Ken Hickey: Waking Up With Purpose

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Intro:
From fixing cars on Staten Island to installing elevators in the heart of Brooklyn—and eventually helping shape elevator innovation overseas—Ken Hickey’s 37-year journey in the industry is anything but ordinary.
Today, he opens up about the tough early days, the mentors who shaped him, the shift from union to non-union work, and the leadership lessons that have helped him build teams and move elevators. If you’ve ever wondered what it means to really grow in this business, Ken’s story gives a great example.

Summary:
Ken Hickey, with 37 years in the elevator industry, discusses his journey from automotive to elevators, influenced by a mentor who taught him hands-on skills. He transitioned from union to non-union work for broader opportunities, including management, engineering, and sales. Hickey highlights a significant project with LG Otis, designing and installing MRL elevators in New York City, which required six weeks in South Korea and approval from the Department of Buildings. He emphasizes the importance of safety, teamwork, and continuous learning, advocating for passion and dedication in the industry.

Transcript:
Ken Hickey (00:00)
I love that it’s a challenge. I love that every day I go up and I go into an elevator and it’s just something that, how am gonna make this better? How am I gonna fix this or how am I gonna accomplish that? I don’t know, it’s hard to explain the feel I have that I love waking up and going to work. A lot of people don’t have that and

I’m lucky enough to say that I love working in elevators.

Matthew Allred (00:33)
Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group. I am your host, Matt Allred. In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers. 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 their priority. Call now, 404-890-0445. From fixing cars on Staten Island to installing elevators in the heart of Brooklyn, and eventually helping shape elevator innovation overseas, Ken Hickey’s 37-year journey in the industry is anything but ordinary. Today, he opens up about the tough early days, the mentors who shaped him.

the shift from union to non-union work and the leadership lessons that have helped him build teams and move elevators. If you’ve ever wondered what it means to really grow in this business, Ken’s story gives a great example. So Ken, welcome to the show.

Ken Hickey (01:45)
Matt, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure. I’m honored to be here.

Matthew Allred (01:49)
Thank you. I’m excited. I mean it’s been several years since you and I first connected and to be able to have this conversation, you know, after all those years, it’s fun. I enjoy it. Yeah, I appreciate it. So I did want to, you know, kind of start at the beginning and, you know, just, you know, curious how you got started in elevators back in, I think you said 1988, is that right?

Ken Hickey (02:12)

Correct. March of 1988. I still remember that. I went to high school for automotive. My father was an auto mechanic. I graduated, went to a technical school for automotive. I was working at a Ford dealership and you know, I kind of liked it, but I didn’t love it. It was, it was okay. Uh, the girl I was dating at the time, which turned out to be my wife, uh, her neighbor asked

if I wanted to get into the elevator industry. And being a kid on Staten Island, I’m like, I don’t know anything about elevators. I don’t think I was ever on an elevator before. And I’m trying to rack my brain. I’m like maybe at the mall with my parents or something, I went on an elevator, I don’t know. I’m like, sure, I’ll give it a shot. And I went on and I worked for Manko Elevator out of Long Island City. They made me a monetization helper.

And my first job was Bushwick houses in New York city. And here I am a kid from Staten Island going to Bushwick houses. And it was an eye opening experience that I didn’t know anything about. And they threw me into this environment and, it was different. It was very different. And, I’m looking at these things going up and down. like, what is that? What is that? What is that? And I was, it was very overwhelming at the time. And I remember going home.

I’m thinking, what am I doing? Just go back to fixing cars.

Matthew Allred (03:38)
I was going to ask you that. What was your impression? I mean, when he says elevators, what was it that made you say yes? Because if you had just little to no experience with them, at least you knew what a car was.

Ken Hickey (03:50)

I did. I did know what a car was. I know I didn’t love it. I liked it. I still dabble in it sometimes. It was just something new. It was just something, a challenge. I was always a kid, you know, that taking things apart. I remember my parents had just VCR, top loading VCR. And it ate the tape one day. The next thing I know, my mother comes home, it was in pieces. You know, it was taking things apart. I didn’t get it back together, never worked again.

