Commercial Roofing in Atlantic Canada: Lifecycle Management, Conditions Assessments, and the One-Throat-to-Choke Warranty Model (Matthew Simon, The Garland Company)

0:03All right, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today with us we have Matthew Simon, who's territory manager for The Garland Company here in Atlantic Canada. It's great to have you here, Matt. Yeah, thank you, I'm really excited. Yeah, thanks for joining us, and excited to chat with you about the building envelope side of things and Garland with the one-stop-shop model with, you know, all the great quality materials along with the quality

0:35assessments that go with it and the service. We can start with — just tell us a little bit about your journey. I know you went to college out of high school in marketing at New Brunswick Community College; a few things happened after that that transpired to get you where you're at now. So maybe just take us through a little of your story. Yeah, totally. I mean, my journey has been endless amounts of craziness. I grew up on a dairy farm in Irishtown, New

1:03Brunswick, just outside of Moncton, so always a lot of work. I have three brothers, and — you're an early riser? Yeah, big time. So, we were the lead hands on the farm — we didn't have workers or employees or anything like that, it was me and my brothers and my dad, and my mom was at home cooking and making sure that the wheels kept turning at home too, right. So when — I'm the youngest in my family — when I grew up it was just so much

1:30work. Me and my brothers, I think, all agreed that farming just wasn't for us. And once I graduated high school I went to UNB in Fredericton and I was taking arts — I always liked reading and writing and that kind of thing, and I was really good at it in high school — so, yeah, just naturally that's kind of where my progression led me. In my first year at UNB someone came into one of the classrooms — it's a big auditorium — and they gave this pitch about university

2:02— I thought that was really interesting and I got really excited about running a business and starting to make some money and just doing something different. So I did that for a couple of years. I had a little small town — Truro — as my territory, and wouldn't you know, there's a ton of old wooden-shingled houses in Truro so tons of painting needed to be done there, right. So yeah, exactly like what you just said — early rise, put the boots on

2:29and get out there and meet with people. I was really successful, ended up being a Rookie of the Year for Canada, which was something I never expected at all — it just kind of happened naturally and ended up that way. So I went back to school and I was doing my second year and I thought, yeah, arts isn't really leading me in the way I want to end up for a career, so I got out of it. I went

2:55to community college in Moncton. I ended up just paying for the tuition — it's ridiculously cost-effective compared to what tuition is at universities these days. I took marketing there; it kind of went hand in hand because, again, I love reading and writing, and what I learned in marketing as well is that you can implement all of those skills into campaigns and flyers and even just meeting and talking with people like we are right now. So I took marketing and then still didn't know what I wanted to do for my

3:24career. I just went online before graduation and there were, you know, community college job postings, and I just went through the list and I started emailing resumes. I fell into a job with an electrical manufacturer as a rep for them as well, and I just started my way in the office doing order entry, that kind of thing, working my way through project management. Eventually I got on the road working with architects and writing specifications and things like that. I loved that company — they were great. I loved all of the brands that we

3:57— but at the end of the day, you know, as you go through the stepping stones of life, I outgrew the position a little bit. And then one day I got a phone call from someone at Garland asking if I was interested. I'm not sure if I even was at the time. I remember just lying in bed with my wife and kind of mulling it over — do we really want to make a switch? Because we were just starting our family

4:19at that time as well. But ultimately we thought, hey, if you don't take any risk in life then you're going to get what you already have — kind of thing — and we wanted more. So I took the job and never really looked back. Yeah, that's kind of how I got here. So you've got two kids at home — one's two and one's three months? No — how are your sleep patterns these days? Yeah, there's not much sleep. Yeah, like we were talking about before —

4:45the two-year-old sleeps through the night, he's great. And then with the newborn at home it seemed like too good to be true for a little while — she was sleeping all day and it's like, I can get tons of work done, I don't know what people are talking about. But now she's a little bit older and hungrier and crying at night, so yeah, we're on a rotation right now to try to get out of bed and do those 3am feeds

5:09— but for sure. Well, thanks for sharing a little bit of your backstory. I think it's always interesting to hear the different paths that people take — it's always interesting for our listeners — and different people that might be considering university for engineering or college for architectural technology or whatever it is, and then someone comes from a business or marketing background and then just finds their way through the trades and realizes that all those soft skills kind of apply, to project management and

5:35everything else too. So it's always really insightful to hear different people's stories. So The Garland Company — 125 years in business, across 40 different countries. Are they predominantly in the UK, USA, and Canada, or is it — yeah, that's right. So just to give you a bit of the history — and it's so rich, I mean we could do a whole show — yeah, I know. They started in 1895 in Cleveland, Ohio, started as a plastics company, got bought out by three brothers in the early

