Episode Transcript
Hello, my friends. This is Brett Keasling of the EO podcast network and host of the Aesop podcast. We recently completed season two of the owner to owner podcast. With host, Jesse Tyler. And we can't wait to bring you season three beginning in September, 2023. While Jesse and team recharged their podcast batteries. We're bringing you a great five-part series from season one, called women in manufacturing. Featuring conversations between Jesse and amazing colleagues at Hypertherm. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to the owner, to owner podcast with your host, Jesse Tyler, part of the EO podcast network. Welcome to the Owner to Owner Podcast. The goal of this series is to have owner-to-owner discussions about a wide range of ownership, experiences, and culture topics, and to bring more insight into the individual ownership experience. It's great to be with you. Thanks for listening. I'm Jesse Tyler. I work at Hypertherm global manufacturing and technology company that has almost 2000 owners strong. I'm fascinated by ownership culture, and how being an owner impacts the daily experience at work. This series focuses on Women In Manufacturing, bringing insight from women owners through our company, through our product value streams from design engineering, global sales, operations, machine assembly, machine operators, shipping and leadership. On almost all of the Owner to Owner podcasts. I meet the guests when we start recording. The series is a little bit different in that these are close friends that have asked to share their story. Audio is it's sometimes a challenge in a manufacturing environment and the tools provided with tech. So we appreciate, listener patience if we have some hiccups with the audio quality. This episode focuses on first and second shift, a frontline leader machine assembly, and warehouse. I am joined by Stevie-Leigh Karle skint, frontline leader for the Hypertherm light industrial products on second shift, Holly Hewes ,an assembler three for the heavy industrial product line on first shift and Krystale Barraby, warehouse specialist two, in our distribution center on second shift. So Krystale, could you share a little bit more in your intro a little bit about what you do and I'll have Stevie-Leigh and Holly do the same and then we'll jump right into the questions. Absolutely. So specifically in my position now, we fulfill orders that Hypotherm has to fill and then we ship them out. So it's, it sounds very simple, but sometimes it's so bulky. There's a lot of stuff going into that. So that's a simplified version of what I do. Yeah. The volume of parts that your team is constantly managing in real time is really amazing to see with all the different pieces and parts of the global shipping. So thanks for a little bit more insight. Stevie-Leigh, can you share a little bit more about your role and what you do for hypothermia? As a frontline leader, I work with a diverse group of individuals, a bunch of different people, just trying to make quality parts and send them out to all of our customers. We actually recently just had a product launch, which. I have been working with a bunch of new robots and different kinds of manufacturing techniques and packagers. And, we just kinda try to do our very best to get what we can out to our customers and come in, do a great job and go home. That's great. Yeah. You've been leading through some phenomenal change with a industry, changing new product launch. So just just amazing to see all the change every time I go out to your area it's changing rapidly. So it's fascinating to see how it, yeah. More to come, got to keep changing. You want to keep the employee owned company thriving. Holly, can you share a little bit more about your role as an assembler? Yeah, so I work on the mechanism assembly team sorry, heavy industrial. We built the HPR XPR max pro. Systems, I work on a pretty large team, full of all kinds of different people. We have three different value streams. There's always a lot of stuff going on. People moving parts, moving, just kinda cool to get to work with all the different, unique personalities that are on the team. Some days, it feels more like hanging out with friends at an actual job other days, you gotta keep your head in the game and make sure that you're getting the product out to the door and the customers. So that's great and appreciate the additional insights. You're all working very high volume, fast paced environments. And I think you brought a little bit of insight to that. So we'd love to hear a little bit of your career path and what led your current role, some of the prior experiences that you might want to share. And I'm just curious to hear, your perspective as a woman in manufacturing, Krystale, can you share a little insight into what led you to the role that your thriving at. Absolutely. So I actually started out at Hypotherm as a machine operator in the heavy industrial electrode cell. And I was there working toward my machine operator too, and the pandemic hit, so they redeployed me to the shipping warehouse. So that was a very interesting, insight to see how Hypotherm kept everybody here, but moved them around. So that way they didn't have to lay anybody off. So I was one of the ones that they moved around. So I stayed here at the warehouse from, I think it was April of that. I think it was 2020 actually. Until. I think it was August. And then I went back to machine operating, which was very difficult to go back and forth between the two, after not even getting my emo two and then expecting to get back into the machine operating, which is a it's a lot. I completed my emo to got that and then they wanted me back over here. So I was actually still working over here the whole time. I would be a machine operator, but I'd come in early to help them, help the warehouse ship out a lot of work. So I was basically kind of keeping my. Socks on, on both, I guess. Um, and then, um, bill the um, I don't know his exact position, but he runs the place over here. Wanted me to come back and help during December because we had a really big, the end of the year is really hard over here for shipping. So they didn't have a lot of employees back on. Cause I had left, they hadn't gotten new people on, they were struggling