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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. I was just talking to somebody about this. I love listening to comedians talking, talk with one another, because they're. They can just, like, make up these scenarios in their head that are the most ridiculous shit you have ever heard. And you're sitting there the whole time like, how did they just come up with that?
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B
This is.
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A
But then you get lost in it. And.
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B
Yeah, that's really more of an art than. Than I knew that it was before listening to Rogan.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, because. Because through that, like, his explanation, Dave Chappelle, you know, all the guys that he rolls with, it's like, that was a total underground thing to me. I figured they were just funny people that went out there on stage and did their thing. But, like, it takes a lot of work, so. And a lot of skill to get up there in front of a room of people and do your deal and be effective.
- [01:34]
A
Well, and it takes skill to communicate effectively. And going back to Andy and Ed and all these guys, I think that's one of the core themes, is these guys are good leaders. Jocko. Because they communicate effectively. And it's amazing to me how many people in business are very bad at communicating, because that's like, the core thing has to be. Yeah, it has to be. It has to be like that.
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B
That's it. Yeah. So many problems can come from poor communication or so many good things. So we go from really good communication.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, and it's not hard. It just takes effort.
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A
It just takes.
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B
It just takes effort.
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A
And it requires you to put your ego aside and just to admit, all right, I suck at this. I'm going to suck at this for a long time. I'm going to say the wrong things sometimes I'm going to be criticized, but that's okay. That's the only way I get better. Right. And I think that's why I've been able to do it faster than most in some senses, because I'm younger, and so I Have less of that. Like, I'm not as worried about appearing stupid or being criticized because it's.
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B
I have that past too.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Well, I'm like, I'm aware of what I don't know in some ways. Whereas I feel like the further down the road you get, the harder it becomes. In some ways.
- [02:53]
B
Cause it's expected. Yes, it's expected. Not that it's not expected from you. Cause you're in a leadership position. But again, the only thing that's stopping you from communicating well or admitting that you can get better in certain aspects is ego.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So you set that aside and you're just real with yourself and whoever you're communicating to. What's the worst that could happen?
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, what's the, what's the downside? Okay, you try, you. You refined and you get better.
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A
Well, and yeah, I, I don't understand the downside because to me there haven't been very many downsides. It's really just been upside. And again, yes, I, yeah, I'll get my hand slapped or whatever it is every once in a while. Happens all the time. But that I feel like I'm not trying to get my hand slapped. One.
- [03:38]
B
Yeah.
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A
And two, that's just, that's just part of it. Yeah, that's just what. And that's what has helped me build what I've been able to build from a brand standpoint. Like it wouldn't, it wouldn't exist if I was always consulting my attorney before.
- [03:51]
B
I said, oh, yeah, yeah, you can't, you can't. Because it's. The other thing that it is is it's a perishable skill too. Once you stop or once you slow down.
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A
Yes.
- [04:00]
B
It takes a while to get back to it. And for me personally, I always had a fear of public speaking, like for a long time. And I've forced myself to put myself in uncomfortable positions so I can get better at it. When we have new employees come in, we do a week long neo and on the second day, part of that is an hour long senior management speech. So every two weeks there's probably five to 20 people in. But we've had some pretty big classes too with 20 plus guys. And that's been one effective for them to meet senior leadership and get to know what, what, what they're starting into, which is important to start off the right way. But it's been great for me as a kind of a training ground and a practice ground to go speak.
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A
So who comes into that?
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B
Every new employee.
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A
Every new person okay. Okay. So it's like onboarding.
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B
It's an onboarding.
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A
Yeah.
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B
We call it neo new employee orientation. And it's a mixture of things. I mean, the first three days are pretty much all classroom. And it's. The safety group comes in, training group comes in, leadership group comes in, and we really explain the company, no matter.
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A
No matter who it is, who and where. Could be a laborer, it could be a new cfo. Everybody. Everybody.
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B
Everybody goes through. Yeah. And a lot of guys from out of town, we'll put them up in a hotel for three days, four days, you know, but it's part of the. It's really part of the interview process. It's like, hey, you got to go through this gauntlet, you know, everybody has to do it. I know it's tough. You don't want to be in a classroom for four days right off the rip. And it's tough to be away from family, and everyone has that commitment. But there was a day not too long ago where the onboarding was, here's your hard hat. You're out there on the crew on day one, and it's kind of baptism by fire. And with the complexity in what we do and the level of sophistication that's expected and just having a high standard and living that high standard, you can't take the chance just putting someone out there on their own and hoping, you know, hope isn't a strategy.
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A
Well, how long has that been going on for?
- [05:50]
B
Probably consistently the full week. Two years. Okay. I'd say. Okay. Before that was probably two to three days, but the time spent during those two to three days was not effective.
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A
Sure.
- [06:04]
B
We've been super intentional about refining the content and the message that we're delivering. And we spend a lot more time on culture and the soft skills, the human skills, the leadership skills, which you don't normally get into with a brand new laborer until he's in a role where leadership becomes a larger part of what's expected. But we've been. I know you follow Jocko a lot. Yeah, we've pushed leadership down as far as we can, you know, and kind of taken the stance that if you interact with one person throughout the day, you're in a leadership role and you're leading yourself, you're leading that person. It's not just management, it's not just supervisors. You know, everybody can be a leader in their own way.
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A
The doing four days every two weeks, that's a significant time commitment. So I think somebody would be like, well, that's that's a lot of time. We don't have that kind of time to do that.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Has it, has it been, what have the benefits of that been? I think that's squishy, but.
- [06:58]
B
No, no, I think the benefit has been, you know, I go out there and visit a region, let's say three months after somebody started, I might not recognize that guy, but I go up and say, hey, I'm Mike, how you doing? Oh, yeah, no, we met in Neo, you know, so like there's a baseline of just them belonging to our tribe, if you will, from, from day one that's intrinsic, that nobody even realized was going to be part of that. So I think from just from day one, the, the, I guess the, the sense of belonging, you know, from new employees goes, it goes a long way because six months might go by, a year might go by where I might not see that individual or one of our other general managers or leadership might not see that individual. And it's important that they know kind of who they're working for in that sense. But aside from the senior team, they start to develop a sense of mentorship with our training group, which is really important. So, like Mark Payton, who runs that, runs that group. He's got some folks that work for him. Griff. Griff is one of them, who's kind of a number two in that sense for Neo. And Griff will go back out there a month later and he'll remember certain guys or in certain classes and he'll follow up with them and say, hey, how's it going? How's this going? How are you seeing this happening? How are you seeing this happening? And that 30, 60, 90, 120 day follow up shows that we're not just checking a box like we're, we're walking the walk too when it comes to this. So that's like, it's kind of our baseline, that class for what the rest of their career is going to be.
- [08:27]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And for, for you, I guess we got there because it's a, it's an opportunity for you to speak publicly. Yeah. Every few months.
- [08:35]
B
That's not why we did it, but for me personally, it turned into that.
- [08:38]
A
Yeah, there's good reps. Yeah. You know, I've gone to a lot of company meetings now and it's a great opportunity for leadership to have that FaceTime with everybody and to set the stage and tone and vision, et cetera. And it bums me out when I don't see that opportunity taken. And everybody has the right to Operate their company how they want to operate it. But to me, it's like you've got. You've spent the money and time to get your whole company in one place. A lot of companies, it's, you know, an annual deal, spent all this money and time to get everybody there. And then you don't seize the opportunity to really tell everybody where the hell we're going in, like a direct way as a leader. And everybody has their own leadership approach. But hearing it from the horse's mouth is really important. So important. It's so important.
- [09:29]
B
Like, I don't. I don't know how you. I don't know how you achieve things without that. I don't know. It's such a big part of our lives now that I don't know another way.
- [09:38]
A
Yeah.
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B
That it gets done. And we've gotten a lot done before, being super intentional about that. But it's just, you know, I don't know how. Sure. You know, at least. At least in a way that, you know, is more direct.
- [09:55]
A
Yeah.
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B
You know, and we. Part of the. Part of the takeaway that we had from the Dirt World Summit last year was we Napkin sketched out a leadership event internal to dds, and we brought everybody in from Foreman all the way up to the senior team, and we level set everybody after that. And. Okay, what is. First of all, we got to figure out and make sure that everybody knows what mission we're on. You know, part of what you just said. And if that's unclear to anybody, let's clear that up. So when we gotta go to work, we can go to work. And we're all heading the same direction. And we, as the senior team, got together before that and made sure that we were all on the same page, which forced us to do that. And we don't do that enough, you know, so now that's a big part of our collaboration. But the, you know, the authenticity behind the whole company being on the same page with which direction we're headed is something that. That is so important both now and later.
- [10:50]
A
Oh, it's huge. And it's always changing. I mean, I'm going to Savannah next. Next week. I do. I try to do three, if not, I mean, in a good year, four. Four weeks a year in Savannah. And Savannah is just like my spot. And it's really. I just love it because I can. I stay in the same Airbnb, which is great. Cause it's like my little. My little place. I have my little routine, you know, same. Same run every morning. I Can walk everywhere. I don't rent a car intentionally to then just walk everywhere. I don't listen to music or anything when I'm walking to completely get rid of that. I have no calls scheduled. I have nothing to do. There's. There's no real things to accomplish. I don't. I'm by myself. I don't eat with people. It's just.
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B
Yeah.
- [11:36]
A
I just kind of wander for a week. But that's my. And I always have, like, a project. It's not. I'm not just there to, like, off. So next week's my. My really, really, really thinking through, like, where's the company going? How do I define mission, vision, values, everything else that's important. How do I put it on a single piece of paper? Nothing more than. I've got one page to highlight.
- [12:01]
B
One page. Business plan.
- [12:02]
A
Yes. Yeah. Who we are as a business and where we're going so that anybody within our company can very clearly understand that on day one. Yeah. And I, and I, I. And we were quite good at that and intentional with it early on. And there's just been so much chaos. And not that, I mean, most people know what the heck's going on here, why they're doing it, but I think we can be so much more intentional and clear.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So that's my goal for next week.
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B
I like that. That sounds like it's something that was pulled from a Green Lights book.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Have you read that book?
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A
Yeah. That's a good book.
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B
So McConaughey, he does. He does what, a 14 day or a 21 day? He'll go to. He'll go to, like, way out though. He went to Machu Picchu. He'll go somewhere where nobody knows him. And that's like his time to get back. Okay. With himself. I mean, much different than you and I. Right. He's a. Yeah. He can't go to a restaurant without a flock of people coming to him. Which I can't imagine.
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A
But.
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B
But that's his. His place to go and just detach from all the things in his life. You know? And really get back to, like, who is Matthew?
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A
It's really not. It's. It's. I, I got it from Bill Gates. He's always had these think.
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B
Weeks. Yeah.
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A
And he. But he just basically locks himself in a room and reads nonstop. That's not really my, My, my thing. And so I've made it. Made it my thing. But I liked the concept of scheduling it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And scheduling that time. So I put it on the calendar. Six months in advance. Nothing is scheduled for that week. And I just use it and be intentional with it. One of the best things I've been able to do. Yeah.
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B
I don't do that enough. That's. That's probably something I could take away.
- [13:32]
A
You have to, you have to schedule it or else it doesn't happen.
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B
Well, I've gotten to that point with one. One of my personal goals this year was to get out in the field more. It's easy to get stuck in the office. There's always something to do. And all of a sudden days go by and weeks go by and months go by and then you're like, man, it's been three months since I went and saw a civil job or three months since I went and saw an Albany gas crew. And it's so important to get out there and just be horizontal with the guys because they're the ones making the money without the guys in the field. Field doing what they do.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And making sure that people making decisions or in decision making positions have awareness to what they go through. Every day. You become detached in a bad way.
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A
Well, it helps you. And it also, it goes a long way. Like I put myself back to being a young guy in construction. Seeing the guy. It goes a long way.
- [14:25]
B
Oh my God.
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A
Even if you don't interact just being there. Yeah.
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B
Just.
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A
Just seeing there, you know.
- [14:29]
B
Yeah. Wow.
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A
That's the first company I work for is Pearson. You know, that's Rich Pearson over there.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And just, just that he's out there with you. It. It really. That in itself carries a lot of weight or at least it did for me as, as a young man in the construction industry.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And that I think that's. I'm talking about Summit. Just like the core things I've seen with the best in class companies out there worldwide. One of those things is they have visible leadership and there's a, there's a hundred different ways to do that. There's no right or wrong way to do it. But leadership is visible.
- [15:03]
B
Yeah.
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A
In some capacity. And I can't find a single example where that is not the case. It's a, it's a really big deal. Really big deal. But like you said, you can go three months and just get swept up so fast.
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B
You can really. I mean, we live in a day and age where there's. There's always 10 things to do and there's never not going to be. But I think back a lot to. I was fortunate to really spend a good amount of time in my Career in every level of the company. Right. So I came in as an entry level project engineer and spent time in estimating and then jumped into project management and then senior project management and then regional manager and VP of ops for a while. It's been like a year and a half in each role. But for a majority of my tenure so far I've been out in the field and the way that our project managers run is very dirty. Boots, boots on the ground. You're there, you're part of the team. You know, you're not pushing paper. It's kind of like a half superintendent, half project manager. You're scheduling equipment, you're scheduling resources, labor wise. You're working with the superintendent on, hey, do you have everything you need? If not, I'm going to find it for you.
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A
So there's also superintendent involved?
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B
There is. So each on our civil side specifically, which is where I started. You'd have a job foreman on the smaller jobs, but larger jobs you'd have a superintendent where you have a crew on water, a crew on dirt, you know, a crew on storm, something like that. If you have different scopes going on and it's a multi functional, scope driven project and in those cases you'll have a superintendent that you work with. But in some jobs, like we did a project down in the Catskills near New York City where it was me and six guys and we went down there and we did the whole job, you know, and that was a year long project and there was some in and out, but being in the field was my life at that point. Like there was, there was no getting stuck in the office because your office was the trailer which was on the project and you're only in there for a few hours a day. So I struggled a lot through the different positions that I've had the opportunity to hold with my life. Becoming more in the office and not out there in the field because you start to lose some of that, you know, you start to lose some of the, some of the genuineness on what actually happens on a job site every day, you know.
- [17:18]
A
Yeah, yeah, but it's and it's so, like you said, it's so easy for that to happen and there is so much bullshit that you have to deal with. The insurance, the legal, the this, the that, you know, and you know, you being the guy, some people just want the guy involved and it's like you don't really need to be involved.
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B
You gotta play that role.
