My dad, we were driving, it's like a 12 hour drive and he was really into, he's a music history guy. And it's like, had gotten who big spider beck is, have you ever heard that name? Yeah. No one has since like 1920. He was this cornet player that was apparently a virtuoso cornet player from the 1920s or something. And he had purchased on cassette his entire chronology. And so we listened to Bix Beiderback blasting on a cornet from I think from St. Louis and we're going to Michigan was like a 10, 12 hour drive. He's like, Isn't that great? And I'm like, this is literally the worst music I've ever heard in my life. Where's DCFS than this. So, but, uh, I'll go ahead and get us started, Rob. Okay. Uh, Rob Rolvis, right? Rolvis, Rolvis, Rolvis. Okay. Rob Rolvis, president of Foreman fabricators in St. Louis, Missouri, or in the St. Louis area, St. Louis, Missouri, in the city, St. Louis, Missouri. Tell me what a Foreman fabricators is. What do you guys do? Well, we are a decorative and ornamental metal fabricator. So, we do a lot of work with stainless steel, aluminum, brass. We do some work with carbon steel as well, but most of the things are shiny and pretty. Okay, so is this, you know, we have residential, commercial, so you guys are primarily. Commercial construction primarily, but we do do work in some homes. Okay. So, I was in preparation for today, I did go to the website and was, I do love it when the websites have the gallery of what's been done and how you guys were categorizing the different projects. One of them was elegant and I clicked on it and I couldn't agree more because I recognized immediately a ceiling that you guys had done. There was, you've now told me eighth inch, the copper, shiny mirror finish at the Ritz Carlton, but I mean tell me about that project. - That is literally one of my favorite locations in this town. - Yeah, it's one of my favorite projects, too, 'cause it looks so good. We were asked by a woodworking company that was working for BSI Construction and Constructors, I believe. And that's a lineup that's worked for us off, and we work for that same wood company who works for the same general contractor, and we just all work well together. And so they asked us to bid it, which we did. And it's basically a drop ceiling, but made with copper components. And so, you know, we used aluminum pieces to kind of try to fit things up to make sure that we didn't burn through a lot of that copper, which was very expensive. And we did some test fitting and we had some scheduling troubles, which it seems like it's every job is scheduling. But in the end, there was some lights that had to be located. So the guys had to put those panels up, and then cut a circle where the light go, or pull it back down. - Yeah, where can lights go in, and then they had to take them down and put those holes in and then put them back up. And these copper panels are already lacquered. They're already clear -coated, so they couldn't scratch them up. That was Vogel heating and cooling that did the install for us, and they did a fantastic job. They did not, we didn't have to redo any panels. So they obviously showed a lot of care and concern. That amaze me. If you would have told me before that job, you're not going to have to rework any of those panels. I would not have believed that at all. Oh, it's amazing because you do look at it and there's not a scratch on that ceiling. Right. It's good. And are they, are they, are the Ritz Carlton, are they having to polish those constantly or just have a finish on it that's going to keep it pretty, pretty cleaned up? Well, it's a, it's a kitchen area, right? There's a kitchen area there. I imagine they got to clean those, which is difficult. Copper, brass, bronze, They're all beautiful metals, but to keep them looking shiny takes work. That clear coat on there will protect them, but at the same time, it's gonna wear over time. The fact that nobody's touching them helps, but it's gonna get some smoke and stuff on them, I'm sure, a little bit of residue. - Yeah. - So most time just a little soap and water will kind of keep it clean. - And so what are some of the other, in your mind when you think about your projects, what are some of the other projects here? These are the ones we're really proud of. - Well, the ones that are easiest to be proud of are the ones that people generally know best, but right around the corner from the restaurant there at the Ritz -Carlton is their cigar bar. They got a cigar room or cigar club. And we did the same pairing. Again, we worked with the Graveway Planing Mill and they gave us the bar and we had to put some metal highlights on it and stuff. And they do a great job. You know, they do a good job with their stains and the designer knew what they were doing and our metal complements those stains and that thing just pops. It really does pop. Both of those two jobs we submitted for our top job award through NOMA. NOMA is a National Ornamental and Miscellaneous Metals Association. And there are like fabricators like us, decorative ornamental, blacksmiths and we have a convention once a year and then we look at all these jobs, you can submit these and then you're judged by your peers. And both of those jobs got a gold award. And so we're just extremely proud of that. Other people can see the craftsmanship that went into them, you know, but it takes a good designer to put that stuff together too. We are not designers over at Foreman. We are more like engineers than designers, but we're not engineers either. - Well, right, you guys are, I guess you're getting plans or something like that. You are getting plans. It's been designed. It's been engineered. They say we need this to be made, and it needs to be finished by this time, plus or minus as things go. But so you guys are really about taking something that's been structurally already made and making it like really pop by adding. In general, yes. If you go look behind that cigar bar, there was a two by two bronze fabrication and that that supports itself. Not everything is on something else. Most of the sheet work is, you know, we're using sheets to do things, but we do a lot of extrusions and shapes as well. So it really kind of depends on the project. Okay. Well, let me let me back up the truck here a little bit and you've told me a little bit about your story of how you've gotten here and that, but I just line it, wind it back. how'd you get to form and pick up where you want as far as how you got to where you are, but tell me about how this all came to be. - Sure, I always start the story as I was in college, I was an engineering student, and I needed a job. And so I got this engineering magazine, I do not remember the name of the magazine, but I opened it up in the back, there was 40 companies listed, and I sent every one of them a resume. They weren't exactly, they weren't one ad. What year are we talking? This would be 1990. Okay. Yeah, 1990. And one of them called me. It was a Carl M. Block company, which eventually, and that was 1990 and '93 or so, we changed it to Forman