Season 2 | Episode 15 with Bobby Feigler from Michelli Weighing & Measurement

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker C: Good morning. Welcome to another edition of Chat Nap with the AI Chatterbox, Chuck and Owie, a podcast dedicated towards metrology. I'm Chuck Ellis. Thank you for joining us this morning. And I'd like to introduce my co host for this event, Howard. Good morning, Howard.

Speaker A: I'll be Howard for the day.

Speaker C: You're going to have to be.

Speaker A: I identify as Howard.

Speaker C: You're going to have to be more than Howard today. Yeah, we're kind of early, a lot earlier than we normally are when we record a podcast. And we're really had to make room for our guests who's really busy. Uh, so we're really lucky to have him. He's making time for us. But I'm going to tell you, Howard, I am not feeling well today. And, you know, not only that, my video. Look at my video stream. It's terrible this morning. I don't know what's going on.

Speaker A: It's got some brightness to it.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's really. It's just.

Speaker A: You've got to glow like you're a ghost.

Speaker C: Maybe it's the angel something around me. That's something. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe the good Lord's gonna come take me today anyways, so I'm gonna ask you to probably lead the charge today, and I'll jump in where I can. But I'm not gonna be my usual boister this morning, because I just don't have it this morning.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's not a problem I can certainly help with there. Um, so as far as the audience is concerned, they don't know when we record these. Right. They just see them populated. But we tend to, uh, number one, deviate from business hours that we have to take care of business. Right. So that's the first thing. Then the second thing is trying to make the time frame meet what the guests schedule requires. And sometimes, sometimes that's a weekend, sometimes that's early, sometimes it's late. So whatever it takes, we're there.

Speaker C: Yeah, but it's really early today for me, so.

Speaker A: Hey, I got a. I got a little beef that I got to talk about. I was traveling last week on business, and yesterday I came into Kansas City Airport. We landed, uh, captain came over the pa, and I expected him to say something like, you know, gates are backed up a little bit. We gotta wait a few minutes. No, instead he said, uh, there's an incident going on at the Kansas City airport. Um, the FBI is involved. They have cleared the terminals. People are out on the tarmac, Planes are backed up. It's going to be a while before we can pull into our gate. Not sure how long. I'll give you updates as we can. And he says, uh, by the way, you might find out more than I know. Just, you know, get on the Internet and figure out what's going on.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Sure enough. Bomb threat, right?

Speaker C: Oh, no.

Speaker A: So local police were involved. Department of Homeland security was there. FBI was there, uh, K9 units, obviously, to sniff out any bomb materials if they could find them. So they. We sat there for an hour and a half before we were cleared to come back into the gate. And of course, all these people with their luggage, if they're carrying them on board. Right. All out on the tarmac and all out on the side roads and everything. And now they got to get all of them back in before they can start moving planes.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: So it took a while for us to get into the gate, get in. I'm, um, in the front seat. Thankfully, I get the first one off. Go, uh, down to baggage claim. Thinking I'm probably not going to get my bag right away. Nope, it was there. It was already on the belt. It's like, how did that happen? Crazy. So I'm thinking, okay, headed home, get out to the parking garage. All blocked off. Cops everywhere.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So they cleared the terminals, but now they're sniffing out everything in the parking garage, and there's tons of vehicles out there and the lot beyond it. So, uh, most of us stood there for a while, and then a lot of the people just cleared out. I don't know if they got a taxi or Uber home or if they just went back inside. So I was the lone one standing there for a while. And then this gentleman, uh, came up and introduced himself as a reporter from the Kansas City Star. Asked me if he could interview me. So I went ahead and told him what I knew. Um, and then, uh, you know, people were coming to go and just trying to walk across there. Here's this police vehicle with lights flashing, blocking the entrance to the garage. And they're just walking up like there's nothing going on, trying to walk around it. And of course, the cop is pushing them all back.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Actually had a guy. I couldn't believe it if I didn't see it from my own eyes. Challenge the police officer. What authority do you have? What jurisdiction are you in? You don't have the authority to block us from our cars. It's like you're going to take a bad situation to make it worse.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: What, I'm an idiot? Anyway, so that Was exciting and boring. Stood there for two hours.

Speaker C: Two hours.

Speaker A: Because there's nowhere to sit.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Meanwhile, they do have buses coming and going for people in the hotel vans and all that. Um, you could be picked up if you had somebody come to get you. So, anyway, all of this to say, I finally, you know, talked to my wife a couple times and ended, uh, up having my daughter come get me because I'm not going to get to my vehicle, and they have no idea how long it's going to be. So, uh, she came and got me. So after four hours, I finally went home. I got to go back today and get my vehicle. If it's open, I got to call and see if they've cleared it yet. Not good.

Speaker C: Yeah. Do you think that's a byproduct of what happened in the Middle East?

Speaker A: I do, yeah. Uh, either. Either directly from. I don't know if it's sleep or cells awakening and they're, you know, putting threats. But I'll tell you this. The flight attendant told me that two weeks ago or about two weeks ago, this happened in Atlanta as well. And I wasn't aware of that one either.

Speaker C: It happened somewhere else, too. Uh, where else did it happen? My mind is not good today. My mind, is, like, out still asleep.

Speaker A: So it could also just be lunatics out there just calling in.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Because they're not happy with what's happening in Iran. But in any case, regardless of the reason, it just creates a mess.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's just nuts. Absolutely nuts. Well, sorry to hear that. Uh, it reminds me of back in the days when, uh. I'm not trying to. To one up here, but, you know, I had terrible luck. You know, I was in Detroit when we had the blackout. I was in Detroit. And then I was also at the Atlanta airport when they shut. The Atlanta airport. Remember the. The case where the guy jumped over the. The stool and had to go back and get his camera and they shut Atlanta down. Now, I know we're going back a few years, but, I mean, you know, post 9, 11, it was just terrible. I mean, how can we be so stupid to jump a carousel?

Speaker A: But anyways, I don't know.

Speaker C: So I. I've been there, and it's not, uh, it's not fun at all. And, you know, you hate to say that, you know, at least you're. You're through it now. But people, you know, when we say that, you know, like, to all kinds of events, when you say, well, at least. At least I hate that expression, you're minimizing it.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Shouldn't have happened in the first place. And I did have the thought, at least we're on the ground, not circling or having to divert somewhere else. So, yeah. Yes, it could have been worse. Still, not a good situation.

Speaker C: No, not. Not a good. Not a good situation. Well, we got to talk about. Unfortunately, uh, we got to get back to business.

Speaker A: We do.

Speaker C: We got a wonderful guest this morning. Our guest this morning is. I've only had slight conversations with him. I do not know him. So I'm really looking forward to learning more about him and his experience and his journey and what he's done with his company. And I speak about is Bobby Figler. Bobby is the president and chief executive officer for Maseli. Am I saying that correctly? I do believe I am.

Speaker A: Miceli. I believe is. And I think, uh, he pronounces his name Fagler.

