Finding Harmony in Business: Karl Osterand’s Musical Path to Leadership | Staffing Series

Intro: Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes how they’ve overcome adversity and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Kodespode and today’s guest is Carl Osterland, President of FastHemp’s Employment. FastHemp’s is a full service staffing agency that connects businesses with reliable talent in light industrial, clerical, administrative, hospitality and medical roles.

They believe in balancing growth with genuine care, serving clients since 1997. Under Carl’s leadership, FastHemp’s earned honors like the Outstanding Achiever Award from the SBA and recognition by Goldline Research as one of the most dependable staffing agencies in the Great Lakes region. Carl co-founded FastHemp’s and also serves as Music Director at Historic Trinity Lutheran Church reflecting a unique blend of leadership and creativity. He has guided the company through steady expansion securing major partnerships. Carl’s commitment to honesty and personalized service has shaped FastHemp’s reputation as a trusted staffing partner. Before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. Now, back to our guest today, the president of FastHemp’s Carl. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Hi, how are you? Okay, so before we get into your career path and what inspired you to start FastHemp’s, I want to go back a little bit earlier than that and hear about what first inspired you to get involved in music.

Karl Osterland: Ah, well, I grew up on a farm. I’d had a few piano lessons and there was a fateful day. I think it was 1965. I was sitting in the living room of our old farmhouse watching the big old Magnavox TV, big old mahogany case with a very little flickery screen. And it was an early transcontinental satellite broadcast.

The technology had not quite settled in and the picture was sometimes going in and out and lots of flickering going on. But it was broadcast live from St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. And I still remember the hymns that Churchill had had picked out. Oh, God, our help in ages past in the battle hymn of the Republic.

He wanted something very British and something very American. And it was the choir and this wonderful organ. And it just it was enchanting to me this these beautiful, beautiful sounds. I’d never heard an organ like that.

I’d never heard a choir like that before. And I sat there and my nine year old self said, I think I can do that. I wanted to make those sounds.

And so I asked to take organ lessons when I had gotten a little bit more piano study under my belt and I ended up majoring it in it in college. And the rest is history. Wow.

Anthony Codispoti: So this was Winston Churchill’s funeral being broadcast live from London. You’re a nine year old sitting in your country farm home living room watching. And the sounds inspired you to want to be able to do something very similar. And so that’s that you on the path of practice, practice, practice, more practice.

Karl Osterland: The arrogance of youth. I was sure I could do that. And how close have you gotten? Well, not too bad. Right.

Anthony Codispoti: So tell us a little bit about your position at the historic Trinity Lutheran Church.

Karl Osterland: I’ve been there for 33 years. I always laugh. Historic organist at historic Trinity Lutheran Church. It’s a beautiful, beautiful building in downtown Detroit. National register of historic places and and other historic designations. It’s a wonderful E.M. Skinner pipe organ, a very spirited volunteer choir and a vibrant, diverse congregation. It’s been a great place to make music all these years. So.

Anthony Codispoti: Strong background in music. You’re still involved. You still have a notable position there. But music to temporary staffing. Like walk us through. I think there’s a bit of an interesting path that got you there. Let’s hear more about that. Right.

Karl Osterland: I think back to my college days with my dad was so angry with me for majoring in music. He wanted me to get a business degree or something sensible and I didn’t do it. I really, really wanted to follow my dreams and bachelors and masters and even part of a doctorate in organ performance. So then I graduated with no visible means of support.

You know, I had a part-time church job, a great part-time church job, but how do you make a living? So I ended up working for a temporary staffing agency myself at that point. And they sent me to various assignments and one of the I some of the offices had been very, very posh, very wonderful that I was in high level support. They sent me to a hospital to a food service department on a two week typing assignment. And I can remember walking in and it was a bright fluorescent lights and orange tile on the floor and, you know, glossy white walls.

And I can remember thinking, oh my gosh, they told me I was going to be here for two weeks. Oh, well, that was my office for 10 years. They ended up hiring me and I had a series of promotions when I was at the hospital and ended up being a manager of the department. Unfortunately, while all the changes in health care, my position was downsized and eliminated. And so at that point, what was I going to do? I had taught elementary music in the interim for a while for two years. I was not good at teaching at all.

