HEP-isode 23 | Tempest Storm Rentals, the Fall of Yellow, and Deere's New Dozers

In this HEP-isode, Mike Zappone and Kevin Hollingshead from Tempest Storm Rentals join Mike and Jo to talk about disaster response and saving lives. Next up, the boys talk about the Teamsters, the fall of Yellow, why the latest 1075 hp Cummins Ram is perfect for hot shot cargo runners, and the new John Deere P series dozers. All this and an offer we can't refuse – enjoy!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00):
he is about to get real weird, until that recording
light came on and we calmed itback down no comment well, I
think, uh, now we've got the newintro going, we've got a nice
creepy mood set.
Very surreal, very sublime.
Welcome back to this episode ofthe heavy equipment podcast.

(00:20):
Your host, joe boris, here withmike hot, mike switzer on the
uh, on the brand new mic, itshould be noted oh yeah, well,
I'm glad finally came in themail.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
It was a long time coming, although I mean I can't
keep recording from the bottomof a trench somewhere, which is
what the one sounded like.
There was no cleaning thataudio up no filter on the planet
was gonna fix that no, butthat's all right.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I actually like, like the ones you did from the Jeep
when you were driving down theroad.
The Bluetooth on that waspretty sweet.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yeah, and then actually I can get one of these
that will connect to the car andI can hang the boom from the
headrest on the passenger seatand have it stuck in my face as
I go down the road.
I think that's the move, rightthere.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, there's no way that'll end badly.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
No, yeah, there's no way that'll end badly.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
No, no, this is not distracted at all.
Exactly, it's fine, I cantotally see my mirror.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
When I had an F-250 and I was running the road all
the time, I had a base stationin there and I had a desk mic
and then I had the company radioin there on top of that, which
is a short 10 meter radio, andthen I had my phone on the
dashboard and there's a rollingradio show back then, you know,
just bombing down the road and astandard cab F two, 50.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, but the problem was you recorded all that stuff
into the microphone and thenjust put it up on a on a shelf
somewhere.
There's six and a half hours ofsolid gold sitting in storage.
It was pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
And then, and then the CB would break through.
It was pretty good.
And then, and then the cv wouldbreak through, you know, and
then, because you'd be followingsome 14 foot wide load out of
dc, and then I would be in theback with my flashy lights on
and then, all of a sudden, you'dbe recording something to
somebody, and then, jesus, didyou see that?
And yeah, ruins it.
It does kind of come as I tookthe hydrant right off the

(02:03):
sidewalk.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's like the bumper sticker on my sister's
car If you don't like my driving, stay off the sidewalk.
Well, we got a good show today.
We want to talk about the newRam HD 3500 that they showed off
at Work Truck Week.
John Deere's got a couple ofP-tier dozers that we teased on
the last show, but before thatwe have some guests today.

(02:27):
This is kind of turning into athing that we do now with guests
.
Our guests today are MikeZappone and Kevin Hollingshead
from Tempest Storm Rentals.
It's a company that works withlocal utilities to restore power
to communities and governmentsafter extreme weather events.
Mike's a 38-year veteran of theutility business and Kevin TSR
COO comes with his own decadesof construction and coding
experience.

(02:47):
Guys, thanks for being on theshow.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Thanks for having us on, joe and everyone for
listening.
Mike Cipone, currently theChief Operating Officer of
Tempest Energy, tempest StormRentals and Tempest Utility
Consulting.
Tempest Storm Rentals andTempest Utility Consulting a
suite of companies that providestorm restoration, preparedness

(03:12):
and response to both customersand trade allies Some people
call them subcontractors aliketo better prepare them and allow
them to better respond safelyand efficiently to large storm
events that typically interruptelectric service.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
For sure.
And electric service.
You know, a lot of people thinkin terms of I won't have lights
, I won't have television, Iwon't have, you know, my food,
my refrigerator will go bad.
But oftentimes people reallydepend on their electric service
.
Whether they've got, you know,oxygen machines at home, whether
they've got medical equipmentor medical devices, or if you're
talking about a hospital or ananimal shelter, these are really

(03:50):
critical utilities andmaintaining that service and
getting it up and running asfast as possible in many cases
can be a matter of life anddeath, and I don't think that's
particularly dramatic, would youagree, kevin?

Speaker 5 (04:03):
No, I agree and, as Kevin Hollings said, I'm the
director of operations forTempest Storm Rentals.
But yeah, Joe, I agree with you.
It is life and death Some ofthese utilities.
They're challenged with gettingpower turned on within 24 hours
.
Crews have to come in quicklyand get the power restored

(04:23):
safely.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Roots have to come in quickly and get the power
restored safely.
It's funny because when weoriginally scheduled this we
wanted to talk about winterstorm thin, but there have been
in the last six, seven weekssince we've talked about this,
there have been so many morestorms.
Can you talk a little bit aboutsome of the places that you
guys have been in the lastcouple of weeks, some of the

(04:44):
equipment that you've used outthere and really what you've
been able to bring to the tablefor those communities?

Speaker 4 (04:52):
It's really, when you consider the continental United
States, even North America ingeneral, every day is a storm.
It's just a matter of where itis and the magnitude you know.
So we're typically alwaysmonitoring or responding to some
degree just about in any regionof the continental US.

(05:14):
But lately, for us the hub ofthe activity has really been in
the northeast and it's beenprimarily driven by wind events.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
So well, and that's something that you know's,
something that you've been inthis space for a long time.
Right, I've read your bio.
You've been in here for like 30plus years.
You've been a part ofEversource Energy, connecticut
Light and Power, and so you havereally seen the last 30 years
of what some people would sayclimate change, some people
would say it's emissions, somepeople would say whatever it is

(05:45):
they're going to say, right, I'mnot that kind of scientist who
knows whether or not that's BSor real or anything like that,
but it does seem to be happeningmore often.
Is that something that you guysare seeing, or is it just
something that, because ofTikTok and Instagram, now we get
to see it more?

Speaker 4 (06:02):
I would say you're spot on in both facets of the
discussion, and one is that,having been around for 38 years
now in this industry, I can tellyou that there are more
frequent events I'll call themevents and the magnitude has
increased as well.

