chad purdy === Jod: [00:00:00] You know what's hard, ? Chad: What? That's great one. I'm not answering that. That's a great way to start. Jod: Leading question. Sorry, my hands are on top of the table. Thank you. . Uh, what's hard is being a football fan in Indiana. Chad: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yes, I Vince: know. I mean, I don't, I don't know when this episode's gonna get released, but just as a, as a point of Jod: reference, it doesn't matter. It's a timeless comment. Doesn't matter. I don't think it Vince: matters. IU season was abyss. Yeah. Um, three of us attended the Colt's game last night, Monday night Football against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Um, outside of a couple drives in the third quarter, our offense looked anemic. Pedestrian, I'm, I'm looking for a words apparently. Um, it was, that was, it was bad. Jod: Quite frankly, that was a really boring football game. I mean, to lose. Yeah. No one wants to lose. Like you wanna go and watch your team. , but at a minimum you want to [00:01:00] go and, and watch a good game and be entertained. And I, I should, I would've rather gotten two hours more asleep that than I didn't get. Because if, you know, Monday night football, you game gets done at 1130 and takes forever to get home. Sort of like, uh, Saturdays in Bloomington Tailgating's Chad: good. They do put on a good. in between timeouts and stuff. I thought that was pretty entertaining. Vince: We were glad you were entertained. Oh, are you not entertained? Jod: I mean, I was entertained, thank goodness for the Frisbee dogs. Yes, yes, you're right. And the quick change artist. Chad: Yep. And the white show, which is great. Vince: I, I appreciate you wearing the Iowa shirt today. I, I would've expected nothing less. It's an Iowa football shirt no less. Um, Hawkeys didn't have the greatest season. I mean, granted is better than the Hoosiers, which is pretty easy to do. But, um, Bull prospects. Uh, is there one? Chad: Yeah, I think the, uh, maybe the Motor City Jod: bowl. Oh, so there's gonna be like an Outback? Yeah. Or a motor city or Outback. Maybe a music city. Chad: Music city maybe. [00:02:00] But pro we're going south for sure. Okay. We travel, we travel well to Florida in San Antonio. Vince: All right. So you got something to look forward to there? We don't, um, yeah, we do. Now it's basketball stadium. Basketball season. Basketball season. Um, how, how are the hawkeys gonna be this year? For Chad: basketball? Yeah. Good. Really good. really good shooters. Couple young kids in the post. I don't, Vince: a couple of nine year short veterans that, no, we don't, don't have any from 40 Chad: feet. Don't have any of those anymore. Oh. He's just running a podcast now. Vince: Oh, is he? Yeah. Oh, well, maybe we should have 'em all as a guest. I, I, I'll give Chad: him a call. Okay. Let's do that. I have a Twitter connection with him. Oh, your Twitter buddies. Yeah, our Twitter buddies should Jod: be good. Well, we should ask a, a more important question, more important in, in like, in the backyards of Des Moines. , Iowa City. Mm-hmm. , and, you know, other places in that state. Um, how's Iowa wrestling gonna be this year? Like, just get down to the real question of Iowa Sports. How's wrestling gonna be? [00:03:00] I don't Chad: follow wrestling. Jod: Yeah. I don't. Isn't it like the kingpin sport? It is. Chad: Pardon? To cut that part out. No. No, you can't because I know some people are gonna watch this. I follow, I follow our high school is, to me is more exciting than watching Iowa Wrestl. . We have a really good high school. Um, the school my son goes to, yeah, really good, uh, uh, wrestling program. In fact, Dan Maik, he used to, uh, I think he was a Cal or high school, high school teammate of Dan Gable. Okay. So he's got a big shrine in our, in our community. So he's kind of, he's kind of a big deal around there, but I just don't follow it. Couldn't do it. I am, I will say this, I am one and. and wrestling because I had to do it and I was a chubby kid and as soon as I won and I qualified to go to a tournament, then they, they gave me the sing it and I said, Nope, not my sport . I'm not wearing, I am not wearing that singlet. That's a tough one for me. Vince: Hashtag Jod: sing it. Yep. Now you just wear it [00:04:00] around the house for kicks? Chad: I do. Well, Vince said I get an industrious