Episode Transcript
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Welcome to the old man hour with your host, Jim and James. And then this session, we'll be talking.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: About insoles and ailments and being sure.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: To wash your new clothes before you wear them. And why is that, Jimmy?
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Because a uretha formaldeh hide.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: And I know what you're thinking. You're like, hey, I learned about the Urethra when I was in high school health class.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: This is a serious thing. Once I learned about this.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Tell me more.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: New clothes that I podcast, okay? This is what podcasting is all about.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: I am a fanatic. There's some things that I am very passionate about, and any new clothes that I receive, I must wash them physically have them laundered, not dry clean. Well, some things have to be dry clean, but like shirts and all those things that are very close to the skin, they have to be washed because there could be uretha formaldehyde in them because they use that to help ship them around the.
So when James picked up our shirts for the game night, because we're hosting game night this week, we have to get into the whole bit why we're even here, to be honest with you, in a second, I'm on a tangent, but that's okay. Let me just keep rolling. I said to him over the phone, 900 miles away, did you wash them? And he goes, yes, allegedly I did. So I'm going off that he allegedly did wash them, and I will be in much better shape and not have a rash. I don't want a rash, James, because that will just add to more problems.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: It's a terrible visual.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: James, let's bring us back in.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Where are.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: We are in Montgomery, Alabama.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I got in late last night, stuck around in indicator. My little one had a bunch of end of year stuff going on, and honestly, I wanted to be around, so I took a late flight, got in late last night, so kind of dragging this morning. If you saw the visual, you'd realize that I'm in a hoodie because.
Still setting up today. So I'm an embarrassment to the brand.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: No, you're not.
[00:02:41] Speaker D: You look absolutely.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: You're real.
This is what you are.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: I have a collared shirt on underneath, but I didn't want to put my Jacket on. I didn't know how tense setup would be. You never know, right?
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Well, you never know.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: But you took care of everything.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: I wouldn't say care. We're a team. We did it together.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: I looked over, and Jimmy was laying in the floor talking to a client. So doing customer service. I was building our light up our display. I was going to walk over and grab something. My coffee was over there, and I didn't want to go over there and him give me a hard time.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Well, it turned about his fair play, because I have historically always been famous that when the display is about 90% complete, I'll pop in and say, hey, I'm here to help, guys, what can I help with? Oh, we got it by now.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: You're a pro of that. That is your secret.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Know you don't make it this long in the industry without knowing when to weave and when to Bob.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: It's called situational awareness. It is ultimate guide to it.
Jim, this is our second, right? This is your second as well.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: But yes, believe it or not, out.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Of all of our years, 36 years of this show, and we've been to two of them, I know says a lot about us.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Well, I feel guilty at times. Randall Hand and Jonathan and I have been friends back. I mean, I'm going back 8910, twelve years to the Louisiana 192 195 pipeline safety conference. And they've always said to me, come on over, come to our show.
And I feel bad remiss that it's taken me that long. I was on the docket to come in 2020. And then Covid happened.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of like you telling me about LGA for so long.
I'm sorry I can't make it out to everything, but I got here as fast as I could. This is one of those shows for real. I mentioned it in a promo this past week.
This is like a little LGA to me. And I mean that it's not as Alabama is smaller, they're doing smaller things. I just mean, the draw of LGA is the amount of content. They just cover a lot more ground. Right.
They bring in 192193 195. I mean, they're very intentional in that. Not that they don't do it here in Alabama, but there's only so many operators. Right. So that show has just grown. This one's doing the same. And that's a testament to the folks.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Involved, and it really is a testament to the know, knowledge sharing about this event. And I had mentioned it earlier this morning. Yes. This is the Alabama Pipeline Safety conference in conjunction with Anga, Alabama Natural Gas association. We need to dive in more of that because this is the first year that they really melded the two names together. Generally, Anga will hold their meetings at the first part of the week and the pipeline safety conference at the second part.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: And when you brought it up, so last year we had put out a graphic that said we would be at the Anga pipeline safety meeting. They were, whoa, whoa, whoa. We got put in our place. No, I'm just kidding. But it's true. And so we want to remind our P's and Q's. So this morning we asked Jeff.
He's heavily involved in Anga and has been for a long time. He knows the history and everything. Jeff, Isabelle, our president at Energy World Net. And so he was explaining it. So instead of us paraphrasing poorly, we're going to have Jeff on to tell it directly. I think it would be a better thing. Jeff loves it.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: He'll do it beautifully, as Jeff always does. Jeff loves to tell a good story like that.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: We haven't had Jeff on a while and I'd love to sit down with him. I was talking to him the other day, me and you had been talking, Jim, but I would love to have Jeff on a couple of parts to talk about some of the early times at energy world.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that'd be fun.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: He has great stories that, where everybody was in the same room type of scenarios. Right. And that's crazy.
Back in the day where there were twelve people and they were all working in one room.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: And again, energy world net is going on three decades, 30 years in the industry, and that's well before OQ came around. So OQ has been around now for what, 19 ish years, 1920 years. And so you're saying, well, what did energy Worldnet do before that? Again, our core training and same thing. Training and education.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Before it was OQ. Yeah, we were OQ before. It was cool.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: It was.
I love telling that story because a lot of people are like, wow, I had no idea. It really goes to our roots with, again, some of the most important safety topics in the industry relate to education and training. I mean, everything goes around that. That's kind of this epicenter of so much.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: And so this is where people, just to reorient people, where we're at, what we're doing, this is where people in Alabama and beyond come annually to get up to date information in and around pipeline safety. This is their Mecca. And so we were at LGA, where it was Louisiana's. This is Alabama's version. And so for a lot of these people, this is where they're getting that training and knowledge. We talked about those echoes of spreading that knowledge when they get back. This is where they're getting that information. This event is so important for Alabama. It's great to see Anga and pipeline Safety Commission really working together to make this even more valuable. I can't help but think this is going to help.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And when we look at a lot of the folks that are here, again, we have operators from border to border here. And that's know you would expect to see that. And also, you know, we do have people from so far this morning, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas.
A lot of people are taking this information that they gather here this week and then taking it back. So it is definitely getting outside of any echo chambers and it is flowing and going, I would say definitely throughout the southern United States. Easily to have said that.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaking of some of that knowledge that people are coming here for, there's a lot of buzz here lately about the new leak detection rule, the NPRM coming about probably, I would argue, some of the most topical things going on that's on the agenda. I know we're going to hear a lot about that. We were talking to Warren Miller earlier. There's a lot of regs coming.
We were talking to Jeff this morning at coffee. There's a lot of reg changes coming. There are be neat to sit down, listen to some of these know, Jeff and Crystal are speaking this afternoon. I'm going to sit in on that because Jeff's my boss and I love him.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: He's both of our boss.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: I'm going to sit in the front row. Oh, yeah. I'm going to take notes.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: I'm going to look like I'm taking notes.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Really? Him and crystal together speaking. That's a dream for me.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
The knowledge between those two that it's going to be a part of it is going to be fantastic. Again, some of the subjects, too. One of the things that caught my eye was the material verification. And when we talk about that, that's, that sound like, well, it sounds like tracer to me, but in the ground. So tracer, my old love language, the asset management, which is more equipment above the ground and the equipment that you use in the process, the material verification, that's really more so for the pipe and the valves and the such. There's actually a separate valve topic going on here, too. But a lot of these items are in the ground, which is being an.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: X operator, more like tracking and traceability, right?
