40 Years in Elevators: Lessons from an Industry Veteran | Mark Boelhouwer
Today’s guest is Mark Boelhouwer, a respected industry leader whose career spans Otis, Oracle Elevator, Vantage, and the founding of American Elevator Group. Mark has helped shape the modern elevator landscape through hundreds of acquisitions, decades of leadership, and a front row seat to the industry’s biggest shifts. In this conversation, he shares lessons on growth, leadership, talent, and why the future of the elevator business is still full of opportunity.
Chapters:
00:00 Mark’s Journey into the Elevator Industry
09:34 Building American Elevator Group
12:20 The Value of Experience in the Industry
16:27 Surprises in the Elevator Industry
20:14 Commitment to Elevators and Career Reflections
21:51 Navigating Career Transitions
24:00 Lessons from Starting Oracle Elevator
28:09 Key Insights on Team Dynamics
31:43 Future of the Elevator Industry
36:33 Advice for Newcomers in the Industry
Resources:
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Transcript:
Mark Boelhouwer (00:00)
What surprised me the most was how little I knew about the elevator industry. Because you know, let’s face it, a company like Otis, there was an HR department, a legal department, a tax department, a risk management department.
Matt Allred (00:04)
you
Mark Boelhouwer (00:14)
there’s people that took care of things, right? So you get to your own company And you look around the room and it’s like, well, it’s at you or is it me, Bill, you know?
an awful lot fast. And you also realized,
small companies don’t enter into the mathematics of a big company,
was a big competitive world out there and it was an awful lot to do. It difficult to get started.
we didn’t plan. was like, hey, we’re going to be really successful. We’re going to really grow this company. And our issue is not like avoiding problems. Our issue is going to be who wants to lend million so we can grow?
Matt Allred (00:48)
Wow.
Mark Boelhouwer (00:49)
I think.
where you’re going and having some realistic scenarios of not just the bad case, but the really good case and planning for those was a very early lesson I took away
Matt Allred (01:01)
Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers podcast brought to you by the Allred Group. I’m your host, Matt Allred. When talent is mission critical, call the Allred Group. With industry expertise, top talent, and exceptional customer service, you need the Allred Group on your side. Your priority is our priority. Call now, 404-890-0445. Today’s guest is Mark Boelhouwer a respected industry leader whose career spans Otis,
Oracle Elevator, Vantage, and the founding of American Elevator Group. Mark has helped shape the modern elevator landscape through hundreds of acquisitions, decades of leadership, and a front row seat to the industry’s biggest shifts. In this conversation, he shares lessons on growth, leadership, talent, and why the future of the elevator business is still full of opportunity.
Matt Allred (01:53)
Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark Boelhouwer (01:55)
nice of you to have me.
Matt Allred (01:57)
Yeah, I appreciate it. I know you’ve been traveling a lot. It was good to catch you at Long Beach a few weeks ago. And then before you take off again, we can take a few minutes to chat. So appreciate it. And I wanted to just kind of start with your journey into the elevator industry. How did you get started in this place?
Mark Boelhouwer (02:20)
Yeah, you know, it’s sort of a like a lot of things in life, a lot of serendipity involved in, you know, good luck and hard work. But I started as an attorney out of law school with United Technologies Company, which is the parent company of Otis. And when I graduated from school, I went to work at Otis Elevator.
Matt Allred (02:35)
Cool.
Mark Boelhouwer (02:40)
which is ⁓ in Farmington, Connecticut, where I still live. So if nothing else, you know, it’s changed my life dramatically. It’s where I chose to live, raise my children, have a family. And Otis, very luckily for me, sent me to Paris, France, the head of the European, where the European division of Otis was based. And it’s right before the Soviet Union started to
Matt Allred (03:05)
my, do you speak French then? Was that something you had to pick up?
Mark Boelhouwer (03:05)
and, ⁓ yeah, as bad as I do today, but yeah,
and Otis was an amazing place in Paris. there must’ve been people working there from 50 or 60 different countries. So it really was a, I’ll say it wrong, a tower of Babel, right? Where, English was the common language. So my, my French did not improve, cause your, currency was English all day long.
Matt Allred (03:18)
wow.
Sure,
sure.
Mark Boelhouwer (03:29)
But anyway, it was a very active period for Otis Otis, of course, very well known. They always have said they want to be first in every market. I think they still do business in every country they’re allowed to. we did lots of acquisitions throughout Europe and the Soviet Union at that time. Extremely exciting time. So I came back to the United States came back to Farmington, Connecticut.
