Episode 8 - "Charging Forward": Inside Averest with Gabe Sampson - The GSE Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matthew Weitzel (00:16):
This episode of the GSE podcast is brought to
you by exceed ground supportequipment leasing your trusted
partner for GSE solutions. Wespecialize in tailored operating
leases for ground handlers andairlines, offering top notch
equipment and flexible terms tosuit your needs partner but they
industry leaders, we'recommitted to bringing you the

(00:36):
equipment offerings that keepyour operations running smoothly
and efficiently. Choose Xcēd forcompetitive rates and
exceptional customer service.
Visit xcedgse.com today, andsoar to new heights with exceed
ground support equipmentleasing. This is Brad Compton.
This is Luke brown. This is JeffBarrett. This is Tessa Vaasen,

(00:59):
and you're listening to the GSEpodcasts. Now, right welcome to
the GSE Podcast. I'm here withGabe Sampson from Averest. How's
it going, buddy

Gabe Sampson (01:12):
is going great.
Good morning, Matt. Goodafternoon, Matt. Sorry, this
afternoon. Yeah, I'm lookinglooking forward to this
conversation. Yeah, thanks, man.

So we are actually at JBT headquarters.
They were nice enough to allowus to use their facility in
Orlando, Florida to record thispodcast. So big thanks to JBT
for supporting us. Do you workwith JBT?

We do. We're a supplier to JBT, which is the
reason I'm here. They were theywere hosting a lot of their
suppliers in house firstsupplier conference, you know,
learn more about their processeslearn more about the recent
acquisition of JB T. And, youknow, kind of kind of celebrate
our successes together anddiscuss some, some short
fallings that all suppliers needto work on to help JBT out

the suppliers I mean, it's been rough. Right.
Getting getting everything tothe vendors and are being a
vendor I guess and being asupplier to, to the
manufacturers. Yeah, it is.

And obviously, you know, through the COVID years,
as we all know, everything washard to get that put pressure on
us as suppliers pressure on themanufacturers. But but but I
feel like now we're pretty muchpast that. It's you know, it's a
it's a thing of the past it'shistory and move forward. And I
think JBT is ready to moveforward and young Vaughn Yeah.

(02:27):
So

so how did you how'd you? How'd you get in the
industry? Anyway? I don't feellike I know the entire story.

Yeah, it's kind of an interesting story. So I went
to school at a littleengineering college in Georgia,
just north of Atlanta calledSouthern Polytechnic State
University. And soon as Igraduated, a family friend
reached out to me guy named JoeFuqua, who's pretty well known
in the industry, he's notretired. But he reached out
through my parents and, youknow, was looking to hire

(02:54):
engineers actually interviewedwith him an interesting little
fact, he actually interviewed mybrother in law as well, at the
same time. But ultimately, Ilanded the job and went to work
for Delta Airlines as a youngengineer in the ground support
equipment department. So got nosee you're part of Delta GSE
engineering, and that's correct.
Yes, I worked underneath Joe, ifyou clay and was, you know,
responsible for all sorts ofengineering tasks at the

(03:16):
airline, testing equipment,specifying equipment, you know,
selecting new vendors, fixingproblems, you know, working on
the shop floor, some with themechanics. But yeah, yeah,
started the career that

well, how many years were you at Delta?

I was at Delta for about four years. So started
there in 1998, I believe, andworked in the ground equipment
Engineering Department at firstand then worked in the
facilities department where Iwas doing more with fixed
equipment, things like passengerloading bridges, preconditioned
air equipment, ground powerequipment, and right right at

(03:52):
the end of my career at Delta, alittle issue called September
11, came along, we're all veryfamiliar with delta at that
point, as well as the rest ofthe industry was struggling and
needed to get rid of headcount.
And delta approached thesituation in a very generous
manner and made basicallyseverance packages available to
every employee. And so I optedto take a severance package,

(04:13):
left delta, which, you know,gave me a little bit of money
and some great benefits and justkind of started pursuing a
different career.

Yeah, man. So um, alright, let's, let's take a
pause here and talk about astory that you have, do we have
a GSE story, because I thinkeverybody that's been in the
industry for any amount of timehas a great GSE story.

I have got a lot of GSE stories. A lot of them
involve drink too many beers andhaving too much fun, but I won't
tell any of those today andwon't name any names. But yeah,
kind of interesting story forme, you know, when I was when I
started at Delta, I was youknow, just a young engineer,
full of bravado and energy and,and maybe a little bit of
talent, but not too much talentat that point. And I clearly

(04:56):
remember getting assigned aproject to do a modification
You're not at baggage tractor.
So it's down, worked on the shopfloor with a mechanic and this
mechanic looked at me, you know,he was experienced and had had
way more skill set to me interms of being a mechanic and
working on equipment. And helooked right at me and he said,
Boy, you never built a hot rod,have you? And I was like, I
looked at him. And I didn't knowwhat he meant by that. And he

(05:18):
said, he said, you just don'tlike, you know, what you're
doing with a tool. And, youknow, I really didn't write a
little bit experienced the handtools and fun things, but it
really defined GSE to me,because, you know, GSE is
comprised of a lot of reallytalented, technical individuals
that, you know, work onequipment day in, day out, you

(05:39):
know, specify equipment, buyequipment, whatever they're
doing, but a lot of them havehobbies on the side that tie
right into that, right. They'reworking on hot rods or race
cars, or, or old cars ormotorcycles. You know, it's
just, it's a really hands on funindustry. And, yeah, I knew it
was the place for me, basically.
So when I when I heard that, andI digested it and understood it.

