Speaker 0 00:00:01 I think getting involved with STEM is one of the most important things and rewarding things that you can ever do as an automation professional, to do it as career.
Speaker 1 00:00:15 Hello, everyone I'd like to welcome you to the robot industry podcast. This is the podcast dedicated to events, manufacturing, capital equipment, and the robotics and automation industry. My name is Jim Beretta, and I am your host. Mike.
Speaker 0 00:00:30 My guest today is Dave good-enough. Dave good-enough has been in the automation industry for over 40 years. He started as an apprentice at Weldon international, where he built custom machines as a journeyman toolmaker for six years after his apprenticeship, he migrated to engineering where he mainly performed mechanical design on machines, as well as some controls, design and programming. He was manager of mechanical engineering at Dane systems where he implemented designing in 3d. Dave was director of engineering at Edgewater for five years, and is now the director of robot technology development with his major focus as sales engineer, helping customers work through their automation needs. So welcome to the podcast, Dave, we're glad to have you. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. And I'm interested in this topic and I'm very hurt felt with this thing too. So yes. Well, you know, this, just to give a little bit of background, we had this conversation, I think, during a podcast last year for the robot industry association, that's correct.
Speaker 0 00:01:33 Yep. And it kind of came out and it was like, Oh, this is pretty cool. Yeah. When I said, Hey, listen, would you like to do a podcast on, uh, on education and STEM? Yup. Yup. So it's kind of a back passion for me. So, and that's wonderful. So why is talent attraction so important to you and ma maybe like you say, even a passion, uh, for me, the passion is, is this business has been very good for me. And I like to pass on my talent that I like to teach other people. What does business getting an engineering or getting into the skilled trades or whatever it is. I I've been through all of them. So I'd like to pass on that. There's a passion in me that loves this business. I like seeing the talent. If we don't have the talent in this trade, it's all going to die in it.
Speaker 0 00:02:22 It stems into a lot of products that we all have in our everyday lives. I mean, automation makes a lot of stuff and with the skills gaps trading happening, you know, there, there was a, there was a report. I read that. And by the time of 20, 25, there's going to be 2.5 million jobs of skilled trades unfilled. And that's, that's huge. And we need, we need to, I taken it on my own personal responsibility to try to help that stat go down is where I'm at. So what, you know, when I, I think that's a really good thing for us to think about too, is because the skills gap, like the automation and industry
Speaker 2 00:03:00 Is not immune to the skills gap. Right, right,
Speaker 0 00:03:03 Right. I mean, you know, even what we do, there's still people in the manufacturing facilities that have to know what Reno, just to keep the machines running, you know, to keep the products going out the door to do all the stuff that in our everyday lives are basically relying. They relied on all this stuff. So it's huge. And it's trying to unpack people, understand what that means. You know, it just trying to get an education part of how do we, how do we track it? Cause you know, when I was in my apprenticeship, I had 14 people in my apprenticeship. We had a pre-apprenticeship class, we had 14 people. It's hard to get two or three now. And it's kind of scary in a way, so
Speaker 2 00:03:43 Well, yes. And I, I think from earlier conversations in the industry, you know, we're seeing a lot less engineers on the plant floor. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 0 00:03:51 Yes, totally, totally agree. I agree. Everybody's everybody's in the office. They're at, at their points. They make some small decisions on the stuff on the shop floor skies on shop floor, come in and say, Hey, I need this help. They're then dragged out. But at the same time, they're responsible for the next product, the next stuff, the next thing. So, and then they're shorthanded too. So it just needs to be, we need to get the guys on the floor and the skilled trades in, in all of them. I mean, it goes anywhere from plumbing to toolmaker to electrician, to you name it. They're all, they're all, they're all lacking and they all give you a good way to make a living in your life. I mean, it is a great way to make a living. So yeah.
Speaker 2 00:04:36 Yes. I bet you don't know too many unemployed toolmakers at the moment or robot programmers.
