In this episode, Bill sits down with Chris Riemer, U.S. President of Process Combustion Corporation (PCC), a global engineering and manufacturing organization specializing in process heating and emissions control systems. With 30+ years of engineering and military leadership experience, Chris shares how PCC has transformed from a conservative, legacy business into a forward-focused, diversified global competitor.

Chris discusses the company’s management buyout, the cultural shift toward innovation and smart risk-taking, the challenges of multi-year sales cycles, and the growing impact of professional buying environments on engineering-driven manufacturing companies. The conversation also explores global expansion, the rise of new markets such as biochar and carbon reduction technologies, the role of disciplined organizational frameworks, and how modern marketing has become an essential growth lever for PCC.

Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast, where we're discovering what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. Today, I have a very special guest with me. Chris Riemer is joining us from Process Combustion Corporation. Chris is an engineering professional with more than 30 years of diverse experience around the world. He served 20 years in active duty as an officer in the US Army, and over the past decade, he's helped lead global programs across the US, Europe, India and China helping to guide the company through an era of transformation. Chris, thank you for joining us today.

Chris: Oh, thank you Bill.

Bill: So a little rough started for me this morning. But we'll get through all that with some traffic issues and such. But I thank you for joining us. And Chris, let's just dive right into your background. A lot of experience, worldwide and certainly your military experience, maybe just kind of bring us what led you to this point.

Chris: Well, it wasn't planned out, you know, from the very beginning, as a as an 18 year old, I decided to go, to West Point. It was an opportunity that was in front of me. And, I started environmental engineering. Didn't use it for the first couple of years of my career, obviously, but picked up a lot of other skills along the way. And, over my time in the Army Corps of Engineers, you know, started out with the tactical units, by an arms warfare and, but then the thing that was interesting to me about the Corps of Engineers was eventually transitioning to doing civil works and large projects and knowing that that would eventually transition me to a, opportunities in the outside, the engineering, world.

Bill: Right. So we didn't plan this, but this is the day before Veteran's Day, and I have a veteran on the show. So we would just like to thank you for your service and we really appreciate that.

Chris: I thank you very much because I was thinking about that too on the way here. And, I guess, you know, I always say that when people thank me for my service, it was an honor to serve, and to my brothers and sisters out there who, you know, who wore the uniform. Thank you for what you did. You know, our our service matters and, you know, proud to have served with you.

Bill: Well. Thank you. Yeah, I, I took my children to Arlington, a couple of years ago, and, we went and visited the, gravesite of, a fellow, college graduate who was a Green Beret who was killed in Afghanistan in a, one of those, improvised explosive devices that hit their vehicle. And, so, we've, honored Charlie his, service, but, yes. Thank you so much for that. And Veterans Day is something that should have more prevalence in today's society. We certainly celebrate a lot of things. Certainly it seems we celebrate football more than we celebrate celebrate Veterans Day. But I'll get off that soapbox because that's for a different podcast, different day. So, PCC Group, we've been, involved with you guys for a number of years and have seen you guys grow just, tremendously. And maybe just talk about some of that transformation that's been very, very exciting. And, just, the massive expansion and growth that you've experienced.

Chris: Sure. So, I joined in 2014, but the company's been around since 1969. So we just actually had our our 56th birthday and, it was a process heating company. Very legacy industrial, it is owned by a British conglomerate. And growth is never straight line and especially in a project-based type of industry. So, when I came on board, you know, the old ownership kind of looked at the company as a cash cow. So there wasn't a lot of investment in the company. And we say our systems were more than outdated. But when things hit a rough patch that that, industrial conglomerate was looking for something that had more predictable cash flows. And so there was a management buyout of the company. From senior managers who were then PCC. And it just completely changed perspective because now there was really kind of free reign to make decisions, to invest money, to change things, whereas previously things had been very conservative.

Bill: Sure. No, I've, it's been interesting. So we were obviously involved kind of after that post management buyout and the energy, the enthusiasm, it's palpable. And it's been exciting to kind of be, on the sidelines and watching and supporting in very, very small ways. When you think about, where PCC is since that time. Right. And you've been there since ‘14. What what have you observed through that time period?

Chris: Well, an appetite for, I would say smart risk, you know, a willingness to fail. Just fail quickly and cheaply. Most importantly, you know, from the perspective of, how we have looked to grow domestically, it's taking on additional scope because that's what the market is really asking for and also diversification of our product line. So in the past, if you look across the entire spectrum of customer need, we were only kind of hitting a very small segment to that. And then a lot of times the answer was, well, we can't do that. We're sorry. So we have since filled in a lot of those gaps. And one of the areas where we really are strong is our ability to provide a complete, integrated solution for the customer that is really organic to our capability. So we're not having to go out to other companies and, you know, buy add ons. We provide a majority of the equipment, which has been a huge plus for us.