I really wasn’t. So I ended up applying for a bunch of things and through connections, I ended up working for Historic Trinity. So that was half time and half time for the city of Detroit as an administrative assistant to one of the Detroit City Council people, which was very interesting. I was interacting with the Arts Commission and the Historical Commission and, you know, high level people.

The press, very interesting, but my councilman did not get reelected and then I was without a job. Then I was applying for anything. And one of the comments I kept getting on my resume was it’s unfocused.

You know, you’ve got music degrees and hospital management and you’ve got this administrative assistant job for the city of Detroit. It doesn’t add up to anything. We don’t know what you’re about here.

We don’t know what you can do. And I floundered around for a while and then finally decided that, you know, I really needed to start my own business because nobody was going to hire me. And by the time I met Tim and we both had a background in food service. Tim is my partner. And we both he owned a restaurant and done some actually high level restaurant management stuff. My role at the hospital was business manager in food service. So, you know, the normal thing would to be to look at restaurant opportunities. And since we didn’t really think we knew enough to start our own restaurant, you know, we looked at franchises and nothing seemed like a good fit. It was very expensive to get into the franchise fees were so high going forward that nothing seemed to make sense. And then I was looking at other franchises and there was a group that was going to sell a franchise in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a temporary staffing agency. So I looked into that and it interested me. And it was partly because I’d had a good experience working for a staffing agency myself.

And I ended up spending a year being trained by them. And it looked like that was going to go forward and was going to be good. And then they decided that they were not going to sell franchises in Michigan. And because the numbers were looking really good, they wanted to keep it corporate owned.

Well, okay, I was out in the cold other than they had made the error of not having me sign a non competition agreement. So, you know, Tim and I just decided, well, I mean, I’m kind of half trained. We can do this on our own.

And so we did that. And after six months, it was not working. Their model was not right at all for this, this market. It was basically based on a day labor kind of market, which would be, you know, fine for like construction or, you know, casual labor kinds of situations.

Ann Arbor is a very white collar kind of town. And the businesses in the surrounding areas wanted ongoing, more skilled, temp to perm kinds of situations. So we rejected the original model and found our own way with our own model. And that was the right thing to do because it has been successful.

Anthony Codispoti: That’s interesting to hear. A couple of things I want to point out. First of all, this idea that your resume, your CV seemed unfocused. We were joking about this a little bit before we went on air. I hear that from entrepreneurs all the time. Whether they have a successful exit or, you know, the business that doesn’t work out and they’re trying to think out what’s next. It is a classic story that they’re like, nobody will hire me because my resume, it’s like, oh, I saw an opportunity here and I found an opportunity there. And it’s like, you know, I think a lot of times entrepreneurs like good, bad or indifferent, you know, they refuse to be sort of pigeonholed.

They can’t be put in a box. And your story kind of aligns with that perfectly. The other interesting thing to call out here is that, you know, you spent, what was it a year with the franchise getting trained by them? The franchise we’re going to buy into. Yes. And you’re like, hey, this is going to be the thing.

This is what I’m going to do. And then at the last second they pulled the rug out and they’re like, no, we’re going to keep this corporate because we like this opportunity. And I imagine that had to be hugely deflating for you. Like you had been looking, looking, looking. Now you found the thing.

You’re pretty well trained in it. And they’re like, no, sorry, you know, you’re out in the cold again. But you took that not as a, this is a door shut. It’s like, well, yeah, maybe this door closed, but look, this window opened up over here for us. Like you, you sort of took the lemon and you found the lemonade in it.

Karl Osterland: So yes, it was deflating and it was discombobulating to have to totally readjust my thinking. There was another part of me though that didn’t necessarily like the corporate people that I, that I was interacting with. There was a bit of relief to have them out of my life too.

Anthony Codispoti: So in the end, a very good thing that that breakup happened, but it did.

Karl Osterland: Incidentally, that, that national organization has long, long since gone out of business. You know, if we had been part of that, that organization, we would have been pulled under along with the rest of their, their failure.

Anthony Codispoti: So another good example of this door closes another one or a window or something else opens up. So that’s kind of the universe steering you in the right direction, I think. So when you, when you co-founded Fast Temps in 1997, initially, as I understand it, you focused on light industrial staffing. What was the catalyst for evolving into more of a full service staffing agency? And were the key moments along the way that you made you realize that you could successfully scale into different industries?

