Boiler Technologies, Training, & Empowerment w/Eric Johnson

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, welcome back to an Automation Ladies episode.
We are recording here on aWednesday in our remote studio,
and our guest today is somebodythat Allie brought on.
Allie, why don't you introduceour guests or tell us what
you're expecting or why youinvited him to come on the show?
I'm sorry, I know we said wewouldn't do that ahead of time,

(00:21):
but I'm going to do that now.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I you know, delved into creating technical content
Um, and I still have a lot ofaspirations um to do that in a
lot of, a lot of differentthings.
But, um, I my passion hasstarted with controls, or
process engineering, cause I'm achemical engineer, so I studied
chemical engineering Um and uh,that got me to, at the

(00:46):
beginning of my career, kind offall in love with different
types of equipment like unit ops, um, and definitely you know,
boilers, um was in that categoryof like utility equipment that
we had to learn about.
We had to learn how to size,and I have in my life bought um
or spec'd out you know,different size boilers.

(01:06):
Um, and then you know, usedsteam to do various things, um,
you know, in the process side ofthings, because it's a huge
utility um in a ton of processindustries, um, and so I saw
eric was doing, you know,teaching people, because I I'm
also like a burner technician.
So like NFPA 86 is furnaces andNFPA 85 is boilers, so like the

(01:33):
way that we like run the burnercontrols is like similar.
They just have like highpressure considerations and so
it's a little bit different, butlike, so to me it's like super
exciting um, just to talk tosomebody who has, you know, put
their hands on, um, the NFP 85side, um, so all the stuff
that's like kind of used to runand do the controls, and even

(01:55):
just like the equipment itself,cause he knows, you have to know
everything about how you'remaking the steam, um, and then
there's just a lot of pipingconsiderations and just a lot of
crap surrounding just juststeam and boilers, um, and
producing steam for all for alot of different things,
including, um, heat exchange isa giant one.
So in a lot of cases you mayneed to heat stuff and you'll

(02:17):
use low pressure steam or highpressure steam, um, but you need
a boiler to make the steam, andso there's a lot of places that
use this.
But anyway, I found his contentand I just wanted to hear his
story because I don't thinkenough people I think people
know how to work on stuff andnobody wants to talk about it
the way that he's doing it, sothat other people can learn and

(02:38):
even get excited and be like, oh, I could be a boiler technician
.
Like, oh, I would, I could, Icould be a boiler technician.
Like, so I think, um, it soundsit depends on what you know and
what your background is like itcould be boring to me.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
It's like super cool, because I really like that
equipment well, I'm prettyinterested, even though I don't
I've never I've never workedaround boilers or had any
interest in in the past.
But now that I, you know, knowthat they're there just like
everything else, I'm like oh,tell me all the things.
So, johnson, welcome toautomation.
Ladies, thank you so much forbeing here.
How are you?

Speaker 3 (03:07):
I am doing well.
Thank you for having me.
This is my first podcast, soI'm excited oh or what.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
What a cool milestone .
Thank you so much for lettingus be your first podcast.
This is where.
Don't take this as any kind ofbar for what podcasting is like.
We don't know what we're doing,but we're setting the bar high.
So our first question, ourstandard question, is if you
could just give us a littleintro of yourself, and we like
to ask kind of like what's yourstory of how you got here to be

(03:34):
making content for boilers andyou know the stuff that you're
doing today?

Speaker 3 (03:40):
So my family my grandfather actually started a
boiler service company and mydad is in the business.
So I've always been aroundboilers and I grew up around
boilers and service and I'm verymechanically inclined and just
like taking apart somethingtaking apart, you know, maybe a

(04:03):
four-wheeler or working onsomething in your garage,
working on your car it's alwaysinterested me in how stuff is
made and how stuff ismanufactured and a lot of that
goes into the focus with boilers.
And what I found was it's justan outlet for mechanical things.
You know I really likebulldozers and the yellow

(04:25):
equipment.
Since I've grown up aroundboilers, it's just the avenue
that I chose.
So, uh, after high school, um, Iwasn't super into college but I
was like looking atconstruction management.
But I found a uh HVACengineering technology program,
ferris State, go Bulldogs.

(04:45):
It's up in Michigan andessentially the first two years
is teaching you how to be a HVACtechnician at a very high level
as much as you can in two years.
I mean they have labs, probablyone of the most in-depth labs.
I've seen a lot of industry,sponsors and whatnot, so it's
really great experience.

(05:06):
And then the next two years,which is a bachelor's degree, is
designing.
So essentially my seniorproject, my last semester, was
design, like spec design, amechanical system for a museum
in the middle of Pennsylvania.
So you got to pick out all theair handlers size, all the
piping size, the chillers size,all the duct, and so essentially

(05:30):
, coming out of college, I had apretty good idea of mechanical
equipment and buildingenvironment.
That's what they call it.
So if you walk into a buildingand you don't realize the
temperature, some engineer hasdone a very good job because you
are comfortable without youknowing being comfortable.
Anytime you walk into abuilding and you go, hey, it's

(05:52):
cold, then something is off inthe controls and it's probably
not to the greatest design orit's not operating correctly the
greatest design or it's notoperating correctly.
So after college I, you know, Ilooked at construction
management and whatnot and Ireally just didn't want to be in

(06:13):
a job site trailer and likejust sitting around and I really
wanted to do some hands-onstuff and get field experience.
So I ended up working for aboiler service company being a
service technician with abachelor's degree.
But you know a lot of peoplebeing a service technician with
a bachelor's degree, but youknow a lot of people say, oh,
college is a waste of time andwhatnot, and it is if you go for
the wrong degree or you're justshowing up to show up.

(06:36):
I used a lot of my collegeexperience because there was a
lot of controls classes, pidloops and all that stuff.
Logic that I used day one outin the field that if I hadn't
gone to college, I would bewalking into a mechanical room
not knowing what anything is,not knowing what an air handler

(06:57):
is or a chiller and how theywork, and that would set me back
.
So while I don't work onchillers or air handlers, it is
something that you should knowabout, because every, every
building or process uh hasconnected components and while
you may only be working on onecomponent, which in my case is a

(07:18):
boiler, all the othercomponents uh work together like
heat exchangers.
So that's like something Ilearned about and you know
humidity and how to use steamfor humidity and hospitals and
all this stuff.
And so it goes beyond.
I think people get very narrowfocused on well, I just need to
learn boilers.
Why would I learn anything else?

(07:39):
And, like, life isn't binaryand you can't learn one avenue
of material and just avoideverything else, because
everything is connected, andeven more so in building
controls.
So I was a service tech,slinging wrenches, doing on call
, just working like twenty eighthundred three thousand hours a

(08:02):
year, like 2,800 to 3,000 hoursa year.
Uh, I loved it, Um and uh, justlearning so much.
Go home, read manuals at nightand, uh, you just try to show up
and be the best person for thecustomer, Cause you realize,
like you know, my company'sbilling me out at 120 an hour or
whatever, and you want to showup and represent that 120 an

(08:26):
hour.
If you show up unprepared, Ijust I felt so bad.
And while I always tell peopleto be the expert, you just have
to know one more thing than thecustomer.
And that's a lot of.
What I did is read the manual,memorize what I need to know,
walk in, have the right answersfor like two or three questions
from the customer and thenfigure it out.

(08:48):
And at the end of the day, aslong as the problem is fixed
correctly, it doesn't matter howmuch you know or don't know
about the problem.
And so I did that and thenprobably year four, year five of
doing being a servicetechnician, probably year four,

(09:08):
year five of doing being aservice technician.
I had learned enough, I'dprobably reached the point of
like I was competent and got gotinto a groove of and knew what
I was doing, and a lot of peoplelike, oh, how can you do that
in three or four years?
Well, when you only work onboilers and burners and like
that's it.
Oh, you can yeah and then alllike your life is consumed by it
.
You go home, you read stuff atnight and all this stuff you

(09:30):
would be amazed at what you canknow in three and four years,
especially if you start workingon the same equipment, same job
sites, and then you, you learnhow every mechanical room starts
to work.
So know, I would start tryingto teach people and obviously
you know companies trying tohire people to, you know, be
service techs.

(09:50):
And it's definitely a difficultjob and it takes a special kind
of person and I found that youknow there's a lot of people
that just want to show up andjust be kind of told what to do,
and a service tech is somethinglike you have to have.
You have to be a self starterand be some initiative yourself.

