← Dirt Talk by BuildWitt
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- [00:00]
Herb
For the first time ever, I am thrilled to say we have an official sponsor for the Dirt Talk podcast, and that's Ariat. I've worn Ariat boots on every job site I visited over the years, traveling in them across five continents. More importantly, I have yet to find a single project where working folks, unlike me, are not wearing Ariat boots and workwear in every condition imaginable. And there's really good reason for that, and that's because it's phenomenal stuff. And the more I've learned about Ariat and the company, the more I've loved their brand. So with this, Ariat is offering any dirt talk listener 10% off their next Ariat order at ariat.com dirttalk that's 10% off boots, jeans, and workwear@arianiat.com dirttalk or at the link in this episode's description. With that, let's get to the show. Is that. That's also where the conference table's at. Yes, the infamous.
- [01:14]
Ryan Hazen
The infamous Sergeant or famous, I guess. You know, if you're. If you're Ryan Hazen. It's famous.
- [01:18]
Herb
It's a big. That's a big deal.
- [01:20]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, it's.
- [01:21]
Herb
Your timing was impeccable on.
- [01:22]
Ryan Hazen
I know. I caught him right before he had to.
- [01:24]
Herb
You could not have done better work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was. It's like, I completely, completely understand where he's at. Like, he's got a family business to take care of. His dad's. What are you gonna do? Are you serious about this or not? And. But then there's this. This model business that started to take off unexpectedly as this hobby. Yeah, you snuck in right at the last minute.
- [01:53]
Ryan Hazen
You know, it was interesting. He posted a picture on LinkedIn of his dad's table that he built. And we were trying to get my grandfather's old thou. Shovel from the museum, it's in Bangor, to the office. I wanted it back, and they wouldn't let me have it back. So I said, okay, we got to do something different. So I saw this post that he put up, and I was like, man, maybe we could do that. And we. At the time we were doing that Bad Cove west project, we widened that excavator out to 35ft so he could traverse the trenches. And so I got on a call with him. He says, I can't believe you're calling me, because yesterday I was running around the office with my iPad going, look what these guys are doing. I would love to build a table of that. And so we just happened to catch up at the right time. And I've. Right on here, I've got my black and white sketch that I kind of sketched out and sent to him. And I can't tell you what a privilege it was working with this guy. I mean, he just. He is such a wonderful person. Brian Hos. I'm talking about such a wonderful person. And then the heart he put into that thing, it was more than you can tell. His heart is in that table.
- [03:08]
Herb
Well, angel, just the skill and the man hours and just like everything combined, he's extraordinary.
- [03:18]
Ryan Hazen
Absolutely.
- [03:19]
Herb
And the level of detail and what he's capable of just boggles my mind because that's just. That's not how I work. I couldn't do something like that if I had a hundred years to do it in every tool imaginable.
- [03:32]
Ryan Hazen
Exactly. It's just like you've got to have some serious patience and skill. Yeah. And I mean, just he'd send me pictures. Excuse me. And posted a lot of pictures of, you know, him hand painting all these little human figures.
- [03:47]
Herb
Yep.
- [03:48]
Ryan Hazen
But he knew. He knew what we wanted to achieve, and he knew the heart of what we wanted to achieve. And this heart was really to build something for our future employees, to be able to look back and see where the company started, what it went through. And I mean, you don't see the toils. Right. You don't see the heartache in it, but you can see, you know, the patina and the equipment and the people. And one really interesting thing that really touched me was at that Bank Cove west project where we had that big widened excavator. It's literally right beside the bay, like 30ft from the bay. And he put. We've got a picture of my grandfather in a boat when he was like 18 years old. And his shoes are worn out on the bottom. Like, I think he had to put cardboard inside his feet, inside his shoes to keep his feet from rubbing on the dirt. And Ryan put Herb in a boat, like in a rowboat, checking out the project in the bay there in Back cove west, like 100 years later.
- [04:55]
Herb
That's extraordinary.
- [04:56]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [04:57]
Herb
Did you guys have groundwater in that job?
- [05:00]
Ryan Hazen
No, not much groundwater, really.
- [05:02]
Herb
Even with the bay that close, huh?
- [05:03]
Ryan Hazen
Well, it's bedrock up some distance and then clay from there up.
- [05:09]
Herb
Really. Well, that's fortunate.
- [05:10]
Ryan Hazen
I mean, there was some, but not much that's really.
- [05:12]
Herb
You'd still had to do sheet piling all the way down the whole thing.
- [05:15]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [05:16]
Herb
Yeah. Okay.
- [05:16]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. We sheet piled it in cells and braced it off and that's why we had to wind that excavator so he could get back across into the excavation to, you know, to get it down to grade and then also to get the bedding in. And I noticed you, you posted on Instagram one time a picture of, of this machine and we've got an extra stick added on.
- [05:35]
Herb
Yep.
- [05:35]
Ryan Hazen
And somebody said, what's stupid? They should just use a stone slinger. But, you know, they didn't get the context of what we were, what we had to accomplish.
- [05:42]
Herb
And anybody, well, anybody that leaves a comment like that is just demonstrating that they don't really know what they're talking about. Because if they. I feel like anybody that's been around enough work knows that if you went to the trouble of building a machine like that, there's probably a reason for it. Right.
- [06:05]
Ryan Hazen
Nobody just, they had spare time with the welders. Hey, take the bottom off that 336. You know, totally separate it, cut the side frames off, make it 35ft wide, build it all back on and then. And maybe we'll find a job for it.
- [06:19]
Herb
Did they build the stick attachment too?
- [06:21]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, that's actually a Wimmer coupler. So we, we, we have Wimmer couplers on all our. We, we build the Wimmer couplers, as you know, in, in Stillwater we work with Wimmer from Austria and so we, we mated with a Wimmer coupler, we welded a mate onto the top of another stick so he could pick that off and on when he needed to.
- [06:42]
Herb
Yeah, it's, it's, it's a pretty incredible machine. I saw another one that's kind of similar off to show it to you, but it's way more built up. Because it's European, of course, because the.
- [06:53]
Ryan Hazen
Europeans, I think I may have seen a picture like that.
- [06:55]
Herb
But it's working on a slope and it's placing stones, armor stones. And so they've built one side higher than the other, one side higher than the other. I think it's van Oord, maybe it's a Dutch contractor, but it is a wacky.
- [07:10]
Ryan Hazen
Keep that in mind. Now I'm going to be looking for slope work.
- [07:13]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, this, yeah, this is. And they built the machine for the job because it's like, when would you need something like that?
- [07:20]
Ryan Hazen
For me, that project, the thing that was, that I loved the most about that project is we bid the job. We didn't know exactly how we were going to do it and we knew there was heavy shoring involved and really low psi clays on either side. So one of our operators went to the superintendent and he said, I just saw this picture, and I think it was Kiewit had one that they'd widened out to like 16ft or something like that.
- [07:53]
Herb
Yeah.
- [07:53]
Ryan Hazen
And so the superintendent brought it to the regional manager and he said, what do you guys think? And we said, look, bring these guys up on a Friday afternoon and let's talk it through. And it was. The thing that I really love about it is an operator felt that he could take the initiative to say, what do you think about this idea? And not get slammed. And that takes some vulnerability.
- [08:17]
Herb
Oh, it does.
- [08:18]
Ryan Hazen
To do that well.
- [08:19]
Herb
And it takes the right culture, too. Like, my example is, when it comes to safety, I think safety is a great example with the stop work authority. Everybody has stop work authority. I, at least when I was younger, I would have never stopped the work.
- [08:38]
Ryan Hazen
Right.
- [08:41]
Herb
Ever.
- [08:41]
Ryan Hazen
I wouldn't have either.
- [08:42]
Herb
Ever. Yeah. It's just because I, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to fit in. I'm the new guy in the job. I don't know what. I don't know. I'm not trying to rock the boat. I'm, you know, I, I don't want to get my ass chewed, whatever it is. I'm just gonna do what I'm doing. I just want to be like. I feel like the. In the seals, like, they call it a gray man. You don't, you don't want to be noticed for being bad or good. You just want to be right in the middle. You just want to do your job well.
- [09:13]
Ryan Hazen
That's a good place to be.
- [09:14]
Herb
So I just wanted to be the gray man. Yeah, I just, just. I just want to be the gray man. Um, and because just. But with the right environment, in theory, you know, someone should like the stop work authority. The concept is great. It's like, of course, that's a really great thing, but you have to have the culture for that or else it just doesn't work. You can say it all day long, but it's just not. It's not going to actually play out.
- [09:39]
Ryan Hazen
So that's an interesting concept because the stop work authority seems blunt.
- [09:45]
Herb
Yes.
- [09:46]
Ryan Hazen
It's not very nuanced. It's like we're stopping work and our injury numbers were trending in the wrong direction through 22, 23, and we just couldn't get a handle on what it was. And we were, you know, like, jumping up and down saying, zero accidents. You can all stop work. Anybody here, Like, I jump up and down at all employee meetings. And say, you are authorized, stop work. But that's a pretty blunt way of approaching it. And so in the fall of 23, we just said, man, we got to come up with something different. And what we came up with was take five, take five seconds. So, and this was born of a guy like somebody had been with us for 30 something years, and he was traveling with his excavator and there were some pickups parked, and he was like, I think I can get by. And he didn't. He ended up scratching one of the pickups. And so it was like, if you think you can. If, like if that even comes to your mind, I think I can get my. Take five seconds and, and rethink this through. And so, and then we just started like, this is the deal. Take five seconds, take five minutes, take five hours, take five days. Just make sure when we go to do this, we're going to be safe at it. And that, I think is more nuanced and doesn't make people feel as black or white.
- [11:16]
Herb
Well, it's. It's more tangible too. Like stop work authority. It's like, what does that mean? Okay, I want to stop the work. How do I stop the work? What do I say? Who do I talk? I just don't know what that means. I don't even know how to do that.
- [11:32]
Ryan Hazen
And in this way, they can just say, hey, can we take five here? Can we just take five? I got a question. And that's when it's like everybody gets to talking. The group takes five minutes, five seconds, whatever. But we want it to be so that it's. It's transferable from. Okay, I think I can make it to. I better double check and make sure I can make it to. Let's take five minutes and talk about how we're going to, you know, put this dowel in the trench boxes and not. And make sure nobody's hurt. Or let's take five hours to make sure that we've got the right plan to open the street up. We've got all the shields we need. We've got all the traffic control we need. We've got all the materials we need to do the work when we get it. So it's. And Eric Ritchie, our president, was kind of famous for saying, let's slow down, let's slow down. And people, that's not the construction culture. Whether we want to like it or not, that's not the construction culture. So taking five is slowing down, but it's in a more intentional way, I think, because you Take five. When you see something or you understand that something might be a little bit of a hazard, we've got to mitigate and we can. Instead of managing the results of a hazard, you know, an injury or an equipment incident and all the management that takes. We can still invest our attention in.
- [12:55]
Herb
Going forward, but you still have to have the right culture for that, because it still could be, well, can we take five? And it can be, you know, Foreman just dismisses it.
- [13:06]
Ryan Hazen
Right. No, we're not taking five.
- [13:08]
Herb
Yeah, I know what's going on here. I think that can happen.
- [13:11]
Ryan Hazen
I gotta get 250ft today. Hey, we're not taking part.
- [13:13]
Herb
Sure. Yeah. I think we were talking too, about morning meetings last night. I think that is also one of the biggest differences with morning meetings, with the ones that I've seen that are different, which then lead to the best in class companies. There's a direct correlation. Direct correlation. And they don't just talk safety. They spend the time, the 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes to talk about what the heck is going on, why it's going on, who's doing what. They present a clear plan for the day, and so often they check the box and then everybody just goes off to work. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, how do they know what they're doing today and why they're doing it? And I'm just like, well, they must know. They were here yesterday. They've been on this job for a while. But that's such a silly assumption in the grand scheme of things.
- [14:02]
Ryan Hazen
Well, because things change, especially if you're in the streets, in the pipe world, the underground utility world, things change faster than you can dig, almost. And you use the word spending time. And my friend Alex Judd, who I think you've met. Right.
- [14:21]
Herb
I've only met him briefly. Jason spent a lot of time.
- [14:23]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, super guy. And he used to send out an email every Wednesday. Worth it Wednesday, he called it. And one of them was, stop paying attention and start investing attention and spending our attention. Spending that time there is. If we're not doing it right, we're not investing it. And to me, that turns into, okay, now we've got to manage injuries, now we've got to manage incidents. And that takes all our time. So that's where we're spending time versus investing time and planning and getting it right. And the culture, you know, I don't think any culture's perfect. Ours is. I happen to be proud of ours in the hopefully the right way, you know, in the humble way of Our culture. And I think that this take five has given them a tool that they didn't have that I think could be. Well, it is a game changer because our numbers have changed dramatically since we've introduced that. Really, it's a game changer for us. And we here, you know, we have our own internal podcast, as you know, and we have shout outs so employees can text in a shout out to another employee. And over the year, we've heard, you know, so and so took five and we avoided this so and so took five. And we're just. It's becoming a part of the language as much as fu, you know, I think it's really becoming part of the language that is a really important part of culture. Right. Is that repetitive language that means something to people and isn't just, you're drinking the Kool Aid.
