Kirt Whiteside runs Whiteside Manufacturing in Delaware, Ohio, a company his father started in 1954 with a wooden board and four wheels. The company builds professional-grade creepers, mechanic seats, and shop equipment for technicians in automotive, aerospace, agriculture, industrial, and motorsports. Whiteside sells through the mobile tool market, the channel that supplies professional technicians at dealerships and shops rather than the do-it-yourself retail trade.
Kirt came up through every job on the factory floor before his father allowed him into the office. Working a piece-rate system, he had to come in roughly an hour and a half early just to match the output his coworkers hit in a standard shift. That experience became his working definition of effort, a word he returns to throughout the conversation. Three competitors that chased high volume through the deep discount channel are all gone. Whiteside stayed with lower volume and higher quality and is approaching seventy-seven years in business.
The conversation covers tariffs, supply chain, and new product development. When tariffs pushed certain components out of Asia, Whiteside moved sourcing to Mexico and back into the United States, and found that reshoring helped more than it hurt. On the product side, Kirt describes roughly ninety patents and a simple test for every one: save the technician time, save him money, or make him more comfortable.
Kirt Whiteside runs Whiteside Manufacturing in Delaware, Ohio, the company his father founded in 1954. He came up through every position on the factory floor before moving into management and eventually taking over the business. Whiteside Manufacturing builds professional creepers, mechanic seats, and shop equipment for technicians in automotive, aerospace, agriculture, industrial, and motorsports, and sells through the mobile tool dealer channel.
Full transcript of the conversation, published verbatim. Speaker labels come from the recording itself, not from an automated guess.
Carl Holden:0:00
Welcome to What's Made in the USA, the podcast that celebrates the people, companies, and ideas behind American manufacturing. I'm your host, Carl Holden, and on each episode, we meet the entrepreneurs, engineers, and skilled professionals who are building real products right here in the United States. Today I'm pleased to have Kurt Whiteside of Whiteside Manufacturing headquartered in Delaware, Iowa, Ohio. welcome Kurt to our podcast.
Kirt Whiteside:0:27
Well thank you, dude. Thanks so much for having me.
Carl Holden:0:30
Let's jump right in, Kurt. Let's tell everybody what is Whiteside Manufacturing? What do you make?
Kirt Whiteside:0:36
We are in the category of garage equipment. So if it's in a garage, a professional technician garage, which would be the GMs, the Fords, the Mercedes, the Toyotes of the world, if the if it's a professional technician that uses something in that garage, not hand tools, we probably make it or have made it or are making it. So that's what we manufacture.
Carl Holden:0:57
So give us a couple examples of things people might have seen that they would recognize.
Kirt Whiteside:1:02
So we are kind of like famous for making garage creepers. There's probably forty or fifty different models, depending on whether we're talking about aerospace, whether we're talking about ag, whether we're talking about industrial or speed on the racetrack, or just regular professional technicians. We're kind of famous for creepers. Everyone knows that they if they want the best, they come to us on that side. the other part of our category happens to be mechanic seats that we're really, really known for. the seats are s again technician seats that are used at the highest level in all those categories I've just mentioned. So those are the two major, major things. We have some peripheral things that are used in garage garages as well, but those are the the two peop pieces that carry us. So
Carl Holden:1:44
For those who maybe don't know of Creeper, and this is my understanding, these are wheeled beds and or seats that can kind of get around a vehicle while they're working, correct?
Kirt Whiteside:1:54
So yeah, way back when my father started this business back in 1954, he were they they made a creeper. It was pretty much a wooden wooden board with some wheels on it. And that's when people started going under cars. And since that time, now they're using lifts. So now we've got to have creepers that lay higher. So they're pr pretty specific to a particular job. If it's a John Deere tractor, they've got to be higher and the back's gotta be up. So there's a particular model for that. In the aerospace, it's a different model creeper and when we're talking about farmers in in bad garages, there's particular wheels that go on there. So we're pretty nichey when it comes to specific jobs in any specific industry that we sell to.
Carl Holden:2:34
Yeah, and I'm even seeing one on here that kind of looks like a like a leaned down like hospital bed. It kind of can fold up so that you c I guess can sit comfortably as you're like working on this thing for e an extended period of time, thirty minutes to an hour, correct?
Kirt Whiteside:2:48
And so that's the goal of our stuff. There's things that you can buy on the DIY market that surely are creepers. You lay on them, you use them once a year. In our case, these are people that are professionals at their job that they're on the back or sitting up or sitting in a seat for hours at a time. So you've got to be comfortable, you've got to make their job be fast and be efficient. And one way we can make that happen is through the comforts that we provide them.
Carl Holden:3:13
That's awesome. You never really think about like obviously this equipment that's even in because you could sell to like oil change places too and other places. Are you mostly like within car manufacturing facilities or is there really anybody who's working on a car?
