Blizzard & Bloom: Insights from the Ice and the Green Scene
Welcome to Blizzard and Bloom, the podcast where the green meets the white! Hosted by Jay Rotonnelli, a seasoned expert with over 36 years in the landscape and snow removal industries, this show dives deep into the business, operations, and stories behind both blooming landscapes and blizzard battles.
Whether you’re a property manager, business owner, snow fighter, or landscape professional, you’ll find valuable insights, industry trends, and real-world advice. Expect candid conversations with industry leaders, tips for growing your business, and even a few wild stories from the field.
It’s informative, it’s fun, and it’s designed to help you thrive—whether the ground is covered in grass or snow.
New episodes every other week. Subscribe now to stay ahead in the green and snow game!
Blizzard & Bloom: Insights from the Ice and the Green Scene
Why the trades need parents' buy-in to thrive again
What happens when someone with 42 years in the landscape industry decides to tackle America's skilled trade shortage head-on? Russ Marsan joins us to share his remarkable journey from grinding stumps on the North Shore of Massachusetts to becoming a leading advocate for trade education in Vermont.
Russ takes us through his winding career path – from struggling student to successful business owner – revealing how each seemingly unrelated job actually built the foundation for his future. "While I thought I was taking five years off trying to find myself, I was just building knowledge I could carry forward," he reflects, offering a powerful perspective for anyone questioning their non-traditional career journey.
The conversation shifts to a critical industry challenge: attracting new talent to replace retiring tradespeople. Russ details his involvement with the "Bring Back the Trades" initiative and the upcoming Vermont event on May 20th at Castleton University. This innovative approach brings students, parents, and industry professionals together in an interactive environment where young people can discover career possibilities they might never otherwise encounter.
Perhaps most compelling is Russ's insight on breaking down barriers to trade careers. From eliminating the stigma of trade education to ensuring parents understand these viable career paths, he offers practical wisdom on rebuilding America's skilled workforce. His collaborative philosophy – "the tide rises all boats" – represents a refreshing approach to industry challenges that benefits everyone.
Ready to join the movement to revitalize trade education? Visit bringbackthetrades.org to learn how you can get involved, or connect with Russ directly at russ@carpentercostin.com.
Welcome to Blizzard and Bloom, the podcast where we navigate the storms and celebrate the triumphs in business and entrepreneurship. Join us as we dive into stories, insights and strategies from top professionals to help you thrive in today's evolving landscape. And now here is your host, jay Rotinelli. Here is your host, jay Rotinelli.
Speaker 2:Hello again. Welcome to another episode of Blizzard and Bloom. Last episode we had the opportunity to have Dave Gallagher on the call. We chatted a little bit about CYMA and the new CYMA Foundation and some of the great things that those folks are doing over there. So that was a great episode. Looking forward to sharing that with all of you Today. I'm honored to have a special guest again. We've got Russ Marshan here from Carpenter Costin over in the Rutland Vermont area. Some of you a lot of you know who Russ is Been very impactful in the green and white industries in New England and he's here today. We're going to talk a little bit about the trades and kind of what he's doing, about trying to make improvements with that and sharing opportunities with other folks and kind of the industries at large. Russ, welcome to Blizzard Bloom. Thanks for coming on today being a guest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for the invite. I was super excited when you asked me. So, yeah, I never turned down the opportunity to talk to a fellow peer and reach out to everyone in the industry that we were just talking about a few minutes ago before we went right in my recording. So yeah, it's cool, it's cool, so thanks absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know I meant to tell you too I feel like the business that I'm with pascatic wild landscaping and then your business carpenter costs and I remember going to the Vermont Greenscape Turfscape shows in December to get pesticide credits and I just I always remember seeing some folks from your team there and the one thing I can share with you and it was it was, I'm sure this is it resonates with you but your team was always. They represented your company very well and they were very professional and they were engageable and it was nice to be able to talk to them and it was great because you know people see websites and they see different people of who they are and their organizations. But it's like, do they, do they really operate that way, right In in how they, what they represent? And I can tell you your team certainly does. So kudos to you for your leadership with your guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great to hear, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think you know, as it relates to our industry, I think it's really important that our team, and also our clients, really understand the value that people bring to anything that gets done. Anything and everything that we do obviously revolves around people. We need the equipment to do the work. We need it to be efficient and operable. At the end of the day, it's the people that are making all those things happen. That's really where the rubber meets the road, so that's always here, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good stuff. You know Justin and I always talk about when we're talking with folks that come onto the team and we say you know, we're not just in the landscape or the snow business, we're in the people business, right?
