Turf Talk Ep. 8 | Beyond the Surface: Talking Wells, Water & Business with Michael Brook: transcript
This automated transcript accompanies the original Turf Talk recording. Names, figures, and speaker identification may contain errors; check important details against the audio. Timestamps refer to the episode, not advertisements.
0:00Speaker A From the fields that feed America to the landscapes that keep it all growing, welcome to Turf Talk.
0:05Speaker B I'm Jennifer the Turfette
0:06Speaker A I'm Eric the Turf Teacher Jones.
0:08Speaker B Together we are the Green Industry Couple, bringing you real conversations, practical education, and first-hand experience.
0:16Speaker A And from the farm and the job site to the classroom and the biggest trade shows in the country.
0:20Speaker B So settle in and let's talk turf.
0:23Speaker A Welcome to Turf Talk. Let's get today's conversation. Let's get started. Hey everybody, this is Eric Jones, the turf teacher. I'm here with my lovely bride, the turfette, Jennifer Jones, and we have the pleasure to interview Michael Brooks with Rockwater Well and Pump Services, Inc. here at Waterpalooza 2026. And Michael just presented and he is here to be interviewed by myself and the turfette.
0:50Speaker B Welcome along,
0:53Speaker B It's nice to see you.
0:54Speaker C Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank
0:55Speaker B welcome. So tell everybody who you are, what you do and where you're from.
1:00Speaker D So I'm from South Florida. I was raised in the water well and irrigation business. Unfortunately, when you're a kid and you're coming up, you don't want anything to do with the water well and irrigation business. So I joined the Marine Corps. And then once I got out of the Marine Corps, I had some family that was in the Charlotte area and I wound up moving there and I. Went back to the water well industry and then being well versed with the irrigation I kind of implemented along my career and
1:28Speaker D so since coming up and it's it's been a it's been a coming up I'm achieved my water well contractors license my irrigation contractors license and my landscape contractors license in North Carolina and then recently we achieved our South Carolina well drillers license b-rock. Um,
1:46Speaker D so, so kind of, kind of been a long career, but a, but a fruitful one and a satisfying one and just enjoyed it.
1:54Speaker A so you grew up in the industry working
1:56Speaker A for your parents.
1:58Speaker A Oh, I know all about it, man. That's it's tough. Family business
2:03Speaker B Well, so what's something about your job that people outside of this industry don't seem to understand?
2:11Speaker D Well, so primarily I am a well contractor as opposed to an irrigation contractor. I am obviously licensed in the irrigation industry, licensed in the state of North Carolina.
2:28Speaker B That's probably a tough one. You might need a few minutes to think about that one.
2:31Speaker D I would just say that. Maybe that the customer just magically thinks water is going to appear and
2:39Speaker D they're just going to be able to frolic in it and it's going to be pristine and clean and won't require any maintenance. And I would say that's my answer to that
2:48Speaker B do you guys go and do the parking, you know, for properties? Are you part of that?
2:54Speaker A It's more of the septic side,
2:55Speaker A and everything starts. That's the end all be all is septic. However, we do do some witching. And in my personal experience, I believe that we're marking the mineral.
3:06Speaker A And typically water hangs out with the mineral and that's kind of that witching technology. And I believe it's called kismetic energy
3:14Speaker A is the witching. But as far as the PERC test goes, that's going to be the soil absorption. absorption and that's on the geotechnical side and septic.
3:23Speaker C Okay, gotcha. Well, great. So I have a cool question to ask.
3:28Speaker C Maybe this won't take too much thought. So what's one tool or piece of equipment that you absolutely refuse to work without? The one piece of tool.
3:46Speaker C A drill rig?
3:48Speaker A I'm burnout on service. I'm going with the drill rig, just a whole kit and caboodle.
3:54Speaker C So what is the drill rig for those that don't know what that is?
3:57Speaker A So that's, and again, I'm on the water well contracting side, but that's where we drill the well. We, as some other drillers would say, we penetrate the earth. A little trade joke is we don't dig wells, we drill them. It's, yeah, so
4:11Speaker A if we were actually drilling the well.
4:13Speaker D How far have you had to drill?
4:16Speaker D What's your
4:16Speaker C going to ask
4:16Speaker C that same question. Yeah.
4:17Speaker A So my deepest is 1,060 in the Charlotte area. I know of some 1,600 footers in the mountains drilled by Yadkin Well and Pump.
4:29Speaker A They specialize in a deep mountain well drilling. And then, of course, the injection wells east. east um they can be very deep and that that's usually for recharge where they're taking um contaminated water and they're sending it back down into the into the depths and what that does is is that fresh water it holds back that salt water intrusion that's that's a thing but those wells can be extremely deep i'm guessing here please don't quote me but 10 12 000 feet I'd
4:58Speaker D Oh my goodness.
4:59Speaker A say two to two to ten And that's the city of Wilmington, they store their water below ground and it environmentally helps hold that salt water back.
5:09Speaker C That's interesting. See, that's something
5:12Speaker C that people
5:12Speaker E we learned.
5:12Speaker C don't understand that you just explained. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about real world business and being that you grew up in this industry, this is a family thing that you've kind of taken and ran with. What's harder today in this business, finding work? Pricing the work or finding the people to do the work?
