Clay Greene w/ Garney Construction – DT 416

Summary

Dirt Talk with BuildWitt – Episode 416: Clay Greene (Garney Construction)

Date: February 16, 2026
Host: Aaron Witt (A)
Guest: Clay Greene (B), Construction Technology Department Manager at Garney Construction

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Episode Overview

In this engaging and candid conversation, Aaron Witt sits down with Clay Greene, the Construction Technology Department Manager at Garney Construction, America’s largest water/wastewater infrastructure contractor. The episode explores Clay’s journey from field engineer to tech leader, the realities of construction, the undervalued impact of water infrastructure, and how Garney is implementing technology for practical results—not hype. The wide-ranging discussion covers education, career humility, industry challenges, critical infrastructure, and the pitfalls and promise of construction technology.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Clay’s Background: Education, Loss, and Entry into Construction

• Engineering School Struggles:
  Both Aaron and Clay reflect on the grueling nature of engineering programs.

  • “Engineering school, it’s...abusive, man. I was fighting for my life.” —Aaron (02:06)
  • Clay describes being an average student at Georgia Tech and feeling “mentally unready” at 18.

• Personal Tragedy & Resilience:
  Clay lost his mother to suicide during college, prompting him to leave school, work construction a year, and return with newfound perspective.

  • “The thought of going back to school...I can’t.” —Clay (05:23)
  • “Just, you know, the bottom drops out...the pain for my two brothers...it’s just confusing. Overwhelming.” —Clay (04:14)

• Reinvigorated at University of Tennessee:
  Clay returned to school as a “totally different person” with maturity, drive, and focus, ultimately connecting with Garney Construction.

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2. The Real Impact of College & Building Careers in Construction

• Nuance in the College Debate:
  Both discuss that college’s value isn’t black and white; it depends on attitude and commitment.
  • “You can go be the world’s biggest shithead [in college], or you can go become an astronaut.” —Aaron (08:33)
  • “It’s what you make it. And I think I gave 100 on my end, and they met it.” —Clay (08:07)
• ROI of Engineering Degrees:
  Agreement that engineering is one of the best-value four-year degrees, but not without shortcomings.
• Where College Falls Short:
  • Not enough focus on communication/collaboration skills.
  • Lack of required field experience for most students.
  • Disconnected from real-world problem-solving.

“The most effective engineers are not the smartest ones...they’re good enough and can talk to people.” —Aaron (14:46)
“Engineering teaches you to think and problem solve.” —Clay (13:10)

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3. Importance of Field Experience and Humility

• "Boots in the Mud" Internships:
  Clay’s foundational lesson was working in trenches as an intern, realizing actual construction happens far from the safety of classroom calculations. Both men advocate for field internships over cushy office-based roles.

  • “Day one, I’m up under a 24-inch mechanical joint with an air gun...What the hell am I doing?” —Clay (16:40)

• Learning Your Place in the Chain:
  Realization that office staff and engineers are support roles: the bid sheet is about materials and labor, not you.

  • “Go find you on the bid sheet...nowhere. Right.” —Aaron (19:35)

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4. Water & Wastewater Infrastructure: The Quiet Miracle

• The Unseen Value:
  Water infrastructure is essential, underappreciated, and critical for public health.

  • “The single most substantial improvement we’ve made in modern health is clean water and disposed wastewater.” —Aaron (36:58)
  • “We always say we’re in the business of water new and used.” —Clay (28:06)

• Big Projects, Big Impact:
  Discussion of projects like Phoenix’s 66-inch welded line for redundancy; Loudoun County’s quarry storage; and Texas water redistribution.

• Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Projects Explained (32:01–36:00):
  Clay details CSO history and solutions—huge investments, complex tunneling/storage, and massive environmental impacts.

• Anecdotes of Pro Bono Work & Global Perspective (38:27–42:08):
  Clay shares stories of bringing water to rural communities in the Dominican Republic and Guatemala.

  • “Those trips are so good...humbling and making you grateful for water.” —Clay (39:13)

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5. What It’s Really Like to Build Critical Infrastructure

• Career Purpose:
  There’s meaning in building infrastructure that never shuts off—unlike most jobs, there’s no day the water company can just not deliver.

  • “365 days a year, I don’t think twice about water...That is a modern miracle.” —Aaron (42:43)

• When Things Go Wrong:
  Clay recalls high-stakes pipe failures, referencing Flint, MI and catastrophic consequences of poor infrastructure.

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6. Company Values, Mental Health & Safety

• Consistency Under Pressure:
  True values show when schedules slip, not when everything’s smooth.

  • “You really find out who’s serious about [safety] when the schedule starts to slip.” —Aaron (47:41)

• Mental Toll of High-Stakes Work:
  Stress of doing “perfect work” daily with no room for error; importance of mental health and safety culture at Garney.

• Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast:
  On good leadership and crew effectiveness.

  • “The good crew leaders embody that.” —Clay (49:26)

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7. Technological Change in Construction: Reality Check

Department Structure & Philosophy (96:29–98:49)

• Clay leads two teams:

  • Tech Ops: drones, scanning, survey, etc.
  • Special Projects: implementation/integration of technology across Garney

• Field-First Mentality:

  • “We work for the guys that build. I make damn sure ops teams know I work for you.” —Clay (74:03)

• Lessons Learned:

  • Tech is only valuable if it simplifies and improves the end user’s (field’s) experience.

Implementation Pitfalls

• Adoption Fails:
  • Often leadership buys software/tools that field can’t use, or doesn’t implement/train for.
  • Efforts to “build their own” software rarely succeed.
  • “Please don’t. We don’t build software. We build water, wastewater.” —Clay (80:04)
• Be Willing to Pivot:
  Clay shares a humbling experience where Garney scrapped a major tech investment that wasn’t working for the field—despite sunk costs.
  • “We made internal announcements...and then had to pull the plug. It was tough.” —Clay (82:40)
  • “What’s important: get the right solution, or save face? At Garney, there were no egos—just get it right.” —Clay (85:00)

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8. Best Use of Tech: Practical, Not Sexy

• Real Problems Are in Process/Data, Not Robots:

  • “It is really easy to go buy hardware...but the real value comes from the processes and how that information is exchanged.” —Clay (106:28)

• Big gains come from cleaning up data, unifying processes, and focusing on productivity (e.g., timecards, hours, and quantities by operation).

• Where AI Fits and Where It Doesn’t:

  • AI can help estimate, analyze, and improve productivity—but can’t lay pipe or pour concrete.
  • "You still have to put pipe in the ground..." —Aaron (110:01)

• Skepticism for Overhyped Tech:

  • Both are realistic about robotics and the limits of autonomy, especially for dynamic, real-world job sites.

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9. Evolution of Drones & Data Collection

• “We started our drone program three years ago...now we've got 50 pilots, 50 drones flying on most job sites.” —Clay (115:54)

• Frustration over U.S. drone policy (DJI ban); other systems lag behind in capability and cost.

• Automated Drone Docks (119:36–121:46):

  • Future vision: stationing drone docks at plant jobs, enabling remote pilots and daily scans for transparency, owner relations, and progress tracking.

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10. Industry’s Image, Workforce, and Mission

• Pride and Support:
  • Both Aaron and Clay are fiercely loyal to the dirt world, advocate for everyone to promote what the industry really does, and hope to attract people who want to create and build—not just shuffle paper and money.
  • “I’m loyal to the industry...to the future of our country, which means the future of this industry.” —Aaron (95:14)
• Calling for Teamwork Across the Industry:
  • “We’re missing the plot here...there’s a bigger game. We’ve got to start thinking like a team.” —Aaron (95:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[On engineering school:] Once you get beat up enough, you’re like, all right, I’ve been around this block. I just ate it. I get up and do it again.” —Aaron (10:46)
• “You’re not just laying pipe...that’s thousands and thousands of families that will depend on this water line for the next 50 years.” —Aaron (27:28)
• “The public never sees what we built...it’s all buried. It sounds so weird, but it’s beautiful sometimes, man.” —Clay (59:00)
• “The most important person on a pipe crew is the pipe layer and the lead operator. The whole job works for those two people.” —Clay (20:15)
• “Technology is only valuable if it makes peoples’ lives better.” —Clay (74:50)
• “It’s such an authenticity boost... when you just admit that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.” —Clay (85:41)
• “Tech can help, but garbage in, garbage out. You must clean up your data first before AI.” —Aaron (105:18)
• "Are humanoid or, or four-legged robotics gonna really move the needle for us? No...not in the what I have left in the construction industry." —Clay (111:59)

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Important Timestamps/Segments

• Personal loss and college path: 04:14–06:30
• Engineering school failures and life lessons: 10:08–11:22
• Field internships and humility: 16:39–18:22
• Bid sheets and support staff reality: 19:35–20:07
• Complexity of small vs large water projects: 21:08–22:07
• Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) explanation: 32:01–36:00
• Global water work anecdotes: 38:27–42:08
• Critical infrastructure & ‘miracle’ of water: 42:43–43:23
• Field-first tech philosophy: 74:03–75:31
• Tech implementation—admitting failure and pivoting: 82:16–85:07
• Practical AI/tech vs. hype: 105:09–112:12
• Future of drones and jobsite data: 119:36–122:29

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Episode Tone & Style

Candid, direct, no-BS, with plenty of builder humor, humility, and a persistent field-first philosophy. Both Aaron and Clay blend serious industry insights with self-deprecation and a “we just want to get it right” attitude.

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Conclusion

This episode is a masterclass in both the culture and challenges of heavy civil construction—delivered by two passionate insiders. It highlights the immense unseen value of water infrastructure and provides grounded, field-focused perspectives on technology, people, and the future. If you’re looking for real stories, practical wisdom, and a no-hype assessment of construction tech, this episode can’t be missed.

Transcript

[A]

This Dirt Talk podcast episode is with Clay Green of Garney Construction. Clay is the construction technology department manager at Garney, which is America's largest water and wastewater infrastructure contractor. He started his career in the field and he now uses his experience to serve the thousands of Garney employee owners by effectively implementing the latest construction technology, from drones to software. I had a fantastic time with Clay Garney. They've been a huge supporter of Bill Whip. They have been at the Dirt World Summit. They have subscribed to Bill Whit and prove their training their people on. On our training and development platform. They've invested with us. They have had me out to projects. Their CEO has been on the podcast. If you haven't listened to that episode, it's fantastic. And I was talking with them, my friend Jeff over there and he's like, you've got to talk to Clay. You've got to have him on the podcast. He's doing some cool stuff. He has some great perspectives on where the industry is going. And you guys are two peas in a pod. And after this conversation, I agree. Clay and I had a great time and I hope you enjoyed this episode with Clay Green of Garney Construction. So you came up engineering route as well?

[B]

Yeah, civil. Yeah, civil. University of Tennessee. And I can kind of tell you a little bit of my story. I went to Georgia Tech actually out of high school.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Highly ranked CE program. They were, I don't know, one or two in the U.S. they were a high ranking one.

[A]

Construction. Engineering.

[B]

A civil engineering.

[A]

Civil engineering. Okay. Okay.

[B]

Yeah. And, uh, so sought that out and went there. And then when I was. It was a hard program. I was an average student. I was a B student. C sometimes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A lot of, you know, it's just. I don't think I was mentally ready coming out of high school. I knew what I wanted, but, you know, it's 18. That's a tough time to. Well and be disciplined.

[A]

Engineering school, it's. It's abusive, man.

[B]

This like, it's hard.

[A]

I'd hang out with like my, my business school friends. It's like you got what. What do you guys. You're coloring right? Like, take a look at this.

[B]

Calc 3 homework.

[A]

Yeah. This is your home. This is what you guys. No wonder you drink all the time because. Yeah. You guys don't do anything. Whereas like. Yeah. Not all college is the same. You go to engineering and at least for me, it was just like war.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, you're just. I was fighting for my life.

[B]

Yeah. Every semester and especially at a Place like Georgia Tech. I. I was fighting for my life and was average.

[A]

I was like, yes, that's the worst part about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which was just another salt in the wound thing, you know?

[A]

Like, I don't know if this is how your classes were too, but, like, everything had to be curved because everything was so hard.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so the average on some tests would be like, 65. 65, maybe. Like, sometimes it's like in the 50s and you get. You get like a 48.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you. You worked as hard as possible to study for this examination, and then you get a 48.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you're like, it gets curved. So it's not a total failure.

[B]

Sure. But it's not like what that curve is.

[A]

You don't know what the curve is. It's completely made up.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then you're not sitting there like, wow, I won. Like, I feel great about my abilities. Let's go to the next one. Like, you go to the next one with your tail between your legs, but then you don't even have a day to chill because especially when. When it's exam season. Like, all right, you just dodged a bullet over in Foundations, but now you've.

[B]

Got dynamics going up.

[A]

Dynamics about to whack you over the head the next afternoon or two days from now. Yeah. It's just. For me, it was. It was horrendous.

[B]

It's tough. So Georgia Tech was a great experience, though, because it showed me the caliber of people that are out there. You know what I mean? I got to see, like, who are the top folks in the field. Got to sit beside him and work with them and.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I think that was really eye opening and a good chance to just get out of East Tennessee. I'm born and raised in East Tennessee, and so it's a good chance to live in Atlanta and see some new stuff, meet new people. But my mom. We lost my mom to suicide while I was in at Georgia Tech.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

Which was total gut punch, man. Just, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Bottom drops out of. Dropped out of my life is what it felt like. And had two brothers back home in East Tennessee.

[A]

How'd you find out?

[B]

Phone call. I'll never forget it. You know those moments you just never.

[A]

Forget, like, life stops.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Just you. I had the realization of, like, this is one of those moments where my life will never be the same.

[A]

Who called you?

