Alan Guy w/ Anvil Builders – DT 372

Summary

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Dirt Talk by BuildWitt: Episode DT 372

Guest: Alan Guy (Anvil Builders)
Host: Aaron Witt with co-host Chris
Date: September 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

This candid episode features a deep-dive conversation between Aaron Witt and Alan Guy (with frequent input from Chris), focusing on Anvil Builders’ leadership in fire disaster response and civil construction across California. Alan shares hard-won insights from nearly a decade of wildfire rebuild work — most recently, the massive fire cleanups in Los Angeles — and reflects on the logistics, human stories, management lessons, and shifting industry dynamics that define this challenging space. The episode closes with a look at the unique pressures of rebuilding after catastrophe, the evolution of Anvil’s business, and a frank assessment of California’s regulatory and insurance landscape.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. The Fundamentals of Civil Construction & Tracking Performance

• Production-Driven Mindset: Alan emphasizes that at its core, civil construction is about installing something at a production rate (yardage, linear feet, tonnage, etc.), and underscores the importance of constantly tracking labor versus production.
  • Quote [00:20 | Alan]: “If you really break civil construction down, it’s installing something at a production rate… there should be something tracked.”
• Building a Performance Culture: Alan points out that while experienced crews can often "just get it done", you can’t grow or improve without data and clear expectations — especially with a younger, purpose-driven workforce.
  • Quote [00:58 | Alan]: “If you don’t tell [employees] they’re doing good or bad, you’re never going to get more.”
• Communication & Competition: Setting clear goals spurs crews to innovate and improve and taps into natural competitiveness, akin to amateur sports.

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2. Anvil’s Path in Wildfire Disaster Response

• First Forays & Scaling Up
  • Anvil entered wildfire cleanup with the 2017 Santa Rosa/Tubs Fire and steadily grew to become the most experienced self-performing contractor in California for fire work.
  • Quote [04:12 | Alan]: “In less than 10 years, we started not knowing how to do it... California burns down more than anywhere else in the world, so we’ve probably done more of it than anybody.”
• How Fire Cleanups Work
  • Every job is “property by property”— crews meticulously clean each lot, sort debris (metal, concrete, ash), and coordinate recycled material.
  • Homeowners must authorize (Right of Entry forms); funding varies between FEMA, state, and county.
  • Quote [08:05 | Alan]: “You can't... take a bulldozer, pile up the whole neighborhood... liability reasons. You have to go onto one site, meet with homeowners, see what they want done, sort the metal...”
• The Human Factor:
  • Alan describes the emotional dimension — from praying with homeowners to the sense of purpose his team derives from being “second responders.”
    • Quote [16:31 | Alan]: “We are the first step in people starting their lives that just lost everything... The majority of the time the homeowners show up and are super thankful for our men and women.”
  • The fire cleanup experience is immediate, emotionally raw, and extremely visible compared to most infrastructure jobs.

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3. Inside the 2025 LA Fire Cleanup — Fastest in California History

Timeline & Scale

• Fires ignited January (Palisades & Altadena); Anvil started work by February 1st.
• Scale: 6,000+ structures lost, 80+ Anvil crews (5-6 people each), 500+ workers mobilized in weeks.
  • Quote [26:36 | Alan]: “Seven, 80-something crews… 500 or 600 people.”
• Logistics: 93 Cat 325 excavators, 2,000 dump trucks, numerous subcontracted resources; laydown yards and local partnerships arranged on the fly, work ran 24/7.
  • Quote [29:16 | Alan]: “We gathered. We had 93 325s down there at the peak. And we did a third of the work.”
• Property Focus: Each lot is a “mini jobsite”; from demolition to grading, every crew works independently.
  • Quote [32:59 | Alan]: “It’s crazy because…80 crews…that’s like 80 individual job sites going on a day.”

Processes & Unique Challenges

• Fastest start ever: three weeks from fire out to cleanup (normally 1–2 months).
• Detailed materials processing: Temporary sorting yard set up on a burned golf course for trees/concrete/metal.
• Mass logistics: around-the-clock fueling, equipment moves, and supply (even burrito-wrapping of dump loads with plastic).
• Intense public scrutiny: Anvil faced social media criticism for “not being local,” use of new machines, and for moving quickly.
• Memorable moment [14:06 | Alan]: “There was a billion-dollar job starting…the biggest job in the world... and it was us. It was kind of cool.”

Efficiency & Results

• 98% complete in Altadena within 4 months — a speed record.
  • Quote [37:02 | Alan]: “It’s the fastest. I mean, we’re 98% done in Altadena.”
  • Quote [38:03 | Aaron]: “The response was quite, quite good... I don’t think it really could have been better.”

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4. Industry, Government, and Social Dynamics

Government Partnerships & Project Management

• ECC as “prime”: Anvil and others executed, ECC held contracts with government bodies (Army Corps, CalRecycle, counties).
• Contract methodologies varied (“by the lot,” “by the ton,” etc.).
• Criticism of red-tape and permitting — but for this emergency, agencies aligned to enable remarkable speed.

Social Inequity & Media Focus

• Noted that higher-media-coverage neighborhoods (Palisades) got more attention, while working-class Altadena suffered more structural loss.
  • Quote [24:29 | Alan]: “Altadena is lower income... more working class people. There was a lot of focus... this is the priority.”
• The “celebrity factor” in disaster response and equitable recovery is discussed.

Handling Criticism

• Anvil faced accusations of “taking advantage” and bringing in out-of-area crews, which Alan viewed as both misunderstanding and resistance to outside help.
  • Quote [41:10 | Aaron]: “Even the new excavator thing, that was…people were harping on that. Must be making a lot of money with all those brand new machines.”
• Alan stresses that rapid mobilization and equipment acquisition are necessity, not profit opportunity.

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5. Building & Keeping a High-Performing, Connected Workforce

• Communication Systems: Layered management, clear accountability, and frequent meetings developed over seven years of disaster experience.
  • Quote [61:39 | Alan]: “It’s layers and layers of management all the way down and holding people accountable and setting up simple systems… This is what’s expected every day. If you don’t do it, you’re gone.”
• Recruitment & Motivation:
  • Attracting “hungry, top talent” requires challenging projects and a workplace with meaning.
  • Alan and Aaron critique the “entitled employer” mindset and advocate for creating standout environments for both talent and customers.
• Generational Divide: Old-school “no news is good news” attitude versus young workers’ demand for feedback and meaning.
  • Quote [60:23 | Alan]: “The old school construction guys… the only reason you knew you were doing a good job is if you weren’t getting yelled at. The younger generation is constant positive, atta boys.”

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6. Evolution into Tree & Utility Work

• Spurred by fire response (hazard trees), Anvil invested early in European mechanized forestry equipment (Senneboggen and Albach).
  • Quote [54:09 | Alan]: “There’s a lot of levers in those machines...part crane, part excavator.”
• Expanded from post-fire hazard removal into ongoing utility corridor maintenance (trimming and removal).
• Tree business alone now employs hundreds.
  • Quote [57:14 | Alan]: “We cut down 600 or touched 600 trees a day.”

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7. Wider Reflections: Regulation, Insurance, and Recovery Challenges

• Regulatory Friction: Building permit complexity and post-disaster restrictions are a chronic barrier to rebuilding both in California and places like Maui.
  • Quote [75:57 | Aaron]: “Well, and then there you had the logistics of the waste… And so now I think it’s happening as we speak… All hauled to the middle of Maui...”
  • Quote [73:04 | Alan]: “It’s gonna be very interesting to see what California does with building permits and rebuilding… hopefully this is like the peak…of over regulation.”
• Insurance Crisis: With huge disaster losses, home insurance firms are withdrawing from the state, leaving homeowners vulnerable.
  • Quote [77:40 | Alan]: “Oh, yeah. I think it’s going to be. I don’t know what’s going to happen with [insurance]. It’s bad.”
• Human Toll of Disaster: The sheer logistical and emotional challenge for victims trying to rebuild, replace documentation, return to work, and piece life together in unstable neighborhoods.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On “Second Responders”:
  • “We are the first step in people starting their lives that just lost everything... That’s a huge process. That’s a huge part of the grieving and recovering process is seeing your house, everything you own, taken out in dump trucks.” (16:31, Alan)
• On Massive Mobilization:
  • “We didn’t have a contract when we showed up. I didn’t have a yard… We had to get involved… That’s when we started mobilizing and moving and preparing.” (27:44, Alan)
• On Communication & Accountability:
  • “It’s layers and layers of management all the way down... This person manages this many people... If you don’t do it, you’re gone. You have to kind of manage it with an iron fist.” (61:39, Alan)
• On the Scale of Government Cooperation:
  • “A billion dollars in six months... In a normal scope, that’s a $10 billion, five-year job. The scale is insane.” (71:01, Alan)
• On the Future of Wildfires in California:
  • “Go figure. It just burns year-round… It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next five to ten years in terms of water forest management.” (45:04, Alan)
• Human Cost Revealed:
  • “You lose your license… this is gonna take a week for me to figure out how to get a new one. And think about losing all of that stuff.” (81:37, Alan)

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Major Timestamps

• [00:20–02:06] — Production tracking, motivation, workforce culture
• [04:06–10:46] — Anvil’s history, wildfire response approach, entry into firework
• [12:02–19:36] — 2025 LA fire: Operations, timeline, emotional context
• [24:11–29:44] — Media, logistics, mobilizing crews, emotional toll, competition
• [31:06–37:32] — Material handling, scale of work, government cooperation, billing
• [41:10–44:29] — Criticism, public perception, rapid expansion stress
• [50:02–57:24] — Growth into tree removal, specialized equipment, utility work
• [60:23–63:28] — Generational management, communication, civil lessons
• [73:04–80:36] — Permit & insurance challenges, the personal cost of disaster
• [81:37–82:56] — Realities of recovery, disaster center

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Tone & Style

The conversation has a deeply grounded, “in-the-trenches” tone — candid, technical, sometimes irreverent, and woven with dry humor and honesty. Alan, Aaron, and Chris share stories and insights with a blend of pragmatism, industry passion, and respect for the people caught in disaster’s wake.

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Closing Thought

Dirt Talk DT 372 pulls back the curtain on what it takes — logistically, emotionally, and structurally — to rebuild after catastrophe. It’s a must-listen for anyone curious about civil construction’s evolving demands, why process and communication matter, and the human side that so often gets overlooked in the headline coverage of disaster.

