Episode 222: Fleet Management 101: Nobody Teaches Fleet Management

Hey, I'm Facundo Tesoro. Welcome back to another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I'm the Fleet Success Ambassador here at RTA. I've been in fleet for over 26 years and different sides of fleet. Today I'm talking to Bradley Northrop from the city of Carlsbad, California, and we're talking Fleet Management 101. Some of the things we're going to be talking about is how do you deliver the message to senior leadership in cities and some of the different walks of life that fleet leadership is coming from. And how their background is kind of impacting what they're talking about. Hope you enjoy the show.

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.

All right, Bradley. How's it going, man?

It's going, man. How about you?

I started off this morning wearing a short sleeve t-shirt, uh, and I have a nice little office kind of thing. Well, it's not really an office, like a little tiny space in my garage that I made. Um, but, um, it was like 80 degrees and super sunny this weekend and warm and yesterday and this morning I woke up and it was like upper 40s. I don't know what happened. Um, so cold, but you know, we'll get through this. You know, there's, there's, uh, apparently Not quite as cold, but there's iguanas falling outta trees in South Florida. That's where my wife is right now checking out some schools with my daughter. But 'tis the season where iguanas can fall outta trees.

I think the funny part is 'tis the season, but the season doesn't know what it wants to be. Southern California is going the ebb and flow. Lots of water and rain in January and lots of heat early on in February and March. So we had breaking record high heats this last month. So It's been interesting. Summer coming early.

What's that song, that Tony Tony Tone song from back in the '90s? It never rains in Southern California, I guess. Is that not true?

It always rains in Southern California. It's just which year is it going to rain? So La Niña or El Niño, you know, those jokes from back in the day, El Niño. And, you know, sometimes we'll have flash floods and other times we'll be dry, dry for months. And, you know, Southern California, folks born and raised, that's when you start paying more attention to the dryness of the vegetation and those reports coming out of when the dry brush is, or the brush and the vegetation is all dried out. That's when you really start to worry when Santa Ana winds come around. And wildfires are a normal thing out here. So you get ahead of it and you prepare and plan as much as you can.

I don't want to go too far down that road because that's a whole podcast. That's actually—

That's a whole podcast.

That's a podcast. Before we get into talking about what we're going to talk about today, which is about a little bit about Fleet Management 101 and kind of some people coming into the industry and some opportunities they have with some sessions we're going to do at NAPA, I'd like to take this opportunity to call out my buddy here, Mark Kenton. Sorry, buddy, I got Bradley first. I know you were talking to him, but, you know, the early bird gets the worm. So here we have him.

Sorry, Mark. Snooze you lose, Mark.

The obvious other thing which I need to do, which I always do, is Your beard, man, is just perfect. Thank you for just whatever you do. Just thank you. I can't do that. This is about as good as it gets for me. Um, but, but you, you're doing a good job, man. I appreciate that.

From to what my wife's, uh, you know, disgust, right? The longer it gets, the more she hates it. But, uh, the, the longer it gets, the more I like it.

So for anybody that doesn't know you, um, tell them a little bit about yourself. So who's Who's Bradley? Or what do you do? What do you— what is— what do you do? Where did you come from? All that stuff.

