About

I grew up in Kewanee, Illinois. The town made boilers, valves and work gloves when I was a kid, and a good deal less by the time I left. My dad spent thirty-one years in a foundry across town. My mother ran the front office at my grade school. In our house a job was something you showed up for early.

The summer I turned sixteen I got on as a summer hand at Ostrander Wire Works, a small wire mill on the south side of town. I swept scale, banded coils and pulled rejects off the end of the line. After high school I went back full-time on the night maintenance crew, first as a helper and then as a millwright trainee, and saved enough to go to the University of Illinois. I graduated in 1993 with a degree in industrial engineering. I already knew what a plant looks like at three in the morning, which helped more than the degree did for the first couple of years.

Engineering, then a plant of my own

My first engineering job was at Ashby Wire Products in Rockford, a wire drawing and cold-heading operation. I was there six years, first as a process engineer and then as quality engineering manager. Die life, drawing lubricants, statistical process control. Also how to get through a customer audit without anyone losing their temper, which nobody teaches in school.

In 1999 Ashby sent me to run its plant in Huntington, Indiana. It was losing money and missing about a third of its ship dates, and its injury rate was close to nine. Corporate had it on the short list to close. Four years later scrap was down from 7.4 percent to 2.1, on-time delivery was at 96 percent and the injury rate was 2.4. The plant stayed open and hired forty more people. I still think that was the most useful work I’ve done.

Five years as the customer

In 2003 I left manufacturing to run operations for the central region of Tamsen Lumber & Supply, a building-supply distributor with sixteen yards, two truss plants and more than 130 delivery trucks. Several people told me it was a career mistake. For five years I bought nails from six suppliers and found out what it costs a dealer when a manufacturer misses a ship date in May.

After the housing market fell apart in 2008, I went to Pellston Building Products in Columbus, Ohio. Pellston makes roof edge, flashing, ventilation and steel connectors in four plants. I started as director of supply chain and left as vice president of operations and supply chain. Over six years I bought something like 400,000 tons of coated steel coil and closed three of our five distribution centers.

Cordell

Harold Cordell started the company in Danville in 1951, and his family still owns it. I joined in 2014 as vice president of operations, became chief operating officer in 2018 and was named president and CEO in January 2021. I’m the first CEO who isn’t a Cordell.

We buy steel rod, draw it into wire and make common, box, sinker, framing, roofing, siding and finishing nails, plus collated strip and coil nails for nail guns. Most of it goes to building-supply distributors, lumber dealers and truss and pallet plants. Between Danville and Jackson, Tennessee, we have about 640 people. In a good month we ship around a billion nails.

Since 2021 we’ve spent $36 million on new nail machines, a wire drawing line, automated packaging in Danville and a collating line in Jackson. Nobody was laid off to pay for it. We also rebuilt the maintenance apprenticeship and the safety program, which I’ve written about.

Outside work

My wife, Diane, and I live in Danville. We met in Urbana and have been married thirty-one years. Our daughter is an ICU nurse in Indianapolis. Our son designs HVAC systems in Nashville. There is also a grandson, age three, who already knows what a tape measure is for.

Weekends I’m usually on Lake Vermilion with a fishing rod, or in the garage with a 1956 pickup that has been about two weekends from finished since 2020. In 2017 we started the Cordell Skilled Trades Scholarship, which helps employees’ kids pay for welding, machining, electrical and maintenance programs. Forty-one students have used it so far.