Q&A: Kyle Daniels

Kyle Daniels | Clarke Valve CEO and president
Kyle Daniels is the founder, CEO and president of Clarke Valve in North Kingstown. He had three employees when he started the company and now he has 20, with more hires ahead. Daniels talks about what it’s like to hire people for manufacturing in Rhode Island these days.


1. Are more soft skills needed among employees in manufacturing today in Rhode Island? Absolutely. I had one applicant who came into the office wearing a suit and tie. After the interview, he asked if he could use the bathroom, and came out wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

I had someone else interview for a position and everything was perfect. We were having a great conversation about leadership role models and what she learned from hers and how she applied lessons learned in her own professional experience. I asked her how soon she could start if we were to make an offer. She said she needed to interview with a few other places first and she would let me know. I did not hire her.

I call it emotional intelligence. You must remember that the person interviewing you is a human being, too, and is hoping you are the right person for the job. … I have already checked your resume and know you meet requirements for the job. You just need to present as hardworking, dedicated and easy to get along with.

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2. Do you ever hire people who don’t have the exact experience you’re looking for? Yes. Sometimes someone with less experience has a fresh set of eyes and is not set in their ways. I can teach anybody to be what I need them to be. … They have to happily embrace new systems. … But sometimes someone who can’t learn new tricks has been a challenge for me.

3. What about candidates who don’t have any of the skills you need but apply anyway? I think we are clear on what requirements are for positions. … If you are a mechanical engineer and have to design something, and I need to know you know how to use a certain design software, if you don’t, it’s a major problem and major disruption. Ultimately, every person I hire has to reduce workload for those who are already working there.

4. How is Rhode Island doing in terms of educating its manufacturing workforce? We’ve hired engineers from the area, from Brown, WPI and URI. That is a really nice thing about this area, the quality of education in engineering.

We had five interns this summer. They all did a great job. We really like their energy and enthusiasm. If you are an intern and you like the company you’re working at, it’s very important to let some senior managers know. Finding someone who is happy to work there and gets the company mission and can be committed to executing on that company’s mission? Those candidates are more enthusiastic and work a little bit harder.

Every company has room for that future rock star. Somebody that has “high performer” written all over them. It’s possible someone could make me change my hiring strategy, someone I didn’t realize I needed, a unique candidate I could benefit from.

5. Have you ever hired an intern? Yes. An internship is like a very long job interview.

6. What are some ways new employees can stand out? There’s a tendency for employees to want to arrive and leave at a certain hour every day. If you are busy, you stay. When you see someone come in at 8:30 and leave at 5:30 every single day, you wonder if they are there to achieve a goal greater than themselves.

The fastest way to get promoted and move up is to find things that need to be done and then just do them. Sometimes people wait to be asked. … It’s best just to tackle it.

7. Do you feel there is a stigma or misconception out there on what manufacturing is or is not? Well, yes. People don’t realize how much satisfaction we get from making things people will use. We are making tangible things. So for example, everything that you touch and come into contact [with] every day was made by someone with a manufacturing job.

In Rhode Island, we make nuclear submarines, pharmaceuticals … there are some really interesting things going on here that don’t necessarily have to [do] with the internet or computers. We don’t have to teach everyone how to code.

Clarke has valves from Orange County Water District in California to 3M in Minnesota – where they are used to make adhesive – to valves at Chevron. Our valves are used to make everything from drinking water to Scotch tape to gasoline. … Those who know how to [manufacture things] consider it a source of great pride.

Susan Shalhoub is a PBN contributing writer.