Speaker C: Okay, well, thank you. Well, he'll bite me in the head if I mispronounce his last name, so I'm just going to call him Bobby, uh, when he comes on board. So, again, we don't know a whole lot about him, so we're going to really get the chance to introduce him. We'll have a lot of time to talk about exactly who he is. Um, and it'd be really exciting.

Speaker A: Looking forward to it. Me, too. Yes. Yeah, we'll get his background and how this all came about. And, uh, you know, he did forewarn us. He's not a metrologist. He's not into the details, so we'll. We'll steer clear of that. But, uh, no, well, he.

Speaker C: He. He goes along with our line. He's. He's executive. He's. He runs the company. Exactly. And, you know, we've got the C series feet where this whole season we've had pretty much dedicated towards, you know, the. The executives, where they started their business, what they did with their business, how they grew their business, and what they do to keep the business running and make money. I mean, we got to make money, right?

Speaker A: As my master's, uh, instructors told us. Why are you in business? It's the money, stupid. Don't forget that. Don't lose sight of that. Don't get so far into the weeds that you forget it's about the money.

Speaker C: Which, you know, this world is crazy, right? But, you know, if a business doesn't make money, it can't pay the employees, no matter what.

Speaker A: It's not just profit. Cash flow as well. Cash flow is very important, or you'll choke yourself.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, choke the Business and won't be able to pay bills. So cash flow and profit.

Speaker C: Yeah, so. So it's his hard job. Uh, and I'd be interested to hear how he handled the pandemic, you know, because he's in the scale industry, which is an on site. Mostly of this stuff is on site, um, business. So it'll be good. So we look forward to him joining us here in a, in a second or two. So in the meantime, like I said, I, you know, I don't know, Howard, what's going on, but I'm just not feeling good today. I don't know if I'm getting a relapse of my, you know, you look

Speaker A: okay to me other than the, you know, screen wash out, the video washout, but I think you look all right.

Speaker C: Well, maybe it's good there's a screen wash up. Makes me look healthy. Then today, um, there's, ah, Bobby. Good morning.

Speaker A: Welcome. Welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Hey, guys. Good morning.

Speaker A: How are you today?

Speaker B: Happy Monday. Doing good.

Speaker A: I hear you have great news from the weekend.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, our third grandchild, uh, was born Joseph Michael Feigler. And, uh, he came onto this earth on Saturday. And, man, my wife and I are just really stoked about it. Uh, the first two are amazingly special for us, and this one is just, just another joyous occasion.

Speaker A: Well, uh, congratulations on that. That's amazing.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're excited. Uh, it's. I, uh, was telling my brother yesterday, as a young person, you can handle, you know, screaming and hollering and the kids running around. So we've, we've had the, the two little girls since Friday morning, and, uh, man, I don't know where I live. I bet you are.

Speaker A: You're not used to that, you know. Well, that's what they say about grandparenting, right? You can always give them back.

Speaker B: That's right. That's right. Uh, but no, we're, we're super excited and everybody's, uh, doing well and, uh, just. It's a circle of life. It's beautiful.

Speaker A: Tell us about the meaning of the name. Is that the heritage, you know, from other family members or ancestral.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's interesting. It's, um. Well, first off, it pays homage to, to my wife. Her initials are jmf. Her name is John. Her maiden name is Michelle. And, uh, Fie. Jmf. So, uh, and then my middle initial is Joseph. It stands for Joseph, is J for Joseph. And, um, Chris, my daughter in law's, father's, um, middle name is Michael. So it's. You Know, it's, uh, very thoughtful and, uh, I don't know what they're going to call him yet. You know, Joe, Joey, Joseph, J.M. who knows?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, it'll depend on a little bit of his personality as well. Right?

Speaker B: Sure, sure. Thank you for asking. That's, uh, we're super excited.

Speaker A: Uh, that's wonderful.

Speaker C: Congratulations on that. And, uh, you know, look, I don't have any grandchildren. I'm old and fat and my children decided not to have children, so. And Howard doesn't have any grandchildren either, so, uh, so we don't have the ability to experience that with you. But we really, we applaud you and thank you for sharing that.

Speaker A: But I have nieces, great nieces and great, great nieces, which you spoil. Yeah, of course. So, yeah, there's kind of that aspect of it.

Speaker C: Right, right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But I'm very happy for you.

Speaker B: The things you learn in life, you know, being able to share those things and, and, uh, you know, and really it's easy to think back when, like, in my case, my kids were that age. And I always joke with people. I, I almost can remember back when I was a little kid running around and, um, it just, it's amazing how fast life goes by and, you know, we get so busy with work and these, uh, things outside of work are so more important.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, that's, that's the wonderful thing about having kids. And then, of course, grandkids is that you get to relive those experiences through them again and again and remember back Right. To those things.

Speaker C: That's right.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: And of course, they say the funniest things they do.

Speaker B: There's no filters.

Speaker A: Toddlers and, uh, adolescents say the funniest things. Adolescents are mostly saying things that are just making you upset. But you get into their teen years, rebellion, testing you out.

Speaker C: Well, let me ask the first question, Bobby, to get us up, uh, and running. Now, you and I have met one time for like 13 seconds. Yeah. And so neither one of us knows each other very well. And I, uh, would like you to share with us exactly, if you could, in as much detail as you'd like, what exactly that you do for Michelle. Maybe tell us a story about that, how you guys have grown. I mean, I personally know because I've. We work with you guys every single day, though I say we napt. So we're very familiar and intimate with your company and we love you guys. But why don't you share with us exactly. The audience exactly what you do and what the services that you're providing to the community and how you basically run your business.

Speaker B: Sure, sure. Well, first off, thank you guys for the opportunity to talk on a Monday morning. Um, my job primarily inside uh, the business is to uh, remove roadblocks for our team members. Um, I spend probably 90% of my time inside the business trying to allow for our team members to have great success. And we're scaling our business. It's growing pretty rapidly and it's challenging. Honestly. I just try to ensure that we've got a great place for people to come to that, um, we're not bogged down, um, that we have the ability to listen and take in insight, um, recommendations and if appropriate action on it. So uh, that's really, it sounds simple but that's what I do. Um, and I like that. I like to be able to help people. I'm very much of a people person. So I travel a lot, I interact a lot with our team members and thus our customers. Um, but ultimately I try to knock down hurdles for the team.

Speaker A: That's very important aspect. I like that. Um, I've always felt that way as well. Um, the executive leadership really should be there to help your people be successful because they're taking care of your clients and they can't get there without it. So that's a great perspective. I appreciate it.

