PCG Connect

So here's a fun fact I didn't find out for a long time. So everybody calls you Dave because, you know, Dave, that's what your email is set up as, but you actually go by David. So when you started here in 1995, they basically renamed you. Like, this 4th, you will be named Dave.

Hey, everyone.

It's Mel. On today's 1 PCG episode, which, by the way, it's our last episode before the official takeoff on October 1st, we're gonna sit down with not 1, but 2 special guests, and we'll be talking about the potential challenges and opportunities when it comes to the 1 PCG transition. From joint ventures into, overcoming some supply chain challenges, there's a lot of great content in this episode that you won't wanna miss. So let's jump right in and get to it. So welcome back.

It's been a while since we've had a one one PCG podcast. It's been a couple of months. The last time, you heard from me, we were talking to Ron Stafford and Rick Sutphin about product lines. The topic for today is challenges. So when we very first talked to Jason and Pat, we've gone through like, hey.

Here are all the benefits of 1 PCG. But today, we're gonna talk about the potential challenges that we're going to be having or might already be encountering or might in the future. So I've invited 2 guests. And the reason why I've asked them first of all, they're both relatively new to the leadership group, so I think they have a a fresh perspective. They were part of this these strategy conversations with kind of the birth of the idea was born.

You have long careers with the organization. You have a good mix of what I would say, like, strategic vision, financial awareness, and then just an understanding of how things actually get done. Like, we always have the textbook ways, but then how this stuff actually gets done. And combined, about 42 years of experience between the 2 of you. So today's guest, with no further ado, we have, mister David Gas is joining us remotely from Seattle.

Hi there, Dave.

Hi there, Mel. Thank you.

And, Brett Dahmer, you're in the house.

Yes, ma'am.

It's good to have you both here. And it's great looking at Dave. We can see Dave outside his window. It's all sunny and nice and ready to go take a walk out there.

It's always like that in Seattle.

I know that's not true. No. It's not true. I wish it was. I'd live out there if it was always like that.

So David, I'm gonna start with you. Just getting a little bit of background here. So as of October 1st, you will be the senior vice president over the northwest region. How pumped are you for it?

The transition and and moving up to, to take on that larger role has been pretty exciting. The the build up this past year has been, it's been really exciting and and, encouraging getting the teams together and and, there's a lot of positive momentum.

So you started back here as January 1, 95. Is that correct?

Yeah. I interned actually in 94.

Where at? Which which so tell us, where'd you go to school and kinda how did you find out about PCG, and how did you wind up here?

I started, through Oregon State University construction engineering program, and interned my one of my senior years, with performance contracting, working with Von Grubaugh out of the Portland office. First project was the the, Intel Aloha Fab 15, so kind of on the cleanroom side of the business. And then worked my worked my senior year, doing payroll and labor control, as an intern during the course of that senior year and then hired on full time thereafter.

Very cool. And so when you hired on, were you on, in the Portland office?

Yeah. Running out of the Portland office, doing the cleanroom side of our business. Kind of exciting. I've I've worked every role within the from an operation side within PCI from that internship. Every role with the exception of superintendent and preconstruction manager.

So it's been been quite a ride.

Now who else? You had a couple other people that were, in school with you or y'all started about the same time. Was Ron Stafford one of those?

Yep. Ron Stafford started the the year before me. And him and I had both gone to the Oregon State University in the construction program.

Okay. Well and then I'm gonna switch over, and we have Brett. Brett's in the house here. So as of October 1st, you are gonna be the vice president of operations finance. Is that correct?

That's what they tell me. Yeah.

And it's a new title?

Yeah. I think so. So I think this used to be kind of the operations controller rule

Uh-huh.

That's been filled couple different points in time, in the past. But yeah.

And you have you just had a workiversary a couple days ago.

I did.

16 years? 16 years. Yeah. Sweet 16, baby.

Yeah. I didn't think I would do anything for 16 years, but, it came and went quickly and, looking forward to the future.

So you've always worked in construction. You've always been around it your whole life. So for those of you that don't know, you've heard of Dahmer Brothers, which was I worked for Dahmer Brothers. It was an acquisition, in the year 2000 for PCI.

Yep. Yeah. So I, I guess I tell everybody I grew up construction. It's really, really all I know. My my dad was one of the original Donner Brothers.

And when I was a senior in high school in 2,000, they sold the business to PCI. At that time, I was just graduating high school and getting ready to go to college. So at that point in time, I didn't really have any connection to the business. But, fast forward to 2006, our paths crossed again, and I had an opportunity to come to the PCI.

Yeah. And you started an audit. Right?

Yep. It was, it was a little bit of a short run. I think somewhere around 9, 12 months, something like that. And I had an opportunity to go be the controller for Boston, which at the time I I thought was really cool until I found out what what Boston was to the organization. So, it was kinda like getting the black sheep, of the group, but turned out to be a great opportunity.

Went to work for Brandon Becker at the time. Mhmm. Learned a lot from him. Learned a lot about, the interior side of the business. A lot of the construction piece I knew.

But turns out the degree I had in accounting, I didn't know so much about that and how that came together. But, yeah, spent a lot of time over the last, yeah, 16 years working with businesses really coast to coast now at this point, primarily focused on the interior side. But, this last year started working more with, with Sean and and some of the ISS guys and bringing those two worlds together. We've we really kind of started working with our group as one group, you know, for the last couple years. So

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's I just think it's really, exciting. One of the reasons I wanted to have you both of you in here to talk about it. You when did you officially start on the leadership group, Brett?

So it was, well, it's gonna go on 2 years ago.