(10:12):
Yeah, initiative and be somebodywho's going to fix a problem,
like in a mechanical room, likecause you're normally not
working with anybody else, thecustomer's not standing over you
and if you go, ah, I'll justleave this for somebody else, or
, you know, nobody will know itwill come back and bite you,
whether it you know, whetherit's a callback or the problem

(10:33):
doesn't get fixed correctly orwhatnot.
So I'm trying to teach that andinstill that in other people.
As long with the technicalstuff and you know all the new
people or people that thecompany was hiring, it comes
down like, oh, where can I learnstuff?
And all this?
I'm like, well, you know it'sin the manual and all this stuff
and you show them and it justnever, uh, seemed to be like too

(10:57):
too much of structure oflearning and I think some people
can read a manual and learn,but a lot of people have
different learning styles where,like the reading, the manual
isn't going to do it for them.
Yes, yes.
So reading a manual, you haveto be able to visualize what
you're reading and especially ifyou've never seen what you are
reading about is very difficult.

(11:17):
But I was like.
So I'm looking around theindustry and, as we probably all
know, the blue, blue collarindustry tons of baby boomers
are retiring.
There's tons of need in theindustry for people, especially
people that know something, andall the companies that are
having boiler training or burnertraining.

(11:38):
They seem to be running thesame plane book over and over
again and while, like, they dogreat training and whatnot, it
doesn't.
The outcome of their trainingisn't affected by the service
technician, so whether theservice tech learns or not, they
still get paid.
And then the service tech goeshome and there's a disconnect

(12:00):
between training that thecompany is training the service
tech on and what the servicetech actually needs to know, and
it ends up being a one sizefits all approach.
So I looked at other industriesand I think the HVAC industry
is a leading indicator ofboilers.
Boilers are just really a nicheof HVAC and HVAC has a lot of

(12:23):
online learning programs thatare helping HVAC technicians and
even chiller technicians tolearn stuff, and with the boiler
industry, there's not too manyonline programs that are great
that I would recommend toanother service technician to
take.
So by year seven of being aservice technician, I was like

(12:49):
you know I'm young, you know notmarried, like there's only one
time to do this and I'm like, ifnobody else is going to do it,
I'm going to jump in the ringand be the person who tries to
make the change in the industry,because a lot of people wait
till they're like 50, 55, or youknow 60 or you know whatever,
and semi-retired to try to likegive back and teach, which is

(13:12):
fine.
But sometimes I realize that Ihave to remove myself from the
customer problems of theindustry to actually work on the
problems of the industry andtry to apply knowledge and
learning programs to empowerservice contractors and

(13:34):
mechanical contractors to traintheir own people.
And so I quit my job andstarted Boilern and it's boiler
and learning together, if that'sthe name, so Boilern and
essentially I try to maketraining programs and systems

(13:54):
for companies that actually movethe needle on their service
technicians and learning.
So the biggest complaint I'veheard and learning so the
biggest complaint I hear about,like offsite training is the
managers who send their peopledon't really know what to expect
of the people that come back.
So the service technician comesback, manager asks hey, like,

(14:17):
what'd you learn?
And the service tech goes itwas fine, I learned a couple of
things.
But then they don't really know, like, okay, what skills like,
prove it out.
Yeah, what skills is thisthings?
But then they don't really know, like okay, what skills?
Like, prove it out.
Yeah, what skills is thisperson supposed to know?
Or don't know.
And if they come back and golike, oh, I didn't really learn
anything, now your employer Imean they're out, probably three
grand at least and you knowwhat do you do?

(14:40):
Do you just resend them back tothe class and hope for a
different outcome?
Know what do you do?
Do you just resend them back tothe class and hope for a
different outcome?
So it ends up being this balance, yeah, the struggle and balance
of managers get very frustratedwhen they send people to
offsite training and then theycome back and they haven't
really learned anything or showninitiative to learn.
And a lot of times people thinkoffsite training is you know, I

(15:05):
deserve this and if I learnsomething, great.
If I don't, great, you knowthey're still going to pay me to
be here and with a internaltraining program for contractors
or mechanical contractors,having a small amount of
training over a long period oftime is much better than an
information dump of two or threedays.

(15:27):
So the biggest thing is, likeall these contractors they're
all experts in the industry,they're all experts on boilers
but putting that expertknowledge in a way, in a pathway
that is structured and alsoable to be digested by somebody,
because I'm not teachinganything new, like everything I
know, I could give you 15 books,but you know you can't buy 15

(15:52):
books for somebody and say, hey,read all this, and now you know
it all.
But it's, yeah, it's breakingit down, just like a teacher
would break down mathematics ina school and assuming like,
since we are now training peoplewho you know, maybe 18 years,
right out of high school andthey don't traditionally maybe

(16:15):
have like farm experience ormechanical experience, and you
know, I I worked with a guy andI assumed he knew how to read a
tape measure.
So then he goes oh, it's likepeople don a tape measure.
So then he goes oh, it's likepeople don't know, lefty Lucy,
righty tighty.
So it's, it's six and threelines or whatever.
I'm like three lines, what arewe doing?
And he's like I've never read atape measure before.

(16:36):
And so I taught him how to reada tape measure.
So then I asked somebody elseknew that I was working with.
And I'm like hey, you know howto read a tape measure.
And he's like well, I'm notdumb, I'm like they're offended.
I'm like I didn't know Cause,like I've worked with somebody
who didn't know.
So it's really removing thebarrier of, hey, you should know

(16:59):
this and get with the program.
And hey, do you know this ornot?
And if not, we can teach you it.
As long as you want to be hereand you're driven, we're happy
to have you and we're happy toteach you, because that's what
companies are going to need inorder to survive in the future.
They have to be able to developtheir people in-house, and

(17:21):
relying on outside resources isit's a step in it.
I wouldn't say outsideresources are bad, but it is a
step in a larger system andprogram that they need to put
together.
And a lot of the super, superbig companies are starting to
figure it out because they havethe money and the people to hire

(17:43):
a full-timetime trainer, hireyou know and build a full-time
training lab and you knowwhatnot.
But then the all the smallercompanies there's tons of
service contractors out there 30to 50 people that can't afford
a hundred thousand dollartrainer to just sit around and
build stuff.
So as an industry, we cancollect knowledge and put

(18:06):
together learning systems thatall these contractors can just
implement into their companiesand that's really why I started
Boiler and what we're trying tofix.
I don't have the magic answerright now.
I am working towards it.
I'm just me at the time.
I am working towards it.

(18:26):
I'm just just me at the time.
I'm self-funded.
So I see people, you knowcompanies come in.
Oh, you can train our people.
Well, I can, but you know, Idon't.
I don't have like a four yearboiler degree for you, but
that's what we're going towardsand we'll get there eventually.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
That's really impressive.
I appreciate the, I guess, thekind of person that says sees
the problem and says, well, Iguess, since nobody's doing it,
I'll try to do it.
That's the kind of people weare.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
That is what you did, yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
I'm a big fan.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
I'm a big fan of the Theodore Roosevelt man in the
ring quote and taking initiative.
And yeah, I just.
I'm like I can't complain abouta problem and not try to fix it
.
And I tried to fix the problem.
Um, and it's impossible to fixthe problem when you're working

(19:24):
2,800 hours a year and also tryto build training systems and
whatnot.
And that's when I ended upgoing like I need to remove all
my customers problems and likemy job problems and only work on
problems of helping theindustry.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
You've mentioned initiative a few times and I
think that's really important.
Like you can hire for that, butyou can't really teach that,
the skills you can teach ifsomebody has initiative, but you
kind of mentioned as well that,like these new techs, they need
to.
Is that something that youfound?
Somebody can learn to takeinitiative or to become a
self-starter, or is it kind ofwhen you, you know, work with

(20:00):
these people?
So they're either going to showthat initiative or they're not.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
It might depend on who they watch, because people
are going to mimic their, theirleaders.
So if the leaders are like likewhat you said, you said you
need to show up and representthat 120 dollars.
So many people don't give a torepresent that 120 dollars.
They're representing their,their 45 or 54, whatever they're
getting.
Um, I'm here and to feel likethe ownership of the work that

(20:31):
you do, even though you're notthe owner of the company, is
like the highest asset workerswe can, even freaking have.
Like I always felt that waythat I was representing my
reputation, not just my company.
I was representing me and likeand I want you to know that I
have integrity and you candefinitely trust my company to
have integrity, cause they putme here because I have integrity
and like I'm going to not likepaying up the phone and I'm

(20:54):
going to like eat my dinner I'mknown for that Like eating my
dinner on the phone with anelectrician some other place and
like I could have just dumpedthem, like it was 5 PM, but I
don't't do that and that's whyI'm me and have what I have.
But like I don't know.
It's like Nikki saying I don'tknow how you teach that I think
you just find it in people.
But the only chance we havemaybe is like the few of us that
are already like that.