6:091910s or so — who transformed the same type of tooling equipment into roofing and building envelope materials — and it just kind of gradually, continuously evolved from there. One cool thing, a stepping stone in Garland's history, is around — I believe the '60s or '70s — when modified bitumen was just becoming big in the market and Garland was really going through an accelerated growth. The company became 100% employee-owned. So at the end of the year — and this goes from our workers in the plants, our office administration,

6:47and then certainly down to the sales force like myself — but at the end of the year, you know, we get a statement of how well the company did for that year. We've been lucky even throughout the pandemic to see continuous growth, and everyone gets a piece of that pie at the end of the year. So it actually goes into essentially what is a retirement savings plan, and then whenever you leave the company it gets paid out, kind of. But yeah, it's just kind of cool to have

7:14— I feel like, in a way, I do own my small piece of the company here in the Maritimes, and I really try to run my business in a way that encompasses that. I am, you know, under the Garland umbrella, and with that comes a ton of resources that I wouldn't have otherwise, which is great. But when I sit down with someone like you here today, I really try to emphasize that what you see is what you get, and you get me trying to run a business and work

7:39with those organizations as if it's coming right from my work-from-home office, kind of thing. Kudos to the management for doing that — a multinational corporation — you know, what better way to instill morale and incentivize it for all of your employees, some that are never going to meet each other. Yeah, exactly. Just to bring it in a structured way — yeah. And then every February the statements go out, and the past couple of years we've been doing just a virtual call, so you get three or four

8:07hundred people on a call, and our president will kind of go through the statistics for the company, and it's more or less just a celebration — everybody gets their little piece of the pie, kind of thing. And everyone has their drink, and to see a few hundred people raise a beer or whatever it is — those are video calls. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Do you get to travel a bit for some things once a year within the company? Yeah, typically. Yeah,

8:34typically we would. It's good to actually get into our physical plant locations and see the machinery. Sitting down and talking to people through the manufacturing process is one thing, but actually being there and physically seeing it go through the line and seeing what the quality assurance looks like — physically, in the material — is eye-opening as well, and you learn a lot from those. And we cover the entire building envelope: roof, walls, and flooring. I like to tell people anywhere where

9:02water can get into your building, we have a product for that, kind of thing. Roofing is our bread and butter; Garland has a ton of patents on different roofing products, and that's our product differentiation. But it can be hard — like I said — it can be hard to explain the entire offering. And just being able to physically get in the plant and see how all of those components come together — you're talking about so many

9:32different assemblies for roofs and enveloping. So a lot of people might think envelope — they think exterior wall assemblies — but the roof and floor, like you said, where water can come in, it's kind of the whole 3D — yeah, exactly. So for The Garland Company, you know, you're dealing with a lot of contractors, a lot of building asset owners, a lot of roofing contractors and stuff — so where are a lot of the materials being sold here in

10:01Atlantic Canada? Where are they being — yeah. So I think under the Garland umbrella we have 18 different factories. We have some Canadian factories for accessories, but I would say the bulk of our material is still manufactured out of Cleveland, Ohio. And a cool fact is the original building plastics factory from 1895 is still the headquarters for Garland. I think I've seen the building on your website — it looks like a really vintage — yeah, brick facade — yeah, exactly. So now they've extended it quite a bit, but

10:36they've tried to really keep the look — like the old Maple Leaf Gardens, exactly. It's got that real historical aesthetic to the outside. Yeah, and it's really funny because if you just go to Cleveland and drive down that road it's dilapidated buildings all over the place, kind of thing — not well kept — and then you roll down the road and there's this huge factory, and that front component is still there and they've left it purposely. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, okay, where are you taking me, kind of

11:06thing — the first time I went down there — and then it was like, oh okay, I see — which is pretty cool. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your position as territory manager here in Atlantic Canada, and where you spend most of your time. You're connecting with local contractors, supplying quality materials for roof assemblies and building envelope materials and such. But also the thing about Garland is the

11:30service end — which, on your mission statement, the best product sells our services. You're dealing with these contractors or building owners or building maintenance professionals and you're able to provide them with quality assessments too, and not just maybe a one-trip visit for an inspection as a supplier or whatever — you're there for the duration of the project. Just tell us a little bit about the overall — yeah, exactly. And it can be a bit of a

11:57mouthful, because at Garland we wear so many different hats. That's one of the beautiful things about it — we deal with everyone inside of that organization who works with those projects, from the maintenance guy that might be in the basement all the way up through to the CEO who's signing checks for invoices, kind of thing. At the end of the day, Garland is a full-service building envelope manufacturer — high-performance building envelope products. What we bring to the table is, you know,