Speaker 0 00:04:42 Oh no, not at all. If they're out there and then they have a breath, they're probably working someplace. So it's definitely a needed, needed skill in every aspect. I mean a machinist, you know, every places are machining and I don't see that ever going away. You're going to be a lot of 3d printing and 3d all that stuff coming up. But that's still a technology that needs to be, that has a skill that needs to be followed. You know, there's, there's new technology coming up that the skills are still gonna need be there. They just need to be learn differently.
Speaker 2 00:05:13 Yeah. And I think you're right. The, uh, what's really interesting about the industry right now is, is that there are those things like 3d printing or software for 3d printing. So there's a lot of tech in, in tech at the moment.
Speaker 0 00:05:26 Yes. Very, very much. So
Speaker 2 00:05:29 You mentioned, or you and I talked about this, about you traveling to one of your customers and you don't have to save the customer is, um, but you saw firsthand recently, uh, the big challenges that manufacturers have and you were talking about some of the billboards in a town you were visiting.
Speaker 0 00:05:44 Oh yeah. I mean, basically I went to a facility and as I was driving up to the, up to the place into the town, there was big billboards on the sign that said, this customer is wanting to hire, we're paying to $19 an hour where we have full benefits. I mean, it was a big old billboard. There was even a yard signs and Pitt places throughout the whole place. As you went through, it was like a political yard sign for, for job job fair, or we need your help. And so I got into the gut into the facility and I talked to the person I was meeting at that time. And I go, man, there's a lot of jobs. Oh yeah. We're about 80 to 90 people short. We actually have four assembly lines that we can only staff for three right now. So what they're doing is they're, they're getting automation and he says, the other thing we have problems with is keeping them running.
Speaker 0 00:06:32 I mean, you know, trying to get, uh, a tech in here to be able to, to touch up a point on a robot or be able to troubleshoot an electrical problem because approximate bad or, or whatever it is. I mean, there's so many, so many things that even outside of our business, there's still stuff out there that has to be covered. And they even have apprentices. They even have all the stuff that, that we are trying to do to, to bring on a skilled trades on top of the manufacturing people that they need just for the everyday day-to-day operation on the assembly line. So it was quite an eye-opener and it's not the only place that I've been to in the last, over a year. I mean, it's really been over a year that a shortage of people have been a driving factor for us in the automation field. So,
Speaker 2 00:07:18 So it's truly affecting manufacturing output as well then.
Speaker 0 00:07:21 Oh, for sure. For sure. It really is in what they're doing is basically, you know, with the COVID stuff they're looking at now is how can I spread out people? A six feet keeps a social distancing? Well, sometimes you don't have the room on an existing assembly line. So you throw a robot in there or whatever you can do to help help that part of this, the, with the new world we live in right now. So,
Speaker 2 00:07:43 So you're seeing some, some people putting in say collaborative robots just to get over the hump a little bit, but also maybe to attract, do you think automation is attracting the younger workers too. People want to work in automated
Speaker 0 00:07:55 Plants? I think I th I think so. I think that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to also have a, because you also have to have a marketing thing, right? I mean, there's a, there's a local company that they want to be the best at what they do, but they want to have the cool automation thing. So they can start tracking people to come to their facility. And he's the owner of the company has actually told me that this is why I'm automating whatever it costs. I want to do this just because this is the wave of the future. This is what's going to have to happen to do that. You need skilled trades, you need to skilled people to do this thing. So you have to start someplace and we've had some discussions you and I about how do we, how do we get to that point? And, and how do we go to there? And, you know, there's a lot of ways to do it. I'm part of a couple. And it's just, it's just, how do we get to there? Right. So,
Speaker 2 00:08:43 So w let's talk about that. Um, we, we did talk about like going into the colleges and going to the universities and going into the high schools, but we also talked about the great schools. So where, where is kind of where some of the challenges are where the, some of the problems that we have to address?
