Jack Gorzko, CSC, Can -Am Steel. Yes, that's good. Thanks for coming in today. Hey, thanks for having me here. Join us on the Irregardless podcast. And tell me, Jack, what is CSC, Can -Am Steel? And what do you do there? All right, so hey, Cannam Steel, or as and ourselves a CSC we are we're solely focused on joist joist gutter and metal deck industry in the u .s so hey we have seven manufacturing plants we do projects across the nation you know and like i said hey i mean we focus just on the joist just on the metal deck we participate roughly in about 3 ,000 projects every year, you know, we process 300 ,000 tons of steel, structural steel and coil. Hey, and we have been an independent company for last five years. So we used to be owned by a Canadian parent company, Canem. But then we were spun off about five years ago, which was a great timing for us, you know, because that's when the COVID boom happened with the warehousing industry. But yeah, so hey, as such, we focus just on joist deck. So the business model is pretty simple. And my role at CSC is I'm the engineering director. So, hey, I lead hundred -plus person team of drafters and engineers. And pretty much my role is about, hey, it's a combination of, you know, strategic planning, strategic resource planning with day -to -day problem solving. And I like to focus on essentially eliminating bottlenecks, right, to allow the team to perform their best at their best level. And, hey, I've been with the company for about three years, and, you know, it's been fun. It's been fun. You just commented on a lot there. So you are a structural, are you by, I guess, by education, a structural engineer. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay, so a couple of things that we hear get thrown around is civil engineers and structural engineers. So let me just back up a little bit. So are those one in the same? Are those two different things? It's one major in the college, but they're like separate subsets of civil engineering, right? So hey, let's say one emphasis of civil engineering is transportation engineering, you know, which is the roadway designs, you know, the bridges and whatever. Another one could be environmental. You know, another one could be just, you know, the civil, you know, planning of the, You know, you start selecting some classes that want to put you on that track. You kind of have an idea. So, hey, funny, because first when I went into civil engineering school, I just wanted to be a civil engineer, maybe focus on transportation. But then there was one class that changed my mind, which was structural analysis. And honestly, the one class that I liked so much, and it sort of came naturally to me? I'm like, hmm, okay, maybe we should, maybe we should rethink it. Maybe we should try something different. And I did. And hey, I'm not regretting that choice. So what was it that came naturally to you? The structural analysis is essentially visualizing, not visualizing, calculating how forces distributing structures, right? So if you imagine a metal frame or a building frame, you know, how the forces distribute, you know, how they find their way from the roof all the way to the foundation. And while some other kids, some other students struggled with that, for me, it was just very natural. I was able to visualize it, right? Before even, you know, putting a pencil to the paper, I was able to see, okay, how those forces will find their way to the foundation, you know, how the moments, how the axial forces will behave in the structure. So like I said, hey, that was the one thing that really swayed me towards that structural engineering. You're like looking around the room, you're like, I got all you beat. You're over there seeing a technicolor in your head. So when we talk about structural engineering, there seems like there are different approaches. When you dump out of school and you're going out into the workforce, there's, I guess, you could be a structural engineer more in the manufacturing world, or you could be more in sort of a contractor position, meaning that an EPC or somebody, a company would hire you to design and make them a bridge. Exactly. Or you could actually just be the manufacturer of, like Joyce and Dex. Sure. So tell me about that, how that all sort of lays out in the structural engineering world. Hey, so I would say the typical career path for a structural engineer is to go work for a consulting engineering company, right? And what that means is, you know, all the major companies out there, you know, the Jacobs, the AECOMs, or some smaller, you know, design engineering firms, hey, they're essentially like contractors, right? Subcontractors to the project, right? Because, hey, they designed the project, right? The product that they do, that they offer to the market is their calculations, their drawings, their specifications, right? So it's that intellectual property. This is what they sell to their customer, you know, whether it's a developer or an owner of a building or a structure. I said, I'm a consultant, by the way. They're consultants, yes. They're consultants, right? Yep. So yeah, like I said, hey, so the product that they sell is more of the intellectual product, right? The designs, the drawings, the specifications. And that's what the firm builds their customers for, right? So that's the elementary difference between consulting, engineering, and manufacturing. Because if you're an engineer in a manufacturing organization, you know, like myself, we do not sell our designs. We do not sell our drawings to the customers. That's