Week 2 of Summer Vacation – Time to Build, Heal, and Grow

For the first time in years, I'm experiencing something unfamiliar—time off. After spending my career in electrical contracting, where long hours and hard work leave little room for rest, this summer break from teaching has given me a unique opportunity to focus on what’s next.

In this episode, I share my journey of using this time to build TechTrain Solutions LLC, my electrical and industrial training business, while continuing to grow the TechTrain Solutions Service Division, my contracting operation. This break isn't just about business goals—it's also about personal growth, recovery, and health.

Join me as I talk about giving my worn-out body a chance to heal, getting back into the gym, losing the extra weight, and finding balance after years of nonstop work. Follow along as I reflect on entrepreneurship, the skilled trades, family, health, and the vision for what TechTrain Solutions can become.

If you've ever dreamed of turning time off into an opportunity to reinvent yourself and build something bigger, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to episode 5 Tech Train Solutions. Today we're going to talk about something that I've just started experiencing. Summer. Summer as a teacher and summer as a contractor. Or a tradesperson. I've been working for over in the electrical trade for 26 years, and I've been working since I was 16. United States military since I was 17. So I've always, always worked on summer. Never had summer off, but now I'm a teacher. So what we're going to talk about in this next segment is the difference of what I'm going through, what's great and what's not so great. Also, what uh things I went through in my time in the United States military, and uh just talking about different things uh within the last couple days. So let us let's begin. Again, I worked in the industry for 26 years, and I've worked since I was 17, like I said. Um summer was just a dream being off. My wife was always off in summer, pretty much her whole career. Uh, we kind of switched, right? She hate to say this, she is now working during the summer, and I'm off. It just happened that way. Originally, she switched jobs to try to get more pay, and I wasn't leaving, I was staying where I was at. Next thing you know, boom, things happen as you saw. I went into the teaching profession. She went to a full-time, no summer off type of job. Oh man. So, unless you get injured, unless you get hurt, your summers are working non-stop. This is what you do in the trades and anything else. You use your vacation to find and get that time off. You have to plan, you got to make sure your counterpart is able to take off or not take off. That way, if they're working, you're not. Definitely, if you're union shop, you got to go buy seniority. The senior person back in my last workplace would hold the senior the uh vacation list until the very end, and like, oh, here's your vacation list. What? So, luckily for us, we're starting to get more relaxed at that time. I just threw my vacation in. And then not only that, you guys, you took your vacation. Well, for me, I was in the United States military, so my summers were stuck with that, which I love, by the way, but I would miss advancing and things with my family. So, as you individuals would take off, I would be sent to my annual training to do military. I still would take some time off when I get back, but lately, no, I mean there not not lately, but a few years there, I was in the military at AGR, whatever you want to call it. Uh, sorry, not AGR. I was ADOS for three months working for the military, teaching, instructing, doing stuff like that. I would go to Fort Hood, I would go to Fort Ladderville, Missouri, I would also go to Wisconsin. This is the stuff I would do during the summertime. As a person in the trades, when I come home, I still had to work, so I'd take off. But now, ladies and gentlemen, now I am in school teaching, and this is week three of No School. It is amazing. It is so far so good. What I'm doing is trying to run my business, trying to get that running, um, reaching out to a previous employer, reaching out to other people to say, hey, I'm offering my assistance. I can change train you in industrial uh electrical uh instrumentation controls, even though I have a vendor that does a better job. I can teach you the basics, I can give you the whole rundown, PLC's controls. I can start from nothing and get you to a lot. So I'm reaching out, trying to get that business going. And I'm also doing electrical contracting. Thanks to a buddy of mine let me bid on a job. I was able to win it. Uh so I had to go lower than I wanted, which is fine. Uh I had to work with them there. So that's what I'm doing now. I'm trying to find a way to keep busy. Again, this is this is day day 12, almost the third week. I'm a teacher, buddy. I'm teaching. CTE. It's it's awesome. It's awesome. In the beginning, I wouldn't say that. In the beginning year, it was so stressful. I wanted to quit, wanted to go back to the trades. Thank goodness I held off. I have someone to help me out. My counterpart, Paul, he's the other teacher. We're working together, we're figuring stuff out, we're building a plan for next year to make the easier for teaching the students, because ultimately it's the students trying to get