Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / 30 Years of Elevator Industry Experience and Elevator Sill Innovation | Scott Akin

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30 Years of Elevator Industry Experience and Elevator Sill Innovation | Scott Akin · The Elevator Careers Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: The best thing, that's probably one of your questions here, that I believe in is relationships.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Period.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, everyone says it's all about price, it's not about price.
0:12
unknown: No.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, price plays some part, but in the big, big picture, it's all about relationships.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I have a lot of them.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, when the going gets tough, you can lean on your relationships and you know, and you'd be supported.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: If it's about price, somebody's gonna go somewhere else.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: I am your host, Matt Allred.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share up the learning, building upon the foundation of those four, to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: To reinvent how this industry approaches the challenge with elevator skills, both new and scott fully understands the value of creating and maintaining relationships and is a firm believer in being honest, even though it may not be what the customer wants to hear.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: Scott, welcome to the show.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to be able to talk to you.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: It was great to meet you in Reno at the last NAEC conference.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: And um, I'm excited to be able to talk a little bit more about your career, your business, and um always like to start out with just finding out how did you get started in the elevator industry in the first place?
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Actually, through my wife.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh her family uh started an elevator company, manufacturing company.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: So actually it was her grandfather back in 1939, I believe it was.
2:16
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, yeah.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: So uh there's three generations of manufacturing going on, elevator manufacturing.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, is that only still in business?
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Or um, yeah, yes.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: We sold that company in 2013.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh that was after 79 years.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: But um that's kind of where I I went to school at during the day.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Started going to college when I was, I don't know, 25 maybe, and started working there at nights.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Literally sweeping the floor.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: That was my so this was after you got married or about that time when you were dating?
3:00
SPEAKER_00: No, when we first started dating.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: So by trade, I'm a baker.
3:06
SPEAKER_03: Nice, okay.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: So I spent all through high school and the years after high school on baking and kind of got burnt out on that.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: So uh it was time for a new career.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Didn't expect it to be elevators, but it was a night, it was a job at night, and I fell in love with the manufacturing.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: What what was it that that you fell in love with specifically?
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Was it just the technical complexity?
3:33
SPEAKER_00: The the machinery.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: The machinery.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, and I remember it like it was yesterday, you know, they call it a shear, but it's a piece of equipment that takes metal and just cuts it.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: And I was hooked from that day on, you know.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: So that's my passion, right?
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Is manufacturing.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: The equipment is phenomenal.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then add to that the uniqueness of elevators, and that's all it took for me.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: So I mean, it sounds like you kind of caught the bug early on.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: What how long from I mean, sweeping floors, you know, to to actually catch in that bug?
4:16
SPEAKER_02: What was the kind of the time frame there?
4:18
SPEAKER_00: So I started in '91.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think probably by '93.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did two years of schooling.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: And after that, I said that's enough.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And uh started full-time during the day in the shops.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: Right.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: So once you started in the shop, what what was it?
4:39
SPEAKER_02: Were you?
4:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you obviously running the shear or something like that, but what was your first line of duty?
4:45
SPEAKER_00: So my first line of duty for actually the first few years was a helper.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, sweeping floors and your work on the back of the machine, just catching material and whatever, you know.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: And the the typical progression for any machine shop is you're a helper.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: And then one day you get a chance to go on the front side of the machine and you know, maybe cut a thousand pieces.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's really what happens, you know, and then you get a trust from the supervisor that hey, you can actually run this machine and you grow from there, and and then you just keep graduating from a shear to a press break to a punch machine, you know.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I at least I have some coordination and some uh brain power, you know, so was able to, I don't want to say excel, but able to, you know, work the machines and that was recognized.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: So well, and it sounds like you had that desire, right?
5:47
SPEAKER_02: You didn't you didn't want to just keep catching parts for the rest of your life.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: You you wanted to grow and learn and learn everything, is what it sounds like.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, and in the baking business, when I left, we were actually more of a manufacturing, we were manufacturing cookies.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, you know, sure the old sweatshop, you know, rolling bread.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, automated machinery, so scheduling, and so it kind of complemented what I was doing, just different machinery.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yeah.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: Just did different product, right?
