Episode 163: "The Making of a Fleet Manager of the Year" with Sara Burnam #podcast #fleetmanagement

This is the Fleet Success Show dedicated to helping you and your fleet succeed using the experience of fleet professionals and Hall of Fame fleet legends. The show that explores how the pillars of stakeholder satisfaction, intentional culture, resource efficiency, and risk management all combine to lead your fleet to success. We're glad you're here. Now let's get into the show. Hey, welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host, Josh Turley. And today we're continuing on our recap of Connect 2024, the premier fleet event that we had in Atlanta earlier this year. As we go through and talk about what it takes to be a fleet manager in today's world. What are some of the challenges that you're going to be facing? Really an emphasis this year on, on how leading fleets are built here. What are the things that it takes to create a leading fleet? And we think that starts with building leading fleet managers. This session, you're going to hear from our very own Sarah Burnham, who used to be the fleet manager for West Palm Beach down in Florida. and she goes into, if you didn't know, Sarah was a former Fleet Manager of the Year, just won that award in 2023. And she goes through what it took to become a Fleet Manager of the Year, some of her journey, which was a very indirect journey like many of us in fleet, some of the challenges that she had to overcome, specific tactics that she used, and ultimately how that recognition was a team award more than it was an individual award. I got a lot out of this session. I really enjoyed listening to Sarah. Some of her experiences, and there's just a ton of golden nuggets in here as you go through and listen to this. So I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. Without any further ado, here's Sarah Burnham.

She is amazing, Fleet Manager of the Year, and she's going to tell us all about her journey and how her team helped her get to that journey and the things that are—

get through that journey and all the things that she learned as a first-time fleet manager and also getting Fleet Manager of the Year.

So Sarah, come on up. All right, thank you all so much for being here. Who is enjoying the conference so far? Yeah, let's give these guys a hand. It's been awesome being on this side of putting in a together an event like this. So much work goes into it. I know with the RTA team, there's been a lot of late nights and a lot of early mornings. So there's some of the RTA staff is in the back, so can we just give a round of hand for them for putting all of this together? It's— it truly is amazing the work that goes into it. So A little bit about me. I've actually been in government fleet for 16 years, and my last career was at Palm Beach County Fleet Management. That's where I currently live right now. And as of this moment, we should be pretty lucky with the hurricane, but we'll see how that goes. So how many of us, when we think about some of the most significant moments of our life, It really comes down to getting outside of that comfort zone. You have that choice where it's easy to just maybe not have that difficult conversation that Josh mentioned earlier, or you have an opportunity that comes up and you're like, man, this is a really tough decision. I can stay where I'm at. I could— maybe I'm happy with my current career, um, or I have this amazing opportunity in front of me that's going to require a lot of change. And I'm sure a lot of you can think of those moments where you choose a step forward and you really don't know what the outcome is going to be like in front of you. And it's those changes that allow for the most depth, growth, and experiences that you might not have had otherwise. So how it started for me was— so I apologize for this photo. It was taken back when there was no digital cameras. So I'm sure you all remember those times. But I got my first job. My best friend called me and she's like, Sarah, you have to apply for this job. It's $8 an hour. And I had just graduated high school. That was a lot of money back then. And so it was at Goodyear. I knew absolutely nothing about tires or vehicles or anything like that. So I applied, got the job. And so I was really curious. I didn't want to sell something that I didn't know anything about. So I was constantly in the shop Getting curious, asking questions. I know they thought I was annoying. Here comes Sarah, I'm trying to fix this truck and she's asking me how I'm doing this. But it got to the point when we would get busy, I would run back in the shop and try to help them change tires or help them with oil changes. And then we had an account with the Highway Patrol in Ohio. That's originally where I'm from. And so, I was calling the fleet people to get authorization for their repairs because they outsourced our maintenance to us. And every time I called fleet, they were like always in such a good mood. They were fun to talk to. So, I'm like, what's this fleet thing, right? None of us choose this career. How many of us, when you, somebody's like, you ask them, well, what do you do? And you're like, oh, I'm in fleet. And you just can tell they have that blank stare. They have no idea like what you're talking about. And that was me. So I actually waited and for a position to become open in the Highway Patrol, and I ended up getting the job. It was a great opportunity. They