People, Planning and Production: Inside the Paving Foreman Role

On this week’s On the Surface, host Seth Stevens and co-host Brad Marotti welcome Shane Moody, Paving Superintendent at Delta, for an inside look at what it really takes to lead a paving crew and build high quality roads across Arkansas.

Shane walks through his journey from flagging in Missouri to running full paving crews and eventually stepping into the superintendent role. He explains what a paving foreman does each day, including planning tons, coordinating with the asphalt plant, managing trucks, handling traffic control, and staying ahead of challenges in the field. You will also hear how lead men, equipment choices, and strong communication help crews stay productive and hit their targets.

We cover the technical side too, including how mix types, slopes, driveway tie-ins, and road conditions affect tonnage, smoothness, and ride quality. Shane also shares the human side of the job, from developing young operators to building crews that trust each other and hold each other accountable. Safety moments, close calls, leadership lessons, and real-world examples give listeners a clear picture of the responsibility that comes with the foreman role.

Thanks for listening!

Check us out:

deltacos.com

Instragram

LinkedIn

Transcript

*Automatically generated by AI*

Seth Stevens (00:05)
Welcome back to On the Surface, the go-to podcast for heavy construction and general business. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week, Brad and I welcome Shane Moody, who is our paving superintendent in Arkansas. We talk about Shane's previous experience as a paving foreman and what that role looks like on a daily basis. Let's go.

Seth Stevens (00:29)
all right, Shane, you're paving superintendent now. Yes. Right. But beforehand, you spent most of your time as paving foreman. Right.

Shane Moody (00:40)
They have 13, 14 years, something like that.

Seth Stevens (00:43)
Yeah, that was my next question of how long was that?

Brad Marotti (00:47)
Yeah, how long has your career been?

Shane Moody (00:50)
I think it'll be 22 years in May, 21 or 22. Yeah, started in Missouri.

Seth Stevens (00:54)
with Delta.

Yeah, yeah. You wanna walk through that real quick? Like your background, what all you've done.

Shane Moody (01:03)
When I decided to come to work here, I was working for a mechanic in Bernie and had a job with the county. All I had to do was fill out the application, talk to dad about it. They had a spot open on the crew. said, you want, he kind of waited out for me both ways, but fast money was going to work on the crew in Missouri. So I went to work. I worked for Bobby for six years, mechanic and then, uh,

Went to work for Delta, started flagging. One day I'd flag, next day I'd put ⁓ tabs down, which is same as we do in Arkansas, centerline type. Yes. And I look forward to the day I can put the tabs down instead of have to flag. ⁓ Yeah. that for two or three, four months. Then a roller guy quit.

Brad Marotti (01:43)
Well, marking the center line.

Just to stay moving.

Shane Moody (02:00)
I got opportunity to run a roller and almost got fired by Don Treat. He was my first foreman. He, ⁓ I stopped twice on a parking lot with my vibrators on. his exact words were, the last guy that did that three times, you took his spot.

Brad Marotti (02:18)
So you're running a roller the roller vibrates to make the To get density on the asphalt help with back top with the vibrators on it will dig a hole

Shane Moody (02:30)
You will drive two holes in it. you got both, whichever drum's vibrating, you'll just drive a hole in it. But did that for, run a roller for two years. Then they started training me on a paver. Guy that run the paver got sick. I showed up one day on a Saturday. Don looked at me and said, all right, you're a paver operator now.

It was ugliest road you've ever seen in your life. A snake couldn't crawl as crooked down as I drove it. No 10 foot cedar rapids, but did that. then Don moved to Salesman and Joe Colbert become my foreman. And learned a lot from both of them about how to treat people. You know, they were both really good to work for. The hardest conversation I've had here probably was telling Joe I was leaving Missouri.

to come to Arkansas when I got to form the job. I dreaded that conversation. come down here for, I think it was 2011. Went to work about the middle of the end of February. Went down and met everybody, Dave and him was doing a dirt job at Clinton. I won't say what his dad said the first time I met him.

Brad Marotti (03:54)
I'd like to know.

Shane Moody (03:56)
All right. Quote on quote. And I pulled up behind him. Jim jumped out of the truck and said, well, who the *bleep* are you? Introduced myself and I said, who the *bleep* are you? Right back. We got along good ever since then.

Brad Marotti (04:10)
You're there to do the trenching.

Shane Moody (04:12)
Yeah. Yeah. That's what I did. First year and half I was in Arkansas. All I did was trench. Yeah. I was doing all the gas pad building down around Clinton and Searcy Did that for a year and a half or so. And then finally got a full-blown paving crew. I paved everything from city streets, parking lots to big interstates.

