The CWB Association had the privilege to attend Fabtech in Chicago, IL. We are bringing you special episodes recorded in person to keep our members on top of what’s new and exciting in the steel and welding industry.
Join us for a special episode with your favourite welding podcasters, Max Ceron, Jason Becker, and Kevin Johnson, with a live studio audience. The Podcasters Forum explores the new technology shown on the Fabtech floor and how we can improve public safety and retain welders. This episode is #3 of a 3-part recording and be sure to check out:
Part 1: https://arcjunkies.com/episodes/299-podcasters-forum-987
Part 2: https://open.spotify.com/episode/65n2vtAUYwRHKJ1vStg9sR
Follow Arc Junkies Podcast:
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Website: https://arc-junkies.onpodium.co/
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Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
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Fabtech is North America’s largest metal forming, fabricating, welding, and finishing event! Schedule the next event in your calendar: October 15-17 in Orlando, Florida. https://www.fabtechexpo.com/
The CWB Association had the privilege to attend Fabtech in Chicago, IL. We are bringing you special episodes recorded in person to keep our members on top of what’s new and exciting in the steel and welding industry.
Join us for a special episode with your favourite welding podcasters, Max Ceron, Jason Becker, and Kevin Johnson, with a live studio audience. The Podcasters Forum explores the new technology shown on the Fabtech floor and how we can improve public safety and retain welders. This episode is #3 of a 3-part recording and be sure to check out:
Part 1: https://arcjunkies.com/episodes/299-podcasters-forum-987
Part 2: https://open.spotify.com/episode/65n2vtAUYwRHKJ1vStg9sR
Follow Arc Junkies Podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CywFojJgfjh/
Website: https://arc-junkies.onpodium.co/
Follow Welding Business Owners Podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weldingbusinessownerspodcast/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Nsp94k86wLhvjRiWk1cOk?si=5qCJCo8WQO-OfWfl8Gu39A&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1&nd=1
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
WeldReady: https://weld-ready.ca/
Fabtech is North America’s largest metal forming, fabricating, welding, and finishing event! Schedule the next event in your calendar: October 15-17 in Orlando, Florida. https://www.fabtechexpo.com/
Alright, I checked, checked, I'm good. So I'm Max Ron. Max Max Ron. Shitwb Association welding podcast Hard, hard, hardcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
Speaker 1:This episode is sponsored by our friends at Canada Welding Supply. They are a family owned Canadian business with an awesome customer support team that's there ready to answer any questions you may have. Canada Welding Supply dot ca offers quick Canada, wide shipping, fair prices and a massive selection of welding supplies. They carry all the cool brands such as eSab, lincoln Electric and Fronius, but also some of the very hard to find niche brands like Furecup, outlaw Leather and, of course, up and smoke welding apparel. Best of all, they offer exclusive discounts only for our CWBE Association members. Check out Canada Welding Supply dot ca today to shop for all your welding needs. Remember that's Canada Welding Supply dot ca.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the CWBE Association podcast. This is a special edition. It is part three of a special podcasters forum that we did at Fabtech 2023 in Chicago with two of my good good friends and supporters and allies in the podcast industry Jason Becker and Kevin Johnson. Over the next three weeks there's going to be three episodes, broken up of a live studio audience recording that we did in Chicago. The first part goes to Jason Becker of ArcChunkies, the second part is Kevin Johnson of Welding Business Owners Podcast and the last piece is us here at CWBE Association.
Speaker 1:So check out the other two before you get to this one. Have a listen. Hope you enjoyed it. We had a ton of fun doing it in front of an audience and fielding some questions live, and we will be doing this going forward for other big events. So if you have any suggestions to comments, please put them in the comments section. Always download and share and please support all three podcasts ArcChunkies, welding Business Owners Podcast and ours here at the CWBE Association. Enjoy them and I'll see you at the next episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah you get a, you get a big event coming up to tell them about.
