May 21, 2024 • 47 mins
In our latest episode, Camden, a true Texan at heart, recounts his early days in Moscow's real estate landscape.
Transformers may not be the most glamorous subject, but without them, our modern world wouldn't power up. Camden sheds light on these unsung heroes of the electrical industry, taking us through the complexities of voltage transformation and the pressing energy demands from burgeoning sectors like cryptocurrency mining and AI data centers. We delve into the resurgence of American manufacturing and the critical role of remanufacturing, all through the lens of Maddox Industrial Transformer.
Join us for an insightful conversation that looks beyond profits to the profound influence entrepreneurship can have on nurturing the growth of families, churches, and communities.
Look on the Maddox website HERE!
OR
Connect with Camden on Linkedin.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast, where we
discuss the people, places andevents all around Kestrel
Country.
(00:38):
Camden Spiller, thanks forjumping on with us today.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you, mike.
It's great to uh great to behere.
You know, I was actually kindof remembering back to um some
of our earlier conversations me,me and your uh conversations as
we were um making some earlytrips out to Moscow and looking,
uh looking at facilities andkind of talking about the the
(01:03):
real estate um situation outthere and you were, I guess what
came to mind is you were kindof one of the one of the first
uh first uh folks that had anopportunity to work with out
there.
So we actually kind of go wayback.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
Yeah, that was.
Uh, it was funny that you bringthat up because I was going to,
um, uh, explain that.
So my wife for a while wouldconstantly would refer to you as
metal business card guy when Ifirst met you, you handed me
your business card, and you knowit's this fairly hefty metal
(01:39):
card.
This is the coolest businesscard I think I've ever received
and it still sits on my desk.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, I would be like wait, is that metal business
card?
I'm like yeah that's him.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So, oh my gosh, well, it's, that's, yes, that's great
, it's those.
Those are the nameplates thatwe put on on all of our
equipment have to be a certainkind of metallic specification.
And we found out that thislaser um, laser etching um
machine can, uh, can printbusiness card sized little, uh
(02:16):
little plates, and so that'swhat we've, uh, that's what
we've always used.
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'sthe.
That's the backstory there, sothat's a.
That's a back story there.
So that's a mil-spec that willnever erode under UV or anything
.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
So, yeah, a little bit of an issue there and that
was yeah, your business card isa Maddox Industrial Transformer,
which is kind of what we'rehere to talk about, and we'll
get into that.
But, um, maybe to start youknow what?
Um, where did you grow up?
(02:51):
I like to always kind of get alittle background on folks.
Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
yeah, schooling, sure that kind of thing, yeah, give
you some some origin story there.
I grew up in um in small town,tex, a homeschooled kid.
I was the oldest of seven kidsand grew up and really kind of
planted a seed and aninspiration um for um, uh, for
(03:32):
entrepreneurism, um and um andreally kind of a, you know, a
view of life that embraces um,uh, family and family
discipleship and and our kind ofparental responsibilities with
(03:57):
a weighty recognition, and thatwas really impactful for me.
That was really impactful forme.
My dad has passed but got toknow most of his grandkids and
that's kind of the context.
I grew up in working in mydad's furniture repair store
(04:20):
when I was 8 or 10 years old.
I was Well, I thought I was Inretrospect old, I was, um, well,
I thought I was in retrospect,I think, yeah, I think it was
babysitting, but I thought I wasworking Um but um, but you know
I, you do, you do kind of kindof learn things and and you know
, working alongside um, you knowyour father and and just kind
(04:43):
of seeing a man's world and kindof understanding um, uh, or
getting exposure to interactionswith customers and vendors and,
uh, you know businesssituations.
That's kind of the, that's kindof the context.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I uh, I grew up in yeah, so family business very
much, not just in name, butfamily was involved in the
business.
And was that a long-term familybusiness or something that your
dad started?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
No, it really it was something my dad started and it
was very much kind of thesolopreneur kind of thing, the
self-employment kind ofsituation.
And you know, I've reflected onthis in years since that and
(05:39):
probably the takeaways that Ihad from those times, as I
mentioned great things aboutwork ethic and small business
and all that kind of stuff, butreally came away with the
realization that there is acertain scale of business, that
(06:00):
kind of self-employment kind ofthing, where, where the business
owns you, you know, you don't,you don't own a business, um,
and it's um, it's kind of um, uh, it was a struggle, uh, frankly
it was.
You know, those, those kinds ofbusinesses um, struggle to be
(06:23):
more than a job, where the owner, the self-employed individual,
ends up kind of having to wearall the hats, and so you know,
I'm massively grateful for a lotof that experience.
It really did shape the way Icame to think about business and
(06:45):
particularly kind of a bit of acounterpoint to much of what we
see kind of exist in a scalethat, uh, I feel like I felt
like missed, missed a lot ofopportunity to uh, to be a
(07:13):
blessing to the family orwhoever owns it, to uh, to uh
employees, you know key, keyleadership, uh, you know members
of the community, uh customers,I.
I feel like there's there'sreally a opportunity um for uh,
you know, members of thecommunity, uh, customers.
I feel like there's there'sreally a opportunity um for uh,
(07:33):
for entrepreneurs to to uh toreally aspire to um, to uh to
larger scale business and and uh, kind of paradoxically, see
better family life balance andum and um and you know, whatever
measures of success you mighthave, um, I've, I've tried to,
(07:56):
I've implemented into my lifeand my business Um, some of
these things that I've tried toencourage others to see some of
the benefits and blessings ofrunning a business at a larger,
larger scale.
So, yeah, yeah, anyway, that'sone little takeaway, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
So that was that.
You grew up down.
You grew up there, kind of inthe family business, doing that.
Uh, how about?
Yeah, what was the next stepand what led into getting into
transformers?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
sure, sure.
So um went to um, uh straightout of uh high school into uh
running a software developmentbusiness with um, with another
one of my brothers, um, and kindof did that through the 90scom
boom and bust and this was kindof doing e-commerce kind of
(08:57):
things, when that wasn't acommoditized service, there
wasn't sign up for Shopify kindof things.
This was kind of a very WildWest kind of era when you kind
of rolled your own you knowtransformer electrical
transformer business and I beganto learn a lot about that and
(09:30):
and wasn't you know, it's one ofthose things where you know you
plan your way but the Lorddirects the steps.
That I didn't.
I didn't uh set out to get intothe uh the transformer business
but but really got um, reallygot involved with this client.
They asked me to come on boardfull time and really just work
(09:55):
my way up through the ranksthere, and so I was an employee
at that business from basicallythe late 90s until 2014.
So I had almost 20, I think Ihad slated to.
(10:25):
I had had discussions with theuh, uh, the owner of the
business at the time about, uh,the succession plan, the
business and I was, I wasplanned over the next few years
to um to take over a CEO.
And that was my stated, mystated career plan.
And they paid my way throughHarvard Business School and gave
(10:50):
me some great careerdevelopment opportunities.
And the plan was the older guyswould step out in a course of
time and us Jagger guys wouldstep into place and that nice
and tidy succession plan reallyentirely fell apart and there
(11:18):
was relational discord amongstthe three senior guys and uh,
they're, um, that totally fellapart and kind of the, the guy
that you would have, um, uh, um,uh, well, just kind of the way
the cookie crumbled, um, the guythat got uh in depth and
(11:41):
controlled business, um, uh,needed to sell it.
Uh, it wasn't, wasn't, uh, itwasn't really viable for him to
him to hold it together alone.
Um and uh, so business sold toprivate equity group and um got
to kind of walk through um, walkthrough that experience and you
(12:01):
know, see, you know even beforethe paints dried on that, the
cultural implications of all ofthat, and one of those
implications was letting me andmy entire team go.
