Hello and welcome to the third episode of the top floor podcast. This is the Denver edition, and today I get to welcome Mr. Paul Wegman, CEO of Nova Automation. Welcome, Paul. Hey, thank you, Darren. Great to be here. All right. So because I don't know your business better than you, obviously, tell us a little bit about what you and your company do. Sure. As you mentioned, name of the business is Nova Automation. We're a factor automation company. So we do specific to factor automation is automate end-of-line packaging, specifically bag filling, case packing, product conveyance, palletizing, stretch wrapping. Then also we do a lot of full pallet conveyance as well. All right. And I know we were talking beforehand. So for those listening, at least the way we're doing it here in Denver is Paul and I had a chance to connect a week or so ago and get acquainted. And here we are today. And I was interested in your story, Paul, because if I have it correct, and you'll keep me honest, is you joined or acquired a company that had a founder, and you have a partner and curious about that story and how it came to be. Sure. Absolutely. It's a great story and still unfolding as we continue to kind of write chapters of this book, if you will. I was in grad school down in Texas, went to McCombs executive MBA program down there, where I met my business partner. His name is Doug Adacy. So he's the COO of our business. And he knew that I was looking to start a buy business when we were going through business school, and he had come across this business and was doing business with Nova as part of his current job. He was at a company that does mining operations and they were bagging various mine products, milled in mine products. And he said, Hey, Paul came to me and said, I know you're looking to buy or start a business. I know a company in Denver that does packaging automation. Are you interested in maybe partnering up and looking at this opportunity? So Doug and I started looking at this opportunity. 20 beginning of 2017, ended up closing on the business in April of 2018. And over that year, a little more than a year, we had spent a lot of time getting to know the founder of the business, his name is Voig Carpalah. And I would say what's really unique in our story. And that's different from a lot of acquisition stories is that the founder of Voig actually stayed on with us. So it's kind of the three of us as partners in the business. And are running it today. So Voig focuses on engineering, Doug focuses on operations. I focus on sales, customer side of things. And we kind of tag team finance and strategy, but that's really unique to have the founder stick around after an acquisition. And to be completely honest, he's, we got lucky. I mean, he's a phenomenal guy. And we love working together and the three of us make a really good team. Okay. All right. So I'm going to pull on this thread a little bit if it's okay. So I work as an executive coach and work with a lot of founders, executive teams, leaders, et cetera. One of the things that comes up undoubtedly is team culture or team dynamics. And then for those at the top of the food chain, how that rolls down to the company to make company culture. So here you and Doug come in. Was it Voigt? Yeah, Voigt, V-O-I-T. Okay. So here you and Doug come in, acquire or join Voigt. Voigt's got an established company. And I'm curious, how did you and Doug first and foremost integrate into the firm? And then I'm curious with the founder who established the company, how did the new culture unfold? Yeah, that's a great question. I think many different layers to that. And a few missteps to kind of the transition that we made and unfolding and kind of rolling out the culture, if you will. You'll, prior to Doug and I coming on board, the business had a very called small business feel, right? Information was closely held. Wasn't a lot of data for the employees to see a lot of progress reports or updates. So when we bought the business, we quickly brought that to the table. And it was like, all right, here's the new owners, the new operators, the new leadership of the company. And honestly, we probably could have been a little bit more graceful with that transition because the founder was still here and still had a lot of credibility and a lot of loyalty. And yeah, so there was some, I would say some bumps in the road as feelings were stressed a little bit, emotions were stressed a little bit as we worked through that. But I think at the end, the embedded culture that was NOVA when we purchased it in April of 2018 was a really hardworking, fun culture because the founder is a very hardworking, fun guy, great sense of humor. Very spiritual person brings just great energy to the business on a regular basis. So one of my pet peeves is minimize negativity and also accountability, I should say two of my pet peeves. And so a lot of that was already here. I would say we just kind of put a spotlight on that piece of it and really establish and you can see behind me on the wall here are our mission, vision and values. And we establish, you know, formal mission, vision and values for the company by going out talking to a bunch of the employees. I think we interviewed probably almost half the company. We