Industry Icon Series - Akram (AK) Khalis

When a Moroccan scholar becomes a maven of innovation, we're compelled to share his story. Akram Kellis, known affectionately as AK, joins us to recount his transformative journey from Casablanca's bright student to the Chief Technology Officer at MHT Technologies. Alongside him, I weave my narrative, tracing the steps from adapting  engineering expertise in a new country to birthing entrepreneurial ventures that predate today's tech norms. Our conversation is a testament to the pursuit of excellence and the embodiment of mentorship, where AK not only shares his professional milestones but also unravels the ethos of cultivating a collaborative culture.

From the patina of patents to the artistry of storytelling, we trade experiences that underscore the gravity of simplicity in conveying complex ideas. I reflect on steering through the U.S. engineering landscape, which laid the groundwork for ventures like an early ride-sharing concept, and we dive into the consequential world of intellectual property. The heart of our dialogue beats to the rhythm of recognizing potential, with mentorship cast as the key to unlocking the treasure troves within us. There's a shared belief in the transformative power of guidance, and how it fosters both personal and professional evolution.

Gazing into the horizon, we explore the burgeoning realm of smart buildings, where IoT is more than a buzzword; it's the cornerstone of future habitats. AK brings to light how sensor networks and Power over Ethernet are crafting the self-regulating edifices of tomorrow. We muse on the indispensability of data for AI, the imperative of open standards for scalability, and how cultural diversity isn't just a social asset but a crucible for innovation. With AK's insights, we paint a picture of a world where technology is as diverse and adaptive as the human experience itself.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Wire Monkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk. Cableing this episode. We're doing another episode in a series of industry icons and this one is only 35 years old. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by apprentices, installers, technicians, project form and project managers, estimators, customers. We're connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being created? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind giving us a five-star rating? Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm that helps us educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the IZT industry.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Thursday night, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know I do a live stream on TikTok, instagram, facebook, linkedin and a bunch of other places where you get to ask your favorite RCDD and you know that's me, don't try to pretend like I'm not your favorite RCDD Questions on installation, certification, design, project management, even career path questions. But I can hear you now. But joke, I'm driving my truck at 6 pm on Thursday. I'm coming over. Where are you going to get into an accident. Okay, I record them and you can watch them at your convenience, and you can find those recordings at letstalkcablingcom. And finally, while this show is free and will always remain free, if you find value in this content, would you mind clicking on that QR code right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15 minute one-on-one call with me after hours, of course, and I'm always looking for corporate sponsorship as well, as long as you realize, this is a vendor neutral show.

Speaker 1: 2:05

So today we have the privilege of diving into the remarkable journey of Akram Kellis, effectively known as AK. Now, if you don't know him, he's the Chief Technology Officer of MHT Technologies. Now he's got to be one of the youngest industry icons that I've had on my show, and his story is one of relentless dedication and innovation, starting from his formative years in Casablanca, morocco, which kind of goes to show just how widely my show spans. Now, unlike the romanticized version of Casablanca portrayed in classic cinema, his journey is marked by rigorous study and a thirst for knowledge. That's why I think him and I get along so well, because you know me, my thing is knowledge is power. I'm always, always hungry for knowledge.

Speaker 1: 2:51

He was selected as one of only four students for an academic experiment where he embarked on a path that would shape his future in engineering. Now listen to this he has a degree in mechanical. He has a degree in electrical and software disciplines. He's the trifecta the rare trifecta that fuels his visionary approach and his journey from founding multiple successful companies to co-founding the groundbreaking smart building software solutions. Inspector, inspector, I have to tell me if I said that right. Inspector, there you go. His attachment to his entrepreneurial spirit and his drive for innovation. But his story isn't just about his personal achievements. This is another reason why I like this guy. It's about leadership, it's about mentorship. He is a true servant leader and he cultivates a culture of collaboration and growth within his team, harnessing teachable moments to help propel others to greatness. So join us as we explore Akram's, or Ak's, remarkable career, from his humble beginnings to his pioneering smart building technology. Ak, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you on.

Speaker 2: 4:00

Chuck, it's my pleasure Really. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for putting me on the show, Not a problem.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Like I said, usually when I have industry icons they're kind of like old guys like me, older, lots of gray hair. You're definitely going to stick out as the unique industry icon. But when I got sent your journey I was like how could this guy not be an industry icon of 35? It just thrills me that the industry is being left in capable hands of people like you. That just absolutely thrills me, and we'll get into your servant leadership here in a little bit. But I think that's part of being a leader is getting other people to see what your vision is and portraying that vision in a way that they want to be a part of that ride. And that's you. That's you to a T man Right. So let's start off with what is the most pivotal moment in your journey, from when you began as one of those 40 students to becoming a chief technology officer for MHD.

