Mark Payne Alfred State Earth Moving Professor 2-5-22

Mark Payne a fellow Training Coordinator with me at DDS shares his unconventional path into a teaching career at Alfred State. He also shares lessons learned and offers explanations as to why the trades are not being filled and sought out as they once were.
Disclaimer- There were technical difficulties in this episode that did not allow for editing. Therefore there are some minor dips in audio quality during the interview.

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Welcome back to education matters. I'm your host, Wayne Ackles. And very excited for our guest today. Our guest is a colleague of mine from the DDS companies. And Henrietta, where we work. He's another training coordinator is my friend, Mark Payne. And he's coming to us from the public education side of things at the college level at Alford state. And he's going to share some of his experiences, both becoming the educator that he became and also how he sees and what we see actually in our work training people in a skilled trade. Mark works on the civil side at DDS with me, and as I said, he's an experienced professor from Alford state. But he also had some only I guess I'd call them quasi in my world administrator roles in terms of being a quasi director. And so I'm going to stop talking here for a little bit and give mark a chance to tell you a little bit about his background in history. And then we'll talk about his journey and some of the lessons he learned. So, Mark, good morning. Hope you are kept warm and are dug out from the last couple of days of snow. Yeah, thanks, Wayne. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, it's it's been an interesting couple of days with all the snow and the commute and everything. But yeah, no, we're all we're all good down here. Good. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background. You know, I've always enjoyed a lot of the stories you bring from your work with the state do T and also from your college days at Alfred State and want you to fill in fill in the resume for us. All right, well, so I am a high school graduate BOCES kid, you know, I was a heavy equipment kid and BOCES up here in horned owl and canisteo high school, went out into the work world BOCES and the folks that I had working with me then they were absolutely wonderful. They really helped me out set me up for success. I went out into the work world, I had a couple of jobs, I actually did a stint in a factory as a welder for a little while and realize the inside was not the place for me. And then I ended up with the state do T New York state do T I was on the operation side. So I was a truck driver. I actually painted the lines on the road with a crew for a few years did maintenance, you know, around Keuka Lake and around some of the other areas, you know, in the Southern Tier. And it came to a point with DoD where I had an opportunity I could move into a leadership position or highway maintenance. supervisor role. Or I had another path another option Alford, and actually my, my high school BOCES teacher, he called me up one day he said, Hey, do you know that Alfred state's starting a Heavy Equipment Program? I'm like, No, I was unaware of that. He's like, you know, you you came up and subbed for me a few times when you've been working third shift at DOD. So, hey, would you you know, you might want to think about that. I'm like, Okay, I'll think about it. So I put in an application, you know, and I didn't really expect a whole lot and i i heard back eventually, hey, we, you know, we found somebody. Alright, thanks for playing. It was a good time. Right. So I just kind of let it go. You know, it wasn't a big deal. So, you know, fast forward a year and all the sudden Alford states posting again, well, they hired their first year guy, and he was moving up to the senior level with that first cohort, so they needed another guy. So I put in for it again. And that's how I ended up it offered state. I went into the interview, scared to death. Having not ran a program for a whole group of students or having you know, taught at that level before and I was the the nerdy kid that went out and I bought a laptop and learn how to do PowerPoint and everything else for the interview. And so I threw everything I had at it and lo and behold, it stuck. So, from New York State D O T, I transferred over to Alford state and I was there for 14 years and the heavy equipment operations, class or area I started out as an instructor ended up an assistant professor. So I only moved up the ranks scale once but you know, I gained tenure while I was there and everything else, you know, I went through went through all the all the motions that go along with that. So, so yeah, I served my time at Alford, I had a great, great, great experience there with a lot of the students and that a ton of people did things that I never thought that I would ever get my hands into. And, you know, just had a had a really good experience there. And it got to a point where it was, it was time to experience something new. So that's how we, we ended up together, right? For sure, for sure. Want to talk just for a second about that kind of quasi director role that you had. Because, you know, as we were talking this morning, leading