Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by PGTI University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Good morning. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast and we are continuing to meet folks from the MITRE leadership team. And in studio today, we have Robert Reed.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Welcome.
[00:00:36] Speaker C: Hi, Sherry. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thanks for making time and glad we could work it out that you are going to be in town today. And so, Robert, you are the corporate counsel for Mitre Brands?
[00:00:49] Speaker C: Yes, I am.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: And so tell us about you first, and then we'll talk more about your role. But give us a little bit of background, whatever you're comfortable sharing about your family, your education, maybe where you grew up, and, you know, just a little insight into our corporate attorney.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: Sure. So I, born and raised in Dallas, Texas. Proud. Graduated of the University of Texas.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: All right. Is that the Longhorns?
[00:01:11] Speaker C: That is the Longhorn. We're licking our wounds after Saturday, but we'll bounce back. So I worked for two large law firms in Dallas after graduating from law school for about 10 years. Went in house with a home builder for a couple years, and then was the general counsel for a window and door manufacturer in Dallas called Atrium Windows and Doors.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Stayed on there for a bit and got a phone call from Mi Windows and Doors in 2020. They're located, obviously in central Pennsylvania, and I'm in Dallas, Texas. And so it was a bit of a stretch, but when I met that leadership team, I knew it was a good fit. And so I've been going on four years. But so let me tell you about my family. So my wife Kirsten and I just celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Wow. Congratulations.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you. We have three wonderful children. Trey Reid, he's the third, but we call him Trey. He graduated from college two years ago, and he actually works at Mitre Brands in the Harrisburg office. And then I have two daughters. One is a freshman in college, Audrey.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: And my youngest, Paige, is a senior in high school. And a unique little tidbit about me is that I work in Harrisburg. We have a house in Hershey, Pennsylvania, but the family's still in Dallas. So I go back and forth between Dallas and Harrisburg.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Okay. So Monday through Thursday and then home on the weekends.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: It's more like a week on, week off. So I'll be a week in Pennsylvania and a week in Dallas, depending upon kind of the high school activities and schedules and things like that, so I can be there for the kids when they need me.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Oh, that's Nice. And as they get older, they need us less often, but in a deeper capacity, I find.
[00:02:51] Speaker C: I think that's a fair statement for sure.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Mine are grown, and it's a fun space. I'm glad I'm not responsible for quite as much as I once was.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: So tell us about your current role and responsibilities.
[00:03:02] Speaker C: So I'm the general counsel at Mitre Brands. I came on board a little bit after the Milgard acquisition. I think that it was decided to bring the legal function in house when MI doubled its size.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:03:18] Speaker C: So I now handle pretty much everything legal, whether it's labor and employment or litigation or environmental or intellectual property. I'm kind of the first place that people come and we handle what we can in house. And if it kind of is beyond our capabilities, we'll get assistance from outside counsel. And with the PGT acquisition, we've doubled our size of our legal department. And April Lee, an amazing lawyer, labor and employment specialist, has joined our team, and it's been a great addition.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I know April. She's amazing.
[00:03:48] Speaker C: She is. A lot of great things happened as a result of that combination of those two businesses. From my perspective, one of the greatest things for me was that I get to work with April.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And so even though you're a team of one, you're not a team of one anymore. You're a team of two.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: Right. And I was never really a team of one. I was a team of one lawyer. We have a phenomenal paralegal in the Harrisburg office. We have other support staff. We did a little bit of restructuring of the legal department post PGT acquisition. So risk managers. I had one who was working in our department who retired, who was out west with the Milgard team, and another risk manager who was with the Legacy and my team, and they've transferred to other departments. And so now we're more purely legal, as opposed to insurance and things of that nature.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: So, obviously, working with April is a nice benefit of the acquisition. But what are some of the other things that are maybe exciting for you?
[00:04:43] Speaker C: Having worked in the window and door space for so long with Atrium and then with mi, I was very familiar with PGT and always thought so highly of their products and their processes. And I knew people who worked here and always thought that they were kind of a leader in the space. And so the opportunity to get to work with this company and the people that work here is just. I feel blessed. I feel honored to get to do that. And my expectations have been met and exceeded with the people that I've worked with just from the leadership to everybody that I've met. And there's a really nice cultural fit between Legacy MITRE and Legacy pgt, such that the combination has been a bit seamless just because everyone's kind of aligned as far as what we want to accomplish and how we want to accomplish it.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I've noticed that too. It hasn't been a big stretch.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: Not at all.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: It's been nice. I mean, there's obviously some shake up and there's some changes and personnel shifting here and there and redefining some roles, but that was happening here before we were acquired. That's kind of an ongoing thing. Like don't get too comfortable in your chair because who knows where you're going to land a year from now or whatever. So that's just to be expected in a growing organization.