Kirt Whiteside:3:31
No, that's not really true. in our case, we sell to the best technicians, the best professional technicians in the world. And we sell them through a system called the the mobile market. The mobile market consists of like four or five mobile people. It's Snap On tool is the giant, Matco tool is is one of them, Mactool is one, Cornwell is one. There's a couple other ones that only supply the professional technician.
Carl Holden:3:40
Okay.
Kirt Whiteside:3:57
The guy that works on your car that's next door to you is never my customer. The guy that works on your car when you take it into a shop would be a customer of my customer. So we only sell the professional technician, but we do it by way of the mobile dealer. the mobile dealers are they they buy the best of the best. And of course they want world class manufacturing and everything you can buy off those mobile trucks are world class products. And of course ours ours are not sold like I mean you can buy kind of our product like a creeper at their d discount places around any given town, but they don't fulfill the need of the professional technician. So when someone wants something that's not gonna break down, that's gonna last a good bit of time, they call on those mobile people that we manufacture.
Carl Holden:4:43
I think you got a great product. I don't feel like these are are you know, would be a problem selling to people if it's something you're gonna be using on a daily basis, like at least looking your site. If I was a person like this, that's the kind of thing I'd want and that seems more than like an affordable price.
Kirt Whiteside:4:58
Well, it's these are these are expensive products and again it's one of those things that if you at one point in your life you've done your due diligence buying the cheaper stuff at the DIY places and at one point you're gonna say, you know, I finally want a product that does what it says it's gonna do and exceeds expectations, that's where we come in. And so that's what we're proud of proud of doing. So
Carl Holden:5:20
For sure. They definitely look very high quality and you the niche that you have is really interesting. And then obviously you have someone who's able to like get it in front of the right like end customer, which is good too.
Kirt Whiteside:5:34
Yeah, so my dad one time told me, there's two ways you can run this business when I took this thing over. When I was twenty-seven years old, which is almost a hundred years ago, oddly he said, you stay the route of quality and you'll never go out of business. There's been three companies that were kind of our competitors 30 years ago that stayed did not stay the route of quality. They went to the deep discount people, and all three of them are out of business because they were chasing.
They were chasing high volume at low margins and you can't really stay in business like that. And we stayed stayed the course in in in in lower volume and high quality and that's where we stayed and that's why we're still in business after soon to be seventy seven years. So
Carl Holden:6:16
That's awesome. We we had a guest on that did does custom saunas and they say sell spell ex send sell expensive stuff to people who will pay the price and it's just a b easier business to run. And while I wouldn't call what you're doing is expensive, it's definitely an investment of something you intend to keep for, you know, the foreseeable future. And that's sounds like that paid off for you as opposed to your competitors who thought, well, we'll undercut white side.
And we'll win business that way. That never seems to work for anybody.
Kirt Whiteside:6:49
Yeah, the business plan of that happens to be you'll Walmart will order a hundred thousand pieces and they'll want you to make seven cents on a dollar. And being in business in the manufacturing world, you can't make seven cents on a dollar and stay in business. That just is impossible. So they did that for
Carl Holden:6:57
Well
Carl Holden:7:05
It attracts the wrong kind of customer, exactly like you said. You you get the wrong types of people who are looking just for price and those people will there's no loyalty, there's no brand loyalty. So yeah.
Kirt Whiteside:7:16
Yeah. And now I think one other good component is that we are made in America and we're selling American technicians that they want to make money as well in what they do and they appreciate people that make makes products in America still. I don't care what anyone says, someone might say it's a world economy in some levels it is, and I would say if you're looking at price then it's a world economy. If you were looking at quality and you want something to last forever, USA still stands at the top, Germany would stand at the top as well. but there's a a couple of countries that if you want something made in these countries, you know that's you expect high quality, you expect them to last, and that's where we circle our circle us around. There's now no more competition in America in what we do. The competition has to be is happens to be the entire country of China, which is sometimes a little bit odd, but the entire country of China is our competition, which sometimes I wish I had American competitors, but it's not worked out that way. But we're still staying the course, lower volume and We sell really high quality high high quality parts and we got a proud workforce here that is American people that are supplying American companies, that are supplying American technicians for the most part. but by and large in America and Canada and of course we sell across the world too. So
Carl Holden:8:32
When you're answering some of the questions I was planning on ask, but if we could go back to you s you you were in this business with your dad, you were working it, and then at a certain point he hands was there like a transition period? Tell us a little bit about that story.
Kirt Whiteside:8:46
That's funny because in the beginning I was a an athlete long ago, like I said, a hundred years ago, and my dad would have me working out here and he'd have me running errands on the in the truck to go pick up things and so forth. And he'd he'd say he would stop at this particular basketball court and put some, you know, get some hoops in and play some basketball. And that was during my high school years. And then of course the baseball came along and I played at a pretty good level on baseball and he would give me time in between time I was working, he'd clock me out and he'd give me time to go pitch some or to shoot hoops or something. We actually in the in the back of our factory here that we're at in Delaware, there is a a still a backboard that's still sitting there in a place I used to shoot. I was a not a bad basketball player, I guess way back then, but oddly enough he gave me time for sport. He knew that was important to me. It also was important to him too. But in the meantime I was worked and then finally at one point I get married and I I'm out here and he said, Kurt, if you're gonna come up through the factory, we want you I want you to work every job. And in every job you have to make a rate.
And we're a piece rate comp company. The more pieces you make, the more money you make. And of course, normally speaking, and this is not a sexual bias thing, but normally women are better at most most of these jobs than men because they have more dexterity than men. So here I'm out at doing a job that I'm really slow at because I don't have the dexterity as as a female would have. And he said, I I finally put my two weeks notice and I can't do this anymore. And he said, Well, that's fine. If that's what you want to do, then then that's fine. But I will tell you this, that you will figure it out.
And I'm like, what did that mean? He gave me a hint. I'm not sure what that meant, but by and large, what it meant was instead of coming in at six forty five and clocking in and clocking out at six at three thirty, to get the same amount of of units out, I had to come in at like five thirty and work till four thirty and I got the same numbers and I would clock in appropriately. So I got the same numbers that I needed to do to move on to the next job. So here I had to work about an extra hour and a half for free in order to make the rate.
But that was the way I learned how if you're gonna compete with someone, you maybe have to do a little bit extra. And so that's that was the beginning of effort. And effort I can I can kind of quote around desire and effort. I had a desire to move up the ladder and I wanted to make the effort but didn't know how. But then I began to look learn how effort really makes things work, I guess you might say. So the the handoff was like
Kirt Whiteside:11:05
You gotta make you gotta make it work. You gotta do the job, you gotta do it equal or better than your your people that you're working with, which that was my goal. And I made that work and of course moved up through maintenance and worked in the warehouse a bit. Then I came in, I was my father's secretary for a good bit of time. And I couldn't have I during that time I was his secretary, he would write, Dear James. And I thought that was really unusual because dear to me meant that you were close, you had a close relationship. And I of course I would scratch that out because I was his secretary and I would just say James and he said, No, that's not what we do. We say Dear James. So I had to learn a few things about writing letters, but he kinda taught me how to scribe them. And again I was kind of his professional secretary during the early times when I was in my my mid twenties in fact. So
Carl Holden:11:52
And then what what eventually where did you take over? What how long were you having to kind of prove yourself until that transition occurred?
Kirt Whiteside:12:00
So I was the plant manager around that same time that I he kinda let me loose on the right prior to me being his secretary because he wanted me to learn the the floor and how it was. And of course we had two shifts running at the time and I was running both shifts and I was working a hundred hours a week.
And having to produce a lot of product and so forth. So we were at the time we were making only wooden parts. So the the table saws were going all the time, the re drills were going all the time and I had to be sure everything was accurate and so forth. So I think he found that I had the drive to to get better and to move product and to manufacture a lot of products. So that was the time that he really probably looked at me and thought, Wow, he's got something on the ball. He doesn't mind being here at seven in the morning or seven PM at night or working until eleven to get something done. And I think that was one of the forces that brought him to I think I'm gonna bring him in the office and see what happens. he also maybe wanted to back out a little bit. He was still a young man, but by and large he's he found a desire that I wanted to kind of go up the ladder and that's when he made gave me the opportunity like, come on in the office. And of course at those times I mentioned this someone earlier. We wore ties to work way back then. So I wore a tie to work and this went on for months on end. And yeah, I was his secretary. I was in corporate meetings with him and corporate meant three people, but learning learning to make decisions and how to purchase things and so forth. And in the meantime I was going off to South America to find lumber suppliers and to Asia a little bit and that actually grew into major major travel for me. But learning the business kind of from the ground up was the main core of what he wanted me to learn. So I was a welder, I was a maintenance guy, worked on trucks, worked on tow motors. anyhow, that being said, it was kinda like he wanted me to know every facet of what we do. So
Carl Holden:13:51
I'm sure you know the statistic that many second generation businesses fail, but it doesn't sound like most of them had your dad in that he actually made sure you knew the whole business before he ever handed it to you.
Kirt Whiteside:14:00
Yeah, maybe.
Kirt Whiteside:14:05
Yeah, that's funny because my brother actually is in business with me and he he came in when I was I was he's about four or five years behind me, but he also had the same regiment that he wanted where I wanted him. I so loved I so love him. And I it's kinda funny that he came up through the business. He was a little bit behind me, so he didn't have the same track that I had so much, but I was I so wanted him to move up the ladder as well. And in fact I I I still tell him to this day I so wanted him in the office with me that I told my dad, I can we bring Terry in the office? He really loves numbers.
And I I know that he'd be good at keeping the books and he he would tell me, Kurt, he is so good with his hands, he's so good mechanical, we've gotta leave him out there. And of course I think sometimes he took that as he didn't want him in the office, and it was I that wanted him in the office, and oddly Terry is good with his hands, he is good mechanically, he is good at doing things, and so finally I broke my dad down and he's okay, we'll give it a try. So he's been in the office now, part of the the production staff and he manages the purchasing for us on on this at this facility and and our other facility as well. So anyhow, we're thankful that dad raised two people that we kinda emulated him. my dad had a big desire. He came from a very, very, very bad background with no money, but he had a big desire and he wanted to be in business himself one day. And I think he was one of those things that lived the American dream. And we also think that in America, I mean it's The American dream is around the corner for everyone if they want to make an effort. And most people have the dream, but they have no idea how to execute that plan. And the sad part. Yeah, yeah. Many, many times it's that. And I would say most times it's that. They have an idea, but they don't know how to execute the plan. And that's takes me into, I'd say 15 or 20 years ago I started working with people trying to mentor them and mentor them either going into business or giving them confidence to do something new or whatever. Mostly it's athlete-based a little bit, but sometimes it was
Carl Holden:15:36
Or the desire to put the effort in, let's just be honest.
Kirt Whiteside:15:57
sometimes ri more recently it was with people that struggled in life with drugs or something like this that I would mentor them and they all sometimes some people need all they need is an arm around them to have someone show that they care about them. I'm working with someone inside their factory right now and I think he he wanted to know that someone cared about him, that he wasn't just coming in and doing a job.
Which is sometimes many times we come in and peop we don't care enough about people. And I'd say generally in life that's true. It doesn't take doesn't take much to say, hey, you're looking good today or or Maya did a great job. It doesn't it doesn't cost any money to do those things. And I think that's another avenue of being a great business guy or having a business like we have, is that we really appreciate the people that work for us. Because if they don't do their job, we don't have a job at all.
So it kind of goes a little beyond just being in business and having a business. We're proud of that. But man, if it wasn't for our team, it would not work. So
Carl Holden:16:54
Speaking of the team, tell me a little bit about how many people you employ, what you do to find those right people and how you keep them engaged culturally to be a part of the vision you have.
Kirt Whiteside:17:05
Interesting. I'm gonna go back a little bit in some twenty or thirty maybe years, but there was one time that we had pushing 200 people, and I'm gonna say 170 was more the number that we had for a minute. We actually had manufacturing going on outside the building. We had to tip set tables up outside because we didn't have enough throughput. And those were the days that maybe some of your viewers would remember the days of Sears and Roebuck. Montgomery Ward was a big player of us, Western Auto was a big player for us, and they would order truckloads and truckloads of product. And it was like, my gosh, it was just maddening to think that we had to work literally two shifts and Saturdays as well to get those out. But at those days we had that many employees and our throughput was like major numbers, truckloads at a time going out. As time progressed, they moved from wooden wooden product to and then we moved up the ladder trying to sell the professional technician that I explained just a bit earlier. where we were making more high end products. And course that meant the do it yourself industry was gone. They were going to China at that time. So we moved up and started making a higher level product and that's when we lessened our our our our employee rate. And I'm gonna say we're anywhere given any time of year is twenty to fifty people generally, but we've also mechanized to a point that we didn't need many people. So, you know, when you've got things that weld, it's a good thing when you've got a supply chain for us or our supply chain for us is in our region so we can actually supply have supply chain of of components that come into us that we can do final assemblies that makes us a better company. we're relying on them to be excellent at what they do and we have really, really good supply chains that's been with us for some decades. So if you put that together, whereas normally before we made it from A to Z and now we have good supply chains that come in that we just do the final things mostly here on site. So
Carl Holden:19:00
Now, as far as supply and creating this product and you said your your your customer that you sell to, are they ordering specific batches seasonally? Is it is a or is it a more monthly supply demand? How do you forecast that as far as building things and getting it to your customer?
Kirt Whiteside:19:18
So every company has a preview per shorter that comes out every week and it shoots out six months. So we kind of know what's going on and what's what they're thinking because we're right now we're planning here we are, we're in August of twenty twenty seven and right now we're planning second quarter of twenty twenty eight.
So we are six months and change out. So my idea is I've got four brand new products I'm I'm proposing to one of our biggest customers. And even though they love it today, this will not be, this will probably go in their trade show, which will be next August. We got the biggest trade show in our industry, happens to be in one week, in Washington, DC, one week from now. So the products I'm showing them right now will be products that will be launched at this show next year in twenty twenty eight.
So and then the meeting we got national we got in international and national shows too. Our national show is in about six weeks after that and then in Las Vegas and then the international show I will be at and that's in four weeks, which will be in Germany. So
Carl Holden:20:08
That's quite a
Carl Holden:20:22
And you you mentioned international. Are these same companies bringing you international or do you have a different company overseas that you supply that way?
Kirt Whiteside:20:30
Well there are two of our companies two of our mobile mobile people that we supply to do have international footprints from Australia to Japan to Germany to the Netherlands and and so forth. So we do supply them through our company here and their company in America. We we would ship overseas to England or to the Netherlands or to there. But we also have companies that I have found. Our biggest customer happens to be in Paris, and they've been our customer of ours for I'm gonna say twenty years.
But that was from displaying at a show in Germany all those years ago. I'm gonna say two and a half decades ago, I was at a show and I knew there was one customer that I really, really wanted to have, and I went after them and they said, if you have this customer, then you can't have this customer, but this particular customer that we ended up with was the target of what I wanted. And they are also the the kind of the best of the best. They they supply the the best prof professional technicians in their their world on the other side of the ocean. So And then we also work with Japan and Japan is always high quality stuff. I went to Australia a couple of times and worked to get in there, but we found our best connection happened to be our US connection selling to our largest mobile dealer. However, they're selling back into Australia and New Zealand. So
Carl Holden:21:45
Speaking of internationally and just logistics of parts and materials, where have you guys been as far as like the tariffs? Has that been a negative, positive? Like what are your thoughts on that?
Kirt Whiteside:21:58
Yeah, it's crazy. when that first came up we're like, my gosh, what's going on here? And honestly our customers r found out that of course it was gonna be across the board. So they said originally they had shared with us, if your tariff is twelve percent, we will eat the twelve percent. And so they ate it for a minute, but not very long. in the meantime, as we were shifting supply chain stuff, because we were getting some components from China, for example, we moved them into Mexico or we moved them back to America. And that being said, when that happened, then the tariffs dropped and and didn't didn't affect us at all. oddly enough, what happened on the tariff side is that things started reshoring back to America. Amazing idea, which in in in effect has helped us. So We we don't mind the tariff at all because it has reshored things. It's put more people to work, not only here at our factory, but other factories as well. There's a couple components that we do get make overseas and we can't get around it because of EPA regulations in America. A small company like us, we can't have the EPA we can't meet EPA regs. if we were GM we can, if we are Ford we can, but we're just a little company and That being said, when you're a little company, you can't go out and spend two million dollars to be able to do the amount of volume that we do in these couple of different products that only you can do mostly in Asia. You can do it in Turkey too, but we found it to be efficient in in Asia and we get charged the we get charged the charge. We don't like to import because you never know about time frames. You can order it today and they might say it's gonna be on the water. Well, on the water means what does that mean? You know, it can be twenty-five days, it can be forty days, so there's no no real time that you can get them in you like you can't you can order in America, you can say, I need this on the seventeenth of the month, then it'll be here. And when you're in Asia, when you're imp you know, expecting that, you when you don't get them in, you don't get them in. You can't ship. And of course when you're losing sales, that's a problem for us. That's a problem for our customer. And then the other downside of that is that you have to order so many of them so that you don't get caught without inventory. So when you have to only when you normally would order only order a thousand a week,
Kirt Whiteside:24:09
And here you gotta order ten thousand of them. So you got money out in inventory, which people don't understand. Well, why why is that a problem? Well, when you're only affording a thousand a week and you get in every week and then all of a sudden you have to order ten thousand because you don't know the time frame of shipping or the queue at the port. I will tell you that when Walmart's ship comes into Los Angeles, everyone goes to the Panama and comes somewhere else because it takes so many days to unload that ship. And if you happen to be in that queue, then it's more weeks. So Of course we can't track when they come in, but it's they are giant and they they take priority and the little companies and we're we're with big shipping companies of course, but we're you know, we're only some containers on a ship that has four thousand containers, so then they've got to go through the Panama and come up the other side. So and there's a lot of times we have to do that. That adds to the adds to the time and the frustration of import import goods.
Carl Holden:25:03
And we try not to get political on the show, but I also do think that people need to hear that there are positive effects to the attempt to just try to get us to do more business with each other, that the logistics of like what you're talking about is very complicated. And if we can be more independent with the resources we have here, that generally helps the country. So we're glad to hear that you were able to adjust and that it's not only helping you, whoever you're now buying from here in the US, it also benefited that company. and their supply and their ability. So that's that's really great to hear. you mentioned a little bit about adding products and of course we don't want you to have to say things that like aren't ready yet, but is there a part of a a specific new type of market or anything else as far as where do you plan to try to grow?
Kirt Whiteside:25:50
So we've always been of the nature of if our if our customer my job is to come up with the new products and that's my core job is to come up with new ideas. And I am a I'm a dreamer and I'm also an executor. So if you if you if we would turn the screen around and you could see what we're talking about here, you'd be like, Whoa, that product doesn't exist. I think I've got ninety patents, of which ten ten of them you would probably think that was stupid, and they work. but there's other patents out there that are are in our queue that are in our world that I patented that's been pretty clever and I would say very rarely does does someone hit a home run when they have a patent. It does happen. I probably hit two home runs. The rest of are little singles and that they are good, but they're not gonna change the world. But But right now my job is to find holes in the lineup so that we can sell and obviously grow stuff in and again if I showed you what we were if I could flip the screen around and it could show you a little bit about what's what's going on, they're all related to the the professional garage. They're all related to and I have to be able to save the technician time or money, one of the two. I've I've got to make him more comfortable. I've got to give him a tool that he doesn't have. so all those things are in play when I develop these products and This year I probably put on the board 10 brand new products of which which we're finally have narrowed down to four of them, which are done with prototyping. They're completely done. They're designed, they're done, they meet spec tests, they meet the German spec test that we test to. and now they're in front of our our buyers. everyone likes them, it's just a matter of now we're they're pulling the trigger, but it's when are we gonna pull the trigger to have them ordered? And then and again, we're still talking about the end of the second quarter next year because it's going on right now.
So
Carl Holden:27:36
How does that work then? Do you go and visit different mechanics and like for R and D, like how what's bugging you? What's something like how do you figure this out?
Kirt Whiteside:27:46
This is an interesting concept. So my dad would say to me, way back in those days, he would say the technician will be able to tell you what he needs. And I always found that to be compounding a little bit. It's a confounding, I guess is the word, confounding. Because if they don't know what they look at, what they need, then they don't know what to come up with. There are some clever ones out there that we've spoken to that's like, if you would just develop this, which we're grateful for.
But generally speaking, I look at this and I think, I think a technician would love this right here. And so I kind of go the the backwards way. I kind of know what they like. I kind of know what our our buyers at our particular companies I kind of think I know what they're thinking about too. New products always sell. old products will old products they will maintain, but new products will grow sales. And so my job is to get new products that are that are legitimate and they feel like my gosh, this is a new category, or this is an extension of a category. So that's kind of where I sit. But when I develop the product, I have a couple of technicians that I rely on here in this region, and I will shoot them over an idea. what do you think of this? And this is the reason I thought of it. And they would they're generally would say, Kurt, this is a great idea. Generally they say that. Of course, they keep in mind they're friends of mine. So they better say that. But at the same time, I will tell you that they'll say, Well, what happens if you did this? And then of course the pylon effect happens because I can say it's kind of interesting because I'm not a genius, but I'm a pretty clever one. But your idea comes to me and I wouldn't I'm going to trump your idea and then you're going to trump my idea. By the end of the time when we have all the people involved that take their hits at trying to improve a product, we've got an incredible product. And then when we put it in front of the buyer, the buyer will say, This is really good. What if you added this? And of course, when the buyer says this, they're kind of owning a little bit of the product.
And it's kind of like a go. So it's
Carl Holden:29:44
You read you read stuff on the internet, you don't know if it's true, but I think there's a quote that, like Henry Ford said, that people, if left to their own devices, would have just asked for a faster horse, rather than a car. And what you're saying is sometimes you get so close to a thing you don't even realize that there's a convenience or a change because you're just so close to it that your outside observation is a way to kind of you're detached from it, so you're also able to look at it objectively.
Kirt Whiteside:30:12
Yeah, and I will I'm gonna allude, I'm gonna roll back to and I know there's Apple fans and there's Android fans, and both of them have their place. But I will tell you that when I get a new Apple phone or they have a new something come out, I'm like, why didn't I think of it? It's so simple and it's like this is brilliant. And it's both Android and Apple have the same kind of thing going on that they they invent things, invent features that every one of us loves, and we're wondering why did this not exist? And the same thing goes with when I invent something, it's like most of them are pretty simple, but of course they've got to meet pretty special tests. But people would look at that that and say, well that was pretty simple, which most of the things I do are. But at the same level, it's like, you know, here I'm thinking about them then and I actually put them through this the paces of testing and engineering and meeting spec test and so forth. So it's kind of interesting that it I feel like we're a little bit like Apple and Android that we come up with an idea that everyone probably Would think, wow, that's interesting. Why didn't I think of this? So and of course I get a lot of ideas from speed, from the racing world, because they do things, they have to do things fast, they have to do things efficiently. So you're looking at F one racing or NASCAR racing or indie racing, the things that they do and how they do things so fast and how can we make things better? And like how would that how would our product fit in there? We do sell speed, the speed world. as well in our world, not only the professional technician but the speed guys. And then I look at I live in the country, so I I'm part of the farmer crew, but I'm not a farmer. But it's interesting they have these half million dollar to million dollar machines and they have to work on these machines and all of them are pretty self-sufficient. How can we do help them do their job better? And that's where that comes into play. So we find avenues and and features. We got a one really, really interesting thing going on right now that's prototype is just done and next week I will be bringing it to our bigger customer. And it's a product that goes from two inches to thirty inches. It's crazy. It's never existed before, ever. And it's like the perfect product for everything, probably not the automotive technician, but everything else. It works in industry. It works in aviation. It works in agriculture. It works in in industrial. Every factor of where we where we play, it actually works in all these, but it's a really niche kind of thing. So
Kirt Whiteside:32:32
Interesting on those notes, so
Carl Holden:32:34
Well it sounds like that's part of your job you love the most is this whole building new things that solves problems for people.
Kirt Whiteside:32:42
Yeah, that's for sure. It's and I've often said I've got other businesses, but oddly enough, putting the puzzle together is interesting to me.
Carl Holden:32:51
Well, it's it's really in my opinion, it's part of the American culture is invention and trying and doing something different. We we have companies like Microsoft and Apple because our co country has attracted that talent of let's build and make new things that can change enti the entire world or change an industry. And that's what I love about talking with people like yourself is people think that it is just the Apple stuff, but there's all kinds of people just like yourself. out there inventing new things that if that makes a person's life better, that's the the really important stuff that has to be happening right here in the US.
Kirt Whiteside:33:29
I agree. And I tell you what, there's I'm I'm a big fan of made in USA. what you're doing right now is I'm a big fan. Not too many people recognize that that everything they wear is not made in USA. Wouldn't it be nice to have things that we wear, things that we use made in USA? And of course we I don't know about you, your you and your your crew out there that you're you know you're having viewed what you do, but made in USA is a big deal. It not only supports our country, it supports their neighbor. it's kind of an interesting thing that you buy a USA. the ripple effect of buying in USA is pretty mammoth. I mean of course we're small industry runs the country. I'm not sure anyone knows that, but small business runs our entire country. Everyone might think GM and Ford does, but if we we didn't have small business and farmers, we would not be such the country. So
Carl Holden:34:19
For sure. Well, we appreciate everything you're doing with the Whiteside Manufacturing and the other businesses I'm sure that contribute to that as well. We'll pivot a little bit here and ask a little bit to get to know Kurt better. what is a favorite place in the United States that you like to visit?
Kirt Whiteside:34:35
If I had to put a couple spots, I would guess in the US, I would say the coast of South Carolina and the very southern coast of California, San Diego would be my two ideal spots or more more ideal spots. In North America, it would be Montreal is an incredible, incredible city that people don't know about. if they would just venture up there and it's so very close and it's so very, very fun. and interesting and culturally good and so forth. But that would be a that would be if it was a North America I would probably tackle that one as as being one of my favorites on this continent.
Carl Holden:35:15
Well and I like that you said that. You're the first to to mention something other than the United States. And I think it's important too that even though this show is about what's made in the USA, but also supporting the the countries around us in the extent that we can, like going and visiting them and enjoying their culture, learning and seeing new things. That's important. We're not trying to project that any and all things should just be insulated down to the United States, but we just want to be able to make sure we can be as independent as possible.
So that we can enjoy the other countries as well without some of the existing tensions we have at this time.
Kirt Whiteside:35:51
Well, interesting you say that because I go to Europe often, well over a hundred times, and when I go to trade shows or when I go to our customer over there, my inspiration a lot comes from what they do. So a lot of things, if you spun around and said, Why did you develop that product? That came from going to Spain. Or where did this idea come from? And that came from a show in Germany that did this, this, and this, and I was shocked that this they could do this and we didn't do this. So inspiration on the product side, a lot of that comes from overseas. I I get a lot of design ideas from Denmark. They're pretty clever with their design. So you know broadening that scope a little bit, if you're a made USA kind of person, I would I would venture to say test going to Google dot DE or Google dot NL or Google dot se or something. Go to the Google version of of what you're looking for in these varying countries and look at your product and see look at your type of product and go see what they do. And that's one way to grow our sales and grow and made in USA by ideas that they may have. So it's just kind of interesting. So
Carl Holden:36:53
That's great tip. I hope everybody's listening. For those who are in kind of the innovation side like Kurt is, what is a childhood or younger adult memory you have of the United States that you hold dear?
Kirt Whiteside:37:04
my gosh, it's funny. My mother was handicapped for almost her whole life and we never went on vacations anywhere. But one day my dad said, We're gonna go to Texas. We're gonna go to Houston and we're gonna call on a company named American Parts. And on the way we're gonna stop and watch baseball. And I think I might have been nine years old and so we got in this station wagon drove all the way to Houston and whenever we'd see a baseball game, we would stop and a couple of them came to mind. One was in Louisiana, one was in Alabama where you are. We stopped and went to these ba a baseball game. We had no idea who was playing, but us boys would sit in the the top of the stands and I would remember vividly drinking Welch's grape juice that was hot as the hot as hot as the blaze. And we were drinking hot Welchish grape juice in the stands watching some odd baseball game.
And then of course on the way down and back we had to stay in hotels and all we wanted was the the big blinking sign that said pool. And that was the thing that if we could get one that said pool, that was we were living big. But that I think the only real vacation we ever took in my entire up until I became a young adult, which is pretty crazy.
Carl Holden:38:11
Well that's that's definitely a great memory is the touring the American countryside as you make your way to Texas, that's great. We're such a big country. we don't often realize many other like Europe and stuff, they say we're not well traveled. we have like four Europe, so it's a large country. and so that's that's awesome.
Kirt Whiteside:38:27
Yeah.
Carl Holden:38:32
and we mentioned this a little bit before the call, but I want to kind of go over this and leave some time for this. if all the younger generation could hear you now that's coming up into the workforce, what would you want them to know? We talked a little bit about mentorship, but I'd like for just you to project a little bit what you want younger people to know.
Kirt Whiteside:38:54
So interesting, I I do, as we spoke earlier, I I mentor young young kids, a lot of athletes, because I'm in the athlete world in one of our businesses. But interestingly enough, everyone thinks they need to go to college and it's like it's not really true. If you're gonna be a professor, yes, you need to get there and and go and do that do that. If you're gonna be a doctor or something like this, but by and large, if you wanna own your own business, you need firstly you have desire And you need to make an effort. And a lot of people I've shared with you earlier. A lot of people have the dream. They do not have the way to get it done, or they don't know how to get it done. So over the years, over the past couple of decades, I've written business plans for people or help them do a business plan to get them lost. I worked with a g a gal in the Netherlands. I'm working with a gal in France right now with a business plan so they can go out. And one the one in the Netherlands already has her business off the ground. The girl in France is just now putting her her foot forward on a business that we kind of jointly put together. It's her business, but I helped her with doing this. Here states I ha I mentor, you know, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen year old kids, a lot of them athletes, but right now one specific one I kind of target in on. But it's desire. If you have a desire to be successful at something, it takes effort. And it's kind of like when you're training to be a good athlete, and I'm gonna say this it's true with even being a successful business person.
If you're working when no one's looking, you will grow. And it's kind of like this athlete that I'm mentoring. He wants to be, he's a quarterback, a really good looking, tall quarterback. He's in the right school, he's in the right year. And I said, if you're just going to practice and practicing with your team, you're never gonna get better than them. You've got to do things outside of that. You've got to work overtime, you've got to go to special training. And the same goes with building a business. If you're are you if you're willing to work and make an effort beyond eight to five.
And a lot of these kids these days, they want to clock out at five and it doesn't work. If you're trying to build something, you want to be great. And and I want people to make a lot of money. And I want I would I would like to have everyone make a million dollars a year and everyone would think, but why that would be pretty bad. And the funny thing is is that my goal would be is that if you make a million dollars and you can be that successful, how you look how many people you can help.
Kirt Whiteside:41:09
And the one the girl girl in France specifically told me, Well I don't I don't want to make a lot of money. And I'm like, Why don't you want to make a lot of money? How many people could you help? I'd love to help my sister. Well that's the reason why you need to make a lot of money, because you need to care about a lot of people. So that's the other reason why we mentored a c a guy a couple of years ago, former he was a world class drug salesman. I guess it's what he he would tell you that he was the best salesman in, you know, off the street drugs.
For several years he was the best of the best and which is horrible just to think that that's a good idea. But he got off drugs and he's on a path and he was making a lot of money and and I got him out of that path just to have him have a desire and he said, Nino, no one's really cared about me like this. And I think many times having someone behind you, you know, whether it's a dad figure or whether it's d is dad, or having someone behind you just, you know, having their arm around you is a great way to be a mentor to someone, just encouraging someone, you know, like you can get a let's talk about this and what next steps can be and what this looks like because you also want to lay out the failure rate. You know, if you do this, the odds are that it may not work so well. Or if you and of course there are people out there that will never take a step and those people are really tough to work with. But when you're mentoring young ones, man, you it's gotta be if you have the desire Then the next step is effort. And an effort can't be halfway. If you're gonna try to be successful, it's gotta be all in. And you may you may fail. And I failed a few times. You may fail, but when you're failing, you're also learning a whole, whole, whole lot. So that's why don't get fearful of this. Make good reasonable steps and have a good mentor behind you that's gonna keep your path a little bit straight. And I think that's a a good way to be on as a young one, get someone behind you that you trust and you care about, that will kind of love you in some way. they will help you down a path and they surely don't want you want to see you fail and that's one good thing about having a good mentor. Or if you can't find one, call me. I will get you on I'll get you on a path. So
Carl Holden:43:12
Kurt, you're awesome. Kurt, thanks so much for coming on our podcast today. I'm really excited to get this story out to people of the kinds of people that are really making a difference here in the US and helping us build both products and people. Thank you so much for coming on today.
Kirt Whiteside:43:27
Sure, sure. Thanks again, Carl.
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