Business
Capitalist Sage: How Estate Planning is More Important in the COVID-19 World [Podcast]
The hardest part may be imagining the world without you in it or without a healthy and capable you in it. There’s never a better time to start thinking about estate planning than right now.
No matter who you are as a business owner or individual, planning for the future is an important step. In this episode of Capitalist Sage, Rico Figliolini and Karl Barham are joined by Estate Planning Attorney Jim Miskell. Listen as they discuss all the details you need to know to start planning now.
Resources
Website: LetsTalkEstatePlanning.com
“The reasons to do it are, and I’m sort of joking that if you don’t do it, somebody else will. That’s really the heart and soul of it. If you want to control how what you’ve worked so hard to build, benefit your family in the future. Make the plans.”
Jim Miskell
Timestamp:
[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:01:59] – About Jim and Estate Planning
[00:05:58] – Risks and Benefits
[00:08:41] – What’s Entailed
[00:11:21] – For Business Owners
[00:14:14] – Why doesn’t everyone do it?
[00:16:30] – Sheltering
[00:19:22] – Navigating Partnerships
[00:22:59] – Starting the Conversation
[00:28:32] – Younger Estate Plans
[00:30:17] – Closing
Podcast Transcript
Karl: [00:00:30] Welcome to the Capitalist Sage podcast. We’re here to bring you advice and tips from seasoned pros and expert to help you improve your business. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors, and my cohost is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets Digital Marketing, and the publisher of the Peachtree Corners Magazine, which is out.
Rico: [00:00:54] Yes, in most places. And if you haven’t received it, let me know, but it should be out there in your mailboxes. And I, you know, while we’re doing this, we’re going to obviously, we’ve been getting some technical difficulties. So bear with us as well. Everyone’s on, everyone’s online, so it’s the world out there, right? So I might as well introduce our sponsor Hargray Fiber. They are, in fact, they’re doing a great job those guys, they’re in the Southeast. They’re doing work with many small companies, midsize companies, and enterprise larger companies as well, providing internet services. IT management services as well, and they’re doing several promotions. And right now they’re there to be able to help you work remotely and collaboratively for free. So reach out to them at HargrayFiber.com and find out the sources, the solutions they have for you, and it’d be a great place to be. Thank you Karl for letting me do that.
Karl: [00:01:59] Absolutely. Well, let’s get right into it. I am so honored to have our guest today, Jim Miskell, who is an attorney, an estate planning attorney that has offices both in Johns Creek and Lawrenceville, Georgia. I got a chance to chat with Jim a couple of times. And he just was a wealth of knowledge in the area of estate planning, in ways that people may not have realized. So we wanted to have him come on today to talk a little bit about what all these business owners that are going through. This may be a good time through all the business owner that are going through. Sit back and think about some of the things that they should be putting in place to help protect their legacy as they go forward. So with that, I’d like to welcome Jim Miskall. Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself, Jim.
Jim: [00:03:03] Thank you, Karl. Thank you, Rico. It’s pleasure to be here. Always appreciate the opportunity to speak to people about the importance of estate planning. Our practice is estate planning and elder law as you said Karl, we’ve got two offices, Lawrenceville and Johns Creek. Of course now, with the way things have been the last little bit, the physical offices are a little bit less important. We’re doing the entirety of our meetings with clients remotely, either by phone conferences, facetimes, zoom, some other mechanism of that kind. Signing ceremonies for our plans we’re handling in person, usually in the parking lot so that everybody stays safe and socially isolated. But we get those documents witnessed and signed. We offer estate planning services from folks that may not even think they have an estate. An estate plan that’s for rich people. No, if you’ve got spare change in a jar on your dresser. You have an estate. And it’s worth planning for. So we have clients that range from young couples who just had their first child to older folks. We do a lot of elder law planning for long term care benefits, which might be Medicaid or VA benefits. We handle the aid and attendance, preparation to be qualified for that. And so along that we’ve got some clients for which we do will plans, some clients for which a revocable living trust plan is the way to go. Some folks that in conjunction with those things, use an irrevocable living trust that gives them asset protection. We’ve used that not only in the areas of elder law, but also for clients who own small businesses. Because it gives a, an additional
layer of asset protection that you don’t get with just an LLC or a corporation. You can still retain control and income interests in your business. So for some folks that that’s a really good fit. It’s an area of practice that I love. I started out my career 12 and a half years as a prosecutor. And left prosecution in 2005 and realized pretty early on I wanted to focus on this area of practice because I noticed that the folks that were coming in for estate planning. Only came to see me for one reason, and it wasn’t because they were mad at their spouse and it wasn’t because that’s so-and-so who had a store in the same strip mall. Their clients were parking in their parking spaces. It wasn’t because they were mad at anybody. It wasn’t because they created a bad situation by committing a crime. It was because they loved their family. My clients only come to see me for one reason. That’s because they love their family and they’re trying to avoid problems in the future. And for a small business owners really fall into that category because they work so hard. They work so hard, and those with foresight don’t want that work to be lost.
Karl: [00:05:58] So Jim, let me ask you. That’s one of the things that I realize, you know, every day a small business owner is really busy running their business. And during this time of the pandemic, there is a pause for a lot of people where they have time to think about the future. And it’s becoming really real. And I see that in the conversation with people and people love their families. Why should someone than, consider putting together an estate plan. What are some of the risks they have out there if they choose not to do that or delay it too much longer?
Jim: [00:06:34] Well, the great thing about estate estate planning is that it’s optional. And if you don’t do it, if you don’t make the decisions for you and your family. Somebody else will do it. So if you’re comfortable with somebody else making those decisions and handing over control of those things and letting somebody else, another family member, or hopefully not a judge, make those decisions, then you bypass estate plan. Say, it’s not for me. That doesn’t fit the profile of most small business owners. As you say they work so hard every day. And we were talking earlier, I think Rico made a remark that we all see ourselves as the star or the lead in our own movie. And I think that’s especially true for small business owners because the person that picks up the trash, the person that cleans the bathroom and sweep the floors. You’ve done that job. You can do that job. People that are in the clerical and answering the phones. You could do that job and it needs to be done the way you want it to be done. Estate planning, the difficulty to get small business owners to do it is realizing that it’s something that needs attention. The reasons to do it are, and I’ve sort of joking that if you, if you don’t do it, somebody else will. That’s really the heart soul of it. If you want to control how the, what you’ve worked so hard to build, benefits your family in the future. Make the plans, make the plans. One of the things, that is a great opportunity in the time we’re in right now is it is giving folks the pause as you said, Karl. That, you know, you’re not on, on, on, and it gives you a minute to think, you know what? Tomorrow’s not guaranteed for me any more than it is that person across the street or the person I heard about on the news.
Karl: [00:08:21] So when folks introducing estate planning, how do you describe what it is? What, what’s entailed in estate planning? What does that actually look like?
Rico: [00:08:35] And, you know what, make a comparison to someone’s will because some people think they have a will and that’s good enough.
