The Builders' Table Ep. 135: James Busch

(upbeat music) - Hi, we are talking to amazing people in construction and education about recruitment, training and retention. Welcome to the Builders Table. I'm your host, Jennifer Wilkerson. - So welcome to the Builders Table. I'm excited today because not only do I have the Kraft Pipeline Manager from Sunt Construction, James Bush, but he's also a good friend of mine. So thanks for being here, James. - No, thanks for having me, Jennifer. This is really neat for me because, you know, as you know, Sean, my boss has got to be on the podcast before, and so I'm finally catching up to him. - Now, did you tell him, are you gonna wait till it comes out so you can just like, say, hey, you should listen to this great podcast? - No, I definitely told him. I was like, hey, you know, you better watch out. You know, I'm coming for you. I've got finally got invited onto the Builder podcast, so I'm moving up. - You'll have to look at the numbers. My episode got more listens than yours. Don't think we're not gonna do that. - Okay, just wanted to make sure. Okay, so let's just start at the beginning. How did you personally, I always love to ask this, how you ended up in the construction industry? 'Cause there's so many different ways people come to this industry. Tell us about your journey. - Yeah, so I definitely had a non-traditional path into construction. Joined the military right out of high school, joined the army, went into a combat in the West, so not related to construction. Did a tour in Iraq, came back. My family decided they wanted me to try to find a new career where I wasn't gonna be gone so much. So I chose constructions. - Oh, wow, that was a really smart choice. - Right, right, right. So, well, at least it's not foreign countries and it's not for a year on a time. So anyway, so I've always had a knack for turning wrenches. Did that as a kid, built the first Chevy 350 I ever put in my first car. So I became a diesel mechanic and I was really fortunate to find a federal technician job that had an apprenticeship program. And so I was working on civil engineer equipment, construction equipment for the federal government as a direct support mechanic. And through that time, it's really weird how things, how stories lead together. They were really big on skill upgrade and so they wanted me to go out and find some skill upgrade stuff. And I found a local community college, a tiny little college that no one had ever heard of that offered diesel technology and heavy equipment operations. And so I went and got an associate's degree in both, had a great time at the college, went back to work and then one day I was at the college and one of my instructors was like, why don't you come teach a class and see if you'd like teaching, you know? And so ironically, they had an opening for a professor of diesel technology and heavy equipment operation. So it's just funny how things work out. So next thing you know, I'm plugged into the community college working with contractors like Sunt, McCarthy, DPR and just figuring out what their needs are and figuring out how we can provide craft professionals that meet those needs. And so through that, I've got the opportunity to do a lot of really cool things in workforce development. I ended up being the director of workforce development at that college. Had a great run at NCCR. And when I moved to Montana, enjoyed my time with NCCR immensely. And now I work for Sunt Construction and extremely happy, extremely happy with the network I've built. And it doesn't hurt being a workforce development professional and being good friends with all the folks at NCCR. - Well, very true and it helps us also. So it goes both ways there. But interesting, so you get out of high school, you go into the military, did it ever cross your mind that you would be an instructor? - Never, matter of fact, Jennifer, you, if you went back and told any of my old high school teachers that I became a community college professor, they think you had the wrong guy. - That's awesome. So, but interesting enough, so you're doing diesel mechanics and that's what you're a professor of, but then it kind of expands there, right? Because now once you became the workforce development director, it's not just about diesel mechanics, right? - Yeah, and then it really opened up my eyes to the holistic view of construction, right? And it's easy when you're in a certain craft to really get tunnel vision on that craft, whether it's whether you're a carpenter, whether you're a concrete placer, whether you're framing, whatever it is, you're welding, pipe fitting, whatever you're doing, you can get really tunnel vision and getting that opportunity to see what all the needs were throughout the state, throughout the country and things like that. And getting to have the partnership that we have with Sun Construction and things like that really was a, was really eye-opening. And I think it changed the trajectory of Central Arizona College. - So how did you, so first, let's start on the college side, right? How did you forge that relationship with industry partners? - Yeah, you know, I really wish I had a better story for this. Like, I wish I could tell you that there was a, you know, I will tell you, like, we felt like it was being done wrong. You know, we felt like workforce development in our area was being done wrong. What we were doing wasn't working. You know, we weren't producing, you know, highly qualified, entry-level craft professionals in the industry and we were trying to figure out, well, what if we just