Karl Osterland: 2008 was the catalyst. You may recall that was, there was the banking crisis that was going on here in Michigan. Everything is about the auto industry in Southeast Michigan. And the auto industry was in free fall. And most of our clients were suppliers to the auto industry.

And we were just flat on our backs. And we made a commitment at that point that we were going to diversify. You know, so hospitality, healthcare, administrative things. And we did that and that has served us well.

Anthony Codispoti: So give us a picture of the different services that Fast Temps offers today.

Karl Osterland: Well, it’s, it’s those areas. We still do our original positions staffing factories. It’s, it’s, it’s pretty basic manufacturer will call us up and say we need five people on second shift to start, you know, Monday or something like that.

And we line them up. Healthcare, we have a couple of different areas. One, we have a contract with Livingston County to staff group homes for community mental health.

We are also, we have been a prime vendor at the University of Michigan since 2001. And that includes University Hospital and all their outpatient clinics at various locations. And that includes particularly medical assistants, phlebotomists and really a whole range of allied health positions that we staffed for them. So that, that’s another part of our business. And then administrative is, is like everything else. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s classic, you know, temporary staffing. We need a secretary to fill in for the next, you know, month or whatever. Very classic kinds of things. Hospitality ends up being support for can be hotels, cleaning people, food service people, cooks, prep cooks, anything that the hospitality industry needs.

Anthony Codispoti: I understand that U of M contract that you got was pretty key for where you guys were in your development arc. Say more about how that came about and what it meant to the company going forward.

Karl Osterland: When we opened already in 1997, in my mind, that was the pearl of great price, you know, that, that was, that was the contract to get in Washington County, which is true. It’s, it’s probably the best contract in the, in the county.

Anthony Codispoti: Is it because of the big brand name or is it more just from a business perspective, it opens up so many opportunities.

Karl Osterland: So it is the brand name. It’s also huge. They use temporary staffing, both on the university side and the hospital side. So it’s administrative, it’s help with cooks and cleaning people and, you know, the hospital stuff that we were talking about before.

It’s just a broad range of things that it takes to keep that huge organization running. And I, I, on a personal level, I went to school at the University of Michigan, both degrees, you know, I, I, I bleed maize and blue if punctured. I was the pianist for the University of Michigan men’s Glee Club, which sings, you know, hail to the victors and all of the, the songs associated with the University of Michigan. Coming from a farm, the University of Michigan just opened up the world for me. It just hit me at the right time in my life. It was just, it was a wonderful experience for me. And the idea of serving that organization has really pleased me over the years. And we’ve been there since 2001. I hold my breath every time it’s rebid, but we’re still there and a bunch of other organizations are not. So here we are.

Anthony Codispoti: That’s fantastic. And so what did that mean to your business going forward when you got that contract?

Karl Osterland: It is, it’s a base, you know, they pay their bills. It’s, it’s a large quantity. We do it at it. We do it cheap enough. You know, it’s a low markup account based on high volume, but it is a base. It doesn’t go away. That’s always there.

Anthony Codispoti: It’s a very steady, eddy kind of a contract. Yes. So we’ve already talked about your music background still ongoing, the music director at Trinity Lutheran Church. Obviously a role that’s very different from running a staffing firm as has that musical background influenced your leadership style and the culture at Fast Tempsen anyway.

Karl Osterland: Creativity is not a bad thing when running a business. So in general terms, I would say yes. And you know, it’s just, I think it’s easier for arts people to think out of the box and think more creatively when it comes to solving problems.

Anthony Codispoti: Tell me more about your mission statement, what it is and why it’s so foundational for Fast Temps.

Karl Osterland: It has not changed since 1997. And I think, I don’t know, I’m rather proud of that, that we’ve been true to our initial goals. Point number one is that we will treat all employees with dignity and fairness. That is not true for all temporary staffing agencies. Sometimes the temps end up getting treated as commodities and we don’t ever want to do that. They’re people. We’re going to treat them well. And then secondly, we’re going to offer excellent service, 100% of what our clients want. And then third is profitability. And we believe that profitability will flow from those first two things. And it has.

Anthony Codispoti: So profitability, I want to note is third on the list. Not first or second. So say more about, let’s start with the first element of your mission statement to treat all employees with dignity and fairness. Can you maybe give a specific example of how that has played out in Fast Temps?

Karl Osterland: Oh, there are many over the years. It’s been a long history. Oh, there’s a lady who’s been working for us in various positions at the university for over 10 years now. She’s very loyal to Fast Temps.

