Latest / The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast / 007 - Chris Wurtz

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007 - Chris Wurtz · The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast

• paul: And welcome in to the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast, soon to be the world's number one concrete podcast. I am your host, Paul Finley, and we're so happy to be here. Today's episode is brought to you by XBE, the system of action for heavy materials, logistics, and construction on a path to autonomous operations. BCMI by XBE is built for ReadyMix producers, connecting dispatch, batch, fleet. Ticketing, pricing, and financials in one platform. Agent XBE works alongside your team, scheduling loads, tracking deliveries, servicing problems before they compound. So the operation runs, not just get managed. Visit them on their website. Listen, hold on, listen here. Listen to their website. It's X-B dash E dot com. We'll say that again. It's X-B dash E. dot com check it out they've got agent xbe works across all the systems connects everything together answers questions pretty neat actually went and talked to him today asked him to describe himself to me and let him he let him talk for a little bit and then I was like hey is that is that what XBE told you to say or is that how you really feel about yourself and he came back he was like no no no no sir I I I don't color outside the lines I just do exactly what they say sir keeping a a tight control on the agent XBE. I was also told it is an it. Where he is not a boy or a girl. It is an it. The logo of the agent is pretty sick though. If you haven't seen it, go to their website x dash b dash e dot com. See agent xbe chat with him yourself. It's August. It is hot. We are coming to you from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But good gosh almighty, if you walked outside, you wouldn't know that it's not Birmingham, Alabama. It is roasting outside. You know, when you're somebody like me who escapes the south and f is free now in the north, and you think I've I've finally gotten away from the shackles of heat and humidity. And you would be wrong. Philadelphia is right on the bay. And good golly, Miss Molly, that humidity creeps in, blankets everything. I mean, look, is it as bad as rural Georgia and, you know, southern Florida? No. But Is it oppressive anyway? And it's still no fun. Yes, and I'm going to complain about it if I want. This is one of my favorite months of the year, though. when I feel that oppressive heat, and I've been feeling it for a while, it reminds me that football is on the way. And this podcast. is a college football podcast wrapped in a concrete veneer. And so we're gonna we're gonna do all things concrete on here. And it's gonna be certainly flavored on the inside with with college football. It's kind of like kind of like a chocolate covered cherry, like the the old candies that you used to get when you were a kid, a chocolate covered cherries where it's a chocolate candy. But boy, that inside cherry stuff was so good. And that that's us. We're a concrete podcast, but on that inside, you're getting conspiracy theories in college football, and we're rocking and rolling. one of the things that this podcast also has is a website. please consider visiting it one day while you're bored, slumpmonkeys.com, M-O-N-K-E-Y-S. Slumpmonkeys.com. One of the things on the website is a blog called The Mill Report. I know that's exactly what you were thinking was, man, I love hearing Paul's opinions on everything once a week. I just wish I had more of his opinions. I wish I could just hear more of what's in his head. And if that's you and the three other people that read this blog, then you are in luck. The Mill Report is a blog that I put out every once in a while. you know, I got a few drafts sitting on the computer here. Enough that I could probably go once a week for another month, just with the notes I have down. but I don't I don't want to just throw out, you know, garbage on here. I like to see things that are happening in in current times and react to them with my old opinions, my new opinions, and bring in thoughts from other people. I just did the podcast last week where it went through the white paper of the month, which was Duff Abrams bulletin back in nineteen eighteen that gave us modern concrete mix designs and it gave us the slump tests and or gave us water smint ratios, it gave us the finest modules. That was lot of fun. but the slump test was born because he had to have some constant throughout all these mixes, and he thought that seemed appropriate. the workability. He claimed it was a workability test. and then he conflated it with consistency. But regardless, he was using that to hold things constant across mixes. And I think if you talk to anybody today that's really knee deep in QC, they'll tell you, you know, slump test is imperfect, but it's what we got. And it works and it works well enough and we're able to build around it. And you know, it is what it is. So I had been thinking about that and an article came out where Wholesome put out like three hundred mixer trucks in the UK alone just recently, launched them all with like the in-transit QC stuff. So like it's you know, slump monitoring, air monitoring, all that. And I was like, man, that's that in transit slump monitoring for three hundred plus trucks, it's it is a continuation. It's is that the advancement that we're looking for to go from just the slump test to being a little bit more dialed in and what can we do with it. So that is the basis for the the blog article. And what I thought was a couple of things that were really interesting. So number one, why is it being successful for them? And it's not always been successful at every rollout. And for them, it was driver adoptions. The drivers are actually using it. They're not fighting it. They're not ignoring it. They're actually using it. number two, it's super interesting that a company's taken the perspective that it's there's valuable data to be gained in transit, which it's it's what's why I think that's interesting is not because great, yeah, of course there's data in transit, you idiot. Well, hold on, hold on. right now we like collect data sometimes at the plant. Sometimes we just we're confident in what the mix is gonna do. We just batch it and send it, right? I mean, how often are you actually testing the loads right as they're being made at the plant? We're pretty confident in what it's gonna do. So when it gets to the job, then maybe it's tested. I mean, sometimes it's not. If it's a residential slab, you just pour up, you just pour up and go. You know, Jose's got 10 fingers in the air. He says, Let's let's let her drink some water, buddy, and let's get this thing on the ground. And you know, nobody nobody's doing actual testing in those cases. But even in cases where you were to slump at the plant and slump on the job site, those mixes sometimes they can look like two different concretes and the story is in the journey in between. so point number three there is sort of quantifying or qualifying exactly what in transit monitoring does. And how it should actually be used for a Radi Mix producer. Where you're not just getting a record of what's happening, you're getting a chance to actually do something about it before that truck discharges on the job site. So like years ago, Tim Hertag from Sylvie came on to the old podcast and he was talking about it. You know, and he said what changed things for him was That he had access to all the trucks through an internet connection. Anywhere he's at. If he has a cell phone or a laptop and he can get on the internet, he can monitor any of the trucks. He can see where the concrete temperature is, see where the air content is. He can even see which way the barrel's turning. And that was super interesting. So they actually ran into an issue where the the team was watching the data and they noticed that. The drivers were locking their drums into automatic control at like one or one and a half RPMs when they were driving down the road. And the concrete was falling apart. The air was dropping, the slump was tanking. But it wasn't a mix problem. It wasn't an admix problem. It was a transit problem. So once they told the drivers to bump those RPMs up three or four RPMs during transit, suddenly the air stabilized. The slump held. Boom. It was as simple as that. But you I I how hard would it have been to have ever diagnosed that problem without this new intransit technology? So, you know, intransit technology's been around for a couple of years now, and you know, some big names out there are are pushing some of these that, you know, especially the ones that bolt on into the hatch of the drum. So you've probably seen them at World of Concrete or Concrete Works or any these places where you're around. But then there was another piece of the puzzle I thought was there really interesting. beyond the data, beyond being able to solve problems before, you know, they even get to the job site. Was you know, if you're a QC manager and you've got a limited number of of guys on your team, they cannot be everywhere at once. And if you're one of these folks have like satellite plants, I mean, are you stationing a Q C guy out there all day, every day in case a problem comes up? Probably not. You probably have Bigger plants are important jobs and you need people on those sites and near those sites. And you might have a plant that's like an hour and a half away out there that does a few hundred yards a day and calls it quits. And it's tough to justify having another warm body out there that knows what to do when things go wrong. And, you know, before these sensors came in, the answer was basically just hope for the best, right? Send a tech out when you can react when something goes wrong. But with the sisters with the sensor system, you can ro remotely monitor what the concrete's doing at every plant in the fleet. You don't have to have a technician physically standing there with a