Speaker 0 00:08:59 Well, I think there's a stigma about manufacturing, right? It's, it's basically thought of as dirty and a lot of the parents these days, remember their grandpa coming home, all messed up and messed up. And, and it's not like that anymore. There, there are a few places like that, but for the most part, factory automation is really cleaning up a lot of stuff. All the dirty jobs are like handling lead plates or something like that. You know, something that's just hazardous are now being taken over by automation, where you're getting the people out of it, which are going into the cleaner areas and that type of stuff. So I think it's education at a level of trying to make people understand that it's not the old fashioned Mac manufacturing. There's, there's new stuff coming out every day, even our business, you know, it's, it's clean. It's, it's, high-tech, it's something new all the time.
Speaker 0 00:09:48 You're, you're always dealing with that. You're creating something. And, you know, in the field, we are, you know, we're creating something every day, you know, everything's new, it's a prototype machine. We build every day, like most custom automation houses, we're building one of kind machine. If you're lucky, you get to build a second one again, right. Just, uh, you have a better, better frame of what you're doing at that point. But a lot of boys, things we do are just prototypes. So trying to educate, I think Jim, the parents, the educators, even at the high school and grade school level of trying to get them to understand, get them in on tours, to get them into your place on showing what we do. Um, I do that all the time. I try to get teachers and guidance counselors, especially, you know, cause there's kids that like to go to school, they were gonna, that are meant to go to college.
Speaker 0 00:10:36 But there's other ones that are just hands on learning. This is the trait, this is the type of stuff they need to be getting into. They can get into learning how to do this stuff and, and how to put the machine together, how to wire machine, how to debug a machine, how to touch a points on a robot, how to program the robot to get to that point. So my past and lately has been, how do I get to the parent? How do I get the parent to, to say, really look at your, there, there's a trade here for your, for your son or daughter. There's something here that, that can make you just make them have a very exciting and rewarding life. VA be a good pillar in a community, be all the stuff that you want them to be on this path of this travel. You know, there's both paths, there's the engineering, there's schooling, there's college, all this stuff, but there's also this other path that it seems like it got pushed to the background a little bit. And I think we need to bring on the kids that may not have that, that classroom ability and, and get them another Avenue. That's, that's what I've been passionate about.
Speaker 2 00:11:37 The guidance counselors. And it's this it's like you say, it's the parents, it's the school principals to all be aware of what's happening in manufacturing. And there's so much like machine vision and what you say, lots of programming and lots of, and lots of hands-on opportunities. But one of the exciting things I think about the industrial automation industry is that you're always working on the next gen thing. Maybe it's the next generation medical device, and maybe it's a cure for COVID or, or maybe it's the next automobile platform. So it's very, very exciting as well.
Speaker 0 00:12:07 Right? No, I, I very, very true. I mean, and right now with we're seeing a lot of is, um, what you never really saw too much of in the past, at least where I've worked is the consumer product stuff, bathroom tubs, putting, you know, just making bathroom tubs. Um, you know, we've got a job right now. They're, we're starting to put in mobile robots and, and stacking boxes to an order, you know, because of that, because they have a person right now putting a 105 pound box on top of their head, carrying it over to a stack and putting it up on a condo thing. That's the type of stuff that we're trying to help with. That that's the next gen that you talked about. There's always something new. Um, and we got machines out here right now for the medical stuff. You know, that they're in a hurry to get a machine built, to make, uh, at-home testers for COVID, you know, it's all this stuff that you're always on that, that bleeding edge. And there's so much technology to make that robot, the 3d vision stuff, the, all this stuff, the laser line generator, laser welding, there's a whole lot of new technology out there that there's shortage of people to understand it and make it work.
Speaker 2 00:13:14 The things that you, you and I talked about was your involvement with first robotics. Can you give me a little bit of a feel of the people out there listening, um, how you got involved and what it's meant to you and to your company?