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For full episode, visit [BuildWitt's Dirt Talk podcast feed].

Transcript

[Alan]

I mean it's all. If you really break civil construction down, it's installing something at a production rate, whatever it is, digging pipe, concrete, you know, yardage, linear foot, ton.

[Aaron]

Cubic yard.

[Alan]

Cubic yard. Right. It's like, yeah, there's, it's a pie. But if you look at every single layer of it, there should be something tracked. And that's the bit. And I think that's where we spend a lot of time doing that and tracking our labor versus production. I think a lot of people don't do that because they're good. Sure, they got good guys, but you want to grow and you want to do all that. You gotta, you gotta know. And I think part of that too is like, especially with the younger generation, is communication. Like people want to know how they're doing. Like if you show up every day and you just put pipe in the ground, like, good job, go home. Good job, go home.

[Aaron]

You don't know if, uh huh.

[Alan]

You don't know if you were a good employee for the company that day and made the company money or lost.

[Aaron]

Money, which I would say is the majority of the industry's workforce.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

But you start telling people what you expect, you noticeably see an improvement.

[Aaron]

How do you do that though, across such an enormous space?

[Alan]

Don't get me. We're terrible at it some days too on some job sites. But it's like, hey, this is, you know, this pipe or this, we, we expect four guys to get 200ft a day and we have all different ways to track it and nerd out and stuff over it. But you start saying, hey Aaron, you're supposed to get 200ft today, tomorrow we're 300ft. You start thinking about on the way home, how can we do better? Right. The people that do the work know how to. They're the ones that know all the tips and trades of the. It's not me. Right. They're like, oh, what if we get this machine? We try this. That's a great idea. But if you don't tell them they're doing good or bad, you're never going to get more. And I think it's fulfilling too. It's like, hey guys, were you supposed to get 200ft today? You got 250. Great job. Oh, let's do this again tomorrow. Or you start getting competition going between crews. People want to win.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

I mean, look at amateur sports. There's no reward except beating your friend.

[Aaron]

Well, since I was in the neighborhood, I wanted to get you back on the podcast. I know we talked on the podcast. A long time ago.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

What year was that? I was gonna look 19, maybe 2020. I started in 2020, so. In Covid then.

[Aaron]

Yeah. You were one of my first. And I remember. I remember it because Richard was like, man, that's the longest I've heard Alan talk.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Yeah, it's probably true.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

People still find that I still.

[Aaron]

Still.

[Alan]

I'll get emails and people like, I listen to the podcast.

[Aaron]

Really?

[Alan]

People are digging deep to find.

[Aaron]

Wow.

[Alan]

It was a good one.

[Aaron]

I. I guess so. But it was remote.

[Alan]

We weren't in person.

[Aaron]

No, it was remote.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But since we were in the neighborhood and had a few hours.

[Chris]

Yeah, we.

[Aaron]

Because there's been a lot going on for you this year.

[Chris]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Alan]

Thanks for.

[Aaron]

Very busy year.

[Alan]

Thanks for coming by, I guess. Who's hosting the podcast, you or me right now? Since you're in my office, trade off.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, whatever you want. But when we talked 20. 20 was when you guys. No, paradise was in 21.

[Alan]

Paradise was 19.

[Aaron]

Oh, it was 19.

[Alan]

Paradise was done. When we talked 18, 19 was paradise. 19 was paradise.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Alan]

So we were done. End of 2020 was the start of the big CZU fire down in Monterey, Santa Cruz and all that stuff.

[Aaron]

Okay. Yeah, the first. What was the first fire you guys did?

[Alan]

The first fire we did was the Tubs fire in Santa rosa.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Alan]

In 2017 or 2018.

[Aaron]

So you haven't, like, it's. It's still kind of new, quote, unquote, like that line of work? Like, you're probably the most experienced contractor in the state of California doing it now.

[Alan]

Yeah, I think we've done more than. We've self performed more than any contractor now, I believe.

[Aaron]

Which is wild.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

If you think about it, in 10 years.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Less than 10 years, we started not knowing how to do it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And California burns down more than anywhere else in the world, so we've probably done more of it than anybody.

[Aaron]

What's the official narrative for why California is burning?

[Alan]

I don't know. I mean, I think there's all kinds of different paths you could go down on. Climate change, civilization, you know, forest management. I mean, there's a bunch of. Yeah, I don't know. I haven't really.

[Aaron]

Which you've gotten into now, too, which.

[Chris]

We can talk about.

[Alan]

Yeah, yeah, we've done a lot of that stuff. I think whatever's causing it, I think people are doing a good job in catching up into firefighting technology.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I think in the last couple years, I don't know how long it Was previous to that, planes weren't allowed to fly at night on fires. So they'd fly planes and helicopters all.

[Aaron]

Day long for safety reasons.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And then they'd send them home at night and the fire would keep growing. The last couple years, they changed a regulation in California. I don't know if it's just California, but that's what we focus on, where they can fly at night. And I think they do a lot better job in preparing and firefighting than they used to. Meaning in the old days, there'd usually be some sort of dividing line where a fire would end. You know, like a reservoir, a natural break or a highway. And if you've driven through Altadena, like they just straight stopped a fire from one side of a residential street to the next.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Which I think just shows how much better at responding to fires we are as a society and preparing for fires. I mean, I don't think, I don't know, 10 years, 15 years ago. I don't. I mean, if that fire would happen, then I think it would have.

[Aaron]

They can take in la.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I I Cal Fire is a remarkable agency.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

You've visited them before, right.

[Aaron]

They are so impressed. Every time I've been around those guys, I am just so impressed with what they do and, and the, the resources they have is compared to other state fire agencies. Like just black and white.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I think it's more of like an overall conditions thing, like management, infrastructure, etc. Like paradise was Paradise Power lines.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Alan]

Power lines. Cause a lot of them.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. Which was.

[Alan]

I'm probably gonna get killed for saying that.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But that, but that's true. It is what it is.

[Alan]

It is what it is. They've started a lot of the fires. It's not all of them. And they get, even if it's not their line, they get blamed for them. I mean, there's a fire in 2021 or 2022 up in Sonoma called the ZOG Fire. It wasn't their line, but because they were connected to it, they got part of the bill.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. It's paradise was the first, like real big one. You guys worked well.

[Alan]

Santa Rosa, that fire, we were new, we were small. We had 10 to 20 crews on that thing. Paradise was the first really big one that we were involved in.

[Aaron]

When you say 10 to 20 crews to somebody, that's pretty big. But these are really small crews.

[Alan]

Yeah, they're about. The average crew is five to six people. So four. Four laborers, one to two operators. And then depending on the distance of the dumps, that could be 10 dump trucks per crew.

[Aaron]

Sure. And the dump trucks are all a different.

[Alan]

Yeah, they're all. Yeah, we've had. We've had trucking companies, but we subcontract and all that stuff out.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And it's the fire cleanup. It's just. It's property by property.

[Chris]

Correct.

[Aaron]

So each crew, you go to where a house was.

[Alan]

Correct.

[Aaron]

Clean it up, and then you go.

[Alan]

To the next one.

[Aaron]

Then you go to the next one.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

You can't. You know, in a perfect world, and everyone that's never done this work before, they'll come in and try and convince the state or something like, oh, you know, we got scrapers. We're just gonna pile the whole neighborhood up.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Take a bulldozer.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

Why is it taking so long? Right.

[Chris]

And it's.

[Alan]

You can't. Insurance reasons, liability reasons. It's. You have to go onto one site, meet with the homeowners, see what they want done, see if it meets the spec, see if they want anything saved. And then you start slowly, meticulously, you sort the metal, you sort the concrete, you haul that out to be recycled, and then you take the soil and the ash, debris and haul that out. And then you have to get it signed off before we can go to the next one.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

And it all goes back to tracking for who's paying for it, whether it's your insurance company, the government, all that stuff. It's very. Every load is tracked. Every single load has an id Start of it, end of it.

[Aaron]

Really.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And the homeowner has to give you permission to do it in the first place, right?

[Alan]

Correct.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So the homeowner has to submit a form called an roe, which is a right of entry to enroll in the. I guess I'd call it the state program, sometimes the federal program to roll in the government program to clean up your lot.

[Aaron]

And sometimes it's state funded, sometimes it's government funded, sometimes it's.

[Alan]

So it's traditional. Yeah, yeah. It's gone. It's been different. Right. Whether it's. The feds pick up most of the bill. And there's a second part to the bill for that. The FEMA, the feds, funds 80 to 100% of the cleanup. And then it comes down to who manages and who administers the cleanup.

[Aaron]

Oh, I see.

[Alan]

So Santa Rosa, because it was such a big disaster, the Army Corps, the feds managed the first part of it. CalRecycle, the state of California has Cal OES, which is Cal. Offices Emergency Service they were tasked with cleanup. They've tasked Cal Recycle, who runs the dumps and all that stuff, to run it for the state of California. So sometimes the feds run it, sometimes the state runs it. And now they're in a method where they'd prefer the county to run it. So there's three different levels of who can run it, kind of depending on how big the disaster is. It's small enough. Hey, county, you go deal with it. We'll help you with any resources. Medium sized fire, depending what calorie cycle is available, they'll manage it. And like LA was just so big, the feds stepped in and ran that fire.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And so paradise was devastating because it was like the whole town.

[Alan]

Correct.

[Aaron]

That was just vaporized.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Because it was kind of based on geography and.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

There's basically one way in, one way out.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

There's terrible communications.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

And it just. I mean, it's a remote area in the Sierras. There's trees everywhere, there's tinder on the ground. I mean, it's like a matchbox. I mean it was. There was 88 people that terribly lost their lives in that fire. And it's.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, you've driven up there. It's incredible that there wasn't. It wasn't actually worse than that.

[Aaron]

Oh, it's wild.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

With how restricted the access is in and out of the. That town.

[Aaron]

Well, and what. That one was wild to see because, I mean, everything was gone, like just gone. Just, just, just done. I mean, they had built, by the time I was there, like a new Starbucks. So there was like just one new Starbucks.

[Alan]

There was nothing but nothing else.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Which was. And yeah. I feel like I saw you guys in neighborhoods and it's just. There's not there. There wasn't even one house that was like the holdout because some guy had the sprinklers on. It was just, Just done.

[Alan]

Yeah, it was completely. I mean, it was so hot. I mean that thing was moved. That fire was through there in a matter of hours.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

The whole thing was wiped out. So you.