That's a— that's a loaded question. I'll give you the very short version. You know, I started my career working at a dealership wrenching on cars, went through an OEM program called Ford Asset and worked my way up to get an associate's degree in automotive tech and wrenched in the dealership for 5 years or so. When the economy tanked in '08, I figured out that sleeping on my toolbox wasn't going to be the best solution for the rest of my life. And working on commission, it didn't help, you know, young wife and kids, and figured I need a stable gig. And an opportunity came up with the County of San Diego, and I started a job there right around the same week my son was born in, in 2009. And, uh, it started as a master tech and, uh, very quickly realized that, uh, the, the opportunity to promote within a government agency was there if you to put the work in. And so I decided to go back to school, went and got my bachelor's degree. By 2013, I was the supervisor of a main shop or had been supervising a main shop while going to school. Don't recommend it. And then moved over to a management role in 2015 with the County of San Diego doing acquisitions, policy development, asset management, green fleet action plans. And then from there working towards a lot of large initiatives for the County of San Diego and electrification efforts. Then moved over to City of Carlsbad in 2020 and then the Public Works Fleet Superintendent for— since actually 6 weeks before the shutdown. So January of 2020 is when I came into the City of Carlsbad and been, been making changes everywhere. It seems like when you have a small organization, All the buck stops with you. So you got many hats, less vehicles, but many hats and a lot of opportunity to be able to make meaningful change. And happy to say that, you know, City of Carlsbad was named the number one small fleet in the nation last year just from the hard work and dedication from our team and being able to make sure that, you know, we're not going to ever say that we're the best because it's not about being the best. It's always trying to get better, always trying to look at what you have done and what you still can do, because there's no such thing as a fleet that does everything perfect. There's always something that is either coming up with new technology or, you know, there's a new initiative that, that makes more sense for, for their city or for their, their business. And I think that's what we'll kind of get into today, a little bit of the Fleet 101. What, where, where do you even start with your, your fleet? And if you don't know what you don't know, you know, how are you gonna be able to assess where you are? And if you don't have that type of mentality of continuous improvement, then you're kind of setting yourself up to be just stagnant in the industry. And I don't think any fleet manager wants to just do the status quo and do the bare minimum. We always try and do better.

One thing that you didn't mention in your intro, which I know about you, is your involvement in NFA, how you've been involved for, quite a long time. I know you and I are in at least one committee together, the NAFA Government Affairs Committee. This is my second go-around. I served as vice chair from 2015 to 2017, and then left government fleet, was doing some tech startup stuff, and then came back and rejoined, I don't know, several months ago or something like that. So what's interesting about that, and I think is super important, is, you know, you and I were talking about telling your fleet story. and there's different places you need to tell it internally to your team, to your leadership, but there's also telling the fleet story externally, like the DC fly-in, right? Like, I remember, I don't remember who said this, but I remember what they said. And they were talking to maybe a senator last year, and they're like, I did, I had no idea that fleet was even a thing or what fleet even did, but You know, shame on me because I see these, you know, US Capitol Police or whatever. They see them everywhere. They didn't think about it in those terms. So yeah, telling your fleet story and understanding these basics in the Fleet Management 101, you gotta start somewhere and you gotta be telling your story to anybody that's willing to listen.

And I think that's, it just goes to speak for the dedication that a lot of fleet managers have in this industry. We are here to help everybody. I think there's no shame in being able to reach out and, use your networks and, you know, collaborate on solutions and crowdsource information. And having that, that voice, right? The Government Affairs Committee for, for, for NAFA has been paramount in being able to bring the voice to legislature, to the legislatures in the state and at the Capitol, and being able to provide the story of what it is that fleets are doing, why it is important. It also goes all the way back to your staff, right? If you're not able to preach why you're doing something as a fleet, it's not gonna matter to them either. And I think that's important for a fleet manager to understand in the 101 elements of why is it that you're doing what you're doing? What does it matter to you and to your company and to your employees? And when I have new staff coming in and especially coming from the outside, we were lucky enough to get a new FTE this last year. And, speaking to a little bit of your, your organization's first sets of podcasts here, or at least the Fleet Success Show, talking about the four pillars and becoming that person who continuously repeats the same thing over again. People get annoyed with you saying it, but if you, if you haven't said it enough to where it's annoying, you haven't been saying enough. And it's— that's from somebody coming from the outside in a dealership. They have a mentality of being able to work on something for the sake of working on it, for the sake of that job order, for the sake of that satisfaction of fixing something. But when you come into especially a government fleet, you have a higher purpose. The higher purpose is, yes, you have a passion of working on vehicles, you have a passion for, you know, the fleet industry or automotive in general, but that purpose isn't always there. And it's my job to make sure I'm repetitive— repetitively repeating the purpose of someone's job and a role, especially coming into a government fleet. You are not fixing that car just to fix that car or clean the ticket or log your hours and go home. You're building that so that you're— you're repairing that so that that vehicle can go out and do its job. And when we're talking about public fleets, that's a really important thing. We're talking about fire trucks, we're talking about police vehicles, we're talking about sewer repair vehicles. You're not fixing it so that the vehicle is fixed. You're fixing it so that that guy or that girl can go out there and do her job and save lives. And that's a much higher purpose than I think most people really get in the automotive industry. And it's something that I indoctrinate into my, into my culture early on. And it really is meant to be. This is your purpose. It's more than just fixing vehicles. And if you as a young fleet manager don't necessarily understand the why of behind what things are happening, why they're happening, how they're doing it, you're never going to be able to convince anybody, whether in your organization, outside your organization, in the legislature, or even your higher-ups in your organization to say, we need this because, we need this because this matters to you and this is why it matters. And that goes all the way down to even your electeds. We just had a great session with a city council member with Carl Spratt and reflecting on how to effectively communicate with council elected persons in public service and being able to communicate the why to them. Why does this matter to them? If you can communicate to the session.

