Episode 141: David Gummo, CTEM

Episode Transcript
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Trent Manning (00:05):
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Welcome to the Real Turf TechPodcast, episode 1 41.

(01:10):
Today we're talking to DavidGummo, CTEM Equipment manager at
Sands Point Golf Club andSandpoint, New York Sands Point
Golf Club is a private 18 holegolf and skeet club.
David has one-ish guys thathelps him in the shop.
He's primarily Toro equipment.
Let's talk to David.

(01:36):
Welcome David to the Real TurfText podcast.
Thanks for coming on.

David Gummo, CTEM (01:40):
Thanks for having me.
Glad to be here.

I appreciate your being here.
And tell us how you got into theturf industry.

It started off with me basically wanting to
get outta school.
I

Just like many young kids, right?
Many young kids.
I was the same guy, same way.

yeah, pretty much.
I went to vocational highschool, Dauphin County Technical
School in Harrisburg,Pennsylvania.
And they had like 20 plus shopsthere, but I was in outdoor
power equipment lawn mowers,tractors, ATVs, motorcycles,
things like that.
And, I started when I started inthat shop when I was 14 and my

(02:17):
senior year, a couple monthsbefore my senior year, before
graduation, my shop teacher cameup to me and said, Hey I know a
mechanic had a golf course.
Would you be interested in doinga co-op job?
And at at that school, at thattime, it was one week academic,
one week shop class.
And if you got a co-op job, youdidn't have to show up to school

(02:41):
on shop week.
So I was like, you mean I don'thave to show up to school and I
get to make money?
I'm in,

Yeah, no brainer.

yeah.
So he introduced me to that golfcourse.
It was Dolphin Highlands GolfCourse.
And the old mechanic there, LynnEby, he's still there.
He's like 78 years old orsomething like that.

Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah, so, they did my interview there and
and oh God, I just lost it.
Hey.
Anyway

no.
It's all good, man.
Yeah, it's all good.

So, you know, and what I really wanted to do
was work on motorcycles and fourwheelers and we had called
around to different shops andstuff, and I also felt like
getting some secondaryeducation.
And the, all the dealers in thearea basically said going to
like Motorcycle MechanicsInstitute wouldn't help you out
at all And at the time PennState had just started the TAE

(03:38):
program, the Turf, turf and AgEquipment Service Technicians
program.

Okay.

and I got into the inaugural class with
that one.

Oh, nice.

was 10 of us.
I think eight of us graduated.

Oh, cool.
Yeah.

no longer around,

Right, right.
Yeah.

you know, the, they never got enough
students to fully sustain it.
And when the, and it was aprofessor's pet project, and
when he retired, it went withhim,

Oh yeah.

So, graduated there in 2004 with a
certificate.
I got my first mechanics job ata golf course at 19.
Head mechanic, the onlymechanic, and I've been doing it
ever since.

No, that's awesome.
That's so cool.
So how did you get to LongIsland?

I was working at a golf course that was going
belly up.
It was owned by a lawyer whodidn't understand golf and
basically wanted to turn hisgolf course into a garden.
You know, when you're standingon number three T and there's an
art PRUs tall enough that youcan't see the green, there might
be a problem.

Uhhuh?

didn't understand that.
So it was going belly up.
I was laid off.
They had, there was differentparts to it.
They had a nursery across thevalley and stuff, and that they
had a mechanic over there andthey let me go to save money on
the golf course side of things.
And at that point I was threemonths into a layoff and very

(05:12):
broke.

Yeah.

So I looked on turf net, started tossing
resumes out there, and thesuperintendent up here he's
like, oh yeah, you can stay onproperty for a few months until
you get enough money for aapartment.
And then, you know, like.
Okay, there I go.
Made a job.

Nice.
Yeah, no, that is so cool.
That's awesome.
Very good.
What's your least favorite partof the job?

Here.
I'd have to say from a lot oflowering courses where you are
the mechanic, but you might haveto be out digging an irrigation
hole, going to mow, you know,you kind of floating around a
lot.
And right now it's the fact thatI'm in the shop a hundred
percent of the time.

Ah, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

You know, I actually, I, there's times when
I really do miss getting backout onto the course and, Doing
more variety of stuff.

Yeah, no I understand that.
I was, so, we're underrenovation right now and the
company that's doing therenovation is Don, and they have
wheel trencher.
It's come from the uk.
It's like Shelton or something,equipment.
I've never heard of it before.
But anyway, they're havingissues.

(06:33):
I mean, it's a brand newmachine, but still they were
having issues with it.
So I worked on that all dayoutside.
And the weather is beautiful.
It was like 65 degrees outsideand sunny and mad.
It was just so nice, you know,getting outta the shop and doing
something a little bitdifferent.

I as my side business, I do a lot of side
work and I go to differentplaces and do it, and I've been
enjoying that because it gets meoutside.
I was working on a tech uchilast week.
In 17 degree weather, though,

Yeah, that's, yeah.
Not fun.
No,

And then there was another golf course I
was working on a, there wasanother tacu, GTL 10 and their
shop ceiling wasn't high enoughto put the cab up, so I worked
on that thing outside every dayin

That's

below freezing weather.

Yeah.
Not fun.
Not fun.
Yeah.
Because I mean, the metal is theambient temperature, Yeah.
Yeah.
Not fun.

yeah.

What's your favorite tool?

Believe it or not, it's weird.
I, this old 14 four snap-onimpact that I've had for almost
20 years,

Uhhuh

I keep rebuilding the batteries.
And when the motor died in it, Ibought like six of them off all
express and resurrected a thing.

nice.

So I have better impacts.
I have a new Milwaukee andeverything, but that, you know,
for no good reason, that's myfavorite

Yeah.

Could also say from a more practical
standpoint, probably my mind

Oh, nice.
Yeah.
Yep.

you know, everything starts and ends up
here, so,

That, that's right.
No, very true.
And your the second guest thathas said that, so I love it.
That was awesome.

yeah.

