of equipment that are
sellable, scrap the rest or giveit away, um, sell the land, fire

(14:24):
all of the people that they'reworking with, not because they
don't care about those people,but because they don't have
another way to take care ofthem.
And most of them have beentaking money out of the business
over the years to invest inother real estate, and they're
using those other real estateinvestments or the real estate
investment of their land astheir retirement fund, right?
That's how they're funding theirretirement.

(14:46):
But there's a lot of negativethings that happen, right?
So we lose the tax revenue ofthat company when they stop
operating.
Um, not only the tax revenue ofthat company, but we also lose
the employees who also weregetting paid from that business.
There is a supply chainconnection, right?
Because these businesses don'tlive in a vacuum, they work with

(15:07):
other businesses, and when youactually take away one business,
you degrade the network.
And that has an impact on ourcompetitiveness as a region,
right?
Um and obviously um we take awaythe job opportunities, right?
Um so not just the people whoare currently working there that
we're getting paid, but futureworkers.
And all of those are reasons whyI think it is in the best

(15:29):
interest of the country for usto be focused on how do we keep
those businesses alive.
You sitting on that board inmanufacturing, having seen this,
and now you're invested in thisspace, you know, what are some
of the things that you guys aretalking about?
What are the things that weshould be adopting maybe as a
regional economic developmentgroup and how should we be
thinking about this as a countryof to resolve this issue?

SPEAKER_01 (15:54):
I what what you just hit on is so important and
speaks, I think, to the heart ofone of you know, one of our
family values.
And I spent almost a decade inthe aerospace space before I
before I founded this whole thisholding company.
And one of the things that wesaw was exactly what you were
talking about.
We would see these small tomid-sized manufacturers, right?

(16:17):
75% of them or under 5,000employees, and we started to see
in the last decade thetransition of owners and their
kids don't want to do it,they've got nobody to pass into,
and they would either shudder orthey maybe would make decisions
that I'll just say wasn't in thebest interest of their family

(16:38):
legacy, and then they regrettedit.
And so when I set out to do thisin this space, the thing that
was most important because I hadjust come from it was how do we
protect our employees and how dowe protect our customers?
And so we actually did, and Iwill tell you again and again,

(16:59):
not a finance person.
Yes, you can worry about that.
Don't worry about it.
Yeah, all right, that's right.
But we decided to buy thecompany in a stock sale, which
is not traditional.

SPEAKER_03 (17:11):
Asset sales are almost always the way you go.

SPEAKER_01 (17:13):
And we did that to put our money where our mouth
is, to say we want it to be asseamless as possible to the
employees, and we want it to beas seamless as possible to our
customers.
They didn't have to worry aboutcontracts, what bank account
their checks were going to, howtheir vacation had been accrued
for the last nine months.

(17:35):
We just wanted to do it withintegrity so that the owners
that were giving us this gift ofa 40-year-old company felt like
it was in great hands.
And that gave them the abilityto say, we're gonna transition
out and hand the baton ratherthan throw something across a

(17:58):
wall.
And so that is such a big partof how we are looking at
acquisitions and how we arelooking at growing ourselves is
you know, our we still have theowners that come in and out.
We talk to them all the time.

SPEAKER_05 (18:11):
That's great.

SPEAKER_01 (18:12):
Um, we'll actually tell you a story, a very
personal story about how we'rekeeping their legacy intact.
Yeah.
Um, so on the day of the sale,and it happened, you know, kind
of also when you're doing astock sale, you have to
diligence that much morecarefully, right?

SPEAKER_03 (18:26):
Yeah, I have to say, I'm I'm I have a lot of
questions in my mind about thestock sale part and you know
what it does to your basis andall these other questions that
we'll get to perhaps.

SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
Yeah, and there's a nice tax way to do that.
Um, but we had I was leavingthis big career and it was this
huge change for me.
And and I'm really a person of alot of faith.
And I I knew that it was theright decision, but you know,
just kind of in the back, it'slike, and when you have faith,
you don't always look for signsbecause you know.
But we went and and on the dayof closing, we were kind of

(18:58):
waiting until the last minutefor like this consent from
something, and we were sittingat the table and we had had a
wonderful negotiation, so muchso that our banker was like, I
don't think I've ever seen aclosing go this way.

SPEAKER_04 (19:10):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (19:10):
But we're signing the papers, and I write that
somebody had asked, What's yourbirthday?
Because we had to fill outsomething on a sheet.
And so I wrote, you know, wrotedown what my birthday was at
127.
And the three owners immediatelylooked up and they said, That's
our dad's birthday.

SPEAKER_02 (19:27):
How about that?

SPEAKER_01 (19:28):
And everyone just started crying.
Oh on the whole table, I cried,they cried, and it was just like
this beautiful moment.
And so on our birthday, then thenext year, as a present to them,
I got a beautiful black andwhite picture of their dad, and
we put it right in the front ofthe building.
Oh, that's nice.

(19:49):
And so that he can kind of watchover us and they know that he's
always a part of that.
So that was my birthday gift.
He's since passed.

SPEAKER_03 (19:56):
Um Well, I think, you know, that kind of
Sensitivity to the legacy of afamily that has invested to
build this asset is honestlysomething we have to probably
get back to.
I think it had previously been alarge part of the way that we

(20:18):
thought about corporate Americaat one point, but we had kind of
moved away from it and I thinkundervalued what it means to
individual uh you know workers.
I you know, I think a lot ofpeople forget how important
loyalty of your workforce is toyour ability to execute what you
do.

(20:38):
And they are much like yourkids, they watch what you do,
not what you say.
Right?
So if they don't see you doingthings that demonstrate that you
have loyalty as part of who youare, as your kind of founding
core, they don't care what yousay, right?
And sometimes the money is notenough.
Um and sometimes the money isn'tthe reason that they make the

(21:00):
choices that they make anyway.
Um so I think that's wonderfulthat you do that, and that's
worthy of more conversation.
It'll be interesting to see overtime your capacity to continue
to do that as you grow.
And I'm curious, and we're gonnamove around in the conversation
to a lot of different topics,but as you think about how do I
build on PMA friction to and Ilook for my second and my third

(21:25):
acquisition, what are the thingsthat are important for you to be
similar, um, whether it be inhow you identified the
opportunity, you know, how youpursued the negotiations, and
what are the things that youthink might be very, very
different?
And we have an audience in part,I think, of people who are
interested in beingentrepreneurs through
acquisition, but also don't havea finance background and also

(21:47):
may not come from the exactspace.
So your experience kind of inmaking those transitions should
be really relevant to them.

SPEAKER_01 (21:54):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I I think if we're, you know, Ithink about what's next.
I have certain principles that Ithink when even when we were
buying, you know, this thiscompany, and and we'll continue
with the acquisitions when thetime is right, right?
It's not rushed.
I always say we're hungry, butwe're not starved.

