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Mike Savage on Building Safety, ICC Leadership, and Willdan’s Impact - Takis Talk Episode 11
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Takis Talk episode 11 dives into the life, leadership, and legacy of Mike Savage, a nationally respected building official, ICC executive board member, master electrician, and former military servicemember whose career has helped shape the modern building safety profession. In this in-depth conversation, Mike shares how a family construction legacy, frontline inspection work, and decades of code development experience have all fueled his mission to protect lives through safer buildings and better-trained professionals.
Takis Talk Episode 11: Mike Savage on Building Safety, Leadership, and Legacy
“Takis Talk episode 11” centers on Mike’s unique path from a contractor’s kid in Maryland to a nationally influential building official and code leader working with jurisdictions across the country. Today, Mike serves as the building official for the Town of Oakland, Florida through industry leader Willdan, where his team manages permitting, plan review, inspections, and building official services as a fully integrated solution for the jurisdiction. He also sits on the International Code Council (ICC) Board of Directors as Secretary/Treasurer, giving him a direct hand in the codes and standards that shape building safety worldwide.
Mike’s roots in construction run deep. His grandfather, Edward F. Savage, ran a general contracting company and raised 16 children, with the sons dropped off at job sites and the daughters helping run the farm and store. That environment instilled a strong work ethic and practical understanding of how buildings go together, which later powered Mike’s journey into obtaining and maintaining his master electrician’s license in Maryland. His commitment to the trades is also personal: Mike’s father died in a construction accident in 1968, a loss that sharpened his awareness of just how high the stakes are when it comes to codes, inspections, and life safety.
From Overwhelmed Inspector to National Leader
One of the most compelling parts of Takis Talk episode 11 is Mike’s candid reflection on his early years as an inspector. He admits he was miserable during his first six months, transitioning from hands-on construction to racing through 30–45 inspections a day, constantly afraid of missing something that could affect budgets, schedules, or lives. With minimal mentoring and a retiring predecessor in “short-timer” mode, he turned to self-study—digging into code books at night and even ordering VHS training tapes—to build the knowledge and confidence he needed.
That hunger for education led him to the Maryland Building Officials Association in the mid‑1990s, where networking and shared learning reinforced his commitment to staying in the profession long-term. Over the years, he carried that same drive into roles in Maryland, New Mexico, and Florida, working in jurisdictions that required everything from partial licensing to full licensing across all four trades, including building code administrator credentials. In Florida today, Mike holds an impressive 11 separate licenses—more than he has ever held in any other state—demonstrating the depth and breadth of his technical and administrative qualifications.
ICC, NFPA, UL, and IAEI: Shaping the Codes That Shape Our World
Takis Talk episode 11 also highlights Mike’s extensive service in the national and international codes and standards arena. Through his governmental membership with ICC, he serves on the ICC Board of Directors and currently holds the officer role of Secretary/Treasurer, helping guide strategy, policy, and member-focused initiatives for the code community. His commitment extends well beyond ICC: he has served on NFPA code-making panels for the National Electrical Code (including as chair of Code-Making Panel 15), as a member of NFPA 80 (Fire Doors and Windows), and on multiple UL Standards Technical Panels such as UL 10C for fire doors.
Mike traces much of this journey back to joining the Inte
Welcome And Mike Savage Background
SPEAKER_01Welcome to Takis Talk. I'm your host, Greg Kukakis. Today we're gonna go behind the scenes with Mike Savage, a master electrician, turned building official, ICC board leader, and yes, a second-degree black belt in Taekwondo who still can't hit par on the golf course. Well, even Superman had his grip tonight. Mike was the building official for a 94-person department in Marion County, Florida. He modestly spit out stats, like we performed over 300,000 inspections annually, and processed 600 permits a week. He serves on the ICC Board of Directors, chaired NEC codemaking panels, sat on NFPA and UL standards committees, and still somehow finds time to be dad to four boys, one girl, a regular at the gym, and the guy buying lunch when he loses a golf. Not to mention earning an AA, BA, and MBA. I think that covers the entire alphabet, Mike. In this conversation, we get into what it takes to run a modern building department delivering impossible volumes, why licensing and experience matter for inspectors, how private providers and remote inspections are changing the game, and what building officials need to do if they actually want a seat at the executive table. We also dig into Mike's family construction roots, the loss of his father on a job site accident, and why he sees his work as a continuation of his military service, protecting lives through the built environment. Additionally, we'll look at the sheer diversity of his experience. He hasn't spent his career in one comfortable corner of the country. He's worked across Maryland, New Mexico, and Florida. Three states with dramatically different climates, construction cultures, licensing requirements, and code environments. In the first six months of his inspecting career, Mike was so overwhelmed he considered quitting. Huh. How things would have been different. Mike Savage on Tacus Talk. Let's get into it.
What Willdan Does For Cities
SPEAKER_01Mike, I wanted to get started with Will Dan. I've been looking, I've been doing a lot of research into the company. I didn't know that you were publicly traded, and your stock seems to be doing extremely well. You want me, you can you run me through what you folks do? What do you offer?
SPEAKER_00So Will Dan offers a tremendous amount of services. I in particular am in the building and safety and fire side building and faith safety and code enforcement and some of the fire side of it. We we have a gentleman who runs the fire side in Florida. I'm specifically attached to the building and safety side. So I go out and and work for jurisdictions, step in as the building official, step in as a plans examiner, building inspector, things of that nature. The Will Dan itself is in several different arenas, such as energy and sustainability. They also do engineering, program administration, they even have a financial side. So there's there's quite a few areas where Will Dan is in that they offer services to clients.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So I did see something on your website about the energy, and I wanted to circle back to that. And I think we just mentioned earlier your little marketing guy, the little squishy guys. We have we have probably a decade's worth of those. And I think it's just brilliant. We we just love them. They're just a conversation piece because the personality of that little individual has changed so drastically over the years.
Clearing Plan Review Backlogs Fast
SPEAKER_01Where do you see Wilden af where do you where do you have the most value for a jurisdiction? So where we're at, we do some things, it's piecemealed, right? We have our own plans examiners, we have our inspectors, and then we have a few areas where we outsource some of our plans examining, and some we'll have an occasional building inspector. Do you do that sort of thing, or do you come in wholesale and just manage an entire building department?
SPEAKER_00Oh no, we we will do we do we will do staff augmentation. So if you're before I worked for Will Dan, I was a building official for a local jurisdiction here in Florida, and I was actually having a hard time meeting my state required deadline for plan reviews. I had my own staff of plan reviewers, but like all staff problems that most jurisdictions uh go through, I had people who were out sick, who were on extended FMLA, and it was making it very hard to hit the timeline that was mandated by the state of Florida. So I reached out to two different groups, Will Dan being one, and said, Hey, I I really need help. What can you do to help me? Will Dan stepped in to help. And when in a very short time frame, I went from, I want to say we were 1700, 2,000 plans in a plan review queue, down to just a couple hundred. So they they will step in and do Will Dan steps in and does staff augmentation. If you have a jurisdiction that doesn't have a building official, here in Florida, we're required to have a building official lead each jurisdiction. It could be contracted, such as through Will Dan, or it can be a jurisdictional building official. So right now I am the contracted building official for jurisdiction right here in Florida, working for Will Dan, but uh contracted by the jurisdiction to provide those services. So we'll we'll do everything from a full-blown department run the department, take care of everything, everything from permitting to plan review to building official duties all the way across the board to hey, I just need somebody to step in as a building official while I'm training my new building official, and we will even help train that building official. We've done that actually very successfully.