You know, I know her, I know her story. She was an older lady who was downsized early. It was an early retirement from an automotive supplier and then was plundering around.

She didn’t have enough retirement resources to make it without anything. And she came to us for help. Lovely lady. She has a lovely West Indian background.

So she has this lovely somewhat British accent and exquisite old fashioned manners. And we ended up sending her to a front desk position at the University of Michigan. And she has been in that kind of role now for over 10 years. The university has loved her. And she has loved them. But I know who she is. I know her story. I take care of her when it’s time that she should get a raise. I make sure that she gets that raise. When she needed some time off for surgery, I made sure that that was okay with the client department, that they knew what was going on. It’s just stuff like that. Knowing the people, knowing their names, knowing their stories and trying to help when you can.

Anthony Codispoti: I have to imagine as you continue to grow that it’s probably a little bit more difficult for you to know every single worker that you guys help employ. How do you help to make sure that the team that you’ve delegated to underneath you is able to kind of represent the same values and the same commitment to treating employees with integrity and fairness that you would? Yeah.

Karl Osterland: Well, I mean, you have to talk about those values, remind them in daily staff meetings, we often talk about individual employees. What’s best for them? What can we do for them? Individual clients too, obviously. So it’s now a matter of trying to share those values with the staff because I don’t actually do a lot of hands-on interviewing and placing myself.

Anthony Codispoti: Let’s talk about the commitment to excellent service as well. Again, this is the kind of thing where an anecdotor too would be really helpful to help exhibit how fast temps goes above and beyond whenever they can.

Karl Osterland: Well, it’s a matter of getting to know people. It’s a people business and that includes both the employees but also the clients. We like to think that we’re a small organization that we’re big enough to get the job done but small enough to care and that means building relationships with the clients.

Fast temps has historically spent a lot of time face-to-face with hiring managers. Unfortunately, a lot of that ended during COVID. We’re not quite back to that.

It became Zoom and phones and particularly email. I’m encouraging the staff to get back to where we were at one time with more face-to-face time. That is how you give excellent service though. You interact with the clients.

You get to know on a deeper level what it is that they need. What is the corporate culture? When you send in a temporary employee, are they going to fit in? Are they going to be part of that corporate culture or are they going to be a fifth wheel and does not fit in? I think that’s important and I think that differentiates us from other agencies that don’t get to know their clients on that level.

Anthony Codispoti: Can you say more about what the interview and onboarding process looks like for new employees? Guys are servicing a number of clients now in different geographies. You’re hiring for different types of positions, different industries. What does that process look like? How do you balance efficiency with making sure that you find the right culture and skill fit for your clients?

Karl Osterland: We still require in-person face-to-face interviews for everything. Some agencies have either gone to Zoom or in some cases there’s really no interview. They’re filling out online questionnaires and so forth.

I’m really totally against that. You’ve got to see people. You’ve got to read their body language, see the expressions on their faces to get to know are they real?

Are they going to work out? That’s step one is some kind of meaningful face-to-face interaction. Then the screening ends up being unique according to the client’s needs. They often define that they need a 10-panel drug screen, they need a 5-panel drug screen, it’s marijuana-friendly or it’s not marijuana-friendly.

They require a national criminal background check, they require a state police background check. Sometimes there are all kinds of little specific things that clients want done. We just customize according to whatever it is that the client needs and expects.

Anthony Codispoti: I’m looking at your website here as we’re talking and it’s fasttempsinployment.com. F-A-S-TEMPS-Employment .com. I see that you service a few locations there in southern Michigan, which makes sense. The geography makes it easier to wrap your hands around and be able to physically travel to different offices.

I also see that you’re servicing some locations in California, which obviously is a long ways away. Talk to me about how that move came about. What was the decision or the motivation to expand to the West Virginia? coast.

Karl Osterland: So it was again it was kind of economic and recession driven. We had a large client here in Michigan move their operations to the southern California and they offered to bring us along. So that was the basis for a new office in California.

It was not automotive and it was not in the Detroit area. It was a way of diversifying and so we did that. We took advantage of that opportunity and then we now have two offices. One in Los Angeles proper and one in the Far Eastern suburbs. But that incident though was the basis for those offices.

Anthony Codispoti: Would I be correct in assuming now that you have a bigger base of clients out there?

