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Creating connections is essential to building a community. It’s even more important when the people you’re trying to connect with aren’t in the same location. Businesses and companies have always found geographic distance to be a challenge to building a really great community-oriented culture. At Empowered Ventures, the same challenge holds true, which is why we decided to start Empowered Owners, the podcast that takes you inside Empowered Ventures.
In each episode, CEO Chris Fredericks will have a discussion with one of our employees to discover and highlight their distinct personalities, perspectives, and skills while also keeping you in the loop with exclusive news, updates on company performance, and a glimpse into the future plans of Empowered Ventures. Not only is this an opportunity for Chris to learn more about our amazing employee-owners, but it’s also an opportunity for you to hear regularly from Chris and others from within Empowered Ventures.
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;25;02
Chris Fredericks
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Empowered Owners, the community Building Podcast by and for the employee owners of Empowered Ventures. Join us as we take you inside the world of employee ownership, discovering the stories, insights, and sometimes surprising adventures in a family of businesses where everyone's an owner. Now let's dive in. Dennis, welcome to Empowered Owners.
00;00;25;05 - 00;00;26;08
Dennis Casey
Oh, thank you, I appreciate it.
00;00;26;14 - 00;00;39;19
Chris Fredericks
Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on. I thought to kick us off I thought I would throw out one word and you tell me when I say one word. Like what comes to mind? Mustangs.
00;00;39;22 - 00;00;42;09
Dennis Casey
Shelby Gt500.
00;00;42;12 - 00;00;49;16
Chris Fredericks
Which might not mean a lot to everybody. What is a Shelby GT? What did you have for the 500 GT 500?
00;00;49;17 - 00;01;02;12
Dennis Casey
Yes, sir. It's, That's the cream of the crop. That's the. It's limited edition. Typically about 3000, per year. They're not even making them right now, but it's like they're their top level Mustang.
00;01;02;18 - 00;01;07;02
Chris Fredericks
And why do you know so much about a Ford Mustang Shelby Mustang like this. So what?
00;01;07;02 - 00;01;20;09
Dennis Casey
I owned one, I owned one for a few years. Yeah, yeah. My father in law got me into the Mustangs about 15 years ago, and so we've owned a few, but we had a, a Shelby Gt500 up until recently.
00;01;20;11 - 00;01;38;00
Chris Fredericks
Yeah. And knowing you a little bit, I know a little bit of your backstory here. And I think something really cool about you and your, your wife's interest in Mustangs. You did something really neat about it. Like with regards to like kind of creating community. And I was curious if you might be willing to share that story.
00;01;38;02 - 00;02;00;20
Dennis Casey
Absolutely. So I'll make a long story short, but I ran into, another young guy about my age a few years back, and we were both from the same area, and he just made a random comment that he was surprised that there wasn't a local Mustang group. So I went home that night and created one. And over the past five years, we built that group up to almost 1200 people.
00;02;00;25 - 00;02;22;05
Dennis Casey
But we put on, you know, different car shows throughout the year for different charities, and we try to raise, raise money for, we have a couple specific charities that we do, do work for, but we do toy drives, we raise money, we try to help out our local Mustang guys when they're in trouble. If they have, you know, medical bills or anything pops up.
00;02;22;06 - 00;02;25;09
Dennis Casey
So, you know, we've grown it quite a bit over the past five years.
00;02;25;11 - 00;02;33;17
Chris Fredericks
That's awesome. You might dig it a little more into that during this discussion, but maybe, I guess, to double back. What do you do for first start precision?
00;02;33;20 - 00;02;56;29
Dennis Casey
Well, technically I'm one of the, first our engineers. I sit in the office most of the time, and, you know, I do a lot of purchasing, but I also do, entering new orders, checking new prints for revisions and whatnot. But, I also brought in, grinding, CNC grinding into a first star precision along with the honing capabilities.
00;02;57;02 - 00;03;00;17
Chris Fredericks
And how did you, I guess what is grinding?
00;03;00;20 - 00;03;23;12
Dennis Casey
Well, cylindrical grinding, was done on CNC, cylindrical Studer machines and put parts in between centers, hit a few buttons and your grinding wheel will come in. Remove the amount of stock required to make a good part and give you a nice close tolerance part when it's all done. Grinding is, typically used for close tolerance work.
00;03;23;14 - 00;03;32;13
Dennis Casey
And harder materials or materials that are more difficult to machine. So that's what the grinders kind of specialize in.
