E18: Expert Secrets To Building A Fourth-Generation Business | Tim Ashley
Sure it’s hard to run a business and keep it successful but you know what’s harder? Keeping that up for generations.
In this episode, we dive deep into the complexities of running a family business. Learn how legacy plays a role in day-to-day operations, how to handle succession planning, and how to overcome modern hiring challenges.
Fourth-generation business expert Tim Ashley shares valuable insights into adapting to a changing market, managing regulatory pressures, and balancing work-life in a family-owned business. This episode provides essential strategies for business owners looking to build sustainable and successful operations, generation after generation.
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Kellen Ketchersid
Kellen is a co-founder of Stag Business Coaching, business strategist, and a systems thinker. He leverages his extensive experience in biotech and consulting to empower entrepreneurs to navigate complex challenges with strategic growth solutions.
Albert Gillispie
Albert is a serial entrepreneur, business efficiency expert and co-founder of Stag Business Coaching who has founded several multimillion-dollar companies. With expertise in optimizing operations and innovative systems, he mentors business leaders who want to unlock their business’s full potential.
Tim Ashley is the owner and president of Clovis Concrete Company, a fourth-generation business that he runs with his wife, Celeste. Tim is also a county commissioner out in New Mexico and proud father of four.
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EPISODE 18 TRANSCRIPTION
Introduction
[00:00:00] Albert Gillispie: Welcome to the Business Growth Masterclass, where business growth is made simple. Listen as we discuss best practices to streamline your operations, increase your profits, and ultimately create healthier, more stable, and more valuable businesses. Today's guest is a good friend of yours, Kellen.
[00:00:17] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, it's Tim Ashley, and he's the owner and president of the Clovis Concrete Company. He runs that business with his wife, Celeste, and it's a fourth-generation—not third, I thought it was third—fourth-generation business. Tim is also a county commissioner out in New Mexico and proud father of four, so that guy's got a lot going on. It's a great episode that I think we have for everybody to listen to.
[00:00:43] Kellen Ketchersid: What's something that you enjoyed from our conversation today, Albert?
[00:00:48] Albert Gillispie: You already alluded to it, and it's that this is a fourth-generation business that started in 1957. So many business owners, I think, want to build a legacy that they can pass on to their kids, and it’s rare that it happens.
[00:01:06] Albert Gillispie: It’s rare that the kid is interested, or can do it well. You know, you hear all these horror stories of second- and third-generation kids of businesses that are into drugs or whatever, and just screw their life up. And the fact that Tim's family has navigated that now for four generations is crazy.
[00:01:33] Albert Gillispie: To hear him talk about the dialogue and how they've navigated that over the years is insightful and interesting. And, you know, does he have four or five kids? He has, he has a ton of kids. And there's one kid who took a liking to it. He gave so many options to all of his kids, and one of them was interested in it.
[00:02:00] Albert Gillispie: So, I think it was awesome hearing how he's navigated that as a dad—giving his kids options and building this legacy if they wanted to. Anyway, that blows my mind and is really uncommon.
[00:02:15] Kellen Ketchersid: What about you?
[00:02:16] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And you know, the fact that Tim—you gotta stay in this episode toward the end, because you get some of the best insights about what you were just talking about.
[00:02:25] Kellen Ketchersid: That family business dynamic at the end. The other thing that I really enjoyed was he was talking about what a challenge it is right now to hire in this market. And there's a need for good help, and a lot of business owners feel that. He’s really creative in the way he thinks—you can tell that Tim is an outside-of-the-box kind of guy.
[00:02:45] Kellen Ketchersid: I think he even says that at one point. So, just trying to think in a "Tim Ashley" kind of way, I think, would help a lot of business owners out there. So, all right, without any further ado, let’s get into it. Here we go.
[00:03:03] Albert Gillispie: Welcome to the podcast, Tim Ashley.
[00:03:08] Tim Ashley: Thank you. Glad to be here.
[00:03:08] Kellen Ketchersid: We've been looking forward to it.
[00:03:10] Tim Ashley: Me too, actually.
[00:03:11] Kellen Ketchersid: Good. Well, just jumping right in—one of our first questions we want to ask is, if you could have lunch with any entrepreneur or business leader, dead or alive, who would it be?
[00:03:21] Tim Ashley: Yeah, for me, that's an easy one. I would love to sit down and pick Elon Musk's brain. That's, in my mind, a pretty fascinating individual.
[00:03:31] Kellen Ketchersid: Oh yeah.
[00:03:32] Tim Ashley: You know, he’s, of late, become somewhat controversial, but I think he'd make for a very interesting conversation.
[00:03:40] Kellen Ketchersid: I would expect nothing less from the guy who drove up in a Tesla. I like that. So tell us about how you got started. Tell us about your business and how you got into it.
Family Legacy
[00:03:51] Tim Ashley: Okay. Well, I, I own two different businesses. However, they kind of work together. I own Clovis Concrete Company, which is in Clovis, New Mexico, and that's a New Mexico Subchapter S Corporation. I also own TNC Concrete LLC, which is a Texas LLC. Clovis Concrete is in Clovis, and TNC Concrete has two locations, one in Muleshoe, Texas, and one in Friona, Texas.
