How To Sign North Dakota Banking Last Will And Testament

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[Music] welcome to the bell gossip podcast live from the 2020 ahr expo i'm your host amanda holloway joined by griffin goda and throughout the show we'll have some fantastic guests and topics to share with you in this series including several of our manufacturers reps and xylem experts you'll get insights into the trends they're seeing in the hvac and plumbing industry enjoy the show hi i'm here with rob grady from mulcahy company and um he's one of the bell gossip manufacturers reps and rob if you want to just introduce yourself give us a little background and um about mulcahy sure well as you said my name's rob grady i'm the executive vice president for mulcahy so i'm responsible for managing the day-to-day business mokahi has been around for 90 years as of last year 2019. so it's really been a huge milestone for us and we lead the way literally in the marketplace to serve our customers with innovations and products that uh support the market that's great and and what area does mulkey cover so we cover the upper midwest north and south dakota minnesota and part of wisconsin okay and so in that are there any trends that you're seeing in that in the twin cities area right now yes the two major trends one a positive one and one a bit of a challenge the positive is the focus on energy efficiency and improving installations to be more efficient from an operating perspective one of the things that we see quite often and it's being driven even by the utilities are the rebates and the programs that are being put through in the state of minnesota specifically to help support new installations and retrofits to really drive that energy efficiency up that serves the the customer and the building owner obviously through lower maintenance and pricing but it also from a broader perspective creates a more positive impact on the environment okay or certainly less than a negative one the other trend that we're seeing that is a bit of a challenge is the lack of uh trade trade people the trade schools enrollment is down and the benches are clear we are seeing a lot of challenges with the labor force not being available and i think that's going to become more of an issue now as some of the older people who have been around for a long time retire and nobody's behind them to replace them yeah so what you know what are the things that bell and gossip or asylum are doing to kind of support you through these trends whether it's you know with product innovation that helps make systems more efficient or it's with this challenge that you have with skilled labor definitely from a product perspective the uh the ecm and the doe 2020 initiatives that bell and goss had started years ago to be proactive have been a huge help from the energy side and mark hansel specifically has done a great job of pushing that throughout the country i mentioned his name because he was instrumental in the excel energy which is the major utility in the upper midwest creating that pump efficiency program for rebates that's stretching all the way down to denver i spoke with the mcnevin rep a few weeks ago about that so that's really been huge in in xylem driving that home and helping these companies and the customers recognize how powerful the the these innovations can be and how can directly benefit them from uh on the other side of it as it relates to the laboratory shortage one of the things they're doing is creating more tools for us to become more efficient and help our customers install the equipment and run it more efficiently integrated controls like the ecocerc xl system-wise that gives us and our customers access to different pumps or different solutions selections that they can use before they even have to talk to us and that allows them to be more efficient at the engineer level which trickles down to better installations right so they're able to do more with less basically exactly okay now is it enough i don't know well so with the skilled labor is it a matter of them this skilled labor force are they choosing different industries just not available like where do you even start with something like that i don't i've thought about that a lot i think a lot of it is the advances in technology more people are interested in doing things on their phones or on a computer than they are you know with their hands yeah um so i think that component has a lot to do with it i don't know how their that shift is going to go back i don't know what's going to happen as more especially the younger people who have literally lived in a technological world their entire lives might be disinterested in in continuing into a skilled labor mindset there's even engineering shortage right now i in the labor force so yes i mean whether it's technology or working with your hands i think you know it's a challenge in sort of both spaces that impact this industry so why did you get into the pump industry uh the short version is i had an opportunity to come work for mulcahy and help manage their business i came from an industrial sales background i moved into management about 10 years ago with them and then through my relationship with jim burns had an opportunity to come in and look at the whole business holistically and and drive strategy and and help manage the employees and it's been great the employees are absolutely awesome it's fun working with them it's fun supporting them and and by extension therefore the products that we get to sell i'll never forget when i interviewed with mark gates the other principal owner he asked me you know we just sell pumps uh are you are you just gonna leave you know it's not sexy and and my response was the same then as it is now that's true the components themselves are not sexy or they're not um you know they're not they're not exciting per se but the integration of those products in this entire basket of goods that create these systems and the ability for our people to execute on that that's the part that excites me and that it doesn't matter what product exists there that's what i love to do well and it's great how the the industry is constantly advancing so the technology and the integration of that stuff is just going to continue to happen yes and on a personal level using that technology to reach more of our customers and promote these products is