Latest / Outside TG / Episode 61: Wally Jenson TG Tribute

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Episode 61: Wally Jenson TG Tribute · Outside TG

0:11
Hi, this is Charlie. This is Jeff.
0:13
And welcome back to another TG tribute podcast we got Chris,
0:16
how old here? Hey, Chris.
0:18
Hey guys, how are we doing? Good you.
0:21
I'm wonderful. I'm excited to introduce today's
0:24
guest, we have Mr. Wally Jensen. Wally was a a very long time
0:30
certified employee and I'm excited to to learn from him
0:37
more about his journey. I've heard continued to hear
0:39
wonderful things about how he's how he's doing as we transition
0:46
to tweet. Garrett and I, I I just think
0:50
it'll be a great conversation. So, hey Wally.
0:53
Welcome. Thank you.
0:57
Wally, what can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
1:00
How did you, how did you get started at Certified?
1:02
When did you start? I started in July of 1994.
1:08
I after high school I went in the military for three years
1:12
decided I had farm with my dad that didn't work out and I
1:16
worked at a lumber yard that I worked at before.
1:18
And my wife's uncle was a steam fitter that had worked for
1:22
certified prior. And just happened to call me up
1:25
one night and asked if I was interested in being a plumber or
1:27
fitter. And the pay sounded better than
1:29
us making it at the lumber yard. So I checked into it and got
1:32
hired by Russ Ryan 94 and started as a pre apprentice for
1:38
about 10 months and was able to get indentured through the
1:42
plumbing side. Which I didn't know if I'd be a
1:44
plumber or fitter at the time, but plumbing come up first and
1:47
it's been quite a journey ever since.
1:51
Yeah. When we talk about Certified, I
1:52
mean Certified is located in Altoona.
1:54
I mean, is that the only shop you guys have?
1:56
Do you have like a separate shop out there or is that the only
1:58
one? No, that's the only shop that we
2:01
had. But Russ did have a different
2:03
building prior to my employment even, but he did.
2:08
He was at the site we're at now. He had it was quite a bit
2:12
smaller. We used semi trailers instead of
2:15
building some sometimes and the office space is quite a bit
2:18
smaller. So through the years he built on
2:21
shops and added on to office space and made a lot nicer for
2:25
all the employees. So what kind of work were you
2:29
doing early on there? I actually I started on the
2:34
commercial side pretty much right away.
2:36
First month was nothing but core drilling and then I happened to
2:40
work at a place called WL Gore with a foreman through the whole
2:45
project and we went on to another project and I was asked
2:50
to come back and do a couple weeks worth of work and I
2:52
managed to stay there for about four years straight.
2:57
The work just never quit. It quit coming.
3:00
It just continued on. And then after that, just went
3:04
back up in the commercial field, bouncing around from job to job.
3:08
Managed to get in with the Excel projects which I'm on right now
3:12
and done quite a few of those, some through CBTC and different
3:16
schools, but mainly at least 50% has been with Excel.
3:23
That's great. Yeah.
3:23
Excel's a a huge customer. Could you take a take us back to
3:28
like the mid 90s? Like what, What was certified
3:32
like when you were there? I think it'd be exciting for all
3:34
the like, longer term tweak care people to to know like what was
3:40
what was the culture like? What was the pace like?
3:43
How big was it? What do you remember?
3:46
In the mid 90s we were I would say probably towards the end of
3:51
the the 90s, we're probably at our most employment.
3:55
From the time I started 94 till 2000, he had put on quite a few
3:59
different, between the three trades, quite a few different
4:03
employees. I would say we'd have doubled in
4:06
employment at that time. And you had a lot of residents
4:10
for going on back then. You still had your commercial.
4:14
So it was, it was a real busy time.
4:17
And that continued on into the 2000s that we were really,
4:22
really stepping up, ramping up for employment.
4:25
And you had you had a good crew of guys to work with all the way
4:28
from the office and to the field.
4:30
And I think you had a lot of guys that got along really good,
4:34
which made a good team is what I always called it.
4:38
So it was. It was enjoyable.
