Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / From Union Elevator Apprentice to SkyTech Elevator Co-Owner | Chris Pearce Interview

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From Union Elevator Apprentice to SkyTech Elevator Co-Owner | Chris Pearce Interview · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's really important for a company when they have a win, whether that win is, you know, it doesn't matter really what department it is.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, maybe it's that they got a new contract, maybe that's they successfully turned over a new elevator after a big modernization project.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, maybe they got an award.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's important to sell celebrate those wins with with everybody, you know, from the guy in the in the warehouse to, you know, someone up at a front front desk, uh, to someone out in the field, uh, you know, management.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um to me, like the the companies that I've worked for that have done that successfully have been great to work at, and they've fostered just incre just incredible achievements.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just been so successful.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I would say celebrate the wins.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry, to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before, to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Today our guest is Chris Pierce, co-owner of Skytech Elevator in Austin, Texas.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Chris started his career as a union apprentice with Omni Elevator at age 19.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But after a few years, he left for a time to finish his degree and worked as a technician in the high-tech industry.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: After returning to the elevator industry, Chris realized he loved working on elevators and wanted to stay.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Chris is passionate about using technology and transparency to drive results and deliver customer satisfaction.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, welcome to the show.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to be on.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be able to talk to you.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I think you've got a fascinating story from from what uh you know from previous conversations we've had.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um obviously want to talk a little bit more about your career and certainly from here on out, because I you know you're you're starting a new business, you're you're looking to to make some exciting, as I see it, some pretty exciting uh contributions to the elevator industry.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I would love to start at the beginning and just tell me how did you get started in the elevator industry from the get-go.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So uh when I was 19, I was in uh college in Northern California.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's where my dad lived at the time.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I wasn't real focused on my studies.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and my dad basically he gave me an ultimatum, um, said that you know, I I I needed to find a job that he was no longer gonna support me in college.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So um my uh I talked to my stepdad back in in Texas and he said, Hey, I got a job for you.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: He uh owned and operated uh Omni Elevator.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh was a pretty large independent in the state of Texas at the time.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so I uh moved back to Texas and uh went to work for him.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh started out as a 50 percenter out in the field.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: We were a signatory company in the union, and uh, you know, spent probably about two, two and a half years in the field, worked up to being a 70 percenter.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in just a second, if you don't mind pausing.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, my question is into college, not super motivated.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, dad wasn't super impressed with your your track record.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: What was it that that got you engaged in the elevator industry enough that that you could kind of hold out of this funk of, oh hey, I'm just failing out of college or whatever it was you were doing?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, actually, great question.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So um I grew up in San Antonio and I didn't move to go live with my dad until I was in high school.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: But growing up during the summers, I would go to work with my stepdad, maybe as early as like 11 or 12 years old.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I can remember him taking me to some of his maintenance jobs, and he'd have me burnishing the contacts on an old Westinghouse controller or show me how to do maintenance on a door track or um just various things.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I always enjoyed, like when I was a kid, I'd take apart stuff.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, take apart my boom box and then put it back together, you know.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's impressive cars.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I used to take stuff apart, but I could never get them back together.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I always uh I usually had an extra screw, you know.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: If it still worked, right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the math.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, so uh I was interested in it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: I really didn't know what I wanted to do at that age.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and I think that's probably why college just wasn't really there for me, you know, at that time.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, it would it it was great getting in there, getting the field experience, uh, spent some time on modernizations, uh, repair crew.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then I transitioned to being a maintenance helper.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was primarily because I was always pretty good with the customers.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I can remember we even had some maintenance mechanics at the time that they were great maintenance mechanics, but maybe their strong suit wasn't communication.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I uh so I could go in there with those mechanics, and you know, it it uh was a good marriage, I guess, you know, a good fit between between so it sounds like you you like the hands-on, but you also like like the people aspect.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And really, you know, years later, I left the industry for a little while, and then I came back.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and when I came back, I went into sales.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so tell me, tell me a little bit about that detour.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think you said you'd gone to college, worked in high tech.