Yeah, it was always challenging and in elevator was, you know, you see pictures and these things going up and down. I’m like this is something I want to do. It was, it was. I don’t know, it just seemed like something, a challenge that I’ve wanted to accept.

Matthew Allred (04:37)
Yeah, yeah. So that you said you kind of second guessed questioned like what am I doing? I was going to ask you how long did you like shake your head and just go, what am doing here?

Ken Hickey (04:41)
I don’t.

Oh,

it had to be the first two years. Wow. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because, know, I was a helper. Uh, it was very, very, it was hard, you know, I was back in the late eighties, early nineties. It was, you know, I was dirty. It was filthy. I was driving here, driving there. There was a lot going on. So the first two years were very challenging. and Once I started, I didn’t want to quit. You know, my father sat me down. He was like, you know,

Do you love it doing it? I’m like, I’m getting there. He’s like, just stick it out. You know? I was going to union school. He’s like, finish that. And then you decide what you want to do. So I’m glad for that. A little bit of advice that I got.

Matthew Allred (05:30)
It sounds like wise advice, right? At least get the experience enough to know what it is you’ve got, right? At least go long enough that you can make an informed decision, I guess, is what I’m getting at.

Ken Hickey (05:43)
Right, I just didn’t want to start a couple years and then stop it and then go back to this and then realize, well, I didn’t really love this, but maybe that could have been something and that opportunity would have been lost, so.

Matthew Allred (05:53)
For sure, for sure. So what was it that really finally clicked for you in the elevator space?

Ken Hickey (06:00)
Well, so they had moved me out of, I was still in modernization, but they’ve moved me to the private sector. So I was doing a modernization at NY University. And my mechanic at the time was a gentleman named Jim Donegan. He was your typical old school elevator guy, you know? I remember one time we’d be eating lunch together and

Supervisor showed up and there’s three other teams. So this, he got like six, seven guys in one room, eating lunch. And he joined in a conversation and it was about sports or whatever we were talking about. And he looked over next to me he was like, Ladi, helpers should be seen, not heard. Like don’t talk. Ladi, that’s what he said. And I will never forget that. But he taught me so much. you know, where the, some mechanics,

with doing the work and I was watching, he made me do the work. He made me learn. He made me watch this and he explained, you know this happens, but why this happens. This happens for a reason, you know, we’re moving this elevator, moving it up two floors for a reason. So that really where I developed the passion, why I wanted to be more like him. So he brought me there.

Matthew Allred (07:15)
That’s how long did you work with him?

Ken Hickey (07:17)
I was there, I finished my apprenticeship with him. Yeah, I was with him for two years.

Matthew Allred (07:23)
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. So you mentioned, you know, obviously going to, ⁓ you know, to the union school and finishing your apprenticeship. And it sounds like you probably finished up your license. But then you told me about kind of a tough experience that ultimately pushed you towards ⁓ non-union work. I’m curious, how did that decision change your path, your career?

Ken Hickey (07:45)
Well, I had switched unions and I wasn’t really happy in the other union and it just wasn’t a right fit for me. And the people around me, the management that was there and I had other opportunities, other companies in the non-union that I did take advantage of. And I just thought it had opened more of a door where I can not just do maintenance or I could just not do modernization where I can do

management, or I can do some engineering work, or I can do sales of the elevator, you know, the more customer aspect of it. And I think it just broaden my horizon totally in the elevator industry.

Matthew Allred (08:26)
So tell me a little bit more about that. Broaden your horizons, just give you, you’re saying more opportunities.

Ken Hickey (08:31)
More knowledge, more opportunity where I was, I wasn’t just, you know, fixing elevators. I was you know, supervising them. I was dealing with customers. I was eventually selling elevators. Everything inside the office of violations we were doing, you know, everything. It was just a more of an opportunity. I thought that I had for me in the smaller non union elevator company.

