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The CSU Spur of the Moment Podcast tackles the issues of food, water, health, and sustainability by talking with people making a difference in these fields and exploring the unique pathways that have led them to their current roles. Hosted by the Colorado State University System's new Spur campus in Denver, this podcast builds on its mission of addressing global challenges through research collaboration, experiential education, and a shared vision of inspiring the next generation.
Bruce Karas:
Just seeing my team that I had at Coca-Cola, they've all moved on to bigger jobs. And I think that's the true test of if you're a good leader, you will help your team get to bigger jobs and they in turn become leaders.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Welcome to Spur of the Moment, the podcast of Colorado State University's Spur campus in Denver, Colorado.
Bruce Karas:
And so that was part of my role to straddle the technical with the business. And what I learned over the years was it's not just dollars, it's the enterprise Risk Assessment is something that the finance team's looking at every day. And there are all kinds of risks and things like water recycling, waste, carbon, those are risks too.
Jocelyn Hittle:
On this podcast, we talk with experts in food, water, health and sustainability and learn about their current work and their career journeys. I'm Jocelyn Hittle the Associate Vice Chancellor of the CSU Spur campus. Today I'm joined by Bruce Karas, principal of Circular Futures LLC. Bruce has more than 30 years of experience as an environmental health and safety professional and worked for various companies on environmental and health stewardship. Notably, he led Coca-Cola North America's environmental efforts focused on water stewardship, climate protection, energy efficiency, packaging and recycling and sustainable agriculture. Bruce and his team had many successes including reaching Coca-Cola's global goal of replenishing a hundred percent of the water used in beverage production, and the goal of collecting and recycling a bottle or can for everyone sold globally by 2030. Welcome, Bruce.
Bruce Karas:
Glad to be here. Jocelyn, nice to see you again.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Likewise. So let's talk a little bit about the work you're doing now with Circular Futures. Can you tell us a little bit more about the organization and the work you do?
Bruce Karas:
Sure. I was fortunate having worked at my previous three jobs are all large companies, general Dynamics, huge plant making Army tanks, 4,000 people, Owens Corning, making fiberglass insulation and shingles. And I did that for about 11 years and then Coca-Cola for 22 years. And I was fortunate to be able to get a nice package and I could step away and do some consulting in the areas that I'm a little bit more passionate about and get the benefit of not being on the corporate freight train that I was on for so long, all the travel that I did. So Circular Futures, I really, it is the culmination of all those years of experience where different entities call for some strategic advice. They're building a sustainability program or trying to figure out how to recycle a particular commodity and running into hurdles. And so I often help on just really thinking through, well, here's where you start, here's how you get to a finish. And it's really all those years of doing that in big corporations. Now I'm able to help others and I'm also doing some work for nonprofits like the Recycling partnership. And so I do sort of strategic advice. And it's almost funny because after years of being a technical person to them, sometimes I'm the business guy, which almost makes me laugh because all my background was science.
Jocelyn Hittle:
You never know where the career turns, twists, and turns will come. Right,
Bruce Karas:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Can we talk a little bit more about what you're doing day to day now? Can you talk about some of your clients and more specifics around the advice you're giving?
Bruce Karas:
Sure. So a lot of the clients I get are investment entities that are looking to invest in something, let's say in the recycling value chain. They have material coverage, facilities, transfer stations, processing of certain plastics, and they're looking to invest, but they want to talk to somebody saying, is this really a thing? Is it going to fit into something bigger? Can it ultimately be profitable? And are there any risks? This is an area that really in the US we've really evolved to a fil sort of approach to everything. And now it's changing where we have new legislation and new focus by brands, but now these entities are saying maybe I need to invest here and it's needed, but they need somebody to help them help think through where will this fit ultimately. So that's one thing I end up doing a lot of these days, sometimes I have done some consultation on water.
I think water is still an issue that depending on what part of the country you're in, you might be getting the, what is it, the Atmospheric River coming in California, but there's still areas that have drought and water's tight on the Colorado River system. And so I've talked with entities about trying to figure out how to manage their business in a world where water is a little bit tighter and they have to think a little bit differently, some consultation on the agricultural side. Those are all interesting to me because it shows that there is a certain level of concern out there and there's an opportunity for people to step into that spot and really give some coaching to help people think through is this something that's really viable both as a business and as an environmental benefit.
