Great Leaders Share Knowledge, Build Trust, and Empower Future Talent

Is Straight Out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Straight Out of Crumpton. I am Greg Crumpton, your HVAC nerd of the hour. And glad to be coming to you today. I have a special guest with us, a fellow HVAC nerd. I met this fellow, digitally met this fellow. I haven't met him in person yet, but look forward to doing so soon, through a mutual friend. And it's actually one our guest coworkers introduced me to him and he said, Hey, you got to meet this guy. I think you'll like him. So several months ago, we started working on a date that worked and we finally landed on a date that worked. So I want to welcome Travis Schopp to the show today. Travis, welcome my friend. How you doing Greg? Man, it's good. Just busy, heading into a really, for me, a great time of the year. I love the spring and the early summer. It's just fun. Everything's kind of rejuvenated. We're probably a little bit ahead of you weather wise. But it's just a gorgeous time of year. So I'm happy to be in it. How about you? What's going on up in the pit? It's not quite coil cleaning season, but it's getting right around the corner for us. Yeah, it's getting nice. I'm I'm a big once archery season's done and hunting season's over. I'm not a fan of the winter, so I'm a big fan of the warm weather and I, I put a garden in every year so I'm getting ready, getting excited to get that in. And, just, you know, as far as work wise getting ready for the, the busy season with the, with the cooling season coming around the corner. Well, Travis, before we jump in too deep, I always like to start us off with a little bit of who are you and what do you do conversation. Absolutely. So my name is Travis Schalp, like you said. I live on the outskirts of Imperial in an area called McDonald right by the Pittsburgh airport. So I say the outskirts of Pittsburgh. I grew up in Imperial, live in McDonald now with my family, my wife, Carrie, three kids, my oldest daughter Jolene, my son Weston, and our little baby Miranda. She's known as Rooster, that's what she goes by. I won't ask why yet, but I might get through today. Yeah, live on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, like I said, a little piece of property, my wife and I built a house about three years ago. And as far as career wise, he grew up in a really blue collar town. My father was a welder by trade and became went to Vietnam and then became part after he got out of there after service became part of the post office union. So he was a postman and retired machine mechanic for the post office. The brother was a teamster. I had another brother who was a bricklayer, and my sister was the only one to go to college. So pretty much the trades were were in my future. I decided to go to eight into HVAC. At a young age, I was about sixteen and was working with a close friend of the family. He was like a older brother, George Franshak. He did Franschak. He ran Franschak Heating and Cooling. It was just him. He's a one man show. He figured, hey, come work for me and find out if this is the trade you want to get into, and then you can decide to go to school from there. So I did that. Absolutely loved it. It was a little overwhelming because I, you know, he set the bar really high. He could he was pretty much one of those guys that did everything. Real blue blue collar guy, didn't pay anybody to do anything for him. But that's what I strive to be. You know, I wanted to be like that and learn the trade. So did Votech, did the construction cluster, so I did masonry, carpentry, electrical and HVAC, decided to do HVAC. And my dad said, you know, you always have a job because you need heat in the in the winter. People need cooling in the summer. So did that. Worked residential for a while, then I went to Triangle Tech out of high school in two thousand and four. And then from Triangle Tech, I learned about the steamfitters. Got into the steamfitters local four forty nine here in Pittsburgh. Actually, let me back up a little bit. So before that, I actually got a job with Ruthroth, the company I'm with now, back in two thousand and five in the office driving for a parts truck. And then that went from, I drove a parts truck and then I was given purchase orders and helping order parts like belts and filters, contactors, relays, things like that for the guys, and giving purchase orders to the guys in the field. That turned into doing small project management or small project sales and then project management. And then through a very tragic situation, my boss actually died in a car accident. I a step into his role to fill in as parts manager. So then I started doing small more more of a project sales project manager role there and then decided, hey, I don't want to go any further with this until I get in the field. I wanted to learn the trade wanted to learn the industry on the commercial end because that's what Rutheruff is. They're all commercial. We don't do, much residential at all. A tragic event happened and we lost the my boss at the time. We lost him in a car accident. So, you know, I I stepped into that role to fill in, and then I did that for about six years. At that time, I realized that I had a good future with Ruth Roth in the office, but I really wanted to learn the trade. I wanted to learn the commercial aspects of this industry. I didn't really know it. I like I said, I had a you know, I knew the refrigeration cycle. I knew residential aspects of it, but I wanted to learn the commercial