Field Engineer to Industry Leader: Coty Fournier’s 35-Year Journey in Construction

This is This is straight straight out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to another episode of straight out of Crumpton. I'm Greg Crumpton, your host for the next thirty, forty five minutes or so. We'll see how that goes. Mainly, we're gonna see how you like the conversation today because for a while now, I've been thinking about this lady and, reading her, reading her book, watching what she posts, and I thought I should I should call her and see if we could get her on the podcast. So, today, we have Cody Fournier, who is, this a senior consultant at Well Built Construction Consultants. Cody, welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much for having me, Greg. I appreciate it. Well, here we are, and, I feel like get to meet one of my heroes. You know? Aw. Read your book, and I I love what I love what you had in the book. And I I totally, you know, as a reader and a writer, it it kinda it just hits differently when you get to interview other writers. So That's right. Before we get going, give us a little bio. Tell us a little bit about you and and what you do, and and, you know, everybody wants to know why you do it. So what are what are some of your hot buttons? Okay. Well, let me try to let me try to summarize thirty five years into three or four minutes. You're you're a rookie. You. But I I'm one of those people who started in the construction industry by getting a degree in construction management, which happened for me at Michigan State University, and that was back in nineteen ninety. So I'm not kidding when I say I'm going on thirty five years or so in the industry. And I started as a field engineer with Turner Construction, which at the time was the world's largest general contractor. I was hired out of the Detroit office but quickly transferred to my first project in Turner Miami. So that's what led me to eventually live in South Florida and work in South Florida's construction community for twenty nine years. And I had kind of a typical first five or six years at Turner. Turner does a great job, at least back then, I can vouch for back then. They do a really good job of making everyone start in the field and get good field experience, which I'm very grateful for. So I was a field engineer, I was also a cost and scheduling engineer, I was also an assistant superintendent on several projects, spent a little bit of time in estimating, and then went back out in the field again as an assistant superintendent again. So most of my experience in those foundational formative years were on the superintendent track of very large commercial construction projects. And then I left Turner in my sixth year there only because I got a really great opportunity to go to the owner side of the equation, Greg. And so I left general contracting for a little while, went to the owner's side and became national manager of construction and administration for Blockbuster Video back when that was a big thing. I remember those days. Yeah. And they they used to be going up like McDonald's on every corner. They were we had quite the development team for a while there, and we put up about four hundred stores a year. So it was quite a big operation. So that was a good experience for me on the owner side, and then I went back into general contracting after that. But instead of going to work for another really big GC like Turner was, instead I was recruited to work for more of a regional size commercial general contractor based in South Florida that only does work in the state of Florida. And that time, I was asked to serve as Vice President of Business Development. And so that should be a little bit surprising perhaps as you're listening, all my experience was operations oriented, but this particular company felt that I had the potential to learn how to be good at business development and contribute to developing client relationships and bringing revenue into the company. And so I was very blessed to get a chance to learn from some people that were really, really good at it. And so I brought in my horizons and became more well rounded, and then started to have a resume that was not just operations oriented, but also good at the business development side of things. It also gave me a chance to serve in a senior leadership executive role and for the first time in my career. And while I worked there, I also eventually served on the board of directors of that company and also purchased three and a half percent of that company. So it was also my first kind of intrapreneurial experience and the first time that I was ever like kind of sitting as part of a ownership of a of a company. And then I did that for about seven or eight years. And then after that, I had my first entrepreneurial experience where I started a very small owner's rep consulting firm. So as you can see, was kind of back on the owner side of the equation again. So you can kind of notice some flip flopping for me. I have a purposely well rounded set of experiences. So I did that owner's rep consulting work for several years and it was completely focused on hospital construction. So the only work that we did was like expansions and renovations related to