00;03;32;16 - 00;04;00;10
Chris Fredericks
And is so for those that aren't super familiar with even, you know, machining or CNC metalwork, like what? How many different types of services does first start provide in grinding being one of them. And also is grinding typically one of many, you know, kinds of things that are different approaches that are used on a particular part, or is it commonly the only only approach to, you know, creating a part?
00;04;00;13 - 00;04;38;23
Dennis Casey
Well, to answer the first question, first star offers turning milling. They also offer mill turning. They offer gear cutting, they offer EDM work. They they have a wide gamut of services that they offer, CNC grinding, as I was saying. You know, it's kind of more for the, the close tolerance cylindrical work. But when you get outside of the cylindrical aspect of it, that's when some of the other machines, like their gear cutting and their EDM machines come into play.
00;04;38;26 - 00;04;54;02
Dennis Casey
So something that you can't put in the grinder, they can kind of fixture and use just a small piece of wire to create, a shape on a part that might be close tolerance for, for the end customer.
00;04;54;04 - 00;05;04;15
Chris Fredericks
Interesting. And so you came to first. You brought grinding first started didn't have grinding as a in-house service before. How did how did that come about?
00;05;04;17 - 00;05;25;17
Dennis Casey
Well, long story short, Dave Tenney, about 15 or so years ago, he was looking to get grinding in-house and the shop that I was working at, it was my dad's shop. We were selling a machine, and so he came to look at it. So he was interested in the machine, but he didn't want to pull the trigger, so we sold it.
00;05;25;19 - 00;05;41;29
Dennis Casey
And right after we sold the machine, he says, well, how would you like to do some coding for us? So we started quoting, first hours work and we got a lot of it. And, so I started grinding parts for first for first star for, I don't know, but almost 15 years.
00;05;42;03 - 00;05;42;21
Chris Fredericks
Wow.
00;05;42;24 - 00;06;08;23
Dennis Casey
And built a relationship with Dave Tenney and Jack West and Christy Villanueva and, you know, just came to the point where it made sense. You know, I was looking for a change. Not necessarily in, in career. But I was looking for a change of scenery. Something a little closer to home. My last shop was about 40 miles away, and for starters, only 11.
00;06;08;23 - 00;06;34;20
Dennis Casey
So it, you know, saves me a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of, you know, mileage on my cars, you know, so, I approached Dave with an idea of, you know, bringing, grinding, you know, to first star. He told me to find him a machine. So I did a little bit of searching. I found him the machine, and, you know, it needed a little bit of love.
00;06;34;23 - 00;06;55;16
Dennis Casey
You know, it was a little beat up and a little rough, but that's probably one of the best machines I've ever run. As far as the, the tolerances it holds and the repeatability. It's it's just a great machine. So they bought that machine, and then he kind of blindsided me and told me that he, he also bought a honing machine to go with it.
00;06;55;19 - 00;07;11;13
Dennis Casey
So I wasn't looking forward to that. I do have some honing experience, but I've never considered myself a teacher of the hone. But we did. They bought the machine, so I. I had an opportunity to teach somebody here how to do it so I don't have to do it.
00;07;11;19 - 00;07;18;27
Chris Fredericks
Yeah. So before you joined First Star, were you mostly spending your time on the in the shop and doing the grinding?
00;07;18;29 - 00;07;40;25
Dennis Casey
Yeah, I ran the, the grinding department of a fairly good size machine shop. I ran there, the grinding department, for a little over 11 years. But we had five CNC grinders and we had a bunch of manual like ID grinders, o.d grinders, centralist machines, stuff like that. So I was in charge of that for quite a few years.
00;07;40;25 - 00;07;52;07
Dennis Casey
We had about 8 or 9 guys, depending on the time, but we did a lot of, aerospace and, you know, some government work and very close tolerance,
00;07;52;09 - 00;08;15;18
Chris Fredericks
I guess two questions. So you you've tied a lot of people to do grinding at this point, I imagine. Yeah. And you're in the office now. So clearly you've taught some folks at First Star as well. What does it take to teach in the machining space in the CNC machine world? Like what makes that not easy? Because talent and helping people progress in that in any industry.
00;08;15;18 - 00;08;23;14
Chris Fredericks
But I know definitely in the CNC machining space, takes a lot of work to help people grow and develop. And what makes that so difficult?
00;08;23;21 - 00;08;51;21
Dennis Casey
I think the the thing that you need most as somebody to teach is patience. You know, you know the answers to things, but they don't. And you have to understand that in your own head that the person you're speaking to doesn't necessarily understand what you're saying. So you have to have patience with them and try to figure out maybe different ways of explaining or showing them different ways of doing things that might help them, you know, understand something a little bit easier.