12:30when you really look at projects holistically, we're talking at the end of the day about large capital projects. We'll get into how we get to that point, but really we want to take an eagle-eye view of everything that's involved — from, if you're a building owner and you don't know or don't have a technical background to determine the conditions of your building, well what do you have to do to achieve, if you need a new roof, kind of thing, to get a

12:58successful outcome? So that's where I come in. A lot of what I do — like we were talking about before — we have a pretty solid foundation now, but in the beginning a lot of what I would do is be reaching out to building owners and property — and we work a lot in the public space as well — so asset managers, those kind of people that are dealing with buildings every day. We go in, and the first thing that we do, whether you have a single property or a

13:25portfolio of properties, we want to take a look at just a single building that you may be having some issues with, or that you just need an updated conditions assessment for, kind of thing, and give you a look under the hood of all the services that we offer. And so for our listeners — not to interrupt — but a conditions assessment for that building owner is basically just an explanation for many people outside the industry where it's like, you're basically explaining to them, okay, if you can replace your

13:54roof now, you can save this much money, and that's what we foresee happening — just kind of an assessment. Yeah, that's right. We try not to look at it as, if you replace it now you can save money. Rather, from the opposite side of the same coin — how can we determine the existing condition of your building components? Everything that we deal with in life, building envelope related or not, has a life expectancy. So we want to be able to confidently walk into that

14:27building owner's office at the end of the day with a report that indicates what their existing life expectancy is. The unfortunate part about roofing that people will say is that it's out of sight, out of mind. So there's a big building boom — '60s, '70s, '80s — tons of buildings and infrastructure going up everywhere, and now we're getting to the point where roofing is at 30, 40-plus years. It's been out of sight, out of mind for so long, the age of the building components has deteriorated, and people are getting

14:57leaks. A lot of what happens is we'll walk in and meet with someone and they say, yeah, I've got a leak here, I've got a leak there, kind of thing. Of course the first thing we want to do is mitigate any risk associated with water intrusion, so we want to take care of those leaks right off the bat. But at the end of the day, what really happens is, if you're just doing that leak component — we have such harsh seasons here, especially in the spring

15:22and the fall — with how cold it is, and then it might be hot the next day, kind of thing. Or if not hot, but we could have minus 15 one day and then a day like today it's two, three, four, five degrees outside. Yeah. You're in the toughest climate, probably. Yeah, exactly. So there's so much expansion and contraction with the temperature changes that it's really hard specifically on roofing components. So by the time we get to the end of someone's building's life expectancy, when we go in and

15:52we do the evaluation, we say the typical life expectancy of your roof is going to be 17 years — well, you're at 30 years now, and yeah, you've got a couple of leaks, but I'm more than happy to take care of those leaks; I can't guarantee that we're going to get an extended life out of a few repairs, kind of thing. I'll put a band-aid on it, but just like if you were to go to the doctor's office for a broken arm, kind of thing, we want

16:14to make sure that we're going to be good. So would you provide a thermal scan and do all those kinds of things too? Yeah, exactly, and that's all part of the assessment. The initial assessment is typically at no charge — it depends, varies per project, kind of thing. But we just want to go in and start relationship building right off the bat. The Garland program is not for everyone, and vice versa,

16:41kind of thing. So like I said, we want to go in and give someone a peek under the hood of kind of what things look like before we jump into big numbers, kind of thing. So yeah, that's really the objective of the conditions assessment — to give you the facts on the existing conditions of your building comparative to if it was brand new today, kind of thing. So if it's at the end of its life, we say, yeah, we'll fix your leaks, but I can't guarantee because of the climate

17:08that we live in that it's going to stay leak-free for X amount of years. And I'm guilty of saying, yeah, we'll fix your leaks, you'll be good for three or four years before we have to replace the roof, and that'll give us time — excuse me — to budget the capital. But of course, we go through a harsh winter — snow and ice is so unpredictable — and then the next summer I get that call, the building's still leaking, even if it's in a different area than we repaired the year prior

17:32and it's like, you said it was going to be good for the next few years, kind of thing. So I try to shy away from that now. Of course, if you're having a leak, more than happy to get the right people involved, the right contractors involved, to mitigate those risks. But at the end of the day, our value comes from providing the right long-term solution. So yeah, if we kind of continue on with that process — now we've sat down, we've met, we've built a rapport. I've given

18:00you kind of the conditions assessment in that initial report. We're also giving you your budgets for — is there preventative maintenance, or how much is it going to cost to fix the existing leaks if there are any? Are you writing the specs as well? Well, yeah, exactly, and we're kind of setting the building blocks. Because I also don't like to jump into meetings and just tell people, yeah, the roof needs to be replaced, you know, it's going to use our material, yeah, it's going to be a

