Brad Belden on Fifth-Generation Leadership and Manufacturing Innovation in Brick Industry

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
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 Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Brad Belden, president and COO of the Belden Brick Company. Founded in 1885, they are the largest family-owned brick manufacturer in the US.

known for creating high quality bricks that bring both durability and beauty to commercial and residential projects. Under Brad’s leadership, the company continues to grow and remain a trusted name in the manufacturing world. He’s been with Belden Bricks since 2004 and has helped steer it through various challenges and expansions. Before joining the company, he worked as a markets manager at JP Morgan Chase from 2000 to 2004.

He also serves on several boards, including the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Manufacturers Association, where he shares his expertise in driving industry innovation. Today, Brad will share insights from his journey and talk about his passion for leading a company with a rich heritage. But before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad 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. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money in your employees’ pockets and the company’s too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year.

Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, President and COO of the Belden Brick Company, Brad Belden. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Bradley Belden (02:05)
Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Anthony Codispoti (02:08)
So Brad, the family business has been around for 140 years, which is almost unheard of. With that kind of legacy, was it always understood that you would become a part of it?

Bradley Belden (02:20)
No, not really. ⁓ I don’t think any of us that are working here today that are in part of the family were expected to come back to the company. It wasn’t really understood at this point. ⁓ We’re fifth generation, so there’s a lot of options. ⁓ Of course, most of us that worked back here had a father that worked here. ⁓ So I think there’s always some of that, you always look up to your father and want to do what they did.

But I just, think things sort of lined up that it worked out over time. And I ⁓ think our fathers admit that they got a little bit lucky that we all came back and wanted to have a job at the company. So it’s worked out so far. yeah, ⁓ and there’s really not an expectation that any of our kids are gonna come back and work here either. Of course, at some point we’re gonna have to figure that out, maybe the next five or 10 years.

Anthony Codispoti (03:15)
What is it that you think is so special about the company that has allowed it to not only survive for 140 years, but to thrive?

Bradley Belden (03:26)
That’s a good question. We always wonder the same thing ourselves. think it’s, we’re just in a good pocket. think Brick’s been around for a long time. So we have a product that has been successful as a building material. It’s probably, we’d say, the best building material that’s around, even though other people try to copy it or imitate it in some other way or improve upon it. It’s really just that good of a system.

that provides durability and beauty. So a company like ours, we have the right product, but it’s not something that’s so flashy that we make so much money that we’re gonna move on to other things or sell out. And we just sort of like what we do. We get a lot of satisfaction in some of the buildings that get built with our product and it’s a great environment to work. So I think that’s just really it. There’s really, I don’t know.

Anthony Codispoti (04:25)
Not so flashy that it’s attracting a lot of competition either.

Bradley Belden (04:25)
a whole lot of speakers.

Right, there you go. It’s manufacturing. It’s a very capital-intense and labor-intense business. Yeah, so there’s not a bunch of brick companies popping up all over the place. It’s really more the alternative building materials that try to take our place. Some have some success for a while, but people remain wanting brick. We continue to see in surveys that brick’s still the number one most sought after.

or desire brick cladding.

Anthony Codispoti (05:00)
What’s maybe the

one or two alternative products that ⁓ recently have tried to come in and eat some of your lunch?

Bradley Belden (05:10)
I’d say some of ⁓ the concrete stone players, so cultured stone they call it, there’s a bunch of different names for it. So it’s really just concrete that looks like stone. There’s James Hardy, there’s a cement board that looks like wood. ⁓ So again, when you’re talking about, there’s really not a lot of things replicating the brick look, but I think the stone gives a masonry appearance, even though it’s just sort of a, we call it sticky stone. It’s just sort of stuck on.

versus brick system has an air gap in the back. ⁓ So it’s gonna take care of moisture and more sound and be more durable and just last a long, time.

Anthony Codispoti (05:53)
I want to hear more about that, sort of the differences that set brick apart. mean, obviously there’s the cosmetics, right? Like you said, brick is ⁓ the most highly sought after building material. But say more about some of those structural benefits, the air gap and the lack of moisture. These are things that you’re not finding with like the hardy plank or with the sticky, what did you call it, sticky stone?

Bradley Belden (06:16)
Yeah, sticky

stone, yeah. yeah, those things are just sort of on a mastic. They’re kind of, they put mortar on the back and stick it right onto the house. ⁓ Brick ⁓ does have a couple of inches, an inch or two air gap behind it. So it’s sort of, we call it like a living breathing system. So we know that water is going to penetrate through the mortar or, you know, the brick has some absorption to it, but usually the water is going to find its way through, you know, header joints or.

or the mortar system somehow, but there’s enough of a gap between the plywood and the, there’s usually some sort of synthetic barrier between the outside and the inside, but that water’s gonna drip down the back of that wall. And then on the bottom of your house, you’ve got these things called weep holes. So that allows air into that back of that wall. And so that you will never really have water building up in there. So as long as the flashing’s right and the masonry’s right,

you should have a really nice wall for years to come versus if you get water behind any of those other systems you could end up with some trouble.

Anthony Codispoti (07:21)
because they don’t have sort of that breathing mechanism built into them.

Bradley Belden (07:25)
Water is always going to be the enemy of ⁓ any sort of structure standing for decades and centuries.

Anthony Codispoti (07:35)
Okay, so let’s hear a little bit about your history and we’ll get back to of the Belt and Brick Company, what you guys are doing today. So you went to school at Boston College and then from there when you graduated, went to Chicago where you learned to trade options. What’s a memorable experience there that has provided you skills that you continue to use today?

Bradley Belden (07:57)
Yeah, yeah, I was a finance major, so always was interested in how the markets worked. so that was, you know, I was like the city of Chicago. So it was kind of a good two for one there when I went to Chicago. ⁓ I’d say the biggest thing I learned there was just learning how to be independent and ⁓ making money on my own, having to show up to work on time. And some of the skills I learned there were a lot of, I actually

balance their books too. I worked for a market maker so there was only like nine or ten of us at a given time working for this small firm. So we’d go into the trading pits and the traders would trade all day. We’d have to make sure that the positions were known to all the traders so that they knew if we were long or short a position, how to close that up. But then at the end of the day we’d have to figure out if you made money or lost money and make sure all those…

were tied out. So that’s what I did. So, but I had just learned a lot of independent living and having to show up on work as I’d say was the biggest thing I learned there. Exactly.

Anthony Codispoti (09:05)
First big boy job out of college, and so

you learned how to stand on your own two feet. So from there, then think you went on to JP Morgan Chase, where you worked in credit markets. Can you say more about what you did there?

Bradley Belden (09:17)
Yeah, so when I moved to New York, it was ⁓ less about being on the floor of ⁓ the New York Stock Exchange or something like this. It was more of a corporate ⁓ banking job, but it was the investment bank on the credit market side. So that has to deal with more about loaning money to people in the form of money markets or bonds. So there was bond originations or secondary market, credit markets. ⁓ So…

I just had to basically organize all the trades. ⁓ The main thing I learned at that job was I was a little bit young, so I was familiar with spreadsheets and I was able to change the way they did some of the processes to make it more efficient.

Anthony Codispoti (10:02)
Can you say more about maybe one of the bigger changes that you made to introduce some efficiencies there?

