CCCT with Sara Hutchcraft & Okho Bohm from Faith Technologies Incorporated

[Music] hey there commercial construction Coffee Talk fans thanks for chiming in my name's David course and I'm your host I'm also the publisher and editor of commercial construction renovation magazine this is what it used to look like when we were uh printed we're digital now but uh um I'm running out of archives I think I've used this one this one's January 2021 we had tripa of south southern California there Jason Sweeney uh thanks for being on the cover let's see what the folio was on this one this was 140 Pages uh always nice to hold the magazine in my hands but we went digital August of 2021 and don't miss the printer don't miss the post office uh it's been an amazing run and uh just had under 7 million people hit our website last month with 330,000 unique visitors consuming content so everybody out there on commercial construction coffee talk land and out on the Wild Wild web thank you for finding us and consuming and being visitors and couldn't have done it without us hopefully uh we we'll get over 10 million in The Benchmark here before the end of the year uh each year we go up about a million people so uh you know with interactions and stuff so we've just been on fire it's amazing you know been working on our SEO at search engine optimization that's how people find you on Google and uh it's just been an amazing ride about the last six to eight months but we've just been on fire and um uh it's amazing uh just to you know the amount of data the the dogs are barking so there you you go so so in any event um uh today it's Fourth of July weekend and after the Fourth of July weekend hope everybody had a relaxing weekend you know fourth July was on a Thursday so a lot of people took off last week and it was like a long week and uh heck I had a great time you know I had you know hadn't rained down here in about two or three weeks you I'm just north of Atlanta by Lake laner and we need water in the lake and because the and during the summer they l l a lot of water out of the dam beaing uh Southern Georgia and Florida and Alabama and uh rain Saturday and Sunday so we'll take the rain because we like to keep the the lake full uh but it was it's sizzling hot it is the dog days of summer the humidity is here and uh it's just really really hot I mean it's kind of a little overcast today but uh uh after this I'm going to go out and do my five six mile run and sweat my tail off and uh anyway it uh it was just a great weekend and uh but now we're really starting the first week of uh Q3 because last week was a wash really Monday Tuesday maybe some people were doing some stuff it was quiet Wednesday nothing going on uh so uh but uh anyway hope everybody out there had a great you know a great first six months guess what now it's the second half of the year you know it's the second half of the game now you got to really uh you know push it all the way till the end of the year finish strong with momentum you know on a positive note as uh uh we'll close out 2024 and then do it all over in 2025 so today I've got some two nice ladies uh one's in Wisconsin uh one's out in uh in Kansas uh I'm not sure how it's going to show up on your screen but uh I've got Sarah and they're both with accelerate and what accelerate does is they're uh they uh basically put uh electrical products on a on a skid and ship it out to the uh to the project so Sarah uh she's on my left and I've got OKO up in up in Wisconsin ladies say hello to our listeners out there on commercial construction coffee talk and they're both Pro uh Sarah is a senior pre-production manager and OKO is a AE a produ pre-production manager as well so ladies say hello to our listeners out there on commercial construction coffee talk hello everyone nice to be here yeah excited to be here for sure so so is it hot where you're at as well yes I want to say mid 80s in Wisconsin yeah we'll take it you know uh absolutely uh like I said you know it's so in Atlanta it only gets cold for a couple months in the winter and then it's really really nice it only gets hot really hot a couple months like July and August but by September it kind of cools down and uh you know but uh uh I've been running since uh January in the beginning of the year so I've done a,1 miles uh wow for six months and I do a little video my positive thought of the day and U so as I've been running I've been I've I've been layer layering up I went through the winter and the spring and uh I I had a long long shooter shirt underneath and I was still running with my sweats but now I go out in a T-shirt and some shorts and I'm still soaked and uh you know when I get back you know so anyway uh it is it's a hot L it is hot and humid I mean it's like the the switch just went on the humidity came it was so nice for like in the middle of June but then it just started coming in and now it's it's the dog days of summer down here so I'm sure so take the 80s while you can get it so um for sure all right so ladies listen uh you this is the way it's going to work we do in three parts of our episode you'll tell your story where you grew up where you went to school if you're married kids played any sports whatever and then how you ended up accelerate then we'll talk about Lessons Learned From the last uh three or four years that we've all been on the roller coaster and any new cool things that you have uh you know for the construction sitze from electrical point of view and then you'll leave one positive thought or phrase with our listeners so with that said uh ladies you choose who wants to go first go first Sarah yes Sarah all right yeah tell story yeah I'm Sarah hutchcraft so I am originally from Sterling Colorado uh now live in the Kansas City area I went to school at Kansas State University and that's how I ended up in Kansas in general um went to K State for construction science and management I knew that from an early age that I wanted to have something to do with construction or architecture and Kansas state has one of the top architecture programs so that was the original selling point for me to go there um actually ended up meeting my husband there and some uh definite some lifelong best friends there and ended up moving to Kansas City after