Fire Protection Podcast

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum: (00:10):

This is episode 18 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guests are Lisa Saltzman and Tom Doty of Fire Tech or Fire Tech Productions. It's a training tool for fire protection, both online, in person. Uh, they do a bunch of nice set prep as well. Very intrigued of what they're doing. Um, you know, there's a lot of different manufacturers out there that do training, but, uh, fire tech is kind of a, a, a virtual or in person way to do it. Obviously, virtual is gonna be a little easier the next, uh, next month or so with all the stuff, uh, happening currently in, in the world. So, uh, yeah, stay tuned to fire tech.com. They have a bunch of free courses, uh, mess Message them, fire Tech product, uh, fire Tech Productions, F P P Code for Fire Protection Podcasts to get access to some of those free courses.

(01:06)
Just want to give a shout-out on the inspect Point side of things before we get things kicked off here. I know it's, uh, a pretty crazy time. Not sure where we're going, but, uh, please be safe out there. Uh, stay positive. We will get through this. It's just a little blip. Um, Inspect Point's. Gonna be doing some things. Uh, obviously we, we do a lot of things virtually, so we're gonna put a lot of content out, including, um, uh, webinars to help your fire protection business, uh, just personal webinars to, to try to be, uh, more mobile, um, as well as remote working. And then finally, I'm gonna be doing, uh, a bunch more podcasts over the next couple weeks, uh, potentially even one with a Fire sprinkler podcast. So please stay tuned and, uh, give me any feedback, InspectPoint.com and [email protected] as well. Talk soon. Enjoy. Yeah. Tha thanks Lisa and Tom for joining. And, uh, Lisa. Lisa, uh, Salzman. I'll, uh, she's with, uh, CEO Fire Protection. Uh, are you CEO or president?

Lisa Salzman: (02:12):

Uh, my title is CEO O Yes.

Drew Slocum: (02:15):

Okay. Of Fire Tech Productions. And, uh, I'll give you a little bit to chat about what fire protection, uh, fire Tech Productions is all about.

Lisa Salzman: (02:24):

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, really big thank you, uh, for having us on. We really appreciate it. Um, and Fire Tech is a, and it is Fire Tech Productions, but we refer to Fire Tech Productions as fire tech. So bear with me there. And, um, we've been in the industry since 1987 and we started out in nysci certification exam prep training, um, myself and another partner joined in in 19, or excuse me, in 2007. And since then, we've taken what a tape cassette program and run it into the online world and hands-on workshops, as well as a few other, um, reference text products and fire taps.

Drew Slocum: (03:11):

Great. What is your background in Lisa?

Lisa Salzman: (03:15):

So, my background is actually computer science. So when I joined with, um, joined into fire tech, that was really what allowed us to grow our website and the online world. Now, in my background also, I had done a fair amount of training, so just a huge advocate of training for everybody and anybody in any field they're in.

Drew Slocum: (03:39):

That's, that's great. Is, it sounds similar to kind of my background. I'm, I'm the, I'm kind of like Tom, I'm the fire protection piece, and I had some smart, uh, software developers on the other side, and we kind of put our heads together.

Lisa Salzman: (03:53):

Yes, there you go. Very nice. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (03:56):

Well, thanks, Lisa. Tom, uh, I guess give us a little spiel about who you are and where you've been and what you're doing.

Tom Doty: (04:03):

You know, um, let's see. I, um, I've been in the industry for about 43 years now, and, um, got into it running heavy equipment and installing underground piping and worked my way up from there to doing the inside installations and became a foreman and, um, moved around a little bit. So I'd done it in full Florida and California and Missouri and, um, you know, different parts of the country to see how they do it different and whatnot. Sure, sure. And, um, um, pretty much do all types of fire protection. We do fire extinguishers, um, fire extinguishers, kitchen hoods, um, suppression systems, sprinkler systems, fire pumps, the whole, the whole night yards.

Drew Slocum: (04:57):

That's great. Yeah, it's kind of a wide variety of, I, you know, I've done done a little research and, and obviously you're, uh, it's funny, I was doing all the research, uh, for, for this podcast today and, uh, found out that Tom and his company, uh, crane and, uh, fire Protection is, is a customer of Inspect Point, which is always good to see. Um, that was kind of random. Um, but, uh, yeah. Great, great thing about that and I glad to have you on. Thanks.

Tom Doty: (05:27):

Yeah, no problem.

Drew Slocum: (05:29):

So let's get, let's kinda get right into it. I'll, uh, I'll kind of leave it for, for up for discussion for both of you. Um, I guess what you wanna explain what fire tech is all about, what you're doing, what you will be doing, kind of what you're growing into, um, over the next, last few years, and then into the future?

Lisa Salzman: (05:50):

Uh, sure. I can take a stab at that. And, uh, drew, just to comment on the, excuse me, the last, you know, we joke in our hands-on workshops that we're gonna have a, um, stump Tom Doty question section cuz he's, he's been doing this a long time and he really knows just about everything. And if he doesn't know it, he has like a phone, a friend quick line that he can find out in minutes, so, right. Anyway, it, it's always enjoyable. So, like I said, um, we've been around since 1987, started specifically as nice at exam prep and the, the work, the hands-on workshops. Have we started doing those, oh gosh, I think in about 2009, 2010. And then, you know, had a few of those and then they really took off in 20 13, 20 14. And I would say for us, drew, as we grow and as we are able to, uh, one of the things that I, one of my big initiatives that I wanna do is just being able to get more content out there that is open to everybody, right?

(06:57)
So obviously we're a business, we have to, you know, bring in revenue to, to run the business, but as profit increases, just to be able to do, you know, I love, I love podcast, right? You can learn so much from a podcast, um, daily email tips, you know, I want to, and we have a fire tech tip that's monthly, you know, I wanna increase that and have a tip for the fire alarm side and a tip for the fire sprinkler side. I'd also like to have some email tips and video formats. So we're just working to really increase just those 1, 2, 3 minute lessons that, you know, could kind of make somebody pause and think, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I, I'm a true believer that you can hear the same thing, you know, now in a year from now, and it might resonate with you a completely different way a year from now. You know, we all learn as we go and we're a product of product of our experiences. So I just think that continued learning is such an important piece.

Drew Slocum: (07:56):

No, no, I agree. I agree. Now, you, you did mention, um, you know, online versus versus like hands-on training. What, has there been the transition to more hands-on? Or is it kind of moving more online? What, what have you seen in your experience?

Lisa Salzman: (08:16):

So, you know, for us as a company, obviously when we first started it was all online. So just looking at our, at our revenue, um, it's, we kind of swung from online to hands-on workshops and, you know, our goal really is to have a 50 50 split. Yep. The online, we think the online piece is so, so important for anybody, for example, studying, whether it be a state exam or a, uh, Nici exam because you just, you have to know the codes and, uh, we're gonna be starting in April having nici workshops as well. So a two day classroom experience. But I, I just don't think it's realistic to go into a two day classroom and walk outta there and think, okay, I'm gonna go pass the test. You, you gotta get in those standards and, and you gotta know 'em. Yeah. So we think the online piece is critical for that.

(09:08)
It will be a part of the nice at workshop. So when you purchase the Nice at Workshop, it's gonna come along with the online piece as well. But, you know, online you can study at your pace, you can study wherever you want. Um, and then if you wanna segment that with the workshop, you know, in a hands-on workshop, you're putting your hands on the system. Uh, one of the things we do is we try, uh, toys have two instructors in a workshop. I'm a firm believer that, you know, two people can tell you the exact same thing, but sometimes the way somebody says it is just resonates with you more. So, right. Just for the student teacher ratio and just hearing different voices, uh, really like two instructors. We bring in a lot of industry experts too. So sometimes they're hearing it from the manufacturer's voice as well as the technician. So, you know, and then the workshops also bring in the networking aspect, which is, is real big.

Drew Slocum: (10:01):

Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've been, you know, I've been, I used to work for Tyco before this and Viking after that. Um, and Tyco's got a great training facility, uh, up in Rhode Island, which I've been doing multiple times. I actually did a podcast there talking about training. But, um, you know, they, it seems like in the last three or so years there's been a lot of, um, more hands-on training facilities kind of opening up. I know Viking just opened up theirs, uh, general Air out in Philadelphia. And then you have Right, right. You have a lot of the local sprinkler fitters, uh, that, you know, the unions and, uh, that are training their apprentices all over the US as well. Um, and then you have Sprinkler madd down in South Florida. They've been, they've been doing a lot. So it seems like hands-on training's making a little kind of surge. Um, now do you have your own facility or do you utilize other, other facilities? How do you, how do you go to market there?

Lisa Salzman: (10:59):

Yeah, so we, we partner, we a variety of facilities. So we've been with Viking and we'll be up at their new location, our first one at the new location in April. We've been out to General Air. We've been down to Sprinkler Madock. Uh, we partner with s p P out of Atlanta, Georgia, uh, Grundfos as well up in Indy. And then there's a individual contractor who we had started with up in the Indianapolis area. Great. And um, so tho those are just a sample of some of the labs we've used.

Drew Slocum: (11:31):

Yeah. Partnerships are always, uh, great way to do it. Yep. Go ahead, Tom. Sorry,

Tom Doty: (11:36):

That's Peerless, not GR Fest.

Lisa Salzman: (11:38):

Thank you, Tom. Yes.

Tom Doty: (11:40):

.

Drew Slocum: (11:42):

Well aren't they part of, isn't Peerless part of grf?

Lisa Salzman: (11:46):

They

Tom Doty: (11:46):

Are. Grundfos owns them, but uh, they tried to switch it all over to Grundfos and it just didn't really work that well. Oh, they switch back to Peerless. So it's a standalone run

Lisa Salzman: (11:58):

Post a flip company.

Drew Slocum: (12:00):

Yeah. Oh, interesting. It's always changing industry, right? ?

Tom Doty: (12:05):

It is.

Drew Slocum: (12:06):

Um,

Tom Doty: (12:07):

It is industry updates like globe.

Drew Slocum: (12:10):

Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. There's always, there's always something going on. There's a lot of, uh, activity definitely right now with that. So, um, one question I did have for, for you, since for both of you, you know, NY a, uh, national Institute of Certified Engineered Technicians, is that correct? That was right off

Tom Doty: (12:32):

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Salzman: (12:33):

? Yes.

Drew Slocum: (12:34):

Ok. Alright. I got it. Right. All right. , um, why are they the only game in town?

Tom Doty: (12:43):

Because years ago, um, the fire sprinkler designers were PEs Sure. And, uh, there was a mix of PEs and, uh, fire Protection train designers. Right. And the PEs threw a big fit that we were the only ones that are supposed to use the steel are supposed to be college educated engineers. Oh. So the nice set kind of spun off because the engineers had kind of a big fit about the whole stamp and seal thing. So, and that became a nationally recognized agency and everybody signed up. And now you're just have to be a nice at three to be a designer. You don't have to be a technical pe.

Drew Slocum: (13:30):

Right, right, right. Yeah, it totally makes sense. And Nyad does a lot of, uh, great things out there. I would actually probably, I'm trying get 'em outta the podcast at some point, but I, I've always just Right. You know, um, you know, nice hat's great, but you almost need a class to, to fill out the paperwork. I feel like sometimes . Yeah,

Tom Doty: (13:51):

Yeah. Well,

Lisa Salzman: (13:52):

And you

Tom Doty: (13:52):

Know, I think streamline some of that now, but

Lisa Salzman: (13:56):

Yeah. And, and it's

Tom Doty: (13:58):

Been, it's been difficult.

Lisa Salzman: (13:59):

Well, and it's a nice, it has a tough job, right. Because there's always going to be people who try to circumvent the system. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So one of the things I love about Nici is it's not just, it's not just the certification piece, but it's the experience piece. You know? And that's a big deal because some people are great at testing and they can come in and take a test prep and go and test and pass and voila, but if they haven't really been out in the field and doing it, like, you know, that can be pretty scary. And these systems need to work properly.

Drew Slocum: (14:31):

No, no, I agree. I, I, I like definitely what they're doing. And, you know, you, you do have the, the testing and then you, the experience. Um, I think, uh, there's a couple other, maybe Assc is coming out with one that's, that even has a, a hands-on kind of test. I don't know if I gotta learn a little bit about it, but assc, the Association of Sanitary Engineers, I think, um,

Lisa Salzman: (14:57):

Oh, very nice

Drew Slocum: (14:58):

To combine, kind of be even equivalent to the nice, um, uh, certification. So it'd be interesting to see what they do there.

Lisa Salzman: (15:06):

Yeah.

Tom Doty: (15:07):

I heard there's somebody else trying to make a run at National Recognition, but I didn't know who it was.

Drew Slocum: (15:12):

Yeah. I think it was a sse and, and you know, I think a lot of it is, all right, great, you're, you, you know, you can, you can take a test, you have the experience, but what if you're not the best at the test? But you can, you know, you can change out a dry valve, you could change out a clapper and a dry valve like no other. So it's, I think it's a combination of all three. Um, which would be interesting. I think. I think they need a little competition to make, to make everything better. Right. So,

Tom Doty: (15:40):

Yeah.

Lisa Salzman: (15:41):

So. Right. Well, you know, and the world, the world is full of information and things are moving quicker than we can keep up with them. So Yeah. There's, you know, it's why you keep training cuz it's just things are always evolving.

Drew Slocum: (15:54):

Yeah. Speaking of that, where do, where do you see the future of, of training in, in the fire protection industry? Where do you see it going? I mean, obviously, you know, you have a lot of hands on classes online, but in five years, is it gonna look different?

Lisa Salzman: (16:11):

So my, uh, yeah. My best guess would be yes. And I think, and Tom can speak really better, this to me, but one of the things we're seeing more and more is virtual reality. You know? And so I think about our workshops and just the way we do it and we, you know, you sit in the classroom and you, you talk about the code and then you go out to the systems and you put your hands on the systems and then think about adding a virtual reality piece on that. Like, you know, the more senses you l use when you learn something, the more you're going to remember it. So, right. If you could go to a workshop and get kind of, you know, 1, 2, 3 classroom hands-on virtual reality, you know, that's gonna be a really solid training.

Drew Slocum: (16:51):

No, I agree. And I, I, I know somebody's already come up with some cool VR stuff

Lisa Salzman: (16:57):

Mm-hmm. ,

Drew Slocum: (16:58):

We'll see what's, you know, I think they're a little ahead of their times, obviously, uh, ahead of the time a little bit. But, uh, hopefully that proves out cuz I, I think that is an intriguing, uh, piece of it, you know?

Lisa Salzman: (17:11):

Right,

Tom Doty: (17:11):

Right. I think in the next five years they'll be doing testing from remote facilities.

Drew Slocum: (17:18):

Yeah. I, uh, I, I, I'm, there's, you know, nine, what is it, NFPA nine 15, which is remote inspection. And, and I know NFPA 72 and NFPA 25 and 13, um, just approve the, essentially the ability to do remote testing and remote inspection, which uh, great point Tom. Yep.

Tom Doty: (17:44):

Yeah. They're going, they're going, all the people that are big in inspection, testing and maintenance around the board, and they're leaning that way cause they can't find people.

Drew Slocum: (17:54):

Yeah. And I'm, I'm, uh, I've, I've got my, my application in and hopefully cuz we're, you know, at inspect point, obviously we have a, a software platform to help a lot with that, but why can't we couple that with some, uh, you know, remote analysis or even remote testing. Um, I don't, I don't see how, you know, there's some ideas on that right now, but I don't know if there's anything solid. So hopefully the standards help with that a little bit.

Tom Doty: (18:22):

I think they have all the pieces in place now. They just have to unite, unite 'em all together. So you'll be able to do pump testing and everything from remote if you can get cameras in the pump rooms and whatnot.

Drew Slocum: (18:32):

Correct. Yeah. I, I, uh, I, I was at NFPA 25, they were talking about that. And I know there's some technology that even, um, there's is some technology out there that'll automatically grab a lot of that, uh, fire pump data, um Right. And then spit it back to a, a software solution so you don't have to be doing your monthly or weekly churn tests. Yep. Yeah. It's, yep,

Tom Doty: (18:57):

Yep.

Drew Slocum: (18:58):

Interesting times. So

Tom Doty: (19:00):

Yes. Yes, it is very interesting. Um, everybody seems to be working on the latest cutting edge technology.

Drew Slocum: (19:08):

Yeah. Yeah. And I wish it, I wish it would happen faster in adoption. It, it's, it's funny, even, even with our platform adoption is, is still a little bit slow if few people are, are still on paper or pdf, but it, yeah, it is moving faster and faster every year, um, which is a good thing. It helps every, you know, solve some of the issues in the industry.

Tom Doty: (19:32):

Yep.

Drew Slocum: (19:33):

What, um, Tom, this is a question for you. What, um, you know, being involved for 43 or so years, you, you get involved in all different sides of fire protection. What, um, what is the toughest kind of protection, fire protection scheme or design, whether it's alarm sprinkler, suppression, extinguishers, what's, what's the toughest one to navigate when you're, when you're trying to train technicians or just conduct a business?

Tom Doty: (20:05):

Well, I think the biggest loophole out there that I've seen is probably the specialized systems like FM 200. The, the room integrity testing is, is not, um, is either not being done or the customers not being informed, or the customers coming back and cutting holes in the room. So the chemical is designed to hold in the room for 10 minutes, but the room won't hold the won't hold it. You know, they're right. They're constantly putting more holes and more devices and more, more servers. And so there's, right, they're, I, I don't know if it's a misinformation or what, but there, there needs to be something done on, on the room integrity testing. Cuz it, it seems like it's a big loophole and nobody's doing it and they think their room's protected and it's really not protected. And

Drew Slocum: (20:54):

Yeah, it's interesting point you bring up, I was, I was at fssa, which is the suppression, I was at the trade show a few weeks ago and somebody brought that up is then, I think they're gonna be discussion discussing at N F P A 2001, I believe is potentially adding a, an annual dorfan test or a rub integrity test, which I don't think is in there currently. Right.

Tom Doty: (21:19):

I don't think it is. No.

Drew Slocum: (21:21):

Which, yeah, it's, it's interesting. You think you would wanna have that? That's, that's a good, that's a good point cuz you're, you know, those server rooms are always changing.

Tom Doty: (21:31):

I mean, we, we have our own equipment and we do the room integrity testing, but a lot of places don't, you know, they don't have the equipment. They're selling the system, but they don't do the room integrity testing and they, they leave it off for the owner to have done well, who's the owner? How's the owner gonna do it? You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's at least a 500 or a thousand dollars part that you're leaving on and nobody does it cuz it's too expensive. So then they say, well, we put the system in and then the owner was supposed to do it. That's, that's just kind of like, um, you know, wow. It's like telling gentlemen, you were supposed to, you were supposed to give him a quarter for lunch and he forgot or something, you know, it's like,

Drew Slocum: (22:07):

Wow. Yeah, maybe whoever,

Tom Doty: (22:09):

It's not getting done, so

Drew Slocum: (22:10):

Whoever's selling it to him, no, it's not gonna pass. They just wanna sell him the system no matter what.

Tom Doty: (22:16):

Right.

Drew Slocum: (22:17):

Wow. Yep.

Lisa Salzman: (22:18):

Hey, drew, I hear a

Tom Doty: (22:20):

Question, I'm not sure.

Lisa Salzman: (22:21):

Oh, go ahead, Tom.

Tom Doty: (22:23):

I don't think the, the, uh, fire officials and the AHJs are familiar enough with the FM 200 systems, even though a lot of 'em are, even though they're supposed to sign up on a room integrity test, you know? Right. So anyhow.

Drew Slocum: (22:39):

Yeah, it could, it could. Yeah, you're right. Hj uh, um, training, whatever, you know, certain jurisdictions are great, I'm sure, but a lot of others are kind of in the dark on it.

Tom Doty: (22:52):

Right.

Drew Slocum: (22:53):

Lisa, what were you saying? Sorry.

Lisa Salzman: (22:56):

Uh, well, I had a question for you changing the subject a bit, but just talking about difficulties. And I know one of the things in our world is just the, you know, the codes are changing every three years, so I know for us, you know, uh, doing state prep, you know, everything's different and just trying to even nice at itself, right. Keep trying to keep track of the standards. How do you do that within spec point, like in all the customers you have?

Drew Slocum: (23:22):

Yeah. Great, great, great point. Uh, so, you know, we, we have, I think there's about probably 10 different standards in there. And a lot of it's depends on the code. Like NFPA 10, which is extinguisher is pretty basic, right? You have 10, 10 or so questions that you're gonna ask about extinguisher. Um, pretty simple. That doesn't change from every three years code cycle. So we, we stay on top of every standard, uh, and making sure all the changes, uh, that are occurring. We kind of put the templates in there, um, that are the guidelines for the different, uh, inspection schemes essentially. But once you get into the more complicated ones, like NFP 25 especially, um, you know, it's all over the place because chapters are changing, right? And it, it, it gets complicated. I wish there was a better way to do it. Um, on the code side, you know, one of the best standards in our opinion is NFPA 72 with fire alarm because it puts it all in one table.

(24:28)
It's all right there. It's in front of the technician. It's front in front of, it's also the installation and the inspection standard. So it's all together in one. Um, the changes that are made in NFPA 72 on the install, or even the inspection side, you know, it's, it's kind of incremental every three years or every code cycle. Um, what happens with NFPA 13 and 20 fives, they'll redo the, the entire thing. Um, and 25 probably needs to be redone again, . So it's, it's not easy, but that's the value we provide as in spec point is we're, you know, we kind of dive into the code and as revisions come out, we're ahead of that, um, right. And can give suggestions. Again, at the end of the day, the building owner and the contractor performing that work have the responsibility of making sure we're just kind of helping along, helping that along.

(25:24)
Um, uh, now I don't know how much you do in California, but they have an entire standard for, uh, suppression and sprinkler. Um, it's kind of like a, a side, a side, uh, standard, which, you know, California, if, if, if that's the way they wanna do it, that's great. Um, it's very similar. The one thing I don't like there, and I'm trying to get involved a little bit there, is it's all forms, which I, you know, don't always agree with forms because, uh, yes, you have to get the information, uh, for that inspection, but it should be in a data format versus a, a physical form. Um, an n FPA is actually struggling with that now because they're trying to, to look at a lot of data out there and, um, it's kind of all over the place. So,

Tom Doty: (26:18):

Well, even their fire pump form is ridiculously complicated. It's like six pages for a diesel fire pump form. It's like, yep. You know, the, the electric ones. Why do, why does the, why does the sprinkler technician need to need to figure out what the vol and amps are exactly, but the multiplication worksheet instead of just taking it off the panel, you know?

Drew Slocum: (26:40):

Yeah. I mean, take your rate out of there, but

Tom Doty: (26:43):

Some of the stuff, some of the stuff they've done out there is just trying to make it complicated so that the younger people can't get involved. I think.

Drew Slocum: (26:51):

Yeah, that's a great point. That's a very good point. Um, PE people complain all the time the size of our fire pump report, and I'm like, well, yeah, you know, it's gotta be that long. And they're like, can you take out the electrical information? I'm like, well, well, you can customize it however you want, but it's gonna come out of the box with that. So

Tom Doty: (27:12):

I don't know. Yeah. But they're wanting you to figure, like, you know, for your, if your amps are here, then how many, you know, amp you're, you're doing multiplication on that worksheet, figure out how many amps and bolts and you can take it right off the main plate of the controller or the motor. Right, right. You know, I'm like, you don't really, you don't really need to do all these formulas. That's the engineer part of whoever helped them write the code, getting their 2 cents worth in there. You know, it's like, oh, and this is, you can't make it any more complicated.

Drew Slocum: (27:41):

I know. Yeah. NFPA 25 definitely needs some simplification, but Great point, Lisa, thanks for, uh, I could go, I could go onto that for 20 minutes, .

Lisa Salzman: (27:52):

Well, it is, I mean, it's, you know, and it's, it's, we try to maintain, you know, probably three years worth of the same course, just so no matter what state somebody's in, you know, they can turn to training and it's a lot to keep up with. So Yeah. Always looking for tips there. ,

Drew Slocum: (28:09):

I mean, we have jurisdictions on And you

Tom Doty: (28:11):

Live in

Drew Slocum: (28:12):

Yeah, go ahead. You

Tom Doty: (28:14):

Live in California, drew?

Drew Slocum: (28:15):

No, I live, I actually live in the East coast, uh, in Connecticut. Um, but I spent the last 11 years. Yeah. So they, in New York City,

Tom Doty: (28:23):

They do Title 19 in California too, the five year certification and all that stuff. It's another whole book on just how to do five years.

Drew Slocum: (28:31):

Oh, I know. We, we have it. We actually have a great solution in inspect point for it. We have, um, we have every form from Title 19 embedded into our platform, , and we've automated it, so it's not a form anymore. It's actually into a database. So we've, you know, I was out in ca, California last week and people are very impressed with that solution. So

Lisa Salzman: (28:53):

Bet .

Drew Slocum: (28:54):

Yeah. Yeah. They don't make it easier.

Tom Doty: (28:56):

Anything to simplify their life. Yeah, no,

Drew Slocum: (29:01):

No. But, um, no, I mean, I've, I've seen, um, I've seen some jurisdictions that are still in the early two thousands of various N F P A codes, and then obviously the ones that are up to the 2020 editions. So it is, I mean, it's usually the last few years and they don't change too, too much, but, um, you know, they, there should be a simplification process in my opinion.

Tom Doty: (29:30):

Yeah. There should be mandatory upgrades. Like I think Indiana's 15 years old still.

Drew Slocum: (29:36):

Wow. Wow. Yeah. And then different jurisdictions have their, have their addendums or, uh, added language to it as well. Right. Um, so let's see, what else do I have here? Um, future and virtual reality. So have you, and we've, we've set one of, of, uh, ourselves as an LMS and learning management system. Is that, is, is, could that be the future of fire protection, where you guys are kind of going to set up like a learning management system for a specific, you know, contractor so they could go in and they could train all their employees that way through the,

Lisa Salzman: (30:22):

The portal? So, drew, we, we have a, a learning management system that we use. It's actually the second one in our, you know, in, in our growth in our history. And we, we recently launched in an associates program. So what that allows a company to do is say, Hey, fire tech, I wanna use you and your training and that. And then that company can really set up whatever type of learning they want. And it can be our courses, or it can be their courses, or it can be a combination. And then you get an admin account or several admin accounts Oh, wow. So that the administrator can go in and make sure that Joe and Bob and Sue are all actually doing their training. They can see how they're doing on their quizzes. They can see how much time they've set in it. So we're trying to, you know, I always say to our team, like, we wanna be, you know, there's a lot of small companies out there and large companies too.

(31:22)
You know, we wanna be their training department, you know, we wanna be able to customize for people as much, as much as they need so that they can train their team, but not have to worry about that piece of the puzzle. Yeah. So, yeah. And then if I can ask a question Sure. To the listeners, one of the things that, uh, Tom Doty's gonna laugh because I've been yaking in his ear for about three years for this. But one of the things I wanna create is like a Fire protection basics course. Like just a really basic course for anybody new to the industry, you know, so whether that's a brand new guy who's could go out in the field, or an administrator or a salesperson, like what are those questions that you would like to have known when you first started, or that you would like somebody you're hiring to know, you know, really the basic, so we have a lot of basic information throughout our courses, but I really wanna come up with that just basic course that's at a, a low price point, so anybody can use it. And, you know, it just talks about e even who are the players in the industry and the difference between fire alarms and fire sprinklers and Yeah. Things like that. So my email's, lisa fire tech.com, and if anybody would like to see a something in that course, please let me know.

Drew Slocum: (32:39):

No, that's, that's a, that's a great point. There's not, uh, you know, luckily enough, I worked for Tyco, so I got to go through their 1 0 1 kind of sprinting program. Yeah. But, you know, that was, that was kind of Tyco iced, and I learned what I needed to know for them, but there wasn't really much else out there, so,

Lisa Salzman: (32:58):

Right. And you, you know, there's YouTube and there's the internet, and those are great too. But you, you don't always know exactly what's gonna come up when you search for something. Right. So Sure. If you wanna make sure that the information's correct, just putting somebody in a, you know, having, having their fingers on information like that could be helpful.

Drew Slocum: (33:18):

No, that's great. That's great info. Um, so what I, so we discussed a few topics here, and, uh, what I'll do is I'll, uh, I'll kind of wrap it up and, and, and let you guys, uh, give your, give your spiel on fire tech here in a second. But usually toward the end of the, the podcast, I do something called the, and Tom, you haven't listened to it yet, but Lisa might've listened all the way through, but I called the Quick response round, uh, tying it back to the sprinkler industry. But I, I, I ask, I asked a couple, uh, quick questions. Some of are pertaining to the industry, some are not. So, uh, try to have a little fun with it. But, um, and I, I guess I'll ask, uh, a little bit both, both separately. Um, and we'll start off, what, what is the best way to eat Skyline Chili?

Lisa Salzman: (34:14):

Five Way

Tom Doty: (34:16):

.

Drew Slocum: (34:17):

I don't even know what that is. Can you, what, what four, what, what is, what is that five way?

Tom Doty: (34:25):

So they have, uh, three ways, four ways and five ways, and, uh, three ways spaghetti with chili and cheese, a four-way spaghetti with chili cheese and either beans or onion. And the five way has, uh, spaghetti chili cheese, onions, and beans. Oh man. So it's, uh, you say four-way bean or four-way onion if you don't want all five. And, you know, it's, um,

Drew Slocum: (34:55):

Yeah, I looked up where you guys were. I'm like, I, my, my old roommate was from, uh, uh, the Cincinnati area. So his, uh, his folks would always send him Skyline Chili, so we would always eat it. And it was, I don't know why I liked it, because it kind of looked gross, but it was great. He made, I think he

Lisa Salzman: (35:13):

Made it, it's great.

Drew Slocum: (35:14):

Four or five way . It's either

Tom Doty: (35:16):

Skyline or Gold Star.

Lisa Salzman: (35:19):

Yeah. And they say cinnamon is like one of the secret ingredients in there, but there's also a really good skyline dip, which is just cream cheese, and then the skyline chili on top, no noodles, and then cheese on top of that. And so it's a great dip. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. To take to a party. Very easy.

Drew Slocum: (35:38):

I might have to get Skyline to sponsor this podcast now.

Lisa Salzman: (35:41):

. You might.

Tom Doty: (35:43):

There you go.

Drew Slocum: (35:45):

Uh, all right, another question. This is separate as well. Um, yesterday, obviously International Women's Day, so congratulations, Lisa, on what all you've done with Fire Tech and all the stuff you've done. I like to see, you know, there's not enough, uh, women in the industry out there, so I'm glad to see a, a very progressive and upcoming company, uh, in fire protection. So thank you for all that. Thank, but what, who's your biggest, uh, mentor, I guess? Yes,

Lisa Salzman: (36:15):

Who's my biggest mentor? Who, well, I , I've told, uh, we have three Toms who I work with pretty closely. I said, someday I'm gonna write a book. What I learned from Tom. So Tom Doty has been a fabulous partner. You know, he's just, he's an advocate of the industry. He's been a long, around a long time, and he's got a great heart. Like he just does things for the right reason. So he's been great. We have another Tom in here, his name is, uh, Tom Frericks, uh, passed business owner. And he stepped in and started working with us a couple, uh, couple years ago. And so just having somebody in the office day to day with that business experience has been great. And the other Tom is, uh, Tom English, he's our IT guy. So, but I gotta say throughout, throughout my growing up, because I didn't have a business background, I mean, like you drew, I mean, you know, you go grow up in a computer science degree, there just wasn't much business to that. So, I mean, I'm always taking courses or listening to podcasts or, or doing something. So Right. Big, big advocate of always learning. She is

Tom Doty: (37:25):

Very energetic and she always is trying to learn something new. So she's done outstanding for taking courses on her own and, and moving herself along the business scale platform.

Drew Slocum: (37:40):

Yeah. That's great. Tom, what about you? What's, uh, any, any, anybody out there? And I mean, you've been doing it for 43 years, so there's some, there must have been somebody out there that pushed you forward.

Tom Doty: (37:52):

Uh, you know, I, I got into it through underground and learned how to do the overhead because there was no more underground at that time. So I took a pay cut and got into the overhead and learned how to do both things. And, and, uh, it was a sense of fulfillment for me. I mean, I liked, at the end of the day when you could get down off the lift, say, I hung all that pipe today. I liked that feeling, you know, a sense of accomplishment or whatever. And, and it, it just kind of stuck with me. And then, you know, to, to, um, add a peace, you know, how to do underground. Now we're doing fire extinguishers, now we're doing kitchen hoods, and now we're doing, I like that, uh, learning curve where you're, you're in the same industry, but you're learning something new all the time. So I like that.

Drew Slocum: (38:37):

No, that's great. That's great. Um, all right, great answers. Uh, so last question a little bit more in the industry, but, uh, how do we get more technicians in the business? I know obviously you can qualify them with your platform, our platform, whatever, whatever they're learning. But how do we get more, you know, heads as you know, in the business? I mean, there's not, there's already a shortage. Um, any ideas?

Tom Doty: (39:09):

Well, that's a million dollar question. If you can answer that, you're gonna be rich in the next 10 years. , right? Um, , uh, everywhere I go, people want to know how we get people and, um, you know, it's extremely hard to get people. I've tried all kinds of different things and, uh, you know, you can't hardly buy people. So I, I don't know. I don't know what the answer to that is. It's gonna get worse in the next 10 years. And, and, uh, I don't know how, how a lot of things are gonna get done. That's just simple things that we're doing now are not gonna be accomplished. Cuz there's no skilled trades. Nobody wants to be in a skilled trade anymore.

Drew Slocum: (39:46):

No, I think some of the automation will, will help that, but you're still gonna need, you know, feet on the ground.

Tom Doty: (39:53):

Well, yeah, the grandson lives with me and I keep telling the grandson, I know you don't wanna, nobody in your age group wants to work with their hands. And he goes, right, we just wanna do something clean and push buttons on the phone or something and talk or, or do the drive through or so close. I said, right, but you're still gonna want that toilet to flush. You still want the lights to come on. You still want the air conditioning to work. You still want . Right. You know, who, who in the next 10 years is gonna do that? None of you guys are getting into that. So, right. Yeah. It's just crazy,

Lisa Salzman: (40:22):

You know. Well, yeah. And it's, you know, I don't know, I think life in general ebbs and flows, right? And so we've gotten into this state of being that, so, you know, more people are getting college degrees than used to, and then what Tom was speaking to. And, and so now it's beginning to become that the technicians, uh, pay is going to increase cuz they're in short salary. So then everybody will start leaning that way. go over there, you know, it's just gonna go up and down. So, but ho you know, and then again, just education and not necessarily education that we're talking about, but educating people that, hey, this is a great, this is a, a great career choice. So, you know, I, I have five kids and I'm always talking about fire tech, but, you know, yeah. That's what mom says, right? Like, I think they gotta go out, do their own thing and then kind of, you know, and then kind of be able to step back and say, Hey, maybe that's not such a bad idea anyway. But, you know, yeah, I agree. They gotta make their own way in the world. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (41:24):

Yeah. You gotta let 'em figure it out sometimes.

Lisa Salzman: (41:26):

Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (41:27):

Yeah. Yeah. It is the million or billion dollar question, whatever you wanna call it. .

Lisa Salzman: (41:31):

Yeah. Yeah. Trillion.

Drew Slocum: (41:34):

Well, well, I, I thank you both for coming on. Um, you know, this is a, it's, it's a nice avenue to get some different information out there. And, uh, again, we're gonna be doing more of these, uh, you know, as the year progresses. So, you know, definitely stay tuned and, uh, I guess where, where can we find fire tech? Um, you want, you can give a plug of how to find you and, um, yeah. All that.

Lisa Salzman: (42:00):

Okay. Okay. And, uh, again, drew, uh, huge thank you to you and for what you're doing for your industry, right. For the industry. So just to drive along and listen to this podcast and glean a few points is, is so key. So thank you. And, uh, fire tech.com. F i r e t e c h.com is our website. Uh, our main in email is info short for information i n Ffo or myself, Lisa at Fire Tech or Tom Doty, the expert [email protected]. So anyway, give us a call, email us and we'll try to get to you what you need.

Drew Slocum: (42:39):

Great. Great. Great. Any, any, uh, any, uh, last, uh, comments, Tom, Lisa, any about anything? ?

Tom Doty: (42:48):

Uh, no. I think, you know, like, like Lisa said, you're doing a great job and, and keep up the good work and thanks for having us on.

Lisa Salzman: (42:55):

Yeah, thank

Drew Slocum: (42:56):

You very much. Alright. I appreciate it. Tha thanks. Okay, thanks Lisa. Thanks Tom. Thanks

Lisa Salzman: (43:00):

Drew. Okay, bye.

Drew Slocum: (43:02):

This has been episode 18 of the Fire of Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect point. I want to thank again, Lisa and Tom for joining the podcast. Uh, this is actually the first time I've, I've, I've had, uh, two different people, two different phone numbers call in, uh, via Skype as well. So ended up being pretty good. Uh, I know, uh, I recorded this again, like I said earlier in the intro, recorded this last week, uh, before all the craziness really ensued. Um, but yeah, reach out to Elisa or Tom at Fire Protection Productions as well as Inspect point. And, uh, yeah, please subscribe. There's gonna be a, a couple more podcasts in the next two weeks coming out. So again, thank you very much. Be safe.

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum: (00:08):

This is episode 17 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today my guest is Rob Read. Rob is the president and owner of Bison Fire Protection. He's also the host of the Into the Fire, uh, video podcast on YouTube. Um, soon to be coming out on all podcast channels, but wanted to chat with Rob a little bit about his experience in the, the Fire protection podcasting world. It's a small knit group with, uh, Chris Logan, myself. And, uh, there's a new life safety podcast out there by Ruben Garcia. I talked to him the other day, so wanted to share ideas, see what Rob's doing. Uh, he's got a kind of a different style doing a lot of video, um, out of his, uh, bison Fire Protection office in, uh, uh, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Um, yeah, had a great conversation with Rob. Um, again, his podcast is a little different, talking a little bit about fire protection, but more business, uh, processes, different things and challenges in the, in the business world, running a business, uh, handling your workforce and all sorts of things. So, great conversation with Rob and, um, yeah, hope everybody enjoys. I wondered even if you had any, uh, wet sprinkler systems there.

Rob Read: (01:29):

Oh, yeah. We've got a few, yeah. . Yeah. You know, I mean, we, we do heat the odd buildings, so, uh, and keep them warm all winter . That's true. Right. But there are lots of dry systems. Don't, uh, our, sometimes our challenges aren't so much with sprinklers, but with, um, systems, you know, suppression systems and different things. Like, you know, people bring in these new, uh, wet chemical suppression for off roads and, and Oh, this is gonna be all great and it'll be fine. And then you find out that it, it gels at like minus seven Fahrenheit, and we're going, okay, but we get like minus 45 here. Right. , you know, that's no good. It doesn't work for us. You gotta make sure you got something that gets really cold.

Drew Slocum: (02:11):

Yeah. Speaking of which, I saw, saw you did a lot of vehicle systems. Is that a, uh, um, is that a big, obviously it's probably a big mining and, uh, area up there.

Rob Read: (02:24):

There is a, a lot of it, uh, in Saskatchewan. Uh, we've got offices in Saskatchewan, and they produce a lot of potash, I think there, they're either the largest or second largest producer of potash in the world.

Drew Slocum: (02:37):

Wow.

Rob Read: (02:38):

Yeah. So there's a lot of that sort of stuff. But even, you know, we've got gold mines, we've got nickel mines, we've got, uh, zinc. There's all kinds of stuff.

Drew Slocum: (02:48):

That's great. Yeah. I, I, I, you know, working for Ansel back in the day, I was always intrigued on, on the vehicle suppression systems, and it, it seemed like the neatest, I guess you just don't, I never dealt it every day, so it was like mm-hmm. , you know, I was living in New York City. You never,

Rob Read: (03:03):

Yeah. There's not a lot of mines there, .

Drew Slocum: (03:05):

No, not a lot of mines there. So. Well, uh, let's get kicking. I, I, I've actually been, I, I'm recording right now. I, we had some good conversation going, so might as well, uh, hold, hold on. Yeah,

Rob Read: (03:15):

Let's get her

Drew Slocum: (03:16):

Going. But, um, thanks for coming on the podcast today. It's, try to keep it pretty informal. I know. Um, Rob, you know, I've known you for a few months now since Chris Logan, uh, introduced us. Chris seems to be introducing everybody these days.

Rob Read: (03:31):

Yeah. He's a real connector, that guy.

Drew Slocum: (03:32):

Yeah, he is. So, uh, he's doing a good thing. And I know you've got your, uh, into the fire, uh, podcast, which you, uh, when did you start that?

Rob Read: (03:42):

Well, into the fire? We actually kicked off back in last June, and it started off as a video, uh, presentation that we were doing on YouTube and then pushing out through all the, uh, different social media things like LinkedIn and places like that. And it's easily found that way. And last year, I'm gonna say towards October, we had enough material then to go to the iPods and get it out there on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and all that. So what we did is took all of the video and lifted the audio off, and are now doing that for everything that we're doing. So we got, you know, the videos for the people that, like the YouTube show, and then those that just have time to listen in their, their vehicles or, you know, enjoy the podcasts instead. They, they can still hear the show.

Drew Slocum: (04:29):

Yeah. And I, I think, you know, we, I found that out and it, it's funny, I, I don't travel as much for work anymore cuz all the, all the stuff I do for inspect point is, uh, is virtual. But even when I'm in the car, um, I used to have a se I still have serious xm, but I, I'm, I'm converting more over to podcasts, weirdly enough, because I don't know, it's, it's more of the content that you want to hear. And hey, if, if I've got 30 minutes an hour in the car, um, might as well educate up while I'm doing it. You know?

Rob Read: (05:03):

I, I hear you. And, and I'm the same way. I'm kind of, I'll say 50 50 between my ex Sam and the podcasts because you know, like you say, you wanna listen to something that speaks to you that's, uh, whether it's, you know, the fire industry that we're both very deeply involved in or, you know, just something of, you know, personal interest so we can grow a hobby and do all those sort of fun things. It's, you know, it, it's, you're able to zero in on what you truly want to hear.

Drew Slocum: (05:29):

Yeah, no, it is. And commercial free, well, semi-commercial theory sometimes, you know, sometimes you get a podcast with, with stuff in the middle of it. Um, yeah. So I guess what is, what is the main goal of, of, into the Fire?

Rob Read: (05:45):

Well, the main goal there is, you know, we, we talk to a lot of, um, um, these days presidents and CEOs of companies. The intent is to talk about, you know, business culture, business growth, um, team building, what's your purpose. Uh, they wanna talk about some of the challenges that they've faced and, you know, from our Winnipeg point of view. Anyways, we've got some pretty prominent people coming on. You know, one of them was the, uh, CEO of the Winnipeg Airport Authority and, and what great work they do. Uh, you know, we've got the president of the World Trade Center, Winnipeg coming up. Uh, we're actually recording tomorrow and Wow. So I'm looking forward to hearing what Marriott has to say about international trade and, and all the things that go with that. The, uh, you know, how the risks and the rewards that come with it.

(06:35)
And Mary is gonna have a great story to share with us. But, you know, it's the ability to talk and tap into those minds cuz a lot of people get into business and there's a growth cycle that they need to go through, especially the startups and that's so prominent these days. Yeah. That it's an opportunity for them to be able to listen and learn and understand that some of the struggles that they're facing have been faced by others and been overcome. And this is how, you know, if that, uh, so, you know, like I say, if I, I sat here and just talked specifically about bison and what we do, you know, for fire protection, I would lose a lot of listeners very quickly, but Right. You know, and, and you know, where you've done a great job with your show is you're, you're not focusing on inspect point. You're talking about a lot of product. You're talking about, uh, the, the services that are required to do it. And, and you keep it going that way as well. So it, it's, uh, you know, really strong that instead of us having a half hour infomercial on what we do, we're actually bringing good new content to people.

Drew Slocum: (07:36):

Yeah. It, it, it, you know, I I deal with it day in out. Same, same with you. You're up at bison day in, day out and I kind of wanna learn about things, new things as well. So, um, it was always, it was always tough to learn about new things in fire protection. I feel like you have to go to the trade shows, you have to, mainly, it was like a lot of trade shows or presentations mm-hmm. .

Rob Read: (08:00):

Well, and, and keep in mind for us too, I mean, trade shows are a lot of travel usually because, you know, we're Canadian, that means across the border and dollar exchange and hotels, it gets very expensive for us to get into these shows and see those products. So for me to be able to go into a podcast like yours and hear you talking about the different reps and being very specific about it, I, I learned a lot from that and it's really appreciated. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners are doing exactly the same thing.

Drew Slocum: (08:29):

Yeah, yeah. Hopefully. And I, I, I, I'd love to, uh, share some ideas too, to try to, and even with Chris, Chris Logan, you know, how to, how to get more listeners and get it out there. I, I think it's still a new, new platform for, for both of us, for all of us

Rob Read: (08:46):

Really. Mm-hmm. for all of us really.

Drew Slocum: (08:47):

Yeah. Yeah. And, um, I, I, you mentioned something to me yesterday that, that, um, that I like the term we we're, we're not competing, we're not competitors in the podcast. We're, uh, what, what did you call it yesterday? I

Rob Read: (09:03):

Called Yeah. Co competitors.

Drew Slocum: (09:04):

Co competitors, right.

Rob Read: (09:05):

Yeah. You know, cuz we can cooperate cuz we're, you know, we're, we're not gonna be out there cutting each other's grass, so. Right. You know, we're in the same industry. Why not support each other as co competitors?

Drew Slocum: (09:14):

Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's interesting. And in the podcast world scenes like that, I, I listen to some, some, uh, golf podcasts. I list some comedy podcasts as well. And it seems like everybody has their own outlets, so they, they just join in on their other, the other outlets that talk about, you know, what whatever's, you know, pertinent that day, so. Right.

Rob Read: (09:36):

Exactly. Um, you know, just, um, with, with my show into the fire right now, one of the things I've started doing as a, uh, kind of a subsection on the YouTube page is a did you know, section? And it was interesting, I was listening to one of your recent shows, the Clear the Air episode. Yeah. And you started talking about internal investigations and how important they are. And I did the same thing. It was kind of a, did you know it's about a 45, second to a minute long? Did you know that? And, uh, you know, I I exactly the internal, um, obstruction investigations to make sure that the, the pipe is clear and working properly. Right. And I think it's so incumbent on us not to just talk about product or sell, but to be able to share with people at, on a layman's term, uh, you know, what they should be looking for from their fire protection and why it's so important. Because otherwise they're just looking at quotes on a page and they're going, this is gonna cost me a lot of money. Oh my God. And then they start learning that no, there's actually, you know, gravel or in one case as I shared a piece of two by four stuck inside their sprinkler system, preventing a valve from working like these tests and the things that we do are so important. But that's why I kind of walk through the did you knows, so that we can speak to the customers and educate them a little bit more.

Drew Slocum: (10:55):

Yeah. I think, I think education for the, the customer on whatever you're selling, you know, and especially in fire protection, cuz it, it, it is pretty confusing sometimes. So if you could

Rob Read: (11:05):

Well, and put that out there and it's so important. Right. You know, the, the life safety aspect of it. Cuz you know, I, I always push, you know, our purpose is to make the world a safer place. Well, education's a big part of that cuz we can sell all the sprinklers or all the fire alarms or extinguishers, you name it that we want. But if people don't know how to use them or, or why they're even in place, we're, we're missing the mark.

Drew Slocum: (11:29):

Sure, sure. Yeah. And unfortunately, uh, who I talked about them on the podcast yesterday, but, um, uh, you know, they're tapped into Hollywood, this new extinguisher that's coming out to the market, um, that, uh, anyway, they're tapped into Hollywood and,

Rob Read: (11:48):

You know, right. Yeah. It's that composite extinguisher.

Drew Slocum: (11:50):

Yeah. On the, on the sprinkler side of things, I wish we had some more people in Hollywood to, to help out with , just the vision of it. Cuz I feel, uh, uh, the media, media in Hollywood kind of run. Um, I don't know. They just, they don't understand, uh, fire sprinklers. They understand fire alarms to a certain extent, but,

Rob Read: (12:13):

Uh, yeah, they do. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (12:14):

But on the sprinkler side, I, I think there needs to be some more education and if they keep pumping, pumping advertisements or movies that, uh, show negative impacts of sprinklers, it's, it, it, it gets tougher and tougher for our industry to overcome. So,

Rob Read: (12:30):

And you're right. And it's funny, uh, I recorded a, just a whole series of did you knows earlier this week, and one of them was exactly that about how in Hollywood, when one sprinkler head goes off, they all go off. And, and how that's just not the reality because there's not the sprinkler pressure, water pressure, or even water supply to accommodate that right? Now I know when the movies are setting up, so it looks all great, it's a beautiful visual effect, but reality is that's not how they work. And people need to understand that, you know that Well, if they're getting concerned that you're putting a sprinkler head in and every time it goes, you know, this thing's gonna go off, my entire building's gonna flood. No, they're not designed that way.

Drew Slocum: (13:09):

Right. Yeah. There's a, um, I think I talked about this with, uh, Chris Logan at one point, but I forgot what it is. I'm looking it up right now. But on YouTube there's a, um, there's a YouTube page out there that goes over all of the, um, different, oh, it's called Films on Fire. Okay. So I'm giving them a free plug, check it out on YouTube or whoever's

Rob Read: (13:34):

Listening, I'm writing it done as we speak,

Drew Slocum: (13:35):

Films on fire. And it's every false kind of, uh, thing about fire protection in the movies. So it, it's pretty cool. Um, you know, he doesn't get too many, I don't even him or her, I don't even know who produces it, but it'd be, you know what, maybe I should reach out to them to, to have them on as well, cuz what, whatever they're doing, they're, they're kind of cutting clips of each movie to show the, uh, the inaccuracies in it. So.

Rob Read: (14:02):

Well, and, and I agree, and sometimes it's not even just the inaccuracies, but the danger, uh, I spoke a little bit about the using a fire extinguisher and people, you see it on TV all the time, blasting each other in the face. But can you imagine hitting someone or, or, or shooting a CO2 extinguisher, which is basically liquid dry ice into somebody's face, you'd blind them. Oh yeah. Yeah. And people don't know that they think it's a big joke or, you know, I don't know if they think it's confetti coming out there, just what they're thinking. But CO2 could be really damaging, but that doesn't take away how damaging dry chemical or, or any other agent coming out of an extinguisher can be.

Drew Slocum: (14:40):

I mean, most of them are dry abc, dry camm or BC dry camm these days. So what if somebody doesn't know that's the bulk of them. Yeah. Yeah. What if somebody doesn't know that and they, they just go up and hit somebody. They think it's a CO2 extinguisher. , yeah. Covered in yellow.

Rob Read: (14:55):

Well, or you get a lung full of that stuff. Oh yeah. And let's face it, it's, it's, it's not healthy. And, uh, it always bothers me when I see it on tv. Oh God. I hope nobody does that at home. .

Drew Slocum: (15:07):

Yeah. Well that's, that's good. I'm, I'm really excited what you're doing. You know, I I, I've watched a few of them. Um, I like how you're doing the video podcast. We've only done one video and that was the, the clearing in the air, actually, that was only, we did it Facebook Live, so we, we did it at a bar in, in San Antonio and, uh, you know, had a, had some tequila and, and beer flowing to, to

Rob Read: (15:31):

Hopefully

Drew Slocum: (15:31):

Open up some of the, uh, the guests there. So, uh, but I, you know, I probably should do some more video, video podcasting. So,

Rob Read: (15:40):

Well, we, we've thought about doing some of the live things like that, and I've often wondered, you know, what the sound, the noise in the background, all that sort of stuff, how, you know, what are the other challenges that come with it? I mean, what we're doing is pretty controlled, so, you know, we know what's gonna happen in the background. Uh, we, we know that the sound isn't gonna be interrupted and Yeah. And all that sort of stuff. But if we wanted to start doing something live like that, uh, how would it truly come out? And I guess at the end of the day, that's gonna be up to the producer to fix. So, uh, Brian, if you're listening out there, sorry, buddy .

Drew Slocum: (16:10):

Yeah. A lot of it, the funny part is, I'm, I'm the producer, I'm the editor, and I think Krista's the same, so mm-hmm. , I think the day before. Um, and Chris has got some pretty good technology with him. Mine, I, you know, I have a decent podcast, Mike, but I had to find a restaurant that was, that was quiet and it, you know, it was still loud mm-hmm. . But I feel like that's what made it a little bit more authentic. And, um, you know, you, you can't do everyone like that. But, um, I think that's what people are liking these days is, you know, the authenticity, the, you know, it's kind of, it's uncut as well, you know.

Rob Read: (16:47):

Well, and, and I like that because, uh, like you say, it's that almost that raw unpolished we're, you know, we're just some guys in the field that are working hard at what we're doing and trying to share, you know, our ideas and our thoughts. I mean, we're not professional, uh, presenters by any stretch of the imagination. And, and so I think it brings that sense of, of reality that we know of what we speak. We're not just, like I say, hired actors in a commercial.

Drew Slocum: (17:13):

Yeah, exactly.

Rob Read: (17:15):

You know, so, and I, I've heard a couple of your shows where you're, you know, at trade shows and, you know, it's, it is interesting to kind of hear that background noise cuz it kind of puts you in the building as you're talking about what's going on. Right. You're hearing those sounds and, and, and it kind of helps take you there.

Drew Slocum: (17:29):

Yeah, it does. And you know, you can't, not everybody can be there. So that you, you have a great point there. And I probably mm-hmm. We probably should do a few more of those. Um, do you have any plans, uh, uh, now you said you said you might do some live ones with yours. What, I guess, um, you seem to target a lot of local people, which I, I, I really, you know, you're getting out of the fire protection realm a little bit and you're focusing on the business. You're focusing on the area that, that you're, you're operating in and there's some really good lessons and, um, ideas that you have on there. Or do you continue, are you gonna plan on continuing to do that? Are you're gonna bring in more fire protection elements in there or it's evolving

Rob Read: (18:12):

It, it's, it's, you know, what do they call it? Uh, constant and never ending improvement. Right? So the plan for the next, you know, for the bulk of this season is gonna be to kinda continue with the presidents and the CEOs and build on actually, you know, helping people build a business. And as they're doing that, learning the importance of dealing with a bad culture or how important, um, mental health days are versus sick days. That was one of the episodes we did. Um, you know, we've talked about micromanaging versus blind trust and there's all kinds of different things that can be talked about. And that's why I like the idea of bringing in, you know, the local people that I have nearby and being a video show, it's not as convenient for me to be able to do like you and I are doing, I mean, across two different countries right now.

(19:05)
Uh, the beautiful thing about PO only is you can do that. Whereas I do restrict myself with the videos to where I can either drive to or have people pull up and come see me back and forth. Cuz a lot of it we do right here in my office or in, you know, in some cases if they have an office facility, we go out and see them. But I will be definitely stretching the show out. Uh, and into season two. We've already started some preliminary discussion about what we wanna even do there. And keep in mind we've only got three of 24 episodes out so far, or four of 24 episodes out for season two. So we've got a, you know, a long way to go and a lot of planning to do. But, you know, there's just, just so much to talk about just in the business world.

(19:50)
And, and I always think about how much more there is to do. Uh, and you may or may not know this about me, but I've spent a lot of time working with our, uh, as members of our chambers of Commerce. I've sat on two different chamber boards and been very involved with that. So I talk a lot of business with a lot of different people and you start hearing where their struggles are and that gives me a lot of information as to where we wanna go with the show and what we want to talk about. Cuz people wanna do, well, you know, they wanna give her a good product, they wanna give a good service. Right. You know, they just wanna run a good business. That's why they went into it and they wanna enjoy it. But there's anyone can go to a, uh, a college and take a business course that isn't running a business. Sure. You know, it's like, it's like saying you've read the cookbooks and now you're an expert chef.

Drew Slocum: (20:37):

Right.

Rob Read: (20:38):

, you know, sooner or later you gotta get the pots and pans out and you gotta start breaking the eggs and start frying and do what you gotta do. But, um, that's where talking to the people, especially these presidents, they, they've started in the tre trenches and they're working their way up or have worked their way up into some very strong roles and they have a lot to share. And I'm so appreciative of the fact that they take the time to do that.

Drew Slocum: (21:03):

Right. Yeah. I think I, I think you, you've kind of hit on something where it can go across, you know, not only fire protection, but other people can, can listen into some of the ideals and, uh, I guess some of the problems that some of these other presidents and CEOs and managers, whoever have, have solved and mm-hmm. or, or run into the same problems that you have. So, um, I listened, what was the one I listened to? The one on the Canadian shoe company, athletic shoe company,

Rob Read: (21:33):

Right? Yeah, yeah. Brian, Brian Sharpstein over Canadian footwear.

Drew Slocum: (21:36):

Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was interesting to to talk, you know, some of the leadership skills that he was, uh, kind of alluding to and, um, kind of the current conditions that he's, he's kind of going into as well.

Rob Read: (21:49):

Um, for sure.

Drew Slocum: (21:50):

What, what do you see, you know, what are, what are the big challenges? You know, cuz we get a lot of fire protection, uh, owners and other companies. What are, what are the big challenges that, that you see not only within the business, but within the fire protection realm

Rob Read: (22:05):

In general? Well, and, and I can probably almost touch both of these at the same time, because I'm gonna say historically our industry has always hired from within because it's such a small but important industry. So what happens is you have a really good technician, uh, then you bring them from technician into supervisor, you take them from supervisor to manager and, and you keep promoting them from within. Yet we don't take the time to invest in training them into those roles. Truly as management, they kind of get the title and then they're kinda trial by fire, you know, no pun intended here, but away you go. And either it is sink or swim. You either have a lot of success, uh, as a manager. Some people just are naturally that way, but we don't necessarily invest in those supervisors and, uh, managers the way we need to.

(22:59)
And, you know, get them the more, uh, I'm gonna say official training or push uh, professional development on them because they're, they're so caught in the trenches of what they're doing every day. And, and I kind of used the analogy not long ago. Uh, you know, my wife was complaining about how much laundry there was in the house and how come it never gets done. And I said, well, teach your kids to do it. They're old enough. No, no, no. They'll wreck with my washing machine. I I don't want the kids to touch my washing machine. . I said, I wish I could. Well, okay, it, your pile isn't gonna go down. And, you know, and, and it's almost the same thing with management. Like, these guys are so used to being on the tools that they have a hard time making that transformation, uh, from technician to supervisor. Sure. And then, you know, when they finally do make that transition and they've moved up a little, you know, have they truly back trained someone to come in and support behind so that they can move up to the next level? And how much are they taking on themselves to become a good, solid, strong manager? Right. And that is, I I I think a miss in not just our industry, but in many industries where you see people are just, they struggle in that middle area.

Drew Slocum: (24:10):

Yeah.

Rob Read: (24:11):

Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (24:12):

I could, I could see that in middle manager era where, um, you know, the, the C-suite, the execs are seem to be doing well. I, I know there is an issue in, in the US with finding qualified technicians just mainly cuz a lot of younger, younger generations don't wanna do a lot of that work. That's at least mm-hmm. , that's what's happening in the us. But, um, with that, you'd have that middle middle management if you, if you, um, if you don't have that background in the, uh, the technical field or in the field, it's, it's tough to, to be, you know mm-hmm. be a great middle manager.

Rob Read: (24:48):

So Yeah. Oh, for sure. Well, no, if you haven't got the tech technical expertise, you will never be a great supervisor. Uh, but you know what? A great supervisor isn't a great manager because it's a whole different skillset and, and requirements of the jobs because you've gone from directing, uh, the people in the field to looking at spreadsheets and understanding forecasts and all the good stuff that goes with all that, that becomes that management level thing. Right. So they are just, you know, like I say, different skill sets and I think where a lot of companies fail is in that training process. But you kind of touched on the, uh, you know, attracting technicians. And just yesterday actually, I was out at our local community college cuz I go in there on an annual basis and speak to the kids that are going through their electronic technology classes and talk to them about the fire protection industry.

(25:41)
And specifically for them fire alarms, because they're in that, they're, they're going through the classes, but they don't even know our industry exists. You know, so they're looking at getting onto the, the big hydro corporations, the, you know, the, the utilities or, or some big technology, uh, type of company not even knowing the opportunities that are in front of them in fire alarm. And what a great industry it is. And by the time I've done the presentation, there's, I got 25 or 30 people that are all lining up to come work for us because there's something going, wow. You mean I'm not in a cubicle day in and day out? You mean I get to problem solve, I get to do programming, I get to troubleshoot, uh, I get to work with engineers. Sure. I get to work with contractors, uh, every day's unique, all like, all that good stuff that they just don't even know exists. And that's why I go to the schools and I'm never struggling to find new young talent. Now they're trainees. So it takes, you know, I'm playing the long game here because, you know, I started this program, I'm gonna say seven, eight years ago, but now I've got some guys that are moving into senior technician roles because we started it then and we keep going, bringing in a new kid or two every year.

Drew Slocum: (26:53):

Yeah. That's a, that's a great success story. And I wish, you know, I think you gotta play that medium to long term game a lot of times. Mm-hmm. and not all of them are gonna stick around, you

Rob Read: (27:05):

Know? No, they're not, they're not

Drew Slocum: (27:06):

All gonna work out. But if you can grab, you know, a a handful of, of qualified, uh, technicians from that and eventually get into managers and whatever else, I think that's, that's important.

Rob Read: (27:18):

It absolutely is. I mean, I look at it and go, I'm bringing the right people in that have a desire to do electronic work. So they're working in an area of their expertise that they've been trained at college for versus, uh, you know, Jimmy's cousin that doesn't like cooking french fries at McDonald's and he wants to be a fire alarm guy. So he is taking five courses and out into the field. Right. You know, , they're just, they're, they're two different people. And I've always really thought, let's get the people with the desire to even work with electronics. It's so important. You know, cuz what we're doing, you know, and making the world a safer place, a big part of that's bringing the right people in for the right reasons.