Jim: [00:08:41] Okay. A will is a good concrete place to start with estate plan, and that’s that. That’s a great, great place to start. Every estate plan needs to take into account a couple things. And the will does covers one of those bases as, who gets your stuff when you die? And that’s all well and good. The will says this is what happens, but the will is a death document. What I mean by that is it doesn’t do anything for anyone while you’re still alive. The person, you make your executor, they don’t have any authority while you’re alive. You can get sick, be in a coma, be critically ill. It doesn’t give them any authority to do anything for you. So what are you, how do you cover that disability portion, which is also really important state plan. That’s where we’re talking about powers of attorney and healthcare directors at the basic level. Powers of attorney allow you to extend your power to someone else to act for you when you cannot while you’re alive. So you can designate who is it that runs the business if you’re not able to be there. If you get laid up, collect an Aflac or your disability insurance, who’s going to the office and making sure that things get done to your specifications? The beautiful thing about power of attorney is you get to select the person that does that. I have a lot of folks and it happens with elderly folks and it happens to detail, with detail oriented, driven people who may be A type, they get to the power of attorney and they think, Oh, I don’t want to do that cause I’m giving up power. I’m giving up my independence. In the elderly folks, that’s a big issue also with business owners. I don’t want to give up any of that authority. The beautiful thing about power of attorney is you don’t give up one wit of authority. You’re just extending your authority to somebody else to act for you when you need them. So at base you need somebody, you need to think about not only may I just, not only is there a possibility the eventuality that you’re going to die. But I may not be well and able and competent the day I die. I may have dementia, I may have a head injury. I may have something that makes it difficult for me to do the things that need to be done. You need to address that as well. So the estate planning really needs to cover both of those situations. Because your estate can be squandered, misused, lost, argued over in either situation, you can prevent all those things from happening with planning.
Karl: [00:11:21] But can I ask a question? You mentioned a couple of things. We said the term will, and we said the term power of attorney. So within the state plan, what are some of the other documents and or devices or tools that are used that makes up a good estate plan for most people that might own a business, for instance.
Jim: [00:11:44] So for most people that own a business or even folks that have, some accumulated a state, a great option for many folks is a revocable living trust. A revocable living trust has a couple strong advantages where you hear about it most, and you may hear Susie Orman on TV on the PBS thing, or she says, you got to have a living trust. You’ve got to stay out of probate. Well, she lives in California and I, if we lived in California, I would say, yes, absolutely. You got to stay out of probate, Georgia probate, we’re very fortunate. It’s less expensive and less onerous, than probate in other States. But at the same time, it’s a court process by which your executor has to prove that the will is valid. And to do that, he has to
present it to the judge. Your executive has to show it to all your heirs, whoever would inherit from you, if the will is no good, get them to sign off or they can raise a complaint. Your executor can act for 30 to 45 days at minimum after that petition for probate is filed. To avoid that, you can build a revocable living trust. And the idea here is, isn’t that great with the retirement accounts where you can set a beneficiary designation? Isn’t that great with insurance? You just write down who they’ll pay and those companies are bound by contract. When you die to pay who you told them to, you don’t have to go through that probate process. I wish we could do that with my house. How am I, how can you do that with the house? You build a revokable living trust. It’s your own designated beneficiary machine. Every trust has three people involved as the person who makes it. That’s the set lore in Georgia. It’s got the trustee, that’s the administrative person. They have the rulebook and the checkbook. They have to manage the assets and they can write checks to the beneficiaries when the rule book says it’s okay. With living trust, you’re all three. You build the trust, you put your stuff in it, you remain the trustee as long as you’re able. When you’re no longer able, this is a great question, who’s trustee when you can’t? Whoever you pick. In the order you pick them. And they’re not just flying by the seat of their pants like they would with the power of attorney. Power of attorney’s long on powers, but it doesn’t have any instructions in it. It says, if I get in trouble, and I can’t do it, you can go do my banking. Well, how do I do that? Well, just go, go do my banking. A trust can be very specific. This is how I want you to run the business. This is how I want you to distribute the quarterly earnings. This is how I want it. You can make a rule book very specifically with the trust.
Karl: [00:14:14] Why do you feel that more people, that sounds pretty, pretty simple to understand. What do you see as the barriers where a lot of folks choose not to do that? And I’m going to put aside any myths and perception around cost for a second, but that seems like a more sensible way for someone with assets like businesses or considerable to handle that.
Jim: [00:14:41] Well, that’s, that’s a great question and a lot of folks, when we’re doing a webinar or a live presentation, folks ask me that question. Why doesn’t everybody do this? Well, I don’t know, but I can tell you a story about a client that I spoke with last week who had done a will plan with us 2014 maybe. And was just calling up to check and have sort of a, a little checkup. He’d been, had seen some of our online content and gone through the education process again and he had a lot of questions about revocable living trust. He said, well, that’s definitely for us, and definitely the surviving spouse, one of us dies, the surviving spouse is going to go do that. I said, well okay. That’s a plan, but what if you’re both in the car? He said, what do you man? I said, well, what if you get killed and she gets a head injury? She can’t do it. He said oh, yeah. I said, well why would you want to make a grieving spouse have to redo your estate plan after one of you dies. When you guys can set up now? So I don’t know. There’s an inertia to it. There’s a resistance, and I think there is a perception that that’s for rich people. And that, Oh, it’s complicated. When it’s actually simpler. It is more complicated to set up. It takes more work now. I don’t think the answer is that people are lazy, but everything that you do, setting up your revocable living trust takes pressure and work off your agent when you die. It’s things the executor would be doing later with a little plan. You do it now so that the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted and things weren’t run very smoothly for the family. I don’t know why people don’t
do it all the time, but I do know that very often the folks that do it say, I don’t want my kids having a fool around with that other stuff when we can make it really easy for them right now with a little extra work.
Rico: [00:16:30] Let me ask you something, doesn’t it also shelter the assets of an estate though. Doesn’t it shelter it from taxes and all that, as well? Doesn’t it provide some protection for family inheriting, if you will.
Jim: [00:16:46] The a, I’m going to give you the lawyer’s answer is it depends. A basic revokable living trust? No, it’s transparent. It’s like a see-through entity. The way you might think about a S election on a corporation or LLC where it flows through everything that happens there. The basic rule or the way I explain asset protection and the way I think of it is asset protection is based on the principle, that anything that I can get for me they can get from me. If I can get it for me, they can take it from me, so if I run over your foot in the Kroger parking lot, I got $15,000 in my pocket, you’re going to be able to get it. So to build a trust that gives you asset protection and the rule that that trust must have, and it must be irrevocable, is that whatever you put in that trust, you can’t get back out for yourself. So you can build a trust that gives you asset protection. But it’s a different mechanism and you would never put everything you have in a revocable trust only what you reasonably calculate. You’re never going to have to spend on yourself during your own lifetime.
Rico: [00:17:56] Or is it property that you not selling? So some, I know from my family up in New York, New Jersey, some of them have estate plans like this where property is in it. Because the property’s not going to be sold. It’s something that they feel it’s going to be out there for the rest of the family. So stuff like that, I guess. Those types of assets probably.