Speaker 3:This is what we do, right? This is just what we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know there's times that we fall on our face a little bit and it's all how we recover and make good at it or learn from it so that we can share it with others, so that you know it doesn't really happen again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's an interesting point and it's funny. I was just flipping through LinkedIn the other night and Mike Hayes from Lovinghood posted something in regards to you know, fail faster, and so what you just said kind of resonates with me on that front from just 24 hours ago. Interesting, you don't always plan to learn the hard way or learn by failing, because we like to think that we try to take as many different perspectives as possible when we make a decision, but sometimes at the end of the day, things just don't go the way that we had hoped or planned. And I definitely think the mark of a successful individual team company organization is how they respond to adversity. And I think, on a daily basis, you're, in one level or another, faced with some level of adversity that you need to work through it. I think making sure that your teams are always aware that they're going to be facing that adversity, but how they come together and work together to to overcome those challenges, is really all the wins that stack up to really do some really good stuff, right.
Speaker 3:So yeah don't be so afraid to share in the losses, or share in the mistakes, or, oh my God, I didn't. You know what that's. All opportunities to learn from.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, and it's real world. Right, it's real world stuff. So can you share with us a little bit about how you kind of got in the industry and a little bit background on Carpenter Cosson, sure I industry and a little bit of?
Speaker 3:background on Carpenter and Cosson. Sure, I'll try to keep it as brief as I can. It was just the other day, I think. I've been associated with this brand for 42 years.
Speaker 2:Wow, 42.
Speaker 3:I grew up in the South Central Massachusetts. My father worked for Mass Electric and he used to head up some of the contracts for municipalities on the North Shore of Boston. So he used to subcontract the utility work to Bill Carpenter. I think there was a point in my dad's career at the power company that he wanted to maybe try his own thing, and I think at that point Bill, mr Donnie Costin, had gotten out and he was doing antiques up in, like Wenham maybe, and so my dad connected with Bill. They struck up some sort of a deal and he ended up buying the company. Bill stuck around for a long time.
Speaker 3:So I used to get to work with Bill during the summers of he would grind the stumps and I would clean up the shavings. I'm driving through the streets of Lynn, mass and Swampscott and that whole North Shore area. So yeah, I did that on weekends when I went to visit my dad, and during the summers, and I was definitely not what you would call a great student. I struggled to probably focus and apply myself in school. It just really wasn't for me. But luckily, you know, I guess my dad kind of pushed me along and made me do my best, even though it wasn't what I wanted to be. He definitely pushed me to keep going and keep trying.
Speaker 3:So I ended up going to Stockbridge Agricultural School. So I did that for a couple of years and a lot of the guys were not a lot, but a handful of the guys were transferring into the landscape architecture department. So I gave that a go. That was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. So that was like 90 to 95. I got out and worked for my dad doing the design build end of the business. While I was in school I met my wife who was from Rutland, vermont. She tried living in the city. She didn't like it. I liked her more than I liked living in the city. So I told my dad see you, I'm leaving, I'm out, I'm moving to Vermont. I had a series of all kinds of different jobs, from building swimming pools to building houses, to tuning skis, to working at nightclubs up on Killington Ski Resort.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:But it was interesting. I used to get a lot of flack from guys saying, man, you got all this education and you're not using it. Like what are you doing? And then I kind of got to the point where I ended up working for a company over in the Saratoga New York area and I realized that all of the jobs that I had had really all just helped build my abilities as it related to design build. So now I knew how to build custom swimming pools, how to build custom swimming pools. I knew how to build houses and blow out walls and do French doors and do pergolas and screened-in porches, and so it really interestingly enough you know, things always have a way of working out, I think sometimes.
