Speaker 0 | 00:01.020

Hi nerds,

Speaker 1 | 00:10.202

it’s Michael Moore and I’m here with David Meltzer, IT Director at Hickory Transportation. Welcome to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. David, how are you doing today?

Speaker 0 | 00:20.385

Hey Michael, I’m doing great. I’m doing great, having a great day, getting ready for this Labor Day weekend.

Speaker 1 | 00:28.027

You’ve been on the show. You’ve been on this podcast before?

Speaker 0 | 00:31.585

No, I sure haven’t. This is my first time.

Speaker 1 | 00:34.047

Oh, awesome. I’m doing good to answer your question. I’m actually getting married in about 16 days. Oh, wow. Congratulations. Thank you very much. It’s been pretty busy for me, but we’re closing the gap here and close to being a married man.

Speaker 0 | 00:54.941

Outstanding.

Speaker 1 | 00:56.522

I wanted to start off real quick. I got an icebreaker segment. It’s called Random Access Memories. I ask a question, and then all you need to do is respond, whatever comes to your head first, right? So the first question is actually going to be based on a post that Phil Howard put out today. And the post, I don’t know if you saw it, but it had four pictures of computers or racks that were, you know, that were in a certain space. And that space. was actually a bathroom. And it’s funny because I actually had told him a story a while back about a phone call I had made earlier on in my IT career, where I noticed that, you know, a server was placed in the bathroom. And then I noted when that server came back that I didn’t want to deal with it. So the first question you get is, what is the oddest place you’ve ever seen a computer located?

Speaker 0 | 01:54.182

You know, that is… That’s a unique question. I’ve seen, you know, my background, I have a little bit of a military background. So I’ve seen, you know, Iraq in the desert and tents, of course, with air condition. And but it’s it was very unique. You know, my my past life when I was in the military, that portion I remember distinctly. And it’s funny because. They’d throw down lines and we’d throw tape on top of it to kind of hold down the lines and the wire and then the network and then just go from there. It’s really new in the early 90s, you know, so going to deployment, you know, and I was in the Air Force. And it was one of those things where, you know, it didn’t matter where you were, what you were doing. If it was a bombed out area, you’d set up. Of course, I didn’t have to go in that. I didn’t have any situation like that. But. I have seen some unique IT setups before. And, you know, I think that really is what got me into tech and, you know, where my career went from there.

Speaker 1 | 03:07.979

Thank you for your service, by the way. My dad was in the Air Force. Yep. My dad was in the Air Force. His father was in the Army Air Corps. So, you know, when I was young, I moved all around. So, number two here. What? What technology do you wish existed but doesn’t?

Speaker 0 | 03:28.530

Oh, gosh. Wish existed. That’s so many. Well,

Speaker 1 | 03:35.194

brain spinning now, isn’t it? Like,

Speaker 0 | 03:37.155

yeah, you know, that’s that’s an interesting question. You know, it’s I really can’t wait for that, you know, the self-driving car that’s autonomous. But. that you can just jump in the car and go legally. I think it is coming along. I think that people have worked on it and I think there’s a great progress towards it. But just imagine the day that you can jump in going to work or to wherever and you literally can have your whole travel arrangements go. You can start either working or doing something or even… It takes you, it’s plotted out to go to your favorite coffee drinking spot, you know, and as you’re going up, it’s already paid for everything autonomy, you know, and just using that dead space where instead of fighting traffic and, you know, looking at that as a time, that’s just a life sucker. You can actually bring more value to, I can’t tell you how many times I thought to myself while I’m sitting in a traffic jam, man, this would have. be so much more of a useful time if there was some tech that could eliminate the need to just sit here and focus on the road. Not that safety isn’t important, but certainly I think that one day Um, obviously down the way when we have laws and, and tech that can support it, I think that would be the tech that I, you know, at least in my life, um, I see so much. I mean, I think I clock probably about four and a half, five hours a week in the car and that’s nothing for some people, but that’s something from others, you know? Um, I know that I know people that drive an hour or two hours one way, you know? So it’s just. It’s really interesting. I just see that as a part of everybody’s existence that if that were to be, you know, negotiated. Apart from that, I think that laundry would be another one. Talk about IOT things, right? Can you imagine, you know, I mean, that’s another part of my life that I look at. And my wife would probably tell you that, you know, she’s more in tune with that.

Speaker 1 | 05:57.379

I’ve been banned from doing the laundry ever since. I mistook fabric softener for detergent. So I no longer am allowed to do the laundry.

Speaker 0 | 06:10.080

So it’s the same in my life.

Speaker 1 | 06:14.142

So last question here before we move on. If you were if you were not in technology, what would you be doing instead?

Speaker 0 | 06:23.829

That’s a difficult one. You know, I did the military. So I retired out of there about. about eight years ago. So I guess that would be one thing. I don’t know, you know, that’s so hard, you know, I can’t see something other than because everything would be tech related. I’ve always had a fascination for technology. I’ve always had a fascination. My biggest problem is figuring out, you know, focusing on one thing. I get so interested and entertained with different pieces of it that, you know, I’m almost a jack of all trades, master of none sort of thing. I mean, I have my areas, but you know what I’m saying?

Speaker 1 | 07:08.764

It’s just- So you would dabble.

Speaker 0 | 07:10.665

Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. I lean towards the infrastructure side for those of you who are listening. And it’s one of those things where, yes, I love programmers, but man, I love networking and I love all those other things. So, but- you know, I fall right in. I’m, I, I was looking at some of, um, you know, some Python just recently and I’m like, man, I can see getting into this. So it’s just really a technologist, you know, if that’s where your passion is, that’s, you know,

Speaker 1 | 07:41.662

it’s, it’s, you know, why it’s curiosity. It’s curiosity. We’re so curious. Uh, you have to be right to do what we do. And so there’s a, there’s a curiosity that, uh, you know, surrounds us. And that’s why I think we end up having. you know, getting into so many different things, you know, Hey, well, I can do this. Why don’t I try this? What the wonder what this is like?