graduation started with FTI Faith Technologies Incorporated uh right out of school and it helped a little bit that I knew some people in the Kansas City area so that was an easy move for me and away from the Colorado area um but yeah I started started at FTI uh 10 years ago almost it'll be 10 years at the end of this month and started out in our Construction Division so the Faith Technologies Division and really went through a rotation within FTI of going through our estimating Department project controls project management engineering and our virtual construction groups so right off the gate they were were giving me the opportunity to have a well-rounded um knowledge of what the business entails and then um really focused most of my career here on our mission critical data center type of work and traveled a couple of years onto some of those job sites that we had um and then it was about two years ago that I actually made the move into our accelerate division where I'm at right now for our accelerate manufacturing side um and it's a little bit different from being on a job site but I think it's it's really cool that it's a manufacturing setting where I can walk out a door and my project is right there and I'm not on a large job site and get a little bit loss there but sure sure um is your husband an architect is that you know so my my husband is actually no he's actually a middle school English teacher so I don't know how he does it but it takes a special kind of person to be a teacher for sure yeah no doubt well listen we need good teachers out there you know so whatever they're doing all the power to him so we appreciate his effort uh okay you're up next all right um thank you Sarah I uh learned something new about you so that's I think a good thing too how about that I know I don't know just like that you went came you started at Faith Technologies or FTI like right out of when you finished up college so that was pretty cool um I grew up in Minnesota um and uh went to school at the University of Minnesota uh I was able to get a scholarship for engineering um I got to pick the engineering um as 17y old didn't really know uh thought I picked I picked electrical because I thought it would be kind of hard but not super hard um and I then I just stuck with it so um when I graduated um from the University of Minnesota one of my first jobs was add a utility um so a a private but a large utility um I moved to Wisconsin after graduation um and just started working at the utilities so I started at one utility moved to another utility um then I actually switched into the public municipality also also a utility in the electric industry um I was a a utilities manager in the city um where I live in Wisconson um switched to be a utility manager for another city just adjacent to me um so I kind of did the the public utility thing did the private uh utility um and then I thought to myself let's try something else and let's go start in the Contracting world and um I worked for a company that actually does uh substation electrical substation maintenance and construction so that kind of got me into that construction um field kind of switching but still always in the electric industry um and then um how I got to FTI was uh really through a recruiter so I just was called contacted they said we had opportunity at Faith Technologies for a preconstruction manager in the electric industry um so I got to take a little bit of all the things I learned um up until that point and got to try um at Faith and I've been here for about five years just over five years and um it was probably the last 2ish probably about the same as Sarah that I was then actually moved into the accelerate division yeah so that's kind of how it was so we got Big 10 uh school that's got you got the cats she was from buffalos well like you know now they're you know anyway Big 10 you got big you got big 12 from me yeah Big 12 yeah sorry about that didn't mean to insult all the big 12 guys out there you know they're all Chang coming to the this is this is a definitely a delicate subject here Mig 10 MC 12 um I mean with all the realignment it's a big deal so it is true my school didn't have a football team we had a hockey we have a hockey team we had a football team way back like in like the 1930s that think do you had a team but we didn't we didn't have a hockey team uh all football team so when I was at school of du we would just go to University of Colorado and watch the buffalos you know I mean that was that was the gig and but you know so uh it uh but it was listened to you I was like oh we got some rivalries going on here you all know that you are gopher and she was a cat did you know that or not I think I did um but you know and I don't want to put too much of a date date on myself but I was uh went to school when the Big 10 actually was 10 10 schools so that's been a while um but um just a little bit I do on the personal side I do have three kids two of them are adults um often you know making their way in the world on their own and then I do have a 15-year-old son who uh will be starting his uh sophomore year in high school in the fall um really into baseball so I've been spending a lot of time at baseball diamonds all over the place so that's what a lot of my summer has been but lot of fun love it and uh that this is just such a short run when your kids are doing high school club sports so it's busy but it's it's for a short period of time so it's good stuff hey when we were in school we used to play Minnesota duth or Minnesota before they had all the divisions and stuff so it was a seriously a big time rivalry and we're in we we're in the NCH with Minnesota zth and all so I'm very familiar with uh you know hockey and Minnesota you know it's huge very H it's huge yes it is so but uh listen your product's really really cool you know it's basically a product in a box you know just kind of like if you if you if lot everybody's out there it's probably listening to this is a construction so it's basically uh almost like a modular system that they build in the factory and they ship it to the uh to the site and and they take what you in like if you're doing a bathroom let's say for a hotel you could build a whole bathroom some of these modular bathrooms and they