Latest / Random Ass Dudes Podcast / Episode 9: Journeyman Lineman

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Episode 9: Journeyman Lineman · Random Ass Dudes Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome to Rad Cast, the Random Ass Dudes podcast where
• 0:07
  absolutely nothing's off limits. Hosted by two guys with no
• 0:10
  script, no agenda, and no clue what's coming next.
• 0:14
  If it's random, it's fair game. TuneIn.
• 0:17
  Laugh with us, argue with us, or just wonder what the hell did I
• 0:21
  just listen to. New episodes come out weekly
• 0:24
  here. Chaos is guaranteed.
• 0:28
  Calm down Kai. We got it, dude.
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  I could barely hear myself. Yeah.
• 0:32
  Does it, does it sound better? Yeah.
• 0:33
  Yeah, it sounds sound OK right now.
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  Do we all sound good? Yeah.
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  That's way better. Yeah, sounds good.
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  Yeah, you gotta get that deep voice, yeah.
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  Hey, my name's Brandon. Awesome, awesome.
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  So what episode is this now? This is episode 1678999, Episode
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  9. Believe it or not, yeah, been
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  going a month. Yep.
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  Pretty much, man. We're recording in a.
• 0:59
  Month. I know it's this guy.
• 1:01
  It was up to me. We would do like 4 at a time.
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  Shane's always wanting to record something.
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  It's fun though, man. Yeah, I like, I like being in
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  here and talking and like learning about other people.
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  Yeah, today's a lot closer to you than it is to me.
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  Yeah, yeah. So today we have Brandon Mullen
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  and Kai Boswell. Right.
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  Yeah, I say that right bothwell. Bothwell, Bothwell, my bad.
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  Might be might be no problem. So all three of us are dreaming
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  lineman. We all kind of came up
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  differently. However, we do work for the same
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  company now, which is pretty cool.
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  I'm no Brandon shoot since freshman year of high school.
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  I just met Kai this year, but I feel like I've known him since
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  we were kids now. Yeah.
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  It's a brotherhood. So yeah, we don't, we don't get
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  along. So like, so like this episode,
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  we really want to talk about, you know, our trade, which is
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  line work and stuff. I don't I don't, I don't think
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  it gets as as enough recognition as a lot of trades out there.
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  I think people forget like, you know who lineman are, you know
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  how we have our lights on, you know how we maintain the system
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  and everything like that. So starting with Kai, how long
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  have you been in, in the industry or in the trade?
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  I started fresh out of high school, I was 18 years old, so
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  we're going on 17 years now and 3rd generation, My grandfather,
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  he was a lineman. My dad and uncle, they did it
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  for a little bit, but they had some situations where they, they
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  went a different route. But I was raised by my
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  grandfather and that was really the only option I had.
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  You know, I going through high school and, and going through
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  school, I wasn't the best, best at the books and best at
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  studying. And, and about sophomore year in
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  high school, after seeing my grandpa and every time we go on
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  road trips and see the big lattice towers and all the power
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  lines and that, that's what our family talked about.
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  My grandpa worked for the Department of Energy building
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  those power lines and I just thought it was the coolest thing
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  and, and it was something that I could do.
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  I like working with my hands. I like physical work.
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  And I remember talking to my guidance counselor, they'd all
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  like about junior year, they start getting you prepped for
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  college and getting you going on your career path, looking at
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  your, your grades and what classes to take.
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  And I told him, I want to be aligned and half the guidance
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  count. They didn't know what it was.
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  I had explained it. You want to be a football
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  player? No, no, I want to build power
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  lines. And, and like you said, man, it,
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  it doesn't get the recognition. And that's why and coming up
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  through it, it's a hard trade. It's a 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 year
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  apprenticeship. But just knowing that you're
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  working on something that's the backbone of America, it
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  literally, I mean founded from the industrial revolution on if
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  it wasn't for electricity, like you said, we wouldn't have air
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  conditioning, we wouldn't have the machine.
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  You couldn't build the machinery to build the roads.
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  You couldn't build the equipment and the cars and electricity
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  runs everything turns everybody's lights on, turns the
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  the night in the daytime in terms of heat to cold.
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  And, and, and what I really like about it is the the fact that
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  it's one of the last trades that hasn't really been changed and
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  hasn't been manipulated in ways with safety.
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  And the other have put, you know, things in place, certain
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  certain things, but rebuild power lines today the same way
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  the guys did 100 years ago. And I'm kind of history buff and
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  I like American history and, and you know, this the, the story of
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  America and, and knowing that, you know, we still dig holes by
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  hand if we have to, we set poles by hand, we climb them, we put
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  our hooks on and climb the poles.
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  And, and there's not really anybody who can tell you how to
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  do that. There's, you know, OSHA, they're
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  they're over regulate everything for, for good reasons and
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  certain certain industries, they tell you how to do things, but
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  when it comes to line work, there's no one way to do it.
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  There's a hundred ways to do it. And the lineman become, become
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  the engineers and the lineman become the, the they have to
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  play every role when it comes to building the power lines.
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  And, and sorry, that's a long explanation of how long I've
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  been in it, but I, I really am passionate for the trade and
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  always have been. And, and like I said, it's
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  something that I wake up every morning, I'm excited to go do it
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  and, and make a difference. And from working storms to turn
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  in, you know, whole communities to whole islands back on where
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  people are either freezing cold in the winter or they're,
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  they're on oxygen and, and their power's out because of a tornado
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  or a hurricane And being able to have pride in, in going in.
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  And you know, like I said, we're kind of unsung where that
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  people, they, they just flip the switch inside their house or
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  plug their phone in and poop. It turns on while there's some
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  guy out there that's, you know, risking it all to, to have that.
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  Well, and I think one of the things that you mentioned early
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  on is like you mentioned the trade, right And I don't know
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  that enough people understand that this is part of the trade
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  community like when we talk trades, because I'm in the
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  trades more on the distribution of manufacturing side.
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  But you know, when we talk trades, it's plumbers,
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  electricians, HVAC techs, right? But none of that gets done if
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  there's no power from the main source.
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  And that's where you guys are at, you know, and, and we talk
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  about all the time that that the trades are dying from a
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  residential standpoint. What does that look like for you
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  guys? Is that the same situation where
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  there's just not the the legacy of up and coming lineman?
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  I have heard that that the, the people applying for the
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  apprenticeship, the, the enrollment rate is down and also
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  the graduation rate is down. So there's less people coming in
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  and there's less people making it through the apprenticeship.
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  I think it's 60% of apprentices, last I heard, don't make it
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  through the whole apprenticeship.
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  And I don't know if it's this, this younger generation and, and
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  the way, you know, people want everything fast and easy and
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  they don't want to have to actually do manual labor and
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  work for it. But like you said, the, the
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  trades are dying. But at the same time, it, it's,
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  if you're willing to put in the work, it's right now, it's a
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  real lucrative time to get into whether it's welding,
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  electrician, line work, HVAC, because there's less people
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  willing to do it. And, and they're paying and
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  they're these companies and these states are having to pay
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  more to get guys out there. So if you're willing to put in
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  the work and put your head down and, and put the time in it, it
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  can really be it. It's a career path.
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  College no longer is the only way.
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  And, but yeah, yeah, there is, there is a downfall with, with
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  applications, but yeah, hope, hopefully it turns.
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  And that that's why I this podcast that you guys are doing
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  and, and bringing attention to it.
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  And every time I talk to anybody, I, I try to get them
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  into the trade. And that's part of the same
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  here. Part of our, yeah, part of our
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  upbringing is trying to more people you can bring in, and the
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  stronger and the bigger you can get it, the better.
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  So. I think, I think what kind of
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  gives us a uphill battle is not not only is, you know, the
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  generation after us that really doesn't want to do a whole lot
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  of work, but you're, you're we're dealing with high voltage
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  electricity, right? So there's like that, that part
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  of it. And a lot of people are afraid
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  of that stuff. And then you're dealing with
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  heights, you know what I mean? And, and a lot of people, they
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  just can't, they just can't deal with that, you know, So that's
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  just two factors that's going against already people not
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  wanting to work, you know, because there's probably some
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  young, young men out there that are willing to put in the work.
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  But can they get over the heights?
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  Can they get over working with, you know, 7500 volts or you know
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  what, 345 kva or whatever you know so well?
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  Not only that, it's to become alignment.
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  I think you have to be. To me, I look at it like you
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  have to be athletic. You have to be.
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  Yeah, there's physicality. There's a huge physicality and
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  you can't, you have to be smart. Like you can not be afraid of
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  heights. You cannot be.
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  You can climb, but you just don't have it up here.
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  Would you? I mean, you have to be.
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  I mean, the training that we go through in the classes that we
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  take, I mean, there's calculus, there's all kinds of theories,
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  formulas like, and you, I didn't do good in school, but like I
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  applied myself in The Apprentice apprenticeship and it's just you
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  have to be, you can't be. I don't want to be mean about
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  but you can't be a dumb ass. You have to be oh 100%.
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  It's like the in my opinion, it's line work is top of the
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  trades with the physicality. What, like you just gotta you,
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  you're, we're good at everything.
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  Yeah, dumbass gets you killed in your guys a lot of work.
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  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Killed or sent down the road?
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  Right, you hope that it sends you.
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  Dumb. Yeah, yeah, like.
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  Being a dumbass because the kind of power that you guys are
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  dealing with, I mean that's you get popped once and you're done.
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  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you have to work good
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  under pressure and, and, you know, coming up and, you know,
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  guys, they see, you know, 'cause it, it pays good and they see
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  the, the nice big lifted trucks and the campers and all the toys
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  and, you know, people want to get in the trade.
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  And like I said, I'm all for bringing people in, but I
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  usually ask young guys. I ask them two questions.
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  Well, how do I get into it? I ask one, are you mechanically
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  inclined? Can you, do you do your own oil
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  changes? Do you change your own, you
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  rotate your tires? Are you able to mechanically
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  work on things that that's a big qualification.
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  And the second thing I always ask them is it sounds kind of
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  weird, but do you ride motorcycles or dirt bikes?
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  Or can you put yourself, because you almost have to be addicted
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  to adrenaline, you almost have to be able to work under
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  pressure because when you're up there for hours on end, 100 feet
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  in the air, 200,000 volts, you can't be, you have to be able to
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  harness that and turn that into because it, it's almost a high
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  when you're up there. Once you come down on the
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  ground, it's the dopamine dump like releases and you realize
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  the whole day you were just kind of elevated.
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  And I grew up riding dirt bikes and, and to me it's, it's a lot
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  of the same thing where it's, it's you're, you're riding a
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  dirt bike across the desert doing 8090 mile an hour.
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  You have to be on point. You can't lose your focus.
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  And, and that's, you know, that was a couple qualifications.
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  I like, did you grow up riding quads dirt bikes or do you like
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  scaring yourself? Are you able to handle those
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  high pressure situations or those dangerous situations?
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  But if you know, and, and I'm not saying if, if you don't do
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  those couple things, you can't make it.
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  But if if God, oh, I'm, you know, they're scared to ride
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  bikes or this or that, It's like, well, you're, you're going
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  to be scared once you get up there.
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  Yeah, but there's also the idea that, you know, you talk about
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  riding dirt bikes and quads and all that stuff.
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  Is the split second reaction time too?
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  Because I can't imagine that you would have a whole lot of time
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  when things go bad. When things go bad in our trade,
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  there is no time, yeah, there's no time.
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  It just happens. The only thing that we can do is
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  try to prevent that or prevent, like, us getting hurt, right?
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  Like I mean rubber gloves. Rubber gloves because.
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  Things have already gone bad. Well, yes, like if you're
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  talking like a, like a, like a, yeah, like a storm, things are
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  bad. Don't get me wrong.
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  However, you know, we're taught to work safe, you know, and work
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  smart, right? So when when we're going on a
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  storm, the well, mostly the electrical part of it is not
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  going to be a factor just because we have line fuses, we
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  have reclosures, we have things that, you know, will kill the
• 13:44
  power for us to be able to work right.
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  But we're also working against like back feed, you know, people
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  putting generators on. I mean, if you're, if you're
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  working in like the Midwest with like big ass trees and shit, you
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  know, trees, trees will fall on the line and that'll mess up the
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  tension that you're working on or broken poles that are rushed
• 14:05
  that are, they're all jacked up at the very bottom and stuff.
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  So. Or California catch fire and
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  take lines out for miles. Yeah.
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  So have you all been on Storm then?
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  Yeah. Yeah, yes, I'd probably have
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  done the lease out of these two. So how many years of each of
• 14:22
  you? So 17. 1515 and.
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  I think like 8 or 9 OK. Yeah.
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  OK. So there's some, there's some
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  good tenure there. You guys have enough experience
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  to speak on it? Yeah.
