Well, I grew up in New England. I'm a Northerner by birth in
Connecticut and schooled my way a few places. Schooled at the University of Virginia
in Charlesfield, Virginia, back back in the day. Then went to work
at the DuPont Company in chemicals and I was there for four or five years
and went back to graduate school and Chicago area in northwestern and I got my
MBA there and settled and got married and settled in the Chicago area. I
had our first child. We were there about seven or eight years and done
in consulting at that point and went with one of our clients at the time
and wanted to get into small business, running, growing, owning small businesses,
and that was kind of where the start of it for me was.
This was in the mid nineties, and moved to the South, Deep South
in Birmingham, Alabama. That's where the entrepreneurial moment took me. And so
I spent twelve years in the sporting good space in golf bags and accessories.
That company was then acquired by a pe firm as part of the rollo,
and then I stayed on with that firm for a couple more years and then
relocated down here too during that time to Dustin Florida, which is where our
headquarters is, Panhandle, Florida, beautiful Emerald Coast and on the Gulf of
Mexico. And we've been down here since nineteen ninety eight and I've been with
this company, am Code Industrial since twenty ten as their CEO. All right,
well, we're going to talk a lot about Amcode Industrial. But you
and I have a little bit in common, sir. I'm from Chicago,
so I'm a Rogers Park boy, and also growing up, I was also
here in Northern Virginia during the Ralph Sampson years, so that we have a
cavinar miss. I know that basketball was pretty damn good back then. Well
we've rediscovered our basketball route. Yes you have, Yes you have. I
was at UVA during all four years of Ralph Sampson's time there, very cool,
which that's that's a fun trivia for me anyway, And that's when folks
like that stayed three or four years, and he was there all four years,
and that was kind of the beginning of Uba basketball. We've had dallying
in us in football, mostly with modest success, but we're getting back to
our basketball routes. And I'm a Cubs fan, so I like Chicago.
All right, Yeah, that's great. Well I'm a big sports fan too,
so I appreciate you sharing all that. So I want to talk a
lot about your company. We're going to talk about mission statement and what you
do, and about differentiating yourself from competition if there is any, and some
other cool things. But I want to it's kind of neat to talk about
the context about how you join a company because you've had an interesting path here.
You've done a lot of different things out there, and that's not unique
to some of the other CEOs and leaders that we talked about. But how
were you introduced to the company? And as I take a look at your
resume, it's impressive and so I know why they were interested in you,
But why were you interested in joining them? Well, I've you know,
most of my career post consulting has my personal mission statement, if you will,
and running and owning businesses has been to take existing businesses and grow them
and realized their full potential, maximizing enterprise value. And that's kind of what
I've done in my career over the last thirty years. So this one was
kind of my last chapter. I was a friend of mine, you know,
a golfing buddy, and you had a great little business, this primary
business called Rhino Shield and you know, it's just he and a friend who
started it. And he said, man, I think we can do a
lot more with this. I know your background I happened to be I was
doing working for an accounting firm, heading up there consulting, and he said,
man, do you want to get back into the entrepreneurial space. And
I said, you know, I'm I'm kind of ready. I'm kind of
ready after we'd sold the prior business. And so timing is you known,
business is everything, and he said, hey, I'd like to become my
partner and help me make this thing happen. And so we grew it almost
four times from where it was when we got started. And uh, that's
that's a lot of fun. I enjoy growing growing businesses. Uh, you
know, growth is growth is fun, right, and so that's that's business.
Mature is sustainability and then the growth. And that's a common theme too,
by making sure that you're stable on your feet and then growing the company.
