Ep170 Dan Marks - Locomotives and Leadership: Engineering a CEO’s Path

Mike O'Neill: Joining me is Dan Marks. He is the CEO of Bohr electronics, a global provider of locomotive and transit electromechanical components with a hands-on start in his father's repair shop and a climb through the transit sector to CEO. Dan's leadership and strategic vision has been pivotal in expanding Bohr's reach.

Mike O'Neill: cracking key partnerships and broadening their offerings to stay ahead of the curve. And it's that progression, particularly career progression and professional progression that I've asked Dan to join us today to talk about. Welcome, Dan.

Dan Marks: Thank you very much for having me.

Mike O'Neill: Dan. I just introduce you as starting in your father's repair shop. Let's just start there. Tell me about what was the type of repair shop that that he had.

Dan Marks: So my father was in the electric motor repair business, and there are traction motors which are electric motors that go on Diesel locomotives.

Dan Marks: So his shop repaired.

Dan Marks: Those types of motors or industrial railroads, closed loop systems you would find in a steel mill

Dan Marks: as well as some of the class. One railroads that you see every day, whether it's Norfolk, Southern or CSX.

Mike O'Neill: I got you. So. Yeah, this has been

Mike O'Neill: in your blood from the very, very beginning.

Dan Marks: It has been, in fact, my grandfather, my father's father, was a locomotive engineer, and my younger brother is a is a railroad attorney.

Mike O'Neill: Wow!

Dan Marks: So Thanksgiving dinner, if everybody's at the house, we know what one of the topics is going to be for sure every every time.

Mike O'Neill: Yeah, Dan, you have a a very interesting background, and I think of what I'd love to do as a starting point is invite you to kinda share a little bit about this progression. One

Mike O'Neill: might not necessarily set out to be the CEO, but you have sat in a number of seats that led to this role. Can you kind of walk us through that progression?

Dan Marks: Well, sure and

Dan Marks: Some people, some colleagues are surprised to find me sitting in a high, level, operational role. I

Dan Marks: I've always been in the sales role.

Dan Marks: even starting out of college in a non-rail road related role.

Dan Marks: Working on a sales counter, very blue collar, renting construction equipment through through going to work for my father's business. It's interesting. When he started the business I was excited that he was starting this this venture and told him that I'd like to come work for him, even if it's just means sweep the floors. So I finally convinced him

Dan Marks: much to his chagrin frankly for me to come join the join the company. And I. It literally was a bottom up situation, just learning how to buy components, carbon brushes, bearings for traction motors. And what have you? And and that really

Dan Marks: sunk in that we were making something

Dan Marks: for to move the economy forward and true, manufacturing or remanufacturing as it as it was that really just hit hit hit home for me and

Dan Marks: I think that's part of how America was built. And so it's just it's somewhat of a privilege to be part of that

Dan Marks: that growth, even even from the, you know, a small.

Dan Marks: dark traction motor repair facility in the hills of Western Pennsylvania.

You know you mentioned a moment ago that you

Mike O'Neill: you kind of spend a lot of your time in sales and colleagues kind of well, wait a second, I thought Dan was a sales

Mike O'Neill: a leader, and here he is, a CEO. Let's talk about that a little bit. In what ways has coming up through initially sales prepared you best to be a CEO.

Dan Marks: Well, it started in you know, in the sales, selling and understanding the operations behind your not your internal customers if you will.

Dan Marks: So, as I rose through the ranks and became a vice president of sales for a major wheel manufacturer, I had to liaise with operations heavily, and then I became responsible for budgeting and and these are the items in which

Dan Marks: are necessary for for a CEO to understand P. And L. Income statements. But on top of that I got to build a sales team from scratch, and that leadership and that growth through understanding what

Dan Marks: what it's needed to be a sales rep being in a leadership role.

Dan Marks: I think the culmination of understanding

Dan Marks: leadership roles and the operational understanding. P. And L's income statements, and then being able to build a rapport with senior level management,

Dan Marks: culminated in, and where I am today.

Mike O'Neill: the nature of your industry is one most of our listeners who may not be familiar with. Let's start with a little bit more about Bohr's electronic. Can you put in layman's terms the kinds of things that you

Mike O'Neill: and your company produce.

Dan Marks: So we remanufacture and manufacture electrical components that help make a locomotive move.