18:24couple hundred thousand dollars, and walk out of there — put it in the pipeline and you're good to go, kind of thing. We're slowly — I think a lot of people get intimidated with how detailed our process can be. And just jumping in and, for lack of a better way to put it, kind of vomiting all the stuff that we can do — it really feels like we're taking over someone's organizational capabilities, or whatever their role is in that. So we just want to go in and really make

18:54it as collaborative as possible and make sure they still feel like they're in the lead in terms of the work output that's going to come out of whatever happens in our meetings. So we lay those budgets on the table, we try to provide as much education as possible about those best solutions, and then yeah, we're building those blocks and taking the next steps. And I'm not talking about — your roof needs to be replaced, even if you did have the money, hey, yeah, great, let's go out to — ten

19:22or four, kind of thing. You know, we're talking about a six-month process or longer, because there's so much time and energy involved in each additional step. And we were talking before about how sometimes, especially with roofing — obviously that's one of the trades that, even though construction is not seasonal in Atlantic Canada, when things are really busy roofing can be, because of the weather. But for you, you're looking six months prior to the spring/summer months when things can be

19:50yeah, for prospects — trying to handle these building assets and these condition assessments, to say, hey, yeah. And that goes along with what I was just saying, because a lot of times the recommendation is great — the roof needs to be replaced, it's going to be X amount of thousands of dollars — and the person that I'm dealing with in the organization locally might have a corporate office in Toronto or Montreal or in the States somewhere. So yeah, we really want to — at a local level, we

20:22— everybody involved really wants to get the roof replaced, because it's always over a computer or a fax machine or, you know, big equipment in a manufacturing company or something like that — so it's immediate for the people working in those plants or facilities. But getting that money released to be able to go ahead and start paying contractors to get out there and get POs rolling — that stuff can take three, four, five, six months, kind of thing. So that's why we want to be as early as possible in that

20:51process so we can adequately prepare and get organized for all of the proceeding steps. So yeah, just to kind of give you a quick overview of what happens next — say we come in, we've met a few times, and yeah, the roof needs to be replaced, there's some wall panels, flooring, whatever it is. Let's move forward with a project. The next step would be for me to start working on the design process. And this is where it gets a little bit tricky, because our business model — we can

21:19go direct business-to-business, or we can work through architectural groups or consultants or specialty groups like that, kind of thing. We'll work with you — if you have a project and you need some experience or technical expertise — more than happy to get involved at whatever level, whether it's a general contract or doing a design-build or turnkey solution, kind of thing. We'll get involved in really any avenue, kind of thing. But again, just to stick with our example — if you're a building owner and you're

21:47ready to go ahead with some capital work, then we start the design phase and we're looking at good, better, best scenarios. So if you say, yeah, I've got this pot of gold here that's going to go towards a roof replacement, kind of thing — we're looking at, or what we want to look at, is the life cycle that you're expecting. So are you planning to sell that building in the next few years? A lot of municipal buildings, schools and things like that, hospitals — we know that

22:14they're going to keep those buildings forever, so we're starting at that 30-, 40-, 50-year solution, kind of thing. For property managers and things like that, we kind of start at the other end — the lower end — and here's what you're going to get out of it. But we're not just evaluating warranties and stuff like that — we're really digging into the design and the components of our design to say, here's what you can expect out of what we're offering. So, it's a

22:42collaborative process. We'll review all the options, we'll get the necessary people involved to allocate the capital for those projects. And then when it does come time — okay, we've got the money, everything's ready to roll — then we facilitate the procurement process. So at this point I've got the design completed in AutoCAD. So I do my own architectural drawings and things like that; we have people that can do that as well, but I like to keep it all under my local umbrella. I do the architectural drawings, the

23:14written specifications, all that stuff. And the great part about being with Garland — it is such a big organization that we have tons of resources. So I say it's me doing the work output, but in terms of the information and the technical aspects and things like that, it's really a group effort. How many employees are local with you? Just me. Yeah, it's just me in the Atlantic for the past three or four years, actually. So a lot of the work I do is Nova Scotia, New

23:41Brunswick — even though I cover Newfoundland and PEI as well. It's been a ton of windshield time, which has been crazy. But we actually just hired someone in New Brunswick, so he'll be up and running in February, and then I'll kind of help him do a little transition phase there. So yeah, it can be a lot of traveling, which is fine. The other thing too is, because we're so service-oriented, I'm not working on

24:0780, 90, 100 projects a year. I think last year I probably did 15 large capital projects where there might be three or four or five roofs involved in each individual project, kind of thing. But that's pretty much my limit. I needed someone in New Brunswick, otherwise we were going to stay kind of stagnant for a little bit — which I am excited about the growth — but yeah. So we do all of that design work, we facilitate the procurement

