Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / The Future of Elevators - Technology and Trends | Don Gelestino

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The Future of Elevators - Technology and Trends | Don Gelestino · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that all these tools will definitely make the industry better.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's almost like when you look at the old carbons and copper controllers versus a printed circuit board, a controller that's the size of like a dishwasher versus something that used to be the size of a refrigerator.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like the progress is happening if we like it or not.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, these these items are just valuable tools, and the the faster independents could work with them, the better, because the OEMs are gonna have this stuff and they're they're designing it themselves and they're they're gonna be ahead of the race because they got the dollars to do so.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think the independents have to really focus and and look into these tools because you don't want to be left behind, you know?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and it sounds like people are making these tools available to them, right?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, okay, you know, if you subscribe to this service or whatever, then you've got in you know, troubleshooter in the pocket, and you can just pull it out on your phone and it'll walk you through some of this, you know.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it it could be very advantageous to have those tools.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
• 1:32
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• 1:36
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• 1:43
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• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Call now 404-890-0445.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, Don Jelastino shares key points of the presentation that he gave last year at the International Elevator Exploitative Symposium.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Don is on the road again this fall.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: He recently spoke at the NAEC Expo 2025, Internet 2025, and he'll be presenting again at the IES in Buenos Aires in December.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don emphasized the importance of adapting to technological advancements, the challenges posed by supply chain issues, and the growing focus on sustainability.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Looking ahead, Don predicts a future where predictive maintenance and AI play crucial roles in the industry, while also highlighting the enduring value of independent operators.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Don, welcome to the show.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with a little bit about you.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've been in the elevator industry, what is it, 38 years?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: 38, now, now 39, and soon we'll be 40.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, awesome.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously you've you've kind of done it all.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you went from helper to you know to mechanic to owner to, you know, you sold it and then you became an owner again, and obviously CEO, president.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've seen a lot of different lot of different angles and obviously witnessed a lot of this consolidation.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of why I wanted to start.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Was do you think consolidation overall has helped improve safety efficiency or or do you think it's uh I don't know, mixed bag, maybe?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think there's a little bit of a mixed bag um because the the consolidators, when they're the large OEMs, obviously they have you know some of the best safety practices and policies, and it's very standardized.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I think from a safety perspective, the consolidation, I think that's one of the pluses of a consolidated, because I do think the safety standard is usually elevated.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's very far and few in between that a small mom and pop company or even a decent sized company is gonna have a better safety program than a large OEM or Liz.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they're they they have more capital to um put together safety program.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: There may be other areas where they're lacking, but from a safety perspective, I think it's enhanced by the uh consolidation.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So what what were what would you say are some areas that maybe then it's not positive?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a win.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I do think that, you know, cultural shifts, you know, like what the mom and pops may have fishing trips and may have maybe picnics and little things like that, where you know, when you're a global player or this and stuff, they may have it by a branch level.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: It'll probably be kind of ticked and tied into this is what you have for your use and might end up at the end of the day turning into a pizza party on a Thursday.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, but listen, you you got the safety net of working for a a major, you know, owner that, you know, you know you're getting a paycheck, you know that you got good benefits, you know that, where some of the small mom and pops maybe listen, people flying, you know, paycheck to paycheck.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, everything has its pros and cons.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and obviously you talk you talk a good bit about uh globalization and uh, you know, some of the I guess the vulnerabilities, the opportunities.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: What what would you say that opportunities are created or even vulnerabilities for maybe US service providers?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, you know, the it really happens.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of it happens at the material level with manufacturing and um and material.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: When you have major, my my belief is when you have major globalization, when one major uh sector or company owns such a big majority, and then you have an industry that relies so much on that material, that's where you can have these situations where an OEM or a larger buyer of that can cut better deals than smaller companies.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: It makes it harder, I believe, for the independently owned and operated companies to compete with the OEMs.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's definitely a dynamic that needs to be looked at and understood a lot better.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of independent companies, you know, they may say like, oh, I can't really bid a job against Otis, Schindler, Tyson, and Koney.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just not competitive.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: But they don't understand really why and where it comes from and how it happens.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: They just know that, hey, I, you know, all of my parts cost X and their elevator installed costs the same as my parts.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: How do they do it?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: But it's all these factors, and it does happen at a global level.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it really doesn't happen at a local level.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and to your point, every every penny adds up, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've got a good deal here and a good deal here and a good deal here, then then overall the package looks a lot different or could look a lot different.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I still see independents, you know, competing.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it does happen, right?