4:41
Yeah, I, I find that to be, I, I've heard that fairly
4:45
consistently about the culture of certified is that it fits.
4:50
It fits well with, I think how a lot of people would describe
4:53
Tweed Garrett, which is very collaborative and team oriented.
4:57
I'm curious like how did, how did people see certified in sort
5:02
of the, the like Western Wisconsin or larger Eau Claire
5:05
market? How did you as a as a tradesman,
5:09
how did we compare or compete with some of the other other
5:14
shops in town? I would say that if certified
5:20
did some work for somebody, they would call certified back, they
5:23
wouldn't go out and look for somebody else.
5:25
I think everybody would have been happy with our work we were
5:29
doing and your professionalism and all that.
5:35
And I felt we had a really good crew.
5:38
And I do agree, Chris, that with Tweet Garrett, we a lot of us
5:42
have seen that same similarity as far as how things are
5:47
handled, being professional and stuff like that.
5:52
That's great to hear. You mentioned before being
5:57
feeling like a team atmosphere, being part of a team.
5:59
Any people you want to shout out like who are the people who who
6:03
influenced you had an impact on you in those early years?
6:06
Well, I worked with the first couple years.
6:09
I worked with a couple good journeyman, Richard Benton, Mike
6:12
Osmus and Brian Hamlin. They taught me quite a bit as a
6:15
new apprentice. We had a project manager named
6:20
Rick Olson. He was great to work with, who
6:22
has now worked into Greg Backus and it's continued on to be a
6:27
great relationship working with them.
6:30
They do a good job of supporting us out in the field.
6:37
So what are some of the things you did?
6:39
What? What Chris, you kind of hit on
6:41
this, but what was like certified, what did, what was
6:44
your bread and butter kind of what did you guys do really well
6:46
that you were known for around the area?
6:50
We, we did a lot of schools we had on a residential side.
6:57
I would say we had quite a few different general contractors in
7:00
the residential side that stayed with certified.
7:03
So from all lands you whether it was working on a school to doing
7:09
these Excel projects to doing sewer systems was quite a few
7:14
years. We managed to put a lot of sewer
7:16
systems and we had 2-3 crews going on that.
7:19
So you had quite a wide variety that that we took on.
7:26
I'm curious what Russ was like in the late 90s and early 2000s.
7:33
What I would say is if you showed up at 4 O clock in the
7:37
morning, you've seen his truck at the shop and if you left
7:40
there at 10 O clock in the evening, you've seen his truck
7:43
at the shop. So he definitely put his hours
7:45
in. He was a good employer, but he
7:50
expected you'd be good employees also.
7:53
Just for high standards. Anybody who's listening that
7:56
doesn't know, could you explain to us who Russ is?
8:00
Russ was our sole owner of Certified Incorporated, I
8:04
shouldn't say soul owner him and his wife Gene.
8:08
So he he started the shop, I believe it was in the mid 80s,
8:14
come out of colleges with a degree in heating, did his
8:19
apprenticeship as a plumber, gained his got his masters and
8:24
continued on with heating and plumbing.
8:28
Yeah, you bring up Ross and I was always wondering, it must
8:31
have been a scary time knowing that tweet.
8:32
Garrett, who's this company coming in to acquire certified?
8:35
What was that transition like? And what was like the thought
8:38
around the office, around the field?
8:39
I mean, that must have been a different time back then.
8:42
I mean. It was, but Russ had come and
8:46
talked to pretty much almost every individual employee prior
8:51
to deciding to put the business up for sale, said what he was
8:55
kind of looking for as far as somebody to purchase them.
8:58
And I feel that for the most part, I mean, there's obviously
9:02
a few things that are so much different that you don't see
9:05
there. But for the most part, he, he
9:08
picked a good company to transition over into.
9:12
He kept it. It's as close as we probably
9:15
could be to being the certified crew as far as how things are
9:19
going. Yeah, there's when you thought
9:23
about like updating the resume like I'm not doing this.
9:25
I work for certified. There was a comment that I made
9:31
that if it don't work out I got somewhere else.
