Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Here we are. Cheers, brother.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: Coffee again.
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Nine months ago got us in this mess. Here we are in Detroit. Got a lot of action here. You talk a little bit about the work y'all do here, the types of work that come out of this yard.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Well, we've got special projects group that primarily works on steel pipe projects. We've got our mains and services for the gas distribution side of things. We also have a restoration group here that they go back in and restore everything back to original condition or as close as they can.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: I like that a lot of these places, we're going, going back and making them better than they were while we're doing the important work that's important, especially here in a place like Detroit. So much history. We got to enjoy it last night, take it all in and kind of see it. You can tell the folks here are proud of the work they do.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: They are. The whole group is. They love doing it.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: That was me and Kevin Parker right there in Detroit. And the story's true. We actually manifested that while we were at a DCA event in Kona, Hawaii. And it was super early in the morning, and we were actually having coffee because there was nothing else to do, it was so early. And Kevin and I talked about how important it was for coffee with Jim and James to make it out into the field this year and see real things. And he asked me, james, what do you want to do, man? Well, I want to go out in the field. And so, fast forward seven, eight months later, there we were. So on this episode, we're diving into the heart of Detroit, Motown itself, to explore how infrasource is playing a key role in restoring one of America's most important cities. And whether it's urban renewal or safety, innovation, the story has it all. But first, let's start at the beginning. For anyone who's been living under a rock, Detroit's not been in the best shape the last, maybe, I don't know, 15, 20 years. I believe they filed for bankruptcy a while back. They've been rebuilding as a city just throughout various communities. We got to see a lot of that firsthand. But what a lot of people don't know is that Detroit is continuing to rebuild. And they've put a lot of money and time and effort in rebuilding the infrastructure of that city. And a big part of that work is done by the folks at Infrasource. And so Infrasource, who? Client of ours, also a good partner in the industry in general, all the way up. And they are A big part of restoring Detroit. And so we got to hear that directly from the people involved in restoring that. And when I say restoring Detroit, I don't just mean fixing the roads and the pipelines. It's about rebuilding communities and rebuilding pride in those communities. And we're going to learn how infrasource is doing just that. And you'll have to forgive us. We were out in the field. There was work going on. There's vac trucks, there's construction, there's all kinds of things, traffic. So our audio isn't perfect, but when has it ever been? Now we're standing kind of at ground zero in a way. You were saying this is a big restoration project that y'all are doing here.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So the gas main ran through here. We came in for the restoration efforts, removed the spoils. We milled the road, first saw cut it, took it all out in pieces, got the spoils out and to the spec. We ended up grading it, putting our baskets in, pouring concrete, pouring the concrete low so that way we could have the asphalt cap. We completed the cap from Woodward all the way down to Chrysler. And then we came in and did the striping.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: Nice. This is an important project for this area, I'm sure.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Yes, people are ready to drive on some good pavement.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: These businesses down here, I'm sure happy it's getting wrapped up. But that was Brandon Zach, who somehow makes the complicated work that infrasource does sound cool and simple. Now let's join John Bentley, who came out to join us on a job site where there was some hydrovac work being done. And John points out just how important not only that work is, but how much work goes on behind the scenes in prep for a job like today.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: As you can see, a lot of our work, a lot of the industry, we're replacing facilities in urban areas where facilities have been in the ground for 100 plus years. They need rehabilitated, need replaced. That also coincides with a lot of other underground utilities. Day in and day out, having a plan before we dig, knowing where facilities are at, making sure we put in our one calls, making sure we've done our due diligence, utilizing hydro vac, dry vac, hand digging. But it starts in the office. It starts with our planners getting our prints, looking at and making sure we're identifying the risk that we see, identifying it for the foreman, giving them a plan that they can use to talk to their crew about that. Everyone has that plan for the day or the plan for that job. Give them all the tools to not damage facilities and go home safe. There's phases of every project we're going in, laying main. They're the first people to find things that may be not on maps or may be mislocated. So when the service crews come back in or restoration crews come back in, we're relaying that information back to them so that they have the