podcast singlet. Oh, perfect. Or maybe a tank top. I'm more of a tank top. Yeah, we'll work on that. . Yes. Perfect. . Vince: Uh, so you didn't go to the bowl game if they go? Chad: No, I don't think so. No. I, I went to the Rose Bowl and, what is it? The last one we went to, we got, I, I left at halftime with Cat Free, had I think 300 all purpose yards at half. Okay. And I just, we left, I was done. I had enough, it was 50 something to I think 54 to three at the point. So, I mean, it wasn't a fun game to go. and there was travel problems. There was always snow. It was, we got delayed. I had to sleep in the airport overnight. I mean, it was just a mess. Nice. So we're not doing that anymore. All Vince: right, cool. All right, well let's get rolling. Let's do it. Um, go ahead and push that a little bit closer to you. All right. Chris, do you pick him up? Okay. I can't hear the headphones.[00:05:00] Jod: Yeah, we'll assume yes. He's texting you on the screen. Oh, . Well, that's cool. . Yes, . Thank you. Nice. All right. All right. So I'm dragging today, not a lot of sleep last night. Half my household is sick and I think I'm starting to catch their cold, which is fantastic. But I'm excited to talk about some important things, not just college football or wrestling or pro football, which again, doesn't exist in our state and not basketball, which does, um, by the way, speaking of per. like beating Gonzaga and Duke the way they did recently. That makes me angry. That just makes me angry. Chad: And they gotta, and they're in the Big 10, well, doesn't matter. Yeah, they're not supposed to be, but yeah, they are. Jod: Um, okay. What was your first question? No, Vince: I'm gonna do our intro. Oh, Jod: go ahead. Okay. five.[00:06:00] Chad: Hey Vince: guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Industrialist podcast. Thank you for joining us from wherever you get your podcast, or if you're on theesa YouTube channel. Thank you for joining us there. If you are on the YouTube channel and you haven't hit that little subscription button or the little notification bell to be alerted when new episodes like this one drop, please do so. Uh, again, thanks for joining us and welcome, uh, today's guest is Aesa employee, um, longtime friend. We've known him well, well before [00:07:00] actually he joined our team, uh, Mr. Chad Purdy, who hails from. Great state of Iowa. Perfect. Welcome to the Industrials podcast. Chad: I appreciate you having me on the podcast. You're welcome. . I have a harder time saying the other thing, but thanks for having me. I can't do it anymore. Sorry. Thanks for having me. I can't do it anymore. I'll add that one. What's that? Well, if you remember a long, a little group text message for a while, I think it was during the Big 10 championship game for, uh, basketball, and we just kept, kept winning, kept hitting threes mens and. Men's. Okay. And I kept saying, thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Oh yes. Got old. I can't say it anymore. I use it now . So thanks. That's good for that. You're welcome. You're welcome. You can have that one. Yeah. Vince: Uh, Chad, why don't you give some background for our listeners. Chad: Well, I, I went well after college. I, I, uh, I was, I played, I went to, sorry, real quick. You, you were born and raised in Iowa? Yes, correct? Yes. Okay. Yep. I went to college to play baseball got hurt, which [00:08:00] isn't a shocker, but I did realize that if you can't hit a curve ball, you really. Can't go too far in baseball, but I was told I couldn't play anymore and we kinda went home and started working in a, uh, for the summer job, started working in a cabinet shop, a large cabinet shop in our area. Uh, started, I'm talking third shift ground up, you know, 20 or 19, 20 years old. , uh, was blowing off parts before Steeler's handing, and then kind of in that, in that like five year period, just kind of sat there and just kind of worked my way up through the ranks and started getting into the paint side of it, matching colors. Um, and then kind of got an offer to get on the other side of the, of the business, start serve some paint. So I serviced in that area. Yeah. Then I started selling account managing and kind of moved all over Vince: that first job. getting out of the actual manufacturing process and then to the call it, yep. I guess the coding side, correct. Yep. Um, what, what were you doing and