6:19
SPEAKER_02: You're bringing out cookies, you're you're not gonna eat your your elevator parts, but you know, probably a lot of the same processes.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, I fell in love with it, and um then one of the guys uh that was kind of running production.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh we actually brought him down from from Boston because we had facilities in Boston, Washington, and and Jersey was the main manufacturing.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we brought him down, he was down for a little bit, and then he moved on.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: So that kind of opened up the opportunity for uh production management, and you know, cool, now overseeing the shops, and from there it just you know was limitless.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And then out in the field, getting the opportunities to go out in the field.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, we did a lot of installations in the field.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: That's what I was gonna ask you.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: So so you were manufacturing, I'm assuming, cancer, or were you doing kind of all of everything you see, everything you see when you walk in an elevator.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: So you walk through a set of doors, two sets of doors, the frame, the entrance frame, sure, and then the box, the box you ride in.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't do the platform, you know, we didn't get involved with any of that.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, we grew substantially when my father-in-law took over the company, bought it from his father-in-law.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, we grew substantially from that point on and really gained a reputation for high-end.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: And you know, um it was neat because we did a lot of high-end projects, which was fun, you know, and challenging.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's probably a lot of custom type of work.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm assuming that that you were, I mean, if you're doing the the interior of the cab, probably a lot of decorative, uh, like you said, high-end, uh, probably fancy hotels and office buildings, and you know where it really, really matters what it looks like.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: It's not just you know, standard issue.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, again, we did uh Statue of Liberty, which was really neat, you know, X1 the Marquee, um, you know, UN, we did the UN and a lot of stuff in Washington, a lot of buildings in Washington.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: Very cool.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: Very good.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: So the like say the interior of that.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: I talked to a guy just a week or two ago that that talked about being on the kind of the engineering team of coming up with the Statue of Liberty, um, you know, probably the the underpinnings of what you were were building.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: So right.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: Very cool.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: So was that was that Liberty Elevator or uh it was Tower Elevator, one of the guys that worked there.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: Oh uh they do some rack and pinion stuff, and anyway, he specs out.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'll have to get I'll have to get him on the show and we can talk more about it.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: But small world, yeah.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, I ironically, we uh there was two generations that did the um Statue of Liberty.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: So my father-in-law and company Liberty Elevator.
9:27
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: They're right, they're uh we did it the first go-around, I think it was '92.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And then the next generation stepped in and we did it again in I don't remember now, 2010 or something like that.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't know which which generation he was a part of.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: I'll have to ask that question.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: All good though.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: So who who were some of your biggest mentors in those early days?
9:56
SPEAKER_02: Sound like your father-in-law maybe was one of those.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: So he he was a strong figure.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: We brought uh he had the hindsight to bring in a family business consultant.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Interesting, yeah.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: And that was a real eye-opener for for me.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: And actually, tell me more about that.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: What what in what way was that opening your eyes?
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Um just his approach.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh guy was Jim Hutchinson from Regeneration Partners.
10:30
unknown: Okay.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh I credit all my success to him.
10:34
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
10:35
SPEAKER_03: That's big.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he yeah, tremendous, tremendous impact on me personally and on and on our whole company.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Um he came from a family business.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Um huge family business.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And very well off.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Did not debate, but this was his passion.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: And gave me a lot of tools, taught me a lot of lessons, you know, hit me over the head a lot of times with stuff that you just don't want to hear.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: But what you need sometimes, right?
11:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean you need it, yeah.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you gotta be hit over the head, and um very helpful.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Very helpful.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: So you were, I assume, in in operations management by that time.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: So um you were the one that probably got hit in the head the most because you were probably in charge of kind of how operations were going.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: Is that correct?
11:28
SPEAKER_02: That's true, definitely true.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: And again, the family dynamic is the other thing.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: We had, I guess, five family members, and then probably two or three that you would weren't an immediate family, but family.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: And the dynamic is very interesting.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And you don't realize it until someone points it out to you.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: Well, I can't even imagine.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I and I've talked to several people you know here on the show that that some of them five generations worth, and and the family dynamic has got to be intense at times, you know, just just working face to face and probably getting in the arguments, and then you sit down at Thanksgiving dinner.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, can can you have Thanksgiving dinner when you know with some of these relationships?
12:13
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't know how how did that affect your family in that.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: So to your point, you know, it it was 24-7.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, um, you you're in the show in the office 12 hours, and you you'd come home and you know, my wife was part of the business, and you know, Sunday dinners with pasta and you know, financials and you know, all that.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: But the without going crazy and off on a tangent, but just the as you said, fifth generation, you know, some people they just naturally become president, they have no idea what it's like to run a business, right?
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, or they just get compensation even though they're not part of the business.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: And that is, you know, that's a dynamic that affects a lot of people.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's the risk, right?
