Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Shop Talk, episode three of three
Speaker 1: on our mini cast. Give you just a ten to
Speaker 1: twelve minute thing to listen to, and today we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about commitment or dedication or dedication and commitment,
Speaker 1: but we're going to look at it through the lens
Speaker 1: of a very special person who entered my life and
Speaker 1: recently left this earth right after these brief messages from
Speaker 1: our generals sponsors. All right, everybody, welcome to three of
Speaker 1: three Shop Talk. We're going to talk about commitment or dedication.
Speaker 1: I can't really decide which word best describes what this
Speaker 1: shop talks about, but we'll call a commitment. And when
Speaker 1: you think about commitment, you think about, I don't know,
Speaker 1: being on time, a commitment of marriage, a commitment to work,
Speaker 1: being dedicated to your word, doing what do what they're
Speaker 1: gonna do. All of those things are true. But I
Speaker 1: think there's levels of commitment maybe or depth of dedication.
Speaker 1: And I think when you run across people who demonstrate
Speaker 1: a depth of dedication and a deep level of commitment,
Speaker 1: that they are inspiring. One of the most inspiring people
Speaker 1: I've ever met my wife as a guy named Sam Quinn.
Speaker 1: Sam was a marine and after the Marines, he entered
Speaker 1: a world in the sixties as a young black guy
Speaker 1: looking for opportunity, looking for love, looking for work. Sam
Speaker 1: didn't find much of that. But what he did find
Speaker 1: was he found alcohol and he found trouble. I didn't
Speaker 1: know Sam then. When I met Sam was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, shortly after I started my business. We
Speaker 1: were on a wing and a prayer. I didn't have
Speaker 1: much money, and the equipment that I was installing to
Speaker 1: start this fledgling business was it was wore out when
Speaker 1: I got my hands on it, and literally I drug
Speaker 1: old pieces of equipment out of the weeds behind large
Speaker 1: furniture manufacturers and paid three hundred dollars cash, and frankly,
Speaker 1: the people that owned those furniture manufacturers just glad to
Speaker 1: see that stuff go and brought it back to my
Speaker 1: place here in Memphis and fixed it up and started
Speaker 1: using it. That's really the genesis of how I started
Speaker 1: my business. And we started operations in September of two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. And when you're running lumber in a
Speaker 1: manufacturing process, you've got packs of lumber with board stocked
Speaker 1: on top of each other, but you got a great
Speaker 1: got to do things to them. So you got to
Speaker 1: get them in single fashion, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: sit there and hand handle every single board. So there's
Speaker 1: a machine called a tilt toist, which tilts the pack
Speaker 1: to a forty five degree angle, then hoist it up
Speaker 1: in the air so that each level, each layer of
Speaker 1: the lumber slides out onto moving chains that then take
Speaker 1: it across the face of an inspector who looks at
Speaker 1: the lumber and boards and inspects it as they pass
Speaker 1: them by. And then once it passes in by, they're
Speaker 1: then pulled back off the chain and made back into packs.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how lumber is handled in our industry.
Speaker 1: And we just started operations. I'd spent all the money
Speaker 1: I'd had, I was way in debt and we needed
Speaker 1: to generate sales, and we were operating then going, and
Speaker 1: the reality was I was grading lumber and working outside
Speaker 1: on the yard every day. And then when three o'clock
Speaker 1: happened and the shift shut down and the hourly guys
Speaker 1: went home, then I spent the next six hours on
Speaker 1: the phone calling customers buying lumber. And it was stenuous,
Speaker 1: and one Friday, our til toys broke. And that sounds
Speaker 1: like a bad thing. But when your til toys breaks
Speaker 1: and you're already broke and you've got great revenue the
Speaker 1: next week by making lumber and shipping lumber, and you
Speaker 1: can't do it. You have to get that thing running.
Speaker 1: And so my maintenance manager, my yard manager, and I
Speaker 1: knew that this was going to be an all weekend deal.
Speaker 1: We saw the sun rise and set three times before
Speaker 1: we ever went home. We had to basically take the
Speaker 1: entire till toys apart with torches, remove chain, fixed brockets,
Speaker 1: rewire a motor, and put it all back together. And
Speaker 1: it's very heavy industrial stuff. And about five point thirty
Speaker 1: that Friday evening we started working. In about six point fifteen,
Speaker 1: I looked up and there's this guy, Sam Quinn, a
Speaker 1: guy hired only a month and a half early earlier
Speaker 1: to pull lumber. Six dollars and seventy five cent an hour, guy,
Speaker 1: just manual labor. And he walks in and he picks
Speaker 1: up a ball pen hammer and starts heading to the
Speaker 1: other side, and I was like, oh, Sam, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? He said, Well, we need to get this
Speaker 1: toilt hoys running so we can run Monday and we
Speaker 1: can make money and I'm like saying, yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: but I can hardly afford to pay you forty hours.
