Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:10 Good morning, LinkedIn community and energy community. Okay. Let's take a look back. 1964, the world's fair expo was held in New York. 1965. Upscale was created six years later. We're having the first ups go virtual world expo coincidence. I don't know about all this I'm in the conspiracy theory. James, let me, let me bring my brother and co-host in to help me get back on track, Mr. James Cross. How are you? This fine and beautiful morning.
Speaker 2 00:00:50 Well, I'm like always, I'm just glad somebody else has to sit here and listen to grain troves and try not to laugh at him. I can't even take him seriously. I love that made by morning, Joan. Yeah, I don't anymore. I gave up a long time ago. It's obvious by that intro. We have the guys from upscale joining us. Um, you know, y'all morphed into just one. It's like Brangelina, just the guys from Epsco and connection. Uh we'll we'll come up with a catchy name later, but I'm glad you guys are here. I know there's a very specific reason and I won't steal. Jim's probably his first question, but, uh, welcome to the show or welcome back to the show guys. Thank you. It's good to be here a while too. It's been awhile since our, uh, what was our last date? The let's make a deal date, I think was the last thing we did combined together. Really? It's fun to be back though. We didn't tell our audience about that. So, uh, it went well. You were scared and you didn't tell anybody scared. When I watched that, I never watched it again.
Speaker 1 00:02:00 It was fun. That was SGA. That was a great event. We had it just under a hundred people on that event.
Speaker 2 00:02:06 It was a great proof of concept that proved that you can pretty much do anything. I think it was in the precipice with HIV idea that it was capable to do our own. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:02:20 All I can say is, do you guys remember my hair after Tammy put all that baby powder in it? Oh boy. Took me three showers to get it out. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:02:28 You don't get a line and say it was baby powder. It still looks the same. I don't notice any difference. Anyways,
Speaker 1 00:02:37 Let's get on track. We are here today because it's a ups go is holding the first ever virtual expo, which is going to be a fantastic event. I'm thrilled. James does thrilled, uh, to
Speaker 2 00:02:49 Not thrilled face. You got excited,
Speaker 1 00:02:55 Joe, Joe, can you, uh, um, bring us up to speed
Speaker 2 00:03:00 With what the, uh, Joe, do you want to speak first about what the expo is when it is? Because some high level details?
Speaker 3 00:03:06 Yeah. So, uh, about two months ago, Chad and I were on a conversation and we were talking about all the trade shows and I said to him, I go, you know, we should just have a trade show. And he was like, okay. And, uh, and, and this is where we are. Um, we've, we've taken the last couple of months and we put together the platform. Um, everything's going to be run off of zoom. It's a free event. It's December 1st, second and third. Um, we have, I think 26 different presentations, um, uh, lumped in there. We have a couple of keynote speakers, which, um, are some industry guys, bill Cantrell from, um, SGA and Danny Payjack, our owner, um, are gonna kinda open off and kick off the event. And, you know, it's just been pretty neat. We've, we've, we've, like I said, we've kind of just done it all via LinkedIn marketing and Chad's done some, some email blasts and things like that, but the attendance has, seems to be pretty strong and, um, we're excited.
Speaker 3 00:03:57 It's it looks like it's something that's actually going to be, you know, you have to, you have to figure when you start this, when we came up with this idea and we put the website together, Chad put the website together, um, and we put out the links and headed people's are registering. We thought, well, my goodness, what's going to happen if we get to December for a second and third, and we got like four people per class, um, you know, it could be an absolute belly flop, but it, it hasn't been, and we're really, really excited about it. And, um, I know you guys have more questions, so I don't want to drone on and on like Jim's intro, but, uh, we'll uh, we'll uh, we'll, we'll move on, but we're, again, we're excited and thankful and appreciate you guys bringing us on to do a little bit of conversation about it and promote it from your side of the industry and all with, within your network. So thank you, you boys, both for that.
