CEOs You Should Know- Tegeler Construction & Supply

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
iHeartMedia presents CEOs. You should know. I am John Dinkle, former president
publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal andnow founder and CEO of Dnkle Business Development.
This iHeartRadio see as you should know, sponsored by a Strategic Factory,
and I'm here today with Fritt Tegler, president of Tagular Construction and Supply.
Welcome Bretton, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm

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excited. Yeah, me as well. I appreciate you taking the time.
So I thought we get started byjust getting to know about the organization a
little bit, a little bit aboutyourself. So for those who may not
be familiar, could you tell usabout Tagular Construction and Supply. Absolutely so.
Tagler Construction and Supply was started inSeptember twelfth, twenty sixteen. That's

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when I started and founded the business, So about seven and a half years
old. And we sell construction materials, so lumber, pretast, pipe,
it's not you know, we sellto it in the commercial world. We
don't do any residential and we touchthe Baltimore area, Maryland and DC,
Virginia and Delaware. We do goa little bit outside of that, but

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those are our main territories and rightnow we are located at trade Point Atlantic,
so it is the largest multi modalwhich means it has trucking, port
and rail industrial park in North America. So it's a huge advantage as a
supplier to be located here. Ohyeah, I can't imagine. Thank you

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for that. Could you talk alittle bit about your mission? Sure?
Well? Our mission, first andforemost is to be able to serve our
customers who are general contractors, subcontractors, and owners. And we want to
be able to help the construction industrybuild projects cost effectively and on time.

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And we are a small cog inthat wheel. So first and foremost to
be a great supplier. And thena personal mission of mine has always been
as a female and a very maledominated dominated industry only eleven percent of the
industry is females, is to inspirefemales to look at on traditional paths and

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not be afraid to enter those careerpaths because you know, construction has created
an absolutely magical life for me,and that's something that I'm really passionate about
sharing, particularly with females. Yeah, that's great, and I actually do
want to talk to you a littlebit more about that in a few minutes.

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What what would you say, TagularConstruction and Supply is known for.
I would say we are known forwhat I always say is being scrappy,
and we are and I love thatterm, and I hire scrappy people and
what that means to me and ourculture is getting things done with as many

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or as little resources as we haveat our fingertips and just getting the job
done for the customer, whatever thatmay be. And I like to say,
our answer is yes, now what'sthe question. So that's that's that's
our mentality. And I believe mostcustomers would say we serve them in that
manner that we just get the jobdone and we ask questions later. That's

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great, that's great. Thank youappreciate sharing that, And talk to us
a little bit about, you know, any new initiatives, any new kind
of business lines or products or ursusthat you plan on introducing in twenty twenty
four and beyond. Sure, we'realways we're very heavily focused on the infrastructure
heavy civil side of things. Thoseare the projects we're very focused on.

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So we're always looking at diversifying ourproduct lines as it relates to products in
that part of the industry, andthat includes creating new distributor partnerships. So
a lot of these distributor partnerships arethere exclusive or they give us the ability
to just get better pricing so wecan get our customers better pricing. So

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we're always looking to expand in thatregard. And then secondly, the other
ability for us to expand is regionallyor nationally, so we're always looking to
open up new locations. We dohave a separate entity that that some of
us have started in DC, andthat's just the shurt of a different market

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doing the same exact thing. Butagain, it allows us to touch customers
in different areas that we haven't beenable to. That's fantastic, that's awesome.
Now to dig into a little bitmore so from your perspective, I
know you working mostly with municipality commercial. What does the kind of the future
look like in the construction industry inthose particular I guess facets, you know,

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in civil commercial? What's the kindof future look like in your fire
part of my I started gearing thecompany towards that particular part of the industry
several years ago, and it wasvery intentional. Obviously, most people are
familiar with Biden's infrastructure bill, buta lot of the money in construction is

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flowing towards and when I say heavycivil and infrastructure, it's a lot of
roadwork, to put it simply,So we're doing a lot of highway work
and that's where we're seeing a lotof the money go, so a lot
of that doot work. We havenot seen a slowdown. Even during the
pandemic, we were very steady.In fact, I think because there were