Jocelyn Hittle:
And I think that's something that is really specific to doing sustainability work in the private sector. It has to make sense not only from an environmental goal perspective, but also from a business perspective. So can you talk a little bit about what's different about doing sustainability in the private sector? I mean, people might think about environmental work primarily being in the government or nonprofit sector, but there's a ton happening within corporate and industry conversations, boardrooms on the factory floor that really has a huge impact on sustainability. So maybe you could talk a little bit more about what it's like in the private sector.
Bruce Karas:
So what part of my job when I was at Coke was to interface with advocacy groups and different stakeholders that would come to us and say, you guys are using too much water. And so part of my role is to sit down with them and really build a relationship to really help people understand. One of the things that always struck me is that there's a belief out there that in private industry you have unlimited spending on anything, anything. And especially with a brand like Coca-Cola or taking Unilever, there's a belief that you have so much money you can spend. And the reality is in a business, you're constrained. You're constrained every day. You have stockholders that are pressuring the company for profits. And what I learned in the years I worked in large companies is that these business leaders, they want to do the right thing.
They're under tremendous pressure from all sides to earn a dollar. But when you look at what's changed in private industry, the investment houses have put considerable pressure on businesses to say, you need to start taking care of business on stewardship of our planet and what's relevant to your business. That pressure has been interesting to watch because it continues to ramp up in little increments all the time. And so that means that stockholders is looking at these companies and saying, well, you're making money, but you're also using a lot of water or your plastic waste is creating a problem. So what I lived through was having big corporations set ESG targets and internally part of the role in private industry is I would be the person that would sit down with our president of North America, and they're not all dollars and cents. People think, I mean, what's the business benefit for a beverage company with water?
Well, we looked at water as a strategic resource that we absolutely needed everywhere. And so we were able to say, you may not be able to show a financial savings on the front end, but on the back end it is part of your enterprise risk assessment, which is big on the financial side. If you can show the finance leaders that we can protect our business by being a good water steward in a community that waters tight, it pays big dividends. And that's the conversation I usually had internally in a company. And so that was part of my role to straddle the technical with the business. And what I learned over the years was it's not just dollars, it's the enterprise risk assessment is something that the finance team's looking at every day and there are all kinds of risks and things like water recycling, waste carbon, those are risks too.
Jocelyn Hittle:
So you've touched on something that I think is a little bit of a lead into my next question around the trends you're seeing in private sector sustainability work. And one of those trends is that there are requirements for ESG reporting and that you mentioned ESG and its environmental social and governance. That's what the ESG stands for, that it is both from a regulatory perspective like the Securities and Exchange Commission is now requiring more or less, they're now requiring that companies start to report on environmental social and governance criteria. So that's part of it, but it's also that investors are looking at ESG criteria when they're thinking about investing in a company because of the risks associated with not doing those things. Right. Did I capture that?
Bruce Karas:
Yep, yep. I think in about the last 10 years, one of things in my time at Koch, I'd be working on occasion with investor relations. Occasionally you'd have a very green investment house and want some explanation on something. And I learned a few things about that that were always, it struck me as interesting. So the investment houses won't pressure you on your ESG progress, but they also are shareholders. They also want you to be successful. And so the bridge you have to make, and I think this is the bridge that businesses have to make, is that showing that, and they ask the question frequently, why is your water replenishment goal good for your business? And that's a little different click on the typical sustainability environmental talk track, but it is the right kind of thinking because what that starts to do is it makes that a main component of how business works.
And I think the SEC reporting for carbon is going to be something that really is going to help a lot because once the finance team, they're great at crunching numbers, getting numbers, getting data, it's going to start to create a much more visible picture of that in your particular business. And once you have a picture of where I'm at today, where do I need to go, it's a lot easier to say, what should I target first? And I think out of all the targets that are out there, carbon reduction is probably the most challenging because it's understood so poorly by most, and especially when you get in the business world, you need to understand what the carbon impact of your specific business is. That area I think is still a bit nascent. I think the SEC guidelines will help, but I think that's going to be an area that we see a lot of growth.
