Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Elevator Expertise & AI: Preserving the Past While Building the Future | Carlos Escobar

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Elevator Expertise & AI: Preserving the Past While Building the Future | Carlos Escobar · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what we're saying is let's let's put in this little machine, right?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: For a whole host of reasons.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: We want to use this smaller machine.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you do, you bring this thing in, it's a little smaller, and you're only making contact with this spark on the cable.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: So now you've reduced the amount of traction you can impose on that cable, right?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how do we compensate for that?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let's change a groove profile.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let's come in with a real aggressive D groove that'll really bite on the cable and still deliver the same traction we need in this original voice plate.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well now you're wearing the cable much faster, you're wearing the drive chip much faster.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably your new requirements hard in that fast.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: You might even then go to a two-to-one arrangement and you're essentially doubling all those outsider might just wait.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's downstream consequences doing something fast.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: But when a lot of conversations now hover around, you know, localized.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: How come we get two years?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that's difficult when that's how we change it.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the that should be part of the conversation.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: At least the context in which people talk about local life, civilife for that matter.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's an incredibly consequential topic.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: But if that's not part of that the conversation with the building owners, but then you get that mismatching expectation.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: That expectation, which that's at the outset, I think that that would be a surprise.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Surrounded by craftsmen, raw metal, the solutions, and that mindset still drives everything he does today.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Carlos has spent his career tackling the toughest elevator modernization challenges and preserving century old machines.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: More recently, he's been thinking deeply about where AI, training, and the future of the trades are headed next.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Carlos, welcome to the show.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, Matt.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Pleasure to be here.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I'm excited.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I've enjoyed previous conversations.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm excited to dig a little deeper today and wanted to start kind of at the beginning.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I you you essentially grew up in a machine shop, right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And built your career around traction equipment.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about those kind of early days, you know, kind of being hands-on in that environment and how that shaped who you are.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I I genuinely grew up in a machine shop from you know childhood.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was surrounded by some great craftsmen, some folks that could turn a block of metal into just about anything you could imagine.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think just being surrounded by that can-do attitude and folks with that deep skill set that they could use the equipment around them and you know think through complex repairs or even just creative projects.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think that stayed with me.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think my entire career is built around not the cookie-cutter problems, but looking for what's difficult to solve and then figuring out how to stack the pieces together to get to a positive outcome.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um and then uh the obvious too, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Just being in a machine shop and being surrounded by the milling machines and the lathe and the gear hobbers.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's just fun to be exposed to all the possible ways that you can produce something.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and that and I think that's part of what's going through my mind is you see so many possibilities, right?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what, the lathe can do that?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then I have 16 other ideas now that I can create.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And who knows, maybe you were building some of your own tools at some point or just experimenting with you know who knows what.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a fun story.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a guy that, you know, if we talk about folks that shaped my career, there's a guy, Paul Moore.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: We we were building this complicated setup to be able to speed test governors, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: To figure out when they were going to trip or not.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we were repairing jaws.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, none of that's important.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it was me and a group of machinists huddled around this thing and trying to figure out well, how do we get this thing up to how do we get the RPMs up high enough to be able to test some of these trip speeds on these different and we were coming up with different belt diameters to move belts on, and Paul Borger comes in and he just says, you know, you can just hook an angle grinder to that thing, and you know, those things run up at you know 1800 just wind it up, RPMs, and just you know, it was like this simple solution to this problem that was taking four of us, you know, half days worth of work.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, being exposed to what's possible that always makes you kind of drives you to find solutions.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and inspires you that, hey, there there always is a solution, right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm sure that every problem that that came before you, it's like, okay, there is a solution.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: It might take us a week or two, but let's figure out what it is.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, awesome.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you, I mean, you told me that that you've worked on some of the oldest elevator machines that are still operating.