March 20, 2025 • 28 mins
Joe Beckenhauer, President of Beckenhauer Construction, joins Trent and Patrick on “At Home with Roby.” Founded in 1878, Beckenhauer Construction is a 5th generation family-owned business and the oldest construction company in Nebraska. The company focuses on commercial construction projects and has an extensive portfolio of churches, schools, hospitals, businesses, banks, jails and more across the state. Tune in to meet Joe and learn about the company’s Lean Construction and Pull Planning philosophies.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the at Home with Roby Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
My name is Patrick Pacasac with Roby Commercial and Services
on with Trent Hayson from the Roby family of companies.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
We are your hosts. Hey Patrick, how are you today, Buddy?
I'm good, Trent.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We're still got to getting used to this up podcast thing.
You're looking good on the video, then I'm in.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm getting used to it.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
You kind of becoming a mainstream.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Are you having all kinds of people coming up to
you in public and being like, Man, I didn't know
you look like that. You really do have an eight
finger forehead.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
No, I'm pretty sure everybody knows how I look. That's
your way to get me.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Huh. I'm trying to get you riled up today, get
you a little fired.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I really can't, man, Huh, I'm not. I'm not eighteen
anymore worried about my forehead.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You're unflappable? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Maybe at some level, but today is not your day,
not my day. You want to pick on somebody, I'm
the wrong guy, and Kelvin's not in the game either.
Hit and by into it, picking on you, picking on anybody.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
We're we're we're indestructible.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Kelvin's starting to get pretty comfortable. I think you could
throw a couple of fingers at you.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Give me a few weeks, give me a few weeks.
I'm still learning a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
We've been a few weeks, Kelvin, I know, but you
know I'm new to hop it onto the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I let y'all just shine. Kelvin's loosening up. I like it.
We don't want to know comfort zone. We want comfort man.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I gotta burn on my Patagonia jacket. You got a
big burn. I mean it would be It would be
bad if I was old school, okay, like those old
construction guys, and smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes today,
I'd have burns everywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
On you.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You are a man with many a story. We talk
about that regularly. And how does one burn their jacket
that bad?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I burn a lot of fires. I figured, so kind
of you. I have no idea. You just kind of
woke up.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I have a burning Minie jacket, and UH don't really
know how they get there, but yeah, you know, this
is the silky Patagonia. I guess it's uh what do
they call this stuff? Uh, it's silk. Yeah, it's not silk.
It's called a nylon or something. But anyway, there's a
(02:24):
patch kit for it. And I asked Reagan the other day.
I was like, hey, you got the patch kit. She's like,
it doesn't work good, it comes off. I don't think
that's gonna work.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Man.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I kind of have to go with Reagan on that one.
I'm not sure that's gonna do it. I think it's
gonna work all right.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I'm a contractors, like mixing some mortar and then laying
the brick, doing stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Hey, I'm looking at the camera. You're good. You're good. Yeah, man.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
ACC Tournament we're recording. ACC Tournament starts this week. Basketball Charlotte.
We're in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Tar Hill is ready
to make a run.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
You have I be Clemson's playing pretty good. I think
both of our basketball teams are. Carolina have won six
in a row until they've unfortunately lost Duke. I don't
know anybody other than your brother that was sharing for Duke.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So uh, that's so good. I know a lot of folks,
but they didn't go to Duke to the a SEC.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I think it's going to get three teams into SEC.
It's going to get like fourteen or something.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Have you seen this?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I haven't, but I really don't care. They're having their
day in the sun, all right. It's just like everything
in life is real fickle. You forget about what means
something heard. They're football, they're not basketball.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I think they're trying to make the conversion on me.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I think they're going to They have a lot of
money down there, that meal program, the NIL is working out.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
For the Southern School. Do you think that maybe they
were playing that game before it was really a game?
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Man, I think they have a lot of I think
they have a lot of fossil fuels underneath that earth.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Oh, speaking of.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Which, I binge watched Land Man. Yeah, when I had
to have a medical procedure and had to kind of
stay up later.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Good, I'm proud of you. Patrick had his first colonoscopy.
That's great sharing that with the world. I think it's wonderful. Yeah,
but man, that show is unbelievable. It's a good show.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
It's crazy that fellow Taylor Sheridan, He's I like, it's
not it's uh, it's fiction, so it's not actually all true,
but it is period fiction. I think so he you know,
tries to teach you about what's going on in different
parts of the world at different times periods. So it's
(04:39):
very interesting. And Billy Bob Thornton does a great job.
He really does, got a rough life.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
That's really a job that he does and unbelievable. Yeah,
and it works out to the end. Anyways, it was
It was a good suggestion, and Taylor shared needs to
come up with season two. I have a lot of questions.
I have a lot of questions. I don't know if
that's in the works or not. Somebody might be able
to educate me. But he definitely set it up for
a wonderful second season.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Would you trade rolls with Billy Bob so he can
come sit in here with me for a couple of
weeks me and Kelvin.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
That's a big hell.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
No.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I want to hear. I want to hear what he's
got to say.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I don't like taking oh, I would like to have
him in here. I thought you meant like having his
job in that show.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You have to go out there. I'm not trying to
get a nail stuck into my leg. It's a little raw.
We are in a construction industry, Pastrick.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well, yeah, I would want mine to be an accidental
nail in my leg, not someone putting it there.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So I will say we're early March here. Yep.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
It's about seventy five degrees in beautiful blue Carolina blue
skies a day in Charlotte. And when you look out
the ten days, I think every days above hive seventy
for the ten days forward. So maybe we have broke
old man winters back in the southeast.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, and I mean the end, everybody's starting to crank
on their acs. So you know what to do when
that doesn't.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
What do you do? You call Roby Heating and Cooling.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Roby's Service. There you go, Roby Services. It's the company
on the screen behind you. Oh, don't look, don't look.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I can't.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
You need to keep looking into the camera. That's what
my wife says. She says, look into my eyes. No,
she says, why don't you pay attention to me? I'm sorry, Reagan.