Speaker 0 00:13:26 First robotics is a competition for high school kids. Now, it actually starts back in the whole first thing actually starts in the grade school, kindergarten, first, you know, elementary stuff where like first Lego leagues and stuff like that. And they basically give you a challenge and you basically have so much time to create a robot to do this challenge. Everybody in the whole world, there's like over 5,000 teams in the whole world. And everybody had January ones. First jazz Saturday in January gets together. We all get a big old web blast from first robotics central of here's the task. This is what we're going to do. And they say, go, and you're basically got a kid. You got kids, you have mentors, you have kids from high schools. Uh, you have, and you're basically are given like six to eight weeks to build this robot, make it, do the tasks.
Speaker 0 00:14:16 There's some autonomous stuff that are actually supposed to be like that. Then you have two and a half minutes of a team driving. There's also the part of this thing that I liked the best is you're always three on three there's, three teams on a blue Alliance and three teams on a red Alliance. They're basically going at each other, but the three teams on this one team, maybe against each other on the next site, they promote this, what they call cooperation. And you're, you're trying to help that team. If they're having trouble, you might have your, your controls guy over there trying to help them debug a problem just to get them on the field for you to be working on that. But they might beat you in the next one. It doesn't matter. It's all about this cooperation stuff. And in this, in this thing here for us, it has every aspect of our field.
Speaker 0 00:14:59 We have up-front mechanical engineering. We have electrical, we have programming, we have mechanical build. We got machining. We also have marketing and sales in this thing. Yeah. Marketing of sales teams on this thing. So where they're out there going, and it really is a small version of what custom automation does. It really is, you know, you're trying to out there and you're trying to collect money to get the sales team and marketing team or marketing us. They're trying to go out to companies, getting money to basically send us team to hopefully worlds, right? I mean, yeah, that's the goal. So the nice thing about it for me is I've been a mentor on his team for 11 years and our team. I'll just give you a little history of our team. If you know that that's okay, this is what we want. And, and a little history is w we started with one school.
Speaker 0 00:15:44 It's a small school. And, and a lot of these schools are huge and they got lots of big budgets. I mean, there's, there's schools out there. They got a hundred thousand dollar budgets ever every year. And ours is about 45, $50,000. Every year we have to come up with to make us, make us teams go. So we started out with one, one school, got one or two kids. And, you know, these are talking, you know, 200 kids in a high school type stuff. And we brought on another team the next year, when other school, the next year, we've actually made a team out of five different schools, five different, very small schools, a cup of parochial schools, you name it, but we made this team. We've got up to 45, 50 kids on our team right now. So it's a really nice solid team. And what's nice about that whole thing is we get everybody together at the first, like in December coming up here, we'll be, well, not so much this year, but we, we bring these kids together and we S we have a meeting, and this is what we're going to do.
Speaker 0 00:16:40 We're explaining to it, all the new, all the old kids are actually telling the younger new kids coming up. This is what's going to happen. And you see this thing of, they all gather in their schools throughout this program, this meeting, the here's, the kids from this school, here's the kids from this school. Here's a kid from this school. By the time we're done, there's no school, there's no school affiliation. A couple of these schools are actually there. The rivalries and the sports, the they're not here. And there's a big parade. Just to give you an example of what happened there. Sometime we had a, we had a big parade through our town and the schools went through their bands. A lot of these kids are in band and all that stuff. And at the end of the prayer, they all get together. And, you know, you've got all these band uniforms in one little clump, other people that are out on a first robotics in are going up to them in the school later saying, Hey, whatever you play, where are you talking to that guy from blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 0 00:17:31 Because he's a teammate of mine. That, that's what he said. You know, he says, this is not about this, this and this. It's about us as making a robot and a task that goes on. Now, we have schedules. We have all that stuff. But with all this stuff here, we we've actually taken this to the next level. It's like, for me personally, getting this, I get to go in and help these kids understand what the technology is, how to do some engineering on stress analysis of what that torque means to, to the gear and all that stuff that has to happen to make a decent robot, go to the task. You know, so it's nice to see this. But one thing that I see is work ethic, which is huge. I mean, there's kids that you get all kinds, there's all types of levels in this whole thing.
