MEL #029 | From Co-op Student to Technical Manager through Relentless Curiosity with Chris Ritter

RITTER (00:00)

Our checks all say the same thing at the end. Mine don’t say that they’re specially written by the Mount Holly plant. They all come from Century Aluminum Inc. And so we’re all the same company. We’re all in it together. And if we want to succeed, we got to work together.

ADAMS (00:39)

In this episode, I speak with Chris Ritter, technical manager for Century Aluminum’s Mount Holly Smelter. Chris’s early fascination with how things work, along with a strong interest in math and science during high school, sparked his decision to pursue chemical engineering. His engineering path began with a co-op experience while at Clemson University, leading to a longstanding career at Mount Holly. He started in process control and steadily grew into a leadership role, ultimately becoming the plant’s technical manager.

In our leadership segment, Chris discusses how he navigates a complex role that includes managing direct and indirect reports across departments like lab operations and IT, mentoring a new generation of engineers, and bridging communication across corporate and local functions. One key challenge he described was leading through uncertainty and renewal while preserving institutional knowledge and culture. In our advice segment, Chris emphasizes continuous learning, sharing knowledge rather than hoarding it.

and leading with empathy and clarity. He encourages aspiring leaders to understand the why behind actions, communicate expectations clearly, and keep the main thing the main thing. Without further delay, here is my conversation with Chris Ritter.

ADAMS (01:48)

Hi, Chris. Welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership.

RITTER (01:51)

Hi, thanks for having me.

ADAMS (01:52)

I am thrilled to have you here. Can you start out by telling us how you got into engineering as a career path?

RITTER (01:58)

Sure, sure. I guess, you know, from an early age, certainly into high school, you know, was interested in math and science and how things work. And, you know, I always liked the challenge. you know, engineering was intriguing to me. And then I went to study chemical engineering at Clemson University. And after my first year, I started what they

they call their co-op program. It’s sort of a year round internship where you’re alternating school and work. And you do three to five semesters of that. And so that gave me a lot more of a real life perspective, not just from the classroom side, but this is how you really apply things. And this is also how things are different from what you study. I studied chemical engineering, but I might use maybe 5 % of that.

classically. So that really encouraged me to continue. fortunately, the plant where I work, had a number of people in it. It really helped create a feeder stock, I guess, of people to staff the plant and provide multiple generations of technical leaders.

ADAMS (03:06)

Yes, so did you co-op, so you work in the aluminum industry and did you co-op in the aluminum industry or did you co-op in different places? And did you co-op in the plant that you ultimately ended up working in?

RITTER (03:18)

Yes, actually, I just had my anniversary. I’ve been at this plant since I started co-op back in 1992.

ADAMS (03:26)

Wow, wow, okay, well that’s great. as you know, because we’ve worked together in the past, for my audience, I also worked in the aluminum industry and I didn’t even know what it was. So I came to the aluminum industry after graduate school and Alcoa happened to have a tight partnership with Penn State, which is where I went to school. And so there was kind of a feeder program, but for the R &D center.

That was more the way things worked. And so that’s how I found my way to the aluminum industry. But it sounds like you had a really early introduction right out of the gate and then stuck around. Can you talk a little bit about your career trajectory at this plant that you’ve been in pretty much your whole career and kind of some of the stuff that you’ve worked on?

RITTER (04:05)

Sure, sure, no, I’d be happy to. So I started out as a co-op student, sort of a junior engineer, and that was in the casting part of the plant. And so in an aluminum smelter, you know, have a, you know, there’s three parts. There’s a carbon plant where you make the electrodes. There’s the smelter where you make the metal through the electrolysis. And then you have a casting vision where you make it in some kind of shape that you’re gonna sell. So I started out working in the casting.

And I stayed there my entire time as a co-op student working and I was able to, you know, I think my first assignment was measuring how long it took oil to go through a line. So just watching a graduated cylinder for an hour. And by the end of four terms, they were letting me help plan the work schedule and oversee a small little function. So it was a good experience. And when I came back, I moved to the,

ADAMS (04:43)

Ha!

RITTER (04:56)

the smelter side into the pot rooms where the electrolysis happens. And I guess I really started out there over the process control system. At that time, we were replacing the system when I came in and I didn’t have a, I’d had a couple of Fortran classes in college. I did not study computer science, but that plus just, guess I was interested in it. So I was able to pick it up and

Fortunately, the system they were using was still old enough that it was based on what I had learned. I got into that and probably for about five years, I was over the process control system, you know, going through the upgrade and then another control system, you know, platform coming in on top of that. And then after say maybe about five years of doing that, I started to drift more.