[00:11:17] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Discussion?
[00:11:18] Speaker B: Well, absolutely. And when you think about material verification, gosh forbid that down the road somebody says, oh, with this, whatever, we need to maybe validate these pipes that were put in. And if you are tracking and tracing, you can know that those pipes are put in on this day at this location. And this is the things that happened with that process. So when you think about it, you're linking up people that are doing the project, the equipment that's actually maybe on Pe, doing the butt fusion and that process, and then the actual pipe itself, the material in the ground. And you connecting all those is really important.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: I got you.
I know they're talking drug and alcohol this week, which is a hot topic as well. I know a lot of operators are asking us what's the scoop? So we're here learning just like everybody else. We got some answers. We think we understand. We're going to validate some of that. So a lot of information to share. We're going to sit down and learn a lot this week.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: We are. And what you just said is a really good micro example of what's going on here. You said we have some pretty good ideas, but we want to get verification and deeper. This morning, over the last 2 hours, I heard so many people saying the same thing. Hey, I need to learn more about this, or I know that there's something coming up with the notice of proposed rulemaking. I want to learn a little bit more. I need to get up to speed. So that really is a common theme here where people come in, and this is a term that you've probably heard me say. Many. You've heard me say it, James. But when you're consciously incompetent, when you know what you don't know, that's a very good place. Because again, you know, you don't know something. And the idea is to become consciously competent where you know what you know. Oh, I do. I've used it for favorites. I know people make fun of me, but it really is an interesting bingo card, I think the Jim Schauer bingo. The Jimmy bingo card. Oh, it probably is.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: It probably is, Jimmy. We've seen a lot of our friends already. We'll see a lot more this week. Looking forward to sitting with Mason Matthews, learning about some of the work going on at Anga. Absolutely. And he's a big part of seeing how his new gigs going also. I saw Dennis Coon a little bit earlier from a star. Yeah, I'm hoping he'll sit down with us. I talked to him earlier in the year and he said that this event meant a great deal to him and that he had been on this agenda for twelve or 15 years. I want to ask him about that. Yeah, I remember him talking very fondly about this event. So I want to see if he'll come on. He's never joined us, so that one would be good.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: He sat with us so many times, but when we offer the mic, he's like, I'm good.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: He's always busy.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Did I see old Bobby Purvis this morning?
[00:14:23] Speaker A: I did. I bet we'll get Bobby on. He's got some new things going on and always doing great things. In Daphne, I saw Huntsville. Who else is here? We saw a lot of our fellow vendor friends.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Miller pipeline is here.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: We saw Jason Garland with EgW this morning, first thing. Greg Carter at Mesa.
Mesa bass engineering, right?
[00:14:53] Speaker B: No, mesa.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Is it Mesa, yeah.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Mesa bought bass. So now they're all part of the mesa umbrella. So hard to keep fluid and dynamic. It's fluid and dynamic.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: I can't wait to sit down with Jeff and crystal as well. These sessions are opening up, so, Jimmy, I think we need to capitalize on it.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: I think we do, too. I think we need to jump on it because they're coming out, they're looking at us. There's a lineup.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: So many awesome folks.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: They all want to be on the podcast, right?
[00:15:19] Speaker A: A. It's going to be a fun way to wait.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: A shout out to Magnolia River. Nikki and Heather running the logistics for this.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: Part of the good news with the Anga, with Anga support, too, is you get the resources to really pull it off. So kudos to that group. Hey, we're going to bring some people on.
Stick around.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Let's get them on.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: And you go. Yeah. I was blessed to be on the world famous, world famous. Jim. Shower's personal.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Would you just stifle yourself, Edith?
[00:15:51] Speaker A: His personal gift to the industry.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: I feel like Archie bunker right now.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: Edith, we have such a great dynamic, don't we?
[00:15:58] Speaker E: You're like Ying and yang.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: We just take shots at each other. No one realizes it, Bobby, but we are taking shots at each other the whole time, all day. And it's fun.
It keeps us young.
[00:16:11] Speaker E: That's good.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: We need it.
This morning, sleeping in this hotel bath.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: I woke up more of me hurt than didn't hurt in your eyes like.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: I'm like, falling apart. This is my last show of the year. You can tell it.
[00:16:28] Speaker E: I was thinking about my cousin Vinny when he kept trying to jump venues, trying to sleep. When the train blows at two in.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: The morning, are you staying here at the.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: There? The train's right across the road. I heard it a few times.
[00:16:44] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:16:44] Speaker E: It's hard.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Everybody thinks the road life is the place to be because they see the Instagram version, right?
Yeah. I don't post my pillow situation or.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: The I travel with my own pillow.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: Now let's address the elephant in the room and that is embassy suites. This week I'm just going to call them out. All right. No free sponsors.
We joked and said the water pressure is so bad you almost need a cup in the shower. We're having some issues over there. I don't know if it's the top floors and it's gravity fed and we need to be at the bottom, but something ain't right.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: I don't normally take a 45 minutes shower just to get the so far wet. Good gracious.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Ain't going to slip in that one.
[00:17:31] Speaker F: I tell you what, there's some water.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Conservation going on over there.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: All right. That's all of our content we got on Hilton. We're trying to get transferred to marriott points wise and that's our plea.
Tag them in the comments.
[00:17:45] Speaker E: Tag them in the comments. Got to love it.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: All right, let's relax.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: All right. So I'm going to take us back in time. Do it. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: You're wrong.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: I think so. Last year we were at this conference, correct? Right.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: It was this one.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: We met really like formally at this conference. I remember the time after we spoke and we keynoted and talked the first time about claiming your seat at the table and what that looks like and how different it really is these days because that may mean sitting on boards and working in groups like this. It may mean training in settings like this or back home with our people.
That topic was about creating opportunities within the natural gas space to really motivate and getting more people and keeping the people we have in there. And you came up to us after and you said, I love what you guys are doing. I love the message. Do you all ever come and talk?
And I said, let's talk after this. And after that, me and you got on some meetings and really synergized on the topic of leadership and how important it is right now.
For those that don't know you, real quick introduce yourself. And I want to talk about that journey because you've been on a journey specifically this year, but even beyond that.
[00:19:11] Speaker E: Yeah. Bobby Purvis. I am the operations manager of Daffy utilities.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Shout out.
[00:19:17] Speaker E: Started my utility career 1999 working entry level at mobile gas. That's where I started.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: When did we have Bobby on? Was it like February maybe? It was one of the first shows of this.
Wrapped up.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah, we wrapped up December, really, with beating and talking with Bobby. And that's when we kind of kicked that off earlier.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: I believe that you were the first episode of this season.