hired me as a fleet office, office supervisor, and it was part of a succession, succession plan because the director and the assistant director were leaving and they wanted somebody to be able to move up into those positions. So I got to learn absolutely everything that I can about fleet management. I got my certification in fleet, so that was through NAFSA. Highly recommend it. I wouldn't be on this stage if it wasn't for that. And so eventually I moved on to the state of Ohio as a fleet analyst, and I was working with the 21 different state agencies on their fleet plans because I was able to kind of draw back to that knowledge that I learned through going through the certification process. But then I started getting bored. I got in that comfort zone. And I was like, man, I, I, I felt like I wasn't really getting used to my full potential. And I was just kind of wondering if there wasn't something else out there. And about the same time, all my friends were getting married, having kids, and that hadn't quite happened to me yet. So I was like, well, why not move to paradise? So I literally Googled jobs in Florida, fleet management, Florida. I came across an assistant director position, which I love that idea. I mean, to be able to have like a transition plan, you get to learn about the organization, find out what all, what all the processes and procedures are, and then hopefully when you move up, you'll have all that knowledge. You're not just blindly going into a new position. So, um, long story short, I ended up getting the job. So I pack all my things, hop in the car, and I'm driving to Palm Beach. So it's a 16-hour drive from Ohio, and I started thinking about where I'm going. So what I didn't realize was This is Palm Beach County. It is quite an operation. 58 employees, 4,600 assets, 5 shops, and a $50 million budget. And I really started getting into my head. I was like, oh man, what? How am I going to be able to make a difference in this? I don't know if any of you have experienced that. A lot of times when we get promoted or we take on new jobs, we may not have exactly all that training. That we need right away to be successful. So then also I got a call from my boss's boss and she was like, "Oh, I don't know if anyone told you, but on the first— after the first day of your interview, one of your supervisors said that they refused to work for a woman. But don't worry, we got it all figured out. It's fine now." Okay. So about an hour into my drive, this is me. I'm like, what am I doing? Because I got my comfort zone back here and then I'm driving into this, this amazing opportunity for this amazing fleet. The previous director was very well known in the industry. It was almost like going to work for a Steve Salzgiver. So it really was a great opportunity. So fortunately I kept driving. And so I had, it was 2015, came on as the assistant director. So I had that time to learn the position, work under the director that was there in place. And he was supposed to be there for 5. He left early. Good for me. And so What I learned through the process while he was there is that we had an amazing replacement program. We were Blue Seal, ASC certified. But going back to our replacement program, we had a fully funded fund. And how we did that was we charged our customers for a monthly fee to replace their asset in the future. So this Menzi muck machine, the walking excavator right there, it's about $600,000. So that when the department went to go replace it, they wouldn't have to come up with the funds or the money to replace it because we had collected the payments for them. They also did outsourcing their parts. So they had gone from 100 different contract tracks down to, maybe a couple that weren't handled by that parts company. And if you're in government fleet, that's huge. Managing contracts is probably your favorite thing, right? So they also had a third-party warranty administrator. So they got GM, Ford, and Chrysler approved to work on their vehicles and so that they can submit anything that was done under warranty. But the third-party administrator would literally find, call them, all of those work orders to make sure that they could claw that back, that money from the manufacturers. And then, as I mentioned, the maintenance program was amazing. It was super aggressive. It was all about safety. Um, ASC Blue Shield for 20 years, that was awesome. Uh, field program was amazing. Right now we have a hurricane going on. And so there are people driving around the county with their fuel trucks, making sure generators are fueled, making sure everything's topped off. They even had a 9,000-gallon tanker truck. So if the port closed near us, they could drive to another port in Florida and pull their own fuel. So it was a really amazing program. And so then I was like, well, how am I going to be able to make a difference in that? There is already an amazing program. And so what am I going to do? I have to make a difference. So I had to change my mindset. And that was that when we improve processes, our systems, our products and our services, we're actually improving lives. For our employees when they can do a process. If we can make their jobs easier for them, aren't they going to be happy? If we can provide a better product for our customers where they can do their job in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes, like, to me, that's amazing. And I get a lot of success a satisfaction out