What if you could turn military discipline and skills into a successful civilian career? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Josh McMahon, a former Navy Seabee and now Vice President of a custom home building company. Josh's unique background - shaped by frequent relocations with a stepfather in the Navy and an initial aversion to a military career - offers a compelling narrative of how unexpected decisions can lead to remarkable achievements. From his early days in the construction trades to enlisting in the Navy and finding his calling with the Seabees, Josh shares valuable lessons on adaptability and resilience.
Our exploration continues with an in-depth look at Josh's multifaceted career within the Navy, where he honed his skills in plumbing and HVAC. Learn about his intensive training, memorable experiences in Sicily, and the significant project in Okinawa, Japan, that broadened his expertise. Josh recounts the extensive cross-training and varied responsibilities that characterize the Seabees, highlighting how these unique experiences provided him with a rare and invaluable skill set for his future civilian endeavors. His riveting stories underscore the importance of flexibility and teamwork in both military and civilian construction sectors.
In the final segment, Josh reflects on his post-service career, detailing his impactful role during Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and the transition to his current position in Charlottesville, Virginia. Discover the intricacies of managing a custom home building company, the joy of creating personalized living spaces, and the leadership qualities that drive success. We also emphasize the significance of personal vision, mental health support, and the power of celebrating small wins. Tune in to hear Josh's journey from military service to constructing dream homes, offering inspiration and practical advice for veterans and aspiring construction professionals alike.
What if you could turn military discipline and skills into a successful civilian career? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Josh McMahon, a former Navy Seabee and now Vice President of a custom home building company. Josh's unique background - shaped by frequent relocations with a stepfather in the Navy and an initial aversion to a military career - offers a compelling narrative of how unexpected decisions can lead to remarkable achievements. From his early days in the construction trades to enlisting in the Navy and finding his calling with the Seabees, Josh shares valuable lessons on adaptability and resilience.
Our exploration continues with an in-depth look at Josh's multifaceted career within the Navy, where he honed his skills in plumbing and HVAC. Learn about his intensive training, memorable experiences in Sicily, and the significant project in Okinawa, Japan, that broadened his expertise. Josh recounts the extensive cross-training and varied responsibilities that characterize the Seabees, highlighting how these unique experiences provided him with a rare and invaluable skill set for his future civilian endeavors. His riveting stories underscore the importance of flexibility and teamwork in both military and civilian construction sectors.
In the final segment, Josh reflects on his post-service career, detailing his impactful role during Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and the transition to his current position in Charlottesville, Virginia. Discover the intricacies of managing a custom home building company, the joy of creating personalized living spaces, and the leadership qualities that drive success. We also emphasize the significance of personal vision, mental health support, and the power of celebrating small wins. Tune in to hear Josh's journey from military service to constructing dream homes, offering inspiration and practical advice for veterans and aspiring construction professionals alike.
everything goes into running a construction company. So it's not all just swinging hammers. There's more to this industry.
Speaker 2:This is the construction veteran podcast connecting and celebrating veterans in construction now. Now here's your host, scott Friend. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Scott Friend. I'm proud to bring you guys Josh McMahon, a fellow former CB like myself and currently a vice president of a residential home builder. Let's dig into it it. Hey, josh, how's it going? Man scott, how you doing? I am fantastic. It's a a beautiful day in texas. For once, we've had a ton of rain, but you are in virginia. How are things up there?
Speaker 1:richmond, virginia. It's uh, we have not had as much rain as you guys have had, which is you know. I'd say it's been good. It's really good from a construction standpoint because we're able to get a lot of stuff done, but it's not so good for my yard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen, totally agreed. So Josh and I haven't officially met, but we connected a while back on LinkedIn and got reconnected. I'll say, with a mutual friend that a lot of you guys might know, out there to listen to the show Luke Hill great guy. Um, so, yeah, we, uh, we, we're going to talk about our, our shared service. We have a couple of things in common. Um, I want to ask Josh, uh, where are you from man, what led you to the military and what'd you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm. I'm originally from Syracuse, new York, and my stepfather, who married my mother when I was probably five or six years old, he was in the Navy and he was in the Navy. We moved from Syracuse to Virginia Beach, to South Carolina, back to Virginia three different places in Virginia. So I had the great fortune of growing up and living on the East Coast and attending three different high schools. So I don't have a lot of childhood friends because I grew up in the Navy and I swore I would never join the military. It was not the life for me. And when I came out of high school I went directly into the trades and I started the trades as a stucco person, laborer, helper, and I really loved it. The camaraderie running around the job site looking for that board stretcher. It still doesn't exist, but I was looking. I was determined to find it right.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, but those memories from 25, 30 years ago was like that, really stuck with you and I was with my people, so to speak, and I love the construction industry and I advanced very quickly because I was hungry. I learned at a very quick pace, but what I also learned was there wasn't a lot of ceiling right. There wasn't a lot of growth opportunities. I was looking for more and that's what led me to the military and I started by looking at the Coast Guard. That's what I really wanted to do was the Coast Guard, and they said no problem, it's a two-year wait. Yeah, me, being the impatient person I am, I was not waiting two years to join the Coast Guard.
