July 21, 2024 • 40 mins
Max Nellis, a former Army military police officer who served in Afghanistan, reveals how he transformed his career into a thriving role as a construction superintendent. Max's journey from Washington DC to managing high-stakes construction projects is filled with unexpected twists and invaluable lessons. Listen as he recounts the challenges of finding suitable employment after his military service and how a stroke of luck led him back to the construction industry, where his determination and unique skill set found a perfect match.
We shine a light on the process of transitioning military experience into the construction field, discussing intense interview processes and the rewarding shift from hospitality to Greenfield construction. Max shares candid reflections on leadership, emphasizing that respect and cooperation on job sites are vital. Drawing parallels between the camaraderie in the military and the bonds formed in construction, Max highlights how leading by example can foster a productive and respectful work environment.
The episode also focuses on the abundant opportunities for veterans in the construction industry amid a significant labor shortage. We explore how veterans can leverage their unique strengths and discuss the importance of working for supportive employers who value their employees' well-being. Conclude with a powerful call to action for veterans interested in the construction field to seek mentorship and support, showcasing the fulfilling career paths available in this booming industry. If you're a military veteran looking to transition into construction, don't miss the insights shared by Max Nellis and the wealth of opportunities awaiting you.
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If you're a military veteran in the construction industry, or you're in the construction industry and support our military vets, and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast you can find me at constructionvetpodcast@gmail.com , or send me a message on LinkedIn. You can find me there at Scott Friend. Let's share the stories and motivate others!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
We had about two and a half acre fire patrol base in
the middle of nowhere,Afghanistan, and you have to
trust the person next to you.
This is the ConstructionVeteran Podcast.
Construction Veteran PodcastConnecting and celebrating
veterans in construction.
Now here's your host, ScottFriend.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Guys, for this latest episode I'm excited to bring to
you Max Nellis, a currentsuperintendent with a nationwide
general contractor and formerArmy soldier serving with the
military police unit.
Let's dig into it, hey Max.
How's it going man?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It's going.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Same, it's going for sure.
I'm just getting off of takingmy oldest to church camp and I'm
I don't think I've caught up onsleep yet.
So so Max and I recently workeda couple of years ago we worked
at the same general contractor,national GC, just in different
locations Saw that we both had amilitary background and he was
(01:15):
interested in getting on theshow.
We've been kind of kicking thecan down the road, as is the
industry.
So, max, tell me a little bitabout where you're from and what
you did in the military.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So I'm originally from Washington DC.
I grew up in the DC metro area,went to high school in Bethesda
, joined the Army in 2007,served seven years of active
duty, toured in Afghanistan in2009.
I was a US Army military police.
I went from one stressful jobto another, but I've been in the
(01:48):
construction industry now for11 years and my focus is
mission-critical facilities, soI primarily do data centers and
have some experience in a fewother areas.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Cool, so mission-critical for those who
don't know.
Like you said, data centers,laboratories, sometimes stuff
that I guess what you could sayhas a very heavy MEP focus right
.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Very heavy MEP and these are projects in the
hundreds of millions andbillions of dollars.
So there's.
They're quite long.
There's quite a lot of stresswith them.
Really strict schedules becauseclients can't make money until
it's done.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, for sure.
And those data centers, they'remeasured in what like gigawatts
or something crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, the smaller ones are megawatts and when you
get into the gigawatt factoriesthose are usually 2,000 acre,
3,000 acre properties and theyhandle a large volume of data.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I can't even fathom a job that big.
That's crazy.
So these are multi-building,sometimes multi-year projects,
right.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yep, the largest one I've done is a confidential
client, but it was 350 acres, amillion square feet of data
center space and 268 megawattsof power.
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, and so a lot of those, like you said, are
confidential clients, butthey're, they're big names A lot
of people would recognize big,big, yeah, I don't want to say
conglomerate, but, yeah, bignames, everybody knows.
Um so, man, you had a bigswitch, like you said, from one
stressful job to the other, butwhat even got you from going
from military police intoconstruction so complete?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
happenstance in between high school and flunking
out of college because itreally just was not for me.
I came home and my mom said youhave two weeks to find a job
and in three days I hadn't founda job.
So she said, great, you'recoming to work for me.
And I went and did residentialconstruction for about 18 months
, got tired of it and went intothe military.
(03:58):
And then, coming out, you gothrough ACAPERS, the Army Career
and Alumni Program, and theydon't feed you bad information
but they feed you oldinformation.
And ACAP really did not prepareme for the civilian market.
A lot of it was geared towardstrying to get hired on with
(04:20):
government agencies.
I applied to over a hundreddifferent positions on USA jobs
and was told I wasn't qualifiedenough or I was overqualified.
And I got told more often thannot I was overqualified for like
GS six and seven and eight jobsand I was struggling.
(04:41):
I had been medically dischargedand took the first job that came
my way, just working $17 anhour for a security company and
I was newly a homeowner and hada lot of bills piling up and I
got onto a construction projectof being a security guard for
(05:03):
our mutual former employer andthe senior superintendent and I
on the job became sort offriends.
We're still talk now.
You know he had this PE thatwas following him around like a
lost puppy and I said to him Isaid what does that guy do?
And he goes.
Well, he holds my pocket.
You know.
He learns, you know, thesuperintendent role for the
(05:26):
first year that he's with thecompany.
You know he gets paid to do itand then after that year he can
choose to stay in the field orgo in the office.
So what does he get paid?
He's like fifty two thousanddollars a year and I'm like cool
, sign me up.
So, complete happenstance, Inever intended to go back to
(05:48):
construction.
I had no idea what I wasgetting myself into for sure,
but I had, you know, trust inGod's plan that that was what I
was supposed to do and I'veabsolutely fallen in love with
commercial construction and thegeneral contracting side of it.
So my motto is go big or gohome.
And I take chances and this wasa chance I took and got into
the program and haven't lookedback since.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That is a really neat story, man.
I don't think I've ever talkedto anybody that had something
like that.
So you just happened to bethere.
And for those people listening,man, talk to the folks on your
site, the security guardsbecause I've had people approach
me too.
You know, hey, what do you guysdo, what's it take to get into
this kind of thing?
So that's neat.
You're a success story in that.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
No, it's just I make a point to look for the
qualities of a superintendent inpeople that aren't doing this
Because, quite honestly, itdoesn't take a college education
to do this.
It takes somebody with awillingness to learn and the
drive to want to succeed, andthat's really it in a nutshell.
(06:51):
You can learn construction.
You can learn how to build abox.
That is not hard.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, for sure, and I think in our role too, it's
more people, leadership andmanagement and scheduling and
safety and quality.
I might be a tradesman, I'm acarpenter by trade, but at the
same time I'm not.
I'm not swinging the hammeranymore, I'm just making sure
everybody plays nice in thesandbox.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, I think we're a little too old to be swinging
hammers.
Yeah, that's true, I'll agreewith that.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
But and I do like our uh, our former employer man.
I do like that program thatthey had, that somebody could be
green, as could be, but theyforced them to go into the field
for a year because, even ifthey wanted to be a PM, that
they kind of forced them tolearn the field side, to
understand what thesuperintendent's going through.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I did like that Exactly.
I mean, you know 99% of thoseguys end up, you know, going in
the office because they, youknow they want to sit at a desk
and dress nice.
But you know, I, I really lovebeing in the field.
You know I'll, I'll complain,you know about, you know the
stress and whatnot, and some,you know my wife will remind me
that I chose this um and that Ithrive on it.
(07:57):
And you know, to quit yourwhining.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It doesn't help, but we're going to do it anyway.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to back up.
You said so when you leftschool.
Your mom was in the residentialside of the business, so what
did she do?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So my mom was actually an office manager for
one of the top REMAX agents inNorthern Virginia and at the
time he had partnered with aclassy builder in Nova doing
custom homes.
So I got on I don't know if youremember the name, but Clinton
Portis, the formerly of theWashington Redskins, helped
(08:33):
build his house Pretty much likemillion dollar homes and above.
So I kind of early on got tosee what high quality is
supposed to be.