up to the start of today's show, you know, I think that's an important piece that, that behind the scenes in education, you were doing a lot of things that probably the average college professor wouldn't have to do to keep your program going. And it also helped out, Alfred State with, you know, keeping their costs down and, and opportunities for students. So talk a little bit about what their role was and what you were doing to help facilitate some of those things. So I'll kind of give you the lead in as to how, how I ended up doing it, or why I did it. I'm, so I'm a young kid at this point, you know, I'm in my 20s. And I come into this program, and we have record enrollment, like we had to cut off the applications because we had so many people that wanted in, right. So I'm looking at what time frame was at basically, we're looking at like, Oh, 607. Okay. I think that I think that plays into some of our light, later conversation. I just wanted to get that time frame. So oh, 607 Okay, sorry. Yeah. So I'm looking at what we have for equipment, and I'm looking at all these guys. And I'm like, Okay, well, we're trying to run a heavy equipment Operations Program, we need stuff. And it kind of it, it occurred to me very early that we needed stuff. And my Dean and I had some very direct conversations about us needing stuff. And, you know, he knew that I was pretty passionate about it, by the end of the conversation, let's, let's leave it at that. But so I decided that nobody was going to hand me a huge pile of money to go out and buy all this heavy equipment. Actually, the the folks that ran the college, very nice folks did not understand, you know, that, hey, I need$200,000 Oh, by the way, that's only gonna buy one thing. I don't know what to tell you. Our stuff, our toys are expensive, very expensive. So that led me into some, some interesting conversations, I started doing things with New York State OJS. And the Office of General Services, I know that a lot, they they do a lot of things for a lot of different areas of government. For me, it was the surplus side that I was looking at, I knew that your state D O T had a supply of equipment that they would send to auction. And I knew that as a state agency, I could get my hands on it. And that led to some really bizarre stories probably meant for another time. But I kind of took the bull by the horns weather. And that was while I was still an instructor. And it led to some. With with OTs, I learned that, you know, they do a lot of different things for a lot of different agencies. And, you know, they, for us, what I was looking at was the surplus. You know, I wanted the state surplus New York state do t have a lot of surplus equipment that was going to auction and they were selling it for pennies on the dollar. And I'm like, hey, if there's a way that we can get that and use that for a few more years, and then put it back in the auction stream. Why don't we do that? I don't have to have brand new stuff. I just have to have stuff that's usable. And you know, hey, right now, that's a great learning opportunity. Mm hmm. So so that's what we did. And actually we built the program from about, oh, I don't know three or four main pieces of equipment, up to like 35 or 40 pieces of equipment during my time there. We did a lot with with OTs, we did a lot with with New York state across the state It led to some bizarre experiences I worked. We had a situation where the prison's decided to close their dairy farms. And that was early on, in my experience with LGs. And all of a sudden I have this list of, you know, like 15 pages of equipment that all these dairy farms are getting rid of. And I'm looking at I'm like, holy cow, what can we use? What What can I leverage to help build my program here? Holy cow, no pun intended. But yeah, right. Right. So here I am, well, all of a sudden, I devote an entire summer. And actually, I wasn't really even getting paid. I was just it was during my my off time. And I'm running all over the state grabbing equipment, as much as I can grab as quick as I can grab it. I'm like, you know, we even had a situation down in Elmira, at the maximum security prison where they were they had hay bales. And our college farm needed the hay bales. They had a tractor on site. So I go down Myra, I'm loading tractor trailers with hay bales to send back up here. And I'm coordinating trucking with all these guys. And we're doing all this stuff. So I'm doing this and I'm, I'm keeping my eye on the prize. Okay, what what can I snag from these places to build my program. And that's, that's some of the bizarre things that led into me kind of becoming that program coordinator. I was the longest tenured member of that staff. I had. I had been there through, you know, the second year of the program, right up until, and so kind of by default, I became the program coordinator, the the department chair and I couple of different department chairs that I had that I worked with the department chair and I became really tight friends, and he would help me as you still hear me? Huh? Yep. Yep. Okay, hear me? Yes. No, yes. I just got a message flashed across there. Hi, apologize. That's all right. Anyways, program coordinator role was supposed to be more about writing curriculum and stuff like