Ending STRONG: Incentives, New Equipment, and the HAAS Group Transition

Episode 11 of the Kick Haas Podcast brings leadership together for a year-end reflection on 2025 and a forward look into 2026. Host Jeff Cowan is joined by Jon Haas, Rob Mohan, Kevin Rake, and Taylor Haas to discuss the group’s continued growth, major investments in facilities and technology, expanding capabilities across all companies, and the momentum created by strong teamwork and strategic planning. The conversation highlights record sales, workforce growth, key project wins, operational improvements, and the vision behind the upcoming HAAS Group brand launch, reinforcing a shared commitment to collaboration, innovation, and sustained growth as the organization moves confidently into the year ahead. 

Transcript

Setting The Tone For 2026

Jeff Cowan 0:01

You are listening to the Kick Hass Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the 11th edition of the Kick Hass Podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Cowman, General Manager of Hass Crane and Equipment Rental, joined today with John Haass, President, Rob Mohan, Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Rake, Chief Financial Officer, and Taylor Hass, General Manager Topeka Foundry. Welcome, fellas. It has been a bit since we've last met, March of earlier this year. We've got lots to cover. We've got a review of year end 2025. Thank you guys for joining and looking forward to getting everybody caught up with uh what's been going on this year. Looks like, all things considered, it's been a damn good year.

Jon Haas 0:53

I think things are going really well. Um, we've got a lot of promising work for the future, and I think that's probably the number one driver that tells us that we're going to have a good year for 2026. You know, we've always had that mindset of the 10% growth per year and uh keep that going. It not only does it grow the workforce, but it ensures that we have work in front of us, and I think that's probably one of the most important things as a company or any company can have is to make sure that we have abundant work for our workforces, for ourselves, to keep everything moving. If if we run short on work, we almost instantly see a downturn in in profits and actually they can go the other way really fast. And so that continued growth is is super important and uh we're excited with what we've got coming up this next year. I think that it's so important that we continue to uh keep working harder to find new work and find opportunities to be better. And I think that kind of goes with our motto for 2025 of uh start strong, finish strong. Um we've we've seen what happens if we don't start strong and if we don't finish strong. So I think from there I'm gonna let Kevin talk a little bit about uh the financials with the commission and and all the good accounting stuff.

Kevin Rake 2:03

Yeah, we definitely

Start Strong, Finish Strong

Kevin Rake 2:05

uh kind of took that to heart, the start strong, finish strong. We we saw the results of not finishing very well in 2024, and so I think everybody teamwork-wise put it together and really hit 2025 going strong. And so, Jeff, it is kind of crazy

Financials, Incentives, And Growth

Kevin Rake 2:20

to think of uh 200 million just back there in 2022. Uh, as a group, we're looking at being about 300 million in sales uh for 2025. And with that is the you know, nearly 200 additional employees you talked about, 10,000 more tons a year in that what we're producing through our shops. And it's just continuing to build upon that. And I think that's what we've seen through the growth and positioning ourselves well to be able to take advantage of some of the jobs and the opportunities that come along. And so 2025 has been a fantastic year. And part of this podcast is to say thank you to all the employees and to really kind of praise that. Never settle, and so we're gonna keep figuring out ways to work harder and to keep moving. Um, but it'll be fun to send out that commission letter here at the end of January uh and kind of talk about that. And so we'll we'll uh kind of sneak some of it out right now in that we do anticipate building upon what we had in that third quarter. So we ran that letter towards the end of October and talked about where we were on commissions and kind of projecting out where we are on the incentive. And I think everybody will be pretty pleased and excited when we get to the end of the year and we're hitting most of those goals. We've seen continued growth through HME and Peak2Peak and Hash Crane. We'll keep working through Topeka Foundry and some of the struggles that we've had on the machine shop side, but they're improving greatly. We had a little bit of setback with some unfortunate things on the Topeka Foundry commercial door, but we've really regained some steam there and are making some good headways. So I'm excited to see what those fourth quarter commission results will end up being for the group and overall for the incentive as well. You know, we're we're pushing and projecting towards that 100%, and that's going to be, you know, a game changer for a lot of our employees and some of the things that we get rewarded as a result.

