Season 2 | Episode 14 with Heath M Moore from Tennessee Valley Authority

Speaker A: Foreign. Metrologists. Welcome to another edition of Chat Nap with the AI chatterbots, Chuck and Howie. It, a podcast dedicated towards metrology. I'd like to thank our sponsor, nept. Uh, if you like the program, please, like, and please share. And no, uh, further introductions are necessary because everybody knows Howard.

Speaker B: Hello, everyone. And by everyone, I mean not just metrologists, non metrologists. Metrologists want to be. All of you are welcome.

Speaker A: All of us that want to listen to the program. Well, what's happening, my friend? I haven't. It's been a while since we talked.

Speaker B: I just got to say, uh, just before we started this, I, uh, jumped on early just to see if we needed to talk about anything. Uh, and I did a little Where's Waldo type of thing. I buttoned my button all the way to the top like this, just to see if Chuck would notice. And right out of the gate, he said, good morning or good afternoon. And then he says, looking very formal today. It's like, good Lord, I can't pull anything over on you.

Speaker A: Well, I'm feeling pretty chipper today, so I'm. I might, uh, be on top of my game just a little bit more than usual. And obviously, seeing that you were wanting to be 25 years old again and had that button, I'd have to do this then, you know, I'd have to, you know, bring up my thing and, yeah, see which one looks better, you know, because you got to impress the ladies. Right? You know?

Speaker B: Oh, well, my wife would say she's the only one I need to impress.

Speaker A: Hey, we got a trip coming up. I'm gonna come visit you here in a couple of days.

Speaker B: It's coming up, uh, two weeks.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: We're coming to prepare to find a site for the 30th anniversary party for NEPT, which will be in Kansas City on the 26th of July. And we got to find a site, because we got to have a site that has, uh, cocktails, beer, wine and appetizers and be able to support 100 people. So if you're listening to this broadcast, you know, you're. Hopefully you can attend ncsli, and if you're not going to attend csli, you can still come to the conference and just come and celebrate with us on Sunday.

Speaker B: Yeah, we've got a number of places we're going to check out. There's, of course, Kansas City, known for barbecue, but there's a lot of great places downtown and within walking distance of Crown Center.

Speaker A: Yeah, we're going to try and keep it, uh, within walking distance. We're going to try, but we'll see. We got to find the right spot.

Speaker B: I have one correction to make, uh, that I had mentioned in the past, and that was that I thought that the golf outing that we usually do, the charity event, dovetailed right to into this week of ncsl, and it does not. It's a week off, which is distressing to say the least. Uh, because, you know, if people are going to fly out to Kansas City, it would have been nice to have those together. They could just go on through from the charity event right into the conference. Now it's a week apart, and who's going to come out two weeks separate? So that's probably going to curtail the golf charity event.

Speaker A: You think you might have a few people that are not going to be part of your.

Speaker B: Possibly. Yeah.

Speaker A: Because of the double dipping.

Speaker B: It's unfortunate. And I tried to get them to move the golf event. Now that's kind of a big thing to do. I needed to do it maybe four or five months ago if I was going to do that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But in any case, it is what it is. Just want to make that correction so that, uh, if anyone was planning to go to both, they're now a week apart.

Speaker A: Well, can we still maybe, maybe plan our own golf event on Saturday before.

Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Yes, we should.

Speaker A: I. I think you should be in charge of that because I'll be all warmed up.

Speaker B: Uh, I'll have played at least three times in the year.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, that's the, uh. So you're ready to. You're ready to go out and show us how to play golf?

Speaker B: That's usually the three times I play for the whole year.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So. Well, my friend, we need to also talk about the actual NCSL event. Did you hear anything back how MSC went?

Speaker B: So the surprising thing is that the, the message was that the attendance was up a little bit, but it felt like it was down now when I wasn't there. But when I look at the pictures of the exhibit floor, it seemed very sparse.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I don't want to talk bad about anybody, but I also went online and looked at the. Online, like our, uh, uh, our friend Ryan, you know, he has his. His podcast. He did live podcast this year. And so I was able to go online and listen to his interviews. And I noticed, like you said, the. It seemed like the people in the exhibit hall were just the exhibitors, which is. It's sad. But, you know, I, I mean, I wasn't there. As, you know, neither one of Us are able to attend this year.

Speaker B: We had things important to note that this is also the first year that it was not at Disney in a long time. And I think, uh, it's been at Disney an awfully, awful long number of years. But prior to that, there was one time it was at the Long Beach Convention Center. I remember that. And it's been outside of Disney one, uh, or two other times. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah, I know for sure in 2022, it wasn't. Anthuria was at the Hilton, because that's when I got my recognition and I knew that was at the Hilton, not at Disneyland. When. When. Um, that's. That's an interesting story we should tell. Sometimes how I. I wasn't even gonna go to the luncheon. I wanted it because I didn't want the lunch. You know, sometimes these lunches are not what you want. And I was going to go to the. The bar. Oh, that would have a cheeseburger, because I, you know, I just didn't. I had no desire to have what was on the menu. So wouldn't that have been embarrassing to have the person that you're going to give an award to not show up?

Speaker B: Oh, they would have come over the loudspeaker, the PA system. Mr. Ellis to the convention luncheon. Mr. Ellis to the convention luncheon.

Speaker A: You're needed. You're needed in the luncheon. Anyway, so. But back to it. Uh, hopefully they had a good time and a good education, a lot of training. I mean, they're.

Speaker B: That could have been the reason for the downturn, I'm thinking, because a lot of people like to, uh, match up their vacation time being at Disney with the convention, with the conference, and, uh, it being held elsewhere. This was at the Hyatt, I believe, this year.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Could have had an effect on the number of people that attended.

Speaker A: You know, it could. But, you know, the good thing had the rooms are only a couple hundred bucks this year, and Disney's was $380 with a plus plus on it.

Speaker B: Discount price.

Speaker A: That was the discount price. Yeah. I'm not going to spend $400 on a hotel room at Disney. I'm sorry. Even if it was at Disney, I would be staying off campus and taking an Uber in every single day.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Because there's no way that I would. That I would spend $400 on a room, especially the Disney rooms.

Speaker B: Yeah, you're paying that plus parking or valet.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's what I mean. You got the $380 with a plus plus, which is the resort fee. The parking fee, you know, the taxes on top of that. I mean, God, we all know California has a 23% gas. I mean I'm not a gas tax, but a tax on resorts.

Speaker B: Tourism tax.

Speaker A: Tourism tax. Yeah. So it's crazy.

Speaker B: Yeah. So clearly that's why it was moved. But we'll see. Do we know where it will be held next year?

Speaker A: I do not.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So I'm probably done attending conferences. I think that uh, after the Nept 30th anniversary, I will be pretty much done uh, going to conferences. You know, I'm, I'm an old man now. I, I've been there, done that. Don't need to do it no more. It's getting time to.

Speaker B: I'll continue attending conferences, uh, certainly ncsl, uh, each year and uh, looking at maybe ancon anab. They have some good conferences. Uh, we'll see about MSC M next year.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, NEPT supports. You know, they went to the ANAB conference, uh, their first, uh, big time conference for their assessment team. We're going to anab. I mean ANCON is what they call it. So we're going to that one as well. So. And definitely be at ncsli. So NAPT will continue to support these conferences, but we're just not sure about MSC because you know, you gotta cost a lot to go to California lately. Uh, so, so let's, let's talk a little bit about our guest for today.

Speaker B: Okay, That's a good idea.