to keep things going. So I moved back to the warehouse full time still as a machine operator. And then at the end of that month, they offered me a position over here, full time and I decided to take it. It was more of a personal move for me because machine operating was very challenging. And honestly I do miss the challenges that came with it. But at the same time, I didn't really like being an oil day. And I, I didn't like the noise. I felt like I was losing my hearing. So I chose to take the opportunity to come over here. So I've been full time as a warehouse specialist since then. And during that time I've picked up a CIA champ role. I've become a trainer. So I feel like the move was better for me personally, because I was able to move up and help out where over as a machine operator, I felt like I was doing what I needed to do, but I needed the help. So that's where I'm that. And then for listeners that aren't used to the terminology, the CIA is a program within Hypertherm for continuous improvement activities and like lots of companies. We we love our acronyms. So the continuous improvement activity program is it's pretty hard to separate. It's a fun Throwdown with other employee owners as, can you talk about employee ownership without talking about continuous improvement mindset so far? No, one's been able to untangle the two. So I just want to give a little insight to that. The Krystales reference to that. So appreciate the insight on how you got to where you are and where you're doing so well for Hypotherm, Stevie-Leigh, a little bit of insight into your career path. How did you end up a leader surrounded by robots and constant change? I actually, when I first got here, I was a machine operator. I went through. Hypothermia technical training Institute, you know, HDTI one of our acronyms and that was overwhelming. But I had awesome trainers, so I just dug right in and got through that and then became an emo too. And eventually the pandemic hit and I ended up needing to help out one of our leaders down here, Andy Barbie. He had nobody on his team. He asked me to help him. So I went over and I was helping him run the robots that he had. Cause they had trained me prior to that, to do some overtime. And then next thing I knew I was training all the people that were coming in for his area. When that area actually became its own entity, we went from having this. It was a part of high volume parts and we had a part that was low volume and then it actually became its own area. I knew there would be leadership role eventually. And I knew that because I was so familiar with it and I was familiar with the team and I loved what I was doing, that I wanted it. So I applied for it and I got it and I was shocked, but I was thrilled and it's constant change. It's constant movement, but I just, I love what I do. I love the people I work with and I come in every day and I'm excited to do something. That's great. That's great. Thank you for that, Holly, how did you move from one of our largest buildings to the other and get assembler three is a challenge to get to that level and a little insight into your trajectory. I started about six years ago as an assembler on the light industrial assembly team building. Cool. Yep. PowerMax machines, bear with me and spend a minute PowerMax power supply. I built both. So I, I did that probably about a year or so. And really Hypertherm kind of sparked an interest with me pretty much from the beginning because it showed you. How much you can do if you put in, even minimal effort. And if you want to put an even more than that, you can go pretty much the sky's your limit. So I did assembly for a little while, learned everything that I could learn, decided that I wanted to know a little bit more. I wanted to see these machines in action. I wanted to know how they worked. So it struck an interest with me in becoming a test operator. The way we used to explain it is plug it in and hope it doesn't blow up basically. That's one of those quality things that we like to pride ourselves on so much as we'd rather do it in house than have it shipped out and do that with our customers. So it was cool to see the inner workings of the machine once it's turned on, troubleshoot it when it goes down, things to that nature. it, And it was a lot of fun. From there I became a frontline leader on the light industrial team as well. That was a very large learning experience for me. I had some leadership experience in the past nothing that was quite like Hypertherm, it's a very diverse, very large company. And there's a lot of little nooks and crannies that you don't necessarily know so much about until you get to the leadership aspect. And I've had my bad experiences and I've had my really good experiences. I think going into leadership and learning what I learned really shaped me as a Hypertherm employee, which I might not necessarily have. I might not even be here today. Had I not gone through the leadership experience, to be honest. It's just, there's something about this company that just keeps us here and it's not one thing it's ever changing and it could be, the people one day it could be the job the next day. It could be a profit sharing the day after that it's never the same reason. But all of those things sorta tied together. I realized, huh. He was probably about a year and a half ago now leadership really wasn't for me, it was a lot of stress on my plate, both at work and at home. So I stepped down and moved up to 21, great hollow and became an assembler three on the mechanized team. And I love it. It's a nice change of pace. Again, it's nice to just take a step back and just be a part of, I build this and I send it out the door and it's so much more than that, but it's nice to be able to take a breath of fresh air and not have to worry about every single thing that's going on around you and just focus on you. Which is something that I learned that I needed, that I wasn't giving myself prior to this role. Oh, yeah, it's been great to see your reinvent yourself and be in a new team, new building, new product line and driving. So it's been fun to watch. So I want to build on your comment about coming back. So going back to the Krystale, what keeps you coming back? What keeps me coming back? I have to actually agree