13:00
SPEAKER_02: Because if you got entitled children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, whatever that that don't care about the business, but they want their piece of the pie.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that I know that can sink your business uh if you let it, right?
13:15
SPEAKER_00: So to you to your point, for me, the real eye-opener was when I took over or started my company.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I told this to my following.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I said, whenever I made a decision, I always had the family best interest in mind.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: But at that time, my job was to almost like just process, get things, move them along, move it, move it, move it.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Then came the time I owned my own business, and when I had to go spend$100,000 on a piece of equipment, it might have took me two weeks to make a decision.
13:48
SPEAKER_03: Oh, easily.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Where you know, where I'm um, I would say it took me two days because it was someone else's money.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Though I believed at the time I was doing the right thing and doing the best thing, right?
14:00
SPEAKER_00: But until you actually spend the money out of your pocket, it's again that's a dynamic.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: Didn't I didn't realize until sure I was on my own.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: And um, you're feeling the full weight of it, right?
14:14
SPEAKER_02: Before it was like, okay, I'm I'm doing it probably in consultation with these others, but if but if something goes south, we're all in it together, so I don't have to bear the full brunt.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, if you're in business by yourself now, there's there's no you know, cousin, aunt, uncle, grandpa to to bear that with you.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, but until you step out of that world, you don't you don't realize that.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: And and so you you've been in in business in your own business, how long now?
14:46
SPEAKER_00: So 2014.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: So that's when we officially opened up.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Um so what's that, nine years?
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Almost 10 years now.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, what so back to I guess your your early experience.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you you mentioned, you know, those those big decisions and the weight, you know, that's on you, but what were some of the other, I don't know, maybe difficult lessons you you learned early on?
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Um good question.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are, you know, again, in our industry, everybody wants everything now.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: And um, we got extremely busy, extremely tremendous backlogs.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And you know, you end up embellishing the truth on a lot of things, and a lot of times I promise a little bit more, you're saying, like, yeah, you know, it's coming in two weeks instead of three.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, two weeks, and it's actually four weeks, you know, and you know, so you and you believe it, you start believing yourself, and um and that doesn't work, and that's one thing, you know, I I tell everybody straight up now.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, embellishing the truth, lying, whatever you want to call it, just doesn't work.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: The best thing, that's probably one of your questions here, that I believe in is relationships.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Period, amen.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, everyone says it's all about price, it's not about price.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, price plays some part, but in the big, big picture, it's all about relationships.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I have a lot of them.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, when the going gets tough, you can lean on your relationships and you know, and you'd be supported.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: If it's about price, somebody's gonna go somewhere else.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sure.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: So so tell me what is the biggest key factor in preserving, creating, maintaining those relationships?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, just communication.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: Um use a phone.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in our day of email and text messages, I can't tell you how many people that I've I can tell you a handful that I've picked up the phone, called, and I get a text message as the phone's ringing, text me.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, communication, just eye to eye, like we're doing.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: People don't do that anymore.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Pick up the phone.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: Not enough.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many people, how many people are amazed at how often I pick up the phone.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, because I want to talk to them.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: I want to know what's going on, I want to understand if they have a problem or if they need help with something.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't get that message across in an email or text message all the time.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, let alone talk about family or talk about you know friends or business or how's things going, you know.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Um we move at such a rapid pace that I found it better to, I don't want to say slow down, but just communicate with people.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And that in itself builds relationships.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And then add to that, if you can help them, that's even better.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, what what you talked about a minute ago is you know being able to trust.
18:08
SPEAKER_02: And you know, you talked about just being honest, felt like it is.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, what what was it that you kind of helped you learn that?
