Episode Description
Tough times bring out people’s true colors. The same goes for tough markets, where some companies wither while others thrive.
In this episode, host Chris Fredericks, CEO of Empowered Ventures, talks with Curtis Elliott, President of Paramount Plastics, to reflect on the company’s journey through three years of employee ownership.
Curtis shares how the transition to employee ownership has strengthened team culture, fueled innovation, and inspired a collaborative approach to problem-solving. Curtis and Chris discuss the challenges Paramount Plastics has faced during a downturn in the RV market and the creative strategies that have helped the company avoid layoffs while investing in the future.
This conversation offers insights into the lasting impacts of teamwork, employee ownership, and prioritizing people.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Transforming Company Culture Through Employee Ownership: Curtis reflects on how Paramount Plastics’ transition to employee ownership has fostered collaboration, trust, and innovation, creating a stronger and more resilient team.
- Navigating Market Challenges with Creativity: Curtis and his team have faced downturns in the RV market head-on, leveraging creative problem-solving and diversification to sustain operations without layoffs.
- The Impact of Employee Buy-In: Curtis shares the journey of employees moving from skepticism to full engagement, showcasing how employee ownership can shift perspectives and inspire commitment across the organization.
Jump into the conversation:
(00:00) Introduction to Curtis Elliott
(00:29) Reflecting on three years of employee ownership at Paramount Plastics
(02:02) How the culture at Paramount has evolved under employee ownership
(03:08) The creative solutions employees are bringing to management challenges
(04:46) Curtis discusses avoiding layoffs during the RV market downturn
(05:30) Navigating challenges and diversifying to sustain operations
(12:32) Key innovations and problem-solving initiatives at Paramount
(16:24) Building a stronger leadership team and creating depth across roles
(19:11) Celebrating wins and fostering a unified, engaged team at Paramount
(20:16) Curtis reflects on growth, resilience, and preparing for future success
How to Listen or Watch
Listen below or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Watch below or @Empowered_Ventures on YouTube.
Read the full transcript below the media links.
Episode Transcript
Chris Fredericks: Welcome to Empowered Owners, the podcast that takes you inside Empowered Ventures. I’m your host, Chris Fredericks. In each episode, I’ll have a discussion with one of our employees to discover and highlight their distinct personalities, perspectives and skills, while also keeping you in the loop with exclusive news, updates on company performance, and a glimpse into the future plans of Empowered Ventures. This is an opportunity for me to learn more about our amazing employee owners and an opportunity for you to hear regularly from me and others from within Empowered Ventures. Welcome to another episode of Empowered Owners, the community-building podcast about and for the employee-owners of Empowered Ventures. My name is Chris Fredericks, and on today’s episode I’m talking with Curtis Elliott, president of Paramount Plastics, which recently celebrated its third anniversary of joining Empowered Ventures. This is Curt’s second time on the podcast and in this episode he provides an update on what’s been going on at Paramount since the last time we spoke. I always enjoy my conversations with Curt and appreciate his open-hearted and direct approach. I think you’ll enjoy Curt’s insights into the RV market, navigating the ups and downs of that industry, and Paramount’s resilience and embracing of employee ownership. I’m so proud of Curt and the Paramount team for beginning to diversify the business while also positioning it so well for the next upswing in the RV market. With that, let’s get to my conversation with Curtis. Hi, Curt. Welcome back to Empowered Owners.
Curtis Elliott: Hi. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed the first round so much. I’m glad to be back.
Chris Fredericks: Yeah. Round two, right?
Curtis Elliott: Yep.
Chris Fredericks: Well, excited to have you on today to just check in again on Paramount. I think we’re right around. Actually, by the time this episode comes out, Paramount will have been part of Empowered Ventures for three years, which is pretty incredible. What do you think about that?
