Passion & Purpose - Sean Ryan - Prism Controls (PMSI) Episode 5

This podcast episode features Sean Ryan, an engineer and product development expert at Poultry Management Systems, discussing his passion for the poultry industry and his contributions to the company. Here are the key takeaways:

Sean's Background:

• Grew up on a farm and around animals, with a father who was an engineer.
• Developed an early interest in technology and electronics.
• Worked in various industries before joining Poultry Management Systems.

Sean's Role at Prism Controls

• Designs and maintains all hardware products.
• Handles networking and communication between hardware components.
• Acts as an advisor to the leadership team and helps with new product development.
• Mentors and guides younger team members.

Sean's Enjoyment of the Industry:

• Appreciates the small size and impact of the egg industry.
• Enjoys building relationships with people across the industry.
• Finds satisfaction in helping farmers solve problems and improve their operations.

Sean's Most Proud Product:

• The Command 3 and associated products, which revolutionized the industry.
• Took a significant risk in developing this product, but it paid off.
• Over 150 million birds are cared for by this system daily.

Sean's Work on Future Products:

• Egg counting system using AI to address unpredictable egg distribution.
• Thermal event detection system to prevent fires and overheating.
• Sensor technology for early detection of equipment issues.

Overall, Sean is a passionate and dedicated individual who has made significant contributions to the poultry industry. He is excited about the future of the industry and is committed to developing innovative solutions to help poultry farmers.

Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com

Transcript

The Poultry Leadership Podcast

Passion & Purpose - Sean Ryan - Episode 5

Attendees

Brandon Mulnix & Sean Ryan on same Microphone

Transcript

Sean Ryan: Welcome to the poultry leadership podcast. I'm your host Brandon mulnix. Today is a very special day for me. This is episode 5 of the poultry leadership podcast. It's been an exciting Journey so far and I have a very special guest on with me today. You may know him in the industry as Sean Ryan. He's got one of those names that you can go on almost any egg specific Farm in the country and they probably know Sean Ryan and probably you're gonna have some crazy funny story about Sean Ryan because this man has had such an impact on Through his product development at poultry Management Systems prism controls. So I have the great honor of interviewing him today, and I just look forward to sharing his story. So Welcome Sean. How are you? I'm doing good this morning. It's a little early,

Sean Ryan: Yeah, not every day that we get up at, five o'clock in the morning and start recording at seven, but I appreciate you being here Sean. Can you tell the listeners who may not know you a little bit about yourself? Yeah, I guess I'll do a mind walk here. So. I start off. I'm an engineer, right? So I Like where a lot of hats around here have been. but in primarily hardware and for more Spend a lot of time out in the barns of my Probably about eight years continuous in the barns. so How did I get here? I started out. And growing up on a farm My dad was a feeder pig who wrote her back before the beginner graders and my mom like sheep and goats and horses.

Sean Ryan: So I grew up around animals. but my father was also an Aerospace electronics engineer. So I also grew up with. Big old boxes of old parts from IBM system, three and all sorts of things that I could take apart. And so when kids are usually planning with Legos, I was playing with transistors and old metal can transistors literally like stuff you'd see in movies from the 60s.

Sean Ryan: And so as I grew up, I was just surrounded by both Agriculture and Technology my father built a fully automated mechanically and electrically automated borrowing. barn with sliding in inlets and the pits and power ventilation and static pressure control humidity control and everything else all that kind of early 70s, like in a horse here humidistat in there that it got too humidity would turn on the fans all and so as I got older, I'm just was immersed in that right? so

Sean Ryan: when I was so in my childhood, at 15 my father started a job With a company that built Apple sorting machines. And developing a Next Generation controller for them for those sorting machines and he needed somebody to kind of act as an engineering technician and software developer.

Sean Ryan: And I already at the time and I knew Assembly Language so I became his software developer and Engineering Tech. So Brad boarding and doing wire wraps on the boards and tested really qualifying these 68,000. So one of the Mac processors, based microcontroller systems, real high resolution high accuracy Analog Devices for measuring over weighing the Apple. So you get exactly what you needed in the bag and whatever think it would like a grading machine just for apples. Also did some work on the color serving. So it's been an apple around and look at what color the Apple was to tell how right it was.

Sean Ryan: and then when I got into college I did some work for a company that it's scanning of light posts of power poles the insulators. So basically a power company survey truck would drive down a power line, take pictures of every Power Line and then our software basically take those images do a quick analysis and write a line into an Excel file. on each one

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Sean Ryan: then. I was hired out of college for a company at those did business and soft work Consulting. So I went and helped a lot of small companies and large companies. So fortunate 1000 ones. figure out how to use PCS, kind of figure out the transition from mainframes and many computers to PCS when you're presenting to the board of a large furniture company when you're 19

