Greg Owens 22:46
Yeah, I don’t think that’s getting enough news right around how so many companies and businesses are being flexible and understanding even though they have like contracts and written things and It’s you know, and it’s challenging. It’s super challenging, but at the same time, like, they’re like, Hey, we get it, there’s nobody is able to work right now. So we’ll, we’ll make amendments here and make changes, and we’ll work with you to try to keep you in the building and keep you in the space. My own bank. I called them early on in this, because I own a building in San Rafael. And they, they were happy to work with me, right? Because they, because I needed to help my tenants out because they were they were hurt really bad, right? So I was able to, like we were all able to work together and work something out, you know, so that things can can keep moving. And it’s not so challenging from a monetary standpoint to everybody?
Don Maroney 23:42
Well, I think, you know, I think I had a mentor A long time ago, I was very fortunate early on my career. That said, good relationships are made the good times, they’re made the tough times, because then you find out who’s who in the zoo, you know,and
Who’s who in the zoo like that.
Because Because, you know, we can all get along when everything’s rolling in. Back in the 2000s, where people were picking up thousand dollar bills off the ground, right when the markets so good, and, you know, you’re just things are rolling, all of a sudden, something like this happens and unfortunately, I guess we’re old enough Katrina, you’re not quite there yet hopefully. But you know, I’ve seen a few of these cycles where, you know, whether it’s the financial situations or wars or, you know, unfortunately, this pandemic, you really find out who your friends are. And I mean that literally, you know, and so anyone you reach out to you remember that, and I think companies that keep that in mind are going to have much stronger releases coming out the other side, even though maybe painful, and they have earnings per shares to hit if it’s a public organization, earnings per share per quarter, or if it’s a private company, you got to be careful about maybe staying in business but helping your tenants out of your clients or whomever and just collectively come together to weather the storm.
Greg Owens 24:51
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s great. I Katrina and I have talked about that a lot because like the traditional sort of way of, of doing any kind of sales Right now is out the window, right? Because nobody wants to see that person right now. What can what can we do to help? Right? What can we do to add value? How can we check in and hey, here’s some things that we can have, you know, add value to this whole thing. And that’s one of the reasons for starting starting this podcast during a pandemic, it’s like, Okay, well, what can we do? Well, we can have some conversations and learn more, right? What’s going on and share that information and get that out there. And that’s, that’s great that you guys have are staying ahead and using sort of, like the companies in China to, to sort of like because they they’ve worked out some of the kinks to come and back to work because I have friends in Shanghai, and they’re all back to work now. And they’re, they’re doing yoga and they’re doing things and they’re, they’re ahead of us and a lot of ways, you know, and, and they’ve learned a lot along the way of what’s working, what’s not working and that kind of thing. Is there any any studies or anything like that, so I’ve seen a few You have the case studies that have come out about letting Have you you’ve come across, around letting people back into the buildings and what the protocols are and that kind of thing and what works, what doesn’t work?
Don Maroney 26:12
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think there’s a lot of data yet. But I think there what there are a number of it like in our case, we have a very detailed return to work protocol, you know, having the PPEs, having the process in place, having the social distancing, having the other tools you need to be safe within a facility. And it’s almost like a checklist that you have to go through. So we have a back to work checklist. It’s a very detailed, we have checklists within segments of the business. So to be janitorial, it could be like said office services can be building maintenance. So we have a very detailed set of protocols that go with it. And what you try to do is start getting some wins right within an organization. Yeah, I don’t think the data will really kind of start rolling into find out who’s the best and brightest at this yet. But I think everyone’s you know, we live an entrepreneurial Science Society, right. So you see a lot of creative things. I happen to have had a call this morning with a very high end robotics company that also does thermal scan scanning for people to come in the office. So they scan, they just walk in with their bags like they normally did. And boom, they get flagged from the day one if their temperature, the x, and it doesn’t really impinge the person’s activity if they don’t have an issue, but it gives the company a comfort level that they’ve checked that point as then they get up to the work area. And there’s another set of protocols. So I think, you know, getting through some of the processes and then getting people back in and then seeing how that works. Then we’ll start generating the data, you know, right.