Otis bought a company called Delta Elevator in Boston and that was the start of buying almost 100 elevator companies that I went on to lead called North American Elevator Services for the next 15 years. So we built a $400 million company and I stopped being a lawyer and started being head of that division. It was very lucky for me. Not something I wanted to do at the time, but I was encouraged to do. ⁓
Matt Allred (04:09)
Interesting. Okay. Yeah
So when you came
on as an attorney, obviously UTC is a huge company, but they basically said, well, we want you in Otis and we want you on the acquisition team. It sounds like you pretty much did that all the way through. Is that correct? That would just became part of what you did every day.
Mark Boelhouwer (04:31)
Yes. So, you know, it’s been part of who I’ve been for the last 40 years. You know, I’m not completely immodest. I have skills, but I’m particularly good at M &A. I’ve done. I don’t even know. I’ve lost track. I don’t want to exaggerate, but.
Matt Allred (04:46)
You’ve had a lot of practice is what I’m
hearing, right? It’s, it’s your.
Mark Boelhouwer (04:50)
Yeah,
I probably bought or sold around 300 elevator companies in my lifetime and it’s what I enjoy. you know, the expression, if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There’s variations on that. Right. So left, left my own devices. I will go buy another elevator company. But yeah, I got that chance from Otis and that was wonderful. I mean, and the United Technologies is a big company, global company with carrier.
Matt Allred (05:00)
For sure.
Exactly, yeah.
Mark Boelhouwer (05:13)
Air conditioner and Pratt & Whitney jet engines, Sikorsky helicopters, lot of clout.
Matt Allred (05:20)
Yeah, yeah. A lot of different directions you could have gone. And I just remember back in my college days, there was looking ahead and looking at these big companies, right? So many divisions. At any point, did you say, you know what, I think I’m work for Otis for a couple of years and maybe I’ll pop over to Pratt & Whitney and then I’ll go over to Carrier or whatever. Did that ever cross your mind? Or did you just kind of get situated with Otis and you’re like, no, this is where it’s at.
Mark Boelhouwer (05:47)
No, I think that’s an excellent question, you know, with these big there clearly was an expectation within United Technologies that if you really wanted to get promoted, you would change and go from Otis to Sikorsky Helicopter or whatever other division as the next logical step so that you become more well-rounded in matters United Technologies. However, in my case, I kind of got kicked out of the legal department.
when I discovered how much I enjoyed being on the operating side of the business, the running of day to day. And like I think you probably, I listened to some parts of some other talks you’ve had, Matt, with really talented and people with worthy careers. You just kind of go where it feels right.
one thing I will tell people about the elevator business, and I’m sure you’ve heard this, is that…
Somehow you kind of know early on if that’s what you’re going to do, right? And it either embraces you, it sounds, you know, kind of like out there. But, you kind of figure out if you’re an elevator person or not. And then once you do, once you get in this business, it’s hard to leave. I see a lot of the younger people at the show like we were there together. I’m like, hey, if you’re there past 30 and you’ve got five years in, you know, it’s not that big a leap of faith to see yourself as as someone in their 60s like
me that spent their whole career doing it, it happens.
Matt Allred (07:08)
Sure, you’re probably gonna still be there.
Yeah, the way I say it sometimes is it gets in your blood. It’s almost like, there’s nowhere else you wanna be, right? I’m just gonna be here because I love it, love the people, the market, the industry, and there’s nothing else I wanna do.
Mark Boelhouwer (07:22)
And I firmly believe that I could go anywhere in the world today.
Either for social or professional just call up most other elevator companies and say hey, I’m in town I’d like to visit you or even hey, I could use a little help I’m in a little bit of trouble here in this country for whatever reasons right and that community would respond right I think it’s a pretty tight global So always always been enjoyable
Matt Allred (07:45)
Yeah. And I haven’t. go ahead.
Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that internationally. I haven’t ⁓ experimented internationally to go to Germany and call an elevator company. And I’m not, you know, I’m not as knowledgeable as somebody like yourself that’s that’s been in the trenches for years and years. But I’ve heard people talk about that. Right. Moving from had one gentleman, you know, moved from Australia, traveling through Europe and was able to get jobs and
worked for different companies and all kinds of really cool experiences just because he had the knowledge and had worked in Australia. And it’s like, all right, you’re part of the club, you’re part of the family, then welcome.
