Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business.
Viking Mat Company is one of North America’s leading suppliers of timber, crane, and access mats for the heavy construction industry. We are headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and we serve customers from coast to coast through a network of more than 80 storage facilities across the United States. That kind of reach means we can get the right product to the right jobsite, and on time, whether that’s a pipeline corridor in the Permian Basin, a wind energy project in the Great Plains, a transmission line in the Pacific Northwest, or an offshore marine construction site. Our product line covers everything from 8″ and 12″ timber mats, 3-ply laminated mats, CLT mats, composite mats, crane mats, swamp mats, pipe skids, and more. We sell, rent, and offer rent-to-own and buyback programs, and we back it all up with in-house logistics for rail and over-the-road trucking. We’re a full-service operation. Viking Mat has roots going back over 100 years in the forest products industry, and that legacy means something to us. We don’t take it lightly.
Kindly give us a brief description about yourself.
I grew up on a farm in small-town Minnesota. That upbringing shaped everything about how I approach work and life. You get up, you do what needs doing, and you don’t make excuses. I’ve spent my career in the forest products and building materials industry, and today I serve as President of Viking Mat Company, as well as several affiliated Viking companies such as Viking Forest Products, Viking Building Products, Viking Specialty Supply, and Viking Helical Anchors. Viking Forest Products itself is one of the largest wholesale lumber and wood panel distributors in North America and is the #1 company in the Forest City Trading Group. My greatest professional achievements aren’t trophies on a shelf, they’re the people I’ve helped develop, the customer relationships we’ve built over decades, and the fact that our word still means something in this industry.
What inspired you to start or make significant changes in your business? How did the idea come about?
Viking Mat wasn’t built on a single ‘eureka’ moment. It was built on identifying a real need in the market which was construction contractors operating in remote, rugged, and demanding environments needed a mat supplier who could actually execute with the right product, on time, with honest service. We saw that the industry needed someone who could combine the product depth, logistics infrastructure, and relationships to do this at scale. When you have 100-plus years of forest products experience as your foundation and a network of supplier relationships across North America, you’re positioned to serve that market better than almost anyone. We leaned into that strength and kept building.
What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
First: Do what you say you’re going to do. Every single time. Your word is your brand. If you say you’ll deliver on Tuesday, you deliver on Tuesday. That reputation compounds over time into something money can’t buy. Second: Hire grit before you hire credentials. A resume tells you what someone has done. How they respond to adversity tells you who they are. I’ll take a competitive, coachable, hard-working person with no experience over a polished professional with no fire every day of the week. Third: There is no such thing as a free lunch. Success is earned. It takes time, sacrifice, and a willingness to outwork the competition. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.
What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Integrity… without it, nothing else matters long-term. Resilience… business is hard, markets shift, deals fall through, and people let you down. The ones who make it are the ones who get back up and keep going. And finally, the ability to build and lead a team… no one builds anything great alone. Knowing how to attract talented people, earn their trust, and point them in the right direction is the multiplier that separates good businesses from great ones.
How many hours do you work a day on average?
I don’t really count. I grew up on a farm where you work until the work is done. Some days that’s ten hours, some days more. But I’d also say that when you’re doing something you believe in, with people you respect, it doesn’t always feel like ‘work’ in the traditional sense. I’m fortunate to work with some of the hardest working people I know that are great teammates and that makes the days and hours go by pretty fast. This job follows you home because you care about it and all the people you work with. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
To what do you most attribute your success?
The people around me. I’ve been fortunate to build teams full of people who have grit, who are competitive, and who are genuinely good teammates. When you have that, and you give people the tools and the trust to do their jobs, the results follow. Beyond that, I’d say consistency. Showing up, day after day, keeping your commitments, and never cutting corners. Teddy Roosevelt said it well: ‘Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.’ I truly believe that.
How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
In our industry, the most powerful marketing has always been reputation. When a contractor knows that Viking Mat will deliver what we promised, when we promised it, at a fair price and that if something goes sideways we’ll stand behind it and in turn they tell other contractors. Referrals and long-term relationships built on trust have driven more growth for us than any ad campaign ever could. That said, we’ve also invested in our digital presence and trade show participation to make sure that when someone new is looking for a mat supplier, Viking is easy to find and hard to overlook.
Where did your organization’s funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it?