just pick it up on the forklift of the crane and they slide it in and you know get it connected and it's done and it's all consistent am I right upon am I right on that assumption that's what you guys pretty much ladies do it's it's definitely the right concept absolutely and then we we focus on the electrical you know any kind of electrical solution so that's one thing that's really nice and um one of the benefits is is that one of the things that that just in our construction industry is is looking for solid trades people to be working for us and so with that we are able to take a lot of that um construction work offsite um in our facility and then we can and then um electricians and electrical contractors can can continue the site work at the same time as we're doing our work in the manufacturing faciliity so it's almost like you can do two things at once um and it's really great it really helps keep those projects on on schedule and um we can ship them to site as as complete as possible and the solutions are unique uh each one of our customers has different solutions we work with them to engineer the solution that works best for them and um so we we do some type of customization um and then once that solution has been created hopefully we can make multiple products it kind of repeat and ship them to wherever in the country that they they need those modules to show up complete you know electricity is like water you can't live without it you know so absolutely power it's energy it's sustainability it's it's all those things right now I'm I've broken ground on my empty nester house up on the lake and uh my wife's my wife and I are acting as the contractor she actually has her uh she's an interior designer color consultant residential contractor and uh she's done some commercial projects but uh I said look we need to do a new this new build so we have a for the portfolio so uh we broke ground and uh right now I'm just getting into my uh Foundation uh you know you can look at you can look at uh CAD drawings and blueprints all day but after they cleared the lot my we we realized the slope of our driveway was way too much it was just it was like a roller coaster it was really really Steep and uh any anyway uh I was like I called my wife I'm like look I'm up here with the graders and the uh city inspector up here going through all my different inspections that I'm going to have you need to come up here Houston we have a problem and uh so she came up she's like oh no that does I go yeah you know we're gonna have to bring a lot of dirt and it was goingon to look like a monstrosity and you're supposed to be an empty nester house so I've been dealing with my revisions with the county so you worked in you know the municipality and uh that permitting process was a learning process for me it took me about four and a half months first they made me change my address because we my my I was kind of in the C ofac but I was kind of my driveway was on the Main Street they made me change that then they made me move my septic tank cuz I'm up by the lake it's everything septic and then um uh had to get into topography grab anyway finally got it all done put my sign up and uh right after Memorial Day weekend and then we cleared the land had the engineers come out and do the elevations and the stakes and then I was like getting ready to hear the concrete come in and then we had this issue come up and it was like oh man so I've been so today I just got my note from the engineer hey I got the lgp you're updated and I'm just waiting for the architect to get my new plans and I can get back to uh you know getting the uh getting into the concrete and uh our game plan was trying to get the house finished by oh I don't know before Labor Day weekend you know and uh it's concrete sticks and frame roof wrap windows and then it's dry and then she can bring her crew and really rock and roll and get things done but um electrical is just a huge issue it just is and uh so uh in any event uh it's really cool that you're both you know look listen ladies you know way back when there weren't that many l ladies in construction so Sarah you wanted to be in construction was your dad in construction your family was were they in the construction or not so he was not nobody in my family was really construction related he he definitely worked on more of the maintenance side of where he was at so I think that handson piece was what really drew me to it but it um it was I wanted to be able to I really loved architecture and I really thought that the process of building from start to finish was cool and I wanted to be want of wanted to be able to be one of those people that you you know you can drive down the street and say hey I built that built that had a part in that yeah really cool you're an architector engineer today everybody's tied to the hip to the to the contract doesn't matter you're all team abut that any you're not going to get it done and uh it uh my family's been in con we were in uh steel recycling and demolition since 1888 still in business today outside of Philadelphia and uh I can I can tell you um when I was 16 when all the grandsons got their driver's license we all had to go and work in the scrapyard you know do our summers there and uh one summer uh we were working uh an alumni from University of Denver fluke anyway it was a uh it was called uh it was they were we had to build these paint booths for uh railroad cars to get sand blasted and repaint them so we had to lay the railroad trucks but the paint booths actually came on a skid and we had to build those things you do do do some welding whatever but we constructed them it was basically a a you know a paint box paint booth in a box you know so way back when that was like uh let's see I'm going to say mid 70s you know listen I I'm not shy I just turned 20 61 I'm only 28 but my body feels like I'm 28 but I'm 61 so back then uh this thing came in a box I remember you know this you know bunch of pallets and then we took everything out and laid it out made sure everything was there and then we constructed these uh paint booths uh anyway anyway one day when we after we welded the paint booths my grandfather who who owned the construction company came in with the client and uh the superintendent