Interview with the CEO of TAM International

In this episode of the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast, CEO Kurtis Hinz shares his leadership journey from a small-town upbringing to leading TAM International, a company specializing in the nuclear sector. He discusses key trends and challenges in the industry, the importance of collaboration, and the balance between leadership and advocacy. Kurtis emphasizes the need for personal development, networking, and the evolving role of leaders in the nuclear industry, while also reflecting on his successes and the importance of mentoring future leaders.

Takeaways

Kurtis Hinz's journey to CEO was organic and unplanned.
The nuclear industry is experiencing a renaissance with new energy demands.
Collaboration is essential for success in the nuclear sector.
Challenges in the supply chain require innovative solutions.
Leadership involves learning from mistakes and adapting.
Successes should be celebrated as a team effort.
Advocacy for the nuclear industry is a key part of leadership.
Networking is crucial for aspiring leaders in the industry.
Personal development is ongoing, even at the CEO level.
Future leaders must embrace technology and change.

Creators and Guests

Guest

Kurtis Hinz

What is Nuclear Leadership Network?

The Nuclear Leadership Network was established to fill a gap in leadership development. By the time leaders hit a certain level in their path, it becomes more and more difficult to know what development steps to take to ready yourself for a shot at the top executive leadership roles in the Nuclear Industry. As you climb the ladder the number of people available to help you on your path become fewer and fewer, and your journey becomes a much more personal one. There will always be a need to collaborate with others, seek advice and guidance from those around you and take feedback from others seriously, but when you get to a certain point, you realise the more you are on your own. It’s up to you to develop yourself, through conversations, self reflection, making mistakes and being brave enough to learn from them. Not having all the answers, but being bold enough to seek the answers, is where much of that later growth in leadership occurs.

Matt Gavin (00:30)
Hello and welcome to the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast. Today I'm joined by Kurtis Hinz from Time International, the CEO at Time International. Kurtis, how are you? Nice to see you.

Kurtis Hinz (00:40)
Good,

Nat. Good to see you. Thanks for having me.

Matt Gavin (00:42)
Yeah, no problem. It's great to have you on. Really interested in what we've got to talk about today and your leadership journey and what you've been doing really in your life to get to where you are today. I'd love to start us off with very simple question. Love to hear about your leadership journey a little bit. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to where you got to today.

Kurtis Hinz (01:00)
We were just talking about how much time we have. That could be a while, but yeah, I know it's, I've had an interesting journey to the East. Listen, I'm the CEO of TAM International. TAM International is a global forwarding and transportation company that specializes in the nuclear sector. We do a lot of work in the front end, in the mining, uranium ore, know, UF6 and rich UF6.

fissile material, medical isotopes now as we've evolved and rare earths and things, all kinds of things, anything radioactive that has some specialization. That's sort what our company does. I have a unique experience. Again, our head office is in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. I grew up on a small farm just north of here, around 45 minutes north of Grain Farm. Grew up there, went to high school there.

and graduated then came into Saskatoon and went to university here. And then, know, honestly became, got sort of backed into the job. It's a small city. We know a lot of people, graduated with some friends. A friend of mine was at a company, it was doing a similar work, asked what I was wanting to do with my, you know, where I was going. said, listen, I'm looking for a job and sort of.

really dove into is the trucking side of things when I started. it was, but it had that uranium side of things and that market. But I learned a lot of things about the basics there. From that, when I was there, around three or four years after I sort of got going and it's in the under business development group and their, and their account executive side, I, they, company got bought. I sort of stuck around for a bit, wasn't sort of where I was seeing myself when somewhere else, but the executives of that company,

had just left and started TAM International as almost like a consulting company, but saw a really unique opportunity. They brought me over when I was young, I was 20, 26 I think at that point, but offered me a chance to sort of do my own thing and sort of build my own thing there. And from there, you know, the company really started to, you know, take off. We found sort of a niche in this market that's really tough to service.

and I sort of got to help build a company from that point on. And the company at that point, I was appointed president in 2011. And then in 2018, we did a private equity sale of our company and bought out a whole lot of our senior managers as the company grew. And today it's, so we just passed our 21st year in business. And yeah, I've been around with that since then.

