Latest / Aired Out / Melissa Caress of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, LIVE from Alaska

Transcript

Melissa Caress of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, LIVE from Alaska · Aired Out

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good morning, Welcome to a new day. Looks like,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: uh well, we're just about seventy degrees right now on
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: North Main Street and Berry only gonna warm up to
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: about seventy seven today, mostly cloudy, skies, possibly is shower.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Things should be okay. If you're gonna be headed to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Curier Park for the concerts, the food trucks, the farmer's market,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: that's all happening this afternoon. Maybe you know, pack a raincoat,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: could have it close by in case we get a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: passing shower. But for the most part, gonna be a
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: pretty good day. Tonight, partly cloudy, about fifty six Tomorrow
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and Thursday, sun and clouds both in the mix. We're
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: looking at a daytime high similar to today, about seventy
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: six and Thursday night for thunder Road. Looks pretty good.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Looks pretty good. We're looking at temperatures maybe in the fifties,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: so not bad. Pack a sweatshirt. We have a twenty
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: four year old Winuski man facing a second degree murder
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: charge this morning following a deadly stabbing in downtown Burlington
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: early Saturday morning. Has Son Hajee surrendered to Burlington Burlington
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Police yesterday pleaded not guilty in Chittenden Superior Criminal Court.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: He allegedly stabbed a twenty four year old by the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: name of Deng Dow during a confrontation involving a third
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: person in the parking lot behind the courthouse at around
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: four am. Dow was taken to the hospital where he
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: later died. Investigators say that security video has captured the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: confrontation and police forwarded are followed. Rather, get this a
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: trail of blood to the apartment building on College Street
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: where Hajee was hanging out. He is being held without bail.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: The hearing is scheduled for August twenty seventh. Unbelievable. And
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: this fatal stabbing, by the way, as I alluded to,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I think yesterday or Monday, rather was part of a
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: broader weekend of violence in Burlington. Things have really kicked
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: up a notch in Burlington, Unreal police reported another stabbing
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and two incidents involving gunfire just this past weekend alone.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Dartmouth says it expects to continue its tell Ed or
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: tell Ed service and tell ICU programs, citing unsustainable costs
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: without outside financial support. Five Vermont hospitals rely on this
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: remote care service, which allows smaller hospitals to access emergency
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and intensive care specialists without transferring patients elsewhere. This is
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: a big deal. It's a big story here in Vermont
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and New Hampshire. And we're gonna link up these stories
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and a few more this morning on the page so
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: you can dive in a little deeper and read more
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: about it. But yeah, man, and you know, there's all
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: kinds of fallout in Florida this morning with the primaries
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: wrapping up yesterday. We have well dive into that and
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: we'll post that up on the page as well. We've
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: got a busy day today. Deb Phillips from the World
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: is with us. Good morning, Deb, how are you.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Good morning j D doing good.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Been a little while since of chat with you.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Everything good, Everything's going just along, coming along.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I thought, and I may be mistaken. It's possible, Deb,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that I could be hallucinating this morning, but I thought
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: that I saw Gary Haas in a sombrero yesterday. Wow,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: for the Casa Azteca having some lunch celebrating his birthday.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know it could happen. I don't know. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: wasn't there, so I don't know.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Happy birthday to Gary. Listen tell us what's what's going on,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: what's happening. What do we expect in the world newspaper today.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Well, one of the most important things are back to
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: school calendars are in this week's paper. And it's not
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: just you know, for the parents, you know, but the
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: grandparents like it. And there's also you know, like businesses
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: like orthodontists that like to keep track of the school vacations.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we have every school listed in this week's paper.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: We also have your good Health directory and going on
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: right now is the Best of the Best voting, So
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: you know, people need to go online and get their
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: votes in for best of the Best. It's real easy.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: It's ww dot Times, August dot com. It's backslash best.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: How long has that been going on?
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Deb Oh many years, many many years. Yeah, so yeah.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: The deadline for voting is Sunday, August thirtieth.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: So a little while. That's that's great, it's yeah, uh
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: And there's so many different categories and it's it's expanded
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: over the years. What what else can we expect in today's.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Paper, cap Well, we have all the usual local news calendar,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: oh bits, berths, you know, all of that. That's you know, normal.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: We have Pump and Pantry has their specials for the
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: week which is a great place to shop. They have
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: great package to meet, picks offered, and and then of
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: course I know you've been promoting this as well, but
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: this weekend is the Travis Mercy Skate Park fundraiser, so
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: that's coming up at Barrytown Recreation.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Yep. Lynda Mercy was on the air in here in
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the studio yesterday. They're gearing up for this and the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: weather should.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Be perfect for Yeah, I saw that. It was a
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: good interview. You always do a good job.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Thanks d. There's a lot of stuff going on in
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the community, and I should mention our community calendar is
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: always brought to you by the World Central, Vermont's favorite
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: weekly newspaper, been around for over fifty years. We're going
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: to have more of that posted up on the page
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: today of various things that are happening this weekend. But boy,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: it's been a busy couple of weeks here the toy run.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, just everything is going on.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, I know it, I know, it's you know, we
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: were just talking this morning. It's like we're running out
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: of summer.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the time, man, and we all know
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: that this is when things bottleneck. We're trying to get
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it all in and we're hoping that mother nature is
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: going to be on our side. We got the milk
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: bowl coming up pretty soon as well. And wow, all right,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: thank you Deb so much. Appreciate you. Always will be looking.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I'll be looking for my paper getting delivered here to
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the studio on Main Street.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: And I'm excited you have a new delivery person.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I don't know if you're aware Chris retired.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: I did not know that, yes, so yeah, right, so yeah,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: so Mike is the new delivery person down there.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Really okay, wonderful. I look forward to h to seeing him.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, it sounds good.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you ever so much.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: Deb.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate you. Deb Phillips from the World Central,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Romot's favorite weekly newspaper. We're gonna take you, and I
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: don't know that we've ever done this before, taking you
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: all the way to Alaska? Is that possible? Can technology
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: really take us that far? Melissa Caress is my guest
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: this morning on this Wednesday, Sweethearts and Heroes Day. I mean,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: we do it every Wednesday, at least we try to.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Melissa. It is an absolute pleasure.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: Good morning, JD.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Listen. I have to ask you, first off, what the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: hell time is it in Alaska?
