← Living Your Legacy
Loading summary
Transcript103 lines
- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to another episode of living your legacy podcast for inside success. I'm Ray Gutierrez. Today, another legacy maker, Clayton Curtis. Bub. How are you feeling, my friend from top tier line work?
- [00:14]
B
I'm feeling good. Feeling. Feeling good.
- [00:17]
A
You better be. We just filmed. We just finished filming your episode.
- [00:20]
B
I know. Yeah, a lot, man. I was like everything was coming at once and I didn't know what to say sometimes. But I think it went all right.
- [00:28]
A
Right on, dude. Where are you coming from?
- [00:29]
B
Branson, Missouri.
- [00:31]
A
Right on, dude. Are you often in Miami?
- [00:33]
B
Never in Miami ever in my life until today. Until yesterday. And I will ride it out until Tuesday because we'll see what Miami's about. Cool.
- [00:41]
A
Well, I hope day one didn't disappoint.
- [00:43]
B
No, no, it didn't. It didn't.
- [00:45]
A
Well, you're in for a treat. You're in for quite a summer because quite for a weekend. I think it's a holiday on Monday.
- [00:50]
B
Yeah, yeah. Labor Day.
- [00:51]
A
All right.
- [00:52]
B
On.
- [00:52]
A
Well, welcome. Welcome aboard. Dude, what are we going to learn about you in your episode?
- [00:56]
B
You guys are going to learn basically kind of my backstory to where. How I became entrepreneur, kind of what drove me as my work drive. And then you're going to learn about top tier line works, the company that I've built. Kind of what we mean. And you know what, what we do, We're a communication business. So we build what you stream off of all the Internet that's provided to you. Our lineman crew is the. Is the ones that place it. So whenever you hear linemen, I mean, obviously most people think power lineman or we're putting power back on top tier partners with co ops to put up their fiber because they don't know much about fiber.
- [01:37]
A
So you're literally the series of tubes.
- [01:39]
B
That's right.
- [01:40]
A
Holy.
- [01:41]
B
Yes.
- [01:43]
A
I am starstruck. You are a celebrity in my field.
- [01:49]
B
Wow. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So we provide a meme in the.
- [01:52]
A
In the 90s, the Internet is a series of tubes.
- [01:55]
B
My God. Yes. Wonderful. That's right. Yes. Nice to meet you. So, yeah, we provide all the fiber optics around. We get a lot of gamers, streamers that love it.
- [02:07]
A
Holy. I love our beam of the butthead laugh. Dude. I am starstruck. What a way to end.
- [02:17]
B
Yeah.
- [02:17]
A
So how the hell do you make the world, I don't know, move? Like, what's the. It's got to be a pain in the ass to get fiber through. Through the ground. All the regulations, all the. It is like Google versus at and please walk me through the nightmare so.
- [02:30]
B
Like people don't understand like fiber. So let's say for instance, 48 count. That's a, that's a fiber that we put up. That's pretty popular. Right. So when you look at it, it's just a black tube that's like this, that's coated. But then when you, when you crack into it, it's got 48 fibers that is in there. And these fibers are like, if you pull a hair and you look at a hair, that's what they look like. And they're glass tubes. And so what a lot of people don't understand is when these fiber runs that we get put on, they're no cut fiber runs. So they'll like to start from point A and you're going to pull it to point B. 15,000 foot down.
- [03:12]
A
Yeah.
- [03:13]
B
Through zigzags and through 90s without breaking any of these fiber tubes. Yeah, yeah. And so we'll go through and jig out. We'll have to like. Let's say we get a 15, 000 foot run. We'll have to set up in the middle or, or find a breaking point, send it one way, tension back to that trailer and then spit out the remaining footage and go the other way. Because when that fiber gets put under a certain pressure of a bend radius.
- [03:37]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [03:38]
B
You'll ruin your whole run.
- [03:39]
A
Holy moly.
- [03:40]
B
I've got to pay for that.