Speaker B: Yeah. So our business, you know, um, we're basically just starting out our 80th year. The company started in 1947 in a small house in mid city New Orleans by my, actually my wife's grandfather, um, G.T. michelle Sr. And um, it really um, started as a family business and we still very much operate as a family business. And whether that's people that have just joined us and they're not, you know, they're not blood relationships, but we try to behave like a family and all the good and the bad. Right. Because uh, you know in family you disagree and you come back together and um, you have a common purpose. And so the business uh, is all about providing service for our customers. We're very much of a service oriented organization and for us service means really three simple things. When they have a problem, they call us as relates to their measurement equipment. And it could be, hey, you know, uh, it doesn't look uh, like it's accurate or you know, it's not repeating or somebody put a fist through the instrument. So we get a lot of those kind of calls. We obviously provide recurring calibration services and uh, we do lots of installations. So in our business lineage and even Today it's just what people know us as, as an industrial weighing measurement company. I mean we, we lead with industrial weighing and because weighing, the discipline of, of, of weighing measurement is everywhere, um, we've used that as sort of our, our gateway to other measurement disciplines. And we have very longstanding relationships with customers where we do a really fine job on making sure that they're everything from a moisture analyzer, a lab balance, all the way up to maybe a railroad scale. And we do everything in between. Then that finds us talk to them about other disciplines and we uh, we cover, you know, I don't know, eight or nine different topside disciplines. And um, often we find ourselves maybe starting with their scales. Next thing you know we're doing um, torque or pressure or you know, dimensional or their pressure, their process meters inside of a plant. Um, so but for us, you know, the, whether it's a, ah, metrology related discipline, you know, much more technical, or a basic bench scale, the integrity aspect of what we do is paramount. You know, I always tell people, nobody's watching you. It's on us to make sure we're doing it perfectly each and every time because customers are reliant upon those measurements for safety, quality or commerce reasons. And so why we do it is the same whether we're doing a dimensional tool or where we're doing a, you know, uh, some kind of weighing vessel in a tank farm.

Speaker A: Yeah. So when you earlier said that you're scaling up operations, no pun intended, you're, you really are.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny, it's uh, wasn't that long ago I, you know, so when I was a kid I worked for, for G.T. michelle, uh, and high school and college and um, I was like a helper. You know, I schlepped 25 pounds and 50 pound test weights all over the place and climbed towers and you know, crawled in pits and this was all with scales. I went in the military, I was an infantry officer in the army. And so I worked outside the industry for a very long time and got back involved fully when we moved back home in 2014. Um, back in the industry. Um, so it's fascinating that um, sometimes the technical nature of metrology is a bit daunting for some of our team members and even for our customers. Right. But I try to boil it down and distill it so that people understand, hey, what we do is so doggone important because you know, accuracy matters and uh, people have to trust the tool that's measuring because people, you know, some cases lives Depend upon it.

Speaker A: Yeah. And you're right. The only thing the customer sees is that final cert and the Cal label on the instrument. They don't see everything that goes behind it. Sometimes they don't understand all the details that go into that or what's required in metrology to make sure that instrument is measured correctly and, or performing correctly. Can use perform correctly. So that's very important. It's a blind trust for sure. Yeah, I know. Chuck wants to dig into the army comment. Uh,

Speaker C: well, we share that, Bobby. Um, I spent a couple years in the army, uh, myself, and one of my stints was ordnance. And, uh, before I was mostly ordinance and signal corps was my two disciplines in the Army. So I'm curious, how, uh, did you get introduced to the army and what brought you to the Army? And did you. Were you ROTC guy or were you a 90 day wonder boy or.

Speaker B: Yep, yep. Yeah, we're on the other end of it. We were blowing things up. I was an infantry officer, so I was, um, I was the youngest of five kids coming out of New Orleans, and, um, you know, had applied for the academies, Annapolis and West Point. And a buddy of mine's father was a Marine Corps colonel. He says, bob, you got to check out this, this ROTC thing.

Speaker C: Okay?

Speaker B: I didn't, I didn't know what ROTC was in high school, and I wound up doing it. Got a full ride, went, uh, to Loyola in New Orleans, and, uh, got commissioned a, uh, second lieutenant. As a kid, I was an Eagle Scout. I loved the outdoors, infantry, outdoors, adventure. And as a cadet, I did a lot of different, uh, sort of very, uh, exciting, uh, schools, Airborne school, Air assault, Northern warfare. And then went to the basic officers course and then Ranger School. And my first assignment, you know, at the old age of like 22, was leading an infantry platoon in Germany. And, um, you know, it's. I still reflect back on those early six, seven years of my career. You know, the leadership experiences that I had still pay off for me today.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: For me, it's always been about being a great listener and being sincere in how we lead. And sometimes you have to do the hard things to be a good leader. And it's really served me well. And I always encourage younger folks to go do it, uh, because you're going to be exposed to all different walks of life in fairly intense environments that will pay for your future endeavors as you have those similar types of challenges. So, um, it was a great experience for me. And I came out of the service, um, I was in primarily during the Cold War. Got out in North Carolina and stayed North Carolina. Spent a good part of my career in the life sciences industry working um, for Baxter Healthcare. And then myself and another army officer and two other guys, we started an Internet commerce marketplace called SideQuest. It was one of the first, uh, this is way before Amazon. Uh, we called it the Internet Marketplace for scientific products. So think scientists in a lab and all the stuff that they use. Chemicals and uh, tools and equipment and instrumentation. We uh, created a marketplace and we took that company public on NASDAQ in the end of 99. And if you remember in early 2000, Q1@the dot com bubble burst and we were sort of one of those bubbles exploding off of that big bubble. Uh, so um, experienced that for 11 years of my life, starting with really four of us and scaling that business up to 400 plus employees.

Speaker A: Great experience.

Speaker B: Yeah, great experience. And a lot of the measurement experience obviously in the labs. Scientists, they're all about measurement. And so a lot of my early understanding of the importance of measurement came more so from say ah, a pharmaceutical R and D laboratory or a med device, uh, laboratory where they were dealing with very, very, very small quantities and volumes, um, that had to be measured very, very precisely. So you know that got into my skin a little bit and I never, I never forgot about you know, as a young kid working for GT and you know, it's things going full circle.

Speaker C: Circle, yeah, sure do.

Speaker A: Yeah, that feeds back on itself. Well that's uh, a really interesting background.

Speaker C: Before we change, let me ask where in Germany? Because I was stationed at K town. Where were you stationed at?

Speaker B: Yeah, I was part of 3rd Armored Division and uh, we were in Friedberg. Yep, yep, yep. Between Frankfurt and Giessen. Our first child was actually born, um, in a house, in a doctor's house in Friedberg with the German midwife. And what an experience that was. And we spent some time, you know, uh, obviously the folder gap was our area. Um, and of course the wall was still up. So we go up to Berlin. Um, the Czech border still had a fence on it, so dating myself a little bit. But um, you know that was the big threat back then.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we did a lot of the maintenance when I was there. We were responsible for a lot of those pompous sites that are, you know, a couple hundred miles, you know, further west of where we were at in Germany. So we made a lot of trips into Amsterdam, you know, into France for all the pompous sites and made sure all of those, you know, our Maintenance site, you know. You know what a pompous site is, Howard, by chance?

Speaker A: I don't.

Speaker C: A, uh, pompous site is where there is this big, huge cave in the ground, basically. And there are just millions of dollars of equipment just sitting over in Europe waiting. So when we send over troops, all we got to send over is just the, the soldier and they can go to these pompous sites and they can draw everything from tanks, weapons, you know, support equipment. There's just billions of dollars of equipment stored over in Europe right now. We've taken a lot of that back, I understand the last few years, but back in the day we had, I don't know, just. I mean, that was, that's what I did. A lot of, uh, back in the day was, uh, the pomposites, the maintenance and uh, the oversight for the pomposites.

