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- [00:00]
A
Because every day there's a change. There's never where exactly on a civil job. It never goes just exactly like you think it was going to. Like you laid out on that plan of the day. But the really good field leaders react to that. And then they communicate what changed and they tell all the people on the job, on the crew, whoa, whoa, whoa. This changed from our plan of the day. Now we're going to do this. This is how to do it. And they have to be able to shoot from the hip and react. But, man, they have to communicate what that plan change is. Because if you just let. If you just let folks totally choose their own adventure. Like, you got a piece of equipment stuck.
- [00:40]
B
Yeah.
- [00:41]
A
It's blocking the haul road. And now they're just never happening. They're just panicky. Everyone's panicking. And they got excavators rattling over there to try and dig it out. And then someone hooked up to it with a D8 and they didn't make a work plan of how they're going to get that piece of equipment unstuck. Guess that's how you get people hurt.
- [01:00]
B
Yeah.
- [01:10]
A
So, dude, what makes a good podcast? If you're going like, you've done how many of these now? Dirt talk is there?
- [01:19]
B
500 and 500.
- [01:20]
A
Yeah, the 500ish.
- [01:21]
B
We did something stupid with the naming convention. We did like a lot of 0.5 episodes.
- [01:26]
A
Sure.
- [01:27]
B
So if you look at the number, it's not as much like we have a lot more. And then we've done a lot of internal. I've done a lot of other people's means, so it's well over 500.
- [01:37]
A
What makes a good one, especially on Dirt Talk, is if you monitor like, you know, what gets engagement and what are people.
- [01:46]
B
I don't know.
- [01:47]
A
And what kind of drives it, like less. What is it?
- [01:52]
B
I'm less. I don't. We don't really monitor numbers and that kind of stuff. It's more so what I enjoy. Like, I. I want to be excited about who's coming on and I just want to have a great conversation.
- [02:12]
A
You bet.
- [02:12]
B
Like, those are the two things. And I can do that. Like, I'm excited with everybody I'm having on at this point because I get to choose who I have on. There was a period of time where we started to use it a little bit as a business tool a long time ago now, and it just started to not get as much fun. But now I'm only talking to people I want to talk to. And it is hard Though you have to have a lot of fun. When I'm able to, like, it's a little bit of a dance.
- [02:44]
A
You're.
- [02:45]
B
You're able to like establish a cadence. I've started to notice that a lot more like sometimes I just can't get the conversation there, even in a two hour period. It's like I just. And those are the ones I'll beat myself up about. They'll still be a great. It'll still be. It'll still be great information, great conversation, but it's just like I couldn't quite get it there, get it to where I want it to be. Whereas other ones are like, that was awesome. We were just having a great time. We were just chopping it up.
- [03:14]
A
Yeah. So and if. I suppose if a guest wants to only come on and talk about him or herself and only come on and talk about his or her business, this isn't the venue.
- [03:26]
B
Yeah. I mean, sometimes. Sometimes it happens. Or that's not. Most of the people we're having on aren't promoting anything. Like, I'm the one going to them. And they've probably never been on a podcast. Well, over a majority of the people we have on the podcast have never been on a podcast, which I enjoy.
- [03:49]
A
I'm a seasoned podcaster. This is my second one ever. My first one was Dirt Talk, something in the 1002s, I think maybe I.
- [03:58]
B
Did it at my house here in Nashville. So that must have been.
- [04:01]
A
I took it from my house years ago.
- [04:04]
B
Yeah.
- [04:04]
A
It was probably 20, 21.
- [04:08]
B
Yeah.
- [04:08]
A
I think.
- [04:10]
B
But that's another part is I struggle with remote. I struggle to. It's just. It's hard to establish any kind of cadence. Like, it's. It's this. I. A lot of people can do it. I can't. I can't do it. I struggle. That's why it's a lot more fun. Yeah. To just have people here and hang out and.
- [04:31]
A
Very cool.
- [04:32]
B
Yeah, very cool.
- [04:34]
A
Let's talk tech and construction. You run a tech company, right?
- [04:42]
B
Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, that's what they tell me now.
- [04:45]
A
Yeah. So like, how do you do that?
- [04:48]
B
That's a great question. That's what. That's what Randy and Dan and me and everybody else, we're all trying to figure it out. I don't think we intended to be a tech company, but we've become one. And we've paid dearly for our ignorance over the past few years, but we're starting to now get our feet underneath us. And it's actually quite a bit of Fun. Like I've, I resisted it for a while and now we're just, we're just in the deep end and it's a lot more fun that way. It's a lot more hectic. But we're starting to like, really come up with a great product. Starting to really get it out there. I mean, we've got 250 civil contractors on a product that's really two years old. Like, we're pretty early on and we're like way in the early innings right now. Way in the early innings. And now, now that we have our feet beneath us, it's like, oh, wait, this is gonna get really fun.
- [05:49]
A
Are you finding that the users are teaching you how to use it too? Like when a tech company is young and new, like so many good ideas come from the users.
- [06:03]
B
Yeah.
- [06:04]
A
It isn't just sitting in the boardroom and strategizing, making a product roadmap. And it doesn't stay on that straight of a line. You can be going down for a ways and then all of a sudden some user will say, well, look it, look at how we're using.
- [06:19]
B
Sure.
- [06:19]
A
Or.
- [06:19]
B
Or not even say it. You can just see how they're using it in a different way that you didn't anticipate.
- [06:25]
A
All right.
- [06:27]
B
It's a little bit of both. It's a little bit because we're, we have this really unique perspective, which is partially why we're now a software company. We can see into more construction companies, civil contractors, in a really intimate way than most people within the industry. So we can see trends and what contractors need versus want. Like we're trying to balance those two things because what they want, it's not incorrect, but it's not always perfectly correct either. Because contractors, as you've probably seen, especially over the past few years, as you've seen outside of. As you've seen more contractors.
- [07:08]
A
I've seen a lot there. I'm old.
- [07:11]
B
Yeah.
- [07:12]
A
Yeah. But I've been lucky enough to work, work with some really good ones both, you know, on staff and as a consultant. And I love construction, so I've just, I love like finding out about new companies and seeing how they tick and that for an industry all called construction, they operate. Companies operate like really differently and so totally different. It's so fun to see that and learn about that.
- [07:40]
B
Well, and I think that's, it's partially just because everybody's so siloed.
- [07:44]
A
Yep.
- [07:44]
B
And so it, I mean, it's crazy how silo, even, even multi billion dollar contractors, just how isolated they Are. Which is crazy. It's so fascinating to me, and that's what we're trying to help with, is break some of those barriers down.
- [08:01]
A
There hasn't been a venue to share info amongst especially, you know, heavy civil contractors ever. I mean, you and I probably met now seven years ago, quite a while ago now, 2018 or 2019 somewhere pretty in the pretty early stages. And there wasn't. There wasn't any venue to like, share information, develop a network, communicate best practices. There wasn't. There wasn't anything like that. And like, Bill Dwitt is filling that void. I've learned a lot of stuff both when I go to, like, actual events, whether it was Dirt World Summit or Dirt World Workshop, I've learned a bunch of stuff that I use every day. We'll go into some of that, like, stuff that has just stuck right with me that I use. But also the people I have met since going to those and the people that you have introduced me to are kind of, I would say, like early adopters of wanting to make the dirt world a better pay, a better place. Like, yeah, I've learned. I learned more. I mean, I'm old. I just turned 52, Aaron. But I'm learning a lot. The last five years, I've been learning a lot.
- [09:22]
B
It's. But that's. That's fun. That's like, we, as an industry, we can't. Like, business as usual can't continue, and it's hurting everybody. Like that, that lack of information, that lack of sharing. Contractors think they're protecting themselves by not sharing with other contractors.
- [09:43]
A
Got to protect the competitive advantage.
- [09:45]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The propriety, how we do it. Proprietary moving dirt with. Which is the same as everybody else, but it's proprietary. Don't you know, we've got to trade secrets. I'm being a little facetious, but the only. The first person or type of company to lose is the civil contractor. Like, the more I think about it, the more I recognize that the civil contractor takes on the most risk within an infrastructure project, but is the biggest loser in the infrastructure project from. From a way that they're just at the bottom of the totem pole and. And it sucks. It really sucks. I think we can make a big difference. I think like, the Summit is a great example of like, hey, let's just bring people together and start sharing information and being better because a rising tide lifts all boats work. And it's. It's not that these other industries, companies that are much more consolidated are out like, with this Bad intent. But there is definitely predatory behavior.
- [10:51]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [10:52]
B
Because they're in the position to pray. Like materials, for example, or some other bigger consolidated suppliers or general contractors. Like, they, they can exert their will upon the civil contractor because of that. It's just like very basic power dynamics. Like, we need you, you don't need us, or you don't need us, but we know you. I'm not phrasing it right. You need us more than we need you. So it's going to be this way. You sign this contract with these clauses or there's the door and it's like, what do you do?
- [11:33]
A
Well, if you pick up a little bit on some of those, both customers and partners and what they're doing. Right. The civil industry can learn a lot from how like the big GCs and the big EPCs and the big materials companies have built their businesses for like, business planning and strategy, organizational design, leadership development. So if you like, if you think about dirt world, like the summits in particular, they've been focused a lot on leadership development and kind of leadership principles, how to lead from the front and then also about like markets and customers and really like compelling sales technique. Sales techniques and sales strategies.
- [12:22]
B
Yeah.
- [12:23]
A
Like at the one in San Antonio, Jesse was incredible. Marcus Sheridan.
- [12:30]
B
Yeah, Jesse.
- [12:31]
A
It's like incredible.
- [12:32]
B
Yeah.
- [12:33]
A
I mean, if civil contractors can start to think like that, because everything revolves around markets and customers. If you're in the right markets and you have the right customers, you can build everything else. But if you're not, and if you just try to build it through operational excellence, we're going to move dirt faster, we're going to put in pipe cheaper, we're just going to perform better. You can't perform good enough.
- [13:08]
B
Yeah.
- [13:08]
A
If you're not in the right. If you don't. If you're not in the right markets, you don't have the right customers and you don't have the right kind of business development approach, you can't execute well enough to win.
- [13:22]
B
You can't, however, because the barrier entry is so low, there's always going to be another contractor that takes on those shitty customers.
- [13:30]
A
Yeah, right.
- [13:30]
B
And still drives the whole market down. Like, you're only as good as the overall marketplace in, in a lot of ways. Like, sure, you can get out of it, but only to a certain extent. And I think the civil construction industry has a lot to learn from the big EPCs, big engineering firms, general contractors, but at the same time, like, learn the good stuff. But there's also a lot of bad Stuff over there that I don't want anything to do with. Like, I stayed away from the big GCs intentionally. To me, it just didn't look fun, like civil, I think is way cooler.
- [14:06]
A
It is cool. And you get a different. In general, I don't want to overgeneralize, but you get a different. There's a different type. Like dirt guys have a type.
- [14:17]
B
Yeah, it's just more. It's more just get shit done.
- [14:21]
A
It's real.
- [14:21]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's real because you, you're self performing the work. And that's, I think, the biggest differentiator. I don't think it's the work itself. I just think it's the fact that you are doing the work yourself, quote, unquote. You're close to it.
- [14:35]
A
But at each of the summits, you've had this bit about like the winners and then the followers and then the just losers. And there's probably 10% are winners, 10% are losers, and 80% are followers. Something like that. But the winner. That is one of the things that I picked up at the summits. I'm not afraid to say. Late in my 40s, I've learned new stuff. And the winners talk rings really true with me. And I use it. I use it a lot in our business plan. I use it when I'm communicating with our people. Like there's some consistent thing. Even though construction companies, they do stuff different and they all think they have their own way, and a lot of them do. There's culture's a little different, personalities are a little different. The winners do the same seven things.
- [15:37]
B
And that's what I'm seeing more and more of. It's like. And the thing that, like, what cracks me up is you can't be different in construction because you're building the same damn road. Like you're. You're not.
