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ASHRAE: Changing the value of a building and setting standards for the world

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4 years ago

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ASHRAE, and the engineers that make up its society, are responsible for setting the standard of building in the United States and many countries. Today’s guest, Ginger Scoggins, is the current Treasurer and served as chair for the Building Headquarters Ad Hoc Committee at ASHRAE. In addition to her work there, she is also president and co-founder of Engineered Designs, Inc. In this episode, Karl and Rico talk with Ginger about the new ASHRAE Headquarters in Peachtree Corners and this society’s amazing work.

ASHRAE is a global professional society committed to serving humanity by advancing the arts and sciences of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and their allied fields.

Related Links

ASHRAE Website: https://www.ASHRAE.org
Ginger’s Email: GScoggins@EngineeredDesigns.com

“It’s just hyper important, especially right now in this world we’re in, to make sure that the standards that people need to adhere to when they’re designing buildings really help the occupants and the planet. And that we’re not contributing to the issues that we see today in terms of global warming and all of that.”

Ginger Scoggins

Podcast transcript:

[00:00:30] Karl: Hello. Today we’re speaking with ASHRAE and talking about advances in building technologies here in Peachtree Corners. Our guest will be Ginger Scoggins, ASHRAE Treasurer and Fellow, and the chair of the ASHRAE Building Headquarters Ad Hoc committee. And president of Engineered Designs Inc. I’d like to welcome everybody to the Capitalist Sage Podcast. We’re here to bring you advice and tips from seasoned pros and experts to help you improve your business. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld business advisors. And my co-host is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets, Digital Marketing, and the publisher of the Peachtree Corners Magazine Rico, how are you doing today?

[00:01:08] Rico: Good, Karl. How are you? Ginger, good to see you.

[00:01:11] Ginger: Good to see you both.

[00:01:13] Karl: Excellent. Why don’t you tell us about our sponsor today?

[00:01:17] Rico: Sure. Peachtree Corners Magazine, which I publish six times a year is the publication that covers Peachtree Corners, not only in print, but online. And we cover it through podcasts, like the Capitalist Sage, Peachtree Corners Life, and even Prime Lunchtime with City Manager. So check us out, go to LivinginPeachtreeCorners.com and you’ll find out more information.

[00:01:37] Karl: Thank you so much for that. It is a pleasure to welcome Ginger Scoggins a member of ASHRAE and the current Treasurer. She’s also a Fellow with ASHRAE and the Chair of the building HQ Ad Hoc Committee for ASHRAE that helped build and design the new ASHRAE headquarters right here in Peachtree Corners. She’s also the President of Engineered Designs Inc. out of Raleigh, North Carolina. And a lifelong supporter of engineering buildings and design on the mechanical side. Hi, Ginger, how are you doing today?

[00:02:13] Ginger: Good. How are you Karl?

[00:02:15] Karl: I’m doing fabulous. As we get started in talking about the new headquarters. I’d probably like to just start with us learning a little bit about you and your journey in the business that you’re doing and with ASHRAE.

[00:02:27] Ginger: Sure. So I am a consulting engineer. I’m a mechanical engineer by training. Actually from Tennessee. I went to an engineering school called Tennessee Tech University. I’ve got about 30 years experience designing buildings. Started right out of college and worked for a consulting firm here in Raleigh. Worked for a couple of different firms for the first 10 years and then actually went out on my own about 24 years ago. So I’ve been running this business for 24 years, designing buildings in and around North Carolina, South Carolina area. So focusing on different types of buildings, we do a lot of university work. We do a lot of mission critical work, which is telecommunications or data center type work. And I’ve been an ASHRAE volunteer for almost that entire 30 years. Which ASHRAE is a volunteer driven organization. We have 56,000 plus members across the world. We work on designing and building sustainable buildings, promoting the industry. We write the standards for our industry. Most of the work I do is based on ASHRAE standards. We do write the standards that drive our industry and drive the building code when it comes to energy and indoor air quality. Which is especially important right now with the pandemic going on. The ASHRAE epidemic task force has been hugely instrumental in setting some standards and what to do with buildings. All different types of buildings in terms of outside air quality, how to deal with the pandemic, filtration levels. All of those items are hugely important right now. And always, but especially right now. And so ASHRAE works with all those standards and helps set the stage for how people like me do our job of designing healthy buildings.

[00:04:17] Karl: That’s fabulous. I noticed for folks that don’t know, ASHRAE stands for American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, Air Conditioning Engineer. Did I get that right?

[00:04:27] Ginger: You got that perfect.