Jim: [00:18:16] Sure. Residence is a great first, first thing you would think of. That’s the prime candidate, and the beautiful thing is you might even be able to be trustee of that trust. You can’t violate the rules. You can’t sell the house and put the money back in your account. But you could as trustee sell that house and buy a condo on the 18th fairway in Myrtle beach. Yeah. All inside the trust. So you may not give up control, but you’d give up your ability to benefit from it. And you might set it up to where even though you can’t take money out for you, you could take money out for your kids. Pay tuition. Yeah.
Rico: [00:18:54] So there are good advantages for a business owner to really like, really think hard about doing this.
Jim: [00:19:00] Oh, absolutely.
Rico: [00:19:01] You know, just waiting. Okay.
Jim: [00:19:03] Another place that it really appeals. Is that idea of crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s myself. I’m gonna make sure this thing runs right, because I may be, I may think I’m
George Washington some point in the future, but I’m going to get this thing right today. So even my knuckleheaded brother-in-law can’t mess it up.
Karl: [00:19:22] So you brought up the topic of children. And so I got to think about succession planning in business. Not only when it’s children, but also what if there’s partners that are not part of your family? What role does estate planning and helping people navigating exits when there’s a partnership in a business. Where does that end and where does something else begin from the business side?
Jim: [00:19:48] Yeah. I see it as a slow transition where you can’t even tell where the business planning and the estate planning ends. I don’t know that there’s a hard and fast line. One of the things, an idea to get used to in estate plan, and I think also business succession planning is that it’s possible to separate control from benefits. You may want your spouse to continue to benefit from the business after you die, but your spouse has never worked in the business, so you don’t want her running it or him running it. So it’s possible to separate those two things, which are very often it’s children. There may be one child that has worked in the business and three children that haven’t. You may want them all to have a profit interest, but the one who’s familiar with the business to continue to work in the business and make the decisions. And you don’t want a vote of those fours. What the right thing to do is you want that one child, your daughter, who you’ve taught the business to make those decisions. So that, to get going a long way around to your, your question is those are operating agreements. And buy-sell agreements with the partners. You know, you don’t want to…
Karl: [00:21:01] What’s a buy-sell agreement if you can.
Jim: [00:21:04] So a buy-sell agreement is where if you and I are partners in a business, we did sit down and have this conversation. What happens if one of us wants out? What happens if death takes one of us out? What happens? An injury takes one of us out. How are we going to handle that? Do you want to be in business with my spouse? Do I want to be in business with your spouse? What are the rules and parameters around that?
Karl: [00:21:25] I feel like that conversations would happen in a ring somewhere when two people are having that. But I think it’s important though, realistically, to set aside time, and this could be a time like that where you’ve talked to your partners and you might start off together, but get someone to guide you through that conversation, which may lead to what happens with the business, but then leads into what happens with each family.
Jim: [00:21:51] I think that’s a great, a great point. And I boil it down this way for clients to give them a way to get their head around it. All estate planning, business succession planning, all this planning for the future comes down to the answer to a few questions is, who’s got the authority? Who’s in control? Who gets to benefit? How do they benefit? And when as things change? So right now, you and I are partners, who has the authority? We do. We make the decisions about how the business runs, we get to benefit and whoever else we say, however
they say right now, if one of us becomes disabled, then who’s got the authority? Do you have to consult with my spouse? You know, how does that work? It’s just walking through those things. And the beautiful thing about estate planning and business planning is that there are very few must-dos. It’s a very highly personal and individualized thing. But it’s working through these, these questions who should be in control? Who should benefit as things unfold? And you sort of play the what if game.
Karl: [00:22:59] I’m curious. So, you know, we’re talking about estate planning and there’s a lot of legal, and I know folks have. I call it an allergic reaction, with things with attorneys or contracts and so on. So if there’s a responsible person in the family, how do they even begin to bring up this conversation with mom, dad, grandpa, uncle Willie, aunt Sue? How do they, what’s a good way to enter into that conversation with them?
Jim: [00:23:30] There are, it depends strongly on family dynamics. Listening for opportunities, how approachable people are in your family. One technique I’ve seen work very well for a lot of folks is, I don’t know how I’m going to talk to mom about this. But you know what? My wife and I, we haven’t done this. So we’re going to do that. And then at Thanksgiving we’re going to tell mom about the process we went through and all we were surprised to learn that if we hadn’t done this, this was going to happen. If we hadn’t have done this. Mom, did you and dad ever have that? You know, mom may be widowed now, but you say, mom, did you ever have that? Dad did you ever have that? Have you guys thought about that for you? Or have you thought about what if something happens to us, how are you going to take care of your grandkids? You know, very often you’re talking to a parent in these scenarios. So there are a lot of ways to get those emotional triggers going where maybe you can get that mind open a little bit to do it. But that’s a tricky one, you know? How do you start that conversation? Because I tease folks in the workshops, raise their hand. I have somebody raise their hand and say, Jim, I have a question. I said, great, what is it? And they’ll say, well if I die, and I say when. No ahead with your question. If I die, when? Say when you die. Oh, there are no exceptions here. It’s not going to happen to everybody else but me. It’s not going to happen everybody else, but you. There are no exceptions there. Now, some folks don’t want to see that. And you know, I love that we’re the lead in our own movie. I can’t imagine what happens when the movie ends.
Rico: [00:25:10] Unless you’re there.
Karl: [00:25:13] There are traditionally natural trigger points where people start this conversation. I know in a lot of religions when people get married, they have counseling with a minister or someone from their faith. And I know that it’s something that’s often covered in that as people going among other things. When people have children, it’s another point where it’s called kind of look at that to engage in the discussion. What I think is interesting that you’re starting to highlight here is finding ways to bring that conversation to the table in a safe way. Probably not a good time to do it just after a bunch of people finished an argument or there’s a lot of family drama going on. And I don’t know that it’s also good to do it, like on mother’s day or father’s day. We should leave those two days out to have that kind of discussion. But a good
way is probably starting by educating folks. And how can people begin to discover more information about this. So they can, they can start, you know, making good decisions for themselves and help bring others along to understand the importance and the process of how this is done.
Jim: [00:26:28] So for almost 10 years, we’ve been doing educational workshops as a way to get an entry point to, to have folks be, have some context and vocabulary to assert this conversation. So I believe strongly that education is where it’s at in getting this done, not just for families at home, but also for business owners and business planers. We do educational workshops. And now we’re going, we’re online and we’ve got an on demand version, and we do about two a month. We just did one April 7th. Our next one is, has not been scheduled for May yet, but we will. If folks are having difficulty finding that information, our website is, LetsTalkEstatePlanning.com. Just English, LetsTalkEstatePlanning.com. No apostrophe. You can contact us there. Joanne, who is our client service coordinator will get back with you and make sure that you’re able to access, all our online content. We’ve got the general workshop and then we’re having some specialized content going up in about the next week or two. But I think education is a great place to start. And I think you’ve highlighted that very often it’s life events, the birth of a child, a marriage, those sorts of things. Maybe for business owners is when you first form that business, when you incorporate. That’s a time where I hope business attorneys are bringing it up. When you get that third employee and you’re having to do worker’s comp insurance, that’s a time the insurance carrier should say, Hey, have you thought about succession plan? You know, those sort of analogous.
