Paving Chicagoland w/ Ryan Gandy of Builders Asphalt – DT 320

Summary

Dirt Talk Podcast Episode Summary: "Paving Chicagoland w/ Ryan Gandy of Builders Asphalt – DT 320"

Release Date: March 13, 2025

Introduction

In this episode of Dirt Talk by BuildWitt, host Aaron engages in an in-depth conversation with Ryan Gandy of Builders Asphalt. They explore the intricacies of the paving industry in the Chicagoland area, discussing market dynamics, material choices, operational challenges, labor issues, and strategies for growth.

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1. Fragmented Paving Market in Chicagoland

Ryan Gandy highlights the highly fragmented nature of the paving market within Chicagoland. Despite being a significant player locally, numerous big players exist in neighboring cities, each managing similar operations and facing comparable challenges.

Ryan Gandy (02:46): "It's all the same stuff—suppliers are really squeezing us right now."

2. Regional Differences in Paving Operations

The conversation delves into how paving practices vary across regions. For instance, Ryan contrasts the asphalt-heavy roads of Arizona with the concrete foundations prevalent in the Midwest, emphasizing how climate and local regulations shape these choices.

Ryan Gandy (05:19): "On the autobahn, no speed limit, so it has to be perfect... it's a risk to public safety."

3. Material Choices: Asphalt vs. Concrete

Aaron and Ryan discuss the pros and cons of asphalt and concrete. While asphalt offers flexibility and easier maintenance, concrete provides rigidity but can be costlier and less adaptable to severe weather conditions.

Ryan Gandy (08:55): "They're trying to minimize themselves [in Illinois]."

4. Operational Challenges and Equipment Management

Operational efficiency is a recurring theme. Ryan emphasizes the importance of maintaining continuous paver operation to ensure high-quality road surfaces. Delays caused by traffic or closures can lead to compromised quality and increased costs.

Ryan Gandy (47:44): "Your paver should never stop."

5. Labor and Union Dynamics

The strength of unions in Chicago significantly impacts the paving industry. Ryan discusses the challenges of recruiting and retaining skilled workers amid strong union presence and the generational shift as experienced operators retire.

Ryan Gandy (40:19): "The teamsters are all the truck drivers."

6. Growth and Expansion Strategies

Given zoning restrictions and market saturation, Ryan outlines Builders Asphalt's growth strategy primarily through acquisitions. This approach allows the company to expand its footprint without encroaching on existing players’ territories.

Ryan Gandy (68:10): "It's near impossible to get zoning and put up an asphalt plant."

7. Quality Control and Mix Design Complexity

Maintaining quality is paramount. The duo discusses the meticulous process of mix design, ensuring the right balance of aggregates and liquid asphalt to meet stringent specifications. Ryan underscores the investment in lab facilities and quality assurance as critical to their success.

Ryan Gandy (34:07): "We're checking the big D, right? Big D gives us our density, our voids."

8. Sustainability and Recycling Asphalt

Recycling asphalt, or WRAP (Asphalt Binder Replacement), is explored as a sustainable practice. While beneficial for reducing costs and environmental impact, Ryan cautions against overuse to protect plant equipment and maintain mix quality.

Ryan Gandy (76:50): "I don't like to max out because it's hard on your plants."

9. Hiring and Training the Next Generation

Addressing the labor shortage, Ryan emphasizes the importance of hiring younger workers and investing in their training. Builders Asphalt is developing internship programs to cultivate talent and ensure long-term sustainability in the workforce.

Ryan Gandy (90:29): "We're developing an internship program to attract and retain young talent."

10. Public Awareness and Industry Education

Both Aaron and Ryan advocate for greater public understanding of the paving industry. Ryan believes that educating the community and potential clients about paving operations can foster better relationships and appreciation for the work done.

Ryan Gandy (87:43): "If the public was more educated on what they do and how they perform, they would embrace them."

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Conclusion

This episode of Dirt Talk provides valuable insights into the Chicagoland paving industry through Ryan Gandy's experiences and perspectives. From navigating a fragmented market and managing operational complexities to addressing labor shortages and embracing sustainable practices, Builders Asphalt exemplifies resilience and adaptability in a challenging environment.

Notable Quotes:

• Ryan Gandy (02:46): "Suppliers are really squeezing us right now."
• Ryan Gandy (05:19): "On the autobahn, no speed limit, so it has to be perfect."
• Ryan Gandy (47:44): "Your paver should never stop."
• Ryan Gandy (34:07): "We're checking the big D, right? Big D gives us our density, our voids."
• Ryan Gandy (76:50): "I don't like to max out because it's hard on your plants."
• Ryan Gandy (90:29): "We're developing an internship program to attract and retain young talent."
• Ryan Gandy (87:43): "If the public was more educated on what they do and how they perform, they would embrace them."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights shared by Aaron and Ryan Gandy, offering listeners and non-listeners alike a clear understanding of the challenges and strategies within the paving industry in Chicagoland.

Transcript

[Aaron]

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[Brad]

Yeah, we've enjoyed this summit. I mean, it's. It's been awesome. Yeah, we've been to both.

[Aaron]

Yeah. You've brought a lot of people, probably more than just many of you.

[Brad]

Your first one, and then, you know, the second one last year was phenomenal. Got a. Of good feedback.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Like. And two, meeting. I mean, meeting the different. You know, everybody there is in our same. Kind of, Our same league. Right. We're all in the same space. And it's. It's nice to be able to have that conversation, you know, with other contractors, you know, or companies that are in that. In that industry and discuss, you know, things that you can't have, you know, that discussion with. At the dinner table, because not many people understand.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, what. What it's like to be in that industry. So.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And it's. So this market's so interesting because it's so fragmented. So it's like you're a big player in the Chicagoland area, but then you go to the next city over, there's big players there, too. Then you go to the next city over, there's big players, and they do the same thing. And it's like, I think contractors have talked about this. Like, they think they're a little more special than they are. And it's like, I know you've got a unique culture, you've got a unique formula, history, whatever it is, a road's a road. Asphalt's asphalt. Like, it's. It's. You're using the exact same equipment. You're paving to the state specs or what, you know, whatever it is that everybody else. Yeah, yeah. It's. And. And so it's. It's really not that different across. And everybody has the same problems, like, oh, they're, you know, people are tearing up our equipment, or we're struggling to recruit, or how do we market ourselves better or, you know, how do we bid more efficiently? Exactly. It's all the same stuff or suppliers, you know, man, they're. They're really squeez us right now.

[Brad]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same everywhere.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, it makes it. And that's what makes it unique is because, you know, you. You don't really know that because you don't see it every day. Right. You just. You're in kind of your bubble and you're in your geographical area, and when you. When you. When you meet people that are in other areas and you kind of have that same conversation that you had with your employee.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, and it's just. It's just a different company in a different location.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I. I make. Well, I make the rookie mistake thinking, and this is like Human Psychology 101, thinking that everybody has the same perspective I have. And every once in a while, something will remind me, like, hey, everybody's in their own world. Like, there was a guy who was running. I mean, he nearly had a thousand people. This was years ago. And he was in a town maybe an hour from another city. City, another city. He owned the market. Extraordinary business. One of the most impressive companies I have seen to date. He sold it to a bigger materials company, but he sat. I was sitting down with him, and he was like, so what do they pay up in the other town? And it's an hour away. And I'm sitting there thinking. I'm like, he doesn't even know the pay scale in the next town over. You think that's information you would know. You would know, but it's like he has no idea. Like, it's just. They're really in massive, you know, a thousand people in one market. But that's the world. There's the world. There's nothing else outside of that.

[Brad]

Yeah. Yeah. It's wild. Crazy.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, we're in the same situation. You know, you go to Indiana, right?

[Aaron]

I mean. Yes.

[Brad]

Which is 30 miles south of us.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, southeast of us. And it's. It's a whole different game. And, you know, then you get into Michigan. You go around the lake and get into Michigan again. A whole nother game.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And then Wisconsin, you know.

[Brad]

Wisconsin. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So, yeah, it's. It's Interesting.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's fun too, to see the differences between the different states, different cities, and then now different countries to see, like, how Europe does it and that kind of stuff. Like, if you, if you guys had a chance to go to Bauma or something like that, it's. It's extraordinary. You can imagine it is the paving they do.

[Brad]

Like, is it, is it well advanced than we are, or is it so.

[Aaron]

Much further, so much like, even like the Germans. So they have the autobahn network. And I was talking to them, I was with the cat dealer, and they're like, we haven't sold a single cat paver in Germany. I was like, why is that? And they're like, they're not precise enough.

[Brad]

Wow.

[Aaron]

And so because on the autobahn, no speed limit, so it has to be perfect. Like, the tolerances are extraordinarily tight. There's no patching. Like, there's. It's snug because it has to be, or else it's a risk to public safety. And it's like, I hadn't even thought of that. Like, the thought of a perfect highway that doesn't exist in America.

[Brad]

No.

[Aaron]

Like, I'm, I. And I'm not throwing shade here. Like, some are nicer than others.

[Brad]

Sure.

[Aaron]

But a perfect highway, that's.

[Brad]

Yeah. You're not going to find that. No, you're not going to find that. You know, the attempt is there. Right. They try.

[Aaron]

We're getting there.

[Brad]

They try. We're getting there. And the specs are written to adhere to that. But, you know, it's hard and, you know, it's something that there's a tolerance. And, you know, you take that tolerance.

[Aaron]

Are you guys mostly public? On the public side?

[Brad]

Yeah. So we're probably. So a lot of our businesses, I would say probably 50% of our revenue is public bidding contract work that we do. And then the other side is retail. Like, we sell material to non plant owners. I see, like parking lot pavers and those kind of customers. Customers.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Brad]

And we cater to those guys because, hey, there's less risk. Right. And you drop the material in their truck and you send them an invoice the next day.

[Aaron]

Yeah, sure.

[Brad]

Right. So, yeah. And you get the volume at your, at your. At your asphalt plant facilities. Right. Because volume is everything.

[Aaron]

Yeah, Right.

[Brad]

The more volume, less unit cost, you know, therefore, you're more competitive.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, so.

[Aaron]

But then doing the paving yourself also allows you to extend the volume.

[Brad]

Exactly.

[Aaron]

And control it's.

[Brad]

Some of the great balance. We've learned that, you know, a lot of guys are. They want to just. It's. It's about them. Right. It's all about, you know, their trucks getting in line, getting on the scale, getting load and getting out of there. We're the opposite. Like our customers come first. You know, if. If I have four trucks in line waiting and there's customers behind them, my guys are getting out of the way and that customer is coming in. You know, we cater to that service. That's a big part of our business. And we get a lot of repeat.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, and we get. And they're loyal. These guys are loyal. So it's like having salesmen, like auxiliary salesmen on the street that you're not paying.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

Which is the good.

[Brad]

Because I don't want to do the parking lot work. We're not set up for that. We're not good at it. And these guys are. We want to sell them that material.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And like paving to the average person is all just paving. But a municipal street is very different than an interstate. Is very different than a parking lot. Is very different than a Walmart distribution center. Exactly. It's all completely different, but totally different.

[Brad]

Totally different. Different approach, different application, different material types. Right. So yeah, we're set up and we've learned this over the years. You know, we can pave a heavy highway. You know, we can pave a municipal street just as good as anybody. You put us in a parking lot with a 1055 F cat paver.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Track machine. We're not going to do very well.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's. Is that market. Is it mostly asphalt? Is there any concrete up there? There is.

[Brad]

There is. Yeah. Yeah, there's concrete. So the Illinois Tollway, their new cross section is stabilized sub base, which is like a 3 inch binder mix.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Brad]

And then on top of that is between 9 and 12 inch PCC base course.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And then on top of that is 4 inches of asphalt.

[Aaron]

Interesting.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So that they can replace the asphalt.

[Brad]

Yeah. It's much. The maintenance is easier. Right. It's less expensive.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And it's. It's not as loud.

