Keeping Up with Karl Schlotthauer | Oelwein Production Manager

Karl Schlotthauer is CITY’s new Production Manager at our Oelwein plant. “It’s nonstop. I love the continuous flow of work. There’s always something to do. It’s just been great. The challenge, the consistency of the job, the pace…it’s fantastic,” Karl says.

Before working at CITY, Karl served in the US Army and at a variety of companies working in sales and business development. In all of his positions, he says that challenges are what energize him. “Redundancy produces complacency, in my opinion. Having a different challenge every day keeps me going.”

He points to his military background as his way of identifying problems, prioritizing, tasking, and executing on solutions for problems that arise. In terms of his communication style, he cites his father, Stan Schlotthauer, CITY’s Director of Customer Relations. “My father and I have always had a very business-like manner of communicating. In a lot of ways, I’ve taken a lot of good bullet points away from just the way we talk, whether it’s about personal life issues or us actually talking about our own jobs or our own roles. We’ve always conducted ourselves in a very business-like dialogue between us.”

Though Karl admits to being uncomfortable with receiving compliments, he is proud of the fact that he has received praise for his work ethic. I take a chain of command or a ladder, if you will, very seriously. I sincerely believe that I should be working harder and longer than anybody else that reports to me and is under me. Coming in before everybody gets here, leaving after everybody leaves. I mean, leading by example, I guess, is what it comes down to.”

When Karl isn’t working, he loves cars, traveling, going to the shooting range, and listening to music. ” I’m a music nut myself. I’ve been playing instruments for a long time. Since I was five. I grew up playing drums. That was probably my most tenured instrument. Then I picked up piano along the way. Percussion in middle school and high school is not just beating on a drum, but also xylophone and stuff like that. I picked up the concept of piano, and I worked my way into that over time. I listen to everything. When I say everything, I mean everything. Everything from blues, and big band jazz from the twenties, thirties, and forties, to reggae, heavy metal, hip hop, country… I listen to everything. It’s hard for me. I go through phases. Right now, I’d say my favorites are going to be… I’m on a big Colter Wall, kick. He’s a country music artist, but he has this really old feel to him, and he is 22 years old. Yeah, he’s really new, but yeah, he’s really good, though. That’s probably my favorite right now.”

When asked to describe CITY in three words, he said, “Dynamic, Opportunity, Healthy.” So far, he says his time at CITY has been great. “I think it’s everybody’s responsibility to maintain their own mindset about where they’re at in life, no matter how bad or good it is. It’s been great, and it’s going to stay that way. I’m very resilient in that mindset.”

To learn more about Karl, check out this video!

And if you’d like to work with Karl, check out our current job openings!