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A
And your team has it perfectly handled, but they want the guy in the room for whatever reason. I try to avoid those situations as.
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B
Much as I can.
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A
Like, hey, I'm not the one to talk to. I'm not just bullshitting you here. But all of that, none of nobody in the field really cares in the, in the grand scheme of things. Like, if you're just absent, like, it's like a, it's like a dad. Yeah. Saying, you know, I'm working so hard for this family, you know, put a roof over to like an 8 year old.
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B
It's all relative.
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A
That doesn't mean anything. All that I get as an eight year old is like, you weren't out my game there. Yeah, that sucks. Like, I don't, I don't know what a mortgage is.
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B
Okay.
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A
You're so right. And it's kind of this. I've realized it's the same thing. Like, I can say, and I can say, you know, I'm working so hard and doing all this stuff that no one sees this and that.
- [18:27]
B
Yeah.
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A
But no one, no one cares.
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B
No, they don't. And the thing about that, Aaron, is once that time's gone, it's gone. You can't get that back. You know, So I, and I think about that where, where we started with this was I've actually put on my calendar, I've scheduled time. Today is my field day. Like no meetings today, you know, And I've done it with every division and the, the gentlemen that run each division, we go out there together and it's like, today is our day.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It could be you and I, it could be us and we're out hitting jobs like whatever we got to do to get out there and boots on the ground within the division. That's what we're doing. But it got to the point where I had it in my mind since this year that I was going to get better there. And I never got better there without actually putting it on my calendar and saying, this is the day.
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A
So that's one of probably the single best things I've done in business is I've gotten really deliberate with my time. And I hired like one of my early hires was an executive assistant. Her name's Jessica and she is a fx. She's on attorney leave right now.
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B
Some dude.
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A
And my life is substantially worse right now. So I am really, really trying hard.
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B
Like, yes, you do whatever that person front flanking.
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A
I'm just, yeah, I'm just like, oh, man. But she's been helping me for years now and it's been so helpful to have somebody help Me be more intentional with my time and schedule and calendar. And without that. I mean, so many. Like before that. I listened to Jesse Itzler talk about this years ago, and he'll. He'll be at Summit, which.
- [19:59]
B
Awesome. Super awesome. Yeah.
- [20:00]
A
I'm so excited to meet him.
- [20:02]
B
But every time I read the list, I'm like, I can't believe there's this many people that are stacked up. Crazy awesome people.
- [20:06]
A
Yeah. But I, you know, you just kind of let the day run you. You don't really run the day. And I started, all right, I need to be a lot more intentional with my time, my calendar, and started doing that. And there's some stuff you can't control. But I have been. I'm so much more effective.
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B
Yeah.
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A
With everybody's always like, how do you do what you do? I'm just really deliberate with how I manage my. My schedule, my calendar. And I have help with that as well. And I know not everybody can do that, but, like, for me, even as a young business owner, it was like, give myself a raise or hire somebody to help me manage my most important resource, which is my time. Easy.
- [20:41]
B
No brainer.
- [20:42]
A
Easy decision. Every. Everybody I talk to, like, in business, if they don't have somebody helping them, even if it's part time, like, you gotta have somebody helping you. It's just so important. But that being. And then every night, you know, I review every week, all right, what am I doing this week? What do I need to be thinking ahead about and planning for? And then every night, all right, what am I doing tomorrow? I write it down and then I just do it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I don't. I don't.
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B
Your power list.
- [21:09]
A
Yes. Yeah. In a sense. In a sense, it's powerless every day. Here's exactly what I need to do. I get to work, sit down on my desk, open up my notebook. Don't have to think, just run the play.
- [21:21]
B
Yeah, that's it.
- [21:21]
A
Yeah.
- [21:22]
B
Make it easy for yourself. That's it. I reference things called success traps. Set some success traps for yourself, you know what I mean? Somewhere where you're going to walk into and have some upside. Instead of traps that you set for yourself where you're going to lose, which is easy to do, too, by dropping the ball on certain things, you know, but where we started too in this is how do you make time for the Neo. Really what it comes down to is prioritization. You know, what do you prioritize? There's only so many hours in a day, and there's always going to be More things to do than hours that you have. So where you spend your time and really prioritizing, that is important. Sal talked about that a lot at first. For him, it's like, what are you going to do less of? How you going to say no more? And our CEO has a. Has a saying with that, too. He's. He's not asking people, what are you doing more of? It's, what are you going to do less of? Where are you going to spend less of your time? Where you're not being effective?
- [22:14]
A
Well, I just had a guy in here not long ago. His name is Nick, Nick Lavery. And yeah, I follow Nick. Some amazing guy. It really clicked. You know, sometimes you hear something a hundred times over, and then on the 101st time, it just. It just makes sense and connect.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And he was like, yeah, it's not a matter of giving stuff, giving stuff up necessarily or like working less. It's just a matter of doing some other stuff that you shouldn't be doing or can't be doing anymore. Like just, Just getting rid of some more of that.
- [22:45]
B
Yeah.
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A
And I was thinking through my life currently, it's like, yeah, I still have a lot I could get rid of.
- [22:49]
B
Right.
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A
That I, if I am serious about this and this, that stuff just doesn't apply.
- [22:55]
B
That's right.
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A
And some of it, like, you know, his examples like weddings and that kind of stuff. It's. It's. I've kind of felt like a prick. A lot of people have been inviting me to weddings.
- [23:05]
B
Yeah.
- [23:05]
A
It's just like I don't have the ability to go fly to Santa Barbara right now for three days and spend money on it. Like, I'm just, I have to be over here. But it's.
- [23:15]
B
And most normal people won't understand that. We've had to do that. Like, we've gone to some weddings where we show up for the ceremony to be there, and then it's like, hey, we gotta. We gotta. Got some. We can't make the reception, you know, because we got some stuff we got to do.
- [23:26]
A
Sure.
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B
And most people are like, you're going to miss the party. You know, it's like, you know, yeah, we're going to miss the party.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. And it's.
- [23:33]
B
Yeah.
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A
And you, and you. Like, no matter what, you can rationalize it all day long. It just doesn't. And I guess that's kind of the stuff you like. The further you want to go, the more you've got to push in that direction.
- [23:46]
B
Yeah.
- [23:47]
A
And then that's where the misunderstanding with others comes in that you just in a way have to be comfortable with.
- [23:52]
B
No doubt. No doubt. And there's. Everything has an opportunity cost too. So like the things that you do spend your time with where you shouldn't be, what are you missing out on? Where you take that two hours and you can spend your time doing something else that could really be effective in whatever way that it needs to be. And you're going to miss that. And once you miss it, you miss it.
- [24:12]
A
What is the message that you aim to deliver at these, at neo? Yeah, because it's probably along the same lines.
- [24:20]
B
Yeah. So we, we start with our core values, you know, which is safety, quality, accountability.
- [24:26]
A
What is, what is the message you deliver? That I deliver personally is what's your job in it?
- [24:31]
B
So I'm, I'm right there in it. Like with the guys, like, my portion is right next to everybody else. I don't necessarily have my own portion. So we spend probably an hour, half hour to an hour. And, and those. Sometimes it's a little bit shorter. But you know, my message around the guys is not tactical. It's not skill driven of like, hey, go out there and do this well. Cause I was never in their seat for 10 years where I can go operate better than they can or anything like that. I'm very real about that. But it's more like, how do we go out there and just make good decisions, you know, like, how do you go out there and just do the right thing and how do you go out there and think about, start to frame your mind around leadership and, you know, the things that you don't normally think about when you're starting off as a labor on a construction site and as simple as sweeping up, you know, at the end of the day, you can either be standing around, kind of chum in the coffee and, you know, catching up with the guys, or grab a broom and go sweep up. Because you know what, that's your office. And so everybody driving by sees that and then perception becomes reality, you know, so how do you start to develop these little things that you can change and then build those little things into big things and then eventually, you know, boost yourself down the path. So we talk a lot about that, you know, mindset and just decision making in general. And. And then I do go through some war stories on back in my project management days on like, hey, here's why we do what we do, safety wise. Here's why we do what we do quality wise. Here's a story where we didn't have the things in place that we do today. And here's what went wrong, you know, and firsthand I experienced that and I want to tell you about it.
- [26:00]
A
Sure.
- [26:00]
B
So I do. I do get deep into. Into some of the concepts, but then I go into, you know, real life situations on why we've gotten to where we are and. And then sometimes it'll be more informal. You know, I don't. I don't really go in there with a script.
- [26:14]
A
Yeah.
- [26:14]
B
That's kind of like how we started. I. I let the conversation go where it needs to go, depending on the group of people. But I'll normally always go around the room and try and get some background on, like what. Where they're from, what they've done, and then make the conversation relative with them from there.
- [26:28]
A
I see.
- [26:29]
B
So it's not. It's not rigid. It's not structured. It's not like I have a notepad that I go deliver. You know, it's more informal, but I want it to be that way because it's a little bit of a get to know you. We want them to know where they are as part of something new that they're starting. And it's always a little bit intimidating to start anything new. So when you start that and you have those unknowns that continue to be unknowns.
- [26:54]
A
Yeah.
- [26:55]
B
You know, you have that barrier right away.
- [26:57]
A
Sure.
- [26:58]
B
So.
- [26:58]
A
Yeah. And no matter how far someone is in their career, how experienced they are, they're nervous about their first day at a new job. I don't. I don't care who you are. Everybody's nervous in some way and it might materialize in different ways, but it'd.
- [27:14]
B
Be strange if you weren't nervous.
- [27:15]
A
Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's just like a. It's. It's so human to. You're now part of a new tribe. You've got to fit in and you're feeling it out. What's cool, what's not cool. You're looking others. What's the tolerated behavior? Yeah, it's. We've tr. We've tried. We try to do it. We just don't. We're not hiring enough to do it regularly. Like every other week like that. Ideally, we get to that point. Yeah. But we're probably every four to six weeks.
- [27:45]
B
Okay.
- [27:45]
A
I would say in group, once we have.
- [27:48]
B
Yeah.
- [27:48]
A
You know, enough people, put them in a group and do it and it's three days.
- [27:52]
B
Got it.
- [27:52]
A
What we've been doing.
- [27:53]
B
Yeah.
- [27:53]
A
But we'll have. I'll have a Session talking exclusively about mission.
- [27:58]
B
Yeah.
- [27:58]
A
And I talk about mission. And then we have a discussion with everybody, which, which is. I really enjoyed.
- [28:05]
B
I'm glad you do that. That's a hard thing to do. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of awkward silence, you know, when you ask the question. And then because you don't get. It's tough to get guys to talk a lot of times, especially new people, guys and gals.
- [28:16]
A
The best thing I've learned is you just, you can't fill the silence. Yeah. You just have to sit there and look at them. Yeah. And I just say, I'm just going to sit here and look at you until I get something out of somebody.
- [28:26]
B
I'm terrible at that.
- [28:27]
A
No, it's so uncomfortable.
- [28:28]
B
I'll start calling names. I'll be like, all right, man, I'm calling names. If no one's going to speak up. And then everyone's kind of like, oh man. Yeah, sit back in their seat. But then it becomes conversational.
- [28:38]
A
Yeah, yeah. Once. Yeah. Once you get them, it's the first guy. This isn't a gotcha here. I'm not trying to. This isn't a job interview. You've got the job. We're good.
- [28:47]
B
Exactly.
- [28:48]
A
And then we do with our executive team, we do just an hour where it's. They can ask any question under the sun.
- [28:54]
B
Town hall.
- [28:55]
A
Yeah. And the executive team is able to have that.
- [28:57]
B
I've been thinking about that. You know, town halls and their effectiveness around. Just, hey, open forum, you know, what's on your mind?
- [29:05]
A
And it's really been, it's, it's been good for us, at least.
- [29:07]
B
Good.
- [29:07]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [29:09]
B
I think it's important too, for at least in our portion, the leadership portion of those Neos, them to hear the same message from us. Non rehearsed.
- [29:19]
A
Sure.
- [29:19]
B
Then they hear the whole rest of the week too, you know, and when it comes to the safety, to training, it's like, hey, here's, here's the why behind what we do. What we do. Here's the reason that we have 10 guys on our safety team, 10 guys on our training team. It's not because we need to put them on our website and it looks like we're safe, quote unquote. It's because we want there to be resources here that are safety professionals that you can call that. I can call that he can call and say, hey, this doesn't look right, doesn't feel right. Can you come take a look and give me a second opinion on what it, what it you know, what we should do, how we should handle it, and make them part of your team, because that's why they're here.
- [29:52]
A
There's. There's 10 people on the training team.
- [29:54]
B
Yeah.
- [29:55]
A
Really?
- [29:55]
B
Yeah.
- [29:56]
A
That's a lot of people on training.
- [29:57]
B
Yes, we have. Yeah, we've expanded quite a bit over the past two years. We brought on a vice president of health safety and training and development. Brian Carpenter is his name, and he's been great for us. He really has expanded the team. Mark Payne was newer to our new training philosophy. I'll call it again. This is all probably the past three, four years. And so the way that we're structured right now is Brian is over the top of both safety and training. And Mark Payne leads our training group. So he's got about 10 individuals in that group. Some of it's becoming more division disciplined. So we have five divisions. We operate in gas distribution, gas transmission, civil construction, telecommunications, and then engineering.
- [30:42]
A
Okay.
- [30:43]
B
And he has individuals on his team that spend a lot of time in each division. It's not necessarily 10 trainers that do everything.
- [30:50]
A
Sure.
- [30:50]
B
It's more scope specific, especially. Especially in gas distribution, as operator qualifications become more prevalent and more rigorous. So there's 10 individuals in the training group and then 10 individuals in the safety group. And that is somewhat specific to each division, but not as much. We peak shave as we need to. Depending on where the projects are, we might have four projects going on in Pennsylvania, one in Ohio, and then 30 in New York, something like that. We'll. We'll schedule the safety staff depending on where the concentration and the complexity of the work is. But the philosophy is there's probably not two or three days that go by that a safety guy isn't on site saying, hey, guys, how's it going? You know, and he's not there with an audit. He's not there with a checklist. He's not there to police anybody. He's there to be a resource and check up on the crew and just let them know, like, hey, reminder, I'm here. And. And we do have a lot of different, you know, weekly we have a new safety topic that, that we. A theme, I guess I'll call it. We have a monthly theme that we switch every month, and then toolbox talks that are relative to that theme. So every Monday, you know, we'll. We'll send something out to do a toolbox talk with the crew on the theme, and then the safety group will follow up on. Hey, did you guys see the toolbox talk? What do you think? About this. What do you think about that theme.
