JUNE 30, 2026 #022 M.SIMPSON/S.WRIGHT (WHAT'S STEVE BEEN UP TO PT.2)

REPLY/COMMENT 

In this episode of Talkin’ Grit, M.Simpson and J.Waldrop continue the conversation with Steve and answer the question many have been asking: “What’s Steve been up to?” As he settles into semi-retirement, Steve shares what life has looked like since stepping back from the day-to-day, the projects and passions keeping him busy, and reflections from his years with Wright Brothers. From staying connected to the company to embracing a new pace of life, this conversation offers a personal look at Steve’s next chapter and the legacy he continues to leave behind. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

From the job site to the office, from lessons learned to stories worth telling, this is Talking Grit. Brought to you by Wright Brothers. Here's your host, Jared Walger.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Thanks for tuning in again to Talking Grit. Hey, this is part two of our conversation with Steve Wright. So continue listening to Steve and the stories he's been telling. What a great conversation. Hope you enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

So y'all came back here then.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

We came back here for but mostly because they didn't have a project for me to go to, or it was between wintertime or something. If we get to storytelling time, that's when I learned that Wendell hates green peppers. But no.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Definitely want to hear that one.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

Yeah, well or green bell peppers. Green bell peppers. He won't eat. So we went then they got this project in Russellville, Kentucky. I went up there for what was supposed to be six weeks to put a pad on grade, and we stayed there for 18 months.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

No, this was the Anaconda.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Anaconda aluminum in Russellville, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Big deal.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Which is somebody else now. But remember the name of it. And we worked there, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Is that where you picked up Barry Wynn?

SPEAKER_04 1:13

That is when Barry Wynne showed up right there. Okay. The spring that spring, his brother was we rented a loader from his brother, and his brother was a mechanic by trade. His whole family is mechanics. I just have this amazing gift for understanding mechanical things. For those that have not been around Barry, if you have something you can't figure out, hand it to Barry. Give it to Barry and get him excited about it, he will go figure it out. Whatever it is, and figure out actually what's wrong with it instead of replacing parts and topics.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

That's pretty it it's a gift.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

It is a true gift, and he's really good at it.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

So that was early 80s then? That was 81. 81. So 18 months there. What was the next opportunity?

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Gosh. We went to we wound up in Georgia. Cordille, Georgia.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Cordille, Georgia. So at this point in time.

SPEAKER_04 2:05

That whole crew.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

Yeah. So at this point in time, you know, you were running a job, you were superintendent. Robert had kind of pushed you out. He'd come check on you, but you were kind of doing your own thing at that point in time, right? Yes. Had you gotten and started being involved with the estimating and all that, or you just you were still just No, no, actually, when we were at Anaconda Loon, Miss Winniewitzik got hired. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Because before that they just kind of guessed and bid and used the state estimate to try to figure it out. And the alum that aluminum plant job is, I think uh they got Tom or his firm, I don't know who actually did it, to do the takeoff on the job and try to figure out how much work there work there was. And and they convinced, I mean, they they convinced Tom to come to work for them.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Yeah, so it was it was a big story there, and we really ought to get Tom on here. But they uh Tom left his engineering firm, right? He did. Well, the engineering firm was Whitzett Gavin Holcomb. They designed wastewater plants, they designed airports. Wright brothers had done an airport job for him, right? Yeah. That's where him and James.

SPEAKER_04 3:17

Him and James were buddied up uh on the Lafayette, Tennessee, and uh Winchester Airports.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

Tom designed them and James built them. Lots of stories with the Lafayette Airport.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I can imagine. So so they uh Fwitzett came to work then in '81. You went to Cordille, Georgia. Yep. What a place.

SPEAKER_04 3:40

I've never seen so many bugs in my life.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Yeah, so there's, you know, there's gnats the size of your hand. Right. I mean, they're people's hot, slapping their gnats, trying to keep them gnats out of their nose. Oh, it's just a different world. So, what time of year did y'all go down there? You know what I'm getting. Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_04 3:58

I know what I know what you're wanting me to say. The well, again, I was not part of the estimating team. And so they bid that job, we get it. And uh they send Barry and Mark and I down there in like January of probably 82 or 3, 80, I don't know, somewhere in there. And we get there, water everywhere. And they said, and I caught that. I said, What's the deal? And she did that job as dry as a bone last fall. I said, I don't think y'all even looked at it, or you're in the wrong place or something. But uh, it was sandy ground and they grow watermelons there.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 4:43

Everywhere. It's watermelons, the biggest crop. And and we, you know, it finally dawned on me what it was. And uh the the they have this yellow hard clay about waist deep under sand, black sand from there down. And the watermelon that kept all the water right up there on top in that four foot of sand. Oh watermelons grow like crazy. Yeah. And and uh in the wintertime when it rained, it fill the the low places up. So where was dry then was we you're talking about sending people to the store about sending a kid back to school?

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 5:21

We we we were gonna clear it. Well, after we got everything we had stuck the first day or two, they decided we'd probably get somebody who knew what they were doing to clear that. And so Lonnie Millsaps came down and to clear it. And they they brought a company called Hoover Williams, but Lonnie was there. And and they had this little kid, they were they were all these places that were supposed to be dry enough to work on had two or three feet of water in them. So they were sawing these trees down and winching them out. And you have to, you've, I don't know, you haven't lived till you've tried to drag a three-quarter inch cable through the mud about a hundred feet to hook it around two or three trees. And he there's this little kid came back with Lonnie. I wished I could remember the young man's name because I would love to know what he's doing today. But he was, he said, he decided he didn't want to go to school no more, and we're gonna fix that. Yeah, it got fixed. Because if yeah, it wasn't, I don't think his experience is worse than your Jack Hammer. It probably was.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Probably was. I'm probably softer.

SPEAKER_04 6:26

I don't know. I'm just this I this little boy, he they they stayed in there three weeks. He drug that cable every day, all day long, through that swamp, waiting, you know, we're one step at a time.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:37

You know, it'd be hard enough to walk out there without dragging that cable. And I never saw that kid again. When he went home, he wanted to go home. I said, no. Well, you can get the we'll take you to the bus station. But he hadn't even paid him, so he couldn't go home.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

That's the problem. Sorry. So I get lost. So you were down there in Cordeal, you did that job. Why why Cordeal, Georgia? Why Cordeal, Georgia? Well, before I met your grandfather. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. And there was a reason granddad was down there too. Yeah, well, that's a different podcast. Yeah, that's a different podcast.