interviewed customers, we interviewed partners in the industry and said, hey, you know, who is NOVA? What makes NOVA so unique? What do you think about when you think of NOVA? And that's how we formulated mission and vision values and that was closely tied to the culture. And the culture is really hardworking, fun place to work where core values are instrumental to who we are, right? Just general, general character stuff that I think is good for everybody in everyday life and especially at work. So around accountability, you know, continuous improvement, never giving up and valuing everybody that's in our ecosystem, right? It takes, it takes a, takes a village, takes a company to be successful. It's not any one person that's any more special than anybody else here in this business. It doesn't really matter what your role is, right? Like, whatever my role might be from our painters and our machinists and our welders, you know, if they're not doing their job, this business doesn't work well, right? If I'm not doing my job, this business doesn't work well. So that was the culture that we wanted to establish was, hey, we're all equal. It all takes everybody here working hard, staying focused and creating a positive, fun atmosphere that we enjoy coming to work because we spend a lot of time here. Yeah. Excuse me. I'm smiling and nodding one because I love the story and two because all too often in my own corporate experience and even with coaching some of my clients is too many leaders don't ask questions. They feel like they have to create everything. For instance, there could be easily other stories that I know there are of people like you that come into a company and don't interview half of the employee base or talk to customers about what are we? Who is Nova? What is our mission, mission, vision and values? And yet you, Doug and Voigt, or maybe you and Doug came in and did exactly that, meaning you spoke to all these people to help them help you figure out what's on the wall. I think that's tremendous. Yeah, absolutely. And to give credit where credit is due, we hired a third party agency to help us through this journey. So they laid it out for us and Doug and I were fresh out of business school. So we were nodding with their plans and said, yeah, we like these things. This looks good. Let's do it. So it was good. It was a great process and these values and the mission and vision were established. Let's see, probably about five years ago. And we continue to ingrained them in the culture. They're part of our daily lives here at Nova. And they're more true now than they ever have been. So I feel like we did a pretty good job on hitting the nail on the head here so far. Yeah. All right, I'd love for you to expand a little bit about how do you keep the mission, vision and values ingrained and part of day to day life at Nova? Sure, sure. So every I'll start kind of high level and then we'll kind of go down to the day to day. But from a high level, we give out awards quarterly to employees based on embodying and executing on these mission, vision and values and going above and beyond and leadership and embracing change and innovation and things of that nature too. So every corporate update, every all hands meeting we have, we're talking about these. And we literally have probably a 10 15 minute discussion on mission vision values that I lead every quarterly update. So it's going through that. And I ask questions to the entire company. All right, who's got an example of, you know, somebody that you know, exhibited the mission and, you know, from a day to day basis is doing well, really well embodying our mission. And somebody will say, well, hey, you know, Jack last week, I saw him working on this very challenging project. He saw it through and didn't give up, never give up's one of our core values. And he came across many different challenges and so on and so forth. And I'll ask somebody else and they'll say, hey, you know, page did X, Y and Z and, you know, really, thank some of her team members and took accountability for a mistake that she made and thank some of her team members from, you know, pointing that out. So we go through that in the corporate update and do some sharing and do some awards based on that. And then one big piece of, of the culture here is that I should say that we've brought in over the last probably three years. Let's see, probably about two years now is when we started it. But as a result, we're going through COVID and we had all the unknowns of COVID going on. You had social unrest, political unrest in our country, a bunch of challenging things that, you know, we don't really, you know, we don't make it a point to talk about those things at work. And it's not like a big spotlight that we want to put on that stuff. But at the same point, people were bringing that tension to work. And there was a lot of emotional tension during those times because all the stress everybody was going through outside of work. So we said, how do we, like, just kind of bring everybody back together, chill everybody out, and create some vulnerability and connection at work. So we actually started a short meditation process that all the business leaders can lead in their, in their meetings. And then I do it at these