I don't know if you ever listened to this episode,
but uh, I pay attention to everything you say.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Sometimes I just do it with a no look.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Past I am definitely going to have to send this
to her. Like, you should check this out. Trent says
something really nice good to four and a half minutes
in am I guessing the probably five and a half And.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
She's like, I'm so aggravated. I talked to you.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
You're doing something else, You're not looking at me, and
you don't acknowledge what I say.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I said, that's Patrick's role.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well, we you know that, you say that, but it's
it's just we live in such a distracting culture.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
We You were part of a meeting that I was
part of where we put our phones. We had to
turn our phones off for you know, and I know
we do that in other other parts being that we
go into. It's amazing how much different we are when
you don't have a phone around.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I've been doing that a lot. I have to, I mean,
really working on it.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
And uh, I think I've said this before one of
my YPO forum mates, I'm in two forums today.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
One of our guests.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Our guests today is a fellow named Joe Beckenhoward. Been
in formed with him over twelve years. Family business for
me's out of Nebraska. I get to that in a second,
but in my other forum, one of the guys said, hey,
when you go home, put your phone by the door,
turning upside down for at least thirty minutes and focus
on your family and you don't know what results will happen.
(07:37):
And I agree completely because, uh my mom and dad
were perfect and he denver had.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
A cell phone.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, you say, I mean at least have I was joking, well, right,
but I mean if you look at that, that era
where our parents came from, I mean that dinner time
around the table was when you caught up with I mean,
that's a very least start. Is it's turning it off
for putting it away from the dinner table. I mean
we do that, yeah, as a family. But I had
(08:04):
an OsO lady that I was talking about a second ago.
I mean, we don't do it every time. I mean,
it's just it's something's going on. It's easy just to
have it there in case, you know, something needs to happen.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
I mean, we live out in the country. My dad
would leave the house to go use to the restroom. Uh,
it's don't get hollered at, and then it was over
for then the whole night it was on. Well why
do you go outside when you go down the hallway?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Thank you? For clarifying, I'm just saying, yeah, something about that.
Though we've talked about that before.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I understand. But I mean my point is as humans
and as as men and are human nature, we're gonna
find a way to get in trouble, right. But I
do think it is a good thing if you if
you can find moments to put your technology away and
just try to listen to your wife a little bit.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
No, I got a good evening to night.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I'm gonna be the distant coach on Ford's baseball team.
They got tryouts tonight, so I'm gonna go check it out.
Be good, sweet.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, I'm excited. Never never really been an official assistant coach.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I am hopping on a plane to Alabama to go
see some baseball myself. My nephew is in the tournament
this week that they're on spring break with his school.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Oh, I thought you were taking some of that Neil
money down there for baseball season, kind of acquire a
collegiate picture or something.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I'm trying to bring some back but our guess.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Yeah, it's one of my best friends in the world.
Like I said, we've been in a generational family business
forum through YPO Young President's organization for around twelve years.
His name is Joe Beckenhoward, A number of generations, the
one of the very oldest businesses I know, I think
in the eighteen seventies. He'll talk about this, but he
(09:53):
hell's from Norfolk, Nebraska. What a beautiful country. Been there
when we returned, Joe Beckham.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And don't forget. Roby Services is your one stop source
for all your electrical heating, cooling, plumbing and handyman needs.
Keep it easy and get it all done by one.
Roby servicesnow dot com. That's Roby servicesnow dot com. Welcome back,
Ted home with Roby. I'm Patrick Mcaseac from Roby Commercial
and Services. On the Trent Hayson from the Roby family
of Companies. Uh, Trent, we got our, we got our
(10:22):
We are your hosts.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
We are your hosts. We've got in the game. We
got your buddy, Joe.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
On the phone, I got it right here.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
The oldest construction company in Nebraska, Beckenhoward Construction, is now
in its fifth generation of family ownership. What you say there,
Joe's on It's good. How are you doing, buddy?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Pretty good?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
I think you said, uh, it's in the thirties, thirties
there today.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I think I said it was in the seventies here today.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, we we were up for seventy yesterday and now
it's sitting about thirty one degrees.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well, where is is Norfolk in the state of Nebraska?
Tell audience, it's.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
In the northeast corner the norm hour from South Dakota,
about an hour from Iowa.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Goodness, gracious, I know. I've been there several times. Uh.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
And and it gets extremely cold there during the winter
and also gets warm there during the summer.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Oh yeah, well, Joe, we we are so now we're
doing the podcast here. Uh and we got all these
video cameras in the studios for everybody wants to see
what you look like. I pulled you up on my
iPhone and I've a major picture, all big and so
you're you're you're everybody can see.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
He's a good looking gentleman. He is good.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You are a good looking gentle now I'm looking at you.
But uh, yeah, that's pretty cool. Guys, some technology here, so, uh,
that's pretty crazy. You're the oldest when you guys went
to get your contractor license opportunity, but definitely didn't have
to have one when you first started. What is your
do you have like a contractor number at this point?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, we're like we have a license date. It was
an application for a business when it started, and stories
actually that affected the spelling of our last name. So
the ownership submitted for it, they spelled it out the
way they thought it was and that's kind of what's
carried on since that.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Okay, so do you spell your last name? Your last
name now is spelt the same as Beckenhower Construction, correct?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Correct? Yeah, that side of the family kept with the
spelling that they put down for the company.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Got it, So you changed you had to change the
spelling of your family name.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
That's crazy. It's similar to us with Roby.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
I mean, yeah, Andrew Roby check founded our company in
nineteen fifty and changed it to Andrew Roby just rob
Why when he started? Now, nineteen fifty, it's definitely not
eighteen seventy eight. Goodness gracious, that is so awesome. So
what did y'all start when y'all started the first generation,
(13:04):
your great great great granddaddy, I guess what what were
you doing?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Commercial construction? Then?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yep? Always doing commercial. He was a mason by trade.
Which followed through most of the generations up through my father,
other than my grandfather, who was left handed, so they
made him be a carpenter.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
My father was left handed, he was a wonderful carpenter.
And my sister is left handed. He called her wrong hander.