Speaker A: So today we have coming on board Heath Moore. He is the senior manager for calibration services at TVA Tennessee Valley Authority which he leads the radiological and metrology laboratories and the MT&E tool rooms across the nuclear fleet. This is a pretty big guy we got joining us today. Uh, he's been in 27 years in plant operations. He's been I think with TVA his entire career. Uh, he brings a deep, uh, experience in compliance, quality, operational excellence along with a strong focus on developing metrology over the past seven years. Which I think that he's been the, the leader for metrology services for seven years now.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, he holds a master's degree in engineering management from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Go Chattanooga. What is Chattanooga? I can't. God, I love college and I can't think of what their, their, their mascot is. Uh, he's based near Chattanooga with his wife and daughter. Outside of work, he also runs a real estate business. I mean I can't imagine working full time in his job and then also running a real estate business. A Lot of work focused on long term rentals and residential remodeling. So the guy sounds like he's a busy guy. I mean, I, I don't know how he does it. So we're definitely going to have to have two sections. Two parts of the meeting, one talking about TVA and part talking about his, you know, real estate experience as well. That's going to be interesting.

Speaker B: Uh, so I'm vaguely familiar with Tennessee Valley Authority. Haven't really delved into that too much in my career. And Chattanooga is a beautiful part of the country. I've been there before. Oh, I've had some relatives or friends of relatives that live there and we stopped there one year. We used to drive through there. Coming up when we lived in Orlando, we'd come to Kansas City to visit her family and uh, the road just came up through Chattanooga across Tennessee. Beautiful part of the drive, for sure.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But I've not known Heathmore in the past, so this will be a good introduction to him.

Speaker A: I've been lucky enough. Back in the day I had a client that I did a lot of consulting in and one of their branch offices was in Chattanooga and the quality manager was a huge golfer. So we would take the golf clubs there. Whenever I went down and did all his audits, I did all his internal audits format as his seven locations. And long story short, we would go do a, uh, a site visit and then we go play around the golf. And I remember playing a couple different courses in Chattanooga and just gorgeous area.

Speaker B: Well, the problem with uh, places like Chattanooga, it's very hilly and the ball rolls down all the time. So you know, uh, Kansas, that's a nice flat place to play golf.

Speaker A: Hello, Heath. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker C: How are y' all today?

Speaker B: Excellent. Glad to have you.

Speaker A: Perfect timing, Heath. We just got done doing the introduction and we were, we were talking about playing gol in the beautiful area of Chattanooga back in the day when I would visit your area twice a year and uh, just love the area, love to play golf. Are you a golfer by chance?

Speaker C: I've played golf one time in probably the last 10 years and it was two weeks after I gave my golf clubs away, I had to call the guy and borrow my golf clubs back to play around.

Speaker B: Oh, that's funny.

Speaker A: Well, we noticed that, uh, you probably don't have time for golf anymore. I mean, you know, during your introduction we talked about how you have a extremely, you know, demanding career and then you also have a full time job with the real estate business and how you, you Know, adjust all your time. You probably don't have time for golf.

Speaker C: I don't. My daughter does travel volleyball, and that is about between school ball and travel ball. That's about year round. And I mean, luckily we just finished up the last tournament this past weekend. Uh, but she's, she's playing volleyball in college. So I'll be driving to Nashville to watch volleyball games pretty soon.

Speaker B: Oh, wow. That's not a short drive.

Speaker A: Well, I could say you going from Chattanooga to Nashville, that's not so bad, is it?

Speaker C: No, it's, uh, it's about a two hour drive. That's the one thing I like about Chattanooga is, I mean, we're two hours from Atlanta, two hours from Knoxville, two hours from Birmingham. I mean, pretty much two hours from anywhere you want to go.

Speaker B: That's a beautiful place.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah, we get all four seasons usually. Um, it's rare to get snow, but we'll get snow maybe once every four or five years, which is nice.

Speaker A: You must have got snow this year.

Speaker C: We got a little bit. I mean, it wasn't bad. It was more icy than anything. And I mean, they talked about a big snow was coming, uh, but I really just think they needed to sell milk and bread.

Speaker B: Yeah, it worked.

Speaker C: Yeah, it definitely worked.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, we had, we had the same thing here. I live in Little Rock, and we had, we, we definitely had, uh, the ice. We had 7 plus inches of ice out there. And the school shut down for literally nine days because they, they couldn't get on the back roads. They literally could not take a bus on the back road. So we had nine days of no school. And, and with my second life, I have a younger kid at home, and so I had to deal with him for nine days at home.

Speaker C: That's the one thing I'm glad my daughter drives. It has made a world of difference in our running around trying to get her places. So once she started driving, it really opened up a lot of time for us.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's start the interview process. Keith, let's talk about. You've come from the nuclear side of the family. And by the way, I had a very good friend when I lived in California that was an operations manager. And, and so we had, uh, a. Back in the day, I was very familiar with what he did. And I'm going to assume that as an operations manager, you did the same thing back what he did back in the day. But now you've transitioned over to become the supervisor, the senior metrology for calibration services. Ah. TVA. Can you kind of enlighten the audience? Exactly. Maybe give us an example of what your day consists of and how you, and what challenges you have being working for a nuclear plant.

Speaker C: So. Well, pretty much day is herding chickens. I would say it's uh, it's not as bad. So I did start out in operations and then uh, right before I transitioned over here I was in uh, transmission operations. And in that role I was responsible for the eastern half of the tva, uh, service territory. And so my phone would probably ring or text, you know, at least 100, 200 times a day. When I came over here I was, you know, kind of blown away at the lack of calls I got outside of normal, uh, business hours. Uh, but like in the first week ups, uh, lost a package and it was basically critical path for a nuclear outage. And I thought, man, I just really thought I was getting out of the uh, stuff that gets you in the limelight. But typical day is, you know, we have a calibration lab, we have a truck driver that you know, visits all three of our nuclear sites. We drop off instruments and pick instruments up weekly. Uh, same at our other sites. I uh, manage the um, tool rooms at each one of our nuclear sites as well. So depending, uh, on what week it is, I try to make my rounds. So I'm based in Hickson, Tennessee at uh, our Central Labs facility. But then I um, think my furthest visit is about four hours away to Muscle Shoals at our other lab. So um, I travel, you know, a couple times a month, just popping in and out. But mainly I'm, I'm here.

Speaker A: Well the other question I would like to ask is have you always been with tva?

Speaker C: So I have. I um, was actually going to Chattanooga State, which is a little local community college here. I was pursuing a degree in electrical engineering. But I started at the community college to try to get, you know, some of the easy stuff out of the way first. And I got an opportunity to um, to work for the Department of Energy at Argonne National Lab. I think it's in Darien, Chicago or outside of Chicago in Darien. And so I was up there and uh, my stepfather was a TVA employee and they had ah, an operations training job coming open at uh, Woodis Creek Fossil Plant. And he called me while I was up there and was like, hey, are you interested in this? And I was like, well sure, you know, I was like, I really want to get my degree but uh, I would love to, you know, get my foot in the door in tva. So I drove back one weekend and took, uh, I think it was Edison Electric test. I mean, for me it was like a ACT test and it let you know what you qualified for. And I qualified for everything. Uh, even the nuclear operations was like the hardest thing. But, uh, the first opportunity was to go to the coal facility. And, um, I took that. Uh, and then my scholarship ran out pretty much the semester that I started with tva. Uh, so I've, I've paid for one college class out of my whole career. And uh, that was C programming. And I have no clue how to program in C. But as I was starting, I went to talk to the operations manager and I was like, hey, TVA does tuition reimbursement. Will you reimburse me for my degree? I want to continue on. And after, you know, getting told, hey, your job comes first. You're in operations, you know, you have to man, shift and everything if you want to shift, swap, you know, whatever. And I said, hey, I'll do whatever. And it took me 12 and a half years total from the time I started college to the time I ended. And I ended with a master's in engineering Management. And, uh, praise God, uh, my ops manager supported me the whole way. When I finished my undergrad, you know, he was like, are you trying to come after my job? And I'm like, dude, I mean, you're paying. I'm just, you know, I'm going to go as long as you want. I was like, you can call me doctor here in a little while if you all pay. But I kind of tapped out after the masters.