[Aaron]

It's quiet. Yeah. The. So Arizona, they went asphalt on all their. It was all concrete. It's all concrete. So everything was concrete surface. And then they went a rubberized asphalt mix.

[Brad]

Okay.

[Aaron]

Which was really quiet. It was phenomenal how much more quiet.

[Brad]

Like ground, ground, tire rubber.

[Aaron]

Ground, tire rubber.

[Brad]

Okay.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. And then. But the problem is then because it was soft. The maintenance on it just became too expensive. So they've started removing it all again and then redoing the surface of the concrete. Yeah, yeah. Which is kind of a bummer. But it's the asphalt.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like, you go from even just asphalt, concrete on. At. At that speed. It's really different.

[Brad]

Very different.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Yeah. And, you know, obviously, we're. We're an advocate of asphalt. Right. I mean, we're a producer. We manufacture it. And, you know, we want. We want that. We want to see it, you know, but there are certain applications that just don't allow for it. So. So there's a little bit of both up there.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And. And I. This was stuff I didn't understand, because up Arizona, the weather's the same. Well, it's a binary weather system. It's either hot or it's nice. There's no variance other than that. Whereas in other places like the Midwest, you have freeze, thaw, and you have different soil conditions and this and that. So in Arizona, every street is just asphalt.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

There's a concrete street. It's completely unheard of. Okay. The concrete highways, that'll be concrete, but there's no street in the entire city that's concrete. Whereas Midwest, other places, there's a lot of concrete. Even just. Even if it's asphalt. Concrete asphalt. To just give you that rigidity.

[Brad]

Yeah, exactly.

[Aaron]

Even with just the weather. And then you have, like we were talking about earlier, too, the snowplows just running over it all winter, and then the salt on it and all this. All this extra abuse that you don't have in other climates.

[Brad]

You don't see that elsewhere. Yeah, yeah. And that stuff just. I mean, it just deteriorates. The roads.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, the winter season, you know, then you get in the city of Chicago, and all their. All their arterial streets are, you know, concrete base course. And what's funny is we're finding this out is, you know, even in the whole kind of northern Illinois area, you know, back in the 1950s and 60s, everything was concrete.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Because now everything, you know, we run into a patch, and it's all concrete base course. That we're pulling out underneath that four inches of asphalt, you know, on a slag. Like a road that's made of slag.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

These roads are like 1950s, maybe 60s. Right.

[Aaron]

That's great Lake stuff.

[Brad]

So now what do we do with the slag? You know, it's something we run into all the time. There's nowhere to put it. No, you grind it out. You Grind it off the road. And where do you take it? Because you can't. You can't crush it. You can, but you can't use it.

[Aaron]

Yeah, right.

[Brad]

Because our mix designs are designed off, you know, a non slag, you know, fragmented asphalt.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, and steel slag has steel in it. Right. So now your specific gravity's change. Right. So now your mix designs are blown up. Your volumetrics, you lose out on. Right. Your VMAs, your voids, all that stuff.

[Aaron]

So you just have to find a hole for it.

[Brad]

So we gotta find a hole for it. Yeah. And it's challenging.

[Aaron]

Well, and that's the crazy. Like a really urban place like Chicago. Like even finding a hole for something like that is really tricky. Like we're talking about just like some of the quarries are underground there, which is. It's almost unheard of. Just the fact that land is so hard to find that they've had to go underground and that they can sell that rock and make money while they're mining it 200ft below the surface. It's just rock.

[Brad]

It's wild.

[Aaron]

It's crazy that the, like the market demands that almost.

[Brad]

Well, I mean, just. Just in our area in the chicagoland area, there's 36 asphalt plants.

[Aaron]

36.

[Brad]

And like a probably 120 mile radius.

[Aaron]

Woof. Wow.

[Brad]

Oh, it's. It's super saturated.

[Aaron]

It's. I was out there a few years ago.

[Brad]

It's.

[Aaron]

It's been interesting too, watching all of the development into like the really terrible land. They had one Witecraft, Nick Frederick, they were digging through. It was an old landfill. And so to develop like a new Amazon warehouse or something. It was right in the middle of city. It was like spectacular location, but it was a landfill. But they're like, nope, just. Just get it all out of there, haul it all off, and we'll just build our building right here. And I just was watching the. I have pictures of the excavator just like just pulling out just buckets of trash and tires and all kinds of shit, putting it in trucks, hauling it off, and then cover the whole property in piers, whole thing in piers, because the ground's not worth anything. And then just put your million square feet of building right on top of it. It's amazing.

[Brad]

Yeah, amazing.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, you got to. You got to take what you can find because it's. There's not a lot of, you know, not a lot of vacancy and it's such a dense area, you know, so, you know, back to Trying to find places to dump material. I mean, it's, you know, it's something that it's. It's part of our due diligence process, you know. You know, in the bidding process, just because, you know, you don't want to get caught with your pants down not knowing what you're going to do with that material.

[Aaron]

So can you mill. You can mill slag in concrete.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You can mill concrete, right?

[Brad]

Yep. We do it a lot.

[Aaron]

Really?

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Does it. You get a steel in it.

[Brad]

You get specific teeth.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, for your grinder.

[Aaron]

And it can just do it. Chew right through it.

[Brad]

You don't want to go down, you know, like six inches.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

In one pass. You know, you want to stay in the two inch. Kind of two and a half inch is as deep as you want to go because you start. You start compromising your equipment and, you know, it's really not worth it, but it's. It's done.

[Aaron]

A lot is a lot is a lot of the paving work you guys do. Replacing existing.

[Brad]

A lot of it.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Resurfacing.

[Brad]

A lot of it. As you go further west, kind of more, you know, rural areas, it's. You run into new. New construction, kind of new roads, and.

[Aaron]

There'S a lot of warehouse that's pushed out. Just a whole. The whole Chicagoland area. But I remember. Yeah. I went out.

[Brad]

So Facebook as well, or Meta. I mean, they developed a massive, massive Data center in DeKalb. DeKalb county is like. It's probably 45, 50 miles west of the city of Chicago.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And it's. There's nothing. It's all farms. Right. And they just put this massive data center in the middle of nowhere.

[Aaron]

That's what they're doing.

[Brad]

And that's. And you're seeing that everywhere now.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Like, for, like, even further north and like southern Wisconsin. There's nothing there.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Brad]

Except Microsoft.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Brad]

Building this massive data center.

[Aaron]

Yeah. It'll be like a $5 billion project in the middle of nowhere.

[Brad]

Exactly.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Former. Just farmland. I don't quite understand the whole data center. I don't think anybody does, really. They don't. I don't understand. I don't understand how they choose location. I don't understand really how they work. But they're just everywhere now. The scale. Well, they just. They just announced the. What's a Starbase something program. $500 billion. And it's like. I think that money just goes over a lot of people's heads, but it's like $500 billion in private investment for these gigantic energy and water like buildings that are more energy hungry than anything humanity's ever created. And we're just gonna put em everywhere.

[Brad]

Just gonna put em everywhere. And where do we get the electricity?

[Aaron]

Well, and so that's the thing. Yeah. I think I just had this conversation with Herb. There's some states that have had to say no more, like stop. We just can't do it. They don't have the supply, we don't have the power. Yeah, yeah. We're like outrunning the grid. And then we're also saying we're gonna go to all EVs and like the, the grid.

[Brad]

It's unrealistic. I mean.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's just, it's, it's physics. Like we're, we're trying to outrun it. Doesn't work.

[Brad]

Doesn't work.

[Aaron]

Can't outrun physics. So. But yeah, just one, Another one just kicked off in Louisiana and it's like I got pictures of the dirt spread and it's just like just acres as far as you can see. Yeah, they go strip like a thousand acres or whatever. It is just the scale.

[Brad]

And so I mean, you know that's coming, right? It's, it's, it's here and it's being developed even more and more and more as we talk. So how do we adapt to that in that construction space, in that dirt world space? How do you adapt to that and keep up with that? With the demand of that.

[Aaron]

Yeah, how do you keep up with the demand? But then also I feel like a lot of people I've talked to who have lived through the recession, they're also a little apprehensive, like I don't want to go over here. We need to go build this stuff. It's opportunity. But then we need to be careful putting all of our eggs in that basket. Because especially the private company, they can just stop at any moment and just say like, hey, we're just actually going to pause. It's like, what do you mean we're going to pause? We just bought $20 million.

[Brad]

A ton of money.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Equipment, right? Yeah. And I've got. Yeah. Fuel bills this and that.

[Brad]

And they can't sit. Yeah, it's sitting. There's no revenue.

[Aaron]

And I've, and I've had to buy all this additional equipment to even just do the job because the scale is so enormous. And then I'm already doing all the municipal or government stuff I usually do over here. So like I was just reading from the Kiewit book yesterday and they got. For the Atomic Energy Commission, they built. It was, I guess, the biggest construction project in the United States ever at the. It was to build the plant in Ohio that enriched uranium for the United States military and then for the nuclear power plants. And there was like 20,000 people on site at one time. 20,000.

[Brad]

Wow.

[Aaron]

And it was. Kiewit was the prime. But Peter Kiewit from the beginning was like, this cannot take priority. This is just another job. We have to treat it like just another job. Everything else we're doing is just as important because there's gonna be a day where this project doesn't exist anymore. And if we've burned bridges with other customers, if we haven't bid the work we needed to, there's gonna be nowhere to go. We're shit out of luck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So to have great point foresight, like, listen, guys, this is really exciting. We should celebrate it. But it's just another job.

[Brad]

Yeah, that's great.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's good. Yeah. There was one data center in Idaho we went to. So because the data centers, they require just a ton of piping. Fear of the cooling. It's just, it's like just the. Yeah. The amount of underground utilities at these things is crazy. It's just like a spaghetti bowl.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So they had to do like all this piping was like 10, 15ft below the building pad, but the whole area was just solid rock. So the cheaper way to do it was to then just import material so that they could or trench through it or import material, build up your pad, you could dig your trenches, put your pipe in the ground. But they didn't want to put truck traffic on the area surrounding area for some reason. So they blasted like the entire building area. And this is like a giant built giant. And they over excavated the entire area by like 20ft.

[Brad]

Wow.

[Aaron]

Sent all the material to a crushing spread, crushed it all down to whatever like 3 inch minus. And then brought it back, brought it all back and then across the whole thing and then went through and did all your toad work.

[Brad]

That's amazing.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. Just dug a hole.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Crushed it all.

[Brad]

Crushed, Brought it back.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And it's just like to think like again, the economics support that.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

Whereas five years ago, 10 years ago, something like that.

[Brad]

Never would have thought of it.

[Aaron]

It's just out. Out of, out of, out of the question. Yeah, it's, it's Chicago's interesting too, because it's so close to Indiana. I know a lot of people have been going to Indiana, like just across State line. Yeah, it's just blown up.

[Brad]

It's blown up.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's blown up.

[Brad]

And I, you know, we, we, we monitor and we track our customers at a high level and. Customers meaning guys that, you know, we supply material to. And it's like, hey, where have you been in. In the last week? You know, your tonnage is down. Oh, I've had two crews in Indiana. That's what. You hear that a lot. Yeah. And even further south, these guys are going to Tennessee now.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Because what, you know, these general contractors, they're, you know, a lot of the investment in that space is happening further south. Right. And these general contractors that these guys work for, you know, they're inviting them to come wherever they go, and they just chase these guys around and do their work, you know, so it's happening not everywhere. And I feel like, you know, that reinvestment in the state of Illinois is. It's minimum. It's minimizing itself.

[Aaron]

Yeah, you got like, Illinois has been one of the states that have been. It's been really hurt over the past five years. Like Illinois, New York, California, there's a few that. It's just. They've taken a heavy hit. People have just been like, now we're gonna go elsewhere.

[Brad]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Aaron]

So, yeah, because I was looking, I've been watching, like, internal migration and it's like, Indiana's booming. I'm like, indiana, right. Why are people moving to Indiana? That's like. Well, they're all coming from Chicago.