That's the right hand, wrong hand. It took me like
a decade and a half of my life to figure
out what wrong hander meant?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Is this like, is this like a thing?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I mean, if you're left handed and you wouldn't be
in construction, it's like, you can't you can't be a mason,
you are a carpenter, asked Jose.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Then it was they were afraid you would throw off
the timing and the sequences. How they went, that's.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Why running up that wall. Huh, that vertical let's go.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
So I was reading up on you, not that I mean,
not that I don't know a lot about you, but
on your YPO site it says you started, you did
all facets of construction, you did the labor work, you
did the carpentry work, and you work your way up
through the business. Obviously, we we've become best of friends
(14:21):
and we have a lot in common. But I didn't
realize that's kind of the same story I have. So
what was your favorite job that you did coming through
the system?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Hard to say. I actually had one man.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Probably a bad sites goodness Christis.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah. Probably the hardest transition was going from being out
in the fields to in the in the office. Just
going from being able to be physically walking around doing
stuff all day to sitting behind a computer. I'm stay
happy with where I'm at.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Now, so I tell everybody, I'm like, I would still
drive the dump trucks and throw trash.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
If I could. If the if it would pay the
bills for super our company.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
If you if you want take a mental image now
that you can see Trent, you're probably what a buck
twenty five back then?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Buck thirty?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, yeah, no, we noice sleeves on the shirt, smoking
a heater, driving that, driving that.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I was probably a buck twenty five when that was
going on. You're your egg.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
But when I was a little young, and when I
was fourteen fifteen, I probably only weighed ninety five pounds
when I was rolling with Fred and Leroy, Yeah, and
I wasn't I was eating Mother's original then, I wasn't
smoking a heater.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I had a roommate in college. It would call skinny
people a dat. You could shove him through a keyhole.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I could have. I probably might have gotten shoved that.
Oh we're not going to talk about that right now.
Thrown through a door. Oh bit.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
But uh, but Joe, what what's y'all's focus in your business?
On the commercial construction side, it's a little different than ours,
So tell us.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
What it is.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, hell uh, it kind of follows some of the
markets as things shift. Right now, most of our work
is probably on any jails. We do a lot of
healthcare type work too, and then some higher education, and
most of our private side is usually involving banks.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I hear you. He just says you've done a lot
of churches as well.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Now that's cool.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So are you design build? Are you guys doing tell
us about your process.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Majority of our work is under design build or construction
management at risk. We don't have in house design, so
we'll subcontract that out depending on the type of project,
But those are the primary contracts for your life. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
On our commercial side. You know, really before COVID we
we did hardly any design build, but we really started
doing a significant amount of it afterwards enduring and into
this day. Just you know, as you know, as those
are listening to doing a project, starting out with that
team and place it from the very beginning. It just
(17:02):
makes things so much more efficient by having that project
team together. So we we've really pivoted and uh yeah
set up a preconstruction department doing doing something similar stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
You know, I'm sure you guys have a ton of relationships,
mean that you've been been around for so long.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Joe has Joe has visited his family has visited us
on the river. I stayed with us a couple of days.
I remember when he his family was here. It was
really really cold a couple of years ago. I think
he brought brought the uh the cold front. But Joe
has four daughters. Uh so he is a man with
(17:39):
a lot of women in his life.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yeah, and uh we had a good time because you know,
my three oldest or female my three oldest children. So, uh,
what all are your daughters up to, Joe? And how
and what are their ages now?
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So I've got a freshman, a seventh grader, fourth grader,
and then kindergarten.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Mm dang. Yeah, Joe runs his house.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Gosh, that's you have every little I mean, every personality
type you could possibly have inside of a home.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's uh.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I have one daughter who's who's fourteen. She'll be in
ninth grade next year, and so like going back to
through those ages, you got the five year old running
to grab you as you walk in the door, and
the fourteen year old who wants probably nothing to do
with you.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
A lot of times. That about right, That was pretty much.
I miss those days when they ran and greed you
at the door.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Though.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
That was a it's like, you know, I don't know
what that song is, but one time it's just it
just stop happening. It stops happening and it never happens again.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And uh, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
The coolest thing about that, though, is is these phones.
Trent's got his phone pulled up the little memory reels
that they played and your pictures. Since it's just amazing,
blows me away every time. It's one of my favorite
things to do when I wake up in the morning
is just go back and look at those years.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Being right in the middle of it. Hard to stop.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
He's crying, he's crying, and Norfolk, oh, you got him
all teared.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Up. See, I can do that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I can do that to Trent sometimes too, with but
I can see it, so I can just keep talking
and blabbering. It's harder when you're on the phone. So
my apologies to my apology.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Why I want to tell you this. Joe.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Joe is a stoic fella. He reminds me of my
wife's Midwestern family. We go up in Illinois. I talked
about them often. We go to the tractor show every years.
Very similar. I mean, the words you say, the demeanor.
I mean, it's a good ying and yang to me.
Little you know, we get along real well, Joe. I
(19:39):
think Joe, I think was a pretty good basketball player
back in the day. But I had to take him
down a couple of times. Oh yeah, let him know
what's up, Joe.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I am also married to a Midwesterner that has a
very similar personality sou and she deals with me.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
So I think I think it's a good It's like
the on peg round hole. Yeah you know, so, Joe, Uh,
what what tell us about? I mean, you are you
the president of Beckenhauer Construction? Is your dad still in
the business, What are all your dynamics going on there?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Buddy.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, I'm the I'm the president. My dad is no
longer involved in the company. Uh, he retired a couple
of years ago. And then I've got a brother and
sister that's working the business with me.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Cool. What what do your brother and sister do.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
A little bit of everything, kind of depends on what's needed.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
They they take care of Joe. They heard him in
Live heard I've met his father a couple of times.
Just kind of loaded question there. Uh, he's awesome, awesome fella.
Never never have played golf with him. I think he's
probably playing a lot of golf these days, hitting Joe
with his with a six iron.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Saying come on, doll. So where all do y'all work?
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Y'all already located Norfolk's in the northeast corner of Nebraska.