latest and greatest information to not hit something that we may have done a good thing and found. As you can see, a lot of our work, a lot of the industry, we're replacing facilities in urban areas. Where facilities have been in the ground for 100 plus years. They need rehabilitated, need replaced. That also coincides with a lot of other underground utilities the day in and day out. Having a plan before we dig, knowing where facilities are at, making sure we put in our one calls, making sure we've done our due diligence, utilizing hydro vac, dry vac, hand digging. But it starts in the office. It starts with our planners getting our prints, looking at it, making sure we're identifying the risk that we see, identifying it for the foreman, giving them a plan that they can use to talk to their crew about that. Everyone has that plan for the day or the plan for that job. Give them all the tools to not damage facilities and go home safe.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: So listen, there's important work that goes on. We're tying in gas mains, we're putting new service in areas. Whatever that work looks like is very important. But one thing we caught on to was the fact that not only were they proud of that work, the folks at Infrasource that were doing the work, but also how they left the job site and how they left it better than they found it. That's not something that we talk about a lot in our industry. We tend to leave things a lot better than we found it. Brandon mentioned it two different times when we spent time with him. But here in this next clip, he talks about how proud they are of how they leave a job site when they're finished. They're not just there restoring service, but they are leaving it better than they found it. Let's listen in.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: This is all seed and the straw mats too. And then that was our. You can see there the mowed grass between the two trees, the small one and the big one. All that was just dirt? Yeah, yeah, it was all just dirt at one point.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: So I don't think people talk about that enough in our industry that they see the disruption. We were just in that, you know, that on that busy road and businesses being shut down, things like that. But a lot of times when we, when we get done, we leave it better than we found it, right?
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And the other thing too is all people don't take into consideration is how many people have sprinklers. Their sprinkler lines were damaged during, you know, the gas installation or over here they have these, these lamps in front of the houses which were original gas lamps. Some of these people had them converted to electric and some of these were converted to electric. So you got to figure there was damage to the electric, you know, low voltage. We repaired those on the ones that were damaged by the gas work, sprinkler repair, setting up meetings with homeowners, test the systems, turn it on, all that good stuff.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: This is a historic area.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Yeah, this is Indian Village historic area. It's a little tight knit community. This isn't just your average neighborhood. People take pride in tight knit. It's a little community. Tree lined streets. That looks absolutely beautiful, Very nice, neat.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: To see the finished product. If there's one thing we all know about infrasource and Quanta as a whole is they have a commitment to safety. And not just a commitment. These folks raise the bar. Any of us that work out in the industry sit on committees and work at different associations. You've seen Quanta and their folks out. You've heard of things like the capacity model before and other items that they have really elevated for the industry as a whole. And so it was no surprise when we sat down and talked with folks that we learned more and more about their commitment to safety. This time we jump in with James Scoble, who allowed us to witness a random DOT check that they were having that morning. And we actually walked down the line as they were inspecting various vehicles that they had in their fleet. And James described why this is such an important part of their safety program.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: What we're doing this morning is a gate check. So quick once over of the truck, basically checking the condition of the trucks when they're rolling out of the yard. And I think probably the most important thing is that when the drivers are leaving, we have a little safety message that's relative to the day, Right. So if it's foggy, we talk about that, obviously weather conditions, if it's hot, we remind them to stay hydrated. But overall it's just a restart. Kind of think about safety first thing in the morning before we even leave the yard.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Something that like DOT is coming in and doing. Or is this something that you Guys are doing.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah, something that we're doing, just get in. They do it in other areas throughout infrasource and it's completely random, so the drivers never know when it's going to happen.
So they're checking out their trucks, make sure that they don't get.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: So this is proactive.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: It is. Since we started doing this, it decreased our vehicle accidents by 30%.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Whoa, 30%. That's worth doing. That's worth. It is 10 minute setbacks in the morning. Can you all have how many trucks in this yard?
