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- [00:00]
A
This Dirt Talk podcast episode is with Peter Banks of the National Demolition Association. While Peter Banks has spent his entire career in the demolition industry working anywhere from Boston to Detroit, he's now working on his biggest project yet, elevating the industry. Thanks to the National Demolition association, or NDA, the industry has common safety standards, training, and new legitimate certifications. The NDA is an association we've worked with for a long time. They're doing incredible things for the demolition industry and the dirt world overall. They introduced me to Peter. Peter and I. A guy like this I could talk to for days. He has stories for stories for stories for stories with the amount of work he's been involved with over the years. But as I just briefly mentioned, he's now engaged with the NDA to elevate the next generation. They're rolling out these certification programs that I deeply believe in. We have no personal stake in what they're doing. I'm just a big believer in the NDA and these certification programs. So I had Peter out to talk a little bit about his background, talk about the NDA and talk about what's coming down the road. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. And let's get into it.
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B
So really excited. I went to, we actually had a board meeting in Washington, D.C. where the NDA is based at the NDA office.
- [01:44]
A
Oh.
- [01:45]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. So the Mothership Smith Buckland that runs our association, they're out of Chicago.
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A
NDA for people that don't know. National Demolition Association.
- [01:53]
B
Demolition association, yes.
- [01:55]
A
Yeah. I, I, I want to be kind. I want to be charitable. The associations are doing their best.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I have not been overly impressed with the associations in general. In general. Yeah. Big picture.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I think they're operating on this old model, but they're, they're kind of hamstrung by that traditional model, I guess, in a way, like how they're financed and how they work, etc. And, but the NDA I've been very, very impressed with because it seems like the convention we talked about, the program we'll dig into here. It's, it's, I mean, James was like, you've got, you have these younger guys coming in as leadership within the NDA as well. I mean, it's, it's, I've been, I've been really impressed.
- [02:47]
B
And that's all in. You know, The NDA is 51 years old now. Started in the early 70s with a bunch of demo guys trying to get together to fight the, you know, epa and yeah, sure, and yes, asbestos regulations. Yeah. The good fight. And. But these guys all hated each other. You know, there's no camaraderie. There was no network. And, and for many, many years you could go to a board meeting and then not go for three years and come back and it was the same agenda, same. Just horseshit, you know. And when we made the transition in 2015 and we. To an association management company, that's all they do. Right. We went with Smith Buckland. They run the NDA for us. That allows the demolition guys to be demolition guys and the association people to be association people.
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A
I see.
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B
Okay. And then that gave us the bandwidth to build out our education program, our foundations of demolition, which we always. These are things we talked about for decades.
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A
So before it was the demolition guys trying to be an association 100 for lack of better.
- [03:47]
B
We had our own staff phrasing, we had our own executive director, we had our own staff people. You know, but we didn't keep saying the bandwidth. We didn't have the ability to do all these things. So we would get talked out of it.
- [03:57]
A
Yeah. And the, the mechanics of an association are you have a bunch of people that, that might compete, but they have the same interests, ultimately.
- [04:07]
B
Correct.
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A
Business interests. So you have demolition contractors across the United States that join forces and say, hey, let's, let's go oftentimes to Washington and, and, and, and advocate for our industry because what we're doing is important. But some of these things are worrying. We need to ensure that our industry is good to go. Future state.
- [04:28]
B
Right. And you got to talk for yourself because someone else is going to talk over you.
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A
Oh, boy.
- [04:33]
B
So we're lucky. And again, so there's a legislative end to our association. Now we're actually in D.C. we partner up with other trade associate, AG, something like that, so that we again, have that, that girth, you know, to go up to the Hill and, And make a statement. Sure. The little demolition association is just going to get bumped down the hallway.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Construction companies, other people that are in for, you know, you know, workforce development, infrastructure development, all that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That we all win on. You know, you're going to do a bridge demo, guys taking a bridge down, steel guys putting the bridge up, the concrete, guys putting the deck on, you know, so everybody has skin in that game.
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A
Yeah.
- [05:13]
B
So, yeah. So when we went to this new management plan, it gave us opportunity because we were drying up. The convention was drying up, membership was drying up. Yeah. It was just like a good old boy network. And yeah, some of these younger guys Came on like James and that we talk about and, and, and the Hayden brothers out of a Hayden wrecking and you know, it's just like. Well, we really like being with you guys and, but this, you know, this disqualy party, we need, it needs to have some, some depth, you know, you.
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A
Know, and, and, and like their perspective's different too because they're, you know, what, forties probably. Like they, they've got early mid-40s. Yeah. They've got, they've got decades ahead of them.
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B
Right.
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A
And so they're focused on really like the future of the industry. Whereas sometimes the older guys, like rightly so, they're, they're on their way out. They, they've got the kicked out of them for 30, 40 years.
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B
Wait a minute, I'm one of those guys?
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A
Well, you said it, not me. And, and they, I mean, and again, like rightly so, but they kind of just want to hang out at the bar with each other.
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B
Well, we like that too.
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A
Well, and there's value to that, but there's not as like the motivation's a little different sometimes.
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B
We also like to say, you know, we used to do it this way.
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A
You know, you know that too, or.
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B
We already done that. It didn't work.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, we have all those catchphrases, you know, and that is, that is problematic too though is that you'll get new people in and they'll just start like. And they want to be involved and they get excited and they just start throwing shit on the table. Yeah. Okay. Well, unfortunately I'm not going to shoot you down, but I can tell you why it's not going to try that one. Okay. And probably because we tried it, you know, but different spins on it. But I mean the shit we're doing now, I mean with the, you know, our 40 hour foundations of demolition education certificate program and of course the certification that we're building out right now, just doing a new website. The project you worked on with us, the Starting Out Right videos, I mean really just refreshing the association for the next generation for the next couple of decades.
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A
It shows. I mean it shows in a big way. It's cool. Demolition is unique to. Everybody hates each other, but not really. It's more collaborative.
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B
It's way more collaborative now. And the relationship building is crazy. The other thing is that when I started out there was, you know, Brandenburg and North, you know, there was LVI and stuff like that. That traveled the country. Sure. Now so many companies travel the country. Yeah. You know, the competition is, is up there. But you run into, you know, when I was working with Adamo, you run into. You go to a TVA job for a walkthrough, and there's 10 guys, you know.
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A
Yeah.
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B
From around the country. And I learned that through my. My relationships at the NDA. And then you start finding ways to partner up on jobs.
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A
Well, and that's part of. I. I feel like it legitimately is more collaborative.
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B
Oh, y.
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A
Like in the civil construction space, everybody says it is, but not really. Like, everybody's not very helpful.
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B
Right.
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A
In demolition, everybody's really, like, really chummy and helpful.
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B
Oh, yeah. Even when you don't, you know, you want to beat them in a bid, but, you know. Yeah, but everybody's going to eat.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And. And then it comes young when you go into somebody else's market because you have a relationship. I mean, I'm up in. I was telling you, you know, I'm up in Buffalo, New York. What am I doing in Buffalo, New York? I need saw cutting and I need. I need concrete disposal. And I called. I called Jeff Sessler. He's 20 miles away. What do you need? And they get some business out of it. I'm down in Norwalk, Connecticut, which is three hours away from us, and I call Chris Godeck from New England Yankee, and I need sock. I need dumpsters, I need laborers, because I'm overwhelmed.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And, you know, I sell him a part, you know, part of the job, and they run right up and they work with us and we all know each other, right?
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A
Oh, everybody knows.
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B
Yeah. So it's not about, oh, you know, you know, you know, how are you going to pay me? You know, you know, we're going to do, you know, need a credit check or build your own account. Some of these guys, the biggest thing is that they don't send you a bill.
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A
Well. And I think that what we were talking at dinner last night, most of these companies are family. Like, there's no. There's no big.
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B
Right.
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A
Like national or international firms. Right.
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B
That are in this space. Yeah. I mean, like. Except, like, I went North Star and, you know. Yeah. And there's two.
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A
But they're. They kind of keep to themselves.
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B
Keep to themselves. They do the nuclear. They do. They do stuff that I would never, you know, you know, I would never be looking at in my life. So. No, I mean, the ones that I know and lucky to know so many of them, they're all family owned. The end of the day, it's owned by the family. Yeah. Yeah.
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A
Which I love.
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B
Yeah. And then we're doing, you know, the next. I'm seeing now, you know, Gen 2, Gen 3, Gen 4, you know, jumping in and getting it done. And for the most part, you know, you get that the Gen 2 to Gen 3, which usually caves, you know, Gen 2 saw Gen 1 build it. Gen 3 has been riding the gravy train and they drive it into the ground. But you don't. You don't see that as much in demolition. They do. The succession planning is very important.
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A
Well. And it leaves the door open as well for this next generation in general that might not have come up in it, but allows them to go build great companies as well.
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B
Yeah. And they've gotten basically got the head start.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know.
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A
Yeah. I just had another guy in here maybe last week, Tyler from Demo plus here locally. It's, you know, it was a small demolition company in town. He acquired them and they're like, way more sophisticated now. I mean, he's got the highest end catch demolition, you know, straight boom machines with the work tools and their works. Really good. It's. It's like. And it's elevating the whole marketplace.
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B
Right.
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A
Because he's come in and said, I'm going to do things differently, which I love.
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B
The tools and the technology it just made. It's just a completely different game. Yeah. So you can draw in younger people because it's. In some case, you're running video games here.
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A
Well. And that's. That's necessary. I am bummed out, though. I think you need to talk to the NDA about this. I'm really disappointed that the wrecking ball has been almost phased out.
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B
It's still in our logo.
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A
I know it's. It is the international sign of demolition.
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B
And they still use them. They still use them every once in some jobs where they'll just. Especially on big silos.
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A
Yes.
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B
They'll still. Because they just built like. They just. They're just built crazy, you know.
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A
Well, I saw. I actually saw a work. The only time I've ever seen one used was a Roark in Cincinnati.
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B
Yeah.
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A
They were using our building.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it's a. There's a lot of skill involved in it as well. Like you'd think it's just. You just whack it in and the whole thing falls over. But you're. You're. You're dismantling the building with the wrecking ball.
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B
Right. And then you got to do it such a way you don't destroy the machine. Yes. Yeah. And it was really interesting, unfortunately, it's usually an older machine, which you need. You need an older operator who's run these things. I mean, I wouldn't know what to do when I got in one of those things, you know, versus a hydraulic excavator. But, you know, if an outfit like o' Rourke's running a wrecking ball, they've determined that that was the most efficient way to do it because they have all the iron.
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A
Well, I'm sure from a cost effective standpoint, there's no. You can beat it.
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B
Right. Plus the machine's paid for and it's, you know, beating on it all day long. But if they're using that, then they, that's that. They determined that was the most efficient way to. To take that down.
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A
I'm very proud of wrecking ball.
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B
You know, the biggest thing. I think the wrecking ball came out back in the day because when you talked about demolition, you're the guys that blow shit up.
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A
Blowing stuff up.
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B
Yeah. In your elevator statement. Yeah. You know, aren't you the guys that blow up? Right. And. And then the wrecking ball. And then. So trying to, like, legitimize the trade. We moved away from all that. But we still blow shit up.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And we still use rock and balls.
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A
Yeah. There's two images when people say demolition, a wrecking ball, or Wiley Coyote.
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B
Yeah. With the explosives, the ACME explosives.
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A
Acne explosives. Yeah.
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B
This will go well. And, you know, implosion is like, you know, such a small part of the market. I mean, it's, you know, I mean, up in the Boston area, you can't even. You can't implode a building in Boston.
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A
Well, and I didn't know. There's only like five guys that do it.
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B
Same guys.
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A
Same guy, yes. Do you know Dino Shannon? He's not Veid.
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B
No.
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A
I forget what company he was with for a long time.
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B
Is there a phone buzzing? Yeah, it's me.
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A
You want to put that on if you can. Oh, I forgot his last name. But that Veid acquired his blasting operation, and that's him and his wife Cindy, two nicest people in the world. But he, I mean, he has like, you know, blasting's quick. It's over in a few seconds. He has like a 15 minute highlight reel of all the he's blown up over the years. And he just. I had no idea how small it was, but he's like, yeah, there's about five of us in the entire United States. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, as far as. And there's certain companies that do it.
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B
Right.
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A
But then there's, there's only like five people that have the knowledge to even make it happen.
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B
Right. But it's just, you know, it's a second's worth of work. It's what, it's, it's weeks worth of work for a second's worth of results.
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A
Yeah. Months of planning on the plan work.
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B
Yeah. The pre. Cuts, the setting the explosives. It's crazy. Yeah. And then of course the, the, the trying to, trying to do dust control, you know, get some dust boss up there, some HDK machines up there and create the illusion of dust control In a. Yeah. 20 something story concrete buildings coming down.
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A
It does.
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B
Although I did see that, I saw it recently and then I've seen them in more where they've, you know, did you see the one where they incorporated? They basically. They blew. They pull these water tanks at the same time. Yes. So the water went vertical as the building was coming down and it was just, and it was perfect. It worked great. Enveloped the whole building.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I've seen that in a few other applications.
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A
Yeah, I've, I've seen it a few times in Europe. Yeah, the Europeans, they're just, they are.
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B
They really have been. And we spoke about, I mean the technology comes from, from that side and over the, over the pond.
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A
Yeah, yeah, they're.
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B
Yeah, man, it's amazing. There's another world over there too. The culture and demolition is another world. And the demands that, the demands on the regulatory side are so much different that they get, they make good money.
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A
Well, in Switzerland, I don't even think they allow you to mow your lawn on Sundays. I mean that's to give you an indication of the, of the regulations over there. How cow. Careful you have to be.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I think we went to go see Eberhard the last time they were doing a basement next to a hospital and they, they had to hammer. I mean it was like 200,000 yards. Monster basement. And they had to hammer it all. They couldn't blast it because of vibration, but they couldn't hammer until like 1pm they could hammer from like 1 to 5 or like 1 to 4 or something like that. So you're just getting a few hours per day.
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B
Yeah, let's extend that duration. So.
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A
But it's like, but they don't complain about it because they're like, well, just. It is what it is.
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B
Right, right.
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A
It is what it is.
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B
Over here we're trying to figure out how to squeeze in 12 hours.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do we do it? 1416.
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B
Yeah. I've to pay these guys for eight hours. They're only working full. How am I gonna do that? Yeah, it's completely different. The market's different. The mentality is different.
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A
No, and I, I understand, like, the reality of economics. You, you can't just go take that stuff and put it here because the market doesn't allow for it. But at the same time, I think it's, it's inevitable that the market goes that way.
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B
But, you know, if you look at where we're at now, it has, it just takes that time, you know, I mean, you know, computer technology used to go from the west coast to the east coast, you know, now it's, it's, you know, demolition goes in the opposite direction. And construction, too. I mean, but I mean, you think of the tools. I mean, the oil quip and, you know, the steel risk guys and the attachments. Yeah. That are available now that we never had before, you know. You know, if you had a thumb on your bucket, you were doing good.
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A
Well, and the Europeans look at Americans with a thumb on the bucket like, like we look at chimpanzees at the zoo.
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B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
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A
If you don't have a grab, look at these idiots. Yeah.
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B
What do they grab on your machine?
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then you see them with a rotating grab and how they use it. I'm like, holy.
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B
Yeah. Why doesn't everybody have one of those?
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A
Yeah, that is just so much better.
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B
It took me a while too, you know, but, you know, everything's expensive too, so it's just, it's expensive. You know, you got to make the investment, and I get it. But in this market now, in this world that we live in now, anything you can do to wipe out labor. Yeah. Is profitable.
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A
Well, and that, and that's their whole thing is they've, it's the just, they're more constrained on labor than Right. Than, Than we are.
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B
Right. And we can still find relatively inexpensive labor.
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A
We think we're constrained.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But we're like, compared to Switzerland.
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B
Right.
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A
Like, you want to talk constrained. That's constrained.