[00:04:29] Karl: Oh, excellent. Why don’t you tell folks a little bit about the mission around ASHRAE? Why does such an organization exist and how does it help, you know, people, investors, building owners, build more sustainable, safe, and comfortable buildings.

[00:04:43] Ginger: Well, sure. So ASHRAE whether, you know or don’t know, most states in the country have an energy code. And that energy code is based on ASHRAE standard 90.1 in most instances. And so those standards like 90.1 and ASHRAE 62, which is an outside air requirement standard. Those help us make sure we’re building buildings that are healthy for the people in the building, as well as to conserve energy use, to help our planet. ASHRAE is working really hard right now in the decarbonisation world. And we have a task force for building decarbonisation. On how we can build buildings that use less carbon, reduce our carbon footprint. It’s just hyper important, especially right now in this world we’re in, to make sure that the standards that people need to adhere to when they’re designing buildings really help the occupants and the planet. And that we’re not contributing to the issues that we see today in terms of global warming and all of that.

[00:05:53] Rico: Yeah. It’s interesting. I think that the standards that you set don’t just affect, like what some people might think is just air conditioning, heating. It probably affects the standards of windows that are being installed in buildings, the double pane, the gas, installation of those. There’s a variety of industries actually that ASHRAE effects.

[00:06:12] Ginger: Well, exactly right. And when you’re designing a building, and it’s not just mechanical engineers, such as myself, but architects, electrical engineers. You know, ASHRAE sets those levels of the lighting, light power density that you can put in buildings so you know how much energy you’re using for those. We also set what the U values should be for your walls and your roof in order to meet the energy code and to be 90.1 compliant. In terms of the entire building, ASHRAE standard 90.1 is in our industry, what we use to make sure we have a building that is compliant with energy code.

[00:06:47] Karl: I’ve seen data that shows when you think about energy use in the country, buildings account for anywhere from 20 to 35% of energy use. People think of cars and pollution, or they might think of just industry. But if you think about how many commercial and residential buildings there are in the country, it’s a large contributor of energy use that affects the energy grid itself, as well as global warming. And I know that ASHRAE has been leading the challenge in education for engineers today and in the future on how to be more efficient in their designs, and were able to incorporate that right here in Peachtree Corners and in the headquarter building. How did that come about and how did you get involved in bringing some of that technology to the headquarter building in Peachtree Corners?

[00:07:42] Ginger: So we were actually down the road a little bit in Brookhaven, And had renovated our building in 2010 to be a lead platinum building. And were very happy there, but we started getting surrounded by the new CHOA campus that has gone there. And that’s taken over that entire block if not more right there.

[00:08:06] Karl: Children’s Hospital of Atlanta?

[00:08:08] Ginger: Children’s Hospital of Atlanta, yeah. So as ASHRAE does with anything, we set up a committee. And I was actually an ASHRAE Vice President at the time and was asked to lead that committee to study whether we should stay where we were or move. And wether we should build or renovate or lease. So we took about nine months, I think, to evaluate our building, see what we could get for it, whether it was worth moving. Should we lease, should we buy, should we renovate? We were very fortunate in that process that CHOA offered to buy our building and they offered to buy it at a very good rate. So we made that decision to move. And they also, as part of that deal, allowed us to stay there for a little bit over a year while we figured out where we were going to go and got that under control. Which was great. So we stayed there and we looked at a couple of different places for leasing and decided leasing wasn’t really us. We like to own our buildings because we stay in a long place for a long time. We had been in that building, I think since the 1980s. So we discussed building new and felt like really for our constituents, it’s better if we showed, we walked the walk. And we renovated because there’s been a lot of analysis that at least 50% of the building stock that’s going to be in use in 2050 has already been built. And much of it is not performing in a very energy efficient manner. So we wanted to make sure that we could show that you could renovate an older building to a net zero condition, a net zero energy condition. Which was our goal once we made that decision. So we looked around quite a bit. We found this building in Peachtree Corners, which if you saw it before and saw it after it looks a lot different, right?

[00:09:59] Rico: By a lot, yes.

[00:10:02] Ginger: So we took on a big challenge with this building. It was actually more of a challenge than we thought it was going to be when we started. But we ended up getting it done on time, even with the pandemic, which was a big concern during construction. Because we had a finite time to get out of our existing building before they threw us out. We ended up making it. We had a good team, a good design team and a good construction team. So we got it done.

[00:10:24] Karl: I’m curious about one thing. So you mentioned with the former building that you were able to sell it at a good price. Do you think being lead certified and some of the improvements you made in building, how does that impact the value of a building in your experience?