Speaker 0 00:18:18 And you get to see, who's got the natural ability. Who's got all this stuff. So, and, and at Edgewater, we've actually hired a kids out of this program of ours. You know, you've hired eight kids over the, over the last 11 years. We've actually hired eight kids out of this program. Wow. That's exciting. Couple in mechanical apprenticeship, we got one that went through the electrical apprenticeship. We've got one right now on our machining apprenticeship. And we actually hired two that went to college, got their degree in mechanical engineering. They came back and we hired them. So it's been both, both gamuts. We pull them right out of it. We actually come up here. They also got one kid that just came right out of high school, went into what we created a mechanical engineering apprenticeship. And he's working through that. So that, that, it's, it's been very good for us. It's a good way to, for too, like, I want to say pre-screen, how do you want to say that at the end of the day I'm doing pre-screening of, of what this person's like, and what's their work ethic, do they really want to learn or are they, you know, there's other reasons, but that's, that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2 00:19:24 Well, you certainly would know them very well, so you'd be able to vouch for their, um, uh, especially as, as students. So that's very, uh, very exciting. Uh, you, you told me a story about one of your students. Who's a bit quiet, maybe a bit introverted. Yep.
Speaker 0 00:19:37 Well, this is an interesting story. So I'm just gonna use his name. Vince Vince came into one of our meetings. He was a freshmen and at one of the parochial schools came in and he didn't even really hang out with us with a school. It was kind of this kid in the background that was just kind of by himself, you know? And when we go through this, we always have kids introduce himself with school or from that type of stuff, his dad was there. He actually had to push him to get there, right? So he gets into it. He starts getting into it. He, the kid is a natural machinist. I mean, he, he goes to appropriate school. He's never had machine he'd done in his life. He's rebuilt cars with his dad. He knows how to do eat, eat, eat, works with his hands.
Speaker 0 00:20:17 He understands how to do this. And, and he figures it all out. He just got done painting his truck in our, in our paint booth. He did it. You just figured out how to do, and he did it, but the kid was quiet by the time the four years were done. He, he became our best machinists in the team. You could tell that he was there. We actually hired him on a co-op basis after school work, his junior year to come in and work at Edgewater because he just has this ability to do that. But I, but it was one thing that I saw is like, he knew that the feel of the, of the cutter against the metal and how not to force it and all this stuff that was there. But by the time he was done, he actually became the part of the team.
Speaker 0 00:20:57 He was now the leader of the mechanical machining, a part of our team. He was then the leader of that thing. He was directing people what to do. He was teaching people what to do. And he was giving me a hard time. Like you wouldn't believe it. It was fun. It was fun to watch him grow up through this whole thing. Now he's on our floor right now. He's into his second year of a machine apprenticeship. And I'll be honest with you. He's probably our second best machine is done on the floor. We got eight machiners machinists out on the floor right now. So
Speaker 3 00:21:29 Well, that's, that's a really good story. Can you tell me a little bit about your maj, the mega group that, so the manufacturers awareness group in your area?
Speaker 0 00:21:37 Sure. So myself and, um, a couple are either ones as a superintendent of local high school. We kind of got together and we started this group called, uh, mega mega manufacturing education awareness group. So it was a brainstorm my head from a, it wasn't my, all my idea I had, I was on an advisory committee at, at a local high school. And we started talking about how can we get parents involved? How can we get them to understand this thing? It's one thing to have manufacturing days and have a bunch of kids come through your facility. But until you get to the parents, cause they're going to go home. That was cool. You're going to college, you know, that type of stuff. And that's not where you only where you want to be. You want to try to get to that. So we're trying to get to the education of what we talked about before though, the guidance counselors, the principals, the, and then to the, to the parents, how do we, how do we do that?
