Welcome to the top floor, the podcast where Charlotte Area CEOs get to tell their leadership journey. My name is Jeff Cass. I'm an executive coach here in Charlotte, and I'll be your host today. I'd like to welcome Jorn Olfer from Wiesman Clean Cold Solutions. Jorn, welcome to the show. Thank you very much, and thank you for trying to pronounce my name. I'll do my best. I know it wasn't proper from Norway, but it probably was good enough for the U.S. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, when you're in Norwegian, we have three layers you guys don't have, right? And I have them all. So it's not a very U.S. friendly name. Yeah, okay. Well, how did I do? How would you rate it for the U.S.? I would say it did okay. It's basically where people tell what they say. They get basically panic in their eyes when I say my name, and then I say just say Jorn, and they say thank you. Well, there you go. I'll just refer to you as Jorn then. Okay. So welcome to the show. And let's just start maybe with a little bit about yourself. Tell us how you came to Wiesman and how you got to the position of president here in North America. Yeah, I'm a 54-year-old or 54-year-young. I tried to say that it's very important when you get to be older than 50. 56 for me, by the way. Okay, well, 56-year-old young. Yeah, so we are. So I'm Norwegian. I moved here to Charlotte three years ago. And from Oslo, or basically that's another story I'll tell you where I actually moved from. But I moved with my family, my wife and my two kids. We don't have any common kids. My kids were here for the first year and a little bit more. Then they moved back to their mother in Norway at any college and doing, ending high school and hopefully, at least my youngest one, wanted to come back because he plays in America. And yeah, so we live here in Charlotte and really enjoy it. I am educated as a master of science degree from the University of Norway. And then I did an MBA and did the normal thing. And so I started, but I never really worked as an engineer. I've been in sales management and management my whole career. And I think I managed a couple of projects early on in my career and they probably decided that that was not my strength. So very fast came into sales and sales management. I've been with vismans since 2017. Now I had a year off where I sailed, actually. So I sailed from Norway to the to the US, believe it or not, or wow, yeah, with my family. So we on my own sailboat. How big was the sailboat? It's 46 feet. So it's a no sun odyssey. We had it for years. So I was in vismans in Norway managing Northwest Europe. I was having all the sales and service entities in the Northwest Europe. It was rare then. Yeah, we always had dreamed to actually circumnavigate, but at least to sail along, we've been sailors most of our lives. And yeah, we inherited some money and we decided we wanted to do that now before we got too old. I actually quit my job. I didn't get a year off or something. I quit my job and we basically sold our house and started sailing. And we didn't plan for the pandemic to put it like that. Okay, so how long did it take you? Like what were the months that you were on the sea? Yeah, so we sailed down from Norway and we started in July or end of June 2020. It looks like the pandemic was going to go over like it was like used to port term thing. And everything opened up and we started down sailing down Europe through the English channel. And basically every time we left the country, it closed down again. We kind of saw COVID flaring up. And but we're still happy sailing down. It was actually better to be on the boat than anywhere else in COVID because it do something. Everybody else was inside. We sailed to the Canary Islands down to Cape Verde. And then the longest stretch was the crossing to Caribbean. It was a two-week stretch without seeing. It's just a normal kind of timeline to do that. And we came to the Caribbean and of course that was really nice. But Caribbean, especially in the north, was basically closed down. It couldn't go anywhere. So we had to choose our islands with care. Then my old boss called me and he said, "Hey, I know you're stuck over there." And we made a plan how to enter the North American market in I would say 2016. We had like a draft plan. And he said, "Well, you're on the other side of the ocean already. Why don't you stay there?" And it's of course a simplification. But after some discussions, I agreed to take a one-year assignment to look out, make a strategy how to build our business up in North America. Of course, driven by the change in legislation for refrigeration here and use of refrigerants, which we have done in Europe. We started more than 12 years ago, which is now coming really fast here in the US. And we decided yes. And they told me to move to Boston or to Rhode Island. And then I said, "Yes, I'm okay. Rhode Island is great for sailors, so why not?" But then they came back and said, "Hey, you can basically decide anywhere. As long as it's a business friendly state, tax-wise and then easy to establish, it needs to be close to an international airport, preferably with a direct bite to Frankfurt, which we're ready at quarters at that time." So we ended up in Charlotte. Wow. Well, you couldn't sell your boat to Charlotte. And I got all kinds of questions about this trip, because I got to imagine that there are lots of stories about this. I don't know how many months was it? You started in June, but when did you get here? Yeah, so we spent a year on the boat. And it's one of the best years of my life. I certainly enjoyed that. It also made me realize that I was not done. I really enjoyed doing it, but I was motivated to work. I was to be in this retired state was not something I wanted to continue. I want to eventually go back there, but I wasn't done. I wanted to do something. I need something more than only turning around, just nice. So it was really, I charged my batteries. I got new energy after some exhausting years. We did a big turnaround in Europe. It was challenging and COVID hits and the market was extremely challenging. So it was, for me personally, a good year off to spend on the boat with my family and my dear ones and tackling totally different kinds of challenges. There's a lot of challenges when you live on a sailboat. And you're capting it yourself, but it also made me realize that I want to go back to work. I want to do something. Okay, so you have new found motivation and there's plenty of stories I want to catch up on on the boat, but let's stick with the work stuff for now. How's that? So where did you park your boat? Well, first of all, let me say this. How did you start, how did you stay in contact? You must have had a phone, but you also must have had some internet connection that you were keeping touch with the world. Yeah, I mean, on a boat, what you do is when you're out on sea, outside