[00:04:10] Tim Ashley: I do also have another business—we are in the aggregate business. The pit is over in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and the processing facility is in Clovis. We produce our own aggregates for our concrete.
[00:04:32] Kellen Ketchersid: So the aggregates are where you're mining what's used?
[00:04:34] Tim Ashley: That's correct. Yeah, we are in the mining business.
Concrete Business Components and Aggregates
[00:04:40] Albert Gillispie: What are the ingredients in—without giving away any proprietary information—what are the ingredients that make up concrete?
[00:04:49] Tim Ashley: It's not rocket science, so I wouldn’t be giving up a whole lot here. It's just rock, sand, cement, and water. Those are the major components for concrete. Then, there’s all kinds of chemistry with chemical admixtures and things that manipulate the concrete to perform in certain ways, but yeah, those basic four components—that’s what it takes to make concrete.
[00:05:18] Albert Gillispie: So when you say aggregate, which of those components are aggregate?
[00:05:23] Tim Ashley: The rock and the sand.
[00:05:24] Albert Gillispie: Rock and sand?
[00:05:25] Kellen Ketchersid: All right. So how does somebody get into that business? How did you get into it?
[00:05:29] Tim Ashley: Well, how I got into it was my grandfather actually started Clovis Concrete back in 1957, so my business is older than I am. I guess you would say I was born into it.
[00:05:39] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:05:43] Tim Ashley: I grew up—I tell people all the time, I don't think they believe me—but I learned to drive a front-end loader before I knew how to ride a bike. My parents believed in giving us a work ethic very early. So yeah, it was great.
[00:06:01] Tim Ashley: I, I loved it. Probably kept me out of a lot of trouble when I was a kid. And so it was a good experience. But yeah, he started it shortly after my dad joined him. My grandfather actually passed away when I was just a small child. I really never knew him, so I never had that opportunity, but my dad continued it on after that.
[00:06:23] Tim Ashley: Then my brother and I were invited into the business as owners in the early nineties. My parents retired in 1996, and my brother got out of the business in 2000, which left me and my wife Celeste to run it.
[00:06:39] Albert Gillispie: Wow, that’s unique—having a three-generation family-owned business. Tell me about that. I’m sure it comes with a lot of challenges. What went well, and what maybe didn’t, in that kind of succession planning and multi-generation transfer?
Navigating Multi-Generational Family Business
[00:07:06] Tim Ashley: Well, I will tell you, there are always challenges in any family-operated business, right? You have your relationship with your parents, your children, or whoever the family member is in the business, and it’s sometimes difficult to keep from blurring the lines between the business relationship and the family relationship.
[00:07:34] Tim Ashley: That’s definitely been a challenge in our business. You don’t always see eye to eye, and personal issues can bleed over into work. One thing I recommend to anyone in that situation is to preface it with, “When we’re at work, we have an employer-employee relationship. When we go off the clock, you’re my son, daughter, father, mother, whatever.” It’s important to set those boundaries.
[00:08:15] Tim Ashley: My second oldest son, Josh, graduated from Texas Tech with a bachelor’s in finance and decided he’d like to work in the family business. So, he is continuing on as the fourth generation in our business.
[00:08:24] Albert Gillispie: Wow, that’s amazing.
[00:08:37] Tim Ashley: It’s really neat that there’s a legacy there. You know, our business, if you look at when my grandfather started it back in 1957 to the market conditions today, it’s an entirely different world. I mean, it still takes the same four components to make concrete, but everything else about the business has changed.
[00:09:02] Tim Ashley: And I’m not so sure that these changes are for the better. You know, things were much simpler then. We didn’t have all the bureaucracies back then that we do today. Even my parents, who are now both deceased, wouldn’t have recognized the business just in the 15 years since they were involved in it. Things are continually changing, and mainly I’m talking about regulations because, in our industry, there’s a lot of regulation.
[00:09:46] Kellen Ketchersid: So, as a business owner, being a third and now into the fourth-generation business, you’ve had to go through so many challenges. Can you tell us about one or two things you’ve had to overcome as an entrepreneur or a business leader?
Challenges of Hiring and Skilled Labor
[00:10:03] Tim Ashley: Well, some of the biggest challenges we face right now—and this has been going on for several years—is finding good help. All our drivers, because, you know, our product has to go in a truck and be delivered to the job site. So, not only do we manufacture and produce concrete, but we are also a transportation industry because we have to get our product to the customer. We operate our own fleet of trucks, and getting qualified, good help is a big challenge.
[00:10:43] Tim Ashley: Seems to be getting more difficult every year. We go down the path, and I don't think that's strictly to our industry. I think, you know, a lot of different industries are facing that same thing today.
[00:10:55] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, we're hearing that in a lot of different sectors in business, as people trying to find good help is the big challenge.
[00:11:02] Kellen Ketchersid: So what do you do? What are some of your strategies for looking for good people?
[00:11:07] Tim Ashley: You know, my son and I were visiting the other day about the possibility of possibly even starting a truck driving school because that's been a real challenge in New Mexico. You have to have... go to school to get your CDL, and there aren't a whole lot of schools in the whole state of New Mexico. So, I think I understood the other day there might be one that's either recently opened up or thinking about opening up or something in the Clovis-Portales area. So, we'll definitely be looking at that, but our industry, because ours is local delivery, you know, pretty much like a hundred miles or less.