There are a lot of things that are kind of superficial, and I can give you a good example. In the beverage industry, I was always pressured to say we should put solar panels on all our production plants and wind turbines, et cetera. And in reality, those operations were less than 10% of the whole carbon footprint. And why would I spend millions of dollars to do that? It wouldn't even move the needle. So you have to look in your sector to say, what are the biggest drivers of carbon reduction? And for the coke industry that I was in, it was vending machines and coolers and packaging material, and that's where a lot of the work took place.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Everyone, there's the sort of saying that you can't manage what you don't measure. So now that everyone is measuring more, a lot of companies have been doing it for a long time yourselves at Coca-Cola as a good example, but thinking about how this particular requirement and this trend and this increased transparency around things like carbon or energy use more simply or water use, I think requiring companies to measure these things and report on these things from the perspective of investors and the public versus just the perspective of the internal facilities management folks who are looking to save money, a bit of a different thing. What else are you seeing in terms of trends in sustainability in the private, in addition to the reporting that we're talking about? What else is happening?
Bruce Karas:
Yeah, I think there's some interesting things going on in the space of transportation for years. There's a lot of work that took place using the supply chain organizations of these companies where you manage your routes and you optimize those, and that's all good because it saves fuel. But I think we're sitting at the front end of watching the mode of propulsion change, more electrification of the transportation system. There's a lot of interesting little things that are happening. You notice in the news, you can catch things about discussions about we don't even have enough charging stations or the range of vehicles. All those are there because these types of conveyances are now out in the market and they're performing. And the industry is learning a lot about that. And I think the thing we're going to see a lot of is transportation modes are going to start to slowly change to things that are a little bit different to optimize, reduce miles, get away from fuel in the time. I know one of the things that did at Koch, we worked with a startup that took just a typical GM full size van, which we used to fix vending machines around cities, and they basically bolted on a hybrid system to it. So it paid for itself in a couple of years. And another trend I see in private industry, and you may have seen it being in Colorado with an EPR bill that's passed.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Can you say more about that policy change? You said EPR legislation for our listeners. Can you unpack that a little? Yeah,
Bruce Karas:
Yeah. So extended producer responsibility, it's been a thing for a long time in Europe in particular, and one of the reasons when if you unpack that there's not an excess landmass in Europe for landfills. I think we have 1700 in the us, but there's lots of land here. And so there was never pressure there. Well, in Europe, they started really looking at, well, how do we really separate the land fillable stuff or the stuff that we're going to incinerate from things that could be processed and reused again? So there's a template out there for EPR, but you almost start from a different foundation anytime you do it in a new state. California is different than Colorado, than Oregon than Maine, but an extended producer responsibility, the producers of the goods have to pay into a system that builds the infrastructure to collect, sort and process those commodities into something that's useful.
And there are targets built into that. And it's an interesting thing because on the plus side, lemme start with the negative for a business, you're going to pay a lot of money into it, and that's generally why companies said, well, we don't want that, but they haven't been able to manage it since. But the benefit is that it's going to build this infrastructure and these producers can manage it. And in a good EPR program, there's a thing called a producer responsibility organization that's run all these businesses that are paying into it, and there've been some successes in different parts of the world where they become very efficient, well run and do a great job of collecting these materials. There's a couple provinces in Canada that have done that and you have to work at it, but I think it'll be something that's positive and it in turn really create these industries that process material into what is going to be usable. Again, I think the pressure from that has pushed the chemical industries to start to think, how can I process films, plastic films and polystyrene? And there's some real interesting developments in that space as well right now.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Yep. It's really interesting to me. I'm an obsessive recycler and we use something called rid well at my house, which comes around to houses and picks up things that are harder to recycle. And so I feel like that's a precursor to this extended producer responsibility piece where they have found people who can do what you're describing. They collect a lot of plastic film plastic, and then they take it to someone who can actually process that. And so I'll be really curious to see how it unfolds here.