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: Right now?
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: It's five to ten, So maybe that's why you haven't
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: talked to anybody from Alaska before because it is so early.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: That's why that's it right there. I knew there was
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a reason five ten. So you so you start your
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: morning every day like what three? You go out, you do,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: do a ten mile run, you do the calisthenics, and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and then what, well.
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: That's not entirely true. I usually I don't start worked
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: at eight, so I'm not a three.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: So who asked you to get up at four point
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: thirty in the morning to come on aired out?
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: What me?
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: That would be Tom Murphy? Okay, yep, so appreciate that
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: very much.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: You You have you ever said no to Tom?
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: No?
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: No, he said no to me a few times?
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: All interesting? Okay, Yeah, but.
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: You know it ends up being a yes. I made
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: him stand in the ocean with me a couple of
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: months ago.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh really, Yeah, Melissa, we have a lot to
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: dive into this morning. The reason why you're on the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: air this morning on Sweethearts in Hero's Day is several
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: different reasons. But Tom and Sweetheart s in Heos is
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: been doing an awful lot. Yeah, with Lineman and ib
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: e W groups over the years, well actually over probably
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: mostly the last year.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: Last year yep, yeah, two years. I think he came
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: on staying about two years ago.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: In Sweethearts and Heroes. I mean primarily kind of started
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: as a student a child empowerment organization, teaching kids about
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: being a better person, standing up for themselves, learning about
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to connecting with and relating to others, learning about bullying.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: And his program has been steadfast into the schools, but
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: now it's branched out and now he's bringing a bigger
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: message which he's also brought very much into schools too,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: which is suicide awareness. And Tom taught me something that
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that the construction industry, the trades m
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and the electrical alignment, that whole industry is affected by
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: suicide more than any other.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: Yes, Unfortunately that is the.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Truth, which is for many of us when we hear that,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: we're maybe a little surprised that we're just thinking, you know, why, why?
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: And Tom has has given me his five cents on why.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: But I want to ask you I mean you've been
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: you grew up, you say in the ib e W
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: world in a last yea, your your whole life.
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: Yep, my whole life. My my granddad moved up from
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: the Midwest and brought brought us kids, brought my grandma,
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: and he was a powerligneman, joined I b W. Three
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: of my uncles were in the IVW. Are one of
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: them still in the IVW. And then my son, my
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: middle kid, is a wireman in the IVW, brother in
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: laws of Aligneman.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Wow. Your your family, Yeah, yep, you're your own son,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: my own son.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: I started working for an electrical contractor when I was
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: eighteen IVW contractor and then started working at the IBW
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: apprenticeship school in two thousand and seven.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: All right, so you you really know this industry m
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: top to bottom. And I'm sure you have taught Tom
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a few things about this industry that he was very
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: much not aware of.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: A couple things. Yeah, yep.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: So how long has it? How long has the word
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: suicide been attached to the electrical industry.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: I lost my first first journeyman to suicide in I
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: think in two thousand and nine. No, sorry, that's not true.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: In ninety ninety nine, early two thousand.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: What was that like for you? What was that? What happened?
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: Pretty shocking, pretty shocking. He was a wireman and you know,
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: close to retirement, and I remember just the office, you know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: we got the phone call the next morning and we ever, nobody,
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: nobody knew what to do. I mean, it wasn't wasn't
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: something that we had experienced before. You know, people didn't do.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: What was the discussion surrounding this. Was it just that
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: he had mental health issues? Or was it related to
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: his job.
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: With him? It wasn't. Uh, nobody nobody thought mental health
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: just it was It was truly, it was just shocking
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: out of the blue.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I I have I have said on
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the air here several times when when discussing this that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the obvious when it comes to and we're going to
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: talk about the fifth wire here, the obvious is the
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: amount of pressure that men and women are under who
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: were working on the lines. We uh, you know, I
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: can't even say rely on our electricity because it's so
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: much more than that. Without it will die. We need
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: hospitals to operate, we need breathing machines, we need we
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: need everything. We need electricity. We have to have it
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: to survive, regardless of what Mother Nature is throwing our way.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And she she just doesn't care whether it's a hurricane,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: whether it's an ice storm, regardless of where it is too.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, no wonder why so many states will team
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: up and help their neighboring states when the shit hits
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the fan, right, But it's like these these folks are
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: signing up for something that is pretty pretty pretty much
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: on par with signing up for the military. I mean,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: there's no question about what's expected of you. You gotta go.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: We need things, We need things reconnected here, no matter what.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: Can you imagine the pressure I mean, you just said it.