of that. So how do we find opportunities? So we have to get question— get curious and ask questions. So some of those questions could be, why? Well, why are we doing what we're doing? I don't know how many times I asked that question and people couldn't even tell me why we were doing it. Because nobody had asked them that question. Another opportunity is, are we duplicating work? Is somebody writing it down on a piece of paper and somebody else manually enters it? So there's, you know, that's time that's being spent that could be cut down. Are we doing manual entries? Are— is there opportunities for automation? Do we have the right approval levels set? Is there like 20 different approval levels when there really only needs to be 2? One of the other greatest things that I did for me and finding opportunities was having one-on-ones with your team. How many people have done that with every person in their team? Awesome. Again, so having a one-on-one, so I mean, asking them, what, what do you think our strengths are? What do you think our weaknesses are? How can we improve? And having that one-on-one was very outside of my comfort zone because I was afraid to know what they were going to say. But I also got the best feedback from those conversations, and I know that it meant a lot to them. That I took that time to meet with them and actually hear and care what they had to say. So some of the key systems that we put in place, and by systems, I was researching to find the best way to kind of explain what I mean by systems. And I found this definition, and it's: In order for business, any business to succeed, it must first become a system so that business functions exactly the same way, every detail, detail down to the last detail. I hate this definition because it leaves so much out. What about the people that are doing the work? If they're not happy, do you think they're going to stick around for you? They're not. And what about the things that could be coming down the pipeline, like fleet is always changing. Like, how do you know? How can you spot that ahead of time? Maybe your customers aren't happy. So if, yeah, they have that product, but it could be a lot better. You're not allowing for how do you improve the product? How do you make it more efficient? So for me, some of the systems that I put in place Well, the first one was KPIs, and I know you guys have— and girls have probably heard that a lot this week, but it truly is important to know how you're doing and where you're going. But not only that, when you are sliding back and it's becoming a trend, it's not just a spike, then you can ask, okay, why? What's going on here? And then whatever you find, then you can use that to justify whatever, whatever your resources are that you need. So with the county, when I got there, they actually made this a countywide initiative, which was actually kind of scary because now I know that the county administrators and everybody are going to be looking at our metrics. And that's a lot of pressure, right? Like, because you want to have good numbers. But it's also great too, because if you are backsliding and you can tell them why you are and the resources that— resources— resources are that you need, you can use that to your advantage. Another huge thing we put in place was meetings, having a meeting with Some of you may have large fleets, some of you have a small team, some of you have a large team, but meeting with your key people. For me, that was our shop supervisors and finding out what their issues are. Even so, within the 5 shops, like, okay, what are your challenges that you're, that you're having? Like maybe another shop is having similar and so you can talk about those challenges and work through solutions together. And the ideas that we came up with, they weren't necessarily my ideas. They were theirs or they're the technicians' ideas. The best teams out there are the ones that get their ideas from their teammates, the people that are actually doing the work. So to have that system where you're continuously meeting with them to get those ideas. Through our meetings, we were able to get them new lighting, new uniforms. We had— they were able to bring up things, technology changes that were coming down the pipeline so we could further be ready for it when it came. And then also establishing other feedback loops with your customers. I know we've talked a lot about that this week, but— and some of you may not know this, but in RTA's system, they actually— there's a way that you can survey your customers and know how well you're doing. And not only that, but are you getting feedback from your customers on ideas that could help them do their job? Is there a way that you can spec out a vehicle that makes things more efficient for them? And making sure that you're having those conversations and identifying those opportunities. Another key thing is FaceTime with your leadership. So our job as leaders is to remove our roadblocks for our people, but so is your leadership. And I know I've talked to a lot of people and they're like, Well, my boss is really busy. They don't have time for me. But quite honestly, that's really none of your business because it's their job to help you. So whether that means put like scheduling time for you or you throwing something on their calendar, I would suggest you do it. My, my boss, she actually ended up scheduling us 2 meetings twice a month, and there was a clear trajectory