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, yeah, they're they've found some, you know, some avenues, some niches, and and you know, sometimes people maybe they don't want to deal with one of the big players, right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they want somebody that that maybe they can get a little more personalized attention.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Very important.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: I gotta tell you, from a relationship perspective, I feel my my personal opinion is sometimes literally down to the mom and pop operation.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Literally, like, hey, it's the father who was an elevator mechanic, brought his two sons in, and now there's four people.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Mother does a payroll.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Some of those little businesses could give better attention than than the biggest of the big.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're very they know everything about the elevator, they know everything about, so it's literally like when you pick up a phone, it's like your elevator person.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's they know it.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: It isn't like, oh, what's your client ID number?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: What borough are you, what state are you in?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, so you can never minimize the power and the ability of an independent.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes developers will go for rock bottom price.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: And because when they're done, that building's going to some ownership, and the ownership's gonna have the maintenance on it, and developers over in another city building something else.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: But some of them I consider educated developers or uh educated owners, well, they're gonna be the end user of that building in that elevator, and they do not want proprietary equipment.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: They recognize that you know, sometimes bigger isn't better, and they then they go for the um independence.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then and the independence, you know, when you look at a globalized market, um and even in the US market, the independents actually have a big majority share of the overall market.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they saw that, like what, 55% considered independent.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'd have to look now, but they move it stays stays pretty consistent.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're big, and there's a reason for it, you know.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And even when these consolidations happen, look Champion Elevator bought 14 companies in a two and a half year period.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: When you take people and companies, some people don't want to come over, some people you don't want over.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: So what happens is people fall off, they start up companies or they go to other companies.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: So there's always gonna be that cycle.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it isn't gonna be like the consolidator is gonna take every person and everything.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: So there's always gonna be kind of like a like a resurgence of new independence.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's the only game that I believe makes a big difference is the insurance.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: As all these companies, you know, consolidate and they, you know, they are able to buy insurance at a better rate because now they have 10,000 elevators on service.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: The rate per worker is a lot cheaper when you have a thousand workers, right?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: So what happens is the small independents are kind of getting really hit with a high rate, which makes them another it's another thing on top of the material, makes them less competitive.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Technically, if everybody had to provide an actual, like let's say the government said everybody in the elevator business has to be at 25% margin, you would see the prices for the independents way more than the prices for the OEMs because their costs are just so much more.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you can't think an independent is gonna end up cheaper, but you could have great service.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: That you want.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's uh and it's hard to say, of course, but yeah, it's something that you gotta pay for.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: What uh I guess um one question on this this subject is you know, you mentioned that maybe some independents don't want to bid against majors.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like they maybe sell themselves short at times and maybe need to go go head to head more often?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or or I mean is or do they just need to remember what their strengths are and play to those strengths?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I do believe it it depends on the company, it depends on kind of their style, their dynamic, kind of their geographic footprint, even.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's not bad to to compete with the OEMs.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: I really don't, especially, you know, 20 years ago, very hard to compete with the OEMs.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now you have people stepping up, creating products that are an alternative.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, having that availability does give an independent contractor a little bit of a competitive advantage.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk a little bit about technology.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's it's obviously a big game changer.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's rope-free, there's IoT, there's, you know, uh drones.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't I didn't I didn't know about that.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know the you know, some of this stuff existed.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: You can't make it up.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious from your perspective, what's real now versus still sci-fi?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, are are you know are drones really being used on installation?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll tell you.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: So funny enough, like the RISE uh robotic installation system.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like that is happening.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like they are doing that.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's you you can't make it up.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be better, safer.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm sure, I mean, I don't know.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Put some people on the bench for sure, right?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, dang, that's yeah, that's a crew right there.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if these are gonna be union robots or non-union robots, but I know it's not gonna make some people happy.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, when you're talking, you know, AI and you're talking robots, this stuff is precision.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I remember doing rails and you're dropping plum bobs and piano wire and you're doing things, and you were good, and I was pretty good, but like there were guys that were great rail guys, right?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: You got this robot for the rise product, it's gonna be within probably a hundred thousandths of an inch.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe maybe somewhere I think it could be within ten thousandth.