C-Suite: Chris Lyle

Fast Fact: Lyle has led research and development at Pel-Freez for more than six years and was promoted to his existing role in June.

What is the best business advice you have ever given? Everyone in a small company can make a difference — it’s how you choose to go about your work that determines what kind of difference you make and your level of success. Combine positive outlook and refusal to quit and you can truly accomplish anything.

If you weren’t in your current profession, what would you be doing? I’ve always been interested primarily in medicine and engineering — luckily my current role touches a bit on both of those. If I could go back to school just one more time, I’d go all the way and become a surgeon.

What is the best business advice you have ever received? Not exactly business advice, but an idea I keep coming back to, again related to running, is to not ‘die in the chair,’ meaning don’t quit the race while sitting down. Get up and keep moving no matter how much pain you are in — you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish if you just keep moving. Couple that with ‘finish strong’ – advice from my daughters – and there’s no way to lose.

What’s the most recent book you read? “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” by Ramit Sethi.

In one sentence, can you express what the most important thing about being a leader is? By doing hard things, being different and always learning you can inspire others even when you’re not looking.

What’s the most interesting thing about you that isn’t on your resume? I’m an ultrarunner and proud to be a member of the ultrarunning community. I commute to work as much as possible by bike or on foot. Completing multiple 100-mile races and many other shorter ultras over the last several years have taught me so much about myself, about life and about adversity. I’ve seen trails and vistas that are only accessible by foot, by my own power, right here in Arkansas. We have a beautiful state, and through trail running, I’ve visited so many places that otherwise I may have never seen. Training keeps me mentally and physically fit, and I encourage everyone to get out and move as much as possible.

What is the most used app on your phone? Google Podcasts – essential for long training runs.

If you had $1 million to give, what would you support? This is a tough one for me — there are so many possibilities. I would fund a start-up, donate to animal welfare, donate to dementia research and donate to trail building so that hopefully more people could enjoy the outdoors.

In your company/industry, what are the main differences between pre- and post- COVID-19? In biologicals, our business continues to grow, though we have had struggles with supply chain and sourcing certain materials since we are competing with pharma for some of the same supplies. Supporting vaccine development and research is a great business to be in now and pre-COVID. Our foods division has seen challenges with decreased restaurant sales, but that has provided an opportunity to update our brand and explore new sales channels.

What keeps you up at night or worries you the most? I try not to worry too much anymore — that’s not a healthy way for me to live my life. I try to do the best I can at work and at home and stay physically active every day. I sleep pretty well knowing that I’ve touched all of those bases in a day.

What is one thing you would change about your company if you could today? Continue expansion and grow our reach to every vaccine, pharma and diagnostic company on the planet. Make the move to GMP [good manufacturing practices] to open up more opportunities for growth.