Bradley Belden (10:08)
I think they had a lot of paper-based stuff and email and I made it little bit more networked through a spreadsheet. So, just kept it more organized, learning some stuff from some of my colleagues at the company and learned. I took some Excel classes at school, but kind of delved into the formulas and some of the organization features on Excel there. So, I able to keep track of all the trades that way.

Anthony Codispoti (10:39)
Okay, so from Chicago, New York, big cities, now you feel called back to Canton. How did that take place?

Bradley Belden (10:47)
Yeah, so living in Chicago and New York in your 20s with no children, maybe a little bit easier to do than when you get a little bit older and have to start figuring out, like as your career advances, do you want to stay in New York or Chicago or a bigger city? And can you afford to live in the city? Do you want to live in the city with younger children? Or do you want to commute? Every time, you know, I’m still coming back to Canton a decent amount for…

to see friends and family. lot of weddings were happening and it just felt very comfortable every time we came back. And so I met my wife in New York City and I didn’t wonder that I was from Ohio than that I might end up back here some day. ⁓ So ⁓ we decided to move out here. Your money goes a lot farther and it’s a lot easier to play golf and do some of the things you enjoy that are harder to do in New York. So ⁓ again, as you…

get a little bit older and your interest change, Ohio seems like a pretty good option.

Anthony Codispoti (11:51)
And so you decide you’re coming back, you want to be closer to family, friends that you have back in Canton, Ohio. ⁓ What about the job front? Was it just assumed that, OK, Brad’s coming back, there’s a spot for him at the brick company?

Bradley Belden (12:07)
No, it ⁓ was a nice process. I called my dad, let him know that, we’re making this decision to come back ⁓ to Canton or Northeast Ohio anyway, and just said, hey, is there a spot? Is there something you guys could have me do? Or are you guys full and you’re good to go? So it was a ⁓ low pressure situation on all parties. I was happy to just apply for jobs at a bank or…

brokerage firm or what have you. ⁓ But yeah, I came in and had a nice conversation with my dad and his two first cousins who were ⁓ president and CEO at the time. And ⁓ yeah, they found a spot for me that there was a need. I think they recognized just like we’re starting to recognize ourselves that as we’re getting older, we need to figure out who’s going to be the next generation of leadership. So we had a nice conversation and ⁓ here I am.

Anthony Codispoti (13:05)
And so what was the role that you first started in there?

Bradley Belden (13:09)
The first, so I came from the banking world and they were like, well, what do you think about environmental health and safety? And, ⁓ you know, I guess I’d always been interested in recycling and I was always sort of, you know, wanted to save the planet and all that sort of thing too. So, ⁓ I was like, yeah, I’ll give it a shot. And, ⁓ so yeah, I came back and the other interesting thing was, you know, we have our, our can office here. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (13:21)
A natural transition, yeah.

Bradley Belden (13:37)
as our headquarters, but all the actions really down in Sugar Creek, Ohio, where the factories are. the job for environmental health and safety is in Sugar Creek. So I really got to learn the business when you get into, when you’re the environmental manager and the safety manager for a company. And there were some other people working with me in that department. didn’t just do it solo. ⁓ So I did learn from some other people, but you really get to learn all the different processes because they all need to be permitted.

and done safely.

Anthony Codispoti (14:09)
Okay, so I want to hear a little bit more about your progression through the company. But first, let’s dive into more of the details about what you guys do, what sets you apart, how are you, or are you just kind of making the same bricks as everybody else and it’s a relationship thing and you’ve got relationships with this distributor and that distributor and so that’s what’s allowed you to be successful.

Bradley Belden (14:15)
Thank

Yeah, I’d say when it comes to building brick, thing that we always, our motto has been for a long time, the standard of comparison. So there’s different in any industry, really, there’s different models you can go down. You can be the mass production, have very efficient processes, and you’re going to, you know, maybe have the lower price, but you’re going to make it up your revenue and volume. And then you have some other, you know, people like Rolex or, you know, Cadillac. We always say it’s like the Cadillac. ⁓

We’re a little bit more, we focus more on style, options for an architect. So we’re more on the commercial bent. But even our residential stuff, we try to be a little bit more unique. ⁓ So we offer more sizes, colors, ⁓ textures than most of our competitors do. So there’s a few of us that live in a similar space that we do, but then there’s a lot of other brick companies that kind of are more the mass producers.

and offer a lower price. But we’re set very much on high quality and a lot of different options.

Anthony Codispoti (15:38)
And you said you’re more on the commercial side. does that mean you don’t really like if I’m building a house, I’m not going to use belt and brick.

Bradley Belden (15:41)
Mm-hmm.

No, we still have, we just focus. I’d say we’re 80 % commercial, but we still have a good 20, 25 % in the residential space. So yeah, please, if you’re going to build a house, give me a call.

Anthony Codispoti (15:57)
and the commercial side. these are more like office buildings, ⁓ retail environments.

Bradley Belden (16:03)
schools I’d say is a big one for us. So whether that’s just the high school locally or across the country or if you’re going to a lot of the universities ⁓ also, if you go to any campus for universities they have these beautiful buildings and so those are a lot of times coming from our product.

Anthony Codispoti (16:23)
and they’re going with you because you’ve got different color and texture options or there are some other advantages too.

Bradley Belden (16:29)
Yeah, absolutely. Sizes, colors, textures. We are fortunate, and that’s partially why we’re in Ohio, is our clay source. We have two different clay sources that give us a lot of color options. Of course, there’s coatings and all sort of other things that we do as well. So between our raw materials and some of the coating capabilities we have, we can offer a lot of different textures and colors. And we do a lot of different sizes too. So some people like a long linear look. Sometimes they like sort of the more…

and bigger, bulkier. And then shapes. Shapes is another competitive advantage of ours. So if you want something that moves or arches around your windows, just different design features, we do a lot of ⁓ shapes. Sometimes they’re mass produced, but a lot of times they’re made by hand. And so some of those mass production companies don’t really offer the same ⁓ shapes that we do. And we’ll do custom shapes. We’re drawing those.

from, you know, with an AutoCAD guy that’s full time.

Anthony Codispoti (17:31)
You said that you have options that move. Did I hear that?

Bradley Belden (17:35)
If the wall isn’t just maybe a box. So if your wall is maybe, you don’t want it to be a 90 degree turn at the end of the wall. Maybe you want it to be a little bit more wavy or curved in a circular pattern or maybe just a 135 degree ⁓ turn and we can do make shapes that’ll hit those corners. So it’ll be more seamless.

Anthony Codispoti (17:59)
Gotcha, so it’s not actually

moving once it’s in place, it’s just you’re able to move around sort of more. Got

Bradley Belden (18:03)
Correct. It’s a sense of movement, right, with your eye as you look

across the wall. It’s just not, you’re not building a box anymore. You wanna do something a little bit different.

Anthony Codispoti (18:14)
And I’m going to guess, you know, when you guys are making a lot of these specialty items that, the, the consistency, the color consistency is really important too, which is probably why you lean a bit more towards the commercial side. Cause they’re making this huge giant building and they want, you know, the color pattern to be the same, not like have a new color. Like I had to replace the wood floors in my house or like a portion of them. And it was really hard to like match up the boards.

you know, get the colors just right. Is it similar in the brick world?