5:29Speaker A Definitely finding the people and forming your business around retaining good help, creating a culture. We all digress if that's the word back to my irrigation. experience it used to be $85 a rotor and $45 a spray head and and maybe 85 for a valve and I'm in the sprinkler business and I know what to charge and then and then as I've come up and somewhat successful it's been very difficult to recognize and and to grow my company into an environment that is is an environment for somebody to be successful in
6:15Speaker A But then to maintain that environment and maintain that, you know, you take nowadays and you have an industry standard of pay for a foreman or a pump mechanic or a driller, but then you turn right around and you say, well, these people are here to earn a living and not always does that equate to what that tradesman, what that. status quo is for what he should be earning and so that's very difficult to to to recognize and afford that prepare for that and then be successful at that I mean you can you can pay people great but you might be out of business in a couple of years doing so so it's and then as the market rapidly progresses materials fuel labor and then to afford all that
7:05Speaker A afford your health and then all the same while not price yourself out of the market and then last is pay yourself a
7:13Speaker A little bit if you find worth it to keep doing this that's a tough one
7:17Speaker B that's Yeah. So
7:17Speaker A that's that's a tough
7:18Speaker B how is the economy and specifically more towards fuel pricing affecting your business right now?
7:27Speaker A So in my world and irrigation, fuel has, you know, PVC, wire, insulation. I mean, everything is petroleum based. Drill rig, we're burning, just the rig alone is burning about 125 gallons a day.
7:43Speaker A Then we have our support vehicles, then we have our service vehicles, then we have all of our products, you know, whether it be casing, casing, you know. irrigation you use pr200 and it's real thin but still you can a supplier can take a look at 18 we got a load of pvc anything any size and you say oh that's 60 000 well so it We have found ourselves, you know, wherever you stand politically, but the tariffs will cause this, the fuel will cause this, and you're trying to keep up with it. And then you've got customers in the well drilling industry, you're typically on a one to two month backlog. And so what might have been a good fair price a month ago is
8:24Speaker C It ain't today.
8:25Speaker A not today. So we we. We've been somewhat lucky as casing is a major expense. As casing comes down, fuel goes up, labor goes up, labor stabilizes. So we've been able to stay within a couple dollars a foot. Right now at $6 a gallon, we're just about to implement a temporary fuel surcharge just because, holy
8:50Speaker B Because you need to.
8:52Speaker A man, you just trying to keep up with those influxes or fluctuations in our.
8:58Speaker B So the new change that just happened just this week with the off-road fueling, how would that benefit your business?
9:08Speaker A We use off-road fuel. We have it delivered, but what was that change?
9:12Speaker A I'm unaware
9:13Speaker C can actually, you can put off-road diesel in
9:17Speaker C your pickup
9:18Speaker B vehicles. Yeah.
9:19Speaker C to run the roads.
9:20Speaker C Our governor declared like a national emergency and there's no penalty there's no fines or anything if if you get caught running off-road until until they say you can't do it anymore it's
9:35Speaker A I think I would be cautious with that just in maybe you guys might want to redact this portion, but I would be cautious with that because as I was coming up, off-roading the trucks was like cardinal
9:48Speaker B no-no. Yeah.
9:49Speaker A And so I would be very cautious to. Just like when you had the COVID and you took the paycheck protection,
9:56Speaker A you almost invited an audit. man that's now we have never done it i tell my guys that they need to walk if if they've got a full load of off-road and they've got an empty on-road because we carry both on
10:08Speaker A the trucks
10:08Speaker A you walk i mean just don't even chance it so i think that i think i would want to see this get settled because it at the end of the day the off-road is typically especially when you have it delivered about 10 to 15 cents a gallon cheaper i don't know that audit is worth 10 to 15 cents a gallon to me because I've heard that now again I'm ignorant on this this specific I didn't even know about it till you mentioned it but I've heard about $10,000 fines getting handed
10:35Speaker A so I think that for the time being I'm probably going to continue to run green fuel but
10:40Speaker A but I will be asking questions and investigating
10:46Speaker A That is the first I've heard of it, but I will.
10:48Speaker C Yeah, our governor just recently did it. And then President Trump.
10:51Speaker B Yeah, I think he signed off on it or approved it just this week. So there, yes, definitely take worth looking into.
10:58Speaker A Yes, ma'am.
10:59Speaker B And that kind of hits to the next. It's a great segue into the next question I had for you. How do you know when it's time to raise your prices and obviously economy affecting pricing? How does that translate with your customers, your clients? clients.
11:15Speaker A Well, with our clients, and I'm sure it's like this for irrigation, our clients are typically, you can almost feel it. You can, new homeowners, you know, interest rates are up. Like you'll almost feel like, okay, we're just going to get used to it because we're not going to put our life on hold any longer. And then the phone starts to ring. thing and you start getting permits for new wells to drill as new homes get put in and of course you know everything trickle effect on the tariffs and the fuel and and again aside of politics just that general feeling of
11:52Speaker A the of the market um and then and then all of a sudden it starts to pick up a little bit And then fuel hits $6 a gallon and then you feel that phone just stopped ringing.
12:03Speaker A And so I believe the question was, when do we know to go up on prices? Is it really is how much pain we're willing to bear to
12:12Speaker A do business?
12:13Speaker A And I would venture to say sometimes it's a tough discipline, but we will maintain vehicles and we'll get ourselves just up to snuff and everything primed and polished. And typically the phone will ring within that. We haven't had too many downtimes despite all of the turmoil we've been through in the past few years. But generally speaking, when it starts to hurt, when we come out of our business model or our business plan where we were profitable and this was worth it, and now all of a sudden fuel is just sapping those profit margins or even just... anything then
12:49Speaker A then we just have to um and so luckily we're a recession we're we're not recession proof but we're Or recession resistance,
13:02Speaker A that in the water well industry, people have to have water.
13:05Speaker F Yeah, yeah, it's a must.
13:07Speaker G But with it, aren't y'all, say you're tied to the construction industry.