Jeff Cowan 4:07

Well, I know the financial incentives are things that people are always interested in. The some of the improvements that will have been made across the company from or the last last several years, what improvements have been made in some of that stuff? Talk about some of the things that have gone on with things in kind of your department.

Tech Investments Driving Capacity

Rob Mohan 4:25

Um there there's been a obviously everyone knows there's always a continuous forward motion. I will have to give a lot of credit to our scheduling department. Um that team there, uh they're the heartbeat of all of our shops and all of our companies. So they they set the tone, they set the pace, and they establish the milestones. Um then they watch it closely and ensure we hit those milestones. Um, you know, a lot of people see all the new equipment coming in the door, um, Topeka Foundry. Got a new mill coming in here in the next month. At HME, we uh just installed a robotic system manufactured by AGT. Gives us the capability to weld very large assemblies, 14 foot wide up to 110 foot long, with unlimited uh weight capacity. So there's always that forward thought on how how do we stay in front of technology, how do we continuously improve, with more plans as we progress into 2026, which we could touch on here in a bit.

Jeff Cowan 5:26

You know what it me it seems like there's always there's constant motion, always some new initiative to make some type of improvement in the shops. It's always some type of machinery, the next initiative on on the next, what what the next plan is. It just seems like status quo is not an option.

Rob Mohan 5:44

You're right. Um John loves machines as well, so he's always looking for a reason to buy one, but we we definitely vet it out and make sure they they make sense for the business. Um so yeah, the the the next thing that's headed our way is a a new plate laser uh manufactured by Vortman. It's a 40 kilowatt machine, it can bevel cut, it'll have a 65-foot table. And then what makes it unique is it'll also have another gantry that you can perform machining operations, drilling, tapping, counter-syncing, counterboring, things like that. Uh so that machine is due here in the next two to three months. And the other thing that's cooking right now is a tube laser. Um tube laser technology is just pretty pr pretty impressive. Um not only can you laser cut tubing structural shapes, but the this machine also has, or I should say some of the machinery also has drilling heads. Um you can tap, drill, you can friction drill. So there's a lot of neat technology. We're trying to stay in front of it, and like you said, Jeff, always improving.

Paint Shop, Concrete, And Efficiency

Jon Haas 6:48

I'd like to add a little bit on that too, that you know, in addition to the to the machinery that we're talking about, I think and honestly believe that one of the biggest improvements we we made was the the new paint shop and the storage facility with all the the concrete that we put down this year. We put a lot of effort into getting the yards concreted, the the concrete around the the paint shop and the paint shop itself. I mean 12,000 square feet has given us the ability to really grow our fabrication by getting the paint out of the shop and and having a a dedicated paint shop area. And and you know, a lot of times that some people don't think about the cost of painting and impact that it has, but it has a huge impact on jobs and the ability to really produce at a fast rate. And the painting is just as important as the fabrication, the handling of materials, keeping them clean with the concrete outside, uh and and just the efficiency, the wear and tear of uh that's on equipment of bouncing around through gravel and dirt and grime and um all those types of things. So as much as we talk about equipment, the ability to add the paint shop has given us the ability to really grow the shops and add great people. And I think as much as we talk about equipment, people are a tremendous asset that we always gotta keep the mindset that our people are our greatest assets. So um to all the people out there that we've added on, thank you for coming on board with with all of our companies. And great things are happening because of the people. Um and again, it's not as glamorous, you know, pouring concrete down for you know months at a time, but man, it's gonna make a huge difference over at the HME shops.

Jeff Cowan 8:32

And we've also witnessed John's love of concrete throughout this process.

Kevin Rake 8:37

Yeah, just ask him. He'll show you the drawings every time.

Topeka Foundry’s Defense Pivot

Jeff Cowan 8:42

Uh Taylor, give us a uh an update of what's going on at uh Topeka Foundry.