what was that Chad: role? Uh, I was a, uh, lead service [00:09:00] technician. Okay. And just basically doing, uh, covered it. It was, it's very strange cuz in, it went, in my hometown, I have between nine miles, there's $7 million worth of business just sitting there. So I could, I could always travel back and forth. It was really easy. And the, the beauty of it, it was like, it was better than any, any school you could possibly go to for wood, because they had every technology, had every way of applying, finish, flat lines, roll codes, a hundred percent solids, uvs, everything. So it was kind of like, it was, it was a really good training ground and saw a lot of problems, and that's my opinion. You see a lot of problems. , that's when you start getting the knowledge's cuz you know how to fix 'em, right? Yep. Yeah. Vince: Is that area of Iowa you're referring to big and manufacturing in general or specific? Just happens to be specific to cabinets. Chad: It's manufacturing. It's the only thing you got, you got the two big cabinet shops and John Deere. Okay. And John Deere's farm, of course. Yeah. [00:10:00] And John Deere pretty much is the, the lion share of the, the manufacturing jobs out there. . So how Vince: long did you do that? And then what Chad: Well, I, I also wanted, I wanted to learn a little bit on the metal side as well. Okay. So, uh, a friend of mine, well, was a customer, um, turned into a good friendship. Uh, he took a job down in New Orleans, so, and that was all on the marine side, Brownwater in blue, blue Water, Marine. So I was like, all right, let's go down there and kind of see what that's all about. And did that for about six years. Um, really enjoyed it. It was really tricky stuff. I mean, you're flying, I mean, that's when I was flying all over the world. I mean, going to Singapore and Spain and London and all these places, going to dry docks to try to figure out, you know, , you, you have to crawl in. If you can't imagine a crawl space of about that big, and I'm trying to get through it, to go to a tank that holds, you know, 65,000 gallons of water for the [00:11:00] people on cruise ships to, you know, so they can drink and shower, but you would go down there and inspect those tanks before they would paint 'em again. Okay. And come back up and sleep in a cruise ship cabin. Jod: So, If someone tried to recruit me to go work in brown water, that'd be a really tough sell. Just saying, Chad: oh yeah, well that, that's, that's brown water. Groundwater is river. It's so, it's on like you're, we're talking barges on, is that technical term, Chad? Yeah. Yes. It's, it's , believe it or not, believe it or not, you got gray water. Well, it's long story. Blackwater's not good. You don't wanna be, you don't wanna be in Blackwater, but, but yeah. Yeah. You, I, on the, on the brownwater side, on the barge side. oil and soybeans are down, that's when the barge markets just goes, just done. Yeah. They don't make anymore, but when that's up, they will make them, they'll push 'em out nonstop. These things are huge. Vince: Yeah. Jod: Hmm. So then what happened? [00:12:00] Chad: then I, I saw a little job that came up at a Atessa and I started remembering all the times that I was running around with, uh, at the side with, uh, a guy that was on this podcast for John Andrew. I ran around with him for a while. Um, kind of met your dad at the time, met you guys, did some service work for you guys on the, on the North America side. And I remember it. I liked it and figured it come on board and do the wood again. I've always liked the wood, but the wood is, is much, it's just what I know, right. You know, I, I took, it took a long time for me to, to understand the water side cuz there's more, it's more, uh, Like Certif, certif, you gotta have all these certificates to do all this stuff, you know? Yeah. So if you're in a spec, I mean, you could sell it all day long, but if you're not, it's like pulling teeth to try to get in that spec. Jod: Certainly. What, what aspect of, okay, so we're talking wood coatings right now. [00:13:00] What aspect of your role being sales and business development manager for our Eastern division, sorry, Western Division had my mirror backwards. , what aspect of that is, you know, I guess most satisfying to you? Like what part of your day do you get the most, you know, juiced up about? Chad: Uh, I, the ride riding around with