Episode 43: Bob Fieck, CHRO, Wausau Supply Company and Tony Misura Grit Is a Choice: Execution and Servant Leadership in the Building Products industry

Tony Misura (00:00)
Super excited to have our next episode of Hire Smarter. One of our favorite clients candidates, guess, there's a number of different directions we go in this conversation with Bob Fiek from Wausau Supply. Also too, it's like, is it Wausau Supply? Is it Taylor Door? Is it Wadena? Is it?

Camclad, we've got all, you guys have just your growth with all these brands and the impact that you've had with the organization, Bob, has just really, really been impressive and I'm excited to dive into this. Thank you so much for joining us.

Bob Fieck (00:31)
Yeah, great. Thank you. I'm excited to be here and looking forward to our discussion.

Tony Misura (00:35)
And the other part too is you're a Scani just like me. you know, I mean, I'm preferential, right? You you grew up in the Badger state and it's just kind of these things happen. UW Eau Claire kicked me out, but, but you got through Platteville. me, just take me through the arc, like Platteville to, you know, CHRO of, of, you know, one of the premier two-step distributors in the industry.

Bob Fieck (00:58)
Yeah, great. Looking forward to kind of walking through this so you know I started actually in engineering in college. I wanted to be an engineer that that dream died quickly after probably my first real calculus class and I'm like I'm not built for this so shifted into industrial technology and ultimately from a safety emphasis. So my first job out of college was with a paper converting operation and.

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, a company called Hoffmaster. And it was my first opportunity of stepping into something that was broken to some extent. There was really no program in place. I was fighting fires constantly and really just the foundational aspect of just trying to keep people from getting hurt. And it was a...

An example of many ⁓ from my career standpoint where you step into something that's just really hard and required a tremendous amount of perseverance. So you know, did that for ⁓ eight years and then was tapped on the shoulder by one of my mentors. His name is Jeff Gailey and ⁓ he said I'd really like you to do the HR thing and I just said absolutely not. I'm not doing that. I mean nobody. Nobody likes HR. I don't want to step into that, you know, and he's like well.

The reason I want and I kept on asking him, why do want me to do this? mean, because he's like, you get things done and I can teach you, you know, the HR stuff, but you have a, a knack and a perseverance of, of driving and getting things done. And I'm like, okay, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'll take a, I'll take a shot at that. Did it, loved it. Gained trust and, and a lot of.

accolades from the team, did that for five years. was working for Hoffmaster as a private equity organization. I think we were bought and sold four times in the 12 years that I was there, 13 years that I was there. So I just, I really thought to myself, what do I want to do? mean, know, every, every P E company that comes in, of course, has their own spin on everything. So you're doing it right, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it right, you're doing it wrong. Change your hat, you know, business card without leaving my office. And it just, it just felt like

Tony Misura (02:47)
Well, yeah.

Bob Fieck (03:01)
you know, what do I want to do long term? And I made a decision to take a lateral move and go to the Bemis company, which is now Amcor, corporately headquartered in Neenah, Wisconsin, has actually took a labor relations position, very lateral position. And ⁓ what I was in a much bigger organization. And I thought, you know what, I think I can, I can make this, I can make this work. I can make this happen. I want to make a difference. And, you know, it's amazing.

You you work hard and you do the right things and you persevere. And I was only there Tony six weeks. and they were, they basically said, Hey, we need you to move to Terre Haute, Indiana. We like what you're doing. we like your approach. The president of that location, his name is Pete Mathias said, I need somebody like Bob to come down here. I'm like, Terre Haute, Indiana. Okay. I'm going to have to go home now and talk to my wife and say,

You my kids were still young. You know, they're going in the fifth and sixth or going in the third and fifth grade. And we had never moved away from central Wisconsin at that point. My wife was born and raised on a third generation dairy farm in Wisconsin. I mean, she she had never left. I was born and raised in a military family. So we moved all the time. So I was like, let's let's see what this is all, you know, this is all about. And so literally four weeks later, we moved site on, you know, didn't have any visibility to this in the interview. And again, I think it was another

example of stepping into the hard and opportunity doesn't necessarily always show up in the exact same ways each time. again, I left that previous employer to come to Bemis for an opportunity. Six weeks into it, I've got opportunity. so it was terrifying, honestly. Yeah.

Tony Misura (04:38)
personally or professionally or both or like what like yeah.

Bob Fieck (04:42)
I had worked in that six weeks, I had worked with that president multiple times a week. And I knew the firefight that he was in. mean, he was in a, that was a very large business, $600 million business unit. They had three facilities, the main facility in Terre Haute was a thousand employees. They had problems everywhere. And honestly, I'm like, well, why am I the one being asked to do this? I mean, there's a whole HR team up there and you know, what.

I felt like I was standing in line and you who wants to go to Terre Haute? Everybody stepped backwards and I was the I was the person that was left and I took the assignment and again another another example of just you know your hair on fire. A really, you know, frankly, a transformational business opportunity and we stepped in and ultimately had a lot of turnover, had a lot of.

putting new leaders in place. That was my first time working for a president directly. And, you know, ultimately I was this right-hand man and I just, the amount of experience that I gained in that five years was probably, you know, the equivalent of 10 years. Just, you know, a lot of different activities that took place there to help transform that business losing, know, business that was losing money.

Tony Misura (05:55)
Yeah, give us some kind of dashboard thing. so revenue is flat or down in the

Bob Fieck (06:00)
It was on fire. Yeah, very much. It was on fire. We were under water. We were in the red big time. They had a product, they were a flexible films company and they had ⁓ actually introduced into the market the bottled water flexible films. You see it all over the place. Whether they didn't patent it or they didn't whatever and now all of sudden it became commoditized. They were making money, crazy money.