Taylor Haas 8:49

Yeah, thanks, Jeff. We've got uh a lot of really unique opportunities in front of us. Projects that, you know, really just weren't even possible just a few years ago due to, you know, capabilities, people, our teams. We've really come a long ways and we've got some really great stuff ahead of us. Some of those projects are getting started in the shops now and are and that have been ongoing for a few months now. We've got a pretty uh cool opportunity in front of us here. It's a collaboration with uh the Navy and the Hass Group. Um, and I say the group because it it really has been a group effort across all of our companies to put together some of these these proposals that keep us in the conversations with some of these big opportunities that we have. These types of projects are gonna allow us to to really change the the landscape of what Topeka Foundry looks like. We've been pretty focused on, you know, working with the aerospace and the defense companies to kind of change that that caliber project that allows us to, you know, not be competing on a global supply chain with countries on the other side of the pond that are that are doing projects dirt cheap. So I'm very excited. I think there's a a lot of good stuff that we're gonna be getting into, and my hat is really off to the team for for putting in the effort to get these projects off the ground.

Jeff Cowan 10:11

Yeah, it sounds like major wins with Topeka Foundry and HME and the Hass Group, collective effort, like you said, and kind of strengthen the work workload for for both companies going into the new year.

Cross-Company Teaming And Facilities

Jeff Cowan 10:23

Let's talk about some of the department moves that have been taking place with the oh kind of the workflow improvements as far as the combined departments within the two companies. Well, not just two companies, but all the companies combined.

Kevin Rake 10:38

Yeah, I'll jump off on that one, Jeff. Since we moved all the accounting staff down to 200 Jackson, we kind of started that. But I think what what John kind of cast the vision on was how do we better work as a team to kind of hit the goals uh that we have? And how do we collaborate across some of the departments, across some of the companies, and take kind of the brightest and the best and put them together so that we don't have islands and that we don't have missed opportunities. And so we kind of guinea pig that a little bit with us in the accounting group and kind of got that move. Um, but that's really just kind of the tip of the iceberg. We're truly trying to look at all the departments from how we estimate, how we engineer, um, to how we, you know, manage projects and how do we collectively do that better as a team as opposed to individual entities. And that's again, not a new concept. That's why we set up the incentive uh that way so it's centered around the Hass group. Um but it's been a pretty exciting change so far in 2025 and really looking forward to how that's gonna build out in 2026. And with that, we'll even have uh we'll have new facilities. Uh we've got a office building at 235 South Kansas that we're working on that'll be able to, just between the first couple floors, have 120 office spaces in it. Um and so looking at both logistically how to combine people, but then just even across the departments operationally, how do we take kind of that vision and

Hass Group Brand Launch

Kevin Rake 12:05

put it into work?

Jeff Cowan 12:06

So what's the uh kind of timeline for 235 building?

Kevin Rake 12:11

I don't know that we have exact one. Um we're getting permitting and all that kind of stuff going now while we're still doing a little bit of demo, but it's gonna be early 2026 uh that we'll have at least the first floor done, or moving into the second floor thereafter. And so that's pretty exciting. That's it's gonna help combined uh departments a little bit closer so that you know, for example, estimating across Topeka Foundry commercial door, the machine shop, Peak2Peak, HME, we just we'll be able to collaborate a lot better. And I think that's gonna allow us to have more opportunities to win jobs that other companies are bidding and looking at. Uh it also gives us opportunity to add more people. And so now we're bringing more skills, uh, more experience to the team and just really strengthening the work that we're putting out.

Jeff Cowan 12:55

Well, that kind of uh ties into what has kind of been discussed, and that is the HAS Group Launch, which is kind of a united identity across all the companies, kind of tying them all into one as they've all kind of operated somewhat independently. But Kevin, as you said, kind of also work collectively under uh one commission plan. We're kind of tying them all in together to um be recognized as the Hass Group.