[B]

Grandfather.

[A]

Wow. Your mom's father?

[B]

No, Dad's side. A small town, Eastern.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But just, you know, it's. It's crazy moment man, you just seems surreal. Like is this. Am I really hearing what I think I'm hearing? And, and then the pain for my two brothers. I had two younger brothers at home and it's just confusing. Overwhelming. And so long story short, the thought of going back to school and then out of state tuition with the new financial, you know, losing my mom was like I just, I can't.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So I fully dropped out of school and What.

[A]

How far in were you?

[B]

Two years.

[A]

Oh, so you're. You're a fair one.

[B]

Two years.

[A]

Yeah, that's. That's.

[B]

And completely dropped out of school and went back home and worked construction.

[A]

No kidding.

[B]

Yeah. And my uncle has a caulking and waterproofing company and so I squeezed a caulk gun, put waterproofing on. We did deck coatings. What's really funny is I remember doing a deck coating. It's like a, you know, coating on a new concrete structure at the University of Tennessee. And I ran into my friends, like friends that I hadn't seen in a while, hadn't kept up with at Tennessee as students. Are you working on this crew right now? Like yeah, look at me. You know, crushing it right now.

[A]

Yeah. Well, you're making more money than they were at the time.

[B]

Yeah, that's for damn sure, man. That's for damn sure. Making whatever. I don't know what else making in $12 an hour probably. But you know, we're talking about humbling experiences yesterday. I think those are just that type of experience. Just. It's grounding.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I worked for a full year and saved cash, live with family, tried to be stabilizing force and for the home life and then re enrolled in Tennessee at University of Tennessee. And when I was at Tennessee, man, it's just, it's like the difference in going to college as a kid and as an adult, like I was a totally different person. 40 front row relationships with all my professors just dialed in and yeah. Ran into Garney at Tennessee. That's how I connected with Garney through Jeff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So. But yeah, Tennessee was a great experience. I love Tennessee. The, the classes were. Tennessee is a big school. I don't know how many people have 30, 000 people or something like that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the gen ed classes, like, I don't know, an English class was not the best experience because they're so big.

[A]

Yeah. Like 400 kids. Yeah.

[B]

It's an auditorium. Right. Of people learning.

[A]

Professor could, could not care about anything happening.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

They're just there so they can go do what they want to do, like, and they don't even pretend like they want to be there.

[B]

Right. Right. You feel that?

[A]

Right?

[B]

Like, so that. That kind of, you know, that was a different experience. But when I got into the full engineering program at Tennessee, man, it rocked. Professors were high quality. Facilities were great. Labs were great. Like, it was a really good experience. And I think it's one of those things, like, any college, it's. It's what you make it. And I think I. I gave 100 on my end and it. And they. And they met it.

[A]

Yeah. And that. That's my. That's my qualm with the college. No college thing. I'm like, I don't like it because it's so black and white. And it's like. Yeah, there's. There's nothing black and white about it. At least my experience, like, Right. I went to Arizona state. There's almost 100,000 kids.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

It's the biggest school in the United States. Like, you could do whatever you wanted to do there.

[B]

That could be whatever you want it to be. Right.

[A]

It could be anything, man. Like, you can go be the world's biggest shithead and drug addict, or you can go become an astronaut. Yeah. Like, and then everything in between, like. But that was the fun of. It was. It was just this wild social experiment.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That allowed me to start the journey of figuring out who I was as an individual.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I wouldn't be here today without those four years. So when people lobby against it, I'm like, I don't know. I would do it again. It served me really, really well. Does it serve everybody well? No, but there's a great way to do it. And again, it served me. The weird social experiment part of it served me very well. And then engineering school served me very well. Like, I wouldn't, knowing what I know now, I would never willingly sign up for engineering school again. Seriously. No, but. But I signed up for it not knowing there was a lot of math involved, and people think I'm joking. I'm like, I. I had never met an engineer in my life before signing.

[B]

Up for engineering school.

[A]

Yeah. I just. That wasn't the world I came up in. I knew nothing about engineering, Not a single thing. I was just told to go do it. So I'm like, good enough for me. And then I got kind of too deep into it, and it's like. I mean, I had the paperwork to drop out of engineering school. Filled out for the first two years.

[B]

Did you?

[A]

But I just never I just never filed it officially. I was going to go into the construction program because I'd see the construction kids. I'm like, yeah, bro, they look happy. That's a lot easier.

[B]

Like, they're doing schedules and, like, quantities, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They're like.

[A]

Like estimating on how to build a wall, Right. Like, how many cinder blocks do I need? It's like, that's. That's a pretty good deal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I just. Yeah, I just stuck with it. But that it was really good because it was really hard, and it taught me how to fail.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And honestly, it's harder than, like, anything else I've had to do, which. Which, like, people talk about how hard business is, and it's like, yeah, it's hard, but I don't know. I've got. I've gotten the shit kicked out of me for so long now. It's just like. That's all I know. Yeah.

[B]

You just build up thick skin around that. Right. And you realize failure is part of it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you get beat up enough, you're like, all right. Yeah, I've. I've been around this block.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I just ate it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I get up and I do it again.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's all there is to it, you know?

[B]

Back to the college. No college thing, I think. Way I think about it, is I don't think going into college just because you don't have anything better to do is the right approach. And I feel like a lot of kids feel pressured to do that, come out of school, and they're like, well, I guess my friends are going to college. I guess I should go to college. And then you fumble around and change majors three times and don't take it serious. End up with a communications degree and $100,000 in debt.

[A]

Ye.

[B]

And really, is that the set of experiences that you. Otherwise. That you. You should have in those five years?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or could you have gone to a. In the workforce, worked for two or three, done a lot of different things, and kind of refined what you're interested in. Then go back.

[A]

Yeah, I.

[B]

If you need to go back. Right. You may not even need to go back.

[A]

No. And. But I think it's like, I think people like us, we can have a more nuanced conversation. Like, somebody in my parents generation, they talk about it, and I'm like, no, no, no, no. You guys don't understand. Like, you're so far removed from this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're treating it like it's your. It's the world you came up in. It's a different ball game for sure. Like even us, we're in our 30s now, so that was over 10 years ago. Over a decade ago. It's dramatically different.

[B]

Oh my gosh.

[A]

But we're still close enough where it's like, all right, yeah, this is probably how I'd play the game.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But you have a lot of parents talking about it. It's like, like your opinion only matters so much because you're really far from this now. And it's a different, like college is dramatically different.

[B]

Yeah. And I think what's changed Too is the YouTube, the LinkedIn learning podcast, Coursera podcast, where, you know, instead of going to get a four year degree, you go get a six week coding boot camp. You and come out making 200k. I mean, maybe not one more time.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

[B]

Two years ago.

[A]

Yeah. But no, not anymore.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No, you're, you're spot on there. Yeah, it's AI. AI coding.

[A]

It's like I couldn't recommend engineering school more though. Like, I can't speak on behalf of business school or marketing or whatever it is. I haven't seen a whole lot of as much value there. But something like an engineering school teach.

[B]

You how to think, man.

[A]

It teaches you how to think and how to problem solve.

[B]

Yeah. I'm biased because I went through it, but I feel like engineering school is probably the best ROI in terms of times and time and dollars for four years.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

You know, I mean, there's like, okay, there's other options. Law school, tack on another three years. Med school, tackle another eight years.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The ratio of engineering school, I think is a sweet spot.

[A]

No, I think you're. I would agree because it's the only, it's the only, it's the only professional profession that you can get within that four year degree.

[B]

Yeah, you can't.

[A]

Accounting doesn't even work that way. Yeah. Law doesn't work that way. Medicine doesn't work that way.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But, but engineering you. Four years.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And now I think engineering schools wildly under prepare people for real world.

[B]

Oh, for sure.

[A]

And I think most of them are stuck like the 1980s.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the fact that they don't require real experience while you're in school screws kids big time. Like I was in the construction engineering program which required, it was civil with some construction classes and it required two internships.

[B]

Beautiful.

[A]

Or maybe it required one, but it required an internship, summer internship to, to graduate, whereas a civil program didn't require anything. And These kids would come out of school and it's like, all right, you can crunch some numbers, but you can't even talk to somebody.

[B]

Right.

[A]

How effective are you going to be as an engineer? And now, now that you've been around the block in the real world now, the most effective engineers are not always the smartest ones.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They're probably, based on my experience, the ones that are good enough and can talk to people.

[B]

That's right. You have to communicate your ideas.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And set a vision and strategy. Problem solve. Yes.

[A]

And get people on board.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Not just shove shit down people's throats. Because I'm the engineer. I'm the pe Right. Which is just a bad strategy. And so that, that's how I think modern engineering school under prepares kids dramatically. Under prepares kids in two ways. One, communication. There's zero communication skills built within an engineering program. And two, I had a huge problem with. You have to do all of your work yourself because that is not how the world works.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I just saw that as completely unrealistic and just dumb like it that that whole concept harms people because that is not how the world works. I run a company. I employ people. I don't want people doing everything themselves. We would not, we would not function. We would not exist. We'd, we'd, we'd burn tomorrow if everybody was like, no, my work is my work. You, it's, it's unrealistic. And, and with how much information is now online, like they're still teaching engineering school like it's all out of books. And it's like, that is not how the world works now, man.

[B]

The other thing engineering is bad about is it's a black and white answer. Here are my assumptions. Here's my, my mathematical check. Here's my response. It's this size. And then you get out in the field and realize like, well, we, there's existing this, this and this here. And we can't do that. Here's the, here's, you know, and you're, and you're making a risk decision now versus, you know, a purely black and white. And I think my time at Garney was as an intern was great for that. Totally agree. That should be mandated for engineering students. Probably all students.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I remember first internship at Garney. Didn't know what to expect and showed up. They're like, show up to work, you're basically going to be on the crew. Cool. And day one, I'm up under a 24 inch mechanical joint with an air gun, like bolting Up a pipe where we're in Knoxville.

[A]

In Knoxville.

[B]

And, you know, literally upside down, under a mechanical joint. Mud and, you know, gravel and water. And I had this thought. I was like, what the hell am I doing? Like, I'm an engineering student, you know, Like, I'm this, like, entitled. And then I think over the course of the summer, I realized, like, again, this humbling experiences. Like, this is real life. This is how things get built. Not by a design on my freaking, you know, in cat or sketched out. Like, this is how gets built.

[A]

Well. And I. I think that that's the best place for somebody in college is a role like that. Like, I see all these internships now, and they're kind of dressed up, or it's like, you're a safety intern or in low first. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, like. Like, I get it. Like, safety internship, sure. There's probably value in that, but, like, I would not recommend that to anybody. I would. I would go out and get in the field.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Grab a pair of boots and go jump in that trench with a foot of water at the bottom of it and help everybody out. Like, yes, you.

[B]

That's how you learn, and.

[A]

And that is how you build a foundation for the rest of your life.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

Like, you don't need to do it for six years to understand that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That. Understand it. Like, you do it enough. You're like, I get it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I get it. Like, yeah, Yeah. I know my place in this equation.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And once you know your place, you're like, all right. Yeah, yeah. Some people don't get that. And it's a. It's a huge shame.

[B]

Yeah. It helped so much going back into school then. And, like, I remember having an aha moment of taking a hydraulics course, and we're designing a thrust block. Right. So it's like, here's the thrust block. Here's the angles or whatever. Here's the flow. And I flash back to, like, forming one up and pouring concrete on one guardian. I was like, none of these other kids in here understand what this thrust block actually looks like and how it's actually constructed in the real world.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's where I want to go learn it. Like, I want to be where it actually gets built.

[A]

Yeah. I. That also got me in trouble, though, in school, because I was working through school the whole time, and. And I remember I had, like, a heavy equipment class, and it was talking about hauling dirt. I was like, I know how to do this. Like, you're using the wrong equipment. We actually need. We need to use these instead. Like that's. It's not a scraper haul, it's a truck haul. Like this is. This is dumb. And the professor did not at all appreciate that.

[B]

Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure.

[A]

That was not a victory in any. That was a conversation. That was a big conversation. But yeah, I think, I think if nothing else, like, it teaches you your place for sure. And especially anybody going to school. Your job is to support. Yeah, but you are not an important part of the equation.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And you are. But you're not. You're not somebody that makes anything happen. And that goes for anybody in the office. Like you're. There's no, like go look at a bid and go find you on the, on the bid sheet. Where's your line item? It's nowhere. Right, right.

[B]

Overhead, right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're buried in the overhead line item.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So technically, yeah, you're on there. But a majority of the bid is linear feet of pipe.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Cubic yards of concrete, you know, cubic yards of dirt, whatever it is. Asphalt.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that's all getting built by whoever's out in the field making it happen.

[B]

Yeah, I think we do a great job of that at Garney where we are hyper focused on supporting the, for the pipe side. Supporting that pipe layer and that lead operator. Yeah, the whole job works for those two people and I think we really act on that.

[A]

From what I've seen. I agree. It's actually surprising. Like I was talking to Jeff about it last night at dinner. It's like even how lean they run things here. It's like what you guys are doing a 10 inch water main. What you're the biggest water wastewater company in the United States. But it's like. Yeah, but we can do it. Like we don't have this huge structure. We have this capability that can go build a half billion dollar. Billion dollar treatment plant. Yeah, sure, we can do that. But we don't have too much of that to not allow us to do the water main project.

[B]

You know what's so funny is sometimes the 10 inch water main jobs are more complex and more headache than the 90x inch water main.

[A]

Well, and yet, because a 90x inch water main is probably in the middle of nowhere. Texas.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Like your biggest problem is cattle probably wandering into your work area. Whereas you're on, you're on any street in town. No one wants you there.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You can't put a fence around what you're Doing permitting.