Speaker 2:What year was this that you found that out? I think it was probably 2000.
Speaker 1:That's when I started. I started in the construction industry in 98, and I was getting frustrated with the lack of mobility. And that's when I looked into the Coast Guard and they said, you know, one to two years to wait, and I wasn't interested.
Speaker 2:So what was the sorry to sidebar you? But what was the reason for that long wait back then?
Speaker 1:Man, it was just there was not a need for service members at that time. Everybody was flushed. This is pre 9-11. So the service and you remember the service in the later nineties we were downsizing our military to, you know, for economic reasons or budgetary reasons or politics, who knows we didn't need, we didn't need service members. So the coast guard, especially cause it's more department of transportation we definitely didn't need service members. Yeah, but that was a little bit of a frustration. So I went next door and I went to, uh, I went to the Navy the next best thing, the closest thing to the coast.
Speaker 1:Going through the whole process of the Navy thing and talking to the recruiter and I'm ready, right. And they said, uh, we, we got your stuff, we're ready to go. And I said, you know what? I thought a lot about this. I don't want to do anything with a ship, I don't, I don't. If I want to see water, I want to go to the beach. And he and it was a second class and he said, man, my chief wants to talk to you. And I said, oh, okay, I don't know what a chief is, so that didn't mean anything to me at that time.
Speaker 1:No problem, dude, I'll talk to your chief. So chief gets on the phone and he says man, you don't want to go on the water. I said you know, no, sir, that's just not my thing. He said no problem, we'll put you on the plane, we'll fly you to other countries and you go build shit. I was like I said do what? Yeah, we'll fly you places, you go there and you build stuff. That's what we'll do. And I was like man, where do I sign? And that's when I got introduced to the Navy Seabees.
Speaker 2:So did they know anything about your trade background at that time, or that this is something that they offered up?
Speaker 1:Uh, they, I think they knew that I was in construction and that I enjoyed doing that because I was doing. I was doing stucco as a younger person, you know, right out of high school. But I fell into the HVAC trades and that's where I was advancing very quickly and I was trying to make the jump into the service side of HVAC. But the service side was almost from a military standpoint you have enlisted in officers and it it almost felt like service side. You had to have a college degree. You had to have something different. You had to be family, college educated, something. You had to have a different, compelling argument and they didn't have it.
Speaker 1:So that was why they hooked me up with the Seabees and the best thing happened they put me into the best rate in the Navy, which was a utilities man. I would argue that a little bit, just saying the best thing happened.
Speaker 2:They put me into the best rate in the Navy, which was a utilities man. I would argue that a little bit, just saying Naturally we can talk. Yeah, let's talk about what is a utilities man. So I've mentioned previously what the Seabees are, what we do, and that we could basically build a city if need be, and you had all these different trades. So I'm a builder formerly. So let's talk about a utilities man and what that entails.
Speaker 1:Yeah, utilities man is a. It's a plumber and an HVAC technician, so it's both trades in one, which is really great. You get to learn two really great trades. So we would go to somewhere in Texas I can't remember where the A school was, but we went to A school with the electricians. Three months of school to one month for plumbing, because it doesn't take a lot of effort to be a plumber. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:But one month of school. You just lost like a quarter of my audience. Thanks a lot. You just lost like a quarter of my audience.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot. One month of plumbing school and then two months of HVAC school Very cool. And then they say, hey, you're ready to go, you're ready to be a plumber, ready to be an electrician? Not completely true, but you have the basic information to go out and be dangerous. Yeah, basic information to go out and be dangerous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, utilitiesman was a really cool job because for me, I was single at the time and if you were married, you were instantly going to a battalion which battalion for the CVs is our deployable units which means 10 months at home, six months or seven months out to sea or a different country building something. So very, very high tempo for five years. But if you were single, you had a good chance of going overseas somewhere, and I was single. I got stationed in Sicily for three years, sicily being Italy.
Speaker 1:So my time was not deployed not doing this high tempo. My time was more maintenance driven, so I got to work in a plumbing shop to right out the gate. So my 22nd birthday, I remember, like it was yesterday, sitting on top of this water main that was the size of a car and cutting this thing open because the leak, I mean the pipe, had ruptured, and where it ruptured. It had ruptured 10 years prior, which our UT one, our our um leading petty officer, had fixed when he first got there himself 10 years prior. So now we're fixing this pipe on my 22nd birthday it was. It was a great memory again.
Speaker 2:I hope you gave him so much crap that his fix didn't hold. I mean, 10 years is pretty good, though I got to hand it to him.
Speaker 1:That's not bad for the Navy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, that's for sure, that's an understatement.