stopped doing what we're doing and go in another direction? And so that's what we did. So I had the pleasure of knowing Sean Ray who had just started as a craft training manager, right, as some construction. And he was new to his role. I was a fairly new director of workforce development. And so he's a pipe fitter. I'm a diesel mechanic. We always joke and be like, let's take a dumb diesel mechanic and a dumb pipe fitter and see if they can figure this out. And we forged this workforce development partnership that ended up really taking off. Central Arizona College went from a handful of students to having multiple programs up and running, full 100% placement after graduation, waiting lists. Today, they just built a whole new facility to expand their construction trades program. So yeah, it was a true blessing, but, you know, honestly, I wish it wasn't so, but it happened by chance. And maybe it didn't happen by chance. You know, to be honest, I did go after those relationships, right? Like I knew that the answer to my problems lied in the hands of industry, right? I knew that there had to be a champion out there that cared as much about workforce development as I did and wanted to do something different and try to make a difference. And so I was very fortunate to find Sean Ray 'cause he had the same passion that I did. - Well, I think the other thing that you said that's really important too for community colleges, ask yourself if your program's working. I mean, the first thing is to be honest and do a true perspective and think, you know, are we actually producing what we say we're producing or what we want to produce? Like what's our goal here? Like just take a minute and figure it out. And then the other thing that you said that's so important is was in the hands of industry, like you're not going to be successful as a community college. If you're supposed to be serving your local economy and you're not giving them what they need, right? - Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, you hit the nail on the head for sure, right? 'Cause at the end of the day, you don't know what you don't know, you know? If I'm working at a community college, I might not know that there's, you know, the largest, you know, chip manufacturing plant in the world coming right down the road where I'm at. I might not even have that knowledge. I might not be on the inside track, but you know who is the people that are bidding those jobs. They're on the inside track and they know what's coming and they know what the shortages are. And then they, and luckily through those relationships, they can help shore up those shortages by saying, hey, it's time to ramp up X, Y and Z. You know, we're going to need a lot more pipe fitters. We're going to need a lot more welders. We're going to need a lot more of whatever it is to meet that need, to meet that local need. - And you know the other thing, so I think that's so important. The other thing that I loved what you did with Central Arizona College was the, everyone's facing this, right? Like we don't have enough instructors. We don't have enough instructors. We don't have enough people. So I know you want this, fine. You know, we can, we can put together a program using NCCR, but how do you find the instructors? How did SENT help CAC find the instructors to teach what you guys needed, what SENT needed ultimately? - Yeah, you know, this is really a great question. It's something that I still run in today. You know, I've got the chance to go all over the country and talk about this and work with other colleges and show them how to build these partnerships and stuff like that. And instructors is obviously one of, if not the biggest barrier right now to starting quality programs. And I get asked this question all the time. And you know, I will tell you, part of throwing out the old playbook was, you know, when I, when I talk to people and they go, we can't find instructors. I'm like, all right, so what are you doing? And I'm like, well, we're on LinkedIn, we're on Monster, we're on all these places and we're advertising that we want to hire an instructor. And I'm like, so you and every other school is doing that. And I'm like, what about working with your, what about working with your local industry? What about creating a partnership? So I'll tell you what, what SENT did is, I just flat out was very honest and transparent with them. And they said, they like, we need, and you know, we need these programs. I said, well, guess what? I don't have enough instructors for those programs. So we got their instructors, their in-house instructors certified through the college to teach the programs. And they actually donated that instruction to the college. If you're familiar with community colleges, you know that the largest cost of any class is instruction, paying the instructor, right? So by offsetting that cost, it made it a win and profitable for the community college. And we had the latest curriculum, you know, SENT was using NCCR, Central Arizona College was using NCCR, but now we had instructors coming out of the field, doing this work every day in the most current possible manner and teaching these young people, you know, what they need to know when they, say hit the ground running, when they left the college. So that was a great way to fix it. And I will tell you, we're still getting innovative with our instructor, you know, we just did a workforce at home in partnership with a small high school here in Arizona, in Northern Arizona called Williams High School. They had the same problem, couldn't find