I had to make a choice. could go and pursue the computer science route, which, if you want to grow, you you, top out pretty quickly in a smelter. And, but I decided that I liked aluminum and I really wanted to get more into the process side. And so I moved and became more focused there, more development of the algorithms studying, you know, getting involved in the chemist, just learning different

you all the different aspects, everything you can learn about it. And, and, you know, I spent 25 years in that department and I can tell you even, you know, the last week I was there, I found something that was so elementary, but I had, it had never occurred to me. and, and, and I think that’s a big part of it is you’re always learning.

ADAMS (06:27)

So.

RITTER (06:27)

So from, you so I, like I said, I you know, another 20 years in that department, you know, after that, and, you know, with the, you know, varying levels of responsibility, I started out, I was mainly just doing technical research, analyzing data. I was very fortunate. We were part of Alcoa at the time who had a very active,

technical organization and they were very, in particular, they were active at our plant. So I was able to learn a lot and interact a lot and that helped, you know, probably energized me a little bit and to doing more things. And, you know, eventually, you know, as in terms of leadership, after a few more years, I had a few technicians that worked for me. kind of got to learn supervision a little bit.

the ins and outs of that. And then, you know, I sort of just continued to do what I did for a few more years. And then the last five years I’ve been, almost five years, I’ve been the technical manager at plant. And so that is an entirely different role because it’s not as hands-on. It’s more, excuse me, it’s more guiding the organization.

It’s overseeing a lab, it’s overseeing some IT folks, and then a few other random folks who, you know, don’t have a home necessarily, special functions, and then mentoring the, I think it’s eight new process engineers and two and getting ready to be three new maintenance engineers. You know, most of these folks are pretty early in their careers. So a lot of my job is just

kind of helping them learn the business, learn the industry and helping them figure out how to be successful.

ADAMS (08:06)

Yeah, something I’m curious about. as you mentioned, you know, you’ve been at this location for many years and you’ve had multiple job functions and I’m curious sort of how you have decided to stay there, decided to kind of grow and find new interesting things there where you are versus I’m sure you’ve had opportunities to go to either stay within the industry, but go to different places or even switch industries. So can you just talk a little bit about your thought process and your decisions around?

staying put and growing there where you are.

RITTER (08:37)

Yeah, certainly. so, you know, it’s a combination of things and some of it is circumstantial and some of it is the location. I was, you know, this is where I’m from Charleston, South Carolina. I was born here. So there’s that draw. You know, was very fortunate because in chemical engineering, there’s not a lot of jobs coming out of school in this area. You know, there’s, there’s only a handful. And so was lucky enough to get one. And then our facility just, it,

If you go to a lot of aluminum smelters and then you spend time at our plant, there’s just a different culture. Our plant is Mount Holly and we call it the Mount Holly family. And it’s management down to every single worker on the floor. There’s not this division.

And so that work environment, it’s something special and it’s something that’s great to be a part of and it’s rare. It’s not easy to find, particularly, this is a tough industry and you find people that, and it’s not for everybody and that’s fine. Some people come here and they’re like, oh, it’s hot or it’s dirty. That’s okay. But the folks who stay here, everyone makes a commitment to the

to each other and the plant and the company, you know, it’s been good to everybody here. You know, we’ve had our ups and downs. We have our challenges here. You know, and there were times when, you know, the future of the plant was uncertain and I did look around, you know, I’ve never really actively wanted to leave. There were times where I guess I could have moved to another facility, but that

never really worked out and the young part of that’s just, you know, family and things here, my son and being here. And so that made a difference as well. But I’ve been just been very fortunate because I was talking to someone the other day and I’m not close to retirement, but we talk about retirement, you know, and when you make that call. And I said, honestly, you know,I think I’m going to be doing something and as long as I enjoy what I’m doing, then why stop? And I can say, I enjoy coming to work. It’s a good place. I’m able to make a contribution. And like I said, the team environment here is unique.

ADAMS (10:57)

Yeah, that’s great. So there’s a couple of things I want to I want to double click on. So first of all, you mentioned your location and I just want to tell the audience. when Mount Holly was it was part of Alcoa, it was the prime destination. Like any time somebody wanted to either relocate or even if we had like group meetings, we’re like.

