Live from World of Concrete with Easy Equipment and Flex Crew

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If you can. Hey, what's going on everybody? We're at World of Concrete 20125. You're in I'm in one of the sister companies basically. You are. You are. This is uh we're in three promised labor. I'm Matt with ECG. We got some of you know me. Some of you don't. Matt from ECG. uh the fence hall guys, that's us. But we're here at our sister companies, Three Promise Labor. They are a uh labor ready company. And Alex, I think, is going to come on here after a bit, give us a little little rundown of what he does and uh how can we help out the fence industry because there is definitely market there for it and uh give you five minutes because it's going to be worth it because uh what he's got the app generator, it's really it could be lifechanging for some guys. Yeah, thank you so much for letting us use your couch in this booth because it is packed everywhere you go at World of Concrete the casting couch. We're going to edit that out, but we can't edit that out live. So, just so you know, there's a not just a joke. We got Dalton and Michaela as well. Say hi to everybody. Hi, everybody. So, we actually over here right across from EasyG. There's been just tons of activity today. We've been walking around. You got your mic? No, we've been walking around for two days and we must have interviewed at least 30 40 uh booths that pretty much relate to our industry as well. So, I think why these expos are so important to us and the whole industry is we got to we got to reach out beyond what we're normally seeing every day at our shows and stuff. So, hopefully we're going to bring what what they've done here to our shows in our industry as well. Na, what tell everybody what you get out of these kind of things. What do you think? What what are you what are you getting out of walking around for the last couple days? No, I mean it's been fun. This is totally out of my wheelhouse, right? I'm fence and that's all I know. I'm still learning parts and pieces of the fence, but coming out here and seeing what we could use in the fence industry and all the new equipment and solutions bring to the fence show I think would be awesome. So, it's been a fun time for sure. Yeah. Tell them about your experience 20 feet up in the air and one of those pieces of equipment not too long ago. I don't even know what it was called. I don't know what it is, a man. No, it was like it was it was a favor. It was a highway favor. So she goes ask one of the guys, "Can I uh can I get up on one of these?" And he's like, "Yeah, anything." She's like, "Anything?" And he's like, "Sure." And I was like, "That one over there, the biggest lifted you up in the air." That's it. Then we had to climb up this ladder. I'm like, "Okay, well now we got to do an interview." And I have no I don't even know what this is yet. So I'm looking at the model number. I'm trying to find it. We're on. It's just massive machines. So we're up there and luckily the the guy was really cool. Robert, I think. Yeah. Yeah. He was really cool. And uh Yeah. So, we'll have that video out there as well. So, if you wanted to learn about uh baby machines, hopefully we could give you a little bit of insight on that. Yeah, we can. We can. Did you even Did you know all the things about all the other things that Easy J easy did and we made outside of the fence hall construction go? How how surprised were you with that? I know you've seen it on the internet like seeing it up close like like we're a whole different ballgame like yeah fencing is is one of our markets but the concrete is really how we got started and this is where it all got started. Um 1998 was the very first year that we easy Damian came to work concrete with the ground idea and since then it has been nothing but go up um created a bunch more products and this is really where EasyG started as an entire company concrete. So this is always a big deal for us. Had a customer party last night. It was awesome. That was awesome. Bananas. It was I mean this is the most equipment I've seen like at a show right that you guys have Yeah. Yeah. Because in the fencing we bring you know all the fence hogs we bring bar wire hogs um you know stretch