his name was Dominic Dominic said David you got to go up on the overhead crane and unhook the uh paint booth I'm like dude I going I'm not going up there it's above the like 20 feet above the railroad tracks he's like Grandpa sits here you gotta you got to go up there I'm like he goes don't you trust your wels I'm like heck no you and uh so anyway he's like dude you got to go up there man your grandpa's here so I went up and they held and I another thing and then at dinner that night my grandfather's sitting there and he's like hey I want you know it must been pretty scary going up there and doing that you know not knowing if your welds were going to hold or whatever I was like yeah man the uh those uh railroad uh tracks that we line were just look staring me in the face about 20 feet down and uh anyway but I still remember that that was a great day you know my heart was going like this but then I came down and got it so but but it was basically modular in its early infancy before that was probably even a word I mean we were doing recycling for sustainability was even you know you know a word but it was the same concept and it's so cool from a construction point to have that type of product where you can walk out in the manufacturing facilities have the electricians come in and get everything ready and then they can do their gig and and much faster and from a Time perspective than they probably normally could am I right about on that as well you're absolutely right so we've we've been able to move not just electrical offsite but a bunch of other train as well fire suppression the steel itself so the structure piece of it um it's in in the wall paneling so we've been able to move quite a bit off site to where once we do deliver something on site we don't need as skilled of Labor there's the obvious labor shortage that everybody's feeling at the moment so that piece of it helps as well to once it is on site it's you know we we need a rigor and we need a couple of people to help actually connect the modules together they're probably some of our um more skilled labor is where that piece comes in it but it's the schedule time frame has drastically decreased because of us being able to move offsite and and then there's the weather piece right we talked about that earlier nobody wants to be out outside in 100 degree weather so we have a climate controlled area where everybody is able to come inside do some work here and then it moves on site there's there's that piece of it too that's awesome were you gonna say something OKO yeah I was just even kind of relaying back to your um uh your empty nester home situation where you were talking about when you actually got to to starting with the excavation and things like that um that is also very true on the construction sites that we are managing or we're manufacturing to ship to so using your scenario is so if they're building a big data center somewhere and they're encountering some of the similar um maybe more civil you know type of uh issues all that electrical stuff is still going on at accelerate regardless so we are keeping that project on schedule because you're not delaying the electrical because the Civil part isn't able to be be completed that electrical still up and running at accelerate so it's a really a great way to continue to manage that schedule keep it tight um and again with the labor shortage uh people can um we have provide that labor in our facility and it doesn't need to be on site you know when I did the permitting process they said okay it's going to be uh uh two weeks for your septic to get approved the Health Department's got to approve that and then it takes about 20 business days for your permitting I don't care if your permits are perfect it's not going to take a month it takes months everybody's got a the county that I was in every County's different and but this County uh they everybody had to touch it and you know make sure that they were make sure that they were showing their worthiness and uh but I but when we had to do the revision I had to move the uh the garages to the back because that's where we decided we were going to would be more it wouldn't be to have that Ste steep incline and move the master bed into the front and then uh well not much but still uh things had to get revised so they have a revision department and the revision oh my God it's GNA take another month and anyway they've been very quick you know uh like I said uh I got a couple of approvals I got another one today and now in the morning I'll upload it and then pretty much uh I should be back on schedule but now my grader's out on another project so he's got to do a little fill and then uh and then my concrete guy will come in and that and I'm looking at that uh probably you know three weeks or so there's three inspections in there and then um uh then sticks and frame the roof and then then we start roughing all that out you know with the the electrical the plumbing you know and all that stuff before all the drywall gets in there and uh but uh yeah we were just flying right along I mean it was amazing watching uh the there was a father and Sun team that did the uh clearing of the lot the excavation and uh they they pounded those trees out and some of those trees were hundreds of years old and uh anyway they it was it was amazing watching that and I took videos off of it because I'm actually I'm going to put a residential luxury column column in the magazine and I'm going to do a different you know whether it's a penthouse or a freestanding in a different city each month and then I'm going to give a little update on my project because I'm videoing it and and all that and I'm going to call it you know building a house for for beginners 101 and everything that I that I went through from the beginning you know to to getting my my designs done by the architect and then getting it approved by the HOA and then getting into the permitting and now you know and um I just want to get the house built you know to get the roof on and then my wife can come in with her crew and she her crew is awesome they they're GNA Crank that house out quick because I just know how they work she pays them good she feeds them they love her and they treat her you know treats her people