[00:11:51] Albert Gillispie: And yeah, who, who is your... because y'all, y'all are for the, for the listener here, we're talking about, you know, some small or rural towns in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. So what, what is your typical customer look like?
[00:12:05] Tim Ashley: That is a broad range.
[00:12:07] Albert Gillispie: Really?
[00:12:08] Tim Ashley: Yes, because we, we deal with huge corporations all the way down to the individuals pouring a sidewalk at his house. So yeah, our, our customer base is very wide and diverse. So one of our largest markets is Cannon Air Force Base. There's always something being built out there, so we definitely do a lot of work there. Road projects, you know, things of that nature. We've done some large industrial projects. For example, the Cargill meat processing plant over at Freona, Texas. We did a wastewater treatment plant project over there a couple of years back and, and that was a very large project. Wind generator projects—we did the wind turbines up on the Caprock near San Jon, New Mexico—that's been several years back. That was a big project.
[00:13:09] Albert Gillispie: Quite a range of clients, a lot of government contracting, it sounds like.
[00:13:12] Tim Ashley: Yeah, yeah. Bridge work, things like that for both New Mexico DOT and Texas DOT. A lot of projects like that. So yeah, anywhere you need concrete, that's pretty much where we go.
[00:13:27] Kellen Ketchersid: So when you were talking about, you know, finding the right help and training these truck drivers, one of the things that I was just thinking about is that’s such a creative thing... a way to think, you know, a lot of business owners, when they feel stuck, let's just keep trying the thing we've been doing.
Thinking Outside the Box in Business Strategy
[00:13:42] Kellen Ketchersid: So I love the idea of like, Hey, what if we figure out a way to get our guys certified or, you know, just thinking outside of the box like that. I would imagine you have to use a lot of strategies like that as a multi-generation business evolving all the time. Can you think of some other examples where you guys have had to change your strategy in the business to keep success?
[00:14:09] Tim Ashley: Yes. Back in the nineties, we got involved in building corporate hog farms. And that required us to go out and get portable manufacturing plants, portable concrete batch plants, to produce this concrete on-site at these different farm locations. At the time, they were building one right after the other, and they weren’t in one central location. So you needed a facility that would be high production, but at the same time, be extremely mobile, and we found some equipment that fit that bill. So we actually operated four of those different batch plants at the same time. Up in the Oklahoma panhandle, Southern Kansas, Northern Texas panhandle, all the way from Perryton, Texas, Guymon, Oklahoma, up into some of the small towns in Kansas, and so forth.
[00:15:06] Kellen Ketchersid: You’re not afraid to think bigger and do something a little bit unorthodox, I guess, in that sense, right?
[00:15:13] Tim Ashley: Yeah. You, you follow the opportunity. And, you know, for example, at that particular time, we had the situation in our market where we had work, but we also had some portable plants that we weren’t using at the time, and a very unique situation. I just get a phone call out of the blue one day, and a guy that was working up in Dalhart on a project said they had had a producer on that site, and for whatever reason, that relationship separated. He called me and said, “Hey, I've got this project. We’ve got a lot of yards of concrete we’re going to be needing on this project. Can you come up here and take a look, see if you’d be interested in doing it?” So we had never really ventured away out of our market at that time to do anything like that.
[00:16:06] Kellen Ketchersid: Was it scary the first time to do that?
Portable Concrete Plants and Expansion
[00:16:08] Tim Ashley: You know, in a way, I think it could be, because you wonder, “Do I hire local drivers? Do I bring my guys from our current marketplace? How do we work this?” So, yeah, there was a little bit of a learning curve to try and figure things out. We had the equipment to do it, so that really wasn’t an issue. At that time, our market wasn’t just going crazy, so we had surplus equipment that we could use. So that really wasn’t too big of a challenge, but some of the logistics were. You know, when you’re working away from home and what you know, and you’ve got to establish new relationships with vendors. For example, in that situation, we had to go find other aggregate producers to be able to purchase the aggregates from.
[00:16:59] Tim Ashley: So we did that, you know, and it wasn't difficult to do, but yeah, whenever you're looking at something, you've got to change with the times. I mean, you've got to, whatever the market demands, you've got to follow it.
[00:17:12] Albert Gillispie: Finishing a book right now, Only the Paranoid Survive. And one of his main concepts in the book is about these strategic changes where the market is demanding something, and, you know, your entire team isn't arriving at the conclusion that we need to change something in the business at the same time. So eventually there's some kind of triggering event that gets your entire team on board with, "Okay, we need to change because of X, Y, and Z." And so it sounds like you've navigated that over and over and over. How, how have you gotten your team on board, especially the senior leaders? You know, you, your parents, your brother—how did y’all navigate that? Were you always on the same page?
[00:18:00] Tim Ashley: Well, to be honest, that particular project and at that particular time, I was really the only one trying to pitch it. Everybody else was a little bit hesitant. They were like, "Oh no, we’ve never done that before," and things like that. But after I went and visited the project, talked to the project manager, and came back and said, "Hey guys, this is what I’ve negotiated. Are you on board or not?" And yeah, they crunched the numbers and—
[00:18:34] Kellen Ketchersid: Made sense.