And then they got commoditized and now, you know, everybody, you know, the lake is very empty and everybody's like, whoa, this is a bad situation. So yeah, they, they, think I was the second leader that that president brought in. And we, ultimately transformed the entire business.

Tony Misura (06:42)
What turnover and retention and promotion look like?

Bob Fieck (06:46)
Yeah, so the the entire leadership team turned over in 18 months and some of it was voluntary. Some of it was not voluntary. So again, that was my first opportunity to to be in a position of a trusted confidant of a of a president that's got a very clear vision and he needs somebody with grit. And so going in every day, you know, hair on fire. We're to make really, really tough decisions.

and ultimately decisions that led to a transformation at that location that was well recognized across the entire business.

Tony Misura (07:18)
Did they have products that were performing or did or was it an R &D challenge to develop the phase two phase three and get that director on it?

Bob Fieck (07:26)
You you think about how many different times in businesses where it comes down to fundamentals. It comes down to we simply were not, we didn't have very good blocking and tackling. We were very undisciplined. We were fat, dumb and happy. We were still thinking that, you know, the business was, you know, still making 30, 40 % margins and operating that way. You know, coming in at nine, leaving at three, taking a two hour lunch. mean, we just had. ⁓

Tony Misura (07:51)
my god.

Bob Fieck (07:51)
Yeah, just we had a cultural dynamic there that was not going to be successful. So frankly, the CEO or the president he was definitely a ⁓ hard guy and made very quick and very tough decisions. that's, you know, ultimately, that was what he was being paid for. First time in my career, I found, you know, the comment or the this

the statement of perfect is the enemy of good. He was, you know, I'm only going to be 80. He would openly say in front of the entire leadership team, I'm only going to be, I'm only going to be right 80 % of the time, but we got to move. ⁓ a great experience for a, you know, my first real leadership ⁓ opportunity in a business like that.

Tony Misura (08:25)
Yeah, it was, yeah.

Tell me about your adage. You shared this in our conversations in the past that you're a business professional first and an HR executive second. Put some color on that for me.

Bob Fieck (08:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, so that's really came from another business leader that instilled an extremely strong sense of purpose and, you know, focus as a ⁓ HR leader. His name was Tim Fliss. He was the CHRO at ⁓ BMS. And he instilled that, drove that, managed that, focused everybody's attention on that instead of just being the

The record keeper, the compliance officer, the person that hires and fires is, he really focused all of his energy in and around making those frontline leaders business partners and ensuring and talking openly about you need to be a business person first and an HR person second. So that is certainly not something that I created on my own, but has been another

strong mentor from that perspective and somebody that, you know, not necessarily just used the words, but also taught it, demonstrated it on a daily basis, ⁓ educated, trained, and mentored those team members below him to embrace that concept. And it's been something that's certainly bode well for me professionally, and ⁓ has certainly been something that

I take a lot of pride in.

Tony Misura (09:58)
It's certainly a best practice trait that we see from the top HR executives in the world to really be able to partner with the presidents, the general managers along the way to identify where all those opportunities that they can grow the business and increase their profitability together, not just a risk-oriented administrative type. Scorekeeper. Scorekeeper, right, correct, correct.

Bob Fieck (10:22)
Take care all.

Tony Misura (10:25)
That's that's exciting. So OK, so being so what so what happened? Like how did tell what? What's the end of the story? Where did you?

Bob Fieck (10:31)
Yeah, so we end up finding ourselves again, Bemis is a big company, multiple divisions. They had, I think six independently established business units that had their own presidents, leadership teams. And ultimately, you know, the dominoes started to fall with some acquisitions and consolidations and how do we right size and consolidate the channels of business together. And ultimately it ended up being a mass downsizing in reorg.

To some extent, I was the last one in, first one out kind of concept. I ultimately helped close the division office there and was the last turn off the lights type thing. I was the last one at the site to transition out. So to some extent, look back, I felt kind of almost like a mercenary. They sent me down to this facility and helped turn it around, but ultimately they had bigger plans, broader plans, more strategic plans globally.

not necessarily even in the United States. And it ultimately led to, we ended up getting folded into another division that had similar product lines. And ultimately there was a significant transition for a lot of us. So then tough time. And first time in my career, I thought to myself, hey, I took the tough assignment. I did the hard work. I mean, I was well recognized for that. And then all of sudden you're kind of sitting outside

you know, based on we just, there's, you know, the boat holds six and, you know, there's who's everybody's strong performers. How do we, ⁓ where do we go from here? So really took that as a, ⁓ another, you know, pivot and, ⁓ opportunity to, ⁓ collect myself, ⁓ never been downsized before. you know, and ultimately ended up reconnecting with an old boss, that I worked for at Hoffmaster.

by going to Green Bay Packaging in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His name was Brian Hollenbach, and it was a reconnection of another senior leader that I admired.

Tony Misura (12:31)
But if you're your BMIS experience, it's interesting to just kind of just kind of reflect on, know, it creates an opportunity to really rethink about what winning looks like and how you define that. Right. Because from a individual perspective for your growth and development in what you gain exponentially, it sounds like, I mean, you're pretty passionate when you talk about it, even though the division ended up getting shut down. it sounds like just because of the fact that winning potentially was

your personal growth as a professional taking risk and taking on and what you you learn from taking on the tough assignments.

Bob Fieck (13:04)
Even though it ended the way it did, would have never, I'd never, I'd do it all over again. It was, again, there was, it was an opportunistic rich environment. So I found myself being involved in so many different things at so many different levels, whether it was at a corporate level, a division level, a plant level. We implemented a world-class manufacturing system, which is a visual management system that we worked with a external third party.