Speaker 2 00:04:40 Our pleasure. Yep. No, that was all the questions. Thank you. That was great. Thanks for having us talk to us later. It was going to have an alarm. It was cool. Guys. You talk about all the logistics behind the scenes where, you know, at AWN, we're no, no stranger to putting on events as well. And so, um, there's the, devil's in the details and there's a lot of details. So I wish you guys luck on that side of it. You know, when, when you talk about marketing, this of that chat, I'm going to look at you. Maybe, maybe, maybe not, maybe I'm looking at Ted, but, uh, when we talk about who you guys are targeting and, you know, who's your ideal clientele that come in, uh, to this expo where where's your head out on that? Um, so, so essentially to me, amongst the 26 people that we have presented, we really have, we have a very broad spectrum of topics. They're all very niche topics to the natural gas utility industry for the most part. But, uh, you know, it's, it's kind of anybody we're, we're welcoming people that really don't know much about the natural gas utility in this street to people that have been around for 30 years, a lot of these presenters are really taking what they do and what their companies do
Speaker 4 00:05:58 And, and just teaching about how their products solve a niche in the industry, essentially. So really, um, it could be a contractor, it could be a purchasing agent. It could be a safety guy, it could be anybody. And we've seen a range of, of different departments in different gas companies and different, just different companies signing up for the expo so far. So I just think it's, uh, it's going to be a really broad spectrum. It's really going to be good for anybody, especially because you don't have to register for all 26 classes. You're gonna essentially break them out. If you go on the website, um, they're broken out that you can register for each one you want to do. Um, and, and we didn't want people to be tied down for two days, things like that. Uh, we tried to be very mindful of the time.
Speaker 4 00:06:38 We tried to take a little bit of stuff from everything we did and, uh, and add it to this, to make it user-friendly to everybody that could be involved. So it's going to be on zoom and managed through there, having used it ourselves for webinars side. Are you going to make those available on demand after the fact as well? We are. You're gonna, uh, if once the, once we do all of this and record those, we're gonna make a, we already have a login page on the website for aware, which is go expo.com, simply obstacle expo. I can't believe I said it right
Speaker 3 00:07:10 Twice. Even
Speaker 4 00:07:12 I figured I'd get to warm up exercises. There's going to be a login page where we're just going to request a small amount of information for anybody to see these presentations afterwards. There's going to be some really good stuff. So,
Speaker 3 00:07:25 And again, keeping with the same methodology, it will be free. So I mean, anybody that can't get to a specific title that because there's some tracks that are going on in tandem with others. Um, so if you wanted to see both, you can view them after the fact. And we thought that that would be something to be able to promote, you know, afterwards when people can still get on at their own leisure. So.
Speaker 4 00:07:42 Awesome. Thank you. I like it. I like it. And there was a little bit of a tidbit in there, I think because Chad did a wonderful job articulating that very hard words before this all began Irish wristwatch. If you say that three times it'll help your brain and your tongue kind
Speaker 3 00:07:59 Of help me
Speaker 4 00:08:02 Connery to get it out correctly. Irish wristwatch, normal guy. Jim, go ahead, Jen. Okay. I want to, you know, you hit on a key point in my world when you started talking about people that are going to come on, whether you're in the natural gas world or not. I see this as a great networking opportunity and that's where a lot of us live in, in the natural gas utility pipeline world. Um, give us a little idea of who's going to be presenting. Can you mention some names so people can get an idea? And again, I just want to preface that whether you're in the natural gas industry or not wanting to do some networking, maybe you want to enter the natural gas industry. It's going to be a great or
Speaker 3 00:08:42 So you're going to cover that. Or
Speaker 4 00:08:44 I think we all, we could all cover it just a little bit of a, you know, every week on CFL, mostly plug one class, that's going to take place per each loss. So <inaudible>
Speaker 4 00:08:58 Today we ran out because we've done so many that we, we figured out that we don't have any left. So, um, but we, we really have some, some industry experts and people that have been around for, for years and years and years, um, anywhere from Frank Rampton with Trenton corporation doing, uh, doing his, uh, his presentation is going to be absolutely fantastic. Uh, we, we got a little, uh, we got a little sneak peek of that completely outside the box thinking, um, just all kinds of all kinds of different people, you know, Dan's, Dan's essentially gonna come on and we're going to have, uh, uh, live connections for life, kind of intro into the entire thing. We, we changed that up a little bit. We thought maybe he'd do a keynote and just speak himself, but he wanted us to kind of interview them. So it'll be fun. Bill Cantrell from SGA just brings a ton of, I mean, a ton of knowledge. Like I was the president of two gas utilities and the president of the SGA. Um, you don't get much, much better than that. Uh, Joe, I know you have a few in Ted, you might as well. You might as well name a couple. We do it every week. So
Speaker 3 00:09:57 I'm, I, I think, um, it's a good cross section. One of the, one of the things we were trying to do with this is a lot of times when you've been in the industry a long time you go, you have the assumption that people understand and know the terminology and the things. So we wanted to dial this back down and make it educational and really specific, um, specifically like a one-on-one class. So people could come in and really just learn and, and, and get some of the terminology that they haven't heard before, or they've have heard before, but they didn't know what it meant. And you kinda gotta go along with it sometimes when you don't really understand it. Um, but we have a couple, I think for me, one of the coolest ones that we have is, um, is Dave Morrow from halo valve or OPCW.