fabricators, which is a side story. But they called me, Brian Forman called me up and says, "Yeah, we're looking for somebody." And So, you know, a couple of interviews and I started working there part -time. They hired me as an estimator and project manager. And I did not know anything about metal fabrication. I mean, I'd heard a welding who hasn't, but I did not know much about how things were done in the shop. And I learned just by going out there and doing things and making lots of mistakes. Yeah. I think the company's luckily made it through my estimating. But we got through it. - You were learning curve way. - Yeah, we got lucky. - Right. So that was basically how it got started for me. And I was an engineering student, but I had financial demands. You know, there was fun to be had on the weekends and I needed money for that. So I started working more and schooling less and grades were showing that. So I stopped school for a semester and then decided to work full time at form and fabricators. And I got my history degree at night, so it took me about seven years to finish college, so. - Yeah. - But I do have my degree. - Well, four years is, it's a recommendation, right? - I recommend my kids do it, which they did. - Which they did, so you ended up majoring in history. Is there a particular history that you find yourself enjoying more than others? Or do you like studying the Byzantine Empire, for example? - Yeah, you know, - It's kind of all over, I mean, I generally enjoy it all, like how did it get started, how does it work, you know, what was it like then? But I always find the middle ages to be fascinating. How they, I cannot imagine going back there. It'd be so uncomfortable, I think. - It would be horrible. - Yeah, exactly. - So you think it's, you find it interesting just because it's such a completely, like completely different world. - Yeah. While I'm fascinated on like the diseases or the germs and the bacteria around, how would we react to that? You don't have any money that would work. Even if you went to a place that spoke English, they would not understand you, you would not understand them or barely. Those kind of things just kind of fascinated me. And just how they got by day after day after day. 'Cause it was such an agrarian economy. And the farming, I grew up next to my grandfather's farm, so I saw him do all this farm, he was a dairy farmer. And I saw So much hard work that was I cannot imagine without all the tractors and the you know The automated equipment and stuff like that that he had well the I was recently no I'll tell you what it was. It was in February. I got really sick I got like COVID and then a flu it was just like this horrible like two -week period and Was watching you know, you just sitting in beds like you know Cameron from Ferris Bure It or just sitting there illing and got on a YouTube sort of bent about castles from the middle ages. And first of all, just the, they're amazing structures and just that evolution of the Palisade and the keep and the Palisade and stuff like that. And then they started talking about how you might get to a castle if you're attacking it. And they had literally these things, so you walk in, so you get across the drawbridge and you're beyond the part callus, the cage that comes down. And there's another one on the other end. So now you're trapped in this stone tube that has what's called murder holes above your head where they would pour basically anything they could catch on fire or arrows and they also had the slits on the side so to be cross fire of arrows and I found that to be particularly interesting and aggressive. I read something similar about how did they get the first Roman to go over a wall, right? Who wants to be the first one climbing up that ladder when they're all still up there? Yeah. And apparently they used, there was a lot of rewards like you got raised in rank, you know, the family got a Bonus at home and you know, they just basically you were it boosted your career So it was for a lot of guys. It was worth it. You know, what were the odds of success there? I don't know. They could be excessively low. I would think yeah more like you go on ahead Right out of the first seven guys, you're the one still living the other six are dead So there you go. No, I think it was that's tough duty But yeah, so it's I wouldn't want it wouldn't want it in the middle of medieval That was that was hard to live in just but they a lot of good free time And I was thinking about and not to get I mean we're starting a little bit off of fab and and fabric former fabricators, but The when I as I get older I think about how much stuff we're doing on a daily basis And we have these guys like Beethoven most heart these guys who are these great thinkers and you know composers and these other people And I'm like, You know, they didn't have a whole lot else to do. - Yeah, that's true. - They had a lot of free time. And I'm not saying I would have been one of them. I'm just saying like, well, they did, they weren't jumping from baseball practice to, you know, to work, to gotta make tater tots and, you know, whatever it is. But anyway, so you finished up with a history degree. - Yes, I did. I put up with that for 93 years. And I was already three years into my career and knew that's what I wanted to do. and it was working well, so I really didn't look back. - Okay, so you're on the, if you think of form and fabricators as you have kind of the office side and the fabrication side, you're more in the purchasing or the, is that what you said, the sourcing? - Well, I would start out as an estimator and project manager. One of the things I learned from that is new guys do not estimate anymore. You know, they gotta have some time seeing how things go, seeing how problems can arise on a project, because it's hard to guess what it's going to cost if you don't know how bad it can go. So now we, I'm not going to say nobody estimates in less than a year because some people get it, but most people they got to have, it's an arbitrary number, but I use a year and then we see where you're at before you're allowed to start pricing anything. I can speak from experience when I started in the steel industry, Just the jargon alone of how we talk about products It takes a minimum of a year to kind of know which way is up because all these specs and grades to get tossed around and It just kind of doesn't crystallize for a while Yeah, you know just something simple when you ask somebody for pipe versus tube and you actually need the other one and it could throw something out out of spec or, you know, now it doesn't fit right or the gaps are too big or something because you went with two, an inch and a half tubes that have inch and a half pipe, those kind of small things. That's what I mean by you need to have some time there. So you say, Oh, I see that. Or you've been taught that or you've been exposed to that before you start putting pricing together. So you're right. Although there's so many small things that you, once you're in the business for a long time, you