instructors. Geographically, they're about three hours away from us. So, you know, transportation of our instructors there wasn't feasible, right? And so, you know, so what we did was, is we got with their facility maintenance people who were all completely qualified to teach this stuff. We got them NCCR, ICTP certified to teach, turned them into, turned these craft professionals into instructors, and now they're teaching these classes in high school. - I love that, the fact that even if you couldn't get there, hey, give us your facilities, maintenance people will turn them into instructors, I love it. I'm gonna play devil's advocate on the first part where donated instructors, they're people out of the field. I'm a contractor, how in the world am I gonna spare my people in the field to go and teach at this college? - Well, I've seen to it, you know, production, you know, it is incredibly important, right? But we're over, you know, we're over two million craft professionals short in this country right now, right? And yes, it's a big ask, right? It is a big ask to take some off a project to go teach a class. But if we don't do something, eventually these projects aren't gonna get, right? The hospital down the road that is needed isn't gonna get built, right? The freeways that need to be repaired and replaced are not gonna get done because that's the type of critical situation that we're in with craft people. So I don't think it's necessarily a matter of how do I do this? You know, like, how can you ask me to do this? I think it's, you know, if you don't do this, what's gonna happen five, 10 years down the road, you know? And I'll tell you, I work with foreman and superintendents that came up through the craft all the time and they love the idea of getting into a classroom and sharing their time. And you have to get creative. If you're trying to do it the old way, there's a reason that we're in the situation we're in. And that's because of the old way of doing things. And if we don't start becoming more innovative and being willing to come together, you know, and I'm not just talking about education and industry. Industry needs to do a better job of coming together. We can compete when it comes to jobs and, you know, we can compete for work and things like that. But when it comes to workforce development and improving the pool of qualified craft professionals, we all should work together on it. - Yeah, no, I agree 110% and it's so interesting that you said that the craft pros love this idea of getting the opportunity to teach 'cause I was gonna ask you that. So what they think, because I would think, you know, I think it's very natural for a craft professional to teach and they don't even know it 'cause they don't even think about the fact when they're in the field and someone new comes onto their crew and somebody younger, less experienced, the first thing they're doing is helping them learn how to do it the right way, the more experienced way. So I actually think it's a natural fit for craft professionals to go into the classroom. - Yeah, you know, if I could share a quick story about that, you know, I was talking about Williams High School, right? And so we had four facility maintenance people that we were turning into instructors, right? And the superintendent comes in as I'm meeting with these instructors and talking to them about, you know, the expectations and, you know, and I'm basically convincing them, you can do this, right? And the superintendent comes in and he's trying to pay a great compliment. He goes, listen, I really appreciate you guys stepping up and being willing to do this, even though you're not teachers. And then when he left, I took a pause and I said, and I went around the room, I said, Paul, I was like, how many people have you taught how to, you know, do something on a diesel engine? He was like, oh, countless. I'm like, okay, Jimmy, how many people have you taught how to frame or how to do carpentry work or something like that? He goes, I've been doing it my whole career. I'm like, well, it sounds to me like you guys are teachers, right? And I think we forget that, right? I mean, I, and listen, there's a place for formally trained teachers that go into education and they play a vital role when we need them, right? But I think that inherently craft people are all teachers. We all end up sharing our knowledge with the next generation of craft people. - No, I think, absolutely 110%. So you mentioned Williamson High School. What else do you do with high school? So this is a high school that you wanted to work with. How did that come about like that relationship? Why? And tell us a little bit more about what industry, what Sunt does with high schools. - Well, so I will tell you, you know, our philosophy with high schools is, is we want to get in there and we want to make sure that they understand the opportunities for success in the construction industry, right? That is probably our number one goal, right? Is let's make sure that when these individuals are in these programs, they're taking them seriously, they're putting their best foot forward and knowing that construction is an incredible career with incredible opportunity, right? So as we, as we work through and do that, and then we evaluate the programs themselves, right? And we try to help and we try to, you know, increase the validity of the programs, you know, through adding the industry flair to it, right? By bringing our instructors in and having them, you know, go through, you know, some of the, some of the more specific, especially like in Arizona