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B
Right. Yeah. They're not. I mean, they don't have the pool that we have.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But I don't want anybody working like it's the 1800s either. You know, I mean, we have the ability to get the right tools, train the right people, regardless of whether they're from. They were born here or they immigrated here and, and give them a career.
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A
You know, that. We, we talked a little bit about that last night too. It's there's this weird pride factor that sometimes gets in the way. It's like because I got the kicked out of me coming up because I. My body's destroyed. That's the way you, you have to do your time. Yeah, but that, but it's like, shouldn't it be the other way around? It's like shouldn't because I'm beat up and I got shit thrown at me coming up. Like, I don't want that for you and I don't want you to be soft. I want you to be prepared for this industry because it's a hard industry, it's a hard world. But we don't have to kick the shit out of you. There's a better way and I'm going to help you do that. As the, as the outgoing generation.
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B
Yeah. I guess I'm stuck between the two of those because I'm from the show. I came from the shovel.
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A
Yes.
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B
And right all the way up to ownership. And then, and then today. So, you know, I've run an ads, wrecked walls by hand, I've dug the holes, I've been in the elevator pits. I've done all that crap. And when you're young, I mean you just do it, you know, it's. And you come home dirty, you go to sleep and you go back to work. You work 12 hour days and weren't making a lot per hour, but you were making a lot per week. I don't want people doing that now. But in return I want to give them all the right tools in the training and I want them to commit to, to get the job done. Put the hours in, let's all get together and let's get this done. Let's make some money so we can pay you well.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So that's where I get stuck now is that if we're going to give you all the tools and the training and you don't want to give the commitment. Okay, well, you know, I don't want to come in on Saturday or we're going to work 10 hours today. Well, this is what the job requires. You know, unfortunately we can't work remote. Yep. You know, which is tough because we have people in our office who want to work remote. Yeah. You know, and they sit in front of a computer all day or they go to job sites and look at jobs so they could work remote.
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A
Yeah. But I think like this is where a lot of the industries, I think misguided in their recruitment approach, they're trying to in a way pander to the next generation and try to like compete with these other industries that can offer all that. But it's like, no, that, you're missing the point. Not everybody wants that. I don't think work from home is all that great.
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B
Right.
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A
I don't, I don't think, you know, just your, your nice little gentle 35 hour week like is great. I don't think working on a computer all day is great. Like there's a lot of society that doesn't want that.
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B
Right.
- [20:14]
A
So instead of trying to be that, let's just be ourselves and let's just say what it is. Like, yeah, you work hard. Yeah. You sometimes have to travel. Yeah. You've got to do hard shit and you've got to work long hours and oftentimes it's cold, sometimes it's really hot. But that, that's why it's so special. Like, that's why we've been here for 40 something years. Like, that's why we've been so fulfilled our entire career. And if you want fulfillment over your whole career, you can go over to corporate America and do nothing for 40 years. Like not have any clue.
- [20:48]
B
A 3% raise every year and two weeks vacation.
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A
Yeah. I mean post 2020 of people found out, most of them have not accepted it or admitted it, that they're completely irrelevant to society. Which is, I mean it, it is what it is.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like demolition, construction, building things. They weren't, they weren't wondering where the next job's coming from.
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B
Right.
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A
Because there's those people, they create the whole world around us.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Really.
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B
It was the only other world that was. Besides the medical world. It was the only other world that was working during COVID Yes. Construction, demolition, vital energy.
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A
Yeah, yeah. Waste. I mean, it's like just you, you just strip back all of the, all the vanity of life and it's like, what do humans need? Well, they need shelter, they need water, they need food. There you go.
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B
But they need, they need camaraderie too. And they need, they need to be with people. To be with people. Yes. And I think that's where we get stuck in our office. Especially like on a big bid, you know? Is that when we, when we get together in the conference room, especially with the younger guys. I mean, I have a lot of fun with it. You know, we're throwing, we're just splashing ideas on the wall, you know. Yeah. And we can do that on a zoom call, you know, if somebody's working from home. But it's not the same thing.
- [21:59]
A
It's not even telling jokes on the side.
- [22:01]
B
Grab a coffee. No. You get side by this, side by that, and you come out of there feeling really good about your bid. Right. And then we're going to package it all up and then so. And so is going to go put it together and ship it out and then we'll call them tomorrow. And, you know, so I enjoy that, especially training, you know, teaching the younger guys. And that's lost. If you're a company where there's a bunch of empty desks now you work for the company and you work all day. And the results, I don't know how many hours you work, but the results tell the story.
- [22:28]
A
Well, you're. You're kind of just trading your time for money.
- [22:30]
B
Right, Right.
- [22:31]
A
I mean, it's kind of what it is. I'm going to give you 40 hours. I don't know what the 40 hours is, but I'm going to give it to you. You're going to give me a sum.
- [22:38]
B
Of money, A voucher in return.
- [22:40]
A
Yes, a voucher. And then I'm going to go, thank goodness it's Friday. And with, you know, my Saturdays and Sundays happy.
- [22:48]
B
And I think we're getting more and more flexible on that. I mean, you know, we had a. We have a nest of enterprise managers. You live. It was like a mile from the shop and had a baby and you want to go on the family leave act and be gone. And we talked to him. I didn't want to go to family leave act. Let's just build something else for you, you know, where you can be home when the baby comes home and be home for a little while in the transition and then come in a few days a week and then come back full time, you know. Sure. And again, he would work for him, but again, he was a mile from the shop. He could have just come in. But, you know, you're for. I guess, you know, we have. I'm trying to remember when we had our first kid. She. When I. My son, I was sitting in my truck trying to sell a job. Sure. You know, with my little. My little portable phone.
- [23:24]
A
Yeah.
- [23:25]
B
You know, 25 years ago.
- [23:26]
A
Yeah.
- [23:27]
B
And when my daughter was born, my wife changed her name. When I went back out to my truck to make some calls when the baby was born, she changed her name because I ran out to the truck, you know. You know, and then I was back to work the next day, you know, and. And then she was home with the kids, you know, and then we were lucky enough. Never thought we'd wear A, you know, she was a dental hygienist at the time and she worked one day a week and I worked a million hours a week and she was able to be, you know, be with the kids and I think that really pays off. And my kids never went to daycare.
- [23:54]
A
Sure.
- [23:54]
B
You know.
- [23:55]
A
Yeah.
- [23:55]
B
But I was at work, you know, we were building a business and 100 hours a week like so many other guys were.
- [24:00]
A
Yeah.
- [24:01]
B
And women were. And what's wrong with that? You know.
- [24:05]
A
Oh, like a lot of people are still.
- [24:06]
B
Yeah.
- [24:07]
A
That everything's more expensive. Yeah.
- [24:08]
B
And now if you got three kids in daycare, I mean you're working to pay for daycare, stay home. Well, that.
- [24:13]
A
Do the math and see. But this is where, where I think the especially like the whole the, the women in the workforce argument starts to fall apart is a lot of women have left the workforce over the past five years, especially because of daycare costs because it's just gotten out of control. And so it's like, so I'm gonna pay $35,000 for daycare, not see my kids to work to make 50 grand.
- [24:34]
B
Yeah.
- [24:34]
A
A year.
- [24:35]
B
It's like you're not seeing your kids. Someone else is raising your kids.
- [24:40]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm not even that far ahead and I'm not seeing my kids. Like that doesn't.
- [24:45]
B
Yeah. So whatever your personal morals and culture, are they being to being driven by somebody else?
- [24:49]
A
Yeah, I don't have to.
- [24:50]
B
And it's probably not yours. Sure.
- [24:53]
A
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- [25:58]
B
We pivoted off of that.
- [25:59]
A
Yeah, we got away from that. That's okay.
- [26:01]
B
They sent me for a reason.
- [26:03]
A
National Demolition Association. Yeah, they reached out. Who introduced us. Was it Dawn?
- [26:08]
B
I believe dawn, yeah. Don talked to Jeff Lambert, our executive director.
- [26:12]
A
Jeff Lambert, yes. Okay.
- [26:14]
B
And because you've had a relationship with, with Milburn and then did some work with us on the, the starting outright videos and it's just part of the idea where, you know, where as an association, I think we do a great job as a demolition association, as a marketing group, getting out in front of the world, probably need some help. And that's where this, this is just where, you know, these discussions come from. We're doing so much great work and ultimately, you know, with the email blasts and whatnot, because our social media needs to improve. You're getting to the ownership of the companies. You may not be in the middle management maybe, but you're not getting to the rank and file.
- [26:55]
A
Yeah.
- [26:56]
B
The Demolition association is kind of, unfortunately, the way the model works. It's the members is sort of the ownership and unless they include their people with all of our stuff, education, our safety talks, most everybody uses our safety manual. We have a very robust, you know, safety manual that members can take and modify to their needs.
- [27:17]
A
Yeah. So there's. And to this point, there's a lot more of the NDA now that you have the association group running the association and doing the more traditional association stuff.
- [27:28]
B
Correct.
- [27:30]
A
You guys can then ask, well, what does the demolition industry need?
- [27:34]
B
Right.
- [27:35]
A
Beyond the regulatory stuff, etc, which is training, safety, recruitment, elevating the indus. You know, the. Just the industry as a whole, from a technology standpoint, elevating the industry from a brand, an image standpoint. So that's all the stuff you guys are doing.
- [27:55]
B
Those are. That's everything that we're doing. And when you. So basically you use the, you use the membership as in the, in the board and the committee members on it. You use them as a, as the content experts.
- [28:06]
A
Yeah.
- [28:06]
B
And then we allow the, you know, the association management people to take that content and then build it out with us and deliver it. I see. So we can do it faster and we can do it better.
- [28:17]
A
Yes.
- [28:18]
B
But, you know, luckily we have a lot demolition contractors, contractors in general, you know, we know everything. Right. So, you know, of course we'll try to tell them, you know, how to do it, but again, they don't know how to wreck a building. We don't know how to, you know, build out a trade association and how to, you know, how to build out training, how to build out education programs.
- [28:38]
A
So we're we're. You've been part of the NDA for a long time.
- [28:41]
B
25 years.
- [28:42]
A
25 years. Where did you all start in this new venture? As you bring on the association group, you have this, you have this bandwidth. What was the first hanging fruit in 2015?
- [28:55]
B
Jeff Croker from Croker Demolition out of Fresno. He was president and at that time our executive director was getting ready to retire and so he was helping us decide on what direction to take the association. Do we continue to manage it ourselves, bring in a new executive director and add some people or do we go on interview association management firms? And at the time, we didn't even know the, you know, us demo guys. We didn't even know that existed. You know, we thought everybody had their own people running their association. So we went out, we. So we had about five of us driving around. We, you know, Philadelphia, New York, down in Florida. Different. Just going out, meeting different firms and getting their pitches and how they see our association, whatnot. Smith Buckham was the biggest, the best. And we ended up getting up going with them just because it made sense.
- [29:47]
A
Do they do others in the construction industry?
- [29:49]
B
They do crane. Yeah. Big with the crane people and. But then really not a lot. Home builders too. Builders. And one. Yeah. Because our executive director, he came from home builders. But again, they had what we didn't have and they had the ability to get the, to get the brand out there to help us do all the things that we wanted to do over the years that we weren't accomplishing. Well, which was the, you know, demolition specific education demos. Demolition specific safety to talk about certification went on for decades. But we always get lost on the liability side of it. Well, if we certify somebody and they're on a job and someone gets hurt, who's going to get sued? Well, we live in the most litigious country in the world. We all get.
- [30:32]
A
You're getting sued.
- [30:33]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [30:33]
A
Either way.
- [30:34]
B
So you just have to be going to work the insurance instead of into the, into the budget. You know, it's part of the package, you know, so. So once you get over those milestones and you stop getting talked out of stuff, you've realized you can do anything.
- [30:47]
A
So with demolition specific safety.
- [30:49]
B
Yeah.
- [30:50]
A
What is some of the stuff you have to. Where do you even start on that?
- [30:53]
B
Well, I mean, so you think on the environmental side, right. Is it, you know, awareness of, you know, PCBs and, and asbestos and, and other chemicals and whatnot. So whether it's, you know, have an awareness Class. So you know, you don't have to be an expert in environmental but you have to have an awareness of it. Right. And then know who to call.
- [31:10]
A
Yeah.
- [31:10]
B
Who we bringing in on this. You know, if you think about, you know, the specific ppe, you know, and then think about. And again like in heavy, in heavy construction, working around the equipment. You know, a lot of the work we're doing is, you know, burning at high, you know, high elevations. How work of, you know, 80, 90, 100 foot boom lifts.
- [31:31]
A
Yeah.
- [31:31]
B
You know, odd terrain.
- [31:34]
A
Right.
- [31:34]
B
No two jobs are the same. So these are a lot of the things that we deal with that we have to focus on. That could be other training. Be more generic.
- [31:44]
A
Yeah, well, and, and I think the magic. Any demolition site is exciting for me. I love them all equally. Like there's, there's cooler ones, you know, the ones where you're taking a bridge down in 48 hours. That's pretty smart. That's cool as it gets like iron.
- [32:04]
B
And there's 20 excavators sitting there.
- [32:05]
A
Yeah, yeah, well, but I appreciate the coordination. And that's like. You don't have to think about money as much.
- [32:14]
B
Right.
- [32:15]
A
It's more. So just get it done. And whatever the cost is, the cost.
- [32:18]
B
Is usually good money. Those jobs do. They do well.
- [32:20]
A
Yeah. But it's. You don't, you don't like. Yeah, you're not optimizing for economics, you're optimizing for time.
- [32:26]
B
Correct.
- [32:28]
A
So I love those. But any demolition job is cool because they're. When you're building something, they give you a set of plans and there's creativity in how you build it, but not really. Everybody kind of builds it the same way. Same path. Same path. And you're building the exact same product and they want it, you know, the engineers want it done in XYZ way. Whereas demolition, they give you like a photograph of a building or like, you know, a GPS coordinate.
- [33:01]
B
They'll give you the original build plans.
- [33:02]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm. Yeah, I'm simple oversimplifying, but they just, they point to something and they say make it disappear.
- [33:09]
B
Right.
- [33:10]
A
And that's that you have to figure out.
- [33:15]
B
Right.
- [33:15]
A
How to make it disappear competitively.
- [33:18]
B
And yes. You know, and then the estimators come up, the estimating team and the PM team, they come up with a concept so that you can put a price on it. Right. But when you get to the field, I mean the guys in the field, they do the work and then all of a sudden they come up with a Whole different idea.
- [33:31]
A
Well, and you. I mean, you can pop something open, right. And it's. There's. There's twice as much steel within something as you thought there was or as the plan said there was.
- [33:41]
B
Which could be a good thing. Which could be a good. Describe markets going strong.
- [33:45]
A
Or it could be a bad thing.
- [33:46]
B
Or it could be a bad thing.
- [33:47]
A
If you've done, you know.
- [33:48]
B
Yeah. Done quick and you finally got awarded that power plant.
- [33:50]
A
Yeah.
- [33:51]
B
And steel went down the toilet. Yeah. But that's. We talked about this on the, on the phone. It was just that. That's why demolition is still the most exciting trade out there, because it's the creativity.
- [34:02]
A
Yeah.
- [34:03]
B
They have to get it done. What are we going to use? How are we going to do this? If you miss, how are you going to save yourself?
- [34:09]
A
Well, and, you know, I. I feel like you guys have this. This ability to be creative, too.
- [34:17]
B
Yeah.
- [34:17]
A
Like, from a GC standpoint, I feel like they're kind of breathing down everybody else's neck. The electrician, the plumbers, even the concrete guy, like, et cetera, because they, they kind of know what's going on. But I feel like demolition still is a little bit of. A little bit of witchcraft involved in it.
- [34:35]
B
They'll stay out of it, and a lot of times they'll stay out of your way because they're afraid. They're afraid of you.
- [34:39]
A
Yeah, yeah, they'll stay out of your way, which then gives you this greater creative freedom that is not. Is not in any other trade.
- [34:45]
B
Right. Yeah. They just want you to maintain the schedule and get out. I mean, for most. For most contract GCs and whatnot, demolition is just in the way.
