Taylor goes solo again this week, this time to answer some of your questions, including those regarding the history of Ken White Construction, how he balances the intense demands of running it, and his commitment to family and personal well-being. Throughout the episode, Taylor explores the power of strategic time management, the importance of a supportive partner, and the long-term vision for a multi-generational family business.
Feeling overwhelmed by the constant demands of your business, leaving little time for family or yourself? This episode reveals how to "pick your times" for work and family, demonstrating that intentional balance is key to both professional success and personal fulfillment. Join Taylor here today to discover how to build a thriving business, nurture strong family bonds, and create a lasting legacy that future generations will be proud to inherit.
And don’t forget to keep those questions coming!
Topics:
- Setting up the next generation for success
- Balancing business, family, and self-care
- Tips for managing stress
- The importance of community impact
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Episode transcript:
Taylor White: Welcome back, everybody, to the CONEXPO/CON-AGG Podcast. I am your host, as always, Taylor White. Here with me today, I have myself. Me, myself, and I. Why? Well, listen, the last podcast was, in the spur of a moment, a solo podcast. And what I realized by talking on the solo podcast was that I haven't been able to connect and talk and share a lot about my story or share a lot about our growth in recent years or just this year alone. And we're learning so much. And a lot of people had some really good feedback and they really enjoyed listening to what was going on. So what I did was I went out on Instagram and I said, “Hey. I'm going to do another solo podcast. What do you guys want to hear?” And we got probably between 80 and 100 people that replied back. And what I did was on this podcast, I chose the top 3, and then from there I saved other top 3s that I'll save for future episodes. But what I really enjoy about this is you guys could give feedback as to what you guys want to hear and what you guys want to talk about.
So there was a common theme with them and when I was starting them off– I might want to add to that, I really enjoy sitting here talking with myself as well, too. I love being able to interview other people, but I genuinely love just sitting here, getting to talk and sharing stuff because it gives me a chance to be really transparent. And it's kind of like therapy, really, for me. I've always said that. Even when I used to do my own podcast, not with AEM, I used to do episodes all by myself and just talk and it was like therapy. It's like you're sitting in a machine all day, 10 hours a day. Operators can relate. You sit there, you get kind of in a trance, and you do some of your best thinking. Sometimes it gets scary, sometimes it doesn't.
So one of the main things that people wanted to know and hear about, and it made me realize, okay, there's a lot of people that have just come into this podcast or maybe just know me from the podcast. And I haven't done a good job of explaining who I am and what I do. So one of the main questions was, what do you do? Explain your role in the business and what you do. So, Ken White Construction. Ken White was my grandfather. He started this business in 1968. My father is David White. He's second generation. He's my father. He's still part of the business. We are business partners in Ken White Construction 50-50. We are together owners of Ken White Construction and the most easiest way to explain it. That would be my on paper role. Now a little bit about the business. Like I said, my grandfather, Ken White started the business in 1968. He started with a 5-ton dump truck and he delivered aggregates, he delivered gravel, topsoil. And then from there, I believe he bought a track loader and he started doing excavations for digging for people. Back then track loaders dug it like a foundation, kind of like a half moon. You kind of had to slope yourself out, slope yourself back in. From there, he got into septics, I think, in around the late ‘70s or ‘80s. Back then, not much regulation, so it's crazy what you could get away with. But he started in septics, started doing that dirt work, and kept it relatively small.
My father came into the business in the ‘80s, and worked. My dad was born in ‘65. He worked, there's pictures of him working the ‘70s, much like myself, kind of worked in the family business. My dad had a couple other siblings. Dad ended up taking the business on in the ‘90s, kind of grabbing a more of a, I guess, important role in the business. And then my grandfather got– Well, my grandmother, his wife, she got sick and passed away in 1999. She was young, she was in her 50s. Well, my grandpa was, too. My grandpa was 59 when he died, so she got sick ‘99. And then shortly after my grandfather, Ken White, he got sick in 2000 and he passed away in 2001. And if you've been around for a while, you don't know there is a legally registered company, Ken White Construction 2000. Now, there's two businesses there because one rents equipment to the other company. It's just set up that way, it's more safe that way. We're protected more that way. So that's when my father kind of took over in 2000. And he was really doing some serious commercial projects at the time. And I think that was the largest that he was. But he, in general, to summarize, stayed around three to four employees all through. I graduated high school in 2013, so that's kind of the back story.