like gold because listen labor if you do not treat your people there's they just have so many opportunities because of the labor shortage right now so if you don't treat your your subs with respect and just treat them like gold you know they've got too many other opportunities so my my thing is like okay if I can get it bu Labor Day I was talking like people like oh it's gonna take you a year to build that house I'm like I'm thinking like seven months you know it's you know uh but uh it'll be fun if my wife and I don't kill each other in the meantime we've been together 33 years so hopefully uh you know I just said hey everything's 95% is I'm easy going some things I'm just going to open my mouth but other than that I trust everything that you're doing I've seen all the projects that you've done so um but uh it's going to be cool to uh making sure the slurry's right and keeping the county and you know all that stuff and uh uh and uh I've just I'm driving I'm driving my Subs like I went up and I you know when he was doing the grading and then when the elevations came in I'm asking questions and I'm looking at stuff and I'm making notes and uh so uh uh but I come from a construction I still have my little uh you know my uh my metal box that you know my electric set that that I did way back when you know so uh it's funny you know I always use that term I built this I build a magazine every month so I'm still a cont I'm still a contractor you know I used to do paper and ink now you know and uh but now I just use digital and whatever but I still I say it all the time hey this I built that every month you know and um so and I'm proud of it too so having a lady say that hey you know what I built that I worked on that project I did all that stuff so that that's really really cool so let's talk about the last 3 to four years in the roller coaster you know you look back March 2020 everything goes kaput and you know now we're out of the tunnel and there's still some speed bumps or potholes that we're kind of dealing with you know obviously labor shortage uh inflation and all that talk about how you weathered that storm and any lessons learn that our listeners out there in commercial construction Coffee Talk might you know find of Interest Sarah you go first yeah so I I think the the biggest thing for us was um we we set ourselves up to where we had work for everybody that was the biggest thing and and a lot of that that I learned in the in the past couple years was that a key driver of that is that you're building relationships within the industry you're making those connections and that's probably one of the most important things about the construction industry in general it seems large right but it's actually very small and it's even smaller in the electrical contracting side and then smaller than too from our where I'm focused on our mission critical projects so building those relationships and having those helped us uh make sure that we had projects to work on and make sure that that we had uh work for people during that time and then coming out of it where we're at right now it's really those relationships have helped us um further projects but also help us be a little bit more selective about what we do and how we accomplish projects and that's really again where we were able to move more projects off site uh has helped us as well with the with the labor piece of it so I would definitely the the lesson that came for me for that was making sure that we're building those relationships and we're we're um just making some connections with people and you never know who you're going to see on on job sites or who you're going to work for after the fact and and that's all a part of it sure okay yeah and Sarah make a great point that the industry seems large but it's actually very small because people do move around so maybe someone you worked with at Construction general contractor a now has moved over to contractor B but because you have the relationship with that person they're going to contact you even though they're working at Company B now they're still going to contract you and say hey hey accelerate we loved working with you we loved what you did for us when I was over over at the last place what can you bring to to here um I'm going to bring you in because I enjoy our relationship or Business Partnership where I worked before so it truly is sari make a great point it truly is the is the relationships that you that you um create with individuals not just companies absolutely you know it's a small sector I mean when you really look at it like from a brand perspective you know you've got the top one retailers restaurants hotels there's only one Walmart Hilton or uh you know Burger King uh and as a publisher from a circulation point of view I don't you know I don't have to send 20,000 you know email links or when I was printing the magazines you know you know I wanted to go the director of construction VP construction facilities real estate procurement development that's about it and maybe some c-l people as as they get bigger but really when you look at it it's a small finite team that that actually is involved in the construction process and those people some people stay at their their their brands forever other people they see the writing on the wall and you know right now we're having some store closures that's the reality of retail but if you read three or four paragraphs down in some of these stores you'll see that oh I'm going to close 40 stores because they were they were old dogs you know and they needed to you know they just needed to get you know get rid of them because they were you know pulling the the company down but they're actually going to build five more you know new prototypes or whatever it might be so you know it's always Reinventing themsel the biggest thing I think right now is is that there's a lot of commercial real estate because that that's vacant in these big cities that people don't want to go back to the office they want to work out of their house or they've proven themselves and what's going to happen to those uh to that real estate that that's vacant that needs something done to it and I think that'll be an exciting time over the next couple of years as Architects or Engineers The