Alumni Spotlight - St. Louis Office

Describe your history with Husch Blackwell.

I first came to the firm before it was Husch Blackwell, working as a summer associate in Kansas City with Blackwell Sanders Matheny Weary and Lombardi in 1998. That was the summer that Blackwell Sanders merged with Peper, Martin, Jensen, Maichel and Hetlage, and I remember getting on a bus with other summer associates and firm attorneys to Columbia, Missouri for a merger party. I got an offer from the firm to work in Kansas City when I graduated, but I became more interested in staying in St. Louis, so the firm graciously let me join the St. Louis office instead.

I started my legal career in Labor & Employment under the guidance of Bob Tomaso, Terry Potter, Brad Hiles and Randy Thompson. It was an incredibly fun and hard-working group. The group had some great retreats with the other offices, typically somewhere at the Lake of the Ozarks or even my hometown of Excelsior Springs (Elms Hotel), where I recall some fun late-night cannonballs into the hotel pool. We played hard and we worked hard, and I learned that the firm was an enjoyable place to work but also a serious one, where we were dedicated to serving our clients well. Even back then, the firm had an uncommon culture.

Describe your current role/practice outside of HB.

I left the firm in 2003 to work for a client, Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation, where I worked for 13 years through a series of mergers and changes to the current company WestRock. I’m now General Counsel of OmniMax International, where I’ve been since 2017. OmniMax is a leading national manufacturer of residential roof drainage and roofing accessories selling through national home center retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe’s under the brand Amerimax, along with selling direct to contractors through large building product distributors.

We currently have 12 manufacturing plants throughout North America after undergoing a strategic transformation that resulted in divesting several businesses outside our core products. With that transformation complete, we are focused on growing our core roofing accessories business through organic growth and acquisitions. I enjoy working on those types of M&A projects as well as other key parts of the role, such as key supplier and sourcing contracts. 

What is one of the most interesting projects on which you’ve worked?

OmniMax went into 2020 looking at some strategic options for the company, including a refinancing or sale. We were in the market for new investors when the pandemic hit, but through that process found a buyer in the private equity firm SVP Global. Our plans were undeterred, though, and we went through the entire sale of the company in the summer of 2020, conducting the whole transaction from our dining room tables and guest bedrooms. There were challenging legal issues involved with our prior ownership structure and Board dynamics as well as difficult negotiations with some of our other debt holders as well as the buyers, but we got it done with a successful outcome, and I think it proved that you can do basically anything in any environment.

Our first couple meetings with SVP Global were also virtual, and we didn’t meet in person until several months following the closing of the deal, but the change in ownership has been a great development for the company.

How has your experience at Husch Blackwell been useful to your current role?

From the day I first walked into the firm, I learned that client service was the number one priority for everyone, whether they were an attorney or an operations professional or a marketing team member. Everything we all did was driven by the goal of meeting client needs, both internally and externally. At OmniMax, I always keep in mind that my clients aren’t just the company’s customers; they’re my colleagues, from the finance team to the sales and operations teams, in addition to my CEO and Board of Directors. Seeing how well Husch Blackwell functioned internally, and how service-oriented everyone was, was truly formative for me.

My time at the firm also taught me the tremendous value of an excellent work product. I received great constructive criticism as a young associate, and I learned from Bob, Terry, and Randy that nothing should ever leave your desk—even just internally—that isn’t your best work and in a complete and final format. I still think about that every day, even if I’m just sending a quick email.

With which Husch Blackwell attorneys are you still connected, and how?

So many folks! Definitely still Randy and Dave Linenbroker; we still get together. As GC at OmniMax, I’m still a client of the firm, and Randy is the quarterback for our employment matters. Phil Koutnik and his team in Husch Blackwell’s Milwaukee office are also a key part of our business and have handled five divestitures and one acquisition for us in the last couple years.

READ THE SPRING 2024 NEWSLETTER >