Speaker 0 | 08:03.417

Oh yeah. Yeah. And especially if it’s like, this is getting in my way and I know there’s a better way around it and I can use a piece of tech, you know, and let’s do it.

Speaker 1 | 08:15.482

You know, it’s interesting is, um, I was, you know, thank you for connecting with me. I was looking at your profile and what I saw on your profile. was that you went to Syracuse University and right. Is that correct?

Speaker 0 | 08:29.625

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, for a project management, that’s correct. Yeah. I attended Syracuse University. They have a great program for veterans out there, you know, that you can get involved in. And, you know, I mean, literally as long as you pass the course, you know, pass the exam, everything’s paid for. So excellent, excellent university, wonderful thing that they’re doing out there, you know, and It’s great. Can’t speak highly enough and thank them enough.

Speaker 1 | 08:57.795

I, you know, when I was, when I was in kindergarten to about ninth grade, I lived in North Syracuse. Really? Yeah, yeah. I actually lived in North Syracuse. My parents are from East Syracuse, you know, they, so I’ve got a long history with Syracuse before I finally moved down to Florida. But but yeah, I did my I like to say I did my time in Syracuse because it’s just the amount of snow that just was just relentlessly falling in Syracuse all the time. So,

Speaker 0 | 09:35.387

yeah, well, I did more of the online thing. So that’s a smart move.

Speaker 1 | 09:39.809

That’s a smart move.

Speaker 0 | 09:40.709

I appreciate it. I want to be transparent on that. But I tell you what I have, you know, I have spent quite a bit of my life in the north. So I’m aware of it. So you get it. aware of it.

Speaker 1 | 09:55.421

So let’s, you mentioned project management and that’s interesting too because when I was looking on here, I saw that you’re pretty heavy in the project management experience and I was like, I am going to ask David, all about project management, because, you know, we’ve had a bunch of people on here, various different things. I’ve talked about different subjects and pieces. But project management is one where I’ve kind of glazed over and I haven’t really had a good piece about project management. And I want to go into it and we will. But but first, I want to kind of set the stage if we could. I see, you know, again, you’re from Hickory Transportation. And it looks like a freight company, right?

Speaker 0 | 10:38.627

It is. We’re a logistics company, but we more or less are freight management. You know, we are a freight management solution. We’ve got our own trucks. We’ve got our primary thing is the logistics. We do intermodal. We do refrigerated, over the road, LTL, intermodal, dredge. All those different things. We handle it, you know, in between. So, and our parent company is Hickory Foods, which is Bubba Burger. If you’re familiar with that brand. Yeah, yeah. So, great, great burgers. Wonderful, wonderful burgers. If you get a chance, they’ve got some great flavors out there. Onion is my favorite.

Speaker 1 | 11:23.914

I’ve had Bubba Burgers before. The thing with them to me was the simplicity. uh, of cooking above the burger on the grill where you just set it on there and then you wait and then you flip it and then you’re, and then you’re good. And then it is done. I mean, it’s just no like keep flipping back and forth and it’s just set it and forget it and then flip it once and you’re good to go. Uh, you’re right. They, they’re, they’re pretty, pretty good burgers. Um, I, I’m, uh, I’m interested in, in, uh, and I actually didn’t know that, uh, Hickory, uh, um, Hickory was the parent company. That’s awesome. I didn’t even know that. So, yeah. oh yeah um transportation’s kind of uh exploded uh post pandemic right i mean yes definitely supply chain went nuts that’s putting it lightly everyone i ever talked to uh during the pandemic when i was doing support for a bunch of different companies uh they you know every time i got to talking to the um to the transportation or or supply chain they were like hair on fire I couldn’t talk more than a minute on the phone before they had to get out and just get this done. Bye. You know what I mean? Like that was the that was the mentality was just so hectic during that. Did you experience that?

Speaker 0 | 12:42.532

Oh, most definitely. Absolutely. I mean, day to day, we shifted our organization and our technology shifted in so many different ways. We were a very static organization prior to that. We were very much, you know, on prem. do everything here. It’s going to be okay. If somebody works remote, what’s remote? Remote? You want to do what? We’ve got our brokerage right here. You come to work, you stamp out right here. Hop on a truck,

Speaker 1 | 13:17.688

ride it in.

Speaker 0 | 13:18.688

Right, exactly. I mean, we’re dealing all you need is phone, email and whatnot. And you can do that right here for the brokers and everything we do as far as management of that freight. we could do right there but you know the pandemic just changed just overnight you know lots of my peer group will tell you um they went through the same thing we literally overnight transformed i mean nowadays we just everyone you know it’s so flexible um that it’s changed the dynamic of our organization our strategy and during that time i mean in between sending people in and out to work from home we’re doing massive up upgrades to our phone system. We’re doing massive upgrades to going to cloud-based everything. And so, I mean, it was just a shift on top of we relocated the business. We moved the business in 2020. So it was, we relocated the business. I had a pandemic. I shifted the phone system. I shifted our server environment to a cloud-based environment. We went from more of an on-prem type solution with our Office 365. We went to Office 365, I should say. So, I mean, it just went, you know, 0 to 100 in 3.5 seconds is about what it was looking like.

Speaker 1 | 14:51.104

Oh, sorry to interrupt here for a second, but I wanted to make a quick point for the audience here. And for anyone that’s not familiar. with I think what IT had to go through through the pandemic. It was such a monumental shift. I mean, IT was already trying to find the words here, was already inundated with work and projects. And and to throw that on top of it, the the monumental shift it had in IT almost seemingly overnight was one of the most strangest things to see. I mean. You know, you only see that every once in a while where you just get this monumental shift in technology that just pushes you what seemed to be 10 years forward in two years.