hospitals and other health care providers in the state of Florida. And then after that, I did the craziest thing, Greg, I started a dot com of all things related to the construction industry, kind of when I was on the bleeding edge of construction technology. Lots of people are dipping their toe and investing tons of money into construction technology nowadays, but trust me, fifteen years ago when I did risky and very much on the bleeding edge, but I managed to create a dot com, it was called jobsite123 dot com, and it was meant to help construction companies to be able to market their qualifications online. Way before anyone knew how to do that or was doing that on a regular basis. And it was eventually acquired by thebluebook dot com, which was then acquired by Dodge Construction Network. So it was kind of an exciting thing to be able to see a successful acquisition and successful end to what was definitely a very risky venture at the time. And since then, since selling that company and finishing my role there, I have been consulting in the construction industry in various capacities for several years now. And that eventually led to me joining the well built construction consulting team, which is a small, very rapidly growing construction consulting team out of Baltimore and all of our clients are contractors, that's all we do. So about fifty percent of our clients are general contractors and fifty percent of our clients are trade contractors of some kind. Helping them to grow their companies, either grow the top line of their companies, if they're literally trying to grow in revenue and size, or conversely, if they're trying to simply grow the bottom line of their company and looking for operational efficiencies and ways to pick up a few points on gross profit or net profit, then we step in and do some diagnostics of things that can be improved, and then we help them execute on those improvements. And so it's been a great it's been a great choice to join the team, and I'm really proud of the things that this small but very dedicated team to the construction industry really doing some exciting things to help other companies. Well, I guess having said all that, we can't call you an underachiever. No. Okay. I'm a little bit of one of those type a overachieving. That's quite Workaholics. That's quite a story. And I I really do appreciate the fact a couple of things about it going to the different sides of the Mhmm. Industry. And, you know, to Turner's credit, and and I don't know if they do this any longer either, but I I have often been a proponent of any engineer should spend time in the field. I don't care what field. If you're aeronautical, if you're nuclear, if you're civil Right. You should have work boots, and you should know how to use them at least for a year as part of your education. Because A year, if not five, that would be I mean, ideally. Yeah. But, realistically, you know Yes. And I think back on on my younger days when I worked for a big mechanical in the Atlanta area. Uh-huh. My first exposure to coops co op students. Yep. And those coops that that I remember, and I still know some of them now because they stuck with it and or our company, I I wanna say made better engineers because they actually knew what they were designing, what they were drawing, having the visualization skills to before three d modeling. Correct. To go three d with your eyeball Right. Figure out how to go back and draw it in two d Right. So that it could go in four d life. Exactly. I think that was a heck of a skill in the those times in the field, I I just think are really invaluable to education of any sorts. Oh, I couldn't agree more. And in the world of construction management, which is, of course, the world I'm speaking of, what you just said can just not be said enough. It's I feel super strong that anyone that's coming into the construction management industry, whether you've come into it because you have a degree in engineering like you were just referring to. For example, the construction management industry hires people that have civil engineering degrees, mechanical engineering degrees, electrical engineering degrees, etcetera. Or it hires people that have construction management degrees like I did. Either way, just, there's no such thing, in my opinion there's just no such thing as having too much field experience. So if you can start your career in that direction, even if you decide it's not for you and you don't wanna stay out in the field and you would end up rather doing something else inside the industry. Whatever that other thing is that you'd rather do, you'll be better at it. Absolutely. For having started in the field. So I always tell everybody if somehow I were to ever be elected, like, this is just a silly comment, but if somehow I were ever elected, like, president of the construction industry, like, as if that was a thing, it's like I would use, like, my executive orders to say, alright. Everyone pretty much everyone needs to start in the field. I've got a Sharpie right here for you. Of course, there would be, you know, reasonable exceptions to that decree from time to time. But just again, tongue in cheek, in principle, it's just a really, really, really good idea. And where that comes