with I'm sorry. I'm terrible with names the last Holly. Yep. The last person. Okay. That there's a lot of different things. Cause I feel like if I, if the pandemic didn't happen and it wasn't redeployed, I think I would've gotten. Maybe a little bit bored being stuck, doing, not stuck, but like being a machine operator. And so I think that the, what keeps me coming back is the opportunities to keep growing. So if I decide now that I've been here, I'm not, it's been almost three years now. I know that if I start to feel a little okay, this is, I need something else. There's always a learning opportunity. So that's why I took on the continuous improvement champ role, because it helps me feel like I can contribute. Even if it's not my CIA, I can help someone else with that. So constantly having the opportunities to learn this podcast is another reason. It was out of nowhere, but it's something that Hypertherm does. It's a random, you're just. I didn't even know you had this and then it's like here. And then, so it's one of those things where it makes you feel that there's. Changing, evolving. You can grow, you can talk, you can get to know people. So it's that evolved feeling. That doesn't go away. Even if you feel like it might like me starting to slow down, you can find another avenue. If you have the connections, or if you don't just one day, Jesse comes up to you and says, Hey, you want to do a podcast? And you're like, actually I do. I was like, absolutely. I appreciate all of you sharing your stories and it's neat to hear them. Stevie-Leigh what keeps you coming back? I think it's gotta be the culture here. It's something about just the integrity that everyone tries to uphold the way we care about what our customers get and then the community service aspect of things that we do as a company, what we do for the people in the upper valley, all over the world, because we're all over the world, but it's just the fact that I get to come to a company that values taking care of the people that. Work here. It makes me feel like we're doing something special. I know I don't want to be cheesy or anything like that. It's just, I feel like I'm at a place where they do value us. They value our input. They value what we do and where we're from and they want to take care of all of us and our community and our families and makes me want to be here. That's great. Thanks for that. There's nothing cheesy about that. I assure you, my pregnancy was everybody loves cheese, right? Yeah. But hell for listeners, Hypotherm provides 40 hours of paid community service time and there's a real pride in being in the a hundred percent club. So I wouldn't say peer pressure. I'm not sure. Peer pressure is always a bad word when you're trying to make the company you own stronger and help your communities, but there's definitely, back to. What Krystale does with the continuous improvement champ role. There's a, it's a it's okay to say, Hey, that was a great idea. Did you put it in the database? Why not? What if that makes us better? Faster, stronger, safer. And then with Stevie-Leigh talking about the community service time and the focus on our values is definitely a, you can't run a company off of values. So Holly, you started this, so I want to bring it back to you. You've had some time to think what keeps you coming back? Oh, all the things, Jesse. No, I've, I've gone through my phases since I've been here. It's, you know, at the very beginning it was the culture itself. I've come from nothing but big corporate business jobs in my past that has made me absolutely miserable beyond all belief. We joke, I say, I have a three-year rule. If you make it past three years in my life, are you going to stick around forever? And here I am coming up on your six with hyperthermic has something to be said about it. I've met a lot of really great people who have not only pushed me to do better in my career, but have pushed me to do better as a human being, both inside work and outside of work. Jesse of which you are one of those people, there's always something new to learn. There's always something exciting. There are always things that are going to challenge you both in a positive way, in a negative way. And I think because of those things, it's, it makes it interesting to come back because you're never going to have the same day at work. And to be honest, the profit sharing is awesome too. So that's helpful, it's not just a check at the end of the year for showing up to work. And it's very much a piece of, Hey, we value you as an employee. You've done an awesome job this year. We all take part in it and it's nice to see the benefit of all the hard work that everybody puts in throughout the year. And it pays off whether it's to help pay bills at the end of the year, or you put it away or, you take a trip, however you use it. It's benefiting you in one way or another. So that's always been a big thing for me too. I think it's great to reflect the ownership, pride and you're absolutely doing that. I also think, you're all active in the ownership culture. I also think it's healthy as a worker. If you want to talk about profit sharing, you want to. 40 hours of paid community service time, or, earning more vacation and those benefits, I think it's great that you want to go there with those. So what I'd like to do is hear from you, your advice for, women considering a career in manufacturing. You shared that over since COVID started, all of you are in different roles. Two out of three are in different buildings and you've worn many different hats. What is your advice in this time, in this moment for women considering a career in manufacturing, start with a Krystale. I would say that if you're unsure, I'm going to go with myself. Okay. But when I have to pretend like I'm talking to someone like me, cause I really don't know how to answer. So somewhat Lisa, what I did is I was at a point in my life where I didn't really know what I was doing. Okay. Okay. So I decided that my father is a part of this company and I'd actually worked for Hypertherm as a temp. Yes. So, So I was moving home and I was like, I know where I'm going to work. Hypertherm so my advice to someone who probably, maybe not doesn't know, but Watsi a job that has, I guess the possibilities, like you might start