Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the clear impact podcast brought to you by PTI university. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Conner and I am your host
Speaker 2 00:00:20 And they came through probably the hottest commodity was the screws to actually put your shutters up. Um, cause everybody could find their shutters, but they couldn't find the screws to actually Fasten them to the wall. And, and so with impact glass, you have that all the time protection.
Speaker 1 00:00:36 As we continue with our introduction series, we get to chat with Shawn. Horlacher our north Florida sales director. He is one of the most likable people ever. Sean oversees several people on our sales team and actually crosses over two time zones, but remains in Florida. We learned a little bit more about Sean, his family and why it's important to have impact products in your home. Even when you don't live near the water. I hope you enjoy today's episode. Hi and welcome to the Clair impact podcast. Today. We are so excited to bring you a conversation with Sean Harlequin. Did I say that right? Very good. Yes. Oh, I've been studying Sean is the director of sales for the north Florida area, correct? Yep. District territory. How do you,
Speaker 2 00:01:24 Yeah, so it is uh, yeah, just considered north Florida. So rough geography is Sarasota county over to Palm beach county and everything north inside the state of Florida.
Speaker 1 00:01:34 So even the parts of Florida that are in a different time zone are still yours,
Speaker 2 00:01:38 Correct? Correct. Yeah. And so my poor, a sales rep, that's actually up in the panhandle lives in another time zone and there's been a couple of times I've called him early morning and forgot that there's an hour difference. So tell us a little bit about yourself. All right. So I was, uh, born and raised in Oregon and uh, moved my family out here in 2006 and I'm married and have six children. I have five daughters and one boy, which always raises a lot of eyebrows. When I say that I have five daughters, um, most of them are grown. So, um, and they are great girls. Um, and so my boy is number five and, and so a lot of people thought that w think that when I tell them, uh, about my children, that we just kept trying for the boy, which wasn't necessarily the case, he was, uh, he was a huge surprise. He came 12 years behind what my older daughters have called themselves the first batch. And so he is the oldest ever second batch and there's, uh, another daughter right behind him. It was nine. So
Speaker 1 00:02:43 That makes for a very big Thanksgiving dinner. I bet
Speaker 2 00:02:46 It does. It does. And Thanksgiving is a, a great time. Oh, that's wonderful. And any grand babies. Yeah. So currently we have four. Um, and so my oldest has two boys and then my number four daughter has two girls and then we have a fifth on the way, so good stuff.
Speaker 1 00:03:06 That's one of the reasons that people should keep their teenagers alive is because one day they'll grow up and give you grand babies. I have one finally. And he's amazing.
Speaker 2 00:03:15 Yeah. They are a lot of fun. Yeah, they are.
Speaker 1 00:03:17 How did you find yourself at PGT innovations?
Speaker 2 00:03:20 Yeah, so, um, I have been in the building industry as far as, uh, material-wise, uh, since 1990 and I cut my teeth on the lumberyard side of things and yeah, I had always worked at lumberyards and during the recession actually, um, found myself, um, without a job and picked up a job with a small manufacturer over on the east coast. And, uh, thankfully PGT, um, approached me and here I am almost eight.
Speaker 1 00:03:49 I was just going to ask, how long have you been? Yeah, almost eight years now. That's wonderful. Tell us a little bit about your role here and, and what you love the most about it. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:03:59 So, um, being our director of sales, um, I had our sales team for the north and we have two regional sales managers and nine territory reps. And, uh, we're responsible for sales, um, for the Northern part of the state, which, um, actually runs from about Sarasota county over to Palm beach county and everything north of that. And, and I think probably the thing that I love most about what I do here is coaching our team and our engagement with our dealers. And I've, I've always, um, enjoyed making personal relationships with our customers and with our customer intimacy here. Um, that is a big thing and I really, really enjoy that engagement.
Speaker 1 00:04:44 That's fantastic. Um, I know it's always good to have a good manager that watches over you because sales can be a tricky position. And, uh, you know, sometimes it feels like you're in a boxing ring and you sit down after a couple of rounds and you need someone to tell you off and give you a drink of water and, you know, put some ice on your bruises and tell you that you can do another round. You're going to be okay. Right. Well, I would love to chat a little bit about impact versus non-impact today. The difference between impact and non impact is basically the glass, correct?
Speaker 2 00:05:20 Correct. Yes. You know, obviously all, most of our products we offer both impact and non-impact, and really the biggest difference is the glass package that goes in them. You have laminated glass that goes into the, the impact glass and really being in the state of Florida, we have a great opportunity to sell impact products. And I would even advocate for impact products in our <inaudible> debris areas as well. Um, I actually live in the center of the state. I live in Lakeland and moving here in 2006, I missed the series of hurricanes that came through just prior. And so Irma was actually my hurricane and we wrote it out in Lakeland. That was quite the experience. It was eye opening to me as, as Irma came over the top of us. And just the way the trees were blowing and branches were falling and, and it was, uh, quite the experience. And then getting up the next morning, seeing the debris,
Speaker 1 00:06:18 Be sure to tune in for upcoming episodes to help you understand the fenestration industry, what you need to know when buying windows and doors and other related topics, you can find out more about
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Speaker 2 00:06:38 It was an eye opener for me that even in the center of the state, you know, the, the storms, um, still have enough power to blow things around. Yeah. I, I think impact, we should probably have our entire state protect themselves from, from these storms.
