Let's find the right buzzwords for Randy Zook, president and chief executive officer of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce.
When it comes to business ...
Zook has been where the rubber meets the road.
He's had his boots on the ground.
He knows the devil's in the details.
He's been there, done that.
Done that, in fact, from running a multimillion-dollar business in Atlanta and operating a convenience store-slash-restaurant in Melbourne to leading, for the past six years, the state chamber, where he speaks out for business.
"Hollywood sort of beats up on business," Zook said. "But the guy who puts himself on the line every day and has a payroll and innovates is the one who provides the dignity that comes with earned success."
Zook has earned the admiration of others.
"There's not enough room in your newspaper," Mark Young of the Jonesboro Regional Chamber of Commerce said when asked about Zook's qualities.
"Randy has several attributes that make him excel, and one is that he has a passion for business and understands the issues important to business. He understands business and is tireless on behalf of his advocacy of business."
"He loves Arkansas and he loves Arkansas businesses," Young said. "You can see that any time he represents his members and the association. He moves forward with energy and tenacity to help improve the economy of the state and the business environment we work in."
Randy Wilbourn, of the Little Rock marketing firm Martin-Wilbourn Partners, has known Zook since they were volunteers on the successful 1970 gubernatorial campaign of Dale Bumpers. Zook, he said, "has a really, really well-honed sense of humor. He's fun to be around."
Diane and Randy Zook have been married for 37 years.
"Raising children with Randy was like raising children with Bill Cosby," she said. "He always taught them that you don't just live life by living. You live it by helping other people reach their potential."
Cosby famously said he started out as a child. So did Randy Zook, born in Lake Village and raised in McGehee.
Zook's father, Bonnie Zook, was a World War II glider pilot, farmer, businessman and for 16 years the Desha County judge. He instilled in the younger Zook a love of flying and an appreciation for work.
Now, the son is a recovering pilot, having sold his Cessna 182 -- "I find myself at an age where people really mess up."
The affinity for work started with Zook's first job, delivering groceries for the family's general store in McGehee.
"So we're back to the future with the delivery of groceries in large urban areas. It was a great job for a kid, driving a truck and getting to know everyone as a result."
The extended Zook family still has farming interests in southeast Arkansas.
"It's an emotional anchor, keeps me attached to Desha County and to the biggest single sector of the Arkansas economy. Farming is a terrific heritage and an important part of my life."
Wilbourn sees value in that heritage.
"McGehee has diminished," Wilbourn said, "so Randy knows what it's like to see what happens when the economic vitality of a place goes away, and that addressing the parts of Arkansas that are declining is every bit as important as addressing the places that are hot and growing.
"He understands what to do with the businesses still there and the need for them to be present and healthy in the Delta and the small mountain communities where the economy is suffering.
"He's not a missionary, but he's a dadgum good mechanic."
Much of Zook's working life was with the Atlantic Envelope Co. He started as a sales rep in Little Rock in 1970. He rose through the ranks to become president and CEO in July 1989.
The family company, a maker of custom-printed envelopes and other business products, was sold soon after he left in 2004.
"It was a wonderful career for me," Zook said. "It was a business where you could see all the moving parts and you were close to the customer. I was president for 15 years and loved every minute of it."
Zook learned plenty of lessons at Atlantic.
"The business is there to serve the customer," he said. "Know the customer and anticipate what he needs and wants. Under-promise and over-perform, especially in manufacturing. It's hard to hide when you have a contract to deliver an order.
"Make sure to be underpaid in the workplace. The guy who is overpaid is the one who's nervous. When it gets tough he's the first one to go.
"The whole idea is to make yourself as valuable as you can be. That starts with taking the crummy jobs, and don't take anything for granted."
When the end came for Zook's working life at Atlantic Envelope, he came home to Arkansas. Specifically Melbourne, the seat of Izard County and his wife's hometown. He and Diane lived there for six months -- "still do," he said, with a home there and a condo in Little Rock.
The Zooks turned a Melbourne convenience store into a restaurant and barbecue joint. It was, he said, the "Gourmet Gas Station of the Ozarks."
"He went from running a $250-million business to running a gas station," Diane Zook said. "But his father had owned a grocery so he had a feel for it. If you pulled up he washed your window and visited with you. He was absolutely great at the public relations.
"It was a very rewarding experience for both of us, but it was 24/7. You're never mentally turned off. We were closed on Christmas and on Thanksgiving and open the rest of the year.''
Why not just retire?
"He was retired for several months while we lived in Atlanta," Zook said, "and he's just not the kind of person who retires. He doesn't golf so he doesn't need five or six hours for that every day. And he loves Arkansas."
"Arkansas is a great place for opportunity," Randy Zook said. "I like the old Land of Opportunity slogan. I wish we could bring it back in some way. It's amazing how many successful businesses have come out of Arkansas."
Off the top of his head ... Acxiom, Dillard's, J.B. Hunt Transport, Tyson Foods, Murphy Oil Corp., Wal-Mart, Nucor Steel, Baldor Electric.