(05:59):
I knew man, this is a coolindustry. Like I like the fact
that I can get my hands dirty,still work on engineering task.
And you know, never looked back.
I'd been in the industry eversince. Yeah, I

think our mutual friend Brian Yoder, he,
he, I think he went to Southernpoly tech is well, and then he
was racing dirt. I don't know,like dirt racing with cars. And
so it kind of the same, samething. So he had gotten his
hands dirty. It's what I'mtrying to say where you had not

correct Yeah. And I you know, I've never been a
big race fan or anything. Butobviously, yeah, especially back
in those days, you know, NASCARwas a big, big deal. Most GSE
people would follow NASCAR. AndI think we probably went to a
NASCAR race together, back inback in those days with some fun
event. So

yeah, so I think I met you probably around
2007, or 2008. At least, I usedto work for tog, and which is
now texture on GSE and used tocome in as a supplier to talk to
us about batteries. And I was inI was in sales. And you know,
inevitably somebody, you know, acustomer would say, Hey, I'd

(07:04):
like an electric tractor. Andthen I'd have to spec out, you
know, the kind of battery thatthey would need and the kind of
charger they would need to gowith that battery. And so my
call was always to you, becauseyou kind of hold my hand through
that process. And that's how Igot to know you. Because you're
always giving me such greatinformation. And so I could look
good in front of my customer.
I've leaned on game,

right. So yeah, that's exactly right. So so so
you know, fast forward a coupleyears after I left delta I left
alto went to work forAeroVironment was helping them
with their posicharge productline, kind of promote it to the
industry to the GSE industry.
And then shortly shortly afterthat decided I wanted to start
my own company, and a form derisked and, you know, one of one
of our goals, when we when Istarted a virus was to promote

(07:49):
electric vehicle technology. Ijust, I just really had a
genuine interest for it. Ithought it had a really good
really, really good fit in theindustry. It wasn't very well
accepted then. So it was it wasa fight right a battle all the
time of trying to convincepeople that hey, you should
consider this as a as a validpower source. But that's exactly
how we approached the industry.

(08:10):
So we worked with with the textJohn's and the GB T's and the
Charlotte's and kind of actedmore like a consultant, then,
you know, let's say a sales guy.
And we had we partnered withsome really, really good
manufacturers. At that time,East pin manufacturing, which is
DECA batteries is what wasbuilding all the batteries for
us. I was still working withposi charge. So we were able to

(08:31):
provide the chargers and thebatteries for these vehicles,
which solves a lot of problemsright so so if there was an
issue with that system, which isprovide the power of the
vehicle, then we were we werethere to step in and try to
solve it. So that's how weapproached the business then and
it's really still how weapproach it today. Just a lot
more interest today than there'sever been an electric technology

and that's for sure. So yeah, I think what I
heard there was you were likeElon Musk before Elon Musk.

Yeah, he like calls me every once in a while
for some advice. I don't oftenhave time to take his calls the

so how did you get involved with Charlotte? So
I know there are large you know,electric manufacturer equipment
manufacturer that provideselectric to our industry. I'm
pretty sure you have a greatrelationship with Rob lamb. So
were they building electrictractors when you started that
business?

Absolutely. So do you have a great relationship
with my brother Rob lamb shoutout to you Mr. Lamb Yeah, we we
approached the market kind of inan interesting way we didn't
really go try to sell to theairline or the sorry the OEMs
directly we worked more directlywith the airlines and tried to

(09:38):
help them understand you know,battery technologies charging
technologies, how to properlysize a battery for a vehicle and
through that, you know, justthose relationships at the
airlines just naturally was putin front of you know, Charlotte
and the other OEMs that weremaking electric baggage tractors
and electric Butler's back then,and you know, the end result was

(10:00):
In have supplied Charlotte, alot of batteries for for various
airlines over the years for lotsof different vehicle types. And
still do that today. They're agood partner of ours. We've
we've had a lot of fun together,we do a lot of business together
and look forward to that forfuture years.

So you you work with the airlines, the ground
handlers and the OEMs. You touchall three?

That's correct.
Yeah, we also work withairports. So Oh, yeah, well,
that. Yeah. To get to that.
Yeah. So airlines, airlinessometimes like to buy batteries
directly. Sometimes they want tobuy them through the OEMs.
Ground handlers are the sameway. Right. So sometimes they
might want to source theirbatteries directly. So they have
direct control over it. Orsometimes they might want to
leave it up to the vehicle OEM.
So yeah, we work through allchannels don't don't really have

(10:44):
a preference, we can conductbusiness any way that the
customer chooses, you know,we're relatively small company.
So we're nimble, obviously,obviously, enjoy any any
business we get through any ofthose partners. Yeah.

So talk to me a little bit about airport
infrastructure and how you'veseen that change throughout the
years and kind of what you see,you know, moving forward in the
future,

yeah, sure. So there's a couple of big changes
in airport infrastructure. One,when we first started business,
the airports were not at allinterested in buying charging
systems. And considering that,you know, an airport owned
product, right, they were theywere already buying things like
loading bridges and ground powerunits and precondition there,

(11:28):
that it that it sort oftransitioned over to airport
owned. So at that point, theairlines were really our primary
customer for the chargingsystem. So, you know, let's say,
you know, a Delta Airlines,who's heavily invested in
electric vehicles now, back thenmay, you know, may make a
decision to buy a handful to putin, let's say, Los Angeles
Airport, where there might havebeen some, you know, some

(11:48):
political reasons, or evenregulation that they had to
meet. And they would, so theywould buy, you know, the
electric vehicles, and they'dalso buy the chargers, and then
they would hire electricalcontractors to install them at
airports. So, you know, fastforward to today, almost 20
years later, the airports havereally, really got involved, and
it started providing thatinfrastructure for the airlines
and for the ground handlers. Sothat, you know, that cost isn't