[00:10:41] Ginger: Well, if we’re selling it to a normal client, not like a CHOA, a normal client. I would think it would be of huge value, the energy efficiency of the building. The fact that the energy costs were lower than a normal building of its size and type. We had a geothermal system, we had a lot in that building. I think CHOA really wanted the land more than the building. Although my understanding is they’re going to use it for some office space for a short term duration, I’m not sure for how long. So they really were more interested in the land than the building. But the building itself had it been a normal client, would have I think because of its condition, done very well on its own even without CHOA involved.

[00:11:22] Karl: So many energy savings. If you think about operating costs of the building, when they value most buildings, it’s a function of profit. Net operating profit. And if you can lower the operating cost of a building that translates directly into increasing the value. Is that some of the economic analysis building owners make when choosing to implement technologies in buildings like the headquarters?

[00:11:47] Ginger: Absolutely. I think more informed owners that intend to own their buildings for long periods of time, always would like a life cycle cost analysis done. Which is what engineers in my role do a lot. To determine if I put this extra feature into my building to save energy, how long will it take before this extra feature pays me back? Is it a five-year payback, a ten-year payback? Like I said, we do a lot of university projects, and universities in particular keep their buildings forever. So you know, what you put in up front dictates when they’re going to see that payback. So lifecycle cost analysis is a huge component of making decisions on a lot of things in the building. The envelope, the lighting system, obviously the HVAC system, all of that. You can model through a lifecycle cost analysis.

[00:12:44] Rico: Also I would think that unlike homes, you know, if I’m only living in this house for another five years. Do I replace the windows? Or not replace the windows, for example. Different measurement, right on that? But when it comes to business, there are write-offs, there are government incentives also that are provided to businesses to be able to go down this road, to encourage that.

[00:13:03] Ginger: You know, I don’t do a lot of work with the government incentive aspect of it. I know that for ASHRAE we’re a nonprofit. So nonprofits don’t get the tax benefit of for-profit companies. So that was not a factor in our decision-making process. But I could see that a factor in others.

[00:13:20] Rico: I think that’s something that has to be added to the equation for a business. That’s looking to do this.

[00:13:26] Karl: Well, I’m wondering. So if we were talking to a business, a future building owner, or some current one, and they’re going through that decision process on renovating a building, building new, et cetera. What are some of the blind spots you see a lot of the less informed building owners? When it comes to making these kind of investments, are there areas that they’re not considering that you’d recommend them learning about and seeking out ASHRAE and other organizations to get educated on it?

[00:13:57] Ginger: Absolutely. I mean, I own a building myself. I own the building that my company is in. I think one of the things that you see when we do projects for one-off, if you will, building owners, is that it tends to be a more short term look at first costs, right? There’s not really a huge discussion on payback or long-term costs or energy savings. And I would think if they could engage their design team to at least have those conversations about what can we do to save energy? What can we do to reduce our carbon footprint? Then I think they would hear from their design teams, if they’re an informed design team, that there are a lot of options out there that you could do with very little cost impact that would save you a lot of money and headaches over the long term and be better for the environment. You know, I think you said earlier that buildings are 40% of energy use. Also buildings or the building industry is close to 40% of the carbon footprint in the world. And it’s getting worse with more developing countries. So the building industry plays a big part in the whole climate change situation.

[00:15:09] Karl: Well, I’m curious about some features in the headquarters that were incorporated. Can you share an example or two of some technologies that was featured in the buildings and how they help the building, for example?

[00:15:23] Ginger: Sure. So we have I don’t know if you’ve seen it right, we have our photovoltaic system that’s going on the roof and near the side of the building. We’re waiting on approval from Georgia power to make that live so we can create hopefully as much energy as we use, which will be fantastic. So we can verify that we are going to be in that zero operation, because that’s our goal. Net zero energy is when you create as much energy as you use. And so you’re net zero in terms of that situation. So that’s our goal. We’re waiting to find out if we’re going to make that we’re going to do a measurement and verification phase once we get that live so we can model that. So that’s outside the building. Inside the building, we have, and I don’t want to get into too detailed of a mechanical discussion here. But we got a pretty elaborate mechanical system with radiant panels and outdoor air units on the roof. We are once through air on our air side. So we don’t have a lot of concerns with recirculation of air for pandemic reasons. And we did that before the pandemic. So it luckily played out to help us a lot. When the pandemic started and we also have ceiling fans. So one of the really cool energy saving items is that you can raise your space temperature if you’ve got some air movement, by at least a couple of degrees. So we have some ceiling fans throughout the entire space that just keep the air moving. So with the design conditions for our space was at 78 degrees interior, which some people might say well, that’s way too hot. And others would be like, that’s way too cold. But if you keep the air moving, you can keep it a couple of degrees warmer, which really does help save the energy.