Dan Marks: A locomotive is a big generator, and just like your home has circuit breakers. So does a locomotive. It's powered by a Diesel engine with a with a Gen set, and behind the Gen. Set is all the high speed circuit breakers and the high voltage circuit breakers that that help propel the locomotive in forward gear or reverse gear. There's a lot of other components that that we manufacture, that you'll find

Dan Marks: on the dashboard, if you will, of a locomotive

Dan Marks: and those components can last for 60, 70 years, and they can continually be rebuilt. So board has built its foundation on the repair and return of of these electrical components.

Mike O'Neill: Alright, that's very helpful. I

Mike O'Neill: I favor a particular brandish shoe, particularly when I was wearing dress shoes. I don't wear dress shoes nearly as much as I once did, and I'll go ahead and make the plug. The company is called Alan Edmonds, and they're expensive. I would never buy them

Mike O'Neill: unless they were on sale, and I would oftentimes buy their factory seconds. A factory second for them was, there was a slight blemish. But what I loved about this company is that

Mike O'Neill: you can re-craft these shoes.

Mike O'Neill: If you have a favorite pair of shoes, you can send them back, and in re crafting it comes back. They look practically new, but they feel like your old favorite shoes, and they that's part of their whole business model, you know, buy at once, recraft it.

Mike O'Neill: perhaps once or or twice, and I have. I'm embarrassing to admit I have shoes that I've had now for 20 plus years. Now I don't want to liken. Choose to components. But you said that some of the components are built to last for decades.

Dan Marks: Absolutely, a locomotive has 2 life cycles. The first life cycle it has is when it comes right off the manufacturing line he built here in the United States. Primarily, the freight locomotives are, and that life cycle can be 25 to 35 years before it gets a rebuilt.

Dan Marks: and it's just like a resto MoD. If you know you have Hot Rod

Dan Marks: friends out there in the market that strip it down to

Dan Marks: the frame and rebuild it with modern technology.

Dan Marks: So instead of circuit boards from the 80 s. And and early 90 s. It's now microprocessors that get replaced in there. So our job as a rebuild and remanufacturer is to take those components and and apply them back into the to the electrical cabinet, sometimes being supplied directly from the railroad, or things that we remanufacture ourselves and put in there.

Dan Marks: Then to the cabinet.

Mike O'Neill: I appreciate you kind of clarifying a little bit more about what y'all

Mike O'Neill: make and why that's important. Let's go back, if you don't mind, to this progression that you went through. You started in your father's shop. You learned the industry you shared a little bit of about

Mike O'Neill: why your sales background has lend itself for you to move into a CEO role. What have you found as CEO as the biggest surprise?

Dan Marks: I think it's people.

Dan Marks: I constantly say that the hardest thing about running a business is managing people

Dan Marks: there. There's we have 60 employees. And while it's not A, you know. IBM. Or Ge, and there's thousands of employees. It's it's challenging, regardless of size, to make sure that you're hitting

Dan Marks: the the needs of the employees

Dan Marks: in in such a way that they'll want to stay and grow with you. So it's important to understand. not in a bespoke way, but in a general way, enterprise way. What makes our employees especially rank and file.

Dan Marks: What makes them tick? What do they need? What makes them want to stay and continue their career and grow with a a company like for electronics.

Mike O'Neill: Yeah, I know one thing that you

Mike O'Neill: pride yourself cause we've had opportunity to have a conversation prior to scheduling. This recording is the culture of trying to foster innovation and collaboration as part of giving people. That sense

can tell us a little bit more. And what ways have you tried within your company to foster that

Dan Marks: we, we give our employees An opportunity to bring their ideas to us! There is no

Dan Marks: there's no time to

Dan Marks: to tell an employee that that their idea isn't any good.

Dan Marks: So we have an R&D lab, where we have employees that have raised their hands and wanted to be part of that RD lab that that make the product better frankly. And so we empower our employees to bring that those ideas to us, and and they work amongst each other. Very well, and I think that is

Dan Marks: the key in both of our locations to to the success that Boris had. The culture. Here is phenomenal, the the creativity and the innovation and the ideas that come out of

Dan Marks: some employees, that if they're here for 3 years. 3 months or 30 years. They bring great ideas, and we certainly let those ideas

Dan Marks: grow and mature, and we assist them on those ideas. And sometimes it's it's somebody needs to be sequestered in R&D lab for days on end to figure something out. And we allow that to happen.

Mike O'Neill: Now you mentioned a moment ago that the culture here is phenomenal in my line of work. I don't hear that very often from a CEO. They're of asking us to come in and help build that. What is it about the culture there? Did you?

Mike O'Neill: Did you step into this role? And the culture was already established? Or have you found ways to improve what was already, I suspect, a good culture.