[Brad]

Exactly.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I get it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[Brad]

Yeah. You know, you know, to the high interest rate environment hasn't helped, you know, hasn't helped that commercial market, you know, so hopefully we see some, you know, that change in the near future just to dis. Encourage some, you know, investment, more investment back. Back in Illinois and back in our area.

[Aaron]

Well, that, the interest rates and then just the election, it was just. Just how much money just gets parked.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like. Yeah, you know, we're just, we're just gonna park it.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

See how this panel foresee.

[Brad]

We don't know what's gonna happen. Let's just wait. Wait it out.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I saw a lot of that.

[Brad]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Aaron]

A lot of that. And then now it started to shake loose again. Some. At least. Yeah, at least. That's my, My.

[Brad]

It is.

[Aaron]

Read.

[Brad]

It is. You know, we're getting a lot of good feedback too, you know, from. From investors and developers.

[Aaron]

And so how. With the. But, but despite, like, what's going on with interest rates, economy, there's still like the capital budget for the area is still somewhat fixed. What is it, like five? It's always like five years out.

[Brad]

Yeah. So they do like a multi year program, usually five years, sometimes six. And you know, Illinois, I mean, they're investing right. In infrastructure. I think they're going to spend like 4 or 5.4 billion a year on infrastructure. And that means that's not just roads. Right. You know, we wish it was, but like O'Hare, it's bridges, it's aeronautics, rail, all that type of stuff. Water. But the funding's there. It's just we have to get the engineering to stay ahead of the funding because what's going on is the engineering is lacking and they can't get the work out fast enough. Right. So the funding's there. It's just they don't have the jobs ready.

[Aaron]

It's not talked about enough. The whole squeeze. And even within like dots. DOTS are struggling to keep people, like to retain people. Because if I'm a young engineer, I go to work for DOT for a few years out of school and then I go make twice as much money with a private firm.

[Brad]

Right. And you're gonna get. And if you're, if you're on a job working for the DOT and you have a contractor like us, we're gonna recruit you.

[Aaron]

Exactly.

[Brad]

If we see value in you, if you're young and you bring something that we're looking for, we're gonna recruit you. And more than likely, there's a better opportunity for that individual to come work at a private firm than stay with that dot. And that's a great point because that's happening especially with the Illinois Department of Transportation. That is happening a lot. And they don't have the internal resources to keep up.

[Aaron]

No, they can't.

[Brad]

Now what does that mean? Now you go hire a consultant, right. An engineering consultant and say, hey, you know, we're going to put this upper bid. You know, we're going to ward it to the low bid.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, and here's a list of projects that we want to do and it just, it just sputters the whole production of getting these jobs ready.

[Aaron]

Which is, I think that's why, like when you look at how the construction industry's declined substantially in 40 year period from a productivity standpoint, just like significant decline. If you look at the graph, every other industry is up. We're just right down. I think that's part of it. Just the in permitting is a part too. And there's all it's Just slowed stuff down. When you slow stuff down, it makes it so much.

[Brad]

And don't forget, Aaron, we're seasonal.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You're not paving in January and February. You're losing two to three months every year. So now you're cramming in 12 months worth of work in a nine month season. You bid a job in January. We're not getting contracts until March. They're not being executed until April.

[Aaron]

I see, Right.

[Brad]

So you're looking at a 90 to 100 day window that we have to plan. And as soon as that weather breaks, we gotta go. Right. Because you, you know, every day Ms. Is just. That's huge.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, it's a, it's a, it's a lot that you give up on. So that's, that's a challenge for sure.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, and trying to, trying to streamline that process, it just seems like it's like you're like pulling hair.

[Aaron]

Yeah. That's another thing I took for granted from Arizona is you pay 52 a year.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You just. Their problem is when do we shut the plant down for maintenance.

[Brad]

Right, Exactly. Yeah.

[Aaron]

So you know. Exactly.

[Brad]

Like our maintenance program is probably two robots because we have three months to do it.

[Aaron]

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you have a plant problem in the summer, it's unheard of. This thing's immaculate, man. Yeah. Yeah. The seasonal thing's tough, but it has been interesting because I feel like weather is an obvious constraint. But I feel like there's more work getting done in winter now than in like five to ten years ago.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Because the schedules and a lot like, I don't know what's happened, but I feel like a lot of the commercial stuff, the schedules are just so much more aggressive. They're willing to just pay. Like they know it's not very cost effective to do it in winter when they can do it. But they'll just pay anyway.

[Brad]

They'll just pay.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Well, because it's more important for them to get that tenant in, into the building rather than wait three months. You know, they don't mind, you know, and we tell them like we're going to need a waiver because we're not going to guarantee this work because we're out of spec and they don't care. They'll no problem, sign the waiver, you know, and we put our best foot forward all the time. Right. We're not going to say we're just going to go in and, you know, bum rush and get it done and not care. But they don't care. They sign off on it and it's.

[Aaron]

Out of spec because of temperature.

[Brad]

Temperature specs. Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

What do you need? What, 35 and rising.

[Brad]

You need 45 and rising for surface. Yeah, 40 rising from binder.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Brad]

Yeah, yeah. And then you gotta get density. Right. There's a density spec too. Sure.

[Aaron]

So does the dense. Is the density harder to make?

[Brad]

It's harder to make. It's cold. Yeah, yeah. And the concern there too is, you know, if you got a frozen subgrade or sub base that you're paving on.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

What happens when it thaws out after you've paved on it?

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Right. It's more than likely going to move. And when it moves, what happens? It cracks. And then you get the phone, then the phones start ringing.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, I just got this paved in December and it's now May and it's cracking, so.

[Aaron]

I see.

[Brad]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

That's stuff I haven't even really thought about.

[Brad]

Yeah, it's. And not many do.

[Aaron]

No. You know, they still, I mean, sometimes I'll see. It'll be, it'll be pretty cold and they'll still be paving some places.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So I have wondered about that. Like how do they pull that off?

[Brad]

But they're. You're getting a waiver of some sort.

[Aaron]

I see.

[Brad]

And it's a challenge. Like, you know, the tollway, they, they have to get it done. Right. You only have so many days to keep up that permanent lane closure. Right. So that's when you approach those deadlines. It has to be done because they can.

[Aaron]

In the tollway is interesting because a typical road can assign a cost like this is costing us this, but they can't really prove it's costing us this. Whereas like the tollway, they can. They know exactly what it's costing them.

[Brad]

They don't know what they know exactly.

[Aaron]

Yeah, they know exactly. So they could do the math.

[Brad]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Every. There's a lot of toll. Right. Tollway around Chicago.

[Brad]

There is. Yeah. A lot of toll.

[Aaron]

And it's expensive.

[Brad]

Expensive. Every year it goes up.

[Aaron]

Yeah. First time.

[Brad]

No, but they, they really got a great program because, you know, they, they got all their, their engineers, you know, set up, ready to go ahead of time and when they let, they have a five year schedule. So when they let these jobs, they know exactly when they're going to be let and when the whole process of their, you know, when they're going to be completed and they stay right on track.

[Aaron]

Is it, is it government tollway there.

[Brad]

Or is it private it's, it's, it's Illinois Tollway. It's, it's private. It's all private. Private.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

So I dot. And I don't want to get too in depth because I don't know the whole store, but idot. You know, they sold that.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, 30 or 40 years ago to the tollway authority.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Brad]

But yeah, I mean, they, they have an unbelievable program. They know their cross section does not vary. It's the same no matter what part of the tollway you're on. Which is great because you know exactly what you're doing. You know how to do it. Sure they do. They're more advanced, I would say, than any other public entity as far as dots, because they do a lot of experiment programs whether they're trying to get rid of nuclear density and go to some sort of other density application that's non nuclear, really. Right. Yeah, it's more. I don't know enough. There's not enough information out there yet. But they're going to have a couple pilot projects, I think this year, 20.

[Aaron]

25, with that density. I went through all these classes in engineering school. Density with asphalt is so important. You want a certain amount of voids in your asphalt, but not too many voids.

[Brad]

Correct.

[Aaron]

And if you have too many voids, is it water that's the problem or it can be.

[Brad]

Can be. Yeah, yeah, can be.

[Aaron]

Because if water and oil don't mix.

[Brad]

Correct.

[Aaron]

So if water's in your asphalt, it starts to separate things and make things.

[Brad]

And if it freezes, obviously freezes, expands and then contracts. And that's when you get the cracking. But yeah, so there's multiple density specs depending on what type of material you're actually placing, and voids or this, you know, voids and density go hand in hand. So we're, we're always, you know, we're checking at the plant and on the job for density and voids just to make sure that we're staying within spec. Because a lot of the work we're doing, it's pay for performance. Right?

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

There's pay factors on density on vma, which is the voids within the mineral aggregate. So picture like picture a bucket of rocks, right. With nothing in it. No oil, no water, nothing. Just a bucket of rock. Though. The voids within that is the vma, we call it the voids within that aggregate. And then, yes, you're paid based on those pay factors. And you get tolerances. Right. There's parameters. And so if you're.

[Aaron]

But if you're not within it, they essentially fine you in a way.

[Brad]

Essentially, yeah. You get. So if you're not within it, you get. You get the monetary penalty based on your unit price that you bid for that specific pay item.

[Aaron]

And you're on the hook not just for the work you're doing, but for the asphalt you're selling to others. Like, it has to meet a certain. Everything you sell has to be a certain spec.

[Brad]

Every facility we have, we have, you know, we have lab technicians and we have QCQA labs.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

That we. We're pulling samples every so many tons. Every 200 tons. You know, I would say we're pulling samples for that mix.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, we're checking all that stuff. We're running it. We're. We're checking the big D. Right. Big D gives us our, you know, density, our voids. And the big D is the, the specific gravity. Yeah, yeah, the max and specific gravity. And the little D is the, the theoretical.

[Aaron]

I'm trying to.

[Brad]

Specific gravity.

[Aaron]

How do they do that? I know there's one test where they burn it or they put it in an oven.

[Brad]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Burn off your oil to. To determine your oil content.

[Brad]

Exactly. Yeah. So we got away from that.

[Aaron]

Oh.

[Brad]

From the ignition ovens. So we're now doing. It was reflux jars. And there's a chemical that I think is TCE or of some sort, and it's getting kind of. They're talking about banning it because of the hazardous that it causes or that it has. So we have these asphalt analyzers. Now. It's like you walk into a doctor's office and you see like this big apparatus sitting, really. And it's this. This crazy machine with a computer. Yeah. And you put your sample in this and spins it and it extracts the oil. And that's how we get our oil content.

[Aaron]

That's crazy.

[Brad]

It's crazy. You know, it's an expensive machine.

[Aaron]

I'm sure it's expensive.

[Brad]

Very expensive.

[Aaron]

We went to, in Western Australia, an iron mine with Rio Tinto, and they're. They're mining iron. So they. Like the, The, The. The ore body varies, so you have a. You have a percent iron within the. The ore you're mining. But you need to produce a consistent blend of iron at the plant. So they need to know what or grade is going into the plant. So as they drill across it, they're collecting samples out of every hole. So they do this in exploration, but then in production, they'll take samples out of every hole, and then you have to test the or grade to know. All right, this is whatever percent this is whatever percent whatever percent. But the lab that they had was all automated. So they feed the samples in and then there's just like cages with robots, like switching, switching stuff around just non stop all day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week to test all of these samples completely robotically and getting results. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like, like these little conveyors like taking the samples to different places and it was spectacular.

[Brad]

That's amazing.

[Aaron]

It was really something to see because it's, it's, it's a, I mean it's, it's a very repetitive job.

[Brad]

Absolutely.

[Aaron]

Really sucks.

[Brad]

Absolutely.

[Aaron]

It's easy to say like, well that's, you know, that's a job loss like to somebody that's never done it. It's like do it for 12 hours and let's talk about, right, let's, let's talk about it. And there's, you know, plenty of people.

