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Get inspired to lead with purpose in this episode of «Extending the Ladder!» Host Nancy Novak, Chief Innovation Officer at Compass Datacenters, sits down with the trailblazing Angela Seaman, founder and CEO of Seaman Group.
With over a decade’s experience in the plastic resin distribution industry, Angela has not only carved a niche for herself but has also pioneered significant sustainable supply chain practices.
Episode Highlights:
🛤️ Entrepreneurial Journey: Angela Seaman’s path to founding and leading Seaman Group, shaped by her small-town Texas upbringing and family background in construction.
🌍 Sustainability Initiatives: Angela’s efforts in recycling over 10 million pounds of plastic resin, contributing to significant environmental impact by reducing landfill and ocean waste.
🏔️ Challenges and Milestones: The personal and professional obstacles Angela has faced, and how she overcame them with grit and tenacity.
🎯 Vision and Persistence: The necessity of having a clear vision and defined goals, as well as resilience, persistence, and a positive attitude in turning adversity into opportunity.
🤝 Importance of Partnerships: The role of strategic partnerships in scaling a business and achieving long-term success.
Don’t miss this episode—it’s a must-listen for anyone looking to be inspired by a leader who has turned obstacles into opportunities and continues to make waves in her industry.
Read the full transcript below:
Nancy Novak: Welcome, everybody, to the next episode of Extending the Ladder. I am Nancy Novak and I’m Chief Innovation Officer at Compass Datacenters. With me today, I have our guest, Angela Seaman, who is founder and CEO of Seaman Group. Angela, could you just give us a little background and tell us about your company and yourself please?
Angela Seaman: Absolutely. Nancy, first, thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited. I’m looking forward to seeing where our conversation goes today and hopefully the goal of inspiring others, other women leaders and other women entrepreneurs. So I founded Seaman Group back in 2018. I’m a plastic resin distribution company, and so what that means is that I sell the raw material that goes into any plastic parts. And you can look around, there’s a ton of plastic, whether it’s our phone or our computers, our cars, whatever it is. And so I sell raw material into people who make those plastic parts.
And I think the most fun thing that I enjoy doing is that I buy back excess plastic inventory and I recycle it. So this year so far, I’ve moved a little over 10 million pounds of resin, the majority of that being recycled. So what that does for our environment is I’m diverting it from the landfills, I’m diverting it from the oceans, and I’m taking that material and doing something to it so it could be made into another product. And I love working with the engineers and R&D teams, figuring out that right formula. When I take that recycled product and do something to it, that’s my very favorite thing to do because those engineers and that R&D team are so creative. So that’s my passion.
Nancy Novak: Wow. Did you say 10 million pounds of resin?
Angela Seaman: Yes, just so far. So that’s just… It’s what, August? So those are my numbers for the end of July.
Nancy Novak: Wow.
Angela Seaman: And the majority of that is recycled.
Nancy Novak: I love that. I love the repurposing and being able to utilize materials and give them another life because it helps so much just from the standpoint of sustainability and the landfills and just literally being able to take a really important product that would end up being in a landfill for how many years? A century or so. And then have it give it a whole new life. So I think that’s so critical, Angela. But I’m actually, I’m really more interested in just how did you get into this business than what drove you to go do this? It’s so fascinating. I’d just love to know more about that.
Angela Seaman: When you wake up one day and you’re like, I never thought I would be in plastics. Never, never. But you know how God sometimes, he intervenes and he directs you on certain paths. So a little bit about me. I grew up in a very small town, small town Texas, outside of Bowman, like population 4,000. Wouldn’t take anything for those roots because you learn that work ethic, being raised in a small town. I come from a family of entrepreneurs, so working for someone probably was never in my DNA. My dad was a home builder, so I grew up in the construction business. All my uncles in home building, my grandfather, home building. And so my grandmother an entrepreneur, so that’s really all that I ever knew was just entrepreneurship. You worked for yourself and you worked on a job site.