SPEAKER_04 (22:10):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (22:10):
Um, and so we'll do that when the time is right and
when we find the right fit.
But there's definitely aframework that I look at when I
think what what at the minimumdoes this neck next acquisition
have to be.

SPEAKER_03 (22:25):
This isn't an ad, it's just our experience.
At the Southland DevelopmentAuthority, we've spent the past
five years growing our team.
And time after time we've turnedto LinkedIn, not because we had
to, but because it works.
It's where we found people whoshare our mission, our energy,
our commitment to the community.
For a small but growingorganization, it saved us both

(22:46):
time and money and connected usto the talent we might never
have found otherwise.
If you're looking for the rightpeople to help grow your
business, I can tell you fromexperience, LinkedIn works.

(23:18):
You're buying for the long term,right?
So, and that's something thatyou said that really caught my
attention as well.
Um, you aren't buying to say I'mgonna turn around and
necessarily flip this.
I'm buying because I'm buildingsomething that I expect to last
as a family legacy.
So that gentleman's legacybecomes part of your family
legacy that you then move on inanother way.

(23:39):
So I don't know to what degreethat really changes the types of
businesses you buy.
I presume it does.
Um, and I don't know if you canshare a little bit how that
might change, you know, whatthey call your buy box, you
know, what are the elements thatyou're looking for?
And if there are elements, youmay not be looking for an
acquisition.
But if I put in front of youthis thing, what are the things

(23:59):
that would make you say, youknow what?
I know I'm still digesting thismeal, but man, that looks tasty.
I'm not starved, yeah, but I'mhungry.

SPEAKER_01 (24:06):
Yeah, I'm hungry.
Yeah.
You know, we look at I'll I'llshare because so I only know
what I know because peopleshared with me, you know.
I'm I'm the farthest thing fromself-made that anybody can be.
So I'm I'm happy to share thatif somebody's looking.
I'd want them to buy the samegreat businesses.

SPEAKER_02 (24:23):
Hopefully, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (24:24):
So as an engineer, for me, it always starts with
product.
And the first thing, first andforemost, is you know, I look
for something that has productor process IP or trade secrets
that's really a value.
And that's the bottom, you know,that's the big barrier to entry.
Because I'm not interested in acommodity business.
I really enjoy the productdevelopment, process development

(24:47):
side of it.

SPEAKER_03 (24:48):
I don't want to mess up your flow, but I have a
question, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, go ahead.
So when you are buying thatbusiness as a stock, right, as
opposed to an asset, how is thatchanging how you value that IP,
that intellectual property,right?
Because you could get theadvantage of the goodwill that
comes from buying the IP.
Um, maybe you still takeadvantage of it through the

(25:09):
stock sale.
I'm not 100% certain myself.
But does that change any of yourcalculation at all?

SPEAKER_01 (25:15):
It does.
I mean, I from the financeperspective, I think it matters
on the multiplier what you'regonna what you're gonna pay,
right?
I think it also is then thetypes of business that you have.
Businesses with product orprocess IP tend to have longer
contracts, you get a biggerbacklog.
Um, but for us it was really inthe multiple on what we would
look at.
Um, the other piece is your IPcan be a trade secret or it can

(25:39):
be true IP, right?
And so if it's IP, then you'reliterally buying the patent.

SPEAKER_04 (25:43):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
But if it's a trade secret, um, that's just
knowledge and expertise.
And so that's very important onhow you're gonna carry on into
the next generation of thatownership because it's not
written somewhere.
You're not buying any IP.
Um we had some piece of that.
We have a lot of things in thebusiness that are trade secret,
yeah.
And so it was really importantfor us in that transition to
say, do we really know it?

(26:05):
Did we get it?

SPEAKER_03 (26:05):
Yeah, um, is it about or did it walk out?

SPEAKER_01 (26:09):
Um, and so we've done some really neat things
with AI to capture some of thatvery quickly in the first 12
months.

SPEAKER_06 (26:17):
Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
Um, not out of fear, but kind of to get ahead of that
and to make sure that what wasthe trade secret was locked and
we had that.
Um and so automation and AI wasa big help in that knowledge
transfer and expertise.
The other piece is therelationships, right?
And so because we have such awonderful relationship with the
previous owners, if there everis a question, um we have had a

(26:41):
lot of calling up the phone andthey're still there.
Um so that has been helpful.

SPEAKER_03 (26:47):
So it's interesting in a stock sale like that, do
you have a structure where theyhave seller financing as well?
Or how can can you do that in astock sale?

SPEAKER_01 (26:56):
Yeah, you can.
Um, but we and this is where Italk about we've been so lucky.
You know, we have liketraditional bank financing.
So we went out and I will tellyou a funny story.
Um so I there's an I lovepodcasts.
I think I think they'reincredible, um, especially when
you're driving and traveling.

(27:16):
They're just they're so great tolisten to.
And I heard was listening to thestory of Howard Schultz.
Yeah.
And um Starbucks.
Starbucks, uh CEO, but notfounder.

SPEAKER_05 (27:28):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (27:28):
Um, and so he was talking about how he had to
raise money, right?
He was given the chance to buyStarbucks.
There's a couple of stores atthe time.

SPEAKER_06 (27:35):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (27:36):
And he had to raise um about four million dollars,
you know.
And um we're in multiples ofthat, but let's say similar,
okay?
And what he had to go throughand what people have to go
through to raise equity or toraise financing is crazy.

(28:00):
I mean, that many phone calls,and you gotta go to seed rounds,
and then you give away yourequity, and that was never gonna
be my model.
Okay.
Um so our local bank, who my dadhad been, and when I say we
couldn't have done this withouthim, we are not businesswomen.
We've had jobs, we've saved ourpennies over the years, but we

(28:23):
you know needed financing forthis because when we were gonna
do this, it needed to be big.
I wasn't gonna leave my careerfor a month.
Make it a and so some financing,and we just went to our bank,
and we went to Panera, and mydad had banked with them for um

(28:44):
for I'm 41 for 39 years.
You know, it started with alittle bit and just still
nothing crazy, but you know,grew it over time, and we just
told him our story, and wedidn't pitch him, and it was no
deck, and we were sitting atPanera over a lemonade, and we
met with them and and I said,here's what we want to do.

(29:04):
And they said, Okay, it's youknow, it's tight.