somewhere and you're not really sure that's where you want, but there is room for growth to go somewhere else. I honestly started out as a machine operator, like I said before, but I really didn't want it. I know I was like, I'm going to do this, but I don't know if it's really for me, but I actually did enjoy it. There were times where I really did enjoy it. I actually enjoyed the fast pace environment. And then it was different every day. You got, you had to figure out time management really well. So I would say whether, you want to go into manufacturing or you don't hypothermia is great because you can always take those, skills, improve on them and then find more skills and keep moving in a direction that might suit you. Nice. Thank you. Stevie-Leigh, what's your advice for women considering a career in manufacturing? Traditionally male heavy Korea. So I went from working retail because that's what I did for 10 and a half years. I worked for the same big box store and I thought there's no way in heck I'd ever get a job at Hypertherm this big company. There's no way. And I got in and I just did it on a Lark. I never thought it would happen. And I got in and I just, I went for it. Let it hold back. Cause I'm a woman or worry that, oh, people are going to think it's weird because it's a male dominated industry. I don't care. I just went for it. And I was the only female operator for a very long time on my shift. There were awesome female assemblers on either side of the building and they were great to bond with, but I got along great with guys. So I really didn't care. And I just tried it and didn't let anything hold me back. And now I'm where I'm at because I just went for it. Just go for it. If you want to try something new, go for it. Don't let anything hold you back. That's great. That's great. Holly, what are your thoughts for advice for women considering a career in manufacturing? Ultimately yeah, go for it. What's stopping you. It is this, the stigma is it's very male dominant. Hypertherm has done an awesome job. Not only creating a place that's welcoming for women, but we're given the same opportunities as men. And there a lot of manufacturing plants don't necessarily make you feel that way. And I think that's what make, Hypertherm stand out over the risks. It's, you're coming to work and you gotta be one of the boys and it's not that it's, I'm Holly assembler for mechanized and I have a voice and I have an opinion and it's not, I know how to do my job. And if I don't know how to do my job, I've. And taught the skills that I needed to do throughout the years. And I've learned a lot as far as even mechanical skills that I didn't necessarily have coming into it. I worked years of retail of, fitting into the quote unquote women's role. And it just, it wasn't for me, for 40 hours a week, I pretended to be somebody I wasn't and showed up and made sure my nails were done and my hair was done. And it's not me. It's never been me. I like to tinker on things. I like to turn a wrench and one day somebody said, just do it. And I've been there ever since. And it's, it can be a little intimidating at first. And I started on this. Team that was pretty much 90% male. So walking in as a, as 23 at the time, I think walking in into 23 year old girl in a male dominated team, it was just like, oh boy, I've got to pull myself together here. And it's, you have a few people here and there that are like, oh, it's a girl. She doesn't know how to do this. And it's, maybe I do. And Hypertherm gave me an opportunity to prove myself. And it challenged me to learn things and it, it really took away the male dominated aspect of it and just said, Hey this is a job, whether you're male or female it's something that we all are here to do the same thing. We all do the same job. And there's not one thing that you could or could not do as a woman here. There's plenty of things to training involved. There's plenty of jobs and coming from a production team. I can say right now is it's we're right in the Bruton of everything. And. I think now we even have more females on my team that I've ever seen on a team in Hypertherm. So it's a cool thing to just say, Hey, as a woman, like I build the same stuff that you have, these big linebacker size men that are doing the same thing. That's great. So if you're willing to, three of you are willing to go a little bit farther into that. I'd love to get some insight for our listeners on how your work experience you think is different than some of your male coworkers. Even if there's comradery, even if there's a caring environment, if you had some insights into just really specifically what may be different for, women in manufacturing, with your work experience, see, as you thinking about it, Krystale, you want to lend a few thoughts. I don't know if this is because I'm a woman. But as a person, I remember going through each TTI, and this is really embarrassing, but when we were learning about the machines, I didn't know that a pad, like a brake pad was metal. I assumed that it was rubber. So when we were learning, they were like, yeah, it's like a brake pad on a car. And I went like this and every body was like, yeah, we know all about brake pads because I was the only woman in my class. And I silently was. Oh, my God. I'd never knew. And I had to like, I quietly was like, I didn't know. So those things, I guess, I know it's not because I'm a woman, cause I'm sure there are other people in the world who are men who don't know these things, but those little things up in that even don't know, they were just like, they knew it, like they were born with this knowledge that a brake pad was metal. And I didn't. So I had to I quietly was like, okay, I'm the only one in here. And I'm the only one who doesn't know this. So I'm just going to silently pretend I don't, but it was like a mental check of okay. So it's like those weird little moments, that little embarrassed. I just learned from you that they're not ceramic. So I guess that maybe I gonna meet you in the middle on that one, but I think your point about, the assumption of knowledge and things like that knowledge of some things. Yeah. And again, I don't know if it's because it's, they're men and they knew those things, but I do feel I was the only woman and I was the