Speaker 2: 5:01

Yeah, really it started, chuck, when you know when the selection happened in Morocco out of middle school go into high school. And the program really wanted individuals to really take on the responsibility of being multifunction engineers. And that really takes on a lot when you're still a teenager, trying to do everything you can to even focus on what you want. And this program really embeds discipline into your brain at an early stage, focusing not only on your education of high school but now you're a responsible individual that you will graduate with an engineering degree. Quite frankly, it doesn't mean a lot when to a teenager neither that it did to me, right but just the opportunity of living it, breathing it and being part of that group allows you to kind of, you know, figure out that, oh boy, this is reality, right, I am going to graduate just another individual that has, you know, engineering skillset.

Speaker 2: 5:55

And what does that mean in practicality? And all these thoughts start going into your brain. It's almost bringing your you know, your 30s back to your you know teenage age to start thinking what do I want to do at an early age. And that really creates a discipline and creativity in the brain where you're continuously focusing on how do I do better and the program was really. You know it had this guidelines right. You couldn't just pass with a C, because that was not an option. If you did score below B you would go back to your high school degree and you'll become just a teenager. So the pressure was on an early stage where you have to think through all of that and really that's what stick on. To me it's more of like I understand how to become disciplined and create that discipline and continue doing it every single time I can.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Well, you know what I say? Right, pressure turns coal into diamonds, right? So there you go, and I think again, and another reason I wanted to bring you on is because obviously, I'm a boomer. Right, I hate to say that, but I am, and I run around in circles with people who are boomers. And.

Speaker 1: 6:59

I hear that, I hear it all the time. Oh, this younger generation. They don't want to learn. One of the things I learned through doing the podcast they absolutely want to learn. They hunger for knowledge. The difference is they want to learn in a way that learning works for them, which may not be the same way that I was taught as a boomer. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on. And then the other reason is because you've got that trifecta Right. I mean, you're making me feel like I'm only half a third accomplished because you have three degrees. Well, technically I have two degrees. No, I think about because I have one in marketing and one in business management. But you know they kind of blend together. But you got. You have degrees in mechanical and electrical and software engineering, right? So those are three pretty diverse skill sets. How do you integrate that in your disciplines when you're creating solutions at MHT?

Speaker 2: 7:50

Yeah, really it's. You know, you think about any product that's built electronically. Usually you have a mechanical discipline to create a physical aspect. You have the firmware aspect of it which is, you know, creating some sort of logic to make it do something, move and create some business logic. And then, of course, you have a software element that you know what the user can see and function functionality of the product.

Speaker 2: 8:12

Really, when you know, any time you create products you have to have all these disciplines, understand the scope of work and fortunately for me, it's all in one brain, right.

Speaker 2: 8:23

I still have those mental battles, right, three individuals trying to understand how to put that together. But when it came to MHT and creating product, the aspect of understanding the whole entire process all at once allows us to really focus on creating product that not only one, reliable, unscalable, right, because a lot of times when building products, you know each individual or each silo might create it on their own of how do you see it, right. And it requires, obviously, product managers to kind of steer the ship and lead them towards the product that they think they want. But when it's self-serving, when it's all in one brain, because you can make changes on the fly if you will, and I try to accommodate certain things, whether it's just a smallest change in a frame or change in a line of code to achieve what the mechanical is supposed to do, all the way to making a new feature on software that trickles down all the way to a mechanical aspect. Very cool.

Speaker 1: 9:16

So you know, for those I'm aware of MHT because I function in the area of POE and POE consortium stuff and I've heard of MHT stuff Can you just give us maybe like the 30, 60 second? I don't want to say sales pitch, but somebody doesn't know MHT. What do they do?

Speaker 2: 9:33

Absolutely so. Mht is a smart building technology that focuses on taking sensor feedback and turning them into an action of item to create a smart building solution that focuses on energy savings, productivity and, of course, sustainability. That's really what we do.