Consultants, we were the test case for that. Again, this was a big site, million, million two square foot, know, thousand employees at one location. And it was a monster, unionized lots and lots of challenge all over the place. And, you know, so we got to see the fruits of it though, in that timeframe. mean, we didn't, there was, obviously it was a team effort. There was a tremendous amount of hard work.

I've worked as hard as I've worked anywhere in my career there. ultimately, it created a further passion, maybe a taste in my mouth that, I like doing this.

Tony Misura (14:07)
Surprised yourself, did you? You surprised yourself. You were surprised about what you were capable of and what you could handle.

Bob Fieck (14:13)
Yeah, I mean, and then I, you you think back and you know, my wife and I kind of kid, I mean, the, you know, throughout any good HR person is probably going to be able to tell you that, you know, they're going to write a book someday with everything that they've gone through. And, know, I was definitely at that point saying, wow, I've got, I've got material that I could write. I could write for a long time. So, um, just a great experience, great people. You know, I still stay in contact with some of the, mean, this was, that was 2008 to 2000.

13, something like that, solid five years, still stay in contact with some of those business leaders. They've all, it's interesting, almost to the person, you can go through that that transformed that business, you can go to each one of those business leaders and follow their career path. And I'm telling you, most of them have dramatically accelerated. That was a crucible leadership opportunity for all of us.

Tony Misura (15:03)
That's awesome. So great great packaging. You walked in what you know give us. Yeah, what did you? Yeah.

Bob Fieck (15:10)
Twenty, twenty five facilities, believe at the time, 2013 did not have a centralized HR function. I really came in as a working for the chief legal officer and ⁓ the executive vice president and really focused on talent management, succession planning, training, development and the whole labor relations side. had 20 facility that.

20 facilities that were unionized. And I obviously stepped in and helped manage all of the different labor side of things, whether it's union contracts, grievances, arbitrations, mediations, et cetera. We had facilities all over ⁓ the country. So I was traveling quite a bit to these locations, helping support those business units, but it was a highly decentralized company. Bemis, incredibly centralized. Then you go to...

a ⁓ very, very decentralized company. again, challenges to adjust, probably, you know, I often thought to myself, this isn't exactly what I would want to be doing, but it was very fulfilling, incredibly gratifying, and found myself, you know, heavily involved in the senior level, what would be considered a senior level HR person at the time for that business.

Tony Misura (16:23)
What percentage, what was the union, non-union labor for?

Bob Fieck (16:27)
Yeah,

it was very heavily unionized. So yes, we had we had two paper mills, one in Morelton, Arkansas, one in Green Bay. And then we had I want to say there was probably 20 box plants. We had a coated paper division. And then we had some ancillary like a lumber yard down in Arkansas. We had our own forestry unit, that type of thing. So I would say that probably 90 percent.

unionized. So most of the operations were unionized and, you know, most of them were on three year contracts. I was able to bargain all, you know, all 15, 18 of these contracts in a three year cycle each each time. So I, you know, so far in my career, I probably bargained 35 union contracts over that period. Yeah. So that by itself is always an interesting event and experience. And you learn a lot about the business and people.

through that process as well.

Tony Misura (17:20)
You got a certificate out of Cornell, right, for labor relations. Was that helpful? mean, was that the effort of the foundation?

Bob Fieck (17:26)
So going, taking a step back, mentioned somebody, Jeff Gailey was a just an amazing mentor to me. worked for him almost the entire time as I was at at Hoffmaster. He was a Cornell grad. He actually got his his a bachelor's from Cornell and labor relations. So he's like, yeah, I really like to see you go through this program. So it was a two year program, kind of immersion, immersive.

probably at the very beginning of kind of like these executive programs. I think I went, you know, four weeks a year, something like that over a two-week period or two-year period of time. yeah, just a great experience, world-class operation, faculty, the whole dining, just a totally different level of engagement from an education standpoint.

Tony Misura (18:11)
That's great. great. So Green Bay packaging, you know, what? Where do you?

Bob Fieck (18:17)
Yeah,

so there was a couple of really key things there that kind of almost like a normalizing of sorts of how human resources can help from a business perspective. found myself, again, very decentralized. there was really no, I operated more through a much higher percentage of influence than authority in a sense. And you think about the balance between

between those two, your title can certainly mean a lot in a business. But ultimately, the dynamic that exists at the business can determine really where and how you end up influencing and getting things done. very much an influence-based thing. Probably 75 % of the facilities would use me on a...

you know, incredibly strong basis. know, some of them are like, no, we're good. We'd like to do our own thing. Like, okay, that's fine. I stayed extremely busy focusing again on this, you know, frontline leadership development, talent management, executive recruiting was a big piece of what I started to step into and working with functional groups on, you know, whether it's engagement, you know, functional development of leaders.

And then ultimately spent the last half of my time there really kind of focusing with the executive leadership team on human capital planning, just being more purposeful in evaluation of people, placing people, you know, the whole succession planning aspect of things and really setting them up for what was kind of a, you you start doing, you know, some, you know, just basic demographic

you know, analysis and you start to see that, wow, 45, 50 % of our workforce can, can retire in the next, you know, three to five years. That's, know, for a legacy business that was around for 80 years, that does not have a centralized at the time, a centralized HR function. Frankly, that was, I think a pretty scary thing to see on paper, you know, I mean, you don't want to.