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Give or take? Around 80.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: And pretty much all of them going out every day.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Everyone going out every day.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: And that's a mixture of bag trucks, dump trucks, you name them, pickups, trailers, all of it. James, how long have you been in the industry?
[00:10:17] Speaker B: 34 years. Started in 1990 when I was just a young buck. Had hair and was skinny.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Four years old, huh? No, that's awesome. And what was it? What was your first job?
[00:10:28] Speaker B: My first job was a laborer.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: So a little bit of everything, huh?
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I was, I was on the business end of the Goonspoon jackhammer. Kind of moved up to operator and then foreman and then a job. There was a job opening 2004 in the safety department. I was always really passionate about safety. One of the things that I always instilled in my, my guys that worked under me. So I applied for the position and got it embedded. Safety wore many different hats in safety and quality throughout that time.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Well, we've seen your fingerprints over this whole group, that's for sure. Everywhere we went, we got the briefing, we, we did our paperwork, we, we got the sticky for the day, a little bit of everything. And I know you're a big part of making that happen for these guys.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I enjoy it. Love the work, love the guys, camaraderie. Just the industry in general. It's a great industry to be in.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: I think we all know infrasource for their commitment to safety. It's clear that infrasource focuses on workforce development. And you can see that when we took a look at their OQ training, their mobile evaluation center, and we've partnered with them as the cwn. And it's neat to see kind of that seamless integration into the innovations that they already have in place. And you could tell it's preparing their workforce to lead and succeed safely. So whether it's from the OQ trailer to field evaluations, infrasource isn't just training their workforce. They're building the leaders of tomorrow, they're building confident and capable leaders for tomorrow. Jim and Ashley got to tour the infrasource training trailer. And this is where the magic happens. Let's jump in with Dani as she shows how they qualify their workforce.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Danny, we've had a busy morning. Yes, we have. I have to tell you, I don't know if I told you earlier, but I've actually seen this unit before. 2021, I was out at Western Regional Gas Conference and some of our friends from underground construction out there, Craig and Steve, actually brought one of the units out there. I cannot tell you how many people left the conference to go out there to take a look. They were just amazed. Right. And it was such a cool thing. Then we roll into the yard here, you know, a day and a half yesterday, and I'm looking, I'm like, wait a minute, I've seen that trailer before. Right. So you deal a lot in the compliance world, isn't that correct? Correct. Correct. Beginning education, we'll take someone that has no GAS experience at all and put their hands on some of this stuff at the trailer here or in the lab and get their hands on it. It's a great learning tool. We talked earlier about the freedom to fail and we don't want anybody to fail. But this is a controlled environment that, whether they're here at the yard, in the training lab or out here, or if you were to take this mobile and go see some of the teams that are out in the field someplace. Exactly.
We have opportunities to get with the trade the local. For young people getting ready to graduate from high school, the plan is to work with them and build their curriculum around utility gas trade. So that's, that's out there and this is a perfect tool for it. That's awesome. Because everything we do in the field, almost everything can be done right here on this trailer. So can somebody that, in essence, and again, you're kind of speaking our love language here. Right. Take their oak cues, like their computer based training as well as hands on performance evaluations here. This trailer is fully capable of handling, I want to say like five people. Okay. In the computer lab part of this trailer. And it's very comfortable. It depends on, you know, you want to keep the distractions down.
You want to make sure that they're comfortable and that they, you know, they have pretty much no distractions while they're taking that test. This is their career. Yeah. So if you're going to make a career out of it, we want to make sure that they get the best possible start.