Bill: When you think about how you guys are. So you're an engineering heavy manufacturer, right? I mean, you're really bringing together so much, planning, so much design, so much consultation, and then you're assembling these pieces from various manufacturers. The the buying cycle for that is tremendously long. Can you maybe talk about some of those challenges that you’ve faced over the years where, you know, this isn't where someone fills out a form on the website, and then the revenue hits the income statement in 30 days.

Chris: Right. So, you know, I came up on the operations side of the organization. And so in the execution, you know, the synchronization, synchronization of everything is, is essential. And just like, you know, the battlefield, it all comes down to logistics at the end, you know, how do you get it from point A to point B on time? But now that I've kind of moved into this new role as the president for the past few years, and I've kind of seen what the sales team has to go through, there's a long period that, that sometimes takes place where you're kind of stoking the fire and building the relationship, building the trust, and the customer is trying to figure out what they want. And so a lot of times, that conversation that you had the first time you spoke to the customer and then what ultimately they decide to buy, it's two different things. And our you know, willingness and ability to kind of walk with them through that process to help them optimize their final decision is really something where it's a, you know, it's a huge benefit to us because we get to help shape things. But the flip side of it is you have to be judicious in figuring out which one of those you're willing to kind of spend a lot of time with and which ones, you're wishing them the best of luck. And, you know, please come back to me when you know what you want.

Bill: Well and I think when we look at the life cycle, the buyer's life cycle that you guys face, it is you can have that 1 to 3 years of building a relationship with someone to the point where you're getting the design or the RFQ or the specs, and then you have the design phase and then the build and implement phase. I mean, this could be anywhere from 3 to 6 years when we talk about that entire life cycle.

Chris: Some of the longer projects, yes. What we've seen recently is, especially it seems like we've kind of had a strange post-election year. And, you know, business is cyclical. But we've had a very large number of engineering orders where the customers are asking us to, you know, design the equipment in detail, you know, for a future equipment order. So that equipment order could come immediately upon completion of the engineering, or maybe it'll come, you know, the following year after they've programmed, you know, the money into their capital expenditures budget.

Bill: I think a lot of companies are getting a little bit smarter and understanding that if they have an engineering heavy requirement, that if they wait until they need it to then contact the firm or engage someone to do the design, I mean, that that calendar's just going to keep creeping in, creeping in. So hopefully we're starting to see some efficiencies in, in that part of the market. But I also agree, when we look at the post election cycle, there was a lot of, uncertainty with the election. Then we had the inflation. Now we have the tariffs. There's there seems to be a lot of, items that are stimulating the market one way or the other every other day. So it's a it's a very challenging time to kind of, predict and forecast, what we're, what we're dealing with.

Chris: Yeah.

Bill: So, Chris, there's one of the things you talked about as you've been involved over the past several years, more with the sales side of the business. And because you're, you know, you're not only responsible for operations and delivery, but you're also responsible for sales. What was your historic go to market strategy? And maybe specifically talk about how you're using some rep groups, how your philosophy on that may have changed, why it changed, and what you learned by evaluating that process.

Chris: So, I mean, it's been an ongoing discourse since, since the time I arrived. And it's, you know, it's been a slow evolution, but really, the, you know, the forefathers at PCC, a lot of them had great personal relationships with engineers who were specifically at customers, who were long-term buyers from us and had multiple project sites with, with our equipment. And those relationships are gone. People have retired. A lot of, corporations have got rid of their engineering stats and instead are outsourcing that. And they've moved to a professional buying type of environment where, you know, PCC is competing with other providers and it's really kind of a, low priced, lowest priced, most, you know, well, technically acceptable. So being able to communicate that, is is essential for us. With the rep firms again, our sense is that, rep firms are kind of becoming less prevalent. A lot of our, a lot of our reps are, you know, moving towards retirement, that doesn't look to be like a large backfill for them. As things have transitioned to the internet and to the professional buying environment, those relationships don't really have as much weight as they did in the past. So, I think it's really kind of important for us to maximize the number of pitches that we see when we're standing in the batter's box. Yeah. The other piece about the rep firms was that, you know, they would have relationships with, with established companies, but they really wouldn't have an interest in stepping outside of what was producing their revenue for them. So if there's an emerging application, they really didn't have a lot of interest in it. If we were, when we would diversify our equipment offerings and there was, you know, we were instead of looking at heavier industry, we said, hey, you know, these light medium industries also need this equipment. They didn't have the relationships, and they also didn't really have the interest in pursuing it, unless we could really show them that you're going to make money off this, they were just going to kind of focus on what was always producing for them.