Sean Ryan: you're wearing a suit that was given to you by your boss. So you have a suit. It's character building. Let's say I literally had a time where I was just sitting there with a whole bunch of older ladies or their Health and Human Services type Department all their nurses and type thing for all their locations and I made some they talked about going out for a drink afterwards and I had to explain to them I couldn't and so I ended up getting my license out because they wouldn't believe that I wasn't old enough because I always wore a beard and then once they actually believe that was only 20 or 19 or 20 at the time. It was quite the experience where they're sitting there. My grandkids are older than you

Sean Ryan: And then from there I transitioned to a company that Bill built environmental test equipment. it's environmental test equipment. Basically, we built the chambers to simulate environments whether it be the simulating space to simulate a Humidity environment to test LCD panels or to simulate, a driving environment for a car or for a plane and I worked at Nasa wind tunnels those type of things. I did that for six years. we ended up as one of the owners of that company. that I had to find something else when? the mother of my children develops mental health issues, and I couldn't travel anymore. So I Was looking in the paper and I found an article or an ad her books for a software engineer

Sean Ryan: so I applied And spent the day with Eric Hansen. And walked around the barn and it was like we had been old friends forever. Totally stories about the Powell good ones and some of the challenges of working with an individuals. So you cannot Eyes Wide Open and we headed off and so a month later. I got a job offer. That's how we roll really dressed, right?

Sean Ryan: so that I developed a handheld software application. for checklists was what actual project I was hiring forward to go around type of things and verified procedures which is kind of fun in because that's one of the things that we're working on now or on our roadmap right now, it's something similar to that obviously a much more mature technology environment and the handhelds being your phones. Back, then it was a window C touchscreen like a calm pilot. But then once we got done with that and I worked on a few other items because I learned I could do electronics design too. So we redesigned things like the mux board and we

Sean Ryan: We dealt with a lot of issues on older stuff. So then we moved into. the command three generation so who am I as a person? I'm a husband. I have an amazing wife that everybody says is a saint which I'm sure people would know me understand that. yes, and they have a four kids two of them are my Biologicals and two of them are my wife's Biologicals, but they're all mine.

Sean Ryan: and I have now one very gigantic granddaughter who is born 22 and a half inches long, and it's Already having to wear some three month Outfits because she's outgrowing her one month or zero to three on her in her third week. so yeah, she's a El chungo as my wife says so yeah, I have a hobby farm when our kids were growing up we raise show goats for

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Sean Ryan: for local 4-H and shows and stuff and then we kind of developed a little breed of painted goats, really pretty and so that gave our kids something to have to do every morning in the Reed thing, give responsibility. So our kids generally are not exactly the millennial personalities of many. So yeah, that's really a what is your day today? What are you working on I mean your day-to-day and to 2023?

 So Sean, what is your day-to-day rule? So yeah, so, at my primary role right the role that I'm tasked with at this point is designing and up maintaining all of our hard work products, right so Everything from anything any other little boxes are boards that don't have a screen on it, That's So I do the hardware, I do the electronics I do the firmware for that and it's and I have since I started.

Sean Ryan: and I also do the networking and all the communications that go out between those boards tie them all together and then even open into the areas of the PCS to talk to all that the protocols to and do so I also help to act as a Advisory member of our leadership team to kind of decide where we're going. Right and just into see it to address needs in our industry and needs and our organization. And I act as a peer to Mr. Eric Hansen in our NPD leadership trying to figure out. how we build everything that we need to build? So if you look on paper and you look at my job description, that's what I do.

Sean Ryan: What do I really spend most of my time today each day doing well still transitioning away from a lot of my Legacies. That is because of course those in the industry know that I wear in the worn a lot of ads. So we've brought on a lot of new people that kind of fill my roles to help scale. Right? So we've got married in the ventilation area. So I spend a lot of time when we have a new type of building or something challenging. you're walking my office and Child comes sometimes you'll get to kind of a minute but walking my office and say how we're gonna do this, and that's fun because Mary is my intern twice before she hired on here. so it's fun to watch her develop.

Sean Ryan: Kyle, he does our drawings and he's the transition from Doug Powell. So I spend quite a bit kind of mentoring and sometimes just talking and listening to Skiles as a young man and a really soft-spoken young man. And so sometimes you got to kind of Help me learn to find his voice, right that's so much fun. And then explaining the technology right and explaining that sometimes it's not all about efficiency. Right and he gets it but sometimes you have to walk him down the things so you understand where a decision might need to be made where we're efficiency is. N't the key because of course. all about getting as many things done as we can, right and sometimes you have to think about a

Sean Ryan: That the electrician might need this piece of information. Even if it's a little harder to put in and then we've got Nikki who goes now our logic right? He builds our barns for you guys. and he's been with us for several years. He's quirky little personality and we love them to death. and it's so much fun teaching him how to do these things right how to put things together and honestly teaching him how to interact with customers. it's an opportunity to really kind of help somebody grow, right?