[Aaron]

When I saw all of the stuff going down in January with la, I knew you were going to be involved in some way because like you said you'd been on all these. I mean, you'd done Malibu before, Santa Rosa, Paradise. You've done a reading. Reading a bunch of them.

[Alan]

Monterey, a bunch of. A bunch of other smaller ones all over the state.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so while there are a lot of other qualified contractors at this point, it was obvious you were going to be involved in some way, and you were involved in a very big way. Yeah, in this one.

[Alan]

Absolutely.

[Aaron]

And you focused. Did you do any of the Palisades or just Altadena?

[Alan]

We kicked off Palisades, so we did the first. We had the first house on the same day in Altadena and the first house over in Palisade. So the first house in Altadena, anvil equipment held the American flag, California flag, and the governor was there. And then we drove over to the Palisades and Mayor Bass was there with anvil equipment, holding the flag.

[Aaron]

Really?

[Alan]

We kicked it off. We cleaned those two houses, and then we did a school over in Palisades. And then we kind of just retreated and focused the majority, all of our resources basically, over in Altadena.

[Aaron]

So everything that was like, what, first two weeks of the year, all that went down.

[Alan]

The fire. The fire was like January 6th or 7th.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Right after New Year's. Maybe it was the 2nd or 3rd.

[Aaron]

It took them a while to.

[Alan]

The fire wasn't like officially out. Which out is a term that depends who controls and who pays for it and who controls access. Was the end of January, and we started February 1st, but the first property, we were down there starting middle of January.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And that's when I was out there.

[Alan]

You were probably February 1st.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

For the first school. You were there for the first school, which I think was February 1st. That was. That was the first swing. That was the first swing of the bucket.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

There was a Sunday.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it was a Sunday.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

No one was there, which was. Which was, to me, shocking. It was like. I mean, it was like the talk of the world. I remember I was in Australia when the fire was happening and, like, everybody in Australia was talking about it. It was a really big deal. Talk of the world. And we're there on this Sunday morning. You guys start. And I guess it's, you know, it's Sunday, so no one's even thinking about what's going on or from like a media standpoint. It's like we're the only guys there.

[Alan]

And it was so eerie.

[Aaron]

It was. It was. It was really odd because the official.

[Alan]

Groundbreaking for the residents is like two weeks later. And there was cameras and the governor and the mayor and all that stuff there. But yeah, it was like that was.

[Chris]

No.

[Alan]

There was an over a billion dollar job starting the biggest job in the world, or most probably most. Because, you know about. In Australia, I mean, everyone's talking about it.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

And it was us. It Was kind of cool.

[Aaron]

It was. Yeah, it was. Yeah. I feel like I wrote about it online after. It was kind of cool. Disasters are so weird because they're horrible. But then the work, like I've been now I've seen enough disaster work where it's like, it's. Some of this is like I have to find the right words for it, but it's like some of my favorite work to see. And I don't use favorite in like a positive way regarding why the work is there, but it's so, it's so compelling to see. Just everyday hard working people show up after something terrible happens. Like you have the firefighters come in, they get a lot of the credit. Then you've got military. You know, all these people deserve all this credit. But then they all leave and then it's just like this burning heap or this like disaster. Like a tornado throws everything everywhere. Floods just destroy everything. And then it's like you have to clean it up somehow.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So it's just some guys in Tyvek suits and machines just going to work on a Sunday.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like doing their jobs to get the neighborhood back on. Back, back on its feet. And that's like, that's what I feel like people don't see or the news doesn't really care about because it's not. There's nothing sexy about it. No, it's just guys doing work.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

I think I didn't, I did not put that into the right words.

[Alan]

No, no. I mean, I think it's a very, I think it's. People ask about it like, what is it like? And you know, it's sad work, but I think like, I think in Santa Rosa someone coined the term second responder, which I think is like a really. Someone made jackets. Actually, I have a jacket around here that says second responder. You know, tubs, fire. And I think you start thinking about that and it's like, it's 100% true. Because we are the first step in people starting their lives that just lost everything. You know, I mean, it's like. And that's a huge process. You know, it's like. And we've talked to hundreds, thousands of homeowners and they're. That's a huge, I mean, I think that's a huge part of the grieving and recovering process is seeing your house, everything you own, taken out in dump trucks.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

And I think like a lot of our guys. And I'll probably do it, they start tearing up because homeowners, you know, they've, they Said they've prayed with homeowners before. They've found stuff and it's just really, it's really rewarding. Cause it's almost like instant not gratification. But you see the, like, we go build a water treatment plant. No one knows that's us.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

No one, no one appreciates us building a sewage treatment plant.

[Aaron]

And you don't ever see the end user.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

The majority of the time the homeowners show up and they are super thankful for our, our men and women that do the work.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And they get to see that like that's, that's, that's like emotion and stuff, you know, I mean that's like real life.

[Chris]

You just.

[Alan]

Someone's so thankful for what you did. And they're the ones that lost everything.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

Which is weird. So it's cool. Our guys loves it. I'm tearing up thinking about it because we've been through so many of these of like. And there's most. These homeowners are so grateful. They'll bring our guys lunch. It's like, we should be buying you lunch. You know what I mean? Like, you know, they're just like, thank you for helping me and thank you for the process and all that stuff. So our guys love doing it. You get, you get to see people go through these processes. You get to help. I mean, think about it. You get to help a new family every two days.

[Aaron]

Yeah, that goes through and that. But that. It's so cool. It's so like even building a road, you don't really know who's using it well. You don't like flag the people down driving by, like. So tell us, like, how do you feel about this new road? Like, you don't. It is, it's not as human, whereas this is just so, so human.

[Alan]

It's just so, you know, it's just you are seeing these people at their. Hopefully, you know, the bottom, you know, like just trying to recover and get going. And they're part of the process. So they love it. Right. I mean, it's tough. They have some tough days. You know, they'll cry with homeowners. They pray with them. But it's cool to see. And they, the guys that thrive in this work really, really like it. But I think it's the, it's basically completing a new construction project every two days.

[Aaron]

It's very.

[Alan]

Think about the. If you're like a project oriented person, some of this big stuff. Five years later we have a groundbreaking, you know, a ribbon cutting for water treatment plant. Imagine if you, like did something every two days, you had, like, people appreciated what you did. Yeah, it's an interesting.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's almost. And it just looks so terrible when you start too. And then it's just this nice tidy graded lot when you finish. So it's just like even compelling visually because it just looks. It's so. This one was interesting for me. Paradise. I mean, we went. I feel like we visited in November and it happened in April. If my memory serves me correct.

[Alan]

I think you got that flip flopped.

[Aaron]

Flip flopped. Oh, we. Yes. It happened in November. We visited in April. I did flip flop that. But anyway, it was like enough time had passed where it wasn't fresh. I mean, there was still a lot to do, but stuff was getting cleaned up and it was getting back on its feet. Whereas we got to Altadena and it was. I mean, I remember driving down the streets, going to these schools and like every other house would have somebody with, I mean, sifting.

[Alan]

They're still in the sifting phase because they just gotten back in pretty.

[Aaron]

They just. They just gotten back in the area, just gotten open and. Yeah, it's just. You just. You haven't seen, you know, your house burned, but you haven't been back in three weeks or whatever it is, and you show up with a Tyvek suit respirator and something to sift through ashes to find something, if anything. But yeah, I think what people don't understand that haven't seen it is like this stuff burns so hot that it just. It's not like a. I don't. There's just. There's nothing there.

[Alan]

There's piles of metal.

[Aaron]

It's just metal. Yeah.

[Alan]

It's like asbestos metal.

[Aaron]

That's it.

[Chris]

And ash.

[Aaron]

The whole thing's vaporized.

[Alan]

Like car rims. There's no car rims of the car burns. You see a frame and you see a pot because rims are usually aluminum. It's just a puddle.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Of metal.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And, you know, some metal from your garage door and your appliances and it's just. And then it's just ash. It's. It's so hot when those things burn.

[Aaron]

Well, and that's where, when I see the rhetoric online, like, oh, they should. They should have just put it out. They just. If they had more water, they would have put it out. It's like, I don't think you understand how this works.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You could have had all the water in the state of California. If that thing's going to go, it's going to. It's just going to go.

[Alan]

Yeah, I think there's, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of people ask me, like, alan, what are you doing to prevent your house from burning down? I live in the East Bay and I'm technically in a wildland urban interface, which is California's new code for.

[Aaron]

For no homeowners.

[Chris]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

For. Yeah, for getting dropped. Yeah. Correct.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

So I'm in that policy now, which is funny that I got dropped from my policy and I have a house that's built to the new code, so they kept grandma's tinderbox next door and canceled the one that's built.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I love that.

[Alan]

That's up to the new coat. And I think going through all these lots and areas before, I, like you said, I don't think there's anything you can do. You know, there's all these systems out here. You can put sprinklers on your roof and suck from your pool and fireproof siding. And I think if it's a small fire. Yeah, it's gonna help. I think once it creates its own winds and start moving, I don't think there's, I don't think you're saving anything.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. And that's what's, that's what's so terrifying about it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

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[Alan]

Oh, 100%.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

All of it. And so you sent me, you know, the lay down yard for Altadena. And I was like. Because we got an Airbnb by the Palisades. And so I see, I see the pin. I'm like, yeah. Why are they all the way over here? I hadn't even. I hadn't even processed that there was a whole other part of the city that just was vaporized.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And it wasn't like a part of the neighborhood. It was like the whole thing.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, it was like I said, it was like coming off the hills and burned everything up to a point. And they stopped it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

You know, I mean, I don't know how many streets that was down, but I mean, there was more structures burned. I'm pretty positive there's more structures burned in Altadena than there was over in Pacific Palisades. But to your point, Pacific Palisades is where the movie stars live, where all the celebrities live. So that's where it's on pch. It's gorgeous. That's where all the. Where all the focus was.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. But that. And that was almost like the biggest shame in a way is like this whole area is getting all this energy and attention, whereas all these people over here just had their lives deleted, too.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And I would say the government and ourselves was very focused on. I don't know if you'd call it inequality.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

But it was very like, hey, Altadena is a lower income, not lower income, but lower income than Palisades.

[Aaron]

Compared to Palisades.

