Hello, and welcome to a, another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host. And I am not joined by my co-host today. Matt has some ice and snow problems. He's in Michigan. So unlike Texas he's used to it, but you know, definitely has his own set of cold weather issues today.

 

But today I'm joined by a fantastic guest. Nick Carillo is a construction industry and nonprofit trade association professional. You guys heard them on the round table, but in case you didn't, you can go back and listen to that episode. But Nick's diverse experience in the industry includes going on job sites, working on job sites from selling, building materials and specialty products to job site evaluations and trainings for contractors and technical being a technical sales rep.

 

Currently he is the VP. At Western wall and ceiling contractors association Nick, welcome to the show,

 

Dylan. Thanks for having me appreciate it.

 

So obviously you've done basically everything in construction,

 

Not even close, man, not even close. Thanks for the nod there, but no, I barely scratched the surface as with many of us.

 

Right. We maybe dipped our toe into a good chunk of, of pieces, but bring it back a little bit. And what, and how did you get your start in the construction industry?

 

Sure. Yeah, I'd love to tell the story a little bit. I'll try and make it short and sweet because my construction tenure has been my entire life actually.

 

I like to say I'm a second generation blue collar professional. My father was in the industry as well. Our Carillo  So I was on job sites, following him around. He was a plaster by trade. I was jumping in sand piles, jumping off scaffold when I was young, going to job sites, you know, on the weekends when I was old enough to put your wheelbarrow, that was my job.

 

And I got paid in a Frosties from Wendy's no money when I was little. So I got a sense of walking around a job site. What's the culture, what's it like? And then I started working for my own, my own. It was actually on my birthday that I went full-time I was working summers and went full time right before college.

 

Started working as a plaster. And then I ended up becoming kind of the traveling foreman. So anything that was out of town, I jumped on and then it became like, he's got no kids. He's got no wife sent him on the road, pills start running the jobs. So that's what I did for a while. And that was based out of Albuquerque.

 

New Mexico got to do some really fun projects there. And then in our scope, I did scaffold up to scaffold down is how I describe it. So from, from dirt to finished product, I was kind of there through the whole process. Then I kind of said, you know, I'm sick of breaking down my body. What if I use my mind?

 

So I started sending applications out and I was afforded an opportunity to go to California. And in California, I worked for a material supplier called Cal ply. At the time we ultimately got bought out by L and w supply and they had a technical department. And so my duties were to go to job sites and kind of do evaluations.

 

I would go to architecture offices and give box lunch presentations on specific products. And my scope was wall and ceiling products or plaster hand applied plaster products and a few other specialty products that led me to his funny. I always tell the story. So I was 21 when I went to California and no friends, no family over there.

 

I was chasing a career. And I was told, legitimately told I've been doing this longer than you've been alive. Why should I listen to you? And so that was kind of like the RA, you know, you, you work a little bit, you figure out how to have the conversation and kind of present yourself in a manner that's respected.

 

And then that afforded me an opportunity to take that role to Arizona. And there I met the CEO of FCA international, and I was the national, the vice president of international contractor association there. We had about five major crafts that we worked with and we were a contractor association.

 

And then since then it has evolved and came over to the local WW. That's where I'm at now. So it's a. It's I dunno, it's like condensed career growth. I did a lot in a, what would seem like a short amount of time, but it was it was incredible, but the path has been fun. That's it? That's it Jordan's week.

 

I think that's something that, you know, can often get overlooked in really any field, but especially in construction, that if you. If you get in the right role in the right seat and you really dive all into it, right? You put a lot of time and effort. You read up on trade journals, do all that. You know, the, the YouTube thing, the diving into industry publications, all that kind of stuff.

 

You can really learn a lot in a short period of time. And I think that gets I want to say a bad rap, but you know, kind of looked down upon right from all these guys that are, have been in the industry for, for a long period of time. But maybe their growth stalled after year five, right. Or your 10 they haven't really come across anything new.

 

So it's, it's understanding that you can really learn and grow within any industry but especially construction and do it in a fairly short timeframe again, in the right role where you see, see a lot, you're exposed to a lot. And then can dive in kind of reiterate that process. Okay.

 

That's yeah.

 

So what it like to kind of go on that. So construction, right. We're really good at telling each other how awesome instruction is way we'll tell our peers how good we are, but our, all of our peers are in the construction industry and the message to the public. I think just, we got to work harder telling the public that I know of stories where people are coming out and they go as an apprentice on a job site, but then become a VDC BIM model, you know, professional and this agency, and, or maybe there was a computer gaming expert who came into the construction industry and is writing code for the construction industry.

 

These stories, we all know them in our world, but the public doesn't and it's, we got to figure out a way to get the students to know. Don't believe it to be a ladder where it's just so linear. If the lattice you can go anywhere and do anything. And if you've like, you know, swinging a hammer or pulling wire all day, that's fun because at the end of the day, you're building your city.

 

But if you want to go further and push and challenge the industry and its entirety, that could be done too. And yeah, man, you're touching on something. That's like a huge passion point for me because we got to figure out how to break out of our echo chamber and kind of talk to the, to the industry.

 

Like I use big tech as an example, everyone knows you can get a hundred thousand dollar job at Google or at Facebook, it's kind of the known, but they don't know that that's also possible in construction and like

 

easily possible,

 

easily, easily possible. Yeah. Yeah.

 

And that's, I mean, from tradesmen right there, there's plenty of trans women out there that are making.

 

You know, over well over six figures being a, you know, master electrician, right. Being a journeyman plumber, you know, would you name it up and down the chain? There are plenty of people making easily six figures as a, as a trade. And then, so you touched on gaming and really coming into the, the VDC side of things.

 

So for everybody out there, VDCs virtual design and construction, and there have been plenty of examples of firms, whether that's, I think Hensel Phelps has it Gabane there's a bunch of bigger. Construction firms that have hired people that were either went to school for gaming in particular game design.

 

And then what that amounts to is you can now take a revenue model, a BIM model flip it through a gaming engine, like unity, unreal, whatever and then export that either to a single screen walkthrough. So now people are walking through construction sites or buildings really with an X-Box controller or they're doing it through like the Oculus rift.

 

The reason. I know I did a lot of this in like 13, 14 when the rift was like brand new. So I was, did this, like what seems like forever ago, but and at that time, even in, I think, 15 or 16 like Gill, bane had a full department for it where you could walk around like an Orr. They, they put it on like a surgeon's head the Oculus rift, and then they walked through the, or, you know, is everything in the right place for the table or the lights in the right place.

 

And for surgeon that was like mind blown, they usually had no say in that process, it was usually the head nurses that, that did everything for operating rooms. But now you can take, you know, your honorary surgeons and put them into, to a headset and get feedback before it's ever built right before it's super expensive to make changes.

 

You could do that super early in the process.