18:17
SPEAKER_02: Was it was it something that blew up that you're like, okay, we're not gonna stretch the the truth in this, you know, ever?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: No, it several things.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, one was my follow-in-law had tremendous relationships and um to this day.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it was not always about money.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: And once we sold the company, and I was with the new owners for about six months, and in their opinion, it was all about the money, and you know, that's that's probably one of the main reasons I left, is I wasn't about to throw my reputation because I had an excellent reputation, um, and just throw that in the mud because they were worried about money, and the business was built on relationships, and then you want me to throw it out away, and I wasn't gonna do that.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: And to this day, you know, even if it cost me a few nickels or dimes um to help someone out, I'll do it because somewhere down the road you hope you'll you'll get some payback on that.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, that and that is one thing I find super amazing, I guess, about this this industry is is people's willingness to pay it forward to um, you know, to to give whether it's advice, whether it's some time um to take a phone call, like you say, rather than just you know, not um from what I've seen the relationships are valued uh for you know, and I and I think that's um I think who knows, maybe it's a generational thing, but I think it's important to keep going, especially in the industry that we have.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: It it just seems like that's that's a critical component.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: And and in this business, there's there's so many potential pitfalls or problems that arise because there's so many different levels of communication from an architect, what an architect wants and puts on a piece of paper, and by the time it gets through all the approval processes and all the issues and all the surveys, and you know, there's bound to be challenges.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you just ignore those challenges, you're not you're not gonna, in my opinion, not gonna be successful.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: But if you work together as a team and say, hey, okay, I I I I missed this, how can we fix it together, you know, and we'll make it up on the next job, or we'll do this, you know, differently, or you know, but work together, not hey, this is your problem.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to be the expert, you fix it, you know.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: That's a good point.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: It's a good point.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: I I I did uh a little bit of construction, like you know, college time frame during and and before a little bit.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: And one of my old bosses used to say, the only problem is one you can't fix.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: And he was a cement contractor, and I I used to just chuckle at that because I I know he had had some doozies where you know cement goes out of the forms and it dries, and it's like, man, break out the jackhammer because we got to fix this, you know.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: But right, right.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and there's so many people that I talk to that I tell them exactly that I don't make elevator cabs and entrances anymore.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, I just strick to my elevator sills.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: But you got questions, call them.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm an open book.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: And to me, there's a lot of power in that, you know.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Um not power isn't like, you know, I I you know, it's just you know, people call and they they got questions, and it's great.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: Why why not answer?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Why hold that information?
21:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, and maybe it's a part of my life, you know, where it's you know, I don't need to hold on to.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, you know, I don't know.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: But well, I'm I'm sure you see it come back, you know, as you as you pay it forward.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm sure you've got a long, long list of people you can call anytime you need something, right?
22:12
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you have a question, and you probably got a very long list of people that uh hey, can you help me think through this or can you help me, you know, got something I don't know what to do with?
22:23
SPEAKER_02: Because from what I understand, um, I mean, I'm I don't ever claim to be a technical expert or or uh you know knowledgeable about the the actual workings of elevators, but I've heard from people who have a lot of experience is there's no way to know it all.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: So even the guy with 50, 60, however many years, can still find a problem and have to ask.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, exactly.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: So how how did you come up with the idea for Architred?
22:53
SPEAKER_00: So it's I'm not gonna it's not a new idea of putting an uh an overlay on an existing sill.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's been tried uh by several different people.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh our company as well.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the adhesives in the past weren't good enough.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Um and the material was typically a quarter inch thick.
23:20
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, that we tried to overlay on top of the existing.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: So that in itself presented other problems that you either had to raise the doors or buy new doors and you know, readjust the height of the cabs on each floor.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And so it was never really successful.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh again, my love for manufacturing and some of the processes that we were doing over the years, um, one called backcutting or v-grooving.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Um I just saw the opportunity to incorporate number one, the groove, which was always important.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: So the finish was always the same.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that it's very thin material.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: So in many cases, there's no need to adjust the doors.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: We're not impacting anything.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: And the adhesive that, you know, I worked with 3M closely.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we came up with an adhesive that is phenomenal.
24:19
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
24:19
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, so I was playing around after I left the company.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: I was playing around with some thoughts and ideas, and I had some samples made up, and literally went back in my barn and started making samples.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of how and where the idea originated.
24:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And from there it just expanded.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: So so you really didn't have that idea when you when you walked out the door and and sold, and you you uh were just kind of, I guess, trying to figure out what's my next what's my next thing.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I again we we were playing around with putting plate on top of sills, you know, when I left the company.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Um and I I had showed uh at the time the president um you know the plate.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: I said, put the stainless steel plate, and he goes, right, that looks good.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: But it just didn't look right, you know.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: So the the idea of again wrapping the sill was there, and I I just got lucky, I guess, and was able to combine my love for manufacturing and take that whole concept and develop what I call a sill skin to be able to wrap the entire sill.
25:38
unknown: Nice.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And the other thought was we used to provide a fabricated stainless steel sill, which was uh eighth-inch plate and welded together with a bunch of stainless steel channels, and we sold a lot of those and they were very expensive, right?
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the architects like them because it was a crisp look, it was a sharp look, square corners.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Um and my thought was if I could make a sill similar, but less expensive, I could probably sell a lot more and replace some of the nickel silver that's out there.