and we're specific Arizona building techniques and stuff like that. We do the same thing in Texas. So, so we, we really are focused on making the program, the best program it can be. And then of course, there's always certain students that are definitely, when they graduate, are ready to come to work for son, you know, they're mature enough, they're skilled enough and they're ready to come to work. But if we're being honest, not all of them are, right? Not all of them are. Not all of them have figured out what they want to do yet. Some of them think they want to be podcasters or they want to be influencers or they want to be something else, right? And that's fine, but we want to make sure that they understand what the opportunities and construction is. And a couple of years down the road, they decide to come around. We want to introduce them to our post-secondary partners, right? Central Arizona College, you know, South Mountain Community College, Austin Community College, Mesa Community College, all partners of ours in pre-apprenticeship, right? Where they can go and they can get more training, get a couple more years of maturity and become really marketable in the construction space. - No, I love that. I love that. And here's why I think it's so important too. And you've heard this all the time. So probably people listening have heard this, but I'm gonna say it again. There are 227,000 students across the United States that are in the architecture and construction cluster taking two or more classes in that. And then we only get 20 to 22% of those kids coming into the industry. And when we ask teachers why they're like, I don't have a local contractor. I'm not connected. I don't know who to send these kids to. I don't know how to get them involved. And that's, it goes back to what you were saying before. If you don't help with the teaching and you don't help with the schools, then we're gonna stay in the same situation that we've been in that's been getting worse and worse for the past 20 years. - Jennifer, you've heard this as much as I have, you know, because we've spent so much time in workforce development. Every time you talk to an educational institution, their question is how do we get involved with industry? How do we break down the barrier? How do we connect with industry? And then when you go talk to contractors that want to do workforce development, they're going, how do we get into the high schools? How do we get into the community? And I'm like, well, have you tried picking up the phone and calling each other? And they're like, well, no, we haven't gone to that extreme. - That's really out there. I mean, I don't know about picking up the phone and calling somebody. - And listen, I understand it. Like there's a disconnect between the education system that we have currently today, right? And the industry, honestly, education doesn't work like any other industry in the country, right? And so I will tell you, in my opinion, I think it takes the high schools and the community colleges to be willing to perform more like the industry does, right? In getting out of their shell and saying, listen, like we're not going to say no, we're going to say, how can we do this, right? We're not going to say, no, that's not the way we do it. Well, the way you've been doing it isn't working. So maybe we need to look at a solution. And then of course the colleges just being flexible enough to realize that, listen, educational organizations have been working like this for a long time and then it's going to take them a while to get comfortable with change and getting outside the norm. I was presenting at an event just the other day and we had some contractors in there. It's like, how many of you contractors take summers off? And of course, all the smiles went, right? And I'm like, see, like, and I only pointed out because that's a disconnect, right? Like we're trying to deal with an organization that works nine months out of the year, 10 months out of the year. They take some summers off, which is great. Teachers deserve, if you've ever been a teacher, you would agree that they probably deserve that time off. But we got to figure out a way to work together, right? Being from two different areas. - No, I absolutely agree. And it takes both sides to do that. Do you feel the climate's changing with schools and industry? - Yeah, it's a slow move. You know, you and I both spent some time in education. So, you know, we understand that things in education tends to move about the speed of pond water. So, and it's not their fault, right? Like it's the way the system is established and set up and things like that. But there is a slow move, right? There is a universal understanding now that we didn't have 10 years ago that industry really needs to be driving this, right? We need to, you know, the educational organizations are going to have to set aside and say, look, we're not the best ones to design a construction program. The construction industry is the best ones to design a construction program, but we'll facilitate it, we'll partner with them and we'll be the best partner that we can be. But yeah, I definitely see it in more and more places I'm going to are instituting these partnerships and doing this thing. But I will tell you, like the struggle comes from the way we've always done it before, right? And being comfortable in that space. And I will just tell you, you know, we've been very fortunate to have some very good partnerships with education and every one of them had to get outside their box. Every one of them had to do things differently