So there was a session specifically on how to communicate with them.

There was an APWA session we had here in San Diego that was great in highlighting how someone in public service can communicate with a council member or a councilwoman. Being able to really identify it's not about the technical. And when I was at an entire room filled with engineers and, you know, getting, getting the engineers to speak in layman's terms is not an easy feat. Same with Fleet. We get in the details, we start talking acronyms, right?

You're making me smile over here. Make you sure. Yeah. And you're making me great. And keep going.

And being, and being able to really communicate the purpose behind what's being done. Yes, you need to know the details, but be able to communicate what has been done, why it's been done, and time matters are the big key factors. And that invokes confidence when you can be able to speak to a program or a project that has been thoroughly thought of. You've thought of all the details, but you can also express the meaningfulness of that project or the way that project's going to affect your constituents or the city in general, or even the state or the federal government. When you start talking in those terms of being able to tell a story, it, it really is probably the most impactful thing you can do as a fleet manager is be able to tell your story.

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Oh, I love it. Yeah. So, you know, I've been talking about, um, and we'll get into some trends that I've started seeing here lately, but Absolutely. I, there's, there's the telling the story of your KPIs and all that stuff, right? Which is maybe like if you and I having a conversation, you can throw some, you know, stats and some numbers and it'll, it'll make sense to me. As soon as you start talking to an elected official and you're like, yeah, you know, we're at 98% of a, you know, asset availability, they're gonna be like, okay. Yeah, I gave this example the other day. If I recently had, by the way, I hate giving blood. I've passed out giving blood before. Great. I mean, I've got all kinds of stories about getting lightheaded and telling the lady like, hey, you better lay me down because, you know, you're not— how much do you weigh, lady? I weigh about 2 times as much as you. If I pass out, you're not catching me. So anyway, I don't like giving blood. I gave blood the other day and I was super proud of myself because I didn't even get lightheaded. But I got the results back, all good, you know, everything's good. I don't— I didn't know what the numbers meant, you know. They're like, this is green, number is good. Oh, all right, give me some context. So I had to like research them and look into them. I mean, I did that because it's my health, but elected officials aren't going to be like, oh yeah, they got these great KPIs, I'm gonna go spend time that I don't have researching these numbers. But what the hell do they mean, right? Like, give me some context. And I think that's— I love hearing the fact that that was an APWA thing. I've been to some APWA events and talking about this exact same thing about telling your story, but it's not about the story. They don't care about the KPIs. They care about the context and exactly what you said. How does it affect them? How does it affect the community? And there's typically 2 or 3 things that they're gonna want to hear. Budget, money, you know, how's it affecting risk mitigation and service delivery, like the impact of the community. Like, what are those? If you can't put them in those terms, you need to go back and think about it. You need to go, you need to put them into those buckets.