26:20
unknown: Okay.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: So that was really the the the driver, and so I said if I could wrap aluminum, because aluminum is relatively inexpensive, wrap aluminum and put a finish over the aluminum that the architects would like, and it's also cost effective.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: That's how the base company started.
26:41
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, and in doing so, I looked at it, I said, Well, why can't I do this in the field?
26:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, I have an aluminum extrusion and I put it over.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: If I machine this out in the field, so again, I went to the barn and got a couple nickel or old sills and started machining them.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And so, well, I could do this in the field.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: And that really opened the doors.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: So, so tell me a little bit more about that.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: It sounds like you when you say in the field, you're actually taking your machinery, pulling up in front of somebody's building, and actually kind of doing the retrofit right there rather than having to haul something back to you know your your shop, essentially.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: So historically, and again, we had 10 teams doing installs back in my day.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: And I would get you know, get a phone call at night at six o'clock, you know, we were replacing that entrance, so and you know, we we chipped the floor.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: And typically at your lobbies, you've got you know, stone, you know, marble, all high end, terrazzo, and it's usually been there for 20 years, you know.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: So um that was always a headache.
27:50
unknown: Yeah.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: So with the new system, to your point, it's really a retrofit in the field.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: And and and the benefits are we bring our equipment in, we machine out the existing groove, we provide an overlay on top.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: It you don't have to remove the doors, so it's a lot less cost effect, you know, it doesn't cost a lot to have the doors removed.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Um we don't damage the floor.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: We actually put a saw cut in front of the on the wall side, and you could actually turn the car back over the minute the moment we're done because it eases that quick.
28:27
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: So you can go from a traditional chopping out the sill, which sits in a bit of concrete, uh, you know, an entrance sill typically sits in concrete.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta go chop that out with a demo hammer, remove it, clean it all out, set the new sill, put the concrete.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: That's a two-day job.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Some guys maybe get it done in a day, but you still got to let it cure.
28:50
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Whereas we're done in four hours.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's yeah, we look to get two openings a day, and it's a cost savings, it's less evasive, less noisy.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: Um it it just it's a win-win.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not for everything.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: So you know, it's not not the cure all, but it definitely has a place in the market.
29:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: So so pardon my ignorance on, but you're doing this on every single floor, correct?
29:23
SPEAKER_02: As it as it touches as the floor touches the elevator, or sometimes.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just a lobby opening.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: Oh, just okay, okay.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's it's not unusual for us to just go and do lobbies because lobbies are your high-end finish.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: Sure, true.
29:39
SPEAKER_02: I guess you may not have marble on every single floor or terrazzo, like it's a well typical is a hotel.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Hotel's got a nice bronze sill, bronze frame, you know, and all the other floors are gonna be aluminum and a painted frame.
29:54
SPEAKER_03: Okay, right?
29:56
SPEAKER_00: So they want to update their their lobby and they're gonna wrap the bronze frames with stainless.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do about the sill?
30:04
unknown: Okay.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: And you watch this day forward, you're gonna walk into an elevator and see stainless and look down and see a bronze sill, and you're gonna go, hmm.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: I'll think of you when I say that, right?
30:13
SPEAKER_02: It's like okay.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Now I know why.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants nobody wants to deal with the sill anymore.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, number one, it's it's hard labor.
30:27
unknown: Right.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: And and I always jokingly say this, but today's mechanics go in an elevator shaft with a laptop.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: They don't go in, you know, stacking rails and demo hammers and chopping out sills.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: They don't they don't want to do that.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: Cool.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: So is is that um the fact that you can kind of come in, knock it out in four hours.
30:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh, would you say that's one of your, I guess, strategic advantages then that you you've got the ability to change it out without the risk of breaking the floor, without the the labor of like say two days worth of, I mean, sounds like a huge advantage.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: It is, it is.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, at the labor rates for all these majors, which are tremendous labor rates, sure.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've I've flown guys all around the country.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my guys have been to Hawaii, they've been to Alaska, they've been to Puerto Rico.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Um because even adding the cost of airfare and travel and hotel, it's still more cost effective in many cases than to pay to have a mechanic chop it out and go at risk.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: So are your are your men uh, I guess, unionized uh mechanics then?
31:44
SPEAKER_02: They don't have to be okay.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: All our guys are non-union.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, I say I do license some people.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: Um like I did until COVID hit us, but I had you know, Southern California had licensed people do the install, which were mechanics, licensed mechanics.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: I had Northern California, um, down in Florida.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: But they don't have to be.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
32:11
SPEAKER_02: Because they're not going into to the confined spaces and the other, right.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, we we still want the elevator company to provide access into the shaft, position the car for us, and then let us do our thing.
