Beyond the Mold

Tracy Broad: Welcome to Beyond the Mold, a podcast about the breakthrough innovations and the experts who are pushing the boundaries of traditional injection molding, packaging design, and sustainability. I'm Tracy Broad of Husky Technologies.Tracy Broad: Fearless commitment, trademark enthusiasm, manufacturing icon, infectious energy, these are just some of the descriptors for my guest today. I'm honored to be joined by a leader who has shattered glass ceilings, and blazed a trail in the industry. I'm thrilled to welcome medical maven, CEO and owner of Nephron Pharmaceuticals, Lou Kennedy, welcome to Beyond the Mold, Lou, thanks for joining me today.Lou Kennedy: I am happy to be with you, and I'm honored that you asked, and I love the clever name Beyond the Mold.Tracy Broad: Thanks Lou. So let's get straight to it, I'm sure when I just introduced you just now, many of our listeners who don't know you, expected to hear the voice of a male, with the name Lou, and I know this isn't the first time in your life you've heard that. And admittedly, I thought it was short for Louise. I'm sure this is a pretty typical situation you find yourself in. So what's the story behind your name, Lou?Lou Kennedy: I'm an only child, my parents wanted a boy, my nursery was blue. Of course back then, they didn't know what sex they were having, but they wanted a boy, they had a boy's name picked out and I had a blue nursery, they never painted it, I just stayed that way. So I think that they had some uncanny sense about what I'd end up doing later in life, because I'm always in a room full of men. And I think they must have had a little foreshadowing, or something, to name me a man's name, and it isn't short for Louise, it's just plain old Lou. And my mom said, "Well I've never had any girls in my classroom named Lou."Lou Kennedy: And I said, "There's a reason for that, mom." All the people I know with the name, Lou, it's either a nickname, or it is short for Louis or Louise. So anyway, that's my name, and so I've grown to embrace it, but it's also a nice, or a nifty little trick, when someone calls up and says, I need to speak to Mr. Kennedy, we know to screen the call. So it works, it has some pros too.Tracy Broad: Has some good advantages to it. So in one interview, you described a tough period in your life, but you see now in retrospect that time in your life was actually a blessing in disguise. What was the watershed moment for you? And looking back, how did you defy the odds, and stay true to what many people have described as your winning spirit, and also, most importantly, setting a positive example for your daughter?Lou Kennedy: Well, thank you for asking me about this. I've often said those years of my life enabled me to have a PhD in psychology. My ex-husband, the father of my child has, and had, a very, very strong addiction problem. And I learned so much about how not to set off the anger, and the temper, and things like that, how to spot a con artist. So all those skills, rather than saying, "Oh, how rough the time that was." I look at it as what I learned from it, and I believe it's the way I was raised by my parents, we have a very strong sense of the word faith, and faith to get through things. One step at a time, things are worth fighting over if they're going to matter in 20 years from now, they're worth fighting over. And if you got to get up and fight, then give it the good fight.Lou Kennedy: So I think my upbringing, and the way my parents raised me in the church really helped me have a lot of faith. And I didn't realize how bad things were then, until I looked back, and I see my power was being shut off, the water was being shut off, I had to do three jobs to try and make ends meet for my daughter, but I hope that she learned that you got to have a fallback plan, you got to have plan B, and C, and D, and working hard, is just a hallmark of anybody's life. I mean, I'm proud of the hard work, and I still treat each day as if I'm that same broke single mom, that I got to get up and make it through the day, and try to champion whatever I'm approaching that day. Not everybody knows this about me, but I never once, since I've been married to my husband, have ever looked at the final number on the tax return, I still think of myself as a broke single mom.Tracy Broad: That's amazing. That's incredible perspective, and something that I know sometimes you wake up in the morning, and think if there's saying in the mirror, or something that you drive into the office and tell yourself, that's an amazing reason to hustle every day.Lou Kennedy: Yeah. Well, I mean, there's no secret that I like to win. I like to watch my teams win, and I like to see the team here at Nephron win, in whatever the endeavor is. So I like winning, I like to be around winners, and help people be winners.Tracy Broad: Well, that's amazing. And that brings me to talk a little bit about your career, and your leadership style today. And it's funny, you mentioned the logo on your fridge there with the female basketball team, and talking about female led, and actually certified female owned. This obviously is just not just a philosophy for you, you live it, you breathe it, you walk the talk, and I can tell it's such a great sense of pride for you, and so much so, that your business is recognized as certified woman owned. Can you tell our listeners about why this certified, and inspiring more women to lead, is such a priority for you?Lou Kennedy: Well, in the early days, when we were considering it was a little bit, my husband's an only child as well. And so there's a little bit of household competition, and I think folks, because my husband's 20 years older than me, thought in the beginning of this is just going to be a placeholder, we'll make it a woman-owned business, but I was very eager to show that I have my hands, arms, and everything wrapped around what goes on here each and every day, from the minuscule thing to the macro thing that I need to consider. And so I plowed right in, and made sure that I was capable of answering FDA, or other types of audits, that I don't have to rely on someone else to do it.Lou Kennedy: And in doing that, I thought we should be recognized. I worked really hard to learn a new industry, I had no background whatsoever, I have a bachelor's degree in journalism, certainly not in making medication. And so I was just convinced that I needed to have that encompassing knowledge, and I feel like knowledge is power. And so the early days, it was just to be recognized for doing the hard work that we've been able to accomplish. Now, what I can tell you is some stats today about our company, without even really trying, we are 53% female in this company.Tracy Broad: That's incredible.Lou Kennedy: Almost all department heads are female. We have over 44 countries represented here, so we're extremely diverse, and the stats will tell you the more diverse you are, the more productive you are. So I do think it starts with the fact that I'm in a non-traditional role, as a female. And I think others in the community may tend to apply here. Well, if she can do it, I can do it. So I think without setting out to be that many, the ratio for females to be that high, it's happened organically. And so a lot of talent here, and I like to say, I don't really look for the right female, I look for the right person for the role. And in our case, we've found a lot of really talented females, a lot of really talented males, as well.Tracy Broad: Good. I've read, you tell the story about your career and how you started out, Nephron building up the sales force, and then taking over as CEO. And how under your leadership you've experienced such tremendous growth, $300,000,000 in investments in just the last two years. I think so many of these are items are noteworthy, but when you actually sit back and reflect, what stands out the most to you?Lou Kennedy: Watching the people working here blossom, that is a favorite thing about what I do. Just seeing somebody get an opportunity, run with it, and realize their own potential, and help to make that happen. That's my favorite thing about what I do, and you mentioned the words, management style, I would say fortunately, and unfortunately for the folks that are employed here, I'm more like a mom in my management style. So when things are going well, mom's really happy, when things aren't going well, it takes a toll on the whole team. So I think it's important for me to try and keep everything, pushing ahead and happy. And that's a big statement given that I've had the last three weeks of six investigators from FDA in visiting us. So I'm eager to get back to day to day work, as I knew it three weeks ago.Tracy Broad: Sounded like a little bit of mama bear to me.Lou Kennedy: A lot of it.Tracy Broad: So if you look back to where you started, to where you are today. You mentioned you were an only child of a school teacher who aspired to be a food writer, or a TV chef. I had a good giggle with that one, and now to the CEO, and owner of a certified woman owned leading medical company, that's quite the shift, walk me through your journey.Lou Kennedy: And who knew in the 80s how much money Paula Dean was going to make as a southern chef on TV. I mean, maybe I could have made more money if I could have stuck with the original dream, but I just have loved every step of the way. And I didn't so much have a real plan, as I've taken each experience, and parlayed into what I do now. So whether, it's working a lot of jobs and a lot of hours, whether it's sales, whether it's been in marketing, all of the things that I've done up to this point, in some way, touches what I do every day, whether it's people skills, public relations, special event coordination, all those things I get to do in my role here at Nephron. And so I would say, how's it going? We're just on an uphill climb and keep breaking barriers.Lou Kennedy: I mean, I'm th