Speaker B: There's two sides to that. That path is a long one, uh, to be doing that while you're working. But I did the same thing, uh, and I ended up having a master's in engineering management and industrial engineering. Here's the thing. To me, learning while doing was very important. I would be able to get the theoretical part at college at night and my courses and some of that I could apply to work during the day. And it made it stick to me. It made it more real where I could apply it. Um, so I kind of like the fact that I didn't go back to school until after I started working for that reason. Doesn't work for everyone. But, um, there's definitely benefits. And that's also why I like to support internships and co ops.

Speaker C: Yes. And, uh, we kind of do an internship. I bring in, uh, folks pretty much as a contractor, even though we call it a little Internet program here with our local community college. So as they're a sophomore, we'll hire them on and we'll get to run them for six months or a year till they graduate. And then, uh, at tva, you can direct select as long as, you know, they've been a college graduate within so many years. And that's probably half the group of, uh, calibration techs that we've got have come straight out of that college.

Speaker B: Good for you and good for them.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it's worked out really well.

Speaker A: That's interesting that you've got that great source of technicians because, you know, as we all know, the metrology community is really, is suffering with getting new people, and we have to find a new stream of, you know, qualified technicians to perform our measurements. So you've got a great source right there locally. That's fabulous.

Speaker C: It's, I mean, it's got some pluses and minuses. When I first came over here, the group was, it was on up there and had some people retiring. And one of our, my peers, he, they started the NDE program at that community college. And then, so I was like, hey, I need to get into that because I need to get some folks. And, and so it's, it's worked out. I think I've had to, uh, cancel a couple of contracts just from, you know, kids that didn't work out. But by and large, I've been very impressed with them. And we're doing the same thing at Muscle Shoals with the community college out there for our Western area radiological lab. Uh, and it's, it's been super good deal. But the one negative is I've had quite a bit of turnover. Uh, as they come on, they get in tva, they see some other internal jobs. And so I feel like I'm a little bit of a feeder system. And, and as y' all know, it's. It's really hard to get somebody and train them up and then, you know, then that knowledge walks out and then you've got to start all over it,

Speaker B: you know, day one facility.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I really. Yeah, I feel like we do a lot of training and that's the downside for sure.

Speaker B: But, but the benefit is that they, uh, get the experience that they wouldn't get otherwise, and you get lower cost, uh, labor and somebody who's hungry to learn.

Speaker C: And that, that is true. I mean, they're, they're always hungry to learn. And I really feel bad for the first guy that we had to cut loose. Uh, I think it kind of opened the eyes of everybody else that, you know, he's serious and, and he wants the bar here. And if you don't meet this bar, you know, you're, you're out. And I just had another employee come in. It was like her first day when I, uh, had to escort one out and uh, told the other guys like, yeah, yours is badge. And I mean her eyes were really big. But uh.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: But now they have learned, you know, they kind of come to me and say, hey, this person is doing really, really well. Or you know, we need to watch this person because they've learned, you know, as you know, we've had reorgs and there's less money and budgets and everything we're always asked to do, you know, kind of the same with less. They, they understand, hey, if we don't get good people, I don't want to carry them. So, uh, the whole team is kind of balled into that of, hey, we're in this together.

Speaker A: Yeah, we've seen it a lot. Uh, especially the last, what, five years now. Do more with less. I think, uh, across the industry, we all get that asked upon us to do, you know, more. We want more. We want to. Even in contracts, I mean, you know, in my world, we get people that don't want to pay for their services, but they want more and more, uh, services. It's, it's an ever never ending battle for me. I don't know about you guys.

Speaker C: No, um, I would agree. And I mean, costs keep going up. Um, I mean even like fuel costs go up. I mean for my box truck, we got a new box truck a few years ago and that was more money. And to send stuff out to vendors, calibrations are more money just getting hit on all sides, it feels like.

Speaker A: Yeah, especially the last, last what? 24 months. We're, we've, we've went up prices almost 30% and we haven't, we haven't raised our prices yet. And I don't know how we're going to survive if we don't. But that's not.

Speaker B: So that's the thing. You've got always got inflation. That's never not been there. Right.

Speaker A: Not 30%.

Speaker B: Right. But that's the thing. So if it's higher than normal, you've got to pay attention to that and try to keep up with that. If it's about average over the past, I don't know, 10, 20 years, then maybe you can make a little headway and also increase your profits.

Speaker A: You know what it saved us maybe Heath, you Can talk about on your side as well. But software, we have software that does a lot of, you know, automated tool tooling type things that we used to do manually in the past. And if we didn't have the software package that we have to manage our system, we couldn't do it because we only have five people that work for, you know, the association. But you know, uh, back going 20 years ago, we had like eight people doing the same amount of work.

Speaker C: Yes. So software has definitely helped. Uh, one of the techs in our temperature lab, uh, they found some system, uh, that it's got a little video camera and it monitors the oven and then it monitors our super thermometer and everything. And they can calibrate, you know, I guess set it up to step through different temperatures and then run off and do something else. And it basically automatically calibrates it. Same with like using the, the Metcal software. Uh, we use the Metcal software to do a lot of, um, our easier electrical stuff. And I mean that's plug and play. And it's easier to train people, you know, kind of get them used to everything. Hey, you plug this up and then we'll, we'll step you into a little bit, you know, harder stuff that makes you think later.

Speaker B: As long as it's not C. Right, Heath?

Speaker C: That's, that's right. Yeah. As long as they're not asking me to code it or, uh, you know, try anything, you know, we're good.

Speaker A: You know. The direction that you took, Heath, I think is fabulous because I, my oldest son, we did the same thing where he went to junior college to start with because it's a heck of a lot cheaper than going to the state college level or the university level, whatever you want to call it, and pay that, that, that course fee when it's the exact same course at junior college. So I highly recommend that path for everybody. Go spend two years at a junior college or a community college and get those courses out of your way before you actually decide. Because a lot of times, you know, people don't know what they want until they, they get a little bit older. Especially today. I mean, the mature level is hard

Speaker B: to know at 18.

Speaker C: I agree. I mean, I tell the kids at church, I'm like, I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. You know, I'm, um, like, I can guarantee you I never woke up and said, you know what? I want to be a metrologist.

Speaker B: Didn't even know the word at the time, did you?

Speaker C: Or no, I didn't I was like, you don't you know about the weather? I'm like, no, no, it's totally different, pretty much.

Speaker A: What brought you over to the metrology side? Was this an opportunity? Is this something that you saw that you wanted? Because you said you were in operations before, and now you kind of transition to this job.

Speaker B: Was it a Twilight Zone moment all of a sudden? You didn't realize where you were?