My dad, very creative man, he had mental illness, and so it leads you to being raised in a chaotic environment. But through that, Nancy, that’s where I think what we’re going to talk about a lot today is just that grit that it gets instilled in you at such a young age because you have to grow up fast, you have to be creative. And so my dad was super creative and build just about anything and very, very, very charismatic. So some of his dreams and visions really got passed along to me. And so I knew that going into college, I have an entrepreneurship degree from Baylor. So I went to Waco and got a little education. And then=
Nancy Novak: Well, I mean, I was going to say sometimes it’s because of not in spite of the upbringing and everything that gets us to where we are. And so I think we need to know more about this grit. I want to understand a little bit better about your mentality and how you became who you are because of, not in spite of, the way you were raised.
Angela Seaman: I think there’s one other piece that thrust me into doing what I did, starting my own company. So two different factors. One was I was married for 23 years, no, divorced. And so you probably know a lot of people, if there’s a tragedy of some sort, what happens? Creativity is burst out of it. Sometimes you get put in a situation and you’re like, huh, what’s inside of me? Have you heard of that? Eleanor Roosevelt, one of my favorite quotes is, «Women are like a tea bag. You never know how strong they are until they get put in hot water.» And I live by that because you never ever know how strong what you have on the inside. So I was married 23 years. I came home from work one day, half my house was cleaned out. There were three $100 bills and a Post-it notes. And so from that on my counter to this-
Nancy Novak: That’s hot water there.
Angela Seaman: Hot water. I would have never done it without that. So anyway, I have a logistics and a supply chain background. Went through the divorce, was working for someone, and you know how they do salespeople and they do really well. They cut your commission and you’re like, I’m not going to do that. I’m selling for you. Pay me my commission. And so all those things collided and I’m like, I’m going to do this on my own. And so I took a risk, scary as all get out. I’m going through another life cycle right now, and it’s scary. But I wouldn’t take anything from the small-town roots, the tragedy and the drama that happens in life, the chaos, because there’s no way that I would have taken a leap of faith and now I’ve done it without a backup plan.
Nancy Novak: Wow. Yeah. That’s inspirational. That’s very inspirational. And I know that there’s a lot to it, not just the fact that you had to take a risk, but I’m curious about what your support system looked like, whether it’s emotional support or resources that were available to you to be able to ask advice from or an advocate or something like that. Anything that our audience could say, if I was going to take a risk, maybe not a backup plan, Angela, but something that says someone’s got my back, or I have ways in which I can reach out.
Angela Seaman: Fantastic question. Family, always. Thank goodness for them. And then the second two, I’ve got two go-to groups, the Women’s Business Enterprise, the WBE is where a lot of my certifications come from. In 2018, I got minority certifications and it really is a niche and it set my company apart because of that, and I’m so grateful. So my WBE group, and then I’m in Women Presidents Organization. So we’ve got a chapter and there’s maybe 12 of us. And those are my go-to girls because we’re running all fast, we’re all running companies. We get together once a month, depending on the tribal schedule, but if anything goes on, that’s who we go to.
Nancy Novak: We had a thing with I Am Women. It was about building your brand. And I think one of the pieces of advice was to have your own board, your own board of directors. So basically whether it’s the women or the men, but it’s someone that can ask good questions, give you advice, keep you on the right path, be there when you need a little pick me up and then advocate for you in the industry. And because I think, I do believe, especially for the younger audience, and I’ve seen this a lot lately where we’ve struggled to use our resources and we don’t realize how many resources we have. And there’s a lot of this pride around, I want to do this all by myself. And I’m here to tell you, I don’t think nobody does anything by themselves, right?
Angela Seaman: Nope. No ma’am.
Nancy Novak: And you’re crazy if you don’t use your resources. So I love the fact that you have your own board of directors to give you guidance and to advocate for you and to help you when you need that help. Because I think to take risks like that, you need to know that that’s out there.
Angela Seaman: Yep. That teamwork is so important. I could not do what I do today and run at the speed that I’m running. This is just that teamwork and that partnership, it’s invaluable. And I encourage anyone and everyone to get your crew, find those resources and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Mentorship is so important. Make an effort to find people that will speak into your life and encourage you. And that can take on all forms too, Nancy. It could be industry, it could be spiritual, it could be friendship. There’s a lot of different paths that mentors play, I think, in our lives.
Nancy Novak: Well, and I’ve also kind of witnessed along those same lines that I think you could have mentors who are good sounding boards. And then I also think that there’s that advocate that can sit in the room and speak on your behalf or have your back when you’re not present or else amplify you in some way. So kind of different. Sometimes they can be the same person, but a lot of times they’re different people, they’re two different people. But one has the power to make impact in your career. And the other one is, «I’m here for you. I can listen to you. I can help you figure something out,» by just being that person who can be the sounding board.
Angela Seaman: Yeah. The mentorship on the inside, I think having that advocate that you just talked about, I think I’ve got a good example of something that just happened last week. One of my customers here in Texas has a bunch of plants all over the nation, and it’s a gentleman. And I’ve been calling on him for years and building up a relationship with him. And he sent me a text and he is like, «I’m going to get you into every one of my facilities.» So last week, well, I flew out of town. I was in two different states, drove all over both states, all over. I don’t know how many miles I put on, and I’m sitting at one of his other plants.
One of the guys goes, «Hey, you need to go see this facility.» Well, it wasn’t on my schedule, wasn’t in my planned activity. And I sat there and I was like, because of him, because of him having that much belief in me, changed my flight. I was gone six days because of it. But it’s absolutely invaluable. He spoke into me and he believes in me, and I’m not going to let him down.
Nancy Novak: That’s awesome. And I like that. That’s like you’re not going to let someone down, the responsibility of I’m going to do what I say I’m going to do. And I remember years and years ago when I was a very young manager, I had a superintendent tell me, «You always do what you say you’re going to do, Nancy.» And I’ve always tried to live up to that. So I think that’s great advice. So I love the responsibility of say, don’t always do what we say you’re going to do. And I like living up and aspiring to do that. And so I think that’s super important that this person had an impression on you and you’re like, «I’m not going to let you down.» I think that’s great advice for the audience.
I also wanted to ask you a little bit about the gumption around two things, because we talk a lot about diversity, we talk about opportunities, we talk about potential versus credential. But you know what? When you and I were talking earlier, Angela, what popped into my brain was this whole idea around persistence and attitude. And those are two of my favorite words. And I want you to elaborate a little bit about how those fit into how your journey was and how it continues to have any influence on your business and the way you operate.
Angela Seaman: I think attitude, Nancy, you and I would agree on this, is that, well, I’m not the smartest person in the room. And I wouldn’t want to always hire the smartest person, but if you give me someone with a good attitude who’s teachable and coachable, I’ll take that person every single day because heart is what matters. And I just think outlook on life and being able to have that resiliency because we get told no how many times a day. Rejection, rejection, rejection. And you can’t be a successful entrepreneur, a successful salesperson, a successful leader without being able to get back up. And I think so much of that is just attitude. And then the persistence. You just can’t give up. You just can’t. And it goes to, again, outlook on life. What do you want? Do you want status quo? Do you want average? Or even on those hard days, it’s attitude and heart and just getting back up every single time because we’re going to be told no, we’re going through seasons that are going to be hard. You just cannot give up if you want a better life.
Nancy Novak: I do think that’s important. And I could tell that that was something you sort of live by because nobody wants to be around someone with a bad attitude. And a good attitude is, it’s that whole, I used to tell my kids say, you can flip your own switch. You’re either on the dark side or the light side. Flip the switch, be on the light side, and you have the power to do that. So an attitude is catchy. It’s like infectious. So you want to have this attitude that really helps the whole team get motivated and do extraordinary things.