(12:12):
coming out of the airlinescapital budget, it's coming out
of the airport budget, somehow,someway. And I'm sure the
airlines eventually pay forthat, because they're the
tenants at the airport and paythe bills, but it really helps
the airlines move forward withtheir electrification
initiatives. Because because nowthey don't have to get the
capital money approved for thechargers, they can just simply
focus on the ground equipmentitself and, you know, select the

(12:32):
equipment, select the batterytechnology they want, and work
with the airport for theChargers

do you have to help out with like grants and
things like that,

we don't get directly involved in grants, we
try to educate customers aboutwhat grants are available. We
were doing more of that, youknow, 1015 years ago than today,
the airline's typically now havepeople that study and look in
research, you know, and one ofthe things we're always looking
for are grant opportunities,right. So any, any free money
they can get, but particularlyjust educate as much as as much

(13:04):
as get involved with the grantprocess.

So now now you're seeing more of the
airports buying the chargers,then then the airlines.

Yeah, we are. It's shift, it's, it's shifted that
direction over about the lastfive years. I mean, some
airlines are still buyingcharges directly themselves.
United Airlines is a bigcustomer of ours for chargers.
So as delta, we've done a littlebit of business to Southwest,
we've done some with JetBlue. Inrecent years, pretty much every
airline, even cargo carriers,but you know, since the airports

(13:34):
are willing to buy those, youknow that that's definitely the
preferred method. The onlyproblem with that is, is the
airport's obviously, are verybureaucratic and move very slow.
So, you know, sometimes theycan't get out of their own way.
And even though they may wantto, and may even have the budget
to buy chargers, it takes him solong that, you know, the
airlines move it at, you know,550 miles an hour, 30,000 feet,

(13:54):
right, so they can get thingsdone quicker. And sometimes they
choose to do that just for justfor timing reasons.

So what about like, so when we switch from
lead acid to lithium ion, mostof the industry has changed.
Now, I would imagine.

I would say most of it's changed, I would say
most of its going in thatdirection. Okay, so I got a
really interesting story aboutlithium battery. So we, we've
been selling lead acid batteriesto the industry for a long, long
time, right? It's a very stableproduct, everybody understands
that everybody knows its end oflife. Everyone knows what to
expect out of it forperformance. But it can cause
some problems in particular onan airport, right? Because it

(14:32):
requires, you know, routinemaintenance, you have to, you
have to add water to thebattery. You have to make sure
it's getting charged properly,you have to make sure it's
getting equalized, or you knowthat very expensive battery
could could be a boat anchor,all of a sudden right and you
have to start over. So we wedecided a few years back maybe
six years ago to look fordifferent battery technologies

(14:54):
to introduce into the market andwe stumbled across live CLM as a
potential alternative, and youknow, kind of on the back of a
napkin, sitting in a bar oneday, scratched out how much we
thought it would cost to puttogether a lithium battery and
decided, hey, this is probablyjustifiable, very expensive at

(15:15):
that point, it was, it was aboutthree times the cost of lead
acid, but we'd have at leasttwice the life and presumably
zero maintenance along the way,right? Or routine maintenance to
say, so. So we went to marketfound a couple of suppliers and
put together our own lithiumbatteries, we took one to a
trade show, as kind of like agut check to see if we're the

(15:35):
only people in the world thatthink this is a good idea, or
does the industry think this isa good idea, we had
overwhelmingly positive feedbackfrom the customers. And then we,
you know, we put that battery inthe field for test, we build a
few more, but back thenpartnered with Delta Airlines to
test a few prototypes, you know,really just proof of concept
batteries. And it went really,really, really well. Um, so

(15:57):
well, that, you know, it's atthat point had many customers
coming to us saying, hey, wewant hundreds of these things,
we didn't have the in housemanufacturing capability to
build hundreds of these things.
So we went back to the marketand tried to find some
manufacturers who were buildinglithium battery packs. And after
interviewing several companies,you know, a meeting with several
companies ended up partneringwith Flux power, who is also

(16:19):
building lithium battery packsfor forklifts. And they let us
basically control the design ofa battery pack that was going to
specifically be used to powerbag instructors and belt
loaders. So you know, we tookour we took our knowledge of the
industry, applied it on top ofyou know, the knowledge they had

(16:39):
for building and constructingindustrial lithium batteries.
And out of that came a really,really good product and had a
lot a lot of successful thatproduct lately, and are on
generation three of that batterypack now. And as I mentioned a
minute ago, the industry is, youknow, because of what we did,
and because what other batterycompanies have done, because
what some of the OEMs have done,the industry is rapidly heading

(17:01):
down that path of lithium or, orlet's just say advanced
technology batteries, becausethere's definitely some other
chemistries that are going to bein play in coming years as well.

So if I had a lead acid charger that I had
purchased from you, and it wasat the airport, but now I've
decided to switch to lithium, doyou all have like converters? Or
like what does that look like?
Yes, that's

a really good question. Luckily, or, or maybe,
maybe strategically, the posichurch systems that we've
supplied to the industry for somany years, we're already ready
to charge lithium batteries. Soout of the box, the design
features they had built into himwith a with a very simple
software upgrade, we're able tocharge lithium batteries. So
when we took this to a customer,we didn't tell them, hey, we've

(17:46):
got this shiny new sexy battery.
And it costs you know, X amountof dollars more than your lead
acid batteries. Oh, and by theway, you also have to buy a new
charger, right, we didn't haveto do that we were able to
introduce the batteries into themarketplace. And by working
really closely with posi charge,you know, come up with a
solution where the chargescustomers already had with a
simple software update, wereable to to safely and

(18:07):
successfully charge the lithiumbatteries. Since then, there
have been some improvements insome of the communication
platforms used by thesebatteries. And so there are some
upgrades available today thatmake that even better, but it's
not required. We can we cancharge dilithium batteries we
provide to the market on any ofthe older posi chargers and we

(18:28):
can do it a little bit betterwith a small upgrade.

Okay, the small upgrade is like some kind of
converter type of thing they canpurchase from you directly.

Exactly, yeah, there's it basically adds it's a
it's a board a circuit boardthat installs inside the charger
and adds Canvas communicationcapability to the charger. So
that then the battery and thecharger are directly coupled
together via CAN bus. Andessentially at that point the
battery is controlling thecharger. These lithium batteries

(18:57):
are very smart, they have theirown battery management systems
on board, which is basically acomputer it knows what's best
for the battery. And so when youget that Canvas upgrade the
battery can now control thecharger instead of the charger
deciding what to do. So it's avery effective way of you know,
more efficiently charging ledacid or the I'm sorry, the

(19:18):
lithium batteries.

Nice. Okay, so and then another topic I wanted
to cover off with Eon is I'veseen a lot of these walls of the
you know that the GSE Expo I sawyou there. And there's a lot of
different companies kind ofdoing these mobile power units.
And I know you know we're at JBT today and they kind of
launched their product at theshow is well, what can you tell

(19:41):
me about those? Are you involvedin those and all that kind of
stuff?

Yeah. So, interestingly enough, about 10
years ago, that idea came up wewere actually working with
Swissport who was strugglingwith charging infrastructure at
certain airports and they neededbut they needed and wanted to
buy To vehicles. And so we kindof came up with the idea of a
diesel generator power chargingcart, which on the surface

(20:06):
sounds ridiculous, right? Youknow, you're going to run a
diesel generator to rechargeelectric vehicles but but in all
reality, if you can run onediesel engine at a very high
efficiency, that's a big, bigbenefit. In terms of emissions
reduction, when compared torunning, let's say 10 smaller
diesel engines at lowefficiency. So the you can make

(20:28):
the environmental argument thatit is better for the
environment, you're not puttingout as much harmful emissions.
So that idea was just battedaround and never got off the
ground. But fast forward totoday. Yes, we partnered with JB
T, by supplying them a fullpolicy charge system that's
mounted on a trailer. And theycoupled that with, I believe, a
Cummins generator to do justthat. So this concept that we

(20:50):
talked about Swissport years andyears ago, you know, kind of
finally came around, and JB T'shad a lot of interest in that
product line. It's not onlypowered by the diesel generator,
though, they have the ability toto power that cart using a 480
volt cord, essentially, or youknow, a big, large extension
cord. I know DHL is gonna belaunching some of those carts

(21:10):
very soon in coming months. Andtheir intention is to power it
with a chord, but at least it'sa mobile system that they can
move from spot to spot plug in,in different places, bring their
electric ground equipment to it.
And then in the case ofemergency, or if they really
need to get really remote withit, they can still fire up the
generator to power the chargingcart. So I think it's a, it's a
very good solution. And there'sbeen other versions coming out,

(21:33):
we we actually developed one inhouse ourself, that's a bit
different, it's going to bepowered by foreign at hertz gate
power. So, you know, envisionthis being the size of a bag
cart, parked at a vacant gate,maybe overnight, the GPU unit on
the loading bridge can beplugged into this cart powers up
all the chargers, and then youcan charge five vehicles or five

(21:56):
batteries around that cart, youknow, within a couple hour
period. So so there's a lot ofthose kinds of mobile charging
solutions that are beingintroduced. And the reason is,
is because the airlines are nowdeploying electric vehicles much
faster than fixed charginginfrastructure can be put in.
And so they're having to come upwith all sorts of creative

(22:20):
solutions to get energy intothese batteries, right? A
battery is nothing more than afuel tank, stores electricity,
and they need to be refilledright every every day sometimes.
So if there's not enough chargesto do that, they've got to get
creative and find othersolutions. And that's what
they're doing. And in some ofthese things may be temporary,
you know, some of these cartsmight just be temporary
solutions until permanentinfrastructure gets installed.
But it at least bridges the gapand lets them get closer to, you

(22:43):
know, to their goals of, youknow, zero emissions. GSE.

So, are you just working with airports all
the time now? I mean, it's it'sjust yeah, we demand has to be
crazy.

Yeah, demand is crazy. We are working with
airports all the time. You know,the New York is not not a secret
that the New York port authoritywants every airline and cargo
carrier and ground handlingcompany to have 100% Electric
GSE by a certain date. So there,we have constant conversations
with them about how to getthere, because you know, they,

(23:15):
they will need to install a lotof charging infrastructure to do
that, right, it's going to takesome very creative solutions for
them to do that as well, becausethere's not really enough power
at the airport to do what theywant to do. So I can envision
them, you know, employing someof these new smart power sharing
circuits in so we've got anability to hook up our policy

(23:37):
church systems to an existingcircuit for a loading bridge,
for instance, and use the powerthat's there for the loading
bridge. When the loading bridgeis just parked doing nothing, we
can use that power to power acharging system. I know ITW has
introduced a new product in theindustry that helps with that
JBT as a product they'veintroduced in the industry that
that helps with that as well.
All about using that existinginfrastructure, let's say in a

(23:58):
smarter way, so that you don'thave to install new
infrastructure and in somecases, they're not even a
possibility to install newinfrastructure. I can see these
airports in recent yearsinstalling battery systems that
store energy at it within afacility and then that energy is
able to be distributed back outthrough a charging system to a

(24:20):
different matter. So there'sgonna be all sorts of creative
systems put in place to helpmanage this big infrastructure
demand but there's there's a lotof really smart people working
on it and the problem will besolved right there's no doubt my
mind companies like us arealways coming up with with new
ideas and new ways to get energyinto the batteries so that you
know the vehicles can go dotheir job.

So is there a I think you said that there was a
maybe even alternatives evenlithium or you're working on
batteries that are even like isthere different technology out
there that kind of hasn't beenintroduced yet?

Yeah, there's there's a significant number of
cell technologies that are beingtested and developed and
introduced into different intoTrees, I would say most of them
are coming out of the automotiveindustry. But there's one in
particular we think might bereally, really good for ground
equipment. And it's calledsodium ion. It's, we've got

(25:12):
cells in house battery cells inhouse now that some of our
engineers are going to be cycledtesting, to try to learn more
about their capabilities, butthey have a lot of promise,
because even though the risk ofa lithium battery fire or
thermal runaway event is verylow, it's still there. And
there's certain vehicles thatmight be too close to an

(25:33):
airplane to even even live withthat risk. Right? So I don't
know that, you know, lithiumbatteries is right for every
application. So and we don't weas a company, are very
Engineering and Technology,heavy. We're constantly
researching the market lookingfor different solutions. I mean,
at the end of the day, that'swhat we are, we're a solutions

(25:53):
provider to the customer, not aproduct provider. So I think in
a in a 12 month period or sowe're going to have developed a
another battery technology, likewe did earlier on with the
lithium batteries that we couldtest and try and learn about.
And you know, maybe that's thenext best thing we don't know
yet a lot of work to do. Butyeah, absolutely. Always looking
at different batterytechnologies, and, and even at

(26:14):
times different chargingtechnologies. Again, just trying
to solve the problem of gettingall this electrical equipment
charged up that that theairlines are buying.

So talk to me about high voltage. Yeah, so

high voltage has made its way into ground
equipment, no doubt about it.
Our first exposure to it waswith gold hofers, electric high
speed towbarless tractor, whichby the way, I mean, you know,
I'm a guy that really believesin electric technology, I've
been doing this for nearly 20years, and I rec June, next year
will be our 20th anniversary ofbeing in business, which is
gonna be a wild thing tocelebrate, I never, ever, ever

(26:46):
thought that I would see highspeed towbarless electric
tractor, low speed towbarlesselectric tractors or just low
speed push back tractors, thisis a really, really easy problem
to solve the guys that goldoffer, you know, and girls, I'm
sure to whatever theirengineering team, you know, did
some phenomenal work and haveput out a very, very impressive

(27:06):
machine. So I believe that unitis roughly 800 volts. So that's
at the higher end of highvoltage, seven or 800 volts
somewhere in that range. And ourfirst exposure to that has been
to supply some charging systemsfor that particular vehicle. And
we've had a lot of success withthat, we've learned a lot about
that technology through thisprocess. It is essentially,
well, it's not essentially, itis the same charging technology

(27:29):
that's used for electric cars, Ihave two electric cars in my
family. And, you know, werecharge those at night in our
garage, but which works fine fordaily driving. But if you're
gonna get these things on thehighway driving across the
country, you need some, youknow, high speed, high voltage,
high capacity charging systems.
And that's exactly what we'reintroducing on airports now to

(27:51):
recharge that Goldhofer tractor.
There's also there are alsoother vehicles, I know Textron
has introduced a high highvoltage baggage tractor and
we're really just let's saybattery system into the
marketplace. So there's, there'sgoing to be more and more that
find its way onto the ramp.
alongside of you know, the lowvoltage, high voltage is not
necessarily the solution foreverything, but it's definitely

(28:12):
gonna be mixed in with the youknow, say that what's what's
more common as the low voltageor the 80 volt platform that's
so popular today. And all thatGSE is gonna be operated right
next to Ford lightning pickuptrucks, you know, maybe a Tesla
or two, you know, for transitvans, Silverado, Evie, pickup
trucks, you know, all thosevehicles are going to make their
way onto the ramp to because youknow, as we know, it's not just

(28:35):
purpose built ground equipmentat an airport, there's all kinds
of vehicles running around to,to move people or do different
jobs. And those are going tohave to be charged as well. So
that that's kind of interesting,cuz that same charging
infrastructure could do both atthat point.

Yeah. So again, the same kind of question I
asked you before, which is like,so will your chargers will they
be capable? Like the chargersthat you've currently, you know,
got into the marketplace? Willthose charges be able to be
capable of doing like a high,high voltage charge?

Great, great question. So not today. But
there is a project well underwayto develop a high voltage
posicharge Power Station, thedesign intent behind that
product is that, let's say youhave a eight port charging
system. Now, you could pull onepower station out, put this new
high voltage power station inits place without adding any

(29:23):
additional infrastructure to theairport. And now you've just you
just gained the capability ofcharging, you know, one of these
higher voltage batteries off thesame existing infrastructure.
So, so kind of a hardware,change out a system, upgrade,
whatever you wanna call it. It'sbeen developed. And I think it's
a brilliant idea. And we'rehoping to introduce that
sometime before the end of 2024,probably probably q 620 24.

(29:48):
We'll have it at themarketplace.