Bradley Belden (18:46)
Absolutely, it’s similar in the brick world. so, you know, in a lot of homes, you know, there’s fewer bricks, you know, in a structure. So some of those more mass produced guys will do just great on a home. But if they wanted to build, if you wanted to build a stadium and you’ve got a million brick, you know, you want to make sure that that looks the same. That first brick laid looks exactly like the millionth brick that’s laid. So yeah, we’ve done a lot of stadiums in our day too. So like St. Louis Cardinal Stadium.

⁓ University of Michigan, Notre Dame, Boston College Stadium are all built in brick. ⁓ Philadelphia, Philly, so I can keep going, but lot of those larger structures, a lot of ⁓ select us as their supplier.

Anthony Codispoti (19:31)
Are we going to see you on the new Brown Stadium? Too soon to tell. Yeah? OK.

Bradley Belden (19:34)
We’re gonna, we’re trying, we’re gonna, hoping so. Yeah, we

don’t like these stadiums that don’t use a lot of brick. So.

Anthony Codispoti (19:44)
So you guys have been like over 100 years, over 100 year old company. You guys have obviously had to kind of reinvent yourselves and continue to innovate over the years. And recently you’ve been automating plants, putting robots in. Tell me more about that. I mean, anytime a guy hears a story about robots, he wants to learn more. How are you guys putting robots in?

Bradley Belden (20:13)
Yeah, so we’ve, you know, it’s funny, when I first started in 2004, we had a new plant called Plant 2 that was fully automated. was the first time, and it’s still the only plant we have that’s automated front to back. So nobody, we don’t have any what we call piece workers, which piece workers are employees that we have that are literally moving a brick from one place to another. This plant is all automated from front to back. Of course, that’s no longer a new plant. That’s a 25 year old plant now.

But in the meantime, we’ve been putting in automation at other plants, existing plants, 50 year old plants, 60 year old plants. And most recently we put one in a 95 year old plant. it’s going to be, that plant was built in 1927. So we’ve got a couple of years until that plant’s 100, but we just put some robots into it. you know, as you go, and especially after COVID, it gets more difficult to…

to find people that want to brick from one place to another. We’re thankful for all the employees we have that do that now, but we know over time, you know, the workforce is shifting from wanting to do that type of work to operating machinery. So a little less physically taxing, maybe a little bit ⁓ mentally challenging to do some of that stuff. you know, the challenges you have with that is figuring out what to do when they’re not operating.

properly. So you have maybe less flexibility, but you have ⁓ fewer employees that you have to constantly hire to move brick from one place to the other.

Anthony Codispoti (21:53)
So I have no, I’ve never been in a brick factory before. Kind of paint a picture for us and what the manufacturing process looks like.

Bradley Belden (22:03)
Okay. I always tell people on a tour that, you know, we’re basically making spaghetti. So once you get the clay out of the ground and you crush it and you screen it into a powder, you add water. So it’s kind of like making pasta where you’re, you know, have flour and you’re adding water and eggs or whatever. And then if you’re making noodles, you’re just extruding it through a smaller, a smaller opening, right? You’re pushing a lot of material through a smaller opening. That’s sort of what brick making is like.

⁓ So we make essentially a you know a noodle of clay and then you have ⁓ different ways to cut that piece of clay into the individual brick sizes and we have a bunch of different dies to make different size noodles essentially. So that’s where we get all the different sizes so we can go. The largest one we make is a 15 and 5 eighths inch across ⁓ brick. You know the most typical bricks that people are used to seeing.

are seven and five eighths inches long. So these are about double the size and length. And then of course you can cut them tall, can cut them short, you can cut them thin, or you can cut them normal. So that’s how that works. And once those are cut, once that noodle is cut, then you can start stacking those essentially onto a table that has wheels. So we call those kiln cars. So it’s just a flat table made out of refractory brick that can get burned over and over.

travels through the plant, those brick get dry before then they go into the kiln. Once they go into the kiln, they’re traveling very slowly through that kiln over the course of two to three days and they’re seeing temperatures of up to about 2,000 degrees and that’s where all the magic happens. the chemistry changes, there’s a quartz inversion that happens and it makes something that’s malleable into something that’s very, very hard.

Anthony Codispoti (23:57)
So you talk about making pasta and cutting it and molds. Here’s what I’m envisioning. You’ve got this giant vat of this clay solution. And you’ve got these huge trays, these molds that this gets poured into so it has the shape and the size of the brick that you want. And then it somehow gets stamped. And that’s the cutting process. Am I understanding this?

Bradley Belden (24:01)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Hmm?

Yeah, so maybe let me describe it in different way. So you have a constant feed of material into something that’s mixing up this material. Yeah, so it’s kind of like a ⁓ trough of clay, right? That’s just constantly getting mixed and it’s actually just getting forced forward, you know, with kind of like a drill. So that the material keeps getting forced forward and goes smaller and smaller, smaller all the way down into like maybe an area of this side. And it’s just getting forced out in one long noodle. So think of like clay though.

Anthony Codispoti (24:48)
And as it cut it

and then it gets cut at the end of that ⁓

Bradley Belden (24:54)
Yeah, so

that noodle would just keep going. Then we have conveyor belts on the end of that to carry that away. So that if you made a conveyor belt a mile long, you could just extrude a noodle a mile long if you had the clay in the conveyors to do it. But we end up cutting it and then start stacking them up. So that’s one way.

Anthony Codispoti (25:11)
God, it obviously gets

cut before it goes into the kiln and then it goes through. Okay. You said a multi-day drying process.

Bradley Belden (25:15)
Yeah, it gets cut almost right away

after it comes out of that extruder, it gets cut right away. And then you start moving it around and start stacking it

Anthony Codispoti (25:25)
Okay, you mentioned ⁓ and so the parts that you guys are now ⁓ creating the automation for this is where maybe somebody took the kiln dried bricks and had to move them from one location to another. And now that’s no longer the case or even like moving those noodles people used to do manually.

Bradley Belden (25:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so that noodle always would come out and get cut and then you have, we still have people that will grab those cut pieces and start stacking them up onto those tables. We still have that, but some of the automated plants don’t. So they’ll take those, those pieces that have been cut and then you have robots that will grab them and stack them up. So that’s the main difference. Then of course you’re right after they’re through the kiln and they’re bricks now, but they’re still stacked up. need somebody to take them.

them off and then put them onto a pallet or put them right into a machine that makes our packages. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (26:19)
Got it. And you mentioned,

you know, the automation is nice because fewer and fewer people want to do this kind of, you know, heavy manual labor work anymore. ⁓ but when the machines break down, now you’ve got a problem, right? Everything comes to a halt because your whole workflow has been built around these machines moving the materials. So are you guys turning the plants off every so often so that you can do regular maintenance or

Bradley Belden (26:28)
Right.

Anthony Codispoti (26:48)
Or what happens when a machine goes down? How do you guys bounce back?