2 years 2 years ago. And then how about you, David?

I've been guesting here since, about the 1st of the year, maybe a little bit before.

Okay.

Last October, probably.

Yeah. So I think from from my perspective, it's I think you have a unique, fresh set of eyes on things and kind of looking behind the curtain a little bit on how decisions are made or strategies are formed. And I know, you know, both Pat and well, everybody that's been in here talking about 1 PCG has been talking about they wanna get it right and do no harm. And, you know, we have something great here and we don't want to mess things up. I think the thing about the challenges, when I was preparing for today, I think these challenges aren't because of 1 PCG.

I think they were gonna be challenges either way. And, actually, the formation or the idea of 1 PCG was in response to some of these challenges that we knew we were gonna have coming up. So I just wanted to make that really clear to people. These aren't challenges because we decided to move forward with 1 PCG. They were gonna be challenges regardless.

Do you guys see that the same way, or am I kind of, out in left field?

Hey. I think you're right on with that. And that's really I think as as I heard preliminary conversations about this several years ago, and some of these ideas were starting to come together. That was a lot of what, you know, the leadership team of that time were trying to get in front of. And, you know, Jason was right in the middle of all that with, hey, just seeing seeing these multiple things that we needed to address that were coming down the tracks out of us.

And at the time, they were maybe 5 to 7 years out. But now they're right here in front of us. And I know we're gonna talk about some of that today. So

Yeah. How do you how do you see it, Dave?

I see it really the same way. It's a kind of an evolution that it needed to happen, bringing our groups together just with the growth out in front of us, the ability to share resources and and take the the best talent that we can and cross train it and and build as many leaders as possible, that have both sides vision and ability to influence both sides of the business is important.

Yeah. That's what you touched on there. Really, we talked about that was the whole that was the original catalyst for 1 PCG was looking at, the retirements that we had by 2025 and then also how to transfer all of that institutional knowledge from people that have been around for a long time. But if you could talk a little bit about that. What I had is there's 12 VP positions or above that we're gonna retire over the next few years.

And then, to go back to old stats, this might have changed, but currently, there are 51 positions, GM or above, that by 2027, 17 of those would be gone. So, really, what this is about is preparing people, for leadership roles in a much shorter time span. Do you see that still being a challenge and then backfilling those roles as people get promoted up? So what what is your take on those challenges and kinda what are we doing to prepare for them?

Well, I think to start with, yeah, your your stats, I think, are spot on. And we anticipate that that might even you know, those retirement dates may stack up quicker as people maybe get to a number that's important to them sooner or later or, you know, life events happen. You just never know. But but, yeah, we as we were going through the exercise of of building out the org charts as that, how could this actually work? I bet you we had a 100 different revisions.

And, you know, you start with with 23 and you try to work your way through the years. And, we were just really struggling to kinda get all the parts and pieces in the right place at the right time. And finally, Pat and I were like, alright. Let's start with the end in mind. What do we want it to be?

And, and we started actually with 2026 and then worked our way backward through a lot of retirements. And, yeah, you get to that 2026, and there's 17 boxes across the bottom of the page of people that will be exiting the organization for retirement and, you know, going on to the next chapter of their life. Mhmm. And you realize just, hey, it's not even just GMs. It's the next level down and it's underneath them.

So, hey. Going through the the talent calibration exercises and things like that, I've just, put more and more importance on that type of strategic planning, not only at the high level. Because if we wait to the high level, we've already missed our opportunity to build the bench, you know, underneath them. So

Yeah. And one thing that, Brett, you're gonna be one of the people that are still here. You and Jason as opposed to, you know, like, Dave, you're what what's your year as of now? We're not gonna hold you to it. Is it 26 or 27?

25. What? Nope. That's not allowed. So 25.

So here you're sitting and you're trying to make it right for the next generation.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, you know, to kinda expand on what Brett was saying there, it really is compounded by there's not only those those positions that are available for the for the work that we know of today, but we're growing in acquisitions and and bringing on new businesses, and and you're gonna need some leadership for to take over those as well.

So what's your advice, Dave? One thing you're really good at, you know, the position I'm in, we talk quite a bit. I you're one of the best people in the company on staying on top of the development of your team. You have a really awesome spreadsheet for succession that you're looking at. So what advice would you have for someone that's looking to move up in the organization?

They keep hearing like, hey, there's a lot of opportunities, shorter, you know, time span. So what would your advice be for people that wanna take advantage of those opportunities?

I would say my advice would be to to look at the the peers and the and the team that is surrounding you and look at, you know, the best way for to clear a path for you to move up is is to have a really strong team that you can lean on and and that's pushing you up to that next position because of the strength and depth that you're building of those around you. You you can't really move up to the next position unless they're pushing you out of the way. So really supporting your team, making sure you have the right players on the bus, and, you know, encouraging and mentoring and training them at each level so that you can, you know, step up to that next level with some confidence that that, that they're gonna be able to do it better than, better than you did.

Yeah. That's one thing. John McCleary, my predecessor, always said, like, hey, who who train your replacement. So, you know, they're comfortable being moved up. Do you think Brett, you just touched on this.

Do you think there's gonna be any, early retirements in reaction to 1 PCG?

So far we haven't heard a lot of that or at least that I'm aware of. It certainly might change some people's minds as to, hey, what they're, I guess, wanting to do in the last few years, maybe of their career here at PCI. Hopefully, that's not the case, but, I can certainly see that, you know, maybe someone say, hey. I'm not don't know if I really wanna navigate all this change in my last 12 or 24 months. I mean, that's that's just kind of the human piece of us sometimes.