Now where I come into it, I've been doing this and I was making a TikTok the other day because people were ripping on our auto greaser saying auto greasers don't make sense and this and that topic for another day. Auto greasers are great. Let me just say that. I grew up in the industry. I grew up working with my dad. People always ask me, and this is one of the most common questions I get. Did you know that this is what you wanted to do? My answer is, yeah, I knew I wanted to do this from day 1. And growing up, a young boy, what's cooler than your dad having excavators and bulldozers. That stuff was so cool to me. I always wanted to do this. I never had any ambitions to do anything else other than move dirt, do septic systems, work outside, and eventually run and own the family business. I knew that that's what I wanted to do. My dad knew that's what I wanted to do, too. It's funny. I'll share a personal story that I don't know if my dad remembers this story, too, and I'll talk more to, I guess, growing up and what it was like.
So our business, obviously, has grown in the past six years. I took over six years ago. When I say took over, it was the reins, right? Dad's still part of it. I just took the company in my own grasp and put my spin in my direction on it. And we built this awesome team. And as a team, we've gotten to where we are today. Now, I remember things weren't always as big as they are right now. My dad went through a lot of tough times. We were not wealthy growing up. We were not even considered probably middle class growing up, but not for a long time. So around 2003, dad had some good commercial jobs, and he really started growing the business, and that's when we started doing a little bit better. But I remember dad saying repo guys coming for his truck. I remember dad just stressing about money constantly. Just growing up, that's just kind of what it was. And then dad's a really great businessman, so he kind of took the business and he transformed it after grandpa passed away and made it, I guess, more profitable. I can't speak to numbers and all that stuff and what he did when he was doing it. But things got better. And I remember we moved to a different house, and it was such an upgrade from where we lived before. And I remember even my friends were like, “Dude, holy God. This house is crazy.” I remember being like, “Yeah.” And then we got a hot tub. And that was a big deal. We had this hot tub. And I remember one night me and dad were in the hot tub because it was like a special thing. You eat dinner and then like, “All right. If you're good, you guys, we can go in the hot tub.” We were old enough. I have kids now. We were old enough to be in the hot tub.
And I remember having a conversation with my dad about buying the company. And I'll never forget this. And hopefully he remembers it as well, too. And he was sitting diagonally across from me and hot tubs going, you got the steam. I can kind of barely see him. I remember just saying to him, like, “How much did you pay for the company?” And I remember him going, “What?” And I remember saying, “Well, how much did you pay for the company?” And I remember him coming across the hot tub and I remember him saying, “Well, Taylor.” I was probably 10, 11 years old. And again, I was 10 or 11 years old asking my dad how much we acquired a business for. That tells you my childhood. My dad was in business. That's what we did all the time. So that was a hot tub conversation. I wasn't talking about Shrek or Toy Story. I was asking my dad about how much did you acquire a business for. And I remember dad saying, “Well, son, I don't think you're ready for that conversation right now, but when the time comes, I'll let you know.” And I remember saying, “No, I want to know.” And I remember dad saying, “Taylor, don't worry about how much I paid or how much, because then–” I said, “Well, how much am I going to have to pay? And I remember him saying, “Don't worry about how much I paid. Don't worry about how much you have to pay. You just put your head down and you work. And when you're ready, then we can have this conversation.” And I'll never forget that. And that was so insane to think. And then here we are, I'm 30 years old, and we've already had that conversation. That story, to me, I guess kind of gives you a good background of my role in the business and my mindset for the business and where I've been. Always been Ken White Construction. Always known that I've wanted to do this. So that's kind of the backstory, I guess, on the role.