Kevin Rake 13:27

Yeah, we've got

Team-First Operations For 2026

Kevin Rake 13:28

a we've got a pretty good marketing team uh led by Amanda and her staff. And so we've been trying to brainstorm for a while how do we just kind of get more cohesive in our image and some of our branding and how we kind of present ourselves. And so we've used words like HME group, but that doesn't really define exactly. Uh so we try to you know get creative and figure out you know what all truly pulls us together. And it's the guy sitting across the table from me that uh dreamed this up with his crystal ball. And so the Hask group is gonna be uh you know, kind of a rebranding of sorts across the companies. We'll still have individual company names and obviously legal ownership and that kind of stuff isn't changing, but just trying to look and feel the team that we want to be. And so how do we put that on paper? How do we do that uh logistically and just how do we make that happen? And so yeah, so uh we've kind of teased it out to quite a few people and departments already. Um, but yeah, this will be kind of launching for 2026 and kind of what that branding looks like. And I'm sure there'll be a hat with a logo or something that comes with it, but excited just to be able to present ourselves as as one united type group.

Jeff Cowan 14:34

Still working on the taglines.

Kevin Rake 14:36

Yeah, I mean, there'll there'll be some, it's it's hard work uh to try to get the taglines just right. So we'll we'll keep we'll keep focusing on that.

Jeff Cowan 14:45

All right. So going into 2026, anything, John, that or Rob you guys have that you want to address

Boeing Milestone And New Trailers

Jeff Cowan 14:55

as we're kind of winding down 2025? It's been a good year. Obviously there's things we still need to work on. Uh anything specific that you guys want to address as we're as we're rolling into a new year. I know, John, you're, you know, as as I said earlier, the it's never uh a status quo, always uh striving for more and foot on the gas.

Jon Haas 15:16

You know, I I feel like the the message is kind of the the same as it has been. Um, you know, we're we're working for that next year, uh 10% growth across the board. Talk about working as a team, moving towards the combined accounting, estimating, detailing, sales, engineering, project management, marketing, procurement, human resources. Everybody working together as a team in my mind is so important. And I feel like we're gonna be much stronger with combined management. You know, we've we've got our brightest people working together to make good, solid decisions for the entire team so that we do have the the best when we look at a a contract, that we have avoid lawsuits, that we we have good terms and conditions for payments, that we've got everybody looking at the estimates to make sure that we didn't miss anything. But just that team attitude that there's there's no more they, it's it's us, it's we. We work together as a team. And you know, even our recruiting efforts are stronger as a team. So just keep thinking about team, team, team. That's that's our motto. And you know, uh Kevin said that the that the group's all got 235, South Kansas is the the big uh administrative building. Uh but we're we're gonna be bringing some of the departments together over at HME. Um, you know, engineering and detailing are gonna work together, project management's gonna come together across all the teams to the HME group because we've we've got some extra offices now. We were kind of out of space over there. So I think it's really gonna be great and excited to see what happens in 2026 and w where we can go with it.

Jeff Cowan 16:53

Well, Rob, what uh weather items are uh are working in the shop that uh you'd like to share?

Rob Mohan 17:00

Maybe to touch on some of the things that are coming together. Um

Material Handling And Paint Booth

Rob Mohan 17:03

the Boeing project's been a big thing for us uh over the past year and a half. Lots of steel stacked in the yards. Um I think everyone as they drive through the yards can see that that steel is definitely almost all gone. I think we're down to fifty loads or so left. Um topping out um on the job site, which topping out is basically the last piece of structural steel is erected. That's anticipated to happen just before Christmas. And then the remainder of the steel we're anticipating to that will be complete by the end of January. Um so that job, for as big as it was, and it was a big thing for for us. Now there's a lot more to do on the job site, but uh uh HME scope is is winding down. And you just some interesting, I was talking to Alex Howard, interesting facts he threw out on the project. He said the erector to date has logged 133,000 man hours on the job site, and they've installed over three hundred and forty-five thousand bolts. So that's a lot. So the other neat project that we've been working on, um HME Topeka Foundry team has been working on designing trailers. Um we designed our own uh so HME Fleet, we have over 120 flatbed trailers, and we never have enough. So we've designed our own flatbed trailers. Um we're building our first one, which is almost complete. Um I saw it today, they were wrapping aluminum on it, looks really sharp. So the goal is over the next 12 months to build about five a month, so about sixty of those in the next 12 months. Other exciting things that are happening around here. We did just purchase a straddle carrier. It's uh man manufactured by CombiLift. It can pick 77,000 pounds, so that's gonna kinda like what John said, all the facility improvements with the concrete and the massive paint building. We need the ability to efficiently move material between our facilities. So