(06:23):
But you do have periods of time, spans of time, where things
can be pretty quiet.
But, regardless of thereasoning behind it or the
science that you follow,definitely there has been an
increase in the number of eventsaffecting the infrastructure
across the country, not justelectric, but all kind of

(06:45):
commodities that are out theremore severe in effect.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, and that's a really good point, because it's
not just electricity, right,that's where your background is
and where your early expertisewas.
But you guys are restoring allthe infrastructure, you guys are
working on the roads, you'reworking to help clear facilities
and do all this.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
From an electric standpoint.
Yeah, it all starts withelectric.
Most commodities rely heavily,whether it's telecommunications,
whether it's the transportationsector, the public sector, it
really doesn't matter.
It all basically starts withthe restoration of electricity
so that a number of othercommodities can be brought on,

(07:30):
because a number of thosecommodities, their
infrastructure, functions bothnot only from a electric
standpoint, but also what wekind of call the Internet of
Things.
We kind of call the internet ofthings, right, everything just
about, or on an increasing basisall infrastructure is either

(07:55):
monitored or operated off ofsome sort of remote capability.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
That's exactly right.
What are some of the ways thatthat impacts a community that
may not be immediately obviousto people who are sitting on the
outside, Because I still thinkthere's a lot of people who
haven't really experienced whatit's like to live an extended
period of time days or weekswithout basic necessities like
power and water, which doeshappen when you have a major
event like this.

Speaker 5 (08:19):
I can talk to living through Hurricane Katrina.
That was a bad one.
To living through HurricaneKatrina yeah, that was a bad one
.
So to where you're living andmost people down here south in
Louisiana everybody to live here, you had to have a generator.
Yes, and that is 100% true, youhad to have a generator and you
can go weeks without power andyou're living off a generator

(08:45):
and you're having to getresources from you know very
scarce.
You know going to grocerystores they're running off a
generator, but yeah, it's just a.
It's a tough time for anybodywho hasn't really gone through
it.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
So Now, how does that work?
Because you guys are obviouslyin the business of helping to
restore the power right when youget out somewhere and there is
widespread damage like we saw inKatrina I'm from South Florida,
I was in Hurricane Andrew.
I've been through a couple ofthese things how do you decide

(09:15):
where to start working, where tostart digging?
Is there a triage process?
Is somebody else in charge ofthat?
Or do you kind of start fromwhere you're at and start going
in?

Speaker 4 (09:25):
With regards to that, Joe, a lot of it boils down to
information, staying informedand getting prepared.
So you know, for the eventswe're talking about, that we've
been referencing, a lot of it isweather or Mother Nature type
events, and it's all aboutinformation.

(09:46):
We all become self-proclaimedmeteorologists when we begin to
see forecasts that arethreatening certain regions of
the United States.
We'll just use the UnitedStates as an example.
So we're monitoring the weather, monitoring the.
We're all watching the.

(10:07):
What do they call it now?
They call it the curve, yeah,the spaghetti diagrams and all
of that stuff trying to predictwhen it makes landfall, where it
will make landfall and, when itdoes make landfall, how severe
it's going to be and what we canexpect based on it.
So it all starts with that andusually your community leaders

(10:30):
informing the public and tryingto keep the public informed on
what they can expect when ithits.
So that's kind of where it allbegins.
Once it happens, hopefullypeople have either evacuated,
people have hunkered down andprepared themselves for the
potential impacts that have beenforecasted and are taking the

(10:50):
necessary steps to protect what?
Life and then property, andthen obviously we bring the
infrastructure back up.
So the first thing we do whenthere are impacts is you want to
protect life.
So a lot of times you'll haveyour utility personnel from
regardless of what commodity,working alongside the public

(11:13):
sector in fact, maybe part ofthe public sector in some areas
and working alongside them towhat?
To make sure that life has beenpreserved and that you're
opening up things like roads sothat emergency vehicles and
first responders have access toall of the roads and residents

(11:34):
and buildings and infrastructurein that area.
Once those roads are open,we'll call it the 911.
Series of calls and emergencieshave been addressed.
Then it's time to startstrategizing and you're putting
your plans together, so to speak, to start restoring power with

(11:54):
some of the more criticalidentified customers, First
moving to some of the largeroutages and then obviously down
to the single residents.
But it's those single residentsthat could wait the longest.
So, again, can't really stressenough the fact of being

(12:14):
prepared.
When they tell you fill yourbathtub with water, it's
probably a good idea.
When they tell you to have abattery operated radio, it's
probably a good idea.
When they tell you to evacuate,please listen and you know,
because people have plenty ofexperience with these events,
they know what they can do andobviously it's all about the
people saving them, making surethey're safe and then returning

(12:36):
their lives back to normal.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, no, that's very , very well said.
As we were talking, you know wehad Bill Perry is one of the
guys that helped us put thisshow together he posted into the
chat power outages US and aswe're recording this right now,
there's 30,000 people in Texaswithout power.
And looking at this nationalmap, which is really just
fascinating I've never seen itbefore Poweroutageus Definitely

(13:01):
check it out you really get asense of how many people are out
there and who's going throughwhat at the moment.
When we talk about the workthat you guys are doing, you are
national right, you're all overthe country.

Speaker 5 (13:13):
Yeah, correct, we have four yards currently, but
we're in Illinois, we're inConnecticut, we're in Virginia.
Of course we're down in ourhome office down in Covington,
louisiana, but we can reach outand send equipment anywhere
across the US.
Give them a timely call out forour trade allies.
They'll contact us within a fewdays requesting equipment

(13:37):
either for pickup.
They'll show up on site orthey'll ask for delivery, so we
can strategically with our yards.
You know where they're placed.
We can have equipment anywhereanytime.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, well, let's talk a little bit about that,
right Cause this is the heavyequipment podcast.
It's not the weather outagepodcast or the power supply
podcast.
Let's talk a little bit aboutsome of the equipment that you
guys do have on offer that youcan mobilize quickly and get out
to help support people whenthey are dealing with a disaster
like this.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yeah, some of the primary equipment that we push
out there or we rent to are,just to let me define, I say
trade allies or they're theutility contractors.
For the most part, theequipment that's going out would
be our standard buckets, youknow, 55 foot reach.
We have our standard diggers,digger derricks, which are the

(14:26):
trucks that dig holes and setpoles when poles are down during
a storm.
We have pole trailers which aretowed behind the digger
derricks to get out to thedifferent sites.
We have track machines whichare, you know, for going in
swampy, bad terrain, mountainousterrain, backyard machines,
which are smaller track machinesand just what I said the back

(14:48):
there they're named for gettingin the backyard, small places to
gain access to putting poles upand restoring power.
Yeah, that's pretty much it fora lot of the equipment that we
use.
There's still a lot ofequipment out there.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Oh, for sure, For sure, and there's room for a lot
of people in this space.
You're not going to call injust one guy when there's a
weather event.
Right, there's a ton of stuffthat needs to be done and this
is a critical part of it.
You know you were talking a lotabout the pole diggers and
putting up the power lines.
You know the restoring thepower lines when they go down in
a storm or an event, I think isa better way to put it.
I remember after HurricaneAndrew in South Florida when I

