Construction Brothers

If you’re looking to hire military veterans, you’ll come away from this episode with some solid action items.   Today we talk to Jay Snyder. Jay is a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force Reserve and has served six years of active duty. He is also the president of Big Blue Innovations, a construction consulting firm. Jay has been in the private construction industry for more than 20 years, and he joins us today to talk about increasing the recruitment of military veterans into the construction industry.    Military vets are exceptionally well-qualified for employment in the construction industry. Jay runs down a list of reasons this:

• They’re used to rigor and structure. 
• They’re accustomed to establishing a sense of comradery. 
• They understand the value of training and careful execution. 
• They know how to trust their teammates.
• They have experience adapting to always-changing circumstances.

  Jay shares a bit about his experience returning from active duty. He’d been doing project management while deployed. He expected to have a smooth transition from that role into construction. He was surprised to find that the private sector didn’t really understand what he’d done or know how to fit him into their structures. Jay realized that he needed to use different words.    Jay talks through a list of organizations that work with veterans to get them set up on post-active-duty employment. Here are a couple that he mentions:

• ESGR (Employee Support of the Guard and Reserve): Facilitates communication between veterans and companies who are seeking to employee 
• TAP (Transition Assistance Program): Seeks to prepare service members for their transition back to civilian life. Jay encourages employers to connect with TAP and discuss how they can work together

  We discuss how military draw-downs lead to large pools of potential employees. Not all of the people in this pool are looking for immediate employment, but a great many of them are. We discuss the benefits of actively targeting these people for recruitment.    Eddie discusses specific candidate pipelines that companies establish from colleges or training facilities. Jay explains that these pipelines can function like flywheels, requiring very little effort once they’ve been established.   As an industry, we need to communicate as clearly as we can with service members and transition-assistance programs in order to ensure that veterans feel welcome into our field.   Jay's Megaphone Message: The construction industry is in the midst of a huge transformation toward increased sophistication. Much of this transformation is occurring in response to a lack of people to fill positions. Companies that want to take the simpler route should make a concerted effort to recruit veterans.      Find Jay online: LinkedIn - Big Blue Innovations   Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we are re-airing a 5 Minute Friday from this past April. Even if you’re not a particularly religious person, you’ve probably heard the Bible verse that inspires today’s episode: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." The best leaders are those who give themselves up for the good of others. People respond to that sort of leadership.  If your primary motivation in the workplace is to promote and protect yourself, people will not line up behind your vision. Leadership requires respect for others. It requires you to empathize with those you’re trying to lead and putting their interests before your own.  Eddie shares a metaphor of a full-to-the-brim cup. If you fill your mind with positivity and thoughtfulness, that’s what will splash out when you’re bumped by challenging circumstances.  Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest this week is someone we've wanted to interview for a really long time.    Bob Goff is the author of two New York Times best-sellers- Love Does and Everybody Always - He's also a recovering construction lawyer after practicing for 25 years. He is now a writer, speaker and founder of the non-profit "Love Does" dedicated to helping kids in conflict areas.    Bob has been a massive inspiration to both brothers, and we were absolutely honored to chat with him.    Related Links Love DoesEverybody AlwaysDream Big   Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening!   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's five minute Friday, Tyler and Eddie have the 4th annual reading of the Christmas Story.  We hope that everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!     Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we’re re-sharing an episode we did earlier this year with Jordan McRae. Jordan is the CEO of Mobilus Labs and one of the inventors of MobiWAN, a communication device that enables users to hear and speak through skull vibrations. MobiWAN was one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Significant Inventions of 2021.   As construction people know, communication on the job site is immeasurably important. It’s also often a serious challenge. Simple, concise communication can be the difference between life and death.    Jordan talks us through the basic physics principles that enable bone-conducted vibrations to register in your inner ear. He explains that MobiWAN has found a place on drilling rigs, in refineries, and in manufacturing. He also discusses new applications they’re exploring within the medical industry, particularly in surgery, where monitors and masks create communication barriers.    We pose some questions about bone-conduction communication, and Jordan patiently answers, drawing a parallel between this technology and MR (mixed reality). These headphones don’t totally bypass the ear, they just deliver the vibrations to the eardrum via bone rather than air.    As you can imagine, noise-canceling capabilities are crucial to effective implementation of this technology in an environment filled with jack hammers, saws, and generators. Amazingly, the flesh and muscle that surround the human skull work as a surprisingly effective filter to exclude noise outside of the body.    Eddie discusses the fact that this technology offers benefits in office workspaces too, where individuals might otherwise wear in-ear audio equipment and therefore have a hard time engaging in conversation with others.   We hear the scary how and why of Jordan’s choice to explore this technology. After studying AI and ocean and space robotics at MIT and at Stanford, Jordan had a scuba-equipment failure that resulted in temporary lung damage. Reflecting on the situation, he found it unacceptable that he was unable to communicate with his fellow diver to ask for help.    This gave him an excuse to innovate. Although he and Mobilus didn’t invent bone conduction for audio, they took the basic concepts and began to explore a new range of applications. For the first few years of Mobilus, Jordan actually had the title of inventor. He would observe, experiment, interview, and explore.    Jordan walks us through the history of audio equipment and how little change there really has been. He also discusses the pride and satisfaction that comes with inventing something and seeing people embrace and build upon that.   Our discussion wraps up with the questions Mobilus had to answer and how they settled on having both flexible systems that simply use Bluetooth 5.0 and more robust systems with a greater number of proprietary solutions. They work with clients to integrate existing platforms and systems, always looking for ways to improve the user experience.   Megaphone Moment:  Jordan wants collaborators. Mobilus wants to hear from people with boots on the ground and discuss how this technology can help them be both safer and more effective in their work.    Here are a few resources in case you’re interested in learning more about MobiWAN’s bone-conduction communication:

