The Drive
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The Drive
The Drive, Ep. 17: Paul Schut — Senior Sales Representative at Marco Technologies
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In the seventeenth episode of The Drive, presented by the West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce in partnership with ITA Group, we sit down with Paul Schut, Senior Sales Representative at Marco Technologies.
Welcome to The Drive, your commute size podcast powered by the West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce and ITA Group. In the time it takes to get across the metro, you'll get fresh insights from Iowa's top leaders, CEOs, innovators, and change makers who are shaping the future of business. I'm your host, Catherine Harrington, and each week we'll explore leadership, loyalty, and the big ideas that keep our region moving forward. Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for being here on this episode of the Drive. We are so excited today. We have Paul Scott with us, senior sales representative with Marco Technologies and also Chamber Champion Extraordinaire. So I'm so happy you're here, Paul. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00It's a pleasure. I even put on my chamber panties.
SPEAKER_02Yay! I love that. We have our chicken pants matching. We're matching. I love that. Oh my gosh, Paul, this is gonna be so fun.
SPEAKER_00I've been looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_02I'm just so glad you're here today. So let's start from uh big, big, big picture. Tell us about Marco Technologies and all that you do for our region.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So Marco Technologies, we're celebrating our 53rd year in 2026. So been around for a while. We actually started up in Minnesota as a typewriter company.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00So we used to fix typewriters and replace the ribbons and all of that. Fast forward 50-some years, the typewriter is now a copier. But as we've certainly seen in the industry, and especially after COVID, you know, as print continues to go down, our company needed to evolve. And so in the 90s, we actually got involved in networking and telephony. And so getting into the phones and internet side of things, and that then evolved into audio visual surveillance and other cyber tools, getting us now to cybersecurity and ways that companies can help protect their organizations. So the way I always like to phrase it is we help protect companies with their infrastructure from their copier to their cloud.
SPEAKER_02Wow, yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot.
SPEAKER_00I got my cloud socks on too.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you do. Paul is always very intentional about everything in his life. I love that. Oh my God, that's so cool. So so I understand Marco is has a big expansion in this area. So tell us about the expansion.
SPEAKER_00That is some of the most exciting news. So I've been with Marco for 13 years.
SPEAKER_02That's incredible.
SPEAKER_00In the 13 years, I've never been more excited about what the future looks like, especially for the Iowa area. So about 60 days ago or in November, uh depending upon when this is aired here, we moved into a hundred thousand square foot logistics center uh over in Bondarant. And it was a very strategic move from our organization, moving our operations from Minnesota to the central Iowa area, adding jobs to the market space over here, but doing it so that we can provide a higher level of service to all of our clients. You don't have to be in the Midwest, it expands all the way out to the coasts and allowing us to have better fulfillment of services and also have better reliability in terms of what we can provide our clients.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Yeah. So how many employees then does that mean with this huge expansion?
SPEAKER_00We about doubled our size in the Des Moines area. So we're around uh 35 employees in the Des Moines area now. Uh but that's going to continue to grow over this next year and and beyond. Um it'll be really exciting to see how the company continues to expand out the operations. We've got aspirations of opening up similar logistics centers on the East Coast and the West Coast. Okay. Uh Marco is a growing national organization, and so this just helps to put all of the puzzle pieces in place to provide our level of service for everyone.
SPEAKER_02Well, they're growing so much because Paul Scott is part of the organization and everybody, so that's why they're growing so much. So do you know why they chose the this central Iowa region? Do you have any idea?
SPEAKER_00You know what I'm saying? It comes down to the being more centralized. The the 8035 corridor, um, location with the airport. I mean, it's it kind of checked a lot of the boxes. Um we did briefly look into like the Indianapolis and Chicago areas as well. But surprise, surprise, Iowa's cost of living. And so for them to put this hub here in Iowa, it was not only logistically logical, but it was also financially logical as well.
SPEAKER_02Makes sense. So when you work with clients, you sell all of those different things. You offer all those different things. So you have to be an expert in many, many different things. So how how do you do that? Because I mean, we've gotten really complicated cybersecurity, security. You you mentioned so many things. So how do you how do you train for that? I guess I'm just so curious.
