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Rick Webb shares how his father, backed by his mother’s support, built Waco from one locomotive and eight team members into a diversified supply chain services company operating 47 short line railroads and serving 3,500+ customers across North America and Australia. He explains how an evergreen 1983 contract with a Louisiana paper mill—cancelable with 30 days’ notice—taught Waco to differentiate through daily customer service rather than assets, and how listening to customers drove pivots from railcar repair to industrial switching, terminals, logistics, and broader supply chain solutions. Webb emphasizes valuing customers and team members through tools, training, safety, and culture, including Waco University’s servant-leadership approach, praise-before-discipline mindset, and Dan Smith’s “no asshole rule,” while reflecting on tough times like near-missed payrolls and the 2008–2010 downturn.
00:00 Meet Rick Webb
01:00 Family Leap of Faith
02:39 First Customer Forever
05:46 Customer First DNA
08:49 Building Team Culture
11:35 Pivoting With Customers
13:06 Bar Lessons on Service
15:58 Surviving Tight Times
17:47 Supply Chain Value Engine
22:47 Terminal Expansion Hard Lesson
25:56 Where Value Is Made
26:48 No Plan Just Customers
28:43 Waco U Culture Training
31:02 Flip The Org Chart
34:05 Trust Tools And Praise
37:38 All In For The Future
40:28 Letting Go As CEO
42:25 No Asshole Rule
45:25 Closing Thanks And Laughs
Creators and Guests
What is Freedom and Glory - Tales of American Spirit?
Welcome to Freedom and Glory: Tales of American Spirit—a podcast celebrating the heart of American craftsmanship, resilience, self-reliance, and the power of disruption. Through inspiring stories and authentic storytelling, we shine a spotlight on individuals and communities who embody these values, proving that small, determined efforts can spark meaningful change.
Join us as we share personal tales of triumph, innovation, and hope—moments that define the American spirit and shape our nation’s identity. Whether you’re seeking motivation to pursue your dreams or a reminder of the power of community, Freedom and Glory offers a powerful dose of inspiration rooted in resilience and determination.
Listen, be inspired, and take action.
17 - Freedom and Glory - Rick Webb
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[00:00:00] . Today we're joined by Rick Webb, the son of a railroad laborer who built one of America's largest short line railroad networks from a single locomotive and eight employees. Rick grew joined his father's company the year after it was founded and served as Waco's CEO from 1998 to 2008. Today, Waco operates 47 Shortline railroads and serves more than 3,500 customers across North America and Australia. Rick, welcome to the show.
Rick Webb: Hey, thank you, Liz. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.[00:01:00]
Liz and Bill: So when your dad decided to start Waco, um, your, your mom was only one supporting the family financially. Her signature was the only thing that mattered to banks. Um, what, what did her belief in this thing open up?
Rick Webb: Well, I, I think her belief, she would say that her belief opened up the support in my dad to do what he wanted to do, which was at around 43 years old to quit a really good paying job. All the security. And just take a chance on the vision that he, that he'd had, which was that there was, there, he thought there had to be a better way of serving customers in the rail industry, primarily on the rail car repair side of the business.
And my mom and dad made, they, they made a, a great couple. I mean they, my dad had vision, my dad had guts, but he didn't have near the guts that my mom had. [00:02:00] And my mom just gave us that support and said, we believe in you and trust me, you always want her on your side. You don't want her on the other side.
And, um, we've just lived by that principle from day one and the two were very hardworking. Um, they believed in each other. They believed in what we were trying to do. And it's been a real, it's been a life's pleasure. To be able to work, you know in the company that my dad started and my mom supported, and it's still doing great things for customers and team members all over the world.
Liz and Bill: And, um, the first customer, um, you got in 1983, um, I understand is a, a paper mill in Louisiana who is still to this day on a, a contract they can cancel with 30 days notice. What does 40 plus years of working, you know with [00:03:00] your first customer, tell us about what you built.
Rick Webb: Well, it doesn't tell us about what I built. What it tells us about is what the team built and those first eight team members could have very easily put Waco outta business any day from July 1st, 1983 until they no longer work there. And the team that we have there today can still do the same thing, but the team that we have, not only at the first.