make these decisions unconsciously unconsciously and immediately and it's so hard to convey that to the new guy because you don't even realize you've made ten decisions and they're like how did you decide that and you have to step back and tell them how you did it. And can be hard to unpack because you're instantly thinking of all the experience that you've had that got you to that level of expertise so you were an estimate how long were you in estimating? Well I did some estimates this Okay, so but for the most part, you know, I was an S we we we used to estimate and then run their job if we got it Okay, right. So everybody estimated ran their own jobs these days. I've got a co -worker Tim who does 99 .9 % of the estimating. He's very good at it. He's a natural with numbers So we just let him carry that ball. He's on vacation. So I ran a couple prices But you know, I I morphed to, let's call it management, it's a 12 person company. So there wasn't a lot of room to, to manage, but I became vice president in 1995. So from that point on, Brian Forman and I worked pretty much every day, we talked about the business. And that's where I started learning about running a business and some of the stuff behind the scenes as opposed to running a project. And I found it interesting. I liked it. Uh, I would not have thought it was something when I was younger when I was in grade school I would have said I want to be a scientist or something like that I didn't want to be a business person my brother was a business person he's going to go buy a pack of gum at the grocery store and then sell it at school for a profit you know piece by piece I always thought he was going to be the businessman but it turned out the kind of the opposite you know I'm the one now running a business yeah understood so excuse me so you started getting into management 95 and he's a Brian Foreman. Are you guys roughly the same age or is he? - No, he's 15 years older than me. Unfortunately, he passed away a couple of years after he retired. He's been gone for a few years now, which is a real bummer. He did not get to enjoy much as a retirement. But he's definitely a mentor. 15 years older, he was a good looking guy. He would look younger than he was, full head of hair. And people thought the same age. I looked, you know, seven, eight years older than myself and he looked younger than the south and we met in the middle. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. Good. So it sounds like an important person in your life. Absolutely. And that, that is so important to have that. It really gives us a lot of more help than we might realize in the moment. But so you have, you came to own over time, uh, Forman fabricators. So how did how did all that because that's a big jump from Okay, I'm working here and I'm an integral player and I'm considering like how did you get to a point of consideration? And what was that? There's a point which you realize you might want to do something and then there's the the process of thinking through if you want to do It and then there's a jump point. So, kind of, what did that look like? So, Brian's dad was a CPA, and when Brian's dad passed away, he didn't have life insurance, he didn't have health insurance, he didn't have any kind of will set up, and his estate was a mess. And so, Brian-- Like all probate, kind of? Yeah, it was just, it was a mess. And so, Brian took from that, that I am not going to have that happen to me, so he had a plan put in place that if something happened to him, that I would have a chance to buy the business. So it was kind of set up, and I'm like, he didn't ask me, he just told me I've got this set up. I'm like, okay, and then you start thinking about it, like, well, what would if that would happen? And you're like, do I want that? Do I not want that? And, you know, I was 25, 26 years old, and I thought, well, I can run this place with all the confidence of a young man. - A hard condition for you. - Right, And thankfully we didn't have to test any of those theories. Uh, but, uh, yeah, so I became used to it being the, the backup. Okay. And so when there was a chance, maybe someday being the starter, I was ready to step into that role. And, uh, my dad passed away in 2015 and Brian and I had been talking to many years at that point about taking over ownership and things like that. And your, your parent passing away can make you think, like, where am I going? What am I going to do? What have I done? What, you know, those kind of existential questions. Yes. And so, uh, I went and talked to Brian again and say, we've got a plan in case something happens to you. Why don't we talk about actually just setting a date. And so we shot the breeze for a little bit and he's like, yeah, I think that's good. And so we, we picked September 19th of 2019. So it's nine, 19, 19, uh, which will happen to be his birthday. So, uh, That's, that's how we set up. So we knew it was coming for four or five years or whatever that was. And that's how it came about. So the, the oddest thing to me. - That's so organized. - It was, it was pretty organized. You know, we were talking to my financial advisor and we were sitting together on one side of the table and the financial advisor was on the other and he'd ask us questions. You guys think about this and they're like, no, and then he would say some things. And I look at Brian and like, that sounds good. He's like, yeah, that sounds good. And you know, that kept happening over and over and the guy's like, this is so weird. Usually the two guys are on opposite sides of the table and arguing about things. It's like you guys have yet to disagree. I'm like, we've been talking about this stuff for many, many years. But for me, the biggest takeaway, I'd been running the company on a daily basis, like managing the company for a good four or five years before that. And I would still talk to Brian for any kind of capital purchase, but I was hiring, I was firing, I was setting salaries, I was doing everything. He hadn't hired or fired anybody in some time. And so when the switch came, I was, the day before the switch, if you would have said, do you have any idea what it's like to be a business owner? I said, yes I do, I've been running this sucker and keeping my eye on the ball and feeling the pain of the bumps and if it doesn't do well. I don't do well and all those kind of things. And then the day came and the switch happened and it didn't happen immediately. The first thing that happened was I felt like a fraud. Like, what do the guys think when I made that decision? And they didn't think anything. For them, nothing changed. I guarantee you not a one of them had any thoughts about me running anything different because I had been running it. But in the old noggin here, I wondered like, - Sensitive to it. - Yeah, what they and posture syndrome or whatever. So that took me a little while, but as that was happening, getting used to that, I realized I did not know what it was like to be an owner because no matter how good or bad of a job I did before, if it