from is because as I've aged and, you know, and and become more of that veteran status in the industry, Here's one thing that I can tell you for sure. I interact with hundreds of construction leaders across the country. And here's one thing I have never heard anyone say. I have never heard any successful construction executive ever say I spent too much time in the field. Yeah. You you you absolutely will never hear that. And so that's all you really need to know that it's a super good idea. It really is. You know, follow-up to that would be going from the field side into business development. Sure. You said that the company saw potential in you. I think when when you have that kind of practical field based experience, you can sell a whole lot easier because you're not selling. You're simply showing how to solve problems. Yeah. You're simply educating more so than selling. Mhmm. They're buying. You're not even having to sell. That's correct. I I have made a career doing that. I'm not a good salesperson at all, but I have received a lot of purchase orders in my life because I came up with an idea that made sense for them That's right. Either either then or sometime in the future, and they called back and said, you remember you said blank? We're ready. And I just find that educational based selling is so obviously a longer cycle. Correct. A longer sales cycle for sure. It it is. But the quality of sale and the the repeat of that sale in those relationships tends to be so sticky. Agreed. And, you know, it it's just I don't know. It's like you you you don't have to sell yourself because you know what you're doing. They don't know what they're doing a lot, and they're looking to you for that answer. Yep. Rather than this, you know, glossy, you know, beautiful headshot. Sit there and sketch it with them and say, here here's what we can do. And they're like, oh, well, okay. I can go do that. Well, you're reminding me of one of the most important things that my old bosses, taught me when I was first learning business development from a general contractor's point of view was, you know, talk less, listen more, and solve problems. That's it. Just listen and solve the problem. You if you can do those two things, you're very you're very likely to get more sales than you lose. Right? But like you were saying, the point is really not to be a salesperson, right? The important point is to listen, understand what their problems are, provide real solutions to their problems, and help to educate them why choosing you is a good idea. Yeah. If you if you can do that, right, you'll you'll make a few sales. Remarkable. It's like the secret sauce. Be quiet. That's right. And, and again, back to the original point you were saying about in the importance of field experience. Again, no matter what you do in your career in the construction industry, whether you end up being a world class estimator, a world class project manager, right, a world class business development manager, owner of your own construction company someday, no matter what you end up doing, you'll do it better if you start in the field and and get a few years get a few projects, few few years under your belt. So sounds like we're both preaching to that choir. I I call that scar tissue. Yes, sir. Alright. So tell me about you you said something of what WellBuilt is doing for half of their or or a a portion of their customer base, and that is to not necessarily grow the top line, but to become more profitable. Yep. Mhmm. So I I have a lot of thoughts about this because our company the company I work for is big now. We have eight thousand people in a hundred and twenty locations. Oh my goodness. Yes. That's I you know, I mean, it's not big compared to a Kojima or somebody like that, but it's big for a mechanical service company. I would say so. Yes. And when I go around to our different companies and I see different levels of efficiency and different levels of efficacy, I always think about, man, I I wish that I could help them see that this amount of unbillable time is unacceptable in real life. But to them, they think it's normal. But it's really not normal if you look across the the platform. What are some of the things that you find that people need help with efficiency wise? What are some of the common denominators that, I mean, it's people in general, but in this case, it's people that are running construction companies. What are some of those top things that really get in the way of people being more successful than they could? Yeah. Particularly, I guess, in the spirit of manpower and efficiency that you were just kind of framing that question. That's a big that's a big thing that comes up for sure in our consulting work. And remember how I was saying that fifty percent of our clients are general contractors and fifty percent of our clients are trade contractors. So your question about like manpower and efficiency, of course, will often apply more so to our clients who are trade contractors, Because they just have a lot more labor. They're carrying a lot more labor on their books than a general contractor of course would typically. So if we switch gears and talk about trade contractors for a second, then what we're doing for them is exactly like what you