Speaker 1: I can't pay you to be here, and I sure
Speaker 1: can't afford time and a half. And he looked at
Speaker 1: me and said, I hadn't been a part of anything
Speaker 1: since the United States Marine Corps, and I feel a
Speaker 1: part of this company. I don't want you to pay me,
Speaker 1: but I ain't going home either. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: let you guys work and me watch. And he went
Speaker 1: to work. We slept on the floor or the deck
Speaker 1: when I say slept a couple hours covered in torch, soot,
Speaker 1: hydraulic oil, grease, filth, sawdust. Woke up, Lisa brought some biscuits,
Speaker 1: and we worked all that Saturday, and then we worked
Speaker 1: all that Sunday and literally Monday morning, about five point
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning, we finished and finally got that
Speaker 1: stupid thing put back together in operational thirty minutes before
Speaker 1: the line crew showed up start running again. Monday. None
Speaker 1: of us went home, none of us had a shower,
Speaker 1: and Sam did all that with us for nothing, And then,
Speaker 1: to my absolute shock, when the line turned on, Sam
Speaker 1: came out of the bathroom after cleaning himself up and
Speaker 1: pulled the lumber for eight hours behind that chain to
Speaker 1: hit his Monday shift before he went home Tuesday night.
Speaker 1: Over the course of that weekend, and you got nothing
Speaker 1: else to do, you learn a lot about one another.
Speaker 1: And I found out about Sam's past, and I found
Speaker 1: out he had no major violent issues with the law,
Speaker 1: but lots of DUIs and things he hadn't paid, and
Speaker 1: really became systemized, institutionalized like many are that come from
Speaker 1: where Sam comes from. Because you got to have a
Speaker 1: car to go to work. But if you can't afford
Speaker 1: a driver's license, you get pulled over, you don't have
Speaker 1: a driver's license, get a ticket, you can't afford to
Speaker 1: pay for the ticket. If it's between paying the ticket
Speaker 1: or putting gas in your car and paying the light bill,
Speaker 1: you don't pay the ticket. Then you get a warrant.
Speaker 1: Then the county starts putting interest on top of your
Speaker 1: ticket and penalties, and what was a forty dollars ticket
Speaker 1: becomes a thousand dollars ticket, and then there's a warrant
Speaker 1: out for your arrest. Then you're arrested, then you got
Speaker 1: a post bail. It's a never ending downward vacuum spiral
Speaker 1: of misery that people find themselves in. And I'm not
Speaker 1: excusing it, but it's just the reality of what happens
Speaker 1: to a lot of a lot of poor folks. And
Speaker 1: that was Sam's world. And he told me about it,
Speaker 1: and I told him, I said, Sam, you know you
Speaker 1: got to take care of responsibilities. I kind of get
Speaker 1: why you ended up where you are, but if I
Speaker 1: help you out and we find a way to get
Speaker 1: all this cleaned up and straight, he looked at me
Speaker 1: and eyes he said, I'll never go back. He was
Speaker 1: living at Lighthouse Ministries, which is a daily rented room
Speaker 1: for eight hours a night thing. He literally was almost homeless.
Speaker 1: The next two and a half years. We worked with attorneys,
Speaker 1: We worked with all kinds of people to clear his record,
Speaker 1: pay his fines which I loaned the money for, and
Speaker 1: he paid me back and get himself straight. Then his girlfriend, Regina,
Speaker 1: he married and he adopted her children because he believed,
Speaker 1: if you're going to commit to a woman, you need
Speaker 1: to commit to the children, and they don't need to
Speaker 1: be living in the same house. And he actually got
Speaker 1: a marriage license, got married, and adopted the kids as
Speaker 1: his own. And then I'll never forget the pride on
Speaker 1: his face when he'd saved himself thirty five hundred dollars
Speaker 1: to put a down payment on a home which he
Speaker 1: bought for his wife and his children. Over the course
Speaker 1: of time of the company, he went from that low
Speaker 1: level common labor job and ended up being a manager
Speaker 1: on the yard at my company. There was no prouder
Speaker 1: human being on the face of the planet than Sam
Speaker 1: Quinn because what he found out was this life that
Speaker 1: he'd screwed completely up. He was able to fix with
Speaker 1: commitment and dedication. Commitment to a wife, commitment to his bills,
Speaker 1: commitment to his children, commitment to his job, dedication to
Speaker 1: those things. And it changed his life, and it changed
Speaker 1: the life of his wife, and it changed the life
Speaker 1: of his children. But more importantly, not more importantly, but
Speaker 1: maybe with greater perspective for me, it changed mine. I
Speaker 1: watched a formally homeless, alcoholic drug using person living at
Speaker 1: Lighthouse Ministries with half a chance to be committed and
Speaker 1: dedicated to something better become my friend. There was never
Speaker 1: a time that this company was dealing with difficulties, the
Speaker 1: same one the first in line to volunteer out. There
Speaker 1: was never a time that I didn't have a need
Speaker 1: that Sam wasn't the first to volunteer to help. He
Speaker 1: was so ultimately committed as a friend and an employee
Speaker 1: and a father and a manager that he inspired everybody
Speaker 1: at this company and me. About two years ago, Sam
Speaker 1: got diagnosed with a really terrible form of cancer. And
Speaker 1: when he told me about it, he looked me dead
Speaker 1: in the eyes and he said, I don't think I
Speaker 1: can beat it. I'm going to try to extend my
Speaker 1: life as long as I can. And he said, I'm
Speaker 1: paying for some of the things I did when I
Speaker 1: was young, And he told me there were times he
Speaker 1: sniffed paint, and there were times that he drank rubbing alcohol,
Speaker 1: and there were things he did to his body that
Speaker 1: his body was now no longer to off and he
Speaker 1: was paying for. But he he wasn't a victim to it.
