Buildex 2024 D1E5 | SitePartners' Rise and the Evolution of Talent Management in Construction with Andrew Hansen, President at SitePartners

Prepare to be captivated as we sit down with Andrew Hansen, the visionary force behind SitePartners' rise. This episode promises an enlightening exploration into how the company is not just building structures but constructing a resilient legacy through strategic industry selection and the cultivation of robust client relationships. Andrew sheds light on the thrill of rallying a dedicated team, the transformative power of digital innovation in the boardroom, and the bold strides SitePartners is making with its rebranding and enhanced office spaces. Plus, we get an exclusive look at their array of offerings that are redefining the role of a marketing agency in client success.

Venture further with us as we delve into the pioneering realm where artificial intelligence meets human resources, discussing how OpenAI's GPT could revolutionize knowledge transfer and training within the workforce. Imagine harnessing decades of expertise from seasoned employees and making it accessible to the new wave of talent—this episode paints that future. We also tackle the nuances of talent acquisition in today's market, recognizing the allure of passive candidates and the changing dynamics of job platforms. The conversation takes a deeper turn, examining how distinctive company cultures are key to attracting the right talent, while also considering the impacts of tech layoffs on the construction industry's talent pool. Smaller firms face their own set of recruitment challenges, and we discuss how they can navigate these hurdles amidst the backdrop of a changing landscape of career perceptions in construction. Join us for this potent mix of insights and industry wisdom that could very well shape the way you think about business, branding, and the boundless potential of your team.

PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
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the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Site. Visit podcast. Leadership and perspective from construction With your host, James Faulkner.

Speaker 2: 0:09

Live from BuildX Vancouver 2024.

Speaker 1: 0:22

Mr Andrew Hansen, it is good to be back. The host Are you still a host? I'm trying to figure this out now.

Speaker 2: 0:28

I mean, I'm sure, if you Google it, I've been probably once every couple of months. I get asked about it and I don't deny it. I say, yeah, I know. Previous host, current listener, big fan. Yeah, long time. What did you say? Long time listener, first time caller.

Speaker 1: 0:46

I like that. So let's talk about site partners, because you've created a monster there, like, does it feel like that?

Speaker 2: 0:55

You know, yesterday, today's Wednesday, yesterday we had an all staff meeting and we got everyone into our boardroom and it was a really cool feeling because nobody could fit in there, which was pretty special.

Speaker 1: 1:05

It's kind of weird.

Speaker 2: 1:06

And it's in this virtual world where we were hybrid, I think, similar to site max, where we try and get two or three days in the office and then staff are remote for other days. So it's pretty rare to get everyone all together. But we did that, for we do site days once a month. We got everyone there and then looking around the room and seeing a lot of faces people from Victoria, from Kelowna, from Calgary it's like wow, we actually have a. That's when you feel the team together. So that felt pretty cool and we shared some exciting announcements of just where we're going as a business.

Speaker 2: 1:34

I think I've talked to you about that. We've got a new brand coming out, some new exciting office updates that we will be sharing, and just had everyone together is a pretty exciting moment and I was like, okay, this is pretty cool and, I think, similar to site max. All we are, all we are is our people, and so for me, I get a ton of confidence just looking at our group and saying, wow, there are some phenomenally talented people here, like let's go to work and that's, that's cool. So is it? Does it feel like it's? It's grown a lot, it's in small doses and then all of a sudden, all at once, you feel it in certain duration and you know we're growing business too. So there's there's growing challenges every every week for sure.

Speaker 1: 2:11

So did you. You and I have talked a lot about you know me having an agency in the past and you know you've surpassed what I had now, which is amazing. And but I think we've had a lot of early conversations in terms of how do you you know, as a business, how do you look at it from an economics point of view? How do you put your money in the right places to make sure you have a sustainable thing over time? You're not going to like burn if the market changes, kind of thing. So it looks like you've done that Pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 2:42

Yeah, I mean we've been I say this to a lot of people like we've been pretty lucky, like we chose a sector that was resilient.