Speaker 3:So while I thought I was taking five years off and trying to find myself, I really was just building a lot of knowledge that I could keep with me and carry forward, lot of knowledge that I could keep with me and carry forward. So I ended up doing a lot of weekend work while I was working over in New York and I ran into a guy who was probably 75 years old, had been doing hardscape installs kind of well-known guy in our area and I asked him hey, you ever think about selling this business? And he said oh, every day. And I said really, well, today might be your lucky day. I had just finished building my house, so I had some sweat equity into it. So my father and I talked and I put up my house and he got me, I think, a couple of 350 pickups, a trailer and a bobcat and maybe some walker mowers. That's how it started, wow.
Speaker 2:That's a cool story 2008, 2009,.
Speaker 3:I partnered with my now partner, matt Catalvo. So I was a Massachusetts guy that lived in Vermont and followed my wife. He was a Connecticut guy that moved to Vermont and followed his now wife, so we were kind of like the two flatlanders. That's what they call. You Implants You're not from there, you're a flatlander.
Speaker 1:So, even though I've been here for 30 years.
Speaker 3:I'll be a flatlander forever.
Speaker 2:You're a flatlander? Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 3:I cannot run that one, that's just the way it is. So we had, we had partnered, we had we, we created a partnership in, I think, 2008 or 2009, maybe 2008, I think, and he was really focused on maintenance. I was focused on design build. That was the year, of course, the housing market crashed. So all the design build work we had all pretty much went away like that. So we really started focusing on maintenance because we had no construction work to do. And then we realized reoccurring revenue is pretty cool. Jim Palooch was even more cool.
Speaker 3:So my wife's scrolling through magazines because we honestly weren't sure if we were going to be flipping burgers or we were going to be laying stones, we weren't quite sure what was going to happen. So she was flipping through, I think, a lot of landscape magazine maybe, and found a JP Horizons story and said, hey, what do you think about calling this guy? I said what do we got to lose? We might as well call him. So I think at the time it was I don't know $5,000 for him to come out for the day. And I was thinking, holy shit, like how are we going to afford $5,000? Like are you kidding me? Like there's no way we can afford that.
Speaker 3:And then we talked and you know, matt, myself and my wife Renee I don't think Matt's wife at the time was working for the company and we said, you know, we're like we probably can't afford not to spend this money, like you got to find it and just do it. So I think that was probably like my first big leap of faith. To say, even after 20 years of being involved in this industry to one extent or another, I really didn't have the business side of it figured out. I didn't understand a lot of the principles that I now probably take for granted. So Jim was instrumental in getting me on the right track and introducing me to people like Zach Strausser, who I'm, you know, very close with at this point, and Bruce Moore Jr's of the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Great people to know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was Ben Collins, who you know. I mean just guys from Nick DiBenedetto, bob Moffitt, all those guys. So, yeah, it was a life-changing experience, for sure, and honestly, not just my life but all the lives of our company, right, because we're all connected at one point. That's right, yeah, so it was pretty cool. So we worked with Jim for a long time.
Speaker 2:That's great, and his partner, bob Jim's a great guy. When I was with another company, we did some work with him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and probably about four years ago, I think Matt and I could potentially be serial, I don't know. We're always looking for people to help us on the coaching front.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:A few years ago, probably four, we partnered with Phil Sexton and the team at WIT. Yeah super smart guys really into. Each one of them has a pretty good focus on on what it is that they bring to the table Great way to simplify things, but incredibly insightful. So just been a whole nother level of learning with them. Yeah, I think even at I'll be 53 in another month or so, so, um, I still get to learn every day.
Speaker 2:That's great. That's great, that's a. I'm right there with you. I'm I'm going to be 53 myself and this year, you know to your point, there's always stuff to still to learn Right and even like with, with Phil. I've known Phil for years from just who, simon, and then the New Hampshire green snow pro program, and he was very influential and helpful Getting that off the ground. You know I listen to you talk about, like the people that you surround yourself with and learning from those folks and you know how. Need not be afraid, like you know that's what's going to help you right, Get to the next level. It's hard.
