Building with Values | Skip Partington - Barnhill Contracting

The technology out there is going to take us places that we never dreamed of. We can have all the fancy iron in the world, the newest asphalt plants, but none of that will do well if you don't have good people. It's scary to think sons, daughters, wives, husbands are out there and a piece of plastic is the only thing that separates them from a vehicle moving that fast. It's the call at 1:00 clock in the morning that you never want to get. We were finishing an intersection, just about the last load. A drunk driver came into the work zone. Probably 70 miles an hour and hitter.

Welcome to the Edge podcast. My name is Tristan Wilson. I'm the CEO and founder at EdgeVianta. And today I am thrilled to be sitting down with Skip Partington. Skip is the president of Barnhill Contracting Company, one of the largest and most respected heavy civil contractors in, in the South. We're going to talk today about what it takes to lead a 75 year old family business, why work zone safety is personal for, for Skip. How Skip thinks about technology and staying independent when private equity and public companies are buying everyone up. And what he actually looks at every day to know that things are running right in a large heavy civil construction operation. So Skip, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here.

Awesome. Awesome. So the first thing I wanted to ask you with the first thing I wanted to ask you was if you could tell, tell me a little bit about your, your background and help, help me maybe understand how a communications major and lineman from Wake Forest ends up running one of the largest contractors in the Southeast.

Divine intervention probably is the best way to put it. But I, I started off one of my good friends in high school. His father owned a paving company in Raleigh and Mr. Blaylock Paving. Mr. Blaylock would, gave us an opportunity to work there and we'd work on the patching crew. I'd drive a single axle dump truck and you know, just got to work with a bunch of such fine people that it just, it gets in your blood. So I enjoyed doing that. You know, I, I would do it during the summers and get acclimated, you know, to being outside and be ready for camp when we got back to college for football and just hot summers in that asphalt, you know, is back in the day when we used to, when we do patching, we would actually cut it with an ax. You'd get down on your knees, draw a straight line and hit it with an ax and cut it out like that. We didn't we didn't have quickie saws

back then, so for pre platform days.

So, you know, I just. The salt of the earth kind of people that had been doing it for many, many years and I learned so much from them and you know, it was just wonderful because you could be with different people every day and, you know, just learn from the people down on the ground. And I really enjoyed that. And so I continued to do that during my summers while I was at college. And like I said, it got in, got in my blood and I just, I love doing it. So I graduated, had an opportunity to go to work for a trucking company as a management trainee and had to wear a coat and tie every day. That was, that was the first downfall. And I did that for a while and it just, it wasn't for me. So I, I went back with, with blalock paving and Mr. Blaylock was so nice to give me a chance to come back and, and do that. And with the college education, I was on a small paving crew and patching crew. We did driveways and Mr. Barnhill had three sons. Three. Three very smart gentlemen and had three very smart sons. And you know, he came up to me and said, I know you want to do more, but, you know, I got three sons. And he said, how about if I give you a chance to interview with Barnell Contracting Company? And I said, sure, that'd be great. And they were. Barnhill's office was right down the road and I went and interviewed with Kermit Moser, who's somebody I admire greatly. And he gave me an opportunity to come with Barnhill. And the plan was to ultimately get into project management estimating. But my first days and months was cleaning out the coal feed bins at the asphalt plant. And of course, you know, being on a. At that time, Blaylock didn't have an asphalt plant, so it was new to me and I certainly didn't mind it. But it was another chance to learn and meet different people and just, just get involved that way. And that's, that's how I got started. And you know, eventually there were opportunities for me to move up in operations and that was where I kind of flourished because I got to work with different people every day, got to travel, got to be outside. But I did have that previous opportunity to know the numbers and the cost, so things made a lot more sense when I was on the operation sides and running the field. And I just, I loved it and never turned back. So.