Speaker 2: 2:47

You look at COVID construction industrial services you look at inflationary environment, yeah, yes, there's challenges, but from what we've seen with our clients and the well-produced brands and the really reputable builders, they're busy too. I'm sure you're going to hear that in conversations throughout today and tomorrow. There's a lot of work. You hear it in the news. We need homes, we need homes. What does homes mean? You need five million homes. We need roads, bridges, infrastructure, water. The list goes on.

Speaker 2: 3:14

And so the resiliency piece. A lot of it's due to the industry. We've chosen an industry that's been resilient and then also chosen an industry that now these digital tools, storytelling, brands, marketing have always been important but have now moved to probably that executive level conversation to say, hey, we need to look at our digital footprint, we need to look at our user journey, both from an employee and from a top tier client, and we've just chosen really good clients. I think the word client is even a weird word. I like the word partner and it doesn't sound good as a site partner's partner, so we have to use it correctly. But they're really partners where it's like hey, some months we're diving deep on a project here, hey, it's not our scope of work, but we need to do that Client over here.

Speaker 2: 3:58

They need to win this RFP. We throw our whole team at it video photo design. They win the RFP, we win the RFP. So I think the resiliency has just been and you feel this too a site max Like your clients, they care about you, they know you personally, your family, maybe you guys. Maybe a site max drops the ball. You get a phone call but they're like we're sticking with you, james, because we know who you are. It powers you to work extra hard. And so long answer to say very fortunate, very blessed to have great clients and partners and an industry that stayed really, really strong. It doesn't seem to be slowing down at all.

Speaker 1: 4:32

So let's take us through the different services. Like you have some sub-brands, basically right. So you have obviously site partners, which is the marketing side. Started with video, you started doing rebranding of companies and then take us through some of the new stuff.

Speaker 2: 4:52

So this is going to be early news. You're breaking it here on the BuildX floor.

Speaker 1: 4:55

Okay, let's have it.

Speaker 2: 4:56

So you got it, but you deserve it because you're part of the original story. So site partners has been around for over a sixth year and so that's the bulk of what we do. So we're a full service creative strategic agency. So we do everything from video production, big commercials with the finnings of the world, to brand strategy, to employer branding, to large scale websites, advertising campaigns like the work with SiteMax, and then public relations and whatnot. A big part of site partners as well is our stakeholder communications and engagement work, which is a bit of a different piece to creative storytelling, and that type of projects is stakeholder engagement communications work. You're putting a highway in. You need to do a certain level of engagement. We've got a team that does that. We support Metro Vancouver, major infrastructure projects and whatnot. So that's been the site partner story for a long time. We're very good. We've got 30 to 40 people within that business. Our main office in BC. We've got team in Calgary. We're going to be growing up in Toronto. We're doing a lot of work in the US now. So that's been the story. Now. You've been a part of this and I've talked to you about it, but that's been a lot of fun. We continue. We have some big plans for that business.

Speaker 2: 6:06

Through that growth, you see other opportunities in the market, both from what clients bring to you and from problems. You see, it's one of the first things we saw as an agency that specializes in the construction sector is we'd make these amazing videos for clients and then we would push it out on social media, different digital platforms, to get that reach and we felt there was a gap. I'll use Symax as an example, where, technically, someone that's buying your product is usually a senior leader, ceo, president, because it's a big technology stack decision. Are they on Facebook? Are they on LinkedIn, Instagram? Definitely, but not all the time, and maybe that buying decision isn't happening there, it's maybe in the evening. So we wanted to curate a news platform where, if we can create phenomenal content, industry-leading content, breaking news, insights, updates, essentially strong content marketing at a high level, we can create something special. So we want to pre-build that audience. So about a year ago, we launched Sight News, which is our media brand.

Speaker 1: 7:03

It actually was a year ago, because I remember the guys right here talking about it Probably here. Yeah, yeah, it was here, yeah, russell here.

Speaker 2: 7:10

So Russell Hicks in is our editor, so he's really the horsepower behind that. So he spent last 10 years in construction media and so he leads all of our editorial and coming up with stories. And then obviously the site partners team supports video, photo and whatnot. But the idea was really let's create a place where we can elevate the sector. A big focus for our business I think SiteMax shares this well is we want to elevate the sector, and the way we do that is by telling really good stories and celebrating technology, talented people, big projects.

Speaker 2: 7:41

And so we saw there wasn't really a media brand that was digitally focused. There were traditional media brands in the sector, but there wasn't a digital native focused brand. So we said, hey, we can do this to elevate the sector, help our clients. We launched SiteNews and what that is today is we have a weekly, a bi-weekly, so twice a week. We have a newsletter that goes out to thousands of construction executives. We have a website that's getting over a million uniques a year now and we throw events.

Speaker 2: 8:07

And so we threw a big event to Vancouver In Yaltown Earl's. We got about 125 people, we got sponsored by the big orange, sponsored by the big orange and we basically wanted to elevate the sector. And so we did a top 25 innovators in Canadian construction where we want to elevate, hey, whether it's PIP, meadows, etro Construction, shandos, a bunch of these big leaders, they came out, we recognized them. So SiteNews has become our media brand. We've got a big, big growth plan for that to continue to elevate the sector. And so that's SiteNews and that's a standalone team, standalone brand. Obviously we've worked very closely within Site Partners to elevate stories and do some really cool things. But we wanted to create a space where, if our clients have amazing stories not only just our clients, the industry it's to be clear, the industry has amazing stories we can celebrate it and speak to a construction audience. A lot of times you're reading BIV, you're reading the province and it's difficult to write for a wide-ranging audience. Our audience is construction.

Speaker 2: 9:01

So, we can write stories that are built for construction. So that's SiteNews. And then we haven't announced it publicly but we are, I guess, today on this podcast, but we'll do it more so purposefully over the next couple of months is Site Technologies. So we get asked a lot of times by our larger clients hey, andrew, you're doing some amazing work on video and brand storytelling, but we need some help on our digital infrastructure, our tools, our resources, whether that be a CRM, whether that be an ERP, whether that be just a bigger question of what does digital mean for us? Sitemax we've actually recommended SiteMax to a bunch of our clients on different products, but as an agency it's difficult for us to service that offering because it's a different product. And so we stood up a separate company, site Technologies, that's doing some really cool projects separate team, different skill set, works very closely. And one example I can't share the name is a large manufacturer where they actually hired Site Partners and they hired Site Technologies and they hired Site Partners to do their entire brand transformation work, communication. They hired Site Technologies to do some really complex ERP systems to essentially modernize that entire organization and that was really cool. And so right now it's Site Partners, site News, site Technologies.

Speaker 2: 10:08

We're gonna be really leaning into talent. So Site Talent's gonna be a new business. It's gonna be coming out which we're really unpacking with. How do we leverage employer branding, storytelling? You know a place to really curate where are the best jobs If you wanna be a VP of business development or Orion Construction, or if you wanna be, you know, a VP of operations for Wales McClellan or you name it. You know VP of special project at Amel Anderson Construction, those are unique jobs. Are they on Indeed, are they on LinkedIn? Maybe? But if we can curate a really cool space where top talent goes to top organizations, that's the gap we're trying to close and we have some really cool ideas rolling out. That's gonna integrate with the news and the partners platform. But all that to say that's kind of where we're headed is this site offering, which is gonna be talent, communications, marketing, news, a lot of fun stuff.

Speaker 1: 10:55

So it's early days, but that's your question of kind of what that was yeah, so the site, is it site careers, or it can be site Site talent, site talent. That sounds pretty interesting. Yeah, so we've got some. Really, you're gonna put a platform together? Are you putting like a technology layer to that? A bunch of different stuff?