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: You just said it. There's everybody's relying on it. You'll
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: die without it. So you have a group of people
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: that are under that amount of pressure. They have to
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: keep you know, keep the lights on. So it is
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: a lot of pressure.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: You know, for me personally, you know, I'm an old guy,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: but I mean for me for a phone call to
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: come in at one o'clock in the morning and saying
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: you need to get out of bed, uh and you
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: need to go out and get up on a uh
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: on on a ladder truck in the middle of the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: night in a horrific ice storm with a couple of headlamps,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and you better hurry up and get that car down
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and get awake and move quickly and get focused and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: get up there and have your hands in lines where
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: it's it's easy to make a mistake. It's easy to
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: be distracted by the wind that's knocking you round. I mean, honestly,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I cannot imagine. And this this is everywhere. This is Alaska,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: this is all across the US. It's in freezing environments,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: it's in hot environments, it's in rainy environments. It doesn't matter.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, they have to do it right. It's
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: their job, and they love it. Probably ninety percent of
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: alignment that I know wake up loving their job. They're
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: proud to be They're proud to be in that position
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: of you know, they're just they're helping.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: They're on the front line. Yeah, in a big way.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: How did you meet Tom Murphy? How did you get
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: connected with sweethearts and heroes? And why and why is
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: this passionate for you?
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: So I met Tom in April of four. I was
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: at a conference. I was at a safety conference in
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: Iowa and heard the keynote, went to one of Rick's
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: breakouts on adversity, and then sat through a circle with Tom.
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: The reason I went to that particular safety conference, I
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: had maybe a couple of months before that, decided that
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: I wanted to have a bigger impact on the apprentices
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: on the industry. Backing up a couple of years from that,
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: how I got started in doing this work and doing
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: suicide prevention classes, bringing mental health into the industry, talking
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: about it, trying to break that stigma was just because
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: of the suicides, drug addiction death, overdose death. So so I
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: ended up at this conference in Iowa and got hooked
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: up with with Sweethearts and Heroes. Really liked the upstream
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: prevention and it's kind of what I was looking for
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: after a couple of years of teaching, you know, the
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: prevention side of it and what to do, what to
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: look for, signs, symptoms, basically the triage similar to to
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: first Aid.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I hear you say, upstream, are we making progress on
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: suicide prevention? Are we making progress not only in this
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: industry but also in the construction industry that prevention awareness?
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Are we making progress?
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I think that I mean the the I mean,
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: it's not a cool part, but NIKA has really am IDW.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: They have really dug their heels in just the last
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: couple of years, right looking at the statistics, and then
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: I really do feel like when sweethearts and heroes got involved,
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: the message is out there in a bigger way across
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: the United States. So I know that. I know he
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: started in the East Coast shortly after I met him
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: and started, you know, talking with him and learning about
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: the science behind circle. It was my goal to kind
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: of come from the other side of the United States,
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: right because we're as far away as we can be,
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: and so he's working on the East Coast and my
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: intent was to bring it from the West coast.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: How have you guys embraced the Fifth Wire program? And
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: where are you taking it now?
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: All over? You know, the JTCS are are really embracing it.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And what is that that's the that's the Electrical Apprenticeship
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: School correct.
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: Yep, yep, j TCS. It's the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: So there's there's many, many, many I v W NIKA
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: Apprenticeship schools across the US. Alaska we have one, we
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: have two buildings but we've got one JTC that covers lineman, wiremen,
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: telecommunication workers both inside and out side, and then try
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: from ours.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: So you're dealing with the folks that are not apprentices.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: They've they're very uh tenured in this mm hmm. But
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you're also dealing with the the younger crowd that's that's
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: up and coming yep. And what what they know is
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: this is going to be a demanding industry on them physically, mentally.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: They've they've heard all the warnings. They know this, or
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: at least they think they know. But you're you've got
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: to get in there and say what exactly you think?
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: You think you know how tough it's going to be,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: but you're not. You're not going to know until you know.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Is that? Is that basically what you guys are saying
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: to the apprentices.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, pretty much. I mean they know it's a demanding career.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: The line apprentices come in and they're excited to be outside,
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: they're excited to work hard, but what they're not prepared
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: for is the amount of stress that they're going to
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: be under. And they're coming out of gen Z now
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: is coming out of high school with social emotional learning,
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: you know, everybody. Everybody wants to hear what they have
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: to say. Everybody cares. And then they come into this
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: industry and they've got these older men and women. They've
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: got these older men mentoring them, and they don't know
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: how to talk to them. They don't want to hear feelings.
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: I hear journeyman linemen all the time. You know, feelings
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: have no place on the job. You know, forget about it.
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: Stuff it down. We don't want to hear about it.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Suck it up, yeah, suck it up. Yeah, old bootstraps, Yeah,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: pull up your bootstraps. There's there's really no time right now.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: We need to do. We have a huge job in
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: front of us, and we need to we need to
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: get move in here, right. But meanwhile, we've got folks
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: who have, for lack of a better term, some distractions
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: going on. Maybe there's trouble at home.