Awesome. Well, like, like, like you. I. My first Experience was. Was. Was. Was in the field. You know, I think when I was maybe 14 or 15, was the first job that I got now. And I remember I wanted to work in the office so bad. I was like, oh, man. Like, I got to get. I got to figure out the plans, the specs. I need to. I need to go. I. I need. I think I need to go talk to the cfo. And, you know, my dad's like, I got. I got just a person you need to talk to. It's. It's a. It's a paving form, and that whole paving crew that's. That's with him. Those are the guys that are going to teach you what you. What you. What you need to know. It's interesting. I was. I was listening to a. To a speech by Joey Anderson, who's the head of Anderson Anderson Columbia, out of George, Georgia, and, And Florida and Texas. And. And he said. He said, you know, I grew up around a bunch of road guys. He's like. And. And they. He's like, they didn't teach me how to do this, give this speech, but they taught me a lot of really good stuff. They taught me a lot of good. A lot of really good values. So I think we both, you know, we both share that. Not I. The coming up that way is, I think, so. So important. And then everybody who, you know, know, who interacts with you, knows. Knows that that's where you come from. And I think it. It earns a lot of credibility and respect and also just appreciation and understanding for what it takes to get up every single day and go do it. These are people with families and lives and, And, and, and they, and they have a lot going on. So I think being sympathetic to that is one of the things that, you know, I. I really admire about you. Um, so what did, What. What do you think playing football taught you that still applies to, like, running a construction company?

Well, obviously, the team atmosphere, relationships. You know, when you. I think when you sweat with people that you work with and you're all working for a common goal, it just creates that camaraderie that, that you can't help but appreciate that you. That you look forward to going back to. And I just enjoyed that so much. You know, it was difficult, it was hot, it was tiring, but I wanted to go back for more. You know, it just. It was just being with the. The people and, you know, we were all commiserating together and, you know, made it fun. So.

Yeah. So, Skip, you've been at Barnhill for 37 years.

38. 38.

Okay, 38. So 38 years. That's a long time. What. What made you stay?

Wow. Well, the. The exact thing I was just talking about, you know, the. It's the people. You know, I. I'm a. A young buck compared to some, you know, some been 55 years. 50 years. 45 years here. We're blessed to. To be able to retain people, and I think that's because we love our people. We realize that we can't be successful without them, and, you know, they make things go. We can have all the fancy iron in the world, the newest asphalt plants, but none of that will do well if you don't have good people. And you know that the Barn Hills, you know, are the most humble people and they really care, you know, and then. And that creates the family environment, so you don't want to leave. You know, we're like any family. We're dysfunctional. We have. We're not perfect, but I think at the end of the day, we really deeply care about everybody here. And, you know, if you're in a bind, somebody's going to be there to help you. So I think. I think we've had people that have gone for greener pastures and come back to us and said, you know, that's the one thing I missed and that's what made me come back, is because we are a family and that's one of our most important values.

Yeah, and that definitely comes through. I mean, I've spent. I've spent a lot of time. Been fortunate to spend a lot of time with. In different Barnhill offices from, I guess, Raleigh all the way. All the way to the. All the way to the coast. And that definitely. That definitely shines through, you know, with the folks that I've met and, and the fact that, like, anybody you ask, you're like, how long have you been here? They're like, it was like 10, 18, 28. You know, it's. It's a. It's. It's pretty. That. That's. That's pretty amazing and very, I think, telling of the kind of culture, you know, that, that. That you all have at Barnhill. Could you talk a little bit about kind of the organization and, and kind of the size and. And maybe a little bit about, like, the. The building group and. And kind of the. The other divisions, you know, within.

We started in 1949. Mr. Barnhill, Mr. Long started with some. Some oxes and some equipment they bought surplus from World War II and starting to build roads, farm to Market from Raleigh to Tarboro and in down east and we got our start there. And then in 1977 we, we started with our building division and went vertical. And man, they have done just a fantastic job in growing and they do all sorts of things and have just a fantastic group of people on our building side and we're, we do things a lot differently. It's amazing, you know, that they're negotiating and we're hard bid. So you know, we recognize that but you know, we're still part of each family and there's some good synergies there that help us on both sides. So you know, as far as the philosophies, I guess we're kind of the skinny onion philosophy. We don't have a lot of layers. We, we kind of run lean sometimes to our detriment. But you know, we, we have now seen the light as far as succession and we need to build some bench strength. So we understand the necessity to prepare for the next generation. But you know, we run at a division level. We've got six operating divisions on the civil side and then our building group, but you know, they're, they're run by division vice president or division manager and they are responsible solely for their area for the P and L. And

could you tell me a little bit about that, that divisional structure and why that, why that works the way that it does, you know, for Barnhill. Because I see, I, I see different, I see different ways of doing things. I see folks say, hey, we like to have it all centralized and you know, it's, these are, you know, large, large companies, you know, multi hundred million dollar civil construction companies. And then I see others that, that, that run more of a divisional, you know, setup. So just curious as to your thoughts on the setup and, and why you all, you know, have, have, have gone that route.