Sean Ryan: and then working with our new salespeople and new project managers to try to help them understand more about

Sean Ryan: What their customers are actually asking for when they say words because sometimes customer that the people that are ordering the products don't really know what they need, It's somebody else. Sometimes you have to talk through that with them. and then the

00:05:00

Sean Ryan: Who are support team? Obviously, I was involved in that for quite a while. So a lot of times it's still able to walk into the office or want to support guys recall and we'll walk through what we should be doing or what we should do better next time type of things or how to resolve addition. And then helping Eric Wenzel, and his team is UA guys. Keep our old equipment running, How do we keep producing those old Universe one boards, right? I would keep producing c2s when the parts are getting out there, so I do a lot of that.

Sean Ryan: and of the loud voice in the room, yes, you are and so, kind of one of my job descriptions that may not be formal. But even somewhere some of our sister companies people there will come in and on sometimes, I'm You one of my responsibilities to say because I'm a passionate person. and so I said a high standard. and sometimes especially new people It's hard for them to know where the important parts of the points are. Right and I can either gently or less gently point that out and Help them learn, right? and so

Sean Ryan: that's all great. When I get into my back to my regular job. We're doing a lot of new interesting things. the technologies that are out there in sensing and in computation. have evolved to us for us a singularity where? for 20 years Doug Paul has talked about Wireless technology in the heart. one years

Sean Ryan: it's always I mean I have four times at least since I've been working here gone through the engineering exercises of figuring out we might power, but in the last couple years we're starting to see. real advances that might let us build a usable wireless sensor bar. And so kind of picking when we do that Ryan thinking when it just kind of start enable to fix every six months really focus on and say okay. Yep. No, we're getting really close here right to something that we don't have to have customers go out in the middle of flock and change a battery, right? Nobody wants to do that. so those type of things are so much fun. and helping our guys learn right helping one of our guys. And it's worked for me for several years. Oh.

Sean Ryan: Over the years we've dealt with one technical issue that he hasn't really been working on yet. But he taught as an opportunity, right but I'd tell him kind of Give them high level explanations of where the dragons were there. And it wasn't obvious right because he never done it. And so it's just wow, you're being a naysayer, every Downer right and then it's like no I don't think and then just this week he ran into a problem and we were talking about it. And I said remember what we've talked about, so that issue is

Sean Ryan: What we've been talking is the edge of what we've been talking about and you can see him and you just see the light bulb turn on right those kind of things. Those are so much fun. Right because it's and another new employee and started and we've been walking through those kind of So right where you're looking where you go over sit down at a screen together and you go through this code and there go. that's really no. No, so that works but there's a much better way, right and then kind of a walking through and it can just step him back and say ask these questions right Engineers don't want to ask questions. They want to do right? It's like step back. What are you trying to solve? Right and the answers these simple questions will dictate which one of four directions you go, right? And so those kind of things those are so much fun, right?

00:10:00

Sean Ryan: yeah, so that's it. I think yeah you underestimate Your Role here and what you get to do. One of the things I get to see is Right afternoons. We have a social event at the end of the day just to kind of get all of the engineers out of their cubicles And play games and just sit around have some drinks and just enjoy time together and what I've seen.

Sean Ryan: Is you as a person stainly with some of these guys and just having deep conversations getting to know them whether they're a high school kid, or freshly into college have a conversations about chat gbt having conversations when they know the answer and they're so wrong but yet you listen to them they get a piece of information out of them and then go, I can see what you're saying. But here's how it works in the industry. I've watched she Mentor some of these guys that are young they probably were Eric Hansen back when he started but there's so smart and with someone like you and all of your experience being able to guide them and direct them and be really honest with

Sean Ryan: Worlds were so soft sometimes but yet you're kind enough to give them the real truth and many times. Give me the real truth about things. I've said are done or give me insight and how to talk to certain customers because of your history with them. And that's really powerful. that's guidance that you just don't get when you're not doing community not face to face with each other over Zoom or overfall and that just doesn't happen. So that's really cool. And I appreciate that about you Or what do you enjoy most about this industry?

Sean Ryan: so I enjoy that's interesting is a neat industry because I mean realistically such a small industry without sized impact right and lots of those type of Industries, but you think about everywhere eggs are made eggs used everywhere. It's a cheap protein. So it's used for people that are trying to raise kids. Right but this also used as binders and in senior meat products right to bind either the meat Patty or Divine the breading on right people. Don't think about that. That's a chicken patty, But there's probably egg in it, right? And you takes your baked goods obviously all those type of things. You just don't think about everywhere eggs go and if eggs go away everything that goes away. It's like honey bees but then we look at how small our industry really is. Right? I mean just

Sean Ryan: I will it's 30 million dollars worth of eggs a day that's really all we produce and 30 million dollars a lot of money to me. But when you look at somebody like the Auto industry or the oil industry, it's nothing so it gives all of our roles on outside scroll, right I talk to people and it's like yeah, I'm an engineer in Small industry. But realistically I'm one of probably about five or six people at the level that I'm at in our entire country, right not because I'm that good but because there's that view of us, right And's Just It feels good to get up in the morning to that. and so when you get out into the barns

Sean Ryan: the small world really comes home because we got it's such a kind of insular industry, So you see the same people's it and in many different places, and you build these relationships and you build relationships you evolve those people move around as people develop. and you get to spend a lot of time with people that really care because Our kind of industry is not the kind of industry that that don't care. Stay right? It's an industry that really involves a lot of

Sean Ryan: go-getterness right a lot of passion and so it's those kind of.