crumbled, if it fell, it was landing on Brian. It was not gonna land on me. And suddenly I realized all these notes, all these loans for that piece of equipment, for the business purchase, those are all on me. And if it crashes, it's landing on me now and I did not realize there was a whole another step on the plan from second place to first place. It was much larger than I expected. And it was larger than you expected. Did you find it to be taxing or burdensome? Did it take a while to get used to the additional, you know, forces in your life or stresses? How do you want to characterize them? I mean, was it necessarily harder. I know it was a big, it was an, perhaps an eye opener or whatever. Use the words I was going to use. It was an eye opener. I was, like I said, I would have been certain that I knew what it was like to run, to own a business. Right. And then owning that business, it just, it was an eye opener. And I do realize now, and it's, it's like anything that was so gradual, you can't say this is the day I realized, but I do realize now, I do feel a lot of stress and I worry about so many different things that I kind of worried about before but now I realized there's a big repercussion not that I can't go get another job like I used to but I'm still gonna have all these debts to pay yeah I had said to one of my daughters at one point I said if you ever told me ten years ago I was gonna be this much in debt I was that's not possible nobody's gonna loan me that much money right and here I am yeah but I was able to assume that that that the So, when you think as you go through your days, because the reason I want to drill down on this a little bit is I think there are a lot of people in the world who are either at that crossroad in one way or another, or they're sitting at a desk and being like, "I can run this joint, and I'm going to peel out of here, and I'm going to go do it," which is great. On one hand, on the other hand, I can't overstate the need for preparedness and organization. As you do that, I mean, just simple things, like just getting your company set up right, just legally speaking, what type of entity are you gonna be and getting yourself, like another place is online where you can do these sorts of things, but you're talking about foundational stuff that when it comes time to sell, or if you want to, in some way, grant or create stock options and what all these different things that in general you don't think about is on the employees side but all of a sudden become really high -friction things when you want to do things like that that you're like oh we look really kind of can't right the way the governance is set up so long way of asking what are the things that you are still thinking about over time that are like, God, I still have to make sure that's, but no, like what are you kind of the top three things that even have over time persisted as they're still on your mind? Yeah, you know, you're, you got two things you're talking about there when you say, I'm going to go do my own thing. That's a startup. And that's, that's its own trouble, right? It's got its own problems. You never have enough sales. You're not the cash flow is always a problem. I took over an existing business that I'd been involved in for almost 30 years. So it was, it was a lot, I imagine it's a lot easier than what some people go through. And I think, you know, some people are going to, I've seen, I've seen businesses for sale before or the couple is getting ready to retire and they had a key employee and they were going to sell it to him. And the last minute he backed out, I guess, boy, it's, I'm really putting a lot on the line there and like, yeah, we get that. We've been trying to tell you that. And so some people realize it. And other people think, oh, my brother's daughter, she was a little kid, she was a kindergarten or something when I bought the business. And she says, is uncle a millionaire now? My brother looked at her like, what are you talking about? She said, well, he owns a business now. And so there, I think that is a general persistent rumor out in the world that if you own a business, you're, you're automatically a millionaire. You know, we had two million sales last year. That means Rob Rawls brought home $2 million. Obviously, you know, that's not how it works, but there's a lot of people that think like that. But to answer your question a little more directly, yeah, we are C -Corp right now, we're kind of looking into getting into an S -Corp for the double taxation reasons. That's one of the things I think about, and we've got to kind of get organized on that. I think about an exit plan, You know, 56 and I'm not exactly ready to leave today, but I'd also not like to wait till the last minute. So I've got some time on that, but it's something I think about. Yeah. And I really want to we have an incentive plan in place that we hit some targets and some goals, then we give bonuses out to the guys. And over the years, we've had that, I don't know, six or seven years. We've only paid out maybe twice. You know, covid's in there. I'm not trying to make excuses if a real a real manager will make his business sing. So if I was better, then maybe we could do better, but I would love, love, love to write some big bonus checks. The people that are working with me, if it wasn't for them, I mean, they all got their own set of skills. Those guys that are out there bending and shaping and finishing that metal, that's not something everybody can do. Some people can't even be taught that. Same thing with the project managers. I mean, you take but you get one job done and you take away that deadline and you look back and there's two more to replace it. It's just a constant treadmill and the better you get the faster you run. And you know, that was me for a long time. I kind of get that. But you know, the shop guys are out there, it's 100 degrees outside, it's 100 degrees in our shop. Yes, we have a fan, yes, they're not under the direct sun, but it's hot out there. And you know, trying to work them longer hours to hit a deadline does not help. It doesn't help them and it doesn't help You know their their performance just goes down and down. They just get worn out physically worn out to that point did you? When you came to own the business after all this head Were you comfortable in the concept of managing though setting aside sort of the technical details of making sure business can Can exist and you know taxes are good like all that sort of technical stuff were you comfortable with with management when, when you, or did it just kind of change the color of it a little bit? I think I was. You know, my life experience had been, you know, I was, whatever organization I was in, I tended to be in the leadership or, you know, kind of helping making decisions in the leadership committee or something like that. So I kind of had a natural or at least some experience in making decisions and being held accountable for them. So that was not unusual. It was a little hard when I first became vice president 'cause