What do you do to relax or find your balance?
Work on Takeuchis.

No, those things are actually pretty
miserable.

Yeah.
Okay.
All right.

I just seem to happen to be the guy.
I play video games, I'll sitdown and play Hearts of Iron
for, or something like that, youknow, kind of takes my mind off
of everything.
You know, I have 3-year-oldtwins and things

Oh, nice.

you know, they're, yeah, they're, I love
them to death, but they're onthe go all the time.
So, you know, for relaxing, youknow, just sit down and play
hearts of iron for

There you go.

out to or at least occupy my mind enough to
not think about everything Ihave to do

Uhhuh.
Yeah.
That's a good way to, just, Ilost the word.
Yep.
That's hell getting old man.
It's, you got a train of thoughtand it just flies out the window
sometimes.

all the time.
you get the worst.

how about this, it is a good distraction from
what's really happening aroundyou.
I think that's where I was goingwith that to be continued.
Maybe I'll remember.
So my dad, he is 81, going on82, and he told me, this was
probably a year ago.
He said, I walked out to thegarage two weeks ago.

(09:55):
I still ain't remembered why Iwalked out there.
So luckily I hadn't got that badyet, but you know, it's coming.
It's coming.
What's been one of your biggestchallenges to date?
I.

Personal or work?

Let's let, I don't know, whatever you're
comfortable talking about, but Iguess it's more work related
question, but if you wanna talkabout personal I'm here for that
too.

probably the biggest challenge I had was,
work.
God, do I wanna go with a pieceof equipment or yeah.
I'd say as far as piece ofequipment goes, it was the first
time I ever did an engine andout Ofci or TL 10 here has had
three engines put in it so far.

Wow.
How come?

First one, the, it was an early tier four.
They bolted the DPF filter tothe cast.
Aluminum intake manifold didn'tend well The engine.
And then the second one, thewiring harness rubbed through
and the four to wipe thecylinder.

Oh wow.
Okay.

So.
And then I pulled the engineout, did a full rebuild, and I
also replaced the wiring harnessin it, which just looks like a
big bowl of spaghetti.
So that was probably the firstone.
I could say other ones, likeright now I have a New Holland
LS one 70 Skid-steer in the shopthat I'm basically completely

(11:22):
refurbishing, but I'm notfinding that as much of a
challenge as I did that FirstTech.

That,

Then career wise, it was basically deciding
to make the move to Long Island.
That was a hard one.

Oh, I bet.

personal wise, it was overcoming
depression and things like that.

Oh

You know, I used to.
I used to have issues withdepression.
I used to be over 400 pounds,you know,

Okay.

that was that was a big challenge with that
one.
But

Well, I appreciate you being willing to
talk about that because I dothink it's something that a lot
of us deal with, you know, a lotand, you know, it needs to be
said and it's okay if you aredepressed.
There is resources, there's away to get help.
Do you want to tell us aboutyour story a little bit?

you know,

And it's totally, yeah.
I don't, you know,

yeah, I just dunno how I, nah, I just dunno
where to really go with that.

Did you overcome your depression?

well, the first thing I did was moved to
Long Island.
It really, I really overcame itwhen I met a I got introduced to
a personal trainer and he got meto start exercising and working
out.
And you know, I started droppinga bit of weight and I felt
better about myself and droppeda bit more weight and felt

(12:53):
really good about myself.
And you know, I spent most of myadult life alone and I started
meeting girls and ended upmeeting my wife.
And,

Okay.

now, and now I don't even have time for it
because I can't even, I don'thave time to even worry about
being depressed.
You know, the worst part aboutdepression is it's like
self-reinforcing.
You know, you're depressed andthen that makes you do something
like eat more.
And then you look at yourself inthe mirror, then you feel more
depressed and you're like, well,I don't have a good reason to be

(13:28):
depressed.
So you get depressed about thatand then you get depressed and
it makes you think nobody cares.
And it's just a weirdself-reinforcing cycle That can
be difficult to break.
You know, I broke it and thenwhen we had our kids, things

(13:49):
changed so much, you know, thefamily dynamic and everything.
And we don't have family uphere.
We don't have help.
I ended up becoming the singleincome source, which caused me
to work a lot and I still workan obscene amount.
So came back a bit.
Gained a bit more weight.
And then, you know, recentlyI've, I got a bariatric surgery

(14:13):
to drop the weight again, andI've, you know, I'm doing a lot
better doing, got myself in areally good place right now.

Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's good.
I appreciate you being willingto share that.
And I met with my therapistyesterday, you know, and feel
hurtful of an hour of merambling on and on about my life
and what all's going on.
And I mean, it's reallybeneficial.
So I would say to any of thelisteners, if you're thinking

(14:45):
about it, if you're on thefence, just do it.
Therapy can really help andreally work.
But I will say with finding atherapist, it might take you a
couple.
It might take you a few, youknow, it, you gotta find
somebody that kind of mesheswith your personality and all
those kind of things.
At least that's my personalexperience.

(15:07):
I think I, it was number four,but before I found someone I was
comfortable talking to.

yeah.
Yeah.
And there's no shame in it.
we make it out, you know, somuch in society makes it out to
be a shameful thing, but there'sno shame in it.
And my therapist ended up beinga personal trainer and I ended
up doing like, strongmancompetitions and stuff,

nice.
Yeah.

you know, it's like, you know, one of.
Is food.
It spikes your insulin, whichspikes your serotonin levels,
which gives you this likefeeling of wellbeing and
euphoria and stuff.
So you get so it's easy toovereat and then it's
self-reinforcing on that one aswell.
But going to the gym and workingout, that spikes your dopamine

(15:54):
levels and it gives you largelythe same effect without the
eating.