- [34:53]
A
Yes.
- [34:54]
B
Just get out of the way.
- [34:55]
A
Sure.
- [34:55]
B
So we don't really don't care how you do it as long as you're safe and the surrounding neighbors are safe. All the environmental issues have been dealt with. The asbestos has been invaded, the PCBs are gone, the universal waste is cleaned out. And now you're going to take this building down, you know, and just get out of my way. But, you know, there's a method to this. I mean, there's those who, you know, the smaller jobs are probably the most dangerous jobs because, you know, a guy with a backhoe, you know, with a thumb, sure. Can knock down that small building, get it down and then get out of there. You know, it's the bigger jobs. There are online jobs in an urban environment.
- [35:35]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:36]
B
That are dangerous and they require playing. Like, you talk about bridges. Right. You got to get this bridge down in 48 hours. I guarantee you there's a month's worth of work ahead of that planning this job out. And it probably took a week to mobilize all the equipment to the site. And it took a week to break everything down from the site to do what looked like and you know, a superfluous project, you know. Well, that bridge was there, now it's gone. Sure. But you know, it took a ton of money and planning and brain power to get it so you could do that job in 48 hours in return. A usable road.
- [36:06]
A
Yeah.
- [36:06]
B
You know.
- [36:06]
A
Yeah.
- [36:08]
B
And so that's. I mean, I remember we did one and I mean we had to. It was 247 for three days. We were doing three bridges outside of Detroit and we had catering trucks coming down on the road to feed the guys. We weren't stopping. We couldn't put the Porta John's down on the highway to take care of the guys because we couldn't stop.
- [36:24]
A
Yeah.
- [36:24]
B
You know, and we deliver that job, you know, like 12 hours ahead of schedule.
- [36:29]
A
Yeah, I. That kind of stuff I almost view like anything with equipment it can be dangerous. But that's the real dangerous stuff is like you said, the smaller, more intricate, selective type work.
- [36:42]
B
Yeah.
- [36:43]
A
When there's the floor openings, the hot work overhead, like you almost forget that. That how heavy some of this stuff is and how precarious some of this stuff is. I mean that. And it's tight, you know, you can't. There's not an escape route. And it's. It's just people. You're not in a cab or anything like that. When you're in the cab of a machine, you're at least somewhat protected.
- [37:06]
B
Yeah.
- [37:06]
A
But when you're just a guy in a torch.
- [37:08]
B
Yeah.
- [37:09]
A
There's a lot. There's a lot that can go wrong.
- [37:12]
B
The interior demolition work on an individual basis is probably the most dangerous because you're going to have the back into soft tissue injuries which kills you on the worker's core, the comp world, the hand injuries, you know, you know, ripping down metal studs and you cut your hand because you never gloves on. You get something in your eye because you have your safety glasses on. Sure. Again, you're working like you say, you're working at height and a lift and you don't have your harness on. You burn yourself or you burn somewhere below you or you're running diesel machines. Fumes, fumes in the building with your scrubbers on. And you know, you find it at great at grade, but the guy in the lift working, cutting 30ft above, he's passed out. So yeah, the interior works. The more dangerous work, which it seems like the most, the clumsy of the work but that, you know, there's a ton of that work, you know. But again we've got smaller machines that are battery operated with little, little shears on and we have the, the sherpers and the, all the battery operated equipment that we can have for skid steers and mini excavators and all the battery operated hand tools and demo tools that all the trades are putting out right now that we're all, you know, we're getting rid of extension cords, we're getting rid of ladders, you know, I mean every job's got 119 foot scissor lifts. Right. So we're making it safer for the guys and we're making the trade more. More interesting for the guys.
- [38:25]
A
Yeah.
- [38:25]
B
You don't have to be covered in shit all day long. Sure. To go home at night to get paid.
- [38:31]
A
Yeah. Those. The little Brocks. The Brocks.
- [38:34]
B
I mean everyone's getting the bra. I mean climb. You know, we should take those things down with a electric jackhammer or a river buster off a 185 compressor and walk us to the stairs that. Now it's a guy with a Brock.
- [38:44]
A
Sure.
- [38:44]
B
You know, and then he's. And then the guy below him's loading up a little battery operated kids to take it out to a dumpster. You. So those guys are working all day and they're getting a ton of work done. That used to be six or seven guys. But they're not killing themselves, you know.
- [38:57]
A
Yeah.
- [38:57]
B
And you, and you're reducing your risk.
- [38:59]
A
Yeah.
- [38:59]
B
So your comp, your emr, your, your OSHA reportables, all that stuff goes down. So now then, so now it's not only about people safety, it's about profit.
- [39:09]
A
What's, what's the deal with asbestos?
- [39:12]
B
Why like it just won't die?
- [39:15]
A
Well, yeah. What, what happened there? That was probably one of the biggest whoopsies.
- [39:22]
B
But asbestos was the greatest thing since. If you could use it today, you'd still have it.
- [39:25]
A
Well, and that's where it's like. Did they know about this as we still have?
- [39:30]
B
There was a building I got not that long ago was built in 2007 and gotten it out and we found asbestos and it was built in 2007 and it was. Products from China were in the building and they still use asbestos overseas.
- [39:43]
A
Yeah.
- [39:43]
B
You know, and so you still have to test, you know, so it used to be like, if it was, you know, out of the, you know what that date was, the late 70s, early 80s, where, where they banned it.
- [39:55]
A
Asbestos, though, it's. It's naturally occurring.
- [39:58]
B
Correct.
- [39:59]
A
You pull it out of the ground.
- [40:00]
B
Yeah.
- [40:01]
A
And they put it into basically everything we built for decades.
- [40:06]
B
Everything but your Wheaties. Yeah, it was, it was awesome. It did everything. It insulated.
- [40:09]
A
Yeah.
- [40:10]
B
It's fire retardant. It's soundproof. It was. It was the greatest thing since sliced bre.
- [40:16]
A
So it's this magic building material that then turned out to be super bad when you inhale it.
- [40:21]
B
Yeah. In bulk.
- [40:22]
A
In bulk.
- [40:23]
B
In bulk, yes.
- [40:24]
A
You know, I think it has been made out to be this boogeyman. It's not.
- [40:27]
B
Yeah. And I'll get in trouble for that. But, you know, I was never, I, you know, I've never been a big fan of the abatement world, so. But it's. You got to do it, right? It's. It's the law. And.
- [40:38]
A
Yeah.
- [40:38]
B
And so what you do is you, you, you build out. You know, you have a space. You have to take up the floor tile because the four. The four tile has a specimen or the master, and the floor's got asbestos in it. And you have to encapsulate the space in 6 mil, you know, poly. And everybody's in their suits and their PPE and whatnot. And you go in, you take out this material, and then you wrap it all up in a couple layers of 6 mil poly. You put it in a dumpster. That's not. Yeah. Plastic. And then you put it in, you know, 6 mil, being a thickness. And then you put it in a, in a, you know, 30 yard dumpster that's lined with a 10 mil thick poly plastic. And then you take it to a landfill that's, you know, certified to take asbestos. And you dump it. And then, you know, a track machine goes over it and crushes it all up and rips the, Rips the plastic up. Sure. And then you put daily cover over it. Right. Now the asbestos is naturally occurring. Right. But it's not going back to the earth because it's wrapped in plastic that will never decompose. And this is how we deal with this.
- [41:39]
A
Yeah.
- [41:40]
B
And it's a huge business.
- [41:41]
A
It's a huge business.
- [41:42]
B
And it just won't go away.
- [41:45]
A
I don't, I don't think it'll ever go away.
- [41:48]
B
It's amazing.
- [41:48]
A
It is amazing, you know. Yeah, but that, that's really like, when it comes to any kind of demolition Nowadays that is the first step is you have to do an assessment.
- [41:58]
B
You have to. A survey.
- [41:59]
A
A survey to figure out what asbestos is there. And then you have to do the abatement to remove the asbestos material before you can then do the demolition.
- [42:08]
B
Correct. So basically the building's clean.
- [42:10]
A
Yeah.
- [42:11]
B
And then, you know, maybe you got to look for your PCBs and caulking PCBs and paint, you know, you know, sealants and all that. And then you get your universal waste with your fluorescent light bulbs and your mercury switches and your.
- [42:23]
A
Sure.
- [42:23]
B
You know, your exit signs and your thermostats and. And all that. Package all that up because, you know. And ultimately it all ends up in the same spot. But.
- [42:31]
A
Yeah.
- [42:33]
B
Yeah. And it's a huge expense.
- [42:36]
A
Huge expense. And, and, and that's probably a majority of the time for the demolition project. Like the total demolition portion of the job. It doesn't take very long. Right.
- [42:46]
B
You get a debatement. Could take months.
- [42:47]
A
Yeah.
- [42:47]
B
And then you could have the building gone a couple weeks.
- [42:50]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:50]
B
But again, there's very little that you can do. An abatement that's. That's mechanized.
- [42:55]
A
Yes.
- [42:55]
B
Still a lot of people.
- [42:56]
A
It's all people really hard and tyvek.
- [43:00]
B
Suits and 100 degree weather in negative air, just, just knocking down tile or ripping down tile or, you know. Yes. Or the, the joint compound on the walls is hot, you know, in, you know, the paper underneath the hardwood floor. So you gotta. The amount of work you have to do to get to the material that actually is. Has asbestos content in it is huge.
- [43:25]
A
It's. Yeah. I avoid that whole portion of any project entirely.
- [43:31]
B
Yeah. But it's. You run into it all the time.
- [43:33]
A
It's everywhere.
- [43:34]
B
Yeah. And again, when, like when you run into it in newer work, you're like, Jesus, this is never going to end.
- [43:38]
A
Yeah.
- [43:39]
B
Because it isn't banned in places overseas.
- [43:42]
A
But asbestos itself is not bad. Like, especially if it's just. If it's, if it gets into the.
- [43:49]
B
Head, it's the fibers.
- [43:50]
A
The fibers in the air that's then inhaled into the lungs.
- [43:54]
B
Yes. And that came from guys who was spraying it on, you know, you know, in, in factories, in ships, you know, as an insulator and ships, you know. So you were doing it all day long. You were spraying this stuff all day long. Yep. You know, and it's like if you drank, you know, 500 ounces of Coca Cola every day for the rest of your life, you're probably going to get something. Sure.
- [44:15]
A
You know, but then there were these giant class action Lawsuits. Yes, that then, I mean, caused a lot of billions and we took giant class action lawsuits.
- [44:24]
B
And cigarettes too. They're still, they're still making cigarettes. Yeah.
- [44:27]
A
But cigarette companies, they've got their tentacle knows.
- [44:30]
B
I, I, I still, I still spray on my weeds with, with glyceph, you know. Yeah, sure, sure. Still the best.
- [44:37]
A
Yes. Was, was asbestos one of the problems with the 911 cleanup or was that other stuff?
- [44:44]
B
Yeah, that was, that was a big part of it. That was all the contaminants that were in those buildings built in the seventies. And what you. Again, I don't know a lot about what happened to the people other than it happened to the people, the firefighters, number one, the police that got doused in it, and then all the tradespeople that worked at the it.
- [45:00]
A
Yeah.
- [45:00]
B
And then the fact that, you know, the, the government that's always there on the first day is never there on the last day. Right. To take care of these people. And it took like actors like Gary Sinise and stuff like that and to, to, to just keep screaming about it to get these people the funds they needed to basically to die.
- [45:17]
A
Sure.
- [45:17]
B
You know, but that was, I mean, it just, it was just raining out of the sky and you saw the pictures of, I mean, of the people just covered, they were, they were white with layers of dust on them.
- [45:27]
A
Yeah.
- [45:27]
B
Whatever the contaminants were. Well, you waded through that thing for weeks and weeks and I meant.
- [45:32]
A
But. And it turned into maybe the biggest demolition project in modern history in the United States. Oh.
- [45:39]
B
Had to have been. Yeah, yeah.
- [45:41]
A
When you just like, just the quantity of material they had to remove and.
- [45:44]
B
Then, and then all the demolition contractors and everybody else that jumped in to help and they got, they got the end of the stick on that too. They didn't get paid or they didn't get paid enough or their equipment got destroyed or contaminated.
- [45:55]
A
Yeah.
- [45:55]
B
And the guys got sick over time and it's like, you know, why, why did we. Because they're good people. So they jumped in to help, of course. Right. Yeah. And no good deed goes unpunished.
- [46:06]
A
Well, and that is what people don't realize with natural disasters as well, because that in a lot of ways is demolition work, Correct? Yeah, that's what it is. You've got it. No matter the disaster, if it's fire, if it's flood, if it's hurricane, tornado, it's, it, it becomes a demolition problem. But, you know, everybody jumps in to help and it's the worst thing you can do in a Lot of ways.
- [46:34]
B
Because eventually you got to pay your people and you got to get paid.
- [46:37]
A
Yes.
- [46:37]
B
And now you're dealing with the government, you're dealing with the insurance companies. And in very few cases do you.
- [46:42]
A
Come out whole, well, and it can come back to bite you. And like, what did you just do? 100% you did that. You're liable for that now. Oh, that's damaged over there. Well, you were there, so that's, that's your liability. And you could have had nothing to do with it, but you were there. You can't prove that you didn't damage it. And now.
- [46:59]
B
Right. They got. What's going on in the Palisades, you know, where. I mean, they barely even getting houses out of the ground there because of. Well, they told you on the, on TV that they were going to get rid of all these regulations and make it easy to get permitting. They didn't.
- [47:11]
A
No.
- [47:11]
B
You know, and they've made it impossible for people to build their homes back. And, you know, the insurance companies aren't paying and the. Whatever money they've collected just gets dispersed and it has nothing to do with what's going on in the Palisades.
- [47:24]
A
Yeah.
- [47:24]
B
You know, and again, from my end on natural disasters, it's the individual people with their individual dollars that usually help the most. The government is really fast, really short. They have a. They have a short attention span and off they go.
- [47:39]
A
Well, and they're. They're pretty good in some cases. Like, I just talked to Alan Guy, who did a majority of the Altadena cleanup. His company, they're really good at responding to like a cleanup effort like that. But then the whole rebuilding.
- [47:56]
B
Right.
- [47:57]
A
Who knows? Right. Who knows? I mean, like, getting a per. Like in my. In Maui, most of the people building houses out there don't have permits.
- [48:07]
B
Right.
- [48:07]
A
They're just building their houses. They can't get a building permit. And it's way after the disaster and they're held up because of a building permit.
- [48:16]
B
Right.
- [48:17]
A
What are you talking about? But to go back to the demolition point, like, even with these disasters of any kind scale, they. They're demolition projects. At the end of the day, it's removing debris.
- [48:29]
B
Yeah.
- [48:30]
A
To then enable the building of new structures.
- [48:32]
B
And a lot of that's localized. So the. On the national end with the association, while we've done stuff with the Army Corps of Engineers and in FEMA and whatnot, it's. It's a lot of that's localized. I mean, a local fire chief who has experience with certain demolition companies and they'll get the call.
- [48:49]
A
Yeah, I'll see, I'll see demolition companies, I'll see them. What I'm. What I mostly see is like a burn building.
- [48:55]
B
Yeah.
- [48:56]
A
Or something along those lines. A hazard type.
- [48:58]
B
It's got, it's got a building like this and it's going to cave. So we got to get a machine there. We got to get it. And all we gotta, there's these hot spots. We gotta get this thing opened up.
- [49:06]
A
Sure.
- [49:06]
B
So it'll be a local guy who's got a, you know, who's who. A can mobilize fast and B's got a relationship with probably the local building authority or the local fire chiefs. Yeah. You know, you'll, you'll see their machines. You know, I mean, if it's in Providence, you know, his machine is going to be over there, right?
- [49:20]
A
I do know.
- [49:21]
B
Yeah. So it's that same idea, but to their. They can put a machine on a trailer and have it there. You know, you call me now and I'm there in an hour.
- [49:30]
A
Yeah, because they need to get there for the hot spots. Like you said, while the fire department's still there. They're going to sift through the material. While the fire department.