[Alan]

Compared to Palisades. Lower income. You know, more working class people. There was a lot of focus. Like, this is these. This is the priority.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

We. Yeah, this needs to be done first.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So that was like the first house, all that stuff. I mean, that's. The governor went there, not to Pacific Palisades. So you think there was definitely a lot of focus on internally and the government pushing that. Let's make sure we focus on Altadena and not forget about Altadena, which is what the news did.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was completely ignorant. And I showed up. I was like, this is horrible. I mean, we drove. We spent a day just driving around because you had all the schools that you were doing. So we were going to. I mean, it was what, eight schools?

[Alan]

Six to eight schools?

[Aaron]

Yeah, six to eight schools. Like, that's how much area burned. Like, you don't have schools just hanging out next to each other. Like, schools are pretty spaced out. Yeah, it was six to eight schools.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

In a small. I mean, the footprint, it's tiny.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

That's a tinier footprint than paradise.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. But it was thousands of structures and.

[Alan]

It like 6,000 or something.

[Aaron]

6,000. Yeah, but yeah, driving from. From one side to the other, it was just wild. But you guys, it was also really interesting how quickly you all got started on it.

[Alan]

Yeah, it was the fastest start to a disaster that we've been involved in in California in the last eight years.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean it was usually. It's two months from when the fire's out.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

A month and a half to two months. And we were weeks.

[Aaron]

I mean Maui was many months.

[Alan]

Yeah, we weren't over there, but.

[Aaron]

Yeah, you weren't.

[Alan]

You went over and did stuff. Yeah, it was many months to a long time.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So it's usually. It's usually a month or two. And this was three weeks.

[Aaron]

Three weeks to get going. And for even just you guys on the logistics side of things, like, what's the logistics like, because you. How many, how many crews did you have?

[Alan]

Seven, 80 something crews.

[Aaron]

And how many people is that?

[Alan]

Five or 600.

[Aaron]

And it's not like you have these five, 500 people hanging out at home just on call, like, oh, Alan called. We're going to work.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like you have to mobilize a very large.

[Chris]

Oh yeah.

[Aaron]

Even just people. But then each one of those crews needs excavators.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And pickups and like all of the materials and the fuel and everything required.

[Alan]

Yeah, it's a huge. It's a logistics job is what it comes down to.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So yeah, I mean that's a lot to get going down there. I mean, we've done a lot of this work, so we're pretty fortunate. We have a lot of people that work for us that know how to do the work.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

We've got a Rolodex of people that like to work for us that'll come work on these jobs. I mean they're the guys in the field like working on one. It's rewarding too. It's seven days a week, 11 hours a day.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

For the feds. They love, you know, it's good work for our field craft that we have a great following of field craft. But yeah, it's a huge logistics. And there's a lot of gambling on it too. Right. Cause we didn't have a contract when we showed up.

[Aaron]

Really.

[Alan]

I didn't have a yard. I mean I was.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

This is all part of Anvil's plan is we knew we had to get involved.

[Chris]

Right.

[Aaron]

Interesting.

[Alan]

We didn't Know we had to get involved, but we knew when these things hit, they hit hard. Meaning like all hands on deck, seven days a week, they want you to get going. So we, with our past experience and our reputation, we figured there'd be a very high probability we'd be involved. That's when we started, you know, mobilizing and moving and preparing and working in LA and getting ready for it.

[Aaron]

And you were basically living out of a hotel down there for a while.

[Alan]

Yeah, I've been on like 50 Southwest flights this year.

[Aaron]

Really?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Just flying back and forth.

[Chris]

Yeah. Wow.

[Alan]

It's only an hour, Right. I could be from my. If I timed it correctly and no hiccups at security, I could be door to door in like 3 hours and 10 minutes.

[Aaron]

Where do you fly into down there?

[Alan]

Burbank.

[Aaron]

Oh, Burbank.

[Chris]

Right, right.

[Alan]

So Oakland to Burbank.

[Aaron]

And then, so you started hiring guys and then you had to find, lay down yards.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And then you have to start gathering equipment.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And there's, you know, we're not the only, you know, we're not the prime. So we're not the only contractor. So I mean, we gathered. We had 93 25s down there at the peak. And we were, we did a third of the work. So you figure there's another couple hundred 325s.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

That were needed in the LA area. And you start talking dump trucks. You know, there's 2,000 dump trucks. Skid steers, probably on the road. Skid steers. I mean, crew trucks.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

I mean, we've got some pretty cool videos. We have like streets lined with crew trucks.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

We made them park. They'd be fueled and cleaned at night. There's two or three blocks of just perfectly parked, really white trucks.

[Aaron]

So they would just. You just park your truck and they're. Someone fuels and cleans them. You had a whole crew just doing that?

[Alan]

Yeah, we work 24 hours a day.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan]

Fuel. I mean, it has to go right. You're working 11 hours a day.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And you can't stop during the day.

[Aaron]

Seven days a week.

[Alan]

Seven days a week. Fuel at night, cleaning trucks at night, stocking at night, equipment moves at night. I mean, transports ran 24 hours a day.

[Aaron]

Oh, because. Yeah, because you're moving. I mean, if you're doing a lot, every other day you're moving machines non stop.

[Chris]

Yeah. Wow.

[Alan]

We, at the peak, we had, I would guess, 10 transports working down there.

[Aaron]

Just full, full time.

[Alan]

If you've been there, it's not big.

[Aaron]

No, it's not big at all.

[Alan]

Yeah, it's not big, but that just shows you the scale of stuff that was moving around.

[Aaron]

So it really is logistics.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And then all the dump trucks were hauling to local landfills, correct?

[Alan]

Yeah, all the local landfills took all the material. We actually took over a. The client and us took over the local golf course that burned down, and we turned that into a temporary sorting and staging yard.

[Aaron]

Really.

[Alan]

So we would take the trees, the concrete and the metal were hauled there and processed into a different product to be hauled out of there in higher capacity trucks.

[Aaron]

So you would chip the trees.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Crush the concrete.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Aaron]

And then just smash up and chop up the steel.

[Alan]

Because then you can, you know, as opposed to hauling a couple tons out of there, because it's not very dense, you're hauling 10 to 15 tons out of there to the end use facility. So it reduces risk, reduces trucks on the road. There's a lot of pushback from the neighbors about crushing concrete.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

But the government got through that.

[Aaron]

They did that in the Palisades, too. I saw some pretty cool videos. They set up on, like, a street.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I think they had two. There was a lot more concrete over there. Think about this. Because just the size house, right?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Over in Malibu and Pacific Palisades, there's a lot bigger houses, a lot of basements, a lot of cliffhangers. So they had way more concrete and steel over there. So they had. At one point, they had two temporary reduction facilities going over there. And then we had the one over in. Yeah, Altadena.

[Aaron]

They. It looked. I mean, it looked like a ton of concrete. They were crushing like a. Like a. It looked like a serious crushing operation.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, we were bringing in at the peak, there was. Between all the contractors and Altadena, there was 4, 000 tons of concrete coming in and out a day.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Aaron]

And so. And that is, I think, like, you basically. It's this hat. It's this heap of ash and just burned, twisted metal. And then the concrete is like, you know, some masonry block, fireplace. And then the slab is probably most of it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And the footings. So you. You. Yeah, you're. You're. You're not just fire cleanup. You're essentially demolition contractor.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Because the goal is to. To turn that over so that they can just build a new house there. Like.

[Chris]

Correct.

[Aaron]

There's nothing there and they can start building.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Aaron]

When. Whenever the chip clears and they have the ability to do so.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It's all sorted on site.

[Chris]

Right?

[Alan]

All the. Yeah, all the materials are sorted on site and sent out.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's so it's just such an interesting line of work.

[Chris]

It is.

[Alan]

I mean it's, it's, it's crazy because it's like, you know, 80 crews or whatever we had. I mean it's like that's like 80 individual job sites going on a day. It's not, it's not like what you go to these big dirt moving spreads where there's 500 guys on one site in the field. That's a whole different animal than 80 individual jobs going basically.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

In one day.

[Aaron]

And that I, I think people that are unfamiliar, they don't like, they see the scale. So you see the big numbers, but yet you don't really think about how it's. Well, it's, it's, it's all fragmented into these and, and, and the lot sizes aren't all that big.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Like what's an average lot? I mean like quarter acre probably maybe.

[Alan]

Not even that big.

[Aaron]

Not even that.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So like, you know, you have 5 to 10,000 square feet of work area.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

With each crew climbs 70 to 80.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Across like a few square miles.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Well, we had 70 to 80 and there was another 50 from other contractors. So there was 130 crews at any given time.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And it was, it was just, it was almost gridlocked. It was like traffic control to traffic control.

[Aaron]

Well, even. Yeah. Just getting trucks in and out.

[Alan]

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was, it was a lot of cruise. It was pretty dense.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And there was traffic control probably on every street corner in town.

[Alan]

Just about. Yeah, it was like one giant grid.

[Aaron]

I'm glad we were there when that wasn't going on because it's, I don't know. Yeah. Like you said, it was eerie to just be driving around this because you could just drive in.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like they had, they had the military set up in a few places.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I think that was all.

[Aaron]

But that was it. Like you could just drive around.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

It wasn't closed off at all.

[Chris]

Which.

[Alan]

Yeah, there was closed off. You get over in pch that was closed. Was closed for a long time.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Aaron]

It's open now though.

[Alan]

It's open now.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Did you do anything on pch?

[Alan]

We did a school and a house. That's it.

[Aaron]

And it was. There were a lot of contractors involved.

[Alan]

In this one over in pch.

[Aaron]

Yeah, just everywhere. Like even guys I was like, I didn't know they did firework. It's like they don't. But now they do.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, I think there was a big need for resources down there. Right. Because it was. The government wanted to go fast, so there was a lot of. Lot of new people were brought into the fire cleanup game.

[Aaron]

Was ECC over there as well, or was that different?

[Alan]

ECC held the prime in both.

[Aaron]

In both, yeah.

[Alan]

And they. I mean, they have done more than anybody.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

But they're. I mean, they do a very good job at their contract management and holding these contracts, right?

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Alan]

Do them all over the world. They know it. They're very good at managing. And they're very hooded hiring contractors like Anvil or other people that, you know, have the machines and people to actually do the work.

[Aaron]

So they're. Yeah. So they're the. For lack of a better term, construction manager.

[Alan]

Correct.

[Aaron]

They hold the contract with the federal government. In this case was the Corps.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Aaron]

That they're working for both courses.

[Chris]

Correct. Yes.

[Aaron]

And then they hire Anvil to perform the work.

