Jeff Spatz w/ Graham Company – DT 424

Summary

Podcast Summary: Dirt Talk by BuildWitt – Episode 424: Jeff Spatz w/ Graham Company
Date: March 12, 2026
Host: Aaron Witt
Guest: Jeff Spatz, VP of Safety Services, Graham Company

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Episode Overview

In this insightful conversation, Aaron Witt sits down one-on-one with Jeff Spatz, Vice President of Safety Services at Graham Company, an insurance and risk management firm specializing in high-risk industries like construction. Together, they delve deep into the realities, challenges, and philosophies surrounding safety, leadership, and culture in the Dirt World—focusing on what truly matters: people, health, and meaningful impact in the construction and mining industries. The episode is packed with frank stories, hard truths, and memorable moments on topics such as compliance, mental health, industry culture, the limits of rules, and the meaning of real success.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Journeys & Industry Lessons

Timestamp: 01:03 – 05:00

• Jeff shares early anecdotes from his career, learning about labor dynamics and threats on job sites, illustrating the sometimes-rough culture of the trades:

  "I’ve only been threatened, though—maybe like real threats, like genuine threats—probably maybe half a dozen times over 35 years. That’s not bad." – Jeff Spatz (03:06)

• Both reflect humorously and honestly on navigating HR and safety roles:

  "HR makes safety feel really good because we can always go, it can get worse." – Jeff Spatz (03:28)

2. The Heart of Safety: From Compliance to Caring

Timestamp: 05:03 – 14:49

• Jeff describes his shift from compliance-based safety (rules and checklists) to a “human” approach, prioritizing internalization over mere awareness:

  "So much of what we do stops at the head...It never gets to the heart. We acknowledge it, but we don’t feel it." – Jeff Spatz (06:46)

• The pair discuss the ineffectiveness of using OSHA/MSHA as "boogeymen" and the necessity for safety to be self-motivated, not just externally enforced.

  "OSHA is the construction Santa...That doesn’t bring gifts. There’s not even an upside." – Aaron Witt (13:12)

• Commentary on how over-focusing on compliance misplaces priorities:

  "I tell people, like, don’t worry about OSHA, worry about gravity. Worry about seeing your kids at the end of the shift." – Jeff Spatz (14:49)

3. Rules vs. Autonomy & Manufactured Misery

Timestamp: 24:13 – 37:26

• The difference in workplace cultures—one rigid and compliance-driven, the other more trusting and human-centered—directly impacts morale:

  "Just the feeling was, it’s like, this is somewhere I would work...They don’t want Aaron, they want badge number 77473." – Aaron Witt (26:36)

• Both argue that too many rules can rob jobs of joy, autonomy, and agency, leading to disengagement, lower job satisfaction, and even safety consequences.

• Jeff recounts a story from a trade worker, highlighting how overly prescriptive safety measures can undermine both morale and skills:

  "He said, 'You people—like you—steal all the fun from our jobs.' And he said, 'And I hate that.'" – Jeff Spatz (29:23)

4. Trust, Skill, and the Limits of Safety Protocols

Timestamp: 33:05 – 36:37

• Aaron describes witnessing exceptional skills in logging—a field with inherently high risk—arguing some danger can only be managed by competence and humility, not rules:

  "We’re the weakest link out here...it’s us and Mother Nature. And Mother Nature wins, man." – Aaron Witt (34:59)

• They stress that some jobs demand reliance on individual judgement and cannot be “safety-guyed” out of risk.

5. Shared Consequences and Individual Agency

Timestamp: 28:50 – 39:56

• Acknowledges the tension between individual choice and the fact that consequences of mistakes often affect more than just the worker (companies, insurers, families).

• Jeff reflects on the disconnect between the safety profession’s emphasis on checklists and reports, and the real motivations and needs of workers.

6. Workplace Health, Mental Health & Systemic Problems

Timestamp: 42:00 – 56:42

• The fatal flaws in focusing solely on injury prevention, while neglecting overall worker health—especially mental health, substance abuse, and suicide—are candidly explored:

  "You won’t ever hear anything about health on a job site ever. And then you have suicide. And you have drug overdose, which is wildly outpacing on-the-job fatalities." – Aaron Witt (42:02)

• Jeff shares a watershed moment realizing that true safety talks need to address well-being beyond just compliance or immediate risk, recognizing the humanity and struggles of every worker.

• The industry often ignores or minimizes the underlying personal crises faced by its workforce: "I can't be their nanny, I can't be their caretaker, but I also can't look away." – Jeff Spatz (48:14)

7. Industry Culture, Family Life, and Burnout

Timestamp: 80:29 – 93:31

• The grind of construction leadership demands often destroys home life, with “success” all too often built on personal sacrifice:

  "In this industry, to be financially successful, to be able to bid competitively, get the work, perform it profitably—you can’t live a normal life." – Jeff Spatz (84:44)

• Both tell personal stories about how relentless work cultures lead to dysfunctional personal relationships, dissuading new generations from joining the industry.

8. Adrenaline, Addiction, and the Difficulty of Letting Go

Timestamp: 93:00 – 101:13

• The addictive, high-adrenaline nature of big-time projects is compared to the struggles of veterans adjusting to civilian life, with many unable to "turn it off" without destructive means:

  "Can you go from all that to nothing?" – Jeff Spatz (97:09)

9. Impact, Legacy & Defining Real Success

Timestamp: 105:07 – End

• What does success mean? Jeff and Aaron discuss the importance of impact—making a real difference in people’s lives and the industry—not just building structures or amassing wealth:

  "For me, I want to look back and know that my presence, my efforts, my work mattered." – Jeff Spatz (107:31)

• The conversation widens to societal impact, generational change, and the idea that making the industry better is about caring for and influencing one person at a time:

  "That’s how you change the world. It’s just one person at a time. There’s nothing else to it." – Aaron Witt (124:19)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On using authority as safety:
  "OSHA is the construction Santa...That doesn’t bring gifts. There’s not even an upside." – Aaron Witt (13:12)

• On the inadequacy of compliance-driven safety:
  "Don’t worry about OSHA, worry about gravity. Worry about seeing your kids at the end of the shift." – Jeff Spatz (14:49)

• On the need for cultural change:
  "Most people want some kind of life. They want something. They got this, bro. But I’ve seen the safety person that...grossly overweight, smoking a cigarette, telling others how to live their lives...I think they’re in the wrong profession." – Jeff Spatz (22:03)

• The industry's focus on the wrong metrics:
  "We’ve gotten really good at managing injuries after they occur...But fatalities, we’re still hanging right in there." – Jeff Spatz (40:56)

• On true care and human connection:
  "How can I care for those around me just a little bit and just make them feel like a human being for a moment? Like, how can I remember people’s names?" – Aaron Witt (59:03)

• On the limitations of industry ‘progress’:
  "The industry is spending $100 million plus on type 2 hard hats. There’s something that’s 60 times more potent just on the other side of the fence and we’re not going to say a thing about it." – Aaron Witt (68:37)

• On redefining success:
  "If I had sacrificed my marriage and my child for what I do, there’s no way—even if I had another marriage and another child—there’s no way I’m going to consider that success." – Jeff Spatz (108:00)

• Aaron’s vision:
  "I'm fixated upon generational wealth—not dollars...I want to build the next generation of America that then builds the next generation of America—that then builds the next. That’s generational wealth." – Aaron Witt (123:19)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro, Jeff’s Early Career Stories: 01:03 – 05:00
• The Heart of Safety—Leadership & Culture: 05:03 – 14:49
• OSHA/MSHA, Rules, and Misapplied Compliance: 10:22 – 14:49
• Autonomy, Agency, and Job Satisfaction: 24:13 – 37:26
• Limits of Protocol, Trust in Skill: 33:05 – 36:37
• Wellness & Mental Health Crisis: 42:00 – 56:42
• Work-Life, Family Struggles: 80:29 – 93:31
• Adrenaline, Addiction, Letting Go: 93:00 – 101:13
• Legacy, Purpose, Real Industry Change: 105:07 – end

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Takeaways

• The Future of the Dirt World: True progress in the construction industry means shifting from a check-the-box approach to a culture grounded in empathy, human connection, and meaningful leadership.
• Real Safety: Moving safety “from the head to the heart”—making practices internal, not just externally motivated.
• Systemic Change: Recognition that mental health, family life, and workforce wellness are as vital as hard hats or checklists.
• Personal & Collective Responsibility: Change begins with the individual—each handshake and each caring conversation matters.
• Defining Success: Legacies are built not only through profit and projects completed, but by the positive, lasting impact made on people and the world.

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For listeners: This episode challenges anyone in the construction or safety industries—or any demanding field—to rethink what really matters: not just compliance, but genuine care, meaningful relationships, and purposeful work.

Transcript

[Aaron]

This episode of the Dirk Talk podcast is with Jeff Spatz of Graham Company. Jeff is the Vice president of safety services at Graham Company, an insurance broker and risk management firm specializing in high risk industries like construction. After spending decades working in and for the industry, he now spends most of his time educating teams on how to reduce risk and incidents throughout through Genuine Care. Graham Company has been a remarkable supporter of buildwit over the years. Jeff has been a remarkable supporter of billwhit over the years. He's been on the podcast before with Carl as well from Graham Co. This time, Jeff and I sat down one on one to talk through the state of the industry, safety and all kinds of stuff. I love my time with Jeff. I hope you enjoy this episode.

[Jeff Spatz]

If you.

[Aaron]

Here we go.

[Jeff Spatz]

I remember back in the early 90s, I was, you know, I come from a home where, you know, we had, I had one friend in my neighborhood because he was the only house anywhere near me. And I, you know, I, I couldn't see his house, but I could get to it quickly. So that's the rural area I grew up in. And then I get to Philly and it's, you know, it's this, it's this town and I'm here, you know, scrubbed clean and innocent. And yeah, I remember I was, yeah, I was in a building at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. And I'm, I'm like the 14th floor and this fit out and I found a bad cord among our, our crew. So I'm, I can repair a cord, right? I'm putting a new plug cap on the end and I'm working away very diligently and earnestly. And all of a sudden I look and I see this pair of work boots standing. And I look up and there's a guy standing there. And he goes, yo, pal, what are you doing? I go, oh, I'm just fixing this extension cord. He's like, you're taking my work?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

I'm like, I don't know what that was. I'm like, no, no, I got. This is easy. I'm like, I got this. Yeah. So I keep working on it. Next thing, I see another pair of work boots standing next to him. I look up and the first guy goes, hey, my buddy here told you you're taking our work now it's our work, right? So I'm like, no, I'm. Guys, I'm like. And I'm completely innocent, right? So I'm like, no, this is, I got this. You don't have to worry about this. Look down. I See a third set of boots, I'm look up, third guy goes, I'm gonna make it real easy on you. You're going out that window right there unless you drop that cord. So that's how I learned some of the stuff about trades, trade units. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, I've. I've only been threatened, though. Maybe like real threats, like genuine threats, probably maybe half a dozen times.

[Aaron]

That's pretty good.

[Jeff Spatz]

Over 35 years. That's not bad.

[Aaron]

That's. That's pretty good.

[Jeff Spatz]

And nothing. I'll say nothing since 2005.

[Aaron]

Okay. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. You know, back 20 years, back in the day.

[Jeff Spatz]

Right. 20 years of. Of no threats.

[Aaron]

No.

[Jeff Spatz]

No credible threats. That's not bad.

[Aaron]

I was just the spokesperson for HR training the other day.

[Jeff Spatz]

HR makes safety feel really good because we can always go, it can get worse.

[Aaron]

And I, you know, I was doing some learning as I was the present presenter. Like. No. No threats. That's across the line. Yeah, noted. No threats. Find another way to coerce people, I guess. Blackmail. Is it blackmail? It is, yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

It's. There's. That's one thing I think the safety profession should kind of take heart in, is that there's always something worse, which is hr, usually. Yeah. And God bless hr. In case our. Well, and if HR people are listening, we love you, of course, but if

[Aaron]

HR people are involved on a job site, something ain't right, man.

[Jeff Spatz]

Oh, yeah, some.

[Aaron]

Something's gone off the rails. Yeah, way off the rails. If you see HR people on a job site.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, that's bad. I put that into the category of, yeah, someone's getting rolled or something.

[Aaron]

Yeah, there's a problem.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

When you travel now you travel. Do you travel quite a bit still? I feel like you do.

[Jeff Spatz]

I'm trying to dial it. I mean, compared to, you know, not even close, but.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but the average bear.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, it's. It's enough.

[Aaron]

When. So when you travel, what do you do? What's the goal? What's usually the objective? You do. You do some speaking.

