Latest / Outside TG / Episode 56: Wayne Glen TG Tribute

Transcript

Episode 56: Wayne Glen TG Tribute · Outside TG

0:08
Hi, this is Charlie. This is Jeff.
0:11
Welcome back for another TG tribute podcast.
0:14
We got Chris Howard here. How's it going, Chris?
0:16
Hey, guys. I'm great.
0:17
How are you? All right, awesome.
0:20
And who's our guest today? Chris, you want to introduce?
0:22
Yeah, we have a special guest, Mr. Wayne Glenn.
0:25
Hi, guys. Hey, Wayne.
0:26
How are you doing? Good.
0:31
You guys want to start? Why don't you give us a little
0:34
background, Wayne? Who are you?
0:35
Where are you from? How'd you get here?
0:40
Well, I I started an apprenticeship house mechanical,
0:45
I don't know about 30 years ago and at some point in time my
0:50
career path brought me to tweet and worked in the trade, worked
0:57
as a foreman, worked as a scheduler for manpower, do some
1:04
estimating. I work my way into the office as
1:07
an account manager, my current position so.
1:11
Wayne, I'm going to be I'm going to press you a little bit on
1:14
because I think it would be really interesting for people to
1:17
hear what what it was like in the very early days of the
1:22
Wisconsin Rapids office starting.
1:25
Because I think we've had you're the first tribute video we've
1:31
done outside of Green Bay. And I don't know if a lot of
1:35
people know how far back the office goes and how early you
1:39
were a part of that journey. But I know you've been a giant
1:43
part of the journey from whenever you started there until
1:46
today. So I'm just kind of curious if
1:49
you could talk about what what life was like back then and how
1:54
when you got attached to tweak here and what the landscape was
1:58
when you started? OK, well I was working at
2:04
Housing Mechanical. They were pretty slow.
2:06
Mike Lurkin had already transferred over to Tweak
2:11
Garrett. We went through our
2:12
apprenticeship together, so we knew each other quite well.
2:18
And there was kind of a change of the guards in Rapids at Tweed
2:22
Garrett. Mike Phillips was in charge and
2:26
he was on his way out and Tom Bandle had replaced him.
2:31
And with the things that were going on, it has as slow as they
2:34
were, they were working short weeks and so, so forth.
2:37
And Tom had reached out to me and I knew Mike was over here
2:41
and he said, hey, you know, we got work.
2:43
If you, if you're interested in coming.
2:45
And so I, I did, I told Haza that, you know, if they get busy
2:49
at some point in time, you know, maybe I'd come back, no hard
2:52
feelings. But right now they've got full
2:54
employment for me at tweet and I'm going to go pursue that.
2:56
So that's kind of what happened. And then from there I worked
3:03
with Mike and under Mike for a, a few years.
3:06
A lot of paper mill stuff, shutdowns and and what have you.
3:10
Tom Bandle had end up moving on. Yeah, for a while there I was
3:17
was taking care of the sheet metal side for maybe it was a
3:21
year, but between interims with a new manager at Rapids.
3:27
So it's kind of how I got in there, I guess.
3:30
I'm going to ask a question that's on probably a lot of
3:32
people's mind, which is what was Mike LER kind like in the 1990s?
3:39
Mike was a lot of fun. He's really intense.
3:43
He wait, Mike is intense. What?
3:45
That's weird. Mike was intense.
3:50
He would, he would have, you know, he'd have, we'd have a
3:52
shutdown at a paper mill, whatever.
3:54
And he'd have, you know, two or three weeks on the looking at
3:57
drawings and coming up with an estimate and stuff.
3:59
And then he'd walk me from one end to the one end of the
4:03
machine to the other end saying we got to do work here.
4:05
We got to do work there. We got to do work here.
4:06
We got, Oh yeah, we got to come back and do this.
4:08
And I'd be like, wait a minute, you've been looking at this for
4:10
a month. I've got like 5 seconds so it
4:17
but it was he was to me, he he was good to work with.