Let’s do it at Mount Holly, because that’s the best place out of all the operating locations domestically. Now, you people can talk about Iceland and all this other stuff, but domestically, that was absolutely the best place to go. And that includes Knoxville, folks. So I’m here. I’m here at University of Tennessee. Alcoa used to have operations here in Knoxville, and Knoxville was second or third on the list. So everybody wanted to go to Mount Holly. So you are in a wonderful location.

You you talk about it is a tough industry, so the work environment is tough and you know, people self-select in wanting to stay in that kind of environment or not. You also talk about the ups and downs of the industry. And so again, because I’m familiar with this industry, I’ll add a little bit to it. You know, our industry has expanded and contracted many, many times. And I remember being, you know, manager at times when

we knew we were gonna have to skinny things down and you have to go through the tough situation of making the call about who you’ve got to let go and how you’re gonna get to like super lean. And so I’m curious for you, Chris, that has happened multiple times and Mount Holly’s even changed ownership hands at least once in the time that we’ve been around. How has Chris stayed on the keep list?

RITTER (12:24)

I guess what I would say is to be involved, stay involved. And from an early, I guess from the beginning of my career, I wanted to, and maybe it’s just me, but I always wanted to learn as much as I can. I want to understand. And so I learned a lot.

And I asked a lot of questions. we don’t have, well, in the past, we haven’t had an extensive staff. We’re trying to change that now. have more process engineers now than we’ve ever had at the plant. And that’s a good thing. But I think the way you stay relevant is you have to know the business and

you know, it’s not just knowing the technical things because people can learn that but you’ve got to understand how the entire plan operates. And you know how you know where where you can add value, how you can help people, you know, everyone has different skill sets. And so we have good managers, but they might need some help, you know, technically, and vice versa, you know, we have good tech men. So everybody kind of blending together. You know, I

My unique skill set with the computer system and the background there kind of has made me a little more valuable in the past. Because we’re still operating with that same system that we first upgraded, or at least parts of it. that’s my, but that’s not necessarily a great thing. I would love to be irrelevant in that.

ADAMS (13:43)

That particular area, yeah.

RITTER (13:47)

sharing the knowledge. You know, that’s something we discuss a lot with all these new people is, you know, you’re always trying to train the next person to take over for you. That’s the way you should approach it. You shouldn’t be worried about protecting your position because if you really are making a contribution and you know, you are working within the role that’s defined for you and you know, should be part of that should be developing the next the next generation, whoever’s going to fill you know, behind

ADAMS (14:26)

All right, Chris, can you give us an example of when you use leadership skills in your work?

RITTER (14:30)

Sure, sure. My role is pretty unique. It’s very specific in that in a couple areas in that I manage a few departments directly and indirectly. My role is not a traditional manager’s where you have a department and that’s one department that you manage. have the lab here is an independent lab so that they’re not, they

Primarily, they are analyzing the metal that we sell. They also measure things for other departments internally. it’s important to keep that function separate so that the customers know that it’s getting an honest evaluation. managing that.

That’s direct management. Then sort of an interesting role I have is we have an IT function here at the plant, an IT group. They technically report to our corporate IT folks who are based out of Nashville, but they don’t have, I am their dotted line, go to person here. And so that’s a different type of, because we need to manage the needs of the plant, but at the same time, these people don’t work for me. They don’t answer to me.

directly. And so that’s, that’s, that’s been unique and managing that. And then, you know, the third part that, that I manage is the growth of the plant, the technical stuff, the real technical job, you know, developing the strategy for the plant, what is our output plan going to be for the next year, and then working with all of our new engineers to, to develop plans to deliver that. And, you know, mentoring and training, because as I mentioned, they’re all

relatively new in the last I Guess the most tenured one has been here August will be three years so and we’ve hired quite a few people and so there’s there’s a lot of energy. There’s a lot of talent and There’s a lot of smarts, but there’s not a lot of experience. Yeah

You know, Mount Holly has been here 45 years and because it’s a good facility, a lot of people stayed a long time and we still got one person who’s been here the entire 45 years. Um, but you know, with all these people leaving with such a long time, you know, one thing we kind of joke about was how long does it take to get 35 or 40 years experience that long? But well, you know, hopefully we can do is shorten the runway.

ADAMS (16:20)

Hmm, wow.

Yeah

RITTER (16:37)

passing on what we’ve learned. So, and there’s different types of leadership skills required, dealing with my direct reports, the lab, it’s really my style, I’m not a micromanager, I’m not telling them, every day you have to do this, this and this, they know what they have to deliver. One of the challenges at a plant, like I just said, we’re 45 years old.