[B]

Equipment's got to come in and out, you know, restricted work hours, tons of utilities. Yeah. Nobody wants you there. Some.

[A]

No one.

[B]

Sometimes I wonder. I built a job up in the Northeast. Won't say that, who the owner is. And I just thinking sometimes, like, do they actually want this project built? Well, you know, yeah, but I think that's our job is being a good contractor is that they've been burned is why they. They're all like that. Right. The DOT has been burned. The existing utility owners have been burned. Owner's been burned. And so I think working with us, hopefully, is a breath of fresh air, but it takes time to build that new model of what a contractor is in their mind.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and it just takes time, and it just takes doing what you say you're going to do.

[B]

That's 100% right.

[A]

I had a conversation like that last week, like, for anybody wanting to stand out in the construction industry, just do exactly what you say you're going to do.

[B]

Yeah. It's as simple as that. It.

[A]

That is it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just show up on time and just do exactly what you say you're going to do.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're ahead of 98%, 99% of people and contractors.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's not that hard, but it is that hard.

[B]

Well, there's so many things that are tempting to pull you away from that.

[A]

Well, you know, it's. It's great to do what you say you're going to do. And then like 12 inches of snow falls and you're like. Or a supplier doesn't come through. You're like, well, we could, you know, blame it on them or, you know, whatever it is, there's. There's all these things. Or you. Yeah. You find a gas line that wasn't supposed to be there.

[B]

Yeah. What I found over my career is learning to think like the utility owner and act in their best interest is the best way to. To do that. Obviously, falling through what you say you're going to do, but think through. They're more concerned with lifespan of the asset. And they don't want the asphalt trench patch to be depressed in the road. Right. And get calls from that. So they don't want complaints. They're concerned about their customers.

[A]

They just did a pipe job over here. It wasn't Carney.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And just that two months in, the asphalt's already settled.

[B]

And so, you know, when they're concerned about our compaction results. Right. Instead of being like, God, they're such a pain in the ass. To really think the reason they're like this is they had a job out here that had. That. The compaction results are a way for them to verify. Sure. We're going to get you all those compaction results every time. Right. Because we do the right thing first time. And just. That's how I have built trust.

[A]

And just be a little gentler with your hand. I don't want it to be picking up on the.

[B]

Oh, this audio.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You still move your hands around.

[B]

I got you.

[A]

Yeah, just not as. Not as, not as much. Not as animated.

[B]

Right. Chill out.

[A]

No, but that, that, that. And to, like, so many people take things personally. Like, I just read a book, and it was one of the main points was like, don't take things personally. It's not about you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's like, yeah, it's not about me. Like, this inspector's being. Being a real piece of work.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it's. I. It's nothing about me. But a lot of people, they make it personal. Like, this guy's out to get me, and now I gotta get him. Or he's out to just look after his interests. So I need to go look after all of my interests. And let's go, let's go. All right. Like, we can go. Let's. Let's go. Instead of like, all right, he's out for his interests. This guy's a real, you know, whatever on compaction. He's got a thing for compaction. So I am going to make sure that this is the most compact soil.

[B]

He has ever seen. Yeah.

[A]

It's going to be so compact, he's not going to find a square inch that is outside of spec on this job.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then like, that's how. In like an old Kiewit book I read that Peter Kiewit, he paid guys to follow inspectors around just to understand what inspectors were looking for. And then those guys would then inspect their work before the inspector would get there and say, hey, this guy, he's got a thing for doors, so you better clean this up. They would clean it up, inspector would come through, not a problem. Go figure. But that's.

[B]

I love that.

[A]

That's. That's 4D chess right there.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

Now. Now you're playing the game like that's. That's how you do it in a smart way.

[B]

Yeah. You know, a lot of what you're talking about is dropping the ego.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. And letting go in the ego. It's not about me. We see a lot of ego in the Construction space, so.

[A]

Oh, it's everywhere. That's everywhere in the world. And it's construction, especially because you've got, you know, mostly these, these type A macho dude. Yeah. You've got a bunch of macho guys that are like, nah, man, I, I make it happen. And you need those guys. Like, you do need people to make it happen. But yeah, it's, it's. And I think contractors and engineers and inspectors and owners, like, sometimes everybody forgets about why they're doing it, you know, like, they get just so wound up in the project itself. It's like, guys, this project isn't even about anybody here. It's about this neighborhood.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And their ability to get drinking water every day. Like, we're losing. We're losing the plot here. We're so caught up in us right now and our world and our work and our projects that we're forgetting about the customer, which is not the owner. It's the end user of the water or wastewater or whatever it is. Like, that's the whole point here. And that's at least a lot of our work is trying to remind people, especially the people out in the field of why they do what they do. That's like, you're not just digging with an excavator.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

You're not just laying pipe. Like this pipe 10. A 10 inch water main. That's a lot of water.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's thousands of people, thousands and thousands of families that will depend on this waterline for the next 50 years.

[B]

Much less than 96. That's feeding, you know, much less a 96. Austin, Texas.

[A]

Exactly. Right. Exactly. Yes. Like, like, yeah, this, this, this trunk main or. Or transmission line, whatever it is. Like, yeah, this, this is the water supply for a city.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And food, water, shelter, Right. Humans can't do anything without food, water, shelter. You can go 30 days without food. You can only go a few without water. This is big time stuff.

[B]

What I like about Garni is, you know, we always say we're in the business of water new and used. You know, we touch everything from the intake, raw water, treat it, pump it, distribute it, and the backside, collect it to treat it, put it back in the environment. Like, I've. I feel super fortunate that I stumbled into a company and I'm like, I love what they do. I love the end product of what they do.

[A]

Mm. Well, and the. It's. It's a product that no one can go without.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You turn the water off, right?

[B]

Yeah, bro. Yeah.

[A]

Doesn't Matter how big your house is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Your water goes off. Good luck.

[B]

Right. And it's a good industry because on two fronts. So whenever there's expansion. Right. We're growing, we're moving into new spaces. They need water in those new spaces. Right. And then also the infrastructure's got a certain lifespan. It may have a 7,500 year lifespan. So it's this constant cycle of adding new, replacing old.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That I think is a really good, you know, for us, relatively stable industry.

[A]

No, it's in even just with how much the United States has changed and even how much technology has changed. Like, water treatment is pretty simple in the grand scheme of things. Once you go through it, you're like, oh, this is just like a giant Brita filter. Yeah. But. But it's not at the same time. And it's gotten a lot better, especially with like wastewater treatment and how you treat it before discharge and how you can recycle it and so on and so forth. There's some amazing projects all over the United States that are being super, super smart with water.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And I know it's like a common talking point in the world, like, oh, the water's running out this and that. But then you're around a company like Garney enough where it's like, no, they've kind of got it figured out. Yeah. You know, like you have to do some creative things. Like, I know a Garney job recently was. It was a 66 inch welded steel line through central Phoenix. Because half of Phoenix is on one water system, the other half is on another water system. Salt river, one, Colorado river from the other. And it's like, okay, the Colorado river does start to dwindle per our population.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Water usage in Phoenix has actually declined substantially because AG has dwindled, funny enough, as everything's grown. But even if that happens, we're not counting on it to happen. But if it happens now we have this transmission line to go tap into this other water source and push water up to these millions of people.

[B]

Right. Redundancy.

[A]

Redundancy, yes. And it's like, oh, this is pretty clever. But no one knows about that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

No one has any clue.

[B]

Right. Similar project we worked on, project for Loudoun county where they filled quarries. Same concept, pulled water from the Potomac. Right. But in low water conditions, can't do that. So let's fill this. Cord backups. We built all the transmission systems and pumping systems for that.

[A]

Yeah. Well, and that's like a lot of the Texas work we've referenced a lot of it is, is that is just kind of redistributing water around Texas for these. Now these enormous populations. Because Texas is in a lot of areas, very dry.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How do we pull it from over here where it's not? Or how do we build this new reservoir over here to collect the water when we have a lot of water so that we can use it as we need it? Yeah, it's incredible. It's really something.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, it's really wild. And then you have the other side of things, which is, you know, environmental protection type stuff like the CSO combined sewer and outfalls and separating old systems that were once a combined system now into two separate systems.

[A]

Well, explain the whole CSO thing. Most people don't have any idea what that is.

[B]

Yeah. So a CSO in, you know, 1800s, early 1900s, some of our cities that were really, at the time, it would have been on the advanced front of cleaning up the city. Right. So take, you know, some old cities on the, on the east coast. Alexandria, Virginia is a great one. So obviously putting sewer out in the street is a. Is a bad idea. So they built these sewer systems to take their sewer out to the river. Sounds like a good thing. Over time, that became combined with a stormwater system. So they have both sewer from drains, toilets, anything that you would flush, showers, combined with runoff from the street, all hitting the same drainage system, all flowing to. To the river. Over time, they improved that system and they lowered the sewer so that the sewer would still flow to a treatment plant. But when the sewer hits a certain elevation. Right. So that you say a big rain event, we can talk about nuances of this. But in a big rain event, you have I and I. Right. You have inflow and infiltration. So that sewer line isn't perfect. So surface water or groundwater seeps into that sewage system, and then it's more than what the treatment facility can process. So what do you do with that water? That's the big question. You can't unseparate it. Right. Once it's touched sewer water, the rainwater is combined with sewer water. You can't unseparate it simply. So the old school solution is you dump it in the river, you let it backflow, hit a certain elevation, and then it dumps over into the. Into the river. Then what do you get? You get algal blooms, you get low oxygen in the river, kills the fish. All sorts of environmental impact, people can't swim, bacterial growth, whatever. And so what's the solution? Well, two parts of the solution One part is you need a sewer system that is completely isolated from the storm system. So you just have sewer going in and you're protected from I and I. So there's no inflow from groundwater infiltration for manholes, that sort of thing. The second part is you have to build capacity to treat those rain events. So in, in D.C. they have a bunch of projects. D.C. has this big clean rivers project. Giant tunnels, giant storage basins. But the concept is instead of letting it overflow into the river, you just store it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you may have a. Just, you know, we, we've seen some of the projects. It's a, you know, imagine a soccer field type, you know, footprint that's 30ft deep. And then in a rain event, they just fill the sucker up.

[A]

Yeah, it has a liner and Exactly. Yeah. It's contained.

[B]

Right. Most of them are underground. Most of them have fields and sports centers or whatever on top of it. So you don't stand out. But giant underground tanks, they let it fill up during a rain event and then the plant just treats it slowly during dry weather.

[A]

Yeah, because the, the treatment plant, it, you know, say it's a million gallons a day.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's all it can do. You can ramp it up.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And so it's built for typical flow.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But then, yeah, you get 2 million gallons in a day. Well, now you have to find somewhere to put a million gallons.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

But then, yeah, you can treat it over time once the rain stops. But now you've got to undo this whole system.

[B]

That's right. That's the challenge. And that's where we step in and can help and advise. And we do a lot of that type of work.

[A]

It's been going on for quite a while now, but it's probably over decade, like hundreds of billions of dollars of work.

[B]

Oh, for sure.

[A]

I mean it's some of the biggest water wastewater projects in America. Are the CSO jobs I know like DC they've been doing it for a long. I mean there are some serious tunnels that they've bought.

[B]

Yeah. 10 foot diameter tunnels below the rivers.

[A]

Monsters.

[B]

Yeah. Connecting storage basin to treatment plants and pumping systems.

[A]

And they say it's for water.

[B]

Maybe they're driving presidential motorcade through there.

[A]

Or aliens.

[B]

Or aliens.

[A]

Yeah, that's where they keep them. You know, you never know. But they, they claim it's for water wastewater and it's. Yeah, the scale is unbelievable for these projects. But. And this. I wish the water wastewater industry is more vocal about this. So modern medicine Gets all the credit for people's life expectancy, so on and so forth. But it's not really modern medicine for most, if not like a vast majority of life expectancy gains in the world.

[B]

Clean drinking water.

[A]

It's clean drinking water. Yeah, yeah. It's not throwing our poo in the streets anymore because that is the single most substantial improvement we've made in modern health is clean water and disposed wastewater.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No one thinks about it because we've always had it, but it's still a relatively new thing.

[B]

Yeah. I forget the year of the study. I think it was a cholera outbreak. I can't remember in the UK before they really understood bacteria and understood how people were getting sick. They built these maps of where people were getting sick and then traced locations and then realized like, wait, all these people are coming to this well to get water? Yeah, it's the water.

[A]

Go figure. Yeah, yeah. It's. It's so underappreciated. And sometimes I'll go to a country, most countries have pretty good water, but sometimes I'll be somewhere it's like, I'm not touching the water, man. And even, even if it's fine for the people there, it's not fine for me. I'm not used to it. And it'll jack you up because there's just different stuff and different water sources that. Yeah, if you've like, if you've drank a little bit out of mountain streams, enough, enough, enough, you can kind of get through it and then build up a tolerance. Whereas if you're a foreigner coming in somewhere halfway around the world, there's no way. But I won't touch the water. And so I'll just be on bottled the water the entire, you know, for two weeks or whatever it is. And it's moments like that where I'm like, I cannot appreciate how unbelievable it is where I can just go home and I can turn on a faucet and I can drink as much of that as I want to drink it that non stop.

[B]

Not only does the water get there in an unlimited supply. Yeah, that's, you know, part one, that's cool.

[A]

That's unbelievable.