[Brad]

Do the robot stuff 12 hours every day.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. But day in and day out they've automated it all. And then the cool thing is this is just like bonus, bonus information. The trucks are autonomous. So once they know on this pattern what what the or grade is, as the excavator digs the excavator's GPS on it. As the excavator is digging, the computer knows what ore grade is in that excavator's bucket. So then when that excavator puts the material into the truck, the truck knows what ore grade it has within it. And then the plant tells the computer what ore grade they need at any one time. So it'll prioritize whatever machines are in the proper ore grade.

[Brad]

Wow.

[Aaron]

And send more trucks to this excavator over here because that's the proper order grade. And then we'll send the other de. Prioritize other ones or send that to stockpiles or whatever it is.

[Brad]

It's just, I mean the investment on that, I just can't imagine.

[Aaron]

It's. Yeah, it's, it's billions and billions and billions to even start up one of these mines. But then It'll have a 40 year mine life, so. And you're in the middle of nowhere.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So it's, it's like it kind of has to be automated in a way. It's just, it's just the natural way of, of of how things work.

[Brad]

Yeah, I've seen, I've seen some of your stuff. We have. The excavator is down in the mine. You Know, solo, like by itself with no operator in it. Yeah, that operator is controlling it from elsewhere for safety reasons, I'm sure.

[Aaron]

They, they. I was just at a project in Canada on Monday and they're, they have to mine up against these old mine shafts. So it's like they're not totally sure what the ground's going to do. And so they have remote control D10 dozers and then a remote control 992, which. The first time I've seen that. They'll, they're running a manned now, but then once they get into that area, they'll switch to remote and we'll just do it all remote.

[Brad]

That's cool.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but it's, I mean, just to.

[Brad]

Have that capability is really amazing.

[Aaron]

It's pretty cool. It's. And it's pretty good. It's like everybody I've talked to that's done it is like, man, it's pretty sweet.

[Brad]

That's cool.

[Aaron]

I went to one in Germany and they had like the room, they had like mood lighting and it's air conditioned. They've got car carpet. They take their shoes off, you know, leave the shoes outside. No dirt or anything like that.

[Brad]

Wow.

[Aaron]

And then the music from. Or the, the sound from the cab is played on a speaker. So it sounds like an excavator. They're running an excavator. It sounds like you're in the cab.

[Brad]

That's amazing.

[Aaron]

It's identical.

[Brad]

It's amazing.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's great. Chicago, it's such a, like we were talking about. It's such a bubble. It's so different. Like Chicago is so different. Florida, so different. New York, Boston, Seattle. Like there's a few places that are just really different markets.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Chicago is one of those, you know.

[Brad]

Chicago, it's, you know, it's. You don't see anybody that's vertically integrated in Chicago especially, you know, in our space, you know, meaning own the asphalt plant, own the rock quarry, you know, that you're sitting in. Like that's unheard of. And everywhere else you go or you hear it's, you know, Joe Smith Contracting owns the quarry and the, and the asphalt plant.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Brad]

You know.

[Aaron]

Yeah, there's some of that.

[Brad]

So that's unique about Chicago. You don't see that at all.

[Aaron]

It's Chicago. I think what makes it unique too is the unions are extremely strong.

[Brad]

Very strong.

[Aaron]

Like 150 is a force to be reckoned with.

[Brad]

Yes.

[Aaron]

And I know there's others there as well.

[Brad]

Yeah. So we have, you know, the 150 operators and then the laborers.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Which are all different. Kind of local. And the teamsters. And you do teamsters are all the truck drivers. Yeah. And then we have carpenters. We have finishers from the concrete stuff.

[Aaron]

Really?

[Brad]

Yeah. And you know, mechanics.

[Aaron]

And mechanics.

[Brad]

Mechanics as well.

[Aaron]

Are mechanics part of teamsters or.

[Brad]

No, they're, they're automobile Mechanics. Like Local 701. And then we have some Local 150 mechanics that are operators. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Okay. I'm still not super familiar with how that stuff works.

[Brad]

It's. Yeah. You know, you're required to have. You know, if a guy's on the street and he's a mechanic, he should be a 150 mechanic.

[Aaron]

I see.

[Brad]

No, if he's in your shop, then. Okay, then you can have the automobile mechanics all.

[Aaron]

I thought it was the. I'm gonna say I thought it was funny when, when I was driving into Chicago for the first time and I saw a giant inflatable rat outside of a construction project and I was like. I asked the guy I was with, I was like, what is that? What is going. I mean it was like a 20.

[Brad]

Foot right on a construction site. That's normal, right?

[Aaron]

Yeah, just giant. Like not like, you know.

[Brad]

And I'm sure you saw the guy standing around.

[Aaron]

Guys stand around and I pick up.

[Brad]

Trucks parked next to it.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, but, but, but he's like, oh, they're, you know, they're protesting or whatever the right word is. I don't know.

[Brad]

Yeah, they're.

[Aaron]

They're striking.

[Brad]

Picketing.

[Aaron]

Picketing. Yeah. And I thought he was. I thought he was bullshitting me. I'm like, no, like that's, that's, that's unheard of. What? Yeah, it's crazy.

[Brad]

But it's like, but it happens.

[Aaron]

I've seen it all over a lot. Yeah. Once I saw it once, it's like that's a real thing.

[Brad]

Shame on them, you know.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Good luck being non union this market.

[Brad]

Yeah, it's tough.

[Aaron]

It's our way or the highway. And then you can, you can buy those inflatable rats too. I found them on.

[Brad]

Oh, okay.

[Aaron]

Like five grand.

[Brad]

Okay.

[Aaron]

You could have your own 20.

[Brad]

So we could, we could buy some and then we could just set them up on. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Competitors jobs.

[Brad]

I wasn't going to say that, but.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just.

[Brad]

It's just different, you know, but it creates a kind of a level playing field, you know, from a labor standpoint, you know, and 150. I mean they have some skilled operators.

[Aaron]

I've heard they do it. Right.

[Brad]

And the stuff we're doing requires that, you know, we need that. So they have a good training program. And you know, we're working hard to kind of increase that program, make it even more robust, because it's hard to find. I mean, we cannot find people, skilled people. Right. You cannot. I mean, that generation that is retiring right now, they're unreplaceable. I mean, it's just these younger guys don't want to do it. So we're kind of in our business. We're going through this where how do we attract these younger kids and bring them in and then how do we retain them? Right. Because the first question we get more on the administrative side is can I work from home?

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Right. I mean, that's an everyday question.

[Aaron]

Is it really?

[Brad]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron]

You can't pay for it.

[Brad]

You can't work from home in this, in this industry. So, you know, that's a challenge and a challenge.

[Aaron]

So, yeah, I think just the nature of the work too is one of the biggest problems with like just attracting women, for example. I know that's one of the big things, but it's like you can't do it with the family. Like, you can't work 80 hours a week when you have kids at home or if you're pregnant or if you just had a child. Like, it just, it's just, it's hard. It doesn't match. Yeah, it just doesn't work. And so it's even like, man, yeah, we do need to hire more women or whatever it is. But it's like, but we're all, we're still kind of stuck with the model we have. That is when the weather's good. We've got to work. We got to work. Yeah. And it's in a seasonal market. Some of those weeks are long. Days. They're long for sure. Yeah. Some of those days, yeah, it can get long.

[Brad]

You know, things are becoming more efficient. You're not seeing that 14 hour day much anymore. Number one. One reason is because the labor cost. Sure. Right. I mean, you put an operator on double time, that's expensive. And you don't budget for that. You could lose your pants pretty quick.

[Aaron]

Double times over 12.

[Brad]

Double time starts over 12, 12 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then anything on Sundays, any, any work on Sundays is double time as well. Sure, yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And every union's different. Right. So now, now we gotta, we gotta keep up with the work rules. Right. Which is another challenge with all the different unions to your point earlier.

[Aaron]

And they all have Different.

[Brad]

Different work rules. Different. Yeah. Different how they get paid. Sure. You know, when overtime kicks in, when it doesn't, and so forth. Yeah. You know, night work. There's. There's premium pay for night work. Yeah. So, like, our HR department, I mean, they're. They're. It's a. It's. It's a very robust department because there's, you know, where there's seven different unions that we're contractually obligated to. And, you know, it's. It's. It's tough.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And then within the union, there's locals, right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So, like, the Teamsters, they all. They all have their jurisdiction. Right. So now you could be in another guy's jurisdiction, and you have to pay that, you know, his benefit package because you're in his jurisdiction. But just keeping up with all that stuff is a big challenge.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, and we're here to pave roads. Right. And make things convenient for the taxpayer, and we're worried about what jurisdiction we're in. Like, you know, those are big distractions.

[Aaron]

Well, and the jurisdictions, are they somewhat arbitrary? Like, it's not by. Is it by county?

[Brad]

It's by county, by region, by county. So, like, there's regions within counties. Counties. Right. So it's like.

[Aaron]

So what is it. Is it Clark county there?

[Brad]

So Cook County.

[Aaron]

Cook County.

[Brad]

Cook county is like Chicago.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Brad]

And then DuPage county, kind of as you go further west, and then Will county is, like, kind of south.

[Aaron]

But Cook county, it's enormous, isn't it? It's one of the bigger counties in.

[Brad]

The country, I think. I mean, the city of Chicago has what, 3 million people? Yeah, just the city of Chicago. And that didn't. Cook county is. Is larger than the city of Chicago.

[Aaron]

Well, it's just. I mean, just driving across Chicago.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

It's a. It's a mission. Yeah. To go from. To the outskirts to, like, downtown. You're. You're driving a long way.

[Brad]

So I. Our office is. I would say we're 15 miles from the city. It could take you an hour. Hour and 20 minutes to get there.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, it's very dense, and there's. Yeah.

[Aaron]

That's why when we worked originally with the demolition company that does work in downtown Chicago, and it's all night work because it's like.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

We can't. One, we can't. We can't do it during the day because of different restrictions. But two, it's like, we can't afford to do it during the day.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

It's just you just don't get anything done.

[Brad]

You're your own worst enemy. Yeah. I mean, our trucks, you know, if we're, if we're on a, you know, a heavy traveled arterial road, our trucks are, are stuck in our traffic.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

In our closures. Right. So now we can't get the truck to the paver. So what does that mean?

[Aaron]

Oh, it's. Yeah, it's your closure.

[Brad]

It's our closure. Yeah.

[Aaron]

That's.

[Brad]

Our trucks are our closure. Right. Like trying to get through.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So now the crew's waiting, you know, and it's. It's not a one man crew. Right. This is a nine man paving spread.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Right. And it's. And they're not, it's not cheap labor.

[Aaron]

And you like. And when you're paving, you shouldn't be stopping all that much.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

You want the mat to just exactly be nice and nice and smooth.

[Brad]

And your paver should never stop.

[Aaron]

Your mix is going down in the truck, especially if it's cool.

[Brad]

She's calling. Am I getting, you know why? Can I get density? I had a rolling pattern set up. I'm having to hit the mat two more times now. Well, the truck sat in the closure for 25 minutes.

[Aaron]

Yeah. You know, do you guys, do your trucks dump right into pavers or do you guys run buggies out?

[Brad]

We run buggies.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Brad]

It depends on the application.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Yeah. Some jobs require them, some don't. We do them just out of goodwill.

[Aaron]

They really, they really make a difference?

[Brad]

I think so.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Big time. Yeah.

[Aaron]

I mean, I always thought it was about just feeding the paver at a consistent rate. But then I didn't even think about segregation. Someone brought that up. I was like, yeah, it makes perfect.

[Brad]

Sense, you know, especially with the, with the kind of the heavier regulated specs nowadays and everything's performance based. Right. So we try and use them as much as we can. We have noticed a tremendous difference.

[Aaron]

Performance that's performance based. I wonder if that's commonplace, you know, in the crossing United States.

[Brad]

I don't know.

[Aaron]

I don't know.