Drew Slocum: (27:57):

Right. Yeah, no, you're right. It's, uh, and I think maybe there's more, more lessons to be learned and if that's the, the big issue in the us um, with technicians is just getting the message out, getting message out to, uh, high schools or technical schools that, you know mm-hmm. , you don't, there's a lot more opportunities out there and, and fire protection seems to be a, uh, definitely a needed one out there. So,

Rob Read: (28:22):

For sure. And, and I mean, like we were talking about yesterday, I just focused on the fire alarm guys, but the same thing on the suppression side of our industry where, you know, it's, it's industry schools, you know, we send them to Ansel, we send them to Keta or or wherever we're sending them, but we, it's not a trade. And because of that we have to make sure that the training that we're giving them, the time we're spending with them, you know, all those good things we are creating and developing good technicians in the field. And one week at a, you know, a restaurant kitchen course isn't gonna do the trick. I mean, it's definitely important, but we have to also invest in them ourselves in the field, you know, with, again, those good supervisors teaching them their job properly. Sure. But it, but it takes time to find these kids and, and find the right one. Cuz as you said, not every single one of them is gonna last.

Drew Slocum: (29:15):

Now, uh, in, in your, in your days as a, you've had bison fire protection since the early two thousands, correct?

Rob Read: (29:23):

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We opened it up back in 2001. So have

Drew Slocum: (29:27):

You, have you had any, uh, technicians or managers go out and kind of did similar to what you, you kind of started from a, a bigger company, bigger corporate company, and you broke off, did your own thing? Um, I don't know the whole history there, but, um, well,

Rob Read: (29:41):

What we did was we bought a division from another company that was wanting to get out of the suppression business and then grew it from there. But, uh, you know, have I had technicians that thought, you know what, we're smarter than the boss, so we're gonna go out and open our own place. Yeah. I've had a couple of those. Um, and I, I look at, you know, what they're doing out there right now and, um, I don't know that they're, they, I don't know that they're bringing up the level of the industry.

Drew Slocum: (30:07):

Right, right. Yep. Now, and, and probably happens, uh, maybe not as successfully as obviously what you did, but there's, there's gotta be cases out there. And, and my point to that was, you know, there's these big, big companies out there, big corporate companies and, you know, sometimes you have to take the leap and if, if you think something's better out there, you know, start, you know, I came from a big corporate, two big corporate companies and started my own adventure up. And it's, uh, sometimes you have to take that big leap in order to, to kind of push yourself forward. Again, it's not for everybody,

Rob Read: (30:46):

But no, it's not definitely not

Drew Slocum: (30:48):

For everybody.

Rob Read: (30:48):

But it's, uh, and you know what I'm gonna say, um, you know, just my observations of course, but I, I think in some cases some of the bigger corporations have kind of lost their way. You know, we always talk about people, process and tools and the people being the, the most important part of that because if you invest in your people, good people will get you through bad process and poor tools. But a lot of the big co corporations have gotten so heavy with process and tools that they've forgotten about the people. Cause they believe that they can plug people in and out and they've forgotten who's building the relationships with the customers. Uh, they've forgot who's building the relationships with their internal customers, meaning their, their, their coworkers. And because of that, their cultures have gone downhill and they are losing traction where these, these big multinationals could truly be, uh, machines in a lot of cases, at least what I'm seeing here, they struggle because the people just are so dissatisfied Sure. That they work there for a short time and leave.

Drew Slocum: (31:48):

Yeah. And the same, same thing down here in the States. And um, you know, you see that a lot and I, I always hoped for the best for some of those big corporate companies, cuz they, they have the, the cash, they have the talent, they can really grow. But

Rob Read: (32:04):

They have the products, you're right. They, they are set up to be machines .

Drew Slocum: (32:08):

They for some reason struggle. And it's, um, it's really apparent maybe in, maybe that's just in the last, I don't know, 10, 10 or so years. But, um, sometimes they can't get out of their own way, which, uh, I dunno, it, it opens opportunity to others to mm-hmm. to, to get in there. So,

Rob Read: (32:28):

Um, it, it does. And then like I say it that in my mind is all culture and all people, you know, if you take care of your people and you fiercely protect your culture, you can do all kinds of great things.

Drew Slocum: (32:42):

Yeah, no, I agree. I I I've seen a lot of kind of local, private, uh, contractors that, uh, that do right. For their employees, uh, promote within and you know, even, uh, educate, they educate more than more than a corporate company does sometimes and mm-hmm. , they, they hold onto those people. They probably have a higher profit than some of those big corporate companies. So, um, anyway, it is interesting. I mean, there, there's room for everybody, but, uh

Rob Read: (33:11):

Oh, for sure there is. Yeah. So, you know, and, and I always look at it and go, we need competition cause it forces us to be better.

Drew Slocum: (33:19):

Exactly.

Rob Read: (33:19):

Yes. You know?

Drew Slocum: (33:20):

Yep. You definitely need competition cuz that's what, that's what keeps me up at night. Uh, I want to be pushed forward and, you know, with our software and everything and whatever else we're doing, I, hopefully there's another podcast that comes out to, to push us along a little bit, right? Mm-hmm.

Rob Read: (33:35):

. Yeah, absolutely. Or you know what? We find another competitor out there and competitor, the product that we are creating online gets that much better and we're educating more people because as we said earlier, the more that the customer knows the, the safer they are. But in a lot of cases, the better conversations we can have with them about their fire protection cause they understand what they need and why they need it,

Drew Slocum: (33:59):

Right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, more information the better. So, uh, yeah.

Rob Read: (34:05):

Uh, you know, just, uh, go

Drew Slocum: (34:08):

Ahead. Yeah, no, no, I, I uh, anything else that, uh, you wanna chat? I, I, I pretty much wanted to have you on to chat about, you know, what you learned with into the fire, kind of where you guys are going and, um, just learn a bit, little bit more about bison and, and Rob, you know. Yeah.

Rob Read: (34:27):

Well, um, I can tell you a little bit more about bison. Uh, that's the easy one to start with is, uh, like you say, we started back in 2001 and five of us with a, you know, lots of attitude and, and lots of enthusiasm and let's go. And in that amount of time, the company's grown from those five people to, uh, we're about 90 strong now. We have five or six branches spread out through, uh, Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario, and into Saskatchewan. And our business has gone from filling fire extinguishers and doing kitchen suppression systems to full on, uh, fire alarm contracts and service inspections as well as, uh, you know, sprinklers, you know, the contract service inspections, deficiency repairs. Yeah. All of the good stuff. And, you know, it's been an interesting growth path. It hasn't been without its challenges of course. Um, you know, and that's what keeps it interesting. Cause if it was easy, everyone would do it. . Yeah. But, uh, you know, we've had a lot of success, but, you know, it hasn't come without challenge for sure.

Drew Slocum: (35:29):

No, that's, that's great. I mean, I'm, I'm glad to, to see a nice success store and you guys are relatively, uh, uh, I say pretty young and medium, I don't know, maybe medium age company cuz there's a lot of old contractors out there, obviously have the big ones. So that's, that's good to see mm-hmm. , uh, that much growth in, in that, you know, 20 year timeframe.

Rob Read: (35:51):

Yeah. And you know, like I say, it's uh, it's an ongoing thing. We have a lot of plans for the future and um, you know, I would like to see that even when my time comes to retire, which isn't in the immediate future cuz uh, I'm just enjoying myself. I'm having a ball with, you know, the business, I'm having a ball with doing these, uh, the shows and you know, the podcasts and all that. And so I have no desire to go anywhere in the, the next while I, you know, I was talking to my wife, I said, nah, I'm not, I have no plans. I'm, I'm enjoying what I'm doing and it's not changing. Yeah. She, you know, I wanna go on more vacations. Well, that's okay , we can work that into, don't worry.

Drew Slocum: (36:32):

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Maybe we can combo it. You can go to a, you know, trade show and, you know, stay afterward to, to enjoy the vacation a little bit.

Rob Read: (36:41):

Yeah, exactly. We've been doing that, you know, and it's been nice, like you say, going to some of those shows and uh, you know, last year we were down in, uh, new Orleans and spent some time down there and, and just had a ball, you know, and, you know, those opportunities to kinda, like you say, combine the business with the pleasure cuz there's just a lot of great things to do in this business. And I'm sure a lot of businesses can say the same thing, but there's always something new to learn. There's always a new product. Uh, codes are always changing and trying to stay ahead of all of that and make sure that we're current. Cuz we have to be, you know, we, we are in a liability business so we have to make sure that what we're doing, we're doing, you know, not just for the right reasons, but we're also doing it correctly.

Drew Slocum: (37:23):

Right, right. Yeah. It's a big, it's fire and safety. So at the end of the day it is a business, but we're, we're saving lives.

Rob Read: (37:30):

Yeah. I mean, I take a lot of pride. You know, this, this may or may not resonate with, uh, you know, the people down in the States, but our, uh, the Winnipeg Blue bombers won the Great Cup, uh, this year. You know, for us that's our, that's our Superbowl sort of thing. Sure. And so they had it out in a, uh, smaller town and then, you know, the team was out there, some of the players were out with the Great Cup and showing it off and you know, building up the community and all the good stuff, you know, community involvement. But the hotel they were in caught fire and it was one of the ones that we've been servicing and supporting and you know, it took a lot of pride in the fact that not only did everybody get out of the building safely because the fire alarm did exactly what it was supposed to do mm-hmm. , the building was saved cuz the sprinklers did exactly what they were supposed to do. But I saved the Great Cup. Yeah,

Drew Slocum: (38:20):

You did

Rob Read: (38:21):

, you know.

Drew Slocum: (38:23):

Yeah. So, you know what, it's funny that I didn't even know about that story.

Rob Read: (38:29):

Yeah. It was, uh, yeah, just in a small city or, you know, outside of, uh, Manitoba here in northwestern Ontario called Kenora. And uh, yeah, we were just one of those really, you know, great little success stories. I'm sorry that the hotel had the fire. I truly am. But I take a lot of pride in the fact that our products did what they needed to do when they needed to do it because they were properly maintained and serviced.

Drew Slocum: (38:52):

Wow. Send, send me, send me that article. Or if you have any article or a publication, I would love to do that cuz I, I think it's, it's uh, you know, super Bowl weekend coming up. Yeah. And I think that's a nice story cuz that should get publicized more. Some of those sprinkler saves or fire alarm saves don't get publicized as much as mm-hmm. much as they should.

Rob Read: (39:12):

So Yeah, no, I'll definitely, uh, fire you a couple links and, and, uh, see where that all goes. But, uh, like I say, for me that's a point of pride that, you know, we did something, uh, special in my mind.

Drew Slocum: (39:25):

Yeah. No, that's great. That's great. Well, um, Rob, it's, uh, we're coming on the, the 40 or so minute mark here. I wanna ask you a few more questions. You've probably heard a few of my podcasts, so, uh, I have, I have , I always do something called the, the quick response round. It's never usually quick, but I, I try to, you don't know the questions coming, so, uh, uh, some of 'em are fun, some of 'em are technical, so, um,

Rob Read: (39:52):

Yeah. Okay. I'm nervous now, . Yeah. See

Drew Slocum: (39:56):

If, if I knew you better, I I would've, I would've really Got you. But, uh, you know, I know we've only talked a few times, so, um, uh, so what's your, all right. Out of these suppression methods, what, what's your, what's your most favorite to work on, I guess?

Rob Read: (40:13):

Uh, mobile suppress. Okay. I guess mobile suppression. I'm a suppression guy. Mobile suppression. Yeah. I'm a suppression guy. Well, mobile suppression's pretty cool. Uh, it, it really is. You know, the mines and all that. I mean, it is definitely up there. Um, you know, lately we've been putting in a lot of clean gas systems and foam systems. Uh, you know, we do, uh, you know, a pile of restaurants and, and paint spray booths. Uh, I don't know if there's a specific that I like, it's just, I've always said that, um, you know, suppression, you know, sprinkler has its place and it does exactly what it does, and it's, it's engineered to be there. Fire alarm's, the same suppression is the kind of the magical stuff that, uh, when I say, if you can make it burn, we can put it out.

Drew Slocum: (40:58):

Right. Yep.

Rob Read: (40:59):

And so, you know, there's so many different suppression, like I say, whether it's a, a big piece of, um, equipment in a mine or somebody's restaurant, everything's unique. And so, yeah. My, my heart's really kind of on the suppression side of it. Probably, uh, you know, my real background is in the restaurants and that sort of thing, but, you know, I've also done a lot of the off-road, uh, for the mines and forestry. So Yeah. That kind of in that area, if that answers your question.

Drew Slocum: (41:25):

Yeah, no, that does. I, it, it kind of, uh, makes me think I I, I probably should get more, uh, suppression or two podcasts down here to talk some of the, the new advancements there. So I'll, uh, maybe pick your brain after this.

Rob Read: (41:37):

Can I share a bit of a funny story with you? Yeah,

Drew Slocum: (41:39):

Go

Rob Read: (41:40):

For it. Okay. So I was out at one of our local airports not long ago where we were putting a foam system into a hangar. And so the question came back and said, well, why are you putting foam in here? You know, they're, they were afraid that, you know, if, if one airplane caught fire and we flooded the entire hangar with, uh, foam, it was gonna destroy the other airplanes and so on. And I started walking them through, well, you know, we could do this with, you know, dry chemical. The problem you're gonna run into is that dry chemicals gonna get into every part of that airplane. The engines are gonna have to be torn down whether they were involved in the fire or not. Right? I said, okay, yeah, no, no, we don't like that. And I said, we could put clean gas in here, but by the time we do all the air integrity testing and make sure that a hanger is sealed up tight enough to maintain the, uh, the levels of integrity for the clean gas, we're gonna have to put probably millions of dollars worth of, you know, Novak in here.

(42:37)
Sure. Oh yeah. No, we, no, no, we don't like that too much. Mm-hmm. , uh, I said we could put CO2 in here and would work really well, but if there's anyone in the hangar it's gonna kill 'em. And I, no, no. We really don't like that one. Right, right. . Right. You know, I said, so, you know, by the time we actually walked them through it, they came back and said, okay, you're right. Yeah. Phone was the right choice. Phone

Drew Slocum: (42:56):

Works. Yep.

Rob Read: (42:57):

Yeah, we're good with that. . That's funny. So yeah, phone, that's kind of the nice phone systems are fun. Yeah. But, but having that opportunity to kind of explain why we chose this product for this reason.

Drew Slocum: (43:08):

Yeah. No, that is nice. There's a lot of different protection schemes and those are, those are always the fun conversations to have as mm-hmm. , uh, going over that with the client and, and all that. So

Rob Read: (43:17):

Yeah, for sure. Um,

Drew Slocum: (43:20):

Curling or hockey

Rob Read: (43:23):

, my God. Okay.

Drew Slocum: (43:25):

. Sorry, I, I had to, I had to ask.

Rob Read: (43:30):

Alright, uh, where do we go with this one? I'm not old enough to curl yet, so when I get into my eighties, I'll think about it. Um, ah, that's funny. Um, and you know what? The Jets came back here a few years ago. Everyone loves the Jets and I love what the Jets do for the community, but I'm not a big hockey guy either. Yeah. Now, if you'd asked me ice fishing, we could have had different conversation snow wheeling. Yeah. Uh, but I, um, you know, not strong on either of those. Although I'll tell you, if my grandma's listening to me right now, uh, she's not gonna be too happy with me crapping on curling . And believe it or not, I've got a second cousin that was actually a gold medalist Oh, wow. Um, in the Olympics on the first year when it was still an introduction sport in, in the Olympics, and she was the alternative. Wow. And so, I mean, we've got curling into blood and, you know, a lot of cousins and, and people that have played hockey. It's, you know, it's a Canadian thing. Right. Um, either of those ice, but for me, honestly, put me on a snowmobile or put me on a lake, uh, trying to pull fish through the lake, that that's where I'd rather be.

Drew Slocum: (44:37):

No, that's great. I, I, I probably, I, I gotta get back in. I used to snowmobile when I was a kid and haven't done, there's not much snow here this winter. But, uh, anyway, I got, I used to love it. But, um, uh, final question. What, uh, okay. In, you know, I know you, you do your own podcast, you listen to a bunch. Um, what podcasts are in your queue that you wouldn't, you wouldn't think to, to mention to anybody or, or, uh, any books in your queue? What, what are you listening to? What are you reading?

Rob Read: (45:10):

Okay. What am I listening to right now? Um, you know what, I, I've been doing a lot of, uh, you know, listening to both yours and Chris's. Uh, I listen to a lot of Terry O'Reilly's, uh, podcast because he's a, a marketing guy and he tells just great marketing stories. And as I'm always trying to think about how I can be doing things differently with, with my show and what I wanna do, I'm always gleaming little nuggets out of what he's sharing. So I really enjoy Terry's podcasts. Um, what am I reading? Uh, I just finished actually, um, Victor Frankl's book, uh, kind of the, the, uh, what is it? Uh, man's, uh, search for Meaning, which was a good one. And I don't know if you're familiar with that particular book, but No. Uh, Victor, uh, spent a number of years in a Nazi concentration camp Oh, wow.

(46:01)
And how he managed to maintain his, um, inner strength, I guess, going through the, the challenges that that presented and, and things that like we would never even be able to imagine in our lives and the resilience that he created for himself doing that. And so when you're going through business challenges, you know, the opportunity to think, well, you know what, it's not that bad. That was, today we've dealt with it. We can move on and, and move on to tomorrow. And so, you know, that was a great book. Uh, right now, what am I currently pounding through is the Toyota Lean Management. Uh, wow. Boy. And, and it was kind of funny because when I was talking with, um, Barry Rempel over at the airport, he was talking about how they took lean manufacturing and, and applied it to the service that they provide. And so they use service as a product Sure. And think of it in, in, in that way, and how they've applied a lot of lean principles to that. And the other thing with the Toyota book, of course, is a lot of, uh, management development, um, uh, cis or continuing improvements Yep. And all the different things that Toyota does to remain one of the, the biggest forces out there in, in business.

Drew Slocum: (47:14):

They do. Yeah. I don't get me started on that. I, I, uh, that's, that's my, that's my degree. I have a, a six Sigma black belt, so, uh, my wife always makes fun of me, cuz I always say Six Sigma Black belt. But, uh, I had to read all those Toyota books mm-hmm. , all the, uh, lean manufacturing and actually that's what, funny enough, come, come full circle. That's, that's what Inspect Point actually provides at the end of the day. Mm-hmm. , we're trying to lean out the business to get a, a better product out to the, to the consumer. So, uh, that's interesting. You're, you're, you're, it's a pretty wide variety of, uh, of books there. That's, that's great.

Rob Read: (47:51):

Yeah. And my, my biggest problem in life, honestly, drew, is I'm interested in everything . So I sometimes suffer from, uh, shiny ball syndrome. Right. You know, someone brings in that nude toy and I go, I don't wanna play with that. I can't, you know, pass that over here, .

Drew Slocum: (48:09):

Oh, that's great. That's great. Well, um, you got any questions for me? I've, I've, I'm pretty wrapped up here. I got the quick response round done. I wanna thank you for being on, um mm-hmm. , is there any, uh, actually let the listeners know where, where to find you.

Rob Read: (48:25):

Okay. Well you can find us, uh, our website, you know, is bison fire.com mm-hmm. , or, uh, you know, if you wanna search us up on, you know, the social media, whether it's my name, uh, Rob Reed and it's r e a d, most people spell, you know, four letters and they get it wrong. So R e a d or, uh, you know, into the Fire with Rob Reed, you can find that, uh, online or you know, the Bison Fire YouTube page. We're out there, you know, a couple quick searches and you found us. It's not that in this day and age, uh, you know, similar to yourself, if I put, uh, drew locum into a search engine, you're popping up all over the place.

Drew Slocum: (49:03):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is crazy that you type your, your own name in and you pop.

Rob Read: (49:09):

Yeah. It gets a little creepy actually, . It does, it does. But

Drew Slocum: (49:12):

That's

Rob Read: (49:12):

Fine. But you know what I mean, that's why we're doing it. I want people to, to learn from what we're doing and the lessons that I'm providing. And the best way to do it is in a social media format. And that's why I want people to be able to find the end into the Fire show or, you know, if they have questions about, uh, fire protection, you know, come at us, uh, through the Bison Fire website and, and all the different things that we do out there. So, you know, if people want a new know more or learn more or just engage in the conversation. And I always talk about this, uh, you know, at the end of our shows is, you know, like share and comment cuz I just love the conversation where it can go, uh, some of the direct messages that I get and I'm sure you get the same thing. Just that ability to have that conversation after the fact. And, and I just absolutely love doing that.

Drew Slocum: (50:00):

No, it is great social and, and, uh, you know, you're getting yourself out there into the fire. So that's, I I, I, uh, hopefully everybody gets a chance to check it out on, on YouTube and, and on any podcast channel. So, uh, mm-hmm. . Yeah. Thanks Rob for coming on today. I really appreciate it. I, I'm glad we got to finally connect doing this.

Rob Read: (50:21):

Well, thank you and I really appreciated you, uh, having me on. I, I, uh, just think that the, the time that you give up for your show for me is, uh, is absolutely appreciated and you have yourself a great day. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (50:33):

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks Rob.

Rob Read: (50:35):

Take care. Take care.

Drew Slocum: (50:37):

I want to thank Rob Reed again for joining me on today's podcast. You know, the podcasting world is, uh, coming faster and faster. A lot of new podcasts out there. I'm glad, uh, there's more people getting into it in the fire protection space and, uh, look forward to listening more, uh, ones like Rob's, Chris Logan's, and, uh, the new life safety one out there. So again, thanks for subscribing. Please pass this along, share it with, uh, other colleagues, other industry folk, and, um, yeah. See you here again soon. Thanks.

• Introductions
• Why does the extinguisher market needs to change?
• Who are the main stakeholders in the process?
• What are the next steps for The Eliminator?
• Quick Response Round

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum: (00:07):

This is episode 16 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Spec Point. Today, my guests are from the Russo Eliminator Fire Extinguisher Company. It's a new product to the extinguisher market to really, uh, hopefully change some, uh, ideas in the fire extinguisher world. It's, uh, it's going against all manufacturers out there. It's a different product, uh, trying to think of different ways to, to produce a fire extinguisher to go to market. I really like what they're doing. Um, so we get into it about how they came to market, what their goals are. Um, so really excited to have them on because there hasn't been a really big innovation in the fire extinguisher world and probably 50, 50 plus years. So they're, they're really trying. Um, I'll see them again at here at naed, uh, in the next, uh, couple months. Uh, inspect point will be at naed, uh, so, we'll, so will Russo eliminator.

(01:09)
So they're, they're debuting it this year. Sore. Really excited, uh, for 2020 with the Fire Protection Podcast. A lot of, uh, good ideas trying to get, uh, more listeners obviously. So please subscribe. Uh, please, please pass the word along. Uh, today's podcast actually came from, from Chris Logan of the Fire Sprinkler Podcast. He, uh, he wanted to get, uh, this new product out there, and it thought it was a good way. Um, so thank, thank you again, Chris. Please, uh, tune into his podcast and, uh, yeah, really excited for 2020. So stay tuned and subscribe. Just want to give a quick update on the inspect point, uh, side of things. Uh, 2020 is gonna be a breakout year, another breakout year for us here at Inspect Point. Uh, a lot of cool initiatives, one being our, our big service and work order module that's coming out in, uh, early quarter two within the platform.

(02:04)
So we're really excited about that. It will transform our platform to not only include inspections and the proposal sales features that we've had for, for six to nine months. On that side, uh, it's gonna flow into the service and work order section. So not only will be able to do inspections, you'll be able to dispatch technicians out for service. So check us out, uh, this spring. We're gonna be at a few upcoming trade shows. We'll be at, uh, F S S A, uh, down in Orlando. We'll be at all three NAFA events, um, in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Chicago. Uh, plans on being at N F P A in June. And then there's some other, uh, trade shows that we do plan on attending throughout the year. So stay [email protected] and all the social media channels. Enjoy the podcast. So, uh, thanks guys again for, for joining the podcast today. Um, so I, I might get this wrong a little bit. I'll probably get it right in the intro, but, um, I know, uh, we, we've got Mike Friedman, uh, Randy Rousseau and John, sorry, how do you pronounce your last name?

Mike Friedman: (03:16):

Tah-bah-kek

Drew Slocum: (03:16):

Tabacek from, uh, the Eliminator, uh, fire Extinguisher. Is there another, um, company name that I should be referencing?

Randy Rousseau: (03:26):

Uh, that's, this would be Eliminator, L L C.

Drew Slocum: (03:30):

Okay. So Eliminator, L L C. I wanted to have them on the podcast today, cuz uh, actually it was, uh, I was tagged in a social media post from, uh, Chris Logan from the Fire Sprinkler Podcast. Um, Chris, Chris and I are always talking. He's got a bunch of stuff geared up for 2020. This is our first podcast of 2020. So, uh, he, uh, tipped me off on the eliminator, and I've been looking for over a year of different, um, we always look for new technologies on the Fire Protection Podcast, but the fire extinguisher side has, has, it seems like it's always behind. It's a 50, 60 year old industry. So when, when Chris showed this to me, I was very intrigued. Um, so I did a little research, the eliminator, I'll let you guys explain it in a second, but essentially it's a, um, it's a new extinguisher to the market that, uh, it's gonna get rid of the, the issues with stored pressure.

(04:33)
Um, there's a lot of, uh, new technology that they're putting into this eliminator product, but, uh, what I liked about it most is it's making, making the industry think whether, whatever, everybody, there's a lot of different opinions that I've, uh, actually asked people about the product pros and cons. And at le at least it's getting people to think about it. So, um, you know, this 50, 60 year old, uh, uh, way we've been doing things in the fire extinguisher side, uh, is starting to change. So, um, I'll quit talking. I'll, I'll let you guys introduce yourself, uh, one by one and we'll kind of kick it off from there.

Randy Rousseau: (05:16):

This is Randy Russo, and I am the inventor and founder of the Eliminator Fire Extinguisher. And we also have, uh, Mike Friedman here.

Mike Friedman: (05:28):

Yeah. And I'm an investor in the eliminator L L C. Uh, but I spent 29 years at Procter and Gamble in a variety of roles. The last seven was in innovation, but really helping globally p and g drive its innovation agenda. And that was, uh, at the time when AG Lafley was the ceo. And we made just huge strides, so tremendous learning. Then I joined an innovation management consulting company called Calypso. So I got to take all those learnings out to other clients around the world, primarily and in consumer med device and industrial, uh, clients. And then along the way, I met Randy and we talked about his innovation. And I got to share a lot of the lessons learned I had of what drives successful innovation all the way through from inspiration to successful commercialization, as well as the things that are, uh, watchouts that cause people to fail.

(06:33)
So, became good friends and, uh, we're on this journey and it's a very exciting one. And what I, what I really liked about Randy's vision is that this is about not sales of the, uh, annual, uh, buyer extinguishers. Now in the US there's about 300 million fire extinguishers in the embedded base. The annual sales are somewhere around 10 million. It's been a barrier to innovation cuz people look at the market size of 10 million and say, well, it's big but not that big to make the investment that's needed in getting through all the certifications of UL FM Global. But Randy's vision was, the current fire extinguishers were not working as designed, and they could not be serviced as designed. And so we really needed to change the industry and reshape it. So the market in the US was really 300 million fire extinguishers. And when you look at the global marketplace of 4 billion fire extinguishers, it's a huge marketplace. And so the vision is really to change that by leveraging technology to drive a better performing product. And so, as an innovator that spent all those years working in innovation, that really had me excited. Plus he's a good person and his family are amazing,

John Tabacek: (07:55):

So thanks Mike. Yeah, this is, uh, John Ekk. Um, I'm a friend of Mike Friedman's, he and his wife for many years. And I was in the telecom industry for over 28 years. And obviously the technology, the improvements over, uh, the generations was pretty astronomical as we see. And Mike introduced me to the eliminator and the Russo team and, uh, was intrigued. So I did, you know, a little research myself, talked to a few people I had known through the telecom industry and saw a big need for innovation and the, what the eliminator brought to the table. And it really perked a lot of people's, uh, ears up. And so I've been out, you know, marketing and working with the universities, large corporations in just getting some incredible, incredibly positive feedback. And this is something, this is not gonna be a sprint, it's obviously a marathon, but you know, it took us basically 16 years to design development testing to get, you know, UL listing and overcome a lot of the regulatory hurdles. So this will take time, but I'm very impressed and the people I'm dealing with are just ecstatic about something that is new, something that actually is gonna save lives down the road.

Randy Rousseau: (09:12):

That's great. So Drew a little bit, this is Randy. Sure. Russo, again, a a little bit of my background. I own and operate in La Sierra Fire Equipment Inc for the last 35 years. And it was started for my father-in-law. And, uh, during the course of building the business, I developed relationships. And the way, the way the fire extinguisher business is structured out here in California is what type of extinguishers you can service are designated by Alphabet. And the majority of those service companies out here in California are what they call designated BC or D. And those letter designations allow you to service certain type of portable fire extinguishers. And there are over 600 licensed companies in California, but there are only 50 a licensed companies. And what that designation means as you can do halon hydrostatic test on pressurized cylinders, reclaim clean agent Sure co2, basically all types of extinguishers.

(10:19)
And when my father was running, the father-in-law was running the business. He was always just a B and a C license company. So he was basically under the thumb of an a license company. And, uh, that was one of the first things I needed to address once we took over the, uh, management and direction of the company. And that structure alone for a service company makes it very difficult to really expand that your base of business, because you can't even talk directly to the manufacturers of fire extinguishers, any of the suppression system site because they only deal with brick and mortar companies, which are the a licensed companies. So the a license companies really are in control of the market, and I know other states are, are structured similar to that. So we had to focus on that and, uh, you know, get, get a location and uh, basically get out from under and, and create our own path forward.

(11:14)
And we, we found a location and a lot of the service companies, they, they kind of, uh, they're out in the field and they're a little, sometimes a little difficult to find. And we found a location that was right up front. It, it, it has freeway frontage. So we're proud of what we do. As a matter of fact, on a lot of our marketing material, we, our statement is we love what we do because we're, we're protecting the public and the fire extinguishers are there when you strip it down, they're there for us as the public and the employees of the business. And it's very important that, uh, they work in the event you're gonna need them. So once we had had a brick and mortar, we, we set out on and getting the license to become an, a licensed company here in California, we did that about, uh, 12 years ago. And then it was time to develop the relationship with an extinguisher manufacturer. Right. And what I had found out is that the way that was fragmented, they, they didn't really like to keep a lot of other service companies on their books and carry the credit. So I had to work my way up and develop a relationship with Badger. Yep. And Badger, who is now under United Technologies, was it, was

Drew Slocum: (12:25):

It, was this, uh, before they got swiped up by utc?

Randy Rousseau: (12:30):

Yes, sir. Okay, good, good memory. Drew , that was Williams holding in, in, in, in London, England. So I had developed a relationship directly with the president and vice president, which was very unique in the, uh, for a fire extinguisher company to, I've done that and we were dealing directly with the vice president and president and we ended up landing the state of California contract. So any state business facility that would purchase a new extinguisher, hydro IT service, it, it all came through our, our fire extinguisher service company, last Sierra fire equipment. And then what what that did is it, it gave us a direct bird's eye view of what was going on for the end user. Mm-hmm. . And what we started to realize is there was a disconnect from the manufacturer to the enforcement sector to the end user. Sure. As such, I'll just take it. Every portable stored pressure extinguisher is designed for the left hander. The gauge is on the left.

Drew Slocum: (13:35):

Right, right.

Randy Rousseau: (13:36):

The pull pin is on the left, the instructions are on the left and the hose retainers on the left. And a lot of these state agencies, they will require live fire demos for their OSHA piece so that, uh, they could have the proper training. And when we would go out, we would do a little bit different than handing them the extinguisher and have 'em just put the fire out. We would actually build a temporary wall. We'd bring a temporary wall that we had built and have them remove the fire extinguisher from the bracket because that's how it would be in real world. Right. Where a majority of service companies, when they would do a fire demo, they would just hand it to you. So just that very act of having the end user remove it from the bracket of the wall, you could see the challenges of them operating the unit. And a fire now doubles in size. I'm sure you know, drew every eight seconds.

Drew Slocum: (14:27):

Yep.

Randy Rousseau: (14:28):

So you, the last thing you want on a product that's required to be in a business for public safety is some belief having some challenges or fumbling with how to operate the extinguisher. Sure. To bring the fire out. Excuse me. So, well then what we found out is the right hander reaches over, they're holding the unit with their left hand and they're reaching over and it's kinda awkward. Do you remove the pull pin? They can't read the instructions, remove the hose, or even see the gauge where a left hander comes over. They hold it with their right hand and they have their free left hand. They can freely remove the, the pull pin and activate the unit and put out the fire. So that we just started making notes of what, what our, uh, end users and our customers once were or what their needs were and identify we would go to large organizations that, uh, would ship extinguishers internally through a system that they had to get there to different dcs or, or their retail locations. And they were praying they were paying some serious shipping charges because it was a stored pressure vessel. Right. Right. And one time the charges were more than the actual cost of the extinguisher to the end user. So that was another thing that we, we wanted to make note of. And becoming an a licensed company, we, at that time, we were doing hydro and reclaiming pallon and clean agent for over 30 of our f e d fire equipment distributors.

Drew Slocum: (15:52):

Right.

Randy Rousseau: (15:53):

And in that course of the process, we would see that when they would bring the extinguishers, it was a, it was a kind of a mashup of many different manufacturers. You know, they would bring 30 of them out and there might be seven different manufacturers, all abc. But it was kinda logistically difficult when we have to hydro it. And when you, what I mean by hydro, the cylinder, because it's constantly under pressure being a stored pressure vessel every so often it is required to te to test the integrity of the cylinder.

Drew Slocum: (16:26):

It's every 12 years, right?

Randy Rousseau: (16:27):

Yes. Or if it's in a vehicle, it's every six.

Drew Slocum: (16:30):

So, uh, I, I know you're, uh, still giving your intro, but uh, just so I don't forget it, how many people actually do 12 years or they just swapping them?

Randy Rousseau: (16:42):

That's about 50 50 out here.

Drew Slocum: (16:44):

Okay. Okay.

Randy Rousseau: (16:46):

Yeah, it's about 50

Drew Slocum: (16:46):

50. Sorry, I I, I I didn't wanna forget that cuz you know, most of the times I see it is, you know, they're just swapping it 12 years. They're not doing a they're not doing a, a full hydro, which is in Interesting.

Randy Rousseau: (17:01):

Yeah. When they, when well that's, that's a whole nother topic. When they swap it, are they swapping it with one that's gonna be due for hydro again in two years? Or are they swapping it for one that's gonna be due for hydro in five years because that business owner invested in that product that was good for 12 years and we see a lot of times where they swap it out and it might be hydro again, due for hydro again in three years rather than in 12 what it should really be.

Drew Slocum: (17:24):

Exactly.

Randy Rousseau: (17:25):

So there's, there's a, there's a lot of that, uh, going on in the industry, but, uh, logistically when we would have 'em here and you say you've got seven different brands of 30 extinguishers, it is our responsibility to keep the chemical separated cuz you can't mix up different manufacturers ABC Chemical who would compromise the UL or FM listing. So then I decided, well, I can get ahead of that. I just asked, uh, fds when they bring the units, they store the chemical and bring the units empty. So then what we ran into is when they would deliver the extinguishers, there was about two to three inches of chemical left in every single unit. Right. Unanimously. And, uh, we would call them owner up and say, we asked you to empty these out. And they said, we did, we couldn't get the rest of the chemical out.

(18:12)
And that was, that was an, uh, an eye-opening moment also. Cause well, wait a minute. There's got compaction or some moisture or something had had, uh, gotten to these cylinders on the inside, which allowed a lot of, uh, taking to occur. And we literally came up with an apparatus to put on the end of a, uh, pressurized hose and then we'd have to stick it into the cylinder and, and basically scrape and grind out this hardened chemical in the base of the extinguisher. Sure. And that, that became quite the task too. So that was another thing we noted. And we noted about 16 issues on a traditional stored pressure extinguisher. And they've stood the test of time and they've been around, like you said, 60, it's almost been 70 years now. But the, this, the issue with the traditional steel stored pressure extinguisher is that stored pressure, the steel cylinder, and they're constantly under pressure.

(19:15)
And that is why the industry requires a license certified technician because they're, they potentially, they could be dangerous. Right. And I I'm sure you have stories of them exploding and Yeah. Coming apart on technicians. So with all of that together, and, uh, we had an apartment, a little side story here that was in San Bernardino, California. We got a call and they said, uh, we've got 18 extinguishers we need you to come take a look at. And we said, we don't, that's not our account. And they said, we understand that, that's why we want you to come out. So my brother who heads up the service side of the business now Sure. He went out there and my cousin was visiting from Vermont and he happened to jump on the vehicle with him and they showed up. There was, uh, ambulances, police, and a coroner.

(20:00)
Oh boy. And they hand the, they show the extinguishers where they're at and my brother starts to look at 'em. And this was probably about seven years after we no longer did an internal tag. You used to have Right. The internal tag where you put it on the siphon tube with your initials and who serviced it. And they went to the verification caller that's on the outside of the extinguisher. Well, once my brother opened up the extinguishers, he realized that these extinguishers had not been serviced for many, many years. Right. And what the, what the f e D was doing was just wiping 'em down and tagging it, which he didn't address the compaction of the, the chemical or nothing. Yeah. He wasn't

Drew Slocum: (20:39):

Yep. He wasn't actually doing an inspection.

Randy Rousseau: (20:42):

And, and in the course of my brother doing this, he watched these small body bags being carried down the steps at the apartment building and a gentleman drove up in a vehicle and he was very angry and he got out and he was the uncle that was his nephew and nieces that perished in a fire because 18 of these extinguishers did not work. So when my brother got back and he said, if I was to touch a fire extinguisher and it did not work, and that same situation happened, I don't know how I could live with myself. Right. And it was from that moment forward that we decided we needed to create a device for the end user that could be simplistic to operate. It wouldn't be stored pressure and all these other issues of why we are in the service business to maintain this system currently.

Drew Slocum: (21:36):

Right.

Randy Rousseau: (21:37):

And we, we knew we've never invented anything. We never designed anything. And basically what we did is we took the issues that we felt that we dealt with every single day. And we continued to today because I still operate my service business and put it into a device and design it for the end user. Don't design it for the code and the regulations, don't design it for manufacturing process, but actually design a product for the end user that they're required by regulations to have.

Mike Friedman: (22:09):

And Randy, if I might inject, what I think is really important here, drew, from, from our perspective, is that we didn't design the bio extinguisher to meet the code only we designed it for the end user. So it's gonna work and meet the code.

Drew Slocum: (22:27):

Correct.

Mike Friedman: (22:29):

So that, that's, that's very critical.

Drew Slocum: (22:32):

Well, and, and the, the whole code thing is, you know, and it's across N F P A as well. It's, you know, you might have a great product out there that meets the needs of fire protection and the end user, but maybe the code has to get updated, which happens a lot. And probably many of the standards out there, the code lags behind, uh, innovative technologies, which is a big issue for N F P A and um, I know they're trying to address it, but, uh, you know, it it, it takes new products and, and, uh, like this, like yours to really, uh, challenge that. I think. So.

Randy Rousseau: (23:11):

So then we, then we set off on the path of, uh, going out and working on some, some, uh, prototype designs. And we came across a, a design engineer who had had over 55 years experience in polymers. And he actually had designed a gas mask for the US military that he owned patents on and, and was, uh, building it for him. And he had come up with a nylon material and a polymer that had never been done before. That was, uh, a, a very special technique that made it very robust and in design and strong to be able to hold pressures. Mm-hmm. . And, and we basically started off with that, that would, what that did is it got us away from the steel component cuz the majority of extinguishers, or whether they're aluminum or their cold rolled steel and their welded sweat welding on the top and the bottom, this was gonna be a mold process with tooling.

(24:10)
So it could never been done in the industry before. So we, we started getting some, uh, prototypes made up, and there's a big contrast in difference between cold world steel and having a tooling and the UL piece, which was, which was another journey dealing with ul. When we originally submitted the, uh, extinguishers to ul, they were all rejected and they were rejected based on the material that they were designed of because they were made out of a polymer material. And unbeknownst to us, they had, uh, UL had tested some propane tanks or some other things and, and they, they couldn't even meet, you know, three or 400 psi. So when they, when they received these extinguishers, they just opened up the box, looked at it and rejected it. So that was, that was quite the, uh, dance to get back in with UL to even review the product.

(25:00)
And once we did, and there was a lot of dialogue back and forth, as you could imagine, they said, well, you're gonna have to meet every requirement that that steel cylinder, they pointed, I, I think we were at a restaurant, they pointed at a cylinder on the wall, but that one has to meet. We said, fine. So what they did is they, they did, they went straight to the burst test and now the burst test is exceeding what a hydrostatic test would be. Right. Right. Yep. So they wanted to do a burst test and they wanted to do the fire test and they, they, they were, uh, a little reluctant that, you know, what, what we'd be able to do. And they didn't really take into consideration of the experience and the knowledge that we had from the service industry because they only deal with large scale, huge manufacturers and fire testing Yep.

(25:49)
That know how to design a cylinder out of steel and have been doing it, you know, for seven decades. And then alone comes this small family business. And, uh, lo and behold, we started meeting the thresholds. So we started getting more and more aggressive and we, we had some shortcomings with, uh, some of the designs on flow rates and things like that. And we continued to look for a, a relationship we could have with manufacturer. And then, then we came across, uh, national Presto Industries and they had been in, uh, the business and manufacturing small appliances for nearly a hundred years. And they were out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And they came out and they met with us and they were very intrigued with the product. And they spent three days and they, they brought their whole team out here. And interesting enough, they, they had acquired a adult incontinent business along with their small appliances. And they're also in the, the, uh, ammunition business. They've been making ammunition since world wari Okay. For the US government. So they're pretty diversified. They also had an non lethal division and they had a 10 million, I think it was eight to 10 million piece of automated equipment for the, uh, adult incontinent diaper business. And it caught on fire. And guess what seven of the extinguishers did not work

Drew Slocum: (27:10):

For. Oh, what, what about the, what about the sprinkler system?

Randy Rousseau: (27:13):

Uh, I believe it's an older building. I'm not sure whether or not, I don't know about the sprinkler.

Drew Slocum: (27:18):

How, how does, how does a how does a manufacturing facility not have sprinklers in it?

Randy Rousseau: (27:24):

Prob probably a grandfathered in, but I, I'm not sure about that. I, I won't go on record whether they have it or not ,

(27:32)
But the facility where the, where I know that this, uh, adult incontinent was in, was one of the original part of the building that, so it's, it's probably 90 years old, but it had to have been retrofitted with sprinklers. Now, now I tend to think about it. But anyway, they were touched obviously with the issue of, wait a minute, these extinguishers that we have to maintain annually didn't work properly. So what is I, what I did is what I came through, I gave 'em the presentation of, of why, why the eliminator. And, uh, I just had people from the industry come through there. There was maintenance folks and chancellors from the university, people who had built large scale distribution centers and just let them ask the questions and what, what is it like to live their responsibility of maintaining fire extinguishers for their facilities and what this new technology would mean to them. Mm-hmm. . And, uh, they were very intrigued and that we ended up, uh, working out a partnership with them and they called the, uh, subsidiary that they're manufacturing the product under Russo. And that's, uh, a, a, a derivative of our last name.

Drew Slocum: (28:42):

Sure.

Randy Rousseau: (28:43):

Which is, uh, that's, uh, www.rusoh.com, which is coincidentally can be my, uh, Randy's d r and at the end of the word is h uh, for Hector, which is my father. Oh,

Drew Slocum: (28:56):

Nice.

Randy Rousseau: (28:57):

Cause we've been on this journey at this time when we met National Presto, we were about, uh, 13, 12, 13 years deep and about, uh, three and a half years deep with UL in the testing.

Drew Slocum: (29:09):

So that they got you really kicking, kicking on the Yeah, the

Randy Rousseau: (29:13):

Product National Preto, when we went back to their facility, we walked into the air engineering department and there were all these young people. And, uh, it was Dick Campbell who originally was the one, the design engineer who had all the years experience and the, and the polymers, and then, no disrespect to Dick, but he'd been a, he was, he took this challenge on, and when we walked into, uh, Presto's facility and their young engineers there, there was three or four of them and then their head engineer, they, they had two of 'em. One was, one was, uh, exiting retirement and one was coming on board and he had a lot of experience in, in him and Dick Campbell as Jeff Morgan at Presto. They, they really meshed together really good. And the dick kind of passed the torch to Jeff and all the engineers and National Presto had a 90 year relationship with ul. So you can imagine that's good. We, we were green and wet behind the ears walking into ul and then now we walk in with national Presto with all of their experience Sure, sure. With the underwriters laboratory. So that, that really gave us, uh, some wind in our sail. Good. And, uh, it continued though, and it took us

(30:28)
On the product and, uh, today it's, it's,

Drew Slocum: (30:32):

Sorry, I lost you guys. Lost you guys for a second. So let me transition a little bit. Um, you know, I, I know the product came out. You, you, you guys have partnered with Presto. Um, what is the, what is the big, why have none of the manufacturers, um, in the last 50 years pushed anything else? Uh, do you have any, uh, you probably have an idea of why that happened. What, what is your opinion? Why, why haven't the, the big, uh, Tyco jci amax utc, what, what's been stopping them from innovating in the market?

Mike Friedman: (31:13):

So I, I'll give my sense from a business side, the market, the annual sales are small, the barrier to entry is high, the cost to entry is high. Correct. And cause people are so focused on cost savings, there's a lot of pressure on costs throughout the whole our extinguisher ecosystem, right. People looked at and said, I've gotta spend $10 million to get a UL listing to sell maybe 20, 30% more than my current base on which I don't make any money, so why would I want to make the investment?

Drew Slocum: (31:54):

Yep.

Mike Friedman: (31:55):

And when you're talking about breaking through something with new codes, it it's really tough. It's really tough. So, uh, they have all these barriers to entry. They were satisfied with what they were doing, they didn't see the potential and they invested money in other things

Drew Slocum: (32:15):

To totally get it. I've seen it firsthand. So, uh, but I, I, I still question it, you know, you know, out of all the fire protection schemes, you got fire alarm, you got sprinkler, you've got suppression systems, and then you have extinguishers, which are a big piece of the market. You think there'd be some to some sort of innovation there. But, um, there hasn't been what, which I'm glad, I'm really glad you guys are, are making a push here cuz it's, um, I I think you're, you're gonna have some good traction with it as well as hopefully change some of the code and, and, and the way end users are looking at it as well. Um, there's definitely

Randy Rousseau: (32:53):

June, not to interrupt you, it's, it's, this is probably a textbook business as usual. And, and there is a disconnect. There's a disconnect from the manufacturers, from the fire authority and the enforcement and the service industry. To, to give you an example, right. Prior to us launching the product, I went to our, the president of our association here in California so that he could hear it directly from the horse's mouth why we did it, what we were doing, and what we were trying to accomplish. And then, and we're, we're not sticking our finger in the eye of the service industry or Sure. Or anyone else. What we wanted to do is just give, for the first time ever, the business owner or the homeowner an auction Right. That they've never had before in a portable fire extinguisher. Right. In the course of me, uh, opening up the case and showing it to this president of our association, he was really taken back and he said, you know, Randy, wow.

(33:59)
I mean, we're business, we're, we're all in business. And, and when you own your own business, you're busy with that. Being an entrepreneur, we all have families and we have all these other things and our hobbies that, that take up our time in our life. How did you ever come up with the time to be able to develop this in the background along with living life and, and, and I really believe that's it in a nutshell. That everybody just accepts it the way it was and goes along with it, you know? Right. And don't question it. But to me it was, we really had to do it. And, and I've been motivated and, and driven to do something since day one. When I first went out in the truck with my father-in-law, we, we serviced a circus vargos and back then you would do it with a super can, if you remember that, like a bucket in a bag.

(34:53)
And there was a hundred extinguishers, 88 o'clock at night, and I was 17 years old when we were in a tent in dirt. And he, he started to fire off these extinguishers, and it was the first time I ever was exposed to it. And I said to him, what are you doing? And he said, well, these are stored pressure I have to fire off the chemical into this canister to break up the material. And then I said, and then what? We put the material right back into the cylinder and, and way back then over almost 40 years ago, I thought, how antiquated and backwards is that?

Drew Slocum: (35:25):

Right,

Randy Rousseau: (35:26):

Right, right. And that's been driving me ever since. That just, just to come up with something like a KISS system and the, the design of the eliminator, it's never under pressure. The most wear and tear on a traditional stored pressure extinguisher is the service company. The O rings. Yep. The pressure of the cylinder, tearing it down, putting it back together, trading them out, putting 'em in a vehicle, bringing 'em back out and forth and, you know, carrying him down in a, in a large structure facility. What about just having a product that sits in its location for its life and everything can maintain right there on the spot. Very simple. The only time it's ever under pressure is in the event of a fire. So, and it's only under pressure for about 30 seconds.

Drew Slocum: (36:19):

Correct. Right. Yeah. You, you eliminated one, you know, one big challenge right there.

Randy Rousseau: (36:25):

So, and, and in any area where you're susceptible to sea or, or lakes or, or ocean water, you get a lot of corrosion and flash rusting, it's, it's made out of polymer material, it cannot rust. Right. So all that hydro, all that internal inspection, then we have to do it a six year tear down. It's all eliminated. And what happened when we were coming with the name of the product, we eliminated this, we eliminated that. We, it's the eliminator, you know, it eliminates the fire and the, and the fire and the discharge and the, the, the flow. It is absolutely phenomenal firefighting tool. Besides all, all of the features that we addressed on a traditional extinguisher. The, uh, the performance of it from, from industry that, uh, that have fired it off from, from people that are hands on, first responders. And, uh, we've already had the product out there and people be exposed to an emergency situation where they've had to have it.

(37:21)
We've had it out in a, a, a vehicle that was towing a, a trailer and a fire starting in his motorcycle in the back of the trader. He grabbed the unit, never had fired off before. Streamlined Perfect. Put the fire out. We had a, a manufacturing facility with wood and wood chips was very flammable situation. And the equipment got, uh, uh, on fire up above his head. Yep. He had to, he had to shoot it about an eight foot, uh, distance above his head, knocked the fire out. We had a, on a highway going up to the, uh, San Bernardino mountains, a brush fire, a brush fire with a portable extinguisher, a welder put the fire out. And we, we had back in Wisconsin that near, uh, Russo, the manufacturer, they had a, uh, a hay bale or something that caught on fire, wrapped the unit, put the fire out. Sure. Just in the short period of time that, uh, we've been on the market, we, we've had fantastic results.

Drew Slocum: (38:16):

So it seems like, it seems like you have a lot of great results with the actual product. I, uh, you know, talking to a bunch of people, there's, there, you know, there's a bunch of barriers to entry and I I, I've talked to a bunch of people and obviously you're in, you're in with the associations out there, what you and the, obviously the end users are, are one case, and I think, I think you're going about it the right way, is trying to get some big end users to really adopt the product. Um, a lot of different fire protections, uh, schemes, whether it's fire alarm, sprinkler suppression, that's always a great way to, to really push the point across is, is go to those end users or, um, decision makers at the, at the end of the line. But there's a lot of people in between where I feel at least the extinguisher industry, whether it's the AHA or the, um, f e d fire extinguisher distributors, um, that nor I feel like they're, they are two integral parts to the process. Do you have plans of, of going after those AHJs and, and on the other other question is of what about those eds? What, what, what have you experienced so far?

Randy Rousseau: (39:35):

Well, uh, great questions. We absolutely want to embrace both of those. And we were asked by the California State Fire Marshal once we received the, uh, official UL listing to not go out and do a large scale marketing campaign because the product was so new and the innovation, and that was to go out and do exactly that. And that was embrace not only the AHJs throughout California, but nationwide. And we actually launched the product at F D I C and, uh, Indianapolis, which is the largest firefighters convention in the world. Yep. And, and their, their response was, uh, it was unbelievable as a, we, you couldn't even walk down the aisle that there were so many of 'em there. And you can, you can imagine from there, we've got many referrals and we've embraced the National Association of State Fire Marshals, and we really have put a lot of effort into the, it's an education piece to understand why this product, what was the reasoning for, and how can we work together with both the code enforcement AHJs and state fire marshal committees.

(40:54)
And we, we've been an intricate part of that in the, in the last year and a half of working directly with them. And it, and it is a barrier of entry, but it is also an education piece. And then I think once, once we, uh, overcome that and we move forward, then we're gonna work on the, uh, f e D side of things. And usually the response that we're getting with the F EED is when, when they really understand the product and don't look at it as, as a threat and how it can streamline their entire base of business. You can, you can imagine in, in New York or Chicago with those massive buildings that you have logistically moving fire extinguishers around how this completely changes their base of business. Sure. With this type of, uh, new technology

Mike Friedman: (41:44):

And, and Drew, as you think about innovation across the board, one of the biggest challenges for any new innovation is behavior change. So you really have to change the behaviors of people Correct. To do something different. And so a big part of that is education because, uh, a lot of the AHJs are risk averse. They've had a lot of challenges with litigation and other things, and so they're very careful. And so that taking on something new requires an education, and then they've gotta be willing to change their behavior. And the same thing, there's a lot of fear, I think, by some of the service companies. This says, wait, this is my business. That's what I do. I can't have this. Instead of saying, all right, how might I use this to reframe my business? So that's a big part of our efforts of doing it. And you know, the AHJs are very fragmented. So in some states with California, like California, you've got a statewide guidance that goes down, but in New York you don't have that. So it's very fragmented to the local level.

Drew Slocum: (42:57):

Yes. That that's, that's a good point too. You know, um, there's a lot of, um, compliance. So there's AHJs, you know, across, across the US are, are starting to, um, implement third party compliance platforms to help them with their different fire protection systems out there, whether it's fire alarm, whether it's, um, uh, s sprinkler systems, whether it's suppression systems. One thing that seems to be forgotten in that is fire extinguishers. And I'm, I'm always, I've kind of asked the question, why do AHJs, um, not have compliance systems or third, you know, having a software help with, with third card party compliance on their, on their extinguisher systems? Do they know what their extinguishers are doing in a jurisdiction? Which I don't, there's not many out there that do. So it's, uh, I it was a question that I had. And why is that on the other protection schemes, they're, they're tracking it, but not on the extinguishers. Any, any thoughts there?

Mike Friedman: (44:10):

Well, I, I have one theory. So our first responders are really heroes and in California with all the fire, uh, um, that we've had here, that they've been working together across the state to pool their resources to put them out. So tremendous pressure on those people. And Randy's son-in-law a is a hero. He's been in all the big fires here. So they're focused on those big things. In other parts of the country, it's flooding, it's hurricanes, it's blizzards. So they're out doing the big things. And then the budgets are really tight. So when you're spending all this time fighting these, uh, events and fires, your budgets in the local communities get strained. So for them to be knowledgeable about the code, and one of our, our, our, um, people that did a lot of the testing told me you could put a eight by four table and stack at four feet high, and those are all the code manuals that they have to be up bottom. Yeah. Yeah. So they just don't have the capacity in my mind. And I don't, you know, no one person can know all the codes. So they do the perfunctionary testing and don't want to go deep in into the things that Randy and Rudy and his family uncovered when they were actually servicing, because they don't have the time to really deal with code compliance for fire extinguishers. That's, that's kind of my perspective.

Randy Rousseau: (45:38):

Yeah. Drew this, this is Randy. And when, when you look at it from an an f e D point of view, like I said, there's, there's nearly 600 companies here in California, so it's, it's highly competitive. And what happens when it comes to portable extinguishers, it's a race to the bottom. So there's, there's not a lot as, as Mike's mentioned, the budgetary restraints for the businesses to get into monitoring or, or, or really taking care of the portable, like it should be monitored and take and, and looked after. That's, that's the shortcomings that's happened. But then comparable to the fire panels and the standpipes and the sprinklers, there's, there's a, a budgetary flexibility there that is not there with the, uh, portable extinguishers. Oh,

Drew Slocum: (46:25):

I totally see that. I mean, uh, you know, with our, the inspect point platform, we've had a tough time, you know, showing it to eds because it's such a low cost platform and we've made big improvements to make it more efficient. Um, but if you don't make it efficient, the FDS aren't gonna use it. So, and that goes back to, it's just a, it's a low cost piece of the business, which, um, hopefully starts to change. I don't, I don't, but I think, I think you guys are bringing a product to market that hopefully will potentially start to change code around change, change, AHJs, uh, thoughts of it, and as well as end users. End users, um, you know, the big manufacturers, the big Amazons of the world, uh, they can really push change because they're the ones purchasing at the end of the day. So,

Mike Friedman: (47:23):

And, and Drew, one of the things that we're realizing is that we need to change cultures and organization to really focus on safety, quality and compliance. And it's not the dollar amount because the spending on servicing a fire extinguisher for most companies gets lost in the rounding of the company's budget overall. But if you look at companies that have tried to drive the bottom line at the cost of safety, compliance and quality, there's some big challenges there. So we're thinking about it as, and, and John and I, with, with Randy's brother Rudy went into one company, we just did an assessment and looked at and they had, uh, close to a hundred code violations for 45 extinguishers. And one of 'em was really, a couple were really obvious. One, they had the red painted on the wall for a fire extinguisher, but it wasn't there.

(48:19)
Yeah. That's the other one. They had fire extinguishers that rusted and dented, but were hanging up. So still in service. Still in service, right. And so the people that work there see that and say, well, you know what, safety really isn't important here. And when they see a dented one that's rusted, they say, quality's not important here. And when they see an another one that's hanging eight feet high, compliance to code isn't important here. But that's not just for fire extinguishers, that affects the belief systems of the organization, which puts companies at risk. So we think that's the story to tell, because people really don't know. They don't think about it, and they don't realize that they're damaging not only the safety from the fire extinguisher perspective, but how the whole organization goes about doing their work. And, and, uh, there's some very large companies now that, you know, Boeing with the 7 37 is facing a challenge as written in the Forbes because they were so focused on the bottom line that they took shortcuts that caused quality problems. And now they're, uh, uh, Dave Calhoun, who's the new CEO, is trying to change that whole culture. So we think that's a story that we need to bring to bear to help people, that it's not only the budget of the servicing, of the fire extinguishers, the buying of fire extinguishers, but it's really the culture of the organization, the safety of the employees. That's gotta be the messaging to change the behaviors to, uh, go forward.

Drew Slocum: (49:55):

Yeah. Uh, I, I think you have, I think you have something there, but if you look at the, and Randy, you know this where, where most of the fire extinguishers out there is probably in commercial, commercial buildings. And, um, I think the biggest portion is commercial. And at, at the end of the day, does, does a commercial building owner really care about, I, I'm sure they care about safety and compliance and all that, but, uh, a, um, a manufactured, you know, a big corporation is a little bit different than a, a commercial building owner. And again, I think you have to challenge it and you guys doing, going at it the right way, getting, I think ajs getting them involved and the DS is really the way to it. Um, are, are you guys heading to, to NAED this year at the, the NAED shows?

Randy Rousseau: (50:50):

Absolutely.

Drew Slocum: (50:51):

Okay. That's great. Uh, yeah, we'll be at all three. Uh, so we'll probably see you there. I, I'm interested, is this the first year you'll be at naed or have you been there before?

Randy Rousseau: (51:02):

Uh, first year with the product? We've, we have not, uh, taken the product. Like I said, we were focusing more on the fire service and, and, and code folks and AHJs.

Drew Slocum: (51:11):

Yeah, I'd be interested to see your, you know, I'd love to reconvene with you after, after May, after those, uh, NA Fed events and uh, see what the reception is cuz I, I really think that that could potentially be a more accelerated way to the market and trying to get some of their ideas. Cuz the industry definitely needs some change. It needs some new ways of thinking and this is, this is just a start of it. I, I believe

Randy Rousseau: (51:38):

So. No, we, we appreciate that. Maybe we can break some bread while we're together at, uh, those shows.

Drew Slocum: (51:45):

Yeah, I won't be in Vegas. I think it'll be in Atlantic City, in the Chicago one as well. So, uh, uh, might be doing some podcasts live from, from Na Fed. So it's always been a big, uh, it's been a big market for us that we haven't hit and, um, you know, whether the inspect point platform. So, um, so we're, we're approaching an hour here. Um, so I, I, I know we've talked a lot, a lot of different things and I'll give you guys a a couple more minutes to, to chat about your thing, but I, I usually try to, uh, at the end do a little quick response round for, uh, for the guests and, and kind of, you guys don't know what questions are coming at you. Um, so toss a few of 'em out there, trying to lighten it up a little bit. And, um, then we can chat a little bit more and we'll get out of here. Um, so this, that's a quick response round and you know, I know there's three of you on the phone there, so you know, toss, toss in whatever answers you have. So, falling on social media a lot, um, what's up with this, uh, top Gun and Rob Lowe, I saw something on Rob Low on social media. What's that all about?

Randy Rousseau: (52:57):

Well, well being out here in sunny southern California, you can imagine, uh, there's some association with, with the Hollywood and we got the opportunity to outfit their first responder vehicles with the, the Russo eliminator product, which was very exciting. The, uh, the top gun piece is still confidential.

Drew Slocum: (53:19):

Oh, sorry, .

Randy Rousseau: (53:21):

Let's just, let's just say that there's rumor that Maverick's personal hanger, uh, is outfitted with the, uh, Russo eliminator fire extinguisher. And, uh, you never know what might hit the cutting room floor by the time the film's released, but it was for, for me, per personally and professionally to, uh, go out and, and hang out on the movie set and, uh, visit with, uh, Tom Cruise and, and see the, the product there installed by the, uh, set decorators was, uh, pretty phenomenal.

Drew Slocum: (53:52):

And so was it a decorator decision or was it, uh, do you have an in with, uh, a movie produced? I that, that's very inter interesting how you, how you got the, the extinguisher in there.