(21:15):
You put them at the top andthen you have everyone be you
know, work for them, and that'sthe only chance you really have
is just like put the ambitiousones in the lead.
That way the other ones can seeand maybe feel proud and be
like I wish I was like that guyor that girl, um, because she
obviously like really, really,really cares about not just

(21:35):
going home, um, but the job thatshe does.
Like yeah, we all care aboutour family and ourselves first,
and we should, but we shouldcare about the quality of the
stuff that we do for a living.
And some of us do and some ofus, like don't love what we do
and so we just do it for thepaycheck and it shows and it
sucks.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
So part of being a service technician is how you
fix a job, is your signature andyou'll develop relationships
with customers and you want yoursignature to be when the
customer, when you show up, walkthrough the door and they see
your face, they know the problemis going to be taken care of.
If they see your face and areconstantly calling your, your

(22:18):
company, after they see yourface, they get a negative view
of you and go, oh well, he's notgoing to probably take, he's
not going to.
You know, take care of theproblem.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
He doesn't care.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
And.
But you know, and that's what Itried to be a rock star for my
customers.
And a lot of people will say,like you know, oh, you need work
at life balance and you knowyou, you can't work all the time
and you know all this stuff.
But, like you know, like with aboiler, you know it can be three
o'clock or 3 30 and you havetwo more hours to go

(22:51):
approximately.
You can't really just go like,oh well, I've got, I gotta go
home and I'll see you tomorrow.
Like there's a manufacturingline that's down and, like they,
they need it fixed and theyneed it fixed now, because that
second shift of people arerelying on you and that third
shift of people are relying onyou and that third shift of
people are relying on you andthe plant manager is wondering
like, hey, are we gonna have aboiler tonight?

(23:12):
Or do I call my 80 people onthird shift and tell them that
they're not working tonight?
So it's a lot of responsibilityand, downstream, of more than
just like oh, you know, I'm justgonna go home and you know, I
think that I mean that bleedsinto the purpose of it.
But going back to your originalquestion, can you teach
initiative?

(23:32):
You absolutely can, otherwisethe Marine Corps wouldn't exist,
you know.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
And the you know they got.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Touche Yep.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
They got their slogan the few, the proud, the Marines
.
And even recently, you know,the total recruiting in the
armed services is down, but theMarines still keep hitting their
numbers because they try topush people to a higher purpose
and be a part of it.

(24:02):
But do they accept everyone?
No, no.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, so you have to have some amount of initiative
to even apply to the marines inthe first place like you, like
you can't be like really dumbeither, like yeah and then they
won't just let you in if you'rejust like, well, I kind of want
to be a marine, because itsounds, you know, all right,
like I mean, but I mean I justas well.
I could be also in the army orin the navy or whatever, I don't
care.
Like they probably wouldn't letthose people in right so well.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
So you gotta pass a like a test, like and I've never
been in the armed services, butyou gotta pass a test.
And then you gotta like pass aphysical.
And how you pass the test isbased on essentially what you
can do, and you know there'splenty of people who get in the
marines that are not like youwould think, your typical marine

(24:47):
, but a small.
But what makes them differentis, once you're signed up, you
can't quit, for you know yourperiod two years, four years,
whatever it is and like if uh, Ithink it would be interesting,
like if you could quit boot campin the Marines and like, just
be like, ah, this is hard, I'mdone Like you would probably

(25:10):
have so many more people washout, but you they push them to
get over that hurdle and believein themselves, and so many
people come from you knowterrible upbringing and terrible
homes and you know nobody hasbelieved in them and you know so
.
Then they think you know liketheir world is way different
than other people's worlds andlike it's hard to know that.

(25:31):
So then when an employer goeshey, you need to take initiative
.
They don't even know what thatis and you have to show them
that.
But the first minute it getshard.
A lot of people think hardequals bad and that's simply not
true.
But since there are so manyblue collar service companies
that are dying for people, they,they will just start throwing

(25:53):
money around.
So they'll find a servicetechnician hey, we'll give you
three more dollars an hour, fourmore dollars an hour.
And this person jumps ship.
Oh, of course I want more money, money.
They jump ship and now thatemployer, who's invested all
that time trying to train them,has just lost them to their
competitor, and then thatcompetitor will lose them to

(26:14):
another competitor who pays thema little bit more, and it ends
up being you can't get somebodyto commit to learning and push
them hard, because if you pushthem too hard of like hey, like
this is going to be difficult,but we believe in your future,
like in three years it will beamazing.
And a lot of people can't seethree years ahead.

(26:36):
They're worried about the endof the month and that's about it
, and they see three moredollars an hour and that gives
them a little bit more money.
And then they bounce, and it'snot always the best career
decision.
While I do understand it in theshort term, in the longterm,
chasing the money is probablynot going to work out for you.

(26:56):
You know everybody's like oh,you know, chasing money, you get
huge raises and stuff, but at acertain point you end up
especially being a servicetechnician you end up with a pay
scale that is higher than whatyou can fix, because eventually,
at the end of the day, youstill have to go to the job site
and you have to fix stuff.
So now, if you're getting $35,$40 an hour or whatever and you

(27:18):
constantly have callbacks andwhatnot, and your employer
starts going like, well, what doyou actually know?
What am I paying you for?
And the skills don't match thepay rate and it's just very
difficult.
But initiative, if you can getsomebody who can see the long

(27:40):
term and hasn't made extremepoor financial decisions before
that, so that they're bootstrapfor cash and just trying to
survive week by week you know,because they're in survival mode
and they're not in career modeat that point then you can
definitely, um, have them learn,like I know of people myself,

(28:00):
like I know a guy who was awaiter and I know a guy who
washed dishes and they trainedhim to be a service technician
and he's been with the companylike 24 years now.
So like it's absolutelypossible.
It goes back to the managershave to be able to push and lead

(28:25):
the people and the problem iswith that is you know you're
when you show up to work, youcost the company money and if
you keep costing them money,they can only push you so much
before they just get frustratedand be like, well, this guy's
never going to work out becausea lot of these smaller companies
don't have endless budgets toinvest two years of just

(28:46):
throwing away money into you andhope that you work out.
So then they just keep puttingout job applications for senior
service technicians with peoplefor five years, 10 years
experience, because they can'tget people over the hump.
And that's what I'm reallytrying to help companies with is
get people over the hump of howdo we take them from zero to

(29:08):
kind of know what they're doingin the boiler room, and it seems
like a big gap but it's reallynot.
But we need probably astructured training program of
probably a year to two years toget them there.
And I think if we can get peopleto commit like a you, you know,
like a trade school almost of,hey, like at two years, you're

(29:29):
going to make this amount ofmoney and you're going to know
this, and that's kind of really,um, how the union does it as
well.
Um, I wasn't in the union, butthey essentially say, hey, at
the end of five years, you'regoing to be a journeyman and
you're going to make this amountof money, and it helps people
see a future, because a lot ofpeople can't set goals for

(29:51):
themselves, especially fiveyears down the road down the
line.
So essentially somebody else istelling them hey, this is what
you can have and this is whatyou can achieve at the end of
five years and they can worktowards it.
And a lot of employers, unionor non-union, don't do that very
well, even outside of justtechnical stuff, like, hey, how

(30:11):
are you doing, where do you wantto go in your life?
And when you go home, what doyou want to do?
And so many people go home haveno ambition to do anything.
They just kind of sit around,maybe throw on netflix, which is
fine.
But then you know they startgrowing up and you know 30, 40,
50 years old and then they go.

(30:32):
You know, where did my life?
go and it's, it's very, I don'tknow all this like, do you read
psychology books?

Speaker 2 (30:41):
or you just like know about people, like you just
know a bunch of people.
You're right, that is howpeople work, especially
technicians.
It's a huge portion of thepopulation is doing exactly what
you're talking about.
How old are you?
Why do you know that?

Speaker 3 (31:00):
I'm 30.
I listen to a lot of podcastsand a lot of business and
personal development and mybiggest thing from day one has
been my parents teaching me howto work hard.
And you can't get that.

(31:21):
Luck is made essentially inmost of life.
You know, luck is madeessentially in most of life but
how you grow up in yourchildhood and what you're born
into is essentially the onlyluck that you can't control and
so many people don't have thatand I recognize that.
I had a great upbringing and myparents taught me hard work.

(31:44):
I had a great upbringing and myparents taught me hard work and
that has instilled in me thethe drive of always wanting to
do better for myself, for otherpeople, to help people, and I
always thought everybody hadthat.
You know, cause when you'reyoung you don't know, but as
once, once you get out into thereal world, um, like especially

(32:10):
when I started working, likethere were so many people like I
would go to plants and there'slike operators and whatnot and
they're you know they'll be, youknow probably 50s or 60s, as
most of the industry is, and youknow they'll tell me, you know
about their wife that they gotdivorced from, that they hate
and there are two kids thatdon't want to see them and, you

(32:31):
know, hopefully their nfl teamwins on the weekend and that
they can drink beer.
I'm like well to me I like thatjust sounds depressing you've
talked to the people if I get to50 years old and like that's
what I'm talking about andthat's all I have in life is
just living for the weekends andlike trying to instill that in

(32:52):
other people and share that withthem is also part of
development of employees.
Because uh and Dave Ramseytalks a lot about this is like
you can't have great employeesif they're constantly worried
about money and if their parentslike if you can't reliably have
people be taught money and howto manage money.