Speaker 2: 11:15

Yeah, we're really trying to get into the root of the problem of a lot of people, and I mean this is the story of Sitemax is a lot of people go in a room, they build a product and they think, hey, I think this will work. I mean, you look at Sitemax store, you guys built your product inside of a general contract, beside a general contractor, to solve for problems. We're trying to do something similar where we're getting really close to a couple of our clients and saying how do we actually solve this talent problem?

Speaker 2: 11:36

Like with the HR process and stuff, hr even, things like how do you write a job description? How do you do it? Well, how do you? What is your offering? Like I think we've. You know I've had many dinners talking about you. Gotta market your employee experience as much as your customer experience.

Speaker 1: 11:49

So you're gonna integrate chat GTPs, open AI into that?

Speaker 2: 11:53

I mean.

Speaker 1: 11:54

I don't wanna Like to write job descriptions, because I mean so on this AI topic, we can go into it.

Speaker 2: 11:59

Look at this example. I'm not saying we're doing this, but you talk about this and this is going to be. I never do this, but you look at this talent leave in the industry, so you have a. I use Wales as an example. Yeah, let's say you have a site superintendent that's worked at Wales for 40 years and that's not like that has happened. We've interviewed people who've worked at Wales for 40 years. Yeah, they're leaving the company. Yes, wales done a phenomenal job to pass off that information and there and I wouldn't I wouldn't use them as example because they've done a good job of this.

Speaker 2: 12:24

But let's say, with AI, could you incorporate all that data and that knowledge to hey, when a tilt is swinging here, what do you do? How do you prep a good day when you're pouring concrete, or all these little intangibles that make construction excellent? Let's say you could compartmentalize all that data into a chatbot and I'm a new superintendent and I could talk to Greg, who just retired, and it's AI bot and we've kind of built this really unique system where, hey, it's what? What are the 10 things I should consider when there's a concrete pour on Thursday? You know Greg says make sure you talk to Freddie who's you know and like these elements of all these intangibles, like that's where I see a really like a learning management system could be really cool with AI. We're not building it, but I think those are use cases where how cool would that be? You know a new project manager and maybe I'm intimidated to ask my boss, but I can go and say you know what actually goes into pre-construction, how should I prepare for this meeting, or da-da-da-da. I think that could be.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Yeah, yeah, that would be. I mean, in terms of the, you know, the, the someone else leaving. There's probably not enough data there to even create a model, but yeah, there's. It's going to be kind of an interesting. It's going to be interesting thing with how I like your. So are you thinking, maybe is there going to be an, indeed kind of a layer there that you're going to do for?

Speaker 2: 13:41

I mean, I think so. I mean everything's on the table. And I think it goes back to that question of good people aren't looking for jobs. Great people need to be pursued and they need that opportunity to be presented to them. I'll look at Sitemax, for example. If you're looking for a VP of partnerships, a VP of business, like you need someone that's very difficult to find and they also need to be in the right place in their career and their life to be hey, I want to work at Sitemax.

Speaker 2: 14:09

Maybe they worked at PCL for 15 years and they they have this itch to change things up. Being a startup, being a fast paced organization to help, and all of a sudden, like how does that user journey flow? They're not going to. Indeed, in LinkedIn looking for Sitemax, it's matching that opportunity piece and I think Sitemax is looking for someone who's been at PCL for 15 years that has that knowledge and experience. So, is there a job platform? I don't know. I think it's just finding. How do we just curate the best opportunities Hard to reach, with people that are maybe looking, maybe not looking.

Speaker 1: 14:39

So yeah, it's always a hard part. Right, it's a hard part, so that's it.

Speaker 2: 14:43

If anyone's listening and they have an idea, send me an email.

Speaker 1: 14:44

It is also that you know the political side of things. People moving around, that's tough too, right oh.

Speaker 2: 14:50

And I feel like that comes in cycles. You might know more than me and you talk to more people, but I think it has changed you a little bit, like at least for us. We found, like you post a job two years ago, it's tough to get a ton of momentum. You post a job now and you're getting 100 applications. I know it's brutal Good applications. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Yeah, it's tough to. So what do you think about on the culture side of things? You talk about company culture and you obviously get into that quite a lot, probably less on the government stuff, but probably with some of the GCs and the larger developers you have as clients. How are you finding that? That is, is that difficult these days in terms of how younger generation is mixing with older generation and there's kind of an impatience?

Speaker 2: 15:41

It's interesting. I mean, culture is a big word. I think I think we're seeing, like if I listed 10 companies for you and you and I both went in a room and wrote Culture word beside those, we're probably pretty close. You know, you write down whales, orion, you know Nikoon, caliber projects, like you kind of get a feel for that culture because we've been around it. And so I think that's the same thing when people apply for a job, someone that applies at caliber construction is a different person than someone applies at leadcore. Hmm, doesn't mean both one is better than the other. Doesn't mean one's different. I think so.

Speaker 2: 16:14

I think the culture piece is just we're starting to see people that align with certain brands apply there and and really lean into that. So you look at what Justin and his team have done there. It's like they've been pretty clear in their proposition and then it pushes certain people in, attract certain people. I think. I think we're seeing that a little bit is a bit of boldness and in people's story. You know, you see that in some organizations where they're like they're really pushing technology is a core part of their offer. Others they're saying you know, we get construction done. You know we're maybe a little bit more old-school, but here's our value prop. So I think culture follows that and so certain employees, you know, hopefully I think part of the employer branding journey has been super clear on that, so that when someone does apply it's not like this culture whip where they're like, whoa, this is not what was advertised. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 16:57

And so.

Speaker 2: 16:57

I think that's where we're advising a lot of our clients is just be like, own that story, be proud of it, or, you know, challenge number one is that your story. Is that the story where the talent is coming from, or do we need to change it and just it and have those really tough conversations? But if it's working for them and it's, it is an ingrained who they are. Lean into it and be clear. So when people jump in, they stay and there's not this like this bumps we're seeing. Like I think you know I've talked about this, but it's a Lot of people think recruitment starts with just a job at and an interview, but there's actually an eight-step process.

Speaker 2: 17:27

You know, it's all the, all the Education, learning that a prospective employee will get from researching a brand, and then it's what's the interview process? Okay, and then what's the on-boarding process, what's the promotion process, what's the advocate process? And so it's like following that entire employee journeys is something we're working with a couple clients on which is really cool down to like you know what's the, you know welcome package when they, when they come into the office or they.

Speaker 1: 17:52

What's my, my life at x company gonna be like Totally? It's like picturing the next couple of years. So there's something that I haven't had a chance to chat with you about is like Is the sort of how construction in general is still today getting a Not a fair shake in terms of an in as a career path? But it seems like that's slowly changing. Am I wrong?

Speaker 2: 18:23

I think you're right. I mean, it's slowly changing, it's, it's. I think we're in the industry, so maybe we're close to it?

Speaker 2: 18:28

Yeah, maybe that's known as a little bit, but you know we work with a lot of organizations that are pretty progressive. You know We've had the opportunity to work with skilled trades, bc and different associations of just. I think people now are aware of the problem, and I so I think the investment is starting to go Into the challenge, which is, you know, communicating the story of what, of what skill trades could be. The other thing which we've talked about is I mean, you look at, we're recording this podcast in February 2024 there's been a lot of tech layoffs over the last 12 months. Yeah, I think I talked to some of our staff and I talked to my network is. I think everyone knows someone, either a close friend or Relative, that's either been laid off or currently looking for work, and I don't think in the last four or five years, that's been the case. Yeah, and so I think we're hiring.

Speaker 1: 19:10

Yeah, it's like max, there you go.