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: What fascinates you most about legacy equipment from the 40s, 50s, 60s or you know, that they've been doing their job sometimes for a century.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, reliably doing what they were intended to do.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not a whole lot more, no less, but they do their job for many, many, many decades.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love the fact that they're they're repairable.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: They were they were built before we could really dial in all the constraints and um, you know, before CAD and everything, where you could engineer something to the the tiniest, slimmest margin of acceptable performance.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a a time when a couple guys would say, Yeah, that that meets all the requirements.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's just add another half inch of material just to be sure.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Just to make sure.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what that that half inch of material is what allows people like me to go back and you know repair and and rehabilitate some of that old equipment.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, and just the the craftsmanship, the uniqueness of it.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, modern stuff, it's got its place, and I'm not I'm not like uh anti-new equipment, but every machine looks the same.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they they there's no there's no style to them, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can identify uh you can look at a Watson or an ABC or a Hawton, and and you you you know, the brand is expressed in the product.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's kind of a an artistic beauty to them that I think is kind of lacking.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, now we're pretty purpose-built.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's a good point.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's in in a way, maybe that same kind of appreciation when you see a 57 Chevrolet drive by.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, there's something special about that.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And not everybody gets to see a 1957 elevator machine.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and it kind of, you know, there is some, it's not gatekeeping per se, right?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a a small club of people, I guess you would say.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we find each other at trade shows and everything, and it's like a game to pull up the most obscure machine ever and you know, make sure that no one else but you know the tiniest handful of people can identify it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's fun.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a fun little game to play with it, too.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's funny.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a little bit like, yeah, fine wines, right?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of got to know what you're what you're looking at.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and a lot of people don't, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a friend that he loves obscure opera music and and I don't know how to do it.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: You need the taste for it, right?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you you mentioned the newer stuff, right?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and newer is cool and and often seen as as better, but what would you say the new stuff can learn from the older machines?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you talked a little bit about the tolerances and and some of that stuff.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they've probably learned all the technical lessons, I think, that you can from the older equipment generally.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think we moved away from and the market requires something different of modern machines, right?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the efficiency and the footprint and um the ease of installation, you know, and probably reducing some of the assemblies or at least the most the more complex parts of those machines to components that are swappable, right?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: A little more modular-ish, it sounds like.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that all makes sense.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think it's it's you know, we're we're marching in the right direction.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think in doing so, you eliminate the need for folks to have just the the underlying understanding of how some of these systems interact or why.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um when when you can't repair or repo a pedestal bearing, you would never have to think about why you know the the the load on the ship side of a gearbox might be causing asymmetric wear.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to reason through all the steps that that you might otherwise have to do, like you like you once did.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's just, hey, there's a there's a bearing noise here, entire gearbox gets swapped in most cases now.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um I I think that economically, right, the the economics of buying parts and elevators and machinery and everything maybe makes sense, but I I think it's eliminated the need for a lot of the the more underlying technical expertise.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I can see that yeah, if it's just uh, you know, swap it out, well then you don't get your hands in it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a little bit like you know, more classic automobiles.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: You used to see a lot more people climbing under the hood and and working on stuff, and now it's uh you know, kind of an engineered away.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like now you can't touch that anymore.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's all housed in this little box somewhere and you know, swap it out, rewire it in, and you're done.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, obviously talking about you know highly customized mod challenges, it feels like maybe that's part of what you you know just the complex elevator modernization project probably intrigues in the same way as kind of what I was getting at is that you have a chance to almost like a a puzzle, right?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's exactly that by time at Titan, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we were we were this bespoke small shop that tried to take on kind of the the the tougher challenges.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: We were never built to compete with folks that were sourcing overseas or whatnot.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just the scale of that wasn't what we what we went for, but it was always the difficult mods where you had to preserve these, you know, really specific rope drops or a basement machine with some overhead shivs that just had to be a particular diameter or width or rope spacing or cantilevered underslung car frame or something.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just the the more the most difficult projects were the ones that you could work on for a couple days, reason through, and come up with a plan or or a way to either adapt what was there or reproduce what existed 70 years ago.