SPEAKER_01In doing our research, and AI is great, but sometimes AI just goes off the rails.
The Reality Of Huge Workloads
SPEAKER_01So you mentioned uh I looked at some statistics, and it was talking about Marion County. I believe that's where you were a building official. That's correct. Okay, so the numbers that I saw there, and I I have to question them. Uh permits, five to six hundred permits per week. Really?
SPEAKER_00Or is that Yeah, we would we would average when I left, we were averaging I'll I'll go back to October, November of 2025. We were averaging between two to two hundred and fifty permits a day. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01I just can't fathom it. So we're in Livermore and we feel that we have a very busy, vibrant jurisdiction, but not 600 permits a week. And then I I looked at some of these inspections, and you're per inspectors at 30 to 70 inspections that day. Those those poor folks must have been running like crazy.
SPEAKER_00Yes, one of the things that I I struggled with the most is trying to fill. I think in I was there seven and a half, seven and three quarter years. Only one time in that whole time was I ever at full staff with the inspection staff. It was a constant battle to try to fill those positions. We would hire, we would hire inspectors, some couldn't pass the state required exams to get their licensor, because you get a you get a two-year what's called provisional exam in this, or provisional license in the state of Florida. Some just couldn't, you know, they're not test takers, they couldn't pass the exam. Knew what they were doing technically, could not sit down with a book and and be able to pass the test or find all the answers in the book. So it it was, I mean, it it was uh I'll be very honest with you, great county. Loved the department. I worked very hard to get that department to where it was, and it was just uh the toughest uphill battle was always filling those positions. Just either the either they were making more in the field as a superintendent or mechanic or whatever the case may be, but that was an uphill battle the whole time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we run into the whole compensation thing here as well. And one of the things that we do a poor job of communicating is the monetizing or or quantifying the benefits package. We have a lot of things, and once you put everything down in dollars and cents, we're fairly competitive, although here in California, what you mentioned, some of the superintendents, some of the mechanics are just making incredible money. I was speaking to a young man the other day, and he got a degree in accounting and found out what he could make as an electrician and dumped the bachelor's and everything and got in the field and he's doing better hands-on as a blue-collar guy. So yeah, that happens.
Remote Video Inspections Pros And Cons
SPEAKER_01So having said everything that you said, so we currently have a bill here in California where they want to mandate remote inspections, and that's kind of a uh it's kind of a fluid definition at this point. Do you do any of that? What is your position on remote inspections of any kind?
SPEAKER_00So COVID changed the world, and not just for society as a whole, but also for building departments around the country. As be prior to COVID taking place, I was actually working on a county rule on how to provide remote video inspections, RVIs as we call them, and went through a legal review, just got the legal review completed, was getting ready to schedule meetings with contractors to go over the what-ifs and wherefores and how to do it, and what was acceptable, what wasn't acceptable, and COVID hit and locks down everything. Luckily, I was in a position where I could roll it out overnight. So RVIs, I think, have are a good thing in some cases and a bad thing in other cases. One of the things that I restricted as a building code administrator was I would not allow an RVI for electrical inspections. It it's harder to suppose I'm doing a swimming pool bombing and I'm worried about NEC Article 68026, and I want to go, I go around the swimming pool and somebody's directing the camera. It's harder for me to tell if that bonding clamp is actually physically locked down as tight as it should be. I've I've done inspections and looked down and saw a clamp that didn't look like it was lash. I took my boot and just tapped it a little bit and it slid all the way over and came undone. So one of the things I restricted was not allowing things like that to take place. What I did use it for, and we were very successful, and we and they still are very successful with, is re-roofing. I can get, with re-roofing, you can do a we we do deck nailings and then we do dry-ins. So I could do a deck nailing and dry-in, do a deck nailing in the morning and a dry-in in the afternoon and keep that roof moving and not have it exposed to the Florida weather. The other thing we would do would be water heater replacements, HVAC replacements, things of that nature. One of the six early success stories was a HVAC replacement that failed the final inspection, and it was a physical inspection. And during COVID, the homeowner did not want anybody coming into the house. They were obviously very nervous about COVID. So I did an I did a remote video inspection sitting in my office with the homeowner on a cell phone and completed the inspection that way. So I do believe that they have their place in the world. Are they good for everything? I I have pulled back on that and said no. State of Florida allow allows remote video inspections to be done. It's up to the individual jurisdiction to determine how they want to do it.
SPEAKER_01Is Florida mandating any of them, or is it just kind of optional you manage your own business?
Private Providers And Limited Oversight
SPEAKER_00Florida, you could a building official mandates, handles their own business, but Florida did put in legislation, it's Florida Statute 553-791, that a private provider is allowed to do remote video inspections if they so choose. So private provider would building uh permit office would issue a building permit, and a homeowner, a fee owner, or a fee owner's contractor, is allowed to engage with a private company, which is called a private provider under the legislation, to come in and complete plan review and inspections, or one or the other, or both. So a private provider statutorily it is allowed to do that. And it they that is the only thing they put in the Florida statute that allows or mandates the ability to do remote video inspections, is that we can't eliminate that. So if in my capacity as a building code administrator for the local jurisdiction, if a private provider comes to me and says, hey, I'd I or a fee owner, a fee owners contractor comes to me and says, Hey, I'd like to use a private provider, I would review their paperwork in accordance with the statute. And if that private provider does a remote video inspection, the only thing they have to give me is a notification of inspections. I don't get to tell them how to do their inspection. Will Dan does not do private provider inspections in the state of Florida. We only work for local municipalities, we only work for government.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So if I have that right, I am a home a homeowner, I'm doing a project. I can come to you and say, I want a contract with this company to do my inspections remotely, you review them, and then they take over rather than jurisdiction inspectors doing the inspections, correct?
SPEAKER_00Correct. They just simply have to notificate notify us of the approximate date and time that the inspection will be done, and then they have to notify us of the results of the inspection. I have the right as a building code administrator to come out and do an audit. I am limited to doing four audits per year on that provider, but I'm also allowed statutorily to go out anytime I want, as many times as I want, during the course of that project, just to ensure the inspections are being performed. So there is some oversight from a building department that is not terribly blanched, but we went from four audits a month to four audits per year. So that that was one of the changes that happened a couple legislative cycles ago.
AI Plan Review Hype Check
SPEAKER_01On the whole theme of tech, we're we're being pushed with uh a lot of tech now. And obviously, I just sat in on a webinar yesterday, an AI plan check thing that a provider called Clarity is trying to implement. Uh so I love tech, I love using it. Where we are with AI kind of reminds me where we were with search engines, probably around 99-2000, right? They're there, they there's a lot of hooplaw around it, but I don't think they're quite functioning properly. Are you using any of those tools yet? Do you does Will Dan promote any particular tool?
SPEAKER_00As far as Willand goes, not that I'm aware of. I have not seen anything. I've only been with Will DAN for three months, so I have not seen anything on my end as far as promoting that. I did, as a building code administrator when I was with Marion County, actually engage with a couple of AI companies just to see what they had to offer and where they were standing. And I'll agree with you. I think I think it was probably a little early in the game. They they we would ask for can they clarify if it is reviewing the plans according to the eighth edition of the Florida Building Code. And we couldn't get a full handle on whether it really was looking at the eighth edition of the Florida Building Code or whether it was looking at the I codes. Because just like any other state, Florida modifies the base code of what is the IBC or the IRC, and we never did get a really good definitive answer. So we chose not to pursue it at that time just because we wanted to make sure the plan reviews. If you're paying for a service, you want to make sure you're getting the service you're paying for, and we didn't feel like it was completely there yet. That was about a year and a half ago.