Speaker B: Yeah, massive caches of equipment at the ready. And I remember you would rotate through. There was some, some schedule to shake down things and take it out, make sure everything's there, was supposed to be there, and it was, you know, ready to go should the day come.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's. So that's my experience. You know, if I ever see you at a conference, Bobby, uh, we'll sit down and have a cocktail. Oh, yeah. Talk about our time in Germany. I mean, you know, I have a lot of really good memories and I don't want to get in today because today's about you. But, you know, I plan to make a career out of the service and certain things happen where it didn't happen. But I totally agree with you. The basics that I learned about leadership when I was going through the, you know, I was a 98 wonder boy, but you know, going through the basic course, you know, at Fort Gordon and you know, the other courses we went through, it was just tremendous. That gave me the concepts of what leadership is. And I still, today, I firmly believe that every single child, I don't care if you're a male or female, should go through at least a two year course, go through basic training, and go through some, um, MOs prior to going to college. I firmly believe that especially in today's kids, most of today's kids need, you know, more structure in their life. And I think that by going through either the, an army course or, you know, United States Marine or Air Force MOS type training would do wonders for every single one of them.

Speaker B: I firmly believe that I, I still, my, my first battalion commander, George Aldridge, I, I respect him so much. We still get together we do reunions. We're at, ah, San Antonio, um, not too long ago. And, um, you know, I, uh, implemented Skillbridge about three years ago for our business. And, uh, you know, I, I, I, uh, really look for veterans when we're hiring.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker A: Well, I happen to know of a perfect opportunity coming up in July. First all sit down and have a drink and talk more.

Speaker B: Let's go.

Speaker A: Yeah, if you can come to Kansas City for the ncsli, that would be fantastic.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'll make a note of that and see if you get that on the schedule.

Speaker A: Plus, it's NAPT's 30th anniversary, so.

Speaker B: Oh, that's right, huh?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: By the way, congratulations on that, guys. That's. Boy, I bet you that time has flown by.

Speaker C: Oh, gee, we're gonna have to have, I think, one episode where we really talk about, you know, nap the beginning and the frustrations. Because, you know, as with any business, you know, I, uh, don't want to get into again too deeply. But, you know, When I started APT 30 years ago, there was very few people that actually thought they would succeed. 99.98% of the people thought I was a fool for leaving a corporate job and starting an ept. I mean, you wouldn't believe how many naysayers I had 30 years ago. And look at now. We got, what, four other PT companies for the metrology community. And when they all said that it wouldn't succeed. But yeah, I, I got a story to tell too there, Bobby. So we're gonna have to get together and have that, uh, that drink and share some stories about that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would love to, love to talk about.

Speaker A: All right, so I want to get back to the business of Vaseli. Am I saying that right? Miceli.

Speaker B: Michele.

Speaker A: Michele. Thank you. So the origins of Miceli was legal metrology. So there's three branches of, or, uh, categories of metrology. That is scientific metrology, and that's going to be the National Metrology Institutes, the National Labs, Sandia, Lawrence Livermore. And then you're going to have industrial metrology, which is ensuring that you're controlling production processes so you prevent false acceptance or false rejection, uh, through instrumentation that's used to make those measurements. And it's surprising that it's sometimes under facilities instead of quality or engineering. But in any case, there's that industrial metrology, very important to look backwards if you have a failure or any concerns so that you catch that on the product or recall it if you need to. And then, of course, legal metrology, and that's really where Ricelli, uh, started. And that is the scales and balances. And, uh, you know, whether they're large cattle scales, truck scales on the highway, uh, railroad scales, or you're talking about scales in the post office or in the deli or wherever else a doctor's office. And those don't necessarily look backwards. They're not going to go back and correct things. Give you an extra slice of meat because it had a wrong measurement, give you some gas back because the gas pump was wrong. That's all legal metrology that says when you catch it, correct it, move forward. But now you're expanding into industrial metrology, or you have been expanding into industrial metrology as well. It sounds like.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the origins of the, of the business really, I think, related to, uh, not just legal metrology, but I think the industrial aspects as well. And we talk about quality as, you know, as a, as a primary driver, why people are measuring. And I think that ties directly to the notion of industrial metrology. And so, you know, uh, obviously our customers see their scales on the legal side as a cash register. And, you know, we started really early on where we live in the south on the Gulf. You know, there's a lot of fishery there. There's a lot of shrimping, for example.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: And, uh, you know, on those docks, uh, the guy that's running the dock would create ice, sell it to the shrimpers, and he would sell it by weight. The shrimpers would go out and shrimp for three, four, five days, fill up the hulls of their boats, come back into the dock, hook a big vacuum to the hull, suck it out, and go across a conveyor that has basically load cells on it into a dump hopper. And it would go right into a four foot by four foot tote. And ice would layer, shrimp would layer, ice would layer, and then be a processor. Come by and pick it up. And based upon that ticket that was printed at the dock, they buy the, you know, 6,000 pounds of shrimp at X$, at A, at a dock price or a wholesale price. Then it goes to the processor maybe in New Orleans or in Houma, Louisiana, wherever. And now they're, they're grading it, they're sizing it, and ultimately they're packaging it for the next chain in the supply chain. And of course they're, they're measuring and they're doing more than just weighing at that point. But ultimately, you know, I always tell people, by the time the food gets on the table, whether it's coming out of the central Valley of California or it's coming out of some, some fishery. Um, it's been measured a dozen times.

Speaker C: Oh yeah.

Speaker B: And so the legal piece is all around us. You know, probably 70% of our customer base have tools inside their environment that are for legal metrology reasons. The, you know, industrial. I say we've really been in industrial for much longer than people realize. Um, you know we, we serve early on, you know, oil and gas and the petroleum associated byproducts of drilling, manufacturing. You know they're measuring, right? To ultimately they're measuring and make sure that their brand doesn't get screwed up because if they have to do a recall, um, because they missed a quality requirement, it can kill a company. And so or in the life sciences and the pharmaceutical, it can kill a patient. Um, and so the industrial metrology, where you need to look back if there is a problem, you know, either for recall or for quality reasons is very important and we play a lot in that arena. But most of those quality driven measurements or industrial metrology, they do also have a portion of, of legal um, metrology within the same plants, within the same manufacturing environments or distribution environments. Um, so we often have both types. Not so much in the scientific today for our, and it's mostly because of where we operate. We do have some um, mostly on the west coast of the United States. Um, but uh, we certainly play in two of those areas of metrology very heavily.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll tell you. Back in uh, 2005 I took a trip down to the petrochemical areas in uh, Texas and Louisiana, spoke to companies like Dow Chemical and Shell and BP and all those, uh, one of those conversations was about how you take crude oil and make different products out of it and the fact that maybe three or four years prior they didn't really care about calibration as much and then they started to care about it for other reasons. But in any case they didn't care about it because. And um, the statement was made to me, don't shoot the messenger. We'll take the crude and we'll make diesel and if that gets messed up for whatever reason we'll just turn it into gasoline or kerosene or whatever else. Right? We're going to make money no matter what.