SPEAKER_03 (29:08):
Um, well, so I wanna I think that's amazing, and it's
a testament to a couple ofthings.
The first is relationships.
Part of the reason you were ableto do that is because you and or
your dad had relationships withthe banks, not necessarily
business relationships, but youhad developed a brand and a uh

(29:32):
reputation that facilitated aconnection that allowed you to
actually call that person andmeet at Panera.
Um and I think for a lot ofpeople we underestimate the
ability to do that or theimportance of doing that, right?
So um that's just a lesson foreveryone who's listening.
You know, those relationshipsmatter, and sometimes that

(29:54):
person who starts as the tellerends up becoming the person who
is the loan officer, right?
So those relationships matterover time.
I think the second thing thatreally strikes me is the fact
that you were brave enough tojust pick up the phone and call.
A lot of people don't make thatcall.
They they go through all thereasons in their head of why

(30:15):
they're not qualified, why thisperson wouldn't take the call,
why they wouldn't take themeeting, and they just don't
take the act of making the callitself.
Um but you said this a couple oftimes, and this is a good line
that I haven't heard before,which is I'm hungry, but I'm not
starving, right?
And people sense when you'redesperate.
Uh and being able to, like yousay, not pitch, but describe

(30:38):
this is what we are doing.
Um and I do have a background,I'm pretending I'm you, that is
reasonable to be in this space,right?
Um but just those three thingsalone set you apart from so many
others in that process.
And getting access to bankfinancing, oh man, and and this
is not SBA financing.

SPEAKER_01 (30:58):
No, this is a bank like our bank, it's a and it's a
wonderful bank.

SPEAKER_03 (31:02):
And do you want to promote them?
You don't have to.

SPEAKER_01 (31:05):
I think I probably should.
You should FNBO.
Okay.
They're out of Omaha, they'refamily-owned.
Um my gosh, they're incredible.
Conservative.
Yeah.
They are very conservative.
So the fact that we're able todo this with them.
So then the other half of this,and gosh, I'm really
transparent, so I hope I'm notlike sharing what I shouldn't be
sharing.

SPEAKER_03 (31:23):
Nonetheless, you're not.
Okay.
You're fine.
You can share as much as youwant.

SPEAKER_01 (31:27):
So the other half was seller financing.
So then the building, what andit's a you know, large building,
and we weren't gonna buy thebuilding at first.
And um wanted to make sure Iknew what I was getting into.
And right, and was confident,but with some humility, and so
we weren't gonna buy thebuilding at first, and and the
sellers came to us again,relationship, and said, Hey, you

(31:50):
know, we'd really like to sellthe building.
And I'm very transparent again.
And I said, I appreciate that.
I can understand the stress of,and I said, I don't have an
appraisal, and I didn't.
Um, and I said, but this justcash-wise is what I have to be
able to put for the building.

(32:11):
And it's not based on anappraisal, and it's and I was
very truthful.
Yeah, and they said, Okay, we'llfinance it.
And so then the sellers financedthe building, and we were able
to buy a wonderful asset thanksto them.

SPEAKER_03 (32:29):
That makes a lot more sense now.
So you decoupled this becausethis is very typical,
particularly for manufacturingbusinesses.
That they have an operatingbusiness, they own their
building in a separate entity.
When they sell their operatingbusiness, they often expect the
seller, the buyers of thatbusiness to become landlords.
Leasers.

(32:49):
Yeah.
Like they're gonna, they'regonna, they become the landlord
to that person.
And that's one of the ways thatthey facilitate their
retirement, right?
Um and there's always thisdebate of should I buy the the
property or not.
And many times the owners of thebusiness don't want to sell the
property because they're they'redependent on that property for
tax benefits, for the incomethat comes from it, from a whole

(33:12):
series of other things.
So I share that just foreverybody listening, that that
decoupling between the operatingin the business and the real
estate is something that youwill find happens quite a bit.
Um the fact that you were ableto, in a very nice way, say take
it or leave it, which is not howyou say that at all, but
essentially is what you said.
This is all I got.

(33:33):
Um and they said, you know what?
Um we're willing to work withyou, it's a big deal.
And that means, and not I don'tknow all the details of your
deal at all, but the thebuilding, typically in deals
like this, the building canactually be almost as worth as
much as the the company, um,depending on where it is and how
large and so on and so forth.

(33:54):
Um so it wouldn't surprise methat it was at least a
substantial portion of this.
And that's a way for them tofinance it and still allow for a
stock sale of the operatingcompany.
Because I presume you don't havea you you bought the asset of
the building.
So that that helps meunderstand.
And the reason I'm even goingthrough this detail is for those
that are listening that want todo the same thing.

(34:16):
Um, you know, maybe they want topursue a stock sale too of the
operating business, but that maybe a way for you to still do an
asset purchase of the buildingin the stock sale of the
company.
Yeah.
So that's that's fascinating.
That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 (34:28):
And legally it's good too to keep the entity
separate.

SPEAKER_03 (34:31):
It's better beneficial for you.

SPEAKER_01 (34:33):
Excuse me, can be.

SPEAKER_03 (34:34):
Yeah, it can be if if structured, you know,
properly.
You know, I want to go back tosomething you said about raising
money.
Um, I have raised money and itis utterly painful.
Um and you were just talkingabout what you went through, and
I'll tell you my story.
I'll tell you one of my stories.
Um I've raised so I I've had abusiness every year since I was

(34:54):
eight.
Um, and I raised money for thefirst time when I was 18 years
old for a business.
Um, and I've raised money since.
Um but one of the most painfulperiods I had, I had to raise
money.
I remember at the time uh I wasraising money for a media
company, and we had$40 millionthat had already been verbally

(35:15):
committed to, um, letter ofintent signed from a private
equity firm to invest in ourbusiness.
But last minute somethinghappened and the deal fell
through, and we only had aboutthree weeks on the letter of
intent of the companies we'regonna acquire to raise the$40
million that we thought we had.
And it was, you know, July 4thweekend when this all happened.

(35:40):
Um, you know, this is summer of1999, uh, and uh we just it was
just an impossible time frame.
We went from having$40 millionat once to end up raising$60
million, but we raised it inthree and four million chunks.
Oh my god.
Which is as painful as you couldpossibly do this process.

(36:03):
We had like one big chunk thatcame at later, but I mean it was
just so I mean it meant that youwere so literally we didn't have
an office, um, we didn't haveany staff, it was just two of
us.
Um and uh we would set up inhotels at this time it was in
New York and act like we werestaying at the hotel so that we
could get you know um serviceand we could get uh you know

(36:25):
taxes sent to us back and forth,we'd have all the own meetings
at these fancy hotels, but itwas utterly, utterly painful and
talking to hundreds of people.
Yeah, and you talk to fivepeople in a day, and they're say
there are five components toyour plan.
One person in each meeting willtell you to change something in
one of the components in orderto get money, right?

(36:47):
So, like, you know, it it wasnever a stable uh process.
That is what fundraising is.
That is really what being anentrepreneur is, is if you don't
get the funding, you don't getto do the thing.
Your process was a little bitdifferent because you went to a
bank, but you still had to raisecapital, I presume.
What was that experience likefor you?

SPEAKER_01 (37:07):
When you say raise capital.