Wi-Fi and phone connections, you have a sat phone. And you get, you basically download weather forecast four times a day and you can send emails without any pictures, just text, and letting people know you're okay and people can mail you back with text. Okay. And of course, you can call them, but on a sat phone, that's very expensive. So you try not to call too much. And of course, now Elon Musk, I love that because you get disconnected. And you feel so alone and you feel empowered because and they feel very small, but also empowered, you're in charge of your destiny. Right. Right. Even Musk has told to destroy this with Starlink. Now you can stream movies and watch football everywhere, even up on the open sea. Oh boy. It is a good thing. But I kind of, I crossed the Atlantic twice on the sailboat in my career and once on a Navy boat, or twice when I was in Navy. And I, that total isolation is part of what made it magical for me. Okay. Okay. But when you put an island, you connected. So you come to any play is you get a, you connect to, so first of all, there's restaurants everywhere, then you try to get some password and you anchor outside and you connect to the Wi-Fi. Okay. And then you buy, you know, buy SIM cards with data. So you can connect. Okay. Okay. So you've had that figured out then, all right, that worked. You were able to stay connected. And I assume that you had solar power so you could recharge the batteries and things like that, right? Yeah. A lot of solar power that's clear. And of course, you need to run the engine or the gen set to get more power once in a while. But yeah, we were basically solar powered. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Wow. What a story. So it was meant to be, you were coming to the US and the job kind of appeared, right? I mean, at a time when you were recharged. So, so talk about maybe how, you know, you must have created the North American business a little bit. Is that right? I mean, or were you just kind of morphing it? No, I mean, we didn't really have any presence here. The older division, the climate solution, the heating side was already here, been here for 30 years. And it was a well-functioning organization didn't have any production, in fact, footprint here at all. It was only sell. Everything produced in Europe came over here sell, which is very big limitation. So our strategy, first, we worked in my European team to make a strategy, used a little, you know, consultancy and we made a strategy and we were clear. We want our first, we are looking for acquisitions in the space where we want to go into the more profitable part of the segment. It is the more industrial, light industrial pharmaceutical side and food service. We didn't go into food retail. Okay. At that point, now everything's changed again. So, you know, every role is evolving. The reason why we went here is the AMAC. That's basically, it was, you know, December 2020 was confirmed by the Congress. That pays us out environmental hostile HFCs until 2035 and it started now. And we did this in Europe, as I said earlier. So this is kind of where, you know, using natural refrigerant, environmental friendly refrigerants for all applications is refrigerant, refrigeration, heat pumps, air con, everything's changing now. In the beginning, the U.S. industry kind of struck the show and said, yeah, it's not going to happen. It's going to go away. I realized it's going to happen. And the main reason is happening, and this is very encouraging in the U.S. because the big end users, who's the biggest one that used refrigeration? It's the Walmart, the Cosco, the Kroger's. We were an atmosphere in 2021, atmosphere U.S. and they stood up. EPA was there and they asked, what do we need to do to make you go to these solutions? And they stood up, the technical manager said, just draw a line in the sand, say we can't do it because we are tired of changing our refrigeration systems every five years, refrigerants because you make a small rule, a small change. Draw a line in the sand and keep to it, stick to it because we want to go there. CO2 environmental friendly refrigerant, it's more energy efficient what we currently have. You know, if you need to get developed a supply chain, the competence and everything, and there's propane is for an environmental friendly refrigerant, we know have to use ammonia, but it's too big. So that's also in the development. So what happened in the U.S. was that the end users, the big users of the environmental hostile refrigerants stood up and said, what's the end game? Where can we go that investing that doesn't require us to reinvest in five years? And that's driving this. I went to one of our partners. When I went there, when I came here in 2021, 5% of the revenue was from making natural refrigerant equipment. Compressor packs based on using CO2 or ammonia or propane. I was there half a year ago, now it's 55%. And in the U.S., this is driven by the customers saying, hey, we're tired. So it's not driven by government incentives. In Europe, it's all the government incentives. Yeah, that's interesting. I did not know that because I was involved somewhat. I worked for a company called Airgas and we did sell refrigerants for a period of time. And there was a slow phase out of different refrigerants. New ones were coming in and the old ones were going up in price. I didn't know about this because we get out of that business probably four or five years ago, something like that. Yeah. And now this is booming. And of course, what they do is put a limit on GVP, which is global warming potential. And so there are a transition phase where there will be low GVP, less environmental hostile SHFCs there. But it's all drifting towards natural refrigerants, technology involves. Okay. Okay. That's the reason why we came here. That's we said, hey, we want to be part of this. It's the girl's biggest market. This is going to happen. And now it's happening in a very, it's in a way which I prefer towards the, because it's driven by the end customers. It's not driven by government incentives. There are incentives and there's state incentives. But it's really the end users saying we're tired or reinvesting all the time. Okay. So you're coming into the U.S. at a time when you have a customer or potential customer base that's very motivated, right? And they're the ones driving this. You're going to sell them the equipment to help them through this. I take it, right? So talk about how that went then. I mean, you know, from the time that decision was made until maybe today. Well, you know, everything has a slow start. And of course, everything changes in our company. So I came here, we had this all this really nice, you know, two megabits, PowerPoint strategy, laying out your new executive what to do. I found my advisors, we started mapping the market for acquisition targets. We made a decision. We don't think there is any chance we can be successful by manufacturing things in Europe and sending them here. Okay. To look at the heating division and say, hey, it's nice. You know, 65 million dollars revenue is nice. But after 30 years, it's not that special. Right. Right. Yeah. It's a drop in the bucket. Yeah. Okay. So you so you were developing a team, you developed a sales team. And now you decided you're going to manufacture here as well. Is that right? Yeah. So I basically I looked for I was the only guy on the ground. So I looked for companies to acquire. So the first acquisition we did was BMIL technologies in in in Morehead, North Carolina. And they're a system integrator. We did that. It's a small company. We're going to have like 50 million dollars in revenue this year, which is a growth when we acquired them. They did eight. So we have almost double hit. It's very small company, but we wanted to learn about the market. We want to learn about the players. And we looked at, okay, this is how it works. This is our work that we did our second acquisition was manufacturing footprint in Canada, which is Tony Creek, just outside Toronto, which makes panels and walk-ins. And of course, now we did our third acquisition. This is KPAs Global, which is the biggest walk-in culture manufacturer in the US, which is now in for anti-legisla anti-trust consideration. So we will close probably hopefully end of this month or some, at least before November 1st. Okay. Okay. So so we decided to to transfer know-how, but manufacture locally. And we think that's the success factor for us. Okay. And by acquiring, instead of trying to start Greenfield, you gained a lot of probably relationships, you know, knowledge of the markets, existing products or services, I guess. I mean, was that the decision, you know, to do it that way? I mean, also looked at some of our European competitors that did full Greenfield. One of them has been here, I don't want to mention by name, but they've been here for almost 20 years now. And they're doing peanuts because came in totally Greenfield, didn't get the way to market the sales organization, didn't have the relationship base, didn't know the market needs or who was, you know, where to do, get the right influence. So we don't want to, so we probably could have made the same mistakes if we didn't look at what other people made mistakes. You need to learn from other people's mistakes. So so far, I would say we've been quite successful in this. And I truly believe sales business is done a bit different in the US than it is in Europe. It's much more relationship based here, a long term customer relations, especially in those more mature industries that we are in. And it's not something you easily can turn over by just being a slightly cheaper. Right, right. You need to build up trust, you need to build up the relationship. And it's much easier to do that by making an acquisition, because you get the whole cake and work from inside out, like rather than just coming in with the bulldozer saying, I want to do this. Right, relationship. Yeah, the relationship has already been developed in a lot of cases, right? There is goodwill that you're getting into, you're buying into that is real and material, I would say, in the business. Yeah. And it also strikes me, because in Europe, everything is so big in the US and the market is so big, you just just go in and get like a $10 million business. That takes nothing. And it takes a lot of effort. And you go to any conference in the refrigeration industry, for example, by now, is that, yeah, it's the biggest market in the world. But you meet the same people every time. It's not that many. Let's say it's 250 people are the big decision makers in our markets. Yeah, believe it. Yeah. So it's quite consolidated. And you need to, you can't expect like you're appealing to just walk into this market and think everyone's going to listen to you. It won't. Yeah, right. We wouldn't listen to anybody just walking into our market in Europe either. You need to adapt to the local and to how business is done. And you know, at least that's our thinking. And we believe that it's so far, it's we have proof of it. Yeah, I had someone on who was from India and actually has an office and is headquartered here in Charlotte. And he was saying something very similar because, you know, he was from India, didn't know the culture, but came here. And his biggest advice was get to know the culture, you know, be part of it, right? If you're into sports, make sure you're into sports that are local to this market, right? You can't talk about soccer if it's not really local here in Charlotte. But it's no different for, you know, every part of business, frankly. So that's, I think that's smart. Yeah, I think so. And I think that guys right on it. So yeah, and I think I know we each fit very nicely into the US. So we're a small country, positively perceived by most people. And even the prior president liked like Norway. So that's all. And, you know, it's a good thing to be in a region in the US right now because everybody watched Vikings on Netflix and talk about, hey, it's a full Netflix series. They were the only fight being to become the king of Norway. And we have Victor Haulan in golf and Casper root and tennis. And of course, in skiing, we're really good. Yeah, it's, I think I fit quite well in here. So, okay, well, that's good to hear. Well, talk about you personally over the last four years or so, you know, how you said you were motivated to get back to work. I mean, are you still feeling that? Are you enjoying kind of this change back to business that you're made? Yeah, I did. Of course, there's frustrations in every day when you do so. But yeah, I really I'm really motivated. I think doing business here in the US is fun. It's more fun than I expected because you can, you make decisions fast. You don't, you take a good discussion. You make decisions. Sometimes you fail, then you just change the decision back and do something else. BMIL is required. It's an amazing company and I love working with them. Toronto also, I mean, that's Canadians. Canadians is more European and I think they would benefit from adapting more from the US business attitude to be quite honest. So, I see both worlds in my current state. So, but yeah, I'm still very motivated. Some, and I see how the market moves here, you know, it's more rapid. It's more, you know, if you need something developed, you look at it, you have meetings, you engineer the solutions and we get it going and we go to a partner and we get it produced. You know, I can tell you in Germany, we need 15 meetings just to agree on what we want to do. We'll have that here. So, I think it's, it's really nice to be here learning about the total different attitude to business. Yeah, you know, it's interesting as I look back on my courage, Jordan, I, I work for a Swedish company for many