EP : 3 - Building a Welding Empire: The Story of JK Welding - Speaking Of Skilled Trades

From Challenging Childhood to Trades Path Hi John, I'm going to go ahead and get this kicked off here. I don't think this guest needs any introductions. His personality is as big as the state he hails from, from Cypress, TX. Mr. John King, welcome to the show, John. Speaker 2 Thank you, man. I'm, I'm glad to be here and honored to be here. And can't you see? Can't wait to see what unfolds, you know? Speaker 1 Yeah, man, part of what I do here is my target audience are those kids that are still in high school, maybe exploring the avenues of the trades, things like that. That's my target market. That's who I want to hear your message, John. So tell me a little bit about John King as a youngster. What was John King as a teenager like? Speaker 2 I mean, I was a pretty decent kid, man. You know, I I played a lot of basketball, went to school, you know, went to private school. I was raised by my grandparents, so kind of raised the old school, you know, the old school ways. So which, you know, I didn't know any different back then. And looking back now, I'm kind of glad it was that way, you know, But bless my grandmother and to hell with my grandfather because he was a drunk and very abusive, you know. So I, I came, you know, when I was around my grandmother, it was great. But when I was grandma around my grandfather, it was not good at all, you know, so. Speaker 1 So raised by your grandparents, You're you're you're. I'm assuming your dad was out of the picture as well. Speaker 2 Yeah, my, my mom and dad pretty much just telling me about the time I was about 12 years old, they got divorced and they went to hell in the handbasket at that point, you know, I'm officially had a broken home, you know, So not something I'm proud of, but it's helped me become the person who I am today. So it was part of the odds that were against me, you know, as I got older, you know, coming from a broken home, you know, I had a father of my younger years, you know, But yeah, as I started getting to the ages of, you know, 1011 and 12, you know, he was working a lot. And he didn't spend much time with me or my brother and just, you know, just went to the wayside from there and just didn't spend much time together. And he was more worried and more worried about, you know, being with his new current wife, you know, so. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, I wasn't a bad, I wasn't a bad kid. I was a good kid. So I, I didn't understand that as a kid. I didn't understand it. I just went where I was told to go, you know? Speaker 1 Yeah, so being raised by your grandparents and your grandfather, not much part of the picture. What's where? Where did your male influence come in as a teenager? Speaker 2 You know, a lot of my coaches, you know, as far as in school, you know, I lean on them guys a lot. You know, I went to a small private school, so we didn't have any kind of like automotive shop. We didn't have Weld shop. There was no home AG, you know, for the girls that we didn't have any of that. It was a really small school. In fact, there was only 38 people in my graduating class. So if you can imagine some of you folks that are listening or, you know, that might hear this, you know, I know some of your graduating classes are in the thousands, you know, or at least the hundreds, you know, but there wasn't, there was a lot of leaning on my coach, you know, I, I guess, you know, I kind of look back on them guys as as my mentor and someone who kind of guided me, you know what? And when my grandfather wasn't drinking, he kind of was, you know, he as far as outdoors and teaching me few things here and there. Last time he was a drought, but he wouldn't. When he wouldn't drinking he was OK. Speaker 1 So where, where did it sounds like the school that you went to was pretty much poised to send you straight to college. Man, that seems like the kind of school it was. It didn't offer any in, you know, I guess insight into the trades or anything like that. The private school that you attended sound like it was prepping you for college. Practical Skills Trump Formal Education in Trades What made John King take a different route? Speaker 2 Yeah, I, it, it could have, it could have definitely been a lot of help and, and it, it probably was a lot of help to a lot of people as far as prepping them for college. But it wasn't for me. College wasn't for me. And I, I had several scholarships to go to college to play ball, you know, play basketball. And if anybody doesn't know or realize I'm 6 foot 8, so had a height advantage that went along with the skill set that I had for ball. Had about 5 scholarships, but I wanted to, you know, not go into college. I had some other ideas of things that I wanted to do. And so I started travelling the world at a very young age of 18. Cut my teeth as a a boulder maker and inserting boulder tubes and starting to learn how to Weld and fabrication shop making all kind of refractory and oil field tools you know, and galvanizing tanks and just learn a lot about welding as a younger age. Speaker 1 Now that's something, man. That's not, not a whole lot of people are like, hell yeah, that's what I'm going to go do. What what made you what made you want to do that, man? Where is see, that's what I'm trying to get to. Where was that influence? Because everything that you've told me so far was geared up to put you in a completely different, different direction. Where did you see? Where were you introduced to this boilermaking and and welding and fabrication? Speaker 2 So my after school, my dad had partner, he had partnered with somebody and had a small company and the company he partnered with to share the same location was much larger company and they did a lot of welding and fabrication. So when I wasn't doing border work with my dad, I was working in the Weld shop of that Weld shop where my dad had his business where he shared a location. So that's where I started learning a lot of that welding, you know, and fabrication was in the shop with all the Hispanics fact I was the only white guy in the in the shop, you know, age 19 or 21, whatever year it was, you know, working in the shop, those guys learning how to reprint and fabricate, learn how to Weld, you know, flux core and inner shield and mig welding and all that kind of stuff. But. Speaker 1 So you were completely taught on on the job? Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, on the job. There was no school back then. You know, I, I learned from a lot of those older guys. A lot of a lot of the guys that were in the shop were a lot older. You know, of course I was young at 21 or 22 back then, but a lot of the guys in the shop were mid 40s, mid 50s, summer, mid 60s, you know, So you're talking 1990199192, you're talking guys that are 5060 years old. I mean, they came from the 40s and the 50s. So I was kind of brought up around the old school around those guys, you know? Speaker 1 Yeah, you were. Speaker 2 And that continued on throughout my career. Just about everybody I worked with was from the 70s, sixties, 80s. You know, a lot of guys that I worked around with weren't really my age. Speaker 1 What did you find that? Because that's interesting. You know, you have a lot of people nowadays. One of the biggest complaints that young people have in the trades is that, you know, I'm just a hand. Nobody's going to teach me anything. Nobody's showing me anything. These guys are all gatekeepers. They're not, they're not, they're not, they're not teaching me the tricks that I need to be successful in a trade. Did you find that? Was that the case when you started in the trades? Speaker 2 You know, I, I did get a little bit of that at various jobs, you know, but man, you got to toughen up your skin. Man, you can't be so soft hearted. Walk around your feelings on your shoulders. You know, I find that a lot today with a lot of people, a lot of younger people, you know, you just you can't ever accept the word no and always say yes to any opportunity that comes along your way and just learn, man. Just you got to get in there and and butt your way in. It's kind of like in basketball we were talking about that you got to get in there and boxing people out. You got to make your own way. You got to cut your own pathway, you know, Start learning on your own because ain't nobody going to do it for you. But you, you know, and you don't don't rely on a school to teach you everything because there's that ain't going to happen either. You know, I don't care how much money you pay or what school you go to. There's a lot of good schools out there, a lot of bad schools out there. But I can tell you no matter what school you go to, you're not going to learn everything because there's a lot of tricks of the trade rope to the trade that you can learn in the shop or in the field that you are not going to learn in school. Speaker 1 Now there's simply so many situations and variables that you there's no way you could duplicate that in the school setting. You're 100% correct on. Speaker 2 That, you know, Josh, I had five guys working here and all five guys went to a welding school, a different welding school, each one of them. And all five guys as parents paid for their own way to go to welding school. Some welding schools for three months, some were six months, some, some were a year, and some of them paid $10,000, some of them paid $20,000. But one thing they all had in common is that none of them can read a measuring tape. Speaker 1 Incredible. Speaker 2 Can you imagine your parents paying $20,000 for a welding school when you come out? You know how to Weld but you can't even read a damn measurement tape? Like what's the? Speaker 1 That's the very basic, that's the most fundamental thing we ask in trades. Speaker 2 Man, what the hell you know? So when I learned of this of all these guys, I pulled them all in the conference room and asked each one of them some various questions and this and that. And I asked them, you know, why? Why don't y'all know? How did how is it you don't know this? You know, and none of them what did they have to? Speaker 1 Say for that. Speaker 2 None of them can really give me an answer, you know? There's no one's ever taught them, you know? So instead of getting mad or pissed off about the situation because I got a bunch of employees that don't know how to read the measurement tape, I started drawing stuff on the dry erase board. I drew a clock. I drew a dollar bill. I drew a gas gauge like on a car and I was like what all these have in common, nobody knew. I said we're going to start with this. They all have quarters. Quarter of a tank, 1/4 of a dollar bill or 8:45, we're going to start with quarters. They all have four quarters to start with, four quarters and we're going to break a quarter down in half, then we're going to break that down in half. So in about 3540 minutes they all understood and knew how to read a measure and take with that point so. Speaker 1 And that's all we've taken is somebody along the way to sit down with them and explain it to them like that. Speaker 2 Well, they did with me. I mean, they, they, the older guys did with me. So I'm just sharing that knowledge and moving that, moving that on, you know, But it's going to do nothing but help them no matter if they work here or not. It's going to help them in life. Of course it's, but I'm more of a better benefit if they continue to work here because I've taught them something when we continue to teach them stuff, you know? Speaker 1 That was one of the biggest things that took me by surprise when I started teaching high school 13 years ago. I acquired, I guess it was called pre engineering at the time, 14 students that were seniors in a manufacturing curriculum. They've done half a year machining, half a year welding. So they learned enough about both of them to be dangerous, not enough about either one of them to be employable, right? And what struck me the most out of 14 kids Jaw, one could read a tape measure. And these kids were in a manufacturing curriculum with machining. So they were machining within the thousands, you know, and they couldn't even break down the most simplistic form of measurement. Speaker 2 You know, first hand more than anybody with all the schooling that you do, you know, I mean, I mean, we both do I, I see a lot of it here at my company, but you see a lot of it there at the school because most times the guys that you're getting are just really starting out, you know, they're, they're young guys, you know, so. Speaker 1 Yeah, well, they get to me as soft, you know, the their junior year in high school. But even at that, you come to me, your junior, you're in high school and you don't know how to read a tape measure. That tells me the entire your entire educational journey up to this point's been a lie, especially when it comes down to math. I mean, we Start learning fractions in 3rd grade and the only reason for a fraction is so that we can build things. That's the only reason we've got it. And so now it just it's more of we're just going through the motions, checking the boxes. We're not really understanding what we're doing with that tape measure. And they took ACAD, you know, things like home economics and shop class out of schools. So there's, there's no bridge between foundational learning of math and real world application that no longer exists. So they get to high school and they understand what a fraction is, but they don't understand what it's used for. So that learning curve, trying to get all those kids up to speed, I mean, that's before we can do anything. That's before we can cut steel or anything. So I feel you. I mean, from an employer standpoint, you know, when I was hiring people, that was the first thing that I asked them, the very first thing, do you know how to read a tape measure? And I'm sure you're in the same boat. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a that's a shame. From Employee to Entrepreneur: Founding JK Welding But anyway, so moving on from Boilermaking, how long did you do that? Speaker 2 About four years. Speaker 1 OK, Yeah. Speaker 2 I did that for about four years. I left there and I went and ran a welding rig and started working on steam boilers with tube sheets back welding tubes on the tube sheets. And then after that I went to work for Pasadena school district here in Texas. They actually, I hired into the air conditioned department there and hoping to get into the Weld department, which there was only like 2 welders in the welding department. And then that job position been sewn up for like 30 something years. You know, I just hoping to get lucky, but I, I'm kind of glad I didn't because I'm just too active and I'm, I'm, I had too much of A busy body to work As for school district, I found that out through time after about a year working there, man, I had to go. It was, they had like 18 holidays and they were off 2 weeks for Chris Menace. And man, I just can't, I just couldn't do it, man. You know, I'm just too much of A busy body. So I left there and I went to work for a company called Cam and Iron Works. It's a very large forging facility, very nasty environment, very hazardous, hazardous environment. So I went from one extreme of not working in very clean environment and just working minimum 8 hours a day to working 16 hours a day in the nastiest, most dirtiest hazardous environment you could ever imagine. Speaker 1 Punishment. Speaker 2 Man, I would come home and literally have just white around my eyes and that was it. The rest of me, it was just black, you know, so, but I loved it, you know. Speaker 1 So in the moment you didn't have any regrets? Speaker 2 No, I did not have any regrets. Like I landed the best job I could ever have. You know, when I went to work for this, this company, which is the last company I've worked for and I was there for 9 years. Wow. But my last two years that I was there, I started doing work on the side. They got to where I started thinking, man, you know what, that's a really nasty, dirty environment and very hazardous. You know, I don't know if I want to do 30 years here. You know, here I am land the job of my life that I've always wanted. And then here it is 7/7 and 1/2 years later. First of all, I have a a wife that's pregnant at home, not working. So I got to find other ways to help bring in more funds not to pay the bills to go hunting and fishing, you know, I got to, I got to support my habit, you know? Speaker 1 That's exactly right. Speaker 2 So I start doing stuff out of the garage and then it literally turns into a business, you know, within a very short period of time, which was a pain in the ass, you know, But hey, I did what I had to do. There's times you take me an hour or two hours to get everything out of the garage to work on it. And then of course, she's sticking her head out the garage going, hey, the baby's sleeping. You can't be grinding right now, you know, just like, what the hell, you know, I got money to make, you know, you know. So anyway. Speaker 1 The rest of its life to sleep. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 So that puts you in what, somewhere around 20, late 20s, early 30s? Speaker 2 And so I quit my job when I was 32 years old. Speaker 1 OK. Speaker 2 Yeah, 32. Speaker 1 32 and that's the set foot out on your own. Speaker 2 Yeah, took the leap of faith, went out of my own. But you know what? I had already, before I took that leap of faith, of course, I had an insurance policy in place. That was, I had already gotten another shop. I had gotten a shop, a small fab shop and I already had a couple guys working for me that would be fabricating during the day while I'm at my regular job. OK, but I wasn't always at my regular job. I would miss if I missed a day or four days at my at my job there was the same consequences. So I learned the system very well. Speaker 1 Here you are, the employees you hate to employ. Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, Needless to say, when I quit they they revamped that whole system. Speaker 1 Look, John, I'm not going to lie, man, there might have been a place I work that did the exact same thing. I might have had a calendar marked out on my locker as the days I could miss per their policy. Speaker 2 Between sick days, vacation days, and then, you know, hell, even if I missed a couple days, if I went to Walgreens and got a, a permission slip, you know, a doctor slip, it was excused. So there was unlimited amount of time that I could be off. Of course, they're rolling their eyes at me, you know. So finally one day when I decided to take the leap of faith, you know, I went in my boss's office and I said, hey, it's time to go. He goes. I figured that. So he says go across the street and they'll have your paperwork for you. So I went over there and I sat down and Miss Eleanor, that Lady that was in charge of HR, she took the paperwork and she kind of slid it to me and she's like, here's a pen, I want you to sign right here. And I said OK. And I went to sign and I had my hand there and she went to grab it and she's like Mr. King. I said, yes, ma'am. She goes, it's a good thing that you're signing today. And I said why? She says at 2:00 and I was supposed to fire your ass. Speaker 1 They had the other paperwork ready for you, didn't. Speaker 2 They So I said Miss Eleanor, I grabbed her hand and I looked at her and she was yeah, I said, I know when it gets too hot in the kitchen when I got to get out. Speaker 1 Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir. It was way too hot at that time. Yes, Sir. You had used everybody you could. Speaker 2 I could, I've used the shit out of the system, you know, but hey, man, I left there and, you know, I was, I was really happy, man. I, I was, that was a, that was a memorable day driving out that gate that there's a memorable, memorable day. So, but yeah, I, I never look back, man. I never look back. That's incredible. I never regretted one of my choice and I, I move forward aggressively hired some more guys. You know, we didn't have any social media back then. So I was handing out Flyers, handing out business cards. I was shaking hands of everybody like plumbing supplies and Home Depot and Lowe's and going to industrial, industrial steel yards and just meeting people and getting business, you know, that's how I, that's how I drummed up business and going to job sites, you know? Speaker 1 You know, weren't afraid to shake a hand, make a phone, make a cold call. You just did what you had to do to get the business in the door. Speaker 2 Hell, hell, wolf, I mastered the crap, man, you know, and I stop at AI, stop at a company and they wouldn't let me talk to anybody. I, I took note of who was denying my access, who was the gatekeeper. You've got to realize who the gatekeepers are. And if it's a if it's a woman that's a gatekeeper, that's even better because if she's overweight and healthy, you got to bring her a bunch of Donuts and kolaches and, and you have to keep doing that and she'll let you in. Speaker 1 Snacks, Snacks. Speaker 2 Man, snacks got me in, but if the girl was skinny and healthy, you brought her flowers, you know? So you have to realize other ways to get in, you know. Speaker 1 So knowing, knowing who the gatekeeper is and what's going to make them happy and open up the doors to the decision maker, that's the trick right there. You heard it from John, you guys. Speaker 2 When you want to, when you want to make money, you will find a way. Speaker 1 Yes you will. Speaker 2 When your family