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Speaker 1: Asher Kasmin is the big dog. They didn't give me

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Speaker 1: his title at locksolutions dot com. The story behind this

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Speaker 1: is I put the word out the Houston Business Journal,

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Speaker 1: which I think does a wonderful job. It's a must

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Speaker 1: read for me. They do a digital version and a

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Speaker 1: print version, and Emily brings the mail in every day

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Speaker 1: at eleven when we finish, and she brings the Houston

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Speaker 1: Business Journal, and sometimes I will forward articles to her

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Speaker 1: that the digital comes out before the print, obviously because

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Speaker 1: the print has to print and mail. And she'll hand

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Speaker 1: me the paper and she'll say, why do you still

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Speaker 1: read the paper? You've already read the digital. I know

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Speaker 1: that because you sent me an article and told me

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Speaker 1: to call that guy. Well, I'm fifty three. I'm kind

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Speaker 1: of in that bridge between the old and the young.

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Speaker 1: The digital is nice because then it's I can forward

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Speaker 1: it and I like that and I can retain it.

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Speaker 1: But the print is nice because I like to hold

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Speaker 1: on to it and I like to tear things out

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Speaker 1: and send people a note with it on there, or

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Speaker 1: at least I intend to anyway. So Houston Business Journal

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Speaker 1: does something called the Fast fifty, and it's companies that

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Speaker 1: have had explosive growth over the last two years year

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Speaker 1: over year growth. So I took a photo of the

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Speaker 1: Fast fifty list and we've talked to some of those

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Speaker 1: folks and we'll be talking to more. And I posted

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Speaker 1: that to Facebook. I said, if anybody knows any of

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Speaker 1: these people, have them reach out to me Michael at

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Speaker 1: Michael Berryshow dot com or you can just go directly

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Speaker 1: to Michael Berryshow dot com. And out of fifty, I

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Speaker 1: probably heard from ten. You always hear from somebody that

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Speaker 1: knows of those people. Without them, I'm not going to

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Speaker 1: go tracking them down, but there were probably seven people

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Speaker 1: all in up to today who reached out to me

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Speaker 1: within the company of Locke Solutions. I have no idea

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Speaker 1: what they do, but I can tell you that they understand. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let me just give you this. He Saimal Tony may

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Speaker 1: not be a retail seller of vehicles, but Tony's going

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Speaker 1: to get dozens of calls today and he'll probably sell

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Speaker 1: some units out of it. If Tony didn't take that call,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't sell those units. So what people will do

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Speaker 1: is they sit in meetings all day try to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to grow their business. I'll tell you how

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Speaker 1: to grow your business. If everybody in the world knows

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Speaker 1: who you are and what you do and how to

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Speaker 1: reach you, the rest will take care of himself. Just

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Speaker 1: do what you do well. But if you don't tell

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Speaker 1: anybody what you do, businesses die because nobody knows what

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Speaker 1: they do, much more so than that they're not good

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Speaker 1: at what they do. Restaurants die not because the food's

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Speaker 1: not good, the people don't try, the chef didn't create

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Speaker 1: because there's so many other places to go. It is

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Speaker 1: a constant battle. You see how often mac is in

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Speaker 1: the news. Do you know what that costs, not only

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Speaker 1: in time but in energy. If you are not doing

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Speaker 1: everything you can to remind people you're here, you're dying.

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Speaker 1: Competition is a beautiful thing, but it's also vicious. Businesses

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Speaker 1: are dying every single day. Other businesses are growing at

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Speaker 1: the same time. It's not accidental. It's not luck. So

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Speaker 1: asher Kasmin? Is it Kasmin? Is that how you pronounce it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? That's correct?

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Speaker 1: Is that Jewish?

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Speaker 2: It is? Actually?

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Speaker 1: Where are they Ashkenese Jews? Where are they from?

