Sean Hannity Show - Never Too Late: One Man’s Journey from Temp Job to CEO
Aired: 2018-03-21
Duration: 16:15


=== Justin's Unexpected Journey (03:00) ===

[00:00:00]  This is an iHeart Podcast.
[00:00:04]  If you love what you do and you love where you do it, don't let anything stop you from being successful there.
[00:00:14]  Put in the hours, put in the time, put in the work, put in the effort.
[00:00:20]  At 21, Justin Misimore had just graduated college and was taking a year off from his education doing odd jobs to earn money for law school.
[00:00:30]  Or so he thought.
[00:00:31]  On this edition of On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals, we'll learn how Justin Misimore worked himself into an opportunity he never could have imagined.
[00:00:43]  If you want to find your next job, or if you're a company hoping to grow your workforce, Express Employment Professionals is for you.
[00:00:51]  Find more information at expressprose.com.
[00:00:55]  Now, independent producer Philip Greitzer tells us the story of Justin Misimore's unexpected journey.
[00:01:02]  In an industrial park on the south side of Hickory, North Carolina is the headquarters of Gracia USA.
[00:01:09]  Hi, how are you?
[00:01:10]  How was your drive up?
[00:01:11]  That's Justin Misimore.
[00:01:13]  He's wearing jeans, a North Face shirt, and has a tattoo on his right forearm.
[00:01:17]  He looks more like a college student than the CEO and co-owner of this mid-sized manufacturing company.
[00:01:23]  Gracia is one of the few companies in the world that makes steel sawblade blanks that are used in the lumber, aircraft, and oil and gas industries.
[00:01:34]  A sawblade blank is the circular steel part of a sawblade.
[00:01:38]  Manufacturing blanks is an intricate process.
[00:01:41]  It involves high-tech lasers and a good deal of manual labor.
[00:01:45]  We have three lasers that are constantly running, either the sheet or the round.
[00:01:51]  The factory floor is about half the size of a football field.
[00:01:54]  And considering that lots of cutting, heating, and hammering is going on, it's incredibly neat.
[00:02:00]  Employees go about their business driving forklift trucks, loading steel blanks on pallets, operating cutting machines, and hammering the steel blanks.
[00:02:09]  Since the blanks are used for precision cutting, they have to be perfectly flat.
[00:02:14]  Using just a straight edge and a light, a man inspects the blanks.
[00:02:18]  If he finds any irregularities, he puts the blank on an anvil and hammers it out by hand, just like an old-fashioned blacksmith.
[00:02:28]  The first time he saw this, Misimore was impressed.
[00:02:32]  I was like, really?
[00:02:33]  It takes that much to make one of these things that I see on a shelf?
[00:02:38]  It really blew my mind.
[00:02:40]  And everyone has that same response whenever we bring them here for the first time.
[00:02:43]  You would never imagine how much work that it takes to make something so simple as a sawblade.
[00:02:51]  Back in 2008, when Misimore graduated from Appalachian State University with a degree in business accounting, accounting jobs were hard to find.

=== Jensen's Unexpected Call (13:14) ===

[00:03:00]  So he returned home to Taylorsville, North Carolina, moved in with his parents, and took several part-time jobs.
[00:03:07]  He was 21 and he was saving money to go to law school.
[00:03:10]  The goal was to save money, so renting an apartment was out of the question.
[00:03:14]  Moving somewhere on my own was not even an option.
[00:03:17]  So I worked with some friends that my parents knew.
[00:03:20]  I painted some high schools.
[00:03:21]  A friend of mine talked me into selling insurance and annuities and things like that.
[00:03:26]  So I did a lot of little things.
[00:03:27]  A family friend suggested that the Hickory, North Carolina Office of Express Employment Professionals might help him find work.
[00:03:35]  He completed an application and a few days later he was sent to Gracia for an interview.
[00:03:40]  Grasha was looking for someone with his background.
[00:03:43]  The next day, the company called.
[00:03:45]  He got the job.
[00:03:46]  Misimore started the following Monday as an assistant to the accounting manager.
[00:03:51]  The company's general manager, Klaus Jensen, really wanted to hire a financial officer.
[00:03:57]  But getting an experienced one would be expensive.