Bill: That that seems to be the, a very accurate characterization of rep groups that we've experienced through our clients. And then in some prior businesses in the way we have to be fleet of foot as a sales team to go after those emerging markets and to make that investment with no hope in sight, but the hope and the, you know, kind of the momentum and push of the organization, those are so important. And, yeah, the other thing I think you brought up is a great point. The professional buying, what you want to call it, department, it's a whole movement. It's not just a one organization. It's not just like GE or some of the big ones. Everybody's got a professional buying department or folks who are governed by professional buying kind of, bookends. They have to do it this way. They need 3 to 5 quotes. They need like all those things. Whereas historically, let's go back 20, 30 years, it was more, if we can use this word, good ole boy. It was relationship. It was, hey, I need this. Hey, I've got this. We're good. Okay. And not a lot of extra quotes. It wasn't low cost, right? Minimum tech expec. So there's a lot of different, competing forces that are really changing the dynamic of the professional sales and go to market strategy. Whenever you, whenever you've looked at these, like, these constructs, because this sales channels are changing rapidly, are there any other areas that you thought that PCC was missing on that you felt you guys were able to change, were kind of developed differently over the course of the past several years?

Chris: Well, that's really kind of been the drive for why we've, we've changed our look at how we do sales and marketing. So in the past it was a it was an event. It was like a five year event. Oh, it's time to update the website. And, and then that's not to criticize anybody in the past. So I just, I always say that, you know, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. And the company has been here for 55 years, so.

Bill: Congratulations. That's great.

Chris: But, you know, we have to evolve just like every everybody else is evolving so we can have another 55. So the idea that we're going to do it once and then come back and do it five years from now, it doesn't work. And so the, the biggest challenge, I think, on the sales side is the velocity, you know, the amount of information that's coming in. How do you keep track of that? So my predecessor, John Dormire, you know, he, he and or lead for, for marketing, Mike Foggia, you know, they kind of inserted the discipline of we need to have a CRM. And so they selected Zoho, generally because I think it was it gave us all the tools that we needed, but it was also kind of a, you know, a lower-priced approach and started populating the CRM. And trying to instill the discipline in the organization. If we have to use the CRM, we have to keep it updated. But the more success that you have in terms of getting inquiries now, how do you manage all this data? And then how do you establish what your priorities are? And that's kind of the I would call it catastrophic success. But you know, when you when you realize it's it's kind of like when they, when they tapped the first oil well, right. And they tapped and from the start and they're like, oh my gosh, you know, we got to catch it in buckets? So that's the evolution we're going through right now is first of all, you know, continuing the discipline of the CRM, establishing the dashboards so that we can take all that data, turn it into knowledge, and then make decisions based off of it and allocate, you know, our resources because we're still a very small company in terms of, when I joined in Pittsburgh, we were probably about 45. Globally now we're 85, in the US, I think 56. So, you know, we are a company that provides engineering services. We're like a boxer, though, you know, we we we we hit way above our weight class. Because we have good partners and relationships. And we depend on people. But because we want to remain smaller and keep overheads small, how do you find those efficiencies? And, you know, the, the term AI, you know, have you heard of that?

Bill: It has come up from time to time.

Chris: Right? So, you know, how do you how do you leverage that? And, again, it when I came in in 2014, you know, it it was like an episode of Mad Men, right? It was just kind of that's the way it was. And we've evolved and we've had a big demographic change where we're we've got, a lot of, you know, young engineers who, they don't want to do it the same old way. They want to, they want to use all the greatest tools. They want to continue to grow. They want to keep up with their peers. So we got to encourage them to, to do these things. And oh, by the way, you know, if you have a good idea, we got to share it with everyone else too.

Bill: No that's great. And, yeah, one of the a couple of the things I've observed and, spoke with Mike and John about over the years were was the success of your webinar series. You guys did amazing webinars. And I think this ties into exactly what you just said. You guys are punching way above your weight because for an organization of sub 100 people, the amount of attention you guys gathered in the marketplace from your authority on these specific topics like the RTOs and I've learned this. I'm just kind of telling myself, this was probably 6 or 7 years ago. I was sitting in your parking lot getting ready to go meet with John Dormire, and I didn't know anything about you guys. So I called my brother in law, who’s a civil engineer. I was like, say, it's NOX, and SOX destruction. What does that mean? So I sat in the parking lot there and he gave me a, like a five minute engineering, discovery on this. SOx and NOx destruction, 99.99% ERE, I think it is. And we went through all of that. So I came up to speed really, really quickly on what you guys did. But the authority that PCC Group has in this space, which is like, it's a little engine that could, I mean, smaller footprint company that is just really, has an authority in that market. And I can see how the volume here is coming into the CRM from these activities and really driving interest in what you guys are doing. So that's that's fantastic. The the data issue is real with CRM, with website traffic. Right? Trying to parse it. And certainly the last thing you talked about, that little two letter word that's disrupting everything everybody does and will continue to do so, AI implementation we're seeing right now, it's actually in a lot of ways, causing companies and agencies more work. There’s just so many more things to deal with, so many things to chase. And, oh, you can grab this and it'll do this, and then it'll get you to about 8/10 of the way, but it doesn't finish it. And then you spend four times as long actually finishing it. I was waiting for one of my favorite friends. I think it was Claude or I don't remember, Chat. Whichever one. And I ask it to do something. And it was one of those blips where it was over subscribed, and it didn't have capacity. I was I felt completely put upon that it didn't meet the promise of immediately doing this task for me and finding this information. I was like, maybe this is the downfall of society when Chat is not responding. But fast forward in five years, that may be true.