- [16:01]
Herb
Yeah, I think that's one of the most valuable things I've learned as a leader, too. The language is you can use language as a tool, which a lot of people don't do, which really frustrates me because it's a great opportunity, a really wonderful tool. And then two, you have to repeat yourself. You have to talk about stuff over and over and over and in totally different ways. Like, saying something once and assuming it's good to go is just a really bad assumption.
- [16:34]
Ryan Hazen
I think it's good to use the same language. Like, you've got your core values, I've got my core values, and one of them is doing the right thing. Right. And I think it's good to keep, like, maintain that phrase, but provide it in a thousand different contexts.
- [16:48]
Herb
Sure, yeah.
- [16:49]
Ryan Hazen
Like, we're doing the right thing here. Regardless of personal or financial gain or loss, we're going to do the right thing. And so we can talk about that in a number of different contexts. Whether it's, we had to go fix something and we didn't bitch about it, we just fixed it because it was the right thing to do. Or, you know, we stopped traffic and there was a person in a wheelchair and we did the right thing and we helped them across the street. You know, those things matter. Or we did the right thing to begin with. The specs called for X, and we know that that's not really what they want, so we ran it up the flagpole and for no change order, we can just go ahead and do it the right way. And they agreed with it. So those various contexts and providing it to me in the same language in a thousand different contexts is what begins to make it weave into the culture.
- [17:40]
Herb
Well, in providing the examples. Yeah, like it's. The examples, at least to me are so much more helpful. And so like even I was talking with, I think Randy last week, we were talking about like he brought up snakes and so like, watch out for snakes. And it's like, well that's, that's like, I'll probably be, I'll probably dismiss that. Like that's kind of dumb. Like, I'm not gonna see a snake here. This is a, this is a job site removing dirt. What's a snake in it? But there was this one time this guy came up to me and he wasn't even the crew leader, he was just one of the operators or whatever, somebody on site and but, but recognized we were new to the site and just came over after the safety meeting, said, hey, just by the way, we have seen some snakes on this job. We're doing some clearing and grubbing. So they're by the trees. And so just watch out over there.
- [18:24]
Ryan Hazen
That's probably going to go somewhere, right?
- [18:26]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but he just kind of like just put context to it and provided some examples. And then it was like, oh, this makes way more sense. Like, I'm not going to dismiss this. Cool. I know there's snakes here. I'll be careful. We're good to go. But even just that difference in approach from a safety standpoint, like you can say, you can say slips, trips and falls all day, right? Or you can say, hey, I slipped off a machine three years ago, 17 years ago, whatever it was, busted my knee. I wasn't walking right for six months. So that is why it seems stupid, but you've gotta be careful. Three points of contact getting on that machine. Especially it's winter, it's icy, we have to be diligent.
- [19:15]
Ryan Hazen
Exactly.
- [19:15]
Herb
And it's like, that's so much more context than three points of contact. And everybody's just like, okay, I heard that yesterday and the day before. I'm good, I'm young, I don't need three points of contact. I don't have time for that. I'm in a rush.
- [19:29]
Ryan Hazen
When I was young, you know, I would jump into a six or eight foot trench, just like jump down into it. And then one time I rolled my ankles. I got this. And maybe that wasn't the smartest thing I ever did, but I'm only 20, so you know, I can get by with it. I was at work the next day, so nobody was bothered by it except me.
- [19:45]
Herb
Sure.
- [19:46]
Ryan Hazen
As I limped around the job site but yeah, that having the context is really the key, which to me provides the why. Because you can tell someone, don't slip or don't step on this. We do a lot of landfill work that has a lot of slippery clay on it, especially sometimes in the morning, you know, when there's dew and it's really slippery. And so, okay, be careful how you walk down the slope because.
- [20:14]
Herb
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
- [20:15]
Ryan Hazen
I went ass over band box the other day.
- [20:17]
Herb
Sure.
- [20:18]
Ryan Hazen
And. And we don't need to have people injured here. And I just. The context around failures and wins, I think is really important. We just had our superintendent foreman meetings. The first phase we have, I think we're going to have three of them this year. Three day sessions. And part of what we do is we say you have to bring a lesson learned from this year and you have to talk about it. And there's, you know, what we're trying to do is open people up, that we all make mistakes, but we're also trying to. To spread those lessons around the company from the foreman and superintendent level and also at the same time, get them more comfortable talking in groups of people. Because a lot of these foremen, you mentioned safety meetings. A lot of these foremen aren't really comfortable. They freeze when they have to get in front of a group and it's like, okay, yeah, I'm going to read this and pass it around and have everybody check it. And there's not going to be any conversation because they just don't feel. They don't feel good about facilitating that conversation. And so we're just trying to get them to be more comfortable in front of other people speaking. So there's a lot of things that go into it, but providing that context around that lesson learned is really important.
- [21:33]
Herb
Well, and even just that public speaking consideration, I think that's one of the most underappreciated skills in this industry and the. Probably the one skill that will make you more effective. One of the top skills that will make you effective, especially you get promoted to foreman, if you can speak to people clearly, you will be way more effective.
- [21:57]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, I've been on jobs and I had a superintendent and he's really quiet, like almost to a mumble when he speaks. And he's going up here on the right here. And I said, okay, I've been in the business for 35 years and I know the plans on this job. I kind of know what. Not like, not every detail. I kind of know what's got to be done. But if you said to me to do what you just said to him. I wouldn't have a clue where to go. Like there's a 15 acre site, I don't know where to go. And so we need to be clearer about that. And that's an intentional thing, you know, to kind of come back from what you're. The way you're used to communicating and it can be, you know, it's a muscle you have to work, as you say.
- [22:47]
Herb
Yeah. Why? When did you start posting on social media? Like five years ago maybe?
- [22:56]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, five, six years ago.
- [22:57]
Herb
Six years ago. Yeah, it was a while ago.
- [23:00]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. So LinkedIn, I mean, I'm on Instagram, like I posted like six pictures or something like that, so I'm still building my wall photo.
- [23:09]
Herb
I guess I feel like you were lurking for a while, which is what a lot of people do on Instagram.
- [23:19]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, LinkedIn. I didn't. But Instagram, I just kind of watched.
- [23:23]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're just watching there.
- [23:25]
Ryan Hazen
But LinkedIn, I'm an old man, so I mean, like, I don't fit in that context. I really don't. I mean I. It's all younger folks on there mostly and I don't fit in that context very well. And it's almost like I'm trying to force my way onto a kids flag football team. Yeah, sure, one of those movies where you got some guy like the stepbrother.
- [23:48]
Herb
That'S coming in, but just don't go to TikTok.
- [23:51]
Ryan Hazen
No, trust me, I'm not going to TikTok. Weirder for you. No, but LinkedIn is kind of where my residence is, I guess, and, and I guess I just kind of found it, Somebody invited me to it and I was like, okay, I'll give this a try. And I saw some things and it became, I mean a lot of people celebrate wins on there, which is great. And I celebrate some wins too. The place that I felt the most comfortable, like the, the conversations that I feel the most comfortable in are ones where we have to talk about our workforce. And then also a place that I guess I've taken this as my mantle is there are so many people in the construction industry, the earthwork industry that have not been through a downturn. They've been in business 10, 15 years now, and they started maybe during the recession or at the end of the recession and they don't know what it looks like. And I mean I talked about our history from 1975 to 2025 to our internal leadership team not too long ago because a lot of them don't know that history. And when I put on the timeline in red, everywhere, that was a. There was a downturn. There was like five downturns. And some of them may not have been really recessions, but I just. I know what. I know where I was in the last recession and where it put me and where I wish I had, you know. You know, I talk about altitude, you know, like corporate altitude. I wish that I had maintained that altitude and instead of bleeding it off during the recession. And now coming out of the recession, I don't have what I need, really, in terms of people or cash, frankly, to build a business the way we need and to take advantage of now, the new opportunities. And so I kind of took those two things, like, let's build the workforce and pack your parachute.
- [26:06]
Herb
But why not? Just because I think you're still one of the very few that shares stuff like that. There's a lot of people sharing, but in kind of that newer category, but not, hey, I've done all this and I've been around the block, and here's what I've learned along the way. I think most. And I would be doing the same thing if I were them. You did your thing, you ride off into the sunset, you take care of your core business, you make sure it's good to go for the next generation, and then you just disappear.
- [26:46]
Ryan Hazen
So I guess maybe part of it is when we talk about the workforce, and I'll relate them here in a minute. We talk about the workforce and how bad it's been and how bad people have poached other people. And I think in our first podcast we did four or five years ago, whenever it was, you know, we talked a little bit about poaching, and I just hate it. I hate it. And we will not poach now. We'll hire from somebody else if they come to us, but we will not poach from other people because I think it just slows the industry down. Like when Joe leaves XYZ company and comes to work for Sarge, it's going to take him six to 12 months to get his bearings and be really effective, depending on the position. And so if everybody just took, like, their middle management and rotated it all around, how bad would the industry be? We'd come to a screeching halt. So I think it's bad for the industry. I think it shows our worst that we can't go do our own. And I think the way I put it at the time is nobody owes me anything. I've got to go build my own workforce. And so my encouragement is for everybody in the industry to engage in building the workforce, to bringing people in the workforce. And so now, I guess, hopefully, the credibility of saying, I've survived all these different recessions and downturns and still there to talk about it and share those hurts. I hope those two messages kind of come together a little bit so people go, oh, the guy's got some credibility, maybe, or maybe it's worth at least listening to him once. And, oh, by the way, this point about building workforce, maybe we ought to engage in that.
- [28:34]
Herb
But how do you. Like, you came up in a very different generation, a very different mindset. The industry is dramatically different today than it was even 20 years ago. How do you. Because all that makes sense. It's like, yeah, I get it. That's perfectly rational, and I agree with everything. But how do you. Over. How do you. I feel like you're one of the rare cases you came up in that older school generation, but now you have this newer mindset.
- [29:13]
Ryan Hazen
Well, I guess, if anything, I hope it shows that people can change.
- [29:17]
Herb
Yeah. Yeah, but how do you do that? Like, how do you.
- [29:24]
Ryan Hazen
I would say I benefited greatly from an inordinate number of people taking an interest in me. And when I say that, I talk about my grandfather a lot, our founder, but also my Little League coach. He knew when I was in Jessup, Georgia, that I didn't have a dad around, and he'd make sure I got to practices and got home after practice and to games and all that sort of stuff, to the point where 10 years ago I was in Georgia, and I called him up, I said, let's go have lunch. And we had a great conversation. And I think that's just the way that guy operated. I don't think he remembered me, but the difference he made in me was really something. And now I go on to superintendents that I work for that really took an interest in developing me in ways that my dad did not. It just, for me, it's kind of paying it forward, I guess, in a way. But I just see, and I know how close I've been to the ragged edge financially in the past. And thinking maybe. Well, definitely wrongly thinking that maybe I'm at this point where I'm unassailable from a corporate standpoint. Right. And then all of a sudden you're like, well, I'm on death's doorstep. And I just hate to see that happen to people. And so I guess some of it's paying forward. And I joked earlier what Wally calls Me, Wally Adamchick, calls me the Uncle Herb to the dirt business.
- [31:05]
Herb
Yeah.
- [31:06]
Ryan Hazen
And whatever. You know, I enjoy talking to people. I enjoy, you know, like, I'm going to see Brian Anderson from Bear Construction after this, and I just enjoy talking to people and, and hearing what they're. What they're struggling with. And. And I don't want to give them advice because everything's so contextual. Right. Well, you need to raise your prices 10%.
- [31:27]
Herb
Yeah, sure.
- [31:27]
Ryan Hazen
You know, you can. There's people out there that just are advice sprinkler heads, and I just want to be like the guy that asks questions and tries to draw out some answers, and I just. I enjoy that. I guess I get it. Helps my heart, probably, to do things like that. That's a long answer to, I think was a fairly simple question.
- [31:47]
Herb
No, I mean, it makes sense. Yeah. You've just always, I mean, since I've been around, like, I feel like we got connected pretty early on.
- [31:55]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [31:55]
Herb
You were one of our early companies we worked with maybe in, like, second year of business.
- [32:01]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, something like that, I think. Seems like I was in Jupiter with my wife, and you and Dan and I got on a call and I think you asked, where'd you hear about us? And I said, LinkedIn. And you go, there's another one for LinkedIn. And I know you and Keaton Turner talked about the power of LinkedIn, and I think it's been a good thing for us. Maybe I overdo it some, I don't know. But, you know, we've had people reach out to us to come to work for us based on, you know, how they've gotten to know us on LinkedIn. And I've had people refer other people to us. I just was on a phone call last week with an individual who had referred somebody to us as, you know, as somebody she thought would be a good fit for us. We don't happen to be looking for that person, but it's been, I think, a good platform for us.