- [32:07]
A
Is like, fall protection.
- [32:10]
B
It can be. It's relative. We try not to do like, hey, you know, school. School buses are out when the kids are off, you know, or. Because some people do that and it's random. And then all of a sudden you got heat exhaustion in the middle of January in New York and it's like, what the heck are we doing this for? You know, I.
- [32:29]
A
Man, there was this one company we were working with and they do like a. They have to have like a safety meeting before every single meeting.
- [32:35]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [32:36]
A
And which one I think is like, I appreciate it, but I don't. I don't really care. Like, I'm here to just solve whatever we need to solve and move on. Like, it's kind of a waste of my time. And maybe that's the wrong mindset. But I took. I was, I was annoyed by it because it was just like, you guys can do this, or you guys can ask me if I want to do it, but to just like bring me into this unknowingly because I'm on a phone call with you. Not cool.
- [33:01]
B
Yeah.
- [33:02]
A
But they, yeah, it was like, you know, the. Watch out for kids. You know, this is. It's just like, you guys are. You guys are just. You're making stuff up now to talk about. Just to just do it.
- [33:12]
B
We see that.
- [33:13]
A
Yep.
- [33:13]
B
We see that with some. Yeah, we're involved in some of that. And we never want to be that. We never want to be. We're checking the safety box. So we're going to talk about this. Just to talk about it. We want it to be relative to what they're experiencing out there.
- [33:25]
A
How many people are at the company right now?
- [33:28]
B
We're. We're peaking around 500.
- [33:31]
A
Okay. All right.
- [33:32]
B
You know, but we are. We're in a pretty aggressive pattern of growth.
- [33:37]
A
Sure.
- [33:38]
B
Just this year we've hired in, last I checked was 140 people. Wow. Yeah. Which is a lot. It's a lot.
- [33:44]
A
It is a lot. Yeah.
- [33:45]
B
And we. So our gas transmission group, which typically there's ebbs and flows depending on the projects. They've been anywhere from 30 to 120, depending on what projects we have and where they are and what style projects they are.
- [33:58]
A
Is stuff seasonal too?
- [33:59]
B
It is. Yeah, it is. Really. We're. We're. We're 10 out of 10 until about November, end of November in most regions and then end of December in our more eastern regions. It's customer dependent in the gas distribution side. So they have A deadline. And when they need to do their cut dead for the year.
- [34:15]
A
Okay.
- [34:15]
B
And hit their mileage for the year. And then after that we, we've preached and we've been super intentional the past few years about we're not a seasonal company because we're, we're. This is a full time gig for these guys. And one, they don't want to be laid off for four months out of the year.
- [34:33]
A
Yeah.
- [34:34]
B
You know, one or two months. Okay. Get it, it gets cold, there's snow flying. We got to regroup. But we're not in an industry where we can afford to just lay everybody off for four months anymore.
- [34:43]
A
When you say. And that. That has been a significant change that I've seen across the entire industry now.
- [34:49]
B
It has to be.
- [34:50]
A
Yeah. I mean, and it's frustrated some of the previous generation because a lot of these times, a lot guys had built their lives around four months off.
- [34:57]
B
Yeah.
- [34:58]
A
And it was like, there's some guys.
- [34:59]
B
That want it, some guys that volunteer.
- [35:01]
A
I just want a snowmobile for four months. Yeah. That sounds good to me. But yeah. Other guys. Yeah. It would frustrate somebody. It would frustrate me. I wouldn't know what to do with myself.
- [35:09]
B
Yeah, me too.
- [35:11]
A
But when you say hit their mileage goal for the year, is that replacing.
- [35:16]
B
Yeah. So mandated work by the Public Service Commission. So it's a regulated business and there's a certain amount of mileage by the number that they need to retire each year.
- [35:26]
A
Okay.
- [35:27]
B
So it might be 50 miles in upstate New York region. You know what I mean? For example, for one of our customers, where they need to, they need to, through their rate case, which is something that the public pays through their gas bills, retire this amount of mileage throughout the year. Because that's the investment that they said they were going to make in the rate case.
- [35:44]
A
Is, are those kind of projects, is that all still hard bid or is it like you get the contract for the year and you're the contractor?
- [35:52]
B
So their term contracts, typically they're five years.
- [35:55]
A
Five years.
- [35:55]
B
So you bid the contract and once, once you're awarded a portion. So it's geographically based mostly.
- [36:02]
A
Sure.
- [36:03]
B
You know, then it's handout work after that. So you'd get a bundle of projects at a time.
- [36:07]
A
Do you, do you bid it based on like unit pricing?
- [36:10]
B
All unit pricing.
- [36:10]
A
Okay.
- [36:11]
B
Yep. Per foot. It could be per square foot for restoration.
- [36:15]
A
Is then that what you perform the work for over the five year? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. So it's all unit price based units, huh?
- [36:21]
B
Yeah. It's a lot. And we've had to get very advanced technology wise, and how we collect data, because, sure, if we miss, you know, 10ft of pipe, that's. That's money that we're never going to bill. And unless we have a QAQC check, there's no way to go recover that. So we, we've implemented some pretty rigorous systems and how we collect productions and what gets done out there in the field, because we're not talking 10 units, we're talking these, these unit pricing and the units themselves could be. We get some contracts that are 800 units.
- [36:50]
A
Wow.
- [36:50]
B
You know, and then. And you have guys that are out there focused on putting pipe in the ground, expected to be. Have an administrative part of what they do, and then turn in the paperwork on what they did.
- [37:00]
A
Yeah.
- [37:00]
B
You know, and that's been a tough thing because we've always been a operationally focused company when it comes to the guys out in the field.
- [37:08]
A
Is this is a lot of this, like poly pipe or all hdp, mostly plastic.
- [37:13]
B
We do some steel.
- [37:14]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [37:15]
B
So it's mostly in New York, cast and cast and black iron. Okay.
- [37:22]
A
That you're replacing.
- [37:22]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [37:23]
A
With the plastic.
- [37:24]
B
Yep.
- [37:24]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's across the entire United States nowadays. But I think, yeah, once some people got their houses blown up.
- [37:35]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [37:35]
A
It got a lot more serious.
- [37:36]
B
It did. And those, you know, those situations, the Merrimack Valley being one, that was hugely significant. It could have been prevented.
- [37:47]
A
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I've read about some mountain California, too. Yeah. They're getting their feet held to the fire. PV for a lot of different things. Yeah.
- [37:56]
B
A lot of it is procedural, you know, of just. Just making sure that your procedures are tight, making sure that the systems you have in the ground are known, they're accurate, you know, your records are accurate. And then making sure that communication is tight. You know, that's another thing.
- [38:09]
A
Is gas how most people heat their homes out there?
- [38:11]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [38:12]
A
Okay. So, yeah.
- [38:13]
B
I mean, some oil where it's more rural.
- [38:14]
A
Yeah.
- [38:15]
B
But there's. There's a push obviously in New York for this electric heat, but it's. It's not feasible.
- [38:21]
A
Well, just the power doesn't exist.
- [38:23]
B
Yeah, it doesn't. So there's actually. It's funny you bring that up. This past year, there was a moratorium in the, in one of the larger cities around Rochester, Henrietta, which is a pretty heavy development city, where the, the local electric company set everybody down and said, hey, developers, sorry, guys, we got to stop your Building because we don't have enough power for the new build going on. And all these developers with X amount of millions of dollars standing up are like, what do you mean? Yeah, stop our development. You can't do that. Yeah, that's. That's on you guys to supply the power. And there was all sorts of, you know, you can imagine back and forth on that. But yeah, we're maxed out. We're maxed out. And then there's. There's conversations like Micron coming to town, which I think is going to be a huge thing for New York in general. It'll change the whole landscape of the economy and really just the communities and the whole state upstate, that is. But there's not enough power right now for Micron.
- [39:18]
A
Yeah.
- [39:18]
B
For them to actually operate the plant. And I don't know how much you know about it, but they've committed to a hundred billion over ten years.
- [39:27]
A
I was, I was looking at a. There was actually a pretty cool map of all the major industrial projects and major industrial investments in the United States currently. And it was based on like the little bubbles.
- [39:36]
B
Yeah.
- [39:36]
A
You know, based on dollar size.
- [39:38]
B
Yeah.
- [39:38]
A
Yeah, that was big one.
- [39:40]
B
Again, it would be the largest infrastructure project in the country if it actually comes to fruition over the next decade, which is awesome. I mean, but they would need to build their own nuclear power plant on site just to power the plant, like, just to power this little city that they're going to build, which they can do. But right now in the current state, there's huge, huge transformations that would need to happen in the power grid to even think of that.
- [40:04]
A
And that's where. Yeah, I just. This is where like normal people are just so disconnected from how their life actually works. They don't understand that, well, can't we just build more stuff? It's like, we can, sure, but we need to like, I don't know, power it, for example. And that power doesn't just come from nowhere. It would actually have to make us right somehow. Yeah. And you know, it's not just when the wind blows, for example, or when the sun shines. It's more complicated than that. It is, but that's where I was talking to a friend of mine this morning. Like, a lot of data centers are running into that problem too, because they're just so power hungry and brown. Certain. Yeah. In certain, certain states are saying, we cannot permit anymore. We cannot build any more data centers.
- [40:46]
B
Just happened in New York, New York, Virginia.
- [40:48]
A
There's been a few up on the east coast because The east coast doesn't even produce most of its power. Like most of the power comes from elsewhere. Which is crazy to think too.
- [40:56]
B
It is.
- [40:57]
A
And so yeah, they just, they just don't have the capacity to support these massive projects. Which is super, super interesting.
- [41:07]
B
Yeah, it is, it is. I mean I, I'm pretty data driven. I always go back to the math on these things of like okay, that this is the political agenda or you know, what have you. But let's look at the math and make sure that it makes sense and it's.
- [41:19]
A
Pull out our napkin.
- [41:20]
B
Yeah. You know what I mean? Jot down some numbers, make sure it pens out.
- [41:23]
A
Yeah. Wait a minute.
- [41:24]
B
Do our own research for ourselves and then make your own decision on what's right or what's wrong. And if you go on New York ISO, which is the energy website of New York and where our, where all of our energy comes from, a majority of our energy, the electric generation, the power generation comes from natural gas generators. So okay, you can clobber gas the houses and add electric, but you're going to need more natural gas, just the power of the generators to generate that electric to then deliver it back to the houses. So it's a just a ton of political circular motion which we, we ignored for a long time. But you know, it got to a point where we can't ignore it anymore. We are involved in some political support for some of our customers.
- [42:03]
A
Sure.
- [42:04]
B
To help them with, with you know, their, you know, the battle that they're facing on, on pro natural gas aspects. But, but it's, it's tough because it's, that's the red tape that just slows everything down.
- [42:18]
A
The crazy thing is natural gas, if you look at a chart of the US emissions over the past 50 years, you'll see it, it's increasing, increasing, increasing until 2008 and then it falls off a cliff and it has fallen, it's Significantly declined since 2008, 2009, 2010. What happened? Fracking crisis fracking. And we started to seriously convert these coal fired power plants to these gas turbine plants. Gas has largely been, is the lion's share of that. If CO2 emissions is the one thing to consider, which is what they're saying, that is the thing. Okay. Natural gas has been the lion's share of the reduction in CO2 emissions in the United States over the past 15 years.
- [43:10]
B
Natural gas is pretty clean. It's pretty clean.
- [43:12]
A
And we have so much of it.
- [43:13]
B
There's so much of it, more than we need.
- [43:16]
A
Well up in New York. Is it, is it coming from Pennsylvania?
- [43:19]
B
It is mostly the Marcellus Shale. Yeah, shale.
- [43:21]
A
Okay.
- [43:21]
B
You know, down the Appalachia.
- [43:23]
A
But you're not in, you don't touch transmission.
- [43:26]
B
You're just in distribution. We do our energy services division. They'll do. We've gotten into some pipelines that are up to about 10 miles. That's, that's the largest one that we've done. We're really like. Our sweet spot is like 5 to 10 miles, you know, of like that we can do larger than 12 inches. We've done up to 36 before. But really like 6 to 12 is our sweet spot on where we land. So we're not, we're not out there with michaels on the 100 mile spread. You know, that's a five year project. We're really more in our niche of smaller scale transmission. But we do it. I mean we do the same work, just on a smaller scale.
- [44:01]
A
Okay. But then more distribution.
- [44:04]
B
A lot more distribution. Our last little bit. Yeah. Last little bit. I mean our, our engineering folks like to say they can design anything from the meter all the way to the well pad. And they can from a design standpoint. But we can build that too. We do the distribution portion with our distribution crews. Then we can do the transmission leg with our energy services crews. And they have a facilities group too which can then do all the regulator stations, all the interconnects, that kind of stuff. So we don't get into the upstream. Um, we're into the midstream a little bit, but like I said on a smaller scale. And a lot of it's for LDCs, they're not, not necessarily for developers in the midstream world. But we're, we're downstream in midstream.
- [44:45]
A
Is it all, is it, is it fragmented as far as who you're working for on the gas side or is it all kind of like one giant.
- [44:53]
B
No, we've. So our distribution is pretty fragmented. We got, we got probably four core customers that we work for. Ok. As opposed to our civil side where we might have five or six. Right. Local to Rochester that we work for predominantly because it's more private development based. But with the term contracts, geographically speaking, it's a pretty large geography that each LDC owns within a probably 50 square mile radius. You only have one guy, one company that owns certain things.
- [45:26]
A
Is it, and I know it's regulated, but are these private companies public? They're publicly.
- [45:33]
B
Yeah.
- [45:33]
A
Yeah. Okay.
- [45:34]
B
Okay, okay. Yep. And it's regulated. Each, and each state is regulated. And you know, there's, there's regulation changes that are happening quite often too, which is part of the political agenda of I think trying to make the work harder, which doesn't make sense because the work can't go away. There's no other alternative right now that's feasible. Yeah, but we're, we're running into like for example this year really, it came out last year, the Public Service Commission of New York. So OQs are qualifications that we need to actually get out there and do our job. And there's maybe 300 different OQs in total, but there's a few that you need to just be out there on day one. Part of our NEO right before, for a number of decades there was a centralized database which handled oq. It was called the NGA Northeast Gas Association. And they did all the, we would do our training in house but they would send out representatives that would qualify our individuals, both with hands on. And then they would need to take a test, a written test and they need to pass both. And then the NGA controls those qualifications. They're like the broker.