side of it, and I didn't have a position to get in the field here. So, I made a phone call to a friend who worked at a boiler company, nonunion, and they happened to be looking. So I jumped ship and went to work for him, nonunion, for about six months or so, and it was it was tough. I was thrown to the wolves. You know? It was a good company. I'm not gonna say anything bad. They're no longer in business, but, it was it was good. It was a good experience, but it was tough. So a buddy of mine who we both know, gave me a call. He asked me how it was going. Let's call him out by name. So I'll, I nicknamed him TNT. And, I was just picking on him today, he wants to know what that means. And I would call him TNT for the national treasure. And and you and you gave him that name. So Butch d is our mutual friend, and and Butch has been on the program before. Some of y'all old timers may remember him. So good shout out to Butch. So so Butch, I made, I met him when I started at Ruth Roth. And, you know, what a great guy. I mean, there's this there's not enough that can be said about him. So so he called me to check on me, see how things were going. Just so happened I wasn't, you know, thrilled with what I was doing. And, you know, through conversations with him, I there was an opportunity for me to see if I could start a pre apprenticeship with the union, the four four nine. That is when I went down and and spoke with some guys there, at the union, and the opportunity was at a company called Siemens, which is in Robinson here right outside of Pittsburgh. So I got on board with them as a, what they'll call a production worker. At that time, it was a pre apprentice. So I got on with them as a pre apprentice, went through the permit, time, and then got on as an apprentice, went through my apprenticeship, five years apprenticeship. And then I became a journeyman. I was a journeyman for, I believe, about three years. And the guy who was the shop steward left the company, really great guy, went to pursue another opportunity, and I was voted in shop steward at that point. So did that for a little bit. That was great. Shortly after, I got the opportunity to be the service manager, or team leader, they called it. So I did that. Did that for about a year and a half, and that's when I had a opportunity, which I would have never probably thought I would do ten years ago, to get into sales. Service sales for maintenance contracts and projects. So that's when I, you know, that's when the venture for me started in sales with the company called Siemens, on the HVAC end. So then I did that. One thing I will back up that was really interesting with Siemens was I had a little bit of a niche with medical chillers. We can talk about that a little bit further, but just to Or the MRIs and the magnets? MRIs, yeah. MRIs, CTs, and linear accelerators. I love that work. Yeah. So, we'll go back to that. But, just to go back to the timeline. So, I got into sales with Siemens, and then, I did that for about two years. And then, my opportunity to come back to Rutheroth with Butchie over here, presented itself and some other people, Joe Melanick and a lot of other guys who were still working here from fifteen years before that, prior to that, were still here. So I jumped on the opportunity. Came over here, and I've been here for about a year. Just about just a little over a year as service sales manager. It goes by in a hurry, doesn't it? It's unbelievable. So it's and I see it I see it now, on my kids' faces. You know? Before, it was when it was just me, it was a little different. Time was flying by. I didn't really see it as much. But now I see you know, I look at my kids, and my daughter's already eight years old. It's it's unbelievable. But I'm very I'm very thankful for everything that I've done in this trade. You know, I've I've worked hard, but a lot of those relationships along the way that I didn't say talk about, there was there was a lot of relationships, a lot of mentors, a lot of journeymen, foremen, service managers, sales managers, branch managers, all those guys, all those men and women that were mentors to me that I owe a lot of gratitude for along Well, you you know, Travis, you hear a lot of people talking about they're self made and all this crap. That's all BS to me. Nobody's self made. Everybody has had, whether it be tangible or just a vision of who they wanted to emulate or have a style similar to, you don't do this crap by yourself. It takes vision, it takes working with people, and then it takes the other people like Butch, you know, reaching out and checking on you and just kind of, you know, it's just nurturing really. I mean, for lack of a better word, different phases of nurturing. I always crack up when I hear these people talk about self made and all that. I'm like, Dude, you have no idea. Know, A, I don't know what your religious beliefs are, but you had a hand in that just to get started. I mean, you could go on forever, but I'll always have an appreciation for folks like you who know that they've been really blessed to be able to be around people who have motivated them, have taught them what to do. And in some cases, I was laughing this morning because I was listening to a podcast that I was on as a guest. And I said, my dad taught me a lot of stuff and especially some stuff not to do. And I kind of got a reenergized laugh out of that experience of thinking through that moment with him, those moments with him. But there's always people out there. What would be one quick nugget