(33:15):
You as an employer now need totake that on, and a lot of
employers see that as, like youknow, that's not my problem.
I pay you to show up and dostuff, but it becomes your
problem, whether you want it tobe or not as an employer, you
need to almost shield peoplefrom the hurt of the world and
be hey, how can we get yourfamily life better?

(33:37):
You know what are your goals.
You know like, oh, I want tobuy a house one day.
All right, let's work backwards.
How can we get you to buy ahouse, like you know, and like
actually lay it out for them,because a lot of people haven't
had that or haven't had the timeto think about that and they
just think, you know, oh, I'llnever be able to buy a house.
That's for those other people,and that's such a poor outlook

(34:01):
on life.
And as an employer, youshouldn't have employees that.
And as an employer, youshouldn't have employees that
think stuff is impossible.
I'm a big person of like, youknow you can always work hard
and achieve.
You know what you can.
And you know I know a guy.
I know you know I couldn'tbelieve it at the time, but he

(34:23):
was like, oh, I'll never own ahouse that's for those other
people at the time.
But he was like, oh, I'll neverown a house, that's for those
other people.
And you know he's like, oh, Ijust I've made too many poor
decisions to change my life, andhe was probably 34, 35 at that
point and I'm like like it's not, like you're so young, like
you've maybe made poor decisionsbut you can change so much in

(34:46):
such little time, and like thisis like you're, you can't check
out on life and you know you,you just you know you can't make
the change for them, but youcan instill in them and you know
, just drop little things ofencouragement and you know like,
hey, you know how's this going.
Hey, how's your kid?
You know how's it, you knowanything I can do for you and

(35:07):
like love on them and like showthem like life's not over, like
you can redeem yourself andredeem your life.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
You know who you remind me of?
Well, you don't know, but youremind me of Drew Crow in that,
like you don't just know boilers, you actually know the
workforce.
You, boilers, you actually knowthe workforce.
You should be on a lot of otherpodcasts where you talk about
the workforce because, like,people don't understand their
workforce and that is a huge,huge problem.

(35:34):
Um, and yeah, every, everysingle workforce is the same.
Like if you, if they don'tbelieve in themselves and a lot
of people don't, and it's noteven their fault, and it's
amazing that you're like sayingthat, like we could, as
employers, take on basicallyparenting some of these people
into better lives.
Um, we tell them what to do,they're going to do it

(35:58):
themselves, but like you couldchange people's lives by just
telling them or showing themthat other people did it.
That's part of why we loveautomation, ladies, is we wanted
to show that you know peoplewith any background.
If they don't stop and theydon't let everybody else tell
them no, because they're goingto tell you no anyway, they're
like you can't do that.

(36:18):
Your family will tell you youcan't do that.
Like all kinds of people willtell you you can't do something.
And if you don't give up andyou go get that thing.
You go and you turn around andtell that story to people.
It inspires people to dosomething.
They're like well, they did it.
They see it.
They're like there's proof thatother people that look like me
or make as much money or not asmuch money as me, could turn

(36:41):
their go to school, figuresomething out, take a training
like, start talking to people onthe internet.
That's what we're trying to dois teach people to not give up,
because, yeah, a lot of us didalready come from pretty much
desperation.
A lot of us have seen thebottom and a lot of us were
really like you said we hadopportunities that other people

(37:05):
didn't have and we're just, forsome reason, uh, able to see
that and able to turn around andtell people like, hey, it's not
your fault that you didn't haveanything.
It's not your fault that yourparents didn't raise you to to
manage money.
It's not your fault that, like,your parents weren't even
hugging you.
Like there's all kinds ofthings that aren't your fault,
but you could have a better lifeand it's not over.

(37:27):
And even if you're 34 or 44 or54, I'm 37.
Like, I've never owned a home,but I don't feel like I don't
know.
I'll own a home eventually, butyeah, I think there's just.
Yeah, the human aspect isreally cool.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
I'm going to bring this up and brag on Allie a
little bit.
She's helped at least one ofher employees buy a house and
like you were aware of that andyou guys were aware of that,
that was a goal and likesupported that employee and
getting that done.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
So I think that that's huge because so many
people don't know what waysthere are to homeownership,
because there's many first FHAdifferent right, and then my
employees are veterans, so likethere's many first fha right and
then my employees are veterans,so like there's veterans loans
yeah, so va entitlement, ofcourse.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Surprisingly, a lot of people don't know how they
actually work, and the fact thatit's a dollar amount, not a
number of houses, or also thefact that fha is not we should
talk about that in an episodeit's just that you can only
carry fha at a time, like I knowso much about this that I just
forget that people don't know.
Um, and the other thing is islike, oh, let's say you buy a
house and then you want to takea job in a different city or you

(38:34):
need, you know your your incomestops or gets low or something.
Right, you can rent out thathouse and not, you know, have to
sell it right, as long as it'syou know, somewhat decent
investment, or you know, ofcourse, it depends on the as
long as it's you know a somewhatdecent investment, or you know,
of course, it depends on thesituation.
But like, there's just so manyoptions for people that I think
a lot of times like the frontline of an industry, like and I

(38:55):
will get another episode aboutlike real estate agents and
realtors and all that kind ofstuff.
But somebody that goes throughthe basic training, like to get
your exam, they know the breadand butter, what the contract is
, what the terms are, how to golook at a house, right, they
know those sorts of things, butthey really don't know anything
outside of the very basics andthey need to choose to become

(39:17):
educated in lots of differentareas if they want to really be
a great resource both to theirclient or to their seller or
whoever.
But I've heard I don't know onhow many occasions I've heard
somebody tell me or a realestate agent tell me, oh, you
can't do that or that's not howit works, when I know very well
that you can in fact do that andthat is exactly how it works,

(39:39):
but maybe not in most situations, right, and I think, yeah, it's
very common for people thatknow the bare minimums of any
kind of profession or whateverto kind of like think that they
know all of confidently saythings that they don't know.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
So be careful.
And that's technicians,engineers, older people, younger
people, men, women, like I seeit a lot in men, but like
everyone does it, like you'rejust, maybe there's just an air
of confidence to them that'salready there and it's like you
could accidentally like shutsomething down for someone
else's life, because you justsaid that so fast and it wasn't

(40:28):
like all of the considerations.
And it's like if you letyourself be that person who just
well, because I've done itbefore, like I think, uh, the
job before my last w-2 job,before I went out on my own, I
they said, like we can't do that.
And I and I just said I guessit's over.
And my dad was like, well, whydon't you just counter?
And and I was like, can I dothat?
And he's like, well, if youcan't, like they'll say no, and

(40:52):
I'm like, okay.
So I countered and they're likeokay, and I'm like, holy, I
almost walked away and a lot ofpeople don't ever counter.
So that's I think that's whatI'm trying to say is that like
don't take the first no as thetruth.
Like make sure it's really a no, that's not like you know, yeah
, just get a second opinion.
Like if someone says you havecancer, like make sure you

(41:15):
really have that cancer.
Like you know, yeah, don'tnecessarily take that first.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
No, that also speaks a little bit to the broader
point that you made that like,even though what you learned in
college isn't exactly what youended up using, knowing that was
really helpful in your job.
Right, and I think again, whenyou stick to the very, very,
very basics, the only things youhad to learn, right, your bare
minimum, you're not going to beable to troubleshoot or or

(41:43):
confidently know whether there'sa path forward to something or
not.
But the more you learn aboutother things that are adjacent
to what you do, even if they'renot that exact thing, you become
a much more powerful problemsolver, right Cause then you can
also know, kind of like, whoyou should talk to to get
something done, rather than justspeak to your customer more
intelligently, um, or the otherpeople that are there will be
like, oh, this guy knows, orthis girl knows More than just

(42:07):
one thing, and so I'm willing totalk to them because they're
not an idiot.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Some people will open up because they're like, yeah,
they know that you are speakingtheir language versus just
speaking just the technicalstuff, about just your thing.
When you start explaining tothem that you understand their
thing in the grand scheme of thetechnical stuff, about just
your thing, when you startexplaining to them that you
understand their thing in thegrand scheme of the other stuff,
um, or maybe just the companyitself, like that, like that
gives comfort to the managers,to the operators in you and,

(42:37):
like you know, we I I try so badto sell the glory of
technicians because the peopleare like you know, I'm here to.
A technician job is a highglory job because you fix the
thing, like if you actually knowhow to fix the thing.
That is one of the mostincredible feelings, because I
fixed many things in my life andit happened after.