[Brad]

I don't know. So IDOT has PfP performance. It's pay for performance. And that is applied on contracts with certain tonnage. Like there's tonnage thresholds. So 8,000 tons or more I believe is PfP. Anything less than 8,000 tons is QCP. Okay. Quality control, performance. And there's different types. Like the QCP. You're measured and paid differently than like PfP. There's different measurements on, on your, on the specs.

[Aaron]

Interesting.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And will it be an outside firm doing the quality control if they hire an outside firm? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

So we, we do our own quality control and like quality assurance will be done by either the agency that you're working for or whoever they hire. Yeah, yeah. And it's. And your results don't matter. Like you just do them just because you want to track how you're doing.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You got to make any mixed adjustments.

[Aaron]

At your plants or whatever, spot a problem before it.

[Brad]

Yeah, exactly. So, and then. But it doesn't matter when it comes to the, you know, here's my, here's my answer. And this is how you're getting paid. Like ours doesn't matter at all.

[Aaron]

Interesting.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But is it, have there been situations where it's like a pretty significant discrepancy and you've got to have some conversations after the fact? Yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

So we can challenge. So they put in a method now where we're able to challenge some of these results. If we're like, if we're getting 94% and they're at 89 on a core, on a density core, you know, we're going to challenge that.

[Aaron]

Yeah, sure.

[Brad]

You know, there's a reason something happened. You know, we'll take, we'll always take split samples too, just to run them and make sure.

[Aaron]

But that's why it's worth, like with the lab, for example, investing so much in those labs. Because that is exactly, that ensures quality. But then is also your insurance policy in a way.

[Brad]

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Because whatever's done in that lab, I mean that's that, that's how you're paid.

[Aaron]

Sure. And so it has to be as careful and precise as possible, you know.

[Brad]

And they're talking to the plant operator too, on a minute basis. You know, hey, I'm, you know, I had to switch into a different mix. I got to switch back into that performance based mix. You know, like, you know, they communicate that because it changes. Right. It changes the quality.

[Aaron]

Well, and each plant will be making different mixes in a given day. Potentially. That's a really big job.

[Brad]

Our highest production facility, we're making seven mixes a day.

[Aaron]

Wow.

[Brad]

Seven different types.

[Aaron]

Really? Yeah. You have that many silos?

[Brad]

We have eight.

[Aaron]

Eight?

[Brad]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

Yes. That's pretty good.

[Brad]

I mean it's, it's, it's a high, it's a demanding for an operator. You really got to kind of know what's going in QC as well. Because if QC doesn't know what mix we're running and when that switch is going to happen, then, you know, they could be grabbing the wrong sample.

[Aaron]

The mix thing's interesting, too, because I feel like people just think asphalt's asphalt, but the design of every. It matters what kind of oil you're using. What matters what kind of rock you're using. What matters where you're putting it, whether it's base, whether it's surface, what the traffic is on it. There's just so much variance.

[Brad]

So much variance.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And I really appreciated this, like, when I was showing you the formula one stuff, because they. On one of the projects, they could not, like, figure out how to make the spec. And I was thinking about. I was like, how do you not figure that out? But it's like a lot of. It's like you just have to get the rocks and you have to get the oil, and you gotta blend them, start messing around with them to try to hit this. But on this one, it was. The tolerances were just, like, so tight that they had to hit such a narrow window. They had to figure they almost had to go by the mix design or how to do it from somebody else that's done it before. And it's like. It's stuff I just had never.

[Brad]

Right. I mean, you think it's just a road you drive on. They're all the same. Right?

[Aaron]

Yeah. I thought you just plug your materials in into the plant, press some buttons, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And then there you go. Asphalt Easy.

[Brad]

So we do our own mix designs in house. We do our own.

[Aaron]

Do you have to have engineers do that?

[Brad]

We certain mixes, you have to have a pe.

[Aaron]

A pe yeah.

[Brad]

But all our labs are fully certified labs to do your mix designs. And these guys are blending. Sometimes it takes them two to three weeks for one mix, one type of mix to put a design together to hit that specification. That's amazing because there's so many variables, especially like aggregates. Right. Think about it. You're getting aggregate out of the earth. Okay. It goes to a crusher. It gets crushed. It's getting beat up. Right. Fractionalized down to a certain gradation. And then it gets transported to your facility.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

And dumped in that material bin.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Brad]

Right. And then you have a loader coming in and scooping it up and then taking it, hauling it and feeding your plant. Right. There's a lot of steps that we just talked about coming out of the earth to the plant.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Right. Degradation happens. Right. All those things can happen. So nothing's the same. Right. So these QC guys are constantly running gradations on these aggregates, trying to get a kind of a mean on what that gradation is. And then we plug that into our design, we start blending them, Then we have to get four points on that design, and then we take the most consistent point, and that's what we go with.

[Aaron]

And it's. Some of the stuff I hadn't thought about too, with aggregate is. Some of it is thirstier than other aggregate. Like, some of it will soak up that oil a little bit better than others. And it's like. That's like. In Florida, for example, they can't pave with native aggregate because it's all lime. It's. And so it just sucks it right up. So every road in Florida, all of the material is brought in by train.

[Brad]

Wow.

[Aaron]

All of. All of it is imported from Georgia and Tennessee and Alabama and other places because they need, like, legitimate rock. And the whole state of Florida is just this one giant piece of limestone. It just doesn't. You can't even use it for asphalt.

[Brad]

Yeah. The absorption is. And that's something we watch. So when these suppliers submit their materials to the DOT agency for approval, absorption is a big factor in that. I mean.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

You know, we learned the hard way. We. We were first getting in. In business. We were. You know, we thought, hey, this guy's selling rock for cheap. Let's go buy it. Right? There's something. It's. It's gotta be fine. Right? It's. It's. But he's half the price of everybody else. Let's take advantage of this. Right. So we do that, and absorptions are like, you know, four and a half percent, you know, and you're targeting like 2%. And, oh, we'll get away, you know, it'll be fine. So we're paving and. And every roller pass, that mat gets whiter, wider and wider and wider. Right. Because what's happening is that aggregate is just breaking.

[Aaron]

Yeah, Right.

[Brad]

And that oil. And when it breaks, the inside of a rock that's not. That's already coated, is white. Right? Limestone is white.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So you're seeing this white capping, we call it, and it's like, oh, I think we gotta find another AG supplier.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, the challenging thing, too, is when you commit to an aggregate source and you get that design done. You have to use that mix design or that aggregate source all year. If you make a change, you have to redesign and get that design, get that design approved.

[Aaron]

But you probably have some flexibility with aggregate companies. Because you're probably one of the bigger buyers that they have. We are, yeah. Yeah, we are.

[Brad]

So we leverage that.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

And then we're check. We're holding them, you know, we're holding them on us too. We're checking radiations daily.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Like YQC guys at every facility, they're checking radiations every day. Yeah, every day. You know, two the gravities. Right. It's like the. How strong is this rock? Right. So that, that specific gravity matters and we have to use the specific gravity that is published by the supplier. So if they deviate, it just. It affects the entire volumetric of the, of the mix design.

[Aaron]

It's just. This is stuff I don't even think about.

[Brad]

Yeah. And it's, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting because, you know, we're trying to say, hey, let's get away from having to get mixed designs approved by the, by the agency. Right. Because everything, again, going back to things are performance driven. Right. We're paid based on our results. So if I want to go out there and pave a street and not even roll it, I should be able to do that because I'm getting paid based on those results.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I'm just. All your, all your job is, is to meet the spec of the road.

[Brad]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Like to give them the product they want.

[Brad]

Correct.

[Aaron]

Has to meet certain specs. And if it does, that should be my.

[Brad]

Yeah, we get paid 100%. But why do I have to get my mix design approved?

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

And then also I gotta get the mix approved out of the plant once we make it. But I'm paid based on those test results.

[Aaron]

That's interesting.

[Brad]

So it's.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Yeah. Industry is working with policy, trying to.

[Aaron]

Get that ironed out in Chicago. Chicago is also what I view as like an older school market. It has like a, it feels just like an older school mentality to it. Kind of like a Boston. And just like it's a. There's a good old boy vibe in a way. Has it been you're a younger guy. Is it at all interesting to be a younger guy in that market? Running pretty good size company.

[Brad]

Extremely.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, we call it the old school. The old school way. Right. Never sell equipment. Keep everything you have and just keep, keep maintaining it. I don't care what it cost.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, we don't. The old school mentality is they don't get rid of anything. You know, the Chicago market from, from what I've learned, you know, being in that industry for you know, 17, 18 years. It's. It's who you know. Yeah, there's a lot of who you know that's kind of fallen by the wayside a little bit.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

But yeah, there's. You don't go in somebody's territory. Right. Unless you expect to get.

[Aaron]

Unless you're fire. Exactly.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So which is interesting. It's like, you know, why don't we go, you know, do this, do this, do this. And it's like, well, you know, that's not really our territory.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, she want to try to keep peace.

[Aaron]

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

You know, and it's funny, it's such a, it's such. The industry, it's challenging. Right. I mean, it's not easy. And you, you try to, you try to build allies when you're within this industry because it's, there's really. If you don't have allies, you're. You're kind of a duck standing in water by yourself. And it doesn't help, you know, so there's some, there's contractors that are around the Chicagoland area that, you know, there's allies and, you know, they help each other and so forth, which is important.

[Aaron]

Yeah, very. I've found, like now being in business for a few years, fights are very rarely worthwhile. Like, very rarely is something really worth. All right, let's walk horns over this.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Most of the time it's not worth it. It's just not worth it. No, it's just the cost. I mean, not even just the dollars, but it's just the mental energy and using up time from your other, you know, other people involved that should be focused on just running the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just. It's just so rarely worthwhile. It's not worth.

[Brad]

Yeah, it's not worth it at all. So, you know, being a younger, kind of a younger person within that industry, you know, in the leadership position that I'm in, you know, it's challenging because you don't necessarily have anybody to convey, you know, not only concerns with, but just ideas and so forth. Because I'm talking to a, you know, a 72 year old guy who owns a paving company that his mindset, Aaron, is way different than mine. Right. I'm 39 years old, you know, and this guy's double my age. Like, we don't relate when it comes to decision making and philosophies and so forth. Right. But it's been, it's been good because when you get into something, there's no syllabus. Right. There's no saying, hey, this is how, when you start, this is exactly what you do, and this is what's going to happen, and this is going to be the outcome. In 15 years that doesn't exist. Right? So it's, you get up, you go to work, you read, you learn, and you got to take the initiative to. Willing to. To learn how to do things and what things mean. And that trickles down to being able to teach people and find people.

[Aaron]

It's probably one of my favorite things about business, though, is that it's all made up and it's all just this giant creative exercise. The whole thing's a puzzle. And the picture you're trying to make with the pieces changes sometimes multiple times a day. You're trying to put together some kittens, and then it turns into like a rainbow. You almost have one of the faces of the kittens figured out, and you're excited, and then it just changes on a dime. Night. All right, well, now I have to figure it out. That's a really stupid analogy. Best I come up with in this moment. But it's even yesterday we just had something. And it's just like, I have these moments all the time where I'm like, I love this because this is just problem solving all the time. And it's like, some people don't like that, but people that are built for it, like, that's. That's what gets me going. I just, I love solving big problems, like chestnut checkers. One of my favorite. I don't even know how to play chess, but I like, I like making the chess moves. Like, and you kind of know, it's like, yeah, this is a chess move. Like, I. I've got it here. This is exciting. And sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Not at all. But that's. I just. It gets me going.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Really gets me going.

[Brad]

Yeah. That's the beauty of it, you know? That's the beauty of it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You don't know what each day is going to bring. Like, I mean, every time I walk into the office, it's something different. Yeah, something different. Right. And part of that is people like, you know, you have employees. These employees depend on you.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And, you know, which is awesome. Right? To walk in every day and say, hey, I'm leading. You know, a 450 person or employee operation, that's incredible. Right. Like, let's go to work. Let's get these guys going. Let's motivate our team. You know, these are expectations, you know, and you start to learn that as you do it. Right. Because nobody's. Nobody's born in this world that knows how to do that stuff without experience and experimenting. Right. By doing something, failing, doing something, failing. And then, oh, man, I just did the same thing, and it hit a home run.

