October 13, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, we sit down with Theo Halstead, CEO of The Rollout Crew, to explore how his background in technology and the U.S. Marine Corps shaped his leadership style and passion for transforming the construction industry. Theo shares how his team bridges the gap between cutting-edge software and real-world construction workflows — helping companies adopt technology that enhances performance, productivity, and communication. Theo discusses the philosophy behind Rollout Crew’s “white glove without the posh” approach, the importance of understanding people before implementing tech, and how data-driven solutions are changing the way construction companies operate. From scaling small businesses with digital tools to integrating AI responsibly, this episode dives deep into the intersection of leadership, technology, and continuous improvement.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, good morning everyone, Welcome to another episode of COEOPOD.
I'm your host, Caroline, and today I'm joined by a
very special guest, CEO of the Rollout Crew, THEO Halsted. THEO.
(00:22):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm good. It's a beautiful day in upstate New York,
so I'm doing amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah. How's the weather over there? Is it hot over there?
Because San Francisco's freezing?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, we got your heat because we're up in the
nineties today, So.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's okay by all means, take it. I don't want it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Take it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
All right, Well, let's just jump in here. THEO. I
would love it if you could give our audience a
little bit of background about yourself, you know, the spark
Notes version of who is THEO?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, you know, I started in my career of technology
actually in my Marine Corps days, and you know, I
just fell in love with it from the day those
days because as we were building things out in the
Marine Corps Marine Corps, it was just adopting technology. So
(01:18):
you know that kind of drove me from a technology
perspective that put me down the path where on that today.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, and you know what I mean, I feel like
you know, knowing that about your background as well, you've
always been kind of on the forefront of that, you know,
technology boom, that technology trend. What's that been like? Kind
of been like being like a pioneer in that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It's been interesting as a you know, when I had
the privilege, I'll put it that way, and I've kind
of thought about this over and over again. I've had
the privilege of being born in a time and where
technology started coming out. You know, dot Com came out,
we went from five and a half inch discs to DVDs,
(02:04):
to USBs to the cloud, and I've been part of
it since day one, and it's been amazing to understand
and love the technology where it takes us and how
it improves what we do on a day to day basis.
I think the biggest thing I got to see from
the Marine Corps days was, you know, how technology started
helping communication and leaders be able to make decisions.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Oh one hundred percent. And let's back this up for
a little bit for our audience, because I know all
about what you guys do and I think it's incredible,
but let's give the audience a little bit of context.
What is the rollout crew. What the heck do you
guys do for construction?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The rollout crew for construction is what I like to
simplify is we problem solve technology that the construction companies
were looking for and bring the technology to the business
and help them make sure that can they have the
data and information to be able to make decisions. The
(03:05):
biggest thing the rollock crew does is brings technology, so
construction companies will see the shiny thing by the shiny thing,
want to use it, have no idea how to use
it because they on staff. All they have are construction
people and they're great at building construction from a what
the rollock crew does is bring the technology and the
(03:29):
business together. So we like to have the conversations with
the most junior people and the most senior people understand
the outcomes and how they do their day to day
so we can take the software that they're using and
selected or help them select software so they can have
the and maximize the use of that software for how
(03:50):
they run their business.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, and you know, the rollout Crew's always been known
for its relationship driven rollouts, you know, really being people centric.
But what does this philosophy mean in practice? You know,
like how do we see this in real life.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
The philosophy is what we call white glove about deposh.
We come to the client understanding how they do their business,
and from there we create relationships to improve their current
outputs and using technology and bringing that technology to their
fingertips so we can take things that they used to
(04:31):
take them days or hours and do in seconds from
their iPad, from their iPhone and be able to track
things and have the data so they can make decisions
and you know, control the risk management.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, and you know, I feel like I've seen this
so many times in the industry where it's like, you know,
we have all of these new shiny technology tools, as
you were saying, but a lot of people don't know
how to use them. So then it it becomes kind
of a moot point to be spending you know, thousands, hundreds,
however much you're spending on these amazing technology products without
(05:10):
the proper guidance. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I would say that technology is growing pretty quickly, especially
with the AI, the robotics and everything is changing. From
that side of the house that you know, construction companies
are going to be in a land of data, land
of information without any guidance and I you know, one
(05:35):
of the things that drives me with this company, why
this company exists and why I wake up every morning,
is how do I improve the technology's use within the
construction worlds Because at the end of the days, it's
ensuring the construction companies can do what they want to
do without any hindrance, without any issues, and have it
(05:58):
at their fingertips. They are good at building construction. As
I've stated before, as technology, we can come in and
create the processes that understand from how they have to
absorb it, how they need to use it, and bring
that services to them to ensure they're getting all the
(06:18):
ROI that they're expecting.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, I mean technology is a huge part in that
and also a huge part in scaling. You know, for
a lot of these small companies, they're really relying on
that technology to be able to scale their company, to
be able to grow their company. You know kind of
how have you seen technology play into that? You know,
do you have any examples of companies that you guys
(06:42):
have helped with that scaling process.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I think the biggest, uh, biggest incouse of mind at
this moment, as I worked with a company that was
trying to track the or the building of pipeline and
cross US hundreds and thousands of miles. And what we
ended up doing to be able to track it was
(07:07):
create a data source that provided a very simple input
from the people in the field that then translated it
back to the leadership so they can say, do where
do we need to add? Do we need to add
more people, Do we need to add more resource, you
know from a resources perspective, or do we need to
add more you know, equipment or what what are we
(07:31):
missing to be able to maximize it hour's worth of
day or an hour in a day's worth work. And
we saw that as they were getting the data, they
were finding out things that they weren't even aware of
even when they're in a field doing it from a
manual process. So they were able to take that and
make it sustainable and then improve that from a scalable perspective.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, that's incredible, And I mean that's something they probably
ever would have caught, you know, just pen and paper,
Like think back forty years ago, Like that's probably something
they never would have caught and never would have understood.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Correct, I mean we're talking somebody in a field can
take thirty to sixty seconds put in data, and that
data is being populated back into a database that is
creating reports and utilizing and AI is taking that technology
and saying, okay, what can we do to improve this
perspective on from whatever they're doing in the field.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, And you know, one thing I hear really commonly,
I mean not just in construction, in every industry is
people are worried about AI. And you know, I get
it to an extent. We're worried that, you know, AI
is going to take over our jobs, but in reality,
AI can't work without the humans. That needs those humans behind.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It, right, I mean, AI is coming up, and I
get the fields that individuals have from an AI perspective.