only one who didn't know. I don't really know if there's other things, so I don't know. Yeah, it's fine. You can say, I don't know. I just want to give an opportunity as as our conversation deepens. I just was curious to, if it helps, cause we're friends to be totally transparent. I, working in HR was the only male on my team for a long time. And so it just was made me curious how, what would be different when you're out on the manufacturing floor, high pressure, high volume positions with each of your roles? I was just curious if something came to mind, Stevie-Leigh, can you think of anything? Honestly I, when I started off here, I was with other girls that are actually in my HDTI class. So I, it never even really occurred to me that it might be, I might be treated differently. And when I came out onto the floor, I had already had friends that worked here. No one ever treated me differently. I don't. That's great. I don't have a really good example. That's a good thing. The next question is I'll make sure a little bit easier. I just wanted to see if we could explore it a little bit and that's fine. The Holly, would you like to address this question or keep us trucking onto the next one? It's yeah. I feel like my experience has been slightly different. But it's not anything bad. I sometimes you just got to pave the way and you're on a team. That's got a lot of men that just go up, she can't do it and you're gonna go, okay, let me prove you wrong for a minute. And it's nice to have those. I told you so moments, but then sometimes it's a little, you got to take a step back and go, okay, maybe I can't do this. Maybe I'm not capable of handling this. And, knowing when to ask help. And even if you do need that help everybody is so willing to help out. I recently just my husband and I are expecting in July. So being a pregnant woman on a production team is created many challenges for me. Personally. So it's nice to see how Hypertherm is so willing to adapt to, just your normal everyday settings. And when you come up to some sort of roadblock where they go, I guess we never really thought about that, that it's okay. Now, Now I'm challenging you to adapt. I'm challenging you to make this, a better, safer, more enjoyable experience for me as a woman. And, as it's, it can be nerve-wracking at times, I'll be honest. When I first found out, I was like, oh boy, this is bad. Like I'm not going to be able to do my job. There's so much heavy lifting. So many chemicals we deal with. There's a lot of, sharp objects. There's all kinds of things that really. Are Are kind of intimidating to be around in this situation. And, you know, I learned how to use my big girl voice and say, Hey, like I need help with this. Or how do we feel about this? Or can we do X, Y, and Z? And some days, I feel a little bad because it's oh, we're just accommodating for me. But at the same time it's so cool to see how quickly Hypotherm can adapt to things that aren't so normal in the workplace. So that's been a big thing for me. And I think as a younger woman in the workplace, it's, don't be discouraged by things like that because Hypertherm so willing to help you out with those kinds of things and do whatever they can do to make sure you're as safe and as comfortable as possible. That's great. Congratulations. And thanks for sharing that. I appreciate it. So I want to do is ask you one more broader question, and then I want to get, dig in a little bit on your views and your experiences with specific to, employee ownership. So what are you most proud of in your career? You've shared quite all of you shared some, reinventions and promotions and new adventures in this moment in your career. What are you the most proud of? And I'd come back to Krystale for that to start us off. I think I'm most proud of being able to adapt, because I started out like I was bartender in and receptionists before this, and adapting to be a machine operator and a successful one and one that. Do a lot of things, obviously still needed help, I could run the machines on my own and then being asked the day before, Hey, we're going to redeploy you to a completely different position in a completely different building, doing completely different job in 24 hours. Can you do it? And I was like sure. If you think, if you're going to ask me ugly, I thought about it. I have faith in hypothermia. If you're going to ask me to do this, you obviously have faith that I can and probably would give me the tools to help you do that. So I think my ability to adapt is one of my most proud in my career in general at Hypertherm. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Stevie-Leigh, what are you most proud of in your career so far? So recently we did a lean principles project in my area, and I actually got to be the sponsor for it. And I have a wicked case of stage fright. Like it's pretty terrible. And I was so proud of that project and my two ladies that worked on it and how hard they worked on it and how my team got behind them, that I was able to go over that project. And I was beaming from. Side to side, my cheeks were hurt after I did that for the thing, because I was just so proud of them and I didn't feel nervous going over everything that I worked on. And I think that Hypertherm has helped me considerably get over my stage fright, which I have had my entire life. It's great. It's one of my proudest moments was watching those two, do their presentation and then being able to present to all the other presenters about what they worked on. And it was just a really cool experience. And I wouldn't trade that for anything. That's wonderful. Holly, what are you most proud of in your career so far? Probably a handful of things. I definitely have to agree with Stevie on the getting over your stage racing. I was nasty when I first started, but that kind of stuff. So that, that is one big thing for me too. But I think the thing that really resonates most with me is to be a part of just the bigger picture being on an assembly team my whole time that I've been here, where we're building the machines that build the earth. It's the bridge in Boston where we're working with Newport news at the ship yard is, seeing those things pop up here and there where somebody can go home. This thing that you're building has