Ep169 Barbara Casey Lane - When Legacy Meets Innovation: A Multi-Generation Business Keeps Its Edge

Mike O'Neill: joining me is Barbara Casey Lane. She's the CEO. And chairman of the board at LTI. LTI is a family owned and operated food service, equipment designer and manufacturer, and they're based in my home State of Georgia. They're based in Jonesboro, Georgia.

Mike O'Neill: As a third generation family member, Barbara spent the early years of her career at Lti as an assistant to the Cfo.

Mike O'Neill: After graduating from the University of Georgia with a BA. Degree in English, her career path led her to several companies concentrating the areas of product development marketing as well as operating systems and leadership development.

Mike O'Neill: In 2,013 she returned to Lti, and as CO. She oversaw the operational side of the business in 2,022, Barbara was named CEO. And chairman of the Board.

Mike O'Neill: I've invited Barbara to join us to share a bit about her experience as CEO, and particularly her experience as being the CEO of a third generation.

Mike O'Neill: Company. Welcome, Barbara.

Thank you so much for having me, Mike. I'm excited to be here with you today.

Barbara Casey Lane: you know I introduce Lti. Is it a secret what Lti stands for? I've looked it up. But do you keep? Yeah, actually, it's just an acronym of kind of an absurd name. If you've never heard of it before. Low temp industries has to do or with early refrigeration work that the company was doing when they first began in a sales and operations here in Atlanta. So

Barbara Casey Lane: yeah, we manufacturer like you mentioned Custom food Service equipment and oh, in an industry that serves schools.

Barbara Casey Lane: hospitals restaurants, business and industry. So we've been here almost 80 years in our current location like you mentioned earlier, third generation. 2 of my sons and a niece are part of the fourth generation that are working here with me. Now

Mike O'Neill: I love that, you know. We spoke prior to scheduling this, and since I have been paying particular attention and I fail to remember food surface, it's everywhere.

Mike O'Neill: And I suspect I've I've spent time on your website. I've looked at really the the neat products that you offer. Let's go back to. I think it was around 1947. This business was founded, and in that time I know it's evolved a great deal. But one thing you just said that caught my attention.

Mike O'Neill: Has all of that been largely on the same site.

Barbara Casey Lane: Yes, we have. So behind the property where we're currently sitting, we've been in this new building all under one roof for almost 4 years, and we were in our old buildings, which we still own right behind us. And yeah, you're right. Almost 8 decades so very exciting to still be here and do what we do, we're really grateful.

Mike O'Neill: You mention under one roof by going under one roof. What did that do for the business? And in turn, what did that do for your

Barbara Casey Lane: right? So good site, line, and visibility of our workforce, and being able to see ways that we may be able to help them to be more productive to have our product move through lines more efficiently. We were taking things between 7 different roofs before. So we would put very large. What we build is very large serving equipment, like if you went to a school or a hospital, and you were eating lunch. with your family, let's say, at the hospital, while you're waiting on a loved one.

Barbara Casey Lane: or your kids are at school, the serving line that they're taking their tray and moving down a hot and cold food wells to be served, their lunch for the day. That's the equipment that we manufacture.

Barbara Casey Lane: So in our previous campus, we were moving very, very large pieces of stainless steel and fiberglass equipment on a forklift between buildings up and down a parking lot. So we're very able to be on a flat ground and and be together.

Barbara Casey Lane: So

Mike O'Neill: you mentioned the word lot of sight. And I think of lot of site in a couple of settings. One of the settings is when you're manufacturing something to be able to kind of be able to see. It

makes good sense. But what really that

Mike O'Neill: triggered for me is the conversation you and I had, Prior, and that is line of sight when it comes to the employees. Yeah. can you speak to that?

Barbara Casey Lane: Well, one might automatically think, oh, you're just trying to keep an eye on people. Well, the way that we look at it is an opportunity to look for ways that we can help our people.