4:20
We got along really well was. What was the status?
4:24
Was there an office at this point?
4:25
Was it still a trailer? Was it on?
4:28
I know that they moved locations before they got to Jefferson
4:31
Street. Where?
4:32
Where was what? Was it was that it was that
4:35
Jeff, we were at still at Jefferson.
4:36
It was there when I when I moved over, it was at Jefferson St.
4:39
That's where our place is. Not the Bono office.
4:46
That sounds about right. Yeah, 'cause it started as a
4:50
trailer. I if I believe around in Bono
4:53
and then it went to like almost like a garage storage place.
4:58
That's what. That's at least some of the
5:00
anecdotes I've heard. OK, I knew about the Bono office
5:05
trailer with the, you know, 16 machine going on.
5:08
I think that's when, you know, Tweet made its presence in
5:10
Rapids. Was that at Mead Machine At
5:13
Mead? Is that what where you get what
5:14
machine or what? This is this was, this was
5:17
consolidated, consolidated? Which was it even consolidated?
5:20
Was it still consolidated at that point?
5:23
Yes, it was OK. Yeah, yeah.
5:30
So you already named a a couple people who, who else sticks out
5:33
to you from that era, like who kind of helped you along in
5:37
your, your Tweak Garrett career? Tweak Garrett career I I boy, I
5:47
would say between Mike and and Tom Bandle as far as getting me
5:52
involved over here. Did some work with Jay Svoboda
5:58
as well before he moved on and came back and so forth.
6:04
Those are the two, yeah, I would say those are the 2 main people.
6:08
I, you know, I ran around with Mike a little bit travelling as
6:10
well. Went to Chillicothe, OH, for a
6:14
while with him. I went down to Chicago for a
6:17
while to help him out down there.
6:20
So I guess Mike's really been probably my biggest influence at
6:24
Tweed. So we're talking about those I,
6:28
I don't have any history like in my mind how this even happened
6:32
back in the day. Did we start an office in
6:34
Rapids? Did we buy somebody else out
6:36
there? We, well, I'll Wayne, I'll let
6:38
you answer, but I, I think this started with, with work at
6:42
Consolidated. OK, so IA big, a team of people
6:46
from Green Bay went out to manage it and we started
6:50
building a workforce there which included like, you know, Greg
6:55
Weinferger was a part of that. He had worked with Bolt for a
6:58
period of time and then moved over.
7:01
And it at some point, I'm sure that's how Mike started kind of
7:06
working with Ray. And at some point people had to
7:09
come back to Green Bay and it was sort of like a if you want
7:13
to keep working for us, you need to start developing work.
7:16
That's how Greg will tell the story.
7:18
Wayne, I don't know if if it's it's different from your
7:21
perspective coming on a bit after that, but it was sort of
7:24
like a you want to stay part of this.
7:27
You got to start eating what you kill.
7:30
And then they develop they started developing relationships
7:33
and that led from it went from a trailer to let's build an
7:37
office. And it is.
7:38
It is an organic success story due in large part to all these
7:43
great people that you know started out on that one project.
7:48
So Tweak Gear built that office and I mean, and this is, yeah,
7:50
I've been here a while. I've never really heard the
7:52
story of how that transitioned to Rapids.
7:54
So yeah, that's a pretty big part of the company.
7:56
That was already, yeah, I think Tim, all your dad built, built
8:02
the shop or whatever and then once became a permanent
8:05
residence in in Wisconsin Rapids.
8:08
So yeah, that was already established when I when I came
8:12
on to the Tweak Gear family. So I remember going to job
8:17
trailers that consolidated in Stevens Point and consolidated
8:20
in Rapids, and Jerry Manchesky was out there and Jim Beaudry
8:23
was out there. Like there were, yeah, people
8:26
from Green Bay going back and forth at the time, pretty.
