IT on the Frontlines: Tech, AI, and the Future of Construction

In this episode of On the Surface, we sit down with Craig McClellan and Russell Goss—Delta’s IT Manager and IT Technician—to uncover the technology, teamwork, and troubleshooting that keep our construction operations running every single day. From dial‑up internet and building their first PCs to supporting hundreds of employees across multiple states, Craig and Russell share how they each found their way into IT and why the role has never been more essential.

They walk through the realities of modern tech in a construction environment—networking, VoIP systems, cybersecurity, cloud servers, and the never‑ending stream of access requests and password resets—while also breaking down the “boots on the ground” part of IT that most people never see. From plant outages and high‑pressure fixes to organizing messy network rooms and prepping for AI‑driven support tools, they explain how IT touches every dollar made in the company.

Craig and Russell also explore the future: fully connected plants, AI‑powered troubleshooting, drones that analyze job sites, and the expanding need for digital security as cyber threats grow. They open up about leadership, staying curious, adapting to constant change, and why construction is a rock‑solid industry for young people entering the workforce—especially those interested in technology.

It’s an inside look at the people behind the screens who keep the business online, secure, and moving forward—one ticket, one server, and one reboot at a time.

Thanks for listening!

Check us out:

deltacos.com

Instragram

LinkedIn

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome back to On the Surface, the Go-To podcast for construction and materials. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week I sit down with Craig McClellan and Russell Goss to discuss IT, AI, and future tech. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Who in the world are we? Um my name's Craig McClellan. I'm uh IT manager for Delta. Um I've been here for this is my 15th year. Fifteen. Fifteen in October.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

So and your protege? I'm Russell Goss. I'm the uh IT technician for Delta. Nice. I've been here full-time for two going on two years now. But you were here before that. I was, yes. I was as intern? IT intern for uh two uh two years.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

First ever IT intern, right? Uh not sure. No, we had a few others.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

We had uh Jordan. Oh yeah. He told that story before was our number two intern. Uh he was our second best intern. He was a distant uh second to Russell. So distant.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

A lot of room. A lot of room. Yes, for sure. So what is that? What does it even mean to be an IT for construction?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Um it's a very vast job. Yeah. You know, it seems like it's anything with a plug that we have to uh touch at some point. Um but we uh we're boots on the ground and local tech support for Delta, you know. If there's an emergency that happens anywhere in our footprint, we are uh we are to respond remotely or in person if needed. Um and you know, IT touches every part of the business, right? So um there isn't a dollar made um that doesn't go through an IT system, basically. Nice. So it's uh it's a big responsibility.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

That's a great sell for IT. Honestly. Yeah. What's like how did you even get into IT?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Um I graduated from SIU in uh 20 or 2006. Um I worked at a local computer shop for a couple years, and then I moved to a uh mental health provider in Carroll, Illinois, of all places. Yeah. Um I worked there for three years. Um and then uh I came to Delta in 2011. Been here ever since. Been here ever since.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

How did you pick to go into IT in school?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Really, it was the only thing that I was really interested in. Um, you know, uh, you know, I grew up, you know, I graduated in 2000, so in the late 90s, um, that's kind of when internet became more common, you know. At the time it was dial-up internet, but um internet became you know, something that you could have in your house or whatever. So everybody thought the world was gonna end too. Yeah. Do you remember that? Yes, Y2K.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

And then actually absolutely nothing happened, but you were into like IT and all that at that point? I mean, I was interested in computers. You weren't in school, you weren't in college yet, but no.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