- [32:57]
Herb
I tell people if I chose one, it's LinkedIn, that's the one. I'd be disappointed.
- [33:02]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. I don't know if I know how to use it right yet or not.
- [33:04]
Herb
Well, I think you do. I think, like you said, a lot of people, it's all very congratulatory, all very good news, this and that, and I understand that, but at the same time, a lot of it's kind of nonsense or it's just not reality. It's like any other social platform. Let's just share all the good stuff. And let's not say a whisper about anything that could be perceived negatively.
- [33:31]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [33:32]
Herb
But then if you go on there and talk like a human being, I think that's what's unique in business, too, is will people go on LinkedIn? Well, it's a business platform, so I need to. If I'm going to talk about my family, I know this is a business platform, but. And then I'm going to say something about my family. It's like, just talk about your family. Why? Or even in business communication, it's just like, people start to write in this and communicate, even speak in this really weird way that. That no, like, no one talks like.
- [34:06]
Ryan Hazen
Right.
- [34:07]
Herb
No one writes like that. These are words that I don't even understand. Like, this is. This is crazy what is going on here. If you had a nice vacation and you spent time with your family and you want to talk about that, talk about it. If you learned a lesson at work, talk about it. And that's the kind of stuff that is relatable, which I think people really enjoy. But because there's a lot of, like, just of the same stuff on there. When you write something real or give somebody something that's legitimate, it stands out.
- [34:37]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [34:38]
Herb
A lot. Like, a lot in a big way on there compared to other places.
- [34:43]
Ryan Hazen
So one of the. And I just made some notes this morning of my biggest failures in my career, and I think sharing those is an important thing for me to do. I don't know if anybody cares or not or whatever, but I think that's an important thing for me to do. And one of the things I shared early on was my biggest failure is not investing in people through the recession. And it has business complications, too, because then when the market came around, it came around bigger, better, faster than anything I've seen in my career. Like, from 2014 to now has been amazing.
- [35:27]
Herb
Yeah. Especially 2020 on.
- [35:30]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. And, you know, people that have. That have walked out of the gate and, you know, I was on the phone a couple days ago with somebody that started in 2016. He's doing $150 million a year now. I'm like, it took me 10 years to get to 10 million, but I live in an economic cul de sac called Maine, you know, where the money goes to turn around and leave. But sharing that. The reason I share that particular one about not having the people is, you know, if you're a football team, you step away from the draft for a year, probably can still be a decent team the next year, step away for two years, you're going to be maybe an 8 and 8 team or 8, 9 team now, I guess 17 game season now. But you step away for four or five years and you're really going to suck. And that's what we did. We didn't invest in people. We didn't have the freedom to invest in people. We didn't have the financial freedom to invest in people because I had bought my grandfather's company about three years before the recession, took on a lot of debt. And so I had to be really careful about that. I was literally like, how are we going to keep the plane in the air for the next year, not 20 years from now? And wanting to be able to when 201415 hit, it was like, holy shit, I made a big mistake. I've made a big mistake. And it still shows. If you look at our demographics and our roster, we've got a gap. I mean, it stands out and we're working to backfill that. We've got a lot of younger people. In 2012, 10% of our people were under 25, 35% of our people were under 40. And now 25% of our people are under 25, and 56% of our people are under 40. So we've really flipped that. And that's in a growing workforce. This is a field workforce, by the way. That's in a workforce that was about 325 then and now about 525. So we've really grown that. It's not like we just got rid of the old guys. That's a little bit of a weakness for us now because we don't have a ton of experience, but I think give us five years. So the whole point to me is that weakness, that mistake that I made in my career, I don't want people to replicate that because it's not good for the industry. Like, if we all replicate it the way I did back then, it's terrible for the industry. But if we do the opposite, everybody in the industry goes and continues to develop, then we'll be a much better industry going forward when the next up cycle comes.
- [38:14]
Herb
Well, and I think the industry's labor problems over the past five to 10 years are partially because of what happened 2008, 2009, 2010. Because, I mean, just the numbers are very well known how many people left the industry and never came back because of the wild growth and unsustainable practices before led to then these massive layoffs that then these people, they need to go elsewhere. They found jobs elsewhere and then they're nowhere to be found. And now we're.
- [38:47]
Ryan Hazen
We didn't have any massive layoffs, but we allowed attrition to happen.
- [38:50]
Herb
I mean, industry wide.
- [38:55]
Ryan Hazen
The one thing that I am proud of again is we've got, I think we're in a situation, a financial situation now where we can think 20 years ahead and not keeping the plane in the air the next mile. And so when that next downturn comes, I believe we're going to be in a better position to be able to continue to develop and continue to bring people. So when the next upcycle comes, we're ready for that. And it's. I just want the industry. I want that for the industry. I want the industry to serve society the right way, you know, with. And when we don't have the right people in the right places, things cost more. And, you know, that puts a wrinkle in what we do for society. You know, we don't build as many projects, we don't get as many bridges rebuilt or as many miles of road built or whatever when our costs begin to swell. And so it's really kind of a thing. There's no question we serve society, right? We're here to do it. We don't draw it up. But we build what society needs and we need to own our part in that.
- [40:08]
Herb
That's. I talk a lot about that, but I feel like when you said earlier how your workforce is your responsibility. I've always felt that way. And I think every employer should. Because you don't have a contract with any employee, all free will, they can leave at any time. And so me as an employer, I better be every week, every day, selling why my business is in their best interest to be at, because if not, they're gonna go. But I love that because I feel like a lot of people are defeated from a workforce standpoint. Well, it's just out of my hands. And they think that their job is to build stuff. It's like, no, no, no, your job is not to build stuff. You don't build anything. Your job is to build a workforce that builds stuff.
- [41:04]
Ryan Hazen
Right? And that's the way we look at it.
- [41:06]
Herb
The whole job is workforce and is people. And this I struggle too sometimes. And I get why business owners can go down this path. But there's a lot of times, or even just leaders that are just so negative about people and they act like it's such a burden to employ people and to be around. And then so it's like, so then don't employ people like, be one of those employers. Just go be employee. Yeah, it's. It's almost like, to me, it's almost like disrespectful in a way. Like, then why are you doing it? I understand the stress, and I understand that because I employ people. But if you go down this negative path, it's so hard to come back from that. And that does nobody a disservice. First and foremost, it just poisons you, but then it poisons everybody else below you. And that it just makes. Which then poisons that part of the industry, which then doesn't allow that company to build the infrastructure society needs. So then now the community, you could argue there are. It's not that direct, but it just does everybody a disservice.
- [42:19]
Ryan Hazen
We've got a former employee named Josh McLaughlin that's up in northern Maine, and he worked for us for a few years and then left and started his own business up there. And he's doing really well. I'm super proud of this guy. And we, you know, we stay connected. And he invited us up to talk to what's called the Southern Aroostook Development Corporation. So it's like a chamber of commerce to talk about how we approach workforce. And as our. Pete Pirrizo and I went up and talked and we talked about some of the things we're doing. Like, we're bringing kids in from high school, and Pete will say, okay, you're going to have $50 to buy groceries for breakfast and lunch for this week, so make your budget. We're going to literally go to the grocery store. We're going to come back, and for this week, we're all going to get together, we're going to make breakfast and lunch together, and it's going to cost you 50 bucks. And so we were talking about some of these things, and there was an employer in the room, and he said, why do we have to. Why does business have to do that? He says, it pisses me off that we're in the position that we have to do that. Parents ought to be doing that. And I said, you know what? You can be mad if you want. You can be pissed off as much as you want, but the raw material we get is not going to change just because you wanted to change. It's like it's coming out the way it's coming out now. Hopefully society can turn and we can get better attention and better, but I don't know if we can count on that. So you can either change your mindset around your employees and Bring them in and meet them where they are and develop them or you can be out of business in five years and that's your choice. I guess another choice is let somebody else develop them and then hire them away.
- [44:06]
Herb
Yeah, but that I don't think works long term.
- [44:08]
Ryan Hazen
I don't think it does.
- [44:08]
Herb
I don't.
- [44:09]
Ryan Hazen
Because then they get to him and they go, wow, I didn't realize I had it better.
- [44:14]
Herb
Exactly.
- [44:14]
Ryan Hazen
And we've had a lot of people, not a lot of people, we've had a number of people leave, go to work for competition and come back in six months and go, wow, I'm back. And part of the reason for that is, I would say there in our company with Eric Ritchie, our President, Tash, our CFO and Doug Morrison and Justin Porter, our VPs of the two regions, New England and Mid Atlantic and their teams, we sit and stew about how to bring more value to our people. I mean, it's like there's probably not a day that goes by where somebody doesn't have some idea. Now whether it percolates all the way to the surface or not is kind of beside the point. But there's thinking about how to be better for our people. And when people leave, they go, wow, this isn't what I thought. This guy, this competitor, they allow their guys to wear shorts at work and they only work till 4 o'clock every day. And there's all these kind of cultural perks, and we had some cultural detractors too at some points in time. But then they go and they're like, well, the shorts don't really matter as much to me as I thought they would.
- [45:39]
Herb
I will say I'm very pro Shorts in construction. I know it's not coming back in the United States, that ship has sailed. But they do do that in Australia and I'm very pro.
- [45:48]
Ryan Hazen
Shorts.
- [45:48]
Herb
I love. It's so funny seeing guys walking around in short shorts, long sleeve, long sleeve shirt, but short shorts on a job site, it just cracks me up.
- [45:55]
Ryan Hazen
See, we never have, but you go.
- [45:59]
Herb
To Australia, you're like, I get it. Like, working in shorts is probably way more comfortable when it's hot.
- [46:04]
Ryan Hazen
Probably until you booger your knees up or, you know, whatever, you know, I.
- [46:08]
Herb
Get the pants thing, but.
- [46:09]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, but, but it's when people leave, I mean, we lose people. We lose people every month. Somebody walks out and when they do, they walk away from their spot and employee ownership. As you know, we're employee owned company for 12 years now, coming up in May, So they lose their spot in that, but it's not for everybody. And, you know, we. I don't hold it against people when they leave, if they leave, and they've got a better chance. Like I mentioned, Josh up in Houlton, Maine, he left to start his own business. He had a dream. He learned a lot from us, and he'll say it, and we on LinkedIn, he'll say in comments on LinkedIn, you know, boy, I learned a lot from you guys and Chris lynch, our superintendent, but he's doing great things for that little community up there, and I'm glad for that community that they have.
- [47:04]
Herb
Josh, I am of the opinion, though, that this is where it's also gray. I think there are a lot of people that go into business and they should be in business. That's what they're good at. That's what they're built for. That's what they really want to do. I also know a lot of contractors that probably should not be in business on their own. They're really good at building stuff, but they just don't. And I think the environment of, like, anybody can go start a business is great, but I also don't think it's in a lot of people's best interest for the life that they want. It just doesn't match. They think that's the way to freedom, but it's actually less free in a lot of ways.
- [47:55]
Ryan Hazen
Oh, it's. Well, it gets in your head. And we were talking about it last night at dinner. I call it contractor's boredom syndrome. We get into business and we go, hey, the banker's calling me now, right? I must be somebody now. The banker's calling me and wanting to do business with me. And all of a sudden, this was me when I was 30 years old. I was like, oh, wow, I got a banker calling me. And I can remember this banker, I went out to lunch with him and he says, so, Herb, what business are you in? He didn't even know what business. He was like, he went through the phone book, and I was like, the guy in the Jerk. I'm somebody now because my name's in the phone book. But we get to this certain point and then we go, wow, Joe's got it good over there in this business. So I think I'll get into that business. And then we go into that business. And this was me. I did that in Ready Mix. And, you know, and I just kept. Kept not making money in Ready Mix, but I kept betting on it. It was like doubling down on the 16 against the dealer's.20. You know, I was like, I can win this. And. And I just kept, you know, buying another. Well, it's a volume problem. I need to buy another plant. So another plant goes up for auction. Never stop to think about why this plant's going up for auction. So. So I'll. I'll. I'll augment that plant's capacity with a half a dozen new front discharge mixers. And turns out we don't get any more volume. And after 10 years, I'm like, okay, I'm done with this business. So we get. And I think there's an arrogance to it, frankly. And I don't consider myself an arrogant person, but I think there's an arrogance to it that if they do it, I can do it. And we all have different skill sets. And I'm learning late in life to stay in my lane.
- [49:46]
Herb
I. The, the more I stay in my lane, the better things go. I. I would also say, I think people are just lied to as well into thinking that, like, they only cite the benefits because they only see the benefits because not enough people are talking about the reality or showing the reality, which is hard to show sometimes because even like, like we, we talked a little bit about it last night. Just the weight of not knowing if you're going to make payroll. Yeah, it sucks. It is one of the worst feelings that I've felt. But you can't talk about it during.