8:28
Sure, Ray still has notebooks of all his productivity metrics
8:31
from that job somewhere. So that must have been a monster
8:33
project then. I mean all hands on deck type
8:36
thing. Dave Kivit.
8:38
Dave Kivit was on that job from Bolt.
8:40
He was running the project for Bolt.
8:42
He's now Bolt CEO. There's a lot of, I mean, a lot
8:45
of people, I think that was, that was considered a giant
8:48
gigantic success story. That was one of the biggest
8:51
jobs. We were most important jobs
8:52
we've ever. Done how?
8:53
That mill does not even exist. Really.
8:56
Yeah. This seems like nothing now I'm
8:58
sure, but that was what I was working in the tool crib at the
9:00
time and they found out that I could use Microsoft Excel and
9:03
they called me into the office and said would you be able to
9:05
make daily? They require daily time sheets
9:08
for us to get this job. So I would pull all the time
9:12
cards, collect and and keep track of how many hours
9:15
everybody worked and what rate they were at and then send at
9:18
the end of the day like a 10 page offered fax A10 page report
9:23
back to Consolidated to say like this is exactly how much we
9:25
spent on Labour every day. Yeah.
9:29
So yeah, that was, that was at the time the largest job we'd
9:32
ever and for a long time, I feel like, wasn't it the largest job
9:35
we'd ever done? I believe so.
9:38
Yeah, So initially started as just a sheet metal company, some
9:40
pipe fitter work and then one is one of the pipe fitter plumbing
9:44
thing. All get involved with Rapids and
9:45
all that. I mean, I'm, we're talking about
9:47
some Rapids history, you know, not Wayne, but.
9:49
Yeah, that I think it was all, it all happened at the same
9:51
time. I mean, I think there was a
9:53
group of people that we hired to, to, to, to man the job.
9:58
And then a lot of those people stayed to start trying to find
10:01
their own work. And some of them, some of it was
10:03
overlap, some of it was piping only, sheet metal only and it
10:10
sort of just went from there. Wayne, do you remember some of
10:13
the early customers you worked for?
10:16
You know, you mentioned shutdowns with Mike, you
10:18
mentioned was a lot of that still I consolidated or did it
10:21
start to spread to others? Majority it was consolidated,
10:26
but like I said, that was Rapids Mill Beer and Mill Point Mill,
10:31
the Coosa, Port Edwards paper mills, you know, it was
10:34
predominant paper. Paper was booming in the in that
10:37
day. So they were spending money left
10:40
and right and there was a lot of a lot of work to go around.
10:45
So yeah, predominantly either I want to say paper industry not
10:49
necessarily consolidated, but yeah, even up to Mosinee and and
10:53
Wausau broke all we did a lot of running around with the all the
10:57
mills in the area. How many sheet metal like when
11:03
you started, how many sheet sheet metal team members were
11:07
were working out of like working with you and Mike out of
11:10
Wisconsin Rapids? Oh, 10-12 maybe.
11:18
OK. How have you, how have you think
11:22
forward to today? How has it grown and changed?
11:26
Oh, I used to know everyone. No, it's, it's, it's crazy the,
11:37
the, the people that we have coming up and, and, and not
11:42
being able to go into the shop and know everyone by name and,
11:45
and to carry on conversation. You kind of, you kind of lose a
11:48
little a disconnect when you get when I was in the field and the
11:52
foreman and running stuff, you know, you're, you're with the
11:54
guys every day and with the tools and so forth.
11:56
And you go into the office and you start losing some of that
11:59
connection with some of them. The original ones, you, you
12:02
still got a pretty good relationship when but the, the
12:04
younger guys coming up, then you kind of, you don't have that as
12:07
much, but they still feel pretty strong about being a tweet and
12:14
play the way I, the way I see it.
12:16
So it's, it's been good. It's been, it's been a slow
12:19
growth, I think over the years. It's slow and steady.
