Episode 268 - What 50+ Years as a Family Business Can Teach Us with Ryan Walker

How does childhood shape the entrepreneurial journey?

For Ryan Walker, the two are deeply connected. 

The Third-generation President of Walker Mowers grew up around the family business. But more importantly, he grew up in a family that honored and glorified God in all they did.

He joins the podcast to talk about how his upbringing shaped his view of entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and faithfulness.

All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.

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Episode Transcript

Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.

Rusty Rueff: Hey there. And welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. You know, we're listened to in over 100 countries, so you could just be anywhere right now. Thank you so much for tuning in once again this week. What was your first entrepreneurial endeavor? For some, it's the lemonade stand they built as a child or the babysitting business they started. But a lot of us started with a simple lawn mowing business. Today's guest, Ryan Walker, has a unique connection to that world, not because he's involved in yard work, but because he's the third generation president of Walker Mowers, a lawn mower manufacturing company that's been around for over 50 years. Ryan joins us to talk about how being a part of a family business has shaped his view of not only entrepreneurship but also a family. Let's listen in.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the feature of an entrepreneur. I am here with my great friends and partners in this endeavor. Rusty Rueff. William Norvell. William Rusty.

William Norvell: Good morning. Good day. I feel like it's been a while for the three of us.

Henry Kaestner: It feels like it has been a little bit. I think we've got travel coming to an end as summer. Rusty and I did a couple of these, and last time we were on, we talked in another quick plug. Rusty's. He's got a book out that I've got on my desk, the faith code, which I think is super cool. Future proof framework for a life of meaning and impact that he co-wrote with one of his best friends and accountability group members and senior pastor guy named Terry Brisbane. Hey. Okay, so back to a regularly scheduled program. There's something really special about interviewing different CEOs that take you back or different entrepreneurs take you back to a time in your life and you have this nostalgia. I bet you that half of our listeners at one point in time made some money by mowing lawns. I did. I actually worked a summer. This is crazy. I worked a summer working minimum wage, mowing lawns. And maybe that's why I became an entrepreneur, because I saw the guy who's sitting under the shade drinking a Mountain Dew, collecting that $50 per lawn and not sitting out there just sweating $3. Back then, minimum wage was $3.35 an hour. And so it was really it was really hard. And maybe that's what launched me into my entrepreneurial career. But I like, do this just this doesn't work. This is not sustainable. There's got to be a better way. As it turns out, there is It's launching your own business where you can sip Mountain Dew under a big oak tree. So we've got a guy we've got Ryan Walker from Walker Mower. If you go online and you see the different products from Walker Mower and you ever mowed lawns, it takes you right back. You're 15 years old again. It's 98 degrees with 80% humidity in Baltimore or wherever you grew up and you're back in it and you look at those machines that he has and like, gosh, I wish I could have driven one of those. It would've made my job so much easier. I would have paid to work for a landscaping company that let me drive around and things like that. Ryan, thank you very, very much for joining us on the program.

Ryan Walker: It's nice to be here. Nice to meet you guys.

Henry Kaestner: So there's a ton of different things that we want to talk to you about on the program. But let's just start off like, what's your first memory of mowing lawns? Can you still smell that smell, By the way, is there something really special about smell of like cut grass?

Ryan Walker: Yeah, for sure. So I grew up in a household where my parents gave us a ton of freedom, and my dad was designing the Walker mower. That was his role in our family's business. He has been the product designer for numerous products, but the lawn mower being the project that has really been his signature and masterpiece of his career. My dad has a degree in business, but he's a talented machine designer and he came back and started working with my grandparents, he and my uncle and started designing lawn mowers. And so in 1977, the first prototype lawn mower is developed. In 1980, we built our first 25 and in 1983, when I was born.

Henry Kaestner: 25 is a 25 horsepower.

Ryan Walker: Our first production run of.

Henry Kaestner: Total, first run of 25 over.

Ryan Walker: There, under ten horsepower at that point.

Henry Kaestner: Okay.

Ryan Walker: So in 1983, I was born and the company became fully dependent on lawnmowers. There was another product they were manufacturing before that. And so when I was born, we became a lawnmower family through and through. And I grew up with prototypes coming home daily, at least weekly, to mow my family's yard. And it was small at the time, but I at a very young age, younger than we recommend.