9:33
Could probably go yes. Well, it's, that's interesting
9:37
you say that 'cause there's been a handful of acquisitions in the
9:41
Eau Claire area, some of the longtime competitors of
9:46
Certified have been kind of gobbled up by companies even
9:50
bigger than us. I'm curious, do you have any
9:53
insight into that? Do you have former colleagues or
9:56
people that have been working there 'cause it I get the sense
9:59
that maybe it isn't going as well as it's gone for the
10:03
transition that we've had with Certified?
10:07
I wouldn't say I have some a person I know, but I know I have
10:11
heard things in the recent years that I would agree with that
10:16
there's things that haven't panned out quite so well.
10:20
Employees aren't as quite as happy with their transition as
10:23
what we were. But I I couldn't specifically
10:27
say as a person, but I'm sure that what you hear out there is
10:32
pretty legit. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's
10:38
interesting. I, I, I tend to have this
10:40
philosophy and it's served us pretty well, which is I have,
10:46
you have to like, I have to really like the owner of the
10:50
business that we're acquiring. That's like my step one.
10:53
And we've been in many meetings where like that hasn't gone
10:57
well. And when I first met Russ, I
11:00
remember thinking this is exactly the type of business
11:03
that we should be partnering with because I know how much
11:07
care he put into the culture, how much care he has for his
11:11
employees. He mentioned you, Wally, like
11:14
right away. I still remember that and the
11:17
way he's talked about you since. But I also think Russ deserves a
11:22
lot of credit because he could have pushed the easy button and
11:27
sold to a private equity firm or sold to somebody larger than us
11:33
and it would have probably been more lucrative for him, but it
11:37
might not have ended up as well culturally for, for everyone
11:41
there. And I, I give Russ a lot of
11:44
credit for doing that. So I'll like, let's go to a very
11:50
early transition. Like what were your first
11:53
thoughts as Tweed Garrett came in and and we started to try to
11:59
combine the businesses? I guess my, the one of the
12:06
biggest things for us would have been how do we purchase our POS?
12:13
And we used to only just run one PO and now you have APO book and
12:20
we run through a shot manager, which we did before, but it was,
12:24
it was a transition for that. And we're still running that.
12:28
I don't know if you obviously, you know, unfortunately our shop
12:30
manager has been out for a while and we're, we're struggling with
12:34
some of that. There were the old ways would
12:37
have been easier for us to just go to wholesale pick up what we
12:40
needed. That would have been one of our
12:42
first things I would say as far as a transition, but people are
12:47
working into that, they're learning that system.
12:50
So it it does seem to be functioning as far as working
12:55
out in the job force on the job sites, I really didn't notice
13:00
much of A change. Everything just seemed to flow
13:04
right into what the way it was working before.
13:08
Have you had there been integrated crews on any of the
13:11
jobs that you've been on, like where people have come in from
13:14
other either other Tweak Garrett offices?
13:19
We actually this one right here. I do have a couple.
13:24
Mitch has come from Wisconsin Rapids.
13:25
Mitch, I can't think it was last name Frank, I think it was.
13:32
And then we have a gentleman from Lacrosse.
13:34
Now. This is the first that I've
13:36
actually worked with people out of the Altoona area, I guess.
13:42
And so far it's been working very good with the the new
13:45
gentleman that we've been introduced to.
13:48
That's great. How would you describe the group
13:52
of plumbers that we have, that you have that you work with
13:56
every day, The other foreman just for people who don't know
14:00
for the other foreman and then the younger, the younger group
14:03
inside sort of our our Altoona office.
14:06
How would you describe that group?
14:09
I would describe it as a tight knit group of gentlemen that
14:14
have worked together for many years for the foreman side.
14:17
Some of us have, if not close to 30 years, been working together
14:21
for over 30 years and the younger gentleman coming in to
14:27
the the company have seemed to work out good.
14:33
We had quite a time frame where we didn't have some younger
14:37
apprentices come in on the plumbing side anyways, so it was
14:41
a learning experience to get back into trying to train
14:44
apprentices and that. But they they seem to be doing
14:47
very well. I'm impressed with the the
14:51
knowledge they're learning through their school and having
14:53
to work with the the guys out there, the foreman's and
14:58
fortunately they get to work with a lot of guys with a lot of
15:00
years experience. So I think that does help them.