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  Right. So you know, going back to kind
• 14:36
  of what you were saying earlier is that you know, the the
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  dropout rate or whatever that would be.
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  Being that you guys have all gone through the process of
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  going through, you know, the apprenticeship and going through
• 14:46
  the training. What do you think the biggest
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  roadblock is for anybody to complete the training and then
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  what would be your piece of advice of somebody that like is
• 14:55
  going to go through it? Depending on the apprenticeship
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  that you apply for, like if you, if you do like Cal, Nevada or
• 15:05
  76947, the biggest thing is the traveling.
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  Like there's a big part of it like you're on the road a lot
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  like traveling, you know, for what I did everywhere in
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  California, parts of Nevada and you're gone.
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  It's work, work, work, work and you have to sacrifice that.
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  It's like military, you sacrifice that time being away
• 15:29
  from your, your wife, your kids or whatever.
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  I would say that's because, you know, the younger kids, they
• 15:35
  come in, they've never left home.
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  So the the very first night, they're all beside themselves.
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  They're like, and you got this mean journeyman telling you to,
• 15:45
  you know, beating the shit out of you with words like get over
• 15:47
  here, get up. It's just if you can, if you can
• 15:50
  handle that and just grind and work and stay positive, then
• 15:55
  then I think you'll, you have a pretty good chance.
• 15:59
  But the, the travel side it, it's rough.
• 16:02
  It's a high divorce rate. Our trade is it's one of the
• 16:05
  highest, like where marriages don't work.
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  And I know I could speak from experience, like when I was
• 16:12
  before I we moved back to Arizona, I was chasing storms
• 16:16
  dude. And I was probably home in one
• 16:18
  month, like 4 days, you know, and, and I, and I was tunnel
• 16:24
  vision, Dude, I'm like, I'm going to get money.
• 16:26
  Yeah, make money. We're moving, you know, And
• 16:29
  Natalie had to sit me down and say pretty much say, dude, you
• 16:34
  got to, you got to calm down. Like you know I I need you home
• 16:38
  sometimes. There's some responsibilities.
• 16:40
  Here yes you know she's like you got to know where that balance
• 16:44
  is. You know she didn't tell me
• 16:46
  don't go on storm right. You know, she just said.
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  Like you need to find a balance so that a way I'm not losing my
• 16:52
  mind taking care of four kids and doing everything on my own.
• 16:55
  Well, I think that's that's the other part that people don't
• 16:57
  consider when you're talking about failure rate and stuff
• 16:59
  like that is that, you know, you guys being gone is not just
• 17:03
  pressure on yourself, it's pressure on those that you leave
• 17:05
  behind. When you mentioned the military,
• 17:07
  that kind of that kind of clicked a little bit.
• 17:09
  You know, you were in the Navy. I don't know if you guys were in
• 17:11
  the military at all. Maybe.
• 17:12
  Yeah. So thinking like you're leaving
• 17:14
  your family there too and going back to what you were saying,
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  you know, there's the young person that gets out and like, I
• 17:19
  want to go do this. And now you're out of mommy and
• 17:22
  daddy's house and they're not doing your laundry for you.
• 17:24
  They're not making your dinner. You know, they're not waking you
• 17:26
  up in the morning. Now all of a sudden you go from
• 17:27
  being a kid to I'm a I'm a grown ass man that has to take care of
• 17:32
  myself and I'm in a state that I don't know and I'm in a
• 17:35
  situation around people that I don't know that to your you
• 17:39
  know, what you were saying verbally beating the shit out of
• 17:42
  you, trying to get you prepped. You know, that's a lot to take.
• 17:46
  Oh yeah. So you, so when you said you
• 17:52
  started right, you didn't just start your apprenticeship, you
• 17:55
  started as a a groundman, right? Yeah.
• 17:58
  That's right. Yeah, like we like all three of
• 18:01
  us have kind of came up differently.
• 18:03
  Like, so Kai came up as a groundman.
• 18:06
  He's he started as a groundman, so.
• 18:08
  What does that mean? It's in other trades, they call
• 18:11
  it like a jobber or a laborer. You're basically a or a grunt,
• 18:14
  right? Yeah.
• 18:15
  You're, you're digging the holes.
• 18:17
  You're, I mean, yeah, you're, you're the whipping boy.
• 18:20
  And there's some guys that they're professional ground and
• 18:22
  that's all they do because they don't, they don't want to go any
• 18:24
  further or go, they're afraid of heights, electricity.
• 18:26
  But when I came up, there wasn't blind school wasn't around.
• 18:30
  It wasn't a thing. And it was kind of there was
• 18:34
  kind of the standard to, to do your ground man, make sure it's,
• 18:39
  you're dipping your toes in to make sure that it's a good fit
• 18:42
  and, and see if it's something that you can handle.
• 18:45
  And then from there, and that's the way I recommend guys getting
• 18:48
  into it now, is if you can try to get into a groundman position
• 18:51
  and then then get to know people, get to make sure you
• 18:54
  like it and then apply for the apprenticeship.
• 18:56
  Yeah no I agree it's weird. Now have you heard they got pre
• 19:00
  apprentices? Yeah.
• 19:02
  So they're like the new groundman, right?
• 19:04
  The pre apprentice. Yeah, that's, that's the kind
• 19:07
  of, I think weed out the the people that just probably
• 19:10
  shouldn't be here. Like, yeah, just sign in the
• 19:12
  books. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:14
  And groundman do everything on the ground.
• 19:16
  They don't go up in the air. Yeah, it's their job to learn
• 19:20
  the material, how the lineman like it.
• 19:23
  But that's the way I didn't start out as a groundman.
• 19:26
  I I went to NLC. You went to NLC, right?
• 19:29
  No, I wanted to NALTC. Oh, OK.
• 19:34
  Yeah, up in northern Cali, that's where I went and that's
• 19:37
  how I saw. I didn't.
• 19:39
  I didn't know. I wasn't mechanically inclined.
• 19:42
  I was all right. My dad is.
• 19:44
  No, you weren't. No, I wasn't, right.
• 19:46
  Yeah, Yeah, he wasn't. I mean I was more new but.
• 19:50
  Not really. Yeah, OK.
• 19:51
  No, and it was the school was great for me because it taught
• 19:56
  me how to roll up a hand line. It taught me like, you know, to.
• 20:00
  To hold a hammer and to like. Not to look like an idiot when
• 20:03
  you're out there with the crews. Because you could definitely
• 20:06
  tell like where somebody has no experience it, it's like pretty
• 20:11
  comical. I know it's not right to laugh,
• 20:12
  but it's like you have to have some sort of experience going
• 20:16
  into to flourish and do good. And because if you don't, then
• 20:20
  you're going to struggle. Well, that, well, that also kind
• 20:24
  of depends on the crew that you're on, you know what I mean?
• 20:27
  Like there's like some, some guys that still have that old
• 20:31
  school mentality, 'cause like beat like beat them down.
• 20:34
  They're they're not shit, you know, and I kind of came up with
• 20:40
  all the lineman that I came up with.
• 20:43
  Like they didn't, they weren't like that man.
• 20:45
  It was like they held me accountable.
• 20:47
  You know, they taught me everything and they're only
• 20:50
  going to teach you as much as like whatever you put into it,
• 20:54
  right? Like if you're like a dirtbag
• 20:56
  and you're not, you know, down there on the ground picking up
• 20:59
  trash, getting everything ready, get the trucks ready, getting
• 21:02
  material ready, they're not going to put, if you're not
• 21:06
  doing that, they're not going to put the effort into teaching you
• 21:09
  or giving you a little bit more knowledge.
• 21:10
  They're just going to be like, all right, well, you don't want
• 21:13
  to put work into whatever you got to do.
• 21:14
  Then I'm not going to put work into you.
• 21:16
  Well, that's, I mean, no matter where you're at, right, It's
• 21:18
  manage them up, manage them out, right?
• 21:20
  Like if you're going to give me the effort, then I'm going to
• 21:22
  put you in positions to be successful.
• 21:24
  You're not going to give me the effort.
• 21:25
  I'm going to figure out how to get you off the team, You know,
• 21:28
  and I can't imagine, especially with what you guys are dealing
• 21:30
  with, there is no managing somebody that's that's
• 21:34
  inadequate. That person's going to end up.
• 21:37
  They're going to take them out. Yeah, right.
• 21:39
  Kill themselves or they'll take. Somebody else out?
• 21:41
  Yeah. Right.
• 21:42
  Yeah, so that, I mean, I can't even imagine.
• 21:45
  I know that there there is like a like a hot topic out there
• 21:49
  like in alignment forums and stuff about going to line school
• 21:53
  or not going to line school. What are your guys's perspective
• 21:57
  on on that? I've.
• 22:01
  I've seen both ways work and not work.
• 22:04
  I said it's hard to get a groundman position.
• 22:07
  I honestly think that's the best way because you're you're put
• 22:11
  out there, you're put on the spot.
• 22:14
  And because you can spend a bunch of money going to line
• 22:17
  school and you can sit and do the climbing and stuff, but
• 22:20
  until you get out on the job site, it's a totally different
• 22:23
  ball game. I've seen guys come out of line
• 22:26
  school and they have this false perception of what the trade
• 22:32
  actually is. They, and like you said, there's
• 22:34
  a lot of lineman out there. And that's goes back to the old
• 22:36
  school mentality of, of, you know, it's, it's all about
• 22:40
  respect and, and busting your butt and, and, and, and they
• 22:45
  treat you hard and, and, but they also, they're, they're
• 22:47
  trying to break you. They, they got a couple years
• 22:49
  because they don't want to be up in the air with somebody who's
• 22:52
  going to lose their shit, who can't handle the pressure.
• 22:55
  So there is pressure. A good lineman is going to put
• 22:58
  pressure on their apprentice, but they're going to be
• 22:59
  respectful. They're going to teach them.
• 23:02
  But I've when, when I interviewed for my
• 23:05
  apprenticeship, I went in there and, and it must have been right
• 23:09
  when line school was starting and there was a couple fresh
• 23:12
  graduates and they showed up to the apprenticeship wearing a
• 23:15
  button up shirt. They're loafers, pressed pants
• 23:18
  like they're going in for a job interview.
• 23:20
  I just flew in from Texas off the right away doing 230K
• 23:24
  structures hot as a grunt and I show up to the apprenticeship
• 23:30
  interview I got. I wear an Fr shirt, hole in my
• 23:33
  shirt, hole in my pants, boots, dusty, sunburnt and and probably
• 23:39
  half hungover. And out of eight of us, I was
• 23:42
  the only one who got the apprenticeship.
• 23:43
  All these guys that just came out of line school, they they
• 23:45
  got they didn't get accepted. So but I'm not saying that line
• 23:48
  school's a bad thing. It's definitely a way to get
• 23:51
  your foot in the door. And it also depends on there's
• 23:55
  two big differences with line workers out what we call outside
• 23:59
  construction where you're working out for a contractor and
• 24:03
  then there's inside where you're working for a utility.
• 24:07
  You know, California Edison out here is a PSSRP and or Excel
• 24:12
  Energy out in Texas and New Mexico.
• 24:14
  And they, they have a whole different process of, of, of
• 24:18
  tailoring guys to come up through and they almost have
• 24:22
  their own schools internally a lot of times.
• 24:24
  But when it comes for to the outside, like I said, I, I think
• 24:27
  it, it more depends on the individual.
• 24:29
  And I know there are some halls that are shying away.
• 24:31
  There was a requirement you had to go to line school before you
• 24:34
  could even apply. Then now I think the locals
• 24:37
  around here, they're kind of backing away from that.
• 24:39
  Like Brandon said now it's just a pre apprenticeship because
• 24:42
  they were seeing these kids come out of these schools and, and
• 24:46
  they were put them on right away.
• 24:48
  And then they, once they got out on the job site, it was like,
• 24:51
  no, this isn't quite, you know, is isn't for them like they
• 24:54
  thought it was in school. Yeah.
• 24:56
  Before we get right, it's let me just check the camera, OK, we'll
• 24:59
  just cut this piece off. I just want to make sure since
• 25:02
  you have that battery pack on. There, you want to turn that
• 25:05
  that fan too. How's it going so far?
• 25:10
  Guys seem nervous. Huh.
• 25:12
  Guys seem nervous. Your nipples are no dude.
• 25:14
  Yeah, good. I mean, you're.
• 25:17
  Dude, you're you're. Sweating so.
• 25:19
  Bad or you're. Freezing are you?
• 25:21
  So you're are. Freeze.
• 25:22
  Really. You don't hear me shiver.
• 25:27
  No, no, I don't. You're doing a good job of
• 25:28
  holding it. Yeah, just keep doing that.
• 25:32
  So hey, just. Just laugh that way all.