Viking Mat Company operates as part of the broader Viking and Forest City Trading Group family of companies. Our capital foundation comes from the sustained profitability and reinvestment that comes with over a century of disciplined operations in the forest products industry. We are employee owned so all of our equity partners are employees of the company and we also have an ABL that is funded by 3 of the big major banking firms and they typically fight over who can get more of our business on the banking side. We’ve grown by earning it by being operationally excellent, by managing risk carefully, and by building customer relationships that generate repeat business year after year. We didn’t build this on venture capital or speculation. We built it on honest, hard work and sound business fundamentals.
What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Be someone people can count on. Deliver on your commitments, even when it’s inconvenient. Hire and develop great people. Reinvest in your business. Stay humble enough to keep learning. Long-term success isn’t a strategy, it’s the accumulated result of doing the right things, consistently, over a long period of time. There are no real shortcuts.
Where do you see yourself and your business in 5–10 years?
Viking Mat has already built something that most companies never achieve. Decades of sustained relevance in a demanding industry. In the next 5 to 10 years, I see us deepening our service capabilities, continuing to expand our logistics and storage footprint, and growing our presence in markets like renewable energy, energy infrastructure, and heavy civil construction, which are expanding rapidly. I also want to continue developing the next generation of leaders within these companies. The most enduring thing I can build isn’t a bigger warehouse it’s a culture and a team that will carry this business forward long after I’m gone.
Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
I have a deep respect for companies that have maintained their integrity and work ethic over generations, businesses that didn’t sacrifice their culture for short-term growth. Caterpillar and John Deere come to mind. They both build equipment that goes into some of the toughest environments on earth, they’ve done it for over 290 years collectively, and they’ve built a brand synonymous with reliability and durability. That’s not an accident, it’s the result of consistent commitment to quality and to the people who do the work. That resonates with me.
How important have good employees been to your success?
They are the success. I can’t say it any more plainly than that. A business is only as good as the people running it. The single most important thing I do as a leader is hire the right people and then get out of their way. I look for grit first, people who will outwork the competition and bounce back from setbacks. Then I look for coachability and team orientation. Give me a team full of people like that, and I’ll show you a winning organization.
How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
It depends on whether the fundamentals are sound. If the core premise is right but execution is the challenge, I’m very patient and I’ll grind through it. You need to be able to adjust, adapt, and pivot if you were unsuccessful the first time around but you still believe in the idea. If new information tells me the premise was wrong, I’d rather cut losses and pivot than keep throwing good money and energy after bad. Stubbornness and perseverance aren’t the same thing. Perseverance means staying the course when the mission is right. Stubbornness means staying the course when it clearly isn’t. From my experience success and failure is simple and usually comes down to two things, have a plan and execute the plan.
What motivates you?
Competing and winning and in the end, earning it. Building something real. Seeing the people around me grow and succeed and seeing their success allowing them to provide a great life for their family. Honestly, a little bit of chip-on-the-shoulder Midwestern work ethic that tells me every single day that nothing is handed to you. We are in an eat what you kill business model so everyday is a new opportunity and new challenge.
What are your ideals?
Integrity. Hard work. Personal accountability. Treating people with respect and directness. I believe in being candid, telling people the truth even when it’s hard, while also being compassionate. Those aren’t opposites. You can be honest and kind at the same time. I also believe deeply in earning your place in business and in life. There is no substitute for showing up and putting in the work.
How do you generate new ideas?
Mostly by listening. To customers, to our team, to the market. The best ideas I’ve seen in this business came from people on the front lines who were close to the problem. I also believe in reading and listening broadly to history, economics, philosophy, and various biographies. Thomas Sowell has shaped how I think about incentives and unintended consequences. Reagan taught me that optimism is a strategy, not just a feeling. Teddy Roosevelt taught me about ruggedness, mental toughness, and boldness. And Socrates taught me to question and challenge everything and always have an open mind. You need keep yourself intellectually curious and the ideas tend to come.
How do you define success?
Did you do what you said you would do? Did you leave the people and places around you better than you found them? Did your team grow and thrive? That’s success to me. It’s not a number on a balance sheet, though financial health matters. It’s about the impact on customers, on employees, on your community.
How do you build a successful customer base?