Well, I have to give credit to Bob Barnhill. He, he started the division concept. You know, it creates a team for a certain geographical region of the company that is embedded in a certain or different communities within their region. So the division concept is, you know, you're going to sleep in your bed every night, you're going to go home. You know, occasionally we'll have to work out of town, but that's very seldom. But you know, those division managers, those team members and those divisions are responsible for what goes on there. We give them a lot of autonomy to run the divisions as they see fit. And you know, they're responsible at the end of the day for their P and L. And it's done very well for us and we're so blessed to have some, some great leaders. Our great leaders run in those divisions. And you know, we're, we've got a corporate office and we've got obviously our support team, hr, shop it, all of that, that supports each division.

Great. Yeah, I, I come, I come. You know, I worked, I worked in a divisional type setup before and I'm, I'm a big believer in that. I think it's also good to have. It's the idea of like a city, state, you know, like, like big, large governments that, that are, you know, fully centralized are very susceptible to, you know, like bad stuff happening and if it does, it can take the whole thing down. Whereas divisional, you know, division one, I think there's just more ownership of like this is ours and, and we're going to, you know, fully kind of have the, have the authority to like, make the call on, you know, picking profit margin, hiring people, you know, bidding work those types of things with, with, with some influence. But, but to be given, to be given the opportunity to succeed and, and fail a little bit too, you know, because that's.

Well, they're the boots on the ground and you know, doesn't seem fair or right for me to sit here in Rocky Mountain and dictate how things should run in Kitty Hawk, because I'm not there. But, you know, that's why you have to have good leaders and you have to have trust. And like I said, we're very blessed to have some great leaders.

Great. Well, speaking of people, I did want to talk about something that happened. I believe it was in 2024, you all lost a team member in a work zone. I wanted to see if you might could tell me about what that experience was like.

Michelle von Zergen, a day before 54th birthday was. She had, she had been a truck driver and you know, she had. Trying to get her CDL straight. So she was. She's out of a truck for a while and lacked two weeks before she could get back in the truck. So she was helping out with traffic control until she got, was able to get her CDL back in line. And we were finished in an intersection putting down just about the last load. And a drunk driver came into the work zone, probably 70 miles an hour and you know, hit her. And you know, we were able to see some of it on the, on the onboard camera on the dump truck in the intersection, but it was just a blur. You know, just. It happened so fast. You know, there were barricades, there were flashing lights. There were police, you know, on the other end of the, of the lane closure, but there were blue lights out there, but the driver just didn't have any idea. Just totally out of it and just, it was just a, a bad, a bad night just never should have happened. And that hurt really bad. It's, it's the call at 1:00 clock in the morning that you never want to get and you know, it, it affected us greatly. And you know, she had family on the paving crew, so you know, they were, they were there and just so senseless. I just, just a terrible thing and I, you know, had we had the ability to shut down that road, you know, completely, you know, things might have been different, but you know, just. It's a terrible accident.