hinted to. We're kind of like coming into these companies or lifting the hood if you will, looking underneath the hood and trying to do a discovery process across that organization's all of their departmental functions, talking with everyone in the company from all kinds of varying points of view to determine what are some of the things that we do extremely well, what are some of the things we do that could be improved. Mhmm. And then we are coming up with recommendations, findings and recommendations to help that company to grow their bottom line if that's what the goal is. Like you said, some companies have a goal to grow their top line. Some companies have a goal to grow their bottom line. Some companies have goals to grow both. But in with respect to growing the bottom line, what you're one of the things that we can do is definitely help these companies to benchmark against other best practices so that they can see. Like a lot of times, as you well know, it's really, really easy to be drunk on your own Kool Aid or just hyper focused on the way your company does things. It can be really, really helpful. It's one of the things that working with a consulting firm like Well Built can do for you, is it just helps to bring in new fresh eyes that have the ability to compare it against best practices of other companies that are similar to yours and also help significantly improve communications within the company so that manpower can be managed better. A lot of you'd be surprised how much manpower efficiency can be improved simply by having a better handle on who is doing what and where everyone is, you know, and being able being able to report when somebody has three extra hours available this day, who else can pick them up? Like, all of that kind of thing. It's sounds very, very back to basics, but sometimes you'd be surprised how much fixing those basic things, doing a bunch of very, very, very basic things can add a point or two to the bottom line at the end of the year. So that's our job is to come in and look for those low hanging fruit things that might just be minor tweaks that can be made or figuring out if there's a particular group or a particular department within the company that's doing very well. You can then go in and investigate and figure out what are they doing? Why is this particular group outperforming the rest of the company? Figure out what those best practices are and then replicate and clone them. Yeah. I I mean, I think that stacking nickels is a good way to make dollars. Stacking nickels? Yeah. I love that phrase. Because, you know, you you got somebody who finishes up with six and a half hours. They're gonna charge you eight hours. Correct. What could what would that hour and a half do? Exactly. You know, that that kind of thinking. And I I think that way because as a business owner, you know, I bootstrapped most of the time. Yeah. Just because I wasn't overly well funded, we tried to give a lot back to the company, you know, trying to keep the company being a a destination employer. So we put a lot back into the company. So we were hyper focused on maximizing our efficiency, and and we did a good job, which now so that the company I work for now bought my old company. I see. And, you know Congratulations on that. That's wonderful. But you see all kinds of different, you know, ways to do it. And there's a bunch of ways to do it well. And then there's other areas you're like, dang. I wish I could help that because Yes. Yes. You you could go from here to here, and I people, I just expanded my fingers a little bit with just a little bit of forethought. A little bit let's just plan tomorrow a little bit better. Let's Yes. And in the morning, a little bit better. You said. And then if you pick up a nickel, then you stack them. Right? Absolutely. A lot of times people are looking for dollars, but the dollars are found by stacking twenty nickels together. Does the company that you work that you work for do service work only or new construction also? It's it's eighty five percent of our revenue is service maintenance, repair, and replace. Excellent. Very little newer. We're mostly end user driven That's I like better. You know, my Which, by the way, is one of the things that often comes up in the consulting world that we do where most of our contractors' clients are new construction, is their primary business. But some of them also have a service division. And when they don't, if they are a company, say for example, like Mechanical, like yourself, you know, if they don't have a service division, that's one of the things that we are often help trying to help them to consider because I do not have to tell you that That's how you grow the bottom line. Those margins are higher, yes. Not only are the margins higher, I don't have to tell you this. I'm preaching to the choir to you, but for your listeners. It not only are the margins higher, but for the most part, on average, the work is less risky Yeah. Overall to the company. Yes. And, you know, that so that that brings up a good point. I spend a lot of time recruiting, talking with young people about Mhmm. Getting into the trades. Yes. I'm an air conditioning guy, but I don't care what trade I can help somebody get into. It's what they