Where did you begin in the industry at? I started here in 2017. Okay. I was a cable contractor before then. I did that for 12 years. And I just decided it wasn't really a future retirement, nothing like that, no insurance. So I made the jump. It was kind of a funny story. My first task here was mopping a that trailer floor. They didn't have a crew for me. My first day here, I was mopping floors. Really? Yep. Yep. Okay. I would never guess that I'm where I'm at now. Well, and what do you do now? What's your Detroit area fleet coordinator? Okay. Yep. And I started, actually, I started on the restoration side way inside. Wait, you started mopping floors day one? Yep. And do you have any problem with that? I was bringing on at first. Okay. What did I do? I had six crews under me when I was doing cable. Sure. You know, then I come here and they got me mopping floors. I kept telling myself, insurance, retirement. Yeah, all the good stuff, a little bit more money. Then they put me on a restoration crew lay inside, which I didn't mind, but I was on my hands and knees all day, do all the stuff. And then the mechanic. At the time, we only had one mechanic here one day. Do you wrench? Yeah, I turned wrenches. I was amazing. So I went to school for a year to be a mechanic. Okay. I didn't want to do it, so then I started wrenching with him.
And about two years in, he just up and left. So they made me the head mechanic and I got me a helper and moved on up back. Just last year, they finally offered me the fleet coordinator. Okay, great. And we saw you in action this morning. You all were doing a gate check. Yes, sir. Because you all do safety differently at infrasource.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: It says, you know, we take, you know, safety to the next level. And they do.
And I saw you in action this morning. It was dark out there. We had probably, I'm gonna guess 30 vehicles, maybe 40 lined up, all doing a gate check. I saw you out with a flashlight underneath one of the vehicles. This is just making sure that we, when we go out, we're as safe as we can be. We have our partners that are here, you know, working with us, and we're going to end up here at the end of the day safe so we can go home to our loved ones at night. Like you said, the safety here is above and beyond. It's real family oriented. You go to some other areas, it's not so Much. But one thing here, really family oriented. I have to tell you, Ashley James and myself, we actually feel like we're probably extended cousins of the family. Yes.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: That was Mr. Joel Fox who joins him talking about mopping the floors on his first day. And now he's a fleet coordinator. The night before Joel joined us, as we looked over the city from the seventh floor of our hotel and you could see Joel had a sense of pride. I'm not sure if that came from being with a group and just being a part of that larger team, or if it was a sense of pride of looking over that city and knowing their fingerprints were all over it. But either way, it was hard to miss. And now we're going to transition into the back of house folks. And what I mean by that is in order to do safety a different way, in order to raise the bar across your organization. Safety doesn't stop on the job site. In fact, it carries on in all the jobs that are done there at infrasource. And everyone's building towards a better future, right? A safer future. And so we got to meet and sit down with several of the folks that honestly do the work behind the scenes in order for the rest of the teams to benefit from. So whether that's damage prevention or some of the folks in the office that are maintaining training, qualifications, compliance, you know, keeping the lights on, everything, all of it goes into safety. At the end of the day, let's first join Everett. We heard Everett's name throughout the day from different crews and different crew members. One thing that always came up was the fact that he officed out of a tiki hut. Jim and Ashley could not wait to interview Everett in the tiki hut. Let's join Everett as he talks about the important work he does regarding damage prevention.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: Give me the story of this story behind this. I was in the other trailer right behind us. Jacob last year was like, hey, Everett, come on, I want to show you something. So it was sitting here was bare bones. The color of it was the color of the shelf. Everything was that color. So he was like, what do you think about this? He was like, you good? And I'm like, damn good. I would love it. So then he goes, you can paint it. And I said, you sure? That's all he needed. The first thing I thought of was the sky. And then I was like, okay, tiki hut. And that was that. It took me about a month and a half to get everything and do everything. Did the sky, painted the walls. After a while, got it in And I mean the grass floor, I mean, it's really great to do it all. I have to tell you, I have probably heard in the last 36 hours, you being mentioned very positively three, four, five times. Because I'm like the first line of defense, so to speak, when these guys have a project, I'm doing the research, go to the customer, find out material, dates of install, you know, or measurements and all that good jazz. I put it in the package for the crews, get it out to them and then they go. But before they even go, we have locators, harbingers of the pipe install if you want, and they go out, locate the street. So it speeds the process up. You get a faster install and you get a safer install because now we have a quality locate team going out to find what's underneath so the crew can kind of breeze through quicker. The purpose and the passion that I hear in your voice and I see it in your eyes, it is there and you can't stop that. And I will say I believe we saw it yesterday, a packet.