- [15:55]
A
There's no product difference.
- [15:56]
B
Going to Georgia Dot and being like, oh, we can make you the best road.
- [16:00]
A
The products the same.
- [16:01]
B
No. Yeah, you. You have to build the. Build the road Georgia Dot wants.
- [16:06]
A
The product is the same. The experience you provide while you're building the product, though, that's different. And that can be a differentiator. And I think the companies who understand that, they're not just delivering the product, they're also creating an experience for people. The people are their customers, all the workers on the job site, everyone who's in the community around the project site. There's a whole bunch of people who are affected by construction. So the ones that focus on trying to make a really good experience for all the people who are touching a project. They win, they set themselves apart.
- [16:48]
B
And those are the companies that are, they're starting to like, get ahead, like start to like really lead. And that gap's only going to widen over time, I think. And that, that's the thing. Like, if you talk to every company, they're going to say people are number one, everybody. And they might even like mean it. But there's not that many companies that are truly acting in accordance with that.
- [17:16]
A
Right. Everyone says, well, we, we succeed because we have the best people. A thousand other companies say the same thing.
- [17:24]
B
Good for you. And then, and then all their investments in equipment and in traditional stuff, it's like, yeah, you do have to invest there, but where's your investment on the workforce side of things. And again, any company that's investing on a workforce side of things is not complaining about workforce right now.
- [17:39]
A
Right.
- [17:40]
B
I don't see C.W. matthews, I don't see Dan Garcia complaining.
- [17:45]
A
No. No. And he's had a really, I really admire like his leadership. He is a, he's like a. I'm from Georgia. I work for a Georgia construction company, Brent Scarborough company, Wonderful private site development company. So we're in a little different industry than CW Matthews, but we sure cross paths a lot. And we work for them out at the airport at Hartsfield Jackson. And Dan's leadership in kind of getting construction and the trades into our high schools and teaching high school kids who might not otherwise go to college or don't even know there's another path.
- [18:23]
B
Yeah.
- [18:23]
A
How to introduce our industry to them has been just fantastic, what he's done.
- [18:29]
B
And they've been wildly successful at attracting that next generation and developing these, this next generation of crew leader. Like a lot of these, these, these folks, they've started right out of high school, they're leading crews now and they're homegrown with NCW Matthews. And I get it. Everybody could be like, well, but I'm not, you know, this giant DOT contractor. I'm not the biggest DOT contractor in my state. I can give you examples up and down. I can give you examples of five person contractors, of 15 person contractors, 50, 100, 250, 500,000, 5,000. Once it starts to go beyond that, it becomes harder. I've seen the bigger you get, the more systems you need and process driven you are.
- [19:11]
A
And got to be a Navy.
- [19:13]
B
Yeah.
- [19:14]
A
You're can't be the pirates much more.
- [19:16]
B
Navy, which makes it hard.
- [19:19]
A
But I mean, whether it's 50 people or 500 people. One of those traits that you give on the winner's speech is they care about the whole person. Companies care about the whole person. And I think like two words are doing the work in that kind of phrase. One of it is the whole person. So it's not just like what they're going through at work and how to make them better at their jobs. Companies who care about what they've got going on in their personal life, what they've got going on with their mental health. Is there some kind of financial literacy that companies can help them with their personal finances? There's a whole bunch more time spent outside of work than at work. And companies that truly care about making the whole person better. I think that's a consistent thread.
- [20:14]
B
If you're looking for another industry event that is a snooze fest, this is definitely not for you. But if you're a leader looking to elevate yourself, your team, looking for like minded individuals that are hungry, then look no further than the ARIAT Dirtworld Summit November 5th through the 7th in Dallas, Texas. In our third year, we'll have about 1500 hungry industry leaders from about 500 companies looking to learn, grow, teach. It's going to be fantastic. We also have a world class lineup. We've got Jesse Cole from the Savannah Bananas, James Clear Atomic Habits, Kim Scott, Radical Candor, Mark Miller, Chick Fil a leadership, Tim Grover who is Michael Jordan's trainer. You will not hear from a lineup like this anywhere else. So check out details now. Dirtworld.com you can use code AARON10 for 10% off any registrations and we'll see you November 5th through the 7th in Dallas, Texas. Yeah, I think purpose is important, but yeah. Why, why work if you don't have the outside of, of work? Like that's. And that dictates a lot of what's going on at work. If you're not squared away financially, you're not squared away at work. If you're not squared away within your marriage, you're not squared away at work. It just bleeds across the board. And the more I reflect upon this, the more I start to really understand what's going on with the whole workforce challenge. The more and more and more I just look at it's the industry's problem and fault, it's no one else's. Like people just aren't treated well in this industry. They're not paid well, that's tough. They're not their, their, their ground down. From a physical standpoint, mental standpoint, it's just, it's a hard, hard place to work. And, and, and we can sit here all day and blame the next generation for not wanting to be here. Or we could ask, why don't they want to. Why don't they want to be here? Like, shouldn't that be the question? And I think the answer is, is a lot of times. Well, because we either told them or showed them that it's probably not best for them to be here either. We quite literally said that. Which a lot of times the next generation or previous generation is pretty bitter because they're, they're just, they're, for example, like their back's killing them after, after working hard forever. And they've told their, told their kids, don't do this. Don't be like, me, go to school. Great phrase. Or they have had a shitty life and their kids have seen that and have said, I don't want to do that.
- [23:07]
A
Right.
- [23:08]
B
I don't want to be divorced or I don't want to be an alcoholic or whatever it is, or I don't want my body to look like yours when I'm 62. I just don't want that.
- [23:16]
A
Yep. And I wish it wasn't like this. But, Aaron, I've seen so much of that, especially with the traveling workforce. When you get either really big companies that travel a lot or very specialized companies that are industry specific, you get a traveling workforce because only those travelers or the small pool of travelers who know how to do all the steps on a solar farm or all the steps on a wind farm or all the intricacies of a big data center. That traveling life on the road that a lot of our construction people have lived is, Is so hard on the personal life.
- [23:57]
B
It's, it's, it's so hard. It's. It's hard on anybody. And, and we need those people. We need the traveling people, but we also need to be realistic. And I just don't think we're being realistic or even. Like. I was talking with Randy last night.
- [24:11]
A
How's my buddy Randy?
- [24:13]
B
Oh, he's killing it.
- [24:13]
A
Is he?
- [24:14]
B
Oh, we're having a good time right now. Yeah, we're, we're, we're in the kitchen cooking, and it is, it's a blast. But we're, I mean, the average hours worked in the summer for construction, probably between 60 and 80.
- [24:28]
A
Oh, yeah, I would have said 70 to 75.
- [24:31]
B
70. 75. But if you start to break that down, so that's over 10 hours a day, seven days a week. That's over 12 hours. Like, and then you're driving 45 minutes an hour one way, like there's nothing else in your life.
- [24:46]
A
You're shot, you're shot. You're just shot.
- [24:48]
B
And even if there is, like, what good are you at the end of a 12 hour shift plus an hour one way? If you're lucky, sometimes, sometimes it's a lot more than an hour. I mean you're gone 15 hours and that's. So there's, in that day, there's nine hours left to sleep. Seven to eight hours sleep is what's recommended. So if you're getting recommended sleep, you're only with your family for an hour, if that. And that's not including winding down from work, getting ready for work. Like, it's like, it's not hard to work that out and be like, wait a minute, something doesn't.
- [25:26]
A
Math here, math doesn't work.
- [25:28]
B
And then, and then we, you know, as a construction industry say, well, these people make all this money and it's like they do, but that's because they're working so much overtime a lot of times it's not because their base wage is making them that big money. And now they're kind of addicted to that overtime. And now they have to work 60, 70, 80 hours a week. And maybe in their 20s they want to, but then in their 30s they have two kids now.
- [25:50]
A
Yeah.
- [25:51]
B
And a spouse at home. And that's a different lifestyle. But they've adjusted their lifestyle to this level of income and like you go down the path and it starts to make perfect sense. It's not, it's not crazy.
- [26:06]
A
No. And people can't, people can't keep it up forever. So really good companies are intentional about how they off road people. If they've been on the road three to five years, you know, traveling to remote job sites and they've been maybe three weeks off, three weeks on working and then four to five days off.
- [26:27]
B
Yeah.
- [26:27]
A
Like good companies like design off ramps and so that they can come and work locally and stay in one spot and build a home and build a family and build a life. You can't, you can't keep doing that for 20 or 30 years.
- [26:43]
B
No, it's, I mean, it's like the model I see that I think is honestly quite sustainable. And people might argue with me, but based on what I've seen, I've heard is like fly and fly out mining in Australia. It's on a one week, on one week off schedule. That's how the whole industry works.
- [26:57]
A
Sure.
- [26:58]
B
And Honestly, I think that's a much better quality of life than working on Monday through Friday. And a lot of ways, like, you're seeing your family way more. Way more. One week on one week.
- [27:09]
A
And when you're there, you can be completely there.
- [27:11]
B
And when you're there, you can be there. Exactly. When you're at work, you can just work in a 12 hour shift. That's fine because I'm just here to work and then plus time off. So you're working less than half the year. And that's how they've built, that's how they've modeled the whole industry. Or two weeks on, two weeks off.
- [27:27]
A
Right.
- [27:27]
B
Or three weeks on, three weeks off. That's how the whole thing's been modeled. But I've seen a lot of comments basically saying, like, from the construction industry. Okay, listen, you're not asking me to have a career if I'm working 80 hours a week. You're asking me to have two jobs. That's not one job. That's two jobs. That's two. You're asking me to have 2 jobs.
- [27:50]
A
Yeah. That's brutal, dude. How did you think about this? The winners list and like, how did it evolve over? I think I could remember all seven. Can you remember all seven and have it changed over time as you've been giving that talk?
- [28:09]
B
Yeah, I've tried to. I'm reworking it right now.
- [28:14]
A
You're revamping.
- [28:15]
B
Speaking is really weird. It's a really weird thing. It's not something I ever intended to do. It's not something I ever aimed to do, wanted to do nothing of the sort. It was just years ago I started to get asked here and there. And when you get asked and you're in your 20s, you're like, fuck, I need to sound smart. I need to justify why I'm on the stage.
- [28:44]
A
Or you could show like really cool pictures of like triple sevens and D2s.
- [28:50]
B
I had that. I had that. Yeah. It wasn't like, look at me, I'm amazing. But I'm not. Like, naturally I, I, I, I, I tell people I'm not confident at all. And so in a situation like that that's so wildly uncomfortable, you're trying to justify again, like, why I deserve to be on this stage, et cetera. Sure, because it's so weird. But then it just comes off in the wrong way. I feel like. And I was doing my best at the time, but looking back, it was like, well, no one gives a shit about me. And even I think even lately my talk's been too much about me. I think I can reduce it even further. But what they really care about is like they do care about me in a sense that I have this really unique perspective on the industry and I get to see it more than just about anybody right now. Not just in the U.S. but worldwide, which is crazy. And what am I seeing out there? Like whenever I talk to somebody like you on the phone, number one question I'm asked, so like what are you seeing out there? Yeah, they'll say it like that either.
- [29:58]
A
State of the industry or what are some of the best in class companies that you come across? Like what are they doing? Yeah, but they, that's what they want to know.
- [30:06]
B
And we're like, we're all humans, we're all emotional and we all want to know what other people are doing, what other companies are doing, what other people are feeling and talking about. Like we want to be in the know. But again, everybody's so siloed that it's, I'll talk to a company, I'll talk to an owner of a company running a billion dollar company and they'll ask really basic questions.
- [30:28]
A
Sure.
- [30:28]
B
And that's not because they're dumb, that's just because this is such a siloed world. Or you could be this 800 pound gorilla in the Midwest. You go one state over, no one knows who the hell you are. Like, like, yeah, I could name names.
- [30:45]
A
But don't name names.
