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- [00:00]
A
As you know, Ariat is the official Dirt Talk podcast sponsor. And at this point, we've talked plenty about their footwear, their workwear. But now it is winter, and boy, is it cold. It was 17 degrees this morning. I had to warm the truck up. But just because it's cold does not mean the work stops. So to get the job done, you need the best, warmest work wear possible. And Ariat has a long list of outerwear, amazing jackets, pants and other goods available now. You can shop at their website, ariat.com dirt talk that is ariat.com dirt talk still trying to figure out how to be a software company. That's been the trick. I mean, even up until like six months ago, we didn't really identify as a software company. But now that we've made that focus very clear, it's made everything a lot easier. Software company, everything else we're doing needs to reinforce that and further that if it doesn't, we can't afford to do it anymore.
- [01:21]
B
What makes you want to be a software company?
- [01:23]
A
The scalability of it. We can go impact so many more people. I think that's the cool thing about software is it's like, I think what you figured out and we'll talk about problems these companies have are not that unique in the grand scheme of things. You don't have to. Yes, every company is unique, but the basics are the basics. The core information is the core information. The core problems are the core problems. And so it allows you software to address some of those basics in a very effective manner. Instead of construction, companies need to train their people because there's a lot of people now, like, you grew up around it. I didn't. There's a lot of more people like me showing up on job sites now. 18, 20, 25, never been on a site in their life, don't know a single thing about anything happening there other than those are some trucks. Wow, cool. So they have to train on the basics now. And for the first time ever, really, I think, I don't think companies have really had to do this as much in the past because there's been more people like you that have been around it, more coming into the industry with that basic knowledge already there that everybody's taken for granted in a way. But it's silly to think that every company needs to go make their own training. Why, that's ridiculous. An excavator is an excavator. Pipe is pipe. You know, asphalt's asphalt. Yeah, it does vary. Paving in Phoenix, Arizona is different than Paving in Indianapolis. But the principle. The same core principles or. The same core principles. So software allows us to tackle that more basic training that the industry is lacking and be really effective and save everybody from having to do it themselves. Right.
- [03:21]
B
How do you deal with the people saying, well, it's. That may be how everybody else does it, but our stuff is special.
- [03:30]
A
Yeah. Which I understand. So they can add their own stuff.
- [03:35]
B
Okay.
- [03:35]
A
And we even have courses on how to make effective training content so that they can then watch that and add their own stuff to the platform. So we're not saying ours is gold standard. It's just like these companies will buy these. These learning management systems and they'll get sold on all the amazing features and, like, wow, cool. And, yeah, it does a hundred amazing things, but they need, like, three of those things. So one, the platforms just weighs way more than what they actually need. And then two, it can be the best platform in the world, but then they have no content. And to go produce all of the training content that they need, even a big company, let me tell you, it's millions of dollars. Millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars in years.
- [04:20]
B
So in pain and time.
- [04:22]
A
Yeah. How do I know? Because we've done it.
- [04:24]
B
We've done it. Exactly. And it's. It's a lot harder than it looks.
- [04:28]
A
It's a lot harder than it looks. So by all means, like, we're not saying we're the gold standard. We're not saying we have everything, but we're saying, hey, you probably have nothing right now, so let us get you started. And by all means, add as much as you want. Or if you do have this great training production team and you do have this great library of existing videos, awesome. That's even better. But most companies aren't even within a whisker of that, as you know.
- [04:59]
B
Right. Because, I mean, they just. They're so busy. Right.
- [05:03]
A
They're building stuff.
- [05:04]
B
There's a lot going on.
- [05:05]
A
It's not their core business.
- [05:06]
B
Yes.
- [05:07]
A
Yeah, yeah, they're building stuff, so they have a lot going on. Yeah.
- [05:12]
B
How do you. How do you prove the roi? Because I think a lot of people want to, you know, kind of work it back to, like, how do I. How do I. Like, this is a great idea. I love what you guys are doing. Like, you're obviously uplifting the industry and doing the work that needs to be done, like, for our. Our industry as a whole. But how do I know that this is, like, a good investment for me?
- [05:34]
A
We're, instead of Approaching it from like a. Yeah, because I think that's why the industry hasn't trained or I think training does get swept under the rug because it's squishy. It's hard to understand and to monetize and like to understand from a dollar standpoint. And that's what everything goes back to, dollars and cents. Which again, the world you live in is dollars and cents. Gotta make sense. Gotta make sense. Well, we're positioning it now from more of a safety standpoint because safety is built upon behavior, is built upon training. So without training, you don't have safety. And these companies have metrics tied to safety, budgets tied to safety, infrastructure tied to safety. That probably doesn't exist for training at most companies. And training is safety. So we can, instead of saying you're going to make your people more productive, which they are, we can say, you know, for the cost of this for one year, what's one lost time incident cost you more than the cost of this product for a year? Probably. So if we can avoid even just one incident through training, or if you don't even have an incident but find your crew not working with trench protection, for example, then you can have a resource that can train them right away on trench protection. So you're correcting things as they come up rather than having to, okay, we need a trench safety course, but then we've got to take everybody out of the field for eight hours and they can't schedule it until next month. And that doesn't really work for our schedule. You know, it just.
- [07:21]
B
But it's gotta be on a rain day.
- [07:22]
A
It has to be on a rain day. Exactly, exactly, exactly. And it typically doesn't happen, which I understand, or even like equipment damage, you know, what's. You back a loader into something. What's that cost? Probably five figures. I mean, like, it adds up pretty quickly. And so that's the attack vector that we're on now is this is. This is definitely about leadership. This is about making your people better overall, which will reduce turnover, which will make your people more effective, which will make your projects more profitable. Yeah. Which will attract more people to your business. But that's, we understand, hard to quantify. So let's just start with. This will help you help your people be safer and help you reduce rework, help you reduce equipment damage. Yeah.
- [08:21]
B
I think also what your point earlier about, like, who's the next generation of leaders? Like, how do I figure out, out of this, this group of young people, where's, where's the. Where's the next, like, superstar foreman.
- [08:34]
A
Yeah.
- [08:35]
B
Or superintendent.
- [08:37]
A
Yeah. And how are we fostering that? Yeah.
- [08:40]
B
How do we know which one out of the, you know, out of the crowd, and then being able to, like, really measure that and say, okay, this person's taken the initiative and gone out of their way to actually, like, educate themselves on what we do well and.
- [08:58]
A
Identify the initiative, but then equipped them with the skills that a leader, that a crew leader needs, that a superintendent leads, project manager needs. They cool. They can build stuff, they can put pipe in the ground really, really, really well. But being a crew leader of a pipe crew, that's a. That's. It's not wholly dependent on your ability to put pipe in the ground. It's now dependent partially on your knowledge of putting pipe in the ground. But you're not the one putting the piping ground anymore. You're the one communicating between your crew, between the other contractors on site, between other leadership within the company, you know, between the equipment department, whatever it is. You're. You're. Now, you need all these different skills that no one's ever provided you before. And when you don't have them, it's very apparent. But, like, if I was moving through the industry, I wouldn't be getting that from my employer. I'd be having to read books, listen to podcasts. I'd have to be developing myself as a leader, which is fine, but we can't go. Just assume the whole next generation of leadership in the industry is going to go develop themselves. It's not going to work.
- [10:16]
B
Yeah. I worked with a great paving superintendent. His name was Jimmy Fulton. He grew up and basically came out of the New Orleans projects and came to work for the company that I was working for at the time. And he started out on the ground, you know, as a. On a. On a paving crew, and had worked his way all the way up to superintendent. And I remember he picked me up at the. I was working in the summertime, and he picked me up at the flagging station, and he was like, just basically giving me, like, Jimmy's kind of management, you know, 1, 101 and. And he said, you gotta be with these, with, with these people out here. You got to be a boss, you got to be. You got to be a friend, you got to be a mentor, you got to be a teacher. You may have to be an accountant, a lawyer, and even a psychiatrist.
- [11:15]
A
Sure.
- [11:15]
B
Because they're going to really rely on you or, you know, for that support when they, you know, when they have issues. And it could be Stuff that's related to what's going on here on this job site. It could be stuff that has nothing to do with what we're doing. That always kind of stuck with me.
- [11:34]
A
Yeah. And I think the great leaders, they want that and they understand that that's, like the core part of their job. Like, the getting the job done is actually secondary because if you do all of those things for your people, the people are the ones doing the job. You're probably not the one actually doing the job. And then the job gets done, which it's. That's. That's way easier said than done, so.
- [12:04]
B
True.
- [12:04]
A
Way easier said than done. But I feel like the best leaders really understand that and lean into that. Like a Dan Garcia, for example. Yep. Have you. Have you been to job sites with him?
- [12:13]
B
Yeah.
- [12:14]
A
You spent plenty of time with him out in the field.
- [12:15]
B
We haven't actually visited. We haven't visited a job site together. Really?
- [12:19]
A
I don't know.
- [12:19]
B
What's it. What's it like?
- [12:20]
A
It's awesome. Like you. It's exactly as you would think it would be. Knowing him. Just picture what he'd be like on job sites. That's exactly it. He's shaking everybody's hand. He's talking English over here, talking Spanish over here.
- [12:35]
B
That's gotta help. That's gotta help.
- [12:36]
A
Giving people his cell phone number. Not the superintendent. Like the guy with a asphalt rake or whatever it is. It's really, really cool. He's just. He's just one of the people that works there. You wouldn't. You just, like, if I was out on a project and he came out there and he was walking around, I wouldn't think, oh, that's. That's the guy that leads the entire company.
- [12:59]
B
That's the boss.
- [13:00]
A
I wouldn't know because it's just. It's so natural for him, which is pretty cool.
- [13:05]
B
Yeah, there was some. So the guy. Guy named Ross Myers, who ran the company that I worked for, Alan Myers, when I got out of college, he had these great rules for, like, when you go to visit job sites. Like, what are the things that you do to make sure that you actually, like, deeply connect with people? And his biggest thing was, like, that thing in your pocket that you used to communicate. Leave that in your. Do not bring that out of the.
- [13:36]
A
Truck.
- [13:39]
B
And be where your feet are. And, like, take the time to actually get to know people. Find out what are they into. They, like, I don't know, nascar, football, basketball, who's their team? You know, find out about their family and don't be looking on your damn phone all the time.
- [13:59]
A
Yeah.
- [14:00]
B
And that. That was a great lesson for me, believing it in.
- [14:06]
A
That's. That's, That's a big deal because it's like, I've done this to people and then I've had it done to me a hundred times over. But you're talking to somebody, their phone rings and, hey, I've got to take this. And then they go take it. Which I understand. Like, I don't take it personally, but in, like, unconsciously, that says, hey, you're not as important as whatever this is.
- [14:26]
B
It's exactly what it says.
- [14:27]
A
Yeah.
- [14:28]
B
And intentions don't matter.
- [14:29]
A
No, no. Yeah. Intentions don't matter. It could be your. Your why, like, or, you know, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [14:37]
B
I just.
- [14:38]
A
That's a great. Just leave it in the truck, huh?
- [14:41]
B
Just leave it in the truck, man.
- [14:42]
A
Yeah.
- [14:42]
B
And have established those. Establish those connections, you know, real people.
- [14:48]
A
I was. I was off, quote, unquote, last week, still kind of working every day, but took some time off and it was great just to. Just to leave my phone at home and just to forget about it. That's the only way. I was talking to Randy about this. He's like, yeah, the only way I can actually properly not think about it is I just have to leave it. Like, I can't turn it off, keep my pocket or whatever. But I just left it at home a few times. It's. It's awesome. It's so nice. So nice. Right. I need to do it more. But it's. It's also hard. And I think a lot of people can relate to this too, because it's. It is the business in a lot of ways as well. Like, it is a key tool for the work I do and the life I live, so to say. Like. Oh, you know, you just need these boundaries. Like. Well, it doesn't. It's not that simple either.
