Latest / The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast / 025 - Kevin Walgenbach

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025 - Kevin Walgenbach · The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast

• Paul: Welcome into the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. On our way to being the world's number one concrete podcast, and the way you get to be number one is you bring on the greatest group of sponsors anybody could ever ask for. We're in November. We have a new sponsor. Please welcome the Vince Hagen Company, officially the premium sponsor here in the month of November. They got the show all to themselves. Woo! Clappy Clappy, yeah. Thank you, Vince Hagen Company, for supporting the show. Guys, you're not aware, they are celebrating 70 years of concrete batching equipment. Mr. Vince Hagen, a former military vet, started the company after an idea that he had back in the service. He was like, Why can't we just take the concrete plant with us? Why do we have to have it in one location? Thus creating a portable batch plant. That was his claim to fame. That patent got him started into business. Seventy years later, they're having everybody out to their wonderful wonderful facility in Dallas, Texas, to celebrate that legacy, the leadership of Carol Hagan, and now third generation Mr. Chris Hagan is leading the company. Really glad to have him and the Vince Hagen Company as a part of the Slump Monkeys podcast. guys reach out to them let them know you appreciate that they're supporting us. we're gonna talk in later episodes deep on some of their technology. it's interesting because I didn't know you could innovate that much on a concrete batch plant. Like, you know, we're not talking about sensors and cameras and gizmos and gadgets that make things break down. We're talking about material science. And they've done some pretty incredible things with the VH 10. So we're gonna get into that little bit later time. But right now, just want to say thank you so much to them. You saw that we got to be in their booth for Concrete Works. Those episodes are still coming out, by the way. We have so many more of those to get to. we're also gonna be live again with them at the ACPA down in Florida, first week of December. If you'd like to join that for some of the 10-minute hits, just like we did at Concrete Works, we're gonna have a schedule opening. Few of you may see some invites in your inbox that are gonna come from Vince Hagen. And we'd be glad to have you on the show. Thank you to them for being our sponsor here in November. The midterms just happened. if you've lived under a rock and didn't realize that there was something called a blue tsunami that just took over this country, and if this is the place that you want to come to to talk about that and argue about what The red team could have done differently, or why the blue team's so fantastic. Well, you've come to the wrong place. That is not this show. You can get that a million other places. I mean, you can't hardly open up social media right now without getting it, you know, shoved right into your face. But we do sometimes talk policy. So we we have two rules on this podcast, and only two rules. Rule number one, you can't cuss. I mean, we have a bleep button in case of a guest gets really animated and then says something out of line and so we could bleep them out but this is a family friendly program. I want you to be able to listen to it while you're driving on the roads and kids are in the back seat and you don't you don't have to wonder, man, is somebody gonna, drop a bomb here and and the kids are gonna say, what's that word, Daddy? No, none of that. that's rule number one, no cousin. Rule number two is no politics. W don't care who you voted for. I really don't. Even if in my personal life I have Opinions, sometimes even strong opinions, on this show, we welcome everybody. Michael Jordan had a famous line, you know, Republicans wear sneakers too. So he never was out there, you know, bashing anybody on the right and supporting anybody on the left. He said, You know what? I I make sneakers for everyone. And we do this concrete podcast for everyone. So left or right, glad to have you with us. But that doesn't mean that policies Aren't affected by the change in who's governing the country. There's been some hysteria over AI build-outs. And you know, some of these like far-left folks they're they're out there saying, like, we gotta stop data centers, we gotta we gotta quit building data centers, we gonna need a moratorium data. In fact, the governor in New York put a moratorium on data centers, but they I don't think they were doing that 'cause they actually think AI is this giant threat and ruining the world. I think they were just trying to hurt the other side and if you didn't know the the growth of the US economy right now is right around two point two percent, GDP growth about two point two percent. AI alone accounts for one point four percent of that. So if you were to hamper it, then you would harm the party in power. Now that the other side has wrested control of the system, it's my opinion that their attitudes are gonna change. So they actually poll people coming out of these the especially the bellwether states or the the states that flipped that haven't been blue in a long time. And they polled all these people