Brad Marotti (04:19)
Welcome to Arkansas.

So were paving for them in around 2012.

Shane Moody (04:42)
Yeah, 2011, I think was the year I started down here.

Mm-hmm. Did that to her. Three weeks ago. I guess is what you'd say.

Seth Stevens (04:54)
Yeah, that's true. So yeah, you did that. You were paving Foreman with a full crew for 13 years basically from 12 to 25. And then with the restructure and everything, you got a promotion to paving superintendent, now you're the big dog.

Shane Moody (05:13)
Yeah, something like that. We'll see how this works out.

Seth Stevens (05:15)
Yeah.

Brad Marotti (05:16)
You worked almost 10 years on a crew before you became a f-

Shane Moody (05:20)
Yeah. Yeah, worked.

I think seven years. Yeah, seven years. favor for two years or three years, relative couple years, whatever, for a couple years.

Brad Marotti (05:26)
Seven years. ⁓

You talked about your dad a little bit, but your name is pretty popular here at Delta. A bit of a legacy in Delta.

Shane Moody (05:45)
Yeah. He's told me a lot, but all our conversations have ended with the same thing. Take care of your people and they'll take care of you. That's always been his deal and I try to take care of everybody. Don't always work.

Brad Marotti (06:02)
Mm.

Seth Stevens (06:02)
I'd say more times than not, it has worked. For sure.

Shane Moody (06:05)
Yeah. It pays off for you.

I've had some really good crews and I've had some really bad crews.

Seth Stevens (06:13)
Yeah.

But you know, when you have bad crews, you work through that and bounce back and yeah, exactly. Right, Yeah. So what, like if you explained what a paving foreman does, just in general, like an elevator pitch, what do you do?

Shane Moody (06:22)
We're out.

The number one thing is a lot of I spend all morning, my drive over the morning is thinking about today or tomorrow. There's a lot of coordinating goes into it. You got to keep state happy or the customer, whoever it is.

Make sure everything's right. You know, a good thing we did that made it my job easier as a foreman was lead man.

When I was last two, last two years I worked was the best I've had it. But had Barrett as my lead man. So I had him run the crew and I run the job. Yeah. I explained to him what I wanted done. He made sure it got done. And I made sure he was doing what he was supposed to do, but I could stay two or three days ahead.

Seth Stevens (07:26)
⁓ yeah.

Shane Moody (07:38)
I'm applying it pretty easy.

Brad Marotti (07:41)
So the majority of your career, you didn't have a lead man. That's something we did. What we did. Yeah. Four or five years ago, we created a position lead man and it's really didn't add a spot to the crew, but it took a person, made them, gave them more responsibility, made them salary. ⁓ Really giving you a secondhand man to help you plan and manage things in your absence. When you don't have that person,

Shane Moody (07:46)
four years ago, like that.

Brad Marotti (08:10)
You know, for the majority of your career, you didn't have that person and you leaving, leaving the crew without, if you didn't have an experience bunch, it's difficult to walk away.

Shane Moody (08:20)
First three or four or five years down here, I was either on the screed or something seemed like all day, every day, because I wouldn't trust people to do what they're supposed to do. Me and you had the conversation. I just flat out said one day, I'm not doing it anymore. We're going to have to fix some stuff. And we have. Yeah. Yeah. We fixed some things, but you got to let them learn.

Seth Stevens (08:42)
Yeah.

Brad Marotti (08:43)
come a long way.

Shane Moody (08:50)
You know, everybody's going to screw up. Just hopefully they learned something from what they did. You know, most guys, or I told all my guys, if you screw something up, that's fine. But when you tell me about it, have an answer for how you're going to fix it next time. What's your next, you know, we're going to do it again. How are you going to fix it on the next go around? Made them look at stuff a little different.

Saying it like that, instead of yelling and hollering, which is still part of it too sometimes.

Brad Marotti (09:26)
I've always used you as an example of someone who can take a green crew and get them performing well in a quick way. You're just a good teacher. I've referenced your abilities and your crew to a lot of folks.

Shane Moody (09:44)
You know, I've had, I've trained a bunch of people and I've got a couple of guys that's been with me a while. Jeff, Derrickson, he has trained a bunch of roller guys for me. He's started, he's worked with me for eight years. He took a little stint, went elsewhere and he's come back. But he's trained a bunch of roller guys for me. You know, and I left it at his discretion because they's going to be rolling together.

