Eric Foust: So we're a company that manufactures wooden pallets. We build those out of new material. We also use recycle components for that. And then what we can't reuse in recycle pallets, we grind and make the dyed mulch products. I would say for us, one of the most important things we ever did was start the Chaplaincy program. When we started that looking back, we had a very toxic culture. There was a lack of trust and bringing the chaplains in I think was the first opportunity for our people to see what this place could be.
Steven Ruppe: I think faith in the workplace is important because I think it makes a stronger workforce. We've seen growth in our employees
James Jackson: In the mornings when I get to work, we got a chapel up there and I goes in every morning and I look in the prayer box and see whose name's in there that need praying for it, and I pray over it. Oh yeah, I'm thankful.
Steven Ruppe: One of our greatest examples of that would be our morning prayer. We open up every day with morning prayer, and that's our whole plant. We're in a circle in the middle of the shop. We actually take prayer requests and give praise reports every morning. So it's been a big change for a lot of guys coming in that's not seen that in a workplace before.
Eric Foust: For us, one of the most rewarding things. And several years ago attending a function I learned about Jumpstart Ministries, which is a prison ministry here in the state, and at the time they were really struggling to find people to hire guys who are coming out of prison. That is probably one of the biggest examples of how it's changed our culture because we've brought in people who basically society has said you're not valued anymore because of the things that they had done. And I mean, there's no question they had made those kinds of mistakes, but they actually have made us a hundred times better as a company. And really in our culture.
James Jackson: When some of the fellows, when they come here, they have sad face, I guess, the way their life work, but they come here and then they see how we are that have already been here and they brighten up and they like the Bible study and everything. They join into that and that makes for a joyful place.
Steven Ruppe: It's been huge because there's resources in our circle, in our staff that we are learning every week that is stronger. But it's amazing how God's put it together. And we've got someone in a circle that's been down that road, and it's just like a mentoring system we have here. It's a buddy system, something we've started doing different on our Friday morning meetings. It's kind of a open mic atmosphere and we allow the guys to go around the horn and they are, some of them will give their testimony and then you'll sit, and you'll learn a lot about the guys that way. Even our positive minute, we close out every meeting every day with a positive minute. And I think that's driven our workforce to the culture that we're growing into now.
Eric Foust: Well, I feel like it's a calling. I feel like it's what God is asking me to do, where he's put me. If we truly are going to live the great commission, what better way to do it, but to incorporate it in what you do, as we all say, you spend more time at work and more time with people at work than we do with our own families, so why not?
