This is only the third entry in my “Interesting People with Interesting Cars” series, and its subject isn’t one I had on my bingo card, but an opportunity presented itself and so my third victim was chosen: Randy Clifton, my boss.
One doesn’t normally write blog posts about one’s boss, but Randy officially retires this month, and it occurred to me that I had a few things to say about him on his way out. Good things.
I’ve been with my current company, a large commercial general contractor (who will remain nameless so I don’t get in trouble with our marketing department), for going on seven years now in their pre construction (i.e. estimating) department. The company I estimated for before was a smaller subcontractor, and that job got me to Nashville, but what I needed and the needs of my previous employer had diverged after four years. After casting about for another job in Nashville for a while, I received a message on LinkedIn out of the clear blue sky from a guy named Randy Clifton who saw my profile and thought I had potential.
I met with him early one weekday morning. Stupid early. He drove all the way from Mount Juliet to Spring Hill to meet me at a coffee shop at 6am so I wouldn’t be late for work. He was kind and encouraging, and made me feel like I could make the leap from subcontractor to general contractor; the “big leagues”, if you will. I got the job.
When I got to my current company, I was timid, uncertain, lacked confidence. Fast forward a few years, a few mentors later, and now I’m running my own projects. And big ones, too. My first big project was way more than I was used to because my mentor at work suddenly decided to work for someone closer to home, and I was then in charge of his large, messy project in Florida. That was mine and Randy’s trial by fire together. Randy and I have the same DISC (personality) profile, it turned out, which has pros and cons. The pro is that we’re both infinitely reasonable people who despise conflict and don’t seek it out. The con is that we’re so much alike that we sometimes butted heads. I remember an occasion on that first project together where I was crunching steel numbers on a hot deadline, and Randy was standing over my shoulder saying, “I need that damn number!”, an out-of-character moment for him that the moment’s stress brought on. But other projects came after that, and Randy encouraged me and positioned me to succeed, challenging me to do more than I thought I could do many times.
Randy also played the part of life coach. To his eternal credit, Randy would make the rounds through our bullpen at work every day, asking us how we were doing, what we were working on, if there was anything we were struggling with, and was always ready to be pulled into a phone room for conversations of a more personal nature. I’ve known my wife for over three years now (not long in the grand scheme of things, I know), but Randy was there pushing me to take the leap and get engaged. My wife and I owe our happily married life in a large way to the moment he pushed me to commit.
Randy isn’t a bulldog. He isn’t type-A and isn’t overly assertive. But he lead by example, and his word was his bond. He taught us the importance of meeting deadlines and keeping commitments. He taught us the importance of caring about our coworkers on a less superficial level. Through his quiet commitment to his own family — raising his granddaughter Natalie and supporting his widowed mother — he demonstrated what was most important in this life.
How do cars play a part in all of this? You know by now that I’m a car guy, through and through, and Randy has followed NASCAR his whole life and could rattle off the names of drivers that have been gone for ages. Recently, Randy and his wife Margaret decided to enjoy their near-retirement life and buy an old Corvette, a 1972 model. After harassing him endlessly to drive the old Corvette to work, a consolation prize emerged in the form of going with him and Natalie to the Nashville Cars-and-Coffee, held at the Superspeedway in Lebanon. I drove my ‘05 Mustang GT and he drove his ‘Vette. I parked my car next to his, which was with all the old muscle cars from the ‘60s and ‘70s, so I suffered from a healthy dose of imposter syndrome with my 21-year-old entry-level sports car.
Nevertheless, we had ourselves a good time, and I got to take some cool photos of a cool guy with his cool car. So cheers, to a good man and a good boss as he moves on to the next - and more important - things in his life. Godspeed, Randy Clifton.