But I mean, I was interested in computers, you know. I think I got my first home computer probably in seventh or eighth grade. My parents bought me a computer because I, you know, wouldn't quit bothering them about it. What was it? Do you remember? I remember it was like uh I think it was a 586 computer. It was a Cyrex processor. It was for sale in the trader paper. Um, some guy in Murphusboro was selling them or whatever. So I remember we went, I went, we went up there with my mom and met this guy in like a parking lot, and we bought a computer from him.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Dude, this is like Craigslist 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, that's exactly what it was. That's awesome. And uh, you know, I got it home, got it all set up, uh, didn't have internet yet. Um my grandma actually took me to uh Marion, Illinois. Uh there was a place selling, I think it was called Midwest Internet at the time. Style up and uh signed up for internet and then got all that hooked up. You know, you had to run a phone line to your computer, and then, you know, uh, you know, this all this stuff is stuff Russell has no idea what I'm even talking about. That's true. Um pre-birth. Yeah. So yeah, the first night I had internet, it was like, whoa, you know, what's out there or whatever. It was it was pretty eye-opening. So um, you know, was then I got into gaming a little bit on the you know, as much as you could game on a 586 computer. And um I don't even know what that means. Well, it didn't have a video card or anything like that, so we're not talking about modern games or whatever. Okay. Um, so you know, I broke the computer enough times early on and had to go pay somebody to, you know, reload windows on it or whatever, because I completely trashed the OS. Oh, sweet. Um, I screwed it up enough times that I eventually, you know, that was expensive to get it fixed, so I had to start learning how to fix it myself. So that's kind of how I got into it. And then you started building computers? Yes. Um, you know, as you know, to feed the gaming part of it, you know, I needed to upgrade my computer with more RAM and more, you know, a better processor, and got into video cards and stuff like that. So yeah, started started building my own computers. And it's definitely not cheaper to build your own computer, but you at least you know everything that's in there and and you, you know, it's kind of it's kind of um a way to you know just boost the performance, and that's what you're trying to do is is get it to perform how you want it to perform in games and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Then what'd you start playing? Honestly, um a lot of NASCAR racing games. Yeah. I still play NASCAR racing games. Um so there was a lot of that. Um, you know, some first person shooters. I remember playing like Quake and uh Duke Nukem was another big one back in the day. Um so maybe and then you know, much later on, you know, Call of Duty came out and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Oh, yeah, that's true. I heard you're the Dale Earnhardt Jr. of the computer.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

I guess.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

What's your story, Russ? Uh yeah, so I guess kind of before I went to college, I was just enjoyed dealing with technology and computers and stuff like that. So found a program uh here at CEMO, um technology management uh with emphasis in computer networking and system administration. Um out of whim I applied for and came down here without touring the campus or anything and oh nice enjoyed the uh uh three years I did for my undergrad and decided to stay another two years for my master's. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Um as I was finished up my undergrad, uh I guess I found the uh IT internship uh with Delta on our school website, which sweet applied for that and interviewed and quickly became the top intern. Yeah, the top IT intern of all time. Uh was my first IT job. So oh nice. Yeah, yeah. So you were into computer stuff prior to school?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Yeah, just barely. Uh not not as much as Craig there, but okay. I like to tinker.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Okay. Like electronics or anything. Kind of anything. Anything. Nice. So what is like what do they teach you in school or IT? I don't even have the slightest idea. I let Russell go first. He he he was in school.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

It's a more recent experience. Yeah, he was in school a lot more recently than I was.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

So um for SEMO, they kind of teach you anything and everything. Um so they start you out uh tearing apart a uh computer, putting it back together, and then um seeing if it works. Okay. Throw you for a loop and after you get it working back, you as you leave the class, instructor or GA comes around and takes uh stuff out of the computer. You come back the next time for class and you have to figure out what's wrong with it. Oh and then from there they uh you move up to working on servers and installing virtual environments and Windows uh uh environments and phone systems. You learn it all there. That's pretty cool. What do you like the best? Um I guess my favorite part kind of out of um that class was um kind of VoIP so voiceover IP, which is a phone systems. Is that still your favorite? Uh that's still my favorite. Um we don't have a whole lot of VoIP stuff, but we're kind of starting to move to some some VoIP uh systems at our locations.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

So what does that really mean? Like for people that don't know what VoIP is.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah, so VoIP uh uh basically uses your internet um for your phone line. So you no longer have to have a uh a copper phone line coming into your uh location. Uh so if you have internet, you have a phone line. Um it's cheaper, much cheaper than um using uh copper lines. Um I could probably if he wants to share how much we've saved in switching from uh copper lines to void, but it it's a large amount.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

I mean, just in this building alone, we're probably saving at least two thousand dollars a month. Oh, really? Yeah. Just because of the service? Yeah. Whoa. So it's been uh everywhere we've done it, you know, we've done it to save money. Um, but then you know, it's it's easier to manage. Um and you know the On our end, yes it's easier to manage. Yeah, by far, by far. And and it's something that's easier to, you know, you're you're not under contracts and that kind of thing, too.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

So why? Why is it easier? Is it easier for suppliers because they're already sending you internet? They're always over there and they don't have to like maintain uh two sets of lines and stuff. Yeah, exactly. And internet overtook phones, so they may as well just send it out. Okay. Yeah. Huh.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Man, IT's easy. ATT is actually wanting to get rid of um phone lines all together? Copper lines.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