Speaker 3 00:10:35 They have a brand new technology that was developed with GTI. It's a breakaway connector for safety, for shutoffs, for meter sets. And it's just something that's relatively new to the industry. And I don't think a lot of people have, um, a ton of exposure to that. So we're excited to bring him on. I mean, we always have our good friends over at footage tools, um, with their squeeze off tools. Um, you know, John Ryan with some, um, some innovative, uh, uh, you know, uh, safety, safety devices for tracer wire and into, there's just a whole gamut of different things. As Chad said previously, um, one of the things is we're w ups go as a company is so diversified. We work in the underground construction in the fusion and cathodic protection markets. And we have a little element of all of that mixed in. So, um, the presenters are wide array of people, people that we're closed with and people that we, you know, some people that are relatively new to the scene. So, um, I think it's going to be exciting. We're we're if our internet holds up, I mean, caveat, you know, if that dies we're in trouble, but, um, but I think we're okay.
Speaker 4 00:11:37 Teddy probably wants to pump somebody's tires over there, looking at me chomping at the bit.
Speaker 5 00:11:41 I got to make sure I do my part for, uh, you know, we have, uh, McElroy will be presenting like the Chico from McElwee. We'll be presenting the natural gas system from APA. And I, if, if, if you know anything about MACRA where they'd lead green, and when you're selling that things, a system specifically for natural gas, it looks much different than they do for the water market or other industries that they cross into. So that's a really exciting one. I'm looking at, uh, along with Todd tan and Hill SATCO he's, he's promoting a, um, a mud school virtual Montrel. He's actually got the largest time slot of anybody during the expo. It spans over two hours with a half hour break and it so that he can really get into the minerals and all of the things that go into making mud for the horizontal directional drilling process.
Speaker 4 00:12:26 It amazes me that that that two hours is normally at that two hour classes. Don't really like a three-day class as well, three day class,
Speaker 5 00:12:35 But speaking of horizontal directional drilling, we're also going to have Melford bores all. They they're going to be doing a presentation, uh, for their tooling equipment align in there. But I want to reiterate that, you know, all of these presenters that we have coming on here, this is an educational summit. It's not a sales pitch. And we emphasize that, that all of them, all of the knowledge that they're going to be putting out it's for the betterment of the industry for the betterment of the natural gas societies. So I'm excited for all autonomy.
Speaker 2 00:13:05 Yeah. We all are great and very nervous. Yeah. You guys got, yeah. We keep telling ourselves that, well, you know, it's kinda like
Speaker 5 00:13:16 Planning this job party and hoping everybody brings their own boots, you know,
Speaker 2 00:13:22 And they give us some too. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:13:26 The parties on the first 15 minutes of it, you're like, nobody's here,
Speaker 2 00:13:30 But it's hours
Speaker 5 00:13:31 Later. You're like, why are there so many people here?
