Interview with Matt Brownson, Sales Manager of Big Chief Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of electrical process heating, sensors, and control systems focusing on the injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, packaging, and recycling industries.
Spending so much time in their customers’ facilities, Big Chief found nearly all were using some type of size reduction equipment, so in 2014 they joined forces with Virtus Equipment, one of the leading manufacturers of high-quality size reduction machinery. States Tom Breslin, President of Virtus Equipment- “Matt has a high degree of energy and work ethic with a great deal of passion for the customers he serves-It is truly a pleasure having him and his sales force on our team!”
Matt, tell us a little bit of your background, years in this field, and years with Big Chief.
I have been with Big Chief for 7 years now. I started my career cutting my teeth in the gritty streets of Cleveland (OH), Columbus (OH) and Pittsburgh (PA) before being brought into the Sales Manager position in 2018. I could take you to nearly every industrial park in those areas at this point. I came from residential maintenance and preservation sales prior to Big Chief.
What is your favorite part of your job?
I absolutely love being brought in by our maintenance teams and working on long term electrical process heating related issues. The stuff that has cost money and manpower over the years that we can correct. Sometimes those take the form of long-term OEM component design problems and one-size-fits-all assumptions that we can adjust and better suit them to a specific plant, and sometimes they relate to power grid supply problems. I found myself taking a “scientific method” approach to problems I was presented with, and in doing so can much more accurately narrow in on the root culprit of what is going on. The moment things get solved and you see that look on a customer’s face and exchange a dirty hand fist bump, it makes the work worth it!
How did Big Chief get into the recycling market?
Big Chief has been around since 1962, so for a long time, we’d been rubbing elbows with size reduction needs and equipment, but as of late those demands on processors for increased throughput and volume have reached a much higher urgency. In our conversations with customers, we would be routinely asked if we were involved in these areas and we were hearing service complaints at times on support they were (or were not) receiving. We ran into Tom Breslin and Virtus Equipment at a trade show by accident and were really impressed with Virtus Equipment’s expertise and drive to flip the quality and service expectations for size reduction equipment on its head. We knew there was an opportunity, but as the “Heater Leader” we knew we would need strong and ultra-reliable support in a size reduction partner. It was a perfect marriage right from the start!
How do you feel about the future of the recycling market?
Our employees, most with kids and grandkids, are passionate about the big picture for reprocessing and recycling. It is critical to quality of life and sustainability. That said, from an execution standpoint, we have been thoroughly impressed at the capabilities of both the processors and the technology available now. The best processors are converting to 0 waste facilities and realizing an increasingly short ROI for their capital equipment in doing so. The new equipment is also energy efficient for another layer of savings and maximizes the safety levels on the processing level as well that allow staff to return to their families every day.
How many are in the Big Chief sales force?
We currently have 15 field-focused outside sales representatives that cover the United States coast to coast. Our inside sales team services those facilities as well as our international clients from a sourcing and supply standpoint. Most quotes within an hour. Our technical director, Mike Heald, also heads our Visual Heater Survey (plant mapping) program nationally and does a wide range of optimization consulting on sites. The service portions of our business are where we are seeing an increase in demand. Making sure the right parts in the right quantity are on hand when needed.
What differentiates Big Chief from their competitors?
Our tag line is our focus: Serve. Solve. Simplify. We have experienced technical salespeople as well as a solid internal support system, and a requirement of being at Big Chief is having a sense of creativity, because there is often no set playbook for the issues we encounter. It takes solid critical thinking and experience to produce something new and novel. That is the business stuff. On a softer note, we still greet everyone with a smile, and good southern-Ohio conversations about kids, vacations, and life. We still absolutely believe in that.
Why did Big Chief choose Virtus Equipment to represent?
As I had mentioned a little before, we needed a partner that could support us. We are great at process heaters, sensors, and controllers, but were starting from the ground floor on size reduction equipment. We’d also heard complaints about other equipment (brands) we’d seen, but never heard a bad word on Virtus which we determined was just what we needed — A partner that held similar values to Big Chief and one that we were confident would be there for us whenever we needed them. Virtus Equipment was, and continues to be, the perfect piece of the size reduction puzzle for Big Chief.
Thank you, Matt!
For more information on BIG CHIEF INC. please contact Matt at 800-835-4328.