Randy Rousseau: (54:02):

Hey Drew, how about we let your listeners and it'll be, uh, to be continued. How about a sequel? But I, there go, we a whole podcast about my, uh, my involvement with the ho the Hollywood industry. It's a, it's, it's a very fun and interesting story.

Drew Slocum: (54:16):

Well, I I would actually like to take you up on that because, um, I posted on somebody else's thing the other day. You know, I, I'm in heavily involved in the sprinkler world and the sprinkler world in Hollywood is so negatively portrayed that, uh, it's, it's so frustrating. And you see it in commercials, you see it in movies and there's, there's clips out there of just random sprinklers going off damaging everything but, and, and, and ruin in somebody's day cuz they're all wet, but they get out of the fire alive. So I, I'd love to pick your brain on, I know you talked to Hollywood with the eliminator. That's great. Well,

Randy Rousseau: (54:55):

I'll, I'll I'll leave you, I'll leave you with this a a little tease. Very much like National Presto and the management and the CEO who really have my back and I, I'm very in, in indebted to them. I have the same type of relationship with some pretty significant people here in Hollywood that I, that I owe a lot too. And I, I was chosen to build a rotisserie frame off restoration for Michael Bay, the director Wow. For Transformers age of extinction. And as you know, if you listen to the whole podcast, I'm in the fire extinguisher business. I don't build cars, but that doesn't mean that you can have the opportunity to do whatever you set your mind to. And, uh, I'll, I'll leave you with that little tease about how that all came together.

Drew Slocum: (55:47):

Oh, that's great. Yeah, I'll, I'll definitely, uh, I'll see you in Atlantic City in Chicago and we'll, we'll chat about it on the side.

Randy Rousseau: (55:54):

. Excellent. Looking forward

Drew Slocum: (55:55):

To it. That's great. Um, another, another question. So aside from Randy, Mike, John, I know you're involved in, in, in, you know, the eliminator specifically, what other technologies out there in fire protection do you see, um, yeah, do you see as exciting or, you know, we got to really make an impact on the industry over the next five years?

Mike Friedman: (56:24):

I think, uh, the advances in communication are gonna be really important. So people being aware of, uh, when a fire, uh, then comes up to a building that's burning, how can they have instant access to the data of where the, the building design, where everything's located, the communications with all that so that they can instantly see Yeah. And then how might they take advantage of augmented reality with their equipment. So maybe they have a mask where they can get this, they can scroll through different things to get that up there. So I think those kinds of things are valuable. And then I think sensing devices also to understand what's going on in particular hazards. Now one of the challenges that was cybersecurity. So we can get all this great stuff cuz the cost keeps going down, the technology's going down, the cost of data storage is going down, but how do we do cybersecurity? So I was at a, um, a fire service company in New York, in Brooklyn, you know, we talked about and they had a 20 pounder with a sprinkle or had nozzle on it and they wanted to automate it so that they could control it, but they decided not to cuz they're worried if, what if someone hacked the system and could have 'em blow up all at once. So I think some of these technologies are really powerful for what's possible, but then we've gotta look at the cybersecurity portion and solve that as well.

Randy Rousseau: (57:58):

Yeah. Drew, I think the, the smart connected devices, I mean, kind of like where, uh, nest was going and National Presto's also involved now with, uh, one event on the detector system side. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of exciting, uh, products coming out of one event and they're, they're also having some, some challenges with the, the buy-in with the AHJs and the code and the regulations. And as, as you know, in the industry, it, it's slow to change on the, on the fire protection side, but that, that's just been kind of the way it's been. I I think that the technology's always outpacing majority of industries and if we, we can work on that barrier, we're, we're gonna have the, the years to come are gonna be very exciting.

Mike Friedman: (58:43):

Yeah. And the build I have too on those technologies that, uh, Randy's talking about, the other one's big data and I saw example of that. I went up to one of the shows, I think it was N fpa and uh, listen in on the, um, the smoke detectors and they use big data to find out where exactly are we having problems with smoke detectors that don't work, right. So they were able to pinpoint it and stuff. So I think as we move forward here, uh, fire extinguishers for sure are lagging the whole predictive analytics, big data thing. And I think that along with the other systems as we, it connected, smart, connected devices, leveraging the data to drive change and improvements will be very powerful.

Drew Slocum: (59:28):

Yeah. Yeah. Obviously I'm heavy involved in the data and some of the N F P A conversations that are happening there and how to, how to best, uh, optimize some of the data collection to, um, you know, change code to, uh, enhance it. And, uh, I don't know if there's a good direction yet. I, I hope there is, you know, the iot, the, the connected devices that's, that's coming faster and faster. We've got some nice, uh, pretty cool devices coming out later this year that will, will kind of transform the industry on, on, uh, some of that, I believe. So, uh, yeah. That's, that's great. I'm, I'm glad, uh, I'm glad you guys are feeling the same, same thing that we are over here. So, um, one, one, uh, one more quick response. I know those weren't really quick, but, um, who do you got this weekend in the Super Bowl?

Randy Rousseau: (01:00:21):

Well, we're, we're, I'm in California, so I mean, that's, that's kind of a no-brainer. We gotta go over the California team, right? Well,

Drew Slocum: (01:00:27):

Uh, I don't know. I, I, if, if the Giants were playing, I know I'm an Eagles fan, so I can never root for the Giants, even though it's East Coast. You're, are you a Rams fan or a, a Niners fan or a Raiders fan

John Tabacek: (01:00:45):

Fan? I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler fan being originally from Pittsburgh, but I think it's gonna be, you know, what's good about the game? It's like whoever wins, it's not gonna be, you know, it's gonna be close game. It's gonna be, yeah, I looked at that. We get two, two evenly matched teams that, um, uh, whoever wins is not gonna be a surprise.

Randy Rousseau: (01:01:05):

Hey Drew?

Drew Slocum: (01:01:06):

Yeah.

Randy Rousseau: (01:01:07):

The best team and the healthiest and the ones that come out the strongest is who's gonna win on Sunday? .

Drew Slocum: (01:01:14):

Okay. Whoever doesn't go out the, the couple nights before in the Super Bowl,

Randy Rousseau: (01:01:19):

Absolutely

Drew Slocum: (01:01:22):

Well, um, so yeah, that, that's pretty much it, guys. I'll, I'll, I'll give you a couple minutes just to kind of give you the last shout out how to, how to find you guys. Uh, we're coming up on an hour here, so, uh, uh, again, I want to thank you guys for coming out. Uh, really thank you. What you're doing in the extinguisher industry, trying to change some people's, uh, viewpoints of, um, just different extinguishers out there and, uh, challenging the fds, challenging the AHJs and putting the, uh, putting it back in the, uh, end user's hands, like, uh, what I've seen so far. So, uh, yeah, let me know where to find you. Let the listeners know where to find you and, um, yeah, we'll go from there.

Randy Rousseau: (01:02:05):

Alright, thank you very much, drew, for the time. Re really appreciate the opportunity. They can go to, uh, russo.com, again, that's R u s O h.com and, uh, read all about it. And there's videos and background and all, all types of information and, uh, like I said, really appreciate the opportunity. And that's basically in a nutshell that, uh, let the end user be responsible for the product. They wanna hire an f e D, so be it. And, uh, we basically have, uh, innovated this space and it gives the end user an option and an opportunity to try something new.

Mike Friedman: (01:02:48):

And the website, drew, has a certification program there that really takes someone through all the skills and knowledge they need to use and appropriately service the fire extinguisher. So that's very important. It's, you have to go look for it under one of the dropdown menus, but it's in there. It's worth taking a look at that because that's, that knowledge is very important. You have to have that to properly, uh, own and use

Randy Rousseau: (01:03:14):

And maintain it

Mike Friedman: (01:03:15):

And maintain the, uh, rousso eliminator.

Drew Slocum: (01:03:17):

Correct.

John Tabacek: (01:03:18):

Sales are snowballing and, uh, you're gonna start seeing these, you know, everywhere, which is really kind of fun. And, you know, we do a nice little trade show route, so stop by the booth, say hi whenever you can, and, uh, you know, we'll send you some inform information if you need it.

Drew Slocum: (01:03:37):

Yeah, great. Well, well, thanks guys. Uh, um, I'll, I'll throw out the, the social media. I'll, I'll tag everything, uh, social media wise as well as, uh, where to find you guys and we'll, we'll see you at NAED here, uh, probably in about a month or so, right?

Randy Rousseau: (01:03:52):

Yes, sir. Looking forward to it.

Drew Slocum: (01:03:54):

All right. Thanks guys.

Mike Friedman: (01:03:56):

Thank you. Thanks,

John Tabacek: (01:03:57):

Dr.

Drew Slocum: (01:03:58):

Thanks again for Mike, Randy and John at Russo, the eliminator for joining me on today's podcast. I really learned about a, learned a lot about, uh, how they're going to market. Uh, it is a, uh, a sensitive topic in the industry with a new extinguisher out in the market. Um, but I think they're going about it the right way. They do have some challenges in up uphill battles, but I think they're, they've, they've got a, a nice momentum and, uh, they're really gonna open up some eyes, uh, to the industry, I believe. So, uh, again, want to thank those guys for coming on and, um, yeah, a lot more coming with a podcast here in, in early 2020. So please stay tuned, subscribe, and please like the podcast. Talk to you soon.

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum: (00:09):

This is episode 15 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guest is Dave Brown. Dave is the founder and president of Novo Solutions. Novo Solutions is a mobile field service management solution. Essentially, what that is, is a, he's a consultant, uh, for different types of businesses, mainly in field service, uh, fire protection, pest control, H V A C, uh, wide variety of, of different, uh, field service services out there. He provides the, the mobile consulting piece. You know, when you have a lot of technicians or inspectors in the field, you wanna be able, you wanna make sure you're managing them correctly, whether it's with the devices themselves, the data plans out there you have with different carriers, uh, gps, fleet management, um, and kind of fun stuff that goes, goes into the actual, uh, vehicles themselves. So, uh, Dave has provided a lot of value to us here and Inspect Point, and, uh, a bunch of other companies as well.

(01:11)
And wanted to give him a couple minutes just to share his knowledge, uh, on the mobile, on the mobile side of fire protection, but also just field management in general. So, uh, it's a longer podcast. So, uh, hope you enjoy. And just a quick update on what Inspect Point has coming down the road in, in early 2020. Uh, we have a lot of initiatives that we are working on. Uh, a couple of 'em I can announce right here. Um, one, one being, uh, the large service module release that we have coming in early, uh, quarter 1, 20 20 probably should be out in January sometime. You know, we have a great inspection platform. We have a great proposal platform, which kind of integrates all the different fire protection codes and everything. But the last piece of that is, uh, dispatching out service technicians within your company to, to make sure those deficiencies are resolved.

(02:14)
So, uh, kind of the full flow from inspection to quoting your customers over to getting those fixes, uh, completed in the field through the service module. So, lot more to come. Please stay tuned to the, any social media channel for Inspect point, uh, inspect point.com, uh, my LinkedIn, as well as some of our Facebook and Instagram. So, another large initiative for us in 2020 is some Internet of things, TE technology coming out, IOT technology coming out. Um, currently we've been in, in testing with some different devices that are gonna attach themselves to the sprinkler system to give back data and analytics for different types of systems. So, uh, can't talk too much about it yet because it hasn't been launched. So that should be coming in, uh, quarter one. So stay tuned. Now on to the podcast with Dave Brown from Novo Solutions. We're live here with Dave Brown from Novo Solutions, . Uh, we, uh, we had to restart this thing cuz of, uh, uh, nice, uh, nice glitches in my recording equipment. So it's, uh, it's always fun to, always fun to deal with in a podcast world. So, um,

Dave Brown: (03:31):

No worries. Well, we're glad to do this again. So, we'll, uh, we'll start from beginning. Hello everybody.

Drew Slocum: (03:36):

Hello, everybody. Yeah, I mean, uh, we, hello everybody. We were, we were chatting, chatting earlier about just podcasting in general of, you know, it seems like that's the way things seem to be moving. You know, you don't have, uh, Sirius XM still hanging around, but, you know, this is, this is how people are getting a lot of information now, at least. Uh,

Dave Brown: (03:57):

Yeah, I, I think that it's how I get it, I, I literally, uh, as I was saying earlier, uh, you know, one of the things, uh, you know, before we started this, one of the things was that, uh, yeah, I, I would say, you know, 50%, maybe more of my time is consumed now is, is listen to podcasts, right? So, and I think the crazy thing about it is it gives you, it gives you access on your schedule to the people that you want to listen to, right? Right. So, as you consume that data, uh, it's just like reading a book, right? So in a lot of ways it's like reading a book except you could do it while driving, right? Um, and it, it gives you, you know, it gives you access to people that you never, in some of the greatest minds in the world right now are, you know, throwing out, you know, maybe they're not doing podcasts themselves where they're getting interviewed for it. Yes. Uh, I've been able to listen to some of my favorite authors that way and, uh, you know, which is amazing, you know, to hear, hear from their, you know, words, so to speak, and, and what they're doing. And, um, you know, some of my, some of the guys that have been influential in, in not only starting my organization, but others, uh, you know, they have their own podcast and it's, it's just great to hear the little tidbits of information and, and some of the knowledge that you can take away from it.

Drew Slocum: (05:02):

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I, I was, I listened to a lot of, you know, some golf podcasts and, uh, I listen to Joe Rogan and, uh, a few of the other,

Dave Brown: (05:12):

Uh, Joe Rogan, the king of podcasts. Right now he's

Drew Slocum: (05:16):

The king of podcasts, but he had, you know, he's had like, uh, political figures on, and it's kind of crazy, you know, in the, in the media these days, they just want sound bites, but on podcasting, right, it's total opposite. It's like, it's long form, you know, hour to three hours sometimes. And, you know, you get a lot of information out of that. And, you know, a lot of people are, whatever they're doing, whether they're commuting, uh, uh, on the subway or driving especially, you know, you can get a lot of, uh, just extra knowledge out there with podcasts these days. So

Dave Brown: (05:51):

Anyway, yeah, you can, and you know, the, the, to that point too, the other, the other quick part of why we're still on it is, uh, it's, it's usually not censored, right? So, and I don't mean that by profanity reasons, but I mean, just in general, they're not having to, uh, worry about the content that they're sharing as far as whether it's going to offend or otherwise. And one of the, the advantages of that is that you do get raw, clean data, right? You know, at least as far as that person's mind is concerned, uh, whether you believe with it or not is up to your own. But, you know, a lot of these guys are hamstrung by, uh, their sponsors or Yep. Otherwise, if they're not careful, right? They can't say that in, in standard, you know, media, right? Sure. So the podcast is open up the world, and if, you know, they, they, a lot of these guys have had this, this, uh, things say, Hey, look, if you don't like what I'm saying, don't, don't sponsor us.

(06:35)
We don't really care. Yeah. Um, and it's great, right? So you're not, you're not, uh, you're not dealing with this kind of double-edged sword. Sometimes we worry about where you're consuming content. You're worried about, okay, where's the money coming from and who's paying you to do this? Sure. So, for the, for the disclaimer for your guest out here, I'm not getting paid for this . So, uh, you know, any, any knowledge that we drop, I'm not, you know, the cell phone carriers that we rep for the GPS companies that we rep for, they're not paying me a damn dollar. So, well,

Drew Slocum: (07:01):

I'm not getting, I'm not getting paid either. Knowledge's paid.

Dave Brown: (07:07):

We hope, we hope through at the end of this podcast, drew, we hope at the end of this podcast that people, uh, can maybe find ways to save money and maybe, uh, you know, do some stuff that can help them get paid. So, uh, but yeah, this is, uh, this is great and I really appreciate you having me all, and I was really excited cuz we, we work with a lot of fire safety, uh, and inspection companies, uh, that you service, uh, and others for that matter. So we, we know, we really, we really like, uh, the opportunity to speak directly to some of our potential clients out there as well and or even for just clients in general that are already on, on our services that, uh, you know, some of the, if, if, if they're out there, they've probably heard me say a lot of this stuff before. So, uh, I really appreciate the time.

Drew Slocum: (07:44):

Yeah, no, no. Yeah, Dave, uh, Dave Brown from Novo Solutions, he's president, co-founder, and, uh, you know, I met Dave at a, um, a conference a few years back and, you know, I kind of hit it off from there. I didn't, you know, with our platform in Spec point, obviously we're on iPads, we are, we are moving to the iPhone here in, uh, early 2020. So that, we're really excited about that. Um,

Dave Brown: (08:10):

That's fantastic. Yeah. That's

Drew Slocum: (08:11):

Great. Yeah, it's been good. But, you know, Dave's provided a big value to a lot of my customers that I didn't even know was there. You know, obviously you have the cost of a software, you have the cost of, of devices, but you have the cost of devices, but you also have cellular plans and data plans. And that's, and you know, I know you guys provide more than that, but I, I didn't even know. Yeah, you also,

Dave Brown: (08:32):

The cost business cost of management, right? Yeah. You got cost of management of these guys, right? So these guys have to go in and do management of the, uh, services. So somebody's time is also, uh, tied up for it. So that's another big in, in that whole TCO discussion about total cost ownership and mobility. Uh, but yeah, yeah. Sorry, I didn't, didn't wanna interrupt you. That was one of the big ones too, is management of the all the devices too. Once, once you get it all, once you pay for it all, who's gonna run it, right? Um, and that, that kinda becomes something to discuss too.

Drew Slocum: (08:59):

So why, why'd you start the business? Why, and what have you seen, you know, effective from, from your method of, uh, you know, consulting and for the, the mobile side?

Dave Brown: (09:13):

Am I allowed to say that I start the business? Cause my wife told me to? Does that work? ? No. Yeah,

Drew Slocum: (09:18):

So

Dave Brown: (09:21):

That's actually not too far from the truth. So, uh, I had done this for quite some time, uh, you know, for over well over 16 years. I had, uh, worked in the mobility space and, uh, doing everything from providing pagers to flip phones to the good old star tax back in the day, and the old Motorolas and the analog devices. So I, I've been doing this for a while. Um, and, uh, we, we started it because I, I had, I had become so ingrained inside of field service. In fact, my, I started, uh, working almost exclusively with pest control companies. I, I had, you know, the, uh, the dawn of the bedbugs coming back and the type of chemicals that they could use. All of a sudden they were having all this, these guys were treating people, you know, treating these, uh, beds everywhere and dealing with it.

(10:00)
So they, their, their field service cost, the cost to run these trucks and the cost to put the phones in the, the field were just enormous. And, uh, this was a while back. And, and so, uh, all that being said, what would happen is, is that these mom and pop shops, right, these guys that had 5, 10, 15 technicians total were ballooning into the 20 and 25 technicians just to kind of keep up with the demand. Um, now the trouble with that, of course, is that all of a sudden they've got a lot of moving parts, whether it's scanners or, you know, tablets or, you know, cell phones. And I just became, uh, it was rewarding. Uh, it was very rewarding for me to work inside of, uh, field service organizations where not only I got to work with maybe an owner operator, but also got to lower their expense and help them manage that process.

(10:45)
Um, and the trouble was, is in my former companies that I worked for, uh, is that I could not focus 100% of my effort on just field service, which is really where my passion was, um, with inside of the mobility space that is. And, um, so, uh, one afternoon, uh, after a few years of another organization I worked for, uh, we had a nice long talk and, um, we said, you know, let's, let's put it all on the line and let's go after where we're making the most impact or where I have found that I was making the most impact and where I was happiest, right? Cause I don't, I don't believe in getting up in the morning and being unhappy about what you do. Uh, and so we did, uh, it was one of the best decisions I've, I've made in my life, uh, besides, besides marrying her.

(11:28)
Uh, but one of the best decisions we've ever made in my life is to, to do something like this. And, um, and it's been amazing. We, we've, uh, as I I said earlier, kind of offline before we started, I feel sometimes like we have the Tiger Patel and we're, we're just trying to, you know, uh, do the best we can to, to keep up with the demand of some of the services that we offer. But that's, that's not why we're here today. I don't wanna, you know, brag about Novo and what we're doing as much as, uh, just offer some of the industry knowledge that we've had over, and that I've been able to gain, um, working with, uh, your customers, right? And, uh, so of course other customers as well that face the same challenges in, in the world of GPS and mobile device management and, uh, mobility in general, which isn't always the most exciting topic. But we have some pretty cool things to kind of go over, uh, today that, uh, that, that does make it exciting, right? So, we'll, we can kind of, you know, dip into that as we go. But, uh, that's why and how, uh, of where we are today in a very short, uh, synopsis of, of where we are.

Drew Slocum: (12:24):

Yeah, I mean, I know you mentioned that, you know, businesses are, you know, our big business expense is the, the mobility piece and business is now mobile. Absolutely. You know, um, you know, our, ours is kind of aligns right with that. It's, it's, it needs to be mobile and everything has to be connected now, you know, we don't, we don't always require a connection just cuz of the nature of our business. However, you need, you do need to upload information at some point. And having that instantly is, is huge. So having that data plan, you know, on your devices is, is key. And then obviously your cell phones, you want that constant connection. But, um, I know you were telling me before, you know, devices, you know, apple, Android, Google, that, you know, those devices keep, keep increasing what, what's happening with Sure. Data plans. I mean, there's only like two or three carriers, right? So three or four maybe. So,

Dave Brown: (13:18):

Well, there, they're actually, well, yeah, there's, there's actually a lot more than that when you start breaking it down via regional. But for the, for the keys and the people we're talking, and the people that we're talking to today, there's probably a 95% chance that they have either, uh, T-Mobile, sprint at t or Verizon. Um, so those, those are your top four before you get to some of your outliers, like the, the Telus and the US sailors of the world. Um, but all, all that, all that aside, uh, the, the biggest thing that we deal with, uh, uh, is, is like you said, the cost of ownership through the data plans and also the cost of, uh, the devices themselves, um, are are a big driving proponent, you know, or a big driving factor, so to speak of, of that. So, um, the data plans can be cost prohibitive for these guys.

(14:00)
Uh, it also, beyond that, it can, uh, really what we're finding is that the data plans we're, we're pretty good at getting you a low data plan. What we are still working with the carriers on and finding ways to do is acquiring the equipment at a less cost and, and, and how that's affecting the actual company itself. Um, because we, when we look at things like that, you, when you're bringing in tablets or you're bringing in cell phones, I guess for anything, you wanna kind of look at the total cost of ownership as I was, you know, kind of alluding to earlier, you've got your monthly plan that you pay the carrier to put service into the device. That's one part of it. You have the device itself and the cost of that device, whether you choose to do that, um, upfront or whether you choose to do that over a 24 month payment.

(14:39)
And then beyond that, the one thing that a lot of people don't look at is what is the management? How hard is it gonna be to manage these devices? How hard is it gonna be to, uh, go into these devices and, and deal with them on an ongoing basis? Cause once you put the devices into the field, right? So whether they're using your software or another piece of software, once they're out there, uh, how do you manage it? You, if you got 15, 20 technicians that are all over the state, uh, what if something goes wrong? And so some, a lot of people don't see that coming. And that's the other part that we've discussed a lot with our customers is how to mitigate, uh, spending all the time. And, and for the record, typically it's the youngest guy in the room doing all the work, right?

(15:15)
Right. So there's some poor guy Yeah. In a conference room somewhere that's, you know, uh, fresh outta college and be like, I, he can, you know, his, his eyesight's still good. He knows what he's doing, and he knows how to punch buttons, make him do it right. Um, and so we, you know, getting, getting geared up for success and to mini minimize that management piece is also a big thing that we have to discuss, uh, to, to make sure that, you know, that people are taking advantage of stuff and that the cost isn't ballooning on both ends, both on the labor side, uh, and of course the carrier side,

Drew Slocum: (15:43):

Right? Yeah. I, I, you know, we get the calls all the time of, uh, hey, my, uh, you know, my device is not working, or your, your software's not working. I'm like, no, it's not the software , it's probably your connection. Your the device. This is the device or the, or the, the actual, you know, connection to the data plan or whatever. So, you know, we have a, we have a troubleshooting video car called, are you connected to the Internet , right?

Dave Brown: (16:10):

Hey, look, we deal with it all the time. People are, you know, we, we had a, one of my favorite stories that deal with, with cell phones, uh, you know, we, we, we out, we rolled out all these devices, uh, iPhone, xrs to be exact. They had a huge special going on a while back with Verizon. The customer came in and acquired a bunch of them. And, uh, so we went ahead and staged and provisioned them and got 'em out into the field. Uh, but there was a group of the owners of the company did not want us to touch their devices cause they wanted hot pink cases or glittery cases or whatever it's that they wanted. Uh, but they said, you know, don't touch our devices, just send those to us directly. And so then we get this phone call from, uh, a, a customer and you can't hear him at all.

(16:46)
Like, it's just this all, it sounded like it was, you know, super muffled. Like somebody had put their hand over their mouth and was trying to talk, and I, I finally just said, Hey, can you just call from your office phone? Let's, let's figure out what's going on there. And so he of course was irate and shaking his hand and saying, Hey, look, I, I, I can't hear anybody. I can't hear anybody. They can't hear me. This thing's a complete piece of, you know what, and I, I can't deal with this. This is, this is crap. I'm sending the phone back. I, so that's odd. I was like, you know, you're, you're one of the only people out of all of these. I mean, not saying that things don't happen, um, but, you know, to your point of are you connected to the internet, I, I kind of went through some steps and come to find out he had left the protective film on that, uh, the phone was packaged in before he put his case on.

(17:24)
Yeah. So it just covered up all the microphones and the earpieces. And so we deal with that too, right? So we deal with the, uh, this doesn't work. Uh, it's like, well, let's start from the basics, uh, of where it's at. And I know something as simple as that, as it shouldn't be a problem, but it always kind of gives us a chuckle on, you know, just kind of the most simplistic of simplistic and one being, are you connected to the internet is a, is a big one, but it's, it's complicated. Drew, I, you know, if we, if we look at our target audience, right? We, you and I, if we, we look across the section of, of who we deal with on a day in and day out basis as customers. Um, some of them are tech savvy, right? So we have those, and I'm sure they make up a, a pretty good percentage, but a lot of these guys, uh, that I deal with on a day in and day out are unbelievable at what they do in their organization.

(18:09)
They have grown these companies, uh, they have great culture, right? The guys would follow them to the end of the earth, uh, kind of that good old boy network or otherwise where they're just, you know, real hard workers. Um, but they've done it all on paper and they've gotten there by paper and yeah. Um, and, and you know, some lady back in the office is having her man for that matter is having to decipher handwriting and sits there all day and types things in, and she's just, just happy to do it. She drinks from her, you know, I'm a boss coffee cup and , uh, does her thing, and she, she keys in the orders, right? Right. So she keys 'em all in. And so it's not that, you know, I tell people all the time, uh, you know, especially when we have customers that get iPads for the first time, right?

(18:49)
So they come to me and say, you know, well, we're, uh, we're just really stupid. Well, stupid is a lot different than ignorant. Um, you know, I I would never call anybody stupid that's running a company, right? Uh, technology is daunting. It's, it's exhausting. And, uh, not to mention the fact that changes constantly. You know, we, we spend enormous amount of our resources, enormous amount of our resources, uh, trying to keep up with updates, right? So you've got iPads that are updating to new versions of software. You guys are updating new versions at the same time. So it, you know, maybe your mobile device management software is also updating, and maybe you don't even know what the hell mobile device management is and what that software could do. But the, the point is, is that we are in this century, we are dealing with this. We are going into 2020. Um, and the fact is, is that you've got two categories. You've got the guys that are gonna be bought, uh, by other companies that have embraced technology, and you've got the ones that, uh, you know, are doing the buying. Um, right. So, uh, it's, it's, it's a big deal. It really is. And it's, it's hard, it's hard to go from paper to technology, but we, we hopefully you and I both can soften that blow for some of these guys too.

Drew Slocum: (19:55):

Yeah, no, I, it seems to be trans is definitely transitioning much faster, uh, these days, you know, trying to get the message out there that, you know, things can be done more efficiently with less risk with, you know, getting higher revenue from, from their service techs. So, uh, right. Yeah, A lot of fun stuff coming out with inspect point, and you've been a big part of that, uh, helping, helping our customers, you know, the fire protection piece under understand the mobile side. Um, sure. Now, you mentioned, uh, mobile device management. I, I don't actually don't know what that is specific. I know you mentioned it all the time to me, but what is, uh, what is mobile device management? I guess

Dave Brown: (20:37):

That's, that's a great question. So, you know, uh, you, you have two options, um, when it comes to deploying an iPad or a tablet to the field. Uh, one is run it naked, um, which is what we talk about, uh, which is, you, you, you set up a, an iOS device and, uh, maybe you put in an iCloud or maybe you do the worst thing ever, and you allow your employee to put in their own iCloud. Um, don't do that. For those of you that are listening, don't ever do that. Don't ever let your employees run their own personal iClouds through, uh, the device. It's a huge security risk. But, um, beyond that, uh, what mobile device management really is, is that, is the ability for you back in the office to control your devices that are in the field. So if you, if you don't have a mobile device management on the, on the most simplistic terms, if you do not have MDM or what we call mdm, so you hear from, so I don't have to keep saying mobile device management, if you don't have mdm, uh, what you have to do is you actually have to control that device from your office, right?

(21:34)
Right. So, right. Uh, if there's a new update that comes out, or if a device gets stolen or lost, you have to control that from the, the, uh, your office with, they're physically putting your hand on the device. Um, whereas what MDM will do for you is that you do not have to put, uh, your hands on the device. We have companies that have, you know, hundreds of, sometimes not even thousands of devices out in the field. And you can imagine, uh, but it would take to reprogram 15 iPads when there's an update. Uh, imagine what would happen if it was a, you know, a hundred and how much, you know, that time compounds, so to speak. So what MDM does, is it actually, believe it or not, gives you freedom that it gives the, the customer an enormous amount of freedom to do their job, um, and to focus on other things, as opposed to sitting there with a bunch of iPads on their conference room table, uh, day in and day out.

(22:23)
And, um, you know, we've even noticed too that as that comes down the pipe, that it has even forced us to develop a service, um, I wouldn't say forced. It's given us an opportunity, uh, to develop a service internally, um, that allows us to actually work, uh, for you. Uh, so our team becomes your team, right? So we can actually go in and, and do some of that for you, which we, uh, would help you run your MDM client, so to speak, so we can control those devices, right? The last part of mdm, uh, that that's a big one, is, uh, nobody wants porn and YouTube out in the field. So, uh, maybe they want you to, for looking at, at, at clips, right? , but, uh, right, we can, what it does is it basically turns your iPads into inspect point devices, right? So it turns it into what it's supposed to be.

(23:10)
It's not, it doesn't give them Hulu, it doesn't give them Netflix, it doesn't give them, uh, stuff that they don't need, um, and that you don't want on those devices while they're out in the field, right? Um, in fact, it turns, it, it, it basically turns a hammer into a hammer or a screwdriver into a screwdriver. Um, and what's beautiful is if you need to change it or offer something new, so let's say, uh, let's say you yourself come out and say, Hey, look, you need to download. If you download this app, it'll pair with our app, and it'll do this other great and wonderful thing. Option one, everybody stops what they're doing. They come in that morning or late at night to give you the devices and you're punching button and doing it. Option two is we click a button on our end and it just goes out to all the devices and life goes on.

(23:50)
Um, and so it's, uh, it used to be very expensive to do mdm. Now actually, the cost of it is, is so low, uh, that it, it's kind of, uh, kind of, you know, silly not to do it. Especially if you're giving access to, um, you know, I'm not sure about inspect point, but you know, if you're giving access to customer files to your, you know, your, your technicians that are out in the field, you wanna be able to protect that device. You, you gotta protect it. I mean, you're, as we are in technology, um, you know, one thing about paper, uh, is that if you lose a sheet of paper, you're losing this sheet of paper on that client. If you lose your iPad, um, you're losing, you know, basically all of the clients that are inside of there, they can access to any of it. So it's very important to protect that data, um, and keep it, keep it simple. Like, we want to keep it simple. We, we don't want you to have to think much beyond what you would normally do with paper.

Drew Slocum: (24:40):

Well, I mean, I mean, if you lose the iPad, I mean, if, if you're a cloud-based solution, you're probably not. If you lose the iPad, you lose the iPad, you know, I think it's more the device, all, all the data depends on what you're, if you're using forms like that's, you know, obviously if you're using forms on an iPad or an iPhone, you're gonna lose whatever's saved to that phone. But if you have it connected to the cloud somehow, which is what, what we call Sure. Uh, you're never, you know, it anything local that's saved there, but most of the time the cloud-based softwares are automatically backing up to the cloud. So, but,

Dave Brown: (25:17):

Um, so they're backing up to the cloud. So, can can I ask you a question about that? Sure. Cause this is, this is knowledge for me, and I'm sure it's knowledge for you guys, right? So if, uh, let's say that I'm a technician and I've got inspect point, and it's sitting there and the, the iPad is sitting on the ground and I pick it up and go, oh, what's this? And I go into the iPad and I start looking around, can I, can I get the customer files?

Drew Slocum: (25:37):

Uh, no. It's all embedded in the app. So you'd have to have the app. I mean, you could, you could physically read it and, you know, copy it, write it down, but it's, it's only, yeah.

Dave Brown: (25:47):

So you, but you couldn't, you could access it beyond that.

Drew Slocum: (25:49):

No, you can't access it beyond that. And what it is, it's whoever, whatever that technician or inspector, it's only what's given to him. It's only what's scheduled to him for that day. So they're not gonna see anything else, only what's scheduled to them for that day, that week, that month. However, you wanna dispatch. So you're only gonna see that in information. If you dive into it, you might not even see every system in that building. So it's only what's assigned to that technician. So we really, we, we, we try to keep it open, but we also lock it down that, you know, we want the tech to be focused on what they, they do best.

Dave Brown: (26:27):

Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. And I think, you know, to, to that point, let, let's, you know, the other part of this is a lot of guys too. And, and I guess for me, I'm looking at it as protection wise. Uh, you know, one of the other things that we always get asked to install on the iPads prior to delivery is email. Um, you know, you can, you can una associate that email immediately from the backend, but, you know, certainly we wanna have some kinda level of protection that's on it, so, right. Um, you know, so your, your software in particular, uh, has some stop gaps put in place, which is, which is amazing, and I certainly commend you for it. Um, I think that one of the, the, the challenges that we see sometimes beyond the photos that are taken and stuff like that, and stuff that is in the cloud are, you know, inherently held on the device, is that if somebody does get access to it, you know, if I lost my phone and it wasn't protected, um, in some capacity, uh, it could be very, very dangerous tool.

(27:16)
Um, oh yeah. They can, they can get up there and get a lot of info very quickly. Well, we live that way now, right? So we, we, we live that way. Uh, especially mobility wise. It's, it's definitely where we are today is, is in a mobile environment. And I think we said earlier, offline, like you, uh, you're staring at your phone first thing in the morning, you're staring at late at night. So it's definitely become a personal extension filled with all kinds of data in it. So the mobile, the mobile device management software, what it does is it gives you a layer of protection to be able to kill that, um, from anywhere. And we could even put a, hey, if loss returned to, uh, I could give you all kinds of great stories about recovering these things inside of pawn shops and other places when they get gone. So , uh, without the MDM square, we never would've recovered it, right? Yeah. So, um, we've, uh, we've had some pretty cool, cool scenarios happen that way.

Drew Slocum: (28:04):

Uh, kinda changing tracks a little bit. I know, I know you, you guys help out with hardware and everything. Um, you know, any, anywhere from obviously the devices, but some of the external devices, Bluetooth scanners, uh, which we have, we have some of that and R F I D, which I haven't talked to you about. Rf, I d probably should at some point cuz we have some interesting ideas there. Sure. But, um, what do you see, I guess in the next couple years? I mean, apple and Android continue to come out with decent phones. I, iPads seem to be the tablet of choice, um, right. You know, there's services out there, but that's essentially a, that's a laptop and I, I just don't, it, it, it's good in certain scenarios, but I, I feel like, you know, for the tablet wise, iPad's gonna be there. What, where, what, what's gonna happen in the next two to three years is just gonna be, you know, just small little upgrades year over year, better cameras. I feel like the, the iPhones and everything have, you know, they've stalled in the last five years, I feel like. Is there, do you know of any, any ideas coming out that kind of transformed any

Dave Brown: (29:17):

Great, yeah, so, um, I, I think part, so you, you, you have to kind of get into kind of what the consumer is willing to ingest, right? So, uh, if you remember a while back, I'll, I'll use this as a kind of a, a brief example. There was a phone that came out, uh, years ago. Uh, but it took 3D photos, um, and it was amazing. The trouble with it was, is it only worked with other phones that took 3D photos. Oh. Um, so like if I took a 3D photo and I sent it to you, it would look like a regular photo, but if I sent it to you, you had that same exact photo, um, that would work, uh, you would be able to see it. Right? So I think part of the problem that we run into, um, with, with seeing what's coming out is that the consumer only wants to handle so much, right?

(30:02)
So, uh, there was a huge up uproar, uh, when people started removing the auxiliary jack, right? From the, the devices people, I dunno if you remember that or not, but they said, we're not doing the auxiliary jack anymore. Um, and reason being that they were moving, it was because every manufacturer that was out there was standardizing their phone builds and, but the first piece they worked with was the auxiliary jack. They had to build the phone around that. And what they were realizing was, is that we can't come out with these curved devices, or Samsung was having a hard time coming out with their, uh, they've got the one that flips open like a book, right? Yep. Um, so it's, they, they were having a hard time going beyond that cause of the fact that it started, it all started with the auxiliary jack, uh, to, to answer the question in full.

(30:44)
I think it's kind of a slow process. I think that as, as we watch, uh, over the next, you know, two years, I think that it's kind of like the, the water on a, on a, you know, crab boil, right? So it just slowly gets a little hotter mm-hmm. . But I think we're gonna see things throughout that, you know, enhanced cameras, uh, things that maybe could take photos at a further distance. Um, what what we have seen and what we keep noticing is that the damn phones keep getting bigger. Um, you know, so a few years ago, if you take an iPhone from two years ago compared to an iPhone today, even the base bottle, uh, which is now kind of the iPhone, but we, we call the xr, uh, that device is much larger, um, than the iPhone six was. And the iPhone six was still available a few years ago.

(31:26)
So it, it, I think what you're gonna see is that it's gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger. And I think we've kind of hit that spot where, um, a lot of people that have cell phones, uh, two-handed operation, um, is starting to almost become a necessity. I'm a, I'm a taller dude, you are as well. We've, we've got probably fairly large hands in comparison to most people. So maybe our thumb can reach from the excess max from one corner to the other, in my case, a a Samsung note. Ah, interesting. I can kinda do it. But what happens is, is everybody holds their phone. If you're listening to this podcast today and you're holding a phone, you've got your, whether your left-handed or right-handed is dependent, your pinky is currently sitting underneath the phone, right? So it's holding the phone weight. Your three fingers are holding the side and your thumb is used to scroll around.

(32:11)
That's just how everybody holds their phone. Um, the trouble is, is that you're gonna start noticing that your thumb can't reach from one to the other. So you start losing the ability to do one handed operation. Um, so I think we've kind of maybe started to hit the threshold of how big it's gonna get, but yet the consumers still want bigger, better, more. Awesome. So the screen, uh, the device itself, uh, you're probably, in my point of view, the next couple years you're gonna see stall at a size, but the screen is going to increase. And, and what I mean by that is, uh, you're starting to notice a lot of these devices have become devilish. So they don't have a, there's no, there's no line, uh, the new Samsung. I'm not a, you know, not trying to advocate for one or the other. Uh, but if you pick up the new, uh, Samsung note, uh, you'll notice that it goes right to the very edge of the device on all the way around.

(32:57)
Yeah. Um, somehow the, the device itself is virtually the same dimensions as its predecessor, uh, but yet they've been able to squeeze, you know, another quarter inch or so of landscape space on the device. And you wouldn't think that makes much of a difference, but it does. Yeah. Um, it's kinda like you, you guys at home with your, you know, flat screen TVs, 74 inches is one thing, 78 inches looks a little different. And that's kind of where we are with the cell phone land. But I think that we've, I honestly drew, I I think that we've kind of hit a spot where, um, not to be funny, but I, I don't, you know, what, what else can you keep improving on the phone? You know, they, they have some gimmick stuff that comes out here and there. Um, iOS is very slow. Uh, the iPhone guys, they're, they are very methodical about the way they go about doing the releases of their devices. Um, you know, that's why sometimes you'll hear that the Android is superior hardware. Uh, and, you know, iOS is superior software. It's cause they vet all of it so hard before they release anything.

Drew Slocum: (33:52):

Yeah.

Dave Brown: (33:53):

Um,

Drew Slocum: (33:54):

Yeah, I, I, you know, I, I was, I had a Samsung before, you know, being, being here at Spec Point, and I, I've had iPhones and Samsungs, I had, yeah, obviously a Blackberry, the the roller one back in the day as well. But, um, you know, from the software perspective and my, some of my competitors feel the same way, is, you know, if, if you're developing an app, if you're developing software, mobilely, iOS is just so much sure, so much easier to deal with. And it's not that the android, the development platforms that bad, that bad. It's just, there are so many different devices that they've, and Android, you know, they, they went that model from day one. They wanted to give it out to different manufacturers to make tho that hardware. And then from there obviously just spurred out. But now if you're developing an Android software, mobile mobile app, you have all those, you know, all those new devices that you have to troubleshoot. So sure it's, uh, you know, that that's the

Dave Brown: (34:59):

One. Well, I told people

Drew Slocum: (35:01):

Side,

Dave Brown: (35:02):

Well, I, and I could imagine from the developer side, I mean, and, and I, I'm gonna just tell you from my personal opinion, cause this is just me, uh, in, in the world. We, we really only deal with two major providers. And what I, what I tell people is, look, when you, when you want to, as your organization goes, you need to standardize, right? So the same thing that you just mentioned. So if you're going to look at mobility for your employees and they're gonna use software, use the same operating system across everyone. Now I'm not talking about the guys that have CS in front of their names, right? The ceo, cfo, coo, whatever. It's right. What those guys do. Whatever that, that's, that's their opinion and however they want to handle it. They're not your technicians, they're not the guys out in the field.

(35:45)
The guys in the field need to have a standardized product. That's why I don't find, uh, you know, certain software providers like yourself that sit there and say, Hey look, we are an iOS only provider. That's perfectly fine. Cause they should be that anyway. So it, it's irrelevant, you know, the way that the costs have been driven down today, the fact of the matter is an iPad is a very robust device. It's going to work for many years if you take care of it. Um, there's only so many things that can actually go wrong with it, which makes it very good for you. But more importantly, you have to have a standardization across all of your technicians because if something breaks, like you said earlier, you gotta troubleshoot each one. Imagine if you had three different cell phone provider or, uh, cell phone manufacturers out in the field.

(36:25)
Well, it's doing this on my iPad, but it's doing this on my Samsung tablet by ACEs, god forbid. And it's doing this on my Samsung, you know, my, my Samsung tablet, right? My, or excuse my Android by ais. Um, and so we, we, this is one of the very first things that we do to talk to people about lowering their cost is first things first, let's standardize. You know, you've got Motorola Razors, you've got Androids, you've, you know, this Android, you've got Samsung, you got iOS, uh, somehow this guy got an lg and then you got two Google pixels. Like, what are we doing? Right? Like, none of those things work together. Um, but's let's get to a, a standardized process across the board. So that, that's actually, that's not only is that true for you guys, it's software developers. It's true for the companies.

(37:09)
They should, they would never go out, you know, if I had to go buy a bunch of trucks, I assume I could be wrong. Um, please write me hate mill if I am, I guess. Uh, but if, if you go out and you went and purchased, uh, trucks, you wouldn't say, well, we're gonna go get three, uh, you know, we're gonna get three Mercedes over here and then we're gonna go get, uh, four or five Chevys and then we're gonna go to this Ford dealer and get a few of those. Like, that would be a nightmare to deal with. Uh, sure. different types of vehicles and trucks and the way that they're configured. It just, you need, if you can standardize, you should, it's just my, my 2 cents there how it should work

Drew Slocum: (37:41):

Personally. I think obviously you should too. Was there, I I don't know. What made me think of this? Was there, uh, uh, initiative a few years ago where you could have one device work for both personal and work? So you had kind of two, maybe I'm, maybe I'm off topic here, but you could have it. No, you,

Dave Brown: (38:00):

You're not

Drew Slocum: (38:01):

Your work phone and your personal phone. So you know, a lot of, a lot, a lot of people, you know, you have to have your personal and your work, so maybe you don't have it on you. So I don't know if you could combine that. I think they were working on that.

Dave Brown: (38:14):

So let me, let me ask you if I understand it correctly. Are you talking about where there's two different cell phone, you got two different cell phone numbers on one device?

Drew Slocum: (38:21):

Yeah, some yes, yes. Yeah.

Dave Brown: (38:24):

No, no, we could do that. So that's, that's, uh, any dual sim device can do that. A lot of the new ones are coming out are that way, especially in the iOS land. Um, so yeah, you can certainly do that. And then of course, back to the mobile device management piece, um, you can compartmentalize inside of the devices. So let's say you don't mind your employees using, um, your work phone for their personal use, which a lot of people don't. It's just a perk, right? We, we don't mind that. But that even makes it more important to put an MDM on there so that you can take off the stuff, right? So that you can, you can kind of manage what they have access to as far as the business goes. Uh, so it's just not all willy-nilly. Um, the, the one thing that I, I'll tell you as you talk about that, you know, one of the things we talk about constantly too is, um, and for the record, these are for the guys that are using other pieces of software that are out there, don't ever, we're, we're not fans typically of what we call CPE or what's called customer provider equipment, or in this case it would be the consumer provider equipment inside of a, a company.

(39:21)
Um, you know, we're not, don't, don't let your guys come in with their own personal iPads, um, and, and run the software, right? So you want to, again, back to the standardization, you want a sense of control over those devices. And we can get into all kinds of discussions about that. And this is probably not the podcast for it, but, you know, we, we do run to that quite often where companies will go in and say, you know, I just offer a stipend to my employees, um, to pay for the devices. Well, that, that may be good in short term, but it's rarely good in long term. Yeah. Um, and we've worked with a lot of companies that have done that in the past just to immediately revert a couple of years later. Um, because you can't get a, you know, these, these cell phones, again, back to what it means for your business, especially in field service.

(40:01)
These guys are out there, this is their lifeline. Yeah. Right? Like if I walked up to you, drew and smashed your cell phone on the ground, uh, and you were down for a day, that's, that's, that's painful. Well these guys, maybe they didn't pay their cell phone bill, they're down for a day or two or three, maybe it was their girlfriend's phone and she cut them off. Yeah. Um, you know, whatever says it becomes painful and your business cannot rely upon that. So, um, you know, don't, don't set the expectations on your employees to, to be able to take care of that in a Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (40:27):

And I, in a good

Dave Brown: (40:28):

Way,

Drew Slocum: (40:29):

People are kind of moving away from that. They're, you know, they're, they're, they're going out and buying themselves and what, you know, we have a lot of of customers that are, I'm wondering when, when is it, when is it valuable to work with a, a company like Nobo w with yourself? I mean, is it, what if you're a, a, a, you know, five person, you know, shop with five technicians in the field? Sure. You know, is it, is it worth it? I know obviously the, the larger ones, you have a larger bill, but where, where is it worth it? Right. You know,

Dave Brown: (41:06):

Great question. So, you know, we, we do try to cater our business to fit a certain, um, profile, if you will. So if somebody's got, let's say they're expensing out five phones throughout their organization doing it, it, it, we might, we, we probably a really good educational source for them and we can help them order some devices here and there. Um, as far as our full on management suite, we really start hitting above the 20 phones, right? You've got more than 20 devices out there and 20 technicians that you're running in trucks. That's really where you'll start seeing some serious bang for buck. Cause that's the part where you get handed over to the cell phone carriers and you're not going in and out of a store. Um, either one of those two things, by the way, can be very expensive for you. Um, so we always tell customers, if, if you could stay out of the store, that's the best thing to do.

(41:53)
And that's usually your smaller guys as well. So we could certainly always do an analysis, get your bill down, try to get yourself phone bills lowered. Um, cause I, I too am a very small business and I deal with that on a, on a basis where, you know, we, we, we want to be able to save money. Yeah. I think sometimes it makes a huge impact, uh, for the small business that have, you know, five, 10 technicians. We, we can go in and make a pretty big impact on them. Cause we're taking the philosophies. Um, not many of us wanna be small, not that I'm aware of. So, uh, you always wanna be growing. Um, so I think we can go in and show the five to 10 technician companies. Well this is what this 800 technician company does, right? This is, we never share the company information, but we put in the best practices so that you can grow and standardize.

(42:38)
Yeah. Um, and as it pertains to mobility from your GPS to everything else. So we never turn a customer away. The question becomes where is the fit? Well, I mean, simply, if I can come to you and say, I just saved you 80 grand a year on your cell phone bill, you don't have five phones. Um, but we can certainly find ways to work with every organization. We have departments that handle with both of those. Um, and so we, we've, we do have 'em, we've got companies that have five technicians. We have ones that have well over a thousand. Um, and each one of those in a lot of ways is kind of the same. Uh, they, they face the same challenges. Yep. I think the biggest difference is, is that, uh, you know, the mom and pop guys out there that, that I am one as well, is that there's some personal stuff that goes in there. And those are the ones we'll really have to discuss, uh, the culture of mobile device management and how it affects, you know, your cousin who also worked for you or the Sure. The GPS on the truck and how it's gonna affect that relationship at the dinner table later that night. Um, and we, we discussed that quite a bit, probably at length with the smaller companies more than we do even the bigger ones.

Drew Slocum: (43:40):

Now, I know you mentioned gps, but I, uh, I know, I know you handle that as well. Why, why is that? I always thought, why don't you, you just track the phone or the, the iPad or whatever. I know, right? What, what's the difference between that and truck track tracking? I guess I, you know, I, you may have explained it to, to me before, but what's, what's GPS all about? No, I

Dave Brown: (44:02):

Don't, I don't mind explain. It's a great, it's a great question. So, and I think a lot of people ask that question. So we just track the phones and that's great. I mean, if you wanted to kind of, what was that? What was that, uh, that movie with Ashton, uh, dude, where's my car? Right? So if you wanted to say, Hey dude, where's my car? Right? Well, there's a good chance it's with your technician. Uh, so if you just wanna look at your technician in the truck where he should be, um, then that's fine. That's, that's all well and good. Uh, but if you want to start implementing rewarding behavior practices, so, uh, let me, let me, let me back up two seconds. If you're gonna purchase GPS to go into your vehicles, to scold your employees on bad driving behaviors, you're buying it for the wrong reasons.

(44:45)
And we probably won't sell it to you. So if you pick up the phone after this podcast, or you find me and you say, Hey, I've got 20 trucks, I want to covertly put them in the trucks so that I can catch Tom Dick and whoever else doing something they're not supposed to do, and then I'm gonna fire them with that information, I, I'm not gonna sell it to you. Cause I, I'm a big believer in the fact that we should use the technology and the products and the services that are available to empower the company and also to empower the technicians. So to answer that question, drew, about why shouldn't you track the tablets? It's actually really simple because the rolling asset that's down, going down the road that has your logo on it, that you worked really hard, that you sat at a dinner table just like I did crying one night.

(45:26)
Cause you didn't know if you were gonna make payroll one day that you sit there, that is your rolling billboard, right? That that is your pride, your, your everything else. In addition to that, it's an asset. It's a very expensive one. Um, and so it, it has driving behaviors and then on top of it, it's consuming this little thing that we all do, which is fuel. And that fuel cost, just like your cell phone bills run, can run into the hundreds and, and, and create all kinds of problems for you. So we kind of attack this, uh, or put a plan in place, if you will, uh, that gives you the opportunity to not only look at your trucks and where they are, uh, but also corrected driving behaviors. And then beyond all of that, um, as we take a moment for everything else, is the minimizing your CO2 footprint.

(46:14)
Yep. Um, and I, you know, I don't wanna get into the hippy dippy side of things, but, uh, honestly, it, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And so one of my favorite things to do, uh, with the GPS stuff is, uh, we put the GPS in, tell you to run your fleet. Don't set any reports up. Uh, don't put any reports in. I don't want you to worry about heart braking, fast acceleration, idling. I don't want you to worry about any of that stuff just yet. We, we will, we will get to correcting that here in a little bit. Let's let it run for a couple of weeks with no prior knowledge. So let's, let's let it run. Just tell your, it's, it's in there. Let the guys do their thing. And let's get a baseline of where you are today. Let's see how much fuel you're consuming.

(46:54)
Let's see how hard they are on the braking. Let's see how they're driving. Behaviors are, let's just see where it is. And then let's put a reward based system in place to reward the drivers for their better behavior. So that very first time you come around, you say, Hey, drew was our best driver today, uh, or this past month. And Drew, here's a $300 gift card. The best buy, because you didn't idle as much as everybody else. You kept your speed down. You didn't drive the vehicle like you stole it, which in turn, of course, is saving us hundreds of dollars. So here's a $300 gift card. And then once that happens, that's when we start setting the reports for you. And then the following month, you reward maybe Drew again or some other driver Sure. In your fleet. And you go and you look at the most improved driver in your fleet.

(47:37)
So that's one thing I wanna, A lot of people just keep rewarding the best guy. That's kind of hard, you know, sometimes maybe that guy is just the way he does, but let's say you've got 10 technicians and I'm a horrible driver. Right? Dave just sucks at everything that he does as far as the car goes. But when I start watching Drew get all these gift cards, all of a sudden I decide, Hey, I'm gonna do a little better. Maybe I jumped six spots. I still didn't win anything as far as number one, but maybe I'm the most improved and I get a most improved one. Sure. And so I always tell people, when you GPS and the the truck, make sure that you are scolding in private. Right. You know, Hey, Dave, you suck at what you're doing. Please stop doing that. You're costing us hundreds of dollars in fuel.

(48:14)
You won't stop idling. It's creating all kinds of problems for us. We're, we're hemorrhaging money in your fuel tank. Um, and honestly, you're driving behavior is atrocious. Uh, you know, let's stop doing that. Or we're gonna have to get further cause you're gonna create some insurance problems for us. Um, and then, you know, for the other guys reward publicly, right? So you wanna reward those guys publicly. And then I'm gonna, you know, you'll watch your fuel cost and your operational cost drop. Um, cause it also helps with efficiency. It helps with the ability of seeing where your trucks are and, you know, geofencing those stuff. And, um, not to, and one last thing I mentioned, I can't believe I didn't put it in the first part of it, but, uh, your insurance, you know, if your insurance carrier isn't gonna give you a break for actively tracking, uh, your vehicles, you need a new insurance provider.

(48:58)
Um, because those guys will drop your bill. Yeah. Uh, if you're actively doing it. So in a lot of ways it pays for it. So there's, there's a lot of benefits. Um, sure. The iPad can tell you where the guy is as long as he's holding onto the iPad. Uh, but it can't tell you how much money and what impact on the environment you're doing and how much money you're losing in that vehicle, either due to the idling and the gas, like we had mentioned before, or, or know the damage that they might be creating, um, or heaven forbid, some kind of settlement or insurance settlement or some issue where some guys, like your guy was, you know, speeding, uh, down X YZ road and created all kind of problems. Sure. No, no. So it's, there's a lot there.

Drew Slocum: (49:35):

No, no, that explains it very well. Um, you know, I think, uh, again, it's just, you know, you're beyond, it's beyond just cellular, you know, it's, it's the people in the field too. So you gotta manage them appropriately. Okay. Um, all right. Let's, what was, see another question I had. Um, oh, so how, I mean, how do you do a lot of software within, you know, mobile? I mean, you know, I know you work with a few other companies, but, um, we kind of, what, what's the, what's the push for software lately? You know, what, what are they working on? What are, you know, I know what we were, we were working on, but what are other software platforms working on that, that kind of intrigue you from the mobile side?

Dave Brown: (50:26):

You know, I, I, it's, it's interesting because there's so many that span across different organizations, right? So I think one of the ones that, uh, one of the first ones, it's weird that it comes to mind. It's probably cause we, we use it a lot here, uh, is, you know, some of the, as crazy as it sounds, some of the software that's being developed inside of weather apps. Oh, yeah. Um, you know, pinpointing, pinpointing location and time of rain and storms and radar that's available today. Like, it's, it's actually kind of mind blowing where they are. Um, you know, we, we can get weather alerts as, you know, you're gonna be covered in rain in 22 minutes. Right. So that, that gets back to my pest control lawn care guys. And it's, it's just crazy. You know, I, I just look at these guys, at these guys walking around with phones and they get an alert buzz and then know how long they have before they, you know, can apply this XYZ fertilizer.

(51:14)
Right. And how much time they needs to set. Uh, we have a painter that, actually, the funny thing was, was a painter that brought it to our attention more than anybody else, um, for, for obvious reasons. But, uh, you know, the, the apps are so plentiful. I think the other thing that I've noticed in the larger organizations that have really blown my mind, and I think you had, uh, uh, John, uh, John Mackey on here recently with Hiller. And, uh, they, they've developed their own app, right? So they've developed their own customer facing app for that. So I, I am, I am blown away by some of the, the stuff that's out there. I, the other day I had a, I won't drop the name of the, the software provider, but, you know, uh, I had a, some work that had to be done at my house for, by electrician.

(51:56)
And I got a text message and, uh, it was a map. I, I clicked the link. I just came from the guy said, Hey, your technician's on the way. And just like Uber, I could see where my technician was as he was driving to my house. Um, you know, it's kinda like that Domino's pizza thing that came out a while back, right? You can see exactly where it is, what we are and where they are. And then I think at the day of information where we are today, I mean, you could track your packages on Amazon and you could do all these other great and wonderful things in life. Well, now we're tracking our technicians and we get to see where they are and how long before they arrive. That becomes a very sticky, sticky thing for your customer base, right? Oh yeah. So when you have, when you have that kind of transparency, um, and you feel like you're involved in that process, you're not just sitting around waiting.

(52:38)
I mean, I think we all right, we've all sat there and had somebody need to come and repair a washer, a dryer or something. We're like, where the hell is this guy? Um, or even worse, like god, god knows, I don't know who your cable provider is up there, but we're like, your technician will be there between the hours of 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM on a Thursday. I don't, I don't have time for that. Yeah. I don't, I don't have time to sit around from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM um, to receive a text where they're is amazing.

Drew Slocum: (53:05):

They don't, they don't have to worry about that cuz they have a monopoly. So, you know, they don't have to worry about customer service from the field. But, you know, your, your service contractor landscaper, um, uh, my H V A C person here, um, just went to ServiceTitan out there and yeah, it would, it transformed their business and it went, you know, now I'm getting alerts when they're coming to do H V A C for me. But my, the landscape

Dave Brown: (53:30):

. Well, so you, you, you mentioned them, I don't mind mentioning. Yeah, well you mentioned them. I don't mind mentioning 'em now. So yeah, the company I was talking about earlier was using ServiceTitan. Uh, they used our GPS system, so it was really awesome to watch that happen. But they used my GPS stuff in their trucks. So the service Titan goes directly into our gps. And our GPS can track where that vehicle is. That's why they, I knew where that truck was.

Drew Slocum: (53:51):

Interesting. Uh, now

Dave Brown: (53:52):

You could also use the iPad or the phone, unless the guy cuts the damn thing off, then you can't see where he is. Uh, but at least the truck shows you, you know, kind of estimated time of arrival. But, um, I, I think that's the thing that's just blowing me away. Everybody's got an app now, right? And it's, uh, and I, I, you know, honestly, if I had like our mobile device management team in here, they can give you all kinds of lists of crap that, that gets thrown on phones. That is mind boggling. Right? So I think the time that when big companies or even middle-sized companies start developing their own app for their customer interface, um, mean God, like how, how great is that? And a lot of these guys are that way. And, and you don't even have to do your own development.

(54:28)
There's so many out there that, that can brand and white label it for you. Yeah. So it looks clean to your customer. I mean, it's just, it's good stuff, man. So, um, I don't know if there's anything that's crazy that's happening. You drew I've done this for a really long time and, and I've, I, I still remember, like it was yesterday picking up my old I 95 cl next telephone and was just blown away that I had a colored screen and that I was playing Tiger Woods' golf on this, you know, flip phone. Yeah. Um, and you know, I, it just, one thing is for sure is that the only constant in our industry is change. Uh, there are no other constants. Cause it just, it keeps coming. And I, I am, I'm never not blown away and just completely fascinated by what's there. And it's not even us that finds it, it's our customers, right? So it's our customers that bring stuff to our attention saying, I've got this x, y, Z product. Um, and we're pretty knowledgeable of what we do, but man, we, you know, when you got as many people out there as we have using phones, they bring all kinds of crazy stuff to us we didn't even know existed. Yeah. Um, cause it's just, it's hard to keep up with it, man. We're it's, it's all over the place.

Drew Slocum: (55:30):

Yeah. I think that, uh, the, uh, the next, the next wave is those, you know, the service field technologies out there, you know, mobile technology get, you know, getting paired with the iot. So the smart buildings, the smart systems where if they can interact even better, uh, it's just more powerful, you know, for your, for your field team. So, well,

Dave Brown: (55:51):

We, we dealt with this this past week. So we, I was at a trade show this past week and we had a discussion with somebody. They were using the, um, a VR headset, right? So using these, these VR headset with lenses on it that saw the panel inside of the elevator mm-hmm. , right? So they're going to elevator shaft this thing, and they had to do a wiring thing or whatever the case was. But in this particular state, you had to have a certified technician on site. Yep. And this company found a loophole that said, basically, as long as this guy can, you know, in essence what he was doing was FaceTime some headset technologies so that it was sitting, it wasn't a vr, excuse me, it was like a camera system that was on his glasses that paired to the Yep. Uh, the phone.