[00:17:07] Karl: And when you’re looking at implementing these kind of designs and so on, I know technology plays a role in capturing data, using data to make decisions. How are you integrating some of the sensor technologies and controller technologies and all of that in managing buildings and having it available to occupants, possibly, to control or monitor what’s going on.

[00:17:33] Ginger: So we have, as you can probably imagine, and I apologize somebody’s desperately trying to get in touch with me, it’s actually somebody from ASHRAE. So we have an amazing amount of analytics going on in our building. So we have at least three, if not four, different analytical programs running that are looking at fault issues in our systems, energy use in our systems. And a lot of these have been donated by different companies as a test prototype kind of situation. We have an amazingly smart building, when it comes to analytics. And we’re just getting that data in so we can really evaluate how our building is performing. And all of this is going to be open on our website because we want to be a living lab when it comes to building analytics, building operation, energy use, and all of that information.

[00:18:35] Rico: Someone can actually go to your website, see, verify. Transparently see all the data?

[00:18:42] Ginger: That’s the goal. So we’ll have a dashboard, it’s being constructed right now where you’ll be able to see how much energy we’re using, how much we’re producing, what our net zero, net positive net negative situation is throughout the year, how the systems are doing. We also have a digital twin that we’re building that is also a donated service that will be on the website where you can go through the building. You can look at the systems and how they’re operating. So it’s going to be a very transparent situation when we get all of this done.

[00:19:16] Rico: Do you think that at some point, everyone talks about AI, machine AI, the learning, the ability to let that system, that process work. Do you think that’s going to be part of this at some point?

[00:19:28] Ginger: So in terms of robots running around, probably not. In terms of the operation of the system, we already have a digital control system that’s controlling our mechanical. That’s pretty common in most large buildings these days where you have web based interface where you can see, you know, if you’ve got an alarm or if you’ve got something not working right and all of that. So that’s already, that’s a pretty common situation on larger buildings these days. Even on my small building, we have digital control. We can see if a tenant is hot or a tenant is cold, what’s going on with the system. So that’s pretty common. What’s interesting these days is that a lot of like lighting systems are going to start going power over ethernet. So instead of being 120 volt power, they’d be controlled basically through a digital control system on a low voltage basis. And if you think about now you can get plug in led lights that just have a USB plugin that are incredibly bright. And so I think that’s going to, you’re going to see more and more of that kind of growth in our industry, if you will. And inner connection between HVAC and lighting and occupancy. And walk in a room and the system comes on and the lights come on and that is already in the headquarters building.

[00:20:50] Rico: And I would think even with the process that you’re doing and all the data you’re collecting and the virtual walkthrough of the building, that at some point I can plug in my building and let’s say adjust based on your elements of your modules and say, can my building be modernized? Can it be LED certified? Can it be more, can it be net zero? That would be an interesting aspect to be able to even see that happen.

[00:21:17] Karl: I see the foundation of this digital connected building. I know some years ago I read and learned about, I think it’s called the Edge building in the Netherlands. A building that implements a lot of these technologies you’re talking about, but one of the interesting things is once you bring the lighting systems digitally you could incorporate sensors into the lights. Since lights are going to be where people are, you can use that to make adjustments. And then even with the ethernet run applications throughout the building for people. So I saw one example of something that looked like a Roomba that at the end of the day goes around and cleans the floors, which probably saves a little bit on cleaning labor, on one aspect of cleaning, and they go back home before people come in in the morning and you get a cleaner building. They’re doing things like that. They had another app where they can locate people in buildings. So if someone came to deliver food for lunch, instead of you having to go down an elevator and go to the door and pick up the food, the food can be delivered to that location, whether it’s by a person or by robotics. So you could see how buildings are the kind of backbone or the infrastructure of this more digitally engaged future.

[00:22:34] Rico: And I believe also the data you’re collecting, depending on where the sun is on the glass wall, depending on how many times the doors are opened to the outside and all that.