[00:18:34] Tim Ashley: Yeah, yeah. So there really wasn’t too much to fight with on that argument. So everybody kind of understood that, and we went and did that project. And that was kind of what launched us into much more because that was just one portable plant on one site. And within a year, we moved up the road to around Guymon, Oklahoma, and took on multiple projects and purchased some more portable plants. By that time, everybody’s all, "We better get some more portable plants so we can facilitate the demand here." So that’s, that’s what we did.
[00:19:14] Kellen Ketchersid: You just never know when one door is going to lead to another, and another after that. It’s cool.
[00:19:19] Kellen Ketchersid: But you had to walk through that first door. You had to have the open mind to say, "Hey, this is an opportunity, and I'm going to drive out there and see if it's worth it." I think that's a great takeaway for a lot of our listeners and business owners out there. If you're hustling, taking the call, and checking things out, you never know what might come of it if you're just going for it and working hard.
[00:19:39] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:19:42] Tim Ashley: Yeah, you know, I, I think, you know, I’ve always followed the expression of thinking outside the box and not being scared to step out of what you've always done in order to pursue something that might be new to you.
[00:20:00] Albert Gillispie: Cool.
[00:20:01] Tim Ashley: And, and be flexible, keep an open mind, you know, don’t jump into things—consider it carefully and thoroughly. But if you’ve got to change, you need to change.
[00:20:13] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. What you’re describing, the author of the book, I think he was one of the co-founders of Intel, and he’s describing these strategic shifts of, you know, "Hey, I know the needs or the market is changing in this way," and you kind of have to experiment a little bit. He’s describing figuring out there’s this new need and it’s a problem to be solved, and at the same time, you can’t completely abandon everything you’re doing right now in the rest of your operation. You’re kind of, you know, experimenting. You've got these hog farms, and it's like, "All right, if we do a couple of these, all right, that worked. Now we can go bigger, we can invest more money, and we can bring more of the team along."
[00:20:59] Albert Gillispie: I think we overcomplicate what innovation is. You know, for 99 percent of the businesses, it’s not Silicon Valley. It’s this new need in the market, and how can we tweak what we’re doing? How can we figure out how to make it make business sense? And then you seek out a proof of concept—do it small, right?
[00:21:34] Tim Ashley: Right.
[00:21:34] Albert Gillispie: That works. All right. Now, let's do it a little bigger. Now, let's do it a little bigger. And that's, I mean, you're in an industry—a fourth-generation concrete company, you know. I don't mean this in a bad way, but it's kind of this "boring" business that always has a need. Everybody needs concrete. It's not like this flashy, social media, TV, sexy technology company, right? It's just a staple that's always in demand, making concrete. But it's endlessly complex and endlessly changing, right? You're constantly innovating in this business.
[00:22:21] Albert Gillispie: And I, I don't know, I just love that. And there are so many trades and services where there’s this lack of new labor, lack of new people entering the market. I feel like we need to tell this story more because this is real innovation, a real business that's been around since the '50s. Like, we need kids to get into that.
[00:22:49] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah. And so, on that note, it gets me thinking, like, what's the "why" for you? What is it that drives you day-to-day? What is your purpose in the business?
[00:22:59] Tim Ashley: You know, really? It's pretty simple—it's to put the beans on the table.
[00:23:02] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:23:03] Tim Ashley: That's, that’s really what it comes down to. If you can't make money at it, then it's not a business, it's a hobby. That's what it really boils down to. Now, I love the work of the business—getting out on the loader, pushing up stockpiles, going out to job sites, checking on jobs, visiting with my customers. That’s what I really do love. The part I don’t love is the bureaucracy that’s exploded in the last few years.
Government Regulations and Business Adaptation
[00:23:32] Kellen Ketchersid: Say more about that. What kind of bureaucracy do you mean—like regulations and things like that?
[00:23:46] Tim Ashley: Yeah, okay. Regulations. It’s both. For example, our business is regulated by the Air Quality Bureau, OSHA, and our mine is regulated by MSHA. And then the DOT, because we're running CDL-licensed drivers on the road with commercial vehicles.
[00:24:07] Kellen Ketchersid: That's a lot of red tape already.
[00:24:08] Tim Ashley: Oh yeah. Because, you know, you've got to keep compliance files on the vehicles. You have to keep compliance files on the drivers. Along with the drivers, you know, you have to have a drug testing pool that your drivers periodically have to be drug tested. There are random pools for different drivers. Pre-employment, you’ve got to drug test every driver that comes and applies for the job. If you're going to hire them, you have to do background checks, you know, run their information through the national database, the federal motor carrier database.
[00:24:41] Tim Ashley: So that's the big challenge right now because there's a whole lot of things that have to be done just to hire one driver.
[00:24:50] Kellen Ketchersid: And then if that person leaves, all of that was just lost.
[00:24:54] Tim Ashley: Yeah, exactly. And that’s a real challenge because you do all this work to hire, and I say you do all the work, but you also pay a lot of money. All these things, like pulling an MVR, cost you so much money. Doing a drug test costs so much money. It’s both a burden on time and money.