in the things that I was able to change because I was— I either got to talk with her and talk through some of our challenges. She could give me feedback, ideas, or if it was something major that might be affecting the whole county, if I had her buy-in or I had county administration buy-in, you know, that's— that change is going to be— go a lot further than me just trying to do it on my own. So I would really encourage you to meet with whoever your roadblock remover is and spend time with them and have those conversations. And not only that, like, share with them what some of the changes are that you guys have implemented. And take that time to brag about your team. Another big one for me too was annual plans. I always did this during our budget season, and this was probably one of my favorite things to do because you're trying to figure out like, what can you do for next year? And that's always a challenge, right? Because you have a budget that you're dealing with. You have to make sure that you have enough money to implement what you want to do. But if you have your data and metrics, you can prioritize those. Maybe you put it off for next year, but to have that plan and then so that everyone else on your team knows what that plan is and what you have in store for the future. Some of the keys to my success was learning, constantly learning, attending shows like this. Um, for me, I'm heavily involved in NAFFA. They, they put on a great institute and expo every year. They have publications, articles, webinars, and Fleet, as mentioned earlier, this industry is constantly changing and you have to stay up with all those changes. And the only way to do that is to stay connected and, and learn and read. I actually ended up going back to school and getting my master's degree in leadership because I wanted— I felt such a large responsibility for those that I was leading that I wanted to make sure that I did a good job for them. Getting connected again, attending these events, talking to the person next to you. They're probably facing the same challenge you are, or they've already faced it. They have ideas for you. Through the events I attended through NAFA, I have like 15 people I can call and be like, hey, what are you doing for your cell phone policy? And kind of bounce ideas off them. It's, it's a really great opportunity. You can benchmark against your peers as well and see— I think somebody mentioned yesterday, like, what, what is your labor rate? You know, is it super high? Is it super low? Do you maybe need to go back and look at how it's structured? Are you missing something? Is it time? Maybe you haven't raised it because you feel bad for raising it on your customers, but you have to do what's right for your organization. And then using your data. So when you're looking at those KPIs, why is our availability so low? Are we having trouble getting parts? Is your part availability low? Is your downtime low? Do we need training? Do we not have the tools? Do we have a lot of comebacks? Why do we have our repairs coming back? Things like that. And then also building your team, making sure that, you know, I don't have all the answers. And so the people that are on our team complemented who I was. I was fortunate enough to have one guy on our team that happened to have a background in writing code and he was able to help me design this fleet system. Another key thing is change management. I think actually someone mentioned this earlier today. We naturally crave consistency and stability. And that's part of what makes stepping outside of your comfort zone so difficult, right? It's so easy to keep doing, you know, the norm. But what's important about this too is when you're implementing change in your organizations, say you're implementing electronic work orders and they're used to pen and paper work orders. and this is something that I did in our shop— you're gonna have guys that are, even if the thought of you just mentioning it, you've probably just triggered a lot of anxiety in your head because it's likely you have your technicians, they're not comfortable with computers. They're hunting and pecking. And I don't know if you guys knows of this, But guys love to talk about their feelings, right? Mm-hmm. But even just acknowledging the fact that, hey, we're going in this direction and it may suck for a couple months until you learn it, but I guarantee you in 6 months you're gonna be doing it like the back of your hand. It's gonna be super easy. Just acknowledging that for them, And even also getting them involved in the process early on. So when we started going towards implementing electronic work orders, we had our technicians involved and we got their input, their feedback, because what, what that does is it allows them to kind of formulate, okay, how is this change going to affect me personally? And kind of solidify that in their mind and give them a little bit of ease as they transition into that change. Another thing is when you do move into like a change like that into electronic work orders is celebrating it. Like, okay, we're in our first month, you guys are doing awesome. Like, that helps to to kind of solidify the change because it's hard. There's going to be that period. It takes time to change, especially a habit. Habits are one of the hardest things to change. And using pen and paper work orders for these guys is habit, especially if they've been there for a lot of, a lot of years.