[B]

Part two is it is potable. You can drink it. Like. Yeah, we totally take that for granted. We. I've been super fortunate. Garney is a excellent pro bono presence with water. So Jeff, or mutual contact at Garney, he's been very involved in that. So Jeff and I went to the Dominican and 2015 and we have a twice or maybe I think twice a year trip now. To Guatemala that I've been on, and the Dominican was one we did was really wild, where they had wells for drinking water. But they. They do pit latrines in their houses. So they dig a small hole in their house and then dump their waste in the hole, basically, and get, like an outhouse, right? They dig a hole in and use the outhouse. And so what that does, though, if you have a shallow well, it contaminates that whole groundwater layer, the whole aquifer there. So the project we did was deeper wells, new system to prevent leakage in the system. It's funny, we. Those trips are so good. You want to talk about humbling and making you grateful for water. That's the best way is go to a place that doesn't have water and look at how they live and look at how they work around it and the complexity it adds and the limitations and the constraints and the challenge. Like, it is wild. But we went down there, and in the first day, we're expecting this group we're working with to bring it. To bring an excavator, to bring a machine. And so we all speak broken Spanish. And we're like, you know, la machina Lamar. Okay, so manana comes, and guy in a tractor shows up with a plow. Like, it's better than hand digging.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Right, let's get to work. So we've got the whole community out there, and the wells are in the pump station's there. We're doing the distribution, like, the main lines through town. And so we got the whole village out there, and we're like, where do you want it? Middle of the road. I say road. It's a dirt road to the village. Middle of the road, Left side, right side. And they're like, right here. Whatever. And so the. He goes to the guy, he's like, you know, right here. Let's go. Tractor in high gear drops the plow right down the middle of main street. Just set the plows right down to the main street and all the existing water services for the whole village. Like, perfect. Yeah. And we're like, well, we're committed. We just came down here and ripped out every existing water service in this whole village on the first day. Do no harm. It's the first rule. Right? So we're in it now. But those trips have been so good. We did a. A tank job in Guatemala, went last year. And, man, just the. The impact it has on people getting water to their houses is so intense.

[A]

Yeah. Jeff invited me to Guatemala.

[B]

Dude, come with us.

[A]

No, I'd Love to go. It's. My schedule is a problem.

[B]

Oh, yeah, of course it's.

[A]

At some point I'm going to make it down there with you all. Yeah, I would, I'd love nothing more than to go.

[B]

Personally, the setup we did last time was there was a. There's a schoolhouse and normally in most of these areas there's some sort of church or a school or something. And so we work with a local engineering group and basically bring cots. Set up a big cotton group in the, in the open schoolhouse and bring your sleeping bag and cook a big group breakfast together and then get to work. And then it's digging ditches, carrying stuff, mixing concrete, forming up tanks. It's hard manual work for a week and. But it's incredible. I love it.

[A]

Well, and, and even in like, you just don't appreciate water. Even until like in an emergency scenario, for example, hurricane rolls through. What's the number one. Need? Water.

[B]

Drinking water.

[A]

Get me water.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then power.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then food.

[B]

In that order.

[A]

And then maybe some other stuff. Yeah, yeah, in that order. Like. But water's number one. Like, we need water. And you just. It's the craziest thing to go 365 days every year. I don't think twice about water.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't ever have to think about water. It's just everywhere I need it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's unbelievable. And to, to and like the government and municipalities and this and that, they're. They get plenty of grief for not being the most effective organizations in the world. And they're not. I think we can all agree. But the fact that they get water to my house 365 days a year deserves some kind of recognition. Like that is a modern miracle. It's just, it's unbelievable. How can, like they don't even have a day off where it's like, yeah, sorry. Like, we just, we couldn't figure it out today. Like, but we'll be back tomorrow. You know, like, they don't, they're not even allowed like a rest day.

[B]

Yeah. What's, what's interesting about water. You mentioned the order there. Water being number one. There is immediate feedback if it's not working. Oh yeah, a boil water notice. Or take one of our big clients up in the Northeast, WSI or Giant, you know, multiple millions of customers, they had a rash of bad PCCP pre stress cylindrical concrete pipe where they use Chinese steel. Steel ruptured prematurely and that's the main strength of the pipe. And so it explodes like violently essentially because it's pre stressed and they had this big rash of large diameter. Pre. Pre stress collapses and explosions. One where a car fell in it and flooding neighborhoods and. Yeah, like you get that type of news attention, you know. Got to figure it out. Right.

[A]

Well. Or you go no further than Flint, Michigan.

[B]

Exactly. Great. Yeah.

[A]

Woof. I mean, that was. That was national for sure. A national story. Yes, Like a bit. I mean, people still talk about it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, and it wasn't anything dramatic.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It was just that, oh, by the way, your water supplies kind of poisoning you. You know, it's just. But. But no one there had ever thought about it. Yeah, they're just doing whatever they need to do with that water, man.

[B]

And. And it shows the importance too. You know, we. I think a lot about this. I'm in, you know, now I work in the. In the tech space for Garnie, and I think a lot about the cyber security implications and yes, the ability for someone to go in. And I'm not giving anybody ideas, but.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Hyperdose the chlorine or closed valves or lock systems like Colonial Pipeline. Right. That shut down gas. I think of Colonial Pipeline. Well, I remember that. That hit the east Coast. I heard about the event, but it was like two, three, four, five, six, seven days later when the gas stations ran out of fuel and there was a big delay. And when it impacted.

[A]

Yeah. People were filling up grocery bags with gasoline.

[B]

That's a crazy time, man. I remember seeing pictures of like, I don't know if I saw a grocery bag. Yeah, but like a Rubbermaid container.

[A]

Yeah, but that one was funny too. Not funny, but like, people panicked.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So then everybody went to fill up their cars at the same time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And the supply chain's not built for that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The supply chain is built for normal distribution.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so the thing was like, they wouldn't have really ran out.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yeah, that was like. I didn't realize that it was kind.

[B]

Of toilet paper and Covid thing.

[A]

It was exactly like that. Like, had people just kept filling up their cars as needed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It. This. It would have actually been pretty fine.

[B]

Oh, that's funny.

[A]

I didn't realize that. But. But, yeah, but it's delayed.

[B]

Shut all the valves and lock the controls out on them. Yeah, right.

[A]

Water stops.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You notice right away. Yeah.

[B]

We're paying the bitcoin.

[A]

Yeah, well, but I think. I think that also speaks to how serious Garnie has to be from a. A work standpoint.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Like when you're doing work that, that, that's that important. There's not room for error.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, you can't really afford to go pressure test things and have it fail.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, you can't afford bad joints or you can't afford settlement or whatever it is. Like, you're dealing in such a precise environment that everything has to be perfect all the time. And you have thousands of people on hundreds of job sites across America that need to be doing perfect work every day of the week.

[B]

Yeah. And which is mentally exhausting.

[A]

It's a big deal.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so I think that's what the work you're doing in mental health and mindfulness. And we have a saying at Garney, safety over production. And what that really means to me is just let's not let production. Let's not get ahead of ourselves with production. Right. Because that is production, production, production. Do it. Right. What's also very, very important is that we do it safely, high quality, accurately. All of those things are the. Should be the focus.

[A]

Well, every. Everybody says that. And then you really find out who's serious about it when the schedule starts to slip.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

For sure. Once the schedule goes, then you start to see. Oh, okay. All right. All right. I'm not saying that's Garni.

[B]

No, you're 100% right.

[A]

That's. That's very common in construction.

[B]

It's easy to say when you're making a bunch of money and you're at. Or ahead schedule and.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A thousand percent. Right.

[A]

But like. And that's where values come in. Like when things go wrong. All right. Yeah. When you're blowing a job out and everything's just humming and you're making 33%, life's grand.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. You can be the best company ever.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But then. Yeah. When everything is going wrong, weather's against you, permitting, delays got the best of you. So you're already three months behind from the very beginning. And it wasn't even your fault.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yet you still need to finish the job on time. You know that the end date hasn't changed for you. It's like, now you're up against the wall, what do you do? And that's not just at the top. That's. Every crew is every crew leader. They're making those decisions every day. Day. Especially in the winter months. Especially with weather really, you know, playing with everybody in. In this time of year, man, it's, it's, it's. I mean, those, like, you know, the office can talk about it all day long, but it's really on those crew leaders to make those for sure solid day to day decisions to ensure that the quality is where it needs to be.

[B]

Yeah. And the good crew leaders that I've worked around, it's not mutually exclusive. The good crew leaders are. You know, they say in the. For the saying, slow is fast. Right. Fastest slowest fast, fastest smooth.

[A]

Yes or no? No, no. Slow is smooth.

[B]

Slowest smooth, smoothest fast.

[A]

There it is. Yeah.

[B]

And so wait, what is it? One more time.

[A]

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, smooth is fast. Yep.

[B]

And I think the good crew leaders embody that. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, they're smooth. That's. I mean even like an equipment operator, you can tell a good operator by how smooth it is, not how fast it is. So you can, you can. I've seen enough now where you can watch the movements and you can, you can tell who's really got it. And, and it's, it's not that often that you see something like somebody really good. But even with an excavator, you know, anybody, anybody can kind of move fast in an excavator. I can and I'm, I'm, I'm a monkey like I. But I can still make it go fast. But for example, like as the bucket returns, as you're returning to dig like the good operators, it's all just one, one fluid easy motion. The, the angle is spot on. The bucket just bites into the material real gently. It's not very hard on the machine. And then there are already filling the bucket right away and there's no wasted movements. Whereas somebody like me, I'll swing in real fast and then I'll just bang the bucket into the, into the earth.

[B]

Then curl it.

[A]

Yeah. Just, just, just whack it. Yeah.

[B]

Or.

[A]

Oh, it's, it's hard to watch too if somebody is. I'm starting to get into like nuance. But they, they, they put like side stress on it.

[B]

Like they're still loading the.

[A]

Yeah, there's. Well, they're still spinning as they put the bucket in the ground. You can just see the, the stick and boom and everything just, just kind of let out a little scream. Like it's like oh yeah. But it's, it's that and it's the same with a pipe crew. I think that's when it's at the crew level. That's the coolest.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

When it's just this smooth operation. There's no chaos to it. There's no yelling, hooting and hollering. There's not even, there's not even a Lot talking.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's just minimal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everybody's just doing their jobs.

[B]

It's so nice to see.

[A]

This is cool. I do not. The Garnies Garden needs suggestions, but there's a lot of poop joke opportunities that are completely. That are completely missed.

[B]

All right, let's hear some.

[A]

It's such a shame. No, it's just the whole business, like, it's like, man. So.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yesterday I have a whole campaign.

[B]

Yeah, we. We do. We should lean into that. Yesterday.

[A]

We. We tried to. At one point. It wasn't Guardi, actually. It was Guardi actually liked it. What. What we did. But.

[B]

Customer.

[A]

Customer wasn't as appreciative. They're like, no, no, no. You can't. You can't make it seem. But it's like. But it is that, is it not?

[B]

Yeah. Call it what it is. Right. Yeah.

[A]

Aren't you treating sewage? Right. That's what it is.

[B]

I was on a job yesterday here in Nashville and they're cleaning out a large diameter sewers. They had a jet hose up in their high pressure water and they're cleaning it out. You know, as that hose gets. Gets closer to the outside of the pipe, it's kicking up a bunch of spray. Right. So we're looking over this large diameter shaft. It's maybe 40, 50ft deep. And spray is coming up and felt it, you know, my face, kind of my mouth and nose, my hard hat. It's just water is cleaning the pipe. And then I look up there and realize the suction line for that is dipped into a manhole. They're cleaning with sewer water.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was like, huh. I just breathing it in.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. But every. Everybody that's.

[B]

You kind of desensitized to it.

[A]

But that's the reality. Like some of these people act like it's not the case. And then until you're having to deal with a live. You're having to tie into a live sewer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That you can't shut down.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You can't stop it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I've more times than I can count, like guys in. Down in a hole working. They have muck boots on. They might have like dish gloves on, but they're just working in raw sewage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because it's. Somebody's got to do it.

[B]

Yeah. Like, that's right.

[A]

That's just what it takes to make the world work.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And. And even, man, we were at a job up in the Northeast not too long ago, and he's like, yeah, we don't want to film this because the guy guys are. They're in a manhole, literally shoveling.

[B]

Somebody should film that and show that.

[A]

Well.

[B]

And I'm like, that's what we're here for.

[A]

I want to show. Because this is what it takes.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But it. And it was two. You walk up to a manhole. The. The sewer. It was incredible. It was brick.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

So. Really old stuff. Really old stuff. It was the first time I'd actually seen a brick sewer before. It looked. It was actually. There was like something beautiful to it crashing in a weird way.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And two guys with shovels shoveling shit out of this. Something was backed up or something like that. I don't know what was going on. But they're shoveling it into the bucket of an excavator so that the excavator could remove it out of the manhole and they could get the job done.

[B]

Yeah. I actually sounds so weird to say. I actually really like building large amateur sewer work. It's a unique puzzle. Like none other, man. Yeah. The way that you have to. Because you're right. It's like, take traffic, for example. You can stop traffic or you do things like that. Sewer is like. It's on. It does not stop.

[A]

Like, sometimes you can bypass it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

If you're lucky.

[B]

And that's what's fun about it to me is designing. Okay. We're working here. How do we get the flow off of us? Okay. Is it. Is it a mechanical bypass? But man, a mechanical bypass is stressful because it's running 24. 7. It's mechanical stuff. Breaks. You gotta back up, you gotta fuel it. You gotta maintain it. What if you get a flood event? Sure. If you get a two feet of snow, all those things come into play. And we've. We've done jobs where we'll actually go upstream of us, set a new structure, tie into the existing raise elevation up upstream. And so it's a gravity line around our work zone. And then we're like, pressure's off.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now we can build without under a mechanical bypass. This whole section, it's a gravity flow. It's all buried. We can. We have good access around it. So that type of puzzle is. Is so fun. And that's when it's nice to go back to an engineer or an owner and they think, hey, this whole job is going to be mechanical bypass. The neighbors are going to hate pumps. We're like, we got an idea.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Right. We're going to save you money. We're going to save us Money. This is a win. Win.