Speaker 1:October, october 18th and 19th. It's can weld, which is like our baby fab tech in Canada. So in Canada we do every off year, just like here with can weld, where we do a really big one in with fab tech. So we actually do fab tech Canada slash can weld and it's just like this it's huge show floor and Stephanie came up last year to work it. Well, you know, I try to find the best and brightest and that's usually my friends that I run with fab tech and and and it's a straight show and speakers and sessions and the whole deal. The off year. What we do, as opposed to here, is that we try to find like a smaller local community to highlight industry specific industries. So this year we're going to Moncton, new Brunswick, which is a small maritime province on the East Coast. It's like you know it's tiny but they got shipbuilding, they got some, they got nickel mines. There's a couple really cool industries there and we're gonna do conference there and that's the 18th and 19th Speakers. They don't have a convention center so we're just doing an all-hotel Laying out just tabletop booths, a long, a mezzanine for companies to show off what they got. We're doing tours of the college. The college just built a Huge like a center for excellence out there. So we got phronius, we got ESA, we got Miller, we got Lincoln, we got a couple of colleges from around there, we got oh and we've. We decided to kind of try to restyle the way conventions are kind of done, because, since it's smaller, I can be a little bit more creative with my budget.
Speaker 1:So I was looking at how to do this and it said, okay, first of all, moncton is bilingual. So it's like actually official bilingual province. It's the only bilingual province in Canada. So either in Canada you're either English or French, it's one or the other. New Brunswick is the only province that it's both official languages in that province. So it's like okay, well, how do we represent that? We need to have French speakers. We need to have I'm normally in the past it's just been like, wow, whatever, they don't care. It's like, no, we well, maybe we should. This is, this is their backyard. I gotta respect their backyard because I don't, I don't need to come in CWB. This is the way we do things. That's not gonna make friends anywhere. So like, let's respect it and offer French language throughout the day, both days. So we got sessions running both days in French. If you're there, you don't speak a lick English or something for you to do all day, all right.
Speaker 1:The other thing is the indigenous people. This is a beautiful indigenous culture that's being forgotten around the world. It's their land, is their rock that we, like you know, we live on and succeed and have great careers on, you know. So we were trying to figure out how do we like indigenize this event and I was kind of sick at how I had been seeing it done. You know, like having someone come out and be there and be like, hey, you know, you're on treaty, whatever land, this is where I see you later and you know, here's 50 bucks, have a nice day. Wow, we really respected that culture.
Speaker 1:I didn't feel like that was right. So I reached out to the local indigenous organizations there and I said what were the skills before? Like, skills are skills. You know, you guys built things. You guys survived here for 15,000 years, right, and let's survive it in Canada. That's a no joke, like it's no joke. So what were the skills? And I say, well, you know, working with woods and working with the weaving and rods and and beads and clothing and hunting and fishing. I was like can we break that down into a skills competition or not competent conversation?
Speaker 1:So now we have sessions throughout the day, led by indigenous leaders, of some of the skills Pre-colonialism, like some of the skills that existed before, and we try to relate them to the skills today. You know, and we have one on language, we have we have Medicine pouch or where you actually like cut leather, so leather, and everyone gets a kit, like in a bill. It's like we're gonna a hundred kits of these, everyone gets to sit down and we all get a kit and we're gonna build a leather medicine pouch the way they did it, you know, 8,000 years ago, and they're gonna teach us how to do that and that because that's a skill. And you know what, if I get, you know what end of times that might come in handy, because the skill is a. Skill Doesn't matter if it's older, new, right, and so this is the first time we've ever tried doing a conference like this. It it's not cheap, like it's a, it's a. You go do something new, like even technology, you got to pay. But I think it's about just establishing a different way of looking at it. So, going forward, we can kind of try to set an example of how to be respectful for the land, for the technologies and for the industry.
Speaker 1:Because you know, as much as I love Fabtech, I love that it's not going to be in Vegas next year. Yeah right, because it's a different industry. And I love Chicago, I love this, probably my favorite city in the US. Swear to God. But at the end of the day, coming here every second year, you're gonna see the same industry here every two years. So why is there not one in Kansas? Why is there not one in North Dakota? You know there's big money up in other places in the US, big industry that would love to show off Love, to flex its local muscle, right? So when I'm looking at the Canadian version because it's smaller and it's under my portfolio so I can do it it's like sure we gotta do the big one and make the bosses happy. I get it, but let's, let's play with the other one, let's move it around. So we're looking to move it all over Canada every second year is gonna be somewhere totally different and you're coming up, yeah, buddy, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So Jason's gonna be the special, special guests this year. He's coming up to Canada to be a part of our can weld. I sitting on panels. We're doing a keynote together, are we? And, yeah, we are, we're doing a keynote together. And then I actually I've all and told you to do the young welding Professionals forum. So that's what, stephanie, that was our favorite part last year.