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like these things are perfection.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what you're competing with, and again, it's probably making the overall industry safer, and um maybe mechanics will be focused more on you know different parts of the um the field.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things I know that's happening right now that is absolutely amazing is um troubleshooting software.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I literally seen a software a week or two ago that could take a blueprint and you could dial in and it will talk to you like you will think it's a person talking to you.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: You'll say, Oh, I got a you'll say, I got a Schindler 311, and is I need to know the voltage on this terminal.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it'll say to you, the voltage should be 12 volts DC.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you say, Oh, I'm only getting nine volts.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you should check this contact or this printed circuit, but I mean it's it's bizarre.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so but that's nothing.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like me being my age with the gray beard, I would think that that's sci-fi, but it's but it's really happening.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: What's amazing about that?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's you know, just just from a talent perspective, and the the people that know that are you know, they're retiring out pretty fast, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels like from my perspective, you know, trying to fill some of these roles, it's like, where do you find those guys, right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and we're not we're not producing them as fast as we're retiring them out.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I I know of a company that, you know, they they're on the phones all the time, right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're kind of like your little app you're talking about, but they're the ones saying, well, you need to check this and check that, and helping, helping people walk through because yeah, troubleshooters, they're not being minted at at the rate that they're leaving.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that's true.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why, you know, like it's funny because I've been in different meetings where, you know, people present this AI, and then, you know, some of the people's like the field people, like, that stuff's gonna put us out of a job.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: But no, the reality is that can actually help your job.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you gotta look at it different ways.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: When I seen some troubleshooting software where, let's say, you know, in Manhattan, if you have a supervisor for seven mechanics and you're covering, you know, 500 elevators, if someone's having a problem, what's happening with the other guys if they have a problem?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: There is software that, like AI stuff, that'll help these other people to learn faster.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'll give you a great example.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like they could take all of their documents that they've ever created that they set have stored and download that stuff into AI, and then AI can there's programs that could read all of that and will know all of that.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And even if you were a technician with a blueprint in your hand, you are not gonna find it as fast.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just gonna make a mechanic's life easier from the knowledge perspective.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: This way, my opinion is instead of spending three of your eight hours a day trying to figure things out, you'll actually be able to spend that extra time doing maintenance.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the little things that need to be adjusted, the rollers, um, you know, little things that there's there's certain parts of an elevator that no robot, no AI is ever going to be able to take care of.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: There's a human element that is needed for a lot of work.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that all these tools will definitely make the industry better.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's almost like when you look at the old carbons and copper controllers versus a printed circuit board, a controller that's the size of like a dishwasher versus something that used to be the size of a refrigerator.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like the progress is happening, if we like it or not.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, these these items are just valuable tools, and the the faster independents could work with them, the better, because the OEMs are gonna have this stuff and they're they're designing it themselves and they're they're gonna be ahead of the race because they got the dollars to do so.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think the independents have to really focus and and look into these tools because you don't want to be left behind, you know?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and it sounds like people are making these tools available to them, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, okay, you know, if you subscribe to this service or whatever, then you've got in, you know, troubleshooter in the pocket, and you can just pull it out on your phone and it'll walk you through some of this, you know.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it it could be very advantageous to have those tools.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: It could be very helpful.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, thank you for listening.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is Matt with a brief message from our sponsor.
• 18:17
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• 18:21
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• 18:27
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• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And now, back to the show.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like on one hand, yeah, there's an element of sci-fi, but you know what?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sci-fi is becoming real probably faster than a lot of us even realize.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this stuff is is happening, it is being implemented, it is affecting the market even if you don't know it.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and some of the predictive maintenance programs that tie into controllers are unbelievable.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like you could, technician gets a call that the elevator shut down, you know, the machine room's up on the roof.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: The guy has to walk up five stories, check out what's going on, come back down to the third floor, check out the door lock because it's broken, right?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Here, on dispatching, you could know that, hey, on your way up, check out the third floor door lock.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: It will save you a lot of time overall.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: So predictive uh maintenance, preventative, like all that stuff is just, I mean, it's amazing.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, it needs to be worked, it needs to be enhanced.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: We're still in the first stages of AI.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: God only knows where that world's gonna go.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, the tools, just like you said, to me, stuff seems like sci-fi.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: If I didn't see people using it in pro live presentations, I would say, oh, that's like pie in the sky.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Can't ever happen.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: But it is it is amazing.