Bradley Belden (26:52)
Yes, the way our factories work for the most part is the kilns are going 24 seven for years if you can help it. I mean, every once in a while something happens to a kiln that you’ve got to shut it down and investigate. But we have kilns that have been on for years and they don’t stop. So that’s a 24 seven process. Making the brick is more of a regular shift. So like one shift five days a week and you’re doing.

just work in those five days, then you’re building up enough kiln cars to feed that kiln all 24-7. But it’s fast enough that you can do that in five days, work in about eight hours a day. ⁓ Yeah, but when a machine ⁓ malfunctions and stops working, sometimes that’s on the noodle making side, we call that the wet brick making side, and then sometimes it happens on the

the dry side or the packaging side. ⁓ Any one of those, there’s enough wiggle room that the other side can keep going and the kilns are okay. And so you have some time to, know, even if it’s, if you can fix it within two to three hours, you’re fine. Everyone maybe has to stay a little bit longer that day to get their, you know, the kiln cars that they want to do. And that’s no fun, of course. ⁓ But you have some wiggle room. whenever there’s something that’s a major,

a meltdown or a breakage of something, then usually that’s going to affect the entire plant if it’s down for, hey, that’s got to be down for two to three days. We’ve got to, the first thing we’ll do is just slow down the kilns. So, you know, some of the kilns are, putting in, let’s call it 16 kiln cars a day and taking out 16 kiln cars on the other side. So let’s say, okay, can we slow that down to maybe a 10 car push is how we call it, so that you’re only putting in 10 a day.

Is that slow enough to get our problem fixed and then we can just ramp back up versus just stopping everything.

Anthony Codispoti (28:52)
is you just keep that killin’ runnin’ all the time.

Bradley Belden (28:54)
You don’t want to have to stop that kiln. Because even, it’s hard on the kiln to take it up and down in temperature multiple times. It just wants to stay. It’s happy just, that section that’s 2,000 degrees, it’s sort of happy just seeing 2,000 degrees. A section that’s 1,000 degrees is happy just being 1,000 degrees. It doesn’t like changes. Because you can imagine, ⁓ you know, things expand and contract with temperature. And the more you expand and contract things, the more that, you know, they’re going to shift over time.

Anthony Codispoti (29:24)
Gotcha. So you started out in the company in this environmental role, which gave you a lot of visibility into all the different processes that take place. How did your role evolve there over time?

Bradley Belden (29:39)
Well, yeah, so, you know, doing that job was very interesting, but over time you start, you know, your mind wanders, you want to get involved in other things. So I guess maybe that’s, you know, my nature as well. So I started looking into some of raw material management ⁓ and then sort of like how we do buy other ⁓ minerals to change the colors of our brick. So we do have two really good clay sources. One’s a shale that burns red.

fire clay that burns buff. can mix those two things together. You can use the kiln to change their colors as well. But one of the other things that we use is ⁓ like a manganese powder and iron oxide powders to then change the colors of those clay and ⁓ fire clay and shale. ⁓ So I started looking at some of those supplies where we got them from what they do to how they I went to our lab. We can test things out. Maybe try to make some new colors out of those things.

But one thing that ultimately happened was I started looking for alternative suppliers of those things as well. the natural next place that they sort of looked at me and said, well, hey, maybe you should be also ⁓ working with our purchasing manager. So eventually I started being in charge of the purchasing department as well and some of those processes that happened. But it all kind of started with

looking into our raw material management. Down to the fact that we were able to, as prices started rising, we ended up putting in our own material processing plant because we were able to take industrial byproducts that were the same exact minerals that we were purchasing from virgin mines. And so we were able to get the same looks with industrial byproducts from companies ⁓ in

Anthony Codispoti (31:36)
So waste products

from people who are just gonna, I don’t know, throw them away or dispose of them somehow.

Bradley Belden (31:41)
Yeah,

exactly. Some of this stuff was going into landfills. Some other things were being recycled in different ways, but the raw materials were way less expensive because it was somebody else’s industrial byproduct. they have to do something with it.

Anthony Codispoti (31:58)
And you guys didn’t need it to be sort of that pure virgin

source that you had been purchased. didn’t need to be sort of that clean.

Bradley Belden (32:03)
Correct.

Correct. Yeah. For certain things, some things we, you know, color is that important to us that we, you know, people were even skeptical. You can imagine I’m walking in saying, Hey, I’m going to use someone else’s trash to make your brick now. And so some of the plant managers were looking, looked at me sideways a little bit, but you know, we, we made sure that we did it maybe in the lowest risk products at first. And then we kept expanding that. And so, yeah, some things today still get that need that, you know, virgin raw material.

Anthony Codispoti (32:17)
Ha

Bradley Belden (32:35)
Sometimes we’re able to supplement it. So maybe not a whole set will change, but you can supplement it with some of those industrial right byproducts with whatever.

Anthony Codispoti (32:43)
where did the idea come

from? You guys hadn’t been doing this. It’s one of those things where now that you talk about it, it’s like, ⁓ my gosh, that makes so much sense. somebody had to think of the idea the first time.

Bradley Belden (32:55)
I don’t know. think it was just, you know what, actually I do, I sort of really just triggered a memory. what I found out is one of the places that we were buying it from got it from an industrial by byproduct. So I was like, ⁓ that’s very interesting. Maybe I can go and actually being in that environmental role, I knew the type of reporting we had to do for our byproducts. So, and I know that that’s all public information if you know where to look.

So I started looking for those same type of minerals as someone’s waste products at different plants across the country. I just would get on the, where you find that on the EPA reporting sites. And I just started calling their environmental managers. Cause I know even, you know, from my perspective, that’s a stressor when you have any sort of something that you’ve got to dispose of properly, even if it is just landfill, you know, that’s a cost to your company.

And where are you going to put that? I called them up versus calling up different people in their offices because I knew that they would probably, when I negotiate it with me, easier than maybe someone in their corporate office.

Anthony Codispoti (34:04)
So these raw materials previously, these waste materials, actually, I should say the waste materials they had been paying to dispose of, are they now still paying you to take it off their hands or do they realize, wait a minute, the value prop has changed here. And so now they’re able to make a little bit of money selling it to you.

Bradley Belden (34:23)
Now some of them, know, we made a deal, was sort of like, you know, I know the one company, ⁓ they were just like, well, thank God you called because we took it, they were like, we made an agreement where they didn’t pay us to take it, but we just were taking it for free. So they saved on their landfill disposals and we saved because we were able to take this material, crush it up, and then use it and size it and then use it in our run.

Anthony Codispoti (34:53)
I mean, this is like a win-win-win, like, you know, the company you’re working with, they’ve won, you know, they’re saving money on the disposal. You guys win the landfill, the earth wins, like, this is genius. So how big has this program become?

Bradley Belden (34:53)
they break.

Win-win, portal.

⁓ Yeah, it’s sustained us. mean, you know, there’s only so many things that we, you know, figured out to put into our, you know, our brick. I mean, we, you know, we don’t, it’s not too crazy. So there’s really just these iron and manganese is and then you figure out over time, there’s only so many people dealing in this, in these same materials, but it’s just, it’s sustained. So we’ve been doing this now for probably about 15 years and we have a, you know, a whole, you know, machine and department that work on it.

Anthony Codispoti (35:39)
Is there, this is completely out of left field, so I have no idea, is there an ability to put ⁓ other waste products in as sort of fillers into the bricks where it doesn’t have to be clay? Is that a thing?