So, but no. So far, we haven't we haven't really seen or heard that.

K. I was curious about that. That's something early on someone asked me. I was like, I I don't really know if and I hadn't heard of anyone yet. So I was just curious about that.

Another thing, you know, we talked about one of the challenges are, you know, disruption and there's a lot of moving parts to this and so if people get confused as to what we're trying to do, if there's too many things, if there's a lack of clarity, then people kind of get paralyzed where they can't move forward because they don't know what that action should look like. So we've tried to be keep the changes to a minimum, be really clear on the direction. I'd like to hear from both of you, like, what do you see as some of potential disruptions, over the next couple of years that we're gonna have? And how is 1 PCG gonna help us navigate those?

You know, one of the things we're really seeing, and it's not a new thing, but, really a redistribution across the country as to to where the work is. And, a few quick stats, for maybe those that aren't as close to it, but in 2012, 65% of our backlog was within 50 miles of the Pacific Ocean, all up and down the West Coast. And, 50% of it was actually in the state of California. So 50% of all the work we did in the organization was in the state of California. 2016, that changes significantly and California sees a big dip.

Pacific Northwest goes up though. So you still see a large concentration of our backlog on that West Coast. And today, though, for the first time, we're actually seeing a movement away from that. Right? As political environments and local state governments and all that change and maybe aren't as conducive to businesses, we are starting to see a move to the Midwest and to Texas and other parts of the country.

So for the first time, the West Coast has a smaller percentage of our backlog than the rest of the country. So, interesting things like that. And why does that matter to us? Right? We have some pretty mature, big, well resourced businesses on the West Coast.

We're we're very capable and built to do big work out there. You know, Dave's group's really led the way in a lot of that stuff. But as you start taking on significantly sized projects in markets where maybe the biggest job we've done is 8, 10, 12, $15,000,000, and we're looking at projects that are now 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars, it's a it's a whole different animal. I think those are challenges for us that we're trying to get well positioned for and and build the bench for. But you talk about disruptions and and and just curve balls come into our industry and to our organization.

I think these are some of the more subtle ones that kinda happen in the landscape that all of a sudden you look back and you're like, wow. What happened? Everything changed, you know, really quickly on us. So

Yeah. It's pretty it's pretty cyclical. And you were talking about it's just like, hey. These big corporations as they're looking for places to have their headquarters or put a lot of resources in. What you're saying is some local, you know, the regulations and they're it's not appealing to the big corporations.

It's too difficult to build there, essentially. Yeah.

Yeah. Or the tax situations or, you know, whatever the case might be. So

Yeah. Are you are you seeing that too, Dave?

Yeah. Yeah. I think so. And and also along the West Coast where where the work has been so strong for for a number of years, we still have some great opportunities out in front of us. But through some of the through the growth, across the country and some of the other areas, there's now opportunities for for some travel and some, you know, combined mega job type of opportunities to to share some resources.

And and some of the beauty of that is just the kind of a cross pollination of best practices across the country. So there's also some opportunity that comes with the kind of moving parts and changing environments. The more cross pollination of best lessons learned and best practices is is, I think, only gonna benefit us.

Yeah. So this isn't alarmist. This isn't like, hey. If you live in California, you need to start searching for homes in the Midwest. But it's just when you look at the size of the projects, like these really big battery plants that we have and things like that, they're just they're not being built in these major western cities.

Yeah. Absolutely. And it's actually a really good thing for the organization. I think it makes us a lot more diversified and healthy. And it's not that California's backlog has gone down.

It's grown 3 times over that same period. It's just that as we've grown as an organization, we're seeing a more balanced spread of work really across the country rather than just it being hyper centered or, you know, hyper focused along that West Coast. So

Yeah. Exactly. So what what other things I'll I'll toss this one to you, Dave. So what other potential, you know, disruptions do you see over the next couple years here?

I think there's a, potential disruption just in the in the change of what scopes of work are available to us, and and we've been touching a little bit on the the battery plants and the, data centers and the the tech work. You're seeing a a lot of changing from maybe, condo towers or switching back to apartments and or, office towers are are the development, investment is kind of pulling back a little bit and pausing, just trying to understand what the climate's gonna look like with with people coming back to work at the the Amazon facilities and the Microsoft facilities and Google and so forth. Just trying to understand what that's gonna look like over the next year or 2. We may see just our focus in different types of of work market segments are are kinda switching and changing, and we need to be be willing and and able to look for where the where it's moving to so we can get ahead of it and support those markets that are coming up while the other ones may be shrinking a little bit. Be very adaptive.

Yeah. And, you know, another thing, election year coming up in 24, which I know are always you know, we're always a little bit more conservative. It seems like maybe this this time around will be even more so. Do you see that the same way?

Yeah. I mean, hey. With fiscal policy and, you know, regardless of how you line up politically, there's gonna be a lot of people watching to see see what's gonna happen and how the economy is gonna react and what the Fed's gonna do. And, is that gonna slow down the flow of money for for construction spend and CapEx spending? We don't know.

But, right now, you know, hey, I think we're doing a pretty good job of loading up for what was probably gonna be a contracting market in our core markets at least. And, like Dave mentioned, we're gonna be going after some pretty significant joint venture opportunities, on some mega projects that are kind of a no man's land, that are really gonna boost our backlog. And I think really hedge our bet against any contraction that we're gonna probably experience in our local metro areas.

Yeah. And I know a lot of ranches do government work and federal work, especially marine, and I know that their backlog is very dependent on the budget that they that they get. So, we're always a little bit more conservative as we head into those things. Do you see any other contractions in local markets on the horizon?

Yeah. I mean, we definitely have. Certainly, California has been probably most heavily impacted from COVID. That's still very real there. I would say Chicago was maybe a close second, and Seattle was was heavily impacted as well.

The last half of twenty twenty two, we've really seen Chicago come back online. So hopefully, you know, the Bay Area and some markets like that also kinda follow suit. But, hey. Right now, like Dave mentioned, nobody's it might be a minute before we go build another high rise office building with, you know, the the, remote landscape or remote work landscape and and how people are navigating that in these big cities.

Yeah. I can't even follow all the news stories. It's like 1 week, they're halting all construction. The next week, we're back on. We're bringing people back and forth.

So it's just kinda like buckle up and ride the wave. It seems like everything is cyclical in the business that we have. What about the talent? I mean, as far as recruiting, and are we getting the talent that we need? Or do do you think that's kind of another I know that here from the corporate office, we've seen there for a while.

It was really hard to even get people that were looking for work. And then that seems to have rectified a little bit where positions aren't open quite as long. But are you seeing that out in the branches as well, both for salaried and and hourly positions? Is there going to be, you know, what they call the war for talent out there?

I think there I think it definitely is. I I do agree that it does seem to maybe soften the last, you know, 90 days or something to that effect. We went through the exercise of business planning, really just wrapped it up this last last week. And through that process, we've identified a 132 hires that we will be looking to place over the next 12 months. So, while we're always wanting more people, I would tell you, I think we're approaching it with the longest look that we have had.

And at least in my experience, you know, it used to just be how many interns you want, how many APs do you need. Yeah. And that was kind of this, you know, hand to mouth reaction every 6 months. And, and that's not a reflection of of our our HR efforts. It was really more just how the the branches viewed kind of their pipeline and intake and what they needed to, sustain their business.

But I think now we're we're looking a lot further down the road and a lot more positions, seeing like you said, Dave's really good at this. It comes very natural to him. Not all our businesses are that way. Right? So we're trying to say, okay.

Well, hey. In 2025, we expect that this is gonna happen. How do we get a few extra folks in the in the building today to have us ready for that opportunity? So.

So that 132, that's both like existing backfill positions and then just new new things that we're, you know, gearing up?

Yeah. I don't know the exact percentage. I would say that 80% of them are probably new additional ads, not necessarily a replacement.

Wow. Well, I can remember, you know, the drive for 2025 and some of the numbers that were shared then and it was across the board and everywhere from, you know, like journeyman on up. Like, how many positions we're gonna need if we continue with our projected growth. So we've kind of already blown that. We've already hit our 2025 goals in a lot of areas.

So yay to us.

Yeah. Without a doubt. I mean, you know, I I know that from an hourly standpoint, we're looking at probably adding several 1,000 field crew, you know, over the course of the next 12 months to ramp up for some of this big work. And as some of, some of the stuff that we already have on backlog comes online, it's gonna be, you know, significant increases in manpower.

Well and like you said, kind of transitioning into the next challenge here, but a lot of this new work coming up on these mega projects out in the middle I can't remember. You didn't you didn't say BFE. That's mine. But just, like, out in the middle of nowhere, there's a lot of opportunities there for people, but that's also one of the challenges might be territory concerns. So the in the past, kind of the the way that it went, it's like, hey.

If you have a customer and there is an opportunity and you have the resources to fill it, you went for it. Right? Yeah. And that's and that's changing now. So we we're trying to come up with, a more systematic approach to how that works.

So have you seen any to date territory concerns where people are chasing the same work where you've kind of had to say, like, well, you can't pursue that. Maybe this person over here should. Or how is that playing out? And do you think it's going to be a bigger concern in the future?

I think these mega jobs are actually helping us, from a standpoint of not any one branch can can take on the whole project. So that's given us an opportunity to to bring multiple branches together and and kinda share in that. And and, so I think that's actually helped us and has heightened the awareness of of the importance of kind of over communicating. I think Sean Burnham's done a great job with that on the on the IMP side of having because IMP, a lot of those jobs, insulated metal panel kind of exterior of the buildings and so forth, those can be in a lot of different remote locations. And if we're not over communicating who's looking at them and kind of creating a master opportunity list and making sure that only one branch is is putting the estimate in, but pulling in resources from multiple branches if needed to make sure that we can cover it.

I think that's all kind of, the the mega jobs have have helped us. And, that over communication is gonna be really important so that we don't have competing branches bidding against each other.

Yeah. So is there anything in the works kinda make the process a little bit smoother?

We've looked at a few technologies, that would better help us track the opportunities and and loop in the right people at the right time. Right now, I'd I'd say it's a little ways out still. The the technology is just not really quite there for the enterprise. I think really the piece that Dave hit on that I think is most important is we've asked the operations for over communication. You know, we're having tech calls all the time where, gosh, I don't even know how many people are on call.

I would guess maybe 30 people from branches all across the country are hearing about the clean room opportunities, the data center opportunities. Yeah. I think INPs now become a part of that to where everyone kinda knows who's doing what, what the opportunity is, what we're gonna strategically target. And I think that's helping. Yeah.

But, yeah, we're gonna have a few growing pains there without a doubt as as we kinda learn to work together and and just juggle that.

So Another thing that came out of that real quick, Mel, is is we're doing a resource loader just to make sure, that we look at all of the the different crew needs, craft needs from across the country on these on the jobs so that we don't overload ourselves to an uncomfortable level, because I think the resources are getting getting people into the field to to execute the work that we're chasing is gonna be critical. And, just being aware of of the potential and how and where these jobs stack up from a schedule standpoint to where we don't get over our skis and commit to jobs that, would put us over our ability to execute work.

Yeah. You don't wanna put all your eggs in one basket. You just look at talent. You have one little schedule shift, and then all of a sudden, the PM that you thought was gonna be able to transfer from one project to another can't. So then what do you do?

Yeah. I think that's interesting. Speaking of joint ventures, so some some cool stats here to share. So, in 2010, 3 the 3 original kind of joint venture branches, so five 49, 551, and 556, mister Controller?

Yeah. So that was 2 interior businesses and an ISS business, Austin, Indy, and Washington DC.

Okay. So, collectively, this is in 2010, they did 30 $6,000,000 in revenue and made about 6.2 in op income. Right? Yep. Yep.

And so, and none of those 3 were in stretch bonus that year in 2010. So flash forward to 2022, those same three businesses did 312,000,000 in revenue. So that's an increase of 276,000,000 and 64,000,000 in op income. So that's, what, 10 time earning growth?

Yeah. And I think that's the interesting thing that we've seen with, I guess, kind of this case study, if you will, on the joint ventures is, it just creates this culture where, again, these were not impressive businesses in 2010. I mean, not to be negative. Guys. They they would have been maybe at the bottom of the pack for what we were doing as an organization.

Bottom half for sure. Small businesses, small markets. But, yeah, they figured out how to work together. And, you know, guys like Dennis Pee or or kinda right in the center of that. And, you know, later, they've they've invested in some business development together.

They've done a lot of different things. And even as impressive as our total company growth has been, we've grown about 4 x in earnings since that same point in time. This this kind of small subset of JV has grown 10 x, you know, basically doubled the pace of our own company's growth. So, I think there's a lot more of that to be had. You know, how can we continue to leverage that to to go into things together and not just for this long term ability to to to always joint venture, but, hey.

How do we how do we support each other? How do we teach each other a new product line? You know, I think that's something that the Tampa Group's done a really great job of. We would not be in the position we are today to take on some of these mega jobs we're talking about had they not kinda opened the book and said, hey, we'll we'll help on these first couple and and show you the way. And now they've turned out to be a great partner on on some of this huge work.

But, again, prior to partnership, their individual ability to do some of this probably, you know, it wouldn't have been able to take this on alone.

Yeah. You would have been turning down work just because, hey, we can't get to it or we don't have people in that area or whatever it might be.

Yeah. Well and and you think back even 5 years ago. Right? Had had Tampa not raised their hand and and kinda shown us the way at Tesla, when we had that big IMP job. Would we even be in a place where we'd add confidence as an organization to take on 100 of $1,000,000 of IMP work now on some of these automotive campuses?

Just probably not a risk we would have taken.

Yeah. It's it's really funny how just one decision, you know, the butterfly effect where it just like True. Moves forward there. So thinking you know, we talked about joint ventures. So when it comes to hitting your plan and getting, you know, stretch bonus, and that's what everyone is, you know, trying to get to, what happens when subbing it out internally costs more than it would be to go into an outside sub when you're trying to hit those numbers?

Yeah. That's a good, that's a good thought. And this certainly happens, and it's something we're up against at times in our businesses. I think there's a couple of things to consider. 1 is, hey, as you're as you're bidding to someone upstream of you, whether that's, you know, from an insulation scope to a drywall scope or whatever that looks like, certainly, there's that that customer service piece and and a need to be competitive in the market.

I think at all different layers of the organization, we experience that, and that's not unique to internal work versus going to work in a in a more public way. So I think there's that piece. Right? You still have to be competitive. You still have to service the customer.

You still have to provide a number even maybe when you don't necessarily want the job because because that's what you do to service the client. I think the other piece that maybe is sometimes a little more difficult is making the right decision for the total versus the right decision for this individual or for this an estimator number or for a branch. And, that corporate citizenship piece, I think, is something we we've come a long way on. But I think it's something we'll have to can continue to be aware of. And, you know, to to 1, give give people performing other scopes inside our organization a fair shot, if not, even maybe a preferred shot to get that work.

Well, and to learn.

To learn

more and maybe that would lower the number. Any thoughts on that, Dave?

No. I I think Brett hit it really well. I I do think if if we are if we do end up going with a, you know, a subcontractor or whatever, just paying attention to how they can potentially be lower than us, and through you know, pay attention from a lessons learned standpoint because I bet on PCI all day long. And so if they've got a strategic way that they're doing it, that we can learn from, great. But but all day long, I pick PCI if if it's possible.

If I'm gonna, base it on reliability, safety, and, you know, all of those things that that, characteristics that I look for on a on a solid project to reduce our risk, I'd bet on us.

Well said. Okay. So one more thing I wanna talk about is as you know potential disruption or a moving part, things that are, you know, being accomplished in different ways moving forward. It has to do with like supply chain and specialty vendors because we're using a lot more specialty vendors, and a lot more things are coming from overseas. So, sir, to you, David, what do you see the challenges there, and how can they be circumvented?

With the climate overseas right now, as far as trying to get the materials here, the specialty items, the the we're we're unable to, a lot of times, to lock in our pricing on on the the delivery of those materials, and we don't really have the control of when we get them. So trying to find a way to spread that, risk with the owner and the general contractor is really important to to mitigate the potential escalation from a a load or a container coming from overseas that might have been quoted at at bid time at $9,000 a container, and now they're they're charging us and holding us hostage at 25 to $30,000 a container, just positioning ourselves to where, that's not all on us because we have no control over it due to the the the economic environment that we're in.