SPEAKER_01We have uh a couple of companies. So in California, we're in Livermore, about I don't know, 15, 20 minutes down the road is a city named Fremont. I used to live there for quite a bit. I am told that they have quite a few AI development companies, and they're at the forefront of a lot of this stuff. What I found kind of interesting is there's one company called Ichi, and they supposedly will have they have a device that you can deploy and you can do uh inspections. The way it was described to me is uh you put a device in the middle of the room, it scans the room, and then it will give you a write-up on uh any corrections. First, my my issue with that was if I'm going to deploy the device, I'm gonna deploy an inspector. So I don't know how accurate that is. What I find a little scary right now is in the news I read not just a couple of days ago, there's a company out of San Francisco called Foundation. They have built and deployed two robot soldiers that they're testing in the Ukraine. So if you can have a robot soldier, how long until you have a robot inspector? Yeah. So I mean, uh our people, I I go in the field very rarely, but you know, I do that thing, you know, and and we have sheer walls because of uh uh yeah, earthquakes and so forth. I'll climb up into a wall. I'm looking for, you know, positive connections, Simpson steel things. So I guess until that robot can climb up in there and search for stuff, I don't have anything to worry about, but it's coming.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, technology has I started my career January 2nd, 1995, as a building inspector and a plans examiner. And at that time we weren't even carrying cell phones. So seeing how seeing how thing have things have expanded in the last I'm getting ready to start my 32nd year, it has been phenomenal. I mean I remember when you could take a picture and text a picture to a contractor and say, This is where the violation is, can you fix it? And I'll I will come back tomorrow and check it. I thought we were high speed then. It has certainly progressed.
Starting Out Overwhelmed As Inspector
SPEAKER_01Your your history, you've got uh I want to get into it a little bit because you've been in all different parts of the country. I have only been in California, so I know this little pond here, this little island of mine. So there's been some diversity in what you've done, and you've also got this huge delta in positions that you've held. Knowing what you know now, what do you wish you knew as an inspector when you were starting? Would your career trajectory have changed?
SPEAKER_00I don't think it would have. I and you can if if you ever meet my wife, you could ask her, I was miserable my first six months as an inspector. And and and I say that looking back, that's been 32 years, uh almost 32 years ago. And I say that looking back, thinking, man, I don't know what else I would have done. It's I was miserable my first six months because I had my own company. I was used to doing things with my hands. You could see the result of what you were doing with your own two hands, and you could take pride in that. As an inspector, I was I was going, we were talking about the the volume of Marion County at one point. I was doing on average of 30 to 45 inspections a day. So I was going so fast getting these inspections done that I taught myself a method, and I think that's why I was a little bit miserable. I was trying to figure out how to do a really good job and not miss anything. And that's always that's always the thing that petrified me as an inspector. I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything because it it could affect people's budgets, it could affect people's timelines, and more importantly, it could affect our lives. And I didn't want to be the result, be the reason that somebody had a bad result on an inspection. So looking back now, what I would have changed is I've think I would have I really became self-taught on a lot of the code stuff. The guy who I was replacing was retiring. He was kind of on the we call it uh I was in the military, we call it a short timers mentality. He definitely had it. So I had spent a lot of time at night really digging into code books. I could have sought out better education and you know it look for training courses. And I'm going back to a time when you would order VHS tape. That that was some of the I actually ordered VHS tapes at one point just to go over some stuff to see see how to interpret this or interpret that or how this looks in in other parts of the country or what the there was no exchange of ideas. So getting involved in the Maryland Building Officials Association very early on in '95, '96 helped me tremendously. And I think that's when I really said, okay, this is the career I'm going to stay in for the rest of my rest of my time. But it It was definitely an uphill battle in the first six months and just my trajectory, I can't see it changing. I was I've been very happy with it.
SPEAKER_01I agree with some of the things you said. We when I took over my current position, we were terribly understaffed, and we were doing probably what I see your stats, uh, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 inspections a day. And I called it doing inspections and walking away feeling dirty because I felt that I know there was something I missed. I know there's and it's always robbing Peter to pay Paul, right? I can't see everything, so I'll give you this today, but I'll be back tomorrow. And it just never seemed to go away. And the other thing that I try to communicate to my team is you know, you can't just make blanket calls because it's going to cost somebody time and money, but you also don't want to miss the life safety stuff. So it's a very fine balance. And I I I think you experienced the same thing. You talked about this and getting into so just to back up a minute, we had the same thing. We had a bunch of folks in our department that were hired about the same time. So we had a bunch of people retiring at the same time. So we had this vacuum, and but there was the short timers mentality, exactly what you said, the military term, and they were like, nah, I'm out of here. And there was no none of this training the new guys, and not so much just training in the codes, but there are certain nuances within each jurisdiction, right? And and you have certain personalities, re contractors that do repeat work that you know that this guy does the X or whatever. And so a bunch of us had to reinvent the wheel starting out. So I it sounds like you had a similar situation there.
SPEAKER_00Very similar, yes. There was I remember the first time I opened a crawl space access, because where I worked in Maryland, started my career in Maryland, we had crawl spaces. So you would go under the crawl space, look at the floor joys, look at the plumbing, things like that. First time I popped open a crawl space. Space access with a particular builder. His he exclaimed, What are you doing? And I looked at him, I said, Well, I got to check to make sure your it was a final inspection. I said, I got to check to make sure your electrical is safe, got to make sure the plumbing's done properly, got to make sure it's insulated. He's like, I've never had an inspector pop a crawl space before. And that told me, okay, he's it's I'm definitely on the right track. But yes, it was short. I was very concerned about making sure I didn't miss anything, and definitely the guy who was training me was if he can inspect a two-story house, do both floors, and this happened to me while I was in training. We pulled up, he said, You check the crawl space, because I'm young, I'm fit, you check the crawl space, I'm gonna go inspect the inside of the house. So I went into crawl space, out of the crawl space, in the time it took him to do two floors. And that everything's a teaching moment, right? If we don't learn from something, it's it's I don't know. My mindset has always been I want to learn the most I can from other people around me, the good, the bad, the ugly, whatever it is. So to me, that was the bad side of it. I didn't want to be that type of inspector because I don't feel like he did a complete inspection. And you know, I I explained it to the supervisor at the time, and he went back out and looked at it and said, Yep, hit everything was fine, but I understand what you're saying. So yeah, I I get your point, trust me.
SPEAKER_01You've been to you've been in Florida, Maryland, and New Mexico, I believe. I've heard from contractors that come into California and we do inspections every step of the way, under floor, rough, everything. They tell me that in some states they just simply roll up and do a final. Have you been in a jurisdiction like that?
SPEAKER_00No, I have not.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so you you folks do all the the rough trades and everything.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Every every so when I when I started my career in Maryland, there was no mechanical inspection statewide. And in 1996, the state of Maryland kicked in the mechanical code requirements. After that, then we we had all four trades. But even New Mexico was all four trades and Florida is all four trades.
SPEAKER_01I'm looking at your background.
How Codes And Standards Get Made
SPEAKER_01You're part of ICC, you're still on the board, correct?
SPEAKER_00Correct. Currently I serve as the Secretary of Treasurer for the ICC Board of Directors.
SPEAKER_01And so you're affiliated with NFPA. I'm seeing IAEI, which I always mess up, and UL. So so are you on boards or how are you affiliated with all these organizations?
