Construction Brothers

In this episode, we sit down with Jeff, a seasoned veteran of both military and construction tech, to explore the parallels between warfighter support and field technology in construction. From his background in the New Zealand Army to developing tools for the U.S. DoD, Jeff shares powerful insights about product bias, user experience, and how tech must serve those at the sharp end of the spear. We discuss what goes wrong when tech is built in silos, the importance of post-sales support, and why field adoption is the true measure of success. Whether you’re a startup founder, a field leader, or a technologist, this is a must-listen on how to build tools that actually work—for the people who need them most.

0:00 – What really matters in product success: post-sale support
1:00 – Jeff’s military background and transition to construction tech
3:00 – Comparing warfighters and constructors: tools, stress, and stakes
7:00 – The disconnect between tech builders and field users
10:30 – Why engineering bias can derail adoption
17:00 – Designing for real personas, not ideal users
22:00 – Field implementation: the napkin vs the model
27:00 – The power of third-party feedback and checking your “true north”
35:00 – Workflow integration: A to E to C to O
41:00 – Tech adoption fails without a field-level incentive
47:00 – The reality of scaling tech in the U.S. market
50:00 – SMB vs enterprise: choosing who you’re really building for

Can you think of a more difficult decision than the one that President Truman had to make in 1945? We can’t

Sometimes sitting still and not doing anything is the riskiest thing to do. Tyler recalls a conversation with friend of the show Henry Nutt III. Henry recounted a situation where his boss left him in a room and told him to sit tight until the boss returned. Henry sat around for a while and then decided to go ahead and do what it was that he thought had to be done in this room. His boss returned and decided that Henry had leadership skills.

Entrepreneurship involves risk. It requires initiative and a willing to act when others might be unwilling to do so.

Eddie encourages us to ask ourselves honestly what we could change about ourselves in order to improve our productivity or some other form of success. Chances are that we know what needs to be done and we’re simply not acting on that knowledge.

Inaction often makes failure more likely that action.

Here’s the whole quote as attributed to Harry S. Truman: “There is some risk involved in action, there always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.”

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00:00 - Introduction
We open with coffee talk today–and sugar intake, including some beverage shortcuts. Tyler calls it cheaping out; Eddie calls it hillbilly lemonade. We also reminisce about our favorite waitress, 4’10” Miss Connie with the beehive haircut. Oh yeah, also pickle races. Poor Miss Connie.

08:05 - Entrepreneurship: A Good Idea?
A few weeks ago, guest Matt Aston recommended the book The E-Myth Revisited (now available in an updated version). Tyler shares that this book hit him in the teeth when he picked it up recently. We’re discussing this book today because it’s filled with great content for construction-related entrepreneurs.

Business is hard. Each year, 627,000 businesses are started and 595,000 businesses fail. Many of those may have been active for several years, but still, it’s clear that starting and running a business successfully is tough work.

Author Michael E. Gerber shares his insights by telling the story of Sara, a fictional pie maker.

12:46 - Initial E-Myth Takeaways
Eddie shares the first bits of insight that he took from this book. Gerber distinguishes between the technician,  the manager, and the entrepreneur. These are three roles may exist in

A technician is the person who can do something well. A manager the person who is good at logistics and task completion. An entrepreneur is the person who works not so much in the business and on the business.

Tyler explains that many businesses are started by technicians who quickly find themselves needing to now fill all three of these roles. And since they may not have management strengths or entrepreneur strengths, their businesses often fail.

Tyler and Eddie both share examples of how this pattern played out in their respective businesses, ABSI and Storybuilder. The pattern is one that will sound familiar to you if you’ve started your own business. As a company grows, team members are added in a less-than-strategic manner, resulting in confusion and frustration. The next step is often a soft collapse back to the point where the business owner is once again handling almost everything.  

22:55 - Systems
Tyler shares that his entrepreneurial journey has gone through the first part of this cycle. Tyler and Eddie discuss the smoothness of the system that makes this podcast operate and Tyler contrasts that with his business.