And there’s been some leaner times. We’re sort of on a upswing right now, which is good. And so we’re having to reinvest and that includes the lab. A lot of our equipment, you know, well, from my perspective could have gone straight from here to a museum. That was that old. Yeah. And so we’re managing through replacing that, updating it, training folks, managing the cost of it. It’d be wonderful just to go buy it all at once, but we need

So you have to kind of plan and prioritize. so my job is our lab supervisor is to give her just the support she needs. She knows how to run a lab better than I do. I’ve never run a lab directly, but she knows, she understands the certifications, the calibrations, maintaining standards and

and how to work on the equipment. And my job is to within the ability we have to do things in a certain time scale, mostly economically is just to give her what she needs to so that our lab can run successfully. That one is not as difficult. Where it gets more challenging on the IT side, as I mentioned, they don’t work for me. And Century is a growing company. That’s who we are now, Century Aluminum.

You know, 10 years ago, there were only two plants, one in the US and one in Iceland. And now there’s three, there were four for a while. We just closed one, but we have two in the US and one in Iceland. And we have our first non-smelter, a refinery in Jamaica. so managing all of, you know, as they become an enterprise, the IT has had a lot of growing pains, you know, translates to

um, you know, growing pains for the group here at the plant and since You know, there’s Everybody is new. Um, there’s there’s a lot a lot to do there. And so my job there it’s really more customer service for the plant and because you know as far as delivery Because i’m sort of their spokesman, but then customer service on the pull side dealing with the corporate group and it’s it’s a matter of

you know, just managing expectations and, and, and getting what we need within the timeframe we need without, you know, putting the business at risk. You know, these computer systems can be pretty vital depending on them for everything now. And then, and then finally, the last part is probably the most enjoyable because it’s really more just teaching and mentoring and talking and,

you know, having discussions, just the excitement and the, you know, it takes me back to when I started and I just wanted to do everything. Oh yeah, I got to do it all by the end of next week. And 30 years later, I’m still not finished. But, you know, and so trying to channel and marshal that passion that they have and

And then also, you know, a lot of these folks, this is their first job right out of college, not all of them. And so just learning, you know, teaching people, hey, you know, this is sort of how you interact in a professional environment. know, we had, you know, they may be used to, if they’ve had jobs before, they’re more hourly jobs and they’re used to, all right, I show up from this time to this time and they’re not used to being on salary and in a support role.

And say, hey, know, this is, this is, it’s when we need you here, we need you here. And it’s sometimes it’s an emergency and it’s not planned and it might not be on your quote unquote shift, I encourage them. said, you know, absolutely don’t overwork yourself that you’ve got to, maintain that. And, but at the same time, these are, you know,

Sometimes a disaster only comes along or a learning opportunity might be a better word once or twice in a career. don’t take advantage of it because there are always opportunities to learn something. so those are the sort of the different types of, it’s a varied role, but it’s kind of interesting.

ADAMS (20:59)

Yeah, it really sounds it. there are a bunch of really interesting leadership opportunities, challenges that you talked about. There’s two that I wanted to dive into a little bit more. So one is this dotted line role that you have with the corporate IT. And so of course, in a perfect world, the incentives and priorities of the people that are working locally for you would match up with corporate. That’s a perfect world, but that never happens. So you talked a little bit about managing expectations.

and being both an advocate and a spokesperson, can you just talk a little bit more about maybe some strategies or tactics that you use that has worked really well for you when you’re there locally as a spokesperson, you were advocating for your facility, yet you know you’re working with an organization that has to take the entire company. ⁓

into consideration and may be pulled in different directions because of the growth and activity that that team is asked to do.

RITTER (21:58)

Sure, sure. you know, probably the most important part of all of that is regular communication at all levels. We started having a weekly call with the corporate group just to kind of a status update on the different projects that are going on. We’ve had quite a few. so the that keeps all the resources aware of what the priorities are, where things are headed. It’s

you know, lot of these folks that work in the corporate end of it have never been to an aluminum smelter. And so they don’t quite understand that it’s a nonstop, you know, 24 hour, 365 day a year thing. you know, so that that’s been, you know, part of it has just been, you know, reminding them about that aspect and, know, weekends, nights and

And that was a little more challenging getting that engagement. That just required a little bit more direct, hey, you need to answer the phone. You need to be here. And that wasn’t a huge problem. folks, once they understood and once they understood, hey, we’re not just calling you because we want to see what you’re doing three in the morning. But we’re on our end and we will do whatever we can to help you, but you’re the knowledge.

