"Worth Your Salt: A Failing Farm, a Fishing Lodge, and a Thermos of Coffee"

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In 1958, a drought pushed a struggling Utah farm to the brink. Two brothers inherited land that could barely grow a crop and a father who warned them never to go into the salt business. They did anyway.

What began as an effort to save the family farm eventually became Redmond Inc., a family of companies spanning salt, electrolytes, oral care, agriculture, construction, and hospitality. Along the way, the family was also conducting an experiment they didn't have a name for yet: building a workplace where people could find friendship, purpose, and growth, not just a paycheck.

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In this session, Darryl Bosshardt shares the stories and principles that have shaped Redmond's culture across three generations. He'll unpack the five values behind it, including two words most companies would never put on a wall, and explore what it takes to turn values from statements into everyday behaviors.

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Then he'll take the room more than 1,500 miles north to Pybus Point Lodge, a remote fishing and adventure lodge in Southeast Alaska, where a passing comment from a guest about morning coffee sparked an unexpected act of hospitality. No policy required it. No manager approved it. Someone simply noticed an opportunity and acted.

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Drawing on lessons from Redmond, Pybus Point Lodge, and his book The Safe Choice, Darryl explores what becomes possible when people understand the mission, feel trusted to act, and recognize the stories and strengths already embedded in their organization.

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Participants will leave ready to:​​

1. Translate abstract values into small, observable behaviors people repeat without being told.

2. Create the security and empowerment that let frontline people act on what they notice, without asking permission.

3. Replace cascading goals and control with shared mission and honest reflection.

4. Recognize the "diamonds" already under their feet: the history, stories, and people that make their culture theirs alone.

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Speaker Bio:

Darryl Bosshardt is a third-generation member of the family that founded Redmond Inc., where his work spans product development, regulatory and government affairs, marketing, and business development. He grew up working in the family mineral business in Redmond, Utah, earned a Bachelor of Science from Southern Utah University, and completed an MBA at Western Governors University. Across those roles he has worked at the intersection of product, policy, and story, translating what a company believes into what its customers actually experience.

 

He also manages Pybus Point Lodge, Redmond's wilderness fishing lodge on Admiralty Island in Southeast Alaska, accessible only by floatplane. Running a seasonal operation in one of the most demanding environments in North America has made it a live laboratory for the ideas in this session: what happens when people far from headquarters, with no manager in sight, decide for themselves what a guest deserves. Darryl holds a USCG 25-Ton Master license and knows the Inside Passage firsthand.

 

He is the author of The Safe Choice, a business fable about the question every customer is afraid to ask out loud, and the founder of Culture Honeycomb, a framework for building cultures that deliver exceptional hospitality and service. Darryl is passionate about healthy living, healthy eating, and lifelong learning, and about the possibility that work itself can be one of the best parts of a life.