 

And, and when you talk to these guys and gals that come from the gaming industry, what was being asked in that time was like, Oh yeah, that's easy. Oh yeah. We can do that. Like, no problem. And we're over here, like square peg not fit. Right. So it's just bridging that has just skyrocketed us, I think, into just advancement and an ability to recruit beyond what we're doing.

 

So, yeah. That's, that's awesome. You were diving so deep into that. It was fast. I was blown away at I was introduced to tilt brush on Oculus, or it wasn't Oculus. I think it was ductless, but I was shown tilt brush before it went public. And what like blew my mind is you, you can paint in the, in the air.

 

Right. And then it stays there. To like a one millimeter accuracy and knowing that we can create something in a digital environment that stays to spend it when looking at it virtually, like, what this can do for construction is like unreal. You can basically have your entire project cast onto the land, the site and build to the project.

 

I mean, that's, that's not farfetched.

 

No. And, and the big thing that we talk about and like a lot of this is so like hollow lens is out, which I think is a much better solution than like Oculus is. So HoloLens is the thing for Microsoft where it's really augmented reality, not virtual reality. So you're seeing the real world or the virtual world.

 

So superimposed upon the real world. So now you can walk around the job site, you can now see like where all the duct work should be. Does it match, you know, progress, all that kind of good stuff.

 

One, two, one, two. That's the biggest thing.

 

Yeah. Which is it's huge to end to get scale. Right. As it's superimposed is like crazy.

 

Awesome. And to have it with that accuracy. But the, the thing that we always touch on to here for a technology, like an, I built software, I build revenue, add-ons all that kind of stuff, but it's to know that, like not all technology is going to solve all your problems. It's making sure that you have the right system, the right peg for each technology to fit in and know that over time it might change.

 

Right. You might have evolved from the Oculus to like just using that gaming engine to walk through a building via zoom, right. Or through the computer. And it's still virtual. You're just not putting a headset on. Right. It gives you a different feel of, of the space and everything like that. And then, you know, maybe the whole lens is a different solution.

 

But knowing that technology is your friend, but knowing where to apply it is also important to add into the conversation.

 

And that's a, that's a tough, that's a tough thing for the tech companies. I think when you come into the construction world is honestly, they don't really have the time to try and figure that out.

 

And then if, okay, you're a tech company say, okay, I'll solve that. Well, you have, let's just use round numbers for conversation's sake, a hundred contractors in a market. That's a hundred unique business practices and a hundred unique procurement you know, processes. There is not like a code that you can write that solves process and construction.

 

And so everything is in assembly. It's not a, you know I don't what the word I'm looking for is a kid it's not like a one answer. You got to assemble parts to build what you're living for.

 

Yeah, absolutely. I think ultimately that's why innovation has to come from within the industry. Not, it's not going to come from outside the industry cause frankly, Silicon Valley can't they don't understand, nor they have the temperament to deal with construction.

 

Yeah. And construction has a huge lead time before they're willing to listen to you and this. So there's not a specific person I'm calling out. It's just kind of the culture of the industry. You know, you, when you go into the field, you've, you gotta earn your keep. You gotta, you know, you got to clean up after hours.

 

You've got to learn how to do all the masking. Maybe you're doing some crowd work, then you learn how to do the craft, or you go through apprenticeship and then you become a journeyman and you're let in. And so there's a lead time to get to the responsibility and decision-making, and that's because that responsibility decision-making is massive.

 

You look at a project manager or an estimate or somebody, they might have a hundred million dollars of revenue they're responsible for annually. And they came up as an apprenticeship to journeyman Mark Breslin talks about this a lot. And so we, you can't just kind of come in and assume everything's going to be accepted.

 

Yeah, you're right. You can't come in and just be like, Hey guys, I have this new widget. It's perfect. Cause I promise you; it will get like ridiculed riddled with bullet holes of all the time, things that are going to be wrong with it. And then and then through time though, if you come in and you kind of have a conversation, that's what I'm, that's what I'm finding.

 

So I'm working on an innovation committee through swag. It's portable. It's going to contractors association. They're a national innovation committee, similar to as well. Try to connect contractors in the wallet, sealing industry, especially the subcontractors for this exact reason. We're, we're trying to say, Hey, tech industry, we welcome the innovation.

 

We want the innovation, but we want to be allowable, stay in what we actually need. Don't kind of just try to sell us something and it's proving successful. It's I think it's been helpful. I think the tool manufacturers are looking forward to it. We've had a couple of conversations where the manufacturer is like, Oh, we didn't even know you guys wanted this.

 

We have, we have an old file cabinet full of all of this stuff we have. We're ready. You really want this? We got it. Now let's say, yeah, let's go for it. And we'll find you some contractors we'll pair you up and let's, let's figure out a solution that's marketable. And yeah, it's, it's interesting trying to enter the construction industry.

 

It takes, we talk our own language. We, we do things different and that's not a bad thing. It's just, it just is.

 

Yeah. I mean, so a few important things that you hit on, right. In construction, you're responsible for very large dollar figures, right? Seven, eight, seven is like, you're not really in charge of anything.

 

You know, you've got a mid-tier responsibility. Nine figures is really okay. You're, you're in a decently sized firm and you're dealing with, you know, one to, well, it depends on where you are in the process. Right? So on the design side, you could be doing. 10 projects a year, one a month, and pounding through that much as a design engineer and PE you know, over department or whatever, or you could be you know, a site superintendent and you're doing, you know, one project every 18 months.

 

Right. And going across those few. So it's scale is you're definitely not going to get this type of scale in any other industry or for revenue that you're responsible for what, you know, a product you're responsible for in terms of dollar values. The other thing to, to hit on is that there are long lead times, right?

 

So for those companies, right, if you're on a construction project and said, okay, let's take a normal $20 million building, right. At a hundred thousand square feet, you're looking at a. 16 to 18 month build time. Am I get done? 12 probably is going to get done finished really in 20 realistic, you know, timelines, but you're still looking at over a year projects, right year and a half to get this building done a hundred thousand square feet, $20 million project, and like things take time.

 

And that's it's, you're not going to speed it up dramatically. Right. You're going to shave a few months here or there, which is it's 10%, right? If you talk 18 months and new shaped to off, right. That's it's 10%, but still in all reality. Like, okay. You still had to wait a year to do that next project to try that next thing for the next phase in a project and that's

 

million percent.

 

Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. It's not going to be like, Oh, thanks through this. I will, I will adopt this tomorrow and spend $100,000 on this product and overhaul my business. Yeah. There is such a lag that's tough. And I think we all know it and we see it, but it's not often spoken out loud. You look at the specialty stuff.

 

So the general contractor might be a different environment or where I'm working as a specialty subcontractor. I I'm an imaginary contractor and I'm bidding projects and I need to be competitive. So I know I have three or four people that are nipping at my heels to try and capture this project as well.