So if I were to talk about my day to day specifics, responsibilities. So for instance, today there's always stuff going on in business. And honestly it's kind of silly because I feel like when somebody asks me what do I do, I almost freeze up and it's like, what do I do? But it's because you have your hands on so many things. But for instance, being specific right now, it's January, so work’s a little bit slower right now. So right now, I'm going through our sapphire fuel system and I'm going through making sure all employees have user tags so that we can track our clear, unleaded and dyed diesel. I'm going through looking at cash flow projections. I'm calculating, because we had our year end already, I'm calculating our E–B–I–T–D–A, EBITDA. The value of your business. I always like knowing that. So a lot of, I guess, high level but not super detailed financial and operations efficiencies right now is what I'm really into. Now in the summertime, I have my hands in on everything, but I don't manage certain projects. I don't really manage the projects. Catherine in the office, she coordinates, she does a lot of the day to day, well all of the day to day managing, dispatching the guys at night. So I'm not operations like that. I'm looking more at a higher level. But also we're not like a massive company. So I am involved, obviously, I have my hands in everything. But I like looking after the aggregates, our pit. I like looking after the sand, making sure that we got enough material here or there. This year, Daniel's going to help me with that, which is really fun. I look at machinery, purchasing, I look at manpower, I look at cash flow, the amount of jobs coming up and then obviously networking and relationships. So a lot of different things.
But to summarize it, just everything that a business owner who is obsessed with micromanaging does. And a lot of people cut down and say, “Oh, micromanaging is really bad.” And I've been called a micromanager before, but I highly disagree when people say micromanaging is bad. I think micromanaging, if you were a $100 million company, kind of hard to micromanage. I mean you still can, but it's probably not beneficial. But a company our size, I do micromanage and I do think that that's okay. Now when my dad micromanages, it's not okay because he's my father and it pisses me off. And I also want to make sure like the jobs are done, the jobs are done right and if there's disagreements with billing. I do all of our invoicing, I look at all of our AP, I look at all of our AP. I take care of employees, giving raises. I take care of Catherine hires and onboards, but I take care of things like pay, I'm looking at the bank accounts, all that stuff. So I guess that's what essentially I would be doing every single day. And that is my role in the business. And I hope that that kind of clarifies that a little bit.
But the next question, this was actually probably the most asked topic. Maybe I said that about the last one, but this was the most asked. It was, talk about how you balance family and work and also taking care of yourself. Now it's funny when people talk about business or they mention something, they go, work-life balance, what's your work life balance? And mainly when they mean work-life, they mean like at home or something. But there's actually three. It's your business, your family and yourself. And everybody always forgets about that last one, yourself, including me. And I'm trying to, I guess, this year, everyone thinks it's super cool to be like new New Year's resolutions are stupid or setting goals in the new year is dumb. And no, they're awesome. I love them. I write them on my whiteboard and I look at them every day. And when I don't complete them, I call myself, I tell myself I'm a loser. That's how hard I am on myself. I'm not saying that that's a good thing to do.
Now, I just got back from a workout. I did a noon class workout. I think it's really important to prioritize your health. And it is almost impossible to do in a construction company, especially in the summertime when your days are 5:00 AM to 7:00 PM and then when you're a business owner or me or whatever, I'm going home. Okay. What content do we have from the day? What do we need to post and upload? Oh, okay. This client just texted. They're actually not ready for us to move there tomorrow. So now I'm texting Catherine about that. Okay. Now Alex is messaging me about this job because they need to know the price because they want to get started next week on this. So many different aspects, it's just all the time. When do you throw in taking care of yourself in there, let alone your family. So how do I manage all this madness? I don't. That's the answer. I'm not a professional. I don't claim to be. I pick my times and I think that that is very key. And I'll also mention another one is to marry the right woman or man. I cannot stress that enough. I have two kids with a third one on the way. And everybody I talk to is like, “Oh, geez. How are you going to manage three kids, your life, you won't have any time for work or blah blah, blah.” I have an awesome, awesome wife. And that is honestly the glue that holds this paper mache of life together. I could not do what I do without her. Yeah, three kids scares the crap out of me. But you got to pick your times with your family. Right now it's January 1st. It's been two years. I never took a honeymoon with my wife. We haven't been alone in three years. It took seven days, we went on a trip together. Seven days was a little too long. Five days would have been perfect. We both agreed that five would have been perfect. Seven was like, you're really starting missing your kids around five days.