Bringing it back to somebody who's never had to been answering those questions in that way, right? They've always been in the technical, they've always been, uh, you know, in the weeds of it. They've never pulled that back as a, uh, you know, an educator, uh, in the sense of, you know, you need to be able to educate people about fleets. It goes to being able to have some level of expectation in a presentation. We've all done some type of a presentation, whether it's written or not. And one of the first questions that you really are asking yourself if you're presenting to a crowd is, who's your audience? Who are you trying to reach? Because the why matters the most to them, and your message is not going to get through if you're being technical in a room of people that have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. And you really do need to break it down to, yes, this is, this is very important in the industry and this is what, you know, the industry standards are. Bringing credibility to what you're talking about is where the technical can be cited, right? But you're not being very critical of this is what I'm citing and this is why I'm citing it without the what it means to you, right? So if we're talking fleet availability, right? Number one metric, gotta be, gotta be measuring it. It's one of the most insightful things that you can really look at and evaluate. Are you doing the best job that you can with your fleet? That baseline matters so that you can communicate your levels of service impacts. If you start to see a trend or you start to identify that, uh, the amount of time to be able to repair a vehicle or the amount of time to maintain a vehicle or the age of a vehicle is increasing, and based on those trends, we're going to see a service level impact, that's something we can get ahead of, right? We can be able to make these decisions before there's an impact to service levels. Those types of elements to talk about the specifics and say, look, this matters the most because we're monitoring it and we're monitoring it so that we don't have these service impacts. It's too late after we've already seen some impacts, right? We've already seen these things drop. And they need to know, especially the electeds and especially the people that are, you know, making decisions in your company, that you as the fleet manager are paying attention to this for that reason, right? To support your levels of service, to lower your costs. What are those factors that it means to you? And if you can't speak at least in a layman term about, you know, describing it to— if here's a good thing, you know, try this and just try it as an exercise for, for, for you. You've got young kids. I've got young kids. Try and explain something.

I know where you're going. I know where you're going.

Try and explain a fleet topic to them and make it actually make sense to them where It's something that if they have a bunch of questions, it's going to be along the same lines of questions that you might get from someone else because they just don't know what they don't know yet. And it's your job to educate them and make it clear. And if you can't do that to your own kids, I mean, not to, you know, add work to make it really boring for your kids to listen to you talk about Fleet. They say you already nerd about it too much anyway, but it's a good exercise. Or even people within your organization, there are so many, and we'll kind of get into this in a a little bit, I think. But when we talk about people that are— become fleet managers, not everybody has a technical background. Everybody's got some diverse way of being assigned fleet, you know, whether you're just a finance guy or you came up as a management analyst, you have a bachelor's degree in business, but you have absolutely no clue about vehicles and vehicles in general. That— I think the downfall for somebody very quickly coming into a fleet role is not seeking to find out the information from those areas that you can get information. And places like NAAFA I&E, that is the place. That is where you're going to get all of these diversities of thought, diversities of industry, diversities of, you know, collaborative frameworks, how everybody came from different backgrounds that all kind of ended up in this fleet bubble. And it's funny because if you're in it for, I would say, give it 3 years. If you're a fleet manager for 3 years and you've been to 1 or 2 of these industry conferences, is, you'll realize just how small the fleet world really is, but also how helpful it is. These, these fleet managers that are out there, up-and-coming veterans, been in it for a while, we're all here to help each other. None of us are gonna say, you know, I don't have time for you. And I think that, that speaks to the, the value, especially in organizations like NFA, where we're not segmented into any industry. We are in every possible industry. We want into more industry, right? APWA, pretty specific in public works, right? Right. Very specific and very segmented. And there's a lot of things that are very particular and unique only to public fleets. Whereas with NAFA, you have every single possible industry and more, and we're evolving and growing all the time where that collaborative piece of a fleet manager from, uh, an international fleet that has an inter— international trucking system that has to deal with with all kinds of different rules and regulations that you as a fleet manager may not have ever thought of or never had to deal with. But let's be frank, there's fleet manager opportunities throughout the entire globe. If you don't know what you don't know, then you're gonna be at a disadvantage. And you go to events like I&E coming up, you're gonna have that insight into all of these different diversities that fleet managers deal with, and it becomes an insightful educational element beyond just the education forums, but also talking with those fleet managers out on the floor and the people that are dealing with, you know, a variety of issues. I think our last conference you and I were at, we had mutual questions for a couple of participants in the audience where they were coming from an island, a very isolated island, and they didn't have a way to actually dispose vehicles there. It doesn't exist, right? They have to— they have to decommission vehicles to make them part of the reef outside of the island. It's like this is this is completely different stuff than other fleets deal with. But thinking about the processes that they put into place to make it more economical for them over the life of a vehicle to salvage a vehicle. I mean, just there's, there's so many nuances to how fleet can operate that it becomes almost imperative that a fleet manager knows they don't know everything and there are places to go and seek out that information. And that's where you know, attendance to I&E, NAFA membership, other association memberships all come into play because, again, fleet managers are here to help. And if you're a part of an association, they're— you're going to get a whole heck of a lot more information than just doing something within your own silo.

