The Future of the Trades Depends on Mentorship and Industry Veterans Passing Down the Craft

This is Straight Out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Street Out of Crompton. I'm Greg Crompton, your host for the afternoon. Looking forward to today, folks. As you know, I'm getting, some seasoning on me. I'm a nineteen sixty four model, kinda like a Mustang, when they first came out. And I have just, like, recently been working on connecting with other tradespeople that are of the mentoring age. And we got connected. The gentleman who who is our guest today, I'll introduce in a moment. But we got connected through, Doug Winston with TradeMentor. And Doug is pulling together a group of, I I like to call us old curmudgeons with a lot of gas left in the tank who have done a lot of stuff in the industry, but yet feel compelled now to really try to give back to the, to our industries, plural, and to the skilled trades in general. So today, I'm I'm honored to have Ken Landon join. Ken is, the owner and operator of KL Drywall. He is in upstate New York, and, I'm assuming he got snow, but I won't ask him because he looked like he has snow gleaming in his eye. But, Ken, welcome to the show, my friend. Pleasure to be here, Greg. I I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day, and, I'm looking to add some value any way I can, man. Well, you know, one thing we we like to do on this show, Ken, is is promote a lifestyle of working in the trades, and college isn't for everybody, but it is for some. You know, we just like to try to help people figure out if it is or not. And part of that is having conversations about the trades. But before we get going, why don't you give the crowd, of twenty six million listeners, like, only, Joe Rogan only trails me by a little bit. Is why don't you tell us a little bit about you, your journey, how you wound up, Elk State after growing up in the city, and, just walk us through your your journey. Yeah. What an interesting journey it has been for sure. And still, still, I'm looking forward to even learning and growing as I enter the next chapter of my life. But, yeah, originally from Queens, Queens, New York, as we like to say, scenic, scenic Queens. Back in went straight from I'll do the kinda like the quick quick time lapse here just to so we can, you know, try and add as much value as we can. But, you know, straight out of high school, I was one of those guys that was conditioned to to really work. I got into the trades while I was in high school. All my friends were out there working in supermarkets and, you know, doing things like that. I learned to trade. I literally was brought on the job when I was seven, eight, nine, ten years old right around there. And then all through high school, days off, Saturday, Sundays. If we had a week off, I was on the job site with my uncle and my father, learning how to tape. I'm a I'm a drywall finisher. Been doing it for forty plus years. Went through high school, learning that trade. Right out of high school, jumped right into the union. I was in the local union nineteen seventy four in Manhattan. Worked in some of the great iconic buildings in there. Empire State Building, Twin Towers. Worked in the Whitney Museum. Worked in Waldorf Astoria. That's where I critiqued my plasterability. I did a lot of ornamental plastering back then. You know, we're talking about this is in the eighties now. Right? So things were a lot different. I rose really, really fast in the union ranks. I was one of the few people who actually already had the skill, already knew the trade. So, you know, I was able to rise very quickly. And, you know, the ceiling was low, set low back then. So it was administrative positions, supervisor positions, foreman positions, and I went through that whole thing, shop steward in the union, all of that. And the next best thing for me at that time being a young, you know, twenty something year old was to start my own business. So nineteen eighty seven, I incorporated KL Drywall and put together a crew. Started slow, obviously, two people, three people, eventually grew to forty people, and we became one of the higher end drywall companies out in Long Island in Queens. Ran forty guys. I learned very early that the more control you have, the better your job can be. We used to we used to sub out the sheetrocking until I brought my own crews on board. They were in house, so we handled the sheetrocking and the taping. We kept everything under one roof. We became known as, you know, one of the elite drywall companies out there. We handled everything with precision and quality. One of the things I always taught my guys was, you know, there's always somebody that's gonna be to be able to do it faster, cheaper. We need to do it better. The funny thing about doing it better and being quality orientated is, believe it or not, and it stands true today, the competition diminishes. Right? Absolutely. And and and anything, really. In anything. Yeah. So that that, you know, that kinda ran its gamut. You know, I did that for quite a few years. God. It was, let's see, twenty, thirty four. So my son who's now in his young thirties, he was going