just a mean to an end, right? Hey, we have to create our designs in order to produce our product. But essentially, our company gets paid when the raw material, the steel, the structural steel, is to turn into an actual product, which, product, which in our case is Joyce, seal Joyce and Metal Deck. So as such, hey, we don't just focus on getting the designs correct, but we're also exposed to all of the manufacturing aspects of the organization, right? Hey, we have to be mindful of the production schedules. We have to be mindful of material availability. You know, we have to, hey, we have to be really, for us to succeed as a company, we have to have that commercial mindset, you know, where at times, you know, we have to make tough calls, you know, make some tough calls, some tough decisions, you know, to make sure that the project stays on track, you know, let's say if we're having hard time getting some information from one of the subs on the project, you know, let's say sprinkler supplier or supplier. Hey, you know, we we don't want to upset our customers. You know, we've committed to the delivery. We have to make some, you know, like I said, some tough choices. At other times, you know, we have to be maybe extra accommodating to the customer changing needs, which, you know, at times are ever changing. So that's the, that's the difference, right? So hey, the pace is definitely different. As an engineer or drafter or detail in a company like ours, you know, you sort of focus on a very limited scope, but you churn, you know, being good at it means you're, you're doing it quickly, efficiently, and, you know, in a manner that's easy for us to fabricate. We were talking about this before, and I commented, you know, what you guys are doing is, you know, maybe the consulting company is the one who's building a NASCAR, an F1 car, an IndyCar. They've been brought to a project, like build us the best, this type of car. And you guys are kind of more like in NASCAR, which you have a platform that you have to absolutely master. And you're trying to think, okay, we know how to make this already, but how do we make it faster, given these constraints, right? So you have certain constraints in your manufacturing, and you're sitting there like, okay, can we remove a bolt? Can we put more wedge or whatever in to make this thing drive faster? And you guys are probably looking at your manufacturing process, like throughput capacities, you know, optimal heat or whatever for bending, things like that that without sacrifice to your product makes your operation better. Hey, that's spot on. That's great analogy. And hey, I would say that's another difference, you know, between the typical consulting engineering path and being an engineer in that manufacturing environment is because, so let's say for us, I'll use that example. We joke that we have two modes. We have a summer mode and we have a winter mode. Summer mode is when the demand is high and the customers are actually, you know, the project schedule stick. The customers are actually demanding, they're trying to make sure that we hit the dates, right? Because the construction projects are going on. At that time, you know, we're limited by the throughput of our plans, right? So at that time, it doesn't really make sense for us to be trying to shave every pound of steel out of our products, out of Joyce. You know, hey, we, at that time, we focus on efficiency both on the engineering side, you know, so that we can design and release more projects. And we also focus on the manufacturing efficiency, right, so that the shop can produce more products. But then on the flip side, there's a winter mode when the demand is not as high, right? At that time, okay, when we're not limited by that manufacturing capacity, hey, what's the best decision for the company? Well, it's maybe to spend a little bit more time, more shop labor time, you know, to produce a product, but save that material, you know, save extra few pounds of steel. Those are really different things. They are, they are. So there's a little bit of an art, you know, in engineering judgment, you know, that comes into play. But, yeah, they are drastically different things. That's interesting. So Let me wind the clock back a little bit here, which is, as you're talking before, because I'm keenly observant and perceptive. Yes, you are. I noticed that you have an accident. I wanted to know where, okay, where were you born? Where were you from? What's your backstory? All right. So my accent comes from Poland. I was born and raised in Poland, South Poland, actually, near the border with Czech Republic. Republic. That was not very far. Then I went to college in Krakow, which, hey, by far is the best city on earth. I highly recommend. It's the capital, correct? It's, it used to be. It used to be, yeah. Warsaw is the capital now. Okay. Thank you for, give me credit for what it used to be. But hey, there's a great castle. There's a, there's a, you know, hey, the kings used to live there in Krakow before they decided to move to Warsaw. Which, which castle? Is that the big, a huge white? in a green card capacity in 2004? 