SPEAKER_04 7:14

We we can have one of the have a legal podcast.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Yeah, we'll do that another day. But anyways, at that point in time, your family, my family, we were looking for work outside the state of Tennessee. We both were, yeah. Yeah, we both were, both both families and ended up down there working. Did so it was it was interesting for sure, but it was quite an experience. Yeah. So after learned what a jet ski was. After Cordille. You were to see Touchstone at 18 riding around on a jet ski. Like an only mic. That's impressive, isn't it? Cigarette in his mouth, right? No, I don't I don't remember probably probably.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

And Barry Barry's poor little old white legs. I mean, you the little bitty skinny thing. It was it was kind of burnt. You can't get that out of your mind.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Just impression you'll never forget. It's stuck. So after Cordille, where'd you go? We went to Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville, Alabama. And you were doing a bunch of work around the airport there.

SPEAKER_04 8:09

Uh that's what we were, yes. We were doing the intermodal facility where they offload trains and planes and all this a connection of trains, planes, and trucks.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

So I know from talking into Wendell and Marlowe over the years, Wright brothers had a lot of different contracts around there, right? It was more than we've done, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:29

We had to work like three different times on the down there. Down there, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:34

Yeah. On the airport. Pretty red dirt in Hauntsville. I assume it was scraper work, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:39

It was like war paint. Look like Indian war paint. The dirt was, couldn't get it off of you.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Oh, I bet, yeah. Yeah. Stain everything.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

That's where we met Wendell. Or that's where Wendell came to work with me and Mark and Barry.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

That's when Wendell officially came to work?

SPEAKER_04 8:56

No, no, no, no. No, he's when he came to work with me. Oh, he'd been with it, he'd been a uh slave laborer for his father.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Oh, previous to that.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

Yeah, that's when he called me, and I really can't say exactly what he said, but it amounted to I'm going home, and I'm not ever gonna work for this particular individual again.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

That would be his father.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

That would be his father, yes. And he was fairly clear. I understood every word he said.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

I said, Well, could you stop by here on your way home? Because he was way down in Alabama, and he did, and we got him to stay there, and and I think that's worked out pretty good for all of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Yeah. He's been here a few years.

SPEAKER_04 9:40

Yeah, he's he's been a team leader for a long time.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

Yeah. So Huntsville, you did the great job there. Wendell showed up, so it's you know, you got you got Wendell there, you got Touchstone there, you got Barry there. It's kind of like core group. Still here. Yeah. Still here. It's amazing. So where where'd y'all go after that? That's 1983. That's '83. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:01

And then after that, we came back to Chattanooga.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

You had the big job on US-27, right? Yep. So that was Red Bank. So interesting thing about Wright Brothers, Wright Brothers from you know, I-24 on US 27, where 27 ties into I-24. Wright brothers have worked on every section of that road all the way up to 153 almost, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:29

At least, yeah, to type, yes, to within three or four miles of one.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Yeah, there. And I mean, it's pretty amazing. Multiple contracts. So the contract you were working on was the section right there at Red Bank on top the mountain, right there, on top of the hill.

SPEAKER_04 10:43

Started at Signal Mountain Road and went about there were two contracts actually that went about five or six miles.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Okay. So lots of big excavation there, right? You changed the way Chattanooga travels. Totally. The whole area. Totally. So did you drag the whole crew with you to that one?

SPEAKER_04 11:00

Mm-hmm. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

Okay. So I know some other interesting characters showed up on that job, right? So Dink Jones.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

Dink Jones showed up. Well, actually, I'd met Dink, yes, but he did he came to work for me. For you there. He had been with the company for a while.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Okay. I know Red Greenwood showed up there. I remember Red telling me he worked there for you. Yeah. Who else was there?

SPEAKER_04 11:23

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

You ended up having Marlowe there.

SPEAKER_04 11:27

Well, that was, I don't need to tell that either.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Well, bottom line is. He got the sign to me for your dad got mad at him because of some stuff he did. And he demoted him for a minute, right?

SPEAKER_04 11:42

He did. And of course he sends him to me. So I've got every every one of every one of his calls down there or misfits. Culls are not the right word. They were all very talented, but they did not give a crap what I thought about anything. And so this is another one of life's challenges. It was a growth offering how to manage it. I never thought of it like that until now, but yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. But it seemed more like a a punishment to me. Uh so anyway, yeah. Marlowe would you you remember my touch the story about Ed touchstone? That's what Marlowe did me for about two months. He'd run the dozer, and every I got to where I wouldn't even look at him when I went by to go do what I wanted to do because he would stop and have some kind of mind game he wanted to play.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

Well, the thing about Marlowe, though, is once you engage Marlowe in a conversation, you're there for at least 15 to 30 minutes. Really? He can talk and tell stories.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Oh my lord.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

Somebody said I think he introduced James and Robert.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

Yeah, yeah, that was Marlowe. So while you were in Red Bank, Mary was born, right? Mary was born there. Yep. Yeah, so or not there, but well, not all the job. Yeah. But uh was that when you finally officially moved back to this area here in Cleveland? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

After she was born, we quit moving.

SPEAKER_03 13:01

You quit moving. Okay. So you finally planted roots here in Cleveland and you you stayed. Well, you didn't stay, but you can't you kept chasing. Her and Joanne did. Yeah, her and Luann. Came to homestead at least, right? Your family stayed. So then after Red Bank, how long was Red Bank? It it was a pretty long time. It was two or three years. It was it was significant. Big job. You remember what kind of excavation was on that?

SPEAKER_04 13:26

Several million yards. I know that that one rock bar pit had two or three million tons taken out of it.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

Wow, okay. Okay. So Red Bank after that one, what was the next big opportunity after that?

SPEAKER_04 13:42

We went to Blairville, Georgia.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

Blairsville, Georgia.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

Wendell and Barry and I, because Mark had he had he had turned trader and gone to Alabama to work with James and J. Lamb.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yeah. Yeah. So Blairsville was another massive job.

SPEAKER_04 14:00

It was.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

I remember y'all telling me you your grandfather was there too. Your granddad was there too.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

And in Joji.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Yep. And how many million? You you moved a million yards on how fast?

SPEAKER_04 14:14

Well, I think the job was like six million yards or something, but we moved one million yards in one month.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

Yeah, that was the deal. That was the story I've heard.

SPEAKER_04 14:23

We got paid for it anyway.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

I think we I think we moved it.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

You think you moved it? Yeah. That was a big deal. It was. Man. And that was US 76, right?

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Yes. From the Habersham County line, you can identify it if you're in and around Blairsville. It's the part that is concrete pavement on that road, the rest of it's asphalt.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Really nice section of the roadway.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

It's very nice. Pretty country.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Pretty country. So you did that job, and then what happened then? I'm making you think, man.

SPEAKER_04 14:55

Yeah, you are. I came back home and started working out of the office more as a general superintendent. That was kind of one of the my first foray of of managing multiple multiple projects.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

What what year was that approximately?