years, a company called Agra Gas. Maybe you recognize that name. I mean, then you need consensus about everything in a Swedish company. Well, yeah, we were, I was in the US, but I did get a chance to kind of work with different subsidiaries around the world. So, that was interesting and eye opening. You know, we didn't have the four to six week vacation in the summer. That was probably a thing that stood out most of folks, right? I mean, that's, you know, that's kind of a European thing, Scandinavian thing. But then we required, I work for a company that was acquired by a French company and the culture is just so different in different places, right? I mean, because, you know, the, the values, the philosophy on how to run a business, I mean, it's just so, so different. And, you know, I was used to an American company and it was so apparent to me. You know, you, you mentioned a few things. Move quickly, right? You know, quick to act, change the markets. You know, let's not spend too much time, you know, doing some things, but let's have some fun along the way. And more importantly, we're all focused on results. And maybe, you know, maybe that's part of the work ethic we have. I mean, because it is strong here in the US. We have many workaholics. You know, I think that's part of the culture a little bit too. I don't know if you've, you've come across that. Oh, definitely. And sometimes, maybe too much even. That's probably something US could learn a bit from Europe that, you know, this doesn't really hurt if you can take some time off. You know, there's, I say there's only one place in the world that's filled up with irreplaceable people. And that's the graveyard. So you don't want to be there. You know, you can always be replaced. You can always find something to help you out. I think that's one of maybe one of the things that, you know, being able to take more PTO and really let people have PTO rather than expect them to be on the mail every time. I think that's maybe one of the things that we could learn here in the US from Europe. Okay, did you bring that to your business and your team here? I try. I try to encourage the only, you know, especially people, I feel I find people extremely dedicated to the work. And, you know, I tried to say, I can, you know, try basically, you know, I don't expect you to answer this mail. When I write to a man, I know we're on PTO, don't answer this mail. I'm just getting it off my place. So it's there when you get back, right? Yes. Yes. But yeah, I don't think I'm a alcoholic, but I'm always reading my mail and I feel to stay on top of things. I so, but yeah, the work ethic is different. But you can say European is the same. I find being an international manager in Europe for many years, I find every European country to be different as well. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Yeah. In the US, people say Europeans, but I can tell you Europeans are not Europeans. Germany, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, it's very different. And so it's really a big both work ethics, time management, leadership styles are very different in all these countries. I got a chance to talk a little bit with someone I was working close with who came here from Belarus and his company is he's trying to break into the US market, but most of his, it's a technology company. Most of his workers are in Poland. And you know, the leadership style required for those workers, as he was explaining to me is totally different than something I was ever, I had ever experienced. So I guess that's interesting. I mean, so for you, you had exposure to many different markets and businesses around the world. That's, that's fun. Yeah. And you see those different leadership styles and essentially like Eastern European leadership style, it does not work in the US. Yeah, I believe that means I've only told me. You need to, you need to take you say, hey, okay, this is how, you know, you know, Eastern European leadership style is because it's, it's a tradition, it's embedded, it's like it's a top down people that are manageable in Eastern Europe tells you what to do. They expect people to do exactly what they do tell them to. Right, right. That's what he explained to me. Yeah. And it's so different than here, right? We tend to give a little bit more autonomy to folks and allow them a little bit of a leeway to do something maybe the way they would do it. Yes. So it's a, it's a very different culture, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. But you, but you say you've had fun though with this market because it moves a little quicker. Is that the main reason why or are there other reasons as well? Well, there are main reasons because, you know, people business are people and people are business. So I mean, I meet so many people here, you know, especially, it started to be my L. I learned more about my industry working with be my L for two years than I've done for five years in Europe, to be honest. It's because competence that's there. So that's, that's really good. It's the people that are there. I meet people. So in the US, in Europe, we all go in gray suits and blue shirts, we like here. In the US, you go and meet and you expect to find, you know, you're going to meet a consultant that's really a very important consultant for a big end user. And he shows up in an advice shirt and dirty jeans and you're like, that wouldn't happen in Europe. It happens here. It's a culture thing people. Yeah. So, so of course I had to adapt. You know, I take off my suit. I haven't worn a suit since I came here. That's a formal thing. And you know, a rare shirt when I have meetings with people in Europe, because I need to look at least on the top that I, they don't see that are very short below. Right. So it's, I also think this is fun. It's, it's much more, you know, people are grounded in a way that's, you know, not necessarily in the, especially in Europe, you're a central Europe, Germany, French, France, those more bigger economies with much family owned companies. They're very formal. In formality here. I think it was a difficult way to say I like the informality the more. Yeah, and I think that's changed too over time, Yarn. I would say that in my, even in my career, I wore a tie all the time in the beginning and I would think in the last maybe five or 10 years, there's been a real change towards more casual, casual workplace, you know, started on casual Friday, you know, it's become more casual all over the place. And then you have the virtual aspect that you mentioned. And that's, you know, that's a whole new dimension, you know, to kind of work in the US now. Yeah, I agree. And sometimes maybe it's a bit too much. I don't know. But yeah, I, but you know, it's different. I think I enjoy the difference. Still, still like to, and I travel back and forth, right? I attend European meetings, business meetings, I attend