Dear Mr. Halverson and the Board Search Committee,
I scaled a business unit from $90M to $220M in revenue while moving its EBITDA margin from 11% to 18%, which is the kind of growth a COO is hired to repeat and protect at once. Across 15-plus years I have owned P&L up to $220M and led cross-functional teams of more than 300, and the lesson that stuck is that scale only holds when sites run on shared standards rather than parallel habits. Halverson Foods Group is adding plants, and that scope only pays off if the additions report into one operating model instead of staying a collection of acquisitions. That is the work I would take on as COO from week one.
At Meridian Industrial Group I grew revenue 28% over three years while lifting EBITDA margin by 700 basis points, so growth and discipline moved together rather than against each other. The work I think maps most directly to Halverson is the 14-month turnaround I led that cut unit cost 19% and raised on-time delivery from 82% to 97%, which recovered three at-risk strategic accounts worth $34M. I also present quarterly to our board on operating performance and capital, and I secured approval for a $26M automation investment projecting 22% ROIC, so I am comfortable making the case for capital in the room where it gets decided.
My first deliverable as COO would be a single operating model for the expanded footprint: one set of standardized KPIs every plant reports against, which is how I cut director-level voluntary turnover from 21% to 9% and how I integrated two acquired facilities onto one ERP while keeping 94% of the key talent. I hold an MBA from Chicago Booth and the NACD Directorship Certification, and I can share references from directors and operating peers who have watched me run consolidations of this size. I am open to a working session with the committee in the next week or two to talk through how I would sequence the integration here.