You look at certain dates and you look at historical dates and say that, well, know, the average person here retires at 62. Well, guess what? You know, when I put a spreadsheet up, look at all these people that are in the pipeline. We, we need to do something now. I mean, we're, we are definitely behind the eight ball on this. So I spent a lot of time with those executives kind of staging and putting in place, you know, at least structure to be able to manage who's going when, because again,

I mean, nobody, everybody, you know, the clock ticks for all of us. And, and, you know, that was coming. that, was a, that was a big part. and, then training, you know, doing a lot of this development work with frontline leaders because, know, they, they're again, family owned company. They promoted with it from within, highly, highly recognized and valued and, and, and incredibly like an employer of choice big time in the green Bay or green Bay area. So people stayed there a long time.

but we were just shifting people. Just, okay, well, that's opening. can just, you the standard, the common, to some extent, next mistake of just, hey, you're a strong single contributor and you're gonna get moved into this manager role. And, you know, we're just expecting you to continue to do really well. We certainly started to see the challenge in that type of thing. So great, great experience, great company there.

Tony Misura (21:35)
Cool. And then indie paper, right?

Bob Fieck (21:37)
Yeah.

I, you know, ultimately I, you know, we, hit a collective, what I would consider maybe roadblock of sorts of, you know, I, I, I constantly was thinking, you know, what am I going to be when I grow up? know, the, the, uh, again, nothing ventured, nothing gained, you know, life is a journey, not a destination. just, I, I constantly was thinking I'd really like to own my own, uh, uh, group.

my own organization. I feel I'm ready to do that. I want to be able to take that on. again, opportunity comes in many different forms. I end up connecting with a recruiter that says, hey, I've got an opportunity for a paper company that's going to establish itself in the Chicagoland area. And I'm like, man, I don't want to move to Chicago. I mean, that's not, you know, that's.

I'm from Wisconsin. I'm going to get disowned. My dad would disown me. But ultimately, I started having some conversations with the recruiter. ultimately, ended up being Nine Dragons Paper out of China came to the United States and purchased a legacy paper mill system, a paper mill in Northwest Maine, and then here in central Wisconsin. And they were putting their corporate office in the Chicagoland area.

So I was the first person they hired. So I was hired before the transaction closed. So again, another example of taking some personal risk, you know, is this really gonna be something that happens? I kid with the CEO, I still stay in contact with him that I don't know what I was thinking. Like, you know, my wife thought it was crazy. I mean, like, what are you doing? are we, you know, this company doesn't even exist and you're.

I'm like, I don't know, just feel like it's going to be the right opportunity. Literally, I show up my first day, meet with the CEO down in the Chicagoland area. They have their whole entourage of leaders from China there. It was just a cultural experience. I did find out that if you go to a Chinese dinner with

a bunch of people from China, should probably know how to use chopsticks, which I did not know how to use. So glad that you hired me beforehand, knowing that, you know, so I'm like, can I get a fork, please? So lots of different examples of that, but just a company that they're the largest paper company in the world. They have, I don't know.

Tony Misura (23:41)
I'm like, what?

Bob Fieck (23:56)
probably 70 by now, 70 paper machines in China, ⁓ Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and then the two mills here in the United States, which I think represent maybe seven, six, seven, 8 % of their total business. So it was really kind of a small venture for them, but they ultimately, know, the United States is the largest consumer market in the world and they wanted to, you know, they're a packaging company and they wanted to get into that business. So came here,

I, you know, we didn't have an office. I didn't have a computer. I didn't have a cell phone. didn't, you know, I was using my own Gmail account for communication and engagement. We didn't have, you know, again, didn't have an office until probably two months in. So I was hiring people. This is a crazy story. I mean, I'm like, Hey, come to this hotel conference room, uh, an interview for this job with a company that you can't research and there's nothing out there.

and try to sell them on, hey, this is pretty big deal. I'll never forget that he's like, well, here's the laundry list of jobs, 40 plus jobs that we need to fill for a corporate office.

Tony Misura (24:54)
And yeah, yeah.

Bob Fieck (25:05)
And the first person I hire as a recruiter, it's like, her name is Donna Parker. She's still there. She's amazing. She's a perfect example of the same grit and hard work and everything else. And she and I locked arms and tackled this. we first moved into, so I started in June of what, 2018 and we moved into our first office in August. literally, know,

two months without an office. It's just nuts. We move into this enormous office. mean, it's got 60 cubes and there's literally like five of us. I mean, you could have had a barn dance in there. It was almost surreal. So we made the decision after about a year to relocate down to the Chicago area. It was in the Western suburbs. The Oakbrook office was where our

you know, our office was and, you know, just again, another very similar experience to BMS where you were stepping into the hard. I mean, just the incredibly difficult, you know, expectations of trying to build something with very little structure guidance. it wasn't for the faint of heart, we would

we would interview that way too. Like, listen, you're going to be stepping into a business that has no structure, no historical data, and you got to be able to be built for this. And it's not going to be for everybody. we literally, people are like, yeah, I don't want to do that. It was a unique

Tony Misura (26:36)
You've developed a really cool operating process around, you know, kind of the trifecta or the three-legged stool, as you call it, right? The execution, servant leadership and grit. And I find this just incredibly profound.

Bob Fieck (26:51)
Mm.

Tony Misura (26:52)
Go ahead, I mean share with us like, you know, what are the core tenets and how do you execute it?

Bob Fieck (26:57)
I don't consider myself to be a thought leader of sorts in this space, but more of an adapter. And when I think in terms of that three-legged stool, the first place that I found the value from an execution standpoint was when I was at BMIS and I was working for that first president.

He had such an incredible passion for getting things done. And you want to talk about a DNA shift of, let's make sure that we get all the pieces and the parts and the process and the communication strategy. And we should probably over communicate and have this meeting. again, the paralysis by analysis, he was like, we got to stop. He constantly talked about this idea of we only have 90 days.