(42:59):
People were struggling for days, trying to look at it, like
different kinds of people werelooking at it Engineers,
electricians, operators arelooking at it and I come and
find a blown fuse and they'relike damn it, or just like I
find things right that peoplejust didn't see, and like it
doesn't take me that long.
But like that glory of likesolving that for them and

(43:19):
getting them going again is likehuge and like I think that is
just worth it by itself, is justlike knowing that like people
call you they call your namebecause they know you.
You have a reputation that youfix it and they've already seen
you fix it before.
So they're just they don't evenwaste time.
They're like get Eric over hereright now and they do it to me.
They're like I need Allie, nother people.

(43:41):
Allie has to come here.
Eventually I'll have my peopleprove themselves and they'll
call my people by name, but theycall my name and they need me
there and I'm like I'm inanother state, I can't go.
But yeah, that glory is amazingand I think that that is
something that makes thetechnician job worth it, because

(44:02):
people know your name, they youknow that you're just going to
fix it.
You don't even know where itcomes from.
I don't know where it comesfrom.
I just show up and I'm likeI've built one of these before
or I've seen this problem before, or both like, or I've just.
You know, I know enough abouthow to build these that I know
where the things could be broken.
And the other thing about me is,uh, I can fight with

(44:24):
electricians.
Some programmers just endedthere.
They're like they can't speakon the circuit and so if you
can't speak on a motor controlcircuit to an electrician, he
can say all or she can say allday long that it's a programming
problem.
But if I can't prove it's notthat it isn't me and it is them,
them then they can justbasically say it isn't me and I,

(44:45):
and I have to prove it.
Um, so like there is a hugevalue in knowing other people's
stuff and being able to arguewith them about it, because you
can come up against other trades, people, and if you do not
speak their language or othermanagers or whatever, if you do
not speak the language of all ofthose people, then they're
going to stop you in your tracksand not let you do something.

(45:07):
And if you can't argue withthem intelligently, then you're
kind of stuck and you're justlike not going to be able to
solve the thing.
So it's actually incredible toknow more than just your thing.
And you should, because you'regoing to come up against all the
other players who are likewho's this?
Is it wiring, is it mechanical?
Is it in the plumbing?
Is it?
Did someone?
Did the engineer size the wholething wrong to begin with, like

(45:27):
who messed this up?
Like where is it broken?
And then, yeah, the customer'sfreaking out like and everybody.
It's a high stress andeventually someone will solve it
, but the glory is definitelythere for us.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
So I want to tie this back to Eric's training content
.
Can you tell us a little bitabout what that looks like today
in terms of the type of contentyou have and then maybe what
you're building and like?
Does that have a module thatsays, if you don't know how to
you know, use a tape measurelike here's, here's how to show
you that, or like those thingsthat are kind of like not the
core of your training focus, butthe peripheral things that

(46:05):
people are going to need to know?

Speaker 3 (46:06):
so since I just started, probably a year and a
half ago, I've been very focusedon boiler related stuff that
gets somebody from zero to knowssomething and a lot of the like
oh, how to read a tape measureand whatnot.
There are so many generalcourses and general, you know,

(46:28):
construction courses that havethat that in the big picture I
go how can I most effectivelymake a impact as fast as
possible?
And that's what I, going backto, the you know, outside
resources are great, but they'renot the end solution.
It's how can I be a cog in thewheel and not try to be the
wheel of everything?

(46:49):
And I think so many employersand whatnot want to see a wheel
of everything.
They'll get sold a trainingprogram of hey, this will teach
them absolutely everything theyneed to know and that's probably
not going to be a greattraining program.
So it's right now I'm very uhfocused on, like specific topics

(47:09):
.
So, uh, like honeywell monmotors are a very common stepper
motor in the industry.
They're on a lot of burners, alot of feed water valves, um,
and it's a very simple motoronce you understand how it works
.
But, uh, part of the myexperience and like building

(47:33):
this company is like I'vestruggled myself with Honeywell
mod motors and trying totroubleshoot them and not have a
step-by-step process and that'sone of the few manuals that is
terrible and it won't really.
It doesn't like tell you like,is it this or is it this?
And so then you end up learningfrom other people and it
becomes this like phone, youknow, chain of stuff where you

(47:58):
start learning knowledge andyou're like well, is that true
or is it not?
But it's not written down, youcan't read it in the manual.
So it's very difficult forsomebody who's starting to look
towards a resource and I wantthis course to be hey, this is
everything I know about it and Iwas able to figure them all out
Like, this is everything youshould know about it.

(48:18):
So also, I haven't released ityet, but have a burner linkage
trainer course and, um,essentially.
So burner linkage is one of thefew things.
So, uh, if you're not familiarwith burners, a stepper motor
will drive linkage on a linkageburner and the linkage drives

(48:40):
the air and fuel which controlsthe firing rate of the burner.
So if it's a full modulationburner, you have to open the air
damper for more air and open abutterfly valve for more gas and
it ends up it deals with likeangles and like travel and arcs,
which is very easy once youlearn it.

(49:04):
But it is like I can rememberlooking at a very small burner
probably 1.5 million input, andlike I had just put it all
together and it was making tonsof CO and I'm staring at it, I
have my combustion analyzer, Iknow it's wrong and, uh, like

(49:24):
this was probably, you know,probably year two of me working,
like I kind of knew what to do,but it was the linkage was so
messed up on the burner that Iwas like man, like it was more
than just like, hey, let's movea little rod or a connection
connection here.
So, luckily, I worked for anamazing company, had amazing
people.
So another person came out andjust showed me like hey, like

(49:46):
this is what we're going to do,oh, we need to do this.
Uh, we got to increase thespeed of the air here and do
this, and they got it all fixedup and so many people don't have
that one, because a lot ofthose people are retiring out of
the industry.
Or two, they just work in ageneral HVAC company and then,
um, they two, they just work ina general HVAC company and then
they just get anointed theburner person and they don't

(50:08):
have another person to call andyou know who do you go for that
resource and you know there arehow to adjust linkage in a
manual or there's YouTube videos.
But as an employer, it's how dowe, how do we pick and
designate one resource that weknow is reliable and then

(50:28):
consistently use that resource?
And if you have to constantlygo and say, hey, look up this
YouTube video, and then this oneand this one and this one, and
look at this manual, it's allthe information is scattered
everywhere and, like I said,like I'm not really making any
new information, the value of mycompany is putting that
information in a linear formatwhere the managers and the

(50:50):
employers don't have to thinkabout what am I giving this
person?
Or you know, is thisinformation good?
It's hey, we know this is good.
This is a solid resource andyou know we can give it to you
reliably over and over again.
And then on top of that, that'san electronic course, video
course there's.

(51:10):
I actually built a burnerlinkage trainer which is
essentially it'll teach youHoneywell Mod Motors, burner
linkage and gas butterfly valves.
And you know a lot of people.
I've had comments, dms, like oh, this is, like you know, like
the trainer's expensive, likeit's custom machine stuff.
But I can remember and I canthink back to when I was

(51:33):
learning linkage, like there'sso much mystery to it and you're
training on a customer's jobsite with an older service
technician but, like you know,you're still there billing out
hours.
So, like you feel, like youcan't make a mistake and in
front of a live boiler whenyou're not comfortable around
them, you put up so many mentalroadblocks that you're not

(51:56):
comfortable and all learningstops and it becomes a survival
situation and it's essentiallyhow do I get this linkage
adjusted to the point where theCR on my analyzer and my O2 look
good and I got to get out ofhere?
And getting people out of thatframe and mindset is the only
way that they're going to learn.

(52:17):
And a lot of older people havebeen like, oh, I just figured it
out on the job, so you have to.
And, yes, like there is anaspect to that.
But also, at the same time,what can we do and innovate in
the industry to help peoplelearn stuff without having to go
through all the hardships ofthe people before them?
And that's where this trainercame from.

(52:38):
So essentially, the trainergives you an in-house ability as
a company to train people onlinkage and they can make all
the mistakes they want, becausethere's not a flame connected to
the linkage, there's justprecision.
It's machined and laserengraved angle markings that
give you feedback so you canwalk through and be like all,

(53:01):
all right, my stepper motor madethis much direction change in
this way and then my gas valvemade this direction change and
my air damper, you know, madethis change.
And having that feedback isvery valuable.
You know, I have a lot ofpeople say oh well, we have a,
you know, an old burner that wepull off a boiler in our shop.