in exit polling as they're coming out, and they you know they asked them, what made you vote the way you did? And if you s if you Flipped your vote from how you would normally vote. maybe you're normally a Republican, you voted Democrat. What made you change your mind? Thirty percent of the people chose economy as the number one thing. The number two and number three thing also had to do with dollar impacts on your wallet. So like healthcare was way too expensive, and groceries are way too expensive. All the way down at the bottom, only three percent. point eight percent of folks listed data centers and AI as their primary reason for why they switched their vote. Three percent. The new Democratic governor of Texas already came out on day one and promised not to meddle in any data center projects that are already scheduled. By the way, that runs all the way through 2029. And after that, she just wants them to pay for their own electricity and pay more taxes to local communities. Well, spoiler alert, they want to do that anyway. They want to do it anyway. They don't want Electric bills to go up. They want to be behind the meter. They want to contribute. They already want to pay more taxes. Have you guys heard the story about what they did in Louisiana? There's some rural parish, a small town community, and the way the charter in that community is set up, that any extra taxes that come in from businesses above what's needed to pay for anything the city has planned, whatever's extra, the city doesn't hold on to it. They disperse it as bonuses for teachers and cops and firefighters. So when Meta came in and built this AI data center and the the town just ballooned with people, with all the construction workers and then all the people that needed to stay behind to run the data center, there were houses, restaurants, businesses opened up and taxes went through the roof. So much so that in the first year, teachers that were making $75,000 a year were suddenly getting fifty thousand dollar bonus checks at the end of the year. In year two, they got a hundred and fifty thousand dollar bonus check. We're talking third grade elementary teachers made two hundred twenty-five thousand dollars that year. And it doesn't stop. There's no cap. It goes on in perpetuity. So guess what happened to that parish? It its phones are ringing off the hook. Do you need teachers? Teachers from around Louisiana are trying to move to that parish because nowhere else can you teach fourth grade and make $225,000. So they're gonna have the best school system in the entire state. They're they're gonna hand pick any teacher they want to teach their kids. Folks are moving in. It's it's it's an unbelievable situation. And you're just gonna see that trend happening. My personal opinion is that the Democrats will not stall AI advancement. Forget what any of those far left agitators yell into blue sky. I'm talking about the establishment Democrats. If they have any sense at all. They'll take AI on as their own idea. They'll advance AI, quote unquote, responsibly by making sure that they use less water and sit behind the meter and pay high taxes and Why so why would the Dems do that? I it's the economy stupid. US GDP growth is going to depend on all of that coming to fruition. The data center backlog is already there in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars already. We wanna lead on this anyway, so even if even if you didn't like love it, like you certainly don't want to be behind any adversaries in this technology. And it it's they d they're not gonna cripple the economy. They're not they're not gonna do that. They're too smart. They're not gonna bring it to a halt. They're gonna keep it going. They're gonna claim that they are doing it safer and wiser and better and and looking out for the little guy. They're gonna they're gonna claim all that. And that's fine. They won. They get to do that. So that's my opinion. I think we're gonna be we're gonna be okay on the data center front. It it but it's nerve wracking 'cause folks like me, so We mine clay, we calcine it, sell it in the ready mix, but the people who are buying that are the data center people. See my owners are calling me like, man, what do you think? You know, is this thing's gonna change? No. No, it's not gonna change. If anything, it's gonna accelerate. They're gonna say, we did it with lower carbon. I mean look, if you look at non residential construction right now, it grew by one point one percent over the last twelve months. Why do you think that was? Data centers. Did you know data centers construction over the last twelve months increased the spending on data centers it increased eight point six percent? Eight point six. So that means everything else was down seven and a half percent. If it weren't for data centers, the spending on non residential construction would be down right now. So it's just too big it's too big of a thing. th they're not gonna they're not gonna shut that down. There's too much going on. But it's not the only thing going on. If you thought this was gonna be AI only and I'd I imagine if you were from the original episodes of the show you probably would think that I would spend the rest of this hour talking nothing but data centers but But I'm not. There are other things happening. So non-residential construction is only at 1.1%. But one of the sectors