PCG Connect

Mel Renfrow: 00:06

Hey there, everyone. Welcome to pop culture. This series will focus on all things that are related to the people of performance. Get it? People of performance, pop, pop culture?

Mel Renfrow: 00:17

From individual interviews to hearing more about the programs in place to make all of our lives better, pop culture is here to tell you what's new in the performance people biz. So good morning, and welcome. We have a people of performance podcast this morning. So that's where we dive in a little deeper. We pick some poor victim, honored person to come and sit in the chair and learn more out, more about them and how they came to the company.

Mel Renfrow: 00:46

And today's winner is Lucas Long. Good morning, Lucas.

Lukas Long: 00:50

Morning.

Mel Renfrow: 00:51

So Lucas is a senior estimator, from the Indy branch. And, for those of you that went to world class last year, he was the kick ass award winner, which is the person that, generated the most margin in the company. So congratulations. I'm honored to be here.

Lukas Long: 01:09

Thank you. I'm honored to be here. This is cool.

Mel Renfrow: 01:12

So let's let's, first, I just wanna kick off and learn a little bit more about you. So tell me a little bit about, your background. Are you from Indy, or where did you grow up?

Lukas Long: 01:21

So I'm from, El Dorado, Kansas, which, you guys might know since we're here in Kansas City, but it's about 2 and a half hours southwest of here.

Mel Renfrow: 01:29

Okay.

Lukas Long: 01:29

So it's, 20 minutes east of Wichita. So that's where I grew up.

Mel Renfrow: 01:33

Were you on a farm? No. Were you a city boy? And Yeah.

Lukas Long: 01:37

I mean, I I think the town had, like, 11,000 people. So, you know, it wasn't a big city. You had to go to Wichita for that. Yeah. That was a pretty small town.

Lukas Long: 01:44

Farms, though, they're, you know, 15 minutes out of town. We had every fast food restaurant you could imagine in El Dorado, except for Wendy's, but I am happy to report that they they have one now. So

Mel Renfrow: 01:54

Oh, big time. Yeah. They're big time.

Lukas Long: 01:56

Deal. Yeah. So never get a frosty.

Mel Renfrow: 01:59

So, did you go to k State?

Lukas Long: 02:01

No. So I went to Wichita State. Okay. Yeah. All my siblings went to k state.

Lukas Long: 02:06

I was like, I don't wanna go up there. So

Mel Renfrow: 02:08

Are you the youngest?

Lukas Long: 02:09

I am. Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 02:10

See, I'm the youngest too.

Lukas Long: 02:11

Mhmm. Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 02:12

You don't wanna do what everybody else does. Right. Yeah.

Lukas Long: 02:15

Yeah. No. I, so I went and did, the aerospace engineering program at Wichita State. So that's, that's what I was going for in Wichita, being in Wichita. There's so many aerospace manufacturers.

Lukas Long: 02:25

That's why, you know, ultimately, I chose Wichita over, you know, k State. They have a program too. It's just not quite as good.

Mel Renfrow: 02:31

A lot of people don't know that about, you know, the aerospace, industry down there and how prevalent it is. Yeah. So you graduated from there. You're obviously pretty smart guy with that degree.

Lukas Long: 02:43

Just math.

Mel Renfrow: 02:44

Just well, you're talking to an English history major, so Yeah. Math wasn't my jam. So from there, where'd you go?

Lukas Long: 02:53

So I worked for Learjet in Wichita for a couple years. I was a structural test engineer, basically breaking things and recording data on it. Right? Writing test reports. So then, they were, at the time, developing, all composite business jet, and that program got canceled.

Lukas Long: 03:11

So I got laid off after a couple years. Then that kinda just kicked me off into this, this world of doing some contract work, here and there. So first, you know, specified amount of time. So I

Mel Renfrow: 03:22

Still doing this the engineering?

Lukas Long: 03:24

Yeah. The test engineering. So, then I went to Sikorsky helicopter up in Connecticut for a couple years and did, fatigue testing there. And that's fatigue testing is like, you know, like, when you bend the spoon over and over again until it snaps. Yeah.

Lukas Long: 03:38

That's what fatigue testing is, essentially. And then, after that contract ended, I realized I didn't wanna stay up there. I went over to Honeywell in South Bend, Indiana for a for a year. Just did some more testing. And then after that contract ended, Josh Long is my older brother.

Lukas Long: 03:55

He's been with PCI for 15 years. So after the contract ended in South Bend, he asked if I wanted to come on as an estimator. So so, yeah, sure. Be nice not to move around Yeah. Constantly.

Mel Renfrow: 04:07

To give it a go. So I just found out this morning, Josh is your brother.

Lukas Long: 04:11

Yep.

Mel Renfrow: 04:12

Not not the most perceptive person, obviously. It's not me.