quarterly updates as well. But it's a short meditation with emphasis on appreciation gratitude. So you go through this meditation, you pick a partner, and then you go through this process of sharing some appreciation with them, sharing some gratitude with them, and then vice versa, the roles are switched. And the whole point of that was, again, to help embody our culture of valuing everybody in this business. And hey, if we're valuing ourselves and taking care of ourselves and we're creating an environment where people feel comfortable coming to work as themselves, not having to put on some wild persona that they think they need to to be here at work. And people just get to be themselves. And then even if they're having a hard time, maybe we've created enough trust and enough connection that people will be have somebody that they can talk to if they're going through a tough time here at work. So we've done that to kind of build upon this culture. And I think it's been great. We we we have fun. I travel a lot with our team. I spend a lot of time with the team. And you know, I feel like it's a really upbeat, upbeat place. Man, I love that. Love it. So much talk. I mean, I remember however long ago was that Brene Brown was like the biggest thing on TED Talk. I love Brene. Right. Our whole thing is about vulnerability and being the one to lead with it and, you know, having that emotional wherewithal. So one of the things I am curious about is whether it's measurable or if it's more subjective from you as the CEO, what have you noticed that's different or what's been the impact of having these meditations, mindfulness, accountability partners, leading with vulnerability and emotion? What have you noticed that's changed or it's different as a result of that? The I love doing this when we do this in front of the company. So, you know, there's probably about 60 of us in a room when we do this. And the immediate impact is so apparent because we'll be in a corporate update and everybody's like, Oh, great. It's a corporate update. Paul's going to talk to us about financials, mission, vision values, what marketing's doing, what sales doing. We get to hear about operations. And then he's going to make us go through this meditation appreciation gratitude. And we're a blue collar to professional level, you know, business, right? Very, very white demographic of education and skill sets. And, you know, the guys that are turning the wrenches and welding are like, Oh, what's this craft? You know, what's going on? And that's, you know, just generalizing not all of them. Some of them are very, very spiritual, very, you know, forward progressive into the meditation and self care type stuff. But anyway, we go through this exercise. And it goes from this kind of being a normal work corporate update to smiling, sometimes even tears, because people don't people don't get compliments all the time. And they're not good at giving them all the time. And I raise my hand because I'm in that camp. I've been probably, you know, very hard on myself my entire life. So I really love doing this stuff because it helps me as well. And but even in that moment, we go through that exercise, and it takes, you know, 10, 50 minutes to do it. And we go through that the energy that that creates is amazing. Literally, the whole room, smiling, talking, you can just feel the positivity and the release of just joy to be completely honest. And I see that kind of being pervasive throughout the business and that, and along with, you know, the other things we're doing with our culture, and that you just see everybody's very approachable. Everybody's, you know, they wave, they smile, they say hi. And we're just, I feel like we're becoming as we continue at this, and it's, you know, it's, it's a continuous improvement process, right, trying to get better at every day. I just feel like we become a more open, more inviting culture and group of folks here. So I see it day in, day out. And I think it is, I couldn't measure it. But I do think it is making a good impact. That's a human connection. It's wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. My, my previous guest for episode two, Leslie from MRC recruiting. She was talking about this idea of humanizing the job search. And here you are humanizing your workforce, your work, your company. I mean, it's wonderful, wonderful, good for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had this last corporate update. I was just curious, and we went through the exercise, and I just asked her, I said, I'm just curious, because you guys groan and moan every time I do this, but then you're all smiling and the energy totally changes in this room. When we go through it, and I know, you know, I lead the sales team here as well. So I do it on some of our sales calls. And you know, they're like, Oh, here we go again. But I said, I'm just curious, how many of you have told somebody that we do this here at NOVA? And most, you know, a bunch of people raise their hands, right? And I just asked them, I said, Hey, you know, why did you tell somebody? And what did they think? And they're like, I told them, because I think it's kind of cool. And my wife was talking about something similar they did. And I'm like, all right, so