Eddie discusses Gerbers references to Ray Kroc and what he did with McDonald’s. Kroc bought a system. Gerber makes the argument that even owners of small businesses need to approach their business like a franchise in regard to team-building, systems, and training.

Tyler refers to the movie Founder, which tells Kroc’s story. This leads to some talk about the turn-key revolution pioneered by McDonald’s. Tyler encourages business owners to check out Loom as a means of creating operational guides.

32:12 - Training and More 
Eddie shares that one of the lessons from the book that most resonated with him was the importance of determining your primary aim. In other words, what is your life goal? If this business cannot generate that reality, then don’t pursue the business.

Tyler critiques this a bit, saying that the process needs to be considered as much as the primary aim. He said that the path to that end is just as important. Structuring a desired lifestyle now is as important as an entrepreneurial endgame.

Eddie discusses the book’s 4 tenets of strategy: organization, management, people, and marketing. Then there’s a 5th-systems–that was more than we could discuss today.

36:12 - The Hotel
Tyler and Eddie discuss Gerber’s hotel storyline. Gerber recounts his experience learning about the systems that enabled this hotel to operate on such a high level.

Then Gerber contrasts this hotel experience with a barbershop that provides high-quality service up front but was unable to repeat the quality of that experience over time.

Tyler discusses the importance of not just first but also second, third, and fourth impressions. It’s about consistently focusing on the things that are essential.  

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Introduction
Today we welcome Joe Purtle, who is here to talk to us about concrete forms. Joe has been in construction for well over two decades, and he’s currently the COO of Doka, which specializes in forming and shoring.

Eddie shares a bit about his experience in construction back in the 2x4 and plywood days. He shares how cool it’s been to see the complexity of forms increase over time and to see how those forms have become woven into BIM software.

We discuss how designers and other stakeholders view concrete forms. Joe explains that the placement of concrete drives the schedule on many large projects. And the placement of concrete is largely dependent on the completion of formwork.

Cycling of formwork and big dadgum messes
Eddie asks Joe to explain the cycling (reuse) of forms on large projects. Doka’s job is to understand the complicated aspects of forming and pouring and how these complexities can affect a schedule. We discuss the benefits of modular approaches and cycling of forms.

Joe discusses the importance of knowledgeable planning and the unfortunate results when things to wrong and a form gets trapped. It’s what the bros and their Georgia buddies would call a “dadgum mess.”

Joe shares about how he has seen companies process decisions related to renting vs. buying. He also discusses sustainability issues and equipment that measures temperature and pressure to optimize the curing process. We get into the optimization of pouring and the incorporation of reusable sensors that give designers and project managers the ability to know things they would have previously not known without expensive, messy tests.

Prefab of formwork
Eddie asks Joe to share about prefab work such as cast-in-place parking garages. Joe explains that Doka can build and ship complete beam forms that are pretty much ready to plug and play when they arrive at the job site. They have CNC machines that can put curves into forms with highly detailed specs when the customer wants it.  

Tyler connects these abilities to the overall increase in complexity of structures. Joe shares about the pride we’ve discussed in previous episodes that comes with seeing a really cool building and being able to say you had something to do with that. 

BIM Modeling
Eddie asks Joe to explain how Doka’s work integrates with the BIM process. He explains that they’re already working within Revit and Tekla but that they are quickly extending their integration even further. We discuss how AI is streamline design. Then there are the AI features that simply increase the team’s everyday operations.

Joe shares some thoughts about “real BIM” vs. “Hollywood BIM” and how these differences affect scheduling. Eddie shares some thoughts from a designer’s perspective as well as thoughts about storing huge form components that are not easy to move.

We spend some time discussing the design rules being used to form AI and how significantly this process will likely change design work in the future. Then we discuss the role that human insight and finesse play in this process.

Megaphone Message 
Joe’s message to the industry is this: The industry needs to come together and stop working in silos. The sooner we can create true collaboration through the available technologies, the sooner we’ll progress to a future we can’t even imagine at this point. 

Find Joe on LinkedIn

Check out the partners that make our show possible.

Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - TikTok - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening

00:00 - Ennui and another Tyler
We know that you come here for philosophical insight and existential explanations, so today we’re discussion ennui. Tyler shares… tries to share about this state of listlss… listsles… listlessness and dissatisfaction.

After this fun, we welcome our new vocal presence, Tyler Cook. Tyler shares about the secret to connecting with Zoomers. It’s all about tier lists and brackets. So today we’re going to do a tourney bracket.

05:23 - The bracket
Today we’re exploring niches. We don’t want to share any spoilers here in the notes, but here are some opinions that are shared as we process this competition. 

• Concrete is tough.
• Drywall corners are hard.
• Flooring is not comfortable work.
• Spending your day staring upward will do a number on your neck.
• We don’t want to fall off a roof.
• Dooky’s not fun.
• OSHA keeps telling us not to touch a live wire.
• Demolition is fun for 30 minutes.
• Eddie is confident that he’s done with roofing.
• Welding sometimes happens in really dangerous places.

If you're interested in jumping straight to some specific first-round debates:

6:06 - Carpentry vs. masonry
7:40 - Drywall vs. concrete 
10:20 - Ceiling vs. flooring
16:01 - Roofing vs. HVAC
23:37 - Landscaping vs. painting
24:48 - Electrical vs. excavation 
30:44 - Glass installation vs. demolition
33:21 - Semifinals
39:15 - Finals

The takeaway from this process? Man, tradespeople do some tough stuff. 

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If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening!

Tyler's going to regret opening his mouth during this episode.
Please consider subscribing! SUBSCRIBE!Like us on LinkedIn!Like us on Facebook!Follow us on Instagram!Eddie's LinkedInTyler's LinkedIn(Our day job)

If you're interested in learning more about the construction of Hoover Dam, scroll to the end of the show notes for links.

00:00 - A Quick Dam Joke, the Consortium, and Some Stats

We question our ability to keep our puns in check. Sorry, Mom.

Then we move on to the contractors. We discuss the consortium called Six Companies Inc. that won the bid at nearly $49 million, approximately $860 million in today’s dollars.

Eddie makes a conveniently timed comparison to the Washington Monument. The Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall–almost 200 feet taller than the Washington Monument. Only 6 buildings in the US were taller than the dam when it was built.

We discuss some stats:
-4.4 million cubic yards of concrete were used in the project. That is enough to pave a two-lane road from Seattle to Miami or a four-foot-wide sidewalk around the Earth at the Equator or enough to pave a two-lane road from Seattle to Miami.
-Its base is as thick as the length of 2 football end-to-end
-It has 4 intake towers (30’ diameter each) that can carry enough water to fill 900 bathtubs in only one second. That means 1,448,100 “bathtubfuls” of water will have passed through the dam in the time it takes you to listen to this episode.

07:15 - Construction Costs and Power Output
Tyler mentions that the cost of the initial construction, which finished in 1936, wasn't paid off until 1987. Eddie discusses the way that we handle financing for capital projects, spending not just tomorrow’s money–but money that won’t come in for decades.

We compare these expenses to the absolutely monumental amount of economic impact that the electricity from the dam has had. Here’s where the 4 billion kilowatt-hours each year goes:

• 19% to Arizona
• 23% to Nevada
• 58% percent goes to California (15% to LA, which is 270 miles away)

10:46 - Hoovervilles and Fatalities
Eddie fills the gaps in Tyler’s history education with an explanation of the Hoovervilles from the Great Depression. Hoover didn’t get much positive PR aside from this dam.

We discuss the desperation of the Great Depression is shown by the fact that the ability to line up workers for a job to do this. Tyler shares the troubling coincidence is the fact that the first and last men to die on this project were father and son.

Thinking about these human costs leads us into a discussion about the structure of incentives and penalties that drove the owners of Six Companies to push the pace of construction.

19:53 - Takeaways: Big Projects, Green Energy, Old-school Drafting
We discuss the fact that bold projects lead to emboldened people who move on to even bolder projects. Sometimes biting off more than you can chew leads to growth.