[Aaron]

Yeah, right.

[Brad]

Yeah. So that's, you know, we went from, you know, 10 people to 450 in about 15 years.

[Aaron]

That's crazy.

[Brad]

And it's been a ride, I'm sure. Ride.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And I wasn't. You know, I wasn't. I lived in a small town, you know, north of Knoxville. Shortly after moved to Clearwater, Florida, and my dad was in the restaurant business. He had a pizza franchise, and he bought a seafood restaurant in Florida. He's like, we're moving to Florida. Welcome. It's called Crabby Bills. Here it is. I'm like, 10 years old, you know, did not want to be in the restaurant business.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

After, you know, he was never home.

[Aaron]

So. How much crab. How much crab meat have you. How many. How many crabs?

[Brad]

A lot of gator tail. A lot of gator tail, yeah.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Brad]

So he used to go, like, he would do inventory, Right. This guy was very hands on everything he did. And he's like, come on, I'll take you to. You know, it's late night. They do it all at night. All the boats are coming in, they're getting their crab legs. You know, all the. All the inventory they need is coming off a boat.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So I go with him that night. I'm like, wow, this is unbelievable. Like, this is what you do. He's like, I really don't do this, but I like being a part of that team that's doing it and seeing it. I'm like, I do not want to get into this industry. So shortly after we moved to Knoxville. He's a big Tennessee Volunteer fan. Our whole family is, and went to high school there and then went to University of Tennessee. Love baseball. Played baseball growing up my whole life, my whole adolescent life, and then got an opportunity to play in college a little bit for a few years and really learn the camaraderie side of things. With that on my teammates and how to share moments with and how to stay together when you're having tough times. I'm in a batting slump. Like, hey, these two guys are picking me up. Hey, stay with it. Keep working. You're doing great. But you kind of learn all that through that, and I think that helped me. I think it helped me want to be that leader one day. Baseball didn't Work, which I was devastated when it didn't work out. So the next thing was, what do I do? I wanted to be a home builder. I wanted to build houses. I loved it. I worked for a home builder. Right. Coming out of school last year of school and loved it. Man, I was sweeping out houses, watching all the trades, asking them questions like, man, how do you frame a house that's cool.

[Aaron]

And how fast they do it, how.

[Brad]

Fast they do it.

[Aaron]

Mind boggling.

[Brad]

And then after you frame it, what do you do? Well, you put the roof on. That's crazy. And then the windows go in and then it starts folding together like a puzzle. So love that. And then what happens? 07 hits, right. The crash, the housing crash. And that didn't work out. So I had an opportunity to move to Chicago and work in the road construction space. That's kind of how things got started. So worked for a company for a few years and transitioned out and was able to get an opportunity to develop and run an organization that we are here today.

[Aaron]

It's pretty wild. How do you. In a 15 year period, though, like, growth is one thing, but with the asphalt plant thing, it's tricky because I can't just buy the lot across the street and say, this is a great place for an asphalt plant. I think we're going to put an asphalt plant here. It doesn't work that way. And I know there was a little bit more flexibility back in the day, but especially now it is.

[Brad]

It's near impossible.

[Aaron]

Near impossible? Yeah. Near impossible.

[Brad]

To get zoning.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

To get all that done and then put up an asphalt plant that. Everybody has a perception that this thing's, you know, this thing smells, it's, you know, trucks and rocks and.

[Aaron]

Yeah. So how do you. How do you grow in that market? And then how do you grow in that market? Like you said, you do need to be careful with where you go because you don't want to be stepping on toes and burning bridges. But to grow, you've got to absorb, you've got to get market share somehow.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So how do you balance that? And I know it's a 15 year.

[Brad]

Process, so a lot of our growth. Well, a lot of. We were a single plant owner for 10 years.

[Aaron]

Wow.

[Brad]

And then we had an opportunity to, you know, a lot of our growth came from acquisition. You know, we went through a very successful acquisition about 16 months ago and, you know, acquired additional plants through that.

[Aaron]

I see.

[Brad]

But yeah, if you. And we had two other plants that we. We were. There was asphalt plants in that Area that were removed and you know, the zoning was kind of a grandfathered in, I should say.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So that's, you know, that's how that happened.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So you just gotta, you know, you gotta get at the right place at the right time. And sometimes success, you gotta get lucky every now and then.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

And people do. Yeah. But yeah, I think in today's world, in order to grow on that side of things, you have to, you got to acquire acquisition.

[Aaron]

Yeah. That's really the only one.

[Brad]

You got to get acquisition.

[Aaron]

And that's the tricky thing about asphalt plants. It's like you're providing a public service, but the public doesn't want you there. They can't survive without you, but they don't want you.

[Brad]

You like the road you're driving on. Yeah, but you don't want us around.

[Aaron]

Sure. Yeah, yeah. And they, they want, they want the plant where they're not. But then it's like, well, they're. Where they're not is out in a field somewhere.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

40 miles away, you know, with.

[Brad]

And with traffic, like it comes with higher cost, right?

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

Plants further away. Now I got to travel further. So now my. You're. You're going to pay more because of that, you know, but, but business friendly towns understand, you know, hey, if they take 1% of your taxable receipts on a monthly basis as an incentive for some revenue for that town, you know, that's enticing for these people, you know, and some have done that.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, and if it's a pro business, you know, politician in office in that town, like they're going to want you in town.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Because I mean, nowadays, these facilities, you know, we've bought several new plants within the last decade. These facilities are, I mean, they're, they're eco friendly. Yeah, yeah, they are phenomenal. You can't even hear them.

[Aaron]

Yeah. What kind of plants do you have?

[Brad]

You bought. So we bought Gencor, a couple Gencors and I bought one Aztec.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Brad]

Yeah, yeah. With the Unidrum, the old Dillman drum.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, that was right when Dillman and Aztec. Kind of when Aztec acquired Dillman. But they are so friendly. And you're running stack tests, right. On an annual basis. I mean, you're in compliance on anything with the Illinois epa, which is highly regulated, just near impossible to meet some of their standards. But we do and everybody does. And that's something to say for our industry that it's a good thing to have an asphalt plant in your town. The sales tax revenue that this town gets from this generation of our business is big.

[Aaron]

Well, and then. And you could. I don't know if it actually pencils out this way everywhere, but you could make an argument that the roads are better because there's a lower cost to resurface. There's a lower cost for your asphalt. So if there's a lower cost, you can lay more asphalt, you can repair more roads, you can make that budget work.

[Brad]

Exactly.

[Aaron]

A little bit further.

[Brad]

Get more for what you. What you have.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, to the oil. Right. Oil is, you know, it's 35% of your cost of revenue.

[Aaron]

Sure, right.

[Brad]

It's a. It's an expense, man. Yeah.

[Aaron]

I mean, it.

[Brad]

Expense expensive. But what makes Chicago unique. There's seven suppliers within our market, you know, and if you go further south, north or west, there's not. There's one or two guys. And guess what?

[Aaron]

Price is the price.

[Brad]

We know what that means. Price is the price.

[Aaron]

Yes. Yeah. Sorry, we're just gonna. Yeah. There's another escalation.

[Brad]

So as an end user of that, it's great. You know, we're buying at a much lower price than another market would be, you know, which again, allows for, you know, more bang for your buck kind of thing.

[Aaron]

It's significant exposure, though. Or it can be with that much of your business dependent upon price of oil in a way. I know it's a specific kind of product within the crude market. But if oil is expensive, if gas is expensive, then your product is probably more expensive. Like it kind of follows there's a correlation.

[Brad]

Sure, there's a correlation there. And here's the funny thing about this is, right, we're a big natural gas user.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

For our heat. Right. Or for a heat exchange at all our facilities. That's great. You can hedge. Natural gas, it's a traded commodity, Right. Well, guess what? Liquid asphalt is not. It's derived from a wti. Right. But you can't hedge, is that right? You're spending $60 million a year in oil on a product that you can't hedge.

[Aaron]

Really? So you can't. Because that's like. For people that don't know kind of how it works, like airlines, for example, they'll lock in certain rates for jet fuel. For fuel, for example. Yeah. Because it allows them to even out their expenses so they're not subject to fluctuations.

[Brad]

Fixed costs.

[Aaron]

Yeah. They try to negotiate. All right, next five years, here's what we're going to pay for Jet A or whatever it is. So you can't do that for liquid naphthal?

[Brad]

Yeah, it's just spot price. We can buy blocks, we call them small quantity blocks. 5,000, 10,000 ton blocks at a fixed price. But the suppliers, they limit you on the duration of that block. It's. Hey, that block's not good all year. It's good from April, May, June. So you got to use it within that timeframe.

[Aaron]

Well, I think the only rational thing is to build a refinery.

[Brad]

Yeah, I think that's could be the next step.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. Get some. West Texas, you know, we've looked at.

[Brad]

Like proxy hedges and there is a correlation with liquid asphalt to wti.

[Aaron]

Yeah, well, I know. I know some of the bigger paving contractors, they will have a terminal and they'll have storage capacity, which does even it out a little bit. Is that how it works? Yeah, kind of. Like you can buy a giant quantity.

[Brad]

You can.

[Aaron]

And just store.

[Brad]

But. But here, I mean, you remember you have to heat this material.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Because if it's not heated, it becomes. The viscosity goes through the roof and it becomes hard. Right. And it's. You can't.

[Aaron]

So there's a cost.

[Brad]

Now we have to heat it. So there's a cost. Right. And you need land right now. There's a cost to that. You need storage tanks. There's a cost to tanks. We've looked at that.

[Aaron]

And volume just needs to be.

[Brad]

Unless you can get it. If the market wasn't so volatile and you know, hey, the market just tanked. Remember when. Remember when oil went negative?

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Brad]

Back in 2020.

[Aaron]

Yeah. It was wild.

[Brad]

That was wild.

[Aaron]

Because everybody's like, yep, there's just no more oil that's going to be used ever again. Yeah.

[Brad]

You can take advantage of that time to buy heavy volume. But what if the market tanks even further? Now you're stuck with this inventory that my competitors are buying much cheaper. I'm stuck with all this oil. I can't resell it because the guy I bought it from, the refinery I bought it from, he's never going to do business with me again.

[Aaron]

I see.

[Brad]

Because he doesn't want a guy that he's selling to that's supposed to be using it, reselling it.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

So he become a guy.

[Brad]

It becomes another Chicago interesting kind of thing that goes on. Right. So it's challenging. You got to find good suppliers and build relationships with the guys, you know, and hope they work with you on volatility.

[Aaron]

Do you guys use a lot of wrap?

[Brad]

We do.

[Aaron]

What's your opinion on wrap?

[Brad]

I don't like to max out. We call it asphalt binder replacement. Binder is an alternative term for liquid asphalt. I don't like to max that out because it's hard on your plants. Right. You know, you get that thermal exposure within your drum, your mixing drum in that combustion zone. The more wrap going in because it goes. The collar is right there, right at the combustion zone. And when it goes in, you gotta heat that quick. Right.

[Aaron]

Quick.

[Brad]

Because if you don't, your mix is gonna be terrible.

[Aaron]

I see.

[Brad]

It's gonna be. The quality just will be just awful.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Brad]

I like the idea of taking a road out, bringing it to your facility and recycling it. Right. And putting it back in and extracting that oil and saving on that end. But I don't like to compromise our equipment.

[Aaron]

I've heard it compromises the quality, the longevity as well. Could potentially.

[Brad]

Yeah, that's what we keep several different piles. If you're fortunate enough to have the room, the land.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, keep a homogeneous pile, you know, and then you keep kind of a commercial pile. Right. A commercial pile is like your private guys, your retail guys coming in. They did a Target parking lot. Right.

[Aaron]

Those.

[Brad]

That. That Target parking lot mix is probably not DOT approved, but that. Those grindings that come in or those millings that come in, they're put in that pile.