00;08;51;24 - 00;08;59;14
Dennis Casey
So I would say that patience is probably the biggest attribute that you need in order to to teach somebody this type of thing.
00;08;59;17 - 00;09;06;28
Chris Fredericks
How much of the teaching is actually like verbal versus showing, like them? Hey, just watch me, watch what I'm about to do.
00;09;07;00 - 00;09;34;20
Dennis Casey
I try to make most of it verbal and make them do most of the hands on work. I feel it's easier for somebody to understand what they're doing instead of trying to understand what I'm doing. So I just find it a little bit easier to to to tell them what I'm looking for. And if once they attempt to do it, I'll make corrections to what they're doing and, and then they understand things a little bit better.
00;09;34;20 - 00;09;41;18
Chris Fredericks
So they kind of need that hands on experience. Absolutely. And you're watching them. And that's a good way to do it. Interesting.
00;09;41;19 - 00;09;41;28
Dennis Casey
Yes, sir.
00;09;42;05 - 00;09;46;19
Chris Fredericks
What about have you had any excellent teachers in the past that you feel like you learned from?
00;09;46;21 - 00;09;48;12
Dennis Casey
I had the best I did.
00;09;48;14 - 00;09;50;09
Chris Fredericks
Oh, okay. Tell me about that.
00;09;50;12 - 00;10;17;14
Dennis Casey
So once I got out of the military back in 96, I started working for my dad. He owned, a small machine shop. It was a grinding machine shop. He had one partner, so he taught me everything that I knew at the time. And as I was progressing in my career, we started buying CNC machines, and, our biggest customer at the time, they they needed somebody to run in an air conditioned environment.
00;10;17;16 - 00;10;33;29
Dennis Casey
So they asked me if I would be willing to bring my machinery into their shop and start running their work inside their air conditioned shop when it's 120 degrees in my shop and it's 70 degrees in their shop, it was a no brainer.
00;10;35;14 - 00;10;50;23
Dennis Casey
So yeah, I started, you know, working on courses at that point. So yeah, my dad was he was my teacher. And it was it was great to have him give me the career that he had. You know, while he was around, was.
00;10;50;23 - 00;10;54;09
Chris Fredericks
That something you were expecting to do once you came out of the military?
00;10;54;11 - 00;11;13;24
Dennis Casey
No, I swore I would never do it. Well, I had a, an experience with my dad when I was young. He kind of, he kind of didn't take care of me the way he was supposed to. As far as he asked me to work for him, you know, as a kid. And he was going to pay me, you know, certain money.
00;11;13;26 - 00;11;35;15
Dennis Casey
And, at the end of the day, he didn't. And so I kind of swore that I would never do it. But when I was looking to re-enlist into the military, my dad called me up and he said, no, he says, I want you home. He says, I want I want to have my relationship with you and my grandkids.
00;11;35;18 - 00;11;56;20
Dennis Casey
So, that's all it took for me. So it wasn't easy, you know, going to work for him. You know, he he was a business owner and, you know, he wasn't handing me anything. I had to earn it. So it was, you know, he was tough on me, but it made me who I am today. And I'm very thankful for everything that he did for me in that.
00;11;56;23 - 00;12;02;13
Chris Fredericks
That's awesome. How did he teach you? Like, was it the same method you use?
00;12;02;15 - 00;12;20;11
Dennis Casey
Absolutely. Yep. He would tell me what to do and kind of watch that I was on the right path, and then he would walk away and he would say, don't come to me with questions. If you don't have answers. In other words, try to figure it out yourself. And if you have a question for me, I'd be more than happy to help you.
00;12;20;11 - 00;12;28;20
Dennis Casey
But you have to tell me what you did to try to figure it out first. And he wouldn't just give me answers.
00;12;28;22 - 00;12;32;24
Chris Fredericks
How long does it take someone to learn grinding?
00;12;32;26 - 00;12;59;26
Dennis Casey
So I learned on manual machines that were built and, the mid 40s. And I think that was the best way for me to learn, because when you're doing manual work, you you get a feel for things and you understand, I did I got a feel for things, and I was able to feel when I was pushing a part too hard, or I could hear things and, see when a wheel was reacting, differently than it should.
