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The Gen Z COO Who Actually Gets It with Sam Goldberg
Episode 20515th May 2026 • Blue-Collar BS • Brad Herda and Steve Doyle
00:00:00 00:31:20

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Sam Goldberg swore he'd never work at the family business. A high school internship building packaging machines at Econocorp proved him wrong. What started as a summer job on the assembly floor turned into a passion that led him from intern to COO of the 60-year-old company his dad owns.

The intern-to-COO path wasn't handed to him despite being the owner's son. Sam's dad made it clear: "I can get you in the door, but I can't help you once I get you in the door." That shop floor time earned him credibility.

Family businesses come with unique challenges. Sam and his dad learned to filter feedback through other leaders to keep professional conflicts from bleeding into their personal relationship and avoid creating awkward workplace dynamics.

Since becoming COO, Sam tackled the outdated facility that looked time-warped into the 1980s. He implemented 5S to clean up a production floor where you couldn't walk without running into something, renovated office spaces, and brought in EOS implementation. Now they hold quarterly town halls where everyone on the team has a voice - including assembly workers telling engineers their designs are a nightmare to build.

Sam noticed the average employee age was 55-60, which would create a serious problem when those workers retired. He pushed to bring in younger talent, but the team was skeptical about Gen Zs' work ethic. Sam brought in summer interns who proved everyone wrong they showed up ready to work hard. Now the company runs ongoing internship programs.

Sam chairs PMMI's future workforce committee, supporting high school robotics and packaging competitions. His message challenges the idea that college is the only option several leadership team members started on the assembly floor without degrees. Manufacturing isn't dark, dirty, and dingy anymore. It's well-lit, clean, safe, and full of exciting technology.

Highlights:

  • Sometimes you have to accept that people will leave when big changes are made.
  • Sam's open-door policy means anyone can share ideas or feedback - from assembly workers to leadership.
  • Sam says people being honest, even if it's hard to hear, is how things actually get resolved quicker.
  • The reason it appears Gen Z doesn't want to work is because they don't see downtime as beneficial.
  • Engineers must build their own complex designs to understand how their decisions impact the assembly team.

Are you trying to bridge generational gaps in your manufacturing facility or family business? Sam's story proves credibility comes from doing the work, not the title.

Make sure to subscribe to Blue Collar BS for more conversations with young leaders actually solving workforce problems instead of complaining about them. Share this with anyone who thinks Gen Z doesn't want to work hard.

Get in touch with Sam:

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Check out the Blue Collar BS website.

Steve Doyle:

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Brad Herda:

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This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Transcripts

Brad Herda (:

Hey everyone, welcome back to this episode of Blue Collar BS. I am here today solo because Mr. Doyle has some travel plans that have been rearranged, not necessarily by his own doing, thanks to airlines and inner overseas travel, et cetera. So I am here solo today. So we don't get to hear anything about what's going on in Detroit, but here in Wisconsin, the weather is a beautiful fall day here, getting ready for leaves to change, et cetera. We're sitting here in recording in October.

Our guest today is Sam Goldberg. is a bachelor in accounting and economics from Northeastern University. Began working at Econocorp as an intern while still in high school and then building the machines that they manufacture and doing all the things. He has gone from intern to COO and we are glad to have Sam here today to talk about those experiences and we're going to have some great conversations. I think it'd be some great insight into what's going on in the workplace today and

what to expect going down the road. So Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Goldberg (:

Thanks for having me, Brad.

Brad Herda (:

That's what they all say in the beginning until we get forward in this and then all this shit goes to hell. we are an explicit show. So don't have to hold back if you don't want that's okay too. So Steve's normal question that he gets to ask and I get to ask today is what generation are you part of belong to fit into, cetera.

Sam Goldberg (:

Yeah.

Sam Goldberg (:

Sure, so I fit into Gen Z, just barely fit into Gen Z. And I have a lot of friends that also fall into Gen Z. And so that's kind of the generation that I seem to follow myself into. But I do have friends that are older that find themselves in the millennial category too. Certainly see differences between us, but nothing crazy.