the people. I mean, you get to see so many customers on a g any given day. You could, I mean, we, we try to hit. 10 or more when we go out. Um, we've had uppers of 20, hitting 20, 20 people in a, in a 10 hour, 11 hour day. That's, I mean, that's a pretty good day for us. But it's just different. I mean, the, you can go into our sector down south and it's, you know, it's Amish communities and, and it's awesome. You go in there, they're, they're, you go and talk to 'em for five minutes at time, 10 minutes, they love it. Then you got the big English accounts where, you know, that it's the same. Everybody has the same thing going on, you know, but it's, you got [00:14:00] all these different cultures, it's kind of fun. I like doing that. Yeah. Then you go out to Denver and it's completely different out there too. Mm-hmm. , that's, it's, it's satisfying. Keeps you hopping, keeps you busy. Certainly. Vince: What's the most challenging part of the job? Which is probably could be said for regardless of what Chad: industry Yeah. It, right now it's, I mean, the challenging part is time. I mean, we have, we have, our customer base is so huge. I mean, it's so large. Um, and you gotta have time. You gotta, you gotta try to figure out where to put all your time to make sure that you're still hitting all your customers. Make sure your team's working. I mean, the, the hardest part is to get everybody working in a, a nice, cohesive unit. for me right now anyway. Yeah. But I'm, we're, in my opinion, on the west side, we're still building a team. We're kind of, we're still, we're still adding on to personnel there, so it's exciting that, that part's fun too. Mm-hmm. , well, Vince: you're, you being in the field on a regular basis, um, maybe more on the wood side, but also going into the chemical [00:15:00] side, into the metal coating side, et cetera. what things are standing out to you right now? Like what trends are you seeing? What, um, challenges are you seeing people have, whether it be across all sectors or specific to a certain sector? Chad: I mean, right now I think the, some of it is labor shortage. Mm-hmm. for, especially for the, the cabinet shops. I've noticed this is the first time I've seen this ever. Um, you got a six, you know, six, seven cabinet or a working shop, right. Six guys, seven guys, and there's a, there's a flat line. , there's a spray machine in there. I mean, you would never see that 15 years ago. They'd be like, that'd be the dumbest investment they'd be, why would we do that right now? It's like, that guy is going to be here. I know he is gonna be reliable. He's gonna spray every day. You know, and I mean that's, that's a huge thing for some of these guys that are so overbooked they can't keep up. And now they're like, well, at least I can spray this out and get this, get my production out the door, Vince: right. Without, I'm gonna worry. Do you think it's a combination of labor shortage? Or the [00:16:00] price of the equipment's coming down or, or all the above? Chad: Uh, I think it's, I think it's labor short. I really do. Cuz the price of the equipment is still, it's still pretty high. Yeah. But it's more justified now. I mean, cuz I mean, if you're gonna pay a guy, you know, now you have to pay more for that worker to keep 'em happy. Right. And I get that. I mean, you should, but. . It all kind of, I think, works out in the end. If you, if you crunch the numbers, everybody's crunching the numbers and you can, you can say paint, you know how much you're putting on, there's, there's some, there's some Vince: savings there. Well, yeah. To your point, the machine's there every day and it's consistent. Yep. As long as it's maintained and monitored. Chad: Yep. Nope, that's a good thing. Yep. Jod: What kind of, so, you know, labor storage is not a, not a new thing in the last, you know, kind of somewhat post covid world and we've, every guest we've talked. Has mentioned that as one of the, um, leading issues that their business or their clients' businesses are facing. Uh, and, and there is no industry or type of [00:17:00] business that's immune to that type of business. Meaning, you know, large kitchen cabinet manufacturer, large widget manufacturer, office furniture manufacturer, down to. Uh, you know, the two man Amish shop, the three man Amish shop who are just struggling to get things out the door because normally they're a five or six man