He'd tell me, they can do it or no, can't. And if they couldn't, we'd look for something else for them to do or look for somebody else to their spot, basically.

Brad Marotti (10:21)
make a quick study of what they can do and make a decision.

Shane Moody (10:25)
Yes.

Seth Stevens (10:28)
That's good advice. So just trying to like sum up a high level overview of what a paving foreman would be doing like for general public. Essentially, like we've talked to Patrick before about projects managers and being in charge of that whole job. Well, you would be leading the team of people that come in and actually do the paving portion of the job. So you're coming in, you're receiving

Well, you're doing a ton of planning on like how many tons of asphalt you need from the asphalt plant, how many trucks you need to get it to you, all that kind of stuff. And so you're going out with that plan and then taking all the asphalt from the asphalt plant for that day and making a nice slick road.

Shane Moody (11:12)
Yes, that's the, that is the goal. Yeah. Yeah. gotta get the hardest thing is to get 10 or 12 adults to work together. Yeah. You know, to have a goal that you take off at A and you make it to B and hopefully I've ordered enough mix, but not too much mix. Yeah.

Seth Stevens (11:15)
That's right.

Brad Marotti (11:37)
And it's not always as easy as measuring the distance down the road that you're going to go because you're going to run into turnouts or driveways. There's different things that you've got to look ahead and say, I can get this far given the detail of work that I've got to do today. It should take this many times. the older you get into your career, the more experience you get, the better your planning.

Shane Moody (12:03)
Yeah.

Brad Marotti (12:04)
Not always dead

on that number.

Seth Stevens (12:07)
do you really

mean by that? Can you explain more? So it's not as easy as just playing

Brad Marotti (12:14)
Thank you.

Shane Moody (12:15)
So you take just a typical overlay, your rate's 220 pounds. So you try to hit, you know, if you're paving the first lane today, you try to be around a 225. Cause when you come back through and match it tomorrow, roughly you're going to be a 217, 215.

Brad Marotti (12:35)
That's

his way of saying two inches.

Shane Moody (12:37)
Yeah, asphalt weighs 110 pounds per square per inch per square yard. So whatever rate they put into plans, that's how you figure your thickness.

Seth Stevens (12:43)
Okay.

So yeah, that's how you, your 110 times two is how you get to your typical two inches of asphalt you put down. you're you're 220. Got it.

Shane Moody (12:58)
Depending

on which mix are running, if it's got slag in it whatever. You're used to, you can set a poker on two and a half inches and take off and you was ballparking within 10 pounds. ⁓ Well now depending on what kind of mix you got, you have to change it because it weighs different. Different material.

Seth Stevens (13:14)
Sure.

Brad Marotti (13:15)
depends on the rutting of the road, the existing condition of the road, you want to maintain or build a 2 % cross slope from center line down to the shoulder. The existing road may not be 2 % or maybe 1%. You may have ruts in the road. So it's going to eat up a lot of that mix. So he's got to account for that.

Seth Stevens (13:24)
Yeah.

Shane Moody (13:32)
And

if you go through the residential area, you have a whole bunch of driveways winging out on them. Depending on how flat they are. Yep. You can use up a whole bunch of mix. Just going in and out two foot on driveways. Yeah. It's two foot's your minimum, but you got some of them, you have to go out five foot cause there's a steep start with.

Seth Stevens (13:47)
Yeah, that's true.

Oh, I see.

Yeah. So if just a normal person's looking at it and you're driving down a road that's paved with asphalt, you look at the ends of people's driveways and a lot of time that asphalt will just like turn out into the end of their driveway until it meets concrete or whatever. Sometimes gravel, sometimes concrete or sometimes more asphalt, whatever.

Shane Moody (14:18)
and some of them be wider than others. Some of them you won't go out of foot on. Yeah. If they're coming downhill into a road, you can't go out two foot because then put a grind in the road because you jacked your screen up when you slid over the top Yeah.

Seth Stevens (14:33)
Yeah, so those are all the factors that make it where you can't just simply measure. Yep. Cause you got slightly different depths and places and then you got to go different widths for your driveways and.

Shane Moody (14:46)
the

say the highway departments want you to run slope those spot. You don't really know what you unless you went up and checked it, but they want you to maintain close to this rate. You go through, you've been laying two inches and then you lay four inches for 200 foot. We got to figure out how to make some of that up on the backside of it.

Seth Stevens (15:07)
Yeah,

and that's sloping from the center of the road out or like on a hill or whatever so you can keep rain water running off.

Shane Moody (15:16)
Either in a curve or just going down a straight spot in a road. Have a spot that settled some, have to raise it. You have to get thicker on your outside. keep your, most of the time you keep your center line the same, but you have to raise your outside ⁓ up or down. So you thin up. There's a lot of variables to it.

Seth Stevens (15:30)
Okay.

Yeah.

I got you.

Brad Marotti (15:38)
I

think that's the point you're trying to get across is that it's not an easy calculation.

Shane Moody (15:42)
It's not interstate paving.

Seth Stevens (15:44)
When you get pretty technical, there's a lot of stuff involved, for sure. And general public knows nothing about this. The majority of people you talk to really don't know the difference between asphalt and concrete. No. That's wild.

Shane Moody (16:00)
And they don't, you know, there's jobs we've done that had bad settling on it on the dirt work. Well dirt guys don't get any credit for that. It's asphalt guys because they're the ones that come in and paved it. So it's their fault. The road. It's just not what you're laying on.

Seth Stevens (16:17)
Because

you only see the asphalt sinking or whatever. But the dirt work and the base under all of that is probably the most important part of it, honestly.

Shane Moody (16:29)
I asked

Brad Marotti (16:29)
I feel like we should talk about this a little bit longer. Yeah, is a great point. By you saying the earthwork guys don't get credit for that, mean that everyone thinks it's the last person's fault. The people that put down the asphalt. Now, this goes into why is asphalt widely used? What is the biggest difference between asphalt and concrete? It's flexible, right?

Shane Moody (16:46)
Yes.

flexible.

Brad Marotti (16:57)
So the majority of our roads are asphalt because the asphalt paving is flexible. So whenever you have a subgrade that is not set up, I guess as dense as it could be, there's subgrade failures, there's underlying issues with water, there could be a number of causes.

Shane Moody (17:16)
a rush

job, just try to blow and go and get done for it settles and get paid for it.

Brad Marotti (17:21)
But if the rock

and the dirt work isn't perfect, the paving will not be perfect because it's flexible, right? So a lot of times we catch the black eye or the bad rap if new roads start showing holes or dips or... ⁓

Shane Moody (17:43)
But you can take us, for example, or just Delta. If it happens on our job, we did the dirt and we did the asphalt. You talk to the asphalt guy, it's the dirt guy's fault, or vice versa.

Seth Stevens (17:59)
It doesn't matter where you work. It's world against world.

Shane Moody (18:03)
Watch her out.

Brad Marotti (18:04)
Exactly.

Seth Stevens (18:05)
Yeah, but the so your point kind of I think that you were making Brad just in general with asphalt being flexible is if that happens, it's a quicker fix or you can still kind of get by with driving on it. Whereas if that happened to concrete, a lot of times you like have buckling or like crazy like crazy stuff happening. It's not drivable. You have to cut it all out.

Brad Marotti (18:31)
completely

pull it out and replace it. You know, concrete may be a cheaper option ⁓ as it's placed, you know, if we compare new construction to new construction, but we look at life cycle costs and over, over time, asphalt is easier to maintenance. And this is a

controversial topic of any of you talking to a concrete guy versus an asphalt guy. we would, we, definitely believe that the life cycle cost for asphalt is cheaper because it's easier to maintain. You can take the top two inches off or replace the top two or three inches and have a brand new road. And with concrete, you got to completely tear it out and replace it.

Shane Moody (19:13)
Yeah.

Seth Stevens (19:14)
So those would be a little more subjective, I guess, and financially backed. ⁓

Brad Marotti (19:20)
What's

subjective is the number of years that it lasts. There's so many different factors, depending on which part of the country you're in, what type of aggregate you have, there's just lot to it.

Seth Stevens (19:23)
Sure,

True. Two objective things about it though are it is quieter typically to drive on, because you don't have seams and stuff like in concrete. So you get a smoother ride. And it's 100 % recyclable. So you can take it back up, can crush it back down into kind of rocks and reuse it.

Brad Marotti (19:43)
That's a concrete road. ⁓

Shane Moody (19:53)
The only thing concrete's good for is make a base out of. Yeah.

Seth Stevens (19:56)
Sure.

You can recycle concrete, you can't use it as the same product again, which asphalt you can. Okay. Hey, good topic. Okay. What's, let's hop back to paving foreman, walk through like what a typical day looks like.

Shane Moody (20:17)
A typical day, most mornings get up around four o'clock in the morning. Check your phone, see if anybody's called in yet. Yeah, to not be there.