[Jeff Spatz]

Well, that's like. You've done some.

[Aaron]

Yeah, we do meetings and stuff lately.

[Jeff Spatz]

There's been. There's been a lot of speaking opportunities over the last few years. The. What do I do as far as what are my goals? Usually it's to try to get back home. Get back home safely. But the.

[Aaron]

Well, but when you go to one of these meetings, why are they having you at the meeting?

[Jeff Spatz]

Most of it is really on culture and leadership, two topics that have been flogged badly over the Years. But I'm a huge beneficiary of Jocko and his. You know, I'm also like a sponge man. I'll read. Lisa was disappointed. Oh, by the way, my wonderful colleague Lisa.

[Aaron]

Right? Yeah. We gotta shout out Lisa.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out Lisa. Yeah. Hi, Lisa. She's the one that keeps me honest. But I showed her a study that the New York Post had about. Among the vast number of women questioned reading. Reading came out to be one of the most attractive habits a man can have. So I really. Yeah, yeah. Believe it or not, I know you like to read. So there you go, keep at it, keep at it. Yeah, you get there. But now Lisa countered that and said that she can't imagine anything less sexy than reading anyway. But back to your point. I'm a sponge. So whenever I can read, I try to. And I want to learn from others. So there's not a lot that I've developed when I say concept wise from whole cloth with what I talk about. But I give credit to those who, who have benefited me, who I've, I've learned from and I'm cheaper than they are. But most of what I talk about out there, if I'm traveling like by air, if I'm flying somewhere, is cultural leadership related.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

And it's I, I develop my own material as far as I'm not, I'm not ripping PowerPoints off from people, but, but similar principles. Similar principles. There's not a lot that's new under the sun, but there's so much that. Isn't really internalized. Like tomorrow I'm going to be talking to a group and the idea is that one of the things I'm going to point out is that so much of what we do stops at the head. And it's going to sound a little wonky, but stops at the head never gets to the heart. We acknowledge it, but we don't feel it. So I can say, I know it's not a good idea to text and drive, but unless I internalize that, unless I move it from my head to my heart to where I now it's part of who I am. I just don't, you know, I don't do that because that's not me.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Falls short so.

[Aaron]

Well, and it's, it's not me because, you know, God forbid I hit somebody and I end their life or screw up their life.

[Jeff Spatz]

Right.

[Aaron]

God forbid I don't see my kids again in like that fashion.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, it's, it's that, you know, there's And I think the safety profession continues to this day to, to do an injustice to people and the profession because we're. I like to think we're getting better, but then I see what happens, especially on massive projects with large contractors, and I get it. They have to have something to. They have to have categories and cubbies to put things in, you know, so that they can't be. They don't have the time or the schedule to worry about moving things from the head to the heart. But you're not going to get somewhere ultimately, you're not going to achieve the success that I think we need to achieve in this industry. Because it's a dangerous industry. We know that without people doing things for the reasons that they determine to be the right reasons. Yeah, you can't force, you know, you. You can force somebody, but as soon as you turn your back, they're gonna. They're gonna resort to whatever they think is best. The. I use a lot of stories in my talks and even in my interactions with, with construction folks, because that sticks with them. You know, it mostly most of us have someone or something that we love dearly that we want to get back to, that we want to see at some point that we value. You know, some people may only realize that once it's taken away from them, but most people have something that means the world to them. If you can show them where, hey, this path is going to jeopardize that. Forget, Forget osha, forget msha, forget all that. That they can only take your money and your reputation. But if you can show them how, if they, if they stay on, let's say, a wayward path from a safety and health standpoint, they're putting in jeopardy the things that they love most. That changes the dynamic.

[Aaron]

Well, and, you know, I. OSHA and msha, unfortunately, they've been made into this boogeyman to enforce company policies a lot of times, a lot of policies. They're not osha, they're not msha. But no, this is, this is M. Is going to get us if we don't do this. Like, now you've made this up.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah,

[Aaron]

like, they're good. I understand why they were established, but they don't, like, they lack a certain bite nowadays in what they can and can't do because. And it's not their fault. They're just, they're just running on a very old operating system that can't change without an act of Congress, which is not going to happen.

[Jeff Spatz]

Literally.

[Aaron]

Yeah, literally.

[Jeff Spatz]

Can't change without act. Yes.

[Aaron]

I mean, what was established formally in the 70s, I think it was.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. Which I love this because I come from a very, very right wing family, you know, God fearing, hard right wing people. And my dad, I remember when OSHA came into being, my dad was mocking this and kind of angry that the government had overreached. And I laugh to this day that it was put in place by Republican President.

[Aaron]

I was gonna say.

[Jeff Spatz]

By Nixon.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say. But yeah, like, but, but if that's the standard.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like something's off and if that's what's. Like there's a lot of companies that use OSHA to enforce safety and it's like, like if that's your, if that's your attack vector, something's way off. Like you shouldn't even really need to reference OSHA all that much as a boogeyman. You can, you know, here's the guidelines, here's the rules, and then that's it. Like it shouldn't be a part, a big part of the conversation. And MSHAW is the same thing. Like if you're using M. Shaw as this, like the boogeyman that's going to come out and get you to enforce rules. Like it's like, it's like Santa Claus. Like you're kind of lying. You know, like if you're, if you're, if you're using Santa to parent, you know. Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

If you don't do this.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Santa's gonna know.

[Aaron]

Maybe, maybe think twice. Like that's not, you have other issues. That's not the best operating system. Yeah. Cuz at a certain point the kid finds out that. And I'm sorry if, you know, maybe I'll leave this off the podcast. We'll, we'll, let's, we'll let Santa be. But we didn't.

[Jeff Spatz]

No, no, we actually, we actually raised our daughter to, to not believe in Santa because I said, look, logistically no one's getting down the chimney. Secondly, we're the ones that are invested in your life. We love you, we're going to give you good things. So yeah, the same.

[Aaron]

But that, and that's my qualm. And I'm saying this as a male with no children, but I don't really like the concept of having to lie to your children, which is what it is to gain a sense what's good for them. Authority and control. Yeah, that to me doesn't make a lot of sense. And it's the same thing now that we're talking about this. OSHA is the construction Santa.

[Jeff Spatz]

I Love that.

[Aaron]

That doesn't bring gifts. There's not even an upside.

[Jeff Spatz]

So it's, it's, you know, think about this. And this isn't blowing smoke, but I've been around. I've been to all the Dirt World or the, the Dirt World summits. Yep. And by and large,

[Aaron]

the restaurant firing up next door.

[Jeff Spatz]

Oh, is it really? Okay, by and large, the companies that I've encountered at the summit. So the companies that would have an interest in this, in the Dirt world, learning from other companies, learning from outside folks, all of that, I'm going to go out on a limb and say none. None of those companies. No one who is affiliated with the Dirt world has to worry even a little bit about OSHA or MSHA representing an existential threat to their business.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Because there's no one who's going to have an interest in what Dirt World has to offer or learning from companies who are involved in Dirt World. None of them are going to be so egregious or so whatever wrong that OSHA or MSHA represents any kind of threat. Now, they're a nuisance. They can issue fines. We know when MSHA comes out twice a year, there are obligatory visits. They're going to find something. It could be sns, whatever it could be. And everything has a fine attached. I get that. OSHA a little less consistent. But I tell people, like, don't worry about osha, worry about gravity. Worry about, you know, worry about senior kids at the end of the shift.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Jeff Spatz]

That's the stuff, you know, like OSHA for, for, what was it up till 2015. So from 1971 to 2015, OSHA had, if you wanted to take like the silica, respirable crystal silica. I know I'm nerding out here, but you seem good for that.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Jeff Spatz]

So they, they had what equated to like let's say 250 micrograms per cubic meter. Bear, just stay with me on this. From 1971 to 2015, had, had we sent our certified industrial hygienists out to your project and there's, there's concrete dust everywhere and we did air sampling up until the current silica sander that we have today. If we would have come in less than 250 microgr per cubic meter of air, we would have been like, hey, guess what? You're compliant. Sure, if you would have asked, yeah, but are we safe? That would have been a different story. So here people were relying upon OSHA to save them. Right. And when the. This is Just an example, when the silica standard came out finally in 2015, the new level was 10 times, 10 times lower than what the old level was as far as the action level. So, so think about that. Just because OSHA finally got around to it, right? It took years and years and years. They come out with a standard like, hey, we know we were at 250, now we're at 50 as a max, 25 as an action level. And they said even those levels really aren't safe, but it's as low as we think we can go before it becomes infeasible. So here companies could have been relying upon OSHA saying we're good at this level, and yet having their employees exposed to something that wasn't going to kill them today and not going to kill them tomorrow, not going to kill them next week or next year. But when they go to retire, they probably already have that and then it robs them of that future. So that's where I'm careful to not openly malign OSHA because they serve a purpose. But for any company that I'll say is worthwhile, OSHA should be a. And oh, by the way, oh and make sure that we're not violating whatever the record keeping requirement. I mean there's, right now there's a ton of stuff going on with record keeping. It's that time of year, February, for posting things. I've had half a dozen clients call me up panicked about that. And when I say panic, just like, hey, are we okay? Do we have our stuff right? The construction industry has never lost a life because of a record keeping error. I'm just saying. Right, so but all of that with like to your point earlier about like safety cops. The industry still seems to have this, this healthy percentage of safety professionals and again, I was one of them. But that still are firmly in that punitive or that compliance minded frame of mind. And it's kind of like the emperor has no clothes. We may think those that we're dealing with are buying it, but they're not. And when I shifted about 20 years ago, when I shifted to a more human approach, genuine by the way too. Because the one thing, if the world ever needs bullshit detectors, go to the construction industry. Sure, they'll ferret right out. Oh yeah, and I like that. But as soon as I change my approach from the heart, my effectiveness changed, my career changed. Well yeah,

[Aaron]

if you're relying on the government to tell you what's best for you, I think we've established, especially over the past few years that's not the best course of action. You know, like, the government just came around to being like, this food pyramid looks a little off. You know, we better change a minute. Yeah, there's something off here. Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Now you sound like my old libertarian self there with that.

[Aaron]

Well, but, but, yeah, like, I, I just had this conversation with Keith. I'm not putting my health and well being in anyone else's hands.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I'm not doing that. That's my responsibility.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And. Sorry, I, I, I might, I might leverage other people for guidance, especially when I'm in an uncomfortable situation or uncomfortable world. This and that. Or I might exercise more caution if I'm, you know, know, unfamiliar. But I know the basics. I can apply common sense, and I know what's best for me. Like, and especially, you know, if a safety professional that's, like, pretty overweight is telling me what's best for me and my body. I'm a triathlete. Like, I'm. Not to be, not to be at the, at the risk of sounding arrogance like, I'm good, bro. Like, I, you know, I got this. I'm fine. I'm good. Take a cue. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I, you know, and I think safety, too, is made out to be this really complicated thing. It's not that complicated at the end of the day. Like, there's nuances and there's more complex,

[Jeff Spatz]

but it's not, it, it is not that complicated.

[Aaron]

It's not that complicated.

[Jeff Spatz]

There are details. We know. The devils are details. Yes. And when you get into, like, you know, confined space, Right. You can, you can run into trouble quickly if you don't have the details. But it's, there's, I think we've trained, we have trained as an industry. We've trained people to think of safety in, I think, negative terms. It's, you know, it's the hard. Look at the caricatures, right. Look at the cartoon figures, right. The hard hat, Harry, whatever. The giant boots, the big hard hat. You know, it's done the industry a disservice worse. I think it's. It's resulted in loss of life and catastrophic injury because we've been selling it as something that it shouldn't be. You know, I haven't met many people. I'm trying to think of maybe three. Three people come to mind over 35 years who, in hindsight or even at that time, I wondered if they truly were looking to die or get hurt on the job.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Whether it's suicidal or not. Not to get too dark, but they.

[Aaron]

Which is a real thing.

[Jeff Spatz]

It is. But were. They really, truly didn't care. But that's, you know, I've met and interacted with thousands of construction workers, and so that's a tiny, tiny fraction of a percent. So again, most people want some kind of life. They want something. Right. They got this, bro. Right. Like you said, like, I got this. But it's. I've seen, I've seen the safety person that. And, you know, I'll just say it. Grossly overweight, smoking a cigarette, telling others how to live their lives, and then maybe observe getting in their vehicle, their truck or whatever, no seat belt, talking on their phone, you know, and I think they're in the wrong profession. Listen, we all have a layer of bullshit that we deal with or a certain, A certain veil of hypocrisy that we deal with occasionally or that we have in our lives. I try to keep that very thin. But I think it's the reason that the safety folks have the reputation they have in many cases. Safety person walks out on a job site. Like, if you and I walked out on a job site together, they knew who you were and they knew I was safety. You're probably going to get a different reception. It's like, oh, hey, Aaron, what the chef doing here? Is he going to write us up? So it's that I think we've, but we've trained people. We have them conditioned to think of, of us. And I'm, I'm part of the problem. Or was. At least they think of us as, as, as a negative influence that we're going to, we're out there to whatever, to fill out a report, to fill up a checklist, to, to write somebody up.