into profession. Some are there to just hang out, like I told you, and others are uh there because they're getting away from school. But at least to say, uh, I'm gonna work on that. Uh I have per strong personalities in the beginning of that year. It was tough because I had uh one individual, very nice person, but just like me, when I was younger, I was all over the place. Uh the person would do more damage than good. Uh nice person, always we always nice to me, but he just would damage stuff all the time. Uh, another person, uh it just didn't feel like he should be there because his family is not the greatest. It's sorry, it is what it is. I come from inner city, I've seen it multiple times. I was fortunate I had a good mom. Uh so needs to say it felt bad. He wasn't gonna go co-op because he couldn't. I just recommend maybe go to work release or or maybe go work. Don't come to CTE, go to school, and maybe work. Make some money that way. And then the third, fortunately for me, I co-op one of them and left, and apparently he did very well. So I had a really strong personality, which Intermilitar would handle no problem. But with that, I would still take that because this summer has been pretty good. So, what I do last couple days is I'm trying to get back in shape. I would wake up, drink my coffee, have the cat come out with me, have the cat roam, drinking my coffee, sit down, because I get up early. Uh, just to let you know, for those who don't know, when you get older, it's hard to stay asleep. I get up at 4 or 5 a.m. in the morning, get up, go outside, have coffee, hang out, and then around 7, because I like to watch certain shows. At 7, I get moving, make breakfast, and then I start working. Starting next week, I got my first job, like I said. Uh I'm gonna go to that job. I have the materials. Uh I the way to make it cheaper, by the way, is I had to get the grounds crew to do certain tasks like digging. That would lower the hours, which makes the jobs uh cheaper. They could do that, and all I do is just just fix the wiring, and and that would last instead of four or five hours. I should be able to get done in two hours with saving cost. I don't have anybody but myself. Can't afford workman's economy. My gosh, $204 a month. $204 a month, and that's without even knowing what I'm gonna pay the guy. That is that is highway robbery, not to include the insurance. Paying sixteen hundred dollars in insurance for the contracting side, and I'm paying about twelve hundred for the teaching side, two businesses. So, that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to get back in shape. I just walked the last three days with my wife. We're doing 3.5 miles. We started at 58 minutes. Now we're down to 52 minutes. We're doing well. My legs are killing me. I don't like to stretch. I gotta get back into stretching. It's it's it's getting tougher, but I'm getting there. So tomorrow I can't walk because I gotta get ready for the for the job. It's it's very different in the summertime. Now, at least to say I do miss it. That's why I'm working in my own trying to get my own business running, trying to get that going, because that way I'm gonna still make money through the year. Remember, I took a $30,000 pay cut. But if you do the math, 190 days of school, the math, I get about $52, $53 an hour equivalent. So I gotta make that money on my own during the summertime. That's what I'm doing. But I'm starting a business. So I have two business partners. One's a uh a trainer, awesome guy, retired. He can train very well. And the other individual, as you probably saw in the other podcasts, Jake Price, amazing troubleshooter. Uh, I think he's better than me. I'm pretty darn good, but he's he's really good. Uh brought them aboard to help me get this business going. They're busy, uh, real busy, so it's not easy to get them at the moment, but I'm working on it. Uh, I just got a call from a company asking to come in, maybe provide some training. They want some instrumentation and valves, very basic. While I'm there, I'll teach them some PLCs and controls, and then I'll recommend to them maybe after my class, go to another vendor I like who for a more advanced class and knowledge. Uh, Eastern Controls. Very good, very good vendor. Uh, I would definitely recommend them if you're looking for instrumentation and valves. I know the plant instrumentation valves. I know that where I'm working, where I'm going, I know it very well. So that's why I'm gonna go and train those individuals if I can get this contract, how to fix that machine, how to look, how to troubleshoot. In fact, I was making some training for other things, but yeah, that's hopefully get that started. The eight-week boot camp, it failed. I only had two calls, one was really serious, the other one wasn't sure. So I'm still trying to do the eight-week boot camp. What I'm looking for is you, the individual, who want to be taught electrical. I have labs, very good. I can I can teach you within eight weeks to make you a very proficient, not electrician, but very proficient electrical helper. Hopefully, you can work for someone that has an apprentice and you're done. I had no takers, and that's okay. That that's fine. But let me tell you at the beginning of my time off. Last Monday, right? Well, let the the Friday before was my last day. Very easy, not much going