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Speaker 2: That is amazing. I did a twenty three and meters

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Speaker 2: and it is it is Ashcanazi, And I think it's

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Speaker 2: kind of Eastern European.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's where the Ashcanazis were, but you don't know

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Speaker 1: where Russia Poland.

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Speaker 2: No, I really don't, and I really don't. I don't

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Speaker 2: go back. I'm a Christian myself, but I don't go back,

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Speaker 2: and a whole lot on that side of the family.

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Speaker 1: I'll do it for you, don't worry. We'll do that

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Speaker 1: when we get off the air. What does Lock Solutions do?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we are a pre cast concrete manufacturing company,

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Speaker 2: and so to kind of put it in a little

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Speaker 2: bit more plainer terms, when you see manhole cover.

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Speaker 1: Asher, hold on, we were so flowsome that we missed

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Speaker 1: a break. Wait right there, so you goofball, What were

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Speaker 1: you doing? You were looking up his company? We were

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Speaker 1: supposed to go to break. Are you in need of

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Speaker 1: any pre cast concrete, doomstones or cop cars or something?

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Speaker 1: I don't You still don't know what they do. The

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Speaker 1: Michael Berry Show lockel o c K Solutions dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Asher Kasmin is our guest. Asher. I'm just going to

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Speaker 1: be honest. You don't look like a guy. You don't

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Speaker 1: dress and present yourself like a guy who runs a

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Speaker 1: company like that. You seem more kind of like a

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Speaker 1: finance company, like you obviously have a custom hairdoo. You

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Speaker 1: know you're kind of styled, you know what I mean?

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: You know who looks like the CEO of your company?

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Speaker 1: Michael Luck. He's got more of the look hey out

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Speaker 1: of out of your senior guys, Asher Kasman, Michael Luck,

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Speaker 1: David Aspino, he'd be a Spino, would be the guy

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Speaker 1: most want to have a beer with. He looks real cheered,

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Speaker 1: a real chilled, but my guess is beer is not

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Speaker 1: his thing. He seems kind of more like a four

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Speaker 1: to two ozero guy. Richard Burke, Chelsea and Chat Hunh.

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Speaker 2: He's more of a tequila guy.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I can see that he'd be the guy, just

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Speaker 1: judging by the look i'd most want to have a

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Speaker 1: drink with, because he seems like he's got he seems

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Speaker 1: like he has some some interest, like maybe he's got

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Speaker 1: a resto mod you know, trau or a sixty seven

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Speaker 1: Cadillac one inch off the ground. He seems like he'd

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Speaker 1: be a cool cat. Out of those six, only one

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Speaker 1: of y'all has the university from which you graduated in

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Speaker 1: your bio on the our team section, can you guess

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Speaker 1: who that is. It's not you, Hm, maybe huh?

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Speaker 2: Is it Michael Luck?

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Speaker 1: Nope, this tells you everything you need to know about

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Speaker 1: this university.

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Speaker 2: It's Chad arp and he's an aggie and so am I.

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Speaker 1: Oh, well, you don't tell it. You probably don't want

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Speaker 1: them hitting you up because they got to pay that

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Speaker 1: seventy five million dollars they paid Jimbo to leave, and

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Speaker 1: they've already cut the baseball field and had There's only

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Speaker 1: so many George Strait concerts you can have to make

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Speaker 1: up the difference. He's the only one that tells you

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Speaker 1: everything you need to know about that university. I don't

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Speaker 1: care what happens on that campus. You can argue over

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Speaker 1: which university is the best and this there is no

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Speaker 1: place that the aduates will introduce themselves the trademark Howdy

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Speaker 1: like they do. There's LSU, Harvard, Yale, Miami Alabama. There

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Speaker 1: is no place that people are prouder that they are

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Speaker 1: from than Texas, A and M. That's the fact.

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Speaker 2: Yep. When you when you go there, you realize why

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Speaker 2: it's hard. It's hard to tell from the outside. That's

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Speaker 2: what they say.

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Speaker 1: So you kind of bragged with the pe after your

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Speaker 1: name professional engineer, What is your engineering degree? In what year?