that. That was the traditional college role. Mm hm. And my program coordinator role was how do I get stuff for these guys to do like, line up jobs, and get materials and equipment and facilitate repairs. And that sort of thing I became very much a construction company owner is kind of what it felt like, some days? Yeah. Um, I was running a construction company with a staff of people that were all students, it would rotate through every two years, and I just get somebody, you know, that was really picking it up and knew exactly what to do. And then he would graduate. And I'd be right back to square one. Sure. Yeah. So and I understood the lifecycle I understood, that's what had to happen. And that's what I was really there for. But on the same token, you know, I, we've, I've forged a lot of relationships with students over the years that were kind of above what you would get out of a 40 minute, or a 50 minute lecture, you know, in the traditional English lecture over on the main campus, sure, all these guys that worked with me, you know, day in and day out, and they would stay after and help me they would come in early in work. There were many mornings that I would go and we would start at 6am. Because we knew we had rain come in, and we had to seal up site. Mm, us kids would volunteer to come in and work with me and do that sort of thing. That's fantastic. What you know, in that time, you know, we're talking about working with, with those kids and those young people and really, they're, they're young men and women at that point. You know, you had some of those other experiences going into their role that you were doing, what lessons from that did you take into that role to share with those folks? You know, a lot of it was stuff that I learned at home, throughout my childhood, you know, as far as stuff, Grandpa stuff, you know, my grandfather owned a farm and knew how to how to make $1 stretch and how to make do with very little from the farm. Mm hmm. And, you know, I learned that, hey, you need to be able to fix anything. Mm hmm. So we did a lot of that and I instill that in a lot of my students. Hey, we, you know, we got to keep going. So let's figure this out. And we did some other lessons, you know, lessons about Safety and things like that I learned those throughout DOD and throughout my school career and things like that. And, of course, that was translated into it, it was definitely not the traditional teaching role. And, you know, these these folks that are in vocational education, they bring all this experience of working in the real world to that, and a lot of times when they come into the system, at least, you know, in my experience, it's been, hey, these guys are really talented craftsmen. Now, let's see if we can put them in front of a group of people and have them articulate how to do it. Yeah. And that lies, that's a big challenge right there for a lot of folks. Well, that's no small feat, and having watched you teach in some of our courses, a DDS as definitely something where it's clear that you can not only do the craft, if you will do the do the tradesmen part of it, if you will, you can articulate how that should happen, and how to do it safely and doing it the right way. And all that. And, you know, like you said, That's kudos to you. Because, you know, we know a couple of people in our in our current line of work that are fantastic at the task, they can, you know, hop on the excavator and do those types of things, or put on the service T or whatever it is that we're working on, from a gas perspective. They get a little, you know, a little bit different when they're in front of a group. And, you know, kudos to you for being able to do both of them as well as you do. And that's part of the reason I wanted to have you on the show, because I knew that you could you had that experience and could talk to there. So one of the things you talked about was that lifecycle where we have you had your students leaving after two years. And I think we see this a little bit in our positions, not only just people being transient and leaving, but getting competent people in to the trades to say, what do you see as the lack of the interest in the trades by young people? And how do we expose that to people as a viable? A viable career, because, you know, there, you can make a good living at this. And I think it's something and I said this on the opening podcast, I don't think we do this well enough with schools, exposing people and letting them know that this is a viable option for a career. You know, you're absolutely right. And to kind of speak to that a little bit. I was not a great kid in school. And I certainly, you know, at the time, when I came out of high school, college really was not I had no interest in college, I had no interest in debt load, I had no interest in sitting in a classroom. And I really, as far as options in my field at the time, there was one, Penn Tech had a class at the time, it was a heavy equipment class. And it was it was still different than what we had at Alford even. And that class had, you know, some limited operating time and a lot of classroom time. And it was difficult. So to kind of get back to where what you had asked and what you were talking about there. Unfortunately, a lot of students just