Greg Owens 17:28
Yeah, you know, we’re running into the same thing, run to run out of pain, we run out a we had, we were, I’m a general contractor, too, but we don’t we don’t do a lot of remodeling. But when a good client asks a commercial client asked us to like remodel a bathroom, retile it that kind of thing. We’ll do it. And, and we had to wait, I forget, it was like four or five months to get like garbage to spend, like as you know, it’s a custom garbage dispenser, hands free, that kind of thing. So it’s like five months, right? The bathrooms can’t be used. There’s a hole in the wall. We’re waiting for this thing waiting for it and waiting for it. Right. And then when they did arrive, they of course, they arrived. And they weren’t quite the right ones. And they were one was damaged. And try. It’s Yeah, somebody had to wait again.
Michael Kistler 18:13
Yeah, one thing that kind of anecdote kind of worked in my favor. So we’re getting a new cooling tower here. Mm hmm. We, my project manager is very technical, are one of my Yeah, they both are. But this guy’s extremely technical knows his stuff in industry for a long time, he was pretty insistent on getting like stainless steel pipe for that, you know, just just due to breakages and whatnot. But the client wanted PVC pipe, right. And so you get to get some leaks. And there’s kind of like a little battle there. But I think PVC is going to go up just with all this increase in oil prices. So we ended up that that didn’t really have an effect. But that, you know, I think that could have worked in our favor if things were to win, right? A little bit later.
Greg Owens 18:59
Right? Are you guys because you guys are capable of milling your own, like making your own parts from the ground up in some ways. With the skill set. Some of you have, we’re finding we have to like mill mill our own wood and stuff at times work as the lumberyard is like backed up and you’re not going to get a certain style or a certain kind of wood for like, six weeks, and we’re trying to finish jobs or like, Okay, we’ll just, we’ll just get the router bits out and make our own mill our own pieces down the sides, which is something I’ve never had to do in the past. Right? Luckily, I have I have that sort of knowledge, right? But it’s, it’s, it’s a different world where we’re having to start to do that. But you guys, you guys can kind of do some of the same stuff. I would think you can
Michael Kistler 19:39
do some of the same stuff. We like when I was in the CVS. You know, going back to that. There’s definitely a lot of that when you’re kind of in an austere environment and who knows when you’re getting resupplied?
Greg Owens 19:51
Right. Yeah, yours and you’re in you need it. You don’t want to wait six weeks to get these pardons, right. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that happening more and more As, as we move as we go forward, right?
Michael Kistler 20:03
Yeah. And then there’s just that, you know, that us with, you know, the China COVID Zero policy, you know, though, maybe there’ll be a short term thing, just because usually the spike, who knows how long they’ll be completely locked down.
Greg Owens 20:18
Is China locked down right now?
Michael Kistler 20:19
I think so. Yeah. Yeah, the weather Shenzen like one of their major hubs. So, but for us, like they, they shifted, you know, because we have a plan we have so planned China, the client does the work over here because of that, because they shut down.
Greg Owens 20:35
That’s happening a lot. I’ve heard that a few times about manufacturing facilities that have plants over in China that it’s gotten so challenging that they’re just like, we’re just gonna move things back to onto us soil.
Michael Kistler 20:47
Yeah, they did the same thing at the beginning of COVID. When they had their luck with China, and they’re locked in. Very, very first one. So we’re, we’re really burning the midnight oil here. Right.
Greg Owens 20:58
And you mentioned you’re in the North Bay, what part of the North Bay? Santa Rosa. Alright, yeah, my my. My office is in Santa and fallen. I’m here in Mill Valley. Okay, nice. Yeah, it’s so so good. I haven’t been up to Santa Rosa in a little bit. We used to do a lot of wineries and different buildings up there, but since COVID, we haven’t really gone back up that direction.
Michael Kistler 21:19
Okay. Yeah, the wineries are definitely definitely not shut down. That’s for sure.
Greg Owens 21:26
That’s good to hear. That’s good to hear. Because I mean, it’s such a beautiful area, right?
Michael Kistler 21:31
Yeah. Yeah, it’s great up here.