Henry Kaestner: So you were like the first test driver. You're like, you're out there like, do your dare to bring home like this new? And if you again, if you go online, these things are super cool and like, can I drive that? You're like the test pilot.

Ryan Walker: It's interesting as a CEO, you know, a lot of my work is at my desk and with people, but still to this day, I take prototype lawnmowers home that my brother and my dad are designing their team and I mow with something that's not on the market every week, just stuff. They're working on new designs. So it's been kind of my entire life. There are some specific memories. I don't want to say how old I was at that point. Just I was a young boy, really, and enjoying my father's machine design. And it's something that I 40 years later, I just still marvel at both the machine that my dad and my brother and many people have helped design. But it's something that is a joy even to this day to go cut grass. And that smell never gets old. It just doesn't.

Henry Kaestner: There's something awesome about the statement of being a young boy and marveling at your father's design while outside. Yeah, you bring me back to Romans and just the Hills declaring the wonder of God's Majesty. And it's really cool to have seen that with your dad. Did you grow up in a Christian family? Was your dad a believer?

Ryan Walker: Yes. Yeah. On my mom's side, I'm third generation. And on my dad's side, I think I'm fourth generation Christian.

Henry Kaestner: What did that look like in the early days of Walker mower did you get a sense about whether your dad's faith, like, integrated itself into work that maybe at the time you just didn't know because you didn't know other models? Just it was kind of all wrapped up. But now as you're out in the world and you understand the way other businesses might be run, you look back at those early days and see your father's faith playing a role in the early days.

Ryan Walker: Yeah, I'll probably get deeper into this of just how I was raised and how in a generational family business, you can't take a generation off. It's just not possible in most situations. And not because of that. But one of the byproducts of my dad's faith, my parents faith, is that our church, our family, our relationship with Christ were all prioritized above the business. And that is something that I think is very rare. But my dad specifically has demonstrated on a daily basis what it looks like to go home. And so it has been evident in almost every area of our business and our family that our faith will be first and our family is going to be unified in the business and outside of the business, with or without the business. And that's something that has never been a question for me. And I know no different because it's been demonstrated on a daily basis. And so I do I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be in a different situation where I didn't have that as an example. But I'm thankful that I kind of don't have the perspective because it's a wonderful blessing to be a child of a faithful home. It's something that I can't place enough value on, something that we want to pass on to our kids and other people that we're associated with.

William Norvell: Ryan, I'm curious if you could go one layer deeper there, like a few examples maybe. What did that look like and what did that feel like? The 83 was a good year, so it feels like we're in the same boat here.

Ryan Walker: Are you 83?

William Norvell: 40 year olds having some issues with life and a lot of crises here, But I think I'm gonna be okay, But I could use your help.

Ryan Walker: Yeah, I'm for kids right now. I was one of four boys. And so my parents know our house was a hot mess and we loved it. So we would often get in trouble for breaking an expectation of my parents. But we very rarely got in trouble for doing something wrong. And I think there's a big difference there that my parents demonstrated to me over and over this desire that the big things in life mattered the most. And that's our Christian faith, that's our character. It's our word, it's our relationships. A couple of practical examples of my parents priority and my dad's priority on our family above business and our commitment to our local church. And I would say the broader church, the mission of expanding the kingdom and being influential for Christ. My dad, almost every morning he would stay home to do devotions with us before we left for school. And those are memories from high school specifically. Every day to this day. My dad leaves work at 4:30 in the afternoon, just leaves. He goes home. He's done all kinds of things from kind American modified stock cars. He's a pilot. He flies planes, he rides motorcycles. He and my mom go on adventures together. And he's so disciplined about coming to work and working hard when he's here and then going home and being home, being a father, being a husband, being a layman. And it's just something that I've grown to admire as I've aged and got, you know, I'm 40 now. I get hurt really easily and do all the things that in the midst of that, I watched my parents. I remember my dad turned 40 and I'm there today. It's weird. But yet he's been so consistent in his faith and his work and his commitment to his family.

Rusty Rueff: That's cool. So when you're sitting around the dinner table when you were like ten years old, were you dreaming about running the company someday?