[00:22:45] Ginger: Yeah. The internet of things is pretty amazing in terms of what you can and can’t do. We evaluated a lot of different options for this building. And a lot of it came down to financial at the end because the opportunities are endless, right? There’s programs that we were looking at that, once you’re in the building, you can track where anybody is at any given time. So if any employee, if you need to find them, they’re in a conference room. If they’ve got their computer with them or their cell phone with them, you’ll know what conference room they’re in. And, while they’re in the building at any time and same thing for visitors. Visitor badges and they have, barcodes and once a visitor comes in and they get their badge, then you know where they are at any point of time in the building. So it’s all available now. It comes down to a matter of finances sometimes as to what you can and can’t do.

[00:23:30] Karl: Yeah. But being here in Peachtree Corners and you’re in Technology Park specifically, the Curiosity Lab, there’s great synergies of being in this high-technology environment, that’s bringing outdoor IOT, internet of things, solutions. Driverless shuttles and scooters that people could take back and forth to the building. And as the building stock here in Technology Park starts to turn over, there’s lots of opportunity to collaborate with those building owners. Sometimes they just need to be inspired. And taking a trip over and seeing some of the technology, the data, might inspire a building owner when they’re making that decision to renovate and implement some more of these technologies.

[00:24:15] Ginger: Absolutely. That’s our goal, is to try to show that you can take an older building and make it energy efficient and make it a place that you want to be. And if you are in Peachtree Corners, ASHRAE’s building once the pandemic is over, is a great place to go tour and see what you can do with an older building and make it a newer situation. And also we have screens throughout the building where you can see the dashboard, you can see how we’re producing energy, what we’re using in terms of energy. So it’s gonna be pretty transparent, both on the web and also in person.

[00:24:54] Rico: That’s cool.

[00:24:54] Karl: I’m curious about just, speaking to the future generation of engineers. If you were to speak to young high school students or college students that are thinking about the many careers and fields they can go into, what would you tell them about engineering and building engineering, consulting engineering that they may not have thought of as a career?

[00:25:17] Ginger: I think that’s a challenge in our industry because engineers graduating these days have a multitude of opportunities in a multitude of different environments. And the building sciences is one of those opportunities that I think gets overlooked sometimes. Because I don’t know how many people out there know that to build these buildings, not only do you need an architect, but you need a whole host of engineers. You’ve got civil, environmental, structural, electrical mechanical. And all of them work together to build a building that people want to be in. And that, meet all the goals and the codes and all the requirements. My kids give me a hard time because every time we walk into a building, I’m always pointing out all the HVAC systems and the lighting systems and everything in them. And they’re like, we don’t really care, because people don’t. It’s just there. They think that it just shows up, but it doesn’t show up. It takes a lot of engineers that are making it happen. So I think if I could talk to high school students and tell them how exciting this industry is, because it really is a very interesting industry when it comes to different opportunities. I can be designing a library one day and a data center the next. It just, it doesn’t get boring in that aspect for me. And I’ve been doing it for 30 years. So I think that if people could see the different aspects of what it takes to do what we do, I think they would be a lot more interested going into our field and then maybe they would be, if they didn’t know.

[00:26:49] Rico: I think you’re right. I think that if kids understood that aspect, that there’s a challenge every day, depending on the environment you’re in. And it could be a hospital, could be a research, medical research facility that has to be done in a certain way. It could even be the space station, it could be any of those things. It’s all environmentally driven. So they can be doing space engineering at some point, dealing with the insides of the environment of those places. We’re moving decades into the future and they have to start somewhere.

[00:27:21] Ginger: I like to say that, you can build the prettiest building on the planet, but unless you have lighting or HVAC or plumbing in it, you’re not going to get much use out of it. It is vitally important that we do what we do. And you talk about hospitals. My daughter is a emergency room nurse and she talks about their negative pressure rooms. And I’m like, you know who writes the standards for those right? ASHRAE.

[00:27:43] Karl: There you go. I’ll tell you here in Peachtree Corners with at least seven or eight schools, Paul Duke, just down the road, Wesleyan and Norcross high and the middle schools. Here’s an opportunity to get kids more exposure because in our backyard here, we’ve got one of the premier organizations that set the standards and walks the walk when it comes to building a sustainable building. To help us with not just emissions, but global warming and all of these other things. So hopefully there’s partnerships that can continue to start inspiring the next generation of engineers and architects in our country. I’d be curious about just things that you have going on. So for ASHRAE is there things that are coming up or how do people learn more about ASHRAE and some of the projects that they work on?