SPEAKER_00Very good question. So thankfully, I don't have to be an expert in all of those services. You're very generous in calling me an expert, Catherine. Um we've got a great team. I mean, really, just like any organization, it's the team that helps make it successful. And so, really, my main role is developing those relationships, being that face of Marco here in the area. Yeah, you are, and being able to then help pull the right people into the conversations that are the experts. Uh, we've got over a thousand employees throughout the nation.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And so those folks, when I sit down with clients or sit down with other people in the area, if they want to talk about a specific tool or a specific need, maybe it's cybersecurity. Maybe they're trying to beef up their infrastructure from that perspective. I know a good amount about what to look for, what to ask about, but if we're going to get into the weeds, we need to bring in the right people for that. And so that's where we rely on our team members and make sure that everything's getting looked at appropriately for their needs.
SPEAKER_02Makes sense. So do you cover all of Iowa or what's your territory look like?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So that's that's growing and evolving as well here with the logistics center. Um so mainly the Des Moines area and also kind of south and west of the Iowa market space.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So it it's growing and expanding as we continue to grow and expand. So looking forward to that. Um and the opportunities that come with that.
SPEAKER_02Well, you're an incredible leader, 40 under 40 with the business record. You've you've been recognized uh you know a lot for your work and at the West Wine Chamber. You're on our past chair, and now he's on our foundation board for the chamber. We're always having including you into so many things because you're an incredible leader. So let's talk a little bit about leadership. Yes. Um, and and some things that you really hold strong when you think about leadership and and being a good leader and a big great steward of your company.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. So um, you know, for me when it comes to leadership, there's so many different characteristics of a leader. Uh one thing that I have learned over the years is communication is key. And that's something that I really really value in terms of when I'm communicating with you. I know we go back and forth a lot, uh, texting and and those kind of things. When we're when we're having serious conversations about the chamber, uh there's a phrase that I heard a while back that in the absence of information, people come up with their own conclusions. Yeah. And so with that being said, I try and I strive to make sure that people are being informed so that the decisions that they are making are informed decisions.
SPEAKER_02You really you live that every day. You really do. You are a really great communicator. And you're always cool, calm, and collected, no matter which I you know, you might be underneath this underneath the service going, ah, but you're always cool, calm and collected, which we love that about you. That's incredible. So I I love that so much. So let's talk about Marco, AI, technology. I mean, you're right in the middle of your heartbeat of technology, right? So, how are how is Marco using AI? What do you see in your customers? I don't know, any any comments about AI?
SPEAKER_00It's so cool. So it's it's definitely a tool, is the way that we look at that. You know, it's not the end-all fix-all. Um, and it's been interesting to see over the last couple of years it to go from a buzzword to actually being something practical. And I mean, we see it in our daily lives. Uh, I know we both love working with ChatGPT.
SPEAKER_02We love our chat box.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And one thing that we have really been noticing at Marco is leveraging AI to help us make business decisions, I guess might be the right way to phrase it. For example, um, we've got a lot of our like IT customers, and every now and then there's a need that comes up, something breaks. And what we're able to do with most of the IT is resolve it remotely. But maybe the person that they're normally dealing with isn't available. Maybe they're helping another client. And so we've got AI tools that help us be able to recognize within our organization who has those skill sets, who's available, and who can take care of this need right away. And so being able to leverage those tools to be able to fast track our service and provide that help to our clients.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But um the thing that we're also seeing in the industry is as uh organizations are dealing with people retiring and trying to backfill those roles, but the the the talent war is real, you know, like there's just not going to be the same number of people in the future that we've got in the workforce today. And so it'll be very interesting. I don't know what that'll look like yet, but I think AI is gonna play a big part of that. Um, because they've always talked about, well, we don't want AI to take jobs. Yeah. But there's gonna be a lot of jobs that need to be filled. And if some of those services can be fulfilled in AI, yeah, it's a win-win.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's you know how much we use it at the chamber, it's kind of amazing. Yeah, it's it's been a great tool to streamline so much of what we do. So it's yeah, it's lovely. Very cool. So let's talk about you, Paul Scott. How did you get into sales and how did you get into technology sales? I'm just kind of dialing back, going way back a little bit. I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so this goes back, oh, probably 18 years ago.