Barbara Casey Lane: We do want them to be safe. We want them to be in an environment where they love to come to. Not that manufacturing is something you wake up every morning going. Oh, wow! I get to go sweat and get really dirty today. But we actually really believe in what we do. Our employee believe in our employees. They take great pride in a craftsmanship that they bring to the table. I'm blown away every why go out, I mean, I have certainly in my office right this moment, but when I need to clear my head I go out there on that floor.

Barbara Casey Lane: and I walk up and down, and I speak to people. I look at what they're building, and I feel so grateful that we get to do what we're doing. And the people are are the most important piece of what we do

Mike O'Neill: now, you know, I come out of a corporate HR. Background. So I love hearing those types of words, but I I'll particularly love it when they're coming from the heart. You're speaking from the heart.

Mike O'Neill: You're representing a third generation, and it sounds as if you're ready in the fourth generation. How does that

Mike O'Neill: feel as a third generation did it? Did you feel a sense of

Mike O'Neill: pressure when you assume that role.

Barbara Casey Lane: Oh, that's a great question. So

Barbara Casey Lane: way I describe it is I had an opportunity when I was a young person. I think I was maybe a ninth grade, when my great aunt, who was the secretary, treasurer of the company, at the time. If she and my grandfather and other siblings. There were 10 of them. Total

Barbara Casey Lane: goodness! Well, in the family, and then about half of them, I believe, working here together at this. At at that time. They asked me to come in, and I learned II counted the the money from the Pepsi machine learned from her. The basics of, you know, accounts receivable and payable where the money's coming from and where it's going. I went to the bank with her every day. I went to the post office with her every day.

Barbara Casey Lane: and and at the time not necessarily allowed to go out on the platform. It was mostly it was all men at the time, but things have changed over time. What hasn't changed is what I got in terms of the opportunity to work with both the first and second generation was the way that they cared about the people. They valued the skill that they brought to the table. They thought very

Barbara Casey Lane: carefully and thoughtfully on that making sure that they were taken care of, and their families felt that they were taken care of.

Barbara Casey Lane: and I learned that every day we would we would do that here at work, and then we'd go home at night. I remember once even as a child. Experiencing my dad

Barbara Casey Lane: Who was the Vice President at the time coming home that I think they had had to experience. Maybe in the 70 SA. Layoff at the time, you know. There was a significant loss of business at 1 point, and, needing to, you know, let some employees go, and I remember him saying that he couldn't eat.

Barbara Casey Lane: and it bothered him so much to have to think about families that that might suffer because of that and I've never forgotten that. And I knew that the employees were the most important piece to our business, and that's something that I feel still very strongly about.

Barbara Casey Lane: and I love that I get the opportunity. eating with the the 2 sons that I mentioned Tim and Ben and my niece Tessie. We lunch together a lot, and they lunch together a lot, and I used to do that with my aunt when I was at work. You know just the conversations that you have

Barbara Casey Lane: around the dinner table around the lunch table. You know that work doesn't go away. You're still thinking about those people. You're joining food together. We're in the food business, but we're also thinking about how to care for our wonderful employees.

Mike O'Neill: I had the opportunity early in my career, to go work for a family-owned business that grew very fast over time that family

Mike O'Neill: business became publicly held.

Mike O'Neill: and before I knew it I was working for a small family company, and now I was leading Hr. For Fortune 500 company, and it happened very, very quickly. What I saw in that time is.

Mike O'Neill: we lost that sense of family

Mike O'Neill: and the people who have been around for a while. They just they they yearn for that. They missed it. They actually greed that sense of loss.

Mike O'Neill: you are third generation ready in the fourth generation. You mentioned that you just kinda learn

Mike O'Neill: just the criticality of how important employees

Mike O'Neill: are you mentioned? A economic downturn in the seventies?

Mike O'Neill: the economy has been up and down? Is your business subject to

Mike O'Neill: that type of shift. Is it significantly up or down, or have you been able to weather the ups and down a little bit better?

Barbara Casey Lane: That's a great question. So I would say one of the things that my dad also encouraged us about about the the line of work that we're in and serving people food. They're always going. As long as there are people on the earth they have to eat. It's kind of a fundamental. So if you can think through ways to be creative and to stay relevant even when and when times are not as great, when the economy is not flourishing in the way that you would like it to be when you're at the top of your game.