24:37process. So if it's private, we leverage our network of contractors. As Garland — as the manufacturer and specifier at this point — we don't actually hire contractors to do the work, nor do we have our own contracting team. We leave it to the local professionals that do the stuff every day and leverage those relationships. We do have a pre-qualification that we get our guys to run through every year, just to make sure that the guys are paying their bills, that they're not, you know, being sued by anyone, or

25:11whatever — the unfortunate side of the construction industry sometimes. But if it's private, then we'll — if the client is comfortable — we'll invite our guys that are friendly, yeah, exactly. And if it's public, you know, just fly in the wind and hope the right guys are bidding it, kind of thing. And then we facilitate that on the back end. So if it's private, we'll do the drawing specifications, all that stuff, we'll do the procurement process, we'll get as

25:42many bids as are required. We're doing the award, we're also doing the review process. So again, we're sitting down with the stakeholders in that project, we're reviewing all of the bids, we're picking out the nitty-gritty details that the average person might not pick up on — why the prices may be different, if someone's missing something, or quantities are less here or more there, kind of thing. We're running through these before the award process, so that we're as organized and prepared as

26:12— we do the award, POs are issued directly to the contractor at that point. Of course, working for a manufacturer specifying our own materials, the contractor would just order material from us and work with me for any kind of building components that they might need for that project. And then when it comes time for the installation, it's actually mandated by Garland that for three of every five working days someone's on site reviewing the installation. So you're on-site three times a week. Yeah, exactly. So come —

26:43end of June, July, all the way through — this year, all the way through to the holiday season — you've been on lots of roofs in the last three years around Atlantic Canada. Yeah, it's crazy, man, it's insane. And you know, I have so much experience from that. Big time. Yeah, and when you're 50, 60 feet up — yeah, and it's November, the wind's blowing, I've got my hard hat on, the hood of my jacket underneath, and I was still getting brain freeze. I was up on a

27:10roof at the airport — it was a B. Stevens job down the highway. I forget the name of it — the airport air cargo — last winter. And the guys were giving me a hard time because if you're just 30, 40 feet up, like you said, it's like 10 times as cold. Oh yeah, and it's so windy — that's the thing. It's crazy. So yeah, and that's kind of where it gets busy, because we have to be on site so often and so frequently that

27:37there's so much driving involved to the various sites. You know, this year again I'll be working in northern New Brunswick, Cape Breton, Yarmouth, locally in Halifax, Moncton, Saint John — right. So I've got dedicated days: Wednesdays I'm driving to northern New Brunswick, Thursdays I'm going to Cape Breton, kind of thing. Luckily at this point there is so much organization involved at the beginning of the year that everything is nice and laid out schedule-wise, so when I am working on a project — tell people to be a

28:07little lenient with me on the three of every five days — I'll be there. Certainly if there's any issues or anything like that, it'll be my priority and we'll make sure that we're on site as much as possible. But some weeks it's tough. The other tough thing — and in construction in general — is I say three of every five working days in a week, but three of every five working days in, you know, our climate might be three weeks. Yeah. So people are like, where have you

28:35been? I'm like, well, the guys only worked two days. Or you get there and there's no one there. Yeah, that's the worst. Yeah. So I try to make those calls beforehand now. But I was just talking to one of my roofing contractors yesterday and we're trying to get a handle — a health check on the industry, I guess you could say — and one of my questions was, what are your lost days like from, you know, the beginning of

29:00construction in June or July through to the end of the year? And they had five or six weeks of lost days of construction. And that kind of put it in perspective for me, because if there's only four working months that guys can really go out and hit production — yeah, exactly — and you're losing five weeks, you know, a month and a half, or around a month of work lost in the four months you can actually work — the logistics and scheduling can get very

29:26hectic. So, luckily, I think a lot of people — if you've lived in the Maritimes you know how crazy the weather is — so they're like, yeah, I get it. But at the same time, when your deadline is the end of the year, kind of thing, and you've just lost five weeks of this major project that you're working on, it's like, how hard can you push the guys to work weekends and stuff? What's your rapport like with the roofing contractors or building envelope

29:49contractors, for that matter? I mean, I would assume when you're a quality contractor, somebody coming to site three times a week for QA — that's welcomed, and it's part of the gig. And sometimes people have different mentalities, so what's your experience been like? Yeah, that's a good question, and you know what, it's tough because you've got to walk a fine line. When I'm the one in with the client working on the specifications and doing