Curtis Elliott: Well, on a personal level, it’s very incredible for us, but I think the main thing for Paramount is that we’ve began to get the employee ownership traction. The culture has most definitely changed and there’s a lot more interaction from the employees on, you know, how things are going and how we can make them better and things like that, which I think is been an extremely positive for us. In the beginning. There was an awful lot of doubt from the folks and I think we’ve kind of washed through that finally, and we’ve got a lot of people that have bought in strong. And that’s been the number one thing for us that’s changed, and it’s been a big improvement. It’s been a big, extreme improvement for us to have that kind of support from our staff. And it’s even a benefit to have them come back with the feedback that they do often.
There are a lot more creative juices flowing now than there were before. And that’s exciting. It’s always exciting to get. You know, when in upper-level management, you get inundated with problems, and you often find yourself saying, geez, what it’d be like to have solutions for once. And I think we’re starting to see that fruit. Instead of bringing you the problem, they come in and hand you the solution and say, hey, what do you think we did this. It’s a whole lot of saying, yeah, I think that’s a good idea. So yeah, it’s really been the number one thing for us.
We have experienced a downturn in the market here in Elkhart county with the RVs and marine. And that’s been a challenge on the opposite side of the spectrum. I mean, our culture has improved tremendously, but at the same time, it’s been a challenge to keep people focused on getting their hours and getting work done and getting sales in here. So Ben and I have really been pressing hard to get new opportunities in here that we can increase the level of sales without actually having to have rely on the RV market trying to diversify a little bit and get some different opportunities in here that we can keep things going until things come back. And it does feel like there is a little energy behind it now. And we may see some increase, but our workers have really appreciated the employee ownership mentality, you know, through this. Because as our competitors laid off and have now laid off repetitively three times, four times in some cases, we haven’t had yet one layoff and for the most part have worked them 40 hours a week and we’ve worked hard to keep them sales up high enough. We got a magic number we try to hit, and if we hit that number, we work forward at five days. So it’s important for them to get those hours. I mean, obviously they’re trying to feed families and things. So navigating this downturn has been a little difficult. It’s extended a little longer than I think anybody thought it was going to. I don’t know. We’ll see. Hopefully it’s on the rebound here. We do have one customer laid in a fairly large order on us.
They have committed to try to put that order through by the end of the year. 1200-pound tube boats. So it’s a sizable order. We made an announcement in the plant the other afternoon and said, you know, it might be. We had a lot of people expecting to be down for two weeks at the end of the year. We wanted to get out in front of them and say it’s not going to happen now. You know, we’re going to be working. And I actually put it out there that there’s an opportunity probably for some overtime here with these orders and asked for a show of hands.
And I had like 35 hands out of 43 workers go up. You know, we’ve got a really sold-out team here that’s wanting to get back to work and get going. So I’m encouraged that there’s been some movement, a little bit of movement in the market and with what we’ve added and we’re working on project list-wise, we should have a very strong, robust return once it does get back up and going.
Chris Fredericks: That’s great. That’s a lot of good stuff. Let’s, let’s dig into some of those pieces a little more. So one of the things you mentioned was the employee ownership culture and how things started off maybe with some skepticism, which is typical for any company that goes through any kind of transition or transaction process. There’s going to be concern about the new situation. What do you think has any examples or what do you think has been the main driver of the ability of the folks there to embrace the employee ownership kind of mindset?
Curtis Elliott: Well, Spencer, early on when came to visit with us all, he made a comment that the shares are real money. And I think the first year, you know, it was a partial year, it was only four months out of the year. So the statements came out, you know, obviously they were good, but they weren’t knocking anybody’s socks off. The second year when they came out, that was a showstopper. There was a lot of people. Wait a minute. And I think the statements really did help us. It really validated what you guys had been telling us and putting you know, ink to paper, in other words.
And I just think they really bought the whole idea that, hey, I am an employee-owner and I am a shareholder of this. And it made a big difference. I mean, it was encouraging to them all and significant to them. Initially, I was one of them that referred to the plan as a retirement type of benefit. And at one point you had made the comment, to me, it’s a wealth-building tool. And it really is. It’s not just, you know, a retirement program, it’s a wealth-building tool. So they began to see that as being a wealth-building tool, which is far better than any retirement program.