Speaker 2: 19:11

But I think before everyone's had a job and anyone that wanted jobs get, and I've known very talented people that Unfortunately had been laid off not any fault their own and they've been looking, actively looking for a couple months and it's like interesting, like before it's like Gone and now it's been a bit of a pace. So I think in the construction side that's that's a story that's always been told, as if you're a hard worker, your talent in your driven, there will be an opportunity here for you, and that, I think, resonates with more people now. Mm-hmm, then you know, a couple years ago, plus the wages, the opportunity, the career growth and, I think, the dynamic of the opportunity. I mean we've talked about it at length on this podcast, but you know you can Be an expert in so many areas and not just on the tools, whether it's in marketing, sales, business development. You know, obviously, constructions a huge opportunity as well, but there's ways to bring people into the organization. And then also too, like I think, the CEO of breakfast and what's been talked, you got a lot of major projects coming offline and sightseed am transbound pipeline.

Speaker 2: 20:09

We've got some really skilled trades. Yes, some they're gonna, you know, move back to province of origin, but that's an opportunity to bring some talent into some other opportunities as well too. So long answer question. I think it is changing. I think it's slow. I think you know there's been a lot of talks. You know immigration is a huge part of who Canada is and so Looking at those numbers of what type of skilled trades come in, and it's relatively low consideration of the number that's coming in. So that's it. That's a huge gap, long way to go it's. It's a focus of ours, like we still try and work with our clients to elevate it. And I think the other piece too is you know you have to be a size of an organization to take green talent in, train them up and put in the field.

Speaker 1: 20:48

That's a hard part.

Speaker 2: 20:49

If you're a 20 to 40 person company and you just need skilled workers, you need workers to go in tomorrow to bring value because you've got projects. If you're an LA stoner or a lead core and you can hire someone that has all the characteristics and talent as a support role, project coordinator, and then over one or two, three years, hey, they've got this knowledge, and then you move them to a PM and I'm generalizing here, but I think that's a difficult contrast too, and so it's worth the investment.

Speaker 1: 21:19

What I did realize one thing is that when I always think of the, I'm gonna talk about Kindred for a minute. Our friends Brian and Matt, they Are they gonna come on? Well, they've been on.

Speaker 2: 21:32

Yeah, like here, though, I've seen them at the show.

Speaker 1: 21:36

No, they were saying that. Even their dad said I don't want you to go on construction, You're gonna go to university, you're gonna go on deals. So there is this kind of like even the parents who are proud of the accomplishments that they've had in construction don't want their kids to even go in it, and the one of the things I think is so is it like a?

Speaker 1: 21:59

I can't quite figure it out, but I think there's one thing that is, when people say the word construction, all they see is the stuff they see outside. They see the porta potty, they see the catering truck comes up, they see dirt everywhere. They see only that, whereas they don't see that in the corporate world. But if you were to go in the kitchen of the corporate world and stand by the water cool and listen to the toxic crap that goes on there, you might think twice yeah, right, it's just you can't get in there. But so you basically just see the outside and you go. Oh, I don't want my son or daughter doing that. It's like, yeah, but this is a tiny part of construction. You can be in technology and construction and never even touch anything outside. Yeah, and it's getting less dirty every day, yeah, so I think we're in the last bastion of opportunity.

Speaker 1: 22:58

I always find that when you said that some people being able to see you, I would say are without sounding you're not a malignant opportunist, but you're an opportunist in terms of you see something and you go for it and you grab it. I don't think a lot of people are and I think you have to be able to see through the moray of confusion to be able to see actually what an opportunity is in construction later. So you guys with the career path of what certain sectors may be, having something that in sight, talent of showing vectors of where people can go, so that can actually see it, because I'm going to have no clue.

Speaker 2: 23:39

It's a good point. And speaking on the kindred side, but speaking on the vector side, it's a really good point. Maybe it's just not to date us, but we've been doing this podcast five years. You blink and five years goes by and I still feel like we just started. But you look at someone who maybe started Leadcore as a project. Five years they're running it. If they've done their job and they've been trained and they have showed all the right tools, they could be running a $20 to $40 million job now. So that five years goes by so quick. So your point of being opportunistic, like man, like time goes by fast and you're able to take it Like, if there's opportunity, go after it. So I think, if your comment on like is the industry changing for sure, it just takes time and you make a really good point, people can see the toughest part of the job, which I say to our staff all the time Like you think our job's hard, like, go do some formwork, go do some framing in February in the cold rain. That is tough work.