- [03:41]
A
So like that's the. Sounds intense. Before we get to the nitty gritty, literally, it's this literally sounds like Roswell technology. Like I've. I've got to say, like Internet fiber Blackhawks.
- [03:53]
B
It's crazy.
- [03:55]
A
Do you feel sometimes like this is not human tech?
- [03:58]
B
No, absolutely. I mean, absolutely. And I'm the one that's installing it. And so it gets crazy because like you could take a whole reel of 20,000 foot reel untouched on. Just crack it open and shine a light. Like we'll have. We'll have. Yeah, we'll have a light that. Testing a light. And we'll shine it at the end of that tube or the end of that fiber and it'll roll through that whole 20,000 foot reel and shoot a red light out the other end. Holy moly. Absolutely insane that then it's that quick. Nothing's faster than speed of light.
- [04:26]
A
Yeah, I was just gonna say that's kind of what I think life is. And our brains are just filtering it and it's called life.
- [04:31]
B
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.
- [04:32]
A
Holy. I nailed it.
- [04:33]
B
There you go.
- [04:35]
A
There's the people's butt head laugh.
- [04:39]
B
Yeah.
- [04:40]
A
So how does one get into this where you just kind of like pissed off at your 28.8 modem and go, this.
- [04:46]
B
You won' believe it, but I am not even like a damn. Like, I'm not even like an Internet kind of guy. Like, I know it's crazy, I know but like I'm not a gamer. I'm not a streamer. Really love you. But I'm like a hand serious. But I'm a hands on. I, I like, I like to, you know, build stuff. I think that's what, that's sparked a lot of it. And so whenever it was like I was alignment and I was working the hourly, you know, just day by day scene. That was cool. I love that. But, but there was something more I wanted to, I wanted to train guys and show like to build it, right? Because I mean people would build it, but you would get to some jobs and be like, who built this? Yeah, like, unbelievable. This is in the air. And so then I would, I would, I'd spun off that and was like, no, no, no, no, no. I want these guys to build it the best.
- [05:38]
A
Oh yeah.
- [05:39]
B
I want people to be like, oh yeah, yeah. Top tier built that because I mean, it's in the name. So.
- [05:43]
A
And I apologize. I run my studios premium prime and someone didn't finish building the black curtain in your studio and it's driving me crazy. I keep walking in there, I'm like, oh my God, he's judging me right now. Like every cable, everything's immaculate. But this one curtain that are. That our handy guy did not finish and he's gone. Oh, happy 420. Hey, by the way. So, yeah, dude, like when you, you're literally. You really need to play death stranding because that's kind of what your job is. It's just you're, you're basically connecting countries together, connecting states together, helping folks communicate. Dude, what is the future? Is it, is it going to get faster than light speed?
- [06:26]
B
It could. I mean there's, there's satellite, right? So there's satellite. But. And, and the thing is with light is it's direct, right? So like there's no, there's no storm that's going to cause it. There's an outage unless a tree falls on the line or something. Yeah. But it is direct. And we also work as, as a response crew too. So a lot of the times if a tree were to follow a squirrel, we get squirrel chews like crazy. Yeah. So when, when that happens, man, we're pretty responsive. You know, we're on it like, okay, we've got. I've always got a crew that's on call to where. Because we know it's going to happen through the night.
- [07:06]
A
I'm sure a lot of. A lot of. A lot of the, The, The.
- [07:09]
B
The.
- [07:09]
A
A lot of money is made on the maintenance.
- [07:11]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [07:12]
A
Especially since it's such a. A fiber. Such as. It's just a delicate piece of tech, that world. How much of it is maintenance? How much of it is going back and digging the hole again and find. And then like, how do you fix something that cannot be broken?
- [07:25]
B
Right.
- [07:26]
A
So it should not.