SPEAKER_00So ICC, I am a governmental member through my affiliation with the jurisdiction that I am the building official for here in Florida. So I'm a governmental member there, which allows me to serve on the board. For NFPA, I'm I was a I'm still an NFPA member. And the I'm trying to go back, uh 2008, at the end of the 2008 NEC cycle, I got appointed to serve on codemaking panel 13 of the NEC. Prior to that, and um I was serving on NFPA 80, which is Fire Doors and Windows. I got appointed to uh codemaking panel 13. Now I'm chair, I have to get reappointed because I changed employment. But I was currently the chair of Codemaking Panel 15. So they I went from a member of 13 to a chair of 15, which is I mean, all these things are relative to what we do for a profession. So each jurisdiction I worked in, I would let them know, hey, I serve on this on this committee or this board, is that it is that an issue? And each time I was told no, because it directly deals with the profession. As far as UL, because of my because of my committee service to NFPA 80, I got an invitation to join the standards technical panel for UL10C, which is Fire Doors. And as they I guess they saw the my resume and said, okay, he's got electrical experience, he's got this experience, and I started getting invitations to join other standards technical panels. And that really helps me understand how the process and how equipment and components get listed and get tested. And that was really it's something that that has really helped me understand better and I'm able to explain things in the field to people. And then, of course, IAEI. I was a member of IAEI since April of 1995, and that's because I'm an electrical inspector and I was looking for that education that I spoke about earlier, and it was recommended to me to join IAEI, and I started holding positions in local divisions. I was part of the Chesapeake Chapter Delmar division and started holding positions there, eventually became a what they call an IO or an international office board member. So all of these things that I did was to further not only my understanding of the codes, but my experience in education and dealing with codes and standards and how things are put together.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna circle back to the education thing. But okay, uh so I look at you and I look at David Spencer, and I have to wonder when you folks are doing all you two doing, is there a moment when you realize it's no longer a job, but you're shaping a profession? You two, and just listening to you right now, you seem to have a profound impact on everything that we do in building, right? Everything that you have to do with testing and and vetting materials or procedures and then developing codes. Is that ever on the back of your mind, or are you just, yeah, this is just another Thursday?
SPEAKER_00It it is always on my mind. The and and uh my wife has probably said it best. I've heard people tell ask my wife, says, Man, your husband's going away to this meeting. Is that do you ever do you ever get tired of him going away to this or going away to that? And she said, No, he's protecting lives. That's what he's doing. So it for me, that is one of the things that I I think I treasure the most. You know, people have I get questioned every once in a while, what was it like being in the service? Great, you get to blow up things and destroy things, but this is another way of serving, since I'm not in the army anymore. This is another way of serving. I'm able to serve the general public and and ensure the public health, safety, and welfare in a built environment. And doing this is it's always on my mind. I mean, I know I'm talking to the choir here, but we walk into a restaurant, we walk into a business, first thing you're looking for is exit lights and and is there emergency lights and is the egress blocked? I have a friend who's constantly posting pictures about blocked egresses, so I have to chime in every once in a while. Look, look at the one I found. So you've yeah, it's every single time I sit in a codes or standards meeting or we're doing work on the board of directors. You mentioned David Spencer. I've known David for quite a few years. We were on the ES Board of Managers together way back in 2015. I think about all the things that we've done to try to keep people safe. And I can smile about that. I feel I feel good about it.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, it definitely has to be something you mentioned earlier about going into a restaurant, looking at egresses. I've mentioned this before. Uh all of us. It happens. You sit down, and the family looks at me like I'm the village idiot, but I'm looking at how something's been put together. Look at the door. Is the door skewed? Has that been hung properly? You know, ADA or accessibility here in California. And my daughter likes to mock me. She'll go to the restroom. Oh, dad, you should go in there. Look at where those grab bars are. Uh okay, whatever. Messing with the old guy.
Family Construction Roots And Loss
SPEAKER_01I have to ask, I I saw something online. You have your own company doing training. Is that accurate?
SPEAKER_00I did. I uh when I was in New Mexico, I had Michael L. Savage uh uh LLC. I did training all throughout the southwest U.S. Nevada, Utah, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona. I I did a lot, I even flew out one time to Pennsylvania and did some training. But that was another way of me constantly being able to give back. Because, you know, when you learn, as I was as I was going through learning, I I was craving any information I could get. And then it kind of flipped, and I was like, okay, I've learned this stuff. I want to provide this to people who were in the same boat I was. So yes, I did I did have a training company. When I moved here to Florida, I got so busy as a department director, I actually shut it down.
SPEAKER_01No, I get that. There are only so many hours in the day, and you have to pick and choose at some point, right? Okay, so into the history a little bit. So I started construction because I had a couple of uncles that were in construction. You started construction, family business, right? I think it was you started working for your grandfather?
SPEAKER_00So my grandfather had a company called Edward F. Savage General Contractors. And anytime we get around for family events, and now we're all kind of remote, and so it doesn't happen as much as it used to, but I you he's always hear the stories. Oh my grandfather, Edward F. Savage, had 16 kids. Oh people think I'm joking when I say that. I'm not. He had 16 kids. He had nine girls and seven boys. And and the the story around the the story around the Thanksgiving table is always how the nine girls worked a store or worked a farm because he had a farmette as well, and worked a store or worked a farm, and the boys, each one of the boys got dropped off at a different job site. And that's how the family business started. Well, I I kept some of the construction uh knowledge and some of the ability to do I love working with my hands, so I kept something of that, and I guess I was good at math because I went and got my master electrician's license in this in the state of Maryland, and I keep that active to this day, even though I'm not in Maryland anymore. I keep it active because you never know. But yes, he he he was a contractor. My father, one of the things you probably won't see in a bio, I think it may be on the ICC bio, is how my father died in a construction accident in 1968. So he yeah, it's construction has been in the family for quite a few years.
SPEAKER_01Grandpa had his own uh his own army, his own staff. That's great.
Licensing Experience And Inspector Quality
SPEAKER_01You mentioned licensing. In California, inspectors are not licensed, but jurisdictions, you know, when we hire in the job description, will will require certain ICC certs or something to that effect. So when you say licensing, so in California we have licenses for contractors. Is it the same thing? Do they have to take a state test to get licensed as an inspector?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So when I worked in Maryland, Maryland licensed electrical inspectors only if you were a third-party electrical inspector, not county electrical or city electrical inspectors. They only licensed third party. But they also licensed plumbing and mechanical inspectors across the board. So to be a plumbing and mechanical inspector, you had to be licensed. There was no license for a building official or building inspector. I moved to New Mexico and suddenly I had to get licensed in all four trades as an inspector. And I had to be a I had to have the ICC certified building official certification to be a building official. We did not license plan reviewers whatsoever. So only the building official and only the inspectors in New Mexico. I've come to Florida, we license everybody. You have, if you're going to be a plan reviewer, you have to have a license. If you're going to be an electrical plan reviewer, you've got to have the electrical plan review license. They actually separate it out into the trades as well. And then for inspector of a resid inspectors, we have the four trades for commercial inspector, and then we also have what's called a residential inspector, which allows you to do all four trades in a residential side, as and we also have what's called the building code administrator, which is your building official license. So in Florida, I actually have 11 licenses, which is the most I've ever had in any state, because I had three in Maryland, I had four in New Mexico, but I've got eleven here.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So that test, I think somewhere I read that, or maybe you said, that they're good for two years. So do you just renew or do you have to retest?
SPEAKER_00So the provisional license, so if you come in and you're new to the if you're coming from California, you say I've got all this experience in California, here's my ICC certifications, they will grant you a provisional license so you can work while you're studying to get the get the pass the test. But I came in and did certification by endorsement. So I came in and I had all my I've got 43 ICC certifications. So I came in and said, here's my I want certification by endorsement, here's my ICC certifications, and I've got 30 years in the business. You contract if you counted a contracting side, it was about 38, 39 years. So for once you get that license, the renewal period is every two years. So I have to do 14 hours of continuing education every two years.