Sean Ryan: days right

Sean Ryan: It's those times where you're working on a challenge. and you roll up your sleeves and work together, right and it's not anything to do with you and I mean others as I think I said earlier I've been here 22 years and I probably spent eight years worth of eight hour days. In the inbox or 10 hour days or whatever you want to call it. but that's a lot of time to spend next to somebody, And if you take and multiply that time out, I would say two of those years at least. We're involved working on things that had nothing to do with my equipment.

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Sean Ryan: Whether it be helping fix a breakdown, whether it be advising them on animal husbandry issues performance issues with stuff whether it be just problem solving for the farm or even type of how do I you love my labor? It's like just letting them think through for a day what it is And you hear this this is a sentence. You see all of us, what other ideas out there? how might I do better right and Fun being in that position, It's fun being able to be say, hey pick up the phone and call this guy because he just falls down right? I'll let him know who you are. Right? it's so powerful, makes you feel good at the end of the day. So which product that you've worked on are you most proud of? I mean, it's

Sean Ryan: Pretty easy from a long-term perspective, which is the command 3 and that whole generation of products, So the command three screens the atlas all of that type of thing, right? Because all of that is something that honestly Stephen Herbert made a big bet. he had these two. Bright Young nerds one of them just new to the company.

Sean Ryan: we needed a new product right our C2 was designed for its time and it was not going to last long term in all the transitions that were happening in electronics and things. and so What comes next right and we could have kind of gone down the same path as we'd gone before? But we didn't feel that that was going to be enough of a forward for jump. We could have gone to a package solution which would have kind of hand in and created issues for our customers. We thought or we could kind of step outside the box and do it ourselves. and do something completely new.

Sean Ryan: he had this really outspoken young man. Who? Claimed that he could do it. And we went out and we looked at races how much it would cost to have a real engineering firm to it, And the numbers were pretty staggering probably more than the company I've ever made. in its history and so you can do that. And this idiot kid said that hey we can do it.

Sean Ryan: Steven and Doug decided that they were interested idiot kid.

Sean Ryan: so we took everything that we had and threw it into that product. and it took a good year and a half of Blood Sweat and Tears lots and lots and I was a single dad at the time. so lots of working and then leaving at three o'clock to go pick the kids up from school and then go in and work until midnight. getting up at five keep going but we had in a vision, and we had Eric and I made a very good team. we see the world very differently, but we have a very common. backbone of understanding of

Sean Ryan: it's really a moral and perspective Compass but almost looking from tune geometric points of difficulty points. So when we come to an agreement on something which quite often was a heated argument because we both very passionate. it would usually be in good answer, and the rest of our team but It was really really. Humbling as an adult, because I was in late 20s at that point right as an adult now, right 50 years old thinking about the bet that Stephen made right? that was crazy. I was just crazy annotate off. I mean we've revolutionized in Industry. Right? I mean, most customers will tell you that it's like what team before what came after is there's nine day, right?

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Sean Ryan: Yeah, but it's like now you sit back and think about how the heck did we do that? you have every reason to be proud of that product I mean a hundred and fifty million Birds taking care of by that product every day. Other than that. I mean, it's someone that number and that's all. Over half the birds in the industry are protected by that product and just taking care of doing and it does everything. it's quiet. It's the skill ability of it and the complexity of it you're able to do so much more and our customers continue to challenge us with new things to Monitor and fix and record and control so, that's awesome. But

Sean Ryan: Look at the future. What is the product you're working on? And how is it going to change the industry? we got several products that we're working on and each one. And it focuses on a different need right? So, as a customers know, in business we're going to look at lowest hanging fruit, right? That's how you tell you're not down a problems. And so, Ed counting as we've gotten into each reproduction. That the presentation of eggs and the distribution of eggs is much less predictable. So it's a lot harder for us to

Sean Ryan: Troubleshoot just using statistics, We can't just say hey, this row is low. We've already should go look at that counter right? Because then I just be the chickens don't like to lay in that room. So

Sean Ryan: You doing our exit product has been a lot of fun a lot of work a lot of stress, but a lot of fun. it's again I Worked in AI before I started working here or before I started working on AI for here. and just side projects at home and stuff. and it's a powerful and fun thing, so applying that to something like accounting is Really been an experience, right and we're in our world. it's a challenge because all the money that's going from companies like Nvidia and Intel and Amazon and it's primarily going in the cloud centered.

Sean Ryan: Items or high dollar centralized item. So the industry 2.0 and Congress and things like that show. There's a lot of budgets are right and there's a lot of scale of a repeatability, right so you build a million things. You can spend a lot of time making it work, right or if you build it for a cloud that's going to have a hundred million customers again. It's pretty easy to do that. But chickens for some reason don't spend in their advertising dollars just aren't as valuable as people. I don't understand why should but I can say have 150 million customers, but for some reason then the, Amazon doesn't really care to put an ad out to you. So I actually have to have to make it work on.