Visionaries the design firms figure out what they can do and then people like yourself that you know hopefully the the build builds you know wi correctly but you know uh whether you're electrician or a plumber or whatever that you go in there and and reuse that space and create something really really cool that no one ever ever imagines like down the road you won't even recognize what you know some of these locations look like that you remember and uh I just think is you know in construction right now you know a lot over the last couple years a lot of the people that I've talked to they could be contractors brands or whatever that uh they've said hey I would have had a better year and we had an awesome year but I didn't have I didn't have project manager superintendence to oversee the projects it's just the reality of there was a shortage of them so uh uh you know it's getting the you know it's getting kids in middle school before they get their size about hey I want to go to Florida State because they got a really cool Commons there with the pool and all that stuff and uh you know like my son he went to he went to aviation mechanic school for two years worked at Boeing for three years and now he just resigned and he just moved back to Atlanta and he's working for a regional uh jet uh gig called EPS Aerospace they just got bought up by uh a Swiss company but he's working on uh he was working on the 787s at at Boeing $350 million airplanes but avionics is electrical basically in Aerospace so he learned avionic sheet metal woodworking you know all that stuff and now he's actually uh uh you know working and using you know working platus they have a Jess they have turbo props but regardless he went the he went the uh trade route so you know I'm all about the trades and uh actually I put a uh a new column it's called construct edu and uh I uh sent it out to all of the the trade schools and I asked people look if if you get this little newsletter and you know someone that's got a kid that doesn't look like he's College material or whatever feed this to him because we need welders we need HVAC we need Carpenters we need all of this stuff because we don't get them you know construction drives the country that's just the reality of it so we want as many people and if you don't talk to if you don't um by the time they get in a junior or senior in high school they've made their they made their decision on what they're going to do so you really want to entice those the kids you know girls and boys you know whatever you want to call them young adults you want to get them between Fifth and eighth grade to kind of plant that seed and to think about hey there's nothing wrong with being a plumber there's nothing wrong with being an electrician there's nothing wrong with being a construction manager or superintendent or any of that stuff because you can have a really nice career you can say I built that you can have pride you can learn something and uh it's and it's a serious issue you know even when the product shortage was in there you know with manufacturing and products being uh you know not able be able to be delivered uh I just thought that uh you know the people that were on you know like contractors if you were if you were deemed essential on any of the projects that you were building you know during the shutdown uh those guys were you know Troopers you know they got on the planes they put their mask on and boom you know they they they had no you know depending on what state you were in really determined on how the project went but the bottom line is that they had to get these things done and uh you know to make sure that their clients you know still opened up their their their projects even here in Atlanta there were three or four projects I watched them all get built and they didn't even they didn't even miss a beat so um I know Faith Technologies has a presence in Atlanta as well yeah so on the construction side not not the manufacturing as much but on the construction oh sure sure so but uh let me ask you do uh do you guys have any mentorships you know do you do anything like that for you know either one of you you know to to tell you know either guys or girls uh that you might know hey you know you should think about going in instruction or being becoming an engineer or an architect do you ladies do any of that kind of stuff at Faith or and accelerate yeah so OKO and I are both are really involved in our job shadow event and that is is usually for high school students uh they'll come in here for a day we'll tell them all about accelerate and FTI and and what we do here give them some hands-on experience um they talk to our Apprentice ship program people so we do have an in-house apprenticeship uh that helps us out for sure with the the labor shortage piece of it but I would say that's one of my favorite activities because I'm also passionate about getting younger people in the industry and making sure that they understand that there's a variety of opportunities within construction and Manufacturing um and then just to add on to that too I enjoy going to different schools universities and telling them about what we do help out with our recruiting team um but then I'm also a part of of the National Association of women in construction so we have a couple of events throughout the year where we have an event called block kids and it has elementary school kids and it's a Lego building competition which is really cool but it gets them some a little bit of knowledge about what construction is about they have some Hands-On activities they do a little concrete por type thing um um paint a wall things like that uh and then we also have camp newick where it's geared towards high school girls and it's a week-long camp where they get exposure to all of the trades throughout Kansas City and they're able to have that hands-on experience each day for a week and and they're really able to learn that there's a lot of possibilities out there for them and they're not limited so I I'm right there with you on on bringing younger people in I think the earlier the better for sure and and that's how you kind of tell them that other things are out there and the trades are an option oo anything on that subject I just again I'm part of the