- [50:22]
Ryan Hazen
No.
- [50:22]
Herb
Because.
- [50:23]
Ryan Hazen
No. And you have to have. I mean, and you can't. You can't mope around either.
- [50:28]
Herb
No.
- [50:29]
Ryan Hazen
You know, I coached little league team, and the catcher was the best athlete on the team, and everybody knew it. But if somebody in the field made an error, he'd start throwing his mitt down and his mass down and, you know, his shoulders would slump. And I had to talk to him. Like, when you do this, every single person looks at you and goes, there's no way we can win. So you can't. You have to keep a posture of winning, even though internally, I mean, it's a tough thing because it can show even though internally, you know, and that's not lying to people, I don't think. No, it's leading people, you know, But I think it's hard to go to. Like, for me, it would have been hard to go to Kevin Gordon in 1997 and go, guess what? I can't pay you this week.
- [51:12]
Herb
Sure. Yeah.
- [51:12]
Ryan Hazen
Or I'm really struggling paying you this week.
- [51:15]
Herb
Yeah.
- [51:16]
Ryan Hazen
And it wouldn't be just Kevin. It wouldn't be Kevin. And everybody Else. But, you know, there's a gravity to that that few people know. And. And.
- [51:27]
Herb
But I feel like every business owner knows it. Yeah, everybody. Because I'll talk to people about it one on one. They'll be like, been there. Yeah, I know. Exactly. But at the moment, you don't see that anywhere because people can't talk about it. And then after the fact, I don't want to go back to that. Or I have the shame of being that irresponsible business owner that almost didn't make payroll, care for my people, whatever it was, or I don't want to admit I don't know what I'm doing, whatever the motivation is. And then you're sitting around, you're like, am I the only one that can't figure this out? I feel like an idiot. But then you talk to everybody one on one. They're like, yeah, been there, man.
- [52:04]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, we weren't there. We were.
- [52:06]
Herb
It's like, come on.
- [52:09]
Ryan Hazen
And. And maybe that's, you know, when. When I post, when I talk and I'm with Ben Holmgren and a couple peer groups, and. And for me, it's just like, if. If I can help people avoid that, it's. That's what I want. You know, I've watched competitors, especially around Bangor, Maine, where I'm from, and it's a bad market there. It's just not a good market at all. But we see people come up and immediately they go buy the Yukon Denali. And I mean, they can't just get a pickup truck. They've got to have the Yukon Denali. And then it.
- [52:56]
Herb
Exactly what I did.
- [52:57]
Ryan Hazen
Is it.
- [52:57]
Herb
Yeah, Yeah. I bought a nice Ford F250.
- [53:00]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. Wow. I mean, it's a work truck. The point is, like, that's all the trimmings, whatever. But I guess my point is we make it look too easy. Like, a guy comes in business, he's in business for a year, and all of a sudden he's tooling around the Yukon Denali. And you go down to the river, and he's got a cigarette boat. And all this stuff is, wow, you know, that's easy. I can do that, too. And then three years later, the guy's out of business because he blew everything.
- [53:31]
Herb
But this is to bring back my original point. I think it's in most people's best interest to go find a sergeant, that great company, growing company, a company that I can make a difference at, a company that's going to take care of me, a company that I can take care of A company that will definitely take care of me through employee ownership. I have a piece of this company and a company that I can go make a difference at within my community and so on and so forth, and then go home to my family and see my family, see my spouse, raise my kids, have a nice house, drive a nice car, save up money for their college, you know, kids, college, so on and so forth. Like, I think that's what. That's. That's a really good life.
- [54:24]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [54:26]
Herb
And I feel like that is what most people want. I just want a great. A great life. I want to be comfortable. I want to make sure my family's taken care of. I want to see my family, I want to be a part of their lives, and I want to give them a better chance than I had.
- [54:43]
Ryan Hazen
And spare me the gravity of the payroll problems and the health insurance increases and the bonding company conversations. You guys do that. Let me just go do the work. And one of the things we've really begun to focus on the last few years is that human side of the business of our employees is that. And I don't have them all with me. But our strategic plan in 2021 outlined the fact that we want people to have really strong lives outside work as well as inside work. And what we hope to do is build, help them, educate them ways to build margins of safety in all the areas of their lives, like their health, their finances, their relationships, their profession, so that problems stay problems and don't become crises immediately, like when you lose a transmission and it's 2,500 bucks to get it fixed and it's a crisis. That's what I don't want for our people. I want them to have the margin of safety around their lives in their relationships with their families, with their wives and family, you know, extended family, the same relationships that they can have at work that are. That are that underpin ethic and good morals. And, you know, I'm not going to read the Bible to our crew every day. I read the Bible every day, but I'm not going to read it to their crew every day. But so that they can be there and go through life in a way that makes that, I guess, glorifies the way we're supposed to live.
- [56:38]
Herb
I think that's part of. I think that's one of the core points I'm trying to make with my latest presentation is financial problems are pretty common in this industry. Alcoholism is pretty common in this industry. Divorce is pretty common in this industry. We flirt with top industry for suicide we are the top industry for drug overdose, accidental drug overdose, death. And if you look at all those things and then you ask people, as a parent, would you want your children in an industry like this? If I didn't tell you what it was, I just list off these facts and then, oh, by the way, they're going to work 80 hours a week, and so on and so forth. Most everybody would probably say, that's not a place I want my kids.
- [57:39]
Ryan Hazen
Right.
- [57:41]
Herb
Again, I think a lot of things is all about the good stuff, but it's like, well, hey, there's some serious problems here that we need to. That are our responsibility. Like, why are people in construction dying more by overdose than any other industry in America? Like, we need to ask that question. And then we need to do some things about that as an industry, or else who are we to why we need that workforce, but we need to be deserving of that workforce as well. Yeah, and I know it's not, but there's a degree of accountability that has to occur here to actually solve this problem. And I only say that not to preach, but that's what every company that is getting better results from a workforce standpoint is doing. I think it starts with a responsibility, like an accountability. This is our problem. We need to figure out why we have this problem, and we need to do something about it. And if we don't do something about it, we have no right to complain about it. And it's Stargent, it's Hoopah, it's Ess, it's CW Matthews, it's Veit. You go down the list.
- [59:06]
Ryan Hazen
That's what they're all doing. There's so many that are. So many that are doing, you know, and we learn from a lot of those guys. I mean, we communicate a lot with some of those other people because we want to keep getting better at it. And I call it, you know, constructions, add, alcohol, depression and divorce. And I personally lived all three of those. And, you know, that's when I think about some of the things that I mentioned. I listed kind of my business failures, but I've got a lot of personal failures, too. And when I think about those personal failures and the things that brought them on, I want to help our folks avoid those. And even though I owned and ran a business, I wasn't always financially adept and managing my personal finances well at times when the business finances went poorly, that had a direct impact on me. And that has a direct. There's probably not a single thing, except maybe too much alcohol that affects marriages like Finances. And so if we can teach our people that there is actually a thing called financial management because I think so many people are raised in households that have like, that's not even a phrase for them. I guess we didn't get as much money this week as we needed. So we're not going to do this. If we can educate people around finances, educate people around relationships and what makes for a good relationship and what detracts from a relationship. I think we've done a good, we've made a huge step toward making better people in the community, in their families and as employees. And that isn't that what we want? And we wouldn't if we all had to, if we had to decide what we want. We want good, well rounded, healthy employees both at work and at home or just great employees that fall apart at home. Which would we want? I think would want the well rounded, would give up a little bit at work to get more for them at home. I would do that. We're doing that.
- [61:31]
Herb
But then I think the irony is you're going to get more at work.
- [61:35]
Ryan Hazen
I think we are.
- [61:36]
Herb
And I do understand the realities of production and schedules and weather and summer and the hours in a day, so on and so forth. But I think that's also the trap the industry finds itself in is it relies too much on historical data and a historical production rate. Without asking the question, well, could that production rate change? Could we get a better production rate? And maybe the answer is no. Maybe the production rate is the production rate. And that's true for some things in some scenarios. But I'm, I think, and you guys are seeing this, like you said, it's like, well, maybe that production rate is not actually a peak rate. If our people can even suggest those things, like maybe we could build a machine like this to do the job more effectively.
- [62:31]
Ryan Hazen
One of the things that convinces me that individuals at the field level can make such a huge difference in production is an experience I had. I was filling in, in this kind of changing subject here a little bit, but to me, I just want people to hear it, that you can make a difference, like you can make a difference in what happens on your crew. And I went to a job as a foreman one time and our foreman was on vacation. So I showed up and we had a 988 just loading out sand. And we were being paid by the. We had a fleet of 769 cats and we were being paid by the bank, by the truck, cubic yard rather. And so I talked to the operator, Joe, who I Mentioned to you earlier, I go sit at his grave site and have a beer with him every year. And I said, Joe, how are we, what are we getting for production? He said, we can't get over 5,000 yards a day. And I said, well let's. At the end of the day I just timed him going through a few cycles and I was like, how much do you think you can get at the end of the day if all you did was just what you did? Then he goes, probably 7,000. I said, you can get 12,000 yards a day if that's all you did. So let's see what we can do. And he and I and the rest of the crew, like the drivers and the dozer operator that was tending the fill, all drove the hall haul Road. Within two days we were around 7,000. Another couple days we were on 9,000. By the time I left, we were at 11,000 yards a day. And I'm no, trust me, this, I'm not boasting. This is just like dumb 22 year old that cared enough to ask the questions. And if you're a 22 year old or 28 year old or a 40 year old out there, you can ask the questions and challenge. If you're in a culture that you can do that, that's a culture you can win in, I think and you can make a big difference. And we could have worked, we could have changed from working 10 hours a day to working 7 hours a day and gotten the production that they were getting before.
- [64:33]
Herb
Yeah, there's like a more hours means more production. But that's not, but everybody knows that's not true. But that's how everything operates. I saw, at a certain point in time I tried to keep stuff extremely vague. I saw an operation, the office was saying it needs to happen this way. I got out there and I was looking at it and it didn't make total sense. Like I, I know enough to look at something and be like this is either humming or it's not. And it just didn't make total sense. And the, but the office.
- [65:10]
Ryan Hazen
Are you talking about us?
- [65:11]
Herb
No, not sergeant. It just didn't make sense. And I was talking to the fuel guys, just, I like, I like just talking to people shooting the shit and just asking, you know, how they, how they feel about being here and do they have a family, this and that and what do they think about operation so on and so forth. And I heard from multiple people that they just don't at all agree with how they're doing it because they Think they know, or at least they're confident that another way would be better and would get better production. But the Office is saying, we're doing it this way, and the Office is somewhere very far away. So it was just so fascinating. I see that all the time. And maybe the Office knows something that they don't. Maybe. But this was a very simple production setting. There weren't a lot of constraints. It was pretty black and white in the grand scheme of things. And for me to hear that from multiple people, it's just interesting. Like, that's. I guess what you don't want. What you do want is they have those conversations, hey, the Office wants this, but we're out here. And this would actually be better. Would get us better production in less hours, which is what we want. That's. We're all on the same page here. Could we try that? And then the Office. Okay, maybe we can try that. You guys go try that. We'll see how it goes. Well, this was better. Okay, let's do more of this. And even if it wasn't. Okay, hey, we tried. Was a great idea. But here's the constraints. Or even if we can't try it, these are the constraints we're actually under. So this is why we can't do that. It's just none of those scenarios were played out. It was from the top down. This is how we're doing it. And the people doing it were like, why are we doing it this way?
- [67:00]
Ryan Hazen
So I think there's. Especially now. I mean, I think a lot of companies are like, we are like a younger workforce. Maybe. Maybe. I just think that's true and it's not. But I think there's a lot of companies out there that the workforce has rotated younger over the last few years and is going to continue to.
- [67:21]
Herb
I think the ones you interact with. That's true.
- [67:23]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [67:23]
Herb
Yeah.
- [67:25]
Ryan Hazen
Okay. I think also there's a little. Arrogance is a little bit too strong of a word, but there's a belief from management levels, I think that they don't know how to do it. We need to tell them how to do it. And I think that's what you're talking about. And in a culture like that, it's hard for people to come forward with ideas because the culture just doesn't reward that or does the opposite. It basically slaps you on the knuckles for coming up for initiative. And one of the personal things I can talk about that we were in a strategic planning setting, and I'll say his name, Doug Morrison, brought up an Idea. And I've known Doug for a long time. Doug ran our mid Atlantic operation for a while and he and I spent untold hours together in a vehicle and shitting on each other. Right? And that's what we do in construction. And he came up with an idea. And I said, morrison, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Right? And we've got 12 people in the room. And afterwards Tasha pulled me aside, she said, you know, I know you've got this thing with Doug that you guys can talk that way and he gets it. But the other 11 people in the room think, no way I'm even going to say a word. And so when we got back down, I said, listen, I need to. And thank God for somebody that sees my blind spots, right, like that, that I could sit down and say, okay, you can speak freely and you're not going to hear that from me. Our culture needs to be 1 in the industry and in our companies. I think that prize people taking the initiative. And we always talk about it, I think like we always think, everybody thinks initiative. But then in the culture of our companies and ours was this way for some period, I think that there was some micromanagement taking place and that you're not rewarded for being creative. And I even had an argument one time years ago with one of our leaders and I was like, I want creativity from these guys. He's like, no, because then they're going to start doing things. But that's. We need to have the conversations around why it's this way and why it's not. We need to have conversations about why we don't need a zero tail swing excavator on a wind power project. Right. Guy wants one. Why we're in the thousand acre site, we don't need a zero and it costs more and it has less capacity. So let's have that conversation so we learn from it instead of just know stuff.