Sean Ryan: Deal that we're doing right and so that's fun. That's a challenge right? It's a challenge finding. And when we're pretty good at seeing many of the scalability problems to go from what they're selling everywhere to what we're going to be putting in but we even miss them occasionally. I'll admit that. but we've pretty good. We got a little bit of experience here. So those are and honestly, that's the work's not I mean anybody can build a counter to count it, right? I mean that's honestly our college kid can do it. It's building one that we can forward in this industry and that will keep counting. That's the problem, and then third therm is awesome. Right? So therm is something that we had several customers ask about.

Sean Ryan: many years for four years and many years ago kind of the concept of what could we do to detect A thermal event right a fire or overheating motor or some type of issue like that. I had thermal transient in my engineering speak. and so we looked at it technology. I mean I actually went to some mfba conferences and things and the it was tangential, but it was gonna hard, right, but we kept thinking about and then also it's like the second challenge was how do we

00:25:00

Sean Ryan: what do we do? I mean when we have an issue, what do we do? because from what our videos and from what our customer experiences of those kind of events are you don't have enough time they mean even if you were to call the fire department and the second that it happened by the time the fire department got a hose on that Barn it's still gone because the fans turn it into a blowtorch. So it was actually a conversation with one of our customers. and I'll say his name because he probably deserves to have his name said in his stage of life, which is Stephen Herbert. Was sitting in Mohamed of Moose's office with Steven and we were Muhammad and I were just catching because we're old friends. And Stephen walks in to say hi, and we're talking about when we talking about thermal.

Sean Ryan: And Steven asked the question. He said, and I don't remember exactly but he asked a question that said basically what are you gonna do right what and it's like and we'd ask ourselves that question many times but sometimes the way Stephen asks things is a little different.

Sean Ryan: I said maybe we have to shut the ventilation off and he said yeah what and how are you gonna do that and that and that kill the chickens Etc. Right and it's like what customers gonna buy into that? and I said if we started a timer? What we shut the ventilation off in a really secure way and start at a timer. And it's on my mind's thinking at this point right and and then fall and screamed but we shut off of that we shut off the air to the fire.

Sean Ryan: And Steven, just kind of quiet for a few minutes. And said, I might buy that.

Sean Ryan: And that's actually the basis of our patent on this Is that conversation? All and of course we developed it from there as elderly make it work and stuff. But we can do something right? We don't know how much that will be but that will be better than nothing. That will turn it into more of a normal structure versus a blowtorch you actually standard on that by shutting the power off to the motors. Yeah, which

Sean Ryan: if there's any product that excites me the most is there absolutely love this product because when you turn the power off to the motors, you're actually removing typically the heat source of that fire. Yeah, and if we pull option away from it at the same time, you're no longer adding the ignition source, and anything that was just in a smolder state is going to lose its heat source and hopefully slow down to the point where somebody can get in there. and deal with the problem, Absolutely and it just makes I mean basic fire science, you have heat oxygen and fuel source. We can't remove the fuel source because sorry the chicken and the feed and everything else in the dust all that, but we can remove the heat in the oxygen which is incredible to

Sean Ryan: There's no other system that can take all that away and we have control over that and we have control over that whether it's our system or not. we can help with that. That's awesome my route. I'm glad that this is a project I get to be part of yeah, and the other thing is as we've looked at it the second half of this is we're really looking at sensing more that's out in the building. Right and this is hard. This is one of those chicken farm versus the rest of the world, we are working on a product. We call thermic cell, right? It's a small sensor board that will go on each motor right and That board has a whole lot of sensors on it that temperature can sense vibration can basically sense. Something's going wrong with this device right long before it goes wrong right tell you hey,

Sean Ryan: This Motors logging, it's working harder than it usually does what's going on? and sensing in general. It's gotten so much cheaper. It's also gotten less reliable, right so We have to think through.

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Sean Ryan: The scalability of I have dozens of sensors in my house. my light bulbs. I have sensors, right? We have to think through how we can scale the networking. And the data acquisition who allow us to distribute Those sensors all around the barn. And make it still affordable for our customers make an Roi that's positive. and that's a problem. That's hard right because we're honestly thinking outside of our normal scale, Because we normally scale and hundreds right and now we're talking about scaling a couple orders of magnitude higher than that. And that's a problem for my team because when you spend an extra extra few cents on a hundred items. It's no big deal. I spend an extra few cents and 10,000 items.

Sean Ryan: My customers have to pay that right so it's taking away somebody's paycheck for the week that kind of thing. And so I've got to figure out I'll get there and we have really good ideas. And we've modeled and tested a lot of these least Concepts and we're getting ready to put in the buildings. but Those will give us kind of the foresight. in addition to the response to allow us to see what's coming right predict. Yep, exactly and over time, the first ones will be direct sense. First one just be looking at a motor and saying that motor is doing something funky what's going on? But we have ideas and roadmap for things that will look at individual wires. you're Lighting in the cages. Those are something that scares me right? I'm sorry, but it is because you

Sean Ryan: hour to enough power to create light in where the chickens can mess around with it, And there's just risk there. Some customers have seen that risk, And so how do I look at those wires? Until it's tell that a chicken is messing with the wire that's causing a Arc somewhere, right? and we've got ideas for that.