Barbara Casey Lane: You there are. There are ways that you can still be relevant. And that's important. It's also something to think about.

Barbara Casey Lane: when you know, there are particular segment, even though you know, schools are are serving lunches. Of course, in the United States as the bulk of our business. And maybe we're still seeing schools coming and think. You know, we're not as worried about our particular segment, but it could be people that supply. You know, the supply chain

Barbara Casey Lane: link for us. That's become disrupted. That certainly happened during Covid. People still need to eat. We were still, you know, an essential business, and we were preparing equipment. But some of our suppliers were experiencing an economic downturn that they had never just scarcity, a product

Barbara Casey Lane: that they had never seen. So you know, that's that's going to come and go. You have to pay attention to those things, and I would say, just see them as opportunities to get better you're going. Nothing's ever going to be perfect in your life, or it's particularly in business, either. So you've got to learn how to ride that wave. If you have the right team, you can do that together.

Mike O'Neill: One thing I liked about your background is, yes, you did serve as an assistant to the Cfo. But you went off and got I think, an English degree and find yourself back in the business. But in my intro described that leadership development was an area that you had a particular passion for

that came through in our prior conversation. What is it about leadership?

Mike O'Neill: A development that speaks to you as CEO?

Barbara Casey Lane: Yeah. So when I left the company, the first time I've been working here, and most of my very early development as a young person, a young career. I didn't know anything but family business, so you just did whatever you had to do. Yeah, you wore hats that. Yeah, you weren't necessarily required to or need, you know, maybe you were educated to wear. But you, my aunt, called it a school of hard knocks, and so you just you dove in, and you did what you had to do, and the family did it together.

Barbara Casey Lane: So the only reason that I left here when I did after graduating college and working here a year is to get married and Mo. We followed my husband's career for about 25 years, and which was wonderful, still married to him 35 years later.

Barbara Casey Lane: So grateful for that move. But what I didn't know I was going to experience when I left here. Was my own grieving. I didn't understand that. How how much I loved the people I loved, what we did. I loved the atmosphere of being a family

Barbara Casey Lane: who's serving and working alongside of other families. It was such a strong picture for me.

Barbara Casey Lane: But I did have the opportunity, because my husband's line of work was mostly nonprofit.

Barbara Casey Lane: you know you, you take those skills that you've honed, and then you honed them even more. When you have a shoestring budget in, as most nonprofits do. So you're you're learning to do a lot with very little. So what was wonderful about that 25 year period, as I was able to learn some lessons there, especially when when we were working in a nonprofit and fundraising worked with a lot of business people from all different aspects of industries and the company

Barbara Casey Lane: Or in the in the United States, and II had the opportunity to learn

Barbara Casey Lane: learn from them. There are different aspects of business. How can we make a nonprofit better by learning how to manage inventory learning how to do excellent customer service? If there's an emergency learning how to construct a website from nothing.

Barbara Casey Lane: Learning how to build. It was early days of social media, and we were grabbing Twitter accounts. And you know, creating a Facebook page. I was way before Instagram, of course, and understanding how to reach people on in different platforms creating e-commerce. You know the opportunity to do all of those things on a very creative level again, on a shoestring budget

Barbara Casey Lane: and developing leadership out of people who were passionate about the mission. So that was wonderful to build a build, build rapport with people who really had a common goal.

Barbara Casey Lane: and so that actually felt pretty similar

Barbara Casey Lane: to what I had experienced as a young person, and so, I think, having a wonderful plethora of of opportunities, there gave me some things to really come back and honed when I came back to the business here, which was about 10 years ago.

Mike O'Neill: you've stepped into this role in an industry that probably for most of the industries. It's it's a male dominated industry. How accepting has the industry been to to you as a female?

Barbara Casey Lane: That is a great question. I would say. One of the things is that I have experienced is because I am a third generation, and I'm very close in age because my grandfather had children young. My dad had children, young and I got to work with both of them. I can quickly associate with them in terms of reputation, which is phenomenal, and that is a gift, and that is something that I do not take for granted.