You know, we have our head office here, but we have offices in the US and the UK, Germany, Brazil, India, just required an office out of Montreal. So we have grown and trying to organically grow in as well as, you know, grow the company in our model. But yeah, so my leadership is I've evolved through it. I'll be honest with you. I'd love to tell you I went to these all these executive trainings and things like that. But I have a lot of it's been through the

School of Hard Knocks and learning and making mistakes, but also learning and having some great people along the way to help me. So that's been my journey. I love what we do. It's a unique industry and we got a great team around us.

Matt Gavin (03:56)
Thank

Yeah, it's interesting to hear like it's almost an accidental evolution of progress, not a plan. And we hear that a lot actually from some of the top leaders that we've spoken to. So that's it's quite nice to hear. I think from an aspiring leader myself very much on that same sort of blagging it journey, if that's the right term, it's nice to hear that from others as well. Obviously got a slightly different sort of perspective of the nuclear industry, I suppose, from that sort of transportation side.

Kurtis Hinz (04:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ha

Yeah.

Matt Gavin (04:27)
What do you think the key trends in the industry are? What are you excited about? And how are you preparing yourself as an executive leader for those trends?

Kurtis Hinz (04:35)
Yeah, we're really excited about where this industry is heading. We are seeing things in the industry that I've never seen in 21 years in terms of what the next steps are in terms of whether it be at the SMRs, AI, the energy demands the world's coming into now is something that we didn't even have a factor into when you're your long-term planning. And I'm sure Matt, you know this well in the role that you're doing and what you're working on. This wasn't...

you know, we needed energy. We knew that today. Did we know we're going to need the levels of energy and power that we're going to need with AI data centers and things like that? No, I didn't know that maybe smarter people than you might have known that. you know, we're we're seeing this and we're just trying to make sure that we're prepared to help the supply chain to keep up with what we see is going to be an absolute nuclear, only use word Renaissance, but a real revitalization. And we're seeing that across the industry. So

For us, we are just making sure that we have the supply chain components prepared for our clients as that ramp up happens. And also have to be ready for what the new world looks like. And then that's a big part of what we're doing in terms of learning, whether it be with HALU and things like that, or LU Plus and things along those lines, making sure that we know for our clients what they're gonna need in terms of transportation, because we really do see that as sometimes the forgotten component in a lot of this.

And we all have these some really incredible engineers who work on these things and they have these projections, but we can't get the material from A to B efficiently and safely and compliantly with a massive amount of regulations that we have to work through. That's the thing that we're really work with our clients to try and understand. So we know we see a great opportunity what this is leading into. But I know I'm sure you see it from your side.

Matt Gavin (06:21)
Yeah, it's fair to say it's quite unprecedented, certainly in my lifetime, this renaissance as we call it. I guess in terms of you picked out some of the opportunities there and obviously interesting from your own perspective, what challenges are you kind of preparing for as well? What's going to be the biggest block to this, do you think, terms of from an executive leadership position? What are executive leaders, what are CEOs, what are company leaders doing about these challenges?

Kurtis Hinz (06:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah, we are, for me, it's keeping my eye on the ball in terms of the bigger picture here. We have to look past what my operations team, I've got a fantastic group of operations people who work for us. And our view is, and my leadership team, and this is not just me, it's my leaders that I work with, my COOs and my CFOs and compliance officers and things like that. We are really trying to make sure we're looking past the...

now and how are we going to be ready when this happens and making sure we're not getting caught up in the short term. The supply chain is delicate. I'm not going to lie. Shipping radioactive material is extremely difficult. You want to do it with commercial lines. Many commercial lines don't want to do it. A lot of trucking companies don't want to handle this. The insurance and the risk components that they see, whether they're real or whether they're perceived, it doesn't matter if they're real or perceived in my view. If they don't want to, they refuse to haul it, it's real.

their whatever their opinion of why that might be. So we're doing a lot of work and how we're to educate people how we're putting together that bigger plan as an executive for myself, with my clients and with the industry like the WNA and WNTI and groups like that. How are we preparing to get that message out and how we're preparing to ensure that we have options to make sure this stuff can move around the world efficiently quickly. So that's, and that's probably been one of the bigger things I've had to learn.

as a leader, a CEO is I've got to pull myself sometimes away. again, when you when I've had the evolution that I've had, you start when I was cranking out paperwork when I started and understanding the market and knowing what labeling and all that stuff is to knowing I have an unbelievable staff working for me, but also having to let them do their job while we sort of get that 30,000 foot view. So that's to us, that's a big part of what we're working on right now.