So I was able to now reflect onit as the best, worst thing
(12:24):
that ever happened to me.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So and now was that?
So you, you were working in uh,it was kind of software
development.
You were helping them with thatend of the business.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But in a non-technology business that's
more business process, and sothat was really key to giving me
a real intimate understandingof business, whereas if I maybe
had other other posts I wouldn'thave had the same visibility.
But you know, over the courseof almost 20 years, you know I
(13:12):
ended up working, you know Iworked in sales and I worked in
I, you know I had a lot of youend up getting around in a, you
know, in a career path like that.
So I had a pretty, pretty good,pretty good grasp of the
business and then I had really,you know, with with my hopes and
dreams then dashed.
(13:33):
But to be the next CEO and to,you know, to to lead the company
, I kind of had my thoughts andplans on what would I do, how
would I do this differently, howwould I improve on the good and
reform or discard the partsthat I felt like needed it and
(13:58):
so put out on the street.
I was able to really clean sheetand put this company together
from the ground up, made somecalls, got a little bit of
private investment money just anindividual, a couple of
individual investors and then alittle bit of my own money and
(14:24):
bootstrapped from there and justto kind of fast forward 10
years later we have about athird of the US market share
with the largest company in ourspace.
We've close to the old companyI was I was with and in fact
there was kind of a big threewhen we started a company and
(14:46):
and the biggest two have merged.
Um and uh, we've, uh, we'vestill surpassed them in our, in
our market, in our target market.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
So, um, so it's really been when you started it.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, 10 years ago yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah, and where, where was, where were?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
where did you start, maddox?
Yeah, so we, yeah, started herein um in Vancouver, washington,
um, but our first facility.
So we uh, uh, they fired me inin um January.
Uh, uh, they fired me in in umjanuary, started the business in
february, um, and this is justme and my brother selling
(15:32):
transformers out of the sparebedroom.
This is kind of you know, we'rereally just kind of barely
getting things set up um, uh,but we uh, by may, by apr or May
, we had opened our firstfacility in South Carolina and
we moved out there for I guessthree or four years to get that
(15:58):
first facility off the ground.
I guess four years later, fouryears after that, we opened our
facility back here inBattleground Washington, Um and
um, uh, battleground is a is asmall town just right outside of
um, right outside of Vancouver,washington, uh, you know this
(16:21):
area.
So um, battleground Washingtonis just a great um, great little
small town, conservative area.
So um, battleground Washingtonis just a a great um great
little small town, conservativetown.
Um, you know, just kind ofsmall town.
America, um, which was a littleforeign to me growing up in in
small town Texas, you know, Ithought this was kind of the
liberal West coast and and uh,it was, uh, it was uh, uh, it's,
(16:45):
it's, uh.
It was quite refreshing and weabsolutely love, um, love
battleground.
But um, it started this, thisfacility out here.
We moved back out here, um withum, with um and obviously an
alignment for our business plan.
We had targeted a nationalmarket from the beginning and
(17:07):
needed a West Coast location,but also I wanted to raise our
kids in an extended familycontext.
My wife's family and oursiblings are out here, so the
kids have cousins and aunts anduncles and grandparents.
My folks moved out here my, mydad just before he passed, and
(17:28):
then my mom is, is, uh, stoppedhere, um, uh and uh, as well as
my, uh, my wife's parents.
So, um, that and and uh, thechurch here was going through um
, uh transition and we reallywanted to be um through
(17:49):
transition and we really wantedto be a part of that effort.
So that's a little glimpse intoour life here in Battleground.
I didn't talk about that but interms of the business, yeah, so
I started in first facility inSouth Carolina, then back here
in Battleground Washington.
First facility in SouthCarolina, then back here in
Battleground Washington, thenoffices.
(18:17):
We've got some folks in Houston, texas, moscow, idaho.
We opened another facility,another full production facility
, in Batavia, ohio, which isright outside of Cincinnati and
that's where we're at today.
Well, and I guess we opened twomore facilities in South
(18:37):
Carolina after that, so there'sreally kind of three facilities
in a separate office.
So we're in four places inGreenville County, a little bit
spread out, but yeah, and howmany?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
how many employees today?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, we've got about 250 people Um and um.
Probably most the majority ofthose are um South Carolina Um,
I think we've got about.
I think I've got about 75 herein Battleground, maybe 40 in
(19:12):
Moscow, a little less in Bataviaand then some remote and some
spread around, but probably thepreponderance of the remainder
would be would be amongst theSouth Carolina facilities.
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So I'd probably back up a little bit, you know, kind
of back to 10 years ago.
You said you know started youand your brother selling
transformers out of a backbedroom, kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So we should probably for those who don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we shouldprobably for those who don't
know, um, I guess.
So what were you saying?
What's?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
maybe define a little bit about uh, the transformer.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Oh sure, I'll do when .
Who's your customer?
Um?
And what does it look like tohave, like you know, two guys
selling transformers out of abedroom?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Well it's, it's not.
Um, this is not a business thatdoes lend itself to kind of the
cottage kind of model.
So that was certainly, you know, kind of a transitional stage
as we were just getting thingsset up.
But to kind of give you somebackground on what is a
(20:26):
transformer and what's the roleand then what are the
applications.
So electricity is generated,we'll say, here in the Pacific
Northwest we have a lot of hydro, hydroelectric power.
So you have a generatingstation and that power is
generated at a certain voltageand it needs to get from source
(20:46):
of generation to source of use,and that is a transportation
problem.
Moving that much energy acrossthat many miles requires you to
transform it from a low voltage,at which it's generated, to a
high voltage, which allows it togo cost-effectively over miles
(21:09):
of wires, and then it getstransformed back down to a lower
voltage, to where I can chargemyself whatever usage is.
But that's what transformers do.
Our target market is thecommercial industrial market,
(21:33):
and so while we do work forutilities and electrical
cooperatives and places likethat, our major emphasis is in
the commercial industrialsegment, and so that's going to
be any large power, non-utilityuser of power, some things that
(21:53):
are maybe a little bit newer inthe last 10 years or so.
We have a large installationbase in cryptocurrency mining.
So all this Bitcoin stuffrequires a lot of energy.
Bitcoin stuff requires a lot ofenergy.
All these AI data centers areabsolutely changing the energy
(22:14):
landscape of the nation by justthe sheer amount of energy they
consume.
We have a massive footprint inthose spaces.
But then also very traditionallarge power users.
If you're making steel, youhave to, you know, melt that
(22:34):
steel at very high temperatures.
That's all all energyconsumption, um and um.
So traditional industry is is amajor focus that puts you at
the forefront of of is a majorfocus that puts us at the
forefront of of uh, of areshoring American industry.
(22:55):
There's a lot of uh activityright now bringing manufacturing
um back to back to the U?
S or at least um, at leastNorth America, um, that's that's
uh and that's that's as Chinesemanufacturing kind of falls out
of political favor sides of theaisle um are moving us rapidly
(23:17):
in a um in the direction ofbringing um manufacturing back
(23:41):
to um, back to the continent.
Um, I, I.
I say that because we do mostof our work is in in um, in
domestic uh, us based um stuff.
But there's a tremendous amountof activity in Mexico right now
as as industry um that movedfrom the U?
S to Mexico to China is movingback to back to Mexico, um and
and some of it back to the U?
S as well, but, um, but that wehave a lot, of, a lot of
(24:03):
interplay there.
We do some fun stuff.
You know, we, we, you know wedo transformers for SpaceX and
NASA and some kind of fun stufflike that, but also the new
Costco store down the street,anybody who's going to be a
(24:25):
major power user.
