EP #115: How to Get to the Top in Concrete Construction (C-Suite Insights)

Seth Tandett (00:01)Welcome to another episode of concrete logic podcast and today at Patrick Narron He is a talent acquisition spells specialist at Baker construction. And today what we're gonna talk about is a few thingsAnd we're going to try to hit on strategic career decisions to get to an executive role in concrete construction. We're going to talk about what that career path looks like. And we're also going to hit on what soft skills you should probably pick up as you are going through your career and trying to get to that executive level. So those are the few things we're going to talk about and probably talk a little bit more about that. But before we get tointo that. I just want to remind everyone, especially if you're new to the podcast, there's a few ways you can support the podcast. The first is if you enjoy the episode or any of the, I don't know, we're over a hundred some odd episodes now, please share it with a coworker or colleague in the industry. That helps out immensely. The second way is if you go to ConcreteLogicPodcast.com.There are a couple of ways you can contact me. There's a contact link up near the top of the page. And there's, when you click on that, that's like shooting me an email. And then if you're not an email guy, you like to talk like I do, you can click on, there's a little microphone thing at the bottom right hand corner of the homepage and you can click on that. And that's like leaving me a voicemail.And what I'm looking for is for you all to give me topic or guest suggestions. Patrick is a, someone that reached out to me and suggested to get Patrick on the show. So that's it. I'm being honest with you. works. so you gotta try it. most of our guests are referrals, so I do appreciate people reaching out and doing that. the, another way you can do to support the podcast is there's a, donate button.Patrick (01:55)youSeth Tandett (02:08)on that homepage as well and you can click on there and you can send some dollars my way and that helps pay for equipment or other things that cost money to put out a podcast. Believe it or not, it's not free to put one out. And if you're like, man, I don't wanna send you money. I don't want a donation. When I spend my...hard-earned money, I want to get something out of it. Well, if that's you, you can go to ConcreteLogicAcademy.com and we actually have created courses based around the podcast episodes. So you can join that and there's some quizzes in there you can take and there's even a course in there that you can take and we'll send you a certificate and you can earn professional development hours as well. So if that's your route,Uh, please, please visit that website as well. That's concrete logic, academy.com. All right. That was a lot for me. Well, let's let, let's, let's, let's, let's let Patrick talk for a while. So Patrick, if you want to talk about what, what, uh, what is a talent acquisition specialist at Baker construction? what do you do? Talk a little bit about how you got into that and then we'll, we'll get into those.Patrick (03:16)Good job, sir.HahahaSeth Tandett (03:36)few things that I shared earlier.Patrick (03:38)Awesome. Well, Seth, it is the best job in the world being a talent acquisition specialist at Baker Construction. My job all day, every day is to talk with people about the opportunities that we have at Baker to help progress and move their career forwards. Talking with people in the field from field engineers, field safety reps, all the way through operations as we continue to grow new and new positions. So my job is to be in the marketplace representing Baker, offering opportunities to converse about our needs, our growth, and thenindividuals careers where they're at and their outlook over the next, you know, 10, 15, 20 years or so, wherever they're at in their career and see if there's an alignment with what they hope to achieve and what we can provide for them and help them in their growth along that way. So I get to talk to people all day, every day. And I got into this role about eight years ago when I started an executive search in Asheville, North Carolina at a place called Kimmel and Associates where they taught me, you know, how to executive search, how to find people.who were qualified could really add value to new companies and then make introductions that can mutually benefit both parties. Having done that eight years, worked across the country and that strictly stuck in the cast in place concrete market, which eventually brought me to Baker where our long-term goals there and the things that I was looking to align with myself over the next years to come very much aligned and now get to work, speak with people like yourself, our team, and then people across the country about our growth.So you can't tell, very passionate about it.Seth Tandett (05:09)Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's cool job. I mean, it's, you literally change people's lives. I mean, I've, I, mean, that's how I, I got into the industry. someone, actually, Mark, you probably know that guy. he was, he, yeah, shout out to Mark. Mark found me in Columbus, Ohio and, and got me an opportunity with a company and,Patrick (05:27)Yeah, yeah, Mark. Shout out Mark.Seth Tandett (05:38)in Cleveland, so no mark for, I guess this is, what's this, 2025, Jesus, 2024 years, I guess, I have no mark. So, yeah, so I totally get what you do day in and day out. But I think what we want to talk about today is kind of speak to the folks that are maybe younger professionals that are, you know,Patrick (05:45)HahahaSeth Tandett (06:07)just getting out of college or maybe they've been out of college for a handful of years. And, you know, they see those, you know, those executives, those old grizzled guys, you know, maybe have some gray hairs. Maybe not. And they're like, hey, I want to, how do I get to that guy's spot? So I think we want to talk about what kind of career decisions as you, cause you, shared that you've, you've placed.some presidents, some executive level guys. So you probably have insight on what those guys have in common as far as decisions they've made in their career to get them to where they ended up.Patrick (06:51)Yeah, Seth, there's many commonalities and, touching on what you had mentioned, probably somewhere in the range of seven to 12, like senior level executive VPs I've placed in my career, quite a few presidents. And when you're looking at people who are worthy of that sort of title, that sort of position and caliber, a few commonalities that I've seen is the trajectory that they mostly all worked upon to get there seems to be a common thread. You know,When I ask people coming out of college now, hey, what do you look to do in this career? Owning your own company, being the C-Suites, being an executive, you hear that commonly. And when I ask, well, what is the trajectory to get there? What's the game plan, the path? Because hope's a, what did they say? Hope is a feeling, not a plan. Most people don't even know the structure and the timeline that it takes to actually get to a president role.I'll walk you through a common presidential resume just off hand so our listeners can have an understanding of what that looks like. If you're coming into an industry, most often than not, maybe the term is different, but you're going to be a project engineer. Let's say if we're going up the project management route. A project engineer, you are looking to sit in that position. If you're really going to grasp hold of it, quick on the front end, maybe two and a half years, could take you up to five years.In the marketplace since COVID, I've seen quite a few people kind of expedite that in a year. And if that's you and you are top of the scale, hats off to you. But to really digest what it takes to all encompass being a top level project engineer, it's going to take time to learn a company's culture, the systems, how it's done, and not only do it well, but then to be able to repeat it time and time again, without people having to oversight or overlook you, they know the proficiencies there.Kind like being able to do something like the back of your hand and a big portion and getting to a president here again, starting at the bottom is the ability to train your replacement. Each person that I've had moved up the ladder in the chain most often had was able to share this person I developed from this role to this to this position. And now they were able to elevate as the, it's the ability to transfer their knowledge to the next generation. So we're in a project engineer to both.learn the position, master it, and then be at a point where you can teach someone else to get them to a point of proficiency, know, three and half to five years. And maybe you get upgraded to a senior project engineer during that time, let's say, but really a full mastery of the project engineer role from what I've seen in most presidents, about five years. Already kind of taken on project management responsibilities, maybe around year three or so onwards, but really understanding grasping the role.So if we're looking at five years as a project engineer, the next logical step, and again, every company's got different titles, but let's go to a project manager. There, that's gonna be the meat and the potatoes of where you're gonna be out there as a warrior, out in the battlefield, totally understanding each fight from different types of projects with different general contractors, with different owners, different scopes, different weather, many different variants. During that time, it is so important to learn how to manage the client.to manage the project, to manage your men. Because during that growth, people are gonna judge you not on what you do, but how you respond to most of the negatives that happen. Inevitably, on every project, it seems there is something that can turn red or there's an issue. Very rarely does everything just go according to plan. We're not judged, again, we are judged on the bottom line, but how we handled the adversity. So those soft skills in that project management years, that is what accepts.I want to hit on, and we can talk about this for a long time, is the soft skills that will take someone from a project management, senior project manager, into a high level of operations and then be considered for a C-suite opportunity. It's not always getting 10 % on a project. Sometimes it's losing a few percentage points on the profit, but it's developing people along the way who are in the trenches with you and bringing them along as well.You know, the grand scheme of things, if we lose 200 grand on what we thought was going to be profit, but there are three people who expedited their growth as project engineers who are now ready to be PMs, who've gone through that fire with you and your trust is there with them. What's the value of trust and accountability and dependability over 10 years versus one project and few profit points? So getting back to that progression, we're looking at project engineers, project managers.soft skills, ability to raise more project engineers into those PM roles and backfill yourself, learning how to communicate with the owners