something i'm passionate about as well so it's a twofer for me we talked a little bit about trends but you know do you have are there any like priorities that your customers are looking at when they're looking to do business with you so um is it energy efficiency is it you know optimizing the performance is it you know space maximization reliability are there any priorities you're seeing kind of come rise to the top from a design perspective not the service part of it or the execution space is definitely an issue mechanical rooms are just getting smaller and smaller because the value of that square footage is going up especially in the twin cities there's been a huge boom in multi-unit condominiums and apartments so those mechanical rooms get a lot smaller so there's a challenge there for us to try and give them solutions that are going to fit i think the other thing too is there's a lot of turnover and retrofits a lot of it driven by age of equipment but also driven by this opportunity to gain some energy efficiency so solutions that can be integrated fits through a door fits into that existing space without a lot of of trouble or adjustment is a critical component on our show in the field with gould's water technology the latest series covers tips and trainings for small business owners listen to all five episodes of the small business toolbox series wherever you get your podcasts [Music] so recent installations that you might be excited about you mentioned earlier when we were talking about a couple hospitals in the dakotas area yeah so we've been doing we've been when i first started we did a major hospital uh in the territory and that trend has continued for us we've there are some hospitals going up in north dakota especially where the infrastructure has been lighter that have given us an opportunity to get deeply involved and make it it's successful for us of course and it's successful for them um they're the the nice thing about that is it's been a lot of different pieces of equipment our pumps our cooling towers our drives all going into this major installation great any other you know recent buildings maybe in the twin cities that are like high profile that you've been a part of we were involved with the u.s bank stadium yeah so that was fun go bikes don't edit that so and actually right across the street from us although we didn't have success on the boiler side the new vikings performance center their headquarters moved okay almost literally across the highway um so we have some equipment in there we have pumping solutions uh that and it's it's just nice to have that kind of a connection with something that despite all the heartache that that team gives us yeah gives us a chance to impact them we can being from milwaukee and being packers fans i think griffin and i can say that we we share your pain this year and lack of performance in the in the nfl in the playoffs it didn't go that's kind of where we sputtered out there the disappointment in the vikings losing to the 49ers was only countered by the greater loss of the packers to the 49ers the next and that is why i uh cheered on the chiefs one thing i wanted to circle back to um just thinking about the industry and you know we've been talking to different people uh during our time here um and all the all these companies like very like family oriented or very you know tight knit um and you know maybe the products aren't sexy but you're doing things that impact you know life in general daily life is there anything and maybe you already say this like is there any like way to kind of like pitch the industry to people who don't know maybe as much about it as they should or you know getting people interested in the industry because it seems like there's a lot of good stories to tell in the industry yeah i think you know one of the things we like to do whether it's with our customers or potential employees talk about some of the high profile jobs sure um one that's a little older was when the vikings the roof collapsed on the metrodome and then they were building us bank stadium we got to put in a heating solution for the field because the nfl has a restriction i think it's 42 degrees that the field can't get any colder than that so we put in a complete hydraulic solution to keep the field warm at the gopher stadium where they temporarily played those kinds of stories are good i like to talk about the culture and the people i think you mentioned family and that's a word we use very often and um i've i've had conversations about that with other reps it is a tight-knit group certainly at mulcahy turnover is low tenure is high and it's a testament to how much they love just coming into work and doing their different jobs and working as a team those kinds of things usually seal it so when i'm talking with a potential candidate i talk about that and with one exception every candidate i've pursued i've hired there was only one that got away oh wow that's a good rate and they come in and they they say you were right rob it's this is the best place to work it's really awesome so you've been kind of keeping that going too we just kicked off this watermark 2020 program um which is inviting uh bell gossip manufacturers reps to um host watermark events around the country um 20 in the year 2020 and you guys already got to start last year on this right yes um first learned about watermark at the annual meeting and i immediately jumped on the opportunity it was about two months or so before our expo our major technical event where we bring in customers to view our products uh the manufacturers are invited and we do presentations so it's a bit of education bit of exposure and a bit of fun traditionally we've gone to a baseball game we're going to switch that up this year but at the time when xylem challenged the reps to do events uh they challenged us to do them in our communities to try and engage customers and do it in a forward-facing way so i took it all on i wanted to do that so what we did is we invited um we introduced a concept with the employees uh to do a dunk tank and of course you did a dump tank we've got people cleaning up rivers and you know well i will say this there's water related and here's the thing and i didn't talk about this yesterday but i was really concerned about the how that would look the visual here we're filling up 500 gallons of water into a tank to dump it out