- [49:37]
B
We have a five. A five story mill building and you got a 12 width, you know, 12 inch thick brick wall that's about five stories. It's about to lay into a neighborhood. So we got to get that thing on the ground.
- [49:48]
A
Yeah.
- [49:48]
B
You know, but again, who's paying you?
- [49:51]
A
Sure.
- [49:51]
B
You mobilize machine, you get there, you do all the best of intentions and then, and then, you know, then the. Well, the insurance company wants to tell you that it wasn't worth $50,000. It's really worth $25,000. Yeah. You know, you know, and you know, why did I do it?
- [50:05]
A
Yeah. Because it is a business.
- [50:06]
B
It's a business. I mean you're using demolition machines. You know, when you think about the blue book value machines or demolition machines get eaten up. Yeah. You know, you can have a, you know, a 345 excavator digging foundation holes for 25 years. That demo excavator ain't working for 25 years.
- [50:24]
A
Well, it's demolition is really interesting too because the, the, the revenues are much smaller than like a site work contractor and much smaller than a gc. Because on site work a big chunk of the overall contract is the materials.
- [50:39]
B
Right.
- [50:39]
A
Whereas in demolition you don't have materials, you just have equipment, you just have labor. Maybe disposal costs are big.
- [50:46]
B
But small, depending on where you are in the market. I mean, in the east coast, up where we are, well, northeast. I mean, the spouse could be 48 to 50%.
- [50:53]
A
Yes.
- [50:53]
B
Of the job. I mean, you can always get to the point. If you figure your disposal, just add 50%.
- [50:57]
A
What is it per ton up there?
- [50:59]
B
We're running at, you know, like 175 a ton. And then you go to Michigan, it's 35 a ton. Arizona, in Michigan, you don't meet, you don't even pay to dump concrete. Concrete. Where we're. We could be tipping for. I mean, concrete with rebar might be 35 bucks a ton. Plus trucking.
- [51:18]
A
You're paying?
- [51:19]
B
Yeah, yeah. Oh, right now, that's. Everybody's paying it. Sure. We don't have. And we crush it. We use it for, you know, you know, for recycled road base, whatnot. But it can't have any brick in it. We have a lot of brick. You know, in the Midwest, they need the concrete because they don't have, you know, with the sands they have, they don't have the agriculture get. You know, we're Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine. We're sitting on a rock.
- [51:41]
A
Yeah, Rock.
- [51:42]
B
Nothing but rock, you know, so you don't necessarily need the recycled material unless it's. It's deemed because it's, you know, it's a project that has a lead, you know.
- [51:51]
A
Sure.
- [51:52]
B
You know, want to see you use the recycled materials and recycled materials.
- [51:56]
A
So the, the safety, the tie bow and the safety stuff, you've, you've been able to, you know, talk to all these contractors, get everybody's feedback on what the, the main hazard categories are. Environmental, you know, working from heights, hot work, etc, and then you've built out a safety curriculum that each of these companies can leverage.
- [52:19]
B
Right.
- [52:19]
A
Because it's all, it's, it's all kind of like for everybody to go do it themselves. Doesn't make sense. It's wildly inefficient.
- [52:28]
B
Right.
- [52:29]
A
And so you've basically created a framework for each company.
- [52:32]
B
Yeah. And you can make it your own. Right. You can add, you can add to it, but all your true basics are there, you know, and all your SDS sheets, all that sort of stuff that you have to have in a good safety manual. And now, you know, it's electronic. Even though recently we had people who demanded a hard copy of their safety manual in their trailer, you know. Sure. Because OSHA demands it, but they don't.
- [52:53]
A
There's a lot, there's a lot of that too, saying OSHA demand something when. No.
- [52:57]
B
Right.
- [52:58]
A
Not even close. There's plenty of that.
- [53:00]
B
Right. And you get stuck in that. You want to get in a fight with a GC about, you know, their safety guy, about GC's.
- [53:04]
A
Love that.
- [53:05]
B
About, about the OSHA standards, even though on the demolition side, I think we got to figure it out more than they do. And we work direct. We have an OSHA alliance going, the NDA does. So, I mean, we're working to ruck it with osha. We train.
- [53:17]
A
Is that right?
- [53:18]
B
Yeah, we train compliance officers from osha, because again, it's demolition. It's not a warehouse, it's not a manufacturing facility. It's not a building coming out of the ground, which you, you can figure that out. It's demolition. It's completely different.
- [53:30]
A
Well, and you also have to think OSHA still, at the end of the day, is a government organization. You have more experience dealing with hazards.
- [53:38]
B
Than OSHA does, and they tell us that.
- [53:40]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [53:43]
B
I mean, and it's rare to see a compliance officer just roll into a job site unless something happened or somebody dimes you out.
- [53:52]
A
Sure.
- [53:52]
B
You know, creates an invented. Isn't that there?
- [53:55]
A
Yeah, I, I, I could not guess what kind of organization would do such a thing.
- [54:00]
B
Yeah, we're not even. You can use your imagination, right?
- [54:04]
A
I, I couldn't even say.
- [54:05]
B
There's numbers of, numbers of reasons to do it. Right.
- [54:08]
A
Boy, that would be something.
- [54:10]
B
And usually at the end of the day with osha, it comes down to paperwork, compliance. It doesn't even come down to the events. Okay.
- [54:17]
A
Yes, yes.
- [54:17]
B
Tailgate safety talks, your safety manual, your lift training, your fall protection training. And where's all your paperwork? Where's all the guys? OSHA cards. That's what croaks you.
- [54:30]
A
But, yeah, and, and I mean, this is maybe blasphemy to say, but you can follow OSHA by the book and still not be that safe.
- [54:39]
B
Right.
- [54:40]
A
Like, it really, it doesn't create any kind of safety culture or, or like, like, again, you know, Milburn's a great example that I, that I use because they're so buttoned up, their safety is, is unbelievable. And I've, I've been to a lot of their job sites. Not, you know, but, I mean, a good quantity.
- [55:02]
B
Right.
- [55:04]
A
And they, they have this genuine culture of safety. Like, they don't have safety guys going around bossing people around. It's, they've got these working foremen, and these working foremen are in charge of the safety of their people. And it's like, like a genuine sense of caring for everybody and all their people. They're buttoned up. Everybody's got their fall protection on, everybody's got their PPE on, everybody's got their face shield on while they're cutting. You know, everybody's got their FR type stuff in those environments. Whatever it is. None of that is really driven by OSHA or rarely is it driven by.
- [55:39]
B
OSHA and it's not driven by the JHA that's 400 pages long that nobody reads. Once you turn it in and they, they review it and redline it, send it back to you and you send it back to them. It's just what you, it's the culture. It's not putting safety first on the side of your trucks or, or on your safety vests. Yeah. It's just that it's from the top down, it has to be from the top down that the ownership of the senior management have a passion for it. And they have a passion for it because it's good for your people. It's good for business in the sense that, listen, I want you to go home safe. That's all that I care about. But if you can't home go home safe, I can't afford you. Because if we have an accident, there's the workers comp claim, there's the insurance claim. Our EMR goes up and every, every point that EMR goes up is more, is more workers comp insurance put me over a one and I'm not going to work for thousands of different companies. So there's all these different reasons. Safety, taking care of your people is number one. And you have to really like. I was with a friend this past weekend and he's just talked about how at his age, in his business, if someone was to get hurt bad on one of his jobs, he just, he wouldn't know what to do because he couldn't live with himself.
- [56:46]
A
And that. So this is, I think people are just wildly misguided too. They've. Big corporations have really screwed a lot of things up for everybody else. The big corporations, I think they dehumanize things. They put you so far from the reality and from the people that you can make these crazy business decisions that do destroy people, environment, et cetera. But you can still sleep well at night because you're so. I mean, it's like warfare as well. You know, the people sending everybody to war, they'll never see war in their lives. So they don't, they don't think about it. They don't think about the people dying, because they don't see the people dying. And so you can, then you can justify it and you can sell yourself, well, I'm not a bad person, so on and so forth. I can see how that's done. Which is then why like the EPA came about, the OSHA came about. M shot, you can go down the list. That's why a lot of these regulatory bodies came about because these giant companies were just like way abusing. But, but going back to how most of the demolition companies are these small family businesses that I have not met a single business owner that's like, and that even acts like this, that's like my priority is just to make a bunch of money. And if somebody dies, it is what it is. I've never met somebody that's even on that, even remotely close to that planet.
- [58:11]
B
That's somewhere that you would never, that you'd never want to talk about to.
- [58:14]
A
But they don't ex, they don't even exist from like a. They might exist.
- [58:18]
B
For the most part, they don't. There's always, there's always somebody out there that wants to make the fast buck because he's this copper going for five bucks a pound. Sure.
- [58:25]
A
But you're right, I'm talking, you know, industry averages. All of the, the people we've talked about, they, they would, they would. It's like somebody dying on their sites.
- [58:38]
B
Yeah. We destroy them.
- [58:39]
A
We would destroy them.
- [58:40]
B
Yeah. I mean they might even close. Some of these guys even just close the doors.
- [58:42]
A
I think so.
- [58:43]
B
Not because they got wiped out, but they just, they just don't want that anymore.
- [58:46]
A
Yes. And, and even if they continue, that will haunt them the rest of their lives.
- [58:50]
B
Yep, 100%. And again, you know, you know, safety is a funny business where number one, I think the demolition industry is the safest trade.
- [58:58]
A
And out there, I would, I would.
- [59:00]
B
It just is because it's, it's the first thing you talk about and it's the last thing you talk about every day is safety. And you know, being in the concrete business these days, concrete guys don't want to be the safest guys in the world. So it's a fight every day, day. But it has to be a top down fight. You know, the ownership, the leadership, all the way down to your foreman, you know, they have to want to, to work safely even though it can be inconvenient. And then safety is funny with general contractors, especially small general, you know, safety has a financial pain point. You know, we're all about safety till it costs money. You know, and we had a project last year, we're building these 30 foot high concrete foundation walls. And the sheeting cond. They did vertical steel sheeting sheeting behind the whole dip, the hillside back. We're building this building and they stopped the sheeting and then when we put the. So when we started putting the walls up and they stopped the sheeting because it was this steep slope, like, well, you know, our guys can be locked behind this wall, you know, and it was like, it wasn't even close to like a one to one or anything. It was very sandy material. And we start talking about, well, we're gonna. This is gonna have to happen or that's gonna have to happen to make our guys safe. And the GC just didn't want to listen to it. We're talking about safety here, you know, and they just, they just like, well, there's got to be a better way, you know, or you should have thought about this when you bid the job. We thought about the sheeting guy sheeting the job, you know, and so it happens a lot. Yeah. You know, with the smaller operations. I mean, the big thing about the big GC houses, probably not as much. But the small to medium guys, safety has a price point.
- [60:35]
A
I see it around town with the small to medium GCs, like, oh yeah, you guys, your fence says safety is the most important thing. But I can, I can look at the shit hanging from the third story balcony that could fall at any moment onto somebody and say, I don't know if that's priority. And even just the cleanliness of their sites.
- [60:57]
B
You know. You know, so that's two things there, that there's a cost to that, meaning that you're inefficient in dealing with materials. And B, there's a trip and fall issue there.
- [61:04]
A
Yes. You know? Yes.
- [61:06]
B
So yeah. And then, and then a lot of that comes down to the. A lot of these guys are so busy and the, you know, a supervisor is basically just a babysitter. May not be an experienced builder. It's probably a kid out of school. It could be an old guy getting ready to retire and you don't give a. He's had enough. He's tired of you telling you, put your freaking hot hat back on, put your safety glass back on, wear your gloves. Why are you wearing shorts? You know, and then I see it when I walk on a job site, I look at the other trades, I'm like, how are we getting away with this? You know, Then I'm yelling at our guys, you Know, know. But you watch the other trades where you know, like boy, why.
- [61:39]
A
But that demolition, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm always thinking about safety because we're in different environments. I've been in a wider and a variety of dangerous environments than most at this point, even at 30 demolition sites are where I think about safety the most by a mile. Because it is, is, it is legitimately dangerous and now is an earth moving operation, can it be dangerous? Yes, but I mean if you just maintain common sense, it's pretty predictable.
- [62:14]
B
Like it's probably the only trade, especially big early, you're probably the only trade on the site at that time.
- [62:18]
A
It's wide open, you know where the trucks are going. You know, a dozer is just going to go this way or that way. Like it's, it's, there's a predictability to it, whereas demolition. And especially when you're just, you're just you, the environment, it just restricts you where you are. Even just that alone, you know, you can't, there's no escape route if something does go wrong.
- [62:40]
B
And especially in occupied buildings where you might be doing a demolition project in where a third of the building is coming down or you're renovating a third of the building and there's people working on the other side of that temporary petition. Yes, yeah, yes.
- [62:52]
A
You know, which.
- [62:53]
B
And you start thinking about fumes and you know, there was a job recently in Mass where they were gutting out. It was a, it was a split building, single building. Half the building was a daycare. The other building, they were putting a restaurant in it. And they're in there sock cutting and digging with diesel machines and they had to take eight little kids to the hospital. And nobody thought about that. Nobody made that a priority. Safety. Right. I mean we look at the site and go, what's the biggest issue right now? Little kids next door.
- [63:23]
A
But this is again why I admire the demolition industry, because I do feel like, because of the environment and how dangerous it is, you have a lot of contractors prioritizing the safety thing, which I think is the right approach. Like I feel like the best approach to safety is that safety is your responsibility.
- [63:43]
B
Right.
- [63:44]
A
It's not. If you turn. It's, it's, it's, it's no different than parenting. And I can't, I don't know why it's so hard for people to understand this. But you know, through school and through high school, you've got the kids, their parents are telling them what to do, do their whole time and then they get into college when the parents aren't around, they go nuts.
- [64:05]
B
Right?
- [64:05]
A
They just, a lot of them, I just watch them just self destruct. Good kids, great parents, everybody's fine. They just implode when the supervision's not there. Because everything they're like critical thinking and their ability to care for themselves etc has been outsourced their entire lives. So they don't know how to do this, that, and they've been fooled into thinking somebody else does things for them. And now that that structure is not there, they don't know what to do. Safety is the exact same thing. I mean, and that's where I think a lot of these big corporations approach it in the totally, totally wrong way. That is like just force it down everybody's throats, treat everybody like children because then that puts you into a position where you're, you're fooled into thinking somebody else is in charge of your safety. But like me as a demolition company, I would never want to be trusting the gc, even if they're a great gc. I'm never going to put my crew's safety in the hands of a gc. That's my responsibility as a business or if I'm a foreman. That's, that's my, that's not the superintendent or safety guy's responsibility. That's, these people are my responsibility and I'm my responsibility. Like my safety is my responsibility. I'm not giving that to a safety guy.
- [65:19]
B
Right.
- [65:19]
A
Fuck you. You could be the best safety guy in the world, the nicest guy in the world, the most caring, educated, whatever. I'm not giving it to you. It's my responsibility. And that, that's when you create legitimate safety and caring.
- [65:34]
B
Well, yeah, that's that culture in it. But it's, but it's top down. It's got to be, you know, it can't be like this is our mantra. It's in our, you know, it's in our values. And you know, we preach safety because website, it's got to come down from the top and it has to be every day. Yes. And when it is then it's just, it's muscle memory. We, this is how we operate. And when you hire on some new people and they have some bad habits, they either have to understand why you operate the way you operate or they have to move on. You can't, you don't want them because they could hurt one of your, one of your people. Yeah. You know, that understands why they're there. There's nothing we do that, that you want, that you risk somebody's life for, which is what kills me. Even though on the development side and sometimes the GC side, you know, you just another widget there.
- [66:21]
A
Yeah. And it's like, there are. I. I see this. And so I see it actually quite often. It's like. And I hear about it a lot. Safety is everything until the schedule says otherwise.
- [66:34]
B
Yeah. Or like I said, safety. Yeah. Schedule and price point.
- [66:38]
A
Price point. Like once the schedule gets a little bit backed up.