[00:19:46] Speaker E: That's fantastic.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: And now you may be the last one.
[00:19:49] Speaker E: It might be the last one.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: That's awesome. So how's it going, Daphne?
We went out there. When was that, May?
I don't know. When did we?
[00:20:01] Speaker E: I think it was April. April. Y'all came in and did soft skills training.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Dr. Matt Joyner, who all came because.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: I couldn't make that one. Was it you, Dr. Matt? Was crystal there or not?
[00:20:11] Speaker A: No, she couldn't make it either. Okay. So Matt and I led a group there, probably of, what, 15 people or so.
Awesome group. So soft skills are essential skills now. Soft skills are so important. I mean, they've always been, but now we have a name on them, and we came there, and really it's about emerging leaders. Right? We have tons of leadership already in place, but then we have a new group coming in, and how do we really set them up for success?
Tell them a little bit about the. And I know we had you on and you talked about it, but what do you all call it? The leadership academy or leadership group.
[00:20:52] Speaker E: Right. We started the leadership Academy week.
I came on in 2015 with Daphne Utilities and saw there was a gap that we needed to fill. Pitched it to our GM. He was on board. We taught it during the day to our existing supervisors and managers. We had such a great response that some of the frontline workers know, could you offer it to us? So we started offering at night. And I've been running that academy for eight years now, so it's been a great success.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: And you could see it. You weren't able to be there, but Matt and I commented on it, on traveling home, and we talked about, like, you could see it in the people.
It takes a while. We've taught this in different settings. It takes a while sometimes for a room to warm up to soft skills. Right. And this group went in it, and it was so neat to see the group really start working. We do a lot of group work within it, and you could tell that this wasn't new territory.
It was something they're used to. And that helped kind of set the tone and the pace for it. And I think that's a testament to the work you're doing out there, Bobby, for sure.
[00:22:05] Speaker E: And one of the challenges we're looking at now, and it's in every industry, it seems like, but especially in the natural gas industry, is there is a learning curve because we're having the gray wave of lots of retirements.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Silver tsunami they call it.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's easy.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Now we're all silver surfer, right?
[00:22:24] Speaker E: We're all getting a little.
But to me, it's an opportunity. So you get young people coming in and if you can convince them, stop looking at your hourly wage and start thinking about what I'm becoming instead of what I'm making, and then try to flatten that curve. And that's been our initiative when we're coming into 2024. That is my initiative right now. And I have tasked everybody with this. Let's flatten that curve, that learning curve. We do that through intentional training. And that intentional training means we're going to take time out of the day. Everyone's so busy. But let's take time and really invest in these people because they need it. If they want to invest in this industry, we've got to invest in them. And so that's what we're going to do this coming year. Really excited about it, and it's every aspect. And when we're talking about Anga and what they want to do, as far as training and really getting to the details of a job description and then job details, I'm really excited about that because that means that's going to impact us. We can use these tools. So I'm really excited about it.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Let me ask you a quick follow up question in regards to the silver tsunami.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Like, this is the first you heard of it?
That wave has been hitting you in the back of the.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Oh, it's been hitting me for a while.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: No.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Some of the biggest challenges that I've been given for myself is the transfer of knowledge. The things, I hate to say it, but the mistakes that I've made over the last 25 years and learned from my mistakes and don't want to repeat those. That's what I look at for the next generation coming in. How can they learn quicker from the things that I've learned, a better way to do things, and I don't want them to make some of those same. I have to call them mistakes or learning experiences or whatever, opportunities for improvement. Well, yeah, those are all the politically correct things, but let's just face it, if you fail at something one time, you're going to be or make a mistake, you're like, I'll never do that again. But I don't want them to do that same mistake. Are you taking that into.
[00:24:24] Speaker E: We are. So one of the initiatives I have is, do you have a second initiative? And so what I've noticed over the few years is my doorway is cluttered with people knocking on the, hey, do you have a second?
There's a gap of knowledge. And so with that is I am now once a week I'll come up with a topic of things that I've experienced. Maybe it was a failure, maybe it was a really good success. And I hadn't shared that with the management staff. I'm sharing this with them and say, this is my challenges. These were my challenges. This is what I did to be successful. And I've done this consistently through. Once I realized this is how I'm successful at this, I've continually gotten better at it and more efficient. I'm sharing this with you so you don't hit the same bumps. So I started probably two weeks ago, started sending out once a week. I'm going to continue doing this. It's a little new to them. I said, but create a folder because there's going to be a question in there. You won't have to run down the hall and say, hey, do you have a second? Go through there. Put topics on them. You can go in and we need.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Bobby on a thumb drive. Yeah, that's what he's saying.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: That's what I'm hearing.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: All of Bobby's mistakes documented in great detail on the thumb drive.
[00:25:39] Speaker E: But, you know, there's success.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: That's called your HR file, Bobby, you.
[00:25:43] Speaker E: Have successes in your career and you want to highlight those, too. And I think as, I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like sometimes we take it for granted that the guys know what, you know, they don't, they don't have those experiences. So we really have to push that knowledge out to them.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: So I'm going to challenge that a little bit further, too, because I think there's an opportunity there that we miss sometimes because we're talking about the mistakes and the opportunities for improvement and making a folder, basically, you can go back on. And sometimes our people don't know how to act when things go well.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: That's a good point.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: And when we nail it success wise, you nail all your things and you strut off. And some of those stories and what I'm hearing is stories across the board, good, bad, ugly, indifferent, those cherries and pits, if you will, are huge because some of those moments when you get cocky and you think you've done everything right and you're bulletproof are when we get complacent and that normalization of deviance in a way and things start to crumble.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
Just something that sparked with that comment that you said, sometimes when we do something really well and it works great, and we're like, nobody else has seen this, and I just did this the best way possible. Sometimes they're like, I did it great. And, hey, letting the walls go down and let them say, hey, here's the way that I did it. And I'm seeing that here. I'm seeing that here at this conference.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: It sounds like what we're doing here.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: The walls are going down and people are saying, hey, I've tried this. And instead of trying to keep it to themselves and keep that success on themselves, they are sharing. And that's what a great knowledge sharing environment this is right here.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Bobby, you're one of my favorites here. I'm so glad that I got to meet you here last year. Thank you, brother. We've ran each other several times, and that's a good problem for sure.
[00:27:38] Speaker E: Thank you all for having me.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Appreciate the work you're doing here in Alabama. We'll be back.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Well, we are.
Day zero.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: No.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Oh, that's a PSMS shout out to the PSMS group on LinkedIn.
You know who you are.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: What?
[00:27:59] Speaker B: What are you looking at? You okay?
What do you say?
[00:28:06] Speaker D: Are we hot?
[00:28:07] Speaker B: I don't know.
Hot mics.
He's a perfectionist. I love that about him. He's a perfectionist.
That can be helpful.
He's a perfectionist.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Not with him. You got to go the other direction with him.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Lucy Goosey.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:27] Speaker C: Yang and yang.
[00:28:28] Speaker D: Got to balance it out.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: You know what? That's exactly what we call each other. Ying and yang.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Because he calls me that. It's weird.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Okay, I do.