slump cone and air pot. See the data in real time, make a call from wherever you're at. I mean, this is this is next level for folks that have a spread out operation, but trying to have high quality concrete everywhere there is. You know, look, there's an accountability piece too. You know, Tim actually mentioned this in our conversation years ago, where you can see when things happen. you know, the barrel revs up, air spikes, and you say, How much water did you add? didn't touch it, didn't touch it. And you know, we all laugh about that because we know exactly what happened when you see those those things and it's we added water, but we're doing it 'cause that's what that's what we do. We add 10 gallons. And we we help guys out. So It allows us to ha track like what's really going on in the truck, see the thing and look, it's not to it's not to like yell at the driver, you know. We're not we're not trying to write guys up or having water or adding water to the concrete. You just are able to find out like what the culprits are and have have a track record of of things are happening. So the article dives in to all that and you know, where's it all going? It You know, really for the multiplant operators out there, especially the ones running satellite plants where QC Tech can't be on site every day, this is where the technology kind of pays for itself. The ability to remotely verify which concrete's doing across the entire fleet from your phone. When you're an hour and a half in the main lab, well, that changes the math on how many plants you can effectively manage without compromising quality. hope you found that interesting, that perspective. And if so, I would Kindly ask that you go visit the website slumpmonkeys.com, the mill report. There's few other blog posts on there like that one. And be putting those out periodically. One other thing we will be putting out is a pick'em league. So we've we have someone who is a listener of the show. He's starting to become A friend, despite the fact that he's a Texas AM Aggies fan. I don't know what it is that I'm attracting folks as friends that have horrible taste in college football teams. Just just horrible. is there any group of people that I like want to make fun of more than the people doing hand gestures at Kyle Field? Ugh. Just awful. midnight yell? Freaking shoot me. is there anything that I'd rather do less than attend midnight yell and let men and jumpers teach me how to cheer? I don't think so. I don't think so. And you know, growing up, I didn't have any of this animosity toward Texas AM, look, they are in were they in the Southwest Conference or in the big eight? I don't know. Nobody knows they were University of Texas little brother. Nobody even paid attention to the Cal College, man. They had a pretty dog who was a mascot, you know, Lassie. She was nice. I liked her. but you know, no nobody really thought about Texas AM very much. They they were a package deal, right? To come over to the SEC. We need to expand. We had to get somebody. And and we chose them. And you know, I I actually thought when they came over to the SEC that they were just going to be an automatic win every year. And then Johnny Manzel happened. I still have nightmares about Johnny Manzel coming into Tuscaloosa and scoring like 21 points in the first quarter and making passes to himself and then throwing it into the end zone and just insanity. Insanity. that guy got drafted in the first round of the NFL because of his games against Alabama. that is an insane thing to think about. He changed how Nick Saban recruited defensive football players. That is the impact that Johnny Manzel and Texas AM had on the history of college football. for that reason. the all the nightmares and the the silliness I'm I'm gonna have to denounce Texas AM football. I I will do I will be I'm brave. I'm brave coming out here and denouncing Texas AM football. And and with that said, the guy still had a good idea. And the good idea is that we're gonna do a college football pick'em group. Through ESPN, the Slump Monkeys Pick'em contest. Very excited, announcing it right here today. It went live today. So as you're hearing this, it might be a day old. There's already some people in the group. I would encourage you to log in and find it. You can go to ESPN, be logged in as yourself, and search for the college football pick'em. When you get inside there, you'll look in the group's tab and you'll find Slump Monkeys. I also put it out. On our LinkedIn page. If you're not following us there, I highly encourage you to do so. The LinkedIn community is what is going to grow the fastest because we can actually interact with each other. You see clips from the show. We have some good laughs. A lot of updates will go on there. so I highly encourage you to be on the LinkedIn group with the college football Pick'em League will be announced there. I'll keep updated tabs. throughout the season. I'm thinking we should it's free to enter, but I'm thinking maybe we have some type of prize. If you're out there right now and you would like to sponsor a prize for the winner, even if the prize is just trophy bragging rights, the ability to come on the show and and for a segment and talk about it. If somebody wants to sponsor that, I think that's my maybe that's the way we go. We got a couple weeks here to figure it out. The group's live now and what we want to do as a reward, we'll have to figure it out. No punishments. This isn't fantasy football. Where the guy who finishes last has to do go do something insane. That's not what we're doing here. but the winner will figure something out for the winner. If you want to sponsor that, hit me up. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com. Again, that's M-O-N-K-E-Y-S dot com. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com. Speaking of sponsorships, we got a good one on this episode as well. Our friends at Rocket Start. Manny Tahano. If you have not already reached out to him, please do that. You can visit him at gorocketstart.com. He's changing the culture of concrete plants everywhere. He's actually got a lot more things that are going to be added to his list, not just his software that encourages recognizing and rewarding employees, especially drivers. he's gonna be adding So much more functionality. You really probably want to get in right now today. go to gorocketstart.com, reach out to them. That's Manny Tejano. Let them know you heard about him here. Now he's got a great app. I'm hoping the ESPN app works for the college football pick I couldn't even find it on the app. I had to go on the desktop and do it and sign up, but you know, I've already seen a couple of other people have already jumped in. So that's great to hear. And I'm really looking forward. To picking against it's a g the picks are against the spread. you know, it'd be too easy just to choose Georgia every game or something to win. So it's gonna be against the spread. And I'm really looking forward to anytime I get to pick against Tennessee, against Texas AM, against LSU, and against Auburn. I'm very, very excited just to hit no. Just because even if I lose the pick I felt good, you know, and it's all about just being just being happy. Now. Say it's all about being happy, about to transition to a very sad story. This week was already notified. Man, it's an early week. It feels like it's already late in the week. All my days are running together. But this week got a got a text message. Said that a friend of ours from college who used to work at Lithco and now is working at Turner Construction. he passed away this week. And he passed away because he committed suicide. And he's thirty God, he couldn't be thirty seven. two young kids, what seemed like a good career. You know, when I I I hadn't talked to him in a while. He's been in college. He was very bright, very sh you know, really sharp, had street sense, but also book smarts as well, worked really hard at it, you know, was a leader, leader of young men. And to think that this has happened, it I mean, I don't know how many people I he would have been way, way, way down the list of of anybody I could ever imagine. taking their own life. We had a podcast recently with Joey Bell, who came on and we talked about mental health in construction. And the stats are crazy. Like 40 something people out of every hundred thousand are taking their own lives in our industry. And why I think of our industry as kind of a dangerous industry. if you look at how many people are losing their life due to workplace Accidents, it's about nine out of a hundred thousand. So almost five times as many people are taking their own lives in our industry than are losing their lives from dangerous job site accidents. And there is a bill that's being introduced right now by Senator Katherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. So a bunch of Democrats signed on to a bill that would provide funding to r for to RFK Jr. over at HHS to do a study on workplace suicides in the construction industry specifically. Normally I'm not a big fan of government studies. I think that's kind of insane. Like, why are we doing studies? Let's just go Do the thing. in this case, I wouldn't mind like a study that actually tells us what they think the root cause is and then provides policy prescriptions. this bill aims to do that, to put that framework in place to force HHS to take do that study and provide policy prescriptions. I'm also not sure that I think government really fixes or solves all of our issues. But that notwithstanding, it is interesting to see that these concerns have made it all the way up onto Capitol Hill at the highest levels. the bill would call for a three year study. I'd feel better if it was like a three month study. I don't know why it takes three years to study this problem. I think it could be done much, much faster. and then it would provide policy prescriptions than they would hope to get funding. Funding for it. what I You know, I don't want to get into the negative conspiracy side of of politics