Right, right.
I got you.
No, yeah, it makes total sense.
Well, I'm glad you're on theother side of that and I hope
you that you continue and if youever need somebody to talk to.
I think you got my number.
Yeah, you got my number.
I'm here.
And that's for anybody listeningtoo, you know, if you need an
event about something orwhatever.

(16:21):
And again, I'm not a therapist,but I'm happy to talk to anybody
especially if they're in need.
Now, what's one of the strangestthings you've seen at work?
Okay.

I was thinking about this a lot.
I have seen a lot of strangestuff over the years.
We could make a little podcast

Oh, okay.
All right.

I've seen.
This particular golf course, Ihaven't seen that much strange
stuff.
We had a jogger that would jogup the road at like four 30 in
the morning or something likethat.
Make a doe on one of our greens.

Okay.

no toilet paper.

that's strange.

that's very strange.
And he did it for a long timebefore they figured out what,
what was going on.
So that was very strange.
I worked at that mountaincourse.
We had a very wet year and therewas very little forge.
We had the game commission comein and trap bears off the
course.
They caught like six bears in amonth and they were digging

(17:27):
holes in the greens, breakingflag poles.
Yeah.
I watched one of the crew memberbear ran by the shop.
The crew member saw it and hewanted to keep looking at the
bear, so he followed it into thewoods.
And I'm like, what are youdoing?

No.
No.

Then there was a time we had a member
tased.
It's actually a really sadstory.
He was an older guy and had likedementia or something, and he
was off his

Oh no.

And unfortunately we had to call the
cops because he was gettingviolent and he was also stripped
down to his whitey tidies.
And he picked up a flag and wasthreatening the cops and, well,
they wrote the taser.

Dang.

There was a bachelor party there, and one of
the guys got on a lot of drugsand the next morning he was in
his underwear in a creek and hadto get the cops up, called on
him.

Wow.

you know, I worked at a place doing side
work and they, their one ninewas still manual irrigation, so
they had to do night watering.
And I watched a kid he was.
Off his, he was driving a cart,went up the side of a tee box,
fell off the side of the cart,rolled into the aboveground gas

(18:44):
tank.
So,

Yeah.

you know, you know it's not gonna explode, but
all the movies and stuff, you'rejust like, oh my God.

Right.
Right.
That's crazy.

then there was another one, one of the
earlier ones was we're standingat the shop and we could see the
main parking lot.
And in the middle of the day we,we were watching this Van Rock
back and forth as a couple wasgetting in the van.

Oh, boy.
Okay.
All right.

yeah, I got,

seen some strange stuff.

ah, yeah.
Yeah.

Okay.
That's that's good.
That's, that is good.
Why don't you mentioned theperson that you worked with at
your first course.
Do you have a mentor in theindustry?
I.

Yeah.
His name is Lynn Eby.
Well, is Lynn Eby?
He's still working.
He is 78 years old.
There's thereabouts.

Crazy.

yeah.
Yeah.

Any, yeah, any, anybody

saw a picture him and that the first
superintendent, bill Wall evennow, if I have, like, if I'm
planning on making a careerdecision or something, I would
still call Bill Wall and seewhat his thoughts are on it.

Yeah.
Yeah.

he's, he is the guy that basically told me
to go for Long Island.

Okay.

And Lynn.
And Lynn, you know, he's areally good old school mechanic.
And he has a plus side.
He looks like Santa Claus.

Oh, okay.
Awesome.

He's got rosy cheeks, some big white, long
beard, curly hair, all white,you know?

Yeah, that definitely helps for sure.

Yeah.
Really, you know, love the oldman.

That's awesome.

you know, and the first day I met him, I went
in for the interview and when Iwas 15 I had worked part-time at
a autobody shop, or, well, Iworked the summer at an autobody
shop with one of my cousins, andhe knew the owner, Joe Grino Joe
Grino was a Vietnam vet that gotshot up in Vietnam.

Oh, wow.

So you can kind of imagine his demeanor.
So I went into the interview andLynn's like, well, do you ever
work anywhere else?
I told him, Joe Grino, he lookedat me.
Did you get fired?
No.

That's a good story.
Yep.
Really good story.
Yep.
If you made it through himyou're worth hiring.
That's good stuff.
What would be your dream job oropportunity?

I had love to have my own fabrication shop and
just make things.

That's so much fun, isn't it?

It's a lot of fun.
I'd love to make like one-offpieces of turf equipment and
stuff like that, you know, orjust fabricate tins or just, You
know,

Yeah.
Yeah.
Any, anything?
Do you have some fabricationequipment?

I've got a Bridgeport machine.
I have a 14.
I bought the Bridgeport myself.
I have oh, the 14 inch LA thegolf course bought.
The I have a nine inch SouthBend lathe that was made in
1927.

Okay.

That was the first one I bought.
Got it for like 500 bucks off ofa older gentleman who was

Oh, okay.

which he got it from older gentleman that was
looking to downsize, but it wasin really good condition.
And I bought it myself just toplay around with, I wanted
something to play around with,

Yeah.

before the, I think kids, when I had time when
I would just fill my time withdoing weird things.
And I actually did enough onthat, that the golf course
bought me 14 inch.

Oh, nice.
Okay.
What kind, what kinds of 14.

It's a precision.
Matthews la it's a Chinese la

Yep.

it's still a big enough up.
I mean, it's a significantupgrade again compared to like a
1927 South Bend

Yeah.

where the max RPMs, like six 90, it has a half
a horsepower electric motor onit that pulls like 12 amps.

Oh, wow, okay.
Yeah.

You know?

I'm Aston too because I got south Bend 13 inch
and it's an antique.
And I need to look up the wayyou date it, the date code or
whatever, and find out what yearit is.
I mean, it's pretty old.
I don't think it's not 1927, but

yeah.
It doesn't, does it still havethe belt?