I was so young. I have to go in the shop, I'm 25, I'm telling some 50 -year -old guy, "Hey, get a shirt a little hustling. "I mean, we really gotta get this done." - Yeah, letting the team down. - Yeah, and then they bark back at you and, you know, then it's kind of just your life experience when you, what kind of personality you have, how your parents raised you for that kind of thing. - Yeah. - You know, if you've got a vicious brother like I have, I mean, that's a part of how you learn to grow Right that no it it does all inform the way we behave and you know and some sometimes we're digging out from it And you know sometimes we're ahead of it, but so other things that that we're talking about which is You have this business and you guys do a technical work We have to be very precise in what you do, especially in finished materials, which typically can be more expensive than the structure itself and I'm interested to learn how over time you've been at the business for I'm gonna say 30 years you know what technology what types of tools have come into your life that have just made such a difference for you guys two things come to mind number one's the It used to be everything was a tape measure you would go out to a job site with a big long straight edge so you could measure the drop of a stair and just different surveying tools or something like that so you can kind of measure long distances. And now you've got so many things that can be done with a laser where one person can go out and it'll shoot different points and do the math for you, export a point cloud that you can put into your and basically redraw a wall, you know, measure 20 points on the wall and then come back and you've got that. - So you can come in and just render a room effectively? - I've seen some tools, I don't remember what they're called, like a total station, I think might be one of them, but they'll set up a big laser and they'll put some reference points up, but they'll scan that room and that head'll spin and just shoot millions and millions of points and then they'll move it and they'll do it and then it uses those reference markers so it knows where everything is. And then you can hit the button and upload it and you'll see that room on your screen. It'll kind of show up right in front of you. And then you can start drawing things to fit on there. - Is that how they render the rooms for like video games? - I do not know. - You know, instead of having to like draw it, you could just walk through a building and record it. - I don't know enough about that. - I don't either, I I don't really play. I played Super Mario Brothers still, but now and again, but that's from like '85. - Yeah, some weird or something like that's about the last thing I've done. - So you guys are specifically using these measuring devices that give you really precise-- - Yeah, we have some and some will, somebody, a company, that's what they do, is they bring that big $15 ,000 piece of equipment out and they scan everything and then they'll draw it for you and give you a drawing that you can then work with. So it depends on how far we gotta get into it. Okay, so like that ceiling at the Ritz for instance, did you have to go get that scanned or? That was not the big scanning device. That's generally something we would use if there was a lot more radiuses or you've got a real serpentine or you know depends on the more complicated it is, the more you want to want more points. Um, so on the Ritz, I don't believe so. I think that was pretty much just tape measures, but, uh, you know, we kind of built that row by row and slowly and cautiously. Yeah. The, uh, what other tools are, are digital, uh, advancements are coming into your world that you are either thinking about or you guys are on a daily basis because I, to add on to that, the sort of this this vision upwelling I think of digital is becoming more and more part of the fabrication world and other other worlds as well and what otherwise considered sort of this dodgy we don't adopt technology businesses and I I feel like that's completely untrue because Companies like yours and others that you guys my contract with I've been using technology for a very long time It's just not in the way that you know The news talks about all the time, you know, it's interesting. I run into I Mentioned moment earlier and so I know a lot of fabricators across the country and most shops Let's say 70 % shops are started by a guy who was a fabricator You know, he was working for bill he got tired away, Bill was treating him, so he started his own business. And so a lot of those guys come from the opposite end. They went into welding or fabricating 'cause they didn't want to deal with paperwork and have to answer all the paper questions. They just want to build something, right? And then you got, I always call myself in the office, I'm a being counter, right? It's up to me, I need that paperwork to prove to the guy what happened and to know what happened and to be able to reproduce it and all those things. And so there's always a, you know, a line there where I got to, we got to bridge across that and make sure, like, please clock in your job. So I know what it cost us. So the next time I can bid it properly, you know, simple things like that. And, and it's not just a hoop to make you jump through. We actually need the information. So I think the guys that came from the more from the fabricating side or can can be, there's no ever hard fashion with it. If you're going to find anybody who's going a little slow with technology, it's probably going to be that person. - Okay. - And of course, you know, somebody gets a little older, you know, then they tend to stop, you know, I might even self think, a new app for my phone, do I really have to, you know, but it's just the nature of things. AI is here, and I don't know exactly how that's going to impact me, other than how I search. I mean, but that's not that big of a deal. I don't know where that's going to go, uh, for the custom fabrication world. I mean, there's still so many things that have to be done by a person, especially on the fabrication side, the AI just can't do anything for you on that. So I think those things are all out there. Um, and it's just up to the individual because most of our companies are small. You know, the people doing things like me, I know a couple that are, you know, 10, 12 times bigger than us, they do really big jobs. They build these big spiral stairs and crazy things that just blow my mind and they're definitely tied into the technology because you don't build those four -story spiral stairs without, you know, some good math behind it. Yeah. And I guess the idea would be that you can maybe get more precise in design. Definitely. I feel that's the case. You know, when I first started, you know, we would shear a panel and if there was a hole in the center, we went out there with a hole saw or a nibbler and did that And then notch the corners on a bandsaw and we had to drill holes along the perimeter So we had seven or eight drill presses