[00:25:17] Albert Gillispie: I want to camp out here a little bit because I loved the creativity at the start of this, but labor—skilled trade labor—is the biggest problem facing our trades and many of our businesses that aren’t sitting behind a computer.
[00:25:40] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. Those trades are dying for people and it's just going to continue to get more and more expensive. And there are fewer and fewer people going into that industry. You mentioned earlier a truck driving school, which is fascinating. What are some other tactics that you've used over the years to bring in employees, bring in talent into your business?
[00:26:05] Tim Ashley: Well, pay is always significant, right? You know, you try to be on the top side of the industry pay scale to try and bring those better people in. But one thing I've discovered through the years is better pay doesn’t always equal better employees. That’s unfortunate, but it is the truth. You can still get unqualified people, even though you’re paying better.
[00:26:29] Tim Ashley: So, one thing that we do is we do extensive training with our new hires so that we can find out before they get on the open road, does this guy have what it really takes to operate this vehicle down the highway? So we try to weed out bad candidates as soon as possible.
[00:26:59] Tim Ashley: So that’s one thing—we’ve really extended our driver training. Some companies are in a rush; they need drivers now because the demand is there, and they'll just throw a guy in a truck and hope it works out. That is not a good path to go down. So, yeah, we really emphasize training and safety awareness. That’s a big thing in our industry.
[00:27:27] Kellen Ketchersid: So I know you and Celeste, your wife, run the business together, right? Or she’s a big part of that.
[00:27:34] Tim Ashley: Oh yeah.
[00:27:35] Tim Ashley: Everybody says she’s the boss.
[00:27:37] Kellen Ketchersid: That’s great. So can you tell us a little bit, especially for those who are listening that have a family member or it’s a husband-wife duo that are running the business?
Balancing Family and Business
[00:27:47] Kellen Ketchersid: How do you guys balance that and just the dynamic together running a business?
[00:27:54] Tim Ashley: That’s a challenge. You know, it’s not... No, for me, it’s great because, you know, my soulmate is my business partner.
[00:28:02] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:28:02] Tim Ashley: You know, I think probably the thing that I regret is that I take home business a lot, you know. I said, you need to keep those lines clear, and I’m probably not real good at that myself. But it’s kind of a natural thing. I mean, I guess even if you didn’t work together, you’d still go home and talk about your day at work. So, you know, we go home and, “Oh man, did you get that email out to that customer?” or, “Did the customer have an issue with the invoice? Did you get that copy over to him?” It’s hard to turn it off.
[00:28:38] Tim Ashley: It is. It’s very difficult to turn it off. And the real challenge, we just recently got back from two weeks in Alaska, and we were joking about it because the funny thing is, when you go on vacation and you own your own business, you’re never really on vacation because the phone still rings. “Hey boss, we’ve got this question,” and yeah, you’re never really away from it. So sometimes that’s difficult. But at the same time, the great thing is, you know, just like today, I didn’t have to go into work. I can kind of set my own schedule, and if I need to take some time off to go to my daughter’s band concert or something like that, I can do that.
[00:29:23] Tim Ashley: So, yeah, it’s got its pros and cons. But for my wife and me, I think it’s worked out really well. We’re good counterparts because she is very thoughtful and cautious about different things. She’s not what you’d call a risk-taker. Me, on the other hand, I’m kind of the gambler.
[00:29:45] Tim Ashley: And so we kind of counteract each other, and that’s... You know, sometimes when I think about different issues, it’s really funny, the conversations. Now, the good thing is, that was a good thing about bringing my son, Josh, into the business because he kind of refs that, right?
[00:30:08] Kellen Ketchersid: He's the third vote.
[00:30:10] Tim Ashley: Exactly. Yeah, he gets to be the tiebreaker. Yeah, so that's a real interesting dynamic.
[00:30:15] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, it's good for people to have that complementary. Business partner. I mean, obviously it's not every for everybody. It's not gonna be their spouse, but having somebody who can balance you and give you that other perspective, you know, that's a really nice thing to have in your business and in your leadership.
[00:30:34] Albert Gillispie: That's fascinating that y'all have navigated that because so many people don't. And navigating that with family, I feel like you have a lot of self-awareness and so what would you say you are uniquely gifted to do? In your business, what is kind of your wheelhouse? Your sweet spot that you personally…
[00:30:57] Tim Ashley: Well, I'm kind of the people person, you know, that's kind of my thing. My wife, she likes to be the recluse that kind of, you know, sits in the back office and just does her thing, you know, doesn't want any interruptions and stuff like that, you know? So I'm kind of that front guy. Right. So yeah, that's kind of my place. My son, his thing is getting out there and kind of doing the work. He hates staying in the office, which, you know, we need him in the office, but he's always looking for that opportunity to run out the door on the yard and go do something, you know, so yeah, it's like I said, it's a fascinating dynamic in the family. And yeah, I have others, My oldest son, him and his wife are both physical therapists and live in the DFW area.
[00:31:49] Tim Ashley: He chose not to be part of the family business and yeah, I'm proud of him for what he's done and supporting all the way. Then there's Josh, my third oldest son, he's still figuring out life. And my youngest son is an Aggie down at a college station and he's going into nuclear physics, so it doesn't look like he's headed for a career in concrete.