[00:04:00]  And right now, money was tight.
[00:04:02]  So an accounting assistant would have to do.
[00:04:05]  I thought, okay, let me see if I can get an assistant in first and see how he does and see if he has any potential.
[00:04:16]  If not, if I had to go out and hire an experienced accountant, at least I would have somebody who already knew something.
[00:04:26]  So I called Express that we had worked with for people out in the plant and told them what I needed.
[00:04:36]  And they sent out, I believe, five or six candidates.
[00:04:40]  And one of them was Justin.
[00:04:43]  Jensen planned for his new employee to handle basic accounting tasks.
[00:04:48]  But the accounting manager had other things in mind.
[00:04:51]  He had stacks of paper on his desk that were at least six inches to one foot tall.
[00:04:58]  And he knew where everything was.
[00:05:00]  They really wanted someone to just come by and help organize his office.
[00:05:05]  I started out doing that, knocked that out in a relatively quickly manner.
[00:05:10]  So once that was finished, they asked me to start updating some customer databases.
[00:05:16]  I'm just calling customers, finding out, you know, who's in charge of AR, AP, what do you have?
[00:05:22]  New phone numbers, new email addresses, and things like that.
[00:05:26]  AR and AP are accounts receivable and accounts payable.
[00:05:30]  Money's owed to and owed by the company.
[00:05:33]  Although these tasks weren't preparing Misimore to be a lawyer, for now, he didn't mind.
[00:05:38]  Yeah, I was a college kid who was taking a gap year.
[00:05:42]  I didn't intend for this to be a career path for me.
[00:05:45]  It was just a paycheck, it really was.
[00:05:47]  So anything they asked me to do, as long as the paycheck cashed at the end of the week, I was fine with it.
[00:05:52]  In my mind, my career hadn't started yet, but in reality, it was my career starting.
[00:05:57]  Perhaps Jensen realized this too, because he asked Misimore to look a little more closely at the customer accounts.
[00:06:05]  I was noticing that, you know, they had a lot of customers who were paying within, always paying, you know, 30 days, 30 days, 30 days.
[00:06:13]  And I was like, I wonder if these guys would be enticed to pay earlier if you would offer them a discount, get that money a little bit earlier.
[00:06:22]  And the guys who are constantly paying in, say, like 45 to 60 days, I wonder if they would be willing to pay in 30 days if you started charging them a finance charge.
[00:06:32]  And then the customers who are like really far past dude, is anyone calling these people on a regular basis, finding out, hey, where's our money?
[00:06:41]  Why are you not paying?
[00:06:42]  So there was a lot of small things that I noticed whenever I was going through those things that were easily addressed.
[00:06:47]  Justin had no practical experience working with accounts receivable.
[00:06:52]  I'm straight out of college, so all I really know is the theory behind accounting.
[00:06:56]  I've never really seen any real world practice behind any of it.
[00:07:01]  But in college, you learn theories and theories are supposed to work in real-world practice.
[00:07:07]  Do I know if they're going to work or not?
[00:07:09]  Absolutely not.
[00:07:10]  But what do I have to lose by bringing them up or suggesting them?
[00:07:13]  But he summoned up the courage and presented his ideas to the company executives.
[00:07:18]  I really had nothing to lose by mentioning this to anybody.
[00:07:21]  If they fire me, they fire me.
[00:07:22]  I just go back to doing what I was doing before I got here.
[00:07:25]  They implemented Misi Moore's plan, and it worked.
[00:07:29]  The company's cash flow improved.
[00:07:31]  Soon, Justin was taking on other tasks.
[00:07:34]  I just took over stuff.
[00:07:36]  It was funny.
[00:07:37]  I took over a lot of the IT stuff.
[00:07:39]  I mean, they had a person not working here, but they had an outside consultant.
[00:07:44]  They were paying him somewhere in the neighborhood of $80,000 a year to manage their IT stuff.
[00:07:52]  And they would call him in.
[00:07:53]  It's like, don't call him, I'll do it.
[00:07:54]  So I would go in there, reboot the server, and save them from having to call this guy in.
[00:08:00]  I looked around.
[00:08:01]  There was a company here in Hickory, contacted them, and they would manage our day-to-day IT services for $800 a month.