 

And I know that I need to be more productive and there are things that can help me be more productive, but I have a known. Solution right now. And that's the business that I've been operating in and I know how to make that better. And so I, I utilize that. And so as a business owner, or maybe it's somebody else in the organization it's difficult is automatically say, yeah, let's do it.

 

Let's try this thing because I have a margin that I've never been comfortable with on this project, but you know what, let's go for it. And I think one of the, I mean, I guess to speak to that, to the tech world a little bit, understand that when you're coming in and talking to these organizations, that is, that is one of the biggest concerns because you look at some of those, they're the specialty subcontractor there.

 

They have huge liability, huge, and they got to figure out how to put something in and risk mitigation is very important to them. That doesn't mean they're not willing to try it. And that doesn't mean because of product costs, X amount of dollars. They won't use it. They just have to understand what what's, what's the value.

 

And help me roll this out comfortably. Don't just try to tell it to me and then expect me to use it. And there are some organizations that have done a phenomenal job of coating, adopted phenomenal. So I don't want to make it seem like then people don't do that. There's, there's great companies that are doing.

 

Yeah. And for everybody watching live on LinkedIn or Facebook, you can go ahead and drop any comments, questions that you have, and we'll do our best to get to them. But yeah. Going back a little bit. So in there you'd mentioned so risk mitigation is huge, which the business thing that I always like to bring up, which for.

 

Some listeners, if you're not in a project management, if you're not in the accounting department, responsible for a lot of this is cashflow, especially when you talk subcontractors, right? They're not getting paid for 60, 90 days on a given project. So, and the other thing is with a lot of innovation, you're typically going to be slower at first until you get the hang of whatever that thing that's supposed to speed up really does.

 

So in this, you might lose a little bit upfront, which again, if your cashflow is that tight, if your margins are that thin, which a lot of contractors it is, right, they're operating on a 5% or less margin. So then, you know, to lose a little bit, to lose a percent or two on a project, that's huge. So it's to understand, you know, what.

 

Everybody's going through for implementation and adoption of technology. Not that it won't happen, you just have to have the right project, the right margins. And it might take a year or three to

 

get there, but don't stop calling the contractors to tell you. Yeah, I see the value. That's a huge indicator that yeah, they understand it.

 

It's just not the right time because they're always going to put their money at the most valuable asset, the people. So everything that Wells will go first because you can still be a contractor with people, but you can't be a contractor with no people and machine. There is a pursuit to do that. I'm sure there are people trying to be a machine only construction business, but people matter, the people matter.

 

The most that's relationships are everything,

 

especially in construction,

 

especially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

There's so much done on it on a handshake. And this is, this is the other thing too. So, I mean, I grew up on a farm. I grew up in rural communities where, what you said mattered, right. There was no getting by on the internet.

 

Right. I'm at that age to where, you know, I grew up without the internet for most of my life. But what you said mattered, what you did mattered. And you know, you suffered some consequences if you didn't do that. But through that in construction, especially in this still holds, and this is how most people are brought up, you do what you say you're going to do.

 

Right. And that, that goes a long way. If you, they can't trust you, that creates safety issues. There's just a lot of problems that go along with that. So for anybody, I don't, you know, young, old, but I mean, especially younger people coming up in construction, you need to do what you say. You're going to do, be a person of your word.

 

It as much as you may or may not like it, it is an old boys club, meaning that you need to earn your stripes for you to have respect on the job site. It means taking some licks, given as good as you get, probably at some point your, your career, but honesty and integrity goes a long way and people will respect you for it, but it will take time.

 

Yeah. Talking about the respect. So you'll never hear that the, well you'll never get the truth on how successful they are, and you'll never get the truth on how bad it's going. And so it's not my I'm not going to share kind of specific stories, but. We got to look at and respect that some of these generations, I don't know the right word, man, veterans old timers, you know, people who've seen stuff.

 

Yeah. The ones that have paved the way for us to have this opportunity, they went through hell and there were times when business owners were paying payroll out of their own bank account and they would do, they would, you know, eat beans and toast so that they made sure that the men and women in their business kept working.

 

And they I'm sure if you ask the question, you'll hear. Yeah. I remember XYZ years. It was really, really tight and we were worried we weren't gonna make it, but we did. And, and through that trial and tribulation, they knew how to sustain. Further, they had the high highs of the big success, but it wasn't without the low lows.

 

And so when you talk about young people listening, if you know, if you catch this on a recording or read, you're look, you're watching now ask those people. That's an insane brain trust. That's still in this industry right now. I think it might be dying out, but there was a time we had five generations in our industry kind of working simultaneously.

 

Cause you had a lot of people still holding on as business owners, the grandparents of multiple generations or some people sitting in advisory roles. And then you got your gen Z and that brain trust is going to go away. They're going to retire. They're going to go and spend their time outside of the industry.

 

And so sit down, don't never be shy asking the question. That's one thing that's helped me a lot is I'm not scared to ask stupid, stupid questions. I, because it helps me and you know, I'm better for it. And sometimes they are really dumb, you know, I'm sure there was a point when I had to ask what Ben was.

 

And how come we don't see them modeling. Right. You know,

 

and through that too, you know, you might get a smart comment, you know, upfront on those questions, but more than likely 99% of the time, they're, they're going to give you an answer. Right. They'll tell a story, and they love telling stories. You just have to ask.

 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like to joke, man. If they're not making fun of you, they might not like you, they're not like talking shit or razzing you a little bit. They just might not like you, so being poked out a little bit is it's good. It's a good thing. It was world.

 

And don't take it personally.

 

Don't take it personally.

 

No, absolutely not. It takes a long time to get there though. It takes off. It took me a long time. Yeah.

 

So it talks about coming up kind of in construction. It's going to take some time. But maybe what's the story on the other side, right? So this is, we've talked a little bit about the hardship, but what's, what's some of the beauty that you've seen in construction.

 

Well, I mean, you can go emotional and just, it just being able to provide for a family. I once heard someone say success is knowing what you want, getting what you wanted and then being happy with what you got. That's pretty profound and various succinct. There's a lot of success in construction I've seen and been part of the development of national or global conferences where they talk specifically about a building material.

 

This one was glass, and it's so fascinating to watch the academic community come together with the private industry where the private industry is. You know, we spend millions of dollars on research. That's proprietary. We don't want to share it. And you've got the academic industry. Who's saying, look, we're here.

 

We're an open book. This is all the research we've done is to the white papers. And then watching everybody converged together on a global landscape, here's what we're doing in Europe. Here's what we're doing in the U S here's what's stopping us and letting it regrets. That was absolutely incredible to be.

 

And then I love. I am. I just, I'm fascinated. I look at stadiums and I think about how big acumen is when you look at the stadium, this is the thing I love the most about construction. It just blows me away that we tiny humans, six foot tall and standing in the middle of those stadiums. You have suspension over that.

 

And we have figured out a way to build a machine, to build a machine, to build a structure, to build something so massive as tiny little human beings. And it just, it it's cool. It's really, really cool. You stand at the top of the biggest towers. You look at radio towers, you look at dams, we've done that.

