Inside The Role of A Consulting Engineer

We pull back the curtain on consulting engineering in ICT, from how designs are born to how they survive construction. Paul shares career paths, tools like Revit, and why proactive thinking beats fire drills every time.

• defining consulting engineering deliverables and value
• mapping information flow between owner, architect, and engineer
• career paths from field tech or college into design
• proactive planning for phasing, pathways, and capacity
• using brand standards and open specs to guide choices
• debunking non-standard cable marketing like cat 6e
• future proofing with spare capacity and pathway design
• leveraging Revit and BIM for clash detection
• balancing detailed notes with field readability
• construction phase duties: RFIs, submittals, site visits
• measuring success by RFIs, repeat work, and user reviews
• advice for curious techs aiming at consulting roles

If you’re watching this show on YouTube, would you mind leaving a five-star rating that and leave a comment?
If you’re listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind leaving us a five-star rating?
If the show is not a five-star rated show, reach out to me, tell me what I need to do to improve to make this a five-star rated show.
You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Ratings, And Livestreams
• 1:59 Why Consulting Engineering Is Misunderstood
• 2:36 Paul’s Background And Team Scope
• 3:29 What A Consulting Engineer Delivers
• 5:16 Career Paths Into Consulting
• 8:07 Field Experience vs New Grads
• 10:00 Proactive Thinking And Phasing
• 10:55 Sponsor Break: Advertising Opportunity
• 11:27 Information Flow: Owner, Architect, Engineer
• 13:27 Project Sizes And Aesthetics
• 15:05 Standards, Brand Playbooks, And Choices
• 16:45 Future Proofing And Spare Capacity
• 18:16 Sponsor Break: Fiber Training
• 18:50 Revit, BIM, And Clash Detection
• 21:08 Notes Vs Readability For Installers
• 22:45 Construction Phase: RFIs And Submittals
• 24:03 Site Visits And Quality Checks
• 25:30 Common Disconnects And Fixes
• 26:58 How Designers Measure Success
• 28:08 Favorite Parts: Problem Solving And Impact
• 29:20 Advice For Aspiring Consulting Engineers
• 30:09 Closing Thoughts And Industry Paths

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:00

Hey wild monkeys, welcome to another episode of Let's Talk Cabling. Do you know what a consulting engineer is?

SPEAKER_02: 0:24

Stay connected. Stay connected.

SPEAKER_05: 0:31

So welcome to the show where we ask the tough questions submitted by apprentices, installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, IT personnel, even customers. We're connecting at the human level so we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind leaving a five-star rating that and leave a comment? Those simple little steps help us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage, and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry. If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast audio podcast platforms, would you mind leaving us a five-star rating? If the show is not a five-star rated show, reach out to me, tell me what I need to do to improve to make this a five-star rated show. Wednesday nights, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, what are you doing? You know I do a live stream on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, everywhere I can figure out what we're sending a live stream to where you get to ask your favorite RCDD. And you know that's me. Your favorite RCD. Questions on installation, design, project management, even career path questions. But I can hear you now. But Chuck, I'm drunk, I'm drunk Wednesday nights, it's 8 p.m. I don't want to get into the garage. Relax. I record them and you can watch them at your convenience. And finally, while this show is free and will always remain free. If you find value in this content, would you please, please, please click 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. You know, most people in our industry they grow up pulling cable. They terminate jacks and they test links. And then one day they hear the words consulting engineer. And they think, well, that must be nice. They don't install anything. Well, today we're pulling back the curtain like they do in the Wizard of Oz. We're pulling back the curtain on what that job really looks like. We're going to talk about the pressures, the responsibility, and why it might be one of the most misunderstood roles in ICT. Paul, thank you for coming on the show. It's a pleasure to meet you at Bixie. When you pose propose this topic, man, I was like, I could not jump on this topic fast enough. I appreciate you coming on. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, who you are, and uh what you do, and if you don't mind, also tell us what the heck is a consulting engineer?

SPEAKER_00: 2:46

All right, hi, yeah. Uh Paul Hebing, R C D D. And I work for uh EXP, not the Realty Company, the uh architecture and engineering firm. And uh I have been doing this for just about 23 years now, and uh started out not knowing a thing about ICT, not really knowing a thing about building engineering, and uh gained a lot of experience, worked on a lot of interesting projects, and uh got to the point where I now lead the technology design team at EXP and have a team of about 16 people all across the country, and we work on projects all over the world. And uh consulting engineer, I would say, is uh is a consultant hired by owners and architects to design a project from nothing to uh develop a set of uh plans and specifications and cost estimates and uh other materials to be given over to a uh general contractor or other contractor, and uh it gets built uh per the those plans and specs. And that is done uh by the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection engineers, as well as now uh the technology design engineers.

SPEAKER_05: 4:10

You said one thing, and I I just want to make sure I correct you here. I I don't normally correct guests, but yeah, I gotta correct this one. Everybody, everybody starts in this industry not knowing anything. I've yet to come find somebody who starts on day one in this industry who knows how to do things. We gotta teach everybody. So you start off just like like like the the people listening to this podcast, you know, the installers and the technicians. You start off the exact same way.