But the one thing that AI is one hundred percent doing,
it's improving what we do on a day to day basis.
It's taken tedious tasks that normally take hours and putting
it down to seconds minutes that can actually improve what
(09:19):
we're doing. And the data that's coming from this is
actually helping us to tweak It's one of my core values,
you know, failure success, And the more data you have,
the better you're able to make those tweaks. And what
the construction industry is missing. Is that technology? Is that data?
(09:41):
And how do we get that in their hands without
a huge dollar amount, without a huge loss in building
out something. No one wants to go build out a
technology and say, oh, we're utilizing it, but you're only
using twenty to thirty percent, which then in turn you're
not getting the r or why I'm the money you
spent Now you think the product doesn't work, So we
(10:03):
need something different. As services, we come in and help
them and bridge that gap for their technology to improve that.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, and that's that's incredible. And I know, you know
I have to ask you this because you are the
technology master, the genius. You know what's going on in
our industry when it comes to technology. What are some
of these emerging technologies or platforms that you're seeing come
up in the industry that are just you know, either
using AI or just innovative as hell? What are you
(10:36):
seeing out there?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Surprising enough, recently in the past sixty days, I've been
able to sit down on a board with lumber and
other technologies out there that were we were talking about
the problems we're having in the field. And one of
the major problems that we're having is resources and tracking
resources and seeing where that technology is owing and being
(11:01):
able to have that at our fingertips versus Okay, hey,
you know they went through HR. I got put in
a file. It's got no the data doesn't have anywhere
to go. It's just in a file. Oh yeah, they
worked with us for two years ago. Yeah, but we
got to go find a file that was put away
somewhere with that data. Having a wallet, having some type
(11:21):
of technology in your hands to be able to say, hey,
this individual's done this and he's got some good write
ups or you know, hey, I found out that he
can do more in this. So it's not just the
word of the mouth of the individual it's working. It's
also bringing that technology to you know, back that up
by past experience and past work. That's one of the
(11:44):
biggest technologies I've seen recently that I'm loving because I
see it in the construction industry where they struggle in
from an HR perspective and tracking somebody's capabilities. That was
the biggest one lately.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, I mean think about like what even like twenty
five years ago, you see these offices just stacked almost
to the ceiling with file cabinets of all of these
past files and everything, and now you know, we have
the cloud. We don't have to go searching through all
those old file cabinets for all this lost information that
(12:20):
just sat there for twenty years. You know.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Well, and I think it's also having it on your
you know, because it's in the cloud, you have it
on your phone, you have the capability on your iPad.
You just pull it down, look at that data and go, hey,
I don't have a problem with this guy moving on
and doing this. Say you know we had someone call
in sick. Does anybody have this experience? Well, let me
go type it in and it pulls up. Hey, here
are four people you have currently on site that can
(12:46):
do if that's a priority of that day.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, and that's huge. I mean I'm just thinking about,
you know, the headache that would take to do that
all manually for all of those back office people. And
that's just I just quit at that point. I'll tell
you that, I'll just I'm out.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It's ours worth of work, or if not week worth
of work to get something back to say hey, did
you find that information? Can this guy do it? When
you can do it at your fingertips.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Exactly, and it's it's so interesting. And I know I
say this every podcast. I am a broken record one
hundred percent, but it is so interesting to see where
this industry is going where we are now, especially in
this technology realm, Like I can't even picture where we're
going to be in five years correct.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And I think that from a services perspective, where we
see where we can help in that side of the
house is construction company is good at building, They're good
at doing what they do on a day to day basis.
They're not the technical people. They're not the people that
can build the reports and understand their language and get
the molks out of it. So construction company and excites
(14:01):
me when construction companies realize we need technology for one,
because it's such a low thing in the construction world today.
We need to understand that technology we're using and the
software companies that are building it are providing the best
product ever, and we can come in and help utilize
(14:22):
that technology for what that company needs. Not from a
general perspective, we focus on general contractors, subcontractors, and owners.