Facility Moves And Raising The Roof

Rob Mohan 18:55

that that straddle carrier will give us the ability to pick full bundles, a shuttle, from the structural shop, for example, to the paint shop, from the paint facility to outbound material storage. Um the other neat thing that we have that's wrapping up is uh inside of our paint facility, we're in process of putting up a paint booth. It's like an automotive style paint booth, but much larger. Twenty-foot wide, sixty-foot long. So we could paint and coat those detailed finishes, near automotive style finishes. Um that'll be coming online here in the next month. The other thing, piggyback on Kevin, the 235 Kansas building. Next week we're supposed to have some mild weather in the 40s and 50s, so our plan is to get the north side of the building painted.

Kevin Rake 19:41

Yeah, and I think in in addition to that, 235, we're doing a little bit to the True Thirteen Jackson building as well, right? Got some plans to maybe literally raise the roof. Yeah. So so which are we? Yeah.

Rob Mohan 19:53

What the uh well, what the project Taylor mentioned for the Navy, we need a location to manufacture that product so that the plan. Is to move our HME South operations, the Petty Assembler, the personnel, to the HME main facility. That'll allow us to stage both Petty Assemblers next to each other. We can efficiently feed both machines with the same team, coordinate similar work activities, and then free that building up for this upcoming project. And and yeah, John's vision is, you know, the the building currently has about a 17 foot uh clear height inside. And for us to continue to grow Topeka Foundry operations, we need more capacity with that, bigger cranes, bigger machines with that, but the 17 foot's not tall enough. So the plan is long term to raise that roof to about 40 feet high and put some large cranes in there. Wow, that's uh that's significant. It's never insignificant. We want to look down at the new viaduct. Yeah, there's a lot of things coming together and you know you can't it's it's because all the people we have and all everyone working hard and you know looking at 2025.

Hiring Surge And Talent Push

Rob Mohan 21:05

I know we mentioned 200 new hires since 2022, but our employee crown count for 2025 increased by ninety, so half of that just happened in the past 12 months.

Kevin Rake 21:18

Yeah, we've definitely seen uh a huge success rate with our recruiting teams and being able to go out and and actively find new talent and new individuals and and we're still pushing, right? So we still want our employees, as you know, people, and there's opportunities that come up to talk about it, you know, tell them about the Hask Group, tell them about some of the fun things that are happening, either with the projects that we have or the building improvements and the machinery. Um it's pretty neat to be able to do this here in our hometown of Topeka and be able to continue to build that out. So continue to push that out and and and add more people.

Jeff Cowan 21:51

All right. Now we're moving on to uh we're talking parties now. Holiday party, February 7th, Stormont Vale Event Center.

Holiday Party Plans

Jeff Cowan 22:00

Do we have a theme?

Kevin Rake 22:01

I don't know that marketing's told us the theme yet. There's there's been some hints, something about fire, something about ice, but I I'm not gonna commit to anything. But uh one thing I will say, it feels funny calling it a holiday party in February. Our last one was a spring break party in March, but just to to touch on, I guess, why, in case people are wondering, December's just busy and and there's really nothing else to it. You know, we're we're happy to kind of report on our successes for the year. Um, and so we thought that rather than just slamming one more thing into December, let's have a party uh but put it maybe towards the first quarter.

Jeff Cowan 22:38

So I think that works well to bypass the very, very busy holiday season and push it back to where not nearly as many conflicts.

Kevin Rake 22:46

Aaron Powell So yeah, the hope is to have it at the exhibition hall side of the Expo Center or the Stormont Vale Events Center be on the 7th of February. Um, you know, with 700 employees and their guests, it should be a pretty pretty good time.

