Tracey Nales - CEO of EM Ship Repair LLC.

We sat down with Tracy Nails of EM Ship Repair, she's half of a husband and wife team that own a company that is working in the Hampton Roads maritime industry. Father and husband are maritime workers, Tracy went to college, got her MBA

Visit www.maritimejobsva.com to discover what career and training opportunities are right for you in the Hampton Roads maritime industry.

The Regional Maritime Training System (RMTS) was established using a $11 million (41%) Good Jobs Challenge Grant awarded by the Economic Development Administration. It is supported by $12.1 million (46%) provided through BlueForge Alliance in partnership with the U.S. Department of the Navy, $850,000 (3%) from the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA – Community Project Funding, and $3.5 million (10%) from non-federal sources.

Transcript

- Sitting here today with Tracy Nails of EM Ship Repair, she's half of a husband
and wife team that own a company that is working in the industry. Tell us how you
got started in this business. 'Cause you're a husband and wife team. You grew up
locally, your husband did not. So if you could tell us a little bit about your
origin story how you met, what was that conversation like when you're thinking about
going into business? My dad was in the ship repair industry for as long as I can
remember, welder, ship fitter, estimator, he wrote specs, he's done it all.
He's traveled everywhere and I always thought that was so cool, but he always told
me, go to school, get your education. So that's what I did. I went to school,
I did my undergraduate ODU Masters at Phoenix and then in the meantime coincidentally
I met Edson in 2011 and he worked at the shipyard but he was a fire watch and
helper so he ended up learning a trade by helping the other technicians so he
worked his way up from helper fire watch to third -class shipfitter then second -class
shipfitter then first -class shipfitter So it was a rough start, you know, for both
of us because he worked, you know, sometimes two shifts and I was going to school
Working full -time going to school for full -time and then I became a mom in 2017
and a part of the story You didn't mention there. You grew up locally. You
graduated from Mori High School Went to college got your degree and then went back
and you were teaching at Mori I >> When you and Edson decided to start this
business. >> Yes, I stayed teaching until you know we got our foot in the door and
I knew you know it was safe to quit my job. >> Edson's originally from the acres
Puerto Rico. Yes, and you met locally here in 2011,
yes, and he started out at an entry level job is a fire watch which no particular
training or education required for that, but it really is an entry -level job.
They teach you everything you need to know. - No experience at all. - He's the son
of a pipe -fitter. - Yes. - And pipe -fitter is, that trade is the ship's plumber,
right, there's so much of the lifeblood of the ship, air, water, fuel, all those
things flow through pipes, but that's not what Edson wanted to do originally. - He
was never interested in pipe -fitting. He love ship fitting. He was eager to learn
and worked his way up to first class. The difference between ship fitting and pipe
fitting and welding, while it all involves putting metal together, is the ship
fitter, you're dealing with those curves of the ship's hull and you're cutting out
deteriorated metal and then replacing it. Cutting it out is not that hard, but to
get it to fit back in properly, that's hard. So he didn't have any background in
that no background at all. So how did he get on to that track? Well,
I guess when he came here and his dad was a pipe fitter He said well, let's you
know Why don't you start in the shipyard and learn a trade you can start out as a
fire watch Helper watch see what you're interested in and then go from there and he
really liked ship -fitting so he kept working at it until he became a master of the
trade and then one day we were talking while I was actually finishing up my
master's degree and he goes you know why don't we combine our skills. So I gotta
think Edson starting out as a as a fire watch he probably watched a lot of
shipfitters standing there watching them doing their trade fitting plates of steel
back back up to the hull and decided I could do that. And then as you're helping
you know you're getting the hands -on experience. You're helping them, you're seeing
what they do. It's a lot easier to learn hands -on versus someone telling you how
to do something. There's one important part of this story we haven't talked about
that you're a bilingual couple. You speak Spanish fluently and you learned it here
locally. Edson's from Puerto Rico and spoke primarily Spanish.
Yes, when I met him he did not speak any English at And now I see him on the
computer typing up estimates and I'm just amazed. I'm like,
who is this guy? He started out as a fire watcher and now he's a businessman.
That is successful. Yes. A successful businessman. Going on six years,
and we talked about this earlier, but that's sort of past the point. You're over
the hump now that you've got a good reputation, You've got a base of business.
People are calling you to ask you to come and work in these other yards in the
area. And that's sort of the key to success in this industry is having that
reputation. That's one of the biggest challenges I'd say is, you know,
building the relationships and building the trust with the primes so that they know
that you're capable of doing the job and they award, you know, you get awarded
projects. And that sounds like it can be intimidating, but you had a family history
in the industry. Edson had a family history in the industry,
and then sometimes it just takes that introduction, where somebody is willing to take