Brad Herda (:

There are, there are. And at the end of the day, we're all humans and we all have our own personal traits and our own things, but there are some, some things as we grow up and we can grow up differently and different exposures and those types of things. what, I guess, what drew you to the internship at the company that you're now COO for?

Sam Goldberg (:

Yeah, sure. So Econocorp is a family-owned business. So my dad is our president and owner. So I've been around this for a very long time. I grew up here as I tell people, but it really wasn't until high school. I was a busboy one summer and absolutely hated it. It wasn't very fun. And my dad suggested, hey, why don't you come to Econocorp? I can put you in assembly and you can build machines. And I said, anything can be better than that.

And anything was better than that, but this place was really cool. I didn't really know a whole whole lot about what really went on here. You know, I had run around as a kid. I had seen a lot of different things, but I'd never really experienced how we build machines, you know, what they really actually do, you know, what kind of companies actually buy from us. And I will...

And I always tell people this, I owe everything I know to that experience starting on the production floor. I understand the machines, I understand how they work. Sure, can someone go over my head at some point, 100%. But if I didn't have that experience, I wouldn't know anything about what we do for the most part.

Brad Herda (:

Right. And the floor is where you get to see all the things. You get to find out how dumb the engineer really is or is not, or how smart they are one way or the other, right? And that's really good. obviously family business. So did you have the option after your internship to kind of say, dad, thanks, but no thanks, or what happened there?

Sam Goldberg (:

Yes.

Sam Goldberg (:

I'm

Sam Goldberg (:

So yeah, I was never forced to come here. It was never part of the plan. Actually, when I started here as an intern, I told my dad, there's no way in hell I'm ever going to work here. I'm going to go do my own thing. You know, actually, I wanted to go to school for environmental science that lasted for about two weeks. And, you know, over time, I started to get an appreciation for what this is. But more importantly, you know, I started sitting in business school, like, who gets this offer?

like this is really cool, how can I say no? Didn't know I was gonna love it as much as I can tell you I do now, but I'm extremely happy that I decided to go into it and do it. I've learned a whole lot about what we do as a company, what this industry is all about, and I started inside here so I don't have a sales background, a marketing background, I don't even really have an engineering background.

But I have an understanding for how it works and so coming up to me from the inside to the role I am now I think has served me a lot better than it would have had I started in like an outside role and like a sales type role because I wouldn't have had the exposure to the processes, the people here and how everything works.

Brad Herda (:

So would it be fair to say that because you started on the floor and possibly because of maybe some of the banter or shaming or things from the employees or staff members on the floor to earn and gain their trust that now in the role that you're our COO that that has been a benefit because

they may have gained that respect a little bit better because you were on the floor sitting next to them then coming in from the outside is that fair or not fair statement?

Sam Goldberg (:

I would say that's 100 % true and I tell my dad that I think he did it right every single day. These managers that work for me, I worked for them when I was an intern. So yes, I think that is 100 % true. Now granted, have they known my dad for very long time? Yes. Is there some mutual respect because of that? Yes. But, you know, he's always told me, I can get you in the door, but I can't help you once I get you in the door. You're on your own.

You need to show people that you're here to work hard and you want to be here and you need to earn your position. you know, that's kind of the mentality that I've had. So yes, I think I've shown the managers that, hey guys, not only do I want to be here, I want to grow. I want to become a better company. And I want you guys to be part of that experience too.

Brad Herda (:

kudos to dad for for making that happen and using those words with you as well. So kudos to him. Speaking of dad, has there been any conflict as you've come into your role as co to want to move things maybe down a technology path versus a old school pen and paper or anything along those lines that you have been able to do and if if you had any issues

What would you maybe offer some of our younger audience members opportunities or ideas to help that within their own family businesses?