30:17the design — you know, we've got a year under our belt before we're actually getting the construction started — and then we get up on the roof, and I always tell the guys before the project starts: when I'm here to do my quality assurance inspections, it's not to get in your way. You guys are the professionals. I would love it if every project I went to, I could just spend 20 minutes, half an hour, take some photos, walk around the job site, shoot the breeze with the guys for a little bit. Yeah, exactly. And get

30:45off, send a nice report to the client at the end of the week — everything's going great. More often than not — and it's like this in all of construction — I get up on the roof and there's things that are, you know, not as neat and tidy or whatever. I think what a lot of the contracting side doesn't see is all of that work on the front end. So we have a really developed relationship with the clients that we work with, so when we're developing long-term

31:11solutions, there is a cost associated with that. So I feel obligated to ensure that the owner is getting what they paid

31:20— that can be difficult and it can be tricky. Because on a roof, again, I'm not there to tell the guys how to do their job. But when you're bidding on a specification and I know the specifications so intimately because I'm writing them — when I'm up on the roof I know exactly the detail work and things like that that are written in the specification, and I expect our contractors to be fulfilling the requirements of the specification. Now every project as well, there's things that aren't in the specification, there's

31:46unforeseen conditions, and yeah, I leave it up to them to determine what the best practices are, and we'll write a change order if we have to and kind of go through the project. I would like to say that my relationship with all of our contractors is great. I try to do my best to really ensure that they feel comfortable and that when we're doing a job together I'm not being that nitpicky guy about everything. At the end of the day I've worked on a lot of job sites where I

32:12really didn't have to get involved at all, and that's a lovely job to work on. That means you're a good contractor. Yeah, exactly. And guys that want to actively work with the owner to ensure that they're doing a good job — that will call on the days that they're not going to be there, kind of thing — those kind of things go a long way. Some guys will get upset when I have to write a report to the owner to tell them

32:37the progress that's happening. So we want to give them an indication of the schedule — if there have been weather delays and stuff like that, when are we expected to be completing the job? But more than that, they want to know that they're getting what they're paying for, kind of thing. So when I'm picking out those nitty-gritty details — I'd love it if they were all perfect and I could just send them photos: here's what's written in the specification, here's a photo of it executed perfectly.

33:02Sometimes those details aren't as nice and tight as we'd like them to be. And, you know, I have a commitment to Garland as well to ensure that we're not going to have warranty claims later in that roof's life cycle, or whatever the project is. So not only for the owner, but as the liability for our company warranting the projects — we want to make sure that those details are done. Because your warranty — anything that you're involved with — yeah, that's right. So how our warranties work

33:29is we take the two-year workmanship warranty from the contractor and we substitute that with a long-term warranty directly to the owner. So if there's any issues within the first couple of years, it'll be up to Garland to call the original installer to go out and take a look and fix it. After that — that's the contractor. Yeah, exactly. And after the two years, I like to say one throat to choke, kind of thing. Yeah. The client, or whoever it is, can just call me personally and say, hey, Matt,

33:55we've got a leak over roof section XYZ — can you come take a look? Garland will pay the labour and materials required to go out and fix whatever it is. I was with someone the other day and they, instead of saying one throat to choke, said one back to pat, and I was like, I like that — more positive. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's funny — I like how you're talking about these different relationships you have to manage. I think in construction you're always managing

34:19people's motives too. You know, like, everyone has their own motives and they're collaborating together. But for the contractor — labour's tough, it's expensive — and anything that slows them down at all, to a degree, is a hindrance. But then you have a building owner involved whose motive is like, when can my building be open? For the first time — are we going to be open again? That's what they're making money on. Yeah, exactly. For you, your onus is to the

34:41owner — you have a good relationship with the contractor too — but you want to make sure you do your diligence because you've said something a year ago that — yeah, exactly — your warranty's got to be protected. So it's a lot of motives there to manage. Yeah, exactly. So I summarize that by saying, at the end of the day, all of our warranties are no-dollar-limit for labour and materials both. So that goes back to the one throat to choke — if there's any issue or

35:05concern, you just have myself to call at Garland and we'll come do the investigation and figure it out and pay for it if there's anything that needs to be fixed, kind of thing. So for our designers, our architects that we work with, for our building owners and for our contractors — they know that for any work output or production that's done on their job site, Garland is actually absorbing the liability wherever our materials are being used. So at the end of the day, if there is an issue on a job site

35:33there can be a lot of fingers pointing with so many people involved — it's a manufacturing issue, it's an installation error, it's a design that wasn't done properly. At the end of the day, it is a big relief for building owners just to be able to call me and say, regardless of what the issue is, get someone out here and fix it right away, kind of thing. Yeah. And it's funny that you say that about contractors too, because there is so much involved in