Matthew Allred (08:56)
Interesting. Well, you talked a little bit about that once you made that switch that ⁓ in particular, you know, working at JG, I mean, you told me about like designing elevators, which is a different track altogether.

Ken Hickey (09:12)
Yeah, we weren’t, you know, totally designing elevators. So at the time, MRL elevators were really coming popular. know, Otis had them, know, Thyssen had them. And the market in New York City was very non-competitive. It was the only non-proprietary equipment was a global tarter for equipment. So we were installing LG Otis elevators, and that was a package from South Korea sold through Semco in Pennsylvania.

And they wanted to develop to get into the MRO package. Well, we had went to South Korea, a couple of us, was there six weeks. They had owned a, now I’m going to say the name of the city, Dongjung city. I’m not sure that’s. It’s a long time. You know, I knew like three words in Korean and it has totally lost itself. ⁓ we had developed, they had.

Matthew Allred (09:58)
for

Ken Hickey (10:08)
they had developed an MRL elevator and we had kind of like made sure that we wanted to make it New York city approved. we brought our experience with what, you know, New York city was needed to be approved to them. And we merged it together. And then we presented it to the New York city department of buildings for an entire week we went there with paperwork engineering that we had, and we wanted to install it.

and they approved the package. They approved our drawings. 16 weeks later, we installed one elevator in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Six weeks after that, we had six Department of Building inspectors with an acceptance test for two days inspecting this elevator. And it passed. And that just, that it was great. It was wonderful. And all the fruits of that just

came to this, I didn’t think it ever get done. I didn’t think there was a chance that we were gonna get this done. We were just a bunch of Misfit guys from New Jersey, New York, going into Korea and developing the system that New York City would later approve.

Matthew Allred (11:21)
Where did that come

about, mean, the opportunity to go to Korea for six weeks, how did that experience even come up on the radar and say, let’s buy tickets to Korea. I mean, I’m just curious. What was that?

Ken Hickey (11:35)
So the company HM Tech was earlier was LG Otis. And then they bought the LG Otis part of it. And they really wanted to break in. They were selling packages in Puerto Rico and Canada, but they wanted to break into the Northeast market. That’s where a lot of the elevators are being sold. And since we had a connection through the LG, we had a couple of guys with us from

South Korea. So that was really our connection to the gentleman. His name is Mr. Lee in South Korea. So he came here. We met him, we met his wife, and we took him around. We showed him what we wanted to do. We showed him what we needed. And then we went back there and we worked with him.

The struggle was communication.

Matthew Allred (12:27)
I’m sure, I can’t imagine.

Ken Hickey (12:30)
So once we overcome that with people who could speak English, because there was no way we were learning Korean and there wasn’t Google, like you could speak into a phone back then. Interpreter that wasn’t happening. Once we overcome the obstacle of communication, then it just kind of just snowballed and we just kind of worked together.

Matthew Allred (12:50)
Gotcha. So it sounds like LG Otis had a product, but maybe it just wasn’t.

Ken Hickey (12:56)
It wasn’t MRL. It was just an overhead traction elevator. So we needed to develop an MRL.

Matthew Allred (13:02)
Gotcha. Gotcha. So that’s what you were doing for those six weeks. And then obviously had to come back, get it approved and then get it, get it inspected and installed.

Ken Hickey (13:12)
Yeah. It was, it was challenging. Now it’s throughout the city. So, there’s a company now that’s it sells it as a package throughout the whole country. So it’s really, it’s come a long way it’s really a great product because when it, it, comes off, you know, if anybody’s buying an elevator, you know, it comes from this vendor, this vendor, this vendor, this comes off a container. So everything’s one, every nut and bolt you need is in that container.

Matthew Allred (13:38)
Wow. Yeah. Controllers, everything. It’s not just a package of, like you say, different parts.

Ken Hickey (13:41)
Good thing.

Challenging, but it was great.