Sam Goldberg (:

Yeah, we definitely butt heads quite often. Actually, when I started here, I lived at home, so that was even worse. I didn't ever get a break from him. I love him. He's awesome. it was like, all right, the work stuff's coming home. But yeah, mean, at the beginning, was a lot of, well, I want to do this, I want to do this. And his whole thing at the beginning was, I get you want to do all of this, but you're going to come here and you're going learn how it works for a while, a couple years.

and then we can start talking about making changes because you're not just going to come in as an outsider and just completely change everything. We've been in business for over 60 years, so something's working clearly. So it was pretty cool to be able to do that, but yes, we butt heads often. The unfortunate part of him being my dad is I know I can yell at him, which is not professional, and he'll still love me at the end of the day versus these other people that work here. Now they won't put up

so to me and for my dad, we've actually found it really beneficial to, if he has feedback for me, you know, someone else could say the same thing to me and I'm not going to flip out at him because I can't flip out at him versus him. And it's not right. I don't like saying it, but I know at the end of the day, he's my dad and, it's going to be okay. So we found it pretty beneficial to have other people coach me and work with me.

Brad Herda (:

Right.

Sam Goldberg (:

As opposed to him, we actually have a gentleman here named Tom Garvey who we kind of filter a lot of this stuff through because he's really good at that kind of stuff and yeah, he can probably tell me what my dad wants to tell me without pissing me off like my dad might piss me off but You know, we butt heads but the end of the day we both want what's in the best interest of the company and I do to some extent have to respect the fact that he's been here for almost 50 years. I mean

Brad Herda (:

Right.

Sam Goldberg (:

That kind of knowledge I can't replace and he's kept the lights on here for that long. So something's working obviously even if I don't feel it.

Brad Herda (:

Yeah, I know when my my youngest son was in robotics his sophomore year, we're getting close to Bag Day the end and he was an electrical guy and I was in the mechanical side of things and all of a sudden I'm asking him to try. have you thought about this? Thought about that and he he he treated me as his dad, right? He yelled at me and those types of things and I'm afterwards I said would I at that moment? We need to go have a conversation. I said would you have done that to Mr.

It's like, no, okay, great. I'm not here as your dad. am your dad, but I'm not here in this environment as his mentor in this program to be your father. I'm here to be the mentor, the teacher, the coach. So somehow you'd better figure out how to separate those things in order for this relationship to really work. And that's, I'm going to assume very similar for what you guys had to figure out.

Sam Goldberg (:

Yes, yes, and it's still an ongoing figuring out thing in all honesty. I don't think it'll ever fully get better, but it's certainly gotten better over the years.

Brad Herda (:

Yep.

Brad Herda (:

So have you brought any innovation forward since you brought into your new role? mean, talk me through one of your success stories of change management, I guess, as the young guy that came in as an intern on the floor to make a change in some way that you were able to be successful with that.

Sam Goldberg (:

Sure, so we've done a lot of process improvements internally here. When I first got here, you probably couldn't have walked around our production floor without running into anything. Shit was everywhere, for lack of better words. It wasn't clean, it wasn't organized, and I didn't feel that fully reflected the nice machinery that we manufacture and produce for people. So that was probably one of the first big things we did was

5S as silly as it sounds like, hey guys, stuff needs to have a home, stuff needs to stay where it needs to be, it needs to not be all over the floor and it needs to look professional, presentable and it needs to look like, hey, we know what we're doing, we know what we're talking about, know, a customer walks into a facility and I've walked into facilities and they're like, God, I'm gonna walk back out this way because I don't think you can do what you're telling me based upon what I'm seeing here.

And I would have people tell me that's not how they felt, but that's how I felt. And I felt like, this is not a good representation of us. So you come here now and I have people who still tell me it looks great. I don't think it looks perfect, but I'm glad that people see that there's been a big change. We've done a lot of renovations to the office space to modernize it, to make it nicer, newer. I showed up here, we were time warped into the 80s. The wallpaper here.

Everything, I mean, actually some of it's probably back in style. The textured wallpaper is kind of a thing now again, right? So 40 years later it comes back. But modernizing it, changing it, the morale of people has improved a lot. And then also the cherry on top of it was having my dad give me the green light to go ahead and implement EOS, which is Entrepreneurial Operating System. I actually fully thought I would have been told no.

Brad Herda (:

Nice.

Sam Goldberg (:

and it would have been fully vetoed. Came back, he was on board to do it. We pitched it to him with a couple other members. We created a leadership team and now we're kind of pushing forward. We've come out with a couple new products, but now we're really trying to hone in on what we do really well and how to make it the best thing that someone could possibly buy.