Mark Boelhouwer (08:25)
Yeah, well, you know, at one point, pre-children, my wife and I visited Australia. I called up some counterpart or similar role at the Australian headquarters and they said, oh, yeah, come on over. Yeah, but it’s it was something called they Thursdays, which meant that every Thursday that had a day of the month and ended in a five meant you could start drinking at one o’clock.
Matt Allred (08:31)
Nice.
That’s hilarious.
Mark Boelhouwer (08:55)
And he said, you better get here by 1.30 because if you don’t, you’re going to be three, four beers behind. So not that they don’t work hard there. And this was the 90s, maybe a different time. But the nicest group of people, we still end up talking elevators forever until like probably 10 o’clock at night. So yeah, it’s a nice community.
Matt Allred (09:12)
Sure, no, that’s awesome. Yeah, it
is amazing. And obviously you’ve stayed in it for the 40 years. So what is it you’re doing these days? Obviously you worked at Otis for many years, you built Oracle, you built AEG, Vantage, GAL and some of those. But what do you find yourself doing these days?
Mark Boelhouwer (09:34)
Yeah, that’s nice of you to ask, Matt. So I’m still involved with the company I started in 2020 called American Elevator Group. American Elevator Group was, that name didn’t exist at the time. And the timing was kind of interesting being on the cusp of COVID. But the idea was to build a nationwide elevator service company.
sort of like what I’d done with Oracle, but even on a bigger scale. But I didn’t want to do that forever. So I did it for five years. We built American Elevator Group to be a…
350 million a year service company in 25 states and I’m no longer the CEO, but I’m on the board and the founder and have significant interest in the wellbeing of the company and nurturing people there and growing that company. So I’m very active with that. And then the fun thing for me is…
Matt Allred (10:08)
Nice.
for sure.
Mark Boelhouwer (10:24)
And kind of nice to some of your listeners if they’re, you know, towards the end of their career versus the beginning, is there, there’s still a lot of demand for people that have experience no matter what their, their age is. I always thought, you know, as a young person that you hit 55, you became unmarketable. You’re, you’re far more knowledgeable on these topics than I am, Matt, but, it’s not the case. People really want to take advantage of it. So,
I’m on the board of two other private equity outfits. One owns companies in the facility management space and one in, believe it or not, the adult sports league space. These are not elevator related at all, but they do acquisitions and they have people issues and they grow and they have all kinds of similarities. And I got to say, it’s been very enjoyable to apply what I’ve learned from.
all the people and issues in the elevator trade to different trades.
Matt Allred (11:16)
It would be fascinating to see just how much is obviously transferable skills, but also transferable, the knowledge, right? that this happened here, like you said, people issues are gonna happen in any business, right? And so, so much of what you’ve learned elsewhere can be brought right in and applied.
Mark Boelhouwer (11:36)
Well, the people issues is a good one, right? You know, it’s even though all the basic frameworks for what the issues look like are the same, you know, it’s always people and you know, that’s what always keeps the job interesting, right? Getting the right people and keeping them engaged and all of those things, yeah. So.
Matt Allred (11:51)
Absolutely.
Sure,
well, the dynamics are different, right? The business is different. You got somebody who’s acting up, but the situation’s gonna be different and their coworkers are different. So it always keeps it interesting and ⁓ never a dull moment when it comes to people issues. I did wanna ask a little bit, you mentioned, thought maybe at 55, people become unmarketable, but I’m curious for your thoughts on this because…
What I’m seeing is so many knowledgeable and experienced people getting ready to retire, got 40, 50 years under their belt, and the pain that causes when somebody walks out the door and it’s like, wow, we can’t get that back. In fact, I know a gentleman in his 70s, late 70s, I asked him if he’s going to retire. He’s like, I’ve tried twice and they keep paying me to answer my phone. If nothing else, I’m answering questions, I’m helping people troubleshoot or solve problems.
and they’re paying me to keep my phone on. What’s your experience with exactly that? People ⁓ leaving and taking that knowledge.
Mark Boelhouwer (12:56)
Yeah, so that’s a great question. if you do the calculus, run the numbers let’s just say, a 65-year-old mod supervisor, who I will put up there as one of the most important, hard to replace persons in any elevator company.
versus training a new person to get them up to speed with the judgment and with all of the cliches about younger people and what they’re being taught these days and all that. You’re gonna keep that person from retiring as long as you possibly can.