Matthew Allred (13:48)
I mean, that sounds like a very intense learning experience, a little bit scary to pour whatever time, effort, money into it and kind of hope it pays off right?

Ken Hickey (13:59)
Yeah, the scariest part was meeting with the Department of Buildings. It was because there was an intimidating bunch of people and, you know, they’re inspectors and, they’re going through it and you’re playing like their cards. They’re face is like, you don’t know if they like it, you don’t know if they’re accepting it. And then once they came back and give us the seal of approval, was, uh, like, wow.

Matthew Allred (14:24)
That’s awesome. I mean, they got a big job to do, right? I mean, yeah.

Ken Hickey (14:27)
Have to, yeah, make sure that it’s safe. Yeah.

Matthew Allred (14:30)
So you said that once you kind of got that approved and you were doing like 25 installs a year with a small non-union shop, to me that sounds intense. How did you keep that pace, that workflow up? mean, it sounds like you were just kind of go, go, go, go, go.

Ken Hickey (14:51)
We were, it was a booming time. So it’s the time in Brooklyn, Queens, you know, the Bronx, they were ripping down a lot of these old vacant buildings that build up a lot of apartments. So there was a lot of opportunity. There was everything going on at once. So, we became efficient at, getting a setup, getting stage one in, then getting stage two in, keeping track of this. Then the thing that would slow us down was, sometimes the buildings didn’t keep up. Sure.

So it was, once we had a momentum, it kind of all fell into place and the people in the field were excellent. Excellent. And we got efficient at getting stage one and getting stage two in. And once we became efficient at that, it all just kind of like meshed together.

Matthew Allred (15:39)
That’s awesome. So was it all new install or did you do some mods with this as well?

Ken Hickey (15:44)
was all new install. Which, you know, new install is easier than mod.

Matthew Allred (15:49)
As I understand, I’ve never done one.

Ken Hickey (15:52)
Yeah, because you got a blank canvas. It’s an open shaft.

Matthew Allred (15:55)
Long as it’s plum, right?

Ken Hickey (15:58)
Or you make it plum You kind of like fudge it a little bit.

Matthew Allred (16:02)
That too. Yeah, I’m sure. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. So you mentioned, you know, kind of kind of butting heads of the company and then learning a ton at another. Can you talk about how those experiences shaped your technical skills and even leadership perspective?

Ken Hickey (16:21)
The company I learned, obviously it was GGL, I learned a ton. And then my Consolidated elevator, I was at for a while. And my leadership skills really took off then because I walked into a company that it was established, but it just needed a direction. So I wanted to give that company more of an identity.

You know, a real leader behind who can talk to the customer, who could guide the people in the field, you know, and, just help educate the mechanics that are going on. And I was always a guy that, you know, I want to teach you what I know. And listen, I don’t know everything, but whatever useless knowledge is in my head, I will give it to you. And I have a ton of useless elevator knowledge in my head. And I really wanted to give that out and that, and the owner really gave me the tools.

To make that happen and really trusted me to kind of take over and gave me the reins of, know, here it is, here’s your maintenance apartment, your repair department and kind of go with it. So I’m really thankful for that.

Matthew Allred (17:29)
Yeah, tell me how, just kind of let’s peel that onion just a little bit because I think leadership is something that, you know, it’s not cut and dry It’s, you know, there’s obviously some art, some nuance. What would you say was the most critical lesson you learned about leading others?

Ken Hickey (17:50)
It’s listening to everybody and everybody’s an individual and nothing’s a cookie-cutter way of dealing with people. realizing that, work is work and home is home. And trying to mesh that together was the most difficult aspect of it. And realizing you’re talking to one person and you don’t know what they’re going through.

You know, what’s on their mind, you know, how is their home life, then that affects everything. And just trying to listen to them and hear them out and be in their shoes. But realize that, you know, we come here and a job does have to get done. And we have to focus on what we’re doing. And if we’re able to focus on what we’re doing, we’re going to be successful at the end of the day, and we’re all going to go home. And that was our main objective.