or something that somebody taught you, that has kind of stayed with you? Do you have like something to help form your mantra that you march to every day? Hundred percent. There's a lot, but I would say the the biggest one that's been with me the longest is from my dad. He always said, just take when he was going through welding school, he took one thing from every teacher that he had. And so I took that and adapted that to my teachers, as well as my journeyman, every manager I had, every even apprentice that, you know, that I worked with. You learn something from everybody, whether it's the right or the wrong thing to do. I've I've I've really, tried to compile, you know, like I said, you take something from everybody. And one of the things that I heard this saying, and I just absolutely love it, is to send the elevator back down. Because once you get to the top floor of your career or as you're going up in your career, send the elevator back down to the next guy. You know, I've worked I think we've all worked with those guys who hide the secrets close to their chest. They don't wanna let the information out because they just wanna keep it for themselves. But I loved those guys that, you know, they they wanted to bring you up because they bring everybody up. Well, thank goodness a lot of those guys are retiring where we could have more, knowledge sharing going on instead of knowledge hoarding going on. But, yeah, you're so right. You know, but kind of like what I was referring to, you don't get there by yourself. Know, somebody taught you a better way to braze a piece of pipe. Somebody taught you a better way to understand electricity, whatever it was. And I try to use this when I host a class or if somebody I know is going to a class. Just walk away with one nugget. If you're going for three days, really coalesce around one or two nuggets that you can take home with you and put to work. Because that's how we get better. We compound each other's knowledge. So if I've learned something or you've learned something and you share it with me, it may not fit my exact problem or situation. But if I can take eighty eight percent of Travis's story and apply it to my story and then fill in the twelve percent with what's germane to that situation, why in the world do I need to learn the other eighty eight percent the hard way? Use what we're learning and compound that as we go. And then I get to share that, and maybe they only get seventy three percent out of my story or my learning opportunity for them. But it's still cascading. I just that's what the trade's built on. Is tribal knowledge, customer tribal knowledge, factual tribal knowledge from, you know, maybe it's a chiller that responds a certain way. When you hear that, you know that that's an oil pump on a 19DK that failed because it's the only thing in the world that sounds like that. But all indications are the oil pump's working, But it's going to fail. If you know that sound and can point that out before failure, it gives you a head start on the problem. And that's just one little example. It's the same way with people, whatever. There's these things that you can share, this spare people learning scar tissue. Because once it scabs over, it's hard. If you can learn without all the pain and suffering, it's a good thing. So I I love that mindset you have there. And and I'll say that, you know, one thing that I kinda came up, I guess, with my on my not on my own, but something that I've come to the conclusion is no matter what you're doing, because I've been in a lot of different capacities in this in this industry, in a lot of different capacities, and some I didn't like as much as others. But no matter what you're doing, just do it the best you can because so many other opportunities could open up from that that you might not see at the time, which is exactly how my career has gone a hundred percent. I mean, that's how it works for us. You know? You're doing something and, what's the, the military says embrace the suck. Even those days that are crappy, dig in. You're getting paid. Make it count and something's going to come out of it. And I recently had a guy who I know who was early in a job and kind of got sucked up into the negative talk of that shop, into the negative talk at a job site. And he wound up not advancing very far at that company. And I just remember talking with him about separating yourself from that crap. You know, even though you're not doing a job you really want or enjoy or even that you know you're not going to do for a long period, dig in. Make the most of it because it's not forever. And I hope he got a lesson out about it. I think he did. I think he did. So well, tell I've always been curious about the name of the company. Ruth Roth. It's the weirdest company ever if you've never heard of it because it's not a common word. Is that was that somebody's last name? Or how did that name come about? And this is where Butch D, I would love to insert his his words here, but I will tell you that mister Jack Ruthroff is who started the company. Okay. That's where the name came from. And it is a long story of how how we got to where we are as far as Rutheroth Sour and, you know, Sour purchasing Rutheroth. I I don't wanna misspeak on any of it. I really wish Butch was here to tell you because, man, it's But Rutheroth was the gentleman's name? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I've never heard that name before. And when my company Airtight Mechanical, we were in the peer group with Rutheroth. And I kept hearing this name Ruthroth Ruthroth. I thought that I've never heard that before in my life. And I never really asked anybody where that came from. So that's good to know that somebody's last name. Yeah. I got a buddy that calls it riff raff. I'm sure there's all kinds of names floating around. All have them. Yeah. And a lot of people think we're roofers. So Yeah. Well, that's fair. All right. So Local four forty nine is United Association plumbers, pipe fitters, steam fitters, service techs. It's probably got one of the coolest and most well built and forward looking training centers that I've ever been to. The amount of energy that has been put into education in four forty nine, and I guess it starts with Kenny Broadband, you know, and the energy he brings as the what is he? The business or general manager or whatever he is? He's a business manager. Business manager. And the folks that he has in there teaching, you know, that's a stellar school y'all have up there. It it is, man, it is top shelf as it gets. I mean, first class, from from from Kenny and all the business agents to the teachers. One of the newest teachers up there was a classmate of mine going through my apprenticeship. He was a mentor to me going through he was he was a resource and a mentor to me. I I may have helped him out once or twice for every ten times he helped me. And I went when I went to my went through my apprenticeship, it was at a different the school was in a different place in Pittsburgh. So my last year, I got to experience the new school, but they are just constantly building, you know, putting time and effort into that with with improvements. The equipment they have up there, they have chillers, boilers. It's it's very, very impressive. I don't know if Didn't, Jeff Bledsoe with Daikin just donate a bunch of equipment and make a VRV, learning center there? They do have the VRV. Yes. The learning center. It's it's very impressive. The resource that that gives us as contractors to, if, you know, if we have customers who have certain specialized equipment, we can send our guys up there for training specialized for that. Yeah. It's a, you know, training in general is important, but training done well, is just phenomenal to see. And, you know, luckily, trade school enrollment is up year over year, like sixteen and eighteen percent for the last two years, which is great. And I know you guys struggle to find good talent like the rest of the world does. But that bodes well for us in the long run, you know, almost twenty percent. I'll be curious to see what it is this fall. But even today, I was up here working and I went downstairs to get a cup of coffee and one of the news channels was on and they had a whole Gen Z, another Gen Z education trade school versus college conversation going. So it's really becoming quite common for people to talk about that now, where it's just not college for everybody like it was maybe when you were coming through. And that's what you heard at high school, you got to go to college or whatever. It's refreshing to see that people realize that there's great careers that can be made in the trades. Know, our companies are about half union, half non union around the country and depending on the geography. But we've got people in their 20s making a hundred grand plus with a four year apprenticeship as their educational foundation. Now what I find interesting about some of our companies in the industry is that they think that the four years is it or five years is it. You're done. And, you know, I was writing an article for a magazine the other night and you're never done with this industry. You can't stay static because the technology is not static. You know, when in eighteen God, I can't remember. I never thought I'd forget the year. Eighteen seventy four somewhere around that period is when vapor compression, the vapor compression cycle was first really codified. And nothing's really changed on vapor compression. You pump, you condense, you boil back off into a vapor, and you pump. It's a continuous loop. Now we've added fourteen thousand components to the basic four components, but you have to have those four components. Everything has to do with controls, operation, airflow, water flow. All dynamics surrounding the vapor compression have changed. That's what we have to keep up with. We're always going to pump refrigerant or at least we will in a vapor compression system. But the nuances around it, how you control it, fan speed, water volume, flow. So how in the world can you go to school, you turn out as a journeyman and go, Okay, I'm done. You know what? But there are people who think that way. Remarkable. Yeah. So if you go through your five year apprenticeship and become a journeyman, that is a good career. You know, you can make a very, good life, and I've I've put a lot of food on the plate on the table for my family just working on the rooftop units and the chillers and and all of that. But there's that's the, you know, that's the base level. There's so there's so much opportunity to go from there in specialized pieces of equipment and the the training that the union hall offers for wherever you wanna go in this industry. One of which was the medical chillers we talked about earlier. That's something that I, you know, I was a little afraid of at first when I was an apprentice, but, once I became a journeyman, I I just I dug in, like you said. And once I dug in and started to learn it, I really got confident with it, and I I loved it. And, you know, that's a