00;12;59;26 - 00;13;36;25
Dennis Casey
So I knew that it might be time to to address the wheel out stuff like that where, you know, that took me a long time, you know? I mean, I would run jobs and get them done quick, and that's great. But, you know, once you get familiar with how things actually work in the grinding world, you know, how wheels react to different materials, different types of wheels, how they just by the coarseness or abrasiveness of a wheel, how it's going to react on the material you're trying to grind, or how the tolerances or the micro finishes or the heat factors.
00;13;36;27 - 00;13;57;08
Dennis Casey
And there's a lot going on there. But so it takes years to, to become proficient at it. If you want to, you know, there's people that, you know, they want to learn how to, to program and run the CNC. And, and they call themselves a grinder. I mean, yeah, you're you're a grinder on that machine, but do you really understand what you're doing?
00;13;57;10 - 00;14;09;14
Dennis Casey
Because programs are easier to write. You know, in, in parts are pretty easy to make, you know, because the machine does all the work. But if you had to do the work yourself, it's a little bit different.
00;14;09;16 - 00;14;18;11
Chris Fredericks
So for you, that sounds like a passion is to help people kind of absolutely understand the actual machine and how it, how to how to really do the work.
00;14;18;18 - 00;14;34;23
Dennis Casey
Absolutely. I don't want them to just be able to, you know, make a quick program or, or run a quick job. I want them to understand what they're doing because there's going to come a day when they're going to have to know it. And when I'm not here, I don't want them to say that that guy never taught me that.
00;14;34;25 - 00;14;38;13
Dennis Casey
I want them to understand it for themselves.
00;14;38;16 - 00;14;50;09
Chris Fredericks
Curious, going back to the military. So, when you decided, well, did the military have an impact on you and kind of your change of heart in terms of openness to working with your dad?
00;14;50;12 - 00;15;10;19
Dennis Casey
Absolutely. My dad was very supportive of me going into the military. You know, he was he was my hero, you know, as I was he was very supportive. And he was always on the phone with me telling him how proud he was. So in the military, I wasn't a bad kid growing up, you know, I didn't really get into trouble.
00;15;10;22 - 00;15;35;23
Dennis Casey
But the Navy kind of made me even better. You know? It made me a little bit more responsible, more respectful, for sure. And, you know, easier. It made it easier for me to deal with people that I don't know. You know, when you're calling customers, talking to customers all the time, doing quotes, presenting you know, your business to a potential customer.
00;15;35;25 - 00;15;51;13
Dennis Casey
You know, if you don't know, if you don't know how to talk to somebody, you can't do that. So the Navy, you know, you get thrown onto a ship for 3 or 4 years, and then you go to another ship for 3 or 4 years with all different people. So you kind of have to adjust and acclimate yourself.
00;15;51;13 - 00;15;55;15
Dennis Casey
Right? You know, pretty quick. So and that that helped me quite a bit.
00;15;55;17 - 00;15;59;22
Chris Fredericks
So it's really a good training ground kind of for a business, a career in business.
00;15;59;22 - 00;16;07;11
Dennis Casey
Absolutely. I would recommend the military, at least the Navy part of it. I would recommend it to anybody. It's it was it was a great experience.
00;16;07;17 - 00;16;14;27
Chris Fredericks
That's great. Is that something you and Dave Tenney and Jack West all kind of bonded over as well then? No, they were military guys, too.
00;16;14;29 - 00;16;36;13
Dennis Casey
Not so much with Jack West. You know, I really didn't talk to Jack a whole lot over the years. It was primarily when I had questions on some of his parts. If I needed answers, you know, Dave would put me in contact with Jack, and he would go that route. But, yeah, me and Dave would talk a lot about how things would be different if everybody went into the military, you know.
00;16;36;16 - 00;16;40;12
Dennis Casey
But yeah, that's it was a definitely a bonding point for sure.
00;16;40;15 - 00;16;45;03
Chris Fredericks
So was that your relationship with Dave, a factor in your decision to come to First Star?
00;16;45;05 - 00;17;00;10
Dennis Casey
It was 100% absolutely no offense to anybody, but I was you know, I was a little disappointed when I found out right after I came here that he was leaving. Sure. You know, because I was hoping to work with him because we had, we had a great rapport. And, you know, we worked well together over the years.
00;17;00;10 - 00;17;10;07
Dennis Casey
And and that's why I'm here today. Because, you know, I respected what he built in first star precision. And he respected what I could bring to the shop.
00;17;10;09 - 00;17;14;10
Chris Fredericks
Yeah. Are you still happy with your decision, though, to Captain or Star?
00;17;14;12 - 00;17;23;13
Dennis Casey
Absolutely. Yeah, I I'm, I couldn't have, picked a better place to have to leave where I was going to come to for sure.