- [30:47]
B
Yeah, we, it wasn't in a negative sense, but I won't even go down that path. But once I realized, like wait a minute, I can just inform people, I can just draw some very quick parallels here, connect some dots and then just share with like I'm not here. You know, I told you I went plateau, you know, a month ago. I'm not going to talk to plateau and be like hey guys, here's how to move dirt better. Like they're good, right? We've or Scarborough, like you guys are good or you know anybody anywhere.
- [31:22]
A
I'm here, we know how to do that.
- [31:24]
B
I'm not here to tell you how to build.
- [31:26]
A
Yeah, we got that down.
- [31:27]
B
I'm not here how to tell you how to move dirt. Like I do know a thing or two. I can look at an earthmoving operation and tell you like there's some inefficiencies here by like after learning enough. But that's not the point. The point is here's what the best in class companies are doing. I don't even care what you do with this information, you could dismiss it and say, that doesn't apply to us. Whatever.
- [31:51]
A
It all applies. It's really held. It's helped me. I noticed. I noticed some changes, like as the list has probably evolved and you're working on it now. But some of them. Some of them stick with me. I think I could remember. I could remember most, if not all, but it's. So they teach and train every day.
- [32:10]
B
Yeah. Huge.
- [32:12]
A
That's huge. And they look good.
- [32:16]
B
That one's. That one I have not found an exception to.
- [32:19]
A
Visible leaders. And they. They communicate effectively and they tell their story and did I already say are very profitable.
- [32:30]
B
Yeah, that one's big, too.
- [32:31]
A
Let's hone in on that. Like, you can't. And this was a topic at the Houston Dirt World Summit with. Oh, Chapman.
- [32:45]
B
Yeah, Bob Chapman.
- [32:46]
A
Oh, was he good? And the idea that if you want to take care of your people, you have to be very profitable and think about your business and have a good business model so that you can take care of your people like family. That was so compelling. If you're just profitable for greed's sake and you're not generous or philanthropic, you're not taking care of your people, you're not taking care of the communities where you live and work. Well, what's the point?
- [33:15]
B
Yeah, I had a conversation with him. This was a few years ago now. I was on the road show. It was a week one of the roadshow. And I'm talking to him while I'm sitting in my truck in Texas, and I'm talking to him about our business and just where we were and financially, etc. And it wasn't rosy, which is why I was. I think I was still raising investment at that point. I don't know when it was exactly, but he just goes to me, he's like, so that's where you're at as a business and you're traveling for the next month. Why? And I'm just like, oh, shoot. Yeah. I'm being called out by this guy who I really look like. That book, his book, Everybody Matters.
- [34:06]
A
It's one of the best.
- [34:07]
B
That was. I've read a lot of books at this point.
- [34:09]
A
That's one of the best.
- [34:10]
B
It's one. It's on the short list of like, yeah, wait, this makes sense. I just. I just get it. And it's not theory. Like, the guy. I don't know how many thousands of employees. I mean, maybe 10,000 plus employees. He's not. He's not a slouch. Like, he's Doing just fine. But for people that don't know, it's, it's. The whole premise is, listen, the goal is to really care for people. And if you care for people, your business does better, etc. But you can't care for people if you don't have your business model. Right, right. Like your business model can't be failing.
- [34:48]
A
Exactly. If you care for. If you care for people and you show that you, you care about the community. So companies that are very profitable, they can take the best care of their own people, but they can also do a lot of charity and philanthropy and volunteerism.
- [35:06]
B
Yeah.
- [35:07]
A
Like out in the community. Because they're not, they're not just scraping every last time to try and make payroll.
- [35:13]
B
And they can buy nicer machines, you know, for their people and better tools and new softwares. And like, there's so many different ways that it works. But yeah, if your business model doesn't work, nothing else matters. And that's. We. We had to swallow that hard pill again maybe two, two and a half years ago, maybe a little bit longer now. I was like, listen, it doesn't matter how nice our mission is or what our audience is or anything. Like, the business fails, all that's out the window.
- [35:46]
A
So you started out, though, helping with two of those seven fundamentals is where BuildWith got its start. Like with helping civil companies tell their story and helping civil companies look good. And every way they show up, what's their brand, whether it's how their equipment looks, how their logo looks, how their website looks, how their banners look at a career fair, every place that company can represent itself, the good ones all look good in every venue. And that when they're consistent like that, they don't just have some one off that's kind of thrown together. It's every time they show up anywhere they look good.
- [36:30]
B
Yeah.
- [36:30]
A
It never fails. You spot that company, that's a good company and.
- [36:36]
B
Yeah. And you can tell me that that doesn't matter and you can be a really successful company in which that doesn't matter, but it does matter going forward. And all the companies that are doing really well, especially from an employment standpoint, that's what they're doing.
- [36:52]
A
We're in a war for talent.
- [36:53]
B
Yeah. But even like, like Minnesota, you know, McCrossen, for example, I had no idea who they were, but I saw every time I'd go by a McCrossen site, it's very clear that it's a McCrossen site because they replace the damn cat stickers and make their Own cat sticker.
- [37:12]
A
Their equipment looks amazing.
- [37:14]
B
Their equipment looks.
- [37:14]
A
Just so happens that the company colors go so good on CAD equipment and look so natural.
- [37:22]
B
Yeah.
- [37:23]
A
When you swap out the CAD stickers for the CS McCrossen logos, it looks awesome.
- [37:28]
B
It looks awesome because they're.
- [37:29]
A
Couldn't agree more.
- [37:30]
B
Yeah, they're like reworking the stickers that come with the machine, but with their brand. It's like I'd never seen that before and I thought that was the coolest thing. I knew nothing about the company or vite, for example. You know how many people talk to me about Veit? They're not a giant contractor.
- [37:49]
A
Right.
- [37:49]
B
I mean, they're, they're a giant in the Minnesota market, but they're not like a granite or, you know, one of those. Yeah. A keywit, for example. But man, they're probably top three contractor I'm asked about.
- [38:05]
A
Really?
- [38:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, all the time. Because. Because largely because they look good. And Vaughn has been dead serious about that since they began. And it goes a long ways. Or me, I went to work for Kiewit. I didn't know anything about Kiewit, but they looked really cool. They looked badass. They looked like it was like the New York Yankees, man. They're like. They just had this swagger and this. They were good and they knew it and I wanted to be a part of that. Sign me up. Like, I want to be part of a winning team. Let's go. Yeah, let's go. And that's why I got a job.
- [38:43]
A
At Qubit, because they looked good and that. There's another thing I've taken since I've gotten to know you and kind of be in your network and get to know some of the people, you know, like the people life cycle. So the things that stuck with me are these seven traits that winners do and the people life cycle. So it's attract and then it's recruit and hire, and then it's onboard and train. Then it's engage and retain. If you were to add a fifth part to the people life cycle, it's probably build leaders. Some facet of leadership development that I think good companies do too. But now, like, your focus is probably shifted away a little bit from the attract and much more towards the onboard and train and engage and retrain. Am I right on that? On the. The focus of build wit?
- [39:41]
B
Yeah, I, I think if it's a leaking boat, you've got to. You've got to plug the holes.
- [39:49]
A
Keep your own people first.
- [39:50]
B
You've got to plug the holes. And so even if you just reduced turnover at most of these companies by 50%, that's all you kind of need to do. And I mean, I just talked to Glenn Baranko. He was in here maybe a few weeks ago. I don't know when it was. I feel like they're, I think their turnover was down 70% in one year.
- [40:13]
A
Holy smokes. Branco Brothers of North Dakota.
- [40:16]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not far, not far from Minnesota.
- [40:19]
A
I'm a student of construction. I love construction.
- [40:22]
B
But there, I mean there. And this is all stuff he said and this is, this is all stuff he would, he would tell you. Like they were a traditional contractor, civil contractor, just a few years ago they started doing some really simple stuff from a people standpoint. And he, to Glenn's credit, he's just dove in head first. It's awesome to see. But he's just like, I've just been doing what these other contractors that you talk about are doing and they've reduced their turnover by 70%. Now do you still have to hire people? Sure. But if you've reduced that turnover, like word of mouth, you're going to get more word of mouth. You don't need to hire as many people. You're going to be just better known as a better place of employment. Like the attract thing almost starts to take care of itself.
- [41:07]
A
It does. Because if they're like the thing that really drives engagement and retention is if all the people have pride in the place they work. If they think my company looks good, we do cool jobs, we're generous in the community. Look at all these events that we sponsor and how we take care of the others in our community. If they have pride in where they work and if they feel like they have a sense of belonging. If you can build a sense of belonging, that's the number one key ingredient to engagement and retention. People feel like I belong here. That's, it's everything. The trick is there's not a belonging button you can push because every, every one of your people has a different driver, has a different priority of what it feels like to them to belong. So you guess what, you got to know your people.
- [42:07]
B
But it's, but it's not that complicated. At the same time, like going back to some of the traits like visible leaders, like that's such low hanging fruit.
- [42:18]
A
Gotta show up.
- [42:20]
B
You've just gotta talk to people.
- [42:22]
A
Yeah.
- [42:22]
B
And it's, and this is something I've heard from a lot of construction company owners, they're now doing onboarding and the CEO or whoever Leads the company. Glenn going back to Branco. They'll be part of that onboarding. So Glenn takes everybody out to lunch their first. First week. So it's like every Monday or every Friday. Whenever onboarding is, he takes everybody out to lunch. And. And this isn't something I've heard just from him. This is something I've heard from a lot of these people. And. And that is. I've worked at a lot of construction companies. I've never met who runs the show.
- [42:56]
A
Oh, really?
- [42:57]
B
I've never even. I've never had lunch with a construction company owner. Like, that's so simple. That doesn't take very much time, very much energy, but it goes so far for these individuals. And that's not.
- [43:14]
A
It's jet fuel.
- [43:15]
B
Yeah, but that. And that's not to say, like, that's the end all, be all. Just go to lunch with people. When they start, you're good to go. But like, to set the tone, I'm telling you, that's not normal. Most people working in the industry have never met who the hell they're working for, which is crazy. Which is crazy.
- [43:34]
A
That is not the case where I work every. Everyone knows Brent so well. He is a man of the people. He loves being in the field. He's always out on the jobs and goes around and gives everyone a hug. And he knows their story, and he helps them out, like, the whole person, if they're going through anything. He just. He's a really busy guy, but he drops what he's doing and he makes time for him. And he's.
- [43:58]
B
That's why.
- [43:59]
A
Very, very visible.
- [44:01]
B
That's why you guys have such a great reputation. Like, it starts there.
- [44:04]
A
Yeah.
- [44:05]
B
It starts with the guy like, his name's on the company.
- [44:09]
A
Yeah.
- [44:10]
B
He carries more weight than anybody else at that company. For better, for worse.
- [44:13]
A
It's true.
- [44:14]
B
You can. You can wield it in a. In a positive way, or you can not wield it. And I see people, for whatever reason, not wield it for all different types of reasons.
- [44:22]
A
Yeah.
- [44:23]
B
If you're a leader, you don't know how to speak. You are leaving so much on the table.
- [44:29]
A
The job is chief communicator. That's the job.
- [44:34]
B
Yeah.
- [44:35]
A
I mean, anything else that you do, you could be chief strategist or chief builder. And in the civil industry, like, a lot of experts migrate to those top leadership positions, you know, because they were either. They were really good dozer operator and they got elevated to a foreman.
- [44:54]
B
Yeah.
- [44:55]
A
Or they were really good project manager or really good estimator and they got elevated because of that leadership by expertise into these higher and higher and higher up positions. But if they can't communicate, none of the rest of it matters.
- [45:12]
B
No. And they're. I mean, there's a lot of people in pretty high up positions that can't communicate. Like even a lot of like Fortune 500 CEOs. It's like, wow. You really don't know how to say like. Any original thoughts? Which is to me one of the most surprised. Like, I thought these were like cream of the crop. It's like. No, they just, they're really good at saying the talking points really well, but nothing original.