Ryan Walker: No. We had a pretty clear expectation that the company wasn't ours, and the Lord would decide. It would become apparent the Lord would provide leaders in the next generation. And we have a big family. I have a lot of cousins, brothers, and it was very clear that we would go do something else. And at that point, see if coming back to the business was the right fit and the right calling for us. And so at ten years old, I didn't know what running a business really looked like. My parents didn't talk about it. I saw them go to work. I saw my dad go to work, I saw my uncle, my dad, my uncle are the G2 leaders in our business, second generation leaders in our business. And although I admired them in their work, I really just liked the machines my dad was making. And I really enjoyed the property that we lived on and being able to ride motorcycles. And it was a very innocent childhood and my parents were very, very careful in portraying this idea that it was in any sense ours to have.

Rusty Rueff: So you didn't grow up in the Someday Sun, This will be all yours kind of environment, which is, you know, fascinating.

Henry Kaestner: Okay, I want a bunch of things I want to drill down into. One that comes to mind is has spent some time on your site. Is he seen it do a really good job as a company of celebrating milestones. As you scroll through the Walker story, you see the picture of the crew with the 5,000th mower that you rolled out and then the 10,000, then 25,000 and 100,000, talking about the importance of culture and celebrating with an expanding team and what that looks like and how it's received.

Ryan Walker: You know, we we fully admit that we need the help of other people in our work, in our success and milestones. Achievements are an opportunity for us to pause and tell the people around us, Thank you and good job. And hey, this is where we're going. It's going to be awesome. Let's go there together and we'll celebrate when we get to the next point. And I think that's just core in who we are. We've always enjoyed eating together as a factory team and enjoying fellowship, breaking bread together and celebrating milestones. It's an opportunity to do that with a broader group of people.

Henry Kaestner: Do you measure turnover? One of the things I'm fond of saying is that as an investor, I look to see if the company's product delights its customer. You also do a really good job of telling customer stories on the website, but I also say that as a derivative of delighting customers, employees like sticking around companies that delight customers and that celebrate them. So see how you do that. But do you measure things like employee turnover?

Ryan Walker: Yeah, it's a check for us. I think it points to a health of a business. Metrics like that by about 220 people right now in the organization and our average tenure is 11 years right now. Well, our largest employment generation are millennials.

Henry Kaestner: So you're employing millennials who are notoriously jumping around, and there are lots of other opportunities for people to work in Fort Collins. So it's not like, well, I don't want I going to get so many call me up from Nebraska somewhere and just take issue with the fact that I'm singling them out for being in the middle of nowhere. But Fort Collins is not in the middle of nowhere. There are lots of different places that they could go. And it's 11 years among millennials. That's amazing.

Ryan Walker: 11 years across our entire organization. But our largest group of employees are now millennials, and they're awesome. We have some of the best young people and creative and loyal, and we have a lot of seniority that can carry the culture and teach and train on things other than maybe skill set. Most of our shop leaders now are under 30. It's interesting, but we also have a group of folks that are over 60 that continue to pour into this place. And just so early, booking did well.

Henry Kaestner: Wow. Talk to me about so 220 employees. That's a lot of parents. We heard about the role of your father and what that look like and continuum looks like. So you've got four kids, 220 employees, has some number of kids. What about your dad's legacy and what about the way you like to parent? Do you like to see modeled off in other people? And can you give us examples so people generally get the idea of like, okay, I'm listening to faith driven entrepreneur podcast. Are you going to tell me that faith is important and family is important, but what are some of the different techniques that some of the different tactics you used to try to encourage your employees of being good parents?

Ryan Walker: One of the things that we do to promote family life, the factory opens at six in the morning and it shuts down at 3:30 in the afternoon. We run a single shift, and that's the decision we make. We did we did Running Night Shift at one point about 40 years ago. And my grandfather saw the effect of shift work on families and just it became kind of a commitment that we're going to be single shift and it's maybe not the most efficient way to run a factory, but for us, our effectiveness in providing opportunity for employees and their families is to have them show up in the morning and then go home in the afternoon so they can go pick up kids, go to doctor's appointments, but be home for dinner. That's so important for our family and for our employees. And the other thing we do is we pay everyone hourly. We don't have salary people at Walker. It doesn't matter if you're an executive leader, one of our nine managers or you showed up yesterday for your first day of work. Everyone is paid hourly. So when people are working through on the clock and when they don't work, they're not on the clock. And it provides a culture where you get to go home and not be on the clock, just go home. You can clock in tomorrow morning and answer that email. And it's derived of a desire for us to send people home at night and not work to be with their family, to be away. And we think that is so important and something that we model as leaders in our business. The four walkers, my uncle, my dad, my brother and I, we come to work and we go home one time and answer an email over the weekend and my Uncle Bob walked in my office, and he is like, Ryan I know that email was important, but be careful. He didn't tell me not to. So just be careful.