(53:22):
I'm like that's absolutelygreat, but there's no feedback
to a uh, a air damper.
That has no way to measure it.
You're just kind of measuringspatial position based on what
you see.
But when you make a linkagechange, sometimes you're only
changing the air damper by fourdegrees and it's very hard to

(53:44):
look at blades of an air damperand go oh yeah, that changed by
four degrees and it impacts thelearning, whereas the boiler and
burner linkage trainer, itoutputs numbers so you can know
hey, my stepper motor is at 45degrees, my gas valve is at 27
degrees and my air damper is at36 degrees.
Valve is at 27 degrees and myair damper is at 36 degrees.

(54:08):
And then it's building it's.
I've made like lessons, like,hey, you know, if your air
damper is this, how do we, youknow what do you have to do to
make it open farther, andknowing how to do that
eventually clicks like I, likeme, like it's.
It's like seeing the matrix andlike I just I could walk up
after I learned it.

(54:29):
It's probably year three or soI I learned it like I was so
scared that parallel positioning, which is like independent
motors on burners, I could dothat all day.
But linkage I was so scaredevery time I walked into a
boiler room and saw that andjust hoped it was right.
But after I learned it it'slike, oh, this isn't right, rip

(54:50):
all the linkage arms off, ripall this off and then reset
everything and let's get thisright.
And I think a lot of employersdiscount that step and just say
like, oh, I learned that.
Like just get out in the fieldand learn it and that's you're
essentially ignoring like allthe hazards that I've talked

(55:12):
about of you got a live burnerthat's running, so they're
worried about that.
They're worried about the heat,the noise most mechanical rooms
aren't lit properly and it'sjust not a good training
environment.
And even with a senior servicetechnician there showing them
and you know, if you're you'reat a customer site and like, at

(55:34):
the end of the day that seniorservice tech wants to go home
and a lot of senior servicetechs like they mean well and
they'll, like you know, trainpeople or whatnot, but it's not
repeatable.
Like if you send the sameperson, even with the same
person, if you send them outwith 10 different people,
they're going to get 10different experiences back and
that's not scalable, especiallywhen they retire.

(55:55):
So how do we get scalableexperiences and have new people
learn stuff the same over andover again, so that if I hire 10
people in my company, ideallythey get the same training.
Now your outcomes are going tobe different and that's based on
personal.
You know whatever, how they areas a person, but since you have

(56:21):
an internal training program,you can recognize and measure
that and if they aren'tachieving what they need to, you
can always loop back and go hey, where did we, where did we
stop?
Where are you struggling withand plug them back into the
program where, if you're sendingthem off to an offsite training
or if you're just doing on thejob training with somebody else,

(56:42):
it's just like oh, did youlearn this?
At the end of the day, yes, no.
If no, there's no visibility ofwhy they didn't learn it or
what they're struggling with.
I think a lot of frustration ofnewer people is they're probably
at 80 or 90% of understandingit, but you know it's the, it's
the.
You know don't stop giving ordigging, don't give up.

(57:05):
You know you're almost to thegold.
And people, you know, stop at80, 90% of understanding but
they feel like they have nounderstanding and they just need
that extra 10 or 20% and thenit'll click.
And then they'll be like well,how did I not know this?
And you know I always, I alwaystake it back to like
mathematics of.
You know I can remember sittingin high school like geometry

(57:25):
class and you know you sit thereand the teacher's like, hey,
we're going to learn this newconcept.
They're doing it on the board.
You're like, yeah, that makessense, like this is easy and
whatnot.
And then they like draw anotherproblem on the board.
And then they call on you andthen you get up there and you're

(57:50):
like holy moly, like I don't, Idon't know how to do anything,
I didn't even know the firststep, and it's so, cause you
were like passively learning.
And then, once you're activelylearning, it's hey, I don't even
know where to start, and thenthe teacher can guide you
through that.
And that's what this burnerlinkage, trainer, any linkage or
any training course that I'mtrying to build is.
It gives employers an activeapproach to training their
people and it makes their peoplealso responsible for the
training, because you know youcan track it and whatnot.

(58:11):
So like hey, did you do this ordid you not?
Whereas like a YouTube video,you know you can't really,
unless you plug it into a systemlike an LMS or whatever, you
can't really track that.
Somebody watched a YouTubevideo and a lot of YouTube
videos.
While they may be presentinggreat information, they're not
presenting in a way for alearning format.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Yeah, so do you put your content out on YouTube or
like any shorts or things likethat, or are you primarily?
I see you know on your websitethat you have some of the video
courses that people can buy, aswell as documentation type like
checklists and stuff, and someof the price points are
definitely at a point where youknow a technician, somebody that
has the initiative, could even,you know, take a look at this

(58:56):
themselves, but you're primarilybasically targeting this to the
employers being able to offerit to their technicians and have
it be part of a larger programso funny.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Bring that up because , well, that was my initial
offering or thought of.
I can make a lms system,learning management system, and
I can have employers put theirpeople into the system and they
can track it.
And I found that I was dealingwith a lot of managers that
really didn't care about theoutcome of their technicians.

(59:30):
They just, it ends up beinglike you, you, you waste a ton
of time with people who don'treally care about the outcome
and uh, you know, after talkingto a lot of people and whatnot,
I decided to kind of pivot anddeal directly with technicians
and that's actually what you'reseeing.

(59:51):
That website's like four daysold at this point, but it's.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
It looks really good.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
It is like, hey, you're the one that is actually
going to benefit from this, andif somebody is willing to sign
up for a course online, even iftheir employer is backing them
up and reimbursing them, ifthey're willing to sign up for
that course, they probably havethe initiative to be a great
service technician and they justneed the guidance.
And that's what I'm nowpivoting towards, because I was

(01:00:22):
wasting so much time emailing,calling managers and, you know,
on on my end also, like I don'thave the three year, four year
magic course that they want oflike, yeah, buy this and yeah
everything you need to know andall in one place.
It's also like you know I wouldhave people sign up and like

(01:00:44):
they would never even log in andI like so, like I've only
talked to the managers.
So then they signed threepeople up and then I, like, you
know, I feel bad, like they'vegiven me money.
I'm like I want, I wantfeedback.
Like you know, are you guyslearning anything?
And then, you know, you talk tothe manager and they're like,
oh, we're just so busy right nowwe don't have time for that.
And it's just like you know, onone aspect, like I want to help

(01:01:07):
them and at this other aspect,it's like you know that's their
decision.
But at the end of the day, likethat is not.
I've recognized that that's notgoing to be my core customer.
If they're going to constantlysay, hey, we're too busy for
this because of just howmechanical trades are is, you're
always going to be busy.
Unless you're like aresidential HVAC, which is, you

(01:01:32):
know, you'll have the midseasons of fall and maybe spring
where people really don't needheating or cooling.
But in commercial industrial,especially if you're doing
process stuff, there's alwaysdemand for stuff and people are
always busy and since mostemployers are understaffed, it
is running their current staffto the wall, 100% and a lot of

(01:01:54):
them are just trying to fightthrough their week, fight the
fires and then go home andthere's no thought of, hey, we
just need to train our workforcenow Because they're all I mean.
I see it on LinkedIn there's somany employers that post.
Hey, we want a senior servicetechnician.
We're a dynamic family,something.

(01:02:17):
All the buzzwords.
I'm like where do you thinkthese senior service technicians
are hanging out?
If they're unemployed?
There's probably a reasonthere's unemployed and most
senior service technicians arein a groove where they love the
company where they're at andmoney doesn't mean too much for
them and like that's a huge jump, even if they are getting paid

(01:02:37):
more money.
And this goes back to companyculture of like you're taking a
risk on that new company andespecially if you go to a
company that's desperate andthey just expect that senior
service technicians just workway more and then do a bunch of
on-call or a bunch of travelwhere the company they're at.
Maybe they're getting paid $5less, but they're not traveling,

(01:02:59):
they're not working weekends,they're not working nights and
they love it.
Traveling they're not workingweekends, they're not working
nights and they love it.
So it's.
And that that's another topicof, uh, just the culture aspect
of it.
But tying this back intotraining.
I'm now going after the peoplewho are directly learning and
was planning to hold liveclasses over over the internet.