that did jump, it wasn't just data centers, but one of the ones that did jump. private electric power construction spending. I didn't even know that was a thing. I I thought all the power construction that was happening in this country was a public based utility. I don't I guess I just don't know things, but hey, that's why we're here. We're learning. And there is private electric power construction. One of the companies that does that is a company called Jacobs. Again, first time learning about who this is, but they're freaking gigantic. There was a article on Construction Dive. You can find some of these articles at constructiondive.com, where a company called Jacobs wins a project management role for a thirty-seven billion dollar Transmission program. So American Electric Power is an electric transmission system operator. So what the heck does that mean? They're the people that make sure the power that's generated at the power plant actually gets delivered to the power lines and into your house. Somebody's got to scale that down and do that work. Well, that's what American Electric Power does. They they're trying to upgrade and monerdize and expand and and add more energy to the grid across, a few states for about five years. A five year project, thirty seven billion dollars. I was like, Wow, that's pretty interesting. So I start looking into this Jacobs company. What do they do? How are they involved? Why did they get this? Well they're they're the biggest company that kind of handles these type of projects. They're they're the big behemoth and it's really interesting because The demand for electricity is so high that the this company is worth a a flipping fortune. And in Q3, the AI build-out represented eleven percent of their adjusted net revenue. That is crazy. It's a big time for these guys. But what kind of threw me for a loop here is that their data center backlog doubled. and their and their opportunity pipeline tripled. So for the first time in a long time, they've got visibility on projects three years out. Three years out. They have a backlog of twenty-eight point nine billion dollars worth of energy-related projects with data centers. Where are they gonna get these people? Where are they gonna get this infrastructure that needs to be built to fill this backlog and now they're taking on another thirty seven billion to modernize the grid across seven states in the southeast, sort of mid Atlantic type area? God man. I I don't know where people are gonna find the the skilled labor, where they're gonna find the the parts and the supply chain to me, I just can't believe it's there for this type of build-out. It seems like we're all hand to mouth and all this kind of stuff, but they're gonna do it. They've taken it on, so we'll see. Five years from now, we should have a lot more data centers and better better transmissions lines. Jacobs, Godspeed, fellas. Hope you knock it out of the park. So we talk about Vince Hagen being our premium sponsor for the month of November. They are also the sponsor of our college football pick'em. That is still going. I am playing under protest. So I mentioned in the last full episode that we're playing under protest because I submitted my picks for the week of Concrete Works. I in fact I submitted them with Chris Dab before. We did it together. Ben Lintini was right there. He watched me do it. And then after the weekended it said that I didn't make any picks and it gave me a zero. Zero out of ten. That's not that's not fair. Probably went ten out ten. It doesn't know. Anyway, playing under protest. This last weekend, it did it to me again. It but it did a different thing. I went in and made my pigs. And when I went back to see how I did, it said nothing. It said I didn't do anything. I was that's crazy. I I sat there and made those picks on p I made them on purpose so that I could talk about them on the show. And then come to find out, the ESBN system created a second entry for me and that's where all my picks went. And then it zeroed that out too. I if this is happening to anybody else, please feel free to reach out to me and we'll talk about th if there's something that needs to be done because I I am just flabbergasted right now. I I don't understand why it it's not taking some of these some of these picks. I'm wondering if there's something wrong with the system So if you are experiencing any difficulties with the pickle, please email me, admin at slumpmonkeys.com. That's O N K-E-Y-S. Slumpmonkeys.com. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com. You can also reach us through the website, URLs, www.slumpmonkeys.com. this is the part of the show where I'm supposed to ask you guys to subscribe. If you're listening right now, please take a moment and actually hit the little button that says subscribe. Only got a couple dozen people who are watching this thing on YouTube. God Bless your souls that you're watching this. I appreciate you very much. we've got many, many, many folks who are downloading it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, Google Play. Got a couple people that are like on some random podcast apps I've never heard of, but thankfully they all get captured in this little thing that sends the podcast out, which is fantastic. LinkedIn. We have a vibrant LinkedIn community. If you would like to join that, it's a few hundred people right