off to college at the time, and I had thought that it was time for me to make a change. I've been in the industry for a very, very long time. So I relocated. I sold everything in my entire life that I ever made. Sold my house, sold my investments, sold, you know, everything. And I moved upstate and I opened up a brewery when the microbrewery fad was big. Right? Started from scratch, had no money, built it from the ground up. We opened up a second location, production facility where we were producing beer and brewing beer all along, keeping KL drywall on the back burner, never closed it, still doing jobs here and there, side jobs, whatnot, what have you. And and recently, COVID COVID hit, as we all know, wiped out a lot of businesses as well as people lost their lives, which was horrific. So my business is shut down, and I hit the ground running, got right back into the trade. And it's been quite a few years now, and I'm full fully back into the trade. And when I say trade, I mean a drywall finishing. I don't hang sheetrock. I don't do big houses anymore. I'm more of a plaster repair guy. I'm more of a patch guy. I'll do smaller jobs, you know, kitchens and bathrooms for for really good customers, but I've gotten to the point in my life where, you know, I've been doing it so long, and I learned how to say no. If it does if it's not a right fit, I just don't do it. Yeah. So with that being said, again, going back at this point in my life, I felt that there was a need to give back, and I felt that, you know, that it was important to begin mentoring and be you know, how do I how do how do we get these kids involved? So I started volunteering at the local trade school here, which is the BOCES, the continuing trade education, where I'm sure there's there's familiar ones all over the country, but this brings the kids, juniors and seniors, who, you know, want to pursue a career in the trades, and they teach them. What I found in in in the in the trade schools is it's very mechanically heavy, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, even masonry, carpenter. Very, very few are focused on the plastering, the taping, the sheet rocking, and the painting. So I felt that there was a need to just introduce myself and do to get involved with the kids in a way where I could at least go in there and say, hey, look, man, there are other avenues that you can pursue instead. You don't have to if you if college if you're not built for the college, if you're not built for specific things, here's your other options. And, you know, I never had that. I'm sure, Greg, you probably never had that growing up. We were always, you know, you know, I'm not sure, but it just seems like these kids, the direction when you look at them, they're kinda they need someone to tell them that it's okay to be a tradesman. You know? And to tell their parents, by the way. And to tell the parents, well, it has to trickle down from the parents. You know, I was lucky I got thrown into it. I didn't go to college. I didn't really have a choice. You know, you were like, I was conditioned to work to be to to to get out there and grind. So I guess in the evolution, you know, college and, you know, the trades got frowned. They they they got looked down upon. And my this is, of course, this is my perspective, man. And this is I'm in the northeast, and I'm just telling you how it is up here and what I see I think you're spot on. I I don't think that that is a geographical, exclusive, you know, problem. I think that for for so many years so I I graduated from high school in nineteen eighty two. And shortly after that is when they, discontinued having shop classes at our public school. I was in the Atlanta, Georgia area. And know, when I think about it, I was explaining last night. I had a great conversation with a guy yesterday about this. He's a a automotive guy, and he wants to start a trade school to because he is suffering like the rest of us of finding people that want to do what he does. But, yeah, I mean, that college was the thing that our my generation, was encouraged to go to and really that was it. I, like you, second generation in the trades, I enjoyed what I did early. I was out there and instead of, learning how to tape a joint, at seven, I was learning how to solder copper tubing. So, you know, same thing. Which leads me to and I know we're getting off this vein you were on, but I think it's worth talking about for a second. We were mentored early. We didn't have to look for mentors. We didn't know what the heck they were because nobody talked about it back then like we do now. But you had your uncle, you had your dad. I had my dad, two uncles in the industry, in my industry. It was a natural thing. If you didn't go to college and you wound up in the trades, usually it was through a relative, or some kind of exposure you had early. So it's good that we had that, but we don't have that now because if you think about our labor pool, the way I view it is a cartoon of a dog bone. It's got two big n's and a skinny middle. The big n being retirees, the other big n being incoming youngsters, and the middle being, a smaller cohort of people who figured out how