⁓ you know, and, and through the lens of, know, we need to pretend like business is going to fail in 90 days. What are we doing every day to wake up and drive change, to drive initiative, to get stuff done. And so he, he, was an, incredible influencer of, ⁓ the execution side of just having that clear vision, aligning strategy, empowering, not micromanaging, having high expectations.

you know, discipline through develop, you know, discipline within the culture. In other words, everybody's needs to be operating kind of under this ownership mentality of, of drive. That's where the, the, you know, the, you know, ⁓ world-class manufacturing piece came in of, need to have systems, processes, controls, procedures, and we don't have time to add a bunch of people and, know,

take six, eight months to get that we got to do this now. So even, you know, my whole HR team was very much at the time at that facility was very much focused on compliance and record keeping. And so like, no, you guys are to be involved in operation. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to have to get out there. Um, you know, in one of the parts of the story of, that execution side of things was that, you know, I'm only there a year and then we go on strike. Uh, you know, I helped manage a strike in 2000.

2009 that lasted almost two months. you want to talk about execution and grit is, you know, everybody's, you know, everybody, literally every single salary employee got moved to six days a week, 12 hours a day, you either worked 12 hours or eight hours in the plant or four hours in the plant and you did your right, your job. A number of us, Tony, I mean, we, I think there's probably 10 of us that slept in my office. I mean, I slept at the plant for two weeks.

⁓ because there was such a high degree of sense of urgency. So, you you work during the day getting managing resources and then I went out on the production floor and ran ⁓ a, you know, a machine on the floor until I got tired. I mean, it just, so again, the execution side of this was we, you know, having that really strong clear vision of what needs to get done.

and driving to get it done. And some of the highest accolades that I've gotten in my career by high level executives has always been that you're a driver, you move things, you get the ball to the finish line. I may not be the most polished guy in the world. I may not be the most educated. I don't have an MBA. I'm not some pedigree type guy. But I think most people that have worked with me would be like, this guy gets stuff done.

You know, so that's been, you know, kind of a ⁓ mantra of sorts that I've used the grit side of things. There was a guy that I worked with when I was at Green Bay Packaging. He was an external third party consultant. His name is Doug Trainor. He's got his own business. think it's Vanguard leadership. lives in Rhode Island. He was a ⁓ military officer in the Army. He was a tank commander.

I went to West Point, great guy, just unbelievable resource for me, somebody that I've talked to a lot in my past. just, he was, I think, a talent management, global talent management director for Pfizer Pharmaceutical. thinking, how big of a job is that? I mean, that just sounds monstrous. So got to know him really well. we started talking a lot about this psychology of grit. And I ended up reading the book,

⁓ grit by angela duckworth fascinating read ⁓ and it it dove into the psychology of grit and the ⁓ you know some of the studies that she did specifically with the you know west point the military academy how you know some of our brightest most intelligent most motivated most you know highly acclaimed students coming out of high school

You one of the most selective, you know, higher education institutions in the country, know, Naval Academy and, you know, the West Point. And, you know, they ended up doing a long-term study at that institution around grit and specifically how grit overcomes, to some extent, talent and intelligence.

And the most successful soldiers, they had their own scale that they would build around grit, about that passion and that long-term perseverance. And the most successful people that are coming out of those military institutions may not have been, you know, they got in so they know they're bright, you know, they're intelligent, they're incredibly talented, they're physical specimens, they're motivated, highly passionate, but ultimately,

the ones that had the strongest career paths and impact in their military careers were the ones that scored the highest on this grit factor that they had. I think back in my career and I think about all of the different situations that I've been put in. And frankly, Tony, there were a number of jobs that I didn't want. Even my first job out of college, I was like, my God, I don't want to.

don't want to do this, but my dad's just like, just take it, get your foot in the door. What are you doing? I don't want you living in my house anymore. Just go. It's got a health insurance. It's got a 401k. mean, he just get out of my house. I'm like, So you make some money. I found real quickly that talent and intelligence and certainly your ability to score well on tests and everything else, that's

that dissolves pretty quickly once you get in the workforce. And it's about getting things done, having some perseverance. Every one of the jobs that I took, there was almost a reluctance from my standpoint. like, do I really want to do this? And then being able to step in and take advantage, be able to see the opportunities. There's problems to be solved everywhere. And pushing through.

focusing, one of the things that, and I talked to my dad about this quite a bit, is kind of like normalizing failure as well. He was not ⁓ an educated guy. He joined the United States Coast Guard in 1965, graduated from high school as a very average student, and frankly excelled at a very, very high level. ended up making, he was able to, in a 20 year,

20 year career retired as a master chief. He was an E9, he was as high as he could go. He's the pinnacle, the 1%. And I just think to myself, never had any real formal education, no college experience, but he was as gritty as it comes. When the bell rang, you're on the ship, you're underway, just get it done type thing. And certainly myself as well as my two brothers certainly inherited every bit of...

that type of endurance of storage. So yeah, that's a big piece of maybe what drives me. not afraid of hard work, not afraid of jumping in. Don't mind getting dirty. A little bit of blood, mud, and sweat on your face doesn't hurt anybody. it's served me well. The last piece is really kind of around that third leg is around servant leadership. And the other thing that Brian Aumbach

The guy at Green Bay Packaging was a classic. He was a driver. had grit execution, but he also taught me the value of being a servant to those that you're working. He's in a highest level position, pinnacle position at Green Bay Packaging. Reports only to the owner and a big company at the time, 3,000 employees, big company.

