PCG Connect

Mel Renfrow: 00:02

Welcome to Inside Out, where we take a deep dive look at performance contracting services and product lines. We'll be talking to the movers and shakers of performance contracting, the folks who make the big deals and then bring those big deals to life. So with that, let's get to it. Well, welcome to the latest podcast. We're talking about scaffolding today.

Mel Renfrow: 00:28

So this is the sequel part 2. So we earlier in the year, we had, Dean and Tim Long in, and they were kinda giving the fundamentals of the the ins and outs of scaffolding. And so today, we're doing a deeper dive, and so we're gonna focus a little bit more in about specifically joint venturing and what that looks like. So very happy to have here in the studio, Christian DeLillo. So you're the general manager in Albany.

Mel Renfrow: 00:56

Welcome.

Christian DeLillo: 00:57

Thank you.

Mel Renfrow: 00:58

And also Mike Thompson junior, and you are ops manager from Atlanta. We don't say Atlanta Scaffold anymore, but from Atlanta. Right?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 01:08

Yes. Yes. From Atlanta. Yeah. Glad to be here.

Mel Renfrow: 01:10

Yeah. Well, welcome, both of you. You're in town this week for the scaffolding, product line summit. Correct?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 01:17

Yes. That is correct.

Mel Renfrow: 01:18

So what when you walked in, did you see it? Down in the lobby, they had a scaffolding set up. Did you see that?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 01:25

No. You you would have thought I would have noticed something like that.

Mel Renfrow: 01:28

You're just so used to seeing it. Yeah. So they're they're demoing something. Sorry if I let the cat out of the bag. That was, like, some big surprise for tomorrow.

Christian DeLillo: 01:36

I came over the link, so I didn't

Mel Renfrow: 01:38

yeah. You didn't see it?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 01:39

Yeah. I'll pick it apart on the way out.

Mel Renfrow: 01:41

Yeah. I figured I figured you would. So why don't we I just wanna start off, like, giving a little bit, a little bit of your background. So here's a fun fact I thought about earlier today. Both of you so you, Mike, you started you were part of an acquisition

Mike Thompson Jr.: 01:58

Correct.

Mel Renfrow: 01:59

In July of 2007. Correct? I remember and then when I was an admin trainer, I think I was at the office both of your first days at PCI, which, so I'm sorry in advance for both for both of you, but let's start with you, Mike. Give it give a little bit of background how you came to PCI.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 02:20

Okay. Well, I've been with PCI for about 16 and a half years. My dad owned a scaffold company when I was born, so I've always kind of been around the scaffold industry. I worked on the scaffold yard in high school, stacking parts, going with the delivery drivers, pick up drivers, picking up scaffold. Went to college at East Tennessee State, and when I came back in 1997, joined my father's scaffold business, which was Scaffold Rental and erection Company at the time.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 02:55

That was shortly or shortly after that, that was sold to Brand Scaffold, which I worked for for 7 years. And we all left Brand Scaffold about 2,004, started Scaffold Concepts, and then sold Scaffold Concepts to PCI in 2007.

Mel Renfrow: 03:14

Okay. So you in college, you played football. So for those people that don't know

Christian DeLillo: 03:18

I did.

Mel Renfrow: 03:19

We have quite a few alumni here that, that played played, college football. So do you miss it?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 03:26

I do. Well, when I came back from college, I started coaching. And I realized that coaching football, you can have all the same feelings and everything that you had playing it. You just don't have to beat yourself up as much.

Mel Renfrow: 03:38

It doesn't hurt as much.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 03:39

Right. So if if my body was a little more durable, I think I would have played football a little bit longer, but I still love the game.

Mel Renfrow: 03:45

What did you study in school?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 03:48

I started out studying engineering, but I shortly shortly after that, I started studying scaffold full time.

Mel Renfrow: 03:56

Very nice. Okay. So, Christian, you went to West Virginia? Did I remember that?

Christian DeLillo: 04:01

Virginia Tech.

Mel Renfrow: 04:02

I'm so sorry. Can we edit that out? No hickings. Sorry. Hi.

Mel Renfrow: 04:07

I'm sorry from the bottom of my soul. You you were a swimmer there.

Christian DeLillo: 04:11

I swam there as well. Yes. Yep.

Mel Renfrow: 04:13

So what year is that?

Christian DeLillo: 04:14

So I graduated in 2008. So I've been with, PCI almost fifteen and a half years now. Came up to the building construction department there and was hired on in the DC office, which you mentioned you were in the office for the 1st day. I started there in June and worked on some interior, commercial interior, started getting a little bit into some cleaner work. And 2010, we were awarded GlobalFoundries and went up to New York in 2010, October 2010, which is where I'm actually from.