Y'all work down down towards Omaha and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, we actually have an office in a community that's
just outside of Omaha called w so we could say
that Omaha. We work all over the state in Nebraska
clear to the west side, so almost Colorado, Wyoming area,
and we're working up in the south Dakota, and then
we look at step and Iowa also so.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Is that is that like, you know, you basically have
an existing relationship that it says, hey, will you go
to this market for us? And that's sort of how
you you spread your growth.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
That's a combination of that. We do a lot of
public type work, so a lot of these schools and
things like that in the higher ed and jails. Yeah,
a lot of it is through an RP process that
will submit of our qualifications, uh, interview and try to
get hired that way, so that can pull us around
all over.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, I think that's that is.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
We have some teammates on our Rugby commercial team that
come from that world public bid. And the beautiful thing
about that is you know, you know exactly pretty much
when it's going to start, specs are all done, and
so yeah, it's it's a it's a lot more predictable.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
It seems like, yeah, we're we're still getting hired on
at the see them at risk in that case, so
we'll be brought on before designs finished or anything like
that to support. So we come in and look at
constructibility budgets things like that. As they progress with the drawings,
we'll take out the subcontractor bids then move forward that way. So, yeah,
(22:31):
you're right, it's we know what's coming when it's coming. Uh.
You know that pre con phase can last anywhere from
six months to a year. Yeah, so we've got a
long burn before we're putting shovels in the ground. But
so how many when it's starting?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
So how big is your company employee wise? And what's
what's your plans for growth?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
No, we're we're on forty employees right now. We've just
started looking to to really make a move into Omaha
Lincoln work the two biggest metros in Nebraska. With that,
we're probably looking at trying to double in the next
ten years and snickly increase our revenue that way. There's
(23:13):
just a lot of work going on in Omaha Lincoln,
especially Oma.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
So I got a question for you. I'm looking you
up on here, and it says, y'all focus developing our firms,
focus on implementing quote lean end quote construction practices. Tell
our audience briefly, what what does lean construction practices stand for?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
It comes from a lot of things. I mean, you know,
it was Henry Ford's you know, process of building cars
was lean and went to Toyota. They took it to
another level. So there's a lot of different aspects of it,
and that's obviouslyvolves around eliminating waste in all aspects, making
things easier, things like that. Probably one of the biggest
(23:58):
things we utilize is so we called pole planning. It's
called in the last planner system, and really that is
we create our overall schedule, but then we involved the
actual foreman for the subcontractors, bring them in and walk through,
break the job down into smaller pieces and and have
them lay out exactly how long am I taking. They
(24:19):
can do it if there's other ways to do it,
mottle things around, things like that, which gets them to
buy in. With that, we've we've been very successful in
reducing overall schedules. And then, like I said, with the
buy in, when they they're putting the dates in the
length of their their work, they kind of lose any excuses.
(24:41):
Then it helps out out everybody's.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
And it's called pro planning. Is that what you do
you do? Is that what you said?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah? Pole planning?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
P u ll oh, okay, get your ears shick.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Yeah, So we'll break it down like the first sixteen
weeks and we'll start at the last t ask of
the sixteen week and then go backwards just building it
out that way and.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
What and what are you basically just including like the
m EPs, the structural guys, I mean every sub or
just the subs that are part of that that portion
project every.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Sub uh yeah, every subcontractors forming and usually they're project
manager too. You know, one you want to get bought
off on the actual work that's going in place. You
know what do they have commitment? For us? You know
we're not a very populated state, so a big thing
for us is just actual be able manpower. So you know,
(25:35):
you're not gonna be able to bring in three crews
to attack something. So if you have five guys that
can work on it, how much can they get in place?
You know, do you have access to all five? So
things like that. It just makes them understand and share
information with us and then the other subcontractors, and it
tends to make them work together better.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
No, man, it makes complete sense. I mean, if you're
skinnying up schedules too, I'm sure the subcontractors love it
because they're you know, they're making margin off that skinny
to schedule. So that makes complete sense. It seems like
such a simple thing to do, but uh, you know,
we we don't particularly do that at that level. So
I appreciate that that nugget. It's that institutional work. Got
(26:12):
to keep it straight and got yees tight budgets. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
So I got a question for you, Joe, when I
come out to Omaha for the Berkshire Shareholders meeting here
in a couple of months, you're gonna come.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Visit me, come down.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Oh you know it?
Speaker 4 (26:28):
He said, you know it, you know it with it
with his basketball skills. I got a question for you, Joe.
I'm gonna put you on the spot. You got to
answer this quick now, none of this pause. We're not
doing strategic pauses. What is one thing that you live
by in your life and in your business that you hang.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Your hat on.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Honesty and integrity?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
There you go, There it is. And he said, I'll
co slap you to boot. Nah. He just said that
to me. Trust man, it's that. Yeah, It's it's all
about true.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Honesty and integrity. I love it would Joe. How can
people look you up? I'm sure people are intrigued and
want to want to go to your website?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
What what's your website? And how can they look you up?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
They were at the becking our construction dot com. On
the website you can see some of the recent projects
things like that. And I actually talked a little bit
more about lean things like that that we do. And
that's we got LinkedIn Facebook all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
And that's BECKENHOWERD B E C K E N H
A U E R Beck And.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Howard you are?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You are correct?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Would Joe?
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Man?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
It's been fun. I can't wait to see you in
a couple of months.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Uh and uh we'll probably be texting a little bit
here during n c DOAA basketball playoffs.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Go heels.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
I got me on a torhill. He took me, I
will say a couple of years ago, he took me
to a Nebraska football game. Oh that was that was
we need to go they need to get better and
we need to go back at those glory days back.