I appreciate you sharing, sharing, you know, sharing that with, with, with our audience because I think, you know, a lot of people who, who watch, you know, who, who follow us are, have folks that are out there and you know, work zones every night. And, and it is, you're absolutely right. It's, it's the worst phone call. The phone call that you never, you know, that you never would ever want to receive. But, but I think, you know, there's a, there's a phrase that I like, you know, that's, that's never let a good crisis go to waste. And, and, and I wanted to, I wanted to find out from you, you know, after, you know, after Michelle and, and, and that, that you know, work zone intrusion. You, what have you all, you know, done kind of differently since, since that happened and a little bit more about like the work that you've done with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Well, we've worked with our local AGC chapter, North Carolina, also capa Carolina Asphalt Paving Association, Ellis Powell, you know, trying to work with the legislature to, to increase the police presence, to increase blue light presence. There's, you know, kind of slow playing, writing tickets in the work zone. So it's just going to be a constant battle until we can get that across to our legislature to write the laws. And you know, I've been out there many times and a barrel, the only thing that separates the paving crew from 70, 75 miles an hour. And you can just for that split second you can see somebody driving by and they're just looking at their phone and they're just have no idea what's going on. And it's scary to think that sons, daughters, wives, husbands are out there and piece of plastic is the only thing that separates them from, from a vehicle moving that Fast. And you know, we, we got to do a better job of protecting our people, you know, safety. We can't do enough. And you know, I just, I feel strongly about that. And you know, we, we're working hard, you know, with, with anything with, with laws and legislature. It takes time and I'm not real patient when it comes to that. So every opportunity I get to stand on the stump and talk about it, I, I do it because I'm passionate about keeping our people safe. And, and every other paving crew in the country or, or pipe crew or milling crew, anyone that's out there on that road just takes their life in their own hands every day. And you shouldn't have to worry about being killed. Just go to work

100%. And the worst part about it to me is you can do everything right, absolutely right and still lose somebody. Which is bullshit in my opinion. And we have taken, you know, we, we, we have. I think let the, I'm, I'm. This is my opinion. We have let the politicians take over and, and, and basically allow, you know, think that the public shouldn't be inconvenienced at all and that we should work in this really tight window in this really small time at night and only close one lane at a time when if you go to other countries, they're shutting down the entire interstate on weekends and repaving it. They shut it down, they detour them and they go out there and they do echelon paving on, on the main line and, and everybody's happy because it's, because it's you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and, and the whole roof shut down and you don't have to worry about being next to 70 mile an hour

traffic and you get a better product.

We don't. You do, you get a better, you get better compaction, you get better joint density. You get everybody and, and some reason in our country we have not figured this out. And, and, and, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's frankly ridiculous that we can't shut down a road and have somebody go around. It's okay for you to go take a 20 minute detour for us to do this work and to do it safely and you know, we need to rebuild this country and, and we need to be able to do it safely and we need people to, to, to do that and they shouldn't, they shouldn't have to be out there risking their lives Every, every single, every single sh of the big. That I think our, our industry can do a Lot better job of, and it takes grass like starting somewhere, grassroots, local level. Work with the asphalt association, the road build association or the agc and get lost. Yeah. And, but just talking about it's not enough. And I really, I really hope that, that we can, you know, make some progress in this in, in, in the next, in the next few years.

So.

Yeah, I, I totally, I totally agree with everything you said. All right, I'm gonna shift, I'm gonna shift gears, shift gears a little bit. And I want to ask you more about like, like running, like run, running the company and some of the things that you think about or, or that you're, that you're watching. What, what, what do you actually look at every day to know that the company is, is, is performing. Well again?

You know, every opportunity I get, it's a, I put it on my calendar as a field day. It's like a BTO day. If I can get out in the field and see the people, you know, that's my barometer. Obviously. We have almost real time cost reports at least weekly. We look at, I've got a monitor over my head with software that shows when the plant drops load, you know, every truck that leaves the fleet watcher, you know, utilizing that, you know, it's just, and then constant communication with the COO and the division managers, getting feedback, you know, and just listening, you know, asking questions. I'm a kind of a pick up a hot rock kind of guy. I'm not going to do that again. That's how I learn. So, so, you know, I've learned from experience and certainly no stranger to failure, but it teaches a good lesson. So I kind of, I learn, you know, based on what my mentors, my great mentors have taught me in my career. And, you know, that's kind of my, my path to follow. I've been blessed with many great teachers.

Yeah, you and me both. I, I, I did want to ask you about the field, like going out and, and seeing people in the field. This one thing I, I always love to ask, you know, leaders of construction companies, how often are you typically doing that? How often would you like to be doing, doing that? And, and what do you do when you go to a job site?