- [15:37]
B
No. At least it's not for me. So how. How do you. You said you almost working every day. How do you. What's your. What's your. What's your typical kind of schedule these days?
- [15:47]
A
Well, last. Last week I was on a very different time zone. I was in Australia. So the nice thing is you wake up real early and the work day is like half over back home at that point. So you've got a bunch of stuff to catch up on and to digest. Like, all right, so what's going on? Like, Slack, like, where companies, you know, messaging, that kind of thing. What messages do I have? What text Messages do I have? What emails do I have? What's going on social media? Because that's. I post every day. Kind of just take it. Take a.
- [16:17]
B
You taught. You taught me, man. It was almost exactly a year ago.
- [16:20]
A
You've been really.
- [16:21]
B
Yep.
- [16:22]
A
Was it?
- [16:22]
B
It was. I think it was, yeah. Like 366 days ago.
- [16:27]
A
How. How has that. How has that changed things for you?
- [16:33]
B
Um, one, I didn't want to do it. Cause we were having. We were having dinner with a few people at my house, and we were. We were asking you, like, tell us about, you know, your. Your social media presence and kind of like your brand and your company. And I think you asked us all to maybe guess how many people you reached a month. I don't know. I think I said 200,000 and you said 30 million. I was like, that's crazy. That's absolutely insane. Because I remember how I heard about you was from Instagram, because my brother and I are both, like, really interested in construction. And he's like, this was probably when I was still living in New Orleans. He was like, oh, man, you got to look at this guy. This guy Aaron, man. He's got. Aaron Witt. He's got all these taking pictures of job sites. He's into the same shit that we're into. I was like. So I kind of started following then. But you said. I asked, how did you do it? And you said, I just started posting once a day every day. And I was like, well, I don't know, man. I mean, that's a lot, like, every day. I don't know if I have. I don't know if I have that much to say. I don't know if I'm qualified.
- [17:56]
A
To.
- [17:56]
B
Put something out there every day. So that's fear, right? That's kind of that worrying about what other people are going to think. But I think you said, you'll find your voice and you'll figure it out. And I think that's kind of. That's been the case, you know, for me, obviously. I mean, half the time I wake up, I'm like, I don't want to do it, but I just kind of, like, figure out some type of message to get out there. And it's helped me tremendously. I think it's also, like, helped me become a better writer, too. So I do a weekly newsletter where I put out, you know, like, we do highlights of customers and things like that, but I also, like, just put out content, like how to become a better estimator or how you know, important it is to visit job sites and what to do when you show up on a job site. Like stuff that would be useful for people who are, you know, own and run and manage construction, you know, projects. And it's been really great. It's also been really great from like a recruitment standpoint for employees as well. People like that's one of the first things they'll say is, oh yeah, so I saw this like post that you did, you know, about this particular thing. Whether it has anything to do with work or not, it doesn't really matter.
- [19:12]
A
Yep.
- [19:14]
B
And then we've also had a ton of prospective clients just reach out to us. And one of the first questions I always like to ask when we get any inbound because hadn't always got inbound, you know, usually it was a lot.
- [19:27]
A
Of we've taken that for granted.
- [19:29]
B
Yeah. Kind of banging on the door, you know, that's one of the things we hear a lot is, yeah. It's from, you know, some of the stuff that was written on social media.
- [19:39]
A
Nice.
- [19:39]
B
So and then I think other also I've had clients who have said, who have kind of said, I'm going to start trying this too. You know, like I went to your alls. You guys had like a little online thing, you know, a few weeks ago where you talked about being in construction and the importance of like posting and putting stuff out there. Like that's what a lot of people are looking at when they're trying to figure out where they're going to go work.
- [20:05]
A
Yeah. It's like mine expose a few weeks ago and the conversation that is everywhere is like, man, you know, this industry is so cool but just people just don't know about it or we just have this bad, you know, perception this and that. And it's like everybody is waiting for the like the industry branding fairy to just come down. Just yeah. Wave the wand like your guys problem is solved finally. Like everybody's waiting and it's like, hey, we've all got to do this in some way. It doesn't need to be on social media. Maybe it's just talking to your family about it regularly or talking to the people in your world or how could I go into a school twice a year? Or whatever it is, I don't know what it is. But until everybody's telling some kind of story and talking about this world and what it does for greater society, it's not going to change. So that's why it's not even like that's why I'm So passionate about it. And I don't even approach it as like, for you, it is a sales tool and it does grow your business, which is, which is great. I don't. Your business is helping companies be more effective and efficient. So there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, but you're doing it like, in a genuine sense. You're trying to help people out. And I think if everybody was trying to just help out and provide value, we'd make a massive. It wouldn't take very long to totally shift the perception of the public perception of the construction industry. It really wouldn't take very long. It's going to take very long because people aren't doing it. So realistically, it will take a while. But if everybody said, you know, I'm going to tell the industry story for the next year. If everybody said that. Everybody did that.
- [22:00]
B
Come on. Better off.
- [22:03]
A
Substantially better off. Yeah.
- [22:05]
B
Yeah.
- [22:06]
A
So it's been exciting for me to see you do it and I've tried. Every time I see post, I try to like it.
- [22:10]
B
I appreciate it, man. I mean, you, you, you're following slightly larger than mine to, to, to. To put it mildly. So, yeah, appreciate the, Appreciate the reach. And then I think, yeah, the other thing too, is it, it. It doesn't all have to be like, related to the business necessarily. You know, it can be about. It can be about other things.
- [22:30]
A
Yeah, well, those are the, those. That's the stuff that typically does the best.
- [22:34]
B
It's the weirdest thing. I know. I know. It's so odd that you would think that it would be this and then it ends up being something like completely different.
- [22:44]
A
Well, people, they go into the LinkedIn box and they're like, oh, it's a professional platform. I think that's one of the worst things that's happened to LinkedIn. It's labeled as a professional platform because then I can only talk about professional things. But it's like to me, that makes no sense at all. No sense at all. Like, why would you just talk about work? There's a lot of life happening to you outside of work and it's not. You don't have your professional life, you don't have your personal life. I don't think anybody is completely separated. I think that's the most ridiculous notion and I think that's poisoned a lot of people in a lot of ways to try to create that notion. That is your work life balance. Work life balance. Work life balance. Work life balance. Like, it's like two. Your life is binary.
- [23:30]
B
For me, I get One life. Like, I don't have a work life and a personal life and like a family life. Like, it's just it all, all this stuff, kind of, at least for me personally, it just, it all blends in together. So I don't. I.
- [23:43]
A
But I'd argue that's the case for everybody. Like, there isn't. There is not work in life. It's just life. And you've got to work in life. And some people work more than others, and some people do different jobs than others. Like, if I'm a garbage guy, I have to go to work, get in the truck to do my job. So when I go home, I'm not necessarily taking my work with me because I can't do my work at home. But I'm probably thinking about tomorrow. I'm probably structured. My whole life revolves around my schedule. Like when I see my kids, for example, revolves around when I'm at work. Like, it's still. Even if I'm not taking it home, doing it at home, it still has a dramatic influence on my overall life, which is fine. But it's. Yeah, like I said, it's been in what you said with hiring, too. I ask everybody that comes into the business new. I talk when I talk with them. How'd you find out about us? 9 out of 10 times, saw you guys on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn. And a lot of times it'll be a job posting that we'll put on LinkedIn, but then they'll. They'll click on the company and then they'll start looking at the company and start looking at. What do you do? You go to the company and then it says people that work there. It shows the leaders first, the executives. And of course, if I'm going to go work for company, I'm going to start chief Executive officer. I'm probably going to go there first if there's. And then who are the other related. Oh, you know, President Dan Briscoe. Oh, CEO Jason Richmond or CFO Randy Blunt. You know, I'm going to go through. And I'm going to be looking at what the heck they're talking about posting because I'm going to. So who are these guys? What do they believe in? Why. Why do they. Why do they do what they do? And it's going to tell me a hundred times more than I could probably gather from their website in the grand scheme of things. And. And then, like a lot of people have referenced my post on LinkedIn when they're coming in to Me. Or they'll tell me about me. I've never met them, never talked to them before, but they'll say that's part of the reason why they're. They're working here is because it's like, well, you're a human being. That's all you have to do to separate yourself is you just have to be a human being on the Internet. Which is to me, again, just, it's, it's wild.
- [26:05]
B
Well, you get you. You guys have done a great job. I mean, your team is all, is all very active. I'm kind of curious cause I've got a couple guys who I think have a lot to say on my team that aren't as active.
- [26:19]
A
Yeah.
- [26:20]
B
How do you guys kind of handle that internally?
- [26:25]
A
First, lead by example, which is what you're doing now. Two, I've really. And you have to say it over and over and over again, like anything else, I've tried to reinforce the why it makes them better. Like, I'm not saying post on LinkedIn so that we can maximize our profit, you know, really, really please our shareholders for this quarter. Like, it's not about that. It's, hey, you are going to become. There's probably nothing you can do that will make you a better communicator faster than this. And there's probably nothing you can do that will impact others faster than, than this. And it helps the overall team and the overall business, which helps you. Like it's, it's in first and foremost in their best interest. And I tell them too, your brand, the bigger your brand, the more valuable you are to build with. But then if you go elsewhere, for whatever reason, you're just more valuable in the marketplace. It just makes you. I want you to be more valuable. I want you to stay here. But I don't, I don't want you to. I don't want to like, try to restrict your value to keep you here. Like, if you go elsewhere, you go elsewhere, but that's in your best interest. So I try to frame it in their best interest. I give everybody permission, which is really important because oftentimes people are just really afraid to say the wrong thing or get in trouble. So I try to. Or they've been in trouble before, like Jason. And so he's, you know, coming from past bad experiences and needs to work through that.
- [27:58]
B
He shared a little bit about that at our Napa at the panel.
- [28:02]
A
Did he?
- [28:02]
B
Yeah, he did. Which was great, I thought.
- [28:05]
A
And then finally when they do it, tell them they're doing a great Job. I did that last night. One of our developers, he's been posting on LinkedIn a bunch. So he's posting on LinkedIn. This is awesome. So I sent him a message last night. Hey, really enjoying it. You're doing a great job. What did he say back? This is way out of my comfort zone. So that means for a developer. Especially for developer. So, yeah, so good for him. But that reinforcement is necessary because they're going out on a limb and they're like, am I going to get in trouble for saying this? Am I saying the right thing? They're new to the company. So it's like, you're not looking to rock the boat. When you're new to a company, you're new to a team you're still trying to figure out. So I would say that's great.
- [28:54]
B
Starting with the why first is always good.
- [28:57]
A
Yeah. But then I've learned, if anything, you cannot say it just once. You have to say it 58 times. And then you're always getting new people into your business, so you essentially just have to say it indefinitely, which is just part of the equation.
- [29:13]
B
And then you've said it so many times that you're tired of hearing yourself say it. And that's probably about the point where you might be getting the message.
- [29:20]
A
Well, in the.
- [29:21]
B
Right.
- [29:22]
A
Until new people come in, they've never heard it before. And you always think, well, I've said this before. I don't want them to think. I think they're stupid. That's not it. You gotta. The biggest thing. You go to church, you say the same thing every week, same prayer. Why is that? It's because it's effective. It's because it's needed. So that's how religion is modeled. I don't know. It's probably a solid principle.
- [29:50]
B
Yeah, I think. Yeah. Stats back that up.
- [29:53]
A
Yeah. Did you grow up in Louisiana?
- [29:57]
B
I did.
- [29:57]
A
Are you from there? Yeah.