to get into trades, but weren't exposed to it in high school. And those are limited in number. That's a small piece of our industry. But so we've gotta figure out how to move that big bone, that big end of the bone closer to the other bone in a hurry. So Yeah. Yeah. No. I agree with that. I'm just you know, I was listening to you, I was actually thinking in my head, when do you think that the the actual the conditioning, the college conditioning started? I mean, I graduated high school the same year as you did. And, you know, it was you're probably right. Not not that soon afterwards where it was like, this is this is the norm. Now you're gonna go to high school. You're gonna go to college. You're gonna have you're gonna get the house. You're gonna have the kids. You're gonna get married. You're gonna have to pick a fence and blah blah blah, and then you're gonna pay off student debt for the rest of your life. And Yeah. You know? Or not. Or not. Exactly. Exactly. Or not. You know? And and all of a sudden, you know, the the trades were just I can remember because, you know, I was I would go on jobs just like you would go on jobs, and we were looked down upon. We were frowned upon. I'll never forget, you know, this is a quick story. I was waiting on a coffee line to get a couple of coffees, you know, and I'm in my my work clothes. I got compound all over me. You know, a guy behind me, he looks at me and he says, hey. What are you, a painter? I says, no. I'm actually a taper. You know? And he goes, oh, a bottom feeder. And that stuck with me my whole life. I was like, what the ****? *** know, what is this guy calling me? A bottom feeder? I was like, jeez. I started to believe that. I was like, wait a minute. And now you know what the funny part is? Here we are. Twenty twenty twenty five. You can't find a tradesman out there. You can find tradesman. Let me rephrase. You can find tradesmen, but to find a qualified tradesman who who is actually honest and has integrity, who shows up, who calls back, who does the right job, who takes pride in his work, that is rare. Okay? That's called a craftsman. It's called a craftsman, and that's rare. I can tell you this much, and I know, you know, I start this is a nerve with me. I get really fired up about this. In twenty twenty five, I've been in business a long time. Twenty twenty five, I fixed more jobs in twenty twenty five than ever before in my career. Yeah. And people are out there. Hey. I'm a tradesman. I'm a tradesman. So going back to me getting involved with the BOCES and the continuing trade education, it was very important to me to get to go back to how do we do this? I felt that I had to be in front of these kids, these students. I felt that I had to give my time, I had to volunteer my time, I'm not getting paid for this, you're not getting paid for this, go out there and do demonstrations on my own time, sit with these students and talk with them and walk them through it. Because even as much as the instructors are okay and they're there and they're to teach them, they need people from the outside like you and me to get in their face. Real high. Can look in their eye and tell them it's okay to do that and tell the parents when they come in that it's okay to do that. And you know what? The funny part of it is is that now it's not not only okay, it's a necessity. It's needed more than ever, And you're gonna you're gonna make a lot of money. Like like, you're gonna make a lot of money doing this. And and, you know, I I I'm out there every day. I've got my finger on the pulse, at least in my area. I ask a lot of questions, you know, just to stay in tune. I'm actually scheduled to do another demonstration at the end of March with the students up at the BOCES in Albany. And, you know, it's just from my perspective, I feel that the impact is made in front of Yeah. The the the students. And you have to get them at that's a perfect age, you know, juniors and seniors. You know, I've been backing up. I'm doing some sixth and seventh grade stuff, eleven and I have found, at least in the areas that I've been in Kent, once they go to high school, they're too cool for school, so to speak. You know? They kinda get to be a little pricky. Yeah. Yeah. But the kids I've talked to that are younger before they get exposed to guidance counselors especially tend to be a little more receptive. So that that leads me to a question. When you're out talking to these kids and and young people, what what are you hearing from them? What are what did and the reason I'm asking this last year or probably twenty four now at this point, twenty twenty four, I read a study that was showing that the young people, Gen Z, were amenable to doing trades work. They didn't think it was bad. They didn't think it was anything other than an option. If for a, if they knew about it. That's an awareness thing. But b, they were embarrassed to tell their parents that they were okay with it because the parents weren't okay with it because of the conditioning. And you you asked a while ago when did this start? I think it started after Vietnam. When the returning population said, we're moving as a nation now. We were kind of