Yeah, she didn't really give memuch of a choice, so I jumped
right into it and started off asa laborer and worked my way up
to carpenters foreman and did alot of drywall and, you know,
(08:54):
manage the closeout of a lot ofprobably three or four dozen
custom homes.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Oh cool.
So I bet you use some of that,that skill, today, just kind of
understanding how things getbuilt together and who needs to
go first.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You know.
So when I have interns whichyou know, every summer we get
lots of fun interns I try todescribe building.
You build anything like you doa drywall.
You know metal stud wall right,it has to start somewhere,
right, it starts with the slaband then it starts with track
(09:29):
and then you got to put thestuds in.
Everything that we do isexactly the same right when
you're.
Mostly what I do is greenfieldconstruction.
So the last seven years I'vespecialized in campus builds.
So you know ground up.
You know one of the one of theprojects I've done recently.
(09:50):
You know you had to take down abunch of trees and we have to
grub all that.
You know you have to dig outthe foundations and all that
process is exactly the same Ifyou apply it to a wall.
You have to start with theground and work your way up is
exactly the same If you apply itto a wall.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
You have to start with the ground and work your
way up.
My, my former assistants or PEswill know where I'm going with
this Cause.
I train the guys that don'thave much exposure to like a
schedule.
Uh, I say I'll give you 20minutes and I want you to build
me a house on paper.
Tell me what it takes, and justto get them in that mindset of
scheduling, because nine timesout of 10, it'll be well, you
pour the concrete and then youput up the studs and I go whoa,
(10:24):
whoa, whoa.
What about?
How are you going to get waterto that house?
How are you going to get powerto that house?
And getting them in the mindsetof just general scheduling,
because people don't think aboutthat, the general public of
what does it take to put in thestuff to, to, uh, to power that
television on your wall?
How do you get the power there?
How?
How do you get the power there?
How do you get the power fromthe city?
And so you get them in that bigpicture standpoint of oh, okay,
(10:46):
okay, I get it.
It's kind of breaking down that101.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Absolutely, I mean, if you really want to get their
brains twisted, bring in leanconstruction and last planner
system.
Oh yeah, have them work fromthe shingles down and work
backwards.
I've actually really found away to become very passionate
about lean construction.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I see a lot of value.
Yeah, I can remember firsthearing the term when I was
first at that employer, when Ifirst got out of the service up
in DC and I had a PM talkingabout lean and I'm like, is this
guy talking about it?
It was just kind of a buzzwordback then.
This is 2011 when he said it tome, but it's really gained a
lot of traction and somethingI'm very passionate about too,
and I had always had thatmindset.
When I open my drawings for anew project, I build backwards
(11:33):
in my head, and that wasn'tintentional.
It's just the way my brainworks of.
Okay, I've got an AV package onthe wall, where am I pulling
power from?
And I work my way backwards, soI know what I had to do first
and it's.
I see the industry going thatway and I think it's really
helped.
Instead of the push planning,if you will, it's more pull
planning.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I think my greatest success is I had a project in
Iowa where we applied leanduring the pre-construction
phase and from the, the previousproject, which is a mirror
image of the first project, weknocked off eight weeks complete
on the schedule and we had yeah, we had six percent rework and
(12:16):
then the average I think in theindustry is about 30 percent of
warranty or going back.
So we took the upside downpyramid right, so you have
safety as the absolute priorityover everything.
If you have safety, qualitywill fall in line, schedule
falls in line and then costfalls.
And going with that method, Imean we saved the owner millions
(12:41):
of dollars in change orders and, you know, rework and
everything else.
It's truly remarkable what thatprogram can do.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, and that's money out of the company's
pocket when you're going backand having to fix that work that
maybe you screwed up.
So you're not doing that ontheir the client's dime, you're
doing that on your dime.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Right, and then the likelihood of them wanting you
to come back and work for themagain also goes down.
You know, and you want 80% ofyour work to be, you know,
previous clients and the hoursit's going to take to fix that.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And then, like you said, when you've got an
occupied facility, it just makesthings that much harder to get
back in, because now you'redoing night work or overtime
work when we could have justdone it the right way the first
time, absolutely 100%.
So I'm going to back up again.
So you were security on thesite.
You ended up linking up with asenior super.
Obviously, this guy had, youknow, a mentality that you liked
(13:46):
, seemed like he was a goodleader.
Sounds like you guys are stillbuds.
But what was it about theindustry that you said, all
right, this is something I cansee myself being successful in
and I want to do this other thanthe money, I should say,
because that was a big pay bump.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The money.
The money was a huge motivatorfrom $17 an hour to 52,000.
I thought I was living large,honestly, when I walked in for
my interview.
Our prior organization had aneight hour interview process to
(14:18):
be a PE Yep, and you went in,you had breakfast, you were
there in a suit and tie, soyou're eating and trying not to
get it all over yourself, youknow.
And then you know you go andyou have conversations with some
of the senior project managersand VPs and then you go on a
sidewalk and you come back.
I mean it's like a whole thing,right.
(14:40):
But the one thing I noticed wasthat company built their own
office from the ground up and itwas stunning.
It's beautiful inside thatoffice Italian marble, brazilian
wood on the walls, hiddenspeakers in the driveway.
I mean all kinds of really coolstuff.
In my mind I was like, okay, Ireally want to do this, this is
(15:03):
really cool.
And then they stuck me inhospitality doing lipstick jobs
at hotels.
But I got an opportunity abouta year and some change into
working for them to go traveland build a data center in
Washington State and I jumped onthat.
(15:24):
I heard per diem and I'm like,sweet, that's an extra thousand
dollars a week, I'll take it and, um you know, got out there and
I got my first taste ofGreenfield construction and I it
was like crack, I was addicted.
I absolutely love this job.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, and that's a that's a big shift man.
So I'm shocked to, coming fromthe service of the background
and military police, I meanoutside of the police work
you've got a lot oforganizational skills,
leadership skills that youbrought to the table.
So the fact that you weren'table to find work, that speaks
to what a lot of people aregoing through today just trying
to find a job anything.
(16:02):
So if you had somebodytransitioning, would you suggest
the construction?
Let me back up.
Why would you suggest thisindustry to somebody that's
transitioning?
Maybe they have an MP role orthey're a cook or anything.
What do you think would appealto them about this industry?
Speaker 1 (16:19):
So the biggest thing for me coming out of the
military and going to work for asecurity company is that it
wasn't a brotherhood, it wasn'ta family, and whether it was our
previous employer or my currentemployer, it's people first,
but we're all one big you knowfamily and I really miss that.
(16:42):
Especially like after deploying, and you know I was on an
outpost with 29 other people.
That was it.
We had about two and a halfacre fire patrol base in the
middle of nowhere, afghanistan,and you have to trust the person
next to you, right, you gethurt, they got to pull your rear
(17:03):
end out.
This is the same thing in thisindustry and everybody out here
is is, you know, in the samekind of fraternity that I felt I
had in the military.
I mean, I come to work and joke, joke around with everybody,
almost, you know, a little bitmore professional, but almost
(17:25):
the same way we did in the armyand you know that's a huge
driver for me.
I haven't found that anywhereelse, any other industry.
You know I could have gone backand been in law enforcement.
You know, personally I got Ikind of got tired of being a
part of everybody's worst dayand out here I get to build
something with amazing peoplethat put in ungodly amount of
(17:49):
hours to provide a high qualityon time.
You know project.
So that's really what it is.
For me, it's the family aspect.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, no wonder he fell in love with that
Greenfield job too.
You guys were out there byyourselves having to defend on
one another.
I'm sure it was a littledifficult to get supplies and
everything where you were Samething like it was out on a cop.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
So back to your service days.
Are there things that you canpinpoint from your time in the
army that have helped youtremendously in what you're
doing right now as asuperintendent tremendously in
what you're doing right now as asuperintendent 100%.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
My biggest lesson learned from the army was
learning what kind of leader Ididn't want to be, and you know
I'm sure you can attest that notevery leader in the military is
a good one, right?
The guy that stands around andscreams and yell, and you know
you.
Just, you do it because youwant them to stop.
(18:46):
You know yelling, but you don'trespect them and I didn't want
to be that guy.
And I actually learned thatlesson the hard way.