And that persistence, again, oh my gosh, I have so many of the young mentees that I’ve been with who have seen rejection or in myself many times in my career. And just being able to brush it off and pick yourself back up and go forward and make changes and continue, their persistence is key. It’s very key. I don’t know a single successful person that wouldn’t tell you that they had to have a lot of persistence. And there are many geniuses in the world who aren’t going to be as successful as someone who’s persistent that has a great attitude. Just showing up with a good attitude.
Angela Seaman: I think, too, and that’s not always easy. That is not always easy. One of my, you probably know of him, Ed Mylett. He wrote the book The Power of One More, and I love listening to his podcast as well because there’s the difference between the average and the next level. And it’s not that much. He’s like, just do one more rep in the gym, one more sales call. And that’s the difference I think between being average and above average. It’s sliver, it’s small where the attitude and persistence comes in.
Nancy Novak: I mean, I was thinking about how our success in having a very diverse construction management workforce, and one of the things that we do embody is the fact that you were just saying, if I can hire someone that has a great attitude, I can train them how to do their job. That’s the most important thing to me. And we look at it the same way. We want you to love our industry. We want you to enjoy coming to work. You don’t have to be very knowledgeable about it. We are happy to train you, but if you enjoy the job and you love the atmosphere and you’re a team player and you’re humble enough to say, «I don’t know what I don’t know,» you are our person. You’re our person.
And I really like that to be a great takeaway for the audience because I think that we, especially as women, we rely so heavily on our credentials to do the work for us. And it’s kind of refreshing to have some industries and leaders in the industry that say, you know what? Having another credential isn’t really what we need. Sometimes we just need the person who’s going to show up every day with a great attitude and do the job and learn how to do the job better and better and better, right?
Angela Seaman: Yeah, absolutely. Be willing to show up. It totally matters. And I think you mentioned something about men and working and sometimes us relying on our credentials. And I think I still struggle with this as I’m not a perfectionist. That’s not me at all. But sometimes a man’s like, «I’m going to do it.» And we hold ourselves back going, «Hey, no, let me get everything in line. Let me get my credentials lined up. Let me have all the skill sets already developed.» I think the younger generations are really benefiting from us that are learning. And I hope that younger generations are able to be as forward in their outlook. Women will come up and say, «I can do this too,» and not have to wait like we have done all our lives.
Nancy Novak: What you just described there is literally that whole potential versus credential thing. And there is great empirical data from the biggest data collector in the planet, and that is Google, where they had this self-promotion policy where their employees put themselves up for promotions. And to your point, when the women who put themselves up for promotions, they actually, they got them way more often than when the men did. And the reason why is they waited too long. They were overqualified. They were looking to check more boxes and have more credential. Where the men were very much, ‘I have the potential.»
And what was interesting is when I was talking with Laszlo Bock about this at a conference, he said it was on both sides. It was on the leadership side looking at the person sitting across the table trying to understand what they thought their potential was, and it was on the employees side to try to project what their potential might be. So closing that gap exactly to your point, or basically getting rid of the gap and saying, we don’t need to worry about this because we all have that potential. To know that as a young female, I think is very, very important. I can’t tell you how many times in my career where I’ve seen a lot of women get passed over for a promotion and then they’re not upset about it because they’re thinking, «Well, I’m not ready,» when I can look at them and go, «Oh, you are so ready.»
Angela Seaman: You are so ready.
Nancy Novak: You are so ready for this. And you’re thinking, oh, I have to be perfect and know everything about that job. And I’m like, «No, your male counterparts don’t know everything about that job. They’re learning in their seat.» And I think that’s a huge message that needs to be taken away from this, right?
Angela Seaman: Absolutely. I think that it’s absolutely crucial. And I hope that, again, that the younger generations, that gap is closed for them. Because normally if that female does get that job, she’s going to excel way far, way far above.
Nancy Novak: Yeah. Normally I do. By the time that women get there, we’re like, they’re running circles around everybody. So I wanted to ask yourself, one of the takeaways that we had talked about earlier had to do with partnerships and the importance of partnerships. And I was hoping you could maybe unpack that a little bit for me. And then we’re going to talk a little bit about your future and the outlook, and let’s tie this back into your sustainable practices and your business and how you’re viewing that from an outlook standpoint.