(56:32)
And the guy was telling him what to do. The guy was sitting, you know, five states away telling him exactly how to do that. Like, he was over his shoulder and that's, that was that guy's job. So, and the inspector was completely fine with that. Yep. He was like, you, nope, you have a technician that's telling this other guy what to do. It, it's no different than training him. We will let that fly. And, uh, that, I think that's where we are. I think that's, you know, here you've got this, this senior technician that's sitting out there somewhere, God knows, I think he was in Arizona and the other guy's in California, and he's, he's able to look over the shoulder of however many technicians that day with that one skillset. Yeah. And, um, I think that's where we're heading. I think that's, you know, that kind of, that whole virtual environment of being able to correct, uh, stuff. And, and that requires, you know, a great connection. It requires great connection and great management of the mobility that's out there in order to accomplish that. Um, otherwise it just, it would run amuck.

Drew Slocum: (57:26):

Um, well, it's gotta get passed in the code first, which nfpa, uh, the fire protection code is, is it came out with a new standard on that, uh, for remote inspection. So that'll be very interesting to see where that goes. Um, on the fire protection.

Dave Brown: (57:39):

Yeah. It's, I think it's hard for the, the good old people of the government and stuff that have to, you know, write all these laws and regulations. I think it's gonna be interesting to see how fast can they keep up with what's happening. Yeah. Um, so I, I mean, Lord numbers, I don't, I don't, I don't envy them at all. Um, cause people can find workarounds pretty quickly.

Drew Slocum: (57:57):

Yeah, definitely.

Dave Brown: (57:58):

Which, which is great, right? You don't, that, that keeps your cost of, uh, cost of employees down, cost of management down. Um, being able to sit there and manage and handle that from an office remotely is just, uh, just amazing. I, I don't, I don't ever see the end of the mobility stuff. And I mean, I guess that's kind of why I got into the industry besides the, the fascination of it. Um, and being able to work with certain, you know, that the field service in general, I, it just keeps on coming. It's just so weird. Man. People, you know, from, from pagers to today, that wasn't that long ago, drew. Yeah. I don't know how old you are, but man, that just wasn't that long ago. Um, I saw PayPal the other day. I was like, what the hell is that? Like, I hadn't seen nothing forever. It even had a spot foot quarters. It was amazing. , um, you know, no credit card. It didn't have a credit of them. You'll see in airports they got like credit card slots, right? No, this was just old school quarters, you know. Amazing. Didn't have the phone book on the bottom, but that would've been kind of wrapped. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (58:55):

Right. Well, uh, I know we're, uh, we'll wrap this up here. We'll definitely have you on again at some point. We're we'll chat here soon. But, uh, so at the end of every episode, I do a little quick response round on just a couple questions. Uh, uh, you don't know they're coming so , um,

Dave Brown: (59:14):

Beautiful. Love it.

Drew Slocum: (59:15):

Yeah. Yeah. And then I'll, I'll let you give your info here at the end. So, you know, other Novo solutions, um, uh, you are, are head of the a production company. Um,

Dave Brown: (59:28):

Sure I am.

Drew Slocum: (59:29):

Absolutely. What, what do you like doing better? Do you like the Nevo side or do you like your, your little, uh, production company?

Dave Brown: (59:36):

Oh, wow, good stuff. Um, one is my heart, one is my brain. Uh, so the new solutions side for me is, is very, very rewarding. Um, I have a great team of people. Um, the culture that, uh, we have here at New Solutions, uh, is just, uh, is just an amazing thing to witness and be a part of. Um, there's a, an old adage that basically says, you know, find, find one thing that you love to do that pays you right, that's your job, so to speak, or your career. And find a hobby that also does the same. And so the production company started as a hobby. And honestly, it started as a necessity, as a way to, uh, kind of protect our home. Cause we were, we, we, our company and even myself at the time, were very, very involved in our community. And, uh, one of the ways that happened was we all of a sudden had this , uh, all of a sudden this, this music festival popped up and we were, we were put in, you know, we just kind of, I've always loved music, um, as most people do.

(01:00:36)
And, um, I had the, a distinct pleasure a while back of, uh, uh, working with some really cool bands and throwing shows. And we were doing this corn hole tournament one afternoon, and the guy turned to me and said, Hey man, don't you work with bands? I'm like, sometimes, uh, he's like, cool, next year, get a stage, uh, and a band or two, and let's make this thing a big deal. And he was a sponsor, said, what am I supposed to say? I was like, hell yeah, we'll do that. That's awesome. Um, that was nine years ago, and yeah, nine years ago. And, and, uh, I, we've now produced over 15 festivals. Uh, the last one just wrapped up this past weekend. Um, nice. It is, it is a heartwarming experience. It's, it really is. And plus all that money goes to charities, so we don't take a lot of money from it at all, actually, just enough to cover the bills for our, uh, insurance and any employee that works that day. Oh, that's good. But yeah, that, that's a great question, . Great

Drew Slocum: (01:01:23):

Question. So I, yeah, it, it's, it's a production company. I I get it. I, I I would be the same . Um,

Dave Brown: (01:01:31):

It's just there. It's there. It's, it's there to, it's there to kind of give me an outlet, man. I enjoy it. I also do some public speaking on underneath that. So, uh, you know, I got the opportunity to mc and travel all over the country and introduce bands that I'm just like huge fans of, and I kind of get to geek out, you know, saying their name on stage and getting to know 'em. It's just, it's a, it's a beautiful, beautiful life.

Drew Slocum: (01:01:51):

Yeah. That's great. Um, I know you're a, a smaller company, but you've had to hire, you know, salespeople in the salespeople in the past and, you know, I'm, I'm in that same similar role. Um, yeah. What is the toughest part about finding a good salesperson?

Dave Brown: (01:02:11):

Trying drive, drive, finding drive. I, I, yeah. Finding drive, man. I, I, I think that we're, we're in this really weird spot, drew. Um, if we're gonna talk sales, we're in this weird spot. We're somewhere between just the oversaturation of technology and things that are blasting at us, right? Thinking that I can get the job done. Um, I actually sat down to dinner, uh, last night. Um, I was on the way back from a conference and, uh, we, we stopped in this old town called Florence, South Carolina, um, off in 95 coming up. And, uh, went to a restaurant that was inside of a, a, a, uh, hotel, rather nice restaurant. We wanted a good food. If you've ever been to conferences doing sales, uh, sometimes the food as great as it was, uh, sometimes you just want a really nice cooked milk, right? You just, you just look, I, I, I appreciate everything that you guys are being heated by Sterno.

(01:03:01)
I really just want a good meal. So we went and had a, a glass of wine and, and, uh, some good milk, uh, right there in Florence. And the gentleman that walked over to me, uh, that actually happened to own the restaurant, and he asked what brought us to his town, right? So we, I guess we looked like outsiders, I dunno. But he asked me, what, what brought you to the town? It was a nicer restaurant. And I told him, and, uh, come to find out he had owned a, a, a payment company, uh, for years. And I actually asked him the same question that you asked. And he said, the trouble with Dave is that nobody was willing to make 125 calls a day, except me. And he's like, and that's why I'm a millionaire. And that's why they're not. And so I think that, you know, inside of sales, uh, that was a really kind of an eye-opening experience for me, is I don't necessarily know.

(01:03:45)
I think there's ways that you can get your SEO rankings up, right? You guys do a fantastic job of that. Um, you do a wonderful job of having, you know, people contact you, uh, and, and go through that. But at the end of the day, you know, in my point of view, sales is, is all about relationship building. It's all about creating a, a lasting, um, impression with your customer base and, and solving, uh, problems and issues that they deal with. But before you get those customers, you have to get them by calling and working. Sure. And it's not easy. Yep. Um, and I think a lot of people today want to, uh, be able to make a lot of money. Cause they see it on public, you know, they see it in Instagram and all this other stuff, right? They see all these great, these guys out there making millions or pretending that they are, or whatever the case is.

(01:04:30)
And the fact of the matter is, uh, in sales, there's a lot of failure. There's like, you, you gotta learn to love it. You have to learn to love failure. Mm-hmm. . Um, you really do. You gotta become very comfortable with it. So I think the drive of that and, and a willingness to fail and learning that if you fail, that you'll be okay. Um, and, and to dust yourself, um, get back up, is, it just seems to be very, very difficult to find nowadays. That's probably a longer answer than you expected. But No, I think that's it, man. I think I can

Drew Slocum: (01:04:57):

Drive do it. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've, I've experienced the same, and, you know, I, it's probably why I've been a little more successful than, you know, yeah. I jumped on my own doing this stuff, but, uh, with spec point, but it is drive. You gotta, you gotta be driven to do, to do, uh, just in, in life in general. So, all right. Last question. Yeah, absolutely. And we'll get outta here. Sure. Um, are you shaving your beard for November?

Dave Brown: (01:05:27):

Why would I do that? ,

Drew Slocum: (01:05:28):

I know you got this, this, uh, this, uh, this, this huge beard. How, I guess, tell me the story about the beard. I don't, I don't, how long have you had the thing?

Dave Brown: (01:05:38):

So I've always had facial hair, uh, for as long as I could grow it. Uh, back when I was, uh, 18, 19 years old, it started coming in. And, and, uh, when I met my wife, uh, I actually had a really long beard. I kinda went through this, uh, imagine this, uh, producer for music festivals that drives Volkswagen buses, went through a hippie pace . And so I had this, uh, I had this really long beard when sh when we met. And, um, then, then, uh, you know, a year or two later while bartending, I had to kind of buzz it all the way down and, and get it kind of short and stubby or whatever. So it just kind of stayed at this nice, uh, let's just call it half inch. And, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. It did that for years. Then it went through a goatee phase.

(01:06:16)
That was in the early two thousands when that was cool. Um, and then, uh, you know, and the, the owner of the company at that time wouldn't allow facial hair, but he let me get by with that. And, uh, then one after he, he went away for vacation for like a week, and I could grow a pretty quick beard. So, uh, I let the beard rock kind of have like the little chinstrap thing going. Um, and that was my beard for the next few years. Um, and then No Shave November came out, if you remember, you know, no Shave November's been around for a while, right? Yeah. So no Shave November comes out and, uh, a few years later, I, uh, I took advantage of it and I just didn't trim. I was like, no, no, no, no. And they're like, you gotta a share.

(01:06:55)
I was like, no, no, no, no shade November. I'm allowed to do this . Um, and so a whole, a whole month went by, yeah. For charity. What are you, you telling me I can't, uh, support men's, men's stuff? So, uh, anyways, I, uh, I let it grow due November. And, uh, and then I, I had built up a lot of vacation time because in sales, uh, you don't stop selling until right around Christmas, right? Cause right around Christmas, pretty much all the decision makers are gone, right? They're just completely off, off the rails gone. You're not gonna get any buying decisions. Most people have closed their year. So I was able to sneak by for about two weeks out in the field without the bosses of seeing me. So my beard got a little bit longer. Uh, and then, uh, come, uh, mid-December, um, I went on vacation.

(01:07:37)
Cause I had earned enough. I didn't vacation at all. So I, I went from December 15th ish, give or take, all the way to January 3rd. So now I've gone almost two and a half, you know, two months basically. Plus a little bit on the front end there of beard growth. At the end of it, I went to go trim it off at around January. This was years ago, drew. But, uh, at the end of it, I went to go buzz it back down, and my wife said, no, absolutely not. She's like, that is, uh, that is the, the man I fell in love with. That is, that is who you are. And, uh, I was like, well, I, you know, they might fire me. And she goes, that's the most ridiculous reason to fire you. They're not gonna fire you. And sure enough, I went in with a big ass beard and they're, are you gonna turn that off?

(01:08:15)
I said, no, got back to work. And, uh, the rest is history as they say. So, and then all of a sudden, for whatever reason, it became super fashionable. Most everybody's got big beards now, which is great. Cause I can, uh, finally get, you know, I can finally get beard products fairly easy. That used to be, you walk into a Walgreens, now it's all over the place. You walk in the back and be like, Hey, I need these wax and oil. It didn't exist, right? But, uh, yeah, man, that's, that's how, no, I'm not, I'm not touching it. I think, uh, I think if I shaved it off, my kids would have an existential crisis. Yeah. They'd never seen me without a beard.

Drew Slocum: (01:08:46):

.

Dave Brown: (01:08:47):

Yeah. They'd have no idea. No idea at all.

Drew Slocum: (01:08:49):

Oh, that's great. Well, uh, yeah, great, great talking today. Um, you know that, that's kind of the podcast. Do you wanna, uh, give your little, uh, little, I'll give you a couple minutes, just, uh, just who you are, how to reach you, and, uh, yeah, we'll get going after that.

Dave Brown: (01:09:08):

Awesome. Well, first and foremost, man, I appreciate, uh, the time, right? So, uh, I, I appreciate what you're doing. This takes time outta your day, uh, to educate your, your customer base and to do what you're doing, uh, for, for your industry. I think this is remarkable, and I think the, uh, I've, I've loved getting to know you and love watching. Your business group of us have kind of started our companies in and around kind of the same way and same timeframe. So it's been real fun and been an awesome ride to be on with you. Um, but if somebody, uh, out there wants to, uh, reach out to me, uh, outside of, of just getting ahold of you, uh, they can simply do that by calling my cell phone at (919) 438-8555. Um, or they could hit me at Dave at Novo. That's n as in Nancy, U as in unicorn, B as in Victor, O as in Ostrich Solutions.

(01:09:57)
Uh, there's no dotcom or net on that. It's just our company name. So Novo Solutions, or you can just type that into your web browser. But, uh, we're here to help a mobility, uh, we're here to help, uh, you guys understand somewhat about your culture as it pertains to gps and making sure things go well. We're help, uh, you know, try to get things off your plates so people get stage provision kit, do all the devices, get 'em out in the field without too much of an issue, um, you know, and, and try to beat your carriers down too. I think a lot of guys, when, the biggest thing when we find is that we get a hold of their cell phone bills and they're just spending way too much. So if you just want us to look at your cell phone bills and try to lower your existing expenses, we'll gladly do that. And you can send it to us. We'll look at it. We show you ways to save money, and you wanna take it back to your, uh, cell phone provider and be like, why the hell am I spending this? Go ahead and do it, but we'll be lovely. Glad, we'll, we'll gladly take it over for you entirely if you need us to.

Drew Slocum: (01:10:44):

Great. No, that, that's cool, man. That's been great, man. Thanks. Uh, thanks again. I'm Oh, you're welcome. And, uh, yeah, feel free to reach out to Dave and we'll, we'll see you here again soon.

Dave Brown: (01:10:56):

Absolutely. Drew, thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it.

Drew Slocum: (01:11:00):

Thanks again for Dave Brown from VO Solutions for joining me on today's podcast. Uh, feel free to reach out to [email protected] or Dave at Novo Solutions. See you here again soon.

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum: (00:09):

This is episode 14 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guests are Doug Nadeau and Chris Crivello of R Engineering. Rand Engineering is a fire protection engineering firm in upstate New York, outside of Albany. And we, today's discussion is all is, is kind of, uh, couple different topics. One, it starts off with engineering ethics, mainly on the fire protection side of things. And just in general, as a professional engineer, what you should be doing and how, how engineers learn ethics in their day-to-day job. Uh, we then transitioned to more of a discussion on, uh, engineering, cooperating with contractors in other parts of the trade. So, you know, as the whole, you know, we have different contractors, we have engineers, we have the building owners, we have hj. So how does the engineer relationship with the contractor and those others help the process out, move along? So Doug and Chris are a great fire protection engineer. So there's a lot of, uh, uh, things that we could have discussed, and I'll definitely have him on here again soon. But, um, yeah, hope you enjoy the podcast. Make sure to subscribe and tune into our social media channels. Thanks.

(01:35)
The last few episodes, I've been giving updates on Inspect Point, but today I wanted to give a, a real shout out to an association, a nonprofit organization that I've been involved with, uh, being in the New York community for, for the last two or three years. Uh, friends of Firefighters is a nonprofit organization that gives back to the New York community of firefighting fire protection. Um, I met them a few years ago. Uh, Nancy Carone, founder and c e founded the company back on September 11th. She was down in the trenches helping out, uh, with the needs of rebuilding down at where the, the two towers fell. Their efforts go unnoticed sometimes in the world of firefighting. Currently, they serve the New York and surrounding areas with, with firefighters and their families that have, have gone through traumatic in incidents. Um, a lot of that, even from a lot of the sicknesses happening around, uh, the September 11th tragedy and the firefighters that went down to help and clean up, uh, are now coming down with, uh, various illnesses.

(02:48)
Um, as you've seen in some of those viral videos from John Stewart, uh, trying to get better, uh, benefits for these fallen firefighters. So, wanna give a big shout out to Friends of Firefighters. We've been working with them pretty heavily, um, in the New York area. And, um, feel free to check 'em [email protected]. Uh, feel free to donate and, um, just show your support now onto the podcast. Thanks, Doug. Thanks Chris for joining the podcast today. Uh, I know I've, you know, we've chatted before. I've, I'm from actually where you guys live now, up that area. So I want, I wanted to get really an, uh, fire protection engineer or engineers on the podcast. I've, I've, I don't even know, I maybe have had a few that have had fps, but you guys are, I put you at the, the highest echelon of FPS out there. You've been doing it forever. Um,

Doug Nadeau: (03:46):

Thanks, drew. We appreciate that.

Drew Slocum: (03:49):

Tooting your horn.

Chris Crivello: (03:50):

Is it, is it both of us or just one of us? I gotta

Drew Slocum: (03:53):

Know. I, I said I, you know, both, uh, you both are. I know, you know,

Doug Nadeau: (03:59):

, that, that was Chris asking, Okay, well, I, I'll let Chris go first

Drew Slocum: (04:01):

The way. . Yeah, that was Chris. So, um, so what I wanna chat about today is it, it's, it's kind of gonna go a lot of different ways with the topic, but e engineering ethics and, you know, what, what FPS could do better in their roles to make the, I guess the fire protection industry, the contractors, the building owner, the HJS experience. Um, I guess that much better. So, you know, before we get into that, let's, uh, you know, let's introduce ourselves. Uh, if you wanna introduce yourselves to the, to the listenership and, uh, yeah. How you started, why you're in fire protection, and what, uh, what keeps you going during the day?

Chris Crivello: (04:48):

Yeah, I guess he wants me to go first cuz he wants to save all his, you know, big fancy credentials to go at. So . Um, so for the listeners out there, uh, my name is Chris Velo. Uh, you might recognize me from the, uh, NFSA Top Tech competition. I was the, the, uh, national champion back in 2017. So I would say that's my main claim to fame. Um, you know, fire protection standpoint. How did I get into it just purely by accident. So kind of like Drew, I went to, to RPI that does not have a fire protection engineering program. Never heard of it, never learned about it. And then, um, when I was graduating, Doug just started the company, ran Fire Protection Engineering here in Albany, and he was looking for his first employee. I was available, and it kind of just matched.

(05:44)
And now here we are, nine years later, going on 10 years, and it's, it's worked out pretty well. Dur during that time though, you gotta say what you did. You didn't just, he actually worked to get to the, the point where he is at. Um, he started as an intern part-time, but then he came on, I had one of the other guys I worked with came come to me and say, Doug, you better hire this guy, uh, full-time. So that's, that's how he started full-time. And then within a year of working full-time, Chris decided that, uh, he wanted to be a real fire protection engineer. He started going back and went back for, uh, his, uh, master's degree. And you can tell a little bit about that, the way he did that. Well, yeah, so my master's degree, I went back to, uh, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, wpi, uh, we're better than Maryland. I'll say that on the record.

Drew Slocum: (06:33):

. Oh, yeah. All right. Controversial to start.

Doug Nadeau: (06:39):

Um, but, you know, I went back, I did it at night and, you know, really what it came down to, like how I got into or why I stuck with Fire Protection engineering is it's just cool to go to work every day and get to do something different and know that what I'm doing at the end of the day matters because it, it's potentially saving people's lives. So, you know, that's the big thing for me.

Drew Slocum: (07:07):

That's great.

Doug Nadeau: (07:08):

That, that actually goes, goes back to the way we run the company and we tell everybody in our company is the decisions that we make every day impact people's lives. No matter how small or big it is, it can have that kind of impact. Um, so a a little bit about, about me, drew, my name's, uh, for your listeners. My name's Doug Nado. I'm, uh, my, as far as background goes is I'm, I'm a W P I grad. I actually went there as an undergraduate and I, I got a bachelor's in mechanical engineering and a bachelor's in physics. And then, uh, Hey Drew, what do you do when you graduate and you don't, you have two bachelor's degrees and you don't have a job.

Drew Slocum: (07:49):

Uh, you, you become a ski bum

Doug Nadeau: (07:53):

. That probably would've been an option, an option if I was good at skiing. But, uh, you, you, you actually go on to go back onto grad school and get a master's degree in Fire Protection Engineering. Oh, nice. And, uh, that, that's kind of how I fell into it. I got pretty lucky at, at W P I, I also had, uh, a number of paternity brothers, um, that were in fire protection engineering. They told me how great the field was. And, um, I had a great mentor in, uh, Bob Fitzgerald, uh, professor Fitzgerald, who actually helped establish the, the program at wpi. And so I, I kind of fell into, uh, fire protection by accident too. But it's been a, been 25 years later, it's been a great ex, you know, great life that, uh, it's been able to provide for me. Um, I enjoy, you know, what, what I do.

(08:42)
Um, when I was able to start the company, you know, almost 10 years ago, it was an opportunity that, uh, I, I took, you know, I seized. Um, and I've never looked back. We, we've done work now, not only all over New England, but all over the country. And we've had a number of international jobs where we've been able to travel to places like Thailand and, uh, you know, uh, Germany and, and Japan. And, and it, it's been fun. So it's been a great ride. Um, it's something that both Chris and I are, are very passionate about, and, uh, in the way that fire protection is done or we're passionate about, also making sure it's done correctly. Because what you do in this field impacts people's lives. And that's kind of, now that's, that's a little bit about us.

Drew Slocum: (09:32):

Good. Yeah, no, I, uh, you know, I knew you before you even got started, uh, with Rand and, um, you know, there's, there's not too many fire protection engineers that just are dedicated to that. Um, you know, there, there is around the us but I feel like most of the work is being done by mechanical engineers, plumbing engineers, you know, but there's a huge need for that Fire protection engineer. And, you know, I wonder, you know, the, the big schools wpi, Maryland, Oklahoma State, you know, you've got New Haven, Cal Poly, but there's not, there's definitely a bigger need for it. And, you know, hopefully some, some other schools are, you know, I don't even know how, you know, Chris and I kind of, and even your yourself to a certain extent, Doug kind of fell into fire protection, um, not knowing about it. If you don't, if you're not going to one of those schools, how do you, you know, how does anybody know about Fire protection engineering? I guess, so,

Doug Nadeau: (10:34):

Well, what was a big thing last week, I spent all last week at the, uh, society of Fire Protection Engineers Convention out in Phoenix, which was a, a great experience. And what came out of that, one of the big things that came out of that last week was the shortage of fire protection engineers in this country. There's, the schools just are not able to produce enough engineers for the number of jobs out there. It's a, so the field is just growing dramatically. The need has never gone down in years, and it just gets more and more. So it's, uh, which unfortunately too, it, it allows opportunities for sometimes for, uh, fire protection to be, um, pushed to the wayside. And in the general, you know, the way General Construction's done.

Drew Slocum: (11:20):

Yeah, yeah. There's a, there's a big shortage, not even on engineering, but on, on the contracting side too. You know, there's a, uh, you know, yeah. Whether it's a technician fitter, uh, or even some of the office staff, it's, it's, uh, it's tough to find good people these days. So,

Doug Nadeau: (11:39):

Well, drew, you do work all over the country. Do, uh, is there, uh, anywhere in the country that actually has a, an adequate supply of, um, fitters and laborers and everything else for, for sprinkler contractors out there? Oh,

Drew Slocum: (11:54):

For anywhere for sprinkler, fire alarm, extinguisher suppression, whatever, whatever. We're on everything. Inspection, testing, and maintenance. And everywhere throughout the country is, is having issues. And Wow. A lot of that, I think is the, just the boom in the construction, uh, economy, you know, and we're, I think we're at a kind of a, a top for that, for the install. So I, I think when that, uh, you know, when that dips down a little bit, which it, it probably needs to, to go into a little bit of a low, um, you know, there'll be some more technicians and Andy even engineers to fill some of that void. Um, you know, in the, in the coming years. I, I think we can't keep go, the construction building can't keep going up, you know, that's been going up for over 10 years. Right. So I think that's a lot of it. Well,

Doug Nadeau: (12:54):

Let's just hope it doesn't go down anytime soon, though.

Drew Slocum: (12:58):

I think it's six months away, honestly, it depends on where you're at in the country. But, um, you know, there's already indicators out there with, and you commercial's probably. Okay. And, you know, you've got retrofitting and all that. So I, I think fire protection's pretty, um, protected a little bit. But, you know, new housing, I, I can't see, you know, new housing getting on another boom like it has been over the last 10 years. But that's not, if fire protection's really not into that category, I guess. Cause you're not getting 'em in, you're not getting fire protection in those single family homes, usually

Doug Nadeau: (13:35):

Unfor Yeah, unfortunately. Unfortunately, though, unfortunately, I mean, that was just voted down again in New York State so that they have a brand new single family homes having Sprinklr protection. It was pushed back and, uh, not allowed to be put into the building code, it looks like, again, in New York.

Drew Slocum: (13:53):

Yeah. It's the building, building, building over, or, um, you know, the, uh, developers and, uh, home builder lobbies, you know, really shoot that, shoot that down. And it, it's unfor it's unfortunate. And I maybe at some point do a podcast about that and you know, how to combat it. And at least just get the message out there to the public. Um, and maybe this is one avenue. I don't, I don't know if I'm reaching every, every home builder out there, but, um, or even the public. But it, it, it's nice to at least try to get that message out there.

Doug Nadeau: (14:26):

Yep.

Drew Slocum: (14:27):

So, um, let, let's kinda get into it. I know, I know you guys did a little introduction about yourselves, Doug, uh, Doug and Chris. You work for, you know, Doug, you founded ran Chris, you're the, you know, you're the, what is your title? Chris

Doug Nadeau: (14:41):

? Uh, now I'm a principal.

Drew Slocum: (14:43):

Oh, you're a principal. Okay. And you got that, you got that N F S A title. You don't have it anymore though, right?

Doug Nadeau: (14:51):

Well, well, how I look at it is, you know, once you're the champion, you're always the champion, as long as you don't go back and lose. So,

Drew Slocum: (14:57):

.

Doug Nadeau: (14:59):

So now the, uh, you know, now the next, the next challenge I'm gonna try to go under is take, take some young understudies and try to break the record for youngest person. Ever win that

Drew Slocum: (15:09):

Competition? Oh, you'd be like, uh, see's Rocky's coach there, right?

Doug Nadeau: (15:14):

Exactly. Exactly.

Drew Slocum: (15:17):

Mixed,

Doug Nadeau: (15:19):

There you go. Yeah, mixed .

Drew Slocum: (15:23):

So, um, all right, let's get kick in here. Uh, so I wanted to really talk about engineering, um, and, and really ethics and more geared, obviously toward fire protection. Um, you know, there's a lot of different en engineering disciplines out there. There's, you know, we, you know, I'm, I have an engineering degree as well from, from rpi more on the manufacturing side of things. But, you know, there's ethical, uh, just day-to-day ethical engineering behavior that you're really, you're taught a little bit of it in school, and I feel like you're taught more in school than you actually are in the real world, unfortunately. So, how, I guess, Doug, Chris, what is, what is engineering ethics for fire protection, and why is that important? I guess?

Doug Nadeau: (16:11):

So I guess first Drew, it's kind of interesting to me that you said you learned it in school. Cause I mean, I was only a couple years behind you at rpi, and I don't remember learning anything on ethics there,

Drew Slocum: (16:21):

Really. Yeah. We were, we were required to take two class, uh, or maybe I did it. No, I thought we were required to take an engineering ethics class, and it was all about, yeah. Um, learning really about disasters in engineering more than anything. Like Chernobyl, like Three Mile Island. It was more about that. And you know, how that, how your decisions as an engineer really affect, could affect the public and, you know, human humans or the environment.

Doug Nadeau: (16:53):

Right. So I guess I was looking at it a little bit differently as like, what's, you know, pertinent to this, this conversation. Like, I felt like I never really learned in school until I got to the master's level as a licensed fire protection engineer. What your role is, you know, what your, your liabilities or your responsibilities are. Right. And really what it boils down to is, you know, every state has slightly different, you know, requirements or, or wording in their, their specific laws. But as an engineer, it's our job to uphold the health and safety of the general public, like that that's the one line that it boils down to. And we're responsible as engineers to make sure we practice within our discipline. So, when, you know, when Doug and I teach a seminar, I say all the time is, I'm a fire protection engineer.

(17:53)
Would you feel comfortable with me designing a bridge that you're gonna drive your car over? And really the answer is no. Right? I, I don't want to drive over a bridge if I'm designing it. That's what, you know, a bridge engineer is for, right? It's the same thing with, you know, the different trades inside of a building, whether you have mechanical, electrical, you know, plumbing, civil, structural, or fire protection. They're all different trades. And where we'd start talking about this topic of engineering ethics, it's, you know, it's rooted in the fact of recognizing what your, what your background is in, you know, what you were trained and what you, you know, have experienced in actually practicing that topic.

Drew Slocum: (18:42):

Sure. So what, what is the role of a fire protection engineer? I guess starting, let's start from there and then kinda get into the ethics of that. What, what is the role? Where do you, I, I know what your guys' role is, but what is, what is the role supposed to be for a fire protection engineer?

Doug Nadeau: (18:59):

Well, in a, in a way that, that's still evolving and it's evolved over the years because Fire Protection Engineering is considered the youngest trade out of all the other building system trades. So, and the evolution really kind of came out with, if you wanna look at the history of it, is that we started becoming needed or desired due to big fires over the history of time. And, uh, such as the London fire, the Chicago fires, those types of large fires. I mean, we have, even in Troy, New York, there was two large fires here. One, one of which, a little over a hundred years ago, uh, destroyed 508 buildings. So it's kind of amazing. Conflagrations happened of that. And then the push was, Hey, how are we gonna address it? And initially the insurance companies pushed it, cause obviously they didn't want to do the payouts, but at the same time, it was the, it started boiling down again to the health and safety of, of the, you know, the people and the public.

(20:02)
And so architects started getting a little involved along with firefighters and building officials. And what they did is they, they did a lot of rule of thumb type things. They did a lot of, um, not too much based in science. And what happened was is that you, it, it developed over, and, and this is throughout the country and you can see it in different areas, um, more prominent than others, is it developed false census of security. And as the building codes evolved over the years, more science started going into it. And what people realize, uh, especially in the sixties, uh, is that that level of science that needs to be put into it really should be from a, um, specialized field. That's where fire protection engineering really started kind of coming to the forefront, was that engineers that studied just fire and studied how fire interacted with building structures started to, uh, be able to provide input on the way building codes could come around.

(21:04)
So a fire protection engineer now really can, if, if utilized effectively, can be involved from the very beginning of the building, from where you even cite a building, uh, you know, within a, within a whatever land that you have to, you, you know, you're, you're citing one or two or multiple buildings to how you design different types of fire protection systems from sprinkler systems, fire alarm systems to smoke control systems, or, or even, you know, what we do with, you know, uh, here is fire modeling where you can actually develop how a fire could potentially, uh, grow within a building. And, you know, then design effective, active and passive fire protection features, which could actually lead to a much more economical design. So, I mean, in essence, as a fire protection engineer, yes, we can design fire alarm systems, smoke control systems, sprinkler systems, but, uh, we can be involved into the code consulting, um, or, and then all ob you know, at the end of it is observing the installation of the actual systems and then finally the commissioning of those systems. Yeah. So just like any other engineer, we kind of, we kind can be involved in every aspect. And, and in some ways, the one difference that we are to some of the other engineers is we're probably, uh, cross trained, trained and involved in the different trades that are out there, um, to make a holistic building design fire safe.

Drew Slocum: (22:37):

Interesting. Yeah, you're right. It, it is an evolving thing within, uh, um, you know, the building industry and, you know, where does a, a straight up fire protection engineer, the thing is, if there's not enough fire protection engineers, somebody's gonna have to do the engineering at some point. So, um, yeah, that's, I guess what, that's correct. That that's the quandary the industry's in right now. So,

Doug Nadeau: (23:03):

And, and that, and that's where the ethics kind of comes in because all engineers are, are supposed, you know, is definitely, you know, the license are, are supposed to be acting in an ethical way. And, uh, like Chris kind of touched on it, was that, uh, you're supposed to as a licensed engineer, um, operate within your education and experience. And a lot of times those words, education and experience are written right into the, to the law of each state as to the way that an engineer is supposed to, uh, function within a construction project. Sure. And, um, and so just like you said, there are people that have to come in to fill the void. Um, you can, you can fill the void as a, as another type of engineer, as long as you have the education and experience Right. To fill that void. Um, that's where we, we kind of see that, uh, you know, there could be problems.

(23:54)
And we've seen problems over the years, uh, where that has happened, where you can see in what I think what sometimes doesn't occur to people, um, is if there isn't a legal practice of engineering, like in most states, there's actually a, a criminal charge that can be, uh, applied to 'em in, in New York state, it's actually a Class E felony. Wow. If there's a legal practice of engineering. So it's not, it's not like a light little right. Thing that's kind of taken and, and un and fire protection, unlike some other building systems where, you know, hey, the light switch doesn't work. So the, the, you know, the lights don't turn on fire protection. You only realize when fire protection systems don't work usually at the worst time.

Drew Slocum: (24:36):

Yep. Worst time when there's a fire. Yeah, yeah,

Doug Nadeau: (24:40):

Yeah. Exactly.

Drew Slocum: (24:42):

How, how many, uh, fire protection engineers are in New York, just straight up Fire protection engineers?

Doug Nadeau: (24:48):

Boy, so Chris is the, the current, uh, treasurer for S F P, I'm past president in S F P E Empire Chapter. So our, our territory only is everything north of New York City. So, um, not, not if you don't realize how big New York is, that's a pretty big area to try to, uh, herd the stray cats. Sure. Um, trying to say how many licensed fire protection engineers there are. I, I mean, so I, I would, I would, uh,

Drew Slocum: (25:22):

It can't be that many.

Doug Nadeau: (25:25):

Right. Well, I would preface our answer by saying licensed Fire Protection engineers in upstate New York who are consulting engineers right there, there's other fire protection engineers out there who work for maybe like state agencies or government agencies or, you know, large manufacturing companies or municipalities where, you know, they are, they are fire protection engineers who are trained and went to school and got their pe but they don't do exactly what we do on a day-to-day basis. Sure. Where we're, you know, designing new buildings and structures.

Drew Slocum: (26:02):

Gotcha.

Doug Nadeau: (26:03):

And you know, I don't want to, I don't want to put a number that, that people are gonna say, you know, that's wrong or whatever, but in reality, in upstate New York, you're, you're maybe in the 10 to 15 licensed fire protection engineers Yeah. You know, in that range who do do what we do.

Drew Slocum: (26:24):

Yeah. I mean, that's the point right there. There's not enough, there're not, there's not enough to do it. So, you know, are there other people get into it, other engineer trades get into it, and then, you know, your ethics start, you know, dwindling from there because they don't fully know, you know, fire protection. So, um, yeah.

Doug Nadeau: (26:46):

There's times Chris and I could tell story after stories where unfortunately what we see happen a lot of times, and it kind of goes on the history of way, especially how sprinklers have evolved, is that, um, you know, years ago, uh, when sprinkler design really started coming about was cuz insurance companies started pushing it and they started telling building owners, Hey, install sprinklers into your, your building. And so building owners turned to their architect and a told the architect, Hey, we need to put a sprinkler system in. And our architect, you know, back, back then just said, the easiest way to do that since is I'll turn to my engineers, Hey engineers, you guys design sprinkler systems. And at that time, the engineers didn't know how to design sprinkler systems, so it just kind of went to the contractor. And then that's where the sprinkler contractors and the design build concept really came from in, uh, the sprinkler industry.

(27:39)
Which is kind of interesting because even to, to this day that that model is applied in many states. Sure. Where the architect sometimes just, uh, will put a, what we will, Chris and I will kind of in, you know, call it a bubble around the building and say, install print FPA 13, and then the sprinkler contractor has to figure that out. That's not a, you know, that's not a design criteria. But now that the sprinkler contractor is responsible for that, and sometimes too is there's the next level what the, uh, either the architect will do or the maybe MEP engineer will do, will say install per NFPA 13, uh, for to the contractor and for the contractor to get an engineer a record Gotcha. Hoping they can, um, spread out the liability of the, you know, sprinkler system design. Uh, unfortunately what we see happen is, is that, you know, you could get contractors out there that say, okay, well, all I need to do is get my drawing stamped, not understanding that the engineer of record is supposed to be responsible. Right. To develop the design criteria. And that's where, you know, and then it just goes downhill from there.

Drew Slocum: (28:55):

Yeah. I, I could see design build being, uh, you know, I've seen it successful in, in a lot of areas, but I've also seen it, you know, where, like you said, if somebody's just getting a, a, a civil engineer stamp throwing it through the system and they're, you know, it's that rubber quote unquote rubber stamp, uh, methodology where they're just stamping to get their fee and then they're, they're off to the next thing.

Doug Nadeau: (29:21):

Yeah. Well, usually off to the greens. Right. , for the greens fee.

Drew Slocum: (29:27):

Yeah. For the greens paye. Yeah. It, it's kind of wild that that happens. And, you know, again, if, if a fire doesn't happen that often, because, you know, fire protection has gotten way better over the last a hundred, a hundred years, uh, you know, with fire alarm, with sprinkler, with suppression systems. So, um, you know, you're still gonna have that and you, you still have a huge liability, but if you don't have a fire, that person's not getting in trouble. So they don't really care about, you know, whether they are rubber stamping or not. Uh, I don't know, maybe the penalty's not great enough.

Doug Nadeau: (30:02):

I I think you make a great point there. We, we kinda also look at it as fire protection systems don't make the building owner any money, unlike H V A C systems or your lighting. Good point. Stuff where that can attract, uh, you know, occupants and, and people to, uh, leases. Building a fire protection system doesn't make anybody, anybody money, you know, or a building owner any money.

Drew Slocum: (30:24):

That's true.

Doug Nadeau: (30:25):

Yeah. Kinda kind of add to add on what, what you were saying Drew and what Doug was saying, when it comes to licensed engineers, there's no, it's not like there's a, you know, engineering cops out there who are gonna try to catch you for doing the wrong thing. Right. It's, it's widely, um, self-policing. So to really notice or find out when there's, there's, you know, shady work going on, I'll call it, kind of like what we've been talking about. You don't know until that bad thing happens.

Drew Slocum: (30:59):

Yeah. I guess, you know, from the contractor's perspective, you have, you know, building officials, departments of buildings and, you know, other inspectors out there that do inspect, you know, installs on the job, but nobody's inspecting those, you know, those building fishes don't have the, the wherewithal to, to inspect the, the plans a lot of times. So

Doug Nadeau: (31:20):

That, that's a great point. That's a great point. I, I've, uh, it's kind of interesting cause we, we've given a, a course on ethics. I, I probably have, uh, uh, talked to about 2,500 code enforcement officials just in New York state alone. And that is some of the, some of the restrictions that some of them have is just they're, they themselves didn't come from the fire protection field. They came from some other trade, but they're now put into a position where they have to, um, make decisions on fire protection mm-hmm. . And so what, what they tend to do is just rely heavily on that PE stamp that's there, assuming the PE has done his job.

Drew Slocum: (32:01):

Right. Right. Yeah. It's, uh, right. It's a, it's an interesting, uh, so, so across fire protection, uh, I know you guys get involved in a lot of sprinkler, what, you know, there, there's a lot of different fire protection, you know, realms out there. Do you see Yes. Where, where, I guess where's the biggest issue with ethic? Is it on the sprinkler side, which you're most involved in? Is it on, you know, I mean, the fire alarm's pretty, obviously, it's three to four times the size of that sprinkler market. Um,

Doug Nadeau: (32:35):

Well, well at, at ran fire protection, our, our workload is, you know, from a sprinkler standpoint is about 27% of our overall, you know, types of designs we do out of here besides, you know, fire alarm, smoke control systems, code consulting. So we do a lot, uh, a heavy amount of sprinkler, but, uh, I don't know, what do you think, Chris? Is the, where we see it most? I'm trying, I'm trying to think of an answer, drew. It's, it's not really focused in one area. Right. You know, the, the epidemic I'll call it that everyone thinks about is with sprinklers, but we, we really do see it across the board with all different aspects.

Drew Slocum: (33:18):

Right.

Doug Nadeau: (33:19):

Um, you know, and it's, you know, and there's a balance and we can maybe talk about that later that, you know, it's the blame, like if that's, if that's even the correct word, it's, it's not just all on the engineers, it has to do with contractors and their qualifications also.

Drew Slocum: (33:38):

Yeah. Yeah. What, what jurisdiction and what state codes and whatever.

Doug Nadeau: (33:43):

Right. And, and I mean, you know, we, you, you see it or you talk about it a lot with sprinkler systems, but I mean, smoke control systems, for example, the, every, every, you know, a agency or state that has adopted the 2015 IBC or later editions, smoke control now says you have to essentially do a fire hazard analysis and determine what your characteristic fires are gonna be and what the heat release rate is and so on. It's not like the older versions of the code that said you can just assume a five megawatt fire and in nine times outta 10 jobs severely overdesigned your smoke control

Drew Slocum: (34:27):

System. Right.

Doug Nadeau: (34:28):

So, you know, you'll still see, you know, say mechanical engineers just say, I'm gonna use that old code section and apply it to new code. So it's that to me, that's the same kind of thing. And that's not sprinkler related at all.

Drew Slocum: (34:43):

Yeah. Smoke control seems to be, and then go ahead.

Doug Nadeau: (34:48):

Then, then we get calls at the end of the project when they can't open the doors because of the wind tunnel they created, and they don't understand what happened there. And, um, and usually it's, they forget at the end that they gotta do, you know, uh, uh, special acceptance testing per code. Right. Which then when the, the, whether it's the fire marshal or the fire chief or, or the state agency comes along and says, okay, what's the acceptance criteria? And they don't even have that developed. So it's, it's one of those things, I mean, we do see it across the board. Right. So, and I'll, and I'll say, I'll add to that, the other big thing that I, that I, that comes to my mind is industrial occupancies also. Oh

Drew Slocum: (35:28):

Yeah.

Doug Nadeau: (35:29):

Because even, you know, even if you are, say, an MEP engineer and you have the background in, you know, basic sprinkler and coming up with hazard classifications and, you know, general design criteria, you go into an industrial occupancy now and you may look at something and say, yeah, that's extra hazard group too, you know, for example. But you also gotta realize, oh, this is an explosive material. We have to, you know, do explosion protection systems or blow out walls or, you know, things like that. So that's the kind of stuff that, that, that will get missed. That

Drew Slocum: (36:10):

How often as it

Doug Nadeau: (36:11):

Related.

Drew Slocum: (36:13):

How often is an engineer, are you declaring the classification now? Don't you usually kind of defer that back to the insurer?

Doug Nadeau: (36:22):

No, so, all right. So this is one topic that I have a whole presentation on that I like to talk about.

Drew Slocum: (36:27):

I didn't tee it up for you. I, that was a real question,

Doug Nadeau: (36:31):

. So, I mean, since we're talking about ethics, right? I usually default to the N C E E S code of ethics, cuz that is what every engineer signs their name for when they take the PE exam. And every state has their own code of ethics, but it's all rooted in the same thing. And, and, um, for sprinkler system, and actually the newer versions of NFP 13 handbook has like a whole one and a half or two page discussion on this that starts talking about what an engineer's role is in, you know, minimum, uh, information required to establish engineering precedent. And how I teach it is, as an engineer, your main job is to define that hazard. If you can't tell a contractor if this building or this occupancy is light or ordinary or extra hazard or whatever type of high piled storage arrangement, you're not establishing engineering precedent that's required to be established by the engineer. Right. And, you know, in most areas throughout the country, it, it's written in law that a contractor cannot make that determination.

Drew Slocum: (37:50):

Yeah.

Doug Nadeau: (37:51):

I, but even to expand, ex expand on that a little bit is, well, if you default to the insurer, like, uh, we had a project in Japan that the insurance company was, uh, uh, citing the industrial owner for about 80 million of fire protection upgrades. When we actually went through and we did our fire fire hazard analysis and we're kind of very, uh, to the point with what needed to be protected, the level of protection that had to be provided and how it provided either better protection than what the insurer, uh, you know, was requesting, or, um, equal protection. We, we were able to take 80 million of upgrades and reduce it to about 12 million of upgrades with having, you know, money well spent. So sometimes just deferring to what an insurer says, um, could lead to one spending extra money and two, maybe not even addressing the hazards as they are. Cause um, the, the insurer's only looking out for their own best interests. Right. Not doing a payout. Sure. They're not, they're not always looking out for their, their client's best interests in that sense. Right.

Drew Slocum: (39:00):

Yeah. They just don't want pay out.

Doug Nadeau: (39:04):

Right. And then, and another thing is, you know, it's a common misconception that if you listen to the insurance carrier, it's automatically more stringent than the, the building code or N F P A standards. And from my experience That's true maybe 50% of the time.

Drew Slocum: (39:20):

Wow.

Doug Nadeau: (39:21):

Every year there's, there's dozens of projects that we work on where, you know, most of the time it's probably a design built project and the performance spec goes out and it lists say this FM design criteria factor and mutual to follow. And the contractor will come to us and say, Hey, we got given this design criteria, what does the building code say? And I honestly think it's roughly 50% of the time the building code is equally stringent, if not more stringent than an insurance carrier. Um, you know, a good example is a project that we worked on at Rand maybe like six or seven months ago that was a, um, a Budweiser storage facility, which is near and dear to my heart cause that's my favorite drink. But, um, . But, uh, they were building a warehouse that was storing, you know, bud a hundred feet high almost.

(40:20)
Wow. And performance spec was to only follow fm you know, whatever data sheet they called out. And that data sheet said you needed to put, um, solid barriers and rack sprinklers at every other level of storage. Wow. Where NFP 13 in that specific storage arrangement that they had in that building wanted those barriers at every single level. So the change order was pretty good for the sprinkler contractor when he had to install twice as many indirect sprinklers in a Right. You know, massive building with a hundred foot high storage. And then a PA 13 takes precedent because that is the law of the land and the reference standard used by the building code FM global data sheets aren't referenced by the building code.

Drew Slocum: (41:11):

Interesting. So even if it's, even if it's FM insured, you would still follow NFP 13 instead of the FM guidelines.

Doug Nadeau: (41:20):

You, we have to make sure we follow both. So that's, and that, and that actually kind of goes back to like our relationships that we develop with contractors and, uh, you know, and how we try to get along with contractors and, and vice versa is, is when you can have a good relationship and you can talk to, you know, a contractor can have a level of faith in the way that you're going to a, address a project, um, in their best interest along with, you know, the best interest of making the right decisions. Um, it, it allows for a better design. Um, so it, it's, it is a, not not all, not all contractors work that way, and not all engineers work the way we do too.

Drew Slocum: (42:03):

Yeah, that's, that's a good point you bring up. And you know, I I, I've, I've had some speakers at some associations, and you, I've been at one a few years ago where you had did one, Doug, but there was another one recently in New York City where, how, how does the, how does the relationship benefit from communication between the contractor and engineering? And I guess how does that work? Is it just a straight up, Hey, I'm working on this project, let's have a, you know, just a, a quick info informal introduction and, you know, um, if there's any issues, let's, let's work on them versus go through formal change orders or, and all that. So do you wanna explain that process a little bit?

Doug Nadeau: (42:46):

Well, so before we kind of get into that topic, I'll, I'll ask you a question. If you're, if you're a contractor and I'm an engineer, what's really both of us, we have the same goal for every project. Yep. Do you know what that goal is?

Drew Slocum: (43:01):

That's dollars.

Doug Nadeau: (43:04):

There you go. Yep. Exactly. We're all, we're all in this scheme to make money. Now, we also, we don't want to do the right thing and we wanna make sure the building is safe. Correct. And it's compliant, but at the end of the day, we're all in this to make money. Right. So, you know, when Doug talks about you, uh, his, his, uh, his seminar contractors and engineers, why can't we just get along? You know, that's what it boils down to is how do we communicate effectively that we can all be profitable at the end of the day.

Drew Slocum: (43:36):

Right. And, and, and lower risk, you know, you don't wanna have Right. You know, you don't wanna chance your, your license and the contractor doesn't wanna, you know, get the project stalled or, you know, obviously it all boils down to dollars at the end of the day, whether it's risk or actual profit. So,

Doug Nadeau: (43:55):

I mean, I, I've been lucky in my career and early in my career, I, I worked for a sprinkler contractor, uh, Citypoint Fire Protection out in Boston, a great contractor, and

Drew Slocum: (44:05):

Oh, they're doing a demo with me here soon.

Doug Nadeau: (44:08):

Oh, are they All right. Yeah. The John Cochinos Assaultive Earth type guy. I like John and Mike out there. They're, they're great guys. Um, and I got, I got lucky with that experience because I, I, I've been able to see the construction on both sides of the aisle from a, from a contractor's point of view, and, and also from an, you know, a consulting engineer's point of view. And, and, you know, Chris hit the nail on the head and it's about making money. And it, it is, I mean, ultimately our, our goal is to have a safe building and, you know, have the right building designed, but if we don't all make money, uh, somewhere, something's gonna go wrong. And so if we can all start, you know, getting along and, and know what to do in a way that could assist everybody, that's, that's usually, uh, the, the key.

(44:59)
And, and one of the things I, I talk to contractors and engineers about, and I, I've given these presentations, you know, for nfsa and, uh, American Society of, uh, plumbing engineers and, and, uh, uh, a few other, uh, areas around the, around the, the country is that it's, it, it really comes down to is if you understand the other side's point of view is if engineers understand really what contractors need from them that, you know, contractors are, are looking from engineers is, Hey, give me that design criteria. Let me know how to design this. Um, and do it just that way. Where, you know, uh, engineers have to know is that, hey, if a contractor gives the submittal in, don't just sit on it for a month and a half or two months and then send it back rejected. Just cuz they spelled something wrong on the title block without reviewing the actual content of the, the working drawings and saying, Hey, everything's good on that.

(45:58)
Um, cuz we, we do see that. And uh, that's one of the, the things that's kind of funny though. It's when I, when I first started, you know, diving into the topics of, you know, engineers and contractors, why can't we just get along? I was talking to my youngest daughter on it and, uh, and, and she's a, a little bit of a, a smart alec, I would say. And, uh, and I said, you know, I, I, she asked me what I was gonna give a, a seminar on. I, I kind of told her what it was, and she said to me, she goes, oh, dad, I, I know the reason why there's a problem. And I go, well, I go, well, what's that reason, Keegan? She goes, well, you gotta understand. She goes, engineers have really, really big egos . I go, so really, so that's, that's the problem, Keegan.

(46:43)
She goes, yep, that's the problem dad. And I said, well, I go, Keegan, I don't have a big ego. She goes, no, dad, you don't, you just have a real big head . That was the way she, she kinda put it out and, you know, the, from the, from the, you know, the, the way you know, the reality of it, of it is, is that egos can get in the way, especially in, you know, construction projects. Sure. And we've all been part of, uh, you know, sitting at those round tables with people start getting mad at each other, banging the table, the, the voices get loud, but again, as if we understand each other's points of view, right. It can, it can actually doesn't have to devolve into that.

Drew Slocum: (47:23):

Right. Yep. No, I agree. It's communication and yeah. Understanding, you know, point of view of, of different people in the, in the process. And I think that goes into anything, you know, if you can, if you can understand the stakeholders and what their end goal is and what what drives them every day, I think you can come to a, you know, a better agreement or just a better process in general.

Doug Nadeau: (47:48):

And, and that comes and, and it goes right back around to, you know, the ethics part of it is if the engineer is act acting ethically and providing the contractor with the correct design criteria, that that's how you can even least start out on the right step. Right. You know, that, that's, then you gotta ask the contractor, please bid it ethically, make sure that, you know, if you see a problem in the bid yet, ask an rfi. Don't, don't just sometimes wait to hope you get that change order later.

Drew Slocum: (48:17):

Yeah. It's wild. It's wild that, you know, that's how things happen. And, uh, the they wait, they wait on those change orders and, you know, a lot of that's driven, I think from obviously competition and, and general contractors really beat that down as well. You know, they beat down the prices so much that, um, you know, there's no room. So they, they hope to get that change order and it's the only way they can make money sometimes on those projects. So it's, I almost feel like general, you know, my brother works for a general contractor, my sister has worked for a general contractor. I just, you know, they, they have their, their need out there, but I don't always see, they're more in it for the money than I feel like anybody out there . I don't know. I have, I have my opinions on general contractors and maybe I can have one on the podcast soon to, to chat about their, their ideas. But so,

Doug Nadeau: (49:13):

So the one thing I will say, drew, that's in the sense of a general contractor is, you know, if you're a building owner and, and you have a project owned out to bid, it's much easier from a contractual standpoint having one guy that you have a contract with

Drew Slocum: (49:29):

Totally.

Doug Nadeau: (49:30):

Rather than, you know, e contracts with these different

Drew Slocum: (49:33):

Subcontracts. Yep. I, I get that. And that's why, that's why they're there. Um, I just seen in the last five to 10 years, it's, they've, they've caused a little bit more disruption than it's probably needed. And I hope my brother, I hope my brother listens to this podcast so he can come back at me .

Doug Nadeau: (49:56):

Well, he could be part of the solution. He doesn't have to be part of the problem. Right,

Drew Slocum: (49:59):

Exactly. Exactly. I I know he, he specifically works with his subs very well, but you know, that's an ego thing too. You got an ego with the engineer, you got an ego, and, and that's not everybody obviously, but you know, they wanna do their thing. And, um, yeah. Uh, communication, like you said, communication and point of view is, is important. Understanding the different people, stakeholders,

Doug Nadeau: (50:26):

And we, and we've seen that like in the process, just even the RFI process, if a, if a contractor's asking an rfi, I mean, one, you gotta ask the contractor to write a very clear, concise rfi so that way, you know, an engineer that's reading it kind of knows what they're talking, you know, like what they're actually being asked. Right. And then the next step is that engineer has to respond to that r RFI in a very timely man manner, um, with a direct answer, not a, a wishy-washy answer or, or one that tries to shuffle off the responsibility back onto the contractor. And, you know, those are the, again, it's part of the process and the communication is the inspection, testing, and maintenance, all, all, all along. They'll be able to know that, hey, I got a, I got a problem coming along here. And then they could come up with some game plan for, uh, capital investment. Mm-hmm. of a replacement of, you know, potential parts.

Drew Slocum: (51:21):

Right.

Doug Nadeau: (51:22):

So, and, and you know, another thing that we also tell building owners all the time is it's actually not a good thing to over maintain your fire protection systems to go above and beyond the testing schedule that, that N F P A 25 calls out. Because if you look at a sprinkler system, for example, every time you test that system, right? Let's say it's a wet pipe system and you want to test the flow switch, and an owner says, I want to be really aggressive and test it once a month and make sure my alarms are working. Every time you test that system, you're bringing new water into the system and that new water is full of oxygen and that oxygen's gonna allow for more corrosion to happen.

Drew Slocum: (52:05):

Right?

Doug Nadeau: (52:06):

So, you know, it's, it's testing and maintenance of your, your fire protection systems is very important. But at the same time, when you do have an owner who, you know, wants to do the right thing, you also gotta try to keep them in line in a sense to not, not go too overboard.

Drew Slocum: (52:26):

Right. Or, or have a inspection testing system that's internal where you're not introducing new water. So I know there's technology out there to do that, and there's some other, yes, we're coming out, we're, we're coming out with some analytic devices for, for dry systems here soon. That'll, uh, I think it's gonna be a game changer for dry systems inspection, testing and maintenance wise. So,

Doug Nadeau: (52:48):

Real cool. Yeah,

Drew Slocum: (52:49):

That's good. Yeah. So, um, we're coming up on an hour here, so, uh, I will look, I, there's probably a lot more we can chat about, but, um, and I'll, I'll definitely have you guys on again here soon. I've got a lot of engineering topics that I have thoughts for, but, um, so what, I mean, we appreciate

Doug Nadeau: (53:08):

You, uh, asking us on

Drew Slocum: (53:10):

Yeah. No, no. So before, before I leave, have you guys listened to the podcast yet?

Doug Nadeau: (53:16):

Yes.

Drew Slocum: (53:17):

Okay. You know, it comes at the end, right?

Doug Nadeau: (53:21):

Uh, you ask about a superhero, is that it?

Drew Slocum: (53:25):

It's the quick response round. So I need, I need, I should have a little, uh, a little lingo there or a little, uh, music intro for that. But, um,

Doug Nadeau: (53:36):

You have the intro for the, the beginning of the podcast.

Drew Slocum: (53:39):

I do, I know I should have, I should have my editor put something in, but so quick response around quick, quick, uh, quick answers for this. I don't want you to get too detailed cuz we're, we're kind of running late on time now, but, um,

Doug Nadeau: (53:52):

Okay.

Drew Slocum: (53:52):

And you guys can, I, I want you to do this separately, and this is personal opinion. Um, so we'll, let's, let's start right off the bat. Um, I know what Doug's gonna answer on this one, but

Doug Nadeau: (54:08):

,

Drew Slocum: (54:10):

I, I'll, I'll go, I'll go with Chris. Chris, R p I or wpi.

Doug Nadeau: (54:17):

That's not fair, man. ,

Drew Slocum: (54:20):

I didn't say it.

Doug Nadeau: (54:21):

I, I, so well, so I will say yes. I said earlier that, you know, WPI trumps Maryland, but, uh, you know, uh, RPI has got a much better football and hockey team. So , so is that, is that a good political answer for you

Drew Slocum: (54:36):

And the golf team too?

Doug Nadeau: (54:39):

?

Drew Slocum: (54:42):

That, that's, that's a good political answer. I, you know, uh, well, I mean, Doug, what do you say? Cuz you wouldn't have found Chris if he didn't wear an rpi.

Doug Nadeau: (54:51):

I wouldn't have found Chris, I wouldn't have, uh, Glen to freeze that works here. I wouldn't, you know, it's, I'm very appreciative to RPI with, uh, with who they, you know, for the basics that they put out with the fire protection and then allows people to go on to WPI for their master's

Drew Slocum: (55:07):

Degrees. No, no, that's great. So, um,

Doug Nadeau: (55:11):

So, so that answered that question.

Drew Slocum: (55:12):

Yeah. No.

Doug Nadeau: (55:13):

Or am I just,

Drew Slocum: (55:14):

I I always, I always gotta rub it in WPI people when I, when they come on here.

Doug Nadeau: (55:18):

One thing I can, one thing I can't say Drew, real quick in defensive RPI is, uh, you know, way back in the day, I don't, I don't know the exact timing, but in like the 19, 1960s, I'll say RPI was actually the first school in the country to teach a fire protection course. And not very many people know that fact. Well, I, but of course people know it now. Course Chris learned that fact, learned that fact from a WPI professor that started the WPI program. So

Drew Slocum: (55:46):

Did that stem back to Frederick Orne? Maybe

Doug Nadeau: (55:52):

It was, uh, it was, uh, Bob Fitzgerald at wpi. That kind of, that told us that.

Drew Slocum: (55:58):

So, okay. Um, quick, uh, quick, uh, quick others, uh, bud Light or Miller Light?

Doug Nadeau: (56:06):

Bud Light done next. .

Drew Slocum: (56:09):

All right. Easy.

Doug Nadeau: (56:10):

I I, I didn't hear Coors Light in there. So .

Drew Slocum: (56:14):

Yeah. Okay. Uh, and last one here, before we get outta here, would you rather design a storage system or a foam system?

Doug Nadeau: (56:24):

How about I design a phone system to protect storage? done that personally. I, I just prefer phone systems, so I like designing phone systems. They're more fun.

Drew Slocum: (56:36):

Yeah, they're definitely a lot more fun. Um, well, thanks guys for Yeah, that's pretty much it on the podcast. I, I'd like to get into true review at some point, Doug and, and Chris when, when we get into that. Sure. But, uh, yeah, thanks again for, for coming on with me today.

Doug Nadeau: (56:51):

All right, thanks Drew.

Drew Slocum: (56:52):

Thanks guys. Thank you for tuning in to the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect point. Want to thank again, Doug and Chris for coming on the podcast. Uh, the discussion kind of went along, went and kept going. Uh, I could, I would love to have 'em on here again. So, uh, thank you for listening and I appreciate all the, uh, good words SA said about the podcast and just trying to get some great information out to the masses. If there's any suggestions ever, uh, for podcasting in the future or any topics, uh, be f feel free to reach out, whether it's on the LinkedIn channels or to me directly [email protected]. Thanks for tuning in.

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum: (00:09):

This is episode 13 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today my guest is Matt Rice. Matt is the CEO and Co-founder of Bryer, the compliance engine. I wanted to have Matt on to discuss the compliance engine, mainly cuz it's a kind of a newer idea in the fire protection industry where, um, there are different software solutions out there that are being provided to the, uh, HJS fire departments and other entities, uh, throughout the country, which manages compliance of fire protection systems and other, other things, other systems that the AHJs have to deal with. The compliance engines, one of the, uh, the large ones in the industry. Um, Matt and I have, have dealt before on some, some ideas on some things, and, uh, wanted to have him on to talk about compliance issues with hjs and what we see moving forward. So, um, great talk with him. We really get into the data side of fire protection as well, and where we see, uh, data being very powerful, not only to the hj, but the industry in general. So, really excited to have Matt on and, uh, please subscribe and pass the word along on the Fire Protection Podcast. Thanks for listening.