I do remember various cycles in my career where we were actively pushing those people out the door. Maybe not for the smartest reasons, but because they were higher paid than the younger people and they were eventually gonna retire. But now can make personal decisions, right?
I find most of the people that will cry those crocodile tears about being forced to stay and not being allowed to retire. It’s of course, it’s a consensual relationship. and the trick is trying to find an environment and a work cadence for them that allows you to pull out all the good value from them without letting them stack rails or anything like that anymore. But yeah, no, I mean, I think it’s a great market to be in.
Matt Allred (14:12)
for sure.
Mark Boelhouwer (14:17)
And you tell me, Matt, I think when I was when I was CEO of Vantage for those years and doing business with every service company in North America, I literally would get one call a day from a customer, which was great. And they would always finish with some variation on, hey, if you have a mod
that you know is looking for work and I’m like, yeah, they’re just growing on trees back here in the parking lot in the Bronx, you know. So.
Matt Allred (14:38)
Right. Yeah.
I mean, the knowledgeable is so invaluable. And I think that’s part of the reason that it’s hard to let it go. It’s part of the reason that I think so many people stay is once you’ve put in the time, the effort, the energy you’ve learned, you can kind of write your ticket so many different ways. There’s a lot of value in that knowledge.
Mark Boelhouwer (15:02)
Yeah, and I don’t know how many of the conversations you’ve had with people that are going to be way smarter than I am about, you know, what AI is going to do to our industry and things like that. I’m a novice on those kind of thoughts. Right. But I do think, though, when people talk about what’s going to happen in the elevator trade,
we’re kind of in a, at least from where I can see, a really good situation vis-a-vis AI, because AI is going be able to find a way to do things like examine lots of data and give us better and faster answers and doing the stuff that we never have time to do. It can think about things. But it’s never going to change the oil in ⁓ a machine room. It’s never going to get in a car top, right?
If you’re looking for a profession and you’re a young person, I think elevator is a pretty good place to be. I don’t see our jobs going away.
Matt Allred (15:58)
Yeah,
I agree. I think there’s a lot of efficiencies that can be captured, but somebody’s got to still get there and do the work, right? It’s got to be done. Well, let’s talk for a minute about a little bit earlier on in your career. And I’m curious, what surprised you the most early on as you got into the industry and looking at it from outside perspective, of course? And what is this? What is this thing? Do I want to stay here?
Mark Boelhouwer (16:27)
Yeah, so I think we touched on a little bit what I was really surprised about because I had a lot of formal education. I wasn’t even going to be a lawyer. I had an MA in economics and an MBA. And then I got my law degree. So my father-in-law was pretty convinced I was going to stay in school till I was in my 30s.
And it’s not really, it wasn’t at least in the late field that had a lot of formal education, right? A lot of the profiles were, you know, super smart people, hardworking people that generally had worked for an OEM or as I prefer to call them Matt, the foreign
So the
Matt Allred (17:14)
There you go.
Mark Boelhouwer (17:18)
was the acceptance you could find, right? And, you know, people were very, you know, they were competitive.
But, you know helpful and wanted to push careers and well, you know, well, I’m sure we’ll talk about the NAEC later through vehicles like that. You really had a real chance to dive in with both hands and really further yourself in learning the industry. And people were very willing to help you out. And this may be true in other industries. I’m just not smart enough to know. I only know one. But the elevator was great in terms of finding mentors and people that were there willing to help you.
you know, get along. that was such a pleasant thing. The other thing that amazed me was maybe from a personality, personal disposition, or just, you know, not having any kind of training background in elevators or even knowledge of basic electricity or any of that
was how easy it was to come and ask questions and also to find out there was still lot of room for improvement in the elevator trade. People do things in our trade because that’s the way it’s been done, right? So, and I think that’s still the case today. So yeah, those are nice surprises. There was still work to be done and there was lots of ways to get ahead and enjoy yourself with great people.
Matt Allred (18:30)
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been impressed having worked in other industries as well. I’ve not found one myself that’s as open or that people are as willing to answer questions and help educate. So I’m curious, once you kind of got in and realized, okay, here I am, elevator industry, how long before you started to realize, hey, I think I’m going to spend my life here? Did it take months or years or when did things really click?
for you.