So when

does that get addressed? Is it at the bid time? Is it when the contract comes?

It's at at bid time and the proposal, and and contract negotiation, just making sure that we hold our ground and and protect ourselves.

Okay. So that's something new we didn't really have to concern ourselves with, you know, 2, 3 years ago.

Yeah. Without a doubt. I mean, we've we've, over the last probably 12 to 24 months, really been impacted by this more than than I think we probably ever have been in the company's history, at least that I'm aware of. So, some some really interesting things that, you know, again, kind of perfect storm of bad events in some cases, and, we've learned some lessons through it and and, trying to put in some some curbs to help us manage that better in the future.

So one of the last challenges I wanna talk about is and it has to do with joint ventures and all this kind of bringing it all together is the importance of building teams. Whether that's, you know, within the new regions, I know all of the senior VPs, you had town halls, and this was just basically, like, so you could get to know the new teams and see that. But it's also not just from the leader down, but it's also the teams learning how to work together. So, Dave, I'd like to hear from you. Like, what was your experience?

So you you led a town hall, and then you've also been, you know, you worked in Portland for a really long time. You had the people that worked with you every day that knew how you kind of vibed and what your expectations were, and then you moved up to Seattle into, you know, a new group where you knew those people, but a new group. So kinda what are the keys to success there?

I I just circle back on the on the town halls. It was pretty an exciting opportunity to to get to know everybody. But but we had, in the northwest and and region in particular, we had we had kinda started that a few years ago, through our safety summits, and and they were instrumental in bringing the groups together, ISS and and interiors, to do these on a quarterly basis, focusing on safety. And that brought the the GMs and the ops managers, superintendents, the safety engineers, all together with kinda one focus just on safety. So we had started this process really 3, 4 years ago, and and so it's kind of a natural transition.

And and I think that next step, the next phase is, you know, where can we share some resources and and from a project engineer, project management? If we've got if we've got a project that the PCI scaffold is on and, you know, the fire stop, or or duct installation, or or the acoustical ceilings and drywall, we have we're 1 we're 1 PCG. Our customer is looking at us as as one PCI. We have PCI on our vest regardless of where we come from. How do we start sharing resources and and having some efficiency on those jobs and cross training our PEs and so forth.

And that may be 2 or 3 years down the road, but it's a great vision on on, bringing the groups together and and sharing resources.

I love that. It's it's kind of like the one PCG customer experience that it's it's uniform no matter if it's a traditional, you know, where you have a prime and a subcontract where you just happen to be on the same job to, like, one of these mega projects from the customer standpoint. It should be the same experience either way where they have one point of contact and and things like that. I I think that's a really good vision for the company to have. What does Brett, you've had talk about working with new teams and getting you know, working with new people and just kind of learning how to collab because you've you've had that experience where, okay, all of a sudden you're the new controller of a branch and you have to walk in.

Like, what are some of the challenges that can happen in those situations?

You know, honestly, my experience has always been, really good. I enjoy working with new teams. So maybe that makes me a little weird, but it's an opportunity to just have new relationships with with really good people. Like I said, I spent most of my time on the interior side, but, always had a great experience meeting those those folks. And, I had the opportunity to go out to California, to the to the regional, I guess, business planning meeting in July and didn't have a lot of experience.

That's probably the businesses I'm least familiar with, both interior and ISS. And honestly, you know, you know, you sit down at the table and got to hang out with guys like Graham and Mike Curtain and Kimber and, get to know those guys. I mean, great teams, great people. So I think, hey, our culture runs across both divisions. Our culture doesn't stop at the division lines.

Great people on both sides of the fence, and I'm glad that fence is gonna be going away. But, hey, I think developing the relationships with people, getting to know them, getting to understand what motivates them, and and figuring out how to be a part of that to help make their day, their job, their results, you know, maybe just a little bit better. So

Yeah. One thing I've seen from where I sit is this, kind of going in with an open mind. Like, hey. Maybe your way is better. Maybe my way is better, but let's let's figure it out.

What's the best way ultimately for the organization to get things done?

Yeah.

And where when I was an admin trainer, it was funny. I was in the I had both interior and ISS. Everybody hey, we do things completely different. We do we do things completely different than this other business. And it's like, maybe 5%.

Yeah. But the other 95, we're all we're all doing the same thing here. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess as we as we kind of wind this down a little bit, what do you want your last kind of thoughts to be about challenges and, moving forward?

And I guess I'll go back The very first podcast I talked about the metaphor of it being like a marathon. Right? So the leadership group, they were kinda out in front, and they'd been talking about it for so long. And then by the time we found out, you know, perspectives are different. So we're now really, October 1st is when the official race is starting.

We've just been training this entire time. Right? So as we move forward into, like, actually, it's here. It's happening. The race is going on.

Thinking forward, like, what's the most exciting thing for you?

Hey. For me, I think the one of the most exciting things is just our ability to to navigate this change and recognize that, hey. What has been very successful and has served us well in the past, isn't the future. And I think that's something that, a lot of companies, and and I'll put PCI in that bucket. At one point in time, we we had a lot of pride in what we'd accomplished.

You know, why change it? It's working so well. But I think having the the foresight and investing in those conversations and that strategy, to just realize, hey. We need to make some moves, to put the company in the best situation to move forward and to maximize our opportunities. So just just actually going on this journey and having these conversations and then actually following through with it, I think is actually it's really encouraging to me.