Angela Seaman: So partnerships, I am a huge supporter of partnerships. I don’t think anybody can do it alone. And here’s probably my favorite example of partnerships. So within my WBE world, that’s my certified women in business, my WBE certification. I think us going together, and it’s been a big focus the past couple of years. A lot of us are still small business owners, and we do know that working together we can have a bigger impact. And that’s where you partner up. Don’t need to be in silos. It’s okay to partner up, don’t be so selfish or greedy because you can grow bigger and better. And so here’s an example.
I met another WBE freight company, trucking company, and we’ve partnered together. And she handles all of my logistics, amazing, amazing partnership. And I met her through WBE. And both of us are growing faster and stronger together. And I think that’s what it’s all about. And then bringing other, we’ve had numerous meetings and strategies of how to bring in other WBEs into our circle as well. Even at the corporate level, at our WBE partnerships is a big focus for us.
So another one, and I know that you and I have talked about this, is that I signed a joint venture agreement with a construction company in December. And so now I’ve got Seaman Group Construction Services. That’s all about partnerships. And how did it start? It started with, I was selling them, selling a company recycled plastic for these containers that they make that go into the foundation so that it eliminates the amount of concrete that you have to use and reduces carbon emissions, all kind of stuff. And so the owners and I became really good friends. We like each other. We courted, if you will, for a year plus, liked each other’s work ethic, liked each other’s outcomes. And they’re like, «Hey, do you want to work with us?» That’s partnership. I couldn’t do that on my own.
Nancy Novak: Yeah, and they have expertise that, again, using your resources.
Angela Seaman: Yes.
Nancy Novak: Yeah. And I mean, it’s interesting. I had a conference years ago where the chief branding officer of Procter & Gamble was present and he was talking about the partnerships and how important that is to women-owned businesses and small businesses, and how P&G will partner with the Olympics and other ways in which that they can get their message and their branding out. And it’s really critical to their whole business structure. I thought it was fascinating, but it never really sunk in with me so much about on a smaller scale of how this network of partnerships can strengthen you. And it’s like there’s strength in numbers. You can leverage other expertise using your resources again, I think that’s fantastic.
So Angela, from a takeaway message, leaving with our audience, the whole, the grit, the determination, the persistence, the tenacity, all of that kind of stuff, if you could just sum this up and you were someone who was maybe considering about taking a risk, going into a new industry, trying something different, or being an entrepreneur, what would your advice be?
Angela Seaman: In addition to having grit, resiliency, and tenacity, I am very big on having a vision for your life, and I’m a goals girl. And if you know me, I’ll walk around with this old pad and I go over my goals every single morning. I think having written goals and reviewing them daily, it helps crystallize your vision and helps you figure out what you want to do. And I’m a dreamer. And I think that life that God has made us to live out such a great life, and I would just focus on what your vision is, write your goals down, get a mentor, plug into a support group to help you get to that next level.
And it’s true. Look around at the people that you run around with. They’re going to lift you up. And if that’s your crew, stay with them and keep growing. And I think that that crew, your mastermind group or whatever, is the one that will help you on those days when you’re down, when you don’t know what to do, when you need a pick me up. When your grit isn’t so gritty and when your resilience isn’t so resiliency, I think being able to partner and have those people around you are just absolutely important, irreplaceable.
Nancy Novak: That’s fantastic advice. I love it. I want to be there to support women. I would love it if our audience would reach out to both Angela and I on LinkedIn, drop us a line, follow and make sure that you spread the word and let’s continue building this network and this partnership and let’s all be mentors to each other.
Angela Seaman: Yes.
Nancy Novak: So that’s how I’m going to leave this podcast because this has been so inspiring, and I really appreciate you being a guest. And I thank you so much, Angela.
Angela Seaman: Thank you, Nancy. It was a pleasure. So fun.