now. but that's gonna grow, that's gonna hit a thousand pretty quick, I bet. it's incredible to me how many people see the podcast, how many people see the clips, the Instagram, we got an Instagram now at Slump Monkeys, O N K E Y S. At Slump Monkeys. I think the last couple posts on Instagram, they hit, you know, fifteen hundred views each one, you know, and not that anybody here cares how many views we get or don't get. But I just want you to know if you're listening to this, you're watching this, the community's out there. there are thousands of people that are watching the content here. Everything that goes out gets thousand, two thousand hits. So just wanted you guys to know that the community's alive and well. Come and join us. It's active on LinkedIn. It is also active in person. So if you're at the ACPA in December, please stop by, say hello, chat, pick up some hard hat stickers. Or anything else, please come say hey. I love seeing you guys out in the wild. Just really, really appreciate everyone that is a part of this community. The biggest part of the community so far has been the partnership with Vince Hagen. They're sponsorship, I should say. They they feel like a partner. The amount of work that they've done behind the scenes to help me, the little podcast that could be the the little program that is. I I just can't thank enough for the the help that they've lended me. It means it means a lot. this week our guest is Kevin Walgenbach, formerly of the NRMCA, who's now with Vince Hagen. It's a fascinating chat. I really only meant for the chat to be like five, eight, maybe ten minutes, but we just got on a roll, it ended up being like thirty minutes, so decided to make that a full interview. He is unbelievable on the microphone. saw him give a speech. He did a great job on the stage and I was like, my gosh, we gotta go in here and talk about you know what you what you were bringing up. And it was just it was just great. couldn't slow him down. He he's the man. So I really thank him for coming on here and we will now move into the interview portion of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. And welcome in to the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast on our way to being the world's number one concrete podcast. You can't be number one if you don't bring guys like Kevin Waggenbach onto the show. Welcome in, welcome in, welcome in. Thank you. Thank you. Happy to be here. Absolutely. We are here at Vince Hagen's 70th anniversary, broadcasting live from the event. What do you think about it far? It's been exciting, but I I'm admittedly also in a in a different space. So I spent the last 19 years at the National Ready Mix Concrete Association and started at Vince Hagen back in April. And so it's a little surreal to start at Vince Hagen and see all the different changes that are going on with the company and the new innovations while also celebrating the 70th anniversary. We've got a ton of people here. We've got equipment. it is a much more exciting event than I actually thought it was gonna be. I knew it was gonna be really cool, but it's been really neat to see all the different pieces come together, the customers. And of course we've got the entire Vince Hagen team here, right? We got the field folk, we've got people from the factory, the front office, and it's it's been a lot of fun. I was just talking to Dylan from the install team. They're doing an install like an hour away and they're gonna be there for three weeks putting up, you know, this massive plant, three vertical silos. And he's out there enjoying the barbecue. And he I I said, man, I didn't expect to see you here. And he goes, Well, they gave us the day off. And so that's great that you know, Chris gave everybody the day off and they're all in here and they're celebrating and the the plants that are erected out front are just beautiful. I mean, we'll never see that pretty again, right? They kind of go out in the field and be dirty right away. Maybe. Maybe it looks it looks really good. So we're eating lunch and while we're eating lunch, you guys under the pavilion decide to do presentations. And I'm in the middle of looking at my phone because Chris Bingham was giving his presentation and Lord knows I can only hear Chris Bingham talk for so long. So I'm just kidding. Just kidding, Chris. Just kidding. And I heard heard you talking. And I maybe it's cause I do a podcast, but it's like something about like you hear somebody that's like really good at giving a speech and like I looked up and there you were and and I was like, okay, I'm gonna pay attention to this. And you were talking all about safety. And I gotta tell you, normally As soon as a safety guy starts talking, I'm out. Like I I tune it out. but you did a really good job. Like I I ru you were easily the best speaker on the stage today. It was it was really well done. Well, thank you. That's that's very kind of you. But yeah, it it it is a tough crowd, especially when you start talking about safety and it's the last thing and it's after lunch. yeah, you're and and we had that amazing barbecue, right? So there might have been some food comas out there in the crowd. Shout out Hutchins barbecue brisket was legit. it was everything was amazing. I I enjoy the safety side of the ReadyMix concrete industry. I think it's important. I'm of the mindset though that there