helped build this, it's helped done this X, Y, and Z. We had a handful of years ago. One of our plasma cutters was in a fast and furious movie. That was a cool thing for me. It's the little things that pop up here and there, and even like the user reviews on YouTube and things like that, where you go, Hey, I had a part in that. So it's cool to see what our machines are actually out doing in the real world versus, oh, I build it and see it, get put in a box and then it's gone and that's just it. And it's, there's so much more to that. And I think if you have the opportunity to get, to see, pass that once it gets to the end user, you really learn to have a greater appreciation for what's going on. That's great. That's great. Let's shift to associate or employee ownership. And so for our listeners, we're almost 2000 owners strong. We have a global program that includes all of our associates. And one of the questions we ask in onboarding and we asked mid-career and we asked before retirement is what does ownership mean to you? So if Krystale, if you want to start us off with that, what does that mean to you? I feel like ownership means that this is partially mine, so I need to do my best to be able to contribute as well as I can to make this company as. Good as it can be, even if it's something as simple as making sure the tape on those boxes are good. And the, certain things are the way they need to be or working on the continuous improvement. I feel that I can, no matter what I do, I need to make sure I'm doing the best. So I can be proud that I've contributed what I have to this company. Thank you. Stevie-Leigh was ownership mean to you kind of piggyback on what she said. It's like ownership is when you become a, like a part of something bigger than yourself. It's you're not just going to work every day. You're joining other people with a shared vision of taking care of not only the customers you serve, but one another, like you learn that when you do your best, the whole company benefits you benefit, and it's something you can't. Explain in a small snippet. I think you've done some effective explaining as a newly confident presenter you've done. Well, Thank you. Holly, what does ownership mean to you? Jesse you've asked me this probably 17 times over the last six years of my life. And every single time I've had a different answer for you. I don't think there's one solid answer ever. And you could ask me today and tomorrow I could give you a different answer, but, currently I think that it ownership means taking pride in the work that I do. Understanding that all the effort that I put in. It's part of a bigger picture. It helps benefit everybody. Whether that's I showed up to work on Tuesday this week and that work that I did for eight hours, if it doesn't go on scene, it go, we were building a profit, we're building a company. It's just, there's nothing that you are going to do that doesn't help benefit in one way or another. So that's great. I keep asking all of you and several of us on the ownership team, keep asking all of our associates too, because it does often we find it that the answers do evolve as your career evolves as your personal life evolves. And so it's just really interesting to hear that progression and what themes remain what new things creep in. So in the spirit of that, if you had to describe. Associate ownership and play ownership in three words. What three words today would you use knowing from Holly's insights and the rest of your smiles? It might answer differently tomorrow, but all we have is today. Krystale, what do you have for three words that you would use to describe ownership? I did my homework on this one. I wrote down on my notepad. I wrote down responsibility, teamwork and development. Nice. Can you say a little bit more about that now? He was good. Do you want me to delve into those three? Sure. Tad, that'd be great. Okay. So for responsibility I'm going to, just for me I am a CA champ and I am a trainer. Not only is my everyday job, my responsibility, but it is also my responsibility to help continuously improve the workspace as a champ and help other associates follow through with their CIS. That makes me feel great. So my responsibilities to help other people. Along with the training, teamwork, I think they go hand in hand with that. If you don't have the sense of teamwork, it I think sometimes feels like you're falling through. And I think, when you have a tough day, because it happens, I have to say that even if you have a really tough day, I think that having my associates, I love the people I work with. You could be having a really tough day, a couple people could, and then you have that sense of like community teamwork, where they might see you're having a bad day, but they're like, Krystale, you got this Krystale it's okay. It's just another day. You're good. So that sense of teamwork, really, not just in what you're doing, but mentally helps you get through those tough moments in your day to day, position. And then as for the development, I've actually like I've hit on this a lot, but To continuously develop whether it's a CIA, whether it's, taking, classes or courses or, doing this podcast and talking to others, there are people in the company, or if it's, just having a random conversation that you've run into someone, and they're talking to you about their lean project, I think continuously developing yourself, the team, it just overall helps the company. So well said, thank you very much. I appreciate it, Steve. Really? What are your thoughts? Wait, three words. And you were welcome to expound. After that. I had a, I wrote mine down to, Hey, I like being prepared. I had security community and teamwork as my three words. Funny that you had teamwork also. So for security, I just, we have that no layoff policy with Hypertherm and I saw it during the pandemic when they could have been shutting us down, they could have been sending us home. They could have been telling us, Hey, it's been nice, but see ya. And a lot of companies had that happening down here. You saw that at other manufacturing plants and you didn't see it at Hypertherm. And I had that sense of security that I would be able to go into work. And if they didn't have something for me, they'd send me somewhere, say Andy's