35:57the installation. Again, when you're working on a large capital project — when I go out there and I'm picking out some of those nitty-gritty details — the level of training and education is not the same for every guy on the roof either. So it's important to have a strong foreman out there that can lead the guys properly. But at the end of the day, you might have a new guy working on some details that aren't totally 100%. Maybe something got missed. Yeah, exactly. So

36:23there's always kind of little things. You know, contractors need to think about that too — they need to mix the labour scenario. You know, you've got some journeymen, like you said, a really good foreman — always, I mean, that's the most important thing: foreman, incredibly skilled and experienced — and then have some apprentices there too, because it's lower labour costs but they're working hard, they're there every day. So there's always like a mix of, yeah, exactly, different levels. Being on site so often and frequently, and it's

36:48myself on site as well — in the Maritime region, at least, or Atlantic Canada — all the more reason. Like, if I was a foreman, I'd love to see you showing up in the morning with a coffee. Yeah, you know, you're going to be there looking over the work and catching something that I might have missed today — yeah, that would be some people's mentality. Yeah. And normally the guys on site who are actually doing the install are great guys. I love hanging out with them, and

37:14that's tough work — I mean, it doesn't get any tougher than that. Yeah, it's hot, it's cold, it's hard work physically. Yeah. So when I'm doing my weekly report — we're on site three of every five days — I try to give a weekly report every Friday. Instead of every day I'm there, I just do once a week: here's your progress report, kind of thing. And we evaluate everything that's happening and what the future looks like for that project. And I copy our

37:37contractors in, so there's no blind side with the owner or anything like that — everyone's on the same page. Big communication, right from the beginning of that procurement phase all the way through to project completion — as many people, all the stakeholders, involved in the communication process. So when I send out that progress report and there are some red flags going on on the job site, the tricky part that I was mentioning is some contractors are, hey, this is the way we've always done it and it's fine — versus, as the manufacturer,

38:08that's not how I specified it as needing to be done, kind of thing. And there is a bit of an emotional charge there with some contractors, and guys will get a bit of pride — yeah, exactly, in their work — which is positive most of the time, exactly. So when there are red flags, some guys get a little emotionally charged and it affects the relationship. But at the end of the day, honestly, I try to tell my guys: hey, I'm here as an

38:39extension of your organization as well. And for the branch manager, or even the project managers that I deal with — they're not on site every day — so I can be their eyes and ears for those jobs. And what I really welcome is, if there is an issue, we deal with it, and then if it continues to snowball, we'll escalate from there. But I like it if I'm doing a progress report or something like that — I copy a branch manager or whoever is

39:04involved with that project in on it, they see the red flags, they say, thanks, Matt, for letting me know, we're going to get these issues corrected. The owner's happy that we've identified an issue and now it's being corrected, however it needs to be. And yeah, again, everyone's kind of on the same page. But it's tricky, because you don't want to point out too many things and upset your contractors either. So yeah, like I said, that's a fine line there. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

39:32Some insight and intuition to know what's important. Yeah. So I'd love to say — certainly on a personal level at least — we have or have had a great relationship with all of our contractors. But yeah, with so many people involved — the money, the owners and contractors — sometimes it does get a little bit emotional. But hey, that's life, and honestly, that's construction too, and that's what a lot of people love about it, right? Yeah. So no, it's

39:59so true. It's good. Yeah. So you've taken us through the whole process from start to finish — where you're involved with a building asset owner, hypothetically, in capital planning, the inspection and then capital planning and some good, better, best — three different options — and then involved in the spec writing and the tender process, and after that supplying the material and the QA. So

40:26you're kind of involved right from point A all the way down the line. But I guess sometimes it'd be different too — sometimes, for some clients, maybe you're just supplying the material and doing the QAs for a contractor. Do you have relationships with — yeah. Honestly, because Garland absorbs the liability through our warranty process, I don't get involved in projects where we're only supplying materials. So you're either doing that whole step-by-step process we just talked about, or nothing. Exactly. All right. And

40:57the only way that we would differ from that program would be through an architect. So if you're a building owner, or a municipality or something like that — and you're, well, you're a lot different than other suppliers you compete with in that regard. Yeah, yeah, big time. So I'm more than happy to work with our local architects on building envelope projects, whatever they need. Because I can provide the same support that we would directly for a building owner — through an architect we can give them

41:24the same technical assistance, assist in writing the specification — the key words or phrases that they'll need in their written specification — design drawing review. We're providing all the same resources, just through an entity that they're paying for. And then some — especially in the public space — building owners may be more comfortable with that route, having a third party involved. But even for our architects, if it's mandatory — so whether an architect is just comfortable and knows all about Garland and is