Matt Gavin (08:13)
you

Yeah, we'll touch that a little bit later on how you find the sort of space to to sort of think about that big picture stuff. yeah, there's certainly a demand on the industry that is never seen before, which is exciting. But also, yeah, that fragility of supply chains and things is a real factor. Yeah, I love that. Go back to introduction, you talked about.

Kurtis Hinz (08:36)
Sure.

Yeah.

Matt Gavin (08:48)
I'm interested in just exploring that a bit. What do you think your main challenges have been and how they've shaped you as a person? And I guess now that filters into your sort of CEO role and leadership sort of style that you employ.

Kurtis Hinz (09:00)
You know, that's a good question. know, I've, there's been challenges all the time. I've learned how to, let's take a look at the bigger picture. You've learned that. know when you start, especially when you start a company, when you're younger and you're, and you, know, it's, tight and you're trying to make things work. It's, can be, there's challenges that come with that. And then understanding what the, taking the lessons you've learned from that.

and holding on to that fundamental principles of how you want your company to be in terms of how you want to treat your staff, how you want your company to be understood in the industry, right? How do you want to be perceived and perceptionist and everything? But I want to make sure that our culture shows what I know is important, what I've learned throughout this all, right? And you're going to hate these challenges. Listen, I've made a lot of mistakes. But my thing is I've also learned how to just roll with

how we're to make that change and learn from it. And I've also learned that, you know, things are going to happen. And I'm in transport. Like, you can't predict a truck cutting somebody off. You can't predict, you know, someone making a mistake that you can prepare all you want and someone else in the world makes a mistake. And you're the one who has to deal with the consequences of how we're going to address it and deal with it professionally.

Matt Gavin (09:58)
you

Kurtis Hinz (10:09)
and you learn to prepare, right? That's a big part of what we've learned too, is just things are going to happen. It's not so much how they happen to prevent them even, because they will. And anyone who says they won't is not being honest in our industry. It's how you react to them, how you deal with them, how you work with your clients and how you work with them treat them as partners and work collaboratively. That's the thing we really learned in long time doing this, is that evolution has happened.

for our company.

Matt Gavin (10:36)
Yeah, yeah, that's great. think collaboration and things in the industry is a word that's becoming more prevalent for sure. To counter that, know, we always learn from our mistakes and we always focus on what we could do better. In terms of success, as a CEO, obviously you've had a lot of success. You've had those forks in the road where it might not have gone your way, but it did. And you know, and those forks all led to where you are today. What do you think?

your biggest accomplishments on that journey? is it? And as a CEO, what are your biggest accomplishments? What are you most proud of as a leader?

Kurtis Hinz (11:07)
Yeah, I know you're right. And that's a great way of paying. say it sometimes, as our company's gotten bigger and as we've evolved into what we are now, and I'm really proud of that. But again, it's the one they say, know, the overnight success that happened over 20 some years, right? Like it's, it is what it is. There's a lot of work and sweat that comes with that. And we're super proud of that. you know, we've had a lot of successes, but I view them as, I view them as just

you know, successes as a group. You we've done some really incredible projects with some customers that are really important to the world, you know, in terms of we're supplying the amount of material that we supply for clean energy. It's millions and millions of homes are getting that. And we're a big part of that process, right? And it's something we have to sometimes stop and understand. you know, we have our, we do a quarterly sort of all hands meeting. I run every quarter with our team around the world and it's okay to stop.

reflect and say, man, that's incredible stuff that we've worked on. It's incredible things that we're working on to help the industry and what I am a very passionate advocate of. It's absolutely necessary that this works and works well and safely. so for us, it's been, yeah, we've had a lot of success in that, but they also, know, when that comes, whether it's medical isotopes as well for treatments and cancer and things like that, explaining that to people and

If we can get more suppliers to understand the need for this material around the world and why it's so important, that's a big success for us as well. for us, it's, you know, yes, corporate wise and the company's grown and it's, you know, we've been really fortunate that way and blessed that way. But, you know, for us also, it's been a big part of just, you know, doing some really cool stuff and with some really great people. And I get to meet a lot of people from around the world and travel and see these things. that's...

And I don't take that for granted for the people I get to meet and talk to and just learn from. we're really lucky that way.