SPEAKER_00: 4:35

Yep, yep. Nope. And I uh yeah, I've hired uh a lot of people who are in, you know, we're in that same boat, and I was given a chance, and I like to give other people a chance, and uh I've had a lot of success with people who are just interested in technology, interested in low voltage things, and they want to work on these kinds of projects, and they uh they eventually get it and uh start learning how to uh apply the things that they've learned, uh sometimes by absorption, sometimes by reading bixie materials and and and applying it to the projects and really being good, successful uh designers.

SPEAKER_05: 5:14

So you know before we get into the the questions that we we agreed upon first, if somebody were thinking about a career path to end up as a consulting engineer, because yeah, I talk to people people all the time about the RCD, and I'm I tell them, look, look, when you get your RCD, man, it's like a that's the trunk of the tree. You can go, you can go estimating, project management, quality, training. I got an out, I now have to add another branch, thanks to you. Consulting engineer, right? So, what would be let's let's say you know, we're talking to the technician who's working for a company right now, and they're they're their knees are getting kind of creaky when they get up, and they're you know, they need you know four cups of coffee in the morning to get them motivated, and they're really starting to think about that next chapter in their career. How would somebody get into consulting engineering?

SPEAKER_00: 6:01

Uh, so there are several paths to getting into it. Um uh my company, we our primary path uh we tend to hire out of college. And uh the degree that is most prime for this field uh in this particular branch would be the architectural engineering degree. Um and that one, you get exposed to a lot of things. You get exposed to architecture, mechanical, uh, electrical design, and sometimes you get exposed to a little bit of the low voltage technology design. Uh, I'll sometimes go and guest lecture at colleges and talk about wireless design, audiovisual design, things like that, just to try to get the interest in. So that's uh that's one of the main ones. Uh otherwise, yeah, I do get people who have been working for integrators or uh working for uh audiovisual uh firms, and they just want to do more. They want to touch more types of projects, they want to touch more systems uh and really branch out. And it's that sort of eagerness to want to learn more that really defines success in in this industry, I think.

SPEAKER_05: 7:15

Right. So another another question outside of our original questions. Um in your opinion, yeah, okay, I'm not I'm you know, in your opinion, who makes a better consulting engineer? Somebody who's come up through the field, became a project manager, an RCDD, and then they decided to go to college to get that architectural degree, or somebody right out of college does an architectural degree and has no experience. Who is who's I don't want to say better because that's not good. Who's gonna be the better person to hire initially? And who do you think will have more credibility?

SPEAKER_00: 7:49

Um that's a tough one. Um so I think, and really this is my opinion and my experience and what I've seen and how I've tried to slot people who have success in this industry. And it's I I think there are two ways to think about uh construction and and uh problems that are going to be in the field. Uh, there is a reactive approach, a problem has happened, how are we going to resolve it? And there is a proactive approach of what are all the potential ways that this could go wrong, and what is the best way I can set this project up to be successful? And it's the proactive thinking that fits best into consulting engineering. Uh, because if you wait for a problem to happen, then you're kind of scrambling to try to resolve it, which actually is a great talent to have in the field because problem comes up, what are we going to do? And you creatively come up with a solution. If you can cut that off months ahead of time and not have that problem arise ahead of time and think about all the different ways that it can go wrong and try to fix it. I know I'm talking generically, but uh, I guess I would think about like pathways. So what happens if you are working on a multi-phase project and you have to get from this part of the building over to this part of the building, and but that part of the building is not going to be built for six months until uh I mean it's phase out six months. Well, you want to think, what if it gets phased out even longer? Or what if the time frame moves up? How can we make our pathways work in this building so that no matter what happens to the phasing, this part's gonna be a success, and then this part's also gonna fit into it.

SPEAKER_05: 9:41

So it's um Yeah, I love I love the fact that you keyed in on being proactive because that's a that's something I'm I'm hugely a big proponent of. And I guess it comes from my dad. My dad always used to say it's better to drive a car looking through the windshield than in the rearview mirror, right? It's better to be proactive than reactive.

SPEAKER_04: 10:00

Let's take a short break. Are you trying to reach the technicians, project managers, and decision makers of the ICT industry? Then why aren't you advertising on Let's Talk Cabling? With over 150,000 impressions a month across podcasts, YouTube, and social media, this isn't just a show, it's the go-to resource for the low voltage industry. We spotlight the tools, training, and technology shaping the future of structured cabling. And your brand could be front and center. Don't just get noticed, get trusted. Email Chuck at advertising at letstalkcabling.com and let's connect your brand to the right audience today.

SPEAKER_05: 10:47

I would assume as the at the consulting engineer level, there is a ton of information, a ton of information. Let me ask you, what is the typical flow, information flow for a project?

SPEAKER_00: 10:57

Mm-hmm. So uh the design team primarily works for uh an architect, but the architect doesn't always have all the answers. The answers are usually on the owner side. So a lot of times that information flow has to go up through the architect to the owner. But um we have found or I have found uh over the years that uh to it's best to try to get around the architect if you can, to talk to the owner directly. So at the start of every project, we like to sit down with the owner's stakeholders and figure out what do you want to happen? What how do you want your technology to work in this building? And we have a long checklist of items that we go through where we ask them about who their service providers are. Do they have any preference for racks, cabling, for audiovisual equipment? Uh how do you want the meeting rooms to work? Uh, what are your requirements for security? Do you have particular cameras that you like using? Do you already have licenses uh set up? Um do you have any manufacturers that you have not had good experiences with that you want us to exclude from the specification or to include if you really do like them and that sort of thing? Um and once you get that primary information out of the way, then the information flow kind of works pretty well between you and the architect and and the owner. But it's good to really get that one-on-one time with them to just set the expectations for the project.