Greg Owens 21:33
Um, have have. So it looks like we’re heading into another drought year. has that affected you guys much or,
Michael Kistler 21:40
um, we’re, we’re looking at, like some water saving measures. You know, one of the city of Santa Rosa is actually gotten on us about some leaks. So we’re trying to figure that out right. Now. We still use a good amount of water with our process. Cool. Process cooling water. Yeah. So we another way it affected us, I think was like, so because it’s been dry the last three years. There’s less was voids in the soil? So we had some, we had some what’s the word impression and then made kind of made the building? Stink a little bit like part of the building here?
Greg Owens 22:19
Oh, wow. Yeah. Is it? Is it a new building? Or is it or is it really old? Interesting. Wow. So it’s even it’s even affecting older buildings, because I heard the same thing happening in the city on one of the millennium tall towers is it’s it’s, it’s the leaning tower there. But it’s a new thing. And something similar about the soil and that they took too much more water out of the soil, and didn’t it didn’t allow for that. And it wasn’t just their building. It was multiple buildings taking too much water out of the soil, right, causing, causing it to change.
Michael Kistler 22:51
Yeah. And so we actually just had a geotechnical analysis about two weeks ago, how fun poured on that. So that came in here and did some borings and clipped at some samples.
Greg Owens 23:02
Have you heard back from them yet? Or is that like not? I guess that’ll be a big report down the road. Yeah, yeah, we’ll
Michael Kistler 23:08
see what see what two we’re gonna do here with that.
Greg Owens 23:11
Right, right. Are you seeing cracks like in the foundation and slab and that kind of thing?
Michael Kistler 23:15
Um, yeah, there’s a little bit of that. Just just one building. In particular, I’m thinking all
Greg Owens 23:20
right. And then did the fires affect you guys in any way? Because that’s also, you know, now we used to have like a fire season, it was short was an October, and now it’s like, starts in mid spring and goes all right. Did that affect you guys much?
Michael Kistler 23:36
Um, so the way it affects us is just, the fires haven’t been close to the plant. But sometimes they can’t get into work. Sometimes they’re in an evacuation zone. Right. So that’s, that’s kind of the major effect. One thing we were looking at doing was just was housing. temporary housing of employees.
Greg Owens 23:57
Wow, that’s creative. That’s a good app. Yeah. Even with COVID, right, like that makes a lot of sense for big companies to start doing like, Hey, if you’re if you’re if you’re coming in from a longer distance now or, or, or something’s affected your family. You can you have a room here.
Michael Kistler 24:13
Yeah, yeah, I got um, but the fire that was in 2019 I believe it was like Kincade fire. Yeah, I actually got evacuated. A lot of employees here did too. And we were we were more or less shut down. I was down in San Jose. That whole week to stand in some Airbnb.
Greg Owens 24:31
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so disruptive. And it’s so it’s so challenging. I have a lot of clients that have like now buying houses like on the east coast to flee to because it’s just just the smoke gets to them too much. Right. Yeah.
Michael Kistler 24:45
And that’s, that’s the other part. So we we limit the guy heard, or technicians are time outside. Whether it’s, yeah, we got to do that or give them any fives. They’re out there for too long. And then we also got to check our filters for eight Right,
Greg Owens 25:00
right, because they’re filling up faster, right? They’re just like, they’re just getting full of all that debris. Yeah, it’s interesting because we even had the shutdown a bunch of days. Last couple years where the when the painters are outside, and they can’t they have a hard time wearing it. And then the fives all day. Yeah, they can do it for a few hours. But it was it was rough to do it all day when it’s hot. Right. It’s just hard to breathe through that.
Michael Kistler 25:25
Yeah, I believe there’s there’s recommendations as far as outdoor exposure goes, depending on I can’t remember those off the top of my head.
Greg Owens 25:33
Right. Find them. Well, it was summertime is coming up. They’ll probably Yeah, we’ll have to probably look at those again. I was hoping really hoping this year would it started off so good. We had that incredible. Just insane amounts of rain. October, November, and pretty much nothing. Yeah,
Michael Kistler 25:51
yeah. It’s been. It’s been pretty wild. It’s I feel like it can rain here. rain a lot here. Just not at all. Right. Oh, because I moved here in 2019. Oh, right. Yeah. So you haven’t winter was just, it just seemed like it didn’t stop raining. And then the beginning part of this winter fall is about the same.