Speaker 1: He didn't even gripe about it. He kind of said,
Speaker 1: I'm a man. I made those decisions and now I'm
Speaker 1: paying for them. And he just looked me dead in
Speaker 1: the eyes and he said, Bill, just no, I want
Speaker 1: to work. I don't want to miss a day. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, Sam, you got cancer, I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: and He's just with this steely look in his face,
Speaker 1: said I'm going to deal with it, but don't not
Speaker 1: let me run my line, don't let let me work.
Speaker 1: It was his dedication and commitment to work and the
Speaker 1: dedication commitment of the business and the people in the
Speaker 1: business to him that changed his life, and that was
Speaker 1: what he cared about most, even when he was dying
Speaker 1: of cancer. This man would schedule his treatments early in
Speaker 1: the morning and would show up in the Debta summer
Speaker 1: working on a production line in a lumberyard with dust
Speaker 1: and noise and loud stuff, and be at work thirty
Speaker 1: minutes after treatment treatment that most people would go home
Speaker 1: and lay in bed for two or three days, and
Speaker 1: this guy would come and stand on his feet for
Speaker 1: eight hours in the hot sun or the cold, brutal
Speaker 1: winters in this unforgiving atmosphere that is a lumber mill
Speaker 1: and manage his people. I cannot tell you the depth
Speaker 1: of the inspiration that people had knowing that that's what
Speaker 1: Sam was doing. See, it was not just his commitment
Speaker 1: dedication the company that mattered, but it was it was
Speaker 1: the commitment and dedication that we showed to him. It
Speaker 1: changed lives. It changed perceptions, and it changed me. About
Speaker 1: five months ago, I was pulling onto the yard and
Speaker 1: I saw Sam coming across the yard with some of
Speaker 1: his materials, and oh my god, he could barely walk.
Speaker 1: Sam was not a tall or big man, but he
Speaker 1: was a chiseled guy. And by this time his clothes
Speaker 1: were hanging off of him. You could see all the
Speaker 1: bones and veins in his neck and his clavical through
Speaker 1: his T shirt. And he was in pain. And I said, Sam,
Speaker 1: how you doing. I'm good, boss, Sam, how you doing?
Speaker 1: He looked at me dead as he said, I'm hurting.
Speaker 1: And I said, Sam, there has been no more committed,
Speaker 1: dedicated human being that I've ever seen to anything in
Speaker 1: my entire life. Why don't you give yourself a break
Speaker 1: and take a rest? And he said, I'll be fine.
Speaker 1: He died three days later. His dying days were walking
Speaker 1: around a lumberyard. Because he was dedicated and committed to
Speaker 1: what was dedicated and committed to him and changed his life,
Speaker 1: and in doing so, he changed the lives of everybody
Speaker 1: around him. He remains an inspiration. He's been gone now
Speaker 1: for months, but people still call the line that he
Speaker 1: worked on. Sam's line. Problems come up around the yard
Speaker 1: and some of the other managers and other employees will
Speaker 1: immediately say, well, what would Sam have done? Sam Quinn
Speaker 1: has an everlasting legacy on my company, on my children,
Speaker 1: on my employees, and on me because of what a
Speaker 1: depth of commitment and dedication meant in his life and
Speaker 1: what it meant to the lives of those around them
Speaker 1: who experienced that depth of commitment and dedication. So when
Speaker 1: you think about committing to something in the future, I
Speaker 1: hope you might think about Sam Quinn. It's more than
Speaker 1: being on time. It's more than saying yes I will.
Speaker 1: It's more than just being a person of your word.
Speaker 1: True commitment and true dedication inspires and it changes the
Speaker 1: perceptions of people around you and ultimately will change your
Speaker 1: own life. So when you commit or dedicate something, do
Speaker 1: it like Sam would do. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see
Speaker 1: you next week.