 

We do that. Then everything that we walk on, we, we get our water from, we take our children to get care for. We humans have built all of that construction is central. It's a key word right now, right? Like, and construction is essential, but imagine construction stops abruptly. All aspects. Where does, where do we go?

 

We stay exactly where we are for a very long time. No more new stadiums, no more new hospitals, things become overcrowded. We're living in the same kind of environment, construction matters. And yeah, that's probably the coolest part for me. VR AR man, I can go all day because construction is, is beads. It's my blood.

 

Yeah. AR and VR is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating to me, AR is probably the coolest that I'm seeing come around. The idea of augmented reality, having basically blueprints suspended midair, and I could walk around any of them where the job site and that item stays in the same spot, just in a, just in a simple.

 

The technology on that is unreal. I'll never understand the code that is required to write something like that, to where it stays in the exact same deal location, but it's, I trust it and it's insanely valuable. I see that being really cool. It's cool robots. Yeah, constructions is bad ass man products, products that look like other products lightweight products, quick construction.

 

Yeah, that's cool. I can, I can go deep on any of those.

 

There's a lot of fodder in there. I guess one of the things to remember and think about to hit on some of the academic pieces that you, you talked about, right. Just like glass in particular like Syncobane has a division that does electronically tinted glass to where you can, you know, it'll based on like how bright it is outside or a time of day schedule it'll dim or dark a glass and provide shading so that you, you don't actually have to have shades or blinds on it.

 

It's like Sage glasses, what's called super awesome. I've done a couple of installations with it, but things like that, right? Just you take one material, glass, and windows, and like there's an extensive array of things that you can talk about in glass. Right? How many panes does it have? What type of gases on the inside can we, you know, tend to, can we do that all electronically?

 

How cool is that to take one product and then go super deep on it, just within the building industry. I mean, walls and ceilings, like that's another, you know, very extensive industry and just materials alone.

 

Just, yeah, I get Eve's product ifs is the experience leading finished systems. You can make that look like metal, wood, stucco, smooth painted, or you look at kind of acoustical controls inside of ceilings.

 

What those can look like suspension, suspended things, plaster applied things. Yeah. It's cool.

 

Which just shows like the kind of the depth of the industry when we talk construction, especially commercial construction, right? Well, you have all these different types of operating environments from an operating room to an office, right.

 

And everything in between that you have in there, you have commercial kitchens, you have just stadiums, right? Like all these different environments that people live, work, operate in you know, in a not COVID world, but you have all these, all these places, all these environments that people are in that are completely different from each other.

 

And there is a real depth and breadth of. Knowledge experience things that you can do within the industry. So like, don't, don't think just digging ditches or putting up walls for any of that. Like, this is, it's a big broad, I mean, it's a trillion plus dollar industry in the U S alone, commercial alone is 800 million or 800 billion a year in the U S so then you start adding in like highways, bridges, and infrastructure.

 

Yeah. All the horizontal construction you know, it just goes up from there. So to like traction is a very big place just in the U S alone, let alone the rest of the world.

 

Hmm.

 

But I guess this, so there's a lot of beauty in construction. There's a lot of places people can go, but I want to hear on kind of what the.

 

Wall and ceiling. And from an association standpoint, you guys are really focused on that. You're seeing across the industry, obviously from a pretty high vantage point to have a bird's eye view of the industry. You're not operating just in one company, but kind of seeing how everybody operates. So from that perspective, what are you guys seeing and really looking forward to as the, as we move forward as an industry,

 

Yeah.

 

So did I describe what we are as an association? It might just make mention yeah. 35 minutes. And, ah, so what we are as an association is we are a collective group of specialty subcontractors, the wall and ceiling industry in the Southwest of the United States. And the common theme of all of our members is that they all employ a union workforce.

 

So there's signatory contractors. So we're that association or that Meeting house for all of those contractors to find value from their associations, negotiate with labor unions, to help with training and education. Whatever it is that community's looking for. So from that, we, we get a good sense of, Oh, I where's the industry tracking, what is the labor industry looking at the trade unions?

 

What are they seeing? What are they planning through or through curriculum? What are we seeing? And then that gives us an opportunity to kind of come together and say, all right, let's, let's work cooperatively to try and create education for these things that we're seeing. So right now, it's we had prefabrication.

 

What started as panelization it's been around for forever, but it's hot. It's a hot word. Everybody's starting a pre-fab company. Everybody's starting a manufacturing company, you know, Kotara paved the way, but it's been around for a long time. So. That's a big one. That's still going to be a big one and it's kind of, we're, we're evolving almost from construction to assembly.

 

What are we doing to, to have a controlled environment, to better give a finished product? And that might be somebody starting their own break-off and they're doing a prefabrication warehouse and they're doing everything. It might be field application. It might be sourcing from an existing pre-fab organization.

 

So defining how that works who represents what is the best thing to do? And then further designing for prefabrication. A lot of the contractors are still getting project scopes and saying, can you figure out how to do this prefab? And so the contract is the specialty subcontractors going?

 

Yes, yes I can. And then they're tasking themselves with a huge burden of work. So can we kind of help. The design process in, in having that in mind. And that's not to say it doesn't exist, but how do we, how do we streamline it? So it happens more frequently augmentation of the human. So that's a simple way to say things that make the body movies here.

 

You got exoskeletons or different tools that are easier to hold. Scaffold, maybe that puts you in a better reach, moving platforms. So anything that's going to protect the individual and help them come home safely. And then also not injure themselves repetitively over time. That's a big one. So a lot of, a lot of the tool manufacturers are, are kind of asking the question.

 

What do you guys care about the most? And I, I got to give them credit. I used to think they. They would just design their own new tools and say, Hey everybody, we've solved it all. They really do. They reach out and say, what's hurting. How can we help eliminate that pain? You know, shoulders and the plastering industry, whatever it might be.

 

So that that's some of it augmented reality is another one that's coming out. That seems to be catching a lot of momentum. James said it on our round table, BIM we might be just like, we use 10% of our brains. We might be using 10% of the capacity of BIM in our industry and just, just unearthing the value BIM provides and diving deeper into that to, for it to be even more of an asset.

 

So it helps everybody, even somebody who's doing, I work on, you know, multilevel construction sites build outs there there's value there. So those are some of the, some of the big things we're seeing safety monitoring. How can we watch and use kind of predictive. Models to help with safety computational design has always been teased.

 

What is that going to, what impact is that going to have on a specialty subcontractor? I like to give the Moneyball example, and I think there's a few of us around this industry who use it. We've done a lot of guessing. So how can we take data and be more sure of our decisions? How can we understand? Hey, your production rate on this element is X on these previous jobs of the same caliber you performed this way.

 

Use that information to create a more competitive bid, hopefully increase some profit margins, send people home safer, maybe work them less. You get eight hours work done in six. All right. Are those things possible? If we start quantifying yeah. Those things are possible. There's a lot of startups that are, that are saying.