- [66:41]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [66:42]
A
They're kind of just like, hey, I'm going to. I'm going to go over here.
- [66:45]
B
Yeah, let's go, you guys.
- [66:48]
A
Yeah, just. Just make it happen. Don't tell me how you did it.
- [66:50]
B
Just make it happen.
- [66:53]
A
But that's, I think, extremely valuable. The NDA is doing that.
- [66:57]
B
Right.
- [66:58]
A
For the demolition industry, so. Well, continue.
- [67:02]
B
No, I was just saying. So, I mean, part of that in, like, through NDA and whatnot is getting the people who do this as a. As a trick trade and work in this industry is them to realize that they're valuable people, that they're not doing the job because they can do no other job.
- [67:16]
A
Yes.
- [67:16]
B
They're doing this job because they do have a skill set and they do have a passion, and they do. They're doing valuable work and that their lives matter and what they have to say matters. And that if you want to try hard, like I style with a shovel, and you want to grow and you want to learn, I say learn by osmosis. Right. Just be a sponge. And now you can get yourself a college education or you don't YouTube. So just learn and learn and learn and you'll work your way up the ladder and you'll make a career out of it.
- [67:43]
A
Well, and I mean, you'll just learn so much from watching the old timers. Yeah, I mean, I, I love watching the old timers work because it's like, damn, they're good.
- [67:51]
B
Well, I like, I just, it's just again, it's the, it's the, the creativity. You know, I think I mentioned you. I was in Cincinnati back in. In July, and we're walking from a restaurant to a bar or a bar to restaurant, and I see o' Rourke work in downtown Cincinnati, and I see PDI Green City working, and I keep stopping and they're working on Saturday and my wife's like, we're not doing this all day. And they were doing a task. I'm like. And I'm looking at the new equipment. I'm watching how they're doing this task. I'm like, why'd they do it that way? Or how would I do it that way? I don't even think I could figure out how to do it that way. And she's like, we're moving on. We're moving on. Well, you go ahead and I'll just pull up a rock here and just talk to these guys, you know, and. But I didn't get to do that, but. Well, creativity drives me crazy. And I love the iron too, so.
- [68:33]
A
Well, but that's. I do think that's. It's a big misconception of demolition. Like we were talking about. People think it's as simple as throwing a wrecking ball on the side of a building. Like, like, just like a bunch of monsters.
- [68:44]
B
Whack. It tilts on the ground.
- [68:45]
A
But it's. It's a really skilled profession. And that's, that's part of the reason why I love it, watching it so much too, because you can. There's such. There's this, like, beauty to how these guys do this dismantling.
- [68:59]
B
Right.
- [68:59]
A
They're, they're, they're. They're so strategic with how they. They make their cuts or what they remove first or. You've got to think about, like, even we were talking parking garages.
- [69:10]
B
Well, there's the post tension.
- [69:12]
A
There's. Yeah, this, this tension within each precast panel, whatever it is. And if you cut it the wrong way, somebody can die. It's just. There's so many of those considerations.
- [69:22]
B
Scariest.
- [69:23]
A
Yeah, yeah, but. But when done. Right.
- [69:25]
B
Right.
- [69:26]
A
They're really quick because there was a.
- [69:28]
B
Plan and you stuck to the plan and everybody understood the plan, which, you know, we could always do a better job in the field. Slowing down first thing in the morning and explaining to the guys what we're doing. I mean, that, that, that daily kickoff and everybody knowing their role and then everybody knowing the risk. Yeah, but, you know, but demolition never used to be that way. I mean, I would say it's the last 20 years that it's evolved and evolved and evolved to. Between the sophistication of the family businesses, the technology, the drive to be better and to be recognized for what you do has become so important that you've made this a desirable trade.
- [70:08]
A
Well. And it's become. The owners are forcing it as well. You need certain safety standards, you need that certain emr, you need certain percentage recycled, whatever for environmental.
- [70:22]
B
Yeah.
- [70:23]
A
And if you don't meet those qualifications, they won't even look at you.
- [70:26]
B
Yeah, exactly. And especially where we are in the East. I mean it's all that, the lead stuff is crazy. And we work in very tight environment up there.
- [70:33]
A
Yep.
- [70:33]
B
You know, so there's not a lot of wiggle room, a lot of zero watt lines with a building connected to you on the backside, you know, with people living in it.
- [70:40]
A
Sure.
- [70:41]
B
So yeah, it's been the last 20 years where you've seen the drive by the industry and the association to build out these great companies out there now. I mean, you know, I think about the people that I know in the industry, you know, 100 companies, companies around the country, and they all have the same philosophy. You know, they all want to be good and they all want to be safe and they all want to be smart. And those companies are successful and they make money, they do great, you know. You know, and then you can be the fast buck guy with the old beat up equipment and a bunch of guys on ads and shovels and if you, if something happens to you, I'll just get another one of you. And you know, they're struggling every day making a fast buck. So the long, the long game. Game pays. Doing it right pays with.
- [71:25]
A
So that's kind of the safety. Etc. NDA you have the annual convention.
- [71:30]
B
Yep.
- [71:31]
A
Which I think is one of the best industry events. I've never been, unfortunately.
- [71:37]
B
Never been.
- [71:37]
A
No, I, it's always.
- [71:39]
B
You got to come to Phoenix in February.
- [71:41]
A
I know, I know. I, I do, I do. I'm always out of the country or something.
- [71:45]
B
You're from, From Arizona.
- [71:47]
A
Yeah, I know. Yeah. I would love to be in February at Phoenix in February. I would love nothing more than that.
- [71:52]
B
I give you a free ticket and everything, you know.
- [71:54]
A
Yeah, yeah. Hey, there we go. But it's, it's cool what you guys have done because there's a huge expo side of the convention or what's the.
- [72:07]
B
So it's the Live Demolition.
- [72:08]
A
The Live Demolition, where it's the only thing.
- [72:11]
B
And again we're competing about, you know, every three years. We're competing with Conexpo, we're competing with World of Concrete. All great shows on Expo's crazy. You know, I've only been a few times because that's about all you can take. It's just too big.
- [72:25]
A
Yeah.
- [72:26]
B
But. And again our.
- [72:27]
A
And honestly, it's kind of the same thing every year.
- [72:29]
B
Every single year. Yeah. Yeah. Every three years. Yeah. It's crazy. But the, the convention was dying. It was dying. I mean it was sort of like you know, a weekend. You know, you think up until like 2013 14, 15, certainly through the recession in 9 and 10, almost killed us. That one of the things about transitioning to an association management company, they had experience running conventions. And that's where. Between that and our convention chess, while they came up with the live demolition, because we were losing. We were losing vendors because we're a small show. So expensive. Expensive. That's why we pulled out of Vegas, because it's just too damn expensive. And. And you lose your audience.
- [73:16]
A
But in Vegas, Vegas is wondering why tourism's going down.
- [73:19]
B
Right.
- [73:20]
A
They're like, oh, it's. We're so poor, us. Like, no, no. You're charging ridiculous sums of money.
- [73:26]
B
The cost of load now.
- [73:27]
A
Yeah.
- [73:30]
B
Moving a, you know, Volvo 480 with a high reach into a. Into a convention center that don't cost you of nothing, you know, so we were losing our bandwidth, you know. And then when you did have a show in Vegas, you lose your audience because you're in Vegas. Or if you have it at Disney, you lose your audience because you're taking your kids to the parks.
- [73:47]
A
Of course.
- [73:48]
B
But when they went, came up with this live demolition concept is to find an outside venue that you could bring people to. You could have all your vendors with all their machines, any shape or size with any and all attachments, and we're wrecking concrete, we're wrecking steel, we're sorting. You know, the Brocks are there. You know, the robot machines are there, the small machines are there. The hugest machines are there. And you get to go and sign up and go sit in the machine and run it. Yeah. You know, for 10 minutes or whatever and talk to the vendors. And it's been. It's probably the savior of the. Of the convention.
- [74:25]
A
What was the first year you did that?
- [74:27]
B
Probably about six years ago.
- [74:29]
A
That's about right.
- [74:30]
B
Yeah.
- [74:30]
A
Yeah. I had never seen it before.
- [74:32]
B
I think where we did it first.
- [74:33]
A
First, maybe Texas.
- [74:35]
B
Could have been San Antonio.
- [74:37]
A
Or there's Southern California, maybe.
- [74:38]
B
No, it was definitely been in Texas a couple times. It was in Phoenix. Phoenix was unique. The last time we there because one of our members was wrecking them all.
- [74:46]
A
Bcs.
- [74:46]
B
Yeah. Yeah. They're wrecking them all. So we had it at the mall.
- [74:49]
A
I know.
- [74:50]
B
But unfortunately they had permitting issues so that we couldn't wreck.
- [74:52]
A
I know.
- [74:53]
B
So, yeah, we had to actually bring material in.
- [74:55]
A
Yes. Yeah. The mall.
- [74:56]
B
Yeah.
- [74:56]
A
Caught up.
- [74:57]
B
Yeah. And then. Oh, yeah, we had one in San Diego, and it was on a. It was Sandy, so there you go. Yeah. But it was on a college campus. Right on the Mexican. The Mexican border where I basically almost drove over the border trying to get there. But it was like on a swamp and it rained. Okay. So we had to import so much gravel that it would kind of wipe the budget out. So they're working hard now to have like consistent locations for the convention with repeatable results.
- [75:19]
A
Sure.
- [75:19]
B
You know, we had it in San Antonio and robos1 in JRMO and they donated space and they donated materials and equipment and you know, at their yard yards. So it saved a fortune. Ah, well.
- [75:30]
A
And it's, it's not like two excavators.
- [75:34]
B
No, no, it was. It must have been 30 machines this past year.
- [75:37]
A
It's a lot of equipment.
- [75:38]
B
It's huge acreage.
- [75:39]
A
Yes.
- [75:40]
B
You know, they put a big, big tents up. They do education, they do food. You know, bring your kids in. Anybody can try out. You want to try out a big processor, you know, on a high reach. You've never run one before. Get in.
- [75:52]
A
So. So yeah. Can anybody come to this or what does that look like?
- [75:57]
B
Just, you just gotta buy, just gotta buy a ticket.
- [75:59]
A
Yeah, but if I'm like a student.
- [76:01]
B
There'S a student discount.
- [76:02]
A
Is there a student discount good for you guys?
- [76:04]
B
Yeah.
- [76:05]
A
Okay.
- [76:05]
B
Yeah. All right. And I'm pretty sure you can buy, you can buy a pass just for the live demo.
- [76:11]
A
Really? Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah, I think that's really.
- [76:14]
B
Instead of the whole pass which gets you in the convention center and then all the events and the education and the banquet and again, it's a big get together too. I mean it's friends getting together. Haven't seen each other for a year.
- [76:25]
A
Yeah.
- [76:25]
B
Bringing their people with them, you know, showing them what you know. A lot of times if you're a small demo guy, you don't realize what demolition does around the country. You also, if you're a small demolition guy, you don't realize that that guy in Texas got the same problems you do. He's got money problems, he's got insurance problems, he's got people problems, he's got HR issues, he's got equipment issues.
- [76:46]
A
No one has those issues.
- [76:47]
B
Financing issues.
- [76:49]
A
You're being a little outlandish.
- [76:52]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I learned that. I'm like that guy from Texas, got all the same crap. I'm not all that fucked up. You know, I'm not, you know, I'm not messed up that bad. They have the exact same issue and. But they had some solutions. You know, I'm going to take that home with me.
- [77:09]
A
Sure.
- [77:09]
B
You know, but now bring Some people with you and get your people talking to their people, their project managers, your project manager, your field supervisors, building relationship. Now they're connecting through social media and they're making friends.
- [77:21]
A
Because I think that's a, that's a flaw with a lot of traditional association stuff too, is it's just the ownership.
- [77:27]
B
Right.
- [77:28]
A
Coming to these events. It's like, that's great. But like everybody, the ownership's not, they're not the ones dealing with a lot of the problems. Everything rolls up to them. But, but they, and I'm saying this like that's not their job. Their job is to, to run the business, getting those other people involved. That's what we've talked about with our summit, the World summit.
- [77:49]
B
Right.
- [77:49]
A
Is like, okay, yeah, you can come from ownership, that's fine. But your, your operations level individuals and even up and coming individuals that might not even be that senior operations level.
- [78:02]
B
Yeah.
- [78:02]
A
They're going to be the ones that benefit the most because that's the future and that's, they're the ones that, they're hungriest and they, they have the, the most open minds, typically.
- [78:12]
B
I mean, you want them to see opportunity.
- [78:14]
A
Yes.
- [78:14]
B
And you want them to see other people's ideas and then you want them. It's one thing for you to go to the show and come back and be all excited. You know, like we talked about the Dave Ramsey thing with going to his summit and stuff, which is, you know, unbelievable, really expensive. But if you don't bring people with you and you try to bring all that back with you and then sit down with that big book and just get all excited about, you know, about systems and our culture and all that. It doesn't translate. No. So let them come and let them see and let them be pumped up and let that bring it back to their people and their peers in the field and talk about what they saw at the convention and who they met at the convention and this guy's doing this and this guy's doing that and then let them push you as the artist owner. Sure. You know, we need to buy this. We need to try this, you know. All right, let's give it a go. You know.
- [78:57]
A
So how, how many people?
- [78:59]
B
Well, now we're peaking. 1500. Wow. Yeah. In fact, they got an award. Jeff was very excited, our executive director. We got an award for the growth of the, like in the last, I think it was 22 or 23. We just got an award for the convention industry. You know, there's a trade association for conventions, right? Yeah. For the growth and for the live demolition. For the institution innovation of the live demolition, which saved our convention. Yeah, yeah. Because it's, it's innovative, it's hands on, it's different.
- [79:28]
A
Well, you guys are really the only ones doing that.
- [79:30]
B
Yeah, nobody's doing it, just people. I think one of the scrap associates, somebody. They're stealing. It's not to steal it from us.
- [79:38]
A
Yeah.
- [79:38]
B
But yeah, Live demolition is trademarked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I believe, I believe we own that.
- [79:43]
A
Nice.
- [79:44]
B
As an association. But again, it's just something that in the evolution of what we've done the last eight years, bringing on this new management so that we can focus on as a group of members and surveying our members. What does everybody want? What do you need help with?
- [79:59]
A
And in my opinion, a bunch of machines is way cooler than the golf course.
- [80:02]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [80:04]
A
And maybe I'm the only one, but I don't think I'm the only one.
- [80:06]
B
Right.
- [80:06]
A
I think that's pretty cool. And even at the ownership level. The ownership level very rarely runs equipment.
- [80:12]
B
Yeah. I don't. I can't tell you the last time I was in something.
- [80:14]
A
No, no. I mean, like, like a Ryan Priestley. He's a, A. He's a. He's an oddball.
- [80:19]
B
Yeah.
- [80:19]
A
It seems like he's in all the time, but most of these people, they. They don't.
- [80:24]
B
They want to.
- [80:25]
A
They want.
- [80:25]
B
They.
- [80:26]
A
Everybody wants.
- [80:27]
B
They wish they were.
- [80:28]
A
Yes.
- [80:28]
B
You know, I, I wish I did. I wish I, I run them too. Until I run them for a day and then.
- [80:33]
A
Well, you do it for. Yeah, you do it for all.
- [80:35]
B
Your phone's ringing off the hook and you owe someone an estimate or a bid or you follow up on a change order or whatever else it is you owe, you have something you should be doing that day besides sitting in a machine.
- [80:45]
A
Sure.
- [80:46]
B
You know, so it's more of a hobby, but it's a great, you know, in the, in the machines these days, in the trucks these days. I mean, it's. It's unbelievable what these guys get to get, get to utilize to make their lives a better place. The machines are air conditioned. They're filtered.
- [80:59]
A
Yeah.
- [80:59]
B
You know, and then you look at some of these guys, they treat them like they're sitting in the living room. They don't wear the boots. You know, they got their. They got their shoes inside the machine. They get their boots outside the machine. The machines are spotless and they should. Should be. And the cabia truck should be at your office.