shop. Uh, it's not spared anyone. Um, shifting gears a little bit on trends, technologies out there. What, yeah, if you were a starting up your own cabinet shop, based on what we know today with immersion technologies, or, I don't wanna say immersion cause that sounds too new, but you know, with the technologies that are available, What would you outfit your shop with Chad: on the, on the, when you say on the paint side, like Yeah. What paints we, I would use, uh, a hundred percent acrylic, poly things. solvent or water solvent solve solvent to start water to push into. Cuz I know that's where they're going. Seeing there, there's some good technology out there right now that it's not the [00:18:00] same as it used to be, that's for sure. Um, the, the water base is making a push in because all the voc regulations are starting to come down and, and before that was a problem because you couldn't really find anything that worked. But now, , you know, it, it's, it's a lot easier to switch somebody that want, that's been solving his whole life and says, all right, I wanna switch the water. A lot of times you can send them, you can give 'em two panels, and he won't believe you because they look almost identical. So he is like, all right, prove it to me. So, and you know, there's some challenges, there's some challenges with water based, like everything else, but, um, but yeah, I would, I would, I would, I would start, if, if I was going to cater to a higher end type of, um, client, I would want to start off with a, with a, an acrylic, at least polyurethane. . Jod: Gotcha. I'm most surprised about that. Thought you go straight to water. Just cause the, the how, where it's at right now and how good it is. Chad: It's, it's, it's tough. I mean, if, I guess, I mean, I would've to, I mean, if I'm, if I was gonna do it, that's how I would do it. Right. But I know in the long run [00:19:00] you're going to have to, you're going to have to switch to water. Yeah, for sure. Vince: Well, now you're doing chemical pre-treatments, so we're gonna go there. Are you gonna go straight to nano? ? Chad: No, no, no. Uh, that, but that, that's a pretty cool technology from what, from what I did in, you know, when we went through some workshops. Um, it's different, that's for sure. I, I just think right now, I think they need to, for that particular, if they want to get in, if they wanna push it in further, they just need to get more specs mm-hmm. and they need to spec it out in the Vince: military side. Right. But if you're, I mean, if it's your shop, would you go that route? Only because, I mean, Oh yeah. Test results on paper. It, it outperforms certain technologies. Obviously it's more environmentally friendly. Chad: Yeah. When we did, when we did all the testing in the lab, when we were doing our own little, you know, we're run through, uh, it outperformed everything and it was, and it was lot. lot less finicky than some of the other stuff. Yeah. You got a little wiggle room to make some mistakes. Right. And that's what I mean, everybody's trying to put on the chemical side. What are you trying to do? You're [00:20:00] trying to push your baths as long as you can, trying to save as much money. You know, you can kind of do that and get away with it. Yeah. Vince: Um, it's the end of the year. We've been talking about 2023 planning for the last couple of days. Mm-hmm. , what, uh, what's your crystal ball look? Chad: For 2023 . I'm very optimistic on 2023. Yeah. From, from what I've seen and all the people that I've been talked to, all our current customer base and our customers that we're bringing on. Um, I, I see, I see 2023 being really strong. And if we don't have to say the R word, you know, if that doesn't have to come up, if we can keep going strong in other markets, um, yeah, it's, I think it's gonna be a bigger. . Any particular Vince: area or just just a general feeling? Um, because you, I mean you're, well, both of you and camera, but your, your market is pretty diverse. Mm-hmm. , let's face it. Mm-hmm. , I mean, you go to small communities to a couple Chad: pretty large cities. Yep. [00:21:00] I li I, I like Denver. I like Denver right now blowing up. I like Southern Indiana. Um, making a push there. Our efforts there are starting to pay off. , that's that. I mean, tho those two, I think, I mean if you're gonna go one and two, you'd interchange 'em. But right there, the two that