Bill Currence is a West Point graduate, former Army officer, and the guy companies call when everything is on fire. They got tired of watching big consulting firms walk in, bill millions, and leave nothing behind but a PowerPoint deck and a bigger problem.

So they built CCO Brands instead.

But getting there cost him. Bill watched himself lose his values in a plant he was trying to save, pushed by someone who called his leadership into question. When he was fired, he says it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

We covered a lot of ground in this conversation:

→ Why pride is the single obstacle keeping companies from getting fixed

→ How Bill turned around 30 plants in 4 years

→ The physics-based approach that reveals where a plant is losing money in real time

→ What it means to truly save someone's livelihood

Bill cares more about the people on the plant floor than the numbers on the report. And because of that, the numbers always get better too.

Bill, thank you for your time and being so open in sharing your story with our listeners!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

3:28 - Bill's First Job After the Military: Cintas and Lessons in Operations

5:45 - The Six-Year Grind: From Quality Manager to Every Role in the Plant

7:20 - Climbing to Plant Manager and the Decision to Roll the Dice

9:12 - Scientific Injection Molding and the $250M Plant at Lear

14:19 - CCO Brands Is Born: Anti-Consulting and the Problem with Big Firms

20:31 - The Pride Problem: Why Companies Wait Too Long to Ask for Help

24:04 - Leadership Lessons: Football, West Point, and the Human Element

27:24 - The Moment Bill Lost Himself as a Leader (and Got Fired)

32:34 - What CCO Actually Does and Why It Works

38:00 - The Physics Framework: How to Find a Plant's True Bottleneck

48:18 - The Case for Manufacturing: Why Trade School Is Winning

53:30 - The Monterrey Moment: Why This Work Is Worth It

1:00:55 - Advice to 25-Year-Old Bill: Start Five Years Earlier

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