SPEAKER_01So do they accept the typical ICC CUs or is it something different for Florida?
SPEAKER_00They it has to be a course approved by what's called the Building Code and Administrators Inspectors Board, which some ICC, some of the ICC courses cross over, but it has to have the, as we call it, the BCAB approval. So there's a group here in Florida called Building Officials Association of Florida, and the Building Officials Association of Florida does an annual conference each year. And you go to that conference two years in a row, you get all your credits.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Okay. We have something similar here. We have our CalBO. We have, I think you're coming to CalBO, are you not? I will be there next week. I'm sorry, week after next. Yeah, that's right. And they do their educ education. I think we do one in one in September, one in October, so it's a similar situation. So beautiful.
SPEAKER_00I think it's I I do think it's important. I I've worked in I've worked in a jurisdiction where I mean we didn't I mean the the experience requirement to be a building inspector was a high school education. And I've seen how that played out, and it wasn't always good in every jurisdiction. Some were really picky, they wanted a contractor, it was left out to the local jurisdiction. So some wanted a contractor, some was high school education. And when I went to New Mexico and coming here in Florida, and you see that these guys who are required to have Florida requires a minimum of five years of experience in the trade. And you can substitute some of that time for like college education, things of that nature. But I can see that from high school education to hey, I've got to have five years in the trade, made a I noticed a world of difference in the quality of the inspectors that we were able to bring in.
SPEAKER_01So I have to ask, so it sounds like here in California we are I'm gonna say a little more easygoing. I don't know if that's accurate. But do you think that requiring the license, doing that sort of thing, puts up another barrier? Because I constantly hear how difficult it is to find qualified people or people that just want to be inspectors. And we we struggle with that here. So do you think the licensing is a barrier? Do you think there's a workaround or do you think it's necessary and it doesn't matter?
SPEAKER_00I don't know if the licensing is as necessary as the as the experience. I just unfortunately that the when you had the licensing, like New Mexico, it required four years of experience. When you have a licensing, you tend to have the requirement for experience being added on to that. So if you had a jurisdiction like like a Maryland, for example, where you where the building inspector was left up to the individual's jurisdictions. If you had a statewide mandate that, and I know there was a push at one point many years ago to do that, and it didn't go anywhere, but if you had a requirement that said, hey, each each anybody who wants to apply for the position of a building inspector has to have at least four years experience in the trade, or five years experience in the trade, or for my Maryland master electrician's license, I had to have seven years experience in the trade. I think it I think it sets it to, okay, this this guy has spent the time in the field, has a hand. Doesn't mean you've seen everything. It certainly doesn't mean you've seen everything, but it it does say, okay, he has been in the field and he has experienced it. I started so young as an inspector that people didn't think I had enough experience when I came on board. And when I say people, I mean contractors. So I would get tried from time to time. And over the course of my years in Maryland, I built the respect with the contractors to say, okay, I'm a young guy, but I also have that experience because they didn't realize the family background. They didn't realize my my grandfather was a was a GC, and my father was uh had been in the construction business, and my uncle was a master of HVAC. They didn't see any any of that, they only saw me.
SPEAKER_01I get that. You have this kid, and yep. We so I came from the trades. So half of my inspectors came from the trades, the other half did not. And my lead inspector currently worked at a grocery store before he became an inspector. He went through a JC, got a an AA and building inspection. And when you talk about code research, oh my god, he is amazing. But one of the things I realized coming from with a construction background is something as simple as walking on a job site. You almost walk like a Jedi because you know there are obstacles there, right? You know where to look and what to do. And him not so much. If I asked him a code, I mean he could just dig into a book and he could find everything, but uh a little clumsy at first, but has become just absolutely amazing. So you can't always pigeonhole people that way. You can't always make that assumption. And I I get all that.
SPEAKER_00Right. It that that that reminds me of a time in New Mexico. I was training a brand new inspector, he was an electrical inspector, and we're at one end of the street, and it's the street itself is probably six blocks long, I want to say. And I looked at him, I said, You see that at the other end of the street? Somebody's doing something. I guarantee you they don't have a permit. I can tell by the way it's set up. And he was like, How did you see that? I said, It's a trained set of eyes. This is all I've done for the last 20, 30 years. I've I can see it with uh you can almost feel it sometimes. And we drove down, I engaged a contractor, sure enough, no permits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, you you create that that sixth sense. Yes, I get it. It's also just part of my inspection is just having the dialogue with the installer or whoever's there. And after one or two questions, I can tell you if this person knows what they're doing and I'm not gonna find anything, or if it's exactly the opposite, and uh, we got to dig into this. So I get that. Will Dan. Will Dan. I'm gonna get that right. I am terrible with names. So I have this software glitch. I tell everybody, I'll have a conversation with someone, I'll remember everything. Your kids, your you whatever you've done, but I'll never remember the name. And it takes me four tries. My wife's name is Kirsten, and everybody says Kristen. And I remember the first night we met, she made it clear to me, don't call me Kristen, Christine. And so she's the only person that I've remembered the name from uh or got the name right from the get-go, but the flaw continues. That's the one you better get right. So when when Will Dan comes on board, I so currently is it Oakland, Florida that you're working with, or is it still Marion County?
SPEAKER_00So I am the building official for the town of Oakland, Florida.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And is it just the building official or are you managing the entire operation there for them?
SPEAKER_00So Will Dan manage the entire operation. We do the permitting, we do the plan review, we do the inspections, and we provide the building official services.
Earning Respect At The Executive Table
SPEAKER_01So I had Jose Barra on, and he just became the safety building official for Buena Park here in California. We've had the conversation. Our own community development director, Brent Smith, was a CBO. And one of the things that we've noticed is as folks move through the ranks and get to direct or get to the city manager's office, it seems like people that come from the building side are often overlooked. And I think that I I I think that there's a I don't know, a problem in management or something in really interpreting what building officials bring to the table, their management, their skills, all that decision making. And I I just what can building officials do better to to showcase what they really do, their their background and their abilities in terms of management.
SPEAKER_00That's a that's actually a great question. The whole reason I went and got my MBA was exactly that. I didn't feel like I was being taken as seriously that I wanted to eventually. I often I often told my boss, I don't want to be your building official forever. I want to eventually move up through the ranks. I was always so humble about my successes and things that I did, because to me it was part of business. This is what you're supposed to do as a building official. You you you're dealing with asset management, you're dealing with budgets, and my title was a building official and a director. So I had a split title. I had two jobs. So as a director, I'm dealing with the budgets, I'm dealing with personnel management, I'm dealing with all of these things that any other director is doing. And and really in in in Marion County, we have assistant county administrators. While they're over multiple departments, I had one department. Essentially, the job was very similar. We we were dealing with all of these issues, except they didn't prepare the budget. They sat with me when I was presenting a budget because I would have to present a budget to them. So it that's a great what can we do better? I think we just need to not be sometimes we don't want to engage the the I I think some building officials don't want to engage as much with the upper echelon because you know if you duck and cover, you don't have to worry too much about things coming your way. I think we need to spin that on its heels. And say, okay, here's what we're doing. Here's the successes we're having. Here are all the all the great things that this department's doing. And here's what we're doing with our with our personnel. Here's what we're able, here's the leadership skills that I'm able to. I mean, I had a 94-person department when I left. I started off at 46. We were doing, when I first started, we were doing 46,000 inspections a year. When I left, we were doing one year in a 12-month period, we did 310,000 inspections. So I did that's a pretty good amount of leadership guidance and oversight that goes into that. And I think we just need to do a better job of, I think building officials and directors, department directors need to do a better job of emphasizing that. Each year I did a budget presentation, I talked about all the things that we did because that was my one shot to be able to actually say, okay, here's what we're doing. I've always I had I had a former boss one time tell me, and I kind of laughed when you started talking about it because I thought you were heading in this direction. I had a former boss tell me one time when I was in Numesco, well, you know you building guys. And I was like, what does that mean? You building guys. Does that mean that we're just construction workers and we're just wearing a different set of clothes? Or what does that mean? Because I can take a 1.6 million square foot project and bring it in on time and even faster than I and I have actually done this. I took a one 1.6 million square foot building, first one of its kind in the country for that national company. And we were able to, just by proactively thinking outside the box, were able to bring that thing on online faster than what they had thought because of asset management, personnel management, all the management skills that you would see employed in any assistant county administrator position, county administrator position, or any other any other C level suite position like you you may see in that. So I think we just need to do a better job explaining how the what we do every day relates to also what they do every day.