Rusty Rueff: He didn't say, Hey, that's overtime. We're going to pay you overtime if you work here right now.

Ryan Walker: He just said like, be careful. Guard your family, Guard your home life. The business will be here Monday morning. And this is coming from a guy who they barely made it in the early eighties with the lawnmower project. When the other product got taken away, we were manufacturing an evaporative tractor cap cooler that my grandfather, my dad, who designed the company, just about failed for the second time by by the Lord's mercy and provision. We were able to pay our bills during that time where we were starting to sell lawnmowers, build, sell, buy raw materials, manufacture, build, sell that cycle. And this is coming from a guy who knows hardship, who knows failure. And yet, hey, it'll be there Monday morning. It's okay. You don't have to sacrifice your family.

Henry Kaestner: I want to get back the hourly thing. I think you talked about one part of it, which is you're not on the clock and just you go home and the family balance is important. But I also think that worker productivity is also a really important aspect of a successful company. And so the flip side of that is like, dude, you're on the clock. You know, there is time for you to update your fantasy teams, but it's not. Now you're on the clock from 6 to 330 and we are at work and that there's this tangible reminder of going in and just clocking in and clocking out. And there's something to that discipline or there's just at least a symbolism that is really that's really interesting. Have you thought about the flip side of that?

Ryan Walker: Yes, it does. It creates accountability both around work and around the balance of work and family. There's a lot of benefit to it. It's not typical. And that's especially for high capacity leaders. It's atypical. And so when we're pursuing someone to maybe come into the business and they're used to a different type of pay structure, it takes a while to like walk through, Hey, this is what we do, This is the principles behind it. We've never had anyone walk away because of that issue. In fact, people kind of learn to appreciate it, hopefully because if they're going to lead in a high capacity position at Walker, they kind of need to understand it and embrace it. And that's been the case. So something else is really interesting in our pay structures. We pay every week. On Wednesday, it used to be Tuesday we moved it a day because of all the processing required for payroll. But we pay everyone on Wednesday for the previous week's work.

Rusty Rueff: And I for the life of me, in all the years that I've been working and involved in human capital and stuff, I never understood why companies, you know, waited to pay either, you know, bi weekly or monthly. You know, some of it was the belief that people, if you paid them every week, they'd spend all their money every week, which was just really absurd. Right? It's just absurd. And now we're seeing, you know, some companies that are just paying daily, right? You just you know, it goes right into your bank account and you can go and hit the ATM. And, you know, if you need the money, you need the money, you know, a day's pay, a day's wage. I think that's very cool. I have a question on innovation inside of a family business. So if I go back through your history, you guys have tried, as you said, the enclosed cab. I actually saw that at one point you were dabbling with golf carts, which would have been cool. Yeah, but yet you came back to the mower inside of a family business where there's just a I sense a strong sense of tradition, you know, how do you continue to innovate? And like, if a conversation comes up, this is. Well, maybe we should be over here, you know, doing this new thing. How do you navigate that new family business?

Ryan Walker: There's a lot of opinions, both in our family and just in the industry, our customers. There's a lot of opinions about what innovation actually looks like. And ultimately, we kind of have to decide where we're going to spend our effort in designing something that's helpful to customers. Hopefully a lot of customers. And it's a conversation that I think requires humility from our standpoint. The four walkers, my uncle, my dad, my brother myself kind of ultimately responsible for that. But we have a lot of help in determining what the most important things are to pursue. We are a very different product than 90% of the other lawnmowers on the market. And so kind of blaze of own trail in a lot of cases. And our customers really appreciate that and enjoy that. And so they talk to us a lot about what the Walker mower should and could be, and that's a huge help for us. And so the decision process is very conversational. We include our managers at times. Sometimes it's just pure inspiration that happens maybe at night for my dad or my brother. One of our engineers, based on feedback from marketing or sales, it just depends on the input. And sometimes they don't ask my dad and my brother don't ask what we think about where they're going to spend their next design resources. They just go start doing it because it's that intriguing. Their curiosity just takes them there. But oftentimes, most of the time, we're working together to determine where we go next. There's a lot of humility. One of the things about I'll say it again my uncle, my dad, they've worked together for almost 50 years in this business. And a couple of years ago, my uncle told me, Ryan, your dad and I have never been divided. We made a commitment a long time ago to stay unified and that this is a good illustration of where you could become divided is where should we innovate? Where should we pursue new products? And solutions become controversial because there's no real true right answer. But they've worked together closely in that regard and in this business. Now, my brother and I are part of that, and we've made a commitment. We also have a covenant with my dad, my uncle, that will stay unified with them and each other and will also run this business according to the principles and worldview that my grandparents started the business with.

