Faces of the Industry: Jared Dix

What’s your job title?

That’s a difficult question, actually. We don’t really use titles; we all have our main responsibilities, but as a general rule, we all just work together to get things done when needed. So I have the same title as everyone else: essential member of the team! I do whatever is needed to make things run smoothly, and we all work together to get everything done! I do some quotes for our sales staff and help schedule things for them to keep jobs moving along. I do all of our website editing and social media posting. I order pretty much every part that goes through our shop. When something breaks, I research what we need to fix it.

How did you define that role for yourself?

Being a millennial does have a lot to do with the technology side of my job—I am familiar with the social media and internet side of things. But I have also been doing construction-type work since I got out of high school…just a long five years ago. I moved down to Texas when I graduated and started in construction management. I hated that. Too much computer work (although I still do a lot of that today!). Then I worked for a company installing heating and air conditioning units.

And then my dad offered to have me move back here to Virginia and work for him out in the shop. So I built trusses until I learned enough to run our night shift, which I then did for about a year. Next I learned design—not really learned it, just learned enough to be dangerous—and now I’m moving toward sales and IT tasks. I was in the shop for about a year and people learned to rely on me, so that’s how I’ve gotten to where I’m doing a little bit of everything.

You say you’re working for your dad—how did he get into this business?

Well, my dad started this company. He came up from the very bottom, working for three or four different truss companies from the time he was about 20 to when he started Apex Truss in 2000. He moved [to Virginia] with Trussway to build a new truss plant here, and he left for an opportunity to buy this old truss plant that had been out of business for years. He bought the building with all the old equipment still in it, and here we are now. It was 17 years this March.

What’s your favorite part about this industry?

My favorite part is everything! I don’t know why; I just love it. It’s a family business—my dad and I get along really well and being able to work with him is what makes every day worth it to me. The amount of time we get to spend together is priceless, and that’s what I value more than anything. Also, our extremely loyal staff make us what we are. They are our family, and if not for them teaching me everything while I was in the shop, I wouldn’t have the love for the industry that I do today.

I also love the technology we’re heading toward. Robotics and automation get me really excited. It gives me something to look forward to. I always wonder, how far will the industry go in the next ten years? We were kind of stagnant for a while, and now we’re getting all these lasers, and automated tables, and automated saws—it’s cool to me because I get to be in the middle of that, in the middle of the innovation. The machinery and robotics are definitely my favorite thing about what we do.

You sound very positive. Is there anything about this industry that gives you pause?

It’s hard to find people; the labor shortage is real. At some point, I think everything’s going to be automated. That’s going to be the long term solution. But for now, we still need new people coming in because that machinery’s not going to run itself. We need people who understand how robotics work. That’s going to be our biggest struggle. The technology will take care of itself; I think the people side is the problem—and that goes all the way up. Production, design, sales, management. We’re going to try the CM Toolbox and I think that’ll help in terms of sales and getting more work, but I think the entire construction industry, as a whole, could use a bigger social media presence for recruiting. That’s why my dad and I decided to launch trusstales.com, which is something of a recruiting tool for the component industry but, more so, a promotion of construction as a whole.

Has anything made it difficult for you to jump in and contribute to the industry?

There’s nobody really my age, so it’s kind of hard. You’re around these people who have been doing this for 15, 20, 30 years—they’re the people who have taken the industry as far as it has come, which is amazing. At the same time, it’s a little intimidating. My dad had been talking to some of his friends in the industry, trying to get me involved, and that wasn’t really happening. Then, one YouTube video later, Jason Blenker hit me up on LinkedIn and asked if I wanted to join the SBCA Emerging Leaders Committee—and, at that point, I was really interested in getting more involved. So I joined the committee and I just volunteered for the SBC Magazine editorial review team this year.

Sounds like a pretty full professional schedule. What about when you’re not thinking about trusses?

That doesn’t happen often! But I do have a one-year-old daughter (another on the way!) and a wife. We hang out on the weekends and do family stuff, and my dad and I do some waterfowl hunting during the winter. I enjoy almost anything outdoors, actually, and that keeps me pretty busy.