SPEAKER_01Yep, I concur. I think they do look at us as the blue-collar guys. They still look at us as, you know, he's got a screwdriver in his hand, kind of a thing. And they don't realize, and it's one of those things that if you do something extremely well and there are no hiccups, you're overlooked. It's yeah, it's no big deal.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I I had I've got three degrees. I've got a I've got an associate's degree in construction management, I got a bachelor's in business administration, then I got an MBA. I had I had a higher degree than every one of my bosses except for one. And I never said, hey, I've got a higher degree than you. I wanted to prove what I was worth by actually doing the work.
SPEAKER_01That's that that's that military mentality right there. So that's why I asked if you were handling the entire department. You come on board, and how does it how do you make it feel like you're actually a part of that jurisdiction as opposed to just a rented solution or or attempt to because one of the things that I love about Will Dan and one of the things that I felt very comfortable with them as I was a client.
SPEAKER_00They were they were I was one of their clients. And the reason I came on board is because the way they make me made me feel as a client. It wasn't, hey, I'm your vendor. It was hey, let's build a relationship. So they they built a relationship with me. We were I I knew them before they ever came on board, and there was no pressure sales, there was no, hey, you really need to get us in there because you're having problems. It was none of that. It was we're here if you need us, if not, we're gonna be friends, we're gonna talk, I'll take you out to lunch one day, you know, whatever the case may be. So one of the things that I have noticed, and I've I've I've done it because I had the experience with them prior to becoming an employee, was I'm just trying to build a relationship. I'm just trying to talk to the city manager, or if it's a public works director that we report to, or whatever the case may be, I'm just here to let you know. I'm here to help you. I'm here to do anything that you need that we are contracted to do. And if you have other services you need, we can talk about that too. Because we can also do utility infrastructure, we can do engineering, we can do there's a whole lot of things that that they have the possibility of bringing to the table. But I've never, and I've I work with some very good project managers, and my boss, who is the director, it's never been a pressure sales. It's always been let them know we're here, and if they need us, we're here. If they don't need us, we'll I mean I'm pushing right now to get a chapter that's that's kind of fallen by the wayside here in Florida up and up and running again, just because I think it would be great for those four county building officials to get together once a month, once a quarter to exchange ideas. Because you got some relatively new building officials who I'm great that I'm their point of contact, but at the same time, let's build a relationship with everybody. So that's how I think that's how you become very how we've become successful in what we do is because it's no pressure sales. It's not constantly get, hey, you need to bring us on board. It's we're here to help. And if you need us, we're only a phone call away.
SPEAKER_01Having the ability to you're pooling your company works in a lot of different jurisdictions, doing a lot of different things. So you're able to your education is varied. There's a huge delta, right? You're learning from other jurisdictions, other challenges, and so forth. Is there anything that you found that you can implement or when you come on board with the jurisdiction? Is it one of those things of, well, you've been doing X for so many years? This is how we feel that we can refine things and streamline them in terms of processing permits faster or maybe adjusting fees. Is there Let's make it specific. When you moved into your current position, I know you've been with them only three months, but is there anything that you found that you could fine-tune and make better in that jurisdiction?
Fixing Forms Compliance And Trust
SPEAKER_00So one of the things I did when I immediately came on in Oakland is I started going through the forms that they had that were available and ensuring that the forms were compliant with state law. Because I'm sure Florida, like California, has very particular requirements for permitting forms, for private provider notifications, for I mean, statutorily, we're going to get a change every year. So I just went through the list of forms because the forms are what the customer sees. So I just went through the list of forms, and it's an ongoing thing. I went through the list and updated the forms, ensured that the forms were all compliant with statute. It it may be as anything from, I was talking about private providers before, it may be everything from the fee owner to and the fee owner's contractor, because that actually changed two years ago in legislature. So you have to make sure your forms change that or updated to reflect that. So I did a lot of legwork doing that. I also reached out to the city manager when I went into Oakland and introduced myself. I mean, the the company does a great job of doing that anyway, but I prefer I like a personal contact. If I'm working for you, I want you to feel comfortable enough to pick up the phone and call me and say, hey Mike, we're having an issue with this. What do you think? Or, hey Mike, got a complaint about this. What can you guys do? Or hey, Mike, we got an attaboy, great job. You guys keep it up. So my first thing is always to develop those relationships with people I don't know. I consider, you know, I'm the type of guy, I was called a social butterfly one time, which kind of made me laugh because when I'm home, I'm very reserved. I'm very I like to stay home, like to be with, I mean, because we're so active in our day in our business lives, right? So I'm usually the type who's very quiet, very reserved with the wife, and we'll we'll uh we spend a lot of time together. I don't go out very much with a whole bunch of other guys. I spend a lot of time with my kids going to play golf, whatever. So when I'm in my professional life, I am a 100% social butterfly. I'm reaching out, I'm to I'm talking. I went and just this week, I went over and met with the public works director for the town of Oakland for a project we were doing. I make sure that when I walk in, there's no question that you can't ask, and there's if I don't have the answer, I will find it for you.
SPEAKER_01I like that. That's the term that I use also, social butterfly. Not that I am one. I'm a mechanic. I tell everyone, I'm the guy that's gonna sit there, I'm gonna, I'm gonna assess something, I'm gonna figure out how to make it better, faster, whatever. But I'm not the the warm, touchy-feely uh kind of, I don't know. It's just whatever. My wife, so many times will give me so much trash. She's like, you sound so cold, so withdrawn. No, I'm not. I'm just giving people their space. They don't want to hear from me. It's uh, you know, I'll just be a fly on the wall and uh that sort of thing.
Golf Kids Military Pride And Time
SPEAKER_01You mentioned the family and you mentioned the the golfing. I just recently got into golfing. Are you any good? Because I'm terrible. Oh no, I saw it. That's exactly what I say.
SPEAKER_00Let's think. If it's a if it's a par 72 course, I'm hitting 105 easy.
SPEAKER_01I don't boy. You and I all play golf together. That there you go. I think you said you had four four boys.