- [29:58]
B
Originally from there. Grew up in New Orleans.
- [30:01]
A
What's being from New Orleans like?
- [30:05]
B
New Orleans is an interesting city. It's a melting pot of a bunch of different cultures, you know, and it's got a really cool history. And, you know, it's being a port town and, you know, the Mississippi river, there was so much commerce flowing up, you know, through there before the railroads. And then it's also. This is the birthplace of jazz. And so great food, great culture. People in New Orleans are, I'd say, a little bit more relaxed in general than you find in, you know, other parts. Other parts of the country. So. Yeah, I mean, it's hot in the summertime there. I enjoyed growing up there, but also liked kind of venturing out to other parts of the country too, once I got the chance.
- [30:57]
A
It's very. New Orleans is very isolated too, which is quite interesting. It's not that close to any other. I mean, Houston's not that far away, but you're also not that close. Like it's, it's probably the strangest big city I've been to in the United States. And I don't say that in a negative way, but it's just New Orleans.
- [31:18]
B
Wouldn'T take that in a negative way.
- [31:19]
A
No. They'd be like, it's different, man.
- [31:21]
B
We want to be different.
- [31:22]
A
Yeah. Even Louisiana in general. It's just like every time I've been in Louisiana, I've always thought like, this is different. This is not like anywhere else. I've been in the United States.
- [31:32]
B
Yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a special, special place.
- [31:37]
A
Yeah.
- [31:38]
B
So yeah.
- [31:42]
A
Did you always grow up around family construction company?
- [31:46]
B
I did, yeah. So my family was in the paving and construction business. So it was a company that was started by my great grandfather.
- [31:55]
A
Okay.
- [31:55]
B
So way back up in actually Kentucky, the Louisville area.
- [32:00]
A
Wow.
- [32:00]
B
And my grandfather, my great grandfather asked my grandfather to move to New Orleans to start up a paving business there. So he and my grandmother moved down there, started the company. I think they were thinking they were going to be there for maybe a couple years. But like a lot of construction people who think they're going somewhere for a couple of years, they end up staying a lot longer.
- [32:23]
A
Sure.
- [32:25]
B
And so yeah, New Orleans based business. And my, it's called barrier construction. My, my grandfather passed away in his 40s unexpectedly and my grandmother actually stepped in. Betty Lou. She ran the company with no prior construction experience for about 10 years. And to keep it going for the employees, she didn't want to have to, you know, sell or have, you know, them to have to go find new jobs. So she kept it going. She was big on like, safety was a real big thing, you know, for her. And then just taking care of the, taking care of the people. So she ran it for about 10 years. And then my dad and his two brothers kind of became like of age. They were in their, you know, 20s and early 30s and they eventually took over the company and kind of built it up from, you know, 50 people up to, up to around 500 or so. I, my first job was cleaning under the coal feed bins at the asphalt plant. When I was probably like maybe 14, 14 or 15. And I worked pretty much every summer paving crews, milling crews and all the way up through, through college I did an internship too.
- [33:41]
A
Was it just assumed that you would work. It just kind of like, you know, not.
- [33:45]
B
Not really. Yeah. Not. Not really. So I mean I, I always had the heart and the passion for. So like from the time I was 13, I knew this is like, this is, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to be in this business. Like I'm obsessed with it. Like I just, I just fell in love with. I really like the connections with the people and just seeing stuff get built, man. Like I was just really obsessed with it from, from a very, from a very young age. But there wasn't any pressure like from my dad or anything. Like, you have to go do this. Yeah, I mean I have, I'm the youngest of four siblings and I'm the only one who decided to work in the business.
- [34:20]
A
I will. I've. With multi generation I've. I've seen you either have it or you don't. Like you're into. Into it or you're not. And it works really well when you're into it. It doesn't work really well when you're not really into it. But it's like, but it's the family business and there's like the pressure to take it on or whatever it is. However the next generation falls in if you don't have that.
- [34:42]
B
Yeah.
- [34:43]
A
Just love of it.
- [34:45]
B
It's, it's. It's glaringly obvious. And I mean there was, you know, we're, it was. I've seen that in other situations before where somebody's kind of like, you know, almost like forced into it in a way.
- [34:57]
A
I would say that's. It's quite often. Yeah, it's.
- [35:01]
B
It's.
- [35:01]
A
Yeah, it's quite often.
- [35:02]
B
And it's pretty glaring too, I think. You know, when you do see it, I mean I'm fortunate. And then my dad basically said like you can be a kindergarten teacher, you want to be a lawyer, you want to whatever or a painter, whatever you want to do whatever you're passionate about. Like, I love you and I got your back. So. So I mean that was great to have that. But for me there was absolutely no question as to what I was going to do. So. And part of working in our family business was, which is one thing that I encourage anybody who has a family business to do this is we had to work away for a number of years before we Joined the company, which, to be honest with you, like, I did not want to do.
- [35:46]
A
Yeah.
- [35:47]
B
Like, I wanted to go right back, you know, start working at Berrier straight out of college. And because there was, you know, I was scared and I didn't know if I was going to be good enough to make it at a bigger company where I was. My last name wasn't going to protect me. I was just one of the dudes. And like, you got to get it done. You got to produce, you know, and I was worried. I was nervous and. But I got a great opportunity with, with, with Alan Myers straight out of college. And fortunately, the Myers family, they have. It's a multi generational business and they have. Some of the. Some of their boys worked away as well. So they were kind enough to kind of return the favor to me, knowing that I was only going to be there for, you know, a few years.
- [36:31]
A
Okay.
- [36:32]
B
To invest in me and, you know, take me on. And then I just had. I started out as like a field engineer. Um, how'd you find them?
- [36:39]
A
Because that's a totally different part of the country.
- [36:41]
B
Yeah. So. Well, we had to go work in a different part of the country just because it couldn't be somebody that we competed against. And I thought about two, Two companies. One was Kiewit. Just because I knew they were like. They were crazy like me. And I was like, I might. I was like, I could probably get along with them.
- [36:57]
A
That's the. But that's the. Like, I knew nothing about Kiewit. I just knew they were Kiewit. And I just wanted to be part of that.
- [37:05]
B
Me too.
- [37:06]
A
Yeah.
- [37:06]
B
I was like. I looked at him, but they had. They actually share color. So Alan Myers is black and yellow and they have.
- [37:13]
A
It's the other way around.
- [37:14]
B
Yeah.
- [37:15]
A
He was more yellow. Alan Myers is more black. Yeah.
- [37:19]
B
But they have some similarities too. I mean, they're a very sophisticated company, like large, heavy, civil, and they did the same kind of work that we did, just on a much larger scale. And there was a consultant who did some lean construction stuff that had helped us out, that had also worked with them. So he, he basically just helped get me the interview. And then I kind of, you know, took it. Took it from there.
- [37:43]
A
Yeah.
- [37:44]
B
Sweet. And. And it was an amazing, you know, experience. Started out as a field engineer working on a. Probably about a $50 million job. Just I was like, you know, tracking quantities, helping run crews. If somebody was out learning a ton, it was like moving a lot of dirt, pouring concrete, laying, you know, a lot of Asphalt type of stuff.
- [38:06]
A
Being a field engineer in a project of that scale, I think is perfect because there's a lot going on, but you're not pigeonholed, which is the, like, that's the risk you can run, is you can get. Okay, cool, you're on a $3 billion job, but you're going to get stuffed somewhere.
- [38:23]
B
Yeah. You're going to be the fuel order.
- [38:25]
A
You're going to be the fuel.
- [38:26]
B
Yeah.
- [38:26]
A
Fuel orderer. Or you're going to be in charge of swip from mile marker here to mile marker here. Yeah.
- [38:32]
B
No offense. No offense to swip, but that would. I would not do well in that role.
- [38:36]
A
But being. I was a. I was a field engineer on, like, a $20 million job out of school.
- [38:42]
B
Okay.
- [38:43]
A
And it was, looking back on it, a ton of fun. Because you're just the guy that does whatever needs to be done.
- [38:51]
B
Exactly. The best part is that you. You don't have to be the number one.
- [38:56]
A
No.
- [38:57]
B
Like, there's a PM for that.
- [38:58]
A
Yes.
- [38:59]
B
And when you're the number two. Like, I. All I wanted when I was number two was to be number one. And I was like. What I didn't appreciate at the time is like, no, you can go, like, sample. You can go try stuff out.
- [39:09]
A
You just. I was in, you know, I'd be in equipment one day, I'd be in a meeting, you know, the next day with the inspectors of the city. I'd be moving, you know, the porta potty the next day from here to, like, you just ordering materials, setting up the job office. You're just. You're like the miscellaneous guy. Just whatever needs to be done, you go do it, which is so awesome.
- [39:32]
B
Like, you know, one minute, like, for me, it was like, I was responsible for the quantities, so making sure that we got paid, you know, every month. So I would have to, like, work with the inspectors. Right. And then I would also have to work with the foreman to make sure. All right, are you getting with the inspector every day to make sure that we're. If you do 80ft of pipe, you guys agree on it, and this is the material and the number 57 backstone and all, like, so you get to deal with all those different people. And then. All right, we have a big change order that we're negotiating. I get pulled in the room for that. I'm helping, you know, like, put together that price. So now I'm with, like, the project engineer, you know, the folks who are kind of, you know, handling, like, the money and, you know, maybe even Our VP would be pulled into that. So yeah, just like that's one really cool thing about construction too is that you get to deal with so many different layers of the ladder. Yeah, I love that part of it. And people from completely different backgrounds.
- [40:29]
A
But that's, that's why when people ask me, hey, is, is a, does a construction degree potentially get me ahead? And I would say it does because it puts you into that field engineer role, which is hard to get into without a degree.
- [40:43]
B
Well, I actually am. I was at a disadvantage because I went to a liberal arts school.
- [40:49]
A
Oh, yikes.
- [40:52]
B
You'Re college educated. I had the background. But what I told him was that, what I told him was that I majored in European history, but I minored in asphalt in the summers.
- [41:00]
A
Sure, yeah, yeah. But you had that experience. Yeah, yeah.
- [41:02]
B
They were like, okay, we'll let him in. But I'll be honest with you, I was like, I was, had imposter syndrome because yeah, I'd worked on a crew, but I was going into this field engineer program with a bunch of kids from Virginia Tech, which is, who are all civil engineers, top notch that can do math off the top of their head. And I'm like, I don't know how to measure the area of a circle.
- [41:25]
A
Yeah. But then they can't talk to anybody. Then they don't know the right end of a shovel. But. And I went to engineering school so that.
- [41:35]
B
Okay, you can say that.
- [41:37]
A
But I, I do think like it is substantially harder though to start as like a laborer and get into that kind of role. I think it's like the more I think about it, the more I think the field engineer role on like a mid sized project is probably the best place to learn construction possible. I can't think of a better position. You. I think everybody should work in the field. I think that's really, really important. Like if you, if you just skip to like a project engineer or like a more management type role, back office type role and you, you, you miss the field. I think you're setting yourself up for some trouble.
- [42:19]
B
Really tough.
- [42:20]
A
But that is like it, it is the perfect role to learn so much about construction in a very condensed period of time.
- [42:30]
B
Right? Yeah, I mean, I think that field experience really benefited me and still benefits me, you know, to this day. And also just gives people a lot of like credibility. Like even if you know eventually you're going to be in management, the fact that you have worked on a crew, and I'm not just saying like you grabbed a shovel one day but like you showed up at 5am for like eight weeks straight. People that see that have a lot of respect for it and they appreciate that, they're kind of like, okay, you're willing to do the work the way that we do it and we kind of accept you. And then also the other thing is just like for estimating and construction, I've worked with some superintendents, a few guys that could just picture stuff in their head and almost build it in their head and they could see things like before they were problems and like, I don't have that like 3D vision or whatever the hell that is, you know, but the little bit that I did have, you know, to like be able to picture things as you're kind of bidding them, a lot of that came from just having spent a lot of time in the field on that big job.