Speaker 0 | 15:46.344

Oh, yeah. Easily. Easily. The things we were discussing were all of a more of a factor of, well, that sounds good. We’ll have to sit down in a strategy meeting and talk about it for down the road. And that usually meant somewhere between three to five years, maybe. you know, but that changed everything, everything. And it was, you know, I mean, I was an essential worker and I’m on the road night and day sending people home and then trying to support people. We had, uh, my team, we had at least it went from, uh, it was such a smaller number of remote support cases prior to, I remember. Looking back on it, it went into the thousands where we were just going from a few hundred into the thousands of remote support cases. So when I took a look at what was going on, even how we responded to people and their needs just completely transformed. So it was a big thing. And then take transportation. It never stopped. I mean, from there, we had backups. transportation. There was, you know, almost, they said, a two-year delay in shipping in some areas, meaning that they had enough freight out there for us to cover for up to two years without having to worry about a slowdown in freight. And I’m sure that there’s more details. I’m probably not as, you know, sharp on that as I should be. But what I did understand is that the need for freight and transportation had almost double tripled overnight at that very same time. So people in my job role just saw the need and had to respond almost on the fly. And then to survive and our businesses to survive, we had to be really flexible and, you know, very. uh, dynamic in, in how we responded to those things. And that’s, and that’s where those things were, you know, I mean, and then it’s weird that at that time, you know, where, you know, the cost of things wasn’t as big of a concern as, you know, as it goes, you know, I mean, most of the time businesses look at things and they’re balancing costs on different things. It’s more, it was more of, well, is this scalable? Is this, um, able to meet our business model? And then it just changed. So it used to be. What is the cost on this before we all looked at that? Nowadays, we always looked at, we always did look at costs. We always will look at costs. But like I said, it was the priority shifted into how dynamic will our organization be? How scalable will our organization be? So those were the things that were the first few questions. So, and now things are kind of slowing down a little bit. We’re finally getting a little bit of a chance to catch our breath. and i will breather yeah you know it’s uh you know definitely something that is like wow okay this is an interesting one but yeah for a long time it was long hours and um just working with a lot of great people great vendors you

Speaker 1 | 19:14.848

know um that supported us all the way through so let’s let’s talk about that madness right because like i said earlier in the podcast, you have a project management background. And I’m sure that that came in handy when trying to, you know, kind of work your way through the multitude of projects during that time, and probably still does now. And yes, and the biggest piece, I think, that I want to do here is I want to explore project management, because it’s such an integral part of it. Getting things done. in an organization and there’s, you know, you can write out a project plan and put it together and, you know, do everything, but nothing really ever really goes to plan and things change and modify and, and people sometimes don’t like change and they fight against it. And there’s lots of other things that are thrown into the mix that sometimes are not covered. Uh, uh, you know, um, and what I want to do is I want to talk about how You approach project management and really dive deep into it in this podcast, if we could.

Speaker 0 | 20:33.682

Okay. Yeah, no, you know, my background, if you look it up, is I am a certified PMP, project management professional by the Project Management Institute. But what led me to get that certification was my years and experience in the military. And then moving on into tech. I needed the bureaucracy because I had been, you know, I had lived so long in 20 years of, you know, almost 20 years of service. I did temporarily retirement authority. But during, you know, my time in, I’ve been, you know, heavily indoctrinated in the military way. So coming at it out of the military, transitioning into the civilian world, I needed structure. So there are those out there that may be listening. Let’s say, oh, my gosh. And you’re right. I have faced people that are PMPs that are just very rigid. But I would say I’m not as rigid as I am fluid for a project, and especially in this environment.

Speaker 1 | 21:40.422

Give us some examples of that, because, you know, and everyone has their own style. And let’s I mean, let’s just get that out of the way. Everyone has their own style. Every project manager is going to be different. I’ve dealt with a lot of different project managers. I myself. uh, while not having a PMP, uh, stuff have done a lot of project management in, in it. And, um, and, and everyone comes across it in different ways. Some people have more soft style. Some people have more hard, rigid style, like you mentioned, uh, like, like you mentioned. So I want to, I want to dive into, let’s dive into your style. Let’s dive into the, the David, uh, Meltzer style of project management. Um, and, you know, hopefully we come off this, uh, come off this podcast people are like listen uh david melzer does it this way man this is the way i’m gonna do it now i’m just kidding i know i know well yeah let’s let’s dive in let’s let how do you first when you get a project that’s given to you right and um what’s the first thing you do before you even write anything down what’s the first thing you do when

Speaker 0 | 22:42.974

you get a product time time when is that due that’s that’s the most important thing so that is For me, the biggest thing, when do you want this? When is this final activity going to happen? When are we going to close this out?

Speaker 1 | 23:01.017

All right. And then when you’re given that timeline, right? And it’s insane.

Speaker 0 | 23:06.521

Expectations. Expectations. Right? And you manage that, right? Right off the bat. Time and expectations, right? So what are we realistically thinking here? And those give me, the stakeholders will, and I don’t want to delve too much into getting into the nomenclature of it all. But when I look at it, those stakeholders will tell me where they’re at real quick. And I can judge them really quick, how important this is and what they’re looking at. Those two questions, when do you want this? Next week? Okay. Well, I don’t know that that’s realistic. What are you expecting the outcome to be like? What do you need from this?

Speaker 1 | 23:50.210

I like that second question, right? Is it, it, um, it almost forces them, uh, forces their hand for the, the, the inevitable question afterwards, right. Which is, uh, you know, what’s this doing for the business, right. Right. So what’s the, what’s the perceived goal of this project? Uh, you know, uh, when I implement it, uh, you know,