Brad Herda (:

So when you started your five S was that the opportunity for you to say, dad, remember all those times you yelled at me for not cleaning up my room? I'm going to yell, I'm going to yell at you for not cleaning up the shop. How about that? Dad, are you good with

Sam Goldberg (:

maybe.

Sam Goldberg (:

Yeah, a little bit, right? You know, he's been on board, you know, it was more, hey, we need some accountability out in the shop, guys, you know, you should care equally as much as us, you know, you get to be in a safer worker environment, everything's more organized, you're going to get to work better and push stuff through in a quicker manner and your life and your job is going to get easier as a process of it too, you know, because on top of 5S, you know,

5S kind of ties into lean manufacturing and continuous improvement a bit. So it's like, you know, it kind of ties in really nicely with EOS. Everyone's voice matters. So, hey, those guys in assembly, well, they build machines every day. They know what's wrong with them. They know what sucks to do. They know what isn't fun to put together. And, you know, quite often, Brad, we have a new engineer who's like, I got this really cool idea. And we look at the design and it's like, God, what did you make? Hey!

Go build it yourself and go learn how much crap you would have put our assembly department through to make that happen. So it's just cool that like everyone here is like, you know, I got an open door policy. My dad has an open door policy. You have an idea or you have feedback you want to share with us, please do it. You know, we do. We just had a quarterly town hall this morning and it's just awesome to see, you know, we're sharing everything we're doing as a leadership team all the way down through this company because

Well, one, they should know and two, I want to know what they think about it because they might not.

Brad Herda (:

So what was the one thing that surprised you at today's Town Hall?

Sam Goldberg (:

just how engaged everyone is and how attentive they are and how interested they were in learning about everything that we do as a leadership team. You know, they think, you know, we lock ourselves in a room once a quarter for a whole day and we're unavailable. Well, what the hell are they doing behind a closed door? I want to share that with them. I want them to know what's our vision, what's our goals, where are we going as a company? And, you know, the other unfortunate part of our industry is there's been a lot of

conglomeration. There's still more, but we're one of the handfuls of privately held companies that actually still exist. So I also want them to know that I'm here because we don't want to sell the company and we'd like to keep it as a private entity and we'd like to figure out how to grow it because everyone's going to win at the end of the day. I'm going to be able to provide more for my employees as well too because we're going to be able to produce

more machines, make more money, and I'm going to be able to ultimately help everyone.

Brad Herda (:

So with the implementation of EOS and whether you're following traction to the letter of the law or you've adapted it to fit your own needs, I'm a big believer of find the right tools that work for the culture that you have. There's lots of things you can do, terminology, et cetera, but did you find that with your older staff members, were they receptive or not receptive to that change? Or what did you have to do to work through that accountability piece that comes along with

and L town L 10 meeting and your quarterlies and your people analyzers and all those other things that come along with it.

Sam Goldberg (:

So yeah, we certainly have lost people along the way from putting in these accountability measures and doing this other stuff just because it wasn't for them. And you know what? That's fine. There's no problem with that. it's not for you, it's cool. You know, it's fine. Hey, you know, get off the bus if it's not for you. don't, that's fine. I'd rather you go find something you're passionate about. A lot of the older team members for the most part came around.

Brad Herda (:

I love that attitude. is spectacular.

Sam Goldberg (:

Mostly because they saw that there was a vision to bring the place back to where it was 20, 30 years ago. It used to be a really vibrant environment way back in the day. Our old owner, Dick, did a really, really great job of that. And not that it was fully lost, but...

When you have half of your team members that have been here for 15 or more years, how can I not appreciate everything that they do for us and bring to us? so to some extent, if they weren't willing to come around, did we sit down with people and talk to them? Yes. Did we have a lot of one-on-one talks with people? Yes. Did they have concerns? Yes. But ultimately, was, we're doing this for the betterment of the company. And we kind of hope you guys are all on board.

It's going to be a win forever.