00;17;23;15 - 00;17;32;06
Chris Fredericks
From your experience, how would you describe First Star? The culture, the way it does business? Like what? What's your experience been?
00;17;32;08 - 00;17;58;17
Dennis Casey
The culture here is it's awesome. It's it's pretty laid back as far as you know. People are, you know, they talk to each other. You could be working next to somebody and just have a, you know, a casual conversation with somebody. You know, they they don't necessarily make you wear uniforms. You know, you come in, you do your job, and they try to keep it in a relaxing atmosphere.
00;17;58;20 - 00;18;25;05
Dennis Casey
They don't want people dreading coming to work every morning. So they kind of keep it nice and, relax as far as that goes. And that that's what I that's my type of atmosphere. You know, I like a more relaxed and less stuffy atmosphere for myself as far as how they run the business. You know, in my position, I do get to see some of the inner workings, and they do a great job.
00;18;25;07 - 00;18;48;17
Dennis Casey
You know, some of the processes that we go through, they actually, you know, ask my help to quote all the grinding work. And, you know, they've asked, you know, just for maybe a little tips of what I've done over the years. And I offer my, my little, you know, opinions all the time, and they're receptive to it, so that's nice.
00;18;48;19 - 00;18;49;19
Dennis Casey
Yeah.
00;18;49;21 - 00;19;06;18
Chris Fredericks
Do you some people make a shift from being out in the plant hands on to being in the office and absolutely love it, and some don't like it. And I'm curious, like, how have you felt about the transition to sitting in a chair all day?
00;19;06;20 - 00;19;25;28
Dennis Casey
But, physically I don't love it. Yeah, because I do like, you know, moving around and running a machine, you know, it keeps you on your feet and, you know, you're constantly busy. But when I started working here, you know, two and a half years ago, I gained almost 25 pounds.
00;19;25;28 - 00;19;30;03
Chris Fredericks
Oh, sorry to hear that, Dennis. Yeah, I didn't.
00;19;30;05 - 00;19;50;01
Dennis Casey
Because it's hard to get back off. But as far as you know, I love what I'm doing. And especially I'm in more like of a, I'm in more of a hybrid role where I'm in the office, but I also am in charge of those machines. So I do get to move around the shop and interact with everybody.
00;19;50;01 - 00;19;54;10
Dennis Casey
And so it's I love the hybrid role of it.
00;19;54;12 - 00;20;00;24
Chris Fredericks
You seem like someone who might like a wide variety of projects and things to work on, like solving puzzles and stuff.
00;20;00;27 - 00;20;01;26
Dennis Casey
Absolutely.
00;20;01;28 - 00;20;26;04
Chris Fredericks
Something I'm curious about is like, in what ways would you say the Navy has had an impact on you, like in other like not just in terms of being more mature, more disciplined, like, were there other, more practical kind of things that you that it really brought to you, that you've continued into, you know, your work and in First Star in other companies?
00;20;26;06 - 00;20;52;05
Dennis Casey
Actually, it it really did give me, a good sense of drive, I guess. I wouldn't be the best word. You know, I've always been the guy that I wanted to do the best that I can, no matter what I'm doing. And, you know, in the military, they don't. They don't, keep an eye on you all day long and watch how productive you are.
00;20;52;08 - 00;21;14;29
Dennis Casey
So it's up to you to to do your job and to be good at your job. And when I'm, when somebody sets me free and says, go do your thing, I'm going to do the best that I can at it. You know, if you don't mind me stepping aside for a quick story. Yeah. About six months before I was ready to get out, my father wanted me to get out.
00;21;15;01 - 00;21;40;26
Dennis Casey
So we, my ship was underway, and we were going on a small cruise, and they invited a, a tech rep to come on board to do some training. The Tomahawk weapon system that I was working on. So this guy would come in during the day and do all the training while we were underway. So one night I came into Combat Information center at midnight to stand by for our watch.
00;21;40;29 - 00;21;57;18
Dennis Casey
And this guy was sitting in my chair. So I'm like, I said, excuse me? I said, you know, you're sitting in my chair. You know, he says, no, I'm not. And I said, well, yes, sir. I said, that's where I'm sitting. My, my, my next four hour watch. And he goes, no, you're not. I don't know who you are.
00;21;57;21 - 00;22;15;20
Dennis Casey
And so I explained to him who I was and he says, where have you been these last few days? And I said, well, sir, I said, I'm getting out of the military here in a few months. And they felt it. It was more of a waste of your time to try to train somebody who was not going to use that information further.