2004, yes. So how did you get from, I mean, you said you were what, 20 -ish? I was 22 at the time. Okay, 22, so relative, I mean, as compared to us today, relatively young. Yes. So how did all that come about? Briefly speaking, by accident. Okay. So a few things led to it. Hey, you know, I was, like I said, I was in college. I was studying civil engineering at that time. Poland was doing okay, but, you know, we were still sort of this, you know, I don't know, second class type of country in the Europe. Hey, it didn't seem like there was that many opportunities. So really a lot of people my age were thinking about leaving Poland and, you know, going west. But hey, what happened for me is that Out of total black, hey, just one day I saw an ad in a newspaper that, you know, hey, I can apply for a green card. Literally in a newspaper. Yeah. It's unbelievable. What the heck? Like, I went to the office, you know, it was some kind of travel agency. I had no idea how this stuff works, by the way. Because, hey, you know, it's literally like buying a lottery ticket, right? So, hey, the U .S. government does the lottery every you know they they accept applicants from from across the world at that year I think they had about 20 million submissions and they selected about 50 ,000 people is it literally a lottery like it is yeah there are some minimum requirements that you have to meet you know obviously they want to bring some you know certain level quality people you know right but but yeah it is a lot but once you clear those prerequisites it's it's It's a drawing? Yeah, yep. Okay. So, hey, then, like I said, didn't know much about it, forgot about it. Did you forget about it? Oh, yeah, totally. So it was actually like next summer. Hey, next summer, what did they do? Okay, I went to London, actually. I traveled to London trying to find some work, you know, summer work, you know, for vacation time, you know, trying to make some money. And, hey, like, the second day I get there, my brother calls me, he's like, hey, there's a weird letter. It came from US. It's like, hey, we open it. Did you like apply for a green card? Yeah, I think I did. All right, you won. Okay. Did you? I mean, that's a big piece of news. Like, even if you wanted to go or not go, like, that's a big decision. Hey, definitely. It was a big decision, but... What was your reaction at the time? Were you like, I got a guy another line about some white walls? Or were you pretty excited? No, no. I was like, right on. That's great. Hey, let's make it happen. So at that time, I was like really interested, like, okay, what do I need to do to actually make it happen? And then, you know, about a year ago, you know, I packed my backpack. You know, I got a thousand bucks in my pocket and I ended up coming to St. Louis. Okay, so hold on. So do you remember exactly where you were when you were talking to your brother on the phone? our journey, you know, to travel across Europe. Yeah, yes, yeah. Hey, I came back and the rest is history. So did you go back to Poland? You went back home, grabbed your stuff? No, it was a little bit more complicated than that. Hey, you have to go through the process. You have to go to the interview, to the embassy, you know, to talk, to get cleared. You know, they have to do all kinds of background checks on you. You know, they have to check your health, you know, We got to take some vaccines. So that process took about a year. And then like the next summer, I actually came here. That was 2004. That's remarkable because that's, what are you scared? You know, maybe deep inside a little bit, but honestly is like, hey, you know, I'm young. Like, what's the worst thing that can happen? I can always come back, I guess. That was my reason. He's like, hey, you know, that's the cars that I was handled. It's an opportunity. It's a lottery. I have to take advantage of that. And like you said, hey, the worst thing that could possibly happen, I'll just pack my bag and go back home and say, hey, mom, can I come back? So had you told your mom that you, or is this something you just kind of did, you went down and threw your name and did you tell anybody or you just kind of did that and then next you know there's a letter at the house you're in london they'll open it what it would did your mom have a comment uh she wasn't excited maybe she didn't believe that i would actually do follow through that's right that's probably what she thought but uh but yeah And you're like, see you? Pretty much. So how do you, so you went through all of kind of the, I guess, all the, all the, all the, well, it's the word I'm looking for, but you did all the tests and stuff. And everything got checked out. And then why St. Louis? How did you choose St. Louis? Great question. So, hey, I'll just make a comment that let's say if you live Outside of U .S., you know, there are maybe three or four cities that everybody knows. It's L .A., New York, Miami, and I guess maybe Chicago, because that's where all the movies take place. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. Hey, they didn't really want to go to New York. Some people, you know, convince me to not go to Miami or Chicago. And it just so happened that my distant cousin lived here in St. Louis. So that So that was... How distant, like, marriage by marriage by marriage? Actually, not that distance, just a cousin, but he was here. I didn't know him very well. I mean, I knew him, but, like, not super well. So, hey, you know, I... It was definitely much easier because when I landed, there was actually someone to pick me up at the airport, and I had a place to crash, you know, for the first week before I found a room. Had you met him before? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is he from Poland? Yes, yes. Okay, so it wasn't somebody who'd moved a generation before or anything like that? No, no. So he came maybe about a year before me in a similar way, actually. Unbelievable. Okay, so maybe it was this a plan to get rid of the Gorscoes? They're like, well, these Gorscoes keep winning the lottery. Probably, some kind of a glitch or something, you know. So he picked you up at Lambert, he flew in, and he met you there. Yes. And that was in 2004. 