Speaker 3:You know it's hard to. I'll never forget the first time we used to have this little shop. It was like a one big garage. And then we had a garage roll back and we bought our current facility and it's you know, it's 10,000, 12,000 square feet on 10 acres. And, man, I was pumped. Palooch came in and basically just tore me a new one in front of my entire team and for about three days I was pissed and then I thought you don't know how to be like. You just got a big slice of humble pie. Buddy, like you're. You may have gotten this far in the journey, but the road goes on forever. So get humble, buckle up and put your head down and keep learning, because you don't know it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, good for you, good for you for, like I said, surrounding yourself with those folks and I know I try to continue to do that Right.
Speaker 2:And as much as we think we know everything, there's always more. There's always more Right, and I think that's part of it. You're a very humble guy and I've watched you through the organizations and even just doing some great stuff with Steve, and so kudos to you, because I think you know being that way, I think you earn a much higher level of respect from your team and the people that are okay with knowing that they can fail and be successful at the same time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as long as they're learning from it and you know it's not a costly thing, yeah, I could potentially be a poster child for falling down and scraping my knees and dusting off and getting back up again. Hey, it's the real world.
Speaker 2:That's what I love to hear. That's what really this podcast is about. It's not the glory and the glamour. We can, all you know, throw up pictures of big equipment and hundreds of people and but it's the real world, right, Like who we are, what we do each and every day, and we're just. We're just being honest.
Speaker 2:So, so one of the things I was thinking about is I wanted to chat with you a little bit was this whole thing that Steve Turner's doing with the bring back to trades, which, for a lot of folks that don't know about it, steve Turner over in New Hampshire, not too far from us in Portsmouth area, has put together and developed this organization called Bring Back the Trades and really what it equates to and maybe you could speak to a little bit more, russ. But my understanding of it is how do we develop these kids to get them into trade school and then also to provide them some really great opportunities after high school? And I'm talking all industries right Plumbing, electrical, hvac, welding, right Landscape, whatever it might be Can you? Last year they had Bring Back the Trades event in New Hampshire which was very successful, and it's my understanding now you're going to be hosting a Bring Back the Trades event over in Vermont this year.
Speaker 3:Steve, yeah, may 20th, may 20th, yeah, so we've invited, oh, I think, boy kids from the whole state of Vermont. For those that know Vermont, I'm very north, like the Derby Line area. Yeah, I think those kids probably aren't going to come. It's a little bit too far for them. But it looks like from Burlington all the way down to Bennington we've got some kids coming from east of New York and west of New Hampshire.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 3:Trying to connect with some folks in the western Mass area too. So Vermont is about the most centrally located point in the state in terms of north, south, east, west. That's where Route 4 and Route 7 seven meet and it's the only way. It's Vermont State, but anyway, yeah, it's the only way you can get east and west, so it's a good. It's a good crossroads point for everyone to be able to to connect that. So we're.
Speaker 3:For this year we're going to use the Vermont State University Castleton campus oh, wow yep so, but my my goal was to get the event to be the kind of the mirror image of what they did in Concord. I didn't have enough runway to make it exactly alike. Like micro wasn't available. Then I kind of found out how much it cost to have micro come for a few hours and like, holy good God, yeah. So that was a little bit cost prohibitive there. So we had to make some modifications, but still the goal is 80 to 100 vendors, same that they had there. So we had to make some modifications, but still the goal is 80 to 100 vendors, same that they had there.
Speaker 3:I think we've invited about well, it could be as many as 2,000 students from 7th and 8th grade, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, technical centers, learning programs and parents. Of course, parents are a really important piece to the puzzle. It's great to have a bunch of contractors together that are willing to bring people in, coach them, train them, mentor them, put them on a good career path to move forward. But if the kids aren't getting the support at home that this is a real viable opportunity, that's just one more barrier that we need to try to work to overcome.
