Employee Spotlight | Meet the COO & Co-Owner of Pallet Alliance

What is your role at TPAI?

Chief Operations Officer and Co-Owner of Pallet Alliance

What do you love about your job?

I enjoy the people and relationships, collaborative environment, inspiring culture, and the alignment between personal and company values. I find the pallet industry is fascinating. It’s motivating to know that there are endless opportunities since most products ship on a pallet. It’s rewarding to work closely with clients understanding their bottlenecks and pain points to then implement tailored solutions that transform their business operations and packaging outlook forever.

What is your professional development journey and what lessons have you learned along the way?

I graduated from East Carolina University with a degree in Business Administration and a concertation in Management. I am also a Green Belt in Lean Six Sigma. My first job out of college was a part-time internship at Pallet Alliance which quickly turned into a career path. Throughout my time at TPAI I’ve held leadership roles in most departments including client services, accounting, technical development, and I’m now the COO and co-owner of the company. I’ve learned to always believe in yourself, aspire to be great and dream big. It’s critical to continue learning, pushing boundaries, networking, developing relationships, strategizing before reacting and just flat-out working hard. The collective is always stronger than any one of us. Anything is achievable with communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.

Important skills for success:

The top traits for success in business are passion, hard work ethic, effective communication, tenacity, emotional intelligence and integrity. You can’t fake passion. Passion and enthusiasm drive us to peaks we never thought imaginable. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard and it’s a choice that we all control for ourselves. Communication leads to clarity, unity, understanding and the ability to achieve common purpose. Life will continue to throw roadblocks and challenges but the ability to act with tenacity and persistence will overcome. Being aware of your emotions to control how you react is critical in working with teams, bringing out the best in everyone and striving for optimal outcomes. Integrity speaks volumes about someone’s character not letting it be compromised in the face of temptation and doing the right things for the right reasons even when no one is looking. That’s a powerful trait.

Favorite sport and sports team?

Football – Carolina Panthers. I also enjoy fantasy football and the camaraderie that it brings out in friends, family and coworkers.

Something surprising that not many people know about you:

People think of me as slow now because of my hip replacement surgery but in my high school days, I was in the top 5 in the school for vertical jump, shuttle run time, long jump and the 40-yard dash. It seems like so many moons ago, but the athleticism was once there.

Tell us a bit about your family:

I’ve been married for 11 years to my beautiful wife Jena and we live in Durham, NC. No children but our mini khaki beagle Maggie is our baby and is spoiled like an only child. We enjoy trying new restaurants, traveling, visiting the family lake house to spend quality time with extended family and we’re always down for a live concert. Warm weather and clear waters are always calling for us. We love watching college basketball games but the house is divided UNC/Duke so you can find us in separate rooms during the rivalry. Go Heels!