I love to get Nebraska, Nebraska Colorado. Man.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
That's cool.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Even though both teams were down a little bit, it
was a time of my life. And I wearing my
Nebraska jacket all the time, think about Joe every time
I put it on.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Thank you, Joe, I appreciate you. Ha me on.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
All right, buddy, take care, God speak to you, and
have a good one. Joe Beckenhower Beckenhower Construction eighteen seventy eight,
the oldest construction company in Nebraska. On at home with Roby,
Here we go, go, do the Golden rule, end, treat
others the way you want to be treated, and carry
a smile around on your face today. Remind you give
(28:40):
us from grace away. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to the at Home with Roby Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
My name is Patrick Pacasac with Roby Commercial and Services
on with Trent Hayson from the Roby family of companies.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
We are your hosts. Hey Patrick, how are you today, Buddy?
I'm good, Trent.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We're still got to getting used to this up podcast thing.
You're looking good on the video, then I'm in.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm getting used to it.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
You kind of becoming a mainstream.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Are you having all kinds of people coming up to
you in public and being like, Man, I didn't know
you look like that. You really do have an eight
finger forehead.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
No, I'm pretty sure everybody knows how I look. That's
your way to get me.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Huh. I'm trying to get you riled up today, get
you a little fired.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I really can't, man, Huh, I'm not. I'm not eighteen
anymore worried about my forehead.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You're unflappable? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Maybe at some level, but today is not your day,
not my day. You want to pick on somebody, I'm
the wrong guy, and Kelvin's not in the game either.
Hit and by into it, picking on you, picking on anybody.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
We're we're we're indestructible.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Kelvin's starting to get pretty comfortable. I think you could
throw a couple of fingers at you.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Give me a few weeks, give me a few weeks.
I'm still learning a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
We've been a few weeks, Kelvin, I know, but you
know I'm new to hop it onto the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I let y'all just shine. Kelvin's loosening up. I like it.
We don't want to know comfort zone. We want comfort man.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I gotta burn on my Patagonia jacket. You got a
big burn. I mean it would be It would be
bad if I was old school, okay, like those old
construction guys, and smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes today,
I'd have burns everywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
On you.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You are a man with many a story. We talk
about that regularly. And how does one burn their jacket
that bad?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I burn a lot of fires. I figured, so kind
of you. I have no idea. You just kind of
woke up.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I have a burning Minie jacket, and UH don't really
know how they get there, but yeah, you know, this
is the silky Patagonia. I guess it's uh what do
they call this stuff? Uh, it's silk. Yeah, it's not silk.
It's called a nylon or something. But anyway, there's a
(02:24):
patch kit for it. And I asked Reagan the other day.
I was like, hey, you got the patch kit. She's like,
it doesn't work good, it comes off. I don't think
that's gonna work.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Man.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I kind of have to go with Reagan on that one.
I'm not sure that's gonna do it. I think it's
gonna work all right.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I'm a contractors, like mixing some mortar and then laying
the brick, doing stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Hey, I'm looking at the camera. You're good. You're good. Yeah, man.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
ACC Tournament we're recording. ACC Tournament starts this week. Basketball Charlotte.
We're in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Tar Hill is ready
to make a run.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
You have I be Clemson's playing pretty good. I think
both of our basketball teams are. Carolina have won six
in a row until they've unfortunately lost Duke. I don't
know anybody other than your brother that was sharing for Duke.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So uh, that's so good. I know a lot of folks,
but they didn't go to Duke to the a SEC.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I think it's going to get three teams into SEC.
It's going to get like fourteen or something.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Have you seen this?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I haven't, but I really don't care. They're having their
day in the sun, all right. It's just like everything
in life is real fickle. You forget about what means
something heard. They're football, they're not basketball.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I think they're trying to make the conversion on me.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I think they're going to They have a lot of
money down there, that meal program, the NIL is working out.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
For the Southern School. Do you think that maybe they
were playing that game before it was really a game?
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Man, I think they have a lot of I think
they have a lot of fossil fuels underneath that earth.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Oh, speaking of.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Which, I binge watched Land Man. Yeah, when I had
to have a medical procedure and had to kind of
stay up later.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Good, I'm proud of you. Patrick had his first colonoscopy.
That's great sharing that with the world. I think it's wonderful. Yeah,
but man, that show is unbelievable. It's a good show.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
It's crazy that fellow Taylor Sheridan, He's I like, it's
not it's uh, it's fiction, so it's not actually all true,
but it is period fiction. I think so he you know,
tries to teach you about what's going on in different
parts of the world at different times periods. So it's
(04:39):
very interesting. And Billy Bob Thornton does a great job.
He really does, got a rough life.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
That's really a job that he does and unbelievable. Yeah,
and it works out to the end. Anyways, it was
It was a good suggestion, and Taylor shared needs to
come up with season two. I have a lot of questions.
I have a lot of questions. I don't know if
that's in the works or not. Somebody might be able
to educate me. But he definitely set it up for
a wonderful second season.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Would you trade rolls with Billy Bob so he can
come sit in here with me for a couple of
weeks me and Kelvin.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
That's a big hell.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
No.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I want to hear. I want to hear what he's
got to say.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I don't like taking oh, I would like to have
him in here. I thought you meant like having his
job in that show.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You have to go out there. I'm not trying to
get a nail stuck into my leg. It's a little raw.
We are in a construction industry, Pastrick.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well, yeah, I would want mine to be an accidental
nail in my leg, not someone putting it there.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So I will say we're early March here. Yep.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
It's about seventy five degrees in beautiful blue Carolina blue
skies a day in Charlotte. And when you look out
the ten days, I think every days above hive seventy
for the ten days forward. So maybe we have broke
old man winters back in the southeast.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, and I mean the end, everybody's starting to crank
on their acs. So you know what to do when
that doesn't.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
What do you do? You call Roby Heating and Cooling.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Roby's Service. There you go, Roby Services. It's the company
on the screen behind you. Oh, don't look, don't look.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I can't.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
You need to keep looking into the camera. That's what
my wife says. She says, look into my eyes. No,
she says, why don't you pay attention to me? I'm sorry, Reagan.