[00:08:09]  Instead of the security monitoring service calling company managers when the alarm went off, Justin told them he'd take the calls.
[00:08:16]  There really wasn't anything I wouldn't do, and it's not even things that I was being asked to do.
[00:08:23]  I just did them.
[00:08:25]  I mean, that's just the way that I've always been.
[00:08:27]  If there was something that needed to be done, I would just take the initiative to do it.
[00:08:32]  Justin was also doing things way outside his job description.
[00:08:36]  When it would snow, I would make sure that I would come here and open the plant and open the office for everybody.
[00:08:42]  Well, I've got a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
[00:08:43]  I've lived in Boone.
[00:08:44]  Driving in the snow is nothing for me.
[00:08:46]  I'll just come in and do it.
[00:08:47]  About the only thing Justin didn't do was sweep the floors.
[00:08:51]  In the fall of 2008, as his 90-day temporary employment contract was expiring, Misimore was offered a permanent job.
[00:09:00]  But he still wasn't sure that working at Gracia was going to be part of his career plan.
[00:09:05]  At that point in time, I still didn't know where this was going to take me.
[00:09:08]  The goal was still to start saving money.
[00:09:11]  I mean, I didn't know maybe the gap year turned into two years.
[00:09:14]  So still having my eye on the law school endgame, stay at home and save as much money as possible.
[00:09:20]  We're going to take a short break.
[00:09:22]  When we come back, Philip Greitzer will bring Justin Misimore's story up to date.
[00:09:27]  You're listening to On the Job from Express Employment Professionals.
[00:09:31]  One company is on a mission to put a million people to work each year.
[00:09:35]  Sounds like a big number, doesn't it?
[00:09:37]  Not to Express Employment Professionals, seeking a skilled labor position or administrative work.
[00:09:43]  Maybe you're an executive looking for a career that fits.
[00:09:46]  We take pride in connecting the right people with the right company.
[00:09:50]  Express Employment Professionals is on a mission to put a million people to work each year.
[00:09:55]  Let us help.
[00:09:56]  We'll open doors for you.
[00:09:57]  Go to ExpressPros.com to find a location near you.
[00:10:00]  Now back to the story of the accounting assistant who thought he was taking time off from his career path, but found an unexpected way forward instead.
[00:10:10]  As Justin Misimore took on more accounting and administrative duties, Klaus Jensen, the company manager, took note.
[00:10:17]  He was extremely organized.
[00:10:20]  He was time efficient.
[00:10:22]  We always thought we needed at least a person and a half.
[00:10:25]  He found ways to do it with just him.
[00:10:29]  Soon, Justin had an office all to himself.
[00:10:32]  The two other people in the shared office had been let go.
[00:10:35]  Justin took over their duties.
[00:10:38]  In 2010, Klaus Jensen and a partner purchased Gracia.
[00:10:43]  The company was not in good financial shape, and I had to trim some personnel.
[00:10:49]  And Justin, by then, had shown me enough that I kind of took the chance and said, okay, let's try to do it with Justin on his own.
[00:10:59]  Two years after he started working at Gracia, Misimore was head of the company's accounting unit.
[00:11:05]  They basically told me that they wanted me to be in charge of the company's finances on a much larger scale.
[00:11:12]  I was like, okay, that's great.
[00:11:14]  But they told me something that started concerning me, that they knew a guy that they wanted to bring in on more of a consulting basis.
[00:11:25]  And so, I mean, at that first point, I thought I was being promoted all the way to the top, but I thought I was still being kept underneath somebody.
[00:11:32]  The consultant came in two to three days a week, then just every few weeks.
[00:11:37]  And after a few months, the consultant told manager Jensen the company didn't really need his services at all.
[00:11:43]  Misimore could do the job on his own.
[00:11:46]  With the consultant no longer looking over his shoulder, Justin decided that working for Grasha would be his career.
[00:11:53]  He started working even harder.
[00:11:55]  11-hour days, six-day work weeks, and no vacations.
[00:11:59]  I was the first person here, last person to leave.
[00:12:02]  When it snowed, when nobody else was in the office, I was answering the phone.
[00:12:07]  I mean, I would work, do my accounting stuff in the front office.
[00:12:10]  I would take orders.