SPEAKER_05: 12:28

Yeah, we've all sat, we've all been part of those conversations. I as an estimator, you know, I would I'd when I'm responding back to a bid, I'd have to, if if something wasn't clear, I'd have to submit an RFI to the to the GC, who had to send that RFI to probably you, uh you know, consulting engineer, maybe even to the architectures, and then maybe even to the customer, and then that's come all the way back down through the gun. It just kind of reminds me of that that thing that we used to do in like elementary school where they'd line up, you know, 15 kids, and that you tell the first kid something, and that first kid will tell the second kid and the third kid, and by the time you get to the end, what that person said was nothing even near what the first person said. And and by getting these people out of the way, that can that can really help. Let me ask you this question, and again, um, not one of our pre-arranged questions, but what what size project, not asking dollar value-wise, but what size project, let's say in number of cable drops, would somebody typically be seeking services from a consulting engineer? Because I'm assuming like like my local vet office up the street here, they're not gonna be contacting you to do their 15 cable drop job, right?

SPEAKER_00: 13:36

Um, so I've worked on very small itty-bitty projects. Um I've I've worked on uh projects, uh, a community center. They wanted they they wanted help with an RFP to solicit bids for a project. So um I I worked on developing what their audiovisual equipment in this little community center would look like. I've worked on uh tiny offices that uh just there is an architect who is working on the refinishes within that building, and they also want to have uh a refresh to their low voltage uh um infrastructure, and they want it to look nice. So they hire us to design it hand in hand with the architect to make sure that it is going to meet the uh aesthetic uh expectations of uh of their project. I actually I wrote a piece um for my company that um went around to to the company about that aesthetic aspect of what we do, uh, especially with regard to wireless access points. So I had a little story about I was on a cruise a couple of summers ago, and I was in this very nice dining room. It was obviously well appointed by the interior designer, and because I'm an engineer, low voltage guy, I was looking around trying to see what I could see, and I looked up, and there was a big, ugly, wireless access point on the beautiful wood-paneled ceiling. And I'm like, I know how that got there because the IT guy was not a part of the process of putting this together, and he wanted to put and he needed to put that access point where it was gonna go and just popped it in there.

SPEAKER_05: 15:23

Yeah, they don't think about us till till afterwards. I mean, we're we're we're commonly, you know, that's why I love the whole, you know, the uh the AI, the American Institute of Architects, and they create the divisions and stuff. So that makes us part of the conversation sometimes. But the vast majority of the time, you know, they they get this whole thing built and they go, Oh, by the way, we probably should have involved the IT department. And you know what? You're not the only one who's walking around looking at cable installs and stuff like that. Because everybody I talked to in this industry, they do the exact same thing. The exact same thing.

SPEAKER_00: 15:55

So before the first table, my wife yells at me all the time. Oh, yeah, walk into a place and head goes up.

SPEAKER_05: 16:03

I had to laugh because um I was taking my wife to uh physical therapy the other morning because she's got a herniated disc and says she's going to get physical therapy for it. And the appointment was like at super early in the morning, it's like seven in the morning. She doesn't see well when it's dark out, so she says, Okay, can you can you drive me there and then drive me back? I said, Yeah, as long as I'm back before eight o'clock, I'm fine. So I drove over there and we're sitting there as she checked in. We're kind of sitting there in the waiting room, and and I was actually reading the sign on the desk, and I don't even remember what the sign was talking about, but and and she thought I was looking at the cabling, and she goes, Don't you take any pictures? We're in a health facility. She knows me all too well. All too well, right? So before the before a single cable even gets spec'd, right? There's already a mountain of decisions that have to be made, and and them, and if they involve the IT people, obviously this can be a better design all the way around. How do you know what design to use? Because there's lots of different lots of different things out there. You know, there's there's eight or nine different connectivity manufacturers, there's four or five A V companies putting out stuff. How do you know what to design from going from project to project?

SPEAKER_00: 17:12

Mm-hmm. Uh number one, it helps if there are standards. So if I'm designing a hotel for Hilton or for Marriott, they have standards that you mean you mean c internal company standards, not ANSI standards, right? Correct. Yes, internal company standards that they have already developed that uh they hand over to the design teams so that you design this building to look like a Marriott, to look like a particular Marriott, if it's uh you know a JW or if it is a uh courtyard or a courtyard or a residence in actually tapestries by Hilton now.

SPEAKER_03: 17:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 17:52

Yeah, there's a there's a whole bunch, whole bunch of stuff. Um and those are very, very helpful to follow because they'll tell you that at the front desk you are gonna get four ports uh at each stand, or it tells you in the guest room there is going to be a uh uh port for the TV, one for the wireless access point, or in the case of Hilton, there's gonna be coax still uh for their uh in-room system. Um and it's good to have these standards because if you miss one of those things and it gets all the way to the end of design and Hilton is reviewing it, it's not not a happy conversation.

