[Transition Music]

Carlos Martinez (01:59):

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening and welcome back to another work-like Laker podcast. I'm Carlos Martinez and as always with me, we have Megan Rickson. Uh, our, our guest today is someone local to us. Uh, another employer friend of ours, it Ryan Hornbeck from fifth wheel freight. And uh, you know, I'm not going to talk about fifth wheel fleet. I'll let him kind of do a little introduction. Can you just tell us a bit about who you are, your background, and maybe more about your company?

 

Ryan Hornbeck (2:30):

Yeah, absolutely. Um, again, Ryan Hornbeck. Um, a little background on me. I grew up in Pittsburgh. I'm not a West Michigan native. I'm a grew up in Pittsburgh. I went to Penn state, um, from Penn state. I got an internship in Michigan. Through that internship, um, I worked there two years at Adrian college. Um, and after that, my boss from that internship, Ryan Thompson, um, got a job out here, Davenport university and there was a full time assistant role, um, open and he brought me with him out to Grand Rapids in Davenport.

I never stepped foot in Grand Rapids before my interview. My only, my only thought of grand Rapids was what people had told me from working at Adrian. And it was, it sounded great and the, the opportunity sound great. And that's how I ended up in West Michigan. After that I got into the private sector. I worked at pettiness, uh, Louis pedis, iron and metal company, which is big here in West Michigan before getting over to fifth wheel freight. Um, I started in fifth bill freight in, July of 2017, in a sales role, um, and in fifth wheel freight. And we can get more into like my work experience and how I grew into a marketing role at Fifth Wheel, um, which is, which is a little bit more detail, but, physical freight. We're third party logistics company. Um, so we don't own any trucks, we don't any the product, but what we do is we connect the dots.

We're, we're working with suppliers, we're working with carriers and we're helping move product all over the country, um, as well as Canada and Mexico. We're over 8,000 loads this, um, this quarter alone. So we're growing. Yeah, yeah. We're in 5,000 the last two years, so we're growing quickly. Um, and we just got named by Transport Topics is one of the top freight brokerage firms in North America. Um, so we're number 126 of over 17,000 in our industry. So we're, we're doing well. Um, in the industry there's

Megan Riksen (04:21):

There’s a lot of growing industry.

Ryan Hornbeck (04:22):

There's, I mean, it's a very, very competitive industry, right? Um, and being, we're number one 26 and it sounds like when you say one 26 by itself, maybe that you're not quite sure how to yeah. How to qualify that. But when you say when there's 17,000 that you're competing with, um, that's a pretty big deal. Um, especially when we were founded in 2012 so we're, yeah. We're not even seven full years into yeah. Into existence. And we, we grew into one of those, so we're, we're very proud of that. Um, and we're very proud of our growth. So.

Megan Riksen (04:52):

Nice. Yeah. Very good. And just, uh, just a quick thing before we kind of jump into our, our big topic today, but, um, in terms of hiring of recent grads, um, I'm assuming most of your positions are sales focused when you're coming in entry level?

Ryan Hornbeck (05:10):

Yeah. So entry level sales focused. Um, but there's also accounting as well. So our big full time roles that we hire into initially, are accounting focused. Your AR is your APS, even credit, um, those types of roles, but then also sales roles. Okay. Then what we do, um, we're very proud of promoting from within our company to whenever roles are available. We even promote our own interns. Um, so we'll, we'll, we'll bring in interns and we'll let them work and we'll give them, um, the ability to, to find their niche within our company as an intern. I was just fortunate to bring on a full-time role within my own department and from an internship. So we, we do that as well. We like bringing them from, from the ground up, so.

Megan Riksen (05:53):

Excellent. Yeah, I think that's just always important for our students to have that context as well. They can imagine themselves working.

 Ryan Hornbeck (05:58):

Yeah. And a lot of Grand Valley interns too. We really do. So. Yep.

Megan Riksen (06:03):

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Carlos Martinez (06:05):

And you know, so they, as you all saw in the, in the title of this episode, we were interested in talking a bit about risk taking and you know, making some changes and what that all could mean for you. And the first thought that came to mind while you were introducing yourself as that you took a pretty big risk yourself when you moved out here from, from Pennsylvania. Uh, how was that experience?

Ryan Hornbeck (6:28):

Yeah, so, um, I knew one person in Adrian and he was the president of the college. Um, you can't call up the president of the college to hang out on a Friday night, so you're kind of off on your own a little bit. Um, but I was, I was very fortunate a little bit too with Adrian is a tight knit community. Um, and that, that benefited me with people just reaching out.

Ryan Hornbeck (06:49):

They, they knew that I was interning. Um, I met one of my best friends who stood up in my wedding working at Adrian, and he just read, he knew I was on my own, so he just reached out to like kind of bring me in to, to get my feet on the ground. But like, like I said, like I moved out there knowing one person and he was, you know, he, uh, he was the president of the college, so it wasn't anybody that I could just on a daily basis talk to or, or lean on.

He's very accessible, but it's just a little bit of a different animal when it's not, you're the guy sitting at the desk next to you. Right. So that was a little bit of a risk. Um, and even moving out to Davenport, again, I knew my boss right from working at, uh, at Adrian together. But I didn't know anybody else in Grand Rapids. And again, I got lucky a little bit, and I think a little of that is the stars aligning. Um, but you don't know if those stars are gonna align unless you, you know, it's, it's the John. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta hop, you gotta hop into the deep end a little bit, see if you can swim.

Megan Riksen (07:44):

Sure, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Very good. Yeah.

Carlos Martinez (07:50):

And what’s interesting about it is the two cities you mentioned are Adrian and in Grand Rapids, right. And outside of, outside of the state of Michigan, they might know Grand Rapids, but Adrian sort of less likely. Right?

Ryan Hornbeck (8:04):

Right.

 

Carlos Martinez (8:05):

And it's a conversation I've had with students when they're considering a position outside of the state or you know, whether it's for an internship or a job, there's always this idea that if it's not a major city or if it's, it could be a smaller area, but it has to be well known. It's fun stuff to do. Right. Or else they won't consider it at all. Right. What are your thoughts in that mindset?

 

Ryan Hornbeck (8:24):

Well, yeah, so I'm a little bit is, I mean, I, I saw the bigger picture with it. Um, and, and that was through, I was fortunate to have a conversation with Dr. Docking, the president Adrian before I took on the internship.

And he's an incredible person, incredible leader. And he talked me through the big picture of where this could lead. Um, and another risk that came along with that internship was after I was done with it, he, he offered me the chance to have a full-time role to interview for it.

So I interviewed for the role down at Adrian and I got it. But I was still taking classes at Penn state.

 

Megan Riksen (8:58):

Oh, really?

Ryan Hornbeck (8:59):

So, my first year at Adrian, I was working probably 60 hours a week and I was taking full time credits online at Penn state. Um, my parents told me I was out of my mind. Um, anybody close to me told me I was out of my mind.

 

Megan Riksen (9:10):

You're moving to Adrian nontraditional, right?

 

Ryan Hornbeck (9:12):

Right. Yeah. You're, you're essentially not, I wasn't making much money at all. Um, but I, at that point I was like, I need to get my career started.

Through the internship, I saw the opportunity that could come about it, especially through the networking side, um, through having, um, some of the, the leaders at Adrian to help me progress forward after it.

He asked me to promise him two years, and I did. But that first year I was taking full time, uh, Sundays I was working on classwork probably eight to 10 hours a day on top of working 60 hours a week to graduate the following summer. Yeah. And like, I mean the, the failure there is like I start slipping in classes and now my degree starts going backwards if, sure. So that was, that was something that my parents even like, I don't think this is a good idea, but I was like, I just had a gut feeling that I needed to do this.

 

Megan Riksen (10:01):

So, do you think that gut feeling is something that can really lead you to take the risk in the first place? Just that feeling like, I thing this seems right?

Ryan Hornbeck (10:12):

Yeah. It was more so like I needed to get, I just couldn't sit still. I needed to get my career started. I knew what I wanted in a career, I knew what I wanted in a job, I just wasn't sure how to get there. And, there's probably like a lot of people and it was just, I need to get this going and this is an opportunity, a doors opening, let's, let's see what, where it leads. Um, so I took it on and I was like, this is, but again, I'm, I'm 23, 24 years old, whatever I was, I mean, what's, what's the repercussion other than I started going backwards in classes a little bit, but then you can always retake the class. Like it's not like a world ending consequence if I don't succeed at that point too. So you got to think about that with taking risks. Like what's honestly, what's the worst that can happen if this doesn't work out? Yeah. So I mean that's it. That was the best decision I ever made. Okay. Seriously. Like it was, I mean, so many opportunities came from that Adrian experience.

Carlos Martinez (11:02):

Yeah. Right. So, beyond the personal growth, you also have some networking that led to other jobs. But one thing that, again, you just mentioned, which, which sparked the thought is you said you're, you know, I'm young, what's, what's the worst that can happen? And there is this real notion that at certain stages of our lives, it can be a little easier to take these big risks, right? Like today, if I were to move across the country, I have to consider my wife and her job. I have to consider my daughter and like the school year.

 

Ryan Hornbeck (11:36):

Right.

 

Carlos Martinez (11:37):

And so taking risks early in life and in your career, it's there, there's less risk involved. Right. Again, this doesn't apply to everyone, right. Every student, every alumni who's listening, you each have your own situation, but you want to take that self-assessment, you know, what are the, and cons of it before determining if, if this jump makes sense for you, right?

 

Ryan Hornbeck (11:58):

Yeah, absolutely. Like, yeah, now I am married now. I just had a son, um, a few weeks ago. Yeah.

 

Carlos Martinez (12:03):

Cong angulations.

 

 Megan Riksen (12:04):

Really?  Two weeks ago?

 

Ryan Hornbeck (12:06):

He's not even a month old.

 

Megan Riksen (12:06):

Oh my gosh.

 

Ryan Hornbeck (12:07):

Yeah. Thank you so much. Um, so obviously yeah, now I would calculate decisions like this a lot more. Um, and it's even like, even something like moving back to Pittsburgh becomes harder and harder because now the roots are being laid here in West Michigan. I'm establishing myself at Fifth Wheel and a career. I'm now married. I have a son, you know, we're looking at buying a house. Like all those things start happening. So how easy is it to move to a different state where you don't know anybody and expand your career? It gets harder. So that's why taking those risks younger is, is huge.

I go back to, I, I rely on like, um, people that have been successful when I start thinking of these, and the cliché one is, is, is Apple and Steve jobs, right? But like, um, it's, it's very, he gave that commencement speech at Stanford, towards the end of his life and he stay young and stay, stay hungry, stay foolish. Was the big line from that, from that commencement speech. The stay foolish part of that is it resonates a lot because a lot of it is you don't know what you don't know when you're young. Right? So I didn't even know what right. Like you don't know what you don't know when you're moving to these places and you're 24 and it doesn't matter. And the worst that he said that the only thing that he could've lost was a van that him and Steve Wozniak shared.

So when they're starting Apple, they're doing out of the garage, right? So like staying foolish is, is great. When you get older, you get wiser and then you start thinking like, what could I possibly lose if this decision is right?

 

Megan Riksen (13:29):

A lot more risk averse.

 

Ryan Hornbeck (13: 31):

So, the older you get.

So it's when I was young, I didn't know. I was just, I'm going to Adrian and I'm going to intern and I'm going to figure out these classes and I don't know how, and I didn't think about the hours that were going to go into it. I just knew I wanted to do it. And, um, and it led to me come to Davenport, I met my now wife when I worked at Davenport. Like all these, the dominant start going whenever you, whenever you start going down the right path and you don't know what that path is and still until you start, it's just, you just take some risks to get there. Right?

Megan Riksen (13:59):

Right. Absolutely. And I think a lot about our, um, our first-year students or transfer students who may be listening who are just coming to Grand Valley for the very first time. Um, and that in itself of course is a risk. So Bravo to all of you out there who are kind of just starting this school year for the very first time at this new institution for you.

But, I think it is helpful to kind of look back at your life at the risks you have already taken. Um, and you can, you can see that even if it didn't work out, even if it was a failure, it still led you to the next thing. Um, so just wanted to put that out there for kind of our brand-new students starting off here at Grand Valley that, um, it's okay to feel scared but dive in. Now's the time.

 Ryan Hornbeck (14:49):

The big thing with that is the internships, right? I tell our interns too is like some of these internships you're going to figure out what you don't want to do real quick. And that's the big thing about those internships and the earlier you can get them. And I wasn't there, I didn't get my first internship and after, till after my third year, you figure out what you don't want to do, um, to along with where you do want to go with your career in gaining career experience. But it, some of these jobs and some of these careers sound great until you're hands on and then you kind of realize, okay, maybe not. So that's not really a risk thing, but like you got to take some chances with some internships and maybe even kind of get out of your comfort zone a little bit too. Cause whenever you get into a career, you're not going to be doing exactly what you want. Even if you're in the right field, you're going to be out of your comfort zone for a little bit until you are able to build yourself up and your career path. So yeah.

Megan Riksen (15:37):

Yeah. And I was thinking for first and second year students, um, maybe, maybe the risk is just reaching out to someone that you don't know yet. You might not be at a place where you're ready to do an internship. Maybe the first step is I just am going to talk to somebody who's in a field that I'm interested in. I'm going to call up Brian at Fifth Wheel Freight because I'm interested in marketing and I have no idea what that looks like in the logistics space. Right? So, and that's scary. It's scary to talk to new people. It's scary to talk to strangers, people you don't know. Um, but that could be a risk in and of itself.

Ryan Hornbeck (16:10):

We're all in that same spot. I mean, I was at the same spot when I had no idea where I was going to go, who I could talk to, how I could get a job, where I wanted to get a job. Right. And, and anybody who's successful now is in that spot at one point or on the road to success. So, um, if as long as you know that whenever you're reaching out, then it's, it takes away the fear of it too a little bit because they all had to come from somewhere. Right?

 

Carlos Martinez (16:38):

So, and you bring up a good point Mikan because we, we've been mostly talking about risk in terms of moving across the country, but, but there's so many other ways that you can risk to, to find some rewards or you know, just to put yourself out there. One example is one of the folks have Fifth Wheel Freight, reached out to us about maybe being on the podcast that's real similar to maybe some of you reaching out to an employer somewhere.

The worst that could happen is we would have ignored them or said no. Like if we didn't see it or something, well there's no harm, no foul. It's just that we didn't, you know, we didn't respond to them. It doesn't change anything else about your day to day? You know, I've got buddies and friends who have started side businesses while they were working full time just because they were passionate about.

There are a bunch of different ways that you could put yourself in, you know, in a position of risk to, to move up in your career or in your personal life. Uh, but when we are talking about those folks who, who maybe aren't young or who, who are young, but like myself, you know, I have my first child, young age, I was about 23. Right? And so the situation for me to be risky changed automatically in a way that I wasn't expecting.

Do you have any thoughts for those folks who may be, have some other responsibilities that, I don't want to say restrict them, that's not a good word, but that they have to consider, uh, you know, multiple factors?

 

 Ryan Hornbeck (18:02):

Yeah, I mean there's always going to be hurdles, right? There's always going to be things that are, are not going to restrict you, but that are going to have to come into play with, with where you're going with your career. Um, and that could be money, right? That could be geography, that could be your, even like your, your degree. We have folks working for us and leadership roles that don't have degrees in the field that they're working in now and they're very successful. Um, so just because the big thing with that I would, I would say especially from a higher ed standpoint, is if you get through, Grand Valley and you study a certain major and then you get out and you're like, okay, maybe I'm not even there.

One, finding a career in that field, um, or two, I just don't want to do it any longer and I'm just kind of had to change the heart of where I want to go with my career. That degree isn't going to hold you back. Um, and that could be one of the factors that why have this, for instance, Poly Si (Political Science) degree. That doesn't mean I can't go into a role in business at all.

 So those types of things, you, you work with them, um, use them to your advantage as opposed to work in them against you. If you have, for instance, like if you have, like you said, a child when you're younger, that what's that going to show? Probably an employer, it's probably going to show some maturity. If you're, you're going to be mature and responsible to be having a kid at 23, 24, you're going to have to hold that responsibility, as opposed to maybe other 24 year old’s who don't have a child and are more so still just not living the college life, but they're just getting out of the college life. So it's a different type of maturity level. It's different types of responsibility level. You can turn any of those, I don't call them negatives, but you can turn any of those personal things that you have into positives and use them, use them for the better.

Megan Riksen (19:50):

And that actually I always like to recall some of our earlier podcasts and that goes back to our very first podcast where we talked about telling your story and how important it is to be able to talk about your life in a way that you know, can communicate to that future employer, the type of person you are, the character you're bringing. Um, not that I'm necessarily advocating that you need to be sharing all these details of your personal life, but what are those elements of your story and maybe these risks that you've taken or even the failures that you had become a very important part of that story because it led you to something new.

Ryan Hornbeck (20:26):

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you think of, um, other, you're going to talk about other risks and other hurdles. People have to get over. You talk about, people coming from other countries and internationals, they have to get over the, over the hurdle of the Visa, the Work Visa. They could be the most qualified person, but their employer has to give them that Visa, that work visa if they're not married, if they're not in school just to get the job. And that's another hurdle. Those types of students have to get past that the, an American student doesn't have to worry about. Right. So, you have to use all of those to your advantage cause they, they took the opportunity to come from different countries here to seek an opportunity. So turn that into a positive, even though they need the visa, they're here and, right.

Right. And they're motivated and they're qualified. So yeah.

 

Carlos Martinez (21:14): 

And, and finding a good support system is also important, right. When it could be, when you're moving into a new role or a new location, you country, uh, finding a way to, to be supported by a mentor, a family member. It's also important when you're going through some, you know, a time of risk taking and change.

 

 

Ryan Hornbeck (21:32):

Yeah, absolutely. I and very fortunate to have some family members that have some success in their career. Um, and when I was leaving, when I was thinking about leaving Davenport and I was applying for a job and I got the job offer from, uh, Padnos and I wanted to get into the private sector and I knew where I knew that higher ed was really great, but it wasn't going to give me where my, wasn't gonna meet my career goals.

 I reached out to, a family member of mine who is, um, had success at PepsiCo. Um, and I said, what do you think? And he goes, whenever you're looking for new jobs, new opportunities, get a two for three for. And what he meant by that is get gain two or three new skills at every new job you take. Otherwise you're going to become an expert in a very narrow field. Um, that could be great if that's the field that you want to take on. But if you want to broaden yourself, which is what I was trying to do and I was trying to eventually get into a marketing role and I was in marketing communications, but as in higher ed and sports information based, those event based, it's, it's, you know, it had its background in marketing but it wasn't totally focused is like what I'm doing now.

He said, gain a two for three for so, and the big thing that I was told is you need to gain some sales experience. Um, that wasn't what I wanted to hear. I didn't want to take on a sales role. Padnos I mean, I didn't want to take on a sales road Fifth Wheel. I did. I mean, but I knew I needed to, to gain those skills to broaden my, my background for sure. So there's two version three first. So that's relying on somebody that, you know, um, who's had success in, in life and in career.

And then having the support system of, I mean, I was lucky that at that point, my now wife Lizzie, she, she helped, um, she said, yeah, go take it. Go take those risks. Um, you know, leave down if that's the opportunity you need, you need to have somebody supporting you because if your closest support system we're telling you now that's going to just put that thought in the back of your head that maybe I shouldn't take this on. So you have to have people behind you standing behind your decisions to, to reinforce it. So, yeah.

Megan Riksen (23:25):

Yeah, absolutely. And the good thing about being a student on campus is there are some built in support systems already. Obviously, the Career Center is one of them. We love to chat with students all the time, um, about how we can support their, you know, getting to that goal or even figuring out what their career goals are and then planning for them. Um, but certainly as, as you were saying, Carlos, to, you know, be able to just rely on the people who are already in your life, your, your family and, and, um, people in the community group or whatever it may be is also really important. And I like that idea of the two for three for where you're constantly thinking, what else can I kind of be adding? How, how can I be improving myself?

Something I like to talk to students about is what could be a course you can take totally outside of your major, right? What could be something that would maybe give you an additional skill? So you're learning advanced Excel, right? We know that's a skillset that is very useful in a lot of different roles. So could you weave that into your academic plan to make that happen? Maybe that's a little bit of a risk. Maybe you have zero background in that, but it could just be the thing that, that really, you know, adds some benefit and value to your future career.

 Ryan Hornbeck (24:44):

Yeah, absolutely. And if you're not quite sure where you want to go with your career, having them on the broader your background from an education standpoint, the better. And when you're looking at, if you're looking at, um, an MBA or a master's degree of any kind to, um, making sure that you're setting yourself up to so you can get into that, that school and qualify for that, that second degree as well. But, again, it's going back towards, um, experiences is just as important as education too. So getting your hands on to those different skills is, is very, very important. And things like writing, um, a lot of students and even myself, I didn't want any part of writing for the longest time. And then I wrote professionally for three years in college athletics. Writing is probably my, what I consider my biggest strength in what I'm doing now is I consider myself a strong writer and look back, you know, seven, eight years ago, I wanted no part of it. Um, so you got to take on those, different skills too because they're going to only help you in writing, especially as one, um, certain students graduate and they're not the best professional writers. So the more you can write, the more you can read that's going to help you in emails, no matter what your career is, you're going to need to write to communicate.

Megan Riksen (26:02):

Are there times you can think of when you did maybe fail at writing something that it just didn't come out the way you wanted and, but that, that propelled you forward in some way?

Carlos Martinez (26:10):

Well, um, so whenever you're writing for and we, we found, um, techniques to, to help ourselves too, but whenever you're writing for websites, um, so for Adrian's website and Davenport's website, we're writing, recaps. We're writing press releases for those websites. Um, there's no spell check. There's no grammar edits on those. On the back ends of those websites on sidearm and Presto are the two platforms that we used. And there's, there's just no edits on there.

So, I mean, you're talking about writing multiple recaps, multiple press releases, sometimes at like 10, 11 o'clock at night, and then you're posting it to the web where everybody can see it. So you spell somebody's name wrong, they see it real quick. You learned attention to detail and writing very, very quickly because, Word can't catch everything. Spellcheck can't catch everything either. So you have to make sure your spelling of particular people's names and those scenarios, um, is, is completely accurate and you're going to hear about it if it's not. So that was one thing that I learned real quick was that the attention to detail and writing is very important.

 Carlos Martinez (27:15):

Right. So sticking with that topic though, failure or messing up or whatever, whatever word that you prefer to use for it. Uh, whenever we take risks, there's always that chance that some sort of failure will be attached to it. Right. And any move that we make in life. Uh, do you have thoughts for those people who based on whatever their meaning is, they failed at it, right? They didn't like the location they moved to. They didn't want, they, they thought they wanted that role, but they ended up hating it or just not enjoying it as much as they did. Uh, how would you advise someone who's kind of going through that right now?

 Ryan Hornbeck (27:51):

I, I went through that. Um, I, so I left, like I mentioned, I'd love to have important, I went to Padnos. Um, and Padnos is a great company, absolutely great company, but it just, it wasn't leading to where I wanted to go and it just, I could see, I kept looking for the long-term and for whatever reason I just kept picturing where's this like big picture careers, what I kept, I was just, I guess my long-term motivator every time I took on a role. Um, and I worked at Padnos, from 2016 until May of 2017. May 2017 came, I had just multiple talks with my wife and, and just over and over again, and I just decided that it wasn't for me. I left and I didn't have another position.

 

Megan Riksen (28:36):

Oh, wow. There’s a, there’s a risk right there.

 

Ryan Hornbeck (28:38):

yeah, very big risk.

I didn't have, um, a guaranteed paycheck coming right after. Um, I left there. I knew that I wanted to leave because I needed to get myself a higher ceiling in, in a marketing career path. And that was a huge risk. I went and then it probably took me six weeks before I found my position at Fifth Wheel. Which has, you know, been an absolute blessing and I've been there nearly two years, but I left without another position.

So, again, it's, it's what is the big, what is the ultimate motivator? Is it the paycheck? Is it, is it the workplace? Is it the location or is it the ultimate career success or the career goal in mind? I just couldn't handle, not getting to where I wanted to go to the point where I'd left a position without having anything behind it.

Um, I went from Adrian to Davenport to Padnos was boom, boom, boom, just right in a row and everything was just lining up one position to another. And then I got to Padnos us something like I just like I needed to get something else. Um, and there was nothing else for eight behind it.

And I ended up unemployed. I ended up unemployed man without a country there for probably six weeks until I was fortunate to find the role, at Fifth Wheel. So, again, it just can't, no fear of failure and you can call, um, I don't want to call Padnos a failure, but then you could call that a failure because it did something out. It was correct. Yeah.

 

Megan Riksen (30:07):

Yeah. Tested something out, it wasn’t right.

 

Ryan Hornbeck (30:09):

Test it out didn't work out for me. It didn't lead into an another immediate role. It didn't lead into a promotion. Um, and, and I almost ended up back at square one.

 

Carlos Martinez (30:24):

Sure. So it's important to understand that not enjoying a particular role doesn't necessarily mean that the company is bad or that, uh, or that something is wrong with you. A lot of times it's just about finding the right fit right? And if you don't find that right fit right, then the, the, the organization or the company won't get what they need because they, you know, they want that employee to be committed and enjoying their role.

And on your end, you know, it's either that you're not satisfied professionally, financially, you know, uh, in a variety of ways. And that's why it's important to continue kind of self-assessing. Where am I at right now? Is this where I want to be in five years or do I see that, like you were talking about that pathway to that next role in my career that I envisioned for myself. So, so thank you for sharing that. That's, that's very, uh, very important point.

 

 

Ryan Hornbeck (31:13):

Yep. If you want to talk about geographic risk too. I, actually after I left Adrian, I needed to, I needed something that was going to actually pay me a little bit more, right? So I started looking for jobs that I'm going to be full time roles with, um, full time benefits and all these things. And I wanted to get into a marketing role. Um, I actually found a marketing communications role in Bismark, North Dakota, um, for the United Way. I ended up moving to Bismark, North Dakota for the United Way to kick off my marketing communications career from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Um, which is, yeah, which is just wild, just absolutely wild. I knew one person out there, which made me think like, okay, this is, I, I'm going to have at least some sort of somebody to rely on and, and, and Bismarck North Dakota, which is very much different than Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Right. And that was, I could call that a complete failure.  I moved out there and it just wasn't, just didn't click. It just didn't click. It wasn't, it wasn't the right thing for me. Um, and I ended up at Davenport after that, it was just a short lived, I guess, risk, right? So I moved out there thinking Mark and communications, I need to get my career started. I don't care where I am in the country, I need to get this thing going and it didn't click.

And then I ended up at Davenport after. And so it ended up all working out for me. But I was, I was willing to move wherever I needed to go to get it done and I got there and it just didn't work. And it was, it was, it was very stressful at the time, but it can't be easy.

Right. But it all worked out. Just, just taking the risk and just packing up my truck and driving to North Dakota and let's, let's try to get some experience.  Let's try to get some experience outside of college athletics. Um, and uh, not to any reward, I guess that was other than life life experience. But yeah, of course.

 

Megan Riksen (33:07):

And who knows what would have happened with Davenport, right? It led you to that.

 

 

Ryan Hornbeck (33:12):

Yeah, for sure. It all worked out, but yeah, at the time it was, it just wasn't a very stressful few weeks of my life for sure.

 

Carlos Martinez (33:21):

Yeah, and you know for those of you who aren't in a position where you can just pack up and go or, or maybe who you don't have a situation where you are able to quit right at your job and move on to the next one.

There are also pathways for you the right way. When I've worked with, when I've worked with folks who maybe have families already and it's a little tougher for them, but one of the things that I'll share is you could, you could volunteer somewhere, right? I worked with somebody who wanted to work with kids and I might've used this in a, in a previous podcast, I'm sorry if you've heard it before of someone who wanted to work with kids and it turns out they were really involved with their children's school parent teacher association and they were pretty involved in their church. It's okay.

Well, those are two avenues right now where you can get more experience working with children or working with, you know, youth related things. And that's what she did. She ended up creating some, uh, it was like a summer camp once a week after the church on Sundays.

And that right there, that the person added it to their resume and they were able to leverage that experience into a new role. Right? So, so there's a bunch of ways you can also be creative if you feel that you need to change, but maybe you also think you're a little restricted in what, what movements you can make.

 

Ryan Hornbeck (34:33):

Yeah, absolutely. Then what we, I mean networking, right? Networking is everything. And you can't have enough friends. You can't know enough people. You don't know what door's going to open up. Just by we do, we do try to do as much community services as we possibly can and Fifth Wheel. And when we do the community service, we try to volunteer as well. And when you're volunteering, you're going to meet new people and you're going to see new opportunities. But the big thing too is we meet people that we end up saying, Hey, you should come work for us.

And like, we'll, we'll run into people all over the place and we'll say, you should, you should come work for us too. So it works both ways too. It's whenever we're reaching out to the community, we'll end up meeting people that were like, you would be awesome if you came working for us. And whether they're working just at a restaurant or whether they're, um, working in a different role and we can just say, Hey, we have an opportunity that maybe it could lead to some long-term success.

Along with going the opposite way, we're, if you're in the other person's shoes, you could meet somebody who's could be your future employer or, or anybody who could run for, advice or anything. So it's huge. Right?

Megan Riksen (35:38):

Right, yeah, it’s that openness, that willingness to talk to that person, to share what you're all about.

Ryan Hornbeck (35:43):

So, listen, just be honest. Just be honest and forthright and you don't know where it's going to go. It's not a guarantee. It's not everybody you're going to meet, it's going to lead to career, but it will eventually. Yeah, it will eventually.

Megan Riksen (35:50):

absolutely. Good. Okay. So we're, we're getting close to the end of our time together. So the Work like a Laker podcast, we want to try a new segment that we're throwing in here that we think will be fun and it's called, Would you Hire this intern? So, Ryan and Carlos, the three of us, we're going to talk about the scenario, kind of what, what we think of, um, the way this this person, this intern acted. So let me throw out the scenario to you.

You're about to give a big presentation to your colleagues and your intern is coming with the handouts. She shows up 20 minutes late with a Starbucks cup in hand. Would you hire this intern?

Ryan Hornbeck (36:32):

My first?

 

Megan Riksen (36:36):

Go for it.

 

Ryan Hornbeck (36:38):

Well, especially at Pittsville Freight, punctuality is everything.

 

Megan Riksen (36:42):

so that would be kind of what you guys do, right? Things to places on time, right?

 

Ryan Hornbeck (36:45):

 Yeah, for sure. Punctuality is everything with us. We, you know, we expect you to, to show up a little bit early and, and working to stay until the work's done. So that would be the biggest red flag in the world to us is, is the punctuality. Um, we, we asked you to be there at a certain time and you're 20 minutes late. The Starbucks cup, you know, we don't know when you bought that. That's not a big thing to us, but like what, you know, what other reason you're 20 minutes late and then, you know, there are situations where possibly that the warrant's a 20 minute late. Um, but we ask you just to be, just communicate, just communicate.

If you're going to be 20 minutes, let us know. Let's know the reason and there's plenty of reasons what that warrant late, right? You know, God forbid, like traffic or in something worse on the road or anything like that weather. But if you're just walking in 20 minutes late, that would probably be a big red flag to write to us leading to future full-time employment.

 

 

Megan Riksen (37:42):

So what if that Starbucks was for you? Would that change anything?  

 

Ryan Hornbeck (37:44):

Uh, I'm going to not change anything. Not at all. I'm not a big, I'm not a big fan of Starbucks rather. I honestly, and this probably sounds bad, I'd rather go to Speedway or Wesco or name a gas station over Starbucks. Tastes burnt to me. It's like burnt good coffee. It's just an it, it just not for me or even Dunkin donuts over Starbucks. Right. Tim? Tim Horton's.

 

 

Megan Riksen (38:10):

Oh wow. You really are going to say we won't, we won't tell them. Yeah.

 

Ryan Hornbeck (38:14):

Hopefully they're not a sponsor of this podcast.

Megan Riksen (38:15):

No, they're not. We don't, we don't have any sponsors. We just get to talk. So yeah, this is good. Well, thanks Carlos. Any, any thoughts on, on that? The punctuality?

Carlos Martinez (38:28):

Punctuality is key. I think my answer is pretty much the same as Ryan's here. Uh, I think anyone could just a second chance, especially when, you know, it's Michigan. It could be the weather, it could have been a during a February storm, who knows. Right.

But if they were just late for the sake of being late and there wasn't a good reason, that's definitely like a big red flag. And it, it's going to be front and center when we're trying to determine whether or not to hire this person.

Ryan Hornbeck (38:55):

Right? Yeah, that's, I mean there's going to be competition for every role and if that's going to be one of the things that is very apparent to your work ethic. Right. That's, you know, that's going to come into play in conversations as to who should we give this full time role.

 

Megan Riksen (39:11):

Right. So, yeah. Cool. Well, thank you for indulging us in our first segment.

Carlos Martinez (39:16):

Well, you know Ryan, we don't want to take any more of your time. It's been a pleasure getting to know a bit of more, a bit more about your background abide or you know, organizations you've been a part of, but fifth wheel free today. Uh, do you have any, any parting words, thoughts that you'd like to share with the audience and it could be related to the organization thinks that you want to share?

Ryan Hornbeck (39:37):

Um, no, I mean I think this has been really great. I mean we're, we're just really excited to, to continue to work with grand Valley. We really are. And, um, I know as soon as I saw Susan's name on the door down the hall there and, we've been talking with Susan Proctor a little bit of just working, building relationships with Grand Valley students. So we're just super excited to, to be involved in, like I said, we, we bring on grand Valley students all the time, so we're, we're just excited to be on campus and, and hopefully we can come back and do another podcast soon, so. Awesome. Alright, great. Well, thanks a lot.

Carlos Martinez (40:10):

We went for tuning in today. Uh, we hope to catch you back again in about a month from now. I don't know the exact date, but it will be October. So be on the lookout for that episode.

Carlos Martinez (40:20):

 Have a great day.