on. We had to clean up the shop. I was just getting my books ready for next year, had to get the letter ready for uh the teacher, uh the students and the parents. I was reaching out to Ace Hardware in Aston, Pennsylvania, say, hey, can you come up with a toolkit so my students can buy it? They're working on it. So I just thought it would be pretty cool if Ace can come up with the toolkit and they can buy it. We can pick them right up and give it to the student. So I was working on that. And then the day ended, let us go a little bit early. And then the weekend, right? The weekend was pretty easy. That was just the weekend. Then Monday, uh, Monday was my first day off. I was just working around the house. I was getting my truck ready, cleaning up, getting all the parts ready, getting all that done. I was just prepared to start working in my business. And then, just to let you know, Tuesday, Disney World. We got up at 4 a.m., loaded in our vehicle, went to Wally Park, parked our vehicle, got picked up, got to the airport. I was trying to get TSA pre-check, cannot get one. I've still I'm still waiting. Uh I've had it when I was in the United States military. Since I retired, for some reason I can't get it back. I'm trying, I'll see if I can call someone. Some I could not get the pre-check, so I went to normal. My wife went through pre-check. Uh it was luckily it was dead, not much going on, so I got in pretty fast. Oh man. Very annoying. I'm still waiting. Again, I submitted almost two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

But somehow I still cannot get it. So what we did, we got in the airport, getting ready for the uh flight.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Not not until seven, so I go to the um go to the restaurant, have a quick bite to eat, go on a resta into the plane, fly to Leonardwood, I mean Leonardwood, that's where I was stationed, Orlando, and waited for a bus called Mears, very good company. They were very respectful, very nice. Took us to a place called, for those in the military probably know, Shades of Green. Shades of Green used to be the old Disney resort from back in the day. It's for military personnel. So I was able, we got to the shades of the green with shades of green. The shuttle took us there. Pretty simple, pretty easy. That's what 31 years in the military got me. Got me a chance to go to Shades of Green. Pretty nice, amazing restaurant rest uh resort, very nice, kept up nice, clean, has a beautiful golf course next to it for those who like golfing. The only thing I gotta say negatively is there used to be a trail. You can walk over to the Polynesian, it's gone. I don't know if maybe they don't like us riffraff people. I don't know why they got rid of it. Maybe don't like us anymore. Disney got rid of the walkway. It was great. You walk over the Polynesian, you take the uh you take the shuttle around to the parks, get out, go to your location. It was it was amazing. But that walkway is gone. That's the only negative I gotta say about that resort right now. It's just you have to take a bus everywhere or drive. That's the negative I would have with that. But great place, beautiful facilities. We got a beautiful room, pretty far away. They got a lot of rooms, so we got our room, finally, put our stuff down. We go to park first time. So that's what we did. My first real week being off. But my problem is is I left my phone off, right? Because I'm not calling anybody. My wife, she can get the kids and stuff. Worst case, I'll pick up on there. And uh, I didn't realize when I got back, three million calls, man. It's trying to start my business. Well, I got calls and I didn't pick them up. So that's my fault, guys. If you were trying to call me, I apologize. Uh, I'm available now, Tech Train Solutions Service Division and Tech Train Solutions LLC. Give me a call, I will pick up uh and help you out. Oh, it was hot. That week was hot, very hot. Uh not as hot as it can be, like it is now. It was pretty darn hot. It was like 95. But you know what that did for me? All that walking. Oh my gosh, it was a great time, by the way. Me and my wife ever bond, do things, have some fun. But you know what it helped me out with? I I'll be honest with you, I've been I've been a lazy bum since I retired from the army two years ago. I don't know if it's depression, I don't know what it is. But I was two years ago, I was a lazy bum after that, and I just no urge to work out. I developed asthma, so when I used to when I was running at the time, I couldn't stop coughing for months. It was a horrible experience. So maybe that's why I didn't want to work out anymore. Maybe I was intimidated, maybe I was scared, I don't know. But we're walking everywhere. We did over 35,000 steps a day. Oh my, that got me ready, got me raring to go to get back in shape. So after Disney, we come home. My wife look at each other, we're like, we're gonna start walking. This trail we have, which is near us, near um Aston, Pennsylvania, uh great trail. So about maybe five miles max. So we like to go there, and we already know what it is, so we like to go there, go for a walk, uh, speed walk. My wife's very fast. I'm a slow walker if you didn't know that. So we're going. The first time I think I I think I told you, I think it was 56, almost 57 minutes for 3.5 miles. But Disney got my legs