picking up steam once again. I think that's when it started. If you look at the age of the workforce and mid-70s is kind of when you started really hearing people getting leaned on about going to university or to college. And so that's when I think it started. And it also stems, in in my opinion, and I'm I'm wrong daily, so who the hell knows? But every generation has said they wanted their kids to do better than them. It's just kind of a natural humanistic trait. So I think that propelled it because we were moving into this as a society where doing better meant having more, getting an education. And the way to get the education was to go to college. So I don't fault us as a nation for doing it. I just think the pendulum swung too far. And I'm all for college, really. I come from a a a family of educated people, at higher ed levels. But I I also fall back on what I like to say is a surgeon needs a patient, and a patient needs a surgeon. You gotta have both sides of the coin. We can't all be drawwall tapers and plumbers and sheet metal workers. Somebody's gotta, you know, diagnose our ailments and do a high level stuff that, you know, requires a four or eight year program. I think it's just a matter of educating people through awareness that, like you're doing, that this is an option. So I think that's our, and and we're getting better by all indications. Trade school enrollment is up year over year over year. So we're getting there. But to your point, and I'll shut up because I'm on I I wanna make sure I get your thoughts on this. You said you gotta get in front of the people. The the further we go into a digitized world of AI and VR and everything digital, the more important I feel like one on one human relationships matter. And people relate. If they're in a room and you're in a room and you're instructing or creating awareness or training or whatever you're doing, that's more I was gonna say more better. I don't think I can say that. That is a better that okay. It's more better. More better. If you're doing that live. So to just to concur, that's a long way to say you're right. I mean, man, you listen. I couldn't agree with you more. You know? I had started my business, you know, forty people working from even the hospitality industry. I had forty five people working in both locations. And the thing that I put I pushed, you know, the the the three words, communication, accountability, and integrity. Boom. Boom. Boom. You have to have you can't have one of those without the other. You have to have that. Communication is number one. We're not mind readers. I'm not a mind reader. I can't read read the mind of my employees. I could but what I can do is if you have accountability, if you show up, I can teach you. And you know what? I'll take a guy. I'll take a less talented guy that shows up every single day over a talented guy nine times out of ten. You know? And if you're honest, you're honest. But, you know, getting getting in front of them is is a big deal. The AI thing, I mean, I just Doug Doug had a post the other day about the AI comment that I'm like, I'm so sick of this **** already. It's like, oh, do we not have an original thought? Like like, it's not gonna be a thing of the past too. It's gonna be like, wait a minute. I got let me hit my, you know, my transcribe over here. Let let me do stuff like that. It's not gonna replace the hands. It's not gonna replace the talent of the craftsman that's out there doing it. So, you know, I think that the message that has to get across and and you I I agree with you there too. You know, the parents have to be a, you know, a here. We have to be able to drive it home to the parents that it is okay. And from what I bring from my experience and why I make it a point to tell some of these stories to some of these students is is is this. You know, I got out of the business for a little bit of time and I got into another people business. But what happened there was is because I had a trade and because I had a skill, I was able to get back into the workforce and hit the ground running. So that gave me the security. Like like, knowing that if you literally picked me up and put me in any place of the country and dropped me off, I could get a job pretty much immediately because there's a new How about anywhere on the dang Earth? Anywhere. And that to me, that's security. Who who who wants to be working for somebody for you know what mean? I had a buddy of mine who's working for somebody twenty five years. He gets laid off. It's like, come on, man. You know? Yeah. And that's not the point here. My point is is that learning that trade and having that security, that should be a confidence builder for people to wanna get into it. It has to stem from the parents. I totally agree with that. They have to be the ones to say that it's okay. And we also have to get more and and I'm sure Doug would love to go more in-depth on on these topics, but from what I'm seeing more, as as much as the skills, the schools that we have that are built currently, which is a great thing, they're at capacity. Yeah. Right? So how do we how do we do we become a proponent for petitioning for funds wherever the funds