[00:28:37] Speaker D: That's why you're here. That's why you're needed.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: My deficiencies, he fills those in. His deficiencies, I fill those in. So we fit together like Ying and yang. Like the visual kind of. Jim, when did we meet? Let's get off the sucker. Let's get onto something else. LGA. When was it? 2010, maybe. Could have been 13 years ago.
Maybe.
We've known each other for a long time.
[00:29:04] Speaker D: I started working for Southern Company in 2011.
[00:29:11] Speaker F: Something like that.
[00:29:14] Speaker D: Maybe 2012. No, it was 2011. Started working with him in 2011, but I think I probably would have been gone to LGA, maybe 2012.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that's where we first started. That's when we first met and became good friends from thereafter. Before we get too far into it, Jim, would you please introduce yourself to the folks out in the audience?
[00:29:37] Speaker D: Jim Denham, Southern Company Pipelines gyms.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Have to stick together with a James. We throw a James in know.
[00:29:43] Speaker D: That's right. And this is my.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: You know, it's the most popular name in the world.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: What is?
[00:29:53] Speaker A: James.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: James. Seriously? I didn't know that. Still.
[00:29:57] Speaker E: Yep.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: All right.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: I didn't know that party.
[00:30:01] Speaker D: I thought we had to stick together. I didn't realize we were really.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: No, you got pretty good odds. You don't even have to stick that close together anymore. There's a bunch of us.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: It's true. I wouldn't down it. I'm kind of flattered by it. I mean, I'm honored that one of my names is part of that monstrosity.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: Let it get your head too big.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Okay, that was over and I'm back to normal. I'm just the gym of Jim and James.
Alabama pipeline safety conference. You and I met at LGA 192 195.
Built a great friendship over the years. Yeah, you guys met there, too.
But you've been coming to this one also, one because you live in the state. But also explain what the Alabama pipeline safety conference means to you and how.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: You take it back.
[00:30:52] Speaker D: Well, typically you get FEMSA and good presentations, good presenters who are here.
But beyond just the presentation and what's on the official agenda, it's getting to network and meet and hang out with and catch up with friends and colleagues who you only see at conferences.
But it's in those discussions in between the agenda presentations and whatnot that you really get to develop a rapport and find out who can do what for me. What can I do for you? And I think that has carried over into all of the conferences. And just you become a better version of you in whatever aspect you do. Is it drug and alcohol? Is it ok? Are you in the ditch? Are you managing people? Whatever the case may be? I was having a conversation with Mason Matthews earlier today, and he's just like, hey, if you need to vent, I'm here for you. And it's like, yes, exactly.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: No kidding.
[00:31:53] Speaker D: Sometimes you need somebody who can understand the battles that you're facing in the same echelon of a network, outside of spouses and whatnot. There's a rapport and a camaraderie. We're all facing the same regulatory battles, new changes.
So I wouldn't miss this for the world, really. If I can make any conference, that's great. But being close to home, we're now in a new venue here at the Renaissance, which is great.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:25] Speaker D: I haven't stayed here since I took the Alabama bar exam back in summer of 2012. So it's like, hey, wow, here we are very interesting.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: So you were here for your bar exam?
[00:32:36] Speaker D: Yeah, stayed here, took the bar here.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: Beautiful venue.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: I don't think a lot of people know this. I do know this, that you are not only hold a law degree, but you hold an engineering degree and an MBA. Am I correct in that?
[00:32:49] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: Very early in our friendship, I learned that and I was just like, wow, it's like Kimberly Joy Harris. We were with her at American Innovation, AI World. And Kimberly's like, I think I have eight degrees now. Or I'm like, james and I were like, did we pass high school or is that still.
Let's keep that on the download.
[00:33:12] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: Well, appreciate you, sir.
A lot of good work in this industry.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Always, my friend.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Thank you, brother. Think you are a fan of the show or something.
Hang out around the show a lot. Yeah.
[00:33:27] Speaker D: I wasn't even born a James. I changed my name to be a.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: James in honor of the show.
We call all of our fans.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Oh, well, there you go. There goes another gym.
[00:33:39] Speaker D: There goes another gym.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Thank you, everybody.
You are a professional.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: He comes from. It's because he outsourced it.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: Asa is the champion on all.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: You know, some people are proud when their kids get to an age and they can mow the grass. But Jeff gets proud when you run a podcast or something. Yeah, that's marketing.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Is that done?
[00:34:09] Speaker C: No, but he's going to. He's highly interested in marketing and media and he's got all the recording equipment, so he does a lot of music stuff with his friends.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: That's awesome. I didn't know that.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: He's got good mics.
[00:34:25] Speaker C: What are the one DJI? The small portable ones. So he's using that right now.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: He's just.
[00:34:32] Speaker C: And we're going to get him educated. You and Clinton and Ashley all agreed to help do a little education.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: That's wonderful.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: He's going to sit in and listen.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: That is about claiming your seat at the table and actually walking the talk of mentorship and knowledge sharing and passing it down to the generations. We give keynotes on that. And that is heritage.
Absolutely.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: It's funny you said that because the other day you mentioned it to me because in that same week we had spoken.
I had went to the school and led a session with. I remember that leadership class locally. I had mentioned the Christmas parade and.
[00:35:16] Speaker F: You helped with that.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Or we were doing that. But in the keynote we label several things that are ways that traditionally people don't think now about thought leadership or getting involved or claiming your seat. Comedian boards we were in that all these different ways because I think traditionally people think just certain ways, right. You got to be a leader, you got to be involved, be on a board like that. We're on a lot of things that we don't get paid for and we volunteer our time. Right. Locally, community is a lot bigger than it is maybe than what we thought of. You think local to where your brick and mortar is now with social media, with podcasts, all this. There's so many ways to be able to evangelize and get involved in our industry.
How's that for a tangent?
[00:36:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Where's your tangent card?
[00:36:10] Speaker C: I don't know.
I didn't bring it. Yeah, no tangent card.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: That's why we need Asa to get his podcast up so we can.
[00:36:20] Speaker C: Yeah, we've talked about that. I'm not sure where that would go, but he's definitely interested.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: It'd be fun to have.
[00:36:27] Speaker C: When you're young, you get to explore like that, right?
[00:36:28] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: When you're old sometimes.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure when you're old.
[00:36:33] Speaker C: I mean, hey, you just taught me how to take a photograph.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: I mean, if we could teach him or somebody, I couldn't do it. But like the program that runs all the pocket, I mean, somebody like ASIC could flourish in that. I'm sure they would pick that up. Oh, is he okay?
[00:36:47] Speaker A: He's going to be okay. He's a rock star.
[00:36:51] Speaker C: He's pretty smart kid.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: He's got a good bloodline.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Look at this right here.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Speaking of Jeff, do us a favor. Introduce yourself to folks back home, might not know you. Who are you with?
[00:37:01] Speaker C: Jeff Isbell, president of Energy World Net. From our home base right there in Decatur, Texas.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: Love it.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: So you're new to the energy industry?