So I didn't want to ask you when it comes to am CODE Industrial,
just overall, what is your mission statement? So our mission statement really
is very simple, is to offer the consumer steady the art, high performance
coding products, particularly in the rhino shieldcase exterior wall and roof coatings. And
so we're a product company h we offer, but we offer steady the art,
you know, unmatched in their category in terms of performance and durability is
probably our biggest differentiating factor. All part of our mission is that we offer
codings that are really unavailable and unmatched by even the large painting companies, and
we kind of have our niche in this ultra high performance, ultra highly durable
category. Well, if we could do this and just get into the weeds
a little bit terry and kind of back up a little bit about what you
exactly do. You mentioned rhino shield. But if somebody were to be introduced
to MCODE Industrial for the first time and you talk about rhino shield, what
would you tell people that you do and who you serve. So we manufacture
and distribute rhinoshield wall coating products. We distribute via a dealer network that's basically
a group of painting contractors. They're dedicated to us, and we're dedicated to
them. We call it exclusivity. It has characteristics of a franchise, but
it's much simpler than that. Very common in the building supply home improvement industry
space. So we supply those products to those deals painting contractors and they market,
sell, and install the product in their specific geographies. They're trained by
us, they're authorized by us, they're certified by us, so we can
have a say, if you will, in terms of the installation quality that
takes place in the marketplace as well. It's one thing to have a great
product, it's another thing in home improvement to have that great product installed in
a high quality fashion. So we installed to those folks and then they work
with end consumers all over the country to make sure that our product is installed
to our specification and that the homeowner or building owner realizes the full potential and
benefit of our product line. Well, let's talk a little bit about what
you're talking about right now, because I know that when you're running a company,
the team is everything, especially your managerial staff and people that are high
up that you have to work with regularly, and then getting the message down
to the rest of the staff. And you know I'm speaking specifically of Gerald
Hall. I know he's there with you, working with you in tandement.
Also there are other people. Can you talk a little bit about how you
guys work together and the rest of the team to get the message across about
your product and then how you market it and how you educate the consumer out
there. Sure. So we're a small company. As I said before,
I like working in smaller businesses. You can be nimble. The no bureaucracy.
The only bureaucracy you create is the ill biocracy you have is what you
create. And I think we try and keep it very flat and very discipline
but flexible. So you know, my team I think reflects that they are
self starters. We do have our you know, guiding principles and core competencies
and pillars, if you will, the guide us all the way through in
terms of how we deal with our products, how we deal with our dealers,
the success of our dealers, how we attract and retain you know,
new dealers, so that that guides our overall management, if you will,
of philosophy in the business. Uh. But we also have some fundamental structure
to it. You know, Gerald heads up our sales and a lot of
our marketing work. You know, we're interesting in that we're not only supporting
marketing efforts for our dealers. They look to us to help them with how
they market in their in their geographies. We're also doing our own marketing to
the end consumer. So we're marketing the Runa Shield name and the Rhona Shield
brand to the consumer marketplace, if you will. And so we're kind of
doing a little bit of both, which I think is kind of unique.
You know, many companies are doing one or the other. We're marketing.
We're providing marketing assets and tools to our dealer partners so that they can be
successful when they talk to consumers, maybe at the sales point of the purchase,
but we're also trying to provide them some you know, overall brand awareness
and umbrella marketing so that when they do talk to consumers there's some recognition ahead
of time. That makes a lot of sense in terry. I think there's
another common thread that i'd like to ask you about. When I talk to
small, medium, large businesses, it's always about that communication and accessibility and
I and I don't want to assume this, but with a smaller team,
I imagine that your consumers your clients have really great access to you and the
team, and that makes communication easier, a little bit more streamlined, and
I imagine business works a little bit quicker because of the size of the team.
Would I would I be correcting that absolutely, And again those are those
that are I think are uh you know profiles of small companies ours ours is
for sure. You know many of our dealers and even some of the consumers.
You know, they they know us by name that they're almost family.
We know particularly our dealer customers, they partners, They they know our family
history, we know theirs. We're in weddings. I mean, it's a
it's a it's a fun relationship when you can get to that level. And
so you bet they call us when they have issues. They call us at
home, they call us on the weekends, they call us whenever they need
to uh, they reach us and and us them. And same thing with
consumers when they're asking questions before they're you know, kind of committed to a
purchase, they want to feel comfortable. Right. You know, a home
is you know a person typically you know, someone's largest investment ever, right
is their home is their dwelling. And you know, we talk a lot
about protection and durability and so anything that's done to their home, boy,
they sure want to feel comfortable about that, and they want to communicate with
the the many times the end products supplier and say, hey, I know
what I've heard, but you know, tell me a little bit more.
Can I do this application in this area of my house? You know,
I have this kind of sighting as it makes sense and will I be protected?
And is there are there any risks for me? And we're very transparent
both when we have those one on ones, but also you know, in
our online conversations, in our online communication with people, we feel that transparency
is really important these days. Consumers you know, almost require it, but
we're way ahead of that. You know, we don't do it because it's
required. We do it because it's the right thing to do. And quite
frankly, Dennis, a home improvement does not have the best reputation sometimes in
terms of everybody who's generally got a story, who's owned a home. They
can tell you a war story about how something's gone sideways with either a service
project or a fix it project or remodel project. We don't want to be
that war story that consumers have so we do everything we can to make sure
that doesn't happen, and then still comforter comfort and confidence in working with our
product. Well, Terry, I'm glad you shared all of that, and
you know what really sticks with me is I've talked to leaders and CEOs and
entrepreneurs in this series. The transparency, to your point, has become at
the top of the list for a lot of people that are working with businesses.
It doesn't matter what you're doing, but to be honest, upfront and
open with the clients or the consumers wherever you're working with. I think it's
so far in few between nows you kind of alluded to. I think people
really appreciate that, and it sounds like with your business ethics, it's just
ultra important that you roll that way. Well, it is, and we're
doing even more in that direction. You know. Many times, particularly in
home improvement and remodel, the number one question that someone wants to know about
any product or service is how much does it cost? That's what they want
to know. They're going to do a lot of research, and they know
they need to do some of it before that that questions answered. But I
tell you, when they go online. That's the number one question is how
much does it cost? And in many vendors in our space, they'll answer
that with, well, it depends. Well, we have to come measure
your house, we have to look at your house, we have to inspect
your house, all of which is true. But the end of the day,
they want to know, at least in a ballpark fashion, how much
does it cost? And if your product and your service is what you say
it is, you shouldn't be afraid to say how much it costs. Right,
And some people will say that's not for me, that's fair, and
that maybe can be a very short conversation for both of us. Right at
the end of the day, that's okay. Not every product is for everybody.
But we are really moving our company and in terms, as you said,
in terms of our mission and our values is to be transparent using a
program called They Ask You Answer. It's a content marketing system and philosophy,
and we're really paving the way in service based installs to give people a sense
for how much it is per square foot on a range basis, but really
making sure that oh, well it is more than regular pain. Frankly,
it should be because it's better, and maybe that is or maybe that isn't
in my budget, and if it's not, okay, but if it is,
well we think it is, then we're now off and we're going to
have a deeper conversation about the rest of your question. Does that make sense?
I mean, that's really the philosophy we've taken, and many in our
industry just they don't want to answer that question. They're afraid to answer that
question. Yeah. Yeah, we have to come visit you, We have
to spend time with you. We have to sit around your kitchen table.
And not everybody wants to sit around the table right, certainly post COVID,
So you know it's a different role now. Well, and I'm old enough
to know that old age if you get what you pay for, I kind
of really believe in that. And I think that that's kind of your point
too, and without even talking about price point right now, that if you
want a great product and superior product, sometimes you have to pay a little
bit more. And I'm all for that too. So I'm glad you went
into detail about that. I did want to ask you about a competition,
and I know with the Rhino Shield being proprietory and itself and its own product,
and without any assumptions on my part, if there's other companies that maybe
do what you do specifically to Rhino Shield, how do you differentiate yourself if
there is any competition out there? Terry, Well, we're in what I
would call kind of a micro category within the paint business. I mean,
paint, of course, is a multi billion dollar business, multi billion dollar
global enterprise, right with huge players that people know about, whether it's a
Sherwin Williams or a Bear or a Benjamin Moore or PPG. You go on
and on and not huge. And then internationally there's domestic suppliers of paint everywhere,
right, and that's that's what we would call traditional paint. In our
category, this microcategory is what we call a high build category. Basically,
it's a thicker paint. It's an elast America is that's the category of paint
that it is. And Last Americ's been around a long time. But what
we perfected is the ability to take an elast Americ which started as roof coatings
on a horizontal surface, and we figured out how can you put that on
in a vertical surface with gravity not working in your favorite right, so a
rhino shield product installation will be you know, nine to ten what they call
mills thick, which is basically a very very thin unit of measure to measure
thickness and paint and traditional latex paint will probably be one and a half to
maybe two mills thick. So we're going to be five to eight times thicker
on the wall and that's what we call a high build coding and elastomeric falls
into that category. We had a bunch of other ingredients to that, core
of which is a ceramic microsphere, so we call a ceramic elastomeric. But
our primary competition our pain companies, I mean our dealer partners. You know,
they're competing with all those paint companies I mentioned before. Day in and
day out, we would argue it's a different it's a different kind of pain.
But at the end of the day is it is a wall covering,
if you will, a wall coating. And so we compete against those folks
and we're comfortable doing it. And again we have a longevity story. Our
competition is into what I call planned obsolescence, right, you know, they
know that depending on where you are and the climate and the substrate, which
is you know, the wall surface. They might be in a five to
six year repainting cycle, and as long as it lasts that long, many
consumers are happy with that and then they hope that they'll buy that brand again.
We're look, we want to break that painting cycle and say you don't
have to do that anymore. You can have it for twenty five years.
And yes it will be more upfront, but it'll be uh you just do
some quick calculations, you can see there. So there's advantages economic advantages to
our products. So it is a Our competition is the major paint companies,
UH and within and they offer some malastomerics within these categories, but not at
the level that we've We've perfected it with all the additives to to help with
salt, their corrosion and you be reflectivity and mildew, bio growth, et
cetera. I mean, Last Americs, it's high build is what we do.
And so again kind of that classic niche smaller business working its way around.
We're not we're not trying to pope poke the big bears, you know,
but we we know where we can we can compete, and we compete
successfully in those areas well. And to your point, you're staying in your
lane and you're doing it really well. So I kind of got the message
on that one. I did want to quickly get into the weeds on something
else because I'm a curious guy, and I think for our listeners as they
hear you talk about rhino shield, I always warn you about technology, and
I'll give you an analogy, whether it's an iPhone when it came out and
I said this is fantastic, how can they make this better? And they
do? Or this new pen I'm using. It's a great pin, but
next year it's even better. For some reason, they've come out with something
new technology that you can write better. When it comes to your industry and
specifically rhino shield, are you at the level where that's it for or is
there always improvements or is there something environmental that you're working on or something just
to make the product that much better? How does it all work? Because
I'm so curious about that. So you know, a coding obviously is a
chemical formula. Right has got an ingredients list and you put these ingredients literally
in a mixing bowl and it mixes it up just like a mixing boom with
a big paddle, and it mixes all the ingredients that you specify in the
right quantities from the right vendors, and within that ingredient lets there are core
elements of that, and one of the core elements is what we call a
resin, which is kind of the backbone raw material of the entire coding.
And we're always looking at what are the new technology from the vendor communities that
just specialize in providing resins. They're not providing end products, they're providing the
raw materis, and they're constantly reworking and upgrading and updating. How long does
it take to dry? How does it handle cold weather? How does it
handle moisture that comes through the house. There's natural evaporation that has to happen.
As you from your Chicago days, right, it was warm on the
inside and cold on the outside. Well, that creates a moisture event,
and that moisture has to eventually evaporate otherwise you trap moisture in the house and
that's a problem. So coatings have to be able to allow for moisture to
escape, and there's constant evolutions in that technology to ensure that that happens.
You know, properly within all climates, et cetera. So, uh,
there's R and D you know, constantly going on. We go to all
the you know, the major shows, the coding shows that you and I
might be a tad board with, but folks that are in that space and
the chemical engineering, they get pretty jazz and excited about it. That's why
I have an R and D group to get excited about that. And they
come back and say, man, Terry, we got all this stuff.
We could do this, and we can make it work on cedar and redwood
and not just pine. And so we're constantly tweaking, you know, our
core resident and then even the the additives I talked about, you know,
how do we make sure if you're in the southeast where we are here was
very humid, uh, and there's tree overhangs and shade, you get biogrowth
and all of a sudden, a nice you know off white house looks gray
and black and you know it's and it's difficult to get off. Well,
we make sure that the additives we put in that are you know, they're
constantly evolving as well to deal with the microbes and the biogrowth that happens.
So I could go on, but it's it's constantly looking at our RN to
make sure that when you're a products fire, that is your business at the
end of the day. Yeah, I'm glad you shared all that, and
that's something I didn't take any consideration about what region you might live in.