Speaker 3:So a big piece of this is making sure that the parents are invited too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's something I never really thought about, to be honest with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, perfect sense though. Yeah, so I think it's again trying to make it as similar as possible. We've invited the governor to be there as long as the current session doesn't go over. He should be able to be there. We'll be giving out scholarships, like they did at the Concord event, to the kids so they can go on bringbackthetradesorg and sign up for scholarships.
Speaker 2:Can you give us a little background about what the event? Unfortunately, and that's where you and I were going to connect, but I wasn't able to attend. Sure, we had some other folks, but can you share a little bit about what that event looks like and what there are offerings?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So there was two really big tents, you know, with the sides on all undercover kind of trade show style, set up 10 by 10, 10 by 20, depending on kind of where you came in on the sponsorship level, and very interactive booths, lights, flashy things, games to play, questions to ask people. Engaging, not your typical sit at your laptop with a bucket of Lifesavers and kids walk by and grab a pamphlet. It was much more engaging, which was really cool. They had like a food truck area with a stage and a band. That stage obviously was where they gave out the scholarships, but the band was there just in the in-between times just to play some music and keep things light. As you made your way through that area, you got funneled into the gymnasium of the New Hampshire Institute of Technology. I believe is what it is in Concord.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 3:They had a stage there. Mike Rowe was there speaking with the governor-elect for New Hampshire. The place was full. I mean I bet you they had 4,000 to 5,000 people there.
Speaker 3:It was really great For those of you that don't. You know that you probably know Mike Rowe, but maybe you don't know him in the capacity of kind of how he got involved in this whole thing. Really great story. Yeah, it's cool. I was late to making a hotel reservation so I found this place. I was like, wow, this place is kind of bougie. Whatever, I'll stay there anyway. There's nowhere else to stay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I go downstairs to get a coffee and who's sitting next to me, mike Rowe I said holy moly, no kidding, this isn't weird. So I sat down and, just kind of like I would typically do, just started talking to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was very engaging. We had a for a while and he went on his way.
Speaker 3:That's great, but yeah, they filled the auditorium the director of the school talked for a while just about careers trades programs that they offered there, so kind of some common stories that they may hear from some of the kids. Then Mike Rowe came on. Then they had a panel of all young entrepreneurs Zach was part of that panel and some other folks in the industry just kind of talking about how they got involved, kind of what they're doing now, offering advice to the kids that had Q&A session. The one thing that they didn't have that we're going to have in the Vermont event is we're going to create an equipment rodeo so businesses can bring their latest and coolest whatever they want and that way kids can engage. They won't be able to run stuff at this point, but we are talking about next year already, about potentially changing the venue and putting us in a situation where kids will be able to operate the equipment and run a bulldozer and run an excavator and work on some electrical, do some plumbing, yeah. So we're already planning next year before this year even happens, but I'm excited to to be a part of it.
Speaker 3:I've attended quite a few local job fairs, trade shows and I think it's kind of a similar story probably for most communities. There's a lot of people doing a lot of the same thing but a lot of them aren't working together to harness or leverage the power of everybody working on the same thing. I guess backing up how I would even get involved in something like this really stems from Jim Palooch and Come Alive Outside right and me really being involved in community and families and getting kids outside and active. That resonated me with really strong. I've been a board chair now for 10 years of that organization and has grown quite large.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 3:And now getting introduced to Steve, it's like boy, this kind of finishes the wheel for me. I'm getting kids at a really young age with either their parents, grandparents, but getting them engaged in the community and connecting. And now it's cool because it's almost like when the programs end. Now I get the opportunity to re-engage with them again in middle school and be right there again to say, hey, you know what, for all the time that you spent outside and all the things that you love that you got to work with your hands, here's some really cool opportunities to turn it into a career that you can still be outside and do the things that you love to do. And if you ever get married and have kids, you can take care of a family, doing the same thing that the rest of us are doing. So it's kind of cool. It really it completes the wheel for me. I think in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's been a great way for me to differentiate my personal brand and my business brand, I guess in terms of Both equally it's important, right? I mean, when you think about it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, because, you know, like we said earlier, landscaping is what we do, but it may not be who we are, and to a certain extent it definitely is who I am. It's been the fabric of my existence for since I can remember. But I think probably deeper inside, maybe a more visceral thing for me is probably just helping people. I think I probably really have a genuine desire to see other people succeed. And how can I help them do that? And I guess I've learned over the years that probably the more I focus on that inadvertently, the more opportunities seem to come my way.