So I think that was a lot of the traction that we got this year. It’s. We have a couple that have just astonished me of how they’ve gone from being doubters to being very bought in. And some of them, I just never would have dreamed they would have ever bought in to begin with, but they’re totally all in. And it’s exciting. It’s just really exciting to see it. It’s good for the company, it’s good for everyone. It’s good for all of the employee-owners at every division.
Chris Fredericks: That’s great. In terms of the RV market, maybe we can talk some more about that. I mean, when, when we at Empowered Ventures chose to go forward with Paramount, we knew the RV market historically can have some ups and downs, some booms and busts, and we were fully prepared to ride those out because we make long-term bets on the companies that join Empowered Ventures. And so it did come a little faster than any of us wanted. The first year as part of EV was a great year. The last year and a half have been part of this RV market challenge. And so not a surprise, but I’m proud of how Paramount has weathered this. I mean, I think to not have to do any significant layoffs like you said, and while others in the industry have and to maintain a certain level of performance, that’s actually pretty strong considering how far the industry fell so quickly. I think everyone should be proud of the perseverance that Paramount and the team are showing. Is that how you’re feeling about it?
Curtis Elliott: The team is very proud of what we’ve been able to do. You know, the secular nature of the RV market is usually a 7 to 10-year swing. And I think COVID kind of really threw a wrench into that. You wouldn’t have normally seen the radical change that happened during the COVID period. People went extremely off the charts on buying them because it was allowing them to get out with family and still stay isolated to some extent. So there was a lot of movement and we had a very large market at that point. And it didn’t really come as a shock as things began to taper back that, that it was going to fall. Now, none of us, I don’t.
I don’t think anybody in the market thought it was full as far as it did or stayed down as long as it has, because the cycles typically are a year. They’ll turn around usually within that year, 15, 18 months at the worst. It’s been a little harder than that. And I think it’s only because of the amount of units that got built during that period and sold. It interrupted the natural stream, if you will. And because there was so many units sold out of the natural stream, it kind of eliminated the stream for a while. And I think it’s coming back. Obviously, the Fed cutting the rates and discretionary spending, interest rates are going to come down a little bit, I think you’ll see some movement. It’ll come back slowly but surely. There’s a lot of innovation in the market going on right now, and that’s usually when people are retooling. They’re trying to use the time down to recreate and innovate. So there’s a lot of that going on out there right now. So I think when it does come back, it’s going to bounce back pretty strong. We were running pretty strong before, and I think, you know, if we just get back to where we were, the additional business we’ve added is going to really. We could probably be looking at 20 to 30% up from where we were.
So I’m really encouraged by the team. They really do understand where we’re at and they do appreciate that we’ve made them a priority. It makes me feel good that I know their families are covered, you know, because there’s a lot. I mean, we ran a recent ad on one of our Facebook websites here in town, and we just put out there that we were accepting apps. We had over 800 apps during the day. I would stop in the lobby there and just ask people how they’re doing and get their story a little bit. And there’s a lot of people in this county hurting. And I don’t think by the time this hits out there, hopefully things will change some.
But the main thing that I want to get across is that we held our own. We carried our water through there and we somehow kept our heads above it, kept people working, and that’s a great thing to have happen. Hearing some of these stories in this lobby was just, you know, it’s heartbreaking. People out of work for a year, three months, how do you live? I mean, you run out on the planet eventually, so it’s tough. So it is a tough market. I think we are on the verge of it turning now if somebody’s got some inclination somewhere because there’s orders being put in, people are starting to call and say, hey, we want to know if we can get this early. We got lines running. We can use this stuff.
So there’s a lot of movement going on, I think. And I think Ryan’s first year, we’ll see an uptick. It’s exciting, actually.
Chris Fredericks: Yeah, that’s great. Back to what you mentioned earlier, too, about the folks on the team kind of bringing ideas and new things to the table. Any examples that come to mind of things people have suggested or brought forth.