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: What were some of the things you gained while you were outside?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I moved back to California, which was Silicon Valley.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I got a job with a company that was uh manufacturing disk drives uh for the computer industry.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I was a technician.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I worked on the capital equipment that built the disk drives.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I got a chance to work directly with a mechanical engineer and was essentially kind of a mechanical engineer assistant.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he taught me, you know, all sorts of things about being a mechanical engineer, from trained me how to do AutoCAD, mechanical desktop, uh, how to create bills of material.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I even did some procuring of parts and managing uh one of the subsystems for him.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of offloaded onto me, uh, the one that he didn't want to deal with.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, it was a great experience.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know it at the time, but it was it was some very transferable skills for me that I absolutely have been able to leverage in the elevator industry year, you know, years later and even to this day.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So and while you were out in California, uh, I think you said you finished your college degree, that correct?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't finish then, but uh but yeah, I uh got a pretty good uh segue into it.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it sounds like the the impression I'm getting is that you were you were a better student the second time around after having had some real life experience.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Very much so, yes.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And cool.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so how how long were you in high tech, you know, building the the disk drives and all of that?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna say I did that for about three years.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I moved back to uh San Antonio and went to work for my stepfather again.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um this time in a in a sales role.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, started out as a uh kind of sales representative for our Austin, Texas branch.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a small branch for us, it wasn't profitable, it was very it was struggling.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so it was kind of a last ditch ditch effort by him to see if maybe uh he could save that branch.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh fortunately, we were successful in doing that.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um while there, um I guess taking a step back, when I first got into the industry, I had had the pleasure of encountering somebody uh that became kind of a mentor of mine and later a co-founder, a good friend.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um in your current venture, and then he he is in my last current venture.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, gentlemen by the name of Dan Bryant, and uh when I met him, I was a uh a mod helper on at University Hospital in San Antonio, and he was doing a fire service overlay on the old Otis controller, and he was there like making his own little solid state boards, these little breadboards with wires, and and I was just like, wow, this is this guy's different, you know, and I was just very much drawn to him so much so I actually got into trouble with the mod superintendent at the time because I was helping Dan more than I was helping my own mod mechanic that I was supposed to be working with.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I got reprimanded a little bit for that.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: But Dan always kind of stuck out of my mind.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when I took over, took over the sales role uh years later in Austin, I went to my stepdad, and that was a one of the big reasons why we were successful.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is I went to my stepdad and I told him, I said, Hey, I would really like Dan Bryant to come on board with me here in Austin and and help me with this branch.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he did.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And from there, the story uh definitely grows uh into how I got into some of the other things I did uh after after my time there.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's great.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you had mentioned uh in a previous conversation that that yeah, that things really kind of accelerated after your your California experience.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: What were some of the things you took away from Silicon Valley from working with hard drives and high tech?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and you mentioned specifically this mechanical engineer that that seems like he was really a mentor for you too, and and maybe helped you get to that next level.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think overall, more than anything, it uh the passion for new technology there, uh, right, Silicon Valley, and we see it here in Austin too, as kind of a sister city to Silicon Valley.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's just incredible.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the the risks that people will take uh to just jump in and and and do whatever it takes for something that they believe is gonna change the world.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it doesn't have to change the world, but you know, I I think about it is, you know, uh, I think for me, like I very much want to change things in the elevator industry um or add value.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and technology is such a great way to be able to do that.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's always something that somebody is developing that is just mind-blowing, and you know, sometimes it it doesn't work out, it isn't a good fit, and other times it might be 10, 15 years too early.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, that happens.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so yeah, I I I think just being around that kind of environment uh is just very engaging and just exciting.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool, very cool.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what point was it that you kind of that clicked for you that hey, not only do I love elevators, but I really want to marry up some of this technology with it and and like you say, drive drive change and drive you know improvements?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um it it was that second stint at Omni Elevator.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Dan was working on uh essentially like an ERP uh mobile time ticket system for for independent elevator company.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we actually started developing it around omni elevators operations.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think at the time we were we were probably one of the first independents in the country to have uh mobile time tickets.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: We were using this was before smartphones, this was we were using Dell Axiom uh PDAs.