Supporting a Vision: How Caryann Bruce and Harvey Oblander Are Growing Covia's Equestrian Business

Every successful innovation starts with a question. However, that specific question can differ depending on the person.

• For Sales Manager Caryann Bruce, that question was simple: What if Covia's equestrian sand business could become something much bigger?
• For Laboratory Technician, Harvey Oblander, he wondered how to build a process that consistently delivers exactly what customers need at scale.

Today, those two perspectives have come together to help position Covia for continued growth in the equestrian market. Through customer relationships, operational expertise, and collaboration across the company, Caryann and Harvey have helped transform a byproduct into an expanding product line that serves some of the industry's most respected equestrian facilities while creating new opportunities for Covia.

Different Journeys, One Shared Mindset

Before Caryann and Harvey joined forces to grow Covia’s equestrian market, their paths to Covia couldn’t have been more different. Caryann built her career in sales, learning to connect with customers and uncover opportunities others overlooked. Harvey spent more than two decades maintaining and inspecting military aircraft, where precision and quality were non-negotiable.

Caryann

Before joining Covia, Caryann's career took several unexpected turns. She sold products door-to-door, managed a restaurant for seven years, and became one of Volvo's top salespeople in the country. 

While she loved selling cars, she was also working seven days a week while she and her husband were raising a family in New York. They decided to leave New York in search of a better work-life balance and eventually relocated to North Carolina.

After moving, Caryann interviewed for a non-sales position. While that role wasn’t a good fit, she was called back to interview for a separate inside sales position. Caryann admits that she wasn’t sure about the prospect of selling sand, but some unexpected advice from her son ended up changing her mind.

“My son played Minecraft and he told me, ‘Mom, you have to talk to them. Sand is in everything," Caryann explained. “He was so excited. I ended up doing the interview because of my son.”

More than eight years later, that video game-aided advice has paid dividends for both Caryann and Covia. 

Harvey

While Caryann came from an extensive sales background, Harvey arrived at Covia nearly three years ago from what he calls an entirely different world. Harvey spent 23 years in the U.S. Air Force, where he advanced from aircraft maintenance of F-16 fighter jets to being in charge of inspection at Shaw Air Force Base.

Harvey admits that there isn’t a lot of crossover between aviation and sand, but there is a very consistent theme that applied in both the Air Force and Covia: getting something right the first time, safely.

“As I tell a lot of people, they can't pull to the side of a cloud to fix a problem with an airplane,” Harvey said. “If you get that wrong, the aircraft is going to go one of two places: either back to the runway or the nearest hole in the ground. Both aviation and mining have that safety mindset where we do things right the first time and focus on what needs to be done correctly.”

Embracing an Outside Perspective to Seize an Opportunity

While neither Caryann nor Harvey had much experience in the equestrian market before joining Covia, they both have curiosity that helped grow a byproduct into a product trusted by equestrian facilities across the world.

The expansion of Covia’s BESTSAND™ EQ products started when Caryann’s outside sales background drove her to look beyond inbound calls and seek new opportunities. 

“I've been working on growing equestrian sales ever since I started with Covia,” Caryann said. “The Lugoff facility was one of the plants in my territory, and I had a big focus on our byproducts. I noticed that we were selling EQ 100, but we weren't really selling a lot of equestrian sand out of other plants.”

That observation led her to start prospecting, going as far as making a Google list and calling every equestrian arena builder and footing companies she could find. She researched why Covia’s sand was desirable for equestrian customers and talked with builders to understand their needs and pain points, discovering how builders preferred BESTSAND EQ 100 because of its consistency and performance. 

Caryann took this information and developed a spreadsheet of every plant that had a similar material. She soon developed a plan that served as the foundation of Covia’s equestrian products today.

“There were times when I challenged Covia that we had an underutilized opportunity and that our department could do more,” Caryann shared. “I just kept working behind the scenes to grow the opportunity.”

“From day one, my boss, Todd Helton, the Director of Commercial Operations, has believed in and supported this,” said Caryann. “One of the things he told me was that if I wanted to make a name for myself, I should find a way to sell the byproducts. I took that advice very seriously.”

That backing helped lay the foundation for what would become one of Covia's newest growth opportunities.

<h2>Turning Customer Insights into Innovation, One Footing at a Time

As Caryann's understanding of the equestrian market deepened, she noticed that customers kept asking about something Covia is already very familiar with; blending. 

Equestrian footing requires a combination of sand and fiber for stabilization. The traditional process requires significant labor, varies from project to project, and often produces inconsistent results.

Rather than assuming they already knew the answer to requests for blending, Caryann and Harvey visited customers, listened carefully, observed how builders worked, and studied existing processes. The team used that customer feedback as a roadmap for delivering quality products.

Harvey and Caryann worked with colleagues across Covia, including Steve Schilling, Greg Bedford, and Jason Lamb at the Covia Innovation Center (CIC). Together, they tested different approaches, constantly refining the process to deliver blended equestrian products better suited to the specific needs of builders and equestrian facilities.

Investing in the Future

While the growing equestrian project has already created significant momentum, neither Caryann nor Harvey considers the work finished. The duo actively seeks out new information and refining methods to improve product quality and efficiency. Their goal is to continue innovating to better serve customers ranging from local equestrian arenas to facilities with Olympic-level riders.

They also recognize that investing in the future begins with ideas, and that Covia has demonstrated what's possible when employees are encouraged to pursue new opportunities.

“The investment we're seeing now is exciting," said Caryann, who earned Covia’s 2024 Commercial Impact Award in part because of her success in the equestrian market. "You can bring forward an opportunity, present a solution, and people are willing to listen and take action. They're giving us the tools to be successful."

Both Caryann and Harvey also recognize that investing in the future also includes a healthy organizational culture. The search for a healthy work-life balance that drove Caryann to relocate is present at Covia, allowing team members to enjoy professional success without sacrificing quality of life at home.

That balance allows Caryann and Harvey to pursue passions that reflect their personalities outside of work. Caryann volunteers hundreds of hours each year with Girl Scouts, supports her daughter's cheerleading activities, and enjoys reading whenever she can find the time. Harvey plays saxophone in three community bands and even repairs instruments for fellow musicians. 

Although their interests differ, both share a love of continuous learning, problem-solving, and helping others succeed. Those same qualities shape the way they approach their work at Covia every day.

Growing Through People

Innovation doesn't always begin in a laboratory. Sometimes it starts with a salesperson asking better questions and a laboratory technician wondering how a process could work more efficiently.

Together, Caryann Bruce and Harvey Oblander have shown what can happen when customer insight, technical expertise, and a shared commitment to continuous improvement come together around a common goal. More importantly, it demonstrates that Covia's greatest innovations begin with its people.