SPEAKER_05: 18:31

No, no, that's not. That's not, especially if it's not the not the first time you're designing something for them, too. They they they kind of really will will you know they will get really ticked off at you. Let's put it that way. Uh let me ask you this in doing your design work, how much how much thought or energy do you put into future proofing and how do you educate the customer before you actually start to do that design?

SPEAKER_00: 19:00

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes uh the the customer will have in their standards, they'll they'll they'll tell you how much future capacity uh they want to see, 25%, 50%, what what have you. Um and in that checklist that I mentioned, that's actually one of our questions is how much spare capacity do you want across the board um for this uh for this project? And and so we'd like to get out front and so that we can design that in right away. I actually just had a uh conversation with one of my employees the other day. Um, we're designing a big office project, and the standard is to have 20% spare capacity. And he said, Yeah, but this MDF has 1200 ports going back to it. Should I really have an additional 240 uh ports, you know, however many patch panels that is? And I'm like, just put a spare rack in. We'll we'll figure out the patch panels later. Right. And um, but yeah, this is it. We absolutely you want to do that. And because uh back to the question about what what cabling type, if it's an open spec, like in our written Division 27 specification, we'll include almost a dozen different cabling manufacturers if it's an open spec and it it doesn't matter. That way we can really open up the bidding and allow for a lot of competition um to provide the best value for the customer. But uh different cables have different outside diameters, different conduit fill, uh different cable tray fill. So we do have to design in that spare capacity uh into our pathway design uh just as a matter of course, because we don't necessarily know at the end of the day what is uh gonna fit in all these uh all these conduits. So um, so yeah, I do want to look at the calculations that were used by my employees when they design a pathway because if they're you know pushing 40% on every pathway, I'm gonna be like, okay, add a spare, please. Let's make sure that we're allowing for not only future expansion, future proofing, but let's make sure that we're not uh gonna run up into a problem if uh they put some really heavy cabling in here.

SPEAKER_04: 21:16

A quick word from the folks who help make this show possible. Are you ready to boost your fiber game? Then check out GoFar Fiber Training School, where you'll learn from the best. Lee Renfro, RCDD, Bixie Tech, and three-time winner of the Bixie Cable Skills Challenge himself. Whether you're pulling your first strand or prepping for certification, GoFar delivers hands-on, real-world training that gets you job site ready. Don't just GoFar. Lee will take you all the way. Sign up today and start leveling up your career. Visit GoFar on LinkedIn or click on the link in the description below.

SPEAKER_05: 22:00

Below. Let me ask you a question. So, you know, obviously you're functioning within the ANZI standards arena, the Bixie Best Practices Arena. You and I both know manufacturers, they create cables aligned with those standards. But what happens from time to time is you'll get a particular manufacturer who'll say, Okay, well, we have a cat 6e cable. It's really a cat 6 cable that gets a little bit better performance than Cat 6, but and you and I both know there's no Cat 6E in the standards, right? It's Cat 6, Cat 6. You saw this a lot. Oh gosh, I think about 10 years ago. Cat 5 Big E and Cat 5 Little E. It was all marketing hype, it was still cat 5e, right? Um, how do you do do you address that with the customer when they expect that stuff? Do you try to educate them? Or you just say, okay, just let it fly?

SPEAKER_00: 22:50

Yeah, no, I do. I do try to educate them because um they they hear things all the time. Customers hear about new cabling types that are coming out and they want to know should I use this? Uh is this am I going to set this building up to be uh technology uh advanced in technology for the next 20 years, or am I just buying a bunch of Hokum? And uh so I do like to talk about that stuff. I had a um uh a project with a company that is in Germany, and they wanted to uh set up a facility here in the United States, and they said, Oh, yeah, we've standardized on category seven, so we would like to use that. And I said, Well, here's the thing. Cat seven isn't really a thing in the United States, it's not even in our standards. Yeah, it's not in the ANSI standards, it's an international standard, not the ANSI standards. Yes, not an ANSI standard. So I said, so you could go up to category eight, which I don't recommend, or you could go to category sixa, which I'm pretty sure is gonna meet your your requirements. So let's just talk about what sort of bandwidth you you and speed you need, and uh we'll make sure that cat 6a is gonna fit.

SPEAKER_05: 24:10

Yeah, yeah, it's funny you point that out because I I you know my day job I teach classes to contractors, and inevitably, you know, at least one class a week or one class every other week, especially when I'm going through the category rated cables 5e6, 688, inevitably says, What about cat seven, Chuck? What about Cat 7A? And that had the exact same conversation that you just talked about. I said, Well, probably what you're running into is the company you're putting the cable for is probably owned by a parent company that's from Europe and they're following the ISO 11801 standards. Other than that, the only time you ever see Cat 7 or Cat 7A mentioned is if you you're like me, you you're all over social media and you get uh Joe homeowner who wants to put in cabling in his house, and all he knows is the higher the number, the better, and you can't really afford Cat A. So let's do Cat 7, let's do Cat 7. You know, no, Cat 6A is fine, especially for residential networks, right? And you know, the funny, I'm glad you point this out because you know, this is the thing that the installers don't see. They don't see the the the chess game going on upstream. They just, you know, they by the time they get, they get the spec, they get the drawings, the scope of work, and and their boss saying, hey, go have that. They don't understand all the moving pieces and parts. I'm kind of glad we did that. I gotta imagine, I know as a project manager and an estimator, actually, I was never only working on one project at a time, right? You know, um I I could be I could be and I'd be I might be managing three or five projects all at one shot, and those three or five projects would all be at different different stages. One I might be working on the submittals, another one I might be working on the close-out documentation, the other one I might be in the middle of the install, right? How many projects does a consulting engineer typically work on at a time? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 25:57

Uh this I have found can change from company to company. Um, so I really only know my company as um a really good example. And we work on we work on big projects. Um, we work on projects that last the design phase will last the better part of a year up to several years. Uh in fact, I'm still closing out a project that I started in 2019.