Speaker B: Yeah, good is good enough.

Speaker A: Get that. But what about safety? Because then you talk about oil spills and, or fires or whatever else, explosions, which, there's been plenty of those in history. Uh, so safety is a reason why you want to control the processes really well and make sure you're measuring Correctly cost. Even if you can make money, what is it costing you to rework that same uh, material, same product into something else? So you know, there's obviously reasons why you still want to keep control over that even if you are making money.

Speaker B: Yeah, no doubt. I mean when we onboard new team members, you know, we go through various training and as we you know, sort of get them um, acclimated to why we are in existence and, and we talk about the three principal reasons why our customers measure safety. For sure.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Quality, um, for sure. Safety for the consumers.

Speaker B: Oh, big time. It's a dual edge blade there because we do have explosions, we do have vehicles and train rail cars that get overloaded. Um, and um, it can be very harmful. Obviously the quality aspects are clear and then the commerce.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Either you're losing money because you're not measuring uh, correctly or customers or getting really screwed. Consumer protection is why, you know, most weights and measures organizations exist in the

Speaker A: state level because it builds trust when you have control over that process.

Speaker B: That's right. That's right.

Speaker A: And that builds brand.

Speaker B: And you know our uh, like we think about our strategy, our strategy is it's just an, it's a byproduct of us being successful with our customers. Our customers are asking us to go additional places. So when we expand into a new geography or we open up a new discipline and we add it to our scope of accreditation, it's not because, oh, uh, that sounds pretty cool. It's because we're in an existing customer, they've asked us, hey, can you help us with this area or you know, we work with lots of multi location customers in the US marketplace and if we do a good job, you know, at uh, the first one or the second one, it's highly likely we're going to be able to expand to other locations around the country. And that's driven really way before my time, but that's driven our acquisitive nature of our business.

Speaker A: And that's, that's free marketing. That's built in marketing.

Speaker B: It is free marketing. But you know, it obviously presumes that you know, you, you're, you have everyone in your organization. I always call it the, the golden thread and the golden thread for us. Imagine this beautiful golden thread that's unbroken. Right. And golden thread is a visual for our team members that represents quality and that it isn't a function. Right. It's part of everyone's core responsibility. And if, if we keep it unbroken, then great things happen for the growth of our business. If One little small chain fails, then we're at risk of not getting the benefit of customer satisfaction and growth for us.

Speaker A: That's fantastic perspective.

Speaker C: I want to add something to that, Bobby, and I think that we probably talked about this a little bit last year, but we literally have tens of thousands of metrologists making measurements every single day. And a couple minutes ago, Bobby, you hit it right in the head is we measure everything. Just think, Just think for a minute. Everything in our lives is measured one way or another. And if we didn't make a proper measurement, how messed up our life would be? We can say, well, we messed up a gallon of gas. Well, if we say we're at 100 miles to the gallon and we only measure 90, we're not going to get where we want to go. And I can give you example after example of measurements, but the quality of that measurement is so important that it's accurate, it's correct, it's right. We've got to do that. And obviously you're doing that at Michelle now. And I, uh, just think that we get. We're undervalued in our professions. I think that our entire profession is undervalued for the services we provide to the communities that we live in.

Speaker B: Yeah. I always think about. Because I think every company, you know, I talk to a lot of other owners and heads of companies and whatnot. We're all challenged with recruiting. Right. And I always blame it on ourselves. We don't do adequate job of promoting the importance of what we do. I'm talking about on a big scale of promotion, since we're in every. Every, every thread of every fabric, of everything humans touch.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: You would think people would know and understand the importance of measurement and how you can have confidence in measures. Right. But we're like, oh, uh, I didn't know that existed. That's what I hear from people.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: Like, how can you not know it exists? Or the importance of it is because we've not done as an industry. And it's not a recent thing. It's decades of, of just everyone mining their own little village and not thinking about, hey, we need to promote this on a global basis. The importance of it because things fail. It could be a human health system. It could be a military system. It could be a food supply chain. It could be, you name it, fill in the blanks. It can fail if the measurement is not right on an ongoing, continuous basis. I'm so excited about our space. I mean, I tell kids when I'm talking to them and I Said imagine if you could go into, you know, eight or different. Eight or eight or nine different industries in a day and help them ensure that their measures are always correct and accurate. And you know, the diversity of what we do across customer types versus, you know, I'm going to go work inside of a plant and it's like going to prison almost because you're locked in there, you're doing the same stuff each and every day. But I do think promotion is one of the areas that as an industry, um, we probably need to focus more on.

Speaker A: Yeah, you talked about, uh, you know, we each have our little tunnel vision of what we do in society and business and commerce and don't really see the bigger picture. I love these shows they have on tv, how it's made or whatever, because to me, just as an engineer, I love manufacturing processes and scaling those up to large, larger scales is incredible, uh, that you can make that work and automate it and whatever else. So I find those shows interesting. But earlier you were talking about fishery to table or farm, to table or source to end. Right. That whole process, whether it's food or it's products, watching that, I don't know there's any shows that take it from the beginning to the end. And that would be a, uh, really, I think an incredibly interesting series of shows to make. It would take a lot to do that. But think about what you were talking about with just your shrimping and what it takes to, to go out with the boats and catch all that, bring it all in, layering it in the systems to the conveyor belts and all that. And then the next process it goes to. And the next process. The next process or something as simple as tomato farm. Right. And they make, uh, they're growing tomatoes. They sell them at wherever, right to the grocery stores. You end up buying them and using the home. But they also go to restaurants and uh, manufacturing facilities for food products like tomato paste and things like that. Yeah, it could be applied something else.

Speaker B: The, you know, like whether it's a med device, whether it's a, uh, you know, how cars are made and how each element, you know, the aluminum, the steel. But how does that come to be? I was working. We work, uh, waste and recycling is a fairly large segment for us. And I was working with a large customer out west. So I had a visit him with our sales team and service team. And he was describing to me that, you know, they had this big recycling center where they had these big bales of crushed cans, aluminum cans. And he said, bobby, do you know how long it takes from the time we buy from Alcoa after they have created rolls of aluminum sheet, from the time we get those sheets and they get formed into cans and we put our water and sugar or whatever else going into the can, the soda, and then it gets through a distribution network, and then ultimately the can gets thrown on the ground somewhere or put in a can, and then it gets back to the recycling. He was like, it's like 10 months in California because. Because they do a lot of recycling out there. Yeah. And I said, you got to be kidding me. And so he broke it down for me. But that's an example of. Okay, where does. How did you get this roll of aluminum? How did that happen?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And then how did this roll of aluminum become, ah, you know, I don't know, a Diet Coke can.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And. And how did he get back? And you say 89% of that aluminum gets rethreaded, recycled. It's an amazing concept to see how things are made, but also how that renewal happens and how it goes back and it's melted back down. It creates again, purifies again.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that's what I'm talking about, is taking pure elements or materials or whatever and turning it into something and then taking that, turning into something else. And that whole line of. And tree of all the different products that come from that and how they're used to build other sub components that are built into other end components or end products. It's huge. That whole network is huge. And it'd be fascinating to trace that from beginning to end or back through recycled back to the beginning again, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure, for sure.