Awesome, man.
So I'm gonna go a little bitoutside of your realm of
knowledge here, maybe I'm notsure. So, talk to me a little
bit about hydrogen. I think, youknow, I've heard some rumble
Things in the GSE communityabout hydrogen and possibly
being an alternative fuel thatpeople are going to look at. Do
you know anything about thattechnology? And like, what are
your kind of your thoughts? Imean, just dealing with airports
and the infrastructure concernsthat you've been dealing with

(30:12):
for 20 years? What do you thinkabout that,

right. So we don't deal with any hydrogen
technologies directly. But, youknow, being a, like I mentioned,
a very high, high tech kind ofcompany, we are with a lot of
engineers that geek out overfun, new power, power products,
we follow it closely. We haveconversations with hydrogen fuel
cell companies, or maybe evencompanies that are interested in
you know, internal combustionengines that run off hydrogen, I

(30:37):
think hydrogen will have a placeon the airport, or at various
airports, let's say if Iunderstand it correctly, the
Cincinnati airport is kind ofmade big investments in some
hydrogen infrastructure. Butthat's the key, right. So when I
say there's limitedinfrastructure at an airport to
recharge a battery, there's atleast electricity there, right,
that we can tap into. And we cando things, there's not tanks of

(30:59):
hydrogen, there's not pipelinesof hydrogen that are set in
place to refuel these vehiclesor to refuel a fuel cell even.
So that is the biggest obstacleto, to what I think is an a
really big problem to gethydrogen onto an airport,
there's a large barrier toentry, it seems like a very
large barrier to entry. And thencouple that with the fact that,

(31:21):
you know, let's talk abouthydrogen fuel cells for a
second. So a hydrogen fuel cell,you know, takes that hydrogen
and generates electricity, ithas to have a battery typically,
or a super capacitors, somethingof those effects to store some
of that energy to act like abuffer between itself and the
vehicle. And they're verycomplicated, they require a lot
of maintenance. So they soundgreat on the surface until you

(31:42):
start digging into the details.
And they become very, verycomplicated very quickly. And
then now let's compare that toan electric vehicle with a
battery, you know, maybe alithium battery or a solid state
battery technology that requiresalmost zero maintenance. All you
have to charge it just a muchsimpler system. Right. And, and
our industry needs to thinksimply sometimes and not
overcomplicate things, so I'mnot I'm not anti hydrogen at
all, I think it's cool. I thinkthe environmental impacts of you

(32:04):
know, burning hydrogen aregreat, right? You just get water
out of the tailpipe. Fuel cellsare cool, sexy technology. But
that that infrastructure issuesgoing to go really slow it down,
if not just just completely stopit from making its way on the
some airports.

Yeah. So Well, thanks for covering that with
me. I really appreciate it. Sois there anything else that Avis
is working on that I need to beaware of?

Yeah, so we we've I mentioned our charging cart
that can charge or can bepowered from a 400 hertz, ground
power unit that's at a gateright? That that product kind of
came about, because over thelast couple of years, we've been
developing and supplying onboardchargers that go on primarily on
push back tractors at thispoint, but but they they have a

(32:49):
really good, a really good usecase for pushback tractors,
container loaders, maybe evenbelt loaders, you know, any of
that equipment that stays parkedat the gate area. And the reason
it's a strong use cases, theseonboard chargers are also
powered from 400 hertz. Soenvision this, try to push back
tractor pushes a plane backtakes a few minutes, maybe the

(33:10):
battery capacity goes from 100%to 80%. During that push back,
push back deck here now drivesback to the gate in parks.
You've got 290 kV, a groundpower unit, or sometimes even
100 KV ground power unit hangingwhere the cord hanging right
there next to where the pushback tractor parks, the
operators can now take thatcord, plug it right into the
side of the push back tractor.
And before the next plane getsthere, now that battery is fully

(33:31):
charged again. So that's beenour latest innovation. It's been
really, really well received bya few airlines. And we're seeing
a lot of demand. We'reconstantly spinning out new
designs now for differentvehicle types, because it's not
a one size fits all, you know,we've got to find places to
mount these chargers on thevehicles. But that's kind of the
latest and greatest andsomething we're very, very

(33:53):
excited about. It's not gonnasolve all the problems, like
none of the solutions, we havesolve all the problems, but it
definitely definitely helps, youknow, get another vehicle
deployed. That's electricwithout having to go add extra
infrastructure. Right? That'sthat's the key.

Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. So. So how was your Expo?
How was your GSE Expoexperience?

Oh, man, mind blowing, exhausting. I was
talking to somebody today aboutthat here. JBT that, that is
probably the first Expo thatI've been to where we've
exhibited, that I never left ourbooth other than to go back to
the hotel at night, you know, gohit a bar, get some dinner, go
to bed and then rinse andrepeat, as I say, which means I
missed out on a lot of stuff,right? I didn't get to see a

(34:35):
lot, a lot of friends, a lot ofbusiness partners that were also
exhibiting, but that's okay. Imean, that's just a sign of our
times. I mean, it's validationthat the decision I made, you
know, nearly 20 years ago tohelp airlines with electric
ground equipment has paid off. Imean, we are Yeah, we are as a
company, you know, almost almost20 employees. Now today we're
pretty small, which is just mindblowing. I never thought we did

(34:56):
more than about five employeesor revenues are obviously much
higher than ever And you know,we're reinvesting all that one
of the ways we're reinvest insome of that revenue, by the way
back in our employees. Soanother little, another little
nugget for the industry thatsome people know about some
dance because I know a guy tobrag a lot about what we do. But
at the end of 2022, I turned ourbusiness into a 100% employee

(35:16):
owned through what's known as aESOP. So I was the founder, the
owner, the shareholder, right,so I've, I've now sold my
ownership back to the business,and that ownership is now gifted
or given to employees on anannual basis. So they can, you
know, reap some of the rewardsand enjoy some of the successes
we're having as well. Really,really exciting thing. It's

(35:39):
incredible. Yeah, very, veryexciting. I'm not going
anywhere, right? Don't don'tthink that mean, game is going
to disappear in a couple years.
I've got plenty of years left inme, but it does give me peace of
mind knowing that there's atleast eventually a way out of
the business, and makes me superhappy to know that I can now
that the profitability of thecompany directly affects every
employee individually, as theyas they gain ownership over

(36:01):
years. They're gonna, they'regonna do pretty well.

