Sunday Interview with Christine Robins: ‘Every day is kind of a new adventure’

About two years ago, Christine "Chris" Robins became the first female chief executive officer at Char-Broil, the gas and charcoal grill company that dates to 1949 and is a subsidiary of privately owned W.C. Bradley Co., which has been around since 1885.

The Green Bay, Wisc., native eagerly promotes research and development of new technology and products for the Char-Broil grills sold at retailers Lowe’s, Target and Menards, as well as on Amazon.com.

Char-Broil plans to increase its presence in Europe and on Monday will break ground on a new 25,000-square-foot global headquarters office adjacent to its large distribution center off Bradley Park Drive in Columbus.

The Ledger-Enquirer sat down with Robins recently at the W.C. Bradley Co. headquarters in downtown Columbus to discuss her job, what she likes about Columbus, and her effort in growing the Char-Broil brand.

Q. You’ve been on the job about two years?

A. Two years in June. It’s gone fast.

Q. Why is that?

A. We’re winning in the marketplace. We’ve changed a lot about our company and our strategy. It’s been fun. ... Every day is kind of a new adventure.

Q. What is your favorite thing to grill, and do you grill a lot?

A. I do. We always did as a family, even living in the North. ... We would always place the grill strategically, technically far away enough from the house, but then my father would shovel a path to the grill and we would always grill through the whole entire winter. … But I think my favorite thing to grill is ribs. Baby back ribs. ... ow we have a new smoker product that I love doing them in. Just messy and gooey and fall off the bone.

Q. Is your home grilling about testing products or simply relaxing and taking it easy?

A. It’s more just lifestyle that we grill. My husband likes to grill as well. He’s probably more of a grill master than I am. He just finished building a custom kitchen for one of the grills. We actually have five grills at home right now.

Q. Did your upbringing help shape you to eventually be the CEO of Char-Broil?

A. Both my parents were in sales and had a business degree. I always get asked this question: What did you do to become a CEO? I just had this innate curiosity for learning, for trying new things, taking on different roles. I functionally started my career in finance. I took what was supposed to be a two-year transition into marketing that turned into a 12-year career. Then I just happened to be, I think, in the right place at the right time when I was in a marketing role to take on my first CEO role. ...

Q. Your career has been connected to consumer-oriented companies. Is that segment something you really enjoy?

A. It is. That’s my passion. I’ve been, category-wise, in home cleaning, air fresheners, insecticides, toothbrushes, health devices, and now charcoal grills and gas grills and outdoor cooking. It’s always been consumers and great consumer brands, and how do you solve consumer’s problems with innovation and great marketing and business models?

Q. Keeping consumers happy and figuring out what they want is what you’re good at?

A. I think I’ve built teams that are good at it. Think about Steve Jobs and Apple, right? It’s always the proverbial how do you think about solving consumer’s problems or bringing them innovation. ... Sometimes it’s bringing them things they don’t even know they need. ...

I tell the story to my team here at Char-Broil about Glade plug-ins. In the early ’90s, there were no consumers saying, ‘Yeah, I want to plug a liquid gel into my outlet in my wall for 30 days.’ The first reaction is fire hazard, and I don’t know if I’d like that consistent scent. But R&D continued to define it and pushed marketing to evolve and get feedback and it’s a huge business today. ...

Q. What drew you to Char-Broil and Columbus?

A. I enjoy strategic pivots of companies. That’s what I’ve done for the last 16 years now. The challenge for me when I looked at this opportunity with Char-Broil was, yeah, you’ve got a very established brand. But is there so much more that could be done with the business from a geography, product, marketing, branding, teamwork, business model standpoint. And then to be supported by (W.C. Bradley CEO) Marc Olivié and the (shareholder) family, that was really the big attraction, and what I felt was the upside with the business and the category in the market.

Q. How are things going in terms of grill sales?

A. We had very significant growth in 2015. We’re privately held so I can’t share that, but it’s fair to say it was probably triple the growth rate of anything we’ve done in the last decade. This year is on track for similar goals. That’s compared to a category that grows 1 percent to 2 percent a year.

Q. What are the pitfalls or the challenges out there? Is the competition tough?

A. The industry has been relatively flat for the last 20 years. I think it’s been kind of hovering around 2 percent to 4 percent (growth) — give or take — a year. I think that’s in large part because the people and the players in the category — us, Weber, mostly here in the U.S. — haven’t necessarily brought innovation to market and made consumers pull their wallet out and think about this category. That’s even though it’s something that has a very high household penetration.

But now they’re starting to see Char-Broil and our portfolio of products in a very different light — that we’re innovative; that we’ve been in the market for 70 years; that we’ve really evolved the category and the experience around outdoor cooking. It’s been fun to see that transition happen really quickly.