Barbara Casey Lane: And I think also, we're in an industry, especially with schools where, when there is a very large number of women who are decision makers in school as food service.

Barbara Casey Lane: and so that that level of leadership is probably something that I didn't realize was so prominent and wonderful. And then I realized that a lot of the sales force that we we had and what I've been a part of, and a lot of the leadership of the manufacturing side has been male dominated. If we can find a way to connect some way. I've watched some of our women salesforce recently.

Barbara Casey Lane: You know they're they're not just there to go to a party or make, you know, make the food service director feel really good, that all still goes on, of course, which is natural for sales. But I see these women on the sales side, actually embracing the fact that they are working with other women. They are teaching them things they may not know that they can bring to the table, you know. Hey? Did you know the manufacturer actually puts a project together in this way? Let me

Barbara Casey Lane: and help you do that, and they empower them instead of thinking they just, you know, they they have a place because of their position, or because they've been a mail and been, you know, doing it their whole lives.

Barbara Casey Lane: That's been wonderful to see. And then, since I've been in my role as Co. I've started embracing the fact that women could be on the manufacturing floor as well.

Barbara Casey Lane: Some of our leaders in the shop are women one in particular. That's our master, Scheduler. She came here as welder. She wanted to learn how to weld, and so she actually had worked her way through the shop, doing very different aspects. And now, coordinates ever. When I talked about the site line she coordinates everything that's going down each one of those lines of product and really thankful to have her.

Mike O'Neill: You know one thing that we talked about before we hit the record button is, you've learned some valuable lessons along the the way. Could you share an example where perhaps you or your organization got stuck, and what did it take to get unstuck?

Barbara Casey Lane: You know it's funny, because when I think about that term. I probably experience that to a very small degree every single day. There's something where I'm like. Oh, my goodness, I can't believe we're back here again. I thought we dealt with that. And here, you know, a lot of times that is, dealing with people

Barbara Casey Lane: and thinking. I thought as an organization. We were past that. But then something comes up, either some someone's experience at home that day away, employees have interacted with each other, something that was said that was maybe mildly, or, you know, inappropriate things that you think you've moved past and or we've grown beyond. But you know we're people and we make mistakes.

Barbara Casey Lane: And I think one of the things that I have tried to foster and our leadership team it works to foster. Here is a place where mistakes are.

Barbara Casey Lane: They're allowed because they're going to happen. We're not perfect people, and if we can recognize our mistakes, own them and then work together as a team to correct them. You're you're really building that rapport. You're building that foundation that a strong business can flourish in.

Mike O'Neill: Given

Mike O'Neill: the permission. If I could use that term to fail. Not that it's encouraged. But when it happens, what do we learn from that? And moving on? Was that something that was relatively new, and the kind of Guy introduced

Mike O'Neill: under your leadership.

Barbara Casey Lane: No, that's a great question. So there is a saying, and I'm not sure if I'm going to get this correct or not. That my I've heard of some of the guys that worked here as young people under my grandfather's initial leadership, he and his brother who ran the plant with him? They, you know, if you weren't making a mistake you weren't working hard enough, I mean if you're if you're especially when you're in the line of work that we're in, we're not doing an assembly line here, we have unique product

Barbara Casey Lane: and it takes a, you know, a certain level of skill to be here, and sometimes you're getting a project you may not have ever seen before. It's got a different turn or twist to it.

Barbara Casey Lane: And you've got you, wanna, you know, have the most knowledge that you can going into the project. You wanna make sure you've gotten details buttoned up. But you're gonna make them stay. And because there's so many layers of how we go go to market, there's so many layers of how we our our equipment actually gets into the field, you know. Sometimes it may change a truck a couple of times.