We've got about a third ofthose applications.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, we got about a third of those applications.
Yeah, so they're, they'relooking, they need something
very specific as far as theirenergy use, um, and so then are.
But you're, are youmanufacturing as well as selling
?
I know there's some of theremanufacturing, that kind of
thing that you do or is thatkind of your?
Your niche.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Right.
So there's.
There's a couple sides to thebusiness.
One is we have contractmanufacturing relationships
where our manufacturers build toour specs, our brand name
they're Maddox Transformers butwe don't own and operate those
new manufacturing facilities.
But we don't own and operatethose new manufacturing
(25:10):
facilities.
We have manufacturing partnersfor that side of the business In
the remanufactured side of thebusiness.
That's what our owned andoperated facilities are, and so
we have three, four, five ofthose facilities that focus on
(25:31):
remanufacturing Four on liquidfilled and one on a dry type,
just a different kind of productline.
Those facilities take equipmentthat is nearing end of useful
life and we'll take thatequipment out of service.
(25:53):
It'll have been in service for20 or 30 or more years.
We'll rebuild it and give itanother 20 or 30 or more years,
so that remanufacturing part ofit is absolutely essential to
try to keep up with equipmentdemand.
(26:14):
There's not enough transformersin the world to meet our energy
needs right now, and thissometimes plays out in
mainstream news.
There's multiple journalarticles recently about it.
(26:41):
In mainstream news.
There's multiple journalarticles recently about it.
Elon Musk is tweeting about youknow.
Transformers will be one butimportant way to keep more
transformers in service, to meetmore energy demands, to take
(27:03):
care of the aging infrastructure.
We've got uh.
We've got a an incredible um.
We're incredibly blessed withthe power uh infrastructure that
we have here in this nation,but it's aging and it, it, uh,
it needs, needs a uh needs a lotof attention, and that's that's
(27:24):
, that's where, where ourbusiness is focused.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Gotcha, yeah, so then you're able to take in that
older equipment and repurpose itfor specific customer needs, as
my ignorance of it, are all thetransformers you sell?
I mean, is it kind ofoff-the-shelf type thing, or are
most of them?
You know, customers need a veryspecific transformer, um
(27:48):
transformer or something that'sa little bit more custom.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Sure, it's, um, it's uh.
There's kind of a middle middlearea there.
There's um, there's uh, there'sa few dozen um, uh of the most
popular kind of voltage and sizeconfigurations and those come
in then different, different um,uh, different kva classes,
(28:14):
basically, uh, different power,um, sizes, put it that way.
Um, so, um.
It's not custom in the sensethat it's one for one, like when
spacex needs a new transformerfor, you know, the new fuselage
plant or something.
They don't have to, you know,necessarily have a custom built
transformer from that, but it iscustom enough that there's a
(28:42):
great need for a company likeours know thousands of
transformers, um, uh, ready togo, so, um, so yeah, it's um,
you know it's um, it's.
It's a business that um, thatrequires um, requires a lot of
(29:10):
know-how on market needs.
We try and understand the growthof industry in certain regions
and we know that those regionstypically use these certain
voltages and our targetcustomers use these certain size
(29:30):
transformers, and so we try andtriangulate all that
information and try and do thebest we can to anticipate demand
.
Some of that you can kind ofget at with data, some of it you
need to.
You know there's some art topair with the science to try and
(29:51):
understand where demand isgoing to go.
And then you kind of have toreconcile all of that with the
world that we live in, with rawmaterial shortages and supply
chain constraints still being afactor in our world, constraints
(30:12):
still being a factor in ourworld.
Um, and many times you justbuild what you can build or you
just recondition the equipmentthat that you can, you can buy.
Um, so, um, so, yeah, it's a,it's a, it's a, it's an
interesting, it's an interestingworld to live in, but it's.
It's an interesting world tolive in, but it's, it's, it's,
(30:32):
it's just a joy to be in a, in abusiness that's uh, essential.
You know, as we, we saw umthrough COVID lockdowns.
You know there's this kind ofseemingly arbitrary designations
If you're essential, you're notessential.
You know it's uh, you know notessential to to worship God on
Sundays, but it is essential toworship God on Sundays, but it
is essential to, um, you know,to uh, do this or that and for
(30:54):
what?
You know, for, for good or ill,um, the, uh, the, the powers
that be, um designated our, um,our industry as essential, which
, which is I.
You know, I agree with that.
That uh, more of mydisagreement would be on the
things that they said were notessential, but, but more of my
disagreement would be on thingsthat they said were not
essential.
But the recognition thatcertain industries are essential
(31:15):
, I think, was another kind oftakeaway that I had.
Another thing that I've reallyencouraged other entrepreneurs,
other believers, particularly totake into consideration when
you're thinking about thinkingabout starting businesses or
joining businesses, is is reallytaking a look at those things
(31:39):
that are undeniably essential toour civilization, civilization,
and I think that is, um, Ithink, as we kind of try and
chart a path and this negativeworld kind of kind of context,
if you're, if that referencewith kind of Aaron Wren's three
worlds and kind of theevangelical, you know, recent
(32:02):
history um, uh, makes, uh, if,if that, uh, you know, if that's
, that's a lens, that, that uh,that you find helpful, which I
really do.
I think there's a greatopportunity for believers in
particular to take upsignificant positions in
(32:24):
critical infrastructure andessential services and really
find great opportunities to um,uh, to be, you know, have a
significant impact in theircommunities by by doing that.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, no, that's really good.
Well, and and I mean obviouslywith you, so 40 or there about
employees in a small town likeMoscow.
You're having an impact here,and so it's been.
When did you open the officehere?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Gosh, it's, probably is it three years Been, three
years back.
Yeah that's probably Probablyright.
Yeah, so, as I mentioned, we'rein Greenville, south Carolina,
battleground, washington, moscow, idaho and Batavia, ohio.
(33:19):
These are all locations that wehave picked very intentionally.
We are very much apeople-driven company.
We're very people.
First, we do we do with oursmall, relatively small um team,
more than companies that havetwo or three times the number of
(33:42):
employees, and we do that by umby hiring men and women of
character, by having you knowgood business processes and you
know all the kind of necessarystuff that you need to have, but
by also really orientingourselves to intentionally
(34:04):
investing in the communitiesthat we're in.
We feel like there is healthyfamilies and communities.
Healthy communities are builton healthy families and churches
and a whole social fabric thatwe want to support and
(34:30):
contribute to, and so we findourselves in relatively small
towns where there are strongfamilies and churches and that's
kind of, you know, that puts usin a place where there's
there's a uh, an existent kindof social fabric that we can
(34:55):
contribute to, uh, to, and and,and, uh, and be supportive of,
and it's, and that's a huge,huge part of our, of our, uh,
our vision, um, you know here,uh, greenville, I guess,
greenville, south carolina,that's, that's the, the, that's
the largest town we're in, butthese others Battleground is
(35:17):
about 25,000 people.
I think Moscow is probablyabout the same.
Is that Moscow?
Yep, okay, batavia, ohio, sothis is, I think we have a.
You probably know Michael Foster.
Do you guys have?
You guys uh okay, so he's umout there, um in our uh, he's,
(35:38):
he's there in um in uh in uhBatavia and uh runs, runs, that,
um, that operation, um reallyfounding these, these plant
planting these, these uhfacilities, these operations,
(36:00):
alongside um, uh, the presenceof, of uh, of strong families
and churches is really where,where my heart has always been,
and that's kind of back to uh mypersonal mission, which is to
really to spend my lifeinvesting in men and women who
are building families, churchesand communities, and so that
really has a lot of influence inthe way Maddox has taken shape
and its trajectory over theyears.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, how has that been balancing managing people
and places all across thecountry?