Q. I did see online that there’s a convertible gas and charcoal grill. How new is that?

A. It’s brand new. It’s being launched exclusively at Lowe’s. That’s a major partner of ours. ... consumers were telling us ... “I like the taste of charcoal and when I have time, particularly on a weekend, I like to cook with charcoal. However, the gas is easier. It’s more convenient. I like to do that during the weekday.” Consumers are in this quandary: either you buy both, or you make a choice and a trade-off. What we’ve said with that product is in a very easy fashion, 60 seconds or less, you can switch between charcoal and gas ... You don’t have to have lighter fluid. You actually use the gas flames to heat up the charcoal or you empty the tray of charcoal, put it down below, and you’ve got a gas grill.

Q. Anything else that’s new and interesting?

A. We’ve also launched our first connected product using the Wi-Fi platform, which gives you a real sense of freedom. For instance, three weeks ago I had a friend in town. I made my favorite ribs. Put them in the smoker. She and I came to Uptown and walked up the river, down the RiverWalk, and had coffee on Broadway. Every half hour I was checking my ribs to see how they were doing. Even though I wasn’t home, it uses the Wi-Fi and the internet to keep me informed about what’s going on. They got done a little faster than I thought, so I was able to slow the temperature down and we went home and had dinner. It was very neat. ...

Q. When you first arrived here, were you aware that you were going to be the first female CEO of Char-Broil?

A. No, I wasn’t. In fact, I saw the headline when the announcement came out. Look, this is the world I live in and I believe that Marc and the Bradley family gave me the opportunity because of my experience. The leadership and the vision that I could help bring to bear on the company and the team, that’s why I got the job. It just so happened that I was the first female, but that’s OK. I think the team has embraced it.

I have a different style than my predecessor. I like to roam around the warehouse with my cup of coffee, with my (Green Bay) Packer mug, so I’m just a little bit more out there I think with the team. ...

Q. Do you consider yourself a role model and a glass ceiling breaker for women?

A. I do. I take that role seriously. ... I’ve spoken at Columbus State University, to a group of students last year. I was just telling my story and my journey and the journey of Char-Broil and some of the things that we were doing. ... I had people come up to me in restaurants two to three months later and they would say, ‘Oh, Mrs. Robins, I saw you at CSU and it so inspired me.’ I didn’t realize that I had an impact on them.

Q. I understand that Char-Broil is trying to make an expansion in Europe?

A. We’ve been in Europe on and off over the decades. We pulled out of there, I think, 10 years ago. The acquisition of Dancook about four years ago gave us a foothold back in Europe. Since then we have had great success building on the acquisition of Dancook in Europe with the Char-Broil brand. Right now that we’ve kind of got that first phase of establishing a presence in that market done, we just hired a small team with a new managing director in Europe and a couple of people for an office in Hamburg, Germany, to act as the hub of our European operations ... The market, the retail market, for outdoor cooking in Europe is the same size as it is in the U.S. ... We’re definitely looking at what our opportunities are in moving forward there.

Q. What challenges as CEO of this company do you face?

A. What I lose sleep about is are we making the right choices right now and focusing on the right things? It’s a little bit like the kid in the candy store. I just think there are so many opportunities and we have assembled a team and a strategy and everybody is moving forward. I just hope we’re making the right choices and the right prioritization as we go forward and not getting ahead of something before it’s time or missing an opportunity because we made a different choice.

Q. That’s because it takes time to develop a new product?

A. Yeah, that could be an 18-to-24-month cycle. From the time we have the concept to the time we’re shipping it to the retailer, it can be an 18-to-24-month window, depending on the complexity of the product.

Q. Grills are no longer manufactured in Columbus. How many Char-Broil employees are here now?

A. We have about 145 employees here in Columbus and then we’ve got a team in China and a team in Europe that are our own employees. (215 employees altogether) We moved manufacturing close to 10 years ago now.

It was interesting. When I first moved to town people would say, “What brought you to town?” I’d say, “Oh, I’m the CEO of Char-Broil.” They’d go, “Didn’t they move the company to China?” We moved manufacturing, yes, and I know that was a really important decision and tough decision for the family — one that was needed. I think the alternative was something far more disastrous than this.

What we still have here is we design, sell, market — all of our quality testing. We have every function except for the physical manufacturing here. In fact, our largest North American distribution center is right here. I’ve got a million-square-foot facility that ships close to 3 million cases of product a year, right here out of Columbus. ...

Q. You also hear speculation that Char-Broil might move production back here to Columbus. Have you guys ever thought about that? Is that even a possibility?

A. We do at times. We look at it. It just ends up not being cost-competitive. Not so much from the labor perspective, but more from the cost of raw materials and things like that — offshore is just very different. There’s a very developed supply chain offshore. I’d say, conversely, we’ve created new jobs here. In the last year we’ve probably created 30 new jobs here in engineering and marketing and quality engineering. ...