job shadow program um so it's great I love it bring the students in and they just their youth and their energy just really brings you up and it was great I know um we're I work up in Wisconsin it was it's actually nice I've done enough job Shadows that I and I actually recognize some of the people in the lunchroom now so it's like oh gosh you I had you in the job shadow program and now you're an employee here um so it's really really great um and you know it's rewarding to be a part of that um it's it's so nice that FTI has that program it's very active and I'm glad that I get to be one of the people who does do the presentation gets to meet with the students um just chat with them sometimes my section of the presentation's complete and we're just literally sitting around the table just chatting about stuff um and I think that's some of the ways you can positively impact a student and they can give them a positive uh memory or feeling about the company just to have people to talk to that's awesome um as we're going into the second half of the year of uh 2024 into Q3 and Q4 and moving you know at the end of the year into 2025 what what do you see happening even you know with accelerate or what you see in general in construction you know from uh new products or services that you see coming down the pike really where we have been um FTI is really um getting more and more involved is really in um not directly into the AI but because of a lot of these things a lot of the clients that we have um are really expanding their facilities um new construction just to support the AI infrastructure so again we're not directly involved in that but we're here to help with the construction side of the support of that so I think that's been a good good fit for us um again a lot it takes a lot of electricity um um to support all of the the um data centers that would are required to have this AI so we're able to um that's where I really see this next year talking about the next half of this year um definitely all of 2025 and into 2026 so you know we're our role part in the pre-production is really to fill that funnel um of those projects and that's really where it seems a lot of our focus is there yeah I'll completely agree with OKO that's exactly where most of our work is heading um is is a lot to support those AI type uh facilities it's I see it more and more modular construction as well um for us that's good with in the accelerate world so I think that a lot of people are starting to really see the benefits of modular construction and moving things off site um and again it's it it's helping a lot with the schedule piece people want things faster now and and moving labor off site has really helped out with with that portion of it so I I see a lot more in the modular and I see a lot more with uh heavy electrical side of things of needing support there and and there's that electrical shortage too that we've talked about you know I'm I'm a judge for the modul building institutes uh projects every year so I've been a judge for I don't know 15 20 years I forget anyway every year though uh you know I'll have X amount of projects that I'll have to judge and score and when I look back at some of the projects you know that that I saw you know what they were just containers and they were blah now it's amazing what people do with modular it just is it's it's an amazing thing so for all you out there in commercial construction coffee talk land if you haven't looked at modu as another way to build uh actually I try to talk my wife and I was like hey let's do a modular house she's like no no I'm like why it looks so cool anyway but it's really come a long way you know in it you know from its impy's days into where it is today and uh uh just like this year when uh Stephen needs a director there at the NBI and uh he said he goes hey you'll see some really cool projects and I after I scored I was like hey these were some of the best projects I saw I mean they were really really nice and uh it's just been amazing what you know what people can think of uh you know from a construction point to build it offsite put it on site connect them boom it's up and running you know so um if anybody's out there on Commercial constuction coffee talk land and you like to uh bounce some questions off these ladies uh uh saraha how would someone reach out to either one of you or you know accelerate in general uh that's a great question so I'm out out there on LinkedIn um so you can feel feel free to uh search I guess on LinkedIn if that's probably the best um check out our website I think that there's a lot of great information a lot of ways to contact UM and put in inquiries um and whether your a student looking for your next step in life um or you're already been experienced out in the workforce but you're looking for something new in a New Direction I mean the the website's really a great way to to start and that is Faith Tech inc.com so I think that's really an awesome place to start is accelerate have does accelerate have their own uh section on there they do they do when you look at um then there's divisions you can like click on the divisions and then accelerate as one of our three divisions okay Sarah y so same yeah same as OKO um find me on LinkedIn search for me uh will definitely see the accelerate tag on there as well so it'll be fairly easy to find me um and then as far as the website goes that fach inc.com is the best way to see all of our divisions so we do have the accelerate division that OKO and I are a part of there's the Faith Technologies division which is our commercial electrical construction side and then there's also our ntech division which is is heavily involved in um our Energy Solutions so you'll be able to find out a lot of information from that as well if anybody wants to reach me I'm at David C at ccrm mag.com listen these ladies how you got on there the publist sent me a press release I looked at it and I had another division uh I had the basically I had FTI on here several weeks back and then the public goes oh I have two nice ladies from another division and we love to have them on there I'm like oh ladies we love ladies in the construction cuz you know let's put them on there and they can tell their story so uh that's how you