SPEAKER_00I have four boys and one girl. And do all of them play golf or none of them, or so I usually play golf with my youngest. He's it's always a challenge because here's the bit loser buys lunch. Ah, there you go. I won't tell you how many times I bought lunch, but I have bought lunch several times. But we it's it's just it's one of those things where I'd like to spend the time with the family, and we just it's really getting together. And yeah, I'm still dad, but it's just uh great to go out and spend time with them. You know, it you go through that that time in your life when I mean I've had four boys, one girl, and it's been the same for almost all of them, that at some point mom and dad aren't cool. And then and and then eventually it comes back that okay, mom and dad are kind of cool because now I know what mom and dad did for us. So I've got I just got back from Germany. My third son is still serving in the military, and we just got back from Germany visiting him. And it's he's like, hey dad, you want to go to the gym? Oh my, yes, please. Absolutely love. I don't we don't even work out on the same machines together because he looks like a bodybuilder, and I look like that little squishy guy from the wheel dam merchandise. But it's just spending time with him, riding there talking, riding back talking, that type of thing. That's just I love it.
SPEAKER_01Everything, everything you just said. All right, similar situation. My son is a firefighter paramedic, very fit. He does CrossFit. And one time we did a uh a paired workout. He's like, I don't know, it's like seven events, whatever. So he says to me, You pick out the half or three, four that you want to do, I'll do the others. I'm looking at the list, I'm like, is there one where I could run and get coffee while you do this? I mean, what are you kidding me? So it's the same thing, and and the golf thing, that's hilarious. The whole family. So my son started golfing. Now he's sucked the whole family in. In May, we're doing a trip out to Palm Springs. We're all gonna try to play with the exception of my son and my uh daughter's boyfriend, who they're they're both pretty good. The rest of us are absolutely terrible. And you know, you get up there to tee and he clubs this thing almost 300 yards. I'm like, all right, if I can make 180 straight, I'm I'm having a good day. So I get it.
SPEAKER_00Greg, I'm so bad I can't even I can't even uh tee off with a driver. I have to use a iron. Every time I use a driver, if I use a number one driver, it's going to the left or right. I can't, if I use a number two iron, I can get it to go straight, but it only goes about 125, 150 yards.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that'll feel so bad we're in the same world right now. That's uh that's pretty good. And the other thing is, so I've spent money on lessons and I've gotten better, but the equipment is doesn't matter. I mean, spending more on equipment is not going to make you better. I could I can verify that, so don't try it. You mentioned your son in Germany. I think you told me that he is he has become a warrant officer. He's going through the program.
SPEAKER_00He would like to, I think eventually he would like to put in his packet the Go Warrant. And you know, I'd I'd be excited if if he went warrant. And I mean, because he's he's the guy, and and I know when I was in the well, I know when I was in the army, I was always really good at the run. And that was my highest score. But he's the guy that's going to max out push-ups, max out sit-ups, max out all that stuff. So if if he I think he wants to put his packet in. He's got a busy family life, but I think he I think he wants to put his packet in. And if he does, it my happiest moment in my whole life would be saluting him as a warrant officer. But yeah, he's I'm not sure how much longer he's gonna be in. That's the decision he's gotta make. We haven't really talked about that, but aspirations, I think at some point he he would be a war. My dad was a staff sergeant, so he's a staff sergeant currently. So I think he's who knows, he he may do it. I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so most people that don't know, that's a big deal. A warrant officer is kind of a blue-collar officer, at least in the Marine Corps. You'd come up as uh the staff NCO or something, you'd get your uh credits, and then you'd go through that program. And it was always for us. It was a lot, I don't know, a better moment when you saluted a warrant officer. Marine officers are just in general just amazing people, but the warrant officer you kind of had a bond with, and it's kind of a big deal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's the same way, the same way in the army. You know, it all the warrants I ever worked with were NCOs first. So they understood what you went through. They had that they had that PLDC ribbon where they went through the primary leadership development course that NCOs go through. They had the B Not ribbon. So you you see those guys, and you're like, okay, these guys were enlisted like me at one time. And there is a there is a good I and I have to admit, I didn't have too many officers that I didn't get along with. And I was in a brigade level unit, and I so I saw everything from a from a Fulberg Colonel all the way down. The one of the things that I talked about one time, and I just posted on was I actually met Norman Swartzkoff when he was the commanding general at Fort Lewis Washington prior to the Gulf War. It was about a year, two years before the Gulf War. And that was the that was it was one of the most inspirational times of my whole life because I'm getting to meet a three-star general that I never thought I'd get to meet. And then I get to stand. I was working in a talk or a tactical operations center, and he walks in talking to our colonel, and I'm standing right there, and he stopped just to say hi and see how I was doing. And that was, I mean, meeting him set set the goal, set what I wanted to be for the rest of my life. If that guy can do that to me, when I went on a job site as an inspector, I didn't always talk to the superintendent first. I would literally talk to a guy in the trench digging digging a ditch. How are you doing? Hey, anything here that I need to worry about? That type of thing. So meeting Norman Swartzkoff, that was a highlight of my
Taekwondo Discipline And Daily Training
SPEAKER_00career.
SPEAKER_01Nice. I could see that. Uh, quite a figure in history right now. On the still on the, I don't know, workout side, professional side. Did you say black belt in Taekwondo?
SPEAKER_00My wife's gonna kill me. Yes. I am a second degree black belt in World Taekwondo Federation Taekwondo, and I I say it that way, or Kukawan, as it's called in Korea, I say it that way to differentiate it between International Taekwondo Federation. So I did WTF versus ITF.
SPEAKER_01So there's a picture of you, I think it's on LinkedIn, and and you're stretching out, and it just hurts me just looking. I can't imagine that you're that flexible. I'm envious. I creak and snap crackle pop when I do things like that, but uh good for you. Do you compete in any events anymore or are you just training?
SPEAKER_00I do not. When I left, I was still involved in a school. Uh I was in and and I don't know if I should give them a plug or not. I don't know if that's acceptable on your platform. But so I I worked out, my school that I worked out in was Master Jem's Taekwondo on Southern Boulevard in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. And we went to church together. It was just it that thing about creating a relationship, Master Jem did that, and we were very close. And I started off with him as a white belt and rose all the way up to a second degree black belt, and I competed in tournaments all the way up to the point where I left. My last tournament, I was actually a judge in, which is kind of like going from kind of like going from being a field inspector to being the deputy building official. I was a I was a judge in one of the last tournaments. And to this day, I still practice. I practice this morning. I do an hour and a half workout every morning, and I practice this morning to win Taekwondo.
SPEAKER_01Good for you. So when you're doing this, I had a friend that was, I think it was karate, this was years ago, and they did a lot of I'm gonna say routines, and it was a lot of flexibility. I I'd almost call it like a dance class. I don't remember exactly what the discipline was, but taekwondo is more hands-on impact, right?
SPEAKER_00It is. It's it's funny you said dance class because we do what are called pumseys or forms. And my wife would tell me, say, you know, you're just dancing, because I'm not a dancer. I'm not a dancer by any any stretcher. If you've been to an ICC conference, look on the sideline, because that's where I'm standing. But my wife was like, You realize you're dancing. I'm like, No, I'm not dancing. I'm doing I'm manly, I'm doing Taekwondo. She's like, No, you're doing dancing. She said, look up the definition of dancing. So I looked it up, and sure enough, it is a predetermined set of motions done in a certain format. And I was like, oh my goodness, this is poomseys. But yeah, it's it's called a pumse, and I I do so in in WTF taekwondo, there are 18 poomseys. I'm sorry, 17 Pumseys. There's so there's the what we call the colored belt poom says, and then the black belt poomse. So I d I know all nine black belt pumseys, even though I'm only a second-degree black belt. So I do all of I do color belts one day, black belts another day, that way I don't forget the pumseys. But yes, it is it's very much like dancing. That's where the flexibility comes into play, because some of those kicks, you've got to have the flexibility.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Once again, envious. I don't have that flexibility.