much larger now. He just retired recently. I still stay in touch with him as well. Teaching about the humility of things and getting people's input and your success being the success of others. In other words, how do I define success for myself? It's through the value proposition that I see in others, developing others, being willing to go first. He was a

an old Irish Catholic guy born and raised in East St. Louis, kind of a fairly small build guy. And he just talked about his childhood at times about just getting beat up a lot and surviving and just building character within yourself and kind of working towards a higher purpose, a higher calling. so I think about

that cultivation of growth mindsets and practicing stewardship and ⁓ driving change, ⁓ elevating people, just the high integrity, high authenticity. think most of the teams that I've had work for me in the past would say that I was incredibly genuine, easy to talk to, always had an open door, always accessible, got good feedback both ways, that type of thing. I've never been perfect.

and, ⁓ but ultimately developing others, I have so many examples in my past where I can point to certain people, and feel really proud, of the fact that, they came in at, you know, a certain level and now they are, you know, operating at a much, much higher level. And I know that I had influence over that, but the woman that I mentioned before, ⁓ Donna Parker, she's, you know, she came in as a recruiter, you know, and she, she was, I don't know, she was probably.

in her early 50s, maybe late 40s when she came in, she's always been a recruiter. And now she's the senior director of human resources for a $600 million, almost a billion dollar business paper company owned by Nine Dragons. So it's a lot of pride in that, being able to know that you've developed people like that.

Tony Misura (37:10)
But it humanizes, right? I mean, it humanizes the leader. It humanizes the business and culture, right? It's just, you know, again, another thing we just see other great leaders and professionals consistently is how much they are humbled and respect both their mentors and recognize the fact that they're standing on the shoulders of giants and they're just incredibly appreciative of that. And at the same point, really

Bob Fieck (37:33)
Unbelievable.

Tony Misura (37:36)
in a position to just be humbled and they really do not want to let down whoever it is that they're mentoring. And you and I are both the same age and so we're kind of in this place of, think you and I kind of spend more time giving back these days, right? And really trying to help individuals move forward in their career objectives.

Bob Fieck (37:58)
Yeah, the opportunity to be able to look back in my career and being able to specifically look at people and know that you've influenced them is incredibly rewarding, gratifying, and very humbling. And I know that some of the leaders that I've mentioned so far

I know that they feel that about me. had a chance, Jeff Gailey, unfortunately he passed this year, but I had a chance to connect with him about a year ago. Actually went to Indianapolis, spent time with his wife, Peggy. My wife, Stephanie went down there and it was just an incredibly humbling moment because of how proud he was even of me. And it just very,

Sometimes hard to be able to hear that because you're like, yeah, okay, yeah, I get it. I'm very thankful and blessed, frankly, by the number of leaders that did invest in me. And it's a very, again, gratifying and humbling part of my career.

Tony Misura (38:59)
That's really cool. And on the execution side, there's a quote that I've actually got an article kind of mapped out on this. It was a Peter Drucker strategy is a commodity, execution is an art. And I think that that's a massive mistake that we see continually. A lot of people sitting in a room thinking that they're the smartest people in the industry and go launching off only to fail. Right? Your execution emphasis, just, I love that. I think that's excellent.

Bob Fieck (39:27)
We had a, when I was at Bemis and again, this place was family. We did have a, you know, an offsite, you know, leadership team meeting. And again, the overarching emphasis of that is, you know, what, what, what's, what's take all of this in 90 day increments. We're not, we're not here talking about a five year pipe dream, you know, five year strategic plan that that's, we, we just don't have time energy resources.

Nobody's going to manage this. It's going to get put on a shelf. Nobody's going to look at it. So let's do highly execution and highly executionable chunks of efforts around getting our operations right, getting our recruiting down, ⁓ focusing on retention and engagement. And let's get some real strong wins in place that's going to help grow, develop.

cultivate the culture that will ultimately drive the business. And just again, if I had those other six individuals sitting in the room with us right now, I think that would be a major takeaway from them is he was so, again, this was Pete Mathias, he was so focused on making sure that we keep our eyes on the target. The target is right now, is 90 days, and you guys got to execute now.

Flawlessly what you know fail fast what's reconvened what's you know? Just it was a it was a real ⁓ testament to his ability to walk into a business that was very Laze fair just you know we were just kind of Humpty Dumpty new on and basically shock the system And he's like we we don't have time to deal with them well you know in the past. He's like don't care about the best We need to focus right now, so

Yeah, was certainly that experience led right into Green Bay Packaging, which that, again, Brian Hollenbach was definitely the same way, highly focused, execution-orientated guy. And frankly, it led into Indy Paper. Ken Liu is the CEO there. He's the son of the founders from China.

highly, highly, highly focused on ⁓ execution of ⁓ expectations. And I feel it here. Why am I sitting at WOSA Supply? Well, I got a phone call from Tony saying, you want to take on another challenge. And frankly, it was time for me and

my family or my wife and I to get back to Wisconsin. had, you know, our kids are in Wisconsin, our friends, our family, you know, our networks of sorts are all back in Wisconsin. You know, what's, what's look for an opportunity to get back. I think the funniest part of this whole thing, the true, catalyst of getting back to Wisconsin was my wife telling me that while our grandson is going to be, you know, he's going to start playing pop Warner football next year, and I'm not missing a game. So

Either I'm going live in Wisconsin for September and August, September and October while he plays football or, you we can, you can find a job back in Wisconsin. She can work anywhere in sales and you can find a job back in Wisconsin and make this happen. was like, okay. So, you know, the, the, the, the honest reason for leaving and coming up here was, I guess it was based on making sure that we don't miss, you know, one of my grandson's football games.