Christian DeLillo: 04:44

And been up there ever since, opened the Albany branch, kind of expanded outside of GlobalFoundries, and also have since opened the office in New England. So we've kind of have a regional approach in the northeast and focusing on semiconductor and life science, cleaner interior stuff. So it's All

Mel Renfrow: 05:06

good things. So you were straight out of school. Did you intern for us before?

Christian DeLillo: 05:10

I did not intern. No. It was straight out of school, met at the recruiting fair or the career fair. And, yeah, it was, went to 2nd interviews and got offered a position on the flight home from 2nd interviews. So

Mel Renfrow: 05:25

Oh, you oh,

Christian DeLillo: 05:25

yeah. Pretty exciting.

Mel Renfrow: 05:26

Who were you sitting next to?

Christian DeLillo: 05:29

I got the call when I landed.

Mel Renfrow: 05:30

Oh, okay. Okay. I was like, man, was Mick or somebody

Mike Thompson Jr.: 05:32

on the on

Mel Renfrow: 05:33

the plane next to you?

Christian DeLillo: 05:34

I got a Landon had a voice mail, and I was pretty excited. So I went to DC and got to meet Dennis there and work under him. And so, yeah, it was it was pretty cool.

Mel Renfrow: 05:43

I think GlobalFoundries might have been, one of, if not the first place where we kind of did this organic growth strategy where when we had a project and we kinda put our toes into the water and established ourselves, and we're like, hey. Why don't we stick around here if there's

Christian DeLillo: 05:59

Yeah. And it was one of the, I think, the first bigger JVs within the company as well with Indy, DC, and Austin ISS at the time. So it was a a collaborative team, you know, coming from a couple different offices, and everyone kinda went back after things slowed down a little bit and I stayed and had the opportunity to kinda leave the office there.

Mel Renfrow: 06:19

And you've done an awesome job. It's grown so so much. So on that joint venture, it didn't have scaffold on it, did it?

Christian DeLillo: 06:26

It did not.

Mel Renfrow: 06:27

What I'm interested in Mike, can you remember, like, the first time another branch called you up when this all these joint ventures started happening?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 06:36

Well, the way it started with the Global Foundries project was, Dennis and I had talked about it in passing a few different times. He would say, hey, you know, you guys should come up to Global Foundries and, you know, help us with scaffold out up there. And, you know, we we talked about it for, I don't know, in passing for about a year, and then we were out in Arizona for a leadership conference. And we were all sitting around the table having dinner together, and we talked some more about it. And I said, yeah, you know, if we get an opportunity, you know, let us know and we'll see what we can do about partnering on it.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 07:14

And so shortly after, there was a good opportunity, you know, for a new project. They had a scaffold company that I guess had been up there for years, brand Safeway. And they've been up there doing scaffold, you know, for years, but I don't think that the customer was entirely happy with them.

Christian DeLillo: 07:33

They had been up there since the beginning and kind of had monopoly on the scaffolding. And I think customer felt like they needed a little more competition, get some honest pricing. So they were open to having a second option.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 07:49

Yeah. So the they had a new phase come out. We received an RFP. It was a pretty small RFP as far as what the actual scaffold scope was. It was for 3 load in platforms that I think the total bid on the lump sum portion was about 100 and 30,000 or 160,000 something like that.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 08:10

But along with that lump sum pricing, we were able to give them time and material rates because there was some additional work that was gonna happen throughout the project. And so that ended up actually being the biggest part of the project. That was the clean room work.

Christian DeLillo: 08:26

The clean room work. Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 08:27

So that was the first go ahead.

Christian DeLillo: 08:30

No. I was gonna say, so that small work that Mike mentioned there ended up turning into total project value, $18,000,000 project between cleanroom and scaffolding and 9,000,000 strictly in scaffolding alone.

Mel Renfrow: 08:42

Wow. So So from a 160, is that what you said?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 08:45

Around 160,000 to, yeah, 9,000,000.

Mel Renfrow: 08:49

Mind blown. Yeah. That's so what year was that roughly?

Christian DeLillo: 08:53

2018, around there.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 08:54

Yeah. We we bid in 2017, and

Christian DeLillo: 08:57

2018 is about an 18 month project.

Mel Renfrow: 09:00

That's crazy. So that was kinda your first experience joint venturing. So when Dennis first started talking to you, Mike, were you like, obviously, we don't have you're in Atlanta at the time and don't have scaffolding up there. Is that what you first you're trying to figure out? Like, how does this work?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 09:15

Yeah. It was it was kind of an interesting dynamic because we had not done any clean room scaffold work to that point either. So it was kind of a new project for us. The load in platforms that we bid as part of the lump sum was all on the exterior, and we were able to use our existing inventory out of Atlanta to supply those needs, but the clean room scaffold had to all be purchased.