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that pulls in from so many parts of the shop, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're you're talking to the engineering crew and then you know the welding team, and you know, everyone's huddled frequently to figure out how to get through one of those mods.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, I don't know if the customer knows that, you know, they might not I don't know if they know how much we enjoy working on that, and maybe that's something we should we should work towards.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, those are the those are the best projects.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: The other stuff, uh, you know.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I just want to ask, you know, how how does it feel as a team to kind of bang your heads against this project for a few days and come up with a plan?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's almost sounds military-esque to say, hey, we've got to get in, save the princess, get her out of the castle, over the wall, and and not hurt anybody.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: God, you know, this is a fun, you know, it's it's a lot less, it's anticlimactic, right?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's just like Tuesday.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, it's it's the rush of of accomplishing it, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, get it out the door on time or delivering it at 5 a.m.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: or whatever, whatever it is, right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you cross that threshold, you cross the finish line, and then then it's Wednesday and do it all over again.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's no real and there probably should be, right?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: More of a debrief on how to it's the challenge of the day, right?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do you document the workflow to ensure that you're consistently delivering the same result, right?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: But in reality, it's not that it's not that climactic, right?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Tuesday happens, then Wednesday, and you just do it all over the yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, if you're doing it every day, maybe it's like, you know, when do you take time to celebrate and and do high fives and go, dude, you really came through for me on that, you know?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a really interesting insight and something that I'll bounce around with the crew and just say, hey, you know, we should celebrate some of these wins a little more often because we just, you know, it's the the normal course of business.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and and and again, sounds like you got complex projects all the time.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when do you celebrate, right?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, I'm just gonna do it again tomorrow.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's the routine, right?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it's nice that they they come in fresh every day and there's something new to look at, and you know, another problem to to to work through.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, in the moment it's a little heated and it's a little fast, and I need this answer, and I gotta get this response out, and I gotta figure out this dimension, and I'm missing this piece of data, and but somehow it all comes together at the end.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it seems like it'd be really gratifying to to take on big challenges to win, to to move to the next one.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that and that's why I kind of got the idea of you know, when when do you celebrate, right?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I'm sure you'll come up with something if you haven't already.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll work on that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That'll that'll be Thursday.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there you go.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm just you know, for people outside the trade who honestly, a little bit like myself, I've not been on a car top, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I I I learn about these things and learn how to even pronounce them from people that I I talk to, right?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: But from somebody outside the trade, you know, to hear about ropes and shivs and grooves and traction, they may not have a concept for that, but why would you say that's well, those are all a bigger deal than most people realize.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously that's the kind of the heart and soul of what makes it go, right?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, this is it ties into the modern equipment and what we're requiring of it, what the building expectation is.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: When we when you remove these massive legacy machines that have these, you know, 36, 40-inch drive shifts.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you could imagine they were able to keep contact with a rope, a cable, you know, for this percentage of the drive shift and produce traction over that entire radius, right?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: That entire arc.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now what we're saying is let's let's put in this little machine, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: We want to save footprint, floor space, we want to make it easy to install.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to have to, you know, for for a whole host of reasons.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: We want to use this smaller machine.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you do, you bring this thing in, it's a little smaller or a little shorter, and you're only making contact with this arc on the cable.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: So now you've reduced the amount of traction you can you can impose on that cable, the amount that you can actually lift, right?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how do we compensate for that?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Then we say, well, let's change the groove geometry, let's change a groove profile.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so someone says, all right, let's come in with a real aggressive V groove that'll really bite on the cable and still deliver the same traction we need in this original hoist way in a mod.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now you're wearing the cable much faster, you're wearing the drive shift much faster.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably your new requirement is to harden that traction shift.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if it's smaller, you're bending it at a tighter angle, right?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Which which has to affect the longevity.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, you might even then go to a two-to-one arrangement, and then you're essentially doubling all those bends.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think an outsider might just say, you know, great, new machine, smaller footprint, easy to install, but there's there's downstream consequences of doing so.