And that's awesome. You got some lucky
employees there. Yeah, yeah.

I guess so. I mean, I look at it the other way
around, I'm lucky to have them,right. I mean, for sure. We got
some really, really good peoplethat deserve this. So I want to
see this business, you know,live on without me. And I think
that's a it's a really effectiveway to do that. You know, we've
got some young, very smart,talented individuals that you
know, are going to be havingthese conversations with the

(36:30):
next Mike, Matt Weitzel, episodenumber 154 of the GSE podcast is
going to try it, you know, someof our young talent in a few
years. So excited to see thathappen.

So are you going to the other conferences
this year, or what are youlooking at next year for
conferences and expos?

Yeah, so I know we've got the Southwest Airlines
event coming up. They do theirown kind of mini trade show. I
call it their own supplier.

Yeah, they have the margarita cart there. Or
they least used to do youremember the margarita cart?
Yeah, tug? Yeah. Myunderstanding that things still
exist and and Southwest has itnow I can. I can neither confirm
nor deny that. But I don't knowif you've seen that there before
the blue, the blue juice. Yeah,

I know exactly what you're referring to. I had
a few of those margaritasthrough my through my years.
Like we all have. Yeah, I've notseen it at the event. But I'm
sure it's still floating around.
But anyways, televisions hasthis wonder Sydney picture?
Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, they puton a wonderful event, invited
some key suppliers in, like Isaid, do kind of a mini trade
show, they take that opportunityto bring in their their GSE

(37:33):
management team from all overthe country, do some training,
some meetings, some, even somehigh level executives come in
and do presentations to theemployees of Southwest plus to
us suppliers. So we've got thatcoming up. That's always really
exciting and really fun, very,very focused, always come away
from that, you know, proud toparticipate. And just just happy
to be there. And I think that'llprobably wrap up the year for

(37:55):
conventions or trade shows,things that I can think of. But
we've definitely, definitelykeep an eye on Portugal, right.
So for sure, was Lisbon. Sowe'll definitely be there
excited to exhibit that thatactually would be our first time
exhibiting at that particularevent, I have attended it, I've
walked it up in there with othercompanies, we've never
exhibited, because we justhaven't done or didn't see the

(38:16):
need to market what we do inEurope as much, but we do now.
So we've got a few opportunitiesin Europe already. And and we
see that as maybe a goodopportunity to get the word out
about what we do and how wemight be able to help. Yeah,
that's a

great question.
So you all do stuff outside ofthe United States. Are you in
Canada? Are you in Europe?

We do. We do quite a bit of business up in Canada.
We've got a partner up there,GTA aviation, the Durso boys,
which are good partners to haveto help us out a bit in Canada.
We do a little bit SouthAmerica, we had to deal with
Copa airlines over the lastyear, so that where we put some
chargers in to recharge someground equipment, and you know,

(38:57):
always looking for the nextopportunity to help, right, so
we think we think the Europeanmarketplace is is somewhere we
might go to next, right? We'regonna find out. We never we
never want to go into amarketplace that we can't
service. I mean, that's, that'sone thing I probably didn't
mention yet is how big we are onservice. When I say we're, you
know, we're a very high techcompany. I mean, we've got we've
got me and one sales guy, rightthat that's our sales team at

(39:19):
the moment, Brian lash, and thenwe've got a plethora of
technicians, engineers who donothing but product support, or
product testing or productdevelopment, you know, either in
house or with our partnermanufacturers. So we're really,
really big believer in that. Sobefore we ever dip our toe into,
let's say, the European market,we're going to make sure we have

(39:39):
a support staff of some sort,whether it be our own staff or
we partner with a third partycompany. I want to make sure
that any product we sell intothat marketplace, we can fix if
it breaks, right, we will forsure. There it is. That's key
key in this industry. It's it'sa core value of ours. It's quite
frankly, how we built ourreputation. And I think I've
been so successful as a resultAfter that, so see, I hope

(40:01):
hoping to grow in Europe, butkind of put kind of put the
right pieces in place first.

Yeah. And as I said before, you know, the way
that I met you is just throughyour support of of tug and me
when I had trouble with mycustomers and you know, knowing
what what charger to match withwhat battery and what technology
was out there. And that's how wemet and and I gotta tell you,
you're you're fantastic at thesupport piece and your entire

(40:25):
company is and so and I thinkthat's the reason you're still
in business today in the 20years coming up. So what are you
doing for 20 years? Are we goingto have some big blowout that
I'm going to get invited to likewhat's happening? Yeah, that'll
be fine. I'm

not not got my head around that yet. But there
will certainly be a celebrationof sorts.

We got to do something man.

I like, you know, I guess my initial thoughts was
definitely all our employees,there's going to be a big, big
party. But we'll bring in thekegs. And whatever we need to
do, we're going to do bringingin partners to you, right, so
why not invite some customersin? Yeah. Bison famous

podcast host.
You know what I mean? Justwhatever you got to do, really?