Speaker 1: 24:35

In Calgary, yeah, yeah, in Calgary.

Speaker 2: 24:39

You know, and I think there's changes, but still got a long way to go. But I think the other piece too is like you know. I'll say this, I can speak for myself only the situation, and I'm not very handy and I say this with like a ton of just hands, yeah, just hands.

Speaker 2: 24:55

But I love hard work. I love I don't do it every day so I can say that with a bit of humility. If I had to do it five days a week, it's a different story. You have to physically and I work on a computer. So if I spend Friday, saturday, saturday doing hard landscaping, I'm talking 12 hours a day, three days a week over the weekend. I love that you look back at your work. You feel it. Now I only do it on the weekend and I'm not very efficient, so it's like I'm probably doing the opposite of hard work. I'm just moving things around, but that feeling of like wow, it feels so and I think that's some people still crave, that some people don't crave. But I think there's such a career, there's such a nobility to that work.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Yeah, that tangible result.

Speaker 2: 25:30

And it's and it's. And you know, if there's people that are listening to this podcast, they're driving into work today and they have that. You know it's a Tuesday. I got to go after this week. It's like, you know, for you and I, like, you have our respect and you have our commitment and I think like, wow, it's tough and it's easy for us to sit here and build X and say that, but, like, those are the people built in their homes and and I think I think it was a podcast I was listening about Sightmax I'm switching topics here, but you talked about this in one of your past episodes of I think it was, with ICBA or VRCA or something about like the entrepreneurial journey of construction of people that start their companies.

Speaker 2: 26:08

Yeah, I think it was, I think it was and it was just like you know. I mean, canada is built on immigrants because we all are immigrants, which is a special part of our story. But like that work, I think they come in, you know they work hard and then all of a sudden, five, 10 years go down, they have a 30, 40 person company. They're creating amazing opportunities, like that is, and they worked for they deserve it. But like, what a cool story and I remember hearing that I think it was on a run listen to that podcast and I was like, man, that is so cool. Like it is cool Like legacy, legacy changing impact for their families, for their communities.

Speaker 2: 26:40

And like you know, back to the Kindred story. I'm sure, like you know the work that, the work that goes into that people see it like and they know how hard it is. So then it's like, do I want that for my kids? But you tell you like Matt and Brian are probably in the same hour, not the different type of hours, the same amount of work they're putting in. And you know they've done some awesome things. Their brand has grown a lot, the projects they're taking on. I was talking with Matt on the on in the foyer and he was running. You could just tell like when you see people and there's a pace to them, you can see it in their eyes.

Speaker 2: 27:12

So like I got seven things to do right now. I want to be president and shake your hand and say hi, but I got to go, and it's like that's just the pace you need to to survive this morning.

Speaker 1: 27:21

It's very good Well is that. I was like that this morning. Yeah, I'm like that's not working, this is not working, but anyway, these are short podcasts. I really appreciate you coming down and on time.

Speaker 2: 27:33

I did a little talking, you're always on time, I like.

Speaker 1: 27:35

I mean, I was a little late, but no, you weren't, it's like one of five For showtime.

Speaker 2: 27:39

you got to show up like five minutes early.

Speaker 1: 27:41

Oh, you're all good, I appreciate it. Anyway, best of luck to you, man. We're going to do that dinner again. Okay, it's on me this time. I like it. No, it's not on me, oh, sorry, sorry. Okay, man, cheers, thank you, awesome. Well, that does it for another episode of the Site Visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for a monthly newsletter at sitenacsystemscom slash the Site Visit, where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the Site Visit podcast and Sitemax, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.