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And it's also important to not do a bunch of change all at once. When I came in, I had a lot of ideas that I was excited about, but I knew that if I implemented them all at once, I was going to cause a lot of anxiety and chaos, really, for no reason. Another important thing is sharing your team's story. As I mentioned before, nobody knows what Fleet is. The operators, all they care about is getting in their car and driving away. Your customers, you know, same thing. They have no idea what Fleet does. But these guys and girls do a lot of work and it's on us to educate them and tell your story. So this is something that I started, was an annual report every year. And so this looks really fancy, right? But it's literally just a Word document that we found and, you know, we plug some key numbers in there. And we also put in some achievements, like celebrating what's going on in your organization. We had Team Player of the Year Award, so listing them in this. Who has ASE Master Tech status? Like, just another way to celebrate them. Who, who got promoted? Who— are there any new employees? Do we have any awards? And I was so surprised at— who do you think asked for these the most? It was our employees. They wanted them because they wanted to take this back to their families and show all the work that they did. And so it's super important. To find little ways to celebrate the little wins. And it's not just with awards. Making sure that when you're having staff meetings or meetings with your teams, giving little shoutouts for, hey, so-and-so, thank you for stepping up and doing whatever. Getting on— if your organization has a social media page, talk about fleet. Share some of the great things that you're doing. If you have an internal or external web page, throw pictures on and videos up there. Tell your story. Tell everyone what you're doing because nobody's going to do it. And the guys and girls that work for you deserve that recognition. One of the other things that we did was we actually created a video. Fortunately for me, we had a public affairs department. And so I asked them to come out and take a video. And so we did interviews with our technicians. We got to show them all the cool equipment. In Palm Beach County, we have some really cool stuff. We have airboats, swamp buggies, that walking excavator I showed you earlier. And so a lot of even your customers that work in other departments may not be aware that you have those things. And so it's just super important to tell your story. And then so I was able to use that video later and take it to tech schools and show techs all the things, cool things that we got going on at Palm Beach County. Some of the changes that we implemented, as I mentioned before, pen and paper work orders. We were able to automate that. And what that actually turned into was designing our— completely redesigning our own fleet system. So at Palm Beach County, I wanted to get a new fleet system, but they said, that's nice, Sarah, you're going to do it on your own. So I was able to work directly with a programmer not just me, our team, obviously. And we were kind of able to custom design our fleet information system. But fortunately for most of you all in the room, you have RTA that has already done that for you. And so a lot of these things that we were able to put in place completely changed our operation. We were able to figure out that we actually saved 135,000 pieces of paper, which is a lot. And then when you, you get down to the time level and when you have 13,000 work orders, that's thousands of labor hours that you saved and not having to walk papers across the shop or handwrite and duplicate entries. So it was amazing process. It also gave us more data points on So you have your service request, it sits in a pile and then it gets entered. Well, now they can immediately enter their service request from anywhere. And so you have that, okay, we know it's entered, we have that first data, data point and we can measure, you know, and follow it as it goes through the shop. And I know that RTA does the same thing. So you can use that data later to see, okay, where are some of my hangups? And, and how can we improve? Another thing that I was really big on when I did the one-on-ones, some of the feedback I got was that some of our employees were not really feeling appreciated, appreciated. And so that's something that I took the time to really work on and try to get them engaged. And part of that was giving them purpose and asking them questions. Like when we would have meetings, I'd be like, so how many of you drove in on a county road this morning? Or how many of you went to a county beach this weekend? The things that you guys do every day affect those things, and you all play a part in that. And trying to connect them to the that bigger picture and give them that pride for what they're doing. We also established recognition programs, things like Team Player of the Year or Technician of the Year. It was always such a fun process, and I know that they truly enjoyed it. They would get a little trophy and then you would see them lined up on their toolboxes, and it was a really cool thing to see. I think Facundo mentioned this earlier. I couldn't get them pay, but I tried to raise everything else I could for them, like stipends. We had ASC pay, so I was able to increase the pay that they got for those, or we had fuel stipends to be able to have those hazmat endorsements to drive our fuel trucks. And then we also had tool allowances that we paid them and relooking at, okay, how are we figuring out this tool allowance? Can we— is it even accurate? Well, it turns out that the list that we were using to figure out what we thought the costs were hadn't been updated in 30 years. And so we were able to get it back in