Speaker 1:I mean we, we just want it to hold for a deployment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know those, those units like that man, I mean, even though you're not deploying, it's not that high up tempo. I mean, I learned a ton when I was in a maintenance unit as well, because you really get to put your trade to good use, Got to follow the codes, depending on where you're at Right. So it's not like deployment, just get it done. So, yeah, let's talk a little bit more. So you were in a maintenance unit in Sicily. How long were you out there? Yeah, three years, and then you got the opportunity to go elsewhere, correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah, after I finished my three years. It was an easy decision. I wanted to go to the battalion I wanted to deploy and we have two options as Seabees you either go to Gulfport, mississippi, or Port Hueneme, california. Being an East Coast boy, I really wanted to go to California. And I told the detailer he's like hey, where do you want to go? I said any one of the battalions on the West Coast Doesn't matter. Where doesn't matter, where they're going Doesn't matter, I want to go and I was lucky to get NMCB 40 or Fighting 40. The cool thing about that trip was that the moment I got to Port Hueneme they just left to Okinawa, japan. So I get to California, I get settled in, I immediately jump on a plane and fly to Okinawa and I spend the next six months there.
Speaker 2:Oh cool. What was the main mission there in Okinawa?
Speaker 1:So that was a cool mission because we had to do a dispatch building and what we were doing was we excavated for the foundation and then we, our unit, was putting together, tying the footers and foundation walls, and and you know from your time in the military, we over-engineer everything we do. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, this footing and foundation was designed for like a skyscraper and it was a one-story building. Yep, that rings true, and so here's the thing. So, as a utilities man, as a plumber, I'm going to be the lead plumber on this project, but you're not doing plumbing every day, and this is what makes the CB so special.
Speaker 1:You're not doing plumbing every day, and this is what makes the CB so special. You're not doing plumbing every day. So what are you doing? You're tying rebar, you're putting rebar together, you're building forms, you're getting it ready to pour concrete, then you're pouring concrete, then you're running your plumbing. You were a builder and that's what you did. You did builder stuff pretty much all the time. I'm assuming utilities men got the ability to be builders and then be utilities men, so I got the best of everybody's world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point. And I got a little bit of cross training as well. On deployment, you know I had some times where I was welding, always with, obviously, an SW overseeing that, or, you know, if we needed to help, if it was a small team of us and we had to set something up, I'm learning from the electrician doing what he does so I can get ready for my work and I think that's one thing you know now that we're talking about. I really took that for granted. I got all that cross training because you don't get that nowadays in the in the construction industry really. I mean, you can, but you yeah, that's 100% accurate.
Speaker 1:I mean the level of cross-training we got in it. It was highly encouraged and everybody was there to help you learn each other's jobs, because nobody was going to take something from you. They weren't going to make more money than you. It was all structured.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what some people might not know is that once you reach that Master Chief level, you're combining the rates together, so you've kind of got to be a master of multiple trades at once.
Speaker 1:That's a great point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of like I'd relate it to a superintendent, like what I do. Not that I'm a master of any of the trades by any means, but I've got to know a little bit about everything to make it. I know enough to be dangerous.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the superintendent role is the next best job to be in a CB. I don't think there's a better job than being a Navy CB. I wish I could have. I wish I would have stayed in longer. I just my ambition got the best of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was so you. You did the deployment to Okinawa. That was a six month deployment, you said so. You came back stateside in California. So what tell me about?
Speaker 1:walk me through the rest of your service. Yeah. So once I got back from my deployment, this is where I really was no longer interested. I am not a home port B, and the home port is when you're just sitting at home, you're doing training, you're getting ready for the next deployment. That is not my bag and I got bored. I didn't like. What we would do is we would muster and make it, which just basically meant you get there at 7 o'clock or 7.15, whatever time they tell you to be there 15 minutes prior, of course. And Monday, wednesday, friday, you go PT.
Speaker 2:That is a term I haven't heard in a long time. Thank you, josh, but you know what I'm talking about Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So you know what I'm talking about Absolutely. So you know, if you're PT and you're like great, let's go run, let's go, let's go get this in. Well, once you get done with your run, they say OK, well, we'll see you at 1300. We'll see you at one o'clock. And it's like, well, what do I do for four hours? Like you know, that's not got to sit here and wait to tell you at one o'clock that I'm still alive and I'm still with you. Like, can you just call my phone? No, sir, be here at one o'clock.
Speaker 2:Okay, extremely inefficient.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it killed me. And, being the smart aleck that I am, I would say, you know what? I'm going to sit here and I'm going to wait. And I'm going to sit here and I'm going to wait and I'm just going to be kind of like a nuisance and I say, hey, you got anything for me to do, got anything for me to do, got anything for me to do. And I would just wear people out. And then I just didn't want to be there anymore. A great thing happened. We were getting ready to do field exercises in the fall 2005 timeframe, I think, and I volunteered for it. I'm like, heck, yeah, man, send me down range. Like let me go do something. So we're doing field exercises, which is basically playing war, and we're on the aggressor side, which was a ton of fun for us, because you know it's paintballs, right? Did you ever shoot the M16s with the paintballs?
Speaker 2:You're the guys, we hated man.
