Lighting a Shuck for California
Sean Masten, the new Division Manager of Porta Kleen’s Special Operations Group, is heading to California. “I’m excited to get out there,” he said. It’s been a long journey from working third shift at Kenworth in Chillicothe, Ohio more than a decade ago to managing Porta Kleen’s newest acquisition, now based in Corona, California.
“Rewind ten years, I started at Kenworth as a second job on the night shift, where I was a technician,” Masten said. He later became a Kenworth team lead, a supervisor, and then a manager. He took over the PGW auto glass project in Chillicothe ahead of managing the waste and paint programs at Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And now he’s joining Porta Kleen.
“If you give MPW a reason to want to invest in you, they will. I’ve seen that time and time again, not just with myself,” Masten said. “Even if it’s becoming a team leader in the field. That goes all the way up.” As a manager, he firmly believes in returning that faith by treating employees fairly. “If you have people who report to you, if you treat them well and with respect, that gets returned from people above and below you,” Masten said.
Masten is well aware of the big job ahead of him in Corona. There are many changes happening at the Special Operations Group, including the recent closure of its Cody, Wyoming offices, although the existing Cody fabrication shop will remain open. He said shifting operations to the Corona, California office was the right choice because most of the decisions taking place in the Cody offices were actually being carried out from the Corona office.
“There was nothing going on in Wyoming. There was no reason for anyone to be there,” Masten said. “People just wanted to be there. There’s plenty of office space in Corona.”
At Corona, Masten’s main goal will be integrating the Special Operations Group with existing Porta Kleen practices. He said until recently, the Special Operations Group was doing things the way that they had before the acquisition. “Unless it was payroll or something truly necessary, it hadn’t been integrated yet,” Masten said. “We’re working on revamping their maintenance and repair program to better incorporate it with Porta Kleen’s practices.”
The Division Manager’s position is a new challenge for someone who’s been in MPW’s industrial services side of the business for many years. There are some similarities, such as staffing on the ground, but many of the Special Operations Group’s employees are seasonal. “It’s tough to find a good person who only wants to work part of the year,” Masten said. Some seasonal employees are retirees supplementing their income and others do it for the shear love of helping the firefighters.
“The primary business is improving the quality of life for the front-line emergency responders. You’re making a direct impact on the quality of their lives at the fire camp,” Masten said. “If you weren’t there, they’d be sleeping in tents. Being involved in something as meaningful as helping to stop wildfires from destroying people’s homes and lives, that’s awesome.”
In his free time, Masten is a foody who once considered becoming a chef, but technology tops his interests. Otherwise, he enjoys hiking and spending time outdoors. “There’s a lot of neat stuff to explore in California,” he said.