Mel Renfrow: 09:38

Okay.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 09:38

And so we ended up, throughout the life of the project, purchasing $400,000 to maybe a $500,000 worth of new scaffolding that, you know, had to be purchased from a distributor, had to be tarped down, shipped to the site, stored in containers. It actually has to be wiped down 3 times before it even enters the building. So there was a lot of labor involved in that cleanroom scaffold, to get it installed and, you know, something that we weren't used to doing. So it's kind of a slow process, which drove a lot of man hours, but was a very successful project even though we had to go out and buy new scaffold to do it, and and we still have that scaffold up there today.

Mel Renfrow: 10:21

Yeah. It's it's a good lesson on you know, it's a saying, you have to spend money to make money for a reason, but what a way to invest in it. From your perspective, what, what does the process look like from the interior side of things? You know, you hadn't you personally hadn't been involved, with scaffolding before. So what does it look like from from your side?

Christian DeLillo: 10:43

One of the things that was really different from the beginning was the estimating, you know, what we're typically used to versus what the Atlanta scaffold team was was working with, different spreadsheets, you know, minutes per piece, counts, and then trying to establish what those would be for a clean environment versus, you know, an exterior scaffold build. We didn't have a lot of historical data. But so it was kind of aligning and just kind of spending the time upfront to really understand how they put their estimates together from the the labor to the general conditions to the taxes. It's it's a lot different than what we how we typically price things. So we spent a lot of time upfront to kind of line that out and make sure we everyone was bought in and understood everything.

Christian DeLillo: 11:25

So it made everyone comfortable with kind of what we're going in with and what we're, how our approach was. And the other piece of it was really the, what we don't deal with or didn't deal with on the interior side was the inventory piece. Yeah. And so that was kind of a a new thing for us. And, you know, Mike's team was great helping manage that process, and, you know, that's why these JVs are you know, can be so successful as you've got the experienced partner that kinda brings that to the table and helps, you know, walk you through it.

Christian DeLillo: 11:50

And, you know, so it's something we still do today, but Mike's team is is supporting us still. But, yeah, the inventory piece and just making sure all the parts and pieces and that the cross charge monthly cross charge that gets to the projects and stuff was was kind of new to new to how we would approach things.

Mel Renfrow: 12:06

Yeah. And for, those people that don't know, even like the billing system is different in the cycles on the billing and in all everything is completely, completely different for that. So are there any situations where maybe it wouldn't be optimal? Are there still situations where it makes sense not to JV on the scaffold side, or is there ever any when you get the plans, you're like, oh, this doesn't look like a good opportunity as an organization for us.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 12:35

Well, I

Christian DeLillo: 12:35

think is one of the success stories is we've we were able to train a lot of our field staff and some of the office staff to kind of handle the smaller stuff going forward so we didn't so we could be competitive without the travelers and without, you know, higher general conditions on some of the sustaining work at Global. If we got complex stuff, if we got a big project, we would definitely need Mike's team support. But right now, we're able to train that crew, so we've been doing that ongoing scaffold since, you know, the 2018 start date with a smaller crew. But there is larger projects that are coming up that we're we're targeting, But I think Mike would Mike has a little better idea of size wise and what kind of makes sense for a JV approach.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 13:17

Yeah. So the the best situation would be, you know, similar to what Christian and I did, where you have an established relationship with a customer, you have an opportunity, and it's kind of like a bolt on to what is already being done on-site. So being able to give rates and partner with another branch to bolt scaffold on to anything else that we're doing within the company, those would be kind of an ideal situation. The harder part from the scaffold side is traveling out of town to do medium sized jobs or smaller jobs, mainly because the expenses, you know, it's hard to be competitive. If you're not there every day, like on a long term basis, it's hard to send a crew up from Atlanta to stay on-site and help manage the day in, day out needs.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 14:14

Where in the case of GlobalFoundries, we were together for 8, you know, year and a half. And so we were able to train the people on-site and then our people came back home and they were able to carry on with it. Whereas if you have a smaller job and you go up and say you build, you know, scaffolding you leave, there's really no training that happens in that process. So it's kind of hard to hand it off. It's almost like you're going up there and doing a job for any other customer, which

Mel Renfrow: 14:39

Right.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 14:40

Which is, you know, it's it's still if if it makes money, it makes sense. Right? So if if it's in PCI's best interest and it's in the best interest of both branches involved and it's a win win, then then that makes sense as well. But it's gotta be a win win.