And that probably came from you. It definitely came from.
I'm just gonna say one thing, that every location where they were talking about that packet, they held it up with confidence and trust and respect for you and spoke, hey, we have everything we need, need. And they spoke with such respect about you and what you did. I. I'm thankful about that. You know, it may sound corny to some folks, but I know, I pray that I do a good job every day and that these guys do too. And we're a well oiled machine. You know, even when things, because there's always curveballs, there's always obstacles, but as long as I'm doing my due diligence in here, I'm confident that, you know, okay, cool. So I get that kind of feedback and it just fuels me even further because I already want to do well. But seeing these guys, the reaction, just hearing from you, it just, it helps me know they like this or they like that, or maybe they want less of this or less of that. I like to hear that. I'm telling you right now, you're making a positive difference out there. I saw it yesterday and they were doing those jobs with confidence because of what you're doing here.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Now let's move on to Tevin. Tevin is the ultimate behind the scenes guy. Said it himself. I think sitting down with Jim, you saw two extremes of the spectrum. Jimmy definitely raised his anxiety a little bit. But let's, let's jump in. Jimmy talks to Tevin about his recent role change, but also the opportunity that Infrasource has already provided in the short time he's been on staff.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: How many podcasts have you been on? Zero. You know what, though? This is your lucky day. I can't wait to tell my friends. Well, I tell you what, I hope you do. We began this podcast. We're in our fifth season and our whole mission in this. What we really like to do is share stories about the great natural gas industry that we're in. People really don't understand behind the scenes because a lot of people will go to their stove and turn it on and just assume, oh, by magic, I have natural gas. They don't understand all the intricacies that go behind the scenes. And that's why being here at Infrasource this week has been great because we have seen so much out in the field, but also we're spending a lot of the time here at the main facility and seeing some of the behind the scenes. Do you spend a lot of time behind the scenes? I spend all my time behind the scenes. Okay. I was a project admin. I was basically a front desk person. I was helping out new hires, calling In, I'll say, 75% of our mistigs because Restoration does their own, but calling the mistigs to make sure our guys can go out and work. Okay. I'll be handling all of our billing and finances. How long have you been here with Infrasource? I came on last March. And you're already going into a new role. That's pretty exciting, you know, because in some organizations, you can be in a role for a lot longer than that. I guess they like me and they think I can do well, so they decided to move me on up. That's great. I do know the folks here at Infrasource very well. Some of them I've known for years. And I tell you what, the, you know, being on site here, this family type of atmosphere where people are always looking out for other people and people are always looking out to see what person could do something maybe in their next role. This is a career, and all I can do is hope to build myself up. Good. What's your aspirations in 10 years? I don't want to jump too far ahead. I. Okay. Try and take things step at a time. No, that's fair. But as if right now, I'm more of a behind the scenes kind of person. I'm just willing to help the team out and whatever, get the job done. Well, you know, the exciting thing about life is that every day is a new day, and every day gives us the ability to do something to our comfort level and, you know, to maybe explore a new area and, you know, maybe you might explore other things within your comfort zones to expand and keep growing.
Because we got into the vac trucks for many reasons. Good catches, soft digs, daylighting. What do you do with the mud? Right. Yeah. Several dump sites in Michigan that were several dollars a dump.
The one that was closest went under. They ran out of room. Okay. The only other one we have now was in Ann Arbor in Belleville, which is an hour ride. It's 400 bucks a dump. We come here and dump, mix it with corn cob. In and out, in and out. Time here is an average of 13 minutes. Trucks in dump, clean and out. 13 minutes to go to the dump site. It's an hour drive. An hour wait, an hour drive back. It's three hours time compared to right around here. You're talking two work days during a work week. In essence, 15 hours. So when we built this, Kevin will like this. We built this with safety in mind. The box. This thing's all built for safety and production. Okay. But you'll see here, as soon as Mark opens his gate, you'll see how this thing works. And you're saying this process, on average, is about 13 minutes versus three hours to go to the other location. So, again, built for convenience, but to contain everything. Right. Can we stand back? We're back up the.