Greg Owens 27:46
Right, right, right. Yeah. Then since it’s, there’s so much information. I was talking to another friend the other day that like, you know, can you imagine, like George Washington, and how much data he got in a given day, as you know, as far as our first president, right? And can you imagine, like, like, I bet you, we, you and I and Katrina there get more data in one day than he gotten an entire year, you know, back then you’d have to, like, actually write a letter and send it. And then he’d have handlers that would either like read letter and say, Hey, this is important. You should get this thing from from John Hamilton or, or that this is gonna just sit on my desk over because you’ve got too much on your plate. Right. And that’s one of the I think that’s one of the biggest one huge challenge. And kinda, you mentioned that there is like, we we are just going off of sort of insufficient amounts of truth really about what is the best practices because this is so novel in so many ways, right?
Don Maroney 28:51
So I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you like, I’ll give it a good example is that and how markets sometimes aren’t prepared for technology. So digital mail for sample has been around for probably 10 years kind of in its form of being able to scan in mail. And it wasn’t till COVID that it got jacked up on steroids. Because instead of having hundred thousand pieces of mail, come into a mailroom, and then get dispersed to a whole building, how do you put mitigation efforts in place there from a risk management standpoint, but also an efficiency standpoint? And so I’m working with a number of clients around the country that said, hey, how do we put a digital mail system in, and it doesn’t really mean cutting people, it just means redeploying some of those assets of those human resources to be able to handle that. So that the end user, if Katrina sitting in Chicago, in her office, and know somebody doesn’t need to come up from the basement to bring her her mail, it comes to her desktop, she can decide what to do with it and reroute it or delete it or whatever. So all of a sudden some technology that’s been around for 10 years, yeah, all of a sudden has immediate implicate implications today. And now people realize it, you know, that was always kind of an item down the road. We want to kind of adopt, but that’s happening in real time.
Katrina Hayes 30:00
You know, I actually just signed up myself for my P.O Box for the informed delivery and an alert sent to my email. And it’s been a game changer. Yes. Yeah, I should have set it up a long time ago.
Greg Owens 30:13
Right, right. Yeah, we’re even doing we’re we’ve been doing a lot of just scanning of all our documents, our safety meetings and things like that Katrina is going to do a safety meeting, hello, sign and have the, you know, the painters actually be able to sign you know, sign something, and we, we never used to do that because it was always like, you know, to the painters that are working in the field, right, that’s a little bit of a step, a level of complication, but now we’re like, Hey, this is this is what we need to do. We can’t bring everybody together. So what you know what, what how can we just use the technology that we know exist, or even like zoom here? We’ve been doing safety meetings on zoom. We have one later today. And you know, it’s it’s it’s been it’s been wonderful to see See, like, all of my painters show up on a zoom call, and they’re at different job sites around the Bay Area, right. And we would have probably never gotten to that level because you know, we are a legacy business and painting, the painting industry hasn’t changed that much in 100 years. But because of this pandemic, we’re like, No, we need to adopt these new these new ways of doing things.
Don Maroney 31:24
Right. I mean, I agree with you. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of interesting, there’s gonna be a lot of new technologies and processes come out of this, but there’s also gonna be a substantial amount of leveraging other technologies and other things and you can almost look at some of the therapeutics that are going on these these drugs that have been around for 50 years. And they’re being tested now. Maybe they have an application here, and then we have new stuff. So same thing in the business world. I think this is where there’s gonna be a lot of best practices. A lot of those been sitting in another area that you can redeploy, and then also some new stuff and kind of mix a boat together as Katrina was mentioning with some of the technology you guys are using
Greg Owens 31:59
you And then in lines like like this, for sure, there’s all kinds of challenges, and there’s so many things that are uncertain. But there’s also these opportunities that are out there. And it’s keeping sort of that positive, you know, attention towards what are the opportunities and how can we leverage what’s existing and or like, check into those new new things that are coming up. Anything else that you’ve seen, like new or anything on the horizon exciting and your, what you guys have looked at?