(01:33)
I wanted to give a quick plug and update on the, uh, Inspect Point side of things. Um, been hard at work on the development side. Keep onboarding a lot of customers. Everybody's been, uh, uh, very happy with what we've been doing. Uh, the California forms, uh, have been a really big hit in California with the, uh, inspection, testing and maintenance for sprinkler and suppression. Uh, fitting, fitting fitting the California needs. But we have a really big launch coming in December, January timeframe, um, in inspect points, really been inspection proposals and some sales features. But we're finally gonna figure out and complete the last piece of the puzzle. And that's the service and work order feature where you'll be able to dispatch a technician out for fixes and service for an issue for deficiency. It'll all be attached, uh, within, in Inspect Point to the inspection to what, uh, system that you're working on.

(02:32)
So that service order will be able to just be dispatched to the tech through the iPad app. Also, you'll be able to attach material and get it back to the office within a reasonable time. So, really excited about this service piece and, uh, it's gonna put us to a different level. So if anybody has any interest, reach out to Inspect Point and or myself, Drew @inspect point.com and make sure you reference the podcast when you do talk to us and we'll give you an extra 10% discount. I've got Matt Rice here. Uh, Matt is the CEO and co-founder and ceo, right? Matt?

Matt Rice: (03:09):

Yes, correct.

Drew Slocum: (03:10):

Of, uh, uh, of Brier and, uh, compliance engine. Uh, I wanted to have Matt on. I've, I've, I've, I've been, uh, industry pals with Matt for the last few or a couple years since we met out at, uh, uh, an N F S A event a few years ago. And, uh, you know, there's a lot of, um, interest in the software realm, obviously, uh, said spec point. Were into, into that, and Matt and his company, um, is into that as well at a different level. So a lot of times we get kind of pushed together in the same group, but we are a, a totally different, uh, softwares for, for different, um, kind of stakeholders in the, in the fire protection process. So, wanted to have Matt on just to, to chat a little bit about, uh, compliance engine with the, what they're, what they're seeing out there for fire protection. So, uh, yeah. Welcome Matt.

Matt Rice: (04:03):

True. Thanks a lot for having me. Appreciate it and looking forward to the opportunity to, uh, talking with you here the next half an hour to hour.

Drew Slocum: (04:09):

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good. Um, so let's do a little intro. You know, you wanna give a little intro about yourself, maybe a little bit about the company Sure. Why, why you got into fire protection. I, I'm always interested in how, uh, how that happens.

Matt Rice: (04:26):

Yeah. Well, a little bit on the company first is, is, you know, Bryce and its 10th year. And, uh, our product is the compliance engine. You know, we're based out of, uh, Warrenville, Illinois, just about 30 minutes west of Chicago. And, uh, you know, how we got into this was, is actually the Illinois Air Illinois Fire Sprinkler Contractor Act in Illinois was requiring that all fire, fire protection system inspections of 25 systems be submitted to a copy, a copy of it be submitted to the hj. And that was, you know, a paper based, uh, manual reactionary process being done. And so Brian Schultz, who founded the company with me, uh, approached me while I was working at Ann Insurance. So I've been in the insurance industry for 17 years, and he was a, uh, service provider, uh, for a local contractor here in the Chicagoland area, and said, Hey, what do you think about this from an insurance perspective?

(05:20)
And as we continued on those conversations, we said, Hey, we got something here. Yeah. And from there, we, you know, there, there's a solution to, to make this more efficient, right. Utilize technology, utilize the web, and bring that to the fire departments and the fire prevention bureaus in particular to make their jobs easier. Right, right. And allow them to do more with less. Um, so, uh, we researched it with, um, Illinois Fire Marshall Association's executive board back in the time, 10 years ago. And, and they all thought it was a great idea and told us, Hey, you need to make this simple. Um, and so we decided that, uh, at that time in our lives, an entrepreneurial effort to get into it. I had touched fire protection from the insurance aspect. Brian was a service provider. It was a natural fit. I had some technology background, and in a way, we went. And that's been, uh, 10, 10 great years. And as any entrepreneur, you're an entrepreneur with inspect point. Uh, you know, the journey has been, um, enlightening educational, and most importantly, it's been a blast. And, uh, we've been able to drive benefits to our customers.

Drew Slocum: (06:24):

Yeah, that's, that's nice to hear. I'm, I'm, I'm glad. Uh, so how, how did you know Brian before? I mean, you were in, you were insurance, so did you just deal with him in the insurance end or was it, cause I know he's been in fire protection for a while.

Matt Rice: (06:38):

Yeah, no, Brian's been in it. Brian has been in it for about 15 years. When I got together with him, um, he actually married my cousin, and that's how I got to meet him.

Drew Slocum: (06:48):

Oh, there, there you go. All right. , uh, yeah, I met, uh, I met Brian a few, uh, a couple months ago when, when, when we were out in Chicago. So that was, that was good. Um, so yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm always interested to see how people get into fire protection. Usually it's not the, you know, the most standard way. It's, uh, usually,

Matt Rice: (07:09):

Yeah. You know, I, you can look at it. I, I wasn't a fire engineer, you know, I had it from the insurance perspective of it, and then certainly there's still an insurance play to what we're doing. I don't know, you know, the market and industry and a couple spots are, are ready for it. But, um, you know, what it was, it was an opportunity to make something better and really give back and, and deliver a value added solution to an industry that, uh, was the enticing piece for me. You know, Brian still on fire, but he wanted to do something entrepreneurial as well, and, and make a difference. And, uh, that's how, that's how, you know, the, the marriage, so to say, uh, occurred between the two of us as far as business partnership and the start of bryer.

Drew Slocum: (07:48):

Nice. No, no, that's great. Great story.

Matt Rice: (07:50):

Um, and a really, and a point of clarification here is nobody's name here is Bryer. My last name is Rice. His first name is Brian with a y. Hence, we merged those together and got Bryer.

Drew Slocum: (08:01):

I see. I, yeah, I, I think you, you mentioned that to me before, but I was wondered what Bryer was, and then some people say Bryer, and then they say the compliance engine or he CE E. So

Matt Rice: (08:14):

Yeah, we get people who call and ask for Mr. Bryer all the time. .

Drew Slocum: (08:19):

That's great. Um, so yeah, little intro about yourself. So I guess, you know, there's a lot of, uh, we got a lot of listeners out there, most of them obviously in fire protection, but you know, we're, we're in tune to what, what the compliance engine and what you guys are doing. I guess for the layman's terms out there, what is, what is, what are you doing, I guess, what is the software? What's it providing?

Matt Rice: (08:43):

Right. So we do outside, um, we do outside just the fire protection system. So I'll give you kind of a general term of what we do, and then I'll get more specific under the fire, fire side of the house. But, you know, Bryce's product to compliance engine, it, it's a software service vehicle. Uh, it's web ho, you know, web-based. And the whole purpose of it is, is to drive compliance with the adopted fire codes or whatever code it may be as it pertains to inspection, testing, and maintenance of some sort of system or apparatus. Uh, right. So in the fire protections and, and we cover fire protection systems, backflows elevators, fat oil, grease. Um, and so, uh, we got a couple other ones we can talk about later when, when you get into, uh, you know, the, uh, gas detection systems and mm-hmm. , and that's kind of an interesting story because that's all around the, the, the marijuana growing facilities that are growing rapidly across our country.

(09:35)
So we can talk about that later. But, so anything that really requires to be inspected, tested, and maintained by an authority, having jurisdiction and has a third party contractor who performs those inspections for the buildings. Um, we are a communication vehicle and they go between, or clearinghouse, however you wanna call it, for those two to accomplish the goal of ensuring that, uh, all the fire protection systems in the country are inspected, tested, and maintained on the frequency that they're required to at a minimum with the reality of is on an annual base at a minimum. And mm-hmm. . And that has really to do with the, the capacity at the ah, HJ level. Right. Um, today in, in the industry, people may have heard it called third party reporting, you know, drew, you've heard me say in the past. Yeah. Uh, I think it's misnomer. I've told the, you know, then ITM summit meetings. I think it's a really misnomer, I think you guys get lumped into third party reporting when you talk about inspections office for

Drew Slocum: (10:27):

Some reason. Yeah.

Matt Rice: (10:28):

We're more on the contractor side. So, yeah. And I think over the years, and that's just, that kind of stuck 10 years ago when, when we created the market, right? We were fir you know, we're a market maker when it comes to this, right? Its market didn't exist before. And so it kind of was there for about eight year, nine years this year. The nfsa, AFA and the naed, you know, published a position paper on it. And I think the NFS a was really the driver behind it. And, you know, they, they've kind of come to the conclusion that third party reporting didn't make sense either according to their position paper. Cause they're not calling it ITM reporting services. Mm-hmm. , I can live with that. I think that's way better than third party reporting. I still believe, and we believe here at Brier that, you know, it's a compliance solution, service or application would be a better, you know, moniker for what we do or classification of what we do.

(11:15)
But, um, so to clarify that, yes, technically, if you've heard third party reporting, that would be more bresser, um, that's dealing with the communication and the tracking and the aggregation and the enforcement of, of the fire inspection takes and maintenance part of the codes, uh, between the service providers and the AHJs. Um, so we did build this system, right? So if you really wanna look at it from, I'm not sure what perspective you're looking at this, uh, those listening, but we really built this originally for the hjs, right? Mm-hmm. , you know, in 2008, you know, you had the financial crisis, right? And budgets were cut. And when budgets are cut, prevention bureau or in a fire department, prevention's usually one of the first places they look to get rid of spots. Right? And so they were tasked with doing more with less, right? They had pub ed, they had, you know, plan reviews, they had investigations, and they had enforcement of the code.

(12:08)
And so, um, we were able to be a resource for them and a tool and save them time, allowed them to do more with less. So we're really, we built this, uh, for the hjs, uh, we contract directly with the AHJs to adopt this. When they adopt this, it becomes required in their jurisdiction that any third party contractor or service provider inspection test maintenance company out there, uh, has to submit a copy of the report of the, you know, the inspection, testing and maintenance report that they provide, that they perform Yep. And submit it to the HJ through us, right? We aggregate that track and make it easier for them to review. We highlight deficiencies, we send out notifications on deficiencies. We send out past due notifications to a building owner to in a renewal notice, um, et cetera. But the whole goal of driving compliance mm-hmm.

(12:55)
, right? If, if, if these systems, these fire protection systems are compliant, they're gonna work in, you know, in case of an incident, we're gonna, you know, protect lives and building and property and investments. So, um, that's really what we do. Uh, you know, if you really wanna sum it up now, all that kind of detail, it's a risk mitigation tool mm-hmm. , right? It helps jurisdictions understand where their risk is and where their risk is lessened. It allows 'em to focus on those areas where they need to maybe better enforce their code, right? Right. What are the, what are the common deficiencies that we maybe need to go do better education? So it's a pure prevention, uh, tool to help our, to help our HJ brethren out there, um, do their job Yeah. And do their job well.

Drew Slocum: (13:36):

So, so you got fire water elevator, and I saw that on the website. Obviously you guys are getting into other things. What is, is the Vegas sector, it's gotta be fire, right? Fireside,

Matt Rice: (13:48):

Uh, fire, that's where we got our start. Right? And that's what, you know, that is, um, our largest portion of our, our business is fire today.

Drew Slocum: (13:57):

Yeah. It's interesting, you know, fire, and obviously we're in fire, but we're in, we're in water in the backflow side, you know, fire seems to be across the board, you know, there's standards across the US that provide a pretty good template on what you should be doing. You know, what the code is, what, or what you should be referencing. At least the water side seems to be all over the place. So, uh, you know, there's, so it seems like there's so many water jurisdictions and backflow forms out there. Um, do you see the same thing when you, when you, I know we're, we wanna focus on the fire side, but the question I ask No, sure. Good question is, is it, is it all over the place? Like, like we see?

Matt Rice: (14:40):

No. I would tell you that fires more all over the place than, than backflow. There, there are more jurisdictions for backflow, right? Um, if you wanna, but when you look at it, I mean, there's really, you know, a, a fire alarm or a sprinkler inspection report, right? They vary greatly across the country, right? Yes. You have templates and FPAs put stuff out there, N fsa, afa, they've all put stuff out there, but these contractors use their own forms and in most cases, and then you have inspection softwares like yours, right? Where you guys will customize the report for however the contractor wants to use it. Mm-hmm. , um, and the fire departments are on different codes all over the country. Different versions of ICC 2012, 15, some are on nine, heck, we've even had some here as recently in Illinois, they're still on the Boca codes, right? Some are on NFPA one Oh. And the water arena, you know, really kind of EPA drives a lot of that, right? So, and you know, you know, and I'm, I'm o over estimating this, but, or over summarizes, but there's really only 68 key, you know, data elements that they need to capture when, when kind of looking at that. So we don't see, we see a mass, we see it differently, um, a much more dynamic or diverse reporting debt element capturing on the fire side than we actually do on the backflow side.

Drew Slocum: (16:01):

Yeah. That, that makes sense. Those, you know, at the end of the day, you're right, 68 key elements for that, those backflow devices. It just seems like every, every jurisdiction wants something different. So I, I'm, I'm totally for you going after the water side of the business too, to, to kinda standardize that a little bit. Um, so that, that, yeah, that's great. Um, on the fire side, what, so you said fire alarm, fire sprinkler, do you get involved in the other fire and life safety aspects as well?

Matt Rice: (16:31):

Yeah, so I mean, we'll track whatever the HJ wants us to track, you know, we'll, the main ones are sprinkler and fire alarm, but Right. You know, our, our 25 and 72, right? Mm-hmm. stamp pipes, fire pumps mm-hmm. , we track hood, hood suppression, hood cleaning, private, private hydrants, you know, in, in Los Angeles for example, we track automatic closing door assemblies, right? Oh, wow. Um, up in Seattle, right. We're doing, you know, we're doing, you even now we're doing the, you know, we're doing the, uh, uh, the first response, the, uh, BDA testing Yep. For radio transmitters. Oh, wow. Um, we do fire escapes in certain jurisdictions, and that's an interesting one, right? Cuz there're not too many companies in the country that actually do inspection, testing, maintenance of, of fire escapes, to be honest with you. But, um, so, but, uh, you know, those are the systems that will track any, any fire. You know, the, the one we don't is probably a better way to put it is, is we don't track, you know, extinguishers, portable extinguishers.

Drew Slocum: (17:33):

Yep. Yeah. It's gotta be,

Matt Rice: (17:34):

And that's

Drew Slocum: (17:36):

So funny. It,

Matt Rice: (17:37):

It's difficult for multiple reasons, right? A lot of those are, you know, they're taken out mm-hmm. and swapped and then recalibrated, you have a, you have a strip mall or an office building where in some one someone's lease, they're responsible for their fire extinguishers where the other, the building is. And you, you just don't know who the responsible party is, and there's no report required in N FPA for it, right? No. They tag it, they punch it and they go,

Drew Slocum: (18:00):

No. And maybe it's more at the building level of how many, how many are deficient, and I don't even know where, you know, I don't know how, again, you have to ask your HJ Yeah. Ask your customer and what, you know, if they have interest in that or not. So

Matt Rice: (18:15):

Interesting. Right? So, but yeah, I mean, you know, kind of 25, you know, I would tell you is number of systems we're tracking, fire alarms are the number one, they're just more of 'em out there in the country than there are sprinklers. And then sprinkler's number two. And then, you know, we get to the kitchen hood systems. But, um, that kinda, hopefully that gives you a flavor for what we'll track on the fire side.

Drew Slocum: (18:35):

No, no, that's good. That's good. Uh, now you mentioned, uh, hjs contractors. Are those the only, what are, I guess, what are the players involved in your system? Who's entering, I guess the, the whole, you kind of explained the process a little bit, but who are, who are the main players, I guess, or all of the players

Matt Rice: (18:56):

As far as, well, you have the AHJs, right? The authorities having jurisdiction. Yep. Um, they're the primary player there, right? Uh, well, primarily there are our first point of contact Yep. Uh, player. You have the service providers. Yep. Right. Um, and, and then you also have the buildings mm-hmm. , right? And so the buildings are ultimately responsible or the, you know, building owners ultimately responsible for having make sure that this, their systems get tested and maintained. Right. Right. Um, and so it kind of gets into, those are the main three main players, and then you throw us in there as a nucleus to make sure that the communication between those three is met. Yeah. And the primary communication is between the service provider, the contractor doing the inspection, testing and maintenance, submitting a copy of the report to the authority, having jurisdiction. Yep. Right. So, and then we sit in between, in between those two. Right. Gotcha. Um, so those, those are kind of the, those are the main players. So, you know, any, any anybody who inspects testing and maintains fire protection systems on the service provider side and the HJ are really the primary two as far as the process goes. You know, big winner and is the building as well. Right? Yeah. Uh, the building's ultimately responsible for it, and it's a way to make sure that the building's doing what they're doing from an AJ's perspective. Right.

Drew Slocum: (20:15):

Yeah. I, and you mentioned insurance earlier and I'd be sure, really curious to see where their role and, and it, this doesn't seem to be there now, but you know, obviously there's a lot more inquiries from the insurance industry and kind of this deficiency, risk mitigation process. So, uh, you, you think they would get involved in it quicker than they are, but, um, and maybe I, I, I see a little bit on our side, but have you seen the insurance on, you know, re requesting, you know, information from you guys?

Matt Rice: (20:48):

It's pretty, that's actually pretty fascinating story to date, right? You know, I had 17 year history in the insurance world prior to this. Right? So, and, and you would think, um, when we started this, we went to all the, you know, large property, um, you know, insurance companies and, and, and asked them and there wasn't much interest one cuz one, we didn't have really any case study to show 'em, right? We didn't have a customer base. And two, at the end of the day, they have their all have their own underwriting models that are built by actuaries and actuaries Right. Are using their 10 years worth of claims information and purchasing information from other entities and building in their, their all, they're all actuarial models so that their underwriters can take a look at the risk, you know, where they located, you know, part of the country's, all this stuff goes into the underwriting.

(21:35)
You know, the interesting thing in this is is that though, if you don't do this, if you don't have your systems inspected test and maintained, it clearly leaves in your, and, and I can't say every policy cause I haven't read every, every insurance company's policies and they've changed over years. But if you don't have your, your systems inspected, tested and maintained, and you have a claim or you have an incident at your, at your property and you file a claim and they ask if you've had inspected, tested and maintained, you've got a, you've got a potential serious problem. Yeah. Because you're in violation of your, of your insurance. Right. Uh, policy. So, you know, and there was a case of that in southern Indiana and I, and I'm, I'm drawing a blank on the venue, uh, on the name of the, the business. But it was a venue that had a hotel and it, it had, you know, um, uh, a musical venue and, uh, you know, the pipes had burst.

(22:23)
Oh. And the ITM had noticed it told them and they didn't get it fixed for three or four years. Right. So, hence one of the benefits of us is the HJ now knows and can enforce the maintenance of this low. And both they had a fire, thankfully no one was hurt, but, you know, it was a millions and millions of dollar claim that was filed and they were turned down because they knew their pipes were burst. Wow. And they did not continue to have the system maintained or inspected the following year. So, um, so we are, so why I say it's fascinating is, is that we are now getting, you know, based on our breadth here at the, at Bryer and you know, we're in 38 states, right? And, you know, we've got six of the largest 10 largest cities in the country on board and, and we're continuing to grow.

(23:06)
They're now wanting to see this information mm-hmm. can they have access to it, right? And so I think that's all part of the whole trend where fire is going and then the world and all businesses is, look, data is great. We wanna be able to turn in info so that we can better mitigate our risk. I think it'll end up helping eventually, you know, we can talk about ISO ratings in a jurisdiction, but I think it can help with the firmer pricing of a risk of a building based on what system is it has and where the common deficiencies and violations in those, and tie that all into their whole risk model. Uh, cause this is just a portion of their risk model for sure. But I think it can help firm up some of the pricing on the prevention side of the house.

Drew Slocum: (23:41):

No, no, I agree. I think, uh, I think over the next 5, 5, 7 years that'll become more of a factor and hopefully, and it should drive obviously better compliance and, uh, our platforms and better fire protection. So

Matt Rice: (23:56):

I think it may be even sooner than five years. We've already got a couple states, which I'm not at liberty to share at this point in time, but that are already actually gathering this information from the AHJs. Cause I think it's one thing important for, you know, for people to understand is, you know, it it for least to rice and the compliance center, we don't own the data. It's the, it's the authority having jurisdictions data, right? Yep. So, um, all access to that information, you know, to the insurance companies comes through the HJ and, you know, they're all getting ISO rated, but, uh, there's a couple, um, state, um, insurance organizations that are now taking a look at this data. So yeah. Here it's not where it needs to be and it's certainly gonna grow. And I think you're right, probably where it'll be it's most effective as the next five to seven years.

Drew Slocum: (24:36):

Yep, yep. Yeah, I'm, I'm glad you guys are kind of on the same page as, as us, at least on the, uh, on the data side. Cuz you know, our customers, our contractors purchase the, you know, software, so they should own the data at the end of the day and do what they want with it. So,

Matt Rice: (24:54):

Um, right. And, and our customers, the HJ customer does not purchase our application. Right. Our application is zero cost to the authorities having jurisdiction. Our customers on the, on the contractor side, they pay a fetus, submit a copy of this to the, to the ahj. So, but even then, right. At the end of the day, uh, this is about, you know, life safety mm-hmm. , and the goal is to be compliant and keep people safe and buildings, you know, uh, safe and, uh, whatever it takes to do that, you know, um, that is ethical and, and moral and within our realms, we're gonna help the AHJs do.

Drew Slocum: (25:29):

Yeah, no, I agree. So that, so, so the, the big advantage, obviously on the ahj side, there's, there's no cost. You know, they're getting all that data. They have a dashboard of all their, you know, deficient buildings or whatever. Um, I know, you know, over the years seeing these compliance softwares out there, certain, certain contractors, I, I've, I've seen mixed, mixed feelings across the us and actually it's starting to become more of a positive reaction. Um, you know, once something, once a compliance system is, is required for the jurisdiction. So you wanna kind of shed light on that and kind of the process there and what's, what's the advantages and if there is a disadvantage or maybe dispel some of the disadvantages out there.

Matt Rice: (26:20):

Yeah, and I absolutely, I mean, what you said was, was very true. There, there are, there are mixed feelings. Um, those mixed feelings are in favor of, of, you know, a ITM reporting system, like the compliance tension, uh, and heavier than, than they were six years, you know, two years ago, certainly, oh, four years ago. And clearly when we started, um, because we have many jurisdictions where we've been introduced by the service providers from the simple vein that what we do has proven to drive compliance mm-hmm. , and when compliance is met, it solves some of the problems that the service providers were having. You know, when Brian was out there, you know, he was turned away from business because they hadn't seen anybody from the profe, you know, they hadn't seen a fire marshal or inspector in, in three years. And they said, until I get somebody here from the fire department tell me I have to do this, even though it's part of the code, I'm not gonna do it.

(27:15)
Right. I'm gonna save the 200, 304 bucks, whatever it might have been. Yep. And so, and, and so that was a challenge. And, you know, and, um, upon, you know, that we did a survey and, you know, um, and it's over a thousand hjs. And, and the hjs believe, and, and our 10 years in business have proven to proven to be accurate, is that over 50% of the fire protection systems in any given jurisdiction go uninspected tested and maintained on an annual basis. Wow. Now that's 50% of the contractors' market that they're not generating any revenue on the inspection side of the house. Right? Right. And then you take that right now in our system across a million buildings that we're tracking, uh, that's just buildings, um, 33% of all those buildings have fire protection systems, right. That come in with some deficiency of some sort or another, right?

(28:09)
Mm-hmm. , and they certainly, you know, fluctuate on the severity of de but there's maintenance revenue there, right. And now with applications like the compliance engine, the HJ with a, literally with a click of a button can have a notification sent out to that billion dollar notifying that we're aware that you have your headset, you know, the sprinkler heads are painted or whatever it may be, you know, and they can have those corrected that's driving maintenance revenue to, um, to the service providers. You know, I've been on numerous panels, right. And in Illinois, we had a contractor mentioned that, uh, you know, their, their maintenance revenue was up 33% year over year. Wow. In jurisdictions were, the compliance editor was implemented. I had another contractor from a large national say they hadn't done that kind of analytics study, but they say that we have nobody on the bench.

(28:59)
Was their response in jurisdictions for the compliance engine engine is Wow. So they're getting the maintenance work. Right. So yeah, I think, you know, I think the benefits are, are more than just, you know, an electronic software and, you know, for the AHJs, I just gave a bunch of benefits for the, for the contractors. Right. And so for the contractors think about is is where we're implemented, we see a 72% increase in fire protection systems that are tested and repaired. Yeah. Um, on the backflow side, we're seeing 63%. Wow. So that's, that's work. Yeah. Um, and, and so, and in most cases, the contractors are passing this fee onto the business. So when you look at, um, at a cost of the service providers to submit this as their, their customers, um, it's really not costing them many hard dollar costs. Right. They can have some administrative side of it.

(29:49)
Sure. Yeah. Um, but many of these already had to email 'em or mail 'em in, or hand deliver them. I mean, and, and jurisdictions, right. The, you know, the pass process. And we're just trying to make that simpler for everybody and a win-win for everybody, the AHJs, you know, it's a resource issue. Right. Um, it's a huge resource issue for the hjs mm-hmm. , you know, it's also something that probably, um, isn't talked about enough is, and this was brought to us by fire chiefs and study that they had done, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's limiting or it's decreasing the amount of unwanted nuisance alarms that they have to respond to mm-hmm. , right? Yes. Right. So, and, and if you look at the N FPA had done a study, uh, there, um, that, that showed that, you know, th about 32 and half percent of unwanted nuisance alarms were due to lack of testing and maintenance on the fire protection systems. Wow. Well, when a fire department responds right. To a false alarm. Right. It varies every jurisdiction as they sit on a truck and a ladder or an ambulance, or what are they sending that has costs? Costs,

Drew Slocum: (30:52):

Yeah. Varies.

Matt Rice: (30:53):

It has hard dollar costs on wear and tear on the rigs and, and just gas take that. So that's cost that the, the jurisdictions are incurring, which again, is always gonna come back to a budget, which is always gonna come back to taxpayers. It also has, uh, you know, a, a softer risk as far as dollars are concerned in that. And, and probably even a bigger downside, unwanted news alarms is they're not able to respond to real incidences. Oh. If they're responding to unwanted news alarms.

Drew Slocum: (31:22):

That's right. If they're, if they're too strapped. Right. Yep.

Matt Rice: (31:25):

Right. And so Andrew, you've been, you've been in the industry a long time. You, you understand that, you know, the fire departments, uh, aren't, don't have an abundance of resources. No. And, um, you know, the more they can focus on, you know, real incidents, the better off they are. Right. I mean, heck, you're, you're, you've got inspection software to check these systems to inspect 'em, to make sure they're working so that you know, you, you're fighting that same battle. Your software will help reduce Right. The number of, you know, um, false unwanted nuisance false alarms. Sure. Cause you guys are gonna be checking that your, your, your, your customers are gonna be making sure that those get inspected tests maintained. We're gonna help make sure that they need to get maintained. And they're getting inspected as well from the hjs, right? Yeah. When 50% of the fire protection systems and billings aren't getting inspected, testing maintained, that's a problem. Yeah. Should drive business to your customers. Hey, you know, that's a huge one.

Drew Slocum: (32:17):

Yeah. You think spending, you know, hundreds of, you know, tens of hundreds of thousand dollars on a fire protection system, the least you could, you know, the least thing that you could do is maintain it. You know, you spend all the money to do it, you know. Right. Not only, yeah, I know there's a risk for the fire, fire and safety risk, but you think you would wanna maintain your system same as you would your, your H V A C plumbing, electrical. But I guess, you know, sometimes fire gets, you know, it's more of a passive thing and people don't notice it a lot of times. So

Matt Rice: (32:49):

No doubt. You know, a fire chief told me that, uh, hey, look, uh, two things. He never wanted to see anybody die in his watch. And too, he wanted to build, he wanted to build an environment to, to ensure that it was safer. His firefighters, the citizens and the guests, right? Mm-hmm. . And if we're all collaborating to, to drive to that, it, you know, I see this as, as a win from, from a much bigger picture than, you know, um, just compliance, right. Compliance should keep it safer and keep people in buildings safe. And, um, you know, it, it's, it's a win-win for all.

Drew Slocum: (33:20):

Yeah. No, no, I, I agree. Now, you, you did kind of touch on, uh, the, you know, you have the, you have, you have the cost for the contractor, which, you know, is baked into the, you know, the price, which I could see, I could see that easily, uh mm-hmm. being done, but you said an indirect cost, which I know there's some, there's some talk of it out there. Um mm-hmm. of, of making, of getting, if we can get the information together from the contractor faster into your system. I think it's a, it's a home run. And I think contractors will, uh, will totally flip once I think once that occurs, um, you know, there will, there'll be no negative and I think, I think it'll, it'll push, push compliance software into more jurisdictions even faster. That, that's my opinion. But, um, and I know

Matt Rice: (34:11):

Yeah. And, and you're referring to APIs, correct? Correct. You're referring to APIs to, to companies like yours. Yeah. And I mean, I kind of, you know, if you look into the future, right? And, and we, we've had some of these conversations is is that we are headed in that direction, right? Yep. Making the APIs available, right. Um, you know, there's like anything right there, there's a cost, indirect cost, like you said. Correct. That indirect cost is being incurred by most of these jurisdictions today anyway. Cause you know, we've done a study, we can tell when somebody entered a report to when they submitted it. Right? And on average, it takes you 63.4 seconds to submit a report. Okay? Right. On average, some are gonna take a little bit longer if they got deficiencies with the compliant reports. If you look at that and then you look at it, if you're just emailing it, it's, it's almost equivalent.

(34:56)
Mm-hmm. . Now, I do agree with you, we got into this, you know, we got into this to take an archaic process, or not, not archaic, but a more manual process reaction and make it more efficient mm-hmm. , right. Um, and more cost effective and drive better communications. Correct. And so, um, yeah, we are, uh, we believe and we agree that, you know, allowing systems to talk to each other. I think, I mean, you might have stated earlier in the, in, in the conversation that, you know, um, not, there's not one software system that's gonna do everything for everybody, right? And so, but can we have those systems talk to each other? In today's world, you know, you guys built yours with, you know, open architecture as well as we did. You know, systems are, it's easier for systems that should be able to talk to each other.

(35:44)
Now that said, writing the APIs and making sure it works, you and I can do from the technical perspective very easily, it now comes down to know, to the layman's side, doing the actual work of mapping these systems together or mapping their customers to what the HJ has or mapping from inspect point to the compliance engine. And you know, and there's different variances of what happens in different AHJs and it's an education process. And I think that's probably where the biggest challenge, um, on the API side integration side of the house is. And I don't think it's from the technical perspective of it, and you can even go further onto that as you move forward with apps. Right? Right. You know, building apps on your application to make it even more simple for, um, the contractors to submit reports, um, and the hjs to review the reports and all that kind of stuff.

(36:32)
So yeah. I mean, computing, uh, power doubles, you know, what every two years and, you know, doubles in strength and, um, and it's moving faster than maybe moving faster that in today's world. And we're just trying to leverage everything that's out there to make it easier for everybody else. And Yeah. Yes. The answer to your question is yes, we love to be able to see the contractor softwares, those contractors using inspection software, talk to ours. Yep. Um, uh, without having to submit it back to somebody, uh, at their office to submit. Yeah. Uh, cuz for me, from my perspective, right, if you wanna take this not from a business perspective, that just increases my cash flow.

Drew Slocum: (37:13):

Sure, sure.

Matt Rice: (37:15):

Right, right. There's no delay. Uh, there's less delay, you know, but we also have, uh, realities of the business world is that, and Drew is that some contractors and one really large contractor doesn't want their technicians sending anything out until it's reviewed by somebody in their office. Right. Um, well,

Drew Slocum: (37:33):

I see that, I see that most, I see that most often. We see that most often. Is there, there there's a review process, but that's quickly reviewed and then, you know, pushed into your system very quickly cuz you know Yeah. It's not always the most, you get very accurate, detailed information we can and I think that's very powerful to your HJ at the end of the day too. So, um, it's coming. It's, we're, we're almost there. So

Matt Rice: (37:58):

I agree.

Drew Slocum: (37:59):

Yep. Um, I agree. So any, anything else going on in on kind of future we're with Bryer Compliance Engine? I know you kind of touched on a couple different sectors you're going after. Um, is there anything else that

Matt Rice: (38:12):

Yeah, we were in, yeah, well, we'll be continuing to look at new verticals. Right now, our three main verticals are, you know, the number ones fire, you know, then you have, uh, backflows close second and you know, you have the elevators, um, right. Cause they're, and there's different departments within each jurisdiction. Um, you know, you got Fat Oil and Grease, which kind of is a separate division in some cases with the backflows, but same department, um, you know, the whole gas detection system thing, you know I mentioned earlier mm-hmm. , that, that's kind of fascinating. Just with this whole rise with the marijuana, marijuana growing facilities out there. And that's a, you know, something that's now having to be tracked. Cause it's a higher risk that the US didn't have before. What is it? A gas?

Drew Slocum: (38:53):

A gas from an off-gas?

Matt Rice: (38:55):

It's a gas, it's a gas detection system from the marijuana growing facility. So what, what they put in there to grow these, you know, to grow the weed. I don't know, you know, someone be like Joe Rogan, it's a good thing. You and I are, you know, pulling a Joe Rogan here, . But, uh,

Drew Slocum: (39:14):

I do listen to a lot of this podcast. So I do have, uh, you know, uh, do you have

Matt Rice: (39:17):

An idea what I'm saying? I

Drew Slocum: (39:19):

Have an idea what you're saying. Elon Musk, now ,

Matt Rice: (39:23):

You know, in Seattle, um, in partnership with Seattle, we created the first, um, BDA testing form for the, you know, for the, uh, radio transmitters Oh. Is becoming a bigger issue, an issue. And you know, when, when you're having, if you look at the trends in fire and one of them's, you know, mass, mass reaction or, you know, for first responders and they get into a big building and they can't talk to each other and all that stuff. So that's becoming a bigger issue. We're seeing more and more requests for that. And we're pretty proud of the fact that, you know, we were able to partner with Seattle who's gonna be tracking it here and start officially in the next month. And we are able to come up with a form and, um, that everyone in that Seattle works in that jurisdiction will have to use their form.

(40:03)
Seattle uses standard forms for everything, um, standard templates for all of their, their, their fire protection systems. So, and then I think you're gonna see in the future, um, with us is, is, you know, we kind of look like we're a nucleus, right? We talked about those APIs, we're kind of that go between that nucleus at Keystone for systems like yours and communication with HJ and H ha's record management system. You're gonna see more of that from us. And you're also gonna see, I think, uh, the importance of data. This isn't specific to us, but how we play a role in it. Right. I think you're probably seeing it, um, the importance of data and the information that provides, right? Is it massive industry, industry trend, uh, trend and the fireside. Right? And I think we're gonna play a vital role in that trend as it relates to long-term impacts of some of the, of, of the fire codes and the code changes and code adoptions and Right.

(40:50)
Um, right. You know, data's meaningless unless you can turn it into information and take that information and analyze it and turn it into, uh, something positive to move forward with or to focus on. And, you know, we have, we're inundated with requests for the data from that perspective, right. Again, we'll play a role with our AHA partners in helping them if they decide they wanna share that information. But, you know, from the insurance companies, from manufacturers, um, to community risk reduction consultants, to risk mitigation partnerships, all those from NFPA with their data initiative. Sure. Those requests are from, from iso. All those folks are requesting information to change the model to improve it in the fire industry. And I think we're gonna play a big role in that because there's nobody out there, um, that is collecting more inspection, testing, maintenance data than Bryer.

Drew Slocum: (41:49):

Than Bryer. Yeah. Now you guys, you guys are obviously, if you grab the jurisdiction, you grab, you know, everything that's done there. Um, yep. Yeah. It's pretty powerful. And I, I, I think, you know, uh, another fi I mean you guys, you guys already had a great set of data, but I think it's just gonna get better and better and, um, you know, we'll be able to make smarter decis decisions as an industry over that in the, in the, probably less than five years we'll be able to start doing that. I think there's gonna be an initiative to push that way. It, it's funny, I, I've talked to different manufacturers cuz that's the realm I came from and it, it's funny that they're great at making product designing, product innovating, but they don't know, they don't have any data on the product, which is, it's kind of wild to think, um, that they make the product but they don't know what it's doing. And I think that's where we fill those voids. So

Matt Rice: (42:45):

I agree with you and you know, it, it's gonna take somebody, right? I mean, I know that FDA's got some initiatives going out there and, and others do, but it, you know, I think it's gonna probably come from the vendors right out there in the marketplace and, and that can help really deliver this. Um, I think that it's gotta be a collaborative effort between vendors to help, you know, when I say vendors, I mean software vendors. I mean inspect point Bryce or the others to help come up with this data and help make fire, you know, whether it be the codes, whether it be, you know, the processes and procedures, whatever it may be, the focus on education, all that stuff. The fires can do that and fires behind the times when it comes to that. Mm-hmm. mean, if you look at the funding that goes to police, right?

(43:31)
And people could argue, well, we have bigger problems that we need more police. Well police have been using data for 10 years, 15 years. They're 10 or 15 years ahead of where fire was. Yeah. And utilizing data. Wow. Right. I mean, I know that. And so you've got companies out there that are working with, for example, the Western Fire Chiefs has, uh, you know, a partnership with a, a big data company to help hjs benchmark off each other and do things. I think you're gonna start seeing more of that. I think companies like yours who capture the data and provide it to mine can also feed, um, these big data lakes that are out there, you know, and they can extrapolate that data, normalize it, and, and, and make things better for, for everybody out there. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, that's kind of where I see it going.

(44:19)
If it's where us going and know continue to be, you know, our goal is to have every ahj in the country using us for, for the prevention efforts. And, um, and from there, uh, act as a nucleus to communicate, you know, make it more efficient communication between companies like yourselves and your, and, and your, um, end customer and, and, uh, with our end customers, uh, the hj and, and really drive efficiencies, drive data, which will create good information, which will help people mitigate risk better and, and analyze what they need to address, um, in a more timely and resource centric way.

Drew Slocum: (44:57):

Yeah. No, that's great. That's great. I, I, I think we, uh, I I've been, I've been wanting to have you on this podcast for a little bit and, uh, it's kind of, uh, you know, I try to, I try to kinda gear around the future of fire protection a little bit cuz that's what we're doing. So trying to get some innovative companies on and, and you guys are by far, uh, you know, on, on that side of thing, connecting the contractor with the hj. Um, I think that's, that's very powerful. So, uh, um, so I, you, I don't think you've listed, you may have listened to the podcast, I don't know if you have, but at the end of every podcast, I have a quick response round. So I I I fire off a couple questions for you. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna pigeonhole you or anything, but they're pretty fun. So is this like

Matt Rice: (45:45):

David, is this like David Farty

Drew Slocum: (45:47):

in my, I haven't seen Farty. I haven't seen one of it, but, you know, quick response, sprinkler, you know, I don't know. I I thought of something to, to kinda lighten it, lighten it up before we, uh, take off here. So, okay. I'll have to watch one of, I, I haven't seen it in a while, but, um, uh, I know, I know you're big into golf as well as I am. Um, if you had to choose to go to the, um, final round of the Masters or the Sunday of the Ryder Cup in the US what would you pick?

Matt Rice: (46:23):

Masters.

Drew Slocum: (46:24):

Really?

Matt Rice: (46:26):

Yep. Oh,

Drew Slocum: (46:27):

Man. All right. All right. I'm the opposite writer

Matt Rice: (46:30):

Crowd. The crowds aren't 20 people deep at, uh, the Masters versus the, versus the Ryder company only. You're only following, you know, you're following about a 10 to the amount of players at the Ryder Cup than you are at the Masters, right? So, yeah.

Drew Slocum: (46:44):

Yeah, good point. Good point. There's just so much energy at the Ryder Cup. It's, it's, uh, and there is at the Masters. Not saying there isn't, but I've never actually, I've never

Matt Rice: (46:53):

Been to the, I've never been to the masters either, so I'd really like to go see Augusta.

Drew Slocum: (46:56):

Yeah. I haven't seen the Masters, so I, I can't, uh, one of these days I'll get down there. You gotta you gotta get a Augusta Fire department on board. There you go.

Matt Rice: (47:07):

Right.

Drew Slocum: (47:08):

Matt Rice: (47:09):

And, and, and, and then, and join them on their, you know, on the next inspection,

Drew Slocum: (47:14):

. Yeah. They're, they're not gonna have

Matt Rice: (47:16):

Augusta Nationals.

Drew Slocum: (47:17):

They're not gonna allow, uh, I wonder who has that contract?

Matt Rice: (47:21):

, yeah, I wonder.

Drew Slocum: (47:22):

Um, next question. Uh, more technical. Um, do you, are you a a Mac guy or guy?

Matt Rice: (47:31):

Pc.

Drew Slocum: (47:31):

Pc. Phone. Phone. iPhone or Android?

Matt Rice: (47:36):

Android.

Drew Slocum: (47:36):

Oh, all right. Okay. You have a good little flavor. I'm, I'm, I've converted to Mac and iPhone and iPad. It, uh, have you, yeah, so the Mac's not doing too well today because, uh, we had audio issues and we're late on this podcast, so , it's not, I dunno, that's right. No, .

Matt Rice: (47:57):

So I was, I was raised on, you know, the PC and, uh, my family's all Mac people now, but, um, iPhone people, but, uh, yeah, I like what I like.

Drew Slocum: (48:07):

Yeah, no, that's, that's good. Um, I know the answer to this question, but not, you're a Chicago guy, so, uh, Cubs, Sox, Cubs or White Sox,

Matt Rice: (48:19):

Cubs, Cubs, Cubs, white Sox, I think they're a minor league team we have on the south side of Chicago.

Drew Slocum: (48:25):

And, and follow up to that, what, what's going on with the Bears?

Matt Rice: (48:31):

Um, no offense, uh, a quarterback we moved up for that is not performing to his level that he should, but, uh, it's more than that. Our offense lines weekend. Um, you know, you probably can cut all that out of this, but yeah,

Drew Slocum: (48:47):

I'm an Eagles fan, so, you know, we're not, we're not,

Matt Rice: (48:50):

Well, you don't have a lot to say then either. I don't,

Drew Slocum: (48:53):

But,

Matt Rice: (48:53):

Uh, at least you're not a Jets fan.

Drew Slocum: (48:55):

At least I'm not. Yeah, that was, that was rough the other night. And I've, I'm in Connecticut, I'm in New England country, so it's, uh, it's kind of funny all the, uh, the comments made around here. ,

Matt Rice: (49:08):

I went to school in New England and all, and I got a lot of buddies out there. I, I know. Thank God I went to school in days when Michael Jordan and the Bulls were dominating the basketball, uh, world,

Drew Slocum: (49:17):

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were on the, you were on the good side of that. Uh, I was, well, that's gonna wrap it up here. Um, do you wanna, do you wanna get any message out? Do you wanna give your contact or you know, how to reach, uh, Bryce or a compliance engine if, if people are interested or, um, you know, any questions on it?

Matt Rice: (49:36):

Absolutely. Uh, and one, first I wanna thank you for having me on, drew. Uh, really, you know, drew, I really enjoyed the conversation really, um, and, and really like what you guys are doing. And, uh, and I think this is a great way to get out to the people, um, what's going on in the industry. So I, I applaud you for your efforts. Um, I can get ahold of us, you know, you can reach out to me, Matt Rice. We've got a whole team of on the business development side as well. Our main line is 6 3 0 4 1 3 9 5 1 1. Uh, or you can reach out to info. I nfo my Brier, that's my m y b r y c e r.com. Uh, with any questions, comments, or, you know, concerns, we do have 24 7, 365 customer service. So if you're a service provider and you've got a question or a concern you wanna ask somebody, please give us a shout and ask. Um, and if you are an HHA who's listening and want some more information, uh, reach out and ask for, we're here to help. And, um, look forward to, uh, talking to you.

Drew Slocum: (50:37):

Yeah. Now, thanks Matt for, uh, jumping on the podcast.

Matt Rice: (50:41):

True, thanks. Have a great day.

Drew Slocum: (50:44):

I want to thank my guest again, Matt Rice from Brier, the compliance engine for joining me on the podcast today. Uh, really great talk about hjs, uh, different softwares out there for the hj, uh, how it can interact with other, other contractors and, uh, other people's businesses to make fire protection better for every party in the industry. So, uh, again, thanks Matt for coming on and see you again next time.

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum: (00:09):

This is episode 12 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guest is Devin O'Leary. Devin is a training manager at Johnson Controls up in Cranston, Rhode Island. He heads up the training center, the Frederick Grinnell Education Center in Cranston, which houses a lot of, uh, the Tyco product, the Johnson Controls product now, uh, training facility for Sprinkler, mainly sprinkler, some suppression, uh, huge fire pump room, uh, live fire testing as long, uh, as well as I think there was about 16 risers in their facility. It was a great day. I've been up there prior in, in past years. They've definitely grown it. And what we discussed is essentially fire protection training in the industry, where it has been, what improvements can be made to it, and kind of the future of that going forward. Uh, toward the end, we get into some digital technology as well, uh, near and dear to our hearts here at Inspect Point. So, um, yeah, hope you enjoyed the podcast, and, uh, make sure to subscribe.

(01:28)
Just wanna give a quick little update on the Inspect Point side of things next week from October 2nd through the fourth, uh, inspect Point will be at the AFSA show out in San Diego, I believe we're booth number 8 0 9, so feel free to stop by myself, Britteny and Nick will be there, uh, debuting some of the new, uh, modules that we have out. Our, our proposal features, our sales features. Essentially, it's almost a mini CRM within the platform for fire protection, so please, uh, stop by. And, um, yeah, we have some big news coming up with some, uh, big, uh, module releases toward the end of the year, as well as some, uh, digital technology coming out here soon. So please stay tuned and keep tuning into the podcast. Enjoy.

Drew Slocum: (02:21):

So, we're here at the, uh, Tyco, uh, Frederick Grinnell Education Center here in, uh, Cranston, Rhode Island, uh, here with, uh, Devin O'Leary of J jci, the old Tyco, uh, fire Protection Products. So,

Drew Slocum: (02:36):

Um,

Drew Slocum: (02:39):

Yeah, we're here at the training center. Wanted to go over a little bit on, uh, just what they're doing here, what the benefits of, of training platforms are in the industry, and kind of the future of that moving forward. So, uh, thanks Devin for, for joining. Thanks for having me. . Uh, you wanna give a little background yourself? Where you, I, I know you a little bit.

Devin O'Leary: (03:01):

Yeah, sure. For the, for those of you that don't know me, uh, Devin O'Leary, been with Johns Controls Tyco since, um, 2013, January 1st. Um, so coming up on seven years, worked for FM Global at their large scale fire testing and research facility in West Gloucester, Rhode Island, um, for almost six years prior to that. So, been the industry close to about 13 years. Um, was a trainer here for a long period of time, and then became the manager of training about, uh, two years ago this past June. So,

Drew Slocum: (03:31):

Great. Yeah. Why, uh, you know, I came on, I started my career with Tyco. Most people probably know this by now, but, uh, this, this facility has been big to learning for a lot of different professionals in fire protection. So, why, uh, why name a Frederick Grinnell, by the way, ?

Devin O'Leary: (03:50):

Well, um, if you've been in this industry for any period of time, you know, Grinnell is, uh, kind of a staple name in the fire protection industry. And with that being said, uh, this site we're on today in Grantson, Rhode Island was actually the, the original Grinnell site from the early and late 18 hundreds. So we started in 18 69, 70 ish, when Grinnell purchased a manufacturing, uh, company for fire extinguishing apparatus. Um, he then started to sell a sprinkler from a gentleman by the name of Henry Parmley mm-hmm. , who was a piano manufacturer. Um, and he started to sell that on a royalty basis. And when that one while doing that, he realized he could improve on this invention, come out with something a little bit better. Yep. And 60 chain patents later. Here we are. Yeah. Was that

Drew Slocum: (04:37):

The link?

Devin O'Leary: (04:38):

Yeah, the Grinnell sprinkler was the first one. He was the one that separated the, uh, heat activated, heat sensitive element from the water. So the pond sprinkler had a lot of, um, interaction with the water and the piping network, so it took a little bit longer for it to activate. Gotcha. So ll was the first one that came out with the quick response, fast response sprinkler by separating,

Drew Slocum: (04:58):

Separating those two. And

Devin O'Leary: (04:59):

Then for those of you don't, I put the quotes up, the quick and fast response , they weren't fast. Probably wasn't very fast. No. .

Drew Slocum: (05:06):

Uh, for those who haven't been up here, if, if you ever get a chance to, to come to Rhode Island, I don't know if you, do you allow any fire protection professionals come in? Just look at the museum?

Devin O'Leary: (05:16):

I mean, with a quick email or a phone call, I would've No problem with that.

Drew Slocum: (05:19):

Um, highly recommend it. It's awesome. It's, uh, it's a great history lesson in, in fire protection, not only fire sprinkler.

Devin O'Leary: (05:26):

Yep. Yeah. It, it's home to about, um, I'd say 150 sprinklers out there. And we have a actual, an actual museum in the training facility that's a hundred sprinklers, 150 sprinklers, both pro prototype band manufactured ones they're on, are on glass display cases. There's, um, old castings. There's old documentation from the 18 hundreds of all the stuff. We,

Drew Slocum: (05:50):

We got his desk out there too. Right. We have his

Devin O'Leary: (05:51):

Desk out there that him himself and his son both used. Wasn't there

Drew Slocum: (05:54):

A story back in the, uh, somebody found something in the desk? No,

Devin O'Leary: (05:57):

It's locked. That's the story. It's, it's still locked ax. It's still locked. Um, nobody's opened it. Nobody's opened it. Drawer locked. We could have 65 more fats or a hundred year old banana. We don't know what may be in there. .

Drew Slocum: (06:09):

Are you

Devin O'Leary: (06:09):

Serious? Yeah. It's locked. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (06:11):

Nobody's opened

Devin O'Leary: (06:11):

It. Nobody's opened it. Why? I don't know. It's a skeleton key. Nobody's, it's kind of been the, oh,

Drew Slocum: (06:16):

Come, come on.

Devin O'Leary: (06:18):

been a story we've rolled with over the

Drew Slocum: (06:20):

Years. You should bring in one of those, uh, you know, those, uh, net geo channels, you know, bring it and open it up,

Devin O'Leary: (06:26):

Do an x-ray of it, or look and look, look through it. Right. Yeah. That's cool. But yeah. But the, the, the museum is a, is a, is a, an awesome spot for, for us to use on our breaks. We do it part of our tours on, on your break time during the trainings that going on here. People like to roam around it and take pictures and look at the stuff there. If you're into history at all, and, and you're in, into this industry at all, um, it's, it's a really good place to be.

Drew Slocum: (06:53):

Cool. No, that's great. Frederick Grinnell's, uh, near and dear to our, our hearts at Inspect Point, cuz he's an alumni of our, our, uh, rinser. Yes. Rpi. Rpi. Yeah. I always gotta point that out to the deputy p folks out there. Yeah. So I've done it a a few times, but, um, yeah, we're fine. Okay. Little background noise. You know, I, I, I did a, the second to last podcast at a bar. So , it's nothing that we're not used to, but, um, yeah, no, the facility up here, I wanted to get into, uh, really, I know there's a lot of sprinkler, um, training here. You have, how many risers are there?

Devin O'Leary: (07:36):

16.

Drew Slocum: (07:37):

16 risers,

Devin O'Leary: (07:38):

Functional risers. There's

Drew Slocum: (07:39):

Two, uh, two rooms for,

Devin O'Leary: (07:42):

Yep. So with the fire demonstration cells, which, um, are connected to the sprinkler risers, um, and whatever training we're doing on what product we're doing, on what type of system we're doing, we can showcase how that system actually works in a real fire event.

Drew Slocum: (07:56):

Okay. So you're setting off fires. We're

Devin O'Leary: (07:58):

Lighting the fire Wow. Sequence of events. You see this fire growth, we, we yell at the times and temperatures throughout the fire. The sprinklers activate eventually, if it's a dry system, for example, the air pressure would discharge off the sprinklers, the valve would eventually trip water would start to flow and we'd start to control that fire. Right. To show the, the students how that actually works in a real fire event.

Drew Slocum: (08:17):

Right. No, it's the, there's a third room too. I, I, I don't think I've ever

Devin O'Leary: (08:21):

Seen that. So the, the third room up, up in the back of the ramp, that's our suppression area. Um, we do support our special hazard and suppression system business, um, being, for example, Ansel. Yeah. Um, it is our sister company. Um, we have two, we have a foam pump skid. We have a foam bladder tank that are both functional. Um, we can dip, dump into the, the discharge and discharge into the fire demonstration. Oh, really? Fight with a foam. Yep.

Drew Slocum: (08:45):

Oh, you put an alcohol or something, or

Devin O'Leary: (08:47):

A, we put a, we put a heptane Heptane fire. Just a fuel fire. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have, um, two gastric systems, Sapphire and Enogen, both functional, and we have statics displays due to do some TM on 'em. Um, we have kitchen hood systems.

Drew Slocum: (08:59):

Do you let people still, uh, go in the, the discharge from the south fire? No, and I, I did

Devin O'Leary: (09:05):

That. Just got ahold of that

Drew Slocum: (09:06):

One. Yeah. Right. , that's why I, I went, so I was up at Ansel Fire School for, um, for Ga way right before I left Tyco. I think I did the whole school where you fight the fires. Yeah. It was just awesome fire. It is a, it is a dream if you're in the fire protection industry to go to Hansel Fire School. But we had, um, for some reason we got to go toss sapphire. But after the, after the discharge, you got to go in the room, which I thought was a little weird. Yeah. But your vo my voice, it doesn't go high like helium. It went no low. And I felt like I was, uh, pretty Morgan Freeman or something. .

Devin O'Leary: (09:46):

You should use that for your podcast voice ,

Drew Slocum: (09:48):

Right? Yeah. But, uh, so, so you don't let anybody in there anymore? No.

Devin O'Leary: (09:55):

And then the last room we have is, uh, we have, we also support fire, the fire pump inspection, testing, maintenance world out there because it's a huge piece to the puzzle. I mean, we have no, uh, footprint in the fire pump or driver industry as a manufacturer, but from a technical training standpoint Oh yeah. It's a huge piece of the puzzle if it's, if it's needed. Yeah. And it's a huge driver to a lot of the trainings that go on

Drew Slocum: (10:16):

Here. Yeah.

Devin O'Leary: (10:17):

They're usually touched off. And we have a diesel driven, electric driven and a vertical turbine fire

Drew Slocum: (10:21):

Pump. Yeah. And, and, and I think I've been to maybe one or one or seen one of the fire pump trainings. It it is pretty accessible what you guys do here. Yeah.

Devin O'Leary: (10:30):

We can flow upwards of 1500 gallons a minute in the building.

Drew Slocum: (10:33):

Yeah. And you go over all the tm, all the startups, 60 nuts. Yeah. Yeah. For all three different pumps. Yes, sir. So across from that though, there's another room That's the spray,

Devin O'Leary: (10:42):

The spray room. Yes. So we have about, um, 20 sprinklers in the ceiling, um, from all walks of life, really. Even back to the first parlay sprinkler. So you're talking 1880 technology. Yeah. Um, and we actually discharge that. Um, and we can go, we walk through, through all the way up to modern day technology from everywhere from residential sprinklers, attic sprinklers, storage sprinklers, just to show the discharge patterns, the, um, design approach around them and the application. They're used for Windows sprinklers, a lot of, a lot of different sprinklers used. Um, and showcased through a, what we call our spray demonstration. Cool. We activate the sprinklers with an iPad

Drew Slocum: (11:17):

And we talk Oh, really? Yeah. We,

Devin O'Leary: (11:19):

It's all wireless relays. What do you use wireless relays and

Drew Slocum: (11:23):

Like an app or something?

Devin O'Leary: (11:24):

No, you just connect to a router and just hit a wireless relayr. There's an app on there on the solenoid, you know, a web base, and you activate the solenoid and whatever one you hit, discharges water.

Drew Slocum: (11:32):

Really.

Devin O'Leary: (11:33):

And so from the instructor standpoint, you can speak through it and just by hitting a button, it's not very difficult to keep the attention of the voice. Just turn on the extended

Drew Slocum: (11:40):

Coverage. Oh yeah. K2 five. I remember back in the day you had to go behind the wall.

Devin O'Leary: (11:45):

Nope. Not

Drew Slocum: (11:45):

Anymore. Like the Wizard of Oz back

Devin O'Leary: (11:47):

There. , we've, we've, uh, come up with, we've come Right, we've come up in technology a little bit and automated a lot of our stuff. That's cool. Thankfully. Yeah. Yeah. .

Drew Slocum: (11:56):

That's good. Um, so again, and Devin will give out how to, how to get up here, you know, at the end of the, at the end of the podcast. Uh, but why is training, you know, I kind of understand it, but for the listeners out there, why is, it's a pretty easy question. Why is training important? But we'll, we'll kind of dive into that as we talk

Devin O'Leary: (12:15):

About it. Yeah. It is an easy question. I mean, from the, from the common sense standpoint. However, when you really start to dive into it, it, it's, it's such a valuable asset to one, make a strong team. I mean, you start training, let's forget what we're doing now. What I do on a day-to-day basis, you start training at such an early age, you're trained how to do things from birth to, through elementary and middle school, through high school, through college. Sure. And to think that it needs to stop at a certain point, right. Because you're doing your profession or you're doing your job. Right. Is is crazy. Yeah. I mean, it also is a good way to, to say thank you to your people, I think Right. Adding some employee reten, it adds employee retention. Mm-hmm. , I mean, they say 40% of employees that aren't equipped to do their job within our correctly. Yeah. Whether it's trained effectively, they'll leave their position within the first year.

Drew Slocum: (13:07):

Right. Really

Devin O'Leary: (13:08):

With the 40%. Wow. It's a big number. If they're not trained effectively to do their job that they've been hired to do, they'll say, and how much of that 40% are you losing of good employees? Right. And just not being trained and brought up to speed and the job they're required to do.

Drew Slocum: (13:23):

Sure, sure,

Devin O'Leary: (13:24):

Sure. It's a big number. Um, engagement of employees, training employees is and giving them growth opportunities. Yep. I mean, it's a perfect way to show them the company's invested in them and their future. Yeah. And you're only gonna promote good results from and, uh, for the company if, if the company, if the employees feel needed, if they feel wanted. And you're investing time and money into them. Right. Training's huge.

Drew Slocum: (13:47):

Um, yeah. I know being, you know, coming up through the, the Tyco ranks, uh, back in the day, that was one of the big things that kept me around, honestly, for, for as long. And it, you know, was there for 10 years and went through a lot of their different training programs and it, it provided value. It made me want to go to work every day. And it made me more powerful as a heck Yeah. As a

Devin O'Leary: (14:10):

Professional. That was my next one, was good old fashioned skill development. Yes. I mean, you're, you're, when you train and you develop the skills to do your job correctly, effectively, efficiently, um, you're just gonna have a positive impact as an employee on what you do. You're gonna feel good about what you do. Sure. Cause you're confident in what you're doing. Sure. And the business is just gonna benefit from that. Right. So, um, those are just three big ones. Right. There's so many more that are, that are out there that just, that there's so much that can go into, into what good training and development program for employees can

Drew Slocum: (14:45):

Do. Yeah. I mean, and training can be multifaceted, but why, why here? Why, why hands on?

Devin O'Leary: (14:51):

Well, we don't only do hands on, don't, let's, let's, um, but we do a lot of, I mean, we have a 50 person auditory. Yeah. We teach a lot of PowerPoint based trainings mm-hmm. , however, to drive home the training we're doing and connect a lot of dots with the training that we're delivering in the, in PowerPoint, we're able to come out here and put it to a practical learning skill. And in this industry, the people that we're training, the type of trainings we're doing around standards and inspection and testing, maintenance standards, for example. Yep. The only way you're really gonna learn how to do it is to actually do it. Yep. So to be able to go out there and touch a dry valve, pull the clapper out of a dry valve. Right. Inspect it, look inside of it. And that's not just a dry valve. Any valve that matter. Yeah. Take it apart and actually touch, feel, see how it works is a lot of people learn with their eyes. It's Sure. It's, it's not learning in their hands. Yeah. Outside of learning from a, from a PowerPoint. Yeah. Put me in a room and a PowerPoint. This is just talking about myself, but halfway through it, I'm thinking about other things I have to do later. Right. What's, you know, what's going on with my fancy football team? Yeah,

Drew Slocum: (15:59):

Yeah, yeah.

Devin O'Leary: (16:00):

Right. Um, it's, it's, there's, it's hard to keep people's attention in the classroom. It is. However, when you get into an environment where you're putting the students and you're making them learn, you're making them do the learning by putting their hands on it, it's kinda hard for them not to be paying attention. Yeah. Cuz they're actually doing work.

Drew Slocum: (16:17):

Yeah. It, it, it, it's, it's interesting you say that. We've, uh, uh, you know, with the, so with our software, we've started partnering with different, um, training centers around the us. Some of them are, are locals, uh, sprinkler fitter locals. Some of 'em are, are training facilities for specific companies as well as just other manufacturers. They wanna bring a general air has a brand new training center. Sure. Which is, which is great. I think you guys are, are you going down there at some

Devin O'Leary: (16:46):

Point? Yeah. We're, we're planning a training down there in the next couple months. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (16:49):

So,

Devin O'Leary: (16:50):

Um, we're closely with them. Often they're

Drew Slocum: (16:51):

Bringing in different manufacturers, obviously, and, and trying to get just the knowledge out there. Obviously they wanna get their knowledge out there about their air compressors. And that's, you know, obviously you wouldn't have this for, for no reason. Exactly. But the more knowledge out there, the better equipped, uh, the companies are to do that. So

Devin O'Leary: (17:08):

Without a doubt,

Drew Slocum: (17:09):

Uh, those hands-on facilities are, are, are powerful even on the software side of things. Mm-hmm. , which is, I never thought that, but, um, the fire protection industry is super hands on. You need to be,

Devin O'Leary: (17:21):

And, and just to talk to that point more, we, we do something similar with Simplex. Yep. Up at, up in Westminster, mass, where they have a whole hands-on training facility on programming. Really, um, all their panels on walking through how to step-by-step processes with 'em. It's very similar. Not so much similar to, I mean Sure. Fire alarm compared to sprinkler. Two different, two different industries. Yeah. However, same premise. We're gonna teach you some on the PowerPoints, but then we're gonna let you actually do

Drew Slocum: (17:44):

The work. I would like to get up there. , I might have to pick you out. I know somebody, you know, somebody up there. I've always wanted to get up there and, uh, you know, I've heard it's this great campus and everything. Cause obviously Simplex being a huge, uh, you know, one of the big panel manufacturers. So, um, I gotta get this podcast more driven toward fire alarm. I know, I know. I'm a sprinkler person at heart.