[Alan]

Correct.

[Aaron]

And then Anvil, you have subs like trucks.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan]

Just trucks.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

That's all we sell about. Labor is all us and labor is all you guys. Yeah, labor and equipment's all us.

[Aaron]

Okay. And then is it. Is it. How do you bill a contract like that? Do you bill it by property?

[Alan]

Depends. It's just everyone's different, really.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Depends where you're working, how they want to set it up. So it's all. I mean, we've been paid just about every way, really. We've been paid by the ton before. We've been paid by the day before. We've been paid by the lot before. It's every. Every different way they can think of.

[Aaron]

So it varies by. And do you just submit a pay app every month? Yeah, Based on whatever the contract.

[Alan]

Whatever. Yeah, whatever their. However that contract works, however we're getting paid.

[Aaron]

That's crazy.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I think what was unique, too, about this one was the speed at which this was done.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

It's. How long?

[Alan]

It's the fastest. I mean, we're 98% done in Altadena.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And we were through, like, 90% of it in May, end of May, end of May, we started downsizing.

[Aaron]

So you started in February, February, March, April, May.

[Chris]

Four months.

[Aaron]

Four months, Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, it was incredible. I think it was a testament to seeing the federal government, California state government, municipalities, and everyone working together to get it done.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I. And so I'm. I think California is very deserving of a lot of the criticism it gets. I think it's very deserving. However, I think there Was a lot of criticism that was totally unfair, especially after the fact. Like I get before and I get it's happened and we need to look into not having this happen because this is terrible. No one wants this to happen ever. However, the response was quite, quite good.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like I don't think it really could have been better. Like the actual execution of how everything.

[Alan]

Oh yeah, I don't think you could have. There's no way you could have done that faster.

[Aaron]

No, I don't really think the current.

[Alan]

System, you know, there's a lot of big contractors that thought like what we talked about a minute ago come in there and thought they go, we're just going to bulldoze this whole thing and be done in a month. Right. Or we're going to use this kind of truck or we're going to crush concrete on site. And they're all. That's all. We have figured this out. Right. Between us and ECC and we. This is how you. This is how you have to do it.

[Aaron]

Well, you've done it thousands of times.

[Alan]

Yeah, yeah, we've tried. I mean, we've tried all these ideas. Let's try this. Hey, it didn't work. You go to the next one. Right. Like I said, we started trucking companies just to. Just to control a little more of our costs and paradise and all that. Yeah. It's incredible how fast it was done. I've never seen anything like it.

[Chris]

So.

[Alan]

And I think part of that was politics. I think because the feds were in charge, there's an administration change going on. There's some fighting between the governor and Trump and all that stuff. So I think some of that came into play. But it was a huge push to get it done. And it was done.

[Aaron]

Yeah. When you moved in there. So you were the first. I mean, you were the first contractor.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Driving around.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So you guys took some heat too.

[Alan]

Oh yeah, we took a lot of heat.

[Aaron]

And you personally took a lot of heat.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Which was wild.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

For just being there.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You show up to help and get the whole place cleaned up.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And you're for somehow you're taking advantage.

[Alan]

Of everybody of the government system, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, they took a lot of that stuff down.

[Aaron]

Uh huh.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It is one of those things. It's, you know, it's this like why. I guess it worked for that guy. Like he picked up some business. He was a home remodeler.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

He was a contractor.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

I mean he was cheating. He's probably in trouble with Some people right now.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

I mean, everything he was doing was not right. But yeah, it's funny. Yeah, it's just like there was a lot of heat over that.

[Aaron]

Well, even the weirdest comments I saw from all sorts of people, the weirdest.

[Alan]

Thing was like the. I didn't realize how divided people see NorCal vs SoCal. Remember, all the comments are like, they're not local. It's like we're from California. We've worked down here before.

[Aaron]

State of California, contractor's license.

[Alan]

Yeah, yeah, we've worked down here before. We've had an office down here. Like we have more experience than anybody. And it's true. I mean we just. Between us and the other contractors, we just crushed that job.

[Aaron]

Well, and isn't that in everybody's best interest to have the best qualified contractors doing the work?

[Alan]

You would think so. There's a lot of, you know, it's just like you bring a new excavator, there's a lot of hate. You know, there's all these. There's all these keyboard warriors out there that just don't like. And like, as you said, like, you knew we'd be involved because we have so much experience with it.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, you're my first call. But even, even the new excavator thing, that was people, people were harping on that. Oh man, must be making a lot of money with all those brand new machines. It's like I don't think you understand how the market works.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

If you go request 50 excavators, you're going to show up brand new.

[Alan]

That's how it works. Y. I mean there was, there was excavators being trucking in from neighboring states.

[Aaron]

Yes. Yeah.

[Chris]

Right.

[Aaron]

And it's just.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean that's how it is. And the government doesn't want someone with a broken excavator. No, you know, I mean that, you know, it's just like, oh, sorry, our excavator is broken. We're not a residential contractor. Like, excavator's broken, we're back in a week. It's like government's like, if your excavator is broken, we'll bring another crew in. Like, you're out of here. Yeah, I mean we have. We run spares because it's like something goes down, it's. No. And on a job that big, I mean anything happens. I mean there was. People put gas in excavators, you know, I mean there's anything you can think of when you're running that many man hours that many times. And it's like, yeah. So I remember I got a call from a client. They're like, hey, we heard one of your excavators down. We put someone put gas. And it's like, yeah, what are you gonna do? I was like, well, it's already swapped out. Like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, he's brought a new one in. We have 10 transports, so it's like done. Next excavator, right. Let's go. Like that's where they hire us. Right. It's like fast. And new equipment makes you go faster.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It's not breaking down now. I will tell you, the damage bills we've gotten from a lot of that new equipment is just disgusting.

[Aaron]

I bet. Was it all. Was it all. It was all rental, right? Most of it.

[Alan]

We bought some of it. I mean, we. We maintain a fleet to. Not to do. We don't. I don't think anyone needs a fleet of 90 325s. Maybe cue it across the country or the world or something like that.

[Chris]

But.

[Alan]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Rentals, RPOs. A lot of it was our gear. Not a lot of it, but a certain percent of it was our gear. So there's.

[Aaron]

But you sent a lot of it back.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

It's all truck. Truck back. Now we're down to seven crews.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Because you're not like, you're a contractor.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Your primary business is not firework.

[Chris]

No.

[Aaron]

You don't just hang out and the news. You look on the news, fire. And you're like sitting there next to your fireplace smoking your cigar. Like, oh, yes. More work. You build stuff.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

We're a heavy civil infrastructure contractor. And it just so happens like this is. You know, that's the guys. That's the. The heavy civil guys are the ones that have the experienced people and the equipment to do this work.

[Aaron]

Machines.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, it's. It's. It's just really fast and really complicated earthwork. So.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It's like. I mean, it is tr. It is a struggle to manage when something this big happens. When paradise happens, when Santa Cruz happened. Like, it strains the entire company.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

Because you gotta go pluck. Everyone feels it. Right. Whether we always say it's like we're all. The whole company has to step up to make it happen. Because you're plucking a PE off this superintendent off this site and send an HR down there and equipment's going down there. Right. So it stresses the whole. It takes a village, I guess, is what you say for us to get that kind of people down there that's needed to manage a job like that?

[Aaron]

Well, and. And while you're doing. While you're scaling up and hiring 500 people, you also have this whole backlog you're chewing through.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like you can't tell the city of San Francisco, hey, sorry, we'll be back in four months.

[Alan]

Yeah, yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. It's like, it strains the whole company because it's like you're pulling off every job you have.

[Chris]

Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Hey, what can we get away with on this job and still be successful? But it's going to hurt everybody a little bit. Everyone's gonna have to work a little longer and a little harder because we're pulling resources from basically everywhere we can to get people down there.

[Aaron]

This one, this one was wild too, because it wasn't during fire season. Like, you have a. What's your fire season typically? Like August to November.

[Alan]

Exactly. That's what it was. I mean, it's just. It's what it was just year round now with that.

[Aaron]

Yeah. This was beginning of January.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so no one's even expecting anything like this. Like, even. Even all the. I know the air assets down there. Everything was under maintenance.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

When you should put it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Right.

[Aaron]

We need to maintain our aircraft.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

And so they had to spool everything back up because. Yeah. Everything was down.

[Alan]

Go figure. Just burns year round. So it's like, it'll be interesting to see what happens in the next five to 10 years in terms of water forest management, you know, on the state and local level.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But the crazy thing. All right, so Northern California forest management, big deal. I think it can be a hundred times better. It needs to be. I think it's honestly irresponsible with some of the lack of forest management out here. But down south, it's not like there's this big forest sitting there.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

It's. It's not a forest. And everybody was like, oh, you know, it's the. Everybody became a fire expert over 100. Yeah. Yeah. So everybody. Everybody is a wildfire expert.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And everybody knows how, you know, fuel works and they need to maintain the forest. Like people. How many people saying they need to maintain the forest or rake the forest?

[Alan]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

It's like, guy, there's. Where's the forest? Show me the forest.

[Alan]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

It wasn't. There wasn't anything. It just came down from the hills and just burnt all the brush up.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And then just ran Right into the city.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And the city's flammable, so there you go.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It's winds and heat, you know, I mean, wind is. Oxygen creates fuel. And what's those things? I mean, those winds are like 100 miles an hour on those fires. It just whips through.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Whips through everything. So. Yeah, I don't. I don't know the answer. To prevent them.

[Aaron]

But that's the scary thing is, like, everybody's always like, well, do you just manage your forest better? And it's like, yeah, that's for part of the state. But this happened in an area without forests.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So what do you do?

[Alan]

I don't know.

[Aaron]

You're just the guy that helps clean it up.

[Chris]

Yeah, I know.

[Aaron]

Wow. Does the government pay pretty quick?

[Alan]

They do.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

The feds pay quickly. That's no retention.

[Aaron]

No retention, too.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Wow. But you probably. I mean, to start up out there, I can't even imagine how much cash you put out.

[Alan]

Oh, it was a lot. Yeah, it was a lot. It was. Yeah, it was. It was some stressful days around here in February.

[Aaron]

Yeah. What?

[Alan]

Yeah, you don't know how big it's gonna. You don't know how many crews we're gonna need. You gotta be ready.

[Aaron]

So you gotta be ready. I mean, speculative in a way. Like, you're kind of guessing.