Speaker A: Pretty neat. All right, so I'm going to go to a different aspect. No disrespect to Michele. I just. I've been in metrology for 43 years, and I don't remember hearing the name Michelle until about three or four years ago at a conference. I don't know why that is, and I feel embarrassed a little bit that I don't know, Michele, because I've been around and I've. I've done a lot of research on, uh, you know, companies that provide calibration services, and somehow that never came up until, like I said, at a conference a few years ago.

Speaker B: Yeah, not surprising. You know, it's, um. We've tended to, you know, really stick, uh, to our knitting and keep things very close to the vest. Um, and honestly, you know, we've been, for the majority of, uh, our existence, we've sort of Been on that legal metrology side. And you know, we've used that as the success there to start to learn and understand and because the going from just sort of a company that calibrates industrial scales and repairs them and installs them to being a real calibration lab are two different worlds. Um, they're very different. And it's a, ah, much more rigorous environment to say you are a calibration lab. Things like proficiency testing, you know, they don't have that on the industrial weighing side, honestly.

Speaker A: Um, but you do have licensing requirements, right? Certification.

Speaker B: We do. Uh, in each state is regulated at the state level.

Speaker A: Every state. And what, seven different types of scales that you have to become certified for?

Speaker C: So.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: It's a cumbersome process.

Speaker B: It is a process. Our technicians have to be licensed and they have to be tested. And you know, it's a very old, old, old trade. You go back to antiquity and guy with the hand balance. Right.

Speaker A: That's really where a lot of this originated from, was unfair trade with balances and products.

Speaker B: Yeah. So our name recognition on the metrology side, you know, is just because of that. And again, you know, we're using our success on the industrial weighing side, the legal metrology side, to allow us to start to get into that space and uh, start to get in. I mean, we're fairly young, I mean less than 10 years. Um, we actually have been in the space where we have CAL Labs, our largest in the New Orleans area. But, you know, we, we, we, uh. I don't know if you knew Barbara Zur from Bryland Technologies. She recently passed away. We acquired her lab business. Oh, I do know her, uh, in Galita. Yeah, well, she was, she was, ah, she was, uh, a bit of a legend, you know, in the industry. Quality, strong quality, uh, executive, and stood up. That lab successfully running for multiple decades in the Santa Barbara area. Um, we will be closing on another lab up in the northwest, uh, in probably the next six weeks. But, you know, part of it is. And one of our challenges is this is when, you know the perfect world. You go out there and have enough capital to go start from scratch and have standardization across all of your labs from terms of the test standards that they're using. It's one process. This is the way we do it. It's one system. Right. Um, it's basically one accreditation. Uh, and unfortunately we've grown either by expansion or by acquisition. And acquisition is challenging, especially when it comes to things, you know, that have an ISO requirement, say an accreditation requirement, um, and we have a lot of different sort of standards and processes that

Speaker A: have legal metrology especially let's talk about your calibration of larger scales, cattle, uh, scales, truck scales, you know, railroad car scales. So you do the installation of those types of scales, you do the servicing and maintenance on those. Talk about servicing. Now you've got these huge trucks with probably an I beam in them and a cart that carries the, the weights and thousand pound weights, 500 pound weight. They big weights. Right. That you're having carry around. You get low gas mileage, it's hard on the vehicles suspension. You probably got high maintenance on those vehicles as well. And the licensing certification by state by type of scale really has a lot of constraints to make it scalable. It's difficult. So you to scale that. I'm guessing that you need to duplicate it in different states. Especially if you're trying to go further instead of trying to take uh, a hub and go out to spokesman for very, very much difference, different distance. Sorry. So that, that can make it a real challenge as well. So I could see why acquisition makes sense as far as legal metrology goes. Whereas industrial metrology. And even for smaller scales and legal metrology take a set of weights, take age blocks, you take, you know, your lab standards, equipment, you can go pretty far any distance, pretty easily to be able to scale those types of operations. So it's completely different, correct?

Speaker B: Yeah. I always think about, you know, 95, 7% of our work on the industrial weighing side is done at the customer's location. You know, we actually go on site and do the work. It's also different in that when we go on site we typically do all of their scales at the same time. Um, the balances, moisture analyzers all the way up. Right. So we can knock out, let's say it's a quarterly. You know, the important, the more important the measurement, the more frequently customers get it done on both the quality and the legal side. Um, and so many of our customers have us like got a chemical, major chemical manufacturer. It has us come out monthly to do about 80 scales of this plant because at 17025 by the way, because their, their customer is a major automotive manufacturer. Oh yeah, they're mandating it. So we go on site to do the work versus you know, customers sending in this stuff for, you know, recertification. So um, and then the other piece on that piece is not, may not be obvious is that we found that when we go out we can do all the scales. That's very efficient. Right. When I call It. The drip effect. The drip effect, where customers drip in 100 tools at a time over say a 12 month cycle. And they may have 4,000 tools that we have to do, but they're dripping them in. Or they want us to come out to their site on a repeated basis or embed. I mean, it's just, logistically, it's a lot more challenging than on, um, how we do the industrial weighing side, which is, you know, that's part of it. That makes it a higher bar for success, uh, to be able to handle logistics of the calibration.

Speaker A: Yeah. And the timing as well. So if you end up going to an on site, do the calibrations, you're expecting to see that you've agreed to with the client, and then the tech shows up and there's 25 more added all of a sudden. Right. Or they're short and they can't find them or whatever else and they're sitting around waiting for. I mean, that goes to efficiency as well.

Speaker C: Well, that's just business though, Howard. That's. That happens when you run a third party CAL lab.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, but it makes it very difficult to schedule because now you're delaying schedule for somebody else perhaps.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. You know, we measure on a daily basis. We have this barometer that tells us, okay, in the month of March, we've got 14,000 cows. That's supposed to happen. And you know, look, I was looking at it this morning, okay, oh, we're about 9% through. We should be at like whatever, 12% through. And then as it gets closer and closer. All right, guys, I think we're sweat.

Speaker A: We're going to hit it or we're

Speaker B: going to miss it.

Speaker C: I want to add just real quickly before we get to the personal side, because we have a section we have to move on to where we actually get to ask Bobby a lot of personal questions. But back in my other life, Bobby, I ran a Cal Lab and we had offices as well. Not as big as you guys are, but we had several offices as well. And I do not regret not being a manager of a third party Cal Lab anymore. The job that you guys do, you know, it's, it's stressful. It's. It takes a lot, a lot of logistics, a lot of planning, and every day is a new fire that you got to put out. And I don't miss that at all, to be quite honest with you. So moving forward, let me first ask one of the personal questions that we have, because believe it or not. Bobby, we're getting down to the point where we're going to probably run out of time. I mean it's been a fabulous episode so far and I wanted to get to know a little bit about you before we have to call a day, before we're forced to shut down for the day. So one of the questions I always like to ask our guests is role models. Do you have any role models in your life that really made a huge impact on you and what you provide to either personally or to your business environment?