- [43:40]
A
Sure, yeah, I, and that's where like you, you don't, I don't think you actually need that much experience either to learn the basics of that language than to get that respect. Like, because I don't have that much experience. I, I did a five year period where I was in the industry while doing school as well. But that was, that was enough to I think build that sense of respect. And I think it, it builds your respect for people that do that for a career. And then you just, you understand how to approach them and how to talk to them in a certain, like, it humbles you to a point where you're like, oh, I get it. I don't actually work hard. Like, I'm not actually that special in the grand scheme of things. These are the people doing the work and I will never forget that. But without that, without really doing the work for like you said, even an eight week period, that sense of respect it's possible to get, but it's really, really hard. And I don't think I would not be here at all had I not been just a laborer on a pipe crew when I started out. Had I just gone to be an engineer in the office doing what I was doing, even field engineer, I still would have, I would have really screwed myself in the grand scheme of things.
- [45:05]
B
I agree and I'm in the same boat. Because the other thing that you get to appreciate more is when you're in that position, you get to see how other, like when interaction with managers, like if you're just a person on a crew, how did, how, what are the really good ones do? Like and what are the, what are the shitty ones do?
- [45:28]
A
Which is more often than not what.
- [45:30]
B
You see because, you know, there's. There's somebody who comes out and, you know, blows through the job site, you know, calls the foreman.
- [45:40]
A
Yeah.
- [45:40]
B
Why. Why aren't we tied into the joint yet?
- [45:43]
A
Yeah.
- [45:43]
B
You know, what's. What about this? What about that? You know, and then just. And then just leaves.
- [45:48]
A
Or an engineer with, like, dress shoes, like, they don't even bother to put on work boots.
- [45:52]
B
Yeah.
- [45:54]
A
It's just like, are you blind? Like, you're. Read the room, bro. Yeah.
- [45:59]
B
Or. Or just drives through the job site, doesn't even talk to anybody.
- [46:02]
A
Or that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [46:04]
B
Like, literally the 60 mile an hour drive by. Hey, you know, looks like you need to get that dumpster offloaded. Like, come on, man.
- [46:10]
A
Yeah.
- [46:11]
B
Then. Then there's the other. The other side. There's the. There's the person who parks the truck over here where we parked our cars. Who walks out.
- [46:19]
A
Yeah.
- [46:20]
B
Who looks around, kind of surveys the scene a little bit. Maybe they drove through one time, but they came back and they start talking to people and they. How's it going? And they know. They know everybody. Right. They know your name. They don't need to look at the thing on your hard hat. Like, how's it going? What's up? They'll get on equipment. They'll start interacting with people to where. When I've been in that position, I felt like, okay, this person appreciates me as a human. And that. That was one of the biggest things that I got from. It was appreciating from the. From the other, you know, perspective. And that kind of. That kind of stuck. Stuck with me, you know, throughout my career.
- [47:04]
A
And it doesn't. It doesn't take much. Like, I remember one time, you know, the first company I went to work for, you know, Pearson Construction Corporation, Rich Pearson, he didn't come out all that much because he had other stuff to do. He's the owner of the company. He's got. He's got a lot going on, which I can appreciate now that I know some of these guys and see the bullshit that they have to deal with day to day to make that project even happen.
- [47:25]
B
My favorite part is when you can sit with them and you can see their computer and you just watch their inbox go.
- [47:30]
A
It's just. And that's not why they are doing what they're doing. They're doing. They're doing what they're doing to build stuff, but they don't build stuff anymore. But he would come out and you could tell, like, he had this just real genuine sense of respect for the project and everybody involved. And I didn't, I didn't even deal with him directly, but you could almost pick up on that in a way and like really understand that. And it was passed down to then the crew, the leaders on, on the project and then other times where yeah, I'd worked for companies for a long time, would never ever, ever even see whoever was in charge at all. Like just absolutely no. And I mean there's companies that I had like offers with that I probably would have gone to work for had I had a better experience or idea of like who upper management even was, but I didn't even have that. And so it's like, I don't know, you're telling me I'm not just a number, but that's not exactly the feeling I've got here. So I'm going to go, I'm going to go do something else. But that's, that's why like this whole conversation, that's why I went to work for a mid sized contractor, okay, for that exact reason. Because I knew I would not get pigeonholed into some like if I went to work for one of the big boys I like when I was at Kiewit, I won the fucking lottery because I was on like a $10 million quarry project where we operated the entire quarry. We're doing the blasting ourselves, loading ourselves everything ourselves, self performing everything like Cuba does, but without any of the big picture project nonsense. No inspectors, nothing of the sort. But I also realized that that's not the norm in the mega project world either. So it's like if I was going to go the big contractor route, I was going to roll the dice and maybe get on a project like that, but probably get on something much bigger, much more complex and get stuck somewhere, right? Or there was this. I was working in an estimating department part time while I was in college as well. I mean it was probably like, probably doing like 20, 25 hours a week while I was in school, which was.
- [49:56]
B
That's a lot. It's pretty balance.
- [49:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, pretty good. And I, it was, it was good money, I was learning a lot. But there was a project that I'd helped estimate that we were then going to go build and it was like, why would I not take this response? This is it. I've been able to see this project from the very beginning. It was a cmar, so I got to see it through the iterations of design and then an opportunity to go build it. And it's a two year project, about $20 million in Texas, away from home. Like, why would I. Why would I not do this? And then Dan Briscoe called me and fucked it all up. Recruited me to a software company and it went downhill from there.
- [50:37]
B
To Hess.
- [50:38]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a joke. It's worked out okay.
- [50:41]
B
Yeah, it worked out pretty good.
- [50:44]
A
So how long were you at Alan Myers before you came back?
- [50:46]
B
I was there about just under five years.
- [50:48]
A
Oh. So that, that was a. Yeah.
- [50:50]
B
So I was only required to be away for three, but I stayed longer just because I love the people that I work with so much. And I got the opportunity to go from like a field engineer to actually managing a project as pm. So that was a good cross section I did. Yeah. So, yeah, heavy highway as well as like bridge and all different kind of work and then estimating as well as project management. So, yeah. And then I got the phone call that I needed to come home. And honestly, I was having so much fun. It was like a little bit of a reflection point, you know, for me. I like living. I was living in Baltimore, Maryland. I like living on the East Coast. Um, but, you know, the family. Family was, you know, got the call and decided to come home. And then, so it was a PM estimator. Moved back to New Orleans and worked there in our industrial construction group. We kind of restarted that after shutting it down for a while. Uh, so that was kind of fun to kind of rebuild that. Doing a lot of work on like chemical plants and refineries and things like that.
- [51:52]
A
And that's the interesting thing about Louisiana down there is there's a lot of industry. A lot of industry. Like, I drove from New Orleans to Venice.
- [52:04]
B
Venice.
- [52:05]
A
Oh, yeah, we went out there.
- [52:06]
B
LA23.
- [52:07]
A
Yeah. And so you get to see a lot of the. You get. You go down the Mississippi. It's crazy, the scale of the industry out there. And there was one plant out there probably Bechtel was building or something like that.
- [52:19]
B
It was Plaquemines. Lng, probably.
- [52:21]
A
Yes. Yeah. LNG plant. Yeah. Just a monster, probably. Project monster. And so the scale of which I like, like, I love industry. I love seeing how the world works. And it's like, oh, yeah, this is how the world works. An LNG plant. You guys, you see it in like the Wall Street Journal building an LNG plant where United States is like, you know, exporting natural gas. But it's like, oh, that's like, that's where it happens. That's what it takes to do that. You gotta build this giant. And I think the most unique thing about they were building like a wall around the whole thing because I feel like for environmental reasons you have to have a wall around the whole thing. Maybe you know more about that than I do.
- [53:03]
B
I mean, it could be for flood protection too.
- [53:04]
A
Because it could be for flood protection too.
- [53:06]
B
Yeah, but, yeah, so those plants are, I mean there's, I think there's like a hundred plants between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. And there have been a lot of these big like greenfield sites. I mean, and these, the job that you were looking at, that thing, that, that could be nine plus ten plus billion dollars.
- [53:24]
A
Yeah.
- [53:24]
B
Total. Some of the biggest construction costs.
- [53:26]
A
They were the biggest construction projects in the United States until these battery projects came online.
- [53:31]
B
Yeah, but so I actually got we, I, when I was a project manager at Barrier, I got the opportunity to put together this really like, it was like, it was like 3 1/2 inches thick technical proposal to build a road from a dock all the way to a new chemical plant in Lake Charles.
- [53:55]
A
Wow.
- [53:55]
B
It's called the SASOL project. It was a $13 billion job. And floor was the EPC.
- [54:02]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [54:03]
B
And so they, and they, you know, it was like three and a half hours away. We had never, we had never worked away, you know, that far away from home before. But, but they, they asked us to, you know, submit a proposal. We did and it got, it got accepted and then showed up on the job with field engineer superintendent, a couple other people and we brought some crews over, but we had to do a lot of like on the job hiring. And it was, it was really, really cool to see like how all the, how these things get built. Because the reason why they needed a road, the existing road was like 24ft wide. We widened it up to I think like 90ft in some places because they have these modules.
- [54:49]
A
Yeah, you gotta bring in.
- [54:51]
B
Yeah, they're building these plants. Part of this unit's being built in Mexico, part of this unit's being built in India. And then they put it on these, you know, these ships and then put it on barges. And then they use these what they called self propelled modular transporters.
- [55:08]
A
Yeah.
- [55:08]
B
I don't know if you're familiar with the company. Mammoot.
- [55:10]
A
Yeah, yeah, Mammoot. I, I, I was, I was saying it, Mamo it. And then the Dutch were giving me shit about that, like fucking idiot. Yeah, but, but Mammut, like they there anything heavy lift in the world seems to be them.
- [55:25]
B
Well, it's cool because I, when I met the PM the first time, because we had to coordinate with them because we were doing the widening and stuff. Like, they had to bring some of their stuff through our job site, you know, and he was like. He's like, the. Their phrase is like, the biggest thing we move is time.
- [55:39]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [55:40]
B
I was like. I didn't really understand it until I saw they basically had this thing was that there was a size of, like, a freaking motel. I mean, this thing's, you know, 50ft tall, you know, several hundred, you know, a couple hundred feet long. And it's, you know, like 80 tons. And they're just driving it down our road, man, that we had just, like, just opened up and. And they take it. And they. They'll take that thing and drive it straight into the site, and they'll have, like, foundation for it, anchor bolts, everything done. And then they just drop it right in place.
- [56:11]
A
Yeah.
- [56:12]
B
And it's neat because, like, the progress that they can do by working simultaneously and building is. Yeah. It's basically like some form of, like, modular construction. And then it's also more cost efficient because you can do it in other places. And then you bring it to the site and you do, you know, a few more kind of touch it up at the end. But it was. Working for Floor was really cool because we didn't know we were getting into, like, their. Their expectations on, like, safety and quality were about 10x what we were used to.
- [56:45]
A
You look up the biggest construction companies in the United States, and you see, like, Bechtel, Bechtel and Floor and, like, Black and Veatch, and they're more engineering. Yeah, but you see these big firms, but it's like, I don't know. I'm pretty in the know when it comes to construction in the United States. Like, how does this work? And then you realize they're all on the plant side of things, either the power side, chemical side, and then they're the. They're the financier a lot of times, too. Or they're sometimes working for the federal government on stuff. But that's like. You won't ever really drive by, like, a Bechtel job. Like, Bechtel were building the interstate now because they're at some nuclear plant doing some $7 billion cleanup of the super fund site that used to produce all of the United States nuclear weapons or whatever it is, or some chemical. Yeah, like a cracking facility.