Lukas Long: 04:16

I'm not Josh. But,

Mel Renfrow: 04:17

But the funny thing is for people listening, I walked up when I just had found that out literally one minute before and walked around the corner, and Lucas is staying there. I was like, hey. Good morning, Josh. Yeah. So apologies for that.

Lukas Long: 04:31

It happens all the time. Yeah. All the time.

Mel Renfrow: 04:34

So you started at the branches at what did you come in as an estimator? Or okay.

Lukas Long: 04:39

Yeah. I think, technically, I was hired as a PE, and then, like, 2 weeks in, switched to estimating.

Mel Renfrow: 04:44

They were like, okay. He's actually we we put him in the wrong place.

Lukas Long: 04:47

I think they just had a a need to fill that role, and and then, yeah, I was just put there. So

Mel Renfrow: 04:52

So what did you start out estimating?

Lukas Long: 04:54

Clean rooms, immediately. And then, some pharmaceutical, clean rooms. I think one of the first jobs I did was, for Merck up in Philadelphia, and then Yukon was a semiconductor clean room at the time. And then, KLA was also a semiconductor clean room. There's a bunch of big ones right off the bat, in the 1st couple months.

Lukas Long: 05:14

I, you know, I I did, obviously, with the assistance of Josh. Right? And then I also did a couple drywall jobs too in the 1st few months, but then, you know, after probably 5 months in, it was nothing but clean rooms.

Mel Renfrow: 05:27

Kinda found your niche there in doing that. So I'm always interested to hear from, you know, people that worked somewhere else because we have a lot of lifers here, as I call them. They come right out of college, and this is all they know. So what is your impression of the company? You know, obviously, worked a couple different places and different experiences.

Mel Renfrow: 05:46

What, in your opinion, kinda makes us different or sets us apart?

Lukas Long: 05:50

Well, I mean, this, is a company that cares about its employees. Right? I mean, that's that's a huge deal working in all those aerospace companies, you know, in Alec Sikorsky, for instance. There's, like, 5,000 people working in that plant, you know, not necessarily in the office, but, you know, building helicopters, in all the all the roles there. So you're just a tiny, tiny cog in in the, wheel.

Lukas Long: 06:12

Right? And they didn't do anything to sort of promote, I guess, the fun company, culture. Right? So if you wanna do a happy hour or something, I mean, you could do it, but it's on your own dime. Yeah.

Lukas Long: 06:25

You know, they you know, I mean, the at the end of the day, they're a business and they just wanna make money. And then I come in here, you just feel that PCI cares more about its employees and their well-being and that, you know, having that perspective from being in other companies is probably a little bit more apparent maybe to me than others. This is pretty rare what we have here.

Mel Renfrow: 06:45

You know, I've worked at I worked in branch, and then I came over to corporate. And then at some point, you're like, oh, wow. The the president knows, first of all, knows my name. He knows I have kids. You know, my like, it's just it's it's different.

Mel Renfrow: 06:57

And he and we want to know one another, which is

Lukas Long: 07:00

Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 07:01

What I think is different. And, hey, it's work. It's not every day isn't like rainbows, but at the same time, it's you have good people in the trenches with you. Right?

Lukas Long: 07:10

For sure. Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 07:12

So you've been here since it was 2019 when you came over?

Lukas Long: 07:15

November 2019.

Mel Renfrow: 07:17

Okay. Yeah. And so anyone else besides, Josh that kinda helped you, acclimate or kind of teach you the ropes?

Lukas Long: 07:27

That's a tough one. You know, when I came in to be a cleanroom estimator, I was kinda taking over Josh's role. Right? He was at the time, he was the only cleanroom estimator in Indy, and then he was sort of in the process of being promoted to pre comp manager. So I worked really closely with him the 1st couple years to get up to speed on all the cleaning work.

Lukas Long: 07:46

And, you know, obviously, other people had some influence, on the day to day, but Josh probably was the biggest influencing factor, as I was learning the estimating process.

Mel Renfrow: 07:57

Yeah. We always tell people, if you wanna move up in the company, then find your replacement and train them. So way to go, Josh. Yeah. Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 08:06

He's like, I've got this. But I also think what's interesting is, yeah, you got your foot in the door because you were related. But if you didn't have the goods, you wouldn't have lasted regardless of who you were related to. Yeah. So

Lukas Long: 08:18

Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 08:19

Had you estimated before? Were you learning all of that too at the same time?

Lukas Long: 08:23

I was learning it all, at the same time. I mean, I I knew of PCI, obviously, from Josh, when, you know, when I was in college. So I knew he was an estimator. And I didn't know anything about the, you know, the details of how to do an estimate, but, you know, I always joke with him. I mean, it's pretty easy.

Lukas Long: 08:40

Right? I mean, you get you get drawings and you just do a little takeoff and, like, you just apply the, you know, the material labor cost, and that's it. Like, you know

Mel Renfrow: 08:48

Oh, yeah. It's totally easy. Have

Lukas Long: 08:50

to think much more than that.