We understand every aspect of what each one need and
how that technology is going to help them on a
day to day.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
That's incredible and I kind of want to switch gears
here and talk about you a little bit more, talk
about your leadership style. You know, we probably have a
lot of people in our audience right now who are
potentially in the same position as you, as you know,
running a company or you know, I know we have
a lot of our audience base who is a little
bit younger looking up to people like you and wanting
(15:03):
to be in that role. So, you know, can you
kind of describe your journey to becoming a CEO? You know,
was this something that you know, you always knew you
wanted to do, or you kind of just fell into
by chance.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Oh, I would say I fell in it by chance.
Being born when I was born from a technology place
gave me a path that where we are today I
would have never guessed twenty thirty years ago when I
first started in the technology as I NDKA before I
joined the Marine Corps did ten years and at that
(15:41):
time when I came in, it wasn't just protecting the
world and doing what the military does, but it was
also using that technology and how do we get the
data that we need to be better at what we
do to be able to do what the military does.
So to be part of that and grow with that
was huge. And then and you know, as I moved
(16:01):
out of being in the Marine Corps, I moved into
a government job for providing them services to understand the technology,
to help them pick the right software, hardware, things they
needed on a day to day basis to do their
job and track what they needed. From where we have
gone in that first ten years of my Marine Corps Grier,
(16:24):
we translist. You know, I worked for a large services
company that had that government contract, and then I started
noticing that there were other aspects in the world that
needed that technology, like banking industry was growing rapidly. From
a technology perspective, it was going under your cell phone.
(16:46):
To watch and be part of that transition was huge.
And then we moved into the fintech company, and you know,
as I moved through those and being a consultant from
a services perspective and helping individuals and companies utilize and
adopt that software, I started to realize that there was
(17:06):
a huge need from a services perspective, and most enjoyment
I get out of that isn't improving that. And then
I had an aha moment that the construction world, I
think a lot of people on here are going to
realize or know that it's behind. From a technology perspective,
it is probably one of the industries that's furthest behind
(17:30):
to date. And helping them get there was a driving
force of what I felt like was going to bring
efforts in my experience, to this industry that can help everyone.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, and you know, I mean when we think about it,
it's crazy how our industry quite literally builds everything in
this country. It is an incredible industry and huge are
so far behind every other industry in that technology adoption.
(18:05):
It's it's almost like backwards if you think about it.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, I mean we the construction world builds everything that
holds that technology holds it, protects it and guarantees that
it can be utilized, it can go from one place
to another. You know people talk about the cloud, Well,
that data needs to get there, and so you've got
to lay the piping down, You've got to lay the
fiber down, You've got to lay all the technology down
that is needed. And these people are building our world
(18:34):
and building our you know, infrastructure with you know, not
the technology. So how do we get that technology out there,
how do we adopt how do we help them adopt
and utilize something that's missing today exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
It's it's such an interesting thing and I could literally
go down rabbit holes like thinking about this and like
researching this. It's so interesting to me. But let's go
to your leadership style. So you know, what are some
of those core leadership lessons that you've learned with managing
you know, diverse teams, high pressure situations. How do you
(19:12):
manage all of that?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, I think the biggest thing for me is my
background and building out my leadership style from the military
was a huge aspect of how I got to where
I'm at today. Being part of the technology growth and
keeping my hand my pulse on that has helped out
a lot. So when I'm listening to everybody, you know,
(19:35):
listening to the problems or you know, trying to be
risk management the best we can, I'm taking that time.
I'm listening to the craft, you know, no matter what
the craft is. And today we're talking about construction and
it's just understand the outcome they are looking for. Understanding
what they did today and how can that be improved
(19:58):
is huge from a leadership perspect then you know it's
you know, listening is number one. Communicating back what you've
listened to, ensuring that you heard it correctly, make any
pivots to assumptions that you might have made, and communicating
that back is huge job, you know. I think everybody
(20:18):
says that communications. Ninety five percent of everything we do
on a day data basis fail, fail fast, and fix fast.
So failure is success. What can you do? Treat mistakes
as information and make the corrections as fast as you can,
and then you know, teach, you know, help the individual
(20:42):
it's might have made a mistake or you know, identified
or risk and and just teach, help them understand where
they're coming from. Don't just solve it for them, but
give them the tools to be better and successful. I
think today, I think my company and my team members
will say that, you know, I'm always asking what tool
(21:02):
can I give you to be better at what you're
doing on a day day basis? And is that just
communicating with me hearing my inputs or is it a
actual tool? You know, what tool can be used? Metaphorically
from that perspective.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, I think one of the things you really said, see,
I'm listening hah. One of the things you said that
really stuck with me was about failing failure. Failure is hard.
I mean, you know, as leaders, you know it's it's
hard to accept that failure sometimes. But then if there's
not failure, there's no growth. So I think you know,
(21:41):
understanding that as a leader, you know, of a team,
of a company, whatever it may be, that there is failure,
there's always going to be failure, but having failure is
not a failure, if that makes sense. Having failure means
there's growth one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I think it comes with stigma. People, you know, think
failure has this huge stigma behind it. It's like, I'm
not upset. I mean just recently I've had to deal
with my leaders and data was not coming in and
instead of just not you know, not understanding the problem,
(22:22):
I just went to him and said, hey, here's a problem.