Well, not enough is, is the answer. You know, in my new role, there's a, a lot of different things that take up my time. But like I said, you know, getting out of the field is, it's, it's really like a vacation day. You know, I just, I get out there and go to a plan or go to a job site, put on my vest and hard hat and you know, I feel like I'm home, you know, and just talking with the guys and girls and laughing and you know, you know, trying to find out what, what issues they might have, you know, what are we doing right, what are we doing wrong and just, just watching and you know, you know, they're, they're my, my guidepost. They, they kind of the people tell me, you know, what we, what we need to be doing better. And we have a mentor protege program here. And I always joke, I sign up to be the protege, everyone else is my mentor. And you know, because you know, I think any mentor protege relationship, you both learn from that and got a lot of smart people and you know, every opportunity I, I get a chance to get out there, they would probably tell you that I don't, they don't see me enough or not that they want to see me, but that I don't get that out there as much as I should. But yeah, it's important for leadership to be embedded with the people that you serve and let them know that you care. And I think that's probably one of the most, that is the most important part of my job.

I appreciate you sharing that. I think a lot of people, it's almost like they need an ex. It's almost like they need permission to go to the field in, in, in, in management because there's so much going on, right. The inbox is filling up. You know, it's, there's oh, I got to get this letter written or I got to go hand, you know, deal with this claim or you know, deal with this subcontractor issue or whatever, but we can easily lose track of kind of what matters. And I think keeping that pulse of regular check ins, you know, asking the right questions, having kind of a, a curiosity, you know, when out in the field is such is a big deal. And then, and then also just presence, like your presence is so important and it says, ever says a lot the fact that you're, you know, that, that, that, that you're there and that people, you know, see you and, and you're visible. And I think this is something that especially the younger project management field engineers who, you know, those types of folks that aren't in the field every day maybe can, can lose sight of. But like that's never going to go out of style going out in the field and spending time, you know, with, with the, with the crews and so something that you and I have spent, you know, A little bit of time, you know, talking about like kind of the, the, the, the work life, you know, balance side of things and improving the, the quality of life for, you know, for, for management and construction. It's just a hard industry. There's days, there's nights, constant phone calls. It starts early and it sometimes ends late. How do you kind of think about that, you know, at Barnhill? And what are some of the things that, you know, that, that you all are doing to, to try to improve the experience and, and, and make life better for, for, for the folks who are managing projects as well?

Well, I mean it's a, a cost, a journey to, you know, try and make life better for, for everyone. We want Barn Hill to be the best place to work and that's just a, a constant journey. But you know, our philosophy is that our project managers and estimators are one. They take projects from cradle to grave. We feel like that's the best way if one person has ownership of the job and sees it through it and is responsible for the gain or fade in the end. So trying to provide those guys and girls, ladies to create a better work life balance for them. We look at certain softwares that can save them time, such as EdgeVanta. Also we're looking, we are working with Procore and my goal in my tenure here is to have succession planning in place for the next generation so that they're successful. And I believe that work, like work life balance is, is so important to everyone nowadays, but especially the next generation that you know, if we don't utilize technology, we're going to just fall into mediocrity and not have the efficiencies that we need to provide that work life balance and plus provide us with the analytics to get better. And I think that's very important and it's an integral part of our succession plan is to make sure that we have the technology in place not only to attract people, but to retain them. And to retain them, you can't work them to death. So you know, we want to make a profit and we work hard to make sure we have every tool available to do that. And working hard is one of those tools, but it can't be the only tool. So we have to work smart too.

Understood. Yeah. I really, I really appreciate that.

That answers your question.

It does. You did a great job. Thank you. So I didn't want to ask you, we were talking a little bit earlier about like mentorship and, and, and I wanted to ask you about your peer group because I, I know that, you know, I, I, I have a lot of respect for, you know, for, for that, that group and, and just, just a long, you know, history. And it's just a, I just wanted to hear from you, like, tell, tell me a little bit about kind of the, the peer group and, and, and what you've, what, what value kind of, kind of. You see there maybe for somebody who isn't in a peer group, what's the experience like?