Speaker 2 00:13:35 I'm hoping we have that. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:13:37 Uh, and a little bit, I'm sure when y'all click the button open registration, there was a little bit of that fear of like, what if 10,000 people sign up? Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:13:44 Yes. It was more, my fear was what if three people sign up really? I mean, I, at that point, you know, when we came up with this idea and I bought the domain the next day and Joe thought I was crazy and I started to build a website and we were like, what if we do only get three?
Speaker 2 00:14:01 Well, that was fun. We learned a lot.
Speaker 5 00:14:04 We learned a lot, guess what? I've been doing the same show, or it'll just be very painful, but that's exactly right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:14:12 But we were really happy with the attendance so far. Um, one of the things that we didn't get to mention, I wanted to mention before we, before we get closer to wrapping up was that this is we, we set it a bunch of times, but this, this event, the whole thing is free to people. It's free to even our vendors as presenters. Um, the one thing that we do have on the website and that we are going to promote through it is a, is making a donation to, uh, our local town of Moravia for Christmas and Moravia, essentially, it's called, so there's a go fund me page, that's set up for it. Uh, and we're just, we're just trying to raise awareness and trying to help our community, that that obstacle is so deeply involved with. So, um, I just wanted to mention that too. And if, if anybody attends the Epsco at the expo, look, I can't even say
Speaker 2 00:14:52 It. Then you got it. That was it. They're essentially, they're going to hear it before and after every presentation too. So hopefully we can drive some, some fundraising for the, the town that's all.
Speaker 3 00:15:02 Well, especially, especially in this day and age, you know, there's a lot going on. And a lot of people that are struggling. So we thought if we could just apply what we've done this program in Moravia for years, this isn't a new concept, but we thought if we could get some outside help and support, we could help the community a little bit more. So, um, every little bit helps, you know, and then we're just kind of excited to be able to push back some of that into the, into the community. It's a small little town, so.
Speaker 2 00:15:24 Awesome. Yeah. That's cool. Well, guys, it sounds like it's going to be an awesome event. Uh, again, what is it? Ups go expo.com pops go expo.com. If you have one to rename it the next day, and then it was like a headlock and 21 bucks on that domain. Sorry. It's not pulling back now. Yeah. And if you have any personal complaints about the website, send them straight to chat. Um, I don't, I don't mind at all. It was my first attempt at a website. So in that regards, if anybody needs some website marketing, I think upskill is now and vet coordination and website develop at least our department conference.
Speaker 3 00:16:15 Yeah. So let's not, we won't put that feather in our cap just yet.
Speaker 2 00:16:19 All right guys. Well, we've been ending with one more question. We've been asking a lot of our guests. Uh, we added it since the last time you guys and us got together. So I'm going to ask that again. Guess each one of you individually. So the last two, I'll get a little bit of a luxury to craft first. I'm going to choose our favorite, uh, person, Ted, um, Ted. Yeah, man. He's so quiet over there. You can tell, he's thinking a lot about how many times Chad has sneezed on this video, but, uh, Ted, do you love what you do?
Speaker 5 00:17:07 I do. I absolutely love what I do. And, uh, I love that question, honestly, because very rarely do you, uh, I guess, uh, I'm probably going to go too in-depth and you're probably just looking for yes, but very rarely do you find a place as an organization that you've worked for and coworkers and colleagues that you work with that it's so harmonious and it's all going towards one goal and it's one directive and I absolutely love what I do and who I do it with. And I'm privileged to have, uh, Larry and curly as my, uh, colleagues in crime and to be together with the organization that we work for. Yeah. I absolutely love what I do. That's a
Speaker 3 00:17:50 Great question.