- [81:12]
A
They should, they should be.
- [81:13]
B
It drives me Crazy. And I see what some people are willing to work in.
- [81:15]
A
Yeah. I, I, you know, I don't understand the, even the, the disaster of a truck thing.
- [81:21]
B
Yeah.
- [81:21]
A
I'm like, why? Why do this?
- [81:23]
B
It kills me. Guy in our company truck. We have a fleet of service trucks, and you get, you open up the door of somebody's truck and you're like, they're all late model stuff. I don't think we have anything older than the 21. And you look inside the truck and you're like, why do you want to live this way? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you don't have to do this. I mean, my truck, because, I mean, fanatical about it.
- [81:39]
A
Yeah. Mine is too.
- [81:40]
B
Yeah. I mean, I drive a lot. And why would you not? And if you drive a big semi, big trail, a dump or whatever, Pristine. Why. Why don't you in the ones that, you know, that really take pride in what they do? And that's their office. They are pristine.
- [81:52]
A
Oh, and then there's companies up there, like a WL French or something like that.
- [81:56]
B
Just unbelievable. How do they do it?
- [81:59]
A
How do they do.
- [82:00]
B
Money they spend on keeping their stuff up.
- [82:02]
A
Oh, my.
- [82:03]
B
And I love going. We have a lot of local truck shows up there. And I would go up there on a Sunday and walk around and see the iron and, and you know what it costs to keep these truck up and the guys working. The driver of that WR French truck is sitting out there buffing it on a Sunday on his own time at a truck show, meeting up with some other truckers that he knows. The company's donated the diesel and their truck for him to drive it up there. But that guy's not getting paid to go there on Sunday and show off in his truck in French. Might send 10 trucks.
- [82:27]
A
No. And then you go, like, you compare that to South Florida trucking.
- [82:32]
B
Yeah. It just rattling. It was down.
- [82:35]
A
They just bought it from Facebook Marketplace.
- [82:39]
B
Everything's rattling off the, the truck, you know, and it's, you know, you got. They own 10 trucks. There are 10 different colors with 10 different fenders. And you're like, how does, how does the DOT not just grab them every single time? How do they start in the morning?
- [82:52]
A
Well, if the DOT did stop, Florida would stop because then there'd be no trucks.
- [82:56]
B
Yeah. And you see the guy falling out of the truck. He's got one shoe on. He's in a rip tank top. He's making 14 an hour. You know, they're not paying them.
- [83:05]
A
No. Oh, no.
- [83:06]
B
The truck doesn't have Air conditioning.
- [83:07]
A
He's probably not leaving legal.
- [83:09]
B
Could not be legal. Yeah. They have no air condition. It's 10,000 degrees with 100 humidity. And so you treat them like. So what do they do? They treat their equipment like. Because it's not. It's a job. It's not a career.
- [83:19]
A
Yeah.
- [83:19]
B
The guys you see like working for French Vinogro on those trucks, that's a career. Oh, you know.
- [83:25]
A
Oh, they've got a guy hand painting trucks.
- [83:28]
B
Oh yeah. All their. All their trucks are hand painted.
- [83:30]
A
They're all hand painted.
- [83:31]
B
Yes. Yeah. Guys, I've got his finger up here and he's just doing this with his tiny little brush and he makes them all the same. Same.
- [83:37]
A
Yeah, yeah. There's. There's not. They don't put decals on their trucks.
- [83:41]
B
They're all still hand painted. Which I, you know, I used to do a lifetime ago. Now I got a decal guy, you know, because it's efficient. You know, the decals look good, but there's nothing like the. The hand painted. No, but even they put their excavators the same thing. They just. They take pride in it. The machine. Everything runs right. Because. No, nothing. None of their trucks are sitting on the highway waiting for a service truck. No. Because they got a fleet mechanic. But they spend the money, they invest the money and obviously it pays off. They're very successful. Yeah, that family's done very well.
- [84:07]
A
Boy, have they. So that's the convention and then the. The last big bucket here is the whole certification thing.
- [84:16]
B
Yeah.
- [84:16]
A
That you guys have which is just waited into tremendous.
- [84:19]
B
And it's something we've wanted to do for decades and told we couldn't do it.
- [84:22]
A
I've. And again, I've. I've never heard of an association actually doing this. And maybe there is.
- [84:31]
B
Cranes. Because it's crane and cranes. Yeah. They had. They have a program but.
- [84:37]
A
But it's required like whereas demolition.
- [84:40]
B
This is just. This is just an industry coming together saying that we're going to create. You know, we. We did surveys and we're going to create a standard that we can show the people that we work for. You know, what, you know, a certified demolition professional should look like.
- [84:55]
A
So the. In the first one you went after was supervisor, was it?
- [84:58]
B
Yeah, the cds. So that's a certified demolition supervisor advisor. Okay. And we started that back in 2001. We started building it out. Holy. The process.
- [85:07]
A
Really.
- [85:07]
B
And it took two years.
- [85:09]
A
Okay.
- [85:10]
B
Because we launched it in 23. So in 2001 I got a phone call from.
- [85:17]
A
I Was gonna say because you launched it not that long ago.
- [85:19]
B
Right.
- [85:19]
A
So it's like a little while, you.
- [85:21]
B
Know, when covert got in the way, you know, because we were doing. We tried to do it remote.
- [85:25]
A
Yeah.
- [85:25]
B
Again, so you got nine people on a certification board. Everybody's a volunteer.
- [85:29]
A
Oh, you mean 20, 21.
- [85:30]
B
2021.
- [85:31]
A
Okay. Okay. Not two. Yeah, I was gonna say that's not right.
- [85:36]
B
Yeah, we're very proud. We procrastinate.
- [85:39]
A
Because I remember talking to Don about it because Don was.
- [85:42]
B
Don's still involved. Yeah, still involved on the board. We can't. We're supposed to rotate everybody out because it is a. It is a board. So it has a chair and a vice chair and a past chair. And then you have members and you're supposed to rotate out every two years. And because of COVID I was the original chair. I went three years as Tim. Ramon was a chair. And now Tim Harmonch from Harmony is the chair now. But we're all still involved a. Because we. It's transitioning new people. But it was such a learning curve starting this process and learning about legitimate certification that for us to jump off and let all new people come on with the product would get damaged and it wouldn't be fair for all the new people.
- [86:20]
A
So. So what, what's the point? Like what's, what's the overall objective of creating a certified demolition professional? Professional, like what?
- [86:29]
B
Well, it goes in two directions. One, it's. It's for the company to differentiate themselves from the competitor. Right. That we have, you know, a certified demolition supervisor. What does that mean? Well, it means that he's met certain level of criteria to take the exam. He's got five years of experience. He has a 30 hour OSHA card. He's got asbestos awareness. He's got a lift training. He's got CPR training. Okay. That gets you in the door. All right. Now you're going to take a comprehensive examination. Damn. All about Demolition. And it has different facets. Safety, environmental, project management, people management. All right? And you're going to taste it. Take this exam. And if you pass the exam, peers in your industry have said you are qualified to be a certified demolition supervisor. Doesn't mean you can take a power plant down. It means you've met these criteria that you're a guy that I want on my team. Team that I want on the team taking my building down. And for others to aspire to be.
- [87:27]
A
Like, there's a certain confidence.
- [87:30]
B
Yeah.
- [87:31]
A
You have like a little check mark next to your name.
- [87:33]
B
100 this guy sticker on your hard hat.
- [87:35]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [87:36]
B
But it means you're dedicated to. You're not that you're not the loudest guy on the job. You're not the guy that's been on the job the longest. You're someone who's invested in training, continues to invest in training and safety, cares about the job, can visualize the project. Project, can put a plan together with the project management team. Because you're the guy getting the job done. You're the guy turning that thing into a profit or not.
- [87:58]
A
So yeah, And I would say that is the most important position within the demolition industry.
- [88:03]
B
It really is.
- [88:05]
A
And so that's typically like that, that foreman level.
- [88:08]
B
It's. Yeah, I mean it's a supervisor. Yeah. So it could be a working or non working. I mean a lot of these guys are non working supervisors.
- [88:16]
A
But like field level, their field level.
- [88:18]
B
They'Re absolutely their boots on the ground.
- [88:20]
A
Yeah.
- [88:20]
B
Now that could be on a small job, it could be him and he could be the operator. And with three or four laborers, you know, on a big job, he's, he's the boss, you know, he's doing the jha, he's doing all the planning, project managers, just feeding them budgets and paperwork.
- [88:35]
A
You created this board to sit down. Like step one is sit down and even just define right. What they need to know.
- [88:44]
B
Right. So step one is to sit down and say how the hell do you build us built a certification program, which.
- [88:48]
A
Is a great question, right.
- [88:49]
B
And so luckily we have have a person on staff who named Jenny Cassera, whose passion in life and who went to school for it is to build accredited certification program. She's built tons of them for different, different groups and associations. So she was the guide, we were the content. And we went around, we built out a board of industry professionals, all demolition guys or people in the demolition industry. Different size companies, different geography. So we've got people from all over the country because demolition is different all over the country. Country. And then we survey the membership. What, what do you, what do you see that you need in a supervisor? And from that we started building out, you know, a curriculum and to build out questions, to start building on an exam and to, to write questions, hundreds of questions and then come up with the answers to those questions and then come up with the, the wrong answers for those questions.
- [89:46]
A
Do you know, like what's an example of a question question?
- [89:49]
B
I mean it could be something simple as, you know, as you know, a trench, you know, oh, should an ocean specific requirement for a Trench length of a trench, depth of a trench, five feet. Lateral requirements. Distance. The ladders could be fall, protection, feedback from the edge, leading edge of a, you know.
- [90:07]
A
I see.
- [90:08]
B
You know, it could be, you know, taking out of, you know, if you're cutting an I beam, you know, process of doing that, you know, rigging. So there's a little bit of math in there, science in there. It could be, you know, figuring out loads, you know, loading out debris, you know, tonnage, laying out a job site.
- [90:26]
A
Okay.
- [90:28]
B
But it's, it's safety number one. And they're all weighted different. Right. So there's so much in safety, there's so much in environmental. There could be just. It could be a questionable environmental knowledge. When you come upon something that could be asbestos, you know, what do you do? Sure. Yeah. So from that we created the exam and then we would continue to meet to refine it. Basically take to continue to take the exam ourselves to see if it was reasonable and then come up with grading levels to get it to the point where you want people to be successful. You don't want it to be easy, you don't want it to be hard. So we get to the point where we're basically at a 73 to 75% pass rate.
- [91:07]
A
And the NDA administers this.
- [91:10]
B
Yep. Through a third party. Because it's proctored. It's a proctored exam. We do one, we've been, we did one last year at the convention. But it's tough to get, you know, pay for the exam, send you guys to the convention, all that. So you can now go to. You can do it remotely with a proctor or you can go to a third party testing, testing center and take it, which is. We just got that going the last year and that seems to be the better at Avenue.
- [91:36]
A
So how many people have done this?
- [91:39]
B
I think we're up to 1 60, 1 70. Over 100 people have passed in our CDS is now. Wow.
- [91:46]
A
Really?
- [91:46]
B
Yeah, since late 23. We launched it in late 23, you know.
- [91:51]
A
And how's it been received?
- [91:52]
B
Very well. Very well. The people who take it, love it. The people who fail it, hate it. Sure. But some people have retaken it and passed it. Right. You just. And again, there's a lot of guys that are on the supervisor level that are superstars, that they're not book smart in the sense that they're not test takers.
- [92:10]
A
Yep.
- [92:11]
B
You know, which is fair. Yeah. And we're building out. Now that it's out in a row, we're building out better and better resources to help people take the exam. But we are. We do have about a 75% pass rate. And that's kind of what you're looking for. So everybody can't pass and everybody can't fail.
- [92:24]
A
Sure. You know, because it doesn't mean anything.
- [92:26]
B
Doesn't mean anything. And so one of the biggest marketing things right now is getting it on the street to the big general contractors, the big oil companies, the big auto manufacturers, the big engineering firms to start writing this into their specs so that they want on their team, you know, a cds. And we're seeing that happening now.
- [92:52]
A
Okay.
- [92:52]
B
We need to be doing a better job at it. So.
- [92:54]
A
So now the next level you've created it, now it needs to be recognized.
- [92:58]
B
Recognizing mark. You know, you can't. Until you have a product, you can't market it.
- [93:02]
A
I see.
- [93:02]
B
You know, you could market at first, but we didn't have a product.
- [93:04]
A
I see.
- [93:05]
B
So getting it out. So then it has deeper teeth. Right. You know, municipalities, big cities like Detroit has such a big demolition program. If they required it, then it's great for the industry because more people are going to go want to take the exam and become a cds.
- [93:20]
A
Yeah. Because you want more. As many people as possible becoming a CDS because that's elevating the quality of the industry.
- [93:28]
B
Yeah, it does. And everybody wins that. It's not like, well, we don't want to have too many CD because then, you know, my cachet goes down.
- [93:34]
A
You know.
- [93:35]
B
But that's not how it works because we've seen that. Right. The better demolition companies are getting better and better. The guys who run the better equipment to train the better people, they do the best work and they grow their companies. And then people want to work with them. Go figure. You know? Yeah. So. And then on the individual. So that's the business. And then on the individual side, I'm a CDS and I'm looking for a new job. And then as an employer, what's the first thing I'm looking for in a restaurant? Resume. I know this guy has the baseline.
- [94:03]
A
Sure.
- [94:03]
B
That I'm looking for.
- [94:04]
A
Yeah. So you have to. You. But you have to recognize, you have to educate all the members of the NDA as well. On.
- [94:10]
B
Of the value.
- [94:11]
A
The value.
- [94:12]
B
Yeah. And this thing's just kicking off. We're really two years into this thing. Yeah. You know, and it's got legs now. So we just got to keep moving it along and keep people excited. And then there's a three year. Then there's a recertification Process after every two. After three years. Years. So. And that's basically just coming up with all your criteria again, that you have maintained, all of your osha, your first aid, your cpr, professional training, like going to the convention or going to someone else's convention. But you're doing things for professional development.
- [94:44]
A
Like, does Dirt World equal.
- [94:46]
B
We could do it.
- [94:47]
A
Let's do it. Yeah.
- [94:49]
B
Yeah. I'll run it up the flag. Anything professional development that's related to the industry has value. Right.
- [94:56]
A
We've got professional development.
- [94:57]
B
See, I know you tell you, look at this. Everybody wins.
- [95:00]
A
Which, you know, what companies have taken to this most?
- [95:04]
B
You know, of course, Milburn, Homrich, Ramon. North American Dismantling. They got a ton of guys who've gone through this. Okay. Linda Mood. Yeah. In fact, Annie from Linda Mood is now on our board.
- [95:18]
A
Texas.
- [95:18]
B
Texas. Great guys. Great family business. Great story there.
- [95:24]
A
They're a customer of ours.
- [95:25]
B
Yep. I mean, they're a big dirt. Big demo. And they came from a, you know, father and son with a shovel.
- [95:30]
A
I love that.
- [95:31]
B
And super nice people. D.H. griffin. Sure. Big in it. A lot of the big names. Brandenburg's in there. I think Vice got a guy in there.
- [95:41]
A
Okay.
- [95:42]
B
And it's good. It's important to get, you know, a lot of the guys that, you know, guys are on the board, too, so they're helping promote it. The Don was going to guy in there. Now, Dixon out of North. Yeah. Northwest Washington. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Dixon just got on. He's on the executive board now. He's the treasurer. Yeah. We haven't had a lot of representation from the. From the west in a long time. So it was nice to get somebody, you know, geographically around the country. We had been heavy in the east, always heavy in the Midwest. So it's good to bring people in from.
- [96:13]
A
In the.
- [96:13]
B
In.
- [96:13]
A
You know, the west is much different than the Midwest is much different than the east, and the Northeast is much different than the Southeast. And.
- [96:20]
B
Yeah, we're. We are so different. Yeah. In a Geography. Geography matters.
- [96:26]
A
Oh, it does.