Sean Ryan: you're solving problems that customers have asked to be solved. And that's what excites me about this company. we don't just sit back and say okay. We've got a great product. We're sitting on our Laurels. We're just gonna sit back and let the industry continue to go customers come to a state a county is not as accurate as you can solve it. Yep. We're gonna do that. Hey these Barn fires. What can we do ensurability? Hey, we can't forward insurance. anymore

Sean Ryan: Hey, can you solve that we're controls company? How are we going to affect your insurance rate Yeah, we actually came up with the product to help that and then now we're still looking even into the future. We're helping predict maintenance issues. So there's not the overtime on Christmas Eve with the motor breaks. There's not the omelet created when the eight conveyor breaks because the motor failed or the rock conveyor field. We have the capabilities of predicting that and keeping that 20,000 mistake from happening. with an affordable product and that's What better way to solve problems's that though. That's the thing is and that is the key. is that we have to do it affordably.

Sean Ryan: Absolutely, it's like the sensor this we're working on right now. You can buy them today. Absolutely. There's about four five of them that you can see in industrial digest, right? But I spend a thousand dollars exactly their design, because they're looking at lowest hanging fruit in their perspective, So they're looking at The world I came from right 5,000 horsepower compressor. yeah, what I can put a 3000 dollar sensor on that. That's really smart, but when I do that

Sean Ryan: You're not putting that on a feed motor. No. so we have to think through exactly how we build something that, maybe it's not as good as a three thousand dollar sensor, but it's good enough to give you Roi right? And that is really when you look at our team of Engineers and you look at how we design things. That is the most common conversation that we have. It's not how we can do something. It's how we can make it affordable. It's how we can make it Deployable because realistically I can make the therm sensors that we're talking about a whole lot easier faster. If I tell you that you have to spend four times as much on electricians.

00:35:00

Sean Ryan: So, I can't do that. I have to figure out a way that in a retrofit an existing building your maintenance guys can just throw these in right I have to figure out ways to do that and that's what we spend. Our time on right is how do we make the packaging and the deployment and the infrastructure such that? your maintenance manager can take three guys out in the barn and three days later have an instrument right and with a few thousand dollars of the wire, That's our goals. Hey, we got Sean fired up. He's pounding on the table. he's passionate about this topic and he's passionate about the industry. I've ever seen passionate about a topic like he is about this so Sean you've worked a lot around many people in this industry and a lot of them on their really hard days.

Sean Ryan: What's one of the hardest things that you've gone through? And how did you overcome that?

Sean Ryan: Yeah, so people that know me most of them know my story, but I share it for those who don't I grew up. In a relatively privileged Home Improvement is not By intellect, right? my father was an aerospace electronics engineer as a mentioned earlier. And my mother was actually the first one ordained and the Southern California Presbyterian. and so I had a lot of brains in my house.

Sean Ryan: When I was 10, I got a baby sister born without syndrome. and a heart defect and skied at after my whole family spent that nine months fighting every day for her life answering Sherry sheriella.

Sean Ryan: yeah, that's a hard thing. And that affected my family, around just a couple of years before that. My father had been. Diagnosed with diabetes but a really brittle diabetes where he would pass out when ensure they were dropped. So it made his work a lot harder.

Sean Ryan: So just a lot of things that our family at once. and one day when I was 13 My mother thought that she was pregnant again.

Sean Ryan: that then she started having her period again. And she talked to me scary.

Sean Ryan: So we got home from school and we

Sean Ryan: jumped in the car in a big relish to head to the doctor. And we got about quarter mile from my house. And she realized that she didn't have her insurance guy.

Sean Ryan: So my dad went to turn around and her door wasn't closed.

Sean Ryan: She fell out of the vehicle in front of us all. With my brother sister and I watching her fall.

Sean Ryan: And she died the next day. So as a 13 year old. my father was destroyed and my nine year old brother and five year old sister had nothing.

Sean Ryan: So at that point, that's the day of my childhood ended.

Sean Ryan: 

Sean Ryan: when we encounter people In the industry and those bad days.

Sean Ryan: Whether it be somebody got hurt. or whether it be

Sean Ryan: an accident with the farm right animals fire

Sean Ryan: I know what that is. I know.

Sean Ryan: What that means?

Sean Ryan: I die a little bit every time. I mean Brandon Knowles, he sees me on those days when we just hear about it where I started shaking right? It's that time to find me as a person. I'm an empath I feel other people's pain. It just internalizes. and so It's part of what gives me that passion is one stop Want to prevent Anything and everything? I want to stop people from working late at night when they might get hurt. I want to stop buyers that might hurt somebody or animals or destroy somebody's livelihood right? I I want to think through every risk. And try to stop.

00:40:00

Sean Ryan: people from having the trauma, I've had friends that have had large bird losses or fires right and sat on the phone with them hours afterwards right because one of my things right? I'm going to talk to in these times because again, I've been there right? and you sit there and you listen to big strong guys sitting there. Just bawling

Sean Ryan: And you're somebody that they can cry to right. And it just drives me to figure out. in my life if I could say one person that experience.

Sean Ryan: That's would be my greatest. They don't know what we're doing that I mean you're saving. you've dedicated your life to Animal Welfare, everything you do is making the chicken's lives better. You'll never know how many birds you saved from poor mortality because you addressed good ventilation. You have no idea how many chicken fires that are gonna be prevented by the products that you're working on. You don't know how many lives you've changed just by being a listen here to them. I know your relationships with some of your customers that you've been there when they transitioned their farm when they sold their Farm. And we're gonna have a future conversation about that. but you've

Sean Ryan: but Sean for his rough and tough as you talk about early in the center view where you say it is a WTF. You're honesty is so incredibly powerful and I appreciate you sharing your story. That's a hard thing to witness losing alone. thank you for sharing that because

Sean Ryan: someone out there is going through that same thing. And they just need to know that. There is a way through it. It's still affects you it's not something that completely goes away. It's not a magic pill that you take and it all goes away, but it's something that actually you can use as a drive to help others. And you definitely been helping others. so what kind of advice can you give for the Next Generation?

Sean Ryan: So, as a father of 27 minutes, right and now a new grandfather, this is a common question right or a question that goes to your mind all the time.

Sean Ryan: I find your passion. and I want to say I'm gonna step back and Sean's shoes here for a minute. Which I'm not touching from You're feeling dreamy. Pie in the Sky b*******, right? Oh.

Sean Ryan: Find your that makes sense. passion isn't I mean, For sure, there are people that love being Starving Artists, They love that concept. Right? But the reality is for every starting artist. There's ten that got to the point of starving and had to go start working at the grocery store, right? Find something that you love. That is going to be important to others. that is going to have value that will support your family. But at the same time will make your work. Rewarding right don't do something because of the paycheck don't become an engineer because engineers make a lot of money as Engineers. Don't really make a lot of money. but also

Sean Ryan: somebody who becomes an engineer just because they the paychecks will probably not make a lot of money because they're not the right mindset not solvent problems. Yeah, when you're an animal person right when you're working at The Farms in the barns, you really have to love the whole concept of sustainability and of kind of continuous Improvement, how do I make the farm better? Right. Those are the people that Excel right? Those are the people that when we meet we

00:45:00

Sean Ryan: Right, we know So yeah this person there they're They're always thinking they're the ones that every time you talk to them. They have three or four. by the way, can I ask one more thing right or they'll call you in the middle of nowhere, out of it to say I have this idea, Those are the people if you're one of those there's a good feature, but look at all because we all have interests I think the problem that many people find it nowadays. especially in the younger Generations Is that they look at? A let's call it a Disney Dream. All right, they look at something. That's just wow. That's what I want, right. but

Sean Ryan: the problem is not everybody gets to be an NFL player. Right, if you're a notes that capability. Then do it if you're Michelangelo will absolutely go into your art, if you are Bill Collins, go do your singing right? I mean those things they're great right get it you don't always know right find out right but also, Don't neglect. The back of plans right and don't Eating your eye on achievable goals. That still are rewarding.

Sean Ryan: I have a stepson. Who always wanted to be heavy equipment operate right? since he was little kids since I met this kid, he wanted to drive construction vehicles, right? He wanted to drive excavators and dump trucks. yes. And it's like, he got into high school. He got into college and he wanted to that's what he wanted to do and his mom and I said, that's great. We love for you to do that. But we're both. Numbers people right my wife's an accountant. I'm an engineer. We see that that's not a job that 30 and 40 he's going to have because of what we're the things going right? that's a job that went from a $40 an hour job down to a 15 dollar an hour job type thing right in some cases.

Sean Ryan: So you need to think of something else So we've told him and bribed him into going to get his mechanics certificate right for heavy equipment. Mechanic if you're an operator you're gonna need someone to do in the winter time. And guess what he does now. he works year-round on people's equipment right because he got sick. being out in the cold and being out in the rain and being laid off when between jobs and being off in the wintertime or working on terrible jobs in the winter time. It's still damn cold up here, then thinking maybe I have to go down south of the summer and the winner and it's like wow and just kind of seeing every year being harder and harder to make a good living at it because again,

Sean Ryan: It's something Ai and something that automation is improving and making it simpler. skills. So when you're a young person in this dream, you're never gonna develop the skills. You still have skilled people that run certain types of equipment right, but you need less and less of it so that my age to just be doing that and the young people never get a chance. So find plans find realistic paths that you love Right. It's not the money. it's easy to say. Hey, I want to pick a job. That's gonna pay a lot. But the reality is if you pick a job you don't love or you pick a job. You're not good at either the pay is not going to be worth it. Because you're not going to enjoy your life. Or you're never going to get to the pay that job would bring because you're not good at the job.