[Alan]

You have to be ready because they just like, we need more crews. We need more crews. You're starting now. And it's like. I mean, the. It was. I mean, the federal government was, like, negotiating some of these contracts at night. I mean, they were working seven days a week, too. It was pretty incredible. So it was just.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It's like, all right. Yeah, we need 10 crews tomorrow. It's like, oh, okay. So you got everything. You got to be like five steps ahead of it. Right. It's pretty. It's pretty. It's crazy.

[Aaron]

There's nothing else like that in the entire industry.

[Chris]

No.

[Aaron]

Where you need 10 crews tomorrow for something.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Nothing like.

[Alan]

No, there's nothing.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It's just. It's go, go, go, go, go, Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I mean, you're. Yeah. You go from. I mean, you, You. You personally. You went from 0 to 100. Like, you're hanging out. It's New Year's.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You know, it's holiday season, and then the. The next week.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You're seven days a week in a different city.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Trying to figure out how this is even going to play out.

[Alan]

Yeah. We were all. I mean, there was a big, heavy construction thing In LA called the Beavers.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Which is a big infrastructure that was like 1-12-ish. And there was a lot of talk. Hey, should this, you know, there was a lot of controversy and that's. Oh, should it have 5,000 people, you know, in downtown LA and there's a controversy whether it was cancer or not. And you forget how big LA is because you go downtown la.

[Aaron]

No, you wouldn't.

[Alan]

You know, one. I mean, there's firefighters staying there, foreign firefighters at the hotel we were all at, but no one knew about it. And then after that it was just like. I think I flew home and came back the next day, you know, dropped off my tuxedo and came back. That is so was gone for a while.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

The Beavers things. Big deal.

[Alan]

It is, yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I don't think I'll ever be fancy enough for it.

[Alan]

Oh, you can go. You should go. It's a fun event.

[Aaron]

They'd be like, what the hell are you doing here?

[Alan]

He could be the speaker. Come on. They're looking for speakers. They're looking for speakers under the age of 70.

[Aaron]

I qualify.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

You might be the guy.

[Chris]

Right.

[Aaron]

I think that's why I'm getting all these speaking gigs is like, because I'm under the age of 70.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like I'm not good. I'm just like, oh, thank God we find somebody.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean there's been. I'm not going to comment on this speakers there.

[Aaron]

Well, it's, it's not, it's not them. It's. It's the state of the construction industry and any of any event in the industry, period.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

We need a little more young.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Life in it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So it's, it's winding down and now it's just back to business.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

We're like I said, down to seven crews. I got a bunch of unique stuff left.

[Aaron]

So we're so that's amazing.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Huh. So that's the firework. You also got into the tree stuff years ago. So with like, we talked about it, the power companies like PG and E got in hot water over Paradise.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Big hot water.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Very hot water.

[Chris]

Yep. Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so then not just PG and E, but any utility with power lines in the state of California and elsewhere started to have to ride. Widen their right aways.

[Alan]

Correct.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And maintain their right of ways in a totally different way.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Because they, like my understanding is they. What was the, what was, what was the original right away for a transmission line. It wasn't that wide, was it?

[Alan]

I don't think so. They've certainly widened the. It's more. I don't think it's the transmission right away because they were usually pretty tall. The transmission wires are usually pretty tall poles. So the trees aren't usually that tall. Maybe they are always smaller distribution stuff you think about like the city streets and all that stuff. Because the wires aren't, you know, they're probably 40, 50ft in the air maybe.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Alan]

And they're not insulated, which I didn't know a long time ago. Which is funny that you think about. Why aren't they insulated? Yeah, I mean it wasn't a problem 50 years ago. But you think. I don't. Maybe it reduces conductivity. Who knows? I'm sure there's a whole people that are figuring it out. It's like, why don't you just insulate the wires? It would help some of this stuff.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Or why wasn't it done originally? I mean how much more does it cost to insulate that wire when you're putting. You know.

[Aaron]

So I guess. So the reality is they're dealing with this old. A lot of old infrastructure.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Super old. And so they had. I know they had an idea where it was like if the wind was blowing at a certain speed, they just black out.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

They're turning off power a lot more. All the power companies are. Especially in California.

[Aaron]

Yeah. So they'll just do scheduled blackouts based on wind speed. Because it was.

[Alan]

It's like a heat index and wind speed and all that stuff.

[Aaron]

And heat index.

[Alan]

They turn it off like where their highest risk is. And they turn off. Okay, turn it off for a while. But then they have to get. There's a ton of takes a ton of planning. Because it's like you can't just go turn off a hospital.

[Aaron]

No, no. It's not like you flip. Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean the houses they don't care about. But there's a lot of critical infrastructure.

[Aaron]

That Hospital data centers. Yeah, but. But another line of defense is removing all the trees.

[Alan]

Correct.

[Aaron]

Hazard tree removal is it called.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Is that the technical term for it?

[Alan]

Hazard tree is what we call them when they're burnt down after a fire.

[Aaron]

Oh, that's right.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

They call those hazard trees.

[Aaron]

And you did that too.

[Alan]

That's how we got into the tree business was because they starting in paradise there were so many burnt down trees that were a public safety hazard. Just think about. There's a couple hundred thousand trees on lots and public right. Of ways that are burnt that could fall and kill you you know, trees are dangerous.

[Aaron]

It could kill you.

[Alan]

Yeah. So they. As part of this cleanup process, the state started putting in hazard trees as separate contracts. And we started looking at it then. And then they combined them with the fire cleanup contracts. There wasn't a whole lot of union shops that did hazard trees. And we also found a bunch of really fancy, cool equipment that can take them down faster and more efficient than by hand.

[Aaron]

You did find some fancy stuff.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And so that was kind of how we got into the. To the hazard tree world.

[Aaron]

How'd you find the fancy stuff?

[Alan]

You know, I don't know. I think someone. Maybe the Internet.

[Aaron]

Maybe the Internet.

[Alan]

Maybe the Internet or something.

[Aaron]

It's very European. I mean, it's made over European equipment.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan]

It's great stuff.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So we, we bought, you know, a fleet of those and that Santa Cruz fire.

[Aaron]

They were the cinneboggans.

[Alan]

Right. Sennebogains and the all backs.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So that was. And now everyone has them.

[Aaron]

Sure. Go figure.

[Alan]

And they're great machines. There's the biggest thing, safety. It's like you, you know, you can reach up and take down a tree and not put someone in that tree.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Why not?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

From a seat. So it's like they're super great. They're super efficient. And our. We were always competing with a lot of tree companies and the tree companies weren't operators. So our, our guys really excel with it because they're like, they're operators. And those. There's a lot of levers in those machines.

[Aaron]

I see.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

It's like part crane, part excavator.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Aren't they. Was it German or Swedish?

[Alan]

German. Yeah, they're German.

[Chris]

I don't.

[Aaron]

Every German machine you get into, you're like, what's going on?

[Alan]

Yeah, there's.

[Aaron]

There's a lot of buttons.

[Alan]

And the all back has a microwave in it so you don't have to get out for lunch.

[Aaron]

A microwave?

[Chris]

Yes.

[Aaron]

Yes. Yeah. That's fancy.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so you get into the tree business and now that's. You do a lot of that.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So then we got into the power line side of it. So trimming trees and taking down trees around power lines, which is a whole different animal. That's more tree trimming than removal, which is a lot of bucket truck work. And we use some of the senneboggans and all backs for that. But that's a. I mean, that's like. It's almost like a maintenance business because those trees grow every year.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

It's Pretty crazy that the amount of. The amount of work it takes to maintain the power lines in California to keep trees away from.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And I think that's probably. I mean, every state has trees. I think California maybe has stricter standards on it. I don't know.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But I also think people forget how big California is.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And how many damn people are here. Is it the most popular, populous state in the United States? I think, yeah.

[Alan]

It has the third biggest economy in the world.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

It's 40 million people. I mean, I think it's like. I don't know. I think our economy. It's either our economy or people. Is as big as like 20 other states.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Alan]

I mean, it's massive.

[Aaron]

It's giant.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah. But.

[Aaron]

But even just the expanse, like just how much it's. It's so big. Yeah, it's so big. And so even just maintaining everything is.

[Alan]

A lot of work.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

How many people in the tree business?

[Alan]

A couple hundred.

[Aaron]

So that's.

[Alan]

Yeah, it's a big business.

[Aaron]

But again, that's. It's crazy that you guys like 20. 20. You weren't in the tree business.

[Chris]

No. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Hadn't.

[Alan]

No, we hadn't got down a tree.

[Aaron]

And touched a tree.

[Chris]

Now you have a few hundred people.

[Aaron]

Cutting trees down every. Every day.

[Chris]

Every day. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like you're probably one of the biggest forestry contractors in the state.

[Alan]

You know, there's. We kind of figured out there's a couple different types of tree businesses. Right. There's like we were the hazard tree.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Companies, which is take down burnt trees. Trees. And then there's like loggers. We looked at some logging where you can't compete with loggers.

[Chris]

Yeah. Right.

[Alan]

I mean they're. They've been doing it multi generational. They're really good at it. The whole family works in the business. They maintain their equipment themselves. Right. A union guy can't compete in the logging world. And there's the municipal side or utility side, which is trimming for the power companies. And we're pretty small on that power side of the house, actually.

[Aaron]

I see.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

There's some. I mean there's nationwide companies.

[Aaron]

There's like.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

What's the one with the orange trucks?

[Alan]

Aspland.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

They're huge. I mean, they're doing it all over the country.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

So.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It's an interesting business.

[Aaron]

It's a very interesting. It's stuff you don't think about.

[Chris]

No.

[Aaron]

You don't think about it at all.

[Chris]

No. Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, it's just. It's crazy what it takes to. And that's a logistics business too. Think about it. We cut down 600 or touched 600 trees a day.

[Aaron]

600 trees a day.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Trim or cut down.

[Aaron]

And some of these, I mean, it's pretty remote. Some of these places.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

The hazard tree stuff. You're in the middle of nowhere.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So a lot of these, A lot of, A lot of them. Are you working away from home with a lot of this stuff?

[Alan]

Well, the tree, the tree. The utility business is. We're in Sonoma county. So it's one county, which is good. So it's just like maintaining and working that. But Sonoma is a huge county. Goes all the way from the coast to, you know, the wine region. So it's a big area. But yeah, that's. Luckily that's centralized. And then the rest of the tree business, whether hazard or thinning or whatever, it could be all over California depending on the job.

