DAN HENDRIX >> Well, I grew up in Fort Pierce, Florida. One of four kids.
My dad was big into sports, he played pro baseball.
So, I mean, I remember having a ball in my hand when I was five years old.
In high school, I was captain of the football team, captain of the basketball team.
Played baseball. Ran track.
So, I ran all four sports.
And I think that’s partly how I got my leadership skills, was at athletics.
I went through the whole program at Florida State as a 'Phys Ed' major.
And my dad just got on me about, “Why Phys Ed, Danny?
You’re not going to be able to make a living."
I went over to the business school and I said, “What’s the hardest major?"
And they said, “Accounting,” and I said, “I want to be an accountant."
So, I switched to accounting. After I literally had graduated in Phys Ed.
One of the hardest classes was tax.
And there was this guy named Ross Heck, who was the toughest S.O.B. teacher.
And he motivated me, and a lot of students, to really do better.
In business, you’ve got to lead if you want to be in management.
And I think Florida State teaches you how to do that, I really do.
I graduated with honors at Florida State, and then went into public accounting,
right out of school.
A mentor’s great, but a sponsor’s somebody that can help you at work that also can mentor
you, and they can help you along.
And I found a sponsor right away.
The guy that recruited me on campus was the youngest partner at BDO, and he grabbed me,
and he gave me all these great clients.
And one of his great clients was Interface.
And they went public in 1983, and I was the audit manager that was on that engagement,
when they went public.
And I got to meet Ray Anderson, the founder of the company And Ray Anderson is this visionary
guy, and very charismatic.
And he had this vision that Interface was going to be a billion-dollar company, it was
only 50 million.
And then I fell in love with Ray, fell in love with Interface.
Two weeks later after they went public, I went to work as the financial manager.
Three years later, we’re a Fortune 500.
And I’m the youngest Fortune 500 CFO at the time.
One of the things I’m proud of, I made the hard calls.
I became the CEO in 2001, I looked around and only 40% of our business was carpet tile.
My first meeting with the board, I said I’m getting out everything but carpet tile.
And I thought Ray Anderson was going to have a heart attack.
I got rid of about 600 million in sales.
And replaced that with organic growth out of carpet tile.
Ray Anderson had this vision about carpet tile, the whole world needed it.
He was going to take it global.
And so, my background in and around Florida State, I think allowed me to help
globalize Interface.
I’ve got 5 million miles on Delta.
And seen probably every country you can imagine.
They’ve got a plant named after me in Thailand, because I built the plant in Thailand when
I was the CFO of the company.
And today it’s the largest carpet tile company in the world.
By factor of two, with a 35 percent global market share.
We sell in 110 countries, we have manufacturing plants all over the world, that started from
basically 13 acres in a plant.
Today, we’re the design leaders in carpet tile.
And our product creates cool spaces to go out and attract talent.
The Googles of the world, the Microsofts of the world, love our product.
When I became CEO of the company, I wanted to put a stake in the ground.
Because Ray said by 2020 that we were going to basically be off oil.
Nothing to the landfill, green energy, recycled content in everything we have.
And so, we just decided to have a zero-carbon footprint.
We use renewable energy for all the carbon offsets we have, and we also use green energy
in the plants as well.
Nothing goes to the landfill.
The water’s only potable water now, we have no water use in our plants.
It’s been an amazing journey from being a brown company to the greenest company in
the world.
And then you talk about Florida State, and they have a sustainability mission as well.
It’s a very bold mission.
All universities are creating a sustainability story today.
And I think Florida State’s going to lead in that category.
I’m just sort of true Florida State, in and out.
Because my son went to Florida State, my daughter went to Tulane,
but she’s a big Florida State fan.
My wife of 38 years went to Florida State.
I share a box with a fraternity brother of mine.
We just love to be on campus, and love to go to football games.
We have a lot of fun at life, around the Hendrix family.
And a lot of our friends, and our kids’ friends, come along.
We were always fortunate to be home base.
Kids like to be over here.
I love mentoring kids.
And I like to give speeches.
I’ve given a couple of talks to kids at Florida State, I’ve talked in MBA classes
and I've spoke to th e Boosters.
And you get rewarded with the Florida State students because they really do appreciate it.
But I really enjoy the one on one.
They’re asking some serious questions about how you get to the next level, and it’s
kind of fun to try and get them there.
and I ask them what their greatness is going to be,
which is what their passion’s going to be.
And I get some really interesting answers.
A lot of my success is really attributed to the fact that I married the right person in Betsy.
We’ve been married or dating for 45 years.
And so, she really took care of home base, and allowed me to pursue my passion around Interface.
When I reflect on what my greatness was, and how I let my life, I was always a servant leader.
I always put the good of the company or the good of the friend, or the good of the family
ahead of my own desires.
That creates a passion in life that will get you a long way. With balance,
With family, work, and friends.
So live life with this passion and no fear.
That’s the answer to success in life to me.
Is you go for it with a lot of gusto, and a lot of passion.
And you’ll find your greatness.