[A]

Well. And that's where like a garni excels. Because you have this enormous portfolio of projects that you've done for. At the resource to Coast. Yeah. That you can be like, yeah, we saw this over here. It's not the same, but we can pull from over here. Apply this here.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And it gets us a better result.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Awesome.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And that's the ideal scenario. I just also like pointing out it's the same with the mining companies. Like, the mining companies don't talk about the mining. And it's like, but what pays the bills? The mining or waste companies? Exact same thing. We don't want to talk about the waste. But it's like, so. But what do you do? You're not. You don't just plant flowers all day. I get that's what's on your website. But like, this isn't a flower planting company.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

This is a waste disposal company. And everybody has waste and it needs to be disposed of. And that's what your business is. And it's really important. And then they're like, well, people just don't understand what we do. It's like, educate them. Yes, they don't. And it's your fault, mister. And it's the same with critical infrastructure. You know, road, contractors, it's water, wastewater, it's power. Those narratives just haven't been out there as much. Like, hey, the whole. The magic of the water turning on every day. Or the. I mean, water is one thing, but when the toilet doesn't flush, bro, you've got a problem. And that is the great equalizer. Like, it's the same for me. And then like Jamie Dimon, you know, CEO of JP Morgan, if his toilet doesn't flush, same problem. Right, right. The human problem, that is. We're on the same level, man. That is a real pickle. Yeah. And there's like that little bit of panic that starts to set in. Like, sure. Oh, no. What's going on here?

[B]

For sure.

[A]

And then if it's. If it's on you. You know what I mean? That's one thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But if it's not in your control and it's a systematic failure, one, maybe it's your house is backing up. That's a pickle. Don't. I mean, man, that's a bad day. But then two, your neighborhood's backing up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or something went wrong somewhere. Which. Which happens.

[B]

Oh, all the time.

[A]

Yeah, it happens.

[B]

Gets blocked or backed up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For sure, man. You Are like, now the whole day is spent praying for a pipe crew.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To show up and get to work.

[B]

You're 1,000% right. People that are uneducated and don't understand the problem that we're solving, see a crew, whether it's a wastewater plant or a pipe crew, and they're like, damn contractors.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, they're shutting down the road again. I got to wait in line in this flagger out here or whatever. It's loud, it's noisy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Don't understand that they're disconnected from the problem that's being solved because they take for granted that infrastructure just working. Right.

[A]

Well and. Exactly. Yeah. You only realize it when it doesn't work. When something goes.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Horribly wrong.

[B]

When I.

[A]

When it. When a water main breaks.

[B]

Right. You know, and there's. There's something interesting. You know, one of the things I love about working for construction companies. I'm. I'm a builder. Right. I like to see things built and tangible product. We see it backfilled, we see it built. But the public never sees what we built.

[A]

No.

[B]

It's all buried.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it sounds so weird to say, but it's beautiful sometimes, man. The pumps and the structures and the connections and like, it's really. I mean, to me, I'm a nerd for this stuff, but. So they're disconnected from what it actually is, the scale of it, what it takes to build it. You build a building, you can point to it and say, look at that new building.

[A]

Well, and yeah, that.

[B]

The.

[A]

Like the going back to that main in Arizona that you guys did, it went through the Phoenix mountain per reserve, which was a big deal. Like that's untouchable land. But they, they did a beautiful job. It was all rock, so they had to get through the rock all the way through. And I think it kicked their butt because it was. It was. It was tough digging, but they got this. This 66 inch welded line in there and 66 inch welded water line. Like that's not an everyday thing.

[B]

No, it's big.

[A]

That's. That is big stuff going on. And. And 66 inches under pressure like that is a lot. It doesn't sound like very much, but.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Holy smokes.

[B]

Yeah. You take 100 psi across the surface area of 66 inch pipe, you're moving some water. Yeah. For sure.

[A]

And so.

[B]

But thousands of pounds of force.

[A]

I went out there multiple times and I got to see how much went into it. And you know, you get to see the excavation. You get to see the pipe going in the ground, let alone what it takes to manufacture that pipe to begin with. That in itself is extraordinary. And then to see what it takes to weld each joint on the outside, on the inside, then you've got to test each weld. And then, you know, you've got, you know, pressure testing and all this stuff. And then you've got to backfill it with flow bill fill, you know, up to maybe top of. I don't know how far they were going up on this one, but I think maybe even like top of pipe.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

They're. I mean, they're. Yeah, well, whoever the flow fill guy was making some coin. Yeah. But, but then you, you know, you drive by it now. I just did when I was there for Christmas. And it is, you would have no idea. There was a 390 sitting there a few years ago putting in 66 inch pipe. You have not a single clue. All of the, the, they wrangled up all the cacti and they put them into a pen before the job started. And then now they're all replanted and all that. Everything is back. Like it's, it's, it's untouched, it's, it's pristine. The work that they did there, that's the whole point is no one will ever know that Garney, a pipe crew came through there and did all of that work. Yeah, that's the whole point.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No one will ever know.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But to me, it's like I want to tell people about it. I want to like, hang out on the hiking trail. Like, do you guys have any idea what's right below? Like, I know, I know the cactus and I know it's great, but like, this is pretty cool, let me tell you. Let's, let's talk about it. Come on over here.

[B]

It's so funny. I do the same thing with my wife. I drive through wherever, Northern Virginia or D.C. and I'm like, you wouldn't believe right here we had a 40 foot deep hole right down this road.

[A]

And she's probably. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

Whatever.

[B]

Yeah. LS a sidewalk and a, you know, new asphalt.

[A]

Yeah, I would, I would, I would be remiss if we didn't get at all into technology.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

So you spent time building stuff.

[B]

Yeah, so I built work through about 10 years at Garney. Came up through the operations ranks, project management, route bidding work, building work, running multiple jobs. And then in 2022, I was tapped on the shoulder and basically said, hey, we, we kind of want to Explore this technology thing. We don't really know what it is, but we need someone to be kind of on the forefront and the horizon to just see like what's coming, what's going to disrupt us. What's the, what's the Uber to us in the taxis. Taxi industry? What's the.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

The Airbnb to our hotel. Right. That, that kind of mindset.

[A]

Yeah. Uber for pipeline.

[B]

Non existent.

[A]

It's coming. Yeah. Well, I don't think chat GPT is laying pipe anytime soon.

[B]

Side note, I was talking to one of our project engineers yesterday who was came up through a finance career, young guy, but he had spent a couple of years doing financial stuff and we were just talking about how there is something so awesome about building a tangible product, building a physical product you can put your hands on that adds value. Nothing against financial tools or people in.

[A]

The financial world, but I have lots against them.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, but they're not producing.

[A]

No, I actually have a lot against them. Yeah, but, but no, there are people that create. There are people that consume and destroy. A lot of our economy is built on consumption. When you just endlessly consume anything, what happens? Things go terribly wrong. And I think that's a big part of where we are today. We've had prior generations consuming, consuming, consuming, consuming big parts of our economy. The whole financial sector. Is it really on majority value add? Not really. Like you can look at the math and pretty quickly be like, wow, there's not a whole lot of value creation here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like a robust, long standing economy and societies built upon creation.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And people building, creating thousand percent. That's what got America here. And that's what will or could get us further. But that's the crossroads we're at now. And that's where you know the conversations like, we need to go into schools. I'm like, yeah, sure, we need to go into schools, but let's go find more finance people, you know, that are looking at a spreadsheet every day hating their life. They're just hating their life. Hating their life. Maybe they were born to be a finance person. There's probably some of those. I don't think like 9 out of 10 people though, they grow up. Like, you know what I want to be when I grow up? I want to work at a bank.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I have no problem saying that because again, it's not sustainable. We need to pull some of those people out.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And give them the ability to create and provide for society. Construction is just one of those Things we have manufacturing technology. Sometimes is. Is. Is creationism. It can be. Yeah. In a lot of ways. It can also destroy. Yeah. Infrastructure. You know, you can go into airlines, you know, intermodal railroads.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Materials resource extraction. Like there's all of these industries that create power. And that's why I'm so optimistic. Like, I think a lot of people are overcomplicating the whole workforce development thing. Like we don't. We don't need to make this into anything. We just need to present it. That's kind of all that needs to happen. Like we're competing against lawyers with some documents. That's what they have to show off. And like a country club membership. Like cool. We've. We have a 390 excavator. That's way cooler.

[B]

Yeah. And the satisfaction that comes with actually building things.

[A]

Yes. Like I said, that's lasting then. It was immediate in my head. I can picture it right now exactly where I would stand at the end of a shift. And then look at the pipe we were putting in concrete. Concrete. Yeah. Rcp. And so it wasn't like super high production stuff. And so it'd be, you know, we'd get a few sticks a day sometimes. So it'd be like, you know, 30 something feet. You were different. But I knew that was the crack in the sidewalk that the pipe was at this morning. And now I'm at this crack right here.

[B]

Plus 30ft.

[A]

Plus 30ft. Yeah, there's just. There's. There's nothing like that. Yeah, there is nothing like that.

[B]

Yeah. I think our psyches are geared like we. Human nature is geared to produce humans that do that. Right. I think that's a part of, you know, what makes us or makes me tick anyway is that desire.

[A]

We're geared to work and we're geared.

[B]

To produce for sure.

[A]

Like I think that's, that's, that's why a lot of people are miserable in the world right now. They don't produce, they don't create. And then 2020 showed who is really essential.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, like it pulled the curtain back and a lot of people found out that, oh, wait a minute, my job is actually meaningless. And yeah, I can work at home, whatever that means. But that is not in most people's best interest. It is not good for you.

[B]

Covid was a wild time. I need to reflect on this. But we. I was building a job that was about two hours away from where I live. And so I was, you know, splitting time. I'd stay in hotels and be the only person there.

[A]

Yeah, I was traveling full time. It was awesome, man.

[B]

Yeah, it was wild.

[A]

I was upgraded. Every flight I'm like, this is, I'm balling out, man.

[B]

Get this. During COVID we had a tunnel below a CSX railroad road. 600 foot ish tunnel, solid rock, 72 inch diameter tunnel. And we were about 50% through, up under the CSX right away, maybe, you know, 50ft deep below the railroad. And we get a notice from the county that says it's Covid, stop work.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Really? Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so what are we supposed to do with that? And then we're like, this is critical, we can't stop. We have tunneling, we have all these things. We can't stop. Right. And then so we notify CSX and say, hey, the county's directing us to stop. We're going to shut down for X weeks. And CSX replies and says, if you shut down, you need to fill the tunnel with concrete. Including the head that's in there, the 2 million dollar TBM head. Huh? So take it back to the county. And they're like, it's not our problem.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's a pandemic.

[B]

Shut down. Yeah, they're like, what? You know, I'm a 30 year old project manager, like, what am I supposed to do here, man? Like, I'm not filling this thing with concrete.

[A]

Yeah, but, but during the pandemic, how many days did the railroad shut down?

[B]

Yeah, exactly, you know, exactly.

[A]

How many, how many people at the water treatment plant were working from home? Like, ah, we're just gonna work from home. Right. You know, it doesn't work. You, you found real quick who was, who was doing it.

[B]

And we navigated it, we got the critical work letters signed and so we just picked up business as usual. And it was a lot less traffic and it was great. It was kind of seamless.

[A]

Yeah, it was, it was great. But yeah, I mean even like the railroads, like they had that big labor dispute a few years ago and they were just like, okay, all right, yeah, that's fine, we'll just shut down. And then the federal government gets involved and the federal government has to end up steamrolling the railroad. The railroad folks, unfortunately.

[B]

Is that how it resolved?

[A]

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The feds came in and just said, right, we're not going to do this, unfortunately. But that was all they had to do was like, oh, we're just, we're just going to shut the place down and we'll find out pretty quick how important this whole Thing is, we'll find out pretty quick, like who's really essential here. But yeah, it's, it's. I mean that. But, but again that, that's why I'm so optimistic is that we are in the construction industry. We have our problems that we need to figure out. Like we're. We can't just sit here and be like, oh, we're just so perfect and oh, like, oh, we're just the victim here. Like, oh man, we. Everything's per. Perfect and people just don't want to work here. Like, what's going on? That's not the case either. We. We've got to own our side of this for sure. It's beginning, it's getting there. A lot of work to go though. But we do have something like, I think all of those things are fixable. But what is like inherent is what we do, which is create in the world.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

There's a lot of industries right now that are going to have this come to Jesus moment because what they do, it will not sustain itself because it's not real creation. Whereas until there's no more people on planet Earth, there will be infrastructure. And we will need people to build and maintain that infrastructure. At least that's the bet. I'm very comfortable with making me do so until Skynet does it all.

[B]

Until our army of humanoid robots.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Which they keep saying is next year. And then next year comes around. It's like, well, I still don't see flying cars anywhere.

[B]

We bought a humanoid robot, like a.

[A]

Little like robot dogs.

[B]

We have a dog as well.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

The humanoid is from Unitry. It's about a four foot tall guy. Looks pretty capable.

[A]

What does he do for you?

[B]

Marketing.

[A]

Have you named him?

[B]

No. We need. We were taking suggestions.

[A]

So you have to give him a name. Yeah, that's such a. Whenever I see that, I'm like, no, you've got to give him a name.

[B]

You know what we need to do? I like this idea. I need to think of like, who is our historical gold standard for like a pipe player who kicked ass through their career as a pipe player and name him after that person.

[A]

Sure. Yeah.

[B]

We're talking technology. I got us off track with some Covid story.