[Aaron]

But, but, but I think that's because it has been. In a lot of ways, it has. Oh, yeah. And safety is something I fixate on. Like, I think about, I think about the safety thing all the time. And I'm, I'm insane. I'm all. This is all I think about. This is all I do. Like this world.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And, and I just, I just ruminate on the safety thing. It just drives me nuts because it's, it's like the sacred cow of the industry. You can't challenge safety. And it's like, you can't.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You can't really go after it. And then I think a lot of times people hide behind it as like, I'm holier than thou.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And, and, and I think, like, it's interesting. I go to a lot of workplaces like, you But I've seen there was. There was one, you know, in not. Not in the too distant past where I went to two operations that were identical. They could not have been more identical.

[Jeff Spatz]

Different companies.

[Aaron]

Different companies, though.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But what they were doing was the same thing. What they were after, the objective, you know, the. And in a good way or bad way? No, just. It's just their business. They're both building a building.

[Jeff Spatz]

Right. Right.

[Aaron]

And you know, I go one day visit this company, one day visit this company. Exact same work done the same way. One of them people likes to be at the other one.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Was like, everybody had their tail between their legs.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like. And I was thinking. I was like, I couldn't ever work at a place like this. I couldn't do it. I just.

[Jeff Spatz]

I just.

[Aaron]

This isn't fun. This is.

[Jeff Spatz]

What was the difference? Was the difference, like a severe safety oversight on the one.

[Aaron]

Well, but that's my point. That's my point is like the. The other one was like, rules for rules for rules for rules. And then this one was like, well, we've realized, like, in open areas, when there's no open overhead hazard, we don't need hard hats.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And it's like. That's a very sound observation. Like, that's a very reasonable common sense type rule. Like, let me wear PPE when there's a hazard. When there's not a hazard. I don't need to. God forbid. We trusted people to make that kind of decision. And they trusted people. And it was a much more enjoyable. It just, just, Just the feeling was it's like, this is somewhere I would work. And I just. I always look at things like I could think somewhere is cool, but there's not that many places that I would work, frankly, like, if I would work there. All right, this is something neat. This is some. Somewhere I'd work. It's the same work. I wouldn't work here because it's just not fun. Like, they're taking all the life out of it, all the fun out of it, all the autonomy out of it. They don't want Aaron. They want, you know, badge number 77473. And they want badge number 77473 to just do whatever box I'm assigned. Do not go outside of the box. Just do the damn job. And to me, it's like, then what's the point?

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Why. So then now I'm just trading my time for money, which. Okay, you know, maybe that achieves something else down the road. And I get that. But I. Right now in the workplace, I've got options.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I don't need to be there. And I think it's like, that's my problem with safety too. It's like in these, like, safety regimes is it just makes it miserable. And it's, but it doesn't have to be miserable, you know, like, that misery is manufactured. It's like, it doesn't have to be that way. Which is what I think about a lot is like, you're making it something. It doesn't have to be. Like, no one's telling you to do it this way. And the law is not saying you have to do it this way and this and that. And this way isn't any safer. It's just more miserable.

[Jeff Spatz]

Well, there's, there's a. And I, I get this school of thought because I'm, I, I support it, that if the, if the consequences were singular, so, so if, if a, if a, If a worker chose, hey, listen, you know what? Today I'm free. I'm going to do what I think is best. If their consequences of their decisions were isolated to them, it would be maybe more acceptable. Maybe not to their family or their loved ones, but it would be more acceptable where a guy decides, hey, I don't need a hard hat here. Something flies off, whacks him with a head. Now it's the consequences are his. But they're also shared by the company and by, you know, by the insurance carriers.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

And I think that does drive a lot of that, is that we've. And, and by the way, too, I, I just, I just thought of this, that I had a guy railing on me one time about the, about rules. And I said, I said, I, I don't know if you know this about me, but I hate rules. And he looked at me, he kind of was like, you know, like, like, I sense bullshit here. And he goes, what do you mean you hate rules? Like, I, I literally, I really hate rules. Like, I. You tell me to sit down, I want to stand up. You. Yeah, you tell me. You. Yeah, you tell me you shall. I'm going to, I don't know how candid I can be, but you tell me you shall. I'm going to tell you something else. Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

So it's, and yet, look at the profession I'm in. Right. But the, the, But I recognize that, that when the consequences are shared and that they're not isolated, the decisions then are somewhat taken away from the individual because now there's other stakeholders. But when you were saying what you were Saying, I remembered I had an iron worker, I don't know, 15 years ago, maybe, maybe a little more. And he was about to go up on the steel, and he had his harness on. And I was just going to compliment him on having his D ring, his dorsal D ring, right between his shoulder blades, like, hey, nice job. Chest strap at his chest. And I see he has his leg straps rolled up nice and neat, nice and neat and duct taped so that, you know, they're not even in place. So I approached him, I said, hey, listen, man, before you go up there, like, you got to get those leg straps attached. And we had a frank conversation. Right after that. He turned around, he looks at me and he goes, you know, and I'll leave the expletives out, but he goes, you know, you saved people right away, so now it's us versus them. He goes, you take all of the fun out of my job. Now think about this. And I said to him, I go, explain that to me. I said, I'm not arguing with you here, but I want to know. I said, why would you say that? He goes, because when I'm walking that steel, he said, the only thing keeping me alive are my wits and my skills. He said, you people like you, he said, you forced me to tie off. He said, and now I have a safety net. In other words, I have something that's. That I don't have to rely so much on my wits and my skill. And he said, and that takes the fun away. He said, you. And he's like, you people. He goes, you steal all the fun from our jobs. And he said, and I hate that. I said, well, brother, I said, listen, man, I said, I still need you to put your leg straps on. And he goes, you know, he goes, he wasn't done with me yet, right? He goes, I swear to you, he goes, if I gave my wife a harness and told her to get up on that steel, she could probably do this job. Then he looks at me, and I realized I was now in a lower category, right? He didn't like his wife that much. And he put, no, here I come. And he goes. He looks at me. He looks me up and down. He goes, in fact, he goes, I could put you in a harness, and you could probably go up there and do that job. I'm like, well, I don't. I don't think so. You know, but he said, but his. His thing was, I was robbing him of that autonomy. That. That. What's the. There's another word. I'm Looking for with that. But that, that ability to. To utilize what he felt were gained skills and acumen and that he had what it took to do the work safely. Not compliant, not in a compliant sense, but safely. And that adrenaline rush, let's face it. Right. An adrenaline rush of being up there knowing that the only thing between him and disaster was him. Not the harness, it was him.

[Aaron]

But you could. I mean that's a sound argument. Well, it's like I'm not for people falling off buildings. Like I'm, I'm pretty, I'm pretty even mannered. Like I'm pretty reasonable when it comes safety. I'm not making an argument against safety. Like it, sure, I get it. I get harnesses, fall protection.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, yeah. Great. Yeah.

[Aaron]

But like I. And the reason why I say a sound argument is I was with loggers maybe a month ago in Oregon and there were these two talk about it.

[Jeff Spatz]

It was high risk industry.

[Aaron]

It's the highest risk industry in America.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Logging felling by hand.

[Jeff Spatz]

Oh yeah.

[Aaron]

And so. And it's the first time I'd seen it. It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in my life. It's these two guys. And there were way back in the woods in Oregon, in the Oregon Cascades. This area burned years ago and now all these trees, it's all this old growth. So these are 2, 3, 400 year old trees all leaning different directions and posing. Call them hazard trees. Hazard tree removal.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so they had 70 road miles of hazard trees to clear. They have to clear the hazard road miles. Yeah. From both sides of the road for 70 miles. But it's National Forest Service.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So they can't run equipment off road. And so every one of the trees had to be felled by hand. And I'm watching these guys and the skill, like the risk is unbelievable. But their skill is unbelievable. It was one of the most spectacular things I've seen. Two guys and I mean the sound of a hundred tons of tree hitting the ground, it's unbelievable. And one mistake kills these guys.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But the humility that they have.

[Jeff Spatz]

See. Okay, that's an interesting thing that you said there because they. There's no margin for error or if there is, it's the thinnest of margins.

[Aaron]

No, but I remember, I mean, I. Again, it's one of the more profound things I've heard. And maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. I don't think I am though. It's one of them. He was saying we're the weakest link out here.

[Jeff Spatz]

How about that?

[Aaron]

We're the weakest link.

[Jeff Spatz]

Recognize that out here.

[Aaron]

Yeah. It's us and Mother Nature.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And Mother Nature wins, man.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And we're not here to tell her how to do it.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

We're not here to tell her how to do it. We're just here to do our job. But just that, like, what they're doing is inherently dangerous. Risky. They know that risk. They understand that risk. They've accepted that risk. But that, like, they leverage that risk to then do their job safely and effectively. If that makes sense. Like, you can't sterilize that in a way. Like, there's an inherent risk to doing

[Jeff Spatz]

it with that type of work. There's only so much you can do.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Jeff Spatz]

And then everything else is there. Right. It's a great example, actually, of one of those jobs where you can only engineer out the risk to a certain extent.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

But PPE is going to be woefully inadequate for at least the big things when you can't.

[Aaron]

Like, my point is, like, you can't safety guy your way out of that one. And you can't, you can't rule book your way out of that one. You just, you have to totally trust those two individuals and their skill set.

[Jeff Spatz]

Their skills, their wits.

[Aaron]

Yes. And you just have to trust them as human beings to do it effectively. Like, and that's, that's magic. And, and so, and so where, where I'm at is, like, if I was choosing a place to work, I don't want to be told what to do. Like a child.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I just, I don't. And, and if that's part of the gig. Sorry. I, I don't care how cool the work is. I can't do it.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And I, I, I've seen a lot of places like that. I enjoy visiting them. I would, you could not pay me enough money to work at some of these places. Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it because I just don't want to be treated like a child every day.

[Jeff Spatz]

I'm a fan of. The word I was trying to think of earlier was agency. I'm a fan of giving people agency over their, you know, whatever you can, whatever you can grant people. When I say grant, that sounds like I'm like, I'm dispensing it. And that's, that's bullshit. But wherever you can allow room for agency where people can, they can have those decisions again, I'm caught between that and I was a registered libertarian for probably I don't know, 10 years. Very much. Oh yeah, very much. Not the Ross Perot whatever nuttiness.

[Aaron]

I love the irony of being a registered libertarian, by the way.

[Jeff Spatz]

Well, there was, yeah. Because you don't like rules and you're abiding by rules.

[Aaron]

Exactly.

[Jeff Spatz]

But I'm going to adhere to the system.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

But I was very much not an anarchist. I couldn't describe myself as that. But I, I'm not comfortable again, in a high rule environment. I appreciate autonomy. That's one of the things that our company has, at least Graham Co. Was known for and is known for is they give people like us broad autonomy. They're not, we're not a nanny company and any attempt to do that would be met with resistance. Right, so I get it. I'm back to though that, that, that the consequences, like how do you, how do you do that in an environment where the consequences are then shared? So it's, you know, there, there was a, a project that I was quite involved with on a, at least a weekly basis, if not daily basis, where we dumped an 80 ton drill rig on an inspector. Well, the inspector wasn't the one at fault. He was a completely innocent party. He was the one that paid the ultimate price and then by extension so did his loved ones. Right. So I'm caught between situations like that where I know what, what it looks like up close and personal when those things happen, when the consequences escape the individual and now they're, they're everywhere. And, and that, that nanny state, but I think we've also created, and I happen to be reading a great book, I didn't see it around here, but you might have read it. Bullshit Jobs. No, you would, you would love it. Yeah, it's been out for a while but, but I can see where the administrative safety state, and I'm not speaking from a standpoint of arrogance anything else because again, I was part of it to a large extent. But the administrative safety state is creating. Its own universe where it's existing for its own.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's a self licking ice cream cone.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, exactly. And, and, and if it were making the industry safer, if we were getting better at sending people back to those they love, yeah, I'd be all for it. But we're, you know, if you look at these statistics and I hate data typically just because, you know, I'm always asking the question, what is it telling me? But if you look, we've gotten really good at managing injuries after they occur. So the, the, the OSHA recordable, which we all dread, right. The OSHA recordable. We've gotten really good as an industry at managing that. I want to use the term massaging or manipulating, but I won't. I use managing.