either like or have a passion for or or just naturally gifted at. Right. Mhmm. And safety does come up a lot with today's Gen Z are more mindful of a safe working environment than my group, my my cohort of apprentices were. We hell, we didn't know any better. Yes. We were we were, you know, pedal to the metal foot or or get out of the way. And, Cody, this is so stupid. I remembered last night. I was watching a show on Discovery called how did they build that or something. Oh, I know what you're talking about. I know what that show is. And they showed a crane, and they showed an old guy riding a headache ball off the top of the building to the floor. Have you ever seen people do that? Well, no. Unfortunately, I have not seen anyone do that. I did that. Oh, god. Sorry. One time. And thought it was fun perhaps even. But nobody thought anything about it. I mean, if you need you to get from the roof to the parking lot in a hurry That was the fastest way to do it. And now, I mean, you would go to jail for even that thought. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm I'm curious. Do you find when you're working with trades contractors or generals, is the safety mentality as strong as it looks like it is on the job trailer decals or or posters once you get beyond the trailer onto the job site. Mhmm. Is it real? I I personally am seeing an increased sincerity with it. I'm I'm personally were. I didn't I didn't know what word to use. Yeah. I've I I'm I'm using sincerity. It's the first word that came to my mind. If I think of a better one, I'll swap it out. But I think, you know, like a dead a sincere dedication to it, a sincere caring about it, I think, increasing. Because you and I both know for, you know, many, many years, the safety issues have always been there. It's always been a requirement. Yeah. Right? It's always been part of the job. Right? Both at the general contractor level and at the contractor level, everyone is is and always has been responsible for job site safety. But I think there is an increasing sincerity Yeah. Towards it. And I I think part of that is coming from and what is hopefully also an increase in sincerity of caring about the well-being of trade workers. Just their well-being in general. Right? From their physical safety to their mental health to their quality of life, right? I'd like to believe, or at least I'm certainly hearing more talk, more discussion, more care coming around this subject. So I think, again, lack of a better word, I think the level of sincere appreciation for it is growing. And so hopefully that will help everyone's creativity to kick in in order to come up with better and better and better ways to stay on top of and manage safety practices and safety policies and safety procedures on a job site without them just becoming like a rote trope. You know what I mean? Where everybody's just going to work and having a safety toolbox talk and saying the same old shit over and over and nobody's really listening. But everybody's doing it because they have to check the box and say that they did. Right? So the idea here, I think, is with this growing sincerity and interest in the general well-being and respect for trade workers, which I like to believe is slowly but surely increasing every year, Again, my hope is that that will include looking out for their physical safety on the job site and finding creative ways to drive home the importance of it. I'm reminded, as you asked the question, I'm reminded of something that I came up with a few years ago that I'd love to share with you and your listeners since it's on the topic of safety. Is one of the ideas that I came up with that I started to share with our clients at Well Built Consulting is the idea that when you are managing safety with your crews, one of the most important things you can do is take advantage of the two biggest ways, the two most effective ways of teaching anybody anything. They tend to be story oriented, meaning stories tend to be the best way to share important point or make something be remembered. And then also, hate to say it, but it's true, fear. Fear is a very good way to teach people things. People tend to remember things more that scare them than things that don't. So if you combine stories with fear as two good ways of teaching and making sure that things are are remembered, I kind of came up with this idea called find three ghosts and let them haunt you. And this is a program, like a safety oriented program that I came up with where I encourage, you know, foremen and superintendents and whatnot on job sites when they're having safety talks with their teams to say, to encourage everyone to share their own ghost stories of what is the worst thing you've ever seen. Literally, like the worst shit you've ever seen with your own eyes, which for many construction workers is unfortunately something they have seen at work. Yep. And so the idea here being if you tell those stories, number one, people will tend to remember them. If you tell us a horrific story, you know, somebody died, somebody was horribly injured, somebody was horribly maimed, and you're telling the story because you saw it with your own eyes, or your best friend saw it with their own eyes and they told you in so much