Don Maroney 32:32
I think, I think what’s happening is there’s gonna be some consolidation in every business, every segment of the business, every vertical markets, some consolidation. And I think that’s not always a negative, that’s sometimes brings the best and brightest of other organizations together, that may may improve and we see some of that with our own capabilities, where you’re bringing in people that maybe we have to, you know, have people be put on hold for a while. And then they’re coming back in think and fresh ideas or other parts of our business. I think there’s a lot of unknowns here. It’s exciting. I guess my message always is, we live in the United States of America, we should be very optimistic about the future. There’s sure you work hard, and you play hard. And I think that if everybody contributes any ideas or collectively bring things to the table, whether it’s from the business community, or Personally, I think we’ll weather the storm and there’s gonna be some exciting things come out of this. Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of people be hurt dramatically. But I think there’s the like I said, my case, you know, happen to have my first grandchild in the middle of a pandemic. So that would never been on my resume in the future thinking something like that six months ago. Right.
Greg Owens 33:45
Right.
Don Maroney 33:46
So I think I said, I think everyone needs to be optimistic they need to think
think their family and their friends about their relationships and wake up in the morning, go to work, and have a great work life balance, and I think there’s gonna be some great things Come out of this. That’s just my opinion.
Greg Owens 34:01
Yeah, no, I, I’m with you. And I like this sort of thought thought process of thinking like, like 20 years from now. It’s like, you know, 2040 and somebody, some kid comes to you and ask like, hey, so what was that, like living through that pandemic? You know? And then what are you gonna tell them? Right? Like, how did you show up for it? And what was your, what were you? What were you doing during this time? And like you kind of said earlier, you can definitely see who your friends are and who is really able to step up and who is really able to help out and that’s that’s such such powerful thought process there. How did you get so you see you have an extremely positive even more so optimistic outlook, even I I’ve always thought Katrina knows me for a long time. And she knows that I’m very optimistic. But you’re even more Did you get this way? Was this a? Did you work at it? Or is it sort of a natural occurrence?
Don Maroney 35:07
Yeah, I think I think you know, it’s combination. I mean, I, I came from a broken home, unfortunately, my home had a single parent raised me, that wasn’t always the easiest times. But I woke up every morning thinking I was going to change the dynamic. I come from a long history of some very unfortunate family situations. And I made a commitment when I was young, I was gonna change this and I was gonna wake up in the morning and do something positive. And I’ve been married 32 years, I have an attorney for a daughter, I’m a pilot for a son. I was the first one to graduate high school, college and get an MBA. And so I just wake up in the morning saying, you know what, you only have a very short shelf life in this world, and you want to have a positive impact and you want to set the tone for your family and your children and the people around you. Because if you do that, I think everything works out.
Katrina Hayes 35:58
Wow.
Greg Owens 35:59
Yeah, that’s Great, that’s good advice.
Katrina Hayes 36:01
Yeah.
Greg Owens 36:02
It’s interesting because, you know, there’s, for some reason, there’s there’s a lot of ancient wounds to heal from that one little rock called Ireland. Right? You know, and it’s like, you know, it’s like you get to choose at this time and time and space to like, Okay, how do I want to do I want to tackle these things, or do I want to do what my ancestors did? Maybe drink more?
Don Maroney 36:27
That’s always well, you know, San Francisco, the fourth largest Irish population in the country, right? All the Irish came on the railroad coming this way. People don’t realize that from other parts of the country.
Greg Owens 36:37
Yeah, yeah. Well, and um, what is it to this? I’m always blown away that Savannah, Georgia has like one of the biggest Yeah. Irish, you know, parties of the Year
Don Maroney 36:51
for St. Patty’s Day a few years ago. It’s great. Yeah, that’s a great place to go. If you haven’t been there for St. Patty’s Day.
Greg Owens 36:57
Oh, man. Yeah, I haven’t done it yet. I don’t know when we’ll be able to either At this rate, right?
Don Maroney 37:04
It’ll get better get better.
Greg Owens 37:06
Yeah, do you see I’m in the Bay Area here. So a lot of the companies I’m working for almost all of I don’t know any of them that are all allowing workforce back in yet, except for just very minimal, you know, staff going in. For for us, it’s great, we’re able to go in and just paint and we’re not having to do it at nighttime or weekends or that kind of thing. So, you know, we have the whole building to ourselves, and a lot of ways. I mean, what are you seeing out there?