Yeah, I was chuckling at what you said about telling your kids about what you do. So I started doing that when I had left government fleet and was in some tech startups. And I was trying to explain to my daughter what I did, right? 'Cause she was 7 at the time, so she kind of got it right. And I was just got to, I just got to the point like, do you kind of underst— can you repeat back what I do? And she kind of, it was kind of complicated, right? So then I tried it, I tried it on my son later. And when he was in preschool, they do this Donuts and Dads thing, right? So one of the things when the dads go in there, they asked the kids before, like, what does your dad do? And, you know, how old's your dad? Um, I think he said I was like 20-something, which was great. I was feeling really good about it. I was like, yeah, he's like, you know, 15 years, you know, off, but cool. And then they were like, well, what does your dad do? And, and he was like, we talks on the phone. That's his job.

So that's what they see, right?

Yeah, he's not wrong. He's not wrong. But I got a lot of explaining to do, right? Like, you know, to explain what the heck I do. So anyway, you said that, uh, kind of was making me chuckle there. So, uh, okay. So in terms of people get— you touched on this a second ago— in terms of people getting into fleet management, uh, into the leadership roles, I'm seeing that there's kind of 3 paths into getting to here now, right, to the fleet leadership role. There's the traditional one, right? Kind of like yourself, you were a tech, you worked your way up the ranks, and here you go, right? You're in the fleet leadership. That's what you see most of the time. You have the other ones, which is kind of like me, right? So me, I came from the private side. My dad had a shop. I was a service advisor at first, very quickly turned into a manager because I'm the owner's son. So all of a sudden I'm manager, congratulations. and then I also went back to school to get my master's in public administration. So I had the education of government because I had studied it for 6 years, and I had the real-life experience of running a shop. And when you put 'em together, you kind of get fleet manager, right? So that's, that's a, another way in. And then you have the one that I think is causing a little bit of a struggle now. Which is you have people coming into the fleet management role that don't necessarily have the experience at all in the trades, let alone, you know, turning wrenches or being in the environment. And now they have to learn the industry. So it takes a very special person to be very confident to be like, hey, I'm going to hire people or trust people that are much better at this than I am because I have no idea what I'm doing. I just know how to manage a budget or I'm an engineer or whatever. Um, this is where I think this Fleet Management 101 is also— so there is, to the traditional folks, like working their way up. Hey, you're a technician, congratulations, you're a supervisor. Okay, cool. You do that for a few years. Hey, you— good job, congratulations, you're the fleet manager. You get into the fleet manager role and you're like, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to manage people. I don't know how to do budgets, right? So it's Fleet Management 101, like we're talking about, and then You also have the people coming over from other departments, which they have some of the fundamentals of how to work in a government organization potentially, which is great, but they don't understand the business, right? So then now these, their version of the Fleet Management 101. So, you know, there's the, there's, there are all these different ways of trying to get into the fleet leadership role. Is that kind of what you, do you agree with that? Is that kind of what you're saying?