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: Right right, financial trouble, trouble at home, you know, interpersonal relationships.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: You know, we all have stuff. We're all going through
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: something all the time. Yeah, there's there's just not an
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: exception for construction workers.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: And and and then there's the added pressure of you know,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: even if things are going great at home, I need
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: to focus. I need to be wide awake. I need
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to if I even though I've been working twelve thirteen, fourteen,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: sixteen hours, I need to smack myself across the face here.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I don't have time for a break. I'm hungry, I'm cold,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: but I gotta keep moving man like. I gotta. I gotta.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I got to be with my brothers and sisters here
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: who are doing the same thing I've I've got to
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: stay with them.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be recognized as as someone who's weak, right,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: that's huge. I want to I want to dig a
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: little deeper. There's a reason, as if you as if
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: you need any which you certainly don't growing up in
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: this industry, you've experienced plenty as it is. But there's
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: a particular reason why this is so near and dear
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to you, Why this is so important, Why this is
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: something that you embody and maybe even have made your
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: life less enough your or your life mission of to
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: chip away at this at suicide prevention, mental health? What
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: is that? What is that reason? You your skin, Melissa
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: is quite thick.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: What it is? Why so we always knew that there
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: was a problem. I've watched apprentices again, overdose, staff suicide.
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: Nobody ever knows what to do. And in twenty twenty
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: three April, my partner, who was alignment, he was in
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: a management position. I'm super proud of his work. He
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: told people, you know, always they'd ask him, you know,
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: what do you do? And he never said he worked
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: in management, and never introduced himself with his job title.
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: It was just he built power lines for a living,
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: and you know, he worked under tremendous pressure in the field,
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: and then coming into the office, he also had a
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: tremendous amount of pressure. And that's something that I think
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: has overlooked a lot of times, is we're looking at
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: the guys that are in the field, going out in
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: the cold and the dark and the snow rain. But
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: then they get into these management positions and then all
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: of a sudden, they're responsible for their brothers and sisters.
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: You know, they have to make sure they're getting home safe.
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: So there's a lot of pressure there too. But my
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: partner took his own life. He had struggled with addiction,
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: he had struggled with alcoholism, and he took his life
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: in April of twenty twenty three, and nobody knew what
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: to do. I had just been hired as the statewid
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: training director at the Apprenticeship School a week earlier, and
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: because he was in that management position, he had exposure
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: to you know, all of the all of the line contractors,
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: knew all of them. Was heavily involved with Nika big
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: IVW guy. Obviously, he was the yep VP of the
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: Northern Power Line Constructors, which is our Alaska's Quanta company.
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: So it was a big deal. It was a really
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: big deal. And telling those men and women that worked
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: with him, telling my trustees from the apprenticeship school, everybody
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: just reeled from his death. And you know, I got
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: so many comments of you know why I would have thought,
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: you know, this person that is larger than life, super exuberant,
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: super positive all the time. You know, how could that
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: guy do that? How could that guy? You know, I
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: did get a lot of comments. You know, people tend
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: to look at suicide as they're weak, right, they can't
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: deal with life, And so there is a stigma surrounding
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: suicide because you don't want to be weak, and and
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: I think that overall that's been the message is, you know,
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: that's a that's a way to cope with it. That's
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: a way to deal with it is you look at
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: the person and you know think that that they're weak
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: because they take their own life. Well, but what led
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: up to that, and that's what nobody wants to identify
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: or nobody wanted to identify. So after he died, because
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: I had the support of so many management members, they
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: allowed me to really dive into how to get ahead
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: of this and what to do, how to start breaking
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: this stigma. And it just happened to coincide with this
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: nationwide movement of mental health first aid and it's just
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: kind of really really taken off from there.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So this all went down just before you meeting Tom
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and Sweethearts and heroes a year before, a year before.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: So was it you that was that told Tom this first?
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Or did Tom already know this about you?
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: He did not, He did not know it. I opened
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: up about it actually in the circle, so we did
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: well be my sweetheart, and then the question was the
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: circle question was who's your superhero? So went around the
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: room and I opened up about that, and I think it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: I don't know how. I was maybe number fifteen to
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: share going around the circle. So I listened to everybody's
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: story I knew one other person in the room, a
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: gentleman that I've worked with, you know, over the last
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: couple of years. I knew him. But it was a
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: group of strangers and a group of men in management positions.
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: I think there were a couple of journeymen in there,
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: but all had been journeymen previously, and there was there
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: was a lady in there that was in HR management.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, so not everybody there knew your story. Is that
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: what you're saying?
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: Nobody, wow, including time, including Tom yep. But that's the
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: that's what I see with you know, my peers, Tomas
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: up here and did did circles to a conference with
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: us last year or last spring, and I just watched
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: these these men and women open up to complete strangers.
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: You know, That's that's really circles such a powerful tool
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: to just let people talk, and people want to talk.
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: There's no time for it though anymore. I mean, we
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: live in a day and age that there's just not
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: enough time, and so you know, personal personal problems issues
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: just go by the wayside because everybody's grinding. Everybody's trying
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: to do more with less.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, no wonder why this, But why circle is
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: has been around for it's ancient.
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: How how has the newly hired statewide director, How is
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: it possible for you to to do your your your
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: brand new job with this just happening. And I don't
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: know what the overlap was. I don't know. If it
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: was a matter of weeks, matter of days, months, I
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: don't know, But my god.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: It was a week. It was a week after I
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: was hired. And the people around me wouldn't let me fail.
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: They're mostly my generation, they're gen xers, so they have
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: they have a different experience, right, not necessarily circle, but
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: you know, they they did. They circled up around me.
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: They would not let me fail. And it's a it's
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: a demanding job. The director role is a pretty demanding job.