2004, yeah. Okay, so you got here and did you kind of hang at his place for, like were you on the couch for a bit? For about a week before I found a room for rent, and then, you know, he helped me buy a car, first car. Because obviously, if there's one thing about the U .S., I'd rather be without legs than without a car, right? Right, you got to get around. You got to get around, yeah. And so you, but when you showed up, did you already have an engineering degree? No, no. Did you have what was the equivalent of an undergraduate degree? Or what did you have from an educate? Because you have, well, you've taken a lot of classes in your life and you have many degrees at this point. So what did you show up with? Nothing. I mean, I felt like three years completed at that time. But that wasn't really equivalent to anything. It was not a degree. So, hey, you know, did some jobs, you know, to get myself through the college here, you know, and I got my bachelor's in civil engineering. And that's how it happened. Actually, so, hey, you know, I graduated in 2007. And I don't know if you remember, but 2007, 2008 was the beginning of something pretty bad. Yeah, the housing crisis. Yes, yeah. So pretty scary time for engineers and, you know, construction workers a lot. Yeah, it works a little slow during this years. A little slow, yeah. It was gone. Yep. So, hey, I was very fortunate. I remained employed throughout the time. That's mainly because the company that I was working for at that time as a structural engineer, as a consultant, structural engineer. lucky yeah that was because those were bad times for a lot of people in that world oh yeah hey i mean you know some of my colleagues i mean they they just started working at like you know home depot or whatever you know just anywhere you get money yeah did you go to kuwait is part of that uh i did not you did no i did not i've done some other international travels for other job sites but not to kuwait uh where So where else has the engineering taken you then? So hey, you know, consulting engineering, right? This is how I started. It was a company that was focusing on more of industrial mining type of projects, but I was always curious about stuff outside of my role, right? So hey, as a structural engineer, I would still hang out with, let's say, mechanical engineers to learn about mechanical equipment, to learn about the process. I would hang out with construction managers to understand the basics of constructions. And that really prepared me well for my next role, where I took over engineering department for a conveyor manufacturing company here in town. Just the conveyance of like things? So not just things. It was bulk material handling like rock, sand, grains. So not what you would see in a, let's say, in Amazon warehouse, you know, where your packages run on conveyors. It was the rock heavy stuff. Right. Okay. The man stuff. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Got it. And that was actually quite a quite interesting setup because it was an umbrella or under one umbrella there were three separate companies you know the design manufacturing there was an equipment dealer and also a construction company right so even though we were somewhat independently under one ownership at times we came together and we were able to provide a design -built solution to the customer and that's mainly in the mining industry, which I should be more specific. In the Midwest, there is pretty much the only mining that's happening is quarries, right, aggregates, right, limestone, sand. So for that industry or for bulk material handling, so as being in St. Louis, you know, we have the mighty Mississippi River. We do, yes. If you look at the Mississippi River, you'll see barges going up and down. Yes. There is tremendous amount of grains, of corn, soybeans that are loaded in St. Louis on the barges and they are shipped to New Orleans, right? So we've done some of those conveyors. And those are for export, ultimately? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, I believe so, yes. Okay. So we built some of those ports. Hey, one special place is in Cahokia. I don't know if you're ever on I -55, you look east, there's a big port, there's a big dome, there's a lot of conveyor, so we build that port. I will notice the next time because I do drive past that at least, I bet you three or four times here. Okay. So I'll have to take a look. So, yeah, we've done some of those ports out there, and hey, those were definitely fun projects. You know, a lot of coordination, you know, with water levels, you know, with everything else. And these are like super high capacity type of conveyors. You know, if you imagine a barge that holds maybe 2 ,000 tons, they would like to get it loaded in one hour, right? That's insanely fast. So there's a lot of trucks, a lot of trains that come. I think they have capacity maybe to unload like, you know, some 3 ,000 trucks during the day and then they're unloading trains at night so yeah i mean just the amount of stuff that they put in general in st louis on barges it's it's insane absolutely insane you know that's it's that all happens very quietly doesn't it i mean when you're not in that when you're not paying attention yeah yeah that's for sure it just it's kind of like light bulbs or something we don't think about them they're just here yeah yeah and I