Matt Gavin (12:57)
Yeah, that's great. I'll just go back to something you said there. It really triggered a thought in my head. As a CEO, obviously you're a leader of a business, but as an advocate of nuclear and a nuclear leader, how do you balance that as a CEO? What is your role, think, as a CEO in that sort of balance? You spend a lot, so X amount of time on your day job, on being the CEO, on running the company and...

Kurtis Hinz (13:20)
Yeah.

Matt Gavin (13:20)
You know, and another portion of your time on nuclear advocacy, being a figurehead, a ⁓ face in the industry, how do you balance that at that level?

Kurtis Hinz (13:25)
Yeah.

well, a face of the industry, I would just be careful there. I don't know about that. But I am fortunate to be able to meet a lot of interesting people and do this. You know what, it's a big part of it. We talk about it as an executive team. I'm really fortunate to have an unbelievable executive team that I count as colleagues and friends, and they are, I'll put them up against any industry in the world.

And we have this chat a lot about what my responsibility is to the company, what my responsibility is to advocate for the industry and what those two would, you know, and let's be honest, the synergy is there. If I'm advocating for the industry and I'm doing a job to, that I firmly believe is important, but it also has Tam's name associated with it, right? And it's, get to, you can have those things, you have to do with sincerity though. You have to do it with, you can't be selling.

You can't be out there doing something and then trying to find the sale at the back end of it, right? You have to have some sincerity that you have a real passion for this. And yes, I am the CEO of TAM International and we do great work and we want your business and we want other, you know, we want to work with lots of people. But if you got to work into those projects that you're there to be a benefit of the industry and help where you can and knowing that you might, you won't get a dime out of it, that's fine. That's okay. You have to be able to, you know,

compartmentalize those things. And it's a real conscious effort we have made as a company to do that. And we have a chief compliance officer who works for us and a regulatory team that does a lot of training and things like that to make it better. This doesn't make us money. This is the right thing to do. And it's the right thing to do. And if we're known as doing that, that's great. People come to us. you better have some sincerity to it. And you better not be looking for an angle.

they'll be seen pretty quick and that's not our style. But I do believe it's an important thing and we're really fortunate to be able to be in the industry and help where we can in a small way and shine some light on some of the problems that we have. so that people and even the stuff that you're doing, Matt, and over at your group, that you know that there's challenges and we might be able to fix them, but we just want to make sure that that light is shining on us so that people know what to look

Matt Gavin (15:18)
Thank

Yeah, that's interesting. And do you think that that sort of balance between that advocacy and leading your company is something you have to do once you get to a certain position? is that is doing that part of the reason you are now the CEO and the leader that you've you've become, you know, which which which comes first, do you think? Or is it not quite that straightforward?

Kurtis Hinz (15:51)
be

true, think they're, yeah, I think you have to be able to do it and be ready for it. But it's not for everyone either. Some people, that's not their style. And that's okay. That's, I'm not gonna say there's a perfect, you know, there's no perfect way to move this forward and how you run your company. There's, there's a lot of streams that you can go down. This is the one we picked. This is the one I really feel comfortable in, to be honest with you, because it builds relationships and it, and I just

honestly, I'm a small town kid from Saskatchewan. like learning from people. like meeting smart people and learning what they do and advocating for things. for me, I don't think you can only one is right or wrong. But I think for us, this is what we found. And that's the state everyone's gonna find their path, right? Like, I'd love to tell you, this is the path at work. I don't know, I'm sure a lot of you always look at me and said, what is that knucklehead doing? Like, that's not the way to do this. Like, I know what we know. And I know that

I'm confident in what we do. And I think that's as long as our clients and our and my staff know that and understand. And the big thing is that our staff and our team and our company understand that vision, right? And as long as you and that's a sometimes can get lost. That's probably one of the things I have learned along the way. you don't give the vision and if it stays at that upper level and you don't sort of share that down, you know, you're gonna that can cause some, you know, not friction, it just understands.

It's an easy thing to do that can give some clarity to everybody across the company. And you're never going to know, everyone's already know everything. That's of course not, but you want to be able to give vision and understand why we're doing it and why it's important and the fortunate way that we're in. So yeah, I don't want to pretend like there's a one way map, but you know, it's, and I'm sure you've heard that from others too, but I know that we, for us, it's a big part of it.