Karl Osterland: Yes of course. In fact the original client is long gone.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay. So you can thank them for kind of the opportunity to move out west and you guys have been able to make the most of that since that move.

Karl Osterland: And then Tim is from California. So he runs the show in California. I run the show in Michigan.

Anthony Codispoti: How often does Tim have to go back and forth?

Karl Osterland: Maybe once a month or something like that. Okay. It’s a complicated way of living but we make it work.

Anthony Codispoti: So I want to talk about winning some of the awards that you guys have. The outstanding Achieve Award from the SBA being named one of the most dependable staffing agencies. This suggests a pretty high standard of excellence. Talk to us more about how you maintain that quality and consistency as you’ve expanded into these different markets.

Karl Osterland: I have to be honest. I’m not sure how either one of those organizations make that decision. They just tell you that I know that they do surveys of clients. I don’t know what else they do but anyway you just get this nice surprise in both cases.

It just goes back to those core values. Particularly the customer service. Doing it and doing it and doing it. Making sure that the clients are happy that you’re meeting their expectations. Making sure you know what the expectations are and then meeting them.

Anthony Codispoti: You’ve already talked about Carl how you are different from a lot of temporary staffing agencies in that you still require an in-person face-to-face interview. You want to get a feel for that person. Know their energy. Know their personality a little bit better. Are you guys using some tech on the front end to help weed out and get down to a smaller group of people to do those in-person interviews with? Are you guys balance the new tech that’s available with the old school personal hand touch?

Karl Osterland: I don’t know about the screening. That is what it is. You have to meet the person and then run the background checks, do the drug screen. That really hasn’t changed. But what has changed on the back end is the use of technology to manage that database of people that you get.

It has changed enormously. We’re in the process of bringing on a third partner, Steve Dillon. He’s younger and part of his assignment was to explore our software.

What are the potentials of this applicant tracking system that we have that we aren’t using? He’s done a wonderful job of doing that. In the last particular year, we’ve completely revamped how we’re placing people. We’re almost paperless, at least in Michigan. Everything gets scanned in. We are almost at the point that if somebody is calling in for five factory workers on an afternoon shift, we can do a database search and come up with five people who are already pre-screened for that client. That kind of thing. That part has become quite automated, particularly in last year or two.

Anthony Codispoti: We’re talking about tech. We’re talking about automation. Have you guys folded in the use of AI in any way yet?

Karl Osterland: We use AI sometimes for generating job descriptions and ads and things. I don’t think that the technology is quite there. I’m not comfortable with a lot of AI-generated documents that we’ve experimented with. They seem very generic. They’re not specific to what that specific client needs. They’re not specific to the job. Sometimes they’re just too wordy. They all send that sound alike. Yes and no. We’ve played with it. I don’t think that we’re there yet.

Anthony Codispoti: You’ve got your toe in the water, but you don’t like the temperature of it quite yet.

Karl Osterland: It’s a little more time to cook. I think it does.

Anthony Codispoti: Carl, talk to me about the importance of community engagement with FAST-TEMPS.

Karl Osterland: Oh, yes. We like being involved in the community. We’re located in Ypsilanti. We’re the hometown player for Ypsilanti. Tim and I made a decision in 1997 that we were going to locate in Ypsilanti because there were a dozen other agencies in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor just didn’t need another agency.

We are firmly located in Ypsilanti. I have tried to be involved and I haven’t had time to do more of this, but for a while I was on the advisory board for Jewish Family Services and they were resettling refugees from the Middle East at that time. They recently reached out to me. I’m hoping that maybe I can get more involved in that group again. I’m always looking for opportunities like that though because we have the resources to be able to help with some of those situations and I would like to be part of the solution.

Anthony Codispoti: I’m going to shift gears on you for a moment, Carl. I’d like to hear about a serious challenge that you’ve overcome, whether it’s something personal or professional, what that was like going through it and some lessons that you learned coming out the other side.

Karl Osterland: Well, we’ve already alluded to probably the two biggest challenges that initial six months into the business when the model wasn’t working at all that it had been trained in. That was pretty serious. We would not have survived the year if we had started figuring out how to attract and screen long-term employees. That was a bad time. And then the other one was that recession in 2008-2009 when we found ourselves flat on our back too anchored in the automotive industry.