Mel Renfrow: 08:52

But, you know, I think that's so, that's so that's why your brain works. Yeah. Right? And there's certain things that, to me, that sounds like, if I'm a bad person and go to hell, that's what I will find out doing because it's not it's not in my wheelhouse. Right?

Mel Renfrow: 09:06

And there's things I do that you'd be like, oh my god. I never wanna do that. But, Yeah. So when you how many people are in the branch? Like

Lukas Long: 09:14

Honestly, am I 50, 55 now? I'm not entirely sure. I think when I started, it was, like, 30. And then, the last couple of years, we've just been hiring nonstop to feed all these mega jobs, maybe doubled in size.

Mel Renfrow: 09:25

That just blows my mind. Now not everybody is in Indeed, though.

Lukas Long: 09:30

No. Yeah. We have a lot of travelers out there at, all these mega jobs, supporting those. So, yeah, we doubled in size, but same amount of office space.

Mel Renfrow: 09:42

That's I get what you're saying. That's funny. So talk about you know, we've talked about joint ventures several times on here. How does that and actually, you're you're here in Kansas City because you're getting ready to go out to the Panasonic job. Mhmm.

Mel Renfrow: 09:57

So how does that work? So when you you get the plans and at what point do you start talking to other, other branches?

Lukas Long: 10:07

So once we get the plans, you can kinda obviously see how large the job appears to be other than at that time. That's when, like, Josh would would start pinging the, upper management saying, hey. This this one's coming up to bid in, like, 3 weeks. You know, who who potentially would be involved with it. Of course, they to make the final decision on who's, like, involved, you kinda gotta figure out how big it actually is.

Lukas Long: 10:30

So sometimes it takes until, you know, maybe a week into the estimate. I can actually tell them, hey. It's 30,000 man days. You know, maybe that requires, you know, 3 branches, 4 branches, something like that. So it's what right when a job comes out, you know, I leave it to them to sort of decide all everybody who's involved.

Mel Renfrow: 10:47

Yeah. They're like, move. Let the artist get to work here.

Lukas Long: 10:51

Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 10:51

So how long does it take, so say if it's about a $90,000,000 bid, how long does it take you to estimate roughly?

Lukas Long: 11:03

You know, it depends. So if it if it's a $90,000,000 job, but I'm bidding off the IFC set where there's

Mel Renfrow: 11:10

What does that mean?

Lukas Long: 11:11

So issue for construction, it means that it basically means it has all the details that you need to bid the job properly. Right? In that case, you're probably looking at I always like to say 3 weeks for the first for the first bid.

Mel Renfrow: 11:24

Heads down. Living, breathing.

Lukas Long: 11:26

Don't bother me. Yep. Yep. Yeah. If it's like a budget, which a lot of these start out as a budget, maybe with a 60% set or even a 30% set, you're doing you're making a lot of assumptions because there's there's just not a lot of detail there.

Lukas Long: 11:39

So you'd see the wall types and where the ceilings are at, and you just kinda make assumptions. You know, I can probably do that in a week and a half if I especially if I use, like, previous product, pricing, like, material pricing. But, yeah, the further and further you get along or as far as the deep the plan set goes, the longer it takes. Because you, you know, they they add these notes to the plans. Right?

Lukas Long: 12:00

The architect does, and you gotta make sure you read every single one of them so you're not missing something. So you just gotta make sure you do your due due due diligence and that, that just takes time.

Mel Renfrow: 12:09

So explain the 30%, 60% set of drawings for people that might not know what that is.

Lukas Long: 12:15

Yeah. So when an when an architect is, I guess, you know, drawn up a a new a new project, a new building, they start typically with a 30% set, which is very, very basic, like, here's your walls, here's your ceiling locations. Maybe not everything's labeled, but that's basically the outline. 60% set, they're gonna start adding, like, ceiling elevations, wall tags, hopefully, things of that nature, so it's a little bit more apparent. And then, 90% set, somewhere between the 60 90% set, they'll start adding in, you know, wall sections, wall elevation.

Lukas Long: 12:49

So you can actually see what's going on. Typically, you don't get that to, like, the 90% set. And then in the IFC set, that's everything. Like, that should be technically everything you need to go and build the project.

Mel Renfrow: 13:00

Yeah. Before they put an addendum on it. Yeah. Yeah. But they do that so they can get a rough ballpark of, you know, about how much it's gonna cost.

Mel Renfrow: 13:09

That's why they issue them early.

Lukas Long: 13:11

Yeah. So, like, Ford, Kentucky, for instance, or Tennessee, you know, they start with a 30% set, did a budget. And then in between the 30 60, you know, you're doing, like, 20, 30 VEs, value engineering options, maybe taking out walls or changing something around. And then whatever they like, they'll incorporate to the 60% set, and then you'll do more VEs, and then 90% set, more VEs, and then you'll do one final well, not really final, bid update, to see what the price is gonna be for the for the building.

Mel Renfrow: 13:43

So you're doing all this. Weeks have gone by. Do we even have the job yet?

Lukas Long: 13:48

It depends on the job. If we're lucky, we get onboarded for a design assist contract early on, which we were, with Ford and a couple others. And honestly, that's the best approach. We can actually save the owner a lot of money if we're involved early, because we can get our input in there on constructability and, you know, hey, maybe this isn't the right material, for this job or maybe the wall thicknesses need to need to change, things like that. On other jobs, you know, they they still make you do the budgets, you know, the 60, 90, and and IFCs, but they're not awarding it.

Lukas Long: 14:24

They're really just doing that for their own internal budgeting purposes, then then they'll award it off the IFC set. So that's a little bit more tricky. The the Panasonic job was like that, for instance, and they I think they're possibly realizing the GC is realizing that maybe the design of Stroud would have been a little bit more beneficial for that project.

Mel Renfrow: 14:43

Yeah. So, it's always interesting people that are as familiar with construction. I can remember years ago at corporate, we, we held a workshop just on how where we fit in the construction, you know, ecosphere and all that. And, Lori Weddle, who used to be a trainer, asked what percentage of jobs that we bid do you think that we land and we get the contract for? And hands shot up, and I can remember people were like 75%, 80%, 98%, like, we wish.

Mel Renfrow: 15:18

Yeah. What percentage do you think? I think it's different for these big jobs. But

Lukas Long: 15:23

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's definitely different from scope to scope, but then, obviously, these these mega jobs are a little bit different. They're in sort of a class of their own as well. And, you know, if I was if I was to say, like, all in estimating, I don't know, 20%, maybe 1 in 5 you're getting.

Lukas Long: 15:37

I'm talking about all scopes everywhere. You know, if if you have really good relationships with, customers and you're doing the design assist route, you especially on the cleanroom side, you might bump that up to, like, 50%, because, you know, you really need a trusted partner on the design assist process, and so your chances go up a little bit. So it's always a little bit better going that route than just a hard bid situation. But all in, you're probably looking at 15.

Mel Renfrow: 16:01

Even better, we like it when it's negotiated from the very beginning. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So have you ever looked at a set of drawings and, you know, you're just and you're like, I don't have a good feeling about this.

Mel Renfrow: 16:13

I don't even think we should bid on it.

Lukas Long: 16:15

Well, unfortunately, I don't get to say if we bid or don't bid on a project. I just do it anyway, if they tell me to. Yeah. But I I have definitely opened up plans and just say, these are terrible. They there's not a lot of information.

Lukas Long: 16:29

So that that's kinda like so in those situations, you kinda gotta call the GC, like, what are you looking for here? Are you just looking for just a high level budget because there's a lot of missing information. Like, if you're awarding off of this, you know, I'm gonna send you a 100 RFIs, you know, to make sure, you know, all the bidders are, you know, making the right assumptions and everything.

Mel Renfrow: 16:48

So a request for information when you're like, okay. This part, what do you mean? What do you mean?

Lukas Long: 16:54

What do you mean? What do you mean?

Mel Renfrow: 16:55

And they're all different. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's switch subjects now.

Mel Renfrow: 17:54

And the reason why you're here today, the reason why you were offered up as tribute, let's talk about your accomplishments and world class. So before we get into it, for people out there that don't know what world class is, that's our incentive trip. It's held once a year, and, essentially, it's for you can qualify in 2 ways. 1, branches can qualify as world class if they meet all of their business goals for their year, and also, there's 3 safety goals that they have to they have to 2 out of the 3 safety goals. And so then also estimators, and project managers can qualify based on a certain threshold of margin that they need to meet, and then they are eagles.

Mel Renfrow: 18:37

And you actually win a physical eagle. It's a really cool bronze statue, and it's a different design every year. And so people that have won multiple if you've ever been on a Teams call with somebody and you see all these eagles on the top of their shelf and they have a lot of them, that means they're really, really good at their jobs. So let's go into, world class. First of, let's go back for comparison because there is a really you had a really big, feat this year, but, for comparison, in 2013, we had 60 people that attended that were world class members.

Mel Renfrow: 19:15

Eagles, the threshold at the time, you had to make 600,000 in margin. And at in, 2013, we had a 129 people that qualified and and got their Eagle. So in total, there were 226 people that attended the event once you add in the guests. And that year, the kick ass award winner, was Jonathan Fastholt from the Portland branch. So now let's fast forward, to 2023.

