The Edge July/August 2025

TALKING WITH TITANS

That’s small compared to what private equity is doing. I don’t care what they’re doing because I think ours has the ability to last. HOW HAS BEING A FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATION IMPACTED YOUR COMPANY’S GROWTH? It has brought us a much higher quality of an employee. I really think customers and employees both look for there to be a lie there. That I’m using it to grow, but I don’t really live it. You have to live it every day. The interesting thing is living it every day really brings happiness to everybody. I would say I’m not a good leader. I know I’m kind of weak in relationship building because I build it through woo. That’s my strength. I want to be liked so I go out of my way for people. You’re never better than your people. Your number one goal is to recruit hire and keep great people. I think it’s more than anything else what is separating us from the majority of companies in our industry is the quality of people we have. A lot of them, I just say, ‘How did we get you? Do we deserve you?’They’re incredible. WHAT’S A STRONGLY HELD BELIEF YOU’VE CHANGED YOUR MIND ON OVER THE YEARS? I didn’t understand what a great company was. I thought it really had to do with money because in the early years, I worked in the food business with some real wealthy people. But I really have learned that it has nothing to do with that. A great company can be in any industry. It’s not the people who are cheapest at what they do, like a Walmart or the most expensive of what they do. I think it’s a company that, more than anything else, really cares about the customer, the product they deliver to the customer, and the people who deliver it. I didn’t build this company. I started it, but all you do is create the idea. Our people built it. I give the people credit for building this. When you put a group of people together and create a vision, they build it. It was their hard work and their ideas. I think one thing that I have done right is I didn’t try to hog all the credit for it. WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO MAKE YOUR COMPANY AN ESOP? It was really built on the family farm back HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE?

What advice would you give to others trying to grow a successful business? One of the greatest things I heard once is, ‘Learn from people who do something extremely well.’ Study them. The theory is you don’t have enough years in your life to learn from your mistakes. If you can copy people who do something very well that works for them. That will get you 80% of the way there. The last 20% is really difficult. You just put your nose to the grindstone, and you start working on solving one problem after another. Really work on your people program, and if you can develop one that really cares about people, hires the right person, it’ll do more for success, and you may be worth less when you retire because your people as a whole are worth a lot more, but you’ll have joy that you never believed possible. Hiring and keeping great people should be your number one priority. If we would really care about people and hire those better quality people, and sacrifice more on our end so they can have more, we will transform this industry.

giving up so much of what I thought I used to do, but they were doing it anyway. We have a management team in our company that was really doing it all. I think it’s going to be more and more rewarding all the time because we’ve done two tours so far of talking with companies that have expressed interest in being a part of us. HOW DID YOU SELECT CHUCK MONICO AS THE NEXT CEO? Three internal people applied for it. Our board members just upfront stated, ‘Larry, you will not decide this person. We will.’The beauty of that is it took the monkey off of my back, and it made it totally objective. All three were excellent candidates. There was just something about Chuck. Even though he’s only been with us three years, in so many ways, them picking Chuck was incredible because it says to other people who join us we’re not here to use you. We’re here because we think you have something to offer us, and that’s how he was chosen. I did a good job getting it to X level. Going from X to Y is Chuck’s job, and then Y the Z is going to be his successor’s job. HOW HAS YOUR COMPANY BEEN INVOLVED WITH COLLEGES OVER THE YEARS? I realized somehow, I have to get affordable people who really care. To do that initially, if you find people in colleges who are enrolled in horticulture, the

in the old days. The dads can’t get by without their kids because that’s your free labor. Because of that, most time the farmers gave a farm to their kids. That was the model for this company. How do I give it to the people? Because am I going to need it when I’m old? No. Our bank was an ESOP, and I asked them about it and they said, ‘Oh, it’s really a good idea.’ I tell people ESOPs don’t attract good people, young people, because they don’t get it. What they do is they keep your good people for years once they get established in the company, and those are the people who attract the good people. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE OTHER OWNERS CONSIDERING TRANSITIONING TO BECOMING AN ESOP? If you really care about people and you want an amazing legacy, you should consider it, but ESOPs are expensive to set up. You have to be truly willing to become an employee because, after a period of time, you’re no longer the dominant owner. Even this past year, I’ve had some issues from time to time of ‘Okay, I can’t control anything anymore.’ You have to be willing to let it go. WHAT HAS THE TRANSITION INTO THE EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN ROLE BEEN LIKE? It’s a little bit like retiring because I’m

34 The Edge // July/August 2025