[00:32:18] Tim Ashley: Because when he told me that's what he wanted to do, I'm like, well, you know, it's great, but a nuclear physicist really doesn't do much for a concrete producer.
[00:32:29] Kellen Ketchersid: Brainiacs. Maybe build a bunker or something.
[00:32:33] Tim Ashley: Yeah. And then the baby is my daughter. We had four boys and then our baby girl, and she's 15 right now. She's a freshman out at shallow water. You know, I talk to her all the time, asking if she maybe has an interest in helping her brother out in the business. But I don't know, she's kind of wanting to pursue engineering or something. That's what she's thinking, so we'll see what happens.
[00:32:58] Kellen Ketchersid: So, as a business owner, it's often not all roses. And I know you've already talked about some of that, but can you tell us a story about when things went wrong or something that just blew up in your face?
[00:33:12] Tim Ashley: Well, I can tell you an interesting story.
[00:33:13] Kellen Ketchersid: Okay.
[00:33:14] Tim Ashley: As I mentioned back in the nineties, we were doing these corporate hog farms and this one particular project we were on, we had been shut down by weather for about a week or something like that.
[00:33:28] Tim Ashley: As I said, we use these portable facilities and, in this situation, you're out in the middle of a field, out in the country, and we hadn't been out there for a while. We go back, start firing up, and they're going to pour these barn floors. We start loading the trucks up, and the first truck gets over to the project, and he hollers back on the radio and says, "I can't believe what just happened."
[00:33:58] Tim Ashley: We're like, "What?" He said, "I started dumping the concrete, and a whole family of raccoons came down the chute. You have never seen so many guys run for their lives. These things were still alive, and evidently, they were really angry." That was very interesting. We told them we wouldn't charge them for the raccoons.
[00:34:20] Kellen Ketchersid: Wow. That's hilarious. Wow. Just come pouring out of the equipment. What a day. What a day on the job.
[00:34:25] Tim Ashley: It's amazing the things were still alive. Could you imagine the ride?
[00:34:30] Kellen Ketchersid: No kidding. Wow. Those are some angry raccoons, definitely. Well, what are you most excited about moving forward in your business? What's on the horizon that gets you up every day?
[00:34:44] Albert Gillispie: Retiring. You don't seem like the type who just wants to go play golf all day. What does that look like?
[00:34:50] Tim Ashley: No, like I said, I love the people, I love the business, but at the same time, I'm 61 years old. I guess I've got a few more good years in me, but it is time to start thinking about that other chapter of life. I have grandkids through my oldest son down in the DFW area, so yeah, I'd like a little more time to go play with the grandkids and stuff like that.
[00:35:11] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:35:12] Tim Ashley: And be with them. So yeah, like I said, it's an interesting phase of life trying to figure things out like that. But we kind of have a transition plan in place with my son. So yeah, at some point, I'd like to pass the torch down and say, "It's your turn." I'll give him guidance, but when you're working with your son, sometimes the advice isn't taken as well as it might be from somebody else.
[00:35:53] Tim Ashley: I think I've told people this story before, but when I was in my mid-twenties, you know how you view your dad, right? When I was in my teens, 18, 19 years old, I thought, "Man, my dad is stupid. He is so stupid." Then I got to my mid to late twenties and thought, "Well, I guess Dad kind of knew a few things." By the time I got into my forties, I realized, "My dad was a genius." So I think that's just all part of that development stage. My son, Josh, is 31, I believe, and maybe he's starting to say, "Yeah, maybe Dad knows a little bit."
[00:36:28] Albert Gillispie: That's funny. So, okay, I do have a question. You’ve passed this business down through four generations now. Was that something y'all did formally with legal paperwork and all of that, or was it more of an informal conversation until it was time to completely hand over the reins?
Business Transition and Succession Planning
[00:36:50] Tim Ashley: Well, as I mentioned, when my grandfather passed away, I was just a baby, so I really wasn’t on the scene at the time. But from what I understand, it was kind of a buyout process. When my grandfather passed, it was my dad purchasing part of the business from my grandfather's estate. That's how that worked. Then, when my mom and dad decided to retire, yeah, that was a formal deal. There was a purchase agreement of their property. Basically, the corporation purchased back their stock, and there was a formal agreement and plan laid out.
[00:37:32] Kellen Ketchersid: I think that's so good because a lot of business owners that want to retire just don't know how to, and maybe they don't have a son or daughter who can take over the business. But having it in a formalized way is important.
[00:37:45] Albert Gillispie: Right.
[00:37:46] Kellen Ketchersid: Too many people we've talked to thought they had a good handshake agreement, and it ends up in a bad place. So I think there's a lot of wisdom in formalizing it.
[00:37:59] Albert Gillispie: Well, just navigating that in the way where they’re setting up this purchase agreement—it means his son's going to earn it, pay it off. And so, it's empowering to the next owner. There's always someone who thinks, "Oh, he got that given to him, wish I had that," but he bought it.
[00:38:24] Kellen Ketchersid: And as a business owner, you probably feel better about that too. You take more pride in the fact that it's yours and you had to work for it—it wasn’t just handed over.
[00:38:35] Tim Ashley: Yeah, I think not only is there a sense of pride, but if you’re given something, you don’t really understand the value of what you were given versus if you purchase it, you know exactly what it’s worth. So, looking back at that situation when my parents retired and got out of it, we were told one thing, and we should have—at the time, I wanted to get everything down in black and white.
