Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Custom Cab Interiors: A Niche in the Elevator Industry | Jared Giblin

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Custom Cab Interiors: A Niche in the Elevator Industry | Jared Giblin · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was at a hotel in Charleston with my family and it was such a gorgeous hotel.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: The lobby was incredible.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: The common areas were so well thought out.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we got into the elevator.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: It just did not match the aesthetic of the rest of the building.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's one of those things that, you know, it really sticks out.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I have to imagine whether you're in a uh the elevator industry or not, you'd probably feel that as well.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially if you're gonna spend a lot of money and time to to design the interior of your hotel.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well then you want that you want that to carry through it.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and yeah, the it kind of breaks as soon as you walk through this steel cage and it's like, um, no.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've we've renovated some cabs that um do like a backlit cutout uh or something really unique with lighting.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just it's that wow factor that the doors open up and it's whoa, you know, look at that.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't need to do something like that.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Does your workforce need a lift?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: At the Allred Group, we are committed to connecting your company with top talent that matches your need.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Give us a call at 404-890-0445.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is Jared Giblin of Draper Elevator Interiors, a company that has carved out a strong reputation in the highly specialized world of custom elevator interiors.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jared grew up in and around the family business and has helped guide its evolution from a broad metal fabrication shop into a focused leader in high-end elevator cab design and modernization.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, we dig into the complexity behind custom elevator interiors, the realities of running a family business, and why reliability, design, and partnership matter so much.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Jared, welcome to the show.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm uh excited for our conversation.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, thank you.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I appreciate it.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've enjoyed our past conversations and obviously wanted to dig a little deeper into what you do, what you bring to the elevator business.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to start a little bit with your business itself.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, Draper has a a strong reputation in a very specific niche, elevator interiors.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm curious what drew you personally into this side of the business and how did the company find its lane in an industry dominated by large OEMs?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, our product offering really has morphed uh over time.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: We started as a metal fabrication shop primarily.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're making miscellaneous elevator parts like pit ladders, things that are welded and bed and that you were really only seen in the in the hoist way.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a big product line of ours actually was animal research products.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um make like rabbit restrainers and custom, yeah, custom cages for like McLean Hospital, BU, Adana Farber for research projects that they would have.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh there would be the occasional cab worked in there, but it was all pretty much like textured metal and plastic laminate.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: I remember like when I was you know younger coming into the shop, I saw a c a cab that had like some cornea panels in it, and I thought like at the time I thought that was fancy.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, over time it's like with all the materials that are hitting the market and architects really pushing the limits of wanting to design what's what's newest and what stands out.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this the sky's the limit as far as you know the product line and the custom cabs kind of just absolutely took off.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it kind of created that where the OEMs don't can't really offer that within their standard, you know, offering packages.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: So um it all the other products that we were offering, it kind of like just tailed off because we had to focus on you know what became you know the hottest demand within our business.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the more kind of specialized you had to be in the cabs, the less you could spend time doing other things.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we got to a point where we really had to make the decision that like, you know, even though some of these requests and these jobs are being uh are coming in, we got to focus on being great at something, being great at one thing.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you know, one's gonna suffer for the other.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the percentage of work was just getting stronger and stronger for the for the cab.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's really kind of what it's really kind of where we honed our attention.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it wasn't it didn't go away easily.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: My father was very like uh I think he had an emotional attachment to some of the other stuff that you know.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wanted to kind of keep doing everything, right?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, because he always had that in mindset, you know, he started the business from nothing, so it's almost like you don't know when you're where your next job's coming from.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: I hear you.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you turn away business, what could that mean for you?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, I completely understand.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, if you did we're doing a good job for people, you don't want to tell them, well, hey, we don't do this anymore.