- [96:27]
B
Yeah. So it's been well received. And it's a. It's, you know, from the individual, it's. It's a badge of honor, you know, I mean, it raises you up in the world of what you do. Right. Everybody always would feel good about what they do. Now it doesn't. You always knew how to do what you were doing. You were doing a good job, obviously, if you. If you passed the exam. But now people know, you know, you're a little different than the Other guy.
- [96:49]
A
Yeah, but why, you know, why. Why shouldn't, why shouldn't that have some weight to it?
- [96:54]
B
Right.
- [96:54]
A
Why shouldn't that carry the same weight that, you know, the, like, school stuff in schooling. You know, you go get an MBA and you feel more special, which is sometimes not the best thing.
- [97:05]
B
Yeah.
- [97:07]
A
But there's this sense of pride to it. Like there should be that sense of pride within demolition, within the trades. But you, you have to legitimize it.
- [97:17]
B
I mean. Yeah. You have to create a passion for. I mean, you get a degree and you've got a degree, but you don't have any. You don't have anything to, to hang your hat on. You got the degree first. We're certifying people that have proven.
- [97:28]
A
Yes.
- [97:28]
B
That they do this work every day and they do it at a high level.
- [97:31]
A
Yeah. So you have to have five years experience.
- [97:34]
B
Five years in the door. Yeah. Five out of seven. Five out of last seven years proven experience. So your employer, if you're in the union, could be the union, it could be a customer. There's different tracks to prove that, but you have to bring that to the table.
- [97:47]
A
And this is union, non Union. Yep.
- [97:49]
B
Yep. Which is the association is 100 either way.
- [97:52]
A
Amazing.
- [97:52]
B
Yeah.
- [97:53]
A
So it applies to the whole country.
- [97:54]
B
Yeah. But we did have a. We had Jim Erwitz, he was a union rep for the Luna and he, he was on our board. He's retired, but he's coming back on the board. And he had experience in certification and he was a tremendous asset through this whole process. Great guy. So. No, so we did have, you know, we had that. We had an engineer on the board with us outside because one of the members has to be outside of industry. So really deep, really deep bench of people.
- [98:20]
A
Well, I think. But that's, that's what makes it so cool too. Is it? It's coming from the industry and, and it's not being forced down from osha, for example, OSHA saying you guys have to do this.
- [98:31]
B
And you're like, right on our end. We want to push OSHA and the Corps of Engineers and the TVA and.
- [98:39]
A
Yeah.
- [98:39]
B
That how important this is to be in their specifications. But that's, I feel like that's how it should be. Right.
- [98:45]
A
That's. I mean, I appreciate some stuff coming down, you know, top down. But I think you should be. It should be coming bottom up too, for lack of a better term. Like it should be pushed from both ways.
- [98:57]
B
I mean, to some point you have to sell it. Yeah. But you know, this thing has been so meticulously built by Yenny and the team that our goal is anti. Sort of anti accreditation. And it's being built. That's why it's just so methodical. So many just pain points. Points to get there.
- [99:12]
A
And that's like the federal stamp of approval, basically.
- [99:17]
B
Basically, yeah. Yeah. But it takes years and it takes X amount. I don't know the number in my head, but it takes X amount of people who have passed the exam and recertified the exam. So legitimizes the product. Okay. That ANSI will look at it. But they have these requirements. And Yenny is just so specific about, you know, how this thing has been built out. This has been methodical. This has been a bunch of guys just having some beers and saying, hey, let's throw some questions on a test and.
- [99:41]
A
Yeah. Make ourselves look better. And you're.
- [99:43]
B
And then you're. You're a cds. You know, I mean, we're not cds. I mean, we could. They told us we could take the exam and become CDs because we wrote the exam. I said, well, that's not something that doesn't make any sense. That's not fair. I don't need that. You know, I didn't. I didn't earn that.
- [99:56]
A
What's. What's ansi?
- [99:59]
B
So it's the ANSI standard. Yeah.
- [100:02]
A
So, yeah, but they're another.
- [100:05]
B
They run. They run. Their standards run concurrent, you know, in line with like OSHA standards. Yeah. On training, on equipment, you know, setting the bar, you know. Yeah. Underwriters Laboratory. But they're. That ANC standard has.
- [100:21]
A
Has meat, you know, and now you all are in like phase two of this. Yeah.
- [100:26]
B
Which is the certified demolition technician. Okay. You're high end labor.
- [100:32]
A
Yeah.
- [100:32]
B
Right. Which we're launching right now. We actually think we have 40 or so people taking the exam in the next month.
- [100:37]
A
Is that right?
- [100:38]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's just coming out of the box. It was a hell of a lot easier to build once we had the. Once we had the framework.
- [100:43]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [100:44]
B
Because I'll tell you, when we started the cds, I'm like, we didn't know how this was coming together, how we're doing the item writing. We finally able to get together as a group, like meet it. You know, go to D.C. and meet and from. You know, get rid of the zoom calls and the amount of work you can do with eight or 10 people in a room face to face for a couple of days. Yes. And everybody that's on the team and even new board members, they're so passionate about this and they get so much out of it that we all keep going. They say, listen, we're going to go to D.C. in October on this date. We're going to go to Chicago and everybody goes, okay, I'll be there. Everybody shows up.
- [101:16]
A
Are you all, how are you paying for this? Does every company just kind of.
- [101:20]
B
Indeed. The NDA funds it.
- [101:22]
A
The NDA funds, yeah.
- [101:23]
B
So we're a separate board. We're an entity of the NDA, but there's a wall, there's a, you know, the executive board doesn't have control over it. They give us recommendations and we run with the recommendations. And then when it comes to, to creating criteria for resources, the safety committee can, can create criteria. But like the NDA, in the NDA Safety and NDA Foundations of Demolition, they can be part of the criteria, but they can't be the criteria. There have to be other resources. Has to be, you know, we have to be a separate entity. So the NDA funds it and then the cost of taking the exam will eventually cover the cost of it.
- [102:03]
A
I see.
- [102:03]
B
You know, but right now the NDA has budgeted money to get this off the ground because it really is a member service. But at the end of the day it has to fund itself.
- [102:12]
A
Yeah. Yes, yes. The. Now the certified demolition technician. That's that more sophisticated labor.
- [102:20]
B
Yeah, it's a two year, you know, you've been in the industry for two years. Okay. You're, you're more of a skilled. Right.
- [102:28]
A
So it's, it's more so about the fundamentals.
- [102:30]
B
Safety, Safety.
- [102:32]
A
Number one, a little less leadership.
- [102:33]
B
A lot less leadership. But you could be a labor foreman, you could be a burner, you could be a skid steer operator, depending on what market you in. Or you're running Sherpers, or you're running demolition tools, you're doing rigging interior wise. And it's really about. Again, let's start at the labor level and let's bring them up. Yeah, right. So let's showcase these people. Let's showcase them for the company. Let's showcase them for their future with other companies. Right. And then let's show them the past path to becoming a demolition supervisor. So now you're, you're working a shovel all day long, which I hate to see. Or you're pushing a wheelbarrow, which I hate to see it because we have all the technician, all the technology, which you don't have to push a wheelbarrow anymore. You can stand behind a battery machine with a, with A dumper and, and you can see a path. You've had a long day, you've been cut with a gas cutoffs all day. You've had a long day. But you see these guys that they're now working their way up to become a technician. Um, and now that technician wants to work his way up, become a supervisor. And there's just this career path and there's opportunity for all sides. And the most exciting thing about it is with, with our, our workforce, we'll launch this exam in Spanish.
- [103:45]
A
I was going to say it has to be in Spanish, right?
- [103:47]
B
Yeah, yeah, it has to be in Spanish. And it was a little bit of a fight because there's such a cost to it to do it correctly. You know, you can't Google it, you can't Google Translate.
- [103:54]
A
Yeah. You know, exam. Yeah. It's not always, it's not always perfect.
- [103:57]
B
Right. And when you think about so many of our workers coming from South America, just because you speak Spanish, it's not the same Spanish.
- [104:05]
A
No, it's all different.
- [104:06]
B
Right. Spanish. And Panama is not Spanish.
- [104:08]
A
And Nicaragua, I mean, even Guatemala is different than Mexico. Right. Next to each other.
- [104:13]
B
It's like English in the United States.
- [104:14]
A
Yeah.
- [104:15]
B
Bring a guy from Boston to California. Right.
- [104:17]
A
And then Cuba's.
- [104:18]
B
Yep.
- [104:18]
A
Different. And then Brazil and then different language.
- [104:20]
B
And then the Puerto Rican people and Dominicans. And so it's been a process, but this September we're supposed to have that done and that's going to change everything. So imagine you're on the immigrant side and you work in demolition and you want to do better for your family. And now you can start elevating yourself, you know, and you're elevating yourself, your company, you're elevating yourself individually, you're elevating the market. It's. It changes everything.
- [104:45]
A
And so the goal, I mean, you'll eventually build out this whole framework, I'm sure. Operators on the list. Right?
- [104:50]
B
Operators on the list. And they're like micro certification. So for the cds, it will become, you know, almost like, you know, badges. Like. Oh, like having hazmat certificates, you know, so you'll have other, you know, to, you know, extend your knowledge base.
- [105:03]
A
Okay.
- [105:04]
B
Because maybe you're a guy that just takes down four story buildings. That's cool.
- [105:07]
A
Yeah. You don't need the interior.
- [105:08]
B
Maybe a guy that just does interiors. Or maybe you're a guy that's, that's, you know, working his way up the pipeline to be taking down power plants. I see we're working at a whole different level.
- [105:17]
A
That's the power plant stuff.
- [105:18]
B
A different world to another world. Right. But everybody's getting in them, you know, even though maybe we should stop wrecking them because we need the coal.
- [105:25]
A
Well, you know, there was a. Yes, they're starting to, they're starting to roll back.
- [105:31]
B
They're going wrecking some of them.
- [105:32]
A
Oh boy, are they. Because now, now that the tech companies that were just a few years ago saying let's wreck them all are like, but how do we get power for our data centers? But that's beside the point. They were wrecking when we were in Germany, a power plant that was six years years old.
- [105:47]
B
Six years old, yeah. Because the environmentalist. Right, yeah.
- [105:51]
A
What are you doing?
- [105:53]
B
Right?
- [105:54]
A
What are you doing? I mean boy, is it scary. Like every time I see another power plant get torn down now I'm like, ah, you don't just build those. Right. You don't. They come down. I mean it takes a while to take them down, but they come down faster than they go back up. So like are we, I know, I know it's good work. I know everybody's making money, but is.
- [106:17]
B
It takes a little while to build a nuclear power plant?
- [106:20]
A
Well, we're, the nuclear power plant thing we're not very good at.
- [106:23]
B
Yeah, yeah, we're getting there though. It's, it's kind of exciting that maybe they say so people waking up, you know, and I was talking to someone the other day about three years of saying that there's a plant going up and they think they can do it. Three years.
- [106:37]
A
Yeah, they've said that about other plants.
- [106:39]
B
That turned into 15. Yeah. Well it's a little different now with some of these plants are going up being funded by the, you know, the data center they projects because they have no power, you know, I mean city's worth of power to run these things. Yeah. You know, so yeah, so I mean that's the big deal is that to give these people an opportunity, the company's an opportunity, an industry, an opportunity to showcase, you know, how important the industry is, how important the people that work in the industry are and that these people have opportunities. Opportunity.
- [107:08]
A
I, I, I, I mean I think that's one of the most important programs I've heard of within the whole construction industry.
- [107:15]
B
If you asked, honestly six or seven years ago, I would have told you it was never going to happen. And we had the right people in the right place. And then on the volunteer side, I mean, you know, the NDA reimburses us for flying to, to D.C. for three days. But you know, but you donate your time.
- [107:29]
A
Sure.
- [107:29]
B
And you're out of the office for three days. Are you trying to work in, in work on this? And like I say the team that's involved in it and the new people coming, they won't do stop. We're supposed to be rolling people off this board, myself included. And the relationships you build, the work that you're doing, the results you're just seeing, it's just too much fun.
- [107:45]
A
But that, that's where, that's why I think it happened in, in demolition first. I don't think it could have happened in other tangents of the industry because the level of collaboration is just better. It's nothing within demolition. I mean you guys are, you guys are really close compared to other. It's just, just, it's kind of odd and we're trying to get rid of that with the summit and, and, and it's not really as present with the summit.
- [108:12]
B
It takes a long time.
- [108:14]
A
It. But it takes a long time because everybody's so used to just like fighting to death.
- [108:19]
B
But when you find, when you find like minded people and then you find, you know, you know, morals are the same family, everybody's on the same team. And again we talk about the same problems. Like you haven't like don't about talk, talk to me. Unless you've had to make a payroll.
- [108:31]
A
Yeah. You know. Yeah.
- [108:33]
B
And then you stop building these relationships. Then all of a sudden you know, you're going on vacations together that are outside of the industry but. And you build in your best friends. Some of your best friends in the world.
- [108:41]
A
Yeah. I mean there's, there's the immediate benefits. But I think this fact is essential for the industry's survival long term. I think they're, and it's not their fault. This wasn't intentional. But there's all these other bigger businesses out there, more consolidated businesses that have taken advantage of the, that fact fact that all these contractors just fight one another.
- [109:00]
B
Right.
- [109:01]
A
And so they can extract their percentage, whatever it is. And it's insurance, it's legal, it's the general contractors, it's materials, it's equipment. You can go down the list. They're all far more consolidated and they, they make very good money. A lot of them are public. You could google how much money they make and it's like, it's right there.
- [109:17]
B
Yeah.
- [109:17]
A
You're not hiding it. But, but they've taken advantage of this, this, this fragmentation. And I think the industry really in the different ways demolition, civil Concrete, whatever. They. They have to come together and start thinking like one cohesive unit, or else it just doesn't work.
- [109:38]
B
Right. But I also think it's a fact, you know, we've had it as an industry. We've had a chip on our shoulder for 100 years. You know, Is that, you know, just the demo guys?
- [109:46]
A
Yeah, yeah, just the demo guys.
- [109:48]
B
You guys knock down, right? You guys blow stuff up. So, you know, to build out, you know, these products and to give people the opportunity to train and get people better and use the best technology and incorporate their own ideas and their own passions, it just. It makes you want to do the job.
- [110:03]
A
Yeah.
- [110:04]
B
You know?
- [110:04]
A
Yeah.
- [110:05]
B
Which is what's awesome.
- [110:06]
A
I find it. I find it extremely exciting. So that's when they. When. When Jeff and Don reached out about you coming on, it was like, I would love to talk to you guys about this because I've been. I've been following along for years.
- [110:18]
B
Right.
- [110:18]
A
Like, through Don James Milburn.
- [110:21]
B
Yeah. So you have that connection. So you've seen it happening.
- [110:23]
A
I've seen it.
- [110:24]
B
What they do. Like, you talk. Talk about them. I mean, they. They run a fan that's a family business, and they run a legit operation, and they got great people. Yeah, we've pulled, you know, Don's pulled some of their guys. Yay. Yay. Is one of their guys, and he's. They brought them to, like, to help write content. And I've sat with these guys. I'm like, some of these guys are smarter than me.
- [110:43]
A
Holy shit.
- [110:44]
B
Brain surgeons in the industry, man, you know, especially in the knowledge of safety and asbestos. And what those should require is an epa. And these guys, guys, you know, not born in this country, learned English, you know, and they're smart, smart dudes, but they're.
- [111:00]
A
They're true professionals.
- [111:02]
B
Right? And I want to. I want them to know that they are.
- [111:04]
A
Yes. Yeah. Like, they deserve.
- [111:06]
B
Yes, they.
- [111:07]
A
They deserve what you are providing them because they've earned it. Like, they're. They're. They're true professionals. And they're no different than a dentist, than a accredited chef, than a. Than a lawyer. Like, it's that level of skill. It's just applied differently. It looks different, but it's that. It's that level of skill, arguably, I think, in a lot of ways, sometimes higher. I mean, it's. Some of these guys are. It's like the upper echelon of medicine. I mean, they've spent 20 years studying this subject.