working, but did it got my legs like feeling good. So I'm like, oh nice. Again, bad stretcher. The following day, next day, we we do it again. Uh three point uh three point five miles. We're going. And this time we're humping. We're going hard. We got that done in 50 51 or 52 minutes. That was that was good. But then today, my butt was sore, my leg was sore, but I sucked it up, took some a leave, and we went for another walk. That one was down to 54 minutes for five 3.56. We even jogged a little bit here and there. You know, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we can't score too bad. So we jogged a little bit there. Um, but that's what Disney did for me. It got my legs kind of it didn't feel it. It was great. Uh, only thing I had to work on was my breathing and my my soreness, which I didn't stretch, I'll be honest with you. For those uh physical therapists out there, I I don't stretch, I try, I forget. I have a torn ligament right up here by the crotch. Post duty stretches, I keep forgetting to do them. It's just I keep forgetting. So needless to say, today I finally stretched and I feel much better. It was great. So this is what I'm doing with my time off. I'm doing things I want to. My garage, I'm starting to clean it up, my truck looking beautiful, ready to start working. Like I said, tomorrow, my first job professionally. And then I'm just cleaning up the house, organizing, doing some some stuff like that. Doing stuff like that. Now, as a as a person trying to start a business, I want to know about you guys who starting your own business. What percentage profit do you guys like to go for? Uh, back in the day when I worked for uh Pet Boys, they they said they wanted 30% profit minimum. 28% was okay, but they wanted 30% uh and they would charge no more than 35-40% max. I know some of these companies are almost charging 100% profit. I I don't know what the right is. AI is telling me all this stuff. I've used AI, but then I'm like, nah, I don't like it. So I I'm developing my own pricing, and I think it's pretty fair, and I'm still making enough profit to pay off my insurance, uh pay off me, and also pay off my stuff, and still make I'm looking at about 33-34% profit. I would rather make 40%. That's my goal. Uh, but at the same point, I don't know. Maybe you guys can help me out and help me figure this out. I know I can research and stuff, but I'd rather just talk to real previous business owners, what you think. What is the what is the magic number? Or is there no magic number in trades? Because I'll be honest, I I don't like hiring trade contractors. I'll be honest. I'm my house, I won't hire contractors. I gotta really get to know you and want to hire you because, no offense, I don't trust you. I've I've seen people get burned being working in the trades, I've seen it. And so I don't really trust a lot of contractors. It takes a lot for me to trust you. At the same point, I did back in the day try my own contracting business and I got ripped off by homeowners. So I understand their side. There's two sides of the coin. The homeowners can rip you off too. They they want something, they want a lot for a little. So needs to say, it's just like, what is this stuff going on? I need to figure this stuff out. Now, the training side, I got it locked. I already know what it's worth, because I I I've as a trainer, I would hire companies to come in and train my cu my my students. So I would know basically what the pricing is. And so I'm fairly I think I'm pretty good with my pricing. I'm not too low, I'm not too high, I'm just right, just like the uh bears from the uh the uh thing. So needs to say, I finally got my first job the other day. It was just a light, it took me like two seconds. Uh but you know how it is, Murphy's Law, you don't know what the heck you're getting into. So I got done in 20 minutes, so basic service rate, it was 125. Uh it was a friend of mine who helped me out and trying to get into with the real TERS, so I gave him a good good discount. I lowered it down to $75. Pretty darn good discount. I was done the job in 20 minutes, cleaned up, made sure no dirt in the floor, and locked up and left. Uh so usually the cost for that is about $125. And I gave him a good deal. But luckily he gave me another job to look at, which I bid, I won. Uh now I'm gonna try to get that done. One thing I'm always worried about, which you probably dealt with yourself, is called Quince Law. When you deal with houses, and that's why I kind of want to do resident uh commercial industrial. When you deal with houses, you never know what you're gonna get. You don't know what that homeowner did or what the contractor before, because you you guys, no offense, you hire handymen that do your left work. No, come on. Handyman, they can't they they don't know electric. And if they do, thank goodness. But I've followed a lot of handyman people, and they do a lot of things wrong. One, they hide junction box, two, they don't How to do three ways. Three, uh, they wire up wrong, they don't give you six inches, they have too much wire in the box, way too much, which causes heat and possible fire. You got a lot of factors that you gotta think of as a tradesperson. That's what you have to think of. Now, now I'm gonna talk about more things. So we're talking about that. Another thing is, too, where do you advertise? Because right now, advertising sucks for me. Uh I'm not getting any hits. One thing that's really working is word of mouth, seems to be working very well. Uh I'm about to cancel all my advertising because not doing anything. I'm not even getting any hits for my training business. One or two calls, it says my website's got a thousand views. Well, a thousand views mean nothing without calls, without leads.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