13:11Speaker A absolutely,
13:11Speaker G I mean, if new houses
13:13Speaker G that need the wells, but you said you don't do service or do you do
13:16Speaker A do service,
13:17Speaker A yes, sir. We just don't, back to the manpower issue. I just have never found the right. And I've offered, and anybody out there listening, I have three of everything. I have an irrigation contractor's license, landscape contractor's license. I'm all about a business plan. I have yet to have found that foreman to show up that really wanted to put his shoulder into it. And so we, I'm very well versed in it and I communicate with the customers. It's an irrigation well, and here's a pump curve and here's your MP rotator nozzle chart and this is what I think. And I'll even go out and I'll lay out a... Not a zone or zones for irrigation customers, but we don't we don't install everything.
13:59Speaker G So it's primarily your rig set up, I mean, do you just do irrigation wells or do you do every type,
14:05Speaker G every time?
14:05Speaker A mean, we do light commercial and then mostly residential. And then, of course, with with any demographic, you're going to have the irrigation customer that's also, you know, just this last week we were drilling for irrigation and domestic primarily they got to have a shower. But at the same time, yes, we have. We absolutely want irrigation, and you'll go deeper to get us there.
14:24Speaker G Okay. So is that never, you wouldn't drill a separate well for irrigation? It would be on the same well?
14:30Speaker A I'm not a big fan of two pumps and two power lines. I'd rather just sell. eyes but
14:34Speaker A there are particular cases to where say water quality wouldn't be wouldn't be desirable out of this well and so we'll call that an irrigation well and we know that that that difficult water iron hardness that came in at 120 so we'll move over and we'll drill to 140 in set casing and then start drilling for clean water for domestic use.
14:59Speaker A Sometimes we'll do something like that. Water quality can have an influence on that, but for the most part, we hope to, because it's so expensive to drill, we hope to achieve both when they ask and then. And then part of the class that I just taught was based on how to size that well and that pump properly to do both
15:18Speaker D To handle both.
15:19Speaker A and then how to, I typically am drilling very aware of a pump curve and what horsepower to set at what depth based on the max demand, et cetera. And that's what I was trying to help those guys with the irrigation side because irrigation contractors, well contractors are not very well versed on either. The class was basically on how to help bridge that gap so they could be a bit more transparent and understanding what's going on down the hole so that when a local well contractor is like, yeah, there you go. It ought to be good. It should be good.
15:50Speaker A It's been working for years. No, it needs a math. So.
15:54Speaker E What percentage of your business is strictly just wells for irrigation?
15:59Speaker A It's a small number,
16:00Speaker A I would say that most of our business is, and there's two pieces of business here. There's the service and the return customer. And I would say a solid 75% of our business is that return customer or my brother's building a house or, and then there's the new well construction. And then in that said. Um, there's probably 10% of the new well construction actually is going to get an irrigation system and we need to be drilling for irrigation. And then I would say it's a considering this isn't a big number. I'm, I mean, I've got associates that drill three and four hundred wells a year we drill about 65 to 75 wells a year I'd probably say ten of them are strictly for for
16:46Speaker E Irrigation.
16:46Speaker A irrigation now when the drought shows up that number increases but you know just which is that's more environment and drought and government regulations driven
16:59Speaker A than than just my average market
17:01Speaker E Well, and I guess if there was new construction and even if they had city water and they put limitations on using city water for irrigation, you guys would go in and do that.
17:12Speaker A yes sir yes sir and that's typically how how it'll work is you'll have a big neighborhood that just put in a million dollars worth of landscaping and whammyow it quits raining uh they're hey we need a well driller out Going out here, as I was coming up as a kid, my father would say, all we need is one good drought.
17:27Speaker F Ha, ha, ha, ha.
17:28Speaker A It was kind of like a heyday of good
17:30Speaker A times. So it definitely influences our drought is kind of music to a well dealer's ears. I
17:36Speaker A know that sounds
17:36Speaker A weird, but
17:38Speaker C it's true,
17:39Speaker B strawberry farmers and so we
17:41Speaker C We understand that.
17:42Speaker B don't want rain. We won't because we irrigate underneath the plastic.
17:47Speaker B so rain hurts the foliage and the berries. So we like those droughts.
17:51Speaker C Our well for our irrigation is our pond. We
17:54Speaker A There you go.
17:55Speaker C use our bond.
17:58Speaker B When it comes to... new whales are you pulling the permits or is it the builder or homeowner doing it is it already done and you just show up and drill okay
18:06Speaker A all of the above so
18:07Speaker A sometimes a customer will call up and they're just like handle it and i get it there's plenty of things i want handled um sometimes the builder will do is a this is part of their permit pack um and then sometimes the homeowner is very hands-on or it's a replacement well or it's an irrigation well and they'll you know a lot of times we'll spoon feed it to them There's even an affidavit that they can sign for us to go do it for them. In South Carolina, we do it. It's a general responsibility to
18:32Speaker A pull the permits. And so it's really a mixed bag of who's pulling those permits.
18:36Speaker B Okay, cool stuff
18:40Speaker C So talking about business, what's the best investment you've ever made in your business?
18:45Speaker C Drill rig?
18:45Speaker A Yes, sir. Yeah. Yes, ma'am.
18:47Speaker C Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. It's all the same. But yeah, you mentioned that earlier as your number one piece of equipment.
18:52Speaker A And I would also say steel. We hate to say this without sounding horrible, but investing in new health. It's such an expensive commodity because it can go south on you. It can go in a lot of different directions. You can get someone licensed and they're in business
19:14Speaker A against you the next day.
19:16Speaker A They can go out and they can hurt your business. They could be the greatest thing that ever happened to your business. But I would say that as a not necessarily a rule, but a warm and fuzzy. I feel a whole lot better about going out and buying a new ditch witch SK 1550 than I do about hiring a new guy. I just steal, I would say. And then, of course, once we, it's kind of like you go from margins, you know, irrigation would probably be a lower margin for me. Water treatment would be a very good margin. Water well service would be kind of in the middle of that. But the drilling margin. That's when we started seeing some success in life,
19:58Speaker A started breathing easier.