Bruce Karas:
Yeah, the whole thing with things like films though, when you think about it, it's so light. The material's so light that the game is really not a game of can I do something with a process? How can I haul it without losing my shirt financially? I think that's where a lot of the work is going. So when you see these producer responsibility organizations, they're going to be the ones that are going to say, look, we need to get it into a cube that weighs 400 pounds before we move it. And so they're going to think of ways to really optimize that. And over time that'll happen.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Certainly something to think about for our young people who might want a career in sustainability that these kinds of challenges, engineering challenges, logistics, transportation, finance and business, these are all things that will come from some of these trends that are coming on the policy side, lawyers, legal help, accounting, all of these careers are really important to making something like that work.
Bruce Karas:
Yes, absolutely.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Great. So can we talk a little bit about a typical workday for you? It sounds like you have a variety of different clients and you do a little bit of different kinds of consulting for those clients, but maybe there's a bit of a typical workday. And a follow up question is if there's a task during that typical workday that you particularly dislike and what do you do? Well,
Bruce Karas:
I'll start with that one. So the advantage of stepping away from the big corporate world is all the things that I don't like are gone. So
Jocelyn Hittle:
Congratulations. That's great.
Bruce Karas:
Yes, and I think about it now. I always tell people, it was like you're on a freight train, travel a lot meetings from the time I woke up till the time I walked out the door, which was usually late. And at the time you're in it, you don't really think about it, you just do it. And so now in the world I live in where I'm doing some consulting and thinking of strategic work, my typical day is I really spent some time, which I often didn't have time to do before, was catching up on what's new and the different areas that I'm interested in and the different areas that I'm talking to different clients about. The recycling world is there's so much change going on. So I spend a little bit of time looking at what's going on legislatively and there's some great resources that help collate that.
I look at the technology piece. So I think the last couple of weeks I spent a good portion of my time researching different companies that were building processes. There are these pyrolytic processes that take films and polystyrene and convert it to whatever cut of crude it was when they started. There's a lot of great research there. So I really wanted to understand how the processes work. Are these companies successful? Where are they planning to build? Because as clients come to me, I need to be able to understand where's all the action and what does it look like? I still keep time on research on the whole water stewardship space because I think here in the US we still have a long ways to go, especially west of the Mississippi. There's lots of interesting developments there. So the plus side is I have time to research and stay current on things that are going on.
Then another piece of my day is I usually have a few calls for coaching different people that I'm working with and different entities. So I'll have some time to really, they'll be sharing, here's what I'm building out. Can you give me some feedback? Sometimes they give me documents to think about and then give them a reaction. And that's always fun because you get a chance to look at the inside of somebody that's developing something and you can offer them, well, here's three or four things to think about. You don't want to be slam innovation. You want to really help them be sure that you're looking at the entire landscape, and that's why they would reach out. And then I think the other piece that comes in still, I think it's with any job, is you're managing, you have to manage how you work with people, especially if they're paying you to help 'em out. You have to really figure out what are they trying to do and what's their lens. That's the most important thing. And just about any job that you have is what the people that are sitting the other side of the table, what is the lens that they have in front of 'em? You really need to understand that and don't be critical until you do.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Yeah, start with curiosity.
Bruce Karas:
Absolutely.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Can you talk a little bit about what some of the biggest challenges in your work are? Maybe not so much specific to consulting, but within sustainability and corporate sustainability, what are some of the biggest challenges right now and what are some of the biggest misconceptions that you would love to be able to dispel?
Bruce Karas:
Yeah. The biggest challenges I think, and it really dawned on me as we started doing work in water stewardship, the scale of these issues, every one of 'em is massive. No one entity can fix it all. And I remember one of my biggest frustrations and I was able to spend a good portion of funding on projects to restore headwaters, for example, and we'd restore a piece and we come see the work and you see it, it looks a lot better, but my heart would sink when I realized that it's a fraction of this entire massive watershed. So that's one of the challenges is, and especially if you're in private industry, you have to be able to help your business really draw limits of analysis around what you say you're going to do. And sometimes that's the hardest thing because externally people think you can solve it all, but you have to start with something and you have to make it a little bit more concrete so you can help your business leaders saying, yes, we've accomplished something.