(15:27):
went through that, I rememberthere being a proliferation of
poles before and then afterwardsFPL spent a ton of time and
energy putting power lines underthe ground.
So roads that I used to drivealong as a kid and I'd look up
at the power lines while we weredriving by, they all kind of

(15:48):
disappeared.
Are you starting to see that inmore markets that are
experiencing more frequentweather events?
And what are some of thedrawbacks to doing that?
Because I mean, it's got to behugely expensive, right.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
Yeah, it's definitely putting things beneath ground
versus overhead can be much moreexpensive and costly.
However, the key word here iskind of resiliency and recovery
and system hardening.
Those are some of the buzzwordsyou're going to hear.
In the industry there are manyprograms that are funded and

(16:24):
unfunded based on performancerequirements of people like FPL
and other utilities like them.
The expectation is that thesystem they own and maintain is
both reliable, resilient andit's tough, so it can withstand
a lot more punishment from thesestorms.

(16:47):
Undergrounding is one way toprotect and preserve the
integrity of the infrastructure.
One of the issues with theunderground is when things do
happen, having been spendingseveral years in the underground
in the utility sector myself.
When something does happen inthe underground, it can be very

(17:11):
difficult to diagnose, it can bea little bit tougher to access
and it can also be a littlelengthier when it comes to
getting it returned to normal.
Now, resiliency, obviously,after Sandy and places that had
massive underground networksI'll just use kind of New York

(17:32):
City as one they, you know,ended up with six feet of water
down in Wall Street.
So, again, system hardeningmeant it was already underground
but maybe building in differentalternate sources of power so
that things could be isolated.

(17:53):
So I don't know that you'regoing to ever completely cure it
of ever going out or servicebeing interrupted, but what you
can do is put in some mitigatingequipment and alternative
sources of electricity to tryand minimize the number of let's

(18:14):
just call them customers forlack of a better word or
stakeholders to minimize thenumber that are impacted by any
current or any potential outagethat can occur.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
You bring up a really good point, because we talk
about grid resiliency a lot onthe outlets that I write for.
We write for CleanTechnica,electrek, things like that, and
we always talk aboutelectrification and grid
resiliency in terms of itsability to handle not only
electric vehicles but electricwater heaters, electric HVAC
systems and all of thesedifferent newly electrified

(18:47):
devices that 10 years ago nobodywas even considering
electrifying.
Now we have induction stovetops, now we know that a lot of
asthma and childhood stuff isbeing caused by the gas stoves,
and now that's a wholepoliticized mess.
So we talk about gridresiliency in that context mess.
So we talk about gridresiliency in that context.
So to hear about gridresilience in terms of being

(19:09):
resilient to damage, resilientto failure, resilient to going
down because of external thingsthat happen, I think is really
refreshing.
Do you think that one type ofgrid resilience supports the
other in these cases?

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Absolutely, and then Kevin's probably going to have a
comment or two here.
But Kevin's team is a directcontributor to resiliency in
that when the people respondingto emergencies have equipment
failures, tool failures, theymay have some of their fleet out

(19:45):
of service.
They may not have the equipmentavailable to respond properly
or the tools to respond properlyor in large enough numbers to
have a greater effect on thedamage that's out there.
Kevin's team comes in by effecton the damage that's out there.

(20:07):
Kevin's team comes in bysupplementing them with a means
by which they can still get outthere with the equipment and
tools necessary to get the jobdone.
So not only is the industryproducing and moving towards a
more resilient system from abrick and mortar standpoint, but
you've got people like Kevinwho are supplying those
resources, those craftsmen, withsupplemental tools to not only

(20:32):
scale up their operation butkeep it up and running so that
they are in a position torespond.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, kevin, please feel free to build on that.

Speaker 5 (20:42):
Yeah, that's true.
So, my team, what we'll do iswe'll.
You know, all our equipment istooled.
You know what that does isprovide our trade allies, our
customers, our contractors,trade allies, the ability to
build their resources to get outthere and put the power on.
So all our tools, you know, aretested, they're insulated.
We provide a lot of resourcesand help the trade allies get

(21:06):
out there and restore power.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
That's great.
Well, guys, we're coming to theend of our time commitment here
.
Obviously, we've got MikeZappone and Kevin Hollingshead
of Tempest Storm Rentals TSRGuys.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
I want to give you anopportunity to kind of let us
know how we can follow along,let our readers know how they
can find out more about you, getin touch, any events or
anything like that that you'regoing to be at where people can

(21:29):
come find you.
Yeah, the floor is yours.

Speaker 5 (21:33):
Well, you can follow us on our website,
wwwtsrtruckscom.
We're at most of all the tradeshows, linemen, rodeos, with our
sister companies.
We're located in four, fourdifferent yards we're in mantino
, illinois, we're in connecticut, covington, louisiana, and in
new market, virginia.
So, uh, but we do have awebsite, it's tsrtruckscom.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
so come take a look at our website beautiful and
mike doesn't ever get up on thetable and dance for t.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
I'm not above just about anything, joe, when it
comes to this industry.
I've loved this industry and Ican't say enough about it.
After 38 years, it's stillquite as addicting to me as it
ever been.
But when it comes to TSR, youknow, listen, we're the
equipment you need, managed bythe fleet team you wish you had,

(22:26):
and that's.
I can't say enough about Kevin,his team, their dedication to
the trade allies and the successthey built and maintained,
based on feedback from customersand trade allies alike.
So kudos to this team.
Look us up, tsrTempestStormRentalscom, and
we're here when you need us.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
All right.
Two last things before I lety'all go.
I remember when I was inHurricane Andrew, it was three
weeks before we had power back,and I'll never forget how I felt
when I saw that FPL truck pullup.
So I'm sure that you guys arebringing a lot of joy, a lot of
good feelings to the people thatsee you.
So thank you for doing the workyou do.
And the last thing, mike, Ihope you don't take this in a
negative way.
I don't mean to play up tostereotypes, but you have

(23:11):
absolutely the best radio voiceI've ever heard.
I would like you to make somethreatening voicemail messages
that I can send to some otherpeople, and maybe in like a
Godfather's theme playing in thebackground.
You've been absolutely awesome.
I hope you come back on theshow again.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
Listen, make me an offer.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
I can't refuse.
I always love it when we spliceback in and Mike's like oh yeah
, I was here the whole time.
No, anyways, no, all right,well, let's get back to.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Uh, that was great, let's get back to the ram you
say that when it's not great,you're like that was great that
was great.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
No, it's good, I'll leave it in.
I'll leave it unedited.
Six and a half seconds ofsilence, mike staring into the
camera don't do that.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
They're screaming from behind the glass.
Now what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (24:03):
The guy's being so if it wasn't for the glass.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
I swear to God there would be apples and bananas and
me the whole time.
We're doing this the whole time.
Everyone's right here Half amango hits you in the side of
the head because they're likewhat are you doing, Squirrel?