12:23
Every now and then we have a a big project and you jump up, you
12:26
know, on manpower. But for the most part, it's just
12:28
been a a steady, a steady manpower growth over in Rapids.
12:32
Do you see that across like, so going back to when you were at
12:36
Haza and it, if it, I'm assuming it felt like a lot of small kind
12:41
of more mom and pop type contractors.
12:46
When you look at that same landscape today, are you like,
12:50
does it, is it a surprise? Are you, do you see it?
12:53
Cause a lot of those businesses, at least from my perspective,
12:55
have kind of stayed the same. And we, we have that slow steady
13:00
growth. And now you, you all of a sudden
13:02
you look back over 20-30 years and it's, it's a gigantic
13:05
difference. Yes, yeah, yeah.
13:08
The other like you said, Haza and some of the other smaller
13:11
shops there, they have their niche and that's where they're
13:14
comfortable. And you know, if jobs get too
13:17
big, you see their their numbers as far as big numbers seem to
13:22
get compounded more than they should.
13:23
And, and they're, you know, because they're not secure and,
13:26
and handling that size of a project.
13:28
So that's kind of where we end up starting to shine is when the
13:30
projects get bigger, we get a lot more competitive in that
13:36
field. Yeah.
13:36
But they are definitely comfortable working with their
13:40
certain customers and their certain size projects and and
13:43
that's where they like to stay so.
13:46
Are there any any projects over your career that you look back
13:49
on really fondly? Like any any absolute favorite
13:52
projects. Any absolute favorite projects?
13:59
I'll have one project that went really, really well and it was a
14:04
pain in the butt to begin with. We had a, it was a Whiting paper
14:09
mill, which is now gone as well, but they're rebuilding the wet
14:13
end of that mill or that machine down to the soul plate.
14:18
And we had spent, I should say I had spent.
14:24
This is under Mike too, probably two to three weeks in a
14:28
conference room with the other trades putting sticky notes on
14:31
the wall for every task that we had to do and broken down to a
14:37
12 hour shift. And by the time we got done,
14:41
everyone knew where they needed to be when and crane cranes
14:47
were, you know, who got it when and it was all organized.
14:51
And that, that shutdown went extremely well.
14:56
We, we set the a new record. They said the fastest time that
14:59
they had rebuilt one in the past was like 21 days.
15:03
And that was bringing in majority of the stuff through
15:05
the roof in one piece. And we had done it like 19 days.
15:09
And, but they, at the each, at the end of each shift, they were
15:15
updating the schedule. So you knew where the other
15:19
trades were at and what you could work on.
15:21
And you basically had at the end of each ship, they would have a
15:24
new list of tasks that this is where you, what you should be
15:27
working on. And it just, everything went
15:30
fluid. It was, it was crazy.
15:32
The pre, the pre organization and scheduling and, and breaking
15:35
it down to that detail. Everyone, everyone knew that job
15:40
inside and out and exactly where and what they should be doing.
15:44
And it was. It was crazy how that paid off
15:47
in the long run. What were you, the foreman on
15:48
that job? Superintendent, I guess.
15:52
OK, wow. So who was some of the guys that
15:54
were under you that had made it work so well?
15:57
I mean, it must have been a pretty good team effort.
15:59
Yeah, Craig. Craig Arnold, I think might have
16:01
been that job and you wouldn't know him.
16:03
I'm sure Jay was probably on that job.
16:07
Tim Bovee, he's retired. All the guys that were there, I
16:11
was kind of the young guy on the on the scene.
16:17
Well, then, if you're the young guy that none of them are
16:19
listening right now. And yeah.
16:20
So. You're not.
16:21
Insulting anybody? Yeah, yeah, for sure.
16:26
Since you've started here at Tweet, what has been some major
16:29
technological advances that you've seen?
16:31
Like I know it's kind of different, You know, the
16:35
mothership is here in the pier, you guys are in Rapids.
16:37
How has that been working? Working, you know, as as is it
16:40
like a does it feel like a separate company over there or
16:43
is it all one? Do you work together with a lot
16:44
of the people from the main office?