(01:03:22):
Uh, that is integrated alsowith these classes.
So essentially you can take anonline class, have a live class
and then go back and forth andthrough that you know a lot of
people.
There's a big misconception inthe industry of I'm a service
technician.
I can only learn hands-on andyou know there's nobody more

(01:03:43):
than me that learns hands-onLike I.
I love to feel things and youknow pick up a wrench and turn
bolts and whatnot.
But at the start of everythingyou need to learn, like the
fundamentals, because a lot ofproblems in the industry, or in
any industry, something's notbroken, but something may not be

(01:04:04):
operating correctly, and thiscan come a lot of times with new
equipment, startups.
So you have a new building, allnew equipment and I have yet to
start up a boiler system whereyou just flip the switch and
everything's great and so youknow, like maybe the balancer
didn't balance the buildingcorrectly or the pumps are wrong
or they, you know, inspectwrong, or you know the strainers

(01:04:27):
are full of something from newconstruction, like there's
always something to do and youknow.
You don't walk in the room and,oh, this is broken in half, let
me fix this and throw a newpart on and then leave, like it
takes a higher understanding.
New part on and then leave,like it it takes a higher
understanding.
And if you're not solid on thefundamentals of what is the
sequence of operations of aburner and you know of a boiler

(01:04:48):
and how does steam actually move, you know steam is pressure and
you know steam carries heat andyou know how does water move.
You know how do you heat water,why do you need so many GPM to
go through a boiler and like allthat stuff?
Like that you can't see it.
But you have to understandfundamentals and that builds you
up to a service technician thatyou reach a second tier of

(01:05:11):
understanding where you can walkinto mechanical rooms and you
know, see process systems andyou know there's not something
that's broken, but at the end ofthe line the widgets aren't
coming out correctly and hey, wedon't have the proper heat or
whatnot, and it's not, you know,a part you can fix it's.
Maybe it's a setting you know,maybe you know combustion's off

(01:05:34):
or something.
But you have to look at it at adeeper level rather than just
being like, oh, I'm justhands-on, I just go in there and
just fix it and then I'll leave.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Yeah, and I think also, when you do get that
hands-on, it's really helpful tobe a bit familiar with what
you're getting your hands on in.
You know making that same pointin another context.
So I think that you know videocontent more bite-sized content
rather than you know Um, morebite-sized content rather than
you know hose it all down in theperiod of, uh, two days or two

(01:06:08):
or a week.
I just remember once one of myjobs that hired and they didn't
really have an internal trainingprogram.
So my first job out of collegethey trained a lot Like they are
set up to train people in theindustry out of college, uh, and
so you know they have a reallylong training period and then on
to job training and things likethat.
And then, second place I went,they hired almost exclusively or

(01:06:30):
they did anyway at the timethis was a while back from their
competitors, people thatalready had the experience.
And then I was coming from aslightly different technology,
going from machine vision intopneumatics, and I didn't know
anything about pneumatics and Iwas very like candid about that
in my interview.
I said I don't know anythingabout pneumatics and how they
work, but I'm a quick learner.
This is really interesting.
I know some of the stuff.

(01:06:51):
I've seen them around on theline a lot.
You know, when I kick out a badpart from the vision system or
I say it needs to be kicked out,something has to kick it out.
Oftentimes that's an aircylinder or you know something
like that.
So, but it was a very differentcultural approach, like a
company that set up to trainpeople versus a company that
expects people to already knoweverything when they come in.
And my manager said you know,why aren't you going out to see

(01:07:15):
customers yet?
And I said, well, I'll go whenI have something of value to add
, like I'm not just going toshow up with no nothing.
And I ended up kind of havingto.
Well, that manager wasn't amanager for very long and, you
know, maybe that was pretty easyto tell why my next manager
ended up getting me a lot oftraining with applications
engineers, but it had to be sortof you know, ad hoc put

(01:07:37):
together, because the firsttraining I did get sent on was a
week long training that wasmeant for distributors that
pretty much already know most ofthe industry and they're maybe
going from selling one brand toanother or they're picking up
this line and it was an entireweek's worth of just class after
class after class after classin a basement room with no

(01:08:00):
windows, no light, like nine tofive, and I think it's the
longest training I've ever satthrough.
And also the training where thatI retained the least amount of
information because it wasn't atmy level.
It assumed I knew a bunch ofstuff that I didn't, and then it
was just crammed way too muchinto a short period of time and

(01:08:21):
I also had work to do.
I had customers, you know,asking me for things, and so my
my attention was scattered and Ican only imagine that getting
that same training but in, evenif it was the same training, it
probably would have been moreeffective if I had been able to
space it out a bit and thenfollow up with each one of.
Hey, these are all the things Ididn't understand in this
module before having to sitthrough the next one.

(01:08:42):
So I absolutely think it'sfantastic that you're taking
this area of the industry thatdoesn't seem to have any, you
know, training in this manner.
Make the leap to go out on yourown and make it Huge.
Prop to that.
Excuse me, my dog just came inand decided to yawn really

(01:09:03):
loudly.
She's like time's up, okay.
So I think that this is anamazing initiative that you're
doing.
We at Automation Ladies we'vehad a lot of dreams too, for
things that we feel like.
Or we've seen that there's gapsin trainings Allie's actually
coming up with, or she alreadycame up with the curriculum, but

(01:09:24):
like a masterclass fordesigning and building panels,
the way that she learned to doit from a non-electrical
engineer standpoint, maybebecause she has a chemical
engineering degree but then rana panel shop, and I think you
know there's a lot of differentways to teach the same thing and
there's also a lot of differentways to learn the same thing.
So not everybody is going tolearn in the same way.

(01:09:45):
Some people are really going togravitate to the way that
you're teaching and the formatthat you have it.
It has a couple of classes onthere, a couple of other things.
Is there anything you want totell us that we should be
looking forward to?
That should be coming up on thewebsite soon If people want to

(01:10:07):
go check it out or bookmark itfor themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
So, like I said earlier, coming out with a
digital burner linkage class howto adjust linkage and, if you
are interested, it's at acompany level.
If you are interested in buyinga burner linkage trainer, I
also have um I think, twoavailable um.
It is a bigger cost, uminvestment, but it makes perfect

(01:10:32):
sense and your payback is um,depending on your numbers.
Uh, training seven to eightpeople on burner linkage and
motors, instead of sending themoff to different classes or
on-the-job training, which hasdifferent areas of effectiveness
.
I will say I don't claim to bethe end-all be-all and if you

(01:10:58):
are an employer or a manager,and if you are an employer or a
manager, your path to a trainedworkforce is finding the
resources that work for you.
And while I'm buildingresources, there are other
companies in the boiler industrythat also have resources that
are amazing and great.
And, like I always tell people,I don't really have competition

(01:11:22):
because there's so much need andthere's no one size fits all
approach and one person maylearn from my videos and whatnot
and another person may learn bytaking home a part at night and
just taking it apart and doingwhatever.
And as an employer manager, youneed to recognize that and not

(01:11:43):
just go like, oh, go to thisclass, and if you didn't learn
all right, well, we just give up.
And so I just try to positionmyself as an option for the
industry and an option foremployers, and especially now
that I've turned toward anoption for service technicians
to turn to.
They're not going to learneverything from me, I'm.
I'm not an engineer.
I've only been in the industrynow eight or nine years, but I

(01:12:06):
have enough knowledge that Iknow I can put it together and
teach people about it.
You don't have to be in theindustry 30, 40 years to
essentially teach people.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
No, no, you don't.
And I think a lot of people shyaway from putting together any
content or teaching because theyfeel like they're not an expert
.
And I like to say there'salways somebody that's a couple
steps behind you that couldreally learn from what you've
learned.
And sometimes it's easier tolearn from someone that's not
too far ahead of you versussomeone that is knows everything

(01:12:36):
, because then they forget someof the basics that you kind of
you know.
They assume that you, you knowthings that you don't.
But when somebody that you'relearning from is a little closer
to your level, you're much morelikely to kind of remember what
it was like back in you know,when you were in their shoes,
and be able to have moreactionable learning that is
closer to kind of where you'reat, and not to say that learning

(01:13:00):
from industry veterans isn't asvaluable or even more valuable.
But I just want to encouragepeople not to hold themselves up
to some sort of perfectionstandard or that you have to be
some sort of expert, as I've nowgotten to know some of the more
veteran, like experts or peoplethat are training in the
automation industry, forinstance, like experts or people
that are training in theautomation industry, for

(01:13:21):
instance, I realized that eventhey don't consider themselves
experts of everything, andusually the more you learn, the
more you realize how much youdon't know and you become more
humble about what you know.
And I find that usually, a lotof times the best teachers too,
they don't claim to know it all.
It's kind of dangerous whensomebody thinks that they know
it all, because then they're notopen to new information or

(01:13:44):
changing their mind orunderstanding that there are
always limitations to what anyone person can know or even just
understanding something from adifferent perspective.
So, yeah, I kind of threw outour last question, but I made it
specific to your website.
So now, if people areinterested in learning more
about becoming a boilertechnician or our audience is

(01:14:06):
more so you know, typicallyautomation techs or mechatronics
technicians or people that workin.
You know manufacturingfacilities.
Do you have, yeah, anyresources or things that you
want to throw out to people thatthey should be aware of, or
just where they can follow youif they want to become more
boiler adjacent and maybe learnsome from your content along the

(01:14:28):
way, even if they're notcandidates exactly to be
purchasing or going through your?