Profit center we started, but the four, almost 5,000 team members we have in four countries and two continents. They're the ones that develop the relationship, improve the relationship with a customer, create the value for all of us to share. And it is, it is truly humbling when you think about it, that on July 1st, 1983, we had to bring our locomotive into the paper mill.
Under armed guard [00:04:00] because the mill was on strike. Now we didn't wanna do it. We had, we didn't wanna do that, but the mill said, look, we're on strike. We're gonna have you guys come in with armed guards on the locomotive. We quickly got the armed guards the hell out of there, and we from day one, from the first minute we got our locomotives in there and our eight team members, we started working on building the customer relationship, hoping that we would be there forever.
What's amazing is we have an evergreen contract, which I, I thought that sounded really great, you know, a no end contract, but then when you kept reading it, it, it has in there just what you said, a 30 day out clause for any reason. And think about that. We're rapidly approaching our 43rd anniversary of that same contract.
And so what it, what it taught us from the very beginning is we don't have a balance sheet that's better than anybody else. We don't have an asset base that's better than anybody else. [00:05:00] You know, we don't have access to resources that, that some of our big competitors have. But what we have is a team that focuses on customer service, and we d differentiate ourselves.
Based upon the service that we provide our customers every single day. And it's, it's amazing. Liz, if you wanted to see a copy of that contract, there's two in existence. One is framed outside Dan Smith, our CEO's office, and one is framed in the headquarters of packaging Corporation of America, who now owns the mill in Ritter, Louisiana.
And so what's amazing is we have that contract, but we don't look at that contract. We don't manage by that contract. We manage by doing what's right for our customers and our team members.
Liz and Bill: Well, excuse me, I, I, I've heard you say customers and your team. Those are the two things I, I keep hearing, so it's very important to you. Can I ask, where did your trust in your team come [00:06:00] from? And it sounds like it's a core value, your customers being put number one over what most corporations would probably look at you know, the bottom line and assets.
So where did this philosophy even originate from?
Rick Webb: Well, that's a great question. And we do, we have a, if you see our website or go anywhere that we happen to do business and we have, we're blessed to have a team serving customers. You'll see we have a customer serve customer first set of foundation principles, and that is you have to value our customers.
You value our people. And you use the assets very, very efficiently as best you can. And at the same time, you safely improve every day. And Bill, where it came from is, again, going back to what I said, what differentiates us, it's not our asset base. Okay? It's not, I guarantee you, it's not the intelligence of the family that started it.
[00:07:00] Okay. And, and it, Dan will appreciate this and the rest of the management team. It's not the intelligence. Of our management team. It's the phenomenal service that our team provides to our customers every single day. Because Bill, everything we do, for the most part, other than the railroads that we have bought, and we own the assets, but all our other profit centers, and we have about 190 profit centers total, all those other profit centers.
Are either we serve on customer owned land or terminals. We serve them on customer owned land or terminals, or leased property. Now we own some, but the, the point I'm making is if we learn from day one at Ritter with Boise Cascade and our eight team members. If we didn't serve that customer as good, if not better than they could get service from anybody else, then our days were numbered in business.
And so I guess [00:08:00] that's where it came from, bill. It just was in our, we made it part of our DNA because that was the only way we could survive.
Liz and Bill: So you're, you actually look to your customers as the base for growth?
I mean,
it, it, it is not, what can I invest in, what can I make off my asset? It's what do the customers need? So you're listening to them. Is that the key? I, I'm guess I'm just trying to, for people who might be watching. May not have a, I used to have a Lionel train set, Rick. Not that like what you have, but, um,
Rick Webb: Well, I got one too. It's just a little bigger.
Liz and Bill: just a little vigor. But I mean, it's like this philosophy I, I so easy to buy into and I think it's a lost art form. Now, you, you've been doing it for quite a while and it's been successful for you. Um, how do you convince all your employees. To, to take this core value of your, and they have to take it to heart.
How do you do that? How do you sell it to them? Or do you [00:09:00] have to.
Rick Webb: Oh yeah, we have to, and it's, we don't have employees. We have team members. Um, and we, we have a saying or we have a motto or where we have a belief that in order for the team member to do their job, right, management and the ownership has to do so many things for the team members before we can expect them to do the job, right?