The smell of barbecue wasn't enough of a hold when his old friend Maria Haley, who was director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, hired him as a deputy director in April 2007.
The state chamber came calling the next year and Zook was off and running with a second career.
"You really begin to realize how unusual it is to engage on a wide range of subjects," he said of his job. "This role is much broader in terms of the issues. You get a chance to go all over the state. We have wonderful businesses in this state and you get to see them in action."
Such as?
Delta Plastics in Little Rock, which makes tubing for irrigation.
Baldor Electric in Fort Smith, maker of electric motors. "They're knocking it out of the park. They were about energy efficiency before it was cool."
Pace Industries of Fayetteville and Harrison, maker of metal castings.
Bad Boy Mowers of Batesville. "It's a terrific story, great products, a great success."
One mission of the state chamber is to speak out on public policy issues. The organization was against the legalization of medical marijuana two years ago, and remains so today.
"We're learning a lot about Colorado and Washington [state] and the effect easy access to pot has on the industrial accident rate," Zook said. "It can't be a very smart thing to do to make it widely available. I'm sympathetic to people with medical conditions, but those chemicals can be delivered in other ways."
Zook is the proud grandfather of five. They range in age from 16 to 12, with the youngest the only girl. Two of the boys live in Atlanta with their parents, and the others in Fayetteville. Much effort is made to see them often, and "we have a grand week at the beach every year with everyone."
A serious reader, Zook tries to keep a couple of books going at any time. He's currently reading, and is fascinated by, the book Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong, written by Robert Bryce.
He has recently read new biographies of Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge, and confesses a deep interest in presidents. He's just finished a biography of James Madison. For variety, Zook also just finished The War That Ended Peace, written by Margaret MacMillan, about World War I.
"One thing he taught me early in our marriage," Diane Zook said, "is that when he would make up his mind about something he could back it up with solid reasoning because he reads a variety of opinions. That's what makes him a good leader and someone who can be a real advocate for business."
Randy Zook was asked for a snapshot of the Arkansas economy.
Better, but still struggling to recover from "a generational recession, and it's been a long, slow recovery."
Some sectors are good, some bad.
Agriculture is good because of commodity prices, which have now declined. There has also been a boom in farmland prices, although the rate of growth has slowed. South American and European investors have bought farmland in the United States because "it's a very safe haven for capital around the world."
Housing remains weak, Zook said. More accurately, housing and anything to do with housing, like the Arkansas timber, cement, and roofing materials industries.
The state chamber's goals are to improve education, economic development and the tax structure. Progress has been made on all, Zook said.
In education, he said, college remediation rates have declined, the high school graduation rate is up, and more attention is being paid to what he calls "other opportunities" in the two-year community college system. In other words, technical education that prepares workers for jobs in manufacturing and other sectors.
Zook will speak to the Little Rock Rotary Club 99 on Tuesday about Common Core, a national effort in which state-by-state benchmarks are exchanged for one uniform guide about what math and language skills a student should have at each grade level. Arkansas participates in Common Core. Not every state does.
"Common Core is a major step forward in aligning educators' efforts to teach our children the needs of the 21st-century workplace, with a special emphasis on critical thinking skills," Zook said.
The Rotary Club meets at 11:30 a.m. at the Clinton Presidential Center.
On economic development, "we're not seeing the number of jobs created in Arkansas as in other competing states -- Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri," mostly because Arkansas is heavily invested in manufacturing, a sector hit hard by the recession. And agriculture has become so productive, with "a relentless drive to take out costs. Farmers with just a few people can farm thousands of acres. That puts pressure on our eastern counties."
The tax structure has improved in some ways, he said. The Legislature removed the sales tax on electricity for manufacturing. "We alone, among all the states that touch us" had that tax, which "imposed on some industries a heavy burden."
The last Legislature also dramatically improved the capital gains tax, he said.
"We used to punish entrepreneurs when they wanted to sell their business. A lot of times if they wanted to sell their business they would move to Dallas."
Randy Wilbourn was part of the state chamber's decision to hire Zook in 2008. Zook has vision, Wilbourn said, but appreciates the small things.
"He understands the details. He's not just a fog blower. He knows the bricks that when put together make something happen. That's so important. He also has the ability to talk to anyone, whether it's a day laborer or a senior elected official. He's one of those remarkable people who can communicate with anybody."
Something Zook communicates with great enthusiasm is what he calls the skills gap.
"There are many attractive career opportunities that go unclaimed because too many young people aren't prepared with the necessary skills," he said. "There are wonderful long-term opportunities in manufacturing, but our growth is constrained."
Zook has seen a cultural shift.
"We decided 30 years ago we wouldn't build or repair anything. We de-emphasized career and technical education and we're paying the price for it."
Arkansas has shortages of skilled welders, engineers in all fields, and truck drivers, he said.
"You don't have to have a four-year baccalaureate degree to be a success in the U.S. economy. I hear employers say, 'Give me someone who is willing to show up drug-free and willing to work and I'll do the rest.'"
High Profile on 09/07/2014