SPEAKER_03 (37:09):
Did all of the funding outside of what you guys
personally put in come from thebank?
Oh my goodness, you guys areboth.

SPEAKER_01 (37:14):
Yeah, there's no outside equity and there's no
outside ownership.

SPEAKER_03 (37:18):
And given your efforts to develop a family
business, would you take moneyfrom others?
Or is your intent to try tofinance this completely
yourself?

SPEAKER_01 (37:30):
Right now the intent is to keep it in the family.
Um never, I'll never say never.
You know, we have some wonderfulrelationships in outside
investing, and it may come or adeal may come.
Like you said, right?
You're not starving, butsometimes you see something and
it and it just makes sense.
And at that time, um there's uhopportunity potentially to go

(37:52):
outside.
But right now, the intent is tokeep it in mind.

SPEAKER_03 (37:55):
So one of the things about this that's really
difficult.
Um when uh when I was in privateequity in the early 90s, um,
which uh I guess makes me soundreally old.
But um there was In the 19thcentury, yeah, yeah, the 18th
century mom.
It was a totally different timeframe.

(38:16):
The um there was this effort totry to see if you could scale
businesses, particularly in thiscase, it was women-owned
businesses and women color comuh businesses of color.
But the restrictions around thatdesignation meant that you had
to own 51 percent of thecompany.
It's one of many restrictions,but that was a key one.

(38:36):
The problem was is that as youscale in size, it's one thing to
be a$10 million business or$1million or$50 million, but when
you get to a hundred millionplus business, to have one group
own 51% of that business becomesvery, very difficult.
Not impossible, but difficult.
And we went through this wholeprocess of trying to argue to

(38:59):
the regulatory guide uhcommittees that control should
be a separate issue fromownership.

SPEAKER_06 (39:05):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (39:05):
Because if I want to be a billion-dollar company, you
know, Ruper Murdoch doesn't own51% of News Corp, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (39:12):
But has board controlling board control.
But has board control, right?

SPEAKER_03 (39:15):
Same would be for Microsoft, the same is true for
Tesla and all these otherbusinesses.
It's rare that the entrepreneuractually owns a controlling
stake in the business.
Um, but I say that, I tell thatstory for the purposes of just
describing kind of an issue, butthe reverse is true for you too,
which is for you to scale andbecome a hundred, two hundred

(39:36):
million dollar business, it'svery difficult to keep a
controlling stake.
How are you guys thinking aboutthat as um you know a hopeful
issue that you have that you'vegrown so big that you actually
have to think about yourcontrolling stake differently?

SPEAKER_01 (39:52):
Full disclosure, Bo, we're learning so much in this
space.
And so, you know, we don't haveall the answers yet.
It's a principle.
Of ours, and I had a greatleader that always told me
principle is not law, but it'sprinciple.
And so as we grow, you know, andthat will help determine what
pace is our growth, what pace isacquisition, when we're ready,

(40:13):
um, how we build, how we save,how the business can fund itself
in that growth.
And so, you know, time willtell.
We have some great examples oflarge multi-billion dollar
businesses where it is ownercontrolled and not even
majority-owned, you know, allowned.

(40:35):
And so that's our model today.
But we gosh, we're so new, we'reso early into this that we'll
have to determine, you know, howthat goes over time.

SPEAKER_03 (40:45):
That's a completely reasonable answer.
I I'm curious, who would you useas a prime example that if I
wanted to build a majority-ownedor even completely owned
business, um, who are some ofthe examples that you might
point to that have successfullydone that?

SPEAKER_01 (41:02):
You know, I here is here is my dilemma in this world
is there's not a lot of meetingyou has been incredible because
in my journey, I don't see a lotof it.
Yeah.
I see, I come from the publicspace.
You've been working.
I've been working.
And then the companies that Isee even on the boards that I'm

(41:26):
on are multi-generational largecompanies.
And so they've held it in thefamily, or that's been passed on
through generations.
So I don't have a huge networkof this path that I'm on, which
is you bought an existingcompany, you're not private,
you're looking to hold.
You're not, you know, I've got alot of examples where they've

(41:47):
got the you know, three to fiveyear turnaround, it's a private
equity model.
That is not our model.
That is not what we're lookingto do.
So that's the network that evenI'm looking for and to build and
to see who are those, you know,um long-term, multi-generate,
and what did they do a hundredyears ago?
Right.
You know, what did the Vermeers,the Dan Fosses, what did they do

(42:09):
a hundred years ago, um, thatset them down this path?
And so that's that's theself-discovery that I'm on is
how do I structure it, how do Ihold it, how are we gonna grow?
Um it's open for me right now.

SPEAKER_03 (42:25):
You know, it's interesting.
Um I'm we're just talking, noone's listening to us.
But you know, when I think aboutwhat you're doing, I think, hey,
position yourself as this kindof not even acquirer, but this
is the goal of what I'm doing,and this is the space that I'm
interested in working in.
I would bet that there would bea lot of businesses that would

(42:47):
say, I'd like to sell to someonelike that.

SPEAKER_05 (42:50):
Really?

SPEAKER_03 (42:50):
Right.
I I would prefer they're gettingphone calls from middle market
banks constantly and businessbrokers that are pitching them
on how I can help, you know,build your business or get you
ready for sale and this or that.
And and they are listening toall those conversations, and we
do that to some degree too.
We difference is we'renot-for-profit, so we're doing
this from a differentperspective.

(43:10):
But I think for people to hearthat um if I'm gonna sell my
business and I want to extractthe value of what I've created,
but I want to also make surethat I leave my legacy intact,
I'm looking for businesses likeyou.
Is it PKV is the name of theBKV?
BKV.

(43:31):
Um I mentioned that just becausethat may be a really important
positioning.
Because I think your point is,hey, there's a whole world of
people that have a whole roll-upstrategy, a leverage buildup
strategy that people have beenrunning since the 80s that is
tried and true and works and canadd value and doesn't
necessarily have to destroycompanies, right?

(43:53):
They're not all evil.

SPEAKER_01 (43:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (43:54):
Um of them are, but not all of them are.

SPEAKER_01 (43:56):
Yeah, some of they create wonderful long-term
investments for all involved.