about why they would put this on. I think you could go down a rabbit hole of like they're trying to empower unions and that type of thing. But I don't I don't want to do that in this segment here. but I did want I did want to highlight something one of the unions did do. This is why I think it might be connected to unions, but it let's go ahead and do say something nice about them for a minute. They launched a program called it's Not week to speak. So this was launched March of this year. It's not week to speak. And it was a pilot program launched in New York City through the Building and Construction Trades Council. And they worked with the unions to provide training for folks so they could do peer-to-peer help. And what Joey said when he came on our podcast is that you just don't know who to talk to. Cause even if you call your friends and say, like, hey man, I'm feeling down, like what are they gonna say back? Like your friend wants to be there for you, but they don't have any training and mental health. They might feel awkward too. So it's a weird space to be in, even if you did want to talk to somebody who you're gonna call. this is a program where they take people who are interested. And maybe wanting to help people that are that are in the union, that are in the trade and on the job site, and you do like a two hour training and you get like a more back bigger background on mental health and all that stuff and suicides and construction. Then if you're still interested, they have another like seven, eight hour, nine hour training that you go through that will allow you to get a sticker for your hard hat and lets people know. If they see you on site and you're feeling some kind of way, like they're a safe person you can go talk to. And that's it. There's no follow-up meetings from management. You just go and that's somebody that can help you process what you're feeling or thinking, do it confidentially. They don't make reports back to anybody. They just, hey man, I'm here for you. If you need further help, like here's where you can go to get that done. That is the public side of it. So again, I You know, personally I don't I don't know that we always need government to solve the problems. I don't know that unions always solve our problems either, but they're at least they're doing something about it in that case. But here's what a private company did. So last year, Bechtel, a big G C well, big con concrete company, they do they do a program now seven million dollars, by the way. That they donated to American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. But the goal of the program was not just some blanket check. I said, hey, you've got to talk to people in our industry. so far, they've actually talked to a hundred and eighty-eight thousand construction workers as of like a year ago. So they're that number is probably an old number. And their goal was to get to a half a million guys. They call it hard hack. Courage. If this topic is interesting to you in the sense that you want to be a part of the solution, you want to help and you just don't know how to help, I highly encourage you to go to hardhatcourage.com. There are so many resources on that site. It's unbelievable. If you if anybody comes to you and has these type of thoughts or feelings and wants to talk to you and you don't know how to talk back, There is a toolkit on that site, hardhatcourage.com. There's programs and things you can join if you want to get that deep into it. Hardhatcourage dot com. We wish the family of our friend from college, wish them the best. Hopefully, we'll get some information about what's going on for them and how we can support them. It's just just a horrible thing. I'd I literally can't even imagine. I literally can't even imagine like how you get to that point and you know, you always say, Man, if I'd have talked to him, maybe something could have been different. And and I I don't f I don't feel that way personally, but I I do I don't feel like if I had done something different, things could have been different. But I do wish like he would have talked to somebody. And if that message had gotten to me, I'd certainly would have helped out. It just It's just crazy. I just Just don't I just don't know. Don't know why they do why people do that. Just completely at a loss for words. Me, the guy who rambles on for for thirty minutes about college football pick emes and in in transit mixing. Finally out of words. Before we launch into the guest for today, we did have one more sponsor and that was Command Alcon. So If you would, I would appreciate. Go celebrate 50 years with them, commandalcon.com. And with that said, we are launching into the interview portion of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. What you didn't want to Chris Wurtz: Those go hand in hand. Those go hand in hand, right? paul: talk they often do. Welcome to the interview portion of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. We've got Chris Wirtz. He is president of ReadyMix. Ooh la la at XBE, Chris Wurtz: Fancy. paul: our title sponsor this month. Chris, thank you for joining us. Chris Wurtz: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. paul: Yeah. Yeah, we're just laughing at the only two rules in the podcast for this podcast, no cussing and no politics. And when you talk about politics, you almost always end up cussing each other out. I see I I I just don't want this don't want this podcast to to start devolving into the madness of politics. It it's Chris Wurtz: Agree with that. paul: everywhere it's everywhere, man. And the minute that I start espousing what I think. I've immediately alienated half the audio, you know, what you could maybe assume is half the audience. Whichever side I choose, the I don't want the other side of the man. We're all here to talk about concrete, have a few laughs, and then what this is eventually it's a s this is really it's this this podcast is a Trojan horse. It's a Trojan horse so that I can have a college football podcast. Chris Wurtz: There you go. We all have goals, right? paul: do you follow any college sports at all? Chris Wurtz: yeah, I'm a big, big college football fan. Sadly, Corn Husker, Nebraska Cornhusker, we've had a rough rough two paul: my gosh. And a hold on. Chris Wurtz: decades, yeah. paul: What? How okay. I need the story. How do you become a Nebraska fan when you're in Minnesota? Chris Wurtz: So I grew up in South Dakota and go to the middle of nowhere and hang a left, that's my hometown. And Yeah, funny thing is we don't really have any sports teams, right? And so you could either you kinda go east, you can go west, or you can go south. And so my hometown was probably about two and a half hours from Lincoln, Nebraska. And I grew up I'm a nineties kid, you know, born in the eighties, grew up in the nineties, and Nebraska was dominant. And paul: Dominant. Chris Wurtz: and my dad loved Nebraska, my uncle loved Nebraska, we had season tickets, we would go down to the games all the time. I've got a bunch of Nebraska gear sitting here on my desk that you can't see. And so I've been a Husker fan forever. And it was great. Like it was a great ride till about 2005. But paul: Yeah. Chris Wurtz: I ended up going to South Dakota State, and so you know, at that time it was a small school, it was a D2 school, and now we've that's the Jackrabbits, yeah. So paul: Is that the jackrabbits what Yeah, let's go. Chris Wurtz: you know, we've won some national championships now, and we're kind of a you know FCS powerhouse, if you will, and so I might have a little bit of a different view, right, growing up when STSU is more of a power, even though it's not at the same level as the as the big time programs. But yeah, I was never I like pro sports, but I was never I was more into the college scene. Obviously, a little bit harder now with all of the transfer portal and NIL and all. that side of it. It's a lot harder to follow and watch from what I'm used to. But yeah, still a big Husker fan. It every year I get my buddies and I were texting about the optimism and every year we get our hearts ripped out. paul: man, well I I like your new coach. I mean it's not new this year, but I like Matt Rule. Yeah. Chris Wurtz: Yeah, yeah, Rule's great. Yeah, he's great. paul: But what happened to Dylan Riola? What happened? Chris Wurtz: Yeah, you know, I he just Minnie Mahomes, right? great player, I think yeah, paul: He he looked just like him. That was hilarious. Those memes those memes were very funny. Chris Wurtz: I you know, I don't follow it as closely as I used to. Obviously he's at Oregon now. He said some things, that's getting the media riled up a bit. paul: Okay. Chris Wurtz: You know what, he took his opportunity. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say anything bad about him. Fi you know, I hope he does well. paul: It just didn't make I I just don't I didn't know what happened that made him want to leave. Like Matt Rule rolled out the red carpet. Lincoln was re I've been to Lincoln a bunch of times. It's not that big of a place. It is dominated Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. paul: by the university. It's a nice little town. And they rolled out Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: the red carpet for that kid. And then he's he's gone. I just I'm not sure what happened. Chris Wurtz: It it feels like it's always kind of the same story here. Like everybody gets really excited, they come down, they they see, you know, they get really involved with it. And then I you know, you always hear the excuses, we're too small, we're in the middle of nowhere, or whatever it is, right? But I I don't know. I'm not I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I think we've got some good come QBs coming in right now and Like I said, I don't follow it as much as I used to. I mean, I man, in my youth, like I was reading all the recruiting stuff. Like I always joke around if you think like if you like college football, wait until you get into recruiting. Cause I mean it's like that's like next level. I always say it's like, you know, giving a it's like getting on heroin, man. I mean, it is like you you're just in it. You're reading everything. I was reading all the articles in the Omaha paper and the Lincoln Journal Star. And yeah, I was really into that. But now it's so different with all the transfer rules and every year there's a new roster. So I struggle to keep up as much as I as I love the sport. But yeah, it's it's been paul: Yeah. Chris Wurtz: a it's been a rough tw you know, two decades I would say we've had. paul: Well, yeah, I mean, look, when you had Tommy Frazier and, you know, Osbourne was there, I mean, was there a scarier team than the big red machine running down your throat? I don't know, man. I don't think there was. Chris Wurtz: When I'm feeling bad, I still go look at nineties YouTube highlights. Yeah. paul: I think about the ninety five team. I mean, golly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chris Wurtz: they're they're amaz I mean you watch like the the Peters brothers playing and the Steinkler and some of those you know defenses they had. The it's great and then I paul: yeah. Look man, I got goosebumps. That's all I'm talking about. Chris Wurtz: mean you're Tom Osborne's rolling into town. You know they're running the option. Nothing you can do to stop Yeah. It was great. paul: You know it. Can't stop it. Can't stop it. You know it's coming. Chris Wurtz: It was a great time to be alive and be a Husker fan. Great, great atmosphere, awesome time to go down there. Still still one of the best stadiums. And I'm obviously super biased, but still one of the paul: Yeah. I'm I'm biased about that stadium too because my previous life, before I have the job that I have now, I we were selling an additive in the concrete and it w man, that is a tough road, road a hoe. And so we had some friends in Lincoln that were using it and they did there was a big expansion going on at Cornhusk Cornhusker Stadium and they were pumping lightweight concrete. up there to build the expansion and they were using Chris Wurtz: yeah. paul: our additive on it. It was one of our first like big breaks we ever got. And so that was Chris Wurtz: that's awesome. paul: almost fifteen years ago. Not quite fifteen, you it was like twelve years ago or whatever. Yeah. Chris Wurtz: Yeah, I haven't I haven't been back to Lincoln for man, it's been quite a while. And you know, they're always going through innovations, always making changes, always making that that stadium better and better. but yeah, great, great college town. I think it's one of the best college towns in America for sure. paul: W well, you know, I if you didn't know, avid listeners of the show will know. Crimson Tide fan here. So we had we had a good run. We had a good run recently as well. Chris Wurtz: I figured I figured. paul: And you know, I don't know what we're gonna do, man. We're right now for the upcoming recruiting class, we're ranked like forty third. We're almost like last in the SEC in recruiting. That's a that's a weird place to be in. Yeah, Chris Wurtz: Yeah, that's odd. What do you think of Debor, right? He's still there? paul: yeah. He's still yeah, good question. Is he still there? Chris Wurtz: Ha ha. paul: Yeah. You know, you can't fire him yet. He the kids like him, the donors like him, and you know, when you when you're making the playoff, like you're gonna fire the guy that's making the playoff? Probably not. Probably not. And Chris Wurtz: Yeah, be careful what you wish for. We're yeah, Nebraska's still dealing with getting rid of Solich, I think. We're cursed now. paul: Yeah. So here's something I always found was interesting. Well, for Deborah, it's even it's even tougher because he's the guy replacing the guy. It's really hard to replace. Yeah, exactly. It's Chris Wurtz: I was Solich and Osbourne. paul: really hard to be the person that replaces the guy. There's also something else really Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: interesting when you're Nick Saban and you're on a roll the way he was, and he was getting five star recruits left and right. I I just always felt like his his floor for what he would expect from a scholarship athlete and what that athlete's supposed to look like was different. Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: Like it's almost like Deborah's happy just getting a three star kid and he's fine with he's fine Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: with that. He wants to take the three star and develop him into an elite player and Sabins like the we the way you win is having better players than the other guy. So we're gonna put Chris Wurtz: For sure. paul: all of our focus onto recruiting. And I was like, Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: Okay. So, you know, we'll see how it shakes out, man. It's only year three or whatever, so I don't I don't wanna be too mean. He's got a tough job. Chris Wurtz: Yeah, I not an act I would want to follow, that's for sure. paul: No, no, not an act. And even worse, he's dude still he's still got like an office inside the stadium, inside the building. Like that can't be easy. He's you know, people looking over your shoulder. Yeah. That's Chris Wurtz: Looming over your shoulders, yeah, for sure. paul: that's tough. All right, back into concrete. what this podcast is supposed to be about. you've got an Chris Wurtz: We can talk nineties Nebraska football all day long if you want. paul: Look, man, you know what? It's my show. Nobody can tell me what to do. so yeah, actually, no. Chris Wurtz: Yeah, exactly. paul: You you know the only thing that we never got to do with Nebraska? Hold on, we'll get concrete in a second. Chris Wurtz: Ha ha. paul: I never got to have like a good experience on the video games. Did you ever play the college football video games when we were younger? Chris Wurtz: Yeah, I'd had God, what did I have? Bill Walton's college football. This is dating me, but it was on the Sega paul: Yeah. Chris Wurtz: Genesis, and then I had college football ninety six, I believe. It they were really good then, and then, paul: Okay, so the Huskers would have been good on that. Okay. Chris Wurtz: you know, I I forget the year that they actually stopped college football, like the college football game. EA. I what's it paul: Of it. Yeah, the EA game stopped in twenty thirteen. It was the twenty fourteen game. They always they named it a year ahead or whatever. So Chris Wurtz: Yeah. So I I had this thing I'd always buy the col the college football game on the council, and I forget what my last team was on that, but yeah, I'm drawing a blank on this, but there was a Nebraska quarterback that sued over their rights. It was Sam paul: Wait, it your guy was y a guy from Nebraska was the guy that started all those lawsuits? my I thought it was a UCLA guy. I was blaming California this whole time. Chris Wurtz: Yeah, I bel I don't don't quote me on that on me like I I he I believe he came. He was a transfer, a Sam something. I can't remember his name. I thought he was the one who initiated the lawsuit on that. paul: my god. Chris Wurtz: Don't quote me on that. I could be completely wrong on that. paul: my God. Yeah, he stopped the stopped the game. He's I mean, it gave us the NIL era and w Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. paul: that we're in right now, which, you know, better or worse, man. You got new teams at the top. So maybe it's doing what it was designed to do. I just don't ever remember playing the games with like a Nebraska, a Nebraska offense or a Nebraska team and like taking cause there were different teams. Like there was a West Virginia team a few of those years that was just unbelievable. And Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. paul: I didn't know anything about West Virginia, but they had a quarterback with a ninety nine speed rating and a running back with ninety nine speed rating. And I'd put the Florida Chris Wurtz: Hm. paul: offense, Tim Tebow's offense on the West Virginia squad and good luck stopping us 'cause the speed offense Chris Wurtz: Yeah. That would have been in the down years, right? They would have been on the downward trend. Probably since two thousand one I think. So yeah, you probably wouldn't have paul: Okay, yeah. Chris Wurtz: got any good ones. paul: those are horrible years to be a Bama fan too. Don't you know we can laugh about saving, Chris Wurtz: We've all been there. paul: but those are bad years to be a Bama fan. Yeah, Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: yeah, it was tough. you had an interesting career. I was really glad when we talked previously, really glad to learn about your background. Because a lot of times when you get into concrete, you don't really know who you're dealing with, and you you have a guy and You're at a company that's a technology company. And when you're dealing with technology folks in the Ready Mix business, it's a mixed bag, man. There's some there's Chris Wurtz: For sure. paul: some characters out there. When you told me that your background, the way you fell into the industry as an electrical engineer, I just absolutely love that journey. Would you mind recounting that for the audience for me? Chris Wurtz: Sure. man, tough hitting podcast here. Questions right out of the gate. No, for sure. paul: Yeah. Chris Wurtz: So yeah, I graduated from South Dakota State with an electrical engineering degree. And my first job out of college was working for Victory Motorcycles as an electrical engineer, which was a a division of Polaris. And so kind of went into the motorcycle industry. It was awesome. My my girlfriend, now my wife at the time, was in Rochester, Minnesota. So I was like, North of Minneapolis and she was working in Rochester and we were trying to figure out who was gonna go where and you can ultimately see who who won that argument. And I moved to Rudd. Yeah. I Rod a great place to live though. I couldn't have chosen a better place to live. paul: as as they tend to do. I'm in hell, I'm in Conchahaca, in fact