Brad Marotti (20:27)
to not be there.

Seth Stevens (20:29)
That

goes back to your 10 to 12 adults working in the same.

Shane Moody (20:34)
this. Talk to the plant. I generally talk to the plant every morning on the way to work. Or right after shortly after getting there. Yeah, asphalt plant.

Brad Marotti (20:42)
the asphalt plant.

Shane Moody (20:49)
Say we're going to load at seven, try to have the guys there at 630. Service truck, tack truck, they'd be there at six, getting everything ready. Make sure your header store out, make sure your traffic control, or first make sure your traffic control's in place. But you gotta make sure your pump's turning on your tack truck. And before you shoot in the oil, you need to talk to the plant one more time, make sure.

that they're making mix. They don't have, haven't had any issues, which not too big a deal in the summer, but in the winter or fall, and when it gets cold, turns into an issue on both ends.

Brad Marotti (21:28)
equipment just not running as well.

Shane Moody (21:32)
Then you take off paving, make sure everything's ready, make sure all your equipment's running. Take off paving. And at some point, if you hadn't told the plant the day before, you let them know what you're shooting for today. Generally you'll tell them in the afternoon, that way they can get liquid coming in.

Seth Stevens (21:53)
for the next day. That afternoon you're telling them the next day how many tons you're trying to run, what distance you're coming, basically your whole game plan.

Shane Moody (22:00)
You tell

them the plan and we started the group text. I don't know. I started using it last year, I guess, with everybody in it. But you get took off going and you look ahead, make sure no problems are coming up, which hopefully you've noticed them the day before if anything was coming up. But biggest deal was me and Brumley's worked together a whole bunch.

was communicating, I'd tell him this afternoon, tomorrow we've got 800 ton and either gonna jump a ramp or or jump a bridge or hit an intersection or have to pick up and do a ramp. Cause especially like with PWL, you don't want the plant starting and stopping, speeding up, slowing down. It can cost you a lot of money on one test.

Seth Stevens (22:53)
Which PWL is like a, it's basically like a consistency metric of how good your product is.

Shane Moody (22:56)
within limits. Yeah.

Brad Marotti (23:05)
tests

that the DOT or the owner of the project hold us to. Yeah. standards. ⁓ And Brumley, who he's talking about as an asphalt plant manager.

Shane Moody (23:16)
Yeah.

Seth Stevens (23:18)
So basically you want to keep that manufacturing process as uninterrupted as possible. Just like you want to keep your paving as uninterrupted as possible to make the highest quality product.

Shane Moody (23:30)
You go, there's a lot of communication all day. You know, Foreman talks to a bunch of people in a day's time, whether it, yeah, he talked to people on the crew all the time, people in the office or the plant, truck drivers, but somehow they always get our number. And about, about noon, you start planning tomorrow. If you don't have it planned out yet. afternoon you communicate that plan out.

Seth Stevens (23:49)
Imagine that.

Shane Moody (24:00)
⁓ You have to have somewhere to park your equipment. A of times that, depending on where you're at, a lot of times that involves knocking on people's doors. Some people are happy to help you, some people not. ⁓

Seth Stevens (24:15)
You're really just parking it there overnight so that you don't have to...

Shane Moody (24:18)
Yeah, some places, you'll depend on what the job is. Some places you'll park safe spot for a week. you got to make sure your guys are taking care of that property, not trashing it up. We have been run off places before for trash being left on the ground. There's a whole lot of overseeing goes on in a day's time and planning.

Seth Stevens (24:35)
Yep.

Yeah. I was going to ask your so like during this time throughout the day, are you on a piece of equipment or what are you doing?

Shane Moody (24:51)
Off and on. If there's some, if you, if you don't have enough people and you need something broomed or some backhoe work done, jump on it. Pover operator needs a, or any operator needs a bathroom break. The only thing I don't like to run is shuttle buggy. I don't know why don't, I just don't like it.

Seth Stevens (25:04)
You're filling in. ⁓

Brad Marotti (25:12)
Usually a shuttle buggy is on a project to dump, to be in between the asphalt truck, the dump truck and the paver. The dump truck is dumping into the shuttle buggy and the shuttle buggy is holding the asphalt and also feeding the paver so it runs.

Shane Moody (25:27)
Yes, between the paver and buggy, can hold load and a half, load and three quarters, something like that. So not supposed to stop is the plan. That and your trucks are not backing into the paver, bumping into it. Non-contact paving. So generally you get a better ride and better production using the buggy. Yeah, we use a buggy on some stuff that...

