Speaker 0 | 00:09.547

Hi, nerds. It’s Michael Moore, and I’m here with Travis Pierce, Director of Information Technology at Tillamook County Creamery Association. Welcome to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Hey, Travis, how’s it going?

Speaker 1 | 00:21.417

Great. How are you doing, Michael?

Speaker 0 | 00:22.658

I’m doing really good. As the audience is aware, we do a quick icebreaker segment called… random access memories the idea here is i ask a question you respond back with the answer that comes to your head first so your first question is back in the day what was your favorite computer based music player application oh

Speaker 1 | 00:47.571

i don’t know if i’m going far enough back but uh i loved napster i was sad to see it go that’s necessarily a player um you I tried to avoid like the Apple products, I think, as long as I could and then switch to them. So I had all kinds of different like older MP3 players, some of them made by sports companies and some of them just random.

Speaker 0 | 01:10.784

It’s amazing now that we just kind of move past that and, you know, onto the other apps. What do you wish everyone understood about IT?

Speaker 1 | 01:21.611

Oh, that’s a great one. I think probably the thing that comes to mind first is that. There’s a lot of really good business people in IT that drive a lot of benefit for companies, whether it’s through automation or just, you know, clear data to make decisions. But a lot of us have like a really good base of business knowledge to apply the technology.

Speaker 0 | 01:51.636

I’d say, I mean, it’s a great question. That’s a great piece. I think we’ll explore that a little bit later about the business knowledge, but yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re a hundred percent accurate on that. And if you had the opportunity to name a search engine, what would you name it?

Speaker 1 | 02:05.687

Help. You better run. It seems like I’m always going there to get help.

Speaker 0 | 02:14.955

You better run, copyright that because someone’s going to steal that from you. that’s the primary usage for me whether it’s yeah whether it’s in it or i’m trying to figure out how to fix something on my motorhome you know i um i i want to start off here i was uh you know looking at your linkedin figuring out what you do and there’s not a lot on there that uh tells me a lot about what you do which means i’m just going to ask you more questions um that’s a good thing i guess yeah i’m not uh

Speaker 1 | 02:49.132

You know I’m not a good marketing person then.

Speaker 0 | 02:53.453

So the question that I’m going to ask, the first one I think I’m going to ask you is, listen, all I know about Tillamook is cheese. So tell me, what does Tillamook County Creamery Association do?

Speaker 1 | 03:08.257

Sure. Yeah. So we’re a dairy CPG, consumer products company. We’re pretty vertical, though. So, yeah, our cheese is our flagship. That’s our mainstay product, various different kinds of cheeses. But our cheddar is the most popular. But we also make ice cream. You should be seeing some of this more distributed across the country because we started a big push to do that about three years ago. But we also make yogurt. We have cream cheese. We have…

Speaker 0 | 03:42.767

Travis. Travis. You’re making me hungry,

Speaker 1 | 03:48.371

man. You can only see like this part of me for a reason. I started working here. Yeah. Yeah. But various other dairy products that have the Tillamook brand on them. So but we’re a farmer owned co-op, which is a little unique and makes it a lot of fun here. So, you know, our dairy farmers own the company. Um, so they are the members of our board. And of course we have some executives and some board advisors that are CEOs pulled in from, uh, um, larger companies also. So, yeah. It’s,

Speaker 0 | 04:24.273

you know, this is, is, is amazing too, because, you know, I get a lot of, um, questions about, uh, uh, folks that, you know, they talk about it and they referenced in these tech companies and they referenced in different stuff, but, um, in, uh, working with, uh, different businesses, I’ve, I’ve just learned. The IT needs in all different companies, including dairy companies, which I’ve actually done IT for a dairy company before. And it’s interesting because it’s not the first thing you think about when you think of a dairy company needing so much IT and work. definitely is a thing and it definitely is a, you know, a pretty big deal. Let’s talk about Tillamook’s, you know, IT needs and what you do specifically in there to help, you know, move their company forward.

Speaker 1 | 05:23.656

Sure, sure. Yeah, I could probably start by answering. I’ve worked some, I’ve kind of like had a career where I’ve always worked at a place where I’m really passionate about. products and worked for some great Northwest brands, Warren Industries. They make off-road products, Leatherman Tool Group. They make the handheld folding tools. And I thought those were complicated businesses. And okay, I’m going to tell them, you know, how complicated could milk be and processing milk? It is super complicated. We’ve had people that have come in from high-tech companies in here and being like, whoa, this is really a complex business. You know, a lot of different and various partners, but…

Speaker 0 | 06:01.620

Can you give us a quick example of the complexity?

Speaker 1 | 06:07.644

Yeah, a lot of it, like just take like, boy, I don’t want to make the conversation boring, but just inventory. So if you’re, you have trucks going around to dairy farms. Sorry, I had a call. Sorry. You have trucks going around and collecting milk from dairy farms. So we’ll go to five dairy farms. It all goes in one tank. Each one of those. farms, they got to test that milk because that’s how we pay the farmers is based on the protein and the fat, you know, the components inside the milk. That milk goes to our factory, gets put in a humongous silo. So tracking that inventory is super complicated because it’s a, you know, it’s a raw material that’s liquid based. We got to keep track of the component trees and it all gets kind of mixed together and standardized before we send it through to the next step to make cheese.

Speaker 0 | 06:56.932

And sorry to jump in here, but I’m probably curious about this stuff and I don’t want to lose my train of thought. Is this is this application, you know, it goes into is it a proprietary application or there are there like third party dairy programs? I don’t know the answer.

Speaker 1 | 07:15.782

There are. We we use one of them that’s third party that we use to track that componentry in order to pay our farmers based on the quality and the volume of the milk. Then we have more of this common commercial systems for ERP. We do have a manufacturing execution system that also integrates with the lab system that we have that also keeps track of the quality of the products that we make, but then it also maintains a database of the quality of the milk that comes in. And then we have the other side of it. into the supply chain is, um, you know, our footprints in the Northwest, but we’re distributing across the country now. So we, we do a lot of work with co-manufacturers, um, third party, uh, warehouses, um, to get the product to, you know, that last mile to, to, to customers like Publix and Kroger, Costco. Right. Um, so there’s a lot of, a lot of transactions that go behind that.

Speaker 0 | 08:21.286

It has the, um, as the, uh, uh, supply chain. uh, um, been a, been a thorn in your side recently.

Speaker 1 | 08:30.775

Yeah. I mean, we’ve, uh, we’ve been able to kind of manage our way through it, but there’s been, um, there’s been all kinds of things like the one that’s kind of top of mind is like packaging. There’s been a packaging shorter, John, like a certain kind of resin that we use in some of our products. So that’s, that’s affected some of our fill rates. Um, and so, yeah, I mean, it, it has the, you know, and then there’s just a, the inflation, um, you know, milk is federally regulated and the price is really high right now. Right. So that, that puts a strain on our business. Then of course, you know, the gas prices that trickles down from your, from your freight companies, um, you know, with surcharges and those kinds of things. So,

Speaker 0 | 09:12.915

so, so with these pressures, uh, that have been put on that industry, um, I, you know, I, I would imagine that you, that, you know, maybe your, your team has been looking towards you. as a way to figure out a way to, you know, do some transformation, get, do some improvements and stuff and, and help, help them be more productive and efficient. Is that a fair statement?

Speaker 1 | 09:38.433

Yeah, definitely. So we’ve had some, some wins and some challenges with that. And, you know, some of the wins has just been communications. That’s been, that’s been a really big win for us. We’re, uh, We’re using Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Just kind of use it where it makes sense, right? Both of those systems. So we’ve been able to keep the company connected that way. And then some of the more challenging things is we had a full system, you know, multiple systems that we decommissioned and went with new systems back in 2019. Then COVID hit, and then the demand just spiked because the country was stockpiling, right? Stockpile and cheese, stockpile and ice cream, right? So that was a little challenging with that happening four months after our go-live. So we spent a good year stabilizing and optimizing those systems.

Speaker 0 | 10:34.519

I bet that was a major challenge. Now, when you are in a mode like this, so you start off, hey, we’re going to do a tech transformation, right? The world experiences an event that is unprecedented, right? Completely spikes your, and this, you know, this was a, you know, every different business was, it came differently, right? But such a staple, such as dairy, you know, went through the roof, right? Supply chain also having problems at the same time creates such a giant mess. How do you sort through that? How do you step in and say, guys, this is what we need to focus on. Let’s identify what challenges we have. Let’s pick these apart and let’s start fixing them one by one. How do you manage that communication both, you know, in every different way? Right. Because you’ve got communication coming from the executives. You’ve got communication coming from. Your clients, you’ve got communication coming from your team, from the different departments, and I imagine different farmers, right? So, you know, so how do you manage all that and then put together a plan and stay on track for what seems to be a successful tech transformation?

Speaker 1 | 12:04.299

Yeah, we, I, you know, I would start by just one word. It’s people and people in IT, certainly. But. But people, the employees at Telemuc really just rallied around everything within our business, whether it was technology, customers, partners or suppliers. And just there was a lot of hard work, a lot of long hours to get through that. But it was really, I speak less about the technology that we put in and more about the people. So we have partnerships with… everybody that we work with in our company. And that’s how we prioritize. And a lot of the prioritization in 2020, and it continued into 2021, and we’re still focused on it. IT always automates. So it’s automation. Okay, how do we take the labors and the clicks out of the system in order to make things easier to, whether it’s just, you know, processing an order or shipment or a production order to make cheese? That was a lot of the focus. So,

Speaker 0 | 13:13.918

you know, it’s interesting to bring up people because I have found that and especially talking to people over and over again, people always comes up as a as a defining moment of whether or not a project is successful or not. Right. And. And I can’t stress how often it comes up. People, communication, and teamwork in some type of order. And it’s easy to say, right? It’s easy to say, yeah, everyone just needs to get together and be a team and do this. But it’s very hard in reality to do this. And what I found is because there’s many people that have competing interests. There’s many people that want to do things one way but not another. They like the way things are and then they don’t want to change. So there’s all these adversities, right, to change and to efficiency and these major projects that can be very disruptive. So it sounds to me that you had a really good, not just internal IT team, not just internal Tillamook team, but all together, it looks like everything was. working in your favor in there. Did that just land on your lap or, or, uh, was there, uh, some, you know, or, or did you have a, uh, have a say in how that happened because you use communication techniques?

Speaker 1 | 14:47.727

Yeah, yeah. I think to start with, I think that I think our company did a good job of making sure we had a good a good base of people in IT, in sales, in customer service, in our warehouses before we, you know, before we started the transformation. And then during that project, we had a pretty, pretty keen focus on change management. We used Adcar. that pro sheet model of a ad car to, to make people aware of what we were doing, um, you know, kind of establish that desire from them, give them the information. So they, they, they, they knew what they were doing. I think, I think if I’m, you know, truly honest, I think we did like many, many it projects or business projects that use technology. Um, I think we could have spent more time training, but I think the effort that we put into the change management, at least there was awareness and, there was support for what we were doing. So then once we went live, not all the ownership was in IT. I think, you know, that was spread out. So that kind of created the rally around the new systems to, you know, to operate our business. Does that answer your question? Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 15:58.379

And I also like how you mentioned that not all the onus basically is on IT. And for the business leaders listening here, I’m going to reiterate again how important it is to effectively communicate strategy and effectively communicate goals of a project to make sure and ensure its success moving forward. And it sounds like that’s what happened. It sounds like you had good leadership that helped communicate and push the goals for what was going to happen and what the end game was. So people understood the change, right? And is that if I hit it on the head there. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 16:42.668

yeah. And we also, this is a little bit of a soapbox for me because I’ve done, I’ve been part of one and then I’ve done three of these where I’ve been in the middle of it or leading a transformation. And I don’t think I would do one of these at a company if you didn’t pull your best people from around the business and put them on a team to implement a system this big. And we, you know, I guess ERP is the best example, but that’s what we did. Oh, that’s what we had. yeah, fully dedicated people to it. It wasn’t, you know, just a part of their job. Cause in the long run, you get it done a lot quicker. You don’t save money by, by not doing that. And, you know, bringing in people that may not know your business very well. So we, you know, we backfilled positions where we needed to, to, to bring in those dedicated people. And, and we were able to, to, to do it. And I think 18 or 19, I think it was 19 months. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 17:37.417

But you know, it’s interesting. You talked a lot about getting this team together. And a lot of the pieces that you’ve had and told me about is about working together, getting teams together and stuff. And one of the things I saw on your LinkedIn profile is that you had 74 endorsements for cross-functional team leadership. That’s really bad.

Speaker 1 | 18:01.648

I didn’t even know that. I mean,

Speaker 0 | 18:04.969

look on your skills, right? Look on your skills. Seventy-four endorsements on cross-functional team leadership. And I would be remiss if I didn’t bring this up and make you talk about it because I feel like we should talk about it. You seem to have a bunch of folks that think you’re excellent at this, right? So tell me why you think 74 people have endorsed you for cross-functional team leadership.

Speaker 1 | 18:34.951

Yeah, I think it’s pretty simple. I think I get back to the people. I, you know, I, I love technology. I do, but it’s nothing without people using it. So, and I think a lot of the, a lot of the times the weight is on the technology, you know, more so than it is on the people. But I, I kind of, I like to take the approach of putting the weight more on the people than the technology. So, you know, through some of the mentors I’ve had here at Tillamook and in the past, I, I. I try to be as great a communicator as I can, try to get all the tech speak out of it. I like using analogies.

Speaker 0 | 19:13.053

I am also a fan. I am also a fan of analogies. I love them. They really do help bring that tech speak into something that people can actually understand.

Speaker 1 | 19:23.776

Just yesterday, we were talking about our old ERP system, which was an on-prem system. It was just… really heavily customized and we moved to a cloud system and we can still customize that cloud system to kind of do what we need it to. But how do you describe that to somebody? And I describe it as the old system was like a brick of clay and you could take it, you can mold it any way you wanted to, but. To upgrade it, get it back to where it was, nearly impossible. The new system is like Legos. You can’t change the brick, but you can build the bricks onto it and make what you want. That’s an example of that. I think if you can do that, people can understand a little bit better that aren’t as techie as maybe we are. I think that’s a good…

Speaker 0 | 20:16.634

That’s an excellent analogy. I think it’s a great way to help people understand that. And it’s funny when you think about it, right? Because as technical as people think we are and working through this, you know, the first thing that we have to really be good at is working and talking and communicating with people. It’s the basis of everything that you want to get done with. tech with technology and i think a major reason to that is because technology uh you know similar to if we want to use analogy similar to when i go take my car in to get it fixed right i know zero about cars and when i take my car in and they go well your room was uh i’m like i i don’t know fix it i don’t know what to tell you right like i can’t i can’t help it um but if i had a car guy or a car person sitting there saying, hey, you know, this is what’s wrong. And it’s kind of like, and they give me an analogy. I’m going to be like, I understand that. I get it now. I can make my decision. So it’s very, it really is all about how you communicate. And it’s probably a good test. And you probably are an excellent communicator already. I can see it. And that’s probably a good part of the reason why you’re, you’re got 74 people endorsing you.

Speaker 1 | 21:42.544

You’re never done learning how to do it too. So you’re always trying to, trying to improve because you never get it perfect. And our, our transformation, like, you know, communicate transparent, apparently it didn’t go perfect. I mean, it was, it was really challenging. And you know, we’re, we’re on the other side of it and in a, in a much better place now, but, but yeah, if we didn’t have that communication and the people side of it. kind of the people rallying around the systems and around the business to to meet that demand um yeah it i just i think people first with how we yeah you know it’s amazing to me you mentioned uh you know it didn’t go perfect right and

Speaker 0 | 22:25.902

and rarely anything does yeah right i mean in in technology uh and in any major really major project that goes forward you are going to have challenges and adversities and things you need to overcome. It doesn’t mean that the project’s not successful. It doesn’t mean that, you know, it just means that something was unexpected and, you know, you can plan, but you can’t plan for the thing you don’t know. All right. And eventually something’s going to come up and it’s going to, you know, rear its ugly head and you’re going to have to overcome that. You’re going to have to challenge that. Let me ask you a second. If if you run into something that you don’t know, right, or you run into something that you was unplanned, how do you, how do you, uh, handle that? How do you grab it, uh, figure it out and move forward from that, uh, and handle that, those challenges, uh, that you may not be even, you might not even understand.

Speaker 1 | 23:31.470

Sure. Sure. Well, I’ll go to that help search engine that I’m going to start now first, right? Yeah, no, that is, you know, one place you can go. But I, you know, I start talking to people, you know, whether it’s in my network, people that I’ve worked with in the past or partners or whatever, people inside the business to try and gain more knowledge, try to find people that are not knowledgeable about that thing I don’t know. That’s one thing I don’t have a problem admitting when I don’t know something. I don’t know. I’ll get back to you. It’s something I say a lot.

Speaker 0 | 24:09.257

Let me stop there. I’m going to repeat this for everyone so they hear it. For business leaders, IT doesn’t know everything. For our tech audience, it is okay if you don’t know everything, or you can’t. It’s impossible to know everything. That’s why we have Teams, and that’s why we have the Help search engine. Yeah, that’s an important piece to it. It’s okay to not know. You know, heck, I go through this podcast and I talk to people and I learn things all the time talking to them. Right. This is a great way for me even to learn things that I that I hadn’t known. I know more about dairy than I know. I knew it one hour ago. Right. So.

Speaker 1 | 24:56.140

uh so we can take it from there yeah yeah yeah and i only hit on a couple things with the dairy that make it complex too so there’s there’s probably many others i’ll think of after our conversation here i was like i should have said that yeah yeah you uh how did you get into the to the dairy industry uh from a tech standpoint um so i um i i’ve always reported up through finance um which is kind of interesting. I don’t know if I’m in a minority there or not in IT, but the CFO at Tillamook was a CFO that I reported to at Warren Industries. So we had always stayed in touch. And I spent about five years at Leatherman Tool Group and she contacted me and said, hey, we have an opening. And it sounded like a new and exciting challenges, but it was a really tough decision. I love Leatherman. I still do. But that’s how I got into it. Um, and it, yeah, it was, it was, it was a pretty big learning curve, um, getting into that industry. I mean, just like food and beverage, I think in general is, is pretty complex. You know, you, you got these products that don’t sit on a shelf forever and, you know, you know, a winch or a Leatherman tool can sit, sit on a, you know, on a warehouse, uh, shelf for, for a year and then you sell it and it’s the same product, not the case with, uh. with cheese and ice cream, especially our cheese that ages and then kind of turns into a different product, right? Cheddar goes to sharp cheddar. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 26:27.983

Well, yeah, if you leave, and if you leave milk on the counter, certainly it’s going to be a different product in about an hour or so. Yeah. So, um, quick question, uh, you know, based on that, you had mentioned, um, about your, um, you know, uh, about this, you know, reporting into the, uh, CFO. Um, and I, and I seem that, you know, I personally, I’ve done it before too. I’ve, I’ve reported that, you know, it’s not always the C I’ve reported in the CEO, the C CFO, CIO, name it. It’s just, they keep adding, you know, keeps adding it, adding in. Um, so I’ve had a whole different variety. Um, one thing I found interesting, and maybe we can get into this is that when you report into a CFO, or if you have a close. you know, close dialogue, continuous talks and chats with a CFO. One of the great things that can happen is an understanding of the financial structure and the way they do finance. And the way that you do your purchases, your subscriptions, how you handle certain items, how to reduce costs. all that stuff starts to come to the forefront. And you can find a lot of synergies that way and help reduce costs without, you know, sacrificing, you know, technology and or processes and stuff in the company that are extremely important. I’ve noticed this. What about you?

Speaker 1 | 28:11.577

Yeah, no, I have. And, you know, especially when you have a CFO that understands technology, too. Um, it’s also not bad to have the, you know, that, that, that, uh, executive leader that kind of is managing the finances for the whole company, really understanding your area and your budget. Um, so, so there’s less questions, uh, about some of that too. So that, that, that, that I’d say I’ve had that experience also.

Speaker 0 | 28:37.669

You know, there was a, um, back when I was a, uh, it was on this podcast as a guest, right? Um, uh, we had a conversation about. IT and not treating it as a cost center, but instead treating it as a partner to help reduce costs and drive change within the company. One of the things I believe strongly in is that is using the IT department in that function to help drive change and help reduce costs. it sounds like you you’ve done a little bit of that or a lot of it really um at least at tillamook and i’m probably sure you’ve done it in in prior uh prior spots but uh at tillamook uh have since you’re in you’re reporting into the cfo at tillamook correct yeah yeah so what’s the so tell me a little bit about that and and ways that you uh you don’t have to get super specific but ways that you found you know to kind of you know I guess we got the drive change part with the tech transformation, maybe the reduced cost piece.

Speaker 1 | 29:45.314

Yeah. Um, I think at Tillamook, we’re just kind of starting to get into that right now with the, with the, with starting to see some, uh, cost reductions. Although, you know, the metric I’ve always kind of used has been that kind of standard one, like your, your it, um, budget as a percentage of your revenue. Right. And, um, we’re starting to see that decline right now. Um, where I’d say it was kind of steady. It might’ve ticked up a little bit right after our transformation, but, um, but, uh, But now we’re seeing that start to decline as our revenue goes up. Yeah. So it’s kind of a macro look at it, but yeah.

Speaker 0 | 30:21.182

It’s a great look at it. In fact, anywhere between 1.5% and 3% is usually around the area of which your budget would be for an IT company. Sorry, for an IT and a company. But it can vary depending on the industry, right? And it can also vary depending on whether or not. You’ve got projects in place. And if you’re doing internal coding for a proprietary application rather than grabbing it from a third party, that can also vary too. So there’s some interesting variants there. But yeah, that’s a great way to start and a great way to track whether or not that that’s the case. And good point. you know you can and there’s two parts of the equation right you can reduce cost but you can also drive change and then uh and it may be that you need an investment uh uh initially to drive change that will re that you can prove will reduce uh cost in the future uh by efficiencies and all those uh certain items um i i was also interested in this automation because you had kind of mentioned that uh you know um you mentioned automation mentioned different pieces of it And I was interested to hear some of these examples of automation in dairy, right?

Speaker 1 | 31:47.721

Sure. Yeah. Well, I can go kind of at the plant level. We’re pretty heavily automated with programmable logic computers that we use to control some of the equipment that we have out on the plant to make our products. And one of our big wins from our transformation was we really demarcated our plants from the ERP system. So there really isn’t any dependency on the ERP system, at least for a certain period of time for our plants to run, which is great. So there’s a fair bit of automation there with our production orders and that kind of thing.

Speaker 0 | 32:30.417

So let me ask you about that. So is the idea there that if you decoupled the… uh, ERP from the plant. If the ERP experienced a problem, if plants could keep moving.

Speaker 1 | 32:41.771

Correct that. And we knew that we would have like, uh, that our vendor would have maintenance on the ERP system and we’re 24 seven. I mean, the other unique thing about dairy that a lot of people may not think about is you can’t turn a cow off. So the raw materials coming in all the time on Christmas, um, any other day of the year. 24 seven. So, you know, our systems really can’t stop. So, um, so that was a lot of the base of it.

Speaker 0 | 33:12.938

Is, is, you know, that could be your slogan for the health, uh, search engine. You can’t turn a cow off. So why would you turn a search engine off?

Speaker 1 | 33:20.304

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 0 | 33:24.147

That might be one of my favorite quotes so far. You can’t turn a cow off.

Speaker 1 | 33:28.731

Somebody love invent a way to, to.

Speaker 0 | 33:31.474

turn a cow off you would be a billionaire there’s no there’s no pause button on it uh so a lot of automation coming at the plant level a lot of autumn you know you know it’s funny the other day i saw a commercial uh with a a milk person delivering milk right and i thought to myself do we still have that is that still a thing like do people get milk delivered you Except for like the, you know, the instant grocery cart shoppers and stuff. But I guess that’s my question. How do you get stuff that can spoil so quickly from point A to point B as quick as possible?

Speaker 1 | 34:22.041

Yeah, it’s… So that’s always a challenge. But gosh, I hate to be repetitive. I go back to our people. We have really good controls from the time that the product’s made to the time it goes into a shrink wrap and it gets put into our warehouse, put on a truck. It’s a very controlled environment by our people and then our partners. So yeah, and to answer your question, we actually, my family, we get milk delivered. Alpenrose here in the northwest does deliveries right to your door and we’ve even ordered some of our Tillamook products and they deliver that to yogurt. I,

Speaker 0 | 35:00.084

so you, you answered my question there, there still is milk delivery, uh, to this day. I, uh, I didn’t know that existed. I might look into the milk delivery now. No, that’s, no, that’s great. I mean,

Speaker 1 | 35:12.667

I think it kind of, I think it kind of came out of the pandemic too. I think, uh, I’m not, I’m not for sure, but I’m not sure that’s, if that’s when they started delivering again, but we’ve, we’ve, we’re still doing it. So every Thursday. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 35:25.431

I know that I no longer, go into a store and, and, and go to try and, uh, um, find all my products and, and then check out, I, I will put it on an app and, and walk, park the car and they deliver it right out to me. And then I drive back. Right. So, um, I know that, uh, uh, I know the pandemic shifted and changed a lot of, a lot of those dynamics. So it’s interesting to see how that, how that’s, uh, coming up after the fact. Um, and I know that the pandemic changed a lot of the way that the supply chain worked and, and we still have a lot of that in flux and changing. There was a several companies that I had a pleasure to work with kind of in, I guess, mid pandemic mode. And they were, you know, trucking companies and, and different companies that supported the logistics and supply chain. And And they were just slammed. They were just slammed. They had no time to talk. We’re in constant mode to try and meet the demand and we’re hiring like crazy. Um, so I can imagine, uh, even at Tillamook, I can probably imagine that you guys probably had to go through, uh, a lot of, um, uh, additional hires and as well. Right. And, uh, and on board a bunch of people, uh, during this process, is that, uh, is that fair to say?

Speaker 1 | 37:04.122

Yeah. I don’t know if we had like, uh, a bunch of people that we had to onboard. Um, but I can tell you that, uh, I tell you, um, starting with the pandemic year of 2020, and even until now, it is, it’s really, it’s a tough market to find, um, to find people. Um, and We’ve definitely seen that duration it takes to recruit and onboard has increased. I’m sure everybody who’s listening has been dealing with that, not just in IT. Yeah,

Speaker 0 | 37:38.331

you should have conversations with the recruiters. They’re also about to fry it out. I think I had several conversations and it’s just always this exasperated, oh, yeah, no, it’s been a tough one. But, you know. Let’s talk about real quick about hiring and hiring good people. You’ve mentioned a lot about how people are a huge key to success. The right people, the right attitudes, the right culture, that kind of thing. Let’s talk about hiring people and hiring the right, and let’s just do IT people, hiring the right IT people to make sure that you’re successful. And when you go to hire, what are you looking for? Because, you know, I know that when I hire folks, I don’t necessarily look for the people that are, you know, the geniuses about certain items. Sometimes I’ll look for people that I know have the capability to learn quickly and adapt. And that’s kind of my thing. But I’m interested to hear yours.

Speaker 1 | 38:50.591

Yeah, I would say we’re. we’re really culture first here at Tillamook got a strong culture and, but it also kind of depends on the, on the position. I mean, if it’s a, I guess there’s not too many of these in our department anymore where it’s like really back end, really highly technical, that that’s a different, that’s probably a different approach than if it’s somebody that’s working with different people from around the, around, around our business. But I think we’re culture first with, with, with our hiring. And I think that’s, you know, communications and that people side is next. And to your point that you just made, if we have to, if we have to do some teaching and coaching on the technical side, I think we’d rather do that than, than hire somebody that’s really highly technical, but just that doesn’t have the people skills because they’re going to stroke, they would struggle here. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 39:43.581

Now listen, don’t get me wrong. If I can, if I can get both, I will.

Speaker 1 | 39:48.560

Exactly.

Speaker 0 | 39:49.241

Yeah. No, that’s a good point. You know, I would love to kind of move into the… you know, a new segment I started, which was the IT crystal ball, right? And the idea with the IT crystal ball is that we kind of get to peek into what we think the future may hold in IT so that we as IT professionals can start to wrap our heads around where we should start putting our, you know, our attention. And at least and at least focus on those items so we understand them as they come up. There’s so much we could talk about with this. But since you’ve been through automation, that’s where I want to go. I want to go, what is the, for our IT crystal ball, what is the future of automation?

Speaker 1 | 40:48.354

Yeah, we’ve kind of had a motto here, automate always in all ways. And we’re nowhere near where we want to be. I mean, we’re… we’re coming up on three years removed from some of these new systems. So there’s a lot of opportunity we have for, for automation. But one of the things that really comes to mind for me, and I, this don’t have to go down a rabbit hole is this whole, you know, blockchain web three technology, you know, we’re, we’re having a lot of conversations about that and what that’s going to mean for, for our business, for the people that consume our products. and, you know, how we, how we approach, um, entry into that. Um, so that’s one thing that comes to mind.

Speaker 0 | 41:33.045

So let’s, let’s, let’s explore that real quick before you move on. Um, for our listeners, let’s talk about blockchain for a minute. And if you can give, use your fun little analogies, right. And, uh, give our listeners just a quick, uh, uh, what is about blockchain?

Speaker 1 | 41:51.173

Yeah. I mean, You know, I’m probably not the best person to describe it, but the analogy that I’ve used here, here inside our company, I go back to, I already mentioned Napster. It’s kind of like that. It’s, you know, how that back in the day when you could share music, there wasn’t a server that that music was on. It was just distributed across the network. So, you know, there wasn’t just one copy of it sitting on a, on one, you know, one computer. It was kind of nebulous. So I, you know, blockchain’s similar, public or private ledger that has a copy of whatever data you’re putting on it, but it’s distributed, encrypted, that kind of thing. But to me, it functions a lot like Napster function, again, back in the day. Maybe I’m off with that.

Speaker 0 | 42:39.604

I like how you tied it back to that. That’s really nice.

Speaker 1 | 42:44.287

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 42:44.927

So what are the concerns? And if not concerns, also the advantages that may come across with the emergence of blockchain.

Speaker 1 | 42:59.623

Yeah, I, you know, most of the discussions and kind of kind of where I’m at on it right now is we’re we’re we’re kind of staying close to close to it right now and the progress of it. But it really, from my standpoint, I haven’t seen where where we’ve just had this like. 100% okay here’s the value it’s going to add based on the consumer right so um so i you know i think you know i i don’t want to say this is tomok’s approach but my you know my my suggested approach is we’ve got to be really close with our customers out there our grocery retailers because they’re close to the consumers and it’s my belief that the consumer if there’s an unlock for them with blockchain then that’s going to make it explode right that that that’s going to bring everybody into it And I don’t know that we’ve seen that yet. I don’t think we have. If we have, anybody that’s listening to this, message me. And we will.

Speaker 0 | 43:59.368

And just for our listeners, like we do always, we will post Travis’s information so that if you do need to get a hold of him and chat with him, you most certainly can. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 44:12.935

I think people that are wanting to know where their food comes from, that… need is building, building, building, and blockchain fits that really well. And, you know, that’s the other discussion we’ve had here. I didn’t want to miss that point too. No,

Speaker 0 | 44:25.189

no, let’s talk about that. But it’s an interesting point. Tell me about how blockchain can make me understand where my food comes from.

Speaker 1 | 44:34.620

Well, I mean, you know, with the food and beverage industry, traceability exists today. We have traceability. But I think it just kind of up-levels that ability to have that function a lot better. Because if you have all these partners, and like I said, well, we have co-manufacturers, we have 3PLs, we have the product, you know, we have product we make in our plants. If it is all getting, you know, stored in a ledger, that gives you the data that you need. to tell somebody where their food’s coming from. I know that’s kind of a high-level description, but it’s probably more complicated in the way I’m describing it.

Speaker 0 | 45:13.926

It’s always more complicated, but we have to describe it so that it makes sense. So don’t worry. It’s better to start off one way and then we can dive into the details if we need to. I think that that’s a great look at it. There is a lot of possibility there. And, you know, my concern with that and is, you know, is it the Betamax or is it the VHS?

Speaker 1 | 45:41.751

That’s a great, you have a great analogy there because that’s where I’m at. I just, I don’t, you know, it’s kind of one of these things where we just don’t know yet. It’s this, you know, are we having conversations that companies had back in the early 90s about the internet? Yeah. You know, I don’t know.

Speaker 0 | 45:58.765

It’s so true. It’s so true. And then on top of that, too.

Speaker 1 | 46:02.328

if you know people are going to have to understand the technology uh to understand how to harness it and use it correctly and i i don’t i’ll admit i don’t understand it you know 100 you know i’m still kind of kind

Speaker 0 | 46:17.714

of in the beginning phases of doing me both yeah yeah oh um travis uh thank you uh very much uh for coming on uh nerds this it’s michael moore And I’ve been talking here with Travis Pierce. He’s the director of information technology at Tillamook County Creamery Association. This has been dissecting popular IT nerds. Travis, thank you so much for joining us and speaking with us today. Really appreciate it and appreciate all the analogies and insight and look forward to your new search engine help.

Speaker 1 | 46:53.986

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. It was my pleasure.

Speaker 0 | 46:58.127

Thanks. Thank