is a balance, right? For ready mix producers to be successful, they not only need to get concrete out the door, but they got to do it safely. And I'm I'm a big proponent of that. I also think that it Allows your business to run more smoothly. And then you've got the workers that you rely on. They're willing to come back the next day because they know that they're going to get to go home at the end of the day as well. The last episode that we recorded in October, we had Scott Thomas on from a company called Alter XR. He was a safety guy. He was a safety guy at Argos. And they were having rollover incidents, 14 a year. And they're like, what are we going to do? And it all came to a head because one day one of the no it wasn't with their truck but it was another concrete company had a roller in the city of Atlanta it landed on the mayor's car. That's why So now the mayor's like, Well what's going on with these rollovers? And now it's a huge deal in Georgia and everybody's freaking out. It's like we gotta fix the rollovers. And they said all right we're having fourteen a year. Each one costs like at least five hundred thousand dollars in damage, not to mention if somebody gets hurt or loses their life, God forbid. They said, what are we gonna do to fix this? And so he said about Scott Thomas said about it coming up with something that could get these drivers to focus. And he built like an F1 racing simulator, but the simulation is driving a concrete truck and it purposefully puts you in an unwinnable situation that causes a traumatic accident, like a rollover event in the simulator. And the drivers don't know what's coming. I love that. So it was so extreme the experience was so real. They had to start putting AED machines in the simulator trailer. Whoa. Because the guys were like having reactions, their heart rates were spiking. They put heart rate monitors on, heart rates are spiking. Feeling like it's real. And they went from 14 rollovers a year to one, to zero. All because the drivers and they linked it directly back to this technology because the drivers are much more cautious and much more alert because They had this traumatic experience of having a role of you know, a simulated roller, but it wasn't simulated, like the feeling wasn't simulated. The feelings were real and they they've been alert ever since. I just thought that was fascinating. I I love those stories. And and there's there's a a bunch of them, right? And the the sad part is though that some of these accidents, unfortunately, they had to occur for there to be kind of a different focus on well, we're not just gonna do traditional training. We need to do something else. And one of those those same kind of stories is there are a number of companies now that have a hundred percent glove policy, which for a lot of ReadyMix producers, i you get people scratching their heads going, What do you mean I gotta wear my gloves 100% of the time when I'm at the plant? And what I always say is I was one initially to discount that, right? Where I I was skeptical too. And then I heard the stories from some of these companies about how they would have hundreds of hand injuries a year. And they went and bought cheap gloves for all of their employees. And the next year, this one company actually they went from hundreds of hand injuries down to zero simply because they said everyone's gonna wear gloves. Right. And so you start to see an impact with your premiums, it's a behavior change. People were grabbing a hold of handrails that maybe they wouldn't have touched because it would have been dirty. And Huge success just by saying, Hey, we're gonna make this one little change. Wow. That's incredible. What a good story. So before you came here to Vince Hagen though, like you I mean, most people watching this would know you from the NRMCA and you were the, you know, I don't know if you call yourself you're the safety guy at at NRMCA. And so what's that been like to transition from you know, leading a division at the association to now coming back in to like the civilian population here working working for Vince Hagen. No, it's it's a a great question. But let me first clarify. So I I've been called a a safety guy before. And while I I'm a proponent of safety, I think I I would describe myself more as a concrete guy, right? Because there's more to the Ready Mix industry than just the safety aspect. Yeah, it's hugely important, right? But I want to see ReadyMix producers be successful, right? And if That means they need to do more with their trucks or with safety or whatever. I'm all about it. that also goes hand in hand with my new role here at Vince Hagen. And so, yeah, it it certainly has been different as I've said a lot, kind of being on the other side of the fence, right? had a a great time, great experiences at NRMCA. I visited places and experienced things that I never thought I would. and the memories and the people I got to work with, I I'll never forget them. And there's a few people that I will always feel indebted to that got me into the concrete industry. And it allowed me to meet my wife and have my kids. And so there's always gonna be a place for ready mix concrete in my heart. And so with this transition, It's been phenomenal because not only have I come to work for this fantastic company, and I love working with all of the different individuals that we have. I