Chris: Yeah, right. But we'll be trained to write better prompts by then.

Bill: That’s right. Be more efficient instead of saying please, I guess, which whenever I am polite to it like is very bad for the internet or for AI. So let's let's talk about PCC. You become president and then you decide to kind of refocus or you arrived at a moment where you said, okay, marketing has to become more front and center. It can't be an expense line item that we look at every five years or intermittently. What led you to that moment?

Chris: Well, when the, when the management buyout took place and they realized that diversification was going to be one of the critical strategies for PCC domestically to to continue to grow, we have successfully, you know, fielded equipment that never had been designed by the company in the past. But when we looked at kind of where where's the the requests coming from, 70% or more of the, inquiries are still coming in for our legacy systems and then our RTOs and scrubbers. You know, we have the capability to do these things, but they're kind of almost like add ons, or you know just we just weren't getting the traffic. So we had the ability to grow in those areas. We had demonstrated performance. But we aren't, the market doesn't know we're there. We're just not getting the hitting the pitches, you know, and getting the opportunity to swing. So that's where I kind of said, all right, let's let's take a look at this and, you know, right about the time that I changed in, we had a new vice president of sales, Matt Valancius, and and he came in looking at it, you know, kind of the exact same way. So new eyes, new energy, enthusiasm for the tools, and yeah, we've gotten after it.

Bill: That's great. That's great. You talked about, combining internal management and strategic partners for execution and, like, you found a different balance. How did you then get your other leadership, ownership, etc. on board with the change? Because one of the things we've seen with a 56 year old, 70 year old, 100 year old companies, even to this day, adopting a more digital, aggressive strategy is very, very difficult. Just because it's the way it's always been done, right. How did you navigate the waters of, okay, you have some young blood, you've had some enthusiasm, you've got competency and still dealing with some less aggressive or less progressive thinking?

Chris: Yeah, I would say it more conservative.

Bill: That’s a great word.

Chris: Yeah, I, I greatly appreciate the trust and confidence that, Will Huber and the board have have shown in us and, they, they have loosened up the reins in the past and I'm going to go way back. But the, the, you know, the legacy approach was we're going to capitalize on existing relationships. And really marketing kind of became a very small thing where we would try and do it organically, super low cost. And we did have a lot of success with our webinar series. But going to conferences, we weren't sure that we were getting any value out of that. And some, some of the other activities that you typically associate with, with sales and marketing, we kind of questioned about whether or not it was value to us. But the watershed moment, I would say that that occurred in the past year, you know, if you think about it, you know, we're selling projects that are in the millions of dollars, you know, a piece of equipment is going to cost you a couple million dollars. So if you're going to spend, you know, even I would say spend $100,000 on on marketing for the year. And just to do that year over year, well, okay. If you get one more project, it just paid for itself, right. The return on investment’s right there. So just kind of making that point and painting the picture for, you know, for the, the ownership of the company that not only is this something we should do, but by not doing it, we're actually costing ourselves opportunities and preventing the growth of the company.

Bill: Absolutely. No so one of the things we see in the market that is very much is black and white. Companies that look at that conservative more legacy approach, or others that look at marketing as a capital lever for growth. And if you invest 100,000 and let's say you're most likely going to get more than one sale out of that, and let's just use that for round numbers. Or when you start to, let's say if you can get five, then your CAC, your customer acquisition cost is 20 grand, or if it's a two, three, $4 million project. I'm sure you guys have CFOs or someone who can do the calculations just say, that's a pretty good investment. And especially another mistake we've seen a lot of organizations make, and they usually correct is they want to diversify into new markets and they build it, design it, put it together, and then they go talk to their current customer base about it. Well, like you said, if 70% of the traffic's coming in on legacy systems, unless you get lucky and those customers need that new thing or service, you're talking to the wrong audience. It may be the best thing ever, but you're having the conversation with the wrong audience. So seeing that, opportunity and pivot and then, congratulations on having that conversation with the board and the ownership group and all of your leadership group and getting everybody behind it, because I've also seen a lot of legacy organizations fail at having that conversation is like, nope, we're going to do the old way like that. That's it. So that that's an amazing, progress you guys have have made.