and the GCs are asking for you to be the PM on their hardest and their biggest projects and working with you, getting through those hard moments. Those soft skills will push people forward. Now, in that project management stint, I've seen people short term, five years get promoted to a senior PM role. Again, every company is different, but meet Patel's you're looking at five.Oftentimes it'll take 10 years though. The key factor in those five year guys over a 10 year in the project management scope into getting to that next level is how you deal with adversity. I cannot stress that enough. Things will always go wrong on problems. There are things outside of our control. How do you deal with your team? How do you deal with your clients? How do you deal with ownership? The ability to communicate tough messages in a way that will invoke a response that's positive.That's the singular thing that really propels people into that senior project management role. You're looking at year 10 to year 15 in your career. And then from there, it's opportunity and the biggest word, timing, before actually getting into the C-Suite. Because in that C-Suite area, year 15, year 20 into your career, there's one president per company sometimes. They're just not always out there. So timing's a big portion of that.And with those soft skills that you're developing, the reference checks that we as recruiters, as the presidents of companies all throughout the nation, we all, especially cast in place concrete stuff. It is a small market, you know, lots of work going on, but you know, us at Baker, your Lithgos, your Seco's, Largo or Ryan. I'm just listening to the top people on ENR that are out there doing these big projects. We all know each other. We've all talked to each other, especially like myself, who's been in the industry and a few others who've been around five, six, seven, eight, 10 years.We're very aware of each other's names and can communicate, hey, we saw this person work with you three years ago. They've made two moves since then. Was there an issue you saw or is this a circumstance? There's a communication and those things, what you do behind the scenes will catch up to you when you're being regarded for a C-suite position.Seth Tandett (13:40)Yeah, it's a small, small world.Patrick (13:44)Small world.Seth Tandett (13:47)Yeah, it's a, mean, construction itself is a small world, but yeah, when you get it, you know, you, you, uh, niche it down to just concrete construction. There's, there's not a whole lot of us out there. And I think that's, uh, just again, a tangent, but when we're talking to folks that are coming out of college or they're in college and they've been in turning on, uh, or with GCs and they've done some, you know, especiallyspecialist trade, internships as well, you know, like concrete construction. that's what I've told people when they want to listen to me is why you pick concrete construction is cause there's your, we're a very small pool compared to the overall, construction industry. So the, think, you know, like you were saying, if you're one of those top folks, you know, top 1%, that are able to take that career direct.Patrick (14:26)youSeth Tandett (14:46)trajectory, that's a big word for me, trajectory, you know, and you're shortening down those times that you shared with us, you know, if it's, you know, from a field engineer, to PM, if, if that five year period, you, you're able to shrink that down to two years. Well, and you, and you do that in concrete construction. I mean, you're going to, you're going to stand out cause that pool is much smaller than it is in the general contracting world. There's a lot more.of those folks versus a concrete contractor. yeah.Patrick (15:19)Couldn't agree with you more, could not agree with you more. So onthat growth too Seth, if you don't mind me going, like kind of continuing that train of thought, when we're talking about those positions and growing into that role, sometimes it's provided at a singular place where you can be a one company man for 20 years and work your way in. There's other times where I call it, well term that I learned at Kimmel, strategic career opportunities. Like when is the right...time to really leverage where you're at to make a move. Big thing that I always sit on as a third party recruiter before coming over to Baker was have you talked to your current company about this? Because if you're a top level person and you're looking to move your career moving forward, I think most of our bosses would appreciate that you want more for your career and would love to be put in a position to do that. Often like I probably sit up 60 % of the time when I was recruiting and I asked, Hey, have you talked to your boss about creating a long-term plan for you? The answer was no.And a lot of those times, those bosses did put positions in place for them to do that. You know, as a recruiter, you'd think that my job is to always bring people onto the team or to the client that I'm working with. But often, and what I try to put my heart into this is helping individuals get to where they want to be. If it happens to align with where I'm at, that's awesome. But if it's not, hey, at least can I help you move your career forward? Have you talked to your boss that you're a project manager? Let's say you've been doing it seven years. Last two projects, you know, under budget, on time, like you're doing great.Have you talked about being a senior project manager in leadership? Has he told you the reasons why he hasn't done that? And oftentimes it's just a lack of communication and creating a better