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: But I have the support of the people around me
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: that knew me and that knew my partner, and they
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: just wouldn't let me fail. And that fall. So we
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: have trust meetings. We have we have meetings with trustees
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: and we go over the budget and go over in
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: the coming year, review the prior year. And I brought
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: in the idea of teaching the apprentices mental health basically trio,
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: you know, prevention, what to look for and they were
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: on board, and so I got to really dive in,
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: which has been incredibly a therapeutic for me, but also
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: the members of you know, the IVW in Alaska, because
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: we have had a tremendous amount of suicide and and
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: a tremendous amount of overdose staff. You know, since he,
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: since my partner died, we lost a we lost alignment.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: We lost a guy that had been in the trade.
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: He was in as an apprentice when I first started
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: at the apprenticeship school. So I watched his career and
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: he struggled with addiction and ultimately died about the next yeah,
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: the next year, I think March March of twenty twenty four.
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: And you know, apprentices, one of our apprentices got kicked
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: out of the program after a struggle with you know,
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: there's there's requirements that you have to meet, right, you
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: can't be on drugs. If you fail a drug test,
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: you get pinaalized by the school. And he ultimately, you know,
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: just couldn't couldn't stop, got kicked out of the program,
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: and I think within two months we received word that
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: he had died from an overdose. Same timeframe, another kid,
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: and these are not men that you would expect this from, right,
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: They showed no signs of depression outside of just kind
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: of you know, the not screwing up but screwing up
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: at the same time. But he also left the program
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: and shortly thereafter died from an overdose. So it's it's
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: kind of one string one one person after another. I
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: think when Tom was up in April, I went through
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: a slide deck that I had put together and I
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: had nineteen people in the last twenty years that I've lost,
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: starting with John Bracker right in nineteen ninety nine, and
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: ever since then, it's just really been one person after another.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: A how many people since ninety nine.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: I could identify nineteen nineteen that I had interactions with
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: that either grew up as apprentices and went out into
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: the field or apprentices themselves.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: It's staggering. I mean, it goes. It goes without saying
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that the job pressure for lineman, journeymen, for management is
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: unspeakable pressure at times. There's also a reason why they
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: signed up for this, whatever that reason is, they know
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: that this is what they want to do, but may
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: not be fully aware of the weight, the magnitude of
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: the weight that they might be carrying the human side,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: the human side of it. I mean, even if everything
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: in your personal life is going great, the amount of
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: mental and physical stress that you're going to carry is huge.
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: And if you don't have an outlet for that, which
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: is you know, mostly the case, there's no outlet for
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: the human side of it. People aren't gathering around the
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: show ups. You know, when I first started in this
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: industry and growing up in it, you know, there were
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: always people around talking are always you know, everybody knew
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: what was going on in everybody else's life, right You
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: knew if somebody's dog got hit by a car, you
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: knew if somebody, uh you know, lost a parent or
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: lost a grandparent. You know, guys were talking about it.
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: And that has just slowly, throughout my career gone away
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: more and more. And I don't know if it's you know, well,
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: I do know, it's it's pressure, it's lack of time,
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: it's having to get the job done. We communicate differently
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: now gen X communicates wildly different than gen Z.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I've heard Tom say, I'm sure you have too, that
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: today when it's a break time that we're workers will
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: go find the nearest tree with shade and sit down,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: unplug from the rest of the coworkers, and plug right
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: into that. Catch up with text messages, pay some bills,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: call your partner, whatever it is that you need to do,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: respond to an email or a text. Hey man, I've
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: been waiting to hear from you. That's going on is
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: it's been ten hours. I haven't heard from you. We
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: got an emergency over here at the house. It's it's
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: so easy for us to do that.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: M H.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: You know, I I look at these I look at
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the letters I, B, E W, And you know, I
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: think from a branding standpoint that the the letter B,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the letter b N, I, B E W should be
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: capitalized and the other letters should be lowercase. What do
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: you think about that?
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: I have a lot. I have a lot of thoughts
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: about that. The brotherhood aspect, you know, it's it's you
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: come into this job and you're expecting to be part
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: of a brotherhood. And I'm not saying that it's it's
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: not that way in all places by any means, but
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: but you know, you don't treat your brother like that.
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: You don't tell your brother to suck it up when
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: when he comes to you, or you know, your sister
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: comes to you and divulges information. You know, Hey, I'm
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: you know, going through X Y Z issue right, Well,
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: suck it up. You know, nobody wants to hear your problems.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: Get back to work. You don't treat each other like that.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: Family doesn't treat each other like that. And so to
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: say to a young apprentice, you know you're coming in.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: I know you're excited because you've heard about you know,
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: the I v W and what it stands for. In
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: a lot of areas, they're not getting that, they're not
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: getting treated like brothers, and so you know, you have
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: this expectation of coming into this this industry. And Tom
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: has been incredibly bold.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: I think that by the time he gets to the
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: point where he tells people to rip the brotherhood off
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: their flag, everybody's already listening to the message. They've heard
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: what I just said. You know you don't you don't
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: treat people like that. So when are you gonna start?
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Wow? I think we have Tom with us. Tom you thereby, Hey,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: what say you about all this?
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Fuddy? Oh man, I'm listening to Melissa.
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: She needs to loosen up a little bit, shake the shoulders,
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: Come on, sister.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Yes By forty five in the morning, Tom, give her
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: a break.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: Damn it, there's the first excuse.