- [45:39]
A
But if you only stick to the talking points too, if you only read from a script, even if you say it really well, and you have like presence and charisma and flair, it doesn't matter because it's not authentic. You have to have both things. You have to be authentic, speak from the heart, and you have to be clear and kind of organized with your message.
- [46:03]
B
Yeah. I mean, those people, like, it's kind of like the media. I mean, everything's unraveled for these people really quickly. And that's what's wild, is like, hey, that doesn't work anymore, man. Like, you talking like that, that you sound ridiculous and like, why. I don't want to be part of that. I don't want to work for somebody like that. I want to work for somebody that can just talk freely.
- [46:23]
A
Right.
- [46:24]
B
Like a human being.
- [46:25]
A
Yeah.
- [46:27]
B
Like, that's all I want. I don't know. It's not that hard.
- [46:32]
A
Where were we?
- [46:33]
B
How did you find. How did you find Scarborough?
- [46:35]
A
Oh, boy. This was. It was a long. It was a long time developing. But someone who was a board member of Scarborough I got to be really good friends with three or so years ago. And he and I have stayed in close contact and we, I mean, we knew we admired each other. I've admired Scarborough for a long time. They're an incredible firm, and it took a long time to put the pieces together and make it fit in the personal life. What Carrie, my wife and I didn't realize is that, I mean, we raised three really successful, amazing sons. They're 26 and 25 and 22, and they're all thriving. So what we thought was, well, we're in our 50s. We're like empty nesters. We can do whatever we want and go have a southern adventure and kind of explore a new area of the country. What we didn't realize, though, was the amount of elder care we were going to have to do in taking care of our parents. And of course, I wouldn't trade it for a minute. Like we're blessed to be able to take care of them. But we kind of went right exactly from raising our boys to caring for our parents. And so that, that just made me do a little pause on my career for a year, year and a half. And then we picked it back up. Well.
- [48:05]
B
Cause before that you went pretty hard.
- [48:07]
A
Hard.
- [48:08]
B
Like you had hard charges. Yeah, yeah. You did a long stint at a very, very well known civil contractor.
- [48:16]
A
Born son.
- [48:17]
B
Well, no, before that.
- [48:18]
A
Oh, McCrossen.
- [48:19]
B
McCrossen.
- [48:20]
A
Those two places made me.
- [48:21]
B
Then you went and those two places made me.
- [48:24]
A
I learned about. I learned about construction, especially civil construction. I fell in love with it at McCross and was such a cool place to learn because we did everything. We did. We did removals and grading and crushing and pipe and asphalt paving and concrete paving. We built bridges and walls and structures and we drove piling and deep foundations. Every element of civil construction I got to see, I got to learn about, like how it was done because it was a pretty. I mean, a pretty lean highway contractor. And so you didn't just do one job. You got to do. I got to do all the jobs. Some days I'd be like a foreman or a soup. Some days I'd be an engineer. Some days I'd be an estimator, some days I'd be a project manager. But I got to see it all. So it was a wonderful place to learn. But then where I learned about business and strategy and leadership and people and culture was Mortensen. And we built up a civil group there that really now continues to thrive. And I'm really close to them. My son still works there. Like, I stay close to all those people. They're some of my best friends I have. And I was just. I just wanted to try something, try something different.
- [49:47]
B
The one, like the one bone I'll throw to the GCS is they are very sophisticated.
- [49:53]
A
They're very sophisticated.
- [49:55]
B
Very sophisticated.
- [49:56]
A
And when it comes in, the thing that Mortensen had going, at least the civil group that we built at Mortensen, and that's where I put it in the bucket. Of these seven traits that the winners have, very profitable is the one I'm thinking of. But it's because of the markets and customers they have. It isn't just randomly bidding to anyone who sends you an invite. It's a very carefully crafted positioning plan with exactly the customers you want in. Exactly. Like the Markets and industries. You want where you want it.
- [50:33]
B
Yeah.
- [50:34]
A
And that, that sort of intentionality about business development, market development, customer positioning plans, that, that is priceless. Well, I think that drives a lot. If you have the markets, you can.
- [50:52]
B
Make everything else work in the markets are just, you're just serving a more sophisticated customer. Like no offense to a state dot, but like dealing with a Google or a Meta. Yeah, Meta. Or Mayo Clinic. These are just like some of the most refined organizations in the world or.
- [51:17]
A
Many like big health care systems.
- [51:20]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:20]
A
Or I mean they probably built big business stadiums. 50 stadiums across the country.
- [51:27]
B
Yeah, stadiums. Another one. Like you're just, you are dealing with.
- [51:31]
A
A different level of customer and you can't just wing it like the plan. The projects are so complicated. The customers demand such a high level of performance and results. You can't just wing it. So I was going to make a suggestion maybe for the traits of the winners of that. I think you can't really be in the winter class if as an organization you're not a good planner. I think all the winners are good planners. That can be. And that can mean a bunch of different things. It can be, they're good at daily work plans. They get with their crews and the foreman and the sups are really good at laying out the plan of the day. And they teach their people every day. Here's what we're going to do. Here's the haul routes we want you to take. Here's where you're going to park. Here's where the utilities are. Here's where the traffic impacts are. But really good about planning their work and then really good about maybe the long term planning of projects. Because those sophisticated customers, they don't care what, they don't care what happened along the way.
- [52:47]
B
Yeah.
- [52:48]
A
You're gonna deliver that project early.
- [52:50]
B
Oh yeah.
- [52:50]
A
You have to deliver early. Just on time or a few months late with good excuses. Doesn't work.
- [52:58]
B
Yeah. NFL's goal is gonna deliver it early.
- [53:02]
A
It has to be ready. And so I think you gotta be really good at kind of the longer term like project planning too. And then the really good ones, if they can parlay that into good business planning too so that they can develop a plan for the business. Here's what we're going to do this year. Here's we're going to be in the next three to five years. And here's the long term plan of where we're going.
- [53:29]
B
Yeah.
- [53:30]
A
And they can communicate that to their people because it like it serves two purposes. If you're a good planner, it's like good strategy. You have a wealth out thing that's going to work in advance and that's good for its own sake. But also it drives so much confidence and trust in your people when they think who's leading. The firm has a plan and so it doesn't do any good to write the plan and have it be 75 or 100 pages long and really complicated and just put it on the shelf and not communicate it. It's gotta be concise and visual and something you can use to communicate to your people and be transparent about. This is where we're going. So I think planning might be a trait of the winners too.
- [54:22]
B
I think that's. And we'll have a further conversation about that.
- [54:28]
A
Okay.
- [54:28]
B
It's interesting you bring that up, but I do think it's a dichotomy because I think you can go. And this is something I've also started to notice. Just a trend.
- [54:38]
A
Okay, lay it on me.
- [54:40]
B
You can go. You can be, you can be too rigid. You can be too by the book too systems oriented to command and control. And it's, it's a, it's still a dynamic world we're in. Like, again, that's. I do, I love civil construction because it's so dynamic. Like, sure, there's plenty of variables in a building, but once you get it dried in, you're in control of that environment.
- [55:08]
A
Kind of like clockwork.
- [55:09]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're in control of that environment. Whereas a road and. Or you can put up a big fence around your job site and you can give only people you want with, you know, to be in their badges and you can have the security firm manage the fence outside and not let anybody in and be super rude to people. No, that would never happen. Whereas civil construction, like you're building a highway, you can't say who comes through your job.
- [55:35]
A
Drive right in.
- [55:35]
B
You've got 100,000 people a day, 100,000 cars a day coming through there. Whether you like it or not. You still have to get the work done. It's a really dynamic environment and you need systems planning process. But you also need culture, because culture is where that enables people to. That. That decentralized command.
- [55:57]
A
Jocko.
- [55:58]
B
Yeah.
- [55:58]
A
Taught us that.
- [55:59]
B
Exactly. Which is, you know, people need to make decisions in real time. They need to be empowered to make those decisions in real time. And so yes, there is a plan, but that plan is and will change over the course of a civil construction project.
- [56:14]
A
It changes every day.
- [56:15]
B
Yeah. And the people Doing the work really good.
- [56:18]
A
React to it. Yes, they react to it and they just. They're even thoughtful about. Because every day there's a change. There's never where exactly on a civil job. It never goes just exactly like you think it was going to. Like you laid out on that plan of the day. But the really good field leaders react to that. And then they communicate what changed and they tell all the people on the job, on the crew, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, this changed from our plan of the day. Now we're going to do this. This is how to do it. And they have to be able to like shoot from the hip and react. But man, they have to communicate what that plan change is. Because if you just let. If you just let folks totally choose their own adventure. Like you got a piece of equipment stuck, it's blocking the haul road. And now that would never happen. They're just panicking. Everyone's panicking. And they got excavators rallying over there to try and dig it out. And then someone hooked up to it with a D8 and they didn't make a work plan of how they're going to get that piece of equipment unstuck. Guess that's how you get people hurt.
- [57:23]
B
Yeah.
- [57:24]
A
If you just go just half cocked and everyone just panics and says, oh my gosh, that thing's stuck. We got to get it unstuck as fast as we can. The really good field leaders, they'll take a walk around it and they'll say, no, this is what we're going to do. I need an excavator to make us some paths out for these tracks. And then we're going to hook onto it with this machine and make sure.
- [57:46]
B
We use people clear.
- [57:49]
A
We're going to have the right cables and straps to pull this thing out. So even when the plans change and the civil job site is dynamic, the ones who are really good, they even communicate well about the change.
- [58:04]
B
But. But that's what I love about it. I love. Like I've reflected upon this a lot. I've. One of the reasons why I fell in love with civil construction is that it's a dynamic environment like we've been talking about. You are solving problems nonstop. There is a little bit of chaos at all times, a little bit of. And it's controlled in an ideal scenario. But there's. It is a chaotic environment.
- [58:35]
A
Very.
- [58:35]
B
And. And it's fun. And. And that's what makes it fun. Like that's. That's a big part of what makes it fun.
- [58:43]
A
The action makes it fun.
- [58:44]
B
Yeah. And just that, that problem solving and working hard alongside others and things going wrong and like that, that's very attractive. It's very human. But there's like a lot of these bigger firms and this is not popular, but especially from a safety stand, they are trying to sterilize the hell out of the industry. And that to me drives me nuts because that like it takes. I've been to places that are safe and fun and safe and miserable. Been to both of those. Like, I don't think safety has anything to do with fun or misery, but they just, there's these command and control environments. We're gonna treat you like a six year old. We're going to treat you like a fucking child. And you can't do anything without asking us and we're going to reprimand you if you don't do it or we're going to fire you. This and that, like it doesn't work. But that is pretty commonplace now.
- [59:44]
A
Some, there's some especially, there's some that are like really rigid and have the organizational discipline and they do have the safety function. Like a safety copy.
- [59:57]
B
Yeah.
- [59:57]
A
And that doesn't work. When safety works, the number one ingredient, maybe number two, number one ingredient is craft engagement. So that the people who are doing the work understand the plan and they have a really high level of caring. They care about the quality of their workmanship. They care about being the brothers and sisters keeper. It's about like caring and culture and engagement. It's not about rules, regulations, all of the chapter and verse of the OSHA regulations. It's not that. It's not about safety. Cops going around with a clipboard writing people up. I would say caring is the thing. And yeah, I'm pretty passionate about that. Scarborough is an amazing safety, amazing safety culture, which I mean bears out in the stats. We have an EMR of 0.53. We're one of the safest contractors I've ever seen. But those come later. If you care about being your brothers and sisters keeper and you care about the quality of the work and the quality of your plan, the stats take care of themselves. We're not trying to shoot for the stats. We're trying to shoot for having a good culture where people are taken care of and they go home safe.
- [61:17]
B
But this is where, and it's. Contractors have good intentions. They, they go after the stats and it's like, to me as a laborer, I don't give a shit about your stats. I'm sorry, Like, I just don't care. I don't even understand. I don't. You know, I'm a laborer, I'm an operator. I don't even know what the hell an EMR is, okay? So like I don't, I don't even know how to do anything about it because I don't even understand what it is, why it's there.