area where I'd started to learn what I'm doing now. So I knew that we would be okay and I wasn't as scared during a massive global crisis. I knew that I had a company that wanted to keep me protected, keep all of us protected. So that was part of ownership for me because. I knew that they owned what they said. They own their values. They believed in us and they believed that we need to stay safe and stay moving. So as far as community I've already said it, we do the community service. I love that. I actually said that the last time, when they had me do the little pictures and the thing on our website, I'm huge on the community service. I love that. And then a teamwork pretty much. It says, Krystale said the whole thing. Yeah. We work together and we care about each other and we do the best began for our customers and everyone here. So that's great. Thanks for sharing that. Holly, what were your three words for describing ownership? Mine. I had a pride value and accountabilities. Yes. So pride is pretty self-explanatory and it's being proud in the work that I do. It's being proud in the work that people around me are doing. It's being proud of the company that I work for and all the individual aspects of that, that make it as good of a company as it is. There's not a day that goes by where I haven't looked back at any of my other jobs and gone. Oh yeah. Hypertherm was like, it was never, that it's Hypertherm is its own. It's not, you don't compare it to anything else. What makes it, since what makes me proud to be an employee there? Value is both individual contribution to the bigger picture and seeing everybody else's contributions as well. You really start to see the value in, the person who's working next to me, the person who's working in the office the person who is working at the retail stores is every individual employee has some sort of value to the company and. Without that it's if you have a weak link in your chain doesn't work as well. So you have to have each individual there in order for that to work. And then for accountability, everybody's sharing the same goals. Everybody wants the same thing. We're all held to the same sort of standard it's. Nobody is expected to do more or less than the other one. Obviously we all want to help out and if you see somebody struggling or somebody sees you having a hard time with something everybody's still willing to help out instead of just stand around and watch you fail, which I've had in the past at other jobs. So that's always been a big thing for me is how, I guess you could tie it all into just the Hypertherm community as a whole is, it's so much different than any place I've worked before this that it just doesn't compare. That's great. Thank you for sharing that. So it's fun to hear your friends and coworkers talk about this because through the podcast, I've talked to a lot of other ESOP's and it's wonderful to hear, echoes of similar themes with, the teamwork and values and comradery and care. And so it's the employee ownership, community shares something unique in a workplace is that nobody can really say, no, that's not my job. Cause we all share that. So it's fun to hear some of those threads come through from our conversation today. So the last big question in our time together, so we always ask our guests to share their EO aha moment. So it's not the first time you heard about employee ownership or even when you started to like it's that moment when you were like, ah, aha. EO or employee ownership is going to be a game changer. Krystale, do you have a moment, your aha moment that you can share where you're like, this is going to be different. I'm going to, I don't know. I don't know if I really have had that moment yet. I am very proud and I'm very, I love working for Hypotherm, but I'm not sure where I've had that moment yet. I don't know if I've had the yes, that's great. So I don't want to say something and not reach you. It's also looking through career stages. If you're all three of you are fairly new to Hypertherm and so there hasn't been as much time for that. And so it's an increasingly novel thing to, just to answer a question when someone asks you and you just hit that out of the park by just saying not yet, which is fine. Totally fine. Absolutely. No apologies. No apologies. Stevie-Leigh, have you had a moment, an aha moment yet? I'll phrase my question differently. There's conversation forward. It's actually happened rather quickly for me. My previous employer so I went from retail and that I went to a job at a hospital, and they were known for layoffs, which led me to start looking for more stable employment. And then I found out the Hypertherm was hiring and I thought I'd give it a shot. And when I was sitting through HDTI, we have all these different guest speakers that come in and then we go through cultural immersion. And as I'm sitting there, I'm listening to stories and people are telling me you're going to, you're going to be safe here. And, we don't do layoffs. And, you hear all these different benefits to working for Hypertherm and all the things that we do for our people. And I was just like, wow. I'm going to be okay, this is pretty cool. And I just sat there thinking that's probably the coolest thing I ever heard. And here I am five years later. Nice. Nice. You're in a you're early in the journey. It's a year to participate at Hypotherm and it's three year cliff vesting with a thousand hours. To be fair, I'm asking a question, hopefully your career is going to be much longer than the moment today that we have this conversation. Holly, have you had an aha moment for ownership yet? Yeah. So when we first started, we go through the onboarding and the immersion and although very informative, it is a lot to take in when you're not in the mix of it all. That sounds great. I'm not a part of that. Like you understand three quarters of it, maybe if you're lucky, if you paid enough attention and. To be quite honest with you. I probably didn't pay as much attention as I should have. It's awesome to hear about all of these things. And I think the first time that it really just set for me, it was like, oh, wow, this is cool. Is, the first year that I was vested and I had my stocks and we got profit sharing later that year. And I had to had a profit sharing