It’s not easy to change gears like that. Having to develop a market and even the skills, how do you train? How do you check licenses for healthcare professionals? We had to learn all that. How do you develop new clients in the hospitality industry, in the healthcare industry? Very challenging stuff to try to reinvent yourself like that. But it just had to happen. We could not stay all automotive related manufacturing.

Anthony Codispoti: So six months into the start of the business back in 1997, it was clear the business model wasn’t working. Where did you get the idea or the inspiration to make that pivot back then? Did you have some peers that were friends in the industry that said, hey, you should zig instead of zagging? How did you come up with the idea?

Karl Osterland: I would say it was more just looking at who was being successful in our market. That’s what they were doing. So steal from the best.

Anthony Codispoti: And so you just looked at people who were local in temporary staffing and you’re like, they’re driving nice cars. They’re in a good building.

Karl Osterland: I see that there’s folks around. They’ve got people being placed at this business. How do we reshape our process to be a match for that business?

Anthony Codispoti: How did you go about doing that? Once you decided that this is the direction we’re going to try, did you just sort of fumbling around in the dark? Did you hire somebody who was a little bit more experienced in those areas to kind of help you put your new processes in place?

Karl Osterland: I wish we would have had the money to hire somebody, but we didn’t at that point. It was Carl and Tim doing it pretty much ourselves. So there was some trial and error. And in terms of the transition, mechanically, those organizations that do short-term assignments rely quite a bit on daily pays. In other words, somebody works a day, it’s day labor, they come in, they get paid that night. People want an instant paycheck. Part of the downside of that is sometimes it attracts people who need cash in a hurry. And sometimes that’s somebody with a substance abuse problem.

We had to get away from that. I mean, I’m very sympathetic with those people and their needs, but they’re not necessarily successful employees. And they’re certainly not going to be long-term successful employees, which is what our clients needed. So mechanically, the big shift was doing away with those day pays and getting to weekly pay only.

Anthony Codispoti: So this part of your story, I think, is particularly important to draw attention to because you guys were very early on. You had not really gotten substantial traction yet. A lot of people in those first six months, they feel like they’re banging their head against the wall.

They might have just thrown in the towel. And I think to hear these stories of persistence, resilience, grit, when it’s hard and it’s not going as well as you thought it would, these are really important stories for people to hear. I’m curious, where that motivation for you came from? Was it just, hey, I’ve already tried the job market, nobody’s going to hire me, I got to do this, there’s nothing else? Or is there something else that was fuel for your fire?

Karl Osterland: That’s a good question. Certainly, growing up on a farm, you end up with a work ethic, that’s for sure, because running a family farm is not easy. It’s hard work day in and day out. I think maybe that’s the foundation of that, that you just have to keep on. If it doesn’t rain and you have a bad harvest, you don’t give up and sell the family farm. You regroup and do it another year. I think maybe that’s the foundation of it.

Anthony Codispoti: Let’s talk about 2008. A lot of staffing agencies ran into trouble then because the economy was just tanking all the way around. It hit you guys particularly hard because you were heavily focused on automotive and that dried up in a hurry.

Tell me more about that stage and the method of reinventing yourself then. You guys were obviously much further along. At this time, were you guys able to hire some folks that had experience in some of those different industries that you wanted to get involved with? Or was this Tim and Carl rolling up their sleeves and figuring it out again?

Karl Osterland: Unfortunately, it was Tim and Carl rolling up the sleeves. Again, there wasn’t money to really hire anybody with that level of expertise. There was also a financial crisis for us at that time. We had had a relationship with a local bank, a line of credit, and that’s how we funded payroll every week. They had been very good to us. We’d never missed a payment, never been late with a payment. That bank was bought out by another bank, was bought out by another bank, and finally was bought out by another bank. The loan kept being serviced just as it always had been until the first week in October 2008. I went to the bank to fund payroll for the week and the loan was gone.

Anthony Codispoti: No heads up.

Karl Osterland: This is what’s coming. No. I found out that $84,000 had been put on a personal credit card in my name, which was the balance on that business loan.

Anthony Codispoti: Bank put the balance of the business loan on a credit card without so much as a phone call or a letter.

Karl Osterland: If it’s a credit card, where’s the card? Where are the terms and conditions? They were never able to come up with that. Son attorney was advised that no banks can really call a loan.

They can do anything they want. Banks are pretty deregulated at this point. It ruined my credit.