- [70:08]
Herb
Yeah, yeah.
- [70:11]
Ryan Hazen
I.
- [70:13]
Herb
Again, I think just from an employment standpoint, some people, they've just been screwed so many times by people that they become so jaded and so distrusting that they start treating their company almost like a daycare. And this is a lot of big companies too, just from a risk standpoint. So we need to just policy the hell out of everything. Here's the book. It's 338 pages with all of our policies. It's all right here. If you don't do this, you're fired. I've seen it like I've seen people just fired Right on the side.
- [70:47]
Ryan Hazen
Next year, that book's gonna be 339 pages because somebody flossed in between two of the policies.
- [70:53]
Herb
Yeah.
- [70:53]
Ryan Hazen
And that's gonna happen no matter how many policies you have.
- [70:56]
Herb
Exactly. And we have a big legal department. They need to keep busy, so they're gonna make more policies and then insurance is going to have their policies. And. Well, this happened over here. You know, we work coast to coast. This happened in this market, but that could happen over here too. So we need to. We need to. Just like my. The best example for this I have is 100% gloves. I get it.
- [71:23]
Ryan Hazen
But which we have a policy of.
- [71:26]
Herb
I've. I. But. But I've seen it enforced. I've seen it done the right way, and I've seen it done the complete wrong way. When it's. You're a child, you wear fucking gloves. Which is. Most of the time, I get very resentful. That's when I want to say, fuck you. Like that. It just. For whatever reason, because I feel like I'm being treated like a child. And it's like, why am I being treated like a child? I've been on more job sites than you have. Like, I know I'm a lot younger, but it's like, I know what. And it's like, I don't want to cut my hands. I'm not. I'm not at risk to cut my hands. Gloves make my job harder. Like this is. Can we have a conversation about it? Is there any nuance? It's like, nope, it's the policy. You're a child. I'm sorry. It is what it is. But then when it's explained the right way, you know, from like a management. Hey. When I was a young engineer, I had a superintendent. He explained it to me. He said, hey, I know you're not going to cut your hands, but you're a leader on this job site. You need to set a good example for everybody else. This has been a big problem. We're getting this from top down. We've got to set the standard here. You need to wear your gloves to set a good example. That I understood. Okay. I could get along with that. I understood it. It made sense to me. But I feel like too often it's just compliance. We had too many people over here cut their hands because they're children. So we're just gonna make everybody wear gloves. We're gonna have no nuance, even if it makes your job harder. Like, I talk to mechanics all the time about this. It drives them Absolutely nuts. Because it makes their job harder a lot of times. But just no if, ands or buts about it.
- [73:12]
Ryan Hazen
I mean we say 100% gloves, but you and I realize we're just using that as an example. But the first visit you made to us, I remember we came upon a waterline crew and the guys are handling our guys. We have 100% glove policy. And I walk up and our guys don't have gloves on. They're cutting ductile iron pipe with fresh edges. They're carrying Glad packs and all this stuff that have rag, jagged edges on them. And I'm like to the foreman, why don't we have gloves on? And so they got their gloves on. You took some pictures. Yeah, but I was like, no pictures yet. But some of those things are, it's like, careful, you might fall in the Pacific. Well, you're not going to do that on the Atlantic coast, right?
- [74:00]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even you asking the question like why? So that you can better understand the situation. So that you can. Okay, well we haven't clearly explained this well enough or we, there's something wrong here on our part. Like we haven't done something to ensure that they understand why they need to be wearing gloves. Because this is clearly hazardous. They could be cutting their hands right now instead of like, you need to be wearing your gloves right now.
- [74:30]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, there's time and things like that. Like I remember the hard hats. I'm old enough to know that when those first came in and first of all the guys had aluminum ones that were like pink colored and whatever. And I can remember at a foreman meeting, our HR safety guy, they were the same person back in the early 80s guy saying, you know, I'm out in the middle of a field, why do I have to wear a hard hat? The guy's like, there's no question you're going to wear a hard hat. The problem is, as you know, they're going to not have their hardnet with them because they don't wear it most of the time. And then they're going to go in a situation where they need it, they won't have it.
- [75:16]
Herb
Yeah, I get why. I'm not criticizing, I'm not criticizing what it is. I'm criticizing the approach. Cause I've seen it done well, I've seen it done not well. And then it's like, well, we have a culture of safety and caring and everybody has stop work authority and this and that. But also if you don't do this, you are fired. And it's like, okay, so just don't bullshit us. Just. And that's my point. It's like, if you think we're children, just say, you have to wear gloves because you guys are fucking children. Just say it. Just be honest. Just don't. Don't speak out of both sides.
- [75:56]
Ryan Hazen
Or you might as well say, because you can't be trusted.
- [75:58]
Herb
Yeah, because we don't trust you. Yes, that's what it is. Because we don't trust you. You have to do this. But it's like, no, no, no, no.
- [76:07]
Ryan Hazen
99 of them are like, but wait, you can trust me and the one guy. Like, not you, buddy.
- [76:12]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because of the one clown. We now don't trust any of you. But then, now. Because the company now. Okay, so you don't trust me. I don't trust you. Like, I'm here. I'll do my job. I'm not giving you any more than that, though. Like, and then. And then the company's like, why don't our people trust us? Why don't they? Why. Why aren't they. Why aren't they coming up with better ideas to do stuff? We. We need more creativity, this and that. It's like. Well, to me, it's not a huge secret as to why it's like that. And again, I. I think the bigger you get, the harder it becomes.
- [76:47]
Ryan Hazen
Sure it is.
- [76:48]
Herb
Yeah, but.
- [76:50]
Ryan Hazen
But I'd even say this. When I was a small contractor, you know, and I was scratching out 3 or 4 or 5 million a year, I wasn't as good at that sort of stuff. Like, I didn't hold people accountable. Like, I should have that. For me, that seemed like it was obvious, but I wasn't very good at it.
- [77:13]
Herb
Yeah.
- [77:15]
Ryan Hazen
In the right way. I wasn't very good at the why. I was more, you know, my head was somewhere else. My head was in. I got to get the next job, and I got to get that D8 move from this job to this one. And I think, you know, the pressures of a smaller business, it's weird. I think you hit this sweet spot where you can go, all right, now I can pay attention to, you know, both the execution. We were talking a little bit last night about the tension between executing today and strategizing for 20 years out. And it's weird to keep your head in both places or to have them not oppose each other in a way, in my mind, that's the way I see it. I kind of either have to be in one spot or the other, and they don't have A good subset.
- [78:04]
Herb
And I think you can shrink it too, because I've like, you've probably seen this much more than I do. But a project manager that's just under the gun, just on a shit job, losing their ass, schedules completely blown out of the water, it's all on them. They're just stressed out about it. I've seen that. I worked for a guy like that. And then even to, you know, a foreman under the gun because then that pressure comes down to the crew leader or whatever it is. Like you can, a crew leader can be on a just really shit job and you can have the pressure to perform and we need to perform and we're losing money and the schedule's blown out of the water. But then they don't even have the information, really. They don't know how much money is getting lost. They don't know what the schedule is because they probably don't have that information. But even that now they have the pressure. So they're not thinking up and out. They're just like, well, we just need to go. We just need to hustle. And it just gets passed down, starts it ownership like, well, this job sucks.
- [79:03]
Ryan Hazen
Right? And the look ahead period gets smaller and smaller. Smaller.
- [79:06]
Herb
Yeah.
- [79:07]
Ryan Hazen
The closer you get to where the works happen, Right? Yes. And the guy that's the foreman that's in charge of installing the 12 inch sewer pipe is like, I got to get this pipe in this piece of pipe right now and then I'll worry about the next piece. And I'm like, okay, but we're going to come up on grandma's driveway here in about 50ft and we need to make sure she can get our car out. And they're like, oh, yeah, well, we haven't talked to her yet. Okay, well, we're going to stop short of grandma's driveway today. Now look what we've done.
- [79:34]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, this happens all the time and it happens within our company difference. It happens at every company everywhere.
- [79:43]
Ryan Hazen
To be truthful, it happens in every company. And trying to give these folks the tools to, you know, to understand what position you're in and how far you need to look ahead, you know, and define that as part of that role. Like this foreman, this, this pipe foreman has to look ahead, we'll say three to 10 days. Like, you have to know if the pipe's there. You have to know if you, if you have hydrants or poles in the way that have to be held or moved or whatever. Grandma's driveway that has to be worked around, and the superintendent is like, three days to two to three months. And then the project manager is looking out ahead and giving them the tools to think that way. We've been pretty intentional about trying to put tools in people's hands that give them the right frame to look ahead. Like our foreman, we have what we call a crew execution. Look ahead, and they have to do this every day, and they look ahead, and they basically walk where they're going. And I call it being intimate with work. And that's what I always loved. I always loved to just let that stuff soak into me. Like, I didn't have to write it down. That at station two plus 65, I had a hydrant that I had to hold. I'd be like, okay, Wednesday morning, I got to make sure I got a guy here to hold his hydrant or whatever, and just giving them those tools to look at with the crew and, like, have the excavator operator walk for 15 minutes every afternoon with him and look ahead. And then, you know, maybe the top man of the crew. So everyone's in tune with what we got to do. And then the foreman doesn't park his truck right behind the 349. That's going to back up over it.
- [81:28]
Herb
That's never happened.
- [81:29]
Ryan Hazen
Never.
- [81:30]
Herb
Yeah, that's a really good thought. Just walking, Just walking the job. That's for me.
- [81:37]
Ryan Hazen
If there's one thing, like, if you're a young guy out there and you're trying to figure out how to make a difference, you gotta get yourself back away from the job. You can't see the whole picture when you're in the middle of the frame you've got. I always. I don't know if somebody told me this or what. I always taught it to everybody that I worked with, is find the highest spot on the job and go stand there and look at the operation. And you can see things you'll never see as long as you're standing there. And in order to do that, you have to build trust with the people that are in the crew still there working, right? And just again, I call it intimacy with the work. I just felt like I want to have a relationship with the job I'm working on. And that made me better at it, that I could go ahead and begin to see things that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. And if I can, bring more sets of eyeballs with me and say to me, you know, herb, we're going to have road plates here, too, for this, okay, that's something I wouldn't have thought of. You know, it's just that kind of collaboration is what it takes to be better at this business. And the creativity around it is the thing that I continue to try to celebrate more and more. You know that Back Cove west project where we widened the excavator. We submitted a Build America award and got one. We've never gotten one before. And we took the whole crew out there and celebrated that and it was just a really, really good time for, for me with our guys. I mean, I just loved that we took them out to, you know, Morton Steakhouse. There's not one of those in Maine by the way. And you know, these guys got steaks like you'd never get before. And I can remember the first one of those and I was like, oh, one guy cuts like a 4 inch long, long piece. He's like, wow. And he just drives the whole thing in his mouth. But it just was such a great thing for people. I wanted to make sure we celebrated that win with those guys, but not just with them, but with the rest of the company and celebrated the idea of creativity and initiative and stepping out. Vulnerability and that, that's all part of the creativity process. The initiative, the vulnerability and then our other people's willingness not to degrade them when they do step out. Because frankly, some people come up with some pretty stupid ideas.
- [84:02]
Herb
There's plenty. And I'm, I'm top of the list. I've got, yeah, we've got some really cool stupid ideas. But you also have. I think the crew has to have trust as well. And I think that's why I loved Pipe Cruise because you were working alongside everybody every day and it just made it a lot of fun because you had more interactions with the people you worked with. Because you had more interactions, you could build trust faster and you could just mesh well. And so you start to become like, it's really cool. When you're watching a pipe crew that's worked together for a long time, they're just one. Oh yeah, they don't have to talk a lot. They know exactly what everybody's doing.
- [84:45]
Ryan Hazen
So his boss doesn't go get involved. Yeah, yeah, we've witnessed that with.