There's a lot more to do. Absolutely. But we've fixed some things and we've helped others to the table. So I think that was the thing that always struck me as very difficult was just the scale of everything. When you look at carbon, the scale of the work that we're trying to do is so massive. And when I read those articles about the carbon capture operations, it's like they're a tiny little speck on the issue and there's got to be other things that are out there. So I think that's the thing that is very striking. I think the plus side is there's a much higher level of awareness across the private industry today than there was 20 years ago that no, these are real issues and they will affect more than just my business. An interesting perspective I got, I went to a water security conference in DC and the speakers were both from their two generals, from the joint chiefs of staff.
They talked about the fact that here, these are military guys, I'm thinking, what do they care about? Water? They said they look at water turned out to be one of the things that in the world, in the global system is one of the elements that's going to create an imbalance and conflict. And they articulated a story of all the things that went on in Syria, it all went back to water and agriculture and one thing led to another drought, prices went up. And it's fascinating because I think that kind of thinking is starting to take place more often. I mentioned enterprise risk assessment. I know in my own in Coca-Cola world that continued to expand every year to look deeper and deeper at what risks were, I actually got quite a bit of support from the finance organization on doing water restoration projects because they saw the risk assessment
Jocelyn Hittle:
And doing those projects mitigate some of that risk for the business and reputational risk, which is a pretty important thing to keep in mind as well. So speaking of challenges, when you yourself come up against a challenge, and you can answer this today or when you were back at Coca-Cola, when you come up against a challenge you're trying to solve, who do you call to help you if anyone, and how do they help you?
Bruce Karas:
Yeah, I think that what I had to learn being that I was completely technical going in, I actually started out my career. I was a medical technologist working in a hospital and microbiology loved it, but I was also in grad school and I got into industrial hygiene would put me into industry. I knew nothing about business. And what I learned was that when I had a challenge, and especially in a business like beverage industry, the people that turned out to be my allies that would help you were the supply chain organization. They know how to make move things. They know a lot of the inner workings of the business and how much things cost. So I always would try to cultivate some allies in the supply chain business. I was fortunate that for part of my career there I was nested in that organization. So I got to know a lot of people.
So when I had issues, I would reach out to the supply chain organization, the CFO's office. I learned that they can be a much bigger ally than you think. At the start of my career, I was like, oh, these are the guys who won't give me any budget. But over time they ended up being actually a very valuable sounding board on things. The other thing is I'd always encourage people to seek out different mentors. My experience in business in general was that most people will try to help you if they can. I mean, they're not going to shoot themselves on foot, but they'll try to help you. And the more people see that you're interested in solving problems, they get behind you. So I was fortunate every step of the way I would have these mentors, informal sorts, and when I worked in the fiberglass industry, it was the president of the installation division that I was in.
And if I had a problem, he'd say, come on up. And you have somebody that has years of experience that walks you through. You always take those opportunities and value them. Every company I've been in, I've had one or two mentors like that that were sort of away from my part of the business, but they had a viewpoint. And I just found, I told the same thing to my team is like, there are people that will give you mentoring if you have a problem. I remember getting an assignment, here's a good case in 0.9 11, all of a sudden all the private industries are having a heart attack over security. So I'm managing environment, health and safety, a few other things. And the leadership said, we want you to, instead of hr, we want you and your team to manage security. I didn't know anything about security.
And I'm walking out of the room scratching my head and one of the VPs grabbed me and said, but we're going to help you. And they did. I mean, they gave me lots of coaching and open the door funding if I needed it. So I think the lesson is there are always people every step of the way in your career that will give you what you need to get through the next step. The most important thing somebody told me is feedback is a gift. It doesn't always mean it's good and it's not always easy to find somebody that says, that really didn't work out too well, did it. Let's talk about it. But the better you get at taking that kind of feedback, the more success you ultimately see.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Yeah, and I think really clear feedback also is a gift. Absolutely can really learn from it. And I always find myself cringing so much more when I've made the same kind of mistake twice and I'm learning a lesson twice, it always feels so much worse. So really good, clear feedback can help you avoid that on unpleasant emotion down the line. Yeah.