- [57:41]
B
A thing. Cracker.
- [57:42]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're just like. It's a different game.
- [57:47]
B
It was really cool for us because, you know, we. We we were, you know, we were paving and highway and, you know, some, you know, site construction companies. So we had, we had never been around the. That, like world. Traveling contractors and they go all over the world.
- [58:03]
A
Yes.
- [58:03]
B
I mean, the guy that we were working for named Bill. Bill Garrett, civil engineer. This was the first. He'd worked for floor for, you know, 20 plus years. It was the first job that he had ever worked in the United States.
- [58:16]
A
It's crazy.
- [58:17]
B
And then to see the scale at which they can bring people to these job sites, I mean, because, you know, we were one of the first people there because it was like, all right, let's get the road from here to here so that we can start moving the stuff in. There was a whole nother operation on the site. That's. That was the main. That was the main attraction. And to see how many. I mean, the manpower headcount went from like, you know, 800 to 4,500 in like four months. Yeah, it's like absolutely amazing. I mean, a wall of traffic coming out of this thing.
- [58:49]
A
Yeah. Even, like for these projects, just, Even the logistics of getting everybody there and then badging everybody in every day. Because then it becomes a secure site at some point.
- [58:59]
B
Yeah.
- [59:00]
A
Like just, just. And then just getting those people from whatever security gate they have to go through to their work area, like just the logistics of moving the people around that site and getting them home every day. Or to a camp.
- [59:13]
B
Or to a camp.
- [59:14]
A
Sometimes they set up a camp is just. Just mind bending. And it is humbling too, talking to these, these guys that work for companies like Mammoth or something like that. Because. Yeah, we did, you know, the last tent. We did. We were in Brazil. And then we. Before that, where were we? Oh, yeah, United Arab Emirates. And. And they just.
- [59:35]
B
Yeah, we were in Australia. Yeah. Everything's really expensive.
- [59:38]
A
Yeah. Yeah. They start just listing off every continent they've worked in in the past two years. It's just like. Yeah. Like, you're like, yeah, you know, I used to work in Virginia. It's not nearly as cool.
- [59:53]
B
No, no, no. That's a different lifestyle too now.
- [59:58]
A
It is.
- [59:58]
B
I mean, because a lot of those, you know, they're not, they're not. They're not sleeping in their own bed every night or they. Maybe they have a travel trailer. No, but that, but, but that's a different.
- [60:07]
A
But that's what they sign up for.
- [60:08]
B
And that's what a lot of them want to do that.
- [60:10]
A
And they're paid according.
- [60:12]
B
Absolutely.
- [60:13]
A
Saved a lot more money.
- [60:15]
B
But it's a Balance, you know, And I think that's one of the things that we figured out is like, there are certain employees which up to this point, all of our employees had been sleep in your own bed every night, you know, kind of work within a certain radius and, you know, be able to go home to your family. Whereas there are other people who maybe their family travels with them. Yeah, you know.
- [60:36]
A
Yeah.
- [60:37]
B
Or, or, or they're, you know, they go home, you know, three, four times a year because there may not be opportunity where they live for them to earn the kind of, you know, living that they could by traveling.
- [60:50]
A
Or they just want to be on the big shit too. Like, there's people that, they just want to be on the big shit and make the big money, but you will not live in the same place doing that. But that's what they sign up for. But it's a lot more common outside the United States. I mean, it's really like, like a you. It's really a US thing to just like work in. Like. Yeah, I've just worked in Tennessee my whole life. I feel like every time I go to Europe, it's like these big companies, they work all over the world and that's just, that's just what you do. Or even the, like the big mining companies, you talk to the guys that work for the big mining companies, they've lived here, they've lived here. They lived here, they lived here, they live here, they live here. Like, it's just, that's just like a, that's, it's just what you sign up for. It's how the whole company operates. But then here it's, it's a lot more local, which is great. But then it also creates some problems, I think. Like I was talking to my friend Dino the other day, even just about mining. Like, I've never really considered working in mining in the United States because it's not all that attractive to me to living in one of these small towns. And it's just not how I grew up. It's just not what I want for my life. That's completely fine. I'm not saying it's bad. Whatever it is, it's just not for me. But in Australia, we've done the fly in, fly out thing a few times over. So I could live anywhere in Australia or I could live in Thailand and work a two week on, two week off roster, three week on, three week off roster. A lot of the guys up in the oil sands too, they work two week on, two week off, three week on, three Week off. And a lot of them live in Mexico, so they work in the winter up in Fort McMurray, and then they live in Mexico during their time off because they're only working less than half the year with time off. And that was the first time seeing that schedule, I was like, I would sign up for this. I get to go work on the big shit, doing big stuff. I don't care if I'm out in the middle of nowhere. The camp's nice, food's great, there's a gym. I have everything I need. And then, ironically, you spend. You would spend more time with your family, because then I get two weeks off where I'm just off so I can just take my kids to school, pick my kids up, take them to wherever I need them to be. This is a pretty good. And I make how much money? Are you. Are you kidding me? Like, yeah, sign me up like that. That was the first time where I was, like, in a different life, I would for sure be flying. Fly out 100% now that I've seen this model. It is. And it's not for everybody, and there's plenty of downsides to it, too, but it, to me, is actually quite sustainable, I think.
- [63:34]
B
Yeah. The oil companies have. They've been running that model for.
- [63:38]
A
Oil companies have done it forever.
- [63:39]
B
Yeah. For 50 years.
- [63:42]
A
Kinda not in the United States. Really, though. Not as much abroad. Absolutely. On the rigs.
- [63:50]
B
Yeah, that's. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about, you know, folks flying out.
- [63:53]
A
Yeah. But West Texas. Not really.
- [63:55]
B
Not really work.
- [63:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Bakken, like, Marcellus, like, it's.
- [64:02]
B
It.
- [64:02]
A
Yeah. You kind of just work.
- [64:04]
B
Yeah, well, that, That's. That's American culture as well.
- [64:07]
A
I think. It's an American thing.
- [64:08]
B
Just work. Yeah, all the time. Yeah.
- [64:11]
A
I need to. I need to pee real quick.
- [64:13]
B
Go ahead, man.
- [64:13]
A
And then we'll continue. So the plan was you come back to the family company and you were the succession plan.
- [64:26]
B
Yeah. So we had three different families, multiple branches. And then I had other cousins who worked in the business as well.
- [64:35]
A
Okay.
- [64:36]
B
So there were, I think, five of us that all worked in the company. And yeah, the plan was to take it from the third generation to our generation, the fourth generation, and that's. And we worked really hard at it and it didn't work out. The business was doing well. We couldn't agree, really. Like, it was more for family reasons, and we just couldn't agree kind of how we wanted to move forward as three families.
- [65:07]
A
Which is, it's hard. And that's, I think that's why a lot of companies don't make it just that dynamic alone. Like as you go generation to generation, more people just get involved and then, I mean there's companies too. They, It's a really long, slow death. But there's. I've seen this. There's there, there end up being like a ton of family members involved, but not involved in the company, but are still there and still have a say for whatever reason, even though they're not operationally involved in any stretch of the imagination or financially involved. And that I just don't find sustainable, or at least I haven't seen it to be sustainable.
- [65:54]
B
It's really challenging. I mean we were fortunate enough. We had an amazing, um, we had amazing advisors and a lot of really great strong like non family management. We were a professionally managed company.
- [66:06]
A
Yeah.
- [66:07]
B
Um, you know, so we had, we had a great operating agreement that kind of addressed a lot of those things and it was kind of set up to where the people who worked in the business were the ones who were eventually gonna, you know, own and kind of help run the business. But you know, I agree with you. I think less is more. I think less people involved in running the family business is a pretty good. The less people, the higher chance of success there is, in my opinion. And you can still do everything right or try to do everything right and have it and have it not, you know, have it, have it not, you know, work out. And I, I probably focused more on just like all of my jobs doing really well and like my team and you know, the, like the business side of things as opposed to spending more time on the family side, you know, because you have to do both in order to really, you know, in order to, in order to make it work. And you know, we weren't able to do it, you know, sadly. And it was crushing for me, man, because like you can you feel my passion like about the industry and just how much I love the people and the culture and how I believed in what we were doing. And it was really hard to get the phone call and kind of see the whole process play out. And obviously, I mean it wasn't all bad. I'm not asking for, I'm not complaining. But it was really hard emotionally for me to get over the fact that my life was going one way and things happened and I played my part, but they went a completely different direction. And what I thought my future was going to be completely just kind of fell down like Castles in the sand. And then, fortunately, we were able to find a great buyer in crh. And so we sold the company at the end of 2020. And then 2012, April 2021, I left the company after we kind of finished the ownership transition and then moved up to Nashville and then started edge Fanta in 2022 shortly thereafter.
- [68:31]
A
Did you have a good idea that it was going in that direction, or was it like a phone call? Because I know sometimes, like, with stuff like that, you have to keep people in the dark, which sucks. But did it sneak up on you or.
- [68:46]
B
No, No. I mean, you were kind of aware. Yeah, we were having issues. Yeah. Things weren't going the way that we wanted them to, and it was. We had had some family members leave the company, and, you know, it was. It wouldn't. It wouldn't. Not all of it's pretty. So I. Yeah, I mean, this was a possibility. And then we had an initial discussion, and then Covid happened, so we had to delay. And then we were in this kind of situation for a while where it was. Because whenever you're going to sell a company, everybody knows, so you have to. You don't want somebody to ask you, are we selling? You know, because you don't want to have to lie to somebody, but you can't disclose it's exactly what's going on.
- [69:30]
A
It's really tricky.
- [69:31]
B
It's really. It's. And it's a funny thing, too, because, I mean, the second it happens, the entire industry finds out. Like, I mean, when companies are about to get sold now, like, I'll hear about it from, like, 20 people, and I'm like, yeah, know what that's like?
- [69:44]
A
Yeah. I hear stuff through the grapevine all.
- [69:49]
B
The time, and some of it's just wrong.
- [69:51]
A
But, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [69:52]
B
Sometimes there's a kernel of truth.
- [69:53]
A
Oh, and it is funny when I hear something about something that I have insider knowledge on and I don't. I really try to be. I know I talk a lot on this, but I do try to be very careful with what information I do share, because I do want to be trusted absolutely, with information. But, yeah, sometimes you'll hear something that you have insider. Insider knowledge on that's just, like, wildly wrong, and you kind of just have to chuckle. And a lot of it, honestly, comes from people out in the field because there are some wild rumors out there. Like, I'll get messages like, hey, did you hear this? This company just shut down.
- [70:34]
B
They're gone. They're gone.
- [70:36]
A
I was just talking with them yesterday. I think they're okay.
- [70:39]
B
I think they're doing fine.
- [70:40]
A
I don't know, maybe. Maybe that's the case. Who knows? But, like, I think they're okay.
- [70:45]
B
The rumor mill in construction just runs. Wow. It's.
- [70:49]
A
It's hilarious.
- [70:50]
B
Crazy.
- [70:51]
A
Yeah. And probably maddening when you're on the other end of it, too.
- [70:53]
B
Yeah.
- [70:54]
A
But crh, they have a really interesting model because they buy all these companies all over the world. Where are they out of? Ireland.
- [71:04]
B
Ireland.
- [71:06]
A
So they're an international company. They've bought a lot in the United States. They've gobbled quite a few companies up, but then they just keep them as is. Like, hey, you're in the CRH world, but just Berryer. Just be. Berryer. Is that.
- [71:22]
B
Yeah. So we had had a couple of our outside board of directors who had also sold their businesses to CRH, and one of them was Bob Thompson, Thompson McCully paving up in Michigan, which is now Michigan Paving. And they had a lot of good stuff to say about them.
- [71:40]
A
It's like they're quite a good buyer.
- [71:42]
B
They are. They are. And I think one of their. From what I've observed, I mean, I only worked there four months. I'm not exactly the best, you know, the best source on this, but from what I've observed, they do a very good job of keeping the local management and kind of the local, like, flavor.
- [72:00]
A
Yeah.
- [72:01]
B
And that's. That's a. That's a big, in my opinion, a big part of why they're so successful. And they've just done enough of these to probably have really learned the right way to do it. And, you know, I mean, as somebody who was, like, there on January 2 after the deal had been done, I mean, I felt like they were going to take good care of our people, you know, so, yeah, I felt good about it. And they were professional throughout.
- [72:32]
A
Yeah. So the company's still operating like it's been down in New Orleans doing its thing, building stuff.
- [72:39]
B
Yeah.
- [72:40]
A
Yeah. Just under CRH ownership.
- [72:41]
B
Correct.
- [72:42]
A
Yeah. Did you. Did you have to leave after or was that.
- [72:47]
B
No, I didn't have to leave. I chose to leave.
- [72:49]
A
I'm going to take the hint.
- [72:49]
B
Yeah. Yeah. The reason why I chose to leave was because, you know, I didn't want to go into work every day thinking about what might have been. I don't know.
- [72:56]
A
Yeah, I see.
- [72:57]
B
And. And, And I was. And I was upset, you know, that it happened. And. Yeah. So it was time for me to make a change. And I had always kind of wanted to like do something on my own. Anyway, like, I was always been, you know, interest, self improvement and entrepreneurship and like I'm listening to the podcast about this guy that started this company or like how I built this or, you know, I've always really just been fascinated with that kind of stuff, so. And then I kind of looked back on like, where was I happiest in my job. And when I was happiest in my job was when I was going away, three hours away from home and kind of starting up this new thing and, you know, building. Building a job way far away, learning a lot of new things. So for me it was kind of like a natural thing that I would want to go out and try to start my own.
- [73:46]
A
Well, and when you're building a job, you really are in a way like a small business owner. And I thought I was talking to the other day about that, but they brought that up. Yeah, you're really like a business owner, an entrepreneur in a way, building a job, especially far, far from home, because you're having to do a lot of the stuff you need to do to start a business. Yeah, you have this support system behind you or whatever it is, the greater company, but you are out there on your own. You just kind of have to figure it out.
- [74:14]
B
That's. And that's like trial by fire. Yeah, I love, like, that's, that's, that's how you learn. We can sit here and instruct somebody on how to do something, but at the end of the day, you're really going to learn by actually going out and doing it. And I think it's one thing that a lot of companies do very well, which is. And others not so well, is like decentralizing things a bit. And having divisions within a company where somebody is almost like the CEO of a smaller company, just like a project manager is the CEO of their project. I think there's a lot to be said for that model. You let people make decisions, you let people learn, they take more ownership in that and then they don't feel like they have to go get approval for everything. So I'm a big fan of that kind kind of city, state, smaller model as opposed to just this massive big kind of like bureaucracy.
- [75:10]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. Well, I think that's. Speaking of. Cue it. I think that's one of the things they do better than almost anybody is they have these districts and then they have the district manager and then underneath them they have the structure under there. And these districts all run themselves in a way, but then they they all report back to Omaha and then Omaha can support them as needed and then they can join together if they, if it's a really big job and they need multiple districts involved. And then there's the tunneling, you know, division or whatever district that does just, you know, the tunneling. It's, it's. I mean, they've been around since the 1800s, so it's a model that's worked out okay for them. But it is when you, when you go to work for them, you're part of a district. You are part of Kiewit, but you're part of, like this smaller giant company. It's still a giant company. The districts are enormous. But it is quite interesting how each one of them has an identity as well.
- [76:05]
B
And celebrating that and allowing them to be a little bit different.
- [76:09]
A
Yeah.
- [76:10]
B
Than other people is, you know, it works because, I mean, just, you know, for us, like at Barrier, how people do stuff on the North Shore, you know, in Mandeville, is completely different than how stuff gets done in the city of New Orleans. And it's a just, it's a, you know, different, different personalities, different people. And it's okay to kind of, you know, celebrate that.
- [76:34]
A
Sure. How did, how did Edgevanta come about then?
- [76:38]
B
Yeah, Edgevanta came about. I just was sitting in my. Sitting at my kitchen table and had this, kind of had this idea and, you know, I'd done a lot of estimating and bidding and I had this bad experience on my first big bid as a paving estimator. So as you know, the way bidding works is especially for highway work, everybody, all contractors get the same information. So plan specs, proposals. You get about a month to put your bid together. You figure out what's it going to cost us to do this job. You put your profit margin, so you got your cost and then you got your profit. You add those two up, that's your price. You submit your bid. You don't get to see anybody else's price. At 10 o'clock on Wednesday, they open up all the bids and then you get to see everybody's prices and it becomes public information. And there tends to be some gaps in between first and second place. And my first bid, we stayed up like I was there at the office till like 12 o'clock at night, unprepared. We ordered a pizza. It was a freaking nightmare. I completely screwed the bid up. My boss was like, really cool about it. And anyways, we. So we submitted the bid the next day. And just to show you how archaic our Industry is. Or has been at times is. We would submit the bid online, and then we'd have to send somebody two hours away in the car to go to the courthouse to watch them open the bids.
- [78:00]
A
Yep, yep, yep.
- [78:02]
B
Anyways.
- [78:02]
A
Yep.
- [78:03]
B
So we sent a guy there. I called him 10 minutes after the wedding, and I said, you know, how. How did. How'd we do? And he said, well, we got the job. And I said, okay, what were the numbers? And he said, well, our number is 2.1, and the next guy was 2.8 million, and the guy after him was 3.1. So we left about. I left about $700,000 on the table on a $2.1 million job, which on.
- [78:29]
A
A percentage basis is substantial. And then, especially when your margins, what, 7%, 5%?
- [78:39]
B
And then we send the bid results out to everybody in the company with an email address with my name on it. So it's like, Tristan Wilson, estimator, is an idiot to everybody in the company. And we ended up. I was the PM of the job. It was a horrible job. We got it done, but it was really bad. And I didn't like that feeling of leaving money on the table. And I just kind of saw this as, like, an opportunity and something that a lot of people deal with. And I got better at it as I went throughout my career and got better at estimating and bidding. But it was kind of a theme throughout. And so that's really, like, that problem right there that I felt is what motivated me to start EdgeVanta. And we're really focused on helping contractors win more work at. At the right price. So, you know, estimating is really figuring out your costs. Bidding is figuring out, how are we going to price this job? What profit do we want to put on it? And there's so much information that you really need to know in order to have the right answer to that question. You know, thinking about competitor backlogs and what's happened on our last bids and how much do we like this job? How does this fit with our backlog? Looking at all the bid tabs, all the historical data that's out there, and it's just a. It's just a complete pain to consolidate all this information and try to figure out, like, how are we doing? Have we done in the past? And how can we use that to try to make more money on this bid? And that's really what we're.
- [80:20]
A
What we're focused on, because you could, in theory, you would have bid the job at 2.7 million, and the next guy's at 2.8 or 2.75. The next guy's at 2.8.
- [80:32]
B
Exactly.
- [80:34]
A
And you get the same. Because the thing is too, what sucks in construction is if the estimator, for lack of better term, fucks up and bids the job that should have been 2.7. At 2. You just hand the project team a steaming pile of shit completely.
- [80:52]
B
And in that case, I was the project team, so I got to eat that shit for six months.
- [80:56]
A
Yeah. And then. And there's really. You can only be so creative. And so sometimes it's just gonna be a big old loss. And it sucks to be on those jobs. Everybody knows it.
- [81:11]
B
And it sucked for my team too, because, like, they didn't do anything wrong.
- [81:14]
A
Exactly.
- [81:15]
B
Like, the superintendent, he's like, dude, I'm just showing up to go to work every day. Like, I did the foreman.
- [81:19]
A
But it suc. So it's so demoralizing.
- [81:21]
B
It's horrible.
- [81:21]
A
And it works its way. Even if the crew has no idea what the numbers are present. Everybody knows if they're on a winning job or losing job.
- [81:30]
B
This is weird. I've never talked to anybody about this.
- [81:32]
A
But it's so true. Everybody knows it.
- [81:34]
B
You can see it. They just, you know, they're like, oh, yeah, everybody's just, we're losing our ass on this.
- [81:39]
A
And I've been on both. Like, I've been on jobs where we're making like 40% and everybody's just high fiving. Like, this is awesome. We're just killing it, man. And there's miserable days because it's construction, but everybody, everybody is in good spirits. And then there's the turds that just never like. And some of these projects can go on for years. And so you're on a losing project for sometimes years, and you had nothing to do with why it's losing. And then management still is probably on your ass about it because it's funny that memories are quite short. Like, it's. At some point maybe wasn't the estimator's fault anymore and maybe becomes the project team's fault. Like, why are you guys losing so bad? Like, yeah, wait, wait a minute. Did you forget that, like, we were dealt a pile of shit that we're having to clean up here? Like, hey, hey, hey. I think you forgot. And I've seen that dynamic too, where, like, the estimator. The estimator doesn't get in trouble as much. No, as much as the project team does. Well, and.
- [82:48]
B
I'm going to challenge on that a Little bit. Because estimators estimating is. It can be a very thankless job.
- [82:54]
A
It's a really hard job. Yes.
- [82:56]
B
Because if you have the 40 percenter and you bid it at 20 and you're making 40, one thing I'll ask is, well, did the estimator really do a good job there? Because if your job is to get the cost right, then technically, no. Like, the job's a winner and it's great. But, you know, but the cost wasn't right. Yeah, but nope, you know, and. But they don't get the credit in that situation. The project team takes all the credit. We're fricking superstars, guys. You gave us a 20 percenter and we're turning it into 30. We're badass. But if it goes the other direction, or if the estimator misses something, for instance, like, oh, hey, you forgot to put this in the bid. He won't. They call. You only hear about bad news.
- [83:40]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [83:41]
B
If you're the estimator.
- [83:42]
A
Yeah.
- [83:42]
B
So it's a two way street.
- [83:45]
A
Well, when I was in the estimating department, that was the most miserable job I've had in construction. I hated it, really. Because you work for a month on something, the bid opening comes, you're third, you throw all of your work away into the trash, and then you start over on Monday. And it is just so demoralizing. So I hated working on stuff that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. And I like, I just. Me. That's not my personality. Like, even if I just. And we were, I don't know, we didn't win a lot of the jobs we were bidding, but they're pretty big jobs.
- [84:24]
B
So it's like you don't need to win them all.
- [84:26]
A
You don't need to win them all. You don't want to win them all. You're trying to get that one hit. But I just mentally, I could not do it working as so hard on shit that I would just throw in the trash can.
- [84:37]
B
You know, to me, there's the other side of that where you get a bid where you just like, you kind of fall in love with it.
- [84:45]
A
Yeah.
- [84:45]
B
It's like this is a job that fits us perfect and it's got all the right characteristics. And I've like put a lot of effort and a lot of time into it. I've spent, I've talked to the superintendents who have built this type of work before. I've worked through all these takeoffs.
- [85:03]
A
I've walked the job a Few times.
- [85:05]
B
Yeah.
- [85:05]
A
Understand.
- [85:06]
B
I know who we're bidding against. I know what they've done in the past.
- [85:09]
A
We've got a borrow pit over here. We got locked in. Yeah.
- [85:13]
B
You know, it's. It's a few miles from the plant.