“The Great Resignation” has left companies within the manufacturing industry in the challenging position of losing essential employees and competing for more talent. In light of this employee exodus, now’s the time to re-tool how we secure, train and retain top talent. What factors have shaped our current manufacturing hiring landscape? What’s the best way for companies to attract the best talent? How can emerging companies within manufacturing recruiting draw talented employees? And how can talented job seekers maximize their potential for positive employment outcomes?  In this episode of Beyond the Mold, we’ll discuss employees and the current manufacturing industry hiring landscape as we speak with recruiters to get their perspectives. To provide the talent recruiting point of view, we’ll be joined by Tina Rogers, Director of Talent and Acquisition at Husky, as well as Megan Diamond, Managing Director at Verity International. With Tina and Megan, our host Tracy Broad will address generational differences in the manufacturing recruiting process and how to tailor your recruitment strategies to answer the questions and address the concerns of the manufacturing company’s ideal candidates. Tune in as we venture Beyond the Mold.

Strength and ingenuity in the workplace are driven by diversity and learning from shared experiences. Today as we venture Beyond the Mold, we speak with two engineers, Vivian Cheung and Melanie Henderson, about their careers, experiences, and what it’s like to be part of an exclusive group. Vivian and Melanie offer advice and emphasize the importance of overcoming self-doubt, why you should ask questions - especially when you’re a new employee - the value of building professional relationships at work, and why a career in engineering has been so rewarding for them.

What’s the future of beverage packaging? Get to know the top ten trends in the beverage packaging industry. Join us as we venture Beyond the Mold.Learn more about the Top 10 Beverage Packaging Trends of 2021:Read Part 1Read Part 2Questions?Contact us to learn how Husky can help you navigate these trends.

Welcome to Beyond the Mold, a podcast about the breakthrough innovations and people who are pushing the boundaries of traditional injection molding, packaging design and sustainability into new and exciting dimensions.