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this was okay around 2002.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm jumping because I'm remembering the the home pilot that I used to carry around.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, very similar.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: The Dell uh PDAs, they were Windows based, and so our software was Windows based.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I got my first I I loved it.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was right up my alley to be involved in uh helping develop a platform to run the operations of an independent elevator company from callback management to work order management, time tickets.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um we even had a portal to where our customers could log in and they could view the view the data online.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I just knew it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this is the way it's all going.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is awesome, you know.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it that was the point where I really uh realized that there, you know, that this I could make this industry more exciting for myself than just what it had been for my stepdad for most of his life.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: He was blue-collar, he was a great elevator troubleshooter, you know.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't me.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't my story.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I wasn't some exceptional troubleshooter, you know, mine was more about people and and high tech.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and part of what I'm taking out of your story is about people, but also about making it making it more accessible for people or making it easier for people.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that you had a portal probably, you know, years before I heard that term portal or or even thought about it.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's very impressive.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and it could go back to the people is is you're you're serving their needs by making uh making it more transparent.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I and I've heard you say that word, you know, results, transparency.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um just hey, here's what it is, right?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Here's here I don't know what that looked like, but here's the ticket, and here's when we think we're gonna get it done, and here's yeah, you know, whatever information we have on it.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do believe that's one of the things that's really driving me these days, uh, and has been for a long time, is I think I've always had a really good sense of being able to identify with people's pain points and uh the way that the industry is now, um there's a there's a lot of pain when it comes to the building owners and the property managers and uh just let's talk about elevators break.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Where would you where are some of these pain points that you see?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, you know, I think some of it is in that lack of transparency.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um things are very profit-driven in the industry, which is which is not a bad thing.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think some of what's been lost is, you know, many, many years ago, you know, they saw their technician, you know, a property manager would see their technician every week, every month, you know, they had a relationship with them.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and those things are gone, and uh they're just not as commonplace.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a host of reasons, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the industry is just not the same.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Times are not the same, people are busier.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, now everybody lives and breathes by a text message and an email.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so that's where things like the technology, the more the portals or you know, IoT, um um, you know, various software platforms, those things really can, in my view, can help enable that piece that's missing now or kind of bring back some of that to where, you know, maybe it's not as face-to-face relationship as much as it used to be, but it could still be a really solid, trustworthy relationship that they enjoy.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can still provide something that they love.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I I that's what drives me with that, with that stuff.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad you brought that up.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you talked about pain points and and giving them you know the information.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: What comes to mind is, you know, being in recruiting and hiring, and and years ago I was I was in HR and and kind of the one of the philosophies in my brain is that you know, you hire somebody who who you can see taking away that pain, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I have this not only fear that I'm gonna hire the wrong person, but but this problem that I need this person and their skills and their, you know, they they've got to be able to solve this particular problem.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and the more they can convince me that they're the one, then the more likely are they are to to get the job and and you know, just put me at ease and and and kind of calm my fears.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think I hear you kind of saying the same thing with technology and with information and transparency that you you're gonna have everything you need and therefore the fears can subside.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it's it's no different with the it that that could absolutely relate to like a property manager or a building owner.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's very similar, you know.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, like, you know, people just want their elevators to run, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: In a perfect world, they would never break down, you know, they would always be running.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not in a perfect world for for an elevator technician that relies on going to fix them, but um, you know, they're gonna they're gonna break, they're gonna have problems, you know.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's the nature of the beast, right?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um being able to do that in the most efficient and transparent way that you know it might sound kind of silly, but makes people feel warm and fuzzy.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just knowing you're taking care of their problems, knowing that they can let go of the fear and the anxiety and and just know that hey, this is going to be taken care of.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And even if it does break up, I know I can trust so and so to show up and take care of my, you know, so that I'm not you know having to stress about it.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's very cool.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's what led you to to get into consulting and we can talk a little bit more about your uh your business, but what is it that kind of said, hey, it's it's time for me to jump out here on my own.