Mark Boelhouwer (19:02)
Yeah, so I think I’d been in about five years and I was sort of wearing two hats as a lawyer doing the deals and then also like the number two in charge of managing these companies after we bought them. And then you know, from a big company point of view, they want their lawyers to be objective and not be part of the deal team, right? They
And as much as I took offense to the fact that I couldn’t be objective, it was the right idea. So I was forced to make a decision whether to continue with the legal department, probably as you correctly noted before, leaving and going to a carrier, air conditioning kind of thing. Or, you know, I went home and I talked to my wife and I said, gosh, I can’t imagine anything’s gonna be any more fun.
It wasn’t very lucrative. Otis in the 80s and 90s was a great place to work. It wasn’t a pay place to work, but it was it was good and it is solid, you know, solid day. yeah, it was then I said, OK, I’m going to make a commitment to elevators. And honestly, you know that they say the unexamined life, something is not worth living, but I’ve never I’ve never looked back on that decision or questioned that ever.
So.
Matt Allred (20:14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that was going to be my next question, right? Ever look back, it sounds like, nah, you yeah, you could, you could still be in the legal department somewhere else and not having accomplished what you have, which you’ve obviously made a huge on the elevator industry and a lot of different companies and a lot of people’s lives for that matter. So you, it sounds like you quickly spy that, hey, I need to go where my heart is and I’m going have a lot more fun doing that.
Mark Boelhouwer (20:39)
Yeah, and I think, you know, part of the equation there, and I’m not really plugging Otis over anyone else. Otis is the only one I knew for the first, you know, significant chunk of my career. Otis really, and I suspect does today, you know, really fostered, we’re number one in the world. We’re a global company. We’ve got great values. got great product. You know, why would you want to work for anybody else? Kind of, you know.
And it worked. Drank the Kool-Aid, enjoyed it, and, you know, it was a global company. It was exciting. and I’m sure, you know, you’ll meet people at the conference. A lot of us, a lot of people in the NAEC today or the independent world or probably a lot of your clients have come from one of the larger organizations, right? And it’s great training, you know?
Matt Allred (21:32)
absolutely. No, it’s a great place to learn and yeah, kind of see it from a high perspective. So at some point though, you decided, hey, I’m gonna leave this and go start Oracle. What was it that spurred that courage? I think it would take a bit of courage to jump ship and say, hey, let’s go create something new.
Mark Boelhouwer (21:51)
Well, you’re being very charitable with that. really, if I look back on that, Otis, for the life of me, I can’t remember the particularities of what happened in the economy in 2003. But there must have been a downturn in the construction cycle, along with significant upper management changes at Otis, so that my boss and
and then unknown at the time, soon to be my partner at Oracle Elevator left and Otis decided that it would be instead of having two elevator companies in one town, the one I ran and plus an Otis that they would merge them all together. I still feel like that was the wrong decision.
and not one that I wanted to do because of all the families that were impacted by that decision. So I left and with Bill Miller, who had been the president of Otis and among other things, we started Oracle Elevator, you know, not because of a desire to really get out there and start our own company as much as a reaction.
And I kind of thought, we could do this a lot better, right, without having a big company behind us. it wasn’t a true act of heroism at all.
not quite self preservation, but I had young kids. I needed a job and.
Matt Allred (23:06)
I had to do something.
They had helped you out the door it sounds like and it’s like, all right, where’s my next door? I’m gonna have to create it.
Mark Boelhouwer (23:10)
And.
And I had a great spouse, right, so because I went from a really decent living to no income for quite a few years as we built the equity in Oracle Elevator. that was perhaps a little courageous, maybe overstating it. But it was a chance. Right. But I was 40 years old. It was the right time to do it. So I think you know a bit about that. Right. You’ve taken a chance. Right.
Matt Allred (23:29)
Do you? Yeah, for sure.
Sure,
Been there, yeah, starting from zero and trying to figure out what’s next. So what surprised you most as you were starting Oracle? Because you were starting, obviously you’d been at one of the majors, a union company, and said, hey, let’s start a non-union.
a large one, right? We’re going to acquire other companies and I’m curious what you learned from that that maybe surprised you the most.
Mark Boelhouwer (24:00)
Yeah, you know What surprised me the most was how little I knew about the elevator Because you know, let’s face it, a company like Otis, if I had a problem with, oh, let’s just say like a sales tax, we didn’t file a quarterly sales tax in Mississippi. There was someone that took care of that, right? And there was an HR department, a legal department, a tax department, a risk management department.
You’ve worked for big company, you know, there’s people that took care of things, right? So you get to your own company and you got to buy your own health care insurance and you have to provide for educational training for all your employees.
And you look around the room and it’s like, well, it’s at you or is it me, Bill, you know?
Matt Allred (24:45)
You quickly became those departments it sounds like. It’s like wow.
Mark Boelhouwer (24:48)
you had to learn
an awful lot fast. And you also realized, because a big company is little oblivious to all the little companies, a good friend of mine who was subsequent president of Otis always came and spoke, when I was president of the NAEC, came and spoke to the, we were in a budget crunch, so I got him to be our breakfast speaker.
And he said, look, we think of most of you guys as riffraff, which got a good laugh and a little harsh. the small companies don’t enter into the mathematics of a big company, I bet you today, even today in a lot of large cities,
Matt Allred (25:06)
You
Mark Boelhouwer (25:24)
an OEM employee couldn’t name the other local independents all that well. So it was a big competitive world out there and it was an awful lot to do. It was difficult to get started. And then the other thing we learned was being trained as a lawyer to maybe think about the downside of things.
I’d say the big mistake we made back then was we didn’t plan for the upside.
Matt Allred (25:48)
Tell me more about that. Didn’t plan for the upside.
Mark Boelhouwer (25:50)
Yeah, so you want to make sure you go to the take these seminars. Hey, you have to make sure you have enough working capital. You have insurance. you don’t want to put your mortgage on the line. All these things for when you’re starting a smaller company. What we didn’t plan. was like, hey, we’re going to be really successful. We’re going to really grow this company. And our issue is not like avoiding problems. Our issue is going to be like, who wants to lend us $25 million so we can grow?
Matt Allred (26:17)
Wow.
Okay.
Mark Boelhouwer (26:18)
Right, and what kind of financial statements and operating systems do we have, right? You know we were quite happy like saying, oh my gosh, we just added 500 elevators on service last year. That’s amazing,
Knowing where you’re going and having some realistic scenarios of not just the bad case, but the really good case and doing a modicum of planning for those was a very early lesson I took away and was happy to know when I started AEG, which was to say like,
yeah, I know it sounds.
Matt Allred (26:50)
is
gonna be bigger than we might anticipate is what I’m hearing.
Mark Boelhouwer (26:55)
Yeah, we’re not going to be a $100 million company by the end of first year. We’re going to be a $350 million company. So that was good. I’m not even sure you know what we’re talking about anymore, Matt. But that was kind of the thing at Oracle. And the times were good, although we had the financial crisis again in 2010.
Who knows, I hope that I’ve lived through my last significant downturn or COVID event or tariff or whatever. They’re always gonna happen but.
Matt Allred (27:24)
Yeah, no, that is an interesting comment. Just that you got to plan for the worst, but you got to plan for the best. And sounds like sometimes it’s bigger than you would have guessed. that putting food on the table isn’t the biggest issue. It’s, like you say, coming up with how do we scale this and keep it healthy and well Unchecked growth can sometimes be a problem, right? It can implode if you’re not on top of it.
watching the finances and the people issues and everything that goes with that. So, yeah, thank you. got a few more questions before I wrap up. One of them is, what would you say is one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned throughout your career? Maybe you’ve already talked about it, right? But I just wanted to, as you kind of look back over 40 years and biggest lessons.
Mark Boelhouwer (28:09)
I wish I learned this lesson a lot earlier than when I did. But I was no longer a lawyer. was running this division of Otis called North American Elevator Services. And I was all over myself in terms of like, I’m really young to be a vice president at Otis. And I was also fairly miserable.
because we’d really grown the company to about 300 million. And it was kind of like the ugly cousin to a lot of Otis, right? We were the independents. And so a lot of it was us against the world, or at least I felt that way.
And you know, I owned a lot of independents who had great marketing and business skills, right? But they didn’t have the training to do monthly financials for an Otis elevator and things like that.
Matt Allred (28:58)
Wow, yeah.
Mark Boelhouwer (29:00)
I was I was trying to do a lot myself and Mike and probably doing all the bad words that you hear about that you’re not supposed to do, you know, not delegating, micromanaging, et cetera, et cetera. And I remember I came home. It must have been I think Christmas 2002. And I got really sick, some kind of fever, you know, cold at end of the year. And this part is true, I kind of had an epiphany, probably in a fever dream, which was like, this is not working right.
Matt Allred (29:27)
Gotcha.
Mark Boelhouwer (29:28)
This is absolutely not working. I’m miserable. My wife’s miserable. Probably everybody who works for me is miserable. And I came out of that and I said, the only way this is really going to work for me as a person, human being, and for me as a company is to make sure that…
that we recognize, again, lot of things I say are cliches, but that this is a team effort, right? And you’re only as good as your team. And you’re going to have to let go. And you’re going to have to make sure that your focus is making sure your team succeeds, not that they’re making you succeed. You know, variations on that. And like I said, that came in, you know, 15 years into my career.
And I think, gosh, boy, if I had picked that up when I was 30, who knows?
Matt Allred (30:15)
I mean, it sounds like it’s absolute gold to learn that, and yet it almost sounds like it kind of take you to a breaking point to learn it, right? I mean, even if somebody tried to teach you that at 30, could you have embraced it? Yeah, I don’t know.
Mark Boelhouwer (30:31)
I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about this in scheme of looking. You say you look back on your career, right? you know, even in your personal life, if you got children, right, you know, when you have those young kids, people say, like, make sure you enjoy it goes by fast. You’re like, my God, this seems like a lifetime already. Right.
And then you wake up and they’re 25, 30 years old. You’re like, my gosh, that went by past, right? So you hear the advice from people, right? Matt, are they ready? Are you ready to accept it in a meaningful sense? Right. And I think something can be worked on the messaging on that, perhaps. But yeah. But you don’t take it. You don’t take it or you or you wish you’d paid more attention to
Matt Allred (31:09)
Yeah.
Yeah, until it becomes personal, it’s almost like there’s no room. And I’m no different, right? There are lessons I wish I’d learned earlier, but it’s like now this… For me, it had to hurt. I had to land on my face a few times to learn how to tie my shoelaces. And maybe it’s a similar situation where it has to hurt before you can really get it.
Mark Boelhouwer (31:33)
That’s well said, yeah.
Matt Allred (31:34)
Yeah, thank you, thank you. As you look to the future, what would you say is the most exciting thing about the future of the industry?
Mark Boelhouwer (31:43)
Wow,
I think that…
There’s going to be, you know, I’m not a physicist, right? So there’s theory that explains the universe at the highest, biggest level. And then there’s the stuff that’s, you know, the quantum that that that explains the activity at the smallest level. Right. So I think what’s exciting about elevators is. Is there’s always going to be an elevator service company in your town, right? And what we’re doing today is going to be what’s going to be for 40 years from now. I remember.
I bought like 12 companies in 1989 and my boss at the time wanted to be my partner in the future, Bill Miller said, well, what are you going to do when there’s no more elevator companies to buy?
And I’m like, well, I don’t know. We’ll figure that out when we get there. And sitting here, know, 35 years later, there’s just as many elevator companies now as there were then. That equation has not changed at all, right?
Matt Allred (32:28)
that’s interesting.
Well, they seem to pop up, right? As soon as one gets acquired, three or four more pop up to replace it, right?
Mark Boelhouwer (32:49)
Yeah, and you know your Greek mythology your multi headed Hydra you chop one off and then you know two more grow in its place. So so I think that’s pretty exciting. The industry is always going to stay vibrant and you know with with the transformation of the information in this world. I mean. Even I can get on chat GBT and get an answer to something pretty quickly, right? I mean, it’s not like knowledge is precious so.
Matt Allred (32:52)
Ha
Mark Boelhouwer (33:13)
If you’re willing to put the hard work and you got a passion, you’re going to be able to make a good living and enjoy the elevator field. Everyone’s going to need it, right? We’re getting older. Now in the big field, there’s going be some crazy consolidation going on. The world’s getting smaller. Despite blips or things like this, unfortunately, there’s going to be war. you know, I
there’s arguably six, seven large elevator companies probably on the verge of losing one shortly if L is to be believed, Matt. And same is true on technology as codes and things get harmonized and people start working closer. So that’s kind of exciting.
I’ve enjoyed personally being involved with European companies and owning one, but they’re not dramatically different. And someday someone’s going to start puzzling and putting all that together as well. So I think that’s kind of exciting. And again, I’m not going to touch the AI. I don’t know where it takes us, but.
