Joining Cart-Away Concrete Systems

I grew up around the concrete industry in California. My father built several successful companies and eventually purchased and became president of Cart-Away Concrete Systems, a construction equipment manufacturing company. Over the last year, we have had a number of conversations about his retirement, the future of the company, family, and my professional journey. As a result of these conversations and after much careful and prayerful consideration, I am pleased to announce that Heidi and I have taken an ownership stake in Cart-Away Concrete Systems. In January, I joined the company as vice president of marketing and sales. In the coming weeks, our family will be relocating to Oregon.

Why This Move - The Longer Story

This year I read "How Will You Measure Your Life?" It was the perfect book to help Heidi and I make this decision. The book helped to crystallize why this was the right move for our family.

In the book, Harvard professor Clayton Christensen surveys research into career transitions. He notes that most focus on certain "hygiene factors" when making a career decision. Those factors are status, compensation, job security, work conditions, company policies, and supervisory practices. While these are important factors - maybe even minimum considerations - they are not the basis on which to make a career decision if you are seeking to maximize professional happiness and fulfillment. Instead, research points to several key questions that ought to be considered in any career move. Here are those questions.

• One - Is this work meaningful to me?
• Two - Is this job going to give me a chance to develop?
• Three - Am I going to learn new things?
• Four - Will I have an opportunity for recognition and achievement?
• Five - Am I going to be given responsibility?

Over the last year, I spent a lot of time thinking honestly about the above questions. Heidi and I discussed them many times. Today, we feel confident that most of the questions, especially the fulfillment ones, receive high scores.

There were three other factors that were especially important in our decision. One, I admire my parents a great deal. I am very excited to be able to spend a few years working with, learning from, and supporting them. Two, as I get older; faith, family, and community continue to increase in importance. Heidi and I have both felt that this new opportunity will provide us with the flexibility and resources to have a greater impact in each of these areas. Three, Heidi and I are both practicing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have a pattern of prayer that is often met with quiet responses from what we believe to be a loving Father in Heaven. As we have taken this matter to God in prayer, we have felt peace and an assurance that this is the right decision for our family at this time.

Why I am Excited About Cart-Away Concrete Systems and Manufacturing Generally

The last 30 years of innovation have been dominated by discovering new ways to create, invent, and work together on the internet. Most of my career has been in this space. As I have considered this career transition, I believe the timing could be very good. While the last 30 years have been about the internet, I think the next 30 years will be about applying those lessons to the tangible world. As amazing as the internet has been, it doesn't compare to the real world of real things. Online sales still only represent less than 17 percent of all retail sales. A full 83% of all stuff sold is not sold online. Digital is thrilling, but when it comes to the overall economy, physical items far surpass digital. We are surrounded by physical goods, most of them, products of a century-old manufacturing economy. While much of the manufacturing economy has been impacted by the digital economy, I believe we are only just beginning to scratch the surface.

While I know I don't see even a fraction of all of the ways digital and internet technologies will impact the tangible world of construction equipment, I am confident the time is right to begin applying the lessons of the digital world. Judging from our most recent digital ad campaign, the future does look very bright.

Who is Cart-Away Concrete Systems?

My first month and a half at Cart-Away has been a whirlwind of learning - jumping headfirst into the marketing and sales processes. We have a stellar team of employees, suppliers, and partners. In the last month, we have launched a new product, run a worldwide ad campaign, demoed our equipment at the World of Concrete, and spoke with over 100 customers and potential customers. In the last two weeks, I have spoken with the head of set construction at NBC Universal, the US Ambassador to Rwanda and a delegation of Rwanda's largest builders, a construction equipment rental chain operator in Equador, and several concrete contractors in the United States. Hard-working, intelligent, and resourceful, the "builders" of this world are a pretty cool group of people.

Cart-Away serves several customers. Our primary customers are equipment sales and rental companies. These companies purchase our 1-1.75 yard trailers and one of our four concrete batch plants. They then turn around and either sell or rent the trailers to local contractors, municipalities, and homeowners in need of 1-2 yards of concrete. There are thousands of Cart-Away trailers all over the world. If you have seen a mixer like the one below, it came from us. Cart-Away is the sole producer of this style of trailer-based drum mixer.

Cart-Away also serves many governments and militaries around the world. These customers purchase trailers and batch plants but are primarily interested in our remote batching and mixing systems, the CUBE 150 and CUBE 300. Both of these self-contained batch plants are designed to be transported via C-130, cargo ship, helicopter, or railcar to hard to reach locations around the globe.

Similar to our military customers, Cart-Away has a number of remote builders. Contractors building on islands, mountain tops, off of barges, or in other remote settings also purchase our self-contained CUBE 150 and CUBE 300.

Our final group of customers is our contractor community. They are all over the world and include custom pool builders, shotcrete contractors, concrete contractors, general contractors, ready-mix companies, pre-cast companies, landscape professionals, luxury resort builders, marine contractors, custom home builders, fencing contractors, brick makers, cemeteries, directional boring professionals, the mining industry, the oil/gas industry, solar contractors, and wind energy contractors. This group purchases across the Cart-Away product line up.

For many, myself included, concrete has been a boring and underrated commodity. However, it’s hard to imagine modern life without concrete. It is the second most-consumed product on earth after water and the world's most-popular man-made building product. Thanks to its incredible strength and versatility, this man-made material is used to build everything from superhighways to driveways. I believe the future of this versatile material is bright. I can't help but believe the digital age will have an increasing impact on it and the industries that utilize it. I am excited to learn from and partner with others in the industry as we seek to move it forward.

If you are ever in the Portland area, come say hello.