And once everybody realized, hey, we’re all in it together. And that’s been, I guess, the big theme. There’s that group and then our group and just telling everybody, our checks all say the same thing at the end. Mine don’t say that they’re specially written by the Mount Holly plant. They all come from Century Aluminum Inc. And so we’re all the same company. We’re all in it together. And if we want to succeed, we got to work together.

And, you know, it’s fortunately, you know, egos, which can become a problem, aren’t too big an issue in this regard. and

It, you like I said, it’s, there’s been some growing pains, um, working on schedules, you know, a lot of times it folks want to push out updates. Well, process machines don’t necessarily like to be rebooted just on the fly. So, you know, just, you know, sort of driving that point home. Hey, just work out a schedule one day, you know, whatever you have to call it the last Wednesday of the month or third Thursday, whatever. I’m not sure what they’ve worked out, but.

ADAMS (23:59)

Right

RITTER (24:14)

That’ll be the day when someone goes and physically goes to all the process machine and applies updates if they need to be. And, we work it out with production. Involving the production folks is key because I understand these things, but they’re not, I’m not the asset owner, you know, the, the, the departments are the asset owners and they have to understand and have those relationships as well. And so just getting, you know, we have

You know, aren’t just like everyone else on the technical side, it seems that I T people are fairly new here. Um, and, know, but we’ve had a group now that’s, you know, we’ve got a couple of three years under them. So, you know, it’s good. We’re able to get a little bit more continuity, but just getting folks. We just went on goodwill tours. called them, you know, we’d go and just have meetings, you know, every couple of months in each department, just sit down and said, Hey, what can we do for you? And it was just me.

scheduling that, sitting there with them, making them more comfortable because they don’t know the process and it can be a little intimidating. What that does is get the dialogue going and then my part’s done at that point.

ADAMS (25:18)

Yeah, yeah, that regular communication and then that, you know, I’ll just use the term sort of professional empathy, but helping, helping everybody understand and in particular, the, people who maybe are more used to the IT folks who might be more used to maybe a nine to five schedule. And as you said, pushing out updates on some sort of schedule that, you know, their systems like, man, you, a lot of that stuff could actually break important things.

RITTER (25:43)

yeah.

ADAMS (25:44)

for the people that are making the money with the production and so helping to bridge that gap so that there’s this understanding. And then as you said, most people, they have that awareness and that understanding, can accommodate, right? You just need to know and then you accommodate what you need to accommodate and you can move forward. So I think that’s great. I love those goodwill tours that you were talking about. The second one I wanna talk about is this…

sort of renewal of experience you talked about. So there was a period of, know, maybe not a lot of hiring for a while. And then fortunately, because it’s such a great place to work, you had people who stuck around for a long time, but now there’s, you know, sort of natural attrition there retiring. And so on the one hand, you’ve got these really enthusiastic, excited, new engineers that you’re bringing on board and you’re wanting to mentor them and help them grow and also, you know, realize, you know, it does take some time.

So that’s one hand, but on the other hand, you do have this real skills gap. Like you’ve got skills gaps that you need to close over time. And so I am curious, you talked about shortening the runway on acquiring skills. I’m just wondering if there have been some specific strategies that you all are using that you have found to really kind of help with that real problem that I think a lot of organizations can find themselves in that situation.

RITTER (26:59)

Yeah, so a few things that we’ve got going on. And so when I first started at the plant, there was not a lot of turnover. We did have some young engineers, a few, but not many. But the way the plant operated, the departments were sort of siloed. didn’t, you we communicated, but I guess we weren’t, we didn’t, you know, collaborate as much as we could.

One thing that we’re doing now, so we started what we call a process improvement committee. And we’ve involved all the process engineers around the plant, all the maintenance, reliability engineers, we have environmental engineers, and we also include a safety representative. Because, you know, when we go and look in an area, because what we’re doing is we’re going into the different areas and we’re evaluating where can we make an impact.