You don't have to, but you can almost double your production what you'd get in a day. ⁓ it pays for itself to have it out there most days.

Brad Marotti (26:07)
What do you feel like the biggest misconception is that people have as they drive by your job?

Shane Moody (26:16)
Everybody's Yeah. If it's going good, nobody's doing much and nothing. Everybody's standing there or they drive by and we've had equipment trouble or plants had trouble or we're just out of trucks. Everybody's sitting underneath shade tree. know, my tax dollars hard at work. I think that's the best. Yeah. Which most people anymore don't even notice you because they're looking at your phone.

Brad Marotti (26:18)
that your people are living.

Seth Stevens (26:37)
time.

That's a whole different problem.

Shane Moody (26:43)
Yes, it's a bad problem.

Seth Stevens (26:47)
For sure, mean, that brings up, guess, you're responsible from a safety aspects. Like, we say everybody's responsible and they are for themselves and the people around them, but you're a lot of times kind of having to set the tone for your team also. And I know like at the end of the day, you're going home feeling responsible for your whole team of people out on the job site. And that's scary.

Shane Moody (27:14)
Those

are my guys. mean, yes, they are responsible for themselves, but I'm responsible for all of them at the end. If something happens, they call me.

Brad Marotti (27:28)
But have you ever been involved or heard about a safety incident that's happened close?

Shane Moody (27:37)
The worst one I was ever in was when I worked for Joe in Missouri. I can't remember the mechanic's name now. He had his pickup parked in the median. We was paving southbound, the semi coming northbound, fell asleep, hit a guardrail underneath Overpass, and went off into median and hit the mechanic's truck.

It flipped the truck over in the median, the semi caught on fire. But if his truck hadn't been sitting there, that semi would have run, it would have hit just the way the tracks lined up. It would have hit right below the snood on the shuttle buggy. It went right between the paver and shuttle buggy. pickup hadn't been sitting there and stopped it.

Brad Marotti (28:25)
would have likely killed people.

Shane Moody (28:27)
No, there's no doubt. Absolutely no doubt that would happen.

Had a guy, dump man, over on 55. It's been, oh, eight years ago now. It's whenever we did the section from Blival to the state line, we was paving at the rest area. Had to jump back and forth across the on-ramp. For some reason, he walked around in front of the shuttle buggy. And when the shuttle buggy took off to go through the on-ramp, he hit him in the back. It knocked him down and he started rolling.

Brad Marotti (29:02)
to stay in front of it.

Shane Moody (29:03)
stay in front of it. And luckily one, if it, if it wasn't for sunny weathers, seeing him, truck driver, truck driver, he would have got killed. He can only roll so long because only come out of his truck, holler and waving. It take break on that one.

Seth Stevens (29:19)
Yeah, no joke. Might be done for the day. I mean, honestly, that's from the psychological standpoint and everything, and you're empowered to do that with us is like, that's serious situation that shakes people up. So.

Shane Moody (29:20)
Yeah, we took it. We took it. a little bright.

We took, I don't know, we took about a 30 minute break. Everybody settled down a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, we got underneath shade tree there at the rest area. But no boys on the buggy. We swapped him out with somebody. He's pretty rattled. I get it. Everybody was because it was his closest one I've ever had. Just got lucky.

Brad Marotti (29:41)
You huddle everybody up.

Seth Stevens (30:01)
Yikes. What kind of metrics do you look at on a day-to-day basis as a paving foreman? What are you looking at from an efficiency standpoint?

Shane Moody (30:16)
And it's just, you know, every jobs bid to have certain amount laid on it. You for sure want to hit that. You set up for all you realistically think you can get. You set up for that and you hope for budget. There's long and short of it and a good, good ride and density and all that.

Seth Stevens (30:42)
You're like tonnage per day driven is what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And you're, mean, I think there's probably some things that you just inherently think about. Like how many trucks do I have? Like who's waiting? Can this be more efficient? Can I get more mix here? Yeah. Yeah. But it's all driven on. I want to get 2000 tons a day or whatever you set your target at.

Shane Moody (31:08)
Depending on what your scope of work is today, today you may have 15 trucks running, tomorrow you may have eight trucks running. You may be on shoulders and have to do driveways and intersections just go. It depends what scope of work is, but yes, it's always production driven.

Seth Stevens (31:25)
Yeah. What's what do you think's the most challenging part about that job?

Shane Moody (31:35)
Hitting your personal goals, keeping everything, you you set up for a big day, nine days out of 10, something will break. Something will happen. like I say, just set up big and hope to get what the budget is at least.

Brad Marotti (31:54)
thought you might have said managing the crew.

Shane Moody (31:58)
If you got a good one, that's why I said wait them out earlier. If you get guys that work together, it gets pretty easy.

Brad Marotti (32:10)
How do you make sure you have a good crew? How have you done that over the years?

Shane Moody (32:15)
Right now, the crew I just got off of that Barrett took over was a real young crew. They buddied up. But one thing that has caused more trouble over the years is people talking about money. I don't know why adults want to go talk, but I'll make this much. I'll make this much. The hotel life is the hardest thing.

to manage out of the deal when you have guys staying out of town. They'll hang out all night and somebody will be mad next morning. But people talking about money has always been the biggest issue. Don't worry about what he's doing, just worry about you and do your job.

Brad Marotti (33:05)
Over

the years, you've seen some excel and some, you know, not and end up leaving. Now, what's the difference? What's the difference in the, in the guys that have moved up and made it a career and the ones that have ended up leaving.

Shane Moody (33:24)
Some of it is ability. Some of it's want to. There's a guy that works here now. He is a natural operator. No matter what you put him doing, he can do it. You have some people who want to be, but don't have the ability. And you have some people who have the ability that don't want to.

You know, there's guys that have done the same thing for years and years and years. And nothing wrong with that at all. You know, some people it's a pride issue and they take a lot of pride in what they do and they're real good at it. Some people don't want any more responsibility. They know what their job is every day when they show up.

Brad Marotti (34:14)
I feel like that's been a lot of the reason why you've had so much success building crews and building them quickly is by being able to recognize that you're paying attention to that. You're recognizing that you're holding folks accountable. You're making quick decisions on, you you're not, if you've got a problem with somebody, you're not dragging it out for a year, six months, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna address it.

Shane Moody (34:32)
Yeah.

I had a guy, was down by Clinton, neighbor Clinton somewhere down there, had a guy almost fired. I mean, was on the verge of it. My paver operator was quitting and I'd tried every person on the crew except this guy. So I just had it my mind that, know, his time was getting shorter here. We was string lining one day and was measuring off center line.

shooting edge. I pulled up behind him and he was just walking down through there painting it. I got out, chewed his *bleep* a little bit and he says, right. I checked him three or four spots and he was within an inch down through there. Put him on the paver and he drove. Yes, which was right. I sat him on the paver and he drove straightest line probably out of anybody I've ever had. You know, people can do stuff.

Brad Marotti (35:22)
Which was right.

Shane Moody (35:32)
It was my job to find out what they could do and what they couldn't do. But that also involved letting them do it and not hovering over the top of it.

Brad Marotti (35:45)
letting them get a few mouthfuls of water, but not drink.

Shane Moody (35:49)
Aaron was great on the road widener. Unless I walked up there, he'd leave a hole every time. Yeah. I could just walk up behind him and say something, leave a hole or overfill, one or two. You know, some people just need to be left alone. Some people, you need to be there a little more. But you want the ones you can leave alone. Yeah. Don't keep the ones that you have to have to hover over.

Brad Marotti (36:11)
You do.

I've heard you say before, the best managers are lazy.

Shane Moody (36:19)
Yeah. You know, my goal with my new role is to have every crew like mine was when I left. the lead man runs this crew and the foreman runs the job. Makes everybody's life easier.

Seth Stevens (36:38)
That's high performing crews that you're trying to build.

Shane Moody (36:42)
We've

got good crews, don't get me wrong, but I've talked to the foreman about it. That's my one goal for this year is to get the crews where the foreman can actually keep eye on things, not be tied to a screed or whatever.

Seth Stevens (37:01)
Yeah. All that stuff that we're just talking about takes a lot of emotional intelligence, whether you're like, you know, actively thinking about it or not. And as much like labor intensive and technical work that you guys do, like a lot of what you're doing is really just people work, right? Like you're managing people. And a lot of that translates to a lot of different things. If you can understand people and

connect with them and make quick decisions and all that kind of stuff. That's good. What's the most rewarding part of the job?

Shane Moody (37:39)
Seeing the guys challenge each other, we did the four mile job.

Brad Marotti (37:47)
Four mile I-55 interstate project. ⁓

Shane Moody (37:50)
We was, Patrick, Glimley, told the guys that if it profiled under, if the ride was in the 30s, for the whole job, he'd cook them steak.