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Speaker 1: And why don't you have A and M on your bio?

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Speaker 2: Well, and I'm not sure which bio you're referring to,

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Speaker 2: but I'm.

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Speaker 1: On your website, Kasman. Oh, would you like me to

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Speaker 1: read it to you? You probably don't know, You'll probably have.

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Speaker 1: With over two decades of designing structural precast products and

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Speaker 1: concrete mix designs for the electrical, power, communication, water, and

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Speaker 1: industrial sectors, Asher is focused on creating solutions in the

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Speaker 1: construction industry. More important, he is dedicated to helping make

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Speaker 1: a positive impact in the lives of his friends and family,

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Speaker 1: including his coworkers, customers, and vendor partners. Our focus as

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Speaker 1: a company is to create an environment that challenges our

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Speaker 1: people and provides them opportunities to grow personally and in

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Speaker 1: their careers. We continue to build a team and culture

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Speaker 1: aligned with our values, which has in turn created a

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Speaker 1: high functioning organization with a focus on a responsive customer service.

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Speaker 1: We will be remembered as a company making a lasting

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Speaker 1: impact in the lives of our people and partners. Nothing

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Speaker 1: really about you.

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Speaker 2: Asher, Well, it's not about me. I mean, that's that's

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Speaker 2: the thing.

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Speaker 1: I know, but when I went to that page, I

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Speaker 1: kind of wanted to know about you. That's kind of

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Speaker 1: mission statement stuff. Also, Asher doesn't sound like the kind

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Speaker 1: of name of a guy that's in pre cast concrete.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm trying to change.

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Speaker 1: That's that's kind of that's kind of a New York

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Speaker 1: private equity guy. Look him up see Ramona Grees. So

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Speaker 1: do did you start this company?

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Speaker 2: I did? I did it. Yeah, I founded it back

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Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen. And and actually Michael Luck he was

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Speaker 2: employee number two and a guy I had worked with

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Speaker 2: for a while. And yeah, we started from nothing from scratch.

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Speaker 1: Well, y'all have obviously done very well.

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Speaker 2: It's been good. We've had a good We've had our

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Speaker 2: growth spurts over the years. I mean, we're about to

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Speaker 2: be at twelve years at the end of this year,

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Speaker 2: and we've gone through some really good patches and you know,

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Speaker 2: but to be honest, there's been a lot of challenges

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Speaker 2: as well. So it hasn't been all roses the whole time.

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Speaker 2: But we've definitely, especially over the last several years, have

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Speaker 2: seen a lot of growth obviously, and you know, but

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Speaker 2: really it is you go back to that bio. It's

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Speaker 2: really the team that's gotten us there. That the growth

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Speaker 2: of our company really started to accelerate when I I think,

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Speaker 2: what I realized, I need to get out of the

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Speaker 2: way and stop being such a bottleneck and start, you know,

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Speaker 2: letting our team really you know, grow the business. And

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Speaker 2: that's when we started seeing this acceleration. So that leadership

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Speaker 2: team you just talked about huge part of why we

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Speaker 2: made this list this year.

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Speaker 1: Asher take exactly sixty seconds and explain what pre cast

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Speaker 1: concrete is, Ramon, can you count us down sixty seconds.

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Speaker 1: Let's hear your elevator. This is to your kids' fourth

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Speaker 1: grade class.

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Speaker 2: Go okay, So there's a lot of pre cast, prefabricated

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Speaker 2: concrete out there. But what we do, what we focus

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Speaker 2: on is mainly structures that are underground that are used

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Speaker 2: for accessing and protecting a lot of the underground utility.

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Speaker 2: So when you're running power lines underground, communication fiber, when

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Speaker 2: you have dormwater drainage going underground, there's a whole system

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Speaker 2: under there, and so we we design and manufacture the

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Speaker 2: concrete structures that are all underground. So when you see

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Speaker 2: a manhole cover or you see a door in the

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Speaker 2: in the roadway, what's under there is a concrete room

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Speaker 2: of some size, and that's what we're making. And so

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Speaker 2: our focus is really on more specially custom engineered structures,

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Speaker 2: and we typically we find ourselves doing a lot of

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Speaker 2: industrial type project facility.