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Bill: One of the other things I'd like to ask about, when you think about diversifying into these markets, I know that aftermarket is a big, opportunity for PCC and a big, part of really any business because there's a good profit margin, it's, helps you stay in front of your customers, helps them get a better experience with your product or service over the life cycle. What have you seen as opportunities or growth in that space?

Chris: Again, that's, that becomes a data management effort. So figuring out, you know, which pieces of equipment in the past have you fielded that still exist?

Bill: Sure.

Chris: And, you know, ten years ago when I came to the company, there was a slow period. So I went through the entire list and there I was, you know, googling and looking to see is the plant still there? And sometimes the street view, there was nothing but weeds. But establishing those relationships, because not only do you have turnover in your organization, but the people at the plant, they're changing out too. So how do they know to call you besides going to look at the data plate. But, you know, sometimes it's it's it's always better when they know kind of who you are. So we've always focused on our own equipment. However, with, with the RTOs, we have taken on some opportunities to do work on other people's equipment. And one of the areas from an aftermarket perspective, the with our equipment, you know, the main, main body of it may not change, but the customer will say, I really need to upgrade my instrumentation and controls. So that's an area where internally we see the opportunity. But we also know that's one of our most limited resources. So you almost have to take an appetite suppressant because the market's there. But if you chase it too much then how are you going to do the projects that you have in-house now, if you know the big one? So there's there's always a balancing act for, for resources.

Bill: Now that's great. When I think one of the challenges the PCC faces is the fact that there are, actually, you guys have developed and delivered that are 40, 50 years old in the market, still out there, that you're still providing that aftermarket support. So this isn't like a go through the warranty cards that were recently submitted. These are, I don't want to say ancient, but like a testament to the quality, right. That it's a good product. But the probability of that plate being intact and readable on that machine after even ten years. Right. Zero. So, you know, they have no idea. So you have to be proactive. You have to do a little marketing, you have to work to grow that. So that's, that's interesting, but I applaud you for digging into that data because that is one place where data is so critical. If you do or don't have data, that will be a heavy indicator of aftermarket program success from the onset. Or you're going to have to invest a lot in data to build that foundation to get there. But that's that's great. So, Chris, you have an extensive military background. And one of the things you talk about in the pre-show, and I’ll try not to mess this up, but you have brought the DOTMLPF framework to and I apologize to all those in the military who I've just butchered that, my apologies. But can you talk about that framework and then how you've brought that approach to your day-to-day work at PCC?

Chris: And so DOTMLPF is, it's just the military's way of organizational design. And so it's a framework and there are plenty of other frameworks out there. That's just the one I like, because that's that's the one I grew up with. But it's doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership, personnel and facilities. Right. So from how do you take that on the military side and kind of apply it to all this, this business that we're working with? The the doctrine is how how do we do things? Right? The organization is are we properly organizing the people that we have around the problems that we're trying to solve? The training is, you know, are they ready to do that, especially when you bring new people on board. How quickly can you get them from the zero level up to the point where they're a high performer? Is that five years? Can you bring it down to one year? You know, personnel, do we have all the skill sets that we need? So one of the critical things that we found, you know, a couple of years into my, my time with the company is we brought in somebody who would do our structural engineering for us. So instead of having to outsource that and spend weeks waiting for the results, now we had somebody in-house who would do it very quickly. In terms of facilities, you know, small things, but meaningful things. You know, we built a, an FAT location for our control panels. It's it's a nice little spot. It's a, you know, we can bring customers in there, be proud of it. They like it. So, you know, just looking at this framework and then getting everyone to speak the same language. So there's a, there's kind of a knock on veterans is that we, we can't let go of, of our old ways a little bit. And especially all the acronyms. Right. And I kind of enjoy it a little bit because my initials are CFR. And one of the guys joked when, you know, when I came in t’is like, oh, here comes the Code of Federal Regulations. But, so this year, you know, it's again, using that framework, it's like, okay, you know, team, our focus here is doctrine, training, organization. You know, those those are the things that we're focusing on. So it gives it gives a point for everyone to get aligned and say all right, this this is this is what we're trying to do.

Bill: So if you, were feeling that you were missing acronyms, your foray into the marketing and sales space, specifically the digital marketing space, there are so many acronyms that there's a whole new world for you to like, just experience and a new home for you to like, adopt new and modern thinking, right? That's great. Well, I love that. And, when you think about, so a lot of organizations like in like the entrepreneurial space use EOS, and there's all types of different models, but it feels like this model is comfortable to you and your, your, you know, how to practice it. And what I've seen over the course of my career is it's not so much the model as it is consistent disciplined application of a model usually allows for better results than not having a model. When you came to PCC and you brought DOTMLPF, I probably said it wrong again, to the to the organization. Did you see the consistent application of it start to bring a little bit more order to some of the processes and outcomes?