[Aaron]

So there's no manipulation.

[Jeff Spatz]

There's no manipulation. But we've, we've managed those, those recordable injuries down to, you know, the, the graph drops down, it's visibly like you, you see it heading down, which is good. It is good. But fatalities, we're still hanging right in there.

[Aaron]

We've been consistent with fatalities.

[Jeff Spatz]

We've been consistent.

[Aaron]

So I, and I'm not saying this as the CEO of a 10,000 person company either. Like maybe that's just the only structure that works at the top. And again, I'm just. You're questioning it. I'm just questioning it.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. Because I think that's healthy.

[Aaron]

Something smells off about it, but it start. The whole thing starts to fall apart when, yeah, we're, we're spending more on safety than ever before. Like astronomical sums on safety. Crazy dollars being spent right now, which is good. Investing in safety. Great, great, great, great. Without any significant outcome for on the job fatalities. That's been pretty steady. And then you start to go, all right, we're, we were safe because people are number one. That's what everybody says. And I, I believe most people believe that. And I'm so, I'm not saying this.

[Jeff Spatz]

I believe most people want to, most,

[Aaron]

most people want to believe that.

[Jeff Spatz]

They want to believe that.

[Aaron]

And I'm not sitting here saying, you know, it's, it's, it's some guy in like an evil way or like let's, let's, you know, it's not this grand conspiracy.

[Jeff Spatz]

There's nobody working controls behind the.

[Aaron]

Yes, but, but that whole thing totally breaks down when you go to. And this is what I spoke at Dirt World about. When you go to any job site and you look around and you ask yourself, are these people healthy? Gone, dude. And you won't ever hear anything about health on a job site ever.

[Jeff Spatz]

So ever.

[Aaron]

And then you have suicide.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yes.

[Aaron]

And then you have drug overdose, which is, oh yeah, wildly outpacing on the job fatalities. Wildly. And we're not going to say a peep about it. Suicide. Now you start to see a little bit talking about it. Hasn't actually done anything though. Hasn't changed the numbers one bit. Drug overdose, we're not going to talk about that at all. Oh, 16 times on the job fatalities, total. We're not going to talk about it. We can't do anything about it. They're just addicts. That's not us. I don't have anything. I don't have anything to do with that. Then it's like, again, just. Just tell me that killing people on a job site is bad for business, because that's what it is. Like, let's just agree upon that. And again, I'm fine with that. I get that. I'm a business owner. I understand that is bad for business. That. That, yes. And that's not in anybody's best interest. Who wants to do like, I understand. But I like, if. If this really was number one, people, people, people, people, people. We would be talking about so many of these obvious problems. Like, again, go to a single job site and tell me that that is a place parents should want their kids.

[Jeff Spatz]

So you've opened up.

[Aaron]

And I say that in a very genuine, caring way. That's not.

[Jeff Spatz]

No, no.

[Aaron]

That's not just a criticism. Oh, no.

[Jeff Spatz]

That's kind of just throwing box.

[Aaron]

Wants this industry to succeed more than anybody, 100%.

[Jeff Spatz]

So you've opened up a couple doors here that I love. The. One of the most candid moments I've had with a client happened somewhat recently. And I was sitting with their executives, and they asked me for just a summary, just kind of a gut check of their culture. And I told them, I said, I'll do anything I can for you, but if my daughter were looking to work for a construction company like yours, you know, same, same type of business, I would never want her working here. Now think about that. And I said, because I would worry incessantly whether I would see her again. Now, you shape it in that context because, like, I'm willing to take some risks, right? Even as a safety nerd, I'm willing to take some risks. I used to have two motorcycles, not just one, but, you know, I like adrenaline as much as anybody else. I sold them, by the way, because the risk was too much. But when you tell senior leaders of a company, the top leaders, that you love them but you wouldn't trust your child under their care, what does that say, you know? Now, the greatest compliment I paid one of my clients was again recently where I told the senior leaders, I said, by the way, I want to tell you something. I said, take heart. I think your culture is moving along incredibly well. I said, I can see that it's genuine, it's dusty, it's banged up, it's a little scuffed, but it's real. And I said, I'm going to tell you something that I Believe to my core, if my daughter were looking to work for a company like this, I would want her to work for your company. I would trust my only child under your care. Well, that says a lot. Right. So let's get back into the health thing. I had a watershed moment. It's a client that you and I both know, but I'll leave them out. Good people. I'm doing training on respable crystalline silica.

[Aaron]

Right.

[Jeff Spatz]

And it's hard to make silica a sexy hazard because again, it kills you very slowly. Once, once it gets you, it's.

[Aaron]

It turns your lungs to concrete.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. It's a rough death. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a really bad death. Right. Falls like electrocution is probably the best way to go. Right. Because it's over quick.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

But silica is a bad way to go. So I'm, I've got 40 people in the room and I'm passionately extolling the, the hazards of respiratory, crystal, silicon. I'm going through, you know, bits and pieces of the OSHA standard just to give them context, but I'm trying to get them to understand, like this is something that they should be concerned about and why. And at the first break, out of 40 people, a dozen of them go rushing out to do what? To smoke.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

During the training, probably two thirds are sucking down monster drinks. Right. Eating whatever convenience store shit. And one guy brought in a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew and he's chugging that down and he already looks like he has some concerns. And I'm not saying that from a holier than thou standpoint, I need to worry enough about my own health.

[Aaron]

Yeah, correct.

[Jeff Spatz]

But what got me was when I finished up, I'm going to have a nice list, sign in sheet of everybody that attended the training. Okay. But look at what's happening when you ask the question you didn't ask in your fictitious job site. Are you safe? You asked, are we healthy? Right. Are we healthy? All of a sudden everything starts to shift and people can say, well, you know, we don't have control over that. We only have them for a shift. You know, that's up to them, what they do in their own lives.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Which is bullshit.

[Jeff Spatz]

But we've, it's, it. The dynamic changed for me when I started looking at people. Imagine this as human, where I can't be their nanny, I can't be their caretaker, I can't be all things to them, but I also can't look away. So I gave an impromptu talk on a job site. That was an absolute, absolute abomination. My client was a subcontractor. I predicted, not because I'm psychic, but because of just the conditions. I predicted that there would be a fatality. I said. I said, if. If the GC doesn't get this project under control and it had issues with schedule, everything. I said, someone's going to die in this project. A year after I said that, somebody did. But. But I was. In the interim, I'm talking to this subcontractor. I got put on the spot. Hey, Jeff, can you do a safety talk? And I was trying to. I'm looking at the crew, I'm looking at everybody. I'm trying to think, what do I say that's going to resonate with them? I'm not going to use the term motion. And I'm looking at people that are doing important work. They really are. They're doing important work. They're doing work that, let's face it, the majority of the population can't do. It's necessary work. It's not a bullshit job. And I'm looking at them, and it sounds. It sounds trite. It sounds like I'm building up to a Disney movie or a Hallmark movie. But forget that I saw them as human. I said, you know, folks, I said, here are my goals for you for today. I said, I can't make you happy. I said, I would if I could. I said, I don't want you to get sick, I don't want you to get hurt, and I don't want you to die today. How's that? I said, those are my goals for you. I said, we're going to keep them real simple. I don't want you to get sick. I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want you to die. I said, now, I said, whatever we've got to do collectively to make sure that doesn't happen, I want to do. I said, and I'm going to ask. I'm going to ask for your input, for your help. You are your brother's keeper. I said, I'm going to ask that we all work together to make that happen. And I looked at the safety guy. I said, that's all I got. I was there for a few hours, was there until the end of the shift. And this one guy, been around a long time, all union trade people, and he comes walking out of the project, head down, shoulders slumped, kind of dragging along with his lunchbox. And he sees me, looks at me, he goes, I didn't die. No. He Goes, I didn't get sick, I didn't get hurt and I didn't die. And the eye contact was weird because he just kind of stared into my soul for a moment. And he turns and he shuffles off. And I said, well, I'm really happy for you. I called after him, I said, I'm happy for you. I said, I hope you appreciate going home to those you love. He turns around, he looks at me and he said, man. He goes, I don't have anybody at home. He goes, I said, a cat? A dog? He goes, no. He goes, I drink too much. And he turned and walked away. If, If we worried about people as humans, we wouldn't have enough time. There's not enough time in the world. Construction does not have enough, enough elastic or enough whatever room capacity to allow for that. So we can't financially. There's no project that's going to be able to care for people on a level that's going to help someone like that. So think about this, right? This guy is not alone, I'm sure. Now he might be a more advanced case, but here's a guy who's coming in and what are we looking to do? Let's just be honest. We're looking to keep him safe on our job. We don't want him getting hurt. Why? Because it's going to cost us money, right? It's going to cost us reputation. But here's a guy who is living a life of misery, poor health, and we've got to look away, we have to, because we just so. And, and it's. Yeah, and, and then when you look at the statistics, right, he's, he's one case. One case. And I get it, I can't, you know, I can't. We can't save them all. And I'm not, I'm not suggesting that that should be a realistic goal. But if we're really talking about safety and health like you brought up, look at the state that people are in. I was on a job not that long ago, was out there on a weekly basis and we had two union trade foremen, two separate companies, each of them, and we were right across the street from Children's Hospital Philadelphia. Right across the street. You'd look over and see it. Both of them had children under the age of five in the hospital getting treatment, life saving treatment. So now imagine these. Where are these guys? They're on the job. Why? Because they got to work, right? But imagine what's going on in their world at home, during work. So when you Start to see the bigger picture at the same time that you're seeing kind of a more intimate look, you get a better idea of the state of affairs of this industry. It's a great industry. I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade it for anything. But my job has gotten more effective as I've allowed myself to become more human and seen the human side. But it's also got more difficult because you can't. Because now you're, you see people, right? Not as, not as projects to fix, not as, oh, it's, you know, I'm here, I'm okay, you're not. So I'm going to, you know, graciously reach down and help you. That's, that's condescending, you know that, or that's condescending bullshit. But the, the, when you start to see people as human, it, the job gets both more fulfilling and it gets tougher. It gets a lot tougher.

[Aaron]

Well, yes, and, and I think your argument stands with the current state of affairs in the industry. Like the industry doesn't have the bandwidth to care for everybody right now. And that's why we have some of the problems. We do. That's why we're lacking for the workforce we need. And everybody, this is, I did the same thing. I used to approach it from an external perspective, like, here's how we can go, attract the next generation, so on and so forth. But like we're just sitting around, oh, they look at this like a lesser than industry, so on and so forth. It's all them. It's not us. Right, but it's like, wait a minute. Or even the college thing, like the college argument to me makes no sense to spend any time on whatsoever once people start to go college, you know, college, like I could give a shit. Go to college, don't go to college, I don't care. And frankly, I'm not necessarily powerful enough to go up against the trillion dollar higher education system. They're gonna do themselves in at a certain point. They already, they already are. I'm gonna let them handle them. Yeah, I am nothing. I'm not, I'm not gonna have any impact on whether people go to college or not. That's, that's not it. And again, that's already unraveling. They've already, they, they overplayed their hand. They're, they did it to themselves. But college, no college, I don't care. And again, everybody's looking external, external, external. It's their fault, not mine. But it's like, wait a minute, what if the market is just telling us that we're not good enough, that our product, that we're offering this opportunity of employment, it's not good enough for the marketplace.

[Jeff Spatz]

People are making rational decisions and they're not choosing this.

[Aaron]

What if people just aren't choosing this? What if, what if, you know, the parents saying construction is lesser than what if they're right.

[Jeff Spatz]

Whoa.

[Aaron]

And now that means we have to do better. And I'm not saying that like, again, I'm trying to attack this from a reasonable perspective, but if everybody just cares for themselves and those around them a little bit more, everything's dramatically different. Like, I'm not saying we need to have like a therapy trailer on every project with an, a full time therapist where anybody, you know, if Johnny gets his feelings hurt as the pipe player, he can go in there and have, you know, cry and have a nap on the, on the, on the beanbag.

[Jeff Spatz]

You've seen these stickers that say triactin. Like it. Like, in other words, if you, if, if you get butthurt, try it, you know, take some tractin meaning, like tracking like a man.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, I'm, I'm not advocating for any of that. I'm just like. And people that are struggling, I've realized all it takes is like you seeing them, that's all it takes is one interaction like that to just even for a moment make them feel like a human being. Like that. That's, that's, and, and that's all any of us can do. Like, I can't accept responsibility for an alcoholic. I can't do that. No, that's not, that, that's not fair. And it doesn't work that way.