Speaker C: I ran into an old boss of mine, and, uh, she was over the central labs and Services. The. I guess, which is my boss now. Uh, she's moved on. So I've got another person over me now. Uh, but I just kind of bumped into her, and a buddy of mine was interviewing for, uh, another position out here, and I was, you know, just kind of asking her what she was doing and everything. And she said, are you looking to do something different? And I said, well, to have the opportunity to work for you again, you know, sure, I would love to. And. And my wife, bless her heart, she was kind of getting tired of every time we went out to dinner somewhere, and I'd have to walk away from the table, go outside and stand and. Yeah, we. My wife has got me on a cruise a couple of times, and the last cruise we were on, we were. As soon as we got service back, I was on the phone, on the phone all the way through customs and about an hour north of Tampa. And, I mean, she. She handled it well, but she was like, this is exactly why I want to take you on a cruise, because you're away from your phone. And I thought, well, this will at least give me a little bit better home life. Her career was taken off, and, you know, I was like, okay, well, I'll go out here to where it doesn't seem that it's as impactful to my home life. And I can kind of take over shuttling the kiddo around and everything and allow your career to take off, and hers has. I mean, it's bypassed mine. And I've been extremely proud of her and always knew she was the smarter one out of the, you know, two of us.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's usually the case. I mean, uh, you know, I'm going to tell you the same thing. My wife doesn't believe me, but I think my wife is a lot smarter than I am. But except for one. She made one mistake. She married me.

Speaker C: So, uh, I say the same thing.

Speaker B: That's the difference between smart and wise.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I tricked her.

Speaker A: Well, you know, uh, my wife was in the nuclear industry. As well. She was at songs back when. Back when I met her. So she has a nuclear background as well, and she doesn't. She's not nuclear anymore any longer. She's still, uh, a chemical engineer, but she's in the chemical industry, the environmental side now, but she had that nuclear background as well. So she, ah, she actually looked at one point in time of. I think Chattanooga was looking for a job a few years ago. And, um, when we moved from our Nevada job, we wanted to move closer out to the east. And I think she actually looked at your facility as one of the options, but I don't remember, so I'll have to ask her when I talk to her. So moving forward then, how many people do you have in your lab that you manage here? Your three labs, right? You have three labs you manage.

Speaker C: So I've got this lab here, a lab in Muscle Shoals. And then each one of our nuclear, uh, sites has a tool room where they check in and out the tools and they do the post testing, uh, if needed there. Uh, in total, I've got about 40 folks. 20, just maybe 18, 19 or 20 of them are right here, uh, doing the calibrations at my location.

Speaker A: So that's enough to keep you busy?

Speaker C: Uh, it definitely is. Uh, I had a course, you know, I do some rentals, so I had a tenant that all of a sudden wanted to, you know, I guess be my best friend. And he was texting me like crazy. And I, I felt bad, but I finally had to tell him, look, man, I've got 40 people at work. I've got like 17 of y'.

Speaker B: All.

Speaker C: I said, my anxiety goes through the roof when my phone goes off. Anyway, I was like, unless you need something, I really don't need to have communication with you. You know, I want to talk to you on the 1st of every month.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Well, let's, let's, let's jump to that for a minute. We can go back and forth. So your other job is you have a real estate business. How did you get involved with that and what does that all entail?

Speaker C: So, uh, I don't know. About 10 years ago, uh, I was, I don't know, just reading some investing stuff. And I set a goal. Uh, I'm 47 now. And so back in my, you know, probably mid-30s, I was like, you know, I want to be a millionaire by 40 for my net worth. And. And so I was reading all kinds of books like the Millionaire Next Door and, uh, looking at the Boglehead community. And then, of course, Everybody was saying, well, you need other horizontal streams of income. And then I got on like, the Bigger Pockets, which is a web forum for real estate, and started listening to some of those podcasts. And, uh, it took me a little while to get my wife involved because she was like, you know, as soon as we go out of town, we'll get a call that something's wrong. And dang it, that exact thing happened right after we bought the rental. Uh, but luckily it was easy. It was just like a mailbox was knocked over. And, uh, it took me like five minutes. And she goes, you know what? This isn't bad. And luckily, I mean, I've had like two late night phone calls in the past seven or eight years, so it hadn't really been bad. But, uh, I was just really looking, you know, to build wealth and, uh, to, you know, really give my daughter a leg up. And, uh, I had read in one of them that, uh, you can pay your kids. Uh, so I've had my daughter on the payroll and drug her around to Reynolds. And, uh, every dollar I've ever paid her, I've put in a Roth IRA. And so she turns 18 in tomorrow. And, I mean, she's way outpaced where I was at, you know, 18. I mean, I really didn't have anything until I first started here at tva.

Speaker B: That's, uh, fantastic.

Speaker A: Well, you have the relationship with Howard, because you guys have very similar work tracks. But you and I share the fact that I did the same thing with Rental prize.

Speaker B: I don't.

Speaker A: I don't. You have 11, I think you said.

Speaker C: Uh, I've got 17 rental units in eight properties total.

Speaker A: Yeah, we had seven. We had seven. And we sold them all when I retired. But so I can have a little bit of empathy of getting that to that call, you know, at 11 o' clock at night that my, uh, garbage disposal doesn't work. Can you come over and fix it?

Speaker B: So, Heath, are you, are you managing the properties yourself or do you have someone managing that?

Speaker C: So my wife and I kind of partner on it. I do a lot of the, you know, fix it stuff and she'll do a lot of the back end and bookkeeping. But, uh, I mean, it's really helped me be a better manager too. Because you have lots of opportunities. Uh, I've been sued once. Got to go through that. Uh, which, I mean, there again, as long as you stick to the contract and you do what the contract says, you put everything in writing. Uh, I mean, the, the judge basically didn't even Let the uh, other attorney cross examine me before, you know, she kind of led into them and said, this Guy's leases in 12 point font. And you know, do you know how hard it was for him to do all this? And, and threw the case out. So, and that has, you know, things like that's helped me here too is, you know, you put everything in writing. And early on we had some issues. Uh, back before the plants came under my umbrella, they would have phone calls and then something would happen and there was some finger pointing and I was like, do we have any doc. Any documentation that this happened, that you had the conversation? Uh, and so I've really stress if you're on the phone with somebody, as soon as you hang up the phone, send them an email, say, hey, per our phone conversation, this is what was decided. Because if I can go back and say, hey, I have receipts, it makes it a lot easier later on. Um, and, and that's.

Speaker B: You never know when you're going to need that. Right, Right. And thankfully, so far, knock on wood, you haven't had the horror stories that I've heard from some people who have rental properties. There can be some devastating situations.

Speaker C: I've, I've had to do two evictions and one of them, uh, she did about $7,000 worth of damage, stepped on the dishwasher, broke the brand new stove, you know, the usual. But I mean, luckily, uh, I won't say luckily, but I was poor growing up, so we learned to do a lot of things ourselves. And so I don't do roof roofing. I don't like to, you know, get up there and carry shingles around. And I prefer not to do the bad side of plumbing. I will. But I, you know, I'm like, all right, I'll pay somebody at this point.

Speaker B: But yeah, I imagine you've got to keep some reserve as well for things like that. But also the insurance on the properties.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I am, as you can see.

Speaker B: Go ahead.

Speaker C: As, as you can see my little red, uh, rope right here. Uh, I climb trees too. And uh, I almost killed myself on. So that's my reminder that, you know, don't be stupid because I had to cut that off me because I was pinned to a tree a few years ago. So, uh, my wife says I'm way too old to be in a tree, but I'm still cheap.

Speaker A: Right. Wow. Okay, interesting. Well, let's, let's get back to the tva. So we talked about your normal day is taking care of chickens, rounding up the chickens and Getting them to do their job. Is there anything that, that is routine, that that just drives you crazy, that you want to solve a problem? Is there something in your day that you wish wasn't there?