Rico: [00:28:03] Well, even when, when families have, you know, parents retiring a little earlier maybe they want to sell their big house, they want to downsize. That’s a good time too, to talk about that time.
Jim: [00:28:13] Yeah. Brilliant time, brilliant time. Also, you know, you’re getting ready to start a SEP or a simple at work or 401k that’s a great time. Anytime you’re thinking about that, that’s why I love to talk to CPAs, tax, for anybody that works with small business people. Just to keep this on their minds.
Karl: [00:28:32] So I’ve got, I’ve got a last question around that. So we’ve talked about this, and very often estate planning is associated with people that are older and have acquired more assets. Is there any advantage for millennials or younger people to start thinking about estate planning at any level. They may not have large assets accumulated, but would be a good time for them to start looking at some of these, these types of documents and concepts?
Jim: [00:29:05] Today is the right time to start. I love that question because it anchors back to where we started talking about wills, powers of attorney and healthcare directives. There’s who gets your stuff when you die? To a millennial who’s just beginning that accumulation phase, that may not be as important. But if there was a car accident and a head injury, God forbid they end up in the ICU, have they designated who can make those decisions for them? Do they have
their living will selections in order? I’ll tell you that we do something for our families. Well, I call it the 18th birthday package. When your child turns 18 they’re still your child, but legally you’re no longer their parent. You don’t get to go back with them to the doctor. You don’t get to say do surgery. You don’t get to say discharge and emit. They end up with meningitis at the health center at the university. You go over there, pick them up, you’re going to be in front of the superior court judge trying to get permission to do that. Or in front of the probate court judge. For the 18th birthday I think all kids should sign these documents designating their parents. We can also handle registrars that won’t talk to you. Oh, we can’t talk to you. We know you paid the tuition, but we can’t talk to you about the grades. There’s a waiver for that. We’ve got it covered.
Karl: [00:30:17] Well, I want to thank you and then I build on that. I would definitely say, I love the idea of 18, but if you were going to say anything later. If you’re going down the path of starting a life with someone. Adding, getting married or having a family. Just realize that your life just got more complicated and there are more people involved in decision making around it. And often giving your input by establishing the right power of attorneys and so on, to know your wife, your mother, your father, your brother, your sisters, what role people may play in your life, and what your wishes are. It’s probably the best gift you can give your family as being a responsible person. So, I want to thank you, Jim, for joining us today and talking about this really important topic. And you know, I hope everyone, and I hope you stay safe and your family stays safe as we go through. And so I want to thank Jim, principle attorney and founder of the estate law group, and he’s got offices right here in our community. If you want to reach out and just start educating yourself with a good starting point. Also Rico, why don’t we thank our sponsor?
Rico: [00:31:35] Sure. Let’s thank Hargray Fiber again for being a sponsor of these podcasts. Both Capitalist Sage, Peachtree Corners Life, the Ed Hour, which we just did this past Monday or Tuesday, actually with Jonathan Weatherington the principle of Paul Duke STEM high school. So I want to thank Hargray fiber. You can find out more information about them, bundled services, IT management and all that. They’re great in the community. They’re so involved in the community they are not the cable guy. So, you need someone that they are right there, right smack in the middle of your community, you can reach out to them and they’ll come out to you. So HargrayFiber.com is where you want to go.
Karl: [00:32:15] And I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors and proud to be a member of this Peachtree Corners and the greater Atlanta community. We help business people, you know, make the right decisions when it comes to starting their business, acquiring a business. When it comes to selling their business, we can help them with that. And I love that we talked today about how estate planning comes into that total planning process around your business. I think it’s really important that people take this time as we’re going through the COVID-19 pandemic. To just think about those things that you never had time to get to. If you love your family, and I think Jim said it well, this is something that you should make a priority to get right and do it the right way. So I want to thank, thank you for that. Rico why don’t you tell us a little bit about what’s going on? The magazine is out. What have we got coming up?
Rico: [00:33:09] Sure. Before we get to that, I want to thank Jim also, because I should know better. My parents had done the estate planning with my siblings. We all got together, we spoke to them and made sense to them. They had property in different states, so it made sense for them to be able to do that. So yeah, and yet, and yet I have not done it yet, so Jim may get that phone call from me at some point because, you know, especially with COVID-19 and all this stuff going on, I mean, it just meant, just puts it at the forefront of being able to take care of that. Well, Peachtree Corners Magazine should be in your mailbox by now. God knows in some places it seems it may not be. The post office is dealing with COVID-19 also. So I’m hoping that everyone’s gotten it. I’m actually going to be putting up a giveaway in the next few days to get people to hold their copy, post it on Facebook, put it on Instagram, hashtag us and I will give three winners from that giveaway contest. Either doing it as credit or a pass to one of the restaurants for takeout of, so, but we’ve been getting a lot of good response on that. I delivered copies to Simpson elementary cause they do have a central personnel there. So it’s gone there and I’m putting it out and it’s out there. MightyRockets.com just to, blow my own horn a little bit, we do social media marketing, online content. We’ve been doing branding and been doing some, besides these podcasts, other podcast productions. So if you’re looking for someone to handle your podcast productions or online content work. MightyRockets.com or just call me, email me.
Karl: [00:34:53] And don’t forget, you can follow us on Facebook, Living in Peachtree Corners on Facebook. What’s our other social media?
Rico: [00:35:02] So the Facebook page is Peachtree Corners Life that you would follow. You get updates, you get tweets or notification of when we go live. And then you could also go to LivingInPeachtreeCorners.com. Follow us there. You can check us, Peachtree Corners Magazine, where I post all the podcasts on LinkedIn. So if you search on LinkedIn for the magazine, you’ll find that there. But anywhere you find podcasts, just Google the Capitalist Sage Podcast, you’ll find a ton of places including iHeartRadio and all that.
Karl: [00:35:33] And so everyone is taking a lot more walks right now. They have plenty of time to listen to more podcasts. So we just wanna thank you, Jim again. Really helpful.
Jim: [00:35:45] Rico, Karl, Thank you.
Karl: [00:35:47] I appreciate that. Everyone stay safe out there where we’re battling through this and we have to do it for a little bit longer, but this will pass and things will get back to more normal, more normal than it is today. So just stay encouraged and be good to each other. Thanks.
Business
Expanding Horizons: How KGM Technologies Balances Defense, Medical, and Precision Manufacturing
Kyle Grob on innovation, diversification, and the future of skilled trades
In this episode of UrbanEBB, host Rico Figliolini speaks with Kyle Grob, CEO and founder of Peachtree Corners-based KGM Technologies, a precision manufacturing company specializing in firearm suppressors and expanding into medical device production. Kyle shares insights on growing a business during COVID-19, navigating ATF regulations, and how Georgia fosters innovation in manufacturing.