SPEAKER_04 15:12

87.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:15

88, somewhere in the 80s, eight late 80s.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

Late 80s.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

So you were managing multiple jobs and then they got like four in one ladding right in all in Middle Tennessee.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

So you were running over to Middle Tennessee chasing after stuff?

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Actually, I I had a camper that I moved around to stay in during the week, but there was like four projects I was looking after.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Cool. I don't know if this could well, I mean it's interesting. So who were the superintendents then? Because you'd kind of moved up to that general superintendent project manager role.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

Well, Marlowe had one.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

That's always a challenge. And excuse me, an opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 15:55

Opportunity.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

A gentleman named James Shelton had one. Dink Jones was running one. That's where I got cussed out for making him a superintendent. And because he's a really, really excellent dozer man.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

He's phenomenal Earthman.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

He was a phenomenal dozer man.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

He didn't want to get out of the dozer.

SPEAKER_04 16:15

You know, you heard me, or I somebody's lately heard me say that I that looked better than I was expecting when I came back to see it. Everything you got Dink to do, if you would talk about it before you start it, when you come back, it you went, damn, that looks better now than what I had envisioned. Yeah. This no matter what a gift. It's a gift. Yeah. Send him to do something and he always make it look good.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

So Marlowe, Dink, James Shelton. Do you remember who the other one was?

SPEAKER_04 16:46

Yes. I'm trying to remember his name, but he was quite the character.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

The one we can he didn't make it.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

Well, Jimmy Newby was on, was actually the superintendent.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

Oh, Jimmy was. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:59

Jimmy Newby was the superintendent.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Robbie Newby's father. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

It was he was it was a uh rock job there in Woodbury, Tennessee. It you could just like go by and take a broom and find the rock on top of the ground. Wow. Nope. Just ledge after ledge with cedar trees growing out of it. It was a mess.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

So Rot Brothers had a lot of work going on at that point. We did time in the middle eighties. I mean, a lot of work. You were chasing after some of the James was in Alabama still.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

James was in Alabama doing the horse track and different things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

And your dad was running around everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

And dad was riding around a helicopter yelling at everybody.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Yeah. Doing what he did best.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

Yes. It was very good at it.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Yeah. Yeah. I've experienced that a couple of times. Yeah. So so that was mid 80s, you were in middle Tennessee. What was the next move? When did you all I think I'm advancing forward too fast, but when did you end up on I-26? That wasn't in that.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

That was the late well, no. We'll find out who remembers what, but it was the job bid between the invasion of Kuwait and the 30-minute Gulf War. Because it artificially spiked the fuel price.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 18:22

And Tennessee set the fuel adjustment. The fuel adjustment on the spiked price. And before we got a work order, it had dropped back down to where it was. And that that job, the fuel de-escalation on that job cost like half a million dollars on to the project. I remember just because I raised hell about that with everybody for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Would that have been 89?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Yeah. It was 99.

SPEAKER_04 18:51

1991.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

Okay. Yeah. It's 9091.

SPEAKER_04 18:55

I think we got it in 90, started in 91.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

So you were kind of in middle Tennessee doing your thing until then?

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Until then, and then I went back to being that was a big enough deal that I went back to just being the superintendent.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Yeah, so explain to everybody. You had two contracts on I-26 on the Tennessee side of the mountain.

SPEAKER_04 19:15

For those that remember all the video from Hurricane Helene. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

The Irwin, Tennessee pictures of that big bridge washing out, we started about a mile or two past that and went almost to the North Carolina line.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Wow. So there was one contract between you and the North Carolina line that the Celio and Grogan had. That's true. But then you had the rest of it. We had the rest of it. And if I remember right, wasn't it Holloway? Holloway had had the had the section at the bottom of the mountain. Isn't that what you told me?

SPEAKER_04 19:47

Yeah, they did.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

Yeah, okay. So you had the two sections in the middle. Remember how many millions of cubic yards that was? I'd say it's close to eight. Big deal.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Big deal.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

So that's where the the podcast I was talking about, the screen cloth that we bought from the guy that started the carantine idea. That's where that was used. We had to make all that great. It's out of rock.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

Okay, right there. Okay. And that's where you met Jeff Ball.

SPEAKER_04 20:18

Jeff Ball showed up there.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

Met the Lukers.

SPEAKER_04 20:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Not the whole family, just a few of them.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

At least that's where I met all the ones I know.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:27

Shorty came to work and brought his baby brother Paul. Who doesn't really look like a baby brother anymore.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

No, you're with him. So uh up there on that job, how long were you there?

SPEAKER_04 20:41

I mean that was a I was there four years, I think. We uh we went up there in early nineties and they cut the ribbon in ninety-five. So we fin I probably quit going in the late every day in the middle of 94.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

And um big deal.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Big deal.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Well so after that point, Steve, you kind of learned a lot about politics. Well, I'm sure you did. But at that point in time, you after that job, you were no longer on the job every day, right? That was last one, yes. That was the last hurrah. So then after that, you know, multiple jobs, multiple things going on. Can you just kind of walk through your thoughts on that? You know, the late 90s when you started getting off that and what your day-to-day looked at looked like, what your career looked like, how that all fell out.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

Well, that's that kind of all started about the time that project was over. So dad would have been 60 years old, in his 60s, about where I was when I told the story about my family. Yeah. Or that, you know, somewhere in that range, probably 62, 3, 4. And he basically took me a cracker barrel one day and said, You gotta start doing this. I thought, well, that sounds like a lot of fun. So anyway, so we spent the next several years deciding which two days a week I was going to get to run the business and which three he was going to.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Wow. How long do you think that was how many years was that?

SPEAKER_04 22:18

It was probably three or four, but it felt like 30.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Yeah, but by the time I'd showed up here, which was We'd kind of made peace some sorta. Yeah, it was 05, and your dad was still he still showed up at the office every day. He'd go back to the shop and he'd mess with Markenberry, and then he would, you know, come up front and he signed all the checks. He looked at all the invoices. I mean, he did that for forever.

SPEAKER_04 22:47

He did.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah. I mean shot myself. Yeah, I get it. I mean, your dad, you know, he passed away a few years ago now, but I remember, I mean, it was up a few months before he passed away. He was still looking at all of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Well, see, the the the struggle that he and I had with the the uh that's why I've been so intentional about the transition. Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I remember how hard it hurt on my side, much less his. But I finally took the Dale Carnegie class in somewhere in the middle of that that fuss, and um, and it dawned on me no matter because if you think you've heard if as you've listened to this discussion, uh you you know that I've been a part of this since I was a six years old.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

And paid attention to it. And and it wasn't but three years old when I was paying attention to it. So I feel like I've been a part of it my whole life.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

You have, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

Uh well, or been a part of its whole life, I'll say it that way. But and I knew how much it meant to me, and I was willing to fight for it. Yeah. And finally, somewhere in that Dell Carnegie class, I'm listening to some of that stuff right before Wits, it took the class over. Well, that's a different story too.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

But uh He has that ability.

SPEAKER_04 24:12

He did. It was, you know, I I think that's a great story. But I and I had this epiphany that yes, this means that much to me because I was right at the high, you know, when when and it's not that we don't like each other or anything, but we spent all this time trying to because my my way of doing things was dramatically different from dad's. His was if you can't see it, do it, manage it yourself, don't do it. Or and that's why he had the helicopter going around the state, because he had to see everything. And I thought we needed to build people that were capable of building the job without having every shot called for them. And anyway, so I it did to it dawned on me, or I figured it out somehow, that no matter how much it mattered to me, it mattered more to him because he and James gave birth to this. You know, it's a and it was their plan from day one and or their their life. So I finally I just I slowed down a little bit on my pushback, and we got a little, it was, you know, I was as big a part of the problem as he was, but I never told him that. Maybe I should have.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

You'll get a chance to do that one of these days. So y'all made some peace. We did. Y'all made some peace.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

So with intermittent interruptions. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Well, I mean, no, I I I experienced a few of those, you know, not many, but I saw I saw that a little bit. And so when did you feel like you officially were the guy then? I know there wasn't a defined date like it was with you and me, but when did you feel like you were the guy?

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Well, when I started laying out who did what, who planned what, you you know the answer to that question because you you've lived it, but the pot the people listening don't. When I started deciding who built what and veto had veto power on the bids.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

And what year do you think that was?

SPEAKER_04 26:14

97, 8, 6. You know, it was ever increasing thing. I I I tell you when it hit home with me, was on some of the, you know, because I was as aggressive as anybody you've ever met, which is maybe why every once in a while I pull on your cape just a little bit. But because of I just about broke the company with with being too aggressive. And with the I really hate to even say the word boon, but we had uh a job at Boone and a job in Alabama that and and you have to put in it, you know, put it in perspective at that point in time in our career, the the there had been I looked it up one time, Tennessee was letting an average of a million yard job every letting, it'd be two or three, and they were letting 10, 15 million yards of grading a year. And that's it. If it didn't have a million yards on it, we wouldn't even look at it.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Well, and you know, to back that up, when I showed up, you know, I had the privilege of being here right at the end of that, that there was still every letting, there was some job that had at least a million yards on it. And I remember trotting in asking Whitsit, hey, can we bid this one? What do you think about that? And if it didn't have a million yards on it, he just looked at me cross-eyed and look, what's wrong with you?

SPEAKER_04 27:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, where whose son are you?

SPEAKER_03 27:48

Yeah, what world are you in? We ain't doing this.

SPEAKER_04 27:53

But but as as in the late 90s, uh it became increasingly different because all the people that built the interstate system were used to moving 15, 20 million yards a year. And I bet we don't move two a year now, probably.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Yeah, I'd say you're probably right about it.

SPEAKER_04 28:11

On big years are are you you get more, but and so we it you you know the the big eat it and drag it home earth moving industry was dying, as I know, or was was the it was the business wasn't there. So we were competing harder and harder and harder. And my family and the Greer family, Hill Brothers, uh Mississippi, uh the Mississippi people and Greer was out of Kentucky. Yes, and Jones Brothers. And Jones Brothers, they were trying to soak up everything in the same thing. And and honestly, Jones had a hard, hard time there. At one point in time, everybody else we've talked about is gone.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah, they are they're all out of business. Wow, and so that's so we're the only one that's gonna see the writing on the wall.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

Well, here's here's how I saw it. You know, you we've got association stuff out, it could be a whole nother podcast. But I was at a meeting in Washington where the their economic forecaster was talking about that of the money that the federal government spends, uh, 50% of it goes to went to paving. And the other 50% did bridges and uh earthwork and pipe and things like that. And it dawned on me that bridges were probably 30% of that remaining 50%, and I was competing for 20% of the pie.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

And that it was ever decreasing in its capacity, and that we had to do something else if we were going to survive. Wow. Or we would be where Greer is, and Hill Brothers and Tillett Brothers and Gregory and Omen construction.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Elard. Ellerard, a long list of long list of just so you sensed a pivot was coming.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

Well, I got hit in the face with it. I don't know if I figured it out. I just it was like, Yeah, you know, oh my goodness, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

And uh, and that's when we started intentionally started to pour concrete.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

Wow. What year do you think that was?

SPEAKER_04 30:20

It w I can tell you what job it was. Uh quarter X Dinks job.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

Right there on 78. So it was probably 2009. So that's nine, two thousand, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Yeah, so that job when I showed up, the punch list and the fighting and everything was still yeah, going on.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

We're with you were finished. We were lawyering it.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Yeah, you were finishing it at that point in time. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 30:45

So that that makes but that was in if you remember how how we worked our tail off there and barely broke even. But that explains because the dirt grain grade price was so darn cheap, you couldn't make any money at it.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Yeah. Wow. And then in Boone, that's where you have you just have to bring that up. Yeah, so just full disclosure to everybody, we currently have a job up in Boone that has been I've been nice. You have been really nice about it. You know, when I when I drug it in and said, hey, Steve, we need to we need to bid it, you know. We had a nice conversation about it. But you let us bid it. You let us bid it.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

I thought you needed to understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Yeah, I've I've learned. It's Twilight Zone up there.

SPEAKER_04 31:30

You know, the job is you can hear the music if you cross the line, if you listen real close.

SPEAKER_03 31:35

You know, you the geology on the current job showed that it was all rock. We thought it was all rock. Everybody thought it was all rock, and when we got up there, it's not.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Really?

SPEAKER_03 31:44

So if you look at that job, we've had to do lots of soil nailing, lots of change orders. The production on the excavation has been dramatically changed. Wow. And it has dramatically slowed the job down. Kudos to Paul Lucer, Joey Pegg, all the guys that have been up there, Abraham, you know, Jeff, Tanya, Sean Ryder. I know I'm leaving people out, but that that's been a whoever rode that excavator off that bank. Oh Lord, I mean, it's it's it's a hard job. It's a hard job. I mean, it's it's interesting geology up there, right, Steve? It is extremely. So the job that you're talking about was on the other side of town from Boone, right?

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Yeah, it was probably what 15 miles or so north of where you're talking about. Yeah, northeast of it. US 421, starting there in the end of Boone and going almost to the uh Blue Ridge Parkway.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

Okay. Now, what was the deal on that one?

SPEAKER_04 32:41

It was the exact opposite of what you're talking about, and I haven't thought about it until just now. I may know why.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

The uh that's weird geology.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

Well, that's part of it. But the the that was a 10 million cubic meter job.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:57

And it was supposed to have two and a half million yards of or million meters of rock. Um, excuse me, it was eight million meters, says uh it was ten million yards. Yep. And and it was supposed to be two and a half million meters rock, the rest of it dirt. And they but it was uh it was closer to 50-50. So it had an extra three million or two and a half million meters of rock in it, which was and that is some of the most challenging, it's granted.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

It's highly abrasive.

SPEAKER_04 33:32

Highly abrasive, difficult to shoot, it doesn't work very well. And what we figured out in the preceding or the lawsuit claim, the lawsuits at the end of the job to try to get the nine million dollars back that I'd lost uh with my arrogance is the that the way they core drilled things then was if it they defined rock as or or excuse me, weathered rock, which was supposed to be rippable. They just said this is rippable with a D8, da-da-da-da. But they would do it till there was a hundred blows per foot on a drill. And this I know it's kind of technical, but if you if you do that, it there's it's it's solid rock.

SPEAKER_03 34:29

Solid rock.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

Solid rock. And so they were calling, and what we the how we figured that out was during the lawsuit process, we had the project in uh Cherokee, North Carolina. And I looked at it, and and Dink was over there on the end of the job digging out some stuff that was so tight or so hard, the shale was so hard that a D9L or a D10 could rip it, but that's all that could. That was it was like pulling it, picking itself up out of the ground. And it wasn't kind of like uh Charles Worth and them figured out down there on Absom Pike. You know, there there's a point at which you do that. But and I looked back at uh geotechnical borings one night. I I got up in the middle of the night and made Alan Owens come to the office because we were doing depositions. No Lord and look up the look up the blows per, you know, the the what the geotechnical stuff said, and it was fifty blows per foot. Excuse me, I told that wrong, it was fifty blows per inch. I mean, it was fifty blows per foot there. And where they would defined weathered rock was fifty blows per inch.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

Oh Lord.

SPEAKER_04 35:44

And but they called it fifty blows per foot, and in it or other way around anyway, and real rock is a hundred blows.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

So they they had made the mistake of calling blows per inch versus blows per foot when they defined defined the weathered rock in Boone, which made the the multi-million, you know, multi-million yards.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

They misrepresented it.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

They misrepresented it. And I think today they've, you know, after we went and did some some digging through some records with Martin Salzman, who this is where we we met our good friend Martin and his team when we did the discovery work with the various geotechnical groups, they they were I'm not saying it was intentional, but that's what they were doing. They had mislabeled, they'd misunderstood or mislabeled what what it was, and that was a you know, several, it was a multi-million dollar problem for us. Well, so because you can't take in three weeks and go drill a 10-mile job.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Oh no, it's impossible. So I mean, you know, ultimately, Wright brothers prevailed and you got a check for the claim.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

But we did, yeah. But you didn't that's why your dirt instead of rock is a boon if it'd been the other way around.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

Oh, yeah. So, you know, you you prevailed, you got a check, right? I did. It was for a little on the wall or somewhere. That's what I was getting to. It's a little bit more than half of that. Yeah. What was it? Five and a half million dollars. Five something. Yeah. Yeah. So at that point in time, that was the largest claim check North Carolina DOT had ever paid out. Really?

SPEAKER_04 37:22

Well, they didn't get all the way there. Or there should have been. Well, not that I'm bitter about it.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

You know, Steve has made a copy of the check and he put it up. It's down in the estimating in the bathroom in the estimating office, and it says, you know, what is it? If you're the low bidder, what does it say? Well, Marlowe gave me the picture above it. Oh, he did?

SPEAKER_04 37:46

Yeah, of the little bum sitting on the park bench. Yeah. And it looks like something off of the red skeleton, which nobody here knows any. And it's a bum sitting on the bar. He said, I was a low bidder on every job.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

You're a low bidder on every job. Yeah. So that's just the reminder of hey, you got to be careful about what you're what you're doing. You need to be aware. Got to be aware. So, anyways, you know, right after that, during that is when I met you, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

And, you know, I kind of know everything before after that, but you know, at that point in time, it appeared to me that you were being very intentional about you didn't want to manage the jobs day to day anymore. You you were trying to find the right people to get in the spot to make them do it. Right? That's what you were looking for at that point in time.

SPEAKER_04 38:44

Somebody that we you you're limited by what you can do. You can't grow if you can only do what you put your arms around.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Right. Yeah. So you have to trust somebody. So that was your perspective. Whenever I showed up, that was your perspective. You know, you had Wendell doing a whole bunch, you had Mark doing a whole bunch, you had Whitsit doing a whole bunch. Dink and Dink and Marlowe and all these folks, yeah. On and on and on, just a huge group of people. And, you know, you I got the chance to be one of them. And, you know, you you had started to entrust people with driving the ship, right? You you were overseeing it, you were the captain, but you know, you were letting other people pedal, right? So intertwined with all of this, you know, when I came here and interviewed with you, it was a pretty honest interview, you know. It was a pretty honest interview, you know, in my typical fashion, you know, I asked a thousand questions, right? I didn't ask any. Well, you answered a lot. So one of the things I asked about was like, hey, what about pay? And you just threw something out there, like, hey, I'll pay you this. I was like, oh, okay. And then I was like, well, what about bonuses and stuff like that? And Steve told me the story of you know what I'm about to say here? Hey, you know, I'll pay you what we can pay you. I made some mistakes. We went and borrowed money and we paid bonuses.

SPEAKER_04 40:12

We've done that more than once.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

Yeah. So in you were referring to what was it, 03, 04, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

I was when we had that when Boone was going on, and yeah, and Cindy, bless her heart, uh, she juggled money and managed, she stretched dollars here, paid people, cutting. I mean, it was she would get the checks cut and hold them till she had the money, and uh she kept us in business.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Yeah. So when I showed up, so when I showed up that's off to her. Yeah. When I showed up, it was at the tail end of that. It was. But you know, uh the conversation I was having with you was at the end of 04. And I mean, it just showed the character for the family for the company. I was impressed with that. And then the other thing that you talked about briefly with me, you've talked more about with me since then, is your faith journey. Yes. Okay, you pointed out to me then when you told me the story about the bonuses, you know, you said, you know, I don't remember exactly how you said it, but that you know, you'd made some mistakes and you've got right with God, and it was his. You you told me that at that point in time. And that's true. So what what what's the story on your faith journey there, Steve? Because all that was kind of intertwined at that point. It was. You know, base I've I was thinking about this after you asked me to be on here and uh after I after I drug you on the hair on the seventh email.

SPEAKER_04 41:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh the my my faith journey is I grew up in church.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

But I was a little kid. And it was your parents' decision at that point in time, not yours. It wasn't I didn't go to church because I wanted to. Yeah. So so once I got to where I didn't have to, I didn't go.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:05

Because I had like the spiritual leaders of Marlowe Marlowe to help me guide my life.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

And and some of the other playbooks on the front of the radar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Different kind of discipleship.

