When I was a kid my step-dad often worked out of town during the week in a little place called Big Timber in southern Montana. On one of these trips he came across a jukebox that played 45s and brought it home to Havre. My sister and I, along with all the neighborhood kids, listened to all the songs you would imagine a Montana honkytonk would have on its jukebox circa 1991—plenty of country music with a few party hits thrown in for good flavor. Among those party hits was a little ditty by Richie Valens called “La Bamba.”
I must have listened to “La Bamba” a few thousand times on that jukebox. Of course I had no idea what the lyrics were, let alone what they meant, until recently. On last season’s Ray Donovan, Jon Voight’s character goes through a bit of internal struggle that resonates around Valens’ “La Bamba,” spefically the line “Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán,” or “I’m not a sailor, I’m the captain.”
Since then, I must have thought of that line another thousand times likening various situations to a ship’s crew. As business owners, design managers, crew leaders, what have you, we are all—figuratively speaking—captains of some vessel. As captains, we have ultimate responsibility for those around us, our product and our destination. The same is true for our industry. Those of us active within SBCA have a responsibility for charting our course as component manufacturers (CMs) moving forward.
I truly wish our industry had more captains interested in choosing our course and a few less sailors worried about how much time they’re putting in. I fear CMs across the country have seen business return to profitable levels and have fallen into the pitfall of “I’m too busy to think about that!” worrying about getting through their workflow and paying no mind to future innovation. Of course we’re overworked; America’s actually building something once again. Here’s a little secret, your workload isn’t going to get any easier until we go into another recession or you retire.
Our customers are feeling the pain too. A recent article by Time Magazine illustrates the shortage of workers perfectly. The answer isn’t going to be met with immigration—legal or not, nor increasing enrollments in trade schools or other education programs. Those ideas will take years to yield results. The answer is going to be met with innovation, finding better ways to build the things that need to be built. Where do traditional truss and wall panel manufacturers fall into this solution? That’s the thing each of us need to spend some time thinking and collaborating about. Is it through working forward or backward in the supply chain to streamline processes or is it through increased automation and new product offerings? If we don’t work to be the solution, we will become obsolete.
The perfect time to discuss and debate these opportunities is this October at BCMC in Milwaukee. There will be educational sessions and roundtable discussions to talk about issues surrounding our industry, as well as a show floor filled with industry suppliers demonstrating what new and improved equipment is available for you to incorporate into your processes. To paraphrase the great Dan Holland, “If you think you’re too busy to attend then you’re exactly the person who needs to attend.” Of course he was referring to the Information Technology session that will be held at BCMC, but the same idea applies to owners, GMs, designers, crew leads, et. al.
Set your course for Milwaukee, after all, eres Capitán!
P.S. I believe this will be the last SBCextra blog I bring you as I vacate my position as SBCA Marketing Chair. Serving SBCA in that role has been incredibly rewarding and enlightening. It’s been a great and challenging experience writing relevant thoughts for our industry, even when they may have been off base. Thank you to everyone who has taken valuable time out of their days to read my ramblings and provide feedback, even when I feared it was only my Mom and dog who were reading!