meetings here. So yeah, and of course, the economy here in the US is so much better than the markets and the economy in Europe. You know, being, I don't have a horse in the race in the election here for because I'm a foreigner. But looking at all of the discussion about the economy, I think people need to realize that the economy here in the US is the best in the world. Oh, right. It's not bad. You can always make it better. You can always make, say, they made mistakes in that. But the inflation, you're not even top 20. Yeah, right. But compared to what we were, that's what everybody's thinking, right? I mean, it's like, Oh my gosh, and even, you know, compared to 30 years ago, it was horrible then at that time or 40 years ago, I guess probably would have been the time. Yeah. So but it's a global economy, right? You know, politicians in any country will try to say that our actions did all these wonderful things and their actions destroyed. It's it's it's it's a global. That's how politicians work regardless where you are. However, you know, the economy is a global thing. You know, there's very local changes and politicians and everything that act responsibly can influence it. But you know, if Europe has an average inflation of 15 to 20%, it's going to transmit over here because we are all linked. Yeah, much more than we were in the past. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. And that's normally a good thing to be linked. Protectionism has never proved to be a good thing. No, no, but that's now in politics. We shouldn't talk about that. Well, you're let me switch gears here a little bit. Let's let's talk maybe a little bit about for you personally and for the business. What are your aspirations over the next five years? Well, for the next five years, for the business, I would like to, you know, first of all, grow the industrial side of it. When we just acquired the market leader in in the food retail walk in segment. I can't really talk with them or talk much about it yet, but I mean, that needs to prosper and we need to look into how we can grow that. But I would really like to see the growth and the success we have in the in the industrial side that we just started to scratch on surface on. And I mean, we're double the revenue in two years in just basically doing East Coast based projects. I mean, there's a huge market and the other side of the coast that they haven't dipped our toes into yet. And that's where we are working right now, how to scale this, organically and inorganic. That's really my biggest ambition right now is to scale this because it's has still a nice profitability. It has customers that value, value the offerings. We are important for their customers, for their process, and they have needs that but you can't just put like products off the shelf and say this is what you need. You need to do some engineering that needs to be some value add to it. So in a five year scope, that's really what I would like to see. I would like to grow this into a business of, you know, at least I would like to be 100 million million sites of this when we get there in five years. Hopefully before I really have ambitions to do it earlier. My personal side, I'm well, I'm waiting for my green card to be approved. That's a long process. I thought it's going to be quite easy, but it's an average processing time of 30 months here in North Carolina. So that's a long process. Okay. Okay. Well, that's good. And yeah, I like it in Charlotte. We really enjoyed living here. So we probably would like to stay here. It's very efficient traveling here. There's direct flights to anywhere. Climate is usually quite a bit more raining this year than last year, but climate is nice. It is. Yeah, we don't get a lot of snow. It's not real cold. Not a lot of snow skiing around here, that's for sure. Well, but I'm, you know, everybody asked me, don't you miss skiing? Well, I do, but I like to travel to snow. I don't like to be shoveling snow. Yes. Yes. You can fly to, you know, Utah or Colorado or, you know, get world class skiing there, right? Yeah, you can just, you know, go in and you can drive two hours and go to Boone and you can go skiing. You could. Yeah. I don't know. What is skiing like there? I can't imagine it's, you know, come here. I haven't done it yet, but they have snow. They have snow. Okay. There's snow. Well, how about sailing? I mean, you've got a couple of decent lakes here. It's probably not known for sailing, but boating, maybe a little. Have you done boating? I've been with a couple of, I play, I still play hockey. You, so I have some hockey fans that has boats there. So I've been to them on the lakes. It's really nice. There is people, there's even sailboats, small sailboats up in in not wily, but the other lake for Norman. Yeah. Yeah. There's sailboats there, not big, but yeah, I, you know, sailing on the lake is not my favorite, but I like to be on the lake. Yeah. We're, we have friends with sailboats that has sailboats in Charleston, so we can go sailing with them. So yeah. But yeah, I miss, the only thing I miss in Charlotte is the sea. I really miss that. Yeah. And that's also show a difference in European attitude to what you, because people say, but you're so close to the sea, you can just drive there. And it's like, yeah, it's a three, four hour drive. For me, that's not close. I used to live 15 minutes from my boat. Ah, there you go. So you could be out there all the time and just watching the waves, which is, at least for me, it's therapeutic. I'm sure it's more so for you. It sounds like you've grown up with that. Yeah. Yeah, for me, it's like being close to the war has always been something that's important. So that's the one thing I miss. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, good. Good luck with that. We're the next five years. So you've talked a little bit about the changing markets. And you've talked about your acquisitions, but maybe talk about some of the biggest challenges you have in the business today. Yeah, the challenges I have in the business today. First of all, if I go, we have a, this one has changed a lot. So to understand how our new group is going to look like, that's a big challenge. I think we are trying to find ourselves again in the whole new structure. My boss that tired me and rehired me. He left. And he, I mean, I worked with him for many years. I do miss him and the discussions I could have with him. I have a new, you boss that came in. He's there on the interim basis. He's a great guy. Of course, we haven't developed that kind of relationship yet, but hopefully we will. But then of course, he's also on the other side of the ocean. So you don't speak everything. Yeah, right. And we are doing well here in the US. So we are not his top priority, which is, which I guess is good. But so that that's maybe my current challenge in the business day. And of course, now I'm