[00:37:10] Speaker A: How many years?
[00:37:11] Speaker C: 17 and a half years.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: 52 times. What is it Jimmy from 17 and a half.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: That's a lot.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: I thought he was going to do it.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: 790 something.
[00:37:24] Speaker C: Impressive.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: Jeff already just off the top of my head.
[00:37:28] Speaker C: Not my first Rodeo. How's that?
[00:37:30] Speaker A: I love it. Not your first rodeo here at Anga either. And Alabama pipeline safety conference either.
[00:37:35] Speaker C: Yeah, correct. Yeah. Been around since the very beginning. So 2000 for me, beginning 2006. When I first started with Energy World net, one of my very first trips was to Alabama, went to leak City and then later went to a spring conference and been coming down here ever since.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Very neat. So Jimmy and I are on year two, two years in a row, I.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: Must add, for this conference.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: So we just barely saw it for the first time last year, but we were impressed. I've been saying, and I hope they don't see it as offensive, but it's like a little mini LGA. It feels so cool.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: I don't think that's offensive at all because like Randall and Jonathan, that's where I got to meet those folks. It was probably eight, nine years ago as know, part of the state. They were over there to learn and that's where they were telling me about. And I apologize to them profusely because I was ready to go in 2020. But then Covid happened, so then it got pushed off. Pushed off. And that led to last year. And it's an absolute fantastic conference.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Well, that's where we met them. And they invited us out last year to keynote here, was actually at the LGA event. So again, I don't see it as an association or an event. Sometimes you'd think, oh, well, we're bigger. No, this group is awesome. Yeah.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: And the interesting thing I want to lean into, Jeff, right now, as far as the Anga Alabama pipeline Safety department kind of collaboration that this year has taken place for the.
They've always been kind of side by side during the last 30 some years, but now it's more combined. Is that a correct statement?
[00:39:18] Speaker C: Yeah, that's correct. So it's really a partnership. It's a relationship between the two, and it's a very positive thing. So it's encouraging people to do the right thing. There's accountability that has to happen, and that's a responsibility of the PSC. Right. There's definitely a line there that says, you're accountable, and I have a responsibility to hold you accountable to the safety and the integrity of your systems. But that can come along with a collaboration to help people get better.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:39:46] Speaker C: So if all you do is hand out citations, it's hard to get things moving forward. But when you have that collaboration, then, and Wes just talked about it in his discussion about the work that they've done at fair hope. Got to ask questions and you have to be afraid not to fail. Right. So you really can push your limits that way when you have people that want to see you succeed. And that happens through collaboration at events like this? Yeah, literally right here during the event it happens.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Or on the couch over there, or during the sessions. This room is full behind us.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: What did we hear yesterday, attendance wise?
[00:40:27] Speaker C: Over 300.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: 300 people?
[00:40:30] Speaker C: Yeah, a little bit down from the year before. Primarily different location. And there's always things that go on in the industry, so events and timing and everything else, but still over 300 is a great number.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And all synergized on the same thing. That's what people don't think about at these shows is you go to an SGA, AgA, an APGA, it's everywhere. So you get a big, this is a large saturation of people that are all in pipeline.
It's not, it's know these folks and a little bit of this and not your target. These are, people are all passionate about this. And so when you see a group like this together, things happen. And I know you're a part of Anga and do a lot of work there.
You got some shout outs in a lot of these sessions for your work there. What's some of the work that you're excited about at Anga?
[00:41:27] Speaker C: Yeah. So obviously one of the things that we're always worried about is the workforce making sure that we have good, qualified people to do the work and to help people understand the opportunities. So Bobby, you guys were just talking with Bobby Purvis, and he's got a real passion for leadership, but also for encouraging the younger workers coming up through the ranks and making sure that they know the opportunities and they have the path forward and the encouragement to move through their careers. So working with Ango, we have some projects going on around a job. Workforce analysis. Right. Understanding what are the knowledge, skills and abilities and the metrics that go along with that towards getting the desired results. And how do you educate and train the new workforce and the progression of the path that you go through to get them to the level that they need to be. So we've done a phase one study of all of that metrics and background and information.
Dr. Catherine Webb is running that and we're getting ready to do a phase two. And then when we're finished with that, we're going to start developing training, hands on training, that all the utilities that are part of the AngA membership can start using to help, both for selection criteria. How do you pick the right people that have the mechanics to do the job, and then how do you train them to get them to the skill set that they need to be successful in their career?
[00:42:45] Speaker B: That's exciting that that's happening. I really like that because that's walking the talk and it's actually putting things.
[00:42:53] Speaker C: Into, you know, the Anga has, as part of their overall charter, is knowledge and education. And so we have a training and education committee. And so it's been hard at times with pandemic and other stuff that has gone on. But we spent the last five years really being deliberate about trying to identify the training and education needs. And so a lot of it has to do with the day to day training that you need to get your immediate job done. This is great on this project because it's a longer term plan for how do we build the skills we need. The heritage that Jimmy talked about for the future is starting to develop.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: That green from Scottsville.
Jeff, I've seen it.
It seems like a creepy uncle or something. I'm over here watching. But I don't get to travel a lot with you, Jeff.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: No, we don't.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: We don't. Jimmy. Don't. We're out a lot.
[00:43:49] Speaker C: Kind of strange, isn't it?
[00:43:50] Speaker A: It is. All the travel. You would think we'd have more overlap, but we honestly don't. And so seeing you here and knowing how much work you've put into Alabama and Anga and everything, it's been neat to see you get to reconnect with so many people.
It's been like a family. And I know the last year or so, you haven't been out. So it's kind of been nice to know. We were cutting up with Warren Miller, we were cutting up with Jimmy. We were cutting up with Jonathan and Randall and everybody in between.
It's got to be nice to be out here.
[00:44:24] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. Anytime you can reconnect. And it's hard for folks like us where we travel across the entire country, you get spread pretty thin at times. And so it's always nice to have a home base. When we go back to the office, then we can connect closely and encourage ourselves. And then when you come out here to some folks like Alabama, which I just love to death, then it's encouraging as well, right? You get a lot of work done and you feel safe and you feel at home. And we have that. You were talking about the different groups, and we have that. That's kind of the dynamic in the industry is some of the groups that we're involved in are national. Right? So we see a lot of people over a very broad area, but some of them are very regional or state focused. And so you have a family within a family. We're all part of a larger national group, but at the same time, we have those state groups that are that closer knit family horror family model.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: I would say since we have over 300 people here, I think we, as a collective goal, because I feel part of this team, and that's the team of the over 300 people that are here, I'd like to see 350 or 375 next year. And I think it's really maybe you to give out a challenge, but not just for people that want to come and learn, but also there's people out there, I would imagine, that probably have some good knowledge and expertise that they could also share here because that's really what this is. It is knowledge sharing. As much as we may share to help teach people, we're also getting that back at the same time or in the same conversations.
[00:45:59] Speaker C: Yeah, you talk about subject matter experts on that, and it's not about being a technical expert that where I'm going to get up and give a presentation on a very finite mechanic of how you go about doing something, obviously.