don't think about it too much. So you came over, you were 20, 24 years old, you got the job, you get through the housing crisis. Where did you go after that? What was the move? So after the conveyor company, about three years ago, I got the opportunity to join CSC, kind of still, right? And that was great timing for me at that time. I was picking up, you know reaching my peak at the conveyor company and they this opportunity came obviously concerned a little bit because up until that time my background all my career has been in industrial design essentially mining industrial design so i was definitely new to to the joyce and deck industry and commercial construction in general So there was a little bit of unknown there. But at the same time, going back to my experience, the role of engineers at the manufacturing company, at the conveyor company, was essentially the same as the role of engineers at CSC at Cannes Steel because we're a manufacturing company, right? Again, we're not just selling our we're selling actual product right so so some of the manufacturing concept have transferred to me yeah and then what about management had you you said you've you've got about a hundred person team it was that a new part for you or had you been managing uh sizable teams already not that sizable so hey my team at the conveyor company was much smaller considerably much smaller um so So that was a that was the challenge part of the challenge of the opportunities So all of the sudden totally different size how'd you how'd you approach that? Because I remember my first kind of foray into management is it could be a little uncomfortable you know it could be but at the same time I'm very fortunate because the direct reports or people that report to me directly they're they're crazy good i mean they have a lot of experience they work well together that makes a lot of difference you know because if if you're trying to manage some some crises you know some some personalities that that would make it a lot more difficult but hey my group is genuinely self -motivated. They like what they're doing. They're very good at what they're doing. So that definitely makes it a lot easier on my end. Let me ask you this. So as you're managing, I mean, you have direct reports that, but your general overall size group is, you know, 100 or so people. How do you think about management? When you think about the concept of management, what is sort of your paradigm? Like, this is how I believe management should be occurring, like your, I guess, your style or what is your sort of criteria, not criteria, but how do you think about this? Well, like, let me give you an example. On different levels. Okay, go ahead. I was just to say, you know, there's kind of the hard and fast look, you either have the people or the process, one of them, one of them is the problem. And then so if it's the process, you look at the process people with people and find out where the problem exists and you can either at that point if you figure out as people you're like okay is it time to help grow with that person into what i know they can be or is it like well bottom line is you're not getting done when you'd get done and i'm just going to find someone who can't so there are different ways to approach different things and some are more autocratic versus permissive Okay, so I would say one thing. Hey, the job market for engineers, drafters, detailers have been really good in the last several years. So we've had challenge growing the team. And not only there was a challenge of finding the right people to join the team, to grow the team, which definitely there was a need for that. It takes years to develop someone into a very productive, you know, resource for us. It's not like in consulting engineering company, again, you know, hey, if you know how to design buildings, whether you work for company A or company B or company C, you pretty much, hey, as you switch jobs, you're productive from day one. For us, it's anybody can design a trust, any structural engineer can design a trust, but to do it right, that takes time in practice, that takes some personality. So, so, you know, those little nuances that takes, that's what takes time to developing those people. So that was one of the challenge. Hey, you know, we've been growing the team because as the market exploded, you know, during the COVID era, the warehouse boom, I mean, the job, jobs were plentiful. We've had a lot of projects, but those were typically very easy projects for us from the engineering standpoint, you know, where then, you know, in 2002, the markets, you know, the warehousing has definitely cooled off. We've started getting into more complex work. So, hey, that's when we needed more resources. So hiring and building the teams that was definitely part of the challenge that I've tried to tackle. And then, hey, to address your question about the management style, hey, I would say I'm definitely on the permissive side. Hey, let's say that one of the management, not necessarily management concepts, but one idea that I really like is, I'm sure you might have heard about it, is the event plus response equals outcome. The E plus R equals all, right? So, hey, You know, we don't control the events, right? Events, what's happening a lot of times is outside of our control. But what we control is how we respond to the event, right? So let's say if something happens, you know, whether it's a market condition, you know, equipment breakdown or if somebody just makes a mistake. Okay, it has been happening, it is happening, it will be