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean it's bad.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: But when a lot of conversations now hover around, you know, rope life, and how come I'm only getting two years or five years out of this cable when you know last time we changed them, they went for 20 years, and there's you know, there's a lot of uh hearsay, and I don't know that all of it is true, but you know, I think that's that's the that should be part of the conversation, or at least the context in which people talk about rope life and shiv life for that matter.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's real consequences to what size we we produce these drive ships at, how we how we engineer the rope groove, how we deliver traction.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's an incredibly consequential topic.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it has to all be weighed at the beginning.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I did talk to a rope expert once, and he was just telling me that, yeah, when you get to the V groove, that you've dramatically decreased the life of your rope.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you just need to know that you're gonna have to replace it in three to five years instead of twenty to thirty.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if that's not part of that, the conversation with the building owner, typically through the consultant or even directly from the contractor, but then you get that mismatch in expectations.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And someone says, Hey, you know, I just installed this brand new elevator, and how come I'm changing ropes every three years?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And whose responsibility is it?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, if if that expectation were set at the outset, maybe that wouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if they know that they're they're trading, you know, rope replacements for a a greener machine and it and it's smaller, you know, easier to install, then then okay.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no big deal.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: As long as it's documented and someone knows what they're agreeing to, then then it's fine.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, agreed.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's um let's talk a little bit about AI right now.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, that was part of our previous conversations, and obviously it's it's everywhere.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can't not talk about it, it seems like.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: But why do you think AI will become such a powerful tool for training and supporting elevator mechanics, especially as we're talking about older machines and and the just kind of that knowledge that once it retires, it's gone.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Jeez, I, you know, and I'm I'm probably one of those people that's going down this rabbit hole right now and really trying to wrap my head around what is possible.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, you know, I'm far from bleeding edge with it, but you know, it is it is remarkable to me how easily it can break down those moats, that gate-kept expertise that used to exist in people that were around, I want to call them the old timers, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, the folks that shaped me in the machine shop, my old man, of course, you know, and then Paul Moore and all these pillars that at least of the New York market, these folks have tremendous expertise.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them are gone or retired.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how do we how do we how do we not only just you know database that, document it, but then make it reasonably available, you know, at people's fingertips?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's nothing nothing can possibly compare to AI.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Its ability to process such vast amounts of data contextualized and then present it to people in any individualized format that makes the most sense for them.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that connection is incredibly powerful.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's like the the challenge, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do we turn what we remember, you know, check a gearbox to make sure it doesn't exceed 200 degrees?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, where did that come from?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Where where's the technical standard that you relate to to know that or to be able to defend that position?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like an impossible question to answer, right?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: What do I how do I think it'll change you?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just it democratizes that expertise in a way that somebody's gonna figure out how to put it in people's hands.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's almost like they have to, right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can't, you know, once again, once it retires, it it's gone.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's almost like you need to get every old retiring machinist and and have them sit with an AI agent for however many hours and try to glean everything they ever knew and and go through every install and and and then maybe there's a way to try to force feed that into the next generation and say, okay, learn all this.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, imagine that for your veteran of the industry right in your pocket on a phone, you know, right next to you when you're turning wrenches or you have a question, or I don't think that's that far away.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, they've already got the the what smart glasses or something where you can like look at something.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so if they're talking to you the old the whole time, right, and you're standing in a machine room, maybe that's the ideal AI assistant and you can start relaying or you can ask it questions or all of it.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is like trying to figure out what's on the other side of the edge of the universe, right?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I we don't know what we don't know.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it it's unbelievably powerful, you know.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if if folks start uh infusing their normal workflows with it, I think it accelerate, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's exponential even.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna quickly find out that the edges of this system are way further than somebody that thought that you know, whatever, Copilot or Chat GPT was just a uh glorified Google search.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're quickly gonna find that it's far more powerful than that.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like it's it's coming at a time when we really need it, right?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of baby boomers, a lot of knowledge going out the door.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do we how do we get the next group ready to go?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this might be a silly question, but where where are machinists trained these days?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of them are trained in the field, hands-on, right?