Devin O'Leary: (18:07):

Sprinkler Groover.

Drew Slocum: (18:09):

But, um, and suppression. I've done a lot of that as well. But fire alarm. Love to get more deep into that. So, so yeah, we've obviously training's important. Onsite training's important, you know, the PowerPoint's important. Um, where, where do you see that kind of the next, what is the next step of training?

Devin O'Leary: (18:33):

That's, that's a good question. I mean, obviously there's, there's pros and cons to technology and the VR side of play from virtual, virtual training and, um, online based training, which we, we have a platform for. Yeah. Um, but, uh,

Drew Slocum: (18:49):

Wanna see online platform,

Devin O'Leary: (18:50):

Uh, online tech exchange.com Okay. Is something where we have all of our, um, intern, our external, excuse me. Customers can go on, they can create a username and password. Right. They can get access to roughly right now, I think there's about 15 to 20, uh, already pre-recorded e-learning Sure. Webinars on there about all different types. NP 25, they

Drew Slocum: (19:11):

Have to be a customer

Devin O'Leary: (19:12):

Or you just sign up anybody You can just do general enrollment and sign up. Yep. Wow. Anyone? Yeah. Um, just would sign up under the general enrollment, um, tab. There is one that says authorized distributors and yeah. However, just sign up under general enrollment. You'll gain access to it for free. Yep. And then you'll also gain access to all of our live trainings that we do here, um, as well. So you could even register for a live training here and see the costs and what the course objectives are. Sure. Long, uh, the duration of it dates all the above. And Yeah. Our training coordinator keeps, keeps that pretty up to

Drew Slocum: (19:44):

Date and Okay,

Devin O'Leary: (19:45):

Great. Up to par. Yeah. So that's all available to anybody. Um, but to answer the question, I f see a huge benefit in online based trainings. Um, also as well as virtual reality based trainings. However, this industry, I feel what, what you and I had just spoke about a moment ago, putting your hands on it is where the rubber meets the road. Mm-hmm. , I mean, I can physically go into that classroom, kick all the attendees out and put things that aren't supposed to be there in place. Um, like for example, pull a rip, pull a good gasket out and put a ripped one in so it's Right. Plugged something that's not supposed to be plugged. Um, and then have the student or the attendee come back in there and figure that problem out in troubleshooting. Cuz at the end of the day, you're not showing up at a facility if you're an inspector.

(20:32)
And in this example, because the system's in perfect working condition. Right. You're there because something's wrong at two o'clock in the morning and you need to figure out how to make that thing work, um, and get it back into service. So I feel that putting your hands on it and, and, and, and engaging that piece of equipment and troubleshooting it from that standpoint is the most effective way to, to, um, to, to train. However, there's a lot of, I see virtual reality is huge. Mm-hmm. being able to walk around a valve with your phone Yeah. And see the see it or bring up the technical data sheets or pretty cool data information just from scanning a QR code on the, on the valve is, is pretty interesting. I mean, technology has come a long way since, even since Im in high school, the

Drew Slocum: (21:12):

Scanning, and I've brought this up before , it's gotta get better from the manufacturers. Uh, and um, we got a fire alarm going off. I hear that. Yeah. Is it testing or, uh, we gotta get out here. No, it's

Devin O'Leary: (21:25):

Testing.

Drew Slocum: (21:25):

Alright. Alright. Um, yeah, on the manufacturer side, like there's a lot of data that I think is being missed. Um, you know, with our software, we're, we're gathering a lot of this deficiency data where, where products are, what, what is going on with them. And, you know, the manufacturer puts on a QR or barcode just to pull up a data sheet. There's a lot more I think you can do with that. And I think it's moving that way, whether it's with R F I D tagging or, uh, smart QR codes that do that, do more powerful things Sure. Than just Sure. Just pull up a data sheet. And I think the vr um, the, the VR, you know, is a good first step or you know, maybe it's the next step. Exactly. I think because there are younger techs that can get that.

Devin O'Leary: (22:14):

And that's for I was gonna say that too. I'm gonna, I'm excited to see where it can go because just from, I mean, I'm young still and so are you for that matter, however, just to see where technology has gone in the last 10

Drew Slocum: (22:25):

Years. Yeah. I can't,

Devin O'Leary: (22:26):

I'm only more excited to see what's gonna come

Drew Slocum: (22:28):

The next 10 years. It's something cool. It's,

Devin O'Leary: (22:30):

It's all in your hand.

Drew Slocum: (22:31):

All in your hand, you know

Devin O'Leary: (22:32):

What I mean? It's all sitting there right in your hand. I feel like you're gonna have a lot more ways of connecting with these things and, and being in tune with these, uh, our products or the products out there in the industry just from some type of app or some type of Right. Platform you can go on. Yeah. And, and, and just get, get all the information you need. Sure. So I, I think, I think it's gonna come. I, I think it's just gonna take some time. I think, and again, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. No. No. So you get these old guys out there that like to touch their hands dirty, feel it, and get their hands dirty.

Drew Slocum: (23:05):

Which, you know, the whole online training thing. And there's really only one certification in the fire protection industry. I mean, fire alarms got their own thing, but on the, uh, at least on the sprinkler side. And I believe some of the suppression side, it's ny right? Yep. And that is only test based mm-hmm. , which is, you know, and I, I've been involved in trying to get certification programs going within uh, uh, actually New York area. Sure. Yeah. And if you have to put, you know, 500 technicians through a certification program by just going online, yes. Maybe 50 to 70% will get it. But there's a, a good percentage of those technicians that are better at, on hands-on training without a doubt. So there, I think there's, there's something missing there. Ted's done a great job, obviously. You almost, and I saw some posts on social media lately.

(24:01)
Um, you almost need a certification to learn how, how to do to get through. Nice. A and I would love to have Nice a on the podcast and that's probably, I'll reach out to them just how to get through that process. Cuz I, I went through it to try to, to try to get my, uh, uh, water based one and I had it all set up. One, the, somebody didn't submit their name correctly and it got, you know, it gets rejected. It's like, all right, how often is that happening? So, I know ass e I dunno if you've heard of this yet. No ASS E has their own certification coming out, which has an onsite training component to it. Hmm. So to be, uh, antm tech you go through, uh, I think it's like, I don't know if it's 50 50, but there's a, a written test or an online test. Sure. And then you have to do, uh, certification online or hands-on like you it here.

Devin O'Leary: (24:58):

It's interesting. Yeah. We, um, so we just to prove, just to beat home that point even more is when you say people may be better at taking tests than others, even though they're better at their job because they're just, they people get anxiety over testing.

Drew Slocum: (25:10):

Yes, they do.

Devin O'Leary: (25:11):

Especially people

Drew Slocum: (25:12):

That are everybody. Everybody

Devin O'Leary: (25:13):

Does. Especially people that work in the field.

Drew Slocum: (25:14):

Correct. Field

Devin O'Leary: (25:15):

Guys aren't good at testing. And that's, that's, I can attest to that because I came from the field myself, . Yeah. And if I can show you that I know how to do it. If I take something apart once and I know how to put it back together forever, I feel that's just the way my mind works. That's good. Right. So with that being said, um, one thing we've done here, believe it or not, is, is you, you made me think about this, is we've, we've come up with a testing procedure called job js, job performance requirements. Rather than give somebody a written test at the end of the class to, cuz we actually offer CEUs. We're a third party, we're a third party accredited facility. Wow. So for your nice, a, you need to have a certain amount of CE annually to maintain Sure. Maintain your nice accreditation. Um, so we are accredited through isat, which is the international association

Drew Slocum: (26:01):

Is Yeah. Yeah.

Devin O'Leary: (26:02):

Um, of training and continuing education.

Drew Slocum: (26:03):

Well, CEUs are different than the nices CPDs. Oh,

Devin O'Leary: (26:07):

CPDs. I thought Nicet Nice. Need CEUs. I may have been

Drew Slocum: (26:09):

No. Maybe wrong. Professional engineers need CEUs.

Devin O'Leary: (26:12):

S You're right. I apologize.

Drew Slocum: (26:13):

No, no, it's, it's a good, it's a good, it's a training topic, right. CPDs could be a sales presentation. Exactly. Whatever. Which is still knowledgeable. But CEUs that's, that's powerful. Having that third

Devin O'Leary: (26:24):

Party Oh, we go through rigorous, rigorous audits. Yeah. And our training pro programs go through those audits. Um, and we have to follow an, an ISAT standard for continuing education. Wow. Oh yeah. It's very And and we're actually the only manufacturer, sprinkler manufacturer that does it. Wow. That offers isat and, and CEUs, uh, well said CEUs

Drew Slocum: (26:43):

Onsite. Onsite.

Devin O'Leary: (26:45):

Yes. Yeah. It has to be cranston. And it's specific to this location, specific to our trainings. Wow. You like even our sister locations can't use it. Um, but even they even have our, our instructor's resumes to make sure that they're knowledgeable enough to teach what we're teaching. Yeah. They have enough background information. So there, there's, there's a lot that goes into it. Wow. With that being said, um, back to the point of, uh, the CE is in, in the, in the, in the certifications. It's being able to at least have a good feeling at the end of the day that this person that you're training knows what they're doing. We've developed these, what they call JS and their job performance requirements, which instead, which are our testing mechanism, except for instead of giving a written test Right. It's actually a handbook that has all the requirements that I'm gonna expect this attendee to know how to do before the end of this class from testing an alarm device to turning on a control valve.

(27:43)
Right. All the step by step procedural instructions. Sure. But the only difference is they're allowed to ask us how to do it till they feel comfortable get help from the instructor. Oh, wow. And the instructor then can and, and can then help them. So in turn, the instructor's comfortable signing off on a piece, a certificate that says this guy knows what he's doing. Sure. And the attendees comfortable saying, I know what I have to do because when I leave here, I'm gonna be doing it at somebody else's building, somebody else's facility. I'm gonna feel a lot more comfortable. Yeah. You get people that are testing. The guys are some people who are unbelievable at testing and they, they failed test. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they can't go through a book, they can't find the answers. But when you put 'em in front of the valve, they do it better than the person they got a hundred on. Oh

Drew Slocum: (28:23):

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So

Devin O'Leary: (28:24):

We, we, we've looked for ways that were acceptable and, and from the accrediting standpoint, um, and this was one job performance requirements. It's done within military, it's done in all different functions. Interesting. Of industry. And it's just a way of, of testing and verifying that somebody knows how they, what they're

Drew Slocum: (28:41):

Doing. So how many hours do they come outta here with?

Devin O'Leary: (28:43):

So depending on the class, I think our longest one is inspections testing maintenance, which is n fp 25 based training. It's a two in three quarter day class. I think they get 1.6. So it'd be 16 hours or 1.4 I believe. Cause it's one hour to 0.1 ceu. Um, so I think it's 16 hours or seven. But you can't, again, you can't, I can't include breaks. I can't include lunch hours. No, no,

Drew Slocum: (29:06):

No. Yeah,

Devin O'Leary: (29:07):

Yeah, yeah. Sense demonstrations aren't even some demonstrate. So, so I

Drew Slocum: (29:10):

Mean, you could, you could almost, you know, put that equal to a, an I set or an As e

Devin O'Leary: (29:15):

Essential. You almost, you're certified. I mean, it's approved

Drew Slocum: (29:18):

Equal. I think that would be, that'd be good if, if the industry would accept

Devin O'Leary: (29:21):

That. We're seeing, we're starting at the beginning of the book teaching definitions, going all the way to how to inspect, test and maintain fire pumps and double into our pre-action runs. Yeah. And a lot of times you're getting people from all different industries, meaning Sure. AHJs, you're getting the, um, insurance folks that are out there doing

Drew Slocum: (29:41):

Work. Right. Where you're getting

Devin O'Leary: (29:42):

The inspectors, you're getting. Right. So for us as instructors, it's difficult. Cause we're wearing 10 different hats. Right.

Drew Slocum: (29:48):

. Yeah. You have different

Devin O'Leary: (29:49):

Customers. Different customers, right.

Drew Slocum: (29:51):

Yeah. Fire officials here today, which is We do. Which is a great thing. Yep. Um, who needs to be trained the most?

Devin O'Leary: (30:01):

Me? No . Um, who needs to be trained the most?

Drew Slocum: (30:05):

So this is specific, just say to fire

Devin O'Leary: (30:07):

Protection.

Drew Slocum: (30:08):

Yeah. Just to fire protection.

Devin O'Leary: (30:09):

I would say field staff. Field staff. Without a doubt. Okay. There's so much turnover in it to the, due to the, the, I mean, there's so much backlog. Sure. There's so much turnover from a, from a, from a personnel standpoint and Right. I think in all, in all in all companies. Um, and that's due to, it's, it's lack of training or the requirements needed to be able to physically do the work. Nice. A Right. In certain jurisdictions, you need to be certain levels of nice e certain levels of Yes. Different, different, um, licensing, uh, levels to Right. To actually even physically go there and do the work. Right. At that site in the state Rhode Island, I'm not allowed to touch our fire protection. What? I'm not nice , I can teach all the 35 island state fire marshals in here, but I can't go touch the fire pit in our facility. That's, yeah. It's just, so I think the personnel on the ground doing the physical work are the people that need to get

Drew Slocum: (31:04):

Track

Devin O'Leary: (31:04):

House. Yeah. Then, um, the even in, in second and very close is the authorities have jurisdiction.

Drew Slocum: (31:10):

Yeah.

Devin O'Leary: (31:10):

Yeah. Knowledge is power. Yep. It is. And these standards, these things change constantly.

Drew Slocum: (31:15):

And they have so many standards they have to take. They're

Devin O'Leary: (31:18):

Involved in it. There's so many. Exactly. It's

Drew Slocum: (31:19):

Not just fire protection

Devin O'Leary: (31:20):

Systems. It's not just fire protection. There's so many theories and systems and products that are constantly changing. And to continually educate them is the only way we're gonna be able to, from any manufacturing standpoint, only way you're gonna get your products accepted and acceptable within the

Drew Slocum: (31:33):

Industry.

Devin O'Leary: (31:34):

Right. Is to have them on your side. Yes. So I think, I think that's, that's very close, if not equal to the field staff that's out there.

Drew Slocum: (31:42):

Yeah. That's good. That's a good per, I, I just thought of that off the top of my head of who, who needs the, the training the most.

Devin O'Leary: (31:47):

Yep.

Drew Slocum: (31:48):

Well, cool. Um, kind of the sidebar last, uh, last topic and, uh, what, what is coming, you know, we talked about future training, whether it's, you know, a little, little bit of vr, some, uh, you know, there's a lot of classrooms popping up throughout the country, which is, it's good. Whether it's a contractor or local Sure. Apprenticeship program or just local, uh, little manufacturers. Fire tech I think is a, a big one. Yep. In the Midwest. Yep. They, they do a bunch of different things. So that, that's good. I'm glad there's more of that hands-on training. But, um, you know, for inspection, testing and maintenance, is there any in that kind of, uh, technology? Is there anything, uh, what's coming, I guess?

Devin O'Leary: (32:34):

Yeah. So pretty recently, um, and this is something that John's controls and Tyco and, uh, I've been working on, um, pretty recently at the sub debt in the, which was just last week. Last week or two weeks ago. And, um, last week, I think, what is its debt, uh, suppression detection conference. Oh, that's what it's called. Sub debt. Where's that? It was in Denver. Oh, man. Man, it's every year. Yeah. , I'm, I have so many conventions that I got. Oh, really enough. You can never keep up. I know. Um, but at, so at the suppression detection conference as well as N F P A this year, um, uh, we did a, a Peppi Pena who's the advanced r d manager and kind of the, and his team of electrical engineers and mechanical engineers there, it's kind of his product and his, his line. But they've been working on, um, what we call our connected suppression systems.

(33:21)
And basically, in a nutshell, what it is, is, I don't know if anybody's ever heard the term internet of things uhhuh or basically it's a way of connect, having all your devices connected. For example, your homes have smart temperature controls. You get alerts when the heat's on, you get alerts when the doorbell rings, you get alerts when all this stuff's happening. My wife just turned the acm. So Exactly. You know, so you're connected in some way, shape, or form. And then that goes for all industries outside of home. Um, for, uh, automotive, you have diagnostics from your vehicle, um, you have retail, you get theft, prosec protection, your, somebody's using your credit card. It's connected in some ways, shape or form. So it's a way, the internet of things is a way of connecting, uh, any devices via mechanical or digital devices. And having them connected on some web-based platform, cloud based platform.

(34:09)
Sure. So people can be alerted and connect them to human beings. Right. With that being said, um, John's controlled and the TY over repair, they looked at a way of doing that with the inspection, testing, maintenance of some of your systems. Mm-hmm. , how can I, from my seat of my chair, understand what's going on with my system and the overall quote unquote health of that system. Right. Um, and what we've done is we've added some pressure sensor. They've added some pressure sensors to the three. So if you look at your dry valves, I'm gonna use this as a perfect example. Um, the dry valve has a three-way gauge. There's two gauges. One's dry and one's, I mean, one's air and one's water. Yeah. There's a three-way gauge to shut that gauge on and off. So there's an open port, right. Um, they'd put a pressure transducer in there.

(34:50)
Yep. That pressure transducer is connected to a small device. That device is connected to the internet. Right. And it's transmitting out to a cloud-based platform, letting people basically log in on their computer and see the health, overall health of their systems. Sure. Is my, if I seeing air pressure drops and then spikes and air pressure, is my compressor cycling right? Numerous times an hour? Am I having huge ambient temperature changes at nighttime? Yep. So when I'm occupied and unoccupied, it's a huge issue when it comes to, um, the, the piping network, dry systems, dry systems, uh, expansion and contraction due to the temperature. Sure. So, and we have fall trips all the time because of that. Yes. And if I can get an alert that something's happening prior to it actually happening, right. So before it becomes an issue Right. Before the valve goes out there and trips, I can get somebody on site to go out there and check it.

(35:41)
I'm in a much better state when it comes to the, to my overall fire protection. So it, it's not limited to just transducers. They have temperature, uh, thermometers, digital thermometers sitting in low point drains. Yep. So it freezes up Right. Reasons if, if it ever, if there's ever water in there, there's a, there's a, um, there's a sensor to let you know there's water. Right. Also the temperature in that area. So if we needed to go open that low point drain because there's water in it due from residual drain back, yes. We're gonna go do that right away. We're gonna get an alert to do that rather than have it freeze, break the pipe, drain the system of air and dump the system right in the middle of the wintertime. Yeah. Um, so that's one. There's corrosion monitoring, there's water flow sensors to measure gpm. It's a whole product line that they're really looking to, they're really looking to roll out. And I think it's, they're onto something awesome.

Drew Slocum: (36:27):

Yeah. And I think, so I think somebody's gotta push in technology here. I hear you In the industry. It's like

Devin O'Leary: (36:32):

We did just,

Drew Slocum: (36:32):

It's all this, uh, I hate to say it, me too stuff. Not, not the, you know, not the, the whatever. Me too movement, but the me too. Hey, I come out with a sprinkler head. All right. I have, I've got it too. You know, it, it's, and the same thing with the ING and the little changes, but I think the connected to the internet, internet of things is gonna really kind of spur the manufacturing in another, without a doubt. Direction. The big thing is cost. Like, all right, what you're gonna have to analyze whether it's worth it or not. How do you get your owner to buy in? Because there's already margins on, on certain fire protection are already small. So, I mean, how do you get certain technology there? I

Devin O'Leary: (37:13):

Think the, the value add just from one fall strip. I mean, if you, if you

Drew Slocum: (37:17):

Find dry systems, I see it. If you put on a wet system, sure. How do

Devin O'Leary: (37:21):

You do it? I think everything has it applicated. Right. And I don't think you'd see a lot of this in wet systems, or I think it'd be more based towards your higher value and higher asset protection systems. Your preact actions, your your drives, your,

Drew Slocum: (37:32):

But if you could, and so you're, a lot of the stuff you're talking is remote monitoring.

Devin O'Leary: (37:39):

A lot of it is

Drew Slocum: (37:40):

Majority, and this is NFPA 25. They introduced it in, in, I think s uh, 17 and 2020 is really looking at it. Really looking at it. Yeah. I know you're sitting on

Devin O'Leary: (37:49):

Not quite yet, but not yet. It's not official .

Drew Slocum: (37:52):

I, I've been doing some of the 25 meetings. Yeah. And, uh, uh, they're, they're definitely talking about it because, um, there's certain technologies that are ahead of the code at this point. So, uh, if you're on an older code, it's not really accepted yet. Sure. So they're trying to catch up pretty quick.

Devin O'Leary: (38:10):

Perfect example of that is our electronic sprinkler. Yeah. You can't find it in any code.

Drew Slocum: (38:13):

Yeah. Can't find It's in any, can any

Devin O'Leary: (38:14):

Standards. And these standards that were driven drive it. And that's just, again, with this technology Sure. We have a sprinkle that's normally what the industry accepts as a mechanical device. Right. A glass bulb or a fusible link. Right. Now we're attaching a a, a metron and a heat sensor to it. Right. And we're gonna activate it all electronically. Yes. There's no mechanical activation going on. Yes. So it's, it's, it's, our job as a manufacturer is to promote this and push it, but it's also, we need to promote that and push it within the standards to get it acceptable

Drew Slocum: (38:46):

HJ by the standard

Devin O'Leary: (38:47):

H. Exactly. Yeah. And that's, that's what we're working on at

Drew Slocum: (38:50):

This point. I think the remote monitoring, I don't think anybody's gonna have a problem with it. I obviously it's in the code, but you're just gathering information.

Devin O'Leary: (38:57):

I mean, they've already started to accept some of it. The

Drew Slocum: (38:59):

Remote testing is different. That's a whole different scenario. Right. I, I know you guys are working on stuff and all the other manufacturers are as well. Yeah.

Devin O'Leary: (39:07):

Because we even have some

Drew Slocum: (39:09):

Automating solenoid valves,

Devin O'Leary: (39:10):

Automated solenoid valves, control valves. So you don't, so for example, your inspector's test, you have to dump the inspector's test. You can just hit a button from a remote location. Yeah.

(39:18)
Things like that are the, are the unaccepted practices right now, the monitoring stuff, shoot, it's a minimum standard. You can look at anything. You can, I can go do my control valve test 10 times a day if I wanted to. Right. The standard only says I have to do it so many times a week, a quarter or a semi-annually or whatever, depending on how it's, um, supervised. Right. But that doesn't mean I can't go do it every day if I don't want to. Right. So it's a minimum standard. So from the remote monitoring standpoint, I can look at my stuff. It's, it's overkill. I'm Right. I'm really looking at what's going on, the health of my system and being thorough. It's really gonna benefit the end user.

Drew Slocum: (39:55):

Yeah. It will, it's gonna benefit the end user. It'll bring down their cost of and, and increase their cost of, or increase the years of the longevity of the system. Decrease cost of the overall inspection without a doubt. So yeah, we're, uh, we're onto it too. So it's good. It's kind of fun. , uh, yeah, there's a new N FPA a committee, NFPA nine 15. Terry Victor told me of it. Uh, and I think they're discussing in various committees right now, but N FPA nine 15 is remote inspection, which is kind of cool. They're That is cool. I'm glad they're, uh, you know, it's in 25, but I think they have to

Devin O'Leary: (40:31):

Yeah, they just added

Drew Slocum: (40:31):

Sidebar it.

Devin O'Leary: (40:32):

They've just been adding the remote inspection stuff to 25.

Drew Slocum: (40:35):

But, uh, yeah. Fun stuff. Mm-hmm. . Um, all right. I think that really wraps us up. You, you wanna talk about anything else before I, uh,

Devin O'Leary: (40:45):

No. Anything. I really appreciate you having me on. I, I was looking forward to it. We've been talking about this for a couple months. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (40:50):

Right.

Devin O'Leary: (40:50):

Finally came to fruition. Um, ,

Drew Slocum: (40:53):

What, uh, uh, what, how do you, how do we get ahold of you? How do we get ahold of the training center? Sure.

Devin O'Leary: (41:00):

How,

Drew Slocum: (41:01):

What's coming up? How do they sign up for training here? I know it's, you're in Rhode Island. It's not for the Northeast. It's pretty easy to get to, but

Devin O'Leary: (41:08):

It's fairly, it's very close to process airport. It's okay. It's 10 minutes away, um, from the airport. Yeah. Um, we actually have a partnership with one of the local hotels. They've actually shuttle people back and forth to our facility for us. Nice. So it's nice. Um, we, with that being said, to get ahold of us, first and foremost, tyco-fire.com, um, typo Fire, excuse me. Um, and that will bring you to our actual Tyco website. Um, on there you'll see online training, um, and you'll get all your contact information on there. Um, it's actually [email protected]. It's not a hard ah, it's easy hot email address to, to reach out to. Um, and if all else fails, just reach out to me. My Devin dot O'Leary, you're gonna spell that out, I'm sure, on the podcast. Oh, yeah. Yeah. At jci.com. Devin period. O'Leary jci.com. I'll get you into the correct people's, um, emails and, uh, contact information, and we can get you anything you may need to run around your training needs. Cool. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, really, really appreciate the time. I think there's a lot

Drew Slocum: (42:09):

We're not done yet. I got a quick response from that you were all nervous about. Set me up for this one.

Devin O'Leary: (42:14):

Ok, here we go. I'm sitting back.

Drew Slocum: (42:16):

Uh, yeah. So I do through a few questions here just to get, uh, you don't know they're coming. So, um, so I, I, I recently, uh, left New York City, uh, with a family and, and moved up to Nice, uh, Eastern Connecticut. Uh, what do you have against Connecticut?

Devin O'Leary: (42:37):

? What do I have against Connecticut? I think

Drew Slocum: (42:41):

There's, there's always a Rhode Island Connecticut battle going on. I don't understand it because Connecticut's fine with Rhode Island. Rhode Island has a problem with Connecticut. For some

Devin O'Leary: (42:48):

Reason, I think Connecticut should be absorbed into New York. Into New York State. .

Drew Slocum: (42:55):

Okay. Um,

Devin O'Leary: (42:57):

The reason why it takes me forever to get to New York is because of Connecticut

Drew Slocum: (43:00):

. That is true.

Devin O'Leary: (43:03):

I'll give you that. The, they're always under construction. Um, that's what I have against. That's a funny one. Thank you. Yes. Completely complete absorption into That's, that would be ideal. Thank you.

Drew Slocum: (43:18):

. That's funny. Yeah. Um, all serious, serious question here. So, uh, NFPA 25, uh, requires, uh, sprinkler head testing going on with, uh, specific any sprinkler that's installed in, in a facility or a building mm-hmm. . Um, we just added a module to inspect Point to really help out with this run analytic reports against all of your sprinklers, which will actually give vision to your customers three months ahead of time. Hey, we got this coming down the road, we're gonna have to do testing here. So it's pretty good. Pretty nice little, yeah. Pretty nice little module that we've got going. Um, on the sprinkler head, there's a date, right? Mm-hmm. , there also could have, did you install it on that date? Was it a few years after? Sure. What, what? I don't know. That's

Devin O'Leary: (44:10):

The date of manufacturing.

Drew Slocum: (44:11):

It's off the date of manufacturer. That is the date of manufacturing. That's the date of manufacturing. Right. But what is, what is the code off of? Is it off the date of manufacturer or is it off the date of install? So, because sometimes say it's, you buy it in, you don't install it. 2018, don't install it until 2019. I mean, it's a year. It's a year. But it could, you know, you might have an older head that you have in your shop.

Devin O'Leary: (44:33):

You know, drew, that's a damn good question. Um, and I'm not a hundred percent sure. I would say if I was to answer the question to, to the class, I would look into it to get a, a solid answer. But, and, and the solidified answer. But I think the data manufacturing on the sprinkler is what the HJ is gonna look at. If he goes up, let's put it this way,

Drew Slocum: (44:53):

It's solid. How do you, it's proven. How

Devin O'Leary: (44:55):

Exactly, how do you realize you're at 25 years if you don't have an inspection report from the day it was installed? Right. Or I mean, or a commissioning report from the day it was installed. Right. You don't know if it was January of 18 or November of 17. Sure. Right. Um, so with that being said, your inspection requirement from your sprinkler perspective is a visual inspection. Where do you go? The visual inspection, the date on the, on the sprinkler it says 20 2002 and it's 2027. Well, now we have 25 years, or 20, it'd be 2022, excuse me. Right. 20 years for our Q wash members. Yep. So I think I would, I would recommend going off the data manufacturer on the sprinkler

Drew Slocum: (45:34):

From the contractor manufacturer's perspective. Yes, sir. Uh, I see that. But if I'm a building owner, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fight that. Cause it's not in the, it is actually not in, it's not, I don't think it's not

Devin O'Leary: (45:44):

Good. I've never seen it called out. Maybe in the handbook. Yeah. Of, of NFPA 25, which is unenforceable. Unenforceable. But it's just annex material that may be beneficial in there.

Drew Slocum: (45:53):

If you think about it, if a dry valve or a dry head is sitting on a shelf for five years, you install it, there's no water, there's no pressure against it, there's nothing's still in the box. Right. They should be able to last an additional 10 years. I agree. That's from a building or perspective, from

Devin O'Leary: (46:09):

Building perspective. But you never

Drew Slocum: (46:11):

Know. You don't know that installed data. Guess in

Devin O'Leary: (46:12):

The defense of that, your dry sprinklers, and this is just Yeah. To respond to that. Your dry sprinklers are all built to order due to the fact you don't know how Okay. Thick. You see, you don't know how thick, thick the penetration is that you're going through, you know, the ambient temperature that it's gonna be exposed to all the time. Sure. With that being said, that information dictates how long of the Okay. Piece of pipe that needs to be Yeah. Installed upon that sprinkler. So the, the actual barrel length of that sprinkler. Okay. So when you talk dry sprinklers, um, they're usually built to order, that's why they have longer lead times. Yeah. Due to the fact they're made specifically for the job they're going in on. Yep. So you have a couple extra, you may get a lucky five years down the road and half of it has the exact same barrel length and you would build it there, but for the most part, they're made for that specific application.

Drew Slocum: (46:58):

Right. Unless you have a flexible dry, dry,

Devin O'Leary: (47:01):

Unless you have a flexible dry spot,

Drew Slocum: (47:03):

Which I haven't, you know, I had to compete against that when I was at Viking Deco, but

Devin O'Leary: (47:07):

Yep.

Drew Slocum: (47:08):

Anyway. Not gonna get compet

Devin O'Leary: (47:09):

Against it. Not

Drew Slocum: (47:10):

Gonna get into it now.

Devin O'Leary: (47:11):

That's fine. No, there's nothing.

Drew Slocum: (47:12):

Um, another little quick response question. Uh, dry valve, I asked this a lot cuz I love dry valves for some reason. Low pressure, standard pressure, high pressure,

Devin O'Leary: (47:26):

All the above. Yeah. Um, what's my, what's my preference? Preference

Drew Slocum: (47:30):

Personally, not JCI hat. jci.

Devin O'Leary: (47:33):

And, and I will, uh, I mean I think I'm, uh, the industry's on my side with this one when I do say the teal and that's not me being, um, biased towards the product. Sure. I, I work with on a day-today basis. Other manufacturers make correct products. Yeah. However, ease of use and, um, the dpv one, the drive pipe valve, the Tyco drive pipe valve is, I have voiced a customer from 1800 attendees annually. Sure. Every one of'em, if not nine out of 10 of 'em say this is the best drive valve on the market. Yeah. With that being said, I think there's uses for low pressure valves. Yeah. I think sometimes with a higher pressure, that doesn't always equate to slower water delivery. Right. There's times and instances where the higher pressure can deliver water faster for your, for your water delivery requirements. Right. Just because the, the layout of the piping network and, and, and the, the parts and pieces that are in that sprinkle system. Sure. Um, however, yeah, I mean I, there's many manufacturers. I think a lot of 'em, some of 'em are bombproof, the, the Viking drive out, you could set a bomb off in the room and it's, it's still gonna be

Drew Slocum: (48:41):

Set. They, they found one when I was still there from nine. It was a Titan valve. I think it was 1921. It was at the airport. It still functioned. I

Devin O'Leary: (48:49):

Believe it, it

Drew Slocum: (48:49):

it was, I don't know if they gave a clap or a gasket for it. Probably not. But, uh,

Devin O'Leary: (48:55):

However, I think sim and then to, to that point is simplicity is, is correct. Creates longevity.

Drew Slocum: (49:01):

Yes.

Devin O'Leary: (49:01):

Um, the, the f1 uh, Viking, the DPV one. Yep. It's one moving part. Yep. It's one clapper and one gasket. Yep. Um, the low pressure valve's a good valve if you're, if you are in need of fast water delivery times in a certain, in a particular, um, application, it's gonna be beneficial to you. Sure. Mean I think each of 'em have their use. Yes. However, if I was to pick one Yeah. From every, and, and that's also because there's not really that much. So you say low pressure, we only have a 10 PSI safety factor on our Yeah, yeah. On our TPV one. So it's for pressure plus 10 PSI where NFPA says plus 20, like the F1 takes. Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (49:40):

You need more pressure

Devin O'Leary: (49:41):

To hold it down. Yeah. Cuz of the, we, we have the offset clapper in the, in the, in the differential chamber. So I, so again, I I'm not don't wanna bad mouth any manufacturer. Sure. I think they all create products, but if I had to pick one, it would be the DV one.

Drew Slocum: (49:55):

All right.

Devin O'Leary: (49:56):

With the visor accelerator. Wow.

Drew Slocum: (49:58):

.

Devin O'Leary: (49:59):

Sorry.

Drew Slocum: (50:00):

Throwing it in there. All right. Last question before we get outta here. Um, I call it chowder. You call it chowder. Chowder. Uh, we got Rhode Island, which I never knew of until you're coming up here. Uh, Manhattan Red or some New England or

Devin O'Leary: (50:17):

White

Drew Slocum: (50:19):

Preference?

Devin O'Leary: (50:20):

White. I

Drew Slocum: (50:21):

Like white. All right. I

Devin O'Leary: (50:23):

Like New England. Thick, creamy potato. Lots of potatoes of clams. All right. It's like more like a beef stew to me. Gotcha. But it, it's like, it's like a, uh, the, the then I would say Manhattan really. And last Rhode Island.

Drew Slocum: (50:36):

And last Rhode Island.

Devin O'Leary: (50:37):

I'm not a big fear of the family. The clear. The clear. It's

Drew Slocum: (50:40):

Just too clammy.

Devin O'Leary: (50:41):

I want some bass to my . That's good. Right. So nice cream, uh, like a beef stew base behind it.

Drew Slocum: (50:50):

. That's fine. Well, uh, thanks again, Devin for, uh, popping in here. Thank you. And, uh, letting me come up. I'll throw some photos up, uh, on social media. Yes. Maybe even a little video tour. Um, if you haven't seen it before, I, I had a on inspect point's, YouTube channel. Did a bunch of videos here, probably two and a half years ago at this point. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. So, uh, hope to see you on here again.

Devin O'Leary: (51:14):

Thanks again, man. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Drew Slocum: (51:17):

Thanks for tuning in to episode 12 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Want to thank my guest again, Devon O'Leary for taking, taking a little bit of time today out of his busy schedule. Their, uh, the JCI Training Center is constantly booked with training. So, um, to find out their schedule, go to online tech exchange.com. Uh, exchange is without the E, so it's X C H A N G e.com. Find out all about their schedule there and, um, yeah, hope you enjoyed the podcast and, uh, see you here again soon.

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum: (00:09):

This is episode 11 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guest is Todd Stevens. Todd is the head of Special Hazards for the JC Canister Company in Watertown, Massachusetts. Todd and I go back a few years from our old Viking days and our old, uh, competition days at Tyco and Viking, but Todd's a very big wealth of knowledge in the special hazards industry. He also sits on the board of F S S A throughout the us. So today we discussed Fire fighting, fire protection foam. Um, there's some new technologies out there. Uh, we also got into some of the environmental impacts that are, that are happening with some of the false ditch discharges and issues we're starting to see around the country with fire protection foam, uh, getting into various water sources. So JC Canister also reps, fire Doss. Fire Doss is a, um, uh, foam equipment, uh, proportioner manufacturer out of Germany. So we get into that toward the end. And, uh, yeah, it was a fun conversation with Todd and, um, hope you enjoy and feel free to reach out to all our social media channels here at Inspect Point and enjoy.

(01:29)
I wanted to take a quick minute before we start this podcast to give everybody an update on where Inspect Point is and will be going over the next few months. So we keep launching about 20 new features a month, a lot of them being driven by our current customer base, so the Fire Protection community. We really want to hear your thoughts and your opinions to give us feedback to, to grow our product. And that's, that keeps piling on of what we currently have in the product few modules that we are launching or have launched over the last few months. Uh, the Deficiency Management feature within Inspect Point is like no others in the industry, you know, after the inspections from the technician in the field, we're taking a lot of that data, a lot of that deficiency data, and not only pushing it into the cloud to, to push out a report to our customer, but we're also taking those deficiencies, pushing them to new inspections for new technicians and even pushing them onto a proposal for your customer. So it's kind of an all-encompassing, uh, inspection management and proposal feature. Uh, there has been some recent, uh, sales features as well. We're almost getting into the CRM Salesforce style model of software. So I just wanted a quick update. Please check us out on inspect point.com, request a demo, and here's Todd on the podcast.

Todd Stevens: (02:57):

, I can do that all day long. I can do that for a half hour. I know if you want . So, uh, I got Todd Stevens here. Todd is the, uh, fire Protection Special Hazards project manager for, uh, JC Castro and, and Watertown Mass. So, uh, wanted to talk today about, um, fire protection foam, some of the environmental concerns we have and what's been popping up in the news. And I know, uh, uh, canister's got some new technology that they're a rep for currently. So, uh, called Fire Dos. So we'll get into that toward, uh, toward the end. But, um, yeah, welcome Todd. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is, uh, this is fun. I know we've been talking about doing this for a while, so it's glad we finally get a chance to get together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, give me a little, I know all about you, probably a little too much, but, uh, give kind of the listenership who you are, what you've been doing over the last 15, 20 years, and Sure.

(03:57)
What you're doing now. Okay. Well, everybody always has a funny story with fire protection and how they get into the industry, but for me, it was, um, I was a CAD guy. I knew AutoCAD got into a consulting engineering firm, drawing lines in circles, and I said, Hey, I wanna do what the engineers do. I wanna learn what these lines and circles are all about. Yeah. Um, so I was in consulting engineering for, um, probably about four or five years. Where is that? Um, in Massachusetts, middle bar, mass. It was a small company, Crowley Engineering. All right. Uh, which is, uh, known well to that, that part of the world. Nice. And worked there for a while. Learned a lot about plumbing and fire protection engineering. Um, wanted to focus more on fire protection, so I moved from there to contracting. Okay. Uh, and that was back in 2000.

(04:41)
I went to go work for 2001, went to work for Charro Oh. As a fire protection design. I know. See, I didn't know everything. Yeah. . Um, so I worked there for five years and, uh, again, that's based out of Watertown, Massachusetts. And my wife and I decided at that point we're gonna pack up and move to North Carolina. So we left the area. And with that, I left my job behind and went to go work for Viking. Yep. So I went from the contracting side to the manufacturing, uh, and worked for Viking slash Minimax for 10 years, uh, as a national technical rep Yep. On the Viking sprinkler side. And then got more into the special hazard stuff with, with Minimax. Gotcha. Uh, and then about three and a half years ago, left, uh, Viking Minimax and came back to Canne Raro here in Massachusetts.

(05:24)
Nice. So I kind of did a full circle. Yeah. But, but you haven't moved back up here? I have not moved. No. I, I love North Carolina, but by the way, we're recording this in, uh, middle of nowhere Massachusetts , so, uh, I don't even know where we are, but That's all right. . Um, yeah, North Carolina is great. I think I, we came down, I came down a couple years ago to Pines, so Todd lives in an awesome area. Yeah. Um, you go into the amateur this weekend. Um, I may Yes. You better. Yes. Yeah. , I've been, I've been following us amateurs this weekend in Pinehurst, so it's pretty big deal for golf, golf fans. Lots of people in town. Yeah. Um, you know, before we get started here, what, what, what did you learn? You know, we, we both have a slightly similar background.

(06:07)
I, you know, we both, I started with a manufacturer, did engineering, uh, manufacturing, engineering, and, um, got into the sales and technical end. Mm-hmm. , so we kind of ended up in the same spot I went obviously at Spec Point route, you're back with JC . What, what, what did you learn from being, working with a manufacturer? Because I, probably similar a ton. . Yeah. Seriously. It's, um, and again, starting in engineering and then going to manufacturing, uh, excuse me, contracting and then manufacturing. Um, I kind of got a, a little bit of everything from those different elements of, of the process. Um, but manufacturing, there's just so much detail that you learn about products and, and just simply how they're made, uh, right. And, and the, the process behind it. Yeah. Which I think makes us, you know, more knowledgeable about the industry as a whole.

(06:56)
Sure. Um, because you understand more, um, you know, I've always learned that, you know, tell me something, I'll forget it. Show me something, I'll remember it. Right. But involve me in something and I'll understand it. So it's kinda one of those things that manufacturing truly involved me in my opinion, um, in fire protection. Yeah. And, uh, learned a lot that way. So, yeah. I, I, uh, you know, it's interesting you say that cuz you know, manufacturers, you know, market and develop their product on the needs of contractors and engineers, right? Yep. And, you know, just code in general. However, manufacturers also can manipulate code Yeah. By just being a big powerhouse manufacturer, so. Sure. Yeah. It's, uh, it's kind of a full, full realm there, but, uh, they do drive it and, and it's driven by new technology, uh, yeah. Which is why we're here today too. Talking and, and that, that forces the codes to make changes as well. Right, right. Based on that new technology, I feel like technology, whether it's manufacture, technology based, is usually ahead of the curve. Mm-hmm. then code and code always seems to have to catch up, which is, it seems a little, uh, backwards. Yeah. You think the code would be first and, and the needs of that. But, you know, I guess who's got all the money, right. Manufacturers, .

(08:10)
Um, so you know enough about, enough about your background. We can maybe get into more of that toward the end. But, um, you know, I want to talk about, uh, foam fire protection. So foam fire protection, uh, I'll let you get into it. Sure. Uh, I guess what is foam for fire protection for any, any, anybody that doesn't know out there? Well, there's a lot of different, um, things when we think of foam, uh, you know, a lot of people immediately think of high expansion foam and aircraft hangers and just big dumps of large, you know, right. Amounts of foam. Uh, there's, you know, low expansion foam. Um, you know, there's monitors, uh, foam monitors for different scenarios. There's overhead, you know, deluge foam systems with sprinkler heads or, or different things. So it really, everything we know about fire protection and the different systems of fire protection, we can kind of add foam into that.

(09:01)
Right. To make a foam system. Yeah. Um, so we at Shar getting a lot of involved in a lot of different aspects of, of foam protection. Uh, a lot of it for us is more, um, you know, uh, rack storage, foam protection, um, or fuel oil storage, foam protection, that sort of thing. Right. Um, so, so not much hangers is more of the, we, we don't see a whole lot. I mean, there is a lot in the New England area, but, uh, Shar, we don't personally do a lot of Hi ex Yeah. Foam. Yeah. Uh, and you do see more of that outside of this territory anyway. Right. Um, but we do, like I said, it's more focused on fixed, uh, closed head systems, uh, or monitors and that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we, so that's a good explanation. Essentially, it's flammable liquids, you know.

(09:45)
Yeah. We're putting outright, but now fires at, is there other applications for it, maybe for, it's mainly just slam the liquid out? I, I guess it's one of those things that, trying to dumb it down, it's, you know, if a lot of water is still not gonna do the trick. Right. Uh, if we add a little foam to it, it'll stick, it'll, it'll, it'll stick. I, I didn't mean to make it rhyme, but Sure. Um, yeah. And that's, that's a real dumb down explanation, but at the end of the day, really, that's, it's, it's a little bit more of a higher hazard. Sure. Um, but, you know, it needs a little bit more than just plain water. Right. Right. So now I know, um, from fire protection's been in the news, really the last, I don't know, I would say four to five years, but recently, uh, did some research the last few days.

(10:31)
But, uh, in my, my new home state of Connecticut, um, Bradley Airport, which is the main airport in Hartford, had a, uh, I don't know the cause of it, but it was a false discharge of a high, I think it was, I don't know if it was High Ex, but it was an aircraft, um, hanger. Hanger. And, uh, I think, I think I got word. It was like 50,000 gallons of foam, uh, water solution. Yeah. Probably three per high ex is 2%. It depends, but it depends. Yeah. But whatever three per say it's 3% percent. Yeah. You know, out of the 50,000 gallons of, of that solution, there's a lot of that went in right into the, um, what, what river is that? Right? By Hartford Framing, not the framing, I can't remember. I I know what you're Farmingdale River. I, yeah, I, I'm blanking the river in Connecticut.

(11:22)
Theri the main river through Hartford. Yes. Anyway, made it to the river. So there's been a lot of bad press in Connecticut and actually the governor's getting involved. Sure. Um, because firefighting foam obviously has evolved over the years. Yeah. It's just a lot of different chemical technology, um, including clean agent. Um, but there's a certain, uh, chemical or agent in, in certain foams that, uh, it's not the best for the environment, I guess. Is it? It's called P F O S. Right. P F O S and P oa. Do you know what that Yeah. So basically, um, and just a quick side note, the manufacturers are constantly, like you said, it's, it's evolving. Right. And all the manufacturers that foam concentrate have done a great job, not only trying to provide a concentrate that we can use to extinguish fires, but that are also following the EPA guidelines.

(12:15)
And that's what's always evolving is EPA coming out with something new that says, Hey, this, this isn't good, and that's not good. Right. And lets, let's change it. Um, so the big thing in, in the, the buzzword not getting too in the weeds, but the buzzword, P F O S P O, uh, C6 and c8, um, and a lot of the foam concentrates out there are C eights that involve P F O S and P oa. Okay. Um, which now the EPA is saying we can't do that anymore. So all the manufacturers are now switching to a C6 foam. Um, and that's really the big push at this point. Um, there is no, if you have ca currently, um, it, it's fine. Your grandfather, you don't have to remove it. Some states are looking to mandate the removal of it. Yep. Uh, but there's a lot of existing New York States one, are they?

(13:02)
Yeah. Cuz they, they had a big issue in New Newburgh, uh, Bradley, or, um, I have Bradley Airport, but it's be Bradley Airport based too in Newburgh, a big, uh, uh, you know, armed Forces terminal where they did a lot of firefighting testing. Sure. You know? Yeah. And spraying down the planes and everything. Yeah. And that leached into the Newburgh water source. Yeah. That's not good. It, it's, it's bad. Vice News did a kind of a crazy, uh, it was a little, a little one-sided, but, you know, I think, um, you know, there's an issue there. Nobody brought it up and it, a lot of people were getting sick, so. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, and it's definitely a concern. And like I said earlier, I think the manufacturers are doing a great job making the changes that they need to and adapting to the, the EPA guidelines.

(13:51)
Sure. Um, so that's kind of the big push lately is the, the c6. Right. Um, and in some cases we can't even get C8 foam anymore. You have to get c6. Which kind of enters into, as we get into the testing part of it, we can talk a little bit more about the details Sure. That concern that we have as contractors and and owners of those foam systems. Yeah, no, that's, that's good. I know, and I, I, I'd love to give, love to get, um, you know, I have some podcasts coming up with some other foam manufacturers that, you know, we'll get into the weeds more on, I was gonna, they what C6 is versus c8 and why not? Is there a c4, can we go to c4? I mean, why, why not go beyond and have, because EPAs, you know, they're pulling funding from that is, is it, you know, in 10 years.

(14:36)
Like, I have to go to c4. You know, is it, I don't know. Yeah. I, and that'll be great if you can get some, some guys that are more knowledgeable, cist, whatever me, then Yeah. I'm certainly not a, a foam chemist or anything from that perspective. I know the, I know enough to get myself in trouble, so. Yeah. Yeah. So on, on the testing side of foam. Yeah. Uh, transitioning to that, uh, you know, we deal with that added spec point with, you know, foam water, some foam water systems, you know, it's regulated by N FPA 25. Mm-hmm. , um, I'll let you go into that. Is there anything beyond NFPA 25? Is there different manufacturers that require different testing requirements? I think, well, yeah. I mean, all manufacturers have their own testing requirements, but 25 is, is a big push. And obviously that ties into as well n FPA 11 and 16.

(15:22)
And, and I know you had a podcast recently, I think it was Martin. Martin, yeah. You talked about the combining of those two. That's great. Standards into one. So that's gonna affect all of what we're talking about today as well. So that'll be interesting. But, um, at the end of the day, as a contractor, we have a lot of, uh, customers that have foam systems. And the ultimate piece of the puzzle to any foam system is the proportioner. And the proportioner is where the water comes in. The foam concentrate comes in, they mix the two, and you have a solution. Okay. So that proportioner needs to be tested. Right. On a typical system, and I'll kind of break it down real quick. If you have a bladder tank, let's say design, so you have foam concentrating in a bladder tank that's activated by water flow, it squeezes the bladder and pushes the concentrate into the proportioner and the water flow creates that solution.

(16:14)
Um, you have to physically flow. There's usually a test header after the proportioner, and you flow foam to collect the foam, verify its percentage, whether you're talking 3%, 1%, whatever it's designed to. Uh, so you have to take a sample, send it to a lab, and have 'em test that. How, how often is that per 25? Um, well, the proportioner itself yearly is where you wanna, and it does depend on whether it's high X or low X and that sort of thing as well. Okay. I know high X generators, I think you have to flow it through the generators every five years, I believe. Okay. Um, but you really want to test that proportioner on a yearly basis. Right. The problem is, is we're flowing full. Yep. What did we just talk about? Environmental concerns. Right. Disposal. We can't just take a hose, run it outside and dump it into the local Boston sewer drain.

(17:01)
Yeah. You know, that's, that's a problem. So what is entailed is a custo, a company, a customer would have to, um, hire a company to come out, collect the foam and dispose of it properly. Clean harbors is a common one. Yeah, yeah. That we use around here. Um, it's costly. It, it's, it's expensive. It's thousands of dollars. How much, how much foam are you talking about in that disposal and that test? Annual test? Well, you have to test the proportioner to whatever the design capability is. So let's say that system is designed to run 2000 gallons per minute. Right. You have to flow 2000 GPM through that proportioner to make sure you're getting that 3% or 1%. So you're gonna have to flow it for a little bit. So there's a, there's a lot of, when you say 2000 gallons a minute. Yeah. Let's, well, you know, let's just throwing numbers up there as an example.

(17:47)
It depends on the, the system itself. Right? Right. But you have to flow it at full capacity to make sure you're getting that right. You're getting that right proportion of foam. So not only, again, like I said earlier, you have to take a sample, send it to a lab to test it, but you also have to contain all that foam and dispose of it properly. So, so that's a tanker truck. It is. That's exactly what that is. Yeah. Wow. So it's expense. And you know, the problem that we are seeing in the contracting world is that customers just won't, won't test it. Won't test it. Yeah. And they don't want to, and nobody's, you know, I mean, we do our due diligence on the contracting end, but there's customers that just re flat out refuse and say, no, we're not gonna flow foam. We don't care, or just not gonna do it.

(18:27)
Wow. And that's a problem in our industry. Um, yeah. I wonder how with the insurance, I mean, cuz if you're having flammable liquids, you think you'd be insured by a pretty pretty high power or higher insurance insurance company. You think they would be, you know, it's installed, why not? Why not test it? But maybe there are risks on the environmental side. So Yeah. I, I know that's a concern on, I mean, we don't see, I don't see a lot of foam testing done that annual testing. Right. I never have at Viking, at Tyco and even, you know, people are doing it within inspect point, but Right. Um, and yeah, I think it needs to happen more. There's a lot of systems out there. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, um, all right, that's good. A little more I learned on the TM side, so, um, yeah, it's definitely, do you, do you have an idea like of how many systems are getting not getting tested?

(19:22)
Nah, I, I mean, probably more than we, than, you know, then we wanna know Yeah. To be honest with you. But back to one of your other points was on the insurance side, one of the things that's driving some of these concerns is, uh, FM Global. Right. Um, because they, as you said, they do ensure a lot of these customers that we have. Right. And they are pushing back a little bit more, telling their customers, Hey, wait a minute, you know, we don't care how much it's gonna cost you, you need to properly test it. Sure. Because when that fire exists, and hopefully it doesn't, but if it does, then you need to make sure that the equipment works properly. Yeah. It's like being in New York City and doing a lot of foam there over the years. You know, you gotta 20th floor, you got a, a, a generator room, which is, you know, FM's pushing that.

(20:07)
So is, so is the F D N Y a little bit. So you have to put a small foam system in there mm-hmm. , but testing that annually. I don't know if that's getting done. And All right. If you test it annually, where are you putting all that foam on the 20th floor? Right. So I know some engineers are starting design, um, specialty just drain risers for foam that go out into a tanker truck. So like, engineers have to start thinking of, of disposal and that as well. And I don't think they really had on the ITM and, um, testing side of, of foam sometimes. Right. No, you're right. And to, to even add another, um, factor to this is we just talked earlier about, and c8, so if you, our customer has C eight foam currently, and we do a test, we're depleting that concentrate.

(20:55)
So now we have to refill that bladder tank with more foam to replenish what we tested. Okay. We can't dump C6 into a bladder tank that already has C eight in it. Oh. So now it's another cost impact that we say to the owner, listen, we'll test this, but now we gotta drain all the C eight outta here and refill with c6 because that's the only foam available today. Right. And to just add one more thing to that, the new c6, is it compatible with the proportioner and all the other devices that you have installed down the system? . So I'm not trying to create a, a chaos amongst people, but at the same time, these are all things that we really need to, so you gotta rip out the whole bladder tank and, and everything. I, because it's not listed, it's, it's, uh, a listing, it's something you have to evaluate.

(21:42)
And it is a listed compatibility thing. Yes. Wow. Yep. So the C 68 may be helping the environmental side, but it is causing a little bit of headache to our customers in some cases that, okay, now what do we do? Yeah. Especially the state. Like I know New York and probably Connecticut, it's gonna be there soon with, all right, you got all these foam systems if you want all that C eight ripped out. That's a, not only a huge cost, but it's a, it's a huge undertaking. Yeah. Um, and contractors and hjs should definitely be, you know, informed to that. Yep. So, uh, moving on to, to Fire Doss. So, uh, Todd came to me, I don't know, what's it, six months ago with the, this, this product. I was very intrigued, uh, with it, uh, it's a, I'll let you explain it, but in my, in my terms, it's, it's helping out with some of that inspection testing and maintenance testing.

(22:36)
I've talked to some phone professionals. It's got a lot of pros. There are, you know, a few cons to it, like, like anything else. Yep. But, um, how, why, so Fire Dos is a manufacturer. Why, what are you doing with it? Why you work for JC Castro? I do. So JC Canero is currently an authorized distributor nationwide of Fire DOS products. So, uh, we are their authorized distributor for all of North America, Canada, uh, and Mexico as well. So any fire DOS installations and so forth, we're typically involved whether we're physically buying the equipment, designing it, installing it, or just working with another contractor that has a customer that we are doing kind of more of a parts and smart scenario. Yep. And selling them the, the, and commissioning it and testing it for them. Okay. Um, so that's kind of our partnership, if you will, with Fire Dos.

(23:29)
They are a German company. Right. Uh, they've been around for a long time. This isn't, you know, a new product per se. Um, I've seen their stuff around for probably a good 10 years. Okay. But it's been a little slow to the, you know, north American, north market, market North. But again, with all these environmental concerns, we're seeing more, uh, need for it. Um, ultimately what it is, is fire DO is a proportioner. So it's a water driven proportioner, so if you can picture it, it, it looks similar to a fire pump. Um, and you have the water flow through the head section of it mm-hmm. , and that's driving a shaft. And that shaft as the water flow, um, whatever that water flow is, increases, decreases. Obviously it's changing the momentum of that shaft. Okay. Which in turn is turning the proportioner pump. Wow.

(24:15)
So it's all what No electrical aspects to it at all. Okay. And that's one of the biggest things. People look at it and say, oh, what do I need for, you know, I gotta increase my generator size. Nope, no electrical at all. It's completely water driven. Okay. So what it also does is it eliminates the bladder tank, the concentrate is gonna be held in an atmospheric tank. Yep. So now we've eliminated another maintenance issue of Oh yeah. With bladder removals and replacements. I ran into this and bladder rip. Yeah. You rip a bladder. Yeah. Good luck getting it outta there. Right. Um, so we have an atmospheric tank that the foam concentrate is held in. You have your water flow through the header of the, the proportioner, which turns that shaft and runs the proportion pump, pump and mixes. It pulls that concentrate in and mixes it into the water flow for your solution.

(25:01)
Mm-hmm. . So they're just like, it says it's directly proportioned between the water flow and the, the proportioner pump that creates, whether that's 3% or 1% on the outlet side mm-hmm. . Okay. So it's a little bit of a unique way to do it. Some of 'em use like a Venturi with the bladder tank and it's kind of drawing the foam concentrating. Right. They're literally pumping the concentrate into the water flow Yep. To create that, that outlet. But the key thing with, with what we can do with this is it has, the ability is a simple three-way valve. So in a normal solution or situation in a fire, it works, just the way I explained it. We show up on site to do testing. We come over to the, the device. There's a three-way valve that we turn that basically directs the concentrate line from entering into the water stream.

(25:53)
And instead of that, it loops it back around into the cons, the, uh, atmospheric tank. Oh. So now we're flowing water Yep. And we're flowing foam, but we're not mixing the two. Right, right. Right. There's gauges on the foam side Yep. Concentrate side and a a gauge reading the water flow. We do a little bit of math and we can determine what that Oh, really, percentage is, that's what, that was my question. How you determine the percentage, how you still have to mix 'em, but I guess if you're doing your proportion through the gauges. Correct. Ah, okay. So you have digital readouts of, of the, uh, concentrate, uh, flow, excuse me, and the water flow. And then again, it's just a quick math to determine what that percentage is. So are you, are you sending it back to the manufacturer anymore? No, no. That's, there are some scenarios where a customers will say, we'd like to flow a little foam and, and get it tested, send back, but it's not required.

(26:45)
Wow. This is a factory mutual, uh, approved device that FM loves this device, and Sure. And they are really pushing their customers because we don't have to create solutions. Sure. So we're not discharging any foam, we're not creating any environmental impact. Yep. Um, and it eliminates a lot of, uh, cost and, and again, just environmental concern of that long term. So is that, um, NFPA 25 kind of regulates some of that, right. Sending it back to manufacturer, all that. So that will have to get changed as well. It's, we're testing the proportioner Okay. And we're verifying the proportion rate of the concentrate. Okay. Or of the solution by doing that calculation. Gotcha. That's completely acceptable at this point. So, huh, that's great. Yeah. Um, so you eliminate bladder tank, it's huge. Yep. You eliminate any electric components through the, the, the pump driven. Is there any extra, I mean, I'm seeing a picture over here Yeah.

(27:43)
Of, of the actual proportioner. Sure. Seems, does seem like there's a lot of, you know, I know in a proportioner essentially, you know, the old, the, the standard way, just an orifice plate essentially. Yep. Right. Inside looks a bit more complicated because there's, there's pistons and there's probably inspection maintenance with those. Right. Greasing them and making sure they're, it, it looks scary, doesn't it? It does look scary, but it, it really, it is, it is a very, um, it really is a simple system. And, and we worked with other contractors throughout the US market that they do the same thing. They look at this and they get nervous. Sure. And we design it for 'em. We, we sell 'em the equipment, we go through the commissioning and they sit there and say, wow, this is a lot simpler than we thought. Yeah. Right. It really is.

(28:27)
Um, well then you, you, you hon you know your proportion at the time, which is correct. This is probably a lead time. I don't know how quick the manufacturers can get that back, but Right. Yeah. You know, you can give them a, a green check mark at that point. And that's exactly when we do commissioning, we, we do it at five different points, typically as far as five different flow rates. Right. Uh, low, high, and a couple in the middle. And we, we note all that, and we do it when we commission it in front of the owner and the FM reps and whoever needs to be there. Sure. And show 'em right there. This is what you're gonna get for an output of, uh, for the foam concentrate, you know, and that prove that we're gonna be within that 3% or 1% requirement. Right.

(29:07)
So. Right. Yeah. So, and application wise, it's really any application using phone in any application. Um, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. What, um, so I guess give me a little history of fire dos where they come from, you know, if you know that I don't know. Yeah. Well, again, they've been around for a long time. They are based outta Germany. They have, um, their main office is outside of Frankfurt, Germany. Okay. Uh, they have a couple other offices throughout Germany, and I know they have one in Poland. Um, they do a lot of, uh, maintenance themselves over in Europe. They have Okay. People out there that will do commissioning and so forth. And, and it is a popular product in, in, you know, Europe Sure. And so forth. And, and they've been very successful there. Um, you know, they got into the market here in the us again, I don't, don't quote me, I wanna say probably about 10 years ago.