than the way they've done it before. - But I do think it's because Sunt has like, you guys have aggressively gone after this. You made a decision as an organization that you were going to connect with education and you were going to support them, however they needed to be supported. And I think that's why you all have seen such a difference and you start throwing around all these names of community colleges that you work with and you start talking about high schools and stuff. I mean, I do think that an organization, a company, a construction company has to make that decision that this is the direction they're going to go in. You can't halfway do it and expect all of us, well, you know, those schools, nobody's really working with us. This just didn't really work. We didn't have good results and you have to really, you know, again, look at it. Did we put forth the right effort that we needed to? And you guys have, I mean, you know, hats off to Sunt because you guys have been doing that for a long time to do that. And, you know, you guys have gotten creative. You do a lot of different things. And so we've talked about high schools, we've talked about colleges, other training, other things you're doing to recruit people, to bring people in. What is that looking like for you guys? - Well, I'll tell you something that we are extremely excited about is, this year we partnered with the Office of Economic Opportunity in Arizona and the governor's office. And through some grant funding and things like that, we started definitely the very first one in Arizona. It might be the first one in the country. I haven't heard of another one. Maybe you can answer that for me. But we started two completely delivered Spanish apprenticeship programs. So we have a pipe fitting program and a concrete construction program that we deliver 100% in Spanish. So in Spanish speaking instructors, all Spanish speaking apprentices, and it's going extremely well. And, you know, here's the thing, right? Is with the shortage, we can leave no stone unturned, right? And language barriers is a barriers from California to New York, right? And at the end of the day, we're really hindering these amazing craft people that don't speak English when we only offer an English apprenticeship, you know? And don't get me wrong, we're trying, we want everyone to meet us halfway. We want everyone to have skin in the game. And so we're offering, you know, ESL programs and things like that for Spanish speakers to learn English and for English speakers to learn Spanish. But we really saw a need for providing more opportunity to that group, right? Giving them more opportunity to, you know, continue on their career path and become journey-level individuals, superintendents and things like that. And so it's been a great program. I can't express enough the appreciation by the apprentices that we offer something like that. But that's definitely one of those groups that we really want to focus on, especially being a Southwest contractor, right? And we're gonna have to stop saying that pretty soon. We're in 25 different states now and we're heavily in the Southeast. But, you know, it's definitely something that's on our radar, right? Along with, you know, getting more women into the construction field, right? That's another target area that we focus on extremely heavily, you know? Because at the end of the day, two, over two million craft professionals short is a staggering number. And if you're not in this industry, you probably don't understand gravity of that. - Absolutely, absolutely. No, and I love the fact because 33% of the construction industry, the people craft in the field are Hispanic. And I mean, you know, and it's just like whenever we were, you know, putting out our women in construction research, we talked about 51% of the population are women. And so if we don't start looking at statistics like that and we don't start changing, making changes internally in our industry, then we're never gonna be able to compete with the other industries that are willing to make those changes and know that they have to do things differently. So I love that, that that's something else you're doing. One of the things you're talking about too is training and how appreciative people are. And that goes to retention, right? Like that goes to how well are you doing retaining your people? So I would imagine training is a big part of what Sun's doing to retain your employees. Talk about that and some other things you might be doing. - Yeah, you know, and, you know, I would love to sit here and just tell you that, you know, Sun construction, do everything perfect and it's amazing and nobody ever leaves, but, you know, we have a retention problem just like anybody else, right? I mean, if you have one person leave, you probably have considered that a retention problem, right? Because we need, you know, we don't have enough people as it is, so losing people is really hard. Training is a huge part of our retention, right? When individuals know that they're being invested in and that we are actively working on getting them to the next step in their career, they're more likely to stick around. We, and we don't only just do, I mean, we have seven Reg Department of Labor registered apprenticeships, right? And we have risk of prosody across the country and we're actually about to get a Texas DOL apprenticeship started. So apprenticeship is a big part of what we do to provide opportunity, but we also do skill upgrade training, right? We have transportation field development where we bring our transportation