SPEAKER_03 (44:01):
Right.
But there aren't many that say,I'm setting out on a mission to
build something that's gonnalast for the next hundred years.
Yeah.
And I'm intentional in thatprocess, and I want assets that
are gonna play a role in helpingus do that.
Um I think that there's probablya a pocket of people who would
say, yeah, I'd rather have aconversation with someone like

(44:24):
that than um than not.
You know, one of the things, andI'm jumping around a little bit,
but I have a good friend of minewho uh uh is from France.
He ended up wanting to go andbuy a company in the north of
France, um, I think it was inNormandy, where he was.
And the trouble was not only wasthere this disconnect in terms

(44:48):
of the valuation that the ownerwanted way more than what it was
worth, but the owner was also umhe had a family member who
worked for the company butwasn't the one to run the
business.
And he couldn't fire that personright away, although he knew
that that wasn't the rightperson.
And he couldn't sell thebusiness unless everyone in the

(45:09):
family was comfortable that thenephew, let's call it, that was
gonna stay in the business, wasgonna be treated fairly.
Didn't have to be promoted andbut needed to be treated fairly.
So what this guy ended up doing,his name is Renault.
Renault ended up saying, This iswhat I'll do.
I'll work for you for a coupleof years, um, under you and with

(45:31):
your nephew.
Um and on the basis of my work,I want to prove to you that not
only am I a good steward of thebusiness and capable, but I'm
the person you can trust to runthis business.
Um and actually in that processalso get to know what the family
dynamics are, have a betterunderstanding of the business.
And he did that for a year, andthen they actually sold the

(45:53):
business to him.
I think Reno has now sold thatbusiness uh and it's is out of
it.
But it was a really smartprocess.
And the reason I tell that storyis it feels very similar to kind
of where you are, in that um youwant to get to know these
businesses so well that youreally have an understanding of
not only who they are and whatthey are, but how they integrate

(46:14):
with you, um, to the point whereyou don't have the same
questions about uh operationsand trade secrets and all those
things because you're in it alittle bit.
Uh have you started to thinkthrough a strategy of how you do
that going forward?
Because some of youracquisitions may take several
years if that's the the plan, ifyou're gonna follow the Renault
uh strategy that I justdescribed.

SPEAKER_01 (46:36):
Yeah.
We we right now, and actually,you know, aside from from our
conversation, I don't talk muchabout the holding company.
You know, right now we'relearning PMA friction, we're
building it, we're um putting insome of those things that even
the old you know owners wouldhave loved to do, but just
didn't get to it, didn't havetime.

(46:57):
Maybe that wasn't their path.
So I'm focused on that growthright now.
And I heard a you know,wonderful saying a long time
ago, and it was like, and I wishI remembered who I could
attribute it to, but it was onstand-up comedy.

SPEAKER_03 (47:10):
Yep.
We're gonna attribute it to younow.

SPEAKER_01 (47:11):
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Um sorry for whose ever quotethat is.
But the um it was an improvsession, and they said, How do
you know when to enter animprov?
How do you know when to comeinto that scene?
And the comedian said, When I'mneeded.
And so that is how I think ofacquisitions and what's next for

(47:33):
us is right now we're growingand we're doing wonderful things
with PMA and we're learning.
There's so much to learn in thatbusiness.
And our next acquisition willhappen when it's needed and when
it's ready.
And that's when we're enterscene.
And so, as much as, you know, Iyes, this is legacy in that next
10 years, that's what we want togrow.

(47:53):
But right now, we're in thescene, we're watching, we're
learning.
And when you're needed, and whenwe're needed, we'll show up.

SPEAKER_03 (48:00):
So let me let me go.

SPEAKER_01 (48:01):
And that goes back to the we're hungry, but we're
not starving.
So that's the growth.
But I I'm not sitting at homesaying, what's my next company?
My what I'm thinking about ishow is PMA gonna just blow the
roof out of our growth and serveour customers in a way that we
never have before.
And when we can do that and thatmodel's good, you know, end

(48:22):
scene.

SPEAKER_03 (48:23):
So I'm gonna I'm gonna couple two things.
I want to go back to your veryearly stages and ask you, you
know, what your uh interestswere when you were a little
girl.
What'd you want to be?
I don't know if it was anengineer, but um, what those
were.
And I'm really interested in themoment that you decided that I'm
gonna leave what I used to doand I'm gonna go and start this

(48:46):
legacy business, kind of how youwent through that process.
Two very different questions.
But please, you know, I'm Ireally believe fundamentally
that dreams are a reallyimportant component component of
who we are as people.
And um whatever it is that youdreamed to be when you were
young was a subconscious thingthat you may not even be able to

(49:06):
put your finger on why.
Um and I'm always curious abouthow that travels through
people's life.
Um sometimes people drop it.
It's a very common thing thatthey have what they call a
U-shape.
You start wanting to be thisthing, you give it up because
life takes over and you do otherthings, and then you rationalize
why I'm no longer pursuing it,and you're okay with it, but

(49:27):
there's still this underlyingdesire of who you are and what
you want to be.
What was that for you, or whatis that for you?

SPEAKER_01 (49:35):
I have wanted to be an engineer as long as I can
remember, and so much of it isbecause of my dad.
Yeah, you know, my dad is thisjoy of a if joy was a person,
you know, that would be my dad.

SPEAKER_02 (49:47):
That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 (49:47):
And if heart was a person, it would be my mom, you
know, and he just was thisperson, and he always talked
about engineering and that, youknow, we make things better, we
make things better.
And there's a sense of servitudein that, yeah, you know, that
whatever you're given, that howdo you make it better?
And so I, you know, I started mycareer early as an engineer, and

(50:08):
it was we worked on process, youknow, how do you make this
process, how do you make it moreefficient and optimize it and
make it safer for who's workingon it?
And I love that.
I love at the end of the day,which is why I love
manufacturing so much, and yousee what you do, right?
You see, you see the product,you can smell it, you can touch
it.
That's why chemistry was nevermy favorite subject.

(50:29):
Yeah.
Um, you can see it, you cantouch it, you can feel it, you
know, you can hand it over.

SPEAKER_04 (50:35):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (50:35):
And I have, I just love that.
I love, you know, that thatfeeling.
I love how we contribute.
Um, and so I always wanted to dothat.
And I I didn't ever have dreamsof being an entrepreneur.
Um, I think at some point, youknow, I was like, oh, it might
be neat to kind of own your ownbusiness, but it wasn't my
thing.
And my career um, you know, tookoff and it was and I loved it

(51:00):
and it was wonderful.
And so um I went down that path,you know, and I went from, you
know, being an engineer to Iworked at several different
companies.
I've worked in in retail as anengineer, um, in a program
manager.
I've worked in automotive.

SPEAKER_03 (51:15):
I've worked on the So when you say retail as a uh
in a uh retail engineer, is thatprocess oriented first?

SPEAKER_01 (51:21):
They at at the time that it was a very large public
company, and they had wantedindustrial engineers to be
project managers because youunderstand the process of a
product.
And so I went into that field.
Um I was in logistics first.
Um and then my one stint in thisspace was at a small privately
owned automotive manufacturer.

(51:41):
And that's when I learned thisworld, you know.
Um, but I tapped off at that.
There, I became the VP ofoperations and engineering, and
the next level up was the owner,you know, there's nowhere to
grow.
And so that's when I reachedout, and I had um my PhD work is
in systems engineering, andthat's you know, large-scale

(52:02):
product design and and uhaerospace and loved that.
And so I went into that and Igrew there and uh most recently
was a vice president generalmanager of a very large business
unit there.
Um, but that's where I had theepiphany that you know it was
that career was wonderful.
I spent almost a decade inaerospace and and I loved it.

(52:24):
And it was um I was grown andtreated so well there that that
you know company really showedme what great culture is and
what it is to believe in yourpeople.
And what I started in as adirector, I my most recent role
there was VPGM, the youngestfirst female VPGM in the company

(52:47):
history.
And you know, the irony is thatwhen when people believe in you
so much that you kind of startto believe in yourself, and so
we had I, you know, been in theVPGM role.
I had a large business unit, wehad plants all over the country,
and I was doing all this stuffthat as a little girl I would

(53:08):
thought was so cool.
You know, the private jet andthe embroidered vests, right?
And the Wall Street investordays, and and it was all that,
all the you know, glory and awonderful product and great
culture.
And um, and I was home from mykids a lot.
I've had little kids, I stillhave little kids, and you know,

(53:29):
I realized, hey, this is this isincredible, and we did well, we
did really well in in thebusiness.
And I kind of thought to myself,you know, this career is great,
but I'm kind of doing it um tomy family rather than for my
family.
It's my career, you know.

(53:51):
And I thought, well, what if wecould do it?
What if we could do it forourselves and the wonderful
culture that we've seen and I'vegotten to learn from who's
creating the next one?

SPEAKER_06 (54:04):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (54:05):
You know, what's the next organization like this?
How do we scale that culture tothese other suppliers that I've
seen in this role that have, youknow, been bought out by in
transitions that didn't hold upintegrity and they changed their
price model.
And I don't want to do that.
I want to build more of this.

(54:25):
And so I just I had thatepiphany that what if we did it
ourselves and I did it for myfamily rather than because of my
family?

SPEAKER_03 (54:36):
So so you sat down and you're with your husband and
your family, and you're saying,Everything's great, I'm gonna
mess it all up now.
We're gonna do something totallydifferent.
How how did you figure out whatbits of information did you need
to hear from maybe yourchildren, maybe from your mom
and dad, maybe from your husbandthat gave you the comfort that,

(54:58):
okay, we can take this risk, andI don't know what's gonna
happen.
Um, but everybody's on board.
Everyone has a reasonable senseof how difficult it's gonna be,
and um, we can move forward.

SPEAKER_01 (55:12):
I want to be very honest and talk about privilege
because I was very privileged inthat conversation to be able to
bring that up.
And my whole family, so myfamily's very close, and my
husband and I both work a lot,and so my parents had moved
across the street from me.

SPEAKER_03 (55:32):
Oh, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 (55:33):
Yeah, and they both worked too, but they had moved
across the street.

SPEAKER_03 (55:37):
You could have just put them in the house, but
you're like, no, no, no, we'resending kids over to you.

SPEAKER_01 (55:41):
No, we asked them so many times to live in the house,
and they said, Oh, we're young,and you guys need so anyway, so
they moved across the street.
And my sister lives a couplestreets down, so we support each
other a lot.
And I was traveling a lot in myrole, and I missed, you know, I
travel is always a part, and Iwork a lot.
I've always worked a lot, butthe day that I was away most of

(56:04):
the time was was something thatI didn't enjoy.
Yeah.
But when I had thatconversation, Bo with my husband
and my dad, it's not lost on methe privilege that I had for
them to be able to say, Yeah, wegot you.

(56:25):
Yeah, um, we'll carry thefamily, we'll invest with you.
You know, my husband, oh mygosh, he didn't bat an eye.
And I had a great job, you know,all the all this stuff, right?
And my husband is a a saint of ahuman being.
His name is Rishi, which inHindi means saint, but he just

(56:46):
is a saint.
And he didn't bat an eye.
Yeah and he said, Yeah, go doit.
And, you know, even in days,because it's new and you know,
and we're investing a lot backinto the business, which was our
model, which is what wecommitted to ourselves when we
wanted to do this.

(57:07):
And so some days I'm like, man,you know, and my old company
stocks doing great.
And he's like, That's okay.
You're building equity.
You're you know, don't compareit today.
But those entrepreneurs thathave to do that and all of a
sudden don't have a salary andare taking a risk and don't have
bank funding and don't have thatsupport, I'm sure, you know,

(57:30):
it's very hard.
I'm sure it's hard as it is, butI I want to be very clear and
have so much gratitude of theprivilege that I had.

SPEAKER_03 (57:42):
Well, I I would just say to this, you know, um I've
been blessed to be around somepeople who were very wealthy and
still didn't have the privilegethat you just described, right?
So money and that privilege arenot necessarily connected.
And no one enters into thisfield without taking a risk.

(58:05):
Because there's a reputationalrisk, right?
There's your own psychic risk ofthe effort that you put into
this.
Um and I don't belittle thatbecause to be honest, for most
entrepreneurs, the pain oflosing money is nothing compared
to the pain of your reputationor and and often it's
self-imposed penalty of notbeing successful.

(58:28):
So um you were blessed to be ina position to do this.
Both your husband and your uhfather and mother could have had
a very different opinion, and itmight not have stopped you from
doing what you were doing, butit may have changed the
dynamics.
Um and you are still taking arisk, right?
Because you still face everyoneand you're expecting expecting

(58:50):
to build something from this,and it will not come easy.
But I appreciate that thathonesty, and I just want to
temper it with also aperspective that part of being
an entrepreneur is in part beinga little delusional, right?
Um, and you've got to haveenough of ego to get yourself
past all of the reasons why youcan't do something, because
there are many and they arelegitimate.

(59:12):
I always say there's a thousandreasons not to do something, I
need 12 reasons to say yes.
Only 12 out of a thousand.
If I can get that, I can figureout a path.
So there's a little bit of theego and delusion that comes in
that process, and that comeswith risk, right?
Of what happens afterwards ifI'm not successful.
Um, and so it's not a small dealat all.

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SPEAKER_00 (01:00:13):
Your listening to the first million is always the
hardest.
We are now returning to theshow.

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:19):
I'm interested in your experience.
First, when was the first timeyou were ever on a manufacturing
floor?
How old were you?

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:25):
Oh gosh.
Um manufacturing floor.
I mean, I've always been inoperations since I was like 19
years old.

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:31):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:32):
Um interned in college and probably sometime in
college, I percept foot.
Some tour.
I mean, we had labs inengineering school.
And so um, god by 18, 19.

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:44):
Because, you know, it is still to this day, maybe a
little less so, not common tosee people who are running the
manufacturing areas be female.
So you're dealing with a lotjust going onto that floor.
And even though you're comingfrom an engineering background,
that has its own dynamics.
And you've obviously excelled inthat environment.