a risk on a young company like yours. But once you perform.
You start getting a call back. So it's while it sounds risky and it is risky.
It's a very risk.
But it's not undoable. No, it's possible. You just got to take that risk and be
persistent. We were very persistent. It was a rough beginning. I'm not going to
sugarcoat it. And then once you get the opportunity, you've got to perform the work.
But after that, not necessarily it's your off to the races, but it gets a lot
easier after you get that first one. It does. Once the Prime see what you're
capable of and you build your brand, I guess you could say, they start trusting you
more and more and giving you more projects. Is that how the business has really
grown? Has it been word of mouth? Definitely word of mouth. and then other companies
seeing what we're capable of. - 'Cause as a subcontractor, you're working in the big
prime's yards, and there's other subcontractors in there as well. - And we're pretty
fast at what we do. They know they can count on Edson. We've even gone behind
other companies who weren't able to complete the jobs. - It's one of the challenges
is getting work out the door and getting it completed correctly. - He completed a
job on an LCU and the captain was so impressed, he said, I've never seen welds
this beautifully done in such a short amount of time. - That's a huge success,
'cause that begets more work. What was the conversation like when you came home from
teaching one day and Edson was a ship -fitter working for some other company and you
decided you were gonna go into business together. - Well, we were just tired of it.
I can't say it was my dream to be a teacher. I just listened to my dad and went
to college. So I had this degree, six year degree, and I'm like, I don't like
doing this. I don't wake up every day and wanna go to work.
And Edson was working double shifts, and one day I called him on the phone, I
said, I just hate doing this. And he said, well, you know what? just hang in
there, we're gonna start our own business. - That's really the conversation. - That's
the conversation. - We're just gonna go into business. Saw that the opportunities out
there knew that you had combined talents and off you went. - Yep. - When you went
into business, which was just before COVID, is when you started? - Well,
when was COVID, 2019? We started at the end of 2018, so we were just getting our
foot in the door when COVID happened. - And then, and you mentioned that during
COVID, you kind of shifted gears and you guys packed up and moved to San Diego?
- Well, we did have to relocate for a couple of months because there was no, there
was no work here. So Edson was persistent. He said, well, we have to do what we
have to do. We're going to keep this business going. So we ended up going to
taking our seven year old, who was, well, he's now seven >> In 2019 was to and
you did the crew with us took the crew with you can we essentially just the whole
crew went on the road. And you got work in San Diego and in kept things going,
yeah. >> So the conversation at home we're going to start a business. No office,
no equipment quickly turns into growing capacity getting work.
This horrible global pandemic shows up disrupts everything maxing out credit cards
taken out loan personal loans when your personal business is your business that's
your source of income you don't really have a choice right when we finally confident
that this business was going to was going to continue and it was going to be
successful. >> When we started receiving our payments and we were able to start
paying off the debt. >> - How many years into that was it? - I'd say about a year,
two, two and a half. - That's pretty good really, to be in business two years and
be cash flow positive, revenue positive. - And I think the pandemic really held us
up a little bit. I think it would have gone a little bit more smooth if we didn't
have to relocate to San Diego. - And you think that's just because there's so much
opportunity here? - Yes, for sure. So, for a company with a good reputation and
capability and deliver a good quality work on time, it's actually a pretty good time
to take a risk now and get into this business, whether you join it as a tradesman
or in your case, starting a business in this, you're comfortable, even if you knew
that the pandemic was going to happen, do you think you would have made the same
decision to go into business? - Well, I mean, it's always a risk, 'cause you know,
you have to keep, you have people working for you and depending on you, so you
have to make sure you're constantly getting awards and projects, so you have work to
give them. - We were talking a little bit before, you're about to increase your
capacity and capability in a new direction, and it's gonna go back to pipe fitting,
which is exactly what Edson didn't want to do.
Well they're always looking for pipe fitters. A lot of the primes that we work
closely with they ask us you know do you guys have any pipe fitters or can you do
this pipe job and we don't have the certs for it. So it's definitely a great
opportunity. It'll give us more work. You're confident to take this new risk to
develop a capability and hire employees and in the future.
for us, they need it, it's definitely a need for pipe fitters. And you're not going
to take work away from anybody else at this point, because there's just so much
work that needs to be done for all these ships and submarines we need to build and
all the ones that we're trying to maintain, both commercial and government. There's
enough work out there for everybody that you're not taking work away from another
company. Right. That's, That's a tremendous opportunity and it sounds like it's a lot
of risk, but when you know that the work is out there, now you just have to do,
you have to repeat the process you've done before. We wouldn't be where we are