[Aaron]

And then your deal put it back into a dot mix.

[Brad]

Right. So, you know, I. I think if you manage it and you don't get too crazy where you're putting in 60, 70% wrap in your mixes, I think the quality's great.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You know, you stay in that 30 to 35 range. Yeah, I think it's great.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's. Yeah, I'm just.

[Brad]

And you're getting a lot of binder replacement out of it, too. If your mix design calls for a 6% total liquid asphalt and you're replacing 2% of that was recycled, now you're only putting 4% in. That's a big, big savings.

[Aaron]

It is. I mean, it's cool how you can recycle asphalt. We haven't figured it out yet in the States, but in Europe, too, they recycle concrete into new concrete. We say we recycle it. Here, we don't recycle it. We crush it and then fill holes with it.

[Brad]

Sell it for base.

[Aaron]

Yeah. If it meets spec, which a lot of times it doesn't because of the lime.

[Brad]

I guess qualities are bad.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. Dots just don't like it. So it's even sometimes hard to put places. But, yeah, they mix it in new concrete there kind of like wrap.

[Brad]

Where was this at?

[Aaron]

In Switzerland.

[Brad]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron]

Wow. And elsewhere in Europe. But I know they do it in Switzerland for sure. Yeah. And they take it and make it into all kinds of products. The concrete, they don't waste a single bit of it. They don't have landfills.

[Brad]

So how do they do. How are they doing? I mean, is that. Is it a production method or.

[Aaron]

It goes way over my head.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

That we went. So they go. Went to like one of my favorite companies to visit, Eberhard. It's a demolition company. They do materials too, in construction, but so demolition. They'll just fold the building in as fast as they can and throw. Sort out the big chunks and then throw everything else into trucks. Not going to spend any time sorting it here. They haul it to a central sorting facility. They throw everything into the truck, into bin goes into the facility. In one end they've got all kinds of different screens, shaker decks, robots picking stuff out. And it separates the wood out, the metal out, the masonry.

[Brad]

And it can recognize the different materials. Yes.

[Aaron]

Yeah. So then you have bins of all of the different materials out of it. And then they recycle each one of those products into sometimes new concrete, sometimes in, like, building insulation, sometimes in, like, roofing tiles. They'll incinerate wood for power and incinerate plastics for. For power. Metal, obviously, it goes get in, gets recycled. The whole thing is just amazing. It's crazy cool. It's so just the material science.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And they have all the labs, like, internally trying to build these commercial materials.

[Brad]

Are these privately owned companies?

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's a private company.

[Brad]

Wow.

[Aaron]

It's just.

[Brad]

And that's different. Are they doing that? Are they beating some type of specification or is that a requirement with, you know, Switzerland or.

[Aaron]

Well, Switzerland, you can't dump material anywhere, so you have to recycle it.

[Brad]

Okay.

[Aaron]

Like, there's no C and D landfills. There's no landfills. You cannot haul stuff off. They burn. Like all their trash is incinerated for power. Wow. So they do not have landfills, which is just.

[Brad]

So there's. There's a. There's a way to do it. Then you're saying, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

But it's. But the economics have to be there too.

[Brad]

Like.

[Aaron]

Or like a Singapore. Yeah, it's an island. They can't have. So everybody's like, wow, yeah, Singapore. They recycle everything. And that's like. Well, yes, it's an island. It's one of the most expensive Places in the world to live and they just don't allow you to dump anything. So. Yes, you have to recycle everything. Like, of course, yes. It's just like the economics work. I think people, everybody has this good intention, like we need to recycle everything. It's that. It's like, well, the money needs to work. If the money doesn't work, it's not gonna get recycled. It's gonna go right to the landfill. Why do we throw everything in the landfill? It's the cheapest way to do it.

[Brad]

Cheapest way to do it. And we're able to do it.

[Aaron]

Put it in a hole. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

Interesting. Yeah. You know, it's amazing that you get to see all the different. I mean, you've seen a lot.

[Aaron]

It's super cool.

[Brad]

Super cool.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's super cool.

[Brad]

Yeah. Paving, you know, I think it helped. It's helpful. You know, we get stuck in this little bubble, right. Of just like manufacturing asphalt and paving and that's all we know how to do and that's all we see and that's all we think about.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

But I think it's eye opening to go out and just. And even to meet other, you know, we talked about this earlier. Other contractors and companies that are in different areas and how they do things, what is their means and methods on certain applications. And it's fun to hear the testimonies and the stories because you relate. At the end of the day, it's all relatable. Right. But seeing different construction operations, it's gotta be cool.

[Aaron]

But I think the future is really in sharing information. I think the contractors that are open to sharing information are the ones that. Those are the, those are the ones that are going to succeed long term. Like, I think the days of just hoarding everything, like, we're not going to show you our asphalt plant. It's top secret. Why not? It's an asphalt plant. No, show it off. Top secret. Sorry.

[Brad]

Like, to that point, I, we, we've done a lot of plant tours, we call them, you know, we'll invite, you know, municipalities over or whoever and say, hey, this is an asphalt plant. This is what it looks like. We're going to give you the 30 minute tour. And at the end of that tour, I mean, these guys are amazed. We had no idea this is what goes on. We thought you'd push a button and the mix just spits out.

[Aaron]

Yeah, the truck, right?

[Brad]

Yes, yes. And we've gotten a lot of good feedback from doing that. And I think it builds Relationships too. And it teaches. So it teaches these, like our customers how to order. When they order, they think they're like at McDonald's, right. And they're ordering something and it's just made right there. It teaches them the operation of A to Z on when that order is placed and how that mix is made and how it's put into their truck. And then it teaches them when they're in the field paving to learn how to measure. Right. And correspond that information to the plant. So the plant knows how much more material they need. Right. Because again, you can't make just one ton.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

These are continuous drum mix plants and you're going to waste 40 tons to make one ton.

[Aaron]

Sure. Yeah. And just a lot of people get frustrated, even. Not even construction, even here. It's like I can get frustrated. Someone's not doing what I want them to do and I get pissed off, man. But it's like, have I explained to them? And if I have, they still don't understand. So I need to find a different way to explain.

[Brad]

Exactly.

[Aaron]

Or something's broken here. Like, I can get pissed off all day long, but something's broken here. And I feel like that's where the whole construction industry is. It's like, you know, people just don't appreciate us. They don't get what we do, this and that. It's like. But yeah, you haven't talked about what you do. You haven't shown people what you do. So, like, yes, I think it's just a result of the industry just hiding away. Hiding away. And to get like. Like asphalt and asphalt plants are similar to mining. For example, once you've got your plant, you don't want to talk about it too much because it's like, we don't want a drama like we're here. But it's counterintuitive because then if you want to go get anything else, it actually makes everything harder. It kind of screws you. It better short term, screws you long term. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So it's like, as I've gotten further and further into this, I've developed a bigger respect for politics. The politics in the construction industry and infrastructure. It is crazy how much there is just. And not even like the mayor. I'm talking just like. Like different companies, different people, different person. Just all the politics is crazy.

[Brad]

Crazy.

[Aaron]

But it's like some of the big mines in the certain region, if a new mine wants to get permitted in that region, you'd think the other mines would be helpful. The other mines are Opposite of helpful, because they don't want any attention. We've got our permit. You. We don't want you here because now you're drawing attention to the whole place. So just get out of here.

[Brad]

Get out of here.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Which. But. But that degrades the entire. And the whole region's been degraded as a result.

[Brad]

Indirectly.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Brad]

Right. Yeah. It's the same way with asphalt plants. You know, we don't want anybody coming in because we don't want any more competition.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Brad]

You know, we're taking a different approach. We show off our facilities. Right. We're proud of them. And I think if the public was more educated on what they do and how they perform and why they're there, I think it would be people would embrace them.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I think so.

[Brad]

I do.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And we do a terrible job at getting that information out there and educating the general public. You know, even. Even our employees, like my estimator, should know what an asphalt plant A, looks like, B, how it primarily functions. Right. On a one on one basis. Right. They should know that because it just helps them understand the entire operation of what we're doing.

[Aaron]

Yeah. It's funny, even I'm thinking of, like, engineering school. When you go through materials, you'll go through asphalt materials or whatever the hell the class is. You don't ever even see a video about how an asphalt plant works.

[Brad]

No.

[Aaron]

At least I didn't now. Now I think about it. So you're messing with mixed designs and asphalt and this and that, but you don't even know how it's.

[Brad]

How it works.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. And the. It was. We went to Aztec one time, and they have a little model asphalt plant. But it's like. It's pretty. It's like the size of this room. It's pretty big. But then they had a cutout, too, of one of the drums, and it was like, the first time I could visualize how the material goes one way and then it goes the other way. So it was like. It goes. It doesn't go on the outside first and then goes to the inside.

[Brad]

And their double drum.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, the double drum. Yeah. So the material, as it's spinning, travels through on the outside and then travels through on the inside. It's like, oh, that's heated on the.

[Brad]

Outside, mixed on the inside or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

And even just what the drum looks like on the inside, because it's just this giant spinning thing. You're like, okay, yeah.

[Brad]

What's going on in there?

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. But.

[Brad]

And then you open it up and you see all these flights, super complex, like these different flights. Why is this section different than this section? Never had any idea that was even like that.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, what is the reason for. Why is the drum tilted? Why is it, you know, why is it counter flowing?

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Why isn't it just a level drum? Like, things like that? I mean, you know, But I take that as it's our responsibility to engage all of our employees and not knowing how to be a professional asphalt producer, but just understanding how it works. Material gets surged into these bins, it conveys here. It's weighed, it's put in the drum, the drum mixes it. The liquid asphalt is sprayed at the end, and it's then brought up the slack conveyor into a silo. Right. And then from there it's loaded into a truck.

[Aaron]

Pretty simple once you get it. I get it.

[Brad]

But it just helps illustrate the whole entire applicator operation, what's going on.

[Aaron]

I feel like because you're a newer company in an older market, I feel like most of the guys I've seen you have, it's pretty young. You go into the office and it's a pretty young crowd. Very young, I'd say.

[Brad]

Yeah. Which is been done purposely. And it's funny. I walk around and I joke, obviously. But I tell everybody, I don't hire anybody that's older than me. Right. And no, we've really targeted young guys. And honestly, I don't care what kind of background you have. I don't care if you're a worker and you're willing to buy into our culture and our mission. You see our mission, vision, you're going to do really damn good in our operation. You're going to fit and you're going to stay with me for a long time. And I've had a lot of success hiring guys that have no idea what road construction even looks like, other than sitting in a lane closure, getting upset on why they're stuck.

[Aaron]

But I think this is what construction hasn't been very willing to do, is hire people on the outside. But I would say I've thought about this more and more. I think I've talked about this. The effort you have to put into a person that's new is in a lot of ways the same amount of effort you have to put into somebody that's very experienced, but in a different way sometimes. Because sometimes that person that's inexperienced, they're bringing baggage with them. They've got baggage from wherever they're working before and before that, and before that, and before that. And you've got like, that can really influence what you've got going on if you don't try to iron out those wrinkles. And hey, here's how we do things here and here's why sometimes that's harder than taking somebody that doesn't have a lot of those preconceived notions and experience and just making them into what you need them to be.

[Brad]

Oh, for sure.

[Aaron]

At least that's what I've, I mean, younger.

[Brad]

So here, hiring a younger person, they, they don't have the, the five, they don't have the resume with five jobs on it. Right?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

They don't have that experience of being at five different companies. So what does that mean? That means this guy's had one job, maybe not even a job, maybe coming right out of school and he doesn't know anything other than where he's employed at, which is by us. Sure, right. And now he only knows what he's being taught. He has nothing to compare that to. And I'm telling you, that generates organic success and inefficiencies like massive efficiencies, but.

[Aaron]

It does take time. It does take time, but the investment.

[Brad]

On that is, is worth it. Like, you know, we've had, we've had guys that have come in and they're, you know, they've been in the industry for 20 years, let's say, and you can't get where they've been for 20 years out of their system.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

You cannot.