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, I think a large part like it it's all kind of been leading up to this.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I've had the pleasure uh being in a lot of various roles over the years, you know, whether it was sales to, you know, operations, uh modernization uh superintendent, uh new installation superintendent.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, just a lot of varied roles.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think over the years, one thing uh that I continually kind of and it's I I always Seem to kind of fall into these situations of where people are just calling me, asking me for advice, you know, about their elevators.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it has been related to my job, you know, as a lead or something like that.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And those moments, uh, I always come away from them feeling great.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've really I've offered something to somebody uh in a way that they couldn't have got it from anybody else, you know.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you maybe a unique approach to it.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, the feedback that you get, those feel-good moments about really being able to help somebody with their elevator problem and um hear them out.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe sometimes there isn't always a good solution, but uh just if nothing else, them feeling like they got something off of their chest or uh, you know, even situations like that are are really good.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that be that people component is a huge part of it, and that's that's ultimately what's been kind of driving more of the thoughts around consulting and um you know how I can help people with all this elevator knowledge up there.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it sounds like you are getting a lot of satisfaction out of out of doing exactly that.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like you say, it sounds like you've been building your understanding, you know, your broad base of of knowledge and of what's going on.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you go to somebody who has an elevator and a problem and that the worries or whatever they've got around that, you can you can address it with that.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just the the same kind of empathy that you described early on, that you you kind of get people issues.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it could say for me, it's very real, very relatable.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and I think it's all I think everybody's got you know, kind of their own individual, it's kind of its own situation and everything.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can recognize that uniqueness in each person that you're talking to, in each situation that they're in, it becomes really easy to be able to pull from all the very things that you've heard over the years and and be able to add value somewhere or be able to help people in a unique way that um maybe others aren't able to.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So would you consider yourself a a uh similar to other consulting firms in in how you approach it, or or do you have some different maybe technology offerings or something that that sets you apart from some of the others?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm a that's an interesting question.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not uh I'm not entirely sure yet.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: My sense is um that my focus is a little bit different, definitely with you know, such the strong technology background.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, something that we haven't really touched on uh would be a company that I co-founded with with Dan years later, like around 2014-2015, called uh Datahoist.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we were building remote monitoring devices.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it was leveraging essentially sensor technology and cloud, edge computing, what now people refer to as IoT, and uh it's become more of a common household name.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um but with looking when I look at consulting these days, I to me it seems like some of these things could be leveraged to help with, you know, maybe as simple as doing um a higher level of elevator asset management.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um or you know, people are starting to ask about, you know, they want KPIs and you know, they want callback reporting, you know, various things to be able to help them make their business decisions that they need to make, you know, whether it's when I need to mod an elevator.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and to me, some of like the traditional consulting companies, uh you know, a lot of them seem like a lot of it is based off of, you know, writing documents, you know, a heavy dose of that.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I know that there are those out there that do some of the things I'm talking about and uh have been for a while.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think take one can take it maybe a step further with with the transparency and leveraging some of these newer technologies, you know, whether it's a software platform or a sensor device that goes on top of the elevator.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: When you start incorporating the data from all those various sources um through the use of uh you know software as well, it it really starts getting really very compelling.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's not all that interested by interesting by itself.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so some used to usage statistics on an elevator, yeah.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're you know, if you just yeah, the elevator ran uh, you know, 1500 times last month, you know.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, great.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that doesn't that's really not all that interesting by itself, but when you incorporate that with some other data, maybe some field data from what the elevator technician is seeing out there, or um, you know, what a building manager, facility manager is seeing.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um when you once you start to pull all that together, I think that's where it gets really interesting, you know, and what you can offer people.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and what I what I'm hearing you saying is with transparency, not only am I gonna let my customer know that, hey, this ran 1500 times last month, but but maybe I'm gonna let them know that uh, you know, as far as we're tear goes, you know, kind of like for lack of a better uh, you know, uh metaphor here or analogy, whatever, you know, brake pads, right?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, you've only got X number, you know, X amount left before this really needs to be replaced.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know that I don't know enough about elevators to say they have the same kind of things, but I'm I'm sure there's a way to to measure ropes or whatever shivs or brakes or you know, some of those different uh pieces that you do replace and say, Hey, you know, by the next time, you know, we really need to be doing this and then delivering that to them, they they may call you and say, Hey guys, it's time for an oil change.