Barbara Casey Lane: If it's going all the way across the country from Atlanta to the to the west coast, it's going to change trucks. That's a challenge by itself. We have to make sure that we're meeting a deadline where all of the trades in the construction process, if it is something that's being

Barbara Casey Lane: undergoing reconstruction or so a brand new construction project. There's a lot of factors that go into making sure things. Land plumbing and electrical has to be in place before we can bring, you know, sinks and think hot and cold food wells in all of those factors have to be in place that takes a lot of coordination.

Barbara Casey Lane: and there's probably going to be mistakes or something that was missed along the way. But honestly, it's how quickly you recover from the mistake. It's recognizing it. It's recovering from it and learning from it that makes you stronger.

Mike O'Neill: Yeah, I forget when we think of manufacturing, I think there's a tendency for us to think well, they just make the same thing over and over and over again. Most of your products are almost custom, are they not?

Barbara Casey Lane: They are. We do have what we call drop ends their technology that we developed the quick switch tech technology. We were the first to market very, very proud and thankful for that.

Barbara Casey Lane: for that product where you can change from hot to cold to frozen, all within 30 min of each other. So if you're serving something hot for breakfast, and you need to serve something cold for lunch. You you know you're doing eggs, maybe something warm for breakfast. You wanna go to a salad bar. You could do that in the same unit. We we patented that pro that product.

Barbara Casey Lane: and we're the first to market with it many years ago. Very thankful that we still are the leaders with drop ins. That is the most prominent, probably repetitive product that we do. It's a large portion of our sales and then the the long serving lines that I described are more along the custom. What those particular hot and cold food wells may be dropping into. That would be more of the custom side.

Mike O'Neill: Yeah, II don't know much about your industry other than as I have volunteered at at church or the like, and it's the traditional steam tables for lack of better term. They don't. They don't have the capacity to do what you're just offering. I can see why that would be something one you're proud of, and I can see why that's a a popular product that you could use. You know, Barbara, we've talked about a variety of things.

Mike O'Neill: I would love to kind of get any

Mike O'Neill: further thoughts you would have about leadership in general. That is something that when we talk about that I can, you actually kind of set up

Mike O'Neill: anything you would like to share about leadership that maybe I haven't asked that that's obviously unscripted. But anything that you have learned along the way that you think you know. Let me. This is a good chance for me to share.

Barbara Casey Lane: Yeah, I would say definitely, taken seriously, seriously the word humility. I think that's something. You know that you that you don't take for granted. I think I have to be the first one to the table to admit when I have not done something

Barbara Casey Lane: correctly, when I have not handled a situation situation. Well.

Barbara Casey Lane: when I have said something that I shouldn't have said, I need to be the very first one in humility to come to the table. Say, you guys are really screwed that up. And I need to own it, and I need to, you know, be the first one to to deal with it and make sure it's corrected going forward. When I have we've been working with I'm not sure if you're familiar with Patrick Lynchon

Barbara Casey Lane: and Table Group. But love Pat's books and the whole aspect of the humble, hungry smart. That's something we take very seriously when we are looking at how we evaluate ourselves, how we evaluate our employees and and what kind of employee we're actually looking for when we're in recruiting mode.

Mike O'Neill: Which of those 3 have you found most difficult to find those who are humble, hungry, or I know you're looking for all 3.

Mike O'Neill: But which of those 3 characteristics are most elusive in your experience?

Barbara Casey Lane: I would definitely say, humility being humble and it. And because it's very obvious when you ran, run into someone who doesn't think about themselves first. And they are thinking about the team. They're thinking about how to make things better. They're thinking,

Barbara Casey Lane: again about others, not themselves. And that is something I need to be doing every day something I expect from our executive team. And this is something we're actually working on how to communicate as we're recruiting.

Barbara Casey Lane: So in looking for new employees.

Mike O'Neill: because family is so important because you've built this over that. Do you use more of a panel approach when you're looking to bring in folks to the organization.

Barbara Casey Lane: One of the best ways that we have found to to find that gold employee honestly is by a referral from an employee who's already here. We have family multiple generations, not just in the the ownership of the company, but also in our in employee base, which is wonderful. We actually right now have

Barbara Casey Lane: father, son, and grandson. We have a grandmother, a daughter, and a granddaughter.