Speaker 1:Oh, the aggress right. Did you ever shoot the m16s with the paintballs? You're the guys we hated man. Oh, oh god, it was so much fun. Yeah, for y'all. And let me tell you, those things did hurt. So it wasn't, it wasn't easy.
Speaker 1:But we're doing that. And we're sitting at the chow hall one day and we're eating dinner and hurricane katrina happens to be in the gulf. And they're like it's chow hall one day and we're eating dinner and Hurricane Katrina happens to be in the Gulf and they're like it's going to hit, it's going to level this, this is going to be bad. And we're like, oh, my God, we come back the next day. You know, louisiana is getting plowed, everything's underwater, people are, you know, people are in dire need for help. And I'm looking at the TV and I'm like what are we doing? Like we should be there helping our people. That's what we should be doing.
Speaker 1:So we get done with field exercises, we go back to the base and they said, hey, seabag inspection tomorrow morning. I said, okay, no problem, get there for the seabag inspection. They said, hey, look, there's a chance that we might deploy to New Orleans and help with the recovery efforts. And I was like, oh, thank God, this is great. Now, mind you, I'm getting out in three months, my end of service is on the horizon, but because I'm a junkie, I want to go help. So we go and we do the seabag inspection. They said, ok, seabag inspection tomorrow. And I said, guys, how many pairs of underwear I have in my seabag doesn't determine how I'm going to help these people that are in dire need.
Speaker 1:And the chief calls me in there and he's like McMahon, you've got a bad attitude. I said you know, chief, with all due respect, I'm out of here in three months. Man, there are people who need our help. Let me go down there and help them. The next day they said you know what? Because you're such a smart aleck, you're going to be the first one to deploy you and these other six people. And I said, oh, thank God. I said why are you so excited? I said because just think of all the musters that I'm going to skip out on. Now I get to go down and work. Awesome, we had this six person crew with this, this boot SW one, and he's like, he's a hard charger and he's like man I got all these guys are getting ready to get out. This is going to be a disaster.
Speaker 1:It was the best working squad. We did more work in like two weeks than the whole battalion did in the month that they were there. It was unbelievable. I'm like none of us are bad people. We just want to work. We want to help people, man, yeah, so that was a great ending for my, my Naval service, because you know, louisiana is is where I ended it. Um, I love the people of louisiana and new orleans. They're just really good people. Even when we're down there helping them, they were feeding us and they were just so appreciative of everything we were doing for them. It was just. It made you feel really good.
Speaker 2:That's cool yeah, it's really nice. You got to see the the fruits of your labor immediately too, I mean. I mean you're really helping these people, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I mean because you know you were in the service long enough. You do something. You don't know if it ever affects or helps anybody. You don't see the fruits of what that does.
Speaker 2:It could be four years before you really see something, and by then it's a distant memory. Yeah yeah, a distant memory, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'd say even sometimes more in the industry. Now too. I mean, you're building these buildings or with you, you know you're in residential we'll get into that here in a minute but uh, you know, I would assume you're not seeing every family move into the house. I'm certainly not seeing. Uh, I built hospitals for a while and I'm not seeing the patients coming in. But we know we're working toward, but we don't get to see it at the end. So that's, that's a good visual reminder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is, you're right.
Speaker 2:So okay, so we're at the point you transition out. Um, what do you do now in the industry? I'm going to kind of speed up a little bit and then we'll go back to it. But what are you doing right now in the industry?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so right now, today, I'm a vice president of a custom home builder in Charlottesville, virginia. We do $10 million of revenue annually, which equates to four to six homes a year.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. So these are pretty, pretty nice outstanding large homes, I assume.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some of them are really big, some can be small, with really high end finishes. The beauty of custom is we can do anything you want, and that's what I really enjoy about it. And you know, we and on our homes there's no land included, it's just the house, and we're probably averaging about 1.7, $1.8 million per home.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. 0.7, $1.8 million per home that's awesome. So how did you go from the service and I'm going to back up again now. So when you first got out, what were you doing when you first left the?
Speaker 1:Navy Right away. I went back to Syracuse. I moved in with my parents. I went to school for a year. I was working on getting my education because I felt that's what I needed to do, and I was working on my associate's degree and just doing really fixing things around their home. They bought a fixer upper. As my mother is an HR professional and my stepfather was a computer person, they had no idea what they were doing and, quite frankly, I didn't have any idea what I was doing either. But I was fixing up their house, learning as I went, and basically remodeled everything in their house, which really gave me the bug for residential construction.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. So you still had that bug when you got out. It sounds like to get into it because you still loved building. So how did you end up? What did you do for your first job when you got out in the industry?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I kind of lucked into a couple of things. So first I became a handyman for a Mr Handyman company. I was doing that for a little while. I didn't, I didn't like it, I didn't get a lot of satisfaction from it. And I lucked into a home builder, not knowing anything about that world. And I lucked into falling into a role that was customer service representative, which essentially means warranty tech. So once the house is closed I'd have a whole list of any items the customers wanted fixed. I'd call them, I'd schedule it, I'd go fix it myself, or I'd go and I'd schedule the trades to come back and fix it.