- [61:41]
A
They can't affect it.
- [61:42]
B
And it's so it's just again, it's. It's like I've just collected this data. We just had it this other day go to a blattner job. And we were with the, you know, you go up and you know when they're doing top out, there's like the little sign outside, you know the road leading up to the pad, the whatever the hell the. I don't know the technical terms of.
- [62:02]
A
Wind farm turbine erection area.
- [62:03]
B
Turbine erection area. You call, you call the foreman and just before you start walking in because they're lifting stuff and I, I can very comfortably walk around like a scraper spread. I've done that enough. I know where the scrapers are going to be. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna be very respectful. Like I respect the scraper spread, but I know enough where they're gonna be, where they're not gonna be. Your haul trucks, excavators, dozers, cranes. Totally out of my element. So I'm gonna be as careful as can be. But you call them and you go over to them, you meet them and every one of them. We went to three sites the other day. Every one of them super practical, super caring. You could tell they legitimately, like they, they weren't reading off a clipboard. It was like, hey, here's what's going on today. Here's what we're about to do. Here's where I wouldn't stand. I wouldn't stand over there for this reason. I'd watch out for this reason. You could be over here. Like they were just very helpful. Very. Like you could tell they legitimately cared. They were there to just do the job and do it safely and they wanted everybody to go home.
- [63:07]
A
That's the number one ingredient.
- [63:09]
B
That is it.
- [63:09]
A
That's the number one ingredient.
- [63:11]
B
But it's not all the time, really. No, especially people that are from an office setting, I think struggle with it because they're not, they're not in the work every day. And there's some great people in the office from a safety standpoint, phenomenal, that are very practical, very caring. But then some other people. I Just don't think they know any better. And it's very much like they, this is what the book says and we're just going to do it by the book. And if you don't like that, I don't know what to tell you. And that to me, I don't know why, but I'm just like, I'm out. I don't want anything to do with it. And even if it's in my best interest, I'm still like the lizard brains. Just like, fuck this guy. Like, that's all I'm thinking every time.
- [63:54]
A
Another really key ingredient, Aaron, though, in that I think build what can affect. Build what can affect. With the training software is the safest workers also happen to be the best trained. So if they're really well trained in how their machine works or if they're on a pipe crew, how exactly do you put together a trench box? And how do you stack this manhole? And how are we going to shape and pour this invert and build this doghouse? If we can train people really well, either they accumulate those skills over experience over 20 or 30 years in the industry and their tuition is like pound of flesh and a pint of blood.
- [64:41]
B
But that doesn't work anymore.
- [64:42]
A
Or if we can accelerate that training. And I think especially there is a big opportunity to widen how we're using video training. At one of the conferences, I watched a talk that Ryan Schmidt did about how they're using video swis, video work instructions for the 90% of the work that their crews. They're doing a lot of pipe work and some dirt work, but they have for their standard manhole configurations, these standard work instructions that are video swis, really, really effective to keep people safe, build their skills. And also guess what, the finished product turns out better too. So it's very much a quality metric or like a quality criteria too. As if you can train on the work that you're going to see from job to job, day in, day out. If you can have a really good way to serve up that training of this in a video for the best case, or at least with like photos and pics in the next best case, if you can, if you can show this is what good looks like, that's a huge opportunity. Because our industry hasn't done as much of that as what can be done.
- [65:58]
B
It doesn't do it really at all. I mean, that's why. But that's why we have a business. That's why we've created 2000 plus.
- [66:04]
A
I wasn't planting That I wasn't planting that as a seed for build with training. I do actually think that.
- [66:10]
B
Well, there's, there's two points I go back to with that. It's, it's one, most people in the previous generation, they came up on job sites as a child. A lot of people grew up in the industry, you bet. And they, they, they were trained as a child, which is hugely advantageous in a lot of ways, and, or they screwed a lot of things up. They either injured themselves, injured somebody else, God forbid, but that happened a lot, or they just damaged stuff. A lot of rework, A lot of equipment damage. How many pictures do you see of old machines rolled over all the time?
- [66:51]
A
And how many too were entering our industry from farming and agriculture?
- [66:57]
B
Yeah, exactly. They were around under the dad, working.
- [67:00]
A
Around tractors and heavy equipment every day and fixing on the tractors with their dad. They knew their way around, were mechanically inclined as they were raised.
- [67:09]
B
Yeah, well, now we don't have that.
- [67:11]
A
We don't have that.
- [67:12]
B
No, we don't. We don't. We only really have kids that have grown up in a neighborhood. So one, there's no background experience coming in. Two, now there's zero tolerance for any kind of. You can't even have in your mist nowadays, so you can't even almost have an accident. And I'm not saying, like that's a good thing, but it's completely unrealistic if you just. Well, we just do on the job training, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, that, that can't work. You can't have on the job training and zero accidents and zero misses. Especially when that's how you learned. Like, how many, how many accidents have you had in your career? How many pieces of equipment have you damaged? How many near misses have you had coming up to build the level of experience you have? But now you're saying that can't happen. And I get it. Like, that's where the industry is. But then you, but, but then there's no training. It's like, well, which is it? Pick one. You're clearly having to pick this one. The industry is just dictating that now. Yep, but, but then there's nothing over here. Wait a minute. Like, what the heck's going on? And the other, the other thing I talk a lot about now is like the whole stop work authority thing. The whole time I was in construction, I had stop work authority. But how do I know when to stop work? How do I know if something's unsafe?
- [68:33]
A
Right?
- [68:34]
B
I don't, I don't I learned some.
- [68:39]
A
Lessons in my 20s that just, that just stuck with I didn't know any better.
- [68:43]
B
Yeah, you don't know any better. You don't know any better until you're, until you're, until you're taught. And a lot of times you've got to get the shit scared out of you. Like, I've been part of a lot of safety training more than just about anybody. Again, because of all these sites I go to.
- [69:00]
A
Sure.
- [69:02]
B
When they show you what can happen when something goes wrong, that's what stuck with me. Like, listen, this is why you don't get into a trench without a trench box. Like, here's some guy that died as a result. Okay, noted. You don't need to tell me twice.
- [69:17]
A
And that, that does resonate though that if you can make, if you can make safety personal, not read from the OSHA regulations and talk about ladders and scaffolding and forklift training and yada yada, yada, all that jazz, but if you can make it personal. Yeah, man. People remember that.
- [69:40]
B
Yeah.
- [69:41]
A
And everyone, if they've been in this industry, if they've been in this industry any length of time, everyone has a story of where someone got hurt, seriously hurt, maybe nearly died or died. I mean if you can tell those stories, those stick with people so much more than just the rags.
- [70:01]
B
But that, but those are the exact stories that are covered up, that are never talked about. And I get why, but those are the stories that should be talked about the most. 100% like the shit that has really gone wrong. Every company has those stories.
- [70:16]
A
Yeah.
- [70:16]
B
Every company. Like no one. Again, this is a really dynamic environment. No one, no one has, has made it out from that. And I get like the whole PR public perspective this and that. But honestly, me, just as an outsider whenever some civil company posts even like haul truck rolled over and just here's what happened and why. I have way more trust and respect for that company.
- [70:42]
A
Sure.
- [70:43]
B
Way more trust and respect for that company.
- [70:45]
A
Don't you see? Because I sure have seen this. Aaron, I don't know if you picked up on this, but safety pros and like the, the safety industry within construction is a lot more cooperative and collaborative between companies than the one and more they're more inclined to share these stories with their peer companies, with their peer groups, and maybe even just wider publicly when there's an incident the rest of the industry can learn from. They do. Safety does seem to be more collaborative certainly than like production or efficiency. They're not. Companies aren't sharing they're not sharing secrets about that. But safety does seem more collaborative to me.
- [71:30]
B
It's more collaborative about the stuff we're doing right. I feel like, okay, and I'm happy to be proven wrong. But again, it's. It's all. Everything we're doing right. I don't. The only time I see big whoopsies typically are when it's like a really big whoopsie. It's on the news and there's. Yeah, it's on the news. OSHA's involved. M. Shaw's involved. Like it's being legally. Like it's being disclosed for reasons outside of their control is the only time I see it.
- [72:03]
A
You bet.
- [72:03]
B
And again, I'm happy to be wrong, but.
- [72:10]
A
Well, it could be another. We're adding to your list might be a top 10 of winners because there's no winners, especially in civil construction. If we're talking about the top 10% who are doing it best, they're not just producing financial results. They're also producing really good safety results. Really good quality results. Really good, like team member engagement and customer experience results. Really good environmental management. Producing results is more than just about financials. And the really good companies, they're not just good at financials. There's none of them who aren't all so good at safety. They couldn't be good in all those other areas, but just have a shitty safety program and they're getting people hurt. They're not gonna make it.
- [73:01]
B
No, no. No one wants to work at a company like that. And no one's gonna hire a company like that nowadays. Because now your safety record is. I mean, that, like that dictates the quality of your business.
- [73:11]
A
Huge selection criteria.
- [73:12]
B
Yeah.
- [73:12]
A
Yeah, it certainly is in our business because we're working. I mean, we're working for data center customers, like same kind of ones that we discussed earlier with Mortensen. Data center customers. Big commercial and industrial clients who are doing really complex work in metro areas. Renewable energy clients, especially in the solar industry. And it's the price of admission. You can't even get a conversation. If your safety program isn't world class, you can't get a conversation. These customers demand it and they should.
- [73:54]
B
Yeah. And they like going back to. I think there's multiple ways of getting there. I think there's the command and control way. You do what we say or else go find another job. Or there's the cultural way, like backed by the systems and processes. But that's the way I will choose the cultural way. 10 out of 10 times.
- [74:15]
A
That's the way.
- [74:16]
B
10 out of 10.
- [74:17]
A
That's the only way that I've seen that's worked.
- [74:20]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the other way works. I do think the other way works. I just think.
- [74:28]
A
I don't think it's sustainable.
- [74:29]
B
It's. I don't think it is either. And it's pretty miserable. Like, that's going back to the whole fun thing. I really think the best crews, the best operations I've been around, people enjoy what the hell is going on. They're having fun. They don't hate everybody that they work with. They don't hate who they work for. They don't hate the company. Like, they're genuinely. You can tell they're enjoying what's going on. And you go to other sites, other operations where it's like somebody died, and it's like, what is going on here?
- [75:00]
A
Like, we used to have this acronym we called FERC and that we were trying to describe before I even knew. I didn't even know anything. I was a young leader. I didn't know anything about marketing or communications or social media or culture. I was just trying to figure out words that described our culture and how we want to be as a form of decentralized command, I suppose so that folks, when they're out on these remote jobs way all over the country, they can revert to this pretty simple acronym to know how we'd want them to act when we're not there. And it was ferc. And FERC stands for Fun, Ethics, Results and Kindness. And everyone could remember it. It's okay to have fun at work.
- [75:52]
B
Yeah, I think it's essential. It's just I went through a few years where I wasn't having fun, and it's like, what was I doing? And that's when everything sucked.
- [76:03]
A
You're about, I wasn't having fun.
- [76:05]
B
And it's almost like the state of mind, like, it isn't part of your environment, too. I do think you can be an environment that's just not fun or even like a losing job. Like, being on a losing job sucks.
- [76:19]
A
It is a grind.
- [76:20]
B
It's a grind.
- [76:21]
A
It is a grind, but you can.
- [76:23]
B
Still take it in two different directions. You can still look at it like this challenge, but in a positive way, or you can just let it pull you under and pull everybody else under at the same time. But it's just something I've reflected upon more and more. Like, the fun thing, I think is.
- [76:46]
A
Absolutely, that's a key ingredient.