So in other words, we have to of course give them the right tools. We have to give them the right training on how to utilize those tools so they can be efficient with those tools, those assets. And most importantly, they can be safe for themselves, their family, and anybody they come in contact with, like our customers and the customer's families.
And then the third thing, which is most important in my mind we have to create an environment, a culture where people feel appreciated and they, they [00:10:00] feel valued. If we don't do those three things, I tell our team and, and I'm gonna tell you Dan Smith, and our C is our CEO and Rachel Peterson and Nick Cos and the management team that we have today understand this third point better than we ever understood it, which is culture will win the day more so than the best balance sheet.
More so than the the best set of resources or even the best strategic plan. You gotta have the right culture and you gotta give your people the right tools and the right training. And then when you do that, then you can trust them to do the job and do it right, and do it in a way that the customer wants more of it.
Because another thing we say all the time, and we, we, we say things like this because we know or I know that there's a lot of things I don't know. There's a lot of things I need to know, and so the only way to do that is to listen to your [00:11:00] customers. And what we say, bill, is if you want to grow the top line of your business, listen to your customers, and then act on what they tell you.
If you want to grow the bottom line of your cust of your business, listen to your team and act on what they tell you, because if you have the right team, which again, it's your responsibility to have the right team. With the right tools, the right, the right tools, the right training, and the right environment or the right culture, then you're gonna grow the bottom line by just staying the hell out of their way and let them take care of the customer every day.
I.
Liz and Bill: How have you, you know, listened to your customers and kind of grown into I don't know, you talked to me about new, new services and features you all have offered.
Rick Webb: Yeah, I it, that's a great question, Liz, and it really started from the very beginning because I, I think I mentioned earlier, what we really wanted to become when my dad started this business was a car repair company, a rail car [00:12:00] repair company. That's what my grandfather knew. That's what my father knew.
That's what we, we thought was a big opportunity back in the early eighties, late seventies, early eighties. And so we would go talk to our customers, Liz, and say, look, we've got this repair idea. How about letting us repair these rail cars? And the customers would, some customers, and I think Boise Cascade and Riter said this, it's great we'd love to have you repair these rail cars, but we don't need 'em repaired.
We can't get 'em move time. So from the very beginning, we went into business thinking we were gonna be a car repair company and quickly pivoted. When we found the first opportunity to become the first contract industrial switching company west of the Mississippi in Ter, Louisiana. There was only one company that beat us to that title, east of the Mississippi, after deregulation in 1980.
And that's a company that's owned by some guy named Buffet in Omaha today.
Liz and Bill: Some [00:13:00] dude,
Rick Webb: Yeah, some, some guy named Buffet, I don't know what his first name is.
Liz and Bill: what? Well, um, I, I mean, I, I think you told me another story as well about. You pivoting, um, when you owned a bar and, um, and you had to, you know, kinda work within the restrictions that you were given and look for the opportunities you had with customers.
Rick Webb: Oh yeah. Yeah. I tell a lot of stories, Liz, and the bar story keeps coming up, but it was a great place. It was, I actually started the bar six months before my father started Waco, and so the first thing he told me besides chewing my backside better and more, more worse, I should say, than I've ever been chewed before, was, look, you'll have no safety net.
You know, if you want to do this, [00:14:00] fine, go do it. But you gotta do it. And if you succeed, great. If you fail, don't come running to me. 'cause we've got this other plan, your mother and I, and we're gonna start Waco and you don't get any, we'll support you from the sidelines and cheer, but don't count on us being on the field and playing with you, playing for you.
And um, what I learned from that, Liz, was we were selling a commodity. That you can get almost anywhere, right? Beer. And that's all we sold back then. And what I learned very quickly was the only way you can differentiate yourself when you're selling a commodity that you can buy almost anywhere, that has no, um, supply issues at all there.
The supply's everywhere. The only way you can attract customers is through improved. Experience with their experience and improve customer service. And it just [00:15:00] so happened that that lesson that I learned in running that bar for owning and running that bar for a while, the name of the bar is McCarthy's Pub by the way, and it's, it was the youngest bar back then.
It's still in business today, 42 years later. And it's the oldest bar in this town that I live in now, Pittsburgh, Kansas. And the lesson that I learned by working there was if you have an idea that others have and that other, other competitors can provide the same, same, or similar service you have to make yourself known by taking care of the customer in a way that they want to be taken care of so they come back and buy more.