may come from, whether it's from people who are philanthropists who wanna add money to to the industry. We need to build more of these these facilities so we can house and get the kids in because here's what's going on at the Skahari campuses is that they're at capacity. They wanna hit the guidance council is at the high school and junior high school levels to give them the opportune tell the kids they have the opportunity to get into these schools. But if they're at capacity, how do we Nowhere to put them. Right? There's nowhere to put them. And you know what they're doing up here, Greg? They're building what they call now mini mini homes to teach the in the parking lots. They're setting up platforms in the parking lots because they don't have the facilities inside. They got these students out here in twenty degree weather. It was negative five the other day. They're out there building. I mean, it's great. Harden them up a little bit, but that's Let me ask you a question about that. Not politically speaking. I'm just asking because I simply don't know the answer to this. Why do we as a country give Ivy League schools that have multibillion dollar endowments millions of dollars every year instead of putting it towards more applicable things like building technical schools? Do you know that answer? Man, if I knew that answer. I mean and I'll only ask because when when all this hoopla came out, I guess it was last year about Harvard and Yale and Columbia and all that. Right. We're gonna withhold federal funds. Why the heck are we giving them money when they have endowments as large as, you know, any any private citizen ever dreamed of having? Right. I don't I don't get that. So I gotta I gotta figure I gotta find somebody that can help me understand that. That's for greater minds than mine. But, I mean, it's a valid question. Maybe it's gonna maybe it's gonna take somebody that is, you know, a well off entrepreneur that like, maybe, you know, you were speaking about your your buddy who wants to open up a trade school. You know? It's gonna become more independent, I believe. Because here's the thing, Greg. In the in the in the in the way that we're moving right now, it's inevitable. It has to happen. What's gonna happen when the electricians there's a shortage of electricians, there's a shortage of plumbers. What I learned from running my breweries, okay, you know, when when I got into the industrial equipment, we had one point five billion million BTU boilers that were heating our kettles and this, that. That takes a craftsman. That's not some guy you get out of the penny saver that you pull and say, hey. Fix my boiler. That's no Angie's list, is it? Exactly. So what I found is is that the companies, the industrial companies that were skilled had the skilled labor to handle those types of projects in my area, which is the northeast up in Albany, the the percentage of the craftsmen, their age, they were in their mid to late fifties. Yeah. The entire crews were in their fifties getting ready to retire. And you know what they were telling me? There's nobody to replace them. There's nobody. They can't train anybody. Talk about businesses. They've been in business seventy five years. They're talking about going out of business because they can't they don't have the labor people to come in. And these they're offering, apprentice programs, bonus sign on, you know, all kinds of things to get mechanics in there to work. Yeah. And and it's mind boggling to me because, I mean, steam. It was I had a steam low pressure steam. It's a whole another animal. Right? I grew up in a city. Everything's everything's steam. You can't find a steam guy to save your life. If you if you think about it, every trade has verticals within it. You know? I'm I'm an HVAC guy. Hell, there's twenty different careers in HVAC. Yep. You're you're a drywall guy. There's twenty different careers in drywall depending on your specialty, what you enjoy, and what you're good at. You know? I was thinking when we were talking before we hit record about the plaster work that you did. And when I go into New York or go to Boston or DC or somewhere and I see all this work that that is so freaking intricate. Yeah. You know a craftsman has to repair and maintain that. And we've so here's my thing. It's up to people like us, and we're doing it, but we've gotta get more of us To grab a couple of youngsters by the arms And walk them across the threshold into the the trades. I'm currently working with four kids that are twenty two years and down to fifteen years old, at various levels. You know, some are working full time, and one's wrestler in high school trying to figure out what he wants to do. But the dude can draw a wiring diagram of a toaster already, so we're getting there. But That's wonderful. It is just about creating the awareness. And when I go to the sixth grade career day, I pick up the iPhone and I show them like, okay, what happens when you press the icon here on the phone? And they say something like, well, that's how I tell my mom to come pick me up. I say, no. That's the result of you pressing the button. Here's what happens. And you walk them through this