picture and a plan and people get to where they want to be. Just creating the plan in and of itself. So that's where I wanted to share too, if the companies that you're working with or that you're currently at isn't creating a plan for you and can't show you the steps in order to get to where you want to be, that's a flag. Color it what you want it to be.But if they're not showing you their long-term plan, are you a stopgap? Are you just another number on the spreadsheet? Like what is the value that you bring to the company? What is your long-term value? You know, I'll speak to us here at Baker real quickly for all of our people. You know, we've invested time and money to learn and be able to track someone from a field project engineer, which is our entry level role to a project engineer, senior project engineer, all the way through the steps to becoming a VP.and the core competencies, characteristics, and skills needed along with the soft skills to show them what the next step is. And also, again, tuning our own horn here, our team does a great job of helping communicate where our individuals are at so they know what's next to be, what's the next step and what they need to get there. And that's a big thing for our listeners today. If they're at a company that's not showing them the pathway to where they want to be, maybe you want to talk to somebody or talk to others aboutgetting in with a company long-term that can develop those skills and that value. Because skills and value isn't dollar signs on a spreadsheet and money coming in. Again, we'll stress the importance of that. But when we're looking at true executive level people, it is the soft skills of how do you communicate? Who have you developed? What does the marketplace say about you when we call your past firms? Would they take you back tomorrow if they had the shot? Or would they say stay away from that person? And so,during those strategic moves, if you're going to leave your current company, make sure that you're learning a skill, a value. You're not just chasing a dollar bill. If you're moving closer to home, getting a little bit more money, I don't hold it against you, but a strategic career move is moving into a position to learn a value that increases your value to both the company that you work for and the workforce as a whole. So if that makes sense, because I know I went on a little bit of tangent.Right there, but make sure that the career steps the truth to treat your career moves puts you in a position to learn a skill that your current company is not showing you the path that they're going to teach to youSeth Tandett (19:09)Yeah, no, think that what I really liked out of what you said was when people reach out to you about a job with Baker, you asked them, to, know, have you had this conversation with your current employer? I think that's, that's critical because maybe you think it's all coming from, you know, your supervisor or whoever you work for is that's what's holding you back. But going back to them and saying, Hey, I need some feedback.Why am I not being, pushed, you know, up through the company and maybe they'll point out some, you know, some spots that you need to work on before you reach out to another company because they're gonna, they're gonna find those weak spots. eventually you might get through and you might get hired, but eventually those weak spots will come out and you don't want to make a move, without knowing what those are.Patrick (20:07)Agreed. And, know, as a recruiter, one of the things I've seen people do since COVID was chase opportunities for dollars and for multiple other reasons. But that skill that you had mentioned that if they had gone to their leadership and said, hey, what's pulling me back? Maybe it's a very simple skill that they could have corrected and their value would have increased. But they didn't learn that. So they go to different companies and that deficiency or lack of skill there, better to say, comes out.It becomes friction with the new company where at the previous company had built up time equity with them and they appreciated that and they would have given you time to work on it. But the new firm, the expectation is higher and their tolerance is lower. So that's where, again, I stress like, Hey, you know, if you're going to make a move, make sure it's for the right reasons. Have you given the place that you're leaving ample opportunity for them to give you the best shot to continue your career? $5,000, $10,000 more a year, especially with the way taxes are now.Seth Tandett (20:49)Mm-hmm.Patrick (21:05)That's not worth chasing if your company's willing to invest time into you because your long-term value as a project manager superintendent is your ability to be forged in the fire. And if someone's going to give you longer time to be in there without pulling the reins and chucking you to the side, that means more. like again, those presidents, those high level guys, they'd stay at places longer than other people somewhere, you know, seven to 12 years, butIt's because they were in the fire and they were gaining a certain sharpness to them that when it came time to be an executive or have that conversation, they could talk about the specific experiences where they overcame adversity rather than just being the ones who hop ship and the adversity and the issue that caused it in the first place was brought out again. And then you're looking at someone who's just taking two year jumps in their career, not showing the stability, but it's really them running from their deficiency. Another tangent. So thanks for letting me share that.Seth