and two or three punch presses You know in a band saw and we were excited when we went from an 18 inch throat to a 36 inch throat Look how many bigger panels we can do and then here come the lasers the water jets the high definition plasmas And now you just throw one sheet on there and does all those things So now we're down to two drill presses and one punch press and, you know, just some of those smaller pieces of equipment have gone away because they're replaced by that one item, the shape cutters, which I think is probably one of the larger things that I've seen change over the 30, 35 years. I mean, is this the sort of thing where you will get design from your, from your customer that you just load directly into one of these tables and it just makes it? Yeah, sometimes it's, there's so many different things that create a digital file out there now. So some of the, maybe the Adobe products are meant for designing, but what they output is not something our machines can use. I mean, we can use it, but it'll be a straight line instead of a point at each end. It's like 10 ,000 points or a bunch of tiny little lines. And so then the piece of equipment is like, what am I doing with all these lines? And so you gotta spend a little time cleaning that up. And the radiuses will be segments instead of a nice smooth radius. - It sort of decouples things a little bit. - Yeah, it's the translation between one type of software to another. That can be a challenge, but most of the time, we can. And that's what we want to do. If we're cutting out a piece of stainless that's cladding to a piece of wood, then we want it to make sure it matches. So we want their file. We don't want to try to redraw that. - Now that makes sense. And that's to me seems like where the, at least the obvious efficiencies can be gained is that the transfer or the communication between different systems and trying to so you can as other companies are just kind of being formed because you always have the idea of a startup is being formed and they don't have any legacy technology they can just jump right in. True. So until like we have this and then for instance when I was in distribution you're talking about the older guys didn't really They're kind of over the technology like I'm gonna stick with what I have until you guys basically push me up right and we upgrade up upgraded our ERP system and There were dudes who were working there had been there for a really long time They're like I'm out right as it was it was a really complicated system But I guess ultimately better for the business. I mean, the ERPs seem to be swinging very heavily into ops. Even before, it seemed more like how are we booking our sales and getting just a work order through. But the amount of clicking that has to occur just to get-- they're like, I'm out. Yeah, I didn't see that. This is all I needed. I'm good. I'm out. No more. Right. So have you guys done things like full ERP or project management upgrades all in the way? - Yeah, you know, when I first became vice president, I took over the invoicing, the billing. And so we had a little ledger book, and then we'd go in there and like, their last PO number was one, two, three, four, so mine is one, two, three, five, and here's today's date, and this is who I'm writing it to, and maybe two or three words on what we bought, staying the steel sheet, and then we'd wait for the invoice to come in, then somebody would go enter that in that book. After the job was done, I would take that book and go find that job number and have to, on a separate piece of paper, write everything down, total up our costs, 'cause we do a lot of work that's time material, not everything's quoted. And even if it is quoted, we want to know how we did, we want to look and see our costs. So billing was so slow, we got it out once a month. - You have like the thing on your dash, right? - I couldn't do that, I didn't have those kind of skills. I just went one You know, one at a time, yeah. So anyway, I, but I would bring that work home every night. And I didn't work on it every night, but probably three nights a week, I would sit down and do some, because it was just slow and methodical. And it was just slow. And then we got that ERP system and we started billing twice a month. And now we bill every week because the costs are right there. You know, it just aggregates them so much faster for you. It gives us a structure, you know, everybody knows where to go to look for things because of the structure. - How was the ERP implementation? Was that a polarizing move or are people welcome to the additional organization? - It was not polarizing. You know, I was the champion. Brian Foreman was ambivalent, you know. He didn't carry the which way. It was one of those ones I talked him into. And whenever I to do something like that, I have to use it, give him some numbers. Like, I think it's going to save us this and it's going to cost us that. It's one of the things that he taught me. Uh, you didn't go by your gut, show me some numbers, your numbers, your estimates might be wrong, your guesses might be wrong, but at least you came from some sort of factual basis. Uh, and then the other guys that were working there, um, were a little younger than me and they were, yeah, sure, good. We're good with it. They had no problems. So it wasn't too big of a problem. I really don't remember how the shop guys, uh, took to a, but at the start they But at the start, they wrote their hours on a different piece of paper, and we manually inputted them. Now we have apps that they clock in on their phone, and it kind of automatically does that. But that's been a long time now. That was '96, I think. I mean, managing the hours that way, that's probably better for everybody. Oh, absolutely. Although, I got to say, some of my cousins had some real good income by coming in and doing a week's worth of time tickets. They did that while they were in college, you know? - True. - And so they would come in once or twice a week and they'd do that and stuff envelopes and stuff like that. So I kept a few of them off the dole. - So are you guys, are you guys sending out paper invoices? - Very few now. For a while we were asking, do you want paper or email? I think we just email them all now. That's kind of morphed. - And do you checks. Oh, yes. You do. However you want to pay me, I will take it. Okay. Because that's, you know, Brightos is a technology company. You know, as much as we want to have all things as seamless and frictionless as possible, there's the reality of what is technologically possible versus what is likely to occur, which is you're likely to get checks. - Yeah. - And they're like, that's just the way we do it. And I can't tell you, you just have to believe me that it just can't be done differently. Like our whole system is set up to send checks. - Yeah, and you know, we prefer to pay by ACH and receive payment by ACH. And there's a lot more of that going slowly. But sure, that's how we, the vast majority of our bills are paid each week. But we roll with the flow, we take