that's a little niche that not all the guys around Pittsburgh know how to do, and that can really put you put you above, financially, you know, a pay scale that you can you can write your own ticket for companies that they want to work on. The funny thing about that kind of stuff to me, Travis, is once you master it, it's easier than what they're probably working on. Just one hundred percent. They just get it, you know, people get intimidated by what's not common and you grow up in the field working on common stuff, air conditioning, heating. And then you walk up to this chiller, it never cuts off, runs all the time. You know, you have to rethink but it's data center equipment to me. It's a no brainer. It's just easy. But brain surgery is easy, I guess, to a brain surgeon, but you and I can't walk up and do it every day. Or at least we would try, you know, being air conditioning techs. We would give it a go because we think we can do anything. But yeah, that's cool stuff. I love those little niche markets. I made a career doing that myself. I've never liked to do the normal boring stuff. You got to do it, you know, it's part of the deal. But when you get to kind of branch out and find your little rhythm, man, that's good stuff. All right, so because you're not a static guy and you are continuously learning, what are you learning right now? What's on the what's on top of mind for you other than those ten kids you got? More or less, I'm I'm learning more people skills now, which I feel I kinda had I think you get those nat you have to have those naturally when you're when you're in sales. But more or less, you know, what makes people tick and and trying to just always trying to grow on that side of the industry, I guess, and and staying up staying up I guess, always wanna stay up with the technology of the industry, but like I said, more or less, making more relationships with customers and and other, partners in the in the industry and, you know, more What you think you're what what's your secret weapon that you you count as a superpower of how you handle customers? What is it that that you do that you feel like you do well? I guess just try to relate and be authentic. Be be without being with while still being authentic. I think authentic is is the most important thing. You know, I've I've been in the trades, so I know what they need, but you don't wanna be overbearing and say, hey. I did this for a living. I know what you need. This is this. But you just gotta you gotta be able to evaluate a customer and and know where their mind's at, whether they're a technical person or if they're not technical, and you need to be able to speak their language. You have to be able to tailor your message to who you're talking to and and by being authentic and not just being, you know, trying to make a sale. Travis, about a month ago, yeah, right about a month ago, we were I was hosting a safety summit because all of our companies have a safety connect a safety contact. They may be full time or they may be part time safety, but every twice a year I bring them together every six months and we have a three day event where they come in and learn and kind of train the trainer where you learn something and then you take it home and you're able to help your local team learn. And this time we had a lady named Lisa Austin, who Lisa is a really, really good speaker. I don't know if you ever had her or not. She's pretty active with MSCA and MCAA, as far as a teacher, or a leader, professor, presenter, whatever you want to call it, on EQ, which is the emotional intelligence of how we as humans interact. And so I can relate to you and you can relate to me and we can converse on terms that we understand each other. Really a powerful session, I felt like. I don't know if you haven't ever seen her, check her out because she's really good at the EQ piece. The book that she works through is EQ two point zero. Man, it's such good stuff, especially for people like you and me that come from a technical background where we weren't necessarily always talking gently to the equipment we were working on. Sometimes we had to speak to her rather forcefully to persuade her to run like we wanted her to. It's just a really good course and it makes you think about, and I always go down this road because it takes me there, is the generational differences that we have to talk to. Because right now there's five generations in the workplace. You got seventeen, eighteen year olds and you got freaking seventy seven year olds still working because of whatever reason. So if you're trying to communicate effectively to a twenty year old, a forty three year old, a sixty seven year old, and a seventy two year old, you're going to use different language for each of those. But it's the same message you're trying to communicate. You just have to do it in a flavor or a profile in which it resonates with them. And to your point, you got to be authentic. You can't be wishy washy on your value or your delivery of information or the content of the information. It's just the delivery that you have to change so they hear it because people like to hear how they like to hear. Just it's fascinating to me because I'm sixty one years old. I feel like I've just snatched off another layer and I'm now kind of, I don't know, entering back into being naive about that topic and here we go again. And I love it. It's just good and it makes you think before you talk and it makes you pause before you mouth off and all that stuff that we know we should do. But