At my, you know, my first dutystation.
I got thrown into being a teamleader really quick and I'd only
had, you know, squad leadersand team leaders that screamed
and yelled and talked a lot ofsmack and I didn't know that
(19:09):
there was another way of leadingand I take being a
superintendent in the samestroke.
I want these people to come towork every day and want to work
with me and form, so you can'tgo out into the field right out
here and onto a job site afteryou've done yelled and screamed
(19:31):
that you're at the you know thesubcontractor superintendent and
called him names or her namesor whatever, and then expect
them to do you favors.
Out there there's a lot ofhorse trading that goes on in
this industry from the GC sidethe subs and I think that any
one of them is going to want towork with us.
If we're a jerk, no way.
So I learned very quickly toput people first above myself,
(19:54):
which is what a goodnon-commissioned officer does,
and I applied that to being asuperintendent.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, and I think we see the same thing in the
industry.
Sometimes too are the guys thatyell and scream and people will
get the stuff done just becausethey have to and they're
contractually obligated to getthat done.
But it's you know, nobody wantsto do favors, nobody wants to
help that guy out when he's inneed, and I've I've worked under
some of those people before too, but the guys I respected the
most in the service and out wasthe guys that really put their,
(20:22):
their stuff aside and said allright, what can I do to help you
?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yep, my thing is always to my foreman and
superintendents is if you'velost that drive to want to come
to work, that excitement, wehave a problem and we need to
find out what that is and weneed to change something so that
you have that feeling every daythat you come to work right.
(20:46):
I want to feel that way everyway, every day that I come right
.
So why wouldn't I want?
You know I'm not going to callthem subordinates, but you know
the people that work for me.
Why wouldn't I want the samething for them?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
yeah, 100 agreed.
Yeah, and I've shared.
Before.
I had a guy I worked with thatyou, he was a superior, not not
a vet, whether that, thatdoesn't matter either way but I
had some personal stuff going onand said hey, you know, I got
this going on.
It's kind of weighing on me.
And his response was well,that's, that's home life, we
don't care about that.
Here I'm like God, okay.
Well, I don't want to help youway of being.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, you know, you get a heck of a lot more bees
with honey than you do vinegar.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, and it ties into the safety aspect, because
you can tell when guys are justbeat down or they got something
personal going on.
Hey man, maybe you can betasked with something else,
because I don't want themgetting hurt.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I don't want them getting other people hurt
because their mind's not on thejob.
No, 100%, I mean so.
And you know we just wentthrough mental health awareness
month and men's health, mentalhealth awareness month, and I
reiterate it all the time yearround.
Outside of that, I just Iliterally it's funny that you
say that but literally thismorning, at our stretch and flex
, talked about this exact samething.
(22:00):
Right, I don't.
These guys don't know me from.
You know Joe down the street,and I don't really know them,
but my phone is always on, I amalways available.
And the mental health aspectespecially I mean especially in
the construction industry.
This is high stress, high driveindustry and you know when
(22:21):
you're a laborer or you're acarpenter or you're an
electrician or you're a plumber,that's a lot of stress, it's a
lot of work, it's a lot on yourbody and your mind.
And then you know you get aphone call that you didn't want
to get a phone.
You know get in the middle ofthe day and now you're even more
stressed out.
I personally make myselfcompletely available to
(22:43):
everybody on site at any time,for any reason, don't care what
it is.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, yeah.
Good for you, man.
That's good leadership, so takeme along your journey.
So you got out, you got medicalmedically discharged, found
your way into security, and thenthe industry.
If you could tell your youngerself, uh, something to change
along the route, what do youthink that might be, if anything
?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Quit smoking and drinking.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Okay, that's fair.
Yep Agreed.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
But I would, if I had to say something to my
20-something adult self, I'dprobably stress financial
independence.
You know, getting out of themilitary I did not take that
seriously and, to be honest withyou, you know I chose a very
dangerous job in the militarybehind.
(23:35):
You know infantry, you know athome you're dealing with
everybody's worst day and whenyou're deployed, you're training
people like the Afghan NationalPolice that don't want to be
trained by you.
When you're doing all of this,you're not thinking about saving
, you're not thinking aboutinvesting, you're not thinking
about financial independence.
(23:56):
And one of the problems being inthe military is everybody's
like oh, you have a guaranteedpaycheck, no problem, we'll give
you credit.
You have a guaranteed paycheck,no problem, we'll give you
credit.
So you know you, you rack up,you know car bills and credit
cards and all this stuff, andnobody really prepares you to
say, hey, you're going to haveto pay that back one day.
And that was really a strugglefor me coming out of the
(24:18):
military and into the privatesector and realizing, oh my God,
how am I going to pay for allthis?
So definitely financialtraining.
And get somebody like you know,a JP Morgan chase or Liberty
mutual or something like that,to be able to guide you in the
right direction.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, and there's so many programs that are free.
While you're in, too, themilitary didn't do any favors
either, though while you'retransitioning back, you're
redeploying, and they got thosesigns of tax-free.
Harley Davidson, you know, buyyour motorcycle and you get that
extra payment, the hazard dutypay.
I remember coming back andbuying a brand new guitar and
computer and that shiny stuffthat I wanted, not thinking I
(24:59):
knew nothing about investing mymoney, unless you've got a good
NCO over you.
I mean, you're just going toblow it Like you said.
That was my mentality.
I got that guaranteed paycheck,I'm going to get the nicest
truck, and I think the samething happens in the field with
a lot of these new apprenticesand journeymen.
They make that fat paycheck andthey go oh man, I'm going to
(25:19):
get that jacked up diesel.
Well, okay, but you might havea family someday.
You should start thinking aboutdo you really need that truck,
or can you get by with that oldjalopy for a while?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Well, and to be perfectly honest with you, I
reenlisted while you'redownrange for six years for
$6,000 so that I could pay off astupid boat that I bought Yep,
pretty dumb.
But nobody told me, as a newlypromoted E4 at the time, that
buying a boat was a bad idea.
All they wanted to do is sayhey, can we go fishing on your
(25:50):
boat?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's always best to have a friend
with a boat, right?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, um, so we've got.
This industry has a boatload nopun intended of vets in it.
Um, I mean, I meet them all thetime and it's really cool to
share stories, um, but, like youkind of alluded to earlier,
there's a lot of work that wegot to put in to get the
projects built.
There's very, very long hourssometimes and it's I mean, I'll
be totally honest, I did a fewweeks or a couple of weeks
(26:17):
straight of work here recentlyand my boss could tell I was
getting burned out.
He told me take five days offright now.
And I really appreciate thatthat doesn't happen all the time
, because some guys it's justlike well, suck it up.
You know, you got to put yourtime in and I've been putting my
time in for well over a decade.
So if you've got guys out therelistening to the show that are
(26:39):
getting to that point that maybethey don't have that leadership
to support them, what would youtry to say to them to encourage
them?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
It's a lot easier to find a job when you have a job
(27:06):
no touche.
You know my annual review.
It was a pretty status quoannual review.
I thought I did a heck of a lotbetter job than what they were
saying and I was just, I wasdone.
I'd finally hit my breakingpoint with the leadership that I
had.
Who wasn't taking care of me?
(27:26):
I've went out and sought acompany that puts people first,
truly, truly, truly.
That is the first line of theirmission statement.
They put people first.
I love who I work for.
Now.
I've been with this company fortwo and a half years now and
(27:47):
you know I've had some prettybig health scares over the last
year and a half and they tookcare of me.
I didn't have to worry about mybills.
I didn't have to stress I mean,you're always going to stress,
but they really took care of meand they held up their end of
the bargain.
I'm giving it back now.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I used to think that that was rare, maybe because I
was in a position where I wasn'tbeing taken care of for a while
.
But I do see that a lot morenowadays, and maybe that's just
because of the generationalshift, of the new leadership
coming in, realizing people doneed to come first, Like where
I'm at now.
They've really, they havereally taken an interest into my
personal life, Like recently mykids have gotten pretty sick or
(28:34):
we had ER visits and whatnot,and they're constantly checking
on me How's your kid?
Or that's like the first thingthey asked me.
When I walk in the trailer,How's your daughter doing?