• 25:35
  Right. So we heard Kai's perspective on
• 25:38
  trade school or not trade school, right, starting in the
• 25:40
  field or or going through line school.
• 25:43
  So Brandon, what's your opinion on that?
• 25:47
  I it's like with anything else, it's like who you know, if you
• 25:54
  can get into even being a ground man, it's hard.
• 26:00
  Like for me, I just, I did the line school because I didn't
• 26:04
  know anybody. I didn't know anything about the
• 26:06
  trade really. It was my way.
• 26:08
  I paid for a weigh in line school.
• 26:12
  It it, it taught me like material, like how to roll up a
• 26:14
  hand line, simple stuff like that.
• 26:16
  But like, do you need it? No, I it's like 2-3 months long
• 26:21
  anyways. And you're not going to learn
• 26:25
  the most like like you would like if you're on a real crew.
• 26:29
  But I like, like I said, I paid for it.
• 26:32
  If that's what you got to do, then that's what you got to do.
• 26:35
  It's any way you can get in, find a way, talk, sign the
• 26:41
  books. It's just, it's, and you really
• 26:43
  have to like, you have to hustle.
• 26:44
  Like I've had a lot of people like they'll message me or
• 26:48
  whatever on Facebook. Like, hey, like, like, how do
• 26:52
  you get in? Like because they probably like,
• 26:54
  you know, they know like the, the money aspect or whatever,
• 26:58
  It's always the money. Like the money is awesome and
• 27:02
  it's amazing, but it's a whole it's a it's a life.
• 27:07
  It's a different life and you have to hustle.
• 27:11
  It's not going to come to you. Like there's things you have to
• 27:13
  do. Like you have to get your
• 27:15
  transfer your high school transcripts.
• 27:17
  There's legwork to be done before you even even want to go
• 27:21
  into a line school. You have to do work.
• 27:25
  A lot of them require to have your CDL permit like there's
• 27:31
  just any way you can get in. I don't think anyway is better.
• 27:34
  Obviously, if you know somebody and you can get in, go that
• 27:38
  route. Don't waste your money online
• 27:40
  school, but it's just for each individual.
• 27:44
  However they, they come up, you know, like Kentucky, his
• 27:47
  grandpa, his family in the trade, like it was probably you
• 27:52
  have hookups versus like me, I didn't know anybody again.
• 27:58
  So I just, I paid for that line school just to get the
• 28:01
  interview. And then when I did the
• 28:03
  interview, same thing. There's like people, tuxes,
• 28:09
  business suits and I'm like, what are we applying for the
• 28:12
  same thing here. And I and I roll up I, I just
• 28:15
  left line school like, and I was lucky.
• 28:19
  I got an interview with Cal Nevada right after.
• 28:21
  I was like, and they, they asked me questions and I, I was like
• 28:27
  #3 out of like 500. I don't know what I said or what
• 28:31
  I did, but pretty much they're like, can you climb a real.
• 28:33
  I'm like, well, I brought my tools with me.
• 28:35
  I could show you right now like, I'm ready.
• 28:37
  I just came from NLC. Like I can climb.
• 28:40
  And they're like, oh, OK. And then that was that.
• 28:45
  Yeah, I was. And your your apprenticeship is
• 28:47
  pretty difficult to get into right The Cal Nevada like that's
• 28:51
  pretty. Yeah, there's like so because
• 28:54
  there's The thing is that I don't understand is like there's
• 28:57
  a shortage of lemon for sure a big shortage.
• 29:00
  But Cal Nevada has like 5000 applicants, like they, they,
• 29:05
  they cut off the app because they they don't want to accept
• 29:09
  anymore because there's already so much.
• 29:12
  But that just. And with social media and
• 29:15
  TikTok, people see like videos of like the helicopters and it
• 29:20
  seems cool to them. Like glorified, right.
• 29:22
  Glorified. Whoa, yeah, like make a lot of
• 29:24
  money. I'm going to go do that.
• 29:25
  Yeah, like awesome. But they don't see all the you
• 29:30
  know it. Yeah, it's cool and it seems
• 29:32
  cool, but there's so much more to the trade.
• 29:34
  That's I don't want to say like sucks and talk bad, but it's
• 29:37
  hard. Like it's you.
• 29:40
  It's hard work, like your body. I mean, I'm 39.
• 29:44
  I mean, yeah, my, yeah. See, and we talked before on
• 29:50
  this. My shoulders are just
• 29:52
  annihilated. But I forgot where I was going
• 29:58
  with that. Well, the difference between
• 30:01
  line school and being, you know, coming up as a grunt.
• 30:03
  But one thing that you mentioned, and I think this is a
• 30:06
  missing component for anybody that's coming out of high school
• 30:09
  or getting ready to start their career is you mentioned it being
• 30:11
  a lifestyle. It really doesn't matter what
• 30:14
  you're going to go do it. It's a part of your lifestyle.
• 30:17
  You know what I mean? It's it's inevitable that kind
• 30:21
  of starts to direct the way that you're going to live the rest of
• 30:24
  your life. So knowing that, I mean, you
• 30:27
  know, Shane, you went through line school, like how the hell
• 30:30
  did you even get started there? Who do you know that?
• 30:33
  I just knew from Brandon. OK, Yeah.
• 30:35
  So Brandon was going through his apprenticeship and, you know, he
• 30:38
  called me. He's like, dude, you have to be
• 30:41
  a line like you. Like this is what you should do.
• 30:45
  Like I know you would do a good job, blah, blah, blah.
• 30:48
  And when he first called me about it, I'm like, well, what's
• 30:50
  alignment? You know, I mean, he's like
• 30:52
  telling me and then I'm like, OK, and then I just kind of put
• 30:55
  it off to the side, right? And I was like, whatever, I'm
• 30:57
  going to try to do my try to do my own thing.
• 30:59
  Well, you know, I'm married, married, 4 kids deep, you know
• 31:04
  what I mean? And I was just kind of stuck at
• 31:06
  a job. I'm like, man, I got to do
• 31:07
  something, man, I need to provide for my family.
• 31:10
  So then I went back to call him Brandon again.
• 31:13
  And then I was like, all right, well, what do I got to do?
• 31:15
  Well, asking Brandon what to do is like cut my teeth on an
• 31:18
  alligator, man. He's like, so I had to go find a
• 31:21
  different route, you know what I mean?
• 31:23
  So we ended up, I ended up selling my house, you know, we
• 31:27
  moved in with my in laws and or the family did.
• 31:30
  And then I used that money to go to line school in Tennessee.
• 31:36
  And for me, it worked out great for me, right?
• 31:39
  Because like, it put me in a position where there was a, a
• 31:47
  utility in Indiana, Duke Energy. They were, they were hiring and
• 31:51
  I went through that whole hiring process and I just feel like
• 31:53
  that's where like God wanted me to be.
• 31:55
  Because if not, I mean, the other option was graduating and
• 32:00
  coming back to Arizona and hoping that APS or SRP hires me
• 32:06
  or going to the hall and trying to figure all that out.
• 32:10
  But I think 1, I think there's multiple ways of getting in this
• 32:16
  trade. You could do how Kai did become
• 32:19
  a groundman, right? You could do what me and Brandon
• 32:22
  did go through line school. But at the end of the day, the
• 32:25
  most important thing of getting in is getting your CDL.
• 32:29
  That's it. Yeah, that's it.
• 32:31
  I don't, I'm like the same with Brandon.
• 32:32
  So many people as like reached out to me, Hey, how do I become
• 32:35
  a lineman? Do you have a CDL?
• 32:37
  No, go get a CDL. Is that just because of the size
• 32:41
  trucks you? Guys drive.
• 32:42
  Yeah, because they got air brakes and stuff.
• 32:44
  Gotcha. Yeah, anything over 26,000 lbs.
• 32:47
  And I found that that's the easiest period of entry.
• 32:50
  That was my same answer, other than the motorcycle, the
• 32:53
  mechanic thing. Fine, then they're okay.
• 32:54
  Yeah, yeah, I can do it. It's like, all right, go get
• 32:57
  your CDL and I'll tell you what the next steps are.
• 32:59
  Never hear from them again. Never.
• 33:00
  If you can't go through and go get your CDL, then you're not
• 33:04
  going to make. It Yeah.
• 33:05
  There's two people that have reached out to me and that have
• 33:09
  followed through out of dozen people that have one Shane and
• 33:15
  Chris Mothers. Yeah.
• 33:17
  And that was that's what I was like.
• 33:19
  You have to have your CDL like yours.
• 33:21
  Get your CDL first. If you do that, then I'll help
• 33:24
  then. Well, I'll give you more
• 33:26
  information on what that's going to show me that prove that
• 33:31
  you're that you're vested. Shane did it, Chris did it, but
• 33:35
  everybody else, it's like you don't hear from them again, like
• 33:38
  they don't go with it. That's what I mean by like you.
• 33:41
  There's things you have to do to get in place to even consider.
• 33:45
  You want to be a groundman or go to line school.
• 33:49
  You have to have like you got to start before to get things in
• 33:54
  place to get to where you want to go.
• 33:55
  Yeah. So growing up around it, right.
• 33:59
  So my grandfather was my like my hero too.
• 34:03
  So knowing that that was kind of the inspiration for you, what
• 34:06
  did you see in in kind of what you saw in him?
• 34:09
  That was like, I got to go do that.
• 34:12
  Well, my grandpa, he was just a he, he, he was a great guy,
• 34:18
  never told a lie in his life. And he was just, he was a pillar
• 34:22
  to our family and him working on power lines was that that's what
• 34:27
  the whole family was based around.
• 34:32
  And he did work for Department of Energy.
• 34:36
  And before that it was the Bureau of Reclamation before
• 34:38
  Department of Energy took it over.
• 34:39
  And he was a lineman on the outside after he served in the
• 34:43
  the Korean War. And then he got hired on with
• 34:45
  the government and I was doing the, the transmission, all the
• 34:49
  big stuff, the big 500,000 volts, 345,000 volts coming out,
• 34:55
  all the hydro dams, Hoover Dam, Parker Dam.
• 34:58
  And you know, Fast forward in 40 years and that's where I got
• 35:04
  hired on it. I ended up going out, a guy came
• 35:06
  back from tramp and he was having some health issues.
• 35:09
  And, and, and luckily, like Brandon says, it's all I can,
• 35:13
  you know, I, he, the apprentices that he brought up, we're now in
• 35:18
  charge over at Department of Energy and he was able to make a
• 35:21
  couple phone calls and, and that's where I ended up meeting
• 35:24
  Brandon at because Brandon, he's a veteran and in the Department
• 35:27
  of Energy hires and, and, and, you know, respects the veterans
• 35:32
  and brings them on before anybody else.
• 35:34
  And, and but, yeah, just see how much pride our family had in the
• 35:39
  trade. And, and like I said, drive
• 35:41
  taking Rd. trips and seeing those big steel towers out there
• 35:44
  in the middle of the desert. New grandpa used to build those
• 35:47
  and grandpa hangs on those. And, and I just thought that was
• 35:50
  the coolest thing ever. And I just, there's nothing you
• 35:53
  could have done that there's nothing else I want to do.
• 35:55
  There's no other option that that that's what I was doing.
• 35:58
  It's cool to know that at a very early age you figured that out.
• 36:00
  Now, Brandon, you didn't have that same experience.
• 36:02
  So what? Like what?
• 36:04
  One day you just woke up and it was like, I'm going to go high.
• 36:07
  School well, so when I got out of the, the Navy, I was kind of
• 36:13
  sitting limbo for a couple months and I didn't, I didn't
• 36:18
  know what I wanted to do. I know I'm not the smartest guy
• 36:22
  and I I'm not, I'm not the best communicator talker.
• 36:25
  Like I so I knew like, and I, I wanted to do something like
• 36:29
  adrenaline like to get me going, like something fun, hard,
• 36:33
  challenging. And how I came about it was I
• 36:37
  don't read, I don't read books or anything, but there was a
• 36:39
  Reader's Digest magazine on the table and it's just this is back
• 36:46
  in when the housing crisis all yeah, like best jobs to have,
• 36:51
  like during economic times or whatever.
• 36:53
  I saw a nurse on there. Then I saw alignment and it's
• 37:00
  with the lineman. It says, oh, it it's hard.
• 37:03
  The success rate is not very high, but like it's unlimited
• 37:08
  work. It's very good.
• 37:09
  And I'm like, man, well, I could do that.
• 37:11
  Like, you know, kind of being cocky, like I'm like, I could do
• 37:14
  that. I know I can't.
• 37:16
  And then I just I did it. I just INLCII submitted my
• 37:22
  transcripts to get into the school and ever since then, I
• 37:27
  mean, it's the best decision I made.