William Norvell: That there's I mean, you changed the word there intentionally, different than a commitment and a covenant. I've heard that sermon a couple of times. I'm not going to act like I remember every word of it. But that's really fast. And could you go a layer deeper into that? What if you could? What does the covenant look like? What does it mean? What are the bounds? I think that's just such a fascinating concept and one that, you know, not only family members running a business might want to think about, but co-founders that are especially listening here that are equally yoked and trying to pursue God's dream. What what can a covenant look like? It's a little different than maybe a partnership.

Ryan Walker: I think a covenant for us is a commitment to each other and God. And that's the big difference. And we've laid this business down to the Lord that he ultimately owns it. We're stewarding it today, and that stewardship looks and acts a certain way as defined by a Christian worldview and the principles that have been developed not in the last 12 years that I've been involved, but long before that, long before I was born. The lessons learned in our history as a company that we won't forget, those that we will remember the past, and we will apply that knowledge to the future and that ultimately we're accountable to God to do that work. And so for us, that's the encompassing of what a covenant means to our family as operators of this business.

William Norvell: It's really good. It reminds me there's a famous startup accelerator out here in Menlo Park called Y Combinator, and one of the founders, Paul Graham, was recently talking about how so many companies think their competitors are going to take them out. Right. Everybody's got the competitors wired and they take a hard and they spend all their time. And I forgot the exact quote, but some version of it said, In my experience, most companies die by suicide, not by competition. Yeah. And its co-founders that break apart and then you lose a valuable piece. And that word unified that you said is just, gosh, I think about faith driven entrepreneurs, that they made a commitment to be unified with their co-founders and that can still maybe, I guess, in your family matter, but that can even be a generous leaving potentially between them. But to stay unified around the company, I just feel like that would lead to so much healthier organizations and companies, and that's what seems to always take companies down. And so, unfortunately, Ryan, we have to move to a close here on our time. And one of the things we always do at the close of our show is invite God's word back into the conversation. And it's been here all the present, but we want to make sure we call it out. And we love to invite our guests to say, Hey, where is God speaking to you today through his word? And that can be something you read this morning with your dad and one of the devotionals, It can be something God's. And speaking of you for a long time, but we would just love to invite you to share a piece of his word and how it's impacted your life.

Ryan Walker: Yeah, I think there's a theme right now for me. There's been a theme of gentleness for a while and specifically around my speech. But in Proverbs, it talks about a gentle answer. And as leaders, we're often faced with unforeseen circumstances or maybe disappointments. And I can be bristly at times. And the Lord's been working in my life around an idea of gentleness. And so, I mean, the Proverbs right now are something that are challenging me and then a concept of silence that surrounds that. And they actually surround Proverbs 15 as well. But being able to not respond as a leader is so hard, but oftentimes it's necessary and beneficial. And so I have a tendency to talk quickly, to think later, you know, all the things of it. Maybe a typical entrepreneur run hard, run hot at times. So gentleness leading our people with gentleness, being an encourager, not being critical, but specifically around my words that a gentle answer turns away wrath. That's something that I think is really important as I'm tasked with shepherding, leading, developing people that I respond in a gentle way, especially when I'm surprised, especially when the news isn't good that we can walk through that and stay unified. I think that's so important for Christian business. The world sees the church divide all the time, therefore if we are going to be Christian influences in our communities. I think it's really detrimental if we behave in a way that the world behaves where selfishness wins. And that's something that I want Walker to be a place that we can talk about all kinds of issues and circumstances and the response is accurate, is a gentle it's appropriate, and we can stay unified in the organization as we pursue innovating, figuring out how we compete, but ultimately how we fulfill the mission, the vision, the calling of this place that the Lord's placed on me as a leader and on this company.

Rusty Rueff: Amen, it's great work. Been awesome having you.

Henry Kaestner: Thank you, Ryan.

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