And then you get back and you're like, “Oh, I missed you guys.” I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Okay. January's going to be slower with work this and that. March, there's March break. March is still kind of slow. We're going to do a Disney trip with the kids. And then between those two trips– Yesterday, I was home at 4:30. Tonight, I'm going with my wife to an event at 5:00. That's all stuff that doesn't happen come April, May to December 31 or Christmas shutdown, essentially just before Christmas. So when I say pick your times, my wife knows that the business that provides and puts food on our table and shelter over our head and our employees and all this stuff, allows us to go on these trips and do stuff. It requires me to be on it and fully actively working between here and here. Well, all the time. But I'm more lenient in a certain amount of space just after Christmas to April. So that's when I myself go, okay, now is my time to act on the work, family, the balance and you know, go home earlier. I didn't need to be sitting at the office yesterday by myself at 4:00 PM in the afternoon, there's no one there. The guys are all back from sight. There's not much pricing or it's just quieter right now. So go home, hang out with your family. So that would be my best advice on honestly how my brain goes about work life balance is pick your time, understand your time, and make sure that you have somebody that understands your time. That's just the way it is. It can go either way. That could be your wife being the breadwinner and you're the one that kind of is maybe looking at the family a little bit more, looking after the house duties a little bit more, or you're the man and you know your wife's at home, it goes vice versa. But pick your battles and marry the right person and know your times. I cannot stress that enough.
I was a young guy in business and he's like, “Oh, I'm single.” And like, dude, marry the right woman. Because there's nothing worse than if you had somebody that you're trying to build something great because it takes so much time and blood and sweat and tears to build something great. And if you had somebody on the other end your phone be like, "you're not home. You're never home.” Nuh uh. Get out of my life. That's not going to work. And that's just how I am. But again, I'm trying to grow something big and large. I think I could probably scale back and have more time at home, but that's just not my mind. That's not how I operate. I operate, okay, we reached here, what's next? We reached here, what's next? Keep climbing, keep climbing. It is a challenge and you have to know boundaries. I will say that as well too. I want to make sure that everybody also understands and I can't emphasize enough the importance in self care. I know I touched on that. When I go and work out and I take that hour in the wintertime or I'm working out more in the summertime, I love running out in the heat. My mind feels so much better. I deal with insane, insane anxiety. And not anxiety about work or anxiety about– I have a really high level of stress. Like I have a high stress tolerance for stuff at work. Like stuff that happens to me on a regular basis would probably make other people crumble. Maybe I sound like an ego when I say that. I'm aware of that. But honestly, the stuff that you deal with as a business owner and the more money that you're making, the more problems that there are. The more people that you have, the more issues that there's going to be. It's so true. Where my anxiety comes from is that I have something– I mean, obviously, I've never got– Like, I've done some therapy, but I've never gone to somebody who has been like, “This is what you have.” But the best way for me that I could say is I have cardiophobia, I guess, they would call it.
Ever since I had Afibrillation, I have had insane crippling anxiety about my heart and heart health. And the weirdest chest pain or whatnot, or my anxiety will create chest pains or a flutter in my heart or something. I immediately, boom, think I'm dying. So the point of that, and trust me, if anybody else deals with that, I actually spoke to another guy who's a buddy with me. He's doing the same thing, crazy palpitations all the time. Just understand and know if you're listening to this and you just related to that blurb about me freaking out about my heart health and palpitations and Afib and all this, because I've had all that. You're okay. You're going to be okay. I've gotten tests done, my MRIs, my CT. I'm good. But in my mind, I can forget about knowing that I'm good and I think that I'm dying. Like, that's how crazy it is. It's insane. So I went through two years of that. It was just like, I couldn't think about anything else but that. But if you're somebody that deals with that, that really affects your business. So going and working out really helps and clears my mind and keeps me in check and makes me think, “Okay, good. I know I'm good. I worked out. I feel better. It clears my mind.” So make sure to take care of yourself or else those anxieties, the stuff that I just talked about, that is going to cripple you and ruin you, and you're going to be sitting in your office only thinking about those anxieties, and that doesn't help you or your employees trust me or your family.