SPEAKER_05: 26:27

And it's that's a long time ago in this in our world.

SPEAKER_00: 26:32

Yeah. Uh so it it it this is it's a hard question to answer, but um typically I like to load my my team with like five active projects and then maybe another five to ten that are in CA uh construction administration. Because that that phase for us, the construction administration phase, is um a little easier um because usually we're answering RFIs, we are reviewing submittals, uh, we are reviewing the progress reports uh from the CA site visits. Um so that's uh it's a little more passive. So you can take on more projects that are in CA unless there are problems, and then you are changing the drawings and uh submitting ASIs and other uh changes to the design documentation. But if everything is going well, uh usually it's just RFIs reviewing submittals and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_05: 27:32

How do you keep all those projects straight mentally in your head?

SPEAKER_00: 27:36

Um you have to be organized. You you you have to have uh a good um filing system within your email. You uh internally in our company, we do have um we well, yes, we do have a uh we use new forma to store emails and uh keep stuff in order. We have um a construction administration log that logs all of our uh RFIs and submittals, and so we keep all that stuff straight. But as far as the information, what you did for the project, um I we we we rely on um uh a lot of Microsoft products uh to help us, uh teams storing information in Teams, storing information in OneNote, uh keeping stuff organized in your emails, utilizing a folder structure, uh that sort of thing, and just keeping everything good and handy. Because when you've worked on a project, you know, you've put in long, long hours designing this thing. Um, it sticks in your head for a good while. But if it's been a while since you've worked on a project, I have a uh a Hilton that uh I designed in the islands that is just now under construction. And I had our CA guy who's on site right now, he was calling me up and asking me questions. I'm like, dude, I haven't looked at that thing in three years. I don't remember. You have to give me a minute.

SPEAKER_05: 29:02

That's funny. I I'm I'm yeah, I I I've that's a muscle I haven't exercised in a while. I mean, I I got obviously when I was a project manager and estimator, I used to do all that stuff, but you know, I'm so I'm so focused on just what I do now, and so I don't have that, but and my ADHD seems to be getting worse as I get older. I'm not sure what's going on there. I'm chasing the squirrels all the time. You know, so let's talk about tools and the field reality. You know, the technicians, they gotta have their their punch tools and their snips and and their and their testers and stuff like that, because we you and I both know a good design either lives or dies during the construction phase. So, what are some of the tools that a consulting engineer would use in their job?

SPEAKER_00: 29:43

Yeah, this is one of the big differences between uh the consulting engineer and the installer is yeah, we don't really uh utilize punch down blocks, we uh don't have SNPs and uh we don't have our uh fiber testers or anything like that. We've got a good laptop and uh some sort of modeling software on it. I think the industry is more or less standardized around Autodesk Revit these days, so uh that's primarily what we use. Um and if there is anybody who is thinking about stepping out of the field and going to consulting engineering and design, I highly recommend uh learning how to use Revit before you uh step into it.

SPEAKER_05: 30:31

I was gonna ask you that. I was gonna ask you that because you know, uh you know, everything was autocab when I was an estimator and stuff. And and I did a show, I want to say it was two years ago, where somebody came on and we did a show on Revit. And he actually showed the modeling stuff, and I was like, where was this when I was an estimator? And and the the thing that I found is a lot of people are super interested in Revit, you know, that technology, but there's not a whole bunch, maybe maybe you can help shed the light here. There's not a whole lot of places that you can go other than on the job experience to learn Revit.

SPEAKER_00: 31:06

Um, you can look into uh community colleges, and um the I don't think there are any private, there might be private companies that do it, but you can um if you if you want to educate yourself, you can go to uh community colleges and there are courses on uh architectural design that you can take to learn these skills. Um I don't know if there's I mean I'm sure you could look up stuff on YouTube as well.

SPEAKER_05: 31:37

Um and you gotta be careful with YouTube though, because anybody with a camera can be on YouTube. So you always gotta evaluate that source with YouTube videos.

SPEAKER_00: 31:49

Yeah. Um but you know, at like you, I was uh when when I started, uh it was AutoCAD. And um I didn't know how to use AutoCAD when I started, um, but I picked it up pretty quick because it's fairly easy, it's a fairly intuitive uh program. Revit is a lot less intuitive, so it does take a little more training to uh to get used to it. Um I mean I know how to use Revit, I don't like using Revit. I like using AutoCAD. That's just because I'm I I'm now I've now become the old guy. So I hearken back to everybody. I know. So I hearken back to quick keys and uh you know quickly modeling some or drawing something up in uh in AutoCAD. And I but what you can do in Revit is really cool because yeah, you can create these 3D models and the the BIM space, uh building information management, BIM. Uh a lot of contractors will use that to um identify any potential conflicts or uh issues. I can't tell you how many uh fire protection pipes go through my cable tray. Fortunately, they go through the cable tray in the model and not in the field, so we get to clear that up uh before it becomes a real issue.