And go and a couple mobile mixers but you know that's that's our fencing line like this is a whole another another industry that we serve. Crazy. Tell us tell us some of this equipment that you have here. a couple of the most innovative pieces be like our HP20 pump um 3/4 it'll do up to 3/4 inch rock um in 20 yards an hour um not a picture and then we've got our other pump line the 38 special line got a skid steer version of that we've got the gas powered version of that trailer version of that so the pumping world that's something that maybe some people really just don't close by. Um outside of that, we've got different tools um in the base ring world such as like a wall brace system for for bracing CMU block walls. Um it's not common. It's actually engineer where we get calls from all over the country on how to spec out wall bracing and help them brace safely and under in different states is different because the regulations are different. So it is ours is engineered stamped and it's one of the only ones in the country that is. So the wall racing it's called hog. If you're ever interested in looking it up just type in all easy hog legs on Google and you'll fill your mind of [ __ ] It may be good [ __ ] if you're interested in learning that. But it's really cool that that we've you know created that. So you're not just a broad integrated into the industry as well. I mean people reach out to you to help or suggested ideas and to help engineering projects and things like that. Yep. Yep. Our pump line has really came a long way. You know we've always been in the concrete world of mixing and delivering just like some of our fence products like the like the mobile mixer and the Smith but you know this is the concrete is really where it started. Our owner still owns his masonry company to this day along a lot of other companies, but we've always been very concrete driven and yeah, we're equipment manufacturers. I've said this to many of you. We're in the business making people's life easier. Complicated. So, equipment manufacturing is a secondary. We're here to make people's life easier and and happier and easier. And if there's one thing high point companies knows, equipment, equipment, equipment, equipment. They know. No doubt it's equipment makes your life a lot easier. They buy [ __ ] left and right. They bought a concrete truck or something. They own their own cement truck. Makes their own concrete out there. Crane, you know, most fence companies have a crane, right? A crane. Yeah, they got a crane out there. I don't even know. They're not even really fence contractors anymore. General contractor. I'm pretty sure they just like rent equipment. They probably got like a rental yard up there. Pretty sure if anybody looks like anybody calls Cole or Dalton and they're like, "Hey, can you guys do this?" They're like, "Yeah, we can. Never thought about it, but yeah, let's do it. We'll figure it out." Yeah, [ __ ] do it. So, Matt, what got you into this? I know we a lot of us know you, but Steve every time. I don't think I don't remember ever asking what what got you into this concrete world. Okay, so Jamie and our owner Yeah. Uh my parents still live five houses down from him. Um, you know, the area that we live in is is a small rural area farm farm town in the abs appalache mountains in Ohio. So, it's a close-knit community. Again, Damian five doors down from me. His his first wife, Donna, she used to babysit us, me and my sisters back in the day. And, uh, Thad, who's Skinner, who's one of the owners as well, was my basketball coach in high school. So after college, I went did my own thing. And about 10 years ago, dad called and said, "Hey, you know, easy G is not easy G. We're really we're moving and we got some new things. I think, you know, if you want to move back home, help us, you know, get to where we want to be and where we think we want to be, you can use your help." Immediately, they didn't even really think about it. I was like, "Hell yeah, dude. I'm down." Because at that time, I was I was traveling on gasport. have some pipe valves and fittings all over the country. Um and and being constantly um

Just chasing, you know, chasing the oil and uh I got a chance to come home and be close to my mom and dad, my sisters, and people that I care about. It was a was a no-brainer. So, that's how it all got started. But really, it's been a long time. Like, I' i've been an easy G dude. I I interned there in the summers of high school. Yeah. Like I was like I interned there in college one time. I had to do like a thinking student teachers have to do they have to go teach like in business school you got to do like a practicum that's what they call it and you go and you like sit with a business person and you learn how to do their job basically for half the semester. So I knew I knew I wanted to be in business when I was a kid and it it all just kind of worked itself back out. You know I went What was the first piece of machinery you used to? Oh, you actually used I used for something of mine that I needed to do. I mean, I've used all of them like on demos for something I needed to do. The crusher. The crusher. Yeah, the hall crusher. You would just for entertainment purposely.