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: But the more systems that you needed in place and the specialized people to do certain things, it just it got to a point where it wasn't meshing well, and we had to say, hey, this is where we're we're diving in on, and we got to be great at this.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it eventually turned into what it is now.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I mean it's a strategic move, right?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very smart business decision.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I had to make a similar decision with with my company because you know, 15 years ago I started recruiting for for elevator companies, but I was also working with a bunch of manufacturing companies from aerospace to auto to food to chemicals to just all over the place.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And but I kept gravitating towards elevator.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, this is this is cool.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I want to be.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So how how long since you as a company said, hey, this is all we do, this is who we are?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'd probably say probably uh somewhere around like 12 years ago.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I started in 2009 and I was trying to get my head wrapped around everything.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I was following people around, trying to learn from them, and what I started to really notice was when I would get a request that's like, hey, can you go survey this thing over at, you know, like I said, maybe it's at BU.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I really I didn't really know how to survey it.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know how to what the customer was kind of asking for because I wasn't experienced in that.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was going out looking at elevators every day.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I could, you know, read up about them, I could talk to a lot of people in the industry, but as far as like custom fabricating a, you know, a cage that was made for like two monkeys to be able to do the study that they're doing, and I just I couldn't wrap my head around it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it was getting hard for me to communicate it.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I it didn't feel like we I could give uh a good customer service to that.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as the years went on, we weren't performing as well financially on those jobs because you know it we had uh maybe a couple of guys that were specialized that could do it.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: It took so much time.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: He was hand sketching stuff to give it to the guys in the shop, and they were once they were working on all this elevator stuff, they'd be like, all right, what is this that I'm looking at?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it would just you would see all this time on this job for this, you know, for this one thing.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, how much could you ever really sell that for?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we after a couple jobs came in that you know we weren't making money on them, it just made it that much easier.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there was like an emotional attachment that was tough for you know, for my father to let go of because it's like, hey, this is what got the business off the ground, this kind of stuff.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it wasn't like this easy conversation, but I think the more people that were responsible for bringing the jobs in and working on them were saying, like, this isn't this isn't easy for us.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Not not that the elevator interiors are necessarily easy either, but it was just creating this um, you know, friction, and it wasn't really something that we thought was going to be sustainable to keep keep the two going at the same level of quality.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we had to make you know the strategic decision to make a sacrifice on.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I I am curious.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you've described a little bit about that decision.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you're at a family business and they often have a very different heartbeat than you know, corporate environments, for example.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious, how would you describe the culture at Draper now versus maybe you know, 15 plus years ago when you were still kind of going different directions?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh And I guess on top of that, what you know, what is it that makes it feel like a family operation day to day?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's like a three-part question.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I mean I I love the fact that it's a family business and I grew up in the business as a kid.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I my parents started in 1995, so I always heard the conversations and the discussions that they would have on, you know, their home.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they cared so much about every single person in the company.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I remember my father always saying how, you know, he felt the responsibility to provide for us, obviously, but he also felt like a burden to provide for everyone else's family.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like he felt like their families were ultimately tied into what he did and how how well the company could do.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that he took very seriously.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that culture just kind of was contagious.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: When you come in here, I think people can feel it.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think for people to do their best work, things have to be right at home.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: They have to feel like they're supported, not just you know, professionally, but personally as well.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we've always wanted that kind of a culture and we've we've kept it.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of people that work here, I've been here for a long time.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think because of that, I think, you know, talking to friends and people in different companies, even within the industry, when it gets to be like you're just like a cog in the wheel, you it's it's hard to feel fulfillment and reward for what you do.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's always been very important for us.