you do think it's cool. You just moan and groan here when I do it. So we went through this whole thing, and everyone was like, Oh, yeah, I talked to people about it. And it's one of those things. And we're, we have a lot of, I would say, kind of doers and, you know, engineer type minds, that's very logical thinkers, a lot of introverted folks. So it's just, it's different, right? I'm introverted myself, believe it or not. And yeah, it's, it's easier for us to be quiet than to speak, right? That's just how introverts act in. So it's a challenging exercise to go through. But I think it's making a big difference. And I love it. I love it. So I'm a big fan of Patrick Lencioni, who is an author, you know him? Yeah, very well. Okay. So I think a lot about the five dysfunctions or the five behaviors of a team, or whatever the title is now, I feel like it's changed. Yeah, five dysfunctions of a team. Well, yeah, it was five dysfunctions of a team when I read it prior to go. And now I think you change it to the five behaviors of a cohesive team. So either way, it's the same book. And one of his main themes in there, at least one that I take away is that the, the ability to engage in conflict. And a lot of people don't like the word conflict. So think, I think of it as debate. So the ability to, to engage, engage in debate, have disagreement, not go hard on you as a person, but go mad on the, or go hard on the thing we disagree with. And then after we've kind of flushed it out, a decision is made. And hopefully we've said our piece. And even if it's a decision that I didn't necessarily agree with, I could still get behind it. Now I share that whole story. And you know, Lanchione, well enough to to hopefully remember that bit, I have to believe when people are seen and heard, have a chance to be vulnerable, connect on a human standpoint, or a human connection, is that ability to debate, I have to assume and hope and believe, and I'm going to ask, does it make the opportunity or the possibility of debating with your coworkers a little easier? I hope we're creating that environment here. That's the environment that I would like to see here. And I certainly want that across our employee base. And I think if we are creating an open, vulnerable space, you know, more people bring their ideas to the table. They feel because they feel like they will be heard and can be heard and can bring it without being totally shut down. And you know, we have some very talented people here. I mean, I would put our team up against anybody in the industry. And if we have very talented people that are not comfortable sharing their ideas, then we're half as capable as we could be. So creating that environment where people do get to debate, do get to challenge each other's ideas in a healthy way, right? It's it's it doesn't have to be personal. It doesn't have to be you don't have to be so anchored to your idea that your feelings get hurt. And it's it's tough, right? It's a learning process for everybody. And honestly, being able to be wrong is I think a good way to go about a debate, especially a debate that's, you know, you're trying to come up with a solution or create something better or be innovated is, you know, go into it saying, hey, I'm open to somebody else having a better idea than I have. And I think that's a good starting point for conflict is we can go into that with a little bit of an open mind. And and hopefully think, all right, two, three, four heads are better than just one. As you're talking, I was reminded of us saying that I wanted to mention a moment ago and eluded me. It is go hard on the topic, soft on the person. Yeah, that's that's a great I've never heard that, but I like that. I'm going to I'm going to shoplift that one for me. I love it. I love it. Go hard on the topic, soft on the person. I love that. I can't take credit for it, but but please borrow it by all means. All right, so I'm curious to know our hope is that some of our listeners or other founders CEO's presidents. Our audience is hopefully also other Denver or Coloradoites. Maybe talk about some of the challenges that you're currently faced either as the CEO or what your business is facing. I'm just curious what a maybe two or three of those challenges are. Sure, it's been gosh, probably maybe 12 to 18 months manufacturing. And I would say really anybody that's selling capital equipment has been tough. And even manufacturing across the US has been if you look at the ISM PMI, the purchasing manager's index, like manufacturing in the US has been a contraction for 12 to 18 months closer to probably 18 months now. And I think that certainly shows in our business. You know, thankfully we've had a pretty pretty robust backlog. But at some point here, things need to pick up right for us to continue the growth that we want. So that's been a challenge for sure is managing. I would say the macroeconomic trends we're seeing across our industry, manufacturing as a whole, and even even here in Colorado. So that's a challenge for sure. I think we get through probably another three, four months. Looks like the Fed might soften up on rates here that will help the, you know, the capital equipment manufacturers out there like us. Maybe we get some favorable tax law as