[Aaron]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Brad]

And we've, we've learned that the hard.

[Aaron]

Way, but it's not right or wrong. It's just different.

[Brad]

It's different and it's, it's just, it doesn't fit, you know, and everybody's different, but it doesn't fit our culture. You know, I've hired bartenders, to be honest, kids that work their ass off and they buy into what we're doing. And they've been with me for seven years now, you know, 21 year old kid coming right out. I mean, just. And they're smart, you know. And again, we don't have our whole industry. There is not a training platform that's been out there. There's not. And what we do and we're guilty. I mean, we hired these kids and it's like, hey, go follow him for a week on the grinding spread. When you're done, call me. I'll tell you where else to go. That's what we're doing. And it's not Effective. So you got this young, good class in your organization. Now. How do we get them trained properly?

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

And that's kind of where we're at.

[Aaron]

That is the problem we are trying to solve. But it's a very complex problem. It's simple, but. But not at the same time.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

Because you're dealing with human nature. And it's just like the next generation coming in. It's people like me or people like you. You didn't grow up around it.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And especially now. Like, I didn't grow up around hard work. I didn't. I was. I was raised in a neighborhood and we had a landscaping company and you know, this and that. Like, there wasn't even if I wanted an opportunity to work there. There just wasn't. It wasn't like. And it wasn't. It's. It's not my fault. Like, that's just that, that's, that is the. That that's the reality I was in.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

That's what I thought the world was like. And then I went to Montana when I was like 14 years old and got my ass just whooped for the first time.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And that was just the cold water right on my face, like, oh, this.

[Brad]

Is what it is.

[Aaron]

Yeah. So this is life. Okay, check.

[Brad]

I get it.

[Aaron]

And then I got a, you know, got a job at. When it's at 16, when I legally could work. And then I got job in construction at 18, when I legally could, like, I legally could not go into the construction industry before 18 years old. So because of where I grew up, I didn't have any construction experience. I didn't know how to read a tape measure. I didn't know how to use a ratchet. I didn't know how to start, you know, cut off saw. Like, I didn't know. I didn't know there was that little bubble that you have to press a few times to get the fuel going. I didn't know any of that. I had to learn that almost as an adult. And you feel like an idiot, but it's just like, that's reality now because we've urbanized. Your kids are growing up in Chicago. You have a construction company. So there is hard work there, but it's like if you didn't have that, you just had your neighborhood.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

Not a lot going on.

[Brad]

Not a lot going on. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. For sure.

[Aaron]

So.

[Brad]

But yeah, it's a challenging. It's challenging. And it's in trying to get these employees to understand what the long term goal is. Right. That's a good retainage method, I think, if you're transparent. I'm very transparent. With all our people, this is what we're doing. This is what our outlook is. This is what our future looks like. This is our goals and so forth. And when they hear that, I think that it rings true in their ears that, hey, this guy is sharing what their future plan is. Like, I must be important.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Brad]

Right. And then they start buying into what you're doing because, hey, you told them what you were gonna do, and now they're seeing it, so now they're buying into it.

[Aaron]

Well, and people now. Because the world right now, from a labor market standpoint, is dramatically different than it was just even 20 years ago. Just from like an option standpoint. I have so many options for employment right now. Maybe that changes, you know, AI economy, whatever it is. Right now, I've got a lot of options. And if you tell me, like, if I ask you, essentially I'm asking, why should I come to work for you? And if your answer is a paycheck, like, okay, cool, that's a shitty answer. Everybody else says the same thing. Yeah, I can get that.

[Brad]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like, why should I come to work for you? Like, I want a good answer. And if I have a good answer, cool, I'm gonna go all in. Because there's few companies that can provide a good answer, and then there's fewer companies that can deliver upon that answer. And that's when you get the real buy in. It's like, not just telling them, but seeing it, but showing them. Yeah. Like, whoa, hey, this is real. I wanna do more of this.

[Brad]

For sure.

[Aaron]

I'm all in at that point. But if I don't get that, you're out. I'm going elsewhere.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And that's. I mean, I had no choice, you.

[Brad]

Know, and it's really not that hard. Like, it's not that hard to do.

[Aaron]

I couldn't imagine doing it the other way. Yeah, I could. Not even.

[Brad]

You could.

[Aaron]

No, because it's so beneficial to do it this way. It's just like, I wouldn't even be able to employ anybody. Like, I. The business wouldn't exist if I wasn't doing this. So that's why I'd sit around. I'm like. Like, how does the business exist without this?

[Brad]

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's. Yeah, it's such an easy thing to do that goes such a long way.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Brad]

You know.

[Aaron]

Yep. Yep.

[Brad]

But, yeah, so, yeah, we've. We've, you know, We've targeted young, young professionals and you know, we're, we're, we're in the process of kind of developing an internship program which is really non. Existent. Either the kid comes to work for you for three months and it's like, man, three months, he can't learn anything in three months. Yes, he can. Yes, he can. How do we structure that process to allow him to learn something for three months? Because if he learns something, if he learns something, he's going to remember what he learned and he's not going to forget about you and he's probably going to want to come back to work for you the next summer.

[Aaron]

Totally.

[Brad]

And then when he graduates, you could.

[Aaron]

Probably get him full time or even, even if they go off to some big company, they'll probably come home at some point. You're going to be first in line. Yeah. So even if it doesn't work out short term because they come around, the.

[Brad]

Grass is always greener on the other side and in other people's minds. Right.

[Aaron]

Well, and sometimes like you could make an argument it's nice to employ people that have worked in other markets because it's like you want some of that outside influence or just the big contractors. It's like the big contractors, they're like a keyword is a keyword for a reason, right. They, they know how to build shit.

[Brad]

Yep.

[Aaron]

And so even going out and seeing that, that's what like Rich Pearson, he told me to do, he's like, don't stay here, go work for other companies. Because even if you come back here, you're going to be far more valuable than me than if you were to stay here. I want you to go see, go see it. Yeah.

[Brad]

A couple years and then bring that back.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And I'm very pro. Kids out of college going to the real big companies, like, go get the shit kicked out of you for a few years, go work on one of those really sexy projects like just, just like a big bridge or a tunnel or something. Just like just once in a generation infrastructure project that you'll never see again.

[Brad]

Yeah, go see that.

[Aaron]

Go do 100 hours a week, you know, you know, in some far off land. And then when it's time to settle down, have a family, you don't want to be doing 100 hours a week.

[Brad]

Like, come, let's go, give us a call.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah, come on.

[Brad]

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So, yeah, just, just trying to, you know, trying to structure that is to me very valuable. And getting that internship program kind of laid out and and attracting people and, you know, retaining them.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, I feel like anybody can kind of attract right by. By just saying, you know, blowing smoke kind of thing. You know, hey, this is what we do. This is all you. You're a great fit. You know, but. But then, you know, retaining that person.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

You know, is. Is huge.

[Aaron]

Well, and you. And I realize you have to be really careful with what you tell people when you're drawing them in from a hiring standpoint. Because if you. If you tell them stuff that you can't. If you make promises you can't keep, they come in, they're gonna. People are smart. Like, I don't think people give people enough credit. People can smell bullshit really quickly. Really quickly, Especially the next generation, because we've been exposed to, like, who's getting scammed on the Internet right now? It's all the old people. Like, oh, you need my Social Security number. Oh, geez. Yeah, here it is right here. Like, you need me to wire $103,000 to. To Bermuda. Yeah, absolutely. Whereas us, it's like, no, kick rocks. Get out of it. I think we've just been trained to root it out.

[Brad]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Aaron]

And maybe that's false. I don't know. But you can just. If you don't follow up on your promise. And I've noticed, too, your folks in charge of hiring can be disconnected from operations in the company as well, so they can go make some promises that don't actually exist. And I see that at college career fairs all the time. It's just so disjointed.

[Brad]

Sure. Yeah.

[Aaron]

But their job is to recruit colleges.

[Brad]

Whatever it takes to get them in.

[Aaron]

They're salesmen, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. All they're doing is just sell, sell, sell, and that's what they're incentivized to do. I don't blame them at all.

[Brad]

But what you don't want to happen is you recruit those individuals, and they come in to your organization, and then whatever you promised them or that was promised them doesn't exist.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brad]

Now it's like, now they're spreading the word. Yeah, Right. Hey, you know, this company here, they tell you they're going to do this, but nothing ever happens.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brad]

Right. So, yeah, yeah. You know, it's. It's. It's a challenge, but it's. It's important.

[Aaron]

I think with internship. I have a bunch of opinions on internships because I went through five of them. The start is really important, and the end is really important. Like, so many. Like, I had a good Start a good end. It's like, that was a damn good summer.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Sometimes there was just like, here's your address.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

Have at it.

[Brad]

Yep.

[Aaron]

And it's like, do I get a computer? Like, what am I doing? Like, what? Yeah. Where do I sit? And then you just show up at the job show, and they're looking at you like, who the hell are you? Like, I'm, you know, I'm Aaron.

[Brad]

I'm here to help you.

[Aaron]

And they're looking around like a PM stressed out. Like, he's got enough shit going on.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

Fuck.

[Brad]

Like, all right, I got a baby.

[Aaron]

Sit over there. Yeah, sit over there and set up your computer. It's like, how. I don't know, does my shirt say IT department on it?

[Brad]

Exactly.

[Aaron]

And it's like, I'm being funny, but that's exactly how it is.

[Brad]

That's reality.

[Aaron]

Or it has been for me. And then. And then. And then there's endings, too, where it just, like, ends. And it's like, so, like, did I do a good job?

[Brad]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Do I have a job? Right.

[Brad]

What am I doing next summer?

[Aaron]

It just stops. Yeah. Which is also pretty jarring.

[Brad]

But.

[Aaron]

Or maybe I just sucked and maybe they were just like. Yeah. Just. Just put them out the pasture. Yeah.

[Brad]

No, I. I doubt it. I. I think you're right. I think, you know, and everybody's guilty of it. Right. It's even new hires. When a guy starts full time, there needs to be an orientation program, and a lot of these bigger companies have them. And it's a great syllabus to mimic, but if you're trying to attract and retain people and you don't offer that kind of stuff, you're probably not going to have a good high rate of success on recruiting.

[Aaron]

Well, and even a lot of orientations, a lot of it with the big. It's. It's a lot of, like, cover our ass. Like, here's our policies and procedures. Safety, safety, you know, check the box, Check the box. Check the box. Yep. We put our people through orientation.

[Brad]

Sure.

[Aaron]

It is. Check, check, check, check, check. Insurance company. Give us a break.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

Whereas others. It's like, I saw a picture. I think it was Dan Garcia. C.W. matthews. Like, him talking to, like, he makes a point.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

To just talk to everybody.

[Brad]

Talk to everybody.

[Aaron]

And here's the guy. Like, that is so important.

[Brad]

Extreme value.

[Aaron]

So important. And that.

[Brad]

And it's easy to do.

[Aaron]

It's easy to do.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

But. But you have to prioritize it because it's. It's also easy not to do because.

[Brad]

Right.

[Aaron]

You've got insurance to do it and lawyers.

[Brad]

Yes. And.

[Aaron]

And, you know, you're getting audited or whatever it is. Right. You've got enough going on, so if you don't. If you're not deliberate about it.

[Brad]

And those are daily things, by the way, that we just mentioned.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Things happen daily.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We get audited.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

All the time. But. But it is also easy for, like, six weeks to go by and you to pick your head up like, whoa, what's going on here? It's spring.

[Brad]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron]

I thought it was winter.

[Brad]

I know. Absolutely. Yeah.

[Aaron]

So.

[Brad]

Yeah. Prioritizing, for sure.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Brad]

So.

[Aaron]

Well, this was fun.

[Brad]

Yeah, it was great.

[Aaron]

Nothing to be nervous about. Talking. It's easy. Was it? You learned something.

[Brad]

What are we missing?

[Aaron]

I try to. I try to. I try to hit good stuff. Yeah.