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And it, you know, it's weird as I go in my career that I I hit some of these milestones, and I'm like, there's no way it could be that many years. But it is. Um, so you know, when I was in high school and college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And so went to DMAC, got my two-year degree, and still had no idea what I wanted to do. And so I got some temp jobs here in the area, still didn't know what I wanted to do. Um, eventually started working for a sighting and window distributor out in Urbendale uh as like customer service, and was there for a couple of years, a sales opportunity opened up. I applied for it, and I actually didn't get the job, but it shifted my mindset to where I'm like, I think I want to do this. And so then I started looking for opportunities, and the opportunity actually wasn't at Marco that I moved into. It was a company called Business Systems that was kind of on the end of their their uh their lifespan because they were looking to get acquired. And so I worked at Business Systems for a couple years in sales, and then Marco acquired business systems moving into the Iowa market space. And I say I won the job lottery because we went from an organization that was not growing, not investing, to now where we are now. And it's unreal, Catherine. Like that was probably a c a couple months ago, something like that. I drove through where the different Marco offices have been over the years, and it was like this nostalgic moment to now then drive over to the logistics center, and I still can hardly believe where we're at.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's amazing. You've seen all of that journey and all of the changes, and you've been there through that all. That's so neat. Well, I love that you know, we have so many young professionals that are part of the chamber. So just your journey and how you got to where you are is really that's really neat. So being open, you never know where that opportunity is going to find itself, and yeah, that's really, really neat. I love that. So we're on the drive podcast, and it's about being driven. You're a huge driven leader. It's also about cars in a way. So commute. So maybe your first car, do you have a first car story that might be kind of fun? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Uh my gosh. So my first car, um it I I loved that car and I still have that car. Oh my gosh. A 1975 Chevy Malibu. Uh beautiful two-door car. And it was my great-grandma's car. And um I, you know, right time, right place for me to be able to start driving that when she wasn't using it. And I drove it for about a year and actually thought that the transmission was going out. And so I parked it on our family farm and said, you know what, I'll take care of it in the future. You know, I'll fix it up. Fast forward like almost 20 years, and I'm like, all right, now's the time. I'm gonna start getting this up and going again. I I I was so ignorant in terms of how to fix cars. I didn't know it was just low on transmission fluid.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00That's it. So it was a relatively easy fix, but anything sitting for 20 years is gonna need some some love and some care. And so that's been what I've been working on actually for the last probably five, six years is just slowly fixing it up here and there and getting it back up and going. And um, just last year in 2025, it got kind of the major overhaul that it needed to where I can start driving it more dependably. So it's it's fun. Still have my first car and uh it's it's been fun.
SPEAKER_02You should drive that in a parade or something, like a fourth-day parade.
SPEAKER_00The plan for 26. So 2025, I wanted to make sure that it was dependable because I don't want to have it break down in the parade route, and I'm now, you know, the marching band is going around me and everything. I was wow, that's incredible.
SPEAKER_02Well, you have done so much for our community. You are you give your time so so much, and talk about giving back, talk about what that means to you and Marco as a whole as we as we wrap up.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So uh one of the things that I've learned over the years is that it's not just about being in the community, it's about being a part of the community. I mean, we see it all around that you know there's there's people that we know they're our neighbors, we know they're our our our business neighbors, but you never see them and you never engage with them. And that was something that I wanted to kind of take a little bit more personally as I developed my career. Because I noticed that if you are more engaged and involved, that opens doors and you don't know where those doors are gonna go. And it's important to be able to be at that moment in time when those doors open up. And so whether it's just getting involved in the chamber, whether it's getting involved in the foundation, and rotary too, isn't it? And rotary as well. Exactly. That it's saying yes to those opportunities when they come up and making yourself available, making yourself open to when those opportunities arise. And and again, it's not just so much being there, but then you also have to be engaged. You have to be involved. And so it's like getting on the chamber board and getting involved with the executive board, um, you know, making a difference and trying to leave leave an imprint uh so that you know, when I come off of the board, you know, what are some of those milestones that stay with us? And and I'm excited about that with the foundation, yeah, you know, like to think about what the future is gonna look like there in you know, 10, 20, 100 years. Be far beyond when we're not here anymore. That what we did at this point in time can be helping people a hundred years from now.
SPEAKER_02Oh, my heart, that's incredible. Well, Paul carried us through our hundred-year anniversary year at the chamber, so that was so neat that you were so much. You were a chair during that hundred-year anniversary year. It was a very special year. So lots of memories. Oh my gosh, Paul, we adore you. Thank you for all that you do for the chamber, the region, the state, you and your beautiful, beautiful wife. We need to do another podcast talking about Catherine because they have a side business, incredible tulip farm. So uh just thank you for I'm so glad to know you. It's an honor to know you. And thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you've done for our region.
SPEAKER_00The the feeling is mutual, Catherine. It has been an absolute pleasure to get to work alongside you uh with the board, and I look forward to the future as well.
SPEAKER_02And the West is yet to come.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Amen.
SPEAKER_02So, with that, thank you so much for joining us in this episode of the drive. Paul Scott, volunteer extraordinaire, chamber champion. We appreciate you so much, and we'll see you next time. Bye.