Speaker 1:So they have a young welding professionals group in Canada where it's engineers, welders, fabricators, anybody who touches steel. If you're under 40, you get to be a part of this group for free and there's travel involved, there's a funding, and they get together in at Canweld and they do like a three-hour mixer where they just talk as young people to be like, hey, what's going on? And exchange information and what they're doing. And we try to have panel members from industry there just to answer questions. And Stephanie was there and she like she came back inspired from that, being like why do we not do these things in the US? I'm like, well, part of it. It's because you're almost too big. It's almost like the US too big to do these things. We're like just the right size where we can get away with this and it's not like a giant class, right. So she's like and then you're gonna be a part of it this year. So I'm super pumped. I'm looking forward to me, yeah, and we're gonna eat so much lobster.
Speaker 2:I'm glad I found out that all the requirements and the keynote speaker and all this stuff now yeah Well, we had a couple weeks.
Speaker 1:It's not till the 17th or 18th.
Speaker 3:We got lots of time.
Speaker 1:What was I doing my presentation today or yesterday, when I was doing my presentation 10 minutes before I had to do it.
Speaker 2:But you'd like travel around and you speak on a. Yeah, that's what I do for a list. What do you for a living?
Speaker 4:I'm speaking from a large audience.
Speaker 2:What do you guys want? To open up this segment for questions from the audience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a great idea. So if anybody has a question for any of us so we got a business owner, we got a school owner and and I'm an association member driven association for the welding industry or or for all of us if you could step up to the mic and ask a question in there so we can catch it on the audio and we'll all take a stab at it.
Speaker 5:Anybody nobody jump first.
Speaker 1:Oh, we got one, we got going coming around.
Speaker 5:No, he's just leaving.
Speaker 1:Just a door opens any runs and tell us who you are too so, matt Malloy from EWI.
Speaker 4:So Take it back a little bit too. Earlier in the discussion you guys talked a lot about technology, but it was a lot of kind of purpose-built technology, you know, plasma tables, laser tables, special processes, thinking of it from kind of the small shop point of view. Do you think we're at a point now where small shops really need to start thinking about Robots, co-bots, things like that, or is it a distraction?
Speaker 5:It depends what you define as small, because we all start somewhere. We all start with just us. So at that point, no, there gets to be a point where you kind of outgrow yourself and, you know, start hiring guys and things like that. I think that there's a point where you can only do so much as a project manager and an owner and you have to delegate somebody else to do the management of the people. And I think at that point is where you need to start looking into maybe that is just.
Speaker 5:You know, what I was referring to is old technology of a plasma table. Maybe that's really good for you, the spot that you're at, maybe you shouldn't have to spend $150,000 on a laser table, laser processor, anything like that. So I think that it depends where you're at. That really kind of dictates what you should look into and really that your end business goal where do you want to be? Do you want to get big? Do you want to stay small? Do you want to get medium? What is the market that you're at Dictate you can't have.
Speaker 5:I mean, maybe you can, but you can't have 30 guys in a market where you know that there's only 4,000 houses. You know what I mean Like you're not going to stay busy, are you looking to move out? Are you looking to make a product and ship it out somewhere? So I think that all kind of plays into it. So I really think it's just, it's really situational and where you want to go with, where you want to drive your company, because you don't want to get too top heavy with things and not have the work or even the workforce to do it, you know.
Speaker 2:I kind of think it'd be too. It'd probably be advantageous to specific companies. You know, if they're building parts, you know 50, a batch of 50 at a time or something like that same parts yes, I could see getting an ROI on that. But if you're just doing one off, you're doing I mean, like Kevin does a lot of custom fabrication work.
Speaker 2:Every job that comes through the door is not the same, so it doesn't really make sense to. You know, build a stair stringer or a set of railings and then program the robot. By the time you get done with all the touch points and typing everything in, like I could have had it welded out on its way to powder coat right now. But if I'm doing multiple parts, multiple pieces, I mean if that's the business that I'm in, or you know, if you have a client that comes in and says, hey, I need 60 of these this week, I need 100 of them next week, and you know that would make sense. If you're doing repetition, repetitive parts but you're, the joint geometry is always changing yeah, it would make sense for something like that.