Q. You’ve got various types of grills. Do you have a kamado-style grill on the horizon, such as the Big Green Egg?

A. We continue to watch the category and see what’s going on in that arena. Obviously, the Big Green Egg is a different price point. It’s a different retail base. It’s a different consumer than our core consumer. Not to say that we couldn’t potentially look at something that would fit with our business model. But, yeah, it is an interesting product, isn’t it?

Q. Turning to the community, what’s your impression of Columbus after living here two years and enjoying some of the activities?

A. My family just loves being here. I enjoy being here. For us, where we’re at in our life right now, with two teenage kids, it’s a great place to raise a family. Things are very accessible. ... Life is very simple here and we get to enjoy a lot of the great things that Columbus has to offer. My kids love rafting. We rent paddle boards and go swimming in the Chattahoochee. I know the locals probably think I’m crazy, but look, with the lakes I grew up on in Wisconsin, the Chattahoochee is nothing. I actually find it quite clean and quite fresh. This summer we’ll go around on paddle boards and inner tubes, or go whitewater rafting. We like biking, golfing. We live in a golf community (Maple Ridge) here in town. My husband and son and I all love to golf.

Q. Have you done zip-lining?

A. Mom’s afraid of heights. My daughter has done the zip line. I’ve watched. I’ve taken lots of pictures of her doing it.

Q. Is this the kind of place you would like to settle in?

A. Oh, I hope so. I hope so. We left Wisconsin in 2005 and we were in the greater Seattle area for just shy of five years and then Pittsburgh for five years, and I think we’d like to settle down and retire here, get our kids through school. We have a seventh-grader and a ninth-grader right now.

Q. It is on the personal side, but you are adoptive parents?

A. Yeah.

Q. Could you tell me a little bit about that?

A. My husband and I have two adopted children. Both are from orphanages in eastern Europe. Our son, who is now 15, was born in Ukraine and he came home from Ukraine when he was about 10 months old. He’s been with us for a very long time. Our daughter was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and was in an orphanage in the city there and she came home with us when she was at 13 months, and she just turned 13 years old.

They’re doing great. They really enjoy being here, and the decision to be an adoptive parent wasn’t about adoption or not. It’s just we wanted to be parents and we love our kids and our kids love us just as if they were my own biological kids.

Q. You’d recommend it to folks who need or want to go that route?

A. Oh, yeah. It was a great experience. It’s a tough ... I won’t tell you it’s an easy process. ... For instance, with our daughter’s adoption there’s just a lot of turmoil going on in Russia. At the time, if you think about what was going on in the world in 2004 — a lot of unrest — and you’re in a court system that can kind of come and go as they please, in some respects. We had some starts and stops in bringing her home. It almost didn’t happen. We were fortunate. ... Until we were wheels up — out of Moscow with her, out of Russian airspace, my heart was sinking, thinking something could happen. It’s not for the faint of heart, I will say that.

Q. It sounds like you are a very tight-knit family because of that whole experience?

A. There are certain things that we do with our kids — experiences we’ve given them, whether it’s taking them to Disneyland or seeing them accomplish things, such as graduating from eighth grade — I think to myself, like, ‘Wow,’ just how different their life could have been in eastern Europe. At 14, if you’re not adopted by either someone in the country or out of the country, you live on the street. I cannot imagine what that life is like. I get emotional when I think about what we’ve been able to give our kids, whether it’s a roof over their head or clothes on their back. Or graduating from eighth grade.

Q. Finally, Mr. Bill Turner is a living connection, admired and respected, to W.C. Bradley’s earlier days. What’s your interaction with him?

A. He comes into some of the shareholder events and various things that have happened in my short time here. But really, for us now, it’s Steve Butler, John Turner, and some of the fourth-generation family members who are really the leaders of our organization now, and the company. Mr. Turner has come to some of the events. I think it’s getting harder and harder for him. I think it’s fair to say, and it’s very obvious, that a lot of his values and his beliefs and his thoughts about how you think about a business and how you treat the team members has been passed to the next generation, and then certainly to us as business leaders.

Q. That’s unique today?

A. I worked for a family company the first 17 years of my career. This family (in Columbus) has got a special touch. Every board meeting, they turn to myself and my colleagues who run other businesses that are part of the Bradley company and thank us for what we do and what our teams do day in and day out. I told them recently that you can’t appreciate how much that means to me and the team that I get to work with every day, because in today’s business world that just doesn’t happen. People don’t say thank you. I feel honored to get to do what I get to do and, hopefully, we do it in a manner that Mr. Turner and the family is proud of.

This story was originally published June 18, 2016 at 9:15 PM with the headline "Sunday Interview with Christine Robins: ‘Every day is kind of a new adventure’."