alignment with what it should be. And I know that they appreciated that. Getting them the resources that they needed. I mentioned earlier, they needed better lighting. They needed better uniforms. The shops in Palm Beach County, they're not air conditioned. And so they were wearing these horrible scratchy stuffy uniforms. So we were able to get those upgraded and we got them mobile lifts. And the, and the tools that they needed. Um, we also created a development program because what I found is that, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this, is that we were giving them the work where their strengths were. Like, they were super good at ASU work but not so much in diagnostic. And so coming up with a development program to get them up to those areas that they lacked in, we were actually able to create a training and development coordinator position to help assess those, work with the supervisors to identify a personal plan for them so that they now have something to work for and work towards for themselves and a path. To be able to move up further in their careers. Another big challenge was recruitment, and I'm sure a lot of you are dealing with that right now. So we did have relationship with some trade schools. We had an intern program, and I would highly recommend that if you don't have that now, I would do whatever you can to get it in place. We were able to increase our involvement with the tech schools around our area. We had 5 intern positions available every year and they were always filled. And it was a great opportunity to really get to know a technician before you hired them. And because sometimes, you know, as a young kid, you're not maybe sure that really you want to go into this field and that's okay. But also it gives you an opportunity to find out who those stars are that, you know, that you're like, I want this guy working for me because it's one thing if they don't have the skills, but if they, they're coachable, that makes all the difference. So when I left a couple of months ago, we actually had 8 on our staff that we had hired on as interns. And most recently we hired one of those guys to be supervisor. We also did job fairs as much as we could, trying to get the word out there, going to the schools and talking to students about working in automotive or government fleet. They may not even know that those opportunities exist. I took a technician with me one of the times, and after the session, there was literally 20 of the students surrounding him because they were so interested in fleet and wanting to know more about it. And so when you— if you do go to those, those schools and those career fairs, make sure you take a tech with them so they can talk to that person one-on-one. We also created a technician assistant, so that was in between like an intern and a full-time tech. So if you had somebody that maybe didn't want to come in on the technical side, they had this other avenue where they can help with transporting vehicles or getting them ready for salvage or auction or what have you. But it created another career path opportunity within the organization. And then we also did the recruitment video that I mentioned earlier. And one of the last things that I'm super proud of here is our team. So this photo is— there's something called the Elite Trades Championship Series, and it's a televised ASE tech program. Where techs, they have that national championship and it's televised. And so it was actually going to be in West Palm Beach. So we partnered with them to get our logo and our brand plastered all over it to be able to advertise that we're hiring. So getting creative and thinking about, you know, how can you get creative and get more people interested in the field. One of the things I did was I was— I had gone to Chipotle for dinner, or for lunch, I'm sorry, during work, and I— there was a guy that was wearing a heavy equipment technician uniform at on, and I was like, I walked up to him and I was like, hey, are you an auto, uh, a heavy truck technician? And he was like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, you should come and work for us. I work for Palm Beach County. Here's my card. Um, well, I'm pretty sure that guy thought I was hitting on him, but I will say that he did reach out to me and he did end up applying. So it If you see those guys and girls in their uniforms, go up to them and let them know about your organization and the opportunities that you have. Okay, so some of the other changes that we implemented. This— so cost centers. So if you think of the different coins here, we had our chargeback system. And so we would have like, say, that the tallest set of coins there is our labor rate, and then the next one is our fuel. Just relooking at that with a fresh set of eyes, I was able to see that some of the costs weren't really in the right category. And so by changing it around just a little bit, we were able to actually reduce some of our rates and save our customers $1.3 million. And That sounds a lot like a lot of money, but when you have $3.7 million worth of fuel that you're selling and you drop it by, you know, a couple pennies, that can make a significant impact. We were also able to right-size our fleet. During one of our monthly meetings, it was brought to my attention that, hey, Sarah, we have vehicles that are continuously being towed in for PMs and then they're towed back for the next PM. So what does that tell you? They're not being used, right? And on top of that, they had mold growing on them as well. So I was able to take those pictures of vehicles with mold and show that to my management and then county administration and really get their attention to help me work with our departments on how can we better right-size our fleet. And through, through that process, we were able to get some vehicles back in during