Barbara Casey Lane: and we have lots of uncles and aunts and nieces and nephews, and so not just that. But we also have people who are neighbors

Barbara Casey Lane: and who are friends, people that go to church with one another, or, you know, just know each other from some community activism. And they're recommending the company because they in they. This is a place they want to to be. That's one of my favorite things to ask when I when I talk with employees, is, you know what would make you want to retire here.

Barbara Casey Lane: And and you know sometimes those are. Those are

Barbara Casey Lane: you know, answers that I don't wanna hear. But I need to hear, because I want everybody to want to be here, you know, and then it's not gonna always be a fit for every single person for their entire career, and I totally get that. I mean, I left for 25 years and and and came back but I came back and you know, there's just there's something very

Barbara Casey Lane: very comforting to know that people are wanting to bring others into an environment where they want to be where they feel they are cared for, safe treated fairly

Barbara Casey Lane: and are producing an incredible product.

Mike O'Neill: Very, very well said. Do you have any closing thoughts or takeaways. You'd like to share.

Barbara Casey Lane: I love the name of your of your podcast I'm stuck, you know, there's we all feel that way at times we feel that way. And you know, like I said, there are little bits each day we're thinking, oh, my goodness, I can't believe we're back here again. Or you know, this product doesn't have the same relevance that it had before. And we get the right mind to the table. We start thinking about? You know, how can how can we do this better? How can we constantly be improving?

Barbara Casey Lane: Proving like my father? Said, growing up. I can't remember if I've already mentioned this or not, but you know it may not be necessarily a glamorous industry. But it is definitely a necessary one. People always have to eat. And if we're all, if we're at the forefront of thinking about how to provide an environment for them.

Barbara Casey Lane: that they do want to come to a table they want to be sitting at with walls that are beautiful decor around them. Maybe signage in the on the cafeteria walls. That's inspiring.

Barbara Casey Lane: And then serving lines that match that we we like to think of it as kind of our version of Hgtv. Where we want to redo the space and make it a place where kids want to be together and come into a a community or, like. I mentioned earlier a hospital where you know you're you're dealing with some maybe a situation that's very difficult.

Barbara Casey Lane: And the place where the family is, you know, gonna gather is gonna be down having a meal together, maybe a breakfast or lunch and dealing with some news. They just got

Barbara Casey Lane: business and industry. You've got corporate environments. Where you want your employees to be able to come together at a meal

Barbara Casey Lane: a meal table and talk about their day talk. You know, it's not just a water fountain. It's also a place where they can bring their lunch and be a community, and we feel very fortunate to be a part of that.

Mike O'Neill: Barbara, before we 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.

Mike O'Neill: or because they want to. Are they obligated or inspired? I'm a leadership coach, and I work with executives who have a successful track record, but are now feeling stuck. They're stuck in their careers, or maybe on how to move their company forward. They're frustrated because they're finding that with each level of success. The bar

Mike O'Neill: gets set even higher. And

Mike O'Neill: what worked in the past it's not working any longer. So I work with these leaders to help uncover hidden blind spots, challenge limiting beliefs, and fosters a strong sense of accountability. So if feeling stuck sounds like you or someone, you know, let's talk head over to bench dashbuilders.com to schedule a call.

Mike O'Neill: Now, Barbara, you've opened my eyes to a number of things I haven't thought of. Thank you for sharing your expertise.

Barbara Casey Lane: Thank you for the opportunity. This is great to be here with you today, Mike.

Mike O'Neill: Barbara. If folks want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to connect with you.

Barbara Casey Lane: So the best way to find out what we're what we're up to, what job opportunities we may have and just to find a little bit more about what we, what we can bring to the table for you, literally to the table. Our website is low temp, ind.com. It's a short for low temp industry, so LOWT. EMPI nd.com

Mike O'Neill: excellent. Thank you, Barbara.

Mike O'Neill: Thank you for having me, Mike. Have a great day. Thank you. I also want to thank our listeners for joining us, and I hope you have picked up on some quick wins from Barbara. That'll help you get unstuck and on target.