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, we have, for example, our engineering manager Izzy, he started working for us when he was 16 years old.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: He's uh been here longer than I have.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was working at a tech school and he do one week in in the in the high school and one week here in the shop, and he kind of worked his way all the way through the shop floor, then he started doing some engineering.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now he runs our engineering department, just super sharp guy.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you'll hear my father when he references him, he'll you know, or talk to him, he'll say, Hey son, you know, and he really gets the admiration he has for him.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's been for him, been with him for so long, and there's just so much history there, and he cares so much.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I really I look at a lot of the people in the company, I feel it does have like a family feel to it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when you bring people in, we always want them to feel like that kind of welcoming atmosphere and you know, that level of support.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it, you know, it makes it a great place to show up and and to do your best work.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I like the you just point out that, you know, having people care about you is a is a very big difference than than feeling like a cog in the wheel.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I am curious, you know, a lot of times with with family businesses, you know, especially growing up in it, you know, there may have been times when you're like, no way am I gonna do that, right?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going the other direction.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm curious, um, you know, once you made that choice in 09 to start, what did you think the job was was gonna be versus what actually you've already kind of described what it was, but what were you thinking?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was excited to to come into the business just because I was proud of my parents and what they had built.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: But there were I saw how humble the beginnings were.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you start a company, you know, it's not just sunshine and rainbows.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I really thought sales would come a lot easier than they did.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I knew we had a great product and and we did a good job, so I thought, you know, oh customers will just they'll just see that.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, my my goal when I came into the company was to help expand our customer base.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it was 2009, so we were just coming into a recession, and it was it was a lot harder than I would have ever anticipated.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: But it was such a great experience to, you know, I I almost I didn't start the company obviously, but I I kind of have the feeling that I had that ground up, that ground up experience as well, because you know, I felt like I was kind of running my own business because they're you know, when I came in, it was it was just bring some new pr younger perspectives, modernize some things that we're doing, and try to to get um a new customer base because everyone was just so busy working on what we already had, man.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, for sure.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, what um what was something you had to learn the hard way about running this type of business?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Man, that's uh you know, where do you even start with that one?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think with custom, anything that's custom, there's so many dynamic elements to that that there's so many people that are their hands on the project, whether it's your own, uh, whether it's your customer or you know, maybe as a designer.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Learning that was that took a lot.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then learning the elevator industry from the outside in uh was tough.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: The the dynamics of an elevator union.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it felt like I had to have kind of there was all these lanes that I had to get figured out, and mistakes were definitely made along the way, but I feel like that's what experience is, is learning from those.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, it was learning about materials, it was learning about um, you know, the the elevator union, the people that work in the field, it was learning about manufacturing process, all those things, and then managing people on top of that, you know, getting good people and and having to work through their situations.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it was, I think probably anyone could relate to to that, but with with the elevator industry having being a manufacturer and an installer, they're really like two different business models.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And to be able to understand both and be effective at both, you know, in the at the same time.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you always have work for your installers, but you're always delivering on time for your customers who you just you know furnishing materials to, that that was uh that took a lot for me to to to wrap my head around it and and understand how to do that, you know, successfully.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: How many years before you you felt like you really kind of started to find your groove, if you will?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd say it took honestly, I would say about like four years.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's just so much to it.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, even understanding equipment, the equipment that's out in the shop, the capability of what of what you can do.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was just every kind of year, it was almost like a compounding effect.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: It was like leaps and bounds more and more to like, you know, now I feel like I'm in, I'm in my prime of what I know and what we can do and all those things.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I almost look at I have a new hire who um I'm almost treating him as an assistant because I just want him to see a lot of this stuff before I release him into the wild because there's so much that can go wrong.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to see all this, and I want you to, you know, be my be by my side for it and and show you, you know, here's what we need to do, here's why.