Speaker 2:So that's a great way to look at that.
Speaker 3:So I've made a career for the last 20 years probably on really just trying to focus on help other people and it's, it's, it's been good for me.
Speaker 2:That's great, like I shared with you earlier, I mean, that's kind of where I'm at in my career too. You know I have a big role here at this company, but for me, much like yourself, if we're not giving back and helping others learn, there's nothing more. That frustrates me sometimes when I see somebody that's been with the company for five or 10 years and they get frustrated with somebody new. He doesn't know what he's doing. It's like stop and think about the opportunities you had and how you learned things. You learned it from somewhere and somebody was was fortunate enough to spend the time with you.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 2:And I think about you, know you, you really said of one key point before the parents getting the parents to buy in right to this whole trades. Because you know not to be cliche, but we all heard it back in the nineties, I'll you know, parents wanted their kids to go to college and get a four-year degree. And back in the 90s Parents wanted their kids to go to college and get a four-year degree and that was kind of like the status quo or the late 80s and 90s. And then subsequently now and I heard a number the other day that for every 70 or something trades people that retire or get out of it, there's only single numbers coming back in to replace that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's like one in every seven or something or one. Yeah, I mean it's a very small, it's a very small percentage. And yeah, I was in that same. You know, obviously we're the same age, so I was in that similar track. Yeah, and you know, I clearly remember, you know, shop classes, mechanical drawing, woodworking. I mean I took all those classes. I love doing that stuff, you know and I still do.
Speaker 3:But it was a very clear distinction. When you went down that hallway or you went down those stairs to get to those classes, you were different. You were different than the rest of the school and they, knowing it or not, they made it very apparent and they were basically pigeonholing kids, labeling kids as to who they could be and what they could be, and maybe that's why I didn't like it, because maybe I didn't like how they were classifying me at the time. I don't really know, and at the end of the day, it's water under the bridge.
Speaker 2:Sure sure.
Speaker 3:But I think, in terms of the Bring Back the Trades event, now that those shop classes are gone and you actually have to sign up to go to a technical school or a technical center to get the optics back this is an event that really helps kids. If they don't have a connection to someone in the trades a parent, an uncle, a cousin, a guy down the street this begins to at least give them the opportunity to see what it could be and what's some of the things that they'd be doing and who would?
Speaker 3:they be working with and what would they be working on? So really it's just creating the, a professional environment where these kids can come feel comfortable, ask questions, businesses can engage with them. You know, I'm always encouraging because I'm the I've just come to, I'm the primary, I guess, sales guy for getting vendors signed up for this event here in Vermont.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker 3:And I'm constantly sharing with these folks make sure you're bringing some of your frontline people. Don't do yourself and these kids a favor and don't bring your top management to this thing. You can have a percentage of them, but please bring some of your frontline staff so that these kids can really see who they're going to be working with. You know, I've been to many of. We have a local technical center and I myself and our HR have gone there a few times to connect with the students and it was okay. I think they liked it more because I gave them all patch hats the first time, right. The second time they went.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, the next time we went, I brought more hats, which was still cool and I, you know, because of the giveaway, I was able to give them a check. But I think, more importantly, we brought some of our team leads, area managers and team members, and they all showed up in their Carhartts, which I wear every day.
Speaker 2:But they wore their.
Speaker 3:Carhartts and their hoodies. And they were just checking out the welding shop and they were checking out the maple syrup operation they had going on and they were in the carpentry woodworking shop and I just stood back and thought to myself what the hell was I thinking? Why didn't I do this two years ago? Like we probably could have closed the gap.