Yes.
Yeah.
It's,

Yeah, it has the internal belts, andal and
all that,

yes.
Yep.
No, it's internal.

okay.
Mine is external.
Like, there's actually like aline shaft that goes above the
lathe with belts that come down,And then

I have seen

and then the, yeah.
And then there's the motorsunderneath the deck and there's
a big long belt that goes up tothe line shaft.

Nice.

it's cool.
I like it.
It has a really nice old schoolfeel to it, but maximum rrp m on
that lays like 690.
It's slow.

That's

Well it was built back in the day when a lot
of people were still runningcarbon steel tool tooling.
Not even high speed steel.
High speed steel got inventedlike 1900.
But in the 1920s a lot of guysare still running carbon, just
base carbon steel.
And like six 90 is a good speedfor that,

Okay.

you know, the design.

out.

Yeah.

Yeah.
That's awesome.
That's good stuff.
Yeah.
We'll have to, I'll send yousome pictures of my antique and
you can send me some pictures ofyour antique and

I got a, I also have a, yeah, I also have a
antique van Norman, number onehalf milling machine.
That was, it's hard to date codethose, but they were built
around 1917 to the early 1920s.
So that's a cool old piece too.
I don't do hardly anything on itanymore because max spindle

(24:36):
speed on, that's like 300, whichis really brutally slow.
But the patent date on that isactually before the invention of
high speed steel.
So,

Oh wow.
Okay.
Very cool.
That's good stuff.
Do you have a technician youwould like to work with for a
day?

actually I'd like to work with the the guy
under, I'd like to work with himfor a day

Okay.
Yeah,

Yeah, I Ms.
Lynn.
He is a great guy.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially,

was so fun to work with and stuff.

It looks like Santa Claus.
Why not?

exactly.
He actually has a Santa Claussuit and does do Santa Claus at
Christmas time.
So

Oh, nice.
Okay.

much of a like to work with him again for
a day.
Outside the industry, the personI'd love to spend a day with
Adam's Savage from theMythBusters.

Oh, okay.
Yeah,

I'd love to work with him for a day.

yeah.
Yeah.
They do.
He does some cool stuff, doesn'the?
He doesn't.
He have his own YouTube channeland

He has his own YouTube channel.
I went to a Comic Con and satthrough one of the panels they
had with him and just listeningto him.
He's it's, he's a very inspiringperson to listen to,

Awesome.
Very

you know.
He's a great motivationalspeaker without trying to be a
motivational speaker.

No, that's cool.
Super cool.
Well, what do you know now youwish you'd known on day one when
you started at the golf course?
At 14.

Well I started at 1714 in,

okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got in the

was in shop.

right?
Right.
Okay.

do we include the butterfly effect or not
include the butterfly effect?
Like if you change one littlething in the past, it changes
everything in the future,

yeah, I don't It's your call, it's your call
on that,

If changing things, if I knew something back
then that would change where I'mat now, I wouldn't change a
thing because that I might not.
Me, my wife might not be on LongIsland, might not have my kids.
So I, so in that regard, Iwouldn't wanna change anything.

right?
I under Yeah.
Totally understand that.

if you could say, tell me that I'd have all
of that.
I wish I knew more as far aslike how to run a business and
things like that.
And I'd say be better atorganization.
You know, I spent a lot of yearsas a single mechanic in a shop.
And when you know whereeverything's at, you know, it's

(27:08):
all organized in your head,

Yep.

you know, there, there's.
It organized that other people,and now I'm getting busier, I'm
older, I'm getting busier, andnow I'm having to learn some
organization skills that, Youknow, I previously didn't have
to have.

Yeah, that makes sense.
It's understandable for sure.
Oh yeah.
And I don't, I mean, it's, Ithink it's different for
everybody and, but I mean, mostof the mechanics, I know it
doesn't come natural to us to besuper organized.
Some of us maybe, but notmajority, I don't think,

yeah.
And I mean, and let's face it,when you can take something
apart throw a thousand pieces ina box and then stick it back
together three weeks later youknow, it's not that hard.
You know,

bro I'm with

can pretty much, you.
Keep things well organized inyour head to some point.
And if you're a single guy in ashop, a lot of times you're
really busy.
You know, the last thing that'son your mind is going through
all your bins and organizingstuff because hey, I got a mower
to grind, I have this to do.

(28:21):
I have that to do.
I need this done.

Yes.

You know?
And then most of the places I'veworked, I'm 40 hours a week and
they don't want me to runovertime.
So,

Right?
Yep.
Only so much time in the day.

you know, but you know, that's something I've
largely corrected over theyears, but it took a bit of
effort to do so.

And when it's so easy to collect all kind of
stuff, you know, like extraparts and all that kind of
stuff, it's, yeah, it's just aconstant battle.

About once a year I go through what I call
aggressive inventory reduction,It just goes into the modern
arts masterpiece.
Right.
You know,

Yep.

have a more I have a better term for that, but
I'm gonna keep it

No, that's all good.

yeah.

Keep it pg.

Yeah, so I, I do some, I've learned over the
years I had to do someaggressive inventory reduction.
Like I'll have something on theshelf that's been there for like
five years and I'm like, do Ireally need this?

Yeah.
Yep.
It's tough.
I mean, it is for me anyway,especially brand new stuff and I
try to give it away and nobodywants to take it and

one, one of the things I found that actually
really helps is limiting theamount of horizontal surfaces
you have in the shop, becausethey're just a collection point
for everything.
If you can set it down there.

yeah, why don't, so I had that example today and
I mean, it blows my mind.
So we have an equipment trailerbecause I got the two courses
and we move equipment back andforth.
But really it's like a call, acar hauler.
But to haul our tractor with thewide rear turf tires, I have to
take the fenders off and it'stwo bolts.