Bradley Belden (35:54)
Yeah, we

did a lot of investigation. When we first started getting into it, that same thought occurred to me. was like, know, people, the word started getting out really, because, you know, some of the different groups that we were involved with and, and, and so people would, we would just try things out in the lab a lot, you know, or maybe a very small batch and just see how things worked. But ultimately we didn’t really find anything that worked that well.

So yeah, I kind of wish, you one of the things that we actually did put in there is glass. So we found a glass industrial byproduct out of Cleveland. Of course, they now no longer make that in Cleveland. So we’ve got to truck it in from further away, is not great. But glass, guess the way you can, it’s a flux. So it’s almost like getting a free 50 or hundred degrees in your kiln. in there, and we thought maybe it would be a little bit more widespread usage once we discovered it.

⁓ But we found that it’s most useful in a couple of places in our process and that’s what we’re using today.

Anthony Codispoti (37:00)
Does it change the appearance of the brick?

Bradley Belden (37:03)
It can. So you can either do one of two things. You know, there’s a couple of different ways to use the glass. You can either burn it shorter amount of time. You can burn it at ⁓ lower temperatures. And the other thing that it does is some of the products that we make, again, going back to some of the innovations that, you know, ⁓ our forefathers made to, you know, make a little extra money or it helped us survive in down times is a chemical resistant brick. So this goes into like dairy.

processing plants and it’s like they need a very low absorbing material for their flooring and brick is one of those choices for them. And so we need what that glass does is if you burn at the same temperature at the same time, then your absorptions will get lower and lower. So it definitely helped us make sure we meet that specification.

Anthony Codispoti (37:54)
What’s some new technology that ⁓ is in process or coming that you’re excited about?

Bradley Belden (38:01)
Well, one thing we just invested in, it’s not quite ready to go, but it’s in process as a digital printer. So this is something that we’re excited about. ⁓ We’ve been using a lot more coatings as the architects in the market, you can call it. ⁓ They get pickier and pickier about what kind of shape they envision for a building. So we’ve been spray coating.

different things so that our natural raw materials and even the additives that we’re using can make different grays, but hey, they want a cool gray. ⁓ So now you have to spray things on. So now we literally will get Sherwin Williams paint chips as like, this is the color I want. When we’re able to recreate those in our lab and then make those ⁓ in our… Well, this is a spray booth, but now printing is the next level.

Anthony Codispoti (38:54)
by printing onto the surface of the brick?

Bradley Belden (39:00)
thing I’m excited about now. This is just like if you had a printer at your house and all it could do is like one color, the whole sheet of paper is going to be just that color, right? And it can change from this color to that color. Now we’ve got like essentially like an inkjet printer that we can print anything on there. We can print geometric shapes on there. I think that we can print your face on a brick if you want. And then these are, these are

Minerals that we’ve used forever to coat bricks. So these are ⁓ ceramic based ⁓ Materials that it’s not like they scratch off or wear off. It’s not like paint even this is bonded to the brick So it’s just that it’s putting these things in a very specific pattern like your printer at home or at work and so the thing that we’re gonna use this for Immediately is some of the again. We have a vast array of

of styles that we offer, one of the most difficult things that we have to do is making them the same every time. And because we have so many things, we don’t get to focus on certain products ⁓ over and over. We might only make them once a year. So you got to hit that the right thing every time. sometimes you’re using different flashing technologies, which is just introducing extra natural gas or you’re drizzling in.

some materials in your kiln as it’s happening. If we can get away from some of that, we think this printing technology is going to make us very consistent run to run. And even when you’re doing that in your kiln, there’s spillover. So even if you only want to make 10,000 bricks of that color, you really can’t do that. You’ve got to make like 100,000 bricks in that color. And then sometimes there’s spillover. And so you’re maybe ruining another 10,000 bricks behind those

⁓ that lot. So this will be very almost like a pinpointed thing where you can make 10,000 specifically and there’ll be hopefully you know the idea is that there’ll be the perfect color every time. I’m sure we’re going to run into problems just like we do in everything else we do but in general we think this will be a big ⁓ quality improvement.

Anthony Codispoti (41:08)
So.

So if I’m understanding this correctly, ⁓ up until now to get a certain color brick, there’s a lot of variables. It’s the raw materials that go into it. It’s the temperature that the kiln fires at, because all that sort of affects how these different raw materials and the chemistry kind of changes that affects the color output. Is that right?

Bradley Belden (41:23)
Mm-hmm.

That’s absolutely true.

Anthony Codispoti (41:39)
Okay, and so now that you’ve got this digital printer coming soon, ⁓ you should be able to maybe use less expensive materials in the brick that maybe before to get a certain color, you know, you had to put more manganese and maybe manganese is more expensive. And now you don’t have to put that in. Obviously, you’ve got the added expense of now running the printer on top of it, though. And so do you see this?

I’m sort of thinking this through in my mind. Is this like a cost savings measure for some of your clients or is this probably more of like a premium upcharge? And now they’ve got the consistency of being able to get and they can get it in smaller runs.

Bradley Belden (42:24)
Yeah, you know, I think a little bit of both. think it’ll be a cost savings for certain material, for certain products that we think we can make more consistently and in smaller batches. But we also see it as a, as a, probably a premium upcharge because you want something very specific. ⁓ And we’re able to do that. Maybe, maybe you’ve got a building with a brick manufacturer, even if it’s building brick that we no longer can hit that style.

You your building is from 1942. We can’t make that color anymore. Those raw materials are gone. Those were burning coal-fired beehive kilns. We can do something similar with today’s technology, but if you want something that is hitting that exact color, then we can use this digital printing technology to get as close as we can. That’s probably the closest thing that anyone would be able to do to match those old buildings or come up with some sort of geometric pattern that some…

Architect wants to do so we see it as a little bit of both

Anthony Codispoti (43:27)
Okay, and so is this digital printer going in at one location to start? You guys kind of get your feet wet with it, figure out how it works.

Bradley Belden (43:34)
Yes, yes, it’ll go into one location. We’ll see to what degree. Again, that’s the place where we’re doing some of this flashing, old time flashing technology that ⁓ is, you know, it’s hard to be consistent. We have too many times we have to remake those products for people because they don’t come out of the kiln the right color the first time. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (43:55)
Interesting. How about are there any newer sustainability environmental concerns that have come about or that you think are coming around the corner in the last few years?

Bradley Belden (44:06)
Really there’s, know, carbon’s probably been the big one. But that’s been a conversation probably almost since I started. Environmentally we’ve, I think, you know, the brick industry’s done a really good job of working with the EPA. And, yeah, there’s hazardous air pollutants that we have to deal with. And there’s what’s called a max rule, which is maximum achievable control technology. So some of our plants have scrubbers.

We have permits that work within that permitting ⁓ structure. So we’re in compliance there. Anything new up and coming would probably be more related to ⁓ carbon. But, you know, I think that there…

Anthony Codispoti (44:51)
Okay, where do you see that going? If you had a crystal ball, how

do you think that’s going to unfold?

Bradley Belden (44:58)
Well, look, I think when you look at environmental compliance or just even environmental ⁓ degradation over time, you can see that there’s as much of a financial concern ⁓ or benefit to reducing emissions as there is an environmental one, which is why I think you see a lot of ⁓ emissions over time going down.