- [111:35]
B
Right.
- [111:36]
A
And they're studying it not all of the time. With their brain. Sometimes they're studying it just with their hands and just through brute force, but a lot of times with their brain too. And, and this, the knowledge base they've built, it's, it's no different than an enormous knowledge base within these more esteemed type careers.
- [111:55]
B
Well, you have to build on your experience because you have to come up with creative solutions. No two jobs are the same.
- [111:59]
A
No.
- [111:59]
B
So you have to. Either you've, you fucked it up so now you know how to do it, right. Yeah. Or you did something one way and said, wait a minute, we did it like X the last time. What if we did it this way, pivoted a little bit and then all of a sudden, you know, you blow the ball budget out. You know, I mean you're going to take the, you can take this building down mechanically. What if we cable this thing and we cut it, we tip it this way and.
- [112:22]
A
Yeah.
- [112:22]
B
We use these machines and all of a sudden it's on the ground now in the field. Figured that out, you know, and then me with a safety plan and you know, the engineer, you know, your in house engineering whatnot. But that wasn't the estimated. Didn't figure that out.
- [112:33]
A
No.
- [112:33]
B
You know, so the creativity is crazy. And then the fact you got to be able to pivot, you got to come up with new ideas all the time. What's that thing make the plan. Plan, Work the plan. When the plan blows up, come with a new plan. I mean, that's demolition every day.
- [112:47]
A
It is every day.
- [112:48]
B
Every day. It's pouring rain out today and it's just, we got nothing but mud. What are we going to do with a high reach? Where the high reach.
- [112:54]
A
Hose.
- [112:54]
B
Hose busted, hose busting. The high reach. Right. And then the high reach is only good. You know, high reaches are. They're methodical machines, but they're slow.
- [113:00]
A
They're really slow.
- [113:01]
B
So you're going to get down to a certain elevation and then you're going to take that out of service. You're going to bring the next machine. But then, you know, and then the high reach guys, you know, not everybody can run a high reach, so. No.
- [113:12]
A
And not everybody has a high reach.
- [113:13]
B
No. And sometimes you just want to hire them out, let them do the work and then, and then get that machine off the site. Because it's such a specialized machine.
- [113:20]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they, they require. Yeah. A lot of space and.
- [113:24]
B
Yep. And it takes a lot of trucking and a lot of putting together. But so many jobs, like in our market, they're so tight. Yeah. You gotta have them. You know but they. A lot of they sit they. I always say they run themselves out of work.
- [113:35]
A
Well a friend of mine just ordered one one and he has the option. It might even be an oil quick boom. But the option for the excavator.
- [113:45]
B
Yeah. Most of the guys get the. Get the short stick.
- [113:47]
A
Yeah. So you can just your utilization. You can.
- [113:51]
B
You can do like 3 4. 34 story down wrecking and then you can be low doing. Doing foundations and. Yeah. And whatnot on those machines. But then you know there's usually you get the support machines with the hammers on them because you don't want to put a hammer on one of those.
- [114:02]
A
Yeah, well wreck them. Yes.
- [114:04]
B
I mean a pie. I mean when you're. I mean some of these big machines, it's amazing the. The weight of a hammer you can put up there.
- [114:09]
A
Oh the tool. The work tools you can put at height. Like you don't. It's hard to conceptualize it sometimes. But then you see the tool and you're like wait, wait, that can go how many feet up in the air? And that's. And like it can function that high and, and, and and you have that much weight that far up and your machine's not just waving back and forth like about to top.
- [114:31]
B
Just wait for the boom. This. I mean the weight of the tool at the top of the boom. The whole stick should come off the machine. Engineering is phenomenal. Yeah, it's. And they've just gotten better and better as the demand's gotten bigger and bigger. Like Volvo and Cat on. They wouldn't spend the money if they weren't making the money. So they continue to innovate because of the demand and because we got less people we get want to do you know what used to have 30 guys in a job you're doing with 10 because of the technology. Yeah.
- [114:55]
A
And then you've got the aftermarket guys to do some crazy cool stuff too like KTAG and.
- [114:59]
B
Yeah, yeah. Concur and yeah. And then you see the stuff to build on the Liber platforms like the one that Harmich has and.
- [115:05]
A
Yeah.
- [115:06]
B
Yeah. It's just insanity.
- [115:07]
A
The levers. I'm telling you, those library machines, those demolition machines. Yeah, that is. That's the cat's meow right there.
- [115:14]
B
It's awesome to watch. I'm not sure I want to pay.
- [115:15]
A
For one, but I'm happy I'm not paying for them.
- [115:19]
B
But they seem to be working.
- [115:20]
A
Boy oh boy.
- [115:22]
B
But again it's. So when you Start if you think of one before high reach machines and then the first High reach machines comes out in yala comes out and it makes it come comes out and then you have the cat's meow, right? You got the, you got the new newest toy in the chest and now you out, you go out market that machine and now people are hiring you because you have that machine and then everybody else starts getting the high reaches. But then now the client says oh no, where's your high reach? Yeah, no, we want it, we want to write it in the spec. So we're doing the same thing with the, with the certification. You know initially you're going to be the catch meow but then it's going to get to the point where it's going to be the, we're going to get it to the point where it's going to be demanded in the, in the specification. But just like you know, what's it, what's the low hanging fruit? Everybody on the job site has to have an OSHA 10 card. You know your grandmother get OSHA 10 card.
- [116:08]
A
An OSHA 10 card means nothing, nothing.
- [116:10]
B
You know, you don't have to get recertified on. It's just a dried up piece of.
- [116:14]
A
Paper in your wallet and most of it is completely irrelevant information. Yeah, I mean that is like even, even 30, it's like I mean maybe 10% of this is helpful but a lot of of it's just, it's kind of junk.
- [116:25]
B
Right. But at least, at least when you did the 30 it took a little bit more than a 10 hour class that someone did in five hours.
- [116:31]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [116:32]
B
But that's the, that's the, that's the low hanging fruit. Right? That's the, that's the, that's the bare minimum to get one of our guys in a job site is an OSHA 10 card.
- [116:39]
A
No, and I, and I, and I get why they have it and it does show some level of commitment or some level of understanding. So I do, I do get it. Like I think I'm.
- [116:50]
B
You need to have the oyster training for the lifts, you know.
- [116:53]
A
Yeah.
- [116:53]
B
You know to be in the boom lifts and the big system.
- [116:54]
A
Well that's for good reason because a lot of people have fallen off, launched.
- [116:57]
B
Out of those things not being tied in. Right. But then there's still the battle being tied off on a sizzle lift, you know and if I'm on a 19 foot sizzle lift, I'd rather take my rich, I'd rather jump, you know. But if I'm in a 60 foot boom and it's a catapult. I really want to be, I really want to go along for the ride.
- [117:12]
A
And you know, you don't really appreciate how much those things move around so much. Oh, do they move? And they're not comfortable.
- [117:20]
B
We had, we had some guys in a 135JLG 135 recently and you couldn't put me up in the thing and they killed it. And I'm like. And you watch that move. One of those guys, two guys in the basket and one guy moves and the whole machine's going five feet.
- [117:34]
A
Yeah.
- [117:34]
B
In either direction.
- [117:35]
A
We were in a salt mine underground in Germany and they put us up. It was like 100 plus feet up in the mine. These monster caverns underground. And they had have to, these guys have to go up there with poles and, and knock the salt, scale the, the top. Yeah. So doesn't fall on the guys working for safety.
- [117:53]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [117:54]
A
And they were just like, don't move around too much because the whole thing sways and you're a hundred plus feet up. It's crazy. And those guys are working from it all day.
- [118:05]
B
No problem.
- [118:06]
A
I mean we had harnesses on obviously.
- [118:07]
B
Yeah. But still that, that's an amusement ride.
- [118:09]
A
It's an amusement ride. Yeah. That's not a stable.
- [118:12]
B
But that's all anybody uses anymore. I mean you go on a job, job site and there's 50 boomless. There's 50. You know, the rental companies are just loving it. But that's what's on the job. We're not scaffolding the buildings anymore if we don't have to. There's that cost is gone. We're not using ladders. We're not standing on the top of a six foot step ladder because everybody's using. You know, it's cheap to get a, you know, 450 bucks a month gets a 19 foot sizzle lift on a job. Yeah, get the scissors there, Put the guys in the lifts. Run safe, safety, run safely. Make them better at what they do.
- [118:44]
A
You know, I'm, I'm really excited about what you all are doing. Like yeah, it's super cool.
- [118:51]
B
It's crazy. On top of that, you know, we built out the foundations of Demolition. Our 40 hour certification program that was just, just like right after, right after we started with Smith Buckland, it was another thing that we said we could never do, like have a certificate. A certificate program where you gave people, you know, project management, management field, engineering, estimating, you know, all in you know, basically five, four, five eight hour classes and then they get a 40 hour certificate. They said well you couldn't do it. And then we did it. And then we have, you know, we have demolition members who, who teach these classes. You know, they volunteer their time. They paid a stipend for showing up and building the curriculum them and we fill them every time. We do them every quarter. We do it two or three a quarter. 35, 40 people. We just do one on engineer. You know, basically engineering a takedown with, with some engine engineer from Thornton Thomasetti and a group of people, 50 people.
- [119:49]
A
I would love to.
- [119:50]
B
We're there, we're there in June at this meeting and then they said what's going to die? Well, you know, this will start off fast but it'll die off. We've been doing it for six years now, seven years now.
- [120:00]
A
But if it's good helpful information, it's not going to die.
- [120:02]
B
And our safety, our, in our education committees, they're constantly refreshing, bringing in new people that teach the classes and they sell every single time.
- [120:13]
A
But that, but that's, that's the like, that's like the main point is like. But that's, that's, that's proof that it's quality information. Like the stuff that dies sucks.
- [120:22]
B
Right.
- [120:22]
A
Like it's, it's, it's, it's just demand. It's, it's. Your product sucks.
- [120:26]
B
Right.
- [120:27]
A
So that's why people don't want your product.
- [120:28]
B
And it's demolition specific. Yeah.
- [120:30]
A
This is a great product.
- [120:31]
B
Nobody else is teaching us.
- [120:32]
A
No, it probably. It doesn't exist in. Yes, yes.
- [120:35]
B
And then they come every time and everybody loves it and then they send more people, which is the thing, right. So now if we've got guys taking the CBN and they're in their certification for the supervisors and they send more people.
- [120:50]
A
Yeah.
- [120:51]
B
Then they must be seeing value.
- [120:53]
A
Very good. If people want to get information on this, it's all through National Demolition.
- [121:01]
B
Go to our website, there's a certification page page there. You can get a hold of Yenny and she'll help in any way she can. If you want, if you want to take the exam, if you want to get more information about the exams, especially the, the technician exam coming up. I'm very excited about that.
- [121:16]
A
Can I, can I, if I'm just a guy, can I just sign up for it? Does my company have to do it?
- [121:21]
B
You don't have to be a member. Pay a little more for the exam. But no, I don't know why you wouldn't become a member. If you're passionate enough about taking the CDS exam, you should be a member of the, the NDA and you should be. I mean our membership is like $2400 a year. It's low hang. It's low.
- [121:36]
A
Yeah.
- [121:37]
B
And it gets you in the door. And then start coming to the board meetings because now at the board meetings we have, we have a professional day where we're bringing speakers. You know, we have, we have dinner and cocktail receptions where you're meeting all your peers around the country. And the ones that really see value in it, they keep coming. And luckily, like I say, we're seeing some, we're seeing new blood coming in consistently. And then you bring your family. This is a family business. It's a family association. I mean people bring their wives, they bring their kids. You watch them grow up. I mean, I have friends that, you know, the kids are in high school now. I was with them when they were babies and strollers and we're still good friends. And I watch their kids grow up.
- [122:15]
A
In this, the, the convention as well. That information, it's all on a website.
- [122:20]
B
It's in Phoenix, February 4th. I think it starts on Wednesday, February 4th. This year. I really want to make it. I do. I do want to live Demolition probably on the 5th, right around, but don't quote me. It's all on the website. And again our buy in to come to the show because we have so many vendors, it's like 7, 800 bucks a person. What's. And you get so much and we feed you and you know, and we have, you know, the exhibitors and then we have events at night and it's all just, it's getting people together.
- [122:49]
A
Yeah.
- [122:50]
B
And then bring, bring your people, expose your people. You know, if you're a member of the NDA and you know about the NDA and you come to the convention and you're not bringing your people and rewarding your people and exposing them to what else is going on in the industry and allowing them to make friends in the industry, you're doing yourself a disservice because they come back so pumped up, so excited, so ready to go. And then when one of their guys becomes a demo certified demos and superv advisor, you know, the guy's going to want to become one and then your tech guys are going to your, you know, the laborers are going to want to do more and they want to come up the ladder and they only want to learn more. And then your business is going to go crazy. You know, people are going to want to work with you, people are going to want to work for you. And then, you know, your production goes up.
- [123:36]
A
Yep.
- [123:37]
B
You make more money and you make more money. Go figure. And everybody makes more money. And if you're working for a good company, if they're making more, more money, you all making more money.
- [123:46]
A
That's, you know, a lot of people don't understand that.
- [123:48]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [123:49]
A
It's.
- [123:50]
B
The good companies understand it. They understand it. They take care of their people. You know, the good companies, they said they eat the wounds and they pay for the, they pay for the wins.
- [123:58]
A
Yeah.
- [123:59]
B
And then everybody wins.
- [124:00]
A
Very good.
- [124:01]
B
Yeah.
- [124:01]
A
Well, I very much appreciate you flying down to talk about this.
- [124:05]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [124:06]
A
Do you think the NDA will be happy about us?
- [124:08]
B
I hope so. I'm free. So that you get what you get, you don't regret. Right.
- [124:13]
A
You don't.
- [124:13]
B
You get what you pay for, you know?
- [124:15]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [124:16]
B
I've been a big advocate. That's why they keep dragging me back in. And again, the relationships you build, the friendships you make. My, my best friends in the world are from the NDA.
- [124:24]
A
No, but I, I think you're a very effective spokesperson. Unofficial spokesperson for all this too, because you're just a guy that's been in demolition.
- [124:31]
B
Yeah.
- [124:32]
A
Like you're not, you're. This isn't your job to do all this. You're just doing this to set the industry up.
- [124:38]
B
I just pride if the NDA wins right than that. It's just, it's just a Friday. I'm in Nashville and hope you get on a plane to go back to Maine.
- [124:45]
A
But we didn't even talk about your day job.
- [124:47]
B
Yeah, yeah, I actually have one.
- [124:49]
A
Yeah, you actually have a day job.
- [124:50]
B
Yeah.
- [124:50]
A
You actually building demolition?
- [124:53]
B
Yeah, demolition and concrete in the Boston area. TRM Concrete out of Plainville, Mass.
- [124:57]
A
Okay.
- [124:58]
B
They let me, they let me do what I want to do when I want to do it, you know. So it's a family owned business.
- [125:03]
A
Sure.
- [125:05]
B
So, you know, that's. So it's been great to be able to, able to, you know, bring them into the demolition a little bit and. But again, have the flexibility to do, you know, again, if I want to hop on a plane and go to D.C. to work on the board to do some with the NDA, I can just, I can go and do that.
- [125:20]
A
Yeah. Maybe we should have pointed that out when we began that you have a job.
- [125:23]
B
Yeah, actually, I know nobody pays me to talk about the NDA. You know, I wouldn't I wouldn't be able to do too well, you know, I mean, my bourbon, you know, and go to the beach, but. So that's awesome.
- [125:35]
A
All right. Well, yeah, thanks again for coming down.
- [125:37]
B
Thanks for having us. Been a great experience. And hopefully, I assume you're going to come to the convention.
- [125:42]
A
Hopefully we'll see the convention.
- [125:43]
B
Yeah.
- [125:44]
A
Sweet.
- [125:44]
B
We'll go from there.
- [125:46]
A
All right.
- [125:46]
B
All right.