[00:28:32] Ginger: So we have a very involved website that people can go to ASHRAE.org that talks about what our mission is and what our vision is and what we’re doing. And we have in that website, connections to our decarbonisation task force and our epidemic task force, dIfferent areas that ASHRAE is working in at the moment. We have our big conference coming up in Las Vegas in January. It’s our big show all the vendors for all the different types of equipment that our industry uses show at that show. It’s a huge aspect of what we do and it’s every year and it’s in conjunction with AHRI which is the heating refrigerating Institute. So that is a big component of what we do every year. And this year coming up in January in Las Vegas is at the end of January. There’s just all kinds of information out there on the website that you could spend days going through to understand that all of the fingers in all the pies that ASHRAE has.

[00:29:32] Karl: And Ginger, if someone wanted to reach out to you for your services and just learning more about what you do, what’s the best way to reach you?

[00:29:41] Ginger: Always the best way to reach me is email, which is a GScoggins@EngineeredDesigns.com in Raleigh. Or obviously LinkedIn, I think everybody’s on LinkedIn these days. So, I am as well.

[00:29:54] Karl: I just want to thank you so much for being a guest today on the Capitalist Sage Podcast. Ginger Scoggins again, ASHRAE Treasurer and Chair of the Building HQ Ad Hoc community to help build and design and build this beautiful building here in Peachtree Corners. I want to thank you for sharing with us about the organization. And how building owners can leap forward into the future and implement technology both big and small to help improve the environment for the occupants. There’s operating costs as well as help the environment in general. So thank you for that.

[00:30:29] Ginger: Thank you.

[00:30:30] Karl: I’d like to also thank Atlanta Tech Park for hosting the Capitalist Sage Podcast. We get to do it virtually and as well as in person. And we really appreciate that. And I want to also introduce myself again, Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors of Atlanta Peachtree. Our business advisors are able to help you consult on, whether you’re looking to improve and grow your business, whether you’re looking to exit your business. Feel free to schedule a consultation. Like ginger, I can be reached by email KBarham@TWorld.com or you can visit our website, www.TWorld.com/AtlantaPeachtree. Rico, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’ve got going on.

[00:31:08] Rico: Sure. So I publish Peachtree Corners Magazine. That’s one of the things I do. I’m also a creative director for a couple of other publications. And I operate Mighty Rockets, which is basically a company that does social media marketing and online content management. So if you need to reach me, you can go on LinkedIn. I’m the only Rico Figliolini I think that’s listed, to spell it Figliolini and you’ll find me. Actually, if you Google me, probably like page one or something on there. Check me out if you need any work in the digital environment or video. Actually we’re beginning to do some mini documentaries on some businesses. Check me out and go online. Otherwise go to LivingInPeachtreeCorners.com and find out more about the city and now Capitalist Sage Podcast.

[00:31:55] Karl: Absolutely. Follow us on Facebook and on LinkedIn and on YouTube, as well as all of the other iTunes and other streaming platforms. Leave us a comment, like us, subscribe, and you’ll hear more about some of the other guests we have coming in in the near future. So thank you all for joining the Capitalist Sage podcast and I look forward to sharing some more business leaders and business owners out there telling a little bit about what they do. Take care.

[00:32:23] Rico: Thanks you ginger.

[00:32:24] Ginger: Thanks guys.

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Clint Bridges, CEO of NetPlanner

The first company manufactured printer and modem cables, which were in high demand during the early personal computer market boom. The company transitioned from manufacturing to providing networking services in 1987 due to the shift in the market and the desire to stay in a service-oriented business.

“Those cable assemblies sold for higher margins in the early days of the PC market. Rapidly, a lot of that manufacturing went offshore, and the margins went down, and a number of my competitors decided just to become brokers in that field,” said Bridges. “I didn’t really want to become a broker. I am very technical, very hands on, and so I sold that first business in 1986.”

Services and market reach

The contacts and trust he’d built with customers prompted him to go another route.

“Local area networking was starting to come into the marketplace, and so instead of manufacturing cable assemblies, we started to do networking, which involves putting network cabling and related hardware into commercial buildings,” he said.

NetPlanner built some of the earliest networks in the area.

“This was back in the days before there were any standards for this,” Bridges added.

Two tech workmen in a large empty conference/classroom. They are standing at the front of the room next to two large screens on the wall, discussing audiovisual installation.
Installing audiovisual; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

Today NetPlanner provides complete design services, installation and ongoing maintenance of all communication systems in commercial buildings, focusing primarily on hardware. The company also runs a network services division that offers help desk support for small businesses without their own IT departments.

“That’s what really caused NetPlanner to be formed in 1987 — the desire to be in a service business and to provide a service that was still working with the same sorts of clientele in the computer marketplace,” he said.