rather complicated route that that signal has to go through, how the power is generated, all of that is living in a data center that's got to be conditioned, that's got to have drywall. And when you start getting their awareness around that, and I say to them, all right, what's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? And they giggle and then they say they go pee. And I'm like, all right, when you go in the bathroom to go potty, however you wanna say that, you turn the light on. That's not magic, that's science. When you flush the toilet, that's not magic, that's science and gravity. And they they they're bewildered. They're like, nobody's ever told me that before. No. No. So No. It as rudimentary as that sounds Listen. It's the truth. Not getting that at home. No. It's the truth. I mean, my son my son's thirty three years old. And thank goodness that I taught him the things growing up from when he was very, very little because all of his friends, they they couldn't even tell you the difference between a screwdriver and a fill a Phillips head and a and a a flat head. They have no idea. But they also were or went to school and their mentality is as well, if I can pay for it, I'm just gonna pay for it. But that doesn't give you the education to to to diagnose anything. And hence, the reason even more why we're gonna need more tradesmen in there in in in in the field. You know? So You know one more thing I think it does, Ken? It teaches humility. Sure it does. When when the guy called you a bottom feeder when you were getting coffee, I've never had that term thrown at me. I've had a lot of other terms. What what that is to me is a lack of humility because I don't care if you're a multibillionaire. If you understand what it takes to build the building you're sitting in or understand the the valet required to run a valet car service or the real life stuff that that keeps America running. If you if you're able to comprehend that and have an appreciation for the plumber, the the drywall, the the electrical, whatever, it puts you in a whole different mentality as a human. Sure. It does. Humility is is is where it should my opinion, is where it should be rooted in. Yeah. I believe I believe that too. Same thing with hospitality industry. I think everybody out there goes to restaurants should have waited a table in their life, should have worked in a kitchen, should have done that. They would appreciate the job a little bit more, and it goes the same for the tradesman. You know? But I so, you know, going back to working with the students, I felt that how do how do I create a little bit more impact? How do I what and and my thought process is is I'm always, you know, I'm always churning. I'm always thinking. I'm trying to learn and grow. So what happens to these to to the students when I leave them? So I spend the day with them. I give the demonstrations to them. I show them how to fix a hole in a wall or tape a seam or hang a corner bead or whatever the case may be, whatever the demonstration is at that time. How do how do I stay in their head? So what I did was I launched a a YouTube series. We we just launched it a month ago, month month and month and a week. We launched it's designed for beginners. We launched it on YouTube. We launched it on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. What's the name of it? It's drywall with Kenny. I can send send you the links when when we're done so you have them. But my thought process on that was is, okay. I'm gonna do the first coat, the second coat, the third coat in succession. Right now, we're in the first coat. We launched like I said, we filmed for two hours. It did the whole process start to finish. We broke it up into shorts and reels, posted it on on the on other platforms and driving traffic back to YouTube. But my thought process for this was is when I leave these students, what am I leaving them with? I'm just saying goodbye, shaking their hand. Put the YouTube video together with the thumbnails so now they can go back and reference at their own time, their own speed. They have questions. They email me. They call me. Whatever the case may be with this dude. Now the instructor, hey, go to the YouTube video, go to the thumbnail, How to finish screws, how to tape joints, how to do inside corners, and it's all right there. So my point is is it was designed specifically for beginners. It's not designed for veterans who have been doing it thirty years. They got their own methods. They're you can't teach an old dog new tricks, beginners. In six weeks, we've had close to five million views, and we're almost at twenty five thousand followers. So that tells me that there's a need. There's alright. If we take a percent percentage of the beginners, they're out there. They wanna learn. There's people. So how do I how do we drive this? How do we drive this? And it's been successful, so we're gonna continue with it. We're gonna continue doing it. And, you know, hopefully, that we can get some awareness out there, like, hey. This is drywall. This is taping, but it's needed out there. Plaster repair work is needed out there perspective, from my trade. You know, I'm not I