Speaker 0 00:22:25 So the superintendent was on board with this thing. He, he, he helped us create this group and he got the, the local education people in fall to this thing. So what we did is we had, we had tours of local manufacturing facilities and basically the, the superintendents, all the schools kind of strong-armed their guidance counselors to go after they were done. They were glad they went, but it was, it was just a struggle to get people to come to the same. So we all met at the local college. We had some really nice tour buses that we had two tour buses that we actually had always guidance, counters, whoever in the education part coming on. And we put them on buses and we went to two or three different type of manufacturing facilities, our place and other facility like us. Um, and, and then the manufacturing side after us.
Speaker 0 00:23:15 So we tried to get it. Wasn't just an Edgewater thing or just where I work. Then it was a whole County wide thing is what we were trying to go for. So I had these teachers, we went in, we gave them all tours. We had little set downs at every place afterwards. And we had these little brainstorming sessions and I was on a tour bus with one of these groups. And we went into this one place. Uh, they made molds, they made molds is what they did. And we sat in a room and these teachers and guidance conscious saying, this is so cool. So, and I go, I go, what can we do? Well, we can do this. We can do this. We can do this, the brainstorming of what they could do to help us. Then at that point was just flowing out. Anyway, we built, we all boarded horses.
Speaker 0 00:23:56 We went back to the local college to where we had a big, we had a nice meal. So we had set down, we had some, we had some presentations of some other smaller places that didn't really like, like an electrical warehouse. They just put on a presentation for these people on the board. And then we have some local leaders just kind of tell about what we're leading, what we're looking for, what kind of benefits we then presented. Okay. These are the types of jobs. And, you know, I can get into an apprenticeship. We can do internships. We can do, um, a lot of these places, do I already do this? They do internships apprenticeships, uh, uh, job shadowing. You know, we, we do job shadowing here, but then we sat there and we said, okay. And at the end of this thing, we had a local guy that was a really good speaker.
Speaker 0 00:24:39 He was a keynote. So he basically challenged all these people out on, out on a, for all these educators. All right. In three months, we need a list of people of kids. You're going to go back. You're going to find these kids that are not so good in school, or are they, they're just struggled or whatever, you know, and you ask them, what do you think about this? And so what we ended up doing was we ended up sending up a Google or Google sign up thing, and everywhere you go on, they could sign up kids to actually be part of this. We then sent out mailers to parents. We actually sent out flyers. We did some online radio broadcasting basically saying this is event coming up here in the spring. So we know the, we didn't admit the education in the fall and we're doing the other thing in the spring.
Speaker 0 00:25:23 And so we got a list of kids fall. Then at that point, the second thing to where we did the same thing, we put them on a BICE bus. We fed them. Well, we, to be honest with you to hopefully gather some more input, we, we gave a, we did a giveaway. We were trying to do like a giveaway, you know, to try and get the parents, Hey, I can go get a free meal and maybe at a chance at a big screen TV or whatever it is, you know, just something to that. So it went over very well. I mean, there was a couple of kids I know that have been hired in by other people. The parents then came up to us later and said, wow, what an amazing event. I didn't know anything about any of this out there. So it was a good way to get them started involved.
Speaker 0 00:26:04 So that's been the premise of where we're starting now with COVID has been kind of, kind of been put on hold this year. That's kind of the premise is where we're trying to go. And it's not just a one company thing. It's really truly a, a County wide thing. And it's a way for us to just really try and jump, to try to get ahold of them. Parents. It's all that really was, is how do we get ahold of their parents and how do we get to that point? So, and so, and you're working with your competitors, right? Which is yes. Yeah, yeah. We are actually one of their competitors down the road was, was part of the, one of the speakers. And they were one of the tour sites were the other tourist sites. And once the Eagles go away, it is it's perfect, but they're is they know. And you just gotta, I tried to explain this. I'm not part of Edgewater at this time guys. I'm, um, I'm part of trying to help a young person get a, uh, a step ahead in life is what I'm, that's. My goal is really where I want to go.