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Speaker 1: I know you're going to think I'm kidding you, but

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Speaker 1: I'm not. I think that's fascinating, all the stuff that

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Speaker 1: goes on that we never see in the brain power

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Speaker 1: that goes nine of this country. I will die for

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Speaker 1: display to Michael Berry shows a big honor to be

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Speaker 1: living in the United States. How did you come up

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Speaker 1: the name Locke? Locke? Is that for John Locke? Is

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Speaker 1: it trustworthy?

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Speaker 2: It's a real It felt like it's a real solid name.

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Speaker 2: But it's actually the name of my first my firstborn,

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Speaker 2: my son Locke, who's thirteen years old.

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Speaker 1: Locke Sebenhauser. What was his name? I always wonder when

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Speaker 1: people do that, when you name the company after your kid,

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Speaker 1: what are the other kids think?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's you're right. My wife would tell me I

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Speaker 2: was pretty short sighted. I've got two girls who are

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Speaker 2: are younger, but at the time when I actually created

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Speaker 2: the name, I only had one. But the two other

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Speaker 2: girls later on were not very happy when they kind

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Speaker 2: of started to realize what happened.

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Speaker 1: So I normally like to start a conversation where somebody

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Speaker 1: doesn't know where we're going with some kind of off putting,

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Speaker 1: awkward questions just to see how they handle them, and

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Speaker 1: then we get into the normal stuff. So I'm going

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Speaker 1: to move to phase two with your permission. All right,

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Speaker 1: was anything I asked sort of awkward or you thought

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Speaker 1: to yourself, how did we end up there?

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Speaker 2: No, no, not at all. I just check it.

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Speaker 1: Uh so, so tell me who are your biggest clients

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Speaker 1: who buys this stuff?

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Speaker 2: We are are bigger clients, so we deal.

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Speaker 1: With I got they all said you could, you could

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Speaker 1: tell their name. They don't mind.

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Speaker 2: Uh Well, I mean generally speaking that we work with

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Speaker 2: firms that are dealing with industrial and really heavy commercial projects.

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Speaker 2: So a lot of EPC engineering, procurement, construction firms.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a big boy, no contract.

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Speaker 2: Well okay, I mean, just to give you some examples,

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Speaker 2: some people like the Bechdels, the Floors, Zachary's, McCarthy's, those

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Speaker 2: kind of companies. Is that they do, they are and

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Speaker 2: they do complex projects. And that's where we find ourselves

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Speaker 2: because of the custom nature. You know of our work,

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Speaker 2: we find ourselves in those kind of projects.

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Speaker 1: I asked my friend Dane Berson. He owns a company

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Speaker 1: called Accurate meter in Supply and they do like meter boxes,

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Speaker 1: underground pipes and things like that. And I said, do

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Speaker 1: you know Locke Solutions. It's a precast concrete concrete product company.

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Speaker 1: Is it a competitor or a supplier? And he said,

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Speaker 1: we use their competitors. And I said who is that?

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Speaker 1: And he said rock Solid del Zato Oldcastle, South Houston precast.

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Speaker 1: So I said, why not Lock? And he said, well,

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Speaker 1: we were already using the others when they were starting,

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Speaker 1: and Lock tends to be more electrical and communication type projects.

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Speaker 1: Is that perception true?

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Speaker 2: That that is true? So when we first started, you know,

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Speaker 2: those those were the areas that we focused on. But

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Speaker 2: those other precasters you just named, those are good companies.

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Speaker 2: We don't compete directly with most of them, so there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of pre cast type products you can make.

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Speaker 2: Those particular companies tend to do more standard, what I

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Speaker 2: consider commodity type products.