well, depending on what happens on this election. And the forecast that are out there from some of the economists and manufacturing is towards the end of this year, we're going to start to pick up in 2025. We're going to have really solid growth. So we'll see here, see how that pans out. So that's a challenge we're dealing with day in day out right now is just managing the sales cycle, new bookings, and it's tough right now. So trying to keep the sales team spirits up and keep them moving in the right direction, because it's a tough job when it's not when people aren't buying, you know, sales is the, it's the easiest, hardest job in the world. You know, you make your own schedule, you have accountability for yourself, but when it's not going right, it's not going, well, it's tough as, tough as it gets. The, you know, a challenge for myself is really just keeping, keeping myself fresh and keeping myself, you know, charged and getting recharged. And, you know, I kind of break it down to four aspects of my health that's clearly, you know, the physical side of things, the mental side of things, the emotional, and, or the heart, if you will, and the spiritual side of things. And, you know, really trying to make sure I'm keeping up with those four aspects of myself. And there's a variety of things I do to do that. And I like to work, I like to get focused, so I can easily get off track and not take care of myself and then look at myself and go, holy cow, it's been a month. And I've been so focused on this, I haven't been taking care of myself. And my energies, my energy levels are a little low. Maybe I'm irritable on things that I shouldn't be and going, all right, I got to get back on track here. So that's a, that's an ongoing challenge for, for me that I'm constantly trying to get better at. Yeah. So I'm curious, what are, what are the things you do for the self care? Yeah, the, the, the physical side, the body side, I like the exercise. I love being here in Colorado. I mean, the, the mountains, the, the landscape that we get to play in here is just beautiful. So anything outside I love to do, you name it from mountain biking, skiing, hiking, climbing, fishing, hunting, paddle boarding, I don't know what everything, anything they're trail running, hiking, whatever it might be, camping, backpacking. I love all the stuff that Colorado offers. So really enjoy that. So I try to do that on kind of the mental side, but also physical. I, I do a fair amount of yoga. And so you get a little bit of the mental aspect, a little bit of meditative, kind of physical, physical work in there. So that's helpful. I like to read fiction from time to time to just disconnect and give my brain a break. So that's kind of that intellectual health piece of going, okay, the mind likes to always be busy working on problems, solving things. We're worried about what's going to happen the next day, the day after, but if I can pick up some type of action adventure novel and get lost in that for, you know, for a flight or wherever I'm going, traveling, that's really helpful to just kind of let my mind get a little reprieve from the day to day grind. And then the, the spirit side of it, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a super religious person, but I believe in, you know, universal power. We're all connected. There is something greater than, than ourselves out there, and that is driving this and pulling this all together and keeping this all going in the right spot in the right direction, shall I say. And yeah, just being grateful for the bigger things that are out there and the unknowns. And, you know, however, all this magic came here and just being grateful for the opportunity that I have really gotten into listening to books lately. And I say late, like the last few years, for the first time in probably five years, I picked up a book and read it is called cloud cuckoo land. Have you heard of this book? No, it was actually really good. I liked it. Yeah, the author also wrote, um, uh, it was called like, uh, all the things I cannot see or something like that. It was made into a movie. Um, I wish I could tell you more. It was, it was like a world war one or two movie and it was about like a pirate radio guy and, I don't know, it was a good movie, but I heard the book was good too. Well, interesting. No, I haven't heard about it. Sounds interesting. I'll send you the title. Um, we were talking just before that, uh, we're both mountain bikers and, um, uh, so I just want to say that. I love mountain biking. I bought a new bike this year. I got a pivot switch blade. What are you around? Nice bike. Yeah. Yeah, nice bike. I ride. I have a couple different bikes. Um, I ride a specialized stump jumper is kind of the bigger bike that's, you know, a little bit more fun down than, uh, than going up. And then I also have a, um, a, um, specialized, um, what's their, uh, what's their cross-country bike, um, I'm drawing a blank on the brand, how the name of it, the model. I'm going to draw a blank too. No idea. Yeah. FSR. It's, uh, no, it's not the FSR. It's a little, it's even a tighter, more racy suspension than the F, our geometry than the FSR. Um, uh, it'll come to me in a second. I'm drawing a blank on it. Yeah. So those are the two bikes