So even when you look at just coal-fired power plants to moving into some of the more renewables or even just natural gas-based power plants, you see that financial incentive to do so. ⁓ I know we’ve seen it over time as well. Like our newest plants are more fuel efficient than some of older plants are. And even some of that, even automating that 100-year-old plant for us is gonna make, we already see the benefits of that.

in some of our testing. That’s not a full blown process for us yet, but we see that we’re able to take time because the new technology that we’re doing at Plant 4 is taking time off of our burn, like a considerable amount of time. So these are going to be financial incentives for us. ⁓ So we think we’re actually doing the environment some benefit at the same time that we’re benefiting the bottom line.

Anthony Codispoti (46:24)
I mean, that’s the ultimate is when those ⁓ two priorities align because it makes it easier to get everybody on board and go in the same direction. Brad, what do you think is ⁓ looking sort of over the history of the company? What’s been the biggest reason for the growth? What are the biggest levers that you guys have pulled over the years that has allowed you guys to continue to go up into

Bradley Belden (46:49)
You know, I think it’s really got to be, I think it’s two things. It’s our product number one. ⁓ You know, we really focus on providing the most options and the highest quality options. ⁓ Secondly, I do think it’s the nature of our company. People call us and they get, you got a few Belden’s working here. You got my cousin John Strabs, so.

people call us up and you can get a hold of me, can get a hold of Brian, you can get a hold of Bob T. So I think there’s a personal touch and deep, you know, long built relationships with our distributors and even some of the masons and architects down the line. We’ve got some really long standing relationships with people in the industry. And we’re not that big, you know, so we’re the largest maybe family owned business brick maker in the country.

But when you look at our total volume versus some of the total volume of some of the ⁓ corporately owned types, still reasonably small.

Anthony Codispoti (47:54)
Is brick a mostly regional business? Because it occurred to me that there’s a lot of obviously freight costs involved. You mentioned that you guys did a stadium, I think in St. Louis was one of the places you mentioned. It’s not that close. I’m going to guess there are brick manufacturers that would have been closer to them. Am I seeing this wrong? Is it not really like a regional based business?

Bradley Belden (48:20)
No, I think you’re absolutely right. I think the more commercially focused you are, the further your products travel. Architects have a very, you know, they’re an interesting group of people and thank God for them for our business. They have a vision, they want a certain look. Sometimes we’re really, we’re just the best ⁓ provider to get the look that they’re envisioning. ⁓ So again, you’re talking, and there’s just not as many of us.

that do some of the commercial type of sizes and colors. So I’d say when you’re looking at track home builders or large scale, mass produced brick, and these are gonna go on homes, I’d say that’s a lot more regional. Because of the freight cost.

Anthony Codispoti (49:07)
Gotcha, that makes sense. The specialty

items, aren’t as many companies that can do what Bell & Brick does, and so they’re willing to ship the product in from further to get that exact look that they

Bradley Belden (49:19)
Exactly.

Anthony Codispoti (49:21)
Yeah. Brad, let’s shift gears. I’d like to hear about the… Sorry, you were going to say something?

Bradley Belden (49:23)
and Steven.

Yeah, even saying that, I’d say we’re still primarily going to be in the Northeast quadrant. you know, yeah, we still get jobs in California, Texas and Florida. You know, so we actually just did a job in Seoul, South Korea, believe it or not. mean, but it was, yeah, but it was, you know, a high end client using a New York architect that, you know, we sell a lot of brick into the New York market. And that guy was like, I got the perfect brick for you. They made it in Ohio.

Anthony Codispoti (49:35)
wow.

Really?

Bradley Belden (49:55)
And those people even came to our factory to see us making their build the bricks for their building. So it is kind of we do get a couple of these types of jobs here and there. But ⁓ again, those are more.

Anthony Codispoti (50:07)
What was what’s the purpose

of that building? Is it an office building? Is it a stadium?

Bradley Belden (50:12)
It’s a high-end retail ⁓ company, but I guess it’s right in the middle of Seoul and I’d love to visit it sometime and see what it’s all about.

Anthony Codispoti (50:22)
That’s fun. Okay, so now let’s shift gears and I’d like to hear about a serious challenge that you’ve overcome Brad What was that? How did you get through it? What did you learn coming out the other side?

Bradley Belden (50:34)
Yeah, I’d say the first challenge that really, you it was like, hey, my cousins were like, hey, we need you in the environmental health and safety department. And I was like, okay, that’s interesting. And we had a guy that was close to retirement age. So he took me under his wing and, you know, me those processes and rules.

But I’d say the biggest challenge was probably the biggest challenge my career just getting shifting gears from Chicago, New York into this and learning how to make brick and learning environmental regulations and I you know, we did some things under you know his guidance that the EPA didn’t like and You know was putting in this news. I told you about this 25 year old plant It was putting in this 25 year old plant because of the environmental

implications of a new ⁓ kiln and new plant, we had to start putting these scrubbers on some of the other plants. What happened was ⁓ those scrubbers were put on, but they weren’t put on in time. They started before I got here, of course, but they started that plant ⁓ before those other scrubbers were on. It took me a few months to realize really what was going on.

reading some of these permits and realizing some of things that we needed to do. And then all of a sudden we got hit with a suit from the Attorney General’s Office of Ohio on behalf of the Ohio EPA. But there were some sleepless nights on my part trying to figure out how to deal with that and how to address that. But I’d say that was the biggest thing. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (52:12)
you

Bradley Belden (52:30)
We came out of that. I really had to put a lot of extra time in to go through the research and go through the history before I got there of, you know, understanding what led up to that and then also trying to work through a lawsuit with the EPA. And I really think we ended up coming out of it with a really good relationship with the EPA because I think we almost went way to the other side at the same time. I mean, it was

It was the air, it was on the air side that we got hit with the lawsuit. But at the same time, we were getting letters on, you know, some of our solid waste practices and some of our water practices in our mining operation. So again, there’s, there’s cracks and, know, almost any business you can probably go to and they’ll tell you their struggles. And luckily, I think because of that relationship that, you know, I developed and then I hired my cousin, John Streb to help me out in that department.

and some of the stuff he’s continued to do with them. We never got fined on the solid waste stuff and if anything we’ve done great ⁓ in that department. And that was really related to what do we do with some of our bricks that we don’t end up firing in our kilns. So we now actually recycle that right back into our brick making ⁓ process where before we put it back into the, there’s an argument about.

harmful but we put a lot of that stuff just right back into our mining operation. But then on the water side we had these mines that were discharging water and we were exceeding permit levels but it was a brand new permit and it was a big learning curve but every time the EPA would come out to inspect us they were sort of like, well this looks wonderful. I think they expected some sort of cesspool and when they come out there and they see

Anthony Codispoti (54:02)
Okay.

Bradley Belden (54:26)
know, deer and beaver and wildlife and clear water coming out the other side. But we’re just in a naturally ⁓ occurring area of very low pH and high metals. But we spent a lot of money. We put in lot of passive treatment systems. This means cat tails and limestone pathways that extend the time that the water spends on our property before it gets discharged.

into the nearby streams to the point now where our discharging, the streams nearby would have exceeded these permit levels, if that makes sense. That’s sort of some of the stuff you end up having to figure out. So even though we had these permit levels that we had to meet, the stream that we were discharging into was much naturally occurring, would have been way over the level. So we were battling this. So that’s the story we had to…

Anthony Codispoti (55:06)
Mm-hmm.

just on its own without the discharge would have been over the levels.