- [76:47]
B
I think it's. It is a key ingredient. And I think there's these corporate forces that are trying to sterilize the industry, but that's like the opposite of where we need to go. And that's the opposite of why I came here. Because there's a lot of other. Like you go work for a bank, there's not a lot of fun being had. Honestly.
- [77:08]
A
Probably not. Like, that's probably not the core value when you walk into the bank.
- [77:13]
B
I don't think fun is a core value of a bank. Like every time I've walked into a bank, I'm like, oh boy, let's get out of here as quickly as possible. But not to beat up other, other worlds, but, but we kind of have to stick up for ourselves. At the same time it's like, listen, there's all these other industries out there that are like, some are kind of necessary, others I don't believe are all that necessary, but still make all the money and take it from everybody else. But that's beside the point.
- [77:43]
A
Ours is vital. We're doing it.
- [77:45]
B
Ours is not just. It's not just vital, it's exciting. It's fun. Like it should be. It should be fun. Like we, we shouldn't, we shouldn't be miserable. Because like, I learned this in Arizona. When you're working over the summer in Phoenix, Arizona and everybody that says, oh, it's a dry heat, like you haven't, you haven't worked in Phoenix, Arizona in the summer. If you're saying that when it's115,117 and you're in a ditch, if you're not having fun, you want to go run in front of traffic, like, it's just what gets you through the day. You won't do the job if you're not having a good time.
- [78:28]
A
And those crews though, the crews that are really close knit, the people know everyone, they're having fun at work, they know about their stories. They might get together a little bit after work or outside of work. I mean, that's how you develop caring about the people you're working with. And if you're having that, you can also get a sense of belonging on that crew or on that team. And that's just, yeah, without that, I don't know, I don't know how to create that without injecting a little fun into work. I think it's vital, I think it's essential.
- [79:00]
B
And I, I think that's also where the Hispanics have a leg up, honestly, because it's, it's just more cultural for Them, it's more familial. And so they. They treat everybody like a family. And not to say Americans or whatever, we don't. But it's. It's not nearly like that. Like Phoenix, me working with a bunch of Mexican guys, it's like they. Once you earn their trust, you become part of the little family. And once you're in, you're in. And it's. It's an awesome feeling to know that, like, man, these guys, they might give me a lot of shit and they might call me a lot of bad words, but that's because I'm in. And they're going to go to bat for me. They're going to look out for me if I'm doing anything unsafe. I know they're gonna get me out of that as quickly as possible. I know they're here to help me if I need help. I know they're really here to care for me. And that is an undefeated feeling.
- [79:52]
A
Brent and I, Brent Scarborough and I were on a job a few months ago, and our surveyor on the job is a Hispanic gentleman. And Brent went over and gave him a hug and asked him how his familia was doing. And he said, Mr. Brent, Mr. Brent, look at this video. And he showed a video of his family having just celebrated Christmas altogether, and just the amount of importance he put on his family and having that time together. And he was. There was 20 people in this teeny, tiny little house, but they all cooked together, and they sang together and they prayed together, and it was. It was really moving how proud he was to share that family experience with Brent. And it certainly made an impact on me to see that, you know.
- [80:44]
B
Yeah, it's huge. Yeah. How has it been being new?
- [80:49]
A
How about being a Yankee in the South?
- [80:51]
B
Well, that, too, yeah. Just culturally, so culturally, you're in a way different world for a few different reasons. Like, again, Mortensen runs like a Swiss watch for good reason. And not to say the south doesn't run that way, but it's. It's just a different. I feel like a different vibe, especially in the Southeast.
- [81:13]
A
Oh.
- [81:14]
B
Like, culturally speaking, how the work is done and it kind of person.
- [81:19]
A
It is wide open, a thousand miles an hour. The pace. Yeah, the pace is incredible because the market in the Southeast is still booming.
- [81:28]
B
You're in a crazy.
- [81:28]
A
Like, it probably can't go. It cannot go like this forever, but it is a boom. So the pace is really, really fast. The people are awesome. I really like the people. And when I've been thinking about this a Lot. Because as companies get big, Scarborough's a big firm, 750 people, and we're working all over the Southeast on big, complicated projects. And I mean, you think, geez, as you get to a certain size, do you have to have more organizational discipline and process and procedure, or do you have to just make sure, no matter what, you preserve the thing that got you here, which is letting the builders build, making sure they have the time to think about how to do the job safe and do the job fast and take care of our customers and our people, give them time to think. If you burden them with a bunch of administrative bullshit and nuance, you're going to undermine the very thing that got you here. So this is a tough thing and a barrier for some companies to grow if they can't figure out how to keep that special sauce that got you there. You've got really good builders who know how to build. You can't have them sitting in the truck doing paperwork for four hours a day. I mean, they've got to be out there commanding the construction site and being present in the work, and they got to be there. So how do we, the office people, like, how do we get the information we need to be able to plan and track the jobs, but not put that on our field people? And I think tech is going to be a big part of that. I think that was another one. And they can be. I don't know if it has to be on the list of winners, trades. Maybe there's a way to be successful without tech, but I think that's a huge part of it, of how companies. And we're trying this with a bunch of different software implementations at Scarborough right now. How can we a explain the why of it? Not just we bought this new software package, so you should use it because we spent a lot of money on it. No, no, no, no. Why is it going to make your job faster and easier? How is it going to give you more information about the construction site so you can make faster and better decisions?
- [84:02]
B
And then it has to follow up.
- [84:03]
A
But it had to follow through. You got to really do it. And it's got to be not. It's got to be not adding an administrative burden. We're hiring builders who know how to build. If we want to computer people to run computers, that's a different job. We want our builders to build. And so striking that balance of having something that is almost so intuitive, making sure our software systems, they see them making their jobs easier and better, and it's not hard to Use. How do we, how can we strike that balance so that we think about that a lot.
- [84:42]
B
Is it, is it hard for you to go from this multi billion dollar behemoth that is very sophisticated to just a, I mean it's just a different size class of company? Like it's in, just in the, it's not better or worse, it's just way different.
- [85:02]
A
It's really fun.
- [85:03]
B
Yeah. Is it?
- [85:04]
A
It's really, really fun. You're a little, you're a little closer to the work, you're a little closer to the action and I don't know, it feels really good because a lot of, a lot of what I know is what we need right now.
- [85:22]
B
Yeah.
- [85:23]
A
So a lot of my, a lot of my stuff can, a lot of my stuff can help. Some of the different, some of the different initiatives we're doing can really help. But I'm mindful every day of geez, we can't bog this down. We can't bog this down with paperwork or administrative nuances getting in the way of how we got here if we keep our eyes on that every day. But it's been really fun. It's been the most fun I've had it work in a long time.
- [85:55]
B
Well, that's a good, I mean the mates that means so fun.
- [85:58]
A
It's hard to find your fit though.
- [86:00]
B
Yeah, it is. It took you a little bit, it.
- [86:02]
A
Took me a minute to find the fit and once you do it, because there's, there's a lot of good companies but everyone is not a fit at every place. And so like as you go through your career and we could do a little bit of a little career management or career planning talk too for our younger listeners of like start to think when you're in your 20s and 30s, what, what drives you? What do you want to get out of your career? What motivates you? And think about what company traits have that where you want to go work and then sort of where you're really going to, you're going to really feel fit. I have that now and it's kind of awesome.
- [86:45]
B
But it's, it, I mean it took you a few years to figure that out.
- [86:48]
A
It did, yeah.
- [86:49]
B
And. But this is where I think people are overly loyal to employers. And I'm saying that as an employer and I just had a conversation with another employer about this and he said you're even with your employer every two weeks. And it's like, that is true. And that's a like. And I mean that in a really positive way, especially from an employment standpoint, like, listen, I don't have an appointment, I don't have a contract with anybody that works here. Sure, they can at any time call me and say, I'm going somewhere else. So if I don't justify why this is best for them here in all different ways, in pay and benefits and purpose, culture, the work we're doing, et cetera, all of it, they're free to leave at any time, all of it. And I'm very, very aware of that.
- [87:35]
A
That's a good perspective. You should keep that.
- [87:38]
B
Yeah, I think every employer should have that. And there's certainly some entitlement with a lot of employers, while outside, it's just employers in general I find very entitled. Those are the ones that are going to struggle more and more as time goes on. But, but also from an employee standpoint, like, listen, you can have this great ride at a great company and then it's just time to go somewhere else. Or you can go somewhere and six months in, you can just be like, this just isn't it. It's okay to leave. It's okay. Like, there's something to be said for the grass isn't always greener and sometimes it takes some time. Like, take your time. But if you're like beating your head against the wall and you're miserable and you know, like, gut saying, hey, this is not right, it's not right, go somewhere else. Like, I don't want somebody here that's miserable. And I want to do the best I can for them to make them not miserable. But sometimes, like, life just changes or it's just not a fit and, or the business changes and like, there are so many things happening. It's such a dynamic world that to think you're just gonna, no questions asked, spend 40 years at a particular employer is crazy. And if you do, good for you.
- [88:53]
A
Good for you.
- [88:54]
B
That's unbelievable. But the odds of that, no, the odds of that happening are so.
- [89:01]
A
Wow. That's not me. I've only worked for wonderful, wonderful companies. And even with is just I. And I remain such good friends with people at all the places I've worked. Like, I didn't, I didn't burn any bridges. I didn't leave on bad terms for many hours. It's not a personal thing. I only worked at really good companies. But the thing is, every three or four years, I would just get bored and need a change and have to do something different. And sometimes, was it within the same company, I would get a new position or try like a new functional area of the business and do something different. But that was my cadence. I'd have to just have some variety and change it up every three or four years into some newer position. And that's just how I'm wired. Over time, I got to know that about myself and that, that's just what kind of drove me to find the right fit here.
- [89:59]
B
But that's what I appreciate about you, because you had a pretty good thing going.
- [90:05]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [90:05]
B
You could have easily just coasted for.
- [90:08]
A
The rest of the decade. Rest and vest, man.
- [90:10]
B
Coast for a decade. Wife's grand, we're good to go. I've got like, everything's taken care of.
- [90:18]
A
That's the easy button. That is, that's the easy button, the default. And people are wired to do the status quo and stay where they're at because it's kind of cushy and they're comfortable and they know it. And I knew I just, I needed, I needed something a little different.
- [90:32]
B
But it'll. But again, that's why, that's why I appreciate what, what you've done over the past few years. Because that's hard to do. Like, that easy button is so nice and comfy and like, again, it's just, it's safe. Like, why, why, Especially when you're later in life, like, why am I taking a risk? But that, that to me is so much fun. And I think the best leaders in the industry are the ones taking the risks, especially later in their careers. Like, and in different ways. Again, like, a herb sergeant is a great example of somebody who's taking these new risks at a point in his career. He could easily, easily just sail off into the sunset and be like, listen, I don't need to do any of this. We're just gonna do, I'm just gonna do my thing. But instead he's, he's being on, he's on podcasts, he's sharing on social media. Like, he's, he's engaging with all these different groups. Like, this guy is everywhere. He's very accessible. People are calling him. He's talking to them at their businesses. He's. He's working with, with young people within Sargent Corporation and still very involved in his business.
- [91:42]
A
Like, and he's really a champion for Aesop too.
- [91:45]
B
Yes.
- [91:46]
A
And the huge benefits of employee ownership. You've gotten to know now a few ESOPs, and I don't know if that is by, I don't know if that's by coincidence that those ESOP type companies migrate have migrated towards buildwit but it seems a disproportionate share of like who have been BuildWit's customers, you know, since the start and a lot of who's showing up at the different events and workshops. Yeah, there's a lot of ESOPs in the mix.
- [92:15]
B
Yeah, I mean, Garney, Emory, Sapp and Sons, Sargent Corporation, like there's now Petticoat, Schmidt, Scarborough. Scarborough. Yes. Yeah, you guys, yeah, aesop. Yeah. Yeah, there's. I think it's a really potent model.