You guys are boots on the ground. Find the root
cause just fix it. That's all matters. So whatever it is,
just you know, resolve it, fix it. And then you know,
and that brings me to the other things that, you know,
continuous improvement. As a leader, I'm always trying to continuously
improve and how do I do that. You know, we're
(22:45):
talking about technology. Data is huge when improving use improvement.
You know, milestones, metrics, scorecards, things that can be used
to identify risks ahead of everything else. You know, and
we're talking about data. We're talking about technology and every
(23:07):
leader out there needs to know, would love the know
information to be able to get ahead of a risk.
And by having scorecards, by having metrics, I have seen
where it improves small tweaks that I can say, Okay,
can we how do we get ahead of this next time?
And you know, working with my team and realizing that
they're the boots on the ground, so not making any
(23:29):
decision in a silo, asking them to provide me a solution,
and then guiding them on what I see that solution
can be different. Is I think the biggest major leadership
thing that I have found that works on a day
to day basis.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, well, trust me, I have my AI note taker
taking notes right now, and I'm going to implement all
of this with my teams. This is like little nuggets
of gold. So if you're listening right now, you better
have a pen and paper or your AI note taker going.
Since we're talking about technology, but this is you know,
when it comes down to leadership, these are everything you've
(24:07):
just mentioned is spot on, absolutely spot on. And you know,
I've had the pleasure to actually meet some of your
team members and see how you guys operate, and it's
just incredible the kind of people you've brought in the
culture that you're fostering within the rollout crew. But you know,
(24:27):
sometimes it's hard to get to that point in a company.
If you're growing your company, you know, you're thinking about
your culture and who you hire, and sometimes most of
the time it's hard to get a team like that.
So what do you do, you know, to foster that
culture of teamwork, resilience, continuous improvement.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It's listening to the problems and giving the team the
tools that they need, going back to what I was
saying earlier, and not being afraid to make changes, you know,
finding the skill set and helping those team members improve
on those skills, crossover on technology where you when you
(25:17):
have the right team members, you're looking and they're hungry
and they want to know more, Well, what does this
team member do? Why does that team member do this?
And crossing over and understanding and educating not just our clients,
but educating each other, not just working in a silo,
having an open door policy to say, hey, we have
a problem here and you know, listening to all the
(25:39):
you know, solutions and possibilities to fix it.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, you guys are very solution oriented and I love
that about you guys. So focusing on finding those solutions,
and you know, not just in the work you do,
but in your internal teams as well. Awesome. Okay, I
have probably the most difficult question I'm going to ask
(26:03):
you today. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yes, I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
What was the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Gonna stump you.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You know, No, A lot of things go through my
mind when you ask that question. You know, my core
values for the company, the core focus of the company,
and how did I get there? And what do those
all mean? You know, our core focus being there's a
better way, Our core values being we adapt, we create,
(26:45):
we deliver well. To do all that, you have to
do one thing, and it's listen. So I had a
sergeant major back in my Marine Corps days sit me
down and said less talking, more listening. And he said,
I get more done and more production, solid production when
(27:08):
I listen more instead of just being a dictator or
not really hearing the problem less talking more listening. It's
probably the biggest thing I learned in my life.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Well, I'm definitely gonna listen to that. I'm so sorry
that was so cheesy. Everyone, Wow, THEO. This has been great.
Do you have anything else you want to add in here?
Anything about rollout Crew? What you guys are doing? Anything
interesting going on?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Well, we're always doing you interesting things. We're always looking
at technology that can improve our clients are always pressing
our envelopes and asking us, Hey, how to co we
do this? You know, every client is different. What I
will say from the Rollout Crew what we've learned is
every client's different. Your business is important to you. There
(28:01):
are guardrails out there. There's no easy button, but there
are ways to make it easier on a day to
day basis. So, as I stated before, the Rollout Crew's
core focus is there is a better way and there
is a better way for construction technology transformation and what
can we do to help from that. So that is
(28:22):
what we bring to the table. And I you know
I've talked to you before Caroline that you know from
a company's perspective. We we have a lot of technology
out there. There's a lot of new technology coming out daily.
Every day. There's something new, and AI is creating more
and more and more, and the biggest thing is being
(28:45):
able to utilize it and maximizing your use of that software.
That is what the Rollout Crew brings to the table.
That's what we can do and help on a day
to day basis. And I love learning. I love learning
more about the companies and what their visions are and
implementing those visions.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, and if any of you guys are curious to
learn more about the Rollout Crew, talk to THEO. You know,
if you're listening to this and think, dang, I really
need some help with my technology, I should probably call
the Rollout Crew. We will put all of those links
to their website, LinkedIn emails, everything down here in the
description for you, So please feel free to reach out
(29:28):
to them. They do some really great work and I've
seen them firsthand help so many people with these technology issues,
scaling their business really making it a modern day construction company,
I mean, if we want to go general modern day.
So thank you THEO so much for being here every
(29:49):
time we talk. It feels like I'm catching up with
an old friend, so I really appreciate you being here.