(01:01:06):
And from you didn't say this,but my intuition says not only
did you excel in this space, butyou were well liked in these
spaces, which is probably not aneasy thing to do.
You can't always be liked.
You got to throw a little bloodon the wall to make sure people
know you you, you know, you'restill in charge.
But um, that is a very difficultdynamic to manage.

(01:01:27):
Um, and it reminds me a lot ofmy experience when I was on Wall
Street.
The women who I worked with onWall Street who were in senior
positions, um, they had a wholedifferent dynamic to play
because, you know, it was acutthroat space.
Um, so you have to be at leastcutthroat enough that people
respect you, but they were notin the same position to be as

(01:01:49):
mean and aggressive andcutthroat as men in their same
positions were, right?
But you also couldn't be notcutthroat enough that you
weren't worthy of the position.
I don't know what that dynamicis as a woman on the
manufacturing floor, but I'massuming there's some sort of
text that's kind of in thatspace.
How did you navigate that?

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:09):
Yeah.
I love that question.
I get I get asked it a lot.
Um, because I always have felt abit like a bit of an anomaly in
any space that I'm in.
Um and it's changed over mycareer.
So I'm gonna speak to more ofwho I am, you know, now.
But I'm girly.
I'm really girly.
I'm also very technical.
Um, and I'm not very aggressive.

(01:02:32):
That's not my leadership style,that's not my personal style.
Um quite quite often I'm in jobswhere I know less than I really
should.
And so that humility comesreally easy when it's the truth.
Um but I I think that I'm justI'm a thinker, you know, and so

(01:02:53):
I always like to learn.
And you're right.
I mean, there's a lot of thingsto navigate as a woman.
And, you know, fortunately,unfortunately, you get a taste
of that being an engineer earlyon, right?
You're only 12% of women in adrink, then you go to women of
color, right?
Um, and it's even less, and thenyou go to a you know, public
aerospace company where there'seven few women uh women and

(01:03:16):
women of color and people ofcolor.

SPEAKER_06 (01:03:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:19):
Um but I have you know to go to my privilege
again.
I the entire time I was with mylast role, I worked for the same
person.
And Bohe built me up in such awonderful way.
Yeah.
And not only did he do that, butI had a peer group that was

(01:03:42):
phenomenal.
And so you asked about whathappened when I told my family
that I wanted to do this, but wedidn't pick on what happened
when I told my job.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:52):
Yeah, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:53):
And so I made that phone call, and my boss at the
time was on vacation.
It was July 4th, and I picked upthe phone and I said, Can we
talk?
And he was on vacation.
Yeah.
And we're close, you know, buthe was like, That's weird.
And so we called him, I toldhim, and it was very sad.

(01:04:14):
And he was very close to me.
And you know, over the years, myum, especially the last couple
years of my career, mymentorship had been taken over
by the CEO.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:24):
And um, you had gone so far that the next level was
CEO.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:29):
You know, that was what we were working and tra
training for.
But there's so so many thingsthat have to happen before you
can do that.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:35):
I'm just saying it for you so you can be humble
about it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:37):
So um, but he said, I know, I know your heart, I
know your family, and I Iunderstand it.
But um what if this?
What if we did this?
What if we did that?
What if we did this?
And then I had some moreconversations, and so I stayed
with that company for eight moremonths.

SPEAKER_06 (01:04:57):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:58):
The year that I bought, you know, PMA.
And I stayed we worked on somestrategic projects, and I still
have a great relationship withthem.
But that was hard.
That why you know, are you sure?
Like, what do you what are youdoing?
And I have a mentor, and um uh,you know, they're like, Are you
are you sure you want to leave?
Like, there's not a lot of womenthat are at this level in

(01:05:20):
aerospace.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:21):
Are you kudos to your manager?
Game recognizes game, as theysay, right?
And the hardest thing to do inany business is to find good
people.

SPEAKER_07 (01:05:30):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:31):
And so he was like, nah, I'm not gonna make this
easy for you.
I want you to stay.
But that's credit to him.
Of he's gonna try everything,and you maintain a good
relationship, which is reallyimportant.
You never burn bridges to thedegree that you can avoid it.
But I want to take a second andtalk a little bit about the
mentorship.
And I'll start with a littlestory, which is uh when I was

(01:05:54):
about 12 or 13 years old, myfather, who I didn't live with,
but I was close to, but we onlyreally had two things to talk
about sports and business.
Um and um he said to me one day,he said, you know, you will find
people who will be your mentor,but lots of times they're not
gonna be who you think it'sgonna be.
It's not gonna be the personthat looks like you or comes

(01:06:16):
from your background or has thesame political or religious
beliefs.
It's not gonna be the personthat you would ever think um is
gonna find you, but they'regonna see something in you that
reminds them of themselves.
They may see something in youthat reminds them of one of
their children that they wishedthat they were able to provide
for, but you have to stay opento the possibility that this

(01:06:39):
person that doesn't fit any ofthe demographics or background
that you expect is the personwho's really gonna develop you.
And based on you having workedfor eight years with the same
person, obviously that personsaw something in you that was
worthy of an investment.
Even so, even more so, they sawenough in you that when it was
time for you to be mentored bysomeone else, they didn't try to

(01:07:02):
hold you back.
He tried to keep you, but thatwas smart.
But he didn't try to hold youback from potentially taking a
job where you he may havereported to you based on what
you were describing.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:11):
But he was still, you know, still in higher
leadership role, but he butyou're right, it was uh uh such
care.
And you know, so boss isn't eventhe right word.
It was such care and leadershipand mentorship that um that it
mattered.
And I've had so many mentorsthat are my peers, I've had
mentors that have worked for me.

(01:07:32):
You know, in our culture, I'mIndian.
In our culture, there's thisconcept of a group, you know,
and it's it's a leader and alike a knowledge, a knowledge
leader.
And that group for me has comein so many different walks.
You know, it's been a boss, it'sbeen a leader, it's been a
subordinate, it's been a friend.
Um, and they've all they buildyou up in different ways if

(01:07:54):
you're open to it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:56):
You have to recognize that person.
They don't come and say, hey,I'm your guru.
You have to actually recognizethat that's what this person is,
either in that moment or forthis journey.

unknown (01:08:05):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (01:08:06):
Right?
So that's a testament to you aswell.
And I'm curious, how do you dothat?
Because that's a skill set thata lot of people that hopefully
you're listening to this want,if not need, to develop.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:20):
I I said it earlier joking, but I it's so true.
I have done so many differentjobs in so many different
industries, and now this wholeother venture in life that I
often find myself in situationswhere I probably should know
more than I should, and I don't.