Speaker 2:Were you working on your parents' home at the time where you were doing that, or is this? This is after you got done with the renovation?
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is about a year or two years after that renovation. That's when I I um, I stopped going to school. I moved to Virginia and I was looking for something more.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you had a lot of that trade knowledge, you know pre-service, during service, post-service, to really kind of go get after it. And so I'm going to back up again what really drove you to wanting to do plaster and all that when you were younger. What is it that sparked your?
Speaker 1:interest in construction as a whole. You know, I think when I was younger I didn't think I was smart enough or good enough to do anything else, and I know that that doesn't sound good, but that is a young person. That's what I thought. You know, my stepfather you know. Let me say it this way Parents should tell their kids they can amount to anything they want to achieve if they work for it. My stepfather and mother were the opposite. They told me not to set my goals too high because I don't want to be disappointed. And so I did. I set my goals low and I achieved those goals. And then I became bored with those goals and I just set higher and higher goals to go after more. So I fell into construction because I didn't think I could do anything else. And then, when I realized I could do that and I could do a lot more, I started to push myself to take on more challenges.
Speaker 2:Oh, I like that. That's cool, man. What a neat story. I like how it kind of came full circle. And little do people believe and I preach this a lot that this industry is a lot more complicated than people really think and a lot of these guys are doing financially a lot better than people think too.
Speaker 1:That's such a fact and so many people just don't understand how much opportunity is in this industry. So, in my role today and the type of income that I make for my family, we live a very, very good life. We have more things than we need, more things than we ever wanted, and we're doing very well. And this industry allows you that ability. If you get after it, you learn, you grow, you network with the right people. The sky's the limit in this industry and no better time than today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So. Let me ask this um your service, how do you think that's directly helped you with what you're doing now, other than you gotta be a smart Alec, obviously a little bit time to time in the industry. Still, so that helped. But um, how, how do you think, like what did you take away from the service that's helping you in the industry?
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what it is in a nutshell. It's it's teamwork and camaraderie. The service is nothing but this giant brotherhood or this camaraderie. We've never met, but the moment you told me you were a CB, we have an instant connection and we'll have a bond for life. Now, just because of that one word right, and we know what we've both done. You don't have that on the outside and that's what I've searched for for 15 years, 20 years, and the cool thing about today being in the role that I'm in is I get to build that environment. I get to build teams, a team to go build homes, but the focus of the team is really on the culture and that teamwork and camaraderie and this win-win mentality that we had when we were in the bees.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's what's helped me today.
Speaker 2:I haven't had too many residential folks on the show yet, and I'm really encouraged to hear that, because it gets preached a lot in the commercial industry and I guess we don't give you guys enough credit too that there's small teams building these homes together that really have to depend on each other for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the problem with residential home building is that it's chaos. Management. Commercial specifications are very clear, things are very black and white. You know when you're going to do it, you know what time you're going to be there. Home building is completely different. It's kind of like a bomb blows up and then a house appears and when you get the right leadership and the right teams and you share this vision for what we can build here and what we can do, you can create something special. And it's not. It's very unorthodox for our industry, but we're doing that at Bramante homes.
Speaker 2:I like that. You'll appreciate this. I have a nameplate on my desk at the job site that says chaos coordinator. That is my job.
Speaker 1:Hey, sometimes it's true, and you know. Here's why it's true. It's not the project manager riding his bicycle down the street with a flat tire and everything's on fire. That's not what it is. You have a plan, you know where you're going, you know how you're going to get there. Something derails your plan and how you pivot and how you react to that is what determines how that day and that project will go. That's what makes good project managers and superintendents. We are three and four steps ahead of that problem before it even happens. So we're already mitigating it before it happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had people say that our superpower is is seeing, you know, four to six months into the future, of what am I not doing right now that's going to impact me later on down the road. That's it.
Speaker 2:You nailed it. So let me ask about this journey. So you've had a really cool journey, man, and it's neat to see you've been in the industry basically from a young age through today. Not everybody has that story. You know started with their grandpa or something when they were a young kid and framing. So not everybody has that kind of background or you know your type of story doing plaster. But if they're looking back at the last couple of decades here, is there anything along the journey that maybe you think I would have not done? Or I would have done that might have put you in a better position?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. The one thing I would have done was I would have networked more before I was coming out of the Navy. I didn't do a good job networking. I didn't do a good job keeping in touch with some of those contacts because there's the thought that these people aren't going to be able to help you on the outside. The reality is, you don't know who's going to be able to help you or how you're going to be able to help them. So network every single place you can. And a little bit of credit to myself in in 2005, the Internet was still relatively a new thing. I didn't know a lot about it. We didn't know a lot about it. You know, technology was just. It's not what it is today, right, so networking was a little bit more challenging. But that's the one thing I would encourage everybody to do is start networking now. Don't wait.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good, absolutely A hundred percent agreed, um, and there's really no excuse not to now. With things like LinkedIn and all the social media we didn't have, you know, getting out of the service, um and being able to just text your buddy. Right, he's moving to a different state, but he's getting into an industry you like might, uh, you like or want to get into Um. So I want to talk about other veterans in the industry real quick. Uh, it's not an easy industry. I don't try to sugarcoat it Like this is everything's perfect and you just go out and make a ton of money. It's hard work. I mean, you'll get there, um, but it can really beat you down sometimes, and we're recording this. I'm going to publish it after May, but we're recording this during mental health month too, and that's another thing to think about. You know, vets struggle with that. The industry struggles with that. So if we've got folks out there, specifically vets, that are just trudging through the mud trying to make to the next day, what would you try to say to encourage those people?