• A video of Jordan discussing MobiWAN at the MIT Start-up Exchange
• MobiWAN in TIME Magazine’s 100 Best Inventions List
• A 2020 article about Jordan’s company

Find Jordan Online:  LinkedIn - Twitter - Mobilus Labs Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s not what you’d expect. Despite all of his work in physics, Einstein is said to have said that the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.  This certainly makes sense in the world of finance, but it goes far beyond that.  It’s about slow-burn, long-process growth on top of growth on top of growth. Its power reaches into personal lives, business lives, creative pursuits–it reaches everything.  We discuss how we’ve seen this with the podcast–and how satisfying it was to see audience growth that came as we plugged away week after week. If you get caught looking around rather than looking forward, you might feel like you’re missing out on something.  We all want to see results quickly. Once you’ve experienced the long-term return on investment, however, you realize the world-changing power of this universal principle. You, too, might begin to feel like you’re less of an idiot than you were five years ago.  Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to adopting new helmet solutions, it turns out that construction workers are surprisingly fashion-conscious. Today we talk to Rob McKinney about innovations in head protection. Rob is full of insight about the current state of safety practices in the construction industry.   Before we get around to helmets and hard hats, we chat about the Ford Lightning. Tyler shares about his recent experience driving a rented Ford Lightning for a few hundred miles on a trip. We discuss self-driving mode, charging challenges, and a long walk to Five Guys.     Then we move on to hard hat talk. The last couple years have brought significant developments in hard hat technology. For many years, head-protection progress in the construction industry lagged behind other sectors that have high head-injury risk. Some of the innovations that originated in the worlds of biking, snow sports, and motorsports have recently found their way into construction PPE.    We explore the differences between the old-school type 1 helmets and a range of new designs. These new designs address a broader range of impact types rather than focusing almost exclusively on impacts from above.    Rob and Eddie tap into their experiences with head protection on the baseball diamond and the ski slopes. Rob shares about a snowboarding accident, and Eddie discusses those annoying left-handed batters who are always hitting catchers and umps on their follow-through.   Then there’s the issue of appearances. Frankly, nobody wants to look goofy. This concern comes into the picture in relation to colors, overall helmet shape, and chin straps. We’ll complain about chin straps even though we’ve all had a helmet fall into the mud while we’re working on rebar or just on a windy work site.   Here are several other topics that come up in today’s talk: 