Dan Marks: I stepped into a good culture in here in Chattanooga and in Circe, for that matter. Chattanooga staff has been. The core has been with us for several years, and it's a fairly young

Dan Marks: young staff. Our entire. Our average age is 36 years old. So we have a very young group of people who not only work together, but also play together.

Dan Marks: And and I think that that that

Dan Marks: that little brother, Little sister, Big brother, Big Sister Mentality, works and weaves its way through our organization. We have done some things to assist. For instance, the the team on lunch break

Dan Marks: throws kettlebells. And so they have this workout. So we recognize that this is something that's important to them, and we carved out some internal space and built a little gym with Matt's in an area where they can go rain or shine, and work out and and understanding and listening to to the team

Dan Marks: is is just paramount.

Dan Marks: We run a survey every year, and we take the the key areas from the survey and and

Dan Marks: make it a yearly initiative

Dan Marks: and and we hit those initiatives. And we're communicating those initiatives. So II think when you. When you put all that together, you end up with a with a very positive culture.

Dan Marks: Now, it's not perfect, you know. It's

Dan Marks: typical. 10% of the workforce can be problematic, of course, but we try to work with with with everybody and understand where the pinch points and the pain points within the employees, and the way that they need to operate day-to-day

Mike O'Neill: from your perspective, as CEO and we have other key leaders listening and watching in this episode, when you huddle with your counterparts.

Mike O'Neill: What are the kinds of things that you find yourself talking about?

Dan Marks: most recently, and it seems to come up often. It's usually on

Dan Marks: that

Dan Marks: pay true up making sure that we're paying, and our pay ranges are appropriate

Dan Marks: and rewards. We're rewarding employees for good work and making sure that we have a mechanism that's very easy for supervisors and managers and the executive staff to to give an at a boy in in the 1 min manager style, where it's just a a switch of a button in a $10. Starbucks gift cards end up in their

Dan Marks: is a text message on their phone

Dan Marks: things that things of that nature, I think, are very, very important. And also finding what's important for each business. We have a fairly liberal

Dan Marks: the

Dan Marks: vacation schedule, so that employees, if they need to go to the dentist, they can go to the dentist, and if they want to make up time, they can make up time, and we make sure that we're available for the employees to come in and make up that time. So II think I think the human element is very important and just understanding that everybody has a life outside of work. And they need time. And we wanna make sure that we give that time to them and that they're they'll feel like they're gonna be punished by it.

Mike O'Neill: You know, you mentioned just an example of a kind of a spot award with the Starbucks cards. But you started with saying.

Mike O'Neill: Pay true up, and that is looking at

Mike O'Neill: actual. You know what are the numbers? And if there's issues to address that, there's a bit of a science to that part, the numbers kind of can speak for itself. Let's speak about the art.

Mike O'Neill: True enough pay and the art of identifying things that are meaningful in the form of rewards. What have you found? That's important to your employee, base.

Dan Marks: So th there's a few things. What? When we talk about hourly rates in the true up we we speak. We speak of that because, as this built business was privately held for

Dan Marks: decades, and then purchased through our parent company aldermen enterprises, we we found that that there was

Dan Marks: pay, inaccuracy, or some special pay for some people, that perhaps the owners just felt that they were

Dan Marks: worthy of more. So we we put a study together. With some outside assistance, to understand what the

Dan Marks: what the market would bear, and coming out of Covid, you know the market changed quite a bit within inflation. So we really did need to first

Dan Marks: do a proper, a proper

Dan Marks: understanding of

Dan Marks: of pay, and that started with literally making sure we had job descriptions.

Dan Marks: So job descriptions were the most important part. And and then, once we had job descriptions, making sure that they got into our our pay velocity system which we use for payroll. And then once we did that, and and and quite frankly, that took, you know, 6 months. And then once we did that we could then go and do a payband study.

Dan Marks: and then once we did the payband study, then we could start to dial in

Dan Marks: and understand? That was a bit of the art in the science part, you know. Where do we fall? And then

Dan Marks: it was, what are the benefits equal to? What the pay is. So we have a very robust benefits program here, and that's where we find the employees are more interested. Now, everybody wants their top line gross pay to be as much as possible. So

Dan Marks: it's it was important for us to make sure that we were paying within the market, but also let employees understand how much it cost to be an employee and what the benefits were. And and once we

Dan Marks: we submitted that to each employee, and this happened in December. They started to understand that. Wow!

Dan Marks: Much more valuable

Dan Marks: than just my hourly rate. You know, when you talk about health benefits and their the Ira that we put together through our voi account, and then all the other stuff we that we do, that we that the company pays for for short term disability, long term disability. You you find employees

Dan Marks: start to appreciate that

Dan Marks: as they understand it. Older employees appreciate more than some of the younger employees that we have, of course, and then I think, also, the really important item for employees is their Pto.