The conversation also explores the future of skilled trades, the challenges of hiring motivated workers, and KGM’s commitment to workforce development through partnerships with vocational schools. Whether you’re interested in business growth, advanced manufacturing, or the evolving job market, this episode is packed with valuable insights.
Key Takeaways & Highlights:
- Adapting to Change – How KGM transitioned from automotive and defense contracts to firearm suppressor manufacturing and medical devices.
- The Impact of ATF Regulations – Digital processing has drastically reduced wait times for suppressor purchases.
- Workforce Challenges – The decline of skilled trades and the difficulty of hiring motivated employees in manufacturing.
- Medical Technology Expansion – KGM’s role in producing stroke rehabilitation devices and scaling medical manufacturing.
- Networking & Diversification – The importance of industry connections in finding new opportunities.
- The Value of Trade Schools – How partnerships with Maxwell High School and other vocational programs are shaping the next generation of skilled workers.
- Patents & Innovation – KGM’s goal of filing at least one new patent every year.
- The Role of Suppressors – Their use in law enforcement, hunting, and protecting hearing health.
Transcript:
00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini
Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Urban Ebb here in the city of Peachtree Corners, just north of Atlanta. I appreciate you joining us. We have a great guest today, a Peachtree Corners-based business, very different and unique industry, Kyle Grob. Appreciate you being with me, Kyle.
00:00:18 – Kyle Grob
Oh, thank you for having me. Glad to be here.
00:00:19 – Rico Figliolini
It’s going to be a good discussion on a bit of company, a bit of work, and manpower, the lack of. But before we get into that, I just want to say thank you to two of our sponsors, EV Remodeling, Inc., and the owner, Eli, who lives here in Peachtree Corners also. His family does. And he does great work from design to build. Whole house renovation, or if you need an extension on the house, he’s the guy to look for. They’ve done over 260 such renovation work. So check them out, evremodelinginc.com. And then also Vox Pop Uli also family owned, also in Peachtree Corners. And they’re a company that if you have a brand and if you’re a business and you need to bring that brand to life, pretty much you can do it. 1,600 vehicle wraps I think this past year anything you can want, imprinted, embroidered, silk screen, whatever it is. If you have a logo and you want it on an object of any sort, challenge them. I can’t tell you how many different things they’ve put logos on. So all great stuff. Check them out, voxpopuli.com, where you can find them. So, now that I’ve taken care of the sponsors who support us for our journalism and podcasts. Kyle is the founder and currently CEO of KGM Technology. Yeah. So, based in Peachtree Corners, tell us just quickly a little bit about what the company is.
00:01:42 – Kyle Grob
So, the company started in 2012 as a kind of a fabrication, job shop, machining fabrication. And we kind of evolved out of the automotive space and got into the defense world and slowly grew over years. And then we moved into this building in 2019 and have been growing ever since.
00:02:03 – Rico Figliolini
2019, COVID.
00:02:05 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so COVID was actually very good for us. It was wide open, running multiple shifts. While many businesses were shut down, we couldn’t hire enough people, we couldn’t build enough products.
00:02:17 – Rico Figliolini
We’ll get into that because it may be a bit of what you’re going on now. So your business is military suppressors, which is the biggest part. You told me once at one point when I took a tour earlier, a week ago, you said we’re precision manufacturers.
00:02:34 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so the back end, the wholeness of the company is precision manufacturing. Our forward-facing product is suppressors. That’s mainly what we sell to commercial, law enforcement, military, overseas, all kinds of stuff like that. But we’re in all kinds of stuff. Contract manufacturing, medical device manufacturing and supply, all the way down to machining and research and development. And it’s just a little bit of everything. But again, forward facing is the product line, yes.
00:03:02 – Rico Figliolini
Sure. And you’ve done this since 2019, right? Actually before that.
00:03:07 – Kyle Grob
Well, no, no. Yeah. So we started suppressors in 2015, 2016. And then, but it was kind of a side product to what we were doing. Really grew in 2019. And then really kind of just kept growing through COVID. And this is kind of where we are now.
00:03:22 – Rico Figliolini
Interesting. So your family is steeped in military? In all branches, I guess?
00:03:25 – Kyle Grob
Yeah. Army and Navy.
00:03:27 – Rico Figliolini
Army and Navy. And you hire veterans?
00:03:29 – Kyle Grob
We hire a lot of veterans. We have a lot of veterans that work for us. I try to hire as many as we can. They make very good employees. But, you know, it could probably be a whole nother podcast in itself, what happens to veterans when they come back from service. And so we try to search them out and give people a chance.
00:03:34 – Rico Figliolini
Getting involved in this type of market since, you know, you started, has it changed in the way you do business?
00:04:03 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, because we are so highly regulated from, you know, the ATF regulates us pretty heavily. The ability for consumers to essentially purchase the product and all the paperwork and background check that goes in it has evolved since we started. It used to be nine months, 12, 15 months to get a product. So you buy it, wait for your paperwork for a year or more. You’d almost forget about the product. And then all of a sudden it’d pop up one day. Well, last year, everything went digital. And so now everything’s digital. You go from months or years wait time to days, hours, weeks.
00:04:38 – Rico Figliolini
So you can order this stuff online and get it shipped to you?
00:04:41 – Kyle Grob
No, so you can’t really ship it to your house. So you still have to go to a dealer or go like that. You’re still submitting fingerprints. You’re still submitting your photos. But the process is now all digitized. There’s no manual entry on the ATF side. Everything goes through much faster. And again, we’ve seen, you know, three hour wait times. Where you fill out your paperwork, go to a long lunch and all of a sudden your suppressor is approved.
00:05:04 – Rico Figliolini
So if you have a gun permit or a carry permit, does that make it easy?
00:05:08 – Kyle Grob
It doesn’t really because it’s a completely separate background check. So this, every suppressor you purchase is its own background check. So you treat it like a firearm purchase every single time, except it goes through a kind of a different, it goes through the FBI on the NIC side, which is their background check service. But it goes through separate checking on the ATF side as well. So it is a little bit more involved process than buying a handgun or a rifle or something like that. But similar agencies touch it, I guess.
00:05:38 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. This being the state of Georgia, other states have different ways of doing things. You’ve been to trade shows. You’re involved in the industry a bit. Do you see Georgia being a good place to do business here in this market?
00:05:52 – Kyle Grob
Georgia is a very friendly state. And even just manufacturing in general, you’ve seen all the companies that have moved here. You have, you know, most major automotive companies are either building or about to build here. You got SK batteries. You have some big companies that are moving to Georgia. And then film. I mean, film is massive here now with all the tax breaks. And so you see a lot of stuff coming to Georgia from an industry standpoint, but it’s also very firearms friendly. There’s a lot of big companies here in Georgia. You have Glock here in Georgia. You have Daniel Defense. You have a lot of really big companies. I think Remington’s got a place here. So it is very, you know, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina. There’s a lot of very friendly states when it comes to manufacturing and firearms.