Don Maroney 37:38
Well, I think what’s happening is for companies that are able to do it, you know, one of the death nails on a balance sheet or in your P&L is having deferred maintenance. And the companies have deferred maintenance on things for a long time. Yeah, we see as companies now since people aren’t in the facility and they want it they’re going to keep them for the long term plan. So there’s a lot of deferred maintenance stuff being taken care of. And I think that’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and other people segments of the trades or within this business, to talk to their clients about, hey, maybe there’s some things you put off, maybe we can work out an arrangement to do something over a period of time to help you fix these things before somebody comes back. And I don’t think they’ll ever have that opportunity again, right, of not having a full workforce back in the buildings,
Greg Owens 38:23
right right
Don Maroney 38:24
I would share that with people in the business that have those conversations with your clients, because this deferred maintenance situation throughout the country, by the way, it’s an easy way to look, make your financials look a lot better is by pushing off maintenance, as we all know, right? So I think what I see and I’m involved with a few projects right now, where people are saying, hey, let’s clean up some of this, that makes sense, and clean up some of the things within our facilities because we know at some point, people are going to be coming back and it’s much better to have done while they’re not here than if they were here. Make sense?
Greg Owens 38:57
Yeah. Yeah, that’s totally me. See it on the buildings and I’m involved in, you know, them tackling pretty big projects because they can do it during the day, they can do it, get it done, you know, like parking lots for sure. Oh, in the I’m just seeing it in my own neighborhood as far as like the city doing like a lot of street work, right? Like every single neighborhood, our shop or Katrina is like, it’s all the street is all torn up. And they’re doing it during the middle of the day, you know, because they have these opportunities, and they’re tackling I mean, it’s good for the economy too, and so many ways, right? Like, just keep pouring money into that infrastructure. And that’s right, making it sound making it better. And
Don Maroney 39:39
okay, this is this has been great. Any last thoughts or anything you’d like to share with our audience and get out there? No, I would say from, from one Bay Area, person to to to you. I think we live in the best part of the world. We enjoy it every day. We can’t take it for granted. I think that if everyone keeps their wits about them. We’re all going to survive this together and come out strong on the other side and, and that’s the positive note for the day, you know.
Greg Owens 40:07
And you went to St. Mary’s.
Don Maroney 40:08
Yes.
Greg Owens 40:09
Yeah, we’ve done some work for St. Mary’s and
Katrina Hayes 40:12
It’s in the East Bay.
Greg Owens 40:13
what’s that?
Katrina Hayes 40:15
This is in the East Bay.
Don Maroney 40:16
Right. Moraga? Yep. Moraga?
Greg Owens 40:18
Well, they have to have a church in the city to no?
Don Maroney 40:21
well, the Catholics know we have we have churches everywhere. Right.
Greg Owens 40:25
So like, um, St. Mary’s Cathedral in the city. Yeah, right. That looks like it kind of looks like a washing machine agitator in some ways right? Like you know, it’s a really big white building but there’s a cross on top of that, that’s like 50 foot I painted that cross like wow many years ago yeah. Wait for for the longest time we we specialized in doing steeple work and involving like, whatever church steeples and that kind of thing, or anything high. We had an ad that was like we climb anything and we I would paint like flagpoles on top of buildings and that kind of stuff throughout the city, which we don’t really do as much anymore because it’s I can’t really ask employees to do that kind of work. But, but I sometimes still do it depending on what the project is or something like that just because it’s fun. Well, it’s been wonderful talking to you, how would people find out more about you and what you offer and that kind of thing.
Don Maroney 41:29
So cwservices.com. And they can reach out through that website. I think though, if anybody in the small business, large business, all kinds of vertical markets, I mean, we have clients from all different backgrounds, we do a lot of higher education. We do a lot of obviously corporate, a lot of legal a lot of different markets. So we we have a we have a great group of people that do some wonderful things and even though it’s a large company, it still has kind of a small organization feel to it. So, come on board if you need us. We’re here. Thanks so much, Greg.
Greg Owens 42:03
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And we’ll put we’ll put that in the notes. And if you can send some of those PDFs, you talk about the checklist and things like that, it would be great if we we added a few of those kinds of things. Awesome.
Don Maroney 42:14
to you right now. I got some great tools for you. And you can share them with wherever because we’re we, Brett White made a commitment that we’re sharing all the information we have to help everybody else out, which I think is great.
Greg Owens 42:23
All right, so great to have you on our podcast. This has been wonderful. Thank you, Don Maroney for for joining us here and this has been the Watching Paint Dry Podcast.
Outro 42:45
Thanks for listening to the Watching Paint Dry Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.