get on here it's just like playing the lottery if you don't buy a ticket you can't win if you don't send me something I can't find out I can't post it up on the web very tough to get in the magazine would send me something we look at everything it could be you know an anniversary it could be a new product launch uh you know a charity golf tournament something that you're doing for the uh for the trades we look at everything all right we post every day you know I'm basically a content creator these days so uh you know send it to us don't judge the book by us cover let us look at it and uh you know turnaround times probably 24 48 hours but you know if we post something we'll send you the link we want you to share it it's it's good for both of our seos and uh you know we want people to find you on Google you know we want the traffic from you know to both the sites so you know send us it you know don't judge it just send it to me and uh we look at everything and uh shoot I put a lot of you know before before you know everything went could put in 2020 uh I was starting to you know I was just putting construction content up there but now people they've realize that there's more to life than just work so I put all sorts of stuff up there how to buy the right Insurance uh you know how to make the front you know uh your yard look nicer uh what are the right hair extensions you know maybe there's some guys out there that want to wear that stuff these days I don't know but I put it up there you know but the bulk of it's construction trust me you know but uh you know Senter stuff you know we I'm a data guy we love data we're addicted to it just send it to us and you know we'll uh we'll get you on there so Ladies as we finish up here uh you know if you wanted to leave one positive thought or phrase as uh you know as we said going into you know Q3 and Q4 uh what would it be for our listeners out there o I'll go to you first okay um I really I guess my positive phrase or positive outlook is really just um be positive see the best in every one and the best in every situation and it'll be it'll become the best so always just keep a a Rosy Sunny Outlook awesome Sarah that's awesome uh for me I I'd say it's okay to not know everything right everybody's in a learning position and it's important to learn something new each day so I think if people have that in the back of their mind that it's all right we can we're all here to learn together construction changes every day so so it's it's really important yeah yeah Hey listen yeah that's awesome uh I I couldn't concur with each with both of you and who knows I might even steal those uh to put on my little video each day you know I kind of think about stuff but uh uh listen I I'm if you're not if you're not pushing yourself and making mistakes you're not pushing yourself hard enough because mistakes are not bad it's just like winning and losing you know the athlete that I am winning is great but losing very cool too because it teaches you how to well how to take the loss but also why you lost and then if you have to play that team you can look at videotape you can you can adjust so the next time that you do play that that team you you might have that much more of a chance you know to getting the W and there's nothing wrong you know winning there's two ways you can win you can win ugly and you can look you can win pretty you know but I don't care as long as the W's up there it's a numbers game it's okay with me all right I you know winning 15 to1 is great but I'd rather win 4-3 and have a nailbiter you know so it it that's just the the athlete and me and uh so uh take it for what it's worth that's just my two cents but awesome awesome phrases so as we finish up here couple real quick things number one if you're on the construction site we want you to be safe want you to get home be able to have dinner with your with your partner your hubby your wife your kids your pets dogs cats rabbits goats whatever you have Turtles and uh get some REM sleep and be able to get up and do it you know the next day number two you got to stay hydrated I can't tell you enough now these ladies are in you know a cooled environment doing their work but it's hot down here and and even in the winter when you don't think it's hot you got to stay hydrated so you got to drink you got to drink liquid you got to stay liquefied put some electrolytes in your water bottle and number one you're going to feel better you're going to sleep better and you know when you're not hydrated you get headaches when you get headaches you make mistakes on the athletic field or on the construction site we don't want any of that to happen so drink lots and lots of liquid water preferred and uh last but not least hit the like button on there we want this uh you know the algorithms out there on uh YouTube to uh you know push this uh episode out and so they can hear these uh two L stories and and what they're doing out there in the modular electrical side of things so uh any last thoughts before we sign off S I don't think I have anything I just appreciate your time and everybody listening all right OKO yes same thank you very much um I've enjoyed it very much and I've learned some things as well so thank you all right well I am uh I'm going to sign off here from Sugar Hill which is about 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta right below the Buford Dam on lake laner and uh Sarah say goodbye from uh out in Kansas yes goodbye from OA Kansas yeah go cats and say goodbye from Wisconsin yep goodbye thank you very much everyone and uh everybody listen uh have a stay cool this summer have a great uh rest of the second half of the Year Q3 and Q4 it's going to be amazing remember positive thought no negativity and uh just keep your blinders on and uh get through your week have fun at what you do and before you know it's going to be uh the holidays boom we're going to close 2024 out and then do it all again in 2025 the year after year so with that said everybody out there on commercial construction coffee talk we will see you next time ladies pleasure hopefully I meet you in person one day all right absolutely thank you all right cheers everybody [Music]

2024-07-18 15:33

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