Seven With Evan: Volume 11

In this segment, sixth-generation owner Evan Carroll talks about the magic of a baby's first Christmas, the company's outlook for 2025, and a recent Open House celebration.

1. First of all, how was your first Christmas as a family — with having Molli and Ace, all of you under one roof?

It was a wonderful time. It was a special day to wake up with him right next to us and get to spend our first Christmas as a family of three together in our own house. So it was amazing and something you don’t forget. To get him smiling and pass him around to other family members and seeing the smile on their faces as they held him was really cool. It also gave us both a nice break! It’s great to have a big family in this area, which we both do. So, it’s always nice to see all of them, of course, and have that help and guidance when needed. It was truly a special, awesome day.

2. I bet! According to your dad (Matt Carroll, CEO), Black Bros. had a record year in 2024. What do you most attribute the success to?

One thing that’s been consistent forever is the longevity of our employees here. We’ve talked in the past how we’re doing a lot of training, and of course we’re always training. But, you have to remember we still have a ton of people here that have so much longevity and have done such a great job for such a long time. They’re really the backbone of what keeps us successful and how we’re able to have these monster years while we are training new people. So kudos to them for really holding this all together and doing the best they can to produce another successful year. It wasn’t possible without all the years they’ve put in and the quality of work that’s been done over those years and throughout the history of our company. ... That said, at the end of the day it truly is a team effort. I could go through every (department). There’s a lot to be proud of. A record year!

3. Can’t argue with that. Look into your crystal ball to tell us about 2025 and what were going be talking about come next January.

We’ve got a great backlog (of orders), already extending into Quarter 2. So, of course, that’s great to start off the year knowing what we’re building, because we are always looking ahead. We have some awesome projects coming up. A lot of full-custom lines. Some robotics. Some advanced automation. We’re going to keep pushing that as much as we can and see where the demands from our customers fall. We’ve got the team to do it, so it’s just a matter of having that demand and getting it done like we always have. We’ve shown in the past we can build just about anything (our customers) want, and we’re here to provide the solutions to their problems. Whether it’s production, labor, or anything else. That’s always been the focus, offering those solutions to whatever comes up.

4. Any big obstacles, then, to the company having another strong year?

You never know. There will always be things that come up, whether it’s supply chains, politics, or a number of other variables that we have to be prepared for. But internally, as a team, we are in good standing and pushing to accomplish more and more. Looking forward to another great year.

5. Great to hear. And, so going back to the robotics and automation buzzwords. We’ve done a little legwork now on different options to continue to implement this stuff. What’s the latest update?

We’re fully embracing the push (for automatic processes) and anything that can help our customers make a more efficient product. To keep them going is goal No. 1. It’s a two-way street, which is something we bring up a lot here. We all help each other out. And that’s no different for our customers. We need to provide whatever they want and that means keep pushing the envelope into robotics and automatic solutions to the best of our ability because that is inevitably going to be the case as the world advances.

6. Yes, all arrows are pointing in that direction. The Open House was Nov. 21 and seemed to go off without a hitch. Was it a success?

Yes! The Open House was phenomenal. It was around 300 people that came in. Everybody was excited, energetic. Great to see all the retirees who made it back despite the cold weather. Just talking to people who got a tour of the facility and they were so impressed. Not only with the facility and — of course — the brand new building, but about the knowledge of all the people that gave tours that day and the care they used to explain in layman’s terms what each machine does and what each station or manufacturing hub is doing to create our products. So, I just heard a lot of great feedback from people. They really appreciated our tour guides providing the detail in generic terms to allow them to understand exactly what we do. But besides that, the food was phenomenal. That was the Mona Lisa of After Hours/Open House fare. The food was so good and displayed so well. Everyone we brought in that day to help us manage the Open House did such a terrific job. Megan (Kneebone, CFO) and all the people involved with bringing them in did a truly amazing job, as well. It was top notch.

7. And what’s the feedback from the (Roll Team) working out there? What are they saying about the new Roll Building?

I’ve talked to the guys out there, and I know they all love it. They love the organization, the flow, the upgraded cranes and other upgraded equipment we have in there. So far it’s been very easy to keep clean and maintain, and we think that’s going to stay the same just because of the layout. As we get into winter we’ll see how the temperature can adjust. We have a smart thermostat and a smart HVAC unit out there. So I know we’ve been playing with that a little bit just to make sure we have the settings dialed in. ... We want to keep that building as temperature-controlled, San Diego weather as possible. We’ve learned a lot and really nipped a lot of (the startup problems) in the bud, but the job’s not done.