Fast 15: Joseph F. Rumsey V

When he was 14 years old, Joey Rumsey began working summers for the family business, Zero Mountain Inc.

The Fort Smith-based company — founded by Rumsey’s grandfather in 1955 and run by his father since 1987 — is an industry leader in cold storage, with facilities in Fort Smith, Johnson, Lowell and Russellville.

Those facilities total 33 million cubic feet used to freeze, store and ship about 2 billion pounds of frozen food and meat each year.

Rumsey picked up the trash, mowed the grass and did other jobs inside the Fort Smith facility.

“Some days I would get soaked through to my boxers in chicken goo,” he recalled.

Rumsey is a long way from those humble beginnings, though he didn’t take a traditional path to leadership.

Most heirs join the family business right out of college. But after graduating with a business management degree from the University of Denver in 2007, Rumsey chose something other than ZMI, “to learn from somebody other than my father and the employees he trained and grew up with.”

He rose quickly up the corporate ladder at IFCO, an international pallet company based in Houston, and was being fast-tracked for management.

Ultimately, though, home won out.

In 2009, Rumsey joined ZMI as a vice president. When his father became ill, Rumsey transitioned to his current job in November.

He quickly showed he was capable of making tough business choices, reducing the company work force by 30 percent to help increase profit margins.

“There were inefficiencies in our operation and we worked those out,” he said. “We’ve put people in place to be successful.”

Rumsey, a licensed pilot, splits his workweek between Lowell and Fort Smith. He is active on the ski slopes, and attends several concerts each year, ideally a good “hippy-jam” band like The String Cheese Incident.

As a CEO, he plans to build on his father’s momentum, working to strengthen profit margins with a lean labor force and investing in green technology.

ZMI currently has 187 employees and, in 2011, drew $22.6 million in revenue.

— Paul Gatling