- [07:27]
B
It should not be broken. And, and it does get kind of difficult because it's not like, oh, well, just cut it and splice it here. Because, you know, it doesn't. It doesn't really work that way. A lot of it right now when we're building the new builds on the, like, let's say I just were to jump in a project and start building a new build project, you wouldn't find a lot of outages, obviously, because we're just putting it up. But usually you'll see by the time you start to get in, like, ph to a year into that project and they're starting to light it up, they'll already have squirrel chews and they'll already have. You know, and so it's something that was like, oh, hold on. There's a demand in this kind of a business. There's already a demand in this kind of a business, but who's maintaining this? Yeah, I know contractors are coming in, making their money and getting out.
- [08:10]
A
Yeah.
- [08:11]
B
But then what? You know, and so then I, I would be like, okay, I'm gonna get in, I'm gonna make my money, and I'm just gonna hang out. And so. And that's what I did. And so. And so doing that with White river led me to another co op. To another co op. And they're like, hey, hold on. You can maintain fiber. You want to maintain ours. And so, wow, it gets crazy because, I mean, we'll get calls like, hey, you've got an outage in Colombia. And it's like, oh, we got to drive three hours away and drop what we're doing.
- [08:36]
A
Yeah.
- [08:36]
B
To do that. But I mean, it's helping. I mean, imagine going all day without Internet or whatever. Oh, yeah. All you live off of. So, I mean, we try to be as responsive as possible and tend to those.
- [08:49]
A
That's awesome. You're literally doing. God's work. You're moving light from one point to the other.
- [08:54]
B
It is, dude. It's like, sometimes we'll get on runs. It's like, man, you're tying in three different towns here. So make sure we're doing it right. Like. Yeah, it's a big deal.
- [09:03]
A
That's crazy, because it's. It's essentially the next leap from electricity to. To Internet.
- [09:07]
B
Yes.
- [09:08]
A
What are some regulations? What are some, like, pushbacks? You see, like, I'm sure it's difficult to run wire underground in Miami because we're so low to the ground versus New York.
- [09:17]
B
Yes.
- [09:18]
A
Like, walk. Walk me through some of the. Your stoppages.
- [09:21]
B
So, man, I get a lot of the times, our redesigns, permitting, core permits, whether it be if we're running through like, a. Somewhere like a Mark Twain National Forest or something, you have to have conservation permits and stuff like that just to even have trucks in these places. Um, when you get. When we go underground with fiber, that's. It gets a lot more technical because, you know, there's. It just depends on where you're at and how many low. How many utilities are actually in the ground and how. How hot of a spot it is. A lot of the times they'll try to. If they get an instance like that, try to shoot at aerial. It's cheaper to go aerial that way too. But then you'll run into roadblocks. Like, so a lot of these co ops, they're their polls. But when you go to another town over, it's another co ops polls. And so you've got to get permitting for every single co op that has these poles. Right. And so it's. Permitting's a big one. Redesign's a big one. A lot of times we'll get out to the field, and our crews will be like, okay, yeah, it's supposed to be ran like this. Although these seven poles aren't here. So you know, often. Always. Because a lot of the times. And Sorry engineers that see this, but a lot of the times it's behind the computer and it's not out in the field. And so. Yeah. And so they're back behind. They're like, oh, yeah, pull here, pull here. Well, it was 20 years ago. Yeah.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah.
- [10:44]
B
But it's totally different now.
- [10:46]
A
Yeah, it's my problem. Click and drag. Yes, that's what it is, dude.
- [10:49]
B
And so we get out all the time. Our crews are like, gung ho.
- [10:52]
A
Oh, yeah, you got your soldier down.