detail that you can now see it in your head like a documentary. Yeah. That you want to tell those stories because young people need to hear them. Young and then whatever scary story they hear, they are very likely to not repeat that behavior. Right. Whatever that behavior was that led to that horrible thing. You know, a friend of mine is his name is Sean George, and Sean got injured in a natural gas explosion on a job site back in the late seventies. Okay. He had third degree burns on, like, ninety five percent of his body. Oh god. So I had brought Sean to our safety summit where we bring all of our safety leaders together and let Sean tell the story. Let him tell his story? Yep. And I love the man because he he's he's special. He's been through hell, literally. Right. But when we get through with that session and I've done it, I think, twice in the last five years because we get new companies that we're acquiring. Mhmm. Mhmm. The people that call me the next week and say, dude, that was so impactful that I will never forget that. You'll it's better than any it's better than any talk you could have about safety policies. Yeah. Right? Because if you let somebody tell their story in first person, or you let somebody tell a story that they witnessed happened to somebody else, right, meaning you still saw it with your own eyeballs Yeah. If you ask for those stories, you will get them. You will mine those stories, right, from everybody's memory banks. And if you share those stories, number one, it will scare the shit out of somebody else enough to make them watch their behavior. And number two, you will honor the people who have been maimed or killed by telling their stories because all of us who have worked in construction long enough, we will all tell we would all tell everyone that God forbid I ever died or remained in a construction accident. I would want people to know what happened in order to try to prevent some it happening to somebody else. Make it better. Yeah. Yes. And also people that witness horribly traumatic things, they need to talk about those stories too because that's otherwise, they're walking around carrying those horrible stories and horrible memories, especially if they feel guilty at all about about any contribution to the accident at all. They need to talk about it. Right? That's how you we all know that mental health issues in the construction industry are terrible. And part of how you work on that is to encourage people to talk about their trauma. You just have to give people the opportunity to talk about it. And, sometimes you have to encourage them, sometimes you have to pull it out of them. But it's a really good idea to try to encourage people to talk about the worst things they've ever seen in their life. And if you and if you do it right, it will scare the shit out of enough other people that they will pay attention. And that is more effective than sitting out and reading a list of safety procedures. Well, the the reason I bring that up is, you know, when when you're recruiting, when you got your recruiter's hat on and you're talking to young folks about it, they've heard some of these horror stories. So trying to and I love the word you came up with, sincerity towards safety programs. Mhmm. So freaking perfect. I've I've never thought of it in that way, and I've looked for a word that describes Well, use it. You can steal it. It's gone. Consider it gone. But that's really good because I want to be able to tell people, yes. It can be dangerous. You've gotta keep your head right and keep your head in the game. Actually I mean, we spend a tremendous amount of money on safety making sure that our I believe you. People will get home every day I believe you. In one piece. And we had an incident two weeks ago where we had a a guy fall on a job site, did not kill him. And the safety manager for that program was visibly disturbed Choke up. Yeah. Mhmm. For not just an hour or two. Like Right. It bothered him that somebody got hurt on one of his sites. Yeah. And, you know, that to me is sincerity coming through. So That's right. I tell people all the time. In fact, I know you mentioned that you had read my book, which thank you for doing that. But one the bought it too in my own mind. Oh, thank you. That means I got, like, a whole four dollars and seventy eight cents from you. Thank you very much. But what I was gonna tell you is I'm or I should say I remind you, maybe this will come back to you in your head. But in chapter two of my book is called Trailer Ain't the Field, which is where I talk about the importance of of field super field superintendent's experience like we were already chatting about. But one of the paragraphs inside that chapter, I talk about safety a little bit. And what I mentioned in there is that what people need to realize is when you are responsible for a crew and somebody gets hurt Yep. It might be directly your fault. It might only be indirectly your fault. But either way, it will change you. It will change you. And that and I think that's kind of reminiscent of what you just said about the safety director in your company. Doesn't change you, you need to go do something else. Thank you. Thank you for finishing my thought. If it doesn't change you, your level