sometimes we get in a hurry or get frustrated or what have you, fall into habits that aren't necessarily the best way to communicate. So I'm excited by that piece. Absolutely. I really hope that as our trade schools evolve, that we work soft skills training into that because you're and my buddy, Butch D, can deliver that content like nobody else. I've seen a lot of people do it, and there's a lot of good ones out there. But to see and listen and value what Butch does and how he does it. And hey, I used to hire Butch on the weekends to come down to my place. And I hired him outright to come teach us because his ability to deliver the soft skills training to technical people is just unparalleled. Maybe if Butch retires full time, I might try to hire him full time. I don't think he's gonna go for it. He's something else. He's incredible, and he's actually one of my secret weapons. Like you were talking about earlier, I take him with me on jobs, and we talk to customers. And and it's still it's being authentic as ever because he that's him. And he just you know, if there's any questions about our company, he can he can really polish that message. And, he's been here for a long time. So, you know, that's, that helps a lot. Well, you know, people learn by storytelling, and Butch always has a way to wrap a problem or a situation around what worked before or somebody that utilized it. He's such a good storyteller that you just you're kinda like on the edge of your seat wanting to hear more. And it's like everybody's crazy uncle, you know? Like everybody wants butch for their uncle. But tell him I said that too if he will. He will. But no, people like that and you at your age, you have to be looking for those people to replace Butch because as Butch retires out and the Butches retire out, we have to have people to fill those roles because they're important. Because to your point, you take him on a sales call with you, you know what the heck you're doing on selling. But to have some secret weapon or the national treasure with you that you can crack open and the people go, Ah! You know like they get that moment. You can't beat that and they know it's genuine. They know it's factual. It's just, it is a superpower and I'm not a comic book fan but it's just really cool when people like that are able to express their genuine concern for a problem in a genuine manner where the people care, where the people feel cared for, not just another number. Well, it's more than just them feeling cared for because they are. That's the way he is. Yeah. And and, you know, that's another thing too. What I was saying being authentic, it's it's, where I'm at now, this is the type of job that I, I'm very fulfilled with it because it's if I didn't believe in what I was doing, wouldn't be doing it. You know? We're not we're not I don't really feel like I'm selling, a bill of goods. I feel like I'm selling service and selling value. So we really are making a good know, it's it's more of a partnership than we get with these customers. These clients are you know, we we don't plan on signing a piece of paper and walking away. We're gonna be there for service issues. We're gonna be there through the whole over over years of a lifetime of service with these customers. We're be here for whatever they need. So you don't wanna sell it on BS. You gotta make it authentic and follow through with it. Yeah, no doubt. Well, obviously you guys know how to do that. You've done it a long time and you've done it with a lot of good people because I know a lot of those people from years gone by. It's a solid, solid group, good reputation. And all that's important when you're out there in the marketplace. All right. As we kind of head toward the final stretch here, I'm really curious about what's next for Travis. What's Travis want to do next? And what's on the horizon of I'm gonna go get that conquered? Well, I don't know. I'll be honest. Maybe, just be more successful for what I'm doing now. You know, make just just keep keep doing what I'm doing and build a reputation. Build a good reputation because I take a lot of pride in that. And like I said, hopefully, you mentioned, the generational, you know, generations, five generations being in the workforce, and Butch as well as the steamfitters have a knack for finding that talent. And I work even though I'm in sales and I'm in the office, I'm out in the field, and I work with those young guys. So I just wanna hopefully be, somebody that they can admire, they can look up to, and get learn something from the way I did from my mentors. Like I said earlier, you know, sending the elevator back down for the next guy. Yeah. I, I I just wanna, you know, I guess, kinda, like I said, just build that legacy and and and be successful at what I'm doing for my family and moving forward. That that is a heck of a, a sentiment to have because, it's very humble, first of all. But it's, it's exciting because you don't have to have it all figured out. You're young enough to where you can figure it out as you're flying the plane, so to speak. I love the fact that you're out with the guys and the girls because, you know, you hear all this crap about the younger generation. We've all heard it. When I was younger generation, my generation sucked apparently. I'm sure that goes back forever. Everybody thinks the younger generation is not quite as crafty or smart or whatever hardworking as they were. But, you know, I work hard to interact with young people because I feel like that's my job is to help them