credit cards, you know, we don't have a way to take like a Venmo or something. I don't know if there's a business way to do that, I've not looked into that, but-- - There is a business side to Venmo. - Is there? - Yeah, I don't know what the costs associated with that are. I mean, have you guys taken credit card for a long time? That's actually, you have, okay. - I tell you, that was a small game changer too, and that we used to have so many, at the end of the year, we always had bad debt. Somebody bounced a $400 check, somebody bounced check, somebody wants an $800 check, and you get somebody comes and says, I need you to fix this thing on my van, I just need this bracket welded on the back, and we do it, and they give you a check, and good luck getting that $220, and once we start going with the credit cards, that generally won't wait. We still get a bad debt every once in a while, but unfortunately, they're a lot larger when it happens now. Yeah, having real -time payment solutions is a good thing, even if it's in larger cases where if it's in an escrow -like function where there's an intermediary pain, things like that, just knowing that that's all good to go is nice not to have to chase down bouts. - And then you got the whole, we've had it a bunch of times, we mailed to Arnold three weeks to get there, which is what, 20 miles away? So we run that, And then you get the other people, so we sent that, you know, and, you know, generally by the time you issued the second one, about a day later, the first one shows up. So it's one of those Murphy's Law things where you have to send that second check or the first one will never show. It will not show until the second one. And yeah, as per usual, the check's in the mail. Yes. Kind of thing. So we're talking about a little bit before we got started that, you know, you're probably more dynamic than just running this business with the family and so forth and other things that you like to do when you're not hanging around and doing your work. And you just talked to me about the idea of while it's not eminent, getting organized for some future retirement or what's after forming fabricators. And do you have anything in mind maybe for afterwards that you think you might find yourself doing? - Oh yeah, well, my uncle has the farm that grandpa had. And so I enjoy going over there. I'm not a farmer per se, but there's always something to do over there, something to build, something to fix, something to break. You know, there's a tree that fell down across a field road and that's gotta be cleaned up. And it's just generally manual labor that gives you time to think. So yeah, I can see myself spending a lot more time over there. - Yeah, things to break. - And some travel too. - That's well said. - You know, my wife and I do like to travel. We're not world travelers. Well, we just went to Europe recently, which was a lot of fun. But we haven't done a lot of traveling to this point, but I think I can see us taking a little more, you know, short trips, long weekends, that kind of a thing. - Europe, where'd you go? - We went to a Rhine River cruise. This is kind of how it started. Our daughter was studying abroad in Switzerland. in Switzerland, they're like, okay, we're gonna go see her. Well, you know, we could start up here at Amsterdam and slide down to her. And so that was kind of the core of it, but our families are both from Northwest Germany. So we fly into Amsterdam, shoot on a train over to Northwest Germany, stay two days there so we can go see her family's town and my family's town, go back to Amsterdam, then the Rhine River cruise, which-- - Is that like the Viking deal? - Viking was the brand we used. And it was fantastic, It was 188 passengers, and the food was very good. And we had all these different stops, big cathedrals, just a lot of stuff to see and do. And as somebody who'd never been over there, we didn't have any specific goals, so just show us whatever. - Let's see what you got, Germany. - Right, because there was six German towns, one Swiss town, and I think one Dutch town. So the windmills were you know, there was just a lot of different things to like. And then we went down to Switzerland, took the train around from Basel down to Geneva, and it's been a long week with my daughter. And so it was a lot of fun. It was a long two weeks. I was ready to be traveling. I wasn't ready to be back at work, but I was ready to be done traveling. No, I understand. You maybe needed a break when you got back type of thing. Would you do it again? Absolutely. Getting there is a pain, you know, you know, the big long flight and everything, but we had pretty good seats on the plane, so it wasn't so bad. - Where'd you guys fly in? - We went to Washington, Dallas, and then over to Amsterdam. - Okay, over to Amsterdam. - And then one way back was Geneva, back to Dallas. - So what was your favorite town that you went to? In Germany, you said your family's from there. Are you, did you actually go to the town where you guys are? - Yes, it was interesting because I asked the people, my, the Rolvis family was, Grandpa Rolfus came from Lengarick. And so I was in communication with the people at the church there, the Catholic church. - Leading up to this. - Leading up to it. And I said, is there anybody there that could show us around, show us anything? And I'm like, ah, we really don't do that. So, okay, well, at least thank you for responding. And a few days later, I get an email from a guy who says, hey, I was talking to the ladies at the parish, I'll show you And so this fellow fellow met us there in Langerick and he showed us the church. He had the keys. He showed us the, uh, how old was this guy? Um, really sixties, mid sixties. Okay. He was slight. He's just retired, um, speaks English or spoken English very well. Okay. I mean, he definitely had an accent, but I'm, I had no problems understanding anything he said. And, uh, but he got the keys to the Lutheran church, which used to be the Catholic church and it's probably the one my great, great grandfather was, was baptized in. He had grown up just like across the street. So, you know, he showed us all that. And then what he blew me away with is he took us in this records room. And he says, you see this, it shows the farm. This is at the church. This is at in Lengarick. Okay. And it looks like a scene out of a Disney movie. I mean, it's, the streets are pristine, little brick buildings. I'm sure it did not look like that in 1860. Well, they probably stopped the place up when you were coming. Yeah, maybe, you know, I'm taking credit for that now. But this guy said, you see this name here. It shows the name of the person who owned the farm before him and the person before that, and then it's Ralthus. So we think we went to the farm where my grandfather was from. Also does not look like I'm sure it did in 1860. It also looked beautiful. They had horses and stuff like that. Uh, so I may have actually seen the actual farm, you You know the ground where grandpa came from so that was very interesting. That's really