You know, people and places allacross the country.
I know you mentioned thatinitially.
You're, you're, you've kind ofalways had a kind of national
market focus.
Um, yeah, how has that been?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
you know, dealing with kind of having having
management of people all overthe place yeah, well, in a real
contrast to what I mentionedbefore about the solo premier or
the small business, the reallyindividual-centric business that
you have at a small scale, atthis kind of scale it's, with
(37:05):
entire reliance on goodmanagement, higher reliance on
good management and folks whohave joined the business over
the years, who have taken ontremendous amounts of
responsibility and are leadingwell with that.
Like we were talking about thisBatavia facility being the last
one, the most recent fullfacility we've put on board.
(37:29):
We've got a strong leader outthere.
Michael has had experience withthe company prior to moving out
there.
We relocated an operationsmanager.
Caleb's servant was here inBattleground and moved his
(37:51):
family out there to run thatoperation from the production
side of things.
And so we have taken what weyou're asking about you know.
So how do we manage this acrossthese locations?
We have usually taken acolonization kind of approach
(38:27):
where we will take folks whokind of know the Maddox way and
move them out to this otherlocation to kind of seed and to
start up the facility.
We found that to be a realaccelerator to the growth.
So that's one thing.
That's kind of in our model.
But it's not all easy.
There's hiccups in starting anew facility.
It's fraught with uh, with uh,probably learning opportunities.
(38:53):
So, uh, it's, uh, we're, we'restill, we're figuring it out as
as uh as as we go.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, well, what are?
Uh, so you're still figuring itout, but still growing um where
the the challenges to that is?
I know a lot of folks havingtrouble finding people.
Has that been a challenge?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, you know, we've uh, we've been really blessed
to have a tremendous amount ofum, of uh, word of mouth and um,
so I'll kind of say, uh, yes,yes and no, we love, like,
employee referrals and we've gota lot of, we've actually got
(39:41):
quite a bit of families, even inthe business, where you know
we've got, you know, brothers orbrother and sister, or husband
and wife, and a number offathers and sons, um, that that
are working in the business, um,and so that's that's a joy.
But we are hiring, you knowwe're.
I think we hired 70 or 80people last year and probably a
(40:07):
hundred people before andprobably 100 people before.
Maybe we haven't quite broke100 in a year yet, but we're
hiring somewhere on that orderof magnitude.
So, yeah, that's hard and wewere early.
Actually, I think we may havebeen the first non-Idaho company
(40:27):
on Red Balloon, and so that'sjust been a great story to watch
and to see that.
But there are certain positionsthat we have many hundreds of
applications for and otherswe're looking for a key
executive position right now toreplace our outgoing CFO
(40:50):
position right now to replaceour outgoing CFO, and that's a
tougher position to fill, butyeah, it is In terms of your
question of is that a?
Is that a constraint?
(41:11):
It?
Um?
It's certainly um, uh,something we, we, we want to
take our, take our, our time andum, and make sure we get the um
, we get the get the rightpeople.
So, um, we've been fortunate tohire um, we try to hire um.
It always feels like you'rebehind, we need, you know, we
(41:36):
need more people, we need morepeople but, um, but I think as a
whole, we we've done a prettygood job of um, well, we've
doubled the business every 12 to18 months for nine years.
Um's, you know it's always astruggle, yes, but I think I
guess, if I were to speak toprobably that personnel issue,
(41:57):
maybe more broadly, and foreither job seekers or for folks
starting businesses and lookingto hire folks, this is a great
time to be a believer, to be aChristian in business with a
Christian worldview, because Ithink a lot of the romance of
(42:20):
the self-employment thing I feellike has kind of maybe worn off
a little bit in our communityfor good reasons, and we're now
kind of seeing the strength andthe opportunity and the
advantages of, instead of, hey,it's just, you know, me and my
wife or maybe my kids someday.
In this little cottage industrything, we now kind of have
(42:43):
models and visions of, hey, whatis it like to work shoulder to
shoulder with a hundred or 250other men and women who are, you
know, going in the samedirection, um, who you know kind
of uh, you know, value what Ivalue, or have, you know, have a
worldview and have a look at alife that is supportive of
(43:03):
family and is, um, is, uh, yeah,and someone gives you that, you
know, gives you a sense of, ofcamaraderie.
And, like I said, shoulder toshoulder with those who, um, who
, uh, yeah, and someone givesyou that, you know, gives you a
sense of, of camaraderie.
And, like I said, shoulder toshoulder with those who, um, who
, uh, you know, want good foryou and your family.
Uh, is incredibly, um,incredibly powerful thing.
And so is it hard to find goodpeople?
(43:26):
Sure, but this is, this is agood time.
I think there are certainbusiness people who recognize
this opportunity.
I think there's certainly asegment of the world that wants
to work in that kind ofsituation and when we put, you
(43:51):
know, put our, put our hands tothe plow, so to speak, uh, we
can do, we can do incrediblethings and and it's just kind of
you know, you know the dramaticstory is is one of those.
You know in a small way, kindof you know kind of kind of
things that you can see, kind offruit that's born of those kind
of, um, those kinds ofperspectives.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, no, that's wonderful, that's encouraging
and yeah, it kind of reminds meof that difference, like what
you were talking about, thecottage, small solopreneur,
versus larger business and whatyou can accomplish.
There's probably a lot ofconservative movement in the
past.
Probably a lot of theconservative movement in the
past there was, like the youknow a prepper solo guy out in
(44:32):
his cabin, you know kind of ideathat people were attracted to.
It's like, yeah, it doesn'twork.
You know you need, you needcommunity and seeing the
importance of community workingalongside and what you can
accomplish and what you can,what you can stand together for
yeah, it seems to be, people arerealizing that kind of.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, I think, I think you're putting your finger
on it.
Yeah, exactly that sense, andthere there's really, there's
great, there's many good andadmiral things about some of
that sense, and this is verymuch the context I grew up in.
So I there's, you know, there'sa desire to, there's a good and
well-placed desire to be goodat your craft and to have a
(45:15):
skill and have a trade elementof community and working
alongside others.
(45:39):
That I think you know.
I'm just excited to see arediscovery of that and that
kind of a concept of aproductive household, um, that
um is not intrinsicallyisolationist.
Um, and I, uh, yeah, I thinkthere's, there's, uh, there's
(46:03):
there's a number of stories wecan, we can look to um, going on
, right now that we're, we're,uh, where folks are are putting
it, going on, right now thatwe're we're we're folks are are
putting it.
That is action.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
So so that's yeah, yeah, well, no, that's awesome
and I know I think we're out oftime.
Definitely want to be cognizantof that, but yeah, it's been
really really fascinating andinteresting and good to learn
about.
You know, our podcast is reallyabout this area and we see the
the changes you've made to that,building more and more people
(46:34):
walking around with those coolorange M's on hats and jackets.
You guys do a great job withbranding, and so it's fun to
hear and hopefully share withsome of our folks about what is
going on up there.
What is Maddox?
What do they do?
You bet?
Speaker 2 (46:50):
You bet.
Well, thank you so much forthat.
You know what is going on upthere.
What is Maddox?
What do they do?
You bet you bet.
No, well, thank you so much forthat.
We've got the marketing.
Actually, marketing is isheaded up by Miles Whitlam, who
is actually there, based in inMoscow.
So Miles is much too much tocredit for for making us uh,
keep us looking good, so reallygrateful for that.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Good to have you Well , thanks again, camden,
appreciate it.