[Jeff Spatz]

Right.

[Aaron]

That's their thing. But I can at least try to make their, give them at least one interaction that day that's a little bit more positive or I can at least be a positive influence on them through my behavior just a little way that might get them a little closer to being better. And maybe that's a very naive concept. Maybe like, Aaron, like, you're still such a ignorant kid. Like, you need a little bit more seasoning. But again, I, that argument is starting to fall off because it's like, well, I've been to enough job sites now. I've met enough people in this industry more than most. Yeah, I've kind of seen more than most at this point. So, so even if I don't have the years of experience I've still seen, I mean, I've collapsed a lot of experience in a 10 year period, you

[Jeff Spatz]

have compressed and collapsed a lot.

[Aaron]

And so that's my point is, like, I'm not even for, like, from a safety perspective, I understand I need to manage for compliance, but if I wanted to be a more effective safety person, I would also be asking myself, how can I be a better example and how can I care for those around me just a little bit and just make them feel like a human being just for a moment? Like, how can I remember people's names?

[Jeff Spatz]

Names and call them by their name? Names are a huge part. Years ago, I walked up to a guy because he wasn't, I forget what it was. I don't know if it was tied off or whatever. And I just said, hey, man, I said, you need to get, that might have been like a guardrail. You need to get that guardrail put back in place. And the guy, he puts it back and he looks at me and he goes, what's your name? I go, jeff. He reaches out, he shakes my hand. He introduced himself and he said, nice to meet you, Jeff. He goes, can I give you a little tip? I'm like, yeah. He goes, the next time you walk up to someone like this, he goes, introduce yourself.

[Aaron]

Which is great.

[Jeff Spatz]

He goes, just say who you are and ask who you're talking to. And he goes, it's going to go a long way. That was another shift.

[Aaron]

Damn. That was.

[Jeff Spatz]

But just learning people's, just learning people's names.

[Aaron]

But that, but that. You have two approaches. You go up, hey, you need to fix that guardrail bus.

[Jeff Spatz]

Hey, you.

[Aaron]

Yeah, and hey, you. Or you've, you've, you've gotten to know this guy Chris. Steve. You know Steve.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And Steve has a daughter.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Who is into soccer.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Steve. Hey. Hey, Steve. How you doing? How's your, how's your daughter's travel soccer going? Oh, man, that's, hey, I've noticed as well. And you have to do it in a caring way. It has to be genuine.

[Jeff Spatz]

It has to be genuine. Has to be genuine.

[Aaron]

But it's, I, I, the more you do it, the easier it is to be interested in people. I feel like, hey, Steve, by the way, I just, I noticed over there that guardrail is not squared away. Would you, would you mind helping me out with that? So you guys are, you guys are good to go and, and you get home to, you know, your daughter tonight. No problem. Like, shifts things because now you're not black and white.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. You're not, you're not coming at it from the rule book. You're not coming at it from the, the checklist. You know, the, you're, you're, you're coming at it from a genuine perspective.

[Aaron]

Well. And it's, it's a human interaction.

[Jeff Spatz]

It's a human interaction.

[Aaron]

And so you're not, you're not only achieving a greater degree of safety, but you're making, you're part of making Steve feel a little bit more cared for.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Just a little bit more cared for. And maybe it doesn't make a difference,

[Jeff Spatz]

but I think more times than not it does.

[Aaron]

More times than not it does. And like I'm, I'm fine making that bet any day of the week. Like, worst case scenario, it doesn't make a difference, but best case scenario it makes a difference.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. It doesn't cost the, the person who's, who's showing that doesn't cost them anything.

[Aaron]

No. And, and like maybe that's the difference. And usually I've heard a lot of stories, people, they're nearly about to take their lives.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yes.

[Aaron]

And then one thing disrupts it.

[Jeff Spatz]

One little thing knocks that, knocks that, that trajectory just a little bit out of a little bit of a different orbit just shifts. Yep. It's.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Jeff Spatz]

Well, that's, that's the other thing that when you look at where, and I know we're getting better as an industry, but when you look at the amount of money, effort, time invested in OSHA's Fatal Four. Right. Falls, electrocution, struck by and caught in between, that's the order that's typically in from, from, from worst to to least worse. If you go into the dirt world, it's going to be struck by corridor between electrocution and the flood falls. And we've been, we've, we've devoted countless hours and dollars and effort to that. And, and I get it. But when you, when you think about it, right, if, if, if, if you were advising someone who is making that college, no college decision or even saying, hey, are, are, are the, is the construction and the guy's parents sat down with you and said, well, tell me about the risks. And you said, your child is going to have or the likeliest way they are to meet an untimely end in this profession to the parent saying this is overdose. If they slip that statistic suicide, and if they get by that one, well then we're way down the line where it falls electrocution, struck by 1/4 and

[Aaron]

way down the road, it's deadlier than the United States military.

[Jeff Spatz]

Absolutely it is. That's a statistic that A lot of people. Miss.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Jeff Spatz]

If your child is making a decision to go into our armed services or the construction industry, statistically, they're far better off in the armed services. And the statistics that were, that were run on, that were run during, I'll say, the tail end of our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Think about that.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

If, if my child, like, if, if I didn't know any of that, my child said to me, hey, listen, it's either Marine Corps or the dirt world.

[Aaron]

And the Marine Corps, I'm gonna get three months training.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. And you're gonna be a Marine, let's face it. Right. You're gonna be a Marine.

[Aaron]

Basic training. I'm gonna be a Marine versus they're gonna give me an address over here and.

[Jeff Spatz]

Right.

[Aaron]

Godspeed. But that's the onboarding program.

[Jeff Spatz]

But if I were the parent looking at that, I'd be like, well, guess what? You know, the armed services, a noble performance profession. But I, I worry about you. I don't want you, you know, what, what, what would happen if you, if you joined our military like you could. And yet it's the, the statistics show that someone is far safer in the military than they are in construction. And that, that to me, blows my mind. There's, there's, we have, we have this issue that we're starting to get. It's like the tiger by the tail, maybe we're starting to open up the picture to see just how big it is. And it's overwhelming people because there's only so much you can do. There's only so many resources you can, you can, you can offer. But I guess the question I have is. One of the questions I have is, are the, are the overdose and suicide rates what they are because of the type of people the construction industry draws?

[Aaron]

There's part of that.

[Jeff Spatz]

So is it, Is it. Well, it's not our problem. It's a people problem outside of that. Okay.

[Aaron]

Which. There's part of that.

[Jeff Spatz]

Except. Yeah. I think the military, the military draws from a very similar pool.

[Aaron]

And it has the same problems, though.

[Jeff Spatz]

It does. But it's still a safer environment, let's say. So is it? Have we. Like for instance, I had a client tell me they said their ideal superintendent. Ideal Superintendent is early 50s with a controlled alcoholism, two pack a day habit, couple divorces behind him. Right, sure.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

And estranged from his kids. Think about. That's their ideal superintendent because they can get probably maybe 10 years of work

[Aaron]

out of them, 80 hours a week

[Jeff Spatz]

until he burns out. And he's used up and done or dead by 60, whatever. Well, they were being cynical, but. But, yeah, but, yeah, but also I think they were being probably a little honest there. Right, so what have we done? Look at the. Look at the schedules today. Look at the schedules. I said this in the, in the talk at the Dirt World Summit. Yesterday's miracle is today's expectation and tomorrow's not good enough.

[Aaron]

Well, and my. Again, you know, on that note, it's like rules for. This is a different rabbit trail, but rules for me, not for the. I was talking with contractors around Christmas and it's like, yeah, we, we can't take, you know, the week off between Christmas and New Year's, which I think is criminal. Like, that not taking that week off is just dumb. It's just. It's. In my opinion, it's just. That's just bad business because no one wants to work that week. No one.

[Jeff Spatz]

People's heads aren't in it. They're not yet.

[Aaron]

No, they're not in it. So on and so forth. And the contract the GCS make us. And it's like. But I'm like, yeah, but I'm sure the GCS are on site too, huh? Fat chance. They're on site because they've got a great vacation policy and they don't need to be on site, you know. But going back to the safety thing, like, head injury is about a third of on the job fatalities. Roughly, Roughly, I think, is the numbers. So then you've got suicide and accidental drug overdose, 20 times total. So that's 60 times head injuries. And the biggest innovation, the biggest investment right now is type two hard hats.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And I am not after type two hard hats. It's great. Congratulations. I'm all for it, man.

[Jeff Spatz]

All for it.

[Aaron]

All for it. Great. But there's estimates that the industry spending $100 million plus to make that transition. There's something that's 60 times more potent just on the other side of the fence and we're not going to say a thing about it. And the craziest thing about that is that doesn't even require money to address. I don't even need to spend on it. I just need to care a little bit more about those around me. Well, and there's like, again, yeah, that's very. Rainbows and butterflies. But me as a leader, like one, all I need to do really is take care of my shit. That's an important part of mental health. That's a lot more effective. When I can say, listen, I've struggled. Here's how I've struggled. Here's what I've done when I'm struggling. So I can't.

[Jeff Spatz]

Doing.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I can't. Like, one of the most powerful thing that I've learned to say to people that are struggling is like, that sucks, dude. Yeah, like that, that just sucks.

[Jeff Spatz]

Compassion.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I've, I've. I've been there in my way. Like, yeah, I'm. I'm not gonna try to make it feel better. This and that. That's what a lot of people do. Let me alleviate the pain for you. Which doesn't work. I just. That, that, that, that's, that's super shitty. And I've been there. Yeah, like, that's, that's kind of all it takes. Like, and, and, and that's not all it takes. But like, if everybody just did that dramatic change and you can. There is the argument that the construction industry does attract more addicts. Okay, that's. That is, that is fair.

[Jeff Spatz]

I don't think they attract the. That many times more.

[Aaron]

It's not that many times. And most of the time, like, what happens. And I've looked into this. I've studied. This is. According to the research, it's either chronic pain or injury leading to pain. Pill subscription, leading to subscription running out, leading to. Sometimes I don't have time to go to the damn doctor, dude.

[Jeff Spatz]

Right.

[Aaron]

I'm working 60 hours a week. It's summer. 70 hours a week. I don't have time to go to

[Jeff Spatz]

the doctor, but I can get a hold of heroin.

[Aaron]

Well, no, my buddy has pills that he says are the exact same thing and says on the bottle they're the exact.

[Jeff Spatz]

That'll fix me up. I'll be fine.

[Aaron]

Well, it's the same thing. It's. It's not a big deal, man. I just need a little something to get through whatever it is. One, two, six. One of them is laced with something it shouldn't be. And that guy's dead. He's not an addict. He's not buying them from the drug dealer in the sketchy part of town even. It's just normal people that are dying. These, these, these aren't even addicts. Like, we're putting them in because that makes it emotionally convenient that, that, that allows me to compartmentalize it. Well, it's just addicts and addicts are just gonna do addict stuff.

[Jeff Spatz]

It allows us, which is true, to distance ourselves from. From the issue. And, and yet when you see, when you see the pictures, right? When you see the pictures of the people that are dying, they don't look like addicts.

[Aaron]

They're normal people.

[Jeff Spatz]

They're normal people. And many of them, prior to the first pain pill, would have never, ever, ever seen themselves in that state. Never. And so it's. I think we're with the contractors that I deal with in the. In the waters that I'm swimming in. We're seeing a lot of attention on mental health. I'm worried it's gonna burn out. I'm worried it's gonna be the fad. And now we're done talking about it, and we have to figure out the next thing. But think about this. The hard hats. And listen, I got probably two or three of them in my truck. Cause I'm a safety guy, right along with my vest and everything else. But the hard hat's easy. It's expensive, but it's easy. I can.

[Aaron]

It's easy.

[Jeff Spatz]

I can literally put it on and take it off.

[Aaron]

We're spending this amount of money to. Yes.

[Jeff Spatz]

And I'm either wearing it or I'm not. I have the chin strap fastened or I don't.

[Aaron]

I have. And that. Safety people love that. Now you don't have your chin strap on.

[Jeff Spatz]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron]

Like, dude, that's another. I mean, that is like. Like moth to a flame. Like, oh, boy. Safety glasses, gloves. The right kind of gloves. Chin straps. Like, well, cut four.

[Jeff Spatz]

Cut four was the. The. The. The preferred level. Now it's cut nine. There's a lot of the contractors going, cut nine. There's.

[Aaron]

And no knives. No more knives.