Matthew Allred (18:42)
Sure, for sure. Yeah, it sounds like and what I’m kind of taking away is that that yes, you know, obviously the work is important but you can’t you got to get to know somebody enough and They got to know you care about them enough that hey if things are breaking down at home We need to talk about it or you know You need a safe place safe person to be able to to share some concerns or some issues or whatever because to your point everybody’s not only individual but you know

We’re all people. We all have lives. We all have concerns. To me, we go to work to try to take care of our lives, not the other way around. It’s like, kind of keeping those priorities straight.

Ken Hickey (19:27)
Yeah, I just wanted to tell them that, you know, if we just act as a team, we just tell each other what’s going on, if something’s affecting you at home, it could affect your work. And this is an industry where things could change in a moment. For sure. You know, it’s it we’re putting ourselves in and sometimes in harm’s way where you need to focus on what you’re doing. If we can’t focus on what we’re doing, then

being there in that environment is not the right place.

Matthew Allred (19:58)
Yeah, you put everybody at risk, yourself, your coworkers. you got to

Ken Hickey (20:02)
General

public. Yeah.

Matthew Allred (20:05)
Yep, absolutely. Hey everyone, thank you for listening. This is Matt with a brief message from our sponsor. The Allred Group has been recruiting elevator industry talent for over 14 years. If you were looking to grow your business and hire great people, contact the Allred Group at allredgroup.com. That’s A-L-L-R-E-D-G-R-O-U-P dot com and talk with Matt and his team about how they can assist you. And now back to the show. So you said

You talked about some industry change and that has changed a lot when you started, and especially when it comes to training, mentorship, daily operations. What are some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen?

Ken Hickey (20:45)
Listen, I’m going to sound like an old fuddy duddy right now. The biggest change is the cell phone.

Matthew Allred (20:52)
Interesting, OK?

Ken Hickey (20:53)
It is such a distracting device.

It’s, something that just takes, you know, you’re on top of an elevator, you’re in the motor room and you hear that beep beep or you hear the text tone going off. Sure. You know, and you pick it up and then you focus on that. You’re not focused on what you’re doing. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. You know, it’s just something that can change at a moment’s notice. And then you tell yourself that it’s like, I try to tell everybody it’s like driving a car, you know, don’t text while you drive.

Don’t text while you’re working.

For me, it’s a great device to have because it leads to this industry where you need help. I can call somebody. Now there’s these Facebook groups where you can just go online and see, I have a code 77. What does that mean? You can see what’s going on. And it’s a great tool to have and it’s like a double-edged sword. It can cut you at the second.

Matthew Allred (21:55)
Yeah,

It’s interesting. I hear you because yeah, know of software. There’s all kinds of information you can access even beyond calling your buddy. You know, and some of the software is even, you know, for the business is on your phone. Right. That’s how you right. How you tell.

Ken Hickey (22:11)
Mechanics nowadays are being dictated about where to go on their phone. You know, their phone’s telling them, your route, you have to go to 123 Main Street, then you’re going here. And the phone is a necessity at the time. But, you know, we really have to get a balance of it.

Matthew Allred (22:27)
That’s a good point. Have you seen, I’m guessing you have, but tell me about some experiences where you’ve seen a phone actually be a safety hazard.

Ken Hickey (22:37)
I went to a mechanic once and I knew he was falling behind because owner was calling me complaining about, you know, certain maintenance aspects that weren’t going on. And I went upstairs, I went into the elevator room and he was sitting on the bed plate of the machine with his headphones in and he was watching a movie. Oh wow

And I just tapped him to on the shoulder. We got to go. So we brought him back to the office. You know, we had a talk, we wrote him up. And I just explained to him, like, you know, that, first of all, that just doesn’t look good. If somebody else walked into the elevator room, you know, these people are paying money for you to do quality maintenance. And here you are sitting there watching a movie. You could have got hurt. You could have hurt somebody.