Matt Gavin (17:35)
Yeah, like you said about vision there and obviously you mirror what you're like into your organization and that's probably why those values exist in your organization which is an interesting sort of interesting take on it. But yeah, that's great.

Kurtis Hinz (17:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, think that's

a point because I think that's the evolution of the values again, and what we talked about at the beginning of there is how you, know, those values, you have different values, and then you also learn what is important, really important in this industry. And I find, especially in nuclear industry, and we will talk about later, but you know, that is the part of this industry that's just like, it's small, it's not that big. It is, of course, it's huge. But the leader is in it, there's only so many companies and there's only so many

groups who do this. always, you know, if you stick around as long as I have, you get to meet a lot of them and you're really fortunate to see them. And to me, that's, you know, understanding what that looks like.

Matt Gavin (18:24)
Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. I'd like to come back to your career a little bit. So along the way, you've obviously described quite an organic journey and, you know, trying new things and taking on new challenges. Were there any signs along the way there where you kind of, where it clicked for you and you knew, you know, I could be a CEO here, or is that, it literally the position before CEO, the only time you really thought about that?

Kurtis Hinz (18:46)
Yeah, I know, it was where I-

moment? No. I did I know I did I started to understand that, my passion and interest in it was going to be has value. And you know, people want to talk and but I think a big part of that is the more you go to more people you meet, the more you talk, the more you learn, the more you sort of keep up to what's happening and trying to keep up to that market. Yeah, you get to a point where like, okay, I know what they're talking about. I know we know what we're talking about. I know we're

what we're building is something. And then I think for me is as I evolved as a leader is, okay, now I got to understand that I had to work hard. And I'm still again, I am a long way from being an ideal leader a long, long way. But my point being, I also learned that you have to know where you're good. And you better know even more so where you're not. And that for me, I think that's clicked. And then you hear about that a lot is you have that you think you're you think you know, and then the more you know,

the less you know, know, you know what I'm saying? And then, and then you try and work your way back up that ladder to learn again. And that's for me a big thing. And again, I've been really fortunate, again, to go back to my team is how do you know, you know, the team that you have, make sure you trust them and know that they'll know more than you. And that's okay. It's, love to say this is really hard. Hire some really smart people, make sure you trust them. And then, and then you talk about the vision and then let them

Matt Gavin (19:44)
you

Kurtis Hinz (20:06)
go to work. that's to me, that's how I think probably when it really clicked for me. That's, you know, in the last five, six, seven years, I've learned that more and more and learning it again, and because of my evolution of starting at the bottom and in the trenches and learning this and then to where I have to be have faith that all that's being done, I can't be involved in everything anymore. I have to have faith in my team. And so yeah, was there a eureka moment that I got this? No.

There's definitely some imposter syndrome when I started and when you're sitting in some of these meetings and meeting with people that you think, where, how did I get here from this, like I said, the farm kid. But, you know, as I've learned, I know that you, but we've talked about it. These are people, people are, and they're great people. I'm, I'll, people I've met in this industry are fantastic. I consider many of them some of my best friends.

Matt Gavin (20:36)
you

Kurtis Hinz (20:56)
and good colleagues and I really just got to, and that's not even business, that's people I don't even do business with, just people you get to meet and know through life. So we're really lucky that way. And I think that's a really unique part of the nuclear industry.

Matt Gavin (21:08)
Yeah, I'd agree from everything I've experienced as well. I would recognize that. Talking about development then, so obviously, know, leaders go into the first leadership position, you know, maybe a manager, a team leader or whatever that is. And there's lots of resources around, you know, training and help and people have done it before. you grow, as you go up that sort of ladder and, you know, the resources become more sparse, the people you can learn off it within your business, probably.

diminish a little bit as well, certainly for that growth stage. And how do you continue to develop? Once you hit CEO, what is the next step? is next rung of personal development?