- [46:39]
A
Yeah.
- [46:40]
B
I mean if you will. Well, New York State flipped it back to the local distribution companies and said it's no longer NGA specific, it's on you guys to verify competency for workers to work on your own assets. So now what they did is they took, they took the training verification and the competency verification, they took it back to each LDC and now they have their own program. Right. So before we could have an overarching thing to train all of our people and we could go here, we could go there, we could go there and we could shift and move guys around as we needed to where the work was. And now you know, X customer A has their own, Customer B has their own, Customer C has their own. So now the amount of training and qualifications that we need to do for our guys. Just three X.
- [47:26]
A
Sure. Yeah.
- [47:27]
B
You know, part of the investment in our training group that we're making is for sustainability of that. So that's a big one that we've been dealing with is, and some of this is a ground up build with our customers of like they need to figure out their own way that they're going to do things now. And it's a bit of an experiment because they haven't had to do this for two decades. It's all been relying on the nga. So we're trying to build the plane as we go with, with our customers and that's been really difficult because we get One thing down, we do it a certain way and then all of a sudden it changes next week and it changes next week. And the communication in some cases hasn't been the best.
- [48:04]
A
It's interesting too, just with gas in general and pipelines, how rigorous the standards are.
- [48:13]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [48:16]
A
It's curious if you went to say a pipeline. Pipeline job here, solar farm here. You can get away with a lot more building a solar farm than you can a pipeline. Same kind of work. You're disturbing an area, building some infrastructure, so on and so forth. But these, like these pipeline contractors, it's wild. Some of the stuff I've seen and some of the stuff they have to do and all these standards they have to meet. Yeah. Hoops they have to jump through just to do the job.
- [48:47]
B
Yeah.
- [48:48]
A
Which is quite. And it's not going away.
- [48:50]
B
Oh, no, it's.
- [48:51]
A
Once it's there, it's there. But it's remarkable just how. And I see it more on the gas and pipeline oil side than anywhere else because it's. I think it partially. Yes. There need to be regulations around high pressure gas. Yeah, understood. That makes. Makes perfect sense.
- [49:11]
B
Yep.
- [49:11]
A
But even just the environmental stuff, because it's. It's labeled as gas. Gas.
- [49:16]
B
Yes, yes, it is dangerous, you know, but water is dangerous too.
- [49:20]
A
Yeah.
- [49:20]
B
You know, like in the civil world. And there's no cues with water.
- [49:23]
A
Sure. That's a fair point.
- [49:25]
B
So, um, you know, I, I have a love hate relationship with that. I like it because it allows people to keep our bar high.
- [49:33]
A
Yeah.
- [49:33]
B
And it. And it stops the competition with people whose bar isn't as high as ours, you know, and what happens sometimes, which we don't spend a lot of time in the municipal space because it's cutthroat and it's a race to the bottom, you know, and it's all pretty much based on price. You open your envelope and if you're not the low guy, sorry, better luck next time. Whereas a lot of our work is more negotiated with our customers and they know they're going to get a quality job that's done on time and done the right way, and we're going to be there as a partner on the job rather than just somebody that you hired to come do their deal their own way. So I like. I mean, the administrative lift is annoying sometimes because you got to jump through those hoops and you got to do things that don't make sense. But it does keep a standard that you're allowed to kind of hold high. You know what I mean? And Abide by. That'll keep the bottom feeders out.
- [50:29]
A
Does it make the civil work, quote, unquote, easier in a way because you're having to operate at a higher standard within the gas?
- [50:37]
B
No. So we've actually. We've standardized our standard across the board, regardless of what the market calls for.
- [50:44]
A
Yeah, but that's, I mean, like, the civil market. Yeah. Doesn't necessarily need that or require that standard yet. Maybe it goes in that direction. Yeah, but it gives you that edge.
- [50:54]
B
It gives us the edge. It gives us a competitive advantage. Sometimes it works against us, you know, when it comes to price, because it's like, hey, the guy was a half a million under us. We know why. And we're not going to be able to get there, you know, because our overhead is X and we're just not willing to sacrifice certain things, you know, so it's hurt us in some cases, but not as much as you'd think.
- [51:14]
A
Sure. You know, I'm gonna go to bathroom real quick so that I can continue to focus.
- [51:19]
B
So do you want to do like an intro or anything like that?
- [51:22]
A
And we're back.
- [51:23]
B
No, no, no, no, no, no. All right, cool.
- [51:25]
A
No, I don't want to.
- [51:26]
B
We just kind of start. Started talking. So. No, I'd be told this is only the second podcast I've ever done, and the first one was ours dds.
- [51:34]
A
Well, I was gonna say. Yeah, you said. But. So you're just on one of the seven episodes. Okay.
- [51:38]
B
Yeah, the second one. No, I listen to them a lot.
- [51:41]
A
That's. Most people on this podcast is they've never been on the podcast.
- [51:44]
B
Yeah.
- [51:45]
A
So people that have never been on a podcast are my specialty.
- [51:48]
B
That's cool.
- [51:49]
A
No, I don't. I hate the intros because they're.
- [51:54]
B
Good with that.
- [51:55]
A
Well, you. You warm somebody up and then you're like, all right, let me do the intro real quick. And then you do the intro and then now you're back all the way back here. And then now the first, like 10, 15 minutes or more than that, you're warming back up to. Then get back to where you were. So I don't. I don't know. And when I listen to podcasts, I like to just get into it. Yeah, I really. I really enjoy.
- [52:21]
B
That's kind of what. When we did ours dds, it wasn't scripted. It was like we sat in the room, we just got after it.
- [52:27]
A
Yeah.
- [52:27]
B
You know.
- [52:28]
A
Yeah. Yeah. It's quite a bit of. Quite a bit of fun. We can just get into it.
- [52:31]
B
Yeah. So I Would like to give you a little bit of background on how the company started.
- [52:36]
A
Yeah, please.
- [52:37]
B
And it'll probably shed a little more light on the statement I made earlier around, like, vision and mission. And I don't know how companies get to where they are, you know what I mean, when you get to a certain spot. So we've been super fortunate to have a founder, Sean, who's been a mentor to a lot of people within the company, myself being one of them. And he, you know, it wasn't a vision cast where it was necessarily down on paper and we'd have meetings and say, this is the vision. This is the direction we're heading. But he would set standards and have expectations that would cast that vision in a way that was natural, that would just happen. And through the legacy of the company, really, he built it from the ground up with a degree in a dump truck to what it is today. And he's still involved, just at a different capacity. Has just been a pretty special experience all around, you know, for most of the guys at the company still today and the leaders that are there today that have been with him for a long time. So we've been fortunate to have him. He started in 2001 and really with a degree in civil and mechanical engineering from Clarkson University in upstate New York, and started in subdivisions with an idea of riding a turnkey. We can design it and we can build it, and, you know, our final budget is also our construction pricing. So if you want to continue on after design, you know, we can build it too. And gained a lot of momentum just through genuine relationships and surrounding himself with good people. And eventually scaled himself out of being a project manager into more of an executive role and surrounded himself with some really good people, most of which are still there today, and scaled it up, you know, kind of at a 45 degree angle on a chart. It was never like a hockey stick of all of a sudden we found gold and, you know, went this way. It's just been a grind of being a really genuine human and a good business leader and making good decisions. And so fast forward to today. We still operate in the engineering world pretty heavily. Our soapbox sales pitch is we can design anything. We can build and build anything. We can design that we can. We have about 80 engineers on staff.
- [54:48]
A
Really.
- [54:49]
B
Yeah. So quite a bit. Wow. Quite a bit. We do everything from land development in the subdivision, civil space, to gas transmission, gas distribution facilities.
- [54:58]
A
Quite a bit.
- [54:59]
B
I don't. Construction management. Okay, I don't. But a lot of guys that are much Smarter than I, you know that work down there.
- [55:06]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [55:08]
B
And honestly, for me, it's been, it's been a great, it's been a great exposure for me to see that side because I've always just seen construction. That's what I came up through, you know, so to see the, under the curtain of what needs to happen on the front end to allow us to.
- [55:23]
A
Build and I really cool. I think there's a lack of appreciation on both sides because both sides are a lot more similar than I think they will acknowledge they are. But the engineer. Like your construction, it's hard because there's a lot of unknowns, a lot of challenges to solve. Engineering is the same way.
- [55:42]
B
Same way in the furnace.
- [55:43]
A
Yeah. There's so many unknowns that they're designing for and the considerations they have to make and how much they're juggling at the same time.
- [55:51]
B
It's on their shoulders.
- [55:52]
A
And then the liability is in. Yeah. Is quite literally on their shoulders, which is incredible. So anything they're putting their stamp on it has their damn name on it. You don't literally.
- [56:03]
B
Their name.
- [56:04]
A
Yeah. You don't have that building stuff. You kind of do, but you don't literally stamp your name on the stuff you built.
- [56:10]
B
Yeah. And there's, there's a, there's a habit too in our industry that when something goes wrong, the first person they point the finger at is the person that designed it.
- [56:19]
A
Right. Yes.
- [56:19]
B
You know, they forget about.
- [56:20]
A
Which is why everything's re engineered by 103 times.
- [56:24]
B
It's a balance.
- [56:24]
A
It's a balance. Yeah. So this is why I was taught in school to just. All right, that you're sure that's the right number? I'm. I'm 100% sure it's the right number. Okay. Multiply it by three. All right. Good, good.
- [56:35]
B
Yeah, that risk factor.
- [56:36]
A
Yep.
- [56:37]
B
But yeah, we have one thing special that Sean did with our company that we still do today is a required constructability review with construction. You know, there's a fine line that we dance to where there's confidential things that our engineering group does for customers that we work with on the construction side, which we have a brick wall and we don't share confidential information, but conceptually they'll walk a job with a, through a construction ability review with a superintendent or with, with somebody that's actually done it before and said, hey, you know, we're going from here to here. I figured this is going to be open cut. Is that possible or does it need to be hdd? You know, and there, there'd be paint on the ground and they'd walk through and say no, actually that's there, that's there, that's there. We got four feet right away and manholes that are three foot wide. So guess what? You're not going to be digging next to that thing, you know what I mean, and find a new route or something like that. So we've, we.
- [57:29]
A
It's.
- [57:29]
B
It hasn't always been perfect, but we've always tried to close the gap between engineering and construction before something is finalized. So that way when the product that goes out the door goes out the door, there's a different perspective.
- [57:41]
A
That's quite interesting.
- [57:42]
B
Yeah.
- [57:42]
A
And so you'll be. And you'll be engineering stuff you're not necessarily going to build and you'll be building stuff.
- [57:47]
B
Yeah, many times sometimes in the gas space are. So we have separate companies. Right. Engineering is an llp.
- [57:55]
A
Okay.
- [57:56]
B
And they have their own contracts with a lot of the customers that we work with on the construction side. A lot of times they will design a project three years before and then we'll bid on that project when it comes to fruition three years later. So it's not, it's not uncommon for us to see DDS engineers stamped on the plans when they come across the bid desk. That's cool.
- [58:14]
A
Estimating side 2001 too is not that long ago for the scope you all are working at. Yeah, that's a pretty good sized company.
- [58:23]
B
It, it's a. I mean Sean's an impressive guy all around impressive businessman, but he's built a very impressive business for the years.
- [58:31]
A
So when did I know Artera entered the chat at some point. When did Artera buy the company?
- [58:37]
B
Yeah, so we really. In 2017 is. Is when we started. We started with. With a merger a company out of Boston. Feeney Brothers is the name of the company and they do gas distribution only at the time I think there were about 800 people. So a little bit bigger than DDS and only one discipline versus the five that we operate in. But that was Sean's first partnership outside of DDS with another company that was external. So that was 2017 and there was private equity involved and the exit of that private equity was meant to be in year 2020. Ish. And that's from Artera came into the picture. So Artera is a platform company who is out of Atlanta, Georgia and they essentially took both companies, Feeney and DDS and added them to their platform.
- [59:30]
A
Okay.
- [59:30]
B
So that's when that transition happened. But really, since 2017, we've kind of been evolving as a company of, like, hey, we were all DDS before. Sean is the founder. Sean in the corner. Now it's DDS and Feeney. At what point does it make sense for that merge to happen? Like, obviously, we're all under our same brands. We're sticking with our own, same colors. But, you know, does it make sense to have Feeney crews come help when we're on a project where we need extra resources, you know? Or do they do a. Is there a skill set that they do that we can't do? Or do they have equipment that we don't have that we can start to share? So we. We kind of tried to find our own way on merging to a point that made sense. Like, administratively, we merged our systems. That was the first part that made sense. Our finance group felt it most heavy, but operationally, we didn't merge to a point where it really affected the lives of anybody out there in the field. And then, since then, Artera, what was appealing, I think, when that came to fruition, was they are a platform, and their operating model is operating companies keep their own brand, keep their own relationships. They do what they do well. And Artera is there to be the national platform where they can take buying power, they can take national accounts, they can take national relationships and extrapolate that to refine things at the operating company level. So, like, the deal we have with Cat, you know, the deal we have with Vermeer, deal we have with a lot of the big players in the industry is much better than we could ever negotiate with just being DDS and Rochester. Okay, so that happened in 2020 with Artera.
- [61:00]
A
20. Yeah. Because I know it's been a little bit now.
- [61:02]
B
Yeah.
- [61:03]
A
Does Artera have other construction companies? Is that their thing, or do they do other stuff, too?
- [61:08]
B
No. So they do. They're. They're. We're in 37 states. I think we are. So about. About 12,000 employees total. Miller being the biggest one. If you've heard of Miller before. Miller, they're out of Indianapolis.
- [61:21]
A
I have.
- [61:21]
B
Yeah. So they're the largest. They're in the. Most of the states. And they've. They've. They're a great company. They're in pipelines, distribution and transmission.
- [61:33]
A
Distribution.
- [61:33]
B
Okay. Yeah. But mostly distribution.
- [61:35]
A
Okay. Okay.
- [61:36]
B
But impressive. Impressive outfit. I mean, I've spent some time there. I've built relationships with some of the guys, the vice presidents that run certain regions because one of their regions is, like the size of our company. You Know what I mean? It's a large group, so I feel.
- [61:50]
A
Like they have a pretty impressive history.
- [61:52]
B
They do, they do. I mean, it was. I don't know a ton about it, but I know the Miller brand and the depth of relationship that they have with their customers is very deep, you know, to where it's been decades and decades that they've been working with some customers. And they just. They've done a great job for a long time. So there's a lot of trust that customers have with them.