• 37:28
  I just knew I wanted I could I like the adrenaline part and I
• 37:32
  wanted to to talk on that. Like there when you say
• 37:38
  different breed or whatever, like it's a lifestyle like and
• 37:43
  you have to be it like it. It, it could be a dangerous
• 37:46
  lifestyle like the like for me for like the addiction to like
• 37:52
  go, go, go, go like the adrenaline, like the the danger,
• 37:56
  the and then it becomes a lifestyle and you do that on
• 38:01
  your day-to-day. Like it.
• 38:03
  You have to have an even keel like with with the lifestyle
• 38:07
  because you can. There's a lot of there's drugs
• 38:11
  in the trade. I was just going to ask, is
• 38:12
  there a dark side to? There's adrenaline Pomp, yeah,
• 38:16
  yes. And, and I wanted to put that
• 38:18
  out there because just so people are aware if they've had prior
• 38:22
  problems before getting in, like, but it, it's, it's out
• 38:26
  there, you know, and it's just something I wanted to touch on
• 38:30
  because it, it's important to me.
• 38:33
  Like I've gotten kind of mixed up before in it.
• 38:36
  And it's just, I don't know, what do you think?
• 38:39
  I, I mean, we, we talked about this.
• 38:41
  You can probably say it better than I can.
• 38:43
  Well, yeah, I think it it, it, it comes with the trade, I mean,
• 38:45
  especially it and goes back to what aspect of the trade you're
• 38:49
  in. There's the guys that work at
• 38:51
  the utilities that work four days a week, go home every day
• 38:54
  to their family and that's very respectable and they're doing a
• 38:57
  good job. The other aspect of the trade
• 38:59
  where I came up was we were in a new town every month.
• 39:02
  I was in from Texas to New Mexico to Hawaii to Georgia, I
• 39:06
  mean, all over the place. And you're in a town for a month
• 39:09
  or two working 6-7 days a week, 1012 hour days.
• 39:13
  And the guys you're working with are your family and they're,
• 39:17
  they're your brothers. And we're all kind of like
• 39:22
  pirates out there. It's just we're, we're making
• 39:24
  good money. There's not, there's no one to
• 39:27
  answer to. We're doing work that 99% of
• 39:31
  people don't want to do. We go into these small towns
• 39:33
  and, and kind of raise havoc and, and, and have a good time
• 39:37
  doing it. And to be in this trade and, and
• 39:40
  to be like Brandon said, into that adrenaline and, and, and
• 39:44
  being able to, you got to have a maybe a little screw loose here
• 39:47
  and there. And it kind of the, the
• 39:50
  drinking, going out with the guys out at the bars and the bar
• 39:53
  leads to other things. And it's a fine balance.
• 39:56
  And like Brandon said, there's been a lot of challenges in that
• 39:59
  aspect all the way through the apprenticeship And that, and
• 40:02
  that's going back to what you said or you asked, you know, a
• 40:04
  while back about what's the biggest challenge for these
• 40:07
  young kids? And I said just keeping your
• 40:09
  nose clean. Not don't be chasing women
• 40:13
  around have have your fun, but there's a lot of guys in the
• 40:17
  trade that they're, they're, they just go for it.
• 40:20
  They work hard, they play hard and and you got to find that
• 40:23
  balance. Well, because of the finances
• 40:26
  behind it, right as you go from, you know, maybe not making a
• 40:29
  whole lot of money to making damn good money.
• 40:31
  And now you're in towns where I, I would imagine you guys are on,
• 40:35
  you know, the companies are paying your way while you're
• 40:37
  out. Of town.
• 40:38
  Now. Now you have expendable funds,
• 40:40
  you're young, you're on per diem and you're an adrenaline junkie.
• 40:45
  Yeah, I would. I would say to people too that
• 40:48
  are listening to this that like, oh damn, I don't know if I can
• 40:50
  handle all that. You don't you know, I for me,
• 40:56
  I'm not into all that I'm not into going out drinking, doing
• 40:59
  drugs and all that you know, I want to go work, I want to go to
• 41:03
  my bed and I want to get my 8 hours of sleep, you know what
• 41:06
  I'm saying and when you're on a good crew, you know, and I think
• 41:10
  there's more good crews out there than than not right?
• 41:14
  They will be respectful in that, you know, Hey, you guys go have
• 41:18
  fun. I'm going to go to bed, you
• 41:20
  know, and if you're bunking with a guy that does go out, you
• 41:23
  know, just be like, just make sure you tell them like, hey,
• 41:25
  try to be quiet when you come in, you know, So yes, there that
• 41:31
  is a lifestyle, but it also doesn't have to be a lifestyle,
• 41:35
  right So. What's no different than rigors,
• 41:38
  right? Like I think like the oilfield
• 41:40
  kind of what you were explaining to me almost seems like the the
• 41:42
  oilfield guys were when they're off shift.
• 41:44
  Those guys are wild out right, but they don't have to.
• 41:48
  They show that part of it, but how many of them just go home to
• 41:51
  their wives and the kids or or just to their?
• 41:53
  Boss. Well, a lot of that experience,
• 41:56
  like for that for me was like chasing storms, you know what
• 42:00
  I'm saying? Like when you go chase a storm,
• 42:03
  you're going to be on a crew with a guy that you probably
• 42:06
  never even met. You don't even know, right?
• 42:08
  So like you're trying to get to know these people as you're
• 42:10
  working with them, as you're, you know, sleeping, eating,
• 42:14
  working like so I. Don't know and and to we're
• 42:22
  human like when you work, work, work like the countless hours.
• 42:29
  There's a time where you crash like where, you know, back then
• 42:34
  when I was like to work 40 hours, you needed something like
• 42:40
  and and that's the difference between like you came up utility
• 42:43
  and the outside is on outside it's rough, rougher like
• 42:50
  utility. You get the good work.
• 42:53
  I'm not knocking utility or anything, but like you get the
• 42:56
  easy, the easy work, like the easy pull sets, the easy.
• 43:01
  Oh yeah, we get, I'm sorry, I I came up in a utility, the the
• 43:07
  utility guys get to pick what they want to do.
• 43:10
  Like there was a one time a storm came in and we literally
• 43:13
  just drove around all night and did not do one thing.
• 43:18
  We just like, ah, that's for the contractors.
• 43:20
  Yeah, that's for the contractors.
• 43:22
  And I, I mean, I'm an apprentice at the time, right?
• 43:24
  We're just sitting at a substation just like, yeah, I'm
• 43:26
  just watching Netflix movies. Like, man, this is I'm getting
• 43:30
  paid. How much for this?
• 43:32
  Yeah, yeah. So it's just, it's just the
• 43:35
  different, the difference between contract and utility and
• 43:39
  everybody. It's not like that for
• 43:42
  everybody. All all I'm saying is it's, it
• 43:44
  can, it can be part of the trade.
• 43:46
  You know, it's not like that everywhere.
• 43:48
  You can come up outside and be, I mean, he did, I did, we're
• 43:53
  good. But it's just, it's just
• 43:57
  something to be aware of and there's all kinds of different
• 44:01
  ways you can, I mean, there, there's even like coops, it's
• 44:04
  not just utility or coops, there's.
• 44:07
  There's also like non union, we're all, we're all union line,
• 44:11
  we're all journeyman lineman, right?
• 44:12
  But I don't suggest non union though.
• 44:15
  So I have like a Little Mix on that like so it all, I think it
• 44:19
  all kind of depends on like where you live, right?
• 44:21
  Because some guys, you know, they like, they live in the
• 44:24
  South where the union's not big, but they want to be close to
• 44:27
  home, you know, And if that's what you want to do, man, you,
• 44:30
  you got to do what's best for your family, you know, So, but I
• 44:34
  would highly suggest to go union if there is a union within your
• 44:38
  community of where you're at. So for those that don't know the
• 44:40
  difference between union and non union work, what does that look
• 44:43
  like? You hit that one, hey?
• 44:45
  Well, like Shane said, back back east, you know, Florida and down
• 44:51
  South, the unions aren't as prevalent there.
• 44:54
  And basically, if, if you're able to join a union, you're
• 44:56
  able to, you have representation, you're able to
• 45:01
  get a job at any time. You can, you go and sign the
• 45:05
  books and the, the day if you get laid off or, or want to quit
• 45:09
  a job, you go down in the hall, sign the books and they'll have
• 45:12
  a job sitting there waiting for you.
• 45:13
  They know your classifications, they know you what
• 45:16
  apprenticeship you went through. And there's a standard that the
• 45:20
  contractors have to pay. And, and that's probably one of
• 45:24
  the biggest parts is, is it, it's been bargained and it's
• 45:29
  been, it's since the 1800's, the IBEW has been fighting for fair
• 45:34
  wages, safe practices. And that's why our wage is the
• 45:40
  way it is, is because we've had solidarity and been able to go
• 45:45
  to these power companies and these utilities and say, hey,
• 45:49
  you guys want this work done. Well, this is what we're risking
• 45:53
  and this is what we're going to get paid for it.
• 45:55
  And you know, the IBW is one of the strongest unions out there
• 45:59
  next to the longshoremen. And those guys are a powerhouse
• 46:02
  union that are right on the ports.
• 46:04
  And in my eyes, the IB WS right there with them.
• 46:07
  And it, it gives you all the overtime pay, it gives you the
• 46:12
  the holiday pay. And if you have grievances with
• 46:17
  the company, if the company's screwing you over or not doing
• 46:19
  something safe, you're able to go to the hall and have
• 46:22
  representation there. They give you benefits with
• 46:25
  retirement and health insurance might be my health insurance is
• 46:29
  phenomenal. It's some of the best out there
• 46:31
  and just you and, and it's it's part of the brotherhood.
• 46:35
  You know, if you see another union member, another union guy,
• 46:38
  we're doing a job the other day and retired IBW member out of
• 46:43
  640. He's in his 80s.
• 46:45
  He came up and just shook my hand and we sat there and BS for
• 46:48
  20 minutes. Never met the guy in my life.
• 46:50
  And but it, it's when you're in that union, it's solidarity.
• 46:53
  And but like Shane said, there are guys that are down South and
• 46:56
  different parts that and it is there is some conflict there.
• 47:00
  I've worked storm back back east in the Georgia area and, and
• 47:06
  where there's some hostility there because you'll have the
• 47:09
  union contractors and the non union contractors and, and, you
• 47:13
  know, there, you know, there's people get salty because of the
• 47:16
  wages that we're making or they're not making.
• 47:18
  And, and, but like I said, I always recommend the union.
• 47:23
  I've, you know, I'm third generation IVW, but like I said,
• 47:27
  there are some places where it's just not available to people
• 47:30
  and. What would be the reason people
• 47:32
  would choose not to participate if they were in an area that had
• 47:35
  it? There's some like the state of
• 47:37
  like Arizona, California, a lot of these states out here like
• 47:41
  you have to there is these there's no power company that
• 47:45
  are allowing non union workers on site.
• 47:49
  It's, it's just written because if, if they allow you non union
• 47:53
  contractors on site, they're they're going against a contract
• 47:59
  that they have in place with the union.
• 48:01
  So yeah, if you're in a a union heavy state, the non union guys
• 48:06
  can't even come in and bid the work.
• 48:08
  When I when I was chasing storms and stuff, there was I worked
• 48:13
  for Praxel. They started off as a storm
• 48:17
  chasing company and they're their home bases in London, KY,
• 48:23
  which a lot of these lineman that I worked with were non
• 48:27
  union, right. But then you know, Dylan, he
• 48:31
  he's the he's the one that made Praxel.
• 48:34
  He started off as a non union lineman and then he jumped over
• 48:38
  to the union and he saw how like the wages were a lot better.
• 48:41
  You know, the the whole representation.
• 48:44
  Well, you know, working with these guys.
• 48:46
  I like ask him, you know, like, I mean, go union sooner.
• 48:50
  And a lot of it too is the, the, the older generation lineman
• 48:55
  that they're working with, right?
• 48:56
  Like their whole thing is why do I have to pay to work?
• 49:00
  Why do I why do I have to Yeah, yeah, you got to pay dues,
• 49:05
  right? You got your yet your working
• 49:06
  dues and then you have your monthly dues for your local
• 49:09
  right. But that that was their whole
• 49:12
  thing is like, well, what? I'm not going to pay to work.
• 49:14
  You don't have to do that, blah, blah, blah.
• 49:16
  But at the end of the day, man, like the union is the one that's
• 49:19
  setting the wages out here, you know, because we're the ones
• 49:22
  that are fighting for higher wages.
• 49:24
  You know if a lot of these non union companies have to compete
• 49:30
  or compete with the union wages otherwise they're not going to
• 49:33
  get lineman for shit. So.
• 49:36
  And typically non union versus union, union safer, non union,
• 49:44
  they, you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but like a lot of the
• 49:48
  times when they go through, they go and they do things cheaper,
• 49:51
  but they just go and blow through and they typically have
• 49:55
  a lot more deaths, accidents. I would say that the union, the
• 50:02
  union has a little bit more pride into their work.