 

Yeah, I think we can quantify some of those things. That's some of the stuff we're seeing, it's a big list.

You said, what am I  no, I love it. I love it. I love it. One of the things that I want to really, so I think the data thing in quantifying it is ultimately it's pretty straightforward. You know, go out there with a stopwatch, right?

 

Feed that back into an Excel sheet. You know, it can be that basic. And then update your average time across all projects, all people so that you have a good baseline to work from, right. That it's a moving average. That is maybe your, your workforce gets better. Right? The number improves if things maybe don't get better that.

 

You know, you can adjust accordingly and you're not getting hosed on the next project. But to try to keep a running, running piece of that. And frankly, an average in Excel is it's about as basic as it gets, but as useful as it can be moving forward. Yep. So I think that that data piece is, is awesome.

 

To hear it also hammered on that last week with her doing so much.

 

Yeah. I mean, from Nico's perspective, I mean, they're doing, you know, similar thing, right. Looking at data, trying to make those decisions obviously on the electrician side of things, but you know, it's very similar for ceiling and wall to.

 

You know, Hey, you've got, you've got a labor rate for doing something and be able to put that back through your system for the next this project can be super beneficial, right? If, if rates go up or down a dollar, that that means quite a bit, you know, in a big job. Yep. The other thing that I, I do want to hit on, so this gets hammered a lot is so for years I've been on the design side, right?

 

I'm a professional electrical engineer, stamped and sealed and couple million square feet. And especially now in this world of BIM and pre-fab and taking a BIM model, we want contractors to use it is a, and now I'm on like a. Side table. I'm not, not necessarily designing, but you know, being an assist to the industry really as a whole.

 

And through that, I've had a lot of conversations with contractors and designers, like in, you know, not using the model appropriately. So often I get from, especially on the contractor side that we get a model, we basically just throw it right in the trash and start over. So that's the

 

way it should have gone.

 

This is the way they should have done it. Yeah. Okay. Or,

 

you know, these, this family, this content, this is garbage. We can't use any of it. Which. I see both sides of it, right? From a, an engineering perspective and really the design team as a whole, because this goes for everybody. So, I mean, while I'm stealing, you know, case architects models, the, the MEP subs can't use the design model, right?

 

The design model just gets thrown away for a couple of reasons. One, the design team is getting paid for design and ultimately still a two D set of prints. Right. They're getting pay for PDFs to go through planning to go through permitting and design approval. Right. Plus most jobs are still a design bid build.

 

So they're going for again, Two dimensional plans that everybody can look at, they get the same thing off of it. This is what the contracts get held to. And then plus the 2000 page spec book that gets handed over at the beginning of every, every job. So I can, I can see the design side. They're like, we don't get paid for all this.

 

And then on the contractor side, it's like, okay, we're getting paid, but this is a huge pain in our ass to deal with. And you know, this whole BIM thing supposed to be easier. So there seems to be a break and I think contracts ended up being the place to solve this. But the people that write the contracts, don't understand these little nuances, and shifts to where things just don't align from BIM.

 

I mean, that's what I've, I've seen other than like a contract solution and really, you know, either design firms getting paid more for it, or you bring in design assists, but again, everybody has their own process to work through. I don't have a solution for them for this one, other than I know it's a huge problem for, for the industry.

 

So I just heard about somebody and shame on me and I think what I'll, I'll follow up on this LinkedIn post when I find out who it was. But I know somebody is tackling that exact issue. I remember talking to, so two things, the building, the specs is what I'm focused on right now. I saw somebody that said it so perfectly.

 

I build buildings with words is how they described the specs. That's pretty profound. It's like, yeah, that's. That is like basically where everything kind of fall on is the words of the specs to determine how to build a 3d building. And then another, I gave a CSI presentation in some of the spec writers were like, we would love more than anything to be invited to job sites because we don't know what it looks like.

 

We don't know how things go together and we need that help. We have, we're expected to know the entire construction process from dirt to sky and with our words. And that's why you see a lot of this copy pasta kind of spec writing is because of that reason. And so one thing, one thing we could do immediately is reach over and say, Hey, we'd love to invite you out.

 

And you know, the, the first Tuesday of every month, spec riders, it's six, six spots. Come check out this job site. We'll show you these three crafts. You can't be here more than an hour. Yeah, cause you got to have some limitation, but just, just to, just to give a sense of it. There's efforts happening to of bootcamps for architects, architects, come in, cut some glass do some drywall finishing.

 

That's been super helpful, but one suite of answers, I know there's a lot of effort on it, but I don't ha I don't know that there's an immediate solution, but just take the, take the, the shop drawing, answer, you, you send the model and then it goes to the subs and then they create their own set of shop drawings.

 

And then it goes to the field. And then the guys in the field say, well, that's not what's here. So we're going to, it actually has to be done this way. And then all of that. So that information comes all the way from design all the way down to the person, building the wall, and then the person building the wall.

 

Does it a little bit different. And then that has to go all the way back for approval. That's a lot of gas. That's a lot of gas to try and keep things flowing, and there's a lot of lag. You know what one model, that's a really good idea. As one model.

 

And I think, I mean, Katerra tried to, obviously you're not that successful, but Katerra tried to do everything, and you know, it's a good intent, good way to go about it.

 

There is a lot of money in blue, a lot of money. You know, cause it was constructionists is not easy. Right. It's a lot of bottom moving parts, a lot of supply chain logistics manufacturing, all rolled up into one big building. And it's, it can be a beautiful thing when, you know, prefab jobs go right where you see hotels, you know, getting craned in all the room, pods, everything said like, that's, that's beautiful.

 

But how often that happens you know, you, you see that the 10 buildings that get built a year in the world.

 

Yeah. Try that in New York city, when your trucks are only allowed in, in a 45 minute window, two days a week, Right because you can't shut down the street to pick those pods up. I mean, you know, or any, or any hiccup at all.

 

Yeah. That's tough. As we, we built a national certification. I was part of the committee that kind of got it going. And then it's since got a life of its own. But when we were kind of strategizing about the certification, even I was like, well, what are the categories? Well, let's do X or Y you know, storefront or multistory.

 

And every time we'd ask, well, what's the safety requirements. Well, it depends on the job. What are the procurement request? Depends on the job. What, what is the common practice of QC depends on the job. And it's like, how can we, how can we create a standardization if every job is different and ultimately that you kind of figure out where the overarching kind of consistencies are, but yeah, it's, it's not bad.

 

That's fun. I love it. I love I love being challenged. I love the, I love that no day is the same in construction and that's, to me, that's fun. I love that. I always see me at a desk.

 

Yeah. Yeah. You'll always have a different problem to solve a different whether that, and this is the other thing that I think it's a really often is the people aspect, right?