• Issues specific to particular specialties–electricians, for instance
• Milwaukee’s lamp clamp
• Gel liners to replace or complement foam liners
• Increased attention to safety on the part of CEOs
• The dilemma created by the increasing cost of helmets 
• The difficulty of establishing standards for all circumstances, environments, and even a broad range of head sizes. 
• The question of pickiness in enforcement. At what point toward the end of a project do we stop nagging?
• Bone conduction audio devices
• Augmented-reality visors

  Rob’s Megaphone Moment: Take an honest look at your company. See where you can improve the way you do things. Where is your sore spot? Where are you locked into old ways of doing things? Be willing to reflect, do some research, and then make some improvements.     Links related to this episode: 

• Procore article that gives a rundown of current helmet solutions
• FastCompany article about hard hat innovations
• Wavecel helmets
• Milwaukee’s lamp-clamp helmet
• The Ford Lightning 

Find Rob Online: LinkedIn - Twitter   Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Discipline or regret. It’s one or the other.    Tyler shares his morning routine and the challenges of consistency, and we discuss how much harder it is to start a new routine than to maintain an existing one.   Life, especially family life, doesn’t lend itself to consistency.   Discipline is uncomfortable for a time, but regret can last a long, long time.   Discipline=freedom.    By the way, if you’re wondering who Blippi and Meekah are (from Tyler’s morning Dad routine), you can check them out here. Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we go any further, here are three movie scenes that we refer to in today’s discussion. If you haven’t seen these in a while, you might want to refresh your memory:

• Billy Madison milk scene
• Cousin Eddie and his RV
• Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker

  Some hail Trevor Owen as the BIM Guru. Some call him BIM Boy. Whatever term you use, Trevor knows BIM. Specifically, he’s the BIM specialist for Hilti. Today we hear Trevor’s thoughts about the influence of building-information modeling on the construction industry.    We start out with some light Christmas-related banter and an introduction to our guest star, Ralph, Jr. Check out the Youtube version of this episode to see Ralph.   Trevor shares how Hilti aims to cut across business units in order to look at each business’s entire workflow. They want to be a productivity partner and solutions provider. We discuss the need for this increased form of efficiency and consolidation because “you can’t throw people at problems anymore. You can’t find the people.”   Hilti’s BIM efforts are focused on model maturity: “If we’re going to leave it in the building, it should be in the model because we have to buy it.” They want to envision and plan the entire process, from prefab all the way to delivery.   Trevor explains that the goal is not just to include more detail but to include more attributes and then process estimates from that.    As a construction guy, Eddie raises some concerns he has with certain aspects of BIM, and we explore those.    Trevor calls upon Billy Madison to explain that when it comes to means and methods, there’s sometimes a dynamic that asks “Who owns it?” He says we need to move from “What’s in it for me?” to “What’s in it for us?”    Eddie speaks up to express his desire for greater automation in the BIM process and points out that BIM is increasingly functioning as the database that we use with automated construction processes.    We discuss the challenges of finding the right people to fill design positions and then to train and retain them. Trevor says “constructability knowledge” is an important skill. Hilti offers a BIM Masterclass that involves 15 weeks of training, culminating in a closing week in The Netherlands.   Eddie and Tyler compare Hilti’s training timeline to Tyler’s as a detailer. Eddie says it was seven years before he was able to declare Tyler “mature” as a detailer (not necessarily mature as a person.)   Trevor’s Megaphone Message: The construction industry has never been as fun as it is now. Construction is fun and has a lasting effect on our children’s lives and their children’s lives. 

Find TrevorOnline: LinkedIn - Twitter   Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Man, it’s been a long few years. Let’s allow ourselves to step out of the weeds for a minute.   Today, Heady Eddie shares the concept of benevolent detachment and a few other insights from the book Resilient. The message from that book? Sometimes you need to let it go.   You can’t do it on your own.    Sometimes you need to hand your situation off to something greater than yourself. Give yourself the favor of giving up the problem–not surrendering to apathy but allowing yourself to rest.    Step away from the situation in order to rise above it. Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.