Matt Allred (34:13)
Yeah, yeah. What would you say are some of the risks or concerns that you see as you look forward that, you know, would be good for people to be aware of?
Mark Boelhouwer (34:24)
Well, I’m not sure that I have any special insight on that, Matt. I think some of the things we talked about before with respect to the elevator industry is that…
You know, you’re always going to have the risk with large companies that they’re going to do something stupid every 10 years, right, and lose your job. So, you know, you got to stay current, right? And, you know, hard work goes a long way towards that. You know, I think I think I even in one of the interviews I’ve listened to that you’ve done in the past, right? You know, the thing about the elevator businesses is not necessarily hard, but it is a lot of hard work.
So don’t substitute not being hard with not having to put a lot of hours in, And look, I lived through, lived through it, sounds like it was a hardship, but look, when we started, I’m gonna sound like your grandparents, there were no cell phones, right? So we learned the cell phone, we had to learn laptops, we had to learn the internet, right? And these are all…
Matt Allred (35:09)
pressure.
Sure.
Mark Boelhouwer (35:28)
shocks to the system and the way things were done, I mean, and Internet of Things, right? And now we got AI and it’s all all these things change our jobs and what we do meaningfully. And you got to make the investments to stay young and keep up with that. I think that’s what I would say, right? If you can stay passionate about what you do, work hard and always make the investment in yourself.
You know, just don’t make your sales plan that you’re take that class on accounting for dummies or or basics of troubleshooting or whatever fills that niche to make you more valuable and
your job more interesting.
Matt Allred (36:04)
Absolutely. that is a piece I see over and over is those who invest in themselves, in their future, really have so many opportunities, right? They can go so many different directions because there’s a lot they can do. Their knowledge is valuable and people are going to hunt them down and beg them not to retire or whatever the case may be. So final question then, and again, maybe it’s a little bit of a repeat, but any final advice you would give to somebody who’s maybe starting out
Maybe they’re coming right out of college. Maybe they’re an attorney. Maybe they’re a business major. But what’s a golden gem you’d give them as they start in the industry or are considering it right now?
Mark Boelhouwer (36:48)
I got to Vantage, I said to all the people that my goals were simple, right? Vantage, of course, was GAL and Hollister, you know, run by a fabled elevator family for decades and decades. And who was I to come into something like that? Just like…
You’re a kid, you’re a young woman or man, you’re 23, you’re entering the elevator. It could feel daunting depending on your circumstances, right? So, rule number one, I always said was do no harm, right? Sit back, listen, learn, work, work hard, put the time in. Get to know your colleagues and your other people. Two was let’s do some good. So once you feel like you have an assessment, do some good, right?
Don’t always wear, you know, always be the good person, right? You know, don’t take shortcuts ethically or morally or at the expense of other people for your career because it’s going to be a long one. And then when you’re 25, 30, you’re not thinking long term very strategically. But, you know, you want to wake up, you know, and whether I’m that person or not doesn’t really matter. But I like to think I am that at 65.
People are like, yeah, that was a good guy. He did what he said, worked hard, kept all those things. So do some good. And three, enjoy yourself. None of the hard work or doing all these other things means that you can’t enjoy yourself every day. You think about it, I don’t know. You know better than I do, Matt. You do this for living with people and placing people. But a third of your life is
Matt Allred (38:08)
advice.
Mark Boelhouwer (38:23)
At the end of the day, when you tally it all up.
Matt Allred (38:23)
Easily.
Mark Boelhouwer (38:25)
If that was like a void of no fun and no enjoyment, then boy, that’s kind of sad, right? So yeah, so keep it simple.
Matt Allred (38:34)
That’s beautiful. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, you gotta love what you do. And if you don’t love what you do, maybe it’s time to find something different. my experience is there’s a lot of good here in this space. And if you learn it and ⁓ love it, then stick with it. And like you say, do some good. So thank you for being with me today. I appreciate it. I enjoyed the conversation.
Mark Boelhouwer (38:54)
Thank you very much, Matt. I really enjoyed it as well.
Matt Allred (38:57)
Yep, I appreciate it. Safe travels and we’ll chat again.
Matt Allred (39:01)
Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. Please visit our YouTube channel @ElevatorCareers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net. Please like and subscribe and until next time, stay safe.