Yeah, I would, I would add that, you know, the traditional pathway we're actually seeing less and less of, right? I mean, I mean, there's a huge, there's a huge deficit now in, in the technical trades, right? And we're really pushing to make sure that people understand that this is, especially at the high school levels, you know, a technician role, becoming a fleet technician, becoming an automotive technician or heavy-duty diesel mechanic is not just the first step of a career, right? There's so much more beyond that. And I think that's something that It's hard for someone who's thinking about their next steps after high school. Where do they see themselves? Early on, it was always for me, and on the high school side, I was looking at my job. I was going to be able to make some money. I'd be able to do it for the rest of my life. But I never really thought of a career in fleet management. And I think that's because it didn't— the fleet management industry still doesn't do a very good job of calling out there's a pathway for a successful career. Terrible job. And to your point with, you know, people coming in from, you know, if they may still be in that organization, they're just handed fleet or they're, you know, a very, very talented analyst in a company that has, you know, their master's degree and they're very intelligent and they have the drive and they have the, you know, the want to promote and they find themselves managing operations that include fleet management, right, as like the ancillary job. Right. It's not a dedicated position, but you have to be able to do the fleet management things. That's when it really becomes the question mark of where do I go? How do I seek information? Where are the first 101 things I should be thinking of? And that's what we really try and push out in the sessions at I&E. We actually have an early— the first track, I think, is called entry level, right? So we have the—

this—

the track itself is new to fleet. And so If you're new to Fleet, you actually have this track series at the entire conference that's designed around you. Fleet Management 101. We have a really exciting escape room feature this year that I'm hoping to, to be able to, to, to build off of year over year. Spoiler alert, there's a prize for anybody that actually gets to escape the room. And it's not an easy feat. We're not going to make it easy for you. But I will guarantee that people in, in those tracks, in those sessions are going to be immersed in the things that matter most. And I think without giving too much away in, you know, the sessions that are there coming, we're going to be indoctrinating you that very first day in Management 101, right? Your session, Fleet Management 101. And then there's—

I was about to say, yeah, talk about it. So I'm— so this is April 13th, which is the first day.

Very first day.

Yep.

And so I'm doing at 10:30 a.m. Intro to Fleet Management, because no one goes to school for fleet, talking about some of these things that you need to have in your pocket, like some of the fundamentals of fleet, some of these KPIs, how you should talk about them. And then as Bradley was saying, a little bit later that day is the escape room.

Yeah, and we're doing an escape room for the first time ever at NAAFA. We had good success with other conferences in this format, but we're limiting the room to only 50 participants. So it's not going to be a cattle call. You're not going to be this giant room. We're just listening to people for you know, talk about what you need to know. We're taking that premise of the 101 elements and forcing you to apply them in this. So think of it as an escape room workshop. You're going to be given a limited amount of information, and that limited amount of information, you need to be able to pull those core Management 101 elements out and talk about the what and then describe the why. And in order for you to escape, you've got to be able to tell a story. And I think this is one of those things that it's, it's going to force any attendee to really put their mind to the paper to say, this is what I need to be thinking of as a fleet manager. So I think it's one of those core critical elements. And that escape room is later on in the afternoon. So I think you have a morning session and our escape room is at 3. So closing out the day with a big bang on the educational series and making sure everybody's awake shortly thereafter lunch and keep it interactive.

You get your opportunity. Yeah, you get your opportunity to do a little bit of a pitch there at the end.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's, that's one of those things that it's going to be interactive. It's going to be fun. We want it to be— people get excited about Fleet. And if you're new to Fleet and you don't necessarily know what to expect, at very minimum, these sessions are going to be identifying the things that you should be looking for in your own organization, in your own fleet, and why that matters to you. Which is also why it should matter to whoever it is that you're talking to and apply those elements moving forward. So yeah, it'll be a great day.

Yeah. So a little bit of a recap, just 'cause I know I want to be respectful of your time. I know you got a hard stop, right? This is the luxury of, you know, you're on the West Coast, I'm on the East Coast. You got a hard stop.