16:49
At times we work really well together and at times it seems
16:52
we're separate. You know, the water jet, the
16:54
water jet is a huge thing. You know our when Steve Dickey
16:58
and and Kurt are doing a food grade stuff and and things need
17:02
to be water jetted out and and accuracy.
17:04
And that was a huge step forward for tweet and, you know, plasma
17:08
tables and so forth. And just, yeah, going from going
17:12
from bag phones in the truck to the flip phones to smartphones.
17:16
And it's just like, holy crap, that all happened in our
17:18
lifetime. A lot of people don't do you
17:20
remember bag phones in your vehicles?
17:22
It's like, wow. So it's, it's crazy how fast
17:30
things have developed and how much faster you get answers in,
17:36
in reaction times and, and things that in order to keep
17:40
projects moving along, you know, you kind of lose the, the only
17:45
problem with that is you kind of lose that one-on-one
17:47
relationship with people 'cause now you're just sending out a
17:49
quick e-mail or, or, or something.
17:51
And before it was a, a face to face and a conversation.
17:54
And, and you, you knew your customers better.
17:57
You knew your, your, your contractors, the other people
18:02
that you're working with. Those relationships seem to be,
18:05
I think, stronger back in the day.
18:07
Now you're you're more of your, you're an e-mail, you're just
18:10
another face. So it's hard to maintain that
18:14
relationship with technology that we have.
18:16
You know, you'd think you'd be closer because you can talk to
18:19
everyone real quick, but it's not that face to face
18:23
conversation that really builds that trust in relationship.
18:26
I'm an example, we're doing our podcast via teleconference
18:29
through our through our podcast equipment here now.
18:31
So, yeah, right, you know. Yeah, exactly.
18:34
They didn't need to know that. I guess they didn't.
18:37
That's the first time we've ever done it though.
18:38
It's sounded pretty good so far. We've done, we've done one of
18:42
these with Wayne before. Oh, that's right.
18:43
It's Wayne. That's right, the other for the,
18:45
you know, outside DG. How did how did the season go
18:49
this year, by the way? It went pretty good.
18:52
We ended up getting third overall at state.
18:54
So what? What season are you guys
18:55
Speaking of? Oh, sorry, yeah, I'm throwing
18:57
back to a podcast from a year ago.
18:58
We're talking. We're talking high school
19:01
mountain biking. Oh.
19:02
That's right, yes. Yep, yeah, and I and now you
19:06
have a sounds like you have a mountain biker over at the pier
19:09
there. We do, actually.
19:11
I was talking, Dana stopped me on the way in and asked if I was
19:14
going to go to one of the races this year.
19:15
And I'm like, tell me when they are.
19:16
I'm. I should have looked it up
19:18
myself. Yep, Yep.
19:21
I saw her a couple couple of races.
19:23
I ran into her ran into her husband once and her, I should
19:28
say her once at at one of the races as well.
19:30
It was it was good. It's nice to meet her.
19:32
Put a face to a name and right sounds like they're really
19:35
enjoying it. So so.
19:38
I know that's a big part of your life.
19:39
And what else are you into as far as outside of mountain bike,
19:42
you know, outside of Tweed, Garrett, you know, what else are
19:45
you doing? How's your?
19:46
Own vision going. It's been pretty slow with this
19:50
hip rehab, so I haven't been spending a whole lot of time in
19:52
the tree, but I kind of expected that as I'm hoping to be able to
19:58
get up and around enough to to get out for rifle season was
20:00
kind of my goal. After you, you.
20:02
Couldn't have scheduled that for a better time.
20:05
January. Couldn't wait till.
20:06
January. That cuts into my making Maple
20:10
syrup in the springtime. Then I got to be able to get
20:12
around. Pick your poison.
20:13
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, for sure.
20:18
So. Anything else?
20:20
Any other? What do you?