happening. But how we can really make a difference as managers or as business leaders is how we respond to those situations you know and that will dictate the outcome so so that is that is definitely an idea that that's very close to my heart whether it's you know whether it's professionally or you know stuff at home it's how you respond to the to the situation you know because hey things outside of your control they already happened you know it's how you respond to them it's really what will dictate the outcome and that hey that that that really ties i think to uh stoicism yes the stoics you know some two thousand years ago they they they pretty much you know said the same thing you know it's like hey you know focus on what's within your control yes and let go of what you cannot control right that that's the recipe for you know happier life not necessarily happy but at least help your life. Yeah, I put an emphasis on the evaluation of what can be controlled and what cannot as much as what you should let go of. I mean, I would imagine that if there was a really highly scrutinized evaluation of what can be controlled and what cannot, it would be amazing how small the control list would You know, be like, I come with this one thing that I can actually control. Yeah. Which is just how I respond to things. Sure, sure. You know, so I fully agree with that. And the problem being that, you know, most people subscribe to perhaps the same thing, but slight variations of the same things. And, you know, that can be the rub sometimes is that, yeah, we agree on conceptually the same thing, but, you know, we are all practitioners and maybe practicing in a slightly different way. Sure. Hey, so here's another idea. Where was it? I think start with why by Simon Sinek. I don't know if you read that book. No. I know who he is. So, hey, when I was reading that book, I got the light bulb. It's the idea that he was explaining is, hey, how we explain things is, it really comes down to how our brains are wired, right? So, hey, you know, the planning, the ideas that really comes out of our limbic brain, I believe. The limbic system, I believe. The limbic system, yes. Right, but that limbic system is not responsible for language, right? There's, I believe, uh, gosh. Fornicies, I'm forgetting the term. Yeah, anyway. Not a biologist by any means, but, but anyway. So there are like two different parts of your brain, right, that are responsible for different things. And I would say that engineers typically have the limbic brain more developed. And that's why... Is this kind of the left brain, right brain kind of thing? A little bit like this, yeah. Yeah. Where, you know, hey, I can have an idea. I can have a plan. And it makes perfect sense in my head. But then all of a sudden I have troubles explaining it to everyone, explaining it in a way that, you know, that's understandable, right? So when I was reading that, we were like, oh, my God, this is actually what's happening to me. It's like, okay, so how can I overcome that. So you thought that you realized maybe that what's in here, you're just not getting it out of your mouth or not writing it or whatever correctly. Exactly. Or effectively. Yeah. So you had the realization? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's a big deal. So how, what'd you do? Okay. So the way for me to overcome that is writing. Essentially, you know, just just writing my thoughts down, you know that slows down my thought my thinking process you know I think more clearly and once once you write once I write something down it's like okay then I can take a step back and see okay does it really make sense so that's that's one of the ways that you know I've approached it just trying to make sure that you know hey I can control my thoughts my ideas and and this wasn't you're speaking to more of how you're wired Versus like how great's your English, right? You're not talking about that. You're talking about how you think. Exactly, yes. Okay. Because you probably spoke English well before you got here. If you were in London. I wouldn't say so, but, yeah, I stopped worrying about my English, my pronunciation, my grandma a long time ago. At first, you know, there was definitely. So this is all about how you're wired. Yeah. Okay. So you found that just kind of rehearsing your thinking. Yep, yep. It was a really good way for you to do that. Yep, for sure. Can you think of somebody who wouldn't benefit from that? I don't think that anybody, that everybody necessarily needs that. I would say, you know, that maybe the engineering -minded people, you know, hey, there's a reason why a lot of engineers are perceived to not be great communicators, you know, they kind of live in their ward. So I think this is where it's real helpful, but then... Well, this is interesting. So what is an engineer's mind? So what I mean is what I think comes to the mind of a lot of people is just mathematics. Okay. Where an engineer, oh, they're slide rulers and, you know, number crunching for load capacities and moment, all that. So, but that's just an expression of how you're using your brain, right? That's a modality. So what is, what is the engineer's brain? I would say it's constant overthinking. It's risk aversion. Okay. Right. Hey, you, you're really risk averse. I mean, hey, if you think about it, okay, let's let's go back to the structural engineering education. Okay. You know, what they teach you at school is let's say structural steel design it's it's they teach you ways in in which structural steel can fail right so let's say you know how