today if we didn't take that risk. So we're actually missing out on opportunities by
not investing in the pipe certs. So that's a goal for 2025 and beyond?
It is. So, if that's the next step is to develop a pipe repair capability,
what's next after that? We'll need to get a bigger shop. Any other capabilities that
you see in the future? Aluminum as well. So there's two opportunities out there,
and again, both of them in fields that you don't presently work in, but you're just
confident that the work is there. It's - It's definitely there. I can't,
if I had a dollar for every time, people have asked us if we had pipe fitters, or
I'd be rich.
(laughing) And it's not so much that we don't have the pipe fitters. We do, we
know plenty, but we don't have the certs, so. - So why do you wanna chase these
new opportunities and not just keep doing the things that you're doing now? - Well,
we wanna grow as a And we're always looking for ways to innovate and provide as
many services that we can for our primes. If there's plate work right alongside pipe
work and additional aluminum work, it's easier to give all that work to one company
because it's only one set of bills. It's only one, one, now it's only one project
in that as you said, that's great. Less stress for the project manager. And you see
that opportunity for you because the primes are basically telling you if you could
do this you get a bigger piece we could give you more work or you would have won
this job if you would have taken it turnkey so you've so it's not just that you're
not growing but there's some opportunities you've missed because you don't have
absolutely capability yeah that's something we definitely haven't heard before but it
makes sense with everything that we are hearing there's so much work to do, but the
next step for a small company is to increase their capacity.
Is it fun getting up each morning and coming to work? - Yes.
I like the flexibility. I am a mom, so I like being able to work my schedule
around my son as well. I'm more involved in his school, in his It's probably said
this too many times in this interview. But this is another unique story, right?
Another element of what you've been able to do as a husband and wife owner of this
company, the flexibility that it gives you. I'd imagine it would probably extend to
some of your employees too, but Edson's got more rigid, right?
There's a start of the day and maybe the work goes long so the end of the work
day gets extended a little bit. but you've got some flexibility in your day
because of the nature of the side of business that you're running. - There's not a
set time I have to be at work every single day, or I could go to work earlier
today and get out earlier. Maybe I have to take my son to practice at three o
'clock. I can work that in my schedule. It just depends on the day and what I have
to do. It's probably a bit of work that gets done after bath time and putting the
kid to sleep at night. Right. Just yesterday I had to come to the shop at 7 .30.
Oh, I got to go to the shop. I have to grab something. I have to do something. 7
.30 at night. 7 .30 at night. Or he's on the computer. He gets a RFQ at a random
hour. Maybe someone sends it at the very end of the day at 5 .30 and he's got to
work on the estimate. And Those are the opportunities to grow the business, right?
- Right. - Especially for a small responsive company, somebody has an immediate need.
- There could be growth work on a Friday night, Friday afternoon, and he has to
stop what he's doing and figure out a price and send that over, send over a
condition report, and there goes the plans. (laughing) - But it's also the
opportunity, that's the things that grow, that continue to make the company
successful. - Works first, so the plans can wait. - That's probably true for most
small businesses, right? - But it's all worth it in the end. - What is Edson really
good at and why does this work so well? - Well, he runs the show at the shipyard.
He has all the experience with hands -on in the field and my background is in the
administrative part. So I do everything on the computer and help him out with
basically anything he needs. What I find so interesting about that story is we
talked about being a bilingual couple. He mentioned that he didn't, at the time he
didn't speak English terribly well when he got started, but now he's pretty good on
the computer too, right? He doesn't need my help as much, nowhere near as much as
he did when we first started. You know, he learned how to use QuickBooks, Microsoft
Word, I'll go in the office, our home office, sometimes at 7 .30 and he's working
on an estimate. - Are you working on the welding? - I wish I could. (laughing) - And
I wanted to highlight that to kind of bring this all to a close because I think
it's so important for people that aren't sure that they've got what it takes.
There's help out there. There's other examples. And for people that are determined
and are willing to do the work, they can make it work regardless of where they
start from. There's definitely so many opportunities out there. You just have to,
In my case, take the risk. But for other people, just wanting to learn a trade
with no experience. Look at Edson. He started as a fire watch helper and made his
way up to a first -class ship fitter. And now he owns a business with me. And you
came from a completely different field. No background in this. I went to school not
knowing what I wanted to do. And now you're a successful business owner. And that
story can be repeated over and over again, and there's lots of opportunity for
people. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today, telling us your
story, and we wish you the best of luck. - Thank you so much for your interest in
getting to know our story and allowing us to share it.