group in and we go over everything from like GPS systems to laying out projects and civil engineering practices. We have concrete field development that does the same thing. It takes the practices, sprinkle some leadership in there and it's a skill upgrade, right? It gives people a pathway to increase, you know, their position at the company. That's another really big incentive for people to stick around to know that we're constantly investing in. We made a big change this year. As you know, we were a 100% ESOP company, right? Which means every single person, whether you're a crafter admin, you own stock in the company after a year. Well, what we've noticed is that a large amount of our, actually the lion's share of our attrition is in the first year, right? And so we were like, you know, we did some studies and some polling and we found out that sometimes people don't feel like they're best, you know, because they're not part of the ESOP, they don't feel that. And so another opportunity comes up and they jump ship. And so we went ahead and cut that one year down to six months. And so we're getting people vested even earlier, right? And I think all of that goes to, you know, maintaining a sustainable craft workforce, right? However, I'm not opposed, and this is probably not a very popular opinion. I'm not opposed to sharing craft. I'm really not. At the end of the day, it's gonna take all of us working together to fix this craft shortage, right? This is not a sum problem. Some can't fix this on their own and I wish we could, 'cause if we could, we would have done it by now. You know, so we build these pre-apprenticeship programs and they're not just some programs. We invite all contractors to recruit from these programs. 'Cause at the end of the day, the more qualified craft professionals out there, the better the industry is, right? And we take that very seriously and we think it's extremely important. And we think honestly, it contributes to a lot of our success, you know? - Do you, so who runs your apprenticeship program? Who's doing the teaching? Where is it happening at? - Yeah, so Josue Ponce is our senior training manager and he oversees the training team, right? And so we have six full-time instructors. I actually get to run the diesel apprenticeship being a diesel mechanic. So-- - A professor. Being a professor, you get to run. - Being a professor, that's right. Yeah, you gotta fill that word out there. It makes you more important. Makes you feel like you should be wearing a white coat or something like that. - Something. - But yeah, so he runs the team and I wish I could tell you, like, hey, it's really easy. He's got a great team of professional law and all of that's true, but at the end of the day, we're not just doing work in one state. We're doing work in 25 different states. And so what that means is instructors are getting on planes and flying to projects to do RTI training for their apprenticeship programs. Our apprenticeship numbers have increased exponentially over the last year. I think that at the end of last year, we only had 53 apprentices this year. We ended the year with 176 apprentices. We anticipate to start next year at 260 apprentices. And we don't see an end in sight. I know you're very familiar, but with all the compliance stuff, IRA, CHIPS Act, 48C, even the department of transportation, having workforce development and apprenticeship requirements, the need and the requirement for apprentices is just continuing to grow. And we don't see any end in sight. And so we want to be well prepared for that. And seven apprenticeships is a lot. I don't know a lot of companies that run seven apprenticeships, but I don't think that's the end. I think we'll keep growing. - No, I think you will too. I get the rate that you guys are going and that you're always doing. I can't even imagine you stopping anytime soon. So, is there anything, I mean, and you've talked about a lot, so we may have already covered this, but is there anything that Sunt's focusing on now or something new, exciting, exciting what you're doing with the two Spanish apprenticeships that you guys didn't even think of three to five years ago? - Well, yeah, and I think, well, so I've mentioned Spanish apprenticeship. I think that wasn't something that we were talking about three to five years ago. You know, the emphasis we're putting on women in construction is probably, we've been doing that for three or five years, but that continues to grow. But really, I think it's the investing in the craft and making sure that they know that they're the backbone of the industry and knowing that none of us get to do what we do without them. I think that's a big part of it. Making sure, you know, unfortunately you go to a lot of contractors and admin has their own set of benefit package and then crap has their own set and it's not quite as great. And there's a disconnect there. And guess what? You know who recognizes it the most? The craft people. - Yeah, they do. - And that's, and I'll be honest with you, we feel like that's what creates an us against them type mentality. And I'll tell you, that's a really hard cultural thing to get over. We have aligned almost all of our benefits with equally across the board, right? So maternity and paternity leave is the exact same for craft as it is for admin. You know, all of our benefits are the same. All of our craft get bonuses, you know? That's something that isn't very common, but all of our craft receive bonuses every year. So I think investing in the craft at this level is definitely something that, you know, we continue to, you know, we continue to do, continue to push. And at the end of the day is well received by our executive team. You know, they understand better than anyone that, you know, the people building the projects are the ones that are keeping us, you know, in the black. - Yeah, no, for sure. And I love that. I mean, I think that's so important. I think more companies are doing it, but not enough. Because when we did our women in construction research, that was one of the things we really surfaced was the discrepancy between the benefits you're giving your office staff compared to what you're giving the field. And if tomorrow your field people completely walked out and they weren't there, you're not gonna get anything done. If you're office people, and I'm not saying that it wouldn't hurt, but you can also get around to, you need those people in the field building what you've committed to build and to think that we are giving them less than because we, and what that tells them is they are less than. So I love the fact that you're talking about that equal benefits across the board. Absolutely have to do it. I know that we're already at the end of our time, which makes me crazy because there's so much more we could talk about. But what excites you the most about the future of craft workforce development? I think what excites me the most is because I've been doing this for a long time, not to age myself, but I've been doing this for a long time. And I think we're at a place now where, where I, you know, where myself and you and other workforce development professionals that I know have inspired to be, right? We've got the ear of the people. We have the ear of the decision makers and they understand how important workforce development is in the construction industry. They understand that it's an investment that needs to be made going back to the craft. They understand that taking care of craft is vital to maintaining a workforce that doesn't just, you know, jump ship, you know, when they have a bad day or if they get offered a couple more dollars down the road. So I think the overall climate of workforce development is probably what I'm most excited about. I'm very well received when I go into community colleges and they're not going, hey, look, we appreciate it, but we've got this covered. Instead, they're like, come tell us how to run our college. Come, come tell us what curriculum we need to be teaching to make this relevant so that they can come to you and be successful. And, and I think we're seeing that across the board. We're seeing it in government. We're seeing it in education. We're seeing it, you know, all over the place. But probably the thing that's most exciting, and I know that you can relate, Jennifer, is we're seeing parents celebrate their young people going into construction and that is such a change, right? I know that, you know, it's, I don't want to say it's easy, but you know, we see the, hey, my son made it into law school or got accepted to BYU or got, you know, or my daughter is doing, you know, is going to be, you know, a dentist or whatever, whatever the, whatever it is. But we're really starting to see people say, you know, hey, you know, my son just got accepted into a four year apprenticeship, you know, and, and then you sit there and you look at the comments and they're like, hey, that person's going to be successful. If, once you have a trade, you're good at your set for the rest of your life and all this other stuff. So I think that's probably the thing that excites me the most. - Well, that excited me enough. I got chill bumps thinking about that because you and I've been, but we've talked about this for years, like until we can get parents on our side, till we can get parents to understand. And I totally agree with you that, I mean, I'm looking at stats on social media. I'm looking at surveys that parents are answering and you're right. I mean, it used to be whenever somebody said, oh, what's your son or daughter doing? Oh, they're going into a trade show. And you're like, what? And now it's like, oh, they're going into construction. My, my son or daughter is going to be a pipe fitter or a carpenter or electric, electrician, a welder. Like finally, finally, we're seeing it. And I think, you know, I say this all the time. When I speak now is the pendulum has swung. It's back in our court. If you are an education partner, an industry partner, if you're not doing construction CT, if you're not looking at the skilled trades, then you, you haven't kept up at all with what's going on right now. And what the atmosphere and the climate is in our economy and is in our nation is that skilled trades are here. We're here to last. We've been here a long time. You didn't pay attention. How about now? - Yeah. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think that, you know, we're finally kind of getting the recognition that we've been asking for. And we just, now it's up to us to capitalize on it. Right? We got to capitalize on this momentum and make the most of it. And we, you know, we have to give people opportunity to, to enjoy the success that, that I've had and that I know you've had in the construction industry as a business owner. So I think that, you know, the time is now. - The time is now. That's it. That's how we need to end this. The time is now. (laughs) - I love it. - Thanks for being with me today, James. I'm so glad that you spent some time with me. - No, absolutely. It was great catching up and great seeing you. - Join us next Monday for the next episode of The Builders Table.