 

The, the ability to communicate, I mean, we hit on it earlier, right? Your word is your bond. But the ability to communicate on a job site, those soft skills go a long way. Right? You can say something and that come across really badly for everybody, or can get your point across that, Hey, this needs to be done this way.

 

You know, and do that in a nice, nice manner or make everybody mad at you. But either way something, you know, it still needs to get done. Right. It needs to be built correctly. And sometimes that might mean tearing a wall down, but you've got to go through and do that. You were right. Yeah. Do it right.

 

No shortcuts. There's no shortcuts. You said it earlier, everything that this industry does ultimately is for people and we work in the offices we are cared for, or our cancer is treated in the hospitals. Our children are taught in the schools. I, to me, that seems like one of the most important things ever.

 

We don't, don't shortcut that, you know, one, one wrong application sends water. You know, you can just, you can just start thinking of all the horror stories, but you, you said kind of communication and soft skills. So let's, let's dive in on that a little bit and I'll share some of the things I learned the hard way.

 

Right? Okay. No, our generation millennial, I don't want to assume your age, but my generation of millennial, right? We are text savvy emailing email. And so we'll see an email and we'll let it stew cool. We'll chill for a day or two, you know, we'll get back to it cause we don't perceive it as important, but the, the older generations are going to see that communication as critical and they're expecting a response.

 

That's why they communicate it to you. So one tip hot tips. I'm just coming up with these right now off the fly is respond to your emails in a timely manner. I know there's always these, like do it in a block, do it in the same block. That's fine. But always, always be consistent if that's what you've decided and not drop everything and answer right away, but respond in a timely manner.

 

Same day. Be a good practice.

 

That's the one. Time. So we've hit on this in a few episodes. So, but I, I do want to, because this is important, this is hugely important, especially in construction, because more often than not, things are labeled urgent. Like I need this, and I need it right now. That is not always the case.

 

So you end up in this, you know, see, and respond type of scenario where you probably in, I would say like a large majority, 80, 90% of all instances, you probably need to take an hour to figure out how you're going to respond.

 

That's fair. Yeah.

 

That's good for like a couple of reasons. So one is okay, like you have an urgent field problem.

 

You can respond immediately to say, Hey, I received it. Let me look into this. I'll get back to you.

 

That's it.

 

Right? Like I hear you. We're looking into this. It might take a while, right? It could take it. This is an hour solution. This is a two hour solution. This is, this is going to take me a few days. Right?

 

That's but you kind of just rolled on like how to answer it. But I think it merits saying it manage the expectation of response. Say, Hey, I hear you. I expect to respond to you again in X time, because then it's just, it just cools the, it just cools the thing. Yeah. I had to expand on that because it's so important.

 

Yeah, no, this is, this is a super nuance topic because the other thing, so that's an immediate response, but that's it right? You don't say anything else. So a lot of this, and this is the stuff that, unless some old timer sits down with you and tells you is you don't put anything in writing, unless you mean it.

 

Yeah. Yeah. Do not put anything in writing unless you mean it. Right. Do not record a meeting unless you mean it. Do not say anything. So a phone call is different. Onsite is different. If it's in meeting minutes, if it's in any written form of communication that will come back to bite you at some point in the future, it's forever.

 

Yeah. It doesn't go away. That's also including texts. That's including email, anything written Slack teams, you name it. Like don't write it. If you don't mean it, especially in construction, you will get sued at some point in all that is now that's.

 

It just sucks that it's it, you know, cause know the old, the old handshake years, they weren't that nervous.

 

It was just, yeah, I respect you and I understand and let's go for it. And it sucks that we're like he said that he sent that, get the screenshot of the app. You're done, dude. You're done. You're done. I'm still taking you down. It's like, man, that's sucks. It's important. What you're saying is important.

 

It just.

 

Yeah, but this is also why you build rapport with people. You have a good relationship, and you pick up the phone, you pick up the phone, you have a conversation with them. One it's not recorded. Two, you can get like the tonality, the inflection. They're like, yeah, man, I know this sucks, but like, this is the way we have to do it.

 

And then you can follow it up with an email. But have those conversations, build rapport, build trust with people. And then over the course of a job, right? When Mark might start as small flavors or tit for tat like, Hey, you do this for me. I do this for you. It becomes, you know, like, Hey, no, that w we get this taken care of, right.

 

Or go ahead and do that, whatever, you know, and again, I'm coming from the design side where, like I had a lot of pole on a project to where you can build really good rapport with the electrician and the electrical team or whoever your discipline is. Right. So for me, it was the electrical superintendent.

 

But like, Hey man. Yeah, no, just go ahead and do that. I'll Mark it on my side or whatever, we'll deal with change orders or whatever later, I'm not worried about it. I'll sign off like, you know, but by the end of a project, that's how we dealt with a lot of things. Cause we had trust in each other to do the right thing.

 

But it doesn't start that way, but a lot of it was built, you know, phone calls showing up, walking the site, all that kind of stuff. So I it's a nuance in like yes, respond to your emails, but, and you know, yeah, I

 

know it's the, if this, then this kind of thing, and we understand that, but don't let it bake on unresponded to, and then if somebody is another like point to, if someone says, Hey, call Tiffany, Hey, call James, but actually call them.

 

Don't send an email. I sent an email. They didn't reply. It's like, dude, you were told to call them. That's how the relationship is built. So that one is very self-explanatory. If someone says, Hey, give someone a call, actually call them. And then the other one that I liked just grind on is show up early, stay late as it's still a thing.

 

You know what, if you have a 10:00 AM meeting, you're in the parking lot at nine 50 with no question like don't, there is no on time is late and that's not a kind of that’s just it's you gotta be there. You don't want to be the one people are waiting for in a room. It's a very uncomfortable feeling.

 

I've only done that once and it sucks.

 

The other, the other thing too, that is so no matter what side of the table you're on is that's how you're going to win the next job. The next job will come either. I've had this happen on, I dunno how many occasions, but go into a room, right? I'm there early, you know, talk to the owner, you know, or the owner's rep talk to the cm, you know, whatever, just some nice casual, whatever they mentioned, Hey stick around after, after we, you know, go off the site together or whatever, and Hey, by the way, this project's coming up and I've had that both from a cm, a contractor owner, right.

 

All through the chain by you showed up, Hey, can we walk after? Yeah, no problem. Yep. Right. And you push whatever you have to, and you make that happen,

 

then you, and that's not even, let's say you're in the field too. And you're just trying to earn your keep. You're trying to journey out whatever you might your form.

 

It might appreciate the added effort. Hey, man, we're going to go work on this like huge project. I want you on my team. You're I like your work ethic. I like your eye, whatever it is, whatever the craft. Yeah, it it's, it's a whole chain because kind of funny, we were talking about, yeah, you learn those the hard way.

 

Like I told you, I'm not afraid to ask stupid questions. I've also made them it's and it's not necessarily, some of this is like, the hard way is you never got the opportunity, right? It never showed up for you. That's the hard way. And a lot of this, right? You came in, you did your job and you're like, why am I not getting promoted?