later to promote water conservation so one of the things we did the idea i came up with was to capture rain water so we filled up our totes because we sell dow products we filled up totes uh using a submersible pump from bell and gossip and uh treated the water and that's what we used to fill the dunk tank wow see that's cool that brings it all together yeah yeah but how does the dunk tank factor into watermark like we did so we just we did a fundraiser okay and um it had two components we did sponsorships so we had customers sponsoring the event and then we made a banner with watermark and featured them on that banner so that raised some money okay excuse me and then the other thing we did during the event was we sold throws so we had four employees uh volunteered to be in the dunk tank and then we sold throws so customers and other employees could engage and try and dunk us and uh through all that what was really exciting is i had initially just set a goal of about five thousand dollars there was an initiative by xylem under the watermark umbrella to clean up a river in ohio somebody had poured a dam out of into made a cement uh illegally into it and they needed fifteen thousand dollars to fund the cleanup of that project i was hoping to just make a dent but in the end uh we we funded the entire thing wow congratulations that's amazing it was fun so how are you gonna top that this year that's an excellent question amanda uh we're just starting to come up with that we are going to do another feature at our expo um so it'll have similar components we're not going to do a dunk tank that's not going to happen but we are trying to come up with some fun ways to engage and this year because we have more time we've started planning in the last month what i want to do is find something local to minnesota i was interested in finding a domestic project that's why we picked the miami river in ohio but i'd like to find something local and i would like to either take the money raised and just hand that over to fund uh one of those water conservation initiatives to in our community but i think what would be more fun if we can pull it off is to take that money and use it to fund our efforts in actively going out and doing that that's great because the employees love getting involved yeah yeah i was going to ask when you first introduced watermark to your employees what was the reaction the reaction was um don't edge no the reaction was positive i just remember so before i came up with the rainwater idea i was just i was i was asking the employees to capture their own water so things like if you're waiting for the water to heat up out of your sink capture that and bring it in we'll treat it and that's how it started that was uh interesting it it got a little fun people were bringing in buckets of water we had handed out five gallon buckets they were filling our our uh tote and we had it decorated um so that was a lot of fun that's cool and then in the end uh when everybody had an opportunity to participate both uh in terms of the planning committee and then of course the day of the event being able to throw and dunk us was really exciting so you were one of the lucky few that got to get dunked i never asked anybody to do something i wouldn't do myself there you go so yes i was first in the tank good for you how many throws did you get i don't recall i was not the biggest you're not the leader no there was another gentleman in our office who's very forward-facing in the industry he does a lot of education um he also dressed up i think it's in the video um he definitely got the biggest donations i think i know who you're talking about yeah it was fun yeah cool so outside of watermark 2020 what else are you excited about for the coming year we continue to expand our initiatives in marketing that i really started ramping up about three years ago um more outreach more education in the industry you asked earlier about how we engage customers and get them excited i don't know if it necessarily gets them excited but it certainly gives them an opportunity to be educated on what we do and we do it in an agnostic way we don't talk about products specifically that serves a few purposes one is engineers can do it and get professional development hours but the other thing is that it just allows our customers to be educated on how best to run a system if they decide to go somewhere else to get the solutions obviously we'll be disappointed but what matters more is that they get solutions that are going to fit and work in the buildings that they're working on and so that's something we're ramping up we've expanded our regular lunch and learn series that started with just being about once a month from march to october and has turned into i think this year we're going to host about two dozen different presentations and those are on site at mulcahy um we have a demonstration center where they get to see our equipment and we're expanding on that too we have a hydronic simulator that uses things like the eco circuit excel and bell and gossip expansion tanks so that they can see how a system actually works it just doesn't fire um our technical expo will be big again this year and then we also take those lunch and learns that we bring customers to and we offer them on site at their facilities that's great so you're kind of building your own little red schoolhouse kind of network out there yes although nothing to that scale nothing to that nobody can compare or recreate the little red schoolhouse that is such a powerful tool it's really been exciting to see the modifications and the upgrades that they made i know it was a painful process given some things with with uh the construction but i had an opportunity to visit there last summer and it was just amazing night and day from the last time i was there yeah it was it was pretty momentous for for the company for sure anything else i mean i unless you have something else to add i feel like this has been a great conversation i agree i enjoyed it yeah i don't think i have anything else great well thanks for uh joining us today and have a great rest of your show you're welcome thank you thanks the solving water podcast is produced and distributed by xylem a global water technology company of more than 16 000 employees committed to solving critical water and infrastructure challenges worldwide stream download and subscribe