20:22
Well, you said fishing. Did you did you do any of the
20:25
Walleye Tournament stuff this year?
20:26
I didn't, did not get into any of the tournaments.
20:29
Now, as my parents have a place up north, we try to get up there
20:32
a couple times a year and fish for pan fish and in northerns
20:35
and, and what have you had? That's, that's kind of my
20:38
extent, but I do enjoy getting out in the woods and just just
20:42
chilling and sitting on a boat and relaxing.
20:44
So right. Yeah.
20:46
How many kids you have in your family?
20:48
You guys all do that. You guys all do the outdoor
20:50
fishing together. Yeah, well, my daughter's 9th or
20:55
20, just turned 20, so she's out of the house.
20:58
My son is just turned 17, but yeah, he enjoys the outdoors,
21:03
hunting and fishing. Yeah, for sure.
21:05
Awesome. Yeah.
21:09
So what What's kept you going over the years of Tweak Garrett?
21:12
What? What keeps you motivated?
21:15
What keeps me motivated? It's probably the people I get
21:18
to work with. I mean, it's it's they make it
21:25
fun. I deal a lot with Mike Bergenk
21:28
up in Tomahawk right now working with LP projects, and without
21:31
him, I would be lost. He's he's just, there's a wealth
21:34
of knowledge. Yeah, that's.
21:35
A good guy. Yeah.
21:36
I got to run throughout the years, so.
21:38
Yeah. And who else you working with a
21:40
lot? I know you and Mike worked a lot
21:42
together. Yeah, Bob Lancic, he's been a,
21:49
he's been a, he was, he was my foreman for quite a few, quite a
21:52
few years with LP and now he's kind of with Josh Marino and got
21:55
jerked him away, away from me. But he's been a huge asset for a
21:59
couple of really large projects for LP for us that he's really,
22:05
I can lean on him, he can lean on me.
22:07
And it's been a really good partnership.
22:12
Yeah. Now some of the newer guys.
22:23
Put you on the spot again. Yeah, actually he put himself
22:27
Tim Keenick, he's on the. Spot, Yeah.
22:29
You dug yourself. This whole guys, Tim Keenick,
22:32
he's, he's ready to retire. Steve Blitz, I think you got him
22:38
down in Arkansas or something. Now he's working on a project
22:41
for you guys. He's he's been a real help for
22:44
me into the LP stuff. I've I've pretty much more from
22:48
paper mill stuff to LP stuff so. Are you making an end to
22:55
Tomahawk? Quite a bit.
22:55
Do you? Do you head over to that office?
22:57
Quite I'm I'm assuming you do because I go up there every once
22:59
in a while. I haven't seen you there yet,
23:00
but hopefully I get to catch up with you there.
23:02
Usually, usually once a week, twice a week, I'll end up
23:04
getting up there, yeah, and go through stuff.
23:07
Organize something somewhere there together.
23:09
We can go out and have a dinner or something.
23:11
Sure, yeah. Wayne, you mentioned, you
23:14
mentioned that you have a lot of fun with those guys.
23:17
Do you sense that, you know, that's one of our core values.
23:22
Do you see, do you see that? I mean, are you just saying that
23:25
or do you see it? Like do you think we've
23:26
operationalized that value across multiple offices?
23:35
I see I yeah, no, I see it. I see it in the personality of
23:40
the guys not wanting to get too serious about stuff.
23:43
I, I think it has a lot to do with just the way the, the way
23:46
the people are and the fact that tweet embraces that helps, you
23:50
know, you don't see, I guess I haven't seen anybody say, hey,
23:54
you know, knock it off. We got work to do.
23:57
Usually it's like everyone's getting their stuff done and
24:00
they're having some fun doing it.
24:03
And I think the the the people in the offices and in the field
24:07
realize that there's enough pressure going on most of the
24:10
time that you don't need to be so strict that you can't enjoy a
24:16
a small joke on the side and, and, and make it lighten the
24:21
mood for a little while, you know?