20:00Speaker C Well, that answers the next question I already had for you is about employees and leadership. What's harder, finding good employees or keeping good employees? And like you just said, it's a little more expensive in hiring new employees. So what do you do for incentives for employees that tend to have more of a longer tenure?
20:20Speaker A So I will honestly say. admittedly say that in the beginning I opened up Rockwater in 2014. In the first couple of years, I knew everything and had forgotten everything that I'd learned, even as a Marine, you know, that I had learned about leadership and management and accountability. I'd forgotten and taken all of that for granted. And I had this mentality that, well, I can be upset, but why are you upset? And what my wife explained to me one day is, well, your employees feed off of you. And then I also realized that. You know, I swear I'm going to write a book one day and nobody out there better write this book. But which came first,
21:00Speaker A the capital or
21:01Speaker B going to write it down.
21:01Speaker A the customer? There were days in the beginning that I couldn't even afford to go to work as a supply house paying a bill.
21:08Speaker A There were so many days that I was really just figuring things out. And that's a tough migration. And so what I would say to that. is in the beginning, I had to take a look in the mirror and just, you know, you can, you can blame help, you can, you know, complain. We had to create an environment that was conducive to success for these people. We had, we had some good people that came along and they didn't stand a chance. I had to, I had to really turn things around and fix things. And so here we are 14 years later, I think, something like that, 12 years later. We incentivize footage, we incentivize sales, we incentivize management. So like if a foreman
21:56Speaker A If a foreman sold it, we give them 3% of the sale. If he's stacking it on a truck and telling the mechanic this is how I want it installed, we give him another point and a half. And then we give him a point and a half of everything that happens in the service department. We are drillers. We try to give them incentives as long as footage goes. We also, there's increments CDL, driver's license. There's different increments in the water well contractors. There's D, C, B, and A. A being the highest. Those are all incremental raises. And this might sound like a kook, but I tell this story to my people often. Um, that, uh, my wife went to lunch with some girlfriends of hers one day and there was a new girl there and she's wearing a diamond that you could land a helicopter on.
22:50Speaker A And she said, my man works at the railroad. And what I took from that is that she was just as pleased with his job as he was, and she was probably supportive. And so that's the environment that I try to create. Now,
23:01Speaker A I'm not, you know, that's a culture that, boy, it's hard earned, but at the same time, that's what I'm aiming for, whether, and, you know, this doesn't add up to a hill of beans, but we do try to go to the beach together as a company and for those that might not be able to afford a vacation. they're given one um for those that just just to have some camaraderie there and break some bread together and again i don't want to sound like a kook but at the same time i do try to create a culture that we're in it together um we try to try to eat dinner together once a quarter we try to go to the base you know the local hickory crawdad baseball game
23:38Speaker A you know a couple times this summer i try to try to create that Because the fact of the matter is my guys are out working 10, 12 hours
23:46Speaker A a day. Their wives are at home with the kids. They're managing the household. I try to focus on what's going on behind the scenes, not just what's in front of me.
23:56Speaker A And so, again, no. incredibly difficult to find that that solid person that's going to put his shoulder into it you can count on them no matter what we've finally after all these years we've got it we're i would like to say that we're there um
24:10Speaker A but it has been painful painful yes
24:13Speaker E Well, you learn along the way. Sometimes you make mistakes and in those mistakes you learn very valuable lessons, especially when it comes to business. But I agree with you, culture is important. Culture drives tenure. You know, when you make your employees feel comfortable and appreciated and bring the value to the team, makes them want to stay.
24:32Speaker E I think that's a big deal.
24:35Speaker E absolutely. So family life, how is owning your business, how has it affected your family life?
24:43Speaker A Well, that is a good question because coming up, working for different well contractors, including my own father. failing and not being a good provider and and not uh not you know I had this illusion when I was coming up that I I'm not gonna say I knew everything but at the same time money grows on trees I'll just go out and earn some more um and and I had to I really it was I would say failing was very good for me not for my marriage and family um you know I feel so Not necessarily horrible, but we just finally, after all these years, built a nice house. And I think that we had my sons going away, joining the Navy party
25:26Speaker A the night that we moved in. And that was a tough hit. And so I would say that what has made me a successful business owner and a successful tradesman. has come at great sacrifice to the education, the school of hard knocks, the countless hours if, you know, out on Monday to midnight to Sunday to 10, the sacrifices that my wife and kids have made to see me gone. And it wasn't always, I mean, that's an incredible amount of pressure on a marriage and a family.
25:58Speaker E Of course.
25:59Speaker A It is paid off, but it is come at a great price. And I can honestly say back to that culture, we try not to run these guys 80 hours a week. I mean, I've been employed. way to where the employer nobody can see me right now but they kept your nose just above water
26:17Speaker A and that that's tough on a family and that's also why i try to encourage the vacations is because my wife was in the dark i mean i was a a tradesman that wasn't very successful and and you know failed a few times um and so on one hand i try to tell my son that that you know failure doesn't define you getting back up does But believe me, this success has come at a great price.
26:43Speaker A And so that's also why I try to get the guys home on time. I try to include their wives in business functions so it's not all about. my wife and I, and then, and then just a side note as we run the company together, customers love her, but behind the scenes, there's, there's some grappling like, well, I'm mad at this guy or this didn't, guy didn't
27:06Speaker A go, sometimes
27:07Speaker A I'm like, just relax. It'll be fine. And then there's times that she's just like, that's it. I'm done. And I'm like, well, you own the place. Go home.
27:15Speaker D Yeah, yeah.