cool. Yeah, and where it's so that the town is Is been built up over time, but that's still pretty it's still pretty small. It's just it's so nice and clean It's just it's I don't know how to describe it. I wish I had a picture with me You know just everything is clean and neat and organized and then I don't know, I just, I would, we would drive through those little towns and yeah, exactly. If it looked like this, I can see why they wouldn't. But I don't think, I think it was probably pretty run down, you know, when they left. - Yeah, it was probably very much farm country perhaps and maybe the town was maybe not there at all or? - Well, this was in Northwest Germany and a part called Emzland and it did not have much of the war hit it. There's not a whole lot of industry up there or anything like that. It's mostly farming kind of community. - And you guys didn't go like towards Berlin or Munich? - We did not get into the heart of it. We were just basically on that southern southwest edge because of the river tour. But if we went back, maybe we would try some of those other ones. But we'd been talking since we were dating. We'd like to go to Germany sometime. And our families, those towns are like 15 miles apart. So her family is from Germany as well. Yes, yes. So we went and visited, you know, we stayed in a place in between and rented a car and went both places. So who had the better town? Oh, I did by far. Okay, I just want to be clear about that that you want. I'm on record. Yeah, that you won. Switzerland. How was Switzerland? It was great. I mean, we were only in, Well, we took the train from Basel to Geneva, but Geneva itself was also a nice, clean place. Everybody spoke English. My daughter was trying to get her French going, and then as soon as they could hear that she was not a French speaker, they'd click, click right over to English. And she understood that. She's like, you know, you're in a restaurant, the waitress is trying to wait on 42 tables. She doesn't have time to give me French lessons. But we were at dinner the one night and the Let her fight her way through and then corrected her and she was so pleased that she got a chance to use some of her French But yeah, even as an English speaker, we got around just fine. Yeah, I went to Germany I actually started in Amsterdam and we drove we were driving this is a long time ago It's probably started by 27 years ago My older brother we went there and we started in Amsterdam and sort of, you know, tick -tacked down Germany, got down to the French, I guess, Riviera, maybe. Anyway, we made our way down. And it was, like, his third time that he'd been there. So he kind of got in that, I'm just going to go over there and be like an idiot, kind of trip out, trips out of him. And this was the most scheduled trip I've ever been on in my life. I was like, "Where have we just got here?" He's like, "Nope, we got to go to the museum in the next town." And it was a fabulous trip, but I'd like to go back and maybe hang in one town for a little bit longer. That was kind of nice, and that we didn't know enough to know what we wanted to do. So the River Cruise has an included excursion every place, and you could opt out of that and pay for another one, or you could go on your own if you wanted. I think if we went back, we'd probably check out where where we're going and then decide, we're gonna strike out on our own on this. But we did a lot of the excursions that the Viking gave us and they were all good. Some of the tour guides, they were very charismatic, you know, they had these ways of saying things 'cause they weren't native English speakers, but they were easy to understand. Like the one guy in Strasbourg, he's like, we're gonna go over here and then we're gonna go over here. Is it okay? And he would always say that, is it that is it okay? Yeah, and just the way he said it was fun. Yeah, and they were all very humorous and obviously they're in that business because, you know, they're likable. So we enjoyed all those guides too. It was the whole experience was fun. If you're into that thing, if you're a homebody, you maybe wouldn't like it. But for us, it was very fun. We would love to do it again. Yeah, I think it really is dependent on the way that you do it. I don't mean like going to the Ritz Carlton versus, you know, doing the doing, going to like the hostile kind of route and staying that way. But it's, it's, it is sort of the more of the mode where some people seem to do it and they love doing the Viking sort of, I'm in a different place every day or two or it, or people just like plunking down in the place and really kind of, because they aren't maybe love the travel part. They want to get there and just sort of sit and soak it in. as a younger person, I was more of the, I'm here, I got to see everything. I can't go home until I see everything. I might have to stay up a couple more hours tonight, but we're going to see everything. And my wife is not that way. And so going on vacations with her, sometimes she's like, we're just going to chill here for a little bit. I've kind of, I'm still, I still like to go see things as does she, but I've learned it's okay to soak it in. Making your way over. Yeah. Yeah. You're getting to the point where like, actually, I just want to sit, I don't really give a shit where it is. Especially when it's warm and pleasant, yeah. I just want to sit. Well, what I would like to do is kind of pull this together and ask for people who are listening, because I can't overstate how badly they need to go look at what you guys have done, especially if you are in St. Louis. You will recognize. Oh, yes. Like 90 % of what you have on your, Like you've walked by it or you've eaten there or you've held the railing and so what what is your website? How'd it go find you guys? Well, we're formandfabricators .com. Excuse me formandfab .com. That's F -O -R -E -M -A -N -F -A -B And we do have a section on our website called landmarks of st. Louis So if you check that out, you're like, oh, yeah, I have seen that so the airport Enterprise Center if you've seen a hockey game, you've been down to the MLS game. You know, those are some of the ones that pop into my head right away. There's different places you've driven by and you've seen some of our stuff. There's other places. We'll do some bent sheet metal for our McDonald's, you know, say in Quincy, Illinois, and then I'm at that at Quincy and I'm like, where is our stuff in here? I know we did something for that. So some of the stuff's not always easy to see, but some of the bigger Good to go, but if it can't be seen is still the most important part Yeah, of course, right, of course if we put it in there if you put it in there It's a critical piece So I want to thank you for coming in today I've been really enjoyed learning about the different parts about form and fabricators and you know traveling and all the different stuff That you like to do that makes ultimately our lives work. Yeah makes it interesting all of that. So thank you. It's been fun Yep, I can meet Yeah, you do