Behind the scenes with the Undercover Boss

Denny and Jam

Bumped into Denny Slagle, the CEO of Mack Trucks who was on the CBS television show "Undercover Boss." The show, episode 15 of season two, aired a couple of weeks ago. Knowing Denny from all of the press conferences I've been to over the years, there was no way I was going to miss that.

I wasn't disappointed at all. The show was an exceptional mix of good laughs and heartbreaking moments. Anyone who caught the show found out that Denny isn't, well ummmm, very handy. He struggled to remember the order in which parts went on, and dinged up at least one bumper that we know of.

I wasn't expecting to be "moved" watching a show about building Mack trucks. But when Denny met Allan Iezzi and heard the story about this loving grandfather who was raising his two special needs grandchildren, it got to even this jaded journalist.

Today, I had to ask about the bumper Denny screwed up. It was a minor ding, but on the show he didn't tell anyone about it. "That kept me up all night," Denny told us. "That next morning, I asked them to find it. "They laughed and told me that they had been going over everything I touched that week," he said with a laugh. Guess they knew they couldn't trust him.

He also told us about the outpouring of support the Iezzi family has experienced since the episode aired. In addition to Mack dealerships raising money for the family, Mack has been contacted by complete strangers wanting to help the family out. Kinda restores your faith in humanity, doesn't it?

While he was working in the plant, his alter ego "Roger" was told that Mack was moving its operations to Mexico. Mack has been committed to keeping its operations in the U.S. That was a point Denny was able to make at the end of the show. And he made it again today to us. He said it would cost millions of dollars to move the operations to Mexico. "And the only reason to do it would be for the cheap labor," he told us. I wouldn't bank on Mack backing out on their commitment to U.S. jobs any time soon.

What I especially liked finding out was that Denny was really nervous about going "undercover." Not so much because he was going to get the straight scoop from the Mack employees, but because of being in front of the camera. In the end, he said after being woke up at 4 a.m. and working 12 hour days, his defenses were gone. They might have been back up today with the press crawling everywhere, but you'd never know it. Denny is just a cool dude.