[A]

Yeah, well, I got us off track. I'm the damn. I'm the. I'm the shitty host around here. Haven't done a great job.

[B]

Well, I, I think what we've done accurately reflects how I, I think about things. That a tech is a. Is a great. Nice to have the real culture is us building work. That's what really matters of what we're doing. Right.

[A]

Like, that's. That was. That's what pays the bills. Like that. This is what drives me nuts. Like, I can't forget about what pays the bill bills here.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

It's too, we're too small. Like, I've got to be hyper focused on that. Whereas when companies get bigger and bigger and bigger, it's like, oh, you're especially like giant corporations, like disconnected. Some of these people are so removed from what's going on and it's like, it's a problem. It's a huge. And I'm. It's a problem for me because I'm struggling to talk to some of these people right now. Like, I don't have time to have four meetings to discuss the same topic.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, like, as much as. If you guys do that, that's great. You guys go waste your own time. When you're serious about making something happen. Call me, we'll talk about it for 20 minutes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then go do it. Yeah. I, I can't afford this. Like, I can't meet you where you are.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I don't have billions of dollars. I'm sorry.

[B]

You know, we were talking about the how on a. On a pipe crew or on a treatment plant, we all work for that pipe layer operator or carpenter. You know, we work for the guys that build. And I've taken that same mentality with technology. And when we're talking about when I'm leading a session or something, I make damn sure ops teams know I work for you. There is like crystal clear I work for you guys. And that's the culture that I try to push on my team. That, you know, we're not some. We don't have all the answers with tech. We're not some pie in the sky theoretical. It's like, I think, bottom line, our focus, and I think Scott Brown on my team has a great way of simplifying this is we just want to make people's lives better. Well.

[A]

And yeah, you have to have a degree of humility in that. Again, it's the same role that you have as a project engineer or PM or anybody on the administrative side of things. It's like, I know what I do is important, but I am not the most important one here.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And I will never be the most important one here. And that's not the point. And I think technology is the same way. Like sometimes I go to these conferences and it's like they're thinking that they're the thing. Like, something's off here. Or I just want to tell them I want to pull them aside. Like, this is. Guys, this is really cool stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, like, go to any job site in America for an hour sometime this year. Just do that. Just please go. Actually see the. And I've involved some of these people, and again, you see them making, like, very. But we've been bad at this, too. Yesterday I was reading Avon Chouinard's book Let My People Go Surfing for, like, the fifth time he founded Patagonia. I love everything about it. I buy a lot of Patagonia products. I hate some of the stuff they stand for because it's so misguided on the environmental side of things.

[B]

They think what they're doing right, and I respect it.

[A]

Yeah, they stand up for what they believe in. I respect it. They have more of a sponsor blind than most. Yeah, I. And I. I. I'm looking at that soapbox right now, but I'm gonna walk. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be responsible, and I'm gonna walk around it. I was reading it, though, and he said, you know, they went through a really hard time. And what he did was they started taking people out and into the, like, Yosemite national park and this and that and, like, reconnecting with why they were doing what they were doing. I was sitting there, I was like, man, we did such a good job at this in the early days, but, like, we haven't got our people out on the job sites recently. And we don't. We don't. I don't need a bunch of money to do that. And so I spent all morning yesterday. All right, where are people? All right, all right. What contractors do I know make phone calls? Phone calls. Phone calls. Phone calls. Hey, can you take someone out? Yeah, no problem. All right, connect that. You know, this, this. Within half a day. Everybody will be on a job site within the next quarter. And I'm gonna do that every quarter because it's like, I think we're a little too far from it right now. I'm not, because I'm out on job sites every week. But our organization is. I've got to fix that. Yeah, but then my point is, like, you get people out onto these sites, and they make just, like, very basic realizations that you think would be obvious, but it's just not obvious. Even, like, yeah, last time I was out, I realized that, you know, oftentimes there's a lot of Glare on a screen.

[B]

Yes. Or it's hot.

[A]

Or it's hot.

[B]

Right. And the thing's overheating and Go figure. Right. And our IT staff, like, awesome, super professional, highly skilled. Nothing against them, but if you. If you've not come up in that environment, you're missing a big piece of context around how to really serve that person. So that, to me, that's why it's important. It makes us better at being able to serve our ops teams.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. And I think, like, the most common mistake I see with technology, there's two common mistakes. I see. One, the office just goes way beyond, like, way beyond what actually what the needs really are in the field.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's oftentimes very simple stuff that needs fixing, but they go way beyond for whatever reason. And I think a lot of that's buying into some of these tech companies as well, you know, Oh, I can do a million things. It's like, all right, well, we just need like, a better way to record the daily report. Yeah. Like count loads of concrete.

[B]

Right.

[A]

No, like, right, like, and right now I'm using a notepad.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like, if you could help me figure this out.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We'd be. We'd be a lot better off. You know, it's. It's simple like that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's either that or they go get good technology, and then there's no implementation, there's no training.

[B]

You know what's so funny?

[A]

And. But whoa. But we just spent like $1.3 million on it.

[B]

Right. Shouldn't that work?

[A]

So it has to paying for it.

[B]

Why is it not out there? Why is it not being used? Yeah.

[A]

And then six months later, you find a better system, but it's like, well, we've already spent 1 point million on this one.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So we've got to make this one work. Or number three, they kind of. They go try to do stuff themselves. I have never seen that work out. So if you're a contractor trying to make your own technology, let. Let me inform you as a guy who's partially trying to make some technology in the construction industry.

[B]

It's hard, man.

[A]

It sucks.

[B]

Yeah, it's hard. I. I remember when I first started this role, we always had these conversations of build versus buy. Right. And I very quickly realized what we build is water and wastewater. We don't build software.

[A]

Please don't.

[B]

We don't build hardware. We build water, wastewater.

[A]

It's our. It's our faux. Like, unless you. Unless you're prepared to go sink like 10 million into something that's the level.

[B]

Of the bet you need to make.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's almost you staff up like.

[A]

A software company and you operate, you essentially build a startup software company within your business that it, that has to be isolated.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It can't run like a construction company.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Different principles.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But, but then culturally that doesn't really work. And, and operationally that doesn't work. And it just doesn't. Yeah, it just doesn't happen.

[B]

Yeah. So we've been through those growing pains. It's funny, as I was prepping for this, I was just kind of thinking through what, what are some bits of wisdom that I could share from just my experience in rolling out big tech projects and doing R and D and stuff. And you nailed it. The two things that I think are often overlooked are implementation, like a proper implementation and training. How do you train, how do you make this scalable? And it's easy to go buy, sign an agreement and you've got the tool and looks nice. But is it really clear on how you're going to use it? And most of the time it's no, you just get it done and move on to the next thing.

[A]

Well, and then you know, again like the office knows how to use it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But it's a field tool.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then, and then you're in this whole other world of complexity that is like again, we've got thousands of people spread across the United States of America.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Okay. So I can go train this crew up over here.

[B]

Right. Everything has to be scalable. Yeah.

[A]

But yeah. How do we get it across the board?

[B]

Yeah, it's overwhelming at times.

[A]

Woof.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That is, that's tough.

[B]

It can be overwhelming.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Especially when you're doing a company wide. So we, a big project for us last year was digital time cards and we, the first go round, we totally failed, fell flat on our face. We, we, we let a kind of our back office people, very smart, very intelligent, great people, let it, but from a, from a different perspective, from an on field perspective. And they let it vet it, started the implementation and then my team got involved to kind of field test it. And we quickly realized that this is not the right tool.

[A]

Well, and, and they're not wrong. It's the right tool for them.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

But then it doesn't work for the field. But then it's like, but what problem are you wanting to optimize for?

[B]

Right, right. And so we pulled the plug on it, pivoted, did a new round of vetting of construction specific projects and Then picked our tool and scaled it and built it.

[A]

Was that a tough conversation, though?

[B]

Very.

[A]

Yeah, I bet.

[B]

Very. We had made internal announcements at a public town hall about the product and how good it's going to be and. Yeah, man, it's tough. That's humbling.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, you know, I. Nobody wants to hear that the project we spent X million dollars on and thought was going to be a win is sunk cost. Sure.

[A]

Yeah. Because there's a lot of emotion tied up in this stuff, I've realized for sure. And you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You don't want to be the one to. Yeah. Hang your hat on it and then be wrong.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But that's just. But it's not necessarily anybody's fault a lot of times, too. It's just this world is moving so fast as well. And some of these salesmen, they're good.

[B]

They're good, they're good.

[A]

There's some snakes in the grass, man.

[B]

I think it goes back to. To just the basic principles of how you do technology. And for us, it's being very clear about the problem statement. It's being very clear about what our desired outcome is, and then setting up a structured process where we can really test those. And that's what I've learned, is unless you do that, you're trusting the salesperson, you're trusting their demo, you're trusting all these things. And I've realized for any of the projects that my team touches, that we implement, we're going to follow this structured process that's going to verify that this is the right tool for us before I go spend a million bucks on it.

[A]

Yeah. And the salesperson and the demo can look different than the product.

[B]

Oh, 1000%. It's all smooth in the demo.

[A]

And you know how I figured all this out is because we've been. We have been caught up in all of this. Like, I think we've made every dumb software technology company mistake over the past three years. Every single one.

[B]

Oh, stuff, man.

[A]

It's just been brutal. And. And there's no one to blame but this guy.

[B]

You know, I point the finger at myself regarding. I'm. I'm the construction tech.

[A]

That's the worst part about it. Yeah. But. But that I. But I think that also. That's indicative of Garney, though, because you're smart enough to go down a path.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But then recognize that. Wait a minute, this ain't it, man. And then retreat.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then commit to another path.

[B]

Yes. That prop store leadership, that's big prop store leadership.

[A]

Because that doesn't usually happen.

[B]

That's right. There was a real chance when I, when I was ready to have the tough conversation with their leadership, I thought in the back of my mind, this is going to be really interesting. The response I get, it's going to say what's, what's really important here. Is it important to get the right solution or is it important to follow through on the public perception that we committed to this product? Right. There were no egos involved. It was awesome.

[A]

But as, as a leader, man, this is where I've had such an advantage. Being young. When you just admit that you don't know what the hell you're doing.

[B]

Exactly. That's powerful.

[A]

Oh, my God, it is so freeing. Yeah, it is so freeing. And I'm at the level in business now. I've talked about this a little bit where I used to put a lot of business leaders up on a pedestal. Like, ah, they know something I don't. And now I'm like, I'm getting. The gap is less now. There's less distance, so I can kind of see over the hedge.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And I'm like, wait a minute. They don't know what the hell they're doing. They don't have a clue. But, but, but they're still caught up in the like, well, I need to, but I'm the guy. I need to maintain this sense of, like, well, I'm, I'm the guy. I have to know. I can't, I can't not know. I'm the leader. But it's such a trap.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so one. To admit that you just, you don't know what you're doing. It's, it's, you're the first person to benefit from it. It just takes so much weight off your shoulders.

[B]

And it's such an authenticity boost to your team, too. And they're like, it gives you more credibility. Or.

[A]

And then even better when you can say, like, I, we really screwed this up. I really got this wrong.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Those are never the fun calls, statements, whatever they are. I hate it every time. But it's never, it's never gone wrong. Like, I've found whenever I'm trying to craft something, a message, that's when it's gone wrong.

[B]

Yeah. Say that what's truly happening.

[A]

And I'm, I'm trying to be much better about that. Even I had a conversation recently. He was like, well, the team is gonna think this. It's like, no, they're not. Because I'm just gonna tell them exactly the conversation that we just had. That's exactly what I'm gonna say to them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they're going to say that because it's the truth.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Like, there's no spin. There's no. And I've. I've made that mistake too many times now to know that, like, no, I'm not doing that again. It's just. Here's exactly how it is, man. However you feel about is how you feel about it. But it's reality. And we've spent too much time beating around the bush and trying to make things a little softer or what are they going to think? Or this or that. No, no, no, no, no. We can't. We don't have time for that game anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it's. Oh, man, it's freeing. And that's a big piece of the technology. Like, the technology is almost the smaller part of the equation. Like your job is less technology than it is people.

[B]

Yeah. A thousand percent. And I think that's the main focus that I try to bring to my team is that is people first. Our role is to empower people, period. That's what we do.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Technology is just the way that our team does that. People do that in all different ways. Training, development does it through training. You know, counting does it through. Help us see accounting data. Sure. We do it through getting the right tool. To you as our builder. Yeah. What is. What are those tools? That's what I need to figure out. How do those tools interact? I need to figure that out. How do we plug in AI to the back end data of that those tools collect. I figured that out. But at the end of the day, it's about me giving you the tools to make your life better. Better. And I think that's the simplest bar. Like all these tech tools. Talk about roi.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You spend a million dollars with us in a SaaS product, and here's the ROI you're going to get from the added 30 minutes times 3,000 people. Well, you're going to save $10 million a year by implementing this. I fall into the trap of hard calc ROIs. You can't disregard the cost. That's real.

[A]

Well, and you have to go, you know, budget for this stuff.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And make a case to people that we operate in the real world. Numbers.

[B]

Cost is real, but the real ROI is you as our end user. Do you enjoy the product? Does it eliminate something from your day that you disliked doing? Does it make that process a little bit quicker for you? Can you pull a record a little faster, a little better? A little more organized. Can we get to a photo that we didn't otherwise have? Can we use this data on a future estimate? Right. Instead of just letting it sit in a banker's box in a closet somewhere? Sure. And those are the type of things that I. That I think about. But really it comes back to end user. That's the lens that I view all these tech through. Is it benefit our end user and make them enjoy their day better. Better their job?

