Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Lori Olund explains what her company does and why it’s expanding
• How can you incentivize employees to diversify their skills with an in-house training program?
• Why the 2008 recession and the current pandemic have created opposing issues for the manufacturing industry
• Lori describes her journey of joining the family business and working her way up from the bottom
• Lori shares the way she measures success in business and her personal life
• How can you unplug from work at home when you live with your coworkers?
• Lori shares her favorite book on entrepreneurialism
• How to get in touch with Lori and Miles Fiberglass and Composites

In this episode…

When demands shift, businesses often find themselves rushing to stay ahead of the curve or falling behind it. Succeeding in business long-term means being able to adjust to the changes in your industry when they occur. However, figuring out how to anticipate what’s coming next can help avoid a lot of unnecessary scrambling.

For Lori Olund, keeping the family business running has required ingenuity and flexibility. Fortunately, she has a lot of both. And, while the manufacturing industry has been through many transformations since the ‘80s when Lori started at the company, she’s figured out a way to hold onto employees, prioritize happiness, and keep the business growing.

In this episode of the Measure Success Podcast, Carl J. Cox sits down with Lori Olund, President of Miles Fiberglass and Composites, to discuss what it’s like to run a family business that started back in the ’60s. Lori talks about a program that’s helped motivate employees to learn new skills, what the current pandemic doesn’t have in common with the 2008 recession, and why health and harmony remain two of her most important goals. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Lori Olund on LinkedIn
• Miles Fiberglass and Composites
• Job openings at Miles Fiberglass and Composites
• Aaron Fox on LinkedIn
• Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP)
• SpaceX
• Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
• 40 Strategy
• Contact 40 Strategy
• Carl J. Cox on LinkedIn

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is sponsored by 40 Strategy.

40 Strategy provides strategic planning and consulting to help organizations realize and achieve their dreams by creating and measuring KPIs for success.

Unfortunately, most organizations only spend 2% of their time—or about 40 hours per year—on building an effective strategy.

Increasing the success of those 40 hours is what 40 Strategy does because your success is their passion—and that’s why organizations look to them for guidance.

Not only does 40 Strategy help you craft and implement an effective strategy, but they’ll also work to facilitate teams with proven practices and help with your scenario planning.

Harvard research shows that you can triple your success when you use the right Key Performance Indicators. Who doesn’t want that?

If you have questions, you can reach out through their website or email them at catch@40strategy.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Measure Success Podcast where we feature top leaders on how they measure success in their business and life. Now, let’s learn from their experiences.

Carl J. Cox 0:18

Carl J. Cox here and I’m the host of the Measure Success Podcast where I talk with top leaders about effective strategies that inspire success. This episode is brought to you by 40 Strategy. At 40 Strategy we provide strategic planning, consulting to help organizations organizations realize and achieve their dreams. Lori, basically, we help companies create strategic plans and measure the right KPIs for success. Unfortunately, what’s great, that sounds awesome. Exactly, exactly. And one of the crazy parts is only about 2% of organizations. Sorry, most organizations only spend about 2% of our time on strategy, which is about 40 hours a year, building effective strategy out about by you, but you may have experienced that, that it’s kind of crazy. It’s only about 2%. When you agree,

Lori Olund 1:05

ideas, and yeah, I think because they feel like they’re so busy, they don’t have time. And it is one of the most important things to do. So it’s kind of that catch 22.

Carl J. Cox 1:14

You nailed it. And it’s, we’re, that is actually the number one reason why people don’t do strategic planning and executing is because they lack time and so on 40 Strategy, your success is our passion. That’s why organizations calling us not only will come up with strategy, but we help them facilitate their teams recruiting practices. Harvard research shows that when you use the right key performance indicators, you can actually triple your success. And Lori, I don’t think anybody know wouldn’t want that. We agree.

Lori Olund 1:41

Oh, I totally agree. Yep, we’re trying to get that worked in right now.