Mel Renfrow: 19:42

So really quick recap on 2013, 60 world class members, a 129 Eagles. So in 2023, we had a 164 world class members. The Eagle, the threshold, actually to Eagle raised from 600,000 in margin to 1,000,000 in margin, and we had 270 Eagles. So, obviously, a lot of growth there. There were 496 total people at the event once she added in guests, And, Lucas, the man of the hour here, you were the kickass award winner, and it was actually almost 7 times the amount that the Kick Ass award winner, made back in 2013.

Mel Renfrow: 20:33

So in 10 years, it was 7 times that amount. So not too shabby. And and then here's something else I wanna point out. So the year before, so in 2022, your brother, Josh Long, was actually the Kick Ass award winner. And, just for context for everybody listening out there, you actually made almost 3 and a half times margin what your brother did.

Mel Renfrow: 20:59

So not too bad, little brother. You gotta no. That's so cool. So why don't you why don't you talk a little bit about the project and how they calculate that everything?

Lukas Long: 21:10

So Oh, man.

Mel Renfrow: 21:11

Was it Ford? Was it the Ford project?

Lukas Long: 21:14

Well, it was a it was probably a collection of projects. So I think at the end of 2021 is when, I think we bid the night sky project, which is Altium 2. So that was, we secured that one, and it was burning, I think, during the next couple years. So that one's ongoing. Right?

Lukas Long: 21:32

So I had a I had a couple burning at the same time, which obviously helps too. That was a that's a pretty big job. That's bigger than slightly bigger than Altium.

Mel Renfrow: 21:40

Yeah. So the margin doesn't count until we actually perform perform the work. So you can book it, and that's not what you win off of it after it's

Lukas Long: 21:47

yeah. You just keep securing them, and then you just live off the I don't know, the

Mel Renfrow: 21:52

Turn and burn.

Lukas Long: 21:52

Right. Yeah. Then so I had that one going, and then, I think Ford was the next big one, the Ford, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Those were, sort of a unique situation where they're building the same essentially the same building in 2 different cities. 1 was in Kentucky, 1 was in over in Tennessee.

Lukas Long: 22:09

But for the 1st 6 months, it was basically the same building. Couple different couple differences between the two buildings, but, that didn't start really becoming apparent until probably the, the 60 or 90% set. A little little tweaks here and there. So I was basically working on both of those. And then, you know, after we secured those those projects, which those I think those went on for 10 months, the the whole design assist budgeting, process before we actually got a actual contract for the construction portion.

Lukas Long: 22:38

And then, I think during that time, shortly after the the Stellantis project in in, just north of Indy or Indy, coke in Kokomo, started going. So, you know, all that margin is not specifically from one project. It's from a collection of projects that just happened to be running at the same time. So it's like, you know, best of all worlds, essentially.

Mel Renfrow: 22:59

Perfect storm?

Lukas Long: 23:00

Right. Yeah. They just all hit at the same time. Why don't

Mel Renfrow: 23:02

you talk about the teams? You know, obviously, we recognize, you know, one person, but, obviously, you didn't do it all by yourself. Yeah. So why don't you talk a little bit about the the teams there?

Lukas Long: 23:15

It takes an army. You know, so a couple of months into the Ford job is when we onboarded all of our operations group, which was led by Hunter and Quave and for Fort Tennessee and and Brandon Halpin for, Fort Kentucky, and then a slew of people underneath them. Then, so once they were onboarded, obviously, you know, they were working on the jobs for, know, 6 months or so before they even put a panel in place. So there's a lot of work, on the operation side that goes into these jobs, before you even step foot on-site. Obviously, you know, I don't wanna skip Night Sky.

Lukas Long: 23:48

You know, you got Jason Reiter, Ben Starcher, Tyler Magoo, Matt Schweinfurts. I mean, they're they've been holding down that site for a while. And that's I think that's pretty much wrapped up now. So, they've moved on. But, I mean, there's so many people that go into these these projects and executing the projects.

Lukas Long: 24:06

It it it's a little unfair that you only see my name at the top. Right? But, no. I mean, there's so many great people there.

Mel Renfrow: 24:13

Yeah. And a lot of them, you know, they move to the middle of nowhere. It's not like they build these plants and Yeah.

Lukas Long: 24:20

They pack up and they'll move for a year, 2 years, and, I mean, that's that's their whole life then. You know, like, their whole they move to an area specifically to support a job. You know, that's that's dedication.

Mel Renfrow: 24:31

So, you know, we talked off mic just about relationships too. So how does that work? You know, kinda what's your key to cultivating those relationships? And if you're just you're just meeting someone for the first time and, hey, you're handing, Here's my baby that I've been working on for 6 months or more.

Lukas Long: 24:50

You mean the transition from, like, me to the ops group? Yeah. I mean, that that's, that was that that was always a fun time. The I was actually pretty lucky with the Night Sky Group because, obviously, most of them, most of those people were working on whole team 1. So the sort of the hand off was a lot quicker.