- [85:15]
A
It's like. It's like this is.
- [85:16]
B
And, and. And then, you know, and then you kind of. You work really hard on it, you know, and then you try to figure out what are they going to do, you know, and then as you get better at that, sometimes, you know, you're, you're. You actually get pretty close.
- [85:30]
A
Yeah.
- [85:30]
B
And then, and then. And then you have that low bid, you know, and there's nothing like that feeling when you're waiting for the numbers to come out and then finally, you know you're the low bidder.
- [85:43]
A
Yeah. And all your competitors know you won, too. That's the, that's the fun about. It's like. It's weird that it all gets public, but everybody knows, you know, whatever. Like, I remember. I forget what day it was. It was a certain day in Arizona, though. The dot.
- [85:58]
B
Yeah. So it's like. It's like the third Friday of every month. Like, like tomorrow is the Tomorrow. We have two. Two. Two customers who have, like, big lettings.
- [86:06]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [86:07]
B
So Friday.
- [86:07]
A
So it's. Yeah, it's like, it's. Yeah, it's like, yeah, Friday.
- [86:10]
B
Which Fridays suck to me because ours were on Wednesday, so I could like, shake it off by Thursday or Friday. But Friday you get the been if you lose, if you're not.
- [86:19]
A
Yeah, but yeah, it's, it's. It's. I remember. You know, that would be like, around the office. That'd be the. How do we do? You know how they do. Oh, who got that? They got that. How'd they get that? What was their number? You knew it was that day because that would be the whole conversation. This is a really important topic, though. It's so interesting. Now, being a business owner, there's a lot of jaded people about business, and I get it for good reason. I think business people are always just out to extract as much money as possible. So it's like what you're saying is, okay, so you're just helping construction companies just like, just make more money just because they can. Like, well, what if they could really do it for 2 million and isn't that better for the taxpayer, so on and so forth. Like, you could very quickly make that argument if you weren't aware of how the world really worked in this space. But I think one of the biggest problems that the construction industry has right now when it comes to developing the next generation is a lack of profitability. They just don't have the budget, they don't have the money to adequately invest in people and adequately pay people. And even the pay in construction right.
- [87:33]
B
Now, it is, got a lot of work to do.
- [87:36]
A
I don't blame people for not working in construction in a lot of markets. I mean, the south especially. I probably wouldn't work in construction in the south because the wages are just so low, so low. I mean, like, shockingly, I can't imagine they're, they're that great. Probably Louisiana is probably almost to the bottom. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, but probably at the floor. If I had to guess, maybe you know better than I do.
- [88:03]
B
But yeah, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are going to be most likely on the lower end.
- [88:08]
A
I mean, you're making like $17 an hour, $18 an hour. Like if you're a good operator, $23. I don't know what it is right now. I don't know what market is, but.
- [88:19]
B
It'S, it's come up. I mean, you know, there's, there's, there's, you know, there's, there's the, you know, the wage rates and stuff like that. But yes, but it's, it's significantly lower than other parts of the country. No question.
- [88:28]
A
Significantly lower than other parts of the country. And then I can go work in Amazon. It's air conditioned. I got options, I've got options. They're paying me sometimes more. So why would I do that? Why? And I was like, I don't blame those people asking those questions and making those decisions at all. But then at the same time, the contractor would be like, listen, that's the market. Like, my hands are tied. I'm tied to the market. I can't, I can't really go, we can't just go give everybody a $5 an hour raise. It doesn't work that way. Right. And then you're going to. And then even if we do, even if we could afford, let's give everybody $10 more now, that fucks up the whole market. Like it doesn't. Economics don't work that way. You can't just go overnight, raise wages dramatically because there's, there's serious effects of that. But that's what has to happen. I think companies do need to be substantially more profitable for us to succeed from a workforce standpoint, 100%.
- [89:27]
B
And I mean, part of the reason why, like the, you're, you're you're fighting this like this balance between I want to keep, I want to keep backlog and I want to keep my crews busy, you know, and working. But I don't want to give all of that, you know, profit, you know, back to the market.
- [89:43]
A
Yeah.
- [89:44]
B
Because if you do that and then you have a bunch of jobs where you're, you know, making low single digits on the jobs, like you still have to cover all of your overhead too. Right. You have to cover the home office, you have to cover all these additional costs and if you don't have anything or very little left over at the end, then you're not going to reinvest and then it is bad for the industry in the long run. And I think we've seen some low bid contractors, some of them gone belly up, man. I mean there's, and even some of the publicly traded ones have had severe, you know, have had severe hits on some of these, you know, large, large projects. But there are some out there that are saying like, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to work profitably, we're going to be more selective about the jobs that we take on and then we are going to reinvest in our people and then also the ability to grow, the ability to kind of expand.
- [90:51]
A
But I can't think of a single world class leading construction company right now, especially from a workforce side that is not very profitable. I can't really find one because I don't think you can do both of those things then I think they both feed each other. But I think you have to have a great business to adequately invest in people. If you're adequately investing in people, it makes your business greater and your project even better. And then you can get more competitive on bidding because you're doing the work better than your competitors can, which is where you want to be ultimately because you've ultimately, you've invested in, what would people say? Your number one asset, Your people, everybody has the same equipment, everybody's building the same damn job. Really? Okay, sure, you might have this super top secret methodology that your competitor is going to see when they drive by the job next week that they're going to start doing is two.
- [91:52]
B
There's no secrets on the highway.
- [91:54]
A
No, no, it's so silly. It's such a silly thing to even consider. And it's like it might give you an edge for the next six months, 12 months, 18 months, somebody's going to catch up at some point. And I think innovation in that way is honestly Discouraged nowadays, it used to be a much bigger deal back in the days. You used to be able to be far more creative than you can now. But there's so many more constraints, so many more legal barriers, environmental barriers, so on and so forth that you can't really get away with some of those crafty things either. So you're, your competitive edge really is your workforce. If you're bidding, that's the trap of construction. If you're bidding and doing work at the rate everybody else is doing it, you are locked into being average and you will in no way ever achieve a workforce that's any more substantial than the overall market. So you have to be, you have to figure out how to make more money. You have to figure out how to be more disciplined to be more profitable to then give you that edge financially to then go pour into your people and invest further in your people, which then.
- [93:11]
B
Yeah, and then other people see you doing that and then they feel you put pressure on the market or compelled. Right? Yep, they're doing that. So we're going to up our game, correct? Um, you know, we, we, we saw a lot of that and honestly, a lot of that was good. I mean some, some of it was like even safety related things, you know.
- [93:29]
A
Yes.
- [93:30]
B
Like if we started doing something, we started putting, you know, overhead signs up, you know, for overhead power lines to make sure people aren't, you know, hitting, hitting power lines with equipment or, you know, with trucks.
- [93:39]
A
No, that never happens.
- [93:39]
B
Other, no, other people would, you know, kind of follow suit and that, that, that makes everybody, makes everybody better.
- [93:47]
A
Correct. Well, and it's like, let's not forget what we're trying to do here. We're trying to build great infrastructure for as little cost to the general public as possible. That's in everybody's best interest. So it's like, yes, you have this super top secret competitive advantage. Say that exists. It's good that then the market starts implementing that across the board because that means we can ideally build infrastructure for a cheaper rate, which is more advantageous for everybody. Which means if we can do stuff cheaper, we can go build more infrastructure, which again, you'd think is in everybody's best interest. I think there's some mega corporations right now that are able to control some certain pricing in the industry that are crying poor me while reporting record earnings every quarter. Probably someone that are blaming like, wow, it's just these inflationary pressures and these economic headwinds and supply chain disruptions. We've had to raise rates, we've had to Our hands are tied. All right, investors, great news, everybody. We've had a gangbuster 20, 24, let me tell you. I don't think that's in anybody's best interest, but I think that's especially on the material side. You said it, not me. I think I've seen it more than anywhere on materials.
- [95:19]
B
Yeah.
- [95:20]
A
And there might be some of that on the equipment side of things as well. There's some other categories, but I think it's ultimately best when the greater market is profitable and performing more work for less money, which maybe. Call me naive, and I am naive, but I do think that's possible, and I think that's necessary for the industry to build that next workforce, which will then build the infrastructure necessary for the country, society, the world.
- [95:59]
B
Yeah. And this stuff's not going away. Um, like, we are going to continue to need highways, roads, bridges, wastewater treatment like this. Like, society can't, you know, we can't grow, you know, or. Or. Or function without it. But one of the other kind of interesting things, too, like with this whole, like, estimating and bidding is, you know, at one point when we were having issues hiring people, I. I sat down with one of our admins and just walked through the whole process of what it looks like for us to hire somebody because it was taking three weeks to get people in the door. It was like, that seemed too long for us. So we just went through every single step of that process, and it was very antiquated. And we cut it down from. I think we were at 30. I think we cut it in half just by making a few tweaks. And this is one of the things I've seen with estimating and bidding is that we haven't really gone back and taken a look at what are all the different steps that we go through in order to figure out are we going to bid a job and then figuring out all of our costs and then figuring out the pricing. And do all those steps make sense today? Because some of them, we just do them because that's the way we've always done them, and we do them the same way because we've been doing them, doing it for, you know, 20 years.
- [97:27]
A
Yeah, that. Well. And something that's always. I didn't totally understand in estimating is that, like, why are we always basing it off our historical costs? It's like, I get it, that's valuable information, but that's wholly based on what we've done stuff for that isn't necessarily indicative of what we can do stuff for into the future. Like, it doesn't, again, it doesn't necessarily invite any kind of innovation.
- [98:00]
B
It's quite the opposite.
- [98:01]
A
It's quite the opposite. Like, let's just price it how we've performed it before. And it ironically then just locks you into just like this, the same trajectory. If you're always using historical data, like, you're always basing your future off your past, which is like, it's valuable, it's definitely relevant information to consider. But if that's all we're basing the future on, we're just going to get whatever results we've got in the past are what we get in the future.
- [98:33]
B
Well, take it a step further and think, okay, so let's assume we get the job and we bid it purely based on historicals, right? And our foreman, our field leaders know exactly what the production rates are per day. So we bid this at, you know, 80ft of 24 inch pipe per day. All right. And we set the production goal at 80ft per day. Like, what are we going to do? We're going to go do 80ft per day.
- [99:03]
A
Yes.
- [99:03]
B
And then we're going to, you know, okay, we did a good job today, right? And then it never gets better. Right. And then we just keep doing the exact same thing over and over. And that's where I think estimating is actually more of an art than a science. And that estimators should be given that freedom and to kind of paint their own picture. Because I think the people who are just consistently doing really performing really well are the ones that are coming up with the best way to go build the job.
- [99:42]
A
They're having fun. Yeah, they're. Yeah, they're, they're. Because it is, it's, it's science and art all mixed together and that. I think the best estimators I've been around, they're the ones that are still having fun with it, even if they've been doing it for like 37 years. Like, they're still, you could tell they're still. Like, it really gets them going. Like, it's like, yes, another. You put the new set of plans on their desk and it's like another puzzle for them to go figure out.
- [100:07]
B
They put them up on the wall.
- [100:08]
A
I love.
- [100:09]
B
Dude, when I see plans on the wa.
- [100:10]
A
I'm like, hell, yeah, nothing.
- [100:11]
B
We're, we're, we're for real.
- [100:13]
A
We're going. I'm like a, like a moth to a flame, I go, if I walk in a room, there's plans up on the wall. I go right to the plans. I'm like, let's take me through this.
- [100:22]
B
Let's start at the beginning.
- [100:24]
A
Let's try to figure out what the heck's going on here.
- [100:26]
B
But it's. It's crazy if you think about it too, like, a lot. I mean, dude, like, 100. You could have, like, 150, $200 million job. You get 30. Think about 30 days to build this to. To put together an estimate for a bid.