Okay. So to kind of stay with this theme that we've been talking about this entire time, a really another big one that people wanted to ask, and I think this one's good because it goes for people that are in my position of where they're in a generational business. Or people that also just started their own business and they have kids or family, cousins, whatever, that they want to pass on the family business to or get them involved. The question was like the third most asked thing was, how are you setting up the next generation of business? My vision for my kids is that they're going to have this company that they're not going to have to stress, worry about money, that is a huge thing for me. I don't want my kids to have to worry about that. I want to leave behind this property as paid for. I want to live behind that. Let me deal with the mortgage that's on it. I want to leave behind machinery, a great client list. I want to leave behind an awesome team. I want to leave behind something that generates money for them and they don't have to worry about that. Ideally, all three kids that I have, or four, however many we're having, all want to be a part of the business. My hope and dream is that if I share my love and passion for what I do, that they will share that as well. If you go home every night and talk about how your job is or how much you hate your job, guess what? Your kids are going to grow up thinking that that's normal, that they should just work is something to do to go get money, and that's it. And you should not like it.
Even my daughter, who's three years old, I talk about, because she sees what's written on my arm, “Work harder.” She goes to dance and I'll be like, “Work hard, honey.” And she'll come back and she'll be like, “Daddy, I worked so hard,” and she loves it. So I go home and I talk really positively about work. And I explained to her, don't get me wrong, there's bad days as well, too. But doing something that you love, or being able to create your own schedule or just working the family business is so fulfilling for your soul, I guess. Seeing our name driving down the road, pulling up to our office and seeing Ken White Construction, that is so cool. Going to the high school and donating $10,000 every year to one local student who wants to get into the trades in my grandfather's name, in our business's name, that's cool. Seeing our name on a barn at the local fairground where we support in the community, that's cool. That sort of stuff is what I want to pass on to my kids. I want to pass on that sort of stuff. Now, selfishly, what I want to pass on as well, too, is a massive amount of hard drives of everything that I filmed in the last few years. And they'll be able to watch their dad and their kids will be able to watch their grandpa and then their great grandpa. I want Ken White Construction to be a 300, 400-year long business. Hopefully no one, along the span, decides to sell. I have zero interest. Somebody could come and offer me $100 million tomorrow. And my business is not worth that by any means. But I would still say no. Zero interest in selling. There's stuff that I would sell, but not my business. I would never sell my business. I want my kids to flourish in it. That is my vision for Ken White Construction.
Now long term planning for this, I guess you could say, is starting my kids off knowing that you should love what you do and you should really enjoy what you do. And doing what my father did with me is really important. And that is boots on the ground working. There's nothing that my guys do that I have not done. My goal is that they can do it better than me. But I have done every single thing my guys have. I've done hundreds, if not thousand septics. I've dug lots of basements. I grew up just doing this stuff. And we were a three, four man crew. So I've run bulldozers, excavators. Boots on the ground. My kids will not step over a ladder. They will not climb a ladder, they will not skip steps on the ladder, metaphorically speaking. My kids will not come into the business and all of a sudden be in the office. My kids will sweep the floors. They will start as shop laborers. They will clean the drains in the shop. They will wash our machinery, they will grease our machinery. They will get covered and be on their hands and knees in plus 40 degree heat and greasing and learning what it's like to be in the trade. And they're not going to just do that for two months and then get a promotion. I am old school that way. My kids are going to work for every single dollar that they may ever get. And I will make sure of that. Nothing in life is given. They need to know that. That's what my father did for me.