depends on it, you will find a way no matter what. And I did. I found ways I found. Speaker 1 Exactly right, man. I don't know how many people out here telling me, you know, man, if I could just get my foot in the door. You put your foot in the door and let it shut. I don't care what it takes. You keep your damn foot in the door. Let them shut that door on your foot. One of these days they're going to get tired of hearing of of, of your foot being in that door and that door is going to open. Speaker 2 That Josh, I remember story that you told me, it was the same thing. You were down to nothing, man. And man, there was a guy that wanted you to do some work for him and you finally went back and he literally was shutting the door and you put your foot in it. I remember you telling the story about yourself doing that. Speaker 1 That man, that mean that means a lot to to know that you remember that. Yeah, that's that's exactly right, dude. Yeah. And that's what it takes. JK Welding's Uncompromising Standards and Team Ethos That's what it takes to do what you did so at that's that's when JK Welding was was formed right then and there. What do you remember your first job, John? What was the first job on the books as the owner of JK Welding? Speaker 2 You know, I don't know, because I started before I quit my job. So I just, you know, I, I never was a person to really look back and keep my first dollar or remember my first job. I'm always been too busy to worry about all the other jobs that are following that are coming in, you know, or I'm always concerned about where I'm going to go and who I'm going to meet to get my next job. I'm not, I'm not thinking about what I did yesterday. I'm thinking about what I'm doing, want to do tomorrow, you know, or the next day. That's what I'm thinking about. Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, and that makes a lot of sense. You know, a lot of people, my gosh, you know, I was in the miscellaneous Steeler wrecking business for 15-17 years, something like that. And I don't really have a whole lot of pictures to show for that. Speaker 2 Yeah, first there's. Speaker 1 First of all, it's too damn busy installing, right? Secondly, if I wasn't installing, I was arranging equipment I was looking at, well, you know the bids bid work elsewhere. Speaker 2 We had a flip phone back then. You couldn't really take any good pictures, you know, unless you had an actual camera. And we didn't think about that as me and we don't, we don't think about that. You know that was the last. Speaker 1 Thing we're doing. Speaker 2 I have a lot of. I have some pictures. I don't have a lot, of course, I don't have nothing. Like today. Have we photographed a video? Everything Because it's convenient and it's free, you know? Yep. So and you can edit it and post it and show the whole world within 2 seconds. You know, crazy. Speaker 1 Isn't it? Speaker 2 Yeah, that's nice. Speaker 1 How's that help you in business? Speaker 2 That helped me a lot because otherwise I would be here at my desk and looking at like, I'll show you an example. Like I just pulled my desk drawer open and you know, of course I have pictures here of like, you know, BBQ pits that I used to make. These are like, you know, just photographs and that I took of like work that I used to do, you know, horseshoe, you know, just all kind of cowboy stuff. You know, there, there's old John King right there. You know, look at that date right there. You see that date O3O3? Speaker 1 Dad gum. Dad Gum. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 That's awesome, man. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 That's awesome, man. You know what? I. Speaker 2 Keep those in my drawer, you know. Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I and I understand that, you know, it's, it's it is important to keep moving forward and not get too hung up on the past. And that's what I tell my students too, you know, they'll bring me a picture of one of their welds that they welded. And I'm like, look, we're not in the business of keeping on holding on to a, a Weld, a picture of a Weld. Let's make that Weld every damn time. I don't need a picture of it. I don't want to get hung up on the past. I want to look forward to the future. And I get that. But you know, those, those pictures that you just pulled out of your desk drawer, those are important. They're important to see where you came. Speaker 2 From I don't know how many welds I laid in my life before I realized I could take a picture of 1. I mean, do we? I laid welds for 20 years and never even thought about taking a picture of my Weld. You know, now, now everybody uses it as their profile picture or their logo or, you know, they're posting the hell out of it and they're editing it into different colors and posting it again. And like, I look at that and go, what the hell, you know? Speaker 1 They could tell. Speaker 2 They could tell the marketing manager, hey man, don't focus so much on the welds. You know, we could all Weld. You know, we've kind of made it a rule here at JK. If you can't Weld, you get sniffed out by the other employees and you're getting gone real quick. So let's all Weld the same, which means we're, let's all be badass welders here at JK Weldon is we don't want to have to keep taking pictures of each other's welds and comparing them. We don't have to do that here. We know how everybody welds. We know how everybody welds. They all Weld badass, you know. Speaker 1 Yep. And that's something that's the way I always looked at it, because a damn, I put some of the best welds that I ever laid down in my life in places that nobody will ever see those again for another 50 years. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 And I know the stuff that you're shipping out to your doors at JK Welding, they're no different. Those are some of that stuff is going to go stories in the air to where nobody's ever going to see that again. But every single Weld I guarantee is done with the same craftsmanship as it would be if everybody was walking past it that day. Speaker 2 Yeah. You ever, you ever noticed, you never seen pictures of anybody's paycheck, right? You never seen any pictures anybody's pink slips they get. You never see any pictures of anyone's tardiness or tentativeness to jobs, which is the biggest problem in the industry is people showing up, people, you know, being on time, working well with others and doing good work. You know, you don't see pictures of that. You'll see pictures of that single well that they posted 5000 times, but you don't see pictures of talk about anything else, you know? Speaker 1 Just that. Speaker 2 You know, I did a video last Wednesday, I think I think it's hit like 100,000 views right now, which is not a lot for us. I mean, it's it's good. I'm very thankful of it. But and I talk about I had an employee work here for like 40 days and he was tardy and late 11 times, you know, and the comments on on the video are just hysterical. Well, a lot of people are indicating, well, you don't pay enough. I'm like, well, wait a minute, you know, I offered you a a suitable fair market price or one of my employees who hired you offered you a suitable fair market hourly wage. And if you didn't accept or like the hourly wage, then it was up to you at that point to negotiate a better. Speaker 1 That very point, you're right. Speaker 2 So don't, don't hold me accountable for the fact that I, I can be late if I want to be late because you ain't paying me enough. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's really care. You didn't. You failed to have proper and good negotiating skills and you settled for a lesser dollar amount. So you started being late to help compromise the situation. That's not right. No, it's not right. Speaker 1 No, that's not part of the negotiation. You pay me $2.00 less than what I was hoping for, so now I'm going to miss every other day for the next three weeks. Speaker 2 Right. And everybody on this particular video was also commenting and indicating the fact, you know, you don't you don't pay your welder enough. Or I'm like, how do you know it was even a welder? You know how you know when a janitor or a truck driver or forklift operator you know, they assume it's a welder, you know? Speaker 1 Dude, we're at a, we're at AI know that's exactly right. They assume well, it's because of the name. And secondly, we're at a point in time, man, I don't know if you've experienced this, but it in my past, I'm not sure that I could have put a dollar amount in somebody's pocket to be on time to show up every day to do what I asked them to do. I mean, where, where's the dollar amount? What do you have to pay somebody to where they put that? They put that job as priority and they come in on time every day. They don't miss work. I don't think that's a pay associated thing. That's a that's a culture thing, man. Speaker 2 That is a culture thing. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 It was a culture thing. Hey, you know what? Being on time when I was coming up, you know it is today I got to be somewhere at 11:00. I'm there at quarter till or 10 minutes till. You know, that's exactly right. If I was late, if I was late to my appointments to meet my clients, that's going to keep your ass employed as an employee at my company. But I kept being late to appointments. You know it's going to happen to your job. Same thing is going to happen to mine. I'm going to I'm not going to have a job because I'm not going to have a company no more. Yep. Yeah. So if I'm depending on based upon my clients meeting me at a certain time, I'm depending on you to be at work at a certain time. Speaker 1 So I take it that JK Welding is one of those really, really, you know, just terrible employers that makes their employees be there on the start time, not ten seconds after, not 30 seconds after. I mean, you don't have a grace period of like 15 minutes when these guys could show up. Speaker 2 No, we don't have a grace period when you hand out paychecks. So no, we don't have a grace period of having your ass here on time either. Speaker 1 You mean that if you tell your employees you're not going to have their check for another day or so, they're not cool with? Speaker 2 That Well, you know what? You know, I handed out checks to everybody, but you're not going to get yours because you were late three times this week. So why don't you come back Saturday at 10 AM and I'll give you your check, you know. Speaker 1 John, you just right now, just now solved all the problems in industry. Why don't we just implement that across the board and I guarantee you we won't see this anymore. Speaker 2 Yeah, right. Speaker 1 You start hitting people in the pocketbook, man, Start hitting them in the wall. Speaker 2 This is the kind of stuff I think of, man, I really do. If you're late, why can't I be late? You know, you missed today. Why can't I just deduct a day from you? Yeah, you know. Speaker 1 Well, I mean, it's a two way St. It's an agreement between employee and employer. You've agreed to those terms. These are what we talked about. You, you wanted that money, you took the job. It's the the expectation is for you to be here and it'll work the entire time you're here. That's another thing not to be on your phone. I don't pay you to play on, to play on your phone. Speaker 2 I pay you to. We don't tolerate that. No phones here. Speaker 1 OK. Speaker 2 Good. No phones here. They have the phones on them, but they they're never on them. Yeah. Anybody that's on the phone that worked here, JK Weldon. I promise you they didn't. They no longer work here. Speaker 1 Now, is that hard to manage? Speaker 2 No, no, because we got good people that work here. We do. And like I said, we have enough good enough people, which is nearly everybody that works here. Otherwise, it's real simple, man. If you're not a good person, you don't show them time. You don't work well with others. You, you do good work and you're very helpful. You work here. If you don't have those symptoms or those skill sets, then you don't work here. The reason why is because the other employees will sniff you out because you have to be an A player like the rest of them. Otherwise you get left behind and they'll let you go. They'll let you go. Speaker 1 So when you start correlation. Speaker 2 When you start correlating and putting together a team of, of people, we don't, I'm not necessarily saying everybody that works here isn't a, you know, a Class A or a type A welder or type A fabricator. And, you know, we have B's and C's, but everybody has the same mentality as far as like work skill and drive determination, you know, as far as being helpful and, and assisting to get the project done. That's that's the whole objective, you know. Fostering Teamwork Through Innovative and Challenging Projects What do you do to incentivize that? What do you do to get your people to buy in? Because here's here's one of the biggest things like I think business owners have a problem with, you know, if everybody were us, John, we wouldn't have a job. You wouldn't have JK Welder. You might. But, you know, if everybody were geared up to be a leader, then we wouldn't exist. What is So that says that everybody's not, they don't share the same vision that you do and you can't expect them to. It's not their company. But what do you get them to do? How do you get them to buy in on your vision? Because I know your vision's so much higher than everybody else's. How do you get your team to buy in on that same vision and put those resources, you know, pull out all the stops and pursue this vision that you have? How do you get them to buy in on that? Speaker 2 I don't know the buy in the right word, right terminology. That sounds like I'm really trying to sell something to someone. I think it's the fact of now these days that be in 2026, you know, a lot of our social media speaks for ourself as far as who we are and who we classify ourselves to be as a company and as employees. You know, we're we're all really driven here. We want success and with success comes payouts and payouts, you know, the guys are treated well here. They're treated with respect. With respect we have we have good benefits here. We work for 10s. I have a very high mutual respect for everybody here and everyone else that works here is the upper management has the same mind mentality. You know, we