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the younger generation may say, of course, that's the way it is.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: But like, you know, I've come from, you know, you know, 40 years in the business, you know, you've seen it where guys are using hammer and chisel on things that now, you know, robots are doing.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just interesting.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's it's it is evolving so rapidly, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and gonna gonna keep changing.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, yeah, who d who knows, right?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's easy, I guess, to say, well, that's gonna, you know, put us out of business or whatever, but it but it's like people are gonna have to still be people.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's gonna be work to do, but can we learn to use the tools and then make ourselves more effective along the way?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: You have to be open to it, I think.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the next question, we we talked uh a bit about the independence, the OEMs, and what I want I've found interesting just in the last few years is how much consolidation among independents, right?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some some of the independents seem so eager, you know, to grow, to, to bring in private equity, to, to acquire, to and yet, you know, I guess the question I'm having is is, you know, it seems like there's strength in in kind of staying local, right?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know a couple companies that come to mind that they they really only operate in this one city, but you know, they rock that one city, they dominate that one city, and and they're very profitable, very highly respected.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like I I can see the the lure of, hey, we're gonna go everywhere and do everything, and I can also see some huge risks.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: What are your what are your thoughts on something like that?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if they if they are doing it and they're profitable and they're good at it, my opinion it would be stay the course champion.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: We seen, you know, we're New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, a little bit of Pennsylvania, but we've seen, you know, the big moves Florida and Texas, and Washington.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: DC work and you know we looked, we didn't really make the move because to us there is opportunity there, but if you're not focusing on your main core here in New York, there's someone that's gonna eat your lunch, right?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: So we made a decision, like, let's stay local in our you know, tri-state area, hone our systems, hone our processes, and do things the best that we can do rather than jump and go into other cities and do startups.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's all about your thought process, how much energy you want to spend in other areas and your leadership team.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: If you have a leadership team that you can multiply and duplicate and get them out to other areas and keep, you know, the like what makes you great in one city might not mean you're gonna be great in another city.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's different codes, it's different labor forces, it's different relationships, it's even just a different way to do business.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they don't do business down in Florida the way they do business in New York.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: The whole um the whole process is different.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it might not work or it might work.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's it's great.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: I love when the I love the tenacity of when somebody says, I'm gonna go now that I'm good in New York, I'm gonna go to this, this, this, and this, conquer the world.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: But you have to be careful and you, you know, all that startup costs a lot of money.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: You have to manage all of that, you gotta build it.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it's definitely not an easy task by any means.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are you are you are you glad you've done it the way you have, you know, building your your empire, if you will, you know, within within a reachable distance?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you ever think, man, I wish I'd have gone to California and bought XYZ?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know I've I've seen some companies across the the country that were amazing opportunities.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: But overall, I think we made a smart decision to just stay more localized and kind of get our company, you know, running very good versus, you know, jumping around and having more stuff to focus on.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was that's but for us, that was a better choice, I believe.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean I've seen it more than once.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, let's go do this, let's go to this state and then have to retreat, retract, you know, sell whatever, because it's like, okay, they just spreads us too thin, and now we're traveling all the time, and we can't even take care of our home front because uh we're gone half the time.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: For us, that wasn't a good option.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: We we seen it and we we took a pause.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um what we're doing, we've we got just under 6,000 elevators right now that we're maintaining uh over a champion elevator.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it's uh that's a that's nice, nice book of business.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's manageable.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you gotta manage it, you gotta work it.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: But um like I don't know if bigger is always better, and I don't know if being out there everywhere is always what it's cracked up to be.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: It might sound great, but you know, I don't know.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what I look like.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's a good point.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like finding a war on multiple fronts, right?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you know you got you got one or you know, whatever, but if you start jumping out there, then I'm seeing a lot of independence gaining a lot of ground on some of these bigger companies.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's it is hard to keep your eye on every single area, and it is difficult at times to find the right talent.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, hey, we just lost this person that had X number of years and they retired.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's tough sometimes to to find that person, especially if you haven't raised them up through your ranks or they don't want to relocate, or maybe you lost them to the competition because you weren't treating them well.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you could have multiple things going against you.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yep.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's a whole different terrain.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Every every city is its own terrain, and yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you bought a company that was operating in that area and they were going to continue to operate it, um, maybe that's a okay model, but usually when people sell or want to get out or whatever a transaction happens, usually they're not looking to stay doing the same thing that they were doing.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I think it's a little bit risky doing uh moves like that, you know?