Dan Marks: And making sure that we have enough Pto. So we increased our Pto

Dan Marks: from 2 weeks after a year to 4 weeks, as soon as you get hired. What? Which? Which? That's what the market

Dan Marks: what we're seeing in the marketplace. And that's what we decided to do. And and frankly, it's working quite well.

Mike O'Neill: You know, we've talked a bit about progression. We've probably spent most of our time with production employees, but you've got leadership that you have to do this with. And you talk about your your executive team. Speak to that. And in what ways has

Mike O'Neill: what we've been talking about affected your thinking and the practice of your key leadership team.

Dan Marks: You know, you know, it's really interesting.

Dan Marks: II think my leadership team has softened me on the on on the way that I operate with our employees. I came from a large organization that was somewhat harsh.

Dan Marks: and and I brought that with me. And

Dan Marks: now we are very much more

Dan Marks: kid gloves, if you will. And and it is because of my, the leadership team and understanding the culture here that they've brought significantly. We have some very talented individuals here. And and I'm proud that to say that we brought on a sales director that we poached from from the outside and has has been a phenomenal coaching leader to our sales team.

Dan Marks: We have a fairly young controller that brings that that

Dan Marks: dynamic.

Dan Marks: Go get him attitude to our team. And he's not just a controller he is. You can see the leadership just oozing out of the the, you know.

Dan Marks: a a young guy like like him, and then our Vp. Of operations has been around for a long, long time, and he brings that tribal knowledge that's necessary and that softening that was necessary. I think when I first started in particular. On how we.

Dan Marks: how we treat our employees and the importance of retention.

Mike O'Neill: you know that's all we read when we read articles, retention, retention, retention in large part, because people just don't seem to have the degree of loyalty to organizations. We know there's a cost associated with retention to go from a 2 week after a year to 4 weeks upon hire. That's a significant. That's a pretty bold move. Did you find yourself swallowing hard

Dan Marks: before you. Okay, that certainly have. We know how much it costs per day in production. So adding those that time is could be costly to the organization, but on the flip side.

Dan Marks: while it was a hard decision to agree on it, was the right decision cause. Frankly, we get more production out of our team, and the willingness to

Dan Marks: to take a few hours to go to the dentist and then come back to work or to pick up their time is there, because they see that

Dan Marks: we're willing to give, and they're willing to give back. And I and I think that that has been a been very helpful for us in our in keeping our our

Dan Marks: are key key players.

Mike O'Neill: Dan, in keeping with the theme of this, podcast let me invite you to kind of reflect on a

Mike O'Neill: time where perhaps you, or maybe a client or your organization got stuck. And when that happened, what did it take to get unstuck.

Dan Marks: You know, it's all about clarity.

Dan Marks: It's it's really interesting. There was a situation that happened several years ago with the transit authority.

Dan Marks: and they were very frustrated with the oem.

Dan Marks: I do battle with the oems on a regular basis, being in the fields that I've been in in the aftermarket business. But the frustration was that they were buying so many components, and it was just costing the transit authority just

Dan Marks: hundreds and hundreds of $1,000 a year, and

Dan Marks: II was doing my normal sales run in in with in in particular, in Maryland, with this particular trans authority, and we made a discovery that that I could have

Dan Marks: put in my back pocket and and made a lot of money, but we ended up

Dan Marks: being able to sit with them with the transit authority. This particular part, we found, had a different part number on it all across the train, yet it was the exact same part, so we relabeled and and were able to reduce their spend

Dan Marks: by 6 figures. Now I could have kept this and put it my back pocket, and it just sold, you know. And but you know, when you build a rapport with an agency, you want to show them that there's give back, and this was truly a stuck situation, because it was hurting their budget, and we found a way to

Dan Marks: to make a quick adjustment, and they saved a bunch of money. And in turn, what that happened for me was it became a positive because I was their go to or components. And so for years, they would just pick up the phone. And even still, today, I get phone calls from the same people who are now in consulting roles or have have climbed the ladder into in the agency, asking for

Dan Marks: advice or

Dan Marks: just consultancy, which I they are now my business peers, and they're not customers any longer, so you know it. It's interesting when you can find a product and get somebody unstuck.