Sean Ryan: Sean.

Sean Ryan: You really brought it today. You've really shared your story. Got some great advice for the Next Generation. Wish I would have talked to you when I was 20 years old and doing a job. I enjoyed and paid the bills or she could have thought this industry, 40 years ago or not that many years ago 20 years ago five years ago. Is there anything that I didn't ask that you want to share with your industry with the industry stories or? favorite moments shoutouts I don't want to shout out because I'd be here all day. Yeah, man, is once you mentioned one name you got to mention them. All right, so I mean Steven he gets a thing as he started our company right and he hired me, right? but

00:50:00

Sean Ryan: I would say What I would ask our industry. is to Pick up the phone right I'm always there Brandon's add a neck and the rest of our team, whoever seems appropriate when you have an idea. A lot of times we aren't gonna be able to solve it right. I had a conversation with a customer recently that said, talked about all the things that we've chosen not to do right because we can only do so many things right and things that customers had begged us to do anything. We said, no, I'm not building feed mill software, There's companies that do that I'm not gonna just do it because you don't like them right and I get that there's needs but sometimes you have to pick your battles, right but

Sean Ryan: I think a lot of our good ideas that we come from customer needs.

Sean Ryan: the best implementations of those come from customers calling and talking to the right person.

Sean Ryan: talking through their problem and letting us kind of iterative process Let us come up with a couple ideas. I'll get back and say hey, What would this do and seeing what we can do because honestly, at the end of the day we are partner, Pmsi is a partner. we're not here to build.

Sean Ryan: huge Arts that make a huge amount of money, We're here to sell a system and a partnership that we all can benefit from right? So if we do something that solves one of your issues and is not a big money maker for us. We do it anyway. because that's part of being a partner, right? That's the goal. And so keep reaching out. I'll be at my desk a lot more in the coming years, but I'll be in the barns less. So I really need the people that really know what their needs are to pick up the phone and say Hey, this new kind of equipment is driving me nuts.

Sean Ryan: Or hey, it is so freaking hard to get maintenance people. how do I make it I need less Whatever. Those questions Pick up the phone to us. And let us put it in our heads because if we don't have it, we can't fix it. Yeah. It's always amazing Sean how we get to call so late in the types. problems that we have a solution for that customers think of us at the very end of the project. We're the one equipment that they're gonna be relating with and working with for 30 years their equipment providers. Yeah, they're gonna warranty their parts and repair their equipment where the ones that every day. They're gonna talk to our stuff and sometimes they call us way late, but their solutions that we can provide that can save them.

Sean Ryan: A hundreds of thousands of dollars on some things when it comes to electrical and so if they could just call us a lot sooner Sean, how can they get a hold of you? I mean, what's the best way to reach out to you? Yeah. I mean all of our customers have my cell phone. one eight four four president. Yeah, so it's finding the phone tree, but yeah, I mean it's obviously the cell phone obviously and honestly, after hours is always great because that way I actually have time to sit and have a good conversation because those are the best times. My wife loves sitting in the car while I'm on the phone with somebody. We're just shooting the crap on about some Farm stuff. She just sits there and thinks it's hilarious.

Sean Ryan: To shake your head, my wife like all the different people too. She likes the different accents from all across the US and stories and just she's a farm girl herself. She loves hearing feels like we're sitting on a pickup truck, but I'm gonna pick on you one thing you went this entire interview and we only said pmsi one time and I know that was surprising to be shot that Great job. Appreciate that.

00:55:00

Sean Ryan: I guess our listeners. Absolutely. Thank you for being here. If you could do me a favor, please share this podcast with someone else in the industry. We want them to hear Sean's story. We want the industry to be better today and better leaders because of

Sean Ryan: Of him being him sharing his journey him sharing where we're heading as a company. So, please share this podcast it subscribe to it that helps us get more natural reach out to the industry because this is something that we just want to continue with. We want to continue sharing stories from Professionals in the industry, and if there's a topic you want me to reach into please don't hesitate to reach out to me be Molex at prison controls.com reach out, and I will be more than happy to take your request and also get at the topics that you want to talk about. If you want to speak on the podcast. Please give me a call as well. You can find me at six one six two six five zero seven five two, and I'd love to share your story on the podcast. thank you for listening today and appreciate you.

Sean Ryan: You didn't come back with the menstrual story. I figured you're gonna go back with that instead of say to see it up for you, this one because it's absolutely perfect belong people will listen to this one in the industry because your story it's not US Bank. I mean, it's not Bantry. It's literally you're sharing story that I wouldn't want to shut off because when the host is talking. Yeah, I have to transition otherwise and it is perfectly fine. If you call me up and say is there a way to filter out Brandon?

Sean Ryan: It's like I probably needs to be cloud-based because that would be really big here. I appreciate that. No, I think it would really well. I mean I could tell you got passionate. I was trying to hold things away from you as you're making noise and doing all that but no this is the kind of thing that I mean we've had over 50 listeners so far. It switches amazing.