SPEAKER_05: 33:07

That's why I love Revit, because it shows those conflicts right out of the game.

SPEAKER_00: 33:11

Yeah, that's that's the big strength of it. But I always remind my team that at the end of the day, though, what we are producing is black lines on drawings. Yes where it all gets flattened, and you're looking at a floor plan, and that's the most important part that you have to make sure looks good. Yes, it's nice to be able to model in the 3D space and put this thing particularly there, and that one just over there, and it looks great when you render it and you've got the 3D rendering of the room and you see all of our cool stuff, but at the end of the day, it all gets flattened. Black lines on drawings make that look clean.

SPEAKER_05: 33:46

But the beautiful thing about the 3D side of Revit is again, you you know, I already kind of already hit on this. You know, it's easier to identify conflicts up earlier, and it's far easier to make a change when it's just a line on a drawing, as opposed to racks or cable tray that's already installed, you know, in a room somewhere.

SPEAKER_00: 34:05

Right. And that's part of the proactive um thinking that uh that I mentioned before. If you have already designed your cable tray through a corridor that is just tight and really pushing the limits, and then you have a big pipe coming through that creates a conflict and you've got nowhere to move that cable tray, that's not a good design, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_05: 34:32

Yeah, especially especially when you're doing like water mains and sprinkler pipes, because those guys don't like moving their stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 34:38

Oh no, they they come first. So that's uh you learn about the hierarchy of things uh pretty quickly when you are in this field. And uh when there are conflicts, when you are doing an RCP reflected sealing plan coordination, uh we are the first to move out of the way of everybody else. Doesn't matter if your your speaker row looks beautiful, if there is a sprinkler head that uh is in conflict, sprinkler head uh gets first dibs, and you gotta move that speaker.

SPEAKER_05: 35:11

You just taught me an acronym. RCP. I've never heard that one before. Ah reflective ceiling plan. I never heard that acronym before. See? You learn something new every day in this industry.

SPEAKER_00: 35:23

I got acronyms for days, man.

SPEAKER_05: 35:26

Oh, hey, there's a whole entire free book you can download from Bixie with acronyms and definitions. It's free. It's the ICT terminology handbook. So that's a great resource for anybody who struggles with acronyms. That's one of the reasons why I started doing the acronym challenge five years ago, is because I realized you know there's a lot of people who don't understand acronyms. They don't understand that we can have multiple acronyms to describe the same thing. We can also have uh one acronym that describes multiple things, and then we got old acronyms, new acronyms. We even have second generation and third generation acronyms. So it gets it gets really, really confusing in our industry. It truly does. So let me ask you this. So you so you're you're real heavy in work and like the design and the and the and the that size. What do you does your work does your does your workload shift during the construction phase? What do you what are you doing during that phase of the project?

SPEAKER_00: 36:19

So during the construction phase, uh, as I mentioned uh before, we are usually answering uh RFIs. That's request for information. We haven't defined that one yet. Uh that uh that's usually from the the contractor, um usually the ICT installer, sometimes the electrical contractor, sometimes even the general contractor. Uh if it refers to our stuff, then they send uh an RFI. If there's a confusion, if there's a confusing thing, like the looks like there's an error in the drawings, or there is a field condition that has created a conflict that wasn't there during design, then they ask the question for clarification, and um it, as you said, goes up the chain slowly to us. We answer it, goes back down the chain, and hopefully it gets uh gets resolved. Um, so that's one of the major things. And if there is an error on our drawings, then it's up to us to fix it in the drawings and issue new plans so that um the contractor has corrected plans uh on hand.

SPEAKER_05: 37:26

To all the trades, not just the low voltage trade. Because sometimes our stuff might be uh actually affecting another trade, too. That's that's one of my biggest, my biggest gripes is you know, the GC would get a new set of prints and they'd issue out to the HVAC, to the sprinkler, to the electricians, and we were the red-headed stepchildren. We never get you what you're you're working on, what rev date? That's why that wall's not there anymore, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 37:55

Hey there, business owners and tech enthusiasts. Are you tired of dealing with outdated technology and unreliable IT support? Introducing Better Days Technology, Rhode Island's premier IT solution provider. Whether you need secure network setups, top-notch cybersecurity, or seamless software integrations, Better Days Technology has got you covered. Don't let tech troubles hold you back. Visit BetterdaysTechnology.com or call 401-440-5483 today. One call to us, and you'll be having better days.

SPEAKER_05: 38:33

Now let's get back to the podcast. Let me ask you as a construction engineer, how often do you visit a site when it's ongoing?