Oh well, okay, Good morning.
Yeah, when I walk in the trailer, how's your daughter doing?
Oh well, okay, Good morning.
Yes, she's good.
And then we kind of get intowork.
But that to me is kind ofshocking and appreciated that
they would ask about like, howare you doing today?
Not you know, are you ready forthe day?
(28:54):
How are you personally?
And that means a lot to mepersonally and that, uh, that
that makes me want to give backeven more.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Absolutely, to give back even more Absolutely, and
that's that's the way I feelhere.
I mean, I'm part of a team andthey, uh, they take care of each
other.
And you know I don't know aboutyou, but, um, you know, being a
superintendent and going awayfor, you know, more than a
couple of days, you get still alittle bit anxious about, you
know, the work that you'releaving behind.
(29:23):
I'm going on vacation for aweek and a half, starting
tomorrow.
I am not worried.
I know my team's got my back.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, it says a lot about your team for sure, and I
I think that helps when you gotbig teams.
I'm fortunate to have a bigteam as well, and knowing that
somebody is going to backfill myrole if I take off.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah.
Yeah, but you know noteverything is perfect and peachy
.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
There are companies out there and teams within good
companies, that people are kindof out for themselves.
So I'm not I'm not tellingpeople out there that it's all
like that.
I just I think it's a lot morecommon than I used to think, is
all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
There's a huge shift in the industry right now and we
are short.
Oh now, and we are short.
What was it about?
3 million construction jobs inthe country right now.
Right, so we're short onelectricians, we're short on
plumbers, we're short onmechanics, we're short on
drywallers, concrete guys,excavator operators we're short
(30:19):
on everything.
And, funny enough, we're shorton the management side.
Right, so there's so much workright now, and there has been
for about the last 10 years, andit doesn't look like it's going
to change anytime soon.
You know, even during COVID,there was a ton of mission
(30:40):
critical work, hospital work,pharmaceutical work going on,
big jobs.
And you know we still can'tfind, you know, even
semi-qualified people to fillthose roles.
You know we're going out andbegging for people to come.
(31:00):
You know, work for us, and it'snot just my company, it's every
company across the board.
I mean, I get I don't know sixto ten emails a week about, hey,
you thinking about jumping ship, you want to move down to
Indiana or wherever.
I mean you know they're outthere.
There's a ton of work.
And for the guys coming out ofthe military, I don't care if
(31:22):
you're private specialist, youknow E5 and above, there is a
place for you in this industry.
Especially, military guys arehighly sought after for the
construction industry because ofa couple of things.
Right, they generally show upon time.
They're very good at, you know,taking the list and running
(31:46):
with it and running it down andgetting it done.
All right, they're in there,they're.
They're impatient about lettingthings slide, they're.
You know, if there's a uniform,they're in it.
Right, you don't have to remindthe military guys on site to
put their gloves on, they justdo it.
It's a mentality that we haveas military, and bringing that
(32:08):
to the civilian world, those arejust old habits that die hard.
That's true.
If there's anybody listening tothis that's thinking about
joining the industry and you'recoming out of the military,
you're in that transition period.
(32:28):
Now, even if you have neverbeen a carpenter in your life,
you've never been an electricianin your life or you want to be
in management, take that leap,absolutely take that leap.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, I think and I'm kind of thinking back to my
younger self getting out I knowduring my transition people
didn't talk about constructionmuch.
I hope that's changed, but Ithink there was a scare.
Oh, 100%.
Yeah, and, like you said, theindustry's changing for the
better.
I think there's this mentalityand this is just my belief that,
(32:58):
oh, there's no money in it, butman, there's guys living very,
very, very well in the industry,and even new guys, yeah, like
guys a couple of years in.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
If you're a union electrician anywhere in this
country as a journeyman, you'remaking over 100 grand a year.
I mean that and that's probablyyou know, with a little bit of
overtime thrown in there.
But I mean I have not been on aany construction job in the
last 10 years that wasn't 10hours a day, five days a week or
(33:30):
six days a week.
Yeah, the money's there.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I can remember I was in El Paso doing a job and we
had a guy who was a carpenterforeman talking about putting
his kids through college, likepaying for their college, not
having to take out loans forthem.
He was living decent, wellabove middle class.
Now, granted, he was an olderguy, but you see that with guys
(33:57):
in their 20s We've got foremenat our company that are taking
care of their families.
Wives aren't working Um,they're not working insane over
time, and the overtime is thereif they want it.
So, if you know, christmas iscoming up and they want to buy
gifts for the kids.
The overtime is always therefor the guys that want it for
sure.
So I've met guys that are aresingle and work as many hours as
(34:19):
they possibly can and they'rebuying boats, cash, like you
said, or RVs, or their toys, andthey're doing just fine, buying
all the tours before they getmarried.
So once they do, they have thatcash for the house and
everything.
So the money's absolutely there.
And um, opportunities uh,there's a lot of runway there, I
should say, to opportunitiesfor growth in this industry.
(34:39):
I've met personally plenty ofCEOs or presidents of companies
that came from being a laborerpushing a broom and, like you
said, it doesn't always requirethe college degree.
Maybe some companies do whenyou get to that C-suite if
they're fairly large, but that'snot always the case.
I mean our old employeractually great example, one of
(35:00):
our, who he just retired, butone of our former co-presidents.
He was kind of like a mentor tome when I was up there in the
DC area and he had told me getas many certifications and learn
as much as you possibly canbefore you even consider getting
higher education.
And this guy did not have acollege degree and was running a
multi-billion dollar company.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
We'll call him JB.
I was very, very close with himand he was a mentor of mine at
that company and was thrilled tohear that he was finally
retiring.
It's well-deserved, and youknow he was a CB.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
So you know he, of course.
Of course I latched onto himreal quick.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Exactly.
All right, I won't hold theNavy thing against you.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Oh, I was never on a boat, if that helps.
I'm not sure it does, that'sokay, I mean he he's a great
example among so many peoplethat have gone through that.
Or you know, every day we meetthese presidents of the trade
contractors and the tradecontractors man.
They make a lot more money thanus.
(36:09):
When they start moving up thechain.
Their profit margin is a lotbetter than the general contract
inside.
So if there's people that areinterested in getting into the
industry and starting a company,I would encourage people that
are in their early 20s that dida tour or two.
If you've got a skill, or evenif you don't.
I've met plenty of presidentsof companies that maybe don't
(36:30):
have that specific trade buthave a great team around them
but know the organization, knowthe business side, and these
guys are doing very well forthemselves.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And these guys are doing very well for themselves.
Yeah, Now, I mean, I can'tstress enough how easily it is
to make a you hear it on thenews all the time a living wage,
a living wage.
Well, there's a differencebetween a barista and somebody
who builds a multi-billiondollar structure, right?
(37:00):
The guys that are up in thelifts putting steel up, pouring
concrete, these are the peoplethat build America.
If you want to be a part ofsomething really great build
America.
It's not complicated, you getgreat pay.
You get to build somethingthat's going to provide for your
(37:21):
family and you and you knowhundreds of other people, so why
not?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, and it's always fun to drive past with your
kids going.
Dad built that.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yep exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Well, cool.
Well, man, you segued rightinto my last question, so that
was perfect, trying to getpeople in the industry.
So you got any closing thoughtshere, max?
Speaker 1 (37:41):
before we wrap up, yeah, if you need a job, give me
a call, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I will be sure to tag you man.
Like you said, we're.
We're always looking for goodpeople all across the U?
S, especially around, like,major metropolitan areas.
It's just it's not slowing downanytime soon.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
No, is, it's just, it's not slowing down anytime
soon.
No, I'm, I'm down, uh.
I moved to charleston, uh, fouryears ago.
I'm not looking back, but thereis an incredible amount of work
down here, uh, both in missioncritical and car manufacturing.
It's just, it's, it's crazy,the things that are happening
down here.
Um, so if you're out there andyou're and you're thinking, you
know you might want to make amove and and try something new.
(38:23):
Join the construction industry,because you're not going to
regret it.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, and I think I speak for you and a lot of us
that the onus is on the personto reach out.
But we're more than willing tohelp.