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, he he has seen like, oh, I couldn't believe like they thought, you know, you could do this or that, or do they really think we could get all this done in in you know a couple of days?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, yeah, and I would be like, yeah, this is some of the stuff that you know you need to to know, you know how to organize it and then communicate it properly so they can, you know, decide whether they're gonna go to the site or not, and and and the trickle down effect that all those things have, you know, that's really important for what we do.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So uh if you will, walk us through a project a little bit.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what when does Draper get involved?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: What do you actually deliver?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's the difference between standard and fully custom?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And where do projects break down?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Design, coordination, install.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I know it's a loaded question, but as much as you can.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the earlier we can get into a project, I like that the better.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: I would say on an average project, you know, we'll we'll we'll quote up the scope of work.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And once released, you know, we'll go out, we s we do a lot of our own surveying because of the custom nature of what we do.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then we, you know, we'll provide renderings and and shop drawings for the customer to approve them.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And once that gets approved, it goes into you know manufacturing, we're released it, and we schedule our installation date or or when we're delivered to a site.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I like to get involved earlier in the process of like some time around where they're designing it, where you know, we can kind of weigh in our own two cents about what we think about.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a material selection, or if there's something that doesn't seem right about you know, the design centered around that, you know, something that's you know, it you just can't, it's not feasible.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like they want uh, you know, a lot of times we fight like escape hatch locations with a with a ceiling design or something that it someone wants that might not be up to a code or you know, floor that selection that is not going to fit within the sill allowance or something, one of those things, you know.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: So the earlier we can get on board, the better.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and a lot of our you know, our customers that we've been working with uh, you know, on a repeat basis, I've seen the value in that where they'll bring us in like nice and early and be like, hey, can you go look at this for me?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what they're looking to do.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that's when I think we can provide the best service.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there, listeners.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's Matt, and I would love to know what you want to hear more of on the podcast.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a topic in mind or a guest you'd like to hear from, head over to elevatorcareers.net and drop a suggestion in the box, or you can email podcast at elevatorcareers.net.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: The link will also be in the description below.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being part of this conversation.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, back to the show.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where will you see the the biggest breakdowns in in process?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um it sounds like if you're in early, maybe on the design phase, yeah, you know, it's gonna be better, but the coordination, the install, I mean, obviously if you screw up early and you don't notice it till the end, well, it's gonna blow up.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's it, that's it 100%.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think when something doesn't go right, you can always pin it back to something that happened early on.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um you gotta you gotta have accurate information up front, whether it's the uh the survey or the scope of work, understanding the delete times.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's really where it's rare that a product goes out out to the field and and is just a catastrophe.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's if if done properly along the way, it will get to a shop trying print that they're gonna fabricate to what you you know, what you had laid out.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: So if it was surveyed properly and and the submittal process was done with the right scope of work, it's gonna get fabricated correctly and it should go out to the field for a smooth install.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have all the information you need up front, if it wasn't if it's a you got a bad number or something along the lines, that's kind of where it goes wrong later on.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know it, you're not gonna know well, it goes through the shop floor.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: You might think everything's great, this order is going through, everything's looking primo, and then all of a sudden you get a call, you know, from an installer and saying, Hey, what's what's going on with this?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: This doesn't work, blah, blah, blah.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then you kind of can pin it back to like, wait a second, why did we miss?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you have that?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's you know, it's well, I'm sure, I'm sure when you're talking custom versus standard, right?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: The more custom, the more likelihood something's gonna go awry because, oh, we don't normally work with this, or what you wanted holes over here or or a certain product, you know, some some kind of material that that we're just not used to, or I don't know.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, with custom, there they're always it it creates a a whole other element.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sometimes just the lead times alone.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've done jobs where something's coming from overseas and you know they'll tell you the lead times 12 weeks and uh you check up on it, and sometimes the only answer you get is like, yeah, it's shipped, it's on a boat somewhere, and that's all you get.