- [92:31]
A
It's amazing. It's amazing because back in the day employees could have a pension and the companies would take care of them in that way that besides, besides what was their wage? Besides what was their bonus? The company, free of charge, was taking care of their retirement. Or if you were a union employee, you were having your pension funded through union contributions. The pensions are kind of gone. Companies don't offer pensions anymore.
- [93:01]
B
No.
- [93:03]
A
Maybe government type jobs do, but it's much more rare today than it was 30 or 40 years ago. But AESOP solves that problem. If you're lucky enough to be a really successful esop, there's just advantages. Yeah, there's advantages that other types of corporate structure cannot compete with.
- [93:23]
B
It solves the problem too. For just like the wealth, the whole wealth distribution problem and the wealth inequality problem is just again, people just are not paid enough in this industry. I believe like I'm starting to recognize that more and more and I'm starting to go into the data more and more and here that from all the people that have left the industry, I wasn't getting paid enough for the work. And because, and there's a bunch of stuff at play. I'm not sitting here saying, well, it's because the greedy business owners, it's, it's, that's what a lot of people believe. I haven't met one yet. They might be out there, but the whole succession thing is hard, is complicated to get right.
- [94:03]
A
It is.
- [94:03]
B
What I don't like is some of these outsiders buying construction companies like private equity for example, or some, even, even models that are, that are publicly traded because it's like you're building stuff, you're extracting value. That value is not staying within the industry, it's leaving.
- [94:25]
A
And it generally. Construction doesn't generally run on this neat cycle that coincides with quarterly reporting and really boosting the juicing up the sales at the right time so that the quarterly reports look right. I'm with you. The ESOP model, Aaron, is so you get everyone aligned, pulling on the same end of the rope and trying to make the firm successful. And then there are people, man. If you spend your career at a good esop, whether you're a dozer operator or whether you're a foreman or whether you're a president, the payoff at the end, you can make huge sums. Normal people can be millionaires. And it's pretty staggering what can happen there.
- [95:11]
B
Yeah, I know a lot of them. You've probably met a lot of them. That's Carboro. I mean, it's. And they're just. It'll be Billy, who runs a D8. He's just been with the company for a long time. He's just stacked it up.
- [95:22]
A
He's been on a pipe crew since, like pipe layers and pipe foremen or loader operators or the HR managers or receptionists. They're all in esop and they're all going to share. When the company does well, they do well. And they're going to be taken care of at retirement. What's really fun to see too is, I mean, after an ESOP starts to mature and the people get their annual statements, like the first few years, there's not. Doesn't have much value because you're paying off the debt, both seller finance debt and typically bank finance debt too. So there's not much equity in the company. Like the statements the first few years, they're not very inspiring.
- [96:09]
B
No.
- [96:09]
A
But boy, you make it through those and the company is successful and can pay down that debt. Now when the people see their statements that there's something of substance there, it's really fun.
- [96:22]
B
When did Scarborough become an ESOP?
- [96:23]
A
2017.
- [96:24]
B
Okay, so not that long ago.
- [96:26]
A
Not that long ago.
- [96:27]
B
So they're newer, quote, unquote, newer. Newer ESOP. Interesting. How old's Brent?
- [96:33]
A
I think about 60.
- [96:35]
B
Oh, really?
- [96:36]
A
I think about 60.
- [96:36]
B
So he's not, he's not even that old. No, he's still got way more, like, way more room.
- [96:41]
A
He's got Runway, you bet. And he's got a lot of other businesses too. Sure. He's got a development. He's got a development business that really in Georgia, development is rampant.
- [96:56]
B
Yeah.
- [96:57]
A
So that's been a really big piece for him too.
- [97:00]
B
And yeah, you guys, Georgia is also. It's a tough market like the Southeast. There's some good competition, just good competitors. That is, that is.
- [97:12]
A
I mean, no one's giving you anything for free.
- [97:14]
B
No one sucks there. Everybody is top notch. Like there are some, you know, markets really do vary. And that's. That's one. It's like every time I go to Georgia, I'm like, man, this is a world class group of contractors down here, which then you don't get to be better.
- [97:33]
A
A lot of people want to be there. A lot of contractors from other parts of the country want to be there because of what the market is, but they'll go bid a few jobs and try it out and stick their toe in the water and.
- [97:45]
B
Well, it's a hard place to work.
- [97:46]
A
It's tough to break. It's.
- [97:47]
B
It's. The material kicks your ass, the weather kicks your ass. And it's just so competitive.
- [97:52]
A
Yeah.
- [97:52]
B
Like if I want to go take some of your pie, especially if I'm an out of state contractor, I, I would have had to really screw something up on the bid to do a cheaper cost per yard if I'm just gonna move dirt.
- [98:09]
A
And we're, and we're pretty blessed too, because of this history that Brent has built up. Even before the advent of the esop. There's, there's a level of trust there from being in the market for 40 years and performing for that group of GCs who's in Atlanta and in greater Georgia, that, that carries some weight too. That's a, that's a barrier to entry.
- [98:35]
B
Yeah. Is it all private work?
- [98:37]
A
All private.
- [98:37]
B
All private.
- [98:38]
A
All private. With the exception. So we're in, we're in four core market sectors. There's data centers, there's renewable energy. There's commercial and industrial, which is really. All the big Atlanta GC work there. They're working in and around the Atlanta metro. Just commercial industrial jobs. All the GCs you've heard of, those are our people. And then there's a residential market that serves both customers of Brent's development company and other home builders as well. The fifth one where we built up a really good presence is at ATL, Hartsfield Jackson. We've had a presence there for about 12, 15 years where we just do all kinds of on call stuff. We have semi permanent office there and yard there and our own fleet of equipment that's there. And, and so still working primarily for GCs who are working on the terminal or working on the Runway. That's where we work with CW the most, is at Hartsfield Jackson, because they've been there for a long time as well.
- [99:49]
B
Yeah, I see them every time. Yeah.
- [99:52]
A
Yeah, that's the fifth one. Not a full fledged aviation market, but certainly a presence at atl.
- [100:00]
B
Well, and that airport's a powerhouse.
- [100:02]
A
It's. It's a big deal.
- [100:04]
B
It's a Big deal. Just globally speaking. Yeah.
- [100:07]
A
Busiest airport in the world.
- [100:08]
B
Yeah. I was there a few months ago and I just. I like looking at the. The board of, like, all the places in the world. I could go from this place. It's like, wow, I could go to Cape Town from here. Wow. I could go to Amsterdam from here. Paris. You know, you just. Santiago, like, you just start going down the list. Like, I can get to a lot of places in the world from here.
- [100:28]
A
Right?
- [100:30]
B
That's pretty cool. Yeah, I didn't. Honestly, I wasn't totally aware you guys were in Aesop until recently.
- [100:36]
A
Probably still. We searched until we started talking. The ESOP is a. It's just.
- [100:41]
B
I had no idea.
- [100:42]
A
Huge. It's just a huge benefit. And now. Now that we're as mature as we are, you know, the next decade's really fun.
- [100:54]
B
Yeah. Because it takes five to 10 years.
- [100:56]
A
Once you can kind of get through that initial loan period. But now you're on before you have a whole bunch of repurchase obligation. Well, now you have a Runway where you're not paying any taxes.
- [101:10]
B
Sure.
- [101:11]
A
But you also don't have any debt. And so it's a really good phase coming up for the company.
- [101:18]
B
And it's a good phase. It also creates a different challenge that is managing cash and growing. You do now have a share price that you're committed to. But the fun is.
- [101:33]
A
And a lot of people depending on us. There's a lot of people depending on us, making the right decisions, leading the business in the right direction. It's not just tightly held, one or two people.
- [101:46]
B
No. The ESOP thing, though, is still pretty unknown to the everyday person, which is interesting. Like, even my mom, she got a job with a big general contractor, wilming, in Phoenix, Arizona.
- [101:58]
A
Oh, good.
- [101:59]
B
And she was like, reading through her benefits, she was like, yeah, they're an esop. Or I don't know what it is. I'm like, they're an esop. I was like, I didn't know that. Oh, like, that's great.
- [102:11]
A
That's really good.
- [102:12]
B
That's like the best news you could get.
- [102:14]
A
That's really good.
- [102:16]
B
Yeah, I was. I got excited. She had. She was like, why are you so excited? I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. Like, you. You don't know what this is, do you? I'm like, this is. This is. This is great. This is fantastic. That. That you're part of this and not that it really matters, you know, for a few years, because it takes the individuals.
- [102:36]
A
It takes a little bit to build.
- [102:37]
B
Up five years to get invested.
- [102:40]
A
Different plans are different, but it takes some time to get invested and it takes some time to have your, you know, shares accumulate enough where they're really worth anything. Yeah, worth anything.
- [102:50]
B
And then to see any kind of growth. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, I feel like you have to be there like five to 10 years to actually see like, okay, this is something.
- [103:01]
A
But think if you joined a firm like what if you joined a firm like that in your 20s or 30s.
- [103:06]
B
Uh huh.
- [103:07]
A
Holy smokes. It's kind of staggering. Well.
- [103:10]
B
And even if you do it again for 10, 15 years and go do something else, like you're still getting a huge amount of value.
- [103:18]
A
Huge.
- [103:19]
B
Huge. And this is on top of the money you're making your wage on top of benefits, on top of retirement bonus.
- [103:28]
A
Your 401k on top of your company match. 401k.
- [103:33]
B
You've got all that still.
- [103:34]
A
You get all that like a normal company.
- [103:35]
B
Like a normal company.
- [103:36]
A
But you also have shares that you own in the company because you're an owner.
- [103:40]
B
Yeah.
- [103:41]
A
And those are, they're governed by the same law that governs the 401k plan. So it really is a defined retirement plan. It's not just, you're not just getting a check every year. You're not doing a draw like an owner might do of a privately held company, but you are stashing away a really nice, really nice nest egg for retirement.
- [104:04]
B
Yeah. I'm not, I'm not saying that's the only way to do it. There's a bunch of different ways to do it, but that's when it's done right. Oh boy. And it has to be 100%.
- [104:15]
A
It's pretty great. It was a big draw for me and, and Scarborough is 100% ESOP. And they were from the, from the inception. But yeah, some companies take different routes and they'll do a partial percentage, but Scarborough went all in. 100% right off the bat.
- [104:31]
B
Yeah. And there's again, there's a bunch of different reasons for that. Like even union, non union, you can't, you can't do it for the union, so you can only do it for salaried people. I get that. But sometimes it's kind of like a club you get invited into, but if you're not part of the club, good luck. How do you get into the club? Can't tell you.
- [104:47]
A
Yeah. And companies that do have, that have union, companies that have union craft, they're covered under and then they'll have a Collective bargaining agreement and there'll be a pension. And then the ESOP participants, the office folks, they have a different plan and trying to just meld those together so company feels like a cohesive unit. That's tough.
- [105:11]
B
Envy anybody like that.
- [105:12]
A
That's tough.
- [105:13]
B
That's really hard to do. Yeah. But in Southeast.
- [105:16]
A
Southeast. It's a non 100% factor.
- [105:19]
B
Let's just go move some dirt.
- [105:20]
A
We're only non union.
- [105:21]
B
I'm excited. How long have you been there?
- [105:23]
A
I am too.
- [105:23]
B
It's been almost.
- [105:25]
A
Well, a little over two months.
- [105:27]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [105:28]
A
Still in the honeymoon period. But Aaron, it's been fantastic. This, it's just been really, really good. I'm really happy. We bought a new home in Georgia. We're closing on it on next week. And my wife and middle son are moving down with me. My oldest boy still working for Mortensen on a big data center job in Louisiana. Oh, that's really big.
- [105:51]
B
A monster. Yeah.
- [105:54]
A
Yeah, it's cool.
- [105:55]
B
It's funny how like low key these projects are, but everybody and their mother knows about.
- [105:59]
A
You're supposed to keep them a secret. I could guess what.
- [106:01]
B
I could show you.
- [106:02]
A
Everyone knows about them.