love the product. The company is incredibly accepting and flexible and forward thinking. And I love that, but yet I still get to not only be part of the concrete industry, I get to be closer to what I've always loved, which is the boots on the ground. And the and the product itself. And now part of the equipment that makes that product. And so it it's a different experience. But I started back in April and I'm, you know, learning a gazillion things, right? I thought I knew about concrete plants, and then they, you know, showed me, No, you don't know about concrete plants, which, you know, is is great. There's that learning curve. And I've really just been having fun over these last six months. And I don't see a horizon where that's gonna end. And a lot of that has to do with not only the company and my coworkers, but it's the customers and it's the industry. And so I I continue to look forward to all of that. And Vince Hagan is a huge promoter of NRMCA. So we all here still get to be plugged in with the national trade associations, not just NRMCA and and be part of that community. not only with the producers but all the different vendors and it's it's really great to be on the other side and see how all those different pieces really do get to come together out in the wild, right? And not in just the association world where you've got a handful of meetings a year and on the education side, right? Which is all great, but it's different than, you know, being part of this. Yeah, yeah. Sitting in Committee committee meetings is not is not the same as is being out in building. So that that's part of why it's interesting to ask you what that transition's like. So I I asked the same question to Teddy Keller when he was on from our concrete works interview. And I also asked the same question to Michael Hoagland, who's now a shoemaker. Yeah. And I'm gonna ask it to you too. And I think when you decided to leave the NRMCA after all those years. You probably could have gone just about anywhere, but you chose to come here to Vince Hagen. What made you decide that this was the place to to jump to when you got out of the NRMCA? Yeah, great question. I've I've been asked it a number of times, and that's very generous of you to say that I I could have gone anywhere. but I I have known the Vince Hagen company my whole career. and Just by chance, I had the privilege to work with a lot of their employees pretty closely. And for for a number of years pretty intimately. And I've known Chris for a while and Carol. And Chris and I just happened to be talking, and they I think had some areas where they kind of wanted to add on to some safety stuff and Also, maybe some customer experience issues like that, where they were like, I think, you know, you'd be really good at being a part of this. And Chris and I kept talking and then he finally said, Hey, I got an idea. I didn't know that when I grew up I was gonna be a batch plant salesman for Vince Hagen and it's worked out that way and that that's awesome. I hadn't really thought about it until Chris said, I got an idea. And you know, what would you think about this? And you know, it admittedly, I I really chewed on it thinking about leaving an RMCA, right? It built a a a long, strong career. It afforded me a a lot of like I said, experiences and flexibility and I I loved the industry. But knowing that I was gonna come work for this company specifically and work with the individuals I get to work with. And having a a pretty strong view and visibility into the company and how it operated and their culture, it was it it got pretty easy pretty quickly for me to say, you know what, I Yeah. I I think not only is is it my time, but yeah, this this this could be really great and I think it's gonna be fun and I wanna work with these people and I wanna be part of this part of the industry. The hardest thing to do when you jump into sales is to develop the contact network and develop trust. And the fact that you were part of the MC in our MCA for so long, you knew so many people and Just based on your reputation, they trusted you as well. So now that you're in a sales role, it's a natural fit for you to be able to call your old friends and say, Hey, have you heard about what we're doing over here at Vince Hagen? can I talk to you about it for a minute? So I think you've made a very natural transition. So I'm happy to see what the future holds for you here. Well, I I I certainly hope that that's the the view from a lot of folks. yeah, I I got to meet a lot of people in my time at NRMCA. And I'm very thankful for that. And it like you said, it it is kind of a natural progression, right? Cause aside from the specifics of what my role and duties were at NRMCA, ultimately it was to try and help ReadyMix producers be successful. And part of that is being customer or member facing, right? And so I'm doing a lot of that same work day in and day out here at Vince Hagen. Well, with the same the same initiative to be customer first. And an a trade association is only customer. I that we call members, but member first, customers first. Like that's the if if you aren't that way as an association, the association dies. But it's the same way with companies. Yeah. If the best ones are customer first and you focus on them and you give them that attention and you listen to what do they need, what do they want, and