[00:39:08] Tim Ashley: So we know exactly who's doing what, when, and how, and get all that worked out. We didn't do that, and that wasn’t a good thing because when it came down to it, it didn’t work out exactly how I was promised. But, at the same time, I don’t have any resentment or anything about it.
[00:39:30] Tim Ashley: I mean, yeah, God’s blessed me in what I’ve done, and I have no place to complain. It was a harder path, but at the same time, I know the value of it. I don’t have any regrets.
[00:39:47] Albert Gillispie: Have you navigated that conversation and dialogue differently with your son?
Reflections on Legacy and Family Relationships
[00:39:52] Tim Ashley: Well, we haven’t really gotten to that transition point yet, but my son is an owner in the business after working there for a few years. When we had this conversation about, "Hey Dad, this is what I’d like to do," I told him, "If you stick with me, I’ll make you an owner," and I stuck to my word.
[00:40:11] Albert Gillispie: So he’s earning it.
[00:40:12] Tim Ashley: Yes.
[00:40:13] Albert Gillispie: This is such a healthy conversation. I wish it were easier to have these conversations because if you can have that open dialogue where everyone knows what’s going on, it makes a big difference. I think of these movies where there’s this rich grandfather who passes away and everyone shows up for the reading of the will because they have no idea what’s going to happen. What a mess. It just ruins your family.
[00:41:00] Albert Gillispie: It’s incredible that you guys have a fourth-generation business because so many families screw it up.
[00:41:02] Albert Gillispie: And, I don’t know, I’m just, I’m fascinated by that. And the dialogue you guys have pursued over the years—I’m sure there were tense moments—but it sounds like you’ve worked through all of that to still like each other and still work together.
[00:41:21] Tim Ashley: Yeah. It’s always great to see because my wife, you know, she loves all our kids, but working with Josh every day, she loves Josh. Sometimes I just sit back and watch the dynamics between the two of them. It’s hilarious.
[00:41:45] Albert Gillispie: I heard a phrase, "You don’t love your kids equally. You love them uniquely."
[00:41:51] Kellen Ketchersid: That’s definitely true. I like that. I think I’m going to steal that. Yeah. I think for what is second nature to you, Tim—and I know you’re describing the dynamics in your family and the business—for a lot of business owners, it’s insightful. It’s rare to see a business change hands in a family generation after generation and do so successfully. That communication and the fact that you guys can have those conversations over the years without upsetting each other is remarkable.
[00:42:22] Tim Ashley: Yeah.
[00:42:26] Kellen Ketchersid: To still be able to do it successfully is really cool.
[00:42:30] Tim Ashley: Yeah.
[00:42:31] Kellen Ketchersid: A lot to learn. What a superpower.
[00:42:34] Albert Gillispie: That’s amazing.
[00:42:35] Tim Ashley: Well, you’ve got to know when you’re working with family, there can be difficulties, you know, there’s going to be. But at the same time, it’s fantastic to know that it’s your family, and they have your back like nobody else would. That’s just like me and Celeste. I know that whatever happens, she has my back, and I have hers. So, it’s great to have that security with you.
[00:43:08] Albert Gillispie: It’s a legacy. Well, I think it’s time...
[00:43:11] Kellen Ketchersid: For our fire round.
[00:43:13] Albert Gillispie: I think it’s time for the fire round.
[00:43:14] Kellen Ketchersid: All right, Tim, tell us what’s your favorite movie.
[00:43:17] Tim Ashley: Oh, wow. You know, I think probably the original Matrix.
[00:43:21] Albert Gillispie: Nice. The original. I haven’t watched that in a while. Were you a huge surround sound guy? That was like when surround sound first became a thing. It was like that movie.
[00:43:33] Tim Ashley: The whole principle of the movie is fascinating. I don’t think Hollywood ever meant to, but I think there’s some spiritual ideas in there. Just this idea of what is reality, and I think spiritually that connects to me in that I have to remember all this going on around me right now is not reality, right? I’m looking for a heavenly home.
[00:43:58] Kellen Ketchersid: Yep. Very cool. Good answer.
[00:44:01] Albert Gillispie: All right. Yeah, starting out hot. What is your favorite book?
[00:44:05] Tim Ashley: The Bible.
[00:44:06] Albert Gillispie: All right.
[00:44:07] Tim Ashley: Yeah.
[00:44:08] Albert Gillispie: Aside from the Bible?
[00:44:09] Tim Ashley: Oh, favorite book besides the Bible. I’m not a big reader, but actually, you know, another one of those, this goes way back, but Flowers for Algernon.
[00:44:19] Kellen Ketchersid: Oh yeah. Yeah. That is a good one. Do you know what he’s talking about?
[00:44:23] Albert Gillispie: I know that name. What is that?
[00:44:26] Kellen Ketchersid: So you want to tell him? I know there’s a mouse and there’s Alzheimer’s involved. Yeah, go ahead. Tell us.