I had an awesome opportunity growing up in a family business. And I always tell people this. They always go, “Oh, well, it must be nice. You grew up in a family business.” I didn't ask to be born into the family. I was just born. And guess what? There's a massive opportunity here. And I acted on it and I took it and I understood that opportunity that I had in front of me and rather than wasting it, I acted on it. And that's what I want my kids to understand that there's a lot of other people that don't have this opportunity. It's there for you if you want it. And I hope that you do want it. I hope that my kids go and get a little more educated than I did. They don't need to go to school to learn business. They don't need to go to school to learn how to run a bulldozer or dig a hole. They need to go to school. I would love for them to be an accountant or a lawyer. That would be like– Essentially, I guess selfishly, if I could say the perfect trifecta would be if there was one of them who was amazing and good at business and was a natural born leader more than the rest. Another one that was just an accountant and another one that's a lawyer. And then your business is basically unstoppable. If you have a really good lawyer, really good accountant and a really good leader, build your team on that. Get really good operators, foremans, good people like we have now and you're going to be unstoppable. And that's essentially my long term planning is to make them grow up, make them work, make them love it. And my hope is they'll understand the benefits of it by doing stuff, maybe that their friends aren't going and doing or, “Oh, my friends aren't going to Disney. Oh, they're not going to this, they're not going to that.” It's like, well, we can go and do those things God willing that something doesn't happen. And I speak like that tomorrow everything could come down crashing and I could be cleaning the drain floors again. Nothing is certain in life. Today is good. Tomorrow is not promised. I want them to understand that we're fortunate enough so it's something that has to be earned. It's not something that's just given. And those would be my values.
There's something that I wrote in my notes here that talks about the values that basically I like when I said to my daughter, I have tattooed “Work Harder” on me. That's just my motto. That's my life. I bring my kids here on the weekend to watch me work out. They love working out with me. They get on the pull up bar, they will have like two pound weights they're like putting above their heads. I like them seeing dad doing those things and mom doing those things. And my daughter is such a perfect little girl. I mean, don't get me wrong. She has her days. But she's such a classic girl. She sees mom cleaning the house, so she'lll just go and she'll be walking around the house and cleaning. So it's like your kids are a product of what they see. So really being good role models, I think, is a really important thing. So I guess I kind of encourage you guys to think about your legacy. Those are just my values. And maybe if you're like, “Man, I work too hard for my kids to clean drains, they're not going to do that.” I have zero wrong with that. Go ahead, you do you. But I would. If you're a business owner, it doesn't matter if you're third generation, you just started it. But if you have kids and you want to pass down it, I would ask you to start asking yourself, how are you going to do it? What sort of values are you going to impose on them? And just be cognitive of all this because it's really important. Your kid's future is super important and your family is super important.
And that's why I like setting up long term things such as the Ken White Construction Award for the student, the trades. That's a great thing. And I can't wait for my kids to even get– So far we've awarded $20,000. We've committed $50,000 for that. That’s really cool. That is honestly one of my favorite things. But you don't even get to talk about how cool that is that we do, which is so unique. And it makes the kids that win it– One year was an electrician, the other one was, I forget what the first year was, I think he's an electrician as well too. or HVAC it helps so much. One guy was like, “Dude, this is going to actually just make it so I can actually get to school for my apprenticeship for my electrician course. And I'm like, “That is so awesome.” So being able to continue on and do stuff like that is so cool. But I want to hear from you guys, I want to know what you guys want to hear more of. I personally love blabbing and talking. If after the second episode you guys are like, “This sucks now,” let me know. But if you really enjoy me kind of going in depth, going in deep, being more honest, kind of sharing more about my life or my beliefs and my opinions, our business, please let me know and comment on the posts, like, share all that stuff our podcast.
I really enjoyed doing this and I really want to say thank you to everybody. And I'm so excited, March next year. I'm not going to say the exact dates because I believe it's somewhere in March and there will be info all out there. It's already chosen. I just don't want to say the wrong days for CONEXPO, but next year, March 2026, I can't honestly wait to reconnect and talk to everybody and see everybody there. The people at AEM put on an awesome show, but nonetheless thank you guys for continuing to watch and listen. We have a really cool list of guests. The most listened to podcast on our show was Trebo Dirt, Trebo. And guess who's coming on in two weeks. I just messaged him this morning and we're booking it for not next week, but the week after. Trebo. So look forward to that. Give us your feedback. Reach out to me, DM me, let me know. Always good chatting with you. Thanks for listening to the CONEXPO/CON-AGG Podcast. We'll catch you on the next one.