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: Let's see how many more come out. All right, so listen,
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: you have a real gem there on your couch. That
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: probably sounded terrible, but but you really do have a
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: real gem. And don't worry Melissa. JD curses and swears
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: all the time on this podcast, so it's uh, it's
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: unfiltered JD.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: So listen, Melissa is pretty special.
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: It's very hard to understand, uh, this woman, what she's
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: go on through. When I sat in a circle with
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: her and we was I think one she was the
• 45:04
  Speaker 6: only woman in the circle of twenty men and she
• 45:09
  Speaker 6: just owned a circle, and she talked about the challenges
• 45:14
  Speaker 6: that she's gone.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: Through, especially.
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: With her her good friend Buck that you know, and
• 45:21
  Speaker 6: she talked about it in a real intimate.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to pick my words.
• 45:27
  Speaker 6: Here because it's it's a conversation that no human being.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: Should ever have to have. But she talked about.
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: It in front of these men, and it wasn't in
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: a way that was deprecating, a way that was looking
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: for sorrow, looking for grief, you know, I mean, yeah,
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: there's she's searching I'm sure for you know, an answer
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: for that grief and that pain, but she just owned
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: it in a way that I have rarely ever seen
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: a human own.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: In a way that we need to fix this. And
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: so Melissa and I went on this.
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: Journey together over the last couple of years, and you know,
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: we'll talk for hours on the phone at a time,
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: and I think I learned more from her than she
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: learns from me about this great industry and the men
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: and the women that.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: Served this nation. And she just did something that was unbelievable.
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: She left her job in Alaska for twenty years because
• 46:23
  Speaker 6: she got an opportunity to move to Northwest Line in
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: the state of Washington and just focus on this. I mean,
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: she went from being the director, the one that ran
• 46:34
  Speaker 6: the entire center in Alaska. And some people would think
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: she took a step down. You're always supposed to take
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: a step up in life, but she didn't. She kind
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: of took a step down. And I think she'd fight
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: me on that because it wasn't a step down. But
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: what she's saying is all this stuff like in school,
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: when we teach kids math, science, reading and all that
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: other stuff.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: Everybody thinks that stuff's important if.
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: You can't educate the heart. And that's what Aristotle, I believe, said.
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: He said, educating the mind without educating the heart is
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: no education at all. And I think Melissa really epitomizes
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: that belief that all this stuff teaching guys how to
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: pull wire and climb poles, that's all good stuff. In
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: the perfect world, that's what we would do. But I'm
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: super proud of that woman there because she's left her
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: position Alaska. She's moving to the state of Washington to
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: work with a thousand apprentices that are going to come
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: in and out of those doors. And she had a
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: good friend of hers at that center that's allowed her to.
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: Just focus on the heart, which is you know, So
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: I guess.
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: What I'm saying is I really don't find an equal
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: in Melissa because everybody talks about what they would do
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: if they could do, and we got to fix this,
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: and we got to fix that.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: And she went and her horse on a plane and it's.
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: Taken her poor beautiful daughter and moving to Washington. So
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: just don't underestimate what you have sitting on that couch there,
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: because everybody, I think she's being way too modest and
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: she's holding back too much because everybody talks.
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: About what they would do to change the world and
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: help people.
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: But you got a woman who's sitting on that couch
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: there that's actually doing it.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: And she's going to uproot her entire life and leave
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: her mom and her dad.
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: And her two sons up there in Alaska to change
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: the lives of men and women that are hurting in
• 48:37
  Speaker 6: this country.
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: So that's all I wanted.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: To say, Tom, I want to ask I want to
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: ask both of you this question. We were, you know,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: we were just talking about brotherhood and the meaning of
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: it and maybe for whatever reason, that word has been
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: deluded over time. But with regard to the trades, with
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: regard to everything we're talking about the construction industry, I
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: think is what number two Tom to alignment when it
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: comes to suicide numbers. But the Vital the vital COG program,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: which I think, Melissa you were telling me was developed
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: out of the University of Colorado. That's something that you
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: guys are paying a lot of attention to as well.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: Go ahead, Melissa, I got a lot to say about that,
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: but I want you to go well.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: No, Tom, Tom, Melissa and I both would love to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: hear what you have to say. Melissa is going to
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: jump in show grab the wheel anytime she wants. She's
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: not afraid of you. You can grasp it with me
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: this morning, Sha tell me what your thoughts are about that.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: Bud Well, you know, Vinyl Cog is great. There's some
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: great stuff out there.
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: I've been in this world for seventeen years now, and
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: we built these things to raise awareness and to give
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: the laymans simple tools that he or she could could
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: use to identify when a brother sister struggling. But it's
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: easy to skip right over those words a brother or
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: a sister. I just sent you a video and it's
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: a bit aggressive, and our team put it out last night.
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: It's just a one minute reel and I didn't even
• 50:21
  Speaker 6: realize it was captured a year or two ago when
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: I'm sitting with some apprentices and I get pretty aggressive.
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: In the video.
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: So I don't know if you want to play it
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: or not. But my point is that you know the
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: work that we do everyone, and I'm steering away from
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: your question right now, but I do think that work
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: is important.
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: It's very, very important.
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: That we because it starts the conversation and it gives
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: people some simple a simple screwdriver and a simple hammer
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: and a simple pair of pliers for.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: Their toolbox when they had nothing before that.