Carl J. Cox 1:45

That’s awesome. So if anybody out there in the audience is interested, you can email us at catch@40strategy.com or you could go on our website at 40strategy.com. And before we introduce our guests, Lori Olund, we’re going to just do a quick shout out to Aaron Fox, the president of Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership and CEO and he has been a wonderful person. He’s we’re Lori and I are both on the Board for OMEP. And, and we’ve actually worked with quite a long period of time, and it’s really excited to have you here today, Lori. And so with that, we’re going to do a brief introduction. So Lori Olund is the President at Miles Fiberglass and Composites for nearly for 10 years. You’ve where you’ve successfully managed the company. Miles Fiberglass and Composites has actually been around for nearly 60 years where your father Lowell Miles with $1,000 loan torn down that barn and created a shop. And today you have two locations with over 80 employees. You personally were born and raised here in Oregon. And I love it. You are a true family company. You have seven employees sorry, seven family members, yourself your father you have your sister, your brother in law and two sons that are working at plant. You are a true Oregonian in every sense. You have you love the area, he side and Clackamas, your Portland State graduate. And it is a pleasure to have you here today. Lloyd.

Lori Olund 3:12

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Carl J. Cox 3:15

Absolutely. So I love family businesses. I love organizations that have been around for such a long period of time because you’ve seen so many things. And so for those who might not be familiar with Miles Fiberglass and Composites can you tell people a little bit more about what you do? Yeah,

Lori Olund 3:33

we produce composite fiberglass parts for other OEM so we make the parts that go into other people’s products, such as the Genie high lift all of the RV component parts that go on trailers or motorhomes industrial tanks. We also do parts for SpaceX. And that’s a new client. We also do like trench covers for the wastewater treatment facility. So it’s just a big variety of products. And that’s what kind of makes it fun for us.

Carl J. Cox 4:14

Absolutely. And so I’m interested right now what what is the the biggest issue on your mind that you’re dealing with?

Lori Olund 4:24

Well, we just moved into our new facility, we were going to combine two facilities into one we moved in, and we’re already full interoperability, which is a great problem to have. But so it’s finding space and then finding employees. We were looking to hire 14 employees currently. And it’s just it’s hard to find people out there that want to learn and grow in a manufacturing environment. And once they come they don’t leave. We have employees that have been here for over 20 years. Wow. So, oh,

Carl J. Cox 5:02

you just mentioned, first of all a couple different things for those who are listening and maybe interested in and apply for a job, what we’ll talk about how to contact Miles Fiberglass and Composites. And so you had mentioned is a challenge right now to find people who are interested. It’s not as common, right? where people are looking to be into manufacturing. So what happens when people don’t have the skill sets? How, what do you all do to help make sure that they’re going to fit into your culture well, and actually be able to be effective?

Lori Olund 5:23

Well, we actually decided to do our own in house training program. And we worked with OMEP. And they, we developed a learn to earn, and it does all the training in house, every time you learn a new skill in that in our facility, you earn more pay. So as you can earn as much money as you want, as long as you’re learning new skills, it makes it really great for us, because you’re very versatile, we can put you in a different area as the flow is needed. So it’s a great program. It’s been really good for us.

Carl J. Cox 6:10

That sounds like an awesome program. How long have you had this in place? So for

Lori Olund 6:14

two years, that worked really well.

Carl J. Cox 6:19

And so that’s so you can find those people that you can who want to continue to learn and I love that they will actually get more paid do is to validate competency, is there some way that they have to kind of prove out that they’ve learned a certain skill?

Lori Olund 6:34

Yeah, it’s pretty sophisticated, we have a trainer, we have modules that they go through, and then at the end of their training, there’s a test that they take that they pass and then they get the race. So it’s great.

Carl J. Cox 6:49

That is, I love that. I love that I love that element of it just truly is like true capitalism almost like a piece piecemeal work from years and years ago. That’s how but you haven’t been designed and so adds on to the hourly pay, right? Yeah. I love that. Love that. So I’ve got to imagine you have seen, you know, your you and yourself have been seen so many changes, you know, when when a company is that old, you’ve gone through when you think back to well, the current COVID, of course issue that we’ve all been dealing with, to the 2008 recession to the 2000 recession to the logging years ago, because you’ve been back in the early 80s, you’re with Oregon, what, what has been the most challenging one to overcome from in your experience?

Lori Olund 7:43

I think that was 2008. When the recession hit, it was so hard on us, we literally went down to like 12 employees, we couldn’t find any work to do. And it was a real struggle. And it’s such a difference from now where we have a lot of work, and we’re just trying to find employees and space then is different. This is much better than 2008 when it’s harder to find work than it is to just deal with too much work. And it’s a fun problem to have actually.

Carl J. Cox 8:21

you’d mentioned in the opening, you’re describing Miles Fiberglass and Composites, but one of the areas that you’re involved with is RV inaccurate recreation, why has that been a benefit? today from a market perspective? Why has that been growing?

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