SPEAKER_00: 38:42

Uh and I I think this this is different for different companies as well. Um, we we try to streamline site visits um because they're they're expensive. Um, it's time, it's travel, um it's hotels, car, it's it's a lot of expense. So we try to streamline that for our clients um by sending as few people as necessary to do the site visits. But we do occasionally get to uh go out. Um generally, if we get to go out, um, me and my team, we like to make at least two site visits. Uh the first one is when the walls are up and uh sorry, before the walls go up. So devices have been roughed in, uh, boxes and everything has been roughed in, but the walls have not gone up yet, so that we can check and make sure everything looks like it's as it was on the plan. We'll go through with a set of plans and we'll check off and say, yep, yep, yep, all these boxes are here. Uh all the devices look like they've been accounted for, and then the walls can go up and the cables can get pulled and terminated. And then we'd like and then we like to make one more site visit um close to the conclusion of uh uh a substantial completion of uh of the project. So not quite at substantial completion, but close to, so that we can check and make sure that everything looks clean, that uh the cables have been terminated. Um and usually it is uh near the end of construction because that's usually when the ICT installer gets access and can pull the cabling and terminate and do everything. But in that instance, what we're looking for is to make sure that uh the cables were pulled properly through spaces. We make sure that the conduits had the bushing put on before the cabling was pulled through, otherwise, you're stripping all of the uh uh the sheathing and probably creating issues. Um so yeah, we do get to go out to site and and inspect for for those things. Um otherwise, we review the submittals. Um, so um that's the uh full booklet of what is going to be installed. Sometimes it'll be the uh the shop drawings. So they lay out the ICT installer, will lay out what they are going to do with uh labeling port numbers and everything, and we will review that and make sure it aligns with the uh design intent and um just make sure that it's following what was in the specification.

SPEAKER_05: 41:14

So you're out visiting a job sites and you so you're seeing obviously low voltage contractors and stuff like that. Let me ask you this what do you think is the biggest disconnect between the design process people and processes and the instill installation people and processes?

SPEAKER_00: 41:31

I don't know. I think we get along pretty well. Um I don't know. I I'm not sure that there's um if there's a disconnect, like if do you mean like if uh if if if there's if the install installation is not matching what was on the drive?

SPEAKER_05: 41:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 41:50

I mean uh uh you know let's say the uh the tech are out in the field, you're doing your your walkthrough and and uh and what what do you see consistently where installation misunderstands what the design team wants to um it does happen where it doesn't look like the drawings were read properly. Um and I think that just might come from not knowing how to read a drawing set, which is definitely something that's that's happened before. And usually we we pick up on that during the RFI process. If uh if uh an installer or a contractor asks us a question that there's the the answer, you just you know you're like, oh well, it says in this note here that you were supposed to do it that way, um, then it be kind of becomes apparent that maybe they aren't reading the drawings correctly. And um uh sometimes we'll just hop on a phone call with them and take them through the drawing set and say and show them, like, okay, this is where you'll find all the information you're looking for. This is the legend, and this tells you to refer to this part over here. Here are the keynotes over here. Uh, those will explain what's going on in further detail on the plans here. Um at the end of the set, we've got a schedule, it's got all the devices, everything um specified there. And usually that resolves things.

SPEAKER_05: 43:24

Um see, and that's kind of that's exactly the disconnect I was gonna I was gonna say was, you know, on on your side of the house, you know, the the design side, the the consultant engineering, you guys are all about the details, dotting the i's, crossing the t's, giving every detail. I've been on both sides of this fence. I've been an installer and I've looked at print sometimes where they would, you know, they would have an entire page with nothing but notes. Nothing but notes. Installers in the field reading comprehension is usually not their forge. They're they're they're working with their hands for a reason. Because that's what they like to do. Don't get me wrong, there are people out there really good at reading through prints and getting all that, but a lot of them kind of they'll they'll scan through it or not read and comprehend it, and and then then you come after the job and say, Oh, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. That's not what uh the drawings are saying, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 44:17

I I have had this conversation with uh employees before where I've looked at a set and the notes are practically hanging off of the page, and I'm I'm like, okay, let's let's focus on notes and and try to see if we can tighten these up. And right uh because I I don't want to say it's it's a reading comprehension, but it's a time thing as well. Like no, yes, nobody's got time to read all these notes all and and make sure that they are it's funny you say that because if I get an email that's got more than one paragraph, I'm probably not reading the entire thing. I I understand, yeah. So yeah, so we do try to reduce notes, condense them, and and make sure that it's it's not uh um it's not like an online recipe thing where it's going into the whole story of uh you know my grandpa gave me this desk and make sure that you uh don't drill into it in the wrong way, just cut to the chase and say route route some wire mold up the back and we'll call it a day. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_05: 45:28

You know, one of the things I always loved about being in the field as an installer, a technician, as a project manager, as an estimator, is um you always know you're doing it right because at the end of the day you got a set of set of test results, you got a customer sign-off. As a construct as a as a consulting engineer, how do you know if you did a good job in your design?

SPEAKER_00: 45:50

There's several ways that uh this works. Um one is no news is good news. So if you are not getting many RFIs, if you if you get no RFIs, then I get worried because then I'm like, okay, I think they probably just threw out our drawing set and uh did it a new design themselves. So alright. Sometimes that happens. Um but if you get very few RFIs, um then that means they are looking at it and uh things are getting resolved pretty quickly, so it's probably going okay. Um the second way that we know if we've done a good job is if we get repeat work. If the client hires us again and uh wants to work with us a second time and or or more. I mean, in in my company, uh we pride ourselves on saying that uh 80% of our work is uh repeat work from consistent uh uh repeat clients. So uh we we try to work well with the uh the design team, try to make the process as painless as we can make it. And uh if they hire us again, that means that the process was good and the product was good.

