(This week The Columbian-Progress spotlights Kevin Buckley of Helanbak.)
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born Dec. 2, 1990 in Porok, Philippines, but I moved to Columbia when I was one. My dad is from here, and my mom is from the Philippines.
Q: Where did you attend school?
A: I went to First Baptist Daycare, then all through the Columbia School District. I went to Southern Miss and got my bachelor’s in marketing and master’s in economic development.
Q: Where all have you lived?
A: I lived in the Phillipines, Columbia, Hattiesburg and Houston for three years.
Q: Where do you work? Tell us about your job/company.
A: I’m the director of business development for Helanbak. My ultimate goal is to bring new business to the company, mostly in the drill pipe department and any type of specialty or prototyping. For example, on the drill pipe we mainly deal with water well drillers, environmental surveyors and miners as well. My big background is in sales. My day-to-day here is bringing in new business and maintaining current relationships with some of our biggest customers. Also, I kind of oversee day-to-day operations making sure if someone needs something here I help them with that. I just try to make sure everything is running smoothly.
Q: What led you to your profession?
A: I was originally attracted to marketing because I liked the concept of being a part of the influential process of guiding someone. I had a really phenomenal professor at Southern Miss, Bill Smith, who was there for 37 years and recently retired. But he was a big impact on guiding me on my professional path. He was like my compass. He didn’t set the path for me, but he showed me how to navigate it. I’ve always liked in sales when after you make a sale, then there’s always a thought of what’s next, what’s the next goal? You’re always sharpening your toolset.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your job?
A: There’s two things. The team that we have assembled here from the management side all the way down to the day-to-day guys is great. The teamwork we have when we want to get something done in a timely manner, or even ahead of time, we’re able to do it here. There’s not a lot of red tape so we’re able to sit down and get things accomplished. Also, we’re a newer company and founded in 2014, so we’re still essentially a startup. Every customer we bring in is a new customer. I don’t want to sound cliché, but the possibilities are endless.
Q: What was your first job?
A: The first job I ever had besides mowing lawns in high school was with T.L. Wallace when the BP oil spill happened. I was doing administrative assisting and accounting, helping with spreadsheets and fact checking. After that I worked at Sacks Outdoors in downtown Hattiesburg for a couple years in college.
Q: Who is the person or people who have been most influential in your life?
A: My parents but for different reasons. My dad, John, taught me to do the right thing the first time and my mom, Leni, taught me to show love. My family has always been my compass. In any decision in the roadmap of life where you don’t know which road to take or don’t know which door is going to open they’ve always been the north on my compass that’s never changing. They’re the reason we moved back from Houston. My wife and I’s families are both in this area. We were at a pivotal point in Houston, doing great at our jobs with long-term options, but we looked at the compass and realized we had grandparents here and still have siblings here. We’ll be married for three years in October and kids will come into the picture at some point, so I thought about who I wanted my kids to be around and I wanted them to have grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins around.
Q: If you could relive one day from your life, what day would you choose?
A: My engagement party for our wedding. It was at Paul B. Johnson State Park, and we had so many people around us that we cared about. It wasn’t a formal setting; it was right out by the lake under a gazebo. I wouldn’t mind going back and sitting back on that day and be able to have so many people that we care about, love and admire there with us.
Q: What is your spouse’s name? What does she do for a living?
A: Serena. She is the youth director at Saint Fabian Catholic Church in West Hattiesburg.
Q: If you could have anything for your last meal on earth, what would it be?
A: I’d have to say a pepperoni pizza with either pineapple or bell peppers on it and a Suzy B beer from Southern Prohibition Brewing in Hattiesburg.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
A: I’d go to Australia because there is just so much to do there. You can scuba dive, you can go to the Outback; it’s just its own little world.
Q: What hobbies do you like to do in your spare time?
A: Mountain biking, camping, hiking and when I get a chance kayaking and fishing.
Q: What do you enjoy about living and working in Columbia and Marion County?
A: There’s like zero traffic. It’s nice to be able to go from point A to point B and not have to plan ahead, especially coming from Houston where everything took 30 minutes. Also, the community as well. I work with people I went to high school with or I went to high school with their kids. When I go to the bank there’s some familiar faces there. So there’s lot of comfort.
Q: If you could have lunch with anyone from your life or history, who would it be and why?
A: Teddy Roosevelt hands down. I’m not big into politics, but he was such an avid outdoorsman. Growing up he had a lot of physical ailments, but he set out to be an outdoorsman because he wanted to do those things he was told he couldn’t do. He had the grit and gumption just to deny what his body was telling him. Now he’s known as the barrel-chested president rather than letting his body dictate what he could do.
Q: Would you rather read a good book or watch a good movie and why?
A: A book because it forces you to slow down. My own personality, work and social media makes everything fast paced. Reading a book, at least for me, forces you to sit down and absorb what you’re reading.
Q: What moment in your life has had the biggest impact on you?
A: My wife and I were eating at our favorite pizza place in Houston and there was a bench near it looking over an area that hadn’t been developed yet. It was such a pivotal point in life because we had played with the thought of moving back, then this opportunity at Helanbak came up as a possibility. We were sitting there thinking, “Are we going to do this?” We had our lives established in Houston and nobody was forcing us out of our jobs or anything like that, so it was 100 percent our decision to make. My mom and dad didn’t have a preference; her parents didn’t have a preference if we were here or there, so it was completely our decision to come back home. In that moment it just felt like everything kind of stopped, and it was just me and her committing to something that was a hard decision. That changed everything.
Q: What would be the No. 1 thing on your Bucket List?
A: To hike the Appalachian Trail all the way through from Maine to Georgia. I’d love to take a year off from work and just hike it.
Q: If you could describe your morals in three words, what would they be?
A: Believe, follow-through and appreciate.
Q: How would you like to be remembered?
A: I want to be remembered as a man that cared and was always there. There’s this old quote, “You can pretend that you care, but you can’t pretend that you’re there.” So I want to be remembered for both.
— Joshua Campbell
Pictured Above: Kevin Buckley is director of business devlopment at Helanbak. He attended Southern Miss where he earned a bachelor’s in marketing and master’s in economic development. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