- [100:39]
A
Yeah.
- [100:40]
B
Like, this job could take four years, five years. You have to take all of that complexity that's associated with. I mean, not just the construction and, like, the. How are you going to do this? But, you know, price escalations and fluctuations and suppliers and subs and management, traffic control, like, all this stuff.
- [101:02]
A
Yeah.
- [101:02]
B
And literally your job is to get this thing down to a penny, what it's going to cost us to go do it. That's a lot of complexity.
- [101:15]
A
Well, with all of the unknowns, existing conditions, I don't know. Take your best guess. Is there something buried there? I don't know. Figure it out. Couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you. What's under the ground. Is it rock? I don't know. Maybe. Like, there's some rock over there. So, like, it's maybe rock, but maybe not. I don't know. I can't tell you. And then you're also trying to figure out what's your competitor doing? Like, it's. It's a lot.
- [101:41]
B
Yeah, it's a lot. What have they done in the past? What have they. How are they doing on their jobs? Like, it's. It's.
- [101:48]
A
How badly do we need the work? How much do I need to sharpen my pencil?
- [101:51]
B
You know, that's usually the biggest thing is, you know, like, how does this fit with us first? Right. You know, and then the next step is thinking more about, like, the competitors. And then I think passing on jobs, too, is a really hard thing, you know, Like, I did a post the other day about how, like, we were running out of work in our civil division, and I decided to go. There was a bad GC that we had no business going to work for. We had heard the horror stories from other contractors. Like, it's gonna be. It's gonna be a shit show.
- [102:29]
A
Yeah.
- [102:30]
B
And sure enough, we were running out of work, and I said, I know where to send all these six crews. Right here.
- [102:38]
A
Let's eat that apple.
- [102:40]
B
And not only did I get the first phase of the job, but then they offered us the second phase. Sure.
- [102:46]
A
Yeah, come on down.
- [102:48]
B
Just bring it on. And it was a complete disaster. They were exactly who we thought they were as Denny Green, the head coach of the. As the Cardinals would say. And, you know, we ended up, you know, I think they sued us. I mean, it was. It was a freaking disaster. And all because we didn't have work. And I made the wrong decision to go chase bad work for a bad owner.
- [103:14]
A
Yeah.
- [103:15]
B
When I could have just said, hey, we're gonna cut back our hours. We're going to go, you know, pursue some other work for somebody else. And it was just a big. It was a good learning experience, you know, for me. And I think one thing that contractors can do is chase work that they have no business, you know, going to do, especially when times get. When times get tight. And you're gonna. We're gonna see that eventually with, you know, when. When market slows down.
- [103:40]
A
Yeah. And it's already happened in some ways in some areas, too. I think it's been interesting talking to people, too. You probably get this. You probably talk to people all the time about how's the market doing in your area. So you probably have all this anecdotal data in your head, like I do, I think. And this is not just for construction. This is like the overall economy right now. We've all been lied to into, like, yeah, 2021-2022-2023-2024. That's just the normal economy. It's like, bullshit. Is it the normal economy? How much did the feds just print and spend? Oh, like trillions of dollars. Oh, oh, okay. Like, so how sustainable is that? Well, it's not very sustainable. Like, what. Like, what did the market look like before this happened? Because that's probably healthier. Like, there's. It's been really irrational for a long time, for a few years. And I feel like people and businesses. Rightly so, you have got to make hate while sun shining, but have, like, adjusted to that irrationality when it's not real. Like, it's kind of fake in a way. And so now they're like, well, it's slowing down. I'm like, I don't know. Maybe it is slowing down. But is that all bad? Should we be going that fast? Should we be building as many megaprojects, like battery plants? I don't know. Maybe we should be. But I'm at least looking at it. I'm trying to be more measured about it, because insane growth is not also healthy for anybody either. But I was born in 1995, so the fuck do I know?
- [105:33]
B
It's a boom time right now, I think, especially just with the at on. Especially on like the, anything that has federal dollars right tied to it.
- [105:41]
A
That's what I mean. Like, there's been so many federal dollars just fucking handed out everywhere. Like, if you're just like Tristan's batteries, hey, Feds, I need $1.3 billion. I'm going to build a new battery plant. They'd be like, why don't you, why don't, why don't you take 2 billion? There you go. Right? It's just like everybody and their mother is like a billion dollar private development. That, that was almost unheard of five years ago. Like, that was a really, really, really big deal. A 5 billion, a $10 billion, a $40 billion. What. All of that has happened in like a five year period because they signed something called the Chips act and the inflation Reduction act and the infrastructure bill that unlocks trillions of federal dollars for anybody. And I think it's awesome, like going to a project where they're shifting like 30 million yards of dirt for a fucking battery plant I think is the coolest thing in the world. But I also can't help but to like scratch my head a little bit and be like, does this make sense? Right? And I feel like everybody's kind of like, doesn't. Does. How does this work? Like, how does this work? Like, we don't really know.
- [106:54]
B
Well, I think, you know, what, what, what happens when, when the spigot, you know, gets, gets, gets shut off, Right?
- [107:00]
A
Yes. And I understand.
- [107:01]
B
What is that, what is that? What does that look like? How far away is that? And because, yeah, I mean, a lot of contractors are growing right now and they're, they're, you know, they're upping their, their, their headcount, right, in order to accommodate like the demand. And it's going to go the other direction at some point. Because I mean, just think about how long we worked to get the infrastructure bill passed. I mean, dude, we've been talking about the infrastructure bill for 15 years leading up to it.
- [107:33]
A
But then the infrastructure bill, I've learned, is kind of nonsense because I've asked all these guys that build infrastructure. They're the guys that are, you hear infrastructure bill, you're like, oh yeah, highways and shit. Infrastructure. Talk to the guys that do that at the biggest level, hey, how's it been? They're like, we haven't really, it hasn't really had any effect, you know.
- [107:55]
B
Why?
- [107:56]
A
Well.
- [107:59]
B
Inflation.
- [108:00]
A
Yes. They've said it's really just covered their inflationary. But even most of it still hasn't even been let. Like a lot of it still hasn't even been released. And okay, like my question is, we just passed. Okay. Government. I'm going to take you at your word, which is a complete ridiculous thing to do, but for sake of conversation and argument, I'm going to take you at your word. This is the most historic infrastructure bill investment ever in United States history. A trillion dollars. This is so historic. This is going to change everybody's lives. They passed it quite a few years ago now. Okay, so we've had time to get some of the money out. I am like, I don't know. You've been to some other countries, right? You've been to. Where did you travel?
- [108:50]
B
Left Norway.
- [108:52]
A
Norway. Okay, great example. So you've been to Norway. Infrastructure there.
- [108:57]
B
It's pretty good.
- [108:58]
A
Pretty damn good, right? Okay, so we just passed the most historic infrastructure bill ever in American history. And we're America, damn it. So we're on track to be in like Norway. Like, we should be comparable to Norway. I mean, fuck, we're so much bigger, we're so much better and we have this historic. Are we comparable in Norway? Are we on track to being comparable in Norway?
- [109:23]
B
Probably not.
- [109:26]
A
And again, it's like I'm a complete idiot, but I can't help but to almost be frustrated at this point. Like, how many potholes do I need to avoid coming to this office? It's a 12 minute drive from my house. Like, I just, I just said yes on this, on this. Bout this initiative yesterday when I voted on like, hey, we're gonna, you know, increase sales tax for. And spend $3 billion on. On what? On, on, on transportation. You look at what it is, like sidewalks, traffic signals, buses. Like, wow. Yes. Okay, I, you know what? I do think sidewalks are a good thing to have.
- [110:05]
B
I agree.
- [110:06]
A
Come on. I will.
- [110:08]
B
I don't know, man. It's, it's our, our, our transportation as is far behind, I think. But you know, to be fair, like, we also just have a massive country. Right? Like the, the land mass relative to. Correct. A Western European country. Yes. You know, I mean, they're, they're tiny.
- [110:29]
A
They say that, but then it's like, okay, so explain China to me. Explain that one to me. And then they'll come up with something else. But it's like Americans think China sucks. Like, hey, hey, go to China, tell me it sucks. The infrastructure is mind bending. Mind bending. So much better than ours. I know you don't want to admit that. I know you don't want to believe that. I know that's not what the television is telling you, what CNN's telling you, Fox, whoever, but it's the truth. I've been on it. I've been on the high speed rail.
- [111:01]
B
What's it like?
- [111:02]
A
It's, it's unbelievable because you go there thinking like, all right, everything's going to be falling down. Like they don't even, you know, they build shit. It's kind of, it's kind of shitty. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not the case. And then it's like, you know, you go to Saudi Arabia, they're investing more than anywhere else in the world right now in infrastructure. And then you go to you. It's like all these Americans are criticizing it. It's like we have the gall to criticize their investment in infrastructure. They're spending their money on their country and their population. How can I criticize that? Huh?
- [111:46]
B
Okay, doesn't work that way.
- [111:49]
A
It's. It's. Yeah, I don't know.
- [111:52]
B
So what do you, I mean, what do you.
- [111:54]
A
I need to get off the soapbox. What do you see as a big.
- [111:56]
B
Difference between like those other countries, how they're doing things and how you see things being done here?
- [112:06]
A
It's just not a priority here. It's a priority. Priority there. Not a priority here. Priority here is healthcare, pharmaceuticals. It's defense contractors. You can see where the money goes. The giant technology corporations. But none of those companies can exist without infrastructure. It's just like it's. But it, for whatever reason just been completely put on the back burner. It's not a priority in the United States. And it's like, it's a priority in some places. You go to like a Texas, for example, and you're like, oh yeah, okay, you guys have dropped some coin on this infrastructure. And yeah, it's a newer, it's a newer state, like, newer system. They have more land, they have some advantages there. They have a state budget that actually works, that's actually solvent because they have oil. But you can't go to Texas and be like, oh yeah, you guys clearly haven't prioritized infrastructure or even Phoenix, Arizona, I took it for granted, like, oh yeah, you know, and again, it's a newer city. So they've had, they've been able to put it on a grid and build it out as, as time goes on. But I took it for granted, the infrastructure there is just way better than it is here in Nashville. Way better. Way Better priority. It's a priority. We're going to invest in it.
- [113:27]
B
Man, it's hot there. By the way, I flew in there the other day. It was 112.
- [113:32]
A
Have you been there, though, in, like, February or March?
- [113:35]
B
This is nice.
- [113:36]
A
Yeah. Every time I go in there, I go there in Phoenix. I'm like, who the hell would live here? And then I go there in February and I'm like, oh, okay, Okay, I get it. Yep.
- [113:49]
B
Landed. It was 112. I was supposed to go run a race, and I was like, we're screwed. Like, there's no way I'm going to.
- [113:57]
A
Be able to do this. Your body just can't.
- [113:58]
B
But drove up to Flagstaff, and as we were going, it was like, you looked at the temperature and it went from 112, 10, 190. By the time we got there, was like, 82.
- [114:12]
A
Yeah, it's gorgeous up there. That's where, like, I told you, I joked, and it's not kind of a joke. I was like, that's the. Where the kind of rich people have a second home, but the real rich people go to California or Colorado. Yeah.
- [114:25]
B
Full town.
- [114:26]
A
Well, how do people find you on the Internet?
- [114:30]
B
EdgeVanta IO or LinkedIn? Yeah, those are the two main places.
- [114:36]
A
Awesome. Well, appreciate you coming by.
- [114:39]
B
Thanks, man. It's fun. Great to catch up. Thanks for having me. Yeah, sure. Really appreciate it. You guys are doing great work. You really are. The industry needs what you guys are doing.
- [114:48]
A
Well, likewise. I think what you're doing is super important, too.