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Squirrel, squirrel, I don't know.
I thought that was pretty good.
So obviously these guys have amuch needed service and I like
where they're positioningthemselves in the southeast.
They got something in thenortheast for the snowstorms,
they're in the Midwest for thetornadoes, and I think it makes
sense right, because you don'twant to have, as a utility or a
construction fleet, a wholebunch of assets in your

(24:42):
inventory that only get usedonce or twice a year, if that,
whenever a hundred year stormcomes through.
But for these guys that havetheir business model of, we'll
bring it to you and we'll helpyou rebuild your infrastructure.
I think that makes a ton ofsense.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
There's a lot of need for that.
I mean, as storms roll throughand we have issues and,
depending on what kind of stormit is and it could be I'll use
the term climate change thesheer winds that we see in
certain parts of the country, Imean that alone is tearing up
things.
We didn't see those before.
Yeah, so we need services likethat.
I think it goes without saying.

(25:18):
There's not enough of it, andif anybody's ever been stuck
without power you have any kindof medical issues or anything
like that and you depend on it,you need it.
You need it to turn back on.
Yeah, exactly right, you can'tbe mad when they, when the power
company goes, listen, we'regoing to get to you in a week,
but I got 2000 other people upthe street that you know do this
whole state route that don'thave power either.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
We need people, so yeah, I noticed that you got a
little hesitant using the wordclimate change.
But I mean, again, we're nothere to say that you know it's
because of this or because ofthat, but I think you'd be hard
pressed to say that we haven'texperienced some differences
since we were kids.
I mean, I remember havingfamily in North Carolinaolina.
They'd get 10 feet of snow inthe winter.

(26:02):
We'd go up there and gosledding.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Now it's rare to get snow out there well, you fell
right from my trap and youwalked right into it.
Oh, no I'm so glad I.
All I did was I dare not sayclimate change.
And then you just walked rightinto that one.
I skied right into it on mysnow that we haven't seen in
decades, for fear that thetropical weather is about to

(26:24):
upon the Northern United.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
States.
Yeah Well, I'm good for thatbecause, like, quite frankly,
it's been way too cold inChicago lately.
Well, when you grow up, inCosta Rica and Miami.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Chicago is a far cry from tropical weathers that you
were native to.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Oh, I know it.
You know I was laughing becauseI keep thinking about that time
that you and Adam came out tothe Chicago Auto Show and you
were standing out there on theMetro train station.
Oh you were late.
We were waiting for you to pickus up.
It was negative 19 degrees.
I felt so bad.
It's been 15 years.
I still feel bad about that.
My suit pants cracked from thatweather alone.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
The fabric split as soon as I got out of that train.
I felt like I had one of thosewindbreakers on in a hurricane
that turned to freezing ice.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
I think that's what happened.
That was an accuratedescription of the weather event
that you experienced.
Well, back then you weredriving that old blue, the 2500
dodge ram 3500, sir, duallythat's right that's right, the
five speed with no synchros init, and you just shifted it.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
There was no clutch.
The clutch stopped you and gotyou moving that was a cool truck
man.
I like that was a cool truck.
You had to heel toe that thingquite often to get it moving and
it was all right.
I was like, actually you knowwhat it was like?
It was like driving an oldyellow freight truck.
Oh no, that's exactly what thatwas.
I think by the time I got donebombing that down the road at

(27:50):
370,000 miles on it when I soldit.
It was clunky, it banged, itmoved all around going down the
road.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
It was dangerous, it was perfect you know we didn't
plan on talking about this, butI can't believe, with everything
that's been going on with theyellow freight stuff, that we
have not done a whole episodeabout it.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
We do need to talk about and this is okay, they're
already holding up.
They're holding up the cue cardthat says don't do it, Don't do
it.
So he's got the whiteboard outand says don't do it, but I'm
going to anyways, and he's mad.
We do need to dedicate a wholeepisode to that.
Or we need to talk about thedegradation of non-regulation
within the trucking industry andwhat that did to companies like

(28:32):
Yellow Freight that were forcedto buy up other companies to
keep people working, go intomassive amounts of debt and, at
the end of the day, werestruggling to pay their fuel
bills, couldn't pay their partsbills and were parking trucks
that needed worked on.
That was an empire in itselfthat got drove out of existence
by the free market.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
That is an interesting take.
So talk to me about that.
How did the free market?
Because and I'm not saying thisfacetiously, I'm not saying
this to be argumentative,because I always know that you
don't say stuff like thatwithout knowing what you're
going to say to back it up youknow, I can't just leave that
alone, but oftentimes Oftentimesyou go oh, I see where you're

(29:16):
going with this and I scare youbecause I watch your eyebrows
move around like twocaterpillars.
At least it's better than justthe one caterpillar I used to
have.
Yeah, so okay.
So the free market did them in.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
But no, I'm saying that that was a big component of
it, because here's the problemwith the trucking industry today
you have rising costs, risinginflation.
Inflation is where it is and weknow what that is Okay and those
that have salaries or drive fora company we do not bear the
burden of all the encompassingfactors of inflation.
I and other companies thatmanage their own trucking fleet

(29:55):
understand what it takes toovercome an ever escalating
inflationary period such as whatwe've gone through now.
The government will tell youthat inflation is under control
and it is now into a, you knowwhatever percentage they deem is
acceptable, and that is anentirely different discussion
for itself.
But we look at that going.

(30:19):
It still costs us 20 cents perdollar more than it did not too
long ago, and somehow we have tofigure out how to overcome the
20 cents per dollar increasethat we're facing on tires, oil,
fuel, manpower and equipmentreplacement costs and this is a

(30:42):
part of the Heavy Equipmentpodcast that we talk about all
the time.
Heavy Equipment maintenancecosts increase all the time.
Heavy Equipment replacementcosts increase all the time.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
When you have a free market-.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
You're not taking an $80,000 machine or $180,000
machine and replacing it likefor like.
You spent 200 grand onsomething in 2019.
You're spending 250 or 280 onit now.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah.
So what I'm getting at is, whenyou have a free market, like we
have, and when you run into ablip of escalated inflation, you
have a massive monster like YRCthat is making it work and
they're working to work withinit.
Now there's all kinds ofstories about how their debt was

(31:29):
uncontrolled and they had maxedout debt with creditors and
they were mismanaging theirfunds, but the bottom line is a
company like YRC has nomotivation to go bankrupt and
set everybody on the curb.
If you were going to motivateanything, your motivation would
be to keep that company alive.