Bruce Karas:
I had one mentor that would say after, let's say we had a big discussion with the C-suite, and then you'd come back and they would always go, let's have a postmortem. And instead of talking about what went well, they would talk about, well, what didn't play well? And that's where you learn. I remember one of the things I learned there was the way somebody in the c-suite interprets what you say is completely different than when you're at a different level, their strategic view is like this, yours is like this. And you have to learn how to program to who you're speaking to change it appropriately. And you don't think about that when you're leaving university with your bachelor's degree and you think a lot and it's like there's a lot of subtle nuances you have to learn along the way.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Yeah, absolutely. So speaking of those lessons that you've learned and moments where you were successful in speaking to a room appropriately, let's talk a little bit about what makes you feel like you are good at your job. I think we all have these moments where we think, I really just nailed that. What has just happened for you that you feel like you're good at your job? This could again be, now we're back at Coca-Cola. And conversely, what are the moments where you are still learning? I'm still work in progress.
Bruce Karas:
Yeah. Yeah. I remember we were trying to kick off our water stewardship program and I was in the business unit and we'd have people saying, you need to do all these projects. I had no budget. And I remember I sat down, we did a little restructuring and we got a lot bigger, and I sat down with the guy that was to be our head there and he goes, what do we need to do? I said, well, I can't just do this on my good looks. I have to have funding to really drive this. And it got into a discussion, how many millions do you need? And I said, well, if you want to see the goals hit for our business unit, we're going to need a lease much each year for the next five to eight years.
So at the time he said, so I need to tell Mutar Kent, who was our CEO, I need that. I said, well, if you want to get these goals, otherwise nothing's going to happen. And it was there and basically what we spent an hour talking about it and I was able to really lay out the path in front of 'em about why we need to do it, how to protect the company. And fortunately it worked out fine. And that's where I started to get, at that point in my career, I was getting a little bit better at trying to really focus what I was saying to somebody that's sitting in the senior, you don't go with 127 slide deck. You go with a one page briefing document and you have a discussion and you can win the day with that because they appreciate the fact that you understand they don't have much time.
You focused them said, this is what I need. And that was another thing is you have to ask for what you need. Another less savory part of my job. And it was when I was working for Owens Corning, I managed health and safety and all of a sudden I get a call that somebody had a very serious amputation injury and I had to hop on a plane and the people in the plant was shut down. The head of that division said, you need to go down there and clean that up. Well, I'm still fairly early in my career. It's like I wasn't sure what to do. Fortunately we got things settled down, but there were things in terms of our postmortem that I really talked to some of the leadership about things I could have done better. Those are things that you're, as a professional, you're usually unprepared for when you have a disaster. And I think anybody that's been in industry where you have injuries like that or major trucking accidents, that really tests your leadership skills. But there are things on the inside that you have to really spend time thinking about, well, how do I process it and how do I make sure I help others process that and what's the right approach to do that? Those are things that you never feel like you do a great job on. You get better over time, but it's just maturity in your career.
Jocelyn Hittle:
And those are such complex situations with a lot of emotion. So I could imagine that each one is also a bit different. And so the ability to sort look clear-eyed at it and understand what the right next steps are, might not always be that easy. So spur of the moment. Question number one for you, and then we'll transition into talking a little bit about your background and how you got here. Which Coca-Cola beverage product is your go-to
Bruce Karas:
Just the straight ahead Coke.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Straight ahead Coke. Got it. Okay.
Bruce Karas:
Yep.
Jocelyn Hittle:
He's a Coke drinker.
Bruce Karas:
I never liked anything adulterating it whatsoever. None of the flavors just the
Jocelyn Hittle:
Classic
Bruce Karas:
Got to burn as it goes down.
Jocelyn Hittle:
That's right. Well, that's the whole point. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about how you got where you are. Can you give us the broad brush strokes? We've touched on this as we've been talking here and there, but give us the broad brushstrokes of the path to where you are.