Chris: Just within the operations team that I was working with, I explained it. I they knew it was how my thinking worked, but I didn't, I never say, guys, you know, this is this is what we're doing. It's really since I stepped into the president's role, I've kind of across the entire organization said, you know, this is this is how we're looking at things. And, everyone still generally, people appreciate clarity of communication. When they understand the expectations that are on them, they're like, I can do that. It's when you start, you know, asking them for one priority and then your priority changes and you start going all over the place, that that you start to lose a little bit of enthusiasm.

Bill: But I think that's, that's the beauty of a model is bilateral communication. It's it's, if all it does is provide clarity and then the ability for bilateral communication both up and down channels, then call the model what you will. It's a success. Because it is going to speed information. And I always tell my team there's no good bad news or bad news. It's just information we just need to process and deal with. So if we can start to move that information more quickly and, co-owner, business partner always says, please don't wait 2 or 3 days to give us the information that could be perceived as negative. We need it immediately because usually whenever it, you know, we leave it on the pot on the stove, it's warm. And then 3 or 4 days later it's boiling. And then we learn about it and then it's, you know, it's a four alarm fire and we have to figure it out. And that's never fun. Whereas we maybe could have done something at the inception of that issue. And really sorted it out. Well, I'm glad you've been able to implement that. And, I will be, avidly watching as you try and bring order to the marketing function, because that's a whole different kind of crazy with, especially with AI. And maybe this is the framework we need. Maybe there's something there that we all need to apply. So another thing I'd like to ask you about is growth. So you've talked about, diversification. You guys had your legacy products, you pivoted a little bit into the RTO and some others, you had the airport acquisition, some of those type of things. But, you're also looking at some other diversification option. So maybe take take me through biochar and some of the things you're excited about here in the future.

Chris: And so, you know, the biochar industry is now it's the, it's it's a use of the equipment that we have been providing for years with, with a little bit of a twist, because of the needs of the application. The part that's been interesting about this particular industry is it's it's an emergent industry. Okay. The, the making of biochar and then paralysis-based processes has been around for centuries, but the application of it now on an industrial scale, for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gases and then the secondary economy associated with that of carbon credits. That is a completely new world, that, that, you know, we're trying to be a part of. So this goes back to, you know, my my previous, discussion about having conversations with people who are, I'm trying to come up with this process. Well, who do you, who are you with? And, you know, some company that you never heard of and then suddenly realize this isn't, you know, a Fortune 500 company you're talking to. You know, this is this is a guy who might have had a pilot plant. He's got a great idea. He's talking to you on the technical side, but he's also trying to talk to investors. And so this is a world that we never really dealt with in the past. But because of the opportunities that are there, it goes back to the whole question of how much of our time and effort do we invest, you know, in these opportunities, because we expect that there's going to be an explosive growth in those areas. So biochar is one of the areas. I mean, we see the steel industry is transitioning away from, you know, coal from the ground, coke, you know, they're they're making bio coke now out of trees and other organic materials. And that's been something that's kind of sweeping through that industry. So PCC’s opportunity there is to, you know, provide combusters that are, you know, providing heat to the calciners. But then also, again, going back to our diversification, we're providing RTOs, we're providing wet electrostatic precipitators. And, you know, we have the opportunity to provide scrubbers as well. So when you look for an industry that can provide an opportunity across all of your product lines, and you can develop a relationship that's going to lead to repeatable business, we view that as a great path forward for us.

Bill: Well and strategically, if you're moving from more legacy systems and legacy issues that are largely driven by regulatory and then you, this opportunity, it feels like you're moving into more of an emerging market. You're dealing in venture capital, like we're not dealing with huge Fortune 500 companies. These are ideas looking for investments. That's exciting. And also then balancing the risk and reward and how much are we going to invest and diversify into this? So that has to be a real, that's exciting. And those are fun things to do. Nerve-racking. But, that's exciting.

Chris: That's that's the that's the but part, right. Because because that industry could go away, you know, with the winds blowing in a different direction. So another area where we've, let's say diversified geographically is this past year we opened up a, a, PCC Europe company. And so that is, there's a lot of opportunities there. In Europe, you know, we do we do compliance in the United States, okay. They compete to be the most compliant. It's it's there's almost a religious fervor, to how they approach the environment. And so PCC had, you know, dabbled in Europe in the past because one of our sister companies had some legacy equipment over there. But we realized that there was an opportunity there. And the thing that really knocked the door down for us was what we consider our crown jewel application in the acrylonitrile industry. We've been doing a lot of business over there, or a lot of business in that industry in China. Over the past ten years. But there's a acrylonitrile producer in Europe that had equipment from the 1970s. They wanted to not only, you know, upgrade to now, but they want to futureproof the system so they can continue to operate in what they expect would be an ever-tightening regulatory environment. And so, I mean, this, this opportunity for us, it's really I would say that the value of this one job is more than what our traditional domestic revenues would, the order intake would be.