- [106:03]
B
Yeah. I've got a whole, I could, I could show you a whole booklet of photos that people have just sent me. I don't even ask. I don't solicit it. Just send them to me. Because it's so big.
- [106:11]
A
That would be a decent one. They've got, they've got well over 100 haul units there. If you ever wanted to.
- [106:17]
B
Yeah.
- [106:18]
A
Go take some shots. That's, that's a cool job. I went to visit my boy. Not to see construction, just to visit my boy. But I happen to see 100 scrapers run around. It's kind of cool.
- [106:28]
B
Stop by and it's kind of cool. Yeah. And it's nothing against that kind of earth moving, but it, it, it's. I guess the amount of units there makes it a, a spectacle. But it's like, it's just not like Southern California like the other day. In Southern California. It's, it's 150 foot cuts. You know, scrapers barreling down, just taking whole hillsides down. It's like, all right, this is pretty cool.
- [106:53]
A
Like, it's California dirt. Movers are built different.
- [106:56]
B
Yeah. It's just like we're, we're a sukit so good. And visually speaking, it's just like it doesn't get any better than this. And they're, you know, pushing 651s with two D10s and it's just like this is wild.
- [107:07]
A
So good. That's pretty.
- [107:09]
B
The, this like the low lying sites, it's kind of like pick it up over here, put it down.
- [107:15]
A
And they're fairly flat. They're fairly flat. But still there's enough. The data centers just occupy such a big footprint that the jobs, they get big really fast. I think you and I have talked about this before like 10 years ago or 15 years ago. If you heard, if you had a 5 million yard job monster, that was a big job monster. No, all the time.
- [107:41]
B
Yeah.
- [107:42]
A
There's 10 and 15 and 20 million dollar jobs all around.
- [107:46]
B
100 plus million yard jobs that are in the works right now.
- [107:50]
A
Yeah, it's like serious, man. What?
- [107:54]
B
And everybody. But that's, that's part of my qualm as well with everybody. How short everybody's memory is. It's like everybody's acting like this is all normal and I'm just, I'm always just like, can we just, can we be appreciative, can we make hay while the sun's shining but also acknowledge that this is insane, that there's nothing, nothing rational about what's happening right now? Like as long as we're just, can we just recognize like, just recognize the elephant in the room that is like trillions of dollars in federal spending. We're gonna, we're gonna again make hay while the sun's shining. But let's just like acknowledge the elephant in the room.
- [108:35]
A
And the amount though, the amount of private spending, the amount that AI, the amount that AI is just driving this need for data and high speed computing.
- [108:47]
B
Yeah.
- [108:48]
A
And the amount of like wholesale data center customers plus the big hyperscalers, man, it is a data race. And then all the industries that support that, that like the dark fiber, dark fiber lines in between the data centers, the undersea cables, the cable landing stations, it is a boom. And that's the, if you're, if you're not in that, if you're not in that sector of construction, it is by far the busiest that I've seen everywhere that I've seen anywhere and that I've been involved with in my career. The data center boom that's going on right now.
- [109:31]
B
Yeah, I thought renewable was that.
- [109:36]
A
And then the main, there were times of where renewables and advanced manufacturing and.
- [109:45]
B
Then I was going to say and then like renewables. But they, renewables have been there for a while. Like the, the, I mean even since like the early 2000s, like solar especially back in the day and wind Too. There's some pretty old wind farms now.
- [110:02]
A
Oh yeah.
- [110:02]
B
That are pretty up there like the ones in California.
- [110:05]
A
And it was our first wind farm at Mortenson, I think was 1999. And probably the first solar farm was 2008.
- [110:14]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. About that. Exactly. About that time frame. And then the whole manufacturing thing came up. Well, no, I'll say before that. Warehouses.
- [110:22]
A
Yeah.
- [110:23]
B
The whole commercial big box thing.
- [110:25]
A
E commerce.
- [110:25]
B
E commerce, I think. I think was that was the real. Real boom in the 2000s. And then especially into 2020. 2021, 2022 past 2020 was then this chips thing and the manufacturing thing that you were a part of as well. These crazy projects from an automotive standpoint.
- [110:45]
A
Oh yeah, the.
- [110:46]
B
The chip plants. The tsmc.
- [110:48]
A
You ever visit the Hyundai mega site down there near Savannah?
- [110:51]
B
No, I never got that one. No, I did. The one plateau did in. Was it Hyundai? I feel like it was Hyundai too. Weren't they doing the big one outside of. Outside of Atlanta? I'm forgetting the town.
- [111:05]
A
Don't know.
- [111:06]
B
It was a.
- [111:07]
A
The one. Yeah. The one I was. It was a mega site.
- [111:10]
B
Yeah.
- [111:11]
A
12 million yards in about 11 months.
- [111:13]
B
They. They were doing a mega site. Well, you guys were doing a mega site and then Scout kicked off up the street and then that was when North Carolina was going with Ames as well. And that's when P and J was out at Blue Oval.
- [111:25]
A
Then like was our buddies from Mobile Track.
- [111:28]
B
With Mobile Track. Yeah, you just go down the list. Like again, everybody knows I love that stuff.
- [111:33]
A
I love this stuff.
- [111:34]
B
And then now the AI thing. Like, I know you guys were playing in it years ago, but I feel like it's just exploded in the past.
- [111:44]
A
In the past six months. Yeah, year, maybe six months. But that's what's driving the need for all this data is AI, machine learning and advanced computing, man. It's.
- [111:56]
B
But doesn't not make you nervous because that's kind of like my joke with the data center contractors. Like. Oh yeah. Are you. How do you feel about building our demise?
- [112:04]
A
It makes me a little nervous. And I'm really. I'm really old. Like I have to get just better. I have to up my game on my AI skill set. Like I gotta get smarter of how to use it. I'm very novice. But every piece of software we use is gonna be injected with it in the ones. I think the companies that have a really good tech strategy and are leveraging AI right. And are not just using it for like a fun toy, but are Actually making it so that people don't have to do like dumb administrative work. I think the ones that use it right are gonna win.
- [112:45]
B
I just think, not that my opinion matters, but I think it's gonna change everything. It already is. But at the same time, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. It feels a little, a little fast. Just from like a, you can build these data centers. Great. But I'm still looking at the whole power input thing and it's just not there.
- [113:15]
A
Yeah, right.
- [113:15]
B
And we're just not adding new generation at all, like, at all.
- [113:19]
A
I went to a really, I went to a really cool Atlanta data center summit a few weeks ago and there was two nuke guys there.
- [113:28]
B
Yeah. You might know more than I do.
- [113:29]
A
Who are talking about smaller scale nuke reactors. They're talking about the power as the. But I think it's, but that's what they're talking. I think it's five to 10 years away before, before I think small, like nuclear fusion type reactors are going to power data centers is a few years away.
- [113:46]
B
I, I think, I think it's way away. I think even just government regulate, like, and maybe the government's just like, no, no, we're cool. Just put nuclear reactors wherever you want. But you can go look no further than like, I don't know, Vogel in South Carolina or some of the nuclear, the other nuclear project, I forget what it's called. They're like $15 billion in or something like that. And it's still not totally there. It's like, all right, where are we going to get all the power from?
- [114:13]
A
Right.
- [114:15]
B
I don't know.
- [114:16]
A
Right.
- [114:16]
B
But we got to build them.
- [114:18]
A
Got to build them.
- [114:19]
B
Yeah. I, I, again, I'm.
- [114:22]
A
Exciting times to be in our industry, Aaron.
- [114:24]
B
It's, I am really excited.
- [114:27]
A
Me too.
- [114:28]
B
But I'm also terrified. Especially too when they're saying like, yeah, we're building these data centers, but they're not sure what's going inside of them yet because what's going inside of them isn't invented yet. It's like, okay, is this good?
- [114:51]
A
From a pure business standpoint, if you're in the civil site development biz, a lot of the hyperscalers and the big wholesalers are doing just grading packages with the site development plan and a cold, dark shell for the space. And then later, as the tech develops, they'll figure out what they're going to put inside. But almost all the big data center players have that kind of prepackaged program. Going on.
- [115:20]
B
Yeah. I, I, again, I'm fascinated by it.
- [115:23]
A
I am, too.
- [115:24]
B
And I'm. I'm like, everybody. I feel like everybody's kind of just scratching their heads, like, wow, what? How many yards? 18 million.
- [115:31]
A
Yeah.
- [115:31]
B
Yeah, we can do that. No problem. All right.
- [115:34]
A
Well, do we wrap it up?
- [115:36]
B
Yeah.
- [115:37]
A
This is fun. Thank you for having me on. What an honor.
- [115:39]
B
Sorry to talk so much today. I'm talkative.
- [115:42]
A
Don't know. This is a good visit.
- [115:43]
B
Feeling chatty. Haven't had a podcast in weeks.
- [115:46]
A
For real?
- [115:46]
B
Yeah. So I'm trying to.
- [115:47]
A
Oh, this.
- [115:48]
B
I'm getting it all out right now.
- [115:49]
A
That's a good visit. Thank you.
- [115:51]
B
Yeah. Thanks for coming.
- [115:52]
A
Right on.
- [115:53]
B
I'm really happy we're able to come. I'm happy you're at Scarborough.
- [115:57]
A
I am, too. It's pretty awesome.
- [115:59]
B
It's pretty awesome. Happy you're moving to Georgia again, Southern adventure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hopefully it's.
- [116:05]
A
And we got a house with a pool, which is really fun.
- [116:09]
B
I know to you northern people, that's crazy.
- [116:11]
A
We're all about all. Aaron moved out of the North. My oldest boy is in Louisiana. Carrie and Luke and I are gonna be in Georgia. My youngest boy is moving to Phoenix.
- [116:22]
B
That's right.
- [116:22]
A
Going to work as a patent engineer for Ping. He's just graduated from Notre Dame. Kind of a proud papa. Went to commencement a few weeks ago, and it was just like bunch of heave cries. But it was. Yeah, it was really, really fun. Our whole family went to his commencement. And now he's moving to go to work for Ping Golf as a patent engineer.
- [116:42]
B
How about it?
- [116:43]
A
Pretty cool.
- [116:43]
B
It's. Yeah, you told me that. I was like, damn, that's not bad. That's not bad at all. I had to go work for myself because I sucked everywhere else.
- [116:51]
A
No, no.
- [116:51]
B
But cool. Well, yeah. Coming. I'm excited to see Scarborough at some point.
- [116:58]
A
Yeah, you'll have to. Come on now. It is an army of iron.
- [117:01]
B
Well, and you guys have some. You guys are doing some crazy paint jobs that are. Oh, like, really making waves.
- [117:09]
A
The new 40th anniversary red one that Yancy helped us with.
- [117:12]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [117:13]
A
Really nice.
- [117:14]
B
Yancey's cranking them up.
- [117:15]
A
It turned out great. We all signed it. All the people came in and signed it and it turned out good. Now it's pushing dirt.
- [117:23]
B
I saw a Brent Scarborough D8, the American flag in gray. Painted one scale model while I was in Germany.
- [117:33]
A
Oh, you did?
- [117:34]
B
Yeah. They had one for sale in Germany.
- [117:35]
A
That one is pretty cool.
- [117:36]
B
Wait a minute. I know that company.
- [117:39]
A
That one's pretty cool.
- [117:40]
B
Yeah, but they had a scale model of it for sale, like, while I was in Germany.
- [117:43]
A
You should have bought it. I can get you one.
- [117:45]
B
I. I can't afford that kind of stuff.
- [117:47]
A
I can get you one.
- [117:47]
B
It was. It was special edition. Yeah, I. I'd gladly. I'd gladly take one.
- [117:52]
A
We have. All right. We'll hook you up.
- [117:54]
B
Nice little collection.
- [117:55]
A
Well, we'll hook you up. We got some good custom ones.
- [117:59]
B
Right on.
- [118:00]
A
All right.
- [118:00]
B
Well, thanks.
- [118:01]
A
Thank you. Sa.