To get everybody out there you and Mr. Brogan
might come in town. Yeah, we'lldo another pot. Yeah,

let's call him out. Let

him know. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah, not really
thought about it at all. Otherthan I know, it's coming. I
know, it's a big milestone. Iremember when we went through
our 10th anniversary, which wewere much smaller company than
but it's still still a reallygood feeling to know that, hey,
we survived, right? It's hasn'talways been easy. But, but we
survived and we've profited. Andwe solved a lot of problems,
develop a lot of relationships,you know, this, as you know,

(41:28):
this industry is, is built onrelationships, this, this GSE
thing gets in your blood. And,you know, people might change
companies might move around abit, but but they're, you know,
put on a different shirt, butbut they're always at the trade
show.

Yeah, they never leave GSE now that I tried
it one time, and I came rightback.

That's great.
Yeah, I mean, they're alwayssitting next to shoulder to
shoulder at the bar after a longday at the trade show right?
Sipping down some cold ones,because, you know, we all need
that. That r&r time, just asmuch as we need our work life.

Yeah, so I know you got one child to do. Yeah, I

got one child. I tell everybody that we got it
right the first time so wedidn't need to have any more.

Do that's what I tell people. Yeah, I've only
got one this one as well. Ipatented that man. Oh, man. Do I
heard I heard the geniussomewhere. I didn't know it was
from you. Yeah. So

yeah, I got one daughter super proud of her.
She's 17 learning to fly wantsto be a commercial airline
pilot. So if for any airlines,you're listening, get your next
best employee.

There we go van Josie 17. And she's already a
pilot. Yeah, well, learning

to be a pilot. So she's about halfway through her
private pilot's license reallyloves it. And which is kinda
interesting, because I learnedto fly a few years ago myself
just for the challenge. And thefun, kind of gave up on it
because I just got busy withother stuff and, and I tell
everybody, that if you're goingto be a pilot, you have to be
that has to be your passion,right you need you need to be
flying all the time to keepyourself safe, keep the plane

(42:51):
maintained. And I have a lot ofother interests, interests in
life, a lot of hobbies. And soafter I learned to fly I got my
instrument rating criss crossedthe country a few times had all
kinds of great experiences, youknow, almost crashed several
times. You know, fun storiescome out of that stuff. But I
kind of got too busy and, andopted to just kind of put flying
aside and do other stuff. But,you know, fast forward a few

(43:12):
years after that, and mydaughter, just out of the blue
one day expressed interest inmath. I think I want to go fly
an airplane. Ah, okay. We can dothat. So you know, found a
little local flight schoolarranged a you know,
introductory lesson with her Ihad the opportunity to fly with
her that day. Super fun. Sheimmediately was hooked. And you

(43:34):
know, off to the races. She wentoff to the sail to the sky. She
Exactly. So she's, she's littlemore than halfway down. We're
getting a private pilot'slicense. laser focused on it as
she finishes her last year inhigh school and looking to
continue that in college. Sothat is so cool, man. And it's
awesome. We've not made a notmade a college decision yet but

(43:55):
going down tour Auburn nextweek. Oh, Mr. Lamb Mr. Mr.

Lane must be really excited.

I'm making phone calls for you. Yeah, he's gonna
say he's gonna call in and Itold him not to because if he
calls in I might not get a spot

there for the daughter. But that's what I was
gonna say. It was like a Becareful about those phone calls.
I

absolutely. Miss Mr. Reeves as well. I know. He's
an Auburn grad. So yeah, we'regonna go toward that campus next
week. They have a really, reallygood aviation program partner
with Delta Airlines. And so it'sone she's interested in. She's
also looked at a couple ofschools, Montana states and
other one that she's reallyinterested in, up in Bozeman

(44:31):
that has a really good flightschool and an a path to the
airlines. Right. So she shewants to go get a degree you
know, she she wants to collegeexperience but yeah, wants to
learn to fly at the same time.
So we have Embry Riddle downhere. Yeah, Embry Riddle is
another good choice. She has notlooked at that one yet. But, you
know, I said, we have made adecision. I

can't make any calls for you. I'm sorry. I
don't have any connections overthere.

So yeah, I'm excited to see her make that
decision, right. We're trying tohelp her, help her guide her
down that path and And you knowwish her the best and

for sure we all do the GSE industry it's behind
her Yeah, I

can't wait to can't wait to board a plane one
day coming home from a Vegastrade show and you know, there's
my kid

yeah maybe she'll maybe she'll make sure
you get up here to class orsomething.

Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, or maybe maybe
she'll let me ride the jumpseat. Oh, there we go even
better either to the left seatand put me in the jump seat.

Well, thank you so much, man. I really
appreciate you coming on thepodcast and you know if anybody
needs anything from a wrist youknow go in line or connect with
Brian leash or yourself on onLinkedIn and I'm sure you guys
can help take care of them.
Yeah, absolutely.

We're on LinkedIn web page. You know we got we all
got cell phones in our pocketsall day long. We we do answer
the phone and we love lovehelping solve problems. Right.
So that's, that's what I that'swhat I dig out about right at
it. I don't geek out about allthe business stuff and the
numbers and the sales. I mean,none of that matters to me at
the end of the day. I really getexcited when we get to solve a
problem to help a customer soyeah, anybody anybody should be

(45:58):
able to find us these days andbe glad to help. There you

go, man. Well, thank you so much again for
joining us and this has beenMatt and gave for the GSE
Podcast. I'm Raven hog sacre andyou have been listening to the
GSE podcast.

All Episodes

Episode 8 - "Charging Forward": Inside Averest with Gabe Sampson

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 8 - "Charging Forward": Inside Averest with Gabe Sampson