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Speaker 1: You see what he's doing, and that's like they're not

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Speaker 1: really competitors. They're great guys. If you want boring trash.

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Speaker 1: What we do is specialized, value added, highly sophisticated. But

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Speaker 1: those guys are great. I mean sometimes you need, you know,

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Speaker 1: your basic run of the mill. I love that aster

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Speaker 1: keep going.

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Speaker 2: You couldn't have said it better. But that's the truth.

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Speaker 2: And that's that's typical of the pre cast industry to

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Speaker 2: be efficient, make the same product day in, day out.

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Speaker 2: But we're a little bit of a niche, so we

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Speaker 2: focus on areas that other pre cast companies really don't

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Speaker 2: don't want to go play in.

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Speaker 1: So if one of these big always like a Bechtel,

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Speaker 1: makes a purchase from you, and we're talking you're you're

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Speaker 1: not sending out a po or invoice for you know,

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Speaker 1: four thousand dollars, we're talking a million, four million, eight

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Speaker 1: million a pop.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The projects, yeah, the projects we get involved in, now,

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Speaker 2: I will tell you we do. We will do projects

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Speaker 2: that are four thousand dollars, but we'll do projects that

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Speaker 2: are twenty million dollars, so anywhere in between. But but yeah,

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Speaker 2: we tend to find ourselves on those larger, more complex

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Speaker 2: projects that require you know, really custom engineered product.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, not that run of the meal stuff like those

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Speaker 1: other companies. All Right, I got a minute and a half.

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you this twenty thirteen. This, this

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Speaker 1: business requires a lot of capital. How did you start?

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Speaker 1: Did you have equity behind you? Do you have investors?

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Speaker 1: What did you do?

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Speaker 2: I went out and uh convinced the bank to give

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Speaker 2: me a small business loan, which I did have a

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Speaker 2: few uh wells Fargo is actually the one I started with,

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Speaker 2: and a few friends and family that that put in

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Speaker 2: some initial seed money with me, and and that's how

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Speaker 2: we started it. You know, really a lot of capital. Good,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of capital involved, you're right, the equipment,

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Speaker 2: you know, just the nature of manufacturing and bringing in Like,

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Speaker 2: I'm looking.

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Speaker 1: At what y'all do? What was your initial raise?

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Speaker 2: We started with a million dollars?

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Speaker 1: Are you serious to do what y'all do? That's uh,

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Speaker 1: that's aggressive. Good for you, and you don't get paid

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Speaker 1: till the back end. That business is terrible for that.

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Speaker 2: It's worse in restaurants. The cast cycle is very difficult.

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Speaker 1: Yes, what did y'all make?

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Speaker 2: We did fifty four million?

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Speaker 1: And what will you do this year?

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Speaker 2: We'll do north of sixty.

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Speaker 1: Wow, how many employees?

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Speaker 2: I've got about one hundred and eighty five right now?

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Speaker 1: Is I saw you had a plant? Do people call

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Speaker 1: that instead of Alvarado? Do they call that Alvaredo? Have

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Speaker 1: I heard that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? We say Alvaredo.

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Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I've heard that. I don't know why that is.

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Speaker 1: So you have two plants and you have one hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty five employees. How many of those are in operations?

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Speaker 1: I mean non sales, non admin?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we actually have three operations. We have another

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Speaker 2: one down by Victoria, Texas as well, But out of

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Speaker 2: those one hundred and eighty five, I would say about

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Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty or producing on the floor, producing product.

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Speaker 1: I'm impressed. I love these stories. Asher, all kidding asides,

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Speaker 1: It's very impressive what you've done. Good for you.

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Speaker 2: I appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: I think we should be.

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Speaker 2: Friends with you.

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Speaker 1: They're on all me to Genoe. You want to go

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Speaker 1: to it with me? If I have if they'll probably

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Speaker 1: want to have a long What would we want? Something

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Speaker 1: must be right? You are listening to Michael Berry