Bill: Nice. That's great. Well and it's interesting when we we have some clients in Europe. And, from a marketing and technology standpoint, they're usually trailing the US, but from an environmental, compliance, regulatory and even future-proofing, they are way ahead of us as far as how fast they're moving. It is, varies by country. But certainly, that's an a very ripe market for you guys to really pursue that and probably even get some of these leading edge projects as opposed to more trailing projects like, as far as the regulatory compliance goes, that's that's fantastic.

Chris: In terms of the relationship, you know, the relationships that we have here in the United States for equipment we provided, a lot of those corporations are based in Europe. So, you know, making sure that they know that, you know, we're now providing in Europe is a big thing. But the other piece of it is now your website, this is the first time, we had cookie compliance. This was something that wasn't part of my, of my vernacular until recently. But, you know, learning about that and then questioning, well, how many languages do we want to have on the website? And the whole, it's a it's a very small geographic area. And I know we think that New York and Texas are very different. But, you know, if you're going to go from Spain to Poland to Italy, you know, to the Balkans to Germany, it's, it's a very, very different environment. So how do you, you know, find opportunities there that you can, that you can win with?

Bill: Certainly when you're dealing with companies that only distribute or operate in the US, it's it's a lot easier. But certainly when you move into the EU and that whole situation, every day, it seems to be there's something new and different, not only, I'm sure from the regulatory and compliance side, but from the digital marketing side. And, I'm sure you learned cookies had nothing to do with Crumbl or anything like that. It was a whole different thing. That's great. I love it. When you think about managing a global team, how has that changed your perspective on marketing, besides the cookies?

Chris: Oh, well, I have to. I have to admit that, you know, across our, it's different everywhere. Okay. So we're we're again, we're a very small company. Our operation in China, they handle China. We there's nobody in Pittsburgh who's thinking about how do we market better in China? But the team over there is, is working through it and thinking about it and trying to find ways to take all the good ideas that the people in the US come up with and throw at them and say, do this, do this. And yeah, they have to filter through that and figure out what's really going to work for us here. You know we have in China like 15 people. So how can our 15 people best leverage all the good ideas and apply that and accomplish, you know, growth here? You know, we found India to be a much different market as well, a lot of these places, again, it to get your foot in the door, that personal relationship, having an agent is important. Because they already have the relationships. So you need someone who's going to who's going to take you around and introduce you. However, also with India, you know, we find that a lot of large projects in North America are actually incubated in, in, the engineering companies in India. At the feed stage. And then eventually, you know, if they progress forward, then they might, you know, wind up being projects in the United States or Mexico. So we've had a number of, number of efforts that we put in in India, over the past couple of years that suddenly pop back up and if to blow the dust off of it, but not but now it's real. So planting those seeds over there, you know, has been important.

Bill: No that's great. When you think about, when you think about the next phase for PCC and your growth and global, new markets diversification, if you were thinking about what's missing in that you really want to tackle in the marketing space where that you see other companies, your competitors, is there anything you see that's fundamentally missing in the approaches that we're taking? This is this is the million dollar question.

Chris: So this this is the funny thing. Again, going back to my military experience, we, we made the Soviet army into this unbeatable machine that we feared. And the reason why is because you have to have a healthy paranoia, okay? That that idea that you're training every day because someone over there is training and their purpose is, you know, when when the flag goes up, their purpose is to come and kick your butt. So when I came to PCC, there were, there were other major companies that, I don't have to say their name, but they're mostly based in, in Tulsa. That's the epicenter of the combustion industry. And they were made made out to be, you know, the the 800 pound gorilla. And yeah, they're they're part of something bigger than we are. They have a much larger global presence, but they really struggle with the same challenges we do. And and we see that the more we get out, the more we talk to customers because it has a, you know, they just they deal with, it's all you know, physics and chemistry and, you know, so you can't you can't change those laws. The thing that makes PCC different is we've always had, let's say, conservative designs, all right? We've always built quality systems. And the market's known that. And they know they pay a little bit of premium for that. But what we don't have in our small company is a staff of lawyers who are going to fight, fight, fight. We're going to make it right. So that's been, I'd say, the thing that globally, we always kind of stick to is making it right, building that relationship with the customer, because people around the world are very, very different culturally. But when you get down to it, we're all people. And we we appreciate when the person that you're working with follows through, when they when they can trust you, that you know they're not going to leave you hanging.