These trucks, there's 13 of them. They dump two to three times a day. We're averaging about 30,000 gallons a day. Okay. Of mud in and out of here. Yeah.
But again, built some guys can wash out. And I'm not worried about anybody getting hurt.
See that blade? That blade sits in front of the truck, and that pushes it back. Got rubber seals in the bottle. It, when it comes down, it pushes the back, and then it goes up and lays level like that. Doesn't take up any space.
Standing behind the plate, you're level with the truck. You're not standing behind the truck. You're watching out.
How many trucks can go and fill this before it needs to be empty? About three and a half. Okay. And the reason we did that, we're actually going to put another one in. The reason we did it like this is we can run for a weekend and nobody needs to be here to attend it. Oh, okay. Just go do a 1, 2, and then 3 emergency job. Or we got to have these trucks up Emergency job. Yeah, yeah. We make it all night long without having somebody come mix. Gotcha. Just keep coming. If we do have somebody come mix, we can stay ahead of it. For an emergency job or weekend work, these guys can run all weekend. We usually only run a couple of trucks so they can dump nine times. And just like these guys right now, two at a time, they're out. The next two INS.
[00:26:39] Speaker A: And that was Mr. Michael's shoemaker, or shoe, as many call them. And Shoes. Shu was an interesting cat. So we met Shu on a teams call before we headed out to Detroit to really get an idea of of what our plans were and also theirs, right. So we pre game with Shoe and Kevin Parker and a few others and we left the call and I thought, man, Shu is going to get our butts when we get there. He's something else. So I remember Jimmy said, ah, nah man, we'll be best friends by the end of it all. Fast forward we get there and Shu's just, in fact, he's even more intimidating in person because he's got to be 6 foot 9 or something. I'm kidding. But he's a big dude and his demeanor in person is just as much as it was on teams. So again, we start off just all the respect in the world, following all the rules, doing all the things you know. Yes sir, Mr. Shue. You tell us what to do. Well, anybody who knows Jim Shower knows he has a sweet tooth, right? He's sober as you know, 13 years sober. He always shares that testimony with us. But one thing he picked up was sweets. And so usually you can find him ducking out of a reception Irish goodbye so he can pick up ice cream on the way home to his hotel room. That's the kind of sweet tooth I'm talking about. We get to Detroit and we don't know much about Detroit. We don't know where we're staying, we don't know kind of the area. And Jimmy makes a comment of is it cool for me to go in a store, a convenience store. I just want some M and Ms. Everyone gives them a hard time and fast forward the next day. We walked into prep for the day and Shu and a few others walk in with a bag full of MMs. Now there's a lot of ways that you can get jumped in to our industry. There's a lot of ways that you can get the door open for you and say, come on in. For us. That was our moment with infrasource. It said a lot about their company. You think we're all just rough and tough and mean and out there doing this hard work, but the truth is, is that there's a heart behind all of it, and not just in supplying natural gas and all that, but down to the people. Right? We're all people. And as little of a gesture it really was, it was also huge. And we still get text messages from Shu. He's in my phone and Shu now we're on shoe terms, but Jim and Ashley myself get texts from Shu occasionally. He'll send us pictures. He'll tell stories about when we were there. I can't wait for him to hear this podcast. I don't know. Somebody's gonna have to put it on a radio somewhere, I think we were so blessed to spend time with Shu and his gang. And, hey, there's something about manifesting, isn't there? We manifested all this back in Hawaii with Kevin Parker, and here we are wrapping it up on the podcast. We can't thank you enough, Infrasource, for sharing your people, sharing your stories, sharing Detroit with us, and awesome host hosts. It's not very often that three hosts get to go somewhere and be hosted, and that's not lost on us. So again, thank you, infrasource. Thank you, Detroit. Thank you, natural gas. We can't thank you enough. Until the next time on Coffee with Jim and James.