I didn't choose this city. Chris Wurtz: And so you know, ended up down in Rochester. I had a weird little detour in my career where I was working for a fireplace company building and designing remote controls for gas-powered fireplaces, which was an interesting job, but ultimately I wanted to get back kind of into the I'll call it the automotive world. That means different things to different people. But you know, when you say automotive, a lot of people assume the big ones, the big three, right? But not quite paul: Yeah, yeah. Chris Wurtz: that. But like vehicle development, I really enjoyed that. And at the time it was 2008. Well, 2008 was when I went moved to Rochester, then it was roughly 2011. I got a job at Oshkosh Corporation or McNeilis, and that's kind of my introduction into ReadyMix. So I started off as an electrical engineer and working on mixers, and Kind of from there, that's really where it went. I've worked for a bunch of different OEMs, a lot of equipment manufacturers. So I've been on the paving side, been on the ready mix delivery truck side, and then I made a shift into software, and I've kind of been there ever since. So I think I'm on my Eighth or ninth year on the software side. And it was funny, McNeilis, where I worked at the time, they made garbage trucks and ready mix trucks. And I was talking to my grandma on the phone, and and she was she's like, you're gonna pick up garbage now? She and and I'm like, No, no, I'm going to work on the trucks, right? And so I'm like, I'm working on them, and and like it's different. And so then it was funny because I got into that space, and I'm like, man. these hauling industries are kinda nuts. And you know, when I when I le if I ever leave, I'm gonna go do something completely different. Well, now I don't have anything better to do and this is all I know, so I'm stuck in the concrete industry. paul: Man, that is a perfect grandma question. you poor thing. Chris Wurtz: Yeah. With that sound I mean honestly not a bad gig. Not a bad gig at all. So you know, I wouldn't yeah. paul: Well, when I was so when I was growing up, we used to call those sanitation engineers and you were Chris Wurtz: Yeah. No, not a bad gig. I mean there's some good good benefits, good companies to work for. Like, yeah, not a bad gig whatsoever. paul: that's that's funny, man. I you know w one of the things you said when you were going from designing and building concrete trucks to then tracking them digitally to now trying to supercharge the the whole concrete or several heavy building businesses that each step along the way you're like man, I got this. I know what I'm doing. Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: And then you hit something else and you're like, my God, I don't know anything And then my God, I don't know anything again. It's just Chris Wurtz: Yeah. It I think it just like shows you the complexity of this business and like the fact that you have a perishable product, right? And you have roughly 90 minutes. So you know, give or take, whatever you put into it or however you however you're con you know, whatever you're delivering. And that piece of it, you get to know a a certain aspect of it. And at first for me is all trucks. And so, you know, I got to know how the mixer works, how drivers operate it, what's what's good and bad with that, what lasts, what doesn't, you know, all that stuff that you would look. So I was like, yeah, I'm I'm pretty good at I'm pretty good at this. I understand I understand concrete. Well I went to paving for a little bit, and paving is an entirely new world, and it's specific to bridge paving equipment. And you know, you learn that as you're paving it can't stop, the thing can't fail, you get cold joints, like that portion of it, and you get into the the business side of paving, which is giant general contractors and they may buy the equipment for a one super project and then disband it. Like it's just That was very different. And even knowing the technical aspect of that. And then I was like, okay, well, I went into, you know, tracking after that of of Ready Mixed Trucks. And that's where I was like, yeah, this is, I've got this. And it's like, I didn't know what a ticket was. You know, and you know, you get it and you get into paul: yeah. Chris Wurtz: all of that, and then you're like, well, it's dispatch software. And you know, it just you keep learning and going deeper, and everything in this industry has its own little kind of niche and what what works for and what's really important to them and you know now I'm in dispatch software and CRM and kind of the stuff that surrounds the entire business process and it's been a learning experience for me there too and it's been awesome. I mean just learning all these new things and getting into different aspects of the business. Like you touch everything so you gotta know enough about each little thing which I'm trying trying to get that all figured out. but man it's it's such an interesting business. And y you show up one day and you think you've got it all dialed in and somebody calls in and cancels and now things are reshuffling and it it's been really exciting and interesting to see the full picture of it all. paul: I'm just glad the audience got to hear that from somebody like yourself. And we've all felt that way at some point that yeah, we got this. So for me it was mixed designs. I started with mixed designs Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: even at university, was deep in doing mixed designs in the concrete lab. So then when my first job was also in a lab and I'm doing mixed designs, and then you go out into the field and that safety net that you had in the lab of like, that didn't work. Let me just try another one. Like that's gone. It's two o'clock in the morning. Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: People are angry, pumps are blocked, stopping up. You know, that it was it was a different world. And you're like, my gosh, I didn't really even have a clue. And then you get into the plant and you're all eyes, there's so many things going on at the plant. You're like, man, how is anybody even keeping this straight? Once again, I realized I didn't have a clue. You know, and you just Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: you just keep getting exposed. Somebody I remember the first time somebody was was gonna be making a a double T. with with our the admix that I used to sell. And they wanted to try it in a double tee. I was like, The heck's a double tea? What is what does that even mean? I mean, I don't even know what you're talking about and Chris Wurtz: Yeah. You didn't have you know, chat GPT to tell you what it was either at that time. paul: We did not actually I'm I'm actually thankful that we did not have Chat GPT to answer the questions because the the the biggest problem I have with the AIs and I'm I'm bullish AI. People listen to this, they're sick of me talking about AI, but unfortunately for them, it's you know, we can talk about whatever we want. So the I'm super bullish, but the problem I always have with these chat bots, especially when they launched in like twenty two and twenty three, Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: they're just not as right. as they really should be for you to pass it off as an expert. And that's Chris Wurtz: Sure. paul: really hard. It's really hard to to really understand. It's it's really hard to know that when you're asking it things you don't know. When you're asking it a top about a topic you don't know much about they seem like super geniuses that have arised out of the heavens to bless us with knowledge. But then you ask it about something you're intimately aware of and you realize like, hmm, he's like ninety or ninety five percent of the way there, but that five percent he got wrong is way wrong. And you know, I Chris Wurtz: Mm. paul: don't know that I can trust to use the things these AIs are telling me. I just have to take it as like another resource. Chris Wurtz: Yeah. Yeah, we kinda I mean, for us it's the models are getting better every day, right? And even paul: yeah. Chris Wurtz: even our own offering and how we structure it and what it connects to and how it learns and how it optimizes itself. It's always getting better. And you know, I everybody kinda asks all the time, you know, where do you think AI is going? And you know, there's a lot of doom and gloomers, there's people that think it's gonna replace everybody, and you know, for for I think how we look at it now, it's like we just see The absolute just multiplier, if you will, of people's outputs and capabilities with it. So, like to your point, I think it's really important that you still understand what what it's good at, what it needs to get better, and how it understands and how it learns. And you can use that as a tool really to like build out your abilities in that. And that's where we really see it like enhancing a lot of things. just with employees and how they how they work and how they operate and what their paul: Well, and I think we we also just say the word AI like it's one thing. It's just this one one Chris Wurtz: Yeah, yeah, it's just one thing, right? paul: thing and we should be mad about it. Chris Wurtz: Ha ha ha. paul: but like with with agencai AI, you oftentimes give it like a confined domain. So it's like here's the knowledge that you can pull from, here's the systems you can access. And when you sort of limit that, you train the agent on that corpus of knowledge. Man, they can get really, really good. Chris Wurtz: yeah. Yeah. And I think I think in our industry, there's I think a lot of people kind of look at AI as a glorified search engine. Right? Like, it's a really good search engine that you can ask it something and it will give you an answer. And paul: I I I use it casually. My most casual usage is as a search engine. I'll pull up Grok or chat and ask it something. Yeah, sure. Chris Wurtz: yeah, absolutely. And and you know, it's it's good for that, obviously, right? And there's all sorts of