• 50:06
  They produce better alignment and however.
• 50:08
  They like. More training.
• 50:10
  I've again, I've worked with guys that started off non union
• 50:14
  and I've probably worked with some of the best lineman that
• 50:17
  I've worked with being in this trade for such a short time.
• 50:22
  And then I've also worked with union guys that are just
• 50:25
  complete dog shit, dude, You know, and I'm like, it's really,
• 50:30
  to me, in my opinion, it's really not a union or non union
• 50:33
  thing. It's a person thing when it
• 50:35
  comes to that, you know what I mean?
• 50:36
  Yeah, 'cause you're like, you're going to get out what you put
• 50:39
  in, you know? Yeah.
• 50:41
  Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. But when it comes to the company
• 50:45
  mentality, I think that's what you're talking.
• 50:47
  About, I guess what I'm saying is like when they're not,
• 50:49
  they'll scoop all those NLC guys yeah, yeah, they'll they'll hire
• 50:54
  all of them yeah. And then within a matter of
• 50:57
  weeks or whatever, they'll have them up in the primary, right,
• 51:00
  doing primary. And we all know, yeah, you can't
• 51:04
  do primary work in a matter of weeks.
• 51:06
  That's the biggest difference, I think, is that the, the non
• 51:09
  union, they don't have a standard standardization to an
• 51:13
  apprenticeship and they'll they'll, they'll fudge hours.
• 51:17
  They every state, every county go to, they're like, oh, this
• 51:20
  guy's oh, he's a journeyman. So that guy's not even been
• 51:22
  doing it for 10 months, but they need a journeyman on this job.
• 51:25
  So all of a sudden he's a journeyman.
• 51:26
  Like Brandon said, he'll be up there, work in primary voltage,
• 51:29
  10s of thousands of volts and boom, someone gets zapped and,
• 51:33
  and yeah, it it, it's, it's a lot more loosey goosey when it
• 51:37
  comes to how how they're, how they bring guys up.
• 51:40
  And there are there is really good lineman that are non union.
• 51:43
  Yeah, absolutely. I one of the best lineman I've
• 51:46
  ever worked with was non union. He he was awesome.
• 51:49
  No, I was union. I had to come back.
• 51:55
  I had to come. Back at some point, Dang it.
• 51:58
  No, I hired in with two guys. That was it with the non union
• 52:03
  outfit out there in Indiana, dude.
• 52:05
  And they were there for like 3 or 4 months, maybe a little bit
• 52:08
  longer already in three phase primary, you know, and I know
• 52:12
  you don't. I know, I know.
• 52:14
  But well, think about it like the this little line out here
• 52:17
  that's 7200 volts. OK, OK.
• 52:20
  Well, picture two more of those in that are like, I don't know,
• 52:24
  maybe 4 feet apart, right. And when you don't know what
• 52:27
  you're doing and you're right up in there, that's it.
• 52:30
  That's a dangerous situation to be in.
• 52:32
  Yeah. That's suicide and and I just
• 52:34
  wanted to throw it out there. As you know, the unions, they
• 52:36
  get a bad rap. There's a lot of you know, it
• 52:38
  gets political and and, but not all unions are created equal.
• 52:44
  You know, there's the the cookers union and the Teamsters
• 52:48
  union that represents warehouse workers and, and, you know,
• 52:52
  people make their comments, oh, a union job or I'm going to take
• 52:55
  my union smoke break and this and that.
• 52:57
  And, and not all unions are created equal.
• 53:00
  When it comes to a trade union, It's different than I'm not
• 53:06
  knocking anybody else, but it's different than someone who's
• 53:09
  doing a menial task in an office that's represented by a union or
• 53:16
  there's differences in unions. So I just people hear the word
• 53:19
  union and they instantly get turned off or they have,
• 53:21
  everybody has a comment and you know, we get it all the time.
• 53:24
  But I said I'd, I'd put my, my, my brothers and my, the guys I
• 53:29
  work with against anybody that we're the hardest working guys
• 53:32
  out there. We get the job done the best,
• 53:34
  safest, and we take pride in our work.
• 53:36
  And we can't say you can't just put this blanket statement on
• 53:39
  all unions that they're all like that because they're not.
• 53:42
  There's, there's a lot of corruption in unions and, and
• 53:45
  they play their games and they're politicking and, and,
• 53:48
  but you know, I just, you know, I just don't want people to get
• 53:51
  turned off from the trade and things like that because they
• 53:54
  hear union and Oh, my dad hates unions.
• 53:56
  And they, oh, they, you know, they charge too much and they
• 53:59
  don't do nothing and they're always sitting on their ass.
• 54:01
  Five guys for, for, you know, doing a one man job.
• 54:04
  And it, it, it's not like that with the IBW.
• 54:07
  It's it, it's a total, like Shane said, there's a lot of
• 54:09
  pride and, and yeah, we just get the job done so.
• 54:13
  I, I, I, I do want to piggyback off of what Kai was talking
• 54:16
  about. The union's getting to go sign
• 54:17
  the books, not like, so we could sign the books here at 769,
• 54:23
  right? We could also go to California
• 54:25
  and go sign the books. We could go to New York does
• 54:28
  that. Mean when you sign the books.
• 54:30
  To like to get to get to get a job.
• 54:32
  OK, yeah. So yeah.
• 54:35
  So like we can go to different locals, right?
• 54:37
  And our ticket follows us, right.
• 54:40
  And that's something that the non union does not.
• 54:42
  I don't, I don't think they have.
• 54:44
  It's like you're like you obviously you're as a non union
• 54:48
  guy, you're probably networking, right.
• 54:51
  But for us, we don't really have to network a whole lot.
• 54:54
  I mean, we still have to network, but still like I could
• 54:56
  go freely, go to Florida, you know, local 222, sign the books.
• 55:01
  Yeah, you know. And and that's and that's a good
• 55:04
  for if you want to get into the trade.
• 55:07
  A positive side is once you get on, you're never going to be out
• 55:11
  of work and you can go anywhere, any state, anywhere like, oh, I
• 55:16
  want to move Tennessee next year.
• 55:19
  You can go there and you can get on doing line work anywhere.
• 55:22
  Like it's one of the best. They need lineman everywhere.
• 55:26
  Everywhere. Everywhere and and the pay too
• 55:29
  is so people know like California.
• 55:32
  I mean you can what are they at 72 an hour?
• 55:36
  Yeah, something like that, I think.
• 55:39
  Our raise is what, 62 here? Tomorrow.
• 55:42
  Tomorrow. Yeah.
• 55:43
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Texas is.
• 55:47
  Texas is little low, not a little.
• 55:49
  They're probably like at 40. So it's everywhere you go.
• 55:52
  It's different. Yeah, different and like each,
• 55:54
  each, each local. Changes, right?
• 55:56
  Yeah. And also each local will have
• 55:58
  their different rules too, right?
• 56:00
  Like they all kind of are under the IBEW, but each local will
• 56:04
  kind of have their own little rules of like what they allow,
• 56:07
  you know, and and that's all with the whole contract, right?
• 56:10
  All that is negotiated, you know, but.
• 56:12
  It's not negotiated by individuals, it's negotiated by
• 56:15
  the board or something like that.
• 56:16
  Right, right. That local?
• 56:17
  Yeah. That local board, yeah.
• 56:19
  And who nominates the the board? The members, the members, yeah,
• 56:23
  it's all, they're all voted on. Yeah.
• 56:24
  And yeah, there's monthly meetings every month and, and
• 56:28
  yeah, they vote on everything. And, and, and like going back
• 56:31
  with Brandon says you put in that 3-4 years of in your
• 56:34
  apprenticeship, you get that ticket in your hand.
• 56:36
  To me, that's worth more than any diploma, any in my eyes, a
• 56:40
  doctor. It's because we're making more
• 56:42
  money than a lot of doctors out there.
• 56:44
  And you will have a job till the day you die and no one's going
• 56:48
  to take that ticket from you as long as you pay your dues.
• 56:51
  Like Shane was saying, those guys, they bitch about their
• 56:53
  dues. It's usually one hour or an hour
• 56:56
  and a half wage per month. So if you're making 60 bucks an
• 57:00
  hour, your dues are usually 60 bucks a month, and I'll gladly
• 57:04
  pay that to hold that ticket. Know that you're always going to
• 57:06
  have a job. Yeah, and we might get into it,
• 57:08
  but I got out of the trade for a couple years and every, I was
• 57:11
  happy to write that check every month to pay those dues because
• 57:14
  they, I, they made my life for me.
• 57:16
  And, and, and you'll never be out of work.
• 57:19
  And you can go to any state. You can go up into Canada.
• 57:21
  I've got guys that moved overseas to Europe and that IBW
• 57:25
  ticket still worked over there. So I mean it, it, it opens up
• 57:28
  doors. And Yep, you're set for the rest
• 57:30
  of your life. You, you put your head down and
• 57:31
  do those three-year, 4 year apprenticeship.
• 57:33
  You're you're set. Can you guys remember the day
• 57:36
  you topped out after taking the tests?
• 57:39
  The journey it was, besides having my two kids, it was the
• 57:43
  best day of my life. Just because I knew I'm like,
• 57:47
  this ticket means this is my life.
• 57:50
  Like I remember my yeah and I. Remember, like when I I remember
• 57:54
  that day because I sent you that picture.
• 57:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the same thing you
• 57:59
  told me was nobody could ever take that away from.
• 58:03
  You. Yeah, Nobody.
• 58:04
  Could take that away and I was like damn, I didn't even think
• 58:06
  about. That yeah, that's.
• 58:07
  Cool. Yeah.
• 58:10
  You know, like in this, in this trade we also talked about like
• 58:14
  safety. Yeah.
• 58:15
  Right, have, do you guys have any?
• 58:18
  Because like I know I'm going to just start off by like my
• 58:21
  experience going through the apprenticeship, you know,
• 58:24
  they've always talked about safety, safety, safety, right?
• 58:28
  But it doesn't really hit you until you're actually in, in it,
• 58:34
  right? So like my first safety incident
• 58:37
  was we were on a single phase line.
• 58:40
  It was like 6 solid copper. We were changing out a pole.
• 58:44
  The other apprentice hooked on the to the line and then was
• 58:49
  booming it out right. And there's like an automatic
• 58:51
  down there and there's our, our our lineman was like right
• 58:55
  underneath the line just kind of guiding The Apprentice, you
• 58:58
  know, and the guiding the pole. Well, that automatic ended up
• 59:01
  failing and it started falling. And I'm over here with the I had
• 59:06
  the transformer on my jib. I'm sitting here watching all
• 59:11
  this happen and all of a sudden I see the lineman just start
• 59:13
  running right? And I'm like, what the fuck?
• 59:16
  And then and then the line just starts falling down.
• 59:20
  And I was like, holy shit. It smacks the neutral, you know,
• 59:23
  and you just you just see that quick spark.
• 59:26
  But that moment right there was like my like, OK, like this
• 59:32
  shit's real. Like it could get, it could get
• 59:34
  ugly real fast. I got a wife and.
• 59:36
  Kids, I got to go home. Too.
• 59:37
  Yeah, make sure that. I'm do you guys have any crazy
• 59:41
  stories like that or crazier? I've known nothing really crazy
• 59:47
  on the job. I mean, we, we've had instant
• 59:50
  incidences like that. But like, as far as like I, I
• 59:54
  came up through my apprenticeship in my class,
• 59:58
  there was three guys that died. They didn't top out they they
• 1:00:03
  died. 1 was his name was Brandon Kyle and this guy Todd.
• 1:00:10
  And I wasn't there on the job, but like you just it, it can get
• 1:00:15
  real like anytime I've been secondary fire, you know, I
• 1:00:23
  think we've all had secondary fire.
• 1:00:24
  That's probably like coming up. Yeah, I I haven't came across
• 1:00:28
  anything really crazy like luckily, you know, no deaths or
• 1:00:34
  anything, but they're they're definitely just the other week
• 1:00:37
  that APS yeah, or that it was non union, right.
• 1:00:41
  Well, yeah, it's still under investigation, yeah, but.
• 1:00:43
  I was I was telling you about it happened on APS property.
• 1:00:46
  Oh, gotcha. Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  And, but yeah, I mean, I've, I've known a couple guys who've
• 1:00:51
  passed away in the trade that I've, I've known and later down
• 1:00:54
  the line they've they've passed away with accidents on the
• 1:00:56
  trade. And I've been involved in
• 1:00:58
  several, not deaths, but you know, all different ones from
• 1:01:03
  guys falling off. We were on a helicopter job in
• 1:01:05
  Hawaii and guy, it's a, it's a Baker board.