[Jeff Spatz]

I did have a. A guy that was breaking my stones on a. On a project years ago. He had been working for one of my clients who has a no knife policy.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Jeff Spatz]

And he was. When he saw me on this job working for this other contract, when he was working for this other contractor, he said. He goes, look, man. He goes, do you believe those people? He goes, what? He goes, this is. And he's laughing at her. He's mocking him. And he goes, I can't believe you can't even carry. And he pulls out a utility knife. He goes, he can't even carry this. This would be illegal. I get written up the next day. I'm not kidding you. The next day, he cuts himself, opening up a roll of duct tape.

[Aaron]

Nice.

[Jeff Spatz]

To the point where he had to get stitches. So the next time I was on the job, his hands wrapped up. He's like. I go, hey, how's that. How's that lack of a knife policy or whatever working for you? It's like, just. Just stop Just stop. But it's, it, it's these things where something happens, the industry reacts. A lot of it. And I'm not, I'm not saying this in a, in a negative way. I'm saying it in a matter of fact way. A lot of it is driven by insurance carriers because a lot of it because they're lawyers and insurance carriers. Yeah. And they're the ones paying the money. Right. They're the ones paying out. And don't forget insurance carriers are for profit businesses. They want to earn a profit and

[Aaron]

they're very profitable businesses.

[Jeff Spatz]

In many, many cases they are. So it's a lot of that is driven by the carriers. I'm not blaming them for it. I'm saying that that's a driving force. Less than osha. Again, people are like, well, doesn't OSHA now require type 2 hard hats? No. For their own people, they're wearing them, I hear. But they haven't changed the standard and chances are it's going to be a while until they do. So we, the hard hat though is a symbol. It's symbolic. It shows us that we're, it's, it's, it's a symbol that we're doing something we're supposed to do or that we're doing the right thing.

[Aaron]

It feels like we're innovating. Like, you know that, that old school hard hat with no chin strap, man.

[Jeff Spatz]

Right.

[Aaron]

That's old school.

[Jeff Spatz]

Cool stuff, man. You look at that now. Better. Oh yeah, we're better.

[Aaron]

How far we've come because now, now there's a visible difference. I get, I get it. Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

But, but we're the, the whole issue of, of mental health or just health, health is a lot harder because there's not something you can go, well, if we, if we invest 100 million, it's, you're going to see a tangible thing. People are going to be wearing whatever, a different uniform, a different whatever. There's, there's no, there's no good icon for, for the health part. But there's. So I, I get why we're, we're still struggling with the health and the health, mental health, physical health. We're struggling with it because it's so much harder to attack. But, but I think that I'm going to say it, I think people in my profession should still sleep a little uneasier because we haven't made huge inroads in that area and there's still a long way to go. Not that it's the safety person's responsibility, but any safe Like I had somebody, I'm going to be careful I don't identify them. Years ago, prior to Graham, I was kind of unloading to this fellow safety professional about kind of what was on my heart and mind about something. And I said, man, I said, I really worry about that guy. I said, I'm worried if he doesn't get it right, whether it's my job or some other job that I'm not even involved with, he's going to die on the job. And the safety professional I was talking to said to me, why would you care, why would you care about these people? These people? These people. Now there's a gulf, right? We're on this side, you're on that side.

[Aaron]

That's human nature.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. And they said, you have to understand something. I'll be blunt, I'll just be, be completely candid with the conversation. They said prior to 7am I don't give a fuck whether these people live or die. And after 5pm I don't care. I care. Only between 7 and 5.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

And they actually said to me, you would do better to not care either. Well, at the very least that person's in the wrong profession. I don't know what the right profession would be. Maybe shooting puppies, I don't know. Right. But it makes the job easier because you're on, you're off. It's an act, right?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

7:00am hey, Aaron, I care about you. Don't fall. Make sure you have this, make sure you do that. 5:00pm I don't care.

[Aaron]

But you could argue too. They're in such a corrosive system. Yeah, I guess they could. Maybe that's the outcome of the system as well. Or it could be maybe a combination of the two.

[Jeff Spatz]

Maybe that's.

[Aaron]

And yeah, they're just so. They've been beaten down for so long.

[Jeff Spatz]

That could be, that's how they, that's how they adapt.

[Aaron]

Well, and we're, we've talked about fatalities, but we haven't even touched on alcohol, substance abuse. We haven't, we touched a little bit upon, you know, physical weight, physical health and well being, but not too much. Divorce, parenting.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Financial struggles, like it's a tough world. And I worked with a lot of people coming up, really good people that kicked ass at work.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I would talk to them though, about what they did outside of work or what their families looked like. And I remember in the back of my head I'm like, I want nothing to do with that. That is dude slamming a 30 rack every night. If I'm slamming a 30 rack every night. Something's wrong, and I want nothing to do with that. Ever.

[Jeff Spatz]

Great.

[Aaron]

People would work like dogs. Something was off, though. Something's off. And to think, too, like, that the industry has nothing to do about it. It's like, oh, that's what they do off the job. Like that. That to me starts. That starts to upset me because it's like, whoa, hey, hold on a second. You're the one making them work 12 hour shifts, and they live an hour and 15 minutes away one way. So now they're working and they're getting there early, probably, you know, 14, 15 hours a day. Yeah, you should be getting eight hours of sleep. You're probably not. If you have a family at home, you're seeing them an hour or two a day. Like, so when are they supposed to exercise? When are they supposed to prep their meals? You know, like when. When they. Of course they're gonna eat at the gas station. And of course they're gonna be hyped up on monster energy all day because they're not sleeping well.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You know, it's like, of course.

[Jeff Spatz]

How else are they gonna get through?

[Aaron]

Yeah, Like. Like it's so easy to be like, well, that's their bad decisions. That's not. We have nothing to do with that. It's like, oh, right, yeah, the 14, 15 hours a day that they're going six days a week. That has nothing to do with it. Yeah, you're right. How many hours a day do you work? What does your schedule look like? Do you have time for anything else when you're doing 12 hour shifts six days a week?

[Jeff Spatz]

No.

[Aaron]

Like, not even the most disciplined person's gonna be able to make that one work.

[Jeff Spatz]

If we looked at the average state of family dynamics and construction, I think it would. The bad news would dwarf the other bad news would dwarf the. The suicide or the. Yeah, the suicide. The overdose rates. The. I was talking with a. A field leader in the dirt world right around Christmas. And I've known this guy for a long time. I have immense respect for him. He's. He's. He's everything the dirt world should be. He's just like. He was like. He was born for it. And we were talking about legacy, and I mentioned, you know, just how it's. It. It's become like. Like, like I. I started the end now because I'm older. Right. So I look at how. How do I want. When I look back, if I'm given that grace of looking back over my life, if I Have that perspective. How do I want that to look? And we were talking about that and he said, he goes, you know, he said, I'm trying to make or to not make the same mistakes with my new family that I made with my old one.

[Aaron]

I've heard that a lot of times over.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yes, that's very common. He, he has young kids now, but he also has kids in their 20s. Two kids in their 20s.

[Aaron]

There's a lot of guys like that

[Jeff Spatz]

he really doesn't have a good relationship with. Why? And he told me, he said, because he was never home, he was always working. His ex wife, Right. So whether the job was the fault or just another catalyst to the undoing of that. But here's a guy who got married, had kids, and it's a shipwreck. So what does he do? Right. By God's grace and maybe his pursuit, he finds another woman, eventually falls in love, they get married and they have two kids. And what does he say? He said, I vowed I wouldn't make the same mistakes. He said, I'm going to know my kids, I'm going to have a relationship with them, I'm going to love my wife, I'm going to do all the things I'm supposed to do. And this guy, again, this guy is gold. I asked him, I said, how's it, how's it working now that you've had the, like, you know, what the, what the path looks like to that? How's it working now that you're. And he said, I'm working six days. He goes, Most of those days are 12 to 14 hours. Because of everything else, travel. He's got responsibilities as a leader. He said, when I'm home, I'm thinking about work. And he paused and he looked at me and he goes, I feel like I'm on the same track now. This is someone who made a conscious decision. We're not going to live the same way. We're not going to do this again. We're not going to repeat it. I said, why? He said, I can't figure out how to stop. Like, it's. This is what happens, right?

[Aaron]

Because that's the.

[Jeff Spatz]

He's dedicated, but he's all, yeah, and

[Aaron]

that's the comfort zone, right?

[Jeff Spatz]

And he's, he's also like, he's one of the people that most. Like I know half a dozen companies that if he put up his hand and said, hey, I'm looking to make a move, they would snap him up.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

He's like, because of that work ethic, right? It's. But. But when you look at the industry and what we've done, you can't. I'm going to say it. I'm just going to say it, and I'd love to be challenged on it in this industry, to be successful, financially successful, to be able to bid competitively, get the work, perform it profitably. You can't live a normal life. No, you can't. You can't live a life where you get home at a decent hour, you have time to unwind whatever shit happened during the day with your family, with your kids, whatever, help so and so with their home, work, do this, do that, take care of the dog, call your aging parents, and then take care of yourself. There is. We. We have engineered it so that there is no capacity for that.

[Aaron]

Well, you. You can't at. At the high level, like. And I've been at the high level.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I didn't resp. I didn't. I respected the leaders that I saw that I interacted with from a professional level. I didn't at all strive to be. I didn't find them at all admirable from a personal level, though.

[Jeff Spatz]

So you wouldn't have looked at their lives and been like, man, I want to live just like that.

[Aaron]

Never. And there's a. There's a great company that I had an offer with. That's the whole reason I didn't take the offer was like, I'm selling me to this company with this.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And they're gonna give me a lot. But, like, yeah, there's no. There's no enough. They just want more and more and more and more and more. And. And that's too. For this generation. Like, why is this generation not want to work as much as we did? It's like, well, we saw you guys do that. Like, my dad, he was gone all the time. What happened? My parents got a divorce. Now, I'm not saying that's the sole reason. It's very complicated relationships. And I don't know what happened, but that was a component to it. Like, when you're gone five days a week. Yeah, that. That. That's tough. That's really, really hard. That.

[Jeff Spatz]

That.

[Aaron]

That places an enormous strain on a household. And. And I saw that. It's like, I don't really want to do that. And this is starting to get to this whole other level of, like, why don't I have kids by now? Like, I'm 30, going on 31. Like, I'm starting to. I'm starting to get down the road, and I'm not. I'm no closer to having kids than when I was 18, man. I think part of it is, like, this is where I think God comes into play. It's like, I haven't been afforded kids yet because I probably would have screwed it up.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Because I've been so hell bent on this one trajectory. Like, I'm obsessed, which is great. Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Your life.

[Aaron]

People. People are like, wow, you know, this. All the. All this stuff's happening. You're doing so much. It's like, yeah, no shit. I know. Like, I know. I live it seven days a week.

[Jeff Spatz]

This is you.

[Aaron]

Yes. Like, so what do you do in your spare time? Like, no, no, no. You don't understand the program I'm on. Like, there. There's nothing out. Like, so. So what'd you do this weekend? Like, what do you mean, what did I do this weekend? I was in the office Saturday and Sunday. And I'm not saying it because I'm like, oh, I just. I grind harder than you. Like, no one works harder than me. This and that. It's like, no, no, no, no. That's just what's for me. That's just the path that I'm on. But that's also why I've destroyed every inkling of a relationship I've had along the way. I've tried a bunch of times, like, trust me, I've tried to get to the point of marriage. Haven't gotten there. And then, you know, it can only happen so many times. The same way when it's like now, you know, maybe it's me, maybe it's not them, you know, But. But I think that's part of it. It's like, I probably. I would have screwed it up because I'm so obsessed. But that's okay. In your 20s, like, you can be wildly unbalanced. And I tell people, like, dude, if I did it again, I would go work for one of the biggest, baddest, sexiest contractors out there. I'd go find one of the biggest, baddest, sexiest projects I could find. I would go probably abroad. I wouldn't even go. I wouldn't even stay in the States. I'd go. I'd go abroad, man. I'd go build shit and whole different country.

[Jeff Spatz]

And you grind it out.

[Aaron]

I grind it out 80 hours a week, 90 hours a week, 100 hours a week. I wouldn't give a single shit. And I would do the biggest, baddest stuff. I'd build all this life experience. And then at a certain point, in time, I'd be like, no more. But that's the trap.

[Jeff Spatz]

That's the trap.

[Aaron]

Because you, they put the golden handcuffs on you at a certain point in time. Hey, they do come on into the stock program, and you're about to make some coin, man. Like, come on in here. Let's get you down into the club. And then you become part of the club and you make some money. Boy, do you make some money. But when they say, hey, you know, you're working in Florida and they're like, what do you think about Minnesota? What do you think about the Twin Cities? And it's a question, but it's a, it's a direction.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. Guess where you're going.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Be prepared.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And you just bought a house and your wife just got a job, and it's like, shit, dude, you just got your kids into a school now what?

