HATTIE: Is it getting easier over the years or harder, Don?

I mean, sitting here on this side of the desk, you look very successful, you have all these wonderful people, this beautiful building and, you know, this wonderful life. And you think, `Oh, my, how did I get here?'

DON: Well, you know, Hattie, it's like this. It's the old philosophy, they bring in faster rats every day. OK? And you have to keep up. And the pace is a faster pace, and you have to be involved.

You have to be involved with the associations, like the ACI, the ASTM ....

HATTIE: Wait a minute. You can't speak in gobblygook. You have to spell it out. You have to say what those mean. What's the ACI?

DON: The ACI is American Concrete Institute. HATTIE: OK.

DON: And they're the leaders, they set the standards, for the concrete industry. You have ASTM which is the American Society for Testing Materials. OK? Then you have TRB, which is Transportation Research Board, and they guide, basically, everything to do with transportation.

We also belong to CEN, which I mentioned to you earlier, is the Chief Executive Network, a major small manufacturing companies under 500 employees in an 11-county area. HATTIE: OK. And so what is the goal of that group?

DON: The goal of that group is to network. And basically, it's strictly for the chief executives.You've got to be a CEO in order to belong to the association, and you have to be a manufacturer.

HATTIE: Have you had a board of advisers or board of directors or any, like, a formal or even informal group of folks that gather once in awhile to give you advice?

DON: Yeah. Well, I do, as a matter of fact. We have a board of directors meeting every Friday. We have an insurance guy. OK? We have a CPA.

HATTIE: A marketing guy?

DON: A marketing guy.

HATTIE: Construction, CEO.

DON: An engineer. We have meetings. If everybody's in town, we have a meeting and we talk. We talk business. We compare notes. We throw odds and ends on the table. We ask, you know, `How would you handle this situation?' Or, you know, `I'm thinking of doing this. What do you think of it?'

HATTIE: Why is it critical that people carve out the time to participate in groups of like-minded folks?Why do we need each other? Why is this important?

DON: Well, it's important because you're sharing your problems. In some cases, you're the solution; and in some cases, they're the solution to your problems.