We put some things that went that were not supposed to go through there that I'm not going to say online. refrigerators like railroad top. That's right. What was the very first um item that EasyG made? What was the ground the ground? The ground. Yep. That was the very first thing that was again that started in 198 1998 in the back of a garage deer camp. Still deer camp to this day. And was designed by Damian uh Dan Kern Buzz Teaming. He's no longer with us. and a and a Doug Schwiker. Um Doug is still runs our welding department at the plant. Dan retired last year. Buzz has passed away and Damian obviously still but really those this necessity was something they were Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It it was needed. They retired. They didn't have like back then they didn't have it. We build a lot of concepts of the grout haul. But there wasn't really anything like the grout. You were basically taking a bucket up there along your along your bricks. Sorry, below your block walls and and grouting it that way. It wasn't it wasn't a feeding system like and essentially the groundhog is sort of like a pump, but it's gravity fed. So you're it's not pumping, but it's constantly moving as long as that thing is elevated. So there wasn't anything like that. They were taking garb buckets if you if you know what that is. You just pull the [ __ ] shoot and it opens up and you've got to move it quick enough to get it down all of your cells and your CMU blocks. Okay? Or before you can even use it accordingly. We got the grout hog that changed the world. That changed the game. And from the grout hog, we've got everything else to do with concrete. We've simplified it to the best of our ability. We really we've tried. Speaking of changing the game, what changed the game for the fencing industry? The wire hawk. Oh, the fence hog. Yeah, the fence. Right. I mean, I still know the wire. I don't like all Yeah, that the fence hog. I mean, that what what made him come up with that? What? That was actually that was actually that was actually that's another another guy that designed that. He passed away here this past year, too. Um, you guys remember that little fence hog I brought to the show? The mini one? The the little little one that was like a table top. I was telling people was for hamster fencing. So that was a prototype that we had back then. We took to show one of your actual prototypes. Yeah, that was the that we took it to shows like little tabletop shows and stuff to show people what it did. But the guy that uh the guy that designed the fence hog, he passed away last year, too. His name is Mike Crumb. Um he invented it. We took that little fence hog that little display one took to shows 20 years ago. Took he wanted it at his funeral. Oh. Yes. We took it there. But that's how the fence hall got started by some other people and Damian just being the businessman that he is really just said I think that's a good idea and you know 20 some years later here we are like next month we've got seven of these shi sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh shipping over to sweet 45. That's amazing, huh? So D, you have what about 30 or 40 of these things probably knowing you guys. Believe it or not, we've got one big one and one mini one. Probably some that are still wrapped in plastic. We got barb wire hog. We got barb wire. Oh, and we got the new mini prototype. We got a prototype mini barb wire haul that will be unveiled in Salt Lake at the rivalry of Brian. No, there's no rivalry out there. The rivalry. We're all in the same industry. I know. I'm kidding. I just want to drop I know. That was the reason. I just start it up just for fun. What? We got anything new coming out though? Yeah, the mini bar. They got it. We we built one, we shipped it out to them. You guys have used it a couple times. Yeah, we used it a couple times. We're still, you know, tweaking a couple things here and there, but it's it's basically ready to go. What's that going to do differently? Well, you'll be able to run like the

Barb wire hog before you could really only run that like full size. Like now you can run it with your locks and it it's we built it lighter weight. It's kind of comes off the it's different in the way the wire comes off. Um and again, we're still tweaking. We are going to take the feedback that they give us and we're going to make some minor changes. But yeah, next next month in in Salt Lake, uh it'll be there. The very first one, they have the first one, but this will be that was a prototype. We're the very first one will be out there. We're also doing a couple other cool things out there um in Salt Lake like we painted uh the big fence all black. We put orange and white. Yeah, we did white. We just did something different this year just to kind of, you know, where did the orange come from? I mean, you're known for the orange. Um, right down right down to the beer cups. Damen is a Cincinnati Bengals fan, so that's bingle bingle orange. Yeah, it stands out, man. I mean, but it it actually Sherman Williams has it and you can look it up in their cat catalog. It's easy orange. Is it really number you guys have ordered a little bit? That's sure guys orange as a product coach. That's how you know you made it. Really cool, dude. And I'm very very thankful and glad and really whole success because we still boy like pretty much all of our guys work in the shop. Those guys they're all our coal powered plant shut down a couple years ago and a lot of the town kind of left. I mean, I mean, there wasn't anything coming in. Easy G's been able to, you know, put food back on the table and good food back on the table for a lot of people and provide a really good mid life for a lot of guys in our area. So, that is probably what I'm most proud of about all the [ __ ] to keep running things. We still keeping our little town. That's the thing that I'm Yeah. If all you guys know are the the fence pieces of equipment from ECG, you haven't even scratched the surface. They've got so much more stuff and it's cool. All of it. And uh we're going to be walking that tomorrow doing a an actual tour of all the equipment they have on site tomorrow. And we'll get in a little bit more detail on that video and uh let everybody know. You want to talk to Alex and Flex Crew? Yeah, let's get the Flex Crew over. They were nice enough to let us use the booth. Yeah. Yes. So 3PLS again, they are a uh it's a labor ready service, but it's skilled and that and and this app that they came out with allows you to search for somebody in that particular field that you need somebody for and really designate the right guy for your job. Construction based. Construction based. Yes. So it's not just Alex is actually working with a with a fence company and I think he's going to come in here and talk a little bit about it. Let's get Alex over here. I'm going to get Alex on here. But hey guys, I will see you tomorrow. All right. Thank you for coming on. Love you all. Y'all go behind. Behind. I'll stand. I don't know where this is going. Oh, we're just gonna Wait, tell us Hey, tell us about this uh tell us about Flex Crew. We got Alex. We got Alex here from Flex Flex Crew. Easy. Same same company. So, um tell us a little bit about Flex Crew, how it started, what you do, just any insight you have on it. So, we do basic staffing. So, we have another company that's called uh Three Promise Labor Services. Here, I'll bend down a little bit. Um, welcome to the party. Yeah, thank you so much. So, uh, so yeah, we basically hire about 100 to 150 masons and tenders and we work them throughout the United States, right? And that's three promised labor services. and we kind of hit that niche of uh of having to make some tenders. But Damian, which Matt had spoken on a lot obviously with all the companies, he came up to me two years ago and said, "Hey, Alex, I want the uh I want the Uber of construction staffing." I said, "This is terrible." Well, you know, a year and a half later, we have