00:06:35 – Rico Figliolini
So how do you go about selling your product then? I mean, if you go to trade shows, RFPs?
00:06:40 – Kyle Grob
So on the military side, it’s more RFPs, it’s more contract basis. We partner with a lot of firearms companies because a lot of submissions for weapons systems require, you know, we’re viewed as kind of an add-on to a weapon system. Yeah, it’s an accessory. And then on the law enforcement side, we go demos, we have dealers. And then on the commercial side, we have distributors that distribute to dealers. And then we have dealers that essentially are walk-in brick and mortar stores. And we sell directly to them as well.
00:07:07 – Rico Figliolini
So for most people that may not know, why would someone want a suppressor on the gun? Why would a police officer, let’s say a SWAT team, want to suppress it? What makes it?
00:07:17 – Kyle Grob
Really the biggest one is health and safety. It’s the biggest one. So from an officer-involved shooting, or say if he shoots without ear protection, every shot is permanent hearing damage. So if he shoots one in his entire career, he’s permanent hearing damage, he’s on disability from an auditory standpoint. You look at, you know, what you could do, and then you look at, you know, God forbid all the school shootings we’ve had and school resource. When you shoot inside of a building, it’s even magnified. So it’s very, very loud in general, and then you put it inside of a building and it gets worse. So there’s been cases where you’ve seen lawsuits where, you know, a SWAT team or someone’s gone into a house or a building and essentially, you know, saved someone, but they discharged their short barrel rifle inside the house. And then everyone that’s not wearing ear protection, i.e. the family, they’re all deaf or hearing damage, and they end up suing the city. And we see it a lot. And so from a health and safety standpoint, there’s that. You could look at accuracy. And then you look at, on the hunting side of being more courteous to neighbors. It allows you to hunt closer to, you know, other people and stuff like that. Yeah, so there’s so many things that add to it. And then you add, you know, on the military side, it helps with being able to, you know, hide your location and just be more effective. Suppress flash and stuff like that. So a myriad of uses, but really the bigger one is the health and safety side of things.
00:08:40 – Rico Figliolini
I was speaking to a person today that on his old farm he used to shoot his rifle and stuff. And he told me he said, this ear? Pretty much gone. He says now hearing aid. Because he didn’t think that he needed a, you know plugs or anything. A suppressor probably would have helped him. Well at least the plugs might have helped a little bit. But no one thinks about that.
00:08:59 – Kyle Grob
You don’t, you don’t. And you look at the law enforcement side and kind of the heat of moment, you don’t think about it. It’s not something, you’re either fighting for your life or, you know, your split moment decision. Like you don’t think about putting your plug on or throwing a plug in or something like that. It’s a split second decision. So with suppressors, you can really mitigate a lot of that risk. Now, does it make it the Hollywood movie side? No. The only thing that gets even close to that is 22. And it’s because the subsonic is very quiet like that. Any centerfire rifle cartridge you’re never going to get away from supersonic crack. It’s only so quiet you can get it. It is a suppressor, not a silencer. And that’s a probably a very heated topic. It’s a movie thing, yes. But in practical application they do a lot of work for the size of the product and what you use it for.
00:09:50 – Rico Figliolini
So now going from suppressors to the medical industry. You know when you showed me around and you talked to me about mechanical therapeutic systems for a company you’re doing work for inside the perimeter. That you almost had to double the size of your floor space, essentially.
00:10:07 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so it’s kind of an interesting story. We go back to, we’re a precision manufacturing company. We make contract stuff. We do defense. We do a little bit of everything. And it was kind of a friend of a friend. Their business was scaling and really needed help scaling the manufacturing side of their product. And it was really a right place, right time. It kind of fit in our warehouse. While it’s not exactly what we make, precision assembly, scaling, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, all that stuff. That’s what we do every day. So I’m just building something a little different versus what I have been building. So it was a great opportunity. Again, the right side of the perimeter is Atlanta company. And it was just a really good right place, right time. Good fit for what they were looking for. Good fit for us on the diversification side. So it’s just it really worked and we’re growing weekly. Yeah, we’re blowing walls down and yeah we’ve tripled the space twice now since we yarded in like October of last year. So it’s very very quick.
00:11:07 – Rico Figliolini
When I walked through and you gave me the tour, I mean there were quite a few people just in that place doing the assemblage. I think you even told me, you said well, how far down can you? Millionth of an inch? Precision?
00:11:21 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so it’s like our EDMs and some of our stuff, we calculate microns, millionth of an inch.
00:11:27 – Rico Figliolini
So that’s an industry, obviously, you want to get more into.
00:11:30 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, it is. It was interesting. I had kind of heard about the medical manufacturing side, and the more we dug into it, the more I realized how many companies like the company we’re helping are out there. And they have a great idea, a great concept, but they’re either doctors or they’re pcs or biomedical. You know they’ve developed great product but they don’t know the manufacturing side or they don’t know how to scale the logistics. Yes, scaling. So it’s, there’s so many good ideas that maybe never ever come to market or never could reach the potential they could because they don’t know the back end. They don’t know the manufacturing, they don’t know how to. Make five of something is very different than making 500, is very different than making 5,000. And it’s just a different skill set. It’s a different knowledge base. And we’re very good at it. And it was a really, really good fit. And it’s something we believe in. We believe in the medical stuff as much as we believe in the defense. Every day we’re building something to help someone else.
00:12:29 – Rico Figliolini
And to get people to understand a little bit, this particular thing was a therapeutic.
00:12:34 – Kyle Grob
Yeah it’s a, without going into too much detail, it’s a stroke therapy device. It’s used for rehab of stroke patients so that they can actually rehab at home versus having to go into a therapy office. And so it’s just grown immensely and that’s, the product’s done well.
00:12:50 – Rico Figliolini
So how do you go after that market? You know, so if another business person, you know, when you, when you diversify, it’s not easy, right? You’re all set in one way. You have 100% of the direction going one way. How do you do that? If another company was listening to this, how would they be able to diversify? So what challenges did you see?
00:13:10 – Kyle Grob
The challenges, like I said, we very much stumbled into this one. Not saying we weren’t looking, and that’s kind of how we did it, but honestly, it was network. And the guy that owns this company, owns another company and he’s an investment group with another other. So a lot of it is networking and being open and willing to take on a challenge that you may not. Be like, oh I have no business in that, well if you’re good at what you do over here and you can see you can cross the lines you can compare, you’d be surprised what you can do. And then you go to the trade shows. Like there are medical device trade shows. Go to those and walk around and say, hey I’m a manufacturer, or I’m this, I’m looking at getting into this market. Do you have a need for X, what I do? Putting yourself out there and going like, look, this is out of my market, but I’m good at this. I would like to try this and just be open and willing to, A, to fail because you’re going to fail more than you succeed, but be willing to try. And that’s the big thing was the leap. Like we took a leap to do this. I had a good feeling that we could do it. But at the end of the day, like you still have to take the leap.