SPEAKER_05: 47:16

Um we're the same way as contractors and installers. We like we like repeat work.

SPEAKER_00: 47:22

Yep. Another way that I uh that I have tried to find out whether we did a good job is uh, as I mentioned, some of our work is in hospitality, and I will look up online reviews of uh the uh the hotels that I've designed, and I look specifically to say to see if they are complaining about the Wi-Fi in the guest room. If they say that the Wi-Fi is good, then I think I did a good job with my layout.

SPEAKER_05: 47:51

So that's actually a good tip. I never even thought about that before. I never even thought about that before. So let's go ahead and transition. Let's talk about the again, the people who are listening to this episode and they're thinking, wow, man, this could be me someday. We already talked about talked about touch based on the career path for getting into this. Let me ask you this what's your favorite part of the job of being a consulting engineer?

SPEAKER_00: 48:15

Um my favorite part is I think it's twofold. So one thing I really enjoy doing is um the problem solving. So uh if something comes up and this and things change, you gotta be quick and ready to solve your problems. I was working on a uh hospital project uh where they had to move their secondary MDF, uh, which was their redundant backup for the entire campus. So I came up with a pretty clever design, I thought, for how to do that changeover from one section that was going to be demolished to another section of the building. Um meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, out in the field, they were driving piles for the expansion to this building. And as they drove the pile into the ground, it just disappeared because there was a complete underwater cavern or underground cavern that they had not picked up on. So that completely changed how they were going to approach the project. So that phase that I was going to use to move my secondary MDF, well, that now got bumped up. So I had to quickly think about okay, so I can't go there anymore. Now I have to figure out a new place where I can put the secondary MDF. And so had to come up with a what became an even better solution because there was an elevator chap that was being taken out and they were putting in flooring there. And I said, well, just keep that footprint for me. That's a perfect location for my secondary MDF. And if no one else is going to use those spaces, that's a great stack for IDFs going all the way up. And the second part of my job that I really like is I like working on um stuff that gets attention, that gets noticed. Um, because when uh I get to mention to friends uh, oh hey, I did this one or I did that one, they're they're usually pretty surprised and happy. Like uh let's see, what can I let me see if I can mention anything off the top of my head. Yeah, I guess I could say um uh the uh Epic Universe at uh uh at Universal in Orlando, um, we worked on pretty much all of that. And uh so when that opened, uh that was a really fun experience. And uh if you do work on big projects like that, usually there's a contractor's day where you get to go and ride the rides and experience that. And I did, I got to I got to go and do that, and I got to take my uh son, who was eight years old at the time, to go and uh ride the rides before it opened to the public. And that was a really fun experience and really cool one to get to talk about.

SPEAKER_05: 51:02

Oh, that's a that's a cool dad-son moment right there.

SPEAKER_00: 51:06

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. That was that was one of my highlights of the last year. Yeah. Nice.

SPEAKER_05: 51:12

If you can give just one piece of advice to a field tech or maybe even a project manager who's maybe thinking about the role of consulting engineer, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00: 51:21

Be curious, ask questions, um and try to try to be a problem solver. Um coming up with creative solutions to problems is uh a good trait to have in this in this industry. It's not your your very creative solution is not necessarily going to be the one that works at the end of the day, but if you can come up with you know three or four ways to uh resolve an issue or to um figure out a project and how to approach the project, uh that's a a great, great attribute to have. Um so not getting not getting stuck. You know, if you're presented with a problem and you just have trouble uh figuring out how to resolve it, this is maybe not the best field uh for you. But if you're a creative thinking person who likes to solve problems and and likes to uh work through them, uh then this is actually a really, really good field for you to be in.

SPEAKER_05: 52:27

Paul, what a great conversation. I appreciate you coming on the show today. Uh any any parting thoughts before we go away?

SPEAKER_00: 52:34

Yeah, uh going to the Bixie Winter Conference was uh a really uh eye-opening thing for me. I I I've been in the industry for 23 years. I've been to the floor before, but I've never been to the full conference before this one, this last year. And seeing the variety of people that are in this industry and the different uh the different professions that are uh going to this conference and are getting a lot out of it was uh really, really interesting. So I mean the the ICT world is really big and there's a lot of different people in it. So um I I I do think like there's room for a lot of people to do a lot of different different things here, and the consulting engineering is one of them, uh, but it's not the only one. So, you know, I think people should uh definitely try to see where they where they fit best.

SPEAKER_05: 53:33

Yeah, I often use the analogy that our industry is like a bicycle, right? Some people are the pedals, some people are the the seat, some people the steering wheel, and some people are the back wheel, and some people the derailler. You know, there's you very rarely, I don't think well, I don't say very rarely, I have never come across anybody in this industry who's done everything, you know, from from apprenticeship to consulting engineering, from from manufacturing to installation to I mean, you know, from fire alarm to structured cabling to to dA systems. There's nobody does everything. There's many different segments to our industry, and that's why I love it. You know, this one when I told somebody I was creating the podcast and I was talking about let's talk cabling, they're like, that's gonna get kind of boring pretty fast. Like, you don't know our industry. You don't know our industry. Paul, thanks for coming on, my friend. I appreciate you having having time out of your busy day and and having to chat with us.

SPEAKER_00: 54:27

Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.