Moving Heaven and Earth
Chief Operating Officer // Garrett Excavating
A few minutes of conversation with Ricky Lattin is all it takes to reveal the secret ingredients of the 52-year-old’s successful career.
There is the unfailing work ethic, handed down from a career truck driver/diesel mechanic father. There are the refined customer service skills, inherited from an entrepreneurial mother, a successful insurance agent. There is the initiative to excel that started in high school and his first professional chapter that started as a teenage do-everything gopher and ended in the vice president’s chair.
Finally, there is the unyielding faith that guides his steps and oversees his efforts leading one of the great corporate success stories in Arkansas, something to which he gives more credit for his success than anything else.
“Everything I’ve learned, I have learned through God giving me the ability and giving me the opportunities and the people that I have worked around who were willing to teach me,” he said. “Anything that I’ve done, it’s not me. It’s all him.”
Lattin’s journey began in southwest Little Rock where, at age 16, a quest for a summer job led him to Riggs Cat, a local heavy equipment dealer.
“I mowed lawns. I cleaned bathrooms. I swept floors,” he said. “Then, the day after I graduated high school, I started at Riggs, and I spent 31 years there.”
During his tenure, Lattin became good friends with co-worker Sean O’Keane, who eventually became company president. After O’Keane left for Garrett Excavating, Lattin felt the need for a change of scenery, as well, so he called his pal for assistance.
“I called Sean up one day, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m maybe looking for a career change. Can you write me a recommendation letter?’” Lattin said. “He said ‘Sure, I can, but have you ever thought about coming and working with me again?’ Well, I told him I didn’t really know a lot about the construction industry, but he said I could learn the processes and procedures. It was my leadership ability that they needed there. That piqued my interest.”
Lattin came aboard GarrettX four years ago without so much as a job title, but O’Keane’s assessment of his potential was spot-on, and two years later, Lattin was promoted to chief operating officer. Over his four-year tenure, the company has solidified its position as a leading provider of earth-moving, concrete, underground utility and asphalt services, roughly doubling annual sales to about $120 million and growing to 440 employees. Lattin noted the firm could hire 30 more workers tomorrow, if it could find ones with the right combination of skill and work ethic, just to keep up with demand.
Lattin said equally exciting things await on the company horizon as leadership continues to weigh expansion opportunities, looking for the right scenario to add to its physical locations in Benton and Bentonville. Even if — or, more likely, when — that happens, Lattin said his fundamental first goal, that of developing people to their fullest, will not change. In fact, he called it the best part of his job.
“If I was to pinpoint my greatest fulfillment, it would be being a leader to young people in this industry,” he said. “Teaching them about our industry, teaching them how to lead are things that God’s called me to do. It’s not about the amount of dirt that we move or the amount of money that we make; it’s about the next generation and the people that we’re able to develop.
“One of my philosophies that I talk to the guys about a lot is leadership is not a sprint. Leadership is a journey, and you’re always going to be on that journey. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, you realize you’re just beginning, and you need to keep working at it.”