Brad Herda (:

A little bit before the show started we talked about you being the chairperson for the future workforce committee for the PMMI And you were talking about all the things that are going on that you're doing with you know supporting the opportunity to go back to the high school support robotics VEX Talked about a packaging competition that you guys have created As you are involved in that high school and maybe middle school level

Sam Goldberg (:

Yes.

Brad Herda (:

Right? That's where Gen Alpha is right now. They're at 15 years old or so and younger. What are you seeing characteristically that's different in Gen Alpha as compared to your generation and maybe some of even the younger Gen Z's that are out there right now eventually coming into the workforce? What are you seeing as one of the big opportunities for those individuals coming into the workforce?

Sam Goldberg (:

Yeah, so I'm a pretty strong believer that you don't need to go to college to be successful. So what I've noticed a lot in these high schools, and maybe not just specifically with students, but a lot of these high schools are learning that trades, vocational type stuff, manufacturing, it's not dark, dirty, dingy like it used to be. You walk into our facility and it's full of

It's well lit, it's clean, it's safe, and there's a lot of really exciting, cool technology here. I think a lot of students are learning that that is a career path that is an opportunity for them, and the traditional four-year college education isn't necessarily what they need to be successful. So, you know, I have a lot of friends that have a significant amount of student debt, and, you know, I don't think they're in jobs where it's like, wow.

degree might not have served you the most amount of good versus I have several team members on our leadership team that don't have college degrees that started on the assembly floor in the service department. There are some of the smartest guys that I know. So I think one of the things that's coming around is that that's not necessary and crucial but more importantly that a lot of these students want to work hard and want to do good but sometimes I feel they just get a bad rep.

You know, I've been told personally, like, I don't think of you when I think of Gen Z. And it's like, why not? I know lot of other, friends, other people that they're not too dissimilar from me, but you guys just don't want to give them the opportunity to work hard. And does that exist, Brad? Don't get me wrong. Yeah, 100%. I got those friends too, right? So, bye.

It's not the case for a vast majority of people. They want to show up, they want to work hard, they want to do good, but they also want to be given the opportunity to do good. I've heard from managers that like old style, you hear from your manager something's wrong. Now if you don't hear from your manager, it's like, oh God, what the hell did I do? So they want to be connected, they want to know what's going on, and they really want to work hard.

Sam Goldberg (:

And I just think people don't think that's true.

Brad Herda (:

Oh, I have that conversation all the time with my clients. Like, oh, these kids don't want to work like they do. They just don't want to work the way that I grew up working. They don't write the go into a job and eight hour job where there's only three hours for the work. They'll come in and get the three hours where the work done. But then let me get the hell out of here because I got better things to do with my life than sit here for five hours, twirling my thumbs or pushing paper across the desk that brings no value to anybody.

Sam Goldberg (:

Yes.

Brad Herda (:

And that is a hard concept for for older leaders to understand that look, okay, you paid him to do the job. That's three hours worth of work today. Great, send them home. But then I'm paying them to be here. It doesn't matter. They weren't going to do any work anyhow. So keep a happy employee and send them off the job site because it's done. There's nothing else to do and pay them. It's okay, because you're going to pay them the annual salary anyhow. Being in the parking lot or being in the building doesn't matter.

Sam Goldberg (:

Ha

Brad Herda (:

They want to get the work done and get the hell out and live their lives and be part of that. And that change is something that we struggle with. And how have you guys, how have you worked on combating that opportunity with younger workforce versus the older workforce who's like, hey, know, Aaron's not showing up until 6.55 and you know, why is he not here at 6.30 like everybody else here to get ready and all those things? How are you as the COO working to combat that?

generational differences of what work really means.

Sam Goldberg (:

Yeah, so I mean, like for instance, in engineering, you know, we have some people that aren't necessarily directly around here. So like maybe traffic impacts, I mean, we're in Boston, so traffic's not fun around here sometimes. you know, in engineering, we're pretty flexible with some of the hours that they work, whether they...

come in every day, whether they need to work from home once a week, if it needs to happen. I'm not just gonna go ahead and throw away talent to throw away talent. Now, are there roles where remote work doesn't exist? Yeah, we have a full manufacturing facility. These guys can't bring their CNC home. They can't build a machine at home. That's just not gonna work. I'm sure they would like to, but that's just not how it's gonna work.