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, hey, we're we're ready for you to, you know, come do this repair because uh all this information you've given us is is telling us that it needs to happen.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: So please come do it.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, and it's uh that's a great point.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, while there's you know, there's other companies that have been working on this stuff that have their own IoT solutions, um, and it's all great, but I think it's it's really important to leverage that data in the right way, you know.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've heard you know some people talk about, well, I never see my elevator technician anymore since we got this IoT device on our elevator.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's not the right way, you know.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think if people can gear it more towards, you know, using it as a tool versus to maybe take a more targeted approach to their maintenance versus to saying, oh, well, we don't need to go out there now because the device hasn't told us that anything's required yet.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how would you envision that?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, talk talk me through what is what is the right way, kind of in your mind.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think the right way to do it is to try to incorporate the data from all the various sources that I talked about, and not really so much a um a shift in the in the way we know how to do elevator maintenance, because I think we all know like really what needs to happen.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, some of it is just janitorial, you know, you got to go out there and clean off a car top is when you're doing that.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you find a bolt missing or a belt's not in good condition.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: And these devices aren't gonna always pick up on some of that.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them are great and they will eventually start to pick up on that.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think it has to be an approach where you know you're you're still going out there and taking care of the customer and um doing the visits.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um the human touch, I hear is what I can.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think that's still really important.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, maybe it's not in a situation where it used to be where you spend your your technician spending 15, 20 minutes with the building manager after he did his maintenance, you know, just talking about whatever and hanging out.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because the world is just it's changed, you know, people are busier moving around more.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: But you could use technology to be able to say, hey, he got a he he just left.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just got a notification on my phone that my elevator man left left left, you know.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it includes a picture of what he did or what he found, you know.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's still a way to engage with the customers and provide them with that, with a really high level uh of maintenance and transparency and everything, um, and still be able to move fast and do what's needed in today's economy.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Good, good.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, thank you.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, as we're kind of getting towards the end of our time, but I'm just curious, what's one of the biggest lessons you've learned throughout your career?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I one of the things I learned from uh my dad uh early on was celebrating the wins.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's really important for a company when they have a win, whether that win is it doesn't matter really what department it is.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, maybe it's that they got a new contract, maybe that's they successfully turned over a new elevator after a big modernization project.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, maybe they got an award.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's important to sell celebrate those wins with with everybody, you know, from the guy in the in the warehouse to, you know, someone up at a front front desk, uh, to someone out in the field, uh, you know, management.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um to me, like the the companies that I've worked for that have done that successfully have been great to work at and they've fostered just incre just incredible achievements.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just been so successful.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I would say celebrate the wins.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's it sounds like from your perspective, that really drives a desire to make more wins, a desire to really dig in and make great stuff happen.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for sharing that.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the the last question I want to ask you as we wrap up is what's one piece of advice you would give to somebody who's maybe they're new to the industry, not even sure what they've latched into.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: What would you tell them as they kind of start this journey?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I tell people that there's a lot of different paths you can go in this industry.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if it's it's somebody that's in the field, you know, you you can be new equipment installation, you could be mods, you could be repair, you could be a maintenance tech.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: They all have kind of their own things, right?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um you could get into sales, you know, you could get into management, you could get on the tech side, software side, it's so varied.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's so many paths.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've seen people, you know, start out like myself, you know, out in the field, and you know, now they're they're doing something completely different still within the industry, but you know, being a maintenance tech wasn't wasn't their path, you know, they write software code, you know.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's uh a wealth of opportunity in the industry.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I would it tell someone to kind of find their niche, you know, what they like, and then follow, follow that path, the opportunities there.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right, great, thank you, Chris.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I appreciate that.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and yeah, I think you're a kind of a a living witness of that, that you can you can bounce around a lot of different ways, you kind of find your own path and then build from it.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you again for being with me today.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you, Matt.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the All Red Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Please subscribe, and until next time, stay safe.