[A]

And that's the lens. I look at. Look at it too, because I'm. I, again, I spend so much time in the field.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I can't not look at it from that lens. And so again, I look at some of these technologies or go to these. Some of these conferences. I'm like, this is great. It looks really nice. But like, again, get out into the field, guys. There's something here that's. And that. But that's where the technologies that are having the most impact within the civil construction industry. And there's not many of them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's really not.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I mean, damn, I can almost count them on, like, two hands of, like, real promising technology. Like, you've got like a Trimble, for example. That's. That's been long standing.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Like, you've got some of these Hegemons and hcss maybe. But then you've got now these newer technologies that are starting to really make up some ground.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

But none of them are really technology people. They're all people with a very good understanding of the industry.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they're all very grounded.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they're all meeting the industry where they are.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And addressing a legitimate problem.

[B]

Thousand percent.

[A]

Like. Like a propeller is awesome. A great example.

[B]

Yeah. Drone deploy is. Is our partner.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Deploy. You know.

[B]

Yeah. Propellers are great product. Product.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

But.

[A]

But that's the one that comes to mind.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I've spent time with them and they've been good to us. And. And Rory, he's actually been on the podcast. Tenna is another one they just sold to John Deere.

[B]

What's 10?

[A]

I do their asset management.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You know, and so management type stuff. Yeah. Those are like some. Some of the ones that come to, like, blue Light. You know, they're. Dick was on the podcast recently. They're doing autonomous rollers and articulated trucks right now for a lot of civil contractors.

[B]

And Autonomy, space is so cool.

[A]

Yeah. It's. It's. It's really neat. And. But that's the cool thing is, like, all these solutions are not coming from the big companies.

[B]

Right. Like all startup.

[A]

It's not the big OEMs that this is going to come from.

[B]

That's a great, a great thing to just call out. Very specifically here. You know, technology is deflationary. And so you take, let's take like survey equipment, for example. You look at the big one, Leica, Trimble, Top, topcon, they produce a GPS unit. All of them have great solutions to that. They're 15 to $20,000, depending on what you get per unit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So kits, you know, 30 to $40,000. You look at a company like Emlid, Amlid is a total disruptor in the space. A $3,000 GPS unit. Does it run on a data collector? Runs on your phone or it's agnostic? It runs on any tablet.

[A]

Bingo.

[B]

It's a, you know, can we push it to a GIS layer? Yes. Can you run on cell? Yes. Can you run on base station? Yes. Deflationary, Cheaper. And so now we're thinking like, does this even need to be an asset that we track and manage? If it's $3,000 instead of $30,000, it changes the whole strategy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, so. And we're seeing that across, across the board with all these, all the hardware, I should say drones included, cameras.

[A]

Matter of time before that was going to happen, though. Like the GPS thing, you guys have had it good for pretty, pretty long time. Yeah. Someone's going to come in here using some components from China and just wallow up everybody and make it agnostic. That's the big thing is like true, like a true agnostic platform.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So much value.

[B]

And lower the barrier to entry. Right. So I don't have to be a surveyor to understand how I lay out this line.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's in an interface that I can interact with simply well in the more.

[A]

Traditional players that haven't had a lot of competition. They're forcing everybody, these subscription models as well, to rec. To create this recurring revenue model because of course that's how they're going to increase their, their stock price, value, etc.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Good for them. We're playing the same game. But it's pissed so many people off.

[B]

Yeah, so.

[A]

So it has pissed so many people. I have not talked to a single person that's like, wow, this has been such a benefit. And when you're like pissing all your customers off, I don't know if that's all that sustainable. Yeah.

[B]

I'll tell you, the shift for us is we started when we really leaned into tech five to eight years ago and, you know, started strategically using it. We had a, we were a committed strategic partner in Top Gun. Still. Top Gun is a great product. We still have great relationships with Top Gun. But, you know, I just, I wonder, is the future of us a mixed fleet and is it moving towards, towards an inlet? I don't know. We'll see. But it's. They're getting disrupted to your point.

[A]

No, it's. And it's, it's exciting. Like, I, I'm just excited about it. But they're all good. Like topcon, Trimble, Hexagon, Leica. Like, they're all, they're all big, great companies.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I don't, I don't play for any one company.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I'm, I'm not loyal to a specific oem, a specific technology provider, a specific contractor association. I could give a shit about any of that. I'm loyal to the industry.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'm loyal to what's in the best interest of the industry for the United States of America. Like that. That's my, that's where my loyalty lies. To the future of our country, which means to the future of this industry.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I want what's in the best interest of this industry.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Period. So, and, and, and, and, but that's the game everybody has to play. Like, we're all just so caught up in, like, oh, we're gonna go bicker over here and bicker over here and bicker over here. It's like, guys, we're missing the plot here.

[B]

Right. Right.

[A]

There's. There's a bigger game here. We're all in it together. We've got to start thinking like, we got to start thinking like a team because we're in it. This is a team.

[B]

You know, my. Speaking of team, my team was sharing an article the other day around just the role that tech plays in making people enjoy their job more and attracting new talent. Right. So being able to say, hey, we use these cutting edge tools to track survey data or to analyze drone scans or to record your concrete quantities or whatever. Like, people, I think people enjoy working in that environment, and we want it. We want to use it to, you know, track the best workforce. Sure. Another angle we see of it.

[A]

What's. What's most exciting to you right now? What are you spending most of your.

[B]

I'm spending most of my time.

[A]

What are you chewing on?

[B]

So I want to answer that question. Let me tell you how my, how things are structured so that the types of problems that we're working. So we have kind of two broad categories to what we call construction technology. We have a tech ops team and we have a special projects team. Tech ops is what you think of construction tech. It's gpr, it's drones, it's scanning, it's.

[A]

Survey, ground penetrating radar. Because you're under.

[B]

Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Gps, total stations, all that stuff sort of thing. And we have specialists in local markets, and then we have, you know, manager in Kansas City. So the idea is to get them embedded in the local operations. So they're supporting teams. That's our tech ops teams.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then we have a small team that does implementations. So we take a name. The name, the project. We want to go do time cards. Okay. Let's vet the tools, let's draft the new processes, let's build the training program, let's configure the tool, let's build the integrations. And Garney has been really proactive in building and hiring a data team and developers. We have a whole team of people that manage data integrations, data warehousing, and that is a key unlock. So for the small construction companies out there, it makes such a difference in our ability to go build a time card project. When I can say, hey, development team, I need you to build an integration between procore and our accounting software. And I need these data points to flow back and forth. Can you guys build that in six weeks? Yeah, sure, we'll get it done. That's a huge unlock. I mean, you can, you know, find ways around that. But that's paid dividends hugely is having those developers. So that's kind of how our team is structured.

[A]

You, you have developers.

[B]

We have developers on staff.

[A]

And so they can do that custom type in house.

[B]

Yes. That speeds up their ability to do things dramatically.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So that's kind of the structure of our team right now. We work very closely with our VDC team. We work very closely with our operations and our training, development. We touch in our equipment. So we touch. We're very unique in that we touch the whole organization. Right. We're broad tentacles across the whole organization because we're doing things from time card to payroll to field survey.

[A]

Right. So we're like asset management. Exactly.

[B]

We're everywhere across the. So I think I've developed a really healthy perspective of how the whole company operates and how every data point flows and how we make money all the way to how we, you know, record a safety data. Right. So, yeah, it's really interesting. I've learned a lot this process. So that's the team structure, the Biggest focus I have right now is as I've stepped into this role, I realized that as I'm looking at our processes and means systems, our, our data, we're not consistent how we do most things. How you record a daily report is not the same as how Joe records a daily report right down the street. You may submit it by email. He writes it in onenote. She does it in a system that, that project stood up on their own. Right.

[A]

And which is fine at the project level. But now your data set is right.

[B]

So we got the bad data set. But that's true across all different things from how we issue subcontracts to how we record quantities installed to how we record a first aid incident. Right. So what I'm trying to do is pick the main things where the data in 2, 3, 5 years is going to be very valuable to us and, and solidify the processes and systems that collect those data. And it is a twofold benefit. One, it makes your, the end user's life better, but then it sets us up to be able to do something with that data.

[A]

So what data are you take?

[B]

Productivity data. So let's say we build a job. I'm going to use the pipe side of things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Let's say we build a, or bidding a 36 inch job that's 12ft deep in roadway ductile iron pipe with groundwater full excavate and replace with crushed. On general scope, you can imagine several thousand feet. Right now this is no knock on us, but I think this may make other companies feel more comfortable. Right now we have one bucket of labor, one bucket of equipment. Materials may be a little better, subs a little better, but the data that we get on the back end of that job is really just how much money did we make on that job?

[A]

Like it's, there's, there's not, there's not a richness to it.

[B]

That's right. It's not granular, it's just 2D. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. Which, which only tells you so much, right? Yeah. Did we make money or not?

[B]

Right. So now let's say I'm bidding another 36 inch job. Maybe 42 inch, maybe 24 inch. Name the size. And I'm thinking, huh, it's 12ft deep, it's in the roadway, it's full excavation. Aaron, do you remember that job we did two years ago that was in the roadway? Can you send me the file on that one? I'm thinking I want to see how you actually did on that. And oh, it's similar to that. Job in Arizona. We did. But actually that's not even in my mind because I don't know that person.

[A]

I don't know that.

[B]

Yeah. Right. So I get a limited set of data for my next estimate. That's very similar. And maybe I'm making the same mistake again on how I bid that work. So there's no good like feedback loop for how we improve our approach to building work.

[A]

So was that the, was that then the genesis of figuring out time card?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Solution.

[B]

Because that's a starting point.

[A]

A starting. Yeah, you got to have that figured out.

[B]

We had to pick someplace to start. Time card sounds like a good place. Let's start there.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Now we're at least recording digitally hours.

[A]

Yeah. Because that's like for people that don't totally know this world, that labor is a huge component of your total costs.

[B]

It's the biggest risk.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

As well. Right.

[A]

Yeah. So. So you labor hours of the crew. If you don't know where the time of your crew is going, you don't, you don't know a huge portion of how much money you're spending on a project.

[B]

And so we spent a thousand library hours this week. But what were we doing? Sure, we may have that narrative in a daily report that we fix salt fence here and then we poured concrete there and that we built X form work here and laid 300ft of pipe. That's all in a narrative. So the project manager understands what we did. But there's no system that records that as data that says these 12 man hours did this task and generated X revenue. Right. And these 30 man hours, you know, so there's no system that's actually recording those. So I'm gradually and trying to, you know, be mindful of change management and all these processes, but I'm gradually trying to shift the organization to, let's capture that data in a system that makes your life better, but then structures it in a way that next time you build a 36 inch roadway job, you can look at that data and said, hey, they bit it like this. But shit, here are the results. They lost their ass on production and they made a bunch of money here.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah. Here was this. Let's do more of this.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And let's do less of this.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And oh, they actually had to hire another backfill operator. They had two hoes on the job. They didn't bid it like that.

[A]

Yeah. And so Garney, for, for clarification, Garnies never lost their ass on any project ever. Never. Never, ever, ever. Ever. Oh, that's funny. Yeah.

[B]

I'm laughing because I can, I've. I can think of a few.

[A]

Well, anybody in construction? Yeah, yeah, that's, that's how this will work. Especially in underground like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Hey, you have this plan until you put a bucket in the ground.

[B]

Yeah, that's right.

[A]

The window.

[B]

That's right. You know, this is a sole soapbox that we can probably avoid. But I started in the industry in 2012 and man, for the most part it has been up into the right. Know what I'm saying? In terms of 2012.

[A]

100%. Yeah.

[B]

And me too.

[A]

I've only known it good. I came up right after the. Right after everything everybody got their, their teeth kicked in.

[B]

Right. For four or five years we all forget what it's like to count nails on a job.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and, and earn 25% of the profit that we're used to earning and bidden work just to keep the doors open. We've a lot of the people in my generation, I just missed that. So we need to stay humble in that regard and realize that it's probably not always going to be up into the right. But we were talking about how I'm spending my time, what I'm focusing on. So I think I'm, I'm trying to do two things. Improve the life of the end user. You in this case, entering data in the field but then really trying to tee us up to be able to plug in the right AI across our organization so that when you're bidding the job, it's not you querying a database, it is our guarney agent saying, hey, let me help you here.

[A]

Yeah. Because that, yeah. That is the single best place application for AI is, is one garbage in, garbage out.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So you've got to, you've got to clean up your garbage.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Which is what you said.

[B]

Yes. That's what we're doing. We're cleaning up garbage data set.

[A]

That means something.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But then you can feed that data set into and train a model with that data. And if it's good quality data, you can allow AI to digest and spit out whatever you need.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Way faster than a human could.

[B]

And that's where I see all this. I think AI is and will continue to be just a disruptor revolutionary. It's going to change how we make decisions and how we analyze things. So I'm, I'm trying to skate to where the puck is and set up the organization to leverage that. That's what I'm really trying to do. Yeah, because we. Here's the other thing that I've learned over the last five years or so of doing tech is it is really easy to go buy hardware, take it out and do something cool with it, Scan a job site, fly a thing. Like, that's easy. And that's what a lot of people when they think technology. And that's a lot of the pressure that I get of, where's the robot, where's this, where's our army of scanners? And whatever the thing is. But the real value comes from the processes and how that information is exchanged. And is the point cloud clean and is it accurate? And can I use it and can I compare it to something? And so the, the doing the thing in the hardware is just the tip of the iceberg. Right. There's so much more that goes into making technology useful at scale. That's not sexy.