Tony Misura (42:41)
So you've got a grandson. I've got two grandsons, five and two. In fact, I just had them one on one on Sunday. Just a great time. becoming your grandfather significantly change you?

Bob Fieck (42:53)
Oh, wow. So yeah, what a, what a, what an experience, know, you, you, hear, and you hear people talk about it, right? Like, you know, grandkids and, know, and, and you just think to yourself, am I really old enough to, be a grand? I think I was a grandfather at 45. You know, my grandson will be 10 this year. And, and you're like, yeah, you know,

kids, you have kids and then, and I'm sure you remember this, that whole parenthood is almost a blur because you're just running, right? You're constantly tired and you're just running and there's so much emphasis and focus and from your kids and you love them and you're certainly, you signed up for it,

You grandson was like, wow, this is this this is definitely amazing. This is ⁓ it helps bring full circle the you know, the you know, the the. Your your parenting, you can see your parenting through your kids and the fact that you know my daughter is an amazing mother and clearly you know our grandson as a benefactor of that and it goes back to you know, I feel pretty you know pretty.

pretty confident that my wife and I were pretty good parents as well. know, fail fast, you know, never did anything right it seemed at times, but ultimately it all came together. And, you know, my son Bentley or my grandson Bentley is, you know, he's an amazing by-product of an amazing mother and hopefully amazing grandparents as well.

Tony Misura (44:20)
But there's a pressure, there's a weight. I don't know, for me it was like, whoa, like there's a title. I've got some expertise. I'm gonna have to like really think about, know, kind of my behavior and kind of how I really carry myself. I mean, there's just a different, and it's interesting because I think it's the mentor mentee thing at the hyper, hyper, hyper scale level. Like the what's at stake becomes so serious, right?

I don't know. It's caused me to just really dial in on it.

Bob Fieck (44:49)
lot

of self-reflection, right? Yeah. It's like, how do I want to be perceived and, know, as a parent, it just seemed like there was a lot of rigidness and focus and just getting through and...

Tony Misura (45:01)
We got cash issues, we got to get college paid for, we got poopy diapers. mean, whatever the deal is you're dealing with, right? There's just too much chaos just kind of keeping the train on the tracks. now, and as a grandparent, right? It's a totally different objective. Anyway, I just, I see the connection relative to mentor mentees. So you're bringing this wealth of knowledge and expertise and this great operating, you know, kind of model these three points.

I'm curious as you look at Wasaw Supply and all the awesome brands they have, what's on the agenda? What's behind you that you've achieved that you're really like, man, you did this and what's it look like going forward?

Bob Fieck (45:36)
Yeah, so we came in and I think we had a pretty solid, you know, human resource group, pretty solid leadership group. And ultimately, you know, there was a change in a CEO and a new CEO comes in and really kind of changes the script. And it felt very much like a different organization, similar to what I experienced and some of my other

jobs where we were, you know, we need to pivot, we need to align organizationally, we need to develop kind of a roadmap of where we're going from a strategic alignment perspective across all of these different brands that you mentioned. Camclad was acquired in I think the fall of 24, so they're very new acquisition, know, entrepreneur started.

you know, that operation, you know, in Edmonton, Canada, you know, we had these three legacy brands with Taylor doors and West Branch, Michigan, you know, just a phenomenal business unit there, new leader there. And then the Wadena, the historical, you know, Wassa supply ⁓ brands that we manufacture with, you know, Wadena and Diamond code. just re recalibrating.

refocusing, where's the new objective? And frankly, it tested a lot of the business. mean, people, there's not too many people you could talk to that would say that this doesn't feel different than it did, you know, a year ago, so to speak. So being able to have some of the experience that I had and, you know, kind of that passion and motivation to create change, I think there's a couple of different things that

that really stand out. I think we were pretty, there was somebody told me early on when I started here that, well, know, Wausau Supply is kind of the best kept secret in Wausau . I'm like, I do not want to be the best kept secret in Wausau . I mean, I said, we got to wave the flag. mean, this is an amazing organization, employee-owned, ⁓ profitable, just an incredibly

Tony Misura (47:32)
Nothing good comes from that, yeah.

Bob Fieck (47:43)
strong organization, great leaders in place, great employees in place. And how do we capture kind of lightning in a bottle with this? I just kept on thinking to myself, like, we've got a lot of bandwidth to, and I coined the phrase of just waving the flag. How do we continue to wake the flag as an organization? So that was a corner piece, because ultimately to me, that translates to

you know, attraction, retention, you know, those type of things. And, you know, we hired one of the first people that, that I hired when I got here was a communications manager. just felt that we were pretty isolated from the, know, we're in a small community and we need to, we need to be a standout ish in a sense. That was a big piece. I think that, you know, we, with an employee owned company, I mean, we, you know, how do we sell, you know, the concept of Vsauce?

to give people a stronger sense of that ownership, increasing communication across the entire board, whether it's from a leadership standpoint or from just the recognition piece that helps drive employee engagement. We did our first employee engagement survey in our history last fall.

⁓ incredible amounts of data obviously anybody that does that you know we had incredibly strong participation almost seventy percent of our thousand employees or so participated really strong high ratings from an engagement standpoint but it obviously created opportunities for us to identify pockets we certainly were not perfect or not you know nobody no company is and

So it gave us a little bit of a strategic roadmap internally with the HR team of like, hey, we need to pivot and have stronger process systems, controls, procedures. We need to have a stronger recognition and engagement process with our employee owners. We need to ensure that we're creating an environment that can start to feel like we're an employer of choice, that we're an easy company to do business with.