But what we've seen is people giving up and giving their story. So what you guys do, for example, with coffee, with Jim and James. Right. It's sharing stories of Wes.
100%.
[00:46:26] Speaker A: His cold open this morning was fantastic.
[00:46:29] Speaker C: That's exactly it.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: That makes everybody perk up and go. That was me four years ago. And people can relate to me right now. Yeah, it keeps me up at night. Those stories are everything.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: So to your point, the challenge is do participate, do contribute.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:46:46] Speaker C: Your story means something to everybody. It's encouraging to hear what other people have gone through, how they went through those challenges, how they overcame those challenges, the people that they needed to rely on. Wes did a great job of giving shout know Mike and Mark and Jimmy that were there for him as he had questions and moved through that process. And that's what the collaboration and the connectedness of these kind of events mean for everybody.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: Everyone has a voice, a lens and an ear.
[00:47:18] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: And being able to bring that to life. Well, Jeff, appreciate all the work you do here in Alabama. My pleasure, of course. Energy world net. But I'll tell you, one of my highlights of being here was getting to sit down, have coffee with you yesterday morning. There's nothing like it. We don't get to cheers a lot, but we're going to make up for that this year. Appreciate you, brother.
[00:47:42] Speaker F: My pleasure.
[00:47:43] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: It doesn't matter.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll hug him later. We'll be back.
I forgot you're a musician.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: Tell me about that. So what do you play?
[00:47:58] Speaker F: Guitar. Started playing guitar in 1976. My uncle used to play and taught me how to play so they'd babysit me so parents could go out and be parents or be married.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll get into the drug and alcohol program a little bit.
[00:48:14] Speaker F: Yeah. No, so he would teach me because I was one of those little kids.
[00:48:19] Speaker D: I was mom and dad's boy, where.
[00:48:20] Speaker F: He didn't like being away from. And he was like, oh, you like guitar? So he sat there and showed me some notes and been playing ever since. Played in the rock band in the course. I had a little bit more hair back then, but I will not share those pictures.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: Oh, I was going to say, we need to see those pictures.
[00:48:38] Speaker F: There are some that are out there, and I don't.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Can I google that?
[00:48:43] Speaker A: I bet there's a couple of people that might be willing to.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: Who would we get?
[00:48:48] Speaker A: There's some people.
[00:48:49] Speaker F: Nobody you guys know, really? Anyway, we're going backwards in our conversation.
[00:48:55] Speaker E: Okay.
[00:48:56] Speaker F: No, but I still play. I write music and stuff like that.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: Just for personal use, but that's cool. That's a great release.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: Do us a favor. For those that don't know you, introduce yourself. Let them who you are and who you're with.
[00:49:10] Speaker F: Okay. Dennis Coon. I'm currently with Astar Incorporated.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: We have been friends since. He had hair, and I was 20 pounds skinnier. How's that sound?
[00:49:21] Speaker A: Were you all in the hand?
[00:49:23] Speaker B: I was also, like, 40.
[00:49:24] Speaker F: If you're 20 pounds skinnier, I was 40 pounds.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: I'll be very transparent. So when Dennis was at Bear for we can say who we were with before.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think there's any problem.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: So when he was at before, you know, we're competition, so we run a lot of same places. It is what it is. And we were always going different directions, but fast forward. And when he made the move and went to a star, he came up to me, I think we were at an SGA event, and Dennis comes up, and I don't know that we had ever really shook hands.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: Not formally.
[00:50:05] Speaker A: No, formally, right. But again, we had always been the same places. And he came, he said, you know who I am, right? And he didn't. If you know Dennis, it's funny because he was being funny, and I said, I know who you are, and we laughed.
[00:50:22] Speaker B: Did you guys stand like this?
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we were both just like. We were guarded. Okay.
[00:50:27] Speaker F: I think it was more like this.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: We were filling each other out.
Anyway, he left, and somebody mentioned that it was a new salesperson or something that we had. Now, who was that? And I was like, well, we used to one of those stories, blah, blah, blah. It's like, interesting. Well, now we've seen each other a million times since then, and we've been wanting to get you on the show mean again. We've ran together for a long time. You guys know, everybody in our company knows you. Jeff, you, name dropped jeff. Here just a little bit ago when you were on stage, there's so many great folks, you're one of them in this industry, and we've been wanting to have you on.
[00:51:08] Speaker F: Yeah, definitely honor and pleasure to be here with you guys. And like, the time, I think, was the time that we know this was before I transitioned out. I was still at air force, and we were here in alabama at the time. And jeff comes up to me and he used to always poke at me.
[00:51:22] Speaker B: Oh, I bet he did.
[00:51:23] Speaker F: He goes, oh, we can't stand within 5ft of each other, we've got that.
And so we'd always just joke and we'd bow up at each other and joke around too. And this one time we were sitting out, I don't know if you were here or heard, I thought you were, but he goes, hey, dennis, can you take a picture of us? And I said, sure. It was, you know, energy world net group.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:45] Speaker F: So I snapped the picture and just give a turn. Come on. In this picture I said, you're trying.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: To get me fired.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: We have some funny. Know, the other day in that same vein, where were we? Louisville. And I was sitting with jason garland and eric menard, and we were all having lunch together. And somebody walked up and was like, oh yeah, happening right now. It was just kind of funny. But we've become friends as much as anybody.
[00:52:18] Speaker F: Well, in those moments, the way I look at it is essentially, even though if we're at a company, course now we're not at parallel companies, but if we're at parallel companies, we're still in it for the same thing for the industry. I mean, we're all here about pipeline safety.
[00:52:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:36] Speaker F: So you have resources I may not have, and you always got to keep that communication over. So that's one of the great things about, and that's a good thing about this place too, as well, is everybody's so willing to share what they can share for safety.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Go ahead, James, go ahead.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: I was just going to say, we talked about this, I think. Where were we at LGA, somewhere along the line.
And you had mentioned that you had been here quite a long time to this event in particular. How many years?
[00:53:08] Speaker F: I want to say somewhere around twelve years I've been coming to this one.
[00:53:13] Speaker A: It's crazy.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: And why? Actually, it's a baited question, but let the folks know why. I mean, for twelve years, there's got to be something really strong that keeps bringing you back.
[00:53:23] Speaker F: I think it's the passion around this industry, the safety aspect of it all these people, the room is packed and there's work to do completely, but they're coming here to get information to either help better their programs, or maybe they're going through some lean times and they need to pick up some certain things. So it's a big networking thing. All in the interest of keeping the product in the pipe and supplying it safely to our customers.
I think that's my main driving factor, is everybody shares the same goal. We may have different organizational goals and missions, but we all share the same goals.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: I would absolutely agree with you. And again, the camera doesn't do it justice right now, but you could see all the subgroups of people doing the exact.