[00:05:53] Speaker C: I think that's fair. Yeah. I think if you're not, you're not really growing and you're not expanding and if anything, PGT is just innovative. Obviously that's a key word that's associated with a PGT business. And so it's never standing still. It's always moving forward.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: We are sharing our expertise around all topics relating to the window indoor industry. Whether you are a customer selling our products or a homeowner doing research, the Clear Impact podcast provides helpful content that makes an impact. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it definitely has been and continues to do so. How is the merging going? Like, I'm sure contracts, like you probably read contracts all day, every day. But now that the acquisition is done and the merging is happening, how is that going for you?
[00:06:42] Speaker C: I think it's going great. I can't remember who you did a podcast with. One of the MITRE leaders. I think it was Vinod actually who said that the work didn't double, the.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Fund doubled, the fund doubled. So yeah, that was Vinod.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: It was. And I thought that was pretty insightful. Yes, I'm working harder than I was pre acquisition, but I get to work with so many smart and dynamic people that it's less a burden than it is fun. So to answer your question, I think the combination is going well just because everyone's aligned on what we're trying to accomplish and we're dialed in from a compass standpoint as to what we want to accomplish.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been great. And so one of the questions that I love to ask our guests, especially because I still love to learn and I get inspired by other people and so I Always ask this question of our leaders. What is a favorite piece of advice that you've received?
[00:07:30] Speaker C: Such a great question. And I really enjoyed listening to other people's answer to that because I learned a lot based upon that answer. But I thought back when I was a baby lawyer, very young, I was baby lawyer. I was talking with the general counsel for American Airlines. And I think even though this was given to me in the context of legal advice, I think it applies universally.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:07:54] Speaker C: And she told me that you really can't adequately or effectively represent your client unless you understand their business and what they're trying to accomplish. And what I see here at Legacy PGT and the broader Mitre organization is people who are not siloed. Operations and sales work together. You need to understand what the challenges are and what the ultimate goal is of each department in order to effectively do your job. It certainly applies to April and I in that we can't effectively represent the organization from a legal perspective unless we understand what we're trying to accomplish. And I think that it applies regardless of where you sit in the organization. My son just went through an internship at Mitre where he rotated through all the different departments. He started on first ship at the Higgins plant, making windows, and went through marketing and went through sales and went through all these different departments, engineering. And he has such a better understanding of how this organization fits together and what we're trying to accomplish and how engineering supports sales and how sales supports operations, that I think that it's a really dynamic environment where if we all are aligned in what we're trying to accomplish, we're going to be that more effective in making sure that we accomplish those goals.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Right. That totally makes sense. And, you know, even if you're just having conversation with someone, knowing where they're coming from, understanding their perspective, you know, you have that visual of the iceberg, right, where there's only this little tiny bit above the surface and then there's this massive amount underneath the surface that we don't see. And so to be effective in any kind of leadership role, or client attorney or whatever your position is, you know, being able to understand what you don't see and trying to get that read, that's very helpful.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think, quite honestly, what you do and what PGT University does furthers that. I mean, I had the opportunity to listen to some of your podcasts and learn so much, not just about my friends who I've worked with for the past several years, but also about the industry and about the company and about what we want to do. And it's such a great resource. It's really cutting edge. It's really forward thinking, and it's, you know, kind of consistent with how I've always viewed pgt. It's just always been a leader. And I think that what you do and what all the educational tools that PGT brings to the table has really furthered kind of what American Airlines general counsel told me so many years ago, that it really does help to understand holistically what the organization's about, what the functions are, and how we're all kind of rowing in the same direction to achieve the goals.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Well, thank you. It's one of those things that my manager, Jim Schenk, announced and I don't know, like, how far back you've listened. I've told this story. I had been on board for about three weeks to the company, new to windows and doors, new to manufacturing, new to education. But Jim knew me fairly well and said, you know, we're going to launch a podcast. And I was like, okay, cool. Like, who's going to do all the soundboard? Technical side, Like, I can talk to people all day long, but who's going to do all that? And he goes, well, you'll figure it out. And he would not let me wiggle out of it. And I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to do this. And it's been one of my favorite things to do here, and it's been a really fun space to just meet so many different people and have a really broad view of the organization and the different facets of the organization, which then leads to, hey, we need a class about this or how come we're not teaching about that, or how come the rest of the company doesn't know about this thing. And so I'm always digging and looking for those little hidden things that people don't really know about and trying to bring the light to that. So thank you. That's a huge compliment. I appreciate that.
[00:11:54] Speaker C: Absolutely. It's just great. I'm really impressed with everything that you've done and I love your new studio and it's really exciting.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. And it's much more convenient now. I just have to take 20 steps back and here I am. So, Robert, I really appreciate your time today. It's been a pleasure chatting and getting to know you a little bit, and I look forward to seeing you around.
[00:12:15] Speaker C: Thank you, Sherry.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: All right, take care.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: The Clear Impact podcast is brought to you by PGTI University. We are a part of Mitre Brands, a family of leading window and door brands united by our passion for quality and relentless pursuit of 100%. One of the missions of Mitre Brands is to unite and deliver the finest customer experience possible across the nation. Our window and door brands deliver regionalized expertise and products. Backed by a national company, PGTI University is here to educate you, our listener, so that you can be a more informed consumer of window indoor products.