Speaker 1: 9:48

So let me ask you this, right, because the larger part of my audience and this is not one of the pre-written questions, but I know you will and if I know you'll be able to ace this a large part of my audience are people like me, people who are tradesmen or tradeswomen. Right, I don't want to say I don't want to be inclusive there. They're out there pulling cables, stuff like that, and the only exposure they ever have to somebody who has, you know, a degree in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering generally we don't function around the ears with software engineering, but usually those, those people aren't the people have those kinds of degrees, and this is not you by. Anyway, you're very charismatic. Most people in you probably know I'm going with this, right, they, um, there's a reason they excel in those areas and they're just not really good at Communication with or or.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Communicating really means talking to somebody at the level that they're on. So sometimes that means you got a kind of how can I say there's not offending my people? Listen on show, um, dumb it down a little bit. Right, because because I had an instructor one time. He was teaching at this level and I was at that level. I learned nothing in that class, right? So as a, as a, since you have all these multiple degrees and you know in these very highly technical fields what, what tip would you give somebody like me or somebody listening by audience? How can we communicate to somebody when they're talking above our level to say, hey, can you? Can you rephrase that a little bit? What would be a good way to approach that?

Speaker 2: 11:18

I think it's really taking it to an example level engineers thinks of logic and I think relating it to an example that they can understand it really hits home for a lot of engineers. So creating this, the the rephrasing the question to an example that you want to see, gives them more of an insight what you're looking for and I think that translate right back to their, to their own language, they can bring you back to what they really mean.

Speaker 1: 11:44

That's excellent example. I think that's if you listen any episode, not podcast. I teach in stories for that exact same reason, because I bring complex subjects. Like you know, bonding and grounding and certification and Qualification and project management can be very complex. No, where's nearest complex and stuff you're dealing with. But for you know, for people, my audience, that's complex and I what I do is I bring it down, I bring it into a story so that way they can kind of understand. You know, kind of what we're talking about makes breaks very complex subjects. That's why I'm glad to hear you say that now you've you founded multiple successful companies and you hold several pads at 35 again making me feel like I'm only part timing it here. Right, what drives your entrepreneurial spirit and how do you balance that innovation with practicality?

Speaker 2: 12:29

It's really the. The entrepreneurship Grew out of a key when I came out of high school and I went. I came to the States. You know, coming to the States, finding out that I, you know, I have to go back to engineering because you know, I had to take the degree to To comply with with the standards here, although I had, you know, a certificate of engineering that was from Morocco that claimed that I am an engineer, allowed me to think about what else can I do when it comes to solving problems? So the fact that I can take a product physically, build it, put some software in it, put some firmware in it, make it functional, I had to really now start thinking about solving problems. And what problems am I solving and how do I? How do I turn that into a business case?

Speaker 2: 13:11

So there, when I started my journey, the first company I made was what's probably known now as an Uber, and it came from necessity and I think that's what drove the entrepreneurship, in my opinion. You know, wife, at the time was. You know, we were still going through college and going through our business and I was a limousine drive and I had a business opportunity where I would be getting inbound marketing, sales calls and Someone that wants to arrive. She didn't have any Experienced the experience on figuring out what, what the estimation of the ride should be, and that drove me to write a software program that takes destinations and Origins and creates us just a dollar amount, and she would answer the phone and say where you going from to and it gives them a dollar map.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Essentially, what over does today and lift and all these companies and the idea is, if you can turn the problem into a solution and the skill set allows you to do it, that's really entrepreneurship. Every business is just solving a problem for someone else and you get monetary value for that, for that service or product that you do. How many patents do you have Currently? Three that are utilities and there are a few pending. I have four.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Four pending right now, oh wow, so so at some point you may have up to seven patents. That's correct. Wow, oh, holy smokes, we're just gonna keep it going there, you go.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Well, you know one of the things I get. You know people like me got pulling cable and stuff. You know we get kind of looked down on because you know we're just knuckle dragging cable people. But you know we come up with. You know ways to build a better mousetrap, sometimes right. So if there's somebody listening to the show that they've they've been out there pulling came, let's say they come up with some new widget and they think, man, I need to, I need to sell this. Can you just kind of give us a quick walk through on the patent process?

Speaker 2: 14:57

Absolutely. I learned this from a mentor of mine his idea of a patent so first patent I had was from, was a joint venture with him and I'd never forget this. Jen, the sentiment call, has over 20 patents and the idea of a patent is if you're teaching something to the world that's unique, that's really a patent. So a lot of times ideas are Are these a diamond, doesn't? There's a few ideas are all over the place, but if you can think of a way that you're creating you're not think.