Kurtis Hinz (21:41)
You know, I f-

Yeah, I think it's important. There's a couple ways. I think you have to be able to, you have to that intrinsic desire to learn and know and understand. think I'm just, I like knowing and reading and understanding what's going on. I think it's important to have mentors and colleagues. I'm really fortunate to have some mentors as our CEOs and other companies outside and outside of nuclear as well. And I think that's important too. think I have great

colleagues and friends inside the industry who I talked to lots, but I've got a couple key ones that I'll make sure I touch base with and we talk and it's, you know, in this that someone you could pick a brain from a different angle who doesn't have the background is not always the worst idea. Fresh sets of eyes, leadership is leadership. How would you deal with certain things? For me, that is not a I really value that I really value that for myself. I value that

I don't know my staff values, knowing that I have that. that's, and then not everyone can have that. It's hard. get that. But I'm, I'm really lucky that way in terms of I do feel like I have a few people I can grab lunch with and just have that, all right, here's what do you, what do you do? Or how are you, how would you address these things? Or what are you doing in your role that I'm doing in my role and for growth and especially like for a company like ours that keeps growing and keeps, you're trying to, you know, manage that.

that growth, okay, well, we need more staff, and then we need this, and we need more development, then we need it's that push and pull. And how do you make those decisions? So I'm really fortunate that way. But then also, just do what you can, especially now, there's such great literature, there's such great podcasts, or something else, lot of things that you can do to help yourself. And don't have the nuclear component per se, but it maybe helps you as a leader. I think there's a lot of good things you're not if you get a couple bits and pieces here and there.

It's great. There's not one book or one philosophy that's going to lock you into this great leader. It's not what it is. It's spread and sprinkled across a lot of things. I can't, for me, it's really important to have someone that I could talk to and just pick brains and then having a couple of those both in and out of the industry.

Matt Gavin (23:32)
Thank

Yeah, we've heard before around getting those broader perspectives so that you bring the lessons from all areas of industry. Just wanted to touch on that a little bit more. So obviously this is called the Nuclear Leadership Network. So we talk about nuclear leadership, but does that phrase sort of resonate with you? Does it got meaning or is this just leadership? Has it got a special sort of place?

Kurtis Hinz (23:44)
Now.

Yeah!

Yeah.

No, does. It's unique. You know this, Matt. This industry is unique in terms of the leadership. again, you have to have

You have an industry that has perception. We talked about it before. It's and you better be ready to explain it and understand it and have people understand who are nervous or wary of it. There is whether we like it or not. It is it's there and we can you know, I talk about it when I give my talks at WNU or others whether we like it or not. This is the perception and so you have a I feel you do have the nuclear leadership world is sort of tied together that way, which is great. You know what I mean? We're all

We're all sort of having the, know, where one goes, we all have to go. And if one has a big issue, guess what? We're all gonna have the big issue. so that's why I feel like we were probably a little more tightly wound together, even as competitors and colleagues and stuff like that. yeah, nuclear leadership, think it's, we are all pulling on that rope. And again, if that rope goes the wrong way, we're all having to help. so that's, I think that maybe.

is the unique part of our industry and that leadership group and that unique team that we have together. So, don't know, how about you? What do you think of that? Like, I'm curious see your thoughts on

Matt Gavin (25:11)
Yeah, thanks for asking. I completely agree with what you said. the downsides of an incident in this industry absolutely bury the industry for decades potentially, as we've seen in the recent past with Fukushima. I think that's why we have a unique connection across the leadership group.

Having said that, I think there's obviously a lot to learn from other industries as well, and I think there's a bit of a balance there as to how we how we best leverage those lessons from other industries, but also being true to where we are. But it's an interesting topic area, that's for sure.

Kurtis Hinz (25:46)
Yeah, I agree 100 % on that. think that's probably one of our biggest issues is I think some of the time we also go too far the other way. Like it's safe, safe, safe. If you say it's safe, safe, safe, how safe? Well, if you keep saying it's safe, it's, well, how worried should I be? Like if you keep beating someone over the head, we have to stand by what we do with the standby that we have. And yes, we live with the past of what we've dealt with, but we also know our record's incredible and we have to promote that.

But again, if you say it, it's the same old thing. It's stuff, test too much a little bit here too sometimes. And so we have to understand that a bit.

Matt Gavin (26:22)
Yeah, we have to create some industry here, otherwise there's no point to any of this. you know, it's I think that's the real balance of leadership. Obviously, safety is absolutely at the heart and needs to be. But we've also got to, you know, industrialize. We've got to, you know, increase pace of new build. We've got to increase pace of sort of life extension. And we've got to make sure that we can build an industry. that in itself is a challenge for a leader, I think, in the industry.