different models that are good, but where we really see it is like in in things like business process flows and data analysis and data manipulation and things like that. And I mean, even internally for us, we use our own tool, our own AI, it probably more than anybody, and it's on configuring things and creating up aut you know, creating automated processes. flows and stuff. And for us, that's where we really see a lot of the value beyond just kind of what you you normally see as a casual AI user. And it's amazing. I mean just absolutely astonishing what it can do when you start connecting your business systems to it and you know what you can automate in it, which I mean it for a a casual person to be able to kind of almost program their own stuff to do it, it would have just been impossible even three to four years ago. And now you can talk to it and it'll build out a process for you. Which is wild. Yep. paul: That's it. Just talk to it. And it just it just does it. And then if you don't like it, you tell it I don't like that. Try again. And here's why Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: here's why I didn't like it. And here's what I was really thinking. And it just it doesn't get offended. It just it just goes. No, no, no, no, no. No. no no no. I'm very nice to the AI because I for one welcome our AI overlords. I do not want it attacking my Chris Wurtz: Yeah, sometimes you have to be a little mean to it, right? To really nudge it along. Yeah, ten ten years from now it's gonna look back and Paul was so nice to us, spare him. Look at all the he was so polite. Chris was mean to me the whole time. paul: It's gonna look bad. Exactly. He was so nice. He said thank you every time. Chris Wurtz: He said thank you, and please, like, look at that. paul: It you know, for P if you're not somebody that is used to having to generate reports and read reports, like it's hard to understand like how many hours can go into building reports and to Chris Wurtz: yeah. paul: to have to to the you have to track down the right people with the right information and get everything because even before you couldn't even connect systems. So assuming you even had the log into the right system, you have to go in there and pull data from here, pull data from here, pull data from here, and you have put it all together and you got to have a coherent story so that you're able to answer questions for Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: the board or, you know, whatever it is you've got to do Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: in your day to day life, whatever's important for you. And that could take a long time. And now you just ask it and Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: it puts everything into a co cogent message. I do find sometimes though, it's not very good at math. And I use I use like the the top models. now if I'm Chris Wurtz: Sure. paul: just if I'm just like Google searching, I'll just grab like a whatever the free model is and I'll I'll ask it to search something. But for Chris Wurtz: Sure. Sure. paul: like data processing or if I build cron jobs or if I'm building an app or a website or whatever, I'll use the top of the line stuff. But when it comes to math, man, it's still it still struggles. I'll have it look at a 10k report and I'll s ask it to build build out certain things for me and I'll ask three different models and I'll get three different numbers. And you know, Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: I so I with that being said though, I remember being in business school and we'd do that and every single person had a different number. And I'm like, well, who's right? And you Chris Wurtz: Yeah, there you go. paul: know the preference like it doesn't really matter. We just all want to see where the trends are. I was like, I hate that type of math. I hate that type of math. That's Chris Wurtz: Like I said, I've got an engineering degree and I hate that type of math too. So yeah, it's you know, it it's getting better, right? And it's all about how you ask it, how you train it, what you do on it, and give it examples of where it's messed up. And you know, it it just gets better and better all the time. maybe I gotta have it start analyzing some 10k reports and see what's going on there. I'm gonna get paul: Yeah. Chris Wurtz: I'm gonna get on that after I get get off this podcast. paul: So well we have a new we have a new the company I work for, well one of the companies I work for is is a new company. And I wanted to benchmark, you know, we did like a pro forma P L Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: and you know, so I'm doing all the the the pro forma income statements and the pro forma statement of cash flow and I'm Chris Wurtz: Sure. paul: I'm trying to I was trying to build this out like what I think it's going to look like based on our early numbers and Then I was like, well, I wanted to benchmark that against the industry. And so I'd pulled a bunch of 10 Ks and I was going through it. I Chris Wurtz: Gotcha. paul: was like, I was like, man, I bet you the AI could just do this for me. Cause I knew and that but that's part of just knowing what to ask. And so Chris Wurtz: Yeah, for sure. paul: I was like, let's benchmark ourselves against these other companies. And it it was so I wanted to see what they're you know, operating margins where I wouldn't know what their EPA DA was. I wanted to know where were they. So if I'm looking at my numbers and I'm thinking like, hey, these are pretty dang good numbers for like the business Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: category. But I don't know that. I just think that. And then I was able to like Chris Wurtz: Sure. paul: peg it against everybody else. And, you know, we were okay. I was like, okay. So we are in line with everyone else. We're okay to sell our product for this number Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: because that you know, we should be valued at X based on based on Y. It doesn't prevent the owners from coming back to me and saying, No, you need to double the price. It gave me it Chris Wurtz: Of course, yeah. But paul: gave me some some fodder for my cannon to be like, No, we have to be priced reasonably. And it's Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: okay to be priced this low. Look, look, we're right Chris Wurtz: Yeah, even that, even you know, like you said, even if you're off a little bit amongst models, like think of the amount of time that would have taken you to do and paul: my gosh. Chris Wurtz: put something like that together and it gets you something that's, you know, nearly complete or all the way complete, depending on how it comes out. So that's just the great time saver of being able to use these tools and make yourself a lot more efficient. So paul: It was a huge time saver and and if you're listening to this and you're like, Who cares? Well, I cared because I need to be able to price our product in the market. And if the market's telling me one thing and my Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: ownership's yelling at me of a of a different number, I need to make sure that I'm doing the right thing for all parties. And it didn't take me two weeks to build that out. 'Cause I would have had to run that build I would have to build Chris Wurtz: Yeah. yeah. paul: the model out and then run it for every company. No, just The AI did it in Chris Wurtz: Yep. paul: like a few minutes. And then I didn't trust it 'cause I never trust them a hundred percent. So I I fed it. I f I fed it to a couple fed it to a couple yeah, yeah. And then and I caught it. One of them told me Chris Wurtz: I'm picking that up. I'm picking that up. paul: it told me that like one of the companies had a sixty three percent gross margin on industrial minerals. And I was like, There is no way that's possible. And it went back and it was, yeah, you're right. It I I was wrong. Good catch. And then Another one it told me something crazy. it said its net income was like negative hundred million dollars or something. And I like, No. Like what's the real story Chris Wurtz: Not quite. paul: here? You can't just print that. It's like, yeah, it it wrote off like some merger and acquisition it did that failed and just Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: wrote it off all in one year. I was like, Thank you. You know, these Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: are these are important things. Chris Wurtz: For sure. Well, I think like I think that's the, you know, even for us with our kind of internal thoughts on this and what we're doing is You know, AI is great for a broad set of tools and doing stuff very, very well quickly. And we still see a definite need for having like true deterministic software as well, right? So like you actually build it out native into your software and be able to do that. And you know, that's the approach we've taken is like you build you build things with AI and you get it to where you want it to be, and then you harden it in the actual code and build it out so it's super efficient paul: Mm. Chris Wurtz: at that point. Cause it's gonna cost You know, let's say you're doing something in software and you're trying to find where a truck is, it's gonna take AI and it's gonna be more expensive if you're doing it every day trying to determine where that truck is. you know, it's gonna be more than if you just do it, you know, hard-coded so that it's running and operating at the most efficient manner, right? So we really see it as like a tool for us in product development and like being able to iterate very, very rapidly on stuff and then taking that and actually making something hard-coded. And Ken, to your point, it's like you may get some different results as you're building it out or you're looking into it, and there's still that need to have the deterministic, like efficient software that people are doing on, you know, every single day, right, when they're doing their day job. paul: Is is XBE employing its own data