Speaker 5:And I think that it kind of depends. It's machine specific. So you know, if you get a press break in a plasma table, you know you can do a huge variety of things versus like a tubing, like a plasma tubing profiler Well that's made for. You know specific diameter. You're like you're not gonna do structural steel with that. So a plasma table is super versatile with things. That's that changed the game in our shop, going from cardboard templates and soap stowed it on and grinding the edges.
Speaker 2:That's still bad, my gosh, cardboard assisted yeah, exactly, cardboard assisted drafting.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So something like that that could sustain you through 20 guys because it's so flexible, versus something like right now. We have an automatic feed cold saw In our shop. We haven't used that in the life. I'm actually selling it because it's a great. I came into it, it was a deal, but it was. I don't use it anymore. I'd rather take that money and invest it towards a laser scanner and because that's a technology that we're gonna use three, four times a week, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:On my end. That's a tough question for me, right? I think that, first of all, robotics, co-bots, aren't at the end user stage yet, and what I mean by that is think of 3D printing. You know, five years ago 3D printing was something that it was like hard to attain, technology that was still kind of expensive and people were not sold on 3D printing as an additive, anything right. But now you can go to Home Depot and buy a 3D printer and the filament and make whatever the you want in your kitchen in a half an hour, 200 bucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 200 bucks. So once you get to that end user point where the technology is so readily available, it becomes visible, accepted and easy to integrate at all levels. So if my kid can 3D print himself Lego pieces, as silly as it sounds, as a business owner I'm probably much more willing to accept that piece of technology in my workspace because I trust it. It's already around, it's kind of everywhere, and co-bots haven't gotten to the point where I can just go get one to play with, right? I asked that Lincoln when I was there. I'm like they have a warehouse full of co-bots and robots sitting with shrink wrap. I'm like, what are these? Well, they're older ones that have been returned because the customers buy new ones and some of these customers will buy 800 at a time, so we'll have 800 robots come back.
Speaker 1:I'm like, well, what do you do with them? Oh, we're not sure yet. Well, give me one. Yeah, right, right, Give me one. What do they run on? Oh, they just run on 240. Well, what the man? I got 240 in my garage. They've got them now running on 110.
Speaker 1:That's right, so you know, why is it not out there? That's the first thought for me. The second thought is you know at what point, Kevin, when you were talking, I was thinking at what point do you start looking at a small shop I'm talking small, like three to five under 10 employees and you're looking at a job or what you want to do with the business and the robot's part of the conversation. From the beginning, right, Like you said, 10 years ago a plasma table was a game changer. Now plasma tables, like, if you don't got one, you're not even in the game. So at what point do you start being like you know what? I'm thinking about? Opening a welding shop. I'm thinking about it. So I'm going to need a plasma table, a bandsaw, a small robot and two employees. Like that's the shopping list before you open the door. Right, because then it doesn't have to be for welding, Like I mean, as in your business, what's the one material you buy all the time?
Speaker 1:Like you're buying 80 feet lengths of it every day or whatever. An inch and a quarter schedule for it? Yeah, inch and a quarter schedule. I got racks of it at home at 2. That is the most cost-effective material to work with. It's cheap, it's readily available, you can get it from anywhere. Now, what if you had something that was unloading that offer for you, counting it, letting you know exactly how much you had left? No one had to touch that. That could be a completely automated process by a robot and be perfectly no cutting, no, just counting and sorting. Yep, that'd be amazing. That'd be amazing. And if you could go pick up a robot for 10 grand that does that for you, Done right. But like, when are we going to have that conversation where it's just part of the game? It's just part of the game, it's common, it's another tool, yeah, yeah. And you don't even think about opening a shop with that one and be like, why would I do that?
Speaker 5:Yeah, as far as that goes, it's common and it might not be the automatic loading one, but it might be something funny story to both your points about the 3D printing. I bought my son a 3D printer, so I bought my son a. We do a lot of spiral staircases so we have a tubing roller and the dyes for that are super expensive. They're 1,000 bucks a set. And I've seen people do 3D printed dyes. Well, you know what. We have a drawer full of 3D printed dyes out of 100% infill PETG and it cost me 60 bucks to do a set. Well, you know what I actually tomorrow morning, one of my guys is doing a job because we were able to do a short run. It's like four pieces of stainless Just roll it through under just a slight angle. I would never be able to do that if I was because buying a $1,000 set of dyes and hoping that it'd get a job down the road from that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what? You'll need seven jobs to pay that off.