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Any kind of like vocational training, I mean, which which is a shame, right?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: That it doesn't really exactly exist in a lot of like high school environments anymore, but vocational schools, tech schools, that kind of thing, sometimes you think it's it's either the the the guy or or woman turning the wrench, doing the work on the tools, that's incredibly difficult to replace or change.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everything in the middle between between them and strategy feels like it's at risk.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, where do those machines come from?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they are they're homegrown.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of guys at Titan, for example.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have you know folks that are 15, 20 year, tenured people on those machines.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be real challenging to replace them, or for anyone with a with a manufacturing facility, certainly domestically, to replace that skill set.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably turn to a guy like you, Matt, and say, uh, we need 20 more machinists.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's uh it's difficult.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a tall order.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and and it's almost I mean, the question that comes to mind is, you know, are they are they training somebody?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is there somebody standing right next to them?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: But then it's could be a headcount issue, and oh what this maybe this person doesn't want to learn this skill and Well, I mean, to your point, I mean, about AI and this and the glasses.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean There are folks working on AI enabled glasses that will literally depict workflows for you or go no go gauges or you know tee up the next jig or fixture that you need to to move the the particular job that you're working on to.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean there are ways of you know helping to accelerate training.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's kind of the next thing that we sorted.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: We should be exploring that now immediately.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean tell me what what do you think great training should look like, you know, now and into the next 10 years?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I definitely don't have the right answer for this, but you know, I think the reliance on that experiential training, right?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: The helper, that kind of like prescribed system where you would put in, you know, two or five years or something working under somebody.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I've heard that my entire career, and I don't it's it's gotten us to this point, and we're still asking for more.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's obviously not enough, right?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think because we're living through this period of, you know, sure social media has a has a place in this, but you know, who hasn't tried to fix something just looking for it on on YouTube?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, content is pervasive, it's everywhere.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: It is huge, yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: So why aren't we using that platform more frequently?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there's there's obviously folks that you know you and I probably we see um you know through LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever, and you see the content, I would love for that to become you know more long form.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it would be really interesting to support some folks in the industry to start developing more long form training that's that's that accessible, right?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And exciting too, right?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's some there's some folks just posting pictures of old machine rooms and they've got tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching and following.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's interest in this stuff.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pivot from that.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's turn it into an educational opportunity.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Take it up a notch, right?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who hasn't looked up a YouTube video to fix their lawnmower or replace a headlight?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's and yet to your point, right?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is a bigger, certainly a bigger process.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's bigger.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you gotta have a license to even be in there.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot more to it, but but why not use media, you use what we have at our at our disposal, is what I'm hearing.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, champion it internally.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, ourselves, whether it's Hyperion or Titan directly or whomever.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, have a have a corporate sponsor to champion the idea of developing internal content for training and push that, you know, and really, you know, put it in the hands of everyone in your organizations.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: All the way from the inside sales team all the way to the technician, right?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's brilliant.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, there's uh it does feel like the the days of one-on-one mentorship is is a little bit limited when when people you know are retiring faster than they're coming in.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it almost becomes a bigger, um, a bigger need for mentorship, and maybe they can use, like you say, videos or or long form to really reach more people.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it and and one thing that I I hear a lot that uh is spoken of really positively is the impact of mentors, right?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Having having somebody that you can go to that can inspire confidence, that can kind of give you that that feedback.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you had you had mentioned one of yours earlier.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Who are some of the other people you felt like really took an interest in you and and helped shape your career?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's so many, and most of them are retired or or kind of gone at this point.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it would be a shame if I didn't mention my old man, also named Carlos Escobar.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that guy um, you know, he wasn't the easiest teacher.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he allowed you to fail and and made you kind of live with the consequence of your failures, but but it was it was hard lessons learned.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: But God, I mean, I don't know if there's a better machinist out there, and I think that's he did what he loved, right?