That that again, the new the new leadership team and that started several years ago, I wasn't even a part of it, but but again, was willing to ask themselves a really hard com a really hard question, that it maybe not been able to be on the table before. And I think that really speaks to a lot of growth and leadership team as well as, just a willingness to make sure that we're set up for a very successful long term model for the organization. And, hey. For some people, this didn't land so well. Right?

Sure. You know, this has maybe been more challenging and and maybe they did see it the other way. Why would we mess with it? You know, look what's going on around us. You know, I think for those people, I guess what I would say is change is gonna be a part of what we do.

And I'm a person that really values tradition. My Hogan will tell you that all day long. But, the amount of change we're seeing in the construction industry is is just incredible. And I think that, even though we're the biggest, we can we can sit there and and beat our chest that we're not gonna change, and our way is the best way. The world's changing around us, you know, in the social setting as well as here in the construction industry.

So I think the more we can do to better prepare for that, the better off we'll be for, again, those that are gonna be here 2 years, 5 years, 10 years from now.

I think I'll ask you, David. Because Dave and I had these conversations for years years. We worked on the ERP ops team together. So, like, back in 2010, 2011, we would have these, like, what if what if things look like this someday? So it has to be pretty exciting for you to see it kinda come to fruition before you retire in 2035.

Right? I'm gonna keep pushing that. So 2025. Did you ever think you would see it, or do you think it it was gonna happen after you retired?

I I was very hopeful that we would see it, you know, in my time here and but I really thought it would be probably 25 or after. So I'm excited to be a part of it. And, you know, to for me, what what I really look forward to from a perception of our customers and and and the ability for us to capitalize on our bundled scopes and bringing our groups together to to take an opportunity that is available in our markets and provide more services to our customers and and build on that. You know, what what could we bring into our portfolio, being creative and strategic on taking more and more opportunity or more and more scopes to build the largest, opportunity or the largest contract and be able to provide that to our customers is really exciting. I don't think that many of our competitors can can tackle the type and diversity of jobs that we can.

And I think that puts us in a very unique position to to, be marketable and ability to to land more work and have our customers want us on their jobs. We're the easy button when we can provide all of these scopes, And our core value is safety, and we have the resources and and training to be able to back it up. It it really limits our competition that can that can deliver at our level of service.

Love it. Well said. I liked when Sean Barnum came in for a boot camp, and he was helping acting as the owner's rep. And at boot camp, there's usually 4 teams. They compete against one another.

And the very last day, they have to do a presentation about why they should be reward you know, awarded this contract. And his advice to one team is like, you don't you don't need to sell yourself based on telling me how much better you are than the competition or what they don't do. And it's like, we're strong enough. We can stand on our own. We let's just talk about all the great things that we can do, and that's gonna speak for itself.

And I think that's really what we've been doing, and we'll be prepared to do even more in the future. So I there was one quote I, I found. I'll just share it here where it talks about the world is changing. If we play by the old rules, we'll lose the new battles. And it just goes to what you're saying, Brett.

Like, hey, it wasn't really broken. Why do we need to change? But the world is changing. And if you just keep going with the same play at some point, everybody learns that play

Sure.

And and they'll have a good defense against you. So okay. We like to wrap things up every time with just some random rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

Let's do it.

You ready to do this, Dave? Before we go there, I'm gonna ask, like, any last thoughts? Is there any last thoughts that you wanna share before we get in off the the discussion?

No. I mean, you know, I'm pretty excited for what the future has for PCG. I mean, I I think that the branch is coming together and, you know, just hearing it at business planning, you know, Houston's got this plan of how they're gonna continue, you know, grow more interior scopes, and and this group's gonna be doing something a little different. And then how can we leverage this relationship on this campus to roll in more scopes that we perform? I I think it's gonna be I think it's gonna be great for the organization and really, really good for a lot of individuals.

I I agree. Okay. Here we go. You ready? Who wants to go first?

I'll go.

Oh, wow. Okay. Here we go. Alright. What was the last movie that you saw in the theater?

Oh, Maverick. Yeah.

Did you like it?

Yeah. It was great. We, we took the kids and, it was a ton of fun. Yeah. It was great.

So had they seen the first one?

So we did, watch it at home. They hadn't seen it, but we wanted them to see it obviously before seeing the new one.

Oh, yeah. They would have been totally totally lost. Yeah. So 2 kids, Dylan and Sydney. How old are they?

Soon to be 12 and 10. Dylan's the older of the 2. And, yeah, they they thought it was awesome. They they had a blast with it. My daughter kinda her attention span in that long, so she just ends up sleeping through the last half of the movie.

So, my son really loved it, and Sydney stayed awake. So that was kind of, you know

There you go.

Must have been good.

The ultimate I stayed awake for it, so it was a good There you go.

That was

a good one. How about you, Dave?

Exactly the same. Top Gun Maverick and, both boys. I got, Brady's 16 and Carson is 13. And we watched watched the old Top Gun a couple few times, you know, through the years, but they actually thought that this one was better.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Very so do you remember seeing it in the theater, the the first one in the theater?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Many years ago.

Did you see it more than one time in the theater? No.

Just once in the theater.

That that kid that breaks my kids' brains. They're like, why would you go more than one time? I was like, hey. This was before before there was DVDs even or, yeah, if you wanted to see it again, yeah, you have to go back to the theater.

Had to have something to do on Friday night.

Exactly. So, okay. What was I'm gonna Dave. So here's a fun fact I didn't find out for a long time. So everybody calls you Dave Gas because, you know, Dave, that's what your email is set up as, but you actually go by David.

So when you started here in 1995, they basically renamed you. Like, who's 4th year will be named Dave?