(31:50):
Now, I'm not saying this is theway that they operated.
What I'm saying is, if you hada nasty, negative mentality
towards the company of which youcontrolled mentality towards
the company of which you'vecontrolled your goal would be to
keep it alive, tosystematically milk it for every
dollar that kept your luxurylifestyle moving.
You have no basis to take thatand remove it from yourself.

(32:23):
Think about it on this level IfJeff over at Amazon said I don't
care, the best thing I could dofor this right now is default
on all my loans, all my debtsand all my people and walk away.
There he has.
No, he has absolutely zeromotivation for that Because, if
you looked at it from sheergreed, all he can do is make

(32:44):
more money with Amazon when it'smanaged correctly.
Yeah, yellow Freight was in thesame position where they needed
to figure out how to overcomemassive increases in operating
costs and there's no secret tothat.
They talked about this inshareholder meetings Exactly.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
This was not something that's a total
surprise.
The company was at risk ofbankruptcy for at least two or
three years prior to it actuallyhappening.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
Correct and then they bought.
Over the years.
They bought up companies tohelp control debt, which is a
tactic that you do when you'retrying to mitigate your risk and
when you're trying to mitigateyour risk.
You're trying to mitigate yourrisk and when you're trying to
mitigate your risk, you'retrying to mitigate extra debt.
You buy up a company that ismore liquid to then spread your
debt out or do whatever theyneeded to do or show a different

(33:32):
way of their portfolio.
My point is is that no one willever understand and no one will
ever know the inner workings ofwhy they did what they did,
other than what's beendocumented and been released to
the public.
But anybody would be foolishunless they were just being
downright spiteful to think thatYellow Freight had any
motivation to wind the doorsdown and lock them and

(33:54):
systematically shut the companydown throughout the country.
They didn't, and that's whereI'm getting back to free market.
So free market says wait aminute, I can only move so much
freight and I can only move somuch freight for this much money
.
My brother company over herethat is not affiliated to us
it's not what I mean by thatsays I'm going to save you

(34:15):
$20,000 annually.
This is one customer becausetheir operating costs are higher
or they haven't been able toachieve a few milestones to drop
their operating costs justenough to play in that same
level field.
So what they say is fine, letthem take that cheap freight,
we'll move more premium freight.

(34:36):
That is when a trucking companythat is what they always go back
to they say, well, you knowwhat, we're not going to go out
there, we're not going to bidthe cheap freight, we're going
to get the good freight, we'regoing to get the freight that
needs to be there on time,undamaged.
We need to get it there.
And our customers know that.
That's why they pay that extra$10 per skid period.
Yeah, there's a whole segue tothat where you can look at that

(35:03):
and say, well, okay, that's oneway of looking at it.
Now there was a bunch ofspending over at YRC that has
been documented as well, andthat's the flip side of this
coin.
It is not all innocent, but Ido believe that the inflation
that we saw in this country fora period of time didn't help it
either.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
No, and I think it's worth noting that right near the
end there was a $700 millionbailout loan that the taxpayers
provided to Yolo.
It didn't do much to keep thecompany afloat.
It kind of kept it going alittle bit.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
Was it six months?
Because I think it satisfiedsome fuel debt.
If I'm not mistaken, yeah, itenabled them to continue.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, it was supposed to be a bridge loan to enable
them to restructure, but forwhatever reason, if you listen
to the Teamsters, it was grossmismanagement.
If you listen to the yellowexecutives the few that did go
on record they said that therewas a resistance from their
creditors to work with them,which I think is probably true.

(36:10):
So let's give them the benefitof the doubt here and say look
the government Well, theteamsters worked with them.
Hold on.
The teamsters did, but theirother creditors did not.
So if you're looking at thisand you're a creditor and
they're coming to you torestructure a loan and they're
saying, look, let's restructurethis, let's go pennies on the
dollar, and you're looking atthis and you go, you know what?

(36:30):
The government just bailed themout to the tune of $700 million
.
The government took a 30%ownership position in yellow,
effectively coming as close tonationalizing an industry, as
we've seen since the breakup ofuh.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
They couldn't do it, they.
That was as far as they couldgo.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
That was as far as they could go reaching some
serious legislation a hundredpercent so.
but you're looking at this as acreditor.
You're going.
There's no way they're notgoing to keep getting bailed out
, especially if they're agovernment owned, pro union
thing and we've got a pro unionadministration in the white
house.
That's, you know, depending onall these boats, I probably

(37:10):
wouldn't have restructuredeither.
I would have said hey, insteadof, you know, settling at 30 or
40 cents on the dollar, I betyou're going to get another big
fat bailout check, and then allthe people that didn't negotiate
with you are going to get abetter deal than me.
So I'm going to hold out and Ithink that happened enough times
that everybody involved justsaid this isn't tenable.

(37:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
I think that's the other side of the coin and
that's what I mean.
Like you know, anytime acompany like this goes under.
Cf went under in a very similarcircumstance.
That's right, rising costs.
We had deregulation in thetrucking industry.
Cf, who created some of thesystematic freight organization
in this country, along with pie,who is no longer around, when

(37:56):
rider bought them out.
Cf was the original creator ofthe Freightliner as a
company-owned vehicle that theycreated to build their own
trucks to control cost, and Ialso believe in this and people
are going to freak out on this.
It is horrible for the peoplethat lost their jobs from YRC.
However, if there was a time toshed people, it is now.

(38:21):
You can't get enough drivers onthe road.
We can't get enough people onthe road.
Yeah, the Teamsters are workingdiligently to get people
already seated.
They already have People aredriving.
You don't see massive breadlines because YRC went out of
business.
Yes, there's people that havebeen affected and it did mess

(38:41):
them up, you know.
There's no question about that,but the Teamsters did work with
YRC right up till the end,saying, look, we understand that
we need to keep our peoplemoving, we need to keep
paychecks coming into ourdrivers and I wouldn't be
surprised if the Teamsters knewprior to when the lockings were

(39:02):
going to start and the lockoutswere going to happen, so that
they could help position theirdrivers and put them in a better
position.
I wouldn't be surprised to thatbecause the Teamsters
throughout the years have goneout of their way to walk into
many a meeting and say listen,if you tell us what's going on,
we'll work with you and we willget the people back to work.
Yeah, that's what we care about.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
There definitely was a sense that they saw it coming
right, because before theshutdown actually happened I
mean we're talking back in likeearly July of last year John
Murphy, who was I don't know ifhe still is, but back then he
was the national freightdirector for the Teamsters he
sent a memo out that got pickedup by NPR.
I'm reading it now and it saysyellow appears to be headed to a
complete shutdown in the nextfew days.