[A]

Most of it. There's nothing sexy about.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And again, that's where that's. I have a problem with a lot of the technology conversations in the industry right now from people that are technology people or not in the industry. Day to day, it's like, no, you're missing the whole point here. You're focused on the sexy stuff. That's all fun. We're gonna go VR everything. It's like, okay, cool. Yeah, it looks fine. Like, it's probably helpful. Your graphics kind of suck compared to like any kind of modern. Like, you're not going to get a kid excited about this. Like, go play Call of Duty. Yeah, go play Call of Duty with them. And then. Yeah, tell me. This is great. Like, you're gonna have to work on that. But, like, does it have an application? Yes, it does. But the bigger opportunities are exactly what you're saying. Like, the industry's been declining in productivity for half a century. Yeah, that's a problem.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the productivity thing is a really big deal. I think productivity. Solving the productivity challenge right now within the construction industry is key to recruiting the next generation. Because the number one problem in recruiting the next generation is pay is money. We need to do more with less.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And so that if we correctly implement technology and get better and can increase production now we're. We don't need as many people.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Which we can't recruit anyway. So we're not replacing jobs. We're.

[B]

We're.

[A]

We're making life better because now we can still accommodate the work without just beating the crap out of people, which is what's happening right now. And then two, we can pay people more money.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Which they, they need to get paid. Wages are too low.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Way too low.

[B]

Right.

[A]

In construction.

[B]

Yeah. I think the upcoming hardware, the new software, AI, all the process, I mean that's our ticket to 10x. The resources that we have on site. That's, that's, yeah.

[A]

And I, and I'm, I'm more conservative on all this than a lot of the typical conversation. There's a lot of people that are really, it is incredible. But there's a lot of people that I think are like way too bought up in the hype because, and you have to understand, and I've had to understand this, like all of the AI companies are incentivized to just hype the out of this because that's the only way to justify their valuations that make no sense whatsoever.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like most of the valuations make. Make no sense. Like you, you in, in, in no world can you math what some of these companies are worth and how much money they're getting in investment compared to.

[B]

The revenue, compared to the value add.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And so you have to create this crazy narrative that maybe it's going to be successful. But I don't know, like I feel like I've, I've at least read about this before, maybe not seen it but like there was something called like the.com era for example. Like you know, there's some, there's some similarities to this, I don't know and that, so I, I think it's, it's going to be extraordinary. But then I also think like we have to be realistic about it at the same time. Like you still have to put pipe.

[B]

In the ground, Right? Exactly. That's where my mind was going is you still have to form that wall or that clarifier. You still got to place concrete.

[A]

Yeah. And that, that's not. GPT is not doing that for you. Okay.

[B]

AI may be able to make that incrementally more efficient, but it's not going to remove the actual tangible, real world steps to do that. Right. So that's where we have to stay grounded as an industry to say, you know, in 10 years are things going to look different? Yes, but they're going to look largely the same in terms of you're still going to be back in a concrete truck up, there's still going to be a crane, there's still going to be.

[A]

Safety requirements on a job site, utilities in your way.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You're still going to be running in the gas line. It's not supposed to be there.

[B]

And, and I Think. I think we're going to get better at maybe mapping or visualizing or planning or implementing digital barriers of, you know, all this sort of thing. Yes, we're going to get better at those. But it still exists.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well, again, and I just, I look at this from a realistic perspective, like, yeah, we're going to have all these amazing. Everything's going to be autonomous, whatever it is. Oh, listen, I worked for one of the world's biggest contractors and I was doing my time cards by paper.

[B]

I feel a little better now.

[A]

Like, okay, I remember, like I was filling my time card out with a fucking pencil.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And a piece of paper that I'd print out every. And I scan it in and I'd send it into the office to get paid. No one would even look at it. Okay. So like that to me is the lower hanging fruit than an army of Boston Dynamics robot dogs taking over the job site. Like, I get it, it's fun. It has its place.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It was like, wow, look at that little. But dog like prancing around this convention hall. That's pretty cool. But paper, time cards, you know, it's. Maybe we start there. Yeah, but that's just me.

[B]

That, that's where I go back to that 8020 rule. Right. Are humanoid or, or four legged robotics gonna really move the needle for us? No, no. Right. Like, it's just not. No, not in, in the. What I have left in the construction industry. It's just not.

[A]

Yeah. And maybe, and maybe somebody's playing this clip in eight years from now and laughing at us. Yeah. What an idiot. Dude. Dude. The whole workforce is now. These robots, this, they're so stupid. But I don't know, I have a.

[B]

Buddy that we, we do kind of every other week, just our own version of this podcast and we kind of laugh and joke and we were talking about this humanoid robot that we bought and you know, I guess let me back up a notch before I knock all of this. I think robotics are important and they have their place. And the reason we're. We invest in robotics is to make sure that my team and me are at least familiar with it. We understand how they works. We can test use cases, especially for safety or confined spaces. Like, let's go experiment. That's the mindset.

[A]

We have inspections.

[B]

Yeah. So we want to be hip to it and we want to, you know, keep our hands on it. So that's why we do it. But I was talking to my buddy, he cracks me up. He was saying, you go get this robot and you know, you know, this robot's gonna have like GPT6 or whatever. It's gonna have like the latest AI in its brain, and it's gonna be hyper, you know, emotionally intelligent. And day one, the guys are kind of knocking it, but, you know, by day three, they're gonna be like, frank, my boy, water. And like, the guys are venting to him. And so I thought that was a really neat take that. Like, what if they are super emotionally intelligent? And maybe that's an angle that we're not thinking about. But anyway, it's made me smile thinking about that.

[A]

Yeah, I. There's a. There's a use case for them. I just. A conversation like this is grounded. What starts to piss me off, though, is somebody who's never spent a day in this world talking about how this is going to replace everybody. And it's like, dude, just shut your mouth. Like, just. Just get the hell out of here.

[B]

The job site's so dynamic, man.

[A]

There's.

[B]

There's a big difference in a factory or manufacturing setting where it's predictable. Right. It's a. It's a. Everything's nice and clean. It's a level surface. It's. The part coming down the line is repeatable when you're looking for X deviation or you're doing X, you know, manipulation.

[A]

And there's. There's a box around everything. Yes. So it doesn't get wet, you know, stuff like that.

[B]

Right. And so, you know, we've seen what the autonomous equipment can do, and it's cool, right? It can dig a straight trench and it can compact this area and it can haul here and dump there and load that truck. Truck, and it's cool. But, man, the complex interaction of digging a ditch, that shore that's 40ft deep, and watching soil conditions and an existing utility and dropping the pipe in and making sure that joint sealed properly and that it's backfilled like there. It's so many layers to that. Can ED AI understand that? Yes, but, man, human interaction is, I think, required for that type of interaction. Components mechanized, automated, for sure.

[A]

Yeah. I'm pretty comfortable with making that bet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then. And anybody saying that this is exactly how it's going to go, I'm like, okay, yeah, your credibility's out the window because no one knows what the hell's gonna happen.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Exactly. If you're saying this is how it's gonna play out, I'm like, nah, I'm out, man. Man. Yeah, I'm not listening to a word you say from that, that point on because no one knows.

[B]

It is cool though to just be presented with totally new ideas. So like the drone program, for example, you know, we started our drone program three years ago and man, I went out and spent $50,000 on the high end DJI and bought lidar scanners and like, got my pilot's license. Like, I'm going to go figure out drones for us.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Stumbled into it now. We've got 50 pilots, 50 drones flying on most job sites and it's a full blown thing for us.

[A]

You can buy them for like five grand.

[B]

Well, not anymore. Let's come back to that. The DJI band.

[A]

Well, yeah, you're probably cheaper now. Yeah.

[B]

You can't fly them.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, that's. That's a whole.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, dude, that, That's a. Yeah.

[B]

DJI aside. Right in 99 of our fleet right now is DJI. That's not unique to us.

[A]

All of my stuff, DJ, I'm still going to be buying it from out of the country because it's way better.

[B]

It's better and it's cheaper.

[A]

It's way better than anything else. And that's exactly what happened. They, the United States drone manufacturers were just getting their asses kicked and it's like, oh, hey, federal government, can you help us out here? Can you do us a solid? Oh, this is a national security risk. We're just not very good. But we need, you know, you know, dad need to step in and protect our market and actually give us kind of like control of the whole market. It's like, no, dude, that.

[B]

What the. It's a, it's a kick in the nuts for the whole market.

[A]

Well, it's a kick in the nuts for everybody. And the thing with dji, it's like their next drone is so much better than the last one.

[B]

Like four is so good.

[A]

I buy every like a new iPhone. It's like, I don't really care. I might get the next, Next.

[B]

Next one camera.

[A]

Like maybe. I don't know. I kind of just get new iPhone when it dies now. Like when it's just totally dead. I'm like, yeah, whatever. But the drones, I'm like, I have to get the next one because it is so much better than the last one. And it's incredible. That's. That is something only a Chinese company can do right now. That's just the reality.

[B]

Yeah. And they're cheap and they're cheap and.

[A]

And they are so effective.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everything about them is just the u. The uxui Is incredible. The hardware is incredible. Like the camera systems are just unbelievable.

[B]

Just the capability.

[A]

Stable, fast. Like there's.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So 99% of our fleet we have one non DJI drone, which is a wing TR, which is a really cool aircraft. It's a sure VTOL.

[A]

That's fixed ring. Yeah. Fixed wing takeoff.

[B]

Yeah. So we bought four Skydio X10s at the end of 25.

[A]

Oh, go figure.

[B]

Yeah. Right. Just in case it goes through. Of course it went through. And so thankfully we've got some NDAA authorized drones in the fleet, but they're just the, the M4E which is our standard unit was like 7, 500 bucks give or take. You know, a few thousand dollar swing up or down depending on what you get. But $7,500 for round numbers. The equivalent Skydio X10 is like a $25,000 drone.

[A]

Yeah. Go figure. And it's not as less performative. Yeah, it's just.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I, I've listened to some of the stuff they've said and it's like good for you guys. I, I respect it. You know, building a company in the states and trying to manufacture hardware and technology in the state, isn't that good for you. Go do it for the United States military, go do it for law enforcement. Like you're already doing great model. But why set everybody else back in the process? And not that it's just them, but. Yeah, it's that whatever just happened is a huge disservice to construction companies, to utility companies, to railroads, to anybody in infrastructure that could and was using these drones for all sorts of incredible applications that have, that have eliminated people in some really wacky places or have given us new insight into projects that we just, we didn't have even five years ago.

[B]

Take propeller or drone deploy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what made where my mind went on this is just thinking of new concepts of how technology was used. That's not even. Was not even on my radar three or five years ago that the drone ones is the docked capability which. Have you seen these? Yeah.

[A]

Oh yeah. Mines use it. Yeah, that's standard of mines.

[B]

Yeah. So mines are. They minds do a great job of leading some of the tech stuff. Autonomy and you know, scanning and productivity and all those things. Right. So we envision a future where. Well, the DJI thing put a wrench in it because DJI has the most affordable dock. DJI docs like 25,000 Scotty odocs like 125,000.

[A]

Yeah. Again, go figure.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Crazy.

[B]

So the economics are like, is that really what we want to do now? Like, I don't know. But the concept is on all of our stationary plant jobs, you know, we have, you know, maybe 75 plant jobs across the U.S. everyone has a dock and there's no pilots on the job. We have a pilot in Kansas City that's looking at a big screen and he's saying, let's launch this, this, this, and this one. Go ahead and do those scanning missions. And basically a central kind of command for our drone operations, which is a wild concept, but.

[A]

Yeah, well, yeah, to explain the concept to people too. Like at the mines, they'll. They'll put these docks around the mine and.

[B]

Or earth living job, dock, drone that opens in. A drone flies out.

[A]

Yeah. So the drone. The drone. It's like a little house for the drone.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And it doesn't. It's. It's air conditioned. It's. It's warmed.

[B]

Charges.

[A]

Yeah, it charges.

[B]

Download.

[A]

Yeah. So. So it goes to its little house and then on a regular cadence, it will fly its area.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Within the drone, within the mine that will overlap with another drone's area, you know, depending on how big it is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you're creating. It'll use LiDAR typically to do a scan of. Or you can scan with photos.

[B]

Photogrammetry.

[A]

Yeah, photogrammetry. And take pictures from different angles and do some math and there you go. But then you get a very accurate survey grade, survey grid and model in real time of the job of the landscape, which is always changing.

[B]

It's like having a topo with literally a trillion points daily.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you have a surveyor out there with a, with a rover.

[B]

It's so awesome. And then the products like propeller and drone deploy provide the analysis of it.

[A]

They do it for you.

[B]

Yeah. It's so kickass.

[A]

Yeah. So as like a pm, you can just get that in your inbox every day.

[B]

Our teams love it, man. And they love the transparency that it gives. You know, they're sitting in front of the owner and they're describing what they built last week versus this week. They have a slider comparing the two.

[A]

Yeah. Owners just eat it up, man.

[B]

Oh, now let's go into 3D. Let's rotate this around. Oh, now let's go inside with our 360 ground capture. Right. And then let's toggle over to our live stream. Like having all that kitted out, man. Our teams just, they love that.

[A]

Well, appreciate you coming out. Yeah, man, I enjoyed this.

[B]

You want to talk about any other tech that comes to. Comes to your mind?

[A]

No, no, I think that's good.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I'm. We're working on the training and development front. I need to share your share with you something after this as well. I talked about last night. I want you to play around with it if you have time. But yeah, we're. We're in the kitchen cooking as well.

[B]

It's exciting, man.

[A]

Cool. Well, again, really appreciate it. Of course, huge shout out to Garnie for sending you out here.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

Love Garnie. Couldn't Recommend Garnie More 100% employee owned. I would go to work Garnie Tomorrow for that 100% pulley own nationwide factor. You guys do anything from water mains to the biggest, most badass projects in water and wastewater, which is pretty sweet. So cool.

[B]

Yeah, man, thanks. Thanks for having me. Yep, it's been great.