Written by Katie Bahr
This is one of two posts based on sessions from the Spring 2024 Supply Chain Forum, which took place from April 9–11 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Attendees may watch the entire presentation under Resources in the GSCI app.
On the second day of the spring forum, supply chain management department head John Bell sat down with entrepreneur and University of Tennessee System President Randy Boyd. Their one-hour discussion ranged in subject matter from Boyd’s success as a start-up founder of Radio Systems Corporation (now PetSafe brands) to his vision for the future of UT. The underlying theme of the session was that passion trumps experience as a key determinant of success.
Because of Boyd’s position as the leader of the university system, as well as one of the decades-long challenges facing the supply chain profession, Boyd emphasized the importance of sourcing good people in an emerging company.
“In the beginning [at Radio Systems], we didn’t have a plan,” Boyd said. “I would hire anyone who would come work for us as a small start-up. I worked out of a condemned tractor-trailer. There was no security net, and most people who interviewed probably figured we wouldn’t make it another month. We were looking for people who were truly excited about what we were doing. It was a bit self-selecting.”
That self-selection served the company well as it grew into a global $300 million pet products company. As the company gained talent options, it became harder to identify the correct criteria to maintain its culture and success. In the end, values became a key identifier.
“You can teach skills, and skills will move and change,” Boyd said. “You’ve got to hire for behavior and ability to live up to your values. That’s how you get the right people on the bus.”
Boyd noted that finding the right people is only the first step. Companies must also invest in them—no easy task for a cash-strapped small business owner—and then decide when to let some go as others grow.
“A mentor once told me, ‘You can invest in your people and worry that they leave or not invest and worry that they stay,’” Boyd said. “I’ve never heard people say that they fired someone too soon. When it’s time to get them off the bus, it’s one of the harder things to do. But if it’s not a good fit for them, give them an opportunity to be successful elsewhere.”
Bell asked Boyd how he handled conflict across all the organizations he’s led.
“Conflict isn’t something to avoid; it’s something to manage,” he said. “If you create an organization where people trust each other, if I trust in your motives, your values, what you’re trying to accomplish, that conflict becomes collaborative.”
Bell transitioned to asking what it was like for Boyd to create a supply chain from scratch as he grew a global company out of his garage. The legend of humble beginnings is mostly true, though Boyd took a minute to correct a key detail.
“I didn’t start in my garage,” he said, laughing. “I started in my grandmother’s basement, then moved up to a trailer. A garage was something I aspired to have.”
While growing Radio Systems in the early 1990s, Boyd said he had no idea he was working in a supply chain. He was simply trying to “get stuff made.” Building trust with suppliers and customers was a major challenge. He and his team assembled invisible fence products in-house. Product reliability hovered around 30 percent and shipping was always behind, which led Boyd to try some creative tactics.
“We found out that our circuit board supplier in Asheville could do two shifts for us, but FedEx couldn’t ship to us after midnight,” he said. So we used Greyhound’s Next Bus Out service. I picked up the circuits at the bus station at 4 a.m., then coated them so they could dry over the next three hours before the assemblers came in.”
Boyd alluded to his earlier statements about the power of conflict when he noted that no one thinks about these struggles becoming stories while living them. At the moment, it’s solely about survival.
What keeps Boyd excited and passionate enough to work through these challenges? Though his scope has grown from improving a business that improved pets’ lives to improving the world through education, the base action is the same. Today, Boyd passionately pursues making the 2020s UT’s greatest decade. Bell asked what decade Boyd was modeling his goal on and what was involved in the idea of UT’s greatest decade.
The 1960s under Andy Holt was his pick for the decade to beat. During that period, enrollment tripled, the university officially added the Chattanooga and Martin campuses, created the Institute of Public Service, and invented the Power T run-through and checkerboard end zones.
Boyd’s vision for UT in 2030 includes increasing enrollment to 71,000 and hitting $1 billion in research funding. He’s also working with state and non-profit partners to expand UT’s economic impact, particularly in rural counties. He sees Tennessee’s economic disparity, the substance abuse epidemic, and K-12 education struggles as issues the university system is uniquely positioned to tackle.
“These are big, gnarly problems that will take much more than a governor’s term to solve,” he said. “At UT, we have the reach, the longevity, and the expertise to solve them. It’s part of our obligation as a land grant university.”
During his tenure, the UT System has brought UT Southern, originally Martin Methodist, under its umbrella. It is the only public, four-year university in a 23-county area with the state’s lowest college attendance. The partnership came together more quickly than Boyd or most other people involved had imagined possible.
“We agreed that their mission was to help train teachers and nurses who would likely be serving in the same area of rural Tennessee after graduation,” Boyd said. “I floated the idea on a call to the governor, hoping he’d say, ‘That’s interesting. Let me think about it.’ He said, ‘I love this idea!’ three times in 10 minutes.”
UT moved forward, hiring a consultant to complete due diligence, and within three months, university leaders announced exploratory talks. Within 14 months, Boyd’s team had met with Martin Methodist, negotiated, and received state funding. In the end, the arrangement benefitted both students and their communities. Tuition has dropped from $26,000 to $10,000, and UT Promise allows five out of five in-state students to attend for free.
Boyd has also been doing a lot to improve the Knoxville community as the owner of the Tennessee Smokies minor league baseball team. He’s pioneered the construction of the team’s future baseball stadium in the Old City. A remarkable feat informs his vision for the project; Boyd has visited every major league baseball stadium in the nation, both new and old. To him, sports like baseball are a way to bring people of all ages, ethnicities, and incomes together around local food and businesses. In the case of East Knoxville, it may also help to heal some historic wounds.
“In the 1950s, urban renewal wiped out a big portion of East Knoxville, and then James White Parkway split the city in two between the prosperous and the challenged,” Boyd said. “Huge meat packing plants were abandoned, forming a wall between East Knoxville and the rest of the city. We’re trying to knock that wall down and let the stadium be a bridge and a catalyst for growth going east.”
You can follow along with all that Boyd is doing as UT System President in his monthly column.