SPEAKER_04 42:18

It's a little different. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little different from what is it, uh Bible study and beer or whatever. Some of the post notes. It's a step past that. Yeah, yeah. But uh, but so if you look at it, you know, for if you round it up in 50 years that I've been in a theoretical functioning adult, the uh, you know, the first 25, I was basically a heather. And somewhere around 2,000-ish, I, you know, I just uh God got to tug it on me. And then he gave me these two projects that just about put us out of business. There was one in Alabama that was just as bad as Boom going on at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

Yeah, corridor exit.

SPEAKER_04 43:00

Yeah, we that I think we were uh we were drug like $15 million out of the company I had in uh that we didn't have. Wow. We we did some some financial statements in the 2001, too, where it had unbooked receivables as an asset.

unknown 43:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

I shouldn't say that that way, but I'm sure the time signed it.

SPEAKER_03 43:23

And I find it interesting because, you know, now that I'm in the position that I'm in, I've seen financial statements and I've seen the financial statement for when I showed up here.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

Yeah, versus now.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

Oh my lord.

SPEAKER_04 43:35

It's different, isn't it? It's different.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

Oh my lord. But I contribute the the fact that the doors were open at that point in time is an act of God. It really is.

SPEAKER_04 43:44

And and yes as as close as you know, as I said, it you know, and the decline in the the big uh gorilla knuckle dragon earth movers. Uh the decline of that, and we were just it's I think it's God's intervention. That we're still in the business.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 44:02

Because you know, and and uh maybe the trip to Art Ba helped uh with the with the figuring out we got to do something else. But others tried that too and didn't gear tried went in the you know, they well, they ultimately spun their asphalt business off and they saved their family's net worth, I'm sure, because they didn't, you know, they sold all their equipment at once. But so anyways, so we have those two horrible jobs going on. Another one's starting that Tony Kelly, we left him out of that. He was in the in the mix on a lot of this work. Tony building one over in Middle Tennessee. And that's when, when, you know, God's tugging on me, I'm listening, beginning to listen. And I found this little book that I still have a hundred copies of somewhere. I'd love to give them to anybody, but it's about a judge that uh has to pronounce judgment on a on uh someone in front of him. And it was his son. So after he makes a judgment, he takes his cape off and goes around and takes the kid's place. And anyway, somehow that got to me. Um and it helped me see that because the church, you know, as I grew up in church, it was all about you're a sinner, you're going to hell, you know, hell all day, every every week. Yeah, and nobody ever talked to me about grace. Yeah. But so really the faith, I didn't understand it because it was too simple. Yeah, it was too, it wasn't complicated enough for me to all you have to do is ask. And your life changes. So I asked, my life changed. Wow. Pretty cool. I think it's just amazing. Uh you know, the peace that Christ can bring to your life is stunning. Right. I know I'm not telling the three of y'all anything, but it's um it's just stunningly amazing.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:15

And when I did that, that was I remember the hotel room in Franklin, Tennessee, where I made that decision. And every since then God has been putting great people in this business. Y'all sitting here are a big part of that. And there's just tons and tons of others. You can look around and go, I wonder why in the world that person showed up. But it's I think it's it's God's hand. I can see it in the rearview mirror and never can see it going forward.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

I don't know if you could fix it.

SPEAKER_04 46:53

If you could fix that for us, Jerry, that'd be great. Uh just give you a little project to work on. Sure. Yeah. I'm not sure that'll work out like Kelly's and Mitchell's assignments do sometimes. But anyway, them so as we've gone on, if you if you if you split that that midpoint of my career, for lack of a better word, and then and it's been it's been just as uphill, I mean a uh increase and growth, opportunity, people. You know, so I went through the the the 2000s, then I found C12 because I was looking for something to help me figure out what to do. And I saw a magazine down there in the break room in down the hall where the probably next door to where the cartoon is that you were telling about in the other meeting. Yeah, and there was this magazine, World Magazine, Dad's scrupted, and it had C12 in it. And I called them and they said, Well, where are you? And and they said, Well, we're fixing to open a, we're just starting a group in Chattanooga, and that was 2010. And I joined when there were four people there. Wow. And and since then, you know, it goes back to as I was speaking earlier, when you decide that you, you know, when the the information that they the the the thought process I was taught in that is this is God's business, and you are it's it's your job to take care of it and to to make it work for his glory and purposes. And I gosh, it gets so much simpler. Yeah. So much simpler, you know, because there I was trying to figure out how to do all that myself. And you know, then then I got you know, I've got Whitzit on one side doing crazy stuff, and Marlo on the other side doing crazy stuff, and and uh, and I'm doing crazy stuff in the middle, and we're just trying to all trying to out crazy each other and and and get pretty darn good at it.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:54

And so you but you take that, slow it down, simple it, clean it up, and uh, and just do what makes sense, do the right thing at the right time for the right reason, and it gets just so much simpler, cleaner. And uh, I believe that those decisions are what is are the fundamental basis for how we get to where we are today.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:19

You know, because without the there's you know, everything we do is based on the people. Uh starting here and going all the way through the last person we hired this morning, I'm sure, or let's this after, you know, today. They're all it's it's God's brought them to us for a purpose.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 49:37

And our job is to take care of them, to teach them, to grow them, help them to make their lives better. And uh when you do that, you're rewarded.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:50

So, you know, my prayer for years was uh to take care of our people, Lord, and don't let us be fools with what we do. You know, help us provide for us what we need to to uh to run your business and for your glory.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

And you've done a good job of that.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

Yeah. What a journey. What a journey. So a lot of things came out of C12, right? So 2010, you you did that.

unknown 50:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

And I mean, I think why I still do it. Well, and I I think the process that you're talking about is, you know, it's one of these big spiritual words that you'll hear in church sometimes is sanctification, right? Yeah. You know, all of us are trying to grow, all of us are on a journey, we're all grown closer to Christ. And what you're talking about, Steve, is that journey of sanctification, you know, just uh cleaning up who we are, getting closer to where we're supposed to be. And you know, you did the C12 thing, and then another cool thing that came out of it pretty quick after that. I remember you and me were in Colorado chasing work with Flatiron, which is a whole nother conversation. You remember that?

SPEAKER_04 50:58

That's how podcast in itself.

SPEAKER_03 50:59

That's a podcast within itself. And I remember we were eating dinner somewhere one night. You're like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this chaplain thing. What do you think? I remember that. That was probably 2010, 2011, 2010. It was 10. It was 10.

SPEAKER_04 51:17

It's like right after I started.

SPEAKER_03 51:18

Yeah, so it was 10. Yeah, it was 10 because we had to come back to have our first meeting with Walker.