[Aaron]

It's. So I talk about you guys all time because it's such a. You just have such an odd business and then you'll be building like a water treatment plant over here.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Or, or like some of the stuff you do in San Francisco. Francisco's pretty, pretty high profile too.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like, what was it, the Presidio?

[Alan]

Yeah, we did the Presidio. Big inland marsh and stuff there.

[Aaron]

That was neat.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So we've done. I mean, we like our team to hire and maintain top talent. You got to have interesting projects. Right. You got to challenge them every day. So our guys don't like doing the same thing every day. So they like to, they like the challenging and unique infrastructure projects is what keeps people wanting to come. Come here.

[Aaron]

I think I. But I think that's a, that's a core point a lot of people miss is that if you want top people and very hungry, motivated people, you have to offer them a top notch product.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like it's, it's, it's, it's. It's just basic business. Like your people are your customers and it's no different. Like if you want great customers, you need to offer a great product.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

The company and your workforce. Same principle. Yeah, same principle. The best people, they want, they want tough stuff. They want to be challenged. They want to also work with more great people. They want a compelling mission. And that's. I think I get frustrated with employers because they're so entitled. So you have all these employers accusing this next generation of being entitled.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

While they're the ones. It's like you're you're entitled though.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You think you're entitled to the next generation.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

What have you done to deserve it?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Oh, you offer a paycheck. Cool.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I can get that in a lot of places right now. Like, it just doesn't. To me, it doesn't. It almost doesn't make sense, like to complain in a way about lacking a workforce. Like, well, that's my responsibility.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

There's a lot of people that aren't doing anything to build a workforce. Right. I think we could all do more. You've been talking about this for years.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

And I think, I think in terms of like the youngest generation and the older generation that's getting ready to go out, I couldn't think of two, like different generations. You know, I mean, they're like completely opposite where it's like the old school construction guys, like the only reason you knew you were doing a good job is if you weren't getting yelled at.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And the younger generation is constant positive. Atta boys.

[Aaron]

And purpose.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Why am I here?

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

You see a lot more of that. So it's a big divide. Like, I don't think you have that same age in a different industry. I don't think you have that old school mentality in a lot of different industries. So that gap, you have to work a lot on it. Right. It's a lot more communication, a lot of purpose and just, I mean, it is the workforce. You either accept it or you don't. Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

You're not going to succeed as a company if you don't figure out how to make your place a good place to work and want them to work here. And a lot of it's challenging them, like we said. Right. And working with other people that are, that are motivated, they want to be around that and a good product.

[Aaron]

You. I think a lot of the fire guys I've been around, they're all younger, it seems like from our team. Yeah. It seems like a lot of younger folks out there.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

How, how do you, how do you communicate with like 500 plus people that you've just hired in a 60 day window? Does that not keep you up at night, like to like, because they're, they're all wearing the company name.

[Alan]

Oh, it's scary.

[Aaron]

They all have an anvil vest on.

[Chris]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, yeah, it's, it's scary at night. Right. Just thinking about all the representatives of Anvil out there that weren't our key employees.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

They haven't been vetted 100% like we would on a normal civil job.

[Chris]

And.

[Alan]

And I think we have a very. The guys and girls that run these fires for us have a very regimented system that they've developed over the years. And it's just. It's layers and layers of management all the way down and holding people accountable and setting up simple systems. You know, it's like this person manages this many people. That level people gets managed by this many people. This. This is what's expected every day. If you don't do it, you're gone. You have to kind of manage it with an iron fist. And that's what they do because there's just. If you. If you don't, there's. It's too big of a workforce.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Out there.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And they do a great job communicating, and that's what they do. They have meetings a couple times a day with different levels of management, and they have done a great job. But we've also been developing this management system for these fires for sure, seven or eight years now. And we get a lot of those. A lot of those key people are on.

[Aaron]

I gotcha.

[Alan]

The fire. They're key anvil positions.

[Aaron]

That makes sense. Does some of the stuff you've learned on fires also apply to the civil side of the business?

[Alan]

Yeah, 100%. It's all. @ the end of the day, we manage people.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

And we set expectations and we manage them. And there's a lot of tracking that we do on the fire system. So we always are tracking and all that stuff gets better on our civil jobs. When all these people return from the fires, it's civil work. At the end of the day, it's just a big. Big scale.

[Aaron]

It's a big scale, but small projects.

[Alan]

Yeah, but you got to track each project. You know, every project has got to be. I mean, you have to have just. You have to have a USA dig ticket for every house.

[Aaron]

Really.

[Alan]

You have to sh. It has to get down. Has to be through. USA has to have all the markings on. Even though there's no utilities live in these neighborhoods, we have to cover ourselves under California code. We have to have a dig ticket for every property. And that dig ticket has to get all the way to the individual crew. So just think about that. Like trying to get thousands of tickets down to the guy managing each individual site. Site every day.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. Just dig tickets on one site's a nightmare.

[Chris]

Yeah, I've done that.

[Aaron]

Not even in California.

[Chris]

Yeah, I bet it's.

[Alan]

It's about the same, but still.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Think about it. Thousands of tickets.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And even in every truckloads tracked.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Aaron]

And everyone's in plastic. Even that alone.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You have guys that are just putting plastic over.

[Alan]

I mean, plastic was coming in by the trucklet, like semi truckload.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

I think it was like two trucks a week.

[Aaron]

Because you're basically just making like your. Your triaxle or tandem or whatever it is is just like a giant trash can.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And you're making a giant trash winer.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

They call. They used to call it burrito wrapping, but now they said you can't call it that anymore.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

It was like lying. It would stay. It said in the statement of work, like, trucks must be burrito wrapped. And now it's like trucks must be lined.

[Aaron]

Okay. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had to rework that.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

But. But even just that, I mean, you have tens of thousands of loads.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

That you have to wrap individually.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, I haven't. I don't even know what we spent on plastic on that job. I'm sure it's. Sure it's got two commas in it.

[Aaron]

And you must have been one of the biggest buyers of caution tape.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like caution tape and Tyvek suits.

[Alan]

Because I go through. I mean, Tyvek suits, they go. The guys go through four or five a day, respirators, caution tape, plastic. I mean, it was just. Just simple stuff. You get down to like water and ice.

[Aaron]

Water nice.

[Alan]

For seven, for 80 crews.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. Even distributing that.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It's a lot. Fuel. I mean, fuel at night. Right. I mean, people think about fuel, but ice, like, literally. I mean, 80 crews need water and ice every day.

[Aaron]

Yeah. It is interesting, though, how it probably would make you a much better civil contractor doing this kind of work.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

You break it down.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Become simple steps. Right.

[Aaron]

And you create a system.

[Alan]

You create a system.

[Aaron]

Like, I just. I think that's what's missing oftentimes in civil construction is there's this. There's this uniqueness bias that I think a lot of contractors have about their projects.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And how everyone is so different.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And it's like. Yes, that is true. However, they're not that different in the grand scheme of things. Like, you can still create a system and process.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

That can be adhered to 100. But a lot of times it's just like winging it. And I don't say that in a negative way. It's maybe like the old man of the business.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

He's just been. Just doing the seat of his pants. And it's worked out great for 40 years, but then it doesn't. It can't survive past him because there's no system and process for anybody else to pick up.

[Alan]

Yeah, I mean, it's all. If you really break civil construction down, it's installing something at a production rate, whatever it is, digging pipe, concrete, you know, yardage, linear foot, ton and cubic yard. Cubic yard. Right. It's. It's like, yeah, there's. It's a pie. But if you look at every single layer of it, there should be something tracked. And that's the bit. And I think that's where we spend a lot of time doing that and tracking our labor versus production. I think a lot of people don't do that because they're good. Sure, they got good guys, but you want to grow and you want to do all that, and you gotta. You gotta know. And I think part of that, too, is, like, especially the younger generation is communication. Like, people want to know how they're doing. Like, if you show up every day and you just put pipe in the ground, like, good job, go. Good job, go. You don't know if. You don't know if you were a good employee for the company that day and made the company money or lost.

[Aaron]

Money, which I would say is the majority of the industry's workforce.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

But you start telling people what you expect, you noticeably see an improvement.

[Aaron]

How do you do that, though, across such an enormous.

[Alan]

Don't get me. Worked terrible at it some days, too, on some job sites. But it's like, hey, this is, you know, this pipe or this. We expect four guys to get 200ft a day, and we have all different ways to track it and nerd out and stuff over it. But you start saying, hey, Aaron, you're supposed to get 200ft today. Tomorrow we're going to 300ft. And you start thinking about on the way home, how can we do better? Right. And the people that do the work know how to. They're the ones that know all the tips and trades of the. It's not me. Right. They're like, oh, what if we get this machine? We try this? You're like, that's a great idea. But if you don't tell them they're doing good or bad, you're never gonna get more. And I think it's fulfilling, too. It's like, hey, guys, were you supposed to get 200ft today? You got 250. Great job. Oh, let's do this again tomorrow. Or you start getting competition Going between crews. People want to win.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Alan]

I mean, look at amateur sports. There's no reward except beating your friend.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So you start getting, you know, you start getting some competition going on and that's how you. I mean, I think a lot of companies don't do that. I mean, you start going to any management training from like FMI or anything like that. And that's what they start. They preach. Right. You got to track, track what you're doing.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Thinking through the whole fire cleanup down there too. Big picture I don't like. There's a lot of criticism of projects that are not the United States. Not as good at building big projects anymore. I feel like. Yeah, a lot of stuff runs over.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Budget blows. Budget. I mean there's a project in the Central Valley right now that's just.

[Alan]

Oh yeah, it's all over the news.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it has.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I've been, I've been talking about it. It's like, yeah, that, that makes other blown budgets look pretty, pretty straightforward. But this, this was a good example. Even in the state of California as, I mean there's no more restrictive environment for the sake of building things than California.

[Alan]

Correct.

[Aaron]

And even in that environment, you were able to pull like the amount of work performed and just the scope of that, like you said, this billion dollar project in the course of four months. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's incredible. Yeah, it's like I feel, I don't, I don't feel like enough people are talking about it, but I don't think they totally understand what goes into it. And it's not talked about in general. Really.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But as far as civil construction and just construction work in general, like I don't think there's few, there's few more impressive projects recently in the past five years than something like that.

[Alan]

Well, just the amount like to your point, removing like government agencies working together, removing restrictions and wanting to get stuff done. The amount of stuff, the amount of.