Speaker 2: 15:25

Don't think about a create in a product. Don't think about it as you create a service. Think about your teaching something new that the world never knew. That's really what the definition of a patent and usually, if you can hit that, you'll be able to to achieve or to Get granted a patent. Now, of course, there are nuances of like claiming it and having the right attorneys to create that process, but it really comes down to the basic knowing that you're teaching something new to the public that has not been done before and that patent process pretty much protects your, protects your idea right, keeps other people from from stealing it.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Correct and there's monetary value to it, right, as we all know there's. There's plenty of ways to protect that pattern with the, with the patent attorney, and of course, now it turns into a proprietary thing that that applies to you. But it's really a but. You know, a lot of times it's a proud moment, right. Think about the recognition that it gets. So I would encourage everyone that has an idea Don't be shy of just turn it into a product. That's one way of doing it, but think about how is it really uniquely change in the world? If you can, if you can answer that question and know that it you actually did that either. Whether it speeds, speeds up Services, pizza products and allows others to do the job faster, cheaper and better, that's really a unique idea and you turn it, you can turn it around into a pattern.

Speaker 1: 16:42

Yeah, so, yeah. So I guess I get asked that question all time. And since I've never, never had held a patent, I I mean I've only I've only know people who have had them that I've never done on myself. I will talk about aha moments. You know, my my aha moment was when one of my mentors Sat me down one day and said, chuck, you know you have some huge potential, you, but you need to quit treating this thing as a job and treat it as a career. And that was that AHA moment that made me realize. You know, instead of you know counting down the days, the hours, the minutes, to Friday at 5 pm, if I treated it like a career, I would make more money and be able to do more things and get to see more stuff. Right? Could you share your AHA moment and your career that significantly influenced your approach to entrepreneurship or technology?

Speaker 2: 17:31

Yeah, the real AHA moment would be really when I sold the software business that I had for the transportation company. I didn't. It wasn't millions of dollars. No, I'm not part of Uber, no, I'm not none of that or any of those services. But I was able to when I saw the opportunity that I can help someone create a product or services that helps them create business and I was paid for it. So that really what turns the wheel for me? So I can do this again and I just have an idea that I turn into a product or service and be able to give it out to someone that can use it and leverage it. I would get paid for that. Oh, I can do this all day long, right, and you just keep going. And that was the AHA moment of like. Now I know what the skill set is.

Speaker 1: 18:13

Yeah, yeah, that's like my. I'm waiting for my next AHA moment. You know well, actually, my next one was actually the podcast. That was my next AHA moment. I'm waiting for the next AHA moment, which helps me find a way to leverage the podcast. I'm still working on that one, but you know I'll get there. So you like. You said, MHT has a lot to do with, like, sensor based technology and smart building solutions, right? What role do you believe that emerging technologies like IoT and sensor based feedback plays in the future smart buildings?

Speaker 2: 18:44

Yeah, I think so, because MHT takes sensor feedback and turns it into an actionable item. The real question is the how right. It's not the what. For us, it's the how. It's the how over a power of ethernet technology. I think the understanding of power of ethernet is just one cable drives the power and data. Why is that important in a smart building? Well, if I can achieve delivering power to a device and receiving data back from it, I create the sensor mesh network that takes all this information and turns it into actionable item. In a smart building solution, you know that's required. There's no such thing as a smart building without its sensor feedback into an actionable item. So with power over ethernet or with the product of IoT, you can turn this into a real smart building that takes all this information and helps contribute to the end goal that could be saving energy, creating productive and sustainable environment. So, really, while while we're putting all this technology together, the end goal is really to create an autonomous building that reacts on its own without humans.

Speaker 1: 19:45

So the whole smart building industry, right? I mean, it's actually part of the low voltage industry. I mean, are we talking slow growth, exponential growth? Do you see this thing exploding? If there's somebody on here listening to the show sitting on the fence, and they're right now they're just pulling voice and data cabling, maybe a few light PoE projects, you know, maybe like PoE to an access point or something, and you know a good company is going to try to put their eggs in multiple baskets, right, and they see this whole smart building things right. What's the future? Is it sun, bright, or is it a warm, fuzzy day? Where's it going?

Speaker 2: 20:25

So I'd say you know the real. The buzzword right now is AI, right, so how do we get to AI and smart buildings? Well, ai doesn't function without data. So, to me, in order to create a smart building, you have to have multiple data points that you can take and then leverage it and use AI into it. So, with a power over ethernet technology to lights, to shades, to access points to your point of voice, over IP and all these devices not only creates that tunnel of data back so you can actually apply AI to it if that's the need and that we know.

Speaker 2: 20:57

That's the real changing points that we were all seeing right now, but it's really the future proof in when it's done over a power over ethernet, that standard base that can scale over time and allows you to really do it and sit back and, you know, relax and use the technology and infrastructure for your own benefit without worrying about you know, am I putting up something that's proprietary? That you know. Every time I have to do ads and moves and changes, you know there's change orders and things of that nature. So, with the technology itself, you're leaving yourself with a room to have attributes, and those attributes in the requires really security Tagging, which is obviously open platform, so we're not required to specific vendor or specific technology, and that's all done in an IEEE standard, and power over ethernet is an IEEE 802 standard. So for us is really just, you know, enabling that smart building using a technology that's been around and proven. It's just how we scale it to a building level.

Speaker 1: 21:57

So you would say the somebody sitting on the fence. It's something they should invest in, like maybe training, learning products and stuff again because there's a bright future.

Speaker 2: 22:08

Absolutely. I think you know the future is there and I encourage you know, go into the P we consortium for trainings to understand and follow up on standards and committee standards to understand where is it going. I would say the time is now really and I mean it. Why you know the knowledge is there. It's just a matter and it's not a product base, it's, it's not a history base. We know poor power over the net is a technology that has proven itself over many years. It's not, you know, it's not a year to, etc. So it's it's about how do we implement it and who jumps on board. So they become the expert when there's more implementations and, of course, there's more choices. But I would encourage it now than later.

Speaker 1: 22:45

Yeah, because you jump into it now, you, when you compare to jumping into, like, say Lou, voice and data cabling, now, well, that that foundations already been set. We're on the, we're on the 17th floor now in our industry, but the building, the building, sort of building solutions you be getting into the ground floor and you'll be helped. You help to shape that industry and and no better way to learn is to actually help shape it right, absolutely yeah. So we're, we're, we're a accumulation of our experiences, right, and you know, one people always that you can ask me is Chuck, why you, how come you're so smart about lots of different things?

Speaker 1: 23:21

Because the mold, because the mold, right, I mean, I've done everything from pulling cable to roofing, to mechanically, to I've even been a firefighter and EMT and so when I teach things like fire stopping stuff, I pull from all those diverse experiences, right, and it's not because I've sat in school to do a stuff, although I have, but it's because my experiences right now, your experiences, you have a very diverse from Morocco to New York. There's there's there's cultural differences there. There's the way people approach business and stuff. How has that cultural background influence your perspective on technology and leadership?

Speaker 2: 23:59

It was very helpful to come from a different background. It actually an eye opener to understand. You know, to me it was different culture, right, although it's still New York is home for me, but it's understanding, maybe having a broader understanding of how diversity and culture work together to a business. Right, where we're doing business, we're doing human to human level and that human to human might be, you know, someone that you share the same visions with. It could be diversity and culture, it could be diversity and other factors and I really think that that helped a lot when you know, talking individuals, understanding their needs and really focusing on helping them Rather than selling them on anything right.

Speaker 2: 24:36

The idea is to give them an opportunity to speak about their pains and talk through what's. What's the opportunity, what are they, what are they looking for, and see if there's a matters and a fit to help them with that. And I think really that's you know where. Come down to, you know, understand the culture first before you actually go into business.

Speaker 1: 24:54

And the world's getting smaller every day. I mean, you know, with the virtual workforce now and, like I said, it really struck home me with the podcast because when I first created the podcast I kind of expected just kind of like a US based kind of audience. But I have people from Sri Lanka to India, to, you know, from Dubai I mean the list of my show and it's just kind of that's why I'm trying to reach more subjects out on a global thing that just US based. So it's a small world, it truly is. One of the things I've read the bio for you that really struck out in Ring of Bell with me was servant leadership. Right before I ask you a question, first tell me what do you think is a servant leader? Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 25:38

So, chuck, a servant leader is really someone that sits back and enable others to learn and grow. If you're a servant leader, you're not sitting there and asking someone, micromanaging or sitting there and really you know you got to let the individuals learn on their own and you're just there to guide them through the process. And I've seen it. You know the difference, obviously, between the leaders and managers and I think we've seen a lot of means and a lot of different places of how those two personas shape each other. Right, it's a learning curve for all of us.