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):
training.
I started on LinkedIn seriouslyprobably a year and a half ago
and I recognize that I got toput myself out there beyond just
cold calling and emailing, andLinkedIn has been such a
valuable resource for me andthat's how I met Allie, and just

(01:14:55):
there's so many people that seeLinkedIn as, oh, this is how I
get my next job or next job orthat's for you know, the C suite
to be on, and there's lesspeople on there that are just
maybe a service technician or alower level Cause they don't see
any value from it.
But there's so much that Ilearned from LinkedIn and so

(01:15:16):
many people that I've met onLinkedIn that I now see it like
trade shows and whatnot that I,they, like you know we met
virtually and whatnot and youknow comment back and forth,
made dm and call, but now I seemin a trade show and it's just
opened up another level.
Whereas like facebook, like youcan't really search, like you

(01:15:37):
only search by like people'snames or like Instagram is
another good one.
But LinkedIn, like you, cansearch and just find people from
boiler companies and people inyour industry and, like most of
my following and people are justboiler related people and I
learn so much from people andlike, hey, you know, this is
something cool I did.
And LinkedIn has become aplatform that is greater than oh

(01:16:02):
, I'm just looking for a job or,you know, I'm just trying to
share leadership techniques orwhatnot.
And especially if you have aniche like boilers or automation
, it is so easy to talk about itbecause there's thousands of
people out there that love theindustry and love their job,
just like you, that love theindustry and love their job,

(01:16:25):
just like you, and just I wouldjust encourage people get on
LinkedIn.
It is a growing platform, Iwould you know.
It's been around a while, butthere's still tons of people
that are not on it compared tothe other social medias, and I
just can't like.
Linkedin has changed my life byposting consistently on it and
being active of just the peoplethat I've met, the business that
I get from it and I would also.

(01:16:49):
I want to comment real quick onyour comment about being the
expert.
I always tell people to be theexpert.
You just have to know one thingmore than the next person.
And, um, at a customer level,uh, like I talked about earlier,
uh, at about year four, I hit alevel of I understood most
things, and it's not that I kneweverything.

(01:17:10):
I just understood how to fixproblems and, being a service
technician and going out to afactory, you know work on
automation or boilers orwhatever you do.
It's not about memorizingeverything with how much
information and digitalcontrollers and you know each
manufacturer is coming out withtheir own thing you can.

(01:17:31):
There's no way for you to keepup with it, even if we were to
stop innovating and you were tolearn everything in the industry
.
But you know there's so muchinnovation going on you're never
going to keep up.
So it's understanding thefundamentals, but then it's also
understanding the resourcesthat you can put together to
solve the problem, because acustomer is not paying for you

(01:17:51):
to know how to solve the problem.
Your customer is paying for youto fix the problem and as long
as you can fix the problem, itdoesn't really matter how you
get there.
So for me it was a combinationof knowing the fundamentals,
just zooming out on the problema little bit and then having a
process in my mind of like hey,this is how we do it, and then

(01:18:13):
also referencing the manuals andmanufacturer's resources.
Manufacturers spend so muchtime on manuals and resources on
their websites that people justnever even access and give up.
And there's so many servicecalls that I went to where I
just opened up the manual.
I looked at the manual diagramand I looked at the problem.
I'm like, well, I don't know,I've never seen this before, but

(01:18:35):
the manual diagram says thisand the problem is not this.
So then you change it to themanual diagram and everything
works magically.
I'm like, wow, that's amazing.
And people are like, well, how'dyou know that?
I'm like, well, I didn't knowit.
I just opened up the manual andI read the page about this part
.
I didn't read the whole manual.
I don't memorize the manual.
I just understood theinformation enough to fix the

(01:18:57):
problem.
The customer's happy, I'm happy.
I didn't understand theirentire system.
I didn't.
You know, it's not aboutunderstanding everything, it's
how do we fix the problem in themost efficient way.
But that compounds over timeand you know, with 20 years
experience, 30 years experienceyou go through enough problems
that you don't have to referencethe manuals or whatnot as much,

(01:19:20):
and you've seen stuff fromexperiences before.
So then you get faster atsolving things.
But don't put, if you'restarting out, don't put too much
effort or into solving thingsfast.
It's about solving thingscorrectly, because the callback
or the lost money from somethingnot working is always way more

(01:19:42):
than the hour to extra of youmaking sure you're fixing
something correctly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
Yeah, great tips.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with us today, eric.
I know Allie had all kinds ofboiler questions that she
probably didn't get to, but shehad to drop off.
Unfortunately, we're also inthe middle of a very busy day.
I was telling her before we goton recording that I feel her
pain now.
I have not used to this, but tobe in the middle of, like a

(01:20:07):
very large spreadsheet thatyou're working on and then have
to take a break to go record apodcast.
I love the podcasts and they'regreat, but it's a different
type of feeling to like rip meaway from my spreadsheet that I
was all the way into.
So I know she had to jump backto another meeting, but I'm
really glad we were able to getthis on the books.
Thank you so much for coming onour show and we feel very

(01:20:27):
honored that it's your veryfirst podcast and I'm sure we
would love to have you back foran update, maybe in, you know, a
year or two, whenever we'll,we'll stay in touch on LinkedIn,
uh, as you get your programlarger and you get more people
through it and you get some morefeedback.
I'm really excited to see whereit goes for you and you have a
couple of big time supportersover here in the Automation

(01:20:50):
Ladies.
So thanks everybody forlistening.
If you haven't yet, we do have.
If you haven't subscribed tothis, you're listening to your
first episode of AutomationLadies, maybe because you're
part of Eric's audience.
If conversations aroundautomation are of interest to
you that are like partiallytechnical but mostly people we

(01:21:13):
really, like you know, careabout A, you know hearing
people's stories, giving peoplea wider look into the industry
and the types of people, thetypes of jobs, the types of you
know things that are going onout there, Uh, we talk about all
kinds of stuff.
We mainly have conversationsthat we want to have because
we're a couple.
I used to say I should saythree now three very curious,

(01:21:35):
very hardworking, uh, ladies inthe automation industry and we
were always been the type thattake our work home or, you know,
watch the training videos onthe weekends or whatever.
We can't stop.
So we're going to continue tohave these conversations and
we'll keep pulling in more funand interesting.
You know, disciplines that arerelated to automation but maybe

(01:21:57):
not quite automation.
So, yeah, and if you like lotsof rambling, like me, asking
compound questions and sayingtoo many things all at once and
run on sentences, then please dosubscribe to the podcast
wherever you're listeningprobably Apple podcast or
something like that, or ifyou're on our website it's.
If you're not on the website,it's automationladiesio.

(01:22:18):
But we also have a YouTubechannel and currently the
YouTube channel only streams ourlive streams, so you have
unedited content on there livedemos that we've done, live
interviews that we've done, buthopefully with a timely
introduction from Eric's friend,of a friend, somebody that can
edit video or some otherresource that we put in place.

(01:22:41):
We hope to have video episodescoming out on YouTube, uh, soon
as well.
So we'd love for you to uh hitthat subscribe button, as people
say, um, those of us thatcreate content and maybe Eric,
you can chime in on this it's,you know it's.
It's not always rosy, um, it canbe daunting and it can be kind
of exhausting, especially if youfeel like nobody's actually

(01:23:01):
watching or listening or doesn'tcare, which we thankfully have
a very nice little community,mostly on LinkedIn, that we know
listens and we know that theycare, and so that really helps
us.
But it would also be great to,you know, get to see that people
are actually picking this upand wanting to see it next time.
So I'll give a little plug forourselves automationladiesio and

(01:23:21):
you can pretty much search forus on any of the podcast
platforms and or YouTube asAutomation Ladies, and we would
also love any of your reviews orcomments.
There is actually a function onour website where you can leave
us a voicemail, so if you haveanything to say good or bad,
please let us know.
My only ask for you know,constructive feedback is please

(01:23:43):
be kind, um, and take that intothe rest of your week.
I hope that you can be kind toyourself and be kind to others
that you work with.
Try to lift people up, try tomake them aware of the
possibilities for themselves.
If they don't know, um, youknow, go out there and be a good
coworker, friend, person in theworld, because there's always
something that we could be doingbetter and, you know, helping

(01:24:05):
others makes us feel good Atleast it does for me.
So, with that said, thank youvery much for joining and we'll
talk to you next time.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Boiler Technologies, Training, & Empowerment w/Eric Johnson

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

All Episodes

Boiler Technologies, Training, & Empowerment w/Eric Johnson

Dateline NBC