[Aaron]

Work that can get done.

[Alan]

If you look at. Because there's not really any materials on these jobs. I mean there's dump fees and trucking, but let's just say the overall contract was a billion for ecc. Who knows what it was like that in a normal scope of work, like a billion dollars in six months is like, that's a ten billion dollar normal job.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Because you know, it's five years, you know.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

But just like think about it, like a billion dollars in six months. There's no job that does that. So that have to be like a 10 billion dollar job over 5 years to make that happen. Right. It's just, it's, it's the scale of it is just insane.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And yeah, the fact that all the entities were able to get together and remove all the red tape and work together. I mean, there was a lot of complaints from private contractors. Like, hey, why is the federal contractor is allowed to go so fast and we should be able to do this? It's kind of like, well, this is kind of what we voted for in California. And it's like, now they're here to help you can't complain. They're going fast, so get in the program.

[Aaron]

But even then, though, I do think that's a great point. I think if you want something done quickly, it can still happen quickly.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

If you're reasonable with it. But two, it wasn't it again though, it wasn't like you're starting from one side of the neighborhood with the line of bulldozers and just like, let's just blow and go. Like, let's just delete the whole place, start over.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You were still, you were still in pretty, pretty restrictive.

[Alan]

It'd be foul. It'd be a pretty funny like, picture to map out of like the crisscrossing of the cruise in Altadena. Oh, it looked like a four year old drew it. You know, I mean, it's like this way, this way, cross path.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, I'm sure you probably couldn't drive a longer route to every house there.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan]

In terms of just like when stuff became available, but it was so small it didn't matter. Right. So it's like, all right, what's it gonna take you, five more minutes to move the crew across town as opposed to one to the next?

[Aaron]

It's crazy to think about.

[Alan]

Yeah, it's wild.

[Aaron]

Wasn't that video cool that I sent you the other day?

[Alan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna be very interesting to see what California does with building permits and rebuilding to see if this might. I'm hoping this is like the peak or the bottom, depending on how you say it, of over regulation in California to get some stuff done.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I don't envy California at all. They've got a serious problem.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

I mean, it's going to be. And I think in terms of getting that reformed, like the people of Pacific Palisades have microphones at various levels across state and local and federal politics to hopefully, you know, try and get some streamlined permitting and all that stuff. I know the government's Passed a bunch of things.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Trying. We'll see. I don't. I haven't heard a whole. I haven't really followed about rebuilding yet. Hopefully it works.

[Aaron]

Are they rebuilding down there yet, do you know?

[Alan]

I'm sure there's a couple.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

That have started.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I went to. I was in Maui in February.

[Alan]

Okay. And how rebuilt is Maui?

[Aaron]

Not even close. I mean, it was. It was cleaned up.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Not even close. I mean, the whole city, like, the whole. Or not like city, but like the town of Lahaina. It's right on the. It's right in the ocean.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And they haven't been able to. Or I don't know where it's at now, but when I was there, I mean, it was. When did it happen? Last August or was it at least.

[Alan]

A year and a half ago?

[Aaron]

So is it. It's two years this August.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan]

Because it wouldn't have been. It took a year to clean up, so it would have been the 23rd of August.

[Chris]

So.

[Aaron]

Yeah. So two years. Almost two years.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Aaron]

They hadn't. They hadn't touched the whole town because there was this. Well, we can't rebuild that close to the ocean. There has to be a setback. But then if there's a setback, half the town's gone. It's like, well, so then what. What do you do?

[Alan]

Like, so they rebuilt any of that stuff on the ocean?

[Aaron]

They hadn't touched it when I was there.

[Alan]

When were you there?

[Aaron]

The whole area was closed off still.

[Alan]

When were you there?

[Aaron]

In February.

[Alan]

See, that's the.

[Aaron]

And then, and then I. I know people building houses, but they. With no building permits.

[Alan]

Really?

[Aaron]

Yeah, because they were just like, we can't get building permits. What are we supposed to do? Like, what. What do you want us to do?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so they. All the people were building without building permits.

[Chris]

I see that.

[Alan]

Which is crazy. That's unacceptable. From a.

[Aaron]

It's such a.

[Alan]

From a governance level of whatever level you want to say that's at. I mean, that's. Yeah, that's not acceptable.

[Aaron]

Well, and then. And then there you had the logistics of the waste. So they hauled everything to temporary. Yeah, but it's. But it's lined like it could be a permanent cell. Yeah, but they. No, it's a temporary cell.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So now I think it's happening as we speak.

[Alan]

It is. They're moving it right now.

[Aaron]

All hauled to the middle of Maui.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

The whole, the whole pile that they just hauled there is now being hauled all like Pretty far away.

[Alan]

Yeah, It's. It's wild.

[Aaron]

Wild.

[Alan]

That's wild. It's the government at work.

[Aaron]

It's the government at work. Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So it'll be interesting to see in Pacific Palisades with all that stuff on pch, what's gonna happen with those rebuilds if they're gonna allow it. Right. I mean, we have.

[Aaron]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the same problem.

[Alan]

I'm sure Hawaii has the same thing. There's California Coastal Commission, which is already starting to take a lot of heat from celebrities and all that stuff to see if that stuff gets rebuilt.

[Aaron]

Sure. Yeah. Because you were.

[Alan]

You couldn't build that stuff today.

[Aaron]

Yeah. You were grandfathered in.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

You couldn't build that stuff today with the environmental stuff. But should someone be able to rebuild their house? Yeah, probably.

[Aaron]

Probably.

[Alan]

I would think so. Same with Hawaii. Like, I mean, you can't take Lahaina off a setback in Lahaina.

[Aaron]

No. And these. These were businesses.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

That were there. It wasn't homes. It was. It was businesses. It was. It was. It was like the town. Like the core of the town.

[Alan]

Yeah, it's a great. It was a great little town. It will be at some point if you. They can.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Start rebuilding it.

[Aaron]

That's crazy. That's really crazy. And in California, too, the whole. I know we joked about earlier, but the whole homeowner's insurance thing.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Huge problem.

[Alan]

Oh, yeah. I think it's going to be. I don't know what's going to happen with it. It's bad. I mean, it's. I mean, the losses from LA are just astronomical.

[Chris]

Right.

[Aaron]

It'll be the biggest loss.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

It was the most expensive disaster ever, right?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Alan]

40 billion or 50 or. I don't even know. Or to 10. I don't know the number. It was. It was. I mean, it was something you can't even, like.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Just. No, no. I thought. I thought it was like hundreds of billions.

[Alan]

A hundred.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I thought it was, like, ridiculous.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

So I don't. I mean, I think they're trying to change some regulations on that stuff right now, but, I mean, if you're a home insurance company, I wouldn't blame you for pulling out of California. No, I mean, it's just like, you. But then you can't charge the correct rate.

[Aaron]

You can't charge the correct rate, but then you have people like, if you're financially fine, it's not that big of a deal, but if that's like, kind of all you got.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And Moving in California is not that easy. No, it's pretty expensive here.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So it's not like you can sell your house over here, go over here. I mean, you can sell here and go into like Sacramento area.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But now you're having to pick up your whole life to go elsewhere. And then you might not have insurance over there either.

[Alan]

Yeah, well, California makes it harder to move because of our property tax rate. It's set when you buy it. Oh, there's a bunch of. Boy, there's a bunch of. So basically it's set when you buy it. And there's like a max that can go up every year. So there's a ton of Californians, right or wrong. But don't think about it. If you're. You've had your house for 40 years. Say you paid 100 grand for it 40 years ago. It's now worth 2 million bucks. If you move and buy another $2 million house, your property tax basis is the 2 million bucks. I think they've changed it for older people and retired people where they can carry that tax basis over. But having a property tax based on your sale price restricts movement.

[Aaron]

It's also too. You don't really think about your house burns down. You know, you have to go through the whole cleanup process. So your whole life just. Is just gone. There's nothing like we talked about. It's not like there's like, oh, these documents are still here, thank goodness. Like your whole life is just gone. Yeah, Gone. And then you have to go through the cleanup process. And now you have a lot. But like, then what? Like now you have to try to go through the whole insurance thing. You have to go get building permits. Then even if, even if you go get a check from the insurance company. Yeah, Here you go. No problem.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Oh, yeah. Here's your building permit. You still have to build the house.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And then now you're in a neighborhood that's. Everything's under construction for year. For years.

[Alan]

Years.

[Aaron]

Like that's a long road.

[Alan]

Oh, it's. It's way too long. We toured the disaster response center in Altadena, March. I've never been in one of those. It's a center and all the state agencies and everyone man it seven days a week. So when you lose everything, you go in. I had never. It was eye opening. How many agencies are in there that you may. Agencies and companies that you may need to see if you've lost all your documents. You think like Social Security, water, power, sewer, homeowners, insurance companies, passport Social Security, driver's license, like banks, car insurance contractor, state license board, like county, community health. And there's. There's probably 30 agencies that were in that building that you literally have to go.

[Aaron]

Like, you gotta jump through hoops of each one.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

You. I mean, as you know, you lose one of those things, it ruins your week.

[Aaron]

Oh.

[Alan]

You lose your license. It's just. You're just mad at yourself because, you know, this is gonna take a week for me to figure out how to get a new one. Right. It's. And think about losing all of that stuff.

[Aaron]

Well. And you lose everything. And then, you know, this happens on Thursday, you have to go to work on Monday. Yeah, you can't just.

[Chris]

Yeah, it's.

[Aaron]

You can't just not work.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

It's just. And now your kids don't have a school, so now you're figuring it's just. Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

And I think, you know, I had some number of friends that lost their houses down there, talking like, we want. We want to get the building first. We want to get going. I'm like, I don't know if you want to be the first house back.

[Aaron]

Sure. Yeah.

[Chris]

Right.

[Alan]

It's like living on the moon, you know? I mean, like, your friends aren't there. You're living in a construction zone for three years. The schools may not even be open. But, I mean, it's. I would. I would say the same thing too. But you start thinking about it, it's like, I don't be interested to see how many people go back to those areas in la, because if you have kids and you have to move away for three or four years, you might not.

[Aaron]

Now you have a new life.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan]

You might not.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Alan]

Come back.

[Aaron]

Woof. Well, I need to pee, so we'll just wrap it up there. Thanks.

[Alan]

Thanks for having me.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Always good to see you.

[Alan]

And you as well. Keep on keeping on.