Bruce Karas:
Yep. So always loved science was what I was interested. Always did well at in school. Started out as a medical technologist, worked in a hospital for five years, went to graduate school, got a master's in industrial as occupational environmental health, but that was industrial hygiene that allowed me to transition into industry, and that was a big inflection point for me. So hospital environment is pretty much a different entirely than industry. And then I went from that to making M1 A one tanks and trying to protect the safety of the 4,000 people there that were making these tanks. And it was eyeopening experience where here I'm trying to do a good job on the technical things and I realized there's UAW there. I have to manage labor relations stuff. I never had any exposure to a lot of politics, very harsh environment, but I learned a ton.
It was one of those jobs that you do, you get exposed to so many things. And I learned there's a lot more about the world outside of what you get in school. And you go back to things that we learned from our parents. My dad always talked about treat people the way you want to be treated regardless if it's somebody in the factory. And those things are so important. And so I learned a lot working in that factory. My next job, I end up going to Owens Corning. So we're working with fiberglass. It was interesting technically because there was a need for people to understand fiber toxicity and there was a lot of research going on. And that's where I started to develop some skills and being able to sit down and take animal studies that were being funded and explain it to the business guys, why is this important?
What did it tell us? And you start to get some skills there. And I think I mentioned earlier that's where I had a great mentor that was the head of the insulation division, took me under his wing and gave me lots of coaching just to understand how to operate in a business world, but stay true to what you are. Got a great opportunity to move to Coca-Cola. Did that for 22 years and it exposed me to, again, so many different things. What I never expected when I started was how much I would have to do speaking wise in front of groups. Never imagined that in the world. I think about most of the technical programs in the university. You're not practicing speaking in front of a group at all. And some of the coaching I got from one of my bosses at Owens Corn, my first boss said, you do a good job.
Said there's three people or 50 people. Take the opportunity to go in front and talk and get really good at it and comfortable that in the broader world, your ability to stand in front of a group and convey facts is way more important than people think. And it can be very good for your career. And I took that to heart and I worked on that for a long time and had lots of opportunities to do it. And he was right. The more you get comfortable doing it, the better you get at it and you're not having nerves going up in front of a group. I think the other thing that as I went through my career, as you get a broader leadership role, I think I mentioned earlier one of the things I learned, leadership can be pretty lonely. I had no training in how to hire people.
You have to let somebody go during a restructuring. The management side of things is something that I had to learn. And I was fortunate that in a lot of companies, they'll send you out two different leadership programs and I went to some very good ones. And those were things that were just golden opportunities to learn. It was more learning things to think about as you are trying to deal with this world that you have as a leader. The fact that as a leader, people look at you to set the tone. So when I hired my team to Coca-Cola, it's up to me to provide the right leadership so that they feel supported, that their careers are growing and developing. And one of the most rewarding things was just seeing my team that I had at Coca-Cola. They've all moved on to bigger jobs. And I think that's the true test of if you're a good leader, you will help your team get to bigger jobs and they in turn become leaders.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Yeah, absolutely. That must be very gratifying to see them succeed. Can you talk a little bit about the transitions between companies or between roles at the same company, any of those that were particularly challenging and why?
Bruce Karas:
Yeah. I think the biggest challenge I always had encountered was scale. So when you're hiring in and you're reporting up to different people and you have your lane to operate in and you have to get good at it and be able to execute, get the job done, and you get comfortable with it and you, after a while you're saying, yeah, this is pretty easy, but if you're successful, people see that and saying, well, we're going to give you a little bit more, little bit more. And I remember when I came to Coke, it actually was a little bit less travel in a smaller scope than I had in my previous job. And I said, boy, this is great. I'm not in the airport every day. And it took about 18 months where I went from having eight facilities, easy role to 28, much more complex all over the country.
And it's a reflection if your leadership thinks you can handle it, that you get to move up. But I think the change in scale at each time, and then a number of years went by and the company bought the largest bottler, which at the time was Coca-Cola Enterprises. So I went from 28 facilities to 89, 500 distribution centers, 16,000 trucks, and this whole complex value chain. So scaling, you have to really learn how to, that's where you have to really learn. I can't do all the details that I did before. And you have to really think about, if I'm a leader now, how do I help people that work for me do things that will roll up to the sum total that I need?