27:16Speaker A Which even she knows she can't do that often, but it, it's a tough dynamic. Damn it.
27:20Speaker A It's a, sometimes I call it a special kind of stupid, so sure.
27:24Speaker E Well, you know, Eric and I understand that to a degree because we do business together. We do everything together. And like you said, there are days where we get frustrated, which leads me to this question because Eric and I face this too. How do you keep your business from consuming your entire life schedule?
27:47Speaker F You don't.
27:47Speaker A You don't.
27:48Speaker E Yeah, exactly.
27:49Speaker A And I will also say that in the beginning. rock water was my identity I didn't do it for money I
27:56Speaker A didn't I had finally found my calling I'd gotten some formal education and um and I'll just go ahead and say this is that I have kind of a pick me complex and that can sometimes be a personality flaw but as a small business owner when you're like pick me pick me
28:11Speaker A you're willing to go the extra mile and
28:13Speaker A and so it really became my identity I will also say that in the days that we're just ready to throw our hands up, we also realize that this affords us time off. It affords us things like this. It Yeah. affords us a better view.
28:29Speaker H Yeah. Did your wife come with you to Waterpalooza?
28:33Speaker A no, no, no. She's running back to
28:35Speaker E She's running the
28:35Speaker A running the
28:36Speaker A business. And so it does consume us. It's a very fine line from the benefit to the chaos,
28:45Speaker A and we have worked to minimize the chaos. And again, our people and culture and the ones that we can count on, that has really tremendously helped in the last, I'd say two to three years where we finally have gotten a really great crew. We also recognize that we needed a buffer between us and the employees, and so we hired a foreman. that we've just purposely put there because we're so sensitive to everything. We're sensitive to the customer. We're sensitive to who honks the horn as somebody pulls into a driveway. rock water's written there and oh what
29:19Speaker A did they so
29:20Speaker A we had to put that buffer because it was it was it was a lot just like you know turf teacher i mean you've got a big name i've i've used you several times um
29:28Speaker C Oh, well, thank you,
29:30Speaker C We appreciate that.
29:31Speaker A you you've helped me along and so when your name is out there and that image is out there you know there's the old Oh, my name's, I'm not going to put my name. No, my brother said this to me once that rings to this conversation. He said, it's nothing like being your own boss. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Everybody is my boss. My employees,
29:51Speaker A my, yeah. anybody that sees my phone number, my suppliers, my employees. And so it can be very consuming. I try to exercise, my wife tries to exercise, we try to vacation as often as possible, and we try to relinquish, delegate that stress as best we can.
30:09Speaker E I think delegating is crucial in any business. Like you said, you're sensitive because you're the business owner. Your face is attached to that name. Your reputation is attached to that name. Of course, everything's going to feel sensitive. And so finding that. That buffer zone is important, which leads me to this question. Do you and your wife have children?
30:33Speaker E If your children wanted to enter into this business, what would be the advice you would give them?
30:40Speaker F Stay in the Navy.
30:41Speaker E Ha, ha, ha,
30:42Speaker A that's the advice he gives himself. He helped me, you know, weekends and evenings and, of course, a summer vacations up until he come up. And he, I would assume he's very much like me. I was in the Marine Corps. He'll probably come home. I would, I'm not so sure that I would give him advice, but one thing that I would require of him is to get out there and learn it.
31:10Speaker A It's kook here, earn it. um and appreciate it Yeah. if if you don't appreciate that cold night that your fingers are burning but you got the job done and those people have water
31:21Speaker A um if you don't appreciate making sure no matter how painful it is to do a good job so that you don't have to come back and lose
31:30Speaker A shorts you're probably never going to make it and so I would I would man I'd have him start at the bottom um I hope that's a good answer, but that's
31:40Speaker A the advice that I would have to give because if you don't appreciate this, even the irrigation side, and he used to help me, you know, we'd be out there backfilling ditches by hand because to us that was the only right way to do it.
31:51Speaker A When a grass has grown, you know, a big commercial job, red dirt, but you have to appreciate it or you're not going to be successful.
32:00Speaker G Yeah. Well, you started at the bottom.
32:02Speaker A With your parents, then you, yeah.
32:03Speaker B Yeah. I think it teaches you, well, number one, it humbles you. teaches you value. You can't value a job that you don't understand or haven't worked. You know, it's like those, the TV show with the undercover bosses, the bosses that are at the top of the food chain in the company, they're not going to really understand their bottom chain employees if they don't get in there with them and see what's happening. I say to Eric all the time, it's important that we be in the trenches with everybody because you don't understand. And the pressures, if you're not in there experiencing it yourself. So back to what he's talking about your son, it's the same. We've got five college age kids and teaching them value and hard work is definitely important.
32:48Speaker B This generation, I think, is missing some of that versus what we had growing up. But that leads me to this next question. What does success look like to you now versus what it looked like when you got started?
33:04Speaker C Um, it looks like a couple of different things. It looks like equity. It looks like the one of the classes in there was do I have something that I can sell? But it also had it also very much looks like so so we have some real superstars that we have just come up in the last couple of years. it looks like their kids it looks like their quality of life that that's what really mattered you know in the beginning it was like I just need this much a month to be successful and
33:34Speaker C you know I went out there and I did it and I knocked it down and drug it home but present day it looks like spending more time with my wife making sure that my guys have a successful future to look forward to my
33:47Speaker C guys i don't want it to make sound possessive but the the people that look to me to keep this company afloat prosperous earning to where it can keep up with the paces of our economy and you know in the markets and and
34:01Speaker C now i'm i'm 53 years same old i uh i'm i'm building equipment and i'm thinking this this is this has got to be Ethan's drill rig and it's got to last him into the next 10 to 15 years and what does that depreciation look like what is that how does that affect the next 10 to 15 years and my overall goal is to sell it back to the company um I you know not to not to be some kind of financial advisor but I think the banks like that is to stay on and sell it to the company they know that it's been working it'll and it'll continue to work
34:34Speaker C um and that's where my equity is but i'm i'm a little bit less more me and a lot more the
34:42Speaker B It's yeah.