(39:47):
So they had a little bit of asense that this was coming.
And that's after the.
That's after yellow missed its$50 million benefits payout to
the teamsters labor fund that itwas supposed to do with the
last contract.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
that was on july 15th I was in a meeting not too long
ago and I actually got peoplethat listened to this podcast
brave souls that, um listen,it's picking up the last one was
uh it's terrifying, but yeah,this is.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
This is why, because I was in a meeting and somebody.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Somebody came over to me and they said I didn't
realize you had a podcast.
I said yeah, I don't flaw in itor anything like that.
It's not what it's about.
We don't advertise it.
And they were like, yeah, well,I was listening, you guys, you
were talking about the Teamstersand this is another union
representative from anotherunion organization and he said
you're very pro-union.
And he said you're verypro-union.
And he says you guys seem to bevery big on the Teamsters.

(40:42):
And I said no, we're very bigon the working man and the guy
that actually has to go to workevery day.
That's who we're big on,because whether it's heavy
equipment trucking, hotshotfreight loads with a pickup
truck or just your general F-250or anything, it's all related
to the man that's using it.
And that's been the wholemantra of the whole thing, right

(41:04):
down to socioeconomics andhealthcare and everything else
that we talk about.
So we were talking about thatand he sat down and he goes
that's a very interesting takeon the whole thing and I said
there isn't another podcast outthere talking on it from that
perspective.
They talk about it on theperspective of products.
They talk about it on theperspective of marketing.
They don't talk about it.
On the perspective of theworking man, who's actually

(41:27):
going to use all the other stuffthat people are advertising for
, it's very rare.
And we went into this thing andI said, and I backed him up and
I said, listen, I think aboutthe Teamsters is this Teamsters
are twofold Teamsters worryabout the working man.
They worry about putting theguys to work.
The operators union does thesame thing.
International operatorengineers they do the same thing

(41:49):
.
They put guys to work.
They put them in the seats ofthe equipment.
If you're a union company,you're going to put people to
work, even in their what youwould call maybe a negative days
of greed and mismanagement offunds, which has been heavily
documented and glorified throughmovies.
At the end of the day, therewere a whole lot of people and

(42:12):
even when you watch any of themovies about Hoffa and the
casinos that were built and allthat stuff, look at where
they're at.
They still provide a pension,yeah.
They provide a retirementability for people that drive
every day of the week, yeah, anddriving is not easy.
It's gotten easier because ofthe stuff that we talk about but

(42:34):
the industry itself is not easy, it is dangerous, and the
operators are the same way.
The operators have one of thebest pensions going on in the
country, as they should.
As they should, and all thislegislation that's coming
through.
We talk about this stuff asthey should, and all this
legislation that's comingthrough, we talk about this

(42:56):
stuff.
This all circles back to whatI'm getting to, which is these
companies are at risk.
They carry too out of balance.
Systematically.
We lose these companies.
We lost CF.
The world would have neverthought never in 1990, I think

(43:17):
it was 95 or 94 when CF wentunder.
We would have never thoughtJoe's looking it up right now we
would have never thought thatwe were going to lose Yellow
Freight or Roadway.
Roadway was bought up by Yellow.
That's why you have YRCc.
No one ever thought roadway wasgoing to go out of business and
they didn't really.
They got swallowed up.
I was a partnership agreement.
That why that yellow freightroadway needed to make to keep

(43:40):
going yeah, exactly so.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Uh, just for those of you listening to this and who
were catching that, cf, cf, uh,officially closed its its doors
in September 2002.
After about a year ofbankruptcy proceedings.
They had 15.
Yeah, 2002.
It took a while for them toshut down.
15,000 employees was generating$2 billion in annual revenue.
When it finally did close.

(44:04):
And CF, obviously they werekind of the pioneer of the ltl
freight and logistics industry.
Right, because at that point itwas still.
You know, you had thestevedores at the ports just
loading up the trucks andstrapping stuff together and
figuring it out on the fly inrichfield ohio, one of their
largest terminals in the country, which was a major hub for them

(44:25):
.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
The drivers literally walked into work one day and it
was locked.
Yeah, the maintenance peoplelocked the gate on the way out
and said, well, that's it.
That's it.
You know?
The other thing I was in partof this meeting that I was
talking to this, this othercause, it's all.
My rants are multifaceted.
We were talking about one wayto put it.

(44:46):
Yeah, that.
We were talking about the factthat, you know, moving freight
is becoming ever morechallenging, especially for
heavy equipment freight.
So if you have to move buckets,components, things that don't
regularly fit or areconveniently fitted into a pup
trailer or a 48 foot freighttrailer, companies like UPS,

(45:11):
fedex Freight and those guysdon't really like picking up an
excavator bucket that's eightfoot wide, eight foot tall and
seven foot deep.
They look at that and they go,no, now they'll move it.
And don't get me wrong, we shipstuff all over the country like
this, but they don't like doingit because it tears up the
trailers, it damages the otherfreight that's inbound, and you
don't want some guy on aforklift literally getting hurt

(45:31):
trying to move something heshouldn't be moving across a
dock Right.
So a hotshot freight has turnedinto a big thing in this
industry Because when you havelike three buckets or you have
like a multitude of what we callgang boxes, which the NAC
Corporation makes along withCrescent, we load those up with
tools.

(45:52):
They were very heavy, they'revery dense, we ship them all
over the country and we have abigger need than ever for
hotshot freight and the OEMsneed to really take a look at
this.
They've been building cabchassis models for hotshot
freight models for a while now,but we have an ever-growing need
for what I would consider amedium-duty, but not truck.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Well, I don't know if that was the best segue for a
new product launch that we haveever done on this show but it's
definitely top three we haveever done on this show, but it's
definitely top three, so thankyou.
The spirit of this, uh, youknow ideal hot shot rig that you
just described.
Ram just debuted their new 2024hd 3500 cummins i6 turbo diesel

(46:41):
.
They are the first I'd callthis a class 2 truck, maybe
class two B, with 1,075 poundfeet of torque on an optional
Cummins diesel.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Let's talk about that 1,075, or knocking on the door
of 1,100 pound feet of torqueEmissions, legal Emissions,
legal.
That has to be one of the mostpowerful pickup trucks in the
marketplace.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
It has to be For sure , for sure.
And now this is a vehicle thathas up to 37,000 pound towing
capacity, 14,000 pound GWR, justunder what it would take to
make it a class three.
If you've got less than 10,000pounds in that trailer, you're
not going to need a CDL to drivethis thing Correct

(47:54):
no-transcript.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
We don't have enough companies, and so we'll talk
about this.
So when you don't have enoughcompanies, you don't have enough
people, you consolidate yourfreight even more, which means
that the oddball freight hasnowhere to go and no place to
move it, and your costs formoving such an oddball freight
do what they skyrocket.