They're just talking and they're sharing ideas. And when you can see somebody's face when they say, that makes sense, or I can probably look into or use that.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: We were just in a session right after yours, Jeff and crystal spoke, and they had situations built in. And I said, look at this room. They light up when you bring out situations, scenarios. Yeah, they were bringing. And you could see them like, yeah.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: It'S like a little quiz. You had to choose suspend, disqualify, or. I mean, that was excited.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: We're not all nerds behind it all.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: But that's the fun stuff. And you gave a great presentation today. Absolutely. On drug and alcohol. And you want to give a quick synopsis of what you have uncovered and what you shared today, just so people get a little bit of an idea and maybe they can do a little bit more research into it because it was very fascinating.
[00:55:01] Speaker A: Oh, sure.
[00:55:01] Speaker F: Well, thank you. So one of the key things that we talked about today was the drug and alcohol program, but the contractor compliance piece of the program for monitoring that contractor piece, which is hard to do when you have. It's easier to manage your own internal program than it is the contractor program.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:55:19] Speaker F: There's a lot of solutions out there, and a lot of the operators, especially the smaller ones, sometimes think, well, if I use this solution, am I covered? So that's what we were kind of going over.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Like, you also have to trust what goes like.
[00:55:33] Speaker F: And then the new rules. There's been a plethora of new rules that have been dropped, and a lot of the folks here, and this is another reason why I love coming here, is to share what little bit of information I have.
[00:55:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:55:44] Speaker F: I mean, our job is to stay in the regs daily, so when something drops or somebody's thinking about putting pen to paper, we find out about it. So that way we can help and.
[00:55:54] Speaker A: Share that information to, and a lot of people don't understand how much of that is part of the engine itself, of the rulemaking because of commenting and getting involved and all the parts of it is education, advocacy behind it. Learning about that, like a few weeks ago, was it a few weeks ago, last week in DC. Right. You were there and that, and making those echoes at places like this, being able to come back. Sit. I saw you over there sitting with folks, and I know they're asking you like, what's happening in DC? What can we be prepared for? What should we be getting ready?
That's the work that we're doing.
[00:56:40] Speaker B: People want to know what the draft is, right? Exactly. The draft is where it's at. Yeah.
[00:56:46] Speaker F: How's this going to affect me and both financially and personnel?
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:51] Speaker A: It's hard enough right now in this economy with everything we have to deal with. If we're going to change the rules and we have to retrain or rework our systems, we want to know, get ahead of where we find out those things.
[00:57:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:08] Speaker F: Like you said, with the networking, everybody at all these conferences, especially the state ones, people come up. The gentleman that came up earlier, I wasn't talking about engineering functions, but he brought that up. He says, well, so since you know what's going on in New York, how is this going to affect us? And then how does that translate to drug and.
[00:57:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, Dennis, appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you guys over at work. You do partners.
[00:57:34] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:57:35] Speaker A: The work that we do.
[00:57:36] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:57:37] Speaker A: Hey, we'll be back about the.
It's official, Jimmy.
[00:57:46] Speaker B: I'm getting that framed.
[00:57:48] Speaker A: That is getting framed straight from Femza. I am qualified. Oh, Lane Miller signed it. No, he did.
Listen.
[00:57:57] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
Our buddy, Lane Miller. That's awesome.
[00:58:02] Speaker A: That is cool.
[00:58:03] Speaker B: He wasn't even here and he still signed it. That is fantastic. I got to send him a text tonight. I'll take a picture.
[00:58:08] Speaker A: It's impressive all the way from. Where is he at?
[00:58:12] Speaker B: I think he's out of the Oklahoma office now, I believe.
[00:58:17] Speaker A: What do they call that?
[00:58:20] Speaker B: Yeah, the training center.
[00:58:22] Speaker A: But I don't know what it has a word.
[00:58:23] Speaker B: TQ or TQ. TQ.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:26] Speaker B: Lane, we see you qualifications, brother.
[00:58:28] Speaker A: Thank you, Oklahoma City.
[00:58:31] Speaker B: He was actually in Washington this week. He just flew back the other day.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: Was he at GPEC last GPAC? Big stuff. Another big week here at the Alabama pipeline safety conference. Epic week now sponsored by Anga.
[00:58:49] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: I guess it's confusing, but not confusing because, again, I made the mistake myself and a lot of the same people. So it was cool to be able to clear that up this week with no other than the president himself, both presidents. Jimmy. Jimmy. Jim Green from Scottsboro, the reigning champion, president of AngA, and then our president of Energy World Net, Mr. Jeff Isbell. Yeah, both of them talked on that.
[00:59:24] Speaker B: They did talk about it. More of a collaboration, a joint effort. Yeah.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: So cool. Again, why not? Makes so much sense. You want me to throw a challenge out there in the middle of it?
[00:59:34] Speaker B: Throw it.
[00:59:34] Speaker A: You know what would just make the trifecta?
[00:59:36] Speaker B: Let's do it.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: Is if bice and Alabama, eight one one joined the fight. In all three, it was a damage prevention and pipeline safety. Right.
[00:59:49] Speaker B: Slow down there.
[00:59:50] Speaker A: All in the same boat doing great things.
[00:59:52] Speaker B: I like it.
[00:59:53] Speaker A: I like it, too.
[00:59:54] Speaker B: I like it.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: So you all make that happen.
[00:59:56] Speaker B: Our PSMS magnets have to be displayed proudly.
[01:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think this is the audio. I think this is going to be the audio out.
[01:00:06] Speaker B: Oh, it is.
[01:00:07] Speaker A: Yeah. They can't see that, but we are pseudo sponsored by PSMS, the LinkedIn group. They don't really claim us, but we claim them.
[01:00:17] Speaker B: We do. We claim them every day. We're proud members of that group. That is a vibrant group. I think they're just closing in on 2000 members.
[01:00:25] Speaker A: That's quite the benchmark. And if you know that journey, you know how quickly they've went from 1000 to 2000 over the last what seems like six months. That's quite a growth spurt. That's a hockey stick we call in the business.
[01:00:38] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely.
[01:00:40] Speaker A: Thoughts on this week? Jimmy, give me your top two burning hot sports opinions.
[01:00:48] Speaker B: I'm going to say the knowledge sharing with some of the rules that came out, the one that sticks in my head has to do with the assets.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:01:02] Speaker B: The assets are near and dear to my heart. I thought that was interesting. Drug and alcohol is always interesting because that's a very.
[01:01:08] Speaker A: Dennis Coon was a highlight, for sure. He's a great speaker. Funny, but very topical.
[01:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, very topical. And his point was very good in drug and alcohol. Real quick, just where so many states have legalized marijuana. And how does that affect the industry? That is very much drug testing. And just to make sure we're all understanding the federal requirements of drug and alcohol testing, which was really big to me, materials, also, I'm very interested in material verification. The pieces that go into the ground, traceability. That's very important.
[01:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Jeff and Crystal did a fantastic job. It was nice to be with the crew this week. Again, you and I and Jeff don't get to travel a lot no, we don't. And Crystal really didn't travel a lot this year in comparison to years before. And so getting to be with all of us was cool.