a time when we were struggling with budget and we were able to save about $400,000 through that process. Also, by looking at our monthly payments, I mentioned earlier that we were charging our customers a monthly fee to fund the replacement asset. But by looking at our salvage values that we were actually getting back, we were taking— we were accounting for about 28%, but in reality we were actually getting 40%, which is amazing. So we were able to adjust down the monthly payments that they were making towards us. Re-looking at our rental rates. We charged for our loaner vehicles. Our customers could come rent vehicles from us. So I was looking at the rates and I was like, well, how did we come up with this number? Nobody knew how they came up with them. It was one of those things that got lost in like succession plans. And just by redoing our rates, we were able to change those. To be more in line with what they needed to be. And then also looking at our reserves, after looking at those, they were clearly not in alignment with what would happen if we were to have a hurricane and we needed to replace about 10% of our fleet. Well, we didn't have nearly enough in our reserves to cover that. And just being able to be better prepared for the things that you may never know what's coming. And again, that's just looking, that's just by asking questions and getting curious and looking at things in a different perspective. Another big thing I would say is go for the awards. You have 100 Leading Fleets with Bobbitt and you have NAFA 100 Best. I wasn't, I wasn't going to do it. That was way outside of my comfort zone. I was like, I don't know if I can place. I don't like being the center of attention, so I don't think I'm going to do it. But then I started thinking about it and I'm like, man, this actually, it's not even about me. It's about my team and getting them the recognition for all the work that they've done. So I, I ended up applying. The first time I applied was 2023, and we actually made number 16, and I was completely blown away with from that. And then after that, I went and applied again this year, and we got number 10, and, and it was awesome. And so some of the Benefits that I found were obviously being able to celebrate your team, but your organizations, they love to see that as well. They love nothing more than to be able to brag about how Fleet is doing and how awesome you guys are doing. It gives you a reason to celebrate with your team. Throw that banner in the shop, have a lunch or some kind of recognition party. Have bragging rights. At Palm Beach County, we were separate from Sheriff Palm Beach County, and so me and the sheriff were having mad crap-talking conversations on— I was gonna— I was determined to beat him. It gives you respect and credibility. I think Facundo mentioned that yesterday. So when you are asking for additional resources, tools, what have you, you have that respect and credibility from the people that are making those decisions and approving that for you. And then for those that haven't done the 100 Best, you actually get free coaching. You can— if you go to I&E, you can sit down with Scott Rood or Mike Brennan and they will literally go through your application. And give you ideas on how to make it better for next year. And then it also gives you that thing to work for for next year. How are we going to make— because heaven forbid you go backwards and it's okay that you do. But if you're like me and you're super competitive, that's not something that I wanted. And then it gives you a lot, a list of achievements. It actually wasn't until I went through this whole process that I was able to step back and see like, wow, like, look at all these things that we've done. Like all these things that I mentioned earlier in this presentation that I wasn't walking around like, yeah, we did all these things. It wasn't until I did the applications and had written it out and it was just like, wow, We did all this. This is amazing. And don't stop there. There's other awards out there. If your city government— I don't know, maybe they have these things in construction, transportation, but there's other awards out there for the, for the county. There's the National Association of Counties. Go for those awards. It's super easy. It's not as intensive as like NAFAR or 100 Best, but it's just an easy way to get more recognition for your team. Maybe you have a project that you want to highlight. For me, I put our fleet system project as an award, and we actually ended up getting an award for the fleet system that we created. Because you never really know what's possible. I will never forget last year I got an email saying that I got nominated for Public Sector Fleet Manager of the Year and I was like, me? Like, I got nominated? Okay. But then I had this list that I had just filled out for the 100 best and leading fleets to draw back on. So when I'm filling out that application, It was there for me. So then I got pulled up to stage during Government Fleet Expo. They were announcing the winner and I'm standing next to these amazing fleet managers and they were amazing. I didn't think I had a shot, but here I am today winning the award thanks to my team. So I encourage you to think about those things that may be just outside of your comfort zone. Maybe it was those uncomfortable conversations that Josh was talking about this morning. Maybe you're thinking about an idea that maybe I'm not sure if this— I'm going to be able to implement this. This is going to be hard. It's going to be a lot of work. Maybe it's a job you're thinking about. So I encourage you to suit up, put on that jumpsuit, literally, because you never know where you can land. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. And that's all I have for you.

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