(30:09):
So they're easy removable.
They're you know, aluminumdiamond plate fenders.
And so anyway, I take the, or mysystem actually took, takes the
fenders off and we set'em nextto the shop outside you know,
next to the metal building.
And it was not 30 minutes later,there is three towels laying on

(30:31):
the fenders.
And I'm saying, where did thesecome from?
Who put these towels here?
You know, and it's like, Idon't, I mean, I know you got
kids, I got kids, but it islike, you know, cleaning up
after your kids.
Like why?

Yeah I'll, you know, I get busy and, you
know, it's a constant fightagainst clutter and stuff like
that.
And then you come into the shopand like, there's random things
like, why is this here?

Yeah.
I know.
It drives me crazy.

this come from?
Why'd they leave it here?
You know, I got enough of my ownstuff to clean up.

yeah.
I'll find stuff in our toolboxand I'll, so I got two guys
helping me in the shop, and I'llask both of them, where did this
come from?
I don't know, is the answer fromboth of them.
So they didn't put it there.
I didn't put it there.
It's like, who put it there?
We don't have too many people,you know, messing with our
stuff.
You know?

(31:29):
I don't, I just, I don't get it.
I don't know what happens.
I really don't.

it's constant or like.
You know, like someone will,like, I have my little club car
with air compressor and stuff onit here.
It sits in the shop most of thetime and in the morning the guys
will go to take a cart.
Oh, someone left this in here.
Then they just stick it in mycart.
I'm like, why?

Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't get it.
Get ready for tips and tricks.
Let's do some tips and tricks.
What kind of tips and tricks yougot?

Well the first one is zip ties.

Okay.

I have a pet peeve with zip ties.
Everyone likes to cut'em offwith a pair of wire cutters

Uhhuh.
Okay.
Yep.

leaves a nice, sharp edge.

Yes.

of times I have been lacerated with those
drives me crazy.
Pair of flush cutting wirecutters,

I love it, man.
I love it.

not no sharp.

I love it.

Biggest pet peeve, all because how many of
us have had to stick our handsdown in somewhere just to
realize you're getting cut by azip tie, then the only way to
get it out is to pull backthrough that zip tie and now
you're bleeding down your arm.

Yep.

You know, and these are like a couple bucks
from an electronic store, homeDepot, or whatever, which just
easy enough to do.

Yeah.
Right.
I love it.
That's a really good one.
And it's also one of my petpeeves too.

Oh yeah.
Drives me absolutely crazy.
And it, they, and stuff comesfrom factory like that and I
don't get

Yeah.
Right.

right.
Another one you can do if youdon't have a surface plate or a
leveling plate.
I actually saw this in like anold school, real mechanic or
real owner's manual.
You can put a machine screw.
In your height of cut adjustbar, and then it'll triangulate
off the edge, the back of thebed bar and you can tos

Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't remember if it's, is itJohn Deere?
Maybe it's in one of theirmanuals of that being a way to
do it.

I found an, I found like an old manual from
like the eighties or nineties,the one time, and I saw that and
I was like, oh, that makessense.
So if I don't feel like breakingout my leveling plate and I'm
curious, I'll just do that realquick.
Is it sit sitting on a surfaceplate?
No, but.

Yeah.
Yeah.
It gets you in the

Because you just have it on your bench and
you do it there, and you don'thave to transfer the re over to
a surface plate.
I do have a granite surfaceplate.
I like to have all the thingsthat I need just in case, you
know, I may not need it, need touse it that often, but if I do
have a weird cut of quality ofcut issue or something, I like
to be able to suss that out

Yeah.
You gotta have, you gotta haveall the tools in the toolbox.

Yeah, you have to add the tools.

Have the tools.

but for the guys, you know, but for the guys
that are at like a place andthey don't have, a granite
service plate or something likethat, this is a this will get
you most of the way there youknow, better than nothing.
Another tip I'd have, start yourown business.

(34:48):
Get an

Okay.

have a backup plan.
Always have a backup plan.

That's Advice.

because if you have an LLC and you have
your own little business, ifsomething would ever happen,
horse goes under, yoursuperintendent, gets let go, you
get some guy and you can't standGod forbid it, it's very rare
with equipment managers, butthey're planning on going a
different direction.

Yeah.

You know, having your own business, you
can build people out, you know,20 years ago, 15 years ago I
could do side work at golfcourses where they just walk up
to the register, pull cash outof the register and hand it to
me and just decide to lose a fewreceipts.
Right.

Yeah.

can't find that anymore, you know, so, you
know, the best way to pick upside work for me now is you
know, to have a legitimatebusiness where I can just send
someone an invoice.

Yeah.
No, that's good stuff.
Yeah.
And I mean, I guess that leadsus into the next thing of, yeah.
What is your side business?
You got a couple side hustleshere.

yeah, so I do my favorite one is I sell GPS
Springers.

Okay.

I'm a Northeastern distributor for
above part tech.
I don't know if you've heard ofthose guys.
They're based outta Iowa.

Exciting and

Yep.

come aboard.
I hit the wrong button.
We're expecting you.
Okay.
Alright.

I actually can't.

Yeah, it'll stop playing.
Okay.
Oh boy.
Sorry about that.
All right, so you have, or yousell GPS sprayers and who's that
come from?

Above part tech, they're based outta Iowa.
They sell conversion kits forall the major brands and stuff.
And then they also have 300gallon skid sprayers.
They have 500 gallon pullbehind, which are actually
pretty guys in Virginia, likethose things.
I have a couple customers inVirginia.

Okay.

I have three of them down in Virginia that I
service.
And you get a lot of, you get alot of stuff done with a 500
gallon pull behind GPS sprayer.

Oh, I bet.

and then they also have their own
self-propelled applicator.
They have a River 300.
So they, they're doing prettygood.
They have.
Probably close to 150 unitsnationwide now,

Okay.

and I have 13 units out there, so

Awesome.

and skids and pull behinds and things like
that.