- [84:48]
Herb
But they, they just, but the boss like. But you can't get a pipe crew without a boss. That's, that's good. And knows not to get involved. But I think that's the only way to really get it. But just, just watching it is amazing. And in certain operations that's harder. Especially when it's equipment. Everybody gets into machines and we have a policy. You can't shoot the shit over the radio because that's dangerous. Because if there's an emergency, you know you're going to be talking about the fish you caught this weekend and somebody's gonna die. So none of that. So you just have to do your job and then. No, no phones. Don't be on your phone. We've got no Bluetooth in the machines. No radio, so you can't listen to music. I know you put your AirPods. No, you can't have your AirPods in. Cause that's dangerous too.
- [85:34]
Ryan Hazen
I'm renting all of you, not half of you.
- [85:36]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [85:37]
Ryan Hazen
I want your ears. I want your brain.
- [85:39]
Herb
Just sit there for 12 hours and do your job in your cab alone. And I think like, even something as like walking the job, it just creates just a small opportunity for people to talk, collaborate, just build a little bit of trust that wouldn't have been built otherwise. Like, like, like Formula one. The whole team, all the teams will walk the track. That's like one of the big things before a race. They walk the track. I feel like that's construction's version in a way of walking the track.
- [86:10]
Ryan Hazen
And you know, I mentioned that, you know, that deal with a 988 and then loading out sand. I mean, I got all the drivers and of course one of the most important things to an earthwork spread with trucks involved is having a truck there all the time. And they were kind of, you know, they were not coordinated very well. And when we got out and explained to them that, that this 988 needed to be dumping every. Can't remember what it was, 12 seconds and it has to be this way. They were like, oh, now we got it. And they're backing in. But taking them and helping them understand the whole, the whole roads, you know, we had a couple spots and the drivers told me like, now this is, this is a bad kink in this road, you know, and like a 90 degree turn, hairpin turn. If we could make an angle across here, we could get better time. And, and so we, we made, we took the end of that day and we made these things happen. We set all this stuff up. They all had ownership in this, in this win. And they just saw the numbers go up every day. And they were like, they were celebrating. I wasn't even celebrating. They were celebrating. They're like, let's have a steak cookout. You know, and, and I was, I'll get the steak. It's just those kind of Things are one of the things that make this business great when you can get people to take ownership and win like win like that.
- [87:32]
Herb
I. The truck driver thing specifically is one that's always confused me a little bit because it's always so adversarial. Even though that pro. Like every, every project, almost everyone is super dependent upon truck drivers. Whether it's pipe.
- [87:48]
Ryan Hazen
Well, unless you're making your materials.
- [87:50]
Herb
Yeah, yeah. It's. It's most jobs. Even big dirt spreads you're getting fuel in. Like there's transport. Drivers have to get the equipment there. But it's so adversarial a lot of times with truck drivers. Like they're treated like second rate citizens. And I get it. Like I've seen some really dumb stuff with truck drivers but I've also seen some really dumb stuff with heavy equipment operators. I've done some dumb stuff. I see dumb stuff driving every day. Like I. It's. It's just so odd to me when they're treated like second rate citizens. When they're the ones that are really controlling the schedule in a lot of ways.
- [88:30]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [88:30]
Herb
It's like wouldn't I be more incentivized to. And I know it's a. It's a trucking company. I know it's outside company. I know they're or brokers. Even worse. Everybody is at their own company and it's just like this herding cat. And maybe this is just me being naive Aaron, but it's like wouldn't it if I was running that job be in my best interest to like get to know the truck drivers so that.
- [88:55]
Ryan Hazen
I mean it's hard for them to have empathy with the whole situation until you explain it to them. And I'll go back when I was like 21 years old and we were doing a. Building a Runway up at Loring Air Force base in Maine. And I had the equivalent of like a 395 cat loading trucks out in one spread. And then in a rock cut we had a 988cat loading out rock. And so I was keeping track of both of them in terms of grade. And this was before gps so we were, you know, I was having to pull grade stakes and drive. Drive steel pins in the ground in the rock cut and then put a grade stake in. And our dirt cut was only about 4ft deep. So this 395 equivalent at the time would cover a lot of territory and could get off grade in a hurry. And I'm running back and forth between those two guys and we had one driver. Every single time he came in, he ran over grade stake, and they're famous for that, right? And I put up with it enough, and I finally got stopped him, and I said, There's 30 grade stakes in that bundle right there. I want you to drive one, measure 10ft, drive another one, measure 10ft, drive Another one. And you can't stop until you've got 10 in a row. I'm going to drive the truck. And so I got in the truck, made the trip. I came back, he had, like, two great stakes, and I ran him over, and he looks up at me like, what the fuck? And I said, no, you know, like, keep going. Keep going. And I took another trip, and he had. This time, he had, like, five stakes in, and I ran him over, and. And he was like, dude. And so I did that, like, three times, and he finally said, I get it, right? But it was just, like, he didn't understand how much work it was. I mean, and it was hot. It was. And I'm running back and forth. All he had to do was drive 10 grade stakes in a row. But I'm having to put grades on them and measure them off, offsets and all this business. And it was like, once he understood, you know, But I. I probably was a little bit of a dick the way I did it. But once he understood, you know, we didn't have any other issues after that. And the other guys saw it, too, right? They were like, okay, we're not running over Herb's grade stakes.
- [91:00]
Herb
Sure. Yeah, that's. You couldn't do that nowadays, but probably not. Maybe a different approach.
- [91:07]
Ryan Hazen
If I gave him a trophy, I could.
- [91:09]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. That's the approach nowadays.
- [91:11]
Ryan Hazen
That was before the trophy days, but I still, like.
- [91:15]
Herb
I still think that just general understanding is good or just involving those that make the project a success. I think it gets so adversarial, even with inspectors, engineers, the project owner, and it just. It gets subcontractors. It gets so off track so quickly, and it's just because I'm on the outside, like you were saying. You can just see I'm not in it day to day. I don't have a lot of the context. I'm not. I have no emotion about what the heck's going on. I'm trying to figure it out. So I'm seeing it at a very outside elementary level. But you can quickly be like, why is everybody trying to beat each other up? Like, what's everybody trying to do here?
- [92:00]
Ryan Hazen
Right.
- [92:00]
Herb
Build this road. Yes. Build this road for these people, right? Yeah, we're on the same team here. Why is everybody getting after each other? And maybe the inspector is a complete piece of shit, maybe like any other profession possible, the goal is still to build the road. So then I would figure out what do I need to do to make this guy happy to then get the job done and then hopefully I never have to see this guy again, like in that Peter Kiewit book. Like he would have his guys, he had full time guys that would get to know the inspectors on certain projects. That's all their job would be to just get to know the inspector and then inspect the work before the inspector came so that they could fix what the inspector wanted to see so that they would get everything passed.
- [92:52]
Ryan Hazen
So the question is like, and this is a really good subject, I think an inspector can be a threat. Really? Anybody on the crew can be a threat. Right. And an inspector can be a threat. So if we go with the theory that risk equals threat times vulnerability, what threat level do we want to introduce into that equation? If we've got an inspector and some of them are just going to be dicks and I've had a few, but on the other side, like the threat, what's their threat level? Can we manage that threat level in the way we treat them? And then also what's our vulnerability level? Are we showing up in a way that, that puts us at unease with any problems? Like if we stayed out till 1 o'clock drinking all night and then we show up at work, we're not in a really good position to put up with somebody's bs. So our own vulnerability is a piece of that equation. So we can hopefully manage, we can sometimes manage the threat. So if we took that equation, risk equals threat times vulnerability, and the threat is an armed intruder and you're asleep in bed, so you're very vulnerable, the threat's very high, or it's an eight year old knocking on the door to get a cup of sugar and you're fully armed to the teeth with AR assault rifles, you don't have much vulnerability and there's very low threat, so the risk is very low. If we can look at things that way, not to turn everything into just an equation, but if we can look at things that way, in the way we approach people and the way we approach our work, and we can try to moderate the threat and also improve our vulnerability in terms of how susceptible we are to that threat. I think it's really helpful for us to look at it that way.
- [94:54]
Herb
Yeah, I've learned this with more recently, like just, just gatekeepers with what I do. I need permission to go out to these construction projects, go to these mining projects. That is, I probably spend more time chasing down permissions than I do visiting projects. It is so cumbersome. And the bigger the project, the bigger the company, the more cooks there are in the kitchen. And I have learned that one person can just completely spike something. It just takes one individual and I can get upset about it, or I can try to get ahead of it and ensure that that one person is happy and they're good to go and they're comfortable so that then I can do my job.
- [95:39]
Ryan Hazen
And it may not even be a person necessarily of authority over that.
- [95:43]
Herb
Oftentimes it's not.
- [95:45]
Ryan Hazen
It may be somebody that's the marketing person and they're pissed off that Aaron's showing up on an out.
- [95:51]
Herb
That would never happen. That's never, that's never once happened. Yeah, any. And I can have the owner's approval, but that one person gets, gets in and puts the sand in the gears and can shut it down. And I can still go back to the owner and try to like, override them. But then sometimes the owner's like, they're picking their battles. Like, this isn't a hill I need to die on right now. I've got other shit to do. And then sometimes going to the owner, even if. Or then the other, I go to the owner, they put their foot down, they say, hey, this is how it's going to be. Now they're resentful because I went around them. It's oftentimes just a lose, lose. Like going above people almost never works. That's like the absolute last resort in very specific applications. I've only done it recently. Like, that's one rabbit I only pull out of the hat when I absolutely need to. And even when I do, it sometimes doesn't work. But just knowing who's in the picture and knowing how to manage those individuals and not losing, like, it's easy to get caught up in this. It's easy for me to get caught up over here. But like, the job is to make this company look great, make this, this, this look great. To get our, you know, get, get more views over here for the industry, get the, get the company more notoriety. That's the job. That's all I need to focus on. It's like building the road. All we need to do is build the road.
- [97:24]
Ryan Hazen
There's no better application of, of that. You know, like, don't go over their head than an inspector on a job. Like, if you go over an inspector's head, be prepared to bleed for the next 90 days. I mean, I've had to do it once because the situation was so untenable that we were placed in that I actually went and made a phone call and I came back and told the inspector, we're going to do what we said we were going to do. And I just made a phone call and you're out of the picture now. And it didn't make me feel comfortable, but I had to do it. I mean, sometimes you have to do it. You can't. There's this weird spectrum between being led around by the nose inspector and kicking them in the balls every day or having them kick you in the balls every day. And it's. So there's. You got to find the right place. And the one thing I learned early on, especially with my last name being on the sign at the office, was that I'm going to be in this business for a while and they're not going to forget how I treat them. And I mean, as a 16 year old, as a laborer in a sewer trench, I can remember our foreman was, we had a young inspector just out of college and our foreman was just giving him the business, like just humiliating him on a constant basis. And I finally pulled the foreman and said, you got to stop this. I'm going to work with this guy for the rest of my career. And they all deserve respect. Whether we agree with them or not, they deserve respect.
- [98:57]
Herb
Well, and even if you have the authority to override somebody, like using that sparingly too is really key because that is a really fast way to create resentment as well. To say like, you have every right to go because your name is on the company, especially when you owned it. Now it's ESOP employee owned. When you owned it, you're not reporting to anybody. You have the right in most cases to say, this is how we're going to do it. But playing that card almost always is a terrible idea.
- [99:32]
Ryan Hazen
Oh yeah, it's almost always.
- [99:34]
Herb
Yeah, it's. It just doesn't work that way.
- [99:36]
Ryan Hazen
And the conversations around all that sort of thing can be really knobby, you know, So, I mean, when your name's on the building, you get a lot of calls and you're like, well, I'm not, I don't deal with that. Like insurance brokers. What? Like, I don't deal with that like, that's Tasha's deal. And then they call Tasha and Go, Herb told me to call you.
- [99:58]
Herb
Sure.
- [99:59]
Ryan Hazen
And then Tasha's like, did you put this guy on me? So, I mean, just. I'm learning still now to manage those kinds of things, because I get reached out to quite frequently, and I'm trying to insulate Eric from our new president from all this stuff. Right. And somebody. He also needs to know some of it. But, yeah, it's. This transition is an interesting thing for me and for them, I'm sure, and trying to do it the right way. And I think we're all aligned the right way, I think we know. But there's still these nuances that come into play, you know, like if we're being approached by a company that says, you know, sergeant, we'd like to buy you now, what's my role in this? You know, and we've had. We get called quite frequently. Sure. And what's my role in it? And usually quite often it's because somebody knows me personally, and they go, you know, what are you going to do? But now I can't stay involved in this for a long time. You know, I have to just set it up and let it go. And one of the things that I felt like the succession front. I'm still kind of a young guy, 61, coming on 62. But I could see Eric's. The way he'd taken the company and the way people reacted to his leadership. And I watched the way he. He approaches the market and the way he approaches people and customers and the way the team works together. And to me, the time to have the concession is kind of like a relay race. You don't want both guys to stop and hand it off. You want both running at full tilt and hand it off. And you could argue that I may not still be running at full tilt, and that's fine, but.