But you got to take the firststep.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
I will take every minute out of my day to help
another veteran.
So, um, definitely, uh put myLinkedIn on there and be happy
to talk to anybody who has anyquestions.
Uh about about this at all,whatever it is Very cool, man.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I appreciate you taking your minutes out to chat
with me, Max.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Absolutely.
It's great to finally connectagain with you All, right,
brother.
All right, thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yes, sir, thank you.
All right, brother, all right,thanks a lot.
Yes, sir, thank you.
If you're a military veteran inthe construction industry or
you're in the constructionindustry and support our
military vets and you'd like tobe a guest on the podcast, you
can find me at construction vetpodcast at gmailcom, or send me
a message on LinkedIn.
You can find me there at Scottfriend.
Let's share the stories andmotivate others.
We had about two and a half acre fire patrol base in
the middle of nowhere,Afghanistan, and you have to
trust the person next to you.
This is the ConstructionVeteran Podcast.
Construction Veteran PodcastConnecting and celebrating
veterans in construction.
Now here's your host, ScottFriend.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Guys, for this latest episode I'm excited to bring to
you Max Nellis, a currentsuperintendent with a nationwide
general contractor and formerArmy soldier serving with the
military police unit.
Let's dig into it, hey Max.
How's it going man?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It's going.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Same, it's going for sure.
I'm just getting off of takingmy oldest to church camp and I'm
I don't think I've caught up onsleep yet.
So so Max and I recently workeda couple of years ago we worked
at the same general contractor,national GC, just in different
locations Saw that we both had amilitary background and he was
(01:15):
interested in getting on theshow.
We've been kind of kicking thecan down the road, as is the
industry.
So, max, tell me a little bitabout where you're from and what
you did in the military.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So I'm originally from Washington DC.
I grew up in the DC metro area,went to high school in Bethesda
, joined the Army in 2007,served seven years of active
duty, toured in Afghanistan in2009.
I was a US Army military police.
I went from one stressful jobto another, but I've been in the
(01:48):
construction industry now for11 years and my focus is
mission-critical facilities, soI primarily do data centers and
have some experience in a fewother areas.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Cool, so mission-critical for those who
don't know.
Like you said, data centers,laboratories, sometimes stuff
that I guess what you could sayhas a very heavy MEP focus right
.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Very heavy MEP and these are projects in the
hundreds of millions andbillions of dollars.
So there's.
They're quite long.
There's quite a lot of stresswith them.
Really strict schedules becauseclients can't make money until
it's done.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, for sure.
And those data centers, they'remeasured in what like gigawatts
or something crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, the smaller ones are megawatts and when you
get into the gigawatt factoriesthose are usually 2,000 acre,
3,000 acre properties and theyhandle a large volume of data.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I can't even fathom a job that big.
That's crazy.
So these are multi-building,sometimes multi-year projects,
right.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yep, the largest one I've done is a confidential
client, but it was 350 acres, amillion square feet of data
center space and 268 megawattsof power.
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, and so a lot of those, like you said, are
confidential clients, butthey're, they're big names A lot
of people would recognize big,big, yeah, I don't want to say
conglomerate, but, yeah, bignames, everybody knows.
Um so, man, you had a bigswitch, like you said, from one
stressful job to the other, butwhat even got you from going
from military police intoconstruction so complete?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
happenstance in between high school and flunking
out of college because itreally just was not for me.
I came home and my mom said youhave two weeks to find a job
and in three days I hadn't founda job.
So she said, great, you'recoming to work for me.
And I went and did residentialconstruction for about 18 months
, got tired of it and went intothe military.
(03:58):
And then, coming out, you gothrough ACAPERS, the Army Career
and Alumni Program, and theydon't feed you bad information
but they feed you oldinformation.
And ACAP really did not prepareme for the civilian market.
A lot of it was geared towardstrying to get hired on with
(04:20):
government agencies.
I applied to over a hundreddifferent positions on USA jobs
and was told I wasn't qualifiedenough or I was overqualified.
And I got told more often thannot I was overqualified for like
GS six and seven and eight jobsand I was struggling.
(04:41):
I had been medically dischargedand took the first job that came
my way, just working $17 anhour for a security company and
I was newly a homeowner and hada lot of bills piling up and I
got onto a construction projectof being a security guard for
(05:03):
our mutual former employer andthe senior superintendent and I
on the job became sort offriends.
We're still talk now.
You know he had this PE thatwas following him around like a
lost puppy and I said to him Isaid what does that guy do?
And he goes.
Well, he holds my pocket.
You know.
He learns, you know, thesuperintendent role for the
(05:26):
first year that he's with thecompany.
You know he gets paid to do itand then after that year he can
choose to stay in the field orgo in the office.
So what does he get paid?
He's like fifty two thousanddollars a year and I'm like cool
, sign me up.
So, complete happenstance, Inever intended to go back to
(05:48):
construction.
I had no idea what I wasgetting myself into for sure,
but I had, you know, trust inGod's plan that that was what I
was supposed to do and I'veabsolutely fallen in love with
commercial construction and thegeneral contracting side of it.
So my motto is go big or gohome.
And I take chances and this wasa chance I took and got into
the program and haven't lookedback since.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That is a really neat story, man.
I don't think I've ever talkedto anybody that had something
like that.
So you just happened to bethere.
And for those people listening,man, talk to the folks on your
site, the security guardsbecause I've had people approach
me too.
You know, hey, what do you guysdo, what's it take to get into
this kind of thing?
So that's neat.
You're a success story in that.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
No, it's just I make a point to look for the
qualities of a superintendent inpeople that aren't doing this
Because, quite honestly, itdoesn't take a college education
to do this.
It takes somebody with awillingness to learn and the
drive to want to succeed, andthat's really it in a nutshell.
(06:51):
You can learn construction.
You can learn how to build abox.
That is not hard.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, for sure, and I think in our role too, it's
more people, leadership andmanagement and scheduling and
safety and quality.
I might be a tradesman, I'm acarpenter by trade, but at the
same time I'm not.
I'm not swinging the hammeranymore, I'm just making sure
everybody plays nice in thesandbox.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, I think we're a little too old to be swinging
hammers.
Yeah, that's true, I'll agreewith that.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
But and I do like our uh, our former employer man.
I do like that program thatthey had, that somebody could be
green, as could be, but theyforced them to go into the field
for a year because, even ifthey wanted to be a PM, that
they kind of forced them tolearn the field side, to
understand what thesuperintendent's going through.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I did like that Exactly.
I mean, you know 99% of thoseguys end up, you know, going in
the office because they, youknow they want to sit at a desk
and dress nice.
But you know, I, I really lovebeing in the field.
You know I'll, I'll complain,you know about, you know the
stress and whatnot, and some,you know my wife will remind me
that I chose this um and that Ithrive on it.
(07:57):
And you know, to quit yourwhining.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It doesn't help, but we're going to do it anyway.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to back up.
You said so when you leftschool.
Your mom was in the residentialside of the business, so what
did she do?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So my mom was actually an office manager for
one of the top REMAX agents inNorthern Virginia and at the
time he had partnered with aclassy builder in Nova doing
custom homes.
So I got on I don't know if youremember the name, but Clinton
Portis, the formerly of theWashington Redskins, helped
(08:33):
build his house Pretty much likemillion dollar homes and above.
So I kind of early on got tosee what high quality is
supposed to be.
Yeah, she didn't really give memuch of a choice, so I jumped
right into it and started off asa laborer and worked my way up
to carpenters foreman and did alot of drywall and, you know,
(08:54):
manage the closeout of a lot ofprobably three or four dozen
custom homes.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Oh cool.
So I bet you use some of that,that skill, today, just kind of
understanding how things getbuilt together and who needs to
go first.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You know.
So when I have interns whichyou know, every summer we get
lots of fun interns I try todescribe building.
You build anything like you doa drywall.
You know metal stud wall right,it has to start somewhere,
right, it starts with the slaband then it starts with track
(09:29):
and then you got to put thestuds in.
Everything that we do isexactly the same right when
you're.
Mostly what I do is greenfieldconstruction.
So the last seven years I'vespecialized in campus builds.
So you know ground up.
You know one of the one of theprojects I've done recently.