Speaker B: Well, I have lots of role models in my life. You know, certainly, uh, GT Michele has been a role model since I was a young kid. You know, an individual who was uh, like an action oriented individual. No matter how many people were naysayers about something, he would find a way to do it. And he was very much of uh, I say action oriented because he would make things happen, whether that's with his physical hands or by setting the leadership example. And you know, that's can be an uncomfortable role at times, um, because you have to make hard decisions. So you know, he's certainly been an amazing example. My father has been an amazing example. He's passed away, but you know, uh, the way he uh, was, you know, he was a cop in New Orleans and, but he was always available for the five of us and he figured a way to make time. And I think. And I'm always talking to our team members as I try to remove barriers for them. Hey, you know, you got to make sure you're taking care of your family at home, your significant other, because if that's not taken care of, it's going to affect our ability to have success here at this work. And so I always reflect back on how people were able to really be stellar examples of um, success by taking care of their families and having that as a priority in their life because that will be contagious and that will be part of our culture. Ultimately. Two fathers have been my biggest uh, role models in my life. But I see role models in individuals. I work with young people that have come to work and they're inquisitive. Uh, they don't know it all and they say they don't know it all, but they're working to educate themselves independent of what we do. Um, for me that's, that's role modeling.

Speaker A: It's inspirational.

Speaker B: We live on three simple things that Michelle A gcr grow, care, respond. That's our, that's our North Star. And we want to be better than we were yesterday. We want to be lifelong learners. Uh, we want to, uh, intensely care about one another, about our customers, about what, what we're perceived to be. And we want to be known as a company that responds, you know. And so I think when I look at role models, I'm always sort of somehow triangulating those three simple words and say, how can that person be a model for others?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. So in the grow aspect of that, and you're scaling the business, all of us have the challenge of finding good technicians. Do you tend to grow your own internally? Do you have a program for that? Do you use some of the external models for, uh, learning and training? How do you solve that problem?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, combination. Uh, we were subscribed to the science school. Uh, we have a program, we put in some systems. Uh, one is, uh, the Michele Way, uh, which is, uh, basically seven different dimensions. One is obviously development, um, for our technicians, uh, and career pathing for our technicians. We've got a schoolhouse in our Dallas operation where level one technicians go through that schoolhouse. But honestly, uh, absent of the Department of Defense, having a formal training program is challenging. Uh, the fact that, you know, we can't go get metrologists that are ready. We can go get field service technicians that are ready. They've gone through formal education processes. So we are left a lot to do on our own, on the job or some initial training. But honestly, it's still a lot to be done in the regards of development of people. I think we look for people that inherently have an ability to solve problems and they sort of have an inquisitive mind. They, they want to know the why of things, and they're not going to just accept a number on the dial. That is correct.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: They're going to be able to delve deeper and understand the why of things.

Speaker A: Well, that's, that's an important characteristic for hiring of any technicians in this field, for sure. Somebody that's inquisitive, wants to learn, wants to, uh, make sure that they're doing a good job. Good integrity.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: So good news on that front. Um, we had, uh, one of our guests, Ken, um, Raison. And he, uh, started up the Metrology Institute, if you're not aware of that. So take a look at what he's got going on there. He's not necessarily developing the training. He's pulling all the resources together from everywhere he can find to make sure that that's a single source to go to for companies, uh, that need that.

Speaker B: I'll definitely check that out. I was not aware of the Metrology Institute.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, uh, he's building that and growing it and looking for sponsors and people to take part in that in the community. All right, Chuck, another question.

Speaker C: Yeah. So we also like to ask about travel. I think this is a question Howard usually handles, but I'll ask it for him. So in all your years of traveling, it's something. You've traveled a little bit about the world and stuff. Is there any favorite place that you've been to that you would say, chuck, go visit that tomorrow because you've got to see this place.

Speaker B: Yeah. I spent a, uh, couple of years, um, throughout the continent of Africa. Cape Town was pretty extraordinary. Um, just like sitting there, looking like, thinking about how big this continent is and the view there. And the people were extraordinarily friendly and the nature of it all, um, both the agricultural aspects and the sea, um, that's there. The oceans that are coming together there. That was pretty extraordinary. Um, honestly, um, my wife and I, uh, we love the, uh, entire Pacific coastline in the United States. We've driven multiple times from Seattle down to Phoenix, um, through San Diego, then jumping over the mountain range to Phoenix. Um, and just because, um, you'll see so many different aspects of nature. Um, and, uh, it's like, wow, you always say, how did this get created? Uh, yeah, yeah, we, we love going out west. Um, honestly. Uh, sounds simple. Uh, there's a little beach, uh, on the North Carolina, South Carolina border. This little island called Sunset. Sunset Island. And, um, the sunsets and sunrises there are amazing. And, uh, it's still an old school place. There are no high rises and it's simple. Um, so. And we've been doing that for 35 plus years.

Speaker C: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: We go there with our families and so, you know, I don't know. We're going this summer. Uh, we're going to go, uh, my wife and I are going to go over to Rome and then catch a train over to Venice and then we're catching a cruise with three other couples to go to Creation Ending in Greece. So I've never done that part of the world, so I'm really psyched about that.

Speaker A: And when my wife and I are going to Italy in September. Yeah. Florence, Rome and Amalfi Coast.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That'll be fantastic. That'll be fun.

Speaker B: Yeah. Most of our travels, you know, we, we like to just do stuff with family or friends and, um, I don't know, you know, keep it simple. And there's so much to see right here in this country, we tend to navigate a lot of different places, and we, we always are able to somehow another tie in seeing some of our customers or seeing our team members and saying hello to them and thanking them on those travels.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's amazing how you can combine family and travel and business and all that. I just did that this weekend, so ended up going to Warsaw, Indiana, Medtech, uh, company that we support. And, um, uh, I'm also interested in barbecue. Right. And.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: The national contest being here in Kansas City, the biggest contest for barbecue is the American Royal. And, uh, so I thought I wanted to become a certified judge. I went to the American Royal for the first time in November and decided, yeah, I'm going to go take a class, become a certified barbecue judge. Well, there just happened to be one in Warsaw, Indiana, of all places, over the weekend. So I just stayed and took the, uh, full day class and became a certified judge. And to align everything together, one of my sisters. I'm the youngest of 11, by the way. One of my sisters just moved. They sold their farm in, uh, southwest Michigan. Closed on it last Friday. They bought this house in the Fort Wayne area, uh, so close by. I was able to have dinner with them, combining everything together. So.

Speaker B: That's great.

Speaker A: That's perfect.

Speaker C: Yeah. Wonderful.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Do you have a. Let me ask another question, Howard. Or do you have one that you want to ask Bobby?

Speaker A: Uh, probably, since you stole my question, I'm going to steal yours. So, uh, if you're an avid reader, Bobby, do you have favorite book, either personal favorite, fiction, nonfiction, whatever, uh, or business book that you recommend to the audience?

Speaker B: Wow, that's a tough one. Um, ah, I'm a huge history fan, so I tend to read a lot of history books. Um, you know, uh, the last book I read was, um. There was a book, um, it was called the Leader Zen. And what struck me was that it was like common sense, Right. That, you know, the idea of leadership just almost being a external thing where, you know, how would you want to be led?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Are you a good listener? Do you have clarity in your communications? Are you able to excite someone about what tomorrow can be?

Speaker A: So it's a book about being introspective.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And just sort of like, I think sometimes people are uncomfortable. And this is. I talk to young leaders about this all the time. I said, look, leadership involves emotion, right? And it's not like, you know, you're. It's like an architect way. Oh, you're just going to sketch this out, put some cad drawings Together, and then you're a great leader. I mean, you've got to get to know people, you got to deal with human issues, um, and you got to get really between people's ears and in their hearts, um, to really get people to their full potential. I talk about potential all the time when we're trying to motivate organizations. And to me, leadership is ultimately about getting individuals to their full potential. And if you can do that, as you. As you get a group of people, a dozen, 10 dozen, 100 dozen people together, and the majority of the folks are getting to a place where they feel they are achieving their full potential, uh, to me, that's leadership. I mean, it's.

Speaker A: My observation over my career has been that there are people in leadership positions who are horrible at it. And if it's irritating enough, it becomes the catalyst to drive people away from that type of bad leadership and say, I'm not going to do it that way. But it doesn't necessarily bring you into the fold like you're talking about. So the positive leadership is an important aspect of that, is probably the most important aspect of that, I think. So you can learn from people who do it wrong.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no doubt. I mean, we had, um. I remember, uh, we had the intimidator, we called him, um, and he. This was. This was a long time ago when I was in the military. And, uh, I guess there was this notion that you, um, could intimidate people into following.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, um, while you may get them to follow you once, you probably won't see him again.

Speaker A: Not a pleasant journey.

Speaker B: Yeah. So that's. You know, I'm always fascinated. That's why I like history, because there's always great stories of either failed or successful leadership, uh, experiences in individuals.

Speaker A: Uh. Exactly.

Speaker B: We're going through some of that today in our country.

Speaker A: Chuck would probably need to wrap it up, but back to you.

Speaker C: Yeah. We got time for one more question. So you're.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker C: Only other personal question I'd like to ask you to know about you is your movies. Is there a favorite movie that you like that you'd recommend?

Speaker B: Oh, famous movie. They've, you know, um, it's okay if

Speaker A: you want to say Shawshank Redemption. I get that.

Speaker B: You know, I, uh.

Speaker C: This is.

Speaker B: This probably sounds really stupid, but, uh, there's a. There's, um, the old movie from the 70s, um, where they're going from the east coast to the west coast, uh, looking for that money that's been hidden underneath, like some. Some simple.

Speaker A: The Great Race or Mad Mad world. Yes.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: And, um, I just, you know, as a young person seeing all these different parts of the country.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and I actually, I watched it the other day with my, with some friends. Um, it's online now, of course, and um, one the variety and how people sort of were navigating the challenge of going from the east coast to the west coast. It was a fun. You know, there's so many movies that are too serious or too much killing, and it's just a light hearted fun.

Speaker A: Oh, that's a good comedy. Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So that's great. Check it out.

Speaker C: Well, unfortunately, believe it or not, we've gone over an hour and so our editor is going to be mad at us once again. We always seem to, yeah, we never seem to have enough time, Bobby. Um, and so I, I mean, what a great, great conversation. Thank you for sharing with us. Um, we very, very appreciative of you, of taking your time with us this morning. I learned a lot.

Speaker A: I am to, to have you on the show and to get to know you a little more. Bobby.

Speaker B: Yeah. Howie, Chuck, you guys, uh, honestly, if y' all are ever, um, down in the New Orleans area, uh, you don't need an invitation. You're always welcome. Come by and say hello. Grab dinner or lunch or something.

Speaker A: Yeah, we never, we never got a

Speaker C: chance to talk about golf too much. But you know, our good friend that we, we share, you know, is very good friend of both Howard and I and your friend as well, you know, he's, he's become a really good golfer now. Yes. And we got to take him down, Bobby. We, we just got to take him out and, you know.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, we'll, uh, we'll figure out, we'll figure a way to take him down.

Speaker C: Well, you know what it is, Bobby? He, you can get in his head. You know, when I played golf with him, you know, last time, I figured out that if I'm in his head, he cannot play golf.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, two army guys against a navy guy, we should be able to handle that. Absolutely, Absolutely.

Speaker C: That's a no brainer. So we'll take him down.

Speaker B: By the way, you know, we're, we're, we have, uh, last year we did, uh, all of our sites got up on indie soft. And um, we have a few more to do this quarter. Um, so we'll be done by the end of this quarter. Uh, with the, um, Enterprise Wide rollout of that. It's been really good for us having one system across the Enterprise.

Speaker C: It's a nice system. I know it as well. So, Howard, any last words before we call it a day?

Speaker A: Uh, just, Bobby, thanks for the open invitation. I probably will take you up on that at some point for two reasons. Uh, number one, my wife and I want to take a drive from Kansas City down to Texas and across. She wants to go to Waco to the. Whoever the Joann and whatever his name is for home remodeling, probably the Dr. Pepper Museum, because she's a huge Dr. Pepper fan. Uh, Arkansas on the way down as well, for the Another home show that she loves. And then over to New Orleans, because my favorite food in the entire world is, uh, Cajun creole seafood. Just the best flavors there are.

Speaker B: Yeah, I can point really good spots for restaurants down in our city and

Speaker A: then on over to, you know, Mobile and down to Destin and probably over to Savannah, Georgia.

Speaker B: And the best museum in the country is a World War II museum, the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. It's amazing.

Speaker A: Okay, good to know.

Speaker C: I have to go there.

Speaker A: Thank you for that.

Speaker C: Bobby, any last words before we call it?

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: Thank you, guys. I, um, think, uh, one, it's always good to talk, uh, to colleagues in this industry. And what you guys do is so important, um, for us to really technician at the organizational level, to really know how we're doing compared to others. So, um, we appreciate, uh, what you guys do. And, um, again, um, you are always welcome to visit with us.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker C: We definitely will. Well, I want to thank our sponsor, nept, you know, the national association for Proficiency Testing. Uh, without them, we wouldn't be here today. So hopefully you like the episode. You like it, and you share it, and you tell your friends and your colleagues to go and check out not only this episode, but we have plenty of other ones that are available on the website at www.proficiency.org. all kinds of episodes with all kinds of great folks. Look forward to that. And I always like to say at the end of the day, if you're not participating in proficiency testing, you're not proving your technical competency. So if you need to prove your technical competency, you need to roll in a proficiency test today. So. So with that, I'm out. Thank you again, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

Speaker A: Easy out.