What will they run it through? Fiber? Yeah, fiber. Yeah, it'll be the same. Orver they have their internet lines. Yeah. Because it's not all fiber yet.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

And most seems like they've been working on installing fiber for like 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

It's never gonna be done at all. But I mean, you mean you look you look at how long the copper lines, the copper phone lines lasted, you know, those were put in the ground 60 years ago. So, you know, the fiber That's crazy. Yeah, the fiber's gonna last longer than that. Uh you know, it's gonna have to be repaired a lot over the over time, but um, you know, it it's it's gonna be there for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Because people dig and hit them. Oh, yeah. Call 1-800 dig right.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Back backhoes will will always hit there they're like I saw uh uh like a meme one time. It was like fiber seeking backhoe or whatever. It was like the uh the scientific name of of a backhoe, kind of like an animal or whatever. They seem to always find it.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

So it's not like a big line.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

No. But they always run into it.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

That's funny. Uh nice. Okay, so back to you, Russ. The so you like VoIP and networking stuff. Is that true? Yeah. I heard that Craig always outsources all networking to you. Not always, but okay. Um you like messing with it.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

I I do like messing with it. Um uh worked on a one of our projects from previous years is uh switching out uh all of our uh networking switches, and um it's fun to uh get those in place and um get all the configurations on them and what's fun about it?

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Do you like organizing or like m running and making it all work? Or I guess it'd be kind of both of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Um I like seeing the finished product and kind of saying, hey, I played a part in making that happen. Yeah. Um and also kind of the organizing of uh kind of finding out what configs the device needs and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

So do you are you one of those guys that likes to get it done fast, or do you like the stuff that you install? Is it like a beautiful masterpiece that's like color-coded and allowed?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

When say it's color coded, I like to get it done fast.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

I have a project I like to do.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Is it like do you like zip ties and stuff?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

I'll put zip ties on it and I'll cut it at a 45 degree angle so we can find it next time.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

We use a lot of zip ties. That's great. You know, in in our locations, our plants and stuff, you know, they're it doesn't have to be the prettiest thing in the world.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Um, but um, you know, recently that's been a project of ours is to go to some of these locations that have some pretty messy, dirty, dusty wiring, you know, computer wiring environments and actually try to clean it up a little bit. And uh that's worked out really well. I think the employees um I think they really like it.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

So will you like wrap it or put it in tubes or anything?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

We don't do all that now. Oh that's craziness. That'll take forever. And I mean the the important thing too is is you know, we're the ones that have to work on that. So the harder it is to get in there and to place the wire, it's just making more work for us.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Yeah, I could see that. I could see that. Um Russell, you also like radio stuff. Yeah. Is that basically networking or what? Explain this to me.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

So it's not necessarily networking. Um, so I'm a ham radio operator. I have my uh uh license from this. What's ham radio? Um so you basically go and um study for a uh a test, uh they call it a technician's uh test. That's the first level. Um it's like a 35 question uh test. If you pass, you FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, gives you a uh uh license and that license allows you to operate on certain um frequencies uh that you're allocated for. Um it's a little bit different than uh a business where you're given a specific single frequency. Hams are given a range of frequencies that they can operate on. What's hams stand for?

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Or does it stand for anything?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

It doesn't stand for amateur radius and uh also what it's called.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Okay. Huh. That's cool. What do you use it for?

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Um, I there's a variety of things uh you can use it for.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

If it's like black market stuff, you don't have to talk about no.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Um public service events. Um bike rides and uh runs and stuff like that. Um when bat severe weather comes in, um they have a program called Skywarn that um sends weather reports back to the National Weather Service. Um you can contest with it, see how many stations you can contact and different stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Do you do contests? Sometimes. Yeah. Not frequently, but sometimes. Do you win when you do them? No. Oh. I thought maybe you'd be like a legend already. No. All right. What's like the you already said that IT supports all areas of the business and make all the money.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Not all. I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Yeah. I'm kidding. But everything that you do, or every IT supports everything that we use, like from loading out trucks and material to seeing all those tickets on the back end and like our ERP system or accounting software to collecting and tracking money and connecting to banks and all that kind of stuff. Right. So and manage everybody's work cell phones to an extent.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Uh so like what is the most requested service?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Uh the most requested ticket, I guess. Yeah, yeah. It's usually something to do with some sort of access. Somebody can't log in. Um can't get into email, they can't get into their computer. Um password resets. Password resets that kind of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

You remember before they automated password resets that you had to manually do them all?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

For sure. How many do you think you did like in a a week?

SPEAKER_00 17:53

In a week, probably five to ten, depending on the week.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah. And and you know, we've automated it, but you know, not everybody's using that automated system yet. Oh, sure. They hit you up. We still do quite a few. Now we're not, you know, we we try to steer people towards using the automation uh side of it. It's more secure that way because you know, no passwords are exchanging hands. I'm not giving somebody their passwords or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

So it just automatically generates it and sends it.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Well, the user it it sends them to a link and the user actually types in what their they want their password to be.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. So really only they know what it is. Only they know what it is, yes. And before, it's probably three people that know.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, at one time they're yeah, it's like that.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

That's cool. What's your um what's your favorite ticket to get or work on?

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Favorite ticket? Russell, you got any? I don't know. Um I mean so software installs. I like Oh, really? Sure. I like those. Because you have to put an admin password in.

unknown 19:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

And it makes you feel powerful. It does. It makes yeah, it kind of, you know, the admin password is kind of like God mode on a game. So um yeah, software installs are are fun. Because we can't do anything without you.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

That's right. I would say kind of the uh abnormal one-off tickets that we get that it's like, where'd this come from? And yeah, we we have no clue what what went wrong and have to.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

What's like the craziest ticket like in that realm? What's the craziest one that I guess you got excited about?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

I don't know. Um I mean, anytime a plant goes down, it's it's not you know that's exciting because that kind of gets rate up a little bit because you know you have to get this up and going and you're you're on a a time crunch to uh to fix the issue and and get you know the site ticketing again.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

That's exciting though. Do you get excited by it?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

I mean it it's in an adrenaline rush a little bit, I guess. Yeah, you know, you you realize that you know that location's down. Um and if it's down too long, you're gonna have uh, you know, some managers calling you and asking you what's going on. So yeah, that's true. That's true. It it it's nice whenever it's a quick fix and you're able to get them get everything fixed and resolved and the site operating again. It's a it's a sense of accomplishment, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Yeah. What's the worst ticket to get?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Uh probably network access. You know, I can't get into such and such folder. We get a lot of those. We've gotten a lot recently with our reorg.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Yeah. I actually have a couple that I need.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Oh, thank God. Denied. I'll I'll send you a link that you can put in a ticket for that.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Right after I tell you I'm gonna get an email that says turn a ticket in for there's a reason we put don't contact put in tickets though.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah. Oh, why? Well, first reason is so that when you submit a ticket, it goes to the entire kind of Reeves IT team. So there's not just me and Craig here at Delta. We have three other people that across Reeves that also help. So if you just send Craig a text that he's not able to get to his phone for an hour versus you putting in a ticket, when you put in a ticket, it goes to five people versus you send in a text to Craig, it only goes to one person. Um also contrary to what everyone believes, we don't have access to everything. Um, so when you submit a ticket, it gets categorized to the correct team. Whether it be our uh kind of manufacturing team that is specializing like JWS and that stuff, or um if it needs to come to frontline or whatever, um, it gets to the correct team without you sending us a message and without us having to put a ticket in and then Go into the correct team, it gets delayed that way. Um when you submit the ticket, it eliminates that delay.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Yeah. No, that's a good point. I know there's five people locally for Reeves that handle like the more local requests, but then the other types of requests that go to teams that you guys don't have access to are like our Coloss IT that support all the US. So how many people work for IT across the country, do you know? For ISS, there's well include like local, because you can help other people outside of Reeves, right? It's more difficult now. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Um, but yeah, at one time, you know, we could um they've you know they've done some uh security changes, so it's harder to get across the uh networks now. Um but I guess you know we have Colos Digital Solutions, which is our IT arm of Colos that's based in France. Um they're kind of looking at things at like the global level. So if it's a global program or um if it's uh you know any kind of software that's used across all of Coloss globally, they maintain that software. They, you know um they take care of care take care of all that. And then we have Coloss ISS, which is in Denver. And they're kind of looking at things at like the North America level. Um, so you know, there's a lot of software that all of the subsidiaries in the United States and Canada use. They uh they take care of of that kind of stuff. And then, you know, whenever we put in tickets, it goes into Coloss ISS and they are doing the triaging of those tickets. They are moving the tickets around and and assigning them to the correct group. Um, so you know, if it's an accounting software problem, they assign it to the group that that's what they take care of is the accounting software. Um, and then you know, they will move tickets into RQ, which is the Reeves IT Q, which again goes to to five of us that are in Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Nice. Wait, so how many people do you have an idea of how many people are in IT across the US for I mean we just had our kickoff meeting in Denver last month, and there was probably 120 people there. So that would be that's just North America. Yeah, that's crazy. That's just United States and Canada.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

And and to think about it, you know, when I first started, really CoWs ISS was just getting off the ground. They maybe had 10 employees at that time. And now we have 120, you know, counting the local guys. Now, the the 10 wet back when I started, that did not include the local guys because we weren't really we were kind of separate. You know, we we weren't really um one unit at that time, but over the years now we have a tighter relationship with Coloss ISS at the local level, and we all kind of work together as just the frontline team.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Makes sense.

unknown 25:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Um what's like the coolest technology that you're aware of that we are not using?

SPEAKER_01 25:26

AI. I mean, we're using AI, but we're not using AI to the like the capability like what? What do you want to do? Um so one thing, and I think it's coming, um at our kickoff, we uh demonstrated that um you can use an AI uh chatbot or a um virtual kind of AI to talk you through like the initial troubleshooting steps of um something going on with like your computer or whatever. Um so having that AI uh walk them through like we all ask everyone, have you rebooted your computer yet? Um just the repetitive stuff that we're gonna ask you every single time that um when you call in if it walks you through that and if it can't resolve the issue, then it sends you to uh uh um one of our team members.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Yeah, yeah. Do you think that it'll catch a lot of issues? I think or like resolve a lot of stuff. I think it will. What does that mean for your team?

SPEAKER_01 26:33

I don't necessarily think it will impact the frontline too much. Um we're still the boots on the ground. So i if there's something physically wrong with the device, we still have to go out and touch it or yeah, get on it. Um the AI won't I I don't foresee it having access to your computer to remote in and do anything. Um so we'll still have to if it's installing it software or stuff like that, we'll still have to go out and do that kind of stuff. But it it's the repetitive things we ask you. The boring things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

It's like troubleshooting frequently asked questions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I mean, yeah, I mean, uh eventually AI could be basically level one tech support, you know, reboot your computer, um, you know, reload the software or or whatever. It could do the very basic things, but anything more advanced is gonna have to go to a live person.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

So that's cool. Um, would you agree? That's the most that's the coolest thing you know of that we don't use.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Probably, yeah. Um, you know, I I think that you know, I think that's a gonna be a follow-up question at some point is is what the future is gonna be or whatever. Um I can I can see. All right, let's go. Okay, future. Um definitely gonna be more AI. Um I think our plants and choreas are gonna be more connected, if that makes sense. You know, you know, for years, you know, items on the plant, we just had power cables run into it. And, you know, we're gonna get to a point where you're gonna have power run into everything, but then you're also gonna have Ethernet run into everything. Yeah. Because all the plant components are all of a sudden going to be checking in and actually, you know, reporting data um back to some sort of main system. And, you know, we're gonna have a dashboard someday, and you're gonna be able to see every little thing that's on the plant, how it's performing, and um, you know, how it's doing as far as production and that kind of thing. So, I mean, I think that stuff is coming. I mean, you know, just hypothetically, you know, what if you had like a like drones that could fly your job site and stay up in the air and and help you out with, you know, and then feed AI and give you some suggestions as far as, you know, you would be more productive if you um altered your traffic pattern of your trucks or if you move this truck from from doing this job to a different job because it's being underutilized. I mean, you know, you know, things like that. Just everything's gonna get more connected, everything's gonna be able to talk to the internet and talk to AI, and it's gonna give managers suggestions on ways to make the job site perform better. Yeah, that's pretty cool. It's coming for sure.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

When? When? Yeah, it sounds awesome. We should have it now.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

It just costs a lot of money. I mean, everything's possible in IT, it just costs money.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

That's true. Sometimes a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Uh can you run power and Ethernet over the same cable? Absolutely. It's called uh power over Ethernet. Would that work for a plant or does it need too much power?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Usually there's a there's a limitation. I think it's 50 some odd volts. Is that right, Russell? 54 volts or something like that is the limitation on our current switches. We can't sub we can't provide more power than that over Ethernet. Um that continues to get better year after year. So, you know, eventually, you know, eventually they're gonna get they're gonna reach 120. And then you, you know, that's the same as the wall in your house when you plug a plug something in.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

So yeah, it could definitely get there.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Okay. Now, now the stuff we have at plants, you know, are usually way up there in voltage, but yeah, like what?

SPEAKER_02 30:34

I'm not an electrician, I don't know what any of that means.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

I I know electricity to be dangerous, so I didn't know myself, but I mean, you know, some of our crushers and stuff, they probably are pushing hundreds of volts.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like over 220. Which like a uh dryer, like a laundry dryer in your house is 220.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Yeah. Well they're they're pushing.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Make sure you unplug it if you ever work on it. Ask me how I know. I mean no sense. Uh how do you guys stay up to date on that kind of stuff? Like you nerd and out all the time, so you're aware of all of like the new technology.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Um, I'll I'll look online and see what what's kind of come out and just uh podcasts and stuff like that. Yes. I'll walk over to Craig and say, hey, you see this new technology?

SPEAKER_00 31:31

That's cool. That's like an everyday occurrence. He walks over to my office and tells you what's new.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Like what kind of stuff? Because like I guess I get nerdy and look up stuff like devices, but are you talking about the same kind of thing? Are you talking about like wild stuff that I don't understand or think about? Particularly that.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Oh, I'm on a ubiquity kick right now. A what?

SPEAKER_02 31:53

Ubiquity. Oh, ubiquity. Yeah. What is that?

SPEAKER_01 31:56

They do uh cameras and access control and a lot of internet of things type devices.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

But but they're starting to get into enterprise tech. So, you know, at some point, um, you know, we may have some of that stuff at some of our locations. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 32:12

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

I think that um, you know, IT news is more mainstream now, so you don't really have to search for it as much because that kind of thing is being reported on in the news, and and we're kind of to a point where, you know, technology is just a part of everyday life at this point. So it's not like it was, you know, 20 years ago where you had to go out and find certain websites, and uh, you know, podcasting wasn't really a thing back then, but um you had to go to certain websites to to find a lot of that kind of news, and now it's kind of being shoved in your face all the time 24-7.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

So yeah. How's that changing your job? Russell wouldn't know. He's only known the same thing. But you've been around, so you've seen it's just changed a lot.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

You know, IT has evolved um in 20 years, uh, has evolved a lot, you know, especially at Delta. Um 20 years ago, you know, when I was hired, I was hired as a network coordinator. So really my job was a lot more server stuff and networking stuff. Um, you know, when I started, we had probably six servers in our, you know, we called it the data center because it was a small data center. Um so we had six physical servers, but we had probably 25 virtual servers. Um and it was a full-time job just keeping those servers happy and making sure they're backed up. And you know, I remember my backups would always kick off at 9 p.m. at night. And if I got an email at 9.05 p.m., then I know a backup failed. And of course I it would tell me your your backup didn't work, and I would have to remote in and try to figure out what the problem was. So um it's it's just evolved a lot, you know, our server environment had a lot of it we consolidated and we moved stuff to the cloud and we've moved things to COLOS ISS, yeah, their data center. And so, you know, a lot of that heavy server work that I used to do, I don't really do anymore.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Yeah, a lot of that though is probably I mean, it's a mix of us adopting it, but also cloud technology coming along, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Yeah, for sure. I mean, uh, you know, it's you utilizing the cloud for that kind of thing, it's it's usually cheaper because you're not buying hardware anymore.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

And you're you're paying for a service. And and a lot of times the way the cloud billing is is you're paying based on your usage. So it's a more fair way to do it. You're not investing all this money into hardware and you know, a server with, you know, X amount of hard drives in it and X amount of memory and processing power. Um that you might over or underutilize. Yeah, and in every case, you usually do over or underutilize. Um, but you're able to actually just pay the cloud provider and you know really your resources are unlimited. You can you can ramp it up as high as you want to go because it's running in these big data centers that have infinite amount of power.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Yeah. Yeah, you brought that up. I was gonna say, which cloud works by just going to data centers, like massive data centers where they're serving a lot of people, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Yeah, I I saw uh explanation one time that the cloud is just means your data is just running on somebody else's computer.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Yeah.

unknown 35:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

It's not really the cloud. We call it the cloud, but it's the exact same thing. It's just running through a massive data center instead of your own. Yes, exactly. Um speaking of data centers, that's like kind of a big thing now, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:01

AI did it data.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

More and more people are building them. Yes. And because uh AI uses a lot of data center, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Yes, and they use apparently a lot of electricity as well.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're no experts in data centers, but no. Um do you think data centers will always have to exist?

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Oh, absolutely. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

Just for computing power.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

I don't think there's any moving back from data centers, really.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

I don't think so either, no. I mean, you're your data has you know, all this data has to be stored somewhere.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Now, eventually we may have data centers out in the out in space. I know they're talking about it. Whoa. Due to how much cheaper it's gonna be to cool that stuff. Because that's always a problem with data centers, is cooling is always always an issue. Um would they be solar powered? I would plenty of sun out there, huh? Plenty of sun out there, yeah. I mean, I mean they have data centers in the ocean. In the ocean? In the ocean. Because they're cool. Because of cooling. Huh. So that's crazy. I mean, you know, that stuff is not gonna affect, you know, just everyday life for people, you know. Um, but you know, it it could definitely affect business.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

That's true. So you don't see any way to get away from data centers.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

No. No. They're here to stay.

SPEAKER_02 37:35

They're just not gonna be able to do that. What about like other world technology?

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Other world technology?

SPEAKER_02 37:41

No, that's a rabbit hole. I was just gonna see. I was gonna see if I caught a fish right there, but we're not gonna talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Well, that they haven't showed up to give us that technology yet, so maybe if the Maybe we're the leaders. Who knows? We could start a whole different podcast on conspiracy. Yeah, that's a different that's a different podcast.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Um what do you think? What's like the craziest thing you can think of that comes next? Like creatively with I with IT stuff. I don't know. If you went to go invent something right now, what would it be? Boy. Like what realm would it be in?

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Probably something AI backed at the moment that's the latest craze.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

It doesn't have to be work-related.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Well, it would still probably be something with AI. I mean, you know, we're in it's either gonna be an AI or security. Oh yeah. Probably. Um, and it may be, you know, AI that does security. I don't know. Yeah. Um, you know, the the AI thing is is big, but then also, you know, security is big because I think we're in a time right now where our cyber environment is probably as is as dangerous as it's ever been. You know, um, we, you know, there's bots out there that do nothing but surf the internet, look around on the internet and see what systems they can get into. And they run 24-7 and they never take a day off.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Um, you know, so there's constantly bad guys trying to get into businesses and you know, not even businesses, but home users as well. They're just looking for computers to get into. So it's a very dangerous time as far as as far as that goes, and it's probably worse now than it's ever been, I believe. So, you know, that's where um Colos ISS protects us, is because we have a, you know, and Colos um and CDS as well, we have an entire security team. And they are, you know, managing threats and they're combing our networks, looking for for issues, and we're fixing them as you know as quickly as we can and that kind of thing. So um, you know, I think that's an advantage to us at Delta. Um, you know, if a mom and pop out there run is running an asphalt plant and all of a sudden they get a ransomware attack, you know, they may have to, you know, worst case scenario, they may not be able to recover from that or recover recover from those lost sales because they were not able to get their systems back up and going in a timely manner. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. Whereas here, you know, we have an entire security team and they we have plans in place to recover from from attacks like that. And and more importantly, we have ways to detect an attack happening and we're able to stop that attack. Um, you know, nothing's perfect when it comes to security. There's really nothing. Um, there's no computer that's safe unless it's powered off and not connected to the internet. But um, you know, we've invested a lot of money in security, and um, you know, I think we're doing a fantastic job so far to make our systems more secure.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

So yeah. Do you know anybody that's in like uh IT, like military IT? Like cyber warfare stuff?

SPEAKER_00 41:33

No, I wish I did. I'd have a lot of questions.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yeah. Russell, do you know anybody? Uh not in like cyber warfare or anything, but I do know some people that are contractors for do IT work?

SPEAKER_02 41:47

Is it all similar or is it like way more advanced?

SPEAKER_01 41:50

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

They can't talk about it. No. They're not at liberty to figure if anybody knew it'd be you.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Well, in in school, you were on that uh that security team, right? I was not, no. I thought you were no. But I know CEMO, they have a uh they do what is it called cyber defense team. Oh, they do like competition.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Yeah, I've heard of that. Uh where they're basically it's it's almost like uh is somebody is a team like on offense and somebody's on defense. I guess you're always on both, huh?

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Yeah. Um that's my understanding of it. Um you have a I believe you have a red hat and black hat, and um one team is trying to secure it and one team is trying to uh get into it, I believe is how it goes. I'm not 100% positive on that, but that's cool. Basically have to detect what is going on with your network and stop the people from gaining access.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Yeah. How do you think your guys's jobs will change like continue to change with AI?