I'm sure we'll be talking very soon anyways. But thank
you so much my.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Pleasure, and thank you for your time, and thank you
for what this is bringing in the information that's bringing
out there to the people that need it.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yes, definitely, it's so important and we love to keep
our audience, you know, informed and educated so that they
can make the best decisions for their company and their
employees as well. So everyone have a great rest of
your day. Thank you so much for joining us on
this episode of COPOD. We'll see you next time.
All right, good morning everyone, Welcome to another episode of COEOPOD.
I'm your host, Caroline, and today I'm joined by a
very special guest, CEO of the Rollout Crew, THEO Halsted. THEO.
(00:22):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm good. It's a beautiful day in upstate New York,
so I'm doing amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah. How's the weather over there? Is it hot over there?
Because San Francisco's freezing?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, we got your heat because we're up in the
nineties today, So.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's okay by all means, take it. I don't want it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Take it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
All right, Well, let's just jump in here. THEO. I
would love it if you could give our audience a
little bit of background about yourself, you know, the spark
Notes version of who is THEO?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, you know, I started in my career of technology
actually in my Marine Corps days, and you know, I
just fell in love with it from the day those
days because as we were building things out in the
Marine Corps Marine Corps, it was just adopting technology. So
(01:18):
you know that kind of drove me from a technology
perspective that put me down the path where on that today.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, and you know what I mean, I feel like
you know, knowing that about your background as well, you've
always been kind of on the forefront of that, you know,
technology boom, that technology trend. What's that been like? Kind
of been like being like a pioneer in that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It's been interesting as a you know, when I had
the privilege, I'll put it that way, and I've kind
of thought about this over and over again. I've had
the privilege of being born in a time and where
technology started coming out. You know, dot Com came out,
we went from five and a half inch discs to DVDs,
(02:04):
to USBs to the cloud, and I've been part of
it since day one, and it's been amazing to understand
and love the technology where it takes us and how
it improves what we do on a day to day basis.
I think the biggest thing I got to see from
the Marine Corps days was, you know, how technology started
helping communication and leaders be able to make decisions.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Oh one hundred percent. And let's back this up for
a little bit for our audience, because I know all
about what you guys do and I think it's incredible,
but let's give the audience a little bit of context.
What is the rollout crew. What the heck do you
guys do for construction?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The rollout crew for construction is what I like to
simplify is we problem solve technology that the construction companies
were looking for and bring the technology to the business
and help them make sure that can they have the
data and information to be able to make decisions. The
(03:05):
biggest thing the rollock crew does is brings technology, so
construction companies will see the shiny thing by the shiny thing,
want to use it, have no idea how to use
it because they on staff. All they have are construction
people and they're great at building construction from a what
the rollock crew does is bring the technology and the
(03:29):
business together. So we like to have the conversations with
the most junior people and the most senior people understand
the outcomes and how they do their day to day
so we can take the software that they're using and
selected or help them select software so they can have
the and maximize the use of that software for how
(03:50):
they run their business.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, and you know, the rollout Crew's always been known
for its relationship driven rollouts, you know, really being people centric.
But what does this philosophy mean in practice? You know,
like how do we see this in real life.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
The philosophy is what we call white glove about deposh.
We come to the client understanding how they do their business,
and from there we create relationships to improve their current
outputs and using technology and bringing that technology to their
fingertips so we can take things that they used to
(04:31):
take them days or hours and do in seconds from
their iPad, from their iPhone and be able to track
things and have the data so they can make decisions
and you know, control the risk management.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, and you know, I feel like I've seen this
so many times in the industry where it's like, you know,
we have all of these new shiny technology tools, as
you were saying, but a lot of people don't know
how to use them. So then it it becomes kind
of a moot point to be spending you know, thousands, hundreds,
however much you're spending on these amazing technology products without
(05:10):
the proper guidance. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I would say that technology is growing pretty quickly, especially
with the AI, the robotics and everything is changing. From
that side of the house that you know, construction companies
are going to be in a land of data, land
of information without any guidance and I you know, one
(05:35):
of the things that drives me with this company, why
this company exists and why I wake up every morning,
is how do I improve the technology's use within the
construction worlds Because at the end of the days, it's
ensuring the construction companies can do what they want to
do without any hindrance, without any issues, and have it
(05:58):
at their fingertips. They are good at building construction. As
I've stated before, as technology, we can come in and
create the processes that understand from how they have to
absorb it, how they need to use it, and bring
that services to them to ensure they're getting all the
(06:18):
ROI that they're expecting.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, I mean technology is a huge part in that
and also a huge part in scaling. You know, for
a lot of these small companies, they're really relying on
that technology to be able to scale their company, to
be able to grow their company. You know kind of
how have you seen technology play into that? You know,
do you have any examples of companies that you guys
(06:42):
have helped with that scaling process.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I think the biggest, uh, biggest incouse of mind at
this moment, as I worked with a company that was
trying to track the or the building of pipeline and
cross US hundreds and thousands of miles. And what we
ended up doing to be able to track it was
(07:07):
create a data source that provided a very simple input
from the people in the field that then translated it
back to the leadership so they can say, do where
do we need to add? Do we need to add
more people, Do we need to add more resource, you
know from a resources perspective, or do we need to
add more you know, equipment or what what are we
(07:31):
missing to be able to maximize it hour's worth of
day or an hour in a day's worth work. And
we saw that as they were getting the data, they
were finding out things that they weren't even aware of
even when they're in a field doing it from a
manual process. So they were able to take that and
make it sustainable and then improve that from a scalable perspective.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, that's incredible, And I mean that's something they probably
ever would have caught, you know, just pen and paper,
Like think back forty years ago, Like that's probably something
they never would have caught and never would have understood.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Correct, I mean we're talking somebody in a field can
take thirty to sixty seconds put in data, and that
data is being populated back into a database that is
creating reports and utilizing and AI is taking that technology
and saying, okay, what can we do to improve this
perspective on from whatever they're doing in the field.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, And you know, one thing I hear really commonly,
I mean not just in construction, in every industry is
people are worried about AI. And you know, I get
it to an extent. We're worried that, you know, AI
is going to take over our jobs, but in reality,
AI can't work without the humans. That needs those humans behind.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It, right, I mean, AI is coming up, and I
get the fields that individuals have from an AI perspective.