Kurtis Hinz (26:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. think, yeah, that's a great point by you for sure.

Matt Gavin (26:49)
Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. Thanks for that, that's great. Couple more questions before we finish. I've got one around, there's lots of, we talked about the growth of the industry. There's gonna be a lot of need for future leaders, some of which don't even know that they're gonna be leaders today. What would your sort of piece of advice be for them? you know, to get them on a trajectory, you know, to be the future leader in this industry, to take this, you know, this golden generation or whatever we wanna call it into the future.

Kurtis Hinz (27:15)
Yeah, no, think to be in network, I think it goes back to what I said, meet people, get out there and do it with a form of just genuine interest in what's going on and understanding. I think that's one of the things I've been really fortunate with and do it with from a view of just, you know, have people that you can meet and understand perspectives from around the world. Again, our industry is fantastic that way.

meet people from every country, every aspect of the world. And I count that as so fortunate to have that. And I don't take it for granted. Young leaders are going to have to understand to move quick now. I'm getting older and I'm starting to realize that I'm young, I'm 21 and 19 year old daughters and watching the pace of which they have that things are changing in terms of technology and things like that. I'm trying to keep up.

I've got a smart younger staff that's trying to pull me along sometimes and I think I've been okay. But that is going to be a big part. How can you use that technology and efficiencies and how do you bring that into your senior role and make sure that it benefits you? That's going to be a big challenge. That's going to be a big challenge. And then what we're looking down the barrel of with AI and things like that and automation, another big challenge. We're going to have to watch that and how that's going to work in terms of our...

know, our staffing and leaders and how you're going to move with that because that's, it's, I'm sure everyone, every leader's reading the same things and seeing the same progressions. We got to watch for that, right. And understand that we're all, consider all the consequences of it for us. So, and for me, that's, that's going to be a big thing. then for when you're in it, you know, this is maybe the old guy in me again, get out there, get to conferences, meet people, be sincere about it.

from a, you know what I mean? you know, have it from a point of view of, you're not making a deal. You're just, you want to understand, you want to learn from people and just take that to opportunities. Because the industry presents fantastic opportunities to go and sit and learn and listen and meet people and take them and grasp. And sometimes you can't travel. get that. Jump online, jump on some of these, a lot of these things are online now, or courses are online. You know, find some side ways to do that. So.

I know for you, is that what you sort of see too, Matt? For me, that's how I see this evolution, especially for a younger generation.

Matt Gavin (29:33)
Yeah, I think what I've learned certainly is the getting out and meeting people is passive. you he talked about the WNU Summer Institute and I was lucky enough to be a part of that, which in very intense five-week period, you do a lot of that, you know, meeting of a lot of new people, getting to know different perspectives. And it was really valuable for me personally. So, yeah, taking all those opportunities. think...

As an industry, we've got to challenge around some of this upcoming technology that it doesn't pass us by. And we think that we can't utilize it and we don't get the benefits of it because I think we'll be left behind as an industry if we're not careful. yeah, as a leader, it's something, know, personally something I'm trying to I'm certainly trying to promote.

Kurtis Hinz (30:06)
Yeah,

I really, I really that's an interesting perspective from you and what you do is I've thought of that many times. That's that's interesting. You're right. If we can't move with it at the pace and our industry has to keep up, right? That's that's a really interesting perspective from your side. I never thought of that. yeah, thanks for that.

Matt Gavin (30:26)
Brilliant. Kurtis, it's been an absolute pleasure, joy. I've really enjoyed speaking with you. Thank you very much for sharing your journey with and we'll see you soon. Thank you for that.

Kurtis Hinz (30:35)
Thanks Matt, appreciate that. Thank you. Bye bye.

Matt Gavin (30:37)
Perfect. Bye bye.

Matt Gavin (30:40)
An absolute great episode there talking with Curtis CEO from TAM International. He did a great job there of sharing his leadership journey from small town upbringing to CEO of a major global company. He gave some great insights in the nuclear industry trends, challenges and successes in the sector. He emphasized the importance of collaboration, personal development and the balance between leadership and advocacy. Curtis also offered valuable insights and advice for future leaders in the industry.

highlighting the need for networking and embracing the new technologies. that was a great episode and awesome to hear from Curtis. Join us next time on the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast. Like and subscribe and all your favorite channels to get latest content straight to you. See you soon.