Greg Owens 26:09
Right? Yeah, totally. Right. It can just be like, every day in the month of February, January and February. It can rain, just endless amounts. And then, and then we have another year. What is this? Nothing?
Michael Kistler 26:21
Yeah, we’ll see you next year, maybe we will get an El Nino. Right, typically wetter.
Greg Owens 26:27
Right, right. Wrong. He is. Yeah. And one of the things I point to a lot of times on this podcast is, uh, how people could get started in a career, right? Even either they’re young, they just coming out of college, and they’re like, you know, they’re not, they don’t want to sit behind a computer, they’re not sure what they want to do. And to sort of highlight like this as a career path. And then like even or older people that are like doing something different that they don’t like, and they’re, they want to do something completely different. Um, can you speak to like, what ways you would go about it today, in order to build up the skill sets to get involved in facilities management,
Michael Kistler 27:04
a lot of these guys, I know, they kind of start start off as technicians. So be like, start off as a tradesman. Typically, as a good way, whether it’s a track, you know, electrician, plumbing, whatever, you can get into that, and, you know, more or less work your way up that, you know, the company I work for, they have a, an apprentice program. Hmm. So you can get in that get in that way. Um, the way I got in was through the military. Right? That’s the way I would say, you know, just just look like when you’re young, you don’t really know what you want to do. At least I didn’t, you just just try and get as broad of experience as you possibly can. And because there’s all kinds of stuff out there, you talk to people, and it’s a very diverse economy. Like I remember one time I was I was on a plane and I sat next to a young lady who who sold those, those those like, apparatuses that Stephen Hawking talked out of? Oh, really? Yeah. So it’s like that exists.
Greg Owens 28:12
Right? That’s a nice, right. Yeah, very small. You know, it’s very important. It’s a very small group. But man, that’s amazing. Yeah.
Michael Kistler 28:21
Yeah. So it’s just, I say, just, maybe it’s just maybe it’s just too general, but just get out there. And there’s all kinds of niches and all kinds of things that you won’t even think exist that exist.
Greg Owens 28:31
Yeah. No, that’s it reminds me of I was on a plane, and I sat next to this guy, and he worked for the gore tex company, you get the name of the guy that’s like WL Gore, somebody like that. And, and they were, he was he always the owner, he may, you know, he made Gore Tex, which is gore tex jackets, which is cool. But then they branched off making, the owner always carried like stuff he was working on in his pocket. And he was sitting on a plane. And he a doctor was saying how they had this problem with like hearts, and they can’t get this kind of material they were looking for he like pulls out some materials, like with something like this work. And the doctor looked at it and was like, Yeah, that’s what we’re looking for. Right. And, and then they started a whole nother path for the company, right, making all these like splints for arteries.
Michael Kistler 29:24
Yeah. And I think, like, if you’re a read Steve Jobs book, the one by Walter Isaacson. Yeah, I didn’t read a mistake, or wasn’t. It just kind of came up? So
Greg Owens 29:36
yeah, I read that book. And I felt bad because I was hearing in 86, and through that time, and, and I have Apple products and everything, and I remember him saying that he he he came in one time and he’s like, he didn’t like the color of all the of all the machinery they had making the computers right and so he’s like, let’s get a painting contractor in here and paint all this and I was like, Why were we marketing to like I
Michael Kistler 30:01
Yeah, yeah. And then just the other thing, maybe the obvious thing is, I don’t know, I plan to get more involved with if MMA myself. Yeah. I don’t know what they do as far as engagement. And maybe for them, maybe a way to get some engagement is go to trade schools and go to or even go to high schools. People want to know that this career exists, just kind of thinking about it, or colleges,
Greg Owens 30:29
right. Yeah, infamous, if this were involved a bit, and if, and, yeah, they have a lot of different programs to get involved in and get get yourself started right at the lower sort of levels and work your way up. And I love your idea about like, getting some trade knowledge. And I don’t know about you, but I grew up like working with my dad, like I was like, at 12 years old, I was on a roof roofing the house, right. And I made it, I made a mistake roofing it, and I had to tear off and I remember this to this day, right. And I had to talk about our memories, right? I remember this having to tear off what I done, because I kind of got the shingles installed the wrong way. And I had to tear it all off and start over. And you know, it’s hot, and it’s hard. And I take that for granted because I hired recently I had somebody that was started working for me as a project manager, you know, he’s in his 30s or something, and, and I just assumed people would know that they’re coming into this industry that they would know it like sheetrock is. Yeah, we’re a baseboard, right? Yeah. And he had no knowledge of these things, right. And it’s like, and I can see that today where kids don’t really get out there and use their, you know, learn some trades and that kind of thing. Um, and then you mentioned like HVAC. HVAC is a phenomenal way to really learn a lot. Because in HVAC, you have to learn you learn so much about everything like electrical, plumbing, hydraulic, like so many little aspects of things, troubleshooting, and how to, you know how to figure stuff out. Right. And it’s such a good skill set, but it’s tough. You know, we were always looking for when it comes to carpenters and painters like looking for people that have mechanical skills. Right. When they, you know, as kids like they tinkered with things and took it apart, put it back together.
Michael Kistler 32:15
Yeah, it’s, um, it is tough to find those people unfortunately.
Greg Owens 32:19
Yeah. If you did you have that exposure when you were when you were younger, before military?
Michael Kistler 32:24
Um, you know, I did you know, my dad taught me to do some basic stuff, like, you know, change your oil. And I did, I did some physical type labor like, you know, painting from being from the Northeast or shoveling snow. I run around with a lawn mower trying to make a little bit little bit extra cash during the summer.
Greg Owens 32:45
And I did that I grew up in New York and datalogger raking leaves, I mean, all the time, like going to neighbor’s houses, raking leaves, cutting, cutting, cutting lawns, you know, and shoveling weeding weed. Yeah, I
Michael Kistler 32:57
was. I was also I’m actually an Eagle Scout. So I got some we did some stuff in
Greg Owens 33:04
there. Yeah, it was Boy Scouts, do you I don’t know if I can’t remember if I made it the Eagle Scouts or not?
Michael Kistler 33:10
A long time ago.
Greg Owens 33:11
It’s a long time ago. I don’t have any of that stuff anymore. So I can’t even look back. Right? Somehow it all disappeared over time. My nephew just graduated. He graduated from high school that his eagle scouts and then join the Air Force, which I’m super proud of them.
Michael Kistler 33:26
Oh, nice. Yeah, you get you actually get or at least they used to I don’t know if it’s still the case. But like, say you’re he enlisted? I assume so normally come in as you want to believe you can come in used to be able to come in as E three.
Greg Owens 33:40
Oh, interesting. Oh, boy ranks higher. So very junior rank. But yeah, but at least you’re not lowest person on the totem. Yeah, give me a little more. Yeah. Um, well, that’s cool as so as we wrap up here. Anything you guys are, are excited about opportunities you’re seeing going forward this year?
Michael Kistler 34:01
Um, well, as far as my company goes. We’re actually we’re building a new plant Phoenix. So that’s pretty exciting.
Greg Owens 34:09
Will you be involved in that too?
Michael Kistler 34:11
Yeah, I’m a little bit involved my team some some members of my team are heavily involved. I actually hired a guy he’s been he’s been on board with us since June. He’s done a great job. And he was a he was a good great hire out there and for me it’s it’s a pretty pretty good market to hire for lights and good great candidates come out of there. Yeah, but but that’s kind of just from my my side. That’s the excitement and then just potential new products that want to develop facilities around. We don’t know what the products are but yet at this time, but what I hear they’re coming
Greg Owens 34:46
right because you’re in the manufacturing so that the product, they’ll they’ll build the building around the product in a lot of times, right like in house, how they’re gonna make and assemble the product as it goes down in the assembly line or as it gets manufactured. Need a specific requirements and buildings?
Michael Kistler 35:03
Yeah, I think just for the early indications that are maybe we’ll have to have a more stringent cleanroom classification for, for, we just have to fix our, just some stuff with airflow is for that. Right? Or in in, amongst other things.
Greg Owens 35:19
Yeah. That’s interesting. I don’t think of manufacturing that way. But I can see how that would be so important these days.
Michael Kistler 35:27
Yeah. And I mean, for us, I mean, like, our products change fairly frequently, like the specifications. So we got to, like, as an example, we had a product that changed that changed a specification to where if it wasn’t a certain humidity, like it had to had to be at least 25% humidity to be made, or also prac Hmm. So what we did was, you know, I got our engineer, like, are they more or less designed from? They came up with a solution to put the the steam units within the cleanroom? And then that worked out there? This was a New York, actually. Oh, interesting. Yeah. No, yeah, there’s different stuff. Like we had to think there’s certain parameters within the the process cooling water temperature, for one of our products, we had to we had to obtain, and we just couldn’t get that with a cooling tower, or an evaporative cooling. Mm hmm. We had to bring on like a centrifugal chiller to obtain that, you know, we worked with the engineering team hand in hand there to get to dial that in. Wow, we got that got the right all and then we got it, we have a permanent one. Now,
Greg Owens 36:32
that that’s some levels of complexity there. That yeah, really don’t think about I would think that there’s a lot of things you have to consider building a building and Demyx to because it’s the temperature there. It gets like what 115 In the summer something like it
Michael Kistler 36:48
does. Yeah, yeah. So we Yeah, out there. We’re gonna have like a chilled water plant. Mm hmm. Just think like a couple chillers and whatnot. And they’ll they’ll provide a lot of cooling.
Greg Owens 36:59
And I haven’t seen like this Phoenix suffer from a drought at all. Are they just getting all their water from the Colorado River? And it’s, there’s like an abundance
Michael Kistler 37:08
there? We asked. I’m not sure that’s good question.
Greg Owens 37:11
Right. Yeah, I’m not sure you know, it amazes me about I’ve been spending time up in Tahoe and Reno area and Lake Tahoe drains down into Reno. And so Reno like never really experienced, like, super drought conditions. Because they’re they’re draining top. They’re draining like Tahoe, which is like a mile deep, right? Yeah. So they’re even though they’re like on the edge of the desert, they don’t get they don’t have much rainfall or anything like that. They have this abundance of water always coming down. And it’s a it’s crazy, because it’s like that water, like ties into the lake tahoe water just goes out to Pyramid Lake and then evaporates. Right? Like it. Just
Michael Kistler 37:50
yeah, I can imagine that I actually worked when I was in the Navy I was in. Yeah, ironically, I was stationed in the California Southern California desert. Okay, interesting. Yeah. You know, God is in charge of the utilities out there. And we had, they had a wastewater treatment plant that was kind of like the old school style. And we had a lot of issues with evaporation out there.
Greg Owens 38:13
Like, evaporating too fast. Yeah. Yeah. It was so hot.
Michael Kistler 38:17
Yeah, it was just like a pond. A few ponds, basically. Uh, huh. Yeah.
Greg Owens 38:21
Interesting. Um, so what’s if people want to get in touch with you? Is LinkedIn. A good way? Yeah.
Michael Kistler 38:30
Yeah. I’m on LinkedIn. You can find me there. Oh, all right. Yeah. Seen before you like your other podcasts where you just live on? Give the people a shot on that? Same way?
Greg Owens 38:39
Yeah, that’s, we kind of put it out there a little bit. And we’re, you know, like I said, we’re trying to shine this light sort of on an industry that not many people really know about. Right. And I think it’s, I think it’s a wonderful path for certain types of individuals out there that like to be out and about, like to be on their feet, like to, you know, never ending, like the things that you’re getting involved in. It’s just mind boggling, right? Like, you have
Michael Kistler 39:02
this Yeah, it’s, it’s different. You’re not doing the same thing every day. Like, you know, more of a big picture type guy. So, boys again, details, but But you know, for winning, from interested in something, I could just go ask, learn more than I ever wanted to about it.
Greg Owens 39:19
Right? Yeah. It’s such a great, that’s such a great path. I mean, I feel the same way as like, the owner of my company is like I, I’ve got people that get into the details, but I tend to sometimes, like get interested in something myself and, and get my hands dirty and get in there with them. Because I’m like, curious, and I want to learn about more about it, right? Yeah. All right. Well, it’s just been great. Thank you so much.
Outro 39:43
Yeah. 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.