of sincerity is not high enough. Your your EQ score is in the dirt. Yes. Because it should shake you to your core. Alright. So I want us to to kinda drift a little bit to the future. Okay. What's coming up for the construction world from your consulted vantage point of what what's new? What's coming? You know, we hear AI, everything, robots, everything. What does it look like from your from your lens? What do you what do you see coming in the next five years that it's going to be impactful to the construction industry? Yeah. I think I think one of the things that kind of, you know, keeps me up at night both in a in a positive way and in a concerned way is thinking that construction companies that get what I'm about to say right are the ones that I think are gonna win. So this thing that I think is so incredibly important is somehow finding and striking the right balance between the groups of people in the company who have a capacity and a desire and a tendency towards finding towards say like project management, technology management tool, AI tools, any kind of fancy tech tools, any kind of things that can be used to improve the administration management of a project, the financial management of the project, the paperwork and flow, all of the efficiencies on that end, by taking all those people who have an interest and a passion for doing those things, and somehow balancing that with equal importance and appreciation for the people who actually do the work. The actual construction trade workers who are actually driving work in place. Right? From the superintendents and foremen and apprenticeship journeymen, laborers, everybody all on down, that whole side of things. The companies who somehow strike a balance and an appreciation between those two relatively disparate groups of people and somehow find a way to bridge the gap between those two groups of people and their natural strengths, their natural knowledge bases, their natural tendencies. Those people are gonna be the ones who win because you need both sides. You really need both sides of that equation, and it's really, really all too easy in the construction industry. I'm sure you've seen this with your own eyes. It's all too easy in the construction industry for for a divide to naturally grow between the office and the field or between the people who are generally on the administrative paperwork side of things and those who are generally on the do the actual work side. Yep. Awesome. And that is an old right? That's an old paradigm that everyone is all too familiar with. Yep. But there are some special groups out there that I think that are really starting to realize that if you don't figure out how to bridge that gap, it's really, really, really going to become ever more problematic, I think. Because the groups of people that are onto the project management side and the use of tools to run administration and finances, and now with the advent of AI making everything more interesting, more fast, more efficient, those people are just gonna keep running off in that direction and it's just incredibly, incredibly, incredibly important that that group maintains respect and admiration to bring along the field. So that both keeps me up at night for good and bad reasons. Number one, it's exciting for the companies who do figure that out, right? Who figure out how to have that proper balance. And then it does keep me up at night in a negative way for the companies that are struggling to figure out how to bridge those two things. Or for those companies who are struggling to figure out how to make sure that you, again, back to the sincerity we were talking about when we were talking about safety, there just absolutely one hundred percent has to be a focus on the health and well-being and quality of life for the trade contractors. You absolutely have to do it. The people who actually build, who actually do these things. Cause that is the only thing contractors get paid for. Right. And everyone else, it's all too easy to lose sight of that if you're not careful. But the only thing, right, whether it's your company or any of the other thousands and thousands and thousands of contractors that are out there, I don't care whether they're service work oriented like yours is, or new construction oriented, or a combination of both, every contractor out there, at the end of the day, the only thing they get paid for is the actual work in place in the field. So it's not that everyone else in the company is not important. Of course, everyone in the company is important. All positions are important or you wouldn't have them, Right? But when it comes to what do we actually get paid for, right, what we get paid for is that work in place that happens in the field. Yep. And so it's just kinda cannot be stressed enough. And I think the companies that are slowly but surely figuring out that we have to protect these people, respect and admire them for the contributions that they're making, and give them a good quality of life because that is what is literally paying the bills. So to summarize that, HI meets AI, human Here you go. Humans always be be important. Take care of people with big, ugly, scarred hands because these are the people who actually get stuff done, and