- [62:14]
A
It's been. When did you assume your leadership role?
- [62:18]
B
So I started with DDS in 2014. 15, I guess it was. 2014. Okay. So I've been there about 10 years now, each step of the way. So I started in project engineering and then became project manager. I really started to be in a leadership role where I was managing more situations than projects in probably 2020, you know, that's when I stepped out of the project, we'll call it more into a regional manager role, managing an office that was in Albany. And I spent about a year and a half there and then transitioned back to Rochester and assumed a general manager role in our GAS Distribution group. So I went from managing one region of GAS D into the whole portfolio of GAS Distribution and then jumped up to a vice president of operations where, you know, all the groups technically fell under me. But these are guys that, as I progressed through my career, I worked with his peers, you know what I mean? So it wasn't like, you know, here with a. Here with an iron fist on the table. It was more like, hey, guys, the team before is the same team now. Support. I'm here to support here to here, to streamline communication here, to give direction where directions need needed and just reinforce things. Right. So that. That was a. That was really when I went from more of a peer to a leader, you know, more broadly throughout the company. And then I spent about a year and a half in that dual role where I was still managing gas distribution and vice president of operations. And this past September. So in 2023, Sean took a role over both Feeney and DDS at the platform level. So now he's a divisional president within Artera. And that's when I assumed his role as local president of dds.
- [64:07]
A
That's not so bad. I mean, starting as a project engineer in 2014.
- [64:10]
B
Yeah.
- [64:10]
A
And now being.
- [64:11]
B
Being where you are, it's been a pretty steep path.
- [64:14]
A
Yeah, that's.
- [64:14]
B
That's pretty aggressive, really.
- [64:16]
A
It was, in the grand scheme of things, super aggressive.
- [64:19]
B
You know, But. But I. And I was just talking to somebody about this last week, and, you know, none of it was planned out. None of it was scheduled out. It's not like there was, hey, this is. This is going to happen this year and this year and this year. I just always did the best freaking job that I could do in the role that I was at. And what happens when you do that is you almost get promoted by default, you know, because you need star players. And I'm not necessarily calling myself a star player. I've made a ton of mistakes along the way, but I would always learn from them. You're going to take your best guys and you're going to put them in front of the biggest challenges, and then those people are going to have the opportunity, opportunity to go through that challenge and grow and then take the new challenge and take the new challenge. And as long as you keep growing through those challenges and you keep learning and you keep getting better and kind of like iron, sharp sharpens iron, then almost naturally, you know, you're going to continue to progress into a higher level. And I was. I was fortunate to probably. It's going to sound weird, but I was fortunate to go through a lot of those challenges. You know, it wasn't gravy, it wasn't easy. It was a grind in many ways. But without that, I wouldn't be where I am today.
- [65:24]
A
Going back to Andy Purcell, I like how he talks a lot about personal responsibility, obviously, too.
- [65:30]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [65:30]
A
I think people are misguided. They think they get promoted and then they grow into it.
- [65:34]
B
No, you do it first. You do it first.
- [65:36]
A
Yeah. Because if I'm looking to promote somebody, I'm looking for the hungriest, best performer existing state.
- [65:44]
B
That's right.
- [65:45]
A
That's how it goes.
- [65:47]
B
That's how life works.
- [65:48]
A
Yeah. Now I'm on the other side. I mean, I'm having these conversations all the time, hey, if we were to do this, who would lead it right? To the best performer? Right. To whoever's getting after it the most. And they might not be like the. On paper, the logical choice, obviously, or whatever it is, but they're the one getting after it the most. They're the one developing themselves fast.
- [66:13]
B
They're the one earning it fastest.
- [66:14]
A
Yeah, they're earning it so cool. That's not a very hard decision. But I think. I think a lot of people, they're either misguided and they think they're promoted.
- [66:24]
B
They're.
- [66:25]
A
They're either, like, not confident enough to think that they should go to that role or I think there's a lack of confidence. Sometimes it gets in people's way. I think they're just misguided to think that, hey, I get promoted and then.
- [66:38]
B
It'S just going to happen.
- [66:39]
A
Yeah. If I become vice president, then I'll figure out how to be vice president.
- [66:43]
B
Yeah.
- [66:44]
A
Uh, and then I feel like there's a lot of people, too, that are just bitter.
- [66:47]
B
Yeah.
- [66:48]
A
And they think they're. They're just deserving or whatever it is.
- [66:50]
B
Entitled to it.
- [66:51]
A
Yeah. Which is such a. Such a bad place to be because they're the first ones that lose.
- [66:56]
B
Yeah.
- [66:56]
A
First ones.
- [66:57]
B
The first ones to go.
- [66:58]
A
And it sucks to see and it. And. And unfortunately, there's a lot of bitter people in the construction industry. And for good reason. I think a lot of people are abused in various ways, so they're oftentimes bitter for reason. And I can empathize with them.
- [67:12]
B
Yeah.
- [67:12]
A
But it does sadden me because it's like, no matter how you've been treated, no matter how unjust it's been.
- [67:19]
B
Yeah.
- [67:20]
A
You're still the one that loses with this attitude. And. And there's great companies out there. Like, okay, you've been screwed seven times over. There's a great company out there somewhere. Go find them. Because all it takes is that one company, one opportunity to get you to that.
- [67:35]
B
Yeah.
- [67:35]
A
That place. You should be as well.
- [67:36]
B
Totally aligned there. And it's unfortunate because how much good talent is out there with ego in the way.
- [67:43]
A
Yeah.
- [67:45]
B
If you could just spend some time. And I think a lot of these things that we're talking about are just invisible to people because not a lot of people spend time in the space of looking inward. Personal development, like, actually thinking about these things. It's easy to get just lost in the grind of life, Especially when you start having kids and you get married, have kids in the whole nine and you have responsibilities and you get home late, you have dinner late, you go to bed late, and you wake up early, you know, and you don't have. People don't intentionally make the time to invest back into themselves, you know. But there's a ton of great people in this industry and the responsibility. What weighs heavy on me is I was given a ton of opportunity. Right. I was given a path to then go put the work in for myself and then earn it. Right.
- [68:32]
A
Sure.
- [68:32]
B
And I feel the weight of making sure that the guys that want to earn it have a way to go earn it and that they're recognized and that. And that, you know, that doesn't go without being seen. But I think part of making sure that there's a, there's a success trap there for leadership is to go build relationships with your people. Don't know these people, and make sure that they're not invisible, you know. But we have a lot of young, we have a lot of young individuals right now that are frankly, great leaders in a, in the early part of their career that I'm excited for, like 10 years from now. You know, we got some, we got some guys that are going to be, and girls that are just going to be heavy hitters, and I'm excited for that and the evolution of the company and the next step that we take.
- [69:18]
A
How old are you?
- [69:19]
B
33.
- [69:20]
A
You're 33?
- [69:21]
B
Yeah.
- [69:21]
A
Fuck, yeah.
- [69:22]
B
Yeah. So you've done. I get the pass, too, of smokes.
- [69:27]
A
Yeah. Yes. You're not, you're not a whole lot further than me.
- [69:29]
B
No, no.
- [69:30]
A
That's, you know, that's, that's funny too. When I was at going back to First Form, I was some of the people from first form that were helping us out with the event, something was going on, so I was kind of shooting with them out, out outside of the auditorium where most everybody else was. So it's just kind of us. And they're asking me, you know, how, how'd this get started? This and that. And I, I was just telling him, you know, I, I honestly started listening MFCO project 2015. I was working on the Railroad at the time, fucking miserable. And I just started listening and just running the play.
- [70:03]
B
Yeah.
- [70:03]
A
And, and they're like, yeah, this is amazing. You've just kind of like, you've just kind of done it. It's like, yeah, I, I, I, I don't know. I just listened and I just, I just ran the play.
- [70:13]
B
Like, I did the same thing. And it's like, you did the same thing. I shit you not. Like, I've just run the play. I remember when I listened to the first episode, I was in a, I was in a back room in Albany in the shop. I was a project manager at the time. It was myself and Jordan Potter who I referenced earlier. And I remember the first day distinctly that I listened to it. And I have not stopped. There was maybe a year in my life where there was a little bit of a lull where I'd catch it every few months. Not as religious as I am now, but, man, it's all right there. And so sometimes, like, you need that kick in the head of, like, you know what? You gotta Put the freaking work in. And it's gonna take a long time and you gotta consistently hit it day after day after day. And it's not gonna be fun in some cases, but you will find fulfillment and reward in that, in that lifestyle of doing it that way that you can't get anywhere else when you don't earn it.
- [71:04]
A
I do think it's. But coming from somebody like you, that's powerful too, because it's one thing as a young person to hear anything's possible here, look at me. From a 57 year old guy.
- [71:14]
B
Yeah.
- [71:14]
A
You know, it's like, yeah, okay. Yeah, it's cool. Like, I believe you, but you're 57, I'm 23. A long gap. And so it's hard to conceptualize. Yeah, but it's coming from somebody like you. Like, listen, I was in your position, I use it, man, not that long ago. Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm talking to college kids. It's like, I don't know, I was in school not that long ago. We're not that far off. And because the gap is less, the message is, I think, better received in a lot of ways.
- [71:44]
B
Yeah, I'd agree with that. And I, I get a lot of guys that will come up to me too, and they'll ask like, hey, do you mind, do you mind sharing with me? Like, you know, what'd you do to make it? Yeah, you know, and it's like, absolutely, let's have a conversation about it. We love you.
- [71:57]
A
What do you tell them?
- [71:59]
B
I tell them a lot of the things that we're talking about here today. It's like, you know, you gotta put the work in and you gotta be humble and you gotta build relationships with people. Like, you gotta, you gotta have their back and they'll have yours. And don't be afraid to be patient either. Sometimes you just gotta simmer. Sometimes you gotta do the role and have a plan down the line. Three years down the line, five years down the line, whatever it is, so you can envision a growth for yourself, but don't get lost in the journey either. The journey is what makes the destination. And like, even today, the challenging projects that I was on for that five years of my life, we'll call it. I referenced that like weekly. Yeah, not daily. You know, some of the stuff that we went through and how we came through it as a team and you just can't, you can't, you can't buy that anywhere. You got to go earn it. You got to go, you got to Go through it. And it takes time. It takes effort.
- [72:56]
A
Well, and I think that's the struggle, too. When you're early on your career, you're trying to get through the shitty stuff or like, man, I don't want to. Starting as a laborer, I don't want to be here forever, this and that. But that's where you're learning the most.
- [73:08]
B
You are.
- [73:08]
A
And so sometimes I see younger people try to skip these steps, but I just. I can't help but to sit there and watch and think, man, you are screwing yourself.
- [73:17]
B
Yeah.
- [73:18]
A
You are cheating yourself out of the most experience. I would, I would. I would argue the most valuable experience of your entire career is right now.
- [73:25]
B
Right.
- [73:26]
A
And you're trying to. You're trying to bypass it all. Yeah. You're trying to skip over it. And then, and then, But. And then you can't go back, like, you can't go back to eating that shit. It doesn't work that way either. Because you don't want to do that. I mean, you can, but you don't.
- [73:42]
B
Is that as genuine?
- [73:43]
A
You don't want to.
- [73:43]
B
You don't want to.
- [73:44]
A
And now you have a mortgage and kids, and so now you financially can't. So now you're financially trapped into doing whatever you're doing. But, yeah, trying to, Trying to skip over those, especially the first few years, it's, It's.
- [73:59]
B
It makes. It shapes you for what you're going to be next.
- [74:02]
A
Yes.
- [74:02]
B
You know, and I guess if that's one thing that I can. That I do explain to some of the younger guys is like, take what you're doing right now and do it as best as you can. Like, be the best laborer that you can be. And guess what? If you're the best labor that you can be, eventually you're going to become an operator. And then if you're the best operator you can be, guess what? You're not going to be the best operator for 20 years. Eventually you're going to grow into something more and something more.
- [74:22]
A
Or you can be the best operator.
- [74:23]
B
For 20 years if you want to. If you want to, you can.
- [74:26]
A
Yeah.
- [74:27]
B
And there's nothing wrong with it.
- [74:28]
A
And make really good money. Yeah.
- [74:29]
B
And you can. You can make a ton of money. Yeah. You know, but then where we. Where it really gets fun and where we can really amplify that is when we partner with companies like Build with, and then we give guys a platform to go train and go get better. Because I think that's a struggle in our industry is like, Guys that want to get better, that can get better, they don't necessarily have the tools to go get better and progress through a career. Like, yeah, there is the old adage of, okay, the best pipe player gets the keys and now he's in a truck and he runs a crew and okay, are we really setting that guy up to go run a crew just because he's great at land pipe? What makes us think he's good at managing people? It's a whole different skill set that you need.
- [75:04]
A
Oh, and, and it's easy for somebody like me to say, oh, you know, I did it, everybody should do it. Like, you just need to read more and work out more and this and that. But it's like I've been in a world where I've always seen that and I grew up around it.
- [75:19]
B
Yeah.
- [75:20]
A
And I've always associated, you know, XYZ with getting to that level. And so it's been natural for me to pick up the habits I've been able to pick up. But a lot of people have never even seen it. They don't know where to start. Like reading more. It sounds silly, but a lot of people just don't even. They wouldn't know where to, where to begin.
- [75:41]
B
Yeah, it's. They just don't fall thing now.
- [75:43]
A
Yes, yes, yes.
- [75:45]
B
But I think the gateway into that is stuff like these micro trainings. 2 to 3 minute hits of like, hey, let me, let me explain this in a different way. That's not just on a word document that you got to read through and then sign off that you read.
- [75:58]
A
Well, the power, the power of it too is ego is a big part of it. I don't want to look like an asshole. And sometimes it doesn't matter how good the environment is. If I'm the new guy, I don't want to be asking the dumb questions. I don't want to say I don't know how to start the cutoff saw. I don't want to say that. I don't want to be that guy. And so if I have a way to insulate myself a little bit, I do think it is important to just figure it out. There you go. It's got a little thing you pull. It's got a little bubble you have to press sometimes. Got a little switch. You figure it out.
- [76:30]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [76:31]
A
Or, you know, even getting some shit I think is important every once in a while. I think that was a good part of my development after the fact. But I think it is also important to allow people to learn on Their own without necessarily having to look like an. Or admit to others that, yeah, I don't know how to do that.
- [76:48]
B
Yeah, everyone does it in secret. How many, how many times do you not be able to figure something out when you go to YouTube?
- [76:53]
A
Yes.