00:14:17 – Rico Figliolini
You’re a CEO now and you were a founder, but you were on the board. You were chairman of the board?
00:14:22 – Kyle Grob
No, no, not chair on the board. I was more on the technical side. So as we were growing the business, I was CTO. And so we were heading kind of down a different path and it was just a the board kind of wanted to see a different change in the way the company was run. And again, my background, why I said, I wasn’t running the day to day, most more on the manufacturing side and technology and patents and stuff like that. And so, board made a shift and I took back over the company. You know, I go from running it many years ago, to running again. Which happens a lot in small companies. And it was a, we wanted to head down the manufacturing path and that’s what I know. So we made a change and I stepped back in last year and been riding the train ever since.
00:15:11 – Rico Figliolini
Good, good. It’s great to have a company expanding and doing well in Peachtree Corners.
00:15:13 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, yeah. Happy to be here.
00:15:17 – Rico Figliolini
Being an employer of veterans, being steeped in family military and stuff, you do outreach, you do community fundraising in that field, in that area.
00:15:29 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, we do, again, more in the defense space, but we do some charity work with several organizations. And again, we donate product. We do stuff for raffles and fundraisers, and we do a lot of stuff like that. Because I really do believe in giving back to the market and giving back to those people. So it’s something we do a decent amount of. I would like to do more this year. That’s kind of what we’re trying to find some other organizations that do stuff with. But we try to do as much as we can. There’s one group, and I’ll be happy to say the name, but Guardian Group. And it’s Guardian Long Range. And they have a precision rifle series. It’s a shooting competition, but it’s for fun. And they have four or five stops all around the U.S. And we outfitted all their rifles that they let people use for trials and stuff like that. We outfitted all the suppressors. So maybe their first competition experience is with a suppressed rifle. So we do stuff with them every year. A guy named Gary is the one that founded that. So great group. But he has a lot of, most of his stuff is for foster kids. He’s a foster kid himself, and he does, every single dime of that goes right into helping foster kids, helping place foster kids, and stuff like that.
00:16:41 – Rico Figliolini
Wow, that is neat. That is cool. I didn’t think about that. So, you know, leadership, company, what comes to mind when you’re, you know, when you’re looking ahead for the next few years?
00:16:55 – Kyle Grob
Really, my biggest push is diversification. Is trying to grow the medical side for sure, grow my contract manufacturing, and really try to build some stable streams around. Everyone knows the firearms industry goes up and down. It’s always cyclical. And so trying to build a larger company where I can have some overlying pathways and diversify and stuff like that so that I can clip the waves and be able to grow the business without relying as much on a very cyclical market. So that’s really the big try. We’re pushing a lot of technology. We’re trying for a patent a year, or a patent every two years. Yeah, we’re four deep already, with two more applied. So we do a lot on the patent side, a lot on the testing and development side. But yeah, growing the medical is really the big one I’m focusing on in the next year or so.
00:17:45 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, one of the things you have in the house is a firearm range. You told me, and you can put a .50 caliber?
00:17:52 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so we shoot up to .50 caliber indoors. Yeah, so we have a, it’s a lab as much as it is a range where we can do all of our instrumentation and we develop based on data. So we use it. We shoot it in almost every single day. We’re doing testing and development. We do, you know, demos for customers and stuff like that. But yeah, we’ve, pretty extensive room back there.
00:17:54 – Rico Figliolini
Yes, it’s amazing. Small. Smaller than this conference room.
00:17:58 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, yeah. It’s not, it’s not very big. It’s not a big long range, but it’s heavily instrumented.
00:18:22 – Rico Figliolini
I can’t even imagine shooting a 50 caliber in there, how that would sound.
00:18:25 – Kyle Grob
Oh it, unsuppressed it’ll lift the ceiling tiles. It’ll pressurize the room, yeah so.
00:18:31 – Rico Figliolini
So lots of work yeah expanding you’re looking towards the future and stuff. One of the biggest problems I guess, and we’re going to go right into that is finding employees. Finding skilled employees or motivated employees. Maybe not even skilled, maybe motivated. How does that?
00:18:49 – Kyle Grob
I’ll trade motivation for skill. I’ll trade because what we do is kind of unique. Even on the manufacturing side, we have very nice machines. We do things to a very, very high tolerance. And even with machining background, we’ve found that some people have either preconceived notions or bad habits or stuff like that. We’re getting to the point now where I would rather have someone that has a little bit of mechanical aptitude, some basic knowledge, or someone out of trade school, and I’d rather just teach them. And finding someone that’s willing, even on the medical side, I’d rather have someone come in that wants to just come in and work every single day, take pride in the product they put out. You don’t have to even be that knowledgeable about what we do. I’ll train you and do whatever we need to do, but someone to actually come in and do it is one of the biggest struggles we find. We’ve had you know, multiple staffing agencies and all stuff like that. And we have people, we had some people the other day that came in for four hours, just left during lunch, never came back. And yeah, just it’s, the workforce is, it’s been disappointing, I guess. And seeing, especially on the technical side, I mean, the craves, the trades, the crafts, like a lot of that stuff is dying. Like people are not, you look in the like tool and dye. Oh, that’s enough. That’s no, so most people don’t know how injection mold stuff works and like that. The craftsmen that build those tools, that is a dying art. There’s only one or two schools in the U.S. that do it. I don’t know any of those guys that make less than six figures. None of them. And, you know, you look at plumbers and electricians and welders. I come from a welding background. I knew plenty of welders in the nuclear field that have multiple houses in multiple states. They never wanted for money. They always had plenty of money because it’s such a very small niche thing and there’s not many people that go into it. And so what we found with the growing, we’ve had to do a lot of automation because we cannot get the people. So we’re putting robotics in, we’re putting automation system in just because I have a certain number of parts that I have to make a day and we’re not hitting the numbers with the people we have. And it’s really hard to find people that want to come in and work. And we have a climate control facility, the nicest machines, our oldest machine, CNC machine is from 2018. It’s the oldest machine we have in the whole building. Most stuff is within two years old. So we work highest machines, highest quality product this, and just having someone come in every single day and want to work. It’s been very difficult to find. And that’s it. It’s been. I guess upsetting a little bit of how hard it’s been.
00:21:25 – Rico Figliolini
I think we talked a little bit about that when I was here last time. And you’re on the board of Maxwell High School Technical, I think?
00:21:33 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so Maxwell High School, it’s a vocational high school, essentially. It’s a trade high school. They’re over in Lawrenceville, I think. So high school kids in Gwinnett County, if they want to go to that program, I want to say it’s junior and senior year. If they are heading down that path, they essentially will get bused to Maxwell for half their day and come back. And they have machining and welding, hvac, nursing, culinary, carpentry, all kinds of stuff. And you can get some vocational certificates in high school over there. And so I sit on the board over there and I help advise of curriculum of what do kids need to learn if they want to head down this path? They want to head down, I don’t care if it’s machining or engineering or anything like that. Like what are basic skills. I mean we have people that come in their 20s that don’t know what a screwdriver is. I mean, it’s like, that sounds crazy, but until you meet people and you know, I don’t think the school systems are doing people favors. And so I’ve been really trying to help where I can and you know, try to like, look, let’s try to teach people young. I didn’t have that when I was in school. Like I had to learn everything the hard way.