Speaker C: So, uh, the one thing that we've always really tried to lock down is our turnaround time. So, uh, of course, when the plants send us their assets, you know, they don't have it to check it in and out. And so we strive to, to maintain a 14 day turnaround time on. We, uh, call them simple assets, some stuff that's easier to calibrate. So I, uh, forget what we call. We have a 14 day turnaround and a 21 day turnaround, depending on, uh, how hard it is to calibrate. Uh, and then I report out on a percentage of that and you know, try to keep it around 85% turnaround time, uh, that I'm meeting that threshold. Uh, two years ago, I ended the year averaging, you know, just over 90%. Probably our best year ever. And we're, we're doing about 13,000 calibrations a year here. Uh, this year with some turnover, I'm about to lose two other guys for sure and maybe a third one. And I mean, we're down into the low 70s and putting in some of the Metcal stuff to, you know, try to do the automatic calibrations, uh, is helping, trying to get some bench strength. When I first got here, people wouldn't, they wouldn't leave out their comfort zone to go help somebody else when, when they were slow, you know, I guess they took the breather and it didn't matter that, you know, their partner over there was slinging sweat, uh, and then vice versa when they were busy, their partner probably wasn't. And I've really tried to, to get the mindset of, hey, we're in this together and we need to look at lab loading as a whole and we all need to flock to where the problem is and. But that's somewhere we're not there yet. But we had another meeting this morning with the, uh, metrology manager, uh, him and I and our guy that kind of does all of our power bi stuff to see if we can get better views on what's here. Because, I mean, I can tell you exactly how many assets are here, which lab they're at, uh, what status they're in. But I don't have a good way to see, you know, how long has that one piece been here? What's our real time turnaround time? Because we'll run this at the end of the month. And then we're all like, how did it get this bad? But, uh, a lot of it's been just the turnover of people. We've. I had an employee, great employee. His lifelong dream was to, uh, to live out of a van and hit. I mean, his. I think his degree was in some agriculture stuff. And so he does, like, farming all over the United States. They drive to one farm and they work for a little while, and then they drive to the next one. And he came to me. I mean, he was, like, scared to death to come into my office and tell me that he was going to quit. And, uh, you know, I hugged him. At the end of it, I was like, man, chase your dream. I mean, he was 25, and I was like, I understand that you didn't really, like, want to do metrology. You just kind of fell into it and it worked out. But if this is your dream, go chase it. And, I mean, he left a hole for us to fill, but I wasn't going to tell him no. And he worked with me. I said, hey, can you stay a little longer and leave here? And, I mean, we still text back and forth and, I mean, he's living an amazing life. From the pictures, I'm kind of jealous.

Speaker B: You're talking about, uh, people not working together. They're working in silos. Uh, we've seen that as well. But over my career, I've seen that. And that is the difficult part of leadership is changing the culture. Right. And getting people to buy in. Now, part of that is, and I'm sure you'll agree, understanding your personnel, knowing who they are, knowing what type of people they are. Some people are going to be naturally motivated. They're going to want to learn things. They're going to cross train. Other people are just going to sit there and wait to be told what to do next. Right? So you've got to have a process in place that addresses both types. Otherwise the person that's motivated is going to get bored if you don't keep them going and keeping them busy. And the person who will just sit there won't help anyone. So have to address both of those. Obviously in your sight.

Speaker C: Oh, yes. And I took, uh, a. I swung and missed. Shortly after I got here, one of the guys I would see walking around with a coffee cup. And it was like every time I left my office, I would see him in the hall, and he was always walking around with a coffee cup. And I don't know, maybe two jobs ago, there was a guy that would come around, and he would bother you, and he'd sit there and drink his coffee. And every time he walked up it, you know, there went 20 minutes of my day, at least. And so I called him my office, and I jumped on him with both feet. And he, uh, was like, whoa, I'm actually, you know, coming here to help out and do this. And I was like, really? And he ran off. And then I ran to start digging into some numbers and everything, and I saw he was 100% right. And, uh, you know, we laugh about it now. And, you know, and I was like, hey, I was wrong on that. Uh, and he was like, well, I'm not going to walk around with a coffee cup around you. Because I was like, I had PTSD of a guy with a coffee cup.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I'm not a coffee drinker either, so, you know, I'm like, I don't have time for that.

Speaker A: Um, well, that brings up the interesting question that I think we've asked some of our other guests. If you could teach, you know, every lab technician, like, one skill or one concept that would drastically improve with the services they provide, what would that be?

Speaker C: I would say, number one is communication. We still struggle with that at times. They're doing a lot better. Uh, but, I mean, they do joke. I took them all out to the tree one day and got on them pretty good. And for not communicating. And. And that is one big thing. And I mean. And today, I mean, everybody's got a cell phone and they seem to want to have in their hand, but I'm like, you know, we. We have tools, communicate through email, uh, set your phone down and, you know, communicate. If we would do that, I think that would solve a lot.

Speaker A: You know, I think that could. That could apply to everything. Keith. I think that, you know, as a society, we don't communicate enough, and we definitely need to learn how to talk to each other more than anything else. And rather than have, you know, the

Speaker B: texting back and forth, talking at each other. Right. Talk.

Speaker C: Yes. And I mean, I see that with my daughter, uh, I mean, in punctuation, I'm still old school. If I'm reading a procedure, I actually like to have it printed out. I've got an iPad, I've got the computer. I used to have one of my screens turned, you know, uh, portrait, so I could read a procedure. But I still. I'm still old school. I still like whatever that other little comma is. Uh, I don't use it now, but I miss it. But, yeah, communication is lost. And Punctuation is gone too. And getting like, I'll go back to that tenant that would text me. He would text me, you know, one half sentence, send it, and then text me something else and send, Tag me something else and send. I was like, dude, write a little paragraph in one text. That would be easier.

Speaker B: So it's interesting. What does that person do for a living that they don't get hammered with? Text from work or personally, I am not sure.

Speaker C: But uh, you know, they're young and so, I mean, that's part of it. I mean it was his first, first uh, time renting and everything. And I mean there's, they've been better the last couple months and you know, he just really was interested, I think. And, and unfortunately for him, it was probably, you know, after weeks of getting blown up by him, I was kind of at my limit.

Speaker B: So what's your longest tenant? Who's been with you the longest? So I've had how long?

Speaker C: Yeah, uh, I've had one for seven years that I inherited. And uh, she was uh, there before she's in the second location. But she, she loves it. And I mean I, I rarely talk to her. I've probably talked to her less. Even if you count up the whole time she's been there, I've talked to her less than anybody else. And I actually thought she didn't like me. And my best friend from college, his, uh, sister's daughter, goes to her to get pedicures and you know, she said, oh, I love my landlord. And I'm like, well, I love you because you don't bother me and you pay rent.

Speaker A: Yeah, never known the perfect, perfect rent.

Speaker B: And do you have renters that are month to month commonly or not?

Speaker C: So most of the time I'll sign a lease for a year and then I'll give them the option. Do you want to, do you want to sign another year lease or do you want to go month to month? And I'm about 50, 50 right now. And most everybody, you know, I'm like, just give me a couple months notice. Uh, and even if I have a one year lease with them, if they've been good and something comes up, I've, I've let them out of a lease, let a few people come back. So as long as they, you know, treat the property nice, you know, I'm willing to, willing to work with them.

Speaker B: When, uh, my wife and I first got married, we moved to Orlando, rented an apartment, had a one year lease, and within a, uh, few months, maybe six months, we Ended up buying a house, our first house. And she was still, she was just 19 and I was 23. We were young and the apartment complex didn't want to let us out of the lease. So our realtor actually went to bat for us and kind of gave them what, foreign look, the apartment situation, uh, in Orlando, you are going to rent that thing in nothing flat. Quit giving these young kids a hard time. They're getting their first home, so they eventually let it go. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I mean, I'll do that until

Speaker B: maybe a couple months later. That was nice.