scientists then to do all that or you or you have product managers equipped with that type of knowledge? Chris Wurtz: We do yeah, we have not data science scientists specifically that we have hired, but we have you know, we're a very, very heavy dev team. So a lot paul: Mm. Chris Wurtz: of dev and and technical people on the team. I mean, you know, I'll say roughly fifty percent of our staff is dev, right? And between dev and product. And so we have a lot of people that are doing very technical things and and understanding that piece of it for sure. But not not actual data scientists. paul: Yeah. So you know, one of the one of the things I love about the podcast is bringing on people that have different vantage points of the industry. So for me, I had the vantage point of trying to optimize mixed designs for a long time. And I spent a lot of time solving people's like concrete quality or not solving all their problems, but helping them, even if it wasn't using the additive I was Chris Wurtz: Sure. Yeah. paul: selling, I would sometimes just see things and be able to say, Hey, I I saw someone in somewhere else fix that. You know, you don't need an additive, you can just do this. And then now it's I'm in a different world with SCMs. But you're coming at customer solutions from a technology perspective. I wonder like what challenges do you see in the market that either excite you or keep you up at night, whatever it is. What are the challenges that you see most on like a day to day basis out there? Chris Wurtz: Yeah, I I mean, I think with any technology change, especially right now, I mean, man, it it changes so fast. Like I it it's like lightning speed at development of especially in AI, right? I know we don't want to talk about AI the entire time, but I mean, you come out with new models constantly. I don't know if you saw Codex now can like take over your computer and you can talk to it and it will do different things and like that it's just changing so fast right now. And I mean even from when I I've been at XBE for a year and like the the change between when I started and the tools that we have now and are available and what you can do with it is like exponentially grown. And so I think You know, the the biggest challenges I think that industry has always faced is at the end of the day, you gotta get concrete off the truck. Like, you've got ninety minutes, you've got a forty thousand pound paperweight that you either have to jackhammer out or blast or trash the drum, right? Like that's priority number one. And so I don't this sounds negative what I'm about to say, but I don't mean it in a negative way. I think in general the industry is pretty resistant to change. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Like to be very clear, I think it's Their mission is to get concrete and deliver it and get it off the truck as fast as possible. So when you're interrupting that mission with either a new process or a new tool, like they are going to be skeptical about it, and rightfully so. Because you could pour, you know, you're dealing with mixed designs, you could put the wrong mixed design, and that skyscraper now is a massive problem that you build. And so I think the biggest challenges we always face are just getting. getting people to change and adopt new processes and take away the mindset of this is how I've always done it. paul: Mm. Chris Wurtz: And I fa you know, I'll say I face this at every product development company I've worked for. And that's pretty much what I've been is just product development. And you know, it could be the truck, they don't want to, you know, do electronic controls because they know how to fix a cable. Right? Well, there's only so much you can do with the cable controlled truck. Or you get into the telematics and they don't want sensors, or you know, they have to have a specific thing on there that they need because again, they're trying to get concrete off off the drum. And I think that's the I I mean that's what I see constantly. And so it's always working with them to get comfort. getting an understanding of how this is different than their current way of doing it, how it's better, maybe how it, you know, sometimes what are the downsides of doing it too, like in in being transparent with them. And I I think we just face that across the board. I I don't think there's one region or area or type of customer that's really any different. Alt I mean there's obviously people who lead in these situations, but that that change and then willingness to adapt and make the change is always the hardest hurdle to get over. Once they do it's great. But it it's gonna face a lot of resistance right away. paul: And I think the good thing that you just alluded to, the most important thing probably for you that's so you could always relay this to your team, is it's it's not you. It's it's them. Like it it's it might be hard as someone who's like maybe a salesperson or development person at XPE that's not been anywhere else. They're like, Man, Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: we've got this great thing. Like I can't believe everybody's not jumping through hoops and begging us for it. Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: And it is it does it doesn't matter what part of the process you're serving, it's always slow to change, for all of us. It's Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: just the the way the business is. So it's interesting you're seeing that same thing that I saw on the additive side or on the S C side, you're seeing it on the technology side. Chris Wurtz: Yeah, and you i there's a lot of balance, right? Because you're especially for our software now, like you're ripping out the neural center of their operation, paul: Mm-hmm. Chris Wurtz: right? If you're let's say you're replacing dispatch or it's rare you'd get this where you run into somebody who doesn't have dispatch software, but you're you're ripping out their core. And like you can have flashy, cool stuff, but if you can't invoice a truck after you ticket it or you can't send a ticket to the batch panel, it's not gonna work for them. And so it's it's a real balance of like how do I make it so it's flexible enough to adapt to what they used to do and also push everybody forward to make you know the entire industry more efficient as well. So there's a there's a really fine balance to manage there. paul: I'd never never had this thought before. So sorry if this is a stupid question. But are you software only? Are you having to build hardware when you come in and say like s you you you're taking over, you're gonna be the new dispatch program? Do you do you install hardware as well? Chris Wurtz: typically for so for the Majority of our products, it's let's just say making this number up, 80% is what we you know, cloud-based technology, right? So we're not installing any new servers or doing anything like that. we do have a we do have a division that does maintenance software, which has telematics hardware on it. And so in some cases, you would be installing new hardware on the trucks. But as far as like the primary software goes, there's not any hardware or anything involved with it, mainly because we're all cloud-based. paul: And then just downloads on their regular computers and away you go. Chris Wurtz: Yep, yep, you access a website. And then there's things you have to do, like if you're gonna be interacting with people's batch panels, for example, like you have to connect to them and generally put software on their servers. obviously paul: Mm. Chris Wurtz: there's a lot of different companies that are going to what they call cloud batching now too, so that would be something we would just connect via an API. So kind of web to web at that point. paul: What's cloud what's cloud batching? Sorry, what's cloud batching? Chris Wurtz: so you know, a lot of the batch panel companies now are actually producing their own batch panels that connect to the cloud. So AWS, Azure, whoever your cloud provider is, paul: Mm-hmm. Chris Wurtz: they're starting to do it that way, rather than you having and hosting your own server in in the operation. And so you connect to those different than you would. mainly 'cause it's it's web to web. Rather than web to their server. So no no new hardware from our perspective on that point, just a different way to interact with those systems. paul: Yeah, it's it's interesting. One of the things if you're if you're not following along with the history of technology, we'll catch you up real quick. On the server side, it went from everybody needs to have a server to all right, everybody let's move to cloud. And now there's like a chance that a lot of these enterprises, I don't know about concrete, but a lot of other enterprises are like, wait a minute, we need to go back to on prem. We've got to get we've got to get servers back on site. 