Curtis Elliott: I’ll give you an example of one of them. Bryn, our assistant plant manager for Steve, is wrestling with some parts that we’re having issues with variance and the quality. On a couple of parts, a lot of days he’ll stay after and he’ll go back into wood shop there and he’ll make fixtures and tools to correct these issues. And those are often things that you have somebody on the team, you know, do for you. And this is an example of the commitment level. You know, Red’s, obviously, he’s got things during the day he’s got to do, but then at the end of the day, he takes time out to go back and fix something, you know, make something, a jig or whatever to fix a problem. We’ve got a particular part for Jacob that we wrestle with on and off. And, you know, it’s a trim issue.
So he’s made a jig fixture out. We can trim exactly the same each time. And those are all big ideas that end up. They’re small in nature, but they’re big when it comes to quality and repeatability. So we typically pride ourselves not to be that. For example, that rubber stamp corrective action guy that says, okay, we’re going to retrain the crew or whatever. We typically will think outside the box to come up with creative ways to fix things. We’re 3D printing these fixtures for the CNC department.
One of the ideas that we’ve come up recently in the prior CNC fixtures, we would use screen and ports through the fixture to draw air for vacuum. Well, they had a meeting one afternoon and we bannered around these little D cup rings where we can isolate the suction. And we put usually about 6 of these D cups on the fixture now. And we get a substantially better vacuum pressure off of it. It holds a part tighter. It doesn’t let the part move. So there’s just a couple examples of things that by collectively talking through things like that, you come up with solutions and real corrective actions that fix problems and allow you to be more repeatable and more sustainable.
Chris Fredericks: That’s great. And during this kind of last year and a half too, I gather you and Ben have really put a fair amount of attention and effort into getting the word out about Paramount in other industries and maybe attending things that you haven’t attended before. So a lot of work.
Curtis Elliott: A lot of work. Ben’s obviously been the guy that’s done a lot of the on-the-road stuff. I kind of stay back, run the plant. But he went down to Ibex this year. First time we showed. In fact, we kind of did an informal pull on the competitors and nobody really shows at Ibex, so we were the only one down there this year other than duo form. And they really weren’t showing on the same level that we were. They were showing shower pans and stuff like that.
So we went down. We got a lot of leads off of that. We picked up several new accounts, actual POs in hand for them. So that’s real exciting. So there’s a lot of stuff like that going on, a lot of local stuff. Some of the competitors aren’t taking the quality as serious. So there’s some issues going on with the one competitor. I’ve picked up several pieces off of them from existing accounts that they’ve gotten tired of it and said, you know, we’re just going to switch the business.
So we’ve also been there live for that too, to gain that business. So we’re picking up additional from outside by doing these shows and we’re also picking up additional in the local market just by being, you know, the reputation that we have is making a difference.
Chris Fredericks: Any other. Just things that come to mind to celebrate or wins to mention. From the last year or so?
Curtis Elliott: We’ve restructured considerably from where I was when you adopted me. So I was here. Rex had really kind of withdrawn from the business by the time you came and I was running it a little bit by myself pretty much. And you at one point said, I think we should try to build out the team a little bit. And. And at the time I thought, wow, you know, maybe I ain’t doing a good enough job or something. But we did build a team out with Ben and subsequently, then further beyond that even, but that’s been very helpful. I did not realize how much I was trying to do and not being successful at it versus now where I have that support, tremendous support. So under me, we’ve got Ben, and we’ve hired a new controller, a young lady named Rachel, who is a grand slam. She’s just a wonderful human being. I just really think a lot of her. She’s just a great person. And we were struggling in our purchasing department, so we’ve hired a young fellow by the name of Derek Runkle, and he is just a great asset to us. He’s working his tail off, and we’ve got to figure out how to help him a little bit. But these two are just superstars. I mean, they’re not a players, they’re A-plus players.