Mel Renfrow: 14:56

Right.

Christian DeLillo: 14:56

Yeah. And as Mike mentioned, like, add adding on the additional service, so bundled services is is key. You know, we had at GlobalFounders, we were established with, a lot of different scopes, but that wasn't one we were doing. But we knew the site, we knew the safety requirements, and, you know, we're able to kind of onboard them to the site while they also kind of trained us in the scaffold system. So it worked out really well, and I think those are opportunities where we're already on-site exist you know, exist working on an existing site.

Christian DeLillo: 15:25

And, you know, a lot of the times, our customers seem to be more pushing responsibility onto the the subcontractors.

Mel Renfrow: 15:32

Yeah.

Christian DeLillo: 15:32

And so if they can write one subcontract to PCI as opposed to 3 to the 3 different contractors, you know, they're gonna push the easy button. You know, they might it might be a little premium, but they're gonna you know, they'll pay that just to push the easy button and not have to do that.

Mel Renfrow: 15:47

Yeah. Absolutely. That's kinda the key there. Do you do you ever see it going the other like, in this case, it's kinda like you were already on the job site, and you had the opportunity. Is there ever a time where it starts with the scaffolding side, and then you kinda get the lead and reach across the table?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 16:02

It happens rarely. Yeah. Because usually, you know, scaffolding is a 3rd tier subcontractor type of thing. So we'll pass leads back and forth. But as far as scaffold being a primary on a project, I've rarely ever seen that happen.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 16:17

It may have happened once in the last 16 and a half years.

Mel Renfrow: 16:21

Never say never.

Christian DeLillo: 16:23

Another part of the reason why it works too is worked at GlobalFoundries and can work on some of these larger projects as the GC may buy out the scaffolding where if a smaller project, we may be doing the drywall, but we have to go to the mechanical for scaffolding, and it's just it's not quite the same efficiency from the bundled services approach. So those larger projects have those opportunities where we could do all those scopes for the GC.

Mel Renfrow: 16:47

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, you're still in the scaffolding business up there, Ethan?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 16:53

We are. Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 16:54

So you talked about, upcoming opportunities that are on the table and room for growth. Where do you where do you see things going?

Christian DeLillo: 17:02

We've got some really great, general foreman and foreman, and we you know, we're excited with the talent we have in in New York, but, you know, we've we've been managing 10 people for the last couple of years, so it hasn't been a big crew. And anything really complex, you know, we don't have a lot of the background in engineering that Mike's team does. And so, you know, there's there's a lot of semiconductor work coming to New York. We do the architectural cleaning scope. We also do rigging scopes.

Christian DeLillo: 17:33

So it's it's kind of an easy add to add scaffolding to that mix as well. So the big one is GlobalFoundries has a next phase coming. You know, they're they're waiting on Chips Act money, but JDON has the contract, and that was who we did the work for back when Mike's team was up there. The big project was for JDON. So, I think that's a really strong starting point, and it's gonna be a massive project.

Christian DeLillo: 17:54

So we're definitely looking forward to that one.

Mel Renfrow: 17:57

So when are we gonna know if it's gonna get the funding right?

Christian DeLillo: 18:02

Soon. You know, I think in the next couple of months, it'll have a better idea.

Mel Renfrow: 18:05

It's very cool.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 18:06

Yeah. Very exciting.

Mel Renfrow: 18:07

Are you doing any other JV work right now?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 18:10

No. The the only other work that we're doing with PCI branches currently is with our new partner or home branch 101. Yeah. So since, one PCG, a lot of the I would say the the lines between branches have been erased

Mel Renfrow: 18:29

Yeah.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 18:29

In a sense. And so whereas, you know, we're operating off of 2 different profit centers, you know, looking out for more of our own interests, we're now one branch. And so we're doing a lot more work together. And I think that's just a a byproduct of, you know, we're in constant conversation now. We have people, you know, sharing offices between our office in Kennesaw and our office down in Fayetteville.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 18:56

So there's a lot more just day to day interactions. We're talking about different projects. We have weekly sales calls where we're talking about things that are in the area, opportunities, you know, whether it be for fire stop or scaffolding or insulation or what have you. So it's we're all working together as a bigger team and we're able to, you know, find more projects and do more work together as we were able to do as individuals.

Mel Renfrow: 19:24

Yeah. It makes so much sense. It's like, why didn't we do this sooner, you know, looking back? What was the biggest surprise for you, I guess, about Scaffold? You talked about how things are inventory was one of them.

Mel Renfrow: 19:36

Was there anything else that gave you a new appreciation for the craft?

Christian DeLillo: 19:40

Mike's team is a talented team. It's it's it is complex. They make it look really easy, but there's a lot of nuances to it, and there's a lot of obviously, safety is a big risk. And so, you know, their their team is very impressive with what they can do. It was from from hanging scaffolds.

Christian DeLillo: 19:58

They put some of the scaffolding members through the pipe racks, utilities, like Swiss cheese. I mean, and, you know, with great safety performance and no impact to production, which is you can't shut down the facility. So it's it's impressive what they do. They make it look easy. And, I guess another thing would be, the level of sophistication from the the drawings and the the engineering.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 20:22

Mhmm.

Christian DeLillo: 20:23

They they have a it's pretty impressive what they can they can pull together pretty quickly too, just from historical knowledge. They've got a lot of lot of knowledge in that branch.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 20:32

Yeah. We have a good team back in Atlanta. The, the load in platforms on the outside of GlobalFoundries, they were quite challenging because we did have to scaffold up from the ground and go through pipe racks. So there was multiple rebases in the midst of building the scaffold and it had to be engineered almost as it was built because we couldn't see that kind of stuff on the front end. But as we built it and we made changes, we were able to get that information back to our engineers, do as built drawings, and and get what was needed on-site to provide the scaffold that they need.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 21:05

And and it worked out really well. And, you know, Christian's team up there being established, you know, they handled a lot of, you know, preparing us to be successful up there. And so it was just a great team team effort between the two groups, which made it a success.

Mel Renfrow: 22:17

What I found interesting when we were talking when we did the first podcast with Dean and Tim is how much of it yeah. You design as you go. You build as as you go as opposed to, you know, what you're used to, where you have a hard bit, and this is here is everything you need to know. Instead, it's like, yeah. We need a scaffold here

Mike Thompson Jr.: 22:37

Mhmm. To

Mel Renfrow: 22:38

go to there, and it's almost I think of it as tinker toys. I know it is not, but and, they can be a little bit creative too on the best way to build those things.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 22:49

Yeah. The best way to be creative is to get the engineers input before you do it. Say, hey, I'm I'm coming up to this. I think this would be a good good way to handle it. And, you know, taking pictures, sending it to the engineers, having them, you know, vet out what you're trying to do there and then proceed with it.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 23:07

Because a lot of times, if you go ahead and say, okay, this is gonna work and we build it and then we have to go back, that's not a good situation.

Christian DeLillo: 23:15

No. I think another thing that impressed me too was the caliber and the experience and talent of the field personnel because it a lot of that is just cardinal knowledge of of how to build these things, what you can do, what you can do. You know? And and you rely very heavily on superintendents and the field staff for this craft, for this product line, and it's it's, you know, more so than for for drywall where where are more engaged on the on the scaffolding side. It was the superintendents, you gotta rely on their their knowledge, and it was you know, Mike's team was very qualified.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 23:47

Well, I have to say that my dad built a very good team. He, him and Mike Sloan, they taught everybody in Atlanta Scaffold pretty much everything they know. And, they're just a wealth of knowledge. So we're very blessed to have had them as mentors all these years. Mhmm.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 24:07

You know, and we desperately, you know, miss them being around, but they taught us well. And, you know, we've we've done our best to to take it and run with it and, to to do them proud. Yeah. And I think we're doing a pretty good job.

Mel Renfrow: 24:22

I think you are too. There's so did you share with your dad, like, what started out at GlobalFounder? He's like, hey, yeah. It started out with this, and we wound up with how you know, I wonder what the biggest contract he that he had was. Not that it's a competition, but that'd be pretty cool to be like, hey, dad.

Mel Renfrow: 24:38

Look what we did.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 24:39

Yeah. He he would always be able to one up us no matter what.

Mel Renfrow: 24:43

Don't even try.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 24:44

No. Don't even try.

Mel Renfrow: 24:46

One thing I wanted to ask, I just thought of, like, if, is there any danger or any GCs trying to self perform scaffolding?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 24:53

Absolutely. So that's one of the, the challenges that we have is when you get these mega projects, the the GC, you know, BCTOR, you know, these big general contractors, they'll purchase a bunch of scaffold at the beginning of the job and they'll self perform the scaffold labor. And then they'll look to offload all the scaffold at the end of the job. And so that's that's something that we have a hard time getting the job when you have a a general contractor with that type of mindset. Yeah.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 25:25

So we need to be able to provide a service that really when they don't want to have to to deal with the challenges of keeping up with the scaffold as well. But we've seen several projects here in the, you know, recent past where they've done that.

Mel Renfrow: 25:39

Does it tend to be I don't even know if there is a pattern, but does it tend to be on larger projects or smaller projects or just anything across the board?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 25:47

I would say it's on the very big projects. Yeah. So the one that comes to mind most recently was, Plant Vogel, down in South Georgia. That was a huge scaffold project where they self performed all the scaffold. I think, Novo Nordisk in North Carolina, they did the same as well, which was kind of a surprise because they built a facility called Baxter down in Atlanta, the floor group did.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 26:16

And we did all the scaffold for the Baxter project, and it was a good sized scaffold project. It was between $1,500,000 $2,000,000 to do that facility. And then that same group for floor went up to North Carolina to do Novo Nordisk, and they decided to self perform on that project, so we didn't have an opportunity.

Mel Renfrow: 26:34

Man, that is a bummer. Is there anything we can be doing to prevent that or or, is really kind of the key is the bundled services part, and they don't want the headache. I'm sure.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 26:45

Yeah. That that is the key, because, know, from a scaffold standpoint, it's hard to go in as a stand alone. But if we can offer several different services for them to not have to do anything with it just to let us handle it, that would be ideal.

Mel Renfrow: 27:01

So what are what do you think are the common misconceptions about Scaffold and joint ventures? Did you have any before so when Dennis first started hitting you up, Mike, were you like, okay, I don't know if I wanna do this or not, or was it just exciting for you to, like, hey, let's see how this works out?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 27:20

Yeah. I mean, I try not to have any type of, you know, negative outlooks going into anything. I always like to look at, hey, what's what's the positive side of this? And, you know, Dennis and Christian, they've always been, you know, great to do anything with. So when the opportunity arose, I was completely excited to have the opportunity to work with them and also have the opportunity to do the job at GlobalFoundries.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 27:44

I don't really have any misconceptions about working with any of the other branches. I haven't, had any issues. We're just looking forward to the next opportunity.

Mel Renfrow: 27:54

Nice.

Christian DeLillo: 27:54

Yeah. I think some people may assume that it's kind of it could become like a finger pointing or or if there are issues in you know, there there's this kind of each branch is kinda in it for themselves, but that's that's definitely not the case and not the case between our groups. And, one of the things that when we first started this conversation was there's a lot of work out there for us, but there's also the potential of if things go south, we could, you know, it could tank a lot of work that we've built in the rigging and the cleaner work for the next 10 years. So, you know, just having faith that, hey. These guys know what they're doing, and we're gonna help them, you know, get acclimated to site, just kind of knowing that these guys are really good at what they're doing and just having that trust was key.

Christian DeLillo: 28:43

And just kind of you get that through just talking to Mike and talking to the managers and even, you know, coming from the VPs down, like, you know, you get the level of confidence. You know? And then as you meet the people even in the field stuff, just knowing, hey, man. These guys are impressive. They know what they're doing.

Christian DeLillo: 28:58

But that that was kind of one of our fears obviously going into it, but it's obviously, it was addressed and the team did it successfully. And, it's been really positive.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 29:11

Yeah. The cool thing about that is it works both ways too. We can come in and make another branch look really good. We could be the the best scaffold company that anyone has ever dealt with through all of our years of experience and everything that we've done. And then they're, like, okay, well, we need to use PCI for everything, you know, moving forward.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 29:30

So it can really feed more work. It can really create more opportunities by going in. It gives us every reason to put our best foot forward and to go in and make the other PCI branches look good because because it's gonna breed more work for them. It's also gonna breed more work for us.

Mel Renfrow: 29:47

Yeah. A lot of I also think a lot of, people that work for the company are wired in a similar way. And one thing, we like a challenge. We get bored easily. And so just having that, like, hey.

Mel Renfrow: 30:01

How can I figure this out? And, you know, the people that would learn from one another. So it keeps things interesting, I think, for everyone too.

Christian DeLillo: 30:10

Yeah. I think that's a key thing to the joint ventures and and why a lot of these have been successful is, you know, you can't go into it thinking, okay. We're gonna do our piece. They're gonna do their piece. Job's over.

Christian DeLillo: 30:21

Successful project, that's great, but the home branch maybe didn't learn anything from like, we didn't learn any scaffolding, so then the next one comes up and we you know, we're back in square 1. So it's that learning that needs to happen. And, Mike's team was great about sharing that knowledge, but our team also had to be kind of receptive and want to learn it to, be able to take it on more. So

Mel Renfrow: 30:43

Yeah. Kind of have to leave your ego at the door a little bit and respect somebody else's knowledge base.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 30:50

Yeah. I think you really touched on something big there. You know, it's using these opportunities for joint venture as a springboard to do more scaffold in more markets. There's a huge opportunity there because there's a lot of markets that we're not doing scaffold in right now. So if we can find the right project, we can partner together and we can use it as a learning experience for the local branch, then we can grow the scaffold exponentially.