• 50:52
  Speaker 6: Because we don't talk about this stuff, especially as gen xers,
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: right like we were raised by the Boomers and we
• 50:58
  Speaker 6: don't talk about this stuff.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: That was the gift the Boomers gave us is just.
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: Move on, brother, Yeah, and so, but we have to
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: go above this just talking about it now, We got
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: to go above just awareness.
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: And it's like, bro, that's great.
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: But the rates of suicide and it's not just suicide.
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: If you're really dig into Melissa's story half done, people
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: that she's lost up.
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: There have been drug overdoses.
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: And for me, whether it's a drug overdose, whether it's suicide,
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: whether it's homicide, I mean, it's all a product of
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: hopelessness and somebody getting to the end of their rope,
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: not being able to control those emotions, not being able
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: to regulate, and really just causing you know, destruction in
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: this you know, thread of humanity because you know they've
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: lost control and you know there's some mental health stuff
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: going on. But I get pretty bold when I say
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: that I don't believe a lot of this stuff has
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: to do with mental health, and that gets people to
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: put their cackles up and they're like, oh, it is
• 52:06
  Speaker 6: mental health, okay, man, maybe, but maybe it's also just
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: like when you punched a wall or kicked a chair
• 52:13
  Speaker 6: or you know, screened at somebody. You just got to
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: the end of your rope and you got men and
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: women out there doing stuff that men and women that
• 52:22
  Speaker 6: that's really hard, and then you get all this other
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: stuff that's piling up on your stress, pressure, negative emotion,
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: and sometimes you just lose it.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: And so that's the next stage. And the secret is
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: the brotherhood.
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: And you play that clip, man, you'll you'll figure it
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: out that this has been around since the beginning of
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: humanity and there's been a solution and has been the brotherhood.
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: Because in my life I was taught and I believe
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: that you lay your life down for your brother Oh
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: except for when the bills are in the playoffs, because
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: then we got to like, yeah, right, there's things we
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: had that are more important than that before. So anyway,
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: I'm talking too much. Most said, come on jump in there, sister.
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: Well I tried to a couple of times, but you
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: just kept talking. I went to back up to Katie
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: Uh to vital Cog because I think that that is
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: an important component of how we got here, how how
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: sweethearts and heroes has been embraced. I did the Train
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: the Trainer a couple of years ago because I I
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: I just needed more. I needed more than mental health
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: for staid training. I needed something that was relatable to
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: the industry, because you know, you can't capture and keep
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: eight hours worth of you know, information to a group
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: of young men and women. It's not possible. So vital
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: Cog is a short, you know, couple hour class and
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: I did the Train the Trainer and it was exactly
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: what I was looking for. It was something that focused
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: on construction, focused on signs and symptoms that construction workers have,
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: electricians have, linemen have, phone, guys have. It's pressure. It identifies,
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: you know, isolation, It identifies everything that these men and
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: women are going through. And then it asks the scary question.
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: Like it's a role playing thing, you are supposed to
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: look at your partner and ask them are you thinking
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: of suicide? It's not You're not thinking of suicide? Are you?
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: It's a direct question. And so when I started teaching that,
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: it brought a whole lot of awareness to everybody in
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: the industry, and the Electrical Training Alliance got a hold
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: of it. They have a great team. They go out
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: and they go to the different schools across you United
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: States and teach it for free to the instructors, to
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: the apprentices. And so that really ignited the awareness component
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: for me because I always want more. I don't know
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: if that's you know, a gender thing or personality thing,
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: but I wanted more than that triage that you know, Okay,
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: why are we looking for these science and symptoms? Why
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: do we have to be so hyper vigilant? How can
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: we stop that? And that's when Sweethearts and Heroes came
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: un scene for me. And because that again, like going
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: back to the upstream prevention, that's how we get ahead
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: of it. We have to teach those human skills, and personally,
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think we have to teach these human
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: skills because then we're not dealing with the fallout, We're
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: not dealing with addiction, we're not dealing with christ this
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: and when we do occasionally, we know how to handle it.
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: You know, you have an established group of brothers and
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: sisters and and so people are there to lift you
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: up right, similar to how I got lifted up and
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: I got taken care of, I got you know, exposed
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: to a tremendous amount of support and love. And and
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: I see that when when tragedy strikes. I see that
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: when when we lose an apprentice or we lose a journeyman,
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: people do circle around at that time. But the problem
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: is they're not doing it ahead of time. They're on
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: their phones, they're taking breaks, they're doom scrolling just to
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: get a little bit of, you know, relief from the
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: pressure of the job. So what Tom is bringing to
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: the iv W is that's the that's the prevention, you know,
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: that's the hard hat before you get hit.
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: In the head.
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we teach, we teach people why why it's important
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: to wear a hard hat, why it's important to wear
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: your ppe, But we're not teaching them the human side
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: of it.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you what do you say? What do
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: both you and Tom say to the mindset of that
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: big burly guy with his big hairy beard. And he's
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: been in the industry for a long time, and in
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: his mind he is thinking or saying and maybe never
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: verbalizes this to anyone, but in his mind he's thinking,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: ship here we go. We get this guy in here
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: with the pink Free Hugs shirt on and the painted fingernails,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: and you know we're talking about this.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: It was just.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Now I got to sit through this, this circle training,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: and then I got to sit through this training, and
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm sitting here when I got so much
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: stuff to do, maybe in my job, maybe outside of
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: my job. I just got so many other things going on. Man,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I just, oh my god, I don't have time for this.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: What do you say, Melissa.