00;22;16;14 - 00;22;34;13
Dennis Casey
So the guy asked me, he says, well, would you like to sit down and learn something? I said, absolutely. So I sat down with this guy from midnight to 4:00 in the morning. While at the end of that four hours, this guy handed me his business card and says, if you ever change your mind, you come work for me and I'll pay you big bucks.
00;22;34;16 - 00;22;55;04
Dennis Casey
He says, you taught me more things than I taught you today. Wow. So he offered me a really good job. I did, obviously. I turned it down to go work with my dad, but. But that's just how I am. I like to be good at what I do, and I can't say I'm the best because there's many guys out there that are better than I am.
00;22;55;06 - 00;22;59;20
Dennis Casey
But for what I do for this company, I'm the best.
00;22;59;23 - 00;23;07;17
Chris Fredericks
That's called what. So you mentioned that drive that it kind of. And was that there before the military or did it really bring it out in you.
00;23;07;19 - 00;23;26;22
Dennis Casey
Well I think the military really brought it out of me. In high school I really wasn't a good student. But I did work, you know, I was always a busboy or working at, you know, an appliance store or whatever, you know, because I always wanted that money.
00;23;27;09 - 00;23;42;26
Dennis Casey
And then finally, in the military, I realized, okay, the military doesn't pay a whole lot, but if you if you drive yourself and be the best at something, then you can advance a little further, quicker. And then that's where the money starts kicking it.
00;23;43;20 - 00;24;05;25
Dennis Casey
But I was only in for six years, and then when I got out, I figured, you know what? If I bust my hump now and be the best at what I can be here, I could go somewhere and say, you want my experience and my knowledge, you need to pay me more. So that was my my drive was, you know, the the money and to be the best at what I do.
00;24;06;02 - 00;24;12;09
Chris Fredericks
Build the skill set and then be able to contribute more and build the potential into your career and.
00;24;12;09 - 00;24;15;06
Dennis Casey
Be worth more to the company that I'm working for.
00;24;15;09 - 00;24;22;04
Chris Fredericks
Yeah. What about employee ownership? Did you had you had any experience at all with like employee owned companies before first year?
00;24;22;11 - 00;24;30;08
Dennis Casey
Actually, I have not and technically I still haven't. I've been here for two and a half years, and I still haven't seen my first statement. Yes.
00;24;30;08 - 00;24;32;26
Chris Fredericks
Right, right. It's on the way. Right?
00;24;32;28 - 00;24;34;28
Dennis Casey
Yeah. I'm excited to see that here in a few weeks.
00;24;35;02 - 00;24;49;12
Chris Fredericks
Yeah, yeah. Did you have, I mean, coming into it, any preconceptions about employee ownership or, like, what you expected First Star to be like, because of that?
00;24;49;15 - 00;25;13;15
Dennis Casey
As far as preconceptions, no, I because I really didn't know what to expect. But I will say that in the very first couple meetings, company meetings, we have company meeting every, like the second Wednesday of the month. But I will say the first couple meetings that I sat in, I was pretty impressed that it wasn't just Luc or Jack standing up in front, you know, giving a spiel.
00;25;13;18 - 00;25;33;28
Dennis Casey
You know, this is what's going on. It was the whole group of guys out in the shop, asking questions, the right questions, because they were concerned about, you know, how we were doing as far as employee owners and how our share price is going to grow. And, you know, I mean, they were concerned about scrap rate.
00;25;33;28 - 00;25;43;12
Dennis Casey
They were concerned about, you know, on-time deliveries, orders coming in, you know. So it was it was actually pretty refreshing coming from the last place that I was at.
00;25;43;14 - 00;26;10;26
Chris Fredericks
That's really cool. What kind of advice do you have for people that are curious about how they can impact the company success you know, it seems to come naturally to you that you just kind of have that elevated drive like a lot of people, I think, you know, early in their careers especially, are just not sure how to feel like their day to day work is having an impact on the business that they actually work for.
00;26;10;28 - 00;26;13;27
Chris Fredericks
What advice would you have for people feeling like that?
00;26;14;00 - 00;26;42;20
Dennis Casey
All I could say is go into work and be receptive to, criticism, accept the, any accolades that you might get and build on it and just be, just do your best. I mean, that's really what it's all about. If you want to go through life and get anywhere, you know, just being the average guy is going to do it.
00;26;42;22 - 00;26;53;29
Dennis Casey
You know, if you want to enjoy your life later, you know, it's time to as a young guy, you know, that's the time to, to absorb as much as you can because it's going to help you out in the future. More.
