David Peacock of Hytrol Conveyor Company shares how his time in the Marine Corp has influenced his leadership skills as company president – both during the modern age of lightning-fast digital and technological advancements… and especially during the COVID era. Danny: Well, thank you for joining me today on today's Executive Series. I am joined by David Peacock who is the President of Hytrol Conveyor Company from Jonesboro, Arkansas. David, thank you so much for joining me today. David: Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. Danny: Absolutely, well, I'm excited to kind of jump in and just talk to learn more about you and about Hytrol. But, before we jump into everything, can you just tell me and the audience a little bit about Hytrol, who you guys are, and what you guys do? David: Okay, we're a family-owned private company making conveyors. We were founded in 1947, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and relocated to Jonesboro, Arkansas, in 1962. We make high-speed sortation equipment controls, the full breadth of conveyor products that you expect from a company in our industry. And, we've got about 1,300 employees. We've really grown over the last three or four years in terms of the number of employees and the volume of business that we've been doing. So, it's been a very exciting time for us. Danny: Excellent, well, there's a lot going on, obviously, in the industry, a tremendous amount of growth and we'll get into that a little bit here later in the episode. But, before that, I want to know a little bit more about you, David. Tell me your background. How did you get involved in the industry? David: I grew up in North Carolina. I have moved around quite a bit. I've actually lived in 13 states and so I've got-- Danny: Oh, wow. David: I have moved quite a bit. Coming out of high school, my best friend talked me into going to the Citadel, in Charleston, South Carolina. And then, he decided that he didn't want to go, so I went down there by myself. Fantastic opportunity. I recognized that that was the start of the journey that opened a significant number of doors and so I'm very appreciative of the experience that I got there. The Marine Corps actually paid for me to go to college and so I went there. I earned a scholarship from those folks and went into the Marine Corps and served as a First Lieutenant, then got promoted to Captain for about a little over 10 years and got out in the mid 90s, then joined corporate America. I went to Rubbermaid to begin with in an operations role. Had a really great time there. Got an opportunity to move into material handling, but it was on the vehicle side in 2001 up in Wisconsin. I worked for a company called OmniQuip. We got purchased two years later. I moved to Pennsylvania with JLG Industries. Again, material handling, but again vehicles. And, in 2007, got recruited to move to Texas to stand up a facility for a European company in an operations role and was there until 2014 when I got the opportunity to come here. Most of my experiences, you see, is primarily in operations. But, coming here was a huge opportunity. I'm the third president in the 73 year history of Hytrol. Danny: Wow. David: Was founded the company, was president until the early 90s, and then Gregg Goodner was the president until I took over in 2015. So it's been a really… It's the American dream story. I mean, it's where I started and the path that I took to get here. I'm very fortunate to be in this role. Mr. Loberg created an incredible company and love being at Hytrol. Danny: That's awesome. No, I love the hearing about the American dream. And just hearing your sense of gratitude on that.