Speaker 1:this, too, shall pass, right. I heard Tom Hanks say it. If things are good, everything's going the way you want it to go, this too shall pass, and if things are bad, this will pass too. The reality is, tomorrow is a due day. It's how you see the future that will determine what happens. Right. You can manifest great things if you believe in it. And this is where I like to start, and I don't think it's talked about enough.
Speaker 1:Companies do a good job of creating a vision for where they're going. And I say companies do a good job. Maybe they don't all do a good job. Individuals do a terrible job of creating a vision. If I would say to you you're just starting in the industry, you're a veteran. You did 15, 20 years. What's the vision for the future you? Where are you going to be in five years? What do you hope to see? What's your house look like? What's your family look like? What's everybody doing? What do you see around you? As you start developing that vision for who you're going to be and what you're going to have, or what you're going to be doing, for who you're going to be and what you're going to have, or what you're going to be doing. It's incredible how quickly things start to fall into place and it will happen faster than what you anticipated, because you've put it out there. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:I mean people used to give folks grief about like a dream board, but I keep a goal sheet.
Speaker 2:I have an actual goal sheet on my computer of this is what I want to achieve in the next year to two, this is two to five and beyond, and I think that's really important to keep you on track. And it's changed. I mean sometimes month to month. Those goals will change for me or maybe I find a more efficient way to get there. But yeah, I would say that there's just a lot of folks having a tough time in the industry because we're lower on resources than we were a decade ago. And I don't just mean material, I mean people too. People are getting out.
Speaker 2:And I think, at least in my position and your position, our job is really to train that next generation of builders coming up.
Speaker 1:That's right, it is. And this industry I mean there's no sugarcoating it Some days just suck, and honestly I really think that's in every industry. It's just we live this every day, so we know it. But I'll tell you as you start counting the days, if you said, hey, at the end of the day, was it a good or a bad day? And I would even do it differently. Once you score your day on a scale of zero to a hundred and just score it on a 10 point scale, how many days are over 70%?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you might find that you've got more days over 70 than you think. So so think of it in very simple terms so I get a passing grade today, Like do I feel like I won the day? And as you get more and more of those wins, you start to create more positivity, more wins, and then everything just seems to be working well. The opposite is true. If you just keep looking at the negative things and I had a bad day, and I had another bad day you're just going to keep finding more bad days, because that's what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's. I'm definitely having a light bulb moment here, for sure, and I can relate it to the service. Like we, we all miss it when we get out, cause we don't really dwell on the crappy times Most of the time. I mean we've lost friends down range and like there's horrible things that happen, but all in all, we're looking at the big positive. So yeah, you're going to have some crappy days, but that's. That's good man. I'm going to keep that in my back pocket for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you, what's worked really well for me is that if I let my mind do its own thing, I can get in a really dark place. So I'll go backwards for you a little bit. February of two years ago my brother took his own life. He's a veteran air crewman. When he got out he struggled. He didn't know where to go, he had to start over and he couldn't get his head wrapped around it.
Speaker 1:I hired him as a superintendent one of the best damn superintendents I ever had because, man, he just wanted to work, he wanted to learn, he wanted to grow, he gave it everything he had. And when he went to another company, I was really happy for him because I felt like you know, you're there, man, you're ready and you did it on your own. And I know that's what he really needed. Well, the company let him down. They didn't do anything to support him. Two, three months later they let him go and it's all downhill from there. Nine months later, you know the uh, the bad stuff happens Right and uh, and it sucks. Okay, um, but what's helped me with some of the coping is having a daily journal. I know men, journaling, you know, sounds a little, I don't know, I don't know how you think that sounds right.
Speaker 2:It's not manly yeah no, I get it, it's all good.
Speaker 1:But my journal is very simple. I put the three positives from the day before First thing I do. What are the three wins? And listen, don't overcomplicate this. My win could be I got eight hours of sleep last night. I drove home safely, had a great dinner with my wife. It is very, very simple. We're just celebrating wins, we're creating momentum. The next thing is what am I going to accomplish today? And then I journal whatever's left on that page. Just write whatever's in your head and what will happen is you start to get any negative thoughts out of your head and you start to write positive thoughts where you're going, what you're going to do, when we think of mental health. For me personally, with my journey, what I've been through, that has been an absolute game changer for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I really appreciate you sharing that story. That's, that's difficult, but I'm really glad that you have like a positive light that came out of that with that tragedy. So thank you, josh, for sharing that.
