- David Ryan Mangum, President of SMT Inc., explains the method he uses to build manufacturing teams: trust first, relationships second, accountability last.
Raleigh, North Carolina, November 12, 2026, ZEX PR WIRE, David Ryan Mangum has led manufacturing operations across several companies, most recently taking on the role of President at SMT Inc. in September 2026. Before that, he managed plants and operations teams at New Standard Corporation and Pamlico Air. The roles changed. The method did not.
“I believe in building strong teams through trust, relationships, and accountability,” Mangum says. He describes it as a sequence, not a list. Trust comes first because without it, nothing else holds. Relationships come next because trust needs somewhere to live. Accountability comes last because it only works once people already trust each other and know each other.
Mangum says plants often try to skip straight to accountability. A new scorecard goes up. New metrics get posted. Leadership expects performance to follow.
“You can’t hold someone accountable to a standard they don’t trust yet,” he says. “They’ll hit the number if they’re watched, and drop it the moment they’re not.”
He says the fix is slower than most leaders want. Before he sets expectations on a floor, he spends time learning who is on it. Who has been there fifteen years. Who trained whom. Who the crew actually listens to, regardless of title. That groundwork, he says, is what makes accountability stick later.
Mangum has coached basketball, soccer, and baseball in youth sports for fourteen years. He says the overlap with plant leadership is not an accident.
“A twelve-year-old doesn’t play hard for a coach he doesn’t trust,” he says. “A forty-year-old machine operator doesn’t either, he’s just better at hiding it.”
Coaching taught him to read a group before trying to change it. Who needs direct feedback and who needs a hand on the shoulder. Who steps up when pushed and who shuts down. He says manufacturing teams are no different. The tools are different. The people are not.
Mangum treats relationships as something closer to infrastructure than sentiment. A plant with strong relationships between shifts, between the floor and the office, between operators and maintenance, moves information faster when something breaks.
“Problems get hidden in plants where people don’t trust each other,” he says. “Not because anyone’s lying. Because nobody wants to be the one who brings bad news to someone they don’t have a relationship with.”
He says building those relationships is ongoing work, not a one-time fix. It means being present on the floor, not just in meetings. It means remembering what someone told you last month and following up on it.
Once trust and relationships are in place, Mangum says accountability becomes simple. People hold the line because they understand why it matters and because they do not want to let down people they respect.
“At that point you’re not enforcing a rule,” he says. “You’re just reminding people who they are.”
He is careful to say this does not mean accountability gets softer. It means it gets earned instead of imposed. He says teams built this way tend to hold their standards even when he is not in the building, which he treats as the real test of whether the method worked.
Mangum lives in Elm City, North Carolina, and spends time boating, fishing, and hunting when he is away from the floor. He also collects coins, a hobby he describes as a quieter version of the same patience his work requires. He says both pursuits reward people who pay attention to small details over a long stretch of time.
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David Ryan Mangum is President of SMT Inc. He previously served as Plant Manager at New Standard Corporation and Operations Manager at Pamlico Air. He lives in Elm City, North Carolina, and is known for his work in manufacturing operations and team development.
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