connection can fail how beam can fail how column can fail and as long as you prevent those modes failure modes from happening your structure is good right so we're naturally what you you know, it's, we're indoctrinated to thinking like, okay, hey, things going to fail. I have to make sure that I prevent it from happening, right? So that's the risk aversion part. And at the same time, we're well aware that at no situation in time, we have all the information that we need to make the right decision, right? So there is element of guessing. There is element of, you know, just going with your God. you got. So how do you calculate that? I mean is there is that actually calculated meaning that for given structure here here's what we can quantitatively know and there's a level of uncertainty or there's a confidence level like I think this will hold and then you're going to ask me like think like 50 % 60 % okay I would say when you're designing a new structure, the confidence level should be about 100 % and not less. No. Right. It becomes a lot more difficult, you know, let's say when you're evaluating something existing, right? At that time, you have to make some guesses. You know, hopefully you're being conservative with your assumptions. How can you walk around town? Like, everything around us has been engineered. Yeah. Yeah. You know, So you go to like the arch or you go to a baseball game and you're looking at railings and you're looking, do you notice all of that? No, not really because, hey, you know, there's a certain level of, you know, fudge factors, you know, built into it. I'll tell you what I worry about. You mean things being over -engineered for the sake of safety? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm more worried about like getting on an airplane and like thinking like, okay, that guy whenever he was designing the airplane, okay, did he, what kind of struggled did that person have? Yeah, so is there, yeah, so things that are terrestrial like railings and things like that, there's not really probably a weight issue. Yeah. That you, I mean, with an airplane, there are so many constraints about about that design. And so you get on the airplane, is there a particular part of that airplane that comes to your mind? You're like, you know enough about building airplanes to be dangerous, so you're like, you're wondering, did they get that right? Or just the whole damn thing. Just the whole damn thing. I would say just the whole thing. I would say just the whole thing, I would say, just making sure that their quality assurance process was better than in a lot of the other engineering firms. Oh, so you're like, I know enough about engineering in general to understand that there may be things on this plane that were not as scrutinized, is that I maybe would have liked. Because the design had to be completed by Friday, you know, so they completed it by Friday, but maybe it wasn't checked, you know. So are you uneasy on an airplane? No, no. I say it's somewhat jokingly but you know it's just just just just to maybe show the point like hey you know there are there are processes i'm i'm really hoping that you know that every engineer follows but at the same time it's like okay what if that so when you drive when you go on a road trip around the united states we i don't mean this in a political context i mean this just and do you feel that it's true or not true? Like you're driving under an overpass and you see the concrete's, you know, shipping off. Like there are some bridges in St. Louis. I drive over and I do like the sign of the cross before I go over that bridge because I hope it's going to hold me. And so do you feel like there is some neglect as far as some maintenance needs to be done? We hear about it a lot, so I just didn't know if you know these things. So when you drive past it, are you thinking like, I could use a little help? We do. There's definitely some neglect in terms of, you know, the infrastructure, the maintenance. But I personally do not worry about it too much. Again, I'm just coming from this thing when it's like, hey, you know, there's enough safety factors building. And I've seen this may not be the right thing to say, built in a really weird way, but somehow they hold up. So I feel like, hey, you know, there's there is definitely a lot of the safety factors built in into the structural world. So, hey, and here's a proof. I mean, things are just not falling down left and right, you know, they really don't unless like there is some kind of catastrophic event, you know, right? They really hold up. You saw that MythBusters where was they, Where that bridge broke because the natural harmonic of the bridge, like the resonance, it just made the whole thing vibrate and just crumble. Hey, I've not been involved with bridges, but in my past life at the conveyor, you know, a company. We've designed a lot of structures for vibrating equipment, you know, like crusher screens. And it's amazing because, hey, you can design your structure to be rigid, but you have a piece of equipment here but then like I don't know three stories higher all of the sudden you know your handrail might be shaking like this you know because of the harmonies and how that works so yeah and that's sometimes you don't know that till you turn it on oh you do you never know you never know some of those little things are like okay hey the structure's holding up but you know hey maybe you should weld that handrail you know to something at some rigidity because because it's just bouncing up and down. Yeah, that's a hard thing