Liz and Bill: Wise words, something that that is in short supply nowadays, I would suggest, um.
Rick Webb: But we're kind of glad. That makes it easier for
Liz and Bill: Yeah. For you? Yes, absolutely. For the customer. Like me, I, I, I long for somebody like this man. And, and this whole [00:16:00] philosophy, you went through a lot of tough times. I mean, it wasn't all easy straight for you, Rick, and the company. What was that like? I mean, I know having read some articles on you that, you know, you, you were facing COVID, you also had bank accounts that maybe would not make payroll in the future.
I mean. Tell us about that. I mean, how did you get through that? It always seemed to fall back on the team members that you have and your just absolute faith in them.
Rick Webb: Well, there's no doubt. Bill, that's how we made it through, was because of our team members. And we're still making it through today because of our team members. But yes, early on, um, it was pretty tight and in both our businesses, and I do remember vividly looking at the bank account on a Tuesday and saying, oh my God, we got payroll on Friday.
How are we going to make that? And there's no secret sauce or there's no magic [00:17:00] solution. Or my old friends used to say, there's no wiffle dust. You know that you can just spread on Tuesday and everything gets better by Friday. You, anytime you face challenges, you just gotta, you know, reach down deep and say, you know what?
I believe in what I'm doing. I believe in the team that I'm doing it with. And most importantly, I believe that the customer will understand where we are and they'll, they'll appreciate the service that we provide for them, and they will not let us fail. And our customers and our team for, like I said, July one, will be 43 years, have not let us fail.
Liz and Bill: Well, I, I, I wish there were more people like you. I wish there were more companies like you and I, I guess I, my question would be. If you could just paint a picture for us who don't really understand your business yet. From my understanding, it [00:18:00] starts with one locomotive and and then you listen to customers.
And from there it expanded. What did it ultimately expand into to make wa wacko a a multi-billion dollar corporation? I mean, what do you do now
Rick Webb: What.
Liz and Bill: think you were gonna be doing this?
Rick Webb: Well, that's a great que if you're asking what I do now, most people would say nothing but just attend and get in the way. But, um, it's a great question though. What, what we do, bill, in a nutshell is we're a sup, a diversified supply chain services company. Okay? So what does that mean? Probably prior to COVID, nobody had ever really paid attention to supply chains.
Right. But once COVID hit and supply chain weaknesses started magnifying and showing themselves, then people started paying more of atten more attention to what the supply chain is. But [00:19:00] we started paying attention to that. That really, that's part of my dad's vision, that, that, that's, that's the key component of my dad's vision, which is let's look and understand what a customer supply chain is doing today.
And that requires a lot of communication from the customer. That requires possibly communication from the regulatory agencies that affect that supply chain. And of course, that requires communication with people that are actually doing that today. And so what we look for, bill, is we look for weak points.
In the customer's supply chain, or a better way of saying it is we look for how I imbalances, okay, in that customer supply chain where the supply and demand is out balance some way, and please, I, this is not my idea. I took this idea for some, from some very intelligent, intelligent people, but it's, we implement.[00:20:00]
Our company, we operate our company. We became what we became because of this. When we f, when we find the supply chain imbalances, then we do everything that we can, either on the supply side or the demand side, depending upon what the customer needs to put those imbalances back into balance. And you know what happens when you put things back into balance?
You know, you create efficiencies. You, you create more effective service. You create. Shorter time cycles or supply chain cycle times. In other words, you create value. And what we do is we create that value for the customer and then we have an obligation to give back to that customer, a fair portion of that.
And then we have an obligation to share that value with our team so they can have a quality of life so they can. Raise a family so they can have, you know they can live where they wanna live and, and the [00:21:00] kind of house that they wanna live in. And then we keep en enough of that value for our ownership and for the rest for our company so that we can continue to invest in resources, assets.
People, which is the most important thing to invest in, is your team to keep providing additional services for our customer. So lemme give you some examples. So we started in Ritter, in the, in the customer's rail portion of their supply chain. Okay? And they liked what we do and they still like what we do, and we're honored and humbled and we want to thank PCA for liking what we do.