have great Christmas parties. We, we tried to, you know, take all the employees to lunch and we pat them on the back, shake their hand and tell them thank you and good job. And, you know, we do give out raises. You know, we don't let guys work here and girls too. We don't let guys or girls work here for two or three or four or five years and not get a raise. We hand out raises, you know, just, you know, if you didn't get a raise, there's one coming. You know, money speaks the truth. But also we have, like I said, we have good benefits. We have good work, work culture here. Everybody gets along, good place to work. Another thing that's going on for us, as you know, as everyone else knows, it follows us. We do some crazy crap here. You know, we don't do the same job over and over and over. You know, we do some very interesting, very intricate, extreme, off the cuff, out of this world projects. You know, then that's what keeps it exciting too. To me. If I was, for instance, and what makes me think of stuff like that is if I was a vessel welder filling up a vessel crack, then you got a piece of plate that's rolled and you got 2 heads, one head on each end and your job is to Weld that crack. I would hate to sit in the hood all day and just look at a crack. Filling up a crack with Weld all day. That would just, that's boring. I can't do that man. Some. Speaker 1 People can't, but I can't either, bud. Speaker 2 I can't do that. We we like being the the guys, as that we've been called many times, the pretty boys in the welding industry, you know, the Navy Seal's of the welding industry. We can build anything pretty much in the world. You know, the Sky's the limit and a lot of the guys, especially the guys who've been here a while, they have the same mentality, they have the same drive, You know what? But it takes a little bit of leadership and a little bit pat on the back to some of these guys that work here. Even if they worked here for a while, it it you have to step in and give them some leadership and a little bit of confidence boosters and saying, hey, look, we're going to do this project. These are my ideas. What are your ideas? I want your input. And we've done so many special projects with special teams within the company here that we take on jobs. And at the very beginning, it could be a weird enough job where my employees are like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah, we're about to do this. And they're like, OK, let's go. Speaker 1 Dude, I would love to know at this point. I would love to know what the hell comes through that shop door that makes your guys do that at this point, man, after everything that you've done, Yeah, I would hate to see what makes them surprised. Speaker 2 I beat. Seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I we sit down and say, well, we're about to construct and build and design the world's largest nut, the Guinness Book of World Record, the world's largest threaded nut. They're looking at that and they're looking at me and they're looking over Brian and Ryan, the old guys in upper management. They're like, what in the hell? We're going to build a nut. Speaker 1 Yeah, man, you can only have so many of those jobs before. It's like I guarantee your guys are looking at each other when they're walking into the meeting going well, let's go see what the new what? What's the new flavor this time? But we get into. Speaker 2 All in all, jobs, those are the projects that really get me excited, you know? Speaker 1 I'll bet, man. Speaker 2 You know, the laser cutting every day and the plasma cutting, the press break and those fitting and welding and plate bending and painting and blasting all that stuff. It's great. You know, don't get me wrong, we, we have great process processes here. We have great people here. It's it's good we're always implementing and in improving our processes. But as far as like, what gets John King out of bed every day and the special projects, I like being involved or, you know, hearing about special projects, whether it's through e-mail or when I come to work, my guys tell me, hey, I got this project and let's sit down and look at it, you know, and those are the kind of projects that really get us exciting. Speaker 1 I'll bet man. And it and it you know what, man? The, the more I talk to you, especially in this interview. And for those of you that don't know, John and I are friends outside of here. We've got a short history, but man, it's it's a good one. Our friendship, John, I don't know, man, I hit it off with you pretty quick and I'll do that with a lot of people. But but anyway, so in this specific interview, the one thing that I keep hearing you say over and over, it is your team. It's you. It's it's we. It's not I, John King. Speaker 2 No. Speaker 1 Everybody, man, and I, I'm going to bring up something that I saw in one of your most recent videos. You were speaking and I don't know who you were speaking to, but you had you had your cowboy hat on in a suit and one of the things that you were talking about, my team will do anything. We're all like minded. We will do any job and and to hear you say and here to refer, you know, to refer to your team and them having the same mentality that you do that are willing to attack to, you know, to to tackle any job that comes across the floor. Now that's man, that right there is leadership, John. You know, that's that's the true indication of a of a real leader, somebody that can get his entire team on the same page every single. Correct me if I'm wrong but man it sounds like everybody that works for JK welding is JK welding. Speaker 2 That's correct. I, I can find trust and these guys and in return they can find trust in me. They know that if they get to a point to where there's questionable doubt, we come together as a group, whether I'm leading them to the solution or they help lead themselves with some assistance to the solution of how to construct or build or design certain things. You know, I'm serious. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that we do here. It's just off the wall and sometimes we do it. We do it without any drawings or we'll do it off a bar napkin at the bar. Or we just, it just all right here, you know, like today, I know this is probably not a big deal to most people. It's a big deal of this guy. The guy, there's a guy I know that hunts and fishes a lot and he takes people hog hunting, but he has no way to allow the hog hunters to sit in the back of the truck and be able to successfully shoot pigs at night through infrared unless there were some chairs back there mounted to some kind of platform, you know. So we designed a platform for him with some revolving captions chairs on it and it has an A gun rest and it's aluminum type platform deck that I built. And this is actually the picture of it right here. Speaker 1 I'll do that. Sweet. Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know if you can make that out or not. Speaker 1 But yeah, I can, yeah, perfectly clear. So that's awesome. Speaker 2 This is this is a job with no drawings, no sketches, just an idea of two guys talking about, hey, I need this, I need that. I'm like, perfect, come here, Let's take a couple measurements. We laser cut some aluminum, we bend it. We start fabricating some chair brackets, some beer holders, a gun holder. Next thing you know, we're mounting in the back of the truck and it's a perfect fit. And he shakes my hand and hugs me and he's so happy and he hauls ass. He can't wait to go use it. Speaker 1 And it's not all about the the world's biggest nut, is it? No, it's. Speaker 2 Not all. Speaker 1 About that. Speaker 2 Man, not always. Speaker 1 Man, look at that, that that you just changed that guy's world right then and. Speaker 2 There exactly. Speaker 1 And that's not the first time you've done that. Speaker 2 No, man. Speaker 1 I've seen so many of your projects that come through from any, anything from refurbs to making something look like there's, you know, something their daddy or granddaddy had, you know, half a century ago. John, I've seen, I've seen JK Welding pull it off. I mean, it's, it's incredible the smiles you put on people's faces. Speaker 2 That's why we're #1 Google rated welding company in the nation and I'm proud of that. Speaker 1 I'll bet you more man, I'm proud of we. Speaker 2 We, we as a team helped get that done here. Whether I'm the one that asked him to give us a Google review or they chose on their own to give one. Well, I, I may have assisted in saying, hey, if you do have time, you like our services, please give us a Google review. But they would only give us a Google review of my guys and my team, us as a team provided good service to them. So it takes more than just me asking. It takes my guys to provide that service and that quality, that communication and getting something done and done right the first time in order to get those Google reviews. So number one Google rated Google reviewed welding company in the nation from east to West Coast. Dude that's like bam. Speaker 1 That hell yeah it is. That's awesome, dude. That is. Speaker 2 Badass. Speaker 1 Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Absolutely. Expanding Horizons: World Records and Business Growth Speaking of, so we went over briefly the the world record. John King has the world record for the largest nut. Anybody, anybody want to challenge that? Go ahead and look in Guinness Book of World Records, Mr. King has the record for the largest nut. Speaker 2 I can just see the comments coming already. I'm I'm. Speaker 1 That's what I'm hoping, right? So what other projects stand out in your mind right now? Give me one project that stands out. I was like, man, that was just a bad ass project and. Speaker 2 Man, there's so many, Josh, there's so many I can name off just top titles and top subjects. You know what? We did a 100 foot pirate ship in the Caribbean for Royal Caribbean. No drawings, no blueprints, nothing like that. I mean, I can show you a picture of it, but that's incredible. The the battleship of Texas. We rebuilt the battleship of Texas in 2013. I mean, but that was really cool project there as well. Back, back to the pirate ship. You guys want to see the pirate ship? Speaker 1 What? Yeah. So what did they do to the outside of that thing? Speaker 2 So as you can see, most of this has got a metal structure with interior and structure inside of it. Yeah, we built all the rails, we built all the Eagle's Nest, all the flagpoles, all the staircases, all the hand rails. Everything was made out of metal. We designed and built it here, shipped it on 7 different 18 Wheelers to Miami, put on a barge, took it over to a Coco K island for Royal Caribbean and put it together in in the Bahamas. Besides that, we built the Texas A&M party bus that has a dance floor on top of it. We have another world record, the world's largest wind chime. The ringing, the ringing singing tree of Texas. It's the ringing tree. Speaker 1 Of Texas. Speaker 2 Yeah, the ringing, singing tree of Texas. It is the only wind chime that is the world record and there's only one in the United States that's. Speaker 1 Incredible. It looked like a tornado. Speaker 2 A lot of people call it that, yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah, man, that's awesome. Yeah, killer background too. Speaker 2 Yeah, man, we have so many projects. I just, I just get lost. And because we've done so many of them, you know, thousands and thousands. We last year was a record year for us. I want to tell you how like, how many jobs like flow through your mind when you asked me something like that, We did 750 jobs here last year. JK 1. So in one year, 750 jobs, you know, so you just imagine how many projects flow through your head when you start thinking about when someone asks you, hey, what special projects have you done? You're like, man, hold on. There's thousands of them, you know. Speaker 1 That makes a lot of sense. Now that's. Speaker 2 What it does? Speaker 1 It does, John. What's the future of JK welding hold? What's that look? Speaker 2 Like, well, we, we just expanded off into 15 acres here in Cypress, TX. So we have a lot larger plateau and now and a lot, a lot more land to expand on. We just expanded to a new paint facility. Speaker 1 Yeah, let me ask you this who? Who just finds a slab of concrete perfectly suitable for their new paint facility and a piece of property they didn't even know they had? Who the hell does? Speaker 2 That that's called being blessed. So what Josh? Exactly right bro. What Josh was talking about is I tried to buy a piece of this 10 acres that's landlocked behind JK Weldon for 10 years now, finally bought it. And when I bought it, I wanted to clear it and pour a concrete slab for a new paint shop. And I told Josh the story that I was able to buy it for the same price that I offered ten years ago, right? And then we went to clear it and we accidentally ran into and found a 40 foot by 80 foot concrete slab in perfect pristine condition. And we didn't, we didn't have to pour the slab and it was actually right where I wanted it. So we ordered the building and put up the paint shop on that slab. Speaker 1 Brother that that slab was poured for you decades ago. Speaker 2 It was. Speaker 1 It was man, that's divine intervention right there that gives me, I love that story. I love that story, man. So you've expanded there and you've got a new paint facility. What What as far as projects go, what are what are your eyes on? Speaker 2 Oh well, they've always been on anything and everything. You know, the only things I don't like doing and we won't do, we don't Weld on any automobiles. We don't Weld on any kind of U stamp, R stamp vessels. We don't do any of that kind of work. We've kind of stay away from the real light sheet metal work like 28 gauge, 26 gauge, 30 gauge. We don't mess with any of that stuff. Usually most of our stuff is 20 gauge is about the thinnest. We'll go 18 gauge, yeah. And then we move on to thicker from there and that's all the way up. When I say thicker, we process and Weld on plate. Sometimes it's 4 or 6 inches thick. Speaker 1 Damn. Speaker 2 Yeah. So we go from 20 gauge all the way up to, I mean, I, we've cut plate, we've cut and well in a plate that's 12 inches thick before. Wow. So we, we don't like I said, it doesn't matter what it is, you know, we, we like doing it, you know? Speaker 