[00:12:11]  I messed up a lot of orders because I didn't know how to take orders at the time.
[00:12:14]  I'm not a sales guy, but somebody needed to be here to take the orders.
[00:12:17]  He'd show management that he really cared.
[00:12:20]  He set his sights to be the company's next CFO, chief financial officer.
[00:12:25]  He was 25 years old.
[00:12:27]  Going that extra mile, doing whatever it takes, long hours, hard work.
[00:12:32]  You know, it's a balance of hard work and intelligence, but I think that if you have to weigh the two, hard work's going to outweigh intelligence every time.
[00:12:41]  As Justin was gunning for the CFO job, Groscha's owner, Klaus Jensen, had plans of his own.
[00:12:48]  He wanted to retire and he wanted to leave the company in good hands.
[00:12:52]  He set up an exit plan.
[00:12:54]  First, he hired a former colleague, Richard Comer, to be Grosch's sales manager.
[00:12:58]  Comer would handle the company's external operations while Misimore would manage finances.
[00:13:05]  The two got along great.
[00:13:06]  They were yin and yang.
[00:13:07]  Comer was the idea man, and Justin was the numbers guy.
[00:13:11]  To Jensen, they looked like perfect candidates to take over the company.
[00:13:16]  Jensen began easing himself out of day-to-day management, leaving Misimore and Comer in charge.
[00:13:21]  In three years, they were ready to buy the company, but they didn't have any money.
[00:13:26]  I had student debt.
[00:13:27]  I just bought a house, so I was, you know, I was in debt.
[00:13:31]  I mean, I had a good income, but being that young, I really hadn't had much time to save.
[00:13:37]  A bank saw the company as an attractive investment and offered financing to the two to allow them to buy Grasha.
[00:13:44]  Misimore was 28, Comer was 40.
[00:13:47]  In 2016, Misimore and Comer purchased Grasha.
[00:13:51]  They were 50-50 partners.
[00:13:53]  Eight years after he started as a temporary employee, Justin Misimore was now the chief executive officer and co-owner of Grasha USA.
[00:14:03]  When you visit Grasha's factory, the first thing that catches your eye is a huge banner that says, everything is important.
[00:14:10]  There's no detail too small.
[00:14:12]  And it's that attention to detail, mixed with intelligence, ambition, and lots of hard work that got Misimore to the top.
[00:14:20]  They saw this young hotshot accountant who'd been working with the company, was doing a great job managing the company's finances, was doing things above and beyond what a typical accountant should be doing.
[00:14:32]  Klaus Jensen says Justin deserved the top job.
[00:14:36]  There's always a little bit of luck involved for all of us where we end up.
[00:14:40]  Obviously, he was lucky that I called Express and needed an accountant and he got the job.
[00:14:47]  But from then on, he can take credit for maximizing the situation and showing that he was ready and having the ambition and the gut to go for it.
[00:14:58]  At the end of the day, you have to earn it and he has earned it.
[00:15:02]  Justin Misimore has been CEO for two years.
[00:15:05]  He's ditched his plans to become a lawyer.
[00:15:09]  Still, when he's watching a good lawyer movie, he has daydreams of what it might have been.
[00:15:15]  I feel like I just sit there and I'm like, I'd have been great at that.
[00:15:18]  I do feel great.
[00:15:19]  I feel like I've been great at that.
[00:15:20]  And that's the extent of my regret.
[00:15:24]  But sitting where I am now, owning my own company, a living, breathing organism, the freedom that comes along with that, I couldn't be happier.
[00:15:33]  That was independent producer Philip Greitzer with the story of Justin Misimore's rise from temporary worker to CEO.
[00:15:41]  And that's all for this edition of On the Job from Express Employment Professionals.
[00:15:46]  Find out more at expressprose.com, and you can listen to every podcast this season on expressprose.com/slash podcast.
[00:15:54]  This podcast is produced by your host Steve Mencher for Mensch Media, iHeartRadio, and Red Seat Ventures.
[00:16:01]  You can subscribe on iHeartRadio and iTunes, where we hope you'll leave a nice review.
[00:16:06]  That helps other folks find us.
[00:16:08]  And of course, you can listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:16:12]  See you next time on the job.