through whatever halt they're trying to get over when they're going through their learning stages of apprenticeship or helper or whatever you're doing. And I find that there's just a tremendous amount of good kids and I mean eighteen to twenty five year olds out there that want to do a good job, that want to make a difference. Are there slouches? Absolutely! I know slouches my age. They've always been slouches and they'll die a slouch. That doesn't mean the new generation is. I mean, come on. Let's be fair. There's quality people in every age group. The challenge is finding them, recognizing them, rewarding them, and keep them moving. Nobody likes that stuck in a rut, you know. You said it really well with that elevator. Send the elevator back down. That's what helps people move. That's what helped you move, you know. Think about it, man. Twenty years ago you were running parts in the Rutheroth warehouse. And here you are now as a leader of the organization out representing the organization and you started running parts. Just find that to be so cool. And if y'all can hear my dog howling in the background, many of you have seen Wendy Williams on various episodes and Zoom calls. That's Wendy Williams sounding off because her mom just walked out. But our company, Travis, up in Seattle, PSR Mechanical, great group of folks. Most of their technicians start as parts runners in the service department and they do that for a year. Pretty cool method because after a year they kind of figured out whether that person's going to like the company, stick around, kind of get all the kinks worked out. They know all the job sites because they've been delivering parts to there. They know all the technicians. They know a lot of the customers. So when they enter into that first year of apprenticeship, man, they're already ahead of the curve. And they've done, I don't know, there's probably eighty percent of those technicians out of the thirty that are whatever they've got that started it as that first year apprenticeship or first year truck driver. So I love the fact that you have been there and done that. Yeah. Absolutely. And I I will say I thought about it a little bit what you were saying where I what's next for me. And I guess the reason I don't really have something I don't really set goals, personal goals, like maybe sales goals, things like that. But I don't really set the goals for myself. I kinda just I figure if I do the best that I can possibly do every day, then things will work out the way they're supposed to. And that's the way it's always been. I didn't say, hey, wanna be the service sales manager one day. I said, I'm going to be the truck driver, I'm going be the best truck driver that I can be. Then I became the parts manager, and I was the best parts manager that I could be. And that's the way my career evolved from there. I just I tried to be the best journeyman, which became I got voted in as the steward, and then I became the service manager. And I just I didn't have these goals in place that I was trying to obtain. It just kinda happened. So I I really don't know where I'll be after this. I just wanna make sure that, what I'm doing is is still fulfilling five years from now, and I believe it will be. Because the more success I have at this job, the more success that Rutherop has, the more success the union has, the four four nine, and the more success that the men have to to help their families thrive. And that's that's the end result, with what we're trying to accomplish here. Well, I think you're doing a heck of a job. All indications are, that it's working so far for you. So keep digging, man. It's so fun to see people that, you know, I'm a huge advocate for people who come out of the truck and make a dent in the universe. So keep doing it. And folks, thank you all for sticking around today and talking to us. It's been enlightening to learn more about what Travis Schop has going on and just seeing progress in people, man. I love action over apathy. That's what I'm stuck on that, man. There's people doing stuff because there's a whole world of people talking about stuff and not doing anything. So I'm all about doing. But Travis, it's been fun. I'm glad we finally got hooked up. Apologies for technical difficulties before I hit go on the record. Somebody told me this morning LinkedIn was kinda acting or or not LinkedIn, but what are we on? Zoom was acting a little bit funny, so I guess we found out they were not lying to us. So apologies for that. But glad we enjoy glad we were able to join up together. Folks, thank you all for sticking around. As usual, if you want more of Straight Out of Crumpton, please go to greg crumpton dot com. You can find all the episodes there. You can go to Apple, Spotify, just about anywhere you get your digital content. You can go there and download us. I would be remiss if I did not mention the book, Deep Knowledge. I hope you'll go out and get a copy of that. It's been fun hearing from people who bought it and read it. Some of the stories that they took from my book is just really fun to hear their twist on my story because, you know, like anything else, you can write it and you can live it, but how other people interpret is always fun. So good stuff. Well, for Travis, for myself, Greg Crumpton, greg crumpton dot com. Straight out of Crumpton, we are out of here for this episode. We look forward to seeing you all on the next one. And until then, please be safe and take care of each other. Thank you very much. Thank you, Greg. It was an honor.