Well, if, if you're not a member of one, I, I, but I am just so blessed to be with a peer group of such highly intelligent, motivated, just out of this world people. We've got nine members in our peer group. No peer group touches another. So we don't compete, but we're able to share ideas and problems and, you know, talk freely and, you know, just the, the information that this, that's gathered that you can bring back and you realize that, hey, I've been doing this wrong for a long time. There's somebody out there that can do it better. And, you know, we just got a fantastic peer group. And you know, I would, I would suggest anyone's watching this video if, if you have the capability to, to join a peer group, it'll be one of the best things that you ever did for you and your company. It's intimidating because there's a lot of smart people out there just like you, you know, that have been doing it a long time, see things differently. But at the end of the day, you know, I can, I can speak for the peer group I'm in. It's the people, the people that they work with day in and out are the most important things. And that's one thing I really enjoy is as we were talking about safety, you know, you know, it's wonderful to hear the way other people approach that and attack it. And I love to be able to bring back good ideas. You know, my, the folks I work with, I come back and I have all these great ideas and they say, oh, you've been to a peer group meeting, so it's just a wonderful experience and just, it's, it's just a great way to learn that once you get over the fact that you're surrounded by a lot of very smart people and you feel comfortable, you can just, you can take a lot of takeaways and not feel guilty about using them in your own company. So it's, it's, you know, like I said before, we're not perfect in any way, but, you know, it's, it's wonderful to be able to share things that we do and people think that it's a good idea and, and likewise it's good to be on the other side and, and garner and glean good ideas from them.

Yeah. I wanted to tell you an interesting story. So when my family's business, you know, barrier construction, we, we had never done a design build job before and, and I, if I'm not mistaken, I think Barnhill was one of the first design build highway construction companies. You know, when that first started to become a thing and when I was coming up to visit you guys for the first time, I was meeting with, with, with, with Alan and I called our, the former CFO of Barry and I'm like, I'm going to go talk to these Barn guys. Like oh yeah, yeah, real nice guy. Well, we had no idea what the hell we were doing on design build and we called them and they told, they told us everything that we needed to know. So. And we. Super helpful and so yeah, it's just interesting how it, you know, pay it, pay it forward. So yeah, really neat. Wanted to, I wanted to talk a little bit about bidding and estimating. I know this is something that you and I have spent a lot of time, you know, discussing. How do, how do you, how do you think about like which projects to chase and which ones to walk away from?

Well, we're, we're risk averse. You know, we, we, we look at a project and weigh the opportunity and weigh the risk. You know, there, there aren't a lot of projects that we would walk away from, but there are some we've done it in the past that you know, the specs are too crazy or there's not enough time to get it done

or

you know, it's just not a good fit. And you know, we will deselect a job, you know, we'll take the time to get into it and do our due diligence and see, you know, this, this is a little bit too risky for us and you know, we'll step back and let somebody else take it and learn, learn from them. But you know, if we can somehow quantify the risk and feel like that, you know, we've got it covered, then we'll pretty much take on most projects. But we are very attuned to what the risk may be either safety wise, specifications, revision wise, time wise, you know, all those things rolled up into one help us make a decision on whether we, we, we actually did the job. But there's, there's not many that we don't

Understood. What would you say? I'm sure you sat in on a lot of bid reviews. I'm sure. What would you say separate and, and probably cost complete meetings. So what would you say separates a well prepared estimator from an average one?

You know, in my bid reviews, I've always enjoyed to. The best ones are where the estimator has obviously been to the job, whether it's resurfacing Millerfield, not looking at on Google Maps, knows it. You know, you can ask questions and most of the questions you get an answer to, but there's some questions where you get I don't know and that's, that's fine. You know, I'm okay with that. You know, let's, you know, let's find out the answer. But you know, let's, let's don't move forward without, without getting a good answer. But you know, knowing their cost, you know, I'd love to see it just at the cost level without any profit. And then, you know, I want to know that we know our true cost and that we've, we've covered our risk and you know, then we can talk about margin and you know, it's with the combination of hcss, Advanta, all other kinds of software out there, you know, nothing takes away the need for just due diligence. Knowing the job, knowing the specifications, sometimes you end up knowing more than your competitor and that costs you. But, you know, I'd rather do that than not know it and need it. Before we got to the end when we were doing that cost accounting,

wow. A low bid is just a ticket for dance. How do you think about pricing on the bidding side of things? How do you think about pricing strategically without leaving excess money on the table or, or losing jobs?