Speaker 2 00:26:56 And so you also do a mentorship at Edgewater as well, and you've got internships and apprenticeships. What are the types of programs are you doing or is that pretty much it,
Speaker 0 00:27:06 Um, that's, that's pretty much it. And then the outside stuff is where I do this. And then I always try to get in with some advisory committees and some local schools and stuff and try to help my personally, that's what I do. But Edgewater has all the apprenticeships. We actually have four different apprenticeships in mechanical electrical. We have a design apprenticeship and machine apprenticeship. So we have four fields that we like to try and fill in. As part of the apprenticeship, we actually have local high schools that send their kids during school time to us to actually help do a job shadow. And they do it for a week, not just a day, it's more than a week. So you come in from eight to nine and you're watching this, this thing here. So, and you move around at that point to give them the electrical, the mechanical, where you try to move them around, but that stuff.
Speaker 0 00:27:54 So, and then the internships, everybody, pretty much as we get internships out of college interns out of college and that type of thing, and that's kind of where we kind of hold it at that point. Yep. That's great. Sorry. One more. We get tons of tours. I mean, if somebody wants to give it to her for a young class or something, you know, we've had middle schoolers and elementary kids coming in and you set it up, be twice. You try to have a robot moving and give them something just to get them excited and geeked about it. So
Speaker 2 00:28:23 I think touring is so important. I know when I was in the industry, I gave hundreds and hundreds of tours of our facilities and it is something to help get them all excited and teachers love it. And sometimes you have to, as a manufacturer, sometimes you have to pay for the bus or figure out how to get them in. Like you've done with the eruv with your competitions. So someone's out there listening, Dave, and they want to get involved with first robotics or maybe set up a little consortium like you've done. What are some of the things that they can do? So
Speaker 0 00:28:52 First robotics actually has a very nice website called first, first inspires.org. And you can actually sign up to be a mentor right online, and they'll, they will get you in touch with a local team. Or if you want to get ahold of one of your, one of your high schools in, in the tech guy, the guy in the machine shop, or the guy in the engineering department in the high school and say, Hey, I'd like to help you. That's kind of what I did myself and another guy, the teacher at Columbia high school was basically, we just said, we're going to start this. And we started it together. We started the team. He did all the stuff I don't like to do, which is the paper board, but more of an engineer. Right. So I liked, I liked the hands-on touchy feely just because of my background, but he was that guy.
Speaker 0 00:29:36 I was the technical guy, both of us together. We're bringing the team together. That's how we grew that team, but it was, it was me and him getting together. So I would recommend going out, talk to one of the teachers, talk to the guidance company, you know, whatever, find somebody in that school that you'd say, Hey, I'd like to help you do this. And that now with that being said from, from January to April, my wife doesn't see me much. It's a, it's a big investment, but to me it's worth it. I like seeing the kids. And I like seeing that sparkle in the eye when they get the aha moment of man, this is cool. I get this, you know, that that's fun. That's really fun.
Speaker 4 00:30:13 And, um, uh, very exciting and a lot of fun, this conversation. How can people get in touch with you if they'd like to learn more?
Speaker 0 00:30:20 Uh, so, you know, hold me at, uh, Dave dot. Good enough. G O O D E N O U G H at Edgewater automation, all one word.com. You can also get ahold of me through a LinkedIn on my LinkedIn page.
Speaker 4 00:30:37 Thank you, Dave. And thank you for your time today. I'd also like to thank and acknowledge our partner. <inaudible> the association for advancing automation. 83 is the umbrella rotation for the RIA AIA MCMA and eighty-three Mexico. These four associations combined represent almost 1300 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, system integrators, and users, research groups, and consulting firms throughout the world that are driving automation forward. I'd also like to thank our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions. They are a web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing and can set up and connect CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations as the web and digital is changing. Painted robot is helping advanced manufacturers stay modern and competitive space, and they're at painted robot.com. And if you'd like to get in touch with the robot industry podcast, our email is the robot industry
[email protected], where you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. And if you have an idea or an interesting company or technology, please get in touch with me. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening and be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer attraction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris Colvin for audio production, my partner, Janet, and our sponsors <inaudible> and painted robot.
