Steely culture: James Sliker

When Carl Carpenter started Arkansas-based Central States Manufacturing (Central States) – a nationwide producer of metal roofing, siding panels and building components – in 1988, customer service with a personal touch was very unusual in the industry.

But the entrepreneur wanted Central States to be much more than an average steel mill company and was ready to shake things up with a lasting imprint.

"Very early on in the company Carl bought a piece of equipment and he said, ‘Hey, we’re going to go to market and be a company that tries to do a good job with customers, have high integrity; try to be reliable and just focus on the relationship with customers and being easy to work with,’" says current Central States CEO James ‘Jim’ Sliker.

"The equation worked and a lot of those same ingredients are what’s really core to our business today. They have led to growth ever since our inception and can continue to carry us forward."

"It’s a mindset that we want to exceed customers’ expectations by being easy to work with, being excellent communicators, trying to do good work and fix problems fast."

Sliker, who celebrated a decade as CEO last year, has overseen colossal growth and innovation at the company during his tenure, but has been careful not to dilute its secret sauce: company culture.

"When you get bigger, it is harder to maintain the culture. It’s a fact. How do you keep that culture?" Sliker reflects. "So one of the things in my job is to make sure we’re very intentional about keeping this culture. It’s about having a really good vision, keeping everybody aligned and coordinated.

"It’s a mindset that we want to exceed customers’ expectations by being easy to work with, being excellent communicators, trying to do good work and fix problems fast. So keeping that culture inside our organization has been super important."

A bold vision and growth

The company’s current success can be attributed to Sliker’s bold vision that he established soon after taking over the reins as CEO.

"We started a strategic plan, what I’d call a real solid plan in late 2016, early 2017, which was our vision of where we want to go. And at the time we set out a target to get to US$1 billion and we probably just sold US$360 million."

Since 2016, Central States has been steaming ahead by expanding the company’s number of plants and storage structures, as well as offering new products to its premium customers.

"When I got here, there were six locations," Sliker recalls. "Now, we have 14 different sites all over the country. We’re now going west. We are putting up our first plant in Utah right now, so we are getting bigger, it’s getting more diversified and we’re attracting more people."

Part of this growth story has been the company’s attention to innovation, including developing and acquiring products like the Alpha Framing System – a revolutionary metal construction solution that enables structures to go up in a fraction of the time.

"It really answered a big problem. When labor gets difficult, how do you use less labor to get a job up as fast as possible? Now it’s not to eliminate labor, it’s really to be able to do more for customers faster," Sliker says.

The other side to innovation has been how to leverage technology. In 2011, in an unprecedented move for the industry, the company launched Central Link, an online business portal for its customers where they could do everything online from placing orders, finding quotes and managing their financial books. This has been recently upgraded to Central Link 2.0.

Employee focus

Underpinning this customer-centric outlook is the firm’s employee stock ownership plan, which has seen staff own all of the company’s stock since 2011. Carpenter started the idea of partial employee ownership back in 1991, believing that if he gave employees a stake in the outcome, they would work better for their customers.

The result can be seen in the way employees approach their work and adopt the company’s core values; they strive to produce high-quality work and be highly reliable by providing solutions to problems with a positive can-do attitude, according to Sliker.

"Our values are about patience, kindness, being respectful and valuing each other. And all that starts with humility and that’s kind of the DNA that we have throughout the business, through all of the ownership. That’s very much who we are today," he adds.

"So our purpose is what drives us, our core purpose in the business is to provide wellbeing and financial freedom for our employee–owners and their families. That is why we exist, that’s our true north. For me it’s what I’m passionate about."

"My job is to serve, identify and meet the needs of people in this company, and doing that as best I can." 

The other priority for the company when it comes to its employees is talent development, especially as the company evolves and rockets toward its billion dollar target.

"When you look at our business this year, we’re going to be somewhere north of US$950 million in a fairly short period of time," Sliker says. "This is a massive growth curve, so we’ve got to keep talent coming in that can keep up with that growth curve as it gets more complex and challenging, more sophisticated in the business. We’ve got to be developing people inside the company."

And since the COVID-19 pandemic, Sliker proudly says it has been the reputation of the company as a good place to work, with a strong culture and employee ownership, that has attracted fresh talent from across the country.

Servant leadership

Reflecting on his management style during the past decade, Sliker describes it as a humble servant leadership approach.

"My job is to serve, identify and meet the needs of people in this company, and doing that as best I can. It’s about having a good solid culture, providing all the things that people need to create an environment to thrive. That’s what I believe in," he reveals.

While his dedication to the role and Central States is unquestionable, it’s not all work for Sliker, who enjoys family time, particularly with his two daughters, competitive sports and community service.

"My colleagues would describe me as competitive. I still do sports. My midlife crisis has been for the last five years – triathlons and endurance sports to challenge my mind and my body. I’m hoping that ends soon before it kills me," he says with a laugh.

"I also love to do community service and benevolence. So between sports, my family and benevolence, it’s really my time."

And it’s this dedication to community impact that feeds through to the veins of the Central States.

"We believe in this idea of giving back in what we call the Giving Back program. It’s another thing that’s very intentional for us, and it’s not just writing checks. It’s using our hearts, heads, hands and feet to be out there serving in communities and creating community relationships and partnerships to serve," he explains.

"When we do that, we see the power that it brings. It fills your bucket up. I see the cultural benefits of that, and the relationship building benefits of that, are just tremendous."