Speaker 3:So you know, like I said, every day is a learning experience, so you know what. Remove yourself, put your team out in front of you, give them the opportunity to engage and connect with these kids and it's amazing, these kids come on and they feel comfortable because now they know people on the team already before they get there. So it's proven to be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point and you know, I think about what you were saying too, with the years ago, like with the shop. You know, I remember I had a shop class and you're right. It was in the basement down in the corner and certain kids went down the hall down the stairs and the others were going upstairs to AP classes, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting how, how there was that stigma back in the day. But but anyways, really great stuff going on with this whole bring back the trades thing. You, you are an icon in the industry industries. Really You've done some great stuff. I love Zach, I love you.
Speaker 2:Know we, we all have a lot of common bonds with some of these folks, yeah, for sure, and that the best part that I appreciate about it is kind of what we were saying before. When you get a group of companies together, like people don't want to share information or they're afraid that you know and we're doing ourselves a disservice because, at the end of the day, when we all work together for a common goal, there's plenty of work out there for everybody and we're not looking to steal people I hope nobody is, but I got to believe in the better good of it that you know we're really just want to be there to help bring this industry together and give ourselves, and give these kids, these students and our team members the respect that they deserve in the industry, because the trade sometimes doesn't get the recognition they deserve, right? I mean, let's face it. So it's great to see folks like yourself stepping in to help these industries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's. You know I got the phrase from Billy Butts, but I know he didn't point it. But it's, the tide rises all boats. There was a period of time, pre-covid, where it wasn't hard to find team members and then, as COVID entered, that became really difficult. It was apparent that as an organization, we needed to work on our culture, but we also needed to work on how we went after and found people.
Speaker 3:It seems that this is a great opportunity for us to, I guess, step away from the conversations that were so commonplace for so long that we can't find people. Well, nobody can find people. Well, we're all trying but nothing's happening. And you know, and we're you know, as a sales developer, you are always looking to continue to grow right and make opportunity for more team members to come in, because if we're not growing opportunities for people, we're not growing our organization and we're not keeping up with inflation.
Speaker 3:But in any event, you get almost comfortable complaining about not having people or everyone's kind of rowing this boat together, and at some point you wake up one day and you just say, no more I've had, I can't do it anymore. I have to figure out a way. I passed by so many sales opportunities because we don't have the team members to get it done. No, we we've walked away from I don't know how many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in snow contracts because we can't get the team to do the work. That was as soon as I heard this from Mark and Billy. Hey, you got to talk to this guy, you got to check this out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did. No, that's great. And those guys especially you know you talk to Mark and Billy Butts, and those guys I mean they've been in the industry a long time too you know those relationships, they just kind of keep stacking and you know it's never one over the other, it's kind of all together.
Speaker 3:And for me, you know, I think one of the things that I've been able to do well over my career is probably leverage some you know human capital to be able to make connections with people and then connect other people and just keep doing that. And it's amazing what a dragnet you can create and the opportunities that you can find when you're again willing to share. You know the experiences of falling down and working hard and not having all the answers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Not being afraid to do so. People want to help people.
Speaker 3:I feel like you know genuinely good people want to help people. Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate you taking the time today and I appreciate all you're doing with the trades. I learned a few things myself today that I made some notes on, but the event is May 20th again, correct? And it's in Castleton, castleton, vermont. Yep, castleton, vermont. Okay, yeah, and if folks are looking to find out more information about that, how would they find out about that?
Speaker 3:You can either go on the bringbackthetradesorg, look up events and it will be right there or russ at carpentercostincom and just send me an email. Let me know. I'll send you whatever I have and be more than happy to jump on the zoom call with you and tell you what we got going on and how we can help potentially, or how you can help us or we can help you, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and that's what it's all about. So well, great, I appreciate your time. I'm going to make sure I make my way over to that event as well, and you know support for the greater benefit. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that'll be a great time you know for the greater benefit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that'd be a great time. Great Thanks for us.
Speaker 3:Appreciate your time today. Take care.
Speaker 2:Take care.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning into blizzard and bloom with Jay Rotinelli. We hope you feel inspired and empowered. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Join us next week for more insights and stories to help you bloom in your business journey.