Lukas Long: 25:07

You know, it was basically the same thing as old team 1 just to it's actually flipped. The the whole design was mirrored. So that was a pretty quick transition. You basically just give them the overview of the job, then, they take and they run with it. The 4 jobs is a little bit different.

Lukas Long: 25:23

Most of the operations group had little to no IMP experience, But, obviously, they're they're great at what they do or they wouldn't have been picked for the the project. Right? So, you know, we I think we handed that off or we'd actually didn't hand it off. We had, like, a sort of a kickoff, I think it was, like, in May of 2022. And then for several months, it was just a lot of, them getting familiar with the plans, and then I'd be answering questions.

Lukas Long: 25:50

I was attending, and there's a lot of meetings at the time up in Detroit that they would attend with, but I would usually lead that. And then after a couple months, you know, once they started getting comfortable with the scope and everything, they would just they would take it and they would run with it. So there was a little bit more of a learning curve with that. But, again, that I those group of, not a whole operations group, they're just they're killing it right now.

Mel Renfrow: 26:12

Yeah. It's it's I'm so proud to work here. You know,

Lukas Long: 26:16

when you

Mel Renfrow: 26:16

think about it. So at what point are you you you you handed off and you're gone and or are you still kind of stay plugged in in case there's changes or whatever?

Lukas Long: 26:28

Yeah. Every job's a little bit different. Essentially, I think the ideal, time to sort of cut away is after we get the contract secured. So, typically, we would on these especially these large jobs where we're budgeting at, you know, 4 or 5 times, we'll pick a plan set, you know, the GC and basically say, this is the plan set we're gonna go to contract with. I'll I'll update the proposal, send it off, we'll get a contract.

Lukas Long: 26:54

Usually, from that point on is a good time to let the operations group start with change orders from, like, bulletins and addendums and things of that nature. That's not always the case. You know, sometimes, you know, if there's a really, really large change, I might come in and help out for that, for, like, a week or 2. Other than that, you know, I just, you know, cut them loose so then, if they have any questions, I'm always available. So have

Mel Renfrow: 27:20

you run into any I guess part of this is lessons learned and things like that. Have you can you think of like a big challenge that you've run into and, you know, kinda how you worked your way through it?

Lukas Long: 27:32

Yes. The biggest honestly, the biggest challenge with all these jobs is, well, for me, initially, it was to learn IMP. Right? You know, you go from doing pharmaceutical clean rooms, then you gotta do IMP. You gotta learn you gotta learn the scope.

Lukas Long: 27:45

Mhmm. That's challenge number 1. But then not only me, but a lot of the GCs are unfamiliar with the scope. And then again, some of the PMs will come in unfamiliar with it, which is all fine, but you gotta do a little education for them. Like, this is what, you know, you should be doing.

Mel Renfrow: 27:59

Yeah. This is

Lukas Long: 28:00

what you're showing, but this is what you should be doing. So that's been the biggest challenge, especially with the GC side. I mean, our our, our team always they they pick it up so quick, but the the GC, obviously, they have to answer to to the owner. So, like, anytime you push back and say, maybe the design's not right here, you know, they gotta go to the owner or the architect and say, well, PCI is saying this. What do you wanna do?

Lukas Long: 28:21

Yeah. So the whole education is is is been very challenging.

Mel Renfrow: 28:26

Has there is there anyone here, you know, like you said, that's been helpful for learning the insulated metal panel

Lukas Long: 28:33

portion of it? Yeah. The the Tampa group, you know, they're sort of the leaders in that in that regard. So, I mean, anytime I have a question, typically, they're the people I go to. Ben Stater has been amazing.

Lukas Long: 28:44

Anytime I have questions I mean, he he was on Ultium 1, Ultium 2, lots of experience. So I I lean on him quite a bit, and, he always gets back to me, real quick, and it's it's so appreciated. It lets me keep moving forward.

Mel Renfrow: 28:58

Yeah. You stay on the table. Okay? Right. So thinking about the future, so this is what I've heard.

Mel Renfrow: 29:05

This, you know, word on the street, it's, you know, some people are afraid how long can this go. It and, you know, we've have a niche here. Are you seeing things slowing as far as requests for bids coming in, or do you feel like it's just gonna shift to the next thing, whatever that might be?

Lukas Long: 29:25

It's it's definitely slowed down a little bit. There's obviously, there was a time there where all the Fords were going and Stellantis and then some, you know, Toyota, Panasonic. But I think now that, obviously, a lot of the major, you know, vehicle companies are they have several plants already. Mhmm. I think we're seeing in, Ford, Michigan.

Lukas Long: 29:43

So Ford, Michigan, is gonna be their 4th building. We actually budgeted that one for it's, like, 4 months, I think, all the way through to the, I think it was the IFC set. And then, basically, I was pretty much done. And then Ford announced that they're gonna cut the building in half. So No.