15:04
How many guys are we talking about this group?
15:08
We have, I would say 20 plus years.
15:13
There's got to be on the plumbing side, 15 of us that
15:17
have worked together along with the other two trades.
15:22
There's quite a crew of us that have been together for 1520 plus
15:26
years going up into 30. Some sounds like a lot like it
15:30
is around here. Awesome with our plumbing group
15:32
and the De Pere location sounds very similar.
15:37
What, what are you telling some of the younger guys?
15:39
What advice are you giving them as they're starting starting at
15:44
Tweaker? I try to tell them to make sure
15:51
you learn as much as you can, you know, through your school,
15:53
but one of your big things working in the trades for 30
15:57
plus years is take care of your body.
15:59
That's a a big thing. Make sure you do it right and
16:04
don't feel that you're not going to get old someday because it
16:06
will happen. Your body starts to to let you
16:10
know. That's great advice.
16:16
I, I like that advice. What, what it, what like are,
16:21
are there things that you're doing?
16:23
I mean, you're, so you're in the, the second-half of your
16:27
career. Are there things you're doing to
16:28
protect your body that would be good for other people to hear
16:31
about? Yeah, I before I flex and
16:36
stretch which tweak Garrett requires everyone, which we are
16:39
doing on site here with Knutson. For probably close 10 years I've
16:44
been doing it myself 'cause my body started to change to use
16:50
the body system. Don't try and manhandle
16:53
everything yourself. Use rigging if you have to.
16:57
One of my big things I try to preach is do not jump out of the
17:01
scissors lifts. Make sure you use the steps that
17:03
are put on the scissors lifts and stuff like that.
17:09
You know, just don't. Your back is a huge deal.
17:12
I've no gentleman with bad knees, bad hips mine and I my
17:18
back fights me a little more than the rest of those.
17:21
But that all comes with the wear and tear of doing all the manual
17:24
labor. So anytime you can use a piece
17:28
of equipment or something instead of manual labor, you you
17:30
do that. Can you tell us a little bit
17:34
about the job you're on now 'cause it's a pretty, pretty big
17:36
job for the office? It's wondering if you're afraid
17:43
of heights. It's probably not for you.
17:44
It's a little bit taller buildings.
17:48
There's a, a lot of trench drains that we do in this here.
17:51
It is a, a, a good job for learning.
17:56
There's a lot of precast panel walls, so a lot of exposed
17:59
piping, which is always nice. You ain't got to worry about
18:02
trying to get into the walls with everything.
18:06
Yeah, it's a variety of trench drains to storm drain to your
18:10
sanitary. We have some high pressure
18:12
washer piping that we'll be doing in this.
18:16
So you do have a little bit of variety of different types of
18:19
work, whether it's the gas pipe along with that.
18:23
So you that the younger ones get to see quite a variety of
18:27
different applications that you might run into in the future.
18:32
One of the things that I was just going.
18:34
To ask about on a job like that, how do you guys utilize on
18:38
prefab? I mean, is it a big thing over
18:40
in Altoona in the plumbing group?
18:43
It, it is not, and I'll be honest, I'm not very up on it.
18:48
I'm learning a little more about it.
18:49
We are using a total station here.
18:53
Todd, the fitter foreman here, is using the prefab on the
18:58
plumbing side. We are still doing it the old
19:01
fashioned way, I guess with the total station, but I'm not a
19:06
huge technology guy so I'm learning a lot.
19:08
I have some younger apprentices trying to help me learn some of
19:11
this stuff here, so I'm trying to take it a step at a time and
19:15
work my way into more of that I guess I'd say.
19:20
Yeah, and this is for Excel, right, Wally?
19:22
Yes. OK.
19:24
And the the same company you said.
19:26
So for people who don't know, this is Excel Energy, one of
19:30
Altoona's biggest customers, right where you said you'd have
19:34
done 50% of your jobs. Yes.