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less cars on the road, actuallysome of the road jobs were able to
get done quicker. So as abyproduct, you know, we benefited off
of that as a byproduct. Buta lot of people I talked to were
very concerned about the beginning of twentytwenty four and thought we were going to
see some legs slowing down. ButI think in general consensusus, at least

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locally, we have not experienced that. So we'king continuing just to seem more
and more work. The beginning,I mean, the beginning of this year
has been absolutely not in a goodway. We have more contracts and more
projects breaking then that we can almostkeep up with, which is a thing
awesome. I love that love tohear that that's right. Has the has

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inflation or uh you know the economyin that sense as it had impacts on
your on your business or no,it doesn't, doesn't sound like it.
But did you have to make anyadjustment? Uh? You know with that?
Sure we did. I mean it'scertainly the For instance, the lover
costs during anybody in the constructor worldknows during the pandemic they were. They

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were out of control and simply putthere with a scarcity, so the mills
were charging more. Suppliers had tocharge more, and and that that doesn't
go away, you know, rightaway when the pandemic goes away. There's
there's a lag time after that.So we've been dealing with those inflated prices
for a while and it was itwas for us. The way we dealt
with it was just communication to beingvery honest with the customers, so they

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didn't think we were trying to wewere trying to charge higher prices and get
more money from them. It wasn'tat all. In fact, we cut
our profit margins to try to helpour customers as much as we could.
But we're finally starting to see,at least with lumber and some of the
other products stabilization, so some ofthose prices move, those prices have come

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down. They have not reached prepandemic pricing that I don't think we'll see
that again. So we have reachedsome stabilization, which I think has created
some more comfort in the market,which is probably why so many of these
projects have started to break. Gotcha, that's great. Great, I appreciate
you sharing that all of that.Thank you. I wanted to kind of
get back to the point that youbrought up earlier in the conversation about Oh,

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I want to talk to her aboutyour experience over the past you know,
seven and a half years. Congratulations, by the way, that's that's
fantastic. As the CEO of awoman of business and very you know,
kind of male dominated industry, whathas it that been like and what advice
would you give for other women entrepreneurs. Sure, it's been an incredible experience.

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I think I'm always concerned because Ithink being a female is looked at
by many females as a barrier toentry in construction, because construction is only
eleven percent comprised of of women,and of that eleven percent, less than
one percent in executive positions. It'sscary and it's intimidating, and I think

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a lot of women have no interestin the construction industry because of that.
However, I have experienced exactly theopposite, which is a lot of advantages
from being a female. And Ican name all several things, but three,
I always like to mention one beingjust by default, because I'm in
the room with mostly males all thetime, I am always remembered by you

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know, box the fault. BecauseI'm a female, I'm always remembered,
which is what every human could actfor. We all remembered. So that's
a really powerful thing. Number Two, I think a lot of doors have
been opened because I am a littlebit different, and that has been an
intriguing enough or attractive enough to opensome doors initially that I think may not

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have opened. I've got to comein and I've got to execute after that,
but that initial door opening. Andthen three, which I talk about
often, is the ability to getsome of these certifications, whether you know
it's a woman owned or a minorityowned certification. So the way a lot
of the government or state contracts workis they have set asides to have you

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know, a million dollar contract,and thirty percent of that is a set
aside for a woman owned or minoritybusiness. It just gives us a competitive
advantage in the market place. ButI want to be very clear in that
having a certification does not make youa credible capable company, right For both

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we're going to be a competent andcapable supplier that happens to have these certifications,
and then when we're going to headahead with a competitor, then we
do have a bit of a competitiveadvantage, right, gotcha. Okay,
that's great. I appreciate you sharingall. I know that's a big passion
of yours and teaching and coaching otheryou know, women entrepreneurs especially that want

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to get into the industry. SoI appreciate you commenting on that. So
I love to talk about leadership onthe show. How would you describe your
leadership style? I am super handson. I am in the trenches working
with my team. I know you'llhear a lot of CEOs say they wish

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they could get out of the businessand start working all in the business.
While that sounds great in theory,that's not me. I think that,
in my opinion, the best CEOsin the world are a bit micro managers,
and I definitely am. However,I do give my team a lot
of empowerment. I try to micromanage the hiring process so I don't have

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to micro manage employees and I haveas a byproduct of that, I have
an incredible team of a plus players. But they will all tell you you
know, I am, I aminvolved and I know almost everything about every
project. Now, as we aregrowing, that becomes harder. But I
think sweating the little details and workingside by side my team is really important.