Lukas Long: 30:03

Based on demand. Right? So I think, obviously, that one was affected. So that one's actually just sort of rebooting now. The new 60% set plan comes out next month.

Lukas Long: 30:12

So it's basically start all the whole process over again. So, I mean, I I I think that's probably a good indicator of where the the market is now. They probably got a need they probably got to see some consumer demand before continuing on. Although, we do have several, coming. So they're they're not, like, they're not done yet, but it's probably gonna slow down a little bit.

Mel Renfrow: 30:32

So we need to go out and buy battery powered vehicles to support. Right. Yeah. You heard it here first.

Lukas Long: 30:38

Yeah. Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 30:42

So are you just predom are you are you estimating any of the pharmaceutical stuff at all now? Or you've been you've been kept busy on this. Yeah.

Lukas Long: 30:51

Yeah. Not really. I you know, we have so when I started, Josh was just the the only cleanroom estimator. And then I I took over that for him for it was, like, a year and a half, and then we hired a second estimator. Now we're up to 4 cleanroom estimators.

Lukas Long: 31:06

So they've been largely handling all the clean rooms, and I'm just been focusing on the the battery plants. Obviously, sometimes I'll you know, if they have any questions, I'll help out or if, I did do, like, a quick budget once a couple months ago, but, you know, let them take care of it.

Mel Renfrow: 31:23

Yeah. So starting in 2019, that's right before 1 PCG. So I was gonna ask, you know, how how has 1 PCG affected you, but do you know anything different?

Lukas Long: 31:34

Yeah. Not a whole lot. You know, I, obviously, yeah. Right when I started, it was sort of maybe right when that transition was going to happen or about to happen. You know, Indy is one of those branches that has an interior side and a ISS side in the same building.

Lukas Long: 31:47

So, you know, pre 1 PCG, there was this giant, stone door, you know, segregating the two sides, kinda similar to the, you know, the fellowship trying to enter the, my Mines of Moria.

Mel Renfrow: 31:59

You shall not pass. Right. Yeah.

Lukas Long: 32:01

Yeah. I didn't know the ISS word for, for friends, so I was unable to enter. But yeah. No. Post one one PCG, obviously, that that door has been knocked down, and, there's no orcs or trolls over there.

Lukas Long: 32:11

Just some really good people.

Mel Renfrow: 32:13

Yeah.

Lukas Long: 32:14

So yeah. I mean, I don't have a lot of context for for that, for pre pre one PCG.

Mel Renfrow: 32:19

So you're probably the first person that we've had in the studio that, you know, hadn't worked here that saw the difference. So Yeah. In your mind, you're like, yeah, it's great.

Lukas Long: 32:29

Yeah. It's fine.

Mel Renfrow: 32:29

It works. It works perfectly.

Lukas Long: 32:31

Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 32:33

So when it comes to your work and what you do, what gives you the most fulfillment? Like, what do you like doing the most?

Lukas Long: 32:41

Well, it's not too exciting, but, so the every time I come across a repetitive task, I like to find ways in Excel to make it a lot faster. So, you know, it's usually on my own time. Right?

Mel Renfrow: 32:54

Like Personal challenge.

Lukas Long: 32:55

Yeah. Yeah. I'll make it a spreadsheet that I'll spend a day working on it, but it'll save me 5 minutes doing that task. I'm gonna be super excited.

Mel Renfrow: 33:04

And now you know how to do the thing you just learned, taught yourself. Right. Is there, is there anything that you're just like, I have to shut the door and really concentrate to do this thing because it's not I don't really enjoy it as much.

Lukas Long: 33:18

No. I, the only time I really have to shut my door, not talk to people I usually, when when people email me or call me and they have a question, I'll just drop what I'm doing and help them. But the only time I wouldn't do that is if I'm in a time crunch, and I got something due the next day or the week, and I just have a a bunch of work to get done. Other than that, no. Everything's you kinda get used to it.

Mel Renfrow: 33:43

So if you how do you take the numbers out of it? Because one one cool hey. Being an estimator is ongoing ups, downs. You know? It's like gambling.

Mel Renfrow: 33:54

You but the cool thing about it is you have something on a spreadsheet, a number at the bottom that you can see how, you know, quote, successful you've been for the year.

Lukas Long: 34:03

Yeah. If

Mel Renfrow: 34:04

you take that away, take the numbers away, how do you define success?

Lukas Long: 34:09

You know, I guess one way of looking at success is, keeping our crews busy locally. That's always good. Right? You wanna keep people employed. So, that's probably factor number 1.

Lukas Long: 34:19

You know, when if you are looking at the numbers, it it's actually funny. You could you could say the more money you make, you know, the more successful you are. But, I've actually thought about this quite a bit. If you're an estimator and you bid a job at 15% margin and you end up making 25, 30%, well, maybe you didn't do a good job estimating the project. So, you know, so maybe there's something there if you're if you're within, like, 2 or 3% of your your bid, maybe that's true success at what you do.