Speaker 2 00:17:52 I
Speaker 3 00:17:53 Know I'm Mo he clearly doesn't know what's going on
Speaker 2 00:17:56 A wish you made the thing. I know. I think, I think he had his Mo
Speaker 3 00:18:02 Oh, I'm, Larry's Larry
Speaker 2 00:18:03 In tennis curly, which is funny because they both have curlier hair than me
Speaker 3 00:18:09 Have it curly didn't have hair and he
Speaker 2 00:18:10 Was bald. He had, the George could stands out on the sides. That was Larry. Larry. It's unfortunate. When we look at, Oh my goodness. I will say that the question has never went down that trail before three students, fast path was left on touch before, but all right. So, uh, same question, man. Do you love what you do? Yeah, I honestly like through the, through, through the years of being in this industry, cause I've been in the industry since I'm about 20 years old and which means I I've been doing this for 21 years. It's kind of crazy, but, uh, I absolutely love what I do. Um, I actually, through the pandemic, I love a little bit more what I do just because I've, I've actually got to be a father and more of a husband too. And I think that taught a lot and it's really as much as we say about the pandemic and things like that. And it it's thinking and not being able to travel to me, that's probably one of the things that happen the most is a little bit less travel. Don't get me wrong. I'm ready to go back out there and start doing some stuff. But it's a, it's been really nice, but I love what I do. And I love who I do it for. My wife was ready for me to be traveling as well.
Speaker 2 00:19:25 I said it was my opinion, not hers. You said you've been here for 20 years, you know, 21 years, basically, or 20 years. Um, you know, that's something that I don't have. And I've talked about people all the time about how great this industry is. I can't hang my hat on 20 years or something like that or the others can, but, but I got, man, I got here as fast as I could for sure. For sure. I had to have, you know, ma'am Joe, last question, man. Can you say Iris? Oh, see, I can't even say it
Speaker 3 00:19:58 And I'm not even going to try.
Speaker 2 00:20:00 Oh, you love
Speaker 3 00:20:03 Wristwatch. No, I hated it. Um, no, uh, I do. Um, I just, thanks. The guys kind of stole all my answers, so I got the guy the last, but, um, one of the biggest things for me is, um, you know, my life has changed dramatically since COVID. Um, and for those that don't know, um, like I I've gone, I went through a lot of like kind of crazy personal stuff and it's kinda like God giving me the opportunity to like, you know, get, get back on my feet back underneath me. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, totally. And as Chad alluded to, I mean, my relationship with my children is a thousand times better, but that's all COVID stuff. Um, my work, I love it. I get to work with my best friend. Um, I love, and you know, obviously I love Ted, but Chad and I are, are outside of work, best friends. And I get to everyday go to work and work with my best friend and not a lot of people get to say that. Um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's incredible.
Speaker 1 00:20:57 Sorry. I'm <inaudible> your
Speaker 3 00:20:59 Second. I'm going to be a dial. Um, but I get to go to work and share ideas and do fun things like this expo in, in everything, in, in, um, collaboration with my best friend and, and it's, it's just, and it's, it's, I think it's a thing that most people don't ever get to have. And for me, I feel very fortunate that I get to do that. So, um, I don't know. I just, uh, the industry is awesome. The people are awesome. I mean, we can't do this expo without 26 other awesome people that wanted to be part of it and, uh, and be right on board with us and, and walk hand in hand through it and thought that it was a good idea and, and, um, have been gracious enough to give us their time to be able to do this. And we just couldn't ask for a better group of people to work with, including yourselves. And, um, honestly, boys, like, you know, you guys reached out to us and said, Hey, you know, you guys want to do a, you want to do like a little, whatever you want to call this like a, a little pump tire pump free.
Speaker 1 00:21:53 No, all at every time we're talking about whatever it is that we're doing now
Speaker 3 00:21:57 Is that we call this. Um, but I, I just think it's crazy from when we started back in the beginning and, and, and how we've all evolved. Um, and I just want to personally say to you guys, thank you. Um, you know, I think at a time where we were all trying to figure it out, the whole let's make a deal thing that we did together. I think it just kind of gave us a little bit more confidence and understanding that we kind of all are still in this together. And, and the fact that you guys reached out and wanted to do this for us and with us, we just want to say, thank you. So thank you. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:22:24 Thank you. I might need a flashlight with the microphone. Remember easy. Let's take it easy, easy, but after Joe's I might need a tissue. I, James, are you welling up a little bit or is it just me? Just you? Well, let's, you know, guys, as usual, we could go on for hours. Somebody in the other room, Tammy would come and say, aren't you guys done yet is James, you know, the whole day, but we gotta wrap this up. So, um, I, first of all, to the audience being serious, as you could see from, uh, Joe, Chad and Ted, you know, these are real guys in the industry, ingrained in the industry. This expo is going to be really fun and exciting. There's things to learn. There's things to share there's things in network the whole bit. So I would encourage everybody to connect with, uh, Chad, Joe, and Ted, as well as James is myself to please follow us, um, sign up for the expo at ups, go app spo.com and do it. What you couldn't do it I'll just go expo. You got to do it slow.