- [102:05]
Herb
Or have someone, like trip and fall and have the other guy have the whole idea and grab it.
- [102:10]
Ryan Hazen
My whole idea is we need to accelerate through this zone, not trip and fall and have a big mess. And for that, 2024 is one of our best years ever in almost every way you measure it. And for me, the one I'm proudest of is the safety metrics that. That Eric led, you know, with. With our safety team, where they went through long strategic planning process. And so this succession for me is like, I. I'm these guys. We've got a management in our company that's better than any management that's ever been in our company. Take me out of the picture, like Eric and Tasha and Doug. And Justin and the, and the other VPs, Amanda and our HR department carry our controller just, they're so good and like I'm just standing back in awe like at how good this group is and the way they treat people and the way they feel about people and the values they have around people that are just so well aligned toward our people winning in the long run. And, and I'm so grateful for that.
- [103:26]
Herb
What is your official role now?
- [103:28]
Ryan Hazen
CEO. Okay, so basically my, you know, my role is the name of it is CEO Eric's President coo. My role is strategy, strategic planning and also leadership development. Because what I want to make sure that we don't ever have like when Eric, it's time for him to move on and the next, I want him to look back at this role at this time and go, that's how they did it. And so I want to make sure that we have a lot of people in place to take the roles that need because there's a fair amount of Jenga, I guess maybe you call it or dominoes that move into place in an organization and it's as an employee owned company. We were talking last night about 22 year old kid we have, 24 year old kid we have working for us and I highlighted his accomplishments to our board and the last thing I put up was and he's still got 40 years to go. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, oh shit, I made a big promise to this guy. And the board is going to change, probably rotate three or four or five times in 40 years. Right. And the executives in the company are going to change three or four or five times now. And now all of a sudden my role, I can't think about whether cuts an inch high or an inch low anymore or whether we got 2,000 yards and we should get 2,200. My role is the promise I made to this guy has to be realized to him in 40 years when he decides to turn in his chips for the cash that the Esau promised him. And it's a different role altogether. And it's not one that I never saw myself in as a younger guy. Even 10 years ago I didn't see.
- [105:19]
Herb
It this way because with the esop it's interesting, it's a great model, but it only succeeds if the company succeeds long term.
- [105:31]
Ryan Hazen
It's only as good the company all of a sudden someday, if the company goes well, we failed. Yes, there's going to be a lot of people holding Confederate dollars.
- [105:40]
Herb
Yeah, paper that's worth nothing and it's.
- [105:43]
Ryan Hazen
My job as much as I can with the team I've got. And trust me, these people are all online. Like we're not working for people necessarily that are working in the business now. We're working for people that haven't been born yet.
- [105:59]
Herb
That's the only way it works.
- [106:01]
Ryan Hazen
That's the way I've begun to think of it is like we're working for people that will be born in another 20 years and that will be working here 40 years from now.
- [106:09]
Herb
And the ESOP model, there's also a significant consideration for growth because you do now have that share price that is known throughout the company.
- [106:23]
Ryan Hazen
Sure.
- [106:24]
Herb
Celebrated every year, celebrate every year, everybody. It's valued every year, published every year. I've been a part of some of those ESOP meetings which are really, really cool. I was a part of Garney's this year, which was spectacular to see their, their leadership come on stage and like work, talk through, you know, the, the, the, the business, where the business is at, share price, et cetera. It was, it was just spectacular. But it's a double edged sword. It does create a sense of ownership when done correctly. But then you do have a share price, you do have an expectation that it will continue to go up. So you don't just have to maintain the business in a sense, you have to grow the business.
- [107:10]
Ryan Hazen
I mean, that's maybe, I mean, does it always have to go up or if it gets to us, if it gets to a certain point and people are like, okay, I'm happy with that. So as we went through strategic planning three or four years ago, you know, we had some young bulls in the room and they were like, well, we want to be a billion dollar company. And I'm scared to death of revenue goals because I think they drive potentially wrong behaviors. And some people have them and I'm not being judgmental, but I just don't think they fit. Sargent. So what we picked eventually was a stock price goal. And we said, okay, if it's a stock price goal, that means everybody's thinking about value. But then more recently as we revisited, we were less enthralled with the stock price goal because it does mean growth. And some people in our strategic planning group was like, okay, I don't mind growth, but don't lose this culture. Like, don't grow away from this culture. And Pete Parzo, I think the way he worded it was let's just make more of what we have now. And so that's great. So we're trying to figure out now what our BHAG is. Big, hairy, audacious goal. And this is something we just talked about last week. What is it? What does it mean to us? What do we want to be? Do we have to grow the stock price forever and ever and ever? I think there's this thing, certainly with publicly traded companies, that we want the stock price to grow. Right. And then you've got things that have happened with Boeing and there's a American scandal. I think it's American scandal podcast. They had a number of issues about Boeing and all the problems they're facing. And it sounds like it was like when they started saying, okay, engineers, get out of the way. And, you know, the people that are worried about the stock price are going to run the company. And now we're going to farm out. Instead of making all our own parts, we're going to farm out all our own parts. And if you look at what Boeing is today compared to what they were and some of the tragedies that have taken place, we got thinking about that in terms of our stock price, and we're like, okay, so this could lead to the wrong behaviors. This could be like, if a guy's worried about stock price, you know, to hell with quality. Let's just get this thing done. We don't get. Nobody's going to see it. And one of the truths about Earthwork is quite often you don't know if it's quality or not underneath you the first day you drive on a road. You don't know if it's quality or park in a parking lot. And so we want to make sure we. We drive the right behaviors. We haven't figured out exactly what that is. We're on a mission right now to. To do that. But growth, I think, is a good thing as long as we do it the right way, as long as we never get misaligned.
- [110:18]
Herb
Yeah. I think this is where sustainability comes into play. I think sustainability, the word has been hijacked to mean a certain thing that is oftentimes complete nonsense. But I think sustainability is. Can we continue doing what we're doing into the future?
- [110:37]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, yeah.
- [110:39]
Herb
Will we be here? Is this sustainable? Can we continue this and indefinite growth? Growth for the sake of growth is not sustainable in the long term. It just doesn't work that way.
- [110:54]
Ryan Hazen
So we talk frequently about, you know, we've grown a lot in the last few years. Is it time for us to pause and level out for a few years and kind of let you know. It's almost like you Know, you make a spaghetti sauce one day and it's good, but the next two or three days, it's even better because the flavors, you know, is that what we need to do? And, you know, we think we're at about that spot, and we're not 100% sure. You know, the market dictates some things, and sometimes you go, okay, we're done. We're done taking work. And then a really good customer calls and says, by the way, I need you here. And you have to react to that in a way that respects the relationship over sometimes decades for us. But looking ahead, no matter where you are in your journey, if you've just filed your LLC papers or you're 50 years in, I think it's really important to figure out where you want to be at the end of this line.
- [111:54]
Herb
Yeah.
- [111:55]
Ryan Hazen
And somebody posted the other day, you and I were talking last night about, you know, should people, you know, is it. Is it even ethical to sell your business? Should you be able to benefit from selling your business after you've owned it all these years and benefited from the ownership? And certainly, I think if you. If you take risks and you do, you know, when you're in a business, you know, for me, my. My house was on the line. Like, if it went to hell, the bank was going to take everything. So I think you ought to benefit from it. And to the extent you build up some equity, it's like if somebody builds up equity in a house, to think that they shouldn't be able to sell it and get that equity back in the future, I think would be wrong. But I think it's really important for people to think about, and I did not do this, frankly, this is one of those lessons that I wish. I think it's important for people to think about what their end game is and how does this go beyond. Because they're going to have some people that will have joined them within a year or two or five of when they retire. And what does that look like for all those people? And I would like to see people in our industry start thinking more about the end game when they're in it. And it's hard to think about five years out. And I've, you know, I said earlier in the podcast that I'm guilty of not having thought way far ahead, but I didn't have the. In my opinion, I didn't have the freedom to do so. I was so busy trying to keep the plane flying for the next mile. And if you can get that altitude that allows you to Both see the ground and see ahead and understand that if you've got to make some decisions, you've got some time to make them. If you're flying at 1,000ft and the bank calls your note, you're probably done. If you're flying at 30,000ft, the bank's probably not going to call your note. If you're at 15,000ft, the bank calls your note, you've got some time to figure it out. So getting that altitude first gives you freedom to think long term. Because I don't think we're great about that in this industry.
- [114:06]
Herb
The altitude thing's interesting.
- [114:09]
Ryan Hazen
I like, because.
- [114:10]
Herb
Well, no, it's. It's great. It's.
- [114:11]
Ryan Hazen
It.
- [114:12]
Herb
And it's not just. It's interesting because it's not just cash.
- [114:15]
Ryan Hazen
Right. It's every.
- [114:16]
Herb
Because, yeah, if you're making tons of money, but you're still having to be on the job every day and, like, run the job, you're not thinking up and out.
- [114:25]
Ryan Hazen
Right.
- [114:25]
Herb
There's no consideration as far as where you're going, what's going on. So if you don't have the leadership as well, you can be too far in. And sometimes you do have to get far in. Like, sometimes you do.
- [114:38]
Ryan Hazen
Sometimes you have to drill in.
- [114:39]
Herb
Yeah, yeah. But if you're always in, you're just. You're not up and out.
- [114:45]
Ryan Hazen
Well. And people don't have freedom to make decisions and be creative. But it's. To me, the altitude is a cash thing. It's like a working capital thing. Do we have a working. It's a debt load thing. You know, I. When. When we bought He Sergeant, you know, like, Sergeant Sergeant was flying at this altitude and he Sergeant was this altitude. But together we went down here because I took a shit ton of debt.
- [115:08]
Herb
Sure.
- [115:09]
Ryan Hazen
And so we had to kind of climb out of that. It's relationships, you know, are your relationships strong with the bonding company, the bank owners, engineers, people? Is your morale right? Is your culture right? To me, there's a lot of components and I actually went through and listed all these out and I went back to 2005 and I kind of charted them all and I said, okay. And I've got a graph that shows. I guess I showed it at Build It Summit that shows our own altitude over the last 20 years. And it's like, whoa. But for me, when we really began to gain altitude, and I can't give it all credit to decisions made around workforce development because the market's been great. But if we didn't have the workforce development, we wouldn't have been able to take advantage of the market. So our altitude has really begun to get much more appreciative and accretive since about 2018. And we took on some different strategies, and I'm just grateful that we had that team that got together and came up with those strategies and our core values back at that time. That's really, really helped us culturally with the morale, that sort of thing, and it's helped us financially, too.
- [116:33]
Herb
Yeah. I wouldn't say we're hitting the treetops anymore. We were for a while, which just.
- [116:40]
Ryan Hazen
And that's not.
- [116:41]
Herb
I'm still tired.
- [116:43]
Ryan Hazen
It's not a problem hitting the treetops. My dad used to say it's no, it's no problem dancing on the edge as long as you know where the edge is. Like, yeah, if you think you're 10ft from the edge, but you're on the edge of the cliff, then, you know, let's not wobble around much.
- [116:55]
Herb
Well, in hindsight, now, you look back on it, you're like, whoa, that was close.
- [117:02]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [117:03]
Herb
And we're starting. We're starting to get a little bit, which is really nice. Like, I've told people, this has been the first January I've been excited about in a few years, which is a little worth celebrating. It's a little. Yeah, it's a little depressing because it's like, man, that. Because every. You know. Yeah. Every, like, November, December, it was like having to make those tough decisions. You're confronting the new year and you're having to so on and so forth. Chaos. I mean, it must have been like two and a half years, three years. But this January, it's like, I'm finally excited again. And we still have plenty of issues, plenty of stuff to work out.
- [117:40]
Ryan Hazen
Well, you never will not have them.
- [117:42]
Herb
No, no. Yeah.
- [117:43]
Ryan Hazen
It's the nature of business.
- [117:44]
Herb
That is the biggest lie that people will tell you in business is. Yeah.
- [117:48]
Ryan Hazen
If I can just get it on. When I talk about reach altitude, there's no copilot. Get up to 30,000ft. There's really no comp. You trim the plane up. But there's always adjustments to make. There's always evaluation of the relationships, evaluation of how your relationship is with people, evaluation of the market, evaluation of relationships with the owners, engineers.
- [118:13]
Herb
Well, and maybe.
- [118:15]
Ryan Hazen
And where the world's going.
- [118:16]
Herb
Well, continuing with the analogy, too, maybe it does make sense. Like, losing altitude's not always, like, the market falling out underneath you. Maybe it's, hey, we've got to make this acquisition which is going to. We are going to lose 10,000ft here. We're up here, but we have the 10,000ft to lose. It is. We are going to take on some more debt. We are going to have this multi year period, integrate the culture, whatever it is, and get assets square and do all that. But then it's going to ultimately get us to a better place.
- [118:49]
Ryan Hazen
But it's more of an intentional thing.
- [118:51]
Herb
Yes.