• 1:01:08
  It's a fiberglass board that you work when you're working
• 1:01:11
  energized wires. You're isolated on this piece of
• 1:01:14
  fiberglass and you never think in a million years anything
• 1:01:18
  would happen while the fiberglass board snaps.
• 1:01:20
  And that's what he was tied off to and he fell 40 foot, broke
• 1:01:23
  his femur. And it was a long line job.
• 1:01:25
  So we had to bring the helicopter in.
• 1:01:27
  Best helicopter pilots out there are these guys that are doing
• 1:01:29
  these this line line aerial line work.
• 1:01:33
  They had to pick him up. They brought him in the
• 1:01:35
  helicopter pilot set him right in the back seat of the truck
• 1:01:38
  leg dangling. And and another job out there in
• 1:01:42
  Texas. And this is, you know where I
• 1:01:44
  get a little salty with the non union and these guys that come
• 1:01:47
  up. There's a, there's some states
• 1:01:49
  allow what's called a white ticket where you can be non
• 1:01:53
  union, you can have experience and try to prove your experience
• 1:01:56
  and you challenge a test and you can now work on a union job.
• 1:02:00
  And, but you didn't serve a proper union apprenticeship, but
• 1:02:04
  people vetted for you. You did a climbing test at the
• 1:02:06
  hall. And yeah, I think the wages are
• 1:02:08
  usually a little bit lower, but certain, certain states,
• 1:02:12
  especially 1015 years ago, they were hurting for work and
• 1:02:15
  hurting for guys. And, and, and we had a couple
• 1:02:19
  instances on this job, but we, I had it.
• 1:02:21
  There's a non non or he was a white ticket and he we're kind
• 1:02:25
  of like we're shameless that we're on a three phase primary
• 1:02:28
  by 24,000 volts. And I was up in the bug.
• 1:02:32
  I was still an apprentice at the time.
• 1:02:34
  And then the wires are crossing over each other.
• 1:02:39
  It's called a buck or AT and the non union guy and I had my head
• 1:02:43
  in between two energized phases. We were spreading it out.
• 1:02:47
  We're moving the wires or the 3-4 feet apart from each other.
• 1:02:50
  Well, there's the white ticket was in a bucket truck about four
• 1:02:55
  feet away from me and he was spreading a different circuit
• 1:02:57
  above us. I don't know what happened, what
• 1:03:02
  he was thinking, but he had a ground in his hand that was
• 1:03:05
  still connected to a neutral a ground and he just dropped it on
• 1:03:11
  the phase about a foot and 1/2 for me.
• 1:03:13
  And there was a ball of fire about the size of VW Bug and
• 1:03:18
  scorched the whole side of my face.
• 1:03:19
  It looked like I was laying on my side at the beach for two
• 1:03:22
  days. That's an ass whooping there.
• 1:03:23
  Oh. Man, the whole oh it was yeah,
• 1:03:26
  it got bad it it it yeah it it was it was a bad deal and and
• 1:03:30
  yeah it once you hear that noise I've had a few primary fires or
• 1:03:34
  been been witnessed a few primaries fires.
• 1:03:36
  You hear face to face of 20,000 volts, 40,000 volts.
• 1:03:41
  That noise that it makes. Yeah.
• 1:03:44
  You'll never red dragon. You'll never forget it.
• 1:03:46
  Yeah. You see the dragon.
• 1:03:47
  And. And after that incident, we had
• 1:03:50
  a few circuit trips on that job. And I came home that weekend
• 1:03:53
  because they shut the job down. You know, I had to go get
• 1:03:57
  checked out, you know, you know, I didn't make contact, but it
• 1:04:00
  was just the flash. It's called.
• 1:04:03
  It's called a flash. It's a it's a welder's arc the
• 1:04:06
  size of a car. It's not a campfire when you
• 1:04:10
  have a electrical fire, it's a it's a welder's arc.
• 1:04:13
  Have you ever seen one? Like you looked it up?
• 1:04:15
  Yeah, it's pretty gnarly. Oh yeah, Yeah.
• 1:04:18
  Or just like opening up cutouts. I remember I had AI had a close
• 1:04:23
  a switch and my lineman Kenny, he was like, you better make
• 1:04:30
  sure you have it on there, man. Or I had a load Buster.
• 1:04:32
  I'm sorry, I was opening it and you know, you put the put it up
• 1:04:37
  on the horn there. You clip it in the clip.
• 1:04:41
  Yeah. And so like what I did was
• 1:04:43
  instead of just pulling straight down, I lift it up and it like
• 1:04:47
  it took that little clip off there.
• 1:04:49
  And then I just opened it without the load Buster.
• 1:04:51
  And you just hear and then he, and then he just looks at me and
• 1:04:57
  goes. You are one dumb motherfucker,
• 1:04:59
  aren't you? Sorry.
• 1:05:01
  Yeah. It's open though.
• 1:05:03
  Yeah, that's cool. No, it's, it's cool to hear in
• 1:05:07
  in, you know, I'm obviously not from it and it's neat to learn
• 1:05:10
  more about, you know, what you guys do and how you've gone
• 1:05:13
  through it and stuff like that. So knowing that the finances are
• 1:05:17
  obviously good. I know that you've started
• 1:05:19
  another business as well, right. Talk to us a little bit about
• 1:05:22
  that. It's Bothwell.
• 1:05:23
  It's Bothwell Transport. Yeah.
• 1:05:25
  OK. So is that in I guess has this
• 1:05:30
  industry created an opportunity for you to start that or how
• 1:05:33
  did? That say exactly yeah, no,
• 1:05:34
  that's, that's exactly right. I I never thought, you know, in
• 1:05:41
  a million years that I'd own a trucking company.
• 1:05:43
  But about 8-9 years ago my my fiance at the time, her dad was
• 1:05:49
  a truck driver and and he was getting screwed over by all
• 1:05:53
  these different trucking companies and they wouldn't pay
• 1:05:55
  him right and the trucks would always break down and then she
• 1:05:58
  started telling me about being an owner operator and, you know,
• 1:06:02
  once again, the trucking industry, that's another
• 1:06:04
  backbone to America. Everything we touch the user on
• 1:06:07
  trucks and, and like, like we were saying earlier, I've had
• 1:06:12
  ACDL, I've hauled doing line work, I've hauled dozers on
• 1:06:16
  flatbeds across the country and, and big poles.
• 1:06:19
  And so I know how to drive a semi truck.
• 1:06:21
  I'm decently mechanically inclined.
• 1:06:23
  So it kind of started making sense.
• 1:06:25
  Like, OK, let's buy, let's buy a truck, put your dad in it and,
• 1:06:30
  and you know, he's out across the country.
• 1:06:33
  She can kind of run the business.
• 1:06:34
  And so I stayed doing line work and I was able to have the
• 1:06:38
  finances to purchase a truck, get it going.
• 1:06:42
  It, it was a started with a, it was a $10,000 truck, nothing
• 1:06:45
  crazy. It was a semi truck.
• 1:06:47
  An old one is probably 10 years old at the time and million mile
• 1:06:51
  truck. But we got going doing that and
• 1:06:54
  I stayed doing line work. And that was about the time I
• 1:06:57
  got hired on with the government.
• 1:06:58
  And and so my, we were working four 10s, which I was never used
• 1:07:04
  to. I'm used to working 612 seven
• 1:07:06
  twelves and I had no spare time to do anything except drink
• 1:07:09
  beer. And now I'm sitting there for
• 1:07:11
  3-4 days to one of my thumbs and I, I drive me crazy.
• 1:07:14
  So now we had something else. I had these trucks I can work
• 1:07:18
  with and one truck turned into two or three trucks and three
• 1:07:22
  trucks turned into five. And, and we were, we got all the
• 1:07:25
  way up to 15 trucks and, and once we got to about 10 trucks,
• 1:07:30
  that's when we got about 10 trucks.
• 1:07:33
  And then we ended up getting a, a warehouse facility, 40,000
• 1:07:36
  square foot distribution center that we could distribute freight
• 1:07:40
  out of and do cross docking and do other aspects of the
• 1:07:44
  transportation industry. Because, you know, just always
• 1:07:48
  thinking I've never just, I'm hardly ever just dissatisfied.
• 1:07:52
  And, and I, I, I didn't set out to be a business owner or, you
• 1:07:56
  know, or do my own thing, but it, just the opportunity was
• 1:07:59
  there and, and it, it was fun and like, it's another, it's
• 1:08:04
  another business to have a lot of pride in.
• 1:08:07
  I mean, you, you don't have to have pride in everything you do,
• 1:08:09
  whether you're cleaning pools or whatever you're doing.
• 1:08:12
  But I, I just love being around those big trucks, that big
• 1:08:15
  equipment, moving 80,000 lbs of produce and, or any, you know,
• 1:08:20
  it was just, it was fun to me. And, and, but it got to the
• 1:08:23
  point where, and we ended up starting a freight brokerage as
• 1:08:26
  well. And then we had a road service.
• 1:08:28
  So it just kind of grew into this, this kind of a monster.
• 1:08:30
  We had 20 we had 25 employees and 15 trucks and 40,000 square
• 1:08:35
  foot warehouse full Rd. service, a freight brokerage and it was
• 1:08:40
  getting to be where I was 1/2 ass business owner and I was
• 1:08:44
  becoming a half ass lineman because I was either on the
• 1:08:46
  phone or doing emails or worried about this.
• 1:08:49
  And I'm and part of it was safety.
• 1:08:50
  It's I can't be up here on this tower worrying that I got a
• 1:08:53
  truck, you know, late for an appointment.
• 1:08:56
  And, and I, I and like we were saying earlier, I said, well, I
• 1:09:01
  had that ticket in my hand. So I'm going to, you know,
• 1:09:03
  government. That was, that was a dream job.
• 1:09:05
  That was where my grandpa grandfather retired from.
• 1:09:08
  Those guys are lifers there. They get there and it's you
• 1:09:12
  retire once you get hired on the Department of Energy, you retire
• 1:09:15
  out of there. And but I made the decision to
• 1:09:17
  well, Nope. I so I drug up and, and went
• 1:09:20
  full time into the business and, and just worked on building
• 1:09:25
  that, growing that and, and around, you know, COVID.
• 1:09:29
  We had kind of had just had some issues kind of hurt us and, and
• 1:09:35
  we've been been evolving ever since.
• 1:09:38
  And, and now I, I got back into the trade about about a year
• 1:09:42
  ago. Brandon got me on with where
• 1:09:44
  we're at now and it, it our company here, American Power.
• 1:09:47
  They're a great outfit to work for.
• 1:09:49
  And, but we like, we just started downsizing the, the IT
• 1:09:54
  was getting too much. Me and my wife had a daughter
• 1:09:57
  and managing all those employees.
• 1:09:59
  At the end of the day, I'm, I'm just aligned and I'm just, you
• 1:10:02
  know, I'm, I'm not a I'm not ACEO entrepreneur, Mr. Business
• 1:10:06
  guy, you know, and, and some of it just get, get to be too much.
• 1:10:10
  So with, with the market downturn and then just trying to
• 1:10:14
  live my life, you know, I just trying to be with my wife and my
• 1:10:17
  daughter. And yeah, so we just slowly been
• 1:10:20
  kind of downsizing and I think we grew kind of fast and all the
• 1:10:25
  headaches weren't worth it. So yeah, we were making money
• 1:10:29
  and stuff, but it wasn't, it wasn't worth the the stress and
• 1:10:32
  not seeing her daughter being gone.
• 1:10:34
  I was at that warehouse and for 1214 hours a day, so was my
• 1:10:37
  wife. She was getting raised by our,
• 1:10:40
  our in laws and aunts and we weren't even seeing her.
• 1:10:43
  And right, man, they'll just ain't worth it.
• 1:10:45
  So we, we're still operating. We still have 6 trucks right now
• 1:10:50
  run. I still have the warehouse,
• 1:10:51
  we're still running the warehouse.
• 1:10:52
  But now I'm able to do line work.
• 1:10:55
  I've got good managers in place. We went from 25 employees to
• 1:10:58
  we've got about 8 employees now. They're all stand up guys and,
• 1:11:02
  and gals and, and it's kind of more self operating now where
• 1:11:06
  I'll have to do a phone call here and there, e-mail here and
• 1:11:09
  there. But the job that I'm doing now
• 1:11:12
  for American power, it allows me to do that.
• 1:11:14
  I'm not on a crew anymore. I'm more like a trouble man.
• 1:11:16
  So I'm, I'm, I'm by myself most of the day or me and Brandon
• 1:11:19
  will team up and do some two man work.
• 1:11:21
  And, but I'm, I'm able to kind of, it's a perfect operation
• 1:11:25
  where I can do both. And, and, and from that, from
• 1:11:29
  that trucking industry being when I was out of the trade for,
• 1:11:34
  I was out of the trade for probably 2 1/2 three years.