don't see what's out there. And they don't think of it as a viable career. You know, I don't want to go down this path where I sound like the grumpy old guy that's yelling at the kids to get off my yard here. But I also want to say, look, a lot of these guys, a lot of these kids have phones in their hand from very young when they drive down the road. They don't even see the excavator sitting in the construction site, let alone the guys. So they don't, there's no tie in there. And look, I was some weird kid that ended up you know, my parents had access to equipment and my, you know, on both sides of the family between you know, both grandparents, there were farms and there was there was opportunity. You know, I was very young when I was exposed to when I learned how to back up a backup a vehicle and most people would really cringe. My dad had a body shop and he had a record and you know, he bought this record brand new is his baby. Record. It was a it was a big deal. Well, here's Mark 1213 years old. Dad would come back from the wreck. car on the back. And hey, Mark, go park that car, well, the cars already wrecked. It's not like I'm gonna hurt it. So I go out in the parking lot back the truck in and unplug it and do all that stuff at 13. You know, it was just it was exposure, and that I'm afraid that's where we're lacking right now. And, you know, well, let me let me then go over that a little bit is that, you know, we were talking a little bit about this yesterday that, you know, we both grew up in farm country, we both had experience, you know, you had a lot more exposure to heavy equipment than I did, by far. But, you know, we talked a lot about how so much of the landscape has changed where, you know, it's really a suburban landscape, even if you are a ways out into what we used to be considered the country. So that exposure just isn't going to happen naturally. Like it used to, you know, kids don't naturally work on farms, as they did at one time. So how do you how do you see the the, you know, we, you talked about your experience with BOCES, how to local school districts then play a role in health promoting the trades. So, a couple of things, and I know it's gonna sound really, you know, again, I get on my micro soapbox here, every once in a while, look, the trades know they're hurting, they know that they don't have the group of people that are just beating down the door to come in anymore. They've seen the swing. School districts play a huge role and where these where these kids go, what they're gonna do, and where they what they think is possible, and exposure. You know, that's the big thing. Through a lot of different events and a lot of different foundations. There's things like the Rochester careers and construction event. And they hold those careers and construction events throughout the state. Throughout my time at Alford, I met a lot of high school kids, you know, ninth 10th 11th 12th grade, that were, they were being exposed to this equipment for the first time. Some of them took it kind of seriously and had really good questions, and they were really interested. Some of them had a vacation day from class. I mean, you know, you're not gonna, you got to cast the net wide and see what you can get Sure, see who you can get interested. But you know, those types of events. They're not a waste of time, it's not just a day off for everybody. And if there's a way that you can tie it into a class and say, Hey, ask some questions, you know, go with the list of questions to talk to these operators. I'm the one event over towards buffalo at the operating engineers center that they host. There is hundreds of years of experience in the trades just wandering around that place looking for somebody to talk to while those kids around site. Why not? Have the kid come in armed with some questions, put some thought into it, it's not just a one day, you know, vacation and time out from class. That kind of exposure is nice. And there's other events that I know have been going prior to the pandemic, I'm not sure what they look like now. There was one in Rochester lift in place, or I know I'm butchering the name, and I apologize. But you know, there's other events out there, get in touch with local contractors and see what they have the Associated Builders and are ABC air of New York, Western New York. They have stuff builders, exchanges, they have information. I know that budgets are tight and everything, but having a champion for that. And I'm gonna say it, and I'm probably not going to be real popular after I do but bring back shop class. Have the kids take, you know, 35 minutes to work with their hands and do something. And that's something that were but having it so that they can they can experience some of those things is absolutely huge. Yeah. And I think, you know, you mentioned budgets, and they've, that they've been the victim of that. And I just real quick, I want to circle back to something that you said about different events. You're going to be participating in an event coming up here in the spring. I believe it's, well, I'm going to butcher to fight try to say it. So I'm going to have you say what you're going to be working as a judge ad and all of that. So I'll give you some background on it was it's something that's