No. My my I grew up as David, and and in 95, 96 when they first handed out email addresses, the IT person at the time plugged me in as dave.gas instead of david.gas, and it was difficult or a big deal back then to to change out an an email address, so it kinda stuck. My mom and my wife call me David, but most people call me Dave.

Yeah. That's whenever you told me that, I was just like, oh my gosh. So I try to always call you David just like out of a, you know, a nod to your parents that gave you that name. What here's so here's a question. What was your first car?

My first car was a well, my first real car was a a 1970 Mustang Fastback.

Nice. What color?

Jet black.

What happened to that car? Do you still have it?

No. I do not still have that. It was wrapped around a telephone pole there when I was about 19 years old.

Did you cry when that happened? Were you okay, first of all? Were you okay? Were you injured?

Yeah. No. I got I got lucky on it, but, definitely, I had a lot of fun in that, in that fast car.

Did you name did do you name your vehicles?

No. That one didn't mean to me.

We're weird. We name all of our cars in my family. How about you, Brett? What was your first car?

So so not as cool as Dave's. I had a pretty sweet gray Ford Ranger 1993 edition, 4 cylinder 5 speed. If it was doing the speed limit, that's all it had. So, yeah.

Did it have electric windows, or was it the yeah.

No. I'm talking cheap cheap. Like, this was this was entry level.

So this came up with Pat. Can you one up Pat? Did it have air conditioning?

It did have air conditioning.

There you go. Take that, Pat. Yeah. It was one one step up from that.

Had a nice pink stripe down the side too, little you know, back when pinstriping. Pink?

Yeah. And what was the what color did you say it was? It was kind of

a light. Yeah. Charcoal grayish color.

Yeah. Very nice. How Miami Vice colors there, gray and pink.

That's cool.

Very cool. Okay. What's your favorite season?

Oh, I have to go with summer. Gelder again, I I hate being cold. So, love the warmth and, yeah, love being outside. And so summer summer in the Midwest is the place for me.

So You're a big water skier too.

Yeah. Yeah. We do a lot of, boating and and lake sports and and spend a lot of time at the lake. So

So, Suzanne, your wife, did she wish did she water ski and all that before you guys got together?

So she actually knew how. She hadn't done it more than a couple of times, you know, when she was a teenager with a friend or something. But, yeah. Now she's she gets out there and gets after it. So

So how about you, David? What's your favorite season?

I'd have to go with summer also. Just being in the northwest when the when the gray clouds leave and the sun comes in, there's there's nothing better than a good summer in the northwest, whether it's we spend quite a bit of time on the Oregon coast. And then, you know, later summer, you get into some really beautiful leaf changes and the and, you know, the the scenery when the the colors of the the fall, that first start, which, you know, signals hunting season and and some fun stuff there too. So, really, the the 3 to 4 months of beautiful weather there in the summertime could lead into the fall. Yeah.

You have to take advantage. So do you have a favorite, town that you like to go to out on the coast?

Yeah. It's a little, it's about 20 minutes off of 101, outside of Tillamook, Oregon. We call it a little town called Oceanside.

Oh, yeah. I know where that is.

There you go.

Well, if you ever, if Dave goes off the grid, you know where you can find him now. Okay. I'll I'll start with you, David. Do you cook? And if so, do you have a signature dish?

I do cook. Last night, I I made, crab cakes from some fresh crab that we caught this summer. So

Nice.

Crab cakes and and, a halibut with a with a cream cheese crab topping. That was last night.

Very fancy.

Yeah. I can vouch for Dave. He's actually, really good in the kitchen. At one of the regional meetings, I got to attend for his region. Him and Jake Reboll made made a few meals for us, and, it was good stuff.

Yeah. I know Jake is a big, grill master Mhmm. On his Instagram. He always has stuff out there. So well, that's very cool.

And the crab sounds good. We don't we don't have a fresh crab here in No. In Kansas. So how about you? Do you cook in signature dish?

Not well. But around the holidays, my wife always does a lot of baking. And so few years back, we started having a apple pie cook off or a pie cook off, I guess is how it originally started. And so it was Suzanne and my son versus me and Sydney. Ever since then, we we always mess around with that.

But no. I'm not a good cook. Not good in the kitchen.

That's fun. So what's your favorite meal like, your birthday meal like you'd have your mom make for you? Do you have one?

I'd probably go like them. Pretty simple. I like tacos. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. Pretty easy.

Same here. How about you? Do you have a what's your birthday meal, Dave? David?

From, from my wife, Amy, I would say her spaghetti. And from my mom, I would say a shepherd's pie.

Nice. Yeah. That's that's one thing. I I don't like shepherd's pie, but that's one thing I'll make for my husband, like, on his birthday on his birthday. That's when he I'll make it up.

I'll have to get your mom's recipe.

There we go.

K. Well, thank you both for, for joining us today. We really enjoyed having you here. Now that you know where we're located, make sure you come on by. And, Dave, thank you so much.

You were our 1st official remote guest. How how was it from your perspective once we got everything ironed out?

No. I think it was great. It was a good good experience. I appreciate the opportunity.

Well, thank you, both of you, and to everyone else, we will catch you on the next episode. Thanks for joining us today.

Well, we

hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Special thanks to Brett who joined us live in the studio and to Dave who was with us virtually from the always sunny Seattle. We're just a few short days away from the one PCG takeoff and we hope that you're just as excited about it as we are. So be on the lookout for more episodes of PCG Connect as we explore the people, stories, and all the unique things that make up performance contracting. Until next time, this is Mel live from Lenexa, signing off.