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: I tell them that it's you know, obviously it's worth it.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: I can explain circle and this is not I mean,
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: I'm not trying to pick up our gender roles. But
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: when I look at that man and I tell him,
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: you know, no, this isn't this isn't soft, This is
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: and kumbayad, this is you know, this is real life stuff.
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: These are skills that that you should have. You will
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: be inspired by listening to the keynote. It's a tricky thing.
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: It takes a lot of trust, and that's primarily what
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: That's how I got people to the conference. That's how
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: I've gotten these men on board. Is just the trust component, right, right,
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: And then Tom shows up. And I've heard time and
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: time and time again from both people in Alaska and
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: outside of Alaska. Wow, I had no idea. I had
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: no idea it was going to be this, you know,
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: I had no idea it was going to be good.
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: So for me hearing that, I'm like, well, I didn't
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: explain that very well. But it's just different. It's different
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: when it comes from a woman in a male dominated industry.
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: So I just have to rely on trust and you know,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: getting people in front of him, and then after that
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: they're you know, they're believers, they're totally totally all in.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: And we experienced that in Alaska with a handful of
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: men and women, mostly men, and these guys just turned
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: into humans. They turned into people that have feelings and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: that you know, had life issues outside of work.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's Tom's goal. I don't think he
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: wakes up every day saying that his goal is to
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: convert twenty five out of seventy five guys or men
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: and women. I think his goal is rather too, to
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: make them just think differently and to actually put into
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: action some of these these skills which we've lost, but
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: to actually recognize, to actually speak up or speak up
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: quietly if you need to, but just to be that
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: brother in whatever capacity you're comfortable doing, and just to
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: have that intrinsically inside of you. I think that's Tom's cool,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: not just to make friends, for lack of a better term, yeah,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: within the group that he's speaking to, but to put
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: something in their head, in their ears that maybe they
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: won't speak about for a couple of days, but maybe
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: it might possibly be the last thing that they think
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: about before they go to sleep. Privately, really privately, I
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: want to thank you for your time this morning. I
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: know getting up at stupid o'clock in Alaska is something else.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: And I know that you've got a lot going on
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: right now. I know that you're packing. I know that
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: you're getting ready to set sail for Battleground Washington October first,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: is your new job. We wish you an awful lot
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: of luck, you know, I'll tell you. I know Tom
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: will say the same thing, and I think he already has. Man,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: are they lucky to have you? They have frankly no idea.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: No that really they don't have any idea how lucky
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: they are.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: All make sure to send them the link.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: You should up.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, now.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: Thank you. I appreciate it very much.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: You're doing so much. You know, I hope that with
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: everything that you've got going on, that you're able to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: take your own deep breath and stay grounded yourself. I'm
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: sure maybe you're concerned about your your boy, but man,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: what is what a literally a superhero mom he's got.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: You're pretty great.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: You're gonna do great things. And listen. I don't know
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: if I'll ever get a chance to meet you in person,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: but I feel like I already have and I hope
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: to someday. I can't thank you enough, Melissa for coming
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: on this morning. Outstanding.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: Thank you very much.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: And you're always invited to come back.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: Okay, we'll see what Tom says after this.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Thanks Melissa. Wow, what a what a program this morning.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: What a lady, What a difference she is making in
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: the lives of so many. And I want to think
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Tom too, for coming on this morning. Obviously, I'm going
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: to see if I can play his what he sent
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: me this morning. I know that the subject matter is strong,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: but it's something that we all need to hear. Man,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: And it almost doesn't matter what industry you're in. Maybe
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: it's the trades maybe you're an emergency room doctor, nurse,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: maybe you're working at a nursing home. Maybe you're a
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: first responder, police, fire, ambulance, whatever it may be. We
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: all need to hear this kind of stuff, do we not?
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Sweethearts and Heroes. Every Wednesday, Tom Murphy always bringing fabulous
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: guests onto the air.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 6: It's the night the GUYE two weeks ago, sit right
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 6: or about there and say this is stupid. I'm pissed,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 6: it's bull crap. I don't have any issues. Why am
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 6: I here? Well, i'll tell you why you're here. If
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 6: you're here and you've got any challenges in your life,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 6: I'm not here for you. That sounds kind of weird, Like,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 6: what do you mean that's what you're supposed to be
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 6: here for.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: No, I'm not.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 6: It's very disingenuous for me to come in here and
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 6: say I'm going to give you some kind of skill
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: and change the divorce you're going through and the kid
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: that hates you and your dad that's going to die
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: next year and you know it, and you've got to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 6: build problems and all this other crap going on in
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 6: your life. Like I can't help you, but the brother
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 6: next to you can it's the boy it's been for
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 6: all human history. Get into one of them ancient scrolls,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 6: one of them ancient Hebrew scrolls, take the whole transcendent
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 6: god thing out. But that creator of the universe looked
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: down and the third question he ever asked man was
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 6: where's your brother at? After he killed his brother, whether
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 6: it was real or just metaphorical, where's your brother at?
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: And you know what he did.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: He looked back at that creator of the universe or
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 6: whatever that magical thing was, and he kind of snipe
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: fully said to him, one of my brother, my brother's keeper. Like,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 6: what the freak man he's responsible for himself?
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: Is he?
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: Fod night?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: The guy two weeks ago sit right or about there
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: and say this is stupid. I'm pissed, it's bull crap.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: I don't have any issues. Why am I here