Mel Renfrow: 34:49

That's nice. Yeah. I could win a lot of projects. Right? But that doesn't mean we'd make any money.

Mel Renfrow: 34:55

Yeah. Any advice for anyone that's just starting out or maybe somebody that's trying to decide between project management and and estimating, like

Lukas Long: 35:04

As far as advice goes, I think the number one thing is you just can't be afraid to ask questions. That's how you learn. Right? You gotta ask questions constantly. You know, why are you doing it that way?

Lukas Long: 35:16

What is this thing? What is why are we doing this, type of thing? You know, everything that you do in the day to day tasks, you know, just because you're performing the task doesn't mean you understand it, so you need to understand it. Right? So you need to ask.

Lukas Long: 35:28

And even if you think you know everything, I mean, you need to keep asking. I mean, like, the PMs at these jobs, I'll ask them a question. You know? And a couple months later, I'll ask them again just to see if anything's changed. Right?

Lukas Long: 35:41

Because everything's always evolving. So I think that's obviously the the most important thing you gotta do is just don't be afraid to learn. Don't be afraid to ask people questions. I mean, estimating can be a very isolating experience. You just you get the plans, you put out a number, you you send out the proposal, and then you just move on to the next one.

Lukas Long: 36:00

So you gotta make sure you stay engaged.

Mel Renfrow: 36:02

Yeah. That's really good. And and also understanding kinda what you're saying is you're asking questions because how does this impact the next thing you're not just living in your bubble? Like Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really, really good advice.

Mel Renfrow: 36:15

Any other messages you'd like to relay?

Lukas Long: 36:17

Yeah. I mean, I guess, obviously, I I appreciate everything, the operations team does on these projects and everybody behind the scene scenes, administrators, everything. And, you know, people always answer my questions. I I ask a lot of questions all the time. So I would say if anybody has any questions for me, don't be afraid to reach out.

Lukas Long: 36:36

Just shoot me an email. But, a lot of people actually have trouble, spelling my first name, so I I will just spell out my my email for you. So, you know, again, it's first name dot last name@pcg.com. It's gonna be Lucas, and that's spelled, josh, dotlong atpcg.com. You send me as many emails as you want.

Lukas Long: 37:00

Just make sure you spell that first name right.

Mel Renfrow: 37:02

Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. That's a really weird way to pronounce Lucas, but I like

Lukas Long: 37:06

it. Yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 37:08

I like it. Okay. Really quick. Just fun questions. I ask this almost, everyone.

Mel Renfrow: 37:13

What was your first concert?

Lukas Long: 37:15

I think the first one was maybe back in might have been middle school. I think we're on vacation in Wyoming. I think it's Cheyenne had a, like, a rodeo days or something. So, I think it was Chris Cagle open for Brad Paisley. That's the first concert I remember.

Lukas Long: 37:29

Nice.

Mel Renfrow: 37:30

How old were you?

Lukas Long: 37:32

How old were you in middle school? 12, maybe?

Mel Renfrow: 37:34

Yeah. Yeah. What was the latest one?

Lukas Long: 37:37

I went to Lollapalooza in Chicago last summer and saw Billie Eilish. She's amazing.

Mel Renfrow: 37:42

Very yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen her yet. But so, are you binge watching anything right now? Are you a TV watcher?

Lukas Long: 37:50

Oh, yeah. I I love TV, movies, everything. You know, I've kinda moved on to anime, lately. So I know that's well, not a lot of people watch anime, but the stories are so much better than live action these days. They can do so much more when you're when it's a cartoon.

Lukas Long: 38:07

Right?

Mel Renfrow: 38:07

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. CGI. I don't mean yeah.

Mel Renfrow: 38:11

All of that stuff. Yeah. That's very fun. Do you read?

Lukas Long: 38:14

A little bit. I I usually read, the same things over and over again. So, I'm actually in the I'm about a third of the way through Dune Messiah, which is the second book of the Dune series. I read all all those back in high school and

Mel Renfrow: 38:28

Those suckers

Lukas Long: 38:30

are yeah. Oh, yeah. They're dense, and, it's sort of tough to read too. But the movie they came out with a couple years ago was phenomenal. Unfortunately, it was only part 1 or was only half the first book.

Lukas Long: 38:42

So that I actually went after that came out. I reread the first book, and then, now I'm reading the second book. And

Mel Renfrow: 38:47

Well, the second part, this movie, is is it coming out this summer?

Lukas Long: 38:51

I think it comes out in March. Okay. So it should wrap up book 1.

Mel Renfrow: 38:56

So we know where, you'll be in March. Yeah. Right.

Lukas Long: 39:00

Yeah. Okay.

Mel Renfrow: 39:01

Well, thank you for joining us. Really appreciate, having you here.

Lukas Long: 39:04

Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it.