Tandett (21:55)Yeah.Yeah, no, that's real, real insightful. Yeah, it's, it's interesting to hear from your side of things versus, you know, I've, I've never done what you've done. I've been in operations and now I'm in business development. So I've never, never, I've been, I guess we were all asked to help, help you assist you, be recruiters, you know, to attract talent.But your insight that you're sharing is, I'm sure it's going to be helpful. What other things have you seen that maybe kept people back from getting to that C-suite level?Patrick (22:48)Accountability and dependability. That's the biggest thing. If the man in the mirror, if we cannot look in the mirror and accept what others are sharing with us as our deficiencies, if it's coming from above and be willing to address it. mean, there are certain things as individuals that we may think we are excellent on, but others think it's a major weakness. I can give a personal example for many years. I've been able to tailor this. My energy. I was a high energy guy in my 20s where people loved that, but an overwhelming amount of it.could be off putting. I'm trying to tailor it back here for your podcast too. Yeah, I know, right? So, you sometimes it's just being able look in the mirror and sometimes it's not even a weakness or deficiency that they're asking us to do something. Maybe there's a skill that we haven't unearthed yet about ourselves. That by doing something that we're asked to do that we haven't typically done, we're going to learn something because there's a bigger picture to what we're going be able to step into.Seth Tandett (23:19)No, are you, are you serious? When, when, when think of that, Patrick.Patrick (23:46)So again, lot of these presidents, again, we're talking about just the project management vein, have talked about times where they had step in to be a superintendent on a project, or they had an estimator quit right before a big bin, how to go in there and pull an all-nighter. Being in the field and being diverse in your skills and being willing to do whatever it takes, that's a really big part. Whatever it takes, if you're gonna be the point man and you're gonna be the executive of the whole group, that means if the whole ship goes down, you're going down with it and you're the one who's gonna try to save it till the last sail goes underwater.You know, that's what a true leader is. Someone that we can look up to who's accountable to their actions, dependable when they say, I'm going to do it. You know, good as gold. Accountability, dependability, two great qualities that time to time again, you see in a president and high level operations guys, C-suite candidates. And you can only do that, speaking on the previous point, by spending time at a place and investing, both letting them invest into you as an individual, showing that you've mastered what they shared with that.Seth Tandett (24:34)Yeah.Patrick (24:44)and then creating a pathway and a legacy of other people who you've now invested that skill into. Now, not everyone's going to stay at a certain company, but if your legacy is, you know, Seth came in and he grew an amazing business development unit. There's like five people that he grew and you know, two went to other companies who are now VPs, but our three guys here, you know, those stories mean more in the C-Suites than he just ran a great project. That development that we got back to at the beginning part to backfilling yourself if you're going to continue moving forward, the soft skills.Seth Tandett (25:14)Yeah. you hit on a point and we, didn't really, say we were going to talk about it, but those folks that got into that, you know, the president role or seat, you know, C-suite level role, you mentioned, the PM path. If, if there are folks, that are early in their career and they're trying to decide if they're going to go to that PM path or that superintendent path.I mean, have you seen someone go the superintendent path and get to that level? Because I think a lot of people think that they have to go to that PM path to get to that level because they're like, hey, that PM is more associated with the office and the superintendents in the field. And they forget about the guy in the field, which we don't. mean, those guys are critical. They're the ones that do the work.So can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah.Patrick (26:12)Yeah, absolutely.Project superintendents estimator, as I have seen people from all three in project managers, well, all three of those channels come president. Again, master the work that you do. So whatever you're going to be out in the field and the office or estimating, be the best, like be the best you can be. Let's you know, we talked about the ability to become a president. It is with the baseline. Let me go and say this. Go out there and be great at what you do.You know, that doesn't mean you have to be number one of all times, but be accountable and dependable about for-parting you on a project. We know what to expect. Variants happen, but we know how we're going to handle the bad ones and we'll cheer you on for the good ones. So if we're coming up through those two channels, it's still the same point stuff. And I love saying this. It's your ability to develop. If you're an estimator, you become a senior estimator. You develop two or three estimators below you who are now backfilling the job that you're doing.and then you become a chief estimator and then you raise two or three of those guys as well to be your senior estimators and then they're leading their estimators. You're creating this pyramid where you're