Speaker 2: 26:09

No one can say I reached the level of being a leader. Right, you're always learning, even as a leader, and you just have to understand, if you take it back to the basic level, is you're an enabler? You're just enabling development of your team, of your folks, of your of your peers, to get them to a stage where they want to be, and whether that's stopping them from going one direction and making them go to a different direction and communicating that with them or just letting them be in the same direction they're heading because it's what they want and let them, let them be enabled and for the growth for their own individual.

Speaker 1: 26:38

Yeah, that that you described that perfectly. You know, as the way I describe when people ask me what is a servant leaders. I tell people, look, I am at the same level you are. I'm just one mouse who found some cheese and I'm trying to show you how you can find that same cheese that I found. That's that in a short, quick, simple.

Speaker 2: 26:57

So another story that's perfect, I told you.

Speaker 1: 27:01

I told you I'm story based. I told you right. So, as a servant leader, what strategies have you employed to mentor and empower the team members at MHD?

Speaker 2: 27:12

It's really about culture when it comes to companies. I think developing a real culture for the company. It allows us to to grow further. At the end of the day, you know the individuals. We look at our time spent at work. It's a third of your time, right, especially a third of your day. You're going to spend that time being at a company that has a culture. That's not where you want to be. You know you might not have the right individuals. That wants to stay there.

Speaker 2: 27:37

So I would start with the culture and then really open communication, communicate having peers communicate with each other is most important to me that communicating back upstream to a to a manager and creating that bottleneck. You want the individual to be able to communicate with each other at level in order for them to solve problems and communicate, to even just understand each other first, and enabling that not just by saying, well, figure it out, and just point them at each other and saying you guys have to figure out. I got to go. It's really, you know, sit back and listen. You might be in the room, but just sit back and listen and let them talk to each other. You might mediate here and there, but that's really what your job is is to figure out where this is going.

Speaker 2: 28:13

Is it shaping the way you think it should be? And if it's not, you just guided it. You know, I really mean, I have children, so I relate to that part. Where it comes to, you know, your children, you're just enabling them, you're, you're, it's a big toolbox. You just put in tools in there and at one point they're just going to go away with it with a toolbox and say daddy taught me this and mommy taught me that. How are you not there?

Speaker 1: 28:35

How old are your kids? Eight and four, okay. So there will come a point in time See, I've got adult children now and there will come a point in time where your relationship changes with your kids. Right, because at the beginning you're teaching, you're teaching them the foundational stuff. Then at some point you have to trust in that you laid a good foundation and then they can make the decision on themselves. Because if you try to treat a 15 or 16 year old kid the way you treat a four year old or an eight year old you're going to have, you can be button your head against the wall.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Absolutely and exactly, and it's, it's 100% correct, chuck. It's understanding the individuals that you're talking to, yeah, and how you communicate the message.

Speaker 1: 29:20

Absolutely. It's funny you said that because I know some of my kids listen to my podcast. They don't listen because they want to learn about cabling. They dad right, and I remember when, because I raised six kids and this and this helped me, help me develop my skills as a leader, right. So, six kids, three boys, three girls, right, and let's just give you a quick example. I have three boys. All three of my boys were in the skateboarding and one of the and now the oldest one, loves skateboarding. It was his life. The other two, they only skateboarded because their older brother skateboarded Right and they wouldn't hang up the older brother. So they got in trouble, right, and I had to punish them. Well, my oldest son, I take away a skateboard my, my youngest son, I might take away maybe his, his Gameboy, and my youngest son be like that's not fair, you took away his, his Gameboy.

Speaker 1: 30:08

But I think you have to learn what people's emotional currency is, right. And that helped me as a leader, as I was a project manager, because I realized not everybody's motivated by the same thing. You know, when you're managing crews, there are some people are motivated by money. There are some people are motivated by title. There are some people who just motivate, motivated by just every once in a while pat on the back. Good job, right, you know, you got to find out what their emotional currency is, because no two people in the same, no two people, same, absolutely Okay, absolute pleasure having you on my friend, and I can't, I can't wait to see how you shape this industry in the future. My friend, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 30:46

I really appreciate you inviting me to the podcast. It's a pleasure, it really is.

Speaker 1: 30:51

So I hope you enjoy that interview as much as I did. Talk about impressive, the age of 35, 3 degrees, 3 patents for the 4 patents on the way this industry isn't good hands Makes me feel like I didn't do enough. What are you doing? Remember, knowledge is power.