then you adapt and you serve them. I mean, that's and I see that with With Vince Hagen here. So I think it's an absolute natural fit. a hundred percent. Chris Hagan's view and kind of his ethos is that we're gonna be customer centric. And that is what we strive to be and emulate every single day. And and and what I tell producers and our customers is you can call me even if you don't have a plant question, right? You got some weird thing you're trying to figure out. I'll tell them, hey, it might be an environmental issue, could be operational, could be trucks. Give me a call. If I don't have the answer, I got a hundred guys that I'll put you in touch with. They one of them has experienced this. And so not that we're, you know, we're a clearinghouse of information, but we really we we kind of have a an unofficial saying here at Vince Hagen, which is we just want to help. And it it's absolutely true. We'll we'll talk to customers regularly about non-plant items and I love being, like I said, being part of the concrete industry and still being able to do that while still being part of, trying to sell all this equipment. So when you were giving your presentation earlier and you were mentioning like so a lot of the presentations today focused on like the new plants and the upgrades and stuff, and and you got your turn to talk. And one of the upgrades that you made on the plants was having specifically designated tile. Spots for the safety harnesses and stuff when guys actually do have to go up on the plants to work on them. And me, me not really thinking about, I just assumed that was already there. And to to think it's such a basic thing, but it still requires innovation from you guys. Was that something you had input on, or that was just it just happened to be fortuitous that you got here and they were working on those specific tile? I I would love to say that that was all me. I was hoping you were gonna say it. I was hoping you're gonna say it. It was coincidental. I I did give a a few pieces of information on that. And then they had the design folks and our engineering team, they kind of ran with it and figured out exactly what they needed to do. But yeah, it is it is a new innovation, not only here at at Vince Hagen Company, but within the batch plant world where there are regularly times where you need an individual. To climb up on top of a plant or a silo. And they need to tie off somehow. Wear a harness and it might be a lanyard or a fall or a safety system or something. It's gotta tie off somewhere. And as per the OSHA standards, it's gotta be an appro an OSHA approved anchor. And deep down in the weeds, there's weights and other tolerances and and things that come into play. But yeah. You mean I can't just hook it to a hydraulic house? You can. I wouldn't recommend you do that. Yeah, I I don't think that's gonna go well for for any of the guys, and certainly OSHA some of this the state safety guys probably are gonna frown upon that. But that's also what we want to avoid, right? We we want everyone to be safe, and this was a real easy innovation and add-on to our plants to make sure that they have the appropriate tools to not only be safe but do the work safely. And how it's supposed to be done. And so yeah, we've we've got these specific tie off anchors on our plants, OSHA approved. I think it's a fantastic addition. And it is kind of one of those things where you scratch your head and go, Why haven't we been doing that all along? That's right. And I I like what you said earlier. You said I'm not a safety guy that decided to focus on concrete. I'm a concrete guy that decided to focus on safety. I think that makes all the difference in the world that you're not trying to get out there. I think it ha how would you phrase it before as a clad them in armor and not let them touch anything and that's not your approach. So I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah. Sorry sorry to all the the safety guys out there. The, you know, there there definitely are are are some in the safety breed that would yeah, they they'd want to shut a lot of things down. And I think my approach is you gotta be safe while you do it. And there's a way to do it and still be safe, but we still want Production to continue. We want plants and operators to be effective and efficient and get their jobs done, but ultimately still make sure everyone goes home at the end of the day the same way they started it. Alive, healthy, hopefully happy, but in one piece. Hopefully, hopefully happy. That's not always right. We're in concrete, man. Nobody's happy. No, you well, yeah, you you might go home and you're cussing the boss or you're angry at the coworker. You might be dirty, but The key is you got to go home. Right. And so that that's a successful day in the concrete industry. Most of the safety things that we've always focused on in this business has been like don't lose a finger, don't lose an eye, don't fall from a height and you know, bust up your back, never be able to walk. And this year is one of the few first years where I've seen a a tremendous foc focus on mental health and the safety aspect behind that because if you're not focused Mentally at work, that's just as dangerous as putting your hand in the wrong place. a hundred percent. That mindset is gonna drive your decisions throughout the course of the day. And it it's probably