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Again, as we grow, that'sgoing to change a little bit,
and that has changed over time.Yeah, you know, I think sweating
all all the small details is importantand I don't see that ever changing.
Yeah, and especially in the growthmode that you're in now, you want
to make sure you know what you'vebuilt on and over the past seven and
a half years continues to move forwardand you know and and at where you

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would like it to be. Ilove what you had to say about micromanaging
the hiring and so you don't haveto micromanage the team member. I think
if a lot more CEOs thought aboutthat way. It's funny, I've never
heard of it sed that way.But that's a great takeaway, So I
appreciate that. That's awesome. Sowith the general threat of like the pandemic

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over, even though you know obviouslywe're going to be living with that for
the probably the rest of our lives, But what did you learn about managing
and kind of leadership during that time? I learned a lot, you know.
You know, I learned that it'salways a lot of pressure to be
a CEO. I mean, youhave a lot of lives depending on you.

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But it's my job to set thedirection and the vision of the company
at all times, and one ofthat in the pandemic, to make sure
everybody felt comfortable and secure and didn'thave to worry about their job. So
I was taking on that role asdifferent you know, I've never really had

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to do that, and so Istepped in two and I can tell you
I'm still working on it. I'mstill working on being that leader and being
a manager and all of those things. But for me, it's always about
communication, very very honest with myteam. And during the pandemic, we
talked and we communicated more than ever, the good, the bad, the

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things we were working on. Wewere lucky in that we were in a
central business. We never stopped work. It was really business as usual.
So I was probably in a uniqueposition in that regard where I didn't have
to worry about many of the thingsother CEOs and hospitality business, for instance,
had to worry about. Like businesswas good, but my role just

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expanded in that I was very,very intentional, more than ever about making
sure everybody felt comfort little and clearin the vision and the direction that we
were going. That's great. Iappreciate you sharing that and through that time.
Now do you, because of thenature of your business, did you
have to adjust, like to ahybrid working format or completely virtual or are

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you doing a lot of that beforehand? Because you're I imagine you and your
team are out in the field alot too. So what was that like?
And are you do you consider yourselfa hybrid working environment now? Yes?
We are. We are hybrid nowand our team has always been hybrid.
We are we're out on the field, you know, we were here

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at our facility where there's warehouse.We're out, We're out and about and
I always I have so much respectand confidence in my team. It's really
be where you have to be toget the job done and that usually has
us spread everywhere. So during thepandemic that really didn't change. There were
things on job sites that changed thebit, but I can tell you mean,

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other than wearing masks and doing sometemperature checks at check in and stuff
like that, it was really businessas usual. I mean it's hard on
a construction site to change too muchand get the job done right right,
gotcha? Gotcha? Thanks Thanks forsharing that. So what gets you excited
about the future of Tagular construction andsupply, Oh, Ben, so much,

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so much gets excited. I meanthe amount of opportunities that come ora
away has been incredible, and that'sa byproduct of my team doing a really
good job. I can say thatwe've been really fortunate. I don't I
don't think it's will last forever,but that we haven't really had to do
a ton of marketing. We don'teven have an outside sales team. It's

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all project managers that are are maintainingand managing our current work. And that
is because every job we've gotten,for the most part, has been word
of mouth, which I think isthe greatest testament that you can possibly have.
So because of that, we getopportunities right and left, and my
biggest challenge is making sure we jumpon the right ones and not the wrong