• 1:11:36
  And like I said, I was happy to pay those dues because I knew I
• 1:11:38
  might have to go back and, and, and, and I did.
• 1:11:42
  And we also started two other companies.
• 1:11:45
  We started two other online base platforms, one's called trucker
• 1:11:49
  jobs.com. And, and they're, they're
• 1:11:51
  completely web-based And seeing all the having the headaches of
• 1:11:55
  those semi trucks out on the road.
• 1:11:56
  You know, you have one guy have a blowout, a front tire, go out
• 1:12:00
  and smear a, a car, a kids or, you know, put one in a ditch or
• 1:12:04
  you're hauling $100,000 of produce.
• 1:12:06
  And it's a lot of stress and being out there on the road and
• 1:12:09
  everybody's too happy nowadays. And now you, there's so many
• 1:12:12
  lawsuits that are flying around, people break checking trucks and
• 1:12:16
  even having 5-6 trucks on the road, it's still, it's sometimes
• 1:12:19
  hard to sleep at night knowing that these guys are all over the
• 1:12:21
  country. And, and so we're like, OK,
• 1:12:24
  well, we, we seen these voids in the, in the industry where we
• 1:12:28
  couldn't find when we had 15 trucks guys, those truck drivers
• 1:12:32
  are a lot like lime and they're gypsies.
• 1:12:33
  They, they, they'll drive for a little bit and go to a different
• 1:12:37
  company and, and they're, they like being out on the road.
• 1:12:39
  So we had issues fill in the seats.
• 1:12:42
  We couldn't find drivers and, and we had issues buying and
• 1:12:46
  selling equipment. You know, they had issues with
• 1:12:50
  connecting with insurance companies, fuel card companies.
• 1:12:52
  There wasn't a, a central place for the trucking industry to
• 1:12:59
  find drivers or people think, oh, zip recruiter, LinkedIn,
• 1:13:02
  it's old truck drivers. They're not on a zip recruiter.
• 1:13:05
  They're not blue collar guys aren't they don't even know what
• 1:13:08
  that is. They're not on.
• 1:13:10
  And just like Lyman, they're not, you're not looking for a
• 1:13:12
  lineman job on LinkedIn. And so me and my wife, we've
• 1:13:16
  been spending a lot the last two years developing trucker jobs.
• 1:13:20
  And it's basically it's a mix between Facebook and LinkedIn
• 1:13:24
  where it's just for the trucking industry.
• 1:13:27
  So you got there's groups on there that people can talk and
• 1:13:31
  communicate. If the platform itself looks a
• 1:13:34
  lot like Facebook where it's a scroll, well, they can the
• 1:13:37
  drivers can post themselves, their resume, their experience.
• 1:13:41
  Hey, I'm in Texas. Hey, I'm in Oklahoma.
• 1:13:43
  Hey, I want to do local runs or I want to do over the road
• 1:13:46
  stuff. And, and it also gives a
• 1:13:51
  platform for trucking companies. There's over 70,000 trucking
• 1:13:55
  companies out there. A lot of people, they see the
• 1:13:56
  Swifts and the big, big brands, but there's more one or two to
• 1:14:02
  five truck trucking companies than anything else out there.
• 1:14:04
  That makes 80% of the market are these small family owned fleets.
• 1:14:09
  And that's who people want to work for.
• 1:14:10
  And it's just getting those people connected how helping
• 1:14:13
  those small, medium sized fleets, fine drivers and how to
• 1:14:18
  help having drivers get paid what they're worth and finding
• 1:14:21
  those small, medium sized fleets.
• 1:14:23
  And also it allows different vendors and insurance companies
• 1:14:27
  and road services all to talk and communicate.
• 1:14:30
  So we soft launch that beginning of this year.
• 1:14:32
  We're already up to I think today we just hit over 400
• 1:14:36
  members. We're you know, we just started
• 1:14:38
  pushing marketing here in the last month or so hard.
• 1:14:41
  And we've gotten some good results.
• 1:14:43
  And and, but yeah, that and, but going back to line work, never
• 1:14:50
  when I joined the apprenticeship, never did I see
• 1:14:54
  myself in 15 years owning a a fleet of 25 trucks and a 40,000
• 1:14:58
  square foot warehouse. But me, I've worked for probably
• 1:15:02
  10 different companies as a lineman from small mom and pop
• 1:15:05
  shops that were I was the only lineman me and an apprentice to
• 1:15:09
  these big corporate companies and everywhere in between.
• 1:15:13
  And I've seen how I've seen how they operate.
• 1:15:15
  I've seen, I've seen them lease trucks and buy trucks and just
• 1:15:19
  not knowing that's what I wanted to do.
• 1:15:21
  But I seen how businesses operate and I seen how people
• 1:15:24
  manage people and, and how, how, how business is conducted along
• 1:15:30
  with how to drive a truck and how to, to manage these truck
• 1:15:34
  drivers. And, and it's, you know, I'm,
• 1:15:36
  I'm, when I, when I quit doing the line work for a while, I
• 1:15:40
  went, and I was doing my own deliveries.
• 1:15:41
  I, I went and got in a truck and I was driving and making
• 1:15:45
  deliveries and because I got that experience from doing line
• 1:15:48
  work right, You know, I was 19 years old hauling D6 dozers
• 1:15:52
  across Texas. It was loaded backwards.
• 1:15:54
  They could have put me out of service, but but I I was able to
• 1:15:58
  drive it and that and, and, and I can see that in a lot of
• 1:16:02
  different ways with with line where a lot of people that get
• 1:16:04
  into the trade and that's all they do.
• 1:16:06
  They kick their feet up on the lineman and that's it and which
• 1:16:08
  is great. That's awesome, But you just
• 1:16:11
  apply yourself and look for opportunities out there.
• 1:16:14
  You can take what you learn from that.
• 1:16:16
  The hard work to the electric, you know, EVEV vehicles have
• 1:16:20
  been popular. You know, I know some lineman
• 1:16:22
  that started installing EV Chargers and they got a trade
• 1:16:26
  doing that or doing lineman that do heavy hauling where they
• 1:16:30
  raise the power lines up for these big trucking companies.
• 1:16:33
  And so getting in the trade, it can open up a bunch of other
• 1:16:36
  doors. It it's fine being a lineman.
• 1:16:38
  Did you make a damn good living? But you learn a lot of stuff
• 1:16:42
  too, that that that you can apply and and do other things.
• 1:16:44
  I think it also helps you like it gives you that opportunity to
• 1:16:48
  take a risk, right, because say the trucking industry doesn't or
• 1:16:53
  your company doesn't take off like it did.
• 1:16:55
  Hey, got my ticket. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:16:57
  Let's go, Let's go make some money, you know, let's you guys.
• 1:17:00
  Definitely have a security blanket that nobody else can say
• 1:17:03
  that they have. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:17:04
  Though, And, and one of the big things that I like about the
• 1:17:07
  trade is there's no cap. Like if, if you want to make
• 1:17:13
  five $600,000, you're going to work for it obviously, but you
• 1:17:17
  can go to California, there's lineman that are making five
• 1:17:21
  $600,000 a year. You can go somewhere and make
• 1:17:27
  200 like you, what you put in, you can get out is what I'm
• 1:17:30
  saying. And like, if you're ever down
• 1:17:32
  and out and you need to save money or you want to buy
• 1:17:35
  something like an investment like you can like, all right,
• 1:17:38
  I'm this year I'm going to go work, I'm going to bust my ass
• 1:17:41
  and overtime and all that is a lot of like like nurses and all
• 1:17:48
  other trades. They're not really handing out a
• 1:17:51
  lot of overtime like. You guys have probably as much
• 1:17:54
  as you you want to take. I mean.
• 1:17:56
  It's out there for sure. It it, Yeah.
• 1:17:58
  It's out there. The work's out there.
• 1:18:00
  You just got to go get it for you.
• 1:18:04
  Kai, do you plan on expanding your business to go a little bit
• 1:18:09
  more now or now that you got your, your managers and stuff in
• 1:18:14
  place or are you you kind of satisfied where you're at?
• 1:18:17
  Yeah, we, like I said, we, we were trying to take over the
• 1:18:20
  world there for a while. We wanted to be the next, next
• 1:18:23
  big thing, the next swift the next night.
• 1:18:25
  But like I said, we got up to, you know, over, you know, a
• 1:18:29
  dozen trucks. And but yeah, the risk that
• 1:18:34
  isn't worth this isn't worth the squeeze.
• 1:18:36
  The, the the unfortunately the freight industry, it's not
• 1:18:39
  paying. I could use two per mile and,
• 1:18:41
  and, and there's just a lot of risks there.
• 1:18:45
  So we've we've kind of downsized and we, we like that and I think
• 1:18:48
  that we're that we could make a good living off of that.
• 1:18:52
  It's, it's a good supplemental income and, and we're just
• 1:18:55
  operating now and, and we kind of like the size we're at now,
• 1:18:58
  but we're really going all in on the on the online based path
• 1:19:01
  platforms where, where there's no risk there.
• 1:19:04
  I don't have to worry about someone break checking my online
• 1:19:06
  platform suing me and, and, and then I just love line work.
• 1:19:12
  I, I see myself doing line work. No matter what happens with
• 1:19:14
  these other businesses, I'm just going to keep doing line work.
• 1:19:17
  I love it. It gets me outside and out of
• 1:19:20
  the house and, and, and yeah, just that's what really
• 1:19:25
  satisfies me is doing line work. But I also like, I like to
• 1:19:29
  starting something from scratch, building it and seeing it
• 1:19:31
  develop and seeing what you can do and how to evolve it and, and
• 1:19:36
  making something from scratch. There's a lot of a lot of
• 1:19:39
  satisfaction that comes from that.
• 1:19:40
  Too. It's kind of like what we're
• 1:19:42
  trying to do here, huh? Well, entrepreneurship is scary.
• 1:19:44
  I mean, the reality is, is everybody glorifies it, right?
• 1:19:47
  Like, oh, you've owned a couple of businesses and you have all
• 1:19:49
  this stuff going on, right? Like, people talk to us all the
• 1:19:52
  time. They're like, you know, the
• 1:19:53
  podcast is great. And then Nate, you have all
• 1:19:55
  these other things going on and then you're working full time.
• 1:19:57
  And, you know, yeah, it's exciting.
• 1:20:00
  But it's also like you were saying, there's a lot of nights
• 1:20:03
  where I lay in bed going Jesus, like.
• 1:20:07
  Is it too much right? Like what is the juice worth to
• 1:20:10
  squeeze when you go back to talking about what it does?
• 1:20:13
  You know, Sam and I talked about it last night at dinner.
• 1:20:16
  Every time I do something like this, it takes away from her and
• 1:20:18
  the kids. So it's it's really finding the
• 1:20:21
  balance. No different than when you guys
• 1:20:22
  were talking about your travel like, hey, I can go travel for
• 1:20:25
  the next year and I'm going to make a pistol load of money.
• 1:20:29
  But what is what is the impact at home when I'm not there?
• 1:20:34
  Right? What am I not only what am I
• 1:20:35
  missing, but what what is needed from me that I may not even be
• 1:20:40
  understanding? So you guys ask us questions if
• 1:20:45
  we ask like, why are you like why this platform?
• 1:20:48
  Like how'd you come about it? What what made I know you said
• 1:20:52
  you like to hear and learn different ways, but like
• 1:20:56
  ultimately that's is that what drove you guys or was it
• 1:20:59
  something else like what, Why? For me, I don't know, I just I
• 1:21:03
  just like creating something, you know, kind of like what like
• 1:21:05
  I was saying is like starting something and creating something
• 1:21:09
  to make it big or whatever. Now, I have no expectations of
• 1:21:12
  this being big, right? You know, but I mean, I like
• 1:21:16
  talking to people, you know, I like I like hanging out with
• 1:21:19
  Nate. I mean, a lot of our
• 1:21:22
  conversations outside of this are kind of like what they are
• 1:21:25
  now, you know, kind of random and just fucking around, messing
• 1:21:28
  around a lot. And then I remember Nate
• 1:21:32
  mentioning something about starting a podcast at one point
• 1:21:37
  when we were hanging out. And that kind of like sparked my
• 1:21:40
  interest in starting this. And then we were at dinner one
• 1:21:43
  one night and I was like, you know, obviously me being random,
• 1:21:47
  like, hey, you want to start a podcast?
• 1:21:50
  He's like, yeah, what are we going to call it?
• 1:21:52
  And I already had this name, dude, you know so.
• 1:21:57
  Yeah, well, and I've done a lot of public speaking and I've been
• 1:21:59
  on radio shows and stuff like that.