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it works for some, and uh it sounds like you're pleased with with the direction you took, and that's that's great.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to chat a little bit.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: We talked briefly about some of the supply chain, and I I want to just bounce back to that for a second because I was talking to a guy last week, I think, and he he was saying that uh you know that rails aren't even made in the U.S.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, really?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I didn't know that.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know you had to go international to get them, and and we were actually talking about the tariffs a little bit, and I was like, well, what do you what do you do?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, nothing you can do.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: You just pay the tariff and go on.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Have you have you seen some of those issues, or how have you seen them, I guess, manifest for you?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: It definitely goes uh over to the point of the globalization, um, the steel market, the uh permanent magnet market.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: These, you know, if you wanted to manufacture a motor here in the U.S., just bring in the material, you're gonna bring in 80% of your raw material.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: So already you're gonna be less competitive than anything anyone's gonna get.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's gonna be impossible.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing with the rails.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: The rails, what once were something manufactured here, that's gotten so far out, you know, that it's now you got China, you got Italy, you got Germany making rails, and you know, everybody's fighting for the market.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's not a lot of margin.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like when you look at the uh the manufacturers, they're making it and they're keeping their people working in these other countries, but they're not really making crazy margin.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then by the time you bring it over here, you know, you got the tariff, you got the shipping, you got insurance, you got now after it lands on the port, you have to ship it again.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: I would assume that after all that work is done, I would have to hope that somebody selling rails would be making a good margin because it's not like the way it was, and I don't think it's gonna get like the way it was because it takes so much work.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, obviously, steel manufacturing in the U.S.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: was a multi, you know, hundred-year, multi-generational, you know, uh endeavor, and then we've kind of walked away from a lot of it because of low margins and because of, oh, we can get some cheaper labor elsewhere and taxes aren't favorable here, so we'll just we'll just let somebody else do it.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Even with you know, our our scrap in the US, we have the small scrap guys and that collect all the little stuff, and you know, you got the the cans that go into the little machine at the shopping machine, like shopping centers.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: The reality is that all goes to a next bigger guy that goes to a next bigger guy that actually ends up putting it on barges and sending it out to be processed overseas.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: So even our scrap, as fast as we're knocking down buildings and collecting cans and doing all sorts of things, our scrap, as we harvest that, it's going overseas.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then already they've got a competitive advantage because they've got the metal.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're even they're even doing the recycling uh cheaper than we can do here.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it took a long time to get ourselves into this situation, and it would take a lot for us to get out of it.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I hate to say it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if we could ever get out of it.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you know the USA will ever become another manufacturing giant again, like it was in its day.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: But um, but I think it does leave opportunities open for other good uh material suppliers to actually get their products into the U.S.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: Back, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, there was nothing uh that was really imported, very few items.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now now there's a lot.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: And even for the even for the majors, their stuff is made over.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say a lot of U.S.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: companies have have outsourced their manufacturing, right?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: It still still has the sticker on it, but it's like, oh yeah, we made that in Taiwan or we had it made in China, or we, you know, 100% or at least a lot of the components are for sure.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, absolutely.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we've talked a little bit about kind of the sustainability of manufacturing, but curious, you know, sustainability seems to be one of those uh issues, topics that that comes a lot up a lot.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you see a lot of this, you know, greener elevator?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a lot of visibility to that.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I see it in cars, you know, electric this and you know.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Every manufacturer, I believe, is always trying to make things more efficient, right?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, if you're going head to head with another competitor, at some level, sustainability is gonna come into the topic.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: And these architects are looking at it, developers are looking at it, there's greener projects, there's projects that are you know focused on that, hyper-focused on it, especially California.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: So they're looking at this kind of stuff pretty serious, you know.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: You could, you know, become not competitive just from that, you know, from that perspective.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: You may have a product that's cheaper to install, all this other stuff, but if you're not meeting certain criteria, you might not get yourself the job.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it's smart for all of the companies to focus on sustainability, um, not only for what it really is, a better planet, but just to make sure they are gonna have a place in the marketplace.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the things that I remember years ago when a consultant spec would come out, it would say, give an alternate price for regenerative drives, you know, the drive system that'll put energy back into an elevator.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's almost like it used to be like$9,000 more.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I would you you'd tell the owner, they'd say, What's this nine thousand dollar extra cost?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we could put power back into your building, wipe it out.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: They would put a marker right over that, get rid of it.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want to know nothing about it.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like one in every 50 would choose it.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's like so many people would choose it that it's almost in all the jobs.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I do believe that all the controller manufacturers and stuff, it's in a few years, regenerative drive will be in everything.