Speaker 5:Just to break even. So now I spent 60 bucks in four days printing them and now I'm making a lot more money. I'm in the black already. We did a job for a company by us. Everybody said no, because they make light shades and light fixtures and it's a bar that goes in the bottom of those big light screens that just automatically come down. It's by 1 1⁄16 of an inch wide and about an inch high and it's an oval. They need it like 1 1⁄8 of an inch of bow introduced into that over 8 feet.
Speaker 5:Well you need a custom dye just to roll it. Well, guess what? I custom made the dye Like, I 3D printed it. So we 3D print them in half, we bolt them together and you know what? Nobody else did it. Guess what I got the charge really, really good, it might just to make that dye, whereas A they would have, like I, solved the problem. They wouldn't have been able to do it anywhere else and I would have missed out on all that if I just didn't have that 3D printer and the ability not the ability, but the mindset to think outside the box is to be like you know what?
Speaker 1:I can just 3D print that, just try yeah exactly, and even if it doesn't work, it was a $60 investment that whatever. Yeah, exactly, I'm going to spend more than that tonight doing whatever. Well, really you know, what.
Speaker 1:Did you know that more than 80% of welders are unsatisfied with their current vendors With exceptional customer service? Weldready is here to help grow your business and expand your hobby With expert knowledge and the products you count on. Weldready is here for you. Weldreadyca is your premier source for in-stock welding supplies, delivered to your door fast, and I mean fast. Weldready offers the products you need, such as helmets, tig torches, welders, plasmas, mixture tables and custom starter packages for educational programs. We stock all brands your metal working heart desires, such as ESAB, miller, ck, worldwide Edge Welding Cups, optrell, 3m, speedglass and many, many more. Visit WeldReadyca now to get WeldReady, and that's no bull. All right, do we have any other questions from the audience? That was fantastic. Thanks, matt.
Speaker 3:I'm just wondering what are your guys' issues with hiring people and how do y'all are going about hiring instructors for your school, hiring your fabricators? What have you all found is the best avenue to get good applicants, as opposed to Joe Smoll off the streets like, oh, I could weld?
Speaker 2:You're not going to like my answer, but I directly recruit from people that I know. Also, like all the welding instructors that are teaching at my school right now, I was the hiring manager when they applied at my former school, so I mean I've already known and vetted them and everything Poached yeah, I poached them out. I mean legit, because I know as an instructor I was in the same situation. I'd love an opportunity to go out and teach part-time on top of my full-time teaching gig. If I can pick up a couple more hours on the weekends and stuff, why not?
Speaker 1:Because you need the work right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, no, I don't.
Speaker 1:I got too much work. Yeah, too many hours. And Kevin, we've talked about this in two episodes. Man, you've struggled.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you know, I think you have to deal with all those Joe Smolls and just kind of weave through them and really just like we hire on from Indeed. And it's funny because our ad makes you weed yourself out. Some people don't even read the ad and actually when you apply you have like we have a keyword in there at the bottom. Make sure that you actually read the ad and if you don't reply with like that phrase or whatever, you're just out Like you know you didn't even, you're just throwing it.
Speaker 1:You can't even follow the first instruction, you're throwing it out, exactly.
Speaker 5:You can't follow the instructions, that's it. So we get a lot. Actually, dylan, he wasn't even looking for a job when he found our ad, but it's. We're just doing everything we're trying to do. Our tagline is not your ordinary well-to-come and we try to not be your ordinary well-to-company, and that shows in our ad, because then you can weed yourself out. So I think what we so what we do is we hire on Indeed and do the first phone interview, like I said, and then the basic fab test. You have to make a 12 inch by 12 inch square box. It has to be square and it has to look half decent and you can't take three hours to do so. It's a constant thing and honestly I'm kind of excited about this fabricated Olympics because nobody else is doing that. Yeah, like this is kind of a low key way to hire. At least make the introduction that hey, we're here. This is what we do. If you ever want to leave, let's talk, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think from my end, what I'd say is that there's a couple of different ways you could tailor ads or like when you're looking to hire. First of all, you got to decide if you want a lot of applicants weed through the Joshmos, if you want just a lot of applicants, what you do is you just say need a welder, and put a wide range, say 15 to $35 an hour. You're going to get a lot of applicants if you do that and you may only be willing to pay 22, 25, but if your top guy makes this, make that the top wage and just see what rolls in, because you may get a rock star that's looking for $35 and, hey, take it if you can afford it. But you'll get a lot that are going to be like hey, they consider themselves a $14 welder. They're going to weed themselves out pretty quick too.