Speaker 1:It took a lot of time, man. It's the first time I've really opened up and shared any of that, so however many people listen to this, you'll be the first ones to hear it. And I laugh because I'm a laugh or cry guy, so I'd rather laugh, yeah, plus you can't see me crying, but you can see me. You can hear me laughing. It's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it was nine months in a dark place and you know what? What helped me was my wife and how strong she was, and family that were willing to talk to you, friends that were willing to talk to you, and that's what we need, right? Everybody has bad days, everybody has tough times. Be there for each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah Amen, I appreciate that, man. Man, it's going to be hard to get back to the podcast. That's really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2:No, I really appreciate it, man, and I'll share a quick story. One of the guys that I deployed with he took his life back in 2016. And it was rough for a lot of us that served together and the crazy thing is that we all kind of bonded a little bit more over that and we're we're constantly checking on each other now and we felt bad because we're we I can blame myself because he was here in Texas and why didn't I check in on him and why this. And it's not my fault necessarily that it happened, but it definitely encouraged me more to check in on my battalion brothers happen, um, but it definitely encouraged me more to check in on my battalion brothers.
Speaker 1:That's what you hope, right? We want something good to come from everything and and that's I think that's a really good thing. And I don't think it's your fault, it's nobody's fault. We, we can't understand why people do that. You can, I mean, cause even with my brother, his best friend talked to him that morning and was joking with him and everything was good, like, so there were people talking positively. We don't know what's going on, and I think it's just imperative that we all open up to each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we, we just passed Memorial day, uh, this past Monday, as we're recording, and I saw somebody put a post I think it was on LinkedIn of you know, check on your happy friends, check on your friends that aren't doing well, it's. It's kind of a check on everybody kind of thing. Just check in and I I shot out a few texts to a few people and that I hadn't talked to in a while and they're like thanks for checking in, man. I mean they're doing well, but they appreciate it. And I appreciate it when people check in with me, because I have bad days, like the rest of us for sure, and I've had those, those dirty thoughts before and I struggled a while myself after deployment, but no, that's, that's good man, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:All right. So if we've got veterans that are listening to the show or we get the message out there and we know we need people really bad in the industry, um, we've got a lot of folks that are retiring out. Um, some are getting out of the industry. Some are retiring. They're doing other things. Um, how do we encourage people? And I think this is the whole impetus as to why the show started was to celebrate this industry and we didn't. We haven't done a great job of it. I think we're getting better, but how would you encourage someone to say, hey, this is probably going to be a really good fit for you once you separate from the service?
Speaker 1:I think it comes to that networking. There was an individual in Georgia that I think did a really good job as he was leaving the service from the Army and he called probably 20 people, sent you a LinkedIn message, said I'm leaving the service, I'm really interested in being in construction, I'd like to pick your brain. And I thought it was really cool because he talked to me, talked to commercial people, he talked to everybody he could think of. I think it's important for our bases and leadership at these organizations and I can't remember what they call the units where, like when you're getting out, the teams that go around and help you finding companies.
Speaker 2:Oh, the TAPS program.
Speaker 1:There you go. Taps, that's right. Taps needs to be pushing. You know construction is an option. So you might start at the lower wages. You might start at entry level. You've got to learn the ropes, that's what it is. Lower wages you might start at entry level. You've got to learn the ropes, that's what it is. So, if you set your expectations right, you go in there with a growth mindset. You find the right company where you can grow and learn. You can move up very quickly, and I think a lot of it just depends on what motivates you.
Speaker 1:What part of the business do you want to do? Because, as you think about Navy Seabees, we were a self-contained unit. We could do whatever we needed to do. Well, construction is very similar, right? Because commercial construction you can be in the middle of nowhere and develop your entire city, and there's different facets of that, right? So you've got builders and electricians and people swinging hammers, then you've got management side, then you've got accounting side, then you've got sales, you've got marketing. Everything goes into running a construction company. So it's not all just swinging hammers. There's more to this industry, which is what makes it so appealing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent. And that you know, relating it back to the bees, like we had support personnel we needed. We couldn't do our job, I wanted to get paid, I wanted to go on a leave, you know, I wanted to get the right supplies. So we've got a lot of that. I'll call them support personnel, outside of the operations of the industry that help us get the job done. I mean, we can't do anything we do without them.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right that support staff is so critical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. And the cool thing is they get to come out like marketing folks that might not get to see an excavator every day get to come out on the job site. They don't have to worry about half the stress we're dealing with. They get to take the cool photos and so they're still exposed to this neat industry, just serving in a different role people into the industry.
Speaker 1:Get out there and take more pictures, show how cool this industry really is. This was a piece of dirt and now we've got pictures and we're showing you a time lapse of a piece of dirt to this hospital where babies are going to be born, where diseases are going to be cured, like how can you get anything cooler than that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've seen a huge uptick over the last couple of years of a lot of trades folks that are they'll snap a picture of hey, check out this sweet. Well, they did like I'm really proud of this, so that's awesome for them. But it's also exposing, you know, teenagers or younger folks into the industry as well, and that, and that's really what we need.