[Jeff Spatz]

But it also, I, I think it's, it's, it's great to like, to grind that out in your 20s, but I think it builds. I see it as narcotic because it builds something where now you're chained to it, now you're hooked to it.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Jeff Spatz]

And, and, and it, there's something about being part of a really complex, difficult, challenging project.

[Aaron]

There's nothing cool. Like, big jobs are cool.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. And now, now you've got. Whatever that is. You've got that, that drug flowing through your system, and you think you can walk away from it or step away from it. The money's the one part you can make big money, but it's, it's that, you know, well, the next opportunity, you know, we went from jobs where, you know, I remember where someone was like, oh, hey, that's a billion dollar project. I'm like, whoa, a billion dollar project.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Now those are on every street.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. To, to, you know, the, the average data center. Like, when I heard about the first data center up near, in southeastern Pennsylvania, they're like, that's 6 billion. I'm like, whoa, yeah. For, for what? Yeah, and then it was 10 billion. And then it's, you know, you hear 15. So you.

[Aaron]

150 billion for TSMC micron. Hundred plus billion.

[Jeff Spatz]

So just, just numbers like that being thrown around. Well, it, when, when you're, there's something about solving problems and, and bringing something from nothing that becomes addictive. And I see it in a lot of people, a lot of people your

[Aaron]

age, where it's a good point.

[Jeff Spatz]

Well, and, and, and, and they, they may say, look, I've grounded out. I sacrificed everything. Now Now I'm going to have a family. I'm going to, I'm going to be a human. And they can't walk away from it.

[Aaron]

But that's where I think you have to retool yourself a little bit to, to find fulfillment elsewhere.

[Jeff Spatz]

You do. But, but can you. Because you've lived a life that.

[Aaron]

It's a very good. I, I'm thinking of a friend of mine right now and I know he spent his whole career fast paced, big ass shit.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And never seeing his family. And now he is a grading business, you know, doing smaller stuff, doing it really well and seeing his family all the time and seeing his boys grow up, which I think's incredible. There's a lot of stories like that. But then there's still the little bit that's there of like

[Jeff Spatz]

you miss it, you miss the hit, you miss.

[Aaron]

Which. That's a great point. You missed it. So I, that's very real and I get it. I'm still an addict, I'm a junkie. I get to. People are like, oh, you only cover the big shit. It's like, duh, what? Okay, guilty. Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Take travel. Take the travel and the adrenaline of the stuff you see. Take that away and put in place as quaint as it would be, you know, a little three bedroom home, a wife, a couple of tots running around, you know, scraps the dog, barking behind the picket fence. That's great. But think about the adrenaline rush that you get from doing what you do and running a company. Right.

[Aaron]

So.

[Jeff Spatz]

And it, we, we find it to be a drug that's hard to give up. I, I was talking with two people I think you know. Well, I know you know the one because he was a speaker at the first Dirt world and I think the out in Knife River. I won't identify him but. And he was, he was at a, a large contractor reception. He was speaking, I was speaking. There was another guy, military fighter pilot, highly decorated, all that. And we were having a couple drinks, were standing there at this reception and I said to the former seal, I said, how did you, how did you deal with going from a moment or like, like a minute by minute adrenaline rush where everything that you're doing is just infused with adrenaline.

[Aaron]

People are trying to kill you every day.

[Jeff Spatz]

And, and, and I mean as, as much as you may stable, it's undesirable, it's still, it's an adrenaline rush. How did you go from that to you're done, you're out of the military and you're, you're back here. Not the horror of combat. I wasn't asking about that. I'm asking about how did you. Because if we're gonna tie it in with construction, how did you let. Like, how did you go from nothing but adrenaline

[Aaron]

to taking your daughter to soccer practice. Yeah. To, you know, adrenaline and cortisol talking to, you know.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Her friend's dad, Steve, who works in

[Jeff Spatz]

finance, you know, wearing the finance pro vest and all that. Yeah, yeah, but how'd you go from nothing but adrenaline and cortisol to this? And he said to me, he goes, well, I became an alcoholic.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Jeff Spatz]

So he said, that's a very real answer. I mean, so then. So then we had a nice conversation, and he's now fully recovering and doing great. Then there's this fighter pilot. And I looked at the fighter pilot, he's holding a drink, and I said, how about you? I mean, you're flying jets and you're in combat. Like, that's.

[Aaron]

There's nothing cooler than that, right?

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, Top Gun, whatever. And the other guy turned away, and the pilot looks down, he looks around, he goes, it's probably why I drink too much. Now, neither of them said, man left that like a. Like a bad habit. Just. Just gone. Like, I. I didn't get any of that. So I. I think not to take us in a whole other session here, but it's easy to say that young people might be able to grind it out, and it's easy to say about the golden handcuffs, because that's real. The money's getting bigger and bigger, even for safety people. But I believe it's that you go from that to nothing. Like, I don't know if you heard me say out there, I can retire today if I want to. That's not a brag. It's just. I'm very thankful the buyout treated me well. And when I threaten to retire when I'm in one of my more petulant states, my wife will be like, okay, you're going to retire. Can you leave this behind? As much as you may complain about it and, you know, whatever woe is, whatever. She goes, can you go from all that to nothing?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

And I do think that. Again, that's Conversation for another time. But, yeah, that's a. That's a. That's a question. I think that it's very real. But. But if you ask the executives, that's one of the things that pulls them in. And quite honestly, for many of them, that.

[Aaron]

But you. So. So part of it is you do need people that Build. Like, that's where I think the sterilization of construction does no one any kind of service. Because it's like, no, you, you do need some crazy motherfuckers that just roll up their sleeves and make it happen. You need those guys. And like, I was hanging out, you know, I spent time with Ariel lineman. It's like there's something wrong with these guys. And I say that in the most complimentary way possible, but it's like 100%. They're a little fucked up in the head. They do this. Like, this is not a normal breed of human being.

[Jeff Spatz]

They're their own subset.

[Aaron]

Oh, but you need this. Like, this is the human being that keeps things going.

[Jeff Spatz]

That's been demonstrated.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. Like this is when it comes to essential workers. Like, this is as essential as it gets right here.

[Jeff Spatz]

We need them to do what they do.

[Aaron]

We, we need some of that. So there, there is some craziness, there is some dysfunction that's required to keep humanity going. And, and to think that we can do it all in this very reasonable, mundane state is, Is bullshit. It's not. That's nonsense whatsoever.

[Jeff Spatz]

Fully agreed.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but, but that, like, I experience that every time I come off the road. When I go through a real extreme stint, especially when I'm abroad. Like, our, the schedule we, we run is pretty gnarly. Like, it's, it's, it's pretty intense. And even, even I, afterwards, I think about like, I didn't even do anything this week. And I look back at what I did, I'm like, oh my. What it, what did we just do? I mean, sometimes it's flying every night, you know, different city every day, different car, different bed. I mean, it'll be seven beds in, in seven, in seven days. And you're in different, different parts of the world, so on, so forth. Then you come home and it's like a 24 to 48 hour period of like, it's like a mildly depressive state.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Where just then there's just. The music just stops. You're crashing, you're crashing and it's like. Yeah, but I think the only time I've heard this talked about in a setting like this was, was. Was Scotty Scheffler. Did you see that press con? It was going all over the Internet and I think people took different things from it, but it was after. It was like maybe him winning the Masters or something this past year. I'm not a big golf guy, but I followed like, what Scotty Shuffler's done is incredible. And he was just talking about how. I mean, it's like, one of the most impressive feats in sports that he just did. But he's like, you do all this for, like, five minutes, and he's like, honestly, like, I asked myself, like, what's the point to all this? You know, And. And then he kind of took it into, like, more of a family perspective. Like, that's really why I'm doing it, like, and chilling him with his family. I'm not. I'm not explaining it all that well, but, like, he was explaining the battle within his head of, like, at the highest level, competing at the highest level, but then the fleeting feeling that is winning at the highest level, that is then finding this greater sense of being within his children and his spouse and his family. And it's like, that's what really carries me. And yet he still competes. Like, I don't want to water that down. He's still competing at the highest level, but it was.

[Jeff Spatz]

He's. He's found a way to do that.

[Aaron]

It was. So that's something you don't. You don't hear about. You don't. You don't hear anybody at that level talk about. But, yeah, it was. It was him explaining essentially how he's been able to switch between the two, which is so interesting.

[Jeff Spatz]

That is because it's. It's. I would say that he's in the. He's in the slim minority.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. I think more people. It's either or. Is. Either or. They're. They're. They're not able to do both. Well, no. And it. It. There's something also about.

[Aaron]

I almost want to pull it up and watch it, because it was good, man.

[Jeff Spatz]

But I. I think people, when you. When you see somebody breathing their last breaths or in their last moments from old age, let's say, or illness, there's a. I've seen it twice with my parents. It's tangible. You can see this. Realization come over them when they're coherent that you can't go back, you can't change it. There's no going back now. And there's this. This accounting that's going on of was it worth it. And, you know, people that say that they die without regret or that, you know, I have no regrets, I think that that's. They're not paying attention. I think we all have some regrets. But there's a. There's something about those last days or moments that I think is educational. Yes, we need money. Yes, we need purpose and meaning. But so much of that falls away in those moments. And my mom was a registered nurse for 50 years, did a lot of important things, probably saved a lot of lives or alleviated a lot of suffering, helped people, and yet she's forgotten a half a century career is. If I went into the hospitals where she worked and mentioned her name, there's no memorial, there's no. People would remember her. And that doesn't mean that her work wasn't necessary or helpful. But I think when we're in the moment, we tend to think that what we do is more important than it is. And I told the story at the dirt World summit where when I recommended that my daughter get involved in the risk management profession and safety and health and risk management, I'm like, sweetheart, it, it, it's a, it's been a great profession. Paid off our house, paid for your college. You're debt free. And I said, you would be great at it. And she, she, she looked at me and said, what makes you think I want that kind of life now? She said, she goes, look, you've been great, you've been a great father. I love you dearly. We have a great relationship. But she said, she goes, I've watched you over the years. And she said, what makes you think that I want that kind of life now? She works hard. She works very hard. But she said, she goes, I want to get this. I want to live my life. She said, that's not for me. And she's working for a huge company. She's doing great. She's a leader. But she has developed the ability to set parameters to say, you know what? I work for this, I don't work for work, I work for this.

[Aaron]

And her husband, I don't work for retirement. There's a lot of people working for retirement. It's like, what's the point?

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, and her husband is very much the same way. Both. They love working on their home. They love, they're hard working people in that category, but they've looked at us and said, yeah, that's not what I want. So think about this. Back to the dirt world, back to the construction industry. Why aren't we attracting people? Well, even if they love getting up early, they love dirt, they love doing physical labor. Maybe they're thinking that's, you know what, they might have all the leadership skills in the world. Why would I want to dedicate 14 or 16 hours a day, six days a week, when, you know, I can find another way to live my life?

[Aaron]

And that's what I think A lot of it is.

[Jeff Spatz]

It is. Here's a question for you. What, what's success for you in the dirt world? Like, in other words, if you, if, if you had to look back, if you, if you skip ahead, long life and you know, you're, you're, you're one of those fortunate people that can die of old age. Yeah. And, and, and you're looking back, you're coherent. What is success then for the dirt world? Like, what would you. Let's, let's set aside the financial part because we all want to be financially secure.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

So let's.

[Aaron]

I want that coin, Jeff.

[Jeff Spatz]

Everybody does. But how would you be able to say, or what would it take for you to say this was worth it? And I'm not saying it's not worth it because you are doing something here. It's kind of weird because a lot of people can't quite figure it out, and yet you're, you're drawing this, this crowd of kind of like minded, interested people who want to do something in this space, something positive. But what is, what is success

[Aaron]

from a company standpoint? I don't know. For you, that's the funny thing.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah. What about for you?

[Aaron]

For me? I don't know.