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ones at somebody who's hungry and asmy team knows, because I must have
them a little unstane. I wantto go, I want to grow,
I want to look at every opportunity, and I do have to be disciplined.
But what I can tell you,as a small team, we're very
flexible. We're we're not this hugecorporation that it takes a year to turn

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an inch, So we can pivotand we can look at them anything.
So I tell my team always like, even if it's outside of our lane,
if it's something that you think wecould potentially take on, even if
it means hiring new people, gettingnew resources, training, but if it's
something that would be good for thebusiness, let's take a look. And

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that excites me. It's having thatflexibility to look at everything that we want
inside of our industry. So betweenthat and expanding locations, I feel like
I can't give you a hard answerbecause you always our heads always on a
swivel. That's what I say.Yeah, we're looking at everything all the
time, and we're hopping on thebest opportunities that come our way. Yeah,

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and a lot to be excited about. That's I love it. So
so what keeps you up at night? Then? Oh man, what keeps
me up at night? Well,first and foremost, just just the excitement
and the amount of passion. Ihad it hard to sleep because I have
a million ideas all the time andI want to execute on all of them
all the time. So that's constantlyrunning it inside my head. But I

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think for me, if you're Ithink you're you're really looking at the concerns
or the worries that may keep meup, and that's always just making sure
that my team and my employees andtheir family are experiencing the best quality of
life. Like I'm always thinking aboutwhat I can do for my employees to

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make sure that they're quality if lifeis top notch, because at the end
of the day, like that,that is the greatest achievement. It's being
able to hire people, touch people, impact either directly or indirectly, and
make their lives better. So inthis in this environment, to be able
to retain great talent, but evenmore importantly, great humans, you've got

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to be doing things different and thatmeans a la carte. That means tailoring
everything to two individual employees, whichtakes a lot of time and effort.
It's important. So I think ifit's anything, it's me constantly thinking about
what I need to do for thosepeople to make sure that they're they're just
experiencing a great experience. Yeah,that's great, that's great. I love

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it. I appreciate you sharing allthat. Well, to wrap things up,
is there anything else you'd like ourlisteners know about you and technical construction
and supply. Well, first ofall, I think you did a fantastic
job asking questions, so you've gota lot out of me. But I
would say, you know, weare always looking to partner. We've got

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our we've got our established partners onboth the vendor and customer side who were
always looking for new relationships locally andand you know in surrounding states. So
uh that with that, partnerships areour most important and sherished thing. So
if there are people listening that thinkwe have some synergies and could work together,
we're always open to that. Andthen secondly, I want to share

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the experience I have had as afemale and construction. So is there any
women that have listened to this andeven have a hint of interest in the
industry. We're just learning more.I want to share that and I want
to be one of the you know, I want to be an inspiration in
that regard, and I'm happy toshare all the wisdom and knowledge and experience

(19:55):
that I've gained over the years.I love it. I love it.
Thank you. So tell our audiencehow to find more information about Taglo Construction
insply sure on our website, whichis taglercs dot com. We also have
social media it's Tagler Construction and Supplyeverywhere, so you can find us for
our own LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. And personally, I am very very

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active on LinkedIn and that will bebrit Tagler in parentheses Arnold. So I
talk a lot about on my personalLinkedIn. It's a lot of personal stories
as it relates to the business.And then lastly, my husband and I
have a podcast called Love and Business, and that's where we really take.

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It's long form, long form contentwhen we take a lot of time to
really big deep into business content,and it's really about our own businesses and
our challenges and what's going well.And I truly believe it would be valuable
for anyone in any industry in business. That's a really great platform for educational

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purposes. I believe it's awesome.I'll definitely check that out absolutely, and
I appreciate you letting our audience knowabout that, and thank you so much.
We really appreciate you taking the timetoday to talk with us. I
really love the conversation. I probablycould have been on another hour with you,
but I know you're busy, soI really appreciate you taking the time.
It's good. Good to catch itup with you, and hope you

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have great rest of every week.Likewise, thank you so much. This
has been iHeartMedia CEOs. You shouldknow