 

Why am I not moving up? Why are there new opportunities? You weren't dead your ass.

 

How about that? Oh, man, I didn't get a raise this year. Did you ask. Did you even ask, if you, if you can get a raise, did you ask what it would take to get a raise? That would, that would chap me when they're like, Oh dude, I just wish I could.

 

I just wish he got a raise or I, that should have been my job. It's like, did you ask why, why you didn't get it? Did you maybe do an after action or did you ask, what can I do to get it? No, I didn't. It just, you know, I've been working hard. Well, that's why, because you're working hard at what you do when they value what you're doing, where you are.

 

That's fine. Yeah. We share a lot of a lot of passion for that school.

 

Yeah. And it's, again, guys, there's so much nuance in this stuff. But showing up doing the right thing, asking questions will get you 98% of the way there. And then you'll at some point. The right opportunity at the right time will present itself.

 

You know, when you're ready for it, the right person will come along. Or even again, you just, you get handed, handed the next project because you did such a good job on this one. And this is how the industry works. You know, you do a good job you're and it might not be handed, but you're invited to. Do or participate in RFP for the next one, right out of three companies.

 

So you get shortlisted automatically for doing a good job on this one. And that rolls to the next one to the next one to that owner's rep goes to another company. So now you get this opportunity in that role. So the next thing, so it's, it's a big system with not a lot of people that all know each other.

 

It's

 

crazy how small this industry is nuts.

 

So don't do anything to damage your repetition.

 

Yeah. Don't give people a story to tell yeah.

 

Or make it, make it and finding one, you know, something that like, you're not, not embarrassed to like to have brought up at the barbecue.

 

Yeah. Okay. Do I have one, are you saying, is that what you're saying? No, don't give up the story. Yeah. I started thinking about the old time value we have; we've had a lot of fun on the job sites that made me just start going like of the fun times of the stories because they exist.

 

Thanks. And it's also, you know, it's not just the job sites, right? It's the barbecues that going out to drinks and dinner, like all those things with your team, with the people, you know, as much as some people out there might say that doesn't matter. It does, it matters a whole lot and a whole lot more than, you know yeah.

 

To show up to that type of stuff. I know like we can riff on this topic in particular for, for a long time, but Kind of on the next thing. And, you know, I know you brought it up at the round table and just like you to expand on it, but is, is robotics. Cause I know that's the big thing that you see the industry heading to, and really a lot of the augmentation and other types of robotics where it's not fully autonomous, but maybe semi-autonomous or just a machine to help out.

 

And kind of you hit on with the, the association with soccer that it's, you know, a big thing that people are you're looking to, to augment, to help extend safety, livelihood, longevity, happiness of everybody on the job site. But where do you see robotics and this whole kind of mechanization, if you will go we might see.

 

So I am fortunate. I kind of, I'm just going to describe very generally what I'm seeing not specific projects and I'll give you what my interpretation of everything that's happening. So you see, and you saw everybody saw the viral video of the robot putting up drywall and they're going to replace every worker.

 

So I'll spare everybody the details of that one. Basically it was a four legged thing that puts drywall up and screws it. And then you have simple robotics, like 3d printing, concrete. That would be a robot there's painting robots. There's drones that are painting. There's, there's a lot of solutions using machines to do things that humans previously have done.

 

And I think where we're at right now in robotics is the will at work phase. And you kind of look at that adoption timeline of like the smartphone where it hockey sticks that hockey stick, I don't think is going to, I don't think Dylan is going to replace everybody. I, a human is too important for the construction process.

 

The communication it's, every job is different. The human matters more than anything, but I think where it'll level out and where the dust will settle is supportive. Like you said, the support of the workforce. And I think we'll see maybe robots are picking up heavy things. Maybe robots are driving things to locations.

 

Without a human, maybe robots are kind of designing specific elements of this is kind of AI, but I call it a robot because it's something but designing computational design. Yeah, I think you're going to see robots emerge, but robots to me are a tool, not a replacement. And that's what I think everybody should kind of look at and take as their narrative of robotics.

 

And if you're a robotics firm that says to hell with you, Nick, we're going to replace everybody. I'm sorry. I don't believe that. But I'd love to have a conversation on why you believe. So. I think we need to, as an industry, embraced robotics as a mechanism to help and how can I empower my people, my crew, or how can I empower myself to do more with less effort?

 

And so that, that is less strain on the body that might be less stressed in the evenings. Whatever it is that you determined to be less stressed on yourself. But I think robotics is a, is a tool, not a, not a replacement. So don't shy away from them, look at them and then think of them as a cool toy.

 

How, how can I, how can I best maximize this? Don't look at it as in a lens of a man, they got a dry roll robot. They're going to take all my good, like, okay, well, what if, what if you could maximize that and use your crew to the best of their abilities elsewhere. There's a way to take robotics and use it.

 

And let's be an industry that supports the development of these robotics so that they're welcomed, and they can help us because at the end of the day, every robot, I believe is less strain on a human body and less strain on a human body is a happier person and a happier person creates a better industry.

 

So to me, I think that's, that's enough to, to, to take a look at it and say, can this work, but yeah, robotics is it's. I think it's still in the, where, where does it fit? Where does it, where does it fence world? There's a lot of, there's a lot of proposals, but what's the, what's the real benefit.

 

Yeah. I mean, so like my company, Calvin C is we automate the design document process for electrical engineering, right?

 

Low voltage lighting, power, fire alarm, all that stuff. So we go from zero to design documents, roughly right. 85% design documents set. So we placed all the devices in your model. And then from there now a person, and this has been our thesis. A person does all the like engineering, all the things that take thought, all the coordination pieces, all the like actual brain power.

 

And we took all the tedious stuff out of that process. And that's what I think a lot of these solutions in robotics where you have a lot of outside firms coming in that want to do the whole chain, but anything that's coming from the industry is taken out these tiny. Well, in some cases tiny, but like, you know, these swaths of a problem that are super tedious, super repetitive, and don't use the full like extent of a person it's like the really hard stuff.

 

Right. Or so like a robot, like if it puts up drywall, right, it's going to do sheets, but anything that is complicated, any curved wall, right. Thing is like need some craftsmanship. That robot is, or

 

a long, straight hallway. That's what it's got. And that is probably five years away from now.

 

Yeah. So like, again, for a lot of these solutions, it's to take out the like super tedious, stressful time-consuming painful process.

 

And I think that's across the board and, and robotics and software is what one people should be looking at doing if they're not but to allow the person to be a better. Designer a better craftsman, a better tradesman in whatever it is that they're doing. Right? Like that's, that's my company's whole thesis is taking out this tedious, repetitive stuff that you know, needs to be done and then allows you to do everything else.