through BOCES it's SkillsUSA. It's a It's a really big part of the trades, it's advocacy, it's exposure. And it's a little competition friendly competition among those schools and everything else. And trust me, schools get into that I can tell you still, you know, how I did the day that I competed in state SkillsUSA. And I can tell you, I know where the trophy sets in the classroom in Horned Owl at the Bosi center. Yeah, um, and so the real point of pride and it sticks with your students. It's, it's some extra work on the educator side, but totally worth it totally absent. I remember some students that I had that did very well in the SkillsUSA. And it's a pretty broad. It's a broad set of different competitions that they have not only in the building trades, one, the one that I remember is one of my students had done very well in the culinary side of things. So there's a there's a broad swath, this this swath of what, you know, the SkillsUSA stuff hat does when they're when they're competing. And so I think that's quite an honor to have you be being there to help oversee that, and Jojos competition. So again, yeah, just you to speak to that point a little bit more, just to kind of get back to the core of it. The the SkillsUSA. The interest that I have in is the heavy equipment operations, statewide competition for the high school level. And, you know, one of my one of my close friends who's an educator here in horn, Allen's two men County, he ran that show for quite a while, and I helped him through my role at the college. And he's asked to have a little relief from that and wanted to know, if I wanted to take a stab at it. So we're gonna try it out this year and, and run that competition. It's in Syracuse to the fairgrounds this spring. And it's a it's a really big deal. And, you know, if, if a high school administrator is interested, and what goes on, and, you know, in how this how big of a deal this is, find out some more information about the high school skills, statewide competition, and go, just go. Number one, if you have a student in that, and he sees your face, or that he or she sees your face, it's gonna be huge for that student, they're gonna know, there's somebody in there. But you know, just for your own information, and I never would have noticed it, I took my son, before he was in, you know, in position where he could, he could participate. I took my son and we actually walked around the fairgrounds one year and looked at some of the other competitions, as he was kind of deciding his path through BOCES. Mm hmm. I was floored at the scale. You know, at the fairgrounds, a lot of buildings in the fairgrounds are occupied by these competitions. And it's just absolutely huge. And they go on to Nationals, and I can't remember where they're going to be this year. I want to say it's Atlanta, Georgia. But that national level of competition, we've had some folks from Alford go there in the building trades and culinary in some other areas. And that's a huge deal too. And companies are putting up, you know, a lot of prize money and prizes and general tools, things like that. So that's, that's huge. And one thing I would add to it, as well, as those of you that are my administrative friends that are out there, you know, you probably have a pretty tight working relationship with your, with the BOCES administration, they can give you the times and dates of when those things are going to happen. I know it's it's hard to carve out that time. And I'll be the first to say I never made it to the SkillsUSA competition, because I know, you know you're putting out the fires, but it is a great opportunity to see them do their thing, when when you can get to something like that. So we were talking a little bit, you know, you mentioned taking your son to that SkillsUSA competition. And one of the things that I think, is one of the hurdles to getting people involved in the trades, is I think convincing parents that again, that it's a viable option. I often would see parents that would talk with parents that had a very narrow view as to what their child was going to do, whether it was college or whatever the path that they could kind of see for them. And they closed off some of the options and in their conversations both with their counselor and their child and everybody else. So what would you say to parents to kind of eat their doubts and fears about their child getting into the trades as a career. Let's see. If you're worried about your child's safety, that, you know, find a reputable contractor, or reputable company. And that shouldn't be really a concern, as far as earning potential and things like that the sky is the limit. If you're, if your young person has that drive, they're going to be successful, that's just the way it is. There's no the big thing, I guess, is to look at this is not it's not second, the second prize, it's not a consolation prize, it's, you know, if if your young person is really interested in this stuff, foster that interest, take them out there showing them. Now, on the flip side of that, I'm gonna also say, if they're really interested in college, take them out there and show them, let them spend a day at the school, let them take advantage of all those all those programs that they offer to make sure it's a good