Speaker A: Well, I hated the turnover. And that's one of the biggest reasons, Heath, why we decided to sell our properties was my average turnover cost was a lot more than what you experienced. And you know, we have, uh, most of ours were, you know, one year and they would, they would go buy a house, you know, so we didn't have very many. Again, I only had, you know, a few property. I didn't have as many as you had. I only had like seven. But long story short, I couldn't afford every, all of the turnover of a property, you know, so we, we did everything we could to keep the people on board just so I wouldn't have the turnover. But I had a lot of people that just, I don't know, maybe it was Minnesota was the problem, you know, because they were.

Speaker C: I would like to say I've made money, but, uh, whenever I run the end of the year, what I brought in versus what I spent, as always, pretty close. Uh, really the only way that I've made money is the property values. And I mean, I think really the first 10 years, you're not making a lot of money anyway. And I was doing it for the long haul. And I've told my daughter, hey, you get a step up basis. Whenever I pass away, all my tax write offs from depreciating, the property gets reset and I said, then sell them. Just try to power through until I'm dead and gone and then, you know, blow it and do whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So her birthday is tomorrow?

Speaker C: It is tomorrow, yes. It'll be 18 tomorrow.

Speaker B: And she's going off to college or. What's she gonna do?

Speaker C: Yes, she's, uh, she's going to Trevecca, uh, which is a small Christian college downtown Nashville. I think it's Nazarene Christian College.

Speaker B: Very nice.

Speaker A: In Nashville?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Okay, interesting. We love Nashville. I, I've been Nashville. Yeah, Many times. Howard actually played on Music Row in Nashville.

Speaker B: I did. Chuck was there to witness it.

Speaker C: Oh, nice. We actually looked at Moving to Nashville. Uh, there was a tva has a Gallatin fossil plant, which is, you know, closer to Nashville. Uh, my wife and I, we would travel up there, we'll go to concerts and uh, we love, uh, watching the Predators play hockey. I'm not a huge hockey fan as far as watching on tv. I think it's a little bit boring, but live. I'm a huge college football fan, uh, but I'll go to hockey hands down more than anything else if I have the opportunity.

Speaker A: Really? Even over college football?

Speaker C: Even over college football. I mean it's just, well, it's indoors, so of course I'm an Alabama fan. I was born in Florence and I typically go to at least one game a year, but I always try to, uh, pick a game that's in a dome. Uh, same when I go out to eat, they're like, would you like to sit outside? I'm like, just act like I have a fat man's heart. I want to be inside where the air conditioning is. I've worked at a coal plant where, you know, that's uh, awesome. Back in my day, I had to take my shirt off and wrap it around my valve wrench to isolate a valve because my wrench was so hot. And you know, I was like, I, I want air conditioning now.

Speaker A: Wow, interesting. Well, I need to ask you another work related question. So. So, you know, risk is the big topic of the day now. It seems like the last couple years that we're doing risk analysis. So where do you guys fall into doing risk analysis? Is this a very common thing that you do? I imagine with the nuclear industry you're probably, probably a little bit heavier in it than most of the industries are.

Speaker C: So there is a lot of risk analysis. And I mean then you have contingencies upon contingencies upon contingencies. Uh, in the nuclear plant. One of the things that I guess keeps me up and not the most is just a lot of the age of our equipment. Uh, we, I'm um, sure you all heard of like the Keith Lee 197s. We still have a bunch of Keithly 197s. And, and I like, you know, anything that's old brown, you know, I'm like, it's almost got like the wooden paneling on the side of it. And you know we've got. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, that scares me the most. And um, and just we're resisted to change on, on a lot of stuff, the nuclear industry as a whole. And so that. But we always have another backup to A backup. And it used to really bother me. I mean, since I didn't really grow up in the nuclear world. When they enter, uh, like a man, we're going to have to shut down if we don't get this resolved. Well, they would call me and they were like, hey, I have to have this calibrated. I have to have it calibrated, like right now. And so I would bring in people, you know, whenever it was, we'd get it calibrated. I'd, uh, call them like, oh, we don't need it now. We're good. And I was like, your head was on fire. And, uh, when I went to the nuclear plant for a meeting, I finally asked somebody, and they're like, oh, well, when we enter one of these, um, I forget what. They're called shutdown scenarios. We have like four or five paths to get out of it, and we just run towards each path, and whoever gets there first wins, basically. And, you know, and we want to do more than one, just in case. And it just so happens that I'm rarely the first one that ever gets done.

Speaker B: So you can't use the old saying, uh, poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Because everything's an emergency until it's not.

Speaker C: Yeah, right. Everything is emergency until it's not. And I mean, that made a lot more sense. And. And there again, it goes back to the communication. I didn't realize that the first. I mean, because I just wasn't around a nuclear plant. I mean, I was around a fossil plant. And M and T is a hammer and a fossil plant.

Speaker A: Interesting.

Speaker B: Even if it is a multimeter.

Speaker C: Yeah, even if it is a multimeter. Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, you, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but a lot of times you can't change test equipment. That's. That was, uh, as part of the design of what you, what you're doing at these plants, you have to keep this equipment. That's the only you can use.

Speaker C: That's right. And that's one of the things for, like, our Keith Lee 197s. They like the resolution and it's battery powered, and there's not a good replacement out there that the, the folks at the nuclear plant like. And, uh, I mean, it's same. We, uh, had another guy come out from another nuclear facility, and he looked around and we have like a boneyard of, uh, 197s. And he was like, oh, man, I need some of these because they're in the same boats and that's one of the things we've, uh, kind of got on this year. Uh, I've had, I think about three or four nuclear plants stop by, and I've sent a couple texts to some other nuclear plants. And the last one that came here, uh, he was wanting to set up like a quarterly call. Uh, and so my metrology manager, we've already had one for some leak rate monitors. We calibrate leak rate monitors a little bit different than the industry. And so we had an industry call and, you know, got what they were using. And so we're going to change that method and that really helps us, uh, because one site is not a pressure reactor. And so they, their equipment gets, I guess, more fixed contamination on it, and then we can't send it here and calibrate it as easy. Uh, so we can go on site and do it.

Speaker B: Now we have a client who has the old Hewlett Packard analog AC voltmeters, and they have maybe, I don't know, seven or eight of those. Nothing. There are certain features about it that they have to have for their process. This is not even nuclear. This is a transportation, uh, industry. But anyway, there's no new equipment that can replace what it does. And they're dying. And, you know, we've tried to find component parts for them to piece them together or even just take a few of them and make a couple of good ones. Not having much luck there.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, we've got one computer that's running, I think Windows 95. And I was like, what? What in the world is this? Wow. But we've got a couple of off network computers that, you know, has some older software on it, but, uh. Which is typical from what I've. What I hear.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, believe it or not, we're getting along the show, I mean, the time of the show where we have to start embarrassing you, Heath. So this, this is where we get to ask you personal questions. And sometimes our guests say, nope, we're not going to answer that. So I'm starting out simple. Do you have any mentors in your life that really stepped up and made you go the direction that you.