NetPlanner works with a variety of commercial enterprises, as well as K-12 schools, colleges, universities and large hospital systems.

“Everything that wasn’t on the IP network in a commercial building before 1990 started to fall onto the IP network,” said Bridges. “Things that we never anticipated, including telephone systems, which were totally separate back in the 1980s, now all operate over IP-based systems.”

In addition, things like security and access control, video surveillance and similar systems all work on IP networks.

A workman in a white hard hat and neon utility vest standing on a ladder installing a video surveillance camera in the ceiling of a business.
Installing a video surveillance camera; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

“So as time has gone on, NetPlanner has received requests from our customers to install these other systems, and we’ve embraced the other technologies that are now a part of almost all commercial buildings,” he added.

The company is now expanding its services to include nurse call services for hospitals — one of the newer markets for NetPlanner.

Security and access control systems

With ever-changing business technology needs, NetPlanner successfully keeps current with trends. With heightened security concerns everywhere, the company installs biometric readers and smart camera systems for access control.

“We provide a wide variety of smart camera systems, where they can do recognition, license plate recognition, facial recognition — all those kinds of intelligent systems for commercial spaces,” he said.

Building relationships with a wide variety of manufacturers who provide different types of software systems is how NetPlanner meets the needs of its clients.

“We work with whatever software system the particular enterprise feels is most appropriate for their needs, depending on whether they want to do license plate recognition or face recognition,” said Bridges. “We do a tremendous amount of security camera work in schools all over the southeast. And that is becoming more top of mind in school systems now.”

A workman in a white hard hat and neon utility vest on a ladder outdoors installing an antenna system at a business.
Installing a distributed antenna system; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

But there’s more. NetPlanner also provides distributed antenna systems (DAS) to improve cell phone coverage in commercial spaces.

“Cell carriers are concerned about not just signal strength, but also channel capacity — the ability to have a much larger number of users that might be around a particular cell tower at any given point in time,” said Bridges.

When installing a DAS, NetPlanner’s proficiency in coordinating with the carriers ensures compliance with carrier requirements and optimizes signal strength and coverage throughout the building.

Evolution of the technology-driven company

Anyone who knows Clint Bridges shouldn’t be surprised that he’s right in the thick of the technology boom. He started his first company at 19 and attended Southern Tech for a while before focusing on entrepreneurship.

“My passion for technology goes back to my earliest years. I’ve been fascinated by electronics and computers since I was very young. And I always had a home laboratory in the basement of the house as I was growing up,” he said. “I knew when I was in high school that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. During my time at Southern Tech, I started my first company and realized that’s what I wanted to do more than be at Southern Tech.”

NetPlanner is not only a local company. It operates fully-staffed branch offices in Augusta, Columbus and Savannah, as well as in Nashville, Tennessee; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Tampa, Florida. It has also provided services in every U.S. state, as well as parts of the Caribbean, Canada, London and Puerto Rico.

“We do projects all over the country, including some that are for companies that need to do national rollouts,” Bridges said. “A lot of our customers want to see the exact same approach used consistently throughout all their facilities across the country. So they’ll look to a company like NetPlanner to go and provide that consistent installation of all their communications technology needs in all their facilities across the country.”

Community commitment

Whether it’s working with manufacturing facilities and distributors, some of the largest big box organizations in the country, small retail businesses or anything in between, NetPlanner never loses sight of the local community.

With a home base in Peachtree Corners, the company has strong community involvement — including adopting a roadway section for clean-up efforts and participating in local chamber of commerce activities. NetPlanner has been active in several community events, such as shoe drives, food drives and charity walks, demonstrating its commitment to giving back.

Workmen in hats and neon utility vests on the side of the road near a pick up truck, doing roadside clean up as part of the Adopt a Road program.
Adopt a Road program; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

“Since 2018, we’ve adopted a roadway section in the community through Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful,” said Michelle Bruck, marketing specialist at NetPlanner. “We go out about five times a year, clear debris off of that roadway and just make sure that it’s beautiful and that it’s safer for people who are walking or driving in the area.”

Nationally, NetPlanner participates in Toys for Tots and Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

“Not only [do we give back] in our headquarters location, but all of our branch offices look for ways to help, get involved and support our communities that we’re part of,” Bruck added.

NetPlanner’s marketing efforts include social media, direct marketing and trade shows, with support from Vox-Pop-Uli for branded materials and printed media.

“When we first started using Vox-Pop-Uli, we had just a straightforward vendor relationship, but they very quickly became a partner to us,” said Bridges. “Vox-Pop-Uli has actually set up a company store on our behalf where our employees can purchase branded material, branded clothing, ball caps and those sorts of things. And they also handle printed media — things that we would use at trade shows.”

Looking forward

With technology moving at a warp speed, NetPlanner relies on a lot of repeat business.

“Bandwidth requirements are increasing year after year,” Bridges said. “Fiber optic cabling that we might have installed 10 years ago won’t support the data rates that are needed today, so it needs to be changed out in many cases.”

Many of the customers that he’s been with for several decades use NetPlanner’s services over and over.

“We’ve gone into the same building and re-cabled it over and over again as the different category levels of copper cabling have advanced,” he said. “The demands on fiber are now way beyond what they were even five years ago because the capacity has increased so much.”

And as everyone is embracing artificial intelligence, Bridges said he’s working to keep up.

A tech workman in an orange hard hat, black shirt and neon utility vest standing in front of an open access control panel
Wiring an access control panel; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

“Everyone is well aware of what’s happening in the artificial intelligence space. And what’s really amazing to us is the number of new data centers that are being built across the United States by all the major players,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to imagine even being able to keep up with all that. We do a lot of data center work ourselves, and are trying to engage with more of our customers to help build some of these newer data centers.”

He added that the artificial intelligence boom is causing so much additional strain on the network infrastructure across the country, there are concerns about how it’s all going to be powered.

“I think everyone’s concerned,” he said. “Everyone that’s involved in this is wondering how we’re going to meet the bandwidth demands, the capacity demands, the power demands to make all this work.”

Staying ahead of the curve

With decades of experience, Bridges offers advice for all types of businesses starting out — put technology needs into your business model early on.

“The companies that struggle the most with technology are the ones that wait until after everything with the building is developed and completely built before they realize that they need Wi-Fi or some other network installation done,” he said. “It’s just a much more efficient process if we’re involved as early as possible to help design the network, along with the building structure itself.”

He also emphasized the importance of staying ahead of technological advancements to avoid falling behind.

“As fast as technology moves, if you get behind the power curve, it’s really hard to catch up,” he added.

The Local Thread: This business profile series is proudly supported by Vox-Pop-Uli, championing local stories and the communities we serve.

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Business

Peachtree Corners Business Shines on “The Blox”

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1 day ago

on

April 4, 2025

By

A man with chin-length blonde hair wearing a blue shirt and a cap standing in front of an illuminated archway.

Peachtree Corners resident, Bill Frey, founder of Illuminating Design Inc., has stepped into the limelight on the acclaimed reality series The Blox to vie for the coveted title of the greatest start-up company in the nation.

The program follows Frey and his fellow contestants as they tackle a series of high-stakes business challenges, offering viewers an unprecedented look at the trials, triumphs and transformation of an emerging entrepreneur.

Now in its sixteenth season, The Blox bills itself as “the largest live-in entrepreneurship competition in the galaxy.” Over the years, it has evolved into a trending docuseries, available for viewing on multiple platforms — the free mobile app (for Android and iOS), on Prime Video, at betablox.com or on Facebook at BetaBlox.

Joining The Blox

Twenty years ago, Frey saw an opportunity to bring exceptional service, quality design and accountability to a rising lighting industry. Guided by his entrepreneurial spirit, he has sought opportunities to take his business to new heights and found just that in The Blox.

Unlike conventional entrepreneurial competitions, The Blox, a brainchild of MTV reality star and entrepreneur Weston “Wes” Bergmann — best known for his appearances on shows like The Real World and The Challenge — offers a new, groundbreaking format. Participants are immersed in a unique environment, living together and confronting a series of challenges that test their entrepreneurial acumen.

Frey’s talent and vision propelled him to be among the fortunate few selected to compete on show out of an impressive pool of 50,000 applicants.

“I am humbled and honored to be a part of The Blox, a game-changing platform that has given me the opportunity to evolve both personally and professionally,” he shared. “The show has been an incredible learning experience, and I am grateful for the chance to showcase my business and its potential on such a remarkable stage.”

You can follow Frey as he is featured competing in different entrepreneurial challenges throughout the series, which is divided into an eight-episode arc that premiered on March 23. New episodes are released weekly.

For more information about Bill Frey and Illuminating Design, visit illuminating-design.com.

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Business

Expanding Horizons: How KGM Technologies Balances Defense, Medical, and Precision Manufacturing

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1 week ago

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March 27, 2025

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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.
Kyle Grob (Photo by Rannulf Media, George Hunter)

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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