'Cause they're afraid that they're gonna be putting all their data into the AI cloud and this is gonna get taken by whoever. So it's pretty Chris Wurtz: There's always a a push and a pull, right? In these in these decisions and directions and what one thinks is safer and what doesn't. And yeah, it's all there's always a battle there. paul: Right now, these cloud dudes, they are printing money. Holy moly. There is there is no better the only business I think might be better is a Chick-fil-A. Never seen a short line of the Chick fil A. But Chris Wurtz: I was just just talking to my dad last night. He was up visiting and we were talking about how amazing the experience is at Chick-fil-A. paul: It's crazy. I got a Chick-fil-A story for you. So back in twenty twenty one, it was April. April twenty twenty one. The COVID vaccine version one had just been released. And I had to do tra Chris Wurtz: Time. paul: I had to travel to Canada. So I had to I had to get it. Even if I didn't want it, I had to get it. My our work wasn't mandating that we get it, but I had to Chris Wurtz: Sure. paul: get it if I wanted to travel to Canada. And I needed to go up there for for work. And So they were doing the Johnson and Johnson vaccine at the time. That was the only one that was like a one shot. You didn't have to come back for a booster. Chris Wurtz: Sure. paul: And I was like, that's great for me. Just get in, get out, get on my life. And I got it right before they discontinued it for all the blood clots. So I got it. And when I when I showed up, it was like a it was a madhouse. Like it was a real, it was crazy how many people were there. They were doing it like the Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: fairground, the local like fairgrounds and which Chris Wurtz: Sure. paul: had like a horse track and it was a huge, I mean just a huge area with a giant indoor barn that would been cleared out just for people to you could either drive your car through the drive-thru version, which was insane, or you could park and you could come inside, get your shot and sit for 15 minutes while they made sure you didn't have anaphylactic shock. And The first day I rode down there, it was so crazy. I just turned around and went home and rescheduled for a week later. And when I came back a week later, it was like cockwork. It was rolling like cockwork. It was so smooth. Just as many people, if not more, but it was running smooth. And I asked the person there, like, hey, what did you do to make this so much better in a week's time? And they said, We went across the street and asked the guy running the Chick-fil-A. Chris Wurtz: Ha ha ha. paul: How he manages two drive throughs and all these customers and he never has traffic backed out to the road. Like they were right across the street. He's like asked him if he'd come in and look at what we were doing. And he like redesigned the whole traffic pattern and how everybody Chris Wurtz: That's amazing. Yeah. paul: works and they were running it like a Chick-fil-A. Chris Wurtz: You know, maybe we gotta get some people in ReadyMix that are have Chick-fil-A experience. That might be the that might be the next step. I I gotta hire some of these guys. Wait, stop recording. Don't don't publish this. That's my competitive advantage now. paul: Gosh are these? I think you just had the most brilliant idea ever. So if you're running one of these plants, he just leaked it to the whole world. You have these new high-priced consultants that you're bringing in, and they're like, my pleasure. And everybody's like, What? Chris Wurtz: Pleasure, yeah. Bringing you sauce all the time, yeah, it'll be great. paul: man, could you imagine? That would be s that's incredible. Especially these plants that are doing like, you know, fifteen hundred yards a day. Double double sided central mixed plants. Yeah. Chris Wurtz: you got dual batch plants, right? You got dual lanes. Yeah, you might have a you might have a spare dry batch panel, you know, batch plant over there that you gotta run ever occasionally for overload. Like or overload. Yeah, like I think this is it. This is it. Yeah, exactly. paul: Overlords. I like that. I I like that Freudian slip you just had there with the overlords. That was nice. That was nice. Yeah. The other thing that Chick-fil-A does really well though is they're overstaffed. Like, go like look look behind the counter at like a standard fast food place and then look behind Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: the counter at Chick-fil-A. Standard fast food place might have two people behind the counter between Chris Wurtz: Sure. paul: person that's taking your order, running the drive-thru and then bagging food that's coming out of the kitchen. Chick-fil-A's got like seven people standing there. Chris Wurtz: Mm-hmm. paul: And I wonder a lot of time like, well, if you have that many people that have the ability to service the customers, then the customers get good service. All right. That makes a lot of sense. Chris Wurtz: Yeah. Well and I think too, like what my dad and I were talking about. So my my dad ran a business. He he owned a he owned a pharmacy in a in a small town. And it paul: that's right. Your parents were both pharmacists and now you play with mud. That's right. Chris Wurtz: Yeah, I was the black sheep. I went into electrical engineering. and you know, it he my dad was just commenting on how everybody in that organization is just dedicated and service oriented and like they get the good attitudes. I mean it's amazing what just having a good attitude will do in that situation to make everybody feel that much better about whatever's going on in it, right? It who knows, maybe that sandwich takes just as long to make as any other fast food restaurant, but the fact that they do, you know, service you with a smile, like you may not even notice that. So it's it's really incredible. paul: And they close one day out of the week. That's that's Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: still is is mind boggling. Allegedly, someone did a study and said if they opened up that day, that it would actually l reduce their sales Chris Wurtz: Mm. paul: for whatever reason. I don't believe that. I think they're leaving an incredible amount of money on the table because they're like, Nope, this is just this is what we do, is what we believe in. I'm like, man, that's some hardcore conviction from from the Kathy family. To be leaving that much money on the table when Chris Wurtz: I I don't know how like so I grew up in Elk South Dakota, Elk Point, South Dakota, sorry by Sioux City, Iowa. And Sioux City, I think at one point in time, don't quote me on this as a fact, but was the furthest north Chick-fil-A. And it was in the Sioux City Mall. And to this day, so I've grown up with it my entire life and I still can't remember that it's closed on Sundays. You'll be going paul: I mean Chris Wurtz: there like, let's get some Chick-fil-A and then, yeah, it's closed, it's Sunday, that's right. paul: Yep. It's always on a Sunday when you want it. It they started putting it on the highway sign. So when you're traveling down the freeway and it's like what food is on this exit and they'll say closed on Sunday underneath the Chris Wurtz: Sundays, yeah. paul: the Chick fil A sign, which is great. Who advertises that they're closed? Chris Wurtz: Yeah, exactly. paul: So we've we've got it. If we got anything out of this podcast today, it's we got it. Chris Wurtz: It's the real nugget. Hopefully, people listen and go deep on this one. They're gonna find the real nugget for logistic challenges. paul: They're gonna man, what a what a good pun that was. Yes. The the nuggets from our Chick Foy story is Chris Wurtz: Yeah. paul: we need to hire these consultants to help us get trucks out the door at the batch point. No, that's that's great, man. Well look, this has been a a really fun episode. it was really good to have you on here. I think people They're listening to this, get a good sense of who's at the helm at XBE. it's clear that you care about the industry, you care about the business, and that's gonna bleed down through the rest of the organization as they're taking care of folks. I'm I'm thankful that you guys are a title sponsor of our show. I really do appreciate that. it's helping us do what we're doing. is there anything else, any other message that you wanted to get out to the people before we jump off here? Chris Wurtz: I just to me this industry is so fascinating. I always find it to be like the most interesting puzzle to try to figure out. And you know, I think we're convinced we can really help and get better at math. and and solve paul: Yeah. Chris Wurtz: and solve some of this really mathematically, right? And it's just it's just so interesting deal. It it's such a people industry. you know, all the way to like how you do business with relationships, but you know, just knowing, you know, you know this being in mixed design and mixed management, it's whatever that driver is doing on that truck can drastically impact the quality that comes out there. And you're a moving billboard as you go down the road and how you interact with people on the job site is you know, i it's kind of your advertisement and your and your competitive advantage and that it's just a fascinating puzzle to try to figure out. And I'm feel really, you know, fortunate to be able to continue to learn and expand and just find out new things about it. So it's been a lot of fun. I've I've enjoyed the change. Great people. And I think like it's just fun to see things moving forward and seeing what see the world being built from the ground up. That's one of the funnest parts, right? Going out with a customer and going in a new stadium or a new bridge or whatever it is. So yeah, paul: No, that's great. It's a wonderful business. Actually, I'm even when hearing you just talked right now, I think our Chick Floyd consultant idea it has to go past the the the drive thru of the ready mix trucks. We've got to expand it to what if dispatch person was like, How can I help you today? with my pleasure. Like you Chris Wurtz: Yeah, they're out there with their tablet, like on the job site, like ordering for ya. paul: Could you even imag could you even imagine the truck driver shows up acting like a Chick-fil-A employee? People might think they've lost their mind, but that driver Chris Wurtz: Yeah. Sir, sir, you forgot your fiber. You forgot your fiber, sir. paul: Exactly. I think we just created another million-dollar consultancy industry. I'll have to we'll talk about it off air. We got it. We we Chris Wurtz: I feel like this could be a meme. This could be a meme for sure. paul: we did it, man. Thank you. So much, guys. This is another episode of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. We want to thank all of our sponsors here today. Thank you to Chris for joining us here. If you want to learn more about what Chris is up to, please visit them at x-b E dot com. If you're interested in becoming a sponsor of the show, please reach out directly to me, admin at slumpmonkeys.com. That's O N K E Y S. Admin at slump monkeys dot com. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it, man. Chris Wurtz: Thank you.