These are taglines of sorts that we talked a lot about from a leadership standpoint. Our systems, Tony, were, you know, yeah, we have an HRAS system, highly unoptimized. mean, tremendous amount of optimization that went into this. Lots of what I would consider busy work. How do we get rid of this highly administratively over burdensome work that, you know, grinds people out?

in a sense. I want people in a position to be able to address things more proactively in the business. So a lot of that from an HR standpoint, and then just partnering with the rest of the business. A lot of us are new. The CIO is new. CFO is new. The two presidents over some of our distributed brands and Diamond Code, as well as our door shops, all new. Obviously, the

You know, the leader from Cam Clad still with us, Amber Gunderson, she's still new, you know, new to the business. So we had a, you know, Brian Miller, the CEO, I think very smartly recognized that we've got to bring this team together. mean, we've got a lot of people that are very new to the business. So we spent the last half of 2025, literally offsite two or three days every month for six months.

Calculating, recalculating, formulating, reformulating, heavy discussions on XYZ, where we're going, establishing the roadmap. I wouldn't say that we didn't put a whole heavy emphasis on a five-year strategy, but realistically, where are we going next year? 2026, 2027. So that growth mindset is well established. Everybody is aligned.

We are, we've, ⁓ you know, we're going to start opening up new distribution centers to help target key aspects of, you know, areas of influence that we're currently not in. I think that it's just, it's a very exciting time. I've said this openly before, it's the best career decision I've made in my career. Even though it's still lot of hard work, it's still, you know, it falls back into those three.

the three-legged stool of execution and grit and servant leadership. I still got mud, blood, and sweat on my face on a regular basis. And I would also say that to some extent, it's not for the faint of heart. mean, you've got a historical group that has done really well here. And now we change the dynamic saying that we have to be more focused on

getting things done moving things forward and it's not necessarily for everybody but i think organizationally there's been a high response ⁓ obviously we we too have distribution centers all over the united states and you know it's it's a incredible sales network incredible salespeople that are driving are value-added products across the business that have real impact and ⁓

You know, even our own trucking division, I we have our own semis, you know, running across the big red truck has been rebranded. It's kind of funny that, you know, little stories like that, that we're able to again, capture and use as, you know, from a value proposition with, with our marketing manager, her name is Cassandra, just, you know, driving some of this stuff in a way that's like waving the flag. mean, rebranding, you and

putting ourselves in a position of being recognized as that employer of choice and easy to do business with continues to be a focus and a goal for not only the HR group but the rest of the business.

Tony Misura (53:12)
Well, congratulations to you and Brian and the rest of the team. It's those organizations that are standing out. To back up on how you measure it, it's either a flat market or down market. And those organizations that are taking share right now and attracting talent are really standing out. And your vertical integration that you've had from a ⁓ manufacturing process and even to the level and degree that you're manufacturing the components that go into a lot of your end products, I find that just really innovative and fascinating.

And frankly, it creates just this massive durable value proposition for you. But at the same time, the competitive environments are changing. I mean, you've got JP Hunt doing installation now. You've got all of these different organizations going direct to market. It's important that organizations stay innovative and stay in that cutting edge.

Bob Fieck (54:04)
It's interesting that you know, we another thing that we did it was driven by one of our e-commerce resources internally here she's Did a voice of the customer never never had done that before either, you know And I remember back in my career how powerful that was and a number of different operations that I was at and you know So a little bit nervous, right? I mean you you you send out a survey to 10,000 customers and yeah

You know, and the results come back, you know, ⁓ with just really, really strong validation of who we are in the marketplace, who was the supply is, how we service this cost, you know, this ⁓ the marketplace that we do. And we do it with the same zeal and, you know, execution and grit that that all of us, you know, the servant leader. mean, the three legged stool applies to that that whole organization as well.

And it was a very validating moment, I think, for our sales organization that we are doing the right things and people value us. And they're willing to work with us on that. just, but again, pockets all over the place of what's next, where do we go? How do we impact? What's the, know, how do we continue to, know, chase maybe a...

a further growth model of how do we get to a billion dollars in sales? And just laying this out and being very purposeful in how we move from where we're at to where we're going. It definitely motivates you, gets you up out of the bed, get yourself strapped in and come to work and ready to do battle.

Tony Misura (55:39)
Well, thank you for allowing Missouri Group to be a part of the ride and part of a part of the growth. Super exciting to work with you. I'm super proud to have Wadena door products on my home, Lake Home and Diamond Clad. I'm sorry. And thank you. Well, Cam Clad, looking at really, I mean, I don't know if anyone has not seen it at the IBS display. My God, it's.

Bob Fieck (55:51)
Yeah, yeah

Tony Misura (56:00)
It's an amazing, amazing product line. And how you guys source that and kind of brought it to market. I don't know, it'll be interesting as I know Brian, you know, stays on the edge of those innovative products traveling to Europe and going all around, like looking at those new product lines. So it'll be exciting as you guys can continue to add and grow.

Bob Fieck (56:18)
Yeah, yeah. So it's, think most people that are, you know, have stuck through things and have worked through the grind or seen the transformation, you know, and it's obviously starts with Brian, but, know, and going through each one of the executives that are here, it's an incredibly powerful group. I'm completely honored and to work alongside such a professional group.

of business leaders that are so incredibly highly focused and well respected within the business. That's the other thing that just by department, whether it's IT, HR, finance, accounting, down the line, just an incredibly strong recognition of where we're going and the leader that we have the right team in place to be able to get there. It's an exciting place to be.

Tony Misura (57:06)
Perfect. Thank you again for being addressed. Super excited. This is going to do really well.

Bob Fieck (57:11)
I love the opportunity to connect with you again, Tony, and I look forward to our continued partnership.

Tony Misura (57:17)
Excellent.