Titan

This morning we took a drive to the suburbs to visit Titan Cement's Kamari plant.  We were greeted by Anna, the senior manager for group organization development.  She was very sweet and very enthusiastic, classic HR exec. She gave a presentation on Titan's values.  They really focus on safety and investing in their employees. Later on, another speaker clarified that their corporate values were always the same, but when they began acquiring companies outside of Greece, they really needed to be more obvious with their corporate culture.  Titan is unique in that it is 112 years old and has been on the Athens stock exchange since 1912. Since the company has survived two world wars, as well as a civil war, they are optimistic that they can weather this "crisis".  

The cement business is divided into 3 major categories: giant global companies, multi-regional (multinational) companies and small domestic only manufacturers.  Titan falls into the second category and feel that entering into the first category is next to impossible.  They are vertically integrated and ship directly from some of their plants.  They happen to have plants in the US: one in Roanoke, VA and one in South Florida. They take a lot of pride in impacting the environment around their manufacturing facilities positively. Apparently the Virginia facility is surrounded by a park and a trout farm.

We were driven around the grounds in our bus, which was mildly disappointing, but I understand getting 25 visitors suited up in proper safety gear would be overly complicated.  They had asked us if any of us were engineers, and I was the only person to raise my hand. So the guides kept trying to explain things in basic terms, that normal people could understand?? I told some of my classmates they deprived me of a full nerd experience.  

After lunch, the Strategic Planning Director presented to us Titan's strategy and explained to us more financial details of the cement industry as a whole.  She was brilliant and insightful. Overall, the visit was very interesting, but it would have been nice to get a little dirtier. :-)

Fun Facts:

-They run the Kamari plant 24-7-365

- They produce cement, aggregates, ready mix concrete, concrete blocks, dry mortars as well as fly ash. 

- Titan first started exporting in 1948.

- Greece didn't allow it's companies to acquire foreign companies until 1990. 

- Their internal mentor program is called the C-mentors. 

- 2012 was the first year Titan reported a loss since 1948.

- 200 miles is the farthest suggested distance for shipping cement.