working on how scaling up is, how do we scale this, how do we get to the next? That's something I'm really working on. And to find out what's the, what's the next 10 steps we're going to do here in the US to get to my 100 million dollar level, which I talked about. So I think that's my two biggest challenges now, at this point. But yeah, you need challenges. Otherwise, it would be too easy. Yeah, no doubt about it. Yeah. You didn't mention integration of the acquisition. That might be a little too advanced, or too soon to talk about that. But do you view integrating companies into the business as a challenge, or has that gone relatively smoothly for you? So when I say it's gone relatively smoothly, maybe some of my colleagues that listen to that will say, hey, I differ. But yeah, relatives, we haven't integrated much yet. We are, this man always careful about integrating too much, because we, you know, if you focus so much on integration, a lot of the value you acquired can be lost. So we are making sure all the value of the company, brand, people, business practices, we take care of that and make sure how we fit this into our world. So far, it's basically been on the finance side and, you know, an HR side, you know, we just make sure people are well and that we pay everything and corporate governance side. We don't, we haven't really streamlined business processes because we find them to be different. Okay. So it's gone smoothly because we haven't integrated heavily. It's basically been on the reporting side. I say, and that seems to be also the future of our group, because now we are moving from being an industrial player, industrial, big industrial player to be more like a family owned investment company that's going to own, do a lot of acquisitions that we will find synergies. But it looks like most of the acquisition will be on their own and not heavily integrated. I see. Okay. All right. Yeah. So I can see that maybe it isn't quite as hard of a task because in some businesses where you're buying companies that are similar and integrating them into an existing business, that is difficult. That's a, it's a whole different ballgame. And I've done that. And honestly, the biggest challenge is culture. If culture don't fit, it's a nightmare. You can find products fit and all that. But if the culture of the company is totally different from what you try to make it to be, it's a big challenge. So, you know, we have all tried and failed and tried and succeeded. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're probably developing a culture that you'd like here. You know, you mentioned some of the kind of characteristics of it. So if you were advising a new CEO or new executive, you know, that had to build a new team, new high performing team, what would you say to them? Here in the US or here in the US, yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, higher people that are better than you, you know, don't, you know, don't feel threatened if people are, you know, but by hiring really high performance, performing people. I think somebody said if you're in the smartest guy in the room, the room isn't big enough or there's not enough people in the room. I think that that's really a success factor. Try to find people that challenge you. And this is universal, you know, try to find people that are not like you, try to find a team that's not homogeneous, you need to have diversified team in there. Then I, you know, this is where I like a leadership style, which is, I don't like to micromanage. I like to have people, and I think one of the success factors is to allow people to do their thing. APIs, you know, agree on KPIs, agree on measurements, agree on what's the success and what you want to achieve. Of course, there's always the frame on what you do and what you don't do. I don't think everything. But then I like to let people run and run with it and do their thing. If I always tell my people, if I start micromanaging, it's not a good sign, you know, that's really a thing. And I, you know, talk to people. That's always said, I like, I think, management by walking around, management by talking to people and encouraging people and listening is undervalued. You can go to any, go to so many conferences and business schools and learn about the latest things in leadership styles and strategies and everything. And when you've been around for a while, like we have, it boils down to there's good things to learn, always learn, but it's a bit the same, you know, same sheet new wrapping kind of attitude. The core is still there. You need to manage people, talk to people and get them to the performer. And I like to do that. I like to talk with people. I like to listen. And other people's frustrations is bent it out just about listening to them. Understand what makes them tick. So, you know, find teams, find people that are better, you find people that are different than you. And, you know, and that can work independently and let them be themselves. If you hire somebody that strong will and really successful, and you think you can roll that people into being a totally different person, it doesn't work. Right, right. Yeah, at times they have to, you know, want to be on the team if they're not going down the same path, you know, because that'll be their appearance. But you mentioned something interesting now, especially in today's world, because I assume the businesses you're acquiring, I think you said, you know, none of them are in Charlotte. So, when you have to connect with people today, it's a little different connecting, right? You can't just walk down the hall. So how is that going for you? Yeah, it's, I do miss the office a bit, but of course, I travel to those locations quite frequently. So, that's one thing, but I do like this. I mean, the world changed, COVID did a change to the businesses. So I work, so the current headquarters of our businesses, my second floor, and I walk up there and I basically sit in front of my screen the whole day, I talk to people. And so that's 50% of my day are meetings in some way or context. And when I work from here, and then 50% is following up those meetings with actions and resumes and whatever has to be prepared or followed up. Okay, that's how I work right now. We are planning to build or to get in Charlotte office. It's been on the roadmap for quite a long time. And I haven't executed because everything we're every time we're ready to execute something has happened on our mother ship that says, Oh, wait a bit, wait a bit. And then, of course, we're working on an acquisition pipeline that could have changed also where we put things. So, so I'm still here in my second floor. Yeah, it probably hasn't been as big a priority because you can do it very well this way now, because I don't know about you. Before you went on this sailing trip, how was the virtual interaction with people then for you? I mean, the virtual interaction was, I wouldn't say non-existent, but it was basically limited to business reviews and, you know, meetings with management somewhere. And we went from having conference calls to be having Google meets or teams meeting or whatever platform. Then COVID hit and within months, the technology and everything changes. And you realize, Hey, this works as well, somehow. Yeah, right. And it never turned back. So we are still doing it. And I think this is a good thing. However, I do what I miss when I'm here. If I'm here more than more than two weeks, not traveling, I miss people. I'm an extrovert by nature and I love my neighbors. But, you know, in the business that I would like to talk to people I do business with. So, I get to be dressed less sometimes. And then I book a flight and go there. There you go. Yeah. Okay. Then you can pull that need. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. I think that I had a similar experience. I went from conference calls to video calls. And when we transitioned the video calls, there was a time when people didn't have their cameras on, you know, they weren't ready for this kind of situation. But now it's interesting to me as I talk to businesses that are 100% virtual and how they stay connected. And they found a way to do it. They found a way to stay, you know, connected with all their people in a very engaging way. I mean, where it's natural for all of them. So, I think this evolution is interesting. I think it's more efficient in a lot of ways, you know, and provides flexibility that we've never had. And including you, you probably never would have been able to do this, you know, without an office here prior to, you know, prior to today. Yeah. And I just heard, so this is an interesting story. So, when I got before we acquired BMIL, I learned to load the the CEO of a BMIL and owner at that point. And when COVID hits, he's he's a guy who loves to be on the road. He's he's he's a force. I never met the guy that enthusiastic about his work in the refrigeration as much as I Tom has his call. And when COVID hits, he didn't want to fly. And he doesn't really like flying. He preferred driving. So he hired a driver to drive his car. And he made his office in the back seat. So when he was not at the office, he was traveling. Wow. And I, I, before we acquired them, I hit the ride with him from from Washington, because of the wasn't bad weather storm. They drove me from Washington down here to to Charlotte. And I wish this witnessed this. So he has like, the whole office set up in the backseat, you know, laptop, he had little off the desk that he put on his laptop and his lap. And, you know, and of course, there was a couple of stretches where the coverage was slightly bad. So we can do, but so he continued to do that for a long time. And it works. I called it BMIL road force one, it was basically interesting. And I think there's some younger generation folks that are also doing that on a different level where they have, you know, they just have a camper or somewhere else, you know, in a unique place they want to live. And they work from there. And I think this is kind of allowed kind of that kind of different kind of way to approach business, you know, that is, it's interesting. It might keep some of us more interested for a longer period of time as well. I don't know. Yeah. And I mean, now whenever you're traveling, you see people with, you know, AirPods or the headphones on having meetings and discussions all over the airport or wherever you are. And, you know, in the parks, you see people doing business, right? Oh, yeah. When I find very strange here, and this is a US thing, people talk about anything anywhere without regard who's listening. Ah, okay. That's a big change towards Europe. And even they sit having, they don't even use the Air Force if you don't have in watching TV on their hand held or on the phones or having conversations, quite intimate conversation with the family in an airport for everybody listening, I'm like, that's also cultural thing. That would never happen in Europe, I would say. No, okay. Yeah. And I think I don't see that often. I don't look for it. Maybe I'm more like you would be I probably would keep those things in a closed door or somewhere where everybody doesn't listen. But you made me think of something. Have you ever heard of the name John Madden? Yeah, yeah. The football. Yeah. He was a football American football coach and then he was a commentator and he didn't like to fly, but his office was basically it was an RV and he traveled around the US and he was known for stopping into, you know, towns and meeting the people and, you know, experiencing the food and, you know, that's how he got to the games. But he was an early version of, I guess, the road warrior. Yeah. No, yeah, I know it's, it's, it's, I think we just need to realize that the world changed and it's not going to change back. You're going to, you know, we still have offices still, but, you know, salespeople are basically better off if they're good being on the road, being on the being because they don't need to, it had them in the office every day. You never had, but now it's much easier for them to be remote. It's much easier to hire people remotely. Because you send them a laptop and a connection and tell them how you connect securely and they're there. You can dip into pools of competence. You couldn't attract earlier because they were so too far away. Now you can. All right. It is big change. Yeah, it's a good. It's a flexible thing and adapting. I think you made that point earlier. I think we have to adapt in many ways in business, and this is just one of them. Now, let me ask you something. You look at this as a good thing, at least that's what we've talked about so far. Some people see this as a potential problem as well, right, where people give somebody too much autonomy. Talk about that if you went from your perspective. Yeah, I mean, some people exploit it for sure, you know, but you kind of notice. So, yes, it's a bad thing because some people basically expose it. They don't do the work. They appear to be working or they're not where they say they are. So, this is a trusty, trust issue. People can, you know, and I've seen both examples. So, you need to, you know, to have people working remotely doesn't, as a manager, it's more challenging because you need to trust them and you need to make sure it's, you know, you don't know if they're at the office because you can't see. I can always blur my background and put on a picture. It looks like I'm everywhere, anywhere. So, yeah, they're challenges, but we cannot go back first into the future. This has happened. This is, you just need to embrace it and find out how it works because all the opportunities it gives outweighs those negatives, in my opinion. And at the same time, you know, we just need to be, some people