(09:50):
You know you had to take down abunch of trees and we have to
grub all that.
You know you have to dig outthe foundations and all that
process is exactly the same Ifyou apply it to a wall.
You have to start with theground and work your way up is
exactly the same If you apply itto a wall.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
You have to start with the ground and work your
way up.
My, my former assistants or PEswill know where I'm going with
this Cause.
I train the guys that don'thave much exposure to like a
schedule.
Uh, I say I'll give you 20minutes and I want you to build
me a house on paper.
Tell me what it takes, and justto get them in that mindset of
scheduling, because nine timesout of 10, it'll be well, you
pour the concrete and then youput up the studs and I go whoa,
(10:24):
whoa, whoa.
What about?
How are you going to get waterto that house?
How are you going to get powerto that house?
And getting them in the mindsetof just general scheduling,
because people don't think aboutthat, the general public of
what does it take to put in thestuff to, to, uh, to power that
television on your wall?
How do you get the power there?
How?
How do you get the power there?
How do you get the power fromthe city?
And so you get them in that bigpicture standpoint of oh, okay,
(10:46):
okay, I get it.
It's kind of breaking down that101.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Absolutely, I mean, if you really want to get their
brains twisted, bring in leanconstruction and last planner
system.
Oh yeah, have them work fromthe shingles down and work
backwards.
I've actually really found away to become very passionate
about lean construction.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I see a lot of value.
Yeah, I can remember firsthearing the term when I was
first at that employer, when Ifirst got out of the service up
in DC and I had a PM talkingabout lean and I'm like, is this
guy talking about it?
It was just kind of a buzzwordback then.
This is 2011 when he said it tome, but it's really gained a
lot of traction and somethingI'm very passionate about too,
and I had always had thatmindset.
When I open my drawings for anew project, I build backwards
(11:33):
in my head, and that wasn'tintentional.
It's just the way my brainworks of.
Okay, I've got an AV package onthe wall, where am I pulling
power from?
And I work my way backwards, soI know what I had to do first
and it's.
I see the industry going thatway and I think it's really
helped.
Instead of the push planning,if you will, it's more pull
planning.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I think my greatest success is I had a project in
Iowa where we applied leanduring the pre-construction
phase and from the, the previousproject, which is a mirror
image of the first project, weknocked off eight weeks complete
on the schedule and we had yeah, we had six percent rework and
(12:16):
then the average I think in theindustry is about 30 percent of
warranty or going back.
So we took the upside downpyramid right, so you have
safety as the absolute priorityover everything.
If you have safety, qualitywill fall in line, schedule
falls in line and then costfalls.
And going with that method, Imean we saved the owner millions
(12:41):
of dollars in change orders and, you know, rework and
everything else.
It's truly remarkable what thatprogram can do.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, and that's money out of the company's
pocket when you're going backand having to fix that work that
maybe you screwed up.
So you're not doing that ontheir the client's dime, you're
doing that on your dime.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Right, and then the likelihood of them wanting you
to come back and work for themagain also goes down.
You know, and you want 80% ofyour work to be, you know,
previous clients and the hoursit's going to take to fix that.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And then, like you said, when you've got an
occupied facility, it just makesthings that much harder to get
back in, because now you'redoing night work or overtime
work when we could have justdone it the right way the first
time, absolutely 100%.
So I'm going to back up again.
So you were security on thesite.
You ended up linking up with asenior super.
Obviously, this guy had, youknow, a mentality that you liked
(13:46):
, seemed like he was a goodleader.
Sounds like you guys are stillbuds.
But what was it about theindustry that you said, all
right, this is something I cansee myself being successful in
and I want to do this other thanthe money, I should say,
because that was a big pay bump.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The money.
The money was a huge motivatorfrom $17 an hour to 52,000.
I thought I was living large,honestly, when I walked in for
my interview.
Our prior organization had aneight hour interview process to
(14:18):
be a PE Yep, and you went in,you had breakfast, you were
there in a suit and tie, soyou're eating and trying not to
get it all over yourself, youknow.
And then you know you go andyou have conversations with some
of the senior project managersand VPs and then you go on a
sidewalk and you come back.
I mean it's like a whole thing,right.
(14:40):
But the one thing I noticed wasthat company built their own
office from the ground up and itwas stunning.
It's beautiful inside thatoffice Italian marble, brazilian
wood on the walls, hiddenspeakers in the driveway.
I mean all kinds of really coolstuff.
In my mind I was like, okay, Ireally want to do this, this is
(15:03):
really cool.
And then they stuck me inhospitality doing lipstick jobs
at hotels.
But I got an opportunity abouta year and some change into
working for them to go traveland build a data center in
Washington State and I jumped onthat.
(15:24):
I heard per diem and I'm like,sweet, that's an extra thousand
dollars a week, I'll take it and, um you know, got out there and
I got my first taste ofGreenfield construction and I it
was like crack, I was addicted.
I absolutely love this job.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, and that's a that's a big shift man.
So I'm shocked to, coming fromthe service of the background
and military police, I meanoutside of the police work
you've got a lot oforganizational skills,
leadership skills that youbrought to the table.
So the fact that you weren'table to find work, that speaks
to what a lot of people aregoing through today just trying
to find a job anything.
(16:02):
So if you had somebodytransitioning, would you suggest
the construction?
Let me back up.
Why would you suggest thisindustry to somebody that's
transitioning?
Maybe they have an MP role orthey're a cook or anything.
What do you think would appealto them about this industry?
Speaker 1 (16:19):
So the biggest thing for me coming out of the
military and going to work for asecurity company is that it
wasn't a brotherhood, it wasn'ta family, and whether it was our
previous employer or my currentemployer, it's people first,
but we're all one big you knowfamily and I really miss that.
(16:42):
Especially like after deploying, and you know I was on an
outpost with 29 other people.
That was it.
We had about two and a halfacre fire patrol base in the
middle of nowhere, afghanistan,and you have to trust the person
next to you, right, you gethurt, they got to pull your rear
(17:03):
end out.
This is the same thing in thisindustry and everybody out here
is is, you know, in the samekind of fraternity that I felt I
had in the military.
I mean, I come to work and joke, joke around with everybody,
almost, you know, a little bitmore professional, but almost
(17:25):
the same way we did in the armyand you know that's a huge
driver for me.
I haven't found that anywhereelse, any other industry.
You know I could have gone backand been in law enforcement.
You know, personally I got Ikind of got tired of being a
part of everybody's worst dayand out here I get to build
something with amazing peoplethat put in ungodly amount of
(17:49):
hours to provide a high qualityon time.
You know project.
So that's really what it is.
For me, it's the family aspect.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, no wonder he fell in love with that
Greenfield job too.
You guys were out there byyourselves having to defend on
one another.
I'm sure it was a littledifficult to get supplies and
everything where you were Samething like it was out on a cop.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
So back to your service days.
Are there things that you canpinpoint from your time in the
army that have helped youtremendously in what you're
doing right now as asuperintendent tremendously in
what you're doing right now as asuperintendent 100%.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
My biggest lesson learned from the army was
learning what kind of leader Ididn't want to be, and you know
I'm sure you can attest that notevery leader in the military is
a good one, right?
The guy that stands around andscreams and yell, and you know
you.
Just, you do it because youwant them to stop.
(18:46):
You know yelling, but you don'trespect them and I didn't want
to be that guy.
And I actually learned thatlesson the hard way.
At my, you know, my first dutystation.
I got thrown into being a teamleader really quick and I'd only
had, you know, squad leadersand team leaders that screamed
and yelled and talked a lot ofsmack and I didn't know that
(19:09):
there was another way of leadingand I take being a
superintendent in the samestroke.
I want these people to come towork every day and want to work
with me and form, so you can'tgo out into the field right out
here and onto a job site afteryou've done yelled and screamed
(19:31):
that you're at the you know thesubcontractor superintendent and
called him names or her namesor whatever, and then expect
them to do you favors.
Out there there's a lot ofhorse trading that goes on in
this industry from the GC sidethe subs and I think that any
one of them is going to want towork with us.
If we're a jerk, no way.