- [118:52]
Ryan Hazen
And so I'm a pilot, I guess they say once you're a pilot, you're always a pilot. The license doesn't go away, I guess. And one thing they teach you is there's the three most useless things to a pilot are altitude above you, Runway behind you, and fuel you used to have in your tank. And so the altitude above you is such a powerful one for me because if you're a pilot, you don't bleed off that altitude just for fun. I mean, it's exhilarating. Right. And when I was a pilot, I used to take off from Bangor and I'd go up to the lake and I'd drop down about a hundred feet over the river and it's risky. Right. But it's exhilarating. But that's not my business. So I want to be up higher and I only want to bleed off altitude in ways that service future higher altitude. And if that's an acquisition, we take on acquisition debt, then we, you know, our altitude drops some. But we know it's an intentional thing that's in service of us being able to climb at least to the same altitude and hopefully higher.
- [120:00]
Herb
Sure.
- [120:01]
Ryan Hazen
And that same thing goes into like all the decisions. If we're going after a huge design build job, is that going to take us down in altitude? Is that going to serve to take us up in altitude? If we're talking about, you know, our new office that, you know, the big thing for us was to have some training space. So it takes us down initially, but we've got training space that's really respectful of the workforce we have and is in service of us gaining altitude. And I think it's doing that. It also is a great recruiting tool, more than I ever thought it would be. You know, so we spent some money on this office that was like, okay, that probably took us down a thousand feet, but you know, we can regain it. And so it's an intentional thing versus, you know, some of the biggest mistakes I made are buying a bunch of equipment just to save on taxes.
- [120:55]
Herb
I've. I see that all the time.
- [120:58]
Ryan Hazen
Right. And, and I just I'm on a little bit. I haven't figured out the message a hundred percent, but I'm on a little bit of a mission. Not that anybody wants to listen to me, but stop making decisions based on taxes. You're going to have to pay the taxes. You can't get away from the taxes. You're going to have to pay the taxes. It's a deferral. So make business decisions, not tax decisions.
- [121:24]
Herb
I see that so often, though.
- [121:26]
Ryan Hazen
I did it in 2009. So the recession came 2008. We had a massive backlog through 2009. We made more money in 2009 than we'd ever made, and I needed a tax break. So I went and bought eight Cat 735 trucks. So those aren't cheap, as you know, and I wanted the bonus depreciation on them, but I also wanted them to be there in case I need them because I was afraid the dealers wouldn't have them around. Then all of a sudden, our backlog dropped off. And I'm driving around the backyard and I've got eight cat haul trucks in the D10 parked there for the whole summer. And in this particular year, we lost money from an economic standpoint, but because I didn't have depreciation left, because I took all this bonus depreciation, I didn't. From a tax standpoint, I didn't have depreciation left to take. We actually made money from a tax standpoint. And so I had to pay taxes on money I didn't make.
- [122:29]
Herb
Yeah.
- [122:30]
Ryan Hazen
Stop making decisions based on taxes. Pay your effing taxes and call it good.
- [122:34]
Herb
If you're. Yeah. If you're listening to the accountants on everything, you will go out of business. If you're listening to the lawyer on everything, you will go out of business.
- [122:44]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. I mean, you have to take that advice.
- [122:46]
Herb
Yeah, yeah. It's valuable.
- [122:48]
Ryan Hazen
And it wasn't, you know, to be clear, it wasn't my accountant's idea to buy all these trucks.
- [122:53]
Herb
It's not an individual. Yeah. It's just that, like, their job is to minimize tax liability.
- [123:00]
Ryan Hazen
Right.
- [123:00]
Herb
Or a lawyer's job is to minimize risk. But there's also significant risk in not taking risk at some point or not having cash on hand. Like, cool. Yeah, we're going to have to write Uncle Sam check here. But then you have that cash.
- [123:17]
Ryan Hazen
In my situation now we're deeper in the recession, and we've suffered for two or three years with minimal work, poor margins. We're losing money. I lost money twice in 30 something years, and we're losing money. And all of a sudden, my accountant, who happened to be Tasha at the time, she was working outside the business as my accountant, she says, you got a little bit of a problem. You don't have any depreciation and you're going to make money this year. And I said, stop that talk right now. Right. And she's such a wonderful person and such a great friend, but that was not a piece of news she wanted to deliver to me or one that I wanted to hear. And it was just like, if I could back up, five would not have bought those trucks. Eight trucks.
- [124:00]
Herb
Yeah, that's one I see a lot. Very often.
- [124:05]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. Very, very December. People are jumping through their assholes to make purchases so they can write it off. And.
- [124:10]
Herb
Oh, and the equipment dealers are like, come on down. Yeah, what do you need? Yeah, more trucks. Five. How about eight? We've got three more for you.
- [124:17]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, well, we got these that have been on rent and they. They're cream puffs.
- [124:21]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [124:22]
Ryan Hazen
You'd look good in those, right?
- [124:24]
Herb
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same thing for. I mean, like, you can't listen to quote, unquote, engineering for everything. Like, a job still has to be constructible. Like, it's.
- [124:35]
Ryan Hazen
It's.
- [124:35]
Herb
You can't listen to the contractor and everything because the job still has to be engineered economically viable shit together.
- [124:42]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, that'll last a couple years until our warranty's up.
- [124:45]
Herb
Yeah, it's. It's just a matter of balancing everything and different perspectives and where your altitude is and so on and so forth. Well, this was good. I've enjoyed this.
- [124:57]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. Yeah, A lot of fun.
- [124:58]
Herb
I think this is our third podcast.
- [125:00]
Ryan Hazen
Third, I think. Yeah. I haven't gone back to listen to any.
- [125:04]
Herb
I have not listened to him either. Maybe I was on the Sergeant podcast once, too.
- [125:08]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, that's right.
- [125:09]
Herb
But I don't know if you were involved in that one.
- [125:10]
Ryan Hazen
Were you?
- [125:11]
Herb
I think maybe you were. I think I was a fourth, technically.
- [125:15]
Ryan Hazen
I think there's one. I interviewed you for yours.
- [125:19]
Herb
Yeah. I don't know. That was a long time ago. I think that it wasn't really that.
- [125:24]
Ryan Hazen
Long, but there's been a shit ton of water over the dam in my life.
- [125:29]
Herb
Everyone a bigger percentage of my life than yours.
- [125:31]
Ryan Hazen
Well, percentage wise, I mean, I'm getting to that point where a year doesn't mean much anymore. I got yesterday's piled up behind me and tomorrow's are getting thinner. But the one thing I'm doing right now is writing our 100th anniversary book, which is. Which has been quite a project for me. And one, it's hard for me to express how much gratitude I have around for the people that came before us. You know, like, man, we are standing on the shoulder of giants. It's really something.
- [126:04]
Herb
But you're writing it.
- [126:05]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah.
- [126:06]
Herb
That's pretty fun. So you have to do all the research and everything and.
- [126:10]
Ryan Hazen
Well, fortunately for me, my dad and I hired a girl to write a book bio for my grandfather eight or nine years ago. And so I've got that to fall back on. So she did a ton of research. Plus I have my grandfather's journals that started in the 40s and I have my dad's journals, so. And then, of course, I. Most everything in our business I kind of have up here for. So it's hard to write the book and not get a little bit thicker in more recent years. You know, it's a little denser because I have the granular details to it. Oh, yeah.
- [126:48]
Herb
And there's just more happening because the company's bigger than ever, but trying to balance that.
- [126:54]
Ryan Hazen
You know, it's like hard to mention people's names because if you mention one, you can't. And there's literally probably 10,000 people that have worked for the company over 100 years. And, you know, so you can't. You just can't talk about it all.
- [127:06]
Herb
But we have some cool ones I'll have to show you here. Yeah, that. I don't know, maybe you've probably seen them all. But I've collected some that are pretty extraordinary.
- [127:15]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, I've heard you read on some of them, so I'll ship a copy to you. I'm really grateful for the people that came along. And when I say. I don't mean to be when I say we're working for people that aren't born yet. There were people ahead of me that were working for me before I was born.
- [127:38]
Herb
Well, yeah, 90 something years of business.
- [127:41]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. And, you know, I just last Saturday spoke at a guy's funeral. Their family asked me to speak. He'd been with us for 54 years. And, you know, just. I didn't know him. I didn't work with him directly, but I knew his ethic, you know, and it's like his name was Roy. You didn't need to know Roy to know about Roy. You knew about Roy by the things that preceded Roy and those guys. The heroes that were built on. And we've got our own Roy's now. I've Got a guy. You've met him, I think Clayton has been with us for 54 years. He started working for us when I was in second grade. And so it's just, it's such a privilege to be able to. I mean, Tasha told me I had to write it, so I had to listen to her. But it's a privilege to be able to write the story and try to get it right and not over hermatize it, whatever.
- [128:41]
Herb
But I feel like it's appropriate for you to write it, which is pretty unique. I don't know any that have been written by one of the God, maybe. I mean, I'm sure there's.
- [128:51]
Ryan Hazen
Maybe. I was talking to a guy named David Brown, David Brown management. And I don't know him, never met him, but he posts a lot of great stuff on LinkedIn.
- [128:59]
Herb
I think I've seen his stuff.
- [129:00]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah. And I told him I was writing this book and he said, you know, let's do that, but incorporate lessons in that. Because he's doing strategic planning with a 50 year old company now that the second generation wrote a book and incorporated lessons in it. And now this new leadership team is coming in and, and they're reading the book and extracting the lessons and trying to apply them to today's world. And so I'm trying to be mindful about that. And some of them are cultural lessons, some of them are ethical lessons, some of them are business lessons. But trying to work all that in.
- [129:40]
Herb
Well, yeah, I'd love a copy.
- [129:42]
Ryan Hazen
We'll get it.
- [129:44]
Herb
Excellent.
- [129:44]
Ryan Hazen
About 18 months.
- [129:45]
Herb
Excellent. All right, well, thanks for coming.
- [129:49]
Ryan Hazen
Thank you. Always. Enjoy Nashville. I do want to say one thing. I mean, I gave you a sign and I think it ought to be in here, by the way. But.
- [129:57]
Herb
Yeah, it's on my desk though.
- [129:58]
Ryan Hazen
Yeah, Pioneer. And the reason I dug it off an old 50s pioneer jar crusher. And I said, someday I'm going to meet somebody that embodies this sign. And so I just wanted to, on this podcast, say what you're doing and what you've been doing for years. Forget you and I had a wrinkle or two here and we're over that. Right. Even through the. Whatever we disagreed on, it was my belief that what you're doing here in this industry is pioneering and the industry is going to be better for what you. Your vision has been and what Mildewood is doing out there. I really believe that. I just want to say that to.
- [130:45]
Herb
You so everybody can hear it. Pioneering is messy work, and that's why most people don't do it.
- [130:54]
Ryan Hazen
Well, I mean, you don't have your Lewis and Clark expedition team here.
- [131:00]
Herb
Yeah.
- [131:01]
Ryan Hazen
But it is messy work and I've done a little bit of it. Not to the level you're doing, but just recognizing that it is hard work, it is different. And you're going to be out on a plank, out on a limb, feeling like you're out on a limb by yourself. And I know you've been there. And sometimes you want to reach back and cut the limb off and just call it good. But just know that I think the industry, even if some don't recognize it now, the industry, I think the story will be told, the history will look back on what you and your team are doing in a way that will be forever grateful. I think society will be forever grateful that the attention was put on the workforce in ways that it never was.
- [131:49]
Herb
Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. I journal every day and I'm extremely grateful to be in the position I am. Could not be more grateful for it.
- [132:00]
Ryan Hazen
Well, it's like you couldn't design it. We're dragging this thing on now. But you couldn't design being where you are.
- [132:05]
Herb
No, no.
- [132:06]
Ryan Hazen
You couldn't have five years ago said, here's where I'm going to be. And I realize a lot of it's been like you're in a haunted house. What's jumping off the wall at me next?
- [132:15]
Herb
Yeah. You know, but yet you have to keep going forward. You have to keep walking through the doors. You don't know what's going to be behind them, but you just. You have to keep going forward. Yeah. No, I appreciate that.
- [132:30]
Ryan Hazen
I'm just glad it's a guy that was in his 20s doing it, because a guy in his 50s and 60s would have given up, would have run out of gas a long time ago.
- [132:37]
Herb
Well, there's a certain degree of ignorance that's required.
- [132:44]
Ryan Hazen
That's what I always say, that I wouldn't be where I am now, wherever that is, if. If I listen to people that said that can't be done.
- [132:52]
Herb
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a certain degree of ignorance, a certain degree of arrogance, a certain degree of circumstance. There's this unique formula that has to take place. A certain degree of stubbornness. Yeah. And it's been pretty cool.
- [133:14]
Ryan Hazen
Well, you can't make sausage without saving equipment, right?
- [133:17]
Herb
No. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
- [133:21]
Ryan Hazen
Very good and fun.