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why would you not do it?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, not that long ago, it was an alternate that people would put an X over.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, again, you know, sustainability, everything you hear, the global warming thing, everybody's got, you know, everybody's got their lane.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it ain't it's not going away.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: No one's gonna wake up tomorrow and say, who cares about pollution and energy efficiency and a greener planet?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and if they do, I gotta watch out how that's gonna play out.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: If it works for them, that'd be a miracle.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's always gonna be here, and there are responsible ways to get all of this done, but again, that's a thing on a global scale that the OEMs and bigger manufacturers, they they will have a jump on all of that.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Kone with the EcoDisc, that was a real first-time movement.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Otis with the Gen 2.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: So slowly it'll come around, and every day it's getting greener.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like I mean, I used to go into uh elevator machine rooms in the 80s, and there was carbon dust everywhere, and cobalt in the end, like the stuff that you would have, like you just wipe something, your hand will be black, and you're breathing that in.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Nowadays, that's not happening.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's it's gonna continue and it's it's it's gonna get better, and you have to keep moving with the progress.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, for sure.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Which leads us to the last question here, just kind of the the vision forward.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you had to predict elevator industry 2035, what do you think it would look like in terms of technology, competition, and the role of the independent?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a big that's a big bite.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big bite.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's a real big one.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I do believe at that point, almost everything will be, you know, in the predictive maintenance, where right at dispatching, you know, I don't think even right now of a building superintendent or a facility manager placing a call by phone to a dispatcher and then doing, I think it's all going to happen at the controller level where an alert will probably, you might not even need dispatches.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: An alert will probably be sent to an app based on a region where you know you kind of know what you're walking into.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: If you have sensors and you're able to test vibrations of different parts of the equipment, or there's enough ways to put sensors and predictive things where you're gonna know what floors are being used the most.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, change these three rollers this month.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like people make assumptions, we're all human, like, oh, the top floor gets used the most, and so we're gonna change the rollers there, and and we're gonna go down, down, down, and then what happens?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: You get an emergency call, you gotta go somewhere else, you don't make it back the next month.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like here, the machinery will be able to tell you like you may think the top floor um was used the most, but did you know that the third floor of the building just had two move-ins and move outs in a month period?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: The doors were held by furniture companies and this and that, and blah, blah, blah.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that stuff is beat up.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: But that's the last place you might think of going.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's gonna be the biggest dynamic change.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of AI uh will be, you know, handling troubleshooting work.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: Mechanics are gonna be, I believe mechanics will be able to do the maintenance on the parts they need to do the maintenance on and take less guesswork on the stuff that they struggle with now.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like the the tools are there.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even you know, some of what you're describing is is available now, maybe just not implemented now.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like you know, a lot of the remote monitoring, it's like, okay, we have stuff to do that, and I think it's moving forward, but uh got a long way to go to actually get a lot of those installed.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, it's easy, it's even like a mindset.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like right now, if we would go to every one of our customers and say, hey, we want to put this predictive maintenance component on your system so that you could tell, you know, we could know faster, they would they would not, I don't think they would engage it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: They would look at it kind of like the idea of the regenerative drive.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, well, if you're doing the maintenance, you should probably know when it's gonna break, right?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's the mindset for some clients.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: There are people that would love this idea, put it on all my buildings.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: But the reality is, as a whole, I think a lot of people would say, eh, I don't think so.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: But as controllers are coming with this product built in it and stuff, and it's just a flip or switch on, or it's baked into your monthly maintenance price, I think it'll just be an acceptable thing that if company A has it, company B has it, and company C don't have it, I think company C is gonna have a problem, you know, keeping up with the other company.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: So it's again a movement that's gonna have to happen.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think, I think all elevator systems are gonna end up having some kind of remote monitoring, maybe you know, fees built in, fees built out.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: Again, it's a revenue generator.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody loves that idea.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, there'll definitely be subscription-based monitoring services and stuff like that.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's just just inevitable.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure as they understand the benefits and and hey, if we can prevent shutdowns because we can you know anticipate that this is gonna, you know, this is vibrating, it's gonna go bad, this machine's gonna fall apart, you know, then I I think it's just kind of yeah, making sure they understand what's what's there to be had.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 100%.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool, very cool.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Tom, thank you for being here with me today.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a lot of fun to discuss all these different as aspects that you've been addressing.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you're very welcome.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Anything I could do to help the industry, and you know, I love what you're doing, keep doing the great work you're doing.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Please like and subscribe.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, stay safe.