(48:19):
That's right.
So we're going to go back to myrant earlier, where I talked
about free market.
We bid work, we price work, theclients.
Those clients sell theirproducts to other people.
Those people that pay for thoseproducts are shopping for the

(48:40):
next best option or qualityoption.
That's the most high level wayyou can put it.
So any way you can do this andyou can work on controlling your
costs as they escalate.
So, any way you can do this andyou can work on controlling
your costs as they escalate, asescalation happens through
inflation.
We need this.
We need powerful pickup trucksthat are reliable.
The other side of that is, yeah, their emissions legal.
They have to be.

(49:00):
You can't have a bunch of guysdeleting and tearing out and
running rebar up inside of a SCRto clean it out.
You can't have that well, buteven credit because they went
out.
They went out and they hit themap and they said here's a truck
here's a truck and let's moveit.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
That's exactly right.
You know and we talk about thissome of the stuff that these
diesel tuners were doing, thepower puck tuners were doing,
even with all that, even withthe straight pipes and the
rolling coal and all that, theyweren't getting 1100 pound feet
of torque like this.
Not many, no, they were not.
So, yeah, this is a solid truck.
This is definitely something tokeep an eye on.

(49:40):
Do they have a price point onthis thing yet?

Speaker 3 (49:43):
Ah, let's, because I was just at an auto show not too
long ago and now, granted, thisis not a freight truck.
Okay, right, they had theloaded most absolutely optioned
out sunroof, dually, 3500 youcould get, and I think anybody
with a horse trailer wouldprobably want this thing.
It was absolutely gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Oh, I think the sticker on was 108 that sounds
gorgeous, but I can't imaginethat that's really what we're
looking for.
Looking at it as a chassis cab,it looks like you're looking at
around 67 with that engine init.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Absolutely worth every dollar at 67,000.
And I'll tell you why Becauseanybody that's bought a semi
truck in the last two yearsunderstands how expensive
they've gotten.
Yeah, they've gotten nuts.
And this is the other thingabout buying trucks.
Right, it's the same thing thatgoes for buying equipment.
Buying trucks is not the truck.
If you don't want a freightcompany and you're not running a

(50:44):
freight company, that justliterally buys the truck, no
extras, hooks the trailer to itand takes off, you need a bunch
of extras on there, you needboxes, you need stuff to store
things in.
All of that adds up and all ofthat's becoming more expensive
as well.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, for sure, and you are getting to a point where
it's getting cost prohibitive.
But on the flip side of that,think of all the safety features
, all the monitoring features,communication features that are
built into these trucks that ageneration ago would have been
$100,000.

(51:24):
Been a hundred thousand dollars.
I was thinking about this theother day.
I got my kid he's in college,my oldest kid I got him one of
these, uh, photography drones.
You know those remote controlphotography drones.
It was a couple hundred bucksand I was like, man, we didn't
have stuff like this when I wasa kid and I was looking at it.
I was like if I had tried tobuild this when I was his age

(51:45):
now, 25 years ago, it would havecost me a hundred thousand
dollars to build it, and nowit's something you just go pick
up at Best Buy.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Right, we've talked about this all the time is how
technology becomes cheaper, butit segues to how other things
become more expensive.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
That's right.
I mean, if you look back ahundred years ago, I always
loved doing the Chicagoarchitecture tour, right,
because they take you throughall these old art deco buildings
and things like that and it'slike, man, that was all so
beautiful, why don't we buildthem like that anymore?
It's like because all of thattook labor, that took crafts,
people, that took artisans, andback then technology was

(52:23):
expensive but labor was cheap.
And we had an inversion of that, where labor is very expensive
but technology is cheap.
So the more you can throw techat a problem instead of brains
at a problem, human gray goo,you're going to save some money
there.
So we're coming to the end ofour time commitment here.
Thank you for listening alongand I think we have to do this

(52:46):
now or else we're just not goingto do it.
We're going to talk about thenew.
Uh, john deere, pp dozers well,the p series.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
P series is came out and I'm actually I already know
people that have gotten theseand and I've chatted with yeah,
they're in customer hands, forsure they're in customer hands.
This isn't something that's justout at the training facility
and I'm I'm gonna tell, tell youthat this is a sweet machine
and it's a long lead up, right.
So John Deere, as it has movedaway from its partnership with

(53:18):
Hitachi and its in-housemanagement of all of its
engineering, this was inevitableand I think this machine is
going to be badass.
Anybody that I've talked tothat's gotten it while they
haven't had it very long.
They all say the same thing.
But there is also someinnovative stuff in this dozer
that the marketplace needed.

(53:40):
Now.
People always compare JohnDeere dozers to CAT and all this
stuff like that.
But John Deere's biggest thingthat they have worked on forever
, and every OEM does, is justthe ergonomics of the cab and
vision out of the cab, right.
So right down to you know,forever John Deere had a stance
and the seat was centered.

(54:01):
It looked forward.
Then they moved it.
They had some for a while thatyou could tilt back and forth.
But if you look at how thecontrols are set up in this
thing, with the joysticks, theadjustable armrests, the other
thing is they're keyless.
They have a term for it.
I can't remember what it is offthe top of my head but for the
push button control pads, whereyou go in and you select all the

(54:22):
functions and turn the wiperson or lights on or all that
stuff and you start it from that.
You also enter your codes fromthere.
They've had that for a verylong time.
They're one of the industryleaders and saying you know what
?
Everybody has a key.
We don't need to put a key inthis thing.
We need to put a code in there.
If you're worried aboutsomebody getting out that
shouldn't be in it, we'll put acode in there.