Speaker C: Uh, so, um, I did. My uncle, uh, he was an engineer, and that really, you know, kind of got me into wanting to go into this field. Of course, my, my dad could, you know, do about anything. I mean, I grew up on a farm and I really liked that. You know, I had one set of grandparents here, kind of our farm in the middle, the other set of grandparents here, some aunts and uncles down the street. So when it's time to bale hay, we all started at one and we baled hay for everybody. And so I kind of like that group. That's what I loved about my time in operations. New York swing shift. And that group of people, you know, that was your, you know, I guess, ride or die people. You were with them more than your family. Uh, and so I really liked that atmosphere when I was in transmission operations. It was kind of the same thing. Even though I was one of the off shift managers, uh, whenever it snowed, uh, which I kind of felt bad. I've got pictures of my daughter playing out in the snow when she was little while I was at work that whole time. And so that, you know, it was kind of a trade off. But I like that kind of community. Uh, uh, but my m. Uncle parents and my wife has. She's helped me so much in, in my career. Um, so she, she was in hr and she's been a. Just great to bounce, you know, stuff off of. Uh, and, you know, I tell most people that. Yeah, she has an engineering, uh, management master's. It's just got my name on it.

Speaker B: Um, all right, I will, uh, ask you the obvious. Can you relate a story that was embarrassing or funny? Either one. And it could be work or personal related in your life.

Speaker C: Embarrassing or funny?

Speaker B: Gosh.

Speaker C: Yeah. So one of the guys that I used to work with, I mean, he. He looks basically like a linebacker. And, uh, he would come back there and I don't know if you've seen the, um. Gosh, what is the Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, the twins movie. That's kind of what we look like. And that was kind of the first year I grew my beard out. And, uh, so he started calling me Tiny Viking. And so that is morphed into, uh. When I first started mowing all my rentals, a, uh, pastor buddy of mine, he does like web design. So he created me a Tiny Viking landscaping thing. And so I had shirts made up and I gave a shirt to him. Uh, and even, like, my Discord name is because I do some computer gaming. So I'm every, you know, game online stuff. I'm tiny Viking because of him. Yeah, it pretty much stuck.

Speaker B: So that is awesome. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I mean, we really look like Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger too.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: My next door neighbor. Just an anecdotal story there about nicknames. My next door neighbor has a, uh, Ford Ranger pickup truck. And so he got the license plate that says l O N E. Lone. And a lot of people don't get it, right. Lone Ranger. Come on, put it together. Um, so I see him, he's out riding his lawnmower and mowing the grass in the summer. And I came across this shirt somewhere, I can't remember, and so I bought it for him. The Lawn Ranger rides again.

Speaker C: Nice.

Speaker B: So that's, that's not what I'm calling him. Lawn Ranger.

Speaker A: Well, you do gaming. So one, one other thing that we have to ask is, are you also into music?

Speaker C: So actually, whenever, uh, I transfer from Woodis Creek, I, uh, started driving two hours. It was like 92 miles from my door into the plant. Uh, and this was like pre podcast stuff. I kind of got tired of listening to music and I went to podcasts. And it is extremely rare for me to have music on these days. I mean, I played the saxophone when I was like, in middle school for two or three years. Uh, but I am terrible. I would love to be able to play the guitar, play the piano, play the drums. I would love to be able to sing. It is terrible if I sing. So I have zero, uh, ability. Uh, jealous of people that can. No, there's no, no samples. Uh, my wife laughs at me and she says I can't do accents or anything. She's like, every accent you have sounds like a Middle Eastern man. She's like, no, stop. So, yeah, I have no skill.

Speaker A: Finally, finally, he. I think I love you. Finally, someone that is exactly as I am because I have. I am toned down. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, he's not truly a metrologist. He's a manager. Engineer. Manager.

Speaker A: Well, he's not a metrologist. He's our guest. I have zero. I am Tone Death. But how. Literally everybody we invite on plays an instrument.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And there's this standing joke between Howard and I that we're going to put this band together for, you know, for the podcast, and we're going to play a whole podcast of them playing online. And finally someone that, like me, I'd rather listen to a podcast and listen to music nowadays as well. So I can relate because I, I just, I can't even hear the music when they, when they, they sing the lyrics. You. I, I don't know what they're saying.

Speaker B: Keith, Auto Tune does wonders for your voice.

Speaker C: Maybe I should try that. And I mean, I, we, um, My wife and I have started going to a lot more concerts lately. Uh, I mean, she loves, uh, music and everything, but I've just never. I wish I could, but I just, just don't have it. And I was listening to some. Oh, uh, I don't know. I've probably listened to most of season two and about half of season one, and I was like, yeah, they're really going to be embarrassed when I'm like, I got nothing.

Speaker A: Well, you're welcome to my house anytime since you don't listen to music and you don't play music because you would fit right in here. So. Well, um, one more question that I have. Do you have a. Do you read a lot as well or not?

Speaker C: So. I do. I read a lot. Uh, not as my wife reads way more than I do. I try to get through. I mean, it's probably every other month I'll go through a book of some sort.

Speaker A: That's a good reader. Yeah, that's okay.

Speaker B: That is good.

Speaker A: Yeah. Do you have a favorite?

Speaker B: There we go.

Speaker C: So most of it is, um, some management book or something or, uh, something about, I don't know. Um, I've read something Patent in the last couple years. Uh, I like the Roman Times, so I read a series, uh, on like Julius Caesar, uh, and loved that. And then, you know, at church, we've gone through a couple C.S. lewis books, uh, which are all over my head. I really feel like I need the dumbed down version of anything C.S. lewis writes.

Speaker A: Did you say you read Patton's book?

Speaker C: Uh, it's been a few years. I did a college course on it and, uh, was real impressed. So, um, and that was a huge book too. But it was, it was good.

Speaker A: He's one of my heroes. George S. Patton, uh, III is one of my heroes. There's no doubt about it. I loved him and I, I think that he did more for winning World War II than, um, just about, you know, any other four star, except for maybe Ike. But that's just my personal opinion because, you know, knowing some of the things that he did with, you know, his wife's money, how he literally, you know, developed the tank so it was ready for World War II, is, is something that very few people know about. But we're not here to talk about George S. Patton. We're here to talk about metrology and Heathmore. So, so we've gotten to the point, believe it or not, we're coming up on an hour already. So it's, it's, it's. We try and keep it to an hour. That's. But you know, sometimes we go over. So we're gonna, we're gonna start winding down a little bit. So is there any questions that you have of Us, by chance, we want to give you the opportunity. We just, you know, railed you for 50 minutes. Is there anything that you want to know about Nap that you want to know about Howard that you want to know about? My ex wife.

Speaker C: I know. I mean, I've really tried to listen to the podcast and really, uh, enjoyed the information and, uh, everything. And I think it's great what, what y' all are doing and, and I love, like, going to ncsli. I've learned a whole lot. Everybody, uh, has been very good. Uh, my temperature tech, um, I think at the Denver one, uh, one of the booths, I can't remember which person it was, but spent like an hour talking to him because he was fresh out of college and he's done so well in there learning the lab and everything. And he was, he was blown away at the, at the community. So, uh, that's one thing I've liked about it, and he kind of reminds me of my operations past is it's a smaller community and everybody takes care of everybody else. And, uh, it. I really like it. That's why I've stayed so long. I mean, I really thought this would be like a stepping stone to something else. And. And I got here and I was like, you know what? I kind of like this.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty awesome. That's why I've stayed in it so long myself.

Speaker A: Are you, you planning on going to the NCSL event this year?

Speaker C: I just talked to, uh, so my metrology manager. He was our chemistry supervisor and he transitioned over. So I hit him up yesterday to see if he was going to go or if we were going to send a couple of texts, because I've been to, I don't know, four or five of them. And I was like, well, I really don't, you know, want to take that opportunity away from, you know, somebody else, uh, especially since he's new to the group.

Speaker A: So the reason I bring it up is because this is, um, the 30th anniversary of NEPT providing metrology proficiency testing to this, to the metrology community. And we're going to have a kind of a little party. And yeah, so we definitely want to invite you or your staff, if you may end up coming out to it.