that I ride. Yeah, there was actually, um, a race at, uh, what is that called Bear Creek Lake Park? Yep. So they had a little race series going this summer. So I got it in the last two races there, um, one in, one in June and one in July. Nice. So that was a wake-up call. I haven't, I used to race and, uh, man, I tell you what, I, um, I thought my heart was going to blow out of my chest. Um, I was like, wow, I need to get a little better shape for this. So that was fun. Man, I am not a racer. I did, um, the firecracker 50 in Breckeridge and I didn't ride the whole 50. I did a relay and I was super proud of myself. I was conditioned at Roadwell and I was still like 108th out of 130 riders. And, uh, like that, that standing is not very impressive by any means. But I was happy with myself. I thought it rode pretty well. Yeah. Heck yeah. I mean, sometimes just finishing those things and just doing it is, is a huge accomplishment. Absolutely. They're tough races at altitude with the elevation. Yeah. I heard that's a pretty neat race. It's cool. Yeah. I, um, I did a ski bum year in Breckeridge. And so I always feel like a, you know, connection to that town. I got a lot of friends there. And, uh, so much so that one of my buddies, Tony, has been in trail building for like 20 years in Brecker, something like that. So a lot of the trails that we ride, he's had a literal hand in building. Well, that's, um, that's amazing. I always think about you, you know, the people that put in the work to build these trails and just thankful that the awesome work that they do that we get to enjoy. Um, yeah, I should probably figure out how to give back a little bit there. Uh, yeah. When I was in Austin, there was a, there was a group that you could volunteer with and go out and do some trail work. Um, I've been, I haven't come across that yet here in Denver and Colorado, but I'm sure it's out there. It is. It is. I was supposed to, it's, it's Comba. So Colorado Mountain Bike Association. And, um, you know, I get these hot hairs sometimes where, you know, the greatest idea, I'm going to do all this stuff. And the last one or one from last year was to get involved with Comba. And, uh, of course I didn't. Uh, another great idea that went to the wayside. Yeah. I just said it. Um, and I obviously I'll see if I action that here in the next 12 months myself. But at least I do acknowledge that. I mean, they do awesome work. It's, we have some great trails here in Colorado. We're lucky to have that. We do indeed. All right. So as we conclude here, mission, vision, I can't say those two words together. Mission, vision and values was a big part of what you established when you came in. You live it, breathe it day to day, month to month. Uh, the, the mental wellness or the mental well being that you've established and taking care of yourself. Those are the big four things that I heard from how you're thriving and growing yourself and growing your business. Yeah. I think that's a good summary, Darren. All right. Any, any parting thoughts, any words of wisdom you want to impart before we say goodbye? I would say the one thing that I would share that has been interesting for our business is we, um, you know, we come across challenging applications all the time and you sometimes you get them right the first time. Sometimes it takes two or three times to get them right. And, and I'm in a few different business groups and the word failure comes up from time to time. And I think what I'd like to part with is that like life is a culmination of failures that turn into successes to me. Um, it's, you know, failure doesn't have to be a scary word and it can be a good thing, right? Fail fast, learn quickly, and let's not make those same failures or mistakes again. And that would be my party word is that's something else we've tried to ingrain here and get everybody on board is that it's okay to make mistakes, let it be part of our culture, let's learn from them, let's grow from them quickly. And, um, you know, we don't have to be afraid of or get bogged down and trying to make things perfect the first time. Let's just get them moving and, um, and move the company along at a faster pace than trying to make it perfect and being so afraid of failure and making mistakes. So those are my party thoughts. Thank you for asking a lot. Well, it's like prototyping, isn't it? Isn't that kind of like one of the essentials of prototyping? Yeah, absolutely. And we do, you know, being in and packaging automation, factor automation, there's, there's a lot of prototyping, you know, I'd say 80% of our business is standard. Sometimes, you know, maybe 90%, but that 10, 20% is we go, okay, hey, we've done this a hundred times, but your factory is a little bit different. And this customer is a little bit different. And we got to tweak this and this. This is being done for the first time for us. So it's a little bit of prototyping. Um, you know, and you try to manage that risk. So, you know, war is the company not at a ton of risk and the customer is not at a ton of risk. Great parting thoughts. I appreciate it. All right, Mr. Paul Wegman, CEO of Nova Automation. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Darren. Great to catch up. Talk to you soon same here take care