SPEAKER_04 51:24

Because I opened the book up and a CD fell out of it in the floor. And I said, Well, I might as well listen to this crap. Put it in. It was all about the the chaplains.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

Really? So, you know, that was a cultural thing for Wright Brothers. If you look at our culture, that's a big thing for Wright Brothers to be huge. Other thing was, you know, we've got a podcast talking about the caring team. Yeah. It quickly happened after that. What year did we say caring team was?

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Uh started in was it 2017.

SPEAKER_03 51:59

I went to the conference in 17. 2017, so carrying team came out of that. Seven years in. You know, other big things that you kind of had your finger on and administered was, you know, the training and the safety here at Rock Brothers. So let's talk safety for a minute. So, you know, when I showed up, our EMR was I don't know. It was so high you couldn't even count it, right?

SPEAKER_04 52:28

I mean, it was probably sure it was one, two or more.

SPEAKER_03 52:30

It was one, two, if I remember right. And I remember after I'd been here for a minute, you uh I don't know what precipitated you do this, but one day we were like, hey, we're gonna we're gonna get this together. And that was in the late 2000s. I don't remember specifically what that was.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

Well, I I think to to to give him the credit appropriate credit, Scott Elam showed up.

SPEAKER_03 52:55

Yeah, Scott Elam showed up.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

And he brought a the perspective of of a the experiences that he had had with the huge contractor with Key Witland.

SPEAKER_03 53:06

And the K Company. The K company. Right.

SPEAKER_04 53:09

And that's you know that they're a great company, they do a lot of good work, and and the most the thing I appreciate them most is they raise a lot of good people and then make them mad.

SPEAKER_03 53:20

Yeah.

unknown 53:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

Jeff Ball. I think it's a beautiful thing to do. Yeah, Jeff Ball, thanks to all. Good trained employees, training, yeah. Brian Wade, all Dean. Wow. Yeah, they're all they're all graduates of the Keyword program. Wow. And but but they're missing some people.

SPEAKER_04 53:36

Their safety program is is is amazing. And they and he would basically through his screaming and yelling, different. Not a you know, not the most gracious of things, but it's probably but what you it's it's it's what we needed. Yeah, you know, it's kind of like Donald Trump is not the graceful thing that it that the world's looking for. Probably what we need, but it's what we need. Right. And and he he got our mod down to 0.6 something at one time. Yeah, wasn't it 0.67? Something like that. It's the lowest I remember it being. But the the story in the We were pushing the envelope in a lot of different directions.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

But that's another point of you saw the vision of hey, we need to do this, we did it.

SPEAKER_04 54:18

Well, we've got a great team today of like, but it's a whole lot more than a fabulous team. As you know, he was a great one-man band. Oh yeah. But it but if you've got to play with others, it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

But we've got a real team now led by Michael and Group, and I think they're they care for our people. It's not uh we're gonna beat you over the head with the club. It's look, we want you to go home, we want you to be safe.

SPEAKER_04 54:42

I think we're better prepared for that message today than we were in 2006, five, seven, eight, whenever it was.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

The team matches a lot of the culture, I think. No.

SPEAKER_04 54:53

Yeah, but you know, the the change of the culture allows you to approach that differently.

SPEAKER_03 54:58

That's a fair point. Another big thing that, you know, I I talked about early in this conversation was you you've been on me my whole career about continuing education constantly, constantly, constantly. You know, Steve Jared basically drew a line in the sand with me at one point in time. When I showed up here, I didn't have my professional engineer license. I was still had my EIT engineering train. Okay. I didn't care if I ever got my PE license. I didn't care.

SPEAKER_04 55:30

You know, but no, you were never gonna use it.

SPEAKER_03 55:33

Never, you know, never gonna use it. You know, I've got a I was getting a paycheck. I didn't care. Yeah. But he drew a line in the sand. It was like, look, you're either gonna take this test and do this, or you're gonna go find another job. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 55:46

You remember you telling me that I probably didn't mean it.

SPEAKER_03 55:51

Well, I mean, but I just giving you a little nudge though. It was just it was kind of it was I remember it, it was a tag team effort one day of we pushed pretty hard on Hootie, too. Well, I mean, I remember Steve came by and said something, and then Whitzett came by and said something, and then you came by again. I was like, well crap, I guess I gotta do it and go to clutter. Yeah, yeah, that was terrible.

SPEAKER_04 56:10

But I I say all that we took two weeks off the stud for the test and passed it all at once, but it wasn't that hard. I didn't take off two weeks. You took off a few days, I don't know, 10 minutes, whatever it was.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

Took off, you know, yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 56:24

Well, I'll look for you a few times and they said he'd study.

SPEAKER_03 56:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

I'm not a good test taker, but anyways, so one of the things you've always been on is the constant education, the continuing education, and that ties in to our training program, right? You daddy you jacket about that. I mean, what what's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_04 56:46

Well, it's you know, uh you've you hear people say that you got to fail at things before you succeed.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:53

I mean, there's a lot of truth to that because in the 90s, when we were back to about the boon era, uh I just had to have a training because we couldn't find people. And and we were and then if you think about the complexity of trying to get 40 scraper operators versus 40 articulated truck drivers. And I'm I I love our truck drivers, I mean nothing about this, but it's a different skill set than trying to teach somebody to run the scrapers. Yeah, they're just it's just it's like crane operators. Or I I can't do it. Yeah, it's just a different, it's a different skill set. Um and so you can you can uh you can get started a lot quicker on on the way we do business now. But I was trying to figure out how to teach scraper operators is what what we were looking for, and hired a guy and that didn't work out. He was also a pilot. But we uh at the end of the at the but when you know we got you know started with the Pi Center is kind of really the next That was the evolution of the the the not the the next real real serious effort at at trying to do it when Linda Cash or Dr. Linda Cash I don't even know how I got down there, but I was her on podcast. We do. I would love to have a call. But anyway, she when she said I can identify the kids that aren't going to school by the ninth grade, that aren't going to college, and we're not serving them. And I want to fix it. And I I guess that she was trying to make her she was starting her politics for getting the purchase of a building that is the pie center and was looking for partners and and and I was told her I was all in. But so where the and I, you know, Jared, you've been a big part of that since the very first, and we appreciate that. Y'all do a great job. It's so cool to see those, you know. I'll tell one more story. Preston, Pawson, figured that's what was doing.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:03

Yeah. When when we're down there, I go down to, you know, I don't go to the projects like I should because I, you know, I'm lazy mostly, I guess. Uh, but we'll go down to watch them set this, what was it, 450,000 pound piece?

SPEAKER_03 59:19

Yeah, down on absent pie. No, and setting the girders across the road.

SPEAKER_04 59:22

You know, correct. And Chris is there, you know, being the what do you call it, the the circus master, the guy, the ringmaster.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

Well, I mean, we had everybody. I mean, yeah, there was Chris was there, Brian was there, Elvin was there, Jose was there. No, Elvin wasn't there, that's the problem. The uh Elvin was there. Elvin was there, he just wasn't there that day. Still. And that's what took your breath away. That's what took breath.