But what we learned is there's a whole other part of the supply chain. That it goes beyond rail, that if we pay attention to the customer and, and can offer them a solution that creates that value. I we talked about or I talked about. Then they want to use us in other parts of the supply [00:22:00] chain. So we started out in rail.
We branched out into what we call terminals, but it's a glorified name of saying a warehouse. It's a warehouse and a terminal. And now we branched into the logistics side of our business where we actually get into the truck and the water side of the supply chain. So we started out in rail Bill and now, um, there's probably not much we couldn't attempt to do in the supply chain world.
Now. We probably wouldn't be the best at some, some of those things just because. We haven't focused on that, but if a customer has a need, we'll either provide that address, that need as best we can ourselves, or find somebody that can address it better than us and help the customer.
Liz and Bill: In, in, I, I think it was 2008, is when you started your foray into terminal.
Right.
What, how, um, how did that go? Um, [00:23:00] and, um, you know, what did you learn from that? Obviously you're crushing it now, but what did you learn from, from that? From stepping out into that um, idea.
Rick Webb: I learned I wasn't very smart and I, I didn't have a good idea of timing because the first foray into the terminal world, Liz, was when we decided to buy, I think it was. Six or eight, I can't remember the exact number of terminals that primarily focused on two industries, the housing market with forest products and the automobile market with steel, um, and metal pro products.
Excuse me. Now I'm getting so choked up about it. I don't even wanna talk about it. But what happened was we made that acquisition in 2008. Then everybody knows what happened in 2009 and 2010, the financial crisis happened, and lo and [00:24:00] behold, the financial crisis was caused by the housing market bubble and the other consumer markets like the automobile market that just went through the floor.
So my dad, he passed away in 2009, but he saw what was happening before he passed away. And I'll remember forever what he said. He said, look, I, I, I understand why you wanted to make the investment into these terminals, and I supported it, but based upon. How you made this decision, which showed how smart you are, you better find people that are smarter than you to help you run this business, or you're gonna be in a world of trouble.
And it was great advice, you know, it was absolutely, I didn't want to hear it, it didn't really feel good, you know. But the one thing about my, my dad, my old man he would let you know what he was thinking and generally, [00:25:00] that was you, you needed to improve. And so if you took the time to self-reflect on how you could have done your job better and how you could have made better decisions he would just go out of his way to support you.
It's the same thing that I've tried to emulate. I know it's what Dan and and his team emulates every day. And so the lesson we learned, Liz, was make sure you know. You're not the smartest person in the room unless if you are, outta that room and find another one.
Liz and Bill: You're in the wrong room. Well, I, I, which article I, I read, but it was this guy we're talking to is a big time wheeler and dealer. Nobody does it better and everybody likes him, and I can see why. I mean, you're very humble. You, you've accomplished so much. Yet you, you do [00:26:00] tend to give credit. We're, and, and, and justifiably so to the team and everybody else.
But don't you at times reflect on and, and feel more than satisfied for what you've done over the years
Rick Webb: I feel more than satisfied for what the team has done. My small part of it Okay. Can be, and, and it, it can be gone tomorrow. But I don't create any of the value. I never have created any of the value. The value comes my Australian friends like to say, the value comes at the coal face. Okay? That's where the miner digs the coal.
What, what, what we like to say is the value comes at the truck dock or the rail dock. That's where the value is created. And I, I guess I'll go back to a question that you asked, and I realize I didn't answer it. It was something like, did y did we ever imagine, did I ever imagine we could be where we are?
No. [00:27:00] No way. I, people ask me that all the time. They say how in the world, especially once they know me, they, how in the world can a, can I say it a dumb ass? Like you wind up with a company like you're a part of doing everything that they're doing, that you're doing. You can't tell me that you had some kind of magical plan that got you where you, where you are today.
And I, and I can say without a doubt, what I consistently say is we never had a plan. Our plan was to go where the customers would take us. Our plan was earn the right to grow with the customer based upon what you do for 'em today. It doesn't matter. And it, this is, this is what we tell our team, especially our team at Riter.
And I'm gonna brag on 'em, but I also wanna remind them that that 43 years of service doesn't matter. What matters is [00:28:00] what are we gonna do for the customer today? And then we go home tonight thinking that, okay, we did a good job tonight, or We did a good job today, but I gotta come back in tomorrow morning and be even better.