• 1:22:01
  And he was like, hey, you mentioned a podcast before,
• 1:22:04
  let's do it. And I was like, no, fuck it,
• 1:22:06
  yeah, why not? What do you want to call it?
• 1:22:08
  And he's like rad. Yeah.
• 1:22:10
  And I was like, OK, so I grew up racing BMX, right?
• 1:22:13
  We were talking about that before.
• 1:22:14
  So I instantly was like 80s movie rad.
• 1:22:18
  Like, so the original design was actually that that rad look,
• 1:22:22
  right. And then I was like, what the
• 1:22:24
  rad stand for it? He's like, well, it's going to
• 1:22:26
  be random as dads. And I'm like, well, we're out
• 1:22:29
  West, right? We all ride horses and we're
• 1:22:32
  always talking about the donkeys and shit.
• 1:22:33
  They're out here and we're like random ass dudes, right?
• 1:22:36
  Yeah, let's. You know if you look at our
• 1:22:38
  banner right here. It's us.
• 1:22:40
  It's it's it literally. Well, so he sent me the cover of
• 1:22:44
  RAD, right? And so I went on to ChatGPT and
• 1:22:49
  it went from that cover to this, yeah, just from like doing like,
• 1:22:52
  you know, I want this in there. I want that in there.
• 1:22:55
  Put 2 donkeys in there. Put a skull.
• 1:22:57
  Who's who, though? That's me laughing at Shane all
• 1:22:59
  the time, right? That's you're saying something
• 1:23:01
  stupid and then that's me always.
• 1:23:02
  Laughing. At you, the big old.
• 1:23:04
  Nostrils. I had to.
• 1:23:07
  But the reason I wanted to do it honestly was being that I've,
• 1:23:10
  I'm so involved in the trades as well, but I'm on the other side
• 1:23:13
  of it is I think that there's, there's a missing platform for
• 1:23:19
  people just to tell their story, right?
• 1:23:21
  So like whenever I've done public speaking events, people
• 1:23:24
  come up to me at the end and they're like, the way that you
• 1:23:26
  personalize it and you just tell a story is what makes people pay
• 1:23:31
  attention. And I got to thinking about that
• 1:23:33
  when he brought this podcast thing up and I was like, I
• 1:23:36
  literally want people to come out and just and just talk.
• 1:23:40
  No agenda, No, like no script. And you know, Joey said it on
• 1:23:45
  the last one. He's like, none of this is
• 1:23:46
  scripted. You guys are here.
• 1:23:48
  None of this was scripted. We didn't, we weren't talking
• 1:23:50
  about it outside like before. We jumped in here, but.
• 1:23:54
  Yeah, we literally just flew right into it and I was a little
• 1:23:56
  nervous after. I was like, like we going to
• 1:23:58
  talk about stuff or. But you, you, I always think
• 1:24:02
  about it like, you know, influencing the next generation.
• 1:24:05
  I'm big into that, right? Like we were at church yesterday
• 1:24:07
  and they were like talking about coaching the, you know, the the
• 1:24:10
  next generation. I instantly signed up because
• 1:24:12
  that's just who I am. But I think about like Drake and
• 1:24:16
  and Hayden and you know, even my kids, Tyler and Kayla and you
• 1:24:19
  got Peyton and Zeke and your guys kids.
• 1:24:22
  This is just a platform that maybe someday they're going to
• 1:24:24
  see it and be like, you know what, I want to go be a lineman
• 1:24:28
  or I want to go be a police officer or I want to go do go
• 1:24:31
  into sales or, you know, it's just another way for people to
• 1:24:34
  just tell a story and and talk and capture an audience that
• 1:24:38
  says, listen, I didn't even know that was an opportunity.
• 1:24:42
  Yeah, that's awesome. I, I think it's amazing.
• 1:24:45
  I was excited. We we talk about it every day
• 1:24:47
  just like for what it stands for, like because like even our
• 1:24:50
  industry and they got podcasts out there, but like what you get
• 1:24:55
  like you're normalized. We're just normal people.
• 1:24:57
  Like just we're, not we. Yeah, yeah, like we're just
• 1:25:00
  normal dudes. And just having a conversation,
• 1:25:02
  but like the information being put off is so valuable because
• 1:25:07
  I, I wish I could listen to a podcast and like, Oh, if I do
• 1:25:12
  exactly what they did with the, and there with, and there's
• 1:25:15
  different options that they're given, I could become a lineman.
• 1:25:18
  I think versus now like they know only fans, they know
• 1:25:24
  TikTok, they know like nobody's talking.
• 1:25:26
  Like when you like, oh, I'm going to be a welder or I want
• 1:25:29
  to be a lineman or there's none of that.
• 1:25:31
  It's like, Oh, I want to be a streamer or like, and all these
• 1:25:35
  trades that have built America like years down the road.
• 1:25:40
  I, I mean, if it doesn't get fixed, we're going to be
• 1:25:43
  outsourcing everything. We're screwed.
• 1:25:47
  And it's, and like he said right now, because everything runs in
• 1:25:51
  cycles, but if you get in right now to any trade for that
• 1:25:56
  matter, or pick a spot, like it's going to be very lucrative.
• 1:26:00
  Like it's just because you need it.
• 1:26:03
  It's not going anywhere. Like why always raise every year
• 1:26:08
  raise raise like. In and don't and don't come in
• 1:26:11
  the trades thinking like you're going to because I know I've
• 1:26:15
  heard lineman coming in the you know coming in they top out and
• 1:26:19
  then they feel like I could be a foreman.
• 1:26:22
  I want to be a forum and I want to do this like bro, like you
• 1:26:24
  got to, you know, you got to be in your tools for a little bit
• 1:26:27
  to you know, but. I think this platform allows
• 1:26:30
  that story to be told, right? That that most don't know,
• 1:26:34
  right. You know, you know, in thinking
• 1:26:37
  a lot of people are like, oh, I'm going to start a career and
• 1:26:38
  that's just what I'm going to do.
• 1:26:40
  And then you think about the opportunities that it's created
• 1:26:42
  for you. And I've had my opportunities in
• 1:26:44
  the in the lifestyle that allows us to go back and build, right.
• 1:26:48
  So you mentioned lifestyle earlier.
• 1:26:49
  Let's let's be honest, none of us if, if we would have told
• 1:26:53
  ourselves back in high school, hey, this is where you're going
• 1:26:55
  to be at in 20 or 25 years, we would have said you are totally
• 1:26:59
  foolish. I know I was a complete
• 1:27:00
  knucklehead. Yeah, right.
• 1:27:01
  Like I ran into my aunt like 5 months ago and she's like, Nate,
• 1:27:06
  I would have thought you were going to be dead or in prison.
• 1:27:08
  Yeah. And that's no bullshit, right?
• 1:27:09
  I ran with the wrong crowds. I was doing the wrong stuff.
• 1:27:12
  And then where we're at today, I mean, the four of us sitting
• 1:27:15
  here, you know, everybody's successful, but not arrogant
• 1:27:20
  about it, right? Like, and, and the, the platform
• 1:27:22
  is really to say, listen, you can do it too, right?
• 1:27:25
  It's just a matter of how much effort you're willing to put in.
• 1:27:28
  And you got to surround yourself with people like us, like you're
• 1:27:32
  not where you're at today because you just individually
• 1:27:34
  went out and did something. You surrounded yourself with the
• 1:27:36
  right people to influence you to go in the right direction.
• 1:27:40
  And that's really what this is about.
• 1:27:41
  And this is about influencing all gamuts of life.
• 1:27:44
  That's what we got rodeo people, we've got musicians, we've got
• 1:27:48
  lineman, we've got police officers.
• 1:27:50
  I mean, you're going to hear the wives talk about some random ass
• 1:27:53
  shit, but it's, you know, but it, that's really what this is.
• 1:27:57
  The random ass is not just part of a banner.
• 1:28:01
  It's it really? Is yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 1:28:05
  Well, well said, Nate. It just reminds me of your
• 1:28:08
  calves. Yeah, yeah, you called it, I
• 1:28:13
  told you. It's every.
• 1:28:15
  Show. Wait, can we show?
• 1:28:16
  Is it? Can we show them?
• 1:28:17
  I'm not. Sure I will.
• 1:28:18
  I will get a picture and just have Sam throw it on there.
• 1:28:21
  It's going to take up this whole TV.
• 1:28:24
  It's just going to be straight cat.
• 1:28:26
  You know what we should do? We should start like an
• 1:28:27
  Instagram of Nate's calves, just wherever they're at.
• 1:28:31
  Where's Nate's calves? Yeah.
• 1:28:32
  Well, your sister-in-law did that.
• 1:28:34
  That fit this show, right? And then Hayden's like, Nate
• 1:28:37
  should do this. He can win it.
• 1:28:38
  I was like, I'll win legs all day long.
• 1:28:40
  It's the rest of me that I don't want to work that hard with.
• 1:28:42
  Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm not going to lie, it's the very first
• 1:28:46
  thing I noticed when I drove up was your legs.
• 1:28:50
  No hobo. I was like, oh.
• 1:28:52
  I bet dude. I'm like.
• 1:28:54
  Damn rent is always looking at this.
• 1:28:56
  Yeah, he dude, he's Cavs are ripped and it's the I'm like,
• 1:28:59
  yeah. This kind of, well, just right
• 1:29:01
  over here when he was flexing. Yeah, I was like, yeah.
• 1:29:04
  Yeah, my. Tippy toes.
• 1:29:05
  I wasn't flexing it. No, but.
• 1:29:08
  That's been. Awesome.
• 1:29:09
  Like I've learned a lot. You know, it's been great to,
• 1:29:11
  you know, Brandon, we knew each other, Kai, it's been great to
• 1:29:13
  get to know you. You know, hopefully we can
• 1:29:15
  continue to learn more about your guys trades and have you
• 1:29:17
  guys on again in the future and you know, learn more about it.
• 1:29:20
  But, you know, I think as far as I'm concerned, that the
• 1:29:23
  episode's been great. You know.
• 1:29:25
  You guys, you guys definitely have a lot of respect for what
• 1:29:27
  you do. It's definitely a dangerous job,
• 1:29:30
  but it's a rewarding job and it's allowed you guys to provide
• 1:29:33
  a really good life for your family.
• 1:29:35
  So I got AI got a random story. Random.
• 1:29:38
  Yeah. Well, this was part of my
• 1:29:40
  apprenticeship and it's and it's freaking funny.
• 1:29:43
  It's OK, right? We won't talk about your herpes
• 1:29:45
  or anything. No comeback?
• 1:29:49
  No. Are you sweating over there or
• 1:29:51
  is that your beard oil? No.
• 1:29:55
  So like we were in the, we were in our like hot room and they
• 1:29:58
  had poles up there and there is this.
• 1:30:04
  Are you right? Yeah, I am OK.
• 1:30:10
  And there's this apprentice up there, right?
• 1:30:12
  And I was his ground man. And he like hollers down to me.
• 1:30:17
  He goes, hey, Shane, what? He was give me that carabiner
• 1:30:20
  down there. And I look up, I'm like, would
• 1:30:22
  you call me? He's like.
• 1:30:26
  Nothing. Can you can you give me that
• 1:30:28
  carabiner? I was like, why did you call me
• 1:30:31
  that? Call you what?
• 1:30:34
  I'm like, well, what do you need?
• 1:30:35
  He goes give me that carabiner. I'm like, stop calling me that,
• 1:30:38
  you know? And then finally, like within
• 1:30:41
  like 10 seconds, he's like, Oh my gosh, dude.
• 1:30:43
  That was. Good that.
• 1:30:46
  Sounds absolutely. Like yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like
• 1:30:48
  yeah, that's Shane. Yeah, for sure, yeah.
• 1:30:51
  And about the trade real quick it now that you say that I got
• 1:30:54
  to. Break up dude.
• 1:30:55
  We're just trying to close it down.
• 1:30:56
  Yeah, Anyway, no good. It's very diverse, wouldn't you
• 1:30:58
  say? Yeah.
• 1:30:59
  Like there's African American, there's Mexican white people,
• 1:31:03
  there's Chinese, Asian. Like I've seen it all.
• 1:31:06
  Yeah, you know. I just thought I'd just say
• 1:31:10
  that. All right, guys.
• 1:31:14
  Well, we appreciate you coming on.
• 1:31:16
  Yeah, again, you know, make sure you tune in, follow these guys.
• 1:31:21
  Thank you for coming on and, and sponsoring the, the, you know,
• 1:31:24
  the episode and, and just spending time with us today.
• 1:31:26
  So we look forward to, you know, getting to know you guys a
• 1:31:29
  little. More in the future, Yeah, thanks
• 1:31:30
  for having. Us yeah, all right guys, you
• 1:31:35
  friends, everyone's going to be friends and plus.
• 1:31:38
  You better ride like you ride.