I don't know if you ever listened to this episode,
but uh, I pay attention to everything you say.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Sometimes I just do it with a no look.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Past I am definitely going to have to send this
to her. Like, you should check this out. Trent says
something really nice good to four and a half minutes
in am I guessing the probably five and a half And.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
She's like, I'm so aggravated. I talked to you.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
You're doing something else, You're not looking at me, and
you don't acknowledge what I say.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I said, that's Patrick's role.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well, we you know that, you say that, but it's
it's just we live in such a distracting culture.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
We You were part of a meeting that I was
part of where we put our phones. We had to
turn our phones off for you know, and I know
we do that in other other parts being that we
go into. It's amazing how much different we are when
you don't have a phone around.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I've been doing that a lot. I have to, I mean,
really working on it.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
And uh, I think I've said this before one of
my YPO forum mates, I'm in two forums today.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
One of our guests.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Our guests today is a fellow named Joe Beckenhoward. Been
in formed with him over twelve years. Family business for
me's out of Nebraska. I get to that in a second,
but in my other forum, one of the guys said, hey,
when you go home, put your phone by the door,
turning upside down for at least thirty minutes and focus
on your family and you don't know what results will happen.
(07:37):
And I agree completely because, uh my mom and dad
were perfect and he denver had.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
A cell phone.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, you say, I mean at least have I was joking, well, right,
but I mean if you look at that, that era
where our parents came from, I mean that dinner time
around the table was when you caught up with I mean,
that's a very least start. Is it's turning it off
for putting it away from the dinner table. I mean
we do that, yeah, as a family. But I had
(08:04):
an OsO lady that I was talking about a second ago.
I mean, we don't do it every time. I mean,
it's just it's something's going on. It's easy just to
have it there in case, you know, something needs to happen.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
I mean, we live out in the country. My dad
would leave the house to go use to the restroom. Uh,
it's don't get hollered at, and then it was over
for then the whole night it was on. Well why
do you go outside when you go down the hallway?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Thank you? For clarifying, I'm just saying, yeah, something about that.
Though we've talked about that before.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I understand. But I mean my point is as humans
and as as men and are human nature, we're gonna
find a way to get in trouble, right. But I
do think it is a good thing if you if
you can find moments to put your technology away and
just try to listen to your wife a little bit.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
No, I got a good evening to night.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I'm gonna be the distant coach on Ford's baseball team.
They got tryouts tonight, so I'm gonna go check it out.
Be good, sweet.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, I'm excited. Never never really been an official assistant coach.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I am hopping on a plane to Alabama to go
see some baseball myself. My nephew is in the tournament
this week that they're on spring break with his school.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Oh, I thought you were taking some of that Neil
money down there for baseball season, kind of acquire a
collegiate picture or something.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I'm trying to bring some back but our guess.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Yeah, it's one of my best friends in the world.
Like I said, we've been in a generational family business
forum through YPO Young President's organization for around twelve years.
His name is Joe Beckenhoward, A number of generations, the
one of the very oldest businesses I know, I think
in the eighteen seventies. He'll talk about this, but he
(09:53):
hell's from Norfolk, Nebraska. What a beautiful country. Been there
when we returned, Joe Beckham.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And don't forget. Roby Services is your one stop source
for all your electrical heating, cooling, plumbing and handyman needs.
Keep it easy and get it all done by one.
Roby servicesnow dot com. That's Roby servicesnow dot com. Welcome back,
Ted home with Roby. I'm Patrick Mcaseac from Roby Commercial
and Services. On the Trent Hayson from the Roby family
of Companies. Uh, Trent, we got our, we got our
(10:22):
We are your hosts.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
We are your hosts. We've got in the game. We
got your buddy, Joe.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
On the phone, I got it right here.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
The oldest construction company in Nebraska, Beckenhoward Construction, is now
in its fifth generation of family ownership. What you say there,
Joe's on It's good. How are you doing, buddy?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Pretty good?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
I think you said, uh, it's in the thirties, thirties
there today.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I think I said it was in the seventies here today.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, we we were up for seventy yesterday and now
it's sitting about thirty one degrees.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well, where is is Norfolk in the state of Nebraska?
Tell audience, it's.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
In the northeast corner the norm hour from South Dakota,
about an hour from Iowa.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Goodness, gracious, I know. I've been there several times. Uh.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
And and it gets extremely cold there during the winter
and also gets warm there during the summer.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Oh yeah, well, Joe, we we are so now we're
doing the podcast here. Uh and we got all these
video cameras in the studios for everybody wants to see
what you look like. I pulled you up on my
iPhone and I've a major picture, all big and so
you're you're you're everybody can see.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
He's a good looking gentleman. He is good.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You are a good looking gentle now I'm looking at you.
But uh, yeah, that's pretty cool. Guys, some technology here, so, uh,
that's pretty crazy. You're the oldest when you guys went
to get your contractor license opportunity, but definitely didn't have
to have one when you first started. What is your
do you have like a contractor number at this point?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, we're like we have a license date. It was
an application for a business when it started, and stories
actually that affected the spelling of our last name. So
the ownership submitted for it, they spelled it out the
way they thought it was and that's kind of what's
carried on since that.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Okay, so do you spell your last name? Your last
name now is spelt the same as Beckenhower Construction, correct?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Correct? Yeah, that side of the family kept with the
spelling that they put down for the company.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Got it, So you changed you had to change the
spelling of your family name.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
That's crazy. It's similar to us with Roby.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
I mean, yeah, Andrew Roby check founded our company in
nineteen fifty and changed it to Andrew Roby just rob
Why when he started? Now, nineteen fifty, it's definitely not
eighteen seventy eight. Goodness gracious, that is so awesome. So
what did y'all start when y'all started the first generation,
(13:04):
your great great great granddaddy, I guess what what were
you doing?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Commercial construction? Then?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yep? Always doing commercial. He was a mason by trade.
Which followed through most of the generations up through my father,
other than my grandfather, who was left handed, so they
made him be a carpenter.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
My father was left handed, he was a wonderful carpenter.
And my sister is left handed. He called her wrong hander.