[Jeff Spatz]

Well, so you know, but that

[Aaron]

I,

[Jeff Spatz]

the reason I'm asking is because we make these sacrifices, and I'm not suggesting everybody has to go through an existential crisis, but I do think that it's worth pausing, and I think it's worth pausing, I'm going to say, for the, for all sides now, you know, the pipe proof foreman, who is maybe living paycheck to paycheck, maybe doesn't have the luxury of having an existential crisis. But at the same time, I think when we look at the situation, it's better to ask the question now than it is to have that question hit us at the end. And it's changed for me the way I look at things, because once the financial security part gets taken care of, To me, and I'm going to go so far as to say it's got to be for you too. For me, I want to look back and know that my presence, my efforts, my work mattered. So if, if you can look back and, and you can now but imagine then, because you're still going to continue right. Until some point at which you go, I'm so good right now that there's nothing, there's nothing more I can do. But I see that you've got, and this, this mission that you're on has, has years and Years and years ahead of it, you're making a difference in the industry. But isn't that what we want? We want our lives and our, and our efforts and our purpose to have counted for something. And it's one of the, I think one of the worst things a person can have happen is if they disappear from the stage, they walk off the stage, they get pulled off the stage, whatever thrown off the stage. And people look at it and go, what was the purpose? What did they even do? What was the accomplishment? What was the effort? I do believe that there are more construction executives who have the financial luxury of having that question posed to them or asking themselves that question of, of what does success look like? If I had sacrificed and I came close, if I had sacrificed my marriage and my child for what I do, there's no way, even if I had another marriage and another child, there's no way I'm going to consider that success. I'm going to consider that some sort of personal failure on my part. So I think that when we get to all of this, because if we're looking at, again at the well being of people in this profession. I know I sound like I'm someone who has no idea about schedules and about productivity and about profitability and about everything that goes into, to a construction business. Humor me here though and assume that I do just from the amount of years that I've been around it. I believe if we're going to really talk about well being, health in the workplace and that that takes safety into account, all of it, everything that we've talked about, we've got to ask the question, what does success look like? I would have trouble retiring knowing that I had built my financial well being and success on the backs of those that never had an opportunity. In other words, where I've, I've kind of had people grind it out for me to put me where I am today. I get, I get capitalism, I get all of it. You know, I get it. But I think, I think the question should be asked more often, what does success look like in the end? There's. I could take you on a tour of buildings just in Philadelphia where I could go, well, that building there, they lost one person. That one was two persons. That one cost a guy his ability to walk, this one, whatever. And the one thing, the one absolute certainty is that every one of those fucking jobs got built. They all got finished maybe a little bit after, you know, a little bit over schedule, a little bit over, but they all got finished at a cost that at Least for some families, was too much. So I. We're not going to change it. You're not going to change the industry overnight, but your influence is already making a difference. I'm not going to change the industry overnight, but I've gotten a larger stage thanks to you, thanks to others, I've gotten a larger stage where I can reach more people. I believe that we are not me, not you alone, but we collectively, people of like mind, are starting to, to turn this, this, this, if you want to call it a glacier, whatever, change its direction, turn the ship. However, whatever, whatever analogy you want to use or metaphor you want to use. We're. We're changing things and we're making a difference. Even if we stay at this level of energy and on this trajectory, it's going to take a lot of long, long time to start to bring those numbers down in a meaningful way. But I went from wanting to save the world to, I'm willing to go after one at a time if I can. If I can change the trajectory of one person. Just like you said, a comment, a conversation can, can knock that person from a path of destruction to a different path, a path that's going to lead to a better outcome. If I can make a difference. And this isn't where I'm, oh, my gosh, thank God we have Jeff as a hero to say, no, no, that's. That's bullshit. Even I know that's bullshit. But if I can make a difference in one life, that's enough for me. I've made a difference in more than that, But I'm willing to change the industry one person at a time. As ridiculous as it sounds, as nutty as it sounds, if, if, if you would have said when you first posted a picture on LinkedIn, and I went, man, who's that nerdy guy? And I'm, look who's talking, right? Who's that nerdy guy with the really cool construction photos? Yeah, if somehow we would have connected and you would have said, hey, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to change the industry. Like, you know, you take cool pictures, but I don't know how you're going to change the industry. So we need more people, though, right? We need the. We need. It's a movement. It's not individuals, It's a movement. But I went from trying to wrap my arms around the entire industry. I want to save them all. I want to people I don't even know, I've never met to when I go out on a job Site. So next week when I'm out on. On, on projects, I'm okay if I make a difference in one life. If I. If I just kind of. I love what you said, you know, just kind of change that trajectory. Just shift that a little bit.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I. And I think that's all that's required when I'm talking.

[Jeff Spatz]

Do you.

[Aaron]

When I'm speaking? Well, first you have to change your own life.

[Jeff Spatz]

That's important.

[Aaron]

You have to take responsibility of your own damn life. This is just what I told our company, though, yesterday. I. I don't talk too much about it. Maybe I should more. But I don't think it's all that relatable. It's like I'm firmly in the I want to go change the world camp. Will I. I don't know. But that's what I intend to do. And I. At least I think. I think I can make an impact on the world as a whole. But I at least want to strive to define what the next century of America looks like, because I think the path that America and the world is going down right now is unsustainable. The system that I have known my entire life and that we have known since Post World War II, it will break at a certain point in time. It will reshape how things work. It's. To me, I don't see another way around it. But while that is scary and fraught with anxiety, sometimes, when I really think about it, it's a really exciting opportunity to define what the future looks like. And that. That's why I'm here. That's why you're here. That's why we're here. We're the beneficiaries of those before us that have defined the future that was better than the world. They knew that. That, again, now is our reality. And I think we've had generations that haven't necessarily done that. They've benefited from that better future. And they've taken and they've taken and they've taken and they've taken. They haven't created. There hasn't. The economy in the United States is not built upon creating anymore. It's built upon consumption.

[Jeff Spatz]

It's consumption. Yes.

[Aaron]

We have to create again if there is going to be a better future. Now is that better future for America guaranteed? No, absolutely not. Maybe 250 years is all we had. This was a great run. And that's, you know, Bob's your uncle. We're, We're. We're off into the sunset. And whatever else happens, happens. Like we're back to tyranny because that's the constant state of affairs in the world. But for me now, fuck that. I'm gonna do my best to ensure. Yeah. That as the whole thing unravels, which I think it is currently, I think it's unraveling, that we do our best to build a better future, to restore the middle class, make the middle class as strong as ever, to build more in America, to build great infrastructure in America. Because right now the travel I do pisses me off because America, we're not nearly as good as we think we are. We should be the best for how much we spend and our education and medicine and this and that. You look at the metrics, it's horrible. The numbers are horrible. The infrastructure is horrible. Drive around Nashville, it's miserable. Yeah, I don't want to be here in the city anymore because the city kind of sucks. Like, and that bums me out because it doesn't have to suck.

[Jeff Spatz]

And yet, by the way, Nashville makes Philly look. Or like Nashville looks great compared to Philly.

[Aaron]

I don't go to. I don't go to Philly for a reason.

[Jeff Spatz]

You're doing great here.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I don't, I don't go to a lot of cities for a reason because I don't. I don't really want to go to

[Jeff Spatz]

these, but it's depressing just to see what's happening, right?

[Aaron]

Yeah. And, and, but that, there's. That to me, there's this huge, huge opportunity. And I don't say that because I want my name on shit one day. That was a motivator. Way back, I wanted my name on equipment. I could give a shit about that. No, like the whole college thing, putting your name on a library, it's like, who gives a shit, dude? Like, how unexciting is that? How uninspirational is that? Like, wow, you donated 23 million dollars to a school. School that has a 20 billion dollar endowment. Like, you're really solving the, the world's problems like that.

[Jeff Spatz]

You get your name on the building.

[Aaron]

Yeah, that. To me, that's dumb. In, in the, in, in, in. In the country club life and this. I've been around it. Yeah, I'm good. I don't need any of that. Do I want a plane?

[Jeff Spatz]

You're.

[Aaron]

Bet you. You bet your ass I want a plane and I want a baller plane. Like, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm above money either. No, I want a ton of money and I'm setting myself up. To make a. A ton of money. But I want that money because then I can do more good with that money. I can go do other more exciting things with that money. And that's what's frustrating with me about a lot of, like, the ruling class within the construction industry right now is like, how much more money do you people need? And then you're not even doing anything with the money.

[Jeff Spatz]

Well, you said that.

[Aaron]

What's the point? What's the point? You're stacking it all up and, like, reinvesting it. Like, give it to me, man. I could do way more good with 10 million, 20 million, 50 million bucks. Then you could. You're going to go put it in some trust scheme and then give it to the next generation, whatever that means. Probably going to go screw them up nine times out of 10, because I've seen it like, yeah, you know, why not reinvest that money into something that. That. Why not reinvest that money in the world that built that fortune to begin with, you know, built whatever you have. But that's what I want to do. However, I will strive to do that, whether my name is in any kind of book or not, I don't give a. That's a zero percent motivator. I'm just doing this because I think, and I know that this is what I am built to do. This is the path I built for the way to do that, though, everybody's like, wow, Aaron, thanks for reaching all these people so much. You know, all the social media and you're inspiring the next generation. This and that. When I'm speaking right now. I went to North Dakota. I have to get on a plane here in a little bit. How appropriate. I go to North Dakota and Glenn Baranko's up there, and he's like, hey, can you talk to these kids before you go speak? I saw you're coming into town. I said, I'd love to. I'd love to. I wasn't expecting Glenn to come. He ends up coming. And. And. And we show up at this, like, temporary office building on this dirt lot that they're renting with, like, five kids, you know, and they're like 18 to 25. And they're not all, like, you know, in the first five minutes, they're not all that stoked about it. They're like, who the hell is this guy? And who the hell is this guy? Like, what? We've got other going on, you know, but we spent about an hour talking to these kids, and I walk out of it. I was like, that's how we build a whole next generation. It's just one handshake at a time. Yeah. It's just one conversation at a time.

[Jeff Spatz]

Going to be slow.

[Aaron]

That's. Yeah, that's all there is to it. But it doesn't have to be that slow because we've got millions of people playing this game. So it's like if we have millions of people in this world, when you

[Jeff Spatz]

scale it up, well.

[Aaron]

But in the construction industry, you've got millions of people.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so if everybody within the construction industry strives to be a better individual. Yeah, that's a lot of impact right there. Now you're impacting the rest of, you know, the whole construction industry. But then you think the entirety of America depends upon the construction industry and infrastructure from anybody in America, from Trump to, to Musk to Jamie Dimon. Like you can most influential people in the world still depend upon basic infrastructure. There's still a sewer line out in front of the White House, you know, and that is real impact. Like that's how you change the world. You go build. Like I'm fixated upon generational wealth, not dollars. Who gives a shit about that? I don't care about any of that. Giving money to the next generation. And maybe I sing a different tune when I have kids, but I've seen it screw up so many kids. A lot of my friends growing up, it's like, that doesn't interest me. I've seen that tune. It doesn't work. I want to go build the next generation of America that then builds the next generation of America that then builds the next. That's generational wealth. Creating the next generation that then really propels the next 50, 100 years forward and then that propels the world forward. Like that's what's at play here. That's the game I'm playing. And again, whether I'm recognized for it or not, who gives a. But I'm playing it at a big level. Do I need to fight fire with fire? Do I need a multi billion dollar enterprise to go up against some of these very, very powerful forces out there? 100%. And I intend to do just that. However, that's not to say it's still just one person at a time, one conversation at a time, one handshake at a time. Yeah, that's it. That's how you change the world. It's just one person at a time. There's. There's nothing else to it.

[Jeff Spatz]

It's a. It's on a personal level.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah, I got on a hell of a soapbox right there, but that's good.

[Jeff Spatz]

I like that, though.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, that's good stuff. Yeah, the. I appreciate the. The time here, man.

[Aaron]

Thanks for coming.

[Jeff Spatz]

You got a lot going on.

[Aaron]

Well, you do, too. Everybody does. So I appreciate you coming. Glad this worked out.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Appreciate what you all do.

[Jeff Spatz]

Thank you.

[Aaron]

Graham Company's been a huge supporter of what we've been doing for three years.

[Jeff Spatz]

We with Dirt World. We love the Dirt World. We love the people that populate it. And we're. We're. We're big on. On what you're bringing to the table. And again, it's for those that are just a quick shout out here, right? For those that are on the fence about the next summit. You're going to be surrounded by people that are some of the best in the industry, if not the best. And. And it's only getting better all the time.

[Aaron]

It's only getting better. But I will say, probably by the time this goes live, maybe we might. We might already be sold out, Frank.

[Jeff Spatz]

Oh, really good.

[Aaron]

We're getting close.

[Jeff Spatz]

That's a great. That's a great problem to have.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it is.

[Jeff Spatz]

Good for you.

[Aaron]

Yeah, that's good. That's good. So words getting out there, but I don't know.

[Jeff Spatz]

Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff.

[Aaron]

But we really appreciate you, Graham Company, everything you guys are doing, so thanks for being a part of it.

[Jeff Spatz]

You're very welcome, and thank you.