Speaker 1:Social media is a really cool popular thing and we've all got a hate, love relationship with it. Embrace it. Put those pictures out there, show them how cool this industry can be. Amen.
Speaker 2:So I want to give you a little bit of time here. I want to talk about your podcast, so we mentioned it a little bit. So you run a podcast with your wife called Feed Me your Construction Content, and you said it's been going for about two years.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right About two years my wife and I.
Speaker 2:every Thursday morning at 4 am a new episode drops Very cool. So what do you guys?
Speaker 1:cover on that. This is a podcast that originally started with myself and another individual who was in the commercial sector, so we had a commercial and residential flavor to our conversations and just talking about people coming into the industry, what to expect, how to be successful. That's kind of how we wanted to do it. It was like really giving back. Well, as you got a co-host who's in another state, I got really serious about it. I really enjoyed it. I started investing my own money into new technology and microphones and headphones and pod tracks and everything else and he just wasn't interested. So we stopped.
Speaker 1:And then I told my wife. I said I really want to get back to podcasting. She said yeah, you should do it. And I said I think you should be my co-host. She said no way. So we go from a no way to how about this? Let's just do two episodes where I just ask you questions about your interior design work, what you do, what your experiences were working with builders, and just see where it goes. And from that we're almost two years later. We we podcast every week. Everything that we talk about is really home building related, but we could talk about mental health stuff, firing individuals, hiring, core values, vision, anything to do with the business, anything that we think is valuable to someone that wants to get into the home building industry, maybe commercial sector really, just kind of any industry on some episodes. So they're not always about home building or always about construction.
Speaker 2:I like that. Cool, I'll definitely. I'll have to check it out now. Man, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Well, we, we'd love for you to check it out. We'd uh, we'd love to have you on as a guest too and talk about your journey, Cause I think that would be really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm in. So you guys heard it, I will be there, that's great. That's awesome. So one quick question before we go. I was thinking so we're both in different facets of the industry. You're in residential, I'm in commercial. There's a lot of differences, obviously, codes and the way we build some things. But what is it that kept you in the residential side? Or did you have no interest in the commercial side, or what is it that appealed to you about?
Speaker 1:residential. Well, some of my career was commercial. I really liked the commercial side. I really liked doing NAVFAC projects or Army Corps of Engineers, because of how detailed the specs were and you you knew exactly what to do. I think what I really what I didn't like about commercial or or NAVFAC was traveling. I could have made a lot of money, I could have been very successful, but I was going to have to travel more and I just didn't want to do it. Our son was at an age where I felt like it was critical for me to be here and in the project that I decided to move away from commercial, I was actually at Marine Corps barracks renovating one of the barracks and I was like this just isn't worth it. I need to get away from this.
Speaker 1:In residential, what I've really loved and hated, I love that there's so much opportunity. There was a lot of chaos. There wasn't a lot of organization or order and discipline and accountability and I was like, wow, we can really fix this stuff. And after about two years of doing it I was like no, you can't fix this. There's no fixing this industry. So I went and got my degree. I got my bachelor's degree to get out of construction and around the same time I was graduating, I got my own team and I was a production manager and I was running three different communities, 10 different superintendents, and I fell in love with building teams that were building homes. So what I love about residential construction is the opportunity to really give back to people and groom their career and watch them blossom and turn into something really brilliant, and that's why I've stayed in residential construction. I can really get back to the people. I can. No matter where I go, how high I get, I can still help people that are directly around me and really encourage others to uh, to do well.
Speaker 2:That's what's kept me around residential brother, I, if I can encourage you, that's just so cool to hear. You know, like I've said, there's been some crossover from some of the culture, mentality of commercial that I think you're bringing something really special to the residential world and I think you can change it and you are changing it and I I'm really encouraged to see how far you go with that.
Speaker 1:Well, it takes time, right, but one day at a time, and if we affect one person, then that's the kind of change I need. And in my current role, what I'm doing is I've created my team, I've got the systems in place and now I'm working with individual sub-trades and helping to kind of coach them up on how they can be more profitable but also help us, the builder. So it's it's kind of a it's really what I love doing, which is coaching and helping other people Very cool.
Speaker 2:Well, josh, on that note, man, I really appreciate your time tonight. As you know, as a fellow podcast host, it's it's difficult to try to set up these times that we can chit chat because we both have a full-time jobs and families. So thank you again, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's my pleasure, scott, Thank you so much for having me on the show. I can't wait to listen to the end result and I can't wait to get you on the other end of the mics, all right brother, we'll see you soon. Thank you, brother, talk to you soon.
Speaker 2:All right If you're a military veteran in the construction industry or you're in the construction industry and support our military vets and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast. You can find me at constructionvetpodcast at gmailcom, or send me a message on LinkedIn. You can find me there at Scott Friend. Let's share the stories and motivate others. You.