But the one thing that AI is one hundred percent doing,
it's improving what we do on a day to day basis.
It's taken tedious tasks that normally take hours and putting
it down to seconds minutes that can actually improve what
(09:19):
we're doing. And the data that's coming from this is
actually helping us to tweak It's one of my core values,
you know, failure success, And the more data you have,
the better you're able to make those tweaks. And what
the construction industry is missing. Is that technology? Is that data?
(09:41):
And how do we get that in their hands without
a huge dollar amount, without a huge loss in building
out something. No one wants to go build out a
technology and say, oh, we're utilizing it, but you're only
using twenty to thirty percent, which then in turn you're
not getting the r or why I'm the money you
spent Now you think the product doesn't work, So we
(10:03):
need something different. As services, we come in and help
them and bridge that gap for their technology to improve that.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, and that's that's incredible. And I know, you know
I have to ask you this because you are the
technology master, the genius. You know what's going on in
our industry when it comes to technology. What are some
of these emerging technologies or platforms that you're seeing come
up in the industry that are just you know, either
using AI or just innovative as hell? What are you
(10:36):
seeing out there?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Surprising enough, recently in the past sixty days, I've been
able to sit down on a board with lumber and
other technologies out there that were we were talking about
the problems we're having in the field. And one of
the major problems that we're having is resources and tracking
resources and seeing where that technology is owing and being
(11:01):
able to have that at our fingertips versus Okay, hey,
you know they went through HR. I got put in
a file. It's got no the data doesn't have anywhere
to go. It's just in a file. Oh yeah, they
worked with us for two years ago. Yeah, but we
got to go find a file that was put away
somewhere with that data. Having a wallet, having some type
(11:21):
of technology in your hands to be able to say, hey,
this individual's done this and he's got some good write
ups or you know, hey, I found out that he
can do more in this. So it's not just the
word of the mouth of the individual it's working. It's
also bringing that technology to you know, back that up
by past experience and past work. That's one of the
(11:44):
biggest technologies I've seen recently that I'm loving because I
see it in the construction industry where they struggle in
from an HR perspective and tracking somebody's capabilities. That was
the biggest one lately.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, I mean think about like what even like twenty
five years ago, you see these offices just stacked almost
to the ceiling with file cabinets of all of these
past files and everything, and now you know, we have
the cloud. We don't have to go searching through all
those old file cabinets for all this lost information that
(12:20):
just sat there for twenty years. You know.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Well, and I think it's also having it on your
you know, because it's in the cloud, you have it
on your phone, you have the capability on your iPad.
You just pull it down, look at that data and go, hey,
I don't have a problem with this guy moving on
and doing this. Say you know we had someone call
in sick. Does anybody have this experience? Well, let me
go type it in and it pulls up. Hey, here
are four people you have currently on site that can
(12:46):
do if that's a priority of that day.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, and that's huge. I mean I'm just thinking about,
you know, the headache that would take to do that
all manually for all of those back office people. And
that's just I just quit at that point. I'll tell
you that, I'll just I'm out.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It's ours worth of work, or if not week worth
of work to get something back to say hey, did
you find that information? Can this guy do it? When
you can do it at your fingertips.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Exactly, and it's it's so interesting. And I know I
say this every podcast. I am a broken record one
hundred percent, but it is so interesting to see where
this industry is going where we are now, especially in
this technology realm, Like I can't even picture where we're
going to be in five years correct.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And I think that from a services perspective, where we
see where we can help in that side of the
house is construction company is good at building, They're good
at doing what they do on a day to day basis.
They're not the technical people. They're not the people that
can build the reports and understand their language and get
the molks out of it. So construction company and excites
(14:01):
me when construction companies realize we need technology for one,
because it's such a low thing in the construction world today.
We need to understand that technology we're using and the
software companies that are building it are providing the best
product ever, and we can come in and help utilize
(14:22):
that technology for what that company needs. Not from a
general perspective, we focus on general contractors, subcontractors, and owners.