19:37
OK, Yeah, this is a huge account for Altoona, for people who
19:41
don't know Wally. One of the things that somebody,
19:45
some they gave you a compliment on and I, I'm not sure if it was
19:49
Russ or if I was on a job site and it was a project manager.
19:54
They said you have this uncanny ability to be able to see the
19:58
entire job. So as you're talking with other
20:04
trades, you know, you're giving heads up to people that you're
20:07
coming into this section or that they they're going to need to do
20:11
something that maybe they didn't even see.
20:14
Can you speak to that? Like does that resonate with
20:17
you? Do you?
20:18
And, and how did you, how did you kind of pick up the ability
20:21
to have the foresight to see an entire job?
20:28
I guess I, I hope I do stuff like that because I've always
20:33
felt that I wouldn't want to have something not get installed
20:38
myself if somebody else was able to see it.
20:41
So if I do see something that I feel I can point out to somebody
20:44
else, I, that's why I do that. And I guess one of the reasons,
20:49
if I'm able to do it as well as that sounds, I don't know if
20:55
there's way I was brought up that you just work together and
21:01
working together makes the job go smoother.
21:06
In 1998, I built my own house. I did everything from the
21:10
foundation through the electrical to the plumbing.
21:13
And I feel I learned a lot from that because if I got ahead of
21:17
myself on one trade to the other, I realized I should have
21:22
done one before the other. So I think you learned a lot by
21:26
having that variety of different tradesmanship.
21:29
Is that something that you can teach?
21:34
I feel that you can. Yes, I do point out stuff to
21:40
guys if I see something that's going to affect somebody else.
21:46
For instance, I just talked to a tinner yesterday.
21:48
He's putting hangers up that we won't be able to reach our
21:51
copper pipe to solder it if he puts his ductwork up.
21:56
So I go to him and talk to him. He says no, he's not going to,
21:59
but it does. It's not just me.
22:01
We put our copper in. I have an insulator that follows
22:04
me. So that means you have to hold
22:06
off for the insulator too. He has to have access to get
22:10
things like that. And I'll point that out to
22:12
people on the site that you don't work out my apprentices
22:15
underneath me or something that you you want to look out for
22:18
stuff like that. Because if you don't give them
22:21
forewarning, they might not give you forewarning down the road.
22:26
That's a great point. I'm, yeah, I, I like to hear
22:33
that. I'm curious.
22:35
So you've been at certified and now tweak your 30 plus years.
22:41
Does that Is that give you energy?
22:43
What still gives you excitement like getting onto a new project,
22:46
training younger employees, being able to see the whole job?
22:51
What? What are the things that still
22:53
challenge you and give you energy?
22:58
I think it's all of the above, every job when you start a new
23:03
job. I was able to fortunately work
23:06
with a fitter a few years back that it was his first project he
23:10
ran and I told him to me, a job is just like a jigsaw puzzle.
23:16
You put your first piece in and you build from it.
23:19
So whether it's installation to learning the blueprint, learning
23:24
the job to teaching you, you just keep building off from the
23:30
puzzle and all forms and fashions.
23:34
So you on the teaching end of it, you get to show them an
23:39
underground. Once you get done with the
23:40
underground, you get to see make sure if you hit the walls once
23:43
the concrete's poured from there to where the stud walls are, how
23:47
you install that way and and it just continues on till the
23:51
project is finished. And then you make sure you get
23:55
all your as builds done at the end of the job.
23:58
So it's all stuff that's and from start to finish.
24:01
So you can not only install learn, you can teach.
24:07
That's a great answer. I'd be.
24:10
I'm just curious, as you look back, as you think about all
24:14
those jigsaw puzzles, are there any jobs or projects that really
24:18
stand out as favourites over the years?
24:24
Yeah, I I would say so I the, the project that I was at when I
24:30
were the two week project that turned into four years, that
24:33
would have been one of my favorites.
24:34
I got to work with not many people from certified a time.
24:38
I had a few come in and help me here and there.
24:40
But I, I got good friends that I still do stuff with.