1 Do you have a lot of, do you have a lot of jobs that are I mean year long, multiple year contracts you produce X amount of these, you have any production jobs that keep you guys busy? Speaker 2 So I we have some like master service agreements, you know, we've gone through me through the extensive months and months of our weeks and weeks of preparations and fill out all the documentation and got pre approved to be a vendor for certain clients. And that's pretty much a contract in itself because the processing to, to get someone approved to become a vendor is very extensive and it's actually very painful at times. You know, so neither we want to go through that or, or the client wants to go through that. They, they like getting, assuring the fact they're getting a qualified vendor like like we are. And that's just reassurance of getting constant work. So to answer your question, yes, we have contracts in place or basically a vendor approval agreement in place where we constantly get work. We get RF QS. That's stands for request for quote. We get RF QS every day, every day, every week, and we just processing quotes. There's times we'll quote several $1,000,000 worth of jobs in a week. There's times, well, we'll process $1,000,000 worth of work in one week. Those don't come around a lot, but if they do come around. Speaker 1 John, I know you're a busy guy and I'm going to I'm going to do my best to wrap this up real quick. I know you're on a time crunch and I appreciate your time for sure. Trails W gate company. If you guys aren't familiar with that. This is the man behind him behind that company as well. Some phenomenal gates man. I've been looking at some of these things, dude, these are who who's designing these things for you. Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, I have a designer that works there at the facility. She kind of runs the office and. Speaker 1 She's who does to her. She's doing a great job. Speaker 2 Oh yeah, she does a great job. But we have a lot of software to pull from. But we have a lot of history. You must know that company was in business for 30 years before I bought it. Speaker 1 I didn't know. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. OK. So I've owned it for 6 1/2 going on 7 years now. But there's a lot of history there, a lot of artwork that was already in place, a lot of design work. So that we have the ability to pull just bits and pieces from different gates to make wildlife art scenes for new gates and new designs very quickly at the drop of a hat. You know, I'm just going through V Carve, you know, with the technology we have today, it's really easy to do that. Speaker 1 Sure, if you haven't seen some of John's designs in in in the gate, the gate side of things, you really need to check that out. He's got some very, very, really, really cool ones, some very funny ones that I'm sure that only that 90% of the people are going to look at it be like, what in the hell is even that? And the person that has it in their front yard absolutely loves it. The Trails Westgate Company. I mean, that's a just a phenomenal adventure. I didn't know you you had bought that for. I had no idea you purchased that company. Yeah, I did. That's very cool. And John, that's one of your, what, 55 welding companies that you own? Speaker 2 We have 4 right now, Four. Yeah. OK. So Lumina, fabricators.com, Stainless fabricators.com, JK Weldon and then Trails Westgate Company. Yeah. Speaker 1 Awesome. John King's Hobbies and American Dream Reflections And John, when you're not running one of these four companies, what are you doing? What's what's? Speaker 2 Fun man, I'm on the boat. Jerking lips. I'm good. Speaker 1 I'm glad it went there at it. Thank God You're jerking lips, man. OK, I didn't know where that was headed, brother. OK. Anyway, you're on a boat. Jerking lips. OK, good. Speaker 2 Jerking lips. Yeah, I'm fishing. I like to fish a lot. Or I'm looking at something through the scope. Or I got a cold beer in my hand and we're grilling, you know? Speaker 1 Hell yeah, man, you just got done with a concert this past weekend. Here'd you go see. Speaker 2 Yeah, this. The weekend went to Biloxi, Ms. and saw Hank Williams Junior. Speaker 1 Man, I wonder how many more rounds he's got in. Speaker 2 I don't know. He's 76 right now and he's. Speaker 1 76. Speaker 2 Yeah, he's looking rather rough. Speaker 1 Well, I'll tell you what, I don't know if he could look as bad as I saw Willie man. It was just, I don't know, maybe 5-6 years ago. Well, he looked like a dried up piece of beef jerky on stage. Speaker 2 You know, Willie smokes his dope and he hangs out at Taco Bell all day. So, I mean, I don't know, tell you about Willie. Speaker 1 That's exactly right. I don't think he leaves Taco Bell. Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't think he leaves Taco Bell. Speaker 1 So outside of work, John King's a big hunting, fishing kind of guy, man. Every time I call this guy, every time I talk to him. Every time. Every time. Dude, what are you doing? I'm headed somewhere to go see a concert. Hey, John, what's going on, man? I'm in South Texas hunting this game this weekend. All the time staying busy. And John King, you've earned every right to do that. You've been kicking ass since you were 18 years old on your own, man. You built something out of nothing. You are. You are, man. You're the American success story, John King. Speaker 2 You know, I'll tell a lot of people, I'll give a lot of speeches throughout the last 12:11, 11-12 years, you know, a lot of public speakings speaking, a lot of graduations, a lot of, you know, welding competitions. And I tell a lot of them, you're about to sit here and listen to someone who's literally the most blessed American man, American dream that you could ever see or talk to in your life. You know, So I, I really feel like that I've been blessed, although I've worked very hard. I have good people, good teams. And that's what it takes, man. It takes a team to become successful. Speaker 1 You know, yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to post these after we're done here. But if you rattle off some some handles off the top of your head, tell my listeners where to find you on the Internet. Speaker 2 Yeah, pretty much any social media jkwelding.net trails W gates dot dot com, any social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin's a big a big platform for us as well. You know, the TikTok and Instagram are great, but they're half of that is bullshit. You know, it's just fun making it's fun making fun, fun videos, you know, stupid videos. But yeah, you can find us any on any social media and you can find us also find me under the king of welding on Instagram. But yeah, reach out, connect to us, appreciate anyone that connects and follows us. And thanks for having me on the show. Speaker 1 Hey, man, you guys heard it right. Here is Mr. John King with JK Welding. John, I certainly appreciate your time and hopefully sometime in the near future we can sit down and do this again. Talk about what's coming up for Mr. King and. Speaker 2 Great man, thanks for having. Speaker 1 Welding too. Speaker 2 Yeah, I really. Speaker 1 Appreciate you.