Bradley Belden (55:23)
trying to tell the EPA like this water just in this whole area is low pH and high metals. So, but what we’ve done on our property is nothing short of kind of almost miraculous, something that we never thought we could achieve the levels that we did over time. But it took a lot of work, time and money to get us there. So we have a very good relationship with the Ohio EPA at this point, whether that’s solid waste, ⁓ water and

and of course our air permeability. But it was something that when I first started it was for sure very stressful.

Anthony Codispoti (55:55)
I mean.

Yeah. How were you getting through that? I mean, you’re starting in a new role, the family company. Obviously you want to do well, put your best foot forward and you’re very quickly discovering being made aware of, as you put it, cracks, right? There were things that were not being done the way that they should be done. And now this lawsuit, this giant mess falls into your lap. Like, was there somebody you could kind of raise your hand to and go, you know, ask for help? How did you work?

Work your way through this.

Bradley Belden (56:31)
Yeah, so I I talked regularly with my dad and his cousins, Bill and Bob, who were in charge of the company. And they did, and they’re like, that’s why we put you there. Yeah, because they didn’t know they weren’t getting all the information. The guy before was a little bit, I don’t know, he just was kind of a little bit cavalier, thought he had a handshake with the EPA. He’s one of those old school guys that didn’t think it would turn into this.

He was working on all these things. wasn’t like he just ignored it, but he didn’t think it was.

Anthony Codispoti (57:03)
maybe not with the

speed or urgency that it needed to be addressed.

Bradley Belden (57:07)
Absolutely, that’s exactly right. And a lot of this was new technology to give him some credit. These were the first time scrubbers were being put on ⁓ in the brick industry. So this was new technology. mean, you’re putting on a multi-million dollar ⁓ pieces of equipment and you just expect them to turn on and work right away. ⁓ We’ve continued to innovate and make those more efficient over time, but they don’t always just work.

So I’ll give him some credit too that they didn’t work the way that he hoped they would, you know, too. even as the timeline got a little bit messed up and the compliance got a little bit messed up, but yeah, it definitely, you know, woke me up and you just feel again, like those, those sleepless nights about like, my gosh, someone doesn’t like us and you know, we’re going to get in trouble and it’s just not a fun feeling.

Anthony Codispoti (58:02)
I mean, I think it says a lot for your character, Brad, and for that, you know, the Belden Brick Company in general, that, you know, when this came to your attention, you didn’t hide from it. Right. It was like, ⁓ wow, we got some stuff to fix here. You know, how can we do that? And it sounds like you guys made rather large investments and continue to do so, you know, continue to innovate and find ways, you know, how can we keep the water clean? How can we keep the air clean? You know, how can we be good stewards of the environment?

Bradley Belden (58:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think just more knowledge, I think came out over time too. I don’t think these are things and, know, that’s why there’s an EPA. think a lot of, you know, people were just somewhat ignorant to some of the damage they were doing to the environment. ⁓ you know, the, the water, the water one in particular, we bought a, we bought this property cause it was an old coal strip mine and, there was still some fire clay on it. Well,

those guys, they like kind of raped and pillaged the land, but we were kind of left holding the bag. So it was ⁓ just not a great situation, but we cleaned it up. again, every time the EPA would see the numbers, they thought it was probably just sludge going into a creek and they would come out again and then just sort of marvel at how beautiful the area was. And now we’ve got the numbers to go along with what it looks like.

those numbers kept coming down, kept coming down. But it takes time to take root. That was the other thing we had to try to get the EPA to understand is that you can’t just flip a switch. And especially on water compliance, it takes time for that vegetation to grow and to build all those different things with using limestone pathways and all that sort of

Anthony Codispoti (59:50)
Brad, what’s your superpower?

Bradley Belden (59:53)
I don’t think I have a superpower. mean, if there’s anything I guess I feel like I do is I try to hear people out, ⁓ listen to their problems and help them get them the resources they need to figure something out. So whether that’s our customers with an issue, whether that’s our employees with an issue. So I’d say it’s just listening.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:20)
Now, you guys have, you know, a decent employee base, I’m going to guess several hundred employees based on, you know, the size of your operation. How do you approach and you you mentioned before that it’s harder and harder, especially post COVID to get people into some of these roles? How do you guys approach recruiting? How do you approach retention? What are some things you guys have tried and found that is working?

Bradley Belden (1:00:50)
Yeah, it’s an interesting question. Yeah, I’d say that the environment’s definitely different than when I first started. I first started, was a lot of families are still are still a lot of families. But I’d say it was like you almost had that. They always say that you had to know somebody to get a job at Belt and Brick. Now, the last few years, it’s, you know, thankfully, we’re in a position now where it’s not quite the turnover we had for, you know, the two to three years after COVID. That was sort of like, you know, war. And we just needed warm bodies at that point, felt like.

You’re turning over that same 50 people, so we’d hire 300 people to fill 50 jobs. You’re still, luckily, we had a very mature ⁓ management team. Again, now that’s something we’re working on to maintain a sort of that second tier, like the managers in training. I’d say we probably lost some of those during those years, so we’re trying to get that back.

Some of the things that we’ve done, know, we offered attendance bonus was probably the most impactful thing. So that’s basically a dollar an hour extra. If you just come to work, just come to work on time every day and you’ll make an extra, you know, if you’re working 40 hours a week, you’ll make an extra 80 bucks every two weeks. But, you know, and I think that that is stuck. It’s still amazing how many people can’t seem to do that.

when you look at the statistics, I mean, there’s always going to be something that comes up for any, even our best employees over the course of the year, they might not get it for a paycheck or two, but it’s amazing how many people can’t seem to get that, like I’d say most of their paychecks. So that is something though that at least it incentivizes them, we’re hoping it incentivizes them at the home too, or their wife and kids might say, you need to get to work.

⁓ So you can bring home the 80 bucks ⁓ That’s one thing we do we’ve offered this for a long time. We offer some education assistance So especially if you’re gonna go back and learn something that’s gonna be applicable to your job here at Belden brick Would you offer some financial incentive to go back to school? ⁓ more and more we’re doing more training, especially in the maintenance and like electrician

Programmer with all the automation you have now you need more operators programmers installers of all these things so ⁓ We have we have like we’ve shifted people we’ve allowed people to You know essentially expand their scope at the company into some of those types of as well

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:36)
Brad, you spend quite a bit of time being involved with different industry and community boards. You’re a busy guy running a pretty good sized company. Why do you give your time to some of these organizations?

Bradley Belden (1:03:50)
⁓ I think it’s just been instilled in the Belden family and many other families in Canton especially that you see over and over again. think selfishly there’s a couple of boards I do learn a great deal about from the other board members and you get they’re part of our it’s a trade association of some sort whether that’s on the mining side or the manufacturing side or just the the brick industry side. ⁓

some of local boards, it’s about just, you know, keep building your community and giving back. We’ve all, we know here that we’ve been given a lot of great opportunities and, ⁓ you know, we want to make sure that we live in a community that’s thriving and, you know, we don’t always see that. So we want to make sure we can do what we can, even if it’s, whether it’s money or time for sure. But just, I think it’s a sense of…

Pride for our community, a sense of empathy for those that are struggling. And ⁓ we just want to give back whenever we can.