And that's how you wind up with what we wound up with. And Bill, I hope, I hope I'm around for a while and I hope, you know, five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, that's probably pushing it. Um, you know, we can have this same conversation and you can ask that same question. And I, I hope I can give you that same answer, which I will.
I, we don't have a plan. We just take care of customers and take care of people.
Liz and Bill: I, I truly hope I'm here to, to ask that question.
Rick Webb: I do too.
Liz and Bill: So that, that culture, that customer first piece, um, is that. What Waco University or Waco U tries to instill in new [00:29:00] team members?
Rick Webb: Yes. And I gotta give credit to Rachel. Peterson who is one of the key leaders of our company, working directly with Dan, working with Nick, and working with all the other people associated with Waco U. Um, our goal is to, when we started Waco U, was to teach people, team members what was expected if you wanted to wear the Waco jersey.
And I've outlined, and I'm, I don't need to outline it anymore unless you want me to, but I, I will. But the, the thing that differentiates us, the thing that's so important is to have a team made of servant leaders, you know, who know that it's not their job. To go switch a customer, go make a hard switch for a customer, a difficult switch, not a hard switch, but a difficult switch [00:30:00] for a customer and do it timely and do it safely, you know?
All right, let's celebrate for 30 seconds. All right. Let we, we should, let's give everybody a high five and, and celebrate the team for a while, but then let's get back to doing what we're supposed to do, which is the next thing for the customer or the next thing for your fellow team member who needs your help in some manner.
Maybe you need your help at work. Maybe you need your help off the job, but Waco U was and is put together to instill. The Waco Foundation principles, along with many other things. Okay. Um, to, to give our team members the best chance to be successful. One other thing that I'll say about Waco U that we were very proud of is we love to grow our own leaders.
We love to grow our own managers. Because when you do that, it's very kind of you and Bill to say, this is [00:31:00] kinda unique our approach. But when you grow leaders and managers in Waco U, they come outta there understanding that it's not the CEO or the chairman of the board or the owners that are at the top of the pinnacle or the top of the org.
Okay. Like everybody else, when you see an org chart, for most others, you know, you'll have that CEO or the chairman, or the board or the board itself, or the ownership team at the top. Everything else cascades down to what's on the very bottom, our team members and what's next to our team members, our customer.
So when we have a Waco U that says, forget about that traditional org structure, and flip it around. Put the customer at the top. Put the customer first and who's next to the customer, the team member. Value. Value your team. Value your customers. Do it safely. Continue to invest in your team. And that investment doesn't just have to be [00:32:00] with money, Liz.
That investment can be with time, can be with teaching can't, can be with positive encouragement. As a matter of fact, again, one of the things that we teach our, our managers. They come outta Waco U is if you're gonna discipline somebody one time, you better get praise 10. Because we as a society like to only focus on the negative and therefore we as human beings, we tend to remember the negatives and don't remember the positives.
Lord knows. You know, whatever way you like to look at the news or hear the news or read the news, it is rare when you find one that talks positive 10 times to every one negative. It's probably the other way around. Okay? And so we demand or expect, I shouldn't say demand, we expect our managers and our leaders to truly, to really show the, how they value the team.
By, if you're gonna discipline somebody, give 10 out boys or out [00:33:00] girls, you know, to make sure that it evens out.
Liz and Bill: I think we've all lived, or I have anyway. I've worked in environments where, um, it's the complete opposite of that and I know that when employees are not appreciated or don't feel like they're appreciated, you usually wind up with a, a cancer within the corporation. And I've seen it so many times, but I've also seen employees and I'm in. Business where you know, you are always a little worried you're gonna lose your job the next day. It's the broadcast industry. There's no real security there. So you're always, always looking for that attaboy. But I think that's true all across the board. I, and they probably appreciate where they work. But you are actually applying this and you're seeing the results from your employees.
Is this across the board? I mean, the overwhelming majority of your team members [00:34:00] that they trust you as much as you trust them, do they not?