And so that’s kind of expanded our team out a little bit. And then Steve been able to pick up a little help from Bren. Steve was doing a lot of the quoting and a lot of the engineering side of things, and I was helping him. And obviously Bren was doing more of the floor, and it was more of a practicality issue of giving him a title because he was already doing the work. So we gave him that assistant plant manager role, and they began to build out their team with all the way to the lead position. So I’m really excited because we have never had the depth on the bench that we’ve got, and I think for the Runway that we’re looking at and what we’re trying to do for the future, we needed to be doing that. And I got to give you credit because I didn’t see it, and I was kind of like, well, you know, what’s wrong with what we got? But when you get deep in the bench and you realize how much more you can accomplish in reality, do well. And not just do, but do well.
It makes a huge difference for the team. So we’ve done a lot of work in that area too, and really developed some really critical key players, players that I hope are just as fond of us as we are of them. So. And I’m sure they are, but I. I just want them to be really happy here. We picked up a fellow by the name of Frank Lockwoods that works with us. He’s a CNC, our 3D printer specialist. We’ve nurtured that relationship, done very well with that, you know, work in progress, trying to get to where we’re all working together and pulling on rope to that same direction.
But we’ve developed a bench. We just didn’t have that bench before. It was a lot of individuals, not necessarily team members. And now it’s more team. It’s more even down to the bottom positions. They know that what their role on that rope is and how to pull. That’s what made a significant difference in Paramount.
Chris Fredericks: That’s exciting. And I’d add to that, too. You found new roles for two folks, Sarah and Dan, that you know to find great fits for them and give them more opportunity as well.
Curtis Elliott: In fact, Ben just complimented Dan Monday morning on our project. We’ve installed a project meeting every Monday now that we’ll go over all the existing. We have, for the first time in Paramount’s history, a project list of 35 projects. It’s an enormous project list. And I was trying to hustle all that myself and call on customers and everything else. And I just. We realized at some point that it’s like I said earlier, doing it and doing it well is two different things. And we thought, Dan’s got a very organized skillset and he’s very methodical in his ways and he’ll probably fit into this really well.
So we moved him into that. He’s done a very nice job. He’s excelled at it. Sarah is actually really cool. Story started out as a receptionist, was going to school, online school, and got her psychology degree and approached us and said, hey, I’d like to try this HR thing. And so we said, hey, why not? We need hr. We don’t have anybody doing that for us. So we moved her over into that, and she’s just really done a really nice job for us, a very much needed role that we weren’t.
And that’s really kind of what I’m, you know, referring to, is that the depth of the bench. The bench is getting deep, and that’s all runway now that we can. I can be focused on the vision of the company and where we’re going for the future and not be tied down working on projects all day and trying to talk to customers. And customer service is actually doing customer service now. And I’m not. It’s been a hard habit to break away from answering, you know, answering the emails. But I got good about saying, you know what? That’s what I got people doing these roles for. So I need to let them do them.
So Ben and I’s kind of been just dropped back, working on the vision, working on getting new customers, actively seeking new opportunities and looking at opportunities from a strategic standpoint. Does this fit where we want to go for the future? And I think that’s what our role should have been from the beginning, and we’re finally getting our stride there.
Chris Fredericks: Well, kudos to you, Curt. That’s three years of hard work and building and developing a team and supporting them to grow and learn. So it does sound like Paramount’s really poised that when the market does pick back up and things turn, Paramount’s poised to really do well in the coming years.
Curtis Elliott: I told Kim today, I said, you know, we were always a money maker and I said, I’m looking forward to getting back to that point where we can generate some cash. You know, I always did really enjoy that, being able to kick money up and keep things going. So, yeah, we’re looking forward to getting back to that.
Chris Fredericks: Yep, absolutely. This has been a lot of fun, Curt. Really appreciate your time. Thanks for coming back on Empowered Owners.
Curtis Elliott: Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it.
Chris Fredericks: I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Curtis Elliott. Empowered Owners is a podcast by and for the employee-owners of Empowered Ventures. Special thanks to ShareYourGenius for producing. You can find show notes and transcripts on our website at empowered.ventures. Full video episodes are on YouTube @Empowered_Ventures. If you have a question for us about EV, our companies or employee ownership, contact us at [email protected]. You can also text or leave a voicemail at 317-643-2383.