Practicing the Playbook: How CCG Built a Winning Path With Align

When Shane Weyant talks about leading the Creative Composites Group (CCG) through acquisitions and strategic vision, he sounds more like a coach than a CEO. His metaphors come straight from the field: practice the playbook, communicate clearly, keep your eyes on the scoreboard. 

For CCG, a network of eight manufacturing companies that grew from $27 million to nearly $250 million in revenue, those aren’t just jargon phrases. They’re the foundation of how the team works together, wins together, and keeps scaling without losing focus.

This is the story of how CCG built honest trust, unified eight companies, and turned daily practice into profitable growth with Align being the playbook for success.

The Field of Play

The Creative Composites Group is a collection of engineering and manufacturing companies specializing in Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) products—lightweight, corrosion-resistant materials used in everything from rail platforms and utility poles to docks, bridges, and marine structures.

“Our focus mainly is manufacturing and designing engineered solutions,” Shane explains. “We take multiple manufacturing disciplines—pultrusion, vacuum infusion, hand lay-up, filament winding—and provide engineered solutions for our customer base.”

Their growth wasn’t organic; it was engineered. Since 2016, the company acquired seven additional businesses under a deliberate expansion strategy. Today, they span eight locations—from Maine to Texas—with more than 600 employees.

But early in the expansion game is where the problems started.

“When you have one business at one location, communication is a lot easier,” Shane says. “But when you start talking about acquiring seven companies… delivering the message, your strategy, executing that… becomes much more complex because you're at several locations.”

It wasn’t long before spreadsheets and Word documents couldn't measure up to the complexity. Teams were working hard, but not together, and growth slowed significantly. This lack of cohesiveness threatened to undermine CCG’s entire strategy.  “We knew we needed to get something real-time in the cloud to be able to emphasize and communicate and hold people responsible for the task and the priorities in a real-time situation.”

Practicing the Playbook—Every Day

CCG had long been grounded in the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up frameworks—disciplines built on rhythm, KPIs, and accountability. But for Shane Weyant, the heartbeat of the business runs deeper. “We communicate … on easy and the hard things, honesty and trust is what I call it that earns respect from your teammates.. Those are the foundations that support a strong team,” he says. But that kind of transparency only works when everyone can see the same information—and that’s what Align made possible.

When CCG acquired Enduro Composites, the company was already using Align to run its strategic plan, and it quickly became the missing piece.

“Align is structured around the same philosophy,” Shane explains. “And we're able to manage well over 100 users in the system—mainly to execute our strategic business plan, on a long-term basis, a yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily plan.”

Now, every new acquisition enters seamlessly into the same rhythm. A third-party coach helps teams acclimate while early adopters model what success looks like. Every new success story fuels the next, making buy-in almost automatic. “Eighty to ninety percent of people accepted it quickly,” Shane recalls, “because they saw the momentum growing… and how easy it was to implement it and hold people accountable.”

Align didn’t replace their playbook—it became the field where it’s practiced every day. Priorities, owners, and timelines moved from scattered files to a single, transparent system everyone could see—and trust.

“You have to have processes, you have to communicate,” Shane says. “We’re gonna expand that playbook, practice it, make changes on a regular basis to always continue our growth forward.”

The Scoreboard

Acquisitions fueled part of CCG’s growth, but the bigger story is how those companies thrived once integrated. For Shane, numbers tell the story. “What we're in business to do is grow the business—not just grow it, but grow it very profitably. The scoreboard shows that.”

In 2016, CCG was a $27 million group. Today, it’s approaching $250 million in revenue. Profit grew from $3 million to over $60 million in the same period.

Align made that possible by creating visibility and discipline across all locations. Weekly updates kept priorities from stalling; dashboards gave leaders immediate insight into what was working and what needed course correction. Instead of reacting to problems at quarter’s end, teams could adjust in real time, protecting margins and accelerating returns.

“New products, new markets, new growth—all of that came from having a story to tell,” Shane says. “We have those planning tools.” With Align as the hub, every manager knew their targets, every department understood its impact, and leadership could see the whole picture, turning strategy from a spreadsheet exercise into daily execution that showed up directly on the bottom line.

Advice From the Quarterback

Asked what he’d tell another founder, Shane doesn’t hesitate: believe in the system, live it, trust it. Bring in support to implement it right. Then practice the playbook daily.

“It has a special place in my heart,” he says of the company’s journey. “I started with the founder 36 years ago. This is what he always envisioned and with Align and our strategy the Team was able to meet that vision effectively..”

Like today, back in the late 1980s, I was the quarterback and team captain at Frostburg State University. On game day, we relied on our playbook and trusted each other to execute. That same mindset drives our leadership at Creative Composites Group. Our strategy is our playbook—it keeps our goals clear and our direction visible. Align helps us communicate that strategy effectively, execute with precision, and hold our team accountable. But more importantly, it’s the foundation of honesty and trust that fuels our execution. We’re not just running plays—we’re driving downfield together for the win."

Today, that vision isn’t just alive—it’s scaling. With Align as their system and honest trust as their foundation, Shane’s team keeps driving downfield for the win.