That's the right hand, wrong hand. It took me like
a decade and a half of my life to figure
out what wrong hander meant?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Is this like, is this like a thing?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I mean, if you're left handed and you wouldn't be
in construction, it's like, you can't you can't be a mason,
you are a carpenter, asked Jose.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Then it was they were afraid you would throw off
the timing and the sequences. How they went, that's.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Why running up that wall. Huh, that vertical let's go.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
So I was reading up on you, not that I mean,
not that I don't know a lot about you, but
on your YPO site it says you started, you did
all facets of construction, you did the labor work, you
did the carpentry work, and you work your way up
through the business. Obviously, we we've become best of friends
(14:21):
and we have a lot in common. But I didn't
realize that's kind of the same story I have. So
what was your favorite job that you did coming through
the system?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Hard to say. I actually had one man.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Probably a bad sites goodness Christis.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah. Probably the hardest transition was going from being out
in the fields to in the in the office. Just
going from being able to be physically walking around doing
stuff all day to sitting behind a computer. I'm stay
happy with where I'm at.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Now, so I tell everybody, I'm like, I would still
drive the dump trucks and throw trash.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
If I could. If the if it would pay the
bills for super our company.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
If you if you want take a mental image now
that you can see Trent, you're probably what a buck
twenty five back then?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Buck thirty?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, yeah, no, we noice sleeves on the shirt, smoking
a heater, driving that, driving that.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I was probably a buck twenty five when that was
going on. You're your egg.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
But when I was a little young, and when I
was fourteen fifteen, I probably only weighed ninety five pounds
when I was rolling with Fred and Leroy, Yeah, and
I wasn't I was eating Mother's original then, I wasn't
smoking a heater.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I had a roommate in college. It would call skinny
people a dat. You could shove him through a keyhole.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I could have. I probably might have gotten shoved that.
Oh we're not going to talk about that right now.
Thrown through a door. Oh bit.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
But uh, but Joe, what what's y'all's focus in your business?
On the commercial construction side, it's a little different than ours,
So tell us.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
What it is.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, hell uh, it kind of follows some of the
markets as things shift. Right now, most of our work
is probably on any jails. We do a lot of
healthcare type work too, and then some higher education, and
most of our private side is usually involving banks.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I hear you. He just says you've done a lot
of churches as well.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Now that's cool.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So are you design build? Are you guys doing tell
us about your process.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Majority of our work is under design build or construction
management at risk. We don't have in house design, so
we'll subcontract that out depending on the type of project,
But those are the primary contracts for your life. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
On our commercial side. You know, really before COVID we
we did hardly any design build, but we really started
doing a significant amount of it afterwards enduring and into
this day. Just you know, as you know, as those
are listening to doing a project, starting out with that
team and place it from the very beginning. It just
(17:02):
makes things so much more efficient by having that project
team together. So we we've really pivoted and uh yeah
set up a preconstruction department doing doing something similar stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
You know, I'm sure you guys have a ton of relationships,
mean that you've been been around for so long.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Joe has Joe has visited his family has visited us
on the river. I stayed with us a couple of days.
I remember when he his family was here. It was
really really cold a couple of years ago. I think
he brought brought the uh the cold front. But Joe
has four daughters. Uh so he is a man with
(17:39):
a lot of women in his life.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yeah, and uh we had a good time because you know,
my three oldest or female my three oldest children. So, uh,
what all are your daughters up to, Joe? And how
and what are their ages now?
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So I've got a freshman, a seventh grader, fourth grader,
and then kindergarten.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Mm dang. Yeah, Joe runs his house.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Gosh, that's you have every little I mean, every personality
type you could possibly have inside of a home.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's uh.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I have one daughter who's who's fourteen. She'll be in
ninth grade next year, and so like going back to
through those ages, you got the five year old running
to grab you as you walk in the door, and
the fourteen year old who wants probably nothing to do
with you.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
A lot of times. That about right, That was pretty much.
I miss those days when they ran and greed you
at the door.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Though.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
That was a it's like, you know, I don't know
what that song is, but one time it's just it
just stop happening. It stops happening and it never happens again.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And uh, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
The coolest thing about that, though, is is these phones.
Trent's got his phone pulled up the little memory reels
that they played and your pictures. Since it's just amazing,
blows me away every time. It's one of my favorite
things to do when I wake up in the morning
is just go back and look at those years.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Being right in the middle of it. Hard to stop.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
He's crying, he's crying, and Norfolk, oh, you got him
all teared.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Up. See, I can do that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I can do that to Trent sometimes too, with but
I can see it, so I can just keep talking
and blabbering. It's harder when you're on the phone. So
my apologies to my apology.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Why I want to tell you this. Joe.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Joe is a stoic fella. He reminds me of my
wife's Midwestern family. We go up in Illinois. I talked
about them often. We go to the tractor show every years.
Very similar. I mean, the words you say, the demeanor.
I mean, it's a good ying and yang to me.
Little you know, we get along real well, Joe. I
(19:39):
think Joe, I think was a pretty good basketball player
back in the day. But I had to take him
down a couple of times. Oh yeah, let him know
what's up, Joe.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I am also married to a Midwesterner that has a
very similar personality sou and she deals with me.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
So I think I think it's a good It's like
the on peg round hole. Yeah you know, so, Joe, Uh,
what what tell us about? I mean, you are you
the president of Beckenhauer Construction? Is your dad still in
the business, What are all your dynamics going on there?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Buddy.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, I'm the I'm the president. My dad is no
longer involved in the company. Uh, he retired a couple
of years ago. And then I've got a brother and
sister that's working the business with me.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Cool. What what do your brother and sister do.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
A little bit of everything, kind of depends on what's needed.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
They they take care of Joe. They heard him in
Live heard I've met his father a couple of times.
Just kind of loaded question there. Uh, he's awesome, awesome fella.
Never never have played golf with him. I think he's
probably playing a lot of golf these days, hitting Joe
with his with a six iron.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Saying come on, doll. So where all do y'all work?
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Y'all already located Norfolk's in the northeast corner of Nebraska.