So I learned very quickly toput people first above myself,
(19:54):
which is what a goodnon-commissioned officer does,
and I applied that to being asuperintendent.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, and I think we see the same thing in the
industry.
Sometimes too are the guys thatyell and scream and people will
get the stuff done just becausethey have to and they're
contractually obligated to getthat done.
But it's you know, nobody wantsto do favors, nobody wants to
help that guy out when he's inneed, and I've I've worked under
some of those people before too, but the guys I respected the
most in the service and out wasthe guys that really put their,
(20:22):
their stuff aside and said allright, what can I do to help you
?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yep, my thing is always to my foreman and
superintendents is if you'velost that drive to want to come
to work, that excitement, wehave a problem and we need to
find out what that is and weneed to change something so that
you have that feeling every daythat you come to work right.
(20:46):
I want to feel that way everyway, every day that I come right
.
So why wouldn't I want?
You know I'm not going to callthem subordinates, but you know
the people that work for me.
Why wouldn't I want the samething for them?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
yeah, 100 agreed.
Yeah, and I've shared.
Before.
I had a guy I worked with thatyou, he was a superior, not not
a vet, whether that, thatdoesn't matter either way but I
had some personal stuff going onand said hey, you know, I got
this going on.
It's kind of weighing on me.
And his response was well,that's, that's home life, we
don't care about that.
Here I'm like God, okay.
Well, I don't want to help youway of being.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, you know, you get a heck of a lot more bees
with honey than you do vinegar.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, and it ties into the safety aspect, because
you can tell when guys are justbeat down or they got something
personal going on.
Hey man, maybe you can betasked with something else,
because I don't want themgetting hurt.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I don't want them getting other people hurt
because their mind's not on thejob.
No, 100%, I mean so.
And you know we just wentthrough mental health awareness
month and men's health, mentalhealth awareness month, and I
reiterate it all the time yearround.
Outside of that, I just Iliterally it's funny that you
say that but literally thismorning, at our stretch and flex
, talked about this exact samething.
(22:00):
Right, I don't.
These guys don't know me from.
You know Joe down the street,and I don't really know them,
but my phone is always on, I amalways available.
And the mental health aspectespecially I mean especially in
the construction industry.
This is high stress, high driveindustry and you know when
(22:21):
you're a laborer or you're acarpenter or you're an
electrician or you're a plumber,that's a lot of stress, it's a
lot of work, it's a lot on yourbody and your mind.
And then you know you get aphone call that you didn't want
to get a phone.
You know get in the middle ofthe day and now you're even more
stressed out.
I personally make myselfcompletely available to
(22:43):
everybody on site at any time,for any reason, don't care what
it is.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, yeah.
Good for you, man.
That's good leadership, so takeme along your journey.
So you got out, you got medicalmedically discharged, found
your way into security, and thenthe industry.
If you could tell your youngerself, uh, something to change
along the route, what do youthink that might be, if anything
?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Quit smoking and drinking.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Okay, that's fair.
Yep Agreed.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
But I would, if I had to say something to my
20-something adult self, I'dprobably stress financial
independence.
You know, getting out of themilitary I did not take that
seriously and, to be honest withyou, you know I chose a very
dangerous job in the militarybehind.
(23:35):
You know infantry, you know athome you're dealing with
everybody's worst day and whenyou're deployed, you're training
people like the Afghan NationalPolice that don't want to be
trained by you.
When you're doing all of this,you're not thinking about saving
, you're not thinking aboutinvesting, you're not thinking
about financial independence.
(23:56):
And one of the problems being inthe military is everybody's
like oh, you have a guaranteedpaycheck, no problem, we'll give
you credit.
You have a guaranteed paycheck,no problem, we'll give you
credit.
So you know you, you rack up,you know car bills and credit
cards and all this stuff, andnobody really prepares you to
say, hey, you're going to haveto pay that back one day.
And that was really a strugglefor me coming out of the
(24:18):
military and into the privatesector and realizing, oh my God,
how am I going to pay for allthis?
So definitely financialtraining.
And get somebody like you know,a JP Morgan chase or Liberty
mutual or something like that,to be able to guide you in the
right direction.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, and there's so many programs that are free.
While you're in, too, themilitary didn't do any favors
either, though while you'retransitioning back, you're
redeploying, and they got thosesigns of tax-free.
Harley Davidson, you know, buyyour motorcycle and you get that
extra payment, the hazard dutypay.
I remember coming back andbuying a brand new guitar and
computer and that shiny stuffthat I wanted, not thinking I
(24:59):
knew nothing about investing mymoney, unless you've got a good
NCO over you.
I mean, you're just going toblow it Like you said.
That was my mentality.
I got that guaranteed paycheck,I'm going to get the nicest
truck, and I think the samething happens in the field with
a lot of these new apprenticesand journeymen.
They make that fat paycheck andthey go oh man, I'm going to
(25:19):
get that jacked up diesel.
Well, okay, but you might havea family someday.
You should start thinking aboutdo you really need that truck,
or can you get by with that oldjalopy for a while?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Well, and to be perfectly honest with you, I
reenlisted while you'redownrange for six years for
$6,000 so that I could pay off astupid boat that I bought Yep,
pretty dumb.
But nobody told me, as a newlypromoted E4 at the time, that
buying a boat was a bad idea.
All they wanted to do is sayhey, can we go fishing on your
(25:50):
boat?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's always best to have a friend
with a boat, right?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, um, so we've got.
This industry has a boatload nopun intended of vets in it.
Um, I mean, I meet them all thetime and it's really cool to
share stories, um, but, like youkind of alluded to earlier,
there's a lot of work that wegot to put in to get the
projects built.
There's very, very long hourssometimes and it's I mean, I'll
be totally honest, I did a fewweeks or a couple of weeks
(26:17):
straight of work here recentlyand my boss could tell I was
getting burned out.
He told me take five days offright now.
And I really appreciate thatthat doesn't happen all the time
, because some guys it's justlike well, suck it up.
You know, you got to put yourtime in and I've been putting my
time in for well over a decade.
So if you've got guys out therelistening to the show that are
(26:39):
getting to that point that maybethey don't have that leadership
to support them, what would youtry to say to them to encourage
them?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
It's a lot easier to find a job when you have a job
(27:06):
no touche.
You know my annual review.
It was a pretty status quoannual review.
I thought I did a heck of a lotbetter job than what they were
saying and I was just, I wasdone.
I'd finally hit my breakingpoint with the leadership that I
had.
Who wasn't taking care of me?
(27:26):
I've went out and sought acompany that puts people first,
truly, truly, truly.
That is the first line of theirmission statement.
They put people first.
I love who I work for.
Now.
I've been with this company fortwo and a half years now and
(27:47):
you know I've had some prettybig health scares over the last
year and a half and they tookcare of me.
I didn't have to worry about mybills.
I didn't have to stress I mean,you're always going to stress,
but they really took care of meand they held up their end of
the bargain.
I'm giving it back now.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I used to think that that was rare, maybe because I
was in a position where I wasn'tbeing taken care of for a while
.
But I do see that a lot morenowadays, and maybe that's just
because of the generationalshift, of the new leadership
coming in, realizing people doneed to come first, Like where
I'm at now.
They've really, they havereally taken an interest into my
personal life, Like recently mykids have gotten pretty sick or
(28:34):
we had ER visits and whatnot,and they're constantly checking
on me How's your kid?
Or that's like the first thingthey asked me.
When I walk in the trailer,How's your daughter doing?
Oh well, okay, Good morning.
Yeah, when I walk in the trailer, how's your daughter doing?
Oh well, okay, Good morning.
Yes, she's good.
And then we kind of get intowork.
But that to me is kind ofshocking and appreciated that
they would ask about like, howare you doing today?
Not you know, are you ready forthe day?
(28:54):
How are you personally?
And that means a lot to mepersonally and that, uh, that
that makes me want to give backeven more.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Absolutely, to give back even more Absolutely, and
that's that's the way I feelhere.
I mean, I'm part of a team andthey, uh, they take care of each
other.
And you know I don't know aboutyou, but, um, you know, being a
superintendent and going awayfor, you know, more than a
couple of days, you get still alittle bit anxious about, you
know, the work that you'releaving behind.
