After Roberts presented his ideas to the family, he did what consultants typically do: He collected his check and left. Jay Bosshardt says the family needed time to digest his suggestions and consider their next moves. Roberts hoped the family would pursue his recommendations, but he wasn't holding his breath.
Seven months later, Roberts was still unemployed and helping his dad on the farm in Salina when the phone rang. It was Jay Bosshardt, asking if he'd agree to another consulting project, this time to kick-start some of the changes he had in mind. "We didn't think we could do it on our own," Bosshardt says. "But we all saw that the company could be better." Granted, Roberts didn't have much real-world business experience, but the Bosshardts were impressed with his ideas. So much so that as Roberts's second consulting gig was winding down in the summer of 1993, they asked him to stay permanently.
One of his first moves: Develop a sales and marketing program for IceSlicer, the company's road deicing salt and its top-selling product. The company gathered data that proved IceSlicer melted ice faster and at lower temperatures than ordinary white salt and was less corrosive to steel. And because of its natural grit, it didn't have to be mixed with sand. Over the next several years, the evidence gradually won over skeptical transportation officials and pulled Redmond out of the price wars. Today the company commands $18 a ton on average for IceSlicer, plus the cost of freight, compared with $11 to $13 a ton for rival products. Roberts also moved aggressively on a geographic expansion. Until the mid-1990s, most of Redmond's sales were to about 25 municipalities, counties, and department of transportation offices in the state of Utah, and prices fluctuated wildly based on the severity of the winter weather. Then, in 1995, the company entered into a partnership with EnviroTech Services, a Colorado salt distributor that became IceSlicer's exclusive sales agent outside Utah. Almost overnight, Redmond had sales reps and distribution pipelines throughout the western United States.
As Roberts was making these changes, he was also pushing up wages at Redmond. The average is now $16 an hour, compared with a countywide average of about $13 among local employers, according to Utah's Department of Workforce Services. By 1999, it was clear that Roberts's approach was working. Sales had shot to $6.5 million. The work force had grown from 20 people to 75. Roberts wanted to keep going and seek outside financing to fuel further growth. But the Bosshardts were hesitant. "They felt more at risk as we got bigger," Roberts says. "I, on the other hand, don't like to stop."
Roberts can't recall who first suggested a buyout, but in 1999, he purchased Redmond with EnviroTech, which holds a 15 percent stake, plus about $3 million in bank loans and a $1 million loan from the Small Business Administration. As part of the deal, the Bosshardts retain the mineral rights to their land and receive a quarterly payment based on how much salt is mined and sold. After 30 years of mining, there are still more than 250 million tons down there.
Kyle Bosshardt drives his mud-splattered pickup through the wide-mouthed entrance of the mine, his office for the past 20 years. He joined Redmond right out of high school, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, LaMar, and father, Ronnie. At 300 feet below the earth's surface, the workplace is cool and dry, connected by two miles of broad, unlit tunnels that have been created by years of excavating. At the end of one tunnel, Bosshardt jumps out of his truck and shines the light on his hardhat toward a towering wall of salt. Miners had recently spent six hours drilling dozens of holes into the rock and stuffing them with 1,000 pounds of dynamite. Bosshardt points his light at a five-foot-long fuse snaking away from the wall. Once it's lit, the crew has four minutes to clear out before 1,000 tons of rock salt come raining down. Bosshardt's grandfather used to haul salt out with a horse and wagon. Today, the miners navigate the tunnels in monster 50-ton trucks that carry loads over to the mill, where it's screened and crushed.
At the mill, a layer of pinkish salt covers every surface; lick your lips and you can taste it. In his dusty coveralls and hardhat, Boyd Jewkes, the mill's team leader, surveys the rock salt clattering by on a conveyor belt and grabs a fist-size chunk. Unlike the others, it's almost clear; it glistens when he holds it up to the light. Jewkes throws it down a chute to separate it from the more dense rocks.
Clear pieces like this are crushed into RealSalt, an oddly pinkish, unrefined gourmet food salt. Sales were up 20 percent in 2006 and are expected to climb another 21 percent this year, to $3.8 million. It's the top-selling sea salt in health food stores, according to industry data, and Redmond recently inked a deal with energy bar maker Clif Bar that will make RealSalt an ingredient in some Clif Bar products. But most of the chunks of salt blasted from the mine's walls wind up on snow-covered roads--IceSlicer accounts for two-thirds of Redmond's revenue. Redmond also runs Redmond Heritage Farms, a 1,200-acre natural raw milk dairy, and Real Foods Market, a retail store in Orem, Utah, that sells the farm's products as well as other organic food. Roberts expects both ventures to break even later this year.
Redmond's revenue is projected to hit $25 million in 2007. New strategy and products have been key to that growth. But Roberts is convinced that the company's expansion would not have been possible without changes in Redmond's culture. Roberts made internal changes slowly. During his initial consulting work with Redmond, he had met with each of its 20 employees individually to get their take on the company. "I hear the question a lot, 'How do you get people to accept change?" he says. "That's a lousy question. What you're really asking is how do you get people to do things your way. No one likes to change when it's forced on them."