My credit has never recovered from that. People see that. I go to buy a car.

I just did it again. They see that awful credit disaster and are very reluctant to loan me personal cash for anything. That made the dilemma a whole lot worse. We had to dip heavily into personal cash in order to keep the business going.

We scrambled and found another loan source. It took a while though to do that. It was just a really rough time. That was probably the most precarious situation that the business has ever been in.

Anthony Codispoti: Was there ever any thought to just let’s fold this, let’s throw in the towel?

Karl Osterland: You know. Let’s call it a day. Not really. Why? Well, I mean, we were committed to this. We said that we were going to do this and we were going to do it.

Anthony Codispoti: You had faith that you could figure it out one way or another? We always had. Yeah. Any particular mentors, books, experiences that have been helpful to you in your life? Hmm.

Karl Osterland: There was an older, very successful businessman at church who had some very pithy helpful things that he shared with us from time to time. Sometimes when we were challenged, I can remember him at one time saying, well, you know, if it were easy, everybody would do it. Yes, it’s hard.

Expected. Just stuff like that, you know, that kept us going. I got to say he was very persistent and very, very successful in his business and he was kind of an inspiration.

A bit of a mentor. What was his name? His name was Bob Morowski. And he owned Flame Furnace, a very large, highly successful heating and cooling contractor in the Detroit area. Another person, this is very strange, but his name is Jack Betharts. It was the director of the Schoenstein Oregon Company.

This is a really wonderful company that builds and historic trinity on our organ. And some of his very, very basic nuts and bolts stuff, and this was even before we got open. I can remember him saying, just answer the phone, return your emails, return the letters, because the guy down the street is not going to do it. And he was absolutely right. If you do those basic things, it goes a long way.

Anthony Codispoti: What are your favorite questions to ask? One of my favorite questions to ask, and I think you would have a particularly insightful perspective on this. Part of it you’ve already alluded to, but for a lot of people I talk with, it’s still a relatively tight labor market. So it’s hard to find good folks.

It’s hard to hold on to good folks. You’ve already said, I mean, the first pillar of your mission statement is treat all employees with dignity and fairness. And you’ve talked about some of the ways that you do that once they’re on board, once they’re part of the team. What are some things that you have found success with to recruit people in the first place? How do you find those folks to bring into the Fast Temps family?

Karl Osterland: Word of mouth is very powerful in our industry. If you try to work with existing employees, they tell other people that they had a good experience with Fast Temps. I think that that’s been particularly true with the University of Michigan account. Hey, if you want to get hired in at the University, go see Fast Temps. It’s going to be faster than going and applying directly, which is long and bureaucratic.

But usually after 90 days, most of our positions at the University, they get hired in direct at that point if they’re working out, if the attendance is good and if they’re doing a good job. So it’s a great foot in the door with the best employer in the county really. The benefits are very generous. It’s a good work environment.

So there’s that. And we make much of that. We talk a lot about getting people hired in at the University.

It’s very good for us. So a lot of it is just reputation, keeping a high profile. We’re still learning how to use social media. We’ve got a pretty vigorous Facebook presence. We really don’t have X or Instagram yet under control, but we’re working on it.

So that is still a work in progress. It has been a transition, you know, because print media does not seem to do anything anymore in terms of attracting employees. Social media and the internet is where it’s at. So it’s various job boards. You post jobs online wherever you can. And then try to make as much visibility online as you can. And that seems to be where it’s at these days.

Anthony Codispoti: You know, as business leaders, one of the important roles that we have is kind of to your third point of your mission statement, which is profitability, right? Can’t run a charity. This has got to be profitable in order for you to keep going and, you know, be able to service a lot of clients and be able to employ a lot of people. And as I think about, you know, looking at the P &L, I generally think about two levers that we can pull, right? And one is how do we increase sales? And the other one is how do we decrease expenses? As you think about those two levers, is there anything particularly interesting or creative that you have tried and found success with?

Karl Osterland: No, it’s nothing. I can add nothing new to that. It’s just you have to do the work. Good old business principles. Right. And in terms of increasing volume, you know, it’s sales. And you have to do the work.

And it’s partly a numbers game. You know, you can have the best smile and the best gifts to gab in the world, but you have to do the work. You have to make the calls.