Speaker C: Yeah, anyone.

Speaker B: Anyone who send out their, uh. And certainly you, if you're there.

Speaker A: Yeah, perfect.

Speaker C: Yeah. It's an area I haven't been to. Uh, because I was looking, I was like, oh, where is it, you know, this time? Uh, but Howard's backyard, pretty much.

Speaker A: Yeah. Just a hop, skip and A jump for Howard to, to uh, go down to that. So. Well, that's interesting. So you, you, you're a big NCSLI guy as well?

Speaker C: Yeah, so we've been a, uh, part of it. Well, since before I got here.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I personally believe that the, the mission of the NCSLI is huge and they do a fantastic job. So I've been to just about every conference since 1991, since I got out of the service is when I started going to the conferences. And yeah, I think I might have missed two in that 35 years going to it.

Speaker C: Oh, wow.

Speaker A: So I'm a big, big fan of NCSLI as well. They do a great job and that's what we need. We actually, we need them to step up more to provide another level of in depth training that um, is definitely needed for the metrology community because we're bringing all these people off the street and the employer is being forced to almost train everybody and sometimes that's a burden that they can't handle. So they could send a technician to uh, a three or four day conference and do four days of training. That becomes really valuable to me. I think probably more valuable than just going to a conference. But the other thing that you get, like you mentioned, is he went and he spent a lot of time at a booth just talking to somebody about temperature. That's, that's the, that is another cube. You know, key part of uh, the conferences is the communications that we have between technicians, you know, and industry leaders. You know, that's.

Speaker C: Oh for sure. So, yeah, I've got two retirees that you know, are still working. Uh, one of them, I mean, he just turned 70 and I mean, uh, I tell everybody, I'm like, this is the Godfather. If you have any electrical question, this is the guy you go to. And um, I mean he's, he told me last week, he said my goal is to leave the lab in good hands and in a better place when I got here. And I says, well, I hope you don't ever plan on leaving then because when we just keep losing so many people. And I was like, I need you to train the next one up. And uh, he's been an excellent trainer. But you know, my biggest fear is, hey, what happens when he leaves? And then the same guy. So that's Roger, uh, Roger Phillips is an amazing guy. And then uh, Doug on the physical side, I mean he's done wonders for everybody. We've put in the pressure lab and I mean they're just like the horse whisperer. I mean, they. They just take such care of the. The young people coming up and, uh, pouring out all information. They don't hoard information, which I know some groups that I've worked with over the years. It's like nobody wants to share information because they. They think knowledge is powerful. Uh, and these two guys, they do so much for. For my group.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that's. That's what metrology is. You're not on an island. You have so many people around you within your organization and external to your organization are willing to.

Speaker C: Yeah, and I've seen that with, uh, you know, I've made a couple contacts with other nuclear plants at the conferences. Georgia, uh, Power. We kind of went down there. They came up here, and it's been great. And, you know, I've. I have definitely found that anything that we have a question on, we can, you know, blast out an email, get on the phone and, you know, we'll send information, procedures, Cal reports. Uh, I've, uh, sent some MetCal procedures that we've wrote. We. We just help out, and that's been amazing.

Speaker B: So do you or any of your personnel participate in any of the committees? NTSL committees?

Speaker C: Not that I know of. Uh, I think there was one. I think the first one I went to, we were talking electric vehicle charging, and I think they took our name down, but I don'. I don't think we ever, uh, got on that one. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, so just. I'm sure, you know, but you, uh, can either be a member of the committee and you're actively writing documents. Right. Or you can just be a participant and you can attend virtually. So. Good. Good to have your input, though, your feedback from you to those committees.

Speaker A: Yeah. So with that being said, Howard, you get one more question if you want. Then we gotta. We gotta start calling it a day.

Speaker B: Yeah, I like to go to my, uh, travel question. I don't know if you travel much, but is there a place that you recommend that anyone should go to or you would return to?

Speaker C: Man, I almost hate to say this place because I don't want anybody going there, but there's a place just south of Helen, Georgia, called Lucille's Mountaintop Inn and Spa. And, uh, it is like the best little bed and breakfast, and it's got great views. And like, my wife and I, we've been going. We tried to go every year, and we've been five or six times. And it's about the only time she can get me to sit down and not do anything. And I'll just sit out There and stare at the mountains, and we'll go for, like a long weekend. Um, I mean, a few years ago I kind of quit going to the beach, and it helped the whole family because, uh, I don't like sand and I can't sit still. I mean, that's why I have so many rentals, you know, started when I was working tons of overtime, you know, as an operator and going to school to get my degree. I don't know how to rest, I would say. Um, and that's about the only time that I'll go and sit and do nothing. Yeah.

Speaker B: So you're afraid to retire? Is that what it comes down to?

Speaker C: Covid really concerned me because I worked a little bit from home, and, uh, my wife is full time work from home now, uh, with the job that she has. And I looked at her and I said, honey, I love you to death, but I do not know if I can be retired. We will kill each other.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So that just means you'll move into doing other things.

Speaker C: M. Probably so. I mean, I. I'm, uh, I go to Honduras with the church and, you know, that's my vacation. I go and I build a block house. So we leave in about two weeks to go to. To Honduras. So I do that. Uh, my wife just got back from Italy with the school trip with my daughter. Uh, I would have loved to have gone to that, but, uh, she. She jumped on that, uh, before I could say, oh, it's my turn. I'm trying to get to where I travel more. I want to travel and do stuff. I don't want to travel and sit on the beach. My wife wants to go to the beach one time a year and just plant and read. So I said, hey, take another mom and another daughter and y' all go. And I'll stay home and I'll enjoy running around like crazy.

Speaker B: And my, uh, wife's more like you. She just wants to go out and, you know, see these sites. We're going to go to Italy for the first time in, uh, September. And, uh, you know, we're going to go look at all the architecture and artwork and, uh, have cooking classes and, you know, just not sit still.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah. So with my technician, anytime that we have to go observe a vendor calibration, uh, we had to go to Fluke, uh, and I went with him about two years ago. And as soon as we left Fluke, I mean, we were hitting the door and running everywhere. We went across the, uh, Canada to go see some steam clock, and I was like, wow, Steam clock. But I mean, you know, we drove like three hours to get there. Uh, we went everywhere in any, anything that we can squeeze in, I'm down to do, but as long as I'm just not sitting around somewhere, I'll sit in the car and drive there. That's about it.

Speaker B: Sure. Yeah.

Speaker A: Nice. Nice. Wow. Well, believe it or not, we're, we're over an hour and so we, we gotta call it a day, guys. You know, um, Heath, I want to thank you for your, your insight, you know, your, your honesty. What a great, great episode. We definitely learned a lot about you, what and what TVA is. I mean, I mean, we all knew a little bit about tva. Now we know a little bit more, which is great. You guys, uh, obviously serve a great role in protecting our, the plants and making sure they're operational correctly with the, with the 197s. Um, we thank you for that. So, you know, with that being said. Howard, anything that you want to close out with?

Speaker B: No. Thank you for, uh, joining us, Heath. Great to meet you and get to know you and, uh, I'll be seeing you at some point in time, I'm sure.

Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me. Enjoyed it.

Speaker A: So with that being said, I want again, I need to give NAPT a thank you for the sponsoring us. And my typical answer here is if you're not doing proficiency testing, you're not proving your technical competency. So if you need to prove your technical competency, which you need to do, if you're accredited, then sign up for a PT today. If you don't use our services, use somebody, do it to yourself. But do proficiency testing because it's the only way that you're going to prove that you're technically competent. So thank you for joining us. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode like us, uh, and share with all your friends.

Speaker C: Sam.