Speaker 0 | 24:12.856

Oh yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s, that’s the biggest thing there, but you know, I try to remove myself as an authoritarian position where I’m looking at the business and saying, this is, you know, does this impact? My role is to facilitate their goals, right? Because those folks are paid well to make decisions and I want to help them achieve them if it’s in the best lineup. Now, obviously I take it from the C-levels. They give me a good perspective and I talk, you know. to them daily, you know, about the different projects that are out there. and things in the nature of those projects. I’ll give them my opinion on it. And certainly I’ll let them know there’s my opinion on it, but, you know, take it for what it’s worth. But ultimately, you know, if it’s for the benefit and the good of it, I, I try to separate myself and give them just the facts, right? That’s what they need. Here’s the facts, here’s the cost, here’s what they’re trying to do. And this is when we can get it done. And this is at the level that we can do it. If I need to bring in vendors, if I need to bring in… more resources. If we’re going to spend a great deal of money, I need to let them know up front. And then those C-levels, you know, those executives make good decisions. You know, the VPs and whatnot, they sit down and analyze whether or not there’s an ROI on it, you know, and really go at it. Now, if it’s a technology project, that’s different. That’s in my wheelhouse. That’s where I am directing things. And I provide the best. information I can. There’s a lot of research that I do. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent looking at different models and different vendors and different items that are out there for our business. I have sat in multitude of meetings just looking at the different opportunities. you know, doing analysis on how that can impact our business. So that’s how I approach it for tech. You know, there’s other people that, um, they not so much, but they lean heavily on their experiences. And, you know, if they’re, if they’re a long-term broker that knows of something, um, you know, and they’re for sure about it, um, we take a serious look, hard look at it, if it’s going to be a, for the betterment of the company. And like I said, um, I talked to those guys, you know, I’m right across the way from the VP of operations. We talk on a daily basis several times about the direction of the company. Very smart and astute man. And he’s just, you know, phenomenal. He takes a look at that because he has the experience in the career field. I don’t. I tell him, look, I don’t know the first thing about brokering a piece of freight. I don’t know the first thing about tracking it. I don’t know the first thing. So if you call me and you’re asking me, hey, Dave, my freight is going to, you know, is it going to be there on time? I’m going to refer you to somebody. So, but I’ll tell you this, our systems are top notch and we have sat and re-evaluated them to the 10th degree. So I think that’s a roundabout question or roundabout answer to your question, excuse me. But those are the things that I evaluate. I try to remove myself from those projects outside of IT. And internally, when I’m looking at that, there’s a lot of research and information that I go through. and evaluations. I have great vendors. I have a vendor. It’s kind of funny that he handles, you know, I don’t know if I can say the name of the company or not, but, you know, and it may be a prop to him, but, you know, from day one, we have such a great relationship and he’ll put people in front of me and I’ll listen to them and I’ll tell him honest and genuine feedback. And then. We talk about it there and he has helped me develop along the way. And so is he. He was new to the business of selling tech. And I was pretty new to the civilian world of buying tech. You know, I mean, that’s been almost a decade now.

Speaker 1 | 28:31.608

It is such a big deal to have close relationships. Not even, you know, the internal ones too, right? But not just the internal ones, but also the external. relationships. I mean, having, having that understanding and keeping in touch and, and benefiting each other in a symbiotic relationship from a work perspective is, is a huge deal and it makes things so much easier, you know, to be able to move back and forth and rely on people like that. So that’s a good, it’s such a good point. And the other point that I heard you bring up, which, which was pretty impressive was the time that you spend uh, with, uh, you know, with the, uh, C level of operations, right. With, with the different folks that know what’s going on because those, and, and, and for the business leaders out here, right. Do this, talk to your it, uh, it, uh, directors, talk to your it managers, let them understand, uh, you know, the parts of the business that are important because ultimately you’re going to be better off for it. The company’s going to be better off, you know?

Speaker 0 | 29:41.439

Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 29:42.917

So that’s a huge mix. Now, so let’s say you get handed a project. And you do your little negotiation up front from a time standpoint and a, you know, time, you know, what do I need from a money standpoint? You start figuring this in. One of the things I’ve seen some people mistake, you know, make the mistake of, and I’m guilty of it, by the way, is jumping too soon to tell people when they’re going to get stuff done, not building in a buffer. and, uh, and ending up at the end of it, uh, having to either do crunch time or, or, you know, go back to the well and ask for more money or more time. Right. And, and this is, and this is the, um, like I said, uh, you know, earlier in my career, I got nailed on this several times until I finally, I was like, okay, I’m not doing this anymore. Right. It’s a, it’s such a, uh, easy mistake to fall in. Cause you want to please, right. You want to please, and you want to do good for the company. And, and, and I think. this is one of the things where I want to hear you talk about this and I’ll phrase, I’ll phrase the situation I’m talking about. Business leaders want to get something done and sometimes they don’t understand how much pressure they can put on to an individual or a group to get that stuff done. And especially if they have a good group that really wants to, you know, do good and push the company forward and is excited. And sometimes artificially create a problem that really wasn’t there. I mean, a project can take so much amount of time. It’s going to cost so much amount of money. So arguing about it is not really the case. I mean, you can argue about how about you’re going to go about doing that and say, hey, I’d like to save some money here. Where can I save some money? Or I’d like to get this done quicker. What do I need to sacrifice to do that? But essentially there’s a certain amount of finite hours that are going to be going into this project and a certain amount of finite funds, right? So let’s talk about that piece because I think it would be beneficial for both the business leaders and even, you know, the IT group that’s listening to us, you know, learn about that piece so that they also don’t stumble and fall in that fix.

Speaker 0 | 32:07.573

Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, you have to take into consideration, I told you that expectations are… the thing that I want to hear. What I see out there in the tech field is a lot of resistance sometimes to things and based on their past experiences, I understand. So we have to be, you know, fluid enough in tech that we’re able to move, not over promising something, as you mentioned, because that honestly is going to make their project fail. That’s going to make them fail. And that doesn’t bring the company any revenue, you know, so. You know, I’ve always had a great relationship with my team. I don’t know how to, you know, in this area, I’ve had some bad ones in the past. Don’t get me wrong. But I’ve always told them up front, okay, this is what you’re looking at. So say, take the move, the relocation in the middle of a pandemic. I was honest. I said, look, I’m going to have to bring in people. I’m going to have to spend some money. We’re going to have to, you know, do this. If the cutoff is this date. Then, you know, and we have to have the entire organization relocated there while we’re dealing with this, while we’re dealing with hiring and firings, while we’re dealing with technology problems and remote support cases. These are the things I’m going to need for us to be successful and realistically lay it out and say, look, I want to support what you’re doing, but this is what’s got to have or has to happen, you know, and. They’ve always been open to that. They’ve been understanding, you know, but again, I, I don’t think if I approached and said, never going to happen, because I’ve seen this in some technology folks, they’re like, nope, done. That’s going to fail. No, done. It can’t happen. You know, and really, wait a second. You are their resource and they’re asking you an honest, honest question. You got to give them an honest answer of like, okay, if you want to do this project, these are the things that we require. required to make this a success. If you want this huge project to come in the next two weeks, I’m going to be spending, you know, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring in the support needed. Is that okay by you? Because if it isn’t, then we need to talk about your timeline there and your expectation. So, I mean, you, you know, and then internally I try to get things done as fast as possible. If we can, I try to prioritize the people that work for me. I try to prioritize their needs ahead of my own. In some aspects, be the servant leader. And that, and so in doing so, when they bring a problem, I’ll try to push what I have to the side to fix those things to a point. I mean, put that in there to a point.

Speaker 1 | 35:03.285

Yeah, that’s, that’s a great, I’m glad you brought that up too, because, you know, servant leader, service leadership, you know, it is such, it’s a, it’s a leadership style that requires, you know, you to sit down and understand problems and, and, and work through them you know, with your team. And, and it’s, you know, it’s such a different type of leadership you know, than maybe some, some prior where it was more like, well, that seems like your problem. You got to get it done, you know? And it just, I feel like the service, you know, service leadership part, the servant leadership. It gives a chance for somebody to come over and be like, listen, I want to help you get this done. I need, I’m having a problem. Here’s the issue that I have. I think we can probably fix it this way or this way, this way, unless you got a better idea. And it just leads to better collaboration in projects. And the project managers that I have worked with, that I’ve worked for, that have, you know, demonstrated this ability to understand unexpected problems, issues, or even challenges that may face people as they work through projects. You know, it’s huge. It’s a huge deal. And as the project manager, I always felt like they had the biggest voice in the room.

Speaker 0 | 36:43.901

Yeah, well, because… Once you get the whole picture, I think that those people that you’re referencing, they have the most value in the room exactly because what they’re saying is genuine and has true meaning to what’s going on in there. I agree. I’ve been around some really phenomenal leadership in my lifetime. And that is one of the things they take. They take real consideration into what’s going on. I mean. Let’s be real about the whole project thing, right? Things are going to come. Stuff is going to be, you know, broken or not work. That’s why we have change management, right? That’s a huge part of project management.

Speaker 1 | 37:28.253

That’s true.

Speaker 0 | 37:28.913

So, I mean, you know, communication, change management, you know, procurement, all these other different facets of it. It’s all, you know, it’s a bureaucracy, but it’s built in place because they’ve found that these are, you know, key issues and activities, I guess would be a better word for it. You’ve got to think about what’s going on, when it’s going on and what happens if, you know, and so that’s the biggest thing that I see is, is trying to, when I’m running through a project, I know there’s going to be issues. I can sit down and spend a long time planning on it. You know, planning is a big piece in project management, but I have limited time in the day as well. So, I mean, things are going to go to a point where I can take it and say, okay, well, I planned this out and I would have liked to have talked to these other people. I would have loved to have this other thing. And that’s part of project management too. You’ve got to evaluate what you can and can’t do and be realistic about it. You know, the PMBOK is a great tool in my opinion. But it’s… you know, the biggest thing is, is trying to tell you to remain fluid in there, in my view, in that not everything’s going to happen by plan. So that’s right. If it was, there’d be no need for that change piece. So, but, but yeah, you, you know, I find if I listen to those folks, even the smallest person on the block, right. That, that may not have the biggest voice as far as they’re not bringing in the most. revenue. They’re not, they’re not the key thing has a seat at the table, you know, and I’ll tell you more times than not, those folks often can see things that you can’t. So that’s why.

Speaker 1 | 39:24.324

David, I cannot tell you how many times, uh, I have nonchalantly had a conversation about a project with somebody that wasn’t even remotely involved, but was explaining it to them. Um, and, uh, and they just pointed out. uh, something that completely saved the project. You know, it’s amazing to me. Uh, you know, I, I, I got to the point where I just started, you know, obviously there’s some projects that are more sensitive than others that you’re not going to be able to have that with, but some of the bigger known projects that people knew about. Um, just having conversations with people and, and, and the, and I always felt that having conversations with people that had really, it had, didn’t have much bearing on them or their job. Um, I ended up getting more better, getting better feedback, uh, because, you know, I wasn’t being steered one way or the other, um, you know, through that, through the advice, you know, everyone has their own. their own things. In fact, this kind of leads up to the next piece where I wanted to kind of get into internal resistance to projects and how that’s handled, right? Because every project I’ve ever done, there’s been some type of internal resistance to it somewhere, right? Somebody doesn’t like the way the reporting is, or it’s going to change their job, or they’re going to get an extra step, or they’re going to not get to use the application that they like to use. Looking at it, it’s completely valid in their opinion. Like, I don’t want to make their job any harder, and I don’t want to take away anything that they enjoy using or doing or anything that makes their life a little better at the company. But when you step back and look at the whole and look at what it’s going to do for the company, how it’s going to propel it forward or the money it’s going to save or the strategic improvements it’s going to make, then… You know, you see that, unfortunately, you may need to make inconvenience a few for the sake of the many, right? And then eventually it’ll all get better for everybody and people will get used to it again. Have you, I mean, I’m certain you have, you’ve run into this internal resistance before, you know, at different places, right?

Speaker 0 | 41:45.221

Yeah. Well, you’re talking about change management as well. That’s the freeze on freeze. of it all, right? You know, there’s resistance, there’s the thawing, and there’s some that are just lost by the wayside, you know, that you’re just never going to reach. But there’s company policy for that. You have a couple of choices there. You know, I used to have a chief, a guy that said, I want to help you out and I can help you out, you know, so help you out in your career or help you out the door, you know, was the joke, you know. So, but without… those being those extreme extremes.

Speaker 1 | 42:22.534

You know,

Speaker 0 | 42:23.535

most people are really good about changes as long as it’s brought in by communication. I think communication is the key on that, all right? That’s what I’ve experienced with dealing with folks. Like, why are we doing this, right? Not, doesn’t need to be the office space, you know, is this good for the company banner? That’s not where we’re going. It’s okay. obviously that brings up lots of flashbacks and you can see my TPS report is, you know, definitely failing by the wayside.

Speaker 1 | 43:00.664

I was promised a piece of cake. I was promised a piece of cake. Yeah,

Speaker 0 | 43:04.346

exactly. Keep passing, keep passing. No, no, no, no. I’m saying let’s be genuine. All right. Let’s be professionals out there. Let’s have that face to face. you know, and discuss it. And to some degree, some folks don’t need that. Some people, you can say, hey, these are the points. You send them an email. That’s about all they need. But other people, you need to look in the eye and say, hey, look, your life is about to suck, you know, and I’m going to tell you why it is going to. But this is the benefit. This is why we’re doing this. This is what’s going on, you know, and then allow them to go and voice their concerns, you know, and listen. That’s the hard part. A lot of people don’t want to leave that out. They just want to direct, direct, talk, tell, tell them this is what’s going on. No, listen and think about their concerns and genuine concerns. And, you know, sometimes you’re just not able to do anything about it. That’s just what, you know, the executives have decided, you know, for one reason or another. And you have to explain that you have to look at them and say, look, I’m sorry. This is the direction we’re going. And that’s just how it’s going to be. I will bring up your concerns, but I think at this point we’ve signed the contract. They like it. This is what they’re doing. And this is why they have such a degree of interest in that. I think any executive is going to definitely look at the profit margin on it. And that usually is what drives a lot of things for us, you know, and for other people as well.

Speaker 1 | 44:41.739

And so, no, I think you’re right. And I think that the biggest part. that you mentioned too is communication. And we’ve had others on here as well that have stated the same thing. And I want to take a second to just address the business leaders here, right? Again, this is communication. to, uh, to the company about, um, you know, and let me back up to, it doesn’t need to be like, if you’re going to, if you have a sensitive project that is going on that you don’t have to communicate all of that out to the organization, but if you’re going to be making changes, um, uh, that affect people’s, uh, positions and jobs and stuff like that, you need to make a, um, uh, you need to make some communications out there. and inform them that there are some changes that are going to be made. And there’s some projects that are underway that may affect some of the things that are going on. Or,

Speaker 0 | 45:37.640

and let me add, I’d like to add a caveat onto that. What you’re saying there, Michael, is that you may need to have a real conversation with those execs and say, hey, we need to increase our human resources here. You’ve now doubled the work. workload of this, you know, specific role. And guess what? Now we need, and we could do it with two guys or two people before that. Now it’s going to take six people to do this job, you know, but based on the ROI, based on what you’re saying, these, that’s an acceptable cost increase.

Speaker 1 | 46:18.237

Glad you brought that up.

Speaker 0 | 46:19.777

You know, those things need to be discussed, you know, and you can’t. you can’t take a project and then kick it over to operations and say, Hey, make it work. And then, you know, I mean, they’re going to leave. This is a reality. So now the two guys you had that were spun up, you know, or the, they’re going to say, you know what, forget it. I can find, and especially in this climate, they’re going to say I can find a better place to work at and maybe some more pay or maybe equal pay as what I’m getting now on benefits. You know, and that’s, that’s a huge thing. I mean,

Speaker 1 | 46:54.420

You’re absolutely right, Dave. I’m fortunate enough to work for a company that has great communication throughout the organization. They will communicate what’s the changes that are being made. They will address, you know, the employees and stuff like that and actually, you know, explain the changes that are made, why they’re being made. I have executive support for when I do things. So I’m very lucky in that regard. But others are not. And this is when it gets tricky, right? Because if the leaders are not helping define the communication for their project, it can become tough because that means that you need to be the voice of that project, right? Is that fair to say?

Speaker 0 | 47:44.155

Yeah, exactly. Well, the project manager or the project leader, you’re going to be the voice of that. project from start to finish you know and then even on moving on to operations you’re gonna you’re still gonna be have you know um she’s gonna have a piece of that that’s just a part of who you are and what you do for the organizations you know unless it’s a big organization where you can pull out but the point is is what i’m saying is is that those those conversations have to be real you know They have to be from a place of professionalism, meaning that, you know, it just has to be like, look, you know, if you don’t do these things, if we don’t take this action, this is the outcome that you’re going to have. And then you got to wash your hands of it. If they say forget it, you know, and that has happened. I have seen that happen before where it’s just like these are the company needs. We cannot grow unless we do, you know, X, Y and Z. And it’s going to stink for these group of people. But they’re going to have to accept that or we accept the fact that we’ll lose people through attrition and that we are going to have to replace them. So, I mean, again, is it, you know, it goes back to the thing. Is this really good for our company? Is this the direction we really need to go? I mean, and if the CEO says, you know, execute, then guess what? So, you know.

Speaker 1 | 49:15.970

That’s what you’re doing.

Speaker 0 | 49:17.731

You know. And like I said, and you have choices, you have choices, right? And it can help you out in your career or help you out the door. We, we, we prefer the first, you know, so, but you know, I mean, that’s business, right? I mean, what’s business cut cost, increase, increase profit. Um, you know, I mean, if you’re not doing those things, if you’re not taking a look at those things, then you may not be in business for a very long time. You know, so there’s, you know, it’s definitely, it’s a mental sport, I guess you could say. It’s, there’s a lot of thought into it, you know, but, you know, you see those companies, you look at all those businessmen. Um, and I mean, you know, Steve jobs, for example, you know, very, very cutthroat on some ends, but man, he revelated revolutionized the world with his product. You know, it was funny. We just talked about that, not to segue off this project, but, you know, think about 15 years ago, think about, you know, how different it was in the landscape of. what was going on and how we were operating. So, and again, it leads into somebody sat down and said, you know what? I mean, if you listen to the teams of it, he was hard nosed and push those people and they work to the nth degree, but you have the iPhone, you know, so, you know, you think about it and the people today who built that talk kindly of him, I’m sure they didn’t back then. So there’s a cost.

Speaker 1 | 50:59.976

There’s, there’s, there’s no shortage of, there’s no, sorry, there’s no shortcut here. I mean, it’s hard work any which way you cut it, right? Yeah. To get, to get something amazing happening. And, and some of the projects that I’ve done, you know, or overseen or, or been a part of, they’ve all been grueling projects, but they’re all some of the most projects I’m most proud of in there. And I’m sure you’re right along that way. The I actually I don’t know who who did this quote and I might mangle it, but it’s a great quote. And it’s there are only two types of pain, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Right. And it’s just such a great quote, because, I mean, if you’re going to do something, you’ve got to put the hard work into it. You know. Yeah. Otherwise, it’s just not going to turn out the way you expect it. So. Before we get into our last segment, David, I wanted to I wanted you to take a second for a moment and think about what you would say to individuals listening to this podcast that are just getting into it. You know, we have a bunch of there’s always a new crop of graduates coming out. Right. And I’ve spoken to several before at schools and stuff. And. And they always have the same questions about, you know, how am I going to get a job? And I want to get this job when I get out there. Right. And it’s always, you know, you know, the job that they want is not the job that they’re going to get. And I have to let them down a little bit. But but, you know, coming into that, you know, they’re wide eyed. They have great ideas. They’re the new crop and they’re going to they’re going to be the next, you know, you know, next people to innovate. Right. And you don’t want to shut that down. But what is the what is the realistic advice you give them to help them out, to help them on their innovation journey out there? What what advice can you give those people listening that are just entering in to the, you know, to the workforce?

Speaker 0 | 53:19.142

You know, just stick with it, you know, and that seems so simplistic, but I got to tell you. It gets hard. You know, your first job in tech probably is not going to be that fancy, you know, super senior engineer that pushes five buttons and saves the whole world. Right. That’s, you know, or starts typing madly on a computer and the bomb isn’t going off or the whole banking system is brought back up. Right. That’s not that’s not you. Right. That wasn’t me. That’s not going to be you. But I got to tell you, just stick with it. Start off with those. you know, smaller jobs, smaller roles, and then be available, be interested in it. And I got to tell you, I’ve talked to a lot of people that look at tech as like, man, that’s going to be a big paycheck. If you’re in it for the paycheck, I got to tell you, that’s probably not the role for you. Because there are a lot of people doing great work at those help desk levels that don’t make a lot of money, but they grow. The thing is, you can make money. So I’m going to do two things here. I’m going to go in one direction is that at that level, when you start off, you’re not making a ton of dough, but you can, but it takes time and you got to stick with it. You got to have a passion for it. You know, when I look at people for job roles that I have, and I’m giving a little insight, I know, but I want to see that passion. So, you know, because there are so many different jobs. that I would do even to this day as an IT director. I’ll go out there and move a screen around. I’ll move a user around. You know, I mean, what, you need to set up an email? Okay, great. Those are things that have to get done. And they may seem mundane. They may not seem like I’m going into the server. There’s a problem with the SQL database and I’m scrubbing this down or I’m going to set up this IPSec tunnel and it’s critical because we got to have this connection right away. You know, that, you know. you may not have that right that that kind of fulfillment but i gotta tell you one of the first things that i remember helping somebody remotely when i first got in and kind of walking them through and just a simple screen setup when i first got into tech you know it was something that sticks with me to this day it’s crazy but that person was so grateful that i was able to help them out you know and then you just build from there and i think that’s really what spurred my passion for it May not be yours out there, but I’ll tell you what, if that’s what does it for you, if you like helping people and that builds the passion into seeing something that you can do within tech, that will become much more lucrative. And the position and the job roles and the pay, they’re going to come right along with it. I will say that in tech, you can see rapid growth and paycheck in it in a very short period of time. I’ve seen some people. go from very small positions to very large positions in the span of five to six years. You know, they pick it up really quick and they’re into whatever. And before long, they’re in higher level positions. But, and I’ve had some of the people that have worked for me, matter of fact, most of the people that have worked for me have gone on to much bigger positions and they’re doing well for themselves. But I, but you can’t write off those things. You got to have passion, stick with it.

Speaker 1 | 56:42.651

I love, I love that answer. You got to have passion. You know, it’s funny because I will promote and hire people based on passion. You know, it’s because it shows me they love what they do. They’re committed to what they want to do. And I never want to put somebody in a position, and I’m guilty of doing it before and learning from it, is putting someone in a position that didn’t make them happy. And then I had to pull them out of that position and put them somewhere else where they ultimately… we’re happier, but they didn’t know it, you know, and, and that’s a tough, it’s a tough thing to do, but it, but you have to have that passion burning in your heart to, to do the job. And this goes for anything you do. This is not just IT. So this is a overall thing, right? If you are not passionate about what you’re doing, then you need to stop and think about what you’re doing and see if it’s actually right for you. Because, you know, I understand people just need to make money, right? I get it. Right. But you also want to be a happy individual. And you also want to grow within an organization and you want to, you know, love what you do. And so that’s that’s huge. I’m so glad you brought that up. I want to move now to speaking about passion. Right. We’re on to our last segment, which is I.T. Crystal Ball. And I.T. Crystal Ball. What I what I decided to do here, right, is give I.T. leaders a. an outlet to get a little bit creative and think about what the future of IT might hold. I mean, like earlier we mentioned that the pandemic zipped up 10 years worth of IT improvements in two, right? I mean, it’s like we leapt forward a decade, right? In IT, right? So, IT crystal ball. What I like to do sometimes with this is, you know, I don’t want to be too vague. I want to focus and hone in on the strengths that you have where you know, you know, in the day-to-day everything that you work on. So, I mean, you got project management, you got transportation, you got, you know, your military background as well. So, let’s focus into one of those. And it doesn’t have to be all three. If we want to go crazy and do all three, we can do that. But. But let’s focus on one to start off with. What does the future hold? Where do you see things going within this segment, right? Whether it be one of the three things I talked about. What do you see coming down the pike that people should be aware of and keep their eyes on?