Speaker 1:I don't really like that way because I don't think quantity is what you're looking for. You're probably looking for quality, right, and so if you're looking for quality, I find the one of the best ways to do your ads is to be real specific, which is the opposite direction. Where you say looking for MIG, welder, ad positions, railings, day shifts, you know, put in the information keywords, and then the people that will apply will have already in their head done some check marks, being like, okay, I know how to MIG, I know how to do this. Yeah, I'm only interested in that. Okay, yeah, I'm going to apply for this job. So now the applications that come in are less, but they've already kind of self-declared some of the skills that you want and you just got to check to see if they're lying or not. Yep.
Speaker 5:I think one of the things that we do is we put in the personality that we're.
Speaker 1:Now you're saying you're looking for good yeah, good people.
Speaker 5:So like yes you have to make tick-stick. That is like if you could be a great person, but if you can't do that, just you just can't work for us, mm-hmm. But if you just like to hole up in your corner, do your 40 and not really talk to anybody, not really gonna work out in our shop like we want you to be friendly. You have to go be customers. I want you to shower.
Speaker 5:We've all worked with someone that everyone call that guy yeah, but like just be friendly, you know, be able to speak in a Complete sentence and not drop the f-bomb communicate when you're at at a, you know, four million dollar house, like I don't want you to do that.
Speaker 5:You know, and I think you know. So that's kind of the aspect that we go of. Just you have like you have to fitting with our team, you have to fit in with everybody here. If you're Big enough, noxious and and just yelling at everybody, that's, that's all. You may be really really good at what you do, but you're just not gonna fit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're gonna poison the well yeah.
Speaker 5:I'm already that guy you can't have.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Is there any other questions from the audience? Maybe we got time for one. I think we've already gone over time, but maybe one more question. Oh, daniela, all right, oh, oh, this is gonna be for really real.
Speaker 7:Yeah, hello, it's really great to meet you all. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, I Just wanted my five, my five seconds of fame here, thank you. Okay, I have a great question, it's for all three of you. Tomorrow, if you decided you wanted to retire and you now need to hire to fill your position, referring back to skills, what type of skills and credentials would you be looking for to fill your position right now in your role? Thank you.
Speaker 2:So much for a short one.
Speaker 1:Kevin, you go first.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean you gotta replace yourself. I'm just gonna describe Dylan because he's right there. But Survivor die, you get this.
Speaker 2:He might have an insurance policy out on you.
Speaker 5:I mean, I mean, I take that back man. So, defer, you have to have a long-term vision. I think that's one of the things that I I don't always struggle with it, but I'm a big picture kind of guy so I see what our company is going to be in 20 years and we're getting there and we're not quite there yet. So you're gonna have to have that vision and the drive to go and Accomplish that vision. Even if it's not my vision, if I'm not there, you know, I would say and it's a really it's the drive, the vision, the integrity to hold up.
Speaker 5:If we JMW fabrication has a really good name in our area because of Intentionality of you know we do what we, what we do where, what we say we're gonna do, we show up on time, we do really good work and it's taken us a long time to get there. So I think integrity and Ride I mean these are basic Integrity, drive and work ethic are probably my, my top three that I would really need to hire for to take over my spot, and I Mean Dylan's got all that. So you know, I'm not, I'm not looking to retire yet, but sounds like someone's getting a raise.
Speaker 1:Hey man, Step it up.
Speaker 2:It's on record because I want to retire. What about you, max?
Speaker 1:Oh, man, like for the role I have now, what I'd be looking for is vision. That's an important one. I preach vision like allowing people to be creative and, honestly, the thing that's gotten me 99% of the success in my life is the people around me. So being ready to, to hire or find talent and nurture them and and Leave your ego aside if you can contribute, contribute if you can teach, teach if you can mentor, mentor. But sometimes it's time to shut up to, and when it's time to shut up, you gotta know. When it's time to shut up and listen and, and that's a tough pill to swallow. As you get older and you start getting more, more professional, you start to kind of get into the I know it all world which you can't go there. You can't go there. You got to be ready to just a humble and just know that there's always more so the to. Whatever you think you got figured out, there's more so whoever would have to come into this would be would want to have that same vision. The other piece would be you got no how to weld.