You earn it, one relationship at a time. You show up. You deliver what you promised. When something goes wrong because it will, you own it and you fix it. Over time, that consistency becomes a reputation, and that reputation does your selling for you. We have customers at Viking Mat who have been with us for decades, and it’s not because we have the fanciest website. It’s because we’ve been reliable, honest, and genuinely helpful to their business.
What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
The accountability. I know that sounds like a strange answer, but I mean it. When you’re running your own operation, the results are on you. There’s nowhere to hide, and I wouldn’t want there to be. That clarity, the direct line between effort and outcome is something I find deeply motivating. It’s the same feeling I had growing up on a farm. With crops you plant, you tend, you harvest and with livestock you nurture, you feed, and you shelter. You’re a steward to the land and the animals and both depend on your commitment to them. The work matters.
What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Watching people I hired early in their careers grow into leaders. When someone you took a chance on, someone who had the raw materials but maybe not the experience yet ends up becoming someone that other people look up to and follow, that’s deeply satisfying. That’s the kind of success that compounds in ways a revenue number never can.
What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Ownership of outcomes. Entrepreneurs don’t have the option of punching out and leaving the problem for someone else. The buck stops with you, and that weight either breaks you or builds you. Most entrepreneurs I respect aren’t driven primarily by money, they’re driven by the desire to build something, to solve a problem, to prove something. That internal fire is the real differentiator.
What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone?
We’re a Midwestern company through and through. Were direct, dependable, and hard-working. The culture here is built on a few non-negotiables: you do what you say you’re going to do, you work hard, you’re a good teammate, and you treat customers and colleagues with honesty and respect. We hire for grit and character first. Skills can be taught; work ethic and integrity are much harder to instill. That culture didn’t come from a memo or a values poster on the wall. It came from modeling the behavior ourselves, holding people to it consistently, and making sure that the people who embody it are the ones who succeed here.
In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
GRIT
If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
I’d have invested in developing people even earlier. Early in my career I probably focused more on the operational and commercial side of the business than on the human development side. In our organization, I probably waited to be someone anointed as a leader before I started trying to develop and mentor other leaders. The sooner you understand that your job as a leader is to make the people around you better, the faster everything else accelerates.
What is your greatest fear, and how do you manage fear?
My greatest fear is complacency, in myself and in our organization. Success can breed comfort, and comfort can breed mediocrity. I manage it by staying hungry, staying curious, and refusing to accept ‘good enough.’ Roosevelt called it ‘the strenuous life.’ I try to live it.
If you could talk to one person from history, who would it be and why?
Theodore Roosevelt. He was a rancher, a soldier, a conservationist, a president, and an author. He understood that a life of comfort and ease is no life at all and that you have to get into the arena. His life is a masterclass in resilience, in leading from the front, and in doing hard things because they’re worth doing. I’d want to know how he managed to keep that fire burning across so many different chapters of his life.
Who has been your greatest inspiration?
My great Uncle Earl. Growing up on a farm, I watched Earl work relentlessly, complain very little, connect with many different types of people and build something real from the ground up. He built a sizable farm and one of the most successful farm implement auction houses in the Midwest. Everything I know about accountability, relationships, work ethic, and doing right by people, I learned watching him. No book or business school comes close.
What book has inspired you the most?
The River of Doubt has inspired me more than any other book. It’s the story about how Teddy Roosevelt assembled a team and went on a journey in the amazon and traveled down the amazon to discover many new species. It was a strenuous journey where lives were lost and he almost lost his own son and he did all this after his Bull Moose campaign where he lost. Even after he has done so many things in life including leading the Rough Riders and being the President of the United States he still chose courage over comfort and continuing to live a bold and adventurous life. It’s a great book by a truly amazing man.
What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
I spend a majority of my time with my family and coaching and watching my kids in various athletic events. Outside of that I spend as much time as I can outdoors hunting, fishing, golfing, and just being in places where the pace is slower and the air is cleaner. It resets something in me. I’m also a big believer in staying physically active. A sound body and a sound mind tend to go together.
If you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?
‘What did you build that outlasted you?’ That’s the real measure. Not what you accumulated, but what you built that kept going after you stepped back. A culture, a team, a reputation, a set of standards that other people carry forward. That’s legacy. That’s what I’m working toward.
for more information visit us at https://vikingmat.com/