fit. The program at Alford that I was involved with, we would have some folks that had never set foot on campus show up the first day and unload their toolbox and say, Oh, I'm here for class. And, you know, I always kind of likened it to, hey, you know, you just bought a really nice vehicle, and you didn't even go look at it. You're spending some serious money here, and you didn't really do your homework. You know, educator and educator, if you can encourage parents to, to really do their homework, and, you know, encourage the kids involvement, the kid has to have some buy in here, or we're just not gonna be real successful. But as far as the trains go, there's so much work so much work, any location, any, you know, any type of vocation, things that you never even thought were really possible. And honestly, I still get phone calls from a lot of my contacts in the field, that hey, you know, do you have a guy? Do you know anybody? I had a phone call just to kind of give you an idea. I had a phone call from one of my former students. And he graduated the program went to Texas to work for a company. He's actually switched companies. Now. He's working for another company in Midland, Midland, Texas. He has a buddy, who is a site superintendent for another company that's doing work in Idaho. He calls me he's like, Hey, do you know anybody that would be interested in going to Idaho? We need some guys to do heavy highway work in Idaho. I'm like, I don't know I said, here's some phone numbers, here's some some leads I don't want to do for you. So that just is one example, I had another student that went to she went to a open pit coal mine in Wyoming. If you were on a D 11. Just take a take a second and Google Caterpillar D 11. And just to get a feeling of the size of machine that I'm talking about, I mean, it's really an impressive piece of iron, you know, three quarters of a million dollars, he's, you know, you you said something I wanted to just come back to for just a second. And that was having the kid the child's input, the kids input the student's input. And I think that's something that often gets lost in these conversations. And I always said that, if I was the king of the world, eighth grade, we would listen to those first instincts by those students, because many times they have an idea of what direction they want to go. But there's so many other people telling them something else and we kind of we drown that drown that voice out when we really should be listening to it because they they oftentimes know what direction they want to end up and, and that doesn't mean that they have to stay on that path forever, but that they can we can let them pick that path. And then if they stumble, well, then we find another path for him, but at least they're getting, you know some skin in the game in terms of how they're making their choices and going forward. Well and to go off of that Wayne, you know, in eighth grade when they say hey, you know, I think I want to I want to run a bulldozer when I grow up. Hmm Okay, um, do some research. You know, let's let's try to facilitate Hey, do you want to meet somebody that It doesn't, I'm sure, you know, in the world of zoom and Facebook and FaceTime, and you know, all these other tools, how come we're not leveraging them a little bit more, you know, in some of those areas, it sounds funny. But we have so much access to information. Now let's, let's marry the two, hey, the kid is interested in this, we have this information, let's see if we can find somebody for them to talk to and see what what the options are, what does that outlook look like? Is that still something you're interested in? And then start down the path? Sure, the other part of this is, you know, when they come into the trades early, and they, they have some advantages. Mm hmm. You know, when it comes to the technology, and stuff like that, a lot of these folks are going to look to them to run that technology. And, you know, from my perspective, the machinery is not getting any less technical. Yeah. You know, at any point, I can pull up and I can see where a machine is, I can see the machine health, I can see what it's doing. You know, telematics are pretty cool. GPS technology is really cool. There's VR that they're getting into now, with some of this stuff. I mean, the the tech side of it, for somebody that can run a an Xbox. The tech side of it is nothing to them. For me. It's it's almost intimidating. And they say almost I can get through it. It just takes me a second. Sure. It'd be one of those situations where like my, my youngest would grab the controller on my hand, Dad, just give that to me. Let me do. So let's, we're starting to run up on it on time here a little bit. So I'm going to bring us to the kind of a final two last kind of questions here around one one, teaching wise, and then one on one of your outside endeavors here. So what are some of the more important lessons, a couple of important lessons you've learned working with young people in the trades? And also, what's the most important teaching lesson you would share with our fellow educators out there that listen to the show, regardless of where or what they teach? Well, one of the big things and it kind of goes hand in hand with both sides of your question here, Be Real, Be Real with your students, you know, I would have to teach things that I didn't really enjoy. And I would be honest with him, I'm like, Look, folks, this is not the the glitz and glam that you see on line, this is really what we have to do, in order to make this part of the career or part of the field work. And my favorite something that an educator, one of my mentors had shared with me was teach what you know, be passionate about it. You know, if you find a subject that you know, and you're really passionate about it, you know, your class is going to pick up on that and they're, they're going to be they're going to be into it. Um, don't be scared the first year, especially new educators coming into it, we can all remember what our first year was, I know mine was terror. I was mainly one lecture ahead of my students most most times. In sometimes I was even working at lunch break trying to finish up my lecture so that I was ready for the after afternoon class. You know, that first year was rough. And I honestly and it showed up this week though, it was just being being real about what you're doing and who you are and what you're teaching. They will pick up on on those those soft skills more than anything else, you know, if you really care, they know really care. Yeah, builds that builds those relationships with those students where, you know, later on down the road, if you have to have a hard conversation, you can you know, you know, and that it puts put some chips in the bank, if you will, so that when you need to have those tough conversations, you can you can sit down and you can have a real real discussion with them. Um, so that's kind of it's nothing like you know, build great lesson plans or something like that. It's it's really a lot of it. For me. It was the soft skill side. I had to have a good relationship with my students and sometimes it was challenging, but still, I wanted to I wanted to invest in them. They knew I was there for them. And you know, whether we both liked the subject or not, we still had to get through it. And we put our head down and go to work and get it done. And I think you said a lot there in terms of that. And that's, you know, those that have, listen, know that I'm a big proponent of culture, in the teaching environment, and building now, not that the content isn't important, but how you get to the content and how you interact with those students. And I love that phrase being real. And I've seen, I've seen folks that have taken that a little too far. But just generally speaking, generally speaking, marks, marks point there is as well taken because, you know, young people can smell a phony, and we see this in the line of work that we're doing now, that, you know, if if you come across as phony and not real, they're gonna, they're, they're going to eat you up and let you know, and I think that's really important when you're when you're working with them. So to wrap us up, can I can I back up for just a second there, you know, we're both sitting here chuckling about what you just said, this week, was proof in the pudding for me, even is, I had a group of seasoned construction professionals in front of me this week, and in the room that I was in as an educator and a younger guy. I, hey, I knew that I was not the the most experienced person in the room. And I, you know, defaulted to them for a lot of the content and a lot of the information, and they appreciated it, you know, and I was real with them right off the bat. Look, guys, you guys sitting here have more experience than I will ever have. So, let's, let's talk about these things. Let's get this out in the open. And I'll tell you, from my perspective, what it looks like, you know, as far as you know, regulatory and everything else. And share some of your perspective too. And you know, that that really went a long way with those guys. And I was I was very apprehensive about how how it was going to translate with the season construction guys. From my, from my teaching experience in the past, being that Professor student relationship or assistant professor student relationship, it's a lot different now, in our new line of work. And the last thing you want to do is be the guy that says my book said, so, you know, yeah. So, again, just being real, I guess, was the thing I wanted to come back to. And it doesn't just apply to, you know, high school students or college students, it applies to everybody. Yeah, that's a, that's a great point. And for those of us that do work with adult learners, and I know that some of the folks that listen to this out there do work with them, you know, whether it's an extension of the BOCES programs they work at, or maybe they have school opportunities for that. That's a great lesson. So to wrap us up today, one of the things that I love talking with you about and I wanted to give you a chance to make a shameless plug for your, for your outside of work, I guess. I don't know your the your passion outside of work, what drives you. And that is barbecue, you have a company, I guess, for lack of a better term or a startup or however you want to phrase it in the barbecue world wants to tell us a little bit about that, to close us out today. So you're really twisting my arm here to have to talk about this. But you know, I really I don't really have a good term for it either. I like to make food and I like to make a lot of food and my wife supports that for some reason. I don't know why. She she's a real trooper when it comes to some of my crazy ideas and some of the things that we get roped into i i have a little barbecue team I guess we have a barbecue team and you know her and I go out with our friends and we do competition barbecue during the summer. You know, and I know Wayne's gonna ask for are you going to be this summer? We're going to be we plan on doing smoke in the valley here in canisteo. Huge barbecue competition brings in a lot of teams, a lot of competition, some pretty good money to be made. If you can, if you can pull off the cook. Of course, it's a lot like other hobbies and passions where the prize money does not equal the investment by any means. But yeah, so we'll be here we'll be at the end of Keuka Lake, the end of August for Hammondsport Smokehouse The water that's sponsored by the Hammondsport fire departments really great cause we come in, we cook all night for the competition, and then Hammondsport Fire Department sells tasting tickets. And that supports a lot of their activities throughout the year. So the one here in Kansas do is actually sponsored by the Kansas to police club. So it's another benefit fundraiser type deal for those folks as well. And, you know, it's great way it's a great way to get get out, have some fun, support the community. I'm a bit of a barbecue nerd, I've got the Well, I was picking on my son, he bought me some barbecue books for Christmas. And our running joke is now it's the I wish dad could Cook Library. You know, but it just it's given me more ideas and more fuel for the fire for lack of a better term. So yeah, I'm uh, I know it's gonna sound weird. I'm competition barbecue, but I still like my pellet grills. And I've gotten some pretty good results with them. I'm a huge rec tech fan, put my shameless plug in for those guys, out of Augusta, Georgia. But they are. They're the number one machine that I use. As far as I can vouch for, by the way, so those of you that may be thinking of checking this out, I can vouch for how good it is. I've had a couple of different versions of brisket that Mark makes and it is fantastic. So definitely check him out. We we've had some pretty good success with our brisket, we, we've had some fun in our backyard competitions. We haven't quite got the grand champion yet, we're still dialing in a couple other things. But we're getting there. We're getting there. And you know, the practice is a lot of fun. Because I you know, I'm taking food everywhere. And it's just my wife and I are at home now. So what am I going to do with all this? So I started feeding the folks that work and I you know, my family and everything else. And my father is a man of few words when it comes to when it comes to cooking and stuff like that. So if I can get a response out of them, especially a semi positive response from a dish, I know I'm kind of going in the right direction. So yeah, that's, that's where we're at with what we've been doing. We kind of like doing the competition side of it. We have a page on Facebook it's Payne's back, back, go ahead and check us out. It's just earlier our you know, our little competition barbecue group page. Every once in a while for practice, we'll we'll cook a pan of pulled pork for somebody for you know, sandwiches or something like that, or we'll do a brisket up and send it out for for consumption hit events and things like that. So we've, we've gotten ourselves into some crazy stuff in the past, you know, we've catered we catered a wedding for my cousin, she decided she wanted cheeseburger sliders. That was an interesting day, I had never made so many little little tiny hamburgers in my life. And there was probably a good three months that I didn't want anything to even do with a hamburger after that. But um, so yeah, the the cooking side of it is is a nice fun thing to do on the side. I, during my time at Alford, that was kind of one of the things I enjoyed about having the summer off. I could go out and be a knife for hire for different restaurants. And I could do my own little cooking stuff on the side. And you know, hey, oh, hey, you want to come and put trailers together at my parents business? Or do you want to dig a hole over here for this or whatever. So my summers were filled with a lot of different adventures. Great. Well, I am going to wrap us up now. Mark, I can't wait to have you back on. And I'm glad you you know we we both are talking about how groggy we were this morning rolling out of the rack to do this. And I dragged him out early this morning to get to do this interview. So thank you, I appreciate it. And have a great weekend. Yours for you. And for those that are listening. Stay safe, stay warm. And we will see you again on education matters. There's a good chance next week show might just be a nother life hack again. I've got some commitments out of town with work again, that may preclude me from getting this. Getting another full blown episode out after this one. But we'll see where it takes us and there'll be there'll be something it just may not be a full episode. Take care and thanks again, Mark. Thanks, Wayne.