- [76:53]
B
If everybody's YouTube history was exposed, how embarrassed would they be? I'm like, oh, I don't know how to change my oil.
- [76:58]
A
Or like sometimes. And I don't even know, like, I have to catch myself doing this now. Like you asked me, do you know about this? Like, oh, yeah, I know about this. And then I'm. And then you walk out of the room and I'm googling it.
- [77:08]
B
Yeah.
- [77:08]
A
So it's like, why didn't I just say, I don't know? Like, I. You wouldn't have made fun of me for it.
- [77:14]
B
You're so right.
- [77:14]
A
Yeah. But it's just this. I don't want to look dumb.
- [77:17]
B
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. But the. I couldn't agree more. And we had an idea around. How do we build a YouTube, a YouTube library for our guys to use for the technical things, especially in the gas world, like I referenced earlier. And we're not fully there yet because there's some roadblocks with just proprietary information now that customer specific or saying how you need to do things. So there's, there's a, I guess a risk barrier of us giving a video and saying, this is exactly how you install a fitting for customer A. You know, because then if something goes wrong and customer A isn't completely satisfied with that because it's not their material that they're giving the train, then they're like, hey, you're training your guys to install customer A's fitting wrong and now that's your fault and you got to replace all those.
- [78:05]
A
Yeah.
- [78:05]
B
So. So. But I do think that there's a middle ground to where we can use manufacturer specs and manufacturer recommendations on like, hey, we. This is the fitting we supply. Here's how the manufacturer says it needs to be installed.
- [78:18]
A
Sure.
- [78:19]
B
How you fit that in to work for customer A, that needs to be between customer A and our guys.
- [78:23]
A
Yeah.
- [78:24]
B
You know, so there's. There's a space in between, but I think there's a ton of power in giving guys the video library on what they go do. And just the basics as a refresher. Just the basics. Like a two minute, two minute deal.
- [78:38]
A
Yeah, we, we just did something with. You guys didn't.
- [78:41]
B
With Reed. Yeah. They do like a lot of our pipe tooling A lot of guillotines. They do some of the cages, you know, for electrofuse couplings and that kind of stuff. But that was a perfect situation where Mark led the charge on that. He got the vendor hooked up with you guys and hooked up with us to where the vendor is going to use that for marketing material, you know, and then we're going to be able to use that for our guys to give. For them to train on how to use those parts. So that's a. That was a perfect synergy.
- [79:06]
A
Nice. Okay.
- [79:07]
B
We kind of stumbled into.
- [79:08]
A
I'm glad that worked out. Yeah.
- [79:10]
B
We wanted to more because Reed is very basic level, but there's like McElroy, who's the fusion equipment supplier. That's a great next one to pursue because the Fusion equipment, that's what we use every day to put pipe together.
- [79:25]
A
Sure. And that's fusing two pieces of plastic pipe, essentially.
- [79:29]
B
And really, I mean, fusion sounds super complex, right? It's. You're heating it up and you're sticking it together.
- [79:35]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [79:35]
B
You need to heat it for a certain amount of time and you need to apply a certain pressure when you stick it.
- [79:39]
A
But yeah.
- [79:40]
B
You know, and then it needs to be visually acceptable. You know, we should do.
- [79:45]
A
We should do that at some point. That's. Yeah. Because fusion is quite common just across the board.
- [79:51]
B
That's what everybody does.
- [79:52]
A
Yeah.
- [79:53]
B
And it's not just gas either. It's water, sewer water, you know.
- [79:57]
A
Yeah.
- [79:57]
B
Anything.
- [79:57]
A
Bypass.
- [79:58]
B
It's not. If it's not blue pipe, you know, if it's fusible pipe.
- [80:02]
A
That's what they do. Artera seems pretty impressive too, because it really, like, it's impressive how much leeway you guys have to invest and do what you're doing and to design the company as you all think it should be designed in a way. Like they could easily come in and have a pretty heavy hand.
- [80:21]
B
They could. I mean, that's corporately. You know what I mean? That is possible.
- [80:24]
A
But they're.
- [80:25]
B
Their M.O. is not that.
- [80:26]
A
And what seems supportive, though. Very supportive because I've also seen companies come in, buy a bunch of companies, and then they're just like completely hands off. Oh, yeah. They just buy. Companies can't do that either. And then. Okay, you know, let us know what your earnings are and.
- [80:39]
B
Yeah.
- [80:40]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [80:41]
B
Yeah. No, it's not. They have found the balance of. Of being. Of being corporately existent, you know, which they need to be because we have investors and we have certain goals that we need to meet for those investors and keep their finger on the pulse, but not dictate, you know, how the work gets done.
- [81:00]
A
Sure.
- [81:00]
B
Now, there's certain synergies that I think make sense from a systemization standpoint on, like how do we measure ourselves to know that we're getting better? I think a common KPI. So, like, you know, Miller could be compared to dds, can be compared to sec. So, you know, we know that we can measure ourselves on are we getting better or are we getting worse? You know, there's certain consistencies there that make sense that we're working on as, as a group. But we've. We've spent a lot of time, really, really in the past two years, I'll call it developing the. The middle level. So one level down from the divisional presidents into becoming more. Building better relationships at that level, you know, because the reality is we're all doing the same thing in different parts. And if there's a mistake being made over here, how do we not make that mistake over here? And if we have equipment sitting over here, but we're renting equipment over there, that's bad. You know, we don't want to do that. But we also aren't going to move a skid steer across the country for three days and then move it back.
- [81:58]
A
Sure.
- [81:59]
B
So finding that common ground. But yeah, there's. There's a lot of smart people at Artera, but it's not a corporation that's too high up where there's five levers, layers of red tape that need to get crossed to get anything done.
- [82:12]
A
Yeah, well, it doesn't. Because what you all are doing, it's apparent it's that. That way because it was. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing. Exactly. Because I've seen other companies that want to do it, but it's just they move at this glacial pace because they have this ownership structure that just doesn't allow them to move that fast in our.
- [82:31]
B
You got to be nimble. I mean, you have to be nimble in our industry, if you can't make decisions fast, you're going to get left behind because the boat's going down the river.
- [82:37]
A
Is Artera public?
- [82:39]
B
Publicly traded? Privately held.
- [82:42]
A
Interesting. Okay, so that helps. Does being faster too, because publicly, like.
- [82:49]
B
Publicly trade is great, but controls to. To adhere to.
- [82:53]
A
Boy, does it slow you down.
- [82:55]
B
Yeah.
- [82:55]
A
Wow. Yeah, I, you know, I used to. I used to really hold publicly traded companies highly and they, you know, most big companies are.
- [83:05]
B
So it's still great.
- [83:07]
A
But. Yeah, I used to look at it like that was the goal in business to get listed. And now I just, man, the more I see it, the more like less involved in it I want to be because it's. That's, that's a tough environment.
- [83:20]
B
It's tough. And I've learned a lot about just business in general and some of it being public companies and how they operate. And a lot of it was SOX compliance and being on the public market as, okay, these are the standards you're going to set for yourself. And they need to be within this broad spectrum of compliance. But what the trick is, you need to adhere to your standards that you set. So don't set your standards too tight to where you're going to be so bound up that you can't move. But they can't be too loose to where you're not operating within the public bounds either. So I think a lot of that is having smart people involved in the setting of those policies and the setting of those controls. So they're reasonable. So when you get to the operating level, which is a company like dds, you're not constrained.
- [84:03]
A
Sure.
- [84:03]
B
You know, and, you know, use purchasing as an example. Purchasing, you could get so tight with purchasing that every dollar needs to go through three approvals and it takes two weeks to get there. Or you can say, hey, there's a doa. And up to X amount of dollars, this level approves it. Up to this, you know, X amount of dollars, somebody else approves it and set those gates to where they're reasonable amongst the business. Um, so it doesn't slow you down.
- [84:27]
A
Trust me, I know all about that. Trying to get paid from these big companies.
- [84:30]
B
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [84:32]
A
Good luck. Yeah, yeah.
- [84:34]
B
We encounter it too.
- [84:35]
A
Yeah, everybody does. And everybody in business does.
- [84:38]
B
Covid made it a lot worse too. Slowed everybody down. Slowed business down in general.
- [84:42]
A
It did.
- [84:43]
B
Not just for us, but I think everybody.
- [84:45]
A
Well, I think a big thing is it slowed government down.
- [84:47]
B
Yeah.
- [84:48]
A
Which then slowed everybody down.
- [84:49]
B
That's right.
- [84:50]
A
And business, it has slowed some business down too. Like, especially the big companies. I don't think it's really slowed small companies down, but because the big companies and because the government slowed down. Yeah. It just forces everybody to move slower, which just drives me. Absolutely.
- [85:07]
B
I'm not a slow moving guy either.
- [85:08]
A
No, no, no, no. We've got to go, guys. Yeah. We need some urgency here.
- [85:15]
B
Let's go.
- [85:16]
A
What's next? But man, like government nowadays, you know, and even if you want to move fast, say you're somebody that wants to get after it within the government.
- [85:27]
B
Oh, it's so hard.
- [85:28]
A
It's good luck.
- [85:30]
B
Yeah. You become a product, you almost can't not become a product of your environment, you know.
- [85:35]
A
Yes.
- [85:35]
B
I don't know how you, if you, if you don't beat that drum, I don't know how you survive.
- [85:42]
A
Yeah.
- [85:43]
B
We've been not directly involved but we've got some folks that work for us that have a background working under government contracts and even that is like we were not in that space for a reason. Sure. We just, we wouldn't survive.
- [85:57]
A
Yeah.
- [85:58]
B
Because the hurry up and wait.
- [86:00]
A
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
- [86:02]
B
Things that go on.
- [86:03]
A
Yeah.
- [86:03]
B
We're very much like, we're nimble, we're quick, we're going to come in, we're going to do a good job, we're going to bill it, we're going to want to get paid and then we're going to want to move on to the next. You know, like we're not, we hate change orders. Change orders just slow us down, that's all. You lose momentum, you gotta pivot, you gotta regroup. Gaining that momentum back is pretty much non existent and we just wanna bid it the right way, we wanna scope it the right way. We wanna be on the same page and we wanna go do a good job and then get on to the.
- [86:28]
A
Next and change orders. Relying on change orders too. It's not sustainable and the kind of work you're doing. Cause it's relationship based, qualifications based, so on and so forth. And that starts to. If you're just going to be bidding.work forever.
- [86:42]
B
Yeah.
- [86:43]
A
You know, maybe you can get away with that because I know some do. But it doesn't, it doesn't work when you're actually held accountable and oh no.
- [86:51]
B
It'S a short term.
- [86:52]
A
Yeah. Your reputation affects how you get future work in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [86:57]
B
Like the meme out there of the dinghy that says contract and the yacht that says change order. I guarantee that yacht got repoed within like five years. That only lasts so long.
- [87:09]
A
Well, it's just, it's just poor business and it's short sighted and yes, it's necessary. I'm not saying change orders in general like that. But you know, everybody knows their companies out there that they put a price on it that everybody bid. Opening comes look at the price like no way actually do it for that. And then two and a half years go by, you find out and it's.
- [87:37]
B
Frustrating because we spend a lot of time bidding like more in our commercial groups, the energy services side and the civil side. You spend a lot of time bidding. It's a big investment and you start to. You start to want it. You know what I mean? Like you get passionate about it and then when you lose it for reasons that you know are not fair, man, it sucks.
- [87:54]
A
Yeah.
- [87:54]
B
You know, but on the other side of that coin, I haven't found professionally as good a feeling yet as when you win a bid. Like that is the best feeling. When it's like, yeah, we freaking got it. You know, I mean, executing a job. Yeah. You, you, that's a long. A longer process, a longer winning path.
- [88:12]
A
Sure.
- [88:12]
B
But man, when you win a bet, it is awesome. There's a euphoria on that.
- [88:16]
A
I had a conversation with my friend Tristan about this yesterday. I. I did a. Actually quite a while in an estimating department when I was in college. That was my job while in school for two years. And we're working like 20, 25 hours a week.
- [88:29]
B
Yeah.
- [88:30]
A
And I couldn't stand it.
- [88:32]
B
I just.
- [88:32]
A
Estimating, dude, not for me.
- [88:34]
B
Who was it with? You don't mind?
- [88:36]
A
It was like a mid sized contractor in Arizona.
- [88:39]
B
Gc.
- [88:40]
A
They're GC and they self performed a lot of civil scope as well. Yeah. You know a few hundred million a year.
- [88:45]
B
Yep.
- [88:46]
A
But I hated it because just putting all this work in to lose just sucked. It was so demoralizing for me. It's not my personality. I was just like, I am just give me what we win and I'm down to build stuff, but I'm not down to play this game.
- [89:01]
B
Yeah.
- [89:02]
A
I don't enjoy it.
- [89:03]
B
Was a lot of it like municipal or was it relationship negotiated?
- [89:06]
A
No, it was all like dot stuff.
- [89:09]
B
Okay. Yeah. So yeah, that space is. I could totally see with like 13.
- [89:13]
A
Bidders on the bid list.
- [89:14]
B
Oh, that's terrible.
- [89:14]
A
What are we doing, man? Yeah, that's terrible. And you don't. You can do your best, but you know, you don't really have all that influence. Influence. Especially at my level.
- [89:23]
B
Yeah.
- [89:23]
A
I was doing takeoffs and shit.
- [89:24]
B
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- [89:25]
A
I had very little control.
- [89:27]
B
Yeah.
- [89:27]
A
So it was, it was like little reward. Yeah. I was just helpless. Yeah. You just spend a month and a half working on a project you throw in the trash can.
- [89:35]
B
Yep.
- [89:36]
A
Okay, what's the next one? Here's the next one.
- [89:40]
B
Yeah, so I had a little stint in estimating for a GC before I was at dds. I was only with one company before dds and. Yeah. Same feelings. Like you're just. You're sending out RFPs to subs, you're chasing them around for Their number, you know, and you kind of, you kind of feel like you're the kid chasing the bus the whole time.
- [89:58]
A
Yeah.
- [89:59]
B
And it's like, man, where's the, where are we going with this? I can't do this forever.
- [90:03]
A
It's.
- [90:04]
B
It was a cool experience though with me. They had a rotation system where you came in. You spent six months as a project engineer and then six months under a PM six months under a super, and then six months under safety. So it was a 24 month rotation, which is pretty long.
- [90:19]
A
Yeah.