a long time coming that there hasn't been more focus on that. And there's some companies that are doing some really fantastic work with basically saying, Hey, we we want you to take care of what's going on at home. And if there's an issue, you need some time, come talk to us. We wanna work with you. Because if the home isn't going well, it's very likely that when you come to work, the work might not go well. And they're absolutely correct, right? If you come into work and you're angry and you're frustrated, your decisions, your behavior is going to reflect that. And that might mean not necessarily someone's going to get hurt, but they could, but it could negatively impact production, right? Maybe you're making wrong decisions about. Hey, we've got more rock coming in and where to tell them to hold off while one guy's unloading and all those different things come into play with trying to make sure that we get concrete out the door. Yeah. I'm not talented enough to also have a bad headspace. I got enough challenges when I'm in a good headspace. My my superpower is compartmentalization. So I've been that's the one thing my whole life. Like it didn't matter what was going on at home. Like when I was at work, I was at work. Thank Thank God that was my my one superpower. The one thing I really struggled with though was DOT paperwork. That drove me crazy when I heard what your previous job was. It gave me whatever like a negative goosebump would be. Like shivers went down my spine, like I couldn't I so God bless that people like you are out there and be able to handle those jobs. Appreciate all that. I know you you you don't even need to say DOT, you just say paperwork. Paperwork. Well, you you started like r you were giving your speech and you were referencing the OSHA manual, like the exact manual, and I was like, started shivering again at the table. So it you're you're you're right. I know. I'm I'm I'm probably weird for this, but there's there's a whole side to the operational piece of the puzzle that's heavily dependent on being compliant with regulatory affairs. Right? yeah. every every c every company that had that deals with any regulation has to have somebody in the cone that's like, are we compliant? That ain't that ain't me. I'm you mentioned like you have the cowboys and you have the regulators. I skew very, very much toward the cowboys side. I'd like to think I was somewhere in in the middle, but strangely enough, yes, I I I did and I still do enjoy looking at some of those statutes and the specific language. I think it's very informative. And at NRMC that was largely what my job was for many years is just telling producers on how to be compliant. Whether it was safety or environmental. There was also some weird tax stuff that we got into. There were labor issues, things like that that we we juggled regularly. And one of the only ways you can really know What the answer is is if you start reading that black and white. And I I even I will admit that some of it is it's rough and some of those regulations are pretty onerous, right? I would always say that, like, listen, the the executive branch agencies, EPA, OSHA, right? All those guys, I fought those guys for a living, right? But still there there are some things in there where it's like, hey, Those two thousand pages in the the OSHA book, the nineteen ten, right? A lot of those things existed because someone did something stupid and they said, you know what, we didn't think we were gonna have to write this down, but now we gotta write it down. I tell my daughter that all the time. we'll see signs and I'd be like, You see that warning sign? Yeah, I'm like, that's cause somebody sued that company. And then now they got a sign. I th I think there's there there's a comedian that has a joke about that with with the shampoo, right? The the wash, rinse, repeat, right? Put it in your hair and lather and then wash it off and th th followed up with was there someone that didn't wash it off that like you need those detailed directions? Unfortunately, yeah. Now and again it does need to get spelled out. There was another comedian that had a bit like that and he said, We need to remove do not eat. off the can of paint. Cause whoever that was meant for, we don't need any more of them. And they might not be with us anymore. So I thought that was hilarious. Like, yeah, yeah, that's right. We don't need any more any more of them. The the I think the most famous case was the McDonald's coffee cups. say caution hot. Caution hot. Because they handed it to a little old lady. And she dropped it didn't realize how hot it was, dropped it, burned her in her lap, she sued him for millions. Now caution, it's hot. Yeah, hot coffee's hot. How who knew? I'd I need to go get my hot coffee spilt. Make my make my millions. Thanks for having me. my gosh. Well, once I heard that speech, I was like, good gosh, we got to get this guy. You give me too much credit, but thank you. On the podcast, and you know, there's a couple other people floating around here I gotta get on. So why don't we take some time to go do that? I appreciate everybody listening to this episode of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast, broadcasting live, Sunneville, Texas, headquarters of Vince Hagen, as we celebrate their 70th anniversary. Kevin, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.