And yeah, for anybody curiousabout opportunities, that kind
of thing, maddoxtransformercom,check you guys out.
We're on Red Balloon, right?
We used to, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
All right, thank you so much.
Have a good rest of your day.
Great talking to you, mike.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Thanks, take care.
Thanks for joining us.
Like, share, subscribe.
We'll see you next week.
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast, where we
discuss the people, places andevents all around Kestrel
Country.
(00:38):
Camden Spiller, thanks forjumping on with us today.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you, mike.
It's great to uh great to behere.
You know, I was actually kindof remembering back to um some
of our earlier conversations me,me and your uh conversations as
we were um making some earlytrips out to Moscow and looking,
uh looking at facilities andkind of talking about the the
(01:03):
real estate um situation outthere and you were, I guess what
came to mind is you were kindof one of the one of the first
uh first uh folks that had anopportunity to work with out
there.
So we actually kind of go wayback.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
Yeah, that was.
Uh, it was funny that you bringthat up because I was going to,
um, uh, explain that.
So my wife for a while wouldconstantly would refer to you as
metal business card guy when Ifirst met you, you handed me
your business card, and you knowit's this fairly hefty metal
(01:39):
card.
This is the coolest businesscard I think I've ever received
and it still sits on my desk.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, I would be like wait, is that metal business
card?
I'm like yeah that's him.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So, oh my gosh, well, it's, that's, yes, that's great
, it's those.
Those are the nameplates thatwe put on on all of our
equipment have to be a certainkind of metallic specification.
And we found out that thislaser um, laser etching um
machine can, uh, can printbusiness card sized little, uh
(02:16):
little plates, and so that'swhat we've, uh, that's what
we've always used.
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'sthe.
That's the backstory there, sothat's a.
That's a back story there.
So that's a mil-spec that willnever erode under UV or anything
.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
So, yeah, a little bit of an issue there and that
was yeah, your business card isa Maddox Industrial Transformer,
which is kind of what we'rehere to talk about, and we'll
get into that.
But, um, maybe to start youknow what?
Um, where did you grow up?
(02:51):
I like to always kind of get alittle background on folks.
Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
yeah, schooling, sure that kind of thing, yeah, give
you some some origin story there.
I grew up in um in small town,tex, a homeschooled kid.
I was the oldest of seven kidsand grew up and really kind of
planted a seed and aninspiration um for um, uh, for
(03:32):
entrepreneurism, um and um andreally kind of a, you know, a
view of life that embraces um,uh, family and family
discipleship and and our kind ofparental responsibilities with
(03:57):
a weighty recognition, and thatwas really impactful for me.
That was really impactful forme.
My dad has passed but got toknow most of his grandkids and
that's kind of the context.
I grew up in working in mydad's furniture repair store
(04:20):
when I was 8 or 10 years old.
I was Well, I thought I was Inretrospect old, I was, um, well,
I thought I was in retrospect,I think, yeah, I think it was
babysitting, but I thought I wasworking Um but um, but you know
I, you do, you do kind of kindof learn things and and you know
, working alongside um, you knowyour father and and just kind
(04:43):
of seeing a man's world and kindof understanding um, uh, or
getting exposure to interactionswith customers and vendors and,
uh, you know businesssituations.
That's kind of the, that's kindof the context.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I uh, I grew up in yeah, so family business very
much, not just in name, butfamily was involved in the
business.
And was that a long-term familybusiness or something that your
dad started?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
No, it really it was something my dad started and it
was very much kind of thesolopreneur kind of thing, the
self-employment kind ofsituation.
And you know, I've reflected onthis in years since that and
(05:39):
probably the takeaways that Ihad from those times, as I
mentioned great things aboutwork ethic and small business
and all that kind of stuff, butreally came away with the
realization that there is acertain scale of business, that
(06:00):
kind of self-employment kind ofthing, where, where the business
owns you, you know, you don't,you don't own a business, um,
and it's um, it's kind of um, uh, it was a struggle, uh, frankly
it was.
You know, those, those kinds ofbusinesses um, struggle to be
(06:23):
more than a job, where the owner, the self-employed individual,
ends up kind of having to wearall the hats, and so you know,
I'm massively grateful for a lotof that experience.
It really did shape the way Icame to think about business and
(06:45):
particularly kind of a bit of acounterpoint to much of what we
see kind of exist in a scalethat, uh, I feel like I felt
like missed, missed a lot ofopportunity to uh, to be a
(07:13):
blessing to the family orwhoever owns it, to uh, to uh
employees, you know key, keyleadership, uh, you know members
of the community, uh customers,I.
I feel like there's there'sreally a opportunity um for uh,
you know, members of thecommunity, uh, customers.
I feel like there's there'sreally a opportunity um for uh,
(07:33):
for entrepreneurs to to uh toreally aspire to um, to uh to
larger scale business and and uh, kind of paradoxically, see
better family life balance andum and um and you know, whatever
measures of success you mighthave, um, I've, I've tried to,
(07:56):
I've implemented into my lifeand my business Um, some of
these things that I've tried toencourage others to see some of
the benefits and blessings ofrunning a business at a larger,
larger scale.
So, yeah, yeah, anyway, that'sone little takeaway, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
So that was that.
You grew up down.
You grew up there, kind of inthe family business, doing that.
Uh, how about?
Yeah, what was the next stepand what led into getting into
transformers?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
sure, sure.
So um went to um, uh straightout of uh high school into uh
running a software developmentbusiness with um, with another
one of my brothers, um, and kindof did that through the 90scom
boom and bust and this was kindof doing e-commerce kind of
(08:57):
things, when that wasn't acommoditized service, there
wasn't sign up for Shopify kindof things.
This was kind of a very WildWest kind of era when you kind
of rolled your own you knowtransformer electrical
transformer business and I beganto learn a lot about that and
(09:30):
and wasn't you know, it's one ofthose things where you know you
plan your way but the Lorddirects the steps.
That I didn't.
I didn't uh set out to get intothe uh the transformer business
but but really got um, reallygot involved with this client.
They asked me to come on boardfull time and really just work
(09:55):
my way up through the ranksthere, and so I was an employee
at that business from basicallythe late 90s until 2014.
So I had almost 20, I think Ihad slated to.
(10:25):
I had had discussions with theuh, uh, the owner of the
business at the time about, uh,the succession plan, the
business and I was, I wasplanned over the next few years
to um to take over a CEO.
And that was my stated, mystated career plan.
And they paid my way throughHarvard Business School and gave
(10:50):
me some great careerdevelopment opportunities.
And the plan was the older guyswould step out in a course of
time and us Jagger guys wouldstep into place and that nice
and tidy succession plan reallyentirely fell apart and there
(11:18):
was relational discord amongstthe three senior guys and uh,
they're, um, that totally fellapart and kind of the, the guy
that you would have, um, uh, um,uh, well, just kind of the way
the cookie crumbled, um, the guythat got uh in depth and
(11:41):
controlled business, um, uh,needed to sell it.
Uh, it wasn't, wasn't, uh, itwasn't really viable for him to
him to hold it together alone.
Um and uh, so business sold toprivate equity group and um got
to kind of walk through um, walkthrough that experience and you
(12:01):
know, see, you know even beforethe paints dried on that, the
cultural implications of all ofthat, and one of those
implications was letting me andmy entire team go.
So I was able to now reflect onit as the best, worst thing
(12:24):
that ever happened to me.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So and now was that?
So you, you were working in uh,it was kind of software
development.
You were helping them with thatend of the business.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But in a non-technology business that's
more business process, and sothat was really key to giving me
a real intimate understandingof business, whereas if I maybe
had other other posts I wouldn'thave had the same visibility.