24:23
Yeah. So.
24:24
I agree with that and I probably should have started with this,
24:27
but you know, I think that's kind of why we wanted to do
24:30
these tribute videos in the 1st place is 1.
24:36
I, I just want to say thank you to people that have, you know,
24:40
been here for a long time, have a lot of history, credibility.
24:45
We're a big part of the culture. And that's obviously you, you
24:49
know, I think about when I think about the Wisconsin Rapids
24:53
office and I think about that being sort of the first step
24:56
away from Green Bay for this company.
25:00
It's so important because if you don't get that first step right,
25:03
then you can't make additional steps.
25:07
And when I look at where we are today, the culture is so
25:11
aligned. It doesn't feel like we're a
25:15
business with multiple entities. It feels like we're one
25:18
business. And that you can say that that's
25:21
strategic or that's part of a plan, but I don't know that it
25:23
is. It's really just the result of a
25:26
lot of hard work from people like yourself that put people
25:30
put other people 1st and allowed people to have the space to have
25:34
fun and cared about each other and worked hard.
25:38
And we over the years kind of landed on a core team of people
25:42
in that office that did that. And you were a big piece of
25:45
that. So a big part of this is, is for
25:48
me just to be able to say thank you for all that you've done for
25:53
over all the years, because the, the business looks very
25:57
different than I'm sure it was and feels different than when
26:00
you started and you were a big piece of that.
26:02
And two, I want people to hear your story and I want people to
26:05
know, man, Wayne had a huge impact here.
26:10
And then people can learn about the business and maybe that
26:13
makes them feel more connected to tweak your it in some way.
26:16
So I'm just grateful again for all that you've done and for
26:22
just coming on here and and telling, telling some of your
26:25
stories. Sure.
26:29
Yeah, I, I just, yeah, I just try to go to work.
26:35
Good attitude, get my work done, try to keep guys busy.
26:41
I don't think I'm ever think I'm going asking for more than I
26:46
deserve or, or, or looking for recognition.
26:50
You know, it's just, it's I have a job to do, you go do it and
26:56
you make, as long as you're doing a good job, no one really
27:00
bothers you at Tweet, you know, if you're screwed off.
27:03
Yeah. But as long as you, you know,
27:05
you put forth the good effort, they let you, they let you
27:08
succeed, right. And and work up through the
27:12
ranks if you want to do that. So it's been a great, it's been
27:16
a great career for me at Tweet. Well, I was going to ask the
27:19
last question like the one piece of but he kind of went into it
27:22
like naturally the one last piece of wisdom to pass on in
27:26
the next generation, you know, to the next week, your employees
27:29
and you kind of just stated it. Keep your head to the nose of
27:31
the grindstone and have fun while doing it.
27:33
Pretty much, you know. Yeah.
27:37
Well, you were subtle. You were more subtle than that.
27:39
But I think, I think you also what, what I heard him say too
27:43
was and what I've always known about Wayne is there's like
27:49
there's a lot of humility there. And I, I love being able to
27:53
point to examples, Wayne, like yourself of you, you, you just
28:00
stated it right. You stated you didn't ask for
28:02
more than you deserve like that. There's a humility and all that.
28:05
And you've taken on, you've taken on a lot of stuff that
28:09
people have thrown at you over the years, different levels of
28:12
responsibilities. And you've been a glue to kind
28:15
of hold, hold the, the sheet metal team has ebbed and flowed
28:19
there just like other parts of the business.
28:22
And you've been a big constant across, you know, the 30 years.
28:26
And it's interesting, it's fun for me as we are now right in
28:29
the midst of trying to celebrate people at 30 years and 20 years
28:34
and 10 years. And we're just getting to the
28:37
very start of we, I mean, we have people in Green Bay that
28:40
we've interviewed here going back 40 years, but we're just
28:43
hitting that 30 year mark in Wisconsin Rapids and that's,
28:48
that's an incredible achievement.