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't well But if it's wrong when it gets here, right?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then yeah, if you get there and it's it's it's it's they didn't ship it right.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's you can't complete the project that way.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's not necessarily anyone's fault along the way.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: It just you might have an issue there.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: We had a we had a funny uh funny situation with just a week ago we ordered two cartons of a flooring that had a lead time to it, and thank God I had the guy who ordered it, he went to go pick it up.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was local, and it was just one box with two tiles in it.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Oh wow.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he said, Well, what am I supposed to do with this?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's not for a dollar house.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it says two.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yeah, two cartons.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is one carton with two tiles in it.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they have like I said, it had a lead time to it.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, fortunately, flooring is the last thing that goes down most of the time it's in the elevators, but you know, if that just got thrown onto a truck and and sat in our shop, it would have that would have created a problem because someone would have gotten and said, Hey, what do you think I'm gonna do with this?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then you know, while they needed it, we would have had to reorder it.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it's not like it's not like it got ordered wrong.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that um you didn't order the right stuff, it's just a mistake was made along the way.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if you know, if you don't have you know QC checkpoints um within your process, it can it can break things down.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the busier you are, the fastest the faster people are requesting stuff.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, you know, you have to make a decision, you know, well, if we do it this way, you know, we're not gonna be able to set it up on our shop uh and and go through the take the time with it that we'd like to.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we try to stick to the process of what we know works best as much as we can, but it's a fast moving industry.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, speed matters a lot, but so does accuracy.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: But they don't always always go hand in hand if if you know, hey, how quickly can you do this?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I ran out of this jam.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, to do this properly, typically we would like to have it, you know, in our hands for a certain amount of time.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, sometimes you have to make things happen on the fly too.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and I'm sure you're always constantly reviewing, revising, you know, changing up your process just to make sure that at critical moments you're you're looking at it, you're you're making the right decision so that you can have fewer and fewer errors, mistakes, right?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's gonna work to everybody's advantage when you do.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, most times if something goes wrong, you know we the first step is get it right and get it get it out to the field as quickly as possible.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Then then we can do a post mortem on where we just say, all right.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let's learn from the mistake here.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: How where did this go wrong?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: How did it happen so something like this doesn't happen again?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then you add that, you know, step into the procedure of what you do.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's just a one off, it was a super unique situation.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: or custom material or whatever the case is where you're not going to see it maybe in 95% of your work.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: In the event that you do, you know, okay, can we have can we have a check mark or something that we go along the way that will prevent this from happening?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: A good example of this, we've sometimes in in new construction, you know, the OEMs, they have their, they they'll install their own package of the the cab shell and their swing returns and all that.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll have a custom cab that you do.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we, you know, we did want to have this circular light fixture surface mount.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was really slick looking.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: We installed it and a couple of days before the test I got a call from uh the customer and said, hey my my adjuster's out there said there's no emergency lighting in this elevator.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, wait, wait a second.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's of course not.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: It had that custom light fixture.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way to put an emergency light in there.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the margins around the ceiling to the walls were super tight so it was like you know next to impossible to to do anything.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well you usually have those lenses in your C OP.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well the architect they took them out of the that lens out of the C OP.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: But that's a submittal that you know we never saw you know because they submitted that separate we said and submitted our separate everything gets approved and you know you you know maybe one's assuming the other so we we had you know on new construction projects that's part of our a checklist that we make okay the emergency light fixture or emergency lighting where's it coming from and if it's uh this custom light that doesn't offer it because of the architectural spec well let's check with the OEM is that going to be in their COP if it's not we need to have a discussion with how we're gonna do this.