Just really having to break some bread, having lunch together, all those things are great for our team anytime we can. Still a moment, you've been on the road together. Steve's been on the road with us. But having this group together was awesome.
[01:02:15] Speaker B: It was absolutely awesome. And it's a micro example of everything that was going on here. We had over 300 in attendance. And when you talk about those little micro, there was a lot of organizations here that, again, are a little bit bigger and some of their people aren't in the same office. So they were doing the same thing that we did, that they were getting together. And then the waves of that rolled out where people were talking about a lot of the subjects here at the seminar, at the conference. And you could just see a lot of collaboration, where people asking questions after certain presentations, they were really starting to peel back the onion, as I like to say, and really dive in deep to it. So we saw municipality and municipalities getting together, operators and operators getting together.
[01:03:02] Speaker A: We heard that friend of a pipeline a lot, that mentality, safety has always been paramount. It's neat to say, see a different type of safety. Safety. As we talk about a lot, you and I, when we talk about mental health and stuff, folks feel safe. They bring down those walls and they can have those conversations. It's a different type of a different wrinkle on safety that maybe we don't normally attribute safety to, but that psychological safety to be able to have those conversations. Agreed?
[01:03:37] Speaker B: Absolutely. Agreed.
[01:03:39] Speaker A: So, cool.
[01:03:40] Speaker F: Yeah.
[01:03:41] Speaker B: No, honestly, James, we've gone to more conferences than most people do in ten years. That we do in one year. And again, I'm going to rank this one.
[01:03:54] Speaker A: All of them.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: I haven't been to a bad conference yet. Every conference has their nuances, their strengths, their passion and purposes. This one absolutely has its passion and purpose. So when you're talking about pipeline safety and you're talking about collaboration and the other thing, too, one part that was really talked about today was a collaboration in Alabama with the first responders.
[01:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah. A Perry. Yeah, right.
[01:04:20] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:04:21] Speaker A: Let's see if I can get it. What if I can do this? Try it. Does that make me an industry guy?
[01:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: Alabama Emergency Response Initiative.
[01:04:34] Speaker B: I think that's it. I think that's it.
[01:04:36] Speaker A: Perry.
It's close. Yeah, we'll give him an 86 on it.
[01:04:44] Speaker B: You're passing on that one. You got the Alabama, right? No, it is an initiative.
Being serious, it's an initiative where, again, the industry is partnering up formally because there are some codes that require it, where the first responders are trained and understand natural gas grids, they understand the nuances of them. They understand what should happen if there is an emergency. And again, we hope there are an emergency. We hope that people don't have to be used in those cases, but if they should need to be used, that they are ready to go and they have the knowledge, skills and ability to do what they have been trained to do.
[01:05:23] Speaker A: Just in case anyone wanted to know, like my wife or anyone else that may want to know, I was right.
[01:05:32] Speaker B: Initiative.
[01:05:32] Speaker A: Initiative, I thought it was. So that's twice this month that I've been correct.
[01:05:37] Speaker B: Well, let's chalk it up for.
[01:05:40] Speaker A: Yep. Jimmy, it's great to be here with you. It was great to see a lot of our friends out here.
I don't want to get too excited about the recordings this week, but being able to sit down with folks like Dennis Coon was great.
Jimmy Green, we talked about. We already released that one before this even went out. We're excited sitting down with Jeff, getting to talk with him and link. Yeah, we're going to try to get some of that. Jimmy Green promised us he would sit down and talk about the heritage theme that he kicked off with Anga today. He talked about it and he promised us to sit down and tell some of those stories. And, man, I don't know about you, but that is my jam, to hear about him talking about his dad last night for a little bit.
[01:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah. He said in 1986 he was driving around. His dad was.
I can't remember the title. He was with the public.
[01:06:39] Speaker A: He was Jonathan Kimbrough. I mean, he was the director of pipeline safety for the commission.
[01:06:46] Speaker B: And Jimmy would drive around back in 1986 and just soaking it all up. I mean, just seeing everything that his dad was doing.
[01:06:53] Speaker A: He told this story this morning about how his bait to go was that if they finished up early, they could go fishing. He goes, I don't know how legal that was, but that's the truth. And I love that man. That's the kind of stories we need to hear that gets people excited about our industry.
[01:07:12] Speaker B: I think that the theme for heritage this year, I think that's going to be really strong, especially with this in Alabama. I think we're going to hear a lot of great stories, and I hope people come forward and they really claim a seat at the table and tell those stories.
[01:07:28] Speaker A: Yep. And we got one more stop tonight. Really? Which is game night.
[01:07:35] Speaker B: Yeah. We're going to call it game event. It's an event that has games.
[01:07:39] Speaker A: Totally not.
[01:07:42] Speaker B: Yes.
It's game night. It's fun night. It's an entertainment night.
[01:07:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Like entertainment things.
[01:07:51] Speaker B: Yes. Like know when somebody from the Alabama PSC or their crew is staring right at us right now? We're just going to say game night and that's it. End it.
[01:08:01] Speaker A: We're excited. Yeah. We're going to host it. It's going to expect. Yeah. We got to get our dollar general gear out.
[01:08:12] Speaker B: I'm ready.
[01:08:13] Speaker A: Dollar Tree. We're going to wrap this thing up. Jimmy, as always, a pleasure. One thing that we haven't talked about, just real quick, tell me we wrap up. Tell me, is this is the last show of the season, my friend. Season four in the books. You remember when we kicked it off. How fitting today that we sat down with Bobby Purvis to talk again when he was the first one of the season, way back in February. It's been a lifetime since we kicked off that season. You remember we went on hiatus. We came out of hiatus in February and March and kicked off the season. We kicked off announcing that we were going to be at Aga and be a part of that. All of that happened. CGa happened. Dpa happened.
[01:08:59] Speaker B: Dpa. Oh, yeah. I mean, so much has happened this year, brother.
[01:09:03] Speaker A: I got four season.
[01:09:06] Speaker B: We're going into season five next year.
[01:09:07] Speaker A: Allegedly.
[01:09:08] Speaker B: 24. Allegedly. Hopefully again, I can't keep my mouth shut because you know who I am. But 2024, just the way it's planned right now, is going to be phenomenal.
[01:09:19] Speaker A: It is going to be something else. Stick around for that announcement. TBD, soon to come. We will be talking more about that. Jimmy, get some rest. It's going to be a busy 24. I'm about to go on hiatus myself.
[01:09:34] Speaker B: Sabbatical.
[01:09:35] Speaker A: Take a break. A little sabbatical. I don't even know what that means, but I'm going to do it.
[01:09:38] Speaker B: I'm powering right through, baby. I'm working. You know me.
[01:09:41] Speaker A: You're better Ben than I. I don't know about that. As always. Hey, thank you, Alabama. Thank you, Anga. Thank you to Alabama PSC for having us out. So many good friends. We appreciate. Until next time. Until next year. Until next season.
[01:09:55] Speaker B: Until next season. Coffee with Jim and James. James.
[01:09:57] Speaker A: Love you, brother.
[01:09:58] Speaker B: Love you, brother. Take care. Everybody's.