Wow, that's, that's something that we all chase, you know, you know, knowing your market, knowing your competitors, you know, that's, to me, that's the most important thing. And I have to tell you, and probably a lot of people will laugh or gasp, but you know, once you've done it for a long time, you have that gut feeling because you know your market, you know your estimators, you're familiar with the job and your community and what you're going to be doing and you just, you know, you have a feeling one way or another what the job's going to allow and you know, plus you take all the, the information that you can get from, from all the softwares that we use now to put together pricing. But at the end of the day, I would say knowing your market, knowing your competitors, is the best way to, to not leave a lot of money on the table.

Great. Speaking of a market, Barnhill has a reputation of paying on time. Why. Why does that matter so, so much?

Well, if we want competitive pricing from our subcontractors, you know, it's number one, it's the right thing to do, but it's covered by the specifications to be paid on time. But we've always done that. You know, there are times that things get, get lost or misplaced and we haven't done it. But as a rule, we pay on time every time. And you know, you get the best subcontractors that way you get a better team. There's. You're not fighting about not getting paid and you're able to get glean the best subcontractors out there to help you do your work. And hopefully at the end of the day, it provides you with more competitive pricing from those subcontractors if you pay them on time.

Yeah, big believer in that. And long, the, the long term, you know, relationships building, you know, that as, as a part of that, because a big part of, you know, even if you're prime on, you know, 80, 85, 90% of the work, it's still really important to have the best subcontractors, you know, and, and suppliers on the job. And, and part of, part of that is, you know, we, we earn that competitive pricing by, by paying and then also by execution and, and by, you know, being able to go out there and give them, give them good quantities and, and make a lot of work available, you know, by being efficient and, and, you know, just doing good quality work as well. So we could probably do a whole podcast episode just on that.

No, by that we, we couldn't survive without them.

Well, I'm curious, I wanted to get your thoughts on consolidation in the construction industry. I know, you know, just, there's a lot of private equity, you know, in construction and you know, you all are a long standing, you know, family business and there's a lot of, a lot of M and A activity, especially in the southeast with paving and highway and civil contractors, so, and materials companies. Just wanted to see like, what do you see happening with consolidation in the industry and how do you feel about it as somebody who works in a long standing, you know, family business?

Well, this is one island that I don't, I don't mind being on. I'd look, I look at the consolidation and the acquisitions that have gone on in the past few years. And the, you know, I can only take from what I hear, like I said, you know, people that unfortunately left us to look at the greener grass and come back and you know, I don't, I've never worked for a publicly held company, but you know, what I thought would happen is what I hear when people come back is that, you know, they're, it's not a family atmosphere in, in all of the places. And you know, I just think being a family owned company is, you know, just a great place to work if your owners want to continue to stay in the business. I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade what I do for anything in the world, but, you know, it's, it's prolific right now. It just seems to be happening everywhere and you know, it's kind of crazy if you want to know the truth. And. No, I just thought, I think we are blessed have such great ownership and you know, that's, we sit back on the sidelines and watching it happen and scratch our heads and you know, I think, I think there are a lot of successful acquisitions going on out there and you know, we're certainly interested in growing smartly ourselves. But you know, I want to, I want to keep it as a family atmosphere. I want to maintain our values. And now just, I think it's, it's, it's great for a great opportunity for businesses that don't have succession planning, that, that's a good opportunity for them to, to, to get out gracefully and you know, keep, keep the legacy at some point instead of just closing the doors. Great.

Appreciate you sharing that. Yeah, just kind of curious. There's some, there's just so much of that, you know, going on today in, in, in the industry. And yeah, it's like it can't be, it can't be, it can't be overlooked, but it's everywhere. Yeah, well, so I appreciate, appreciate you sharing that. What are you most excited about for the next few years?

Oh, man, well, technology for one. I'm interested to see how AI is going to affect our business. Autonomous working equipment. You know, I think we've got one blue light roller that shout out, shout out to Dick.