An app that basically it's like it's a mix between Indeed and Tinder, right? So you post a job like Indian style, right? And then uh you could go in look at a profile, right? Like there's fencing, general construction, labor, carpentry, whatever it is, and you can see their skills in terms of whatever classifications yada yada. So it's uh it's a work in progress to say the least. It's been uh is it open right now for people to go check out? How do they access it? So iOS and the Google Play Store Flex Crew and then online if you're a customer you're interested in like job flexusa.com. So check it out. What got you into uh what got you into it? Were you were you working on before? No, I actually fall protection company. I don't know if you guys have seen multamics or not yet. Oh, we did. We did. I think we did. Oh yeah, with the big device. There's a girl on top of a shipping container at their right. So I worked for them years ago. Kind of the same upbringing as I was super close to Dave. He uh when I was like 14, 15 years old. He'd say, "Hey boys, write down your goals. Tell me your goals." Right? So we always Yeah. I I needed a referral from him for another job and said, "Hey, I have a job that I'd like for here we are seven, eight years later." Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. It's fun. So, but tell I'm curious about you guys. I'm sure obviously all your listeners know you, but like what's the story here at what's your goal when you're I guess for the people? Well, we're with the Forkers Association and this is the my fence life podcast. Yeah. So, uh, this broadcast out, probably the most watched fence broadcast, uh, podcast in the industry. So, um, we're at World of Concretes, so we want to get more people involved in the fence industry. Get the fence industry merging with other other, um, industries as well. And, and we're all pretty intertwined. I mean, to the point where, um, ECG, himself, Matt, he's an exhibitor at all the defense shows as well. So, and a lot of the exhibitors in here, some of you cross over. So, um, we're really just trying to broaden and expand the reach of our industry and and and get it just larger. So, uh, meeting people like yourself as well and hopefully, uh, not just Masons and stuff like that, you can get some fences added in there as well. Absolutely. I mean, that's the thing is it's a side gig thing, too. Like, I mean, if somebody has experiences, uh, somebody needs 16, 18 hours of work from somebody, they can go on there, make extra money. That's what we want to do is for attending day two of the show floor is now. Please join us tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. Final day of the show. Yeah, I don't have a lot of experience, but damn it, darn it. I have a I have a good I have a good attitude and I know this stuff. I been around whatever it is. and uh and it's a good like segment into uh their interest. So, and that's kind of we always and that's nice because I mean I say it's out there the numbers true for every seven to eight people leaving our industry at least three are coming in. So, we need people like yourself and you know all the associations everybody do a better job at bringing people into our industry. I agree. We can't have enough Yeah. We can't have enough workers. So, what you're doing is definitely helpful. I appreciate it. Let us know whatever we can do to help. Thanks so much. All right. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for the use of your couch. Oh, yeah. You can do whatever you need. All right. So, so World of Concrete is wrapping it up right now. Uh oh, I'm getting ask a question. What's the name of the app again? Flex Crew. Flex Crew. So, go to any of iOS or Android and ask for Flex Crew. Here's a little bit more. I was ask the same thing you did said hers is on a beer. Everybody, uh it uh it looks like uh the actual show floor is closing. So, uh, we're going to close with them and get out of here, but thank you for tuning in. Stay tuned for some of the videos cuz we have a lot of really cool videos

For the podcast, uh, and also for Fence Magazine. Get over there and follow the page, uh, The Fence Magazine as well. We'll drop some of those, uh, links in the comments. Have a good, safe one, Michaela. Well, thank you. Thanks, guys.