34:43Speaker B Yeah. It's the bigger picture.
34:45Speaker C that's where my focus is as a future we're fine at this point our cup is over filling um got to make sure retirement's good to go um but outside of that my people
34:55Speaker B So you said.
34:57Speaker A This is your first time at the Waterpalooza
34:59Speaker B ma'am. Yeah.
34:59Speaker A and you spoke this year.
35:00Speaker B Yes, ma'am.
35:01Speaker A So is that what brought you to Waterpalooza is the fact that they asked you to come speak?
35:06Speaker B And I kind of volunteer. There was a I think there was a a youtube short that popped up and said do you have any ideas and i was like well yeah i
35:14Speaker A there you go.
35:14Speaker B has been a concern you know being bilateral with the drilling and the and the irrigation
35:19Speaker B this is what i would like to bridge the gap on and they got a call three months later and i was excited to be here and and feel like i had a good message in there So, sure.
35:29Speaker A Well, that's what matters. You feel like if you had a message worth giving and you gave it, you planted a seed and
35:34Speaker B Yes, ma'am.
35:35Speaker A that seed is going to grow eventually. So what's the biggest change that you're seeing right now in irrigation?
35:46Speaker B I'm a bit more on the custom side. That's
35:51Speaker B I'm a bit removed, you know, when I was in the mid 2000s and the early 2010s, I was I was in there rubbing elbows in the supply house every morning, or at least at least a couple times a month. I'm seeing a lot of new names. I'm seeing a lot of successful folks that that understand a business plan and business model. I that I'm not I'm not that tuned into the irrigation world.
36:19Speaker B that I'm seeing a lot of new names, you know, in the Charlotte area, there was, you know, the irrigation wizard and Williamson and, and there's just but a few names and you recommended a few and now I'm riding down the road and I'm like, holy cow, who is that?
36:32Speaker B And so that's what I'm seeing is more, more contractors.
36:36Speaker A So what technology in your business, and I probably already know the answer because you've mentioned it twice, has been the most profitable for you? Was it the drill rig that's brought you more money?
36:47Speaker B Honestly, what led to the drill rig? No, I'll just go ahead and plug it in. I love ditch witch engineering was
36:55Speaker B my decision to buy that first SK 1550. And I'm a bit of a innovator. And so I built a lot of my own attachments, which which made it very efficient to pull pumps. And so I would say that it having that that SK and it was so versatile i could do irrigation with it i could i could pull pumps with it just everything trench with it
37:21Speaker B to irrigate you know just and so that really that big investment really just kind of got me at speed and that hands down that ditch which led me to the drill rig and and equally um building my own equipment so that i wasn't leveraged so
37:41Speaker B that when it came time to to step into that rig they my credit was good and i wasn't leveraged you know because it it's tough i mean you got to go out and buy
37:51Speaker A equipment and your trucks are a hundred thousand bucks
37:53Speaker A nowadays and so um i would say that that getting that piece of gear that ditch which that just was so versatile building all these attachments um building drill drilling equipment that like i have a growler um there's a few different things that we use specifically for the drilling business um that really opened the doors for us to get a rig and it was it was god-given it was it was a tough decision to make it was the most expensive thing i'd ever purchased at that moment um but it's really led to success
38:23Speaker C That's awesome. So I want to ask you a question because I think you and Eric have this in common because he's. These former military, do you feel that your military experience helped you to be a successful business owner?
38:36Speaker A In certain aspects. As a Marine, my idea of leadership is, is there's the bunker, we're going to storm it, you guys are going to follow me and what's the problem,
38:46Speaker A isn't how your employees think,
38:48Speaker C Yeah, exactly.
38:48Speaker A but I would also say the attention to detail, the pride, the pride in myself, yeah,
38:55Speaker D The early mornings.
38:57Speaker A the organizational skills to a certain degree, but mainly the accountability. Someone. has to be accountable whether no matter what someone has to be accountable um but a lot of my military was having a really good time with my buds and traveling the world and so i would say the accountability and the pride and the attention to detail is what really applies to the business yeah
39:23Speaker C I think that's great.
39:24Speaker E Well, yes, and you want to accomplish whatever you set out to do. Today's employees that we've hired. They, they don't come on time. They're 30 minutes late. They want to leave early. They,
39:38Speaker C ride the clock.
39:39Speaker E forget something, you know, it's the phone calls 30 times a day from a crew leader. And I'm like, dude, you've been here six years. And we were cutting grass at that time. And I'm like, you have been with these properties six years. You don't have to call me for every single thing, but that's the way it was.
39:58Speaker C Yeah, yeah.
39:58Speaker E And we finally decided to get rid of that portion of our business. I mean, just.
40:05Speaker A You know, on that very note, is it. there for a while we had a group that they honestly thought that we paid our bills with excuses or I say that very derogatively but I got
40:17Speaker A that impression and so I would use the Tom Brady example and I'd say you know he's got and I'm not a football guy but he's what is it 11 defensive linemen
40:26Speaker A whatever the number is whether it's seven or 11 let's just say it's seven and I was like Tom Brady has got seven of the best excuses on the planet why he didn't win the game like these guys are Guys are highly paid, highly trained, highly fed. I mean, these dudes are healthy.