Mike O'Neill: Great example. You know, Dan is. you talk. I'm listening to you, and I can see how

Mike O'Neill: and why you have

Mike O'Neill: done well in this role, and that is, there's an awareness

Mike O'Neill: and look and humility

Mike O'Neill: to acknowledging. Maybe I do need to kind of take the hardness

Mike O'Neill: off a bit when you are talking to folks who are saying gosh, I want I want to do what you do. I want to be the CEO. What guidance do you have for them?

Dan Marks: Wow! Well, I

Dan Marks: clearly

Dan Marks: you gotta find your a business that that you have fun in, and

Dan Marks: you don't use the word passion

Dan Marks: lightly right? I mean, it's you know we have. We? Everybody has to work

Dan Marks: right. But if you can find something that you really enjoy and just figure out a way to

Dan Marks: to find the mentors, or the a group or a company that you enjoy being with.

Dan Marks: And and you can. You can work that way through.

Dan Marks: you know, I've actually been lucky enough to never look for a job. I've always been recruited for for positions. So you you need to do a lot of networking and spend a lot of time

Dan Marks: in an uncomfortable position, perhaps, where you have to. You have to

Dan Marks: glad hand with customers and vendors, and just make friends in the industry, and I think that's very important to to have business friends and associates that you can call and and ask questions to and be comfortable, and that might take you out of your comfort zone

Mike O'Neill: in today's

Mike O'Neill: competitive environment. Are you seeing a more reluctance to do that? To reach

Mike O'Neill: across to suppliers, maybe even competitors? Or do you see that

Mike O'Neill: harder to come by, or do you see more of that nowadays?

Dan Marks: II have seen less, I think, after Covid, and people just don't travel nearly as much. And while trade shows and and and

Dan Marks: and the and general meetings are coming back.

Dan Marks: People just aren't traveling to to customers as much. There's not a need with, with, you know, teams and zoom it's just easier to to have a call

Dan Marks: But networking is still important, and you have to find ways

Dan Marks: to to network, and if you're willing and and you have the drive you can get here. You know I wasn't an a student, and I don't come from a wealthy family, and you need to work really hard to get what you need. But if you find your passion you'll get there.

Mike O'Neill: It's clear your passion does come through kind of loud and clear, Dan, we've talked about a number of things. What do you want our viewers and listeners to have as takeaways.

Dan Marks: Well.

Dan Marks: not be not.

Dan Marks: Don't be too proud of where you sit. I think, is very, very important.

Dan Marks: Don't sit back on your laurels.

Mike O'Neill: so tell me a little bit more about that. Why would you think of that as one of your major takeaways?

Dan Marks: Well, it because it's a privilege to be where I'm sitting.

Dan Marks: You know, I was recruited for this role, and it's a it's a role that

Dan Marks: some people don't last too long in. You have to perform on on several levels.

Dan Marks: And you need to be grounded. need to work really hard and make sure that the team understands that you're with them. And you're not just the you know the the captain.

Dan Marks: you need to be a true leader, and that means coming on Saturday, emptying the trashcan, sweeping the floors, you know, picking up a piece of

Dan Marks: broken palette like those things are very, very important, and they're key. And that's why I think it's important not to be too proud.

Mike O'Neill: I love it.

Mike O'Neill: Dan, before we kind of wrap up with our final thoughts. I've got a question for our listeners, and that is, are people following you because they have to. or because they want to. Are they obligated or inspired?

Mike O'Neill: One of my roles is a leadership coach, and as a coach. I work with executives who have a successful track record, but are now feeling stupid in their careers, or how to move their company forward.

Mike O'Neill: They're frustrated because they're finding that with each level of success the bar gets set even higher. But what worked in the past it's no longer working.

Mike O'Neill: I work with these leaders to uncover hidden blind spots, challenge limiting beliefs and foster a strong sense of accountability. So if feeling stuck sounds like you or someone, you know, let's talk head over to benchdashbuilders.com to schedule a call.

Mike O'Neill: Dan, I really appreciate what you have shared with us. You have open eyes to a number of things I hadn't really thought of. Thank you very much for sharing your expertise. If folks listening want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to do that.

Dan Marks: or they can certainly go to our website at at at Boardcom or reach out to me via email at Dmarks, at Boardcom

Mike O'Neill: do me a favor. spellbore.com.

Dan Marks: BOHR.

Dan Marks: Dot, COM.

Mike O'Neill: It's an excellent website, so I encourage you to check that out, and particularly if you've heard something from Dan that you would like to learn more. I have found Dan very approachable. So again, thank you for lending your experience to the podcast today.

Dan Marks: Well, thank you for having me.

Mike O'Neill: I want to thank our listeners again for joining us. And I hope you have picked up on some quick wins from Dan that will help you get unstuck and on target.