You’ve got to get your face in front of people. When I was doing most of the sales, I was never thinking of it as sales. I, you know, I’m a friendly person. You know, you go out and make friends for fast temps and somebody is going to place an order.

But you had to make a lot of friends. You know, it’s a numbers thing. So that’s something which is very important. And sometimes we’ve had a hard time imparting that to salespeople. You’ve got to do the work. So in terms of, you know, volume, I would say that that’s the key. You’ve got to do the work.

You’ve got to make those contacts. In terms of decreasing costs, it’s just, you know, it’s a grind. You’re always looking for, you know, a point better on the interest rate, you know, a cheaper way to get, you know, drug screen kits in the door, whatever. It’s just doing the detail to work. I’m trying to control costs all the time.

Anthony Codispoti: Carl, is there something maybe fun or interesting that most people wouldn’t know about you? Something we haven’t already touched on?

Karl Osterland: People are very surprised that I’m very dedicated to my gym workouts. There was a time when I was very serious about bodybuilding. I’m 68 now. I, you know, I can’t get the growth that I used to get. But, you know, I can stay toned and, you know, I really have two happy places. I have the Oregon bench at Historic Trinity, but everybody knows that. That’s very public. The other happy place is hanging out with my buddies at the gym. People are very surprised to know about that part of me.

Anthony Codispoti: What do you think are maybe some of the secrets to the physique that you’ve been able to maintain all these years? Is it something particular in your diet, something particular in the workout regiment that you found success with?

Karl Osterland: Well, motivation comes from, you know, profound body dysmorphia. I was a fat kid and I was beaten up and I was abused and, you know, some pretty miserable times in my past. That’s a huge motivation for trying to look better. And that started in college already. And I started going to the gym and was pleased with the results. I mean, that’s been the motivation. Now, during COVID, like so many people, I put on quite a bit of weight.

Since the end of COVID, I’ve lost about 40 pounds. Part of that is working with an online trainer who’s, you know, he’s an elite bodybuilding trainer. He really knows his stuff. I would recommend that anybody who is serious about weight loss or, you know, bodybuilding should find a really good coach because there are a lot of people doing it out there who don’t, you know, they may be certified, but they don’t really know the details. This guy really knows, you know, he does both the exercise part of it and the diet part of it. And he’s been great for me. So anyway, that’s the motivation and that’s the mechanics of how I’m doing it right now.

Anthony Codispoti: You want to give a shout out to your trainer? What’s his name?

Karl Osterland: His name is Paul Daw. He’s located in Canada. He’s totally online. His, I think that his online identity is need size now and EED, S-I-Z-E-E now, N-O-W. I think that that would bring him up, but he’s really, really great.

Anthony Codispoti: We’ll try to find his profile and include it in the show now.

Karl Osterland: Yeah. He has a very low key profile online. You may or may not be able to find him.

Anthony Codispoti: One of the best kept secrets out there.

Karl Osterland: Well, and he’s not even always accepting new clients. Okay. He’s pretty popular. That word of mouth thing and people know that he’s pretty good.

Anthony Codispoti: Carl, I’ve just got one more question for you. Before I ask it, I want to do two things. For everyone listening today, I know that you love today’s content. Please hit the like, share, subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. Carl, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you. What would that be?

Karl Osterland: Probably email, which is CarlKARL, not C-K-A-R-L, at Fast Temps Employment 1-T and Fast Temps, F-A-S-T-E-M-P-S Employment.com. I would love to talk to anybody if they’ve got any questions or anything at all.

Anthony Codispoti: Right. We’ll be sure to include that in the show notes as well. Last question for you, Carl. Curious, what do you think are the big changes that are coming to the staffing space in the next week?

Karl Osterland: We have to deal with the fact that the need for unskilled labor is going to continue to go down. The need is for more skilled people, people who have some basic math skills, who can understand detailed, sometimes complicated written directions, people who have technical skills that can operate computers or computerized manufacturing equipment, people who are going to stay long-term, get to know that technology and stick with the company and grow with them.

The need for unskilled labor, I think, is going to continue to go down. Why do you think that is? It’s just the nature of manufacturing, for one thing. It’s becoming more and more technical all the time. Everybody is looking to save a buck here and there. That’s often with labor costs. That often means automating things.

Anthony Codispoti: Carl, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Karl Osterland: All right. Very good. Thanks so much for your time as well. This has been fun.

Anthony Codispoti: Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.