are gonna kind of springboard us off in 2023. Yeah. Vince: Cool. Um, what questions do you have for us? Chad: Ooh, let's go off the wall. , gimme your two favorite eighties movies. Oh, Jod: okay. That is possible. Can't buy me love cuz everyone likes the romcom. Ah, damn it Is that eighties? Uh, is that nineties? No, that's gotta be like 89. It's close. Late eighties. We're on the right, on the line. Late eighties. If it's not, I'm claiming it as eighties. Um, yeah, probably. Uh, . There's a lot to sort through there. Um, I mean, there's some classics like you're back to the Futures and things like that. Uh, but sticking with the Michael [00:22:00] J. Fox team. Teen Wolf , yes. Although I watched that maybe a year or two ago with my kids. I'm like, oh, let's watch Teen Wolf. It's PG 13, right? Yeah, PG 13 back then, versus what it's now, it's not the same. Lot of language in there. You should not, cannot, and for good reason should not use today. Yes. Let alone other suggestive scenes. But, um, yeah, that Goonies man, there's so many good Vince: eighties movies. It's good. Yeah, there's a lot of options. I think the best way for me to try to reference one is thinking about if I'm channel surfing and late at night and there's what movies are on that snag me. And even if it's, you know, 1230 and I should be shutting the TV off and going to sleep. I'm in. Yeah. Roadhouse is Juan. Uh, but that's gotta be eighties, right? I don't, Chad: I I still think we're in the nineties, but really I'm just, but I'll take it. Ugh. Jod: Okay. 1989. Yes. Roadhouse. Wow. Yes. That's, Vince: that's Juan. And how about the original Top Gun? Jod: Yeah. Ooh. Can't buy me love. [00:23:00] 1987, boom. There you go, Joe Todd. With Chad: the wind getting old. Yeah. The reason why I say that is I asked that question is cuz I was, I was listening to a podcast on my, on my drives. I have, I have a long drive so I can throw a podcast on. You've got Breakfast Club. How gonna Jod: say that? Breakfast Club's. That's a good one. Yeah. Beetlejuice, Footloose, the Outsiders, God. Nationally Anthem's Vacation Show. I just pulled up a list, a Google list, , to remind me of all the awesome movies. Chad: It sh it shocks me that Quintin Tarantino said that the eighties were the worst time for SMA in the history of s. . Jod: Well look at the like the classic eighties movies and then look them, compare them to a Quentin Tarantino movie. They don't quite jive. Well, they don't jive. Yeah. So I can Chad: kind of see that. I figured you guys would be like 16 candles. Pretty in pink. I mean Jod: Vision Quest Psalm, but I don't know, man, that's so much Vision Quest. Chad: It's one of my top five Vince: movies. But then you've got war games. Well, oh, there you go. Yeah. Jod: But then you've got like every, every US versus Russia, you know, the bad guy, the Cold War era type stuff. Yep. [00:24:00] Vince: I like that. There, there was, there were Al there's also a certain genre of movie that then, like American Pie when it came out, obviously after the fact reminded you of some of those eighties movies. Mm-hmm. . Um, there's some, some memories of Jod: those growing up. . That's good stuff. It wasn't in high school in the eighties, so like, you know, anything. Yeah. 16 candles and that kind of stuff that spoke more to kids in high school. Yeah. That was a little, little too over my head. Mean you can't tell me you didn't like weird science. I loved it. . I loved it. Yeah. God, that's Chad: changed my life. Changed like it did for most people. Yeah. Put hair on your palms. Jod: Yeah. I mean, what, whatever that is. . Chad: Yes. Wow. It's a, that's a good movie. Jod: All Vince: right, cool. Um, any other questions? Chad: No, I'm just, . Good stuff. I'm happy to be here. Vince: That's it. Well, we're happy to have you as part of Team Esa. Well, thanks. Thank you for all the, all the work and efforts that you guys put in, uh, you and your team. And so we, we look forward to, uh, what 2023 brings to all of us. Um, and thanks to all of you [00:25:00] guys for listening on this episode of the Industrials Podcast, or if you're watching on Theesa YouTube channel. Thank you. Once again, if you haven't hit the subscription button, please do. Hit the notification bell. So when you can see the next episode of Chad or anybody else on this, uh, this podcast, you'll be alerted. And, uh, don't forget, be Chad: industrious.