Speaker 1:I work for an organization like the AWS, cwb, aisc, cisc. In these companies we get to make major decisions that affect the welding and steel industry thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, and you want that to come from a place of experience, because you can't pull that out of a book, you can't pull that out of a class no university is gonna teach you. You want someone to have real world experience because you're affecting people's lives. So for me, that's helped me a lot, being a welder for 27 years now, before I make any decision, I think like how would this affect at YoungMax? How would this have affected my work, my job? Would I have lost a job if I changed that? You know what I mean. So I would hope that the person that replaces me has some form of field experience or work and take that into account when they make decisions.
Speaker 2:I can pass it off to Max, because I needed a little bit more time to think.
Speaker 1:I know we both know. That's why we did the.
Speaker 5:Kevin first Right under the bus and back right up.
Speaker 2:I felt it man.
Speaker 2:No, just for the simple fact that I run three different businesses so I wear a lot of hats. But I think you know, just trying to find something in commonality with the three different things that I do. I mean all of them are based around welding. But I'd say passion, drive and teachability. That would be the biggest thing. I don't need the credentials, I don't need the CWI, the CWB, like all the other BS that comes with it. Are you passionate and can I teach you and do you have the drive? If you've got those three things, I can teach you anything. I mean in the ability to weld, because I teach welding and I do weld consulting. So having the ability to weld, I mean that's definitely gonna be a major thing. But I mean there's a lot of welding instructors out there that just can't weld.
Speaker 1:And they mail it in. They mail it in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they phone it in, they got no business teaching. So I'd say you know passion, you gotta be passionate about what you're doing. Each of the three companies. I'm passionate about what I do, whether it's the podcast, the testing or the training. I've got a passion for welding, bringing up the next generation, helping to educate or help educate and inspire the next generation of welders. That kind of goes into all three of the different companies that I run, not just the podcast but, yeah, the ability to teachability, going out training, getting additional education, being a lifelong learner.
Speaker 1:And it's came up every day this week and all the different groups we've been hanging out with. We've probably heard it like 30 times in three days. But you can't teach ambition. You just can't teach ambition. That's just something. It's that either you have it or you don't. We're talking skills versus talent.
Speaker 1:Ambition is a talent, like you're born with it and you can nurture it 100%. You can nurture it, but you can't pull it out of thin air, right, you just can't pull it out of thin air. And when you see someone who's ambitious and they might be terrible at a lot of other things, but if they're ambitious, you got a lot to work with. You got a lot to work with there's the roads open. But if you got someone with no ambition and all the skill in the world, that's a short leash. That's a short leash you're running with. So it's a thing that I think all the three of us have. It's what makes us friends, because we talk to each other and we get each other pumped up. We're like after the last podcast, we were talking about your business for like another half an hour, being like you should do this and what about this?
Speaker 4:We should have recorded that Six hours sat down.
Speaker 2:We had more audio.
Speaker 1:But it was like we get pumped up about what we're doing, we text each other about projects and hey, what do you think about that? And we get all happy for each other Because we feed off ambition. And ambition is not a selfish thing. It's not necessarily that I want to be ambitious for me, Like you said, to help others. I'm ambitious to just see things grow right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cool, you want to close this out?
Speaker 1:I started it off Someone else will yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:Anybody else have any questions?
Speaker 2:All right, so this has been the first podcast, extravaganza live studio audience cross pod.
Speaker 3:Thank you all so much for coming.
Speaker 2:It really means a lot to us that you would kind of give up the last half of your day of fab tech to come out here and listen to us three yak behind the mic, so we really appreciate it. Hope you guys liked the podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. We'll probably give you this up in two, three equal segments, so I'll take the first hour. I think Kevin will take the room 30 minutes.
Speaker 5:The next 45 minutes 30 minutes, we'll leave.
Speaker 2:Max in the last five, we'll get Max at least eight minutes this time.
Speaker 1:And if you don't know the joke, you're going to have to ask us about that one, go back and go back to listen to the other show Back to listen to the last cross pod. Yeah, thank you very much. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 6:You've been listening to the CWB association Milding podcast with Max. If you enjoyed what you heard today, rate our podcast and visit us at CWB associationorg to learn more. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions on what you'd like to learn about in the future. Produced by the CWB group and presented by Max, this podcast serves to educate and connect the world and community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.