- [10:54]
B
And we're. But out there, and we're like, whoa, hold on. This isn't even. This isn't even relatively correct. Yeah. And so a lot of it, too is. And that's also why top tiers built the name too. Because a lot of contractors will run into scenarios like that. And they'll either one, build it wrong, say, fuck it, because that's how it said to build it. I'll get paid either way. And they'll say, fuck it, and that is not us. Or they'll go through and be like, meh, we can't do it. Figure it out. This is your problem. You should have engineered it the first time. And instead of. Instead, I will look at it and our guys, even if I'm not on the site, I know our supervisors or leads, they'll look at it and be like, no, no, no, hold on, hold on. We can reroute it to here, to here, to here. And honestly, we have enough footage, you know? And they will. And they'll propose it to me and I'll be like, nice. Why? I got you. Right? And we'll make the call and be like, hey, guys, this is a problem. But this is our solution. So usually I will never make a call to be like, hey, we've got a problem. There's no solution. What do you want us to do? Because usually it's always like, there's a problem. Here's how we would fix it. But do you want us to do it that way?
- [11:58]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. How are you keeping yourselves? I'm not going to say employed in 10 years when 6G and 7G's is faster than fiber. At some point, do you feel like you've reached a point where you're constantly busy? Is it ever going to even out? Like, there's traffic lights everywhere, but you don't see folks, like, making billions in traffic. Like, repair.
- [12:16]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's always a fair. It's always a fear. Honestly, as the CEO, it's a fear that I have. I mean, I can't say that we're going to be steady book in 10 years from now, but I would love to say we're going to be steady book in 10 years.
- [12:28]
A
Yeah. But they're going to need transmitters.
- [12:30]
B
Yeah, Right. So that's the thing. And that's the thing, too. It's like kind of sculpting them around what was thrown at us. So, like, when we first started, we were just strictly coax phone line.
- [12:41]
A
Wow.
- [12:41]
B
You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
- [12:44]
A
People don't even know what the hell that is.
- [12:47]
B
Exactly. Coax copper. And that's what we were. That's what top tier learned on. And then it was like, okay, government grant for fiber. Hey, hold on, hold up.
- [12:56]
A
And then.
- [12:56]
B
And then it was chased the fiber down. And then it was like, okay, now the government grant's kind of pulling back because a lot of it's built or it's going five or up in the satellite. So how many of us. Yeah, how can I maintain this? And that's. And that's what even kind of drove like, then how can I maintain this? Because. Yes, this isn't always going to be building. Like, it's going to come to a point where it's all built, but then maintain it.
- [13:19]
A
Yeah, exactly. There you go.
- [13:21]
B
That's going to. I think that's kind of what like, okay, let's secure this by. If I can secure it with. I have it a big co op secured maintenance wise. And I've got another one secured. But if I can get multiple around secured, then I mean, I'll always be busy, dude.
- [13:35]
A
Essentially, dude, you're prime for a TED Talk because you're one of these. Like, I'm an entrepreneur. I literally connect people. Be like, huh? I'm the Series of Tubes.
- [13:48]
B
This podcast you're streaming on now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [13:50]
A
You're welcome.
- [13:51]
B
You're welcome.
- [13:54]
A
Man. Such an honor and pleasure. I.
- [13:56]
B
You know what?
- [13:56]
A
I'm glad I stuck around.
- [13:58]
B
I'm glad, too.
- [13:59]
A
It's literally Friday afternoon. I'm on my way to work, and he's. And yo, no, dude, he's got to need a podcast. I'm like, all right, here we go. I'm like, holy shit. The Series of Tubes right here. My friend Tuft here. How are folks? How can folks find you? How can folks follow your tubes?
- [14:14]
B
Facebook page. We got our own Facebook page working on a site. A website, but Facebook right now, that's how a lot of people even reach out for job applications. So Facebook. I stay plugged in my. My phone number. I'm always on the phone. You literally. Yeah, you can contact me. Always on the phone. So that never ends. Email too. It's a very good way to reach out. But yeah, you can find us. Like, you look for us. You'll find us.
- [14:39]
A
Right on, man. Such a pleasure and honor, brother.
- [14:42]
B
You too.
- [14:42]
A
To meet you, Mr. Tube.
- [14:44]
B
Yeah, you too, brother. Honestly.
- [14:47]
A
Well, I'm Ray Gutierrez with Inside Success.