But they need to be here. But we're open for about a 13 hour period during the day. We only work one shift. we're asking you to work a eight, nine hour shift within. You can be a little flexible. One day you need to show up an hour later. Maybe you show up at 5.30, you need to come at 6.30 that day. But you want to work an extra hour later that day. To us, that's not a huge issue. But we do to some extent like consistency to know that people are going to be here.

You know, also to answer the other part of it is that, yeah, if someone can't show up here and consistently be here and wants to put in a good day, then they shouldn't get the opportunity to be here. And we're going to sit them down and we're going to tell them, hey, if you think we're being mean, like just wait until you go somewhere else. And they're going to be even more mean about it. And they're going to have a zero tolerance policy. Like I'm willing to put up with some of it, but I'm not willing to put up with everything, right? But.

Brad Herda (:

you

Sam Goldberg (:

When I started here, was the opposite. The average age here must have been close to 55 to 60, which I don't have an issue with older people working. I love the knowledge that they bring, but it put me in a position where, well, hold up, I'm 28. I have a huge problem in five to 10 years where I'm not going to have any employees that still work for me because they all retire. And I was like, that is not a good problem to have.

Brad Herda (:

Right.

Sam Goldberg (:

When I came in, I told my dad, was like, listen, I know we don't always love the younger generations and this, that, and the other thing, but I'm looking out for my future interests. I'm looking for my future interest. I need younger people in here. And so I made a big push to bring in a lot of younger people. said, hey, when you start hiring, we need to be conscious about that because I need to have people that want to be here for more than five.

Brad Herda (:

Way to butter him up.

Sam Goldberg (:

10 years because they're not going to retire in 5 to 10 years. You know, I want them to be able to, you know, bring some fresh perspectives too. And so, you know, we've been able to drastically drop that average age here by putting a focus on trying to hire more young people as well as, you know, we've started doing internship programs with local high schools around us.

And every summer these students come in and everyone's here, it's just blown away with how hard they work, much good they do. And it's like, this is what I've been trying to tell you guys, hey, they don't all suck. They're actually good people and they want to work, but you guys don't give them the opportunity to be that person.

Brad Herda (:

Yeah!

Brad Herda (:

No kidding.

Brad Herda (:

Right, because you're not you're looking for differences instead of trying to find the common ground of similarities. They're there to wanting to learn. And if you don't want to teach, that's problem, right? And if you're not going to accept the fact that they're going to learn potentially through this or hey, let me just scan that serial number and see what I can all find out on what's going on and how to fix that. no, I got to wait for the guy to come over from the tool crib.

I gotta wait 15 minutes so that George can get over here after he gets a cup of coffee along the way. Talks to the four other guys about what happened this weekend with the Bruins game or whatever, the Patriots. He's got the problem already diagnosed and solved. I don't need you anymore. Thank you very much.

Sam Goldberg (:

Yep, and we see that a lot. We see a lot of these younger guys be like, well, hey, I don't want to wait for an answer. Maybe I can find the answer myself. And it's really cool to see that. A lot of them are self-starters. They want to go figure it out for themselves. You give them a challenge, and they want to figure it out. They want to solve it. They want to do good.

Brad Herda (:

Right. That's spectacular. Congratulations on your success and getting through a on top of it being a family business as well to close that gap and bring that energy level and support and creating the opportunity for your organization to to thrive in a multi-generational workforce. That's spectacular. So.

Give everybody, if they want to get in contact with you, if they want to find out more, if they want to be involved in the PMMI or talk to you about what you guys are doing with the robotics program or some of the packaging challenges that you have, how do people find you and get a hold of you?

Sam Goldberg (:

Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn. My name is Sam Goldberg at Econocorp. Feel free to connect or follow me on LinkedIn. For Econocorp, you can visit our website, www.econocorp.com. We make a full line of secondary and end-line packaging machinery. Pretty much any industry that you can think of. Grocery store Target Walmart on the shelf at a carton.

those would probably be the two best ways to get in contact with me. I'm also an open book. We do a lot of manufacturing tours, things like that. So I would encourage people locally in the Boston area. You're a teacher, you have a student group that would want to come see a manufacturing facility. Also an open book for that type of stuff.