Jocelyn Hittle:
It's the curse of competency, I guess, in some ways that you are given more work to do and more responsibility, but also that's exactly how people move forward in their careers. So all good things. So just a couple last questions for you. As you look back over the path of your career, if you were going to give a 15-year-old some advice, what advice would you give them? What about a 25-year-old and what about yourself at 25?
Bruce Karas:
Yeah, I think for a 15-year-old is if there's an area that you're passionate about that you enjoy now go for it. Pursue it. I always loved the sciences and they seemed easy to me. And then I went into my university for bachelor's degree, was all science, loved it, loved it. And I think for a career in something like sustainability, it's an applied area at best. And I always tell people that when I've gone to career days is be good at something. First, be an engineer. I was an industrial hygienist, I had a person that was a hydrogeologist. Be good at something because you have to have a home base and then you build on that. So for the 25-year-old, I would say, okay, you've got a basis of competency in something. Now you need the discomfort of exposing yourself to things that you're are new to you that may be good for your career, like public speaking, like doing some board service somewhere. All those are things that teach you how to work with people, how to get in front of people, how to convey thoughts. And at 25, it's a time to do it.
Jocelyn Hittle:
You need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and adding new skills.
Bruce Karas:
I don't think anybody, there are a few people that seem like they can walk in front of a group of people and feel real comfortable about it, but I really believe it is something that you just build on practice.
Jocelyn Hittle:
And even if it's not public speaking, that makes you uncomfortable, that doing something that does make you uncomfortable is how you're going to build your skillset.
Bruce Karas:
Yeah, I think depending where you're sitting when you're 25, the whole thing about taking risk, it is something that people are really uncomfortable. Risk may be when you're taking an opinion that is outside of what everybody else has and you think you're right. And a lot of people won't say anything. It's like if you believe you're right, the risk is saying, well, I don't agree. You don't have to be upset other people about it. But it's like get into a conversation. And I think in the long run that's better for you than holding back.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Great. Thanks. So spur of the moment. Question number two for you. If you were not going to do this career that you had, what would you have been?
Bruce Karas:
At one point I was considering getting a PhD in toxicology. I had done well in graduate school, and it was actually at that point in my life, I actually went to a university and started getting an advisor. And it was the time when I got offered the job with Coca-Cola and I was right in between. I could have stayed where I was and finished that. I probably could have stayed at the same company. And I really enjoyed that part of that technical aspect. I think had I not gone onto Coke, I would've finished that. That was something that I really enjoyed.
Jocelyn Hittle:
So is there somewhere where people can find more about your work right now? How would they find you?
Bruce Karas:
LinkedIn.
Jocelyn Hittle:
Great. LinkedIn. Look for Bruce Karas, K-A-R-A-S. We'll send people that way. Okay. My last Spur of the Moment question for you is something that I have asked a number of folks who are in kind of the food and beverage industry. Do you cook and do you have a specialty?
Bruce Karas:
I do cook, and now that I've been home more, I can get to do more of that. Normally I am the person, the grill master, but one of the things that I do do is make Polish food
Jocelyn Hittle:
Interesting. Okay.
Bruce Karas:
Those little dumplings, I make those homemade. Oh wow. And people usually want to grab a dozen or so of those.
Jocelyn Hittle:
I understand. You mean pierogis the little? Yep. Yeah. Oh man. Okay. Well now I know you might find me next time I'm in Atlanta knocking on your door. That's great. Thanks so much for sharing that with us, and thank you so much, Bruce cares for your time today. We really appreciate our wide ranging conversation. I know will help young people think about careers in sustainability in the private sector. Lots of different options and certainly a varied career path is available within that sector. So thanks so much for your time today.
Bruce Karas:
Yep, happy to do it.
Jocelyn Hittle:
The CSU Spur of the Moment Podcast is produced by Kevin Samuelson and our theme music is by kea. Please visit the show notes for links mentioned in this episode. We hope you'll join us in two weeks for the next episode. Until then, be well.