He's a, he's a, he's a newsletter reader and a podcast listener.

It's, it's very interesting to watch. You know, I see the, the cost benefit at some point in time and the safety possibilities with it. We just, we got to get our arms around it and you know, it's coming, got a little work to do on it. But I think AI, you know, helping us with our mix designs with just everything, you know, how we document, you know, sure, pencil is better than a long memory and you can, you can use AI to help you document as long as you proofread. You know, it's just the technology out there is going to take us places that we never dreamed of. And that's, again, that's part of my job is to hopefully get us in a place where the next generation can, can make new decisions like that, profitably, do the best thing.

Yeah, I think it's you guys really, you've walking the line of how do we maintain our culture and our values and our heritage while still saying let's make sure that we're fully aware of everything that's going on out there and let's try some of this and let's, let's, if we, if there's passion, if there's interest as well as of course, ROI and it's applicable to what we do, let's give it a shot. And I think you all have done a, you all done a fantastic, fantastic job with that. And also I think kind of stepped away from, stepped away from the herd a little bit in, in some ways, you know, with how you're kind of thinking about things and new, new things that you're trying. So I think that's, that's, that's, that's fantastic. And, and part of kind of what it takes. I mean the other thing too is that a lot of people that have, I think tried new things, like our friend Dan Garcia, you know, with like what they did with the, you know, operator training, you know, at C.W. matthews, like, and you hear him tell the journey and it's like, yeah, this started several years ago. We've been working on it for a long time. It was not perfect, but we just had to get started. Like, we just, we just had to, like, we just had to get, we just had to dip our toe in and, and were there issues that we have? Of course there were, but like that was all part of the journey to get to where we are today, where we're bringing young people, you know, into the workforce and, and doing, you know, the innovative, some of the innovative things, you know, that, that you guys are doing, you know, at Barnell as well.

So, you know, I have to give a shout out. We, we have got our Vice President of Leadership and Development, Greg Odie and we started our value based leadership journey and you know, that's really helped us on the succession level at all levels. But you know, leadership you know, that I would hope that all the viewers recognize if you want to maintain your values, if you want to be competitive, you've got to realize that your younger people want a pathway. You need to take the time. They're interested, you know, they want to learn, they want to know why, how so you're going to have to open the doors a little bit and be a little bit transparent, maybe get uncomfortable a little bit. But I think that just endears your employees even more when you do that. And we recognize the fact that, you know, not everybody's going to start on a patch of crew swinging an ax to cut, cut asphalt. You know, they're going to come out of school and want to start their journey. And we've got to figure out ways to, to get them up to speed on the things that we've learned. And you know, we've started programs like Emerging Leaders Foreman, where we take people that stand out in their divisions and put them in a class and just kind of put it in fifth gear and go and teach them all the things that we think are important to be a good foreman. And we do that at a, at a project manager support level two. We have classes for those people. And it was really, it's amazing to see how they grow and learn and the questions they ask. And you would never, you'd never think sometimes that, that that particular person would, would be as interested as they are as estimating or how a plant runs. You know, just that it's a great opportunity to teach our people and bring them up to speed and again create the family atmosphere. All pulling in the same direction.

Yep. Awesome. Well, that's probably a great place for us to wrap up. Skip, I've known you for a long time and for a while now, and I've always respected how you operate and I've had just the. To have been blessed to be able to spend time, you know, with the Barn Hill teams and, and gotten to know you all as well as I have. So thanks for, for being open, you know, about all this. I think some of the things that we talked about around the leadership, around development, safety, peer groups and, and, and innovation are going to be really impactful for, for, for our viewers. So for folks who want to connect with Barnhill or, or learn more, where should they go?

Barnhillcontracting.com you know, feel free to call me at any time. You know, we're, we'd love to help out people in the same industry because I think we have a great industry, the best people in the world. So, you know, just hope everyone will concentrate on keeping their people safe and just joy the many blessings that we have in our industry. So thank you for the opportunity to talk today and as always, come back and see me.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Skip. This has been great. Really appreciate the time. Thanks again.

Bye. Bye.