 

Right. Meet with owners. Have those meetings coordinate do actually professional, be the professional. Yeah. Yeah. I like the layout robot is really exciting. For drywall framing, I call it a Roomba with a Sharpie and I don't mean to discredit the effort that's going into it, but that's insane because the people who were laying out now can go coordinate materials, get better quicker procurement.

 

Now they have an idea. They can trust that the layout is accurate. It's cool. But then you're going to have, the contractors are going to come poke holes in it and go, okay. What if it runs over his group? Okay, dude, like clearly you're not one to embrace robots then, but. That is a very valid, valid question.

 

That's very real. And was that thought of because you're never going to get a clean floor.

 

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, again, you're getting 85, 90% of the way through a project, right. It's an 80 20 rule, right. So 80% of this is going to be done again, the super complicated things for like layout in particular are just, it's not going to happen.

 

Right. So some odd corners, some weird cases just aren't going to happen. But for the majority of your office walls for the majority of your hallways, right? All those things can now be laid out using I mean, industrial robotics as a company To do that right. And area it's only in the Bay area right now.

 

And then like canvas is doing mud and tape for drywall projects. And they're acting as a subcontractor for these projects, right? They're not licensing their tech out currently, but in a lot of that it's so that they are they're owning the whole problem and allowing a person that would have started, you know, at the bottom of the ladder to now have to operate a robot, probably get paid a little more to do so they're more productive.

 

They can do that. And then really they can see and go through more projects quicker and learn more. Right? So we look at the learning trajectory or somebody because you see it over and over and over again, quicker, your growth in learning is actually going to be hired to basically what we start out this conversation with and how to learn and grow is really it's cycle times, which you know, is a.

 

In construction. You've got to be in the industry a long time to see a lot of cycles, versus like, if you're in the automotive industry, right. You see a thousand cars going down the line a day, you get to see that quite a few.

 

Yeah. Until they changed the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sort of dusty and Kevin, both of those require people, but they still require people, and those people can either get an added education.

 

So it could be a trades person with an adjunct. Yeah. What you just said, added education or a brand new application. That's, that's more people in the industry or more valuable people.

 

Yeah. And the other side of this that you mentioned too, is safety. Right? So safety and longevity. Now that that same traits person said of having to retire at 50.

 

Cause you've got a back problem might be able to stay till 60 with no back problem.

 

Right. That that's cool to me. That seems cool. I mean, someone might say, Oh, so you want me to work 10 more years. So you're just going to use me for 10 more years. That's what you're trying to do. It's like, man, no ma maybe someone with a negative mindset, but no it's so, so you can, so you can do what you love or it, yeah.

 

Chase it. Do what you want or retire at 50 and go fishing and not worry about sitting, sitting down for too long because your bankrupt.

 

Yeah. Well, and they probably had that back problem at 42 and then just got tired of it at 50 an hour, you know, have way more issues than they care to admit moving forward.

 

So I think that's, that's really cool Nick, before we kind of wrap this up, where can everybody find you?

 

So I work for WWE CCA, which is the Western wall and ceiling contractors association. You can visit our website, www.org. I'm on Twitter. It's Kareo, but it's spelled K a H R E O. Find me there LinkedIn kind of everywhere, wherever you are, I'll be there to reach out.

 

And then you can find my email is just my first name@wwecca.org. Reach out anytime I'm here. I'll talk to anybody that loves the industry.

 

and, and beyond, yeah. And beyond. So we've talked about where the industry's headed. We've talked about people coming into it. What is something else that you want people in industry or attracting people into the industry?

 

So one of like mats pieces is build better and like the blue collar, you know? Bad-ass so, you know, we want to people to know that being a tradesman, being a subcontractor is a, is a cool thing, right. Or a blue collar bad-ass but where else, and what else would you like to impart upon our listeners today?

 

I think through set it through it's there, the pride of this industry is unmatched and anything else I've ever done. Aside from being a parent, getting married, that's the personal, but career wise, the pride of being part of building something is great. And we all know being in the industry, you're driving down your city and you say, I built that.

 

I built that in this, what I'm saying too, is, is known for all of us watching that's in the industry. But those outside the industry, if we can just give a flavor of that, to the people who are considering a career in the trades, I think we can't, we'll never be able to see everybody. It's the greatest feeling in the world, working on the city you live in, it's done matched.

 

And then, yeah, I think that's probably what I I'd like to leave with it. I care deeply about this industry. It's that's my blood. And I want to do whatever I can to ensure that it, it grows, and it stays, but it is the best industry and that's construction, not as specific trade construction. I'd be remiss though, to feel.

 

And if I didn't, we started a campaign in Arizona called Butterfield, Arizona. So anybody who's looking for a career in Arizona, our employers are all taking candidates and it's on that idea of construction being a legitimate career. Where did they go? Better builds arizona.org, Arizona spelled out.

 

Yeah guys. So if one that's, those are great words to leave on to if, you know, either somebody that wants to get in it to it you know, that once leave Texas and go to some warmer weather right now since Texas can handle snow or anywhere else. I mean, that's what Matt's dealing with right now was a freezing cold weather and a bunch of stuff in Michigan.

 

But you know, Arizona is a great place to go. And again, if you know anybody that wants to get into it, I highly suggest checking it out again through the, these trade associations. There's tons of knowledge, tons of information that just can help you in, in so many ways. I'll say this, anybody who wants to know where to go to try and find a job, if you kind of don't call me.

 

I'll go. I'll do the research for you. Very fortunate to kind of have a pulse of where to go for the associations for the campaigns that are hiring. But I don't care where you're from. If you're from Canada, the United States abroad call me. I am why I'm so passionate about growing this industry that I will help anybody who's interested in a job send you.

 

I'll say I won't get to the gym. I'll send you to where to go help you find where to go. It's on you to get it. You're going to get it. I got to do the interview for you.

 

All right, guys, that, those that's awesome. Nick, thank you so much for, for coming on the show. This has been a ton of fun and you know, maybe we'll do another one when Matt doesn't have to worry about pipes and cold water.

 

Yeah.

 

I'm in Arizona. I feel for them, I must suck cold weathers for visiting Dylan. Not for living in Texas gets credit though. They didn't know.

 

Yeah. Well so I'm in the mountains here in California. So right now we're, we're sunny, but like two weeks ago I got like two feet of snow. So yeah, no

 

for

 

me, I enjoyed the conversation a lot.

 

You can count on me to come back anytime, anytime.

 

Awesome. Awesome. Well guys, that's going to be this episode of the construction corner podcast. We've covered. Just a ton of great ground, it's worth a relisten. And going back to, I mean, we covered so much recovered from contracts to AR to specs, to words, build buildings to just building better.

 

And knowing that you have tons of opportunity in the trades and organizations like Western wall contractors association is a great place to go Nika. I mean, all these trade organizations are wonderful place to get so many resources to learn and grow within your select industry. Or just to, to learn more about this great wide world that we have in construction.

 

So guys, till next time, see ya.