(29:59)
Yep. They've kind of tried different things as far as, uh, it being more, um, prominent here. Um, I will say that they do have plans, uh, in the very near future of, of opening up shop here. Oh, wow. Great. Uh, so they are gonna be a little bit more readily accessible and so forth. Sure. Um, they've been great to work with. We have a great partnership with them. Yeah. Um, you know, these devices, again, they're built over there. They're German made. Yeah. You know, uh, which it's a workhorse. Yeah, sure. It's, it, it's certainly, uh, very well made the BMW engine looks like. Yeah. maybe more like an Audi . All right. All right. All right. Um, but yeah, I mean, their history, they do do a lot of foam monitoring as well. Uh, they have foam monitors. They do a lot of, uh, brigade trucks where they'll put a fire, do right on a, uh, a fire brigade trucker where they can go and just turn a handle and go from 1% to 3%, and they can manually change that, um, through this device.

(30:56)
So it's not just fixed fix systems. Uh, we personally are only using it in fixed foam systems, but it really is adaptable to other options. Uh, trailers, uh, again, I see a future for locally with airports and stuff. Right. Trailers with the fire dos. Yep. And then monitors to, uh, protect tank, tank farms and that sort of thing. So Yeah. Mobile aircraft units or whatever. Exactly. Yep. So I see VDS approval, FM approval. How is, what's, what's the UL listing? How does all the listings work? Because I know that's always been confusing and a foam system, bladder tank being listed with the foam being listed with the discharge devices, whether it's heads, monitors, uh, I don't know. Is monitors included in that? I'm not sure. Is the proportioner in that? Yes. It, it is. And, and, you know, so without naming specific manufacturers, but you're right, the, the concentrate itself, when X manufacturer creates a concentrate, they have to test it with x discharge devices, whether it's a monitor or Sure.

(32:00)
A sprinkler head. Yep. Um, a nozzle, whatever that case may be. So it is directly listed as that, that group and that proportioner in the middle does encompass all that. Um, so that proportioner has to be listed with the concentrate to make sure that it is, so everything has to be listed together essentially. Correct. Okay. Correct. But the key really is the concentrate itself with the discharge devices because, you know, whether you use a Firehouse Proportioner or another proportioner, the outlet is a certain percentage Yeah. Of a mixture. Right. So it's really how is the discharge device interact with that mixture that you pushing and Yeah. What kind of foam blanket does it create Exactly like that. Yeah. Yep. So yeah, so there's definitely things to consider from that perspective. Fire dos. Um, we've actually, personally, we've used a multiple number of foam manufacturers, whether it's Berg or Ansel or Viking, um, you know, Buckeye National Foam, I'll mention 'em all just to be be fair, a Buckeye.

(32:57)
Uh, yes. Yes. Oh, yeah, sorry. So we, sorry. Buckeye . So we've used, um, a, a couple of those different manufacturers and, you know, when we design it, it's important to know what concentrate, what we're using, because all the concentrates do provide different viscosity levels and that sort of thing. So we need to make sure that the flow works properly. Sure. Through the fire do so. Yeah. So, yeah. So there's a lot, lot to it, but it's still a simplified system, if that makes any sense. So, yeah. No, I, I I I How many installations, you know, do you have, uh, in the us O r Uh, let's see. Um, we've, we've had the ability to work with a specific customer Sure. That is now going worldwide, where they're changing all their, they're pulling out all their bladder tanks, they're pulling out all their foam proportioner and installing a fire do Wow.

(33:46)
Uh, with a atmospheric tank. So we're doing that here locally in the New England area Yep. As well as, um, countrywide and even some work over, over in Europe as well. Um, but to answer your question more directly, I wanna say last year for that particular customer alone, we did about four fire dos last year, and then we did, um, uh, two others from another, you know, through other avenues right. Outside of that customer. So I think we did five or six last year. Okay. And, uh, on track this year, we have I think three more to do before the end of this year. So we, we got a lot, uh, a lot going on. That's good. Yeah. That's good. I mean, being a, a distributor in North America is probably, yeah. There's a lot of farm systems out there. It it is. And, and, you know, JC Charro is a Boston based company Sure.

(34:32)
And family owned still by a great family. And, you know, this is really expanding our capabilities outside of the New England territory. And I think when we first started doing this, and we got a job in California to install a fire, do that, you know, the, the raro is all the brothers kind of sat there going, wow, this could really take off. This is awesome. And, and so it's exciting for the company as a whole to help us expand outside of New England. Gotcha. So what am we doing work in Chicago, California, all the systems. Are you, uh, are you doing the maintenance on 'em or is that the local contractor that's doing them, or? Right now we're typically working with the local contractor. Okay. Um, but we do have agreements with certain customers that they want us involved in, and either we're gonna subcontract it to a local contractor, or we do have guys that we can send out and put boots on the ground and do the Gotcha.

(35:18)
Do the commissioning as well. So it depends on the situation. You gotta get 'em ready using the right software though, when they're doing the inspection. Yeah. You know, of course, yes. The, the correct software, , what was that called again? ? Uh, you know what it's, um, and Spec point of course, I, I won't, oh, yeah. I won't get into that right now. Not, we'll, we'll do an inspect point only podcast here soon. Okay. Got some fun stuff coming out. Um, so is anything else you wanna discuss, uh, on the, on the fire do side? No, I think, uh, again, there's not a whole lot to it, so hopefully I was able to explain a little bit of the, the background of it and, and how it works. It's, um, definitely something I think everybody in the industry that is involved in FOAM is going to see or hear about more often.

(36:02)
Sure. Um, and, uh, you know, we hear as professionals and authorized distributors, I'll be happy to help answer any further questions or discuss any details with anybody, uh, yeah. You know, after the fact. Yeah. I'll, uh, at the end, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll give you, give you some time to give your contact out and Sure. Where, where we can find you. One, uh, I know we didn't discuss this, but, uh, what's your role with fssa? I know you're all over social media with, with that, and like trying to promote is, I don't know. Do you have a role at F ssa? So FSSA, by the way, is Fire, uh, suppression Systems Association. That's correct, yeah. One of the, the elite, um, associations out there for special hazards and, and other type of systems, obviously. Yeah. It's a great group of contractors. Um, I've been involved with FSSA for probably about eight years now.

(36:51)
Um, I do sit on the board of directors Oh, okay. For fssa, uh, as well as being the chair of the marketing committee, um, which includes our webinar committee and a whole bunch of other stuff. We've grown an astronomical amount over the last, you know, three, four years, uh, with marketing and so forth. And, uh, it's a great group of, of people and, and I truly enjoy being involved, so. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully, uh, I get to go to, I think next year's conference is in Florida again, right? It is. Yep. I'm gonna try to get, it's not Kissemee, but how do they say it? Kissemee. Kissemee. Thank you. Kissemee Florida. Yeah. So Kissemee Florida next, uh, February. Oh, nice. Great, great show. Yep. All right. Um, well, that kind of wraps it up on the, on the fire dust stuff, so obviously I, I have to go to little quick response round, which, uh, little few questions for you here and, uh, we'll kind of get outta here.

(37:42)
So, okay. Um, I'm gonna, Todd doesn't know anything, I'm good about to ask him right now, so you're making me nervous. Sure. Um, Todd, Todd is a, uh, you know, resident of, uh, Pinehurst, North Carolina, one of, uh, the best places on earth for, for golf, which is dear near and dear to my heart. Um, what is your, there's a lot of courses down. What, what's your favorite course? Wow. Um, I would have to say, um, gosh, there's a lot of great courses down there. You're right. Um, if I, Pinehurst themselves has nine courses right now, uh, as well as an executive par three, which we, we got the opportunity to play. Um, but I would say my favorite course is really not any of the Pinehurst courses. I would say it's, uh, mid Pines Mid Yeah. Which is part of, uh, mid Pines and Pine, uh, needles.

(38:38)
Okay. Are both owned by the Kirk Bell family. Okay. Uh, which, uh, Peggy Kirk Bell was, uh, public, public courses. No, they're, they're private. Um, but the Women's US Open has been at Pine Needles, uh Oh, nice. A couple times in the past. And, uh, both those courses really pine needles and Mid Pines are, I think the cradle's the best course there. The Cradle is a lot. Cradle is a nine hole, like, there's nothing over 120 yards executive course. There is a, uh, there's a stationary beer cart on there with pumping music. Yeah. So that, you know, that's, that's my style. It is fun. It is fun. And if I were to pick one out of the nine courses that Pinehurst has, um, as much as I love number two, I have had the ability to play it only once in the 13 years I've lived there.

(39:21)
But it was a beautiful course, but number four is probably my favorite, and they just redid it, which I have not played it since they've redone it. Well, the amateur, the, that's is on number two and number four this week there, correct? Correct. Starts actually starts today. Yeah. Um, all right. I know we got golf side checked there. Sorry, . Um, we could do that all day. So I know we've talked about like, this transition from CA to C6 and, and environmental testing. Um, you do a lot of special hazards, quotations for clean agent water mis the whole thing. Yep. Um, what do you quote on Clean Agent? I'm on, on the chemical side, FM 200. Uh, obviously you can't quote ha line anymore, or Novak, what do you, what do you, what do you roll with when you go in? Or do you go by the spec or Yeah, we have, we have options.

(40:11)
Sure. Uh, at we deal with a couple different manufacturers that provide different options for us. We can quote, um, design an installation of FM 200 systems, nok 1230, uh, a Carro. Um, so we have kind of the gambit of those options. What do you prefer, ? You gonna pay me an Accord? I, yeah, I am. I am. Um, you know, those engineers do a great job specifying different products and, and we do try to follow the specifications Okay. Uh, to the best of our ability. But no, in all, all honesty, and I'll be completely honest, they just came up earlier this week, a customer, it's a small room, and they said, you know what? We know there's a couple different options. Price 'em all. Okay. And it was a small enough room that price-wise, they all kind of came in. Sure. You know, within reason, within a couple hundred bucks of each other, when you get into the larger systems, you see a different, a a bigger impact of cost.

(41:04)
Yep. But then there's the questions of, okay, well we've been talking about environmental with foam. Right. There's some similar conversations with correct clean agents as environmental, what's the most environmentally friendly. Right. Um, but every manufacturer has different options too, as far as tank sizes Sure. And everything. So, um, you know, I I, I know I've heard it in some of your other podcasts. It depends. What's that? know, I'm only supposed to use that once I, I was, I was trying to corn you and stuff in there, so . Um, yeah, because I always, you know, and certain manufacturers say certain things, so, you know what, it's tough to, to get a straight answer a lot of times. Yeah. On, on, uh, what's better and why it's better. Um, I, anyway, I'll I'll say the nfpa uh, 2001, which talks about clean agents is pretty clear on the environmental aspects of, of all those agents.

(41:56)
Oh, they do? Okay. That's good. So you can break it down. And everybody's got charts that read what the environmental impact is based on breakdown, global warming and, and, and, um, and that sort of thing. So it, the, the information is there. Yeah. No, it's gonna look at it and make a determination from you think other maybe, maybe form will get there someday where they can give that breakdown. Yeah. That's actually, that's a great thought process. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we mentioned water mist. Yeah. You do, you do a lot of install on Water mist? Well, we do a fair amount. Yeah. Why is it not being used? Is it not being used? Yeah, yeah. Um, it it's application specific. Yeah. Um, and it is cost, it's cost, you know, whether we're talking high pressure Yeah. Or low pressure, uh, hybrid systems. Sure, sure. I know, I think you had a, a podcast talking about Yeah.

(42:43)
Some hybrid systems, I think, was that Sean Mullen? I believe Sean Mullen, yeah. Talked about that. And we do a lot of that. We do a lot of hybrid, uh, water miss systems, and I mean, it's a good combination. Um, I have, I'll compare, I, we have three large projects right now. Um, one of 'em has a hybrid water miss system in the data center. The other one has a clean agent system in the data center. In the same, we're talking about, you know, two similar applications with two totally different, uh, solutions. Um, you know, it goes back to the owner and the engineer and the discussions that occur prior to, to make that determination. That's good. You know, having a tool belt of all that's is helpful. Sure. All right. Last question here. Um, who is your sa favorite superhero?

(43:35)
Wow. Favorite superhero? You gonna ask me why after that too? ? Well, I mean, so I'm gonna post a video along with this. Okay. But, uh, Todd's big in Fssa . He, he, uh, I, I'm watching, and John Lawler is great. He, he did a great job of promoting F SSA and some of the, uh, video promotions that he did. But I'm watching it one day and all of a sudden this Spider-Man character comes out on the screen and it needed to be a little tighter suit, by the way, you know? Well, it was made for John Lawler, it was not made for me. Okay. And I say that in all pleasantness to, to John. I love him dearly. So all of a sudden St. Spiderman's talking and up comes his mask and it's Todd. Yeah. I was the super, the Spider-Man superhero. So yeah.

(44:24)
That's your favorite. That I'll, I'll go with Spider-Man. How's that? Okay. Because it Spidey senses so well, and John LOLer still calls me Spidey when he says, does he really? Oh, that's great. Yeah. That's great. Well, um, this has been fun. Uh, you know, talking about this, I've been meaning to, you know, interesting, very interesting. Um, uh, new technology on inspection, testing and maintenance, which Right. With what I'm in, in, in inspect points lined with. So, um, do you got anything to say? Wanna get any message out there and, you know, feel free to give your contact and social media and all that? Yeah, no, I mean, this has, this has been fun. Um, I'm sure there's a million things that I probably should have mentioned that I didn't. Um, but, you know, we don't have a couple hours to, to go through things. But, um, yeah, no, I appreciate the opportunity that, that, and, um, you know, if anybody does have any additional questions on fire dos or foam systems or clean agent systems that I can support and help out with, they'd be happy to, to reach out to me.

(45:22)
You can find me on LinkedIn and, uh, Todd Stevens or [email protected]. Um, but yeah, uh, definitely reach out to us. I think you're gonna see a lot more of the fire dos and, and they're a great company and we're excited to continue to grow, um, their base here in, in the US market. So maybe they'll ship me to Germany one of these days. Huh? I'm heading there in a couple weeks, actually, actually. Oh, nice. Yeah, I haven't been over there yet. So we're gonna do some training over there in Germany. It's in September, which, you know, for those who don't know, that's actually Octoberfest starts Octoberfest. Yeah. So we'll be there at that time on time. Yeah. Well, thanks Todd. And, uh, thank you. We'll see everybody soon.

Drew Slocum: (45:59):

This has been episode 11 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect point. I wanted to thank my guest again, Todd Stevens. Todd is a wealth of knowledge in the special hazards industry, and he's got a lot going for 'em moving forward with Fire Dos and some of the other, uh, special hazards options that they do have at JC Canister. So again, great podcast. Wanna hear your feedback on Fire Protection foam. Uh, eventually we're gonna get a, a foam manufacturer onto here to, to really talk about the, the chemical makeup and what is really going on, uh, with the fire protection foam and how, how it is affecting the environment, uh, in certain SI situations. So check us out, inspect point.com, the Fire Protection Podcast, and look forward to hear from you soon.

Full Episode 

Drew Slocum: (00:09):

This is episode 10 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, the topic is clearing the air. So I came up with clearing air a few months ago. I wanted to get a bunch of different , um, professionals from fire protection in a room together. Uh, not only corrosion. We've got, um, a fire protection contractor. A couple of them. We have a fire protection engineer. Uh, we have a nitrogen, uh, generating manufacturer, south Tech. Uh, we also have general air products on there. So wanted to get a good consensus, uh, of different fire protection perspectives and professionals in the industry to shed some light on the corrosion issues happening. And, and mainly dry and pre-action. We don't really get into the wet systems too much, but add a trade show, like at fpa, this awesome trade show and other, uh, association trade shows around around fire protection.

(01:04)
You get a lot of maybe one-sided views on some of this topic, so wanted to get a big round table together, throw some margaritas down the table and, uh, really have at it. So, um, N F P A has been a great show, um, this week for Inspect Point and just the fire protection, um, industry in general. Uh, a lot of new technologies coming out, um, definitely on the software side of things, but more being pushed in the internet of things iot direction, which, uh, we kind of segue a little bit into that in the podcast as well. And some of the new technologies coming out there. But again, clear in the air. Really great topic. And, um, yeah, we also have, uh, posted this on Facebook live on Inspect Point's Facebook page, if you do wanna see a live video of this. So, uh, check it out, make sure to subscribe and we'll love more feedback if, uh, anybody has it. Have a good one.

Chris Logan: (02:04):

Do I introduce myself after I'm editing podcast, or no? Yeah, you should. Well, that's not the podcast. Run. Well, everybody leaves. Chris is gonna be there. Remote. Yes. Oh, I would walk home like this. Yes. Oh, that was good.

Drew Slocum: (02:27):

Well, uh, uh, we're here live at the, uh, well, they're still moving tables over there, but whatever, we'll continue. They're working. Um, this is the Agave Bar Cafe Ole on the Riverwalk here, San Antonio, uh, the week of N F P A Expo Conference here in San Antonio, Texas. So, uh, doing a little bit different style podcast today, doing a little round table with everybody here at a nice, uh, tech specs restaurant with some, uh, margaritas in tequila here. . Um, kind of the gist of the podcast is called Clearing the Air, kind of just on, there's, there's a lot of corrosion talk out there. There's a lot of dry system talk. Wanted a couple different perspectives, including my own, um, and I'm mainly gonna moderate this, but, uh, I'll point some stuff out here eventually. But, um, yeah, wanted to introduce everybody. Uh, we'll start here. Chris Logan.

Chris Logan: (03:21):

Uh, my name is Chris Logan. I'm with the Fire Sprinkler Podcast. I'm also a sprinkler contractor from Southwestern Ontario. I described myself as a fitter and a golf shirt, and I started out on tools, and Ive kind of moved into design estimating project management, uh, essentially doing anything for business that nobody else wants to do.

Henry Fontana: (03:41):

Cool.

Drew Slocum: (03:42):

What, before, after the intro, what did you gain out of N FPA Expo Week?

Chris Logan: (03:47):

What did I gain out of the nfpa, uh, expo so

Drew Slocum: (03:50):

Far?

Chris Logan: (03:50):

So far, yeah. So far. Well, so I'm actually heading out pretty much immediately after this intro, . But,

Ray Freeman: (03:56):

Uh,

Chris Logan: (03:57):

Uh, it, it was good for me to see, uh, other kind of like-minded people in the industry coming together, uh, for the betterment of, uh, fire protection in general. Um, it was nice. Uh, I, I can only compare it to the conferences that I've been to, which are the, uh, the NFSA events. And, um, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a conference on steroids for fire protection. So, uh, it's not specific to Sprinkler, uh, which was good because you get a lot of different minded people in the fire protection industry looking at things. You get fire alarm, you get suppression, you get extinguishers, uh, and then you get into the, um, um, uh, the electrical, the electrical, uh, aspect of fire protection. And it's, it's just good to see the different ways people are doing things around the world. NFPA is the biggest fire protection organization everywhere. Uh, and it, they throw a hell of a show.

Ray Freeman: (04:49):

Yeah.

Drew Slocum: (04:50):

Yeah. It's been great. Ray,

Ray Freeman: (04:52):

Uh, Ray Freeman General Air Products, I'm the marketing director. Um, been involved in the industry for about 20 years, uh, general's, my family's company. So, um, we've been, uh, manufacturing air compressors for fire sprinkler system for over 50 years. Um, third, fourth, fourth generation, uh, at general. So my son's working

Chris Logan: (05:12):

Out in the shop, so,

Ray Freeman: (05:12):

And we got a fifth one going too, so there you go. Cool.

Henry Fontana: (05:16):

Alright. Henry Henry Fontana, the President of Fire Design, New Jersey. We're a sprinkler contractor in the New York, New Jersey area. Um, I've been in the industry also around 20 years. Started out as, uh, from everywhere from the, from the shop to a fitter installer being my way through the office as design and project management and sales. And now I'm running my own company and working in New York City metro area, installing all types of sprinkler systems.

Drew Slocum: (05:41):

Okay. Wait,

Lee Kaiser: (05:43):

I'm Lee Kaiser. Um, I'm with Board Protection Systems out of Louisville, Kentucky. And, uh, I'm VP of engineering for them. I'm a fire protection engineer. I worked in consulting, uh, up until working for, or, and, uh, we're primarily a special hazardous contractor. So, um, we look at things from the, uh, anything with a releasing circuit we really like. So we like some of the form and control stuff that you, you talked about. Um, and, uh, but a lot of our customers have free action systems and drive systems because of that. And we, we see the issues that we're gonna discuss all the time Sure. For, uh, for those customers. And so we hear a lot of their perspectives.

Jake Lehman: (06:28):

Cool. I'm, uh, Jake Lehman with South Tech Systems. I'm the fire protection team lead. Been with the company a little over four and a half years, and we manufacture nitrogen generators. We've been in nitrogen generator manufacturing for over two decades in the fire protection industry for 10 plus years. Um, just bringing a bunch of different products and a little different mindset as far as nitrogen goes to the, to the industry.

Drew Slocum: (06:51):

You got some good coffee too.

Jake Lehman: (06:53):

We do. Little cold brew nitro coffee. So, , we kicked one keg this morning, so you know, we're down, we're down to the last probably three, four gallons. Stop by and see us early. You guys have coffee? Your booth? We do

Drew Slocum: (07:06):

With nitrogen.

Jake Lehman: (07:07):

Cold brew. Nitrogen what? Coffee. Nitrogen. Yep. My flight got delayed. very high caffeine count. Gets you all jacked up. Oh, sorry. So when you start seeing people running around the show, they've probably been by my . That's what people

Lee Kaiser: (07:22):

Free.

Drew Slocum: (07:25):

Well thanks everyone for joining. Little cheers. We'll do one at the end. We can order, order whatever you guys want, you know. Cheers. Um, drew from the podcast. Everybody knows who I am, but, um, yeah, thanks everybody for coming. Wanted to really, uh, kind of get, um, and you can leave whenever you want. Yeah.

Jake Lehman: (07:43):

I've,

Drew Slocum: (07:44):

We'll start talking us.

Jake Lehman: (07:45):

You've been appointed to leave, introduce myself, podcast. Bad taste.

Drew Slocum: (07:56):

So, um, I'll kind of intro it a little bit. You know, there's a lot of talk of corrosion. I, I previously worked for Tyco and, uh, Viking for, for years doing dry and pre-action system. Sold a lot of general air products. Sold a lot of self tech and some of the other manufacturers out there. So, um, had experience from the, actually the supplier's point of view, so I could kind of push that as well. But, um, there's a lot of different things going on with corrosion and, um, you know, dry systems preact action is not going away anytime soon. Um, so wanted to kind of point out some of the pros and cons that I've heard and you guys can just start right off the bat, just start chatting about it. Um, you know, dry and pre-action systems, for those who don't know, they keep moving tables.

Jake Lehman: (08:45):

,

Drew Slocum: (08:48):

Are, are essentially fire sprinkler systems that, um, are susceptible to cold weather for more on dry system side. So anything below 40 degrees, any time of the year, you're gonna run into a dry system. Pre action's more, it's a little bit different. It's still quote unquote a dry system. But preact action's more, uh, uh, they want to know, you want to know you have a fire, an IT room is historical place, even a freezer. Uh, a lot of times you have pre action. So, um, those are different types of systems out there. Now, obviously you have water up to the valve itself on top of that, you either, you know, for years and years you had compressed air, uh, 10 years ago. Somebody can correct me. I'm wrong if it's probably longer than that. Um, nitrogen was, I don't know, introduced or kind of poured over

Henry Fontana: (09:40):

From different generators

Ray Freeman: (09:41):

Specifically. Yeah, there was, I mean, nitrogen canisters, I think we've been used for the past probably 30 plus years. And it was generators about 10 years ago that

Chris Logan: (09:49):

Came in that. Right. I've got a couple, uh, facilities that we service that, uh, long before nitrogen generators had been around and I've been in the industry for a short period of time, but I can remember, uh, not that there was any, uh, child slave labor involved, but I remember as a kid, and uh, you know, I'd be in charge of the bottle after filling up the dry. Oh,

Drew Slocum: (10:07):

Okay. Yeah.

Henry Fontana: (10:08):

I've seen the same nitrogen bottles. A regulator just constantly swapping 'em out.

Chris Logan: (10:13):

That's right. Yeah. Changing them.

Drew Slocum: (10:15):

Good to see how often you swap them out.

Henry Fontana: (10:16):

It depends on if, if there's a lot of surface going on or how big the system is and, uh, cause you know, quarterly or whatever people are doing the low air draining them out. Right. They had to move heads. So it's pretty, its pretty often umprobably four or five times a year. You'd have to usually have a couple bottles there. Yep. Then when you were doing your maintenance, you would move one over and it'd take a couple to the filling station and have 'em refill it and bring 'em back. Huh.

Drew Slocum: (10:38):

Lee, you mentioned it the other day to me, you guys still do a lot of the

Lee Kaiser: (10:41):

Yeah, we, we've, um, we still see facilities with bottle gas systems.

Chris Logan: (10:45):

Yeah.

Lee Kaiser: (10:46):

Um, what we would try to guide people towards is if your system's not that leaky. Yep. It's a, it's a opportunity, but, you know, uh, if it is a leaky system, it's probably not a great idea. And if it's a big system, it's probably not a great idea. Frankly, with the bottle gas system, a lot of these facilities that might have that they're small enough to have a bottle gas system that's the only high pressure cylinder in that facility and it's a safety thing that they're not used to dealing with. Oh, right. And this thing shoved off on the corner and once in a while somebody touches it. But if somebody screws up and knocks that bottle over and is not chained and place correctly, you know, they can be inducing safety concerns that they don't have. Yep. Anything that, anything else. Right.

Chris Logan: (11:30):

I believe there's different, there's other requirements in NFPA 25 as far as care and maintenance of uh, like stored bottled gas as well. I think that's like a weekly inspection that's gonna be done on that to make sure that the bald are top up. You might know a little bit as

Drew Slocum: (11:44):

Well, we should

Henry Fontana: (11:46):

do not know,

Drew Slocum: (11:47):

I don't know the low

Lee Kaiser: (11:50):

Pressure alarm would be the thing that would trip be off the slope,

Chris Logan: (11:53):

But I think the stored air supply has to be, uh, if it's bottled only and not like a self-creating like a, like a generator or an air compressor, I think there's something in, and I may be wrong, right? Like I'll be the first guy who fully admitted if I'm wrong. But I think there's something in an NBA 25, uh, that, that mentions monitoring the bottles of stored, uh, gas supply.

Jake Lehman: (12:15):

Lot times you'll see like two bottles where they want a changeover automatic changeover. So it lets you know when the first one is isn't going low so that you're not moving out of it. I mean, nitrogen itself is fairly inexpensive, but depending on where you're at, if you're remote, you're can't get the bottles. That's, uh, obviously a headache. And then, like we talked about, the, the fact that if you're knock on over, you can send it through multiple brick walls.

Lee Kaiser: (12:36):

It's

Henry Fontana: (12:36):

3000 PSI in those

Jake Lehman: (12:37):

Bottles. That's no joke, .

Henry Fontana: (12:39):

Yeah, exactly.

Drew Slocum: (12:40):

Well, we don't have a bottle gas person here, so No, don't worry about that. So, you know, bottle gas been around for 30 years. What's kind of, you know, last 10, 15 years, uh, nitrogen still, you know, still great for, for, for dry systems. Um, and what, what's, I don't even know what spurred this on, you know, in the industry 10 years ago, but those bottle gases kind of turned, morphed into the nitrogen generation where you don't have to worry about that change out. So, um,

Jake Lehman: (13:13):

Yeah, we, we got approached by a facility that had switched. They were having corrosion issues, they switched the bottles. Right. And they had a bank of like eight of them that they were using, cuz it was fairly large facility and they did a good job at mitigating the corrosion, but the problem was changing 'em out all the time and having to deal with 'em. So that's really where we had a contractor come to us and said, Hey, we know you do nitrogen. What, what kind of solution can you provide us for it? Right. That's how we got our foot.

Drew Slocum: (13:36):

That's how you guys got into it. Yeah. Really. Yeah.

Lee Kaiser: (13:38):

And that's how we saw with other industrial uses of nitrogen, uh, and, and equipment that could make nitrogen from the air. Then all of a sudden, hey, there's an idea of well maybe this could be used for our fire protection system. So there was other commercially viable reasons, right. That there were products to make nitrogen cause just somebody figured out that it could be applied to

Drew Slocum: (13:58):

This industry. Yeah. And they had the history with the corrosion, you know,

Henry Fontana: (14:01):

From,

Drew Slocum: (14:02):

From that. So

Henry Fontana: (14:02):

I met with the membrane, uh, guy at, at the show here today and he, I never actually saw the inside of one. It

Drew Slocum: (14:08):

Looks, it's like pretty,

Henry Fontana: (14:10):

Yeah, it's pretty simple. Just a tiny little straws that the nitrogen flows through the center of 'em and the oxygen goes out to sides. So it's an easy process to, to separate. And the manufacturers figured out how to get it all compact and hooked to a sprinkler system. Right, right. Cause it doesn't look like hard technology.

Jake Lehman: (14:26):

No, I mean there, there's, there's really like three ways to take nitrogen from the air and a little different variations of all, you know, cryogenically, you can take the air temperature down the negative 320 degrees Fahrenheit and nitrogen will come outta the air and the form of a liquid. It's not really cost effective. And, you know, fire sprinkler application

Henry Fontana: (14:40):

I think it's called too. Yeah,

Jake Lehman: (14:41):

Yeah, exactly. Uh, you know, membrane technology like you're talking about with the hollow fibers in there, and then pressure swing absorbtion technology where you're, you're swinging pressure between, um, carbon, basically carbon zi beds to extract the nitrogen from there. There's different variations of it, but for the most part those are your three

Ray Freeman: (14:56):

Three main ones. Yeah. No, it's know something I don't, no No, that's, that's it. That's how you do it. Yeah.

Chris Logan: (15:02):

So how has it changed over the past 30 years since the, like inception of, of stored nitrogen on site to nitrogen generators? Was it like a day one, day two, or was it, um, like when, when did, when did nitrogen generators first start coming to the fire protection market?

Ray Freeman: (15:21):

I think between both the prevalence of, you know, fire sprinklers being put into more locations, are you seeing, uh, corrosion being more of an issue? I mean, you can't get around it. Right. Um, and then on top of that, the, the maintenance costs associated with bottled just started to say, okay, this is, this is something that's worth exploring. See, I wonder if,

Chris Logan: (15:39):

I wonder if there's any kind of a correlation between,

Lee Kaiser: (15:42):

Um,

Chris Logan: (15:43):

Older systems and you, you being from New York, older systems all the time, dry systems 40, 50 years ago were all threaded. Skip 40,

Drew Slocum: (15:53):

Get 80 sometimes.

Chris Logan: (15:54):

Yeah. Red

Henry Fontana: (15:56):

Heavy. And it's a big thing is installation too. A lot of they were, I I think fitters, I mean I'm a fitter myself, but uh, back in the day were more careful on pitch and there wasn't so many requirements about, Hey, I gotta get all this stuff in, in a six inch ceiling, the duct, the electrical and everything. So now pitches blown out of the way. Yeah. But the

Lee Kaiser: (16:12):

Pitch, the pitch rules have only been around since 2007. You know, it's be 13, I would say a lot of older systems were installed dead flat. Yeah. And, and I would bet, here's when I think of things, yeah, it's all still steel pipe. If it's scheduled 40, it's still got a corrosion problem. It's just that it's the pipe's thicker. So you haven't seen a leak. We realized that there's a corrosion problem in the system because of leaks. So that's where it rears its ugly head. So

Chris Logan: (16:39):

You, do you think it's like we had to find another way to combat corrosion because we're using lighter materials, skid seven, which isn't used a lot now, but Skid 10 is used in dry systems daily. Yeah. Do you failures? It's not so much,

Lee Kaiser: (16:51):

It's the time to failure, the time that it takes to get a leak shortened because the material thickness went down.

Henry Fontana: (16:58):

Yeah.

Lee Kaiser: (16:58):

And I think that's what brought the consciousness

Henry Fontana: (17:01):

Up. I don't think they, manufacturers of steel, which there's nobody here have changed the steel. Somehow. I,

Drew Slocum: (17:05):

So I worked on the pipe because,

Henry Fontana: (17:07):

Sorry, we put in it is in a wet system and a pump room and, and in place. Um, and that's where we're talking to other people who treat water. Um, and the pump room, when you see a lot of erosion and it's, cuz that's where the fresh water and the fresh oxygen's coming in and it literally, we put schedule 48 inch pipe in, in a pump room. And then two years later it had a pinhole. Oh really? We just replaced it, the concrete lines up the iron. So hopefully, uh, we decided to move the underground pipe into the

Drew Slocum: (17:30):

Inside. I I do think it's a quality of steel. I, I was on, I worked for Allied Sprinkler pipe on the line and some of the hot rolled steel that would come over that they manufactured on probably was way different 50 years ago than it is today. Yeah. Regulations, they're stepped the regulations, a lot of that's coming from overseas and a lot of it's recycled and then it's coming over. So I, I do think there is, I know there's no steel pipe person here right now as well. I think there is something there too.

Jake Lehman: (17:57):

And water chemistry has changed

Drew Slocum: (17:59):

Over time and water chemistry,

Jake Lehman: (18:00):

They're putting different things in the water. You know, a lot of times they'll use a, like a phosphate in there to help line the pipe, but that's also a food for biological stuff. Right. So there's a lot of different things that change. Um, you know, I, my previous life I tested a lot of water and I could test water from the same municipality but two different plants and, uh, the chemistry would be totally different. Really? Yeah. I mean, you see pH low on one, high on the other. Well that's, that's, that's another factor that you gotta take into the

Chris Logan: (18:26):

Equation. Water's not water everywhere. Right.

Lee Kaiser: (18:29):

I think we just buy cheaper pipe than other industries. Yeah. So, you know, we are not, fire sprinklers is not the only industry with corrosion problems. Right. But we, um, over time I think we've stopped buying heat and yield pipe. I think that's the term, right? Yes. So Yep. Uh, heat and yield pipe and because it's cheaper, right? Yep. And so in sprinkler systems we stopped doing that, whereas in hydronic, um, systems for heating water, for chilled water for steam. Yep. And all we, they buy a more expensive heat and yield pipe because, because it's more resistant corrosion. Yep. And so just to keep the price of our systems down, keep the cost per square foot, we've bought cheaper pipe in this industry.

Chris Logan: (19:07):

So from a contractor point of view, um, what I see in, in the contracting field is, uh, obviously lowest bidder gets a job. But as far as us versus other mechanical contractors on site, we're always the lowest by multiple percents. Correct. Right. Um, you know, one to 2% of a total overhead, uh, uh, project. I was just talking to a general today and, and you know, my bill on a project 24 million project was somewhere in the 400,000 range. And he was telling me the other mechanical contractors on site or are three and four. And it was something, there was an argument over like a a a a Volvo valve for, for a, a suppression system on a, on a duct board. Like I'll just make them, their contractors' worth 4 million. And I was like, they're trying to get me to pay it. Like

(19:55)
Yeah. Right. Like so it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's an issue from the contractors as well because it's, it's essentially, it's a, it's a race to the bottom for contracts. Cuz the lowest bidder's gonna get the project. Most of the time there are guys that want quality over mm-hmm. pricing, but for the most part, it's the lowest, it's the lowest bid contractor that gets the job. And the lowest bidder contracts are gonna buy the cheapest material, you know, install quickest, which may involve not, you know, in not installing it with the proper slope. Yeah. Uh, you're gonna get a a, an air compressor over a, over a gas or a nitrogen generator. Uh, things like that.

Henry Fontana: (20:32):

Yeah. We do do some work for, uh, transit in New York and they spec cause they probably know this and they've done their research like all crazy ASTM you know, 53 B seamless pipe cuz that's probably the pipe that's, you know, less likely. And, and the reason that when we asked them is that we want this to be here in a hundred years, you know, they have crazy specs on their hangers, on, on everything, not just their pipe. But that's, that's the reason that the guy building, you know, a shoe store doesn't have that same That's right. He just wants it in there. Yep.

Drew Slocum: (20:59):

So what we, we get out of this is there's a lot of different applications for, for different dry systems, you know, uh, transit versus a parking garage or a loading dock, what, you know, so with, with corrosion, there's a few things. Obviously there's a steel pipe issue that it's kind of maybe underlying the, I think there is some future technology that is coming out with some steel pipe that, uh, hasn't been introduced yet. We'll see if it ever takes off or whatever. But, um, right now nitrogen is nitrogen's a great solution. I think it still is a great solution for, for certain systems. Um, yeah, there's a lot of different

Henry Fontana: (21:39):

Mind this guy.

Drew Slocum: (21:40):

Oh wow. He's on it. Fine.

Chris Logan: (21:45):

I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna take this kind of stop and, and drink break to, uh, thank everybody. I gotta head out. I'm close to missing my flight. ,

Drew Slocum: (21:55):

Thanks for having young guys. Nice to meet you. Uh, thanks for meeting everybody. Uh, listen to this. Check out the fire sprinkler podcast. Chris, Chris to meet you. I was out there. Thanks. It

Chris Logan: (22:02):

Was a pleasure.

Drew Slocum: (22:03):

We'll talk you for we'll talk this week. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

Henry Fontana: (22:06):

Travel.

Drew Slocum: (22:09):

So, um,

Henry Fontana: (22:14):

We got one, it won't go away.

Drew Slocum: (22:17):

I'll probably take one.

Jake Lehman: (22:20):

Yeah, we go.

Drew Slocum: (22:21):

Um, you know, there's a lot of different applications for nitrogen, uh, and compressed air and, and a combo probably of both, you know, different solutions. So, um, you know, let's, let's go, I'm gonna go around the room and just give a couple pros cons of, of, of you could pros and cons of compressed air versus nitrogen. You could even talk about other systems as well or you know, is it, is all all the corrosion, is that the best solution out there? You know, we talked about the steel, which is kind of great. So, uh, Jake, you wanna kick it off? Sure.

Jake Lehman: (22:57):

I mean, uh, as far in your perspective. Yeah. I mean, if nitrogen has its application, right? You got somebody that's looking for a hundred year building or somebody that's gonna be in that facility for an extended period of time, they're, they're looking to keep the sprinkler system out of sight outta mind, right? Mm-hmm. . So that helps, that helps do that. Uh, you got somebody that's gonna flip a building in four years, they don't care if there's a sprinkler system in there, let

Drew Slocum: (23:17):

Alone Right. You

Jake Lehman: (23:18):

Know, a generator. So hopefully they use a decent quality compressor and not something that they picked up at a big box store. Thank you. Yes. . You agree? Absolute. So, I mean, you know, my thing is, I always say every drive free action system is a candidate for it, not every customer. Right. And that's, that's what we gotta look at from, from that standpoint. It doesn't work for that customer, for that application. Right. Um, and that's, that's really how we go about it. And just to

Drew Slocum: (23:48):

Determine, so how, how do you, do you go to the owner? Do you go to the contractor? Do you, how do

Jake Lehman: (23:53):

You do that? It's a, it's awareness and that's where, you know, you're looking at when did, when did nitrogen start coming in? It's just really started as an awareness situation when it's come out. You know, nitrogen generators when they first come out, a lot of people were using 95% purity. Right? Well that's what, what they thought that was gonna work. And then testing got put in place and we checked 95 to verse 98 versus compressed air. And let's see, let's see what's, what's gonna work the best from there and can really settle out on, on a number. And then it's kind of evolved from there. And that's where you see, you know, more companies doing it and more applications and the technology as technology advances. So do the, the generators that are moving along with it.

Drew Slocum: (24:29):

Yep. So that's good. Lee, any uh, insight on that? Yeah,

Lee Kaiser: (24:34):

I would say there's a, um, the change of point to me is what are you trying to do with your dry system? If you've got a small dry system that only exists in your building because of freeze protection reasons, you know, you may not make that investment in a nitrogen system. Right. Um, if you, any time you have a dry system because you want the reaction cuz you don't want pipes sitting or water sitting in your pipes right? Then it's an absolute candidate for a nitrogen system. Right. In my opinion. Because you're trying to protect something. You, you don't water want water in those pipes for some reason. And, uh, that's, that's to me that's the tripping point to know when a nitrogen system needed in whatever form. And I have, I have opinions whether it could be bottle or right or you know, a unit natural generator

Drew Slocum: (25:25):

Like trick. Big point. That's good. Uh, that's a good term. Trick.

Henry Fontana: (25:28):

Drew Slocum: (25:30):

Henry.

Henry Fontana: (25:32):

Well, as a contractor, I mean, we see, we, you know, doing maintenance and we see corrosion all the time and you know, on one sense that's good for us, their pipe leaks, so we get to replace their pipe every couple years. Yeah. Right. We want what's best for the customer and to continue there. So, um, there's definitely pros to, to the nitrogen from, you know, what I've learned and that that will stop any future corrosion. I didn't know anything about it until about 10 years ago. Um, I think I might be wrong, but I think we, um, I had this job and said some guys from General Air is gonna come with their compressor. Oh yeah, that's right. We went up in Newark, swear, I believe that was the first he showed nitrogen system, general air Yeah. Sent out me and him installed it ourselves Yeah. In this place. And then I was like, wow, this is, this is pretty deep. And um, so, so I definitely see a benefit of corrosion. I see there's a big misconception though on the customer's end where I see people are saying that, Hey, you have corrosion, we have your fix. It's nitrogen. I do not think it is a fix. If you have corroded pipe, you have to take care of that first. Yeah.

Jake Lehman: (26:32):

If Ray and I can figure out how to regrow pipe with nitrogen

Henry Fontana: (26:36):

Like that, some people are telling the customer, Hey, spend this amount of money on this nitrogen system and all your problems are solved. Sure. You definitely need to fix, need to. If the only way to do it is trip it to get the everything, loosen it up in there, then you're gonna have to trip that system and loosen everything. Get clean, clean, fix those leaks, then give them the nitrogen. So now you are confident, um, here to go. And it's not just nitrogen. There's also, you know, if you, if you can, there's also manufacturer do dry putting dry air in there. Yeah. And that's the same if corrosion is a triangle and you need moisture, oxygen and a and a metal just get rid of, same as a fire triangle, one part of that. So putting in dry air right. Would then, you know, you only have air and metal, no moisture. Right.

Drew Slocum: (27:18):

Which would be good.

Henry Fontana: (27:18):

Just, you know, very big on you have to fix issues before you do this. Right. Unless it's a brand new system. If it's a new system, there's benefits on it. Like maybe you can go to the schedule 10 and you save the price of this generator now, and now it's, you can kind of show them that it's cost effective. Right.

Drew Slocum: (27:34):

Like, you know,

Henry Fontana: (27:35):

If it's $10,000 to go with schedule 40 and a compressor and 7,000 for schedule 10 and the compressor's three, now you kind of got your nitrogen generator for the cost of the other system. Right. And it's new

Jake Lehman: (27:45):

And you gotta make sure the corrosion that you're trying to protect can be protected by nitrogen. Correct. So if it's some other type of form, if nitrogen's not gonna be a benefit there, that's just gonna have a very upset customer. Right. Yeah.

Henry Fontana: (27:56):

I know we did see a customer that had, uh, those little, it looked like muscles in there. Mm-hmm. , I don't know what they're called, but nodules. Nodules Now is that kidnapping killed? But in general, would that grow with that? With that?

Jake Lehman: (28:07):

It depends on what the root cause. Root cause of the corrosion was. It was

Henry Fontana: (28:10):

Crazy. We dump it out.

Drew Slocum: (28:12):

No, really? Yeah. Like muscles growing in there.

Henry Fontana: (28:14):

Yeah. We were a little tiny like, like

Jake Lehman: (28:15):

Pulling from a pond or

Henry Fontana: (28:16):

Something. Yeah. No, this is Brooklyn pulling things from Brooklyn. Water,

Drew Slocum: (28:20):

Sewer water. Ah, I flew from Brooklyn. You're that, you bring up a good point. Retrofits versus pull, you know, brand new install. I think there's a big separation between those two. And with retrofits it depends. There's a lot of, it depends with new installs, I think it's more, you know, black and white mm-hmm. in my opinion. I agree. So Ray, any

Ray Freeman: (28:44):

Any, yeah, I mean, you know, we look at it, you know, again, from an air compressor perspective, being an air compressor company, we look at generators or a version of an air compressor, you know, just like Henry brought up dry air as a version of a, an air compressor. And, um, you know, the, the drawbacks to a nitrogen generator are the risk restricted air flow. You know, the, the amount of, uh, ccfm that you get out of a a generator is substantially lower than what you get out of an air compressor. So it's a question of, you know, again, going back to what are the existing air leaks, you know, and, and addressing those. Um, but you know, the, the other part of the message that I think sometimes gets left out when we talk about corrosion is corrosion isn't the only reason why dry systems leak. Um, and those, those reasons, you know, whether it's uh, cross threads or dried out, uh, couplings or, you know, valves not

Jake Lehman: (29:34):

Building, building, settling,

Ray Freeman: (29:35):

Building, settling, all of those types of things Right. Are going to cause leaks. And the, you know, as your CFM goes down with the generator and, and you know, again, this isn't dumping on generators, we, we build them too. Right. So I mean it's, it's not, it is just that they fundamentally have a much lower flow through them. And that means that as a system starts to leak more and more, that means the compressor's gonna run more and more. Your maintenance is gonna go up more and more. So that idea of, you know, uh, this is going to help us with our, our maintenance issue, um, if your maintenance issue is replacing pipe, yes. That's, that's what nitrogen's for. But then you go into down the road, okay, well now we're not replacing pipe, but we're having to address the fact that this air compressor's running 10 times more than it was before because it's making up that flow.

(30:19)
We're trying to fix air leaks in our system. Mm-hmm. , you know, those are the types of things that are, are potential drawbacks to this. And I think that people just have to be aware because again, the last thing I think any of us want is, is to have our equipment put into a place where it's not given a fair chance to perform properly. Sure. You know, so like you're saying, getting back to the root causes of it, you know, one of the root causes I always like to get back to is lack of maintenance. Mm-hmm. , that's a root cause of corrosion as far as I'm concerned. You know what I mean? And, and, and a nitrogen generator isn't going to fix that. You know what I mean? So it's like if you're talking to your, your facility manager and you, you know, or that building owner and they're not really somebody who does a lot of maintenance. Yeah. They're not really in my mind a great candidate for a nitrogen generator. So Yeah.

Lee Kaiser: (31:01):

It's just you gotta, if that's the case and you know

Ray Freeman: (31:03):

That ahead of time, size appropriately. Yeah, absolutely. Size it as much as you can. I mean certainly you want to get over, but, but the, the, you still have the airflow difference and that's, I guess that to me is the, the expectations that are set on the part of the customers and, and on the messages that are out there. I mean I know that, you know, we try to, to explain to people, look they're just, you know, like we're talking about here, there's pros and cons to these things. Sure. And you, you have to be aware of 'em because a nitrogen generator is not and but neither is an air compressor or anything. They're not a set it and forget it kind of piece of equipment. You, you have to be looking at that to make sure you're getting 98%. It's like the oil in your car. Exactly Right. You don't change it, you're gonna have a problem Exactly at point in time. Right. And that, that goes for your system, that goes for your unit, you know, whatever it is. You have to, you know, really look at that stuff.

Lee Kaiser: (31:46):

So since you're talking maintenance Yeah. I think the fire sprinkler industry in general with existing systems has an issue doing five year internal inspections.

Ray Freeman: (31:58):

Just gonna say I

Lee Kaiser: (31:58):

Just don't think that's done enough. No. And I think that if that was done more widely, we would understand the problem more completely. We see it's much bigger than what it really is. Yeah. Or what it seems on the surface. I think we've,

Drew Slocum: (32:10):

The other part of that and I was in a, uh, seems uh, that's a good point you bring up Lee cuz and well how do you get, and they're starting to do it with N F P you start to see it. But where is all that data being gathered back about the five year test and we're doing, were you in that presentation today? No,

Henry Fontana: (32:30):

Uh, I was not. But I was just saying about we do do fight. We're one of the contractors that push them very hard. Um, and we, we do do it to help try to, you know, show them their alternatives. Right. But we do it with a Boris scope, we'll open up, you know, all the points and that's definitely something that, you know, we have or in buildings we might have been there three years and it's a 30 year old building and a five year internal. What's that? We've never

Drew Slocum: (32:51):

Done that. You have pushed back from it.

Henry Fontana: (32:53):

Well cause they've never heard of it. Cause whoever's been doing the inspections, you know, hasn't done it. Yeah.

Jake Lehman: (32:57):

But they're used

Jake Lehman: (32:58):

To paying for a certain thing and then every five years

Drew Slocum: (33:02):

The bill goes up. Yeah.

Henry Fontana: (33:03):

Right. And I've asked to see their other contracts too. It wasn't any other contractor wasn't even putting it in there. And it's shame on them too cuz it, it's actually very profitable. A five year you're in and out, not not that long. And it's, it's as a fire sprinkler contract, a five-year eternals is a big uh, yeah. Something that, I mean it's great for the customer. It's also great for, for us as well. Cause then we do get the opportunity if they do have corrosion and you're in a data center like hey here's, here's your corrosion, here are your pictures, here's a proposal for an nitrogen system. You know, they have some other system to

Drew Slocum: (33:34):

Fix that. Now that on, on that five year internal I've heard and new. So NFPA 25 and 13 I feel like 25. Mm-hmm. is really trying to keep up with everything, with a lot of different things. But five year internal, they're even, I think even if there's a nitrogen system installed, they're looking at extending out that five year to

Henry Fontana: (33:56):

Seven

Drew Slocum: (33:57):

Or even more year. Which why wouldn't you should I think keep it on five year for now until you see the data results.

Jake Lehman: (34:04):

Until you put something that says you gotta make sure

Drew Slocum: (34:06):

You're maintaining

Jake Lehman: (34:07):

Your equipment.

Drew Slocum: (34:07):

Right. Right.

Jake Lehman: (34:08):

That's really what it's gonna come down to. Cause if, like we're saying, if you don't maintain it doesn't matter. That's the reason why you're still

Drew Slocum: (34:14):

Gonna have to, you should still be doing that. Right. Yeah.

Jake Lehman: (34:16):

I don't know if you guys do, but we, we put alarms on there to just be annoying. Basically it's time change filters. Yeah. It's beeping at you and we get that call all the time. Yeah. It's like, okay, I'll tell you how to turn it off. Order some filters, right?

Ray Freeman: (34:28):

Yeah, yeah.

Henry Fontana: (34:29):

Be change it to a, now it's called a five year internal assessment. So it's not even an inspection anymore. You only have to look in a cross main, a sprinkler and at the riser. And if you don't find any form of corrosion, then that's it. You go in another five years. If, if you do find stuff, then you do a five year internal investigation.

Drew Slocum: (34:44):

Investigation. Yes.

Henry Fontana: (34:44):

Then it's flushing, piping and opening up more things and seeing it. So, you know,

Drew Slocum: (34:49):

How often is that getting done though? Um, I mean you guys probably doing it but know

Ray Freeman: (34:55):

Doing well and that's the thing. I mean the maintenance of these things is prescribed an NFPA 25, both unit maintenance, system maintenance, all that type of stuff. But the reality of it is different than what code says. You know, and that's, that's, you know, again, that's the experience that, that we've always looked at with our own history of this is that, you know, people just as much as they, you know, it's, it's just not enforced as much as it should be. And, and despite best efforts that are that are going on, it's not enforced. And when it's not enforced, you you're running into a lot of these problem. Oh

Henry Fontana: (35:26):

Yeah. We're growing around actually cleaning. We've just developed something where like data centers we're sitting, you know, you have this corrosion, you might have leaks. The best thing to do is let's put some water in here. And they're like, no, there's not putting any water in our of our servers. We've had hooked up some crazy snakes with hooked up the shop vacuums that were attached to drills that were sending through the pipe and actually scrubbing the inside of the pipes out, putting them to try to see if that creates a leak to see what pipe would need to be replaced. Because this could have a four inch main running over a whole row of servers on a high, let's say credit card company's data center. They do not want water hitting the servers and have their system down. And now nobody can use a discover card. Clean, clean agent. , . We're doing that. The

Lee Kaiser: (36:08):

Other thing though that's not getting done is we're bringing up dirty secrets. Right? Yeah. Is trip tests aren't being done because the Oh yeah. Scenario you just brought up, they don't want water put in that pipe mm-hmm. so they don't want to do a trip test. Right. So they never, if and then if they're not doing the five year internal, they never know that their system is is full of dunk. Yeah. And it's not gonna, it's not going to perform when they do have a fire. Yeah. So, um, we see a lot of resistance to those trip test things. And and that's where I, I have challenges as an engineer with, with dry air as a solution because if you are actually doing the trip tests and you are not getting your system dry or draining it out completely, then you're gonna have water, oxygen, metal and you're gonna have the corrosion problem and there's no way of getting around that.

Henry Fontana: (36:58):

Right. So I heard, and I would ask you if people say, oh, nitrogen will dry the water in a way, so if I have a six inch column of water, is nitrogen gonna dry that? No, nothing

Jake Lehman: (37:07):

Is, nothing is, I mean if you got little, little areas of it, it's gonna help dry it out, but not, I mean you got, yeah. You got a six, six inch drop or a foot drop that's got water in it. It's just not enough surface area to dry it out.

Ray Freeman: (37:19):

That's where the, and and to your point about dry air, I mean that's where the flow of the dry air is substantially different than the, uh, flow out of a nitrogen generator. So you're more on par with the flow of an air compressor. So as that air flows through that pipe, it is drying it out because you have enough movement of air inside of there. But, you know, the way that we kind of prescribe it to people is if you think you have a a a columns of water all over the place and stuff like that, I'm telling you, you should probably put nitrogen. Yeah. You know, but if you have a well pitched system where you're, you know, you might have a, a little puddle here, the inside of of the pipe is, is uh, wet, then dry air will dry that out. I mean we've, we've seen it, you know, it's stuff that we've been doing for like I said, uh, 25 years now. So, um, yeah. But you know, again, it's, it might take, you know, it just like nitrogen, it takes a few weeks to do, but it, it gets it dry down in there.

Henry Fontana: (38:10):

That's why you'll get the ice plugs, right?

Ray Freeman: (38:12):

Well, yeah. I mean that's part of it. That's what it was originally designed. Yeah.

Jake Lehman: (38:15):

You're not having additional moisture to the system.

Ray Freeman: (38:17):

Exactly. You don't

Jake Lehman: (38:18):

Have 150, 200 degree air going in cooling down and add moisture to it.

Henry Fontana: (38:25):

Great points guys. This is great. Um, I do see, uh, one downside sometimes of these systems is, uh, training to uh, the end user. So, oh, um, to make sure that the customer who now has this nitrogen system knows, um, you know, he might have to move a sprinkler head around or something. I'll do that myself, but now has no idea and ends up putting a system in bypass and now is, you know, totally not using either their dry air or nitrogen cause they

Lee Kaiser: (38:50):

Weren't properly.

Jake Lehman: (38:52):

Absolutely. And that's why FM's got standards where you gotta have an alarm if they bypass the thing. Ok. I mean that's part of their standard. So, and then once again, something else to be annoying come by, I'll turn, I'll turn one into

Drew Slocum: (39:04):

That here tomorrow. Getting back to your point, Lee, on the, the three year trip full trip test, do you think there's any way to change that? So you don't, you wouldn't have to fully do a three year trip test to the cause? I mean there are ways to do floor delivery time via calculation, but again, you don't know the inside of the pipe. But if you can get inside the pipe and if there's a way to see that from not actually getting in the pipe,

Henry Fontana: (39:28):

We, we have a way

Lee Kaiser: (39:32):

Well I um,

Drew Slocum: (39:35):

Cuz there's a lot of clients that still aren't gonna do it, can do

Jake Lehman: (39:37):

Ultrasonic

Lee Kaiser: (39:37):

Testing to an extent. Yeah. We, so we've in as alternatives, we don't see many other alternatives. We don't see that there's a option in 25 Right. To not do a full flow trip test. Right. Because it tests more than just the exercise of the valve. Right. It tests all, tests, all the uh, uh, detection and control pieces to make it work Right. In that system. Um, we, we do really like the idea, uh, FM global suggested having a control valve downstream of the reaction valve and for the partial flow trip tests Yep. That are supposed to be done yearly. Yep. And use that as a blocking valve. I think that's a great idea. Mm-hmm. Anybody with a reaction system should be putting a blocking valve in and then using that for the partials. I would imagine that, um, if you had performance every year during the partials and you had good performance as far as internal uh, inspections, whether it be via opener, pipe horoscopes or using ultrasound, those would be good alternatives to, to maybe a full flow trip test. But then right now the code doesn't give you that option.

Drew Slocum: (40:46):

That's good. Sorry, I I was trying to coordinate people sitting down behind us.

Henry Fontana: (40:51):

We have a very, uh, sensitive customer who is a very, I'm not gonna say names, but very important person and they will not allow water. Um, so we do go to AJ with it and we put the blocking valve plus a ho hose valve underneath it before we ran at two and a half inch fire hose outside to like a hose monster. And we were still able to test the detection and pull station to make sure everything tripped and fully flowed the valve. Plus we're doing the five year internals on that same system. So we know the inside of the pipes are

Drew Slocum: (41:20):

Right. Um, so there's

Henry Fontana: (41:23):

Ways, so we are doing it.

Drew Slocum: (41:26):

Yeah. The code is one thing but it's like there's also real world stuff.

Henry Fontana: (41:30):

We went to the town and we made sure we actually didn't

Drew Slocum: (41:32):

Have it in first. The, and the customer, we

Henry Fontana: (41:33):

Didn't have it at first. We were just doing partials and actually the valves were failing and did not, when we were doing our annuals and pulling a pull station, we're not operating. We went to the manufacturer and they said, Hey, are you doing a full flow every year? And said no to them. Well stuff gets locked up and done. We'll not, if you're not doing that then don call us. That's true. If there's a fire and the system doesn't open, you have to be doing this. That's why we added those valves to fully flow the, the valve and put that stuff moving around.

Ray Freeman: (41:58):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean you gotta follow manufacturer's recommendations. Right. Make sure that, do you, I mean that's not been our experience on it. You don't ask to, but you know, when it comes back to point and blame,

Henry Fontana: (42:09):

Well we called them say, Hey, your valves aren't working. So they actually sent out, you know, it was a big client. Yeah. And they said, they asked that question and they're like, well they're not working because you're not maintaining them. Well you didn't change your oil in your car. That's why it seized.

Ray Freeman: (42:20):

Right. Yeah. Chocolate syrup coming. Right.

Drew Slocum: (42:26):

So to that point, you know, we, we talk about real world versus I wanna bring this point across cuz there's, there's real world, which we're a lot discussing a lot cause you guys have all been in the real world, but then there's lab world, which, and, and until we get more data in the real world and then compare it to actual a lab world, I don't think we're gonna get that. So I know NFPA 25 is really trying to try it hard to get some of that real world experience with some of the data before by making decisions after that. So, um, you know, a lot of the codes are driven on years past just, just good industry professionals. Like, I don't wanna say they're picking frequencies and all that out of the air, but they, they've experienced that over time. So that's what get written gets written into the code. So I think by driving data behind that is gonna really help out everybody out there and hopefully, uh, there was a big talk on it today. I want to bring that up. So, um, did I get everybody's pros and cons?

Ray Freeman: (43:30):

I think you did. Yeah. Yeah. As far as, you

Drew Slocum: (43:32):

Know, my pros and cons from a supplier, old supplier side, I love selling nitrogen

Ray Freeman: (43:36):

Generators, .

Drew Slocum: (43:41):

No, they were great. And um, there, there's applications for 'em. Uh, you know, I think, uh, again, there's pros and cons to both. And from the supplier's point of view, if I put that on pat on, I want to send nitrogen every time. Um, because I'm a supplier, I'm a sales guy, you know, that. So I think that's gotta factor in a little bit too. But education is, is very important. And uh,

Ray Freeman: (44:05):

And to that point, like one of the things we kind of try to warn our suppliers is, you know, make sure that you're, you know, keeping the relationship over time with your customer in mind. You know, I mean if you, if you start selling that into a spot where it doesn't belong, you're gonna hear about it pretty quick. You know, it's like, you know that that supplier, you know, supplier X really pushed this product and I put it in and now it's nothing but problems. And it's like, well, you know, you forgot to tell 'em to address all their air leaks on the front end or maintain the system or maintain the unit or whatever. And you know, by, by not doing that you can really do yourself a disservice as a supplier as well, or contractor salesperson.

Drew Slocum: (44:39):

I was, I was looking at FPA 25. I've been doing a lot obviously with inspect point with that, but I, I've been looking at 2020, I've been to a few meetings with 2020 compared to 2017 and fir first time 20 seventeen's got air compressors in there and there's got a maintenance schedule or testing and

Henry Fontana: (44:58):

Schedule.

Drew Slocum: (44:59):

But what's not in there is nitrogen. And I know they're putting it into 2020, but they've got, they gotta catch up. I feel like they really need to catch up with some of that because if it's not in the standard, then nobody's gonna follow that. They're gonna try to follow the oem. They're like, it's not in the code, so then they're not gonna do it. So I think the quicker we get the nitrogen generation into the code, the better. Absolutely. And maybe it's a, I don't think you can put an addend,

Ray Freeman: (45:27):

I mean all they would've to do in 25 is say to to, you know, cause in 25 it's check your oil, check to see if it's overheating, check the wiring for integrity issues. I mean really you're looking at, has this thing taken some physical damage since the last time that we pulled that? It's

Drew Slocum: (45:40):

Crazy, it taken that long to get it in there.

Ray Freeman: (45:42):

Right? Yeah. Well it is, well before it said, uh, per manufacturer's recommendations, which nobody pays attention to, nobody pay attention to it. So, you know, I mean, so, so it was like, okay, let's be more specific here. Right. Do these things and follow manufacturer recommendations. You know, and it's, you know, so yeah.