everybody is overhead in support of those people. Everyone else is in support in some way. And down. Yes. You're supporting the ten digits out there getting things accomplished. That is exactly right. And by the way, those big, strong, scarred hands are the most beautiful hands in the world. I tell people that all the time. In fact, I have a LinkedIn post in case anybody that's listening ever wants to go look at it. You can go on to my profile on LinkedIn and you'll see that every year on Father's Day, I post a, poem that I wrote that's called Dear Children of Construction Workers. And it's about trying to help the children who have fathers who are construction workers. It could be a mother too. Although you and I know it's more likely to be a father, but it could be a mother. The three and a half percent chance. That's right. But if you allow me to speak stereotypically for a second, with children of fathers who are construction workers, I try to get that as children to see your dad, he has magic hands. They're like magic hands. The things that construction workers can do with their hands, it's like magic. It's really, really an amazing thing, right, when you when you when you see what construction workers can do, whether it's fix the AC unit, right, in your office building Yeah. Or put together a chandelier state building. Or put together a chandelier in the garage last night your wife brought home. That's right. It could be as simple as that, but your hands can do it. And to somebody who can't do it, And since most people cannot do it, what do most people call things they can't do? They call them magic. Yeah. So it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing, and those kinds of hands are very, very valuable to the world. So that's something that I hope everyone knows. And to everyone who's listening to your podcast who's a parent, if you have a child and they're not sure what they wanna do with their life, if they don't have a passion or a calling in some specific direction, You should let them know that considering going to work in the trades is a very, very, very noble profession, not to mention a lucrative one. Debt free in so many cases, debt free Yes. Big money, security, all those things that come with a good vibe. Yes. And I tell people all the time, if you love the United States of America, if you have pride in America, if you want to help America, tell your kids pick up a tool and build it. Thank you. Old America. It's the new national security threat if we don't. Yes, sir. And also, you will be in the company of wonderful people when you do it, who are, by the way, also hilarious. You wanna will work very hard in the construction industry. I don't think either one of us would lie and say that that were not true. You will work very, very hard, but you will be around some of the most wonderful people who would give the shirt off their back to you. And really, really fun, interesting, hilarious people. And patriots. Yes. So if you wanna help our country, pick up a tool and build it. I tell people that all the time. Amen. Amen. Well, folks, I I just looked at the clock. I can't believe what time it is, but I'm trying to be respectful of this lady's time because she is doing some incredible stuff. And one of those things is telling us a really good story today about her life and her career and and what she's doing. And, Cody, thank you so much for taking us down that road. You know, we've talked before we hit record about what we're gonna talk about, and we said it with Flo, and by golly, it did. They sure did. You were right. It sure did. You so much for taking time with us. And, how can folks keep up with you, and where can they buy that book? Oh, well, you can find my book, which is called Inside Construction's MVPs, Most Valuable Players. Inside Construction MVPs. You can find that on Amazon. And, also, you're welcome to follow me on LinkedIn. I do my best to put some interesting content out there on LinkedIn. I also do my best to comment on a lot of other influencers' posts on LinkedIn. So, again, my name is Cody, c o t y, and my last name is Fornier, which is f like Frank, o u r n I e r. And I'm pretty sure I'm the only Cody Fornier in LinkedIn. So you can find me and connect me with a hard search, should you? Well, my friend, I appreciate you taking time with us. Folks, I appreciate y'all sticking around and and hearing this because I've had a darn ball. Now you for what you're doing to help other people in the trades. I really appreciate it. Well, I love it. This is what I'm built to do at this point in my life. I wanna do more. I would like to do more right now, but I actually have to do some work before you hit the pit. Back to the grind. So I gotta get back to the grind and pay the bills. But, folks, check it out. You know where to go. Greg crumpkin dot com. You can find everything there. You can find straight out of crumpkin, Apple, Spotify, all the usual places. And, since we plugged her book, I'm plugging my book, deep knowledge. You can also find that at Barnes and Noble. A couple of local retail shops are carrying it as well as Amazon. So, until next time, folks. Stay safe and be well and take care of yourself and take care of others. Talk to you soon. Thank you, Greg.