Brad Marotti (38:03)
which is a smoothness metric. Very good.

Seth Stevens (38:05)
And that's good.

Shane Moody (38:09)
I loaded up one day, had the screed men in the truck and we picked up the roller guys with lamb binder. We was headed back to everybody's vehicles and had some roller knots in it. The screed guys turned around and said, guys, this We can do better than this. I didn't say a word. I just smiled and kept driving. You know, stuff like that.

Brad Marotti (38:30)
that

you were thinking you have arrived. Yeah. You don't know how you, how you've done this and how you deserve this.

Shane Moody (38:36)
Yeah.

I knew were fixing to build something there. Yeah. Yeah. They said that I just smiled and skipped driving. When they start, when your guys start holding each other accountable for their work and they're not screaming and yelling, you know, it's just a conversation. Then you've built a that was probably one of the neatest things I've sat through, know, just yeah. Yeah.

Seth Stevens (38:50)
Yep.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome.

That's great. What's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten?

Shane Moody (39:09)
I'd go down to two. One was, you know, dad's deal. Take care of your people. I'll take care of you. And Tony Dunlap, who used to work here, I was doing a milling field. My first milling field on 49, it was from McDonald's to Focus Bank. And I was right in middle of it one day. We was trying to clean up and I was, you know, just right in the middle of it. And he's come up and grabbed me by the vest and drug me out of there. He said, you're too close.

Seth Stevens (39:16)
Yep.

Shane Moody (39:38)
What you talking about? I'm too close. He said, you can't oversee the job if you're in there doing their job. He said, step back and keep an on everybody and make sure they're doing what they're supposed to do. Probably them two pieces of advice right there.

Seth Stevens (39:52)
Yeah, yeah.

Did you realize it at the time? Like in that moment, you don't realize that, How long do you think it took you to realize that that was good advice?

Shane Moody (39:58)
I was just, I just work.

About five years.

Seth Stevens (40:06)
Yeah,

that's crazy. It's so wild.

Shane Moody (40:09)
It took me about five. You

know, to actually step back and do it and start seeing what come from it.

Seth Stevens (40:18)
There's lot of you don't realize until way later. Yeah. But you remember that moment. For some reason, your brain says, this was an important moment. I don't know what it means. And it takes five years for you to be like, that's good advice.

Shane Moody (40:21)
And sat me.

take you up there and show you where I stand in there within 100 yards.

Seth Stevens (40:35)
my word. That's crazy.

Brad Marotti (40:37)
Some of the, your dad had some of the best advice, I think, best one-liners. We call them moody-isms, but I feel like I should, I have to tell this. But I'll never forget, I was early in my career as an estimator and your dad, was a VP at the company at the time. And I said, I came to him, I said something about this is not fair. You already know what he's I'll tell my kids this all the time. I love it.

Shane Moody (41:02)
over this.

Brad Marotti (41:05)
And he looked at me, he called me Yeah. He said, ⁓ he said, nothing is fair, boy. The fair is where you go to get cotton candy and a funnel cake. And I've said that to my kids so many times. I just, think that's awesome. But your dad is a, I'm sure you have so many one-liners from your.

Shane Moody (41:07)
Yeah, you gotta say boy.

Yeah, I saw you.

Yeah, I say stuff all the time. Don't even think about it, but that's where most of them come from.

Brad Marotti (41:30)
through that. ⁓

Seth Stevens (41:30)
Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

All right, so we started tradition on the podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest. So your question is why did you choose what you're doing and why do you love it?

Shane Moody (41:50)
When I started, it was strictly for the money. There's no question about it. It was, I went from making $10 an hour mechanic into making $25 an hour working on the crew then. know what? Missouri on prevailing weights. It was strictly for the money. I like it now. The thing I like is watching people grow.

You know, it's teaching people. know, I didn't know the superintendent role was going to come up. I poured it on Barrett this year as far as making him do a lot of the planning, you know, just in case something like this rose or Brad got mad at me and fired me. You know, I trained my replacement and watched him come up from the first time he worked here to now.

That's a big difference in him, which was all young at one time. But, I was watching people get to do new stuff ⁓ and excel or fail. You know, some people strive and some don't. So I guess that's it.

Seth Stevens (43:06)
Awesome.

Thanks dude.

Shane Moody (43:08)
Appreciate it.

Seth Stevens (43:12)
If you all enjoyed the episode, please rate our show and leave a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and check out Delta on all social media platforms at Delta Companies and our website at delta.cos. ⁓

lookslikedeltacos.com. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.