40:39Speaker A Those are good excuses why, I mean, the best of excuses why he didn't win the game. But I said, boy, he just keeps right on winning. they earn it out so uh we finally had to cut that too it's just listen no more excuses guys you're gonna have to figure it out
40:53Speaker A um and some chose to figure it out and some chose to not figure
40:57Speaker A out moved on and so and that's that's fine
40:59Speaker C I think being accountable and expecting accountability and then pursuing accountability kind of weeds out the ones that don't belong. Yeah, because it's not meant for everybody,
41:11Speaker C you know, your business requires a certain type of person that needs to work for you. And if they can't be successful with that, then there's something else out there waiting for them. Yeah.
41:20Speaker A And I had learned that too. Early on, I'd get resentful and, you know, they just don't want to work. And now, now I think to myself when somebody doesn't want to be here and number one, if you want to be here, please don't waste our time
41:32Speaker A yours, but I don't get upset about it or resentful because they might move on to be the best. best Verizon phone salesman there ever was.
41:38Speaker C All right.
41:39Speaker A And, you know, so I, I try to keep it that in the perspective and it also alleviates a lot of stress for me.
41:44Speaker C Absolutely.
41:45Speaker A Oh, just, you know, that's time to move
41:47Speaker A on, man. We're good here.
41:48Speaker A Um, so it's
41:49Speaker C Well, I got some rapid fire questions for you. OK,
41:52Speaker C so think quick on your feet. All right. Residential commercial.
41:58Speaker A Residential don't like to payable uncommercial.
42:00Speaker C Gotcha. OK.
42:02Speaker C Install or service.
42:06Speaker A I like the quick install, but service is repeat customers.
42:09Speaker C There you go.
42:10Speaker C Sustainability.
42:11Speaker A keeps us alive.
42:11Speaker C Yeah. Trencher or shovel?
42:16Speaker A Definitely a trencher, but I like a shovel to backfill with.
42:19Speaker C There you go. Early mornings or late nights?
42:32Speaker A I'm going to go with paper. My wife and our office manager, they're real good. But for me, I need to see it
42:37Speaker A up there on the board.
42:38Speaker C It's that old school mentality. We grew up with paper. For us, it just seems more efficient. Employees or subcontractors?
42:47Speaker A Employees.
42:47Speaker C Okay. More customers or better customers?
42:50Speaker A Better customers.
42:51Speaker C Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that one. Revenue or profit?
42:55Speaker C Yeah. Bigger company or better company?
42:59Speaker A Better company spreadsheet
43:00Speaker C Like it. Truck paid off or brand new truck?
43:05Speaker A trade it in manage
43:07Speaker C There you go.
43:08Speaker C There you go. Work Saturday or paperwork Sunday? I know that one's kind of different. Phone call or text?
43:23Speaker A Phone call you text can go sideways quick and
43:26Speaker A in that conversation needs to be one on one
43:29Speaker C Yeah. Texting I have learned over the last few years is,
43:33Speaker A read it wrong like
43:34Speaker C yeah, it's more transactional and a lot of people are misinterpreting that and it's just transaction.
43:40Speaker A and it leads to less accountability so
43:42Speaker B Exactly. Exactly. Family vacation or a new piece of equipment?
43:50Speaker A a new piece of equipment is going to pay for that vacation
43:52Speaker B There you go. There you go. I like it.
43:54Speaker A and a tax write-off
43:55Speaker B Yeah, true. There's always ways around them. Okay. Smart controller. Love it or hate it?
44:03Speaker A I don't know it, but boy, does my yard struggle in August.
44:08Speaker A I'd kind of like some help with that.
44:10Speaker B Yeah. Okay. This is going to be a really good fun question. If you had a hundred thousand dollars to invest in your company tomorrow, where would you put it?
44:23Speaker A anticipating breakdowns and probably a engine or a compressor for the rig that's a that's a big and
44:30Speaker B big expense
44:31Speaker A it's projected you know what's coming and that's a big safeguard 14
44:35Speaker B a good you know rainy day savings for that kind of stuff do
44:39Speaker A ,000 hours you know you got to have it and so I would out immediately put that away for that
44:45Speaker B you have any questions because I got some closing questions
44:48Speaker C um i just how big is that rig like what's the what's the length of it when it goes down the road
44:57Speaker A I would say 30 feet. The Derek stands 42 feet, which is normal for our area.
45:05Speaker A Now, when you get to the coastal plain and you're drilling in mud and sand, they're like F550, you know, midsize pickup truck size rigs. And some of them are bigger for the deeper municipal holes, but the average for ours are like a... straight truck no
45:18Speaker A tandem axle straight truck we weigh 64 000 pounds so it's it's healthy for sure but average for our area the
45:25Speaker C okay what area are you guys in yeah
45:28Speaker A charlotte charlotte metro that's our that's our market but we we do come up here we every once in a while we'll come up here so
45:35Speaker C so your family lives in charlotte
45:37Speaker A yes sir denver lake
45:38Speaker A norman area
45:39Speaker C okay denver
45:40Speaker B yeah, it's a nice area.
45:40Speaker C we got some good friends there they're Mark Davis yeah
45:44Speaker A That sounds very familiar.
45:45Speaker C he's uh I can't remember the church he's a he's a deacon at one of the Baptist churches but had his own landscape pool business sold the pool business to his to his son and then he went to work for another landscape kind of like site one and doing like their
46:00Speaker A sales Okay.
46:00Speaker C but Mark's super super nice guy
46:04Speaker B Do you have any other questions for him?
46:07Speaker C I do, but there's so many. Like, I'm interested, not that I would ever, like, get into the well drilling business, but that's a very unique business.
46:18Speaker A Yeah, I enjoy it.
46:20Speaker B a niche for sure.
46:21Speaker C that niche, you just seem to be happy when you do that. And you seem like a very happy person. And we're
46:29Speaker A I'm happy to be here.