ICC Service Travel And Closing
SPEAKER_01Before we close, any personal thoughts, any closing thoughts that you'd like to share with the audience?
SPEAKER_00So the one thing I would like to talk about, or is I guess really is near and dear to my heart, is how great the career of being a building official, building inspector, and working with the various code groups such as ICC has been, and how rewarding that's been to me in my career. I David Spencer uh we mentioned him earlier. I met very early on, and being able to have that contact and call somebody like a David Spencer or President Mike Boso from ICC or or vice president Steve McDaniel, because I've called them all at some point and said, hey, what's your thoughts about this? Getting that network and getting to meet those people has been phenomenal. And I've always said, every time I've ran for election for ICC, I've always said it's about the membership. Well, for me, it it it truly, to me, it really is about the membership. Because if we're doing good by the membership, then the membership is going to experience all the good things that we are trying to bring her away. It may not always seem like it makes sense because there's some I always hate this term, high-level discussions, because I hated that term because it made it sound like, okay, the the guy in the trenches shouldn't be able to hear this. But there are some discussions that that we have that you get hit and you're like, just trust me, just hold on for hold on for another month, hold on another six months. You're gonna see something come around and you're it's gonna answer some of your questions. So I love serving that membership. I love doing everything I can to help them. This year I'll be running for vice president, and it's been very rewarding. Just like the opportunity to to be on your podcast. I've never done one before. This is the first one. You've made it so simple, you've made it very easy for me. I've enjoyed it. It's it's been great. Just this has been a great career. I couldn't imagine going back and doing anything different.
SPEAKER_01So I have a couple of questions, and I meant to ask this earlier. So you're on the board. I was first of all, time commitment. I was on the East Bay chapter ICC board. I did the whole thing, secretary, vice president, went through the ranks. And what we did is we kind of cycled through things, right? You started at the bottom, I think it was at secretary, and every year we kind of changed hats and moved on. And so I remember what that time commitment was. I could only imagine what that time commitment is like when you're going to ICC. And and we truly are international. I say we, like it's truly international. What would you consider what would you say your time commitment is there? I think it's a great thing to be involved with with, but what's what's the requirement?
SPEAKER_00So currently as an executive board member, I meet every Tuesday with the executive board. We have a one hour executive board call because you were right, it's international, so we don't like to wait and try to make decisions. We get together as an executive board. Do we need to call a meeting with the member with the rest of the board? Do we need to is there an issue? That we need to handle right away, or sometimes it's just planning. Hey, what are we doing for leadership week coming up in Hartford, Connecticut? What is the location of the ABM? And do we have keynote speakers and things that it's not something we as a board touch, but we just get updates on it type of thing. So it I would say it's sporadic, right? And my wife has figured out the seasons for me as a board member, because as a as a board member, I get invited to chapter visits. So wintertime was always really slow for me. And then the chapter visits would pick up in the in the summer, which is a total opposite of what I experienced in Maryland, where the wintertime is when we did our chapter stuff because we were all so busy in the summertime, because that's your build season, right? Because we don't have good weather all year long. In the southeast, it's totally different. We're building all year long. So they have their they have their conferences in the time when it's not tourism season. So here I'll be traveling more here in the next couple months than I probably have the last four months. So it's commitment, depending on I mean it's it's depending on how much you get. You've you can look for probably anywhere from an executive board member, seven to ten days of travel a month. If if you did if you did every single thing that you were being asked to do, you're looking at three to six months of travel. But you've you can only hit so many things and still keep your day job. Well Dan has been absolutely phenomenal about that. They have they have said, hey, we understand that that you're on the ICC board. We fully support ICC and and they do, and they have been great. I've hey I've got this. Is there a conflict? Nope. Go go do your time commitment. So that's they've been absolutely phenomenal about that.
SPEAKER_01That's a good place to be. The being on the board, you said elections. Like I mentioned, our board was very informal, you're just moving up. So do you have to get re-elected every term? Is it every year, two years? How does that work?
SPEAKER_00So as a board member, we've got it last year we had several new board members come on board. As a board member, a typical term for a for a board member, whether you're a sectional or at-large director, is a three-year term. Unless you're filling somebody's unfinished term. Like last year I got elected to Secretary of Treasurer. Well, I was only two years into my last, I'm allowed to serve two terms as a as a director, so I'm allowed to serve six years. I was into my second year, I had one year left on my term when I went up to Secretary of Treasurer. So that meant somebody got elected to finish my one year left on my term. They now have to run again this year if they want to stay on board. As an executive board member, Secretary Treasurer, Vice President, President, and past president, like like David Spencer is, that's only a one-year term. So each year now I'm gonna have to run for election. Not re-election, but election. So I can only be Secretary Treasurer once I've either got to move up or step off and into the vice president's role.
SPEAKER_01And you also mentioned something. So is there some sort of requirement about how many board members are public or private sector?
SPEAKER_00So we're there's something that's being worked on now to actually discuss that. I don't know any, I'd have to double check the bylaws. I don't think there's anything right now. There is something in the bylaws about no more than two board members can be from any one state. And you can't have but one board member on the executive board from any one state. So I can't sit right here in Florida. I've got myself as an executive board member and then JC Hutchison as a director. So JC can't move up to the executive board until my time on the executive board is is finished.
SPEAKER_01I understand. All right. Great. I strongly recommend getting involved. I really enjoyed the time that I did what I did just locally. And I again, I can't imagine when I spoke to Dave, I understood how much that you folks do internationally. And it's so profound, and it must be uh uh enriching and I don't know, it's just a feel-good moment, right? I mean, you walk away from something like that.
SPEAKER_00It's very rewarding. We we've been to a couple places, and you know, you look we've you go to some place and you and you look at it, it's like, man, this could this is borderline third worldish, right? I mean, I spent two deployments in Korea on Operation Teen Spirit, and I was driving through, I was on an air defense artillery unit, so you have to be on top of a mountain. Radar doesn't shoot up and down the mountain, it's got to be on top so it can shoot across and down. And we're driving through this area, and people are washing clothes in a stream on rocks, just like you would see like on any old movie anywhere. And we're working in places where people want codes to help make their lives better, and it is extremely rewarding.
SPEAKER_01Mike, I've enjoyed every moment of this. It's been very eye-opening. I I uh it seems like we've run into a parallel here. Family things, military, you've had incredible success doing this. I got into this a little late in the game, but regardless, I just want to say thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I hope we can do it again. Absolutely. I'd love to come back. All right, Mike. Well, with that, I'm gonna bring this to a close. Mike Savage, thank you, everyone. Something that was not in the podcast was at one point I met Mike and uh he showed me a picture of his four sons all in uniform uh in the same place at the same time. And that smile, that proud dad, from the smile from ear to ear, it was really cool to see. Mike is a unique individual, but there are a lot of you overachievers out there, and I'm gonna hunt you down. In Mike's instance, going from humble family construction routes to shaping codes internationally. What's interesting is that early in his career he actually considered quitting. Imagine what that would have looked like. And personally, I always appreciate diverse perspectives, knowing how other jurisdictions conduct business, what challenges they face, solutions they develop, and career paths. I want to say a very special thank you to Mike Savage for taking time to do this. I also want to thank you for bringing us along, whether we're in the office or perhaps we're in the car with the kids on a road trip. Now, obviously, I say that in jest, but I think many of us have had moments in our lives when something was difficult or overwhelming and we had to make a choice of either push through the problem or surrender. Perhaps a story like Mike's might give someone the inspiration to embrace and overcome the suck. Where have I heard that before? Once again, I hope you've all enjoyed. Please follow, connect, share, and I wish you continued success. Take care.