Speaker 0 | 59:35.252

Yeah, so they’re going to see a lot of automation with AI. You know, you’re going to see a lot of artificial intelligence using automation. as, you know, in tandem. So some of the things that you do and the tasks that you do are going to be eliminated. Those will be done for you. Some of those tasks and then predictive analysis will help choose those automated jobs out there. Those, that’s how a lot of things are going to change in IT as well.

Speaker 1 | 60:08.242

Let me, David, real quick, let me jump in there real quick. You mentioned that some of these tasks that people do that may be eliminated, but they shouldn’t fear that. This is a change. This is a, you might have done this before, but now you’re going to do this instead type thing.

Speaker 0 | 60:29.397

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, I mean, it’s, you know, I don’t mean to, you know, worry anybody. But the… today’s technician is going to drastically change in the fact that you won’t be doing some of those mundane tasks i mean the physical is always going to be there right because a computer and ai can only do so much right but some of the things that you interact with will change there will um i believe there will always be a need for a technologist of some sort i know there are others that do not agree with me out there that are bigger names than mine quite bigger um but i would say that that you know, dealing with a human, you can’t, you can’t eliminate another human. Um, it’s just going to change the job role, you know? Um, and, and those things, like I said, predictive analysis, um, we’ll choose out what automation is going to happen, internet of things, you know, the IOT stuff that, that all is going to play a huge piece in it as well. So, I mean, I mean, shoot. just a few years ago, I had to find a calculator, you know, not too long ago. And then I had to, you know, find a phone to make a phone call, you know, and then to get paperwork, we were faxing things to each other, right? We might have email, but scanned email is pretty, you know, something that wasn’t out there. I mean,

Speaker 1 | 61:52.727

that wasn’t that long ago. I know companies that still use fax. It has not gone away. And I don’t think, I don’t think they’ll ever change.

Speaker 0 | 62:01.091

Oh, I know. I mean, look, look at the The signatures of the contracts. I mean, you literally have reordered the entire business workflow. So, I mean, that’s just more of that’s going to come. More of it. Life is going to get easier on some aspects, but harder in others. It’s going to be more complicated. You’re going to see people working on large databases, I believe, and cloud is going to be something that’s huge. And you can see those big providers are already looking and setting up. So, I mean, you can look at Microsoft and you can look at Google and Amazon and you can see what they’re spending their money on. And that’s a lot of automation and AI.

Speaker 1 | 62:43.384

And the tools are out there and some of them are even free to help you learn a lot of this stuff.

Speaker 0 | 62:51.607

Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s so available. We live in an internet age where it’s at your fingertips. You just can’t beat it. It’s right there. You know, so I mean, anything you need, it’s just a search away. And I don’t I don’t want to use just Google. I use a lot of different things. So I’m actually moving away from Google. But so but no, you know what I’m saying is that that’s that’s really where I see in the transportation space. Let me get more specific. I see some of our brokers and some of our dispatchers. Those roles will transit. translate into and a matter of fact it already started we have a digital brokerage team that handles a lot of the digital freight so we deal with integrations that you know we may have a lane that’s out there and i’m getting real specific here and they literally will look at the our past history take that and find carriers that match up to that based on predictive analysis and then they’ll automatically send out emails and solicit them virtually and then provide the dispatch with a number to call. Most likely candidates say, hey, are you interested in this lane? You pulled it for us before. All right. You know, these are the rates and go from there. That’s just going to get, you know, within the freight business and the transportation space. That’s where we’re going. So you cut down on a few numbers, but not really on other areas. You grow in the digital space. So, yes, I do see a decrease on one side, but I see an increase on others. So it’s going to be more tech.

Speaker 1 | 64:35.045

Yeah. And every time you automate, you always end up having to supervise the automation.

Speaker 0 | 64:42.114

Oh, exactly. Yeah. Yep. So,

Speaker 1 | 64:45.371

you know, even when you’re talking about AI and all this stuff, and I know that people are talking also about the self-healing algorithms and all these different pieces and stuff that can also jump in to do that type of stuff. But it is still going to be a mixture and a hybrid of people and computers and which will bring more challenges, more projects and more things to do. So, you know, in IT, I think one of the biggest things that. uh, folks need to remember is that everything is constantly changing and everything is constantly growing. And as an IT professional, you need to just stay on top of it and, uh, and, and ride that wave, so to speak, uh, you know, uh, that embrace it, embrace it, right. Embrace the chaos and just move along with it. You know, don’t try to, don’t try to run, uh, run ahead first into it. The, uh, this is a, um, it’s a, it’s a long journey and it’s a long, uh, uh, journey that keeps changing and changing and changing. I absolutely love your predictions over here. And it’s been a pleasure to have you on. Nerds, it’s Michael Moore. And I’m here again. It’s been with David Meltzer. He’s IT director at Hickory Transportation. And thank you again, David, for coming on, dissecting popular IT nerds. You know, it was a great conversation. I’d love to have you on again. And we can talk about the many other fascinating things you have besides project management. maybe change management next time. Right. So, Oh yeah.

Speaker 0 | 66:15.256

Yeah. Michael, it’s been great. Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate you and your team. And you know, if you guys are looking for a freight movement, we definitely have the corner on that. So a little plug there. Thank you. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s one of those things and go out and grab a good bubble burger. If you have some time. Thanks. Thanks guys. I appreciate it. And I’d love to be on this again. This was a fun time.

Speaker 1 | 66:42.030

Thank you very much.