So is it individual nozzle control?

yep.
It's individual nozzle control.
You can get auto steer, we cando turn rate compensation, the
pulse with modulation on thebooms where it slows down the
inside and speeds up theoutside.

Very cool stuff.

yeah it's really neat.
With the put p WM squares, weeven go down to like 10 inch
nozzle spacing,

Oh, okay.
Wow.

which if you just, I can go into old
dissertation on how these thingswork.

Yeah.
No that's, no, I mean, it'sinteresting for sure.

Yeah, so, so like on the PWM is, what it does
is it alternates nozzles,because when you look at the fan
on a 20 inch nozzle spacing thefan actually goes down with 110
degree fan at like A 20 inchnozzle height.
It touches the center of theother nozzles or roundabout
there.
So, with the PWM sprayer, whatit does is it alternates,

(38:23):
nozzles, one's on one's off,one's on one's off, and with HA
application that's really goodwith turf application.
It's very easy to see tigerstriping with like a 20 inch
nozzle spacing,

Okay.

right?
If conditions aren't right, likeyou have to have up around 80%
duty cycle and things like that.
But with the 10 inch nozzlespacing.
Because, you know, now you havenozzles in between and it's,'em,
it pretty much just eliminatesany issues with that.
why we went with 10 inch nozzlespacing over 20 inch.
The other issue is that the flowrates that turf usually sees at

(39:06):
like two gallons per thousand.
Right.
It's hard to get nozzles thatare PWM rated that'll do like
those kinds of flow rates.
You have to get do like a two,two and a half gallon per minute
nozzle.
And because the, with the P PWsprayer, let's say you need to,

(39:29):
let's say you want like a 75%duty cycle, right?
That, and you're gonna spray.
Gallon and a half, one and ahalf gallons per minute per
nozzle, you would actually needlike a two gallon per minute
nozzle to get that 75% dutycycle.

Okay, I got

It's fun tech.
It's fun.
And there's no ta there's notabulation charts for tariff
either, so you have to do allthe math for it.

Nice.
Okay.

Yeah.
Yeah, because all the agtabulation charts stop at like
25 gallons per acre, 30 gallonsper acre, which does us no good
in the turf industry.

yeah.
It doesn't get

But it, yeah.
So, so like, when you do 10 inchnozzle spacing, now it's, so
let's say you need two gallonsper minute per nozzle or a
nozzle capable of that, you cando one gallon per minute per
nozzle.
So there's a whole lot morenozzles available at that flow
rate.

Ah, okay.

And then with the individual nozzle control
you.
I'm kind of nerding it.
You can always set how much ofan overlap you want, right?
Like, minimize skip or minimizeoverlap.
And usually what you get is youget little triangles of overlap
because nobody in the turfindustry wants skip.

(40:46):
So with the 10 inch nozzlespacing, it actually tightens up
that overlap even more.

Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Makes sense to me.
Yeah, why not?
Yeah I guess why?
No, that's cool.
Why do the big competitors, asfar as I know, they don't offer
a 10 inch nozzle spacing.
Just curious.
Just throwing it out there.

it adds a bit of extra cost.
There's a lot of extra cost withit.
You know, you have double theturrets, double the nozzles,
double the solenoids.
Double everything.
There's, if you're doingstandard, nozzle control, if
you're not doing the PWM,there's less of a need for it
unless you just wanna get reallytight.

(41:31):
Years ago I knew asuperintendent that did 10 inch
nozzle spacing and dropped hisboom height down to 10 inches so
he wouldn't get much drift,right?
So that there, there is a usagescenario for that.
But if you're just doing regularindividual nozzle control,
there's not really a whole lotof need for it.

(41:51):
It just adds extra cost, extracomplexity.
Otherwise if John Deere could doit easier than Toro because they
use those I believe they're thehyper individual nozzle controls
the little micro ball valves onthe individual nozzle.
Would be easier to do than Torobecause Toro does the full size
valve bodies.

(42:13):
The K, what are they?
The KZ valves?

I, yeah.
I don't know.

valves.
Anyway, but they basically runvalve per nozzle.
So you have a 12, 12 valves backthere lined up.
Now, if you went to 10 inchnozzle spacing with that, now
you're looking at a really bignozzle, you know,

Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.

and we just we run capstan solenoids on the
TURs with little plungers inthem.

Okay.
All

It's, the conversions are very easy and
they're very noninvasive.

Okay.
So, and when you're saying that,so you can outfit a Torah or a
John Deere with that set up.

right.
Last month I just actually.
Beginning of this month I was atWilliamsburg and I did a John
Deere HD 200.
And it's basically just, youknow, disconnect the original
control scheme, the ratecontroller flow meter, and then

(43:19):
like the boom valves.
I turn'em on and just disconnectthem.
And then the way above part techhas their kit set up.
I mount a box on the side of it,and then I just run all the
wiring forward and then back.

Okay.
Yeah.

it's a, yeah, that's that, that's also where
the zip tie thing comes inhandy, because I go through
probably 50 or 60 zip ties doingthat.

No yeah.

You know,

A lot of zip

you kind, you don't, yeah.
Because you gotta try and getyour w harness and stuff looking
neat and all that.
But the nice part with theconversions is we don't run the
wiring harness through theframes, right?
It almost everything isexternal, so if there is an
issue or whatever, it's rightthere.
You know, we keep all theelectronics and stuff on that

(44:09):
box on the outside, so you'renot having to like dig through
the frames and stuff

Gotcha.
Okay.
Yeah.
No.
Cool.

you know, and I got in with them because we
bought a couple sprayers herefrom above par Tech and we got
units two and three.

Oh, nice.
Okay.
Yeah.

I worked with those guys a lot on that.
And then after the kids cameout, I was like, Ooh, I need to
do something for money.

There you

Hey.

Yeah.
Yeah.
So are those RTK.

Yep.
Sub inch accuracy.
RTK we have three different RTKsources.
We can use Topcon, H-P-R-T-K,and the newest one is 0.1.

Oh, okay.
Hadn't heard of them yet.

Yeah they're actually they actually have a
bigger network than H HP RTK,and they're the lowest cost out
of the three of them.

Oh,

Topcon's the most expensive.

Yeah.

So we usually, we, you know, try to
keep everyone's subscriptionprices down and stuff.
We try to go with the lower costRTK service.
It's still sub inch accuracy,so,

Yeah, that's crazy.
Crazy that you can get thataccurate with something like
that.

yeah, I mean, yeah it's pretty crazy.
And then, I mean, there'salways, there's the other RTK
sources, there's Terra Star, andthen there's, was Agnos, I
believe it's called.
Yeah.
A was Agnos.
Problem with was is it's likesix to eight inch accuracy,
which is still more accuratethan most people can spray, but
your boundaries wander around onyou

okay.
Yeah, I.

you know?

I was actually, I was talking to a guy the other
day and I don't, yeah, I don'tknow what they were using
exactly, but yeah, he wastalking about boundaries
shifting and

Yeah.
If you run was Agnos, yourboundaries can shift.
A terra star isn't as bad, butyear on near your boundaries
could shift too.
The other ones, we all run basestations, and unless the base
station moves, your boundaries

Okay.

shift.

So yeah, with your system that you're selling,
do you have to have a basestation on site?

No, you don't have to have a base station on
site.
These all run cellular.
So, single base station's goodfor about 30 miles.

Okay.

You know, and it's not line of sight because
it's a cellular signal.
You can run into issues if youdo radio RTK, like you could put
up a radio antenna and haveradio RTK on your course.
But radio is line of sight.
So trees can interfere.
Mounds can interfere.
Buildings can interfere.

Right,

Those are probably good if you're like out
west and you can put the antennaup some really high and you
don't have a lot of hills andstuff to deal with.
But I think there's RTKantennas.
I think they're like$15,000 or

Oh, wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
Not cheap.
Yeah,

No.

not

So.

Tell me about your service truck.
You got

Yeah, so I just picked up a 2014 F four 50
service truck with a 4,000 poundcrane on it.

nice.

on top of GPS sprayers, I've been doing a lot
of heavy equipment repair.
Somehow I'm getting to be knownas like the UCCI guy.
Now people, every time peoplehave problems with ta, uci, they
call me did an engine in a TLeight R two for a golf course
last year.
This year, guy was pushingleaves on a mound and leaves let

(47:34):
go off underneath one of thetracks ended up outside in a
neighbor's backyard

Oh.
No,

there for like a week and a half before
they could pick up with a crane.
So, they called me in there andfour.
So it was.
Fun digging down through,because you gotta pull the valve
covers and a bunch of stuff offjust to get the injectors out to
free up the engine.

Yep.

You know, I have another golf course that
wants me to split a tractor.
I have it.
Yeah.
And I'm getting the cranebecause I, I did a transmission
out of a benford articulateddumper, the transmission has to
come out the top.
This is like a hundred and somepound transmission.

(48:16):
And I'm there with ratchetstraps and stuff hooked on the
roll bar trying to get thistransmission out without
dropping it on anything.
And, you know, trying to get itin and manipulate it and stuff.
And I'm beating the heck outtamy F-150, like.
Cor back of my truck, justsmells like gear oil at this
point.

(48:36):
It's horrible.
So I was like, ah, I need to, I,I should upgrade to a service
truck and superintendent upthere, he was like, dude, you
need to get a service truck.
I'm like, alright.
So I went to buy a service truckand I'm like, eh, I might as
well get one with a crane on it,because

Nice.
That's so

I had of that transmission, I was like, if I'm
doing it, might as well, youknow.

Yeah.
Right.
No, that is

and then I also do side work for a
construction company.
I used to do a lot of side workfor McDonald's sons and then the
regional guy split off also.
I do a lot of work for TaliConstruction

not familiar with them, but their golf course,
construction

Yep.
Golf course construction.

yeah.
Yeah.

So I have a lot of I, you know, I've worked
a lot on their.
Track loaders and things likethat, so, You know, I do, I,
yeah.
I'm a busy person.

Yeah.
It sounds like you're very busy.

Yes.

yes, Uhhuh.
I know I was there at one point,and not that I've slowed down
that much, but I have sloweddown some compared

I like to keep Sundays for the kids
though.

Oh, well good.
That's awesome.

You know, unless I have something
emergency or I, you know, Igotta go out of town or
something,

Yeah.

Sunday's the day for the kids,

Awesome.
Yeah, don't don't blink.
'cause they grow up, man.
I'm telling you.
It happened so

Yeah.
I, yeah.
And I already I already feel alittle bit bad about how much I
have to work and don't get tosee'em and things like that,
but.
It's, you know, long Island's,expensive,

Yeah.

Long island's, expensive.
Daycare is expensive.
Wife can't work because we can'tafford daycare.
So

Yeah.

that leaves it to me.
And,

Yep.
No, it's tough.

and on the bright side, I had actually,
before I had the kids, I hadformed an LLC because you know,
pre pandemic.
I had formed an LLC because Ihad gotten interested in doing
GPS sprays before I ever met theguys at Ballpark Tech.
And I wanted to give it a go atit.
And then the pandemic hit

Yeah.

and I sat on the LLC for a few years.
And then when the kids came out,I'm like, I'm gonna dust this
thing back off because I need tomake some money.
So that's why, for for a tip,that's why I said.
Form your comp form a company,even if you just sit on it

(51:04):
because at least it's there ifyou need it.

But yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Who knows?
Yeah.
A guy told me one time saidwhatever you're planning on
doing, get ready to do somethingdifferent.
You know,'cause we get pulled indifferent directions, you know?
I mean, you might start your LLCand think you're gonna do one
thing, and then in a coupleyears you get pulled in a
different direction and you'redoing this.

Yeah.
And I've been here for 12 yearsnow, and I'm not in any rush to
leave or anything, but never, Ialso have the, my, my personal
belief is never get so attachedto a place you're not willing to
leave.

Yeah.
That's good advice.

Because I have seen people stay way too
long at a place to their owndetriment.
And I've seen people get soattached to places that.
When they do finally let go orhave to leave or something else,
it basically shatters them.

Yeah.
Yeah.

I have seen that where people get, you know,
so, you know, I really I likethis place, you know, I'm happy
here.
I'm not in a rush to leave.
I wanna do the best job I can,best for this place, but if the
winds shift, they have to shift.

Yep.
No,

I thought if I thought it was the best thing
to do for my family, I wouldfind another place to work in
very short order,

ah, right, right, right.
Yeah,

right?
Like,

That's awesome.
Yeah.
That's good stuff.

you know, you know, and right now my boss is
awesome, lets me do all thisstuff.
You know, I've got four weeksvacation.
He doesn't argue with me aboutgoing and running and doing this
or that.
I.
Just, you know, and I don'twanna give that up.
He is a great guy,

Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that, I mean, it goes a longway, you know, when you're
working with somebody that youknow.
It lets

and he got five kids.
So

right.
Yep.
The, that's good.
Well, let's do let's do somerapid fire.
We'll put a bow on this thing.
What's your favorite movie?

anything with Godzilla in it

Okay.

that inner 8-year-old.
I love big dumb monster movies.

Okay, cool.
What would be your last meal?

Preferably I die in my sleep and I don't even
know what my last meal was.
I'd have to say it depends beinga Dutch thing, it's chicken pot
pie.
It's not an actual pie withchicken in it.
It's like a really thick soupwith square egg noodles.
It's actually a mismispronounced thing from
Pennsylvania Dutch, which isbought by B-O-T-B-O-Y.

(53:48):
Yeah, that's like a comfort foodthat, you know, your mother
would make every,

Yeah.
That sounds really

weeks or whatever it was.
You know, it's got chicken,potato, carrots, celery, big egg
noodles.
It's super thick.
It's, you know, it's just, I'dhave to say that'd probably be
the last meal if I had tochoose.

Ton of calories there.
I'm seeing,

oh yeah.

What are you most proud of besides your family,
your twins?

I.
I've done a fair bit of stuff inmy life.
I've done everything fromstrongman competitions to a TV
riding, hunting.
I've built my own gamingcomputers.
I've, there I've done a lot ofweird stuff.
My hobbies float with the wind.

(54:41):
So, you know, I'm proud of allthe stuff I've accomplished in
learning different things.
I go home and I look at myapartment and I look at
everything in there.
And I am proud of myself becauseI'm able to do that.

Yeah.

to provide enough that my wife can stay at
home with the kids.

That's awesome, man.
That's

And I'm proud that my kids can have different
things and you know, I work alot and like right now my wife's
Dominican right now, I sent herand the kids to the Dominican
Republic for a while in thewinter to enjoy the nice
weather.

Oh, nice.

you know, so, it, you know, I'm proud of
myself that I can actually beable to do things like that for
them.

No, that's awesome.
So good man.

you know, and people should be proud of
themselves and you shouldrecognize the things that you do
that you should be proud of.

That's so good.
That is really good advice.
It is, and I don't think, Imean, I know I'm guilty.
I, you know, I get hung up.
Oh, you could have done betterat this.
You could have done better atthat.
But yeah, just set back and beproud of yourself.

I mean, the reality is any of us that do any
kind of fabrication or do any ofthis stuff, you know, a lot of
us are our own biggest critics.
You know, you see all the flawsin everything that you do, and
in a lot of ways, that's how youget better at it.

(56:13):
But, you know, you make mistakesand, but at a certain point you
have to realize that people,your mistakes are so good that
people pay you for them.
You know, you know, you makemistakes until what you think is
a mistake is good enough forsomeone to pay you for it,

(56:34):
right?

that's a good point, man.
That is really good.
Yep.

and then at that point you have to look back
and you go, yeah, I could havedone that better, but you know
what, it's actually really good.

Yeah.

feel good that I accomplished that.
Because that person's paying mefor it.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Right.
You know, and then the, one ofthe other things I learned too
is never talk up your mistakes.
Sitting there praising somethingyou did like, like, I made a
wooden gun case.
I have this Canon it, it's afive 20 black powder, sharp

(57:14):
sports sharp rifle.
And I made a wooden gun case forit and out walnut.
I'm not a woodworker.
I've never done this before inmy life.
What, you know, again, beforethe kids, right?
And I'm looking at this thing,I'm like, oh, this thing's so
bad.
So, and people are like, no,dude, this thing's awesome.
This thing's cool.

(57:34):
This thing's crazy.
I'm thinking to myself, yeah Ishould stop telling them how bad
it is,

Yeah.
Yeah.
Right, right.
Yep.
No I've been there.
Yeah.
I could tell you the a hundredthings that I did incorrectly on
this project that most peoplewouldn't notice, A single one.
So yeah, why bother?
Right?

Yeah.
And as mechanics, we fixeveryone else's mistakes and we
fix our own.

that's true.
Yep.

many mistakes do we make that no one.

Yep.
That's a good point.
Very true.
Well, thank you so much, David.

You are quite welcome.
Thank you for having me on.

Yeah, no, this has been really good and I've
really enjoyed it.
Again, thank you for opening upabout dealing with depression
'cause I think that's, that canhelp a lot of people.

Well, one of the best ways to chase it off is
to talk about it.

There you go.
You gotta get it out.
Well, thank you.

Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.

thank you so much for listening to the Reel turf
techs podcast I hope you learnedsomething today Don't forget to
subscribe If you have any topicsyou'd like to discuss or you'd
like to be a guest find us onTwitter at Reel turf techs

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