Just don’t be there, you know, put the phone down and that was really the first thing that I saw. And then the next week we had a whole discussion about cell phone use at work. That really it scared me. Because I thought something that I didn’t want him to get hurt. I didn’t want anybody to get hurt. You know, it’s just sure that made me nervous.

Matthew Allred (23:48)
Yeah, certainly the time waster. Yeah, but if you’re so far removed mentally from what you’re doing, yeah, who knows what could happen, right? You’re just not paying attention to your surroundings, moving parts, moving pieces, high voltage electricity. I mean, anything could happen.

Ken Hickey (24:07)
It

Anything could happen. Anything. just, the ideas that were running in my head that, my God, you know, this could happen, that can happen, just made me a little scared.

Matthew Allred (24:15)
Absolutely. I mean, it takes certainly, you know, just discipline to say, okay, this is a tool, but I need to be disciplined about when I use it, when I don’t use it. You know, if I need information, then I need to be somewhere safe and maybe use it to get that information. But then I need to shut it off and get my head back in the game.

Ken Hickey (24:34)
Right, And it’s not as easy as it sounds all the time, but.

Matthew Allred (24:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you told me that Champion is the best company you’ve worked at. And I’m just curious what makes it stand out from the others over your 37 year career.

Ken Hickey (24:49)
I was at Consolidated elevator and Consolidated was coming to the end. They were being purchased by the American group. Okay. And I made a decision to come to Champion. And, it was funny when we, I was leaving at the time, a good friend of mine who works at the office, she says, you know, you’re going to go drink the Kool-Aid at Champion kind of thing. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, I’m just, you know, I’m going to work there. And I texted her a picture of me drinking a purple Kool-Aid.

six months after I came in, I’m like, this is the best company I’ve ever at. I’m like, I do surveys and quality control here. if you’re a customer and you call up and you’re like, well, you know, I’m thinking about having, I’m switching my maintenance company. Well, I would come or the other, one of the other two people from Champion would come and we would do a soup and nuts survey of your device. Top to bottom, I’d ride the top.

I look underneath, you know, I walk floor to floor, everything. I check everything because I want to make sure that if I put my name on something, That Champion doesn’t get caught saying that they would take care of something that wasn’t taken care of. I send that full report with an email to Champion to the sales department, to the repair department. And they listened to what I have to say. You know, they take my advice and they’re like, well, you know,

So these ropes don’t look great, but three years from now they’re going to need changing. They listen to me. And it’s not that other companies haven’t listened to me. It’s just, I feel like, you know, the sales team is working with me, the repair department’s working. I just, I feel like they value my opinion a lot. And I like that. So.

Matthew Allred (26:37)
That’s awesome. And not to put anybody down at all, I like highlighting what works, what is successful. I mean, if it’s something as simple as, I feel valued, I feel listened to, I feel like my input counts for something, that’s huge.

Ken Hickey (26:55)
It is, it is. You know ask everybody a Champion, you’re going to get different answers. I understand that, you know, I’ve been around a long time, but if you ask me about it, you know, this is one of the better companies out there.

Matthew Allred (27:07)
Awesome. That’s great. I’m glad you found someplace that you feel valued, heard, listened to, and that your experience, your insights really matter. So, just kind of looking back on the beginning of your career, you said you grew up on Staten Island, didn’t know if you’d even ridden an elevator. How do you reflect on that now, having spent your whole career working on them?

Ken Hickey (27:30)
I love it. I love every day of going to work. It sounds weird. It sounds geeky. I love the challenge. I love walking into different buildings every day. You see the different elevators, seeing how they work, you know, no two days are the same in this industry. Every day is different. You don’t know what you’re going to walk into. And it’s just a challenge. It’s just, there’s nothing more that I love then.

I walk into a building, do a modernization survey and right away I’m looking, well, how are we getting it up there? How are we getting the elevator out? How is this button coming off the wall? How are we going to lower this button? What’s behind that wall? And what’s in this door? How are we going to get this door off the track? And all these things are going through my head. I just love it. And I write it all down and I go to these places and then people like, what are you doing?