28:50
And when I think about why we're still so successful there, why
28:54
we are not the Haza, why we have grown into the, you know, the
28:58
market share leader there, It's because of the contributions and
29:02
the culture that Wayne, people like yourself, you know, Greg,
29:07
Mike, while he was there really established and that has stayed
29:11
pretty consistent. And, and we're able to take
29:15
that. And then as we have brought on
29:17
other businesses, we've been able to take what has worked so
29:21
well there and, and, and utilize those lessons.
29:25
And I'm just feel really grateful for all that.
29:28
And Wayne, I want you to know how much I think of you and how
29:33
glad I am that I've met you. And you know, I, I know you're
29:37
recovering now from your surgery and I have heard, you know, you
29:45
have ideas of when you want to hang it up.
29:47
But part of this is not, is us not waiting until that
29:51
retirement date to say thank you.
29:53
It's for people to know who you are today and to to feel
29:57
gratitude for you and all that you've done up to this point.
30:03
Sure, yeah. Yeah, well said Chris.
30:07
Yeah. I appreciate it.
30:10
Yep, thank you. Well, Wayne, I'd like to thank
30:13
you for all your time coming on the podcast and all.
30:15
It means a lot. There's a lot of people that
30:16
listen to these things and I'm sure they're going to enjoy this
30:18
one. So thank you all.
30:20
Right. No problem anytime guys.
30:22
Any any plug you want to get in for the buck pool while we're
30:26
recording? Oh man.
30:28
You've been pretty quiet. It's been couple.
30:29
Weeks, it's been pretty hard. We got to do a podcast for that,
30:33
I mean. Bucks have been coming in.
30:35
I see them. Yeah, it's been pretty crazy.
30:36
So been pretty. Busy.
30:38
Yeah, Rut's definitely on. And Yep, need to get out there
30:42
have. You have you reached out to
30:44
anyone in Traverse City at this? Point.
30:46
I have no idea who to even talk to yet.
30:48
That's just been pretty recent. I was actually off for the last
30:51
two. Weeks so I'm going I'm going
30:52
there Monday. I always end up leaking it
30:55
before I'm supposed to to people.
30:56
So they have a million other things going on and I'm going to
31:00
throw the buck pool at them and. OK, Yeah, good.
31:02
Yeah, Let me know who to talk to and I will definitely reach out
31:05
is. It weird that that's the first
31:06
thing I thought of when I was like.
31:08
Oh, I know. I did think that.
31:09
I saw the e-mail come through. Oh, I can go to Florida,
31:12
Michigan now and check out that. I wonder what the hunting's like
31:15
there. I.
31:15
Don't know if you know know anything about that Traverse
31:17
City. There's a big history there with
31:19
the wait till deer hunting. When do you know anything about
31:21
this? I do not, no.
31:23
You ever hear the Rampala buck? Why are you looking at me?
31:28
Yeah, I'm looking at Chris. You never heard the Rampala
31:30
Buck? No.
31:31
No, it's a really big controversy like that.
31:34
The world record buck is, it's really, it's you got to look
31:38
into it. It's there's huge stories on it,
31:40
like it could be the world record, but the guy is like the
31:43
last name is Rampolo. It's a really interesting story.
31:46
And he's from Traverse City, so. You're kind of leaving this like
31:48
a tease. You're.
31:49
Not the tease yeah, you can YouTube it.
31:51
Go check it out. It's really interesting, so.
31:54
We'll do have to do that, yeah. Thank you, Wayne.
31:57
Yeah. Thanks, Wayne.
31:59
Welcome to the Traverse City. Yeah, if, if they have, I don't
32:03
know that they'd be listening to this yet.
32:04
They're pretty far ahead if they're downloading the podcast
32:07
right now. Yeah, great.
32:10
Well, thank you. Thanks for your time, Chris.
32:11
All right. Thanks, Wayne.
32:14
Yes. See you guys, see you.