That's what I need. I was hoping. I tried Yelp.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

But Yelp, they'll give you call jobs, and you have to pay to get that job. I'm like, what? I'm already paying you monthly, I'm paying you fees. Why do I have to pay to get the job too? I don't get that. That is annoying. So I ended that. Uh I've tried Facebook, not the greatest. Uh I tried Google. Google Ads. I'm in there. I look it up, I'm there. Just not getting any hits. So I don't know what's going on. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Maybe I'll figure it out eventually. Uh but word of mouth has been kicking butt. I've gotten a few calls just from word of mouth alone. Now, one job I did, one job I'm about to do. I'm gonna go get a permit, do it legitimately, do all that. Uh that's what I'm looking for. But what I need is leads, leads, leads. That's what I need. I need leads. What I would love is industrial commercial, but I won't turn down residential work, I won't do that. Uh, but I would like the others because they're easier, and you don't have any homeowners doing certain wiring or or hiring some hack in commercial industrial. There's some problems, of course, but it's broader, it's bigger, it's easier to see these problems. I can still troubleshoot those no problem, don't get me wrong. I just met with the business, is I need turnaround. I need to be able to get the job done safely, correctly, and go on. I with residential, you always deal with the Quinn's law, my wife calls it. You never know what you're gonna get. Uh I did one house, again, like I told you before, but there's studs ever so often, up and down the oh my gosh. It took a two-hour job, took six, seven hours. I'm like, this sucks. No one tells you that. It was a ballooned house. I didn't know it was ballooned. That's what I mean. Any leads. I again I tried Google, complete fail. Uh word of mouth has kicked butt. That is what I'm preferring now. Uh, so that's what I'm doing with this year. So, when am I going back? I'm going back the 29th of August. That's my first day back. I have to go back three days at least to prepare, uh, get this book, this book I made for the students. I have to get that made from the school, uh, printing. Uh just that's what I gotta do. I have to get my lab more ready, get it just right. I'm looking to maybe continue doing this. I'm 52, I'm looking to continue doing this to 61. Uh, when my military pension starts at 60, plus my VA healthcare all starts at 60. Uh, I'm looking to be happy. That maybe get a pension that's 10, 11 years, and then out, retire, go. That's what I'm looking for. Nine years what I need. Nine years for the pension. Now, the only thing that can keep me going working wise is my business. If my business is kicking butt, the training is doing awesome, I'm having my apprenticeship program running, uh, pre-apprentice working, uh, that'd be amazing. Uh, that'd be amazing. I just need to get started. I need to open that bubble. Once that bubble opens and I can get busy, real busy, before the 29th, I would love to hire a certified journey. Have them take get a truck, hire them, have them do work, get a helper, and then as it as I expand, hire more people. That's what I'm looking for. Hopefully, by next year I have two to three people. Hopefully. That's the only thing that'll keep me going past 60. Now, you do realize, I don't know if anybody has a business, but you realize what you gotta pay for. You gotta pay for insurance, you gotta pay for liability. That's the insurance, you gotta pay for workmen's comp. And if you really want to keep people, you need health care and you need life insurance. Right? The stuff you're gonna need to give your student, your um employer, employee. That's what you're gonna need. That's not cheap. It's gonna cost some money. Uh it's not gonna be cheap at all. That's what's gonna be happening hopefully by August 25th. I'm hoping. Um getting some more work. I have a great partner who, if we can get this uh bubble open for training, again, we can do uh industrial PLCs and controls uh training, also instrument minor instrumentation and valves. We gotta learn your process, we can teach you your machine if you don't know it. We can we'll need time with it. That's what we can do for you. Uh so I'm just like sharing with you. So if you like what I'm talking about, please like and share. Uh if you have anything to say, please put in a chat so I can at least respond. I'd like to know more about you. I'd like to go and have a guest moving forward. So this is Tech Train Solutions with my subcompany, Tech Train Solutions Service Division. And what's going on in our future? I just wanted to tell you. So if you like this, comment, like and share, and call my number 610 756 7785, or email at spq at techtrain solutions.com. Thank you and have a great day. Now, how do I stop? There it goes.