SPEAKER_01 43:09

I don't think I mean I don't think AI will get rid of our jobs. Yeah. I don't think it'll get rid of a lot of uh jobs at Delta. Um we'll use it to help us and kind of get rid of the things that are repetitive and consistent. Um but I mean we'll still we'd still be here pushing that power button on the uh computer after we ask someone to to reboot it and we look and it's been up for twenty four days or something.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

You know, it might help it might make us or help us make decisions, um as far as, you know, what's wrong with the machine or whatever or or where we need To replace certain parts of the network or whatever. It's gonna help us make decisions. I don't think it's you know it's gonna have a lot bigger impact than that.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Yeah. What's the best piece of advice you've gotten?

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Ask questions. I got that when I was an intern. Um from who? I don't remember it may have been Zach. Oh, nice. Um I don't know. It was one of the leadership that was presented when I uh first an intern. I've they've said it pretty much every year. Yeah. Is when you're out in the field, ask questions.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Good advice.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Be willing to uh learn and take on stuff.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

Yeah. Um be curious. Be curious. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Huh.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Nice. It's good. Have you ever gotten advice, Craig?

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Never. I've just automatically known everything, so I didn't need advice. Um, no, it's probably you can only control what you can control. Oh, yeah. And especially in IT, you know, it's such a rapidly changing environment and it evolves so much that uh, you know, only worry about the things that you can control and that's all you can do at the end of the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

Yeah. You probably run into new problems all the time with technology because it's probably the most rapidly changing environment at this point.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

It is. I mean, just like a Delta, we you know, we pave roads the same way we've have for you know years, and we make asphalt the same way we we have for years. But our our IT infrastructure is completely different from where when I started to to now.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

So yeah, that's true. It changes quickly. We're just that's just the environment the entire world is in is technology and AI and all that stuff rapidly changing.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

You know, a a good thing to look at every year is they have the uh CES show in Vegas every year, I believe. And I mean, some of the stuff that they show off every single year is just kind of mind-boggling. What's CES stand for? Consumer electronic show. Oh, okay. And uh, you know, all the big companies are out there, Microsoft, Lenovo, HB, everybody out there that makes anything tech related. And that's that's the stuff that they just plan on putting out, you know, that year, every year. So uh, you know, it's just pretty mind-boggling some of the stuff that uh is available now that you know you, you know, 10 years ago you couldn't even dream of.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Yeah. Cool. What's uh something that you guys want to accomplish in the next year?

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Um probably the biggest one is um our you know, security projects. Uh-huh. We constantly have security projects that we're working on, and uh we have to finish the ones that are due this year so that we can get new ones next year.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

That job's never gonna be done.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Um, you know, that's probably that's our biggest focus, along with, you know, the usual keeping computers, networks, and devices updated and um working and that kind of thing for our employees.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

Same?

SPEAKER_01 47:18

I would probably say the same, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Okay. This is good. You guys are on the same page.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Security is kind of our uh top priority across the company.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Um there's there's projects coming out all the time. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Yeah. Uh all right. So if you've been listening to the podcast, you get a question left for you by the previous guest. Oh boy. So your question, which I want both of you to answer it, for the younger generation entering the workforce, why is our industry a great choice?

SPEAKER_00 48:00

I think our industry is a good choice because it's always gonna be here.

SPEAKER_04 48:06

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

And I mean, as long as we have cars.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Once once we start having flying cars, then that could uh throw a wrench into things. But I guess there'd still be infrastructure though. Yeah, there's got to be infrastructure. So um I think it's just always gonna be here. Um, and it's it's a great field to get into because you know everybody needs roads and infrastructure and that kind of thing. So I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

Put a plug in and say come work for Delta or Reeves, and everyone's welcoming here. Um, so I mean, we have every type of job you can think of from IT to accountants to um actually working on uh plants or out uh in the field on building roads. To mechanics. Yeah, mechanics. But everyone you uh meet uh across the company is uh oh welcoming uh when I was uh new here and it's great to work around.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

Yeah, that's good. That's good advice. I think it is easy to think that there's not roles for everybody because one, we're like our entire industry is pretty dark, like you don't you don't think about the roads that you drive on. At least I didn't even think about it.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

Well, yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

That's true. Um, and then even once you're kind of in it and working here, I mean, yeah, it's just like a corporate business, like any other corporate business. So there's all kinds of positions and it takes all people to make it happen. So that's good.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Takes a lot of teamwork for sure.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Yeah. Sweet. If y'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 C O S looks like Deltacos dot com. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.