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If aliens landed tomorrow and wanted to meet the people who drive change and innovation in the LBM industry, my top-five list would include Joel Fleischman.
If those same aliens demanded that I explain Joel before we teleported to Wisconsin, I’d tell them I’d need a minute.
He once posed on the cover of LBM Journal as Elwood Blues.
He bought a desert-sand-colored, military-grade Hummer, slapped Drexel logos on the doors, and upgraded the rims to deep blue.
The first time Joel invited me on his podcast, he stopped mid-sentence—on the live stream—to take a call from his daughter, who needed specific instructions for reheating spaghetti in the microwave.
He renamed his sales reps Building Supply Quarterbacks.
He made me do a CrossFit workout at his wife’s gym at 5:30 a.m., then made fun of the size of my ankles in front of 30 women.
He had a local brewer make a Drexel-branded Prescription No. 1985 Horse Medicine lager and ordered 10,000 cans.
And while some of this sounds crazy, Joel is making big bets on where our industry is headed—including significant investments in off-site construction.
Joel opened our recent conversation on the Joel Fleischman Happy Hour by calling me one of his “only industry friends.” That’s because Joel intentionally keeps some distance from the industry. He doesn’t want to get trapped in groupthink.
Joel talked about how he generates a hundred ideas every day and relies on “Rosy Rose,” his British-accented AI executive assistant, to pressure-test those ideas, expand on them, and filter through which ones are worth bringing to his team.
In this episode, we talked about AI, Berkshire Hathaway’s long-term bets on the U.S. housing market, and—because Joel is a diehard Packers fan—the ongoing leadership failure of my Chicago Bears.
Joel also put me on the spot by pledging an OSR Academy scholarship and making me explain why a seat is worth $18,000.
Not planned.
Oh-so Joel.
In an industry dealing with plenty of fear, uncertainty, and doubt right now, Joel doesn’t know how to hunker down and wait for things to improve.
All he knows how to do is keep thinking, keep experimenting, keep investing in his people, and keep being just a little bit crazy.
Or maybe Joel is an alien himself—already living in LBM’s future, off-site bets and all.
Thanks for reading.
I’ll be back next week.
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