- [90:19]
B
But you sat down at the end of those six months with the executive of hire and in the personnel and you decided which path you want to go down. The company gave their perspective performance wise on where you were best and then you decided where you thought you were best and you found the middle ground along the way. But the really cool thing about that, and we've thought about how we can do something alike to this at dds is you get perspective of each of those things and a deeper perspective than just a few weeks or you were there for six months. Right. So if you don't, if you're not interested in being a superintendent, at least you know what it's like to be a superintendent. You know what those guys go through on a daily basis. Same with estimating, like you get a perspective of when you get handed a job. This is how it was built.
- [91:02]
A
Okay.
- [91:02]
B
You know, and that was super important.
- [91:04]
A
I think that to me, I think there's two giant advantages to college in the construction industry. One, it gives you four years, no matter what you're going to go do, to fuck off and figure out who you are without real consequences. Oh yeah.
- [91:20]
B
Yep.
- [91:20]
A
I think, I think it's like mistakes. You're outside of your parents control now, but you're not in the real world yet. It's not the real world. It's like this fake little life. And yeah, yeah, there are some consequences. Somebody was like, oh no, there are consequences. Your scholarships. Yeah, I get that.
- [91:35]
B
But it's not gonna make a break.
- [91:38]
A
No. So. So I think that's really, really valuable. Two, it does put you in these positions to learn more faster. I think in most cases because a program like that is typically for somebody out of college.
- [91:55]
B
Oh yeah, it is it, yeah.
- [91:56]
A
That was like faster.
- [91:57]
B
Degree required.
- [91:58]
A
Yeah, yeah. See typically degree required thing and like the advice I was given when I was starting out was go see as much as you can. So I worked for five different companies in four years in all different roles, all different places, four states. It Was amazing experience. Would have never been able to do that if it wasn't in these college programs. Because no one bats an eye with these kids moving around. You're just a fucking kid. But if you're full time employee, quitting this place, going to this place, quitting this place, going to this place. Why have you just worked at three companies in three years? I don't know. You already hire you.
- [92:35]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [92:37]
A
And so it allows you, I think, to learn more, faster. And that was some of the best advice I was given was figure out what you like and figure out what kind of company you want to work for, which was so valuable. You think a company is just a company when you're a kid. But Rich Pearson, he said, go work for a small company. Go work for a medium sized company.
- [92:57]
B
Yeah.
- [92:57]
A
Go work for a big company. Figure out, you know, construction.
- [93:00]
B
Yeah.
- [93:00]
A
Vertical, horizontal. Figure that out, you know, And I.
- [93:04]
B
Go up or straight. Yeah.
- [93:05]
A
I did. I didn't need to go work for gc. I was like, you know, fuck buildings. Give me some dirt. So my heart was on dirt.
- [93:11]
B
Same way.
- [93:11]
A
But. But if you're. That's an important thing. Like figure out which one you want. They're different. There's totally different careers within each. And then try a bunch of stuff out. Try different roles out.
- [93:23]
B
Yeah.
- [93:23]
A
Try different. You know, I did, I did pipe, I did mass excavation, I did quarrying, I did railroad. Like large infrastructure road. And then you can kind of make that call in a much more educated way, which. And design your career.
- [93:39]
B
Exactly.
- [93:40]
A
A lot more effectively. Yeah.
- [93:41]
B
Give yourself the best shot.
- [93:42]
A
Yes.
- [93:43]
B
Yeah.
- [93:44]
A
Because if you just do the plastic bag and the wind approach, maybe it works out for you.
- [93:51]
B
Yeah.
- [93:51]
A
But I don't know.
- [93:52]
B
But maybe you spend five years somewhere where you're not meant to be.
- [93:55]
A
You could get stuck in a hole for five years. Yeah. And then even worse, you get stuck and then you get promoted and then you're making more money and then you go adjust your cost money you're making.
- [94:09]
B
It can be.
- [94:09]
A
And then you're probably making too much money and probably be hard to go find that money elsewhere.
- [94:14]
B
Yeah.
- [94:14]
A
And now, now you are. You are, for lack of better term.
- [94:18]
B
And part of it was, when I look back now, I wish that I took more away from college than I did. You know, Like, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. I could have gotten a lot more out of it. I was, I was more focused on not the learning part of college, you know, not too heavy in other stuff, but like I wish I built relationships better. One of them, I think you had him here, Matt Stanley?
- [94:43]
A
Yeah.
- [94:43]
B
So I was part of his group in college.
- [94:46]
A
No shit?
- [94:47]
B
Yeah, yeah. We were peers. We were in the same group at ccsu. He's out in Connecticut, so I knew him well. I mean, I still keep in touch with him sometimes, but, like, that's a relationship. So, like, man, I could have, you know, if I really learned more about the company that his family owned, like, you know, we probably could have been really helpful to each other in certain ways. And there's probably 10 more of those guys that are out there that I just didn't lean in on. And I use that when I think about professionally, business and each position along the way to be like, you know what? I'm not going to look back on five years from now and say, I wish that I didn't. I wish I got more out of being a project engineer.
- [95:21]
A
Yeah.
- [95:22]
B
Or I wish I got more out of being a project manager. So, like, every day you got to take something away and you got to get better. It's kind of like, especially in our industry, you're either getting better or getting worse. You know, there's no. There's no standing still, because if you're standing still, someone else is getting better, which means you're getting worse. So part of it is this perspective around, like, what do you really want out of life? Be intentional with that.
- [95:44]
A
Yeah, I. But it. But even that, I feel like people would really benefit from asking themselves, yeah, what do I want here? What am I trying to achieve? What's exciting to me? And just what gets you out of bed? And it's not their fault. A lot of times it's just the society that we live in, too. It's all about, just go, go, go make your decision. 18 years old, what's your career for.
- [96:06]
B
The rest of your life? Yeah.
- [96:07]
A
Like, what are you going to go study? You know, oh, now you have this degree. Now you just got a bunch of debt. Now you can't not get a job.
- [96:12]
B
Get trapped.
- [96:13]
A
Yeah, you can't. Okay. You can't not be a doctor now that you've got the medical degree and now you have, like, it's.
- [96:22]
B
If you could go back, would you do the same thing?
- [96:24]
A
Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, being critical and just asking, what am I? What am I doing here?
- [96:30]
B
Yeah.
- [96:30]
A
What do I want? What gets me going?
- [96:32]
B
When it starts to not get you out of bed in the morning, you really got to think about it.
- [96:35]
A
Yeah.
- [96:36]
B
You know, like, I've luckily. Well, so I started off when I was 15 years old in the ditch working for a guy for cash. And we were doing water lines, sewer lines. I was. I mean, we did a lot of things wrong. He was not a. He was not the safest guy in the world. He was an owner, operator, and he got it done, you know, for what he did. But there was deep holes and holes I shouldn't have been in, you know, that I didn't even know at the time. It's just I was 16 bucks and 16 years old working for 16 bucks an hour, and life was good. Right.
- [97:06]
A
Well, you're in a trench. Like, where's that gonna go?
- [97:10]
B
Yeah, there's gonna.
- [97:11]
A
Come in here. You kidding me?
- [97:12]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, there was times where I remember I was down on the road looking up and you can just see sunlight coming over. It's like, yeah, this is too. And I. Yeah, there was some pretty sketchy situations that I shouldn't been in, you know, but I. I didn't know any better.
- [97:25]
A
And.
- [97:26]
B
And I. I actually think about those a lot now of like, how do we make damn sure there's not one guy in this company that doesn't know any better that's put in that position, you know, and it's got to start with the guy that's running that job to not put somebody in that role, you know, But. But I learned a lot of what not to do working for that guy. But I always. What it did is it introduced me to the earthwork part of construction. And I developed. I just developed a passion for building things infrastructure wise that you can't necessarily see. It's not like we're driving by pipelines and you can see the whole thing, you know, civil. It's a bit different because you can see a product of what we do. But I just loved building stuff, you know, and that's what got me out of bed every morning when I was young and when I would go do it. And still to this day, in a much different role, that's still what gets me out of bed in the morning. Like, I'm not necessarily building projects right now, but we're building people that are building projects. And there's a whole different sense of fulfillment when you're instilling leadership and legacy and giving people a chance to own their part of it and then go build the project. That's like a whole nother layer of something cool that I didn't even know about.
- [98:34]
A
Well, or. Yeah. When they. Like the moment that someone kind of gets it, you realize you see them get it now. You're like, yeah, they get it.
- [98:44]
B
It's working.
- [98:45]
A
And sometimes it takes a while for them to, like, really get it, but then it just sets in. It is so cool.
- [98:52]
B
Wow, that's like. Man, it's those moments where you're like, okay, this is. This must be what life's about. Yeah, like, this. This all kind of starts to make sense now.
- [99:01]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't. Yeah, I don't have children, but it's like, this must be a small. This must be what it feels like, in a way, nurture somebody and see them achieve something and get excited about it. Oh, that's so cool.
- [99:14]
B
It is.
- [99:14]
A
Yeah.
- [99:15]
B
It is super cool, and I'm excited for that. I'm not at that stage yet, but probably sometime in the next few years, we will be.
- [99:23]
A
Yeah. And you're closer than me.
- [99:24]
B
Yeah, yeah. Kara's a little bit younger. She's 29.
- [99:29]
A
Okay. You know, so I'm 29.
- [99:30]
B
Yep. So. But yeah, I'm excited for that. But again, we're not. We're not rushing to that either. Like, we're simmering. We're enjoying where we're at, and we're. We're making sure that we're building ourselves into good humans. So when the time comes, we give those kids the best shot, you know, to be good humans. And again, that's another thing that I think isn't thought about enough is, are you setting yourself up to be the best dad you can be? Are you setting yourself, like, are you doing the things for you so you're in the best spot that you can be to then deliver that in somebody else? And I've leaned into a lot that wasn't always this way, but just health in general, you know, Just health in general. Like, what are you eating? What do you put in your mouth? Are you exercising? Even if it's just a walk? You know, the good, better, best theory of a lot of our guys, they eat out of gas stations. Right. Because that's what's available to them. But do you need to grab the croissant out of. Out of the heater? Or, you know, could it be a something else? A power bar, you know, a protein bar, some jerky? I mean, my go to sometimes I'm on the road. Jerky and mixed nuts. That's like, I don't get anything else. I'll walk by the Chick Fil A, you know, And I'm like, the jerky isn't going to be the best. But that's my no, yeah.
- [100:42]
A
It's not. It's not ideal either. Yeah, it's usually shitty jerky, but it's like, you know, I'm not. Yeah, yeah. It's better than it is in a lot of ways. Not eating.
- [100:49]
B
But those little things. And I'm. I'm a huge proponent, kind of threw Andy, I guess, of the little details. Like, there's so much power in paying attention to every little thing and knowing deep down that, like, every little thing matters. And it matters a lot.
- [101:07]
A
Yeah.
- [101:07]
B
And I drive Karen nuts, you know, because, like, we'll go. We'll go in the weight room, and the first thing I do, even if we're in a hotel gym, is stack all the weights. I mean, so they're all. She's like, there's something wrong with you. You know, like, well, there might be, but it's worked so far.
- [101:21]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's working.
- [101:22]
B
So I'm going to keep doing it. Once it stops working, then I'll stop doing it. Sure. You know, but there's so much, like. There's. There's no magic to it. Success. But if there is magic to it, it's in the details. That's where it is.
- [101:37]
A
Yeah. Say no more, I think. I mean, man, I. People around here are probably sick of me hearing about or sick of me talking about, too, but that, like, that's.
- [101:46]
B
That's the sauce where everything happens.
- [101:49]
A
Everything.
- [101:49]
B
Everything.
- [101:50]
A
Yeah.
- [101:50]
B
And so that's right down to, like, sending an email.
- [101:53]
A
Yeah.
- [101:53]
B
You know, just like little. Little things like that.
- [101:55]
A
Yeah.
- [101:56]
B
You know, just if you put the effort in and you pay attention to the details and you do it the right way every time, eventually, it's hard to lose.
- [102:05]
A
Yep. Yep. Yeah. I mean, fingers crossed.
- [102:08]
B
Yeah.
- [102:09]
A
I'm. I'm trying to get there.
- [102:11]
B
Well, I'd say you're off to a pretty dang good start, man.
- [102:14]
A
We're doing.
- [102:14]
B
This is impressive.
- [102:15]
A
We're doing what we can.
- [102:16]
B
Impressive as heck.
- [102:17]
A
Are you coming? Are you coming to the summit or sending guys? You're coming.
- [102:20]
B
I'll be coming. And we didn't even get into my leadership team, but, man, I'd love to talk about those guys and Gails for a minute because, you know, I'm super passionate about the team that we have at dds. So the way that we're structured in those five divisions is every division has a leader, and each of those leaders have P and L responsibilities. Firing, hiring responsibilities. Like, they have financial goals, they have safety goals, quality goals, which are all aligned at different levels throughout the business. But they own that division. Like, that's their deal. And Sean has designed the company that way on purpose to give everybody an entrepreneurial, you know, perspective on what they do. And. And I was fortunate. Like I said, I worked for one of them for the first five years of my career, and we went through some shit together in a good way. Like. Like, not him and I personally, but, like, him and I together on a really challenging project. And he mentored me through it, he coached me through it, and I worked through it, you know, and we built a pretty strong relationship through that. And then another one, same thing. John Kupiak runs our energy services group. We've. We've ran a couple of projects, like, him and I right here, him taking this half, me taking this half. And we've done some really cool things with each other. So, you know, I'm super passionate about the team because I have the unique. I had the unique opportunity to build the company to what we are today with those people. And it's not. I don't think you have that everywhere with everybody where you had the opportunity to spend the time, like, actually on project, earning it with those folks. And we got a pretty special bond between us all. But I'm thankful that because of that relationship and I think the relationship that's valued across the board, when we run into a problem, we can have pretty open conversations around it, like, hey, man, here's what we got to deal with. This sucks. Well, you have to trust you and I. You know what I mean? It's you and I, we're gonna have to fucking deal with it. So here's what I think. Here's option abc. But, man, if you got different perspective, let's put them on the table and let's figure it out. And it's not like there's not that abrasion of an outsider coming in and saying, this is what you need to do.
- [104:25]
A
Sure.
- [104:25]
B
You know, And I'm just super thankful for that because. Because it makes. It makes my day much more fulfilling, and I think their day much more fulfilling, too, because there's just coherence.
- [104:37]
A
Yeah, it is. It's interesting, too, having different division heads of divisions able to make their own calls and decisions, which I think is pretty clever.