to account for. I guess they know, I mean, the libraries of harmonics is probably pretty well built out at this point and how to manage those sound waves going through materials and what can be dampeners or insulators against those waves. But you just don't want to get in a situation where you have wave construction, you know, where things start to get sort of a little out of hand. Yep. So let me pivot a little bit, which is what is the future in your mind of structural engineering and the context of computing power, specifically how artificial intelligence can help the world of structural engineering? and you also see any sort of things that you would consider threats. And I don't mean necessarily in terms of like, oh, it's going to take our jobs, which maybe you're about to say, but also as far as the quality of what it's doing. Sure. You know, I haven't spent a lot of time researching the AI, you know, on a professional level. But honestly, like, in the immediate future, I don't see that as a threat. Hey, there's definitely some low -hanging fruit as far as the usage of AI. So let's say for a company like ours, that would be help with estimation. Hey, we do roughly 3 ,000 projects every year, but we estimate about 30 ,000, right? So there's a big turn of estimates that we do pretty much every day. So we have been looking into to use AI with with help right so hey I could read the drawings the structural drawings that we receive from the customer you know create some automated bills of materials based on those drawings but but as far as the design side I don't know I right now I don't have a good vision that that it would be a threat to us you know at least not in the near future At the same time, hey, I would like to say that we are undergoing some technological, you know, changes at our company. We are developing actually brand new software. You know, hey, I know you're in a software business. Yes. We are developing brand new drafting and engineering software. So, hey, the programs that we currently have, they work very well, but they don't really talk to each other. Right. So, hey, so there's one program for drafting. There's one program for design. There's one program for detailing. As a result, there's a lot of redundancy on the drafting and engineering front because a lot of the data have to be entered. Essentially the same data have to be entered into multiple programs. But, like I said, we are in the process of developing a brand new program and that software suite will include everything, you know, from drafting through low take down, design engineering, detail engineering, and obviously, you know, it'll talk with our ERP system. So that is huge. Hey, that's very exciting stuff. It's kind of painful to go through the process. It definitely costs a lot of money. It's expensive and a lot of people don't enjoy the process. So I'm not directly involved with this. Hey, we have a separate group, but hey, it's just super exciting because, hey, once that comes to fruition, I feel like, you know, it'll be revolutionary for us. Not only it's going to make us more efficient from the drafting and engineering standpoint, you know, in terms of drafting and engineering effort, it'll also improve our customer service because, hey, we'll be able to create approval drawings sooner. We'll be able to create designs sooner. To see these companies embracing, like, what we're doing, apprisos or what you guys are doing, I think it's all progress in the right direction because there's, I don't know, there's just no way that this isn't going to continue. So companies smartly, you know, bringing on softwares that help them be the best version of themselves is a good idea. good idea. So in kind of wrapping things up, there are a couple of things. One question occurred to me, have you been back to Poland? You have? Yes. Okay. So you've been back. And then how do people find your company if they want to reach out to you and find more about what you guys do or your products? Sure. Hey, so yeah. Hey, I have, I still have family in Poland, you know, my brother, my sister, their families, you know, my mom. So I try to go there, you know, every couple years. And, hey, one thing I have to say is, in the last 20 years, Poland has seen tremendous economic growth. I mean, it's truly a success story. You know, we joined European Union in 2004, and with that we received a lot of foreign investment. So, hey, Poland has really become the manufacturing base for Europe. you know there's a lot of automotive electronics and they you know standard of living has increased greatly and at the same time i have to mention one more thing it's a very safe country right we don't have some of the personal safety concerns like you know some of the western countries you know uk friends spain so hey great great great great great place to visit you know if you're ever beautiful too far away yep Yeah. And then as far as the, hey, CSC can, I'm still definitely, hey, you know, we have a website, CSC still USA. You know, we can find out more about our company. And hey, me personally, I'm not on Twitter or X or whatever it's called nowadays, but I am somewhat active on LinkedIn. So, hey, if there are any, you know, engineering -minded people that would like to have a conversation, you know, feel free to look me up on LinkedIn and, you know, let's chat. All right, so reach out to Jack, Jack Gorzko at CSC, Canam Steel on LinkedIn. He'd like to hear from you. And Jack, thanks for coming in today. I really appreciate it. It's been fun catching up. It was a pleasure. Thank you.