Mel Renfrow: 31:16

I'm gonna put you on the spot right now, Mike.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 31:18

Okay.

Mel Renfrow: 31:19

Where would you like to work that you're currently not? He's thinking right now, like, where has a beach? Where would I have to go and visit? No. But is there a place out there where you see, an opportunity that

Mike Thompson Jr.: 31:34

I would have to say, you know, it's gotta be a good fit. You know, I I when you said beach, I was thinking Florida, but it's a it's a total non union market.

Mel Renfrow: 31:42

Right.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 31:42

So there's there's not really good opportunity there unless there was a big market recovery thing that could happen with the union down there. So that would be great. Florida is great. Jacksonville area is great. But I would say wherever it would be the best fit for PCI to be able to generate the most revenue profit, that type of thing.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 32:04

So it would have to be it really doesn't matter where it's at. It just needs to be good for the the branches involved in PCI.

Mel Renfrow: 32:10

Show me the money, and I'll and I'll show up.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 32:12

That's it. I mean, the the money makes things easy. Right?

Mel Renfrow: 32:15

Yeah. Absolutely.

Christian DeLillo: 32:16

I think there's a lot of growth opportunity on these large semiconductor manufacturing facilities. I think it's a good fit. It's a good skill level of what these guys do with the chemical plants and the, the oil refineries and things, and I think it it, it translates well. And it also you know, these larger projects have, PLA requirements. So there's, you know, there's competitiveness that, you know, we can we can can meet.

Christian DeLillo: 32:43

I think there are just massive facilities that we can PCI wants to take as much as we can. So those are good opportunities where I see kind of a good fit for for scaffold to expand.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 32:52

Yeah. When you were saying that, I was thinking the more complex, the better. Because there's a lot of scaffold companies out there that can go out and build a 5 by 7 tower and build 1,000,000 of them. Right. But when you it comes to doing loading platforms through pipe racks and complicated hanging scaffolds over top of subfloors, over top of clean rooms, that's where PCI excels.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 33:14

And so those are the areas that we need to focus on. It's not necessarily the volume as much as it is the complexity of the job because we do have so much knowledge.

Mel Renfrow: 33:24

The east region too is kinda booming with all that semiconductor and all those, all those opportunities. Are they still are we still getting bid requests for it? Is it the market still hot for it?

Christian DeLillo: 33:34

Yeah. We're working on, clean room RFP for Intel Cardinal right now, which is in Ohio, the new fab in Columbus, which is supposed to be a mega campus. So it's the first of many, hopefully. And, again, I think that's a great fit for for some scaffolding to to fit into there.

Mel Renfrow: 33:51

I think it it helps too. A lot of people, are worried. Like, we had a fantastic year. And can we maintain it? And, what does that mean?

Mel Renfrow: 34:00

But there's there's still a ton of a ton of work out there to be had. So I ask this all the time, but you 2 both had 2 different onboarding experiences. Right? So for you coming out of school and working here and, you know, you've worked your way up, like, what advice do you have? And not specifically for project engineers.

Mel Renfrow: 34:20

This is for anyone in the company. Any advice you have on how to stand out or, you know, how to make the most out of your career here?

Christian DeLillo: 34:30

You know, I think I was fortunate to be part of a large JV project that, allowed some opportunities for growth. But as you can see around the country right now, there are a lot of those going on. So we need more of those people to step up to to take on leadership roles, and and they will advance your career. And it's a it's a good, you know, reminder that that, you know, when an when an opportunity presents itself, you gotta take

Mel Renfrow: 34:56

it. So did you feel a 100% confident when you had that opportunity, or was a little part of you a little afraid about it?

Christian DeLillo: 35:03

You know, I had a really good support staff. And, you know, Dennis was was great mentor and and support through everything. And, you know, obviously, it's it's outside your comfort zone, so you're gonna be a little nervous with some of that. But, we had a I had a really good team working for me and support staff around me, so it was went well.

Mel Renfrow: 35:21

So when a door opens, walk through it. How about you, Mike? So you were part of an acquisition. You were pretty established in your career, and then, you know, we acquired you and came in with way more paperwork and all kinds of systems and policy and procedures and all of that, but you've been successful here too. So, you know, what's your what's your advice from your perspective?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 35:42

It's kinda funny because you remember that conversation that we had when you first came to the office. I was like, we gotta do what? Yeah. We have to do and you were like, yeah. You know, this is you gotta do all this stuff.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 35:52

I was like, okay. So, that was a little, you know, to be bit to get used to. And, you know, I was pretty fortunate. Like I mentioned, my father and Mike Sloan and those guys, you know, I was riding their coattails, for lack of a better word, you know, for years, because they were so talented. And, you know, we we just had to really, you know, keep up and, you know, they led the charge.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 36:14

And since they retired, you know, we've taken what they taught us and we've built on it. But I would think the main thing that I've learned since they did retire is there are a lot of other smart people within our organization, not just the people in your branch. And so the way the company has restructured here lately with, you know, now I have Mike Ware to talk to and Steve Kerber and, you know, Dennis and Tim and all these people. So and they're willing to help. They're willing to, point you in the right direction.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 36:50

I had a meeting with Tim a year and a half ago, and he was like, hey, what's what's if you could change three things, what would they be? And, you know, I I shared with him, hey, these these are things that I I would like to, to do better. And he partnered with me on those things and we've made things better. And I think we're a better company Scaffold company today from partnering with people that aren't even in Scaffold. Yeah.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 37:15

Just really good business people. And so I would say, you know, if you want to, grow in this company is leverage those relationships with those people that have been here for a long time because they really know what they're doing. And then number 1, stay safe.

Mel Renfrow: 37:32

Nice. Are there any other messages you'd like to relay? I'll let you check your notes too if there's anything you brought in here, anything else that you'd like people listening to know about scaffolding and joint ventures?

Mike Thompson Jr.: 37:44

Well, I would say one thing to the scaffold branches specifically is, you know, there's a lot of opportunities within PCI. There's there's gonna be more opportunities for joint ventures here in the near future. So know who your travel team is. They can go up and support something like a GlobalFoundries. And, when the opportunity arises, you're ready instead of scrambling trying to figure out who we're gonna send.

Mel Renfrow: 38:10

That's good advice. So go ahead and build your team, and then who do you need to train up to backfill when they're all of that. That's a great advice.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 38:18

Yeah. Because it can't be a situation where you have to send your key people that are supporting your day to day operations in order to make something like that happen. You still need to handle day to day, but you still need to be set up to go out and do something like a GlobalFoundries.

Mel Renfrow: 38:34

It needs to be somebody that's talented enough and then also kinda has the interpersonal skills as well, right, to go up and kinda teach and help things along.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 38:43

This is scaffold, so that will be a work in progress.

Christian DeLillo: 38:49

You know, I think just a good reminder to everyone out there to ask our customers, you know, can we help with anything else? We do x, y, and z. Can we can we do some scaffolding? Can we do pipe insulation? You know, we'll find the right partners within the company, to do the work.

Christian DeLillo: 39:06

And just, you know, if we don't ask, we don't know. You know? And I think there could be an opportunity. There could be a a need or another contractor falling down. So it's just a good reminder to say, ask our customers from time to time, hey, what can we help out with?

Mel Renfrow: 39:19

Is there the best time to do it? It's not only when you're looking at new work. I mean, what's your advice on that?

Christian DeLillo: 39:24

Obviously, the big projects are are an easy one, but I think, yeah, really at any time, I think just, staying in front of our customers and asking them where we can we can help service their their needs. And that's you know, the bundled approach is it's gonna save them on time, efficiency with writing contracts, and there's some general condition, savings from having multiple scopes on one campus. So

Mel Renfrow: 39:47

Well, I think something you've done really well, Christian, is just be so good that they wanna work with you more and be so easy to work with and fair. It's not not be a doormat, but, you know, where you just bring in more more work that way.

Christian DeLillo: 40:04

Yeah. We're we're having some initial discussions with bringing in some pipe insulation. So, we're very early stages, but just trying to figure out what that looks like and how we can maybe get something going at GlobalFoundries and other semiconductor work in New York with pipe insulation. So

Mel Renfrow: 40:19

Well, fingers crossed. I hope by the time this airs, it it went well. We've already landed the rest of the work up there.

Christian DeLillo: 40:25

Just one other thing I'd like to add is, you know, it's been a getting to know Mike has been great, and I think that's another thing out of these joint venture projects is, you know, you get to make lasting relationships. And, you know, I see Mike at LEADCON and different events and stuff. We hang out, and, you know, we've got a good relationship. And, you know, we tried to collaborate on a few other things that didn't really pan out, but we've got that relationship where we can lean on each other and it's been pretty cool. Yeah.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 40:48

I mean, they're not all gonna be winners, but, we're gonna go after them hard and and hopefully, we'll be able to pluck another good one here soon.

Mel Renfrow: 40:56

Pluck. I like it. Well, thank you for joining us. Really really appreciate it and, have a good time at the, summit this week.

Mike Thompson Jr.: 41:06

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Mel. Appreciate it.