- [104:49]
B
And we have, like, sometimes you can get a little loose with that and become too distant. Yes. Like Jocko explains. Or decentralized command.
- [104:57]
A
Sometimes you can get silos.
- [104:58]
B
But we all know each other so well that they know when to pull me in.
- [105:02]
A
Sure.
- [105:02]
B
And they know when I don't need to be in.
- [105:03]
A
Sure.
- [105:04]
B
You know, and they know when my time is spent better somewhere else, you know, but my trust in them is like if I'm involved in this, there's a reason for it. So I'm going to give it all I got, you know, to be there and be helpful in any way that I can. And that's that again, helps with me being efficient with the hours of my day because I don't find myself wasting time.
- [105:26]
A
I'm excited to get up there at some point because I want to see what you all do. Yeah, it's just.
- [105:31]
B
Would love to host.
- [105:31]
A
You took a cul de sac up there.
- [105:33]
B
I have to.
- [105:35]
A
Yeah. I don't get up there as much as I want to.
- [105:38]
B
Yeah, well, maybe. I mean, I'm traveling quite a bit now. Maybe one, one time, if it makes sense, if I'm coming through, you know, we'll hook up and go head back together or something like that.
- [105:47]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I, we'll get up there at some point. We want to do another road trip from next year from, from probably Florida to Maine. Yeah, ideally.
- [105:56]
B
Cool.
- [105:56]
A
Or Florida. New York. Yeah, I know. Getting. I was thinking about Boston too, but.
- [106:02]
B
Well, yeah, because we got some sister companies along the way too. I think it's hooked up with. Feeney Brothers is a pretty cool outfit. We didn't get into much of them, but they're, they're, they're in the heart of Boston.
- [106:11]
A
I want to, I want to spend more time in Boston, construction in general.
- [106:15]
B
Because that is a whole different thing, man.
- [106:17]
A
A whole different thing. Different thing. It is crazy. Crazy how different it is out there. Yeah. The first time. Because, like, you go to New York City and you expect it to be different, you know, in Chicago, you expect it to be Boston.
- [106:30]
B
It is different.
- [106:31]
A
Boston is probably the most different construction market in the United States. Major construction market that I've ever seen. Seen.
- [106:38]
B
Yeah, it's, it's totally wild. It's its own little. It's right here. Yes, it's right here. And there's nothing like it.
- [106:45]
A
No.
- [106:45]
B
You know, so. Yeah, but where, where I started with that is at the summit. A couple of the guys and the leadership, they'll be there. Okay. Yeah.
- [106:54]
A
Yeah, they are.
- [106:55]
B
And, and we do have our controller, our local controller, Morgan, who really, she, she's in finance, but she's, she's the glue around our office. Like she keeps us all together, you know, and so to have that in the office too, to kind of keep everybody aligned and have her get along with the Group in a way that's, that's just effective and valuable across the board is huge for us. Like you, you know, like you described. You got some folks here that help steer the ship and she very much does, you know, in her own way with us there.
- [107:26]
A
So those are some, some of the most key people or the people that just keep everybody else together.
- [107:32]
B
Yeah.
- [107:33]
A
In a way.
- [107:34]
B
Yeah.
- [107:34]
A
Like we've got Kara on, on the system side of things that really keeps the business together.
- [107:39]
B
Yeah.
- [107:40]
A
And then Dan's assumed the integrated role within our executive leadership team. Just making sure we're all, all in line. And it's really, really helpful to have those people, they're not to be overlooked.
- [107:53]
B
Yeah.
- [107:54]
A
Because yeah. Now like we've almost overlooked it in the past and now it's like, oh.
- [107:59]
B
Thank goodness we have this because it'd.
- [108:01]
A
Be a mess without it.
- [108:02]
B
Yeah. I can't imagine not having somebody strong on the financial end of the business that's kind of keeping it all together.
- [108:09]
A
We've. Yeah, we've learned that lesson too.
- [108:12]
B
Yeah, we've. And that's, that's through making mistakes. Yeah.
- [108:15]
A
In the past too.
- [108:16]
B
Not having visibility. I mean there's a, there was a point in time where we were closing the month, closing the books 30 days beyond when the month ended.
- [108:24]
A
Yeah.
- [108:24]
B
So you know.
- [108:25]
A
Yeah, we've been there.
- [108:26]
B
I mean, and now we're three days.
- [108:28]
A
Yeah.
- [108:28]
B
We're closing.
- [108:29]
A
We're implementing a new accounting system as we speak this month. Cool. And it's going to give us so much more visibility.
- [108:36]
B
Have to. Because you can't make decisions. You can't make decisions. 30 days late. Too late.
- [108:40]
A
Yeah, yeah. That's the problem right now. So yeah. We're getting rid of QuickBooks finally.
- [108:44]
B
Oh yeah.
- [108:45]
A
And getting something more grown up, business related.
- [108:49]
B
That's good.
- [108:49]
A
Yeah.
- [108:50]
B
We're still on something that, that can be better. It was more of a, it was, it's a pretty well known software but it was a homegrown portion for the construction side of things. So we're, we're, we're exploring if there's some better options out there. What is it, Brent? Coins it's called. Okay. And they, I think it was, I think it might have been Feeney actually in the late 2000s that partnered with Coins and they made a construction module. So it's a homegrown like self built thing which worked great in 2018, but now we're in 2024 and we've evolved, we've integrated as DDS. They don't do civil they don't do energy. So the commercial portion isn't very strong. So there's some legacy practices that we're still bolting on that are like in spreadsheets, you know, and it's like, man, we just need. We need something that's. That's more refined. Yeah, but we, we did. We. Sean. This was Sean's idea. I give him the credit on it. But we executed it as a team. It's called the Viper Squad. We call him the Viper Squad. So he's big into cars.
- [109:48]
A
Okay.
- [109:48]
B
So he's a Ford guy. So Ford Cobra. He made a Viper Squad. So. And it stuck. So still to this day, we call them that, but they're basically CPAs that we teach construction to. And we're. They're very financially astute and we make them operationally astute.
- [110:07]
A
Yeah.
- [110:07]
B
So I tell them they come in in loafers and we give them cowboy boots. You know what I mean? So we learn them into that. But they kind of. There are resource from a project management and a managerial level on the fiduciary part of what we do. And they're like, involved in projects where they're looking and saying, hey, we made X amount of dollars last week here. We had the same amount of man hours. What changed here? You know what I mean? Are we missing billing or we missing here, we missing there? So what we were finding is the project manager. When they're the type of project manager that we have, which is a dirty boots style guy, they're dealing with labor, they're dealing with equipment breakdowns, they're dealing with scheduling. They're doing customer meetings, they're doing material deliveries, they're doing the buyout. They're looking ahead to next week. The first thing that drops off when you start drinking from the fire hose is worrying about making good financial sound decisions. Right. And we found that there was some things that were happening where we were just reacting. And maybe we weren't getting the best buy on that stone from that quarry because we just needed stone. We needed it now, so we got it on site.
- [111:09]
A
Yeah.
- [111:09]
B
So we implemented Never take advantage ever.
- [111:14]
A
That's never happened before.
- [111:16]
B
Well, we spend like sometimes we bid projects with the opportunity to add value through execution. So we need to figure out a way to go make money and add that value. And like, I'll give you an example. On one of my projects, we bid it to import all the stone, we bid it to blast all the rock and haul all the rock off site. And it was a pretty hefty package. Just in the rock, it was a few million bucks. And instead of doing that, we figured out a way to rent a crusher. So we got a mezzo crusher on site. We still blasted all the rock, but we crushed all the rock and then we used it all on site for building roads, you know what I mean? So we saved on the haul off, we saved on the buy. Yeah, we had the rental of the crusher and the operation of the crusher, but that was a huge value add for us on that project alone. But I did the math before, you know, and I did all the execution and the lining up of all that stuff. And when you're a project manager and you got five projects going on and all those other things are happening, do you have the time to go through that exercise and really explore what's the best way to do this with what we have in front of us right now? So taking part of the financial responsibility, not all of it because our PMs are still financially responsible for their projects, but taking the calculation of certain things off of them and just saying, hey, here's option abc. Put your, put your spin on it and make the call has been huge, man, huge for us. So that's, that's been a pretty important change that we've really leaned into the past few years. So they have their own. Aside from our rerp, we use Microsoft bi. And that's a whole different world that we have dashboard wise to measure performance.
- [112:49]
A
That's a whole. We've got a different kind of dashboard, but that's one of the coolest things we have as a business now is this dashboard that allows me to just understand where we are at any, any moment, which is amazing. Anywhere in the world I can. I always have the tab open.
- [113:04]
B
Yep.
- [113:05]
A
Hit refresh. Okay, cool. Yep.
- [113:07]
B
And the cool part from my seat, because I have the same thing as the data that I'm looking at, even though it's organized in a different way, that's more high level. Is the same exact project data that the project managers are looking at.
- [113:19]
A
Yeah.
- [113:19]
B
So I can drill down into this project going on in Albany, New York, 400 miles away. That's part of my P and L that I'm looking at and have it be the same information. So when I'm asking questions, there's no conflict of data, no barrier to get to there. It's just we're looking at the same thing. So again, how do we streamline the communication around that?
- [113:38]
A
Yeah, you guys are doing some pretty cool stuff.
- [113:41]
B
Yeah, it's exciting. We can always get better. You know what I mean? But frankly, what we're really good at is when we make mistakes, figuring out a solution and then like we're living and dying by this and we're going all in on it.
- [113:53]
A
Well, you can, I mean it's apparent, it's, it's really exciting to see what you are doing.
- [113:58]
B
Cool, man.
- [113:59]
A
And it's cool to see you all sharing about it too. Yeah, like I've seen a lot of it.
- [114:03]
B
Yeah.
- [114:03]
A
See you sharing stuff. See Mark, see others.
- [114:05]
B
Yeah. So I actually, I. Social media is something that since 2020, I deleted all my accounts and I was never heavy into it professionally I was a little bit personally, but not a lot. But frankly, all the political stuff going on back in that time, I'm like, I just gotta distance myself from all the bs, right? So I deleted it. But after your talk at first form, I'm like, I, I'm missing out. Oh, by now.
- [114:28]
A
Good.
- [114:29]
B
By not being involved here, you know, I just am, I'm invisible to some. I mean just from a communication standpoint, internally, externally, whatever it is. So I, I replicated the strategy that you gave me an overview on, you know, and the posts that you do. And that's fantastic. Trying to do my own, my own best at it, you know. So I still got a long way to go.
- [114:48]
A
Well, I've been, I've been seeing it all the time.
- [114:50]
B
Cool. So awesome.
- [114:51]
A
Yeah, I'm, I, I try to, I try to like it all the time.
- [114:53]
B
Yeah, I noticed that.
- [114:54]
A
I try to like, like Mark all the time.
- [114:55]
B
Appreciate that.
- [114:56]
A
Try to show my support.
- [114:57]
B
No, that goes a long way. That's good. People see that. Aaron.
- [115:00]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [115:01]
B
That's super cool.
- [115:01]
A
Yeah.
- [115:02]
B
But I think your, your strategy and I love that it's so simple because I'm a big believer of it's gotta be simple, you know, of, you know, make it fun too. Make it effective, you know, add value. Don't just post the post. Just don't just throw up a picture and you know, wonder why you're not getting likes on it. Explain it.
- [115:17]
A
Yep, yep, yep.
- [115:18]
B
Yeah, you gotta give people value.
- [115:20]
A
Well, and first form was helpful too because it's like, don't take it from me. Yeah, just look around.
- [115:26]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [115:26]
A
It's like that's how they've done it. So that's how Andy's done.
- [115:30]
B
Well, that's how you've done it. That's how you've done it.
- [115:32]
A
This wouldn't exist without social media, let me tell you.
- [115:35]
B
Yeah, it's Such a powerful thing.
- [115:36]
A
Yeah.
- [115:37]
B
And we've, we've. Frankly, we didn't use that as a tool until recently. And we lean into it as a company. We really do it for recruiting.
- [115:48]
A
Sure.
- [115:48]
B
You know, and to give the employees somewhat of a voice, you know, to tell their story, which is cool. But yeah, it's super, super powerful thing.
- [115:56]
A
Yeah. Well, it's about this time of day when the fucking restaurant starts playing music.
- [116:03]
B
Yeah.
- [116:04]
A
It's the kitchen fires up around this time because there's this was. I was, I was talking. I wasn't talking about with you. I was talking about someone else today. It's like with software, what we do, you can change it and modify it very quickly. With a building, you can't really change it.
- [116:19]
B
So you have. What you have, you do. And that was one of my oversight panels already.
- [116:24]
A
Well, that was one of my overs.
- [116:25]
B
Sites though, is I put the podcast.
- [116:26]
A
Studio over the kitchen downstairs, which is no problem until about this time when they start 2:30.
- [116:33]
B
Yep.
- [116:33]
A
The restaurant opens at 5. Oh yeah.
- [116:35]
B
You're not stopping those guys from turning the radio.
- [116:37]
A
No way. Well, and a lot of them don't speak English, so it's like even if I wanted to, it's just they're on a different world and they're just grinding down there and I don't want to interrupt.
- [116:46]
B
They're in their flow. Right.
- [116:49]
A
But I. I'm super appreciative of you coming down.
- [116:51]
B
Hey, man, I appreciate the invite.
- [116:53]
A
Yes.
- [116:53]
B
This was awesome to meet you see the space. I think what you guys are doing is really changing the industry. I hope you feel it. Well, it's working.
- [117:01]
A
I appreciate that. And likewise, I think getting your message out. It's. I mean, I'm around a lot of companies and it's really cool to see what you guys are doing.
- [117:11]
B
So I need more of this as an industry.
- [117:14]
A
Yeah. Well, hey, you got to evolve. Yeah. Boy. If people want to look up the company.
- [117:22]
B
Yeah.
- [117:22]
A
What's the company website?
- [117:23]
B
Yep. So ddscompanies.com simple. Yep. Super simple. We're actually take a look at it now, but take a look at it like two months from now because we got a little refresher that's coming out. Good. That's long overdue. We've been working on it for a long time, but we're finally, finally launching that. So that's going to be out. And then our social media tags are all DDS companies. Okay. You can find them right on the website. You're on LinkedIn there and I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. Too easy. Yep. Okay. Just my name. Mike Valet. Keep it simple. Sweet.
- [117:50]
A
Well, thank you.
- [117:52]
B
Yeah, man, thank you. This was awesome.
- [117:54]
A
There we go.
- [117:55]
B
Okay. That's it. That's it.