We understand every aspect of what each one need and
how that technology is going to help them on a
day to day.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
That's incredible and I kind of want to switch gears
here and talk about you a little bit more, talk
about your leadership style. You know, we probably have a
lot of people in our audience right now who are
potentially in the same position as you, as you know,
running a company or you know, I know we have
a lot of our audience base who is a little
bit younger looking up to people like you and wanting
(15:03):
to be in that role. So, you know, can you
kind of describe your journey to becoming a CEO? You know,
was this something that you know, you always knew you
wanted to do, or you kind of just fell into
by chance.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Oh, I would say I fell in it by chance.
Being born when I was born from a technology place
gave me a path that where we are today I
would have never guessed twenty thirty years ago when I
first started in the technology as I NDKA before I
joined the Marine Corps did ten years and at that
(15:41):
time when I came in, it wasn't just protecting the
world and doing what the military does, but it was
also using that technology and how do we get the
data that we need to be better at what we
do to be able to do what the military does.
So to be part of that and grow with that
was huge. And then and you know, as I moved
(16:01):
out of being in the Marine Corps, I moved into
a government job for providing them services to understand the technology,
to help them pick the right software, hardware, things they
needed on a day to day basis to do their
job and track what they needed. From where we have
gone in that first ten years of my Marine Corps Grier,
(16:24):
we translist. You know, I worked for a large services
company that had that government contract, and then I started
noticing that there were other aspects in the world that
needed that technology, like banking industry was growing rapidly. From
a technology perspective, it was going under your cell phone.
(16:46):
To watch and be part of that transition was huge.
And then we moved into the fintech company, and you know,
as I moved through those and being a consultant from
a services perspective and helping individuals and companies utilize and
adopt that software, I started to realize that there was
(17:06):
a huge need from a services perspective, and most enjoyment
I get out of that isn't improving that. And then
I had an aha moment that the construction world, I
think a lot of people on here are going to
realize or know that it's behind. From a technology perspective,
it is probably one of the industries that's furthest behind
(17:30):
to date. And helping them get there was a driving
force of what I felt like was going to bring
efforts in my experience, to this industry that can help everyone.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, and you know, I mean when we think about it,
it's crazy how our industry quite literally builds everything in
this country. It is an incredible industry and huge are
so far behind every other industry in that technology adoption.
(18:05):
It's it's almost like backwards if you think about it.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, I mean we the construction world builds everything that
holds that technology holds it, protects it and guarantees that
it can be utilized, it can go from one place
to another. You know people talk about the cloud, Well,
that data needs to get there, and so you've got
to lay the piping down, You've got to lay the
fiber down, You've got to lay all the technology down
that is needed. And these people are building our world
(18:34):
and building our you know, infrastructure with you know, not
the technology. So how do we get that technology out there,
how do we adopt how do we help them adopt
and utilize something that's missing today exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
It's it's such an interesting thing and I could literally
go down rabbit holes like thinking about this and like
researching this. It's so interesting to me. But let's go
to your leadership style. So you know, what are some
of those core leadership lessons that you've learned with managing
you know, diverse teams, high pressure situations. How do you
(19:12):
manage all of that?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, I think the biggest thing for me is my
background and building out my leadership style from the military
was a huge aspect of how I got to where
I'm at today. Being part of the technology growth and
keeping my hand my pulse on that has helped out
a lot. So when I'm listening to everybody, you know,
(19:35):
listening to the problems or you know, trying to be
risk management the best we can, I'm taking that time.
I'm listening to the craft, you know, no matter what
the craft is. And today we're talking about construction and
it's just understand the outcome they are looking for. Understanding
what they did today and how can that be improved
(19:58):
is huge from a leadership perspect then you know it's
you know, listening is number one. Communicating back what you've
listened to, ensuring that you heard it correctly, make any
pivots to assumptions that you might have made, and communicating
that back is huge job, you know. I think everybody
(20:18):
says that communications. Ninety five percent of everything we do
on a day data basis fail, fail fast, and fix fast.
So failure is success. What can you do? Treat mistakes
as information and make the corrections as fast as you can,
and then you know, teach, you know, help the individual
(20:42):
it's might have made a mistake or you know, identified
or risk and and just teach, help them understand where
they're coming from. Don't just solve it for them, but
give them the tools to be better and successful. I
think today, I think my company and my team members
will say that, you know, I'm always asking what tool
(21:02):
can I give you to be better at what you're
doing on a day day basis? And is that just
communicating with me hearing my inputs or is it a
actual tool? You know, what tool can be used? Metaphorically
from that perspective.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, I think one of the things you really said, see,
I'm listening hah. One of the things you said that
really stuck with me was about failing failure. Failure is hard.
I mean, you know, as leaders, you know it's it's
hard to accept that failure sometimes. But then if there's
not failure, there's no growth. So I think you know,
(21:41):
understanding that as a leader, you know, of a team,
of a company, whatever it may be, that there is failure,
there's always going to be failure, but having failure is
not a failure, if that makes sense. Having failure means
there's growth one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I think it comes with stigma. People, you know, think
failure has this huge stigma behind it. It's like, I'm
not upset. I mean just recently I've had to deal
with my leaders and data was not coming in and
instead of just not you know, not understanding the problem,
(22:22):
I just went to him and said, hey, here's a problem.
You guys are boots on the ground. Find the root
cause just fix it. That's all matters. So whatever it is,
just you know, resolve it, fix it. And then you know,
and that brings me to the other things that, you know,
continuous improvement. As a leader, I'm always trying to continuously
improve and how do I do that. You know, we're
(22:45):
talking about technology. Data is huge when improving use improvement.