Y'all work down down towards Omaha and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, we actually have an office in a community that's
just outside of Omaha called w so we could say
that Omaha. We work all over the state in Nebraska
clear to the west side, so almost Colorado, Wyoming area,
and we're working up in the south Dakota, and then
we look at step and Iowa also so.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Is that is that like, you know, you basically have
an existing relationship that it says, hey, will you go
to this market for us? And that's sort of how
you you spread your growth.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
That's a combination of that. We do a lot of
public type work, so a lot of these schools and
things like that in the higher ed and jails. Yeah,
a lot of it is through an RP process that
will submit of our qualifications, uh, interview and try to
get hired that way, so that can pull us around
all over.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, I think that's that is.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
We have some teammates on our Rugby commercial team that
come from that world public bid. And the beautiful thing
about that is you know, you know exactly pretty much
when it's going to start, specs are all done, and
so yeah, it's it's a it's a lot more predictable.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
It seems like, yeah, we're we're still getting hired on
at the see them at risk in that case, so
we'll be brought on before designs finished or anything like
that to support. So we come in and look at
constructibility budgets things like that. As they progress with the drawings,
we'll take out the subcontractor bids then move forward that way. So, yeah,
(22:31):
you're right, it's we know what's coming when it's coming. Uh.
You know that pre con phase can last anywhere from
six months to a year. Yeah, so we've got a
long burn before we're putting shovels in the ground. But
so how many when it's starting?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
So how big is your company employee wise? And what's
what's your plans for growth?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
No, we're we're on forty employees right now. We've just
started looking to to really make a move into Omaha
Lincoln work the two biggest metros in Nebraska. With that,
we're probably looking at trying to double in the next
ten years and snickly increase our revenue that way. There's
(23:13):
just a lot of work going on in Omaha Lincoln,
especially Oma.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
So I got a question for you. I'm looking you
up on here, and it says, y'all focus developing our firms,
focus on implementing quote lean end quote construction practices. Tell
our audience briefly, what what does lean construction practices stand for?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
It comes from a lot of things. I mean, you know,
it was Henry Ford's you know, process of building cars
was lean and went to Toyota. They took it to
another level. So there's a lot of different aspects of it,
and that's obviouslyvolves around eliminating waste in all aspects, making
things easier, things like that. Probably one of the biggest
(23:58):
things we utilize is so we called pole planning. It's
called in the last planner system, and really that is
we create our overall schedule, but then we involved the
actual foreman for the subcontractors, bring them in and walk through,
break the job down into smaller pieces and and have
them lay out exactly how long am I taking. They
(24:19):
can do it if there's other ways to do it,
mottle things around, things like that, which gets them to
buy in. With that, we've we've been very successful in
reducing overall schedules. And then, like I said, with the
buy in, when they they're putting the dates in the
length of their their work, they kind of lose any excuses.
(24:41):
Then it helps out out everybody's.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
And it's called pro planning. Is that what you do
you do? Is that what you said?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah? Pole planning?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
P u ll oh, okay, get your ears shick.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Yeah, So we'll break it down like the first sixteen
weeks and we'll start at the last t ask of
the sixteen week and then go backwards just building it
out that way and.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
What and what are you basically just including like the
m EPs, the structural guys, I mean every sub or
just the subs that are part of that that portion
project every.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Sub uh yeah, every subcontractors forming and usually they're project
manager too. You know, one you want to get bought
off on the actual work that's going in place. You
know what do they have commitment? For us? You know
we're not a very populated state, so a big thing
for us is just actual be able manpower. So you know,
(25:35):
you're not gonna be able to bring in three crews
to attack something. So if you have five guys that
can work on it, how much can they get in place?
You know, do you have access to all five? So
things like that. It just makes them understand and share
information with us and then the other subcontractors, and it
tends to make them work together better.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
No, man, it makes complete sense. I mean, if you're
skinnying up schedules too, I'm sure the subcontractors love it
because they're you know, they're making margin off that skinny
to schedule. So that makes complete sense. It seems like
such a simple thing to do, but uh, you know,
we we don't particularly do that at that level. So
I appreciate that that nugget. It's that institutional work. Got
(26:12):
to keep it straight and got yees tight budgets. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
So I got a question for you, Joe, when I
come out to Omaha for the Berkshire Shareholders meeting here
in a couple of months, you're gonna come.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Visit me, come down.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Oh you know it?
Speaker 4 (26:28):
He said, you know it, you know it with it
with his basketball skills. I got a question for you, Joe.
I'm gonna put you on the spot. You got to
answer this quick now, none of this pause. We're not
doing strategic pauses. What is one thing that you live
by in your life and in your business that you hang.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Your hat on.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Honesty and integrity?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
There you go, There it is. And he said, I'll
co slap you to boot. Nah. He just said that
to me. Trust man, it's that. Yeah, It's it's all
about true.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Honesty and integrity. I love it would Joe. How can
people look you up? I'm sure people are intrigued and
want to want to go to your website?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
What what's your website? And how can they look you up?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
They were at the becking our construction dot com. On
the website you can see some of the recent projects
things like that. And I actually talked a little bit
more about lean things like that that we do. And
that's we got LinkedIn Facebook all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
And that's BECKENHOWERD B E C K E N H
A U E R Beck And.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Howard you are?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You are correct?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Would Joe?
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Man?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
It's been fun. I can't wait to see you in
a couple of months.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Uh and uh we'll probably be texting a little bit
here during n c DOAA basketball playoffs.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Go heels.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
I got me on a torhill. He took me, I
will say a couple of years ago, he took me
to a Nebraska football game. Oh that was that was
we need to go they need to get better and
we need to go back at those glory days back.
I love to get Nebraska, Nebraska Colorado. Man.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
That's cool.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Even though both teams were down a little bit, it
was a time of my life. And I wearing my
Nebraska jacket all the time, think about Joe every time
I put it on.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Thank you, Joe, I appreciate you. Ha me on.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
All right, buddy, take care, God speak to you, and
have a good one. Joe Beckenhower Beckenhower Construction eighteen seventy eight,
the oldest construction company in Nebraska. On at home with Roby,
Here we go, go, do the Golden rule, end, treat
others the way you want to be treated, and carry
a smile around on your face today. Remind you give
(28:40):
us from grace away. Thanks for listening.
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