00;26;54;01 - 00;27;16;02
Chris Fredericks
That's great. I really was that was a really interesting first answer. Your first word you use to which was to accept criticism. And I actually think that's a really great insight in terms of how to currently learn if we're not kind of being it's not being shared with us, the ways we're, you know, have an opportunity to improve.
00;27;16;05 - 00;27;26;10
Chris Fredericks
So is that something that you feel like kind of at times in your career, that being able to take that feedback and that criticism was kind of important for your progression?
00;27;26;12 - 00;27;58;00
Dennis Casey
Oh, absolutely. No doubt about it. I, I don't like doing something wrong. And I've made my share of plenty of, you know, plenty of times I've made my share of mistakes, but each one of those mistakes I learned from and it's it's built me a better grinder and, you know, a a better employee overall. You know, my dad always told me, he says, don't just learn from your mistakes, but learn from somebody else's also.
00;27;58;03 - 00;28;19;06
Dennis Casey
So when you see somebody make a mistake, you know, put that in your bank and remember it later and you know, you'll find yourself learning a lot more when you're you're not tunnel vision, you know, into just what you're doing. But to be observant and, you know, kind of learn from everybody else too.
00;28;19;08 - 00;28;23;25
Chris Fredericks
I'm kind of like constantly looking for small ways to learn and and improve.
00;28;23;28 - 00;28;25;18
Dennis Casey
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.
00;28;25;25 - 00;28;44;15
Chris Fredericks
That's great. Thank you. Dennis I actually just to finish up our conversation, we've actually want to do a little fun segment just to get to know you a little better. And you being a Navy man, I imagine you've been all around the world to some degree. Yeah. I was curious if you might want to share your top four, like ports or places you visited.
00;28;44;15 - 00;28;47;08
Chris Fredericks
Being in the Navy?
00;28;47;10 - 00;29;11;29
Dennis Casey
Yeah, there's actually a few that I just absolutely loved, and there's a couple that might surprise people. So one of my top four would, I would say probably at the bottom of the list, would be Turkey. I've been to Izmir, Turkey a few times, but I absolutely loved it. It's it's not a country like ours. It's not all, you know, clean and built up with all these high rise, you know, buildings and all that.
00;29;12;02 - 00;29;31;25
Dennis Casey
The culture over there is amazing. You know, you'll just be walking down the street and some little, little kid will come running up to you and ask to shine your shoes for $0.05. And then when he shines your shoes, then he tells you it's a dollar. You know, those experiences are pretty cool. So Turkey would be definitely one of those, top four.
00;29;31;27 - 00;29;55;05
Dennis Casey
Poland was another one. We went on a four month deployment up into the Baltic. Wow. And, we went up to Poland and me and some friends of mine, we took a train out a couple of hours away from where our ship was docked. And, we met some Polish sailors and sailors do what sailors do. And they treated us to, you know, one hell of an afternoon.
00;29;55;06 - 00;30;17;01
Dennis Casey
Oh, wow. So? So I'll never forget that. I was pretty cool. Sweden. I've been to Sweden a couple times. That was, that was a great port. It was. It was a beautiful country. But it was very surprising that, you know, typically when a guy gets off his navy ship after being underway for a while, the first thing they want to do is find a bar and start drinking.
00;30;17;03 - 00;30;38;16
Dennis Casey
Well, me and a few of my buddies, we didn't like to do that right away. We would kind of search a little further away from the ship to find a bar and then start drinking. There were nobody else that we knew was. So we found this one place called the Los Locos in, in, in Sweden. And we walked in there and everybody that worked there was from Detroit, Michigan.
00;30;38;20 - 00;30;40;19
Chris Fredericks
Oh my gosh.
00;30;40;22 - 00;31;02;20
Dennis Casey
So that was pretty funny. And then I'd say overall my top pick would have to be probably Denmark. Oh well, our ship pulled into Denmark and a few of my buddies and I, we started walking around in our dress uniforms, and we end up going into this one little pub just to use the bathroom. And, there was a guy sitting at the bar, and he he turned around to us.
00;31;02;20 - 00;31;11;20
Dennis Casey
Are you American sailors? You. We love Schwarzkopf, you know. And then, you know, come sit by me and have a drink. Well, we end up spending four days with this guy.
00;31;11;24 - 00;31;12;06
Chris Fredericks
Oh, wow.