moving up because you're able to train people to come in below you. You can take on more work because you can pass it along at a higher level. So same with being a superintendent, train your area supers or your assistant supers. If you're a senior super, develop the superintendents that you have. Your general super, make sure all your seniors are online. And if there's any positions likedirector of field operations, construction manager, whatever the title may be above a general super, understand how to manage the supers, their next layer, and then teach them to manage the other layers. Because that presidential executive role is the ability to manage multiple layers of the organization and your influence where you're accountable and dependable and the people that you work with you are accountable and dependable. So that's the stream that you find all the way down from the top to the bottom of accountability.Seth Tandett (28:03)Yeah. Yeah.Patrick (28:04)So, weproject management, superintendent, project managers are the easiest to talk about. You see it the most often. There heck, even at Baker, there are guys who were general superintendents of ours who are now in operations. We both know one of those. I made a placement in Florida many years ago. He was a general superintendent. Now he's the director of a group himself. It is at the estimator as well. I can think of off the top of my head.Absolutely, there's other channels to be able to get into those C-suites, but it's the ability to influence others, to develop others, and be an influence outside of really just your own realm. Because if you're going to be an estimator, make sure the numbers are great and the PMs love working with you because the numbers are aligning all the time. If you're going to go more through the superintendent path, man, be the one that all those top project managers request to be on your projects. Be the person that people want to work with so that way they can bring along their people.so you can influence them. Because if you're the only one making influence and there's no one else, you're going to be drained over time. But in a good structured organization, you're going to have people influencing from the PM path, from the superintendent path, from the estimating path, and they're going to overlap. And you want to partner up with people who you have two great influencers. Well, you know, the guys who are in the field who are under the superintendent with the great PMs on the path and they're rubbing shoulders with them, eating lunch and asking questions, there's going be an overlap. You know, you're going to learn a little bit more.And you're going to develop and then you have more connections in the industry who remember you, request you, and then you blow great projects out of the water because there's this network from different streams about development from the top to the bottom. I could go on for this about day for day. So I'll pause it right there.Seth Tandett (29:44)No, it's great. I think the over...the, the whole, the gist of it all. I'm just, I'm a simple guy, Patrick. You're, you're so good at presenting this, but to me, it's, I mean, comes down to just grow people. whatever position you're in, you just need to take the time to help people, grow in the, in their position. and so not, not just necessarily replacing you, but just helping everyone grow and.Patrick (29:57)hahahahaSeth Tandett (30:21)You cause I think you mentioned, you know, getting feedback from, from the folks that are above you, know, your, whoever your supervisor is. I think just as important is getting feedback from the folks that work for you. I mean, like no one wants to work for a guy that's only out for himself. I know, I know that I've been with Baker for six years now and I could tell you pretty quick if someone's going to last here or not. And it's,those, the folks that I know aren't going to last very long is I sit in meetings with them and I hear, I, I, me, I, me, and I'm like, this guy or gal is not going to last here because that's not how we, we see things at, at, at the company. So, um, so you need, I think what you're getting at is if you're a person that can grow other people, you will, you will excel and get to that spot. Um, pretty quick.Patrick (31:18)Absolutely. Absolutely.Seth Tandett (31:20)Yeah.but I think I don't think we would do this, this topic, much justice if we don't talk about, maybe we need to talk about what it, what it's like to be in that position. So people understand what, you know, you want it, you're asking for it, but do you know what you're asking for? Can we, can we talk a little bit about what that, what that means?Patrick (31:40)Oof.In the position of being in the C-suite position youSeth Tandett (31:47)Yeah. What's that like? Since you talked to these guys, you know what? Yeah.Patrick (31:51)It is across the board, Seth. This is agreat question. If you have the opportunity to interview for a C-suite position, do your vetting. I've heard great stories of people going into operations, fully supported staff, manpower. You have the opportunity to be a leader of men. I've also heard of positions that are C-suite where you are the fire department.And sometimes the Homeland Security, bringing the National Guard where you're just constantly putting out fires, but your title and the finances are so grand, the ability to actually do the role of managing a growing unit isn't even presented to you. I was actually speaking with someone about this very, very recently on behalf of Baker, where the candidate was telling me that the position that they were put into...was essentially just getting beaten up where they were dumped with problems. They had a C-suite title, but they had no opportunity to even develop bonds with the project management, the superintendent teams, the estimating teams, because it was just problem solving from day one. Lasted there a few years, put in his good time, fought the good fight, but ultimately it's like, need to step back to take a next step forward in my career because I'm not even able to go and tell somebody what a vice president does.because the position that I'm in isn't what a price president is allowed to do. And then, know, having been with Baker and worked often on the outside for six years with Baker, now one on the inside, we're running a few guys on our operations teams where when you're looking at that individual, staff supported, yeah, have you been throwing curve balls and big issues along the way? Absolutely, tackled them with grace. But we put them in a position where we're able to give them what they needed in order to grow.and now they're able to interview, hire, and develop a unit where we can actually develop a long-term plan around them rather than just ask them to put out fires and hold a title so that way we look better on paper, but actually to develop that business unit out. So if we're look at that C-suite position back to your original question, what does that look like? Make sure you do a good job of vetting. What it really should entail is that there's any issues in the entire organization,that can't be solved by a senior project manager or senior superintendent that you're ready to tap in. Make sure that you can be the person, again, accountability and dependability, that when the fire gets really, really hot, you've got the flame retardant suit to be able to walk in and put them on everybody else and kind of mitigate the heat while we go and tackle the issue. The top guys that I know too, I'll just say this, they are 60 hours a week plus minimum.available to their top guys, to their teams and to the units. You know, a few of the guys that I work with here at Baker, I mean, I text them at 8.30, nine o'clock at night central time. I'm getting texts back before the morning from them. So that accountability and dependability and then being structured and organized. If people are going to look up to you and follow you, if you're, if you don't have your structure together, what you're going to do, how you're going to do it. And if you were to be gone for an indefinite amount of time for some sort of life reason,people can walk in and hear it, understand, and then be able to execute the outline and the task that you have. I think that reflects a little bit about your leadership because you want to be able to lead any organization that you're leading in good hands. If life were to happen to you, you needed to exit stage left for a time. organization, accountability, dependability, and then back to that original point we talked in the very beginning, the ability to grow and develop talent under you.Because if you're going to be a president for a long time and you're doing your job at the highest level, in theory, you probably should develop two or three other people over 15 years who are president worthy. Can you keep them all? You know, that's, you know, that's a structural and organizational thing, but the ability to keep producing those levels, the people to come under you where when it is your time, you maybe you've lost three, but you develop the fourth because that's a skill that you've developed and that the skill that you've transferred to somebody else.Yeah, long winded. So accountability, dependability, structures and organized ability for somebody to come and backfill yourself quickly. And then the ability to always have the right people developed and nurtured under you. And that'll keep you in a position for a long time. Cause while I've placed a few people, Hey, have they all worked out over seven to 10 years? Not exactly. So then you look at what do those guys not have again, sometimes it's a firestorm. They can't help it. But the people who oversold themselves to me, you know, what were they sharing with us?Seth Tandett (36:06)Yeah.Patrick (36:22)And they give the common thread the inability to grow others. They were in it for the numbers They were in it to show how great they could be but hey Maybe you're a great project manager You can run a project better than anybody else But if your project engineer hates you and the supers don't want to work with you anymore And then all your tasks to lead a whole business unit, know time will kind of show you two colorsSeth Tandett (36:43)Yeah. I think that's a great spot in today's podcast. that was very insightful. I appreciate it, Patrick. if, folks want to reach out to you and learn more about, you and what you do for Baker, how should we, how should we reach out to you?Patrick (36:48)HahahaAppreciate you asking. Easiest way, I am on LinkedIn all the time. Patrick Narin, talent acquisition specialist on LinkedIn. Feel free to shoot me connections. We'd be happy to connect. Shoot me a message. I get back to everybody. I do get a lot, so I'll get back to you in time. if you're interested in Baker opportunities or something that I'll mention, just want to have a conversation about your career, what it looks like in your current position. If I can help you out in any way too.more than just being a Baker recruiter here as an asset or a resource for anybody's careers.Seth Tandett (37:35)All right. Well, Patrick, thanks for coming on the show today. And folks, until next time, let's keep it concrete.