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know so it's just it's just little things like that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like a a nothing item and it you know rarely happens but when it does you know it's it's a big deal because they got a they got a a test coming up and there's a lot of dates that ride on that thing you know passing so absolutely yeah so in in your world what does reliability actually mean?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so reliability to me it's uh I like to think of it you know when someone hands a job over to us that they know that they they can sleep well at night knowing that the job's gonna get done the right way and they're in good hands with with us.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get them to the to a place where you're getting sign off and there's no laundry list of a punch list.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's everything will be done exactly the specification and you know we're gonna you're gonna show up and you're gonna be there when you say you're gonna be there you're gonna meet the dates that are communicated and a quality job's gonna be done.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: If challenges arise you'll bring them up you'll talk about them you'll figure out a game plan so everyone can be successful and you know no one's getting put in a tough position or facing some sort of financial ramification because of it.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: But that's to us that's the standard of of how we like to you know uh run our projects and and how we want our our customer base to to feel about partnering with us.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like hey if we if if we go with them it it's it's going to be done the way it's supposed to be where it comes all whatever challenges might be on the horizon because sometimes jobs you know they span sometimes in new construction multiple years through the submit process we'll get to where we need to be when the time comes if the schedule's difficult if there's you know multiple crews and there's challenges there they'll be at job meetings with us we'll work through this and and we want to you know we want people to feel like we're an extension of their business.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely partnering with us means that we're gonna be you know rowing this boat in the in the same direction and looking out for one another and uh that's how a job is done successfully and what would you say separates a great interiors partner from an average one?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I think that kind of experience is is what it is for me where you know you're not if you're not a cab vendor, you know you're not gonna be like this expert in in elevator cabs and there's gonna be a lot of questions and requests along the way.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you're you're gonna rely on your cab vendor to get you all those things.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we make you know whether it's renderings I make storyboards sometimes where you know we're renovating the building's doing a renovation and it's an inconvenience to the to the tenants of the building but they want something visual to say you know maybe here's what the elevators are going to look like when this is all done.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know we we make those things uh marketing materials sit into job meetings to answer all the questions so it's not uh them having to talk about something that they don't interact with every single day.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of like a I look at like some it's like a concierge service uh to provide to customers as early in the in the process no matter what their request if it if it relates to the elevator cabs you know be there to support uh their needs it's not going to be like hey fill out these forms and and get them back to me and then I'll tell you what we can do for you it's we're trying to to deliver a much different experience there where you they can know that okay if this job goes to Draper, you know I can rely on them no matter what the you know no matter what pops up.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah absolutely so just curious you know from from for someone some outside the industry like property manager developer what would you surprise them most about the complexity behind cab interiors?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I think you know when you think about an elevator you know it just seems like it's four walls right and whatever you do to it should be so simple.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know property managers they building owners they they renovate spaces throughout their building all the time.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: They do tenant fit outs on multiple different floors so this is just another set of walls right but I think the complexity with that is a lot of what you know you're working on uh you're first of all it's a moving structure so what works on on a wall that is you know not moving versus something that's being racked up and down a house way all day long and people are in and out of I mean thousand times a day it's it's a big difference in a lot of the surfaces um you know they they play into the or they interact with the other you know you might have a swing COP and then a floor height can those two can those two match you know you can you can't just dump any amount of weight onto the elevator and think you're going to be okay.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of that um they're heavily regulated spaces so there's a lot of things that you have to design around.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think you'd be surprised with although it looks like just a couple of walls what you need to be uh aware of when doing it and you know some things that you might want to avoid.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean something as simple as I spoke to earlier earlier about is emergency escape hatch in your ceiling.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know a lot of people don't know how they operate what they're for or even that there is one because they're not you know if you have a hung ceiling that you can't necessarily see them a lot of times.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah there's a lot of elements that go into it.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I think it's really important you know to have like a a good cab vendor that can kind of steer you in the right direction to make sure that everything within that space can run smoothly.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah it's a it's its own game right like I say even though they're renovating spaces all the time this is a very very peculiar and specialized space and and you need the expert to help you through that.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: So um got a few more questions before we wrap up and one is um around trends right what what kind of trends are you seeing with elevator interiors you know whether it's materials or design or even expectations?