It's a little bit different because of the weather. And by the way,
I can confirm about the weather not only living in Chicago, but my mom
told me stories back in the sixties when I was born that she had to
walk backwards next to Lake Michigan because it was so windy and cold. So
Terry tells the truth about the weather when it comes to Chicago. Yeah,
no, I'd love Chicago. I love the Midwest. I love the people
in the Midwest. Boy, they are down to earth folks, and that
weather is a myrtle level. It is brutal out there. Well, Terry,
I wanted to do this and I can't tell you how much I appreciate
your valuable time, and I wanted to give the floor to you for the
last couple of minutes. Just some final takeaways not only about Rhino Shield,
but the company overall and the message you'd like to leave with our listeners and
the CEOs, the entrepreneurs and the future leaders out there a little bit more
about the companies you wrap up your thoughts. Yeah, I think from an
entrepreneur or leadership standpoint, I get asked, you know, as as you
and I also you certainly speak for me, are kind of, you know,
more towards the finish line than the starting line in terms of where we
are with our careers. And it's it's it's fun to talk to the younger
generation, you know about kind of they ask and when they're inquisitive, I'm
willing to give them that counsel and advice. Many many young folks are interested
in getting into small businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors, and I think that's that's wonderful.
So what drives our country, it's the spirit of our capitalism is tied
into a small business and small business growth. And but I tell them there's
different elements of that. You can be a true entrepreneur, have an idea
and a thought and try and nurture that and and fund that and take that
and scale it, or you can be many other elements. But you know,
I kind of chose my path which is taking existing companies and helping them
realize their full potential and and everything in between. And you know, CEOs
are always looking for folks that you know't want to help in that growth journey,
in that realizing potential journey. And we're looking for problem solvers, not
always problem identifiers. To be kind of blunt about it, right, in
life, we have a lot of folks who are problem identifiers, right,
you know, we've got them all over. My wife identifies my problems all
the time, I hear you. But problem solving is what really differentiates I
think employees and associates in terms of when someone says how can I move up
or how can I advance? I say, become a better problem solver?
And I will help you do that, okay. And it's a learned trade.
It's a skill that you can develop over time and then you will become
amazingly valuable to that business and the CEOs will become amazingly successful with teams that
are filled with problem solvers. And it comes with experience, but it's also
something that's the skill trait that you can work with on your own. As
far as the runa shield stories, you can tell we're pretty passionate about it.
We're continuing to grow quite rapidly. We're trying to make sure we can
harness that growth. We know there's a number of consumers out there this time
of year. We're getting hundreds of leads a day from customers that want to
hear our story. We talk to them, or most of a lot of
times our dealers talk to them to try in a new way, basically a
new technology for how do you protect your home? You have to put something
on the outside of your home in most cases, even stucco and block a
wall left to its own, on its own, to mother nature with sun
and UV which is even more degrading than it used to be with climate change
and all the storms that we have now these days we live in Florida,
we're always looking at tropical disturbances and whatnot. Well, you sure need a
protective coding on your home and one that's going to last last a long time.
And we think we're really doing a service to our customers in many ways,
and our consumers not just offering a product. We really do believe in
our mission that we're providing a service to people. With those that want to
take a look at us, it's it's a it's a different way to think
about it, but like like a lot of uh, you know, companies
and products out there that bust some paradigms, category killers. That's that's what
we're looking to do, and it's a it's an exciting journey. Want that's
standing. I can tell your passion. That's always a common thread in this
series too, Terry about the leaders I talk to their passion for what they
do. They might bring a lot of gifts and skills to the table and
leadership, but I always got that compliment in my industry. I hired you
for your passion, and I can tell that you have that too, and
I think that's pretty exciting and we really appreciate this. As we wrap up,
if people want to find out more about Rhino Shield and about your company,
what's the website for everybody that they can check everything out at? Absolutely
Dennis, the the website is uh is rhinoshield dot com through simple, straightforward
and uh. It's a it's a very formative website. It's got videos and
content and you know, lots of lots of ways to learn about our business
and those that are interested even further can ask for some more and request quote
in an estimate and talk to some of our local dealers who are knowledgeable about
the product as well. And I've been on it and the smart people that
put it together actually did a nice job with your website. It's easy to
navigate on there and everything's either read. It's very cool. So give them
my best for putting that together. Hey, Terry, well you're suggesting I
didn't do that right, I don't know, did you? No, Hey
Terry, that was a profound guest. That was Yeah. Well, let'sen
give my best to your entire team and thank you so much for joining us
on CEOs as you know and continue success. Thank you, Dennis, I
appreciate the same to you.