Bill: That's great. Well and one of the things we've seen and we're so excited about who we target, which is that mid-market, is the fact that this is truly not just because of AI, but because of a number of factors we feel there and are seeing evidence that David can beat Goliath. There are ways where, especially in marketing and development, where companies that are little smaller, like PCC, less red tape, less silos, less corporate stuff to get through can move much more quickly. And the speed of change is going to be a an absolute differentiator in the next five years. And AI is going to absolutely expose edges in companies where they are going to have to get fleet of foot very quickly, and whether the degree to which they do or don't will be the degree to which they're successful or in some cases be unsuccessful or fail. So, I agree with that. And I think whenever we assess, the, the incumbent, whenever we like, whenever we really take a look at that market leader, they have dents in their armor. And that's where mid-market and smaller companies can really exploit those little spots. Flank, outmaneuver, whatever. Look, I'm it's Veteran's Day. I'm in the military jargon. I'm there. And, really do a better job and hopefully win some of those battles. The other thing I think it's so important for mid-market companies is we don't have to perform at the same level as multinationals that are 10x our size. If we just win one small area, that's maybe good enough for the year for us or two. Whereas those multinationals, if they're not hitting seven out of ten, there's going to be a seat change. There's going to be a new CEO and a new, the whole thing. So I think that gives you guys an opportunity in companies like yours to really outperform and make that next, next step. So, Chris, the other thing we'd like to do is we'd like to have a shameless plug for your organization. We're all about it. So maybe give us a little bit about PCC, and then we'll pivot to yourself where people can find you, where people can find PCC. All this will be in the show notes. It'll be wherever we post this, but we like to just go over it verbally and go through it.

Chris: Okay. So, PCC is Process Combustion Corporation, been in Pittsburgh since 1969. Originally started out as a process heating company. But as environmental rules became more prevalent, we moved into really our kind of what's now our, our primary area, which is emissions control. So, we provide thermal oxidizers, regenerative thermal oxidizers, scrubbers, wet ESPs, flameless thermal oxidizers, do a full line of equipment that can address, you know, any customer's need. But, beyond just providing, you know, our system, the area where we're most successful and where we bring the greatest value to the customer is we are willing to provide an entire process guarantee when we buy other pieces of equipment to provide an integrated system. So, you know, we can build a thermal oxidizer that's maybe twice the length of this table. But we've also provided systems globally that will extend the length of a football field. So, you know, the engineering know-how is, is the, the big important piece of what PCC brings, but then it's also the project execution as well as, you know, managing the logistics and getting everything there on time.

Bill: I remember, early on in my experience with your team, it was, I think the day after, I think you guys call it an onboarding or an offboarding where everybody is assigned to the project has to sit through and read through every line item of the project, and I do remember that everybody who had been in that meeting was just absolutely glazed over because it was just like, yep, we go to every one. Every line. Everybody has to sit through every line item. But that speaks to your quality, thoroughness and execution, which is known worldwide. So congratulations on that. Chris, where can we find you?

Chris: So PCC, in terms of, our, our presence, PCC, if I say WWW it’s going to age me right? So pcc-group.org. All right. We're also on LinkedIn. Those are the two best places to find us.

Bill: Hey, maybe the WWW, it's going to make a comeback. We don't know. But it's okay for guys like you and I because that's the era we come from. I don't, the the younger people. I don't know how they'll communicate about all these things, but that's great. Well, Chris this has just been a great sit down. Really appreciate what you're doing at PCC. The leadership that you're showing, and the marketing function, specifically as you've come from operations, now you're bringing order to the marketing function. So I just thank you for taking the time today. We really appreciate it.

Chris: And and just to close, I mean, I'm here to represent, you know, a team of just tremendous professionals. And I've dropped a couple names and it would be impossible for me to give full credit to everybody for everything that they do. So I'm proud to represent them. And, you know, they are leaning forward and, and we're moving, moving a lot of things that, that we hadn't done in the past. So it's an exciting time.

Bill: Well and Chris, I think that that's a great point because like you mentioned, you have some new faces with new ideas. You also have some folks who have been there quite a long time. I’ve seen some 25 year anniversaries recently celebrated here on LinkedIn with the team. And, just I think it's also a testament to a great balance between, foundational knowledge and new energy and ideas coming together. And it feels like you guys are navigating that really, really well. I'm sure there are moments, but, overall the outcome is really positive.

Chris: That's the big point, because it's always easy to get get very upset about the little things that when we repeat a mistake that we made 25 years ago, people go, oh, but just highlighting to everybody, hey, let's hunt the good stuff, okay? Look at all the good things that are happening. And yeah, we'll trip here, will trip there, but the overall trajectory is in the right direction. So let's just continue to do that.

Bill: And if you're only making one mistake, that mistake every 25 years, that's a that's a pretty good…

Chris: That that particular mistake.

Bill: Yes. No I'm I'm sure there are others. But like even if there's the repeat is only 25 years. That's fantastic.

Chris: Oh yeah. Absolutely.

Bill: So well Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been absolute pleasure. Really enjoyed it.

Chris: Thank you very much, Bill.

Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast where we're discussing what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. Like share, subscribe. Have a great day.