Speaker 3 00:23:34 I accidentally coined that phrase in the very beginning. And I was like, no, we're not going to name it that, but here we are. So
Speaker 1 00:23:41 Ups go expo.com, connections for life. Forget the fall connection
Speaker 2 00:23:46 For life to
Speaker 1 00:23:47 Connections for life too. Absolutely. So please spend some time like the, like the guy said, if you go in for a session or a half a day or one hour or five hours or two days, do whatever's comfortable just attend, get something good out. Oh, Mr. Mr. Cross has Apollo.
Speaker 2 00:24:04 No, this is how I virtual conference. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna spoil it for the world, but I go sign up for absolutely everything. And then I don't want attend to anything. Then I get all the emails with the on-demand and I watch it while I do other or listen to it while I do other things. So it makes me feel better now that you didn't sign up for anything, Right? I mean, it, it just allows us that ability. It's a gift and it does. And that's one of the things we wanted to make. We wanted to make that very important was that it was accessible afterwards. We thought that was really, really an important part of the thing
Speaker 1 00:24:45 Will be accessible afterwards, too. Besides going live. It will be excellent
Speaker 3 00:24:50 For 49 95. I'm just kidding. Be spray
Speaker 2 00:24:55 Twice. Yeah. It's twice the price. I wanted to say one thing to Chad before we left. That's absolutely terrified right now, but I'm always terrified because you've always made such a big deal about it when you're, we're in the final stages of what will be our new slag for 2021. And it's killing us for now.
Speaker 3 00:25:22 Can we use your old stuff
Speaker 1 00:25:25 And not have enough of it? Don't you
Speaker 2 00:25:30 That you sent last time when it was supposed to go to Joey and my hats with my hat starting to wear out. I don't even wear it anymore. Well, hang tight. It's coming out, coming. Not, not to, uh, you know, beta anybody, but it's, it's going to be cool. I'm excited. It's like, that's the best thing you told me all day. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 00:25:48 Okay. One last thing I wanted to add and we didn't touch on it is that everybody that enters has an opportunity to win a brand new series, six Apple iWatch. So it's just going to be picked at random. We'll do it during the very last episode is going to be one of those spinning wheel deals like we did
Speaker 2 00:26:00 For like James. Just sign up for everything. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:26:03 But you have to be in attendance to sit to win. Um, so I just wanted to say that we're going to do,
Speaker 2 00:26:10 Okay. Tell him to go to the website though. Chad, does it have a space on it or not obviously like gym, like gym stuff.
Speaker 3 00:26:19 I'll just go expo.com.
Speaker 1 00:26:26 You guys know that I'm shopping
Speaker 2 00:26:29 Pam. The chat box with helps go, Hey,
Speaker 1 00:26:35 Thanks guys for joining us. We are really appreciate you doing this for the industry. Having this expo, we do encourage our audience to please take advantage of it, sign up and attend what you can do. You should be very well pleased with it. So these are great people, great organization. Uh, we've known them for a long time and can't be, uh, we're, we're thrilled and happy that they're doing this
Speaker 3 00:27:00 And you guys are in it.
Speaker 1 00:27:03 Well, if it wasn't for a very special event,
Speaker 3 00:27:05 We understand we're not, I'm not giving you a free pass on this one.
Speaker 1 00:27:09 Okay. All right. Maybe LinkedIn community. Thank you for joining us. Please connect with all of us. Follow us, follow connections for life. Go to the expo. Uh, get something out of it. Network, learn a tip or trick. Let's keep safety. Number one with everything. And we will see so many safety messages at the expo too. So let's do that until next time. I'm confident Jim and James, these safe and have a great week. Take care. Everybody love you guys,
Speaker 6 00:27:38 Right? Bye-bye.