(54:42):
There's also talk of it's notmentioned in anything so far,
but there has been talk ofbluetooth capability and
equipment where you take yourcell phone and your cell phone
gives you an identifier by youroperating company, where you say
, hey, I'm licensed to run this,I'm trained to run it, whatever

(55:02):
terminology you want to use andyou wave it in front of the
machine and it goes green and itsays, okay, you can run it they
talked about that with me alittle bit at ces this year when
I was there.
The john deere, guys, and wetalked about that on a previous
episode episode.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
That's right.
Thanks for using theterminology.
Yeah, and that's reallyimportant because you know,
you've got scenarios whereyou've got guys who are rated on
some machines, not rated onother machines, and it's so
simple to just be like oh man, Ijust got to hop into this thing
and move it 10 feet.
I'm going to do that andinevitably, even through no

(55:39):
fault of their own, that's whensomething goes sideways and the
liability goes through the roofbecause of that.
So that's really smart stuff.
That's an update to the ATS.
Quick start.
That's typically what JohnDeere calls that.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
And the other thing about the P-Tier they're calling
it P-Tier, not P-Series.
Sorry, the 1050, I ran a 1050Ka long time ago.
When 1050K came out, weactually put it on a
mountainside and we movedmaterial with it.
It's a great dozer.
It's hydrostatically driven.
Hydrostatic is different fromthe ways of so.

(56:12):
If you take a 1050 dozer andyou put it in the hands of a guy
who's used to operating like aD9R, d8r, d8t, d9t, the way that
they release the power Okay, solet's say you're doing this,
you're taking a blade full ofmaterial and you're pushing it
uphill.
You're going to push it uphill,you're going to broadcast it

(56:35):
over the upside of that hill andthen you're going to let the
machine come backwards down.
The hydrostatic dozer is a morecontrolled environment because
you're controlling each drivemotor individually,
hydrostatically.
Anybody that's ever drove alawnmower or any kind of garden
tractor will understand whatthis means when you have a
hydrostatic versus a manual.

(56:56):
Now, not that the D9 or D10Caterpillar stuff is manual, but
like conventionally with astick.
My point is is the way that itbreaks the power and allows you
to steer as you come back down.
Some of the biggest feedback ina hydrostatic dozer that you'll
ever see on the marketplace isthat when I put this thing in
reverse, it doesn't kind of likefree fall, it doesn't free

(57:20):
wheel Well, it's not going to.
You are throttling it backwards, right.
And it's a very similarphenomenon to anybody that's
drove a Tesla or electricvehicle, where it's like driving
a golf cart.
I put the thing in reverse.
It doesn't mean it's going toroll away.
It means I have to press thepedal and modulate how fast they
want to go right Now.
The other thing about the P-tierdozers, which is neat if you

(57:42):
look inside the cab, there's alot of stuff in there.
There's a shelf in there for alunchbox.
It's got an indentation builtaround it.
You put your box in there.
Cup holders, you know theclimate system inside of those,
along with the seat forcomfortability so you can set
your weight.
You know people always talkabout the big operator.
There's a lot of younger.
You know smaller operators whenthey get in there and they get

(58:04):
on the seat and it feels like arock that can dial that back
down.
Yeah, there's a lot of stuffwith the P-tier dozer.
That is just an evolution ofwhere we're going and at the end
of the day, it just makes iteasier to do a 10-hour workday.
If you're working four tens ona job and that's the way you're
set up it just makes it easierto get through four tens.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Well, a hundred percent, and the other you know.
The other high-tech issue onthis is that all of the P-tier
dozers now are coming with smartgrade, which is they call it
the massless 3D grade control,and that's something we've
talked about before, where itused to take a ton of skill to
be able especially if you weredoing a road or anything to make
it not look like waves on theocean, right on the ocean right.

(58:49):
And now this is something that alot of that math is being done
for you by the machine.
It's just going to make it thatmuch easier for new operators
to get into the business, forwork to be done at a timely rate
with the fewer operators thatare there, and, I think, just
basically make it better foreverybody involved, including
the companies, because whenyou're running a construction
company and you've got a wholejob site, if you're lucky
running at a 5% margin probablycloser to 2% margin in real life

(59:13):
If you ever have to redo thatwork because you had a new
operator that didn't know whathe was doing and you know, put a
whole bunch of waves in there,you're automatically out.
You're out Exactly.
So this is going to, you know,push some of that back.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
But you know, look, if you go back and we're gonna
run over time.
They're yelling at me, pointingat their watch it's like I
gotta go.
The wife needs to take me tocostco listen, they haven't
upgraded their food costs in 20years.
Costco, costco is the backboneof somebody putting their foot

(59:46):
down and saying no, anyways.
That's exactly what I was goingto say but no, what I was going
to say about that is imagineback in the 70s, right?
So you got Jack Nicklaus.
He's hot off the tour, getsinto the 80s and he's like you
know what?
I'm going to design an all newgolf course and this baby is
going to be sweet.

(01:00:06):
We're going to have somerolling hills in there and we're
going to have some rollinghills in there and we're going
to put these sand traps overhere and this is what this is
going to look like.
And he's in there with thedesigners.
The design team is like this isthe best thing ever.
And if this guy hits this shot,just right, he's going to bank
it off the fairway.
It's going to roll left andprep them right to put it on the
grade.
They hand that down to theproject team, project team.
Team project team hands thatdown to the job trailer.

(01:00:26):
Job trailer walks out and saysguys, this is what we're going
to do.
And the operator looks at himand goes you're out of your mind
.
How am I going to grade this?
That was a real struggle in thatera, all the way up into the
nineties.
How are we going to shape thiswithout spending hundreds of man
hours in hand raking material.

(01:00:47):
Not that the 10, 50 P is goingto do that, cause that thing, in
all honesty, is meant to movethe earth backwards around
itself and put material whereyou need to do at an ungodly
rate.
And John Deere puts somethingon this planet that's going to
do it every day of the week.
It's got a ripper on the back.
You'd want to go out and builda golf course.
You're going to build a gorge.
That's what you're going to dowith a 1050.

(01:01:09):
We have a 550P and that 550P isgoing to go out there and say
hey, big brother, you just torethe earth, a new one and I'm
going to clean it up for you andwe're going to be all right.
That's the idea behind it right,that's the idea and anybody
that looks at the dozer world,you have the smaller brothers
and you have the bigger brothersand they all have their place
in between and they're doing ahell of a job with the peter

(01:01:30):
dozer yeah, I think they are.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
I think it's great stuff so all right you don't
even know what to say after thatrant, I don't know it's.
I think it's good.
I think that's a really goodsummary.
There's nothing to add.
Let's uh, let's all go to thelobby.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Let's all go to the lobby.
Let's all go to the lobby toget ourselves a treat.
Delicious things to eat.
The popcorn can't be beat.
The sparkling drinks are justdandy, the chocolate bars and
the candy.
So let's all go to the lobby toget ourselves a treat.

(01:02:15):
Let's all go to the lobby toget ourselves a treat.