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well I think lighter materials there's you know lighter quicker like those type things are more prevalent lately systems type uh installs where it can be installed by you know maybe you're not a cab expert installer you know do you have a a standardized package that can go together quickly is it is a lightweight because we can't put a lot of weight onto the cab a lot of these newer MRLs that have been on the market over the past like 15 years or so when you renovate them you can't there's just you just can't put uh a ton of weight onto them and there's nothing coming off of them in in some cases.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you know we've we've had to design our around a lot of things with a perspective of how how can we make this as minimal as possible but still deliver something that's aesthetically pleasing.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Those things provide interesting challenges because you know like I said earlier you want them to be durable to a level of durability you know a level of beauty but also how can we balance that with someone being able to install it and look good at the end of the day.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah yeah are you seeing owners and developers starting to care more about the cab experience is that something you're seeing I am actually I I which I'm excited about I think people are definitely seeing the value of extending the design and the level of quality they have out in their lobbies into the elevator cabs which I think it's a great thing not just for you know people that are in the elevator industry but I I think we've probably all been to you know maybe a building or a facility where the cab gets left behind and it just sticks out like a sore thumb you know and it can leave you know just a strange like uh taste in your mouth I was at a hotel in um Charleston uh South Carolina a few months ago with my family and it was such a gorgeous hotel.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: The lobby was incredible the common areas were so well thought out and we got into the elevator which we you know we were there for about a week so we were on it you know multiple times a day and I just you know I'm sure it's from an elevator's perspective I'm looking at it closely more closely than a lot of people but it just did not match the aesthetic of the rest of the building and you know like I said you spend so much time in it it's just it's one of those things that you know it really sticks out.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I I have to imagine whether you're in the elevator industry or not you'd probably feel that as well.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean especially if you're gonna spend a lot of money and time to to design the interior of your hotel well then you want that you want that to carry through.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: You want it to carry up all all the way right upstairs and and yeah if you it kind of breaks as soon as you walk into this steel cage and it's like um no.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah we've we've renovated some cabs that um you know I always love like when people do like a backlit kind of uh or something really unique with lighting I think it just there's that wow factor that the doors open up and it's like whoa you know look at this like I didn't even know you could do something like that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've we've we've done a handful of elevators that really have that wow factor and I I always think that you know if you own a building or you know you're renovating that you kind of want an element of that.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it doesn't have to be something that's so cutting edge but when those doors open and be like this is the caliber of building you know of the building is continued into the elevator and no matter where I you know step my feet in here that it's it's just a quality experience.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what where do you see Draper going in the next five to 10 years?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think we'll be uh expanding our product line and our um the geographic area that we're servicing.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Really excited about we've made some big investments into uh precision equipment that we'll be taking in over the next couple of weeks I think that'll allow us to do a lot of things that are cutting edge.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're always trying to listen to customer feedback or feedback from the field from installers of what makes their lives easier, what could make our product better and implementing those things.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: We have very, like I said long tenured fabricators and engineers who design our products so we've come up we've made great strides with improving our own products and I think we'll be hitting the market with some some really exciting stuff over the next I would say like six to uh six to eight months um once we get some some of this equipment underway it's gonna be it's gonna be exciting.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool very cool thank you so as we wrap up I've got three rapid fire questions.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: So very short answers I'm just gonna ask you three in a row and want to see if you can just kind of you know knock them out of the park like baseballs, whatever.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: But uh first one most unique cab you've ever worked on.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: I would say probably the podium elevators at the encore casino.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome one mistake building owners should avoid uh not being involved up front with the elevator plans.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think if they could have a good understanding of the materials that are are gonna be put into their cabs and speak to your cab vendor ask them hey what do you what are the pros and cons of this design?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: What do you like?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: What don't you like?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: How difficult will this be for me to maintain over the years to come?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a building owner and you do that, partner with your cab vendor and ask those type questions, I think you'll you'll be much happier and you'll save yourself some some problems down the road.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Last one what does done right look like for you?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Done right look yeah I would say no punch or little to no punch list and um happy customer who's talking about doing future projects with you.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well Jared thank you for being with me today it's been a lot of fun I I've enjoyed it.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah thank you so much I appreciate you having me on yeah no it's uh it's been great and I wish you the best as you continue to build your business.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, sir.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers podcast sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net please like and subscribe and until next time stay safe