32:25
SPEAKER_03: Right.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, so yeah, it's it's been again, it's for some people, it's a nice resolve.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, it sounds like there's certainly the demand out there, right?
32:41
SPEAKER_02: Those who who want it, want it done right, you know, they can or they're willing to pay for it.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And you know, what in doing this process what has come out of it is other situations where people wouldn't didn't know how to handle it.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: For example, you know, replacing the lobby and they put a brand new half-inch tile floor down.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: And usually I get the phone call when the the the guy laying the tile gets up to the entrance and he goes, Oh boy, we're half inch above the sill.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do?
33:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, with my system, we're actually able to build the sill up a half inch.
33:26
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's cool.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, right.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, so that solves another problem that you know there's not a lot of it, but it solves that problem.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Um I was just on the person I was on the phone with before why we were supposed to get in, you know, they have a running clearance issue, which is the distance between the elevator sill, the shaft sill, entrance sill, and the car sill.
33:52
unknown: Okay.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Right?
33:53
SPEAKER_00: The maximum is supposed to be an inch and a quarter.
33:56
unknown: Okay.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: So on one floor they have a two-inch gap, and on the floor below it, they're inch and a half.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: So again, we've run across these problems.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple different ways to solve it, but with the overlay, my overlay system, we can actually build the sill into the shaft.
34:14
SPEAKER_03: Sure, sure.
34:15
SPEAKER_03: A little bit, yeah.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Right, to reduce that gap.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, so it's been fun that way.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the exciting part for me, is I really like for look forward to the challenges um solving a lot of these different issues.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: And it sounds like you you get plenty of them.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: You get a lot of them coming your way that I mean it sounds like every everyone's different, right?
34:40
SPEAKER_02: So it's not like you just do a standard approach to probably any of them.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, so as we as we get close on our time here, um, got a couple couple questions I always like to end with.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: What what's would you say is the most important thing you've learned throughout your career?
35:04
SPEAKER_00: I I go back to again just making relationships and and just being honest with people and and tell them the truth.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, to me, that is just the most powerful thing you can do with people.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, they may not want to hear it, may not like hearing it, but they'll respect you for it.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: And I tell that to everybody that I mean, you know, if what you want to know is the best thing, is that because I I I tell this, and I'll never forget it back in the baking business, and I'll digress just for a second.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Sure, but there's one guy that oh, he stunk.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, he didn't use deodorant.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Now everybody would make fun of him behind his back.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: But the one guy walked up to him and said, You know, you're gonna be embarrassed that I'm doing this, but I'm doing it because I respect you.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: And he said, and he gave him the thing a deodorant and said, Use it.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, and that's difficult for a lot of people to do.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people talk behind your back.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to hear that they stink, but he's got a lot of respect for him that walked up because he said, Listen, people are talking behind your back.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: And that's always stuck with me.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, you know, I'm not saying run out and go tell everybody they stink, but um, you know, sometimes you just gotta speak the truth, even though having the courage to to tell the truth is is uh seems to be a lost art in some some places, so it's uh and accept your mistakes, which is the same kind of the same thing.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I made a mistake, I'm sorry.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and most people will be like, okay, I get it, versus trying to bullshit your way out.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, the the last question I want to ask, and and who knows, maybe this will be a little bit of a repeat, but what advice would you give to somebody who's maybe new to the elevator industry?
37:02
SPEAKER_02: Don't even know what they've uh started into.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: Just say to them don't chase the money.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: Get in the business that you love.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And it that that's really hit home for me, particularly with now that I started my own company.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, this industry tends to be a more lucrative industry.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, but don't get in it and chase the money.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Look to make you know a ton of money.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Get in it because you love it.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, the proverbial saying, you know, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of truth to that.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Now I I'm living it, you know.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: So that would be my advice.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, don't chase the money.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Don't get into business because of money.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Get into it because you you you you enjoy it.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: Right.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: That's perfect.
37:57
SPEAKER_02: Scott, thank you for for being with me today.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate your your time, your your wisdom, and uh, I wish you the best as you continue to build your business and continue to uh build those relationships that you were telling us about.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: All right, well, thank you.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the All Red Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: You can check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: Please subscribe and until next time.
38:24
SPEAKER_02: Stay safe.