24:44
I camp with, I hunt with whether electrician or a tenor and some
24:49
of the employees that work for the computer factory themselves
24:52
I still keep in touch with. So that would have been a one
24:55
that I would say is one of my favorites.
24:59
Otherwise, we worked out of town on a Phillips Exxon energy
25:04
project and it was a good group of guys to be out of town with
25:08
for five months when everybody's away from their family and
25:13
friends. So that that would be one of my
25:15
favorite ones, just how we all got along up there and the
25:19
project went smoothly. So other than that, some of the
25:24
other projects that I've been with it, we've had good plumbing
25:28
designers that have gotten to know very well and architects
25:35
you get to know really well through different projects and
25:37
that always lets you remember those, those jobs, I guess.
25:43
That's awesome. Final one for me and then
25:48
Charlie, I'll, I'll see if you have any, any, you know, I think
25:52
you're, you're ready. Your, your legend status within
25:55
Altoona is already cemented. Part of the reason I wanted to
25:58
do this and I, I talked to you about it at the Christmas party
26:01
is I wanted other people at tweak Garrett to kind of hear
26:04
about you and your story because I know you've been so
26:08
influential to everyone in in Western Wisconsin.
26:12
I'm like, when you think about your legacy, you know, maybe
26:16
both at certified and at tweak Garrett.
26:19
What? What do you want it to be?
26:24
I guess when that's all said and done, I just hope that people
26:28
look back and say that they enjoyed working with me.
26:32
Nothing spectacular about it that it, it helped put smiles on
26:38
their face through their life of working in the workforce and
26:44
maybe even took some of that at home, whether it was through
26:46
hunting or fishing or something else that I happened to talk
26:50
about. I I guess just that people are
26:55
happy with that. I love that.
26:58
I think as I think about Wally, as I think about some of the
27:02
reasons why I think our our transition and merger with
27:06
Certified went so well, it's because we were so culturally
27:10
aligned. And as you state that, I was
27:12
thinking about just how humble. Of a.
27:15
Of a man you are and how much care and commitment you've put
27:21
into the trade and to the business.
27:23
And so I'm just super grateful that I've had a little bit of a
27:27
chance to know you. I'm grateful that you've had the
27:29
chance to Share your story now with other people at Tweed
27:33
Garrett. And so Charlie, I'll turn it
27:37
over if you have any other questions.
27:38
I think this has been awesome. I got a couple, yeah.
27:41
And actually you just kind of touched on it. 1 is what we've
27:43
talked about. Work for 25 minutes.
27:45
What do you like to do outside of work?
27:47
Family Hobbies. I, yeah, family.
27:52
I do a lot of camping with my family friends.
27:56
I go, I've deer hunt, I've been pig hunting, animal hunting,
28:02
some ice fishing with friends and family.
28:05
Little bit of summer fishing but not a ton of that.
28:08
It gets busy with everything else.
28:11
My wife likes to go ATV and UTVN so we do that.
28:16
Can I ask where generally stay pretty busy?
28:19
Is deer hunt or is deer hunting a secret location?
28:23
No, I deer hunt. I bow hunt up by Danbury
28:26
Wisconsin. All public land.
28:28
Some friends I have own a cabin up there.
28:31
I rifle hunt around mod of Colfax WI and fortunately my
28:36
family still owns a little bit of land so I left with my family
28:40
around home. Nice.
28:42
Well, I mean Chris already said it, but I just want to thank you
28:45
for joining us. We had never met until half an
28:48
hour ago and I've really enjoyed hearing what you've had to say
28:50
and meeting you and hope to meet you in person at some point so.
28:55
Yes, you too. Chris, you got anything else?
28:58
No, just thanks, Wally. I know we kind of had to shoe
29:01
horny into this, so thanks for sharing.
29:04
This is the first. This is the first podcast
29:06
session we've done with someone from from Altoona, so super
29:11
grateful for that. And yeah, if there's any, I'm
29:15
just grateful you shared your story and I hope everyone enjoys
29:18
listening. I hope everybody enjoyed too and
29:22
I appreciate you having me on here.
29:24
All right. Thank you.
29:25
Thanks guys.