before that, which was nice. But I think to see the bigger picture of, I have all these benefits, I have ETO. I, I have community service time, the healthcare plans are awesome. This is things like that. All of those sort of tied in right about that moment when I went well, here's the big picture because I have all these benefits that I use every day leading up until this point. Now I'm seeing here's my stocks. Here's my future at Hypertherm here's my future. After Hypertherm the profit sharing added onto that really just added value to it at that point is it's a sense of security that you don't really get anywhere else unless they are employee owned. No, we have a few businesses locally that are doing the same things, but I had never experienced employee ownership up until that point. And I think that was my big moment of seeing the full circle of hyperthermia is like, it's not a just for now job. It's not, in passing to something else, something bigger or better it's you can, you could have a career here and you can have a life here. And when your time at hyperthermia is over, granted, everything was good for you. You have a retirement plan, you have your stocks, your you're still secure even long after you've left. Hypertherm which you don't get at a company that's not employee owned. Even the stocks we get handed stocks. I don't have to buy stocks. A lot of other companies you have to buy stocks from. And although those can benefit you as well. It's nice for a company to say, Hey, like you're a part of this. We want you to have a bigger part of that without having to be financially invested in. I showed up and did my work so I could pay my bills. But at the end of the day, when it's all said and done and I retire, Hypertherm still thanking me for the work that I did. That's great. That's great. Thank you for sharing that. When we do these podcasts, I always finished with an opportunity for the, the Aesop's to promote their company. You have managed to promote, Hypertherm consistently all three of you through the podcast. So we're going to jump dumped a lot. Let's really the last question. Why should a woman considering a career in manufacturing consider working at Hypertherm? You have so many openings, we're looking for multiple shifts for warehouse, for machine operators assemblers up through, Directors, all kinds of, we have a lot of openings. We're very lucky to be as busy as we are feeding the industrial economy. But if you're just going to speak directly to a woman considering a manufacturing career at Hypertherm, why should she why should she just go for it to borrow your phrase? Because still you want to. Sure. So I wrote down a couple of things for this one, cause I had to take a minute. So I feel like the ownership culture is a big one. I think a lot of the things we just touched on with all of the benefits you guys just said, that for anybody is. Just great. So if I were speaking to a woman who was not really sure what they were doing and be like that alone is a good reason to be a part of this company. The other thing that I wrote down would be that there isn't an uh, a biased for being a male or a female. So if you wanted to join in and be a machine operator, if you wanted to try to be a leader, if you wanted to work as the warehouse specialist, if you wanted to do customer service, all of those positions you're equally encouraged to move forward in your career. So if you're a woman trying to come in, just let's do it just cause there's no wrong path. As a woman here. That's awesome. Thank you. This is going to sound like a shameless plug. Cause I have an opening in my area. You can come work for me. That is so bad. I'm sorry. It's a great career. When I got promoted, I actually had people from higher up, actually that I hadn't even told higher level women in this company send me messages, congratulating me every once in a while. I'll have a female leader come over and say, Hey, I know you're, you've been doing this for about a year now, but I haven't had a chance to talk to you yet. I just want to congratulate you. And I didn't even know. They knew who I was like, we have such a cool culture in this. Yes, just do it. Just come join us. Great. That's great. Holly, you want to finish this out? Yeah. It's all around the entire experiences, nothing but positive and nothing but welcoming. And why wouldn't you want to be a part of a company that celebrates every single milestone, whether it's something small or something big, a company that encourages you to do your best and, push yourself past your comfort levels and really help build you as a human being and being able to do all of that and being a woman inside of manufacturing, plant that really from the outside, looking in as male dominant it's a pat on the back and I've, I've done my fair share of moving up and moving across and learning and expanding. And there's never an opportunity that I've looked forward to where somebody said, no, it's you want to do that? Good. Let's help you get there. That's great. That's great. I appreciate the time with the three of you. So the goal again, and with the owner to owner podcast is to hear the voices rank and file essential frontline, the folk, the doers, the makers, the movers, the shippers. And so I think you have a very successfully told your stories. I really appreciate it. And you've shared insight into ownership and specifically a Hypotherm culture. And it's been a lot of fun to, to hear insights. And I appreciate your willingness to take a little bit of a deeper dive and be so open about what it's like as your work experiences, women in manufacturing. So thank you very much to all of you for your time and really appreciate it. And it's been a lot of fun for me. Just want to thank all the growing So the listeners for the owner to owner podcast, to bringing voices of frontline essential employee owners to the conversation. So thank you very much. We'll look forward to speaking with you again soon. Take care. We'd love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter at EO podcast network. This podcast has been produced by Brett Kiessling for the EO podcast network production assistance by Victoria. Original music composed by max Kiesling branding and marketing by bitsy plus design. And I'm Betsy McKinney.
