Compensation, HRIS, Analytics, & Blue Collar Work at Kimray - Kevin Trowbridge - #191

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Check out this episode of the #1 people intelligence podcast with special guest, Kevin Trowbridge, Director of Compensation and HRIS at Kimray!

In this conversation Cole Napper sits down with Kevin to unpack what it means to lead compensation and HRIS as one combined function at a 78-year-old Oklahoma manufacturer that had no dedicated role for either until 2024. Kevin landed in the work almost by accident: a math degree, a banking career that burned him out, and a friend who spotted a utility job that wanted someone who could handle numbers. That first administrator seat taught the unglamorous truth. You run the reports, match the jobs, build the structures, and learn that compensation is finance with a human being on the other side of every figure. The work still looks more like an apprenticeship than something you can absorb from a book. WorldatWork’s CCP typically takes three to five years because the classroom only sticks if you are already living the messy decisions.

Comp ratios, percentiles, internal equity, and survey matching all sound like people-analytics language, so Cole asks why compensation and people analytics so rarely sit in the same room. Kevin’s answer is blunt. Pay makes people nervous. Companies that lag the market do not want that exposed. Culture can offset dollars, and at Kimray it often does. Tenure of 40-plus years is still common. Leaders teach culture to other businesses through a foundation. Frontline supervisors get executive-level leadership training. People stay because the values match, not because every offer sits at the 75th percentile.

Kimray manufactures pressure regulators, valves, sensors, and level controllers for oil and gas, made in the USA. Until May 1 of this year it was family owned. It is now an ESOP, so employees become beneficial owners through a company-funded retirement plan that sits on top of the 401(k). That ownership story collides with another unusual design choice: the CEO refuses traditional sales commissions. He does not want credit-stealing or split-store fights. Sales grew from roughly 100 million to the 230–250 million range with a company-wide EBITDA bonus instead. The team is now testing a group accelerator so everyone rows toward the same outcome.

AI is the thread that keeps Kevin up a