cannot do it. And you'll find those, eventually. Yeah, and I think those kind of people, if they were in an office, they probably weren't getting where they weren't as productive as they could have been there either, right? So, I think you're always going to have that mix of people, you've got to manage a little differently. But yeah, I'm with you. I kind of felt like during COVID that our team was very productive and I, there was lots of evidence of it, you know, that they were more productive in some ways and it gave them flexibility. But there were other parts of the company where there wasn't, that wasn't the view. I just thought that was interesting, as we talked about it, you know. So, okay, so we're getting close on our time. So, one more question for you. You've talked a lot about kind of some things with you personally and, you know, changes and reasons why you came back. But talk about maybe what you've learned about yourself since coming back to work, but maybe also, you know, just before you went on this, the sailing trip, okay? Yeah, so, I can tell you, so we had a rough process in Europe before all that for the sailing. It was a turnaround. It's always like this, you agree with something that happens and you disagree with some of the strategy and you think, oh, this is a mistake, we should go somewhere else. So, I probably was at the point where I needed a break. I saw we had done a lot of good and then I saw COVID, all of a sudden hit and I didn't plan for that to come and I'd made a decision, but I always see that reversing a lot of the good we did. So, and, you know, I was very focused, I was dedicated, I probably, I didn't have, you know, I got a new horizon when I did this year off. So, as a leader, I think I developed into a more mature place. I'm, I still talk a lot. I know that's my nature. I'm really thrilled to think I'm a better listener now than I was before. A guy once told me there's a reason he had one mouse in two years. He should listen twice as much as you speak. I think I'm more, I'm more perceptive to people's needs and their stories now than I was. Okay. So, I think I developed into, I guess, more mature. It's one way to put it, but also getting a bigger picture, seeing the more of the bigger picture clear. That's something I as a leader, at least hope I have developed. I really think so. I think I always been a leader. I always people, I think most people like me. I hired people, I had difficult employees and I remained friends with them after I left or changed my position. I think I'm better at making difficult decisions now than I was. I'm a more analytical approach to it. Okay. Okay. And that's maybe also because I have a little more, my role is different. I have a little distance to it. Okay. It's easier to see it in a helicopter perspective rather than if you're too close. Do you think the break, the time off you had, do you think that's what kind of drove some of these changes, these positive or this maturity maybe that you're describing? I think so. You think so? Okay. I think the break was very healthy for me and my motivation. I think I also dare to, I'm a bit more daring in telling them and I think we are doing the wrong thing, also upwards to say I don't agree with this. I never been a yes man. I can think of my boss that I've taken probably saying that I wasn't always the most easy guy when I would disagree, but I think I'm able to communicate that I'm, I think there's another way to do this in a more less emotional way than I maybe was earlier. Okay. Okay. Well, that's good. Yeah. But yeah, I really think the break was good for me. I think a lot of people could benefit for this if they feel they're stuck or if they feel they're, you know, they're not motivated the same way they used to be. Everybody has their own journey and their own experience. Not everybody needs to go sailing for a year, but to take a break and get a new perspective of things, utilize that, hey, I'm not done. I want to do something. I'm motivated again. I think a lot of people could benefit from that. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in the US, you know, it's interesting. I, you know, my daughter works for a company, the US base and she's in England now, but they give a sabbatical after five years, which is like a month long, and then they have to be unplugged. You know, there's not many times, I think in most US people's career where they've been able to take a month off. Now, in Europe, it's a little different, you know, and it's not a year, but it would be helpful, I think, to your point, you would recommend that, right? Yeah, I would. I don't want all my managers coming to me and say, I want a year off, right? I have to listen to this podcast. Yeah, but yeah, I think it's, I think it's beneficial if you feel you're stuck, if you feel the motivation, like, and I would encourage people to, you know, talk to your boss, you know, explain and see this is what I want to do, because then it gets less dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, because, you know, and then maybe it can fit and you can, you can get some help, but maybe it's not a year, maybe it's a month, maybe it's two months, but, you know, maybe there's an opening in somewhere else that could remoteuate you in a different way. I think people are afraid to talk about these things with the bosses, and I think it would be beneficial to be open about it, because, you know, you can always create a win-win situation, in most cases. As long as you're talking about it, right? Yes. Yeah. If you bring it on people, it's more difficult. Yeah. And as a boss, I mean, what would you recommend? Would you say, maybe preempt that and encourage people to talk about it? Is that how you maybe do it? For folks that don't want to bring this up with their boss? Yeah. So what I do is I talk about my journey, my sailing, I talk about it, and I explain why I did it. And, you know, that I, what was my experience that I came back remote-related. That encourages people, in my experience, that they start talking about their own dreams and their own ambitions. That's everything from, you know, planning your retirement in Florida to want to go for a winter being a ski bum in Austria or in Aspen. It's, you know, people have different interests and different things, and sometimes he's motivating just talking about it and saying, you know, and some things you should do before you're too old. Yeah, I agree. Okay. Well, your and I got to tell you, I mean, I said to you before the podcast that I really enjoy talking to interesting people, and you are very interesting, and I'd love to hear more about the voting trip sometime, and I'm sure some of the audience might, so maybe let's just reserve a future date. Maybe we can do another podcast. How's that? That sounds good. Perfect. I'm here. Okay. Well, look, thank you very much for joining. I appreciate it.