Brad Herda (:

Spectacular. So before we go, we're going to go through our new feature that we've been doing. It's called Rapid Fire. So I'm going to give you a bunch of questions. They're intended to be quick rapid fire type questions. Some of the stuff you may know, some of it may not, because I wrote these questions, so they're geared to my generation in some aspects of it. So we'll go with that. What's the dumbest thing you've ever heard in a meeting?

Sam Goldberg (:

Sure.

Sam Goldberg (:

Cool.

Sam Goldberg (:

Alrighty, sounds good.

Sam Goldberg (:

that a dumbest thing I've heard in a meeting is someone bullshitting me that they know what they're talking about when they don't know what they're talking about. It's very easy to read through.

Brad Herda (:

Favorite blue collar skill you wish more people had?

Sam Goldberg (:

probably how to use tools, power tools, or actually know what a wrench is, a screwdriver, things like that.

Brad Herda (:

Okay. What's your go-to excuse when running late?

Sam Goldberg (:

That probably overslept your left leg.

Brad Herda (:

Okay, I'm glad you didn't say Starbucks is running running long. I didn't use that one. Let's see here beer bourbon or I'm a kombucha person.

Sam Goldberg (:

No.

Sam Goldberg (:

Beer, definitely beer. I'm gonna give a shout out to New Glarus Brewing, love Spotted Cow. And now you guys are in Wisconsin.

Brad Herda (:

Okay, good. All right.

Brad Herda (:

I was gonna say, come back to Wisconsin. Can't get it there unless you bootleg it. Coffee or energy drink.

Sam Goldberg (:

coffee.

Brad Herda (:

Go to Curse Word.

That's been the one that's consistent. Favorite candy, it's coming up on Halloween. What's your favorite candy?

Sam Goldberg (:

Yeah.

Candy, probably these nerds gummy clusters. just did a job for them. They're really good. Yeah, really good. They're like crack.

Brad Herda (:

those are delicious, aren't they? Somebody gave me, they were at my niece's wedding and it's like, those are really good. I gotta find me some of those. Early Bird or Night Owl.

Sam Goldberg (:

Night Owl.

Brad Herda (:

What was your dream job as a kid?

Sam Goldberg (:

That's a tough one, probably to be an astronaut. Not this. Maybe a TV show to binge. Probably Ted Lasso.

Brad Herda (:

Favorite TV show to binge.

Brad Herda (:

That's, I love that show. What's the last thing you Googled?

Sam Goldberg (:

LinkedIn. It was on LinkedIn before we got on this.

Brad Herda (:

Favorite movie quote.

Sam Goldberg (:

I don't really have one honestly.

Brad Herda (:

Okay, biggest pet peeve at work.

Sam Goldberg (:

that the bullshitting me. I want the truth. I don't care how ugly it is. I just want to the truth.

Brad Herda (:

Favorite music.

Sam Goldberg (:

country music.

Brad Herda (:

Favorite sport.

Sam Goldberg (:

soccer.

Brad Herda (:

killing me smalls. Bucket list vacation.

Sam Goldberg (:

Bora Bora.

Brad Herda (:

Okay. Living or dead, who would you want to have a conversation with?

Sam Goldberg (:

You know, I'd really love to talk to Steve Jobs. I think he would be a rather interesting individual to dig into his mind from an innovative perspective.

Brad Herda (:

And this one you may or may not get ginger or Marianne

Brad Herda (:

Gilligan's Island. That's always the one that's a stumper for the younger crowd. So Sam, thank you so much for putting up with my shit today and having a great conversation and and folks, if if you are truly want to understand how to impact and find and recruit at a younger level and being involved locally, please reach out to Sam and how to get involved in the associations in different places in your own area because

Sam Goldberg (:

Yes.

Brad Herda (:

That is your best recruiting tools to be involved and be seen. And you guys are doing it. So congratulations to you, Sam. And thank you so much for being here today.

Sam Goldberg (:

Thank you. Yes, thank you for having me, Brad.

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