Anthony Codispoti (1:04:54)
I like that. just have one more question for you, Brad. But before I ask it, want to do two things. First, everyone listening, I’ll invite you to pause for just a second. Go to your podcast app. Go ahead and hit the Follow or Subscribe button there. It helps to make sure you continue to get more great interviews like we’ve had today with Brad Belden. And it helps other people find the show too. Brad, I also want to let people know the best way either to get in touch with you directly to follow your story or to get in touch with the company. What would that be?

Bradley Belden (1:05:25)
Well, our website is at ⁓ www.beldenbrick.com. So hopefully that’s easy to remember for your listeners. then our Instagram is ⁓ at Belden Brick Co. And ⁓ we’ve got a great marketing person putting up content all the time. So hopefully if you can kind of geek out on Brick stuff like we do. ⁓ But so yeah, if you want to find us ⁓ or know where to buy our products right on our website, there’s a thing says where to buy.

There’s a pretty good list of all of our products on there too and a lot of photos. So yeah, that’s one of the cool things about our product is you get to see them go on some very cool buildings and there’s a sense of satisfaction ⁓ after those buildings go up. So you can see what those products look like individually and then of course how they look on a building.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:15)
Okay, so belldenbrick.com and at BelldenbrickCo on Instagram. So last question for you, Brad. You and I reconnect one year from today and you’re celebrating something big. What is that big thing that you’re celebrating a year from now?

Bradley Belden (1:06:32)
Geez, ⁓ I’d say it’s probably you know on the business-wise thing, you know, one of the things that we’ve also we haven’t really talked about our distributors a whole lot We’ve owned a couple of distributors So again, we’re the manufacturer if you’re gonna buy our bricks, you don’t really call us directly unless you live in Sherwood Creek, Ohio, then you give us a call but ⁓ You call our distributors. We’ve owned one in New York and Philadelphia and Detroit we wholly owned but we started this new venture a couple years ago with a

with a competing brick manufacturer, but they’re also a family-owned brick manufacturer out of Nebraska. But ⁓ they do a lot of what we do. We’re direct competitors, but we’re very friendly. It’s kind of a great industry in that way that we’re generally friendly with about everybody in the brick industry. But we decided to do a joint venture and then partner with some of our favorite ⁓ brick salesmen across the country.

We’ve opened up a distributor in Indianapolis a few years ago and they’ve done very well for us. And then we just recently opened up two more offices. So it’s kind been a big year for us. So we now have a, it’s called Premier Brick Sales, is the name of that company. And we just started one in Chicago and we just started one in Tampa, Florida. So I’m hoping in a year from now that we’ll be celebrating some good years out of those folks.

and ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:57)
And so it’s a partnership with this group in Nebraska in each of these locations. And you guys are jointly selling your competing products alongside of each other.

Bradley Belden (1:08:09)
Yeah, so even in our even our New York office, one of the best things that they offer is our our competitors. So we don’t just sell Belden Bricks out of it’s called, you Belden Tri-State building materials in New York, but they sell a lot of our competitors. So it’s actually kind of nice when I do go see ⁓ my competitors. You know, they they also know that we do a pretty good job selling their products in the New York market. So, again, it’s it’s it’s somewhat

incestuous I guess in the brick industry. have other ⁓ distributors in different parts of the country that are also our competitors. They own distribution as well. And so, you know, it just depends on where you are in the country, but you know, we do sell each other’s products. You don’t want to have just that one product to sell a customer. So if you’re talking to an architect in New York or Chicago, you want to be able to offer different things.

And so having multiple lines, maybe not every line, but multiple lines at your distributor is a good thing. So we partnered up knowing, hey, if you’ve got building brick and endicot brick, you’re going to have a pretty successful distributor. And then hopefully we can get a few other lines and different, even competing type of materials or complementary building materials in those offices as well. And then of course, when they go try to sell that into the market.

they’re going to have success because they’ve got belt and brick and endocott.

Anthony Codispoti (1:09:35)
So when you go into these new markets with this joint venture with a distributor, are you acquiring an existing distributor business or are you guys starting something from the ground up?

Bradley Belden (1:09:48)
No, it’s a, we feel like it’s an interesting concept. We’re building something from the ground up. We’re basically, it’s nothing really ⁓ intentional other than to say, send a message to everybody in the brick industry to say, if, if, ⁓ you know, if you’re, if your distributor gets bought out or, you know, it go, or if it goes away or if you move, like, you know, we’ve got these relationships in the brick industry. Like if there’s just some opportunity.

We’re not looking to go buy a company. We’re not looking to go take out one of our existing distributors in those markets. But if something would happen to them and there’s somebody in that market that finds themselves out of a job or wanting to do something different, then they give us a call and that’s sort of what happened. We ended up with a couple of these so-called free agents in these markets and we decided to invest with them.

Anthony Codispoti (1:10:47)
Interesting. Is it capital intensive to be a distributor or is it more of a relationship thing? It’s not like they’re, they’re probably like stocking some samples to show people, but

Bradley Belden (1:10:58)
Yeah, it’s like

the typical brickyard. mean, so no, not nearly as capital intensive as being a brick manufacturer for sure. But you do need, you know, showroom, some office space, and hopefully, you know, most of them needs at least some yard. Not all brick distributors have a big brickyard or a brickyard at all, but most do and the successful ones do. So you do got to invest in some real estate and some office space.

But other than that, it’s mostly these relationship people. They’re really good salespeople.

Anthony Codispoti (1:11:30)
So I’m in Columbus,

Ohio. ⁓ Is Hamilton Parker considered a brickyard? Was this a distributor? Okay. Okay. Okay.

Bradley Belden (1:11:38)
Yeah. And they’re one of our distributors. Yep. So you picked the right one.

They’re the good ones. So yeah, if you’re in Columbus, go to Hamilton Parker and you’ll find some build brick there. They’ve been a long time partner of ours. So again, ⁓ the people at Hamilton Parker don’t have to worry. We’re not looking to go invade and start a new brick scale.

Anthony Codispoti (1:11:48)
Okay.

You’ve got a good partner here in Columbus.

This is more about where maybe you guys don’t have as strong of a foothold. That’s where you would look to expand with this concept. Okay.

Bradley Belden (1:12:03)
Correct. Yep.

Yep, exactly.

So who knows, over time things happen, you know, but we had the one in Indiana and we would talk about, is there anything else going on? And it was a very short conversation. like, no, everyone’s pretty satisfied. And then with just a couple of opportunities came to us in the same year. yeah, so that’s an interesting question. So in a year, I’m hoping that we’re, you know, clicking some champagne glasses with a year under our belt in those markets.

Anthony Codispoti (1:12:35)
Fun stuff. Well, Brad Belden from the Belden Brick Company in Canton, Ohio. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Bradley Belden (1:12:45)
Thanks Anthony, good to see you again.

Anthony Codispoti (1:12:47)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.