Speaker 1 00:06:57 I know I've sat through a couple of Jim haces code classes. And one of the things I learned is that they're only concerned about one mile in, from the coast, which is crazy because one mile is nothing. When you're talking about a storm that's of any significant size and the wind bands go much, much further than even the central part of a storm. So he's predicting that that's going to, that that will change in the codes in the future, but yeah,
Speaker 2 00:07:26 Yeah, yeah. And that makes sense, you know, when you think about even, even being a mile off of the water and, and having to put up shutters and those kinds of things and impact glass just makes so much more sense because you do have that 24, seven protection. You're not scrambling to put up shutters. I know when Irma came through, probably the hottest commodity was the screws to actually put your shutters up. Um, cause everybody could find their shutters, but they couldn't find the screws to actually Fasten them to the wall. And, and so with impact glass, you have that all the time protection,
Speaker 1 00:08:00 And then you're also adding another layer of security, right. Because you don't have to worry about somebody throwing a brick through your window and trying to ransack your house. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:08:09 Yeah, absolutely. And, and another benefit is the sound side of it. I know that, um, a lot of homeowners have made the comment that the first thing that they notice after having impact windows put in is that they don't hear the barking dog next door. They don't hear the lawnmower, they don't hear their next door neighbor blowing their driveway. And so sound is a big part of it. As
Speaker 1 00:08:29 I know, it's amazing to me, I've been here a short time and I've learned a lot already about glass, but I had no idea how many different kinds of glass there were. So to make a window impact resistant, it needs to be laminated.
Speaker 2 00:08:43 Correct? Yeah. Yeah. So what that process is, is it's two pieces of glass with what we call an inner layer in between. And that's put together to form a glass it's very similar to the windshield of your car, which gives you that, that, uh, impact.
Speaker 1 00:09:00 So it's a glass sandwich sandwich, and that can, and that can also lend itself to some different cosmetic things like a white inner layer so that you have privacy,
Speaker 2 00:09:13 Correct? Yes. Yeah. And so if, if you have a pool bath door or you have a bathroom window, you can put a white inner layer in, which does give you that privacy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:09:22 That's important in probably another rooms of the house too. So, um, is there any reason that someone should not do an impact window,
Speaker 2 00:09:33 You know, in, in the state of Florida? I think every opening really should be impact because when you protect the entire, um, exterior of your home, it makes you completely protected from these storms and from wind born debris. So I can't really think of any openings that you would want to do. Non-impact right. So anything that, uh, that is to the exterior of the home that could cause, um, your home to actually pressurize during a storm, you want to make sure that you protect those openings. Well, then we're in a good business. We are,
Speaker 1 00:10:06 We're in a good place and a good business and hurricane season is right around the corner. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:10:10 Just a couple of weeks away. So we're getting very, very close.
Speaker 1 00:10:13 Let's hope. It's a quiet one this year. So, uh, we're asking all of our guests on the clear impact podcast, this question, and it helps us just to learn a little bit more about you. And also I like the people side of what we do. And most of the people here also appreciate the people side of what we do. So tell us about an event or a person that has had a major impact in your life. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:10:37 And so very early in my career, I was actually very blessed to have a man who, um, mentored me and not only did he mentor me, but his wife actually mentored my wife as well. And the cool thing about, um, having a mentor is, um, they were not afraid to get into our lives and actually get into the, the muck and the mire as, as, as you may say. And they were actually able to teach us a lot of things, as far as how to be married, how to, um, raise children, how to handle finances, you know, all, all the things that you don't learn necessarily growing up. It was great to have somebody actually link arms with us. And, uh, I can remember times that, uh, they address things that years later, they told us that they were scared to death to actually have those conversations with us, because it was touching things that, that maybe you're not supposed to touch, but they were willing to go there to actually help us to be successful in, in, in our marriage, in raising our children in. And Matt was his name. He actually helped me to figure out how to be a business person as, uh, as well. Cause he was the general manager at the lumberyard that I worked at. And so, but, uh, yeah, so mentoring to me, I think is a very powerful thing. I've been also very blessed to be able to mentor others as, uh, as well to throughout the years. Yeah. So Matt and Sandy Buchanan,
Speaker 1 00:12:09 That's a wonderful tribute. And I think there, there's something really beautiful about being humble enough to receive mentoring. You know, that's a whole, that's another topic entirely, but you can't teach someone who was unwilling to learn.
Speaker 2 00:12:23 Very, very true. And I am, I am very thankful that, uh, they were brave enough to actually go into things that, that really helped us to grow. You know, I think we all have periods of her life where we've had, um, incredible growth. And if you look back, those are typically painful, but they were very willing to jump in and just basically do life with us, which was powerful.
Speaker 1 00:12:45 That's awesome. Well, there's no growth in the comfort zone. Awesome. Well, Sean, I am so grateful that we had a little bit of time today to chat and get to know you get to know you a little bit more. I know you're not in this space very often and uh, it's always wonderful when you pop in and say hello, and I know you're a big fan of what the university does and we're a big fan of what you do. So it all works. It all works together. I hope that we get to chat again. All right, well thank you. Awesome. Have a great day. Thanks PGT. A university is the customer education team for an entire family of brands. We began with the original easy breeze port and closure line then became PGT. America's leading brand of impact resistant windows and doors. We then added CGI CGIC WinDoor, Western windows, new south windows and echo windows and doors. We create products built to withstand major storms, keeping people safe, secure, and prepared. Our exceptional brands give you the protection you need without compromising design or functionality. PGT university is here to educate you our listener so that you can be a more informed consumer of window and door
Speaker 0 00:13:53 Products.