Jon Haas 23:00

Probably no skeet shooting or go-karts, though.

Jeff Cowan 23:03

The the HME uh has group does not disappoint on the party scene. So this this will also be one you want

Estimating Wins And Pipeline

Jeff Cowan 23:12

to be be at. So mark your calendars February 7th.

Jon Haas 23:15

No karaoke for me, though.

Jeff Cowan 23:20

Well, uh we're winding this down with a couple shout-outs.

Rob Mohan 23:24

Yeah. Um, so one shout-out I'd like to throw out there is our estimating departments. Um, all of our estimating departments, they work hard. They're they're grinding, trying to get work in the door. And without them doing their part, um, we wouldn't be fueling all of our facilities and all of our people. Just to touch on HME's estimating, they've landed some really nice work, several data center projects, including a nice one in Charlotte, North Carolina. Uh they also landed another smaller facility for Boeing and a sizable school in Thornton, Colorado. So those are some notable projects that we'll we'll see in 2026 coming through our facilities. The um, not to mention, they have a lot of work that they've bid and that's out there. We're we're waiting to hear where we stand on it. But uh several more data centers, more Boeing projects, those are all out for bid. So we're crossing our fingers and hoping that we'll hear some good news on those.

Kevin Rake 24:17

Yeah, another shout-out that I'd like to put, just kind of piggybacking off that, is you know, the back end side of uh our IT department

IT Shoutouts And Systems

Kevin Rake 24:25

and some of the data analytics and the way that we build out app services. Just kind of a shout-out to Chris and Gavin and Andy and all that team. They've done a fantastic job. When we talk about bringing people together, we've got to be able to communicate. And that was the the vision behind App Services. Uh and we've had some changes with our uh with our IT group, and so it's been exciting to see them step up and really take that on. And as we add facilities and as we move people around, uh it comes with its challenges. So big out big shout out to those guys.

Rob Mohan 24:55

Yeah, and uh to piggyback on that, I think the first time in HME history we shut down for a holiday and we did not have an alfalfa alarm from our alarm system. So uh pat on the back to Gavin. He uh he he spent a lot of time. He ran every door down, checked everything before he left on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and uh it it definitely did the trick.

Jon Haas 25:18

Deeply appreciated me not getting a call at two in the morning.

Accounting Kudos And Coverage

Jeff Cowan 25:22

Uh I've got I wanted to give a shout out to uh Laurel Padilla. She is uh in the accounting department, and Laurel stepped in to help out with Hass Crane while Miranda Hewson was on maternity leave. And Laurel's pitched in several different areas within the HME companies and did a phenomenal job with Hass Crane, uh kept things going fantastically, and and uh Miranda came back and no issues whatsoever. So uh Laurel did a great job with Hass Crane while she also handled some other responsibilities, so appreciate her efforts. She did a great job.

Rob Mohan 25:58

So she had to manage your disorganization while Miranda was gone. She did and she did a great job. Good job, Laurel. That's a big undertaking.

Jon Haas 26:08

Yeah, I'd like to do a shout out to the the guys over at Cycle Zone. You know,

Cycle Zone Turnaround

Jon Haas 26:12

since we've we took on uh Topeka Power Sports and brought them over to CycleZone, I feel like there's been a just a huge change in attitude and a and the guys working together as a team. A lot of changes over there. So shout out to the the management team over at at Cycle Zone with uh Randy Chanelwitz and uh my son Jared Hass has done a good job with the accounting and hired a lot of new people over there and I feel like we've got a really great team working together, uh turning around what was was kind of doom and gloom over there. Uh so really excited about w the way that Cycle Zone is is growing and and taking on new challenges. And and with that, we also have a new uh addition to Cycle Zone that we're gonna be doing here shortly. We've been working on design, it seems like all year, but a new Honda Powerhouse edition that's gonna go in the uh the Paul Davis building, the East building there on the campus. So some really exciting things there.

Closing Thanks And Signoff

Jeff Cowan 27:04

With that, I think we're we're wrapping up this 11th edition of the Kick Hass podcast. Stay safe and keep kicking has.