But you know, over the courseof almost 20 years, you know I
(13:12):
ended up working, you know Iworked in sales and I worked in
I, you know I had a lot of youend up getting around in a, you
know, in a career path like that.
So I had a pretty, pretty good,pretty good grasp of the
business and then I had really,you know, with with my hopes and
dreams then dashed.
(13:33):
But to be the next CEO and to,you know, to to lead the company
, I kind of had my thoughts andplans on what would I do, how
would I do this differently, howwould I improve on the good and
reform or discard the partsthat I felt like needed it and
(13:58):
so put out on the street.
I was able to really clean sheetand put this company together
from the ground up, made somecalls, got a little bit of
private investment money just anindividual, a couple of
individual investors and then alittle bit of my own money and
(14:24):
bootstrapped from there and justto kind of fast forward 10
years later we have about athird of the US market share
with the largest company in ourspace.
We've close to the old companyI was I was with and in fact
there was kind of a big threewhen we started a company and
(14:46):
and the biggest two have merged.
Um and uh, we've, uh, we'vestill surpassed them in our, in
our market, in our target market.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
So, um, so it's really been when you started it.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, 10 years ago yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah, and where, where was, where were?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
where did you start, maddox?
Yeah, so we, yeah, started herein um in Vancouver, washington,
um, but our first facility.
So we uh, uh, they fired me inin um January.
Uh, uh, they fired me in in umjanuary, started the business in
february, um, and this is justme and my brother selling
(15:32):
transformers out of the sparebedroom.
This is kind of you know, we'rereally just kind of barely
getting things set up um, uh,but we uh, by may, by apr or May
, we had opened our firstfacility in South Carolina and
we moved out there for I guessthree or four years to get that
(15:58):
first facility off the ground.
I guess four years later, fouryears after that, we opened our
facility back here inBattleground Washington, Um and
um, uh, battleground is a is asmall town just right outside of
um, right outside of Vancouver,washington, uh, you know this
(16:21):
area.
So um, battleground Washingtonis just a great um, great little
small town, conservative area.
So um, battleground Washingtonis just a a great um great
little small town, conservativetown.
Um, you know, just kind ofsmall town.
America, um, which was a littleforeign to me growing up in in
small town Texas, you know, Ithought this was kind of the
liberal West coast and and uh,it was, uh, it was uh, uh, it's,
(16:45):
it's, uh.
It was quite refreshing and weabsolutely love, um, love
battleground.
But um, it started this, thisfacility out here.
We moved back out here, um withum, with um and obviously an
alignment for our business plan.
We had targeted a nationalmarket from the beginning and
(17:07):
needed a West Coast location,but also I wanted to raise our
kids in an extended familycontext.
My wife's family and oursiblings are out here, so the
kids have cousins and aunts anduncles and grandparents.
My folks moved out here my, mydad just before he passed, and
(17:28):
then my mom is, is, uh, stoppedhere, um, uh and uh, as well as
my, uh, my wife's parents.
So, um, that and and uh, thechurch here was going through um
, uh transition and we reallywanted to be um through
(17:49):
transition and we really wantedto be a part of that effort.
So that's a little glimpse intoour life here in Battleground.
I didn't talk about that but interms of the business, yeah, so
I started in first facility inSouth Carolina, then back here
in Battleground Washington.
First facility in SouthCarolina, then back here in
Battleground Washington, thenoffices.
(18:17):
We've got some folks in Houston, texas, moscow, idaho.
We opened another facility,another full production facility
, in Batavia, ohio, which isright outside of Cincinnati and
that's where we're at today.
Well, and I guess we opened twomore facilities in South
(18:37):
Carolina after that, so there'sreally kind of three facilities
in a separate office.
So we're in four places inGreenville County, a little bit
spread out, but yeah, and howmany?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
how many employees today?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, we've got about 250 people Um and um.
Probably most the majority ofthose are um South Carolina Um,
I think we've got about.
I think I've got about 75 herein Battleground, maybe 40 in
(19:12):
Moscow, a little less in Bataviaand then some remote and some
spread around, but probably thepreponderance of the remainder
would be would be amongst theSouth Carolina facilities.
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So I'd probably back up a little bit, you know, kind
of back to 10 years ago.
You said you know started youand your brother selling
transformers out of a backbedroom, kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So we should probably for those who don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we shouldprobably for those who don't
know, um, I guess.
So what were you saying?
What's?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
maybe define a little bit about uh, the transformer.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Oh sure, I'll do when .
Who's your customer?
Um?
And what does it look like tohave, like you know, two guys
selling transformers out of abedroom?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Well it's, it's not.
Um, this is not a business thatdoes lend itself to kind of the
cottage kind of model.
So that was certainly, you know, kind of a transitional stage
as we were just getting thingsset up.
But to kind of give you somebackground on what is a
(20:26):
transformer and what's the roleand then what are the
applications.
So electricity is generated,we'll say, here in the Pacific
Northwest we have a lot of hydro, hydroelectric power.
So you have a generatingstation and that power is
generated at a certain voltageand it needs to get from source
(20:46):
of generation to source of use,and that is a transportation
problem.
Moving that much energy acrossthat many miles requires you to
transform it from a low voltage,at which it's generated, to a
high voltage, which allows it togo cost-effectively over miles
(21:09):
of wires, and then it getstransformed back down to a lower
voltage, to where I can chargemyself whatever usage is.
But that's what transformers do.
Our target market is thecommercial industrial market,
(21:33):
and so while we do work forutilities and electrical
cooperatives and places likethat, our major emphasis is in
the commercial industrialsegment, and so that's going to
be any large power, non-utilityuser of power, some things that
(21:53):
are maybe a little bit newer inthe last 10 years or so.
We have a large installationbase in cryptocurrency mining.
So all this Bitcoin stuffrequires a lot of energy.
Bitcoin stuff requires a lot ofenergy.
All these AI data centers areabsolutely changing the energy
(22:14):
landscape of the nation by justthe sheer amount of energy they
consume.
We have a massive footprint inthose spaces.
But then also very traditionallarge power users.
If you're making steel, youhave to, you know, melt that
(22:34):
steel at very high temperatures.
That's all all energyconsumption, um and um.
So traditional industry is is amajor focus that puts you at
the forefront of of is a majorfocus that puts us at the
forefront of of uh, of areshoring American industry.
(22:55):
There's a lot of uh activityright now bringing manufacturing
um back to back to the U?
S or at least um, at leastNorth America, um, that's that's
uh and that's that's as Chinesemanufacturing kind of falls out
of political favor sides of theaisle um are moving us rapidly
(23:17):
in a um in the direction ofbringing um manufacturing back
(23:41):
to um, back to the continent.
Um, I, I.
I say that because we do mostof our work is in in um, in
domestic uh, us based um stuff.
But there's a tremendous amountof activity in Mexico right now
as as industry um that movedfrom the U?
S to Mexico to China is movingback to back to Mexico, um and
and some of it back to the U?
S as well, but, um, but that wehave a lot, of, a lot of
(24:03):
interplay there.
We do some fun stuff.
You know, we, we, you know wedo transformers for SpaceX and
NASA and some kind of fun stufflike that, but also the new
Costco store down the street,anybody who's going to be a
(24:25):
major power user.
We've got about a third ofthose applications.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, we got about a third of those applications.
Yeah, so they're, they'relooking, they need something
very specific as far as theirenergy use, um, and so then are.
But you're, are youmanufacturing as well as selling
?
I know there's some of theremanufacturing, that kind of
thing that you do or is thatkind of your?