Drew Slocum: (45:59):

Feel like if it's in the

Henry Fontana: (45:59):

Go on the fire pump and that's a compressor is a pump, I mean it's, it, it should be on there.

Ray Freeman: (46:04):

So it, I was glad to see it added anything that you do to pay attention to those things. But I mean, for, for that fix, I mean you can just say air compressor or nitrogen generator, I mean, you know, or I mean you can say air supply, I mean whatever it is, your air supply piece of equipment Yeah. You know, is, is really what they should be looking

Drew Slocum: (46:18):

At. That's where they're putting into 2020. It's for, okay, so it's air compressor or then that gets roped into

Ray Freeman: (46:24):

It.

Henry Fontana: (46:24):

We start putting helium in there and then they'll we need our, cause that's why air supply would be better. Yeah. Cause then if you put helium in there, it's your

Ray Freeman: (46:30):

Helium. I do think they should be generalizing

Drew Slocum: (46:32):

If air supply

Henry Fontana: (46:33):

Pneumatic. I mean pneumatic.

Drew Slocum: (46:34):

That's true. Right? Yeah. There's other gas that comes out that's

Henry Fontana: (46:38):

Better. Well, everything is pneumatic is gases. So

Ray Freeman: (46:41):

Error or corrosion mitigation solution. I mean, something along those lines that's more broad base. Because again, I mean nitrogen can out these things, you know, slow to evolve. But like I said, there's, you know, we, we had talked about new types of pipe coming out potentially, you know, I mean there, there's gonna be other solutions to this that come down the

Henry Fontana: (46:57):

Road. I believe know there's a, I don't know who it's, I saw it show that this you get today that has a negative like pressure on their system. Yep. So

Drew Slocum: (47:06):

There has a good way to my next point. You're right ahead of

Henry Fontana: (47:08):

Me. Right. I don't know anything about it, but there has to be a maintenance schedule on that too. Oh, sure.

Drew Slocum: (47:14):

So that's, that's the vacuum system that fire Flex has. Sorry to bring them up, sorry.

Henry Fontana: (47:19):

No,

Ray Freeman: (47:21):

But it proves, it gets to the point though is that it's, it's another solution. So it is again, to sit there and say, well your air compressor, well it's technically not an air compressor, but it also is, you know, it's a backwards air compressor. I mean, really you take the inlet and the outlet and switch 'em up and you've got a vacuum pump.

Drew Slocum: (47:35):

I'm, I'm really interested to see what what they can do with that. If there's anything, again, they're gonna have to test. I don't know how much testing there is with that,

Jake Lehman: (47:43):

But it's just gonna have to run tests

Drew Slocum: (47:45):

On it. Yeah.

Henry Fontana: (47:45):

How does that prevent corrosion? I mean, still

Jake Lehman: (47:48):

Well you're reducing the amount of oxygen that's in the system. Okay. It's still not

Lee Kaiser: (47:53):

Well then anytime you pull a vacuum on a a vessel, it will actually dehydrate it. That's the theory. That's the other thing. So anytime you have pull a vacuum on something, you'll, you'll suck the oxygen out or you'll suck the water out of that

Henry Fontana: (48:07):

Scenario. Looks like how you do our refrigeration line or something before

Lee Kaiser: (48:10):

You Yeah. So if you guys ever did, uh, vacuum pumps in hospitals, all the blood and stuff that they suck out, you know, if any of that gets into the vacuum lines, it all evaporates out of vacuum.

Drew Slocum: (48:22):

Oh

Lee Kaiser: (48:22):

Really? Yeah. So you

Ray Freeman: (48:23):

That's at a true vacuum. Yeah. Yeah.

Jake Lehman: (48:25):

You gotta, you gotta get to

Ray Freeman: (48:26):

That though. You have to get to a certain vacuum level, which again, you're still gonna deal with, with leaks. And are you maintaining that vacuum instead a

Drew Slocum: (48:32):

Fake vacuum compressor? Bigger than what would be on there on the positive side?

Ray Freeman: (48:37):

Um, I

Drew Slocum: (48:38):

Don't know.

Jake Lehman: (48:39):

It depends on what they're getting to. I mean, you know, atmosphere at sea level's 14.7 psi Right, right. I believe their system's pulling negative 2.2 to 2.6.

Drew Slocum: (48:47):

Okay.

Jake Lehman: (48:48):

So, right.

Ray Freeman: (48:49):

So is that always a true vacuum? I don't, you know, it could be. I'm not sure. You know, again, I'm not as familiar

Henry Fontana: (48:54):

With, I feel like if you have a leaf point like that area, now you're sucking in fresh oxygen in that area. So you might get an accelerated corrosion at that leaking 90, like maybe, I dunno.

Drew Slocum: (49:03):

Yeah, I don't think there's much testing been, which is, is not good or bad. It's just

Ray Freeman: (49:09):

Getting done. Gotta evolve. Yeah. It is another option. And you know, and actually from that standpoint, the, um, the uh, faster trip time is really an interesting positive on that. Mm-hmm. , uh, vacuum, you

Drew Slocum: (49:20):

Know, I think,

Ray Freeman: (49:22):

Oh is

Drew Slocum: (49:23):

It really? Yes. Yeah. I was that the other day.

Ray Freeman: (49:25):

I was stick to my own products then. Huh? ?

Drew Slocum: (49:28):

I'm an old Viking guy.

Ray Freeman: (49:30):

Okay. Alright. I thought that was a great feature. I was like, oh

Drew Slocum: (49:33):

That's, I might be saying it wrong, but I heard, I heard it being, because I asked, I asked a few of the people, you know, because I was gotta bring it up. Cuz it is a, a new technology. It is. And uh, again, there'll be some vetting of it, but I think it'll, it'll have its application.

Jake Lehman: (49:47):

Sure. Yeah. It's with anything else. It's gonna have its application. Right. It's just gonna be, is that the right solution for the customer? Right.

Drew Slocum: (49:51):

Yeah. That's a lot of my topics. Let's see,

Henry Fontana: (49:56):

Know why, why we got away from, I mean, a lot of old systems that haven't seen any installed in forever was the reliable model B first. I used like 16 ounces of air and like barely anything in there. And I don't do 'em

Drew Slocum: (50:07):

Internal 16 psi air or

Henry Fontana: (50:08):

Ounces ounces. The Reliable Model B panel just uses ounces for their, uh, um,

Jake Lehman: (50:15):

For their trip

Henry Fontana: (50:16):

For for, for their monitoring of the system.

Drew Slocum: (50:19):

Really? Yeah.

Henry Fontana: (50:19):

And, uh, I mean I, I've replaced them. I haven't put any new ones in, but trying to think about internals that I've done, I haven't really seen much corrosion in, in

Drew Slocum: (50:27):

Any of those, those systems. Interesting. So that went away. It's a, it's a mile. How bigs the,

Henry Fontana: (50:33):

The, the compressor and everything is in a little box. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen pictures of tiny, tiny I little compressor that sits in there and it has a, if it goes down low, it buzzes ripped really loud and then you gotta switch the thing over. It always makes me jump when I was doing testing on them . And as I fill it up, it's in silent and it does it again and I, I jump again and I switch to switch over. Huh. So like,

Drew Slocum: (50:54):

I guess

Henry Fontana: (50:55):

Ifs out there really that much, I think NPA only requires, you know, the minimum error is a creepy something. Whatever

Drew Slocum: (51:02):

The minimum was.

Henry Fontana: (51:03):

The minimum is at that and ounces as meets that minimum.

Drew Slocum: (51:08):

Yeah. I haven't seen it. I know they transitioned away from water.

Henry Fontana: (51:11):

Yeah. So I'm sure you've seen that. You think they moved away from

Ray Freeman: (51:14):

That because of the 30 minute requirement? It just was too small a

Henry Fontana: (51:17):

Compressor to meet that? No, you got, you got your fill time and, and well time

Drew Slocum: (51:21):

Cause it was, yeah,

Henry Fontana: (51:23):

It was literally a tiny little ounce gauge in there. So you were getting your, and I never saw it on huge systems. It was always like little data rooms that had like four or five sprinklers in

Drew Slocum: (51:31):

Right. Those little single interlock, inter interlock pre action systems. Yeah.

Henry Fontana: (51:37):

It opened up a little reliable pre

Drew Slocum: (51:39):

Maybe it was a maintenance issue.

Henry Fontana: (51:40):

And then model B,

Drew Slocum: (51:41):

I dunno, I, I've seen him in New York a bunch mm-hmm. . Wow. Um, speaking of that fill rate, I I, I still kind of try to wrap my head around fill rate. Why and why fill rate's even in there, uh, in the code. I mean from a contractor's perspective, I mean, why the

Ray Freeman: (52:00):

30 minute fill? So

Drew Slocum: (52:00):

I I, I get it. Like you wanna put the suppression or the fire protection system back online. So I think it has something to do with that. But

Ray Freeman: (52:08):

I think another

Drew Slocum: (52:09):

Thing, you don't want it to be a day.

Ray Freeman: (52:11):

Well that, I think that's what drove it, at least the historical perspective that I got on the 30 minute fill was that, um,

(52:19)
There from a building owner, facility manager, they didn't want a contractor in there trying to fill a 2000 gallon system with a one 16 horsepower compressor. Yeah. Yeah. You know, cause and then again, you have multiple systems you have to fill. Cause you do a 30 minute fill, say for your, that applies to the largest one, but you could have 10 systems there. Right. You know, so you could potentially be filling 10 systems for that, which is gonna take a long time. So I think what they, the intention, uh, as far as it was explained to me was that they wanted to give some timeframe that they felt was reasonable for getting the system back online for one, after say a trip or whatever, but also just getting it, you know, uh, just that amount of time to recharge the system was they didn't want to, they didn't want to have that take 24 hours,

Drew Slocum: (52:58):

30 come from.

Henry Fontana: (53:00):

Well

Ray Freeman: (53:00):

It, come on, let's, let's see what they do over there. 30 lunch break.

Drew Slocum: (53:05):

1130. There you go.

Ray Freeman: (53:06):

,

Henry Fontana: (53:07):

I know how works and I know some big people in my class and other people and I sit on some technical committees and a lot of the numbers for when, um, where things came from. If you asked NFPA the answer is because we just said just because, like why, why 30 minutes? Somebody,

Ray Freeman: (53:22):

Somebody said 60 and somebody was like, that's too much. How about 15? I'm like 30. No. And then done. Okay, ,

Henry Fontana: (53:29):

It's been in there for so long and I'm sure every cycle there's a public input on it. Hey, can we move it? And I'm sure like, if we looked at the history, I'm sure it's, I

Drew Slocum: (53:36):

Don't know. I haven't seen it on this one. I don't know if there's been an opinion on it for 2020. Maybe there was, what's that? The fill rate.

Henry Fontana: (53:44):

But the reason why I, I did not know.

Ray Freeman: (53:48):

I think there is, I I had heard that there was somebody's proposing changing it, at least with nitrogen to 60 minutes. And I mean to me, I, I dunno. I mean, I just don't see the phone changing. Yeah. Because again, it's, it's, you're, you know, again, that guy's filling up that, you know, they got a generator on six or seven systems and, and again, you have your compressor on there or whatever. It's filling the first system up in 30 minutes or now 60 minutes and now you got seven more. So now you're talking about seven, eight hours worth of filling these, you know, these systems up. I mean it's, you're doubling the amount of time that's

Drew Slocum: (54:17):

Oh, right. It's per system.

Ray Freeman: (54:19):

Per system.

Drew Slocum: (54:19):

Yeah. Yeah.

Ray Freeman: (54:21):

So,

Drew Slocum: (54:22):

And leak rate's another one. You know, where, where does, where do they pick that number from? You know,

Ray Freeman: (54:29):

As far as far as nfps?

Drew Slocum: (54:30):

I'm probably gonna get some bad comments on this from

Henry Fontana: (54:35):

Another just because

Drew Slocum: (54:37):

Yeah. What's it, two psi over two hours. What is, what

Ray Freeman: (54:40):

Is it three PSI over two hours? The test that you can do and NFP

Henry Fontana: (54:43):

Five four, you turn off your low, your compressor and

Drew Slocum: (54:46):

Oh yes. And

Henry Fontana: (54:47):

Then if you don't get any low air alarms within

Drew Slocum: (54:48):

A certain amount Yes. Remember the

Ray Freeman: (54:49):

Amount of time. Yep. That's the other, yeah, there was a four, I think it was a four hour test. I'm not sure I'd

Drew Slocum: (54:53):

Be, I I mean how many contractors are actually doing a leak rate test? Are you guys doing great tests?

Henry Fontana: (54:59):

I mean, if we're trying to, uh,

Drew Slocum: (55:01):

Get deficiencies,

Henry Fontana: (55:02):

Sell a product to the customer and we want to prove that they have leaks, so then

Drew Slocum: (55:07):

That's only Okay, that makes sense.

Lee Kaiser: (55:09):

So yeah, on that, um, along those lines, we, over the last couple years, we had a customer that wanted to do a bunch of sprinkler rehabilitation to their systems and we used leakage rate testing to justify what type of nitrogen solution to do. So, um, in essence, these were, these were, uh, telecom facilities, 30 different facilities over, um, I think 18 months. And what we installed on these risers before we touched anything, we installed a pressure transducer off one of the taps and we watched, um, over a week the pressure cycling so we could determine a leakage rate. And then we took a little data logger and we pulled that data, put it into a, a computer. We were able to get an Excel spreadsheet of watching the pressure change. Right. And, uh, from that data we, we determined it, uh, matrix or decision tree on what, what solution they needed. Yeah. And so ultimately our formula is if the connected system volume is over 400 gallons of water, then it gets a nitrogen generated. If it is less than 400 gallons, then we look at the leakage rate and we determine that it was appropriate cost-wise. If a bottle of nitrogen would last six months, then we would use a bottle system

(56:40)
If it wouldn't last six months, a single bottle of nitrogen that we would use a nitrogen generator. Cause we knew that the, the site wouldn't let bottles handle that frequently. Huh. So we use that pressure transducer to get that leakage rate data. We could always see How frequently

Drew Slocum: (56:55):

Do you guys bring that, that kind of stuff to other clients? Or is that

Lee Kaiser: (56:58):

Yeah, we've, we've rolled it out to other customers that we have and, um, used that as an approach. Now we, we've got some other things that are part of that program, uh, on another decision tree that we use on what pipes to replace. Right. But, um, for the most part on the nitrogen system, we, we use, um, that pressure transducer data for that. And then we, we leave the pressure transducer in, in place and every five years when we do the, um, you know, the five year inspection Yep. Five year. Yeah. We pull that data again and see if this see, basically, see if the nitrogen's working because if the leakage rate has increased, we know if something's a

Drew Slocum: (57:34):

Problem.

Lee Kaiser: (57:35):

Yeah. But otherwise, uh, you know, if it holds steady Yeah. We've got the data there to prove that it's

Drew Slocum: (57:41):

Holding steady. I think that leak rate is a critical variable or that that point, if you can grab leak rate, I think that's, that's huge. That tells you a lot, right?

Jake Lehman: (57:50):

Yeah. We're, we're building that into a lot of our stuff where it'll tell you how much nitrogen we put out last time it ran

Drew Slocum: (57:55):

That day, that month.

Jake Lehman: (57:56):

You can go back and look at a 12 month history Yep. And see if you're trending one way or the other. Mm-hmm. so that you can, you know, if it's maintenance and you're not gonna do it, well then this is gonna be something else that's gonna

Drew Slocum: (58:05):

Let you know that Yeah.

Jake Lehman: (58:06):

You're not doing what you're supposed

Drew Slocum: (58:07):

To. Right.

Ray Freeman: (58:09):

It's that 30 minute fill that, that really made leak rates not come up very much historically because you know, you have that 30 minute fill, you have a compressor sign to fill one to fill you a thousand gallon in 30 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you have enough flow to keep up with insane leak rates. I mean, just, I mean, for real, for, for a compressor to be running so much that it can't keep up with leak rates of the system. I mean, it's gonna be windy in that building, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, it's gonna blow your hat off. I mean, you're talking about, you know, I mean they're just incredible, you know, size for that, not for leak rate. So, and again is interesting generate, you know, yeah. So it changes, it, it changes the equation as you introduce something with, with less flow is why there's, you know, some of those issues there.

Drew Slocum: (58:49):

Huh. So it's not get rid of fill rate, let's just talk the crane, but maybe a sub factor is fill rate, can't have somebody there all day .

Lee Kaiser: (59:01):

Nope. No.

Drew Slocum: (59:02):

Uh, what we didn't talk about is, is galvanized, I kind of popped into my head, um, that we talked about pipe earlier. I think galvanized is kind of transitioning out for a lot of drugs. I mean, there's definitely application for an external, uh, application, but for,

Lee Kaiser: (59:18):

For

Drew Slocum: (59:18):

External corion, external control, external corrosion control where it's outside exposed to the elements or even if you're close to the ocean or whatever and it's still inside, you get some moist air, you know. But, uh, it's starting to move its

Henry Fontana: (59:31):

Way out as a contractor. I've seen, and I'm not a pipe guy or a scientist or anything, I have no idea the reason why, but corrosion a lot worse in galvanized pipe. Sure. And in black

Drew Slocum: (59:41):

Pipe,

Henry Fontana: (59:42):

Just absolute looking, just from my own experience opening up pipes, thousands of systems and seeing in it galvanized is, is always, and talking about external corrosion, we did a job that was underneath, it was an assault do underneath one of the major bridges in New York City. And they had an issue with, um, external corrosion, but they had so much internal corrosion. Um, the problem was that joints on the bridge were waterproofs so the salt would come in. So we actually just put an underneath each expansion joint, uh, PVC pipe over the black pipe just as like a sleeve.

Drew Slocum: (01:00:11):

Wow. Just laying

Henry Fontana: (01:00:12):

On top of it. And now when the water comes through the bridge, it just hits that PVC pipe, it falls down.

Drew Slocum: (01:00:16):

That's crazy.

Henry Fontana: (01:00:18):

They, we went a black pipe because of the internal corrosion that we're having with the galvanized. Right. Right. Now we painted, we put a, uh, we put a like epoxy paint on top, but plus it was actually, it was just an idea like, hey, I know they, and then 13 says you're not supposed to put any external load on the pipe, but it was just a little no four foot section of PVC pipe that we stuck up there. And

Drew Slocum: (01:00:38):

We won't mention the project

Ray Freeman: (01:00:40):

.

Drew Slocum: (01:00:41):

There's plenty of

Henry Fontana: (01:00:41):

Hangers. It's not

Ray Freeman: (01:00:42):

Like we were hanging couch from the system.

Henry Fontana: (01:00:46):

That's fine.

Drew Slocum: (01:00:47):

Uh, um,

Henry Fontana: (01:00:49):

So I mean, that's just my experience. I mean, you guys see, you probably stuck pipe in your shop

Drew Slocum: (01:00:53):

All the time. Well, yeah,

Jake Lehman: (01:00:54):

We run, we run, you know, an eight year test basically galvanized pipe. Once the zinc becomes breached, corrosion becomes localized. So, I mean, I've seen 18 months, 24 month pipe with pinhole leaks in it just because that corrosion. It's like somebody took a drill to the inside of it. Yeah. Is

Henry Fontana: (01:01:09):

There a difference between how dipped galvanized and the one that's actually know the other name?

Ray Freeman: (01:01:13):

Uh,

Jake Lehman: (01:01:14):

Once it becomes breached,

Ray Freeman: (01:01:15):

Right.

Drew Slocum: (01:01:16):

There is a difference because I, working on the pipe mill, I was, I did galvanize and then we did the other line, which was hot dip. Hot dip wasn't, it was good cuz it knee it, but then the other was more of a, a coating. So definitely the, um, when you knee it, it's, it is better. But still, once you breach that layer doesn't

Jake Lehman: (01:01:38):

Matter. Yeah. You start roll groom and

Drew Slocum: (01:01:39):

Stuff's that pop

Jake Lehman: (01:01:40):

Off, you start putting welts on it right

Drew Slocum: (01:01:42):

There. What's the steel underneath? You know? Yeah. It's probably the same hot roll that you have. Underneaths

Ray Freeman: (01:01:46):

As galvanized was getting more and more popular. We were, we were starting to see a lot of problems. What was that? Late eighties, early nineties when it, when, when galvanized was coming into play, uh, in a bigger way. You know, people were calling us up being like, you know, your compressors are burning up earlier than, you know, we expect, you know, we expect 10 to 15 years of life and they're seeing six, seven years of life and we're trying to figure out what's going on. You know, we just

Drew Slocum: (01:02:06):

Should have grabbed the data for that. Yeah. Right.

Ray Freeman: (01:02:07):

Yeah. We need a data tracker for sure. I mean, but I mean, 1980s, you know, you, it was exciting if you had a car phone, you know, so . But, um, but yeah, no, so I mean, we started to see that and, and it wasn't until we got savvy to the idea of localized corrosion. And I mean, again, you know, the, the corrosion that takes place is in a black iron pipe. It's, it's porous. It, it happens a little bit all over the place. Right. Which again means, you know, leaks are difficult to deal with, but at the same time you have a little bit everywhere. But when you have that, like you said, like it looks like somebody put a drill through it, you know, I mean, you're whistle and air out of there, you know what I mean? Some of these, they're bigger than the head when the, the sprinkler head pops. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's, it's, it's a lot of air going out of there. I mean we're, yeah.

Henry Fontana: (01:02:48):

So, and of course I look totally different too, was all that white flaky stuff, it's not at all. But we would see in, in the black pipe.

Jake Lehman: (01:02:56):

Yeah. Black pipe's more uniform that's taking place. And your corrosion deposits are building up your area. You're ending up with areas of, you know, localized frozen. Cause you got pockets underneath now. All, all the debris that's built up inside there.

Drew Slocum: (01:03:07):

What if they did galvanize just exterior?

Jake Lehman: (01:03:11):

I mean the test that we showed with nitrogen on the interior that's shown the pipe lasting.

Henry Fontana: (01:03:16):

Well think of external project. So

Drew Slocum: (01:03:18):

Just showing the exterior and then the interior. I don't know if you could, I mean they're hot dipping, mostly galvanized.

Henry Fontana: (01:03:23):

Just put a little duct tape on the animals. Where you dipping . They use it for everything.

Drew Slocum: (01:03:30):

Pipe guys are gonna hate me.

Henry Fontana: (01:03:34):

Um, I mean we, a couple incidents where we had, um, corrosive environments and we used two stage epoxy paint where we painted it in our shop where we mixed it.

Drew Slocum: (01:03:44):

Yeah. Epoxy actually works. It, it works really well.

Henry Fontana: (01:03:47):

Great. It was an opening system too. We, we, uh, used, um, it was a gastric system. So uh, when we dipped the heads in wax, the manufacturer allowed us so that none of the cursor could get sprinkler head. The end. No, it was a gas system. Oh, gas system. So it was No, no, it was an open, you know, like, like two.

Drew Slocum: (01:04:08):

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It let you dip.

Henry Fontana: (01:04:11):

Well, because our problem

Drew Slocum: (01:04:12):

Was the nole and wax

Henry Fontana: (01:04:13):

Well, to cover up the, the or pieces. So when it blow, when it just, they would blow it out, it would just blow it out and there was no thermal link or anything in the, in the nole that would be affected by it. It's just a brass huh. Thing.

Drew Slocum: (01:04:26):

Right. And then yeah, you would cover the hole, huh?

Henry Fontana: (01:04:30):

Cause they were worried about the corrosive air getting in

Drew Slocum: (01:04:32):

That. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's really all the topics I got. You guys want to bring anything else up before, uh, wrap this up? Or?

Henry Fontana: (01:04:41):

I just have a question for nitrogen manufacturer. So, so the bottles of nitrogen that we buy and all that, are those like air gas and welding supplies, are they using nitrogen generators to, because they have such massive maps?

Jake Lehman: (01:04:52):

Some, some places will, yeah. It depends on if it, if it's beneficial for 'em to do that. I mean, you

Henry Fontana: (01:04:57):

Know prior lot Yeah.

Jake Lehman: (01:04:59):

If you've got large places like that. But there are situations where we're running into supplying a generator with a booster and taking it up to the, the purity or you know, the pressure and the purity that they want. Cuz you can get, you can get all different purity Yeah. Gases out of a bottle. So that's the other thing you gotta be careful with too. You gotta make sure you're getting 98% or better. Um, you know, and a lot of times you can get certified gases that tell you exactly what the, the purity level is. But that's something else to look at when you're using bottles.

Drew Slocum: (01:05:29):

Anything else guys? No. Just need to have input. Yeah, you're still on. We

Henry Fontana: (01:05:35):

Just need to have one.

Drew Slocum: (01:05:37):

We're still live. We lot of views. Oh, we have live views. Oh wow. But need to

Henry Fontana: (01:05:42):

Get one on, uh, web pipe pro. Cause I see a lot of that

Drew Slocum: (01:05:44):

Too. But that's being, yeah, that's be, uh, maybe

Henry Fontana: (01:05:49):

I see just as much. I Sure.

Drew Slocum: (01:05:50):

I'll have a pipe guy on here.

Ray Freeman: (01:05:52):

So's gonna get on here and

Drew Slocum: (01:05:53):

Yell at you for hour. That's alright. I used to be a pipe guy. So, um, so before we go, uh, thanks for everybody for joining, but I'll give you guys a few minutes, talk about what you got coming out, how to contact you, uh, give your info and we'll tag you and all this stuff as well. Jake, how can we find it? Uh, you can't

Jake Lehman: (01:06:16):

You con constantly moving. No, you can, you can get ahold of us, uh, south tech systems.com. Uh, you get ahold of me directly.

Drew Slocum: (01:06:23):

Uh,

Jake Lehman: (01:06:24):

Either call the office (910) 332-4173. My direct extension's 1 3 7. That'll come to my cell phone. Call me anytime. Call me at two. I'm giving the phone to my wife. I'm just giving you fair warning

Drew Slocum: (01:06:36):

.

Jake Lehman: (01:06:38):

But, uh, pretty much anytime as far as that goes. Uh, commercial [email protected]. We'll get you in touch with any of our fire protection guys.

Drew Slocum: (01:06:45):

Cool. Thanks Jake.

Lee Kaiser: (01:06:47):

Yeah, Lee Kaiser or protection, so our websites or protection.com, we've got a contact us form there or [email protected] is a great way to get ahold of us. We have a lot of content about special hazards and fire alarm systems There a lot of content about corrosion and, and really written from our perspective and things that we see. We've got some webinars that are recorded available on there on corrosion and specifically our perspective, the things that we talked about with this, uh, remediation program and the pressure transducer all can be found on, on, uh, web, you know,

Drew Slocum: (01:07:24):

Video. Yeah, I wanna see that pressure trans there. So, cool.

Henry Fontana: (01:07:31):

Um, yeah, it's a company's fire design in New Jersey. I don't know who's gonna contact us and won't make anything we install systems, but we are websites. Fdj co.com. There is a contact us link on there. If you're looking to get a system inspected or installed in a New York City area, hit us up and we'll sure enough come out and take a look at it.

Drew Slocum: (01:07:50):

Um,

Ray Freeman: (01:07:50):

Websites, general air products.com. Our 800 numbers 803 4 5 8 2 0 7. You will get a human being on the line and answers your questions. Um, on East Coast time between, you know, eight and five, um, we have, um, uh, the one thing I put in is that we, we have a, uh, a training room that we just put together. So we have, uh, equipment from every man manufacturer in the industry in there, uh, 40 C classrooms. So we're running classes out of there. And, um, so we love have people, you know, jump on that, that website's, training dot, general air products done.

Drew Slocum: (01:08:23):

Oh, I haven't seen that yet. We have

Ray Freeman: (01:08:24):

A class coming up, uh, June, end of June here. And we have,

Drew Slocum: (01:08:27):

Uh, nice. Yeah.

Ray Freeman: (01:08:28):

Several of 'em coming up

Drew Slocum: (01:08:29):

Down. We need, need another classroom. Yeah, we, not

Henry Fontana: (01:08:32):

Enough training as well. Not set up that way for, for classes, uh, for the public, but for our own industry. And, uh, full, there's 16 valves and air all hooked up to the water. Cool. Hooked up to a general air compressor and a nice system. And, uh, it's a nice hands-on system. If someone was in the New Jersey area and just wanted to stop in and play with some valves, they could do that as well.

Drew Slocum: (01:08:52):

Awesome. Um, drew, you know me, [email protected], you know how to get ahold of me, but, uh, guys, thanks everybody. This is awesome. Thank you. Thanks, drew. What do you, what do you, what do you think? That's too bad. Lots to do it again.

Ray Freeman: (01:09:08):

The margaritas helped .

Drew Slocum: (01:09:12):

This has been episode 19 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. This was a great time. This podcast, uh, live at N F P A called Clearing the Air. Uh, we did it live, it was kind of right outside the box. We, we actually posted it on Facebook Live as well. Feel free to check out the video, make sure you subscribe, pass along, uh, the Fire Protection podcast and hopefully, uh, everybody's enjoying it. Here's a little, uh, outtake we had right before the end. Have a good day.

Chris Logan: (01:09:42):

Thank you. Say one other way around. Yeah. Okay. Margarita. I've never in my life had shit. I'm from Canada, man. What you do up there? We drink beer. I wanna watch you have your first margarita. This is

Henry Fontana: (01:09:53):

Like seeing the ochi. There's salt on the top. That's what that white stuff is. It's

Chris Logan: (01:09:56):

Salt. Okay. That's salt. Thank you for cleaning that up. Canada. Right. Put this in there like, uh,

Henry Fontana: (01:10:06):

You can, I don't,

Drew Slocum: (01:10:07):

It's a little You

Chris Logan: (01:10:08):

Don't. Okay.

Online stores and E-Commerce have been significant innovations for other industries but why not in fire protection? QRFS is one of the leaders in this space allowing anyone to purchase material for a fire protection project. Facility managers and building owners are key customers of QRFS, but the fire protection contractor can quickly order material as well.

Full Transcript 

Drew Slocum: (00:09):

This is episode 9 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today my guest is Jason Hugo. Jason's the owner of Quick Response Fire Supply. Quick Response Fire Supply is a, an online e-commerce supplier of fire protection products, sprinklers, fire alarm extinguishers. We get into a, uh, a great discussion about his business, where he saw needs in the market for, um, a supplier such as themselves. Uh, we get talking about big data, how they do things, uh, with digital marketing and a lot of kind of what, what's coming in the future of fire protection. So, very interesting, li listen, uh, regarding quick Response, fire supply and what they're doing. So I hope you enjoy the podcast and make sure to subscribe.

(01:01)
I want to give everyone a quick update on what we are up to at Inspect Point. We don't talk too much in detail, uh, on the podcast about what we're doing, but, uh, since I have this platform, might as well Inspect Point. Essentially what it is, it's a software platform for your inspection, testing, and maintenance business for the fire protection world. Um, life safety as well. Great for a fire protection contractor doing inspections and service as well as a facility manager managing all the different systems, um, and your buildings or your facilities. So we have a lot of great tools out there for, uh, that refer back to some of the fire protection codes out there. Um, there's two parts to the product. There's a back office portal piece, which then translates to an iPad, a very user friendly love for, uh, anybody to that is interested in a demo to please reach out, [email protected] or [email protected].

(02:03)
We could quickly set one up. Lately, the last few months, uh, my team, uh, in upstate New York has been working very hard on a bunch of new, uh, modules and releases. Uh, one for proposals. So proposals, uh, is a module that will sync right with our, um, deficiency management platform. So after you conduct a an inspection, all the deficiencies will be logged, uh, accordingly, uh, for each system and what time. And those can be translated into a proposal, which can then be easily sent to your customer. Uh, those proposals, you'll be able to manage all those proposals from, from our, from our platform. You'll even be able to see when your customer, uh, opens and views the email or the proposal, and then finally, your customers can accept the proposal and send it back to you so you could quickly, uh, get a service ticket out or send an invoice.

(03:00)
Speaking of service, uh, this summer, we've got a huge module release. We will have a service module and platform out to handle all of the work orders, the service tickets that will integrate right with our inspection platform, so it'll be an all-in-one, uh, platform for an inspection and service company. So, I know little long-winded, but, uh, enjoy the podcast and hope to talk to you soon. So thanks Jason for joining me here. Um, everybody, this is Jason Hugo, he's the owner, owner, operator, founder. Not sure what to call you, Jason, of, uh, quick Response Fire Supply, as well as, uh, couple other companies too. So, uh, yeah, welcome to the podcast, Jason.

Jason Hugo: (03:46):

Thanks, drew. Thanks for having me. I'm pretty excited to be here today.

Drew Slocum: (03:50):

So I, I don't know if a lot of companies know who Quick Response Fire Supply is. Um, I'm, I wanted to have you on because you're, you're kind of a disruptor in the industry, which, uh, we tried to take pride in over here at Inspect Point a little bit. But, uh, I met you out at a, a conference at nfs a last year and, and really liked what you were doing. So wanted to, uh, talk to you, get your, get your take on the industry. So you wanna give me a quick rundown of who you are, where you came from, and why, why the heck are you in fire protection?

Jason Hugo: (04:28):

Sure, I'd love to. So, quick response, fire Supply actually started back in June, 2010 when we realized that certain end users in the industry think about your institutional buyers, your facility managers, small to medium businesses, mom and pop shops. These folks sometimes have a hard time getting their hands on some of the easier components of a sprinkler system or any type of fire suppression system when they're trying to maintain it. Right? So, just to be clear, we're not talking about replacing pumps or, you know, big valves, or in fact, we're not talking about replacing any part of an existing system that would require the system to go offline, right? But we are talking about, you know, the accessories to the system, the system components that are a little bit easier to get your hands on, and sometimes the end users struggle actually getting that material. Interesting. And that was really our mission when we started this company.

Drew Slocum: (05:27):

Yeah. Where did, where did you, uh, where did you find that out? Were you just talking to different facility managers or where'd you have this idea? Where did, where'd it spark from?

Jason Hugo: (05:39):

Sure. So back in the day, uh, pre June, 2010, I actually worked for one of the major manufacturers, globe Fire Sprinkler. Oh,

Drew Slocum: (05:47):

You did? I didn't that,

Jason Hugo: (05:49):

Yeah. And in that process, I actually, um, ran or assisted running, um, their distribution arm that they had at the time that was called F S W, that as that experience or in that experience, what I was responsible for was kinda inside sales and inventory management in that kind of arena. And we would receive phone calls kind of regularly that we just weren't able to help because oftentimes they were credit card sales, right? Oftentimes they were too small really for, for who we were serving. And at the time, we really were focused on, as most of the industry is the contractors, right? So when that, when I would get those calls and, you know, I wouldn't be able to help them out. Another reason for that oftentimes was they'd be asking for a replacement part that perhaps Globe didn't actually, you know, manufacture. Cause maybe it was an alternative. Um, they, you know, I'd have to turn 'em away, and it just was happening frequently enough that it really sparked the idea that there was an opportunity here.

Drew Slocum: (06:53):

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you bring that up, um, with turning away. So I, I, I worked for, for Viking Supply Net, um, prior to Inspect Point here, and I ran a, uh, or helped run a, um, uh, a location right in Mill of Queens in New York City. So there's constant traffic. There was constantly facility managers coming in, or just regular, regular Joe's coming in, trying to buy onesie twosie product. And it was so funny. It, it was so tough to convince Viking Vikings a great company, uh, convi try to convince them that, Hey, we need to have a cash, we have to have credit card for these small, like, you know, minor orders because they do, they do add up. And I honestly, for Viking, there's it's great margin because it's onesie twos items. So, um, you're, you're feeling a nice niche there, I think.

Jason Hugo: (07:51):

Yeah, and I'd like to expand upon that just a little bit too, you know, over time, and we've been doing this now coming up on 10 years, and over time, what we realized is that the end user, one of their challenges isn't always exclusively getting their hands on the material. It's oftentimes understanding what that material even does. Why do I need this thing and why do I need to replace it? Right? We get calls regularly, and I'm talking daily from customers who, whose experience goes something like this. The local A H J or fire department comes in and they look at their building and they see that, you know, you're missing a couple cover plates here, maybe a few discussions there, maybe some break caps out on the f c, those kinds of material. And they say, look, you need to get this replaced and you have a month to do it. And oh, by the way, that's all I'm gonna tell you,

Drew Slocum: (08:47):

, right?

Jason Hugo: (08:49):

Right. And so they'll call us and they'll say, you know, my fire department, you know, great fire department, but they just didn't have time to really sit there and tell me exactly what I needed. Can you guys help us? Right. And so we've really built up our business around really helping those folks get the right material, make sure that they're not making kind of amateur mistakes. Like, you know, ordering a Viking cover for a Tyco sprinkler. Right. Um, you know, mistakes like that, we really help them understand what that, um, space looks like, so that way they save themselves time and money when they're ordering this material.

Drew Slocum: (09:23):

Yeah, it makes sense. You know, um, our platform really, really gives a great overview of all the deficiencies in a fire protection system. Now you've got 10 deficiencies, you know, many times they're, they're minor deficiencies, signs, uh, caps, cover plates, certain items where yes, the contractor can give a a nice quote to come back and fix that, but a lot of time it's not worth that contractor's time, or it may be worth it, but they're gonna jack up their rate so much to send a guy back out to make that fix. So why not, you know, have the facility manager drew it on their own and not only cut down the cost, but cut down the time that deficiency is, is open, you know?

Jason Hugo: (10:11):

Right. And I think that ladder point is the, is kinda the more important one. What our mission here is to make sure that your fire sprinkler is both up to code, but more importantly, functioning Right. Functioning properly. You know, that's what we wanna see when we speak with our customers, is that their systems working properly. So the longer that they have a component missing, the longer that they potentially could have a problem. I mean, I was talking with the customer earlier today about cover plates and um, uh, oversized cutout holes in their ceiling and what the risk is there of the fire actually getting behind the drop ceiling and how important it is to get your covers back in place. Right. That's exactly what we're there trying to solve.

Drew Slocum: (10:54):

Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that, that is, that is a nice little niche. And it's, it's funny that to this, this day, nobody's really, you know, there's some big fire manufacturers and suppliers out there. There's, there's nobody that's really doing that e-commerce style where, uh, everything's driven through a website. So it makes it much easier for, you know, the end user, the facility manager to go out and buy that. That ones, you know, that one item, two items. Um, plus you provide that all in a great spot. Your, your website's pretty pretty slick comparatively, you know?

Jason Hugo: (11:31):

Thank you. Really appreciate that.

Drew Slocum: (11:33):

What, uh, why, um, I guess you were involved in fire protection before and then you got this launched. Are you, I see on your LinkedIn you've, you've got like two other side hustles going on. What, what, what's all that about?

Jason Hugo: (11:51):

Yeah, so as a, you know, as a serial entrepreneur, I've started many companies over the years, but really what has evolved over the last four or five years is a thorough understanding of the relationship between e-commerce sales, clearly something important to Q R F F mm-hmm. and data analysis. Right. And really, at the end of the day, if you're not able to do pretty solid data analysis, you're gonna struggle continuing to grow your e-commerce business.

Drew Slocum: (12:24):

Right?

Jason Hugo: (12:25):

So, about four years ago now, I started another company called the Athena Data Company, and in there we take on clients that are usually in e-commerce, um, some others, we do have other clients, but mostly in e-commerce. And we really help them understand their data so that way they can drive the type of outcomes on their websites that they're looking to achieve.

Drew Slocum: (12:48):

Gotcha. Interesting.

Jason Hugo: (12:51):

So, yeah, so, so really a big impetus to that was a lesson that we learned on Q R F S, and that was that, you know, these folks call us, I'd mentioned before about, you know, I have this problem and I need to get it solved, they call us. And what we realized over time, lots of, lots of these phone calls, was that the questions, you know, there's a finite number of questions. There is, you know, questions around the sprinkler system, questions around extinguishers, et cetera. But at the end of the day, for every 10 phone calls I receive, I bet you I've answered the same questions, seven of those phone calls.

Drew Slocum: (13:27):

Oh, okay.

Jason Hugo: (13:28):

So what we started to do back in actually a first prototype was 2013, but 2016 is where we really started into it, is we started developing how to guides and other useful information content in the lingo of the industry Yep. Where we, uh, answer those questions proactively and make it expose those answers to Google, so that way customers don't necessarily have to call us to get the answer that they're looking for. Sure. We, now, I'm proud to say we just broke our 200th article a couple days ago. Wow. I think we're on 204 as of today. Quote me on that. Exactly. But, um, and we are continuously kind of developing this space around, so we make sure that we are giving the best information possible out to these consumers. Yeah. Understanding how those articles function within the search engines and understanding how to pull the levers to get better traffic to those articles is really this symbiotic relationship between Athena and Q R F S.

Drew Slocum: (14:34):

No, no, I, I, I definitely see what you're doing there. I don't think, um, a lot of the fire protection world, uh, get, you know, a lot, some people are starting to get it, but the power of SEO and some of the, uh, digital marketing, um, you know, the number one, uh, listen podcast so far for the Fire Protective podcast is, is the, the one, the second one John Mackey talking about that specifically some of the digital marketing and getting, you know, getting blogs out there, getting articles out there to just drive more trafficked to your company. So obviously you figured it out, um, you know, with your, with Athena and whatever. So you're just putting that to work rate rate in Q R F S, which is great.

Jason Hugo: (15:20):

Yeah, absolutely. We're, um, we like to think of it as we'll do, we'll take the, the heavy lifting of understanding N F P A code, um, and understanding that relationship between the code and the building owner's responsibility. Right. And we help kind of disseminate that down in a way that's easily digestible for, you know, for the average consumer.

Drew Slocum: (15:43):

So how do you have a, uh, obviously you do a lot of blogging and articles, but is do you have a te a technical team that, that understands the code when, when somebody calls in or emails?

Jason Hugo: (15:56):

Um, yeah, so we've actually been training that up internally over the last year and a half mm-hmm. , um, we have, uh, an editor on our staff, his name's Bill mm-hmm. , he's a, an amazing, amazing editor. Yeah. And really we've spent the last year getting him access to pretty much anything we can get our hands on that'll help him better understand, um, you know, the, that code and what that relationship between that code and the building owner is. Right. We also leverage our relationship with N F S A so that way we can, you know, have an expert on call if we need to. And sometimes things get over our head. And over the years too, we've built out a network of other fire professionals that we call on whenever, whenever the code gets a little too dicey for us to be able to Sure. To um, and decipher ourselves. We call those folks up and we get their expert opinions.

Drew Slocum: (16:49):

Yeah. It's, it's, it's great to, to see somebody out there doing that, cuz I, you know, I work for two large manufacturers and, you know, a lot of times if a call came in about a another manufacturer, they, they, they wouldn't be able to answer it essentially. So at Tyco, they, if somebody called with a reliable drive out question, um, even though it was prob it could be easy, I don't think they, you know, liability wise and all that, they didn't wanna take responsibility of that. So I think that's something where, um, what you guys are doing is, is, uh, a nice service to the industry and obviously pushing more people to your, uh, to your site as well.

Jason Hugo: (17:32):

Yeah. And you know, I, I like to be clear with everybody that I talk to about this, we do not replace your a hj mm-hmm. , we don't attempt to replace your ahj. What we try to do is simply help you understand what the right questions are when you're talking to the appropriate in your local jurisdiction.

Drew Slocum: (17:50):

Right. Right.

Jason Hugo: (17:52):

So it, it's really important just to caveat that because, you know, we get a lot of questions that sometimes get outside of our scope and we are not afraid ever to say, look, here's what we understand of the problem, but we highly recommend, in fact we almost mandate you to go back and talk to your authority having jurisdiction before we'll continue this conversation because at the end of the day, they're the ultimate authority, not us.

Drew Slocum: (18:18):

Yep. No, you're totally correct. That that is true. I'm glad you, I'm glad you put that out there cuz the hj, whether it's the fire marshal insurance agency owner, um, you know, they, they are the HJ at the, at the end of the day last decision maker. So, correct.

Jason Hugo: (18:35):

Um, and we'll talk about, we'll talk in our articles about certain areas of the code or certain par components of a sprinkler system where we'll lead off with a, with, uh, with a caption that just says, look, this is how we understand the code. This is what our experts have helped us understand about the code. But at the end of the day, the, the impetus or the onus is on yourself to go to your local authority having jurisdiction and make sure you're doing it

Drew Slocum: (19:00):

Right. Sure, sure, sure. No, it's, uh, that, that is a big, uh, point to make. So, now I know you kept mentioning facility managers, um, now can, do you have a, I saw it on your website, you have a contractor portal as well. Is that obviously you would sell to anybody, um, for that material. Is is, do you get a lot of contractors coming to you guys? Is that like a growing area? Cuz I know the tradition, you know, you're either gonna go to the manufacturer of the local Ferguson or HD Supply, but, um, are you getting some of that contractor traction lately or is it still growing?

Jason Hugo: (19:42):

Yeah, I mean, it, it's still our bread and butter is helping out that end user, but over the last few years we really have seen an uptick in kind of smaller contractors, maybe new players in the space or are Yeah. Folks that are smaller, um, coming to us that, you know, wanna do a credit card transaction and are, you know, have smaller needs than, than your large local contractors. Um, another area where we have really expanded over the last few years has been into inspection, testing, and monitoring. I know a sweet spot for yourself mm-hmm. , um, for mostly around hydrant flow testing and hydrostatic testing Yep. And providing the equipment for that, like pedo gauges or test pumps.

Drew Slocum: (20:28):

Oh, yep. Hose monster or sorry, test monsters or what, whatever brand you carry .

Jason Hugo: (20:36):

Correct. Yep. Exactly. And, and you know, they, they in general all serve the similar function. Sure. Um, but it's really been an area where, you know, we're not, we're serving a portion of that market that's just a little outside of, a little outside of the traditional sprinkler contractor who's gonna go out and focus a lot of their attention on new installs. Yeah. Um, we're helping out the guys that are trying to maintain, I mean, kind of our whole entire core business has been around how do I maintain a system and we try to put the tools in place for those folks to be able to access the right equipment.

Drew Slocum: (21:11):

Yeah. No, no. That's the, that's the growth sector and fire protection is inspection, maintenance and, and service of these systems because I think it's, uh, obviously over the years it's, it's been good, but it's only getting better and, uh, regulated more, which is great. So, um, speaking of that, uh, we met at the I TM N F S A had the I TM summit down in, um, were you, you were at the one in Chicago, you were the one in Florida,

Jason Hugo: (21:40):

Correct? I was at the one in Florida,

Drew Slocum: (21:41):

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So I know we connected there. Um, and they're talk, you know, there was great talks about there. I know you put a blog out about that summit, which is great. Kind of a summation of what, what the industry's trying to do, um, with, I guess quote unquote big data, uh, of these fire protection systems. Uh, I know you're, you mentioned you're heading to N F P A next week, uh, we'll be there as well. I should probably have the booth number of what, of where we're gonna be, but we're, we're on the floor. Uh, big data's a big discussion topic, uh, at this conference. So, so I'm really interested to see, you know, what's being discussed and the movement and how fast, uh, the industry's gonna move there with the big data.

Jason Hugo: (22:31):

Yeah, it's really an interesting area. It's, uh, it's definitely income or encompasses some buzzwords around big data and other things. Um, it's really interesting to me to see sort of the lack of connection between players in the industry. So, and, and oftentimes will speak with people who, you know, I did my inspection, that inspection went to my local A H J, but I didn't necessarily know that my other building had an inspection and maybe had the same problems. Right. So it's really that that connection between the, the, the great work that contractors are doing in helping maintain these systems, but across either different contractors or across, um, different jurisdictions where you might actually have the same building owner. So it's just, it's really interesting to see where this is gonna go over the next few years.

Drew Slocum: (23:20):

Yeah. It's almost across system-wide. So, all right. If, if these dry systems are still having these issues, how do you know that unless you compile the data together and actually pinpoint, or at least focus in on, you know, potential solutions for that? So I, I know, you know, we, we at inspect point have been reached out to regarding some of the, some of the data there. And N F P A has some, some nice grant work that they're, they are proposing, which is, is pretty cool. It's just, uh, how fast and efficient it's gonna work, you know, is always the question.

Jason Hugo: (24:00):

Yeah. And, and it's kind of, you know, many industries, not, not many industries are like the fire protection industry. No. So let's be clear on that. Um, but many industries have went through a similar transition where, you know, let's call it, let's just pick a number. 10 years ago everything was done, paper and pen, pencil and, and you know, reports had to be collated and you had to go and figure out, find the filing cabinet with the right bit of information. And now that those industries have shifted online, um, it's really interesting to see the fire protection industry doing the same thing and really starting to move in that direction where it's going to eventually be a digital first industry. Yeah. It's just gonna take some time to get there. Right. Yeah. I'm sure you can speak to that way better than I Oh yeah.

Drew Slocum: (24:48):

Number one competitor is still pen and paper, which is, or Excel or PDF or whatever, which is, it's, it's kind of crazy. Um, I know there's a lot of resistance to change in any industry, but it seems very resistant here. , but that's good, you know, we'll, uh, we'll get there eventually, I think.

Jason Hugo: (25:07):

Yeah, absolutely. Um, absolutely. So speaking of dry, I just wanna wanna, um, touch on that for two seconds. We have over the winter this year got a lot of inquiries for Drys, um, people who had various problems with them. Um, but setting that aside, we actually just put it out, I think we're on addition nine, I think, of our dry series, which is an article series that we've developed that basically goes from what is a dry system, well, how does it work, how does it function through to, how do you maintain it? Um, who's responsible for what, what do the, uh, valves do, I mean, et cetera, about every detail we can pull out of anything. Um, and we just, we think we're on, uh, the ninth, uh, part in that series. So if any of your listeners are curious to learn more about drives, if they're not already extremely versed in it, um, pop over to qfs.com/blog and check out that series.

Drew Slocum: (26:08):

Yeah, it's like, I, I'm on, I just clicked on there, I was on there earlier. I I just thought it was a bunch of blogs, but you actually categorized them, uh, pretty well so you can kind of jump in and out, you know, whatever, whatever suits your interest or whatever problem you're having that day.

Jason Hugo: (26:25):

Right. And Drys has been one that we actually took one of our, one of our best writers, and we said, look, this is a topic that, it's a huge topic, it's not a small topic, so let's give it, its proper due. And, and I think there's a couple more, a couple more, uh, additions in the series yet to come, but it's definitely one of our, uh, one of our longer running series that I think gives a lot of detail on that type of system.

Drew Slocum: (26:51):

No, no, that's big. I, I, I do like that cuz then, um, if you do have, no, this is a great reference cuz you actually, I actually didn't click on this dry one of these dry, uh, uh, blogs, but you, you referenced the code very well. You have videos embedded in there. It's, it's great. So if a, you know, a contractor is out there and needs some explanation to a facility manager or building owner, you've kind of got it all dialed in here. That's good. Yeah, we

Jason Hugo: (27:20):

Tried, tried to keep it all, all together and yeah. The code references that you are seeing in there, that's kind of our standard mo Nice. Um, we, we take that code and we really, like I said at the beginning, we're just trying to take the onus off the end user to dive into those N F P A books because as much as we all enjoy reading N F P A books, they're sometimes not the easiest thing for just a general end user to wrap their head around. Yeah. So this is a way for us to really help explain it, but also grounded in something that isn't conjecture, it's grounded in the same exact code that everybody else is gonna be

Drew Slocum: (27:56):

Looking at. And it's constantly changing and Yeah. Every jurisdiction's a little bit different.

Jason Hugo: (28:02):

you actually, it's interesting because one of our most popular articles this year was the changes in NFPA 13. Oh yeah. And it was, it was extremely popular article. I would've never guessed it would've been as popular as it was.

Drew Slocum: (28:15):

Huh. So I I I almost think you have something with your data and how many people are, uh, heading to the site to to, to hit those clicks. So it'd be interesting to see where they're, where they're coming from. You know, I don't know if you're grabbing all that, but it'd be, it'd be pretty interesting. I think

Jason Hugo: (28:36):

We've actually developed on the Athena side our own internal pixel or tracking code that allows us to grab all of the interactions that happen on, on Q R F S and other clients that are working with our tool. Yes. Um, so we can, we can do exactly what you're talking about there. And we've also done some pretty heavy analysis into what type of customer is ultimately interacting with what type of article. Mm-hmm. , we break our articles down into kind of four broad buckets. We have product articles that talk about what exactly as it sounds, talks about a product. We have problem solving articles. These really are geared towards our end users, um, you know, our facility managers, hospitals, institutional buyers, those kinds of folks. Right. But I have this problem, how do I solve it? Then we have our code interpretation articles and that's really what we've been talking about here.

(29:30)
Yeah. Uh, with, with the dry systems and, and a lot of them, if you scroll through those articles, there's a lot of articles in there that are code interpretation articles, and then our last bucket, something that we kind of call human interest stories or otherwise just industry exposes what's happening in the industry. And I think the simplest example is the one you already brought up, which was the N F S A conference. Yeah. But what we've found to be really interesting, because we are, we are data people and kind of nerds and when it comes to that regard is the problem solving articles those geared towards exactly the user base that we'd expect. Those are generally when we tie that up against sales data, we see not really fire contractors that are reading that information. Right. Ah, which makes sense.

Drew Slocum: (30:17):

Yeah,

Jason Hugo: (30:17):

It makes sense. Which makes sense. Yeah. Yep. But when we look at the code interpretation articles, we actually see a big uptick in what I would call fire professionals Right. Who are interacting with that content.

Drew Slocum: (30:30):

Right. Huh. That's very interesting. Yeah, I, that's, uh, so you are, you are grabbing that down to the, to the detail. So, uh, that'd be interesting. Gotcha. You know, look at it over a couple year period once Yeah. I'm sure you already have it, but, um, yeah, I'd love to chat more offline about you with, with some of that. So

Jason Hugo: (30:53):

Yeah, absolutely. Wayne,

Drew Slocum: (30:53):

This has been great. So I'll, um, I'll probably be releasing this podcast after N F P A, but, um, I guess I will see near there next week, so that should be fun.

Jason Hugo: (31:06):

Absolutely. See what's going on. I look forward to it. I I actually haven't made it to NFPAs conference before, so, ah, it's,

Drew Slocum: (31:12):

It's, it's great. There's, uh, it's kind of everybody coming together in the fire protection community, um, all in one, and then you have all the code committees that sit down as well. So it's a pretty cool event.

Jason Hugo: (31:25):

I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm very much, you know, I've got all my business cards printed, I'm gonna see if I can get rid of them all.

Drew Slocum: (31:32):

. So, uh, uh, this is fun. I didn't name this after you, but, um, you've probably listened to a few of my podcasts. Um, we have something called the quick response round and, uh, I I, instead of a lightning round or something like that, you know, quick response, fire, fire sprinkler. So do a little, uh, quick response round with you if you don't mind, and ask a few questions, a little on topic, little off topic just to just get a sense of, uh, who you are, Jason. So, uh, um, hope you're okay with it.

Jason Hugo: (32:04):

Uh, let's let it rip.

Drew Slocum: (32:06):

Uh, so I, I, I actually asked this in, uh, I started asking this in a bunch of interviews, uh, for people that I did, I, I forgot where I learned it down the line, but, um, what did you eat for breakfast today?

Jason Hugo: (32:20):

Today I had a Cliff bar . That's actually what I had for lunch too. So, Hey,

Drew Slocum: (32:26):

That means you're a, a, you know, uh, a good entrepreneur that's, that's constantly on it. So you're, you're on the go. You had it both for breakfast and lunch. That's, that's

Jason Hugo: (32:38):

if it for, um, for espresso and Cliff bars, there probably wouldn't be, I wouldn't be as chipper as I am right now.

Drew Slocum: (32:45):

Yeah, right, right. That's funny. Um, so on, on topic a little. So I, I saw that you had a blog. Um, it it, it was pretty funny. It, it, it's a great blog. I I I'd never seen it before. It's on, uh, accidental sprinkler head discharge. Um, I forgot what the name of the, the, the blog was. You can, you can even bring up the number if you want. But out of all those videos that you went through, what's your favorite ?

Jason Hugo: (33:15):

Oh, with hands down it's the bowling alley.

Drew Slocum: (33:18):

The bowling

Jason Hugo: (33:18):

Hands down. It's the bowling alley

Drew Slocum: (33:20):

With the girl that throws it up.

Jason Hugo: (33:22):

Yeah. So, so a little background on that for you. Um, we carry a new product now that's a heavy duty industrial head guard. It's a temporary head guard designed for you to put around the sprinkler when you are say, working in a facility or, you know, you're gonna be moving some heavy equipment around and you don't wanna have an accidental discharge. Sure. Um, so pretty, you know, product makes sense. It all explains itself. But we wanted to come up with a clever way to expose that product to the industry. And we were really struggling with, you know, what are some good examples of accidental discharge , you know, nobody really, nobody really wants to talk about that. Sure. Cause it's, it's a bad day. It's a real bad day. Right. Um, so we, uh, you know, went to the world's second largest search engine, which is YouTube and found found countless videos Yeah. Of, of a really bad day. But like I said at the beginning, my favorite one is this, this poor woman's bowling. And she's walking down the, uh, the alley and she gets her ball and she swings it and she lets go, but she, lets go with that ball pointing up and it goes up and it hits the sprinkler and about, you know, one second later, two seconds later, it's just a spray of water coming out. Oh, yeah.

(34:40)
A really bad

Drew Slocum: (34:41):

It did its job. I didn't, I didn't see the, uh, I don't know if you've seen this one. My favorite is the, uh, the, the Spanish, or I don't know if it's Spanish or Mexican restaurant, where they come over the table and they're, I think they're flambe or it's an open flame at the table that they're cooking something and everybody's all excited . And all of a sudden, obviously this sprinkler did its job because there's x you know, the heat was, uh, well above 1 55 at the ceiling and it just, that sprinkler comes down with a lot of force and obviously extinguished the fire, but ruined, uh, a nice little birthday meal. Looks like. So . Yeah.

Jason Hugo: (35:21):

Yeah. We call that our, uh, our fire Sprinkler Hall of Shame. Right.

Drew Slocum: (35:25):

Oh, that's what it's called, the Hall of Shame. Right. Right.

Jason Hugo: (35:28):

Yep. It for your, for your listeners. It's article number 2 0 1.

Drew Slocum: (35:32):

Nice. All right. Check that out. Um, couple more here. I know, uh, a little research on you. You, you went to school in the Grand Rapids area, um, grand Valley State looks like you got a couple degrees from there. What Grand Rapids is supposedly, you know, I was there for Viking a lot is the, uh, craft beer, I don't know, city of the US or something. Do you have a favorite brewery or favorite place in Grand Rapids that you always went to?

Jason Hugo: (36:02):

Ooh, that's a great question. Um, from a brewery perspective, there's founders That's a really good brewery. Um, I actually am a big fan, and this isn't as, isn't as niche as it used to be, but Bell's down in Kalamazoo. Yeah. Um, one time met the owner of Bell's and asked him why he didn't keep Oberon one of their more Yeah. Popular summer brews, why he didn't keep it out all year. And he said, I do down in south southern Florida where my mother lives cause that's the only beer she'll drink.

Drew Slocum: (36:32):

Ah, that's funny. . That is funny. That is great beer. You're right. And you can, it's tough to find it other than the summertime.

Jason Hugo: (36:40):

Right. You can only get it in the summer unless you're down in, so in, I think the south basically Miami area.

Drew Slocum: (36:46):

Wow. Wow. Um, all right, last one here, and then we'll, uh, we'll, we'll get going, but, uh, I know big data, data is, is a pretty boring topic to most people. Um, you know, my, my my degree outta college is actually in it and did did some of that within Tyco, but what gets you charged up about data , sorry to be so blunt, but that's, you know, that it seems like it's such a dry topic.

Jason Hugo: (37:16):

Yeah. And, and it really does get me excited because what I like to know is why, I want to know why. And that question spans more industries and more, you know, problems than we could spend hours talking about. But really it comes down to can I figure out why something is happening? And I, you know, using the example we were talking about earlier with the articles, you know, why was I seeing such an uptick in my code articles, but not necessarily seeing the corresponding uptick in direct sales off of those articles. Right. Well, our conclusion was that that's actually helping the industry, but those folks aren't necessarily the same customers that we serve on a daily basis. So it's really helping us understand what is going on both in Q R F S as a business also in our other clients on the Athena side, but really helping us understand what's happening there and why. And that gets me, that gets me out of bed in the morning,

Drew Slocum: (38:13):

. Other than the espresso.

Jason Hugo: (38:14):

Well, other than the espresso.

Drew Slocum: (38:16):

That's fair. No, that's a good answer. I, I, I definitely love, I like that. Um, so again, thanks, thanks for coming on. Um, we'll, we'll be definitely chatting here soon. Uh, I wanna give you the opportunity and give your contact info out there website, whatever, any message you wanna get to the industry. And we will, we'll

Jason Hugo: (38:36):

Cut it. Yeah, absolutely. So, so my name is Jason Hugo. Uh, the company is Quick Response Fire Supply. You can see us online [email protected]. And really what I'd like to tell the industry is, you know, our mission here is to help that end user, maintain their sprinkler system in such a way that they're safe. So at the end of the day, we're, we're all working towards the same objective and making sure that fire is not, you know, a life-threatening issue for the vast majority of folks.

Drew Slocum: (39:07):

Nice. That's great. Well, thanks Jason. And, uh, we'll see you next week at N F P A and we'll, uh, yeah, take a exciting in industry out there to, in the future of it. So.

Jason Hugo: (39:20):

Perfect. Thanks Drew. Thanks so much for having me on.

Drew Slocum: (39:22):

Thanks, Jason. This has been episode eight of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect point. I want. Again, thank Jason Hugo, my guest from Q R F S, quick Response Fire Supply. It was a great chat on data, big data, what they're doing in the industry to kind of shake up the, uh, supplier world. Um, again, thanks for all the listenership and, uh, be sure to subscribe and, uh, hit us up on all our social media channels at Inspect Point. Talk to you soon.