I’m telling them how to do this and telling them how to do that. And he’s like, that’s the office problem. No, that’s my problem. I want to give them as much information as possible to make them succeed. You know, if Champion picks up this project then we do better and I do better, that’s how we look at it.

Matthew Allred (28:44)
Yeah, I think it’s great that you take that kind of ownership, right? That it’s not just somebody else’s problem, but hey, we’re a team. We’re going to do this together. We’re going to work together. We’re going to succeed because we’re all given just a little bit more to make sure that this happens.

Ken Hickey (29:01)
I loved the, the camaraderie in this business. have people who I worked with for 10, 15 years and we call each other up all the time. And I’m like, Hey, I got a problem with this. So I got a problem with that. And, know, I walked into a Kone controller before the other day, I’d never seen this thing before. I know I called up and I’m FaceTime and I’m like, what is this? What is, how does this work? And he was explaining it to me. It’s something that I really truly like about this business. I think.

You know, I don’t know how it is everywhere, but we all kind of look out for each other. You know, we walk through, we do a survey with people and we’re all pointing, hey, you know what? I seen this, I seen that. And I do like that about it. we’re all here. We’re here to do a job and we’re here to be successful. And we want to do the best.

Matthew Allred (29:50)
What it reminds me of is it’s kind of like that old saying, it takes a village to raise a child. And what you’re bringing to mind is that it takes a village to take care of elevators because no one person has all the answers. And so as a village, we’re having to come together, ask each other, show each other what I’m seeing and listen to what they’re seeing. And as a whole, we can make it work. But if it’s just up to one person, it’s not going to work.

Ken Hickey (30:16)
No, my job and everybody’s job is to educate everybody about what we know, you know, me holding all this knowledge in, isn’t going to do anybody any good? You know, the next generation of elevator people coming out, you know, maybe they’ve never seen, you know, a Wessinghouse or an Otis flathead drum machine, you know, they walk into this basement like, what is that? I’m like, and you explained, you know, some, some people have never seen a generator.

Matthew Allred (30:46)
Yep.

Ken Hickey (30:47)
And you try to explain to them, you know, well, this is how it works. That’s how it works. And I really like doing that. So I kind of get off on that.

Matthew Allred (30:55)
That’s awesome. So what would you say is one of the most impactful stories that you can share from your career thus far? One of the things that impacted you most deeply?

Ken Hickey (31:07)
So back at JG elevator, we used to have weekly safety meetings. And we talked about experiences that we saw on the field and things that we see and things that we accomplish and things that we potentially try to foresee what we’re going to run into. And we had one of the mechanics, you he decided to leave, he went to another company and he was at this other company, I’m guessing for about a year and somebody got hurt.

And he was almost put into position by the person who got hurt that they wanted him to do something and he didn’t feel comfortable doing it. And it led to the other person getting hurt. And he called me up and I heard about the accident and I reached out to him, but he didn’t get back to me and then he got back to me he was like, I really want to thank you. You know, for those weekly safety meetings. He’s like, I think that it helped me a lot because

You always told us that if you don’t feel comfortable doing something, don’t do it. Right. And, he didn’t do it. That really, you know, that brought it home to me that, you know, first, wow, they’re listening to me, you know, right. And, this is making a difference. So after that, I continued to do it wherever I go. Every week we would have meetings and talk, you know, at Consolidated elevator. I would bring guys in on Friday.

You know, we started at eight o’clock and I’m like, I’m going to have a controller class at seven o’clock. If you guys want to come in, I’ll share my knowledge of what I know. We had a makeshift controller set up. You know, we powered it up. We tampered with it to break it on purpose and they had to fix it. And we loved it. And it was, a great experience, you know, throughout the year. So.