Your niche.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Right.
So there's.
There's a couple sides to thebusiness.
One is we have contractmanufacturing relationships
where our manufacturers build toour specs, our brand name
they're Maddox Transformers butwe don't own and operate those
new manufacturing facilities.
But we don't own and operatethose new manufacturing
(25:10):
facilities.
We have manufacturing partnersfor that side of the business In
the remanufactured side of thebusiness.
That's what our owned andoperated facilities are, and so
we have three, four, five ofthose facilities that focus on
(25:31):
remanufacturing Four on liquidfilled and one on a dry type,
just a different kind of productline.
Those facilities take equipmentthat is nearing end of useful
life and we'll take thatequipment out of service.
(25:53):
It'll have been in service for20 or 30 or more years.
We'll rebuild it and give itanother 20 or 30 or more years,
so that remanufacturing part ofit is absolutely essential to
try to keep up with equipmentdemand.
(26:14):
There's not enough transformersin the world to meet our energy
needs right now, and thissometimes plays out in
mainstream news.
There's multiple journalarticles recently about it.
(26:41):
In mainstream news.
There's multiple journalarticles recently about it.
Elon Musk is tweeting about youknow.
Transformers will be one butimportant way to keep more
transformers in service, to meetmore energy demands, to take
(27:03):
care of the aging infrastructure.
We've got uh.
We've got a an incredible um.
We're incredibly blessed withthe power uh infrastructure that
we have here in this nation,but it's aging and it, it, uh,
it needs, needs a uh needs a lotof attention, and that's that's
(27:24):
, that's where, where ourbusiness is focused.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Gotcha, yeah, so then you're able to take in that
older equipment and repurpose itfor specific customer needs, as
my ignorance of it, are all thetransformers you sell?
I mean, is it kind ofoff-the-shelf type thing, or are
most of them?
You know, customers need a veryspecific transformer, um
(27:48):
transformer or something that'sa little bit more custom.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Sure, it's, um, it's uh.
There's kind of a middle middlearea there.
There's um, there's uh, there'sa few dozen um, uh of the most
popular kind of voltage and sizeconfigurations and those come
in then different, different um,uh, different kva classes,
(28:14):
basically, uh, different power,um, sizes, put it that way.
Um, so, um.
It's not custom in the sensethat it's one for one, like when
spacex needs a new transformerfor, you know, the new fuselage
plant or something.
They don't have to, you know,necessarily have a custom built
transformer from that, but it iscustom enough that there's a
(28:42):
great need for a company likeours know thousands of
transformers, um, uh, ready togo, so, um, so yeah, it's um,
you know it's um, it's.
It's a business that um, thatrequires um, requires a lot of
(29:10):
know-how on market needs.
We try and understand the growthof industry in certain regions
and we know that those regionstypically use these certain
voltages and our targetcustomers use these certain size
(29:30):
transformers, and so we try andtriangulate all that
information and try and do thebest we can to anticipate demand
.
Some of that you can kind ofget at with data, some of it you
need to.
You know there's some art topair with the science to try and
(29:51):
understand where demand isgoing to go.
And then you kind of have toreconcile all of that with the
world that we live in, with rawmaterial shortages and supply
chain constraints still being afactor in our world, constraints
(30:12):
still being a factor in ourworld.
Um, and many times you justbuild what you can build or you
just recondition the equipmentthat that you can, you can buy.
Um, so, um, so, yeah, it's a,it's a, it's a, it's an
interesting, it's an interestingworld to live in, but it's.
It's an interesting world tolive in, but it's, it's, it's,
(30:32):
it's just a joy to be in a, in abusiness that's uh, essential.
You know, as we, we saw umthrough COVID lockdowns.
You know there's this kind ofseemingly arbitrary designations
If you're essential, you're notessential.
You know it's uh, you know notessential to to worship God on
Sundays, but it is essential toworship God on Sundays, but it
is essential to, um, you know,to uh, do this or that and for
(30:54):
what?
You know, for, for good or ill,um, the, uh, the, the powers
that be, um designated our, um,our industry as essential, which
, which is I.
You know, I agree with that.
That uh, more of mydisagreement would be on the
things that they said were notessential, but, but more of my
disagreement would be on thingsthat they said were not
essential.
But the recognition thatcertain industries are essential
(31:15):
, I think, was another kind oftakeaway that I had.
Another thing that I've reallyencouraged other entrepreneurs,
other believers, particularly totake into consideration when
you're thinking about thinkingabout starting businesses or
joining businesses, is is reallytaking a look at those things
(31:39):
that are undeniably essential toour civilization, civilization,
and I think that is, um, Ithink, as we kind of try and
chart a path and this negativeworld kind of kind of context,
if you're, if that referencewith kind of Aaron Wren's three
worlds and kind of theevangelical, you know, recent
(32:02):
history um, uh, makes, uh, if,if that, uh, you know, if that's
, that's a lens, that, that uh,that you find helpful, which I
really do.
I think there's a greatopportunity for believers in
particular to take upsignificant positions in
(32:24):
critical infrastructure andessential services and really
find great opportunities to um,uh, to be, you know, have a
significant impact in theircommunities by by doing that.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, no, that's really good.
Well, and and I mean obviouslywith you, so 40 or there about
employees in a small town likeMoscow.
You're having an impact here,and so it's been.
When did you open the officehere?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Gosh, it's, probably is it three years Been, three
years back.
Yeah that's probably Probablyright.
Yeah, so, as I mentioned, we'rein Greenville, south Carolina,
battleground, washington, moscow, idaho and Batavia, ohio.
(33:19):
These are all locations that wehave picked very intentionally.
We are very much apeople-driven company.
We're very people.
First, we do we do with oursmall, relatively small um team,
more than companies that havetwo or three times the number of
(33:42):
employees, and we do that by umby hiring men and women of
character, by having you knowgood business processes and you
know all the kind of necessarystuff that you need to have, but
by also really orientingourselves to intentionally
(34:04):
investing in the communitiesthat we're in.
We feel like there is healthyfamilies and communities.
Healthy communities are builton healthy families and churches
and a whole social fabric thatwe want to support and
(34:30):
contribute to, and so we findourselves in relatively small
towns where there are strongfamilies and churches and that's
kind of, you know, that puts usin a place where there's
there's a uh, an existent kindof social fabric that we can
(34:55):
contribute to, uh, to, and and,and, uh, and be supportive of,
and it's, and that's a huge,huge part of our, of our, uh,
our vision, um, you know here,uh, greenville, I guess,
greenville, south carolina,that's, that's the, the, that's
the largest town we're in, butthese others Battleground is
(35:17):
about 25,000 people.
I think Moscow is probablyabout the same.
Is that Moscow?
Yep, okay, batavia, ohio, sothis is, I think we have a.
You probably know Michael Foster.
Do you guys have?
You guys uh okay, so he's umout there, um in our uh, he's,
(35:38):
he's there in um in uh in uhBatavia and uh runs, runs, that,
um, that operation, um reallyfounding these, these plant
planting these, these uhfacilities, these operations,
(36:00):
alongside um, uh, the presenceof, of uh, of strong families
and churches is really where,where my heart has always been,
and that's kind of back to uh mypersonal mission, which is to
really to spend my lifeinvesting in men and women who
are building families, churchesand communities, and so that
really has a lot of influence inthe way Maddox has taken shape
and its trajectory over theyears.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, how has that been balancing managing people
and places all across thecountry?
You know, people and places allacross the country.
I know you mentioned thatinitially.
You're, you're, you've kind ofalways had a kind of national
market focus.