don't wanna make it seem like I'm eliminating any of the other trades. You know? All in a blanket, everything together, it's all needed. And I mean, this is where we can say the trades plural because every trade has to have what you're doing, what I'm doing. There's a gabillion things happening at a grassroots level. Hopefully, we're planting enough seed and watering well enough to where we're gonna start to see fruits of the labor. But by you doing the embracing the digital content, what a great way to connect. So I applaud you for doing that. Thank you. Yeah. It was it was a long time coming. And I can't wait to go watch it because like, look, man. My wife will tell you that she thinks I'm an alien, and we've been married for forty years now. But, like, one of my favorite shows is how it's made. You know? I can sit there and just geek out on a freaking conveyor belt. So I'm guilty. I love it. I love how it's made. See how, learning how to tape a joint. I really want to know how. I refuse to try it anymore. I'm just gonna call you, Ken, and get them done. I'll be more than happy to help, man. But Well, look. It's been wonderful. It really has been. People have been reaching out. Look, man. Haters are always gonna hate. No matter what you do, you're always gonna have the haters. But I can tell you this. The the the amount of positive comments and the actual people reaching out to saying thank you for helping me Yeah. Has been overwhelming to the point where we didn't know what what to expect. I had no idea jumping into the fire. The only you know, aside from working with the kids, I had a customer of mine just he says, you know, you do explain this so well. You should be teaching this on and I taught hundreds of apprentices how to tape. He says, you should put it I'm not a social media guy. You know? So I wound up pairing up with a young kid. He's in his twenties. He's a social media guy. I know how to tape. I can teach, and we put it all together. So it's been Oh, I love that. It's been wonderful so far. It really has been. I love it. Well, I I think that that to me is maximizing both. You're using what's available, the digital platforms. You're using your skills to connect with the youth and the and the beginners, as you said. So I I love it. I wanna come back to you in a little while. Maybe we do, you know, a six month checkup, see how it's going, stay in touch, and and let's just keep feeding the the beast because there's a there's plenty for all of us to do. And you and I are both working with with Doug to a degree on trades mentor. So we'll just keep the drum beating, a slow, nice rhythm, and build a ground swell. But really do appreciate you, Ken, for, a, taking time today, but more so in in having the the the wherewithal, for lack of a better word, to to want to expand this and and take your, you know, forty years worth of skill and let's pass it on to the next generation. So thank you for that. I listen. It's my pleasure. You gotta give back, man. If if the guys with wisdom and and skills and knowledge and integrity and and and honesty and all of that, if we don't provide and give back, what the hell are we gonna leave? Yeah. Well, we gotta do it instead of sitting around ******** about it because that's not getting anybody anywhere. So Everybody, it's easy to *****. It really is. Really is. Go check out draw a wall with Kenny, on all the social media platforms. Share it with people because somebody out there does not wanna be a plumber and does not wanna be an electrician, but may just have the skill and the knack for and I believe it's an art. I believe playing with mud is an art. And, I don't have that artistic ability, but, there are plenty of people that can learn a lot from from watching what you're doing and and teaching. So y'all y'all check Ken out. Well, Ken, as we as we come up on our time here, I just, really do appreciate you taking time with us. Enjoy what I've been doing, as far as following what you're doing online, and I appreciate that part. So keep keep it up. We'll we'll circle back and get back in touch and, have some fun. Make sure you send me your address where I can get you all the, all the, straight out of Crumpton swag where you can represent up there in upstate. So They they they love it straight out of Crumpton. I told my son. He's just like, wait. Straight out of Crumpton? I'm like, no. No. No. No. You're closed. It's Crumpton. Close. Well, folks, thank you all for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed learning something, about not only about the drywall world and and the, sheetrock finishing and plaster and all the artistic craftsmanship that goes into to understanding what's involved in that, and I have a high appreciation for it. But stay tuned. We're always gonna be bringing you some more content with with, straight down at Crompton. We're gonna get back in touch with Ken, see how that thing's going. And don't forget to check out greg crumpton dot com. You can buy the books on there. I got a couple of books for sale, and look forward to continuing the conversation. So for today, for Ken, for Greg, I hope you have a great night, and we will talk to you guys soon.