You know, milestones, metrics, scorecards, things that can be used
to identify risks ahead of everything else. You know, and
we're talking about data. We're talking about technology and every
(23:07):
leader out there needs to know, would love the know
information to be able to get ahead of a risk.
And by having scorecards, by having metrics, I have seen
where it improves small tweaks that I can say, Okay,
can we how do we get ahead of this next time?
And you know, working with my team and realizing that
they're the boots on the ground, so not making any
(23:29):
decision in a silo, asking them to provide me a solution,
and then guiding them on what I see that solution
can be different. Is I think the biggest major leadership
thing that I have found that works on a day
to day basis.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, well, trust me, I have my AI note taker
taking notes right now, and I'm going to implement all
of this with my teams. This is like little nuggets
of gold. So if you're listening right now, you better
have a pen and paper or your AI note taker going.
Since we're talking about technology, but this is you know,
when it comes down to leadership, these are everything you've
(24:07):
just mentioned is spot on, absolutely spot on. And you know,
I've had the pleasure to actually meet some of your
team members and see how you guys operate, and it's
just incredible the kind of people you've brought in the
culture that you're fostering within the rollout crew. But you know,
(24:27):
sometimes it's hard to get to that point in a company.
If you're growing your company, you know, you're thinking about
your culture and who you hire, and sometimes most of
the time it's hard to get a team like that.
So what do you do, you know, to foster that
culture of teamwork, resilience, continuous improvement.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It's listening to the problems and giving the team the
tools that they need, going back to what I was
saying earlier, and not being afraid to make changes, you know,
finding the skill set and helping those team members improve
on those skills, crossover on technology where you when you
(25:17):
have the right team members, you're looking and they're hungry
and they want to know more, Well, what does this
team member do? Why does that team member do this?
And crossing over and understanding and educating not just our clients,
but educating each other, not just working in a silo,
having an open door policy to say, hey, we have
a problem here and you know, listening to all the
(25:39):
you know, solutions and possibilities to fix it.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, you guys are very solution oriented and I love
that about you guys. So focusing on finding those solutions,
and you know, not just in the work you do,
but in your internal teams as well. Awesome. Okay, I
have probably the most difficult question I'm going to ask
(26:03):
you today. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yes, I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
What was the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Gonna stump you.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You know, No, A lot of things go through my
mind when you ask that question. You know, my core
values for the company, the core focus of the company,
and how did I get there? And what do those
all mean? You know, our core focus being there's a
better way, Our core values being we adapt, we create,
(26:45):
we deliver well. To do all that, you have to
do one thing, and it's listen. So I had a
sergeant major back in my Marine Corps days sit me
down and said less talking, more listening. And he said,
I get more done and more production, solid production when
(27:08):
I listen more instead of just being a dictator or
not really hearing the problem less talking more listening. It's
probably the biggest thing I learned in my life.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Well, I'm definitely gonna listen to that. I'm so sorry
that was so cheesy. Everyone, Wow, THEO. This has been great.
Do you have anything else you want to add in here?
Anything about rollout Crew? What you guys are doing? Anything
interesting going on?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Well, we're always doing you interesting things. We're always looking
at technology that can improve our clients are always pressing
our envelopes and asking us, Hey, how to co we
do this? You know, every client is different. What I
will say from the Rollout Crew what we've learned is
every client's different. Your business is important to you. There
(28:01):
are guardrails out there. There's no easy button, but there
are ways to make it easier on a day to
day basis. So, as I stated before, the Rollout Crew's
core focus is there is a better way and there
is a better way for construction technology transformation and what
can we do to help from that. So that is
(28:22):
what we bring to the table. And I you know
I've talked to you before Caroline that you know from
a company's perspective. We we have a lot of technology
out there. There's a lot of new technology coming out daily.
Every day. There's something new, and AI is creating more
and more and more, and the biggest thing is being
(28:45):
able to utilize it and maximizing your use of that software.
That is what the Rollout Crew brings to the table.
That's what we can do and help on a day
to day basis. And I love learning. I love learning
more about the companies and what their visions are and
implementing those visions.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, and if any of you guys are curious to
learn more about the Rollout Crew, talk to THEO. You know,
if you're listening to this and think, dang, I really
need some help with my technology, I should probably call
the Rollout Crew. We will put all of those links
to their website, LinkedIn emails, everything down here in the
description for you, So please feel free to reach out
(29:28):
to them. They do some really great work and I've
seen them firsthand help so many people with these technology issues,
scaling their business really making it a modern day construction company,
I mean, if we want to go general modern day.
So thank you THEO so much for being here every
(29:49):
time we talk. It feels like I'm catching up with
an old friend, so I really appreciate you being here.
I'm sure we'll be talking very soon anyways. But thank
you so much my.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Pleasure, and thank you for your time, and thank you
for what this is bringing in the information that's bringing
out there to the people that need it.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yes, definitely, it's so important and we love to keep
our audience, you know, informed and educated so that they
can make the best decisions for their company and their
employees as well. So everyone have a great rest of
your day. Thank you so much for joining us on
this episode of COPOD. We'll see you next time.
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