00;31;12;09 - 00;31;33;16
Dennis Casey
And he took us to his home, introduced us to his family, took us out for a dinner and a, like, a little microbrew. And the whole time all this guy talked about was his boat and and General Schwarzkopf. But his his boat was his favorite thing in the world. So for four days we listened to all these stories about his boat, listening to it with his wife.
00;31;33;19 - 00;31;50;27
Dennis Casey
So finally, the last day before we left, he asked if we wanted to go see his boat and everybody was like, absolutely, let's go. So we jump in this guy's car and he takes us a few miles away from his house down to a beach. His boat was a little rowboat sitting upside down next to his little dock box with a dock box.
00;31;50;27 - 00;31;54;17
Dennis Casey
When you open it up, it was full of beer.
00;31;54;20 - 00;31;57;03
Chris Fredericks
So he was setting you up for that the whole time?
00;31;57;10 - 00;31;58;05
Dennis Casey
Absolutely.
00;31;58;05 - 00;31;58;24
Chris Fredericks
Oh my God.
00;31;59;01 - 00;32;02;19
Dennis Casey
That was probably my favorite memory of, of any of the ports that I went.
00;32;02;22 - 00;32;24;21
Chris Fredericks
That's phenomenal. Dennis, really appreciate your time. And for coming on the podcast, I do think there are some awesome, you know, gems of lessons in there about, you know, learning and excellence and teaching and, kind of leaning into to trying to improve and grow as an employee. But, obviously it's hard to be Navy's story. So I appreciate you sharing some of those as well.
00;32;24;24 - 00;32;50;10
Dennis Casey
I do have one other quick story. Okay, great. Or just maybe just a plug. Sure. So just rewinding back to, the car that I had. So I had a, an orange, Ford Shelby Gt500. And last year, there is a filming company that was looking to produce a movie. And they were looking for cars to be in this movie.
00;32;50;12 - 00;33;05;23
Dennis Casey
So I sent this guy a personal message, and I, I said, hey, I want my car in your movie. So this guy says, well, let me see some pictures of your car and tell me a little bit about it. So I did. I sent him a bunch of pictures. My car was pretty special. It was, it was an amazing car.
00;33;05;23 - 00;33;27;00
Dennis Casey
I did a lot of work to it. So this guy comes back and he says, I want your car. My movie. Oh. So, just over a year ago, I spent a week at the, at the Sandusky Speedway, which is up in, up by Cedar Point. But I spent a week with my car up on the set of a movie that's coming out.
00;33;27;02 - 00;33;52;16
Dennis Casey
Not this coming Friday, but next Friday. Oh, it's it's called eeny Meeny. And but it's got some a couple big stars and it's got, Samara Weaving, which she's known for her horror scream. But it's also got Andy Garcia in it. Wow. It has, Marshawn Lynch. She had NFL player. But it's a movie that it's about, robbing a casino.
00;33;52;23 - 00;33;54;05
Chris Fredericks
Oh, wow.
00;33;54;08 - 00;33;55;23
Dennis Casey
But my car's in the movie.
00;33;55;25 - 00;33;57;05
Chris Fredericks
Is it a getaway car?
00;33;57;07 - 00;34;14;09
Dennis Casey
No, but it's it's in the the big scene at the end. Well, I could I could tell you that, so keep an eye out for an orange Shelby Gt500 for me. I'll be out. I'll be in the movie as well as an extra room like you might have. I might be a be able to see me for a quick second, but.
00;34;14;10 - 00;34;17;14
Chris Fredericks
Wow, we're all going to have to go watch that movie now and try to find business.
00;34;17;15 - 00;34;27;21
Dennis Casey
I think we should take the whole group of EV and just give everybody that Friday off. As a, you know, to, to watch the movie.
00;34;27;24 - 00;34;29;26
Chris Fredericks
They're going to love that, that's for sure.
00;34;29;29 - 00;34;48;03
Dennis Casey
But no, it was a pretty cool experience. So and they paid me a lot of money to do that. So that's really cool. It's actually a Hulu movie. It's going to be on Hulu. Okay. And it was a Tony, put on by 20th century. Production. So that's not some cheap movie that's going to be, you know, forever forgotten.
00;34;48;03 - 00;34;48;25
Chris Fredericks
It's a real movie.
00;34;49;02 - 00;34;53;06
Dennis Casey
Yeah, it's an actual movie. And, it was pretty cool. Pretty cool experience.
00;34;53;08 - 00;34;55;16
Chris Fredericks
That's so cool. Thank you. Dennis, thanks for coming on.
00;34;55;16 - 00;35;11;05
Dennis Casey
Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Chris. Thank you.