And what we’re doing is exposing these folks to different departments. A lot of cross training. Right now it’s just on a project basis in the future. think we, you know, some folks are interested in doing a rotation in a different department for say six months or a year or something that that would definitely be something we’re doing. this, what, what it’s really fostered is a lot more camaraderie.

these folks feel like they communicate. They talk a lot. they say, hey, if I have a question, oh, I can go ask Andrew or I can go ask Michael or Rachel and all of these folks here. And they’re willing to help, you know, because they, you know, they’re not just some name on an email or a voice on the phone. They’re a face. There’s somebody they’re working with on projects. And so finding ways to engage them

close the gaps, but then also to maintain the energy. know, this and, you know, frankly, right now, the job market is still, I mean, it’s pretty tight for highly talented technical people. And so we don’t want to have to retrain another group in five years. We want to keep these folks, you know, and make them, you know, our next leaders. And that’s the way I talk to them, you know, that they are learning.

Because that’s the way. So the first owner of the plant when I first started was I you max. was prior to our co-op buying the And I am max. That was the mentality. You know, they when we got hired, say, you know, you’re going to be an engineer and we want you to learn the process. But our, you know, our philosophy is, that, you know, we, we, that’s how we develop the management of the plant is through the technical ranks and, you know, century.

hasn’t necessarily always done that, but the leadership now is really focused on that as a strategy. it takes a way, there’s a special way probably to make that more successful in a very manual, intense environment operationally. One thing that we’ve done in some plant,

all the process engineers might report to the technical manager. But I was very adamant that, and because it was the way when I started, that these departments, these folks are embedded, they are part of their departments, so that they’re part of the team. They’re not just, these are Chris’s key people coming down to give us more garbage to worry about. They’re part of that team. every department has a little bit different maturity level.

how to handle that because they haven’t maybe had as much support. And, you know, just to kind of explain that you mentioned, you know, that there’s been ups and downs in the industry. And in 2015, we actually curtailed half the plant. And so for five years, I was the only process engineer on the plant side. And so, you know, there’s and then it’s hard to attract talent when you’re running.

with uncertainty. And then in 20, at the beginning of 21, we started, we brought half of that back. So now we’re running at 75 % and we’re really working to, um, to get the plant to where we need to be to start the last, you know, the market is in a good place right now. We’re still from the time we were down and the uncertainty, we’re catching up on some deferred maintenance. And our hope is in the very near future to be able to.

start the whole plan up and so a big part of that is getting these folks ready but you know we’re hiring now and

Yeah, but keeping these folks engaged and, you know, and not discouraged because there’s a lot of opportunity around here. And so it’s, you have to keep people, hey, this is, this is going to get better. It’s not the way it’s always going to be. And, and, but there’s a lot of opportunity to learn. That’s the best time. So, so it’s.

It’s interesting and it’s enjoyable because I learn a lot from these folks too. Because they come with a whole new perspective.

ADAMS (31:46)

All right, Chris, as we wrap up, what advice would you give to engineers who are interested in pursuing leadership roles?

RITTER (31:52)

Well, what I would say and my career has been different than that. I’ve been in one location, one plant, multiple corporations have owned it, but the same plant. But even if you’re moving around, the important thing as an engineer and I think just as anybody is just try to learn something every day. Try to learn the…

Another thing that, you know, I, as I watch across our workforce, and as a leader, have to remember it’s extremely unlikely. Most people are showing up to work every day saying, you know what, I’m going to do a bad job or I’m going to do this wrong. It’s because it’s, it’s, it’s because in particularly in the aluminum industry, it’s hot or it’s hard to do it the way we really want them to.

And so a big part of it is explaining the why. And once people understand they’re happy to do it, but otherwise they’re like, Hey, if I just do it this way, I can get out of the heat. And until someone tells them, well, that’s not right. and, you know, so that’s maybe specific to doing some kind of work, but I think it translates across the whole gamut of things you can do. more you involve people, the more.

that they want to contribute or they’re able to contribute and understanding the why, why we do things the way that how things happen. You know, I always, with computers and spreadsheets, it’s very easy to build all these elaborate models and think we can predict the end of the day, it has to go back to the science, you know, so I always try to explain people say, you know, it’s good, but you know,the basics are what matter as well. Keep the focus. There was a guy that, well, you work with him as well, Jay Bruggeman, and he used to like to say, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And that really is the truth. It’s easy in a leadership role, technically, to say, we need these fancy new pieces of equipment or we need these elaborate systems.

But at end of the day, have to understand the core of what you’re trying to accomplish and then what your team can do to deliver that.

ADAMS (33:57)

Chris thank you so much for sharing your insights with us

RITTER (33:59)

No, thank you for the opportunity and good luck to all your listeners out there.