Um, yeah, how has that been?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
you know, dealing with kind of having having
management of people all overthe place yeah, well, in a real
contrast to what I mentionedbefore about the solo premier or
the small business, the reallyindividual-centric business that
you have at a small scale, atthis kind of scale it's, with
(37:05):
entire reliance on goodmanagement, higher reliance on
good management and folks whohave joined the business over
the years, who have taken ontremendous amounts of
responsibility and are leadingwell with that.
Like we were talking about thisBatavia facility being the last
one, the most recent fullfacility we've put on board.
(37:29):
We've got a strong leader outthere.
Michael has had experience withthe company prior to moving out
there.
We relocated an operationsmanager.
Caleb's servant was here inBattleground and moved his
(37:51):
family out there to run thatoperation from the production
side of things.
And so we have taken what weyou're asking about you know.
So how do we manage this acrossthese locations?
We have usually taken acolonization kind of approach
(38:27):
where we will take folks whokind of know the Maddox way and
move them out to this otherlocation to kind of seed and to
start up the facility.
We found that to be a realaccelerator to the growth.
So that's one thing.
That's kind of in our model.
But it's not all easy.
There's hiccups in starting anew facility.
It's fraught with uh, with uh,probably learning opportunities.
(38:53):
So, uh, it's, uh, we're, we'restill, we're figuring it out as
as uh as as we go.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, well, what are?
Uh, so you're still figuring itout, but still growing um where
the the challenges to that is?
I know a lot of folks havingtrouble finding people.
Has that been a challenge?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, you know, we've uh, we've been really blessed
to have a tremendous amount ofum, of uh, word of mouth and um,
so I'll kind of say, uh, yes,yes and no, we love, like,
employee referrals and we've gota lot of, we've actually got
(39:41):
quite a bit of families, even inthe business, where you know
we've got, you know, brothers orbrother and sister, or husband
and wife, and a number offathers and sons, um, that that
are working in the business, um,and so that's that's a joy.
But we are hiring, you knowwe're.
I think we hired 70 or 80people last year and probably a
(40:07):
hundred people before andprobably 100 people before.
Maybe we haven't quite broke100 in a year yet, but we're
hiring somewhere on that orderof magnitude.
So, yeah, that's hard and wewere early.
Actually, I think we may havebeen the first non-Idaho company
(40:27):
on Red Balloon, and so that'sjust been a great story to watch
and to see that.
But there are certain positionsthat we have many hundreds of
applications for and otherswe're looking for a key
executive position right now toreplace our outgoing CFO
(40:50):
position right now to replaceour outgoing CFO, and that's a
tougher position to fill, butyeah, it is In terms of your
question of is that a?
Is that a constraint?
(41:11):
It?
Um?
It's certainly um, uh,something we, we, we want to
take our, take our, our time andum, and make sure we get the um
, we get the get the rightpeople.
So, um, we've been fortunate tohire um, we try to hire um.
It always feels like you'rebehind, we need, you know, we
(41:36):
need more people, we need morepeople but, um, but I think as a
whole, we we've done a prettygood job of um, well, we've
doubled the business every 12 to18 months for nine years.
Um's, you know it's always astruggle, yes, but I think I
guess, if I were to speak toprobably that personnel issue,
(41:57):
maybe more broadly, and foreither job seekers or for folks
starting businesses and lookingto hire folks, this is a great
time to be a believer, to be aChristian in business with a
Christian worldview, because Ithink a lot of the romance of
(42:20):
the self-employment thing I feellike has kind of maybe worn off
a little bit in our communityfor good reasons, and we're now
kind of seeing the strength andthe opportunity and the
advantages of, instead of, hey,it's just, you know, me and my
wife or maybe my kids someday.
In this little cottage industrything, we now kind of have
(42:43):
models and visions of, hey, whatis it like to work shoulder to
shoulder with a hundred or 250other men and women who are, you
know, going in the samedirection, um, who you know kind
of uh, you know, value what Ivalue, or have, you know, have a
worldview and have a look at alife that is supportive of
(43:03):
family and is, um, is, uh, yeah,and someone gives you that, you
know, gives you a sense of, ofcamaraderie.
And, like I said, shoulder toshoulder with those who, um, who
, uh, yeah, and someone givesyou that, you know, gives you a
sense of, of camaraderie.
And, like I said, shoulder toshoulder with those who, um, who
, uh, you know, want good foryou and your family.
Uh, is incredibly, um,incredibly powerful thing.
And so is it hard to find goodpeople?
(43:26):
Sure, but this is, this is agood time.
I think there are certainbusiness people who recognize
this opportunity.
I think there's certainly asegment of the world that wants
to work in that kind ofsituation and when we put, you
(43:51):
know, put our, put our hands tothe plow, so to speak, uh, we
can do, we can do incrediblethings and and it's just kind of
you know, you know the dramaticstory is is one of those.
You know in a small way, kindof you know kind of kind of
things that you can see, kind offruit that's born of those kind
of, um, those kinds ofperspectives.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, no, that's wonderful, that's encouraging
and yeah, it kind of reminds meof that difference, like what
you were talking about, thecottage, small solopreneur,
versus larger business and whatyou can accomplish.
There's probably a lot ofconservative movement in the
past.
Probably a lot of theconservative movement in the
past there was, like the youknow a prepper solo guy out in
(44:32):
his cabin, you know kind of ideathat people were attracted to.
It's like, yeah, it doesn'twork.
You know you need, you needcommunity and seeing the
importance of community workingalongside and what you can
accomplish and what you can,what you can stand together for
yeah, it seems to be, people arerealizing that kind of.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, I think, I think you're putting your finger
on it.
Yeah, exactly that sense, andthere there's really, there's
great, there's many good andadmiral things about some of
that sense, and this is verymuch the context I grew up in.
So I there's, you know, there'sa desire to, there's a good and
well-placed desire to be goodat your craft and to have a
(45:15):
skill and have a trade elementof community and working
alongside others.
(45:39):
That I think you know.
I'm just excited to see arediscovery of that and that
kind of a concept of aproductive household, um, that
um is not intrinsicallyisolationist.
Um, and I, uh, yeah, I thinkthere's, there's, uh, there's
(46:03):
there's a number of stories wecan, we can look to um, going on
, right now that we're, we're,uh, where folks are are putting
it, going on, right now thatwe're we're we're folks are are
putting it.
That is action.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
So so that's yeah, yeah, well, no, that's awesome
and I know I think we're out oftime.
Definitely want to be cognizantof that, but yeah, it's been
really really fascinating andinteresting and good to learn
about.
You know, our podcast is reallyabout this area and we see the
the changes you've made to that,building more and more people
(46:34):
walking around with those coolorange M's on hats and jackets.
You guys do a great job withbranding, and so it's fun to
hear and hopefully share withsome of our folks about what is
going on up there.
What is Maddox?
What do they do?
You bet?
Speaker 2 (46:50):
You bet.
Well, thank you so much forthat.
You know what is going on upthere.
What is Maddox?
What do they do?
You bet you bet.
No, well, thank you so much forthat.
We've got the marketing.
Actually, marketing is isheaded up by Miles Whitlam, who
is actually there, based in inMoscow.
So Miles is much too much tocredit for for making us uh,
keep us looking good, so reallygrateful for that.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Good to have you Well , thanks again, camden,
appreciate it.
And yeah, for anybody curiousabout opportunities, that kind
of thing, maddoxtransformercom,check you guys out.
We're on Red Balloon, right?
We used to, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
All right, thank you so much.
Have a good rest of your day.
Great talking to you, mike.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Thanks, take care.
Thanks for joining us.
Like, share, subscribe.
We'll see you next week.
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