Matthew Allred (32:51)
That’s great. I mean, it kind of, yeah, kind of drives home the need to continue, like you say, to share your experience. And I’m sure it felt really gratifying that your coworker didn’t get hurt, right? That he followed some of your advice, that he didn’t get hurt. And he was, he could look at it say, wow, I’m super glad I listened to Ken and took his advice. I mean, you’ve had a long journey after all these years and you’re still saying, I love it, which I love hearing it.

What is it that you love so much about what you do? And you talked a little bit about it, but how would you encapsulate that?

Ken Hickey (33:28)
I love that it’s a challenge. I love that every day I go up and I go into an elevator and it’s just something that, how am gonna make this better? How am I gonna fix this or how am I gonna accomplish that? I don’t know, it’s hard to explain the feel I have that I love waking up and going to work. A lot of people don’t have that.

I’m lucky enough to say that I love working in elevators.

Matthew Allred (34:01)
I think not only do a lot of people not have it, they probably look at you sideways and go, how can you say that? And that’s part of reason I ask the question because I think it’s important to convey to others who maybe have a similar skillset and passion to you. Maybe they still haven’t found their place, but the elevator industry to me is a place where a lot of people really love what they do. so maybe calling on other

talented individuals to, take a look at the elevator industry because you can kind of write a ticket, a lot of different directions based on what you’ve learned. And you could do a lot of different things, right? You’re choosing to do what you’re doing right now, but you know, because you have the skillset, you could go lot of different directions with it. If that’s what you want to do.

Ken Hickey (34:47)
Oh, there’s a ton of directions you can go into the sales, the engineering, to violations, to management, consulting that hopefully, you know, that’s my next venture, you know, a couple of years down the road, but that’s always something that you can go into testing. And there’s so many branches of this industry that can reach out to different people and tap into what they think and what they like that this industry can

get everybody together. I just think that there’s something for everybody here.

Matthew Allred (35:22)
That’s awesome. So last question for you, Ken. What advice would you give to someone who is maybe just starting out or maybe they are even considering going into elevator trade?

Ken Hickey (35:35)
I would say, just come and give it your all. You know, I made sure I gave it all I had. You know, there were sacrifices along the way. You know, there was time away from the family in the beginning, you know, long hours. But whatever I put into it, I got out of it. I put a lot of effort into this. And I think if you put a lot of effort into it,

If you’re really passionate about whatever you’re doing, just put effort into something that you’re doing and you’re gonna get something out of it. If you don’t put anything into this, you’re just gonna go from here, there, here, there. You’re not really gonna make a career out of it. It’ll be just a job, just a paycheck. We used to say, this guy’s just in it for the paycheck. Well, I’m in it for a career. That’s different, I think.

I’m not gonna say you have to love what you’re doing. You really have to like this business. It’s a strange industry. It really is. It’s changed a lot. It’s changing every day. The office aspect of it is expanding. Back in the 80s when I was there, I hate to say this, there wasn’t any women in the office. And they’re in the field now. I think it’s wonderful. I tried to get my daughter here.

I’m, you know, my, my youngest is she’s, you know, school’s not for everybody. I’m like, come into the elevator industry. You know, I’m, I’m thinking about getting her in the business. I think it’s great.

Matthew Allred (37:07)
Good. And it sounds like what I’m taking away is that if you put your heart into it,

Ken Hickey (37:13)
You

will be. It is a rewarding business. Not just financially. It’s just, you see something that you can take care of and it’s working. know, it’s a functioning device moving people safely through a building. That when I walked into this building, there was either nothing there or it wasn’t working. And now this device is actually working and doing the job it’s supposed to be doing because of me.

There is no better feeling than that.

Matthew Allred (37:43)
Ken, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Glad we could talk through this and stay safe out there as you continue to build your career.

Ken Hickey (37:53)
Thank you, Matt. I’m sure I’ll be in touch. I’m so honored to be here. Thank you. I can’t express my thanks enough. Thank you.

Matthew Allred (38:00)
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 at Elevator Careers or check us out online at ElevatorCareers.net. Please like and subscribe and until next time, stay safe.