Rick Webb: We have to earn that trust bill,
you know, and we have to show 'em that every single day. And yeah, our, our team. I mean, I've worked in a situ in situations like what you're talking about too. And, and then I guess, I guess probably one of the reasons why this became so important to us is remember our first profit center was about 400 miles away from where we lived, you know?
So when we left there, we left our whole future in the hands of those team members. And it's today we've got 190 profit centers in places, you know, 45 states, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. And we want our team members to think and make decisions and act like they own the place. Okay? And the only way they're gonna do that is if, [00:35:00] going back to what I said, you do three things before you ever think about discipline, anybody.
You give 'em the right tools, you give 'em the right training, and you give them a culture that they believe in and the right tools, and this is important. The right tools and the right training and the culture they believe in is not what we think. It's, you know, I had some really good teachers in my day and I really loved the teachers.
That worked hard to make sure I was understanding it the way I could, you know, I was understanding it on my terms. Whatever I was being taught. And then I had teachers that would get stand up there and just say, all right, this is what it is. You're supposed to know this, and now I've told you this. Now you know it.
Well, you know, you know the situation. So our managers, our good, and trust me, we are not perfect. We, we make all kinds of mistakes, so that's why we still gotta work hard every day. But our really good leaders [00:36:00] and really good managers are the ones. That have a communication channel with their team members that cannot be broken.
And trust me, there's a lot of times there's entities out there that wanna break that, you know, whether it be competitors or whether it be, you know other, other entities that try to get between management and team members. Okay. And those entities can be unions. And I say all the time, we're not anti-union, we're pro customer, right?
So we love union unions if they can take, help us take care of the customer. We haven't seen that to be the case yet, but I, we'll still be on the lookout for that. But that's, that's the key thing, bill is. If you expect trust back from someone, you better show them why they should trust you every single day.
And when you think you've done enough, it five more times.[00:37:00]
Liz and Bill: I was gonna ask him what's next, but I feel that. He doesn't know 'cause he's gotta go talk to his customers. But I know you said 10 years from now or so you hope to be around to be able to talk about this again. But do you have any hopes and dreams for the future? For, for, I know you're, you're basically re kind of retired and, and out of it, but it's still probably very close to your heart.
What would you like to see the company? Where would you like to see it go? Or don't you really know?
Rick Webb: Oh, no, no. Everybody has the, you know. Everybody has that ego, you know, everybody wants to know, um, you know, what, how they affected things and what comes next after they're gone. And look, I I, it's real simple. You know, I don't invest in any other company other than Waco to speak of. [00:38:00] And the reason, because the reason for that is I can't look my managers and leaders in the eye and say, I think you're the best.
And I believe in you the most. And at the same time take a bunch of value that they created and then put it in, you know, five other or 10 other, or 50 or a hundred other companies. 'cause I'd be saying that manager and team member at Waco isn't as important as these other team members that I'm investing in over here.
That tells you that I'm, I'm like my mom and dad and my sister who was involved in, and, and her family is still involved in the business. We pushed everything all in, you know, in 1983, I'm still all in, right. I want to keep playing that game that way. And I will, I will, I hope I can, can, I hope I can continue to play that game that way.
Because of the [00:39:00] leadership team that we have today. Who is better? Dan Smith, Rick Bad, and Rachel Peterson. Nick Coombs, Andy Nielsen. I'm missing a thousand people of actually 5,000 people. We have a better leadership team today than we've ever had. In our past and, and to all those Waco leaders that are no longer in a leadership position.
Don't take that as I, I didn't believe in you. I, I do, and, and did believe in you, and you did things for us that I can only thank you for, but the leadership team that we have today has positioned us or has us positioned to do some amazing things into the future Bill. And it's my hope and my goal and my dream that.
Whatever comes next is better than what we've done up to this point. And I believe it can be if we just stay true, true to who we are. And then the last point I'll make is it's, we say this all the time, it's [00:40:00] it's leadership. The true test of leadership is not what happens when that leader is there. It's what happens when that leader's not there.
Oh and I that. So my goal is that we continue on the path that we're on, which is we're gonna make tomorrow better than we are today.
Liz and Bill: I mean, that's pretty incredible how all in you are I, I mean. I'm trying to imagine after 20 years of being CEO, how did you let go? How did you know it was time for that?