Tyler makes the point that this dam was a green-energy project long before the term “green energy” was coined. He also expresses awe at the thought that all of the drafting for this massive project would have been done by hand.

Eddie stops short of calling himself a history buff, but he expresses a deep respect for the teams of designers and workers who accomplished massive projects like this with so little help from what we consider advanced technologies.

Tyler invites you to submit your ideas for future research-based projects.

If you’re interested in additional details about the Hoover Dam, explore these sources:

• EIA.gov
• USBR.gov
• B1M video: compares the world’s largest dams to other structures
• Lake Mead historical water-level chart
• NPS.gov
• Bechtel’s page about construction of the dam
• Old publicity/education video
• Library of Congress Photos
• Video of the physics and engineering involved

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 Thanks for listening

This week, Eddie shares a leadership insight straight from the baseball diamond: how paying attention to the players who struggle most can transform your entire team. Whether you're building a lineup or running a job site, it’s a powerful reminder that every role matters—and investing in overlooked contributors could be the key to winning.

Go build something awesome!

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-Our website: https://www.brospodcast.com 
-LinkedIn:   / constructionbrospodcast   
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Today we’re in conversation with Siddhant Mehta, Project Manager at Skanska, to explore how AI is transforming construction. From choosing the right tools to critiquing SaaS pricing models, Sid shares insights on tech adoption, AI coding, and the future of project management.

00:46 – Sid’s Journey Abroad
Sid Mehta shares his story from Mumbai to the U.S., managing multimillion-dollar projects and finding his place in construction management.

02:03 – Building Tech Networks
How Skanska leverages emerging tech groups, vendor evaluations, and peer networks to spread innovation across teams.

03:55 – Tech Adoption Realities
Sid challenges perceptions of slow adoption in construction, highlighting why pilot projects need time to show results.

05:14 – The Feedback Gap
Why construction tech tools often miss the mark, and how missing field feedback hurts tool development.

06:43 – Choosing the Right Tool
Sid explains why not every tech solution fits every project, stressing the importance of aligning tools with project type and phase.

09:06 – SaaS Pricing Rant
A frank critique of SaaS pricing in construction, questioning project-based fees versus simpler subscriptions.

12:00 – Naming Names (Kinda) A playful yet pointed critique of familiar industry pricing models—without naming names (but we all know who).

17:05 – Rise of AI Coding
Exploring tools like Replit, Claude, and Cursor, and the rise of “vibe coding” in construction tech and software development.

23:02 – AI’s Development Impact
How AI coding shifts the role of developers, and why front-end engineering faces more disruption than back-end.

28:00 – Data Centers & Demand
How AI’s growth drives demand for data centers, reshaping infrastructure needs for GPUs, power, and cooling.

35:00 – Environmental Impacts
A look at the ecological consequences of data center expansion, from water usage to energy demands.

40:48 – AI Saves the Day
Real-world examples of AI replacing executive assistants, saving hours on email, scheduling, and admin tasks in construction.

45:00 – Skanska’s Internal AI
How Skanska built internal chatbots to automate project schedules, saving schedulers hours every week.

47:26 – Ripple Effect of AI
Sid reflects on how AI’s time savings can scale across thousands of employees, transforming workflows organization-wide.

50:00 – Marketing’s AI Shift
Why SEO strategies are changing in an AI world, and how creative content is being reshaped by generative tools.

54:00 – AI’s Rapid Acceleration
Closing thoughts on how quickly AI is evolving, and why getting on board now is key for construction leaders.

Go build something awesome!

CHECK OUT THE PARTNERS THAT MAKE OUR SHOW POSSIBLE: https://www.brospodcast.com/partners

FIND US ONLINE: 
-Our website: https://www.brospodcast.com 
-LinkedIn:   / constructionbrospodcast   
-Instagram:   / constructionbrospodcast    
-TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@constructionbrothers?lang=en
-Eddie on LinkedIn:   / eddie-c-057b3b11   
-Tyler on LinkedIn:   / tylerscottcampbell  

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening!