Bryan Erwin (01:00:19.534) I can work under a tremendous amount of pressure from the public to the private. I couldn't live on the road. I'm not geared that way. I'm not made that way. And so these guys are my heroes. The stress, the pressure they're under, the mental health, the way it's affecting the stats don't lie. Suicide is the number one issue. when it comes to the construction industry. It's the number one killer. Take away all the OSHA focus forward, take away driving. It's the number one killer. And we've got to do something. We've got to have a different approach. And my approach is let's go to our creator. If we want to live, let's go to our creator. Hari Vasudevan (01:01:07.511) Yeah, yeah. No, actually, that's a really good approach. And honestly, if you think about it, right, all the things which you just mentioned away from families, away from the support system, working in the elements, working with pain in their bodies, right, because linemen, it's really hard. And then, you sometimes to overcome that, obviously you have these painkillers and progresses to opioids and that progresses into substance abuse and You have serious overdose issues and things like that. this is real problem. 100 % I agree with you. We need to tackle that. And you know what? I agree. We need to have a separate discussion about it. Let's maybe you and me and RL and a couple of others, we can do a separate panel podcast on that down the road, right? So this is super important topic. going back to the beautiful journey at Bobcat Power. So you got started. You, you know, It's humbling, something new. You had to learn again from the ground up. And, you know, obviously you you set the program up. Right. And how did you get to 2020? Right. 2020, you guys win AP's award, safety award, which is really hard. Right. And 2020 is the year of the pandemic. So I'm assuming that might have been doubly hard just because of the nature of how the world worked back then. So walk us through that. Bryan Erwin (01:02:41.038) So I think I took over the safety program around 2016. So like I told you, I started out as a project manager, 14 and 15. I did that for a couple of years. And so, you know, knew nothing worse than what I did, ground level, very humbling. And then Scotty threw me another curve ball, came in, hey, I've always pegged you as being a safety guy. Hari Vasudevan (01:02:55.383) Good. Bryan Erwin (01:03:04.654) You know, you care about people, you have a heart for people, you're a great trainer, you're a great coach, you're a great motivator, you're a great encourager. I've always seen you in this role, but you you needed to learn the industry. You need to learn the work and that's what you've done for the last two years. So he asked me to take over the safety and health program and I was reluctant at first. Hari Vasudevan (01:03:25.947) Let me ask you this now, if I can pause you there. Was there anybody before you doing that or is there a brand new role? Bryan Erwin (01:03:30.934) Yes, there were two people in that row. When I went to Bobcat, was guy in place. And then about a year into that, we replaced him and replaced that spot internally with another guy. And he was in that role for approximately a year. And then I took over after that. So we had two guys prior to me that I know of. And just kind of lukewarm, just not real connections with the guys. And when I first got in. Hari Vasudevan (01:04:11.191) Just checking the health and safety box is a good way to put it. Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:04:14.51) Checking the box. Yeah, checking the box. were good. We were safe and. Hari Vasudevan (01:04:20.375) And then you simply say, safety first! Ra, ra, ra! You're not doing anything! Bryan Erwin (01:04:24.47) Yeah. Thank you. First. Yeah. Then here comes the. Then here comes Nick Saban, you know, throwing the throwing the Satan's throwing the straw hats and pounding the white boards and you know not. Hari Vasudevan (01:04:35.543) No process, nothing. There is an 800 page safety manual and somebody does something unsafe. All that he says, you shouldn't have done that. Bryan Erwin (01:04:45.282) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:04:51.63) Yeah, exactly. Very process driven. know, look into the whys and why this is happening. Or, you know, let's just tend to the fundamentals. You know, it's fundamentals. It's like coaching. You teach fundamentals. We're to do the fundamental things every day. Observations, audits, inspections, having conversations with God, toolbox talks. Day ones, know, we kick off a job and it's project first. Hari Vasudevan (01:05:16.395) Yeah, well, let's talk about the fundamentals of your world, right? Because then honestly, that is the most important piece of anything in life, right? You got to get the fundamentals, right? So from a health and safety perspective, what are the basic things that you wouldn't compromise on, that you didn't compromise when you set up the program or if you were to set it up today, right? It's a better way to put it because you got 10 years into it, right? So what are the basic, absolute fundamentals? Bryan Erwin (01:05:46.84) You know, we've got a really good way of with our safety management platform of the got this form in the superintendent, the site leaders of leading their crews and documenting meetings, audits, inspections. You know, equipment inspections, day one forms, all the aspects that go into it. We were ahead of our time on that. I really believe from a from a safety management platform standpoint, we were way ahead of our time and. Just we asked them to do this daily and this weekly. Making sure that they were doing this daily and these things weekly and going back and verifying those things. And holding them accountable and identifying the guys that were doing it and identifying the guys that weren't doing it. So it came back to accountability and making sure the guys were doing the fundamental things that we asked them to do. daily and weekly. having zero tolerance for that, really pushing that, really having a belief system that and it's selling that belief system. Say observations, our observation program is top notch. We're way ahead of the industry and we have been for a number of years. And like I've always said, it's trying to define everything we do. Well then, so you know in our industry you've got good catches, you've got near misses, you've got incidences and no one could define that for me when I started. It was confusing. So I had to define it for myself. I had to understand it myself and then once I understood I could get it across to the guys and explain to them. So our good catch program is within our observation program is a great example. We have observations daily that we do by our site foreman site supervisors. safety people in the field and these observations are either positive in nature or negative in nature. What makes them positive is it's a safe act or safe condition that they see and then they do an observation on it. Or it's an unsafe act or unsafe condition that they see and they do an observation on that. Bryan Erwin (01:08:01.568) If it's an unsafe act, unsafe condition, which constitutes a negative type observation, that is a good catch because we are seeing an unsafe act or an unsafe condition. We're stating that, we're stopping the work. We're correcting it before any energy is released. That is our good catch program. And it's built within the observation program. So those are leading indicators. We're, you know, we... Early on, became a big leading indicator company instead of lagging indicators based on incidences and OSHA rates and EMR rates and all that. We tried to be more leading indicators driven, again, more process driven. If we can see these things on a daily basis, good or bad, then we can... Hari Vasudevan (01:08:47.178) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:08:53.804) develop some trends and develop some topics for conversation and open communication and transparency to deal with. And no observation, good or bad, no observation, positive or negative, no good catch, no matter how serious of a crime it might have been for it to actually. Hari Vasudevan (01:08:59.222) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:09:15.682) be out there could be punishable. had a zero non-punitive, non-punitive, 100%. No one was getting in trouble. No one was getting fired. No one was getting docked. No one was getting suspended for anything that they turned in in our operation. Hari Vasudevan (01:09:21.367) non-punitive. Hari Vasudevan (01:09:34.443) So you created a culture of open communication where instead of people, employees hiding things from you, they're gonna share things with you and the rest of the company, right? Because if a mistake happens or if an incident happens somewhere, let's say Waco, it's gonna happen in West Texas. It's only a matter of time. And so what you wanted to do was instead of them kinda Bryan Erwin (01:09:42.018) Yes. Bryan Erwin (01:09:45.827) Yes. Hari Vasudevan (01:10:02.711) pushing it under the rug, you really wanted that to be open out there, talked about, and hey, if I made a mistake, hey, I did this, watch out for this, right? That's the culture you're trying to promote, right? Bryan Erwin (01:10:15.753) Yeah. Yes, transparent culture which we were reporting culture doesn't matter. We're going to report it. No one's getting in trouble. Non punitive. We're going to be able to learn from each other because part of this in the observation or good catch besides stating the unsafe tactical condition they saw and stopping the work and correcting it before the energy was released. They also had to have a picture. A picture was attached to this. Observation reporting. mechanism that we have within our our platform. So we were able to off that picture that picture is so important because we're able to teach and train from that picture to the entire company. If you just got words and say, you know, we saw we saw a guy exposed to a leading edge of an open hole. And yeah, we stopped where we got it corrected. It's just words. You can let the whole company know about that, it doesn't get their attention. You show them a picture of a guy standing next to an open hole, exposed to it, and they can see the picture, then we can train the entire company. And we do that primarily in a number of different ways, quarterly training. weekly safety meetings but primarily through our wind calls on Wednesday, W-I-N, it's what's important now. We do it every Wednesday at 4.09 p.m. 4.09 p.m. Well, so again, Hari Vasudevan (01:11:46.007) Why is it 4 or 9? Bryan Erwin (01:11:53.226) Everything we do, we're trying to sell a belief system, sell a culture, right? And so the old coach in me comes out, I've got to get this across to this guy's importance of good catches and observations and everything else that we're trying to cover. our weekly win call at 409 and we know in this industry, brother's keeper is a big term, right? We want to be our brother's keeper and we want to have those peer checks, human performance and And the Brothers Keeper concept is gigantic in the construction industry. So I did some research and went back and I'm reading and Genesis four nine in the Bible is when God confronted Cain and asked Cain, hey, where's your brother Abel? And Cain had already killed his brother Abel and Cain said in Genesis four nine said, am I my Brothers Keeper? So I'm like Brothers Keeper. Just 49 so we do our wind call at 409 PM every single Wednesday. And we call it our wind call so it sells it further sells. Brothers keeper. And and it further sells. Our message that we. Hari Vasudevan (01:12:58.356) Interesting. Bryan Erwin (01:13:09.826) preach every single Wednesday. There's two or three things we discuss every Wednesday. Simple belief systems that we have at Bobcat and then we get into good catches, observations, topics, know, customer safety alerts, whatever it may be. Hari Vasudevan (01:13:19.287) you Hari Vasudevan (01:13:25.877) Yeah, no, it's interesting. Interesting. I've never heard the 409 before, but appreciate you sharing that. So let's go to leading and lagging indicators, right? You know, help the listeners understand a little bit about what those mean. What are some of the metrics you track? Obviously leading, assuming, hey, number of people attending safety meetings regularly. That's a leading indicator, right? Lagging indicator. is probably, hey, you what, you got a number of safety incidents increasing or something like that. Can you explain that a little bit at a high level? Bryan Erwin (01:14:04.002) Yes. Leading indicators of what you identified ahead of time before any energy is released. We talk a lot about, here's your release of energy. Where are you? Which side of this are you on? If you're on this side, before the energy is released, that's more leading. If you're on this side, now you're lagging. Energy now has been released. And that's what we're trying to control in our industry, is the release of energy. We know that energy may be released, but if we're prepared for that, then we've got to plan in place. But if we're not prepared for that and it happens, then someone's gonna get hurt because energy causes harm, more energy causes more harm. So it's all about the release of energy and controlling that. But we want to be on this side of it where we're identifying things. We're seeing things prior to the release of energy, such as these observations, whether they're good or bad. Because remember, if it's a positive observation, we're seeing a safe act, a safe condition on a job site. We're seeing, OK, guys are working in the air. We got our drop zone barricaded. Guys are tied off. They've got fall protection. But we snap a picture of it. guys are tied off drop zones barricaded positive observation. Or we can observe the same type of work and see guys not tied off in the basket. We don't have our drop zone barricade, our barricades not in place. So now I can do an observation on this, snap a picture of it, state that we may not have fall protection in place or state that we're not barricaded with our drop zone and line of fire. State that I stopped the work. state that I made the guy tie off state that I got the drop zone barricaded and then we go back to work. No energy was released. No one fell. No tool fell. No guy on the ground got hit by tool. Nothing happened. That's we're leading. We're ahead of any release of energy. Lagging is. Energies released. We've had an event. Bryan Erwin (01:16:21.506) We've had either property damage or we've had injury. Something got damaged, something got broke or someone got hurt. That's a lagging indicator. It's after the release of energy and now we're at the mercy of luck. We're at the mercy of maybe some capacity to determine how bad that property damage was or that injury was. Hari Vasudevan (01:16:49.687) Got it. So anything, mean, another way to put it is you put it to eloquently, but the other way to put it would be, you know, you have a set of processes in place, a number of observations coming in, a number of people attending your 409 meetings, number of people attending, submitting good catches and things like that. Or if they're trending downwards, that's a problem that could potentially, that's a leading indicator that could potentially cause an issue on the lagging indicator, which is essentially hey, you what, you have a vehicle accident or you have out there, incident out there in the field, things like that, right? So is that another way to do the same thing? Okay. Bryan Erwin (01:17:31.426) Yes. Yes, because we may have, I go through the observations from the week and primarily looking at the negative observations because those are the ones where we're seeing an unsafe doctor condition. We're stopping the work. getting it corrected. Those are good catches. I'm primarily focused on those. And we may have a trend of eight, 10, 12 of them come in where there's a barricading problem. with guys up in the air doing work and we're not barricading our drop zone. So that's a trend that we're seeing. So I'm going to make sure that I emphasize that on this wind call. And I'm going to emphasize these good catches on this wind call because this is a leading indicator. We don't just have one of these observations. We've got six, eight, 10, 12 of these. So we're ahead of it right now. Let's stay ahead of it. Let's get this corrected. Let's get ourselves barricaded below our aerial work. Hari Vasudevan (01:18:11.051) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:18:29.24) So we don't have to deal with a lagging indicator, someone getting hurt. Hari Vasudevan (01:18:33.847) Got it. Got it. So coach, you know, we have a lot more to talk, right? I'm looking at the clock. We have two minutes left in our slotted time. We can keep going or we can kind of come back in a few weeks and do this again. What do you want to do? Bryan Erwin (01:18:56.396) I'm good. Let's keep going. Hari Vasudevan (01:18:57.783) Okay, perfect. All right, good. It's good stuff, right? So really good discussion. you win this award in 2020, Incredibly proud achievement. So walk us through that, if you will. How do you feel? I mean, it's like winning a national championship. How does it compare to 2003? Compare the two. Bryan Erwin (01:19:14.062) I feel great. Bryan Erwin (01:19:21.748) Yeah, it's maybe not quite as sweet. A state championship was a long term goal, childhood goal of mine. It's the quintessential ultimate in Texas high school football to be a champion in this state is hard. so. Not not quite as not quite as high, but very rewarding. It was was a reward we wanted. We we know Scotty wanted it. He wanted to win. He'd want to win it for a number of years. But again, you can't say I want to win the AEP safety award. I want to win the AEP safety award. I wake up every day. You wake up every day and you do your observations and your good catches and your audits and your inspections. And again, it goes back to the process. Do these things and the AAP Safety Awards is just a byproduct of all that other stuff that we do daily and weekly. Hari Vasudevan (01:20:18.455) Yeah, mean, listen, obviously, work AP, I've been working with AP since 2009. I have a really good appreciation for how hard it is to win. Who was the managing director of construction back then? Is it Nathan Ball or was it? Bryan Erwin (01:20:21.368) The cult. Bryan Erwin (01:20:35.084) Nathan, I believe, was then, yes. Hari Vasudevan (01:20:37.312) Yeah, yeah, no, it's incredibly hard, obviously. Congratulations. you guys won it again. Two thousand twenty three, two thousand twenty five, two thousand twenty three. was there watching your acceptance speech and you also had a discussion. So that is a really good, good stuff there. So let's kind of connect now football and safety, right, which you've done throughout your career. Right. In football, you know the players will know if a coach really cares about them, right? I mean same thing applies in business as well, right? you know people, most people know if somebody's just blowing smoke up their skirt or they're really caring about them and whatnot. It's especially true in the health and safety industry, right? Like I said earlier, there's a lot of raw, raw health and safety guys out there. like safety first but really don't put in the effort to get there right. One of the reasons I really wanted to hire you was I know you were putting in the hard yards if you will to help your employees get there right. How do you make sure your employees know you have their back right. While still holding on to the rules, accountability, know expectations and things like that. that you can't compromise on. Bryan Erwin (01:22:09.999) Yeah, just let them know you care about them. Caring is one of the most important qualities that we can have and you share that with. I said it a while ago and let our guys know and praying for him daily praying for the working and traveling safety. Just let them know that they're my heroes acknowledging. Then working on the road, acknowledging them being away from their families, acknowledging the fact that they were they're doing things different and more difficult. But just just caring about you know, loving on him. That's not a term that you use much in this industry, but but loving on him and caring on the you know. They they can put up a facade all they want. I thought I was coming into a tough guy industry. And. There's no tough guy industries. These guys are human. These guys are men. They they feel pain. They feel hurt. They have heartaches. They deal with, like we said earlier, the mental health challenges. But just having good, open, honest communication, letting them know that we care about them. Praying for them daily and just being real with them, being authentic and having some things in place that. That they know that we're authentic and we're coming from a place of true vulnerability. And we appreciate them, we respect them, and I always. from the standpoint of we want to catch them doing things right, not not necessarily catch them doing things wrong. That's what the safety I think culture is improved for the for the good over the last few years is that this safety cop mentality is not out there. And that's one thing I told Scott early on. I was like when he asked me to become the safety guy and head of safety on Scott, I can't be that guy. You know I I can't. I can't be that guy when the safety guy rolls up and here comes the safety guy. Bryan Erwin (01:24:17.902) Let's get our stuff together. The safety cop, yeah, the safety cop and being the guy that maybe the ops guys, the field hands don't truly respect for whatever reason. I say, I can't be that guy. It's not gonna work. If I'm that guy and I feel like I'm that guy, I'm walking, I'm done, it's over. Hari Vasudevan (01:24:18.207) Yeah. You're the cop! Bryan Erwin (01:24:44.266) So just know that and so it never was that way. I treat the guys we respect, try to catch them doing things right. Let them know we care about him. You know the wind calls you know zero horn is a huge factor that we that we sell zero horn for us. Is. A belief system that AP and we've heard in this industry for number of years, but I couldn't believe it. You know we would be there and. They say, how many of you believe in zero harm? You know, AEP is 100 % behind zero harm. And I dropped my head and dropped my eyes. Like how am I supposed to believe in zero harm when there's gonna be some harm? You know, in my world, if you say something, it's got to be realistic. To me, zero harm is not realistic. So I had to put a definition behind it that I could believe in because like I said earlier, if I can't believe it, I can't sell it and preach it to my guys and get them to believe it. So I had to come up with something I believe in. So zero harm for us is everyone goes home every day with life, limbs, and livelihood intact. Should I expect you to go home, you know, we're sitting in a meeting, should I expect you to go home with your life? Yes, sir. You know, I think everybody can agree to that. Should I expect you to go home with all your limbs, which also includes your eyes? Yes. Should I expect you go home today with your livelihood? Yes. And then we get to have the livelihood pieces where we get a chance to have a conversation. We get to find out what makes Hari tick. What makes Brian tick? What lights our fire? What's our hobby? What's our passion? Is it golf? Is it fishing? Is it hunting? Is it cooking? Is it traveling? You know what? is it rodeo? mean we come across all kinds of stuff. You know through new hire orientation when we have these conversations with these guys face to face during new hire. Which also separate. Yes, that's also separates us also is our our new hire orientation. We it's still face to face. It's three days face to face. We don't put a computer in front of him and tell him to knock this out. It's face to face. Check the box. Hari Vasudevan (01:26:38.935) I'm going to take it. Hari Vasudevan (01:26:44.353) So you get to know the person. Hari Vasudevan (01:27:00.631) Check the boxes. Bryan Erwin (01:27:03.694) Yeah, yeah. So zero harm is a big piece of that's one of the things we cover every Wednesday on our wind call. Every single Wednesday, we define zero harm. Everyone goes home every day with life, limbs, and livelihood intact. And then again, we get a chance to have our true, open, honest, vulnerable conversation about livelihood and get to know people and get to know what makes them tick. Hari Vasudevan (01:27:29.845) Yeah, no, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. So, you know, we've talked a lot about your achievements, which are honestly a lot. Right. What is the one setback in your career that you may not have shared so far in the show and you want to share now and something you've learned and you want to share with others? Bryan Erwin (01:27:56.694) You know, that's a tough, you know, from a coaching standpoint, was the story I told you earlier about my son's injuries. It set my coaching career back. really, but that was the plan, you I didn't know it at the time, looking back on it now, that happened for a reason because I would not be here. I would not be sitting here if my sons would have been healthy, went on to have all state careers. Team have tremendous success. I would have either been there or moved on to the next thing or moved on to college or kept climbing that ladder in football. So. It was a setback because it was was a major, major hurt and disappointment in that pain that we talked about earlier, but. I don't really view it as a setback. It was part of my plan. God's plan for my life, and that's the reason I'm here now. And. That had. Already not had to happen. You know how we talk about things that have to happen. You know, I'm like I'm a faithful Christian man. things had to happen. Jesus had to die. My sons had to get hurt for me to be sitting here talking to you. They had to. Hari Vasudevan (01:29:25.343) Yeah, no fair. It's really, it's a really good way to look at life in general, right? Because everything happens for a reason. So, you know, advice for young people, right? You got all these data centers, AI, driving all these energy security issues, reliability, resiliency issues, and of course affordability, right? It's in discussions all the time where utility rates are going up because of know so many different factors coming into play right so there's a demand all this creates the demand for alignment in the community demand for construction workers in the line trade right What is that wise you would give for young people that's number one in is from a health and safety standpoint two questions here, right? From health and safety standpoint, is there a concern that you have? Because when there is such a demand, reshoring of manufacturing, data centers coming up, electricity demand going up, are people moving up the ladder too quickly? Are GFs ready, general foremen, are they ready to be GFs? Are they ready to command the crew out there? So two questions, advice for young people and your concern with this booming industry. Bryan Erwin (01:30:45.016) Yeah, advising young people there's a lot there because it's kind of old school approaches work ethic. Is it there? Is it not there? We always said success is spelled W-O-R-K. Success is spelled, it's not spelled S-U-C-C-E-S-S, it's spelled W-O-R-K. You have to have, you know, that strong, strong work ethic. The delayed gratification thing that you talked about earlier, I think is the young people today. They don't have that really, the Fumaraci. They want it now. They want the toys, they want the stuff, they want the big house, they want the big truck, they want the vacations, they want it now. you know, I didn't have that. You know, we delayed so many gratifications. know, we, and just delaying having things and... I think that's a big piece that I want to stress. The two to one ratio I mentioned earlier with the ears and the mouth, know, just listening twice as much as they talk. You know, young people need to learn that skill. There was also a quote that I used when I was a young, young guy growing up. I still think about it all the time is is a belief system or philosophies demand more from yourself. than anyone else would ever expect from you. And I always had this on my resume. I always shared this in interviews. This is who you're hiring. I demand more from myself than Hari would ever expect from me. I demand more from myself than Scott would ever expect from me. When I was in coaching, the superintendent or the athletic director or the community. Don't worry about, I got it. I put more pressure on myself than Harik could put on me. I demand more for myself than anyone else could ever expect from me. Yeah, I think young people, they need to adopt that. They need to adopt that mentality. They don't need the strongest manager in the world or somebody motivating them every day. Intrinsic motivation is where it... Hari Vasudevan (01:32:43.704) That's what I wanted you. Bryan Erwin (01:33:00.032) It needs to happen, not extrinsic motivation. So just being motivated, being persistent, perseverance, all things we've talked about that work ethic, listening twice as much as you talk. Bryan Erwin (01:33:16.534) A lot of them also like being the smartest guy in the room. This is not just young guys, this is old guys too. I firmly believe don't be the smartest guy in the room. Emotional intelligence. You can be smart, you may know, you may have a better idea knowing when to be the leader and knowing when to be the follower. Hari Vasudevan (01:33:18.711) No. Hari Vasudevan (01:33:26.423) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:33:37.676) having that emotional intelligence, sometimes I need to lead and I need to lead every ounce of it. Sometimes I need to just be quiet, shut up and step back and follow. And so I see a lot of people just, and I'm talking about owners, executives, CEOs down to grown, they wanna be the smartest guy in the room. And I don't think that's a good trait. Don't be the smartest. Hari Vasudevan (01:33:55.307) Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:34:03.607) Yeah, no, actually, I've been on a lot of calls with exactly, you know, CEOs or types like that. And they want to just make that one quote in that call. It's like just to show that they're the smartest. And actually, it doesn't it comes through, right? It comes through as like, dude, just keep your mouth shut. You're probably smarter by doing that. Right. So it's interesting. Super interesting. So. Bryan Erwin (01:34:27.744) Exactly. Hari Vasudevan (01:34:32.887) Second piece of the question, the demand for the industry, is that creating, you know, qualified, I mean, rather people with limited qualification, mowing up higher responsibilities, what's your concern from a health and safety standpoint? Bryan Erwin (01:34:54.55) It's a concern industry-wide. It's concern for Bobcat. It's concern for Auspland. It's there. The labor market is a concern. I don't know that I have the right answer. I know that we need to support all the support pieces that we've talked about previously on this podcast need to be in place for mental health. You know isolation. Traveling and being on the road. Obviously financial incentives and financial support can ease some of that burden, but just incentivizing these guys and both financially and mentally. And from a social standpoint, I think could play a part in attracting more guys to the industry. the labor market is, it's hard to get guys to work on the road. We went through the pandemic, right? And everybody learned to work at home. And I didn't, and lot of people I know didn't, but I know of a lot of people that did. And so getting guys to go work on the road six days a week out in West Texas, and they live in the Valley, and when they get off on Friday afternoon or Friday evening, they've got a nine hour drive home. Hari Vasudevan (01:36:14.198) Yeah, we can. Bryan Erwin (01:36:14.86) And then they're expected back to work, possibly Monday. So that means they got a nine hour drive on Sunday. And I did a little bit of that when I was coaching and transitioning between jobs and it's stressful. you dread going home because you dread going back. As you're driving home, you're already thinking about the anxiety and the dread of leaving your home. Hari Vasudevan (01:36:32.619) Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:36:37.687) 18 hours on a drive. mean, honestly, sometimes it's more than that depending on where you are in West Texas, where you are in the valley. Bryan Erwin (01:36:44.94) Yeah, yeah, it's it's I don't we're all tackling that issue right now trying to come up with we've had these discussions we know in order to grow as a company, this is a constraint. The labor the job market, the labor market. Finding guys, you know, good young guys that are that are capable or competent or willing to, you willing to learn and have a growth and development. But I know this to get them there. Hari Vasudevan (01:36:58.604) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:37:14.2) We gotta pay them well. We gotta incentivize them and we've gotta provide them some support mentally and socially to what's good. Hari Vasudevan (01:37:25.015) Yeah, I mean for all the sacrifice for all the sacrifice people make it's gotta be worth the sacrifice, right? You know, for the 18 hour drive to go back and see their families. It's it's tough, right? So it's interesting. You know, we talked about the eye and the demand it creates from a health and safety standpoint. What what are what excites you by the AI era, right? Bryan Erwin (01:37:31.852) Yes. Hari Vasudevan (01:37:53.751) what concerns you about the AI era. Bryan Erwin (01:37:58.03) What excites me is a little bit of work we've done and been exposed to by one of our other companies within within Auspland working on some AI driven task hazard analysis, JSAs, know, just job planning things that are that are AI driven. I've seen a little bit of it. Again, I've just seen a smidgen of it. Not enough to. to be an expert on it, but I think that's where we're headed because obviously with job planning, task hazard analysis, JSAs, it's about, okay, what are we working on? What's our activity? What's our task? And then identifying the hazards associated with that task and then mitigating those hazards. And most of the time where we have an issue is we failed to identify a hazard with that task. And if we can identify the hazard, we're going to mitigate it. But most of the time, we just don't identify the hazard. So if the hazard doesn't get identified, that we don't have to put a control in place to mitigate it, then that's when we have the unexpected release of energy. And something gets broken or someone gets hurt. And I see AI and what I've seen from it. AI has this ability to help lead a foreman through job planning to identify tasks associated with this work and then the hazards associated with that task and then the best way to control those hazards. So that's probably what I'm most excited about. I'm on a scale of one to I'm a I'm a 0.5 or a one on what I know and what I've been exposed to, but I have had some exposure to it. The negative to it from what I've seen is thinking skills, writing skills are getting destroyed. Guys, we just don't have people that... Hari Vasudevan (01:39:42.679) Hahaha! you Bryan Erwin (01:40:06.786) that are thinking for themselves, they're relying on Google or Gemini or chat GPT and AI to think for them. I think we should think through it and then if we need help, then we go to AI and round it all out. But then the writing piece is where I see the biggest issue, especially in health and safety. Folks that just... They struggle with writing, you know, and they struggle with composing emails and composing incident reports and composing a plan or a program for certain things. writing is so critical to being able to communicate informally and formally. And so... Hari Vasudevan (01:40:58.647) document your thoughts honestly, right? It's such an important skill. Bryan Erwin (01:41:01.558) Yes, yeah, and obviously, there's no doubt AI can help people like that. But it also can be a detriment as well because then they never practice that skill and their skill diminishes. Hari Vasudevan (01:41:13.463) Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:41:20.725) Yeah, right. Write an email to Brian Irwin. They just copied that. I mean, honestly, it takes me now two seconds to figure out if somebody wrote this. They took their time to read this email or if it's just. Bryan Erwin (01:41:26.958) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:41:33.57) No doubt. Or we're seeing it now. Hurry, we're seeing it with observations. We're seeing it with incident reports. We're seeing it with. Number of different things, and I've had a couple of safety guys say, you know, and I've actually applauded a guy or two for the way this was written and well written, well thought out. And I'm pretty sure he did it with AI. And then I'll have to say he did that with AI. Well, at least he put in the thought and the time and he had the care to make it professional and want to do a really, really nice job the way he presented that. So I'm not against it. just I think when you always use it 100 % of the time, if you use a calculator 100 % of the time, Hari Vasudevan (01:42:11.766) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:42:26.774) Instead of using your noggin to add up some numbers and to multiply some numbers, you lose the ability. Hari Vasudevan (01:42:33.111) 100 % actually so interesting you say that because you know you know my kids are 10 and 12 and they're kind of really good in math and whatnot and you know one day they were asking me something I immediately took my engineering calculator right here and did that and they kind of were looking at each other and laughing because it's a simple math I had to rely on the calculator to that you're so right about that right so Bryan Erwin (01:42:56.034) Yeah. Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:43:02.743) We'll lose it. No, you got to be careful about it. You one of the things that I'm actually excited about from a health and safety standpoint about AI is, you know, listen, you guys are on a good ship at Aspland and Bobcat power and whatnot. But, you know, in many places, the exact issues we talked about, right, long hours at work, many days away from home, working in amongst the elements, difficult conditions and things like that. leads to mental health issues. But there are also perverse incentives at play in many companies, in almost every company. You have these guys working, the project manager has to get things going, there might be a bonus tied to getting the project done on time. So the PM may simply say, hey, just get the job done and then you can take a break. Well, that might be an issue. And the health and safety program may not be very strong in things like that. you know, hey I might help nudge, right? It's like different stakeholders within a project kick it out to health and safety personnel, kick it out to PM, kick it out to different people out there, say hey maybe this guy needs a break, right? And maybe in those kind of situations it can help humanize construction a little bit more, time will tell. Let's see what happens, right? Bryan Erwin (01:44:24.078) Yeah, yeah, I could still with you know some forecasting. They prop forecasting profitability forecasting work schedules work to rest ratios, things like that. Hari Vasudevan (01:44:35.819) Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So man, we're coming towards the end of the show, right? So if a camera were to follow you, right, what are the specific things it'll be, it'll catch you telling your crews, right, from a safety is a non-negotiable piece of the puzzle at Bobcat Power. Bryan Erwin (01:44:58.734) It's gotta go back to the first three things that we cover every Wednesday on our wind call. just, I try to keep it simple there with the guys and consistent. It comes down to zero harm. We're gonna be preaching zero harm. It's everywhere. It's on our walls, it's on our t-shirts, it's on our wind call. It's the conversation we have at the very beginning of new hire orientation. It's a conversation we have at the beginning of our quarterly training. Hari Vasudevan (01:45:18.368) It's the time. Bryan Erwin (01:45:26.57) And that's everyone goes home every day with life, limbs and livelihood. If we can do that, if every one of my guys goes home today with their life and all their limbs, including their eyes and their livelihood, then we had a great day. We had now we may we may have hit a foundation and dinged up some concrete. We may have dropped something. Hari Vasudevan (01:45:42.443) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:45:54.806) you know, we may have bumped into something up in the air on the ground and dinged up a fence or something that might that might have happened. And we don't want that. We don't want that. But did anybody lose their life? Anybody lose anybody lose their livelihood? And so that's number one. Number two, we have a belief. Second belief system we have is no one should have to sacrifice their life for their livelihood. Hari Vasudevan (01:46:05.291) Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:46:09.365) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:46:20.61) because a nation built on the dignity of hard work must provide safe working conditions for its people. And so that's a second belief system in quote that's in our new hire room, in our training room. No one should have sacrifice their life for their livelihood because the nation built on the dignity of hard work must provide safe working conditions for its people. And then thirdly, we talk about high energy and how we control high energy. And that's the most important thing is we look at this thing, the stuff that kills you and controlling that high energy. know, remember a while ago, we talked about that unexpected release of energy and what side of this are we on? And so we're always trying to control high energy. We're trying to control struck by we're trying to control phones. We're trying to control electrical issues. We're trying to control struck caught in between. We're trying to control motor vehicle accidents. We're trying to control. Suicides. Hari Vasudevan (01:47:16.853) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:47:18.232) Those are the high energy things. In the summertime, heat. Okay, we're trying to control heat illness. huge issue, huge. We put a lot of work in, but that's another show. What we do there with our heat plan. So, we have three beliefs on how to control the high energy. Number one, you eliminate it. Eliminate the high energy. Well, Hari Vasudevan (01:47:27.285) Which is a big issue. Bryan Erwin (01:47:48.118) We know we very seldom can do that. But we can sometimes. If we've got a hole, we've drilled a hole for a pier foundation, we can cover that hole up until we get ready to form it up and put an anchor bulk cage in or rebar in it or whatever. We can cover it up. We cover the hole. That fall hazard is eliminated. But very seldom can we eliminate hazards. If we can eliminate it, we eliminate it. If we can't, then we build capacity to absorb that released energy. And if we can build capacity to absorb that released energy, then we build that capacity. If we can't, then we thirdly create, and this is where most people stop. They talk about building capacity, build capacity, build capacity. And that's all everybody talks about. We don't stop there. We can't always build capacity. And so if we can't build capacity, then we create space to avoid it. Space always answers the problem. Space is always a solution to hazard exposure. The more space you have away from that hazard and that exposure to that hazard, then you can control the release of that energy from harming that person. So, obviously, One of the greatest examples you use for build capacity is a seatbelt or airbags in a vehicle. So we have seatbelts, we have airbags. So that's a tremendous capacity builder when we drive. It's the greatest capacity builder. It's the greatest tool we can have when we drive is putting our own seatbelt and having airbags in our vehicles. I know it's crazy. It's crazy. It reduces fatalities by 50%. But Hari Vasudevan (01:49:18.261) you Hari Vasudevan (01:49:29.367) You'd be surprised people don't wear it even today sometimes, right? Bryan Erwin (01:49:41.486) The other, okay, then we create space. So if we can create space while we're then now our chances of having a good drive just increased dramatically, right? By creating space between us and that other vehicle. Same thing with any construction activity you wanna talk about. Creating space away from an open hole. Creating space away from a trencher. Creating space away from drop zone. Hari Vasudevan (01:50:09.303) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:50:10.158) You know, create space away from electric. That's why we have mad distances. You know, minimal approach distances. That's why we have trigger distances. We create. We have very little capacity to build when it comes to electricity. We don't have. We can't build capacity to absorb an unexpected release of electricity. So what do we need to? We need to create space. So that's those are the three things we utilize to help us to control high energy. We eliminate if we. If we can eliminate, we do it. If we can't, we build capacity. If we can't build capacity, we create space. So I would say those three things, zero harm, no one should have sacrificed their life for their livelihood because nation built on the dignity of hard work must provide safe work conditions for its people. And then number three, high energy and those three ways in which we control them. Hari Vasudevan (01:50:59.829) Got it, got it. Okay, all right. So let me ask you this final question here. You're coach of the UT football team for a year. What would you do? Bryan Erwin (01:51:15.47) I've got an unlimited NIL budget, of course. Hari Vasudevan (01:51:20.983) Of course, and I, you're man, so... Bryan Erwin (01:51:25.038) I think as they stand right now, we've got Arch. everyone wanted to call him a flop at the beginning of the year, but he ended up having a great season. He's gonna be tremendous player. Surround him with the very best that you can surround him with. I think we've done that with Cam Coleman and some receivers and going to get some running backs. Right now the biggest piece is offensive line. I'm gonna go get the very best offensive lineman I can have. to establish a running game and to protect them in past protection. So right now I'm going to get the very best offensive line I can buy. And then defensively, obviously, create as good a defense as we can possibly create. Hari Vasudevan (01:52:02.871) Yeah. Do you you think you'd. Hari Vasudevan (01:52:11.661) Yeah, do you UD has a shot at the national championship next year? Bryan Erwin (01:52:16.108) Yeah, I think so. I think we'll be top three to five teams and probably be ranked one or two again. Of course, that didn't help us this year. We were ranked number one this year, but we just weren't ready. think we got caught a little bit and Sartre felt like maybe he had the offense alive. maybe some receivers in place ready to go. And thought that they could develop some of the other guys that they had instead of going into the portal and getting some proven guys. that's what cost Texas a little bit this year was not having the offensive line didn't come through. The receiving core didn't come through. The running backs, we were very, very, very average at running back as well. So we made a mistake. Hari Vasudevan (01:52:49.111) Yeah. Bryan Erwin (01:53:03.31) The guys that have hit it out of ballpark in the portal, like Indiana, Texas Tech, Miami, those are the definitely great. That's a great example. Those are the four teams right there that probably have really, really knocked it of the park in the portal and look where they are. Hari Vasudevan (01:53:09.937) miss. Hari Vasudevan (01:53:21.045) Yeah, yeah, no, they got it right, right? you know, honestly, I think the schedule also didn't help you to read me first game going in is starting in Ohio State in Ohio State. But remember, right out there, right? It's tough, right? Yeah. So anyway, so coach, you know, give the listeners a pep talk, coach, coach, you're in pep talk before we end the show. Right. Bryan Erwin (01:53:34.52) Yeah, move into that again. Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:53:50.945) What would you say? will be the pep talk that you'll give? Bryan Erwin (01:53:57.166) There's so much there in the brain. Hari Vasudevan (01:54:00.535) I need the voice, I need the tone, I need the energy as well. Bryan Erwin (01:54:07.534) Yeah, I think one of my favorite things to say is, going at halftime and it's a tight game. It's nip and tuck, we're down, it's a championship game. And guys, we gotta be willing to hurt like we gotta be willing to hurt to win this football game. Are you willing to hurt the way you're willing to hurt to win this football game? are we willing to pay the price and to sacrifice? and to submit ourselves in a servant role as health and safety professionals and be servants and submit ourselves and kill our pride and kill our flesh. Are we willing to do that enough to be successful? yeah, that's kind one of the first things I think of. Hey guys, are you willing to hurt like you got to hurt to win this football game? Hari Vasudevan (01:55:00.181) Yeah, yeah, no, it's good, Coach Urban, Brian Urban. Obviously, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure to know you so much. you know, there's so much material out there we can do. Definitely, definitely more, much more, many more shows out there. So. Bryan Erwin (01:55:18.914) Definitely. Love to follow up on the mental health. Hari Vasudevan (01:55:22.037) Yes, sir. Thank you so much, Brian. Bryan Erwin (01:55:24.344) Thank you, Ari.