(29:23):
I'm going on vacation for aweek and a half, starting
tomorrow.
I am not worried.
I know my team's got my back.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, it says a lot about your team for sure, and I
I think that helps when you gotbig teams.
I'm fortunate to have a bigteam as well, and knowing that
somebody is going to backfill myrole if I take off.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah.
Yeah, but you know noteverything is perfect and peachy
.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
There are companies out there and teams within good
companies, that people are kindof out for themselves.
So I'm not I'm not tellingpeople out there that it's all
like that.
I just I think it's a lot morecommon than I used to think, is
all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
There's a huge shift in the industry right now and we
are short.
Oh now, and we are short.
What was it about?
3 million construction jobs inthe country right now.
Right, so we're short onelectricians, we're short on
plumbers, we're short onmechanics, we're short on
drywallers, concrete guys,excavator operators we're short
(30:19):
on everything.
And, funny enough, we're shorton the management side.
Right, so there's so much workright now, and there has been
for about the last 10 years, andit doesn't look like it's going
to change anytime soon.
You know, even during COVID,there was a ton of mission
(30:40):
critical work, hospital work,pharmaceutical work going on,
big jobs.
And you know we still can'tfind, you know, even
semi-qualified people to fillthose roles.
You know we're going out andbegging for people to come.
(31:00):
You know, work for us, and it'snot just my company, it's every
company across the board.
I mean, I get I don't know sixto ten emails a week about, hey,
you thinking about jumping ship, you want to move down to
Indiana or wherever.
I mean you know they're outthere.
There's a ton of work.
And for the guys coming out ofthe military, I don't care if
(31:22):
you're private specialist, youknow E5 and above, there is a
place for you in this industry.
Especially, military guys arehighly sought after for the
construction industry because ofa couple of things.
Right, they generally show upon time.
They're very good at, you know,taking the list and running
(31:46):
with it and running it down andgetting it done.
All right, they're in there,they're.
They're impatient about lettingthings slide, they're.
You know, if there's a uniform,they're in it.
Right, you don't have to remindthe military guys on site to
put their gloves on, they justdo it.
It's a mentality that we haveas military, and bringing that
(32:08):
to the civilian world, those arejust old habits that die hard.
That's true.
If there's anybody listening tothis that's thinking about
joining the industry and you'recoming out of the military,
you're in that transition period.
(32:28):
Now, even if you have neverbeen a carpenter in your life,
you've never been an electricianin your life or you want to be
in management, take that leap,absolutely take that leap.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, I think and I'm kind of thinking back to my
younger self getting out I knowduring my transition people
didn't talk about constructionmuch.
I hope that's changed, but Ithink there was a scare.
Oh, 100%.
Yeah, and, like you said, theindustry's changing for the
better.
I think there's this mentalityand this is just my belief that,
(32:58):
oh, there's no money in it, butman, there's guys living very,
very, very well in the industry,and even new guys, yeah, like
guys a couple of years in.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
If you're a union electrician anywhere in this
country as a journeyman, you'remaking over 100 grand a year.
I mean that and that's probablyyou know, with a little bit of
overtime thrown in there.
But I mean I have not been on aany construction job in the
last 10 years that wasn't 10hours a day, five days a week or
(33:30):
six days a week.
Yeah, the money's there.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I can remember I was in El Paso doing a job and we
had a guy who was a carpenterforeman talking about putting
his kids through college, likepaying for their college, not
having to take out loans forthem.
He was living decent, wellabove middle class.
Now, granted, he was an olderguy, but you see that with guys
(33:57):
in their 20s We've got foremenat our company that are taking
care of their families.
Wives aren't working Um,they're not working insane over
time, and the overtime is thereif they want it.
So, if you know, christmas iscoming up and they want to buy
gifts for the kids.
The overtime is always therefor the guys that want it for
sure.
So I've met guys that are aresingle and work as many hours as
(34:19):
they possibly can and they'rebuying boats, cash, like you
said, or RVs, or their toys, andthey're doing just fine, buying
all the tours before they getmarried.
So once they do, they have thatcash for the house and
everything.
So the money's absolutely there.
And um, opportunities uh,there's a lot of runway there, I
should say, to opportunitiesfor growth in this industry.
(34:39):
I've met personally plenty ofCEOs or presidents of companies
that came from being a laborerpushing a broom and, like you
said, it doesn't always requirethe college degree.
Maybe some companies do whenyou get to that C-suite if
they're fairly large, but that'snot always the case.
I mean our old employeractually great example, one of
(35:00):
our, who he just retired, butone of our former co-presidents.
He was kind of like a mentor tome when I was up there in the
DC area and he had told me getas many certifications and learn
as much as you possibly canbefore you even consider getting
higher education.
And this guy did not have acollege degree and was running a
multi-billion dollar company.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
We'll call him JB.
I was very, very close with himand he was a mentor of mine at
that company and was thrilled tohear that he was finally
retiring.
It's well-deserved, and youknow he was a CB.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
So you know he, of course.
Of course I latched onto himreal quick.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Exactly.
All right, I won't hold theNavy thing against you.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Oh, I was never on a boat, if that helps.
I'm not sure it does, that'sokay, I mean he he's a great
example among so many peoplethat have gone through that.
Or you know, every day we meetthese presidents of the trade
contractors and the tradecontractors man.
They make a lot more money thanus.
(36:09):
When they start moving up thechain.
Their profit margin is a lotbetter than the general contract
inside.
So if there's people that areinterested in getting into the
industry and starting a company,I would encourage people that
are in their early 20s that dida tour or two.
If you've got a skill, or evenif you don't.
I've met plenty of presidentsof companies that maybe don't
(36:30):
have that specific trade buthave a great team around them
but know the organization, knowthe business side, and these
guys are doing very well forthemselves.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And these guys are doing very well for themselves.
Yeah, Now, I mean, I can'tstress enough how easily it is
to make a you hear it on thenews all the time a living wage,
a living wage.
Well, there's a differencebetween a barista and somebody
who builds a multi-billiondollar structure, right?
(37:00):
The guys that are up in thelifts putting steel up, pouring
concrete, these are the peoplethat build America.
If you want to be a part ofsomething really great build
America.
It's not complicated, you getgreat pay.
You get to build somethingthat's going to provide for your
(37:21):
family and you and you knowhundreds of other people, so why
not?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, and it's always fun to drive past with your
kids going.
Dad built that.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yep exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Well, cool.
Well, man, you segued rightinto my last question, so that
was perfect, trying to getpeople in the industry.
So you got any closing thoughtshere, max?
Speaker 1 (37:41):
before we wrap up, yeah, if you need a job, give me
a call, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I will be sure to tag you man.
Like you said, we're.
We're always looking for goodpeople all across the U?
S, especially around, like,major metropolitan areas.
It's just it's not slowing downanytime soon.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
No, is, it's just, it's not slowing down anytime
soon.
No, I'm, I'm down, uh.
I moved to charleston, uh, fouryears ago.
I'm not looking back, but thereis an incredible amount of work
down here, uh, both in missioncritical and car manufacturing.
It's just, it's, it's crazy,the things that are happening
down here.
Um, so if you're out there andyou're and you're thinking, you
know you might want to make amove and and try something new.
(38:23):
Join the construction industry,because you're not going to
regret it.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, and I think I speak for you and a lot of us
that the onus is on the personto reach out.
But we're more than willing tohelp.
But you got to take the firststep.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
I will take every minute out of my day to help
another veteran.
So, um, definitely, uh put myLinkedIn on there and be happy
to talk to anybody who has anyquestions.
Uh about about this at all,whatever it is Very cool, man.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I appreciate you taking your minutes out to chat
with me, Max.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Absolutely.
It's great to finally connectagain with you All, right,
brother.
All right, thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yes, sir, thank you.
All right, brother, all right,thanks a lot.
Yes, sir, thank you.
If you're a military veteran inthe construction industry or
you're in the constructionindustry and support our
military vets and you'd like tobe a guest on the podcast, you
can find me at construction vetpodcast at gmailcom, or send me
a message on LinkedIn.
You can find me there at Scottfriend.
Let's share the stories andmotivate others.
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