Rick Webb: Well, don't talk to Dan. Okay? Because he would, he would probably say, I can't wait for that son of a bitch to let go. But no, in all seriousness. I, I, Dan and I talk all the time and I have ultimate faith in Dan, ultimate faith in the team. And that made it easy, Liz to let [00:41:00] go. And I think, I think the other thing that helped me when you study the business, you know, we're our management, as I mentioned earlier, I think it was to Bill, our management is remote, right?
So like when we go to a pro, when we would go to a profit center. Um, you know, we felt like we would learn it, we'd understand it, we'd help decisions be made, but then when we'd leave and, you know, from Australia, for example, come back to the United States and leave the team in Australia, we had to let go.
Right? Because there's no way you can manage, I can't manage, you know, a, a profit center in Cherryville, Kansas. If I live in Pittsburgh, Kansas, and that's about 50 miles apart. Right. You just can't do it. You gotta let go and you gotta trust the people. And so from the very beginning, you know, we just had to learn to trust our team and, and do everything we could to [00:42:00] support 'em.
And then with a little bit of luck and a whole lot of hard work, it works.
Liz and Bill: Amazing story. Yeah. I've taken notes. I'm gonna take this home and study it. We should four people should go to Waco U to be honest with you. That would be great. It's a
wonderful model.
Rick Webb: it would be great and I need to go back there more often. That's for sure
Liz and Bill: Yeah. I thought, um, they. They instilled the the no asshole rule. I love the no asshole rule.
Rick Webb: that I gotta give credit where credit's due. That is a Dan Smith policy, and I'm gonna brag on him a little bit. Because he deserves it. Um, Dan has got an amazing story. So Dan grew up 15 miles from Pittsburgh, Kansas, here in a town called Gerard, Kansas. And he grew up wanting to be a pitcher, a [00:43:00] major major league baseball pitcher, and he achieved it.
And think about that. When you reach the pinnacle of something like that, you are within. Probably the top, definitely within the top 1%, probably the top half percent of people that know that sport, play that sport. So he learned at a high level, you know, the, how to play with really, really high performers, high performing teammates.
But what he, what he did immediately when he took over Waco was he taught me and others. The absolute value of culture and building the right team, and that the financial return or the, the financial performance. Is an outcome, it's an expectation. It's not what drives the value [00:44:00] creation. What drives the value creation is make sure you have the right team in place and the right players on that team.
Because I, I like to say, you know, you give me, you know, you give me the best team possible and the worst playbook, okay? I probably am gonna beat. The worst team you can put on the field and the best playbook. So Dan taught us and still teaches me every day the value of culture. And he also has a great way of communicating.
He's far less windy than I am. Okay? And so how he coined that phrase is, or how he, how he explained what I just probably took too long to explain was, look, if you're an asshole. Go work somebody else. You. You don't get to be on our team and that's okay. It's your choice. Go join the asshole team. We got a no asshole team.[00:45:00]
Liz and Bill: That's awesome. That's probably what the cheerleaders do at Buck U. Right. Gotta be part of it. That's awesome. Well, I,
I,
Rick Webb: We'll, have to work on that cheer bill. We have to develop that cheer.
Liz and Bill: what is that? They'll have to work on that cheer. Okay. Good. Good. I, I think it'd go over big. No, this has, this has been great, Rick, and we really appreciate you talking to us and. Sharing your story and yes. Amazing Bill's obviously gonna go home and get his train set out. I am, I haven't played with it in a long time, but now I gotta think about logistics and distribution and all kinds of things I didn't think of.
Rick Webb: Be safe.
Liz and Bill: See,
Rick Webb: Don't go too fast.
Liz and Bill: and I'm gonna institute the no asshole rule at in the house.
Rick Webb: Careful. I, Hey, I haven't, I haven't implemented the no asshole [00:46:00] rule at home because I'm afraid Stacy will lock change the locks on me.
Liz and Bill: I'm with you. I can identify. Rick, thank you so much. It, it was an incredible pleasure. Thank you.
Rick Webb: Bill, thank you. I really appreciate the time I got to spend with you. And Liz. And Liz, thank you. Thanks for the call last week and thanks for allowing me to tell you about my favorite. Team of all time.
Liz and Bill: Yeah, thank you. I. [00:47:00]