46:32Speaker C I know probably in the office is a different situation or an employee.
46:36Speaker A I recall in saying something's broke down, but, you know, loved your presentation, love how you're talking here. It's just you seem like to be a very good employer to work for.
46:46Speaker B Well, I'm trying and I'm learning. Again, I don't want to sound like a coup, but when I pray, I pray to learn how to be a better leader because
46:58Speaker B I've always said this since the Marine Corps and military is that a grown man, and I just, we're in, we don't see too many young ladies out on the back of a drill rig,
47:08Speaker B I refer to young men, but I believe anybody, they don't work because they have to, they work because they want to. And
47:15Speaker B so I try to keep that in mind. It has been a long time for me to adjust myself and just try to be a better leader, a better employer. And I know this sounds very self-serving, but it's been painful making those mistakes with good people and sometimes losing them or sometimes just like, God, why did I say that? Yeah. I could have said that different. Or back to the marriage, my wife, would you just take it down a notch?
47:44Speaker B know. Oh, and so I have to kind of set back and just sometimes leave it to her that she's over there giving me the eye like, you better knock it off or you upset somebody. And so, yes,
47:55Speaker A But that's the Marine coming out in you. They
47:57Speaker E attention to detail. Yeah.
47:59Speaker B Yeah. And so it is an effort to try to be a better person, to try to be a better leader. And you just have to accept those mistakes and move on. And that's, that's for me is when I've really grown to appreciate the ones that we have is because number one, they put up with me and they continue to follow me and I'm in awe of that because
48:22Speaker B a tough, it's a tough industry. And then when you get those superstars and you're just like anything you can do to keep them for 30 years, you just, you know, so invest in them.
48:31Speaker E Yeah. So what's one mistake you've made in business? That made you better.
48:38Speaker E Absolutely.
48:39Speaker E Eric and I say that all the time. Our failures have taught us the biggest lessons.
48:42Speaker A Yeah. And I always tell people, especially people that actually come to my classes and listen, I'm not necessarily your role model. I'm your failure model because I'm going to tell you every mistake I've ever made and I want you to learn from that mistake. Don't ever make
48:58Speaker B for it. Might as well somebody benefit from
49:01Speaker E And I think offering grace, I think grace is huge. as a business owner but even just in relationships with each other just offering each other grace do-overs it's
49:12Speaker B That's okay.
49:12Speaker E okay you got this we'll we'll figure it out we'll work through it I think that's huge
49:17Speaker A And you're a believer. You said you prayed. So, you know, having Christ first and foremost in your business and in your life is always a win-win.
49:26Speaker B It's been very obvious to me that Ah
49:30Speaker A Um, whether there's so many examples that how God given this has been in a blessing to where I just, I'll say, well, how did I get here? You know, you know. whether it's a vacation or something nice or building our home after so many years and i look and i just say there's just no way this happened without god it's
49:47Speaker A just zero chance um don't deserve it don't didn't have much to do with it just tried my best and and voila here we are and so it yeah
49:57Speaker B When it's all over, what do you want your family to say was more important to you than your business?
50:08Speaker A Man, all of it, how my actions every day, how the customers we interacted with, I will yield myself to this statement often, life is just a memory and what we leave behind and how we affected those that we came into contact with. That matters. My son, the life he lives, the mistakes that he didn't make, hopefully
50:34Speaker A learn from
50:37Speaker A How just, I don't want to be a zero when it comes to not here anymore.
50:42Speaker A I want to, I want to, like I said, like my people, their kids, they have a life, they have a future, they have a future that I've left something behind. And so I would say all of it.
50:52Speaker B So it sounds like to me the best word to use would be legacy. It's the legacy you're leaving behind in all aspects.
50:58Speaker A I wouldn't want to promote myself to legacy,
51:00Speaker A but I'm trying.
51:02Speaker B Yeah. And I think that's what we all shoot for is what we leave behind for our kids and our family. So if you could give one piece of advice to your 20 year old self, what would it be?
51:13Speaker A You know nothing.
51:14Speaker B I think we all like to imagine that yeah that's 20 years old
51:19Speaker B what do you really know at 20 no
51:21Speaker F you can't tell your 20 year old employees uh you know i i had guys that were like i said 20 21 years old knew more than me more experience than me and i'm like dude i'm 53 years old i've been doing this longer than you've been alive so
51:38Speaker A We have one that just bought a motorcycle and I'm like. I'm like, man, you are going to get squished.
51:42Speaker A He's like, I got to die somehow. And I'm just like,
51:44Speaker B please don't go that way yeah
51:46Speaker A absolutely.
51:47Speaker B yeah I'm the same belief my brother had motorcycles when I was growing up and went to many accidents and he finally was like okay I'm gonna end up dead if I don't get rid of this thing so yeah I could see that well Michael it's been a pleasure talking to you yeah Yeah.
52:03Speaker F This is good. Well, my name is Aaron Jones, better known as the Turf Teacher here with Michael and my lovely bride, the Turfette. We will see you in the next lecture.
52:12Speaker B And I'll see you at the next event.
52:14Speaker F See you guys.
52:15Speaker B Thanks for joining us today on Turf Talk.
52:18Speaker F We hope today's conversation gave you something useful and worth sharing.
52:22Speaker B Follow, subscribe, or visit us at Turf Talk Podcast.
52:25Speaker A S.com for more episodes and updates. I'm Jennifer the Turt Fet Jones.
52:29Speaker B And I'm Eric the Turf Teacher Jones.
52:31Speaker A Together we are the Green Industry Couple.
52:34Speaker B Until next time, keep learning,
52:36Speaker A keep growing,
52:38Speaker B and keep talking turf.
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