00:22:42 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. And you were talking about this. You started at 15, I think.
00:22:46 – Kyle Grob
Yeah. So I started machining in, you know, high school. I started welding at 12. I grew up on a farm.
00:22:51 – Rico Figliolini
12.
00:22:52 – Kyle Grob
And so it’s one of those that, you know, I had a very good upbringing. Like I was shown, my great grandfather was a master carpenter. Great uncle was a master machinist. Like I grew up in a trade family. And so like, I got exposed to that stuff very, very young. I was very lucky. A lot of people aren’t like that. Most of their parents are maybe in IT or finance, and they want to go be a machinist or be a welder or something like that. So there’s no, you know, maybe the parents don’t know how to get into that. And so the kids find out at a later date. Well, what if they could start finding out in high school? They start learning, you know, your STEM schools, your vocational schools, that kind of stuff.
00:23:31 – Rico Figliolini
I think like Paul Duke STEM, for example, they’re a hybrid school, right? So it’s, you have kids that are technically STEM kids, but then you also have other kids who are learning CAD and 3D printing and stuff like that. So more of technical stuff that they can actually leave the high school knowing that stuff and then find the job doing it. So that’s the only place I know that’s like that, short of the Gwinnett Science and Technology High School. I forget where that is now. But when I grew up, I mean, granted this, you know, my high school was 50 years ago. Half a century. That’s horrible. Okay. But when I grew up, we had shop classes. So metal class, printing class. In fact, I took printing. I should have taken the auto class because that really works now. But I took printing. And when I was going to college, I worked at the print shop right around the corner. So I made good cash because there weren’t that many people that knew it. And I literally could run two or three presses at the same time. They were small presses. But there were even people back then that would be like, well, what are you in a rush for? Why are you doing what you’re doing? And I’m like, because I’m getting bored running this long run in this one press. I could do this other one while this is going. So it is to some degree motivation, some degree technical knowledge.
00:24:50 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, but a lot of it still drive. Strive.
00:24:53 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. For sure. To be able to make that money. I mean, most parents think, well, I don’t know about most parents. What I think is people got into this four-year college degree thing. Which is way more expensive now than it used to be. And you’re looking at people, who was it, the head of OpenAI, was essentially saying you don’t have to go, the head of NVIDIA was. It was like you used to want to be able to send your kid to do computer programming. And he’s essentially saying, you know, you don’t need to be doing that anymore because it can be done in plain english on OpenAI, essentially. So where are they going?
00:25:36 – Kyle Grob
Good question.
00:25:37 – Rico Figliolini
I see signing bonuses for 10 grand on HVAC here in the metro area sometimes. How do you solve that? I mean, you’re on the board of the high school, but how do you?
00:25:48 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, but it’s one high school. And it’s one high school in a state. And I know there’s other vocational schools in other states. A lot of it just seems to be the state has to look at it holistically in the whole state. And go like, look, this is worth putting money into. This is not football. This is not baseball. This is not your support sports like that. It is an alternative path that is not your commonplace. So it really has to come. And I’ll give the state of Georgia and even Gwinnett County very, very good accolades of, you know, taking the leap on that school and funding that program and pushing it and keeping to push it and grow it. And so, but it has to start at a state level. The state has to be able to go,this is worth putting money into to future. Because you have to do it now for the kids that are coming up. You know if you want to get, if you want that kid that’s in elementary school right now to look at that that program, it already has to be in place so that he will know about he or she will know about it by the time they get into middle school and then by the time they get in high school they can apply for it.
00:26:50 – Rico Figliolini
I think the stigma, but the stigma needs to go away also, right? Because there’s a stigma of like, you’re not going to college?
00:26:57 – Kyle Grob
Yeah. You’re not going to amount to anything if you don’t go to get a four-year degree.
00:27:02 – Rico Figliolini
And it used to be okay if you knew computer engineering and programming. You’d come out of school. Some people, some leaders in that industry would say, don’t waste the four years. We’ll train you during the four years.
00:27:13 – Kyle Grob
Come work for me now.
00:27:15 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Google used to do that. Some of these other companies started doing away with four-year degree minimums to be able to do that because they weren’t finding what they needed. But now they’re finding it in a different way. But I agree with you. Funding that type of stuff makes a whole lot of sense but it’s taking that stigma away to say, you know.
00:27:33 – Kyle Grob
It’s okay to be a plumber. It’s okay to be a carpenter. It’s okay to, you know wash cars. Because I have a friend of mine who started washing cars then he managed a car wash. Now he owns six of them.
00:27:46 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah again, it’s a bit of drive.
00:27:50 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, but he had the drive and he knew that he had to start somewhere. And I think a lot of people are scared of starting at the bottom of something. And but, it’s one of those that like they’re all these crafts all these trades are very inviting they want people. They’re begging for people to come work.
00:28:06 – Rico Figliolini
You know what? You don’t you don’t need to drive as much. You need to be able to, I think take pride in what you do. You don’t need to go into something and say, well, I want to start my own business because some people don’t want to. They want to do a nine-to-five. That’s fine. They can make lots of money doing nine-to-five.
00:28:22 – Kyle Grob
They can make good money doing nine-to-five, yeah.
00:28:25 – Rico Figliolini
Check out the company. Alright, so we’ve sort of come to the end of our interview. Is there anything I’ve left out that we haven’t talked about that do you think you should mention?
00:28:37 – Kyle Grob
No, I said I can go on for days about the labor and trade schools and stuff like that. But no, I said this. It’s kind of a little bit of my story and kind of where we’ve come from, where we’re heading and what I’m passionate about individually and what I want to do for the community.
00:28:52 – Rico Figliolini
Excellent. So if you all want to find out about the company, check out the website. I’ll have the, actually, what is the website?
00:28:58 – Kyle Grob
It’s kgm-tech.com.
00:29:01 – Rico Figliolini
I’ll have the link in the show notes as well. If you have any questions for Kyle, just email him off the website. Or leave your comments in the, you know, depending if you’re watching this on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, or if you’re watching this on audio podcast, just send the comments to me and I’ll forward it to Kyle. So, but thank you everyone. Thank you to our sponsors as well, to Vox Pop Uli and to EV Remodeling Inc. Appreciate you all being with us. Share this UrbanEbb podcast with your friends. And if you look, if you know anyone that’s looking to get into the technical field, Kyle could be a good mentor probably. I would think. Thank you Kyle.
00:29:41 – Kyle Grob
Yeah. Thank you sir.
00:29:41 – Rico Figliolini
I appreciate it. Thank you guys
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