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be first one in, last one out, and perform the duty, right?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be on the lathe.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And nobody could could accuse him of lacking confidence in himself.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a man that when he put his mind to something, he got it done.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, he from what you're saying, it sounds like he was wired to just move fast, experiment, solve problems, be very, very hands-on.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And how would you say that mindset served him throughout his career?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I think it's instilled in me, and it's it's it's this, it's this, you know, you you want to get to the the solution quickly.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, of course you you kind of break and stumble, and you know, you make mistakes along the way, but I guess you could say that if you're if you're failing with frequency, you're also learning at an accelerated rate, too, right?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, if you're always afraid to make that choice or you're relying on committee decision making, or um a half dozen people have to support your direction, then and that slows you down.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: You only ever see the successes because it's been so curated and perfected before you you actually execute.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that I'm the it's not the proudest thing to make a ton of mistakes, but you know, you you sure learn a lot from them.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think there's value.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I and I can't remember off the top of my head the name, I think it was a business book I was reading, but it talked about investing in failure, right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And just going after it and learning as much as you can.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it talked about a gentleman who I think it was Kung Fu or something, some martial art, where he purposely went to get destroyed by the by the strongest person.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, you know, after getting you know thrown to the ground many, many times, he actually figured it out.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there is value in just again, they called it investing in failure, right?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Going after whatever is gonna kick your butt.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, maybe I should read that book.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that'll need to dig it up and email you.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't I can't remember what it's called.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I mean I have said to my kids, and you know, they always want to win, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Whether they're playing soccer or pickleball or tennis, and you know, oh, I didn't win.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you learn so much more from losing than you ever do by winning.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pick a strong opponent, go up up against them, and if you lose a few times, well, you know, eventually you're gonna you're gonna beat them.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's it's certainly uh it's definitely my my I'm programmed for it.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: My old man was.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um Yeah, that's something to think about.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pick up that book.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds good.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, you know, when you look ahead 15 to 20 years, what excites you most about the future of the industry?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I think that um it's certainly the infusion of AI into everything.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's kind of where my head is at, you know, candidly, probably only for the last two or three months.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's just when that kind of like that fever pitch of ability or or capability for it kind of reached me.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm I'm interested to see how we can diffuse or propagate that expertise or make it more accessible to everyone from top of organizations all the way on down.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's these silos of expertise, right?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and every OEM has one, and every you know, moderately sized organization has, you know, that team that just they just know, right?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know who to call, you know if you call them, they just they know the code by heart.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's gonna be really interesting to see how that evolves when these natural silos that we've been working it with or outside of sometimes, when that all breaks down, what's it gonna look like when any one of us are are experts, subject matter experts in anything we're looking at?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's gonna be remarkable.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's uh let's end with this one.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what advice would you give to somebody who's just starting out or you know, maybe brand new to the industry?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh obviously there's a lot of moving parts and pieces, but what would you say to them?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say participate, you know, get out there, be be part of the trade organizations, the regional ones, the, you know, not just the NAEC, of course, is a you know wonderful organization, but even the regional stuff, the the folks out in Chicago or Boston that I'm a part of or ECNY, New York, Florida.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, get out there, shake hands, say hello to folks.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think that from my perspective, the the kind of old timers, you know, they they want to share their expertise.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh none of them wanna want to retire and then look back at a career that they took with them.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: They want to leave legacies.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: So get yourself out there, shake some hands, say hello to people, put a smile on, and you're you're you're likely to be surprised at how welcoming the industry can be to you.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's perfect advice.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, back to to mentorship, right?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a lot of people want to mentor, and they don't have to be, you know, you don't have to be standing at the lathe in order to be taught and to learn lessons.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, getting out, shaking hands, getting to know people makes a huge difference.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Carlos, thank you so much for being with me today.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed it.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's been a pleasure, Matt.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Please like and subscribe.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, stay safe.