[00:44:32] Tim Ashley: Yeah, I don’t know if they knew what it was called back then, but yeah, this patient, this person is mentally impaired and they come up with some kind of medication or whatever that makes him super intelligent. They have this mouse and then he starts, the medication becomes ineffective. And so it goes through the whole process of this guy becoming very, very intelligent and then losing that and going back down. Just one of those things about how sometimes we think things are important that maybe aren’t so important.
[00:45:09] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:45:10] Albert Gillispie: Okay.
[00:45:11] Kellen Ketchersid: Wow. Two deep answers so far. All right.
[00:45:15] Kellen Ketchersid: What is some advice that you hear commonly in your industry that you don’t agree with?
[00:45:20] Tim Ashley: That starts a whole new discussion. They are changing something in our industry that is going to be terrible for the industry. It’s going to be terrible for the consumer. And it’s all part of the green movement.
[00:45:36] Tim Ashley: Yeah, they’re changing the way they manufacture cement, which a lot of people use as a generic term for concrete, right? But no, cement is actually the powder, the base product for concrete, which is a milled up clinker material. It’s a fine grind material that you add to the sand and gravel. When mixed with water, it starts a chemical reaction, builds its own heat, and it’s kind of like self-baking, right? So that’s what builds the strength and makes it all glue together. They’re changing the way they produce that because of supposed carbon emissions with the cement mills, and their answer for this is to add limestone to it as basically a filler.
[00:46:27] Tim Ashley: What that means is there’s less of this ground cement that’s kilned. Therefore, they say we have less carbon emission. The problem is the final product does not build the strength in the concrete that the previous product did. So what does that mean? You have to use more of it. You get less strength. Well, the way they make their specs on projects is, "We want this concrete to achieve so many pounds per square inch within a 28-day period." If it’s 3,000 PSI, if it’s 4,000 PSI, it is what it is, right? You’ve got to put the components together to make that pounds per square inch requirement.
[00:47:14] Tim Ashley: Now you’re using a less effective product, so it takes more of it. I fail to see how that’s green, right? If I used one product and it took 100 pounds to do this, and now I use this other product and it takes 150 pounds to do the same thing, how’s that better? It makes absolutely no sense at all. I think it’s insane.
[00:47:35] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. My grandma has a good phrase for that, and it’s, “You can’t fix stupid.”
[00:47:41] Tim Ashley: Yeah, exactly. This country has gone insane.
[00:47:46] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:47:46] Tim Ashley: I mean...
[00:47:47] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, there’s all these good intentions, but if the change that you make has these unintended consequences downstream that actually make things worse, all the good intentions in the world won’t change what the final outcome is. And so, yeah, these sorts of big wholesale changes in industries really need to be thought out. I appreciate you bringing that up as an example.
[00:48:11] Tim Ashley: Well, another example of that is with trucks and truck engines and what you have to do now, using diesel engine fluid (DEF) to supposedly lower your emissions. Interesting thing about that is when they put that equipment on the truck, it makes the chassis heavier. It gets less fuel mileage, so you’re burning more fuel now. Exactly how did that fix a problem? It doesn’t make any common sense. Yeah, and that’s the deal. We’ve lost common sense.
[00:48:42] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. Yep. There’s another quote that’s like, “Green energy is for people who can’t do math.”
[00:48:50] Tim Ashley: That’s a good one.
[00:48:52] Albert Gillispie: All right, which leads me to the last fire question. What words of wisdom, or quote, has impacted your life the most?
[00:49:00] Tim Ashley: That is difficult because there are so many to choose from.
[00:49:03] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:49:05] Tim Ashley: The best quote I can think of is, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
[00:49:09] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.
[00:49:11] Tim Ashley: It kind of sums everything up.
[00:49:15] Albert Gillispie: Yep. I love it. If we all did that, the world would be a better place.
[00:49:20] Tim Ashley: Definitely.
[00:49:21] Albert Gillispie: All right. How can we tell our listeners how to get ahold of you? If they want to do business with you, what's the best way to get in touch?
[00:49:28] Tim Ashley: Well, phone number, I guess. The number is 575-762-1938. That's our landline in Clovis. We also have a website, which is Clovisconcreteco.com. They can always check us out there. There’s a customer application and all kinds of good stuff like a concrete calculator.
[00:49:48] Albert Gillispie: Okay.
[00:49:49] Tim Ashley: Yeah.
[00:49:49] Albert Gillispie: Awesome, man. Thank you so much. I had no idea what to expect and you over-delivered. Thanks so much for coming.
[00:49:57] Tim Ashley: I appreciate it.
[00:49:58] Albert Gillispie: Thank you. Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. I know we did. It was incredibly insightful, and Tim is full of great stories. If you enjoyed that and got value from it, go ahead and click subscribe and come back for the next one. We have a lot of folks coming up that we're pretty excited about.
[00:50:20] Albert Gillispie: And if you are a business owner or business leader and you feel stuck in your business, if you feel like your business is out of control and you don't know what to do next, go ahead and go to our website, stagcoaching.com, and click on the upper right-hand corner for our free training. Business assessment in just a few minutes, with just a few questions.
[00:50:43] Albert Gillispie: Our free assessment will help you diagnose what's going on with your business, what's going wrong, and what's going well. We can give you some ideas of the next steps to take. It's free, and it's on our website at stagcoaching.com. Thank you, guys, and we'll see you on the next one.