Budget season, man.

That's right. So you know him very well and, you know, became a mentor to me and then he's a good friend of mine, Bill Griffiths. He said to me early on, and this was really just got jammed into my head back in 2015 or '14, was, I have it written down over here just so I don't misquote him. It's, he said, he was on stage and he said, it's not the basics that get you in trouble. It's specifically the lack of the knowledge of the basics that get you in trouble. Right? And so I think these are some of the takeaways that we are going to be pushing at NAFA when we're talking about this, but taking it one step further, right? Which is context and impact matters to the people that you're talking about because you might be talking to a particular person and giving them a particular pitch with these KPIs and the context and impact is different to them. For example, the city manager and the finance director, right? Same thing, same thing you're talking about, but you're slightly talking, you're talking about it a little bit differently. So it can resonate with them and what they're doing.

Exactly. Exactly.

So any— any— what— is there anything that we missed? And is there anything you would add to this?

Not to be outdone by Mr. Griffiths here with his famous quote that might stick in your head, but there's something, a bit of a story, anecdote to pull in just, just for sake of having the right mindset when you deal with projects and especially in large organizations and public fleets. My dad was a public employee for many years and made his way up the ranks over many years. I remember visiting him in his nice office there in San Diego, and on his desk he had a giant wooden paperclip and like a clothesline type of a diagram. It had a plaque on it. And I remember seeing that for the first time when I had first started working for the County of San Diego, and I had all these grand ideas. I had all of the big, you know, thoughts. I can make so much change. I can do all these grandiose things and there's so much opportunity. I'm super excited. And then I read the plaque on that little paperclip and it's just a giantly oversized, like, clothespin-looking thing. And it said, think small because big ideas piss people off. You don't come at people with the giant ideas. Maybe you've got the giant idea, Yeah, but you're thinking small about that big idea. You're thinking about what's the first step in that big idea. You're thinking about what's the first thing that's gonna make the biggest impact. That's an easy shift. That's an easy change. And with those small ideas, you create the big change. And I think that's one of those things that still resonates with me today because you can't do big change fast and you may need to do big change in an organization. But thinking small about what you can change usually comes with what you can measure. And measuring those small things, measuring those things to identify where those root causes are, comes with a Fleet 101. Fleet 101 is going to teach you what you need to look at and what you need to be paying attention to. And hopefully they're walking away with, you know, this is the attitude to approach, this is the things to do, these are the resources that I have, and we've got the opportunity to be able to make meaningful small changes for big change in the future.

So there's one last thing before I let you go. We have, we have 4 minutes to do this. Let's call it 3. So it's something that I stole from another podcaster. And so he asked the person before this episode to leave a question for the next person, right? That person doesn't know what the question is or what it's about or who it's going to be. So this is the question that was left for you.

Okay.

If you stepped away from your role tomorrow, have you built the succession pipeline that could sustain and even improve what you've built?

As much as I can plan for it. Uh, there's, there's a thought process and there's a methodology to it, and there's a support structure in, uh, the org chart, uh, and being able to create a succession plan that's, that's ultimately, um, meant to be there as the pathway to be able to pull Um, uh, I can't always make the decisions for the people that, uh, you know, would be making the decisions while I'm gone. I would love to be able to have the opportunity to have input, but if tomorrow I'm gone and nobody's there to be able to provide the immediate feedback, these people that are in those positions are best prepared to be able to take over my role as much as we possibly can in structure, but also encouragement and coaching and professional development within those Perfect.

It's all about the process. And, you know, it's not about telling time, it's building clocks, as I think Jim Collins said. So anyway, with that, Bradley, thank you very much. So come check us out on April 13th, 10:30 AM. I'll be doing Fleet Management 101 because nobody goes to school for fleet management. And then a little bit later in the afternoon, join Bradley and I as we do the escape room.

Escape room, a crash course in fleet management.

Boom, boom. There you go. All right, man. Well, thanks a lot. Enjoy your budget meeting coming up. I'll see you soon.

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