SPEAKER_04 59:46

Because, you know, Elvin and Chris, and you know, there's a certain group of people you just trust. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

Because they've done it for a long time. Yeah. And they're just good at it.

SPEAKER_04 59:57

They're naturally good when anyway. So I go down there and I I've looked around, I thought, where's Elvin's truck? And I walk, I finally see Mitchell. So I walk over there on to the bridge where he's standing. I said, Well, where's Elvin? Puerto Rico. What? I said, Well, who's running the crane?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

Big lift and no no Elvin around. What are we doing here? Yeah, what's that?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:24

I said, Well, this ain't right. Because I see Chris standing up around the thing, so I know he's not running it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:30

And you saw at Jose.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:32

Jose was on, Jose was up in the air too. Well, the crane operators are outside the cab.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

What's happening?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:38

So who's running that crane? And you said, Preston. What really anyway said, but he said Preston. I went, What? Because he's what two years out of the pie program?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

Uh three. I mean, that's more than that now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:50

Then, but it was this has been two years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

He probably maybe turned 21 at that point. You know, he's hey shout out to Preston. He's a new daddy now. He is. He is. Congratulations, Preston.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:01

Life's moving on.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:02

The but uh and I went, I said, why didn't you lie to me? You remember me saying that? So I really wish you'd lied to me. Yeah, I remember. I wish you'd said Elvin's over there, and I'd have turned around and left, you know. So I go over and look, and yes, there's Preston, and he's got some dude on it on this crane, the big crane. It was the main one that did all this complicated stuff. And anyway, and it went off without a hitch. They did a great job. So now Preston's my new expert.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:33

Yeah, and it's and it's just amazing. You know, I've I've always looked at that's a pie center thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:39

That's a success story beyond belief.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

And it's training and it's investing, and you've got those guys that were part of those. I mean, you got you know, Dylan Jenkins and Preston, and you've got just guys that have now been with the company for years now.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:57

And they're fucking leadership roles.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

Yeah, they're they're leading, they're running big equipment, doing important things, and you know, that's that's the next wave. I mean, I've always seen the Pi Center as the you know the CPR to the soul of the American working man. And you know, you see it changing culture. Can't fix everything. We can we can do what we can here. And fitting young lives into a culture that's being carefully created by a company that cares.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:30

Well, I you know, I I appreciate the the spin that you bring to it of teaching them more than just how to work. Yeah. You know, that those soft skill sets, and even the the young people that don't come to work for us that go through your program, I think they will be better off for having had the influence that the Pi Center brings to them throughout their career, no matter where they work. That's the goal. They will be better people, better Americans, better parents, yeah, better, better people.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's amazing to me listening to your story, you know, growing up in this. And you know there there is a vision that your dad and his brother chased after, built something, got it to a point you were grafted into it. You know, and you had ideas of how it should go, he had ideas of how it needed to stay, because that's what he knew. And at some point you realized, okay, we're gonna make this work, I'm gonna, you know, back off a little bit, and we're just gonna kind of keep wading through this. It gets to where you're running with the ball, and it's almost like you know, you hit these these moments where these stubborn obstacles, and it's almost kind of almost picked up on like you knew what needed to happen. But it's like, how do I really get there? And then there's this moment where you met God in the hotel room, and then from Walmart. Really?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:11

Franklin, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:14

And and a turning point happens, and from there it's like there's you know, this shift, and then here comes the team, and here comes culture, and here comes a different way of doing things that shifted the trajectory of not just your life, but the life of the company and the life of so many other people. Like, I I mean, it's kind of crazy to think that you know, the result of that moment where you met God in a hotel room is the blessing for my family today.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:51

For a whole lot of people's families.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:52

Yeah. And you start thinking of the ripple effect of a choice to to surrender and follow God. One decision. Yeah, it's a blessing my family right now, and it's gonna bless my kids' family later. You know, I mean, there's Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:08

Well, that's that's the glory to him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:13

All I had to do was get out of my way.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

Yeah. And then we all need to listen to that. Yeah, we all need to hear that. Get out of our own way. Let God be God. Well, we've talked through a lot here.

unknown 1:05:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:26

I've kept I've kept you here longer than you dreamed.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:28

Much longer than I ever dreamed.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:31

Yeah, so for the record, keep Steve kept looking at my phone. Steve kept looking at my phone, wouldn't know how long we'd been talking. I turned it over so he couldn't see it.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:39

But uh those of you who know Mitchell know that there's got to be a whiteboard right here in front of us. Yeah, we've got a bullet point list of things, and we've only got the two bullet points.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

Well, um, I guess that means we're gonna come back and talk again of us got to do six again.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:54

Of the six that are written there.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

Yeah, and there's but this has been rich, and there's a whole lot more to talk about, so we need to do it again. And at some point get a cast of characters in here with you, too. That I'm good stuff, dude. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:07

So hey Steve, just closing this out, you know, look, you've lived an amazingly blessed life, a cool life. The the walkthrough life that you shared with us here. You know, look, it's the American dream, right? Your family started out. Your family started out with a bulldozer on a farm. You were the little kid, and you got to jump in in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:29

After the second year, they paid him a little paid granddad a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:32

It's amazing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

I mean, it's the American dream. So uh, you know, look, do you have any final parting comments here?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:41

I don't know what they would be other than of we've been so blessed, and it's such an opportunity. The people, it's all about the people. It's a any business is a people business because you know better than the people. And and I think God has blessed us with great people. We appreciate each and every one of them and what they do, the sacrifices that their family makes for them to go spend the long hours doing what we do sometimes or a lot of times away from home. And we we need to do our very best to make them as good and successful as we possibly can. So I feel sure that you two are three three of you are doing a great job at that. Yes. And I'm just gonna watch while while I'm still getting paid for being retired. There you go. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:30

Well, Steve, thank you for the opportunity you've given all of us. Thank you for coming on the podcast and just sharing with us. You're welcome. And um, you know, what a great story. Great story, cool story. You ought to be proud of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:40

A lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:41

You ought to be proud of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

So quite a journey. Jared, with that, let's uh let's wrap it up, hey, wind it up. Thank you all for listening in. Don't forget, hey, we've got a lot of episodes. We've got a growing catalog. Give it a listen. And uh, there's so much to this company, a lot of good conversations happening. But uh until then, you know, hey, listen in next time. This has been Talking Grit. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:04

That's gonna do it for this episode of Talking Grit. Thanks for listening, and thanks to everyone out there putting in the work day in and day out. If you liked what you heard, be sure to follow the show and share it with someone who knows the value of hard work. We'll catch you next time right here on Talking Grit.