(01:08:42):
And so I think that um thatawareness that there's so much
that I have to learn, and I amjust I'm just open and willing
and open to seek that fromeverywhere, you know.
And if I could give advice, Ithink it goes, you know, maybe
back to gratitude, be gratefulfor what you have and find that

(01:09:08):
in others, you know, understandyour privilege where you're I
mean, to be able to ask some ofthese amazing people that I've
gotten to know the questionsthat I get to ask them is so is
comes, you know, I is such aplace of privilege.
Um, and then give it back.
How can you be that forsomebody?
But I I think just and Iprobably earlier in my career

(01:09:31):
wasn't so open to that, youknow, especially as a young
woman engineer, felt like Ineeded to know everything.
And the older I've gotten, themore I feel like it's okay to
say, you know, I really I don'tknow much, um, but we can figure
it out.
This is a tough thing.
Here's how I'm gonna figure itout.

SPEAKER_03 (01:09:48):
Tough thing.
So I I was a very young manageras well.
And um, and you know, andbecause I was a young manager, I
also was feeling myselfsometimes, right?
And I felt very much like Ineeded to know these things.
And I was fortunate enough to gothrough a cycle, still at a very
young age, where I kind ofmatured into what a manager is.

(01:10:10):
And I finally came to thisconclusion to understand that um
when you are in charge, your jobisn't to know everything.

unknown (01:10:18):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:18):
Your job is to find people who are gonna do the
analysis and bring options toyou and make recommendations,
and then your job is to becomereally good about choosing which
of those recommendations you'regonna do.

unknown (01:10:30):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:30):
And it isn't necessary that you know, and I
don't have to pretend to know.
That's what I hire you for,right?
Your job is to know, your job isto tell me, and then I get to
make choices.
But it takes a long time todisassociate that power, to
recognize that the power isn'tin knowing, right?
The power is in actuallychoosing, right?
Right?
Two different things altogether.

(01:10:51):
Um, but it also extends to theidea of who do you choose as a
guru, right?
Because there are lots oflessons that are being taught to
you all the time.
Yeah, and you only really learnthe lessons from the people that
you choose to digest it from.
Yeah.
Right?
So if you're not consciousenough and say, oh, that's a
lesson, yeah, and that's someoneto learn from, you'll miss it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:11):
I have a mentor that was given to me in my old role.
Um, and when I switched, I saidI had a meeting with her, and
she was a very high-poweredexecutive at GE.
And so she was a mentor for mein my in my old aerospace role.
And so I left and I had thismeeting with her, and I said,
Well, I I'm gonna miss you.
And she was like, What are youtalking about?

(01:11:33):
Yeah, I'm not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:35):
You still call me?

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:36):
So she's still my mentor.
Of course, and we meet everymonth, and she tells me what I
need to know, you know.
And but like you said, it'sfinding those mentors, it's
letting them know, you know, butit it's if you can find some
good ones, it's amazing.
And the amount that they'llinvest in time is is incredible.

(01:11:57):
I'm so grateful to her.
Um, and she's been incrediblethis last year and a half as
life has changed.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:03):
So one of the things that's really difficult when you
are an entrepreneur, andparticularly in the role that
you play, where you've kind ofswitched from a corporate space
to now you're doing this, isit's lonely.
There aren't a lot of otherpeople that are doing what you
do.
And the ones who are, you don'trun across them every day.
You know, you're not sittingaround and, you know, having a

(01:12:24):
coffee with all these otherpeople that you can talk about
what your experience is inintegrating the new culture of
PMA friction with you and yourfamily, or you know, how you're
thinking about developing thesenew markets, uh all whatever
those issues are for you, how doyou supplement that?
How do you put yourself in aplace where A, you're spending

(01:12:46):
some amount of time learning umhow to do your job better, um,
and B, you have an ecosystem ofpeople around you to just give
you advice, you know, yeah,bounce ideas off of it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:59):
I appreciate that.
Very I don't have the rightanswer, but the way that we're
I'm trying to go about it now isbe very purposeful about seeking
mentorship.
Yeah.
So when I started down thisjourney, and I speak a lot about
my mentors, but that's that'show incredible they are in my
life.
And I said to to him, the one Italked about, and I said, Do you

(01:13:20):
have someone in our supply base,right?
Of mid-sized suppliers that youwould say would be a mentor for
me.
And he took a week or two to getback to me and he said, Divya,
your problem is gonna be that'snot who you're gonna want to
emulate.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:37):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:38):
So we I put in a principle of this model, which
is think big, act small.
And so a lot of what we'reemulating is the big companies,
systems, processes, goodstrategies.
Um that's a piece of mymentorship.

(01:13:59):
Is I go to those formal mentorsto ask, what do you do?
What's their experience?
And the other piece is I've hadto go supplement that with this
new world.

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:08):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:08):
So just a couple of weeks ago, there was a women in
manufacturing summit, and therehappened to be a group that was
bringing together women owners.
It was a subgroup of that ofthat session.
And I said, okay, I'll go.
And it's so hard to leave thebusiness day to day, right?
Because you love it, it's fun,you're learning.
But I've got to go.

(01:14:29):
And that's where we talked aboutI got there, and so much of what
I've seen, ironically, for womenwho are now CEOs of their own
businesses, is it's theirfourth, fifth, sixth generation.

unknown (01:14:41):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:41):
Because second generation usually went to the
male heirs.

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:44):
We did.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:45):
So did the third.
And finally, by the I mean, Ican't tell you, Bo.
In that room of probably 30women, 28 of them were fourth,
fifth, sixth generation.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:56):
What's interesting to me though, is that you're not
finding enough women like youwho I didn't come in from any
generation.
I bought into this.

SPEAKER_07 (01:15:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:06):
Right?
And so how do we actuallyelevate?
And I'm asking in a very selfishway because I'm looking for
entrepreneurs to support to buybusinesses in the Southland to
help grow those businesses.
But I'm looking, I I mean, I'lltake the fourth and fifth
generation too.
But I'm looking for you.
I'm looking for more people thatwe can elevate like you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:27):
Well, let's start it.
I mean, you have Southland,right?
But let's go start it.
Because I, in my looking today,there isn't.
There isn't a lot of women thatare starting a family business
for generations.
And I think that's where we haveto maybe look in the mirror and
say, you know, can we be it?

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:47):
Yeah.
So I have to do what you did,huh?
Say, oh, well, I guess I gottago start this thing.
I'll start it with you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:53):
Let's go start it.
Let's go find, we'll build them,we'll help them.
Yeah.
We'll have mentorship andtraining models for them.

SPEAKER_03 (01:16:00):
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:01):
Um, but they can do it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:16:02):
No question about it.
Well, Divya, thank you so, somuch for taking so much time out
of your schedule to come hereand talk with us.
We will have to have you backand get an update on how PMA
Friction is doing and all theother things you're doing, but
we're really grateful and youhave a wonderful story.
So good luck to you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:20):
Thanks, Bill.
I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah.