Transcript

Michael Palumbos (00:59.526)

Welcome everybody to the Family Biz Show. I am your host, Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. Today we are joined by Eddie Russnow of MAC Products and 

 

Michael Palumbos (01:13.826)

We're really excited to have you here, Addy. Thank you. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (01:16.268)

No, Michael, thank you. I'm happy to be here and I'm happy to answer any questions you have for me and certainly love to hear about the things that you do as well. 

 

Michael Palumbos (01:30.446)

Michael Palumbos (01:30.846)

Sure. So MAC products give us, you we like, before we dive into the history of MAC products, we love to hear your journey into the business was, you know, for some people, was a straight path. I was there from the day that my father or grandfather was doing this. For other people, it was, I just started the business and it came from, you know, so what was your journey into MAC products? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (01:59.328)

Okay, well thank you for asking that. when I graduated college, I started off as a banker. I was in a commercial lending training class and I had expected to do that for a while. I maybe transitioned to a money center bank in New York City because I was working in New Jersey at the time. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (02:26.062)

And right before I got married, my father-in-law who started the business had offered me a position at MAC. And basically the way that we understood it was that there's a much better opportunity here for you to grow than it would be maybe staying in the banking industry. And I agreed wholeheartedly with him. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (02:54.59)

at the time and said, okay, I'm ready to come into the business. And then I transitioned into the business a few months after my wife and I got married. 

 

Michael Palumbos (03:06.254)

Okay, how long ago was that? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (03:09.75)

33, almost 34 years ago. 

 

Michael Palumbos (03:13.09)

Congratulations. I love the fact that your father-in-law invited you into the business because that doesn't always happen. I'm a big proponent of, you know, if somebody love, the family is not just about blood, it's about love. And it's about the people that we decide to place our trust and love in that makes all the difference in the world. Without you, 

 

Michael Palumbos (03:39.982)

coming into the business, what would his options have been? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (03:45.304)

That's a good question. So my wife does have another sibling, a sister, but there's no other members. There were no other members of the family in the business just until a few years ago when my son joined. So it was really me working with my father-in-law. But at the beginning, I never worked for him. I was under others who were mentoring me. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (04:13.55)

to learn the business. And I learned it from the ground up. From the day I started, I was working, he paired me up with somebody who was a fantastic mentor to me. And I really learned a lot from that person. And we worked, that person and I worked together for about 20, 25 years until he retired. 

 

Michael Palumbos (04:15.694)

That's great. 

 

Michael Palumbos (04:37.646)

That's fantastic. you know, just what he did is that arm's length separation between you and him allowed that space so that he could still be father-in-law, you know, and somebody else was doing the training. Correct. That's awesome. Super smart. So do you have the intention of doing the same thing with your son? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (05:00.768)

I have, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (05:01.168)

I've already done that. From the day he came in, he started working directly with the plant manager. He has not worked directly for me. He's worked with me on this transition and acquisition of this new business, but he doesn't report to me. 

 

Michael Palumbos (05:20.524)

Love it. So let's talk about MAC products. Your father-in-law started it. And when he started the company, talk about what did the company do at the beginning and how did the company make money then? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (05:34.796)

Great, great. So when the business started back in 1969, it was him, a person who worked in the office and took the orders and did the billing and purchasing and a person out in the factory. There were three of them. And we were a manufacturer of compression, copper and aluminum compression. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (06:03.246)

terminals and connectors for underground electrification. The company was a company that had been established before it went bankrupt and he had an opportunity to buy it based on a recommendation that one of his mentors had made to him. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (06:24.696)

So he went ahead and did that, jumped all in and the company has since grown over the years. We're about 120 employees now and we have diversified the product line tremendously over the years. 

 

Michael Palumbos (06:45.518)

Nice. walk through, you know, I apologize, but so it's electrified transport. So. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (06:56.698)

Our product line varies. I would say to you that if I was giving you my elevator pitch, I would say to you that Mack Products is a solutions-based engineering and manufacturing company that supports customers in the electrical utility, mass transit, diesel electric locomotive, and other electrical OEM markets. 

 

Michael Palumbos (07:25.966)

That's super helpful for those of us who don't understand what you said, you know, from a product standpoint, that really helps. So we see you, most people see something that you've done everywhere in this country. Yeah, whether it's the subways or, you know, electrified, you know, transportation or, but we all have utilities and... 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (07:41.454)

That's correct. 

 

Michael Palumbos (07:51.534)

So that's very cool. That's one of my favorite parts about what I get to do is learn about tons of businesses that I would have never learned about. And so I appreciate you sharing that with us. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (08:03.724)

Right. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (08:03.994)

So up in your area for years, we were a supplier to Kodak. Just coincidentally, for their underground electrification systems at their plants. So they standardized on our splice kits that are used to connect high voltage wire and cables together. So I remember when I first started working at the business back in the early 90s, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (08:33.837)

Kodak used to buy from us and contractors would come to us when they were doing installations on their sites in Rochester. And then of course, at the time Rochester Gas and Electric as well was a customer of ours. So there's a lot of our product buried underground in the Rochester area. Because this is all our electrification businesses underground electrification. It's not overhead for utility. 

 

Michael Palumbos (09:01.538)

Got it, got it, got it. Okay, thank you. Through the years, in conversations with your father-in-law, when it might've just been the two of you talking about stuff, what were some of the tough times? What were some of the stories that you remember that he was proud of having weathered those storms or those tough times? What were some of the things that happened through the years? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (09:29.72)

Well, certainly when he was starting out and it was really just him being the one to make all the decisions, I think taking gambles on things where it might've been something we weren't that familiar with, where a customer might've said, hey, listen, I know you do this product. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (09:59.704)

but we really need somebody to replace another supplier. Would you be interested in trying this? And it might've been a leap of faith to say, hey, yeah, we think we can do it and we're willing to take the challenge, let's do that. And I can point to a particular time back in the late 80s where one of our utility customers came to us and said, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (10:29.688)

there's only one supplier making this one particular product right now. And it's more advanced than some of the things you might be currently doing, but we know from being in your factory and knowing some of your engineers that you definitely have the capability. And we took a chance and we ended up becoming the premier manufacturer of that product. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (10:58.67)

throughout North America. 

 

Michael Palumbos (11:01.634)

That's very 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (11:02.986)

Yeah, so I would say to you, one of the things that we've come to be known for, or that we pride ourselves on is that people don't come to us when it's necessarily a MeToo product. We have a tagline at the company that we use and we say, we don't do easy. And we don't do things that are easy. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (11:31.456)

You can interpret that two different ways, right? We might be giving people a difficult time, but the truth is they come to us for a solution. And when they have pain and our job is to find a way to cure their pain, and that's why we say we don't do easy. 

 

Michael Palumbos (11:41.026)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (11:49.524)

Smart. know what, go ahead. Yeah. I think that's true for many people in, you know, that type of industry. And when you're service minded, I guess that's really like my industry is, you know, when, a family business is in crisis, when the CEO gets stuck and can't figure out how to get to the next level, when they're going to sleep and worrying about people issues. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (11:52.462)

things. 

 

Michael Palumbos (12:17.602)

That's when we get the phone call. don't get the phone calls when everything's easy and simple. They wait until it's, you know, here, let me throw you in the deep end. Mike will have at this. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (12:28.19)

Emergency and emergencies are our friends. 

 

Michael Palumbos (12:31.598)

Yeah, 100%, 100%. Through your tenure, know, let's talk, know, 60, 60, 90 started the business. market has changed. The economic situations have changed. You know, what are some of the other things that were obstacles or challenges or things that you saw that, you know, through the time that you've been with the company now running the company? 

 

Michael Palumbos (13:00.672)

anything else come to mind that you're like, boy, that was a that was a good one. And here's how we survived it. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (13:07.956)

Yeah, so we had a customer back in the early 90s that was in the process of getting out of the manufacturing of their product and becoming more of an assembler. they decided to outsource all of that manufacturing. Somebody at the company remembered us from the 1970s when they did what was called farm out because they had 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (13:34.808)

They didn't have the capacity. So they just farmed out the work temporarily. They happen to have remembered MAC products that we did the work. So a phone call comes into us one day and says, look, we're looking to get out of the manufacturing business. We need somebody to come here, take a look at what we're doing. What can you do to help us? What can you provide? And I remembered the story. wasn't part of it. I wasn't there for the initial visit, but 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (14:05.006)

My father-in-law went, he did his 32nd commercial and they loved it. And lo and behold, all of a sudden within a week, hundreds upon hundreds of products end up at our facility and they say, find a way to make these parts as quickly as possible. And we did, we turned our business upside down. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (14:30.542)

One of the really, really ingenious things that my father-in-law did was he had approached one of the key manufacturing people at that company who was being let go. They told him, hey, listen, you're just gonna be here for the short transition and your job is done. He hired him. 

 

Michael Palumbos (14:48.887)

Mmm, smart. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (14:50.318)

And we took the brain power that we needed to get us into this business. And this gentleman, God rest his soul, he's since passed away, really helped in that transition. And it just worked out so well for us. And to this day, from 1993 till now, 30 years, they're still our customers. 

 

Michael Palumbos (15:18.094)

Wow, what a testament to your father-in-law's and the whole team's ability to pivot. You talk about pivoting. That was a big pivot. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (15:30.114)

and I remember sitting there every Saturday morning, I would come in to do the estimates and he would hand off the stuff to me and he'd say, okay, get this in, send this quote out to them, get this, get this, do this, do that. And we just did whatever we had to do. And that's also one of our, one of our mantras at the company is we do whatever it takes to get the job done for the customer. 

 

Michael Palumbos (15:56.462)

You just said something that I wanna hit on real quick. You talked about doing estimates. You're a banker. So how do you go from banking to being able to, I gotta imagine you're looking at blueprints, you're looking at design specs and creating these things. How did you make that skillset shift? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (16:03.758)

Mm-hmm. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (16:20.704)

So I enrolled in a, at the time they called the blueprints, Blueprint reading class at New Jersey Institute of Technology. We're located right outside of Newark, New Jersey. So NJIT is a stone's throw from where we're located. So I would go twice a week after work for a semester. And I didn't do well from a design standpoint, but I learned how to read. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (16:50.894)

drawings because of that. I couldn't be an engineer because I can't draw a straight line. Okay. So, and I remember going up to the professor at the time and I said, hey, you know, I'm not going to take any tests. I'm just here. I'm a business guy. I'm learning how to read these things. And he said to me, go sit down in that seat. You're not auditing this class. You're going to take the tests with everybody else. So it was humbling. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (17:20.088)

But at the same time, I did learn how to read and interpret those things that I needed to learn how to do. in my, the way I learn is by doing. I need to see it in order to understand it. I can't necessarily conceptualize it or I couldn't at the time. Certainly now with my experience, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (17:49.834)

over 33 years, I can. And there are things that I know right away by looking at it, how long it's gonna take us to manufacture it, what it's gonna cost and things of that nature. 

 

Michael Palumbos (18:02.326)

Love it. So two, number one, congrats and hats off to you for doing that. But the reason why, when you said it, I was, I think it's important for people to hear that when you have A players on your team, it's more important to have A players on your team than it is to have people that can do the function because A players can learn new functions because they have a desire to learn. They're constant learners. My gut says, 

 

Michael Palumbos (18:31.852)

Eddie, that you probably learned something new in the past month and you're looking forward to, you know, what's next, you know, in the next month, you know, it's, you're always looking to learn. You wouldn't be doing this show if you weren't open to learning. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (18:44.76)

Correct. I consider myself to be a lifetime learner. I do a lot of reading and I try to pass that along to my staff. It's why I'm constantly introducing new things to them. I'm a member of Vistage. I come back every month after somebody presents something to us and not necessarily the flavor of the month, but 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (19:14.338)

there are certain things that resonate with me that I wanna share with them because I want not only to make them better, but I want them to make their staffs better because it's so important to us to get people to become more valuable to themselves and more valuable to the business. It's the only way you can earn more money. You can't earn more by just saying, do my job. That's what we pay you for, right? Any business, my obligation, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (19:44.662)

our obligation as a business is to pay you for the work that you do. But if you want to grow, you got to go beyond just the standard stuff that you do every day because we pay you for that. That's what you get paid. That's the contract between the employer and the employee, right? 

 

Michael Palumbos (19:57.325)

Right. 

 

Michael Palumbos (20:04.654)

Yeah, a thousand percent. couldn't agree more. love it. Let's change gears for a second. Let's talk about the transition from your father-in-law to you. So when the hats came, know, his hat of CEO running the company came off, he was a pretty unique individual. I mean, based on what you've said already, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (20:08.002)

then 

 

Michael Palumbos (20:29.73)

You know, he made all the decisions. He was that, he was that strong D that a type personality. He was the, going to give you some words that I heard from another client. Tell me if this resonates. He was a benevolent dictator, got things done, knew how to get it done. How did he make the transition to you? And how did that, what was that process like? If you don't mind sharing that. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (20:53.624)

Sure, and I'll tell you also, he still comes to work every day. 

 

Michael Palumbos (20:58.028)

Okay, wonderful. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (20:59.426)

Yeah, he's still there. So when my son is in the office, we've got three generations there working together and it's fantastic. I love it. Yeah, and he loves it. I know he loves seeing his grandson there every day. But I think it was more of a... 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (21:27.31)

It was just a natural thing, right? There are still things that he needs to be involved in, which I totally respect and understand. And he likes to make those decisions, but there are certain things that he's not comfortable doing. He doesn't love the personnel stuff, right? So I handle that. A lot of the customer relationship things that need to get done, I might handle, but we do have obviously a staff. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (21:57.198)

below me, but I think it kind of just happened naturally. I was one of three other key people below him for a long period of time. It was myself, it was the guy I told you who was my mentor, who was our VP of operations. And then there was our general manager and vice president of sales and those were, and then our CFO. And that was our leadership team. And then our, so, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (22:26.712)

two gentlemen retired, our VP of operations and our general manager and director of sales. So they retired and then we never really replaced them. those other functions kind of all just came to me. 

 

Michael Palumbos (22:41.696)

Okay. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (22:43.532)

Right? So I think as that happened, he started leaning back a little bit and saying, okay, I can trust that all this is going to get done. And I team up with the CFO, our plant manager has risen up and assumed more responsibilities. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (23:10.712)

And I have a good, and I have a director of sales now. So I didn't have to be the one leading the sales group. I did that for a long time. I love it. I'm very passionate about it because I know I'm good at it, but I needed somebody else to be able to do the day-to-day managing. It's not reasonable for me to do that because I've got to grow the business and I have to pay attention to the other different 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (23:39.284)

managers within the company. 

 

Michael Palumbos (23:41.676)

Right. So that's the responsibility side of it. And feel free to say, I don't want to talk about this, but did ownership, you know, of the actual shares of the ownership of the company, did that transition or is he still the owner? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (23:57.15)

It's family, but not through me. 

 

Michael Palumbos (24:03.95)

Okay, got it, got it, got it. So this is interesting. again, feel free to say that's too personal. A lot of families have a situation. So he's taking ownership shares and they're going to his daughters, I'm gonna assume. And you're still running the business and your son is coming up behind you. So when the business, you know, 

 

Michael Palumbos (24:32.29)

has there been conversations with the two sisters to talk about, at, know, here's how things move forward. Over the, you know, when dad passes, this is what it's going to look like. How are those conversations and how have you, you know, maneuvered your way through those? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (24:52.014)

That's a good question. So certainly that is a phenomenon and discussion. It's very timely. They've just recently started having these conversations and planning for the future. And I think a lot of this came because of this new business that we have. And 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (25:19.18)

as I was working with our attorneys, our accountants and everything else, I was pretty much doing most of it myself. And then reporting to my father-in-law what was going on during all the due diligence. A lot of this came up during these conversations and how are we gonna do this and how are we gonna do that? And I said, okay. I said to my wife, said, look, you and your sister and your mom and your dad, you guys all need to get together and talk about. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (25:49.556)

future. And, you know, one of the jokes we used to have at the company was after my son was born and we used to send holiday cards out to people at the end of the year, some of them who I used to send them to in the office, they would say to me, there's the future president of the company. You know, he was two years old. 

 

Michael Palumbos (25:50.423)

Right? 

 

Michael Palumbos (26:12.982)

Right, right. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (26:14.798)

And by the way, that's not being sexist or anything related to my daughter, because I do have, my daughter's older than my son, but she's an attorney and she has no desire. 

 

Michael Palumbos (26:27.618)

Yeah. And I'm sure, I'm sure that if she had a desire, you would have said, on in. And 100%. Those conversations, I can't, you know, for those, for those people listening, I'm, I kind of felt that this was just happening based on how you were, how you were speaking about it. And that's not what we're here to discuss, but it's just so important to get them on the table and. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (26:32.83)

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

 

Michael Palumbos (26:55.404)

What I would throw to you is the what if questions are some of the most powerful questions that you can talk about now and record them on paper. What if sales decline? What if we go into a recession? What if, you know, something happens to mom before dad? if it happens? What if somebody think happens to the sister, you know, that's not working in the business before? 

 

Michael Palumbos (27:24.728)

her other sister and putting all of those what ifs on the table right now. I have a family that are, they're not a client. It's a long story, family, either family friends. And they are now in year six of probate court because they, you know, in this circumstance, they named, you know, legal counsel. 

 

Michael Palumbos (27:54.678)

And the accounting company, you the accounting firm as the executor of their estate and dad never talked to anybody about the wishes and what the what ifs and, and money has the strange impact on people when things don't go the way that they had a store. Everybody has a story in their head. Human beings have this crazy ability. 

 

Michael Palumbos (28:22.05)

to create a story. if the story, we don't know the end of the story before we get there, we create it. That's why the soap operas and all of the movies, when they have the cliffhanger, you know that there's an episode two coming, they wanna hook us, because we wanna hear the end of that story. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (28:42.464)

Yeah, I would say to you that I've heard those horror stories over the years from friends who have gone through this with their families and family businesses and it is really bad and it ruins families. And I know personally two or three of those situations and I believe that 

 

Michael Palumbos (29:03.404)

Yeah. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (29:12.46)

what we've been doing is preparing for that in a very positive way. Yeah, it took a little longer than maybe we wanted to for the conversation to start, but it happened. And I think we're in a much better place than others that I know that have not been as fortunate to be prepared. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (29:42.24)

as you indicate and as you've indicated, because you've seen it so many times, it's just awful. You never want that to happen. You don't want things to come between close family members. And I've seen it in families where there's just, and there's an abundance of money available to everybody. But yet they still. 

 

Michael Palumbos (29:57.367)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (30:09.98)

One. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (30:11.19)

more than what the other person has and it's crazy. 

 

Michael Palumbos (30:13.694)

Yeah. And I have another one right now where it was not in a million years when I, my first five years of dealing with them as a client, what I have ever suspected what I'm dealing with today. And so I just, money, and it doesn't have to be tons of money. Sometimes, you know, I have stories that, you know, the one I always use is, you know, grandpa's wood nickel. 

 

Michael Palumbos (30:39.052)

You know, Johnny thought he was getting it and Susie thought she was getting it. And now they don't talk because, know, he cut it in half and, you know, said, here, fine, we'll split it. And, and so, again, there are horror stories, but what you're doing, communication and establishing trust and establishing, you know, going through the what ifs, that's the inoculation against that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (31:07.054)

The plan for succession or transition, 9 out of 9.9 times out of 10, it's fine from a technical standpoint. The attorney did all the right things. The accountant did all the right things. you know, we've got everything covered technically, but we, so we prepared the asset for the heirs, but we don't always prepare the heirs. 

 

Michael Palumbos (31:36.056)

for the asset. And so that's the, you know, the way to do that is by building trust and communication and making sure that everybody's understanding what this looks like. And if anybody has a different thought that we're airing that while, you know, dad's here and mom's here and we can have those conversations to go through those. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (31:55.278)

Yeah, I read a book that was published by Harvard Press or Harvard Business Review. the two guys, forget their baron, what's his name from their wealth advisors and the two of them wrote a book together. I follow one of them on LinkedIn, but 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (32:23.874)

They have a terrific book. And this is very interesting. Prior to my son joining the business, I had bought this book. And lo and behold, he's sitting in my office and he said, hey, dad, I bought that same book. 

 

Michael Palumbos (32:37.853)

that's very cool. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (32:39.918)

So I never said anything to him. I just said, Hey, I'm reading this book. You might want to take a look at it. goes, no, I already own it. I bought it as well. So just coincidentally, but it was, you know, it was very helpful. gave me a lot of ideas about things. then before he came into the business, because I know a lot of people whose sons work with them or have worked with them. I called those people. 

 

Michael Palumbos (32:48.174)

That's phenomenal. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (33:07.854)

And I asked for recommendations. What did you do wrong? What did you do right? And they gave me a list of the things, hey, don't do this because I made a huge mistake and now my kids don't talk to me anymore. Those types of things. And it was really, really helpful for me to hear others 

 

Michael Palumbos (33:28.183)

Yeah. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (33:38.145)

experiences. 

 

Michael Palumbos (33:40.75)

You're smart to reach out to others and ask, know, we don't live on an island. And sometimes as CEOs and presidents of a company, you feel like you're on an island. And that's one of the beautiful parts about Vistage is they teach you right away. You're not, you know, and I have to, I'm a Vistage member and for, know, I do, you know, this succession planning, I, you know, build teams, but doing it on your own is always different. 

 

Michael Palumbos (34:09.417)

It's so much easier to help somebody else build their team and do their succession planning than to do your own. And that's one of the reasons why I joined Vistage was to help me, you know, take time to think about those things. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (34:21.534)

I 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (34:22.354)

don't have a board of directors and I didn't have somebody or people that I could talk to about things I'm going through because I didn't have the trusted advisors within my own company. There are things I could talk to them about but not the things that I go to Vista to talk about. And thankfully the outreach came to me. The chair of our group 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (34:50.316)

found me. I didn't find him. I had never heard of Vistage before. And I'm so thankful that he did. And I only wish that I had done it 10 years sooner, because I know I would have been that much further ahead had I had that opportunity. 

 

Michael Palumbos (35:06.862)

That's great. Again, just hats off to the family for having these conversations, know, better late than never, but you're having everybody still here, not after the fact. So, right. If you remember the name of that book, as we're going through this, I want you to pull it out and remember it. I probably read it, but I don't know. It's hard to pull out, you know. When we talk. So today you've got grandfather, son-in-law. 

 

Michael Palumbos (35:36.622)

and your son all working in the business in different parts of the business. Do you mind sharing ages? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (35:44.44)

Sure. So my father-in-law just turned 84. I will be 57 this month, actually on Saturday. And my son will be 26 at the end of June. 

 

Michael Palumbos (35:57.998)

And just to give people that picture, I think it's helpful. The other thing, when you ask questions of people, I forgot to mention what I wanted to say was what worked for somebody else may or may not work for you. And so the fact that you asked the question didn't mean necessarily you're gonna go out and do everything the way everybody else did it. I have found that there are some families 

 

Michael Palumbos (36:27.438)

that the kids were so involved in the business in grammar school and high school that they were like, they didn't go to college or if they did go to college, they went to college, they came right back to the business. And for many businesses, that's like a no, no, no, go spend three years or five years out of the business and build up your skillsets and make sure that you're coming to a place that you've earned it. 

 

Michael Palumbos (36:56.704)

You know, and so there's, there's no right or wrong as I've gone through the show and talk to so many people. It just, again, I go back to communicating and talking about what is the family employment policy. And if your son has children or when he has children, know, however that works out, you know, I would say it's that it's that third generation. It's really time. And you might do it together to say, 

 

Michael Palumbos (37:26.38)

what is the family employment policy in the future? It was one thing when it was one to one one, but when we start talking about, you know, the other sister might have children or they might have children that might have an interest. So putting that family employment policy in place and then as a family talking about it, you may find helpful as you grow. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (37:48.578)

Well, it's interesting where you brought up the fact of working in the business right out of college or not right out of college. So my son went through a similar thing that I did. He was a wealth manager in a training program when he graduated from college. So he was starting in that career path. I think he was pretty passionate about it, but COVID hit me and 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (38:18.636)

the training program, you they put them on hold and they weren't doing anything. They were just sitting there in front of a computer during the day and taking classes that he had already taken. And we felt that he was stagnating and that it wasn't the right thing to do. So we said, look, this is me and my wife. And it was really my wife who was the impetus for it. She said to him, his name is Henry. Henry, you're, if you want to stay in that industry, that's great. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (38:48.354)

you got to find another company to work for that's not stopping you from actually working. Even though they were paying him 100 % of his salary, they were just stagnating. And she said to him, look, the reality of it is dad, that's me, is not going to be like your grandfather and work until he's in his eighties. So if you don't come into the business, then we have to look to maybe sell it eventually. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (39:18.122)

So we gave him a few months to think about it. And after the few months was up, I called him and he came in to meet with me and my father-in-law. And he said, this is where I want to be. And I want to come work here. He had worked a few summers during high school at the company, working on the shop floor, doing whatever was needed to be done during the day. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (39:44.722)

and working with the guys out in the shop. So he knows so many of them because they're still there with us. And just like I did, I mean, he rolls his sleeves up and does whatever he has to do to get the job done. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what it is. 

 

Michael Palumbos (39:50.67)

Sure. 

 

Michael Palumbos (40:02.142)

As the CEO of the company today, what would you say are your three biggest pain points or frustrations? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (40:11.342)

Good question. I would say certainly number one is the constant change or the constant difficulty in finding qualified competent staff. That's certainly a big challenge, especially in manufacturing in the state of New Jersey. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (40:41.934)

Okay, and we plan on being there in our facility for as long as we can. So that's number one. Number two is keeping up with the pace of technology changes. That is certainly a challenge. It's great because things are constantly changing. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (41:08.066)

but then you're making investments in technology, hoping that that technology is going to stay at the cutting edge for a while and not change every 30 days, right? Making sure that you're making the right investment. And then number three is making sure that you are spending enough time with your key constituents. 

 

Michael Palumbos (41:18.222)

Right. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (41:38.08)

whether that is customers, vendors, or your staff, and making sure you have the time to devote to each one of them as time dictates. That's really, really important because you understand that it's important to meet with the staff and interact with the staff. We're very lucky that 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (42:06.828)

I would say 98 % of our people are in the office. We have some people who work remotely, but they work remotely because they don't live in the area. We're a manufacturer, you need to be there. And that allows me to have interpersonal relationships with most of the staff and check in with them fairly regularly to see how they're doing. 

 

Michael Palumbos (42:18.638)

Right. 

 

Michael Palumbos (42:34.786)

it speeds communication. By you taking the time to meet with them and be around them, whether they're people on your team or vendors or customers, the more you're interacting with them, the more you're hearing the things that you need that may be obstacles if you don't listen. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (43:01.682)

Yeah, we truly believe that people want to do business with people. And the interpersonal relationships are so important and so have been such a large part of our success over the years that we impart that to our staff and explain to them why it's so important to establish a human 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (43:31.446)

relationship with somebody and not just text them and not just send them an email. Pick up the phone and have a conversation. 

 

Michael Palumbos (43:40.726)

It's one of my favorite parts about Zoom is like right now we're on Zoom for those of you who are listening to the podcast, but we record on Zoom so that Eddie and I can be looking eye to eye and eye to chin. it's like, it's just, such, makes for the show to be so much different in my opinion than if we were just doing this over a phone or without the video. It makes such a huge difference. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (44:05.868)

Yes, I would agree with you. And I had listened to quite a few of your podcasts before, which is how I found you. And I did not know prior to Christina sending me a note saying, hey, we're going to do this over Zoom. And I was trying to think to myself, wait a minute, it doesn't sound like it's on Zoom when I'm listening to the recording, but I have to tell you that it, now that you say that, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (44:32.256)

I could tell the reason why there was so much good content from the podcast was because of this, that we could look at each other eye to eye. 

 

Michael Palumbos (44:41.038)

Yeah. 

 

Michael Palumbos (44:42.158)

Yeah. And I'll throw to you, we just, we interviewed me and several other business coaches interviewed at 72 CEOs across the country. And their number one priority or the number one issue and pain point was attracting and retaining people. There were some other things that it wouldn't wait when we're just finishing the paper now, but we threw it. What we found was that 

 

Michael Palumbos (45:10.434)

know, people, their number one priority was to grow revenue or profit, right? But in their number one problem was people. And so what I, you know, and when you looked at all the integrations of the things that people were saying, the phrase that we came back with is to say, not a single CEO is in the business that they think they are. And I think you nailed it. You're not in the, you know, rail business. You're not in the electric, you know, underground. 

 

Michael Palumbos (45:39.586)

business, people business. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (45:42.702)

So it's interesting you say that because over the weekend I just finished reading the book The Dream Manager by Matthew. 

 

Michael Palumbos (45:48.706)

Sure. Matthew 

 

Michael Palumbos (45:49.789)

Kelly, he gave me a quote from my book. It was really super. He's such a sweet guy. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (45:55.214)

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (45:55.794)

Awesome. So I was talking to my Sandler trainer yesterday. He and I have a standing call every Monday at 430. And I forgot who had recommended the book to me. And he started laughing. He goes, Eddie, don't you remember I recommended that book to you? I said, because it's, it is so Sandler-esque, if you're familiar with Sandler. 

 

Michael Palumbos (46:16.75)

Of course. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (46:18.606)

The dream manager resonated with me tremendously. And it hits you over the head. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (46:30.01)

and you look at it and say, aha, it's one of those aha moments, right? And that is connecting with the people that work with you. What is it that we could do to help you fulfill your dreams? 

 

Michael Palumbos (46:41.422)

Michael Palumbos (46:43.864)

Right. It's it's we do. It's Zig Ziglar 101. don't know if you remember Zig Zag. Help enough people get what they want and you'll get what you want. And it goes back to help people. Love it. Matthew Kelly's that book was phenomenal. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (46:49.495)

yeah, yeah. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (46:56.557)

Yes. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (47:01.062)

Yeah, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (47:01.662)

I'm ready in a weekend, I breezed right through it. And because of the parable, the way he writes it just like Pat Lenke, it's the same. It's the same formulation. 100 % way the book is written. That's why they're so easy to read. You get through it very quick. And there's one theme. And you get that theme. And it can open up a lot of it can open up a lot of possibilities for your company. 

 

Michael Palumbos (47:09.902)

Right 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (47:30.644)

if you can follow through on some of the things that you read about. 

 

Michael Palumbos (47:33.674)

Agreed. You just have to take the time as you were saying before where I need to carve out time to work on the business and now implement some of these things as we're moving forward. Speaking of implementing things, what are your top three priorities over the next 12 months? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (47:51.758)

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (47:53.679)

Right, so certainly one of them is the integration of this new acquisition that we have here in North Carolina and learning more about the business and getting it to be able to support itself. So we're going through a whole bunch of things and learning about the things that we didn't know before we made the acquisition. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (48:20.878)

Number two is we're working on a program called CultureWise. You might've heard David Friedman, CultureWise. we just had our first meeting with them last week and we're starting to implement that. And that is gonna be based on the vision that I have for the company and what I want the culture of the company to be going forward. And knowing that we're gonna start 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (48:49.944)

hiring for culture and training for skill. 

 

Michael Palumbos (48:53.772)

Yeah, that's what we talked about at the beginning of the show. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (48:56.706)

Right? That's number that that's really, really important. And I found out, you know, the hard way that there were some people that just, you know, they don't fit our culture and we, we live with them, not realizing how miserable they're making everybody else. And we've got to stop with that just because they might be good at their job. There's a lot more that goes into it than just doing a good job. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (49:26.51)

It's making sure that you are working with the other people at the company to make them good and to make them be the best that they can be and not having you or whoever drag the rest of them down. So that's number two. And then number three is to focus on continual improvement. Get 1 % better each day. 

 

Michael Palumbos (49:55.534)

I love it. No, you hit the nail on the head on the formula. You said your biggest frustration is people. When you fix the culture, the people issues start to go away and not enough CEOs understand how that works because we were taught through the seventies and even in the eighties that it's just get stuff done. And if we get stuff done, we'll grow the business, but at what cost? 

 

Michael Palumbos (50:22.606)

in this day and age when we have choices, especially when, you know, there's, there's 0.59 people available, according to one of the statistics is a 0.59. It was in my Vistage meeting. And I don't remember where it came from. So don't quote me on it, but 0.59 people available for every job that's out there. It's like the employees have the time. I just had a conversation with my son-in-law who, you know, happens to, you know, 

 

Michael Palumbos (50:52.526)

work a really nice job, he loves his job, he's not even thinking about changing. But I explained to him, said, you're not going to get the kind of opportunity that you have right now. You don't have to go out and interview for a job. You can now, right now, go out and interview a company for the right culture, benefits, and salary. You've never been in this position. And because you work, you know, that B shift, that 10 a.m. to 7 a.m. he works, 

 

Michael Palumbos (51:22.092)

because you worked that time, you could be interviewing other people five days a week, if you so choose, and find that dream job. So that's exactly the reverse of what we were talking about. But if you have that culture and in the interviews, you probably have read Patrick Lencioni's, what is the, come on, The Advantage. 

 

Michael Palumbos (51:51.139)

So anyway, and it's all talk. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (51:52.558)

I read that during the pandemic, yep. 

 

Michael Palumbos (51:55.022)

you know, how do we hire these people? there's the, you know, anything Patrick Lencioni is fabulous. talk about the business that you just purchased and how did that integrate and how did that come together for you guys? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (52:12.12)

So this business that we acquired, they were our main competitor in one area of our business. And I was working with a broker on another acquisition that went south that we had to push it off to the side because the company, the people we were trying to acquire it from couldn't come to an agreement amongst the shareholders. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (52:41.9)

So he called me one day to say that that was put on hold. And while I was on the phone, said, but this company is now up for sale. Are you interested? And I said, yeah, get me the paperwork right away. So we did that. We went through the due diligence last year towards the end of the year. I think this started in early October and... 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (53:06.998)

went through a lot of back and forth paperwork wise, all the due diligence, everything. I had known so much about the business because they were our competitor. And at the end of the day, the company said to us, okay, well look, we realize how passionate you are about this business. And we know that the best home for this product line is with you. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (53:36.974)

and would you offer us a little more money for it? I said, nope, nope. Okay, we had to ask because there was, again, they told me, they said there was a better offer, but we think that it's really all about where this business should be. And because you guys are so familiar and you already have a name and a very good name in the industry, this is where it should be. And... 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (54:06.902)

That's how it all came into play. It was just the right mix and it's the right business for us without a doubt. 

 

Michael Palumbos (54:17.806)

That's awesome. Totally off the topic of family business. What is your favorite, being part of this family now for so many years, what's your favorite family tradition? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (54:31.608)

Favorite family tradition? Well, there's a couple of them. Certainly around Thanksgiving, you know, it's always nice when we're all together. For years and years, we used to do it at my in-laws house. And then they sold their house and they moved, you know, into a smaller location, into a townhouse. now Thanksgiving gets done at my house. And I like it because I get to control the TV with all the football. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (55:01.55)

1. That's one of them. And then certainly we get to spend some quality family time together down in Florida. I almost have a house down there. And that was always one of the things my kids and their cousins, my wife's sister's kids, they have these incredible memories of always being at that house together during winter break. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (55:31.69)

in between Christmas and New Year's and the four of the kids were always together and grew up with just these incredible memories of being in that house. And when they were little, they thought Florida was the name of the house. They didn't understand that Florida was a state. So whenever we said we were going to Florida, they thought we were just going to the house. didn't understand that. 

 

Michael Palumbos (55:57.826)

So funny, so cute. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (55:59.586)

Yeah, so it was, look, they're all in their 20s now or late 20s. And these are just fond memories that they have of always being together when they were little. Yeah, and even to this day. 

 

Michael Palumbos (56:18.496)

Amazing. If you're sitting, talking with, you know, family businesses, family businesses right now, you've got 10 or 15 of them in front of you and you, they ask you to impart your wisdom as being a non-blood family member in a family business. And that had to be, you know, difficult at times. What are you sharing with them? 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (56:49.996)

What I would share with them is that if you love what you do, it doesn't matter. Right. And I love what I do. I really do. I love my business. I love the challenges. If I didn't have challenges, I'm not sure I would, I'm not sure I would enjoy it. Cause I'm always up for a challenge, especially when it comes, especially when it comes to business. Cause solving problems is really important to 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (57:20.238)

and finding ways to do things better. I would say also that you have to take that part of the equation away as far as the ownership thing is concerned, especially if you have a strong marriage, you don't have to worry about it. That doesn't matter at the end of the day. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (57:48.942)

Yeah, once in a while it's frustrating, but I will tell you that with this new acquisition, I do have now in the new business, I do now have equity. That's a very positive thing, but certainly I would advise any peers or other people that have a similar situation to what I have is again, if you're not passionate about what you're doing, 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (58:18.604)

then nothing is gonna make you happy whether you have ownership or you don't. 

 

Michael Palumbos (58:24.462)

Yeah, agreed. Eddie Russ now, I just want to say thank you for joining us on the Family Biz Show. This has been a fabulous conversation. Such exciting times for you and the family. You know, a purchase of another business, your son in the business, your father-in-law still in the business. It's rare that you have those opportunities. They come few and far between for the families that I... 

 

Michael Palumbos (58:51.724)

Talk to usually two generations in the business at a time, rarely three. So again, thank you for your time and for joining us on the show today. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (59:01.934)

Michael, thank you as well. And Christina, thanks for putting it together. Really, really appreciate it. you know, as far as the three generations being there at the same time, we recognize that we're blessed from that standpoint and that you've got to embrace these things when they're there. It really is important. 

 

Michael Palumbos (59:28.994)

This has been Eddie Russnow from MAC Products. My name is Michael Palumbos from Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York, and you've been listening to the Family Biz Show. Have a great day, everybody. 

 

Edward "Eddie" Russnow (59:41.442)

Thanks Michael.