41:56specifying our stuff without me having to get super involved like I normally would — I'm still mandated to be on site and reviewing that installation and making sure that all those details are correct anyway. All right, so when it comes to the sales side and the business development side for you, it's architects or building asset owners, facilities — that's right, facility managers — that you're targeting. Yeah. Sure. And it goes back to, I'm not the guy that you're going to call if you have a

42:22leak and you want a band-aid solution because your organization doesn't have the capital to start doing larger projects. I'm more than happy to reference our network of contractors, guys that have maintenance crews on the road that can go out and do that, and that comes up all the time. Because, more than happy to meet with anyone — I'm a leave-no-stone-unturned kind of guy. So I'm out on the road all the time. But yeah, at the end of the day, I'm working

42:48with the guys from that bottom level all the way through to the top, making sure that we're not just selling components to your building envelope but we're creating a program that's looking out for the life cycle of whatever your building is. So if the — let's say maybe 15 projects that you work on per year, just for a rough number — are most of those public or a lot of them private? A lot of it is public. We fit really well in the public, actually — I

43:20assume most of the revenue is in the public domain. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that'd be a pretty big building asset owner. Yeah. But then if you were in that realm as a building asset owner, Garland seems like a really good solution. Yeah, that's right. And it's a great solution. At the end of the day, again, I hate to say it comes down to dollars and cents, because it doesn't — but for the right organization, even if you have one building or a few buildings, there's so much

43:50service that Garland provides at the front end that you're saving a lot of time — and a lot of money on the consulting side of things as well. You get the technical expertise, all of the resources that you'd normally need to get your projects up and running, and you're just paying for the cost of whatever that project is. And again, we're not looking at, yeah, let's slap a roof on it and set it and forget it, kind of thing — we're looking out for you for the duration of that building's life

44:22cycle. And how I emphasize that — another thing that I kind of forgot to talk about, but it is important — included in your warranty: our minimum warranty is 20 years and we have warranties up to 50 years depending on what the assembly is or what the project is. So say you've got a 50-year warranty — of course there's a cost associated with the quality of products in that project — but it's also mandated for myself locally, and for someone from Garland, to physically inspect that

44:52project on a yearly basis for the duration of the warranty — at least once a year. Again, we're not the set-it-and-forget-it guys that are going to be your cheapest option, but we're going to service it hard from the front end, and then we're going to implement a maintenance program — and then we're actually going to be the ones getting up on that roof for the next 20 years to make sure that it's withstanding time, kind of thing. Most of

45:18the problems that building asset owners run into are roof and parking lot — that's where they spend all their money over the course of 50 years of the building's life cycle. Yeah, that's right. And the funny thing is — I'm always telling people — your roofing today is the same as the roads, right? It's just a different composition. There's SBS and all this other stuff. So in your roofing there's more elasticity, but when you drive down our roads, especially in the Maritimes, and you're bumping along the road because

45:48there are so many potholes — that's because of our climate, that's because of UV degradation, it's because of snow, ice, water buildup — in the same base of asphalt that we're using as the compound in our roofing. So when people are thinking, yeah, we've had this roof for 20 years and it's not leaking yet — well, it's like, how do you feel about a road that hasn't been serviced in 20 years? Not very good. Yeah, exactly. And that's what's going on in the roof as well. And

46:16that's the tough part — if it's not leaking but it's a really old roof, it can be difficult to explain what's happening to that roof if it's not leaking. But you know, that goes back to our expertise and just the information that we provide in that initial conditions assessment, with all the photos and everything, to show — like, sure, if you see a large crack in the road or highway because the asphalt's drying out and becoming brittle, well, here's an example of that

46:42same thing happening on the roof. Yeah, that's a really good analogy. Coming from West Prince, PEI, I've driven on many roads where you're avoiding a lot of potholes — you've gotta pay attention. I'm curious to ask you about your relationship with some of the local architects. Have you been able to build a rapport with some of the larger architecture firms? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I've been with Garland for five years

47:08— going on five years, I should say — but I think Garland has been in the Maritimes for about 40 years. So yeah, we have a history with architects and structural engineers who typically work on roofing projects. So yeah, I would say there's enough brand recognition out there now that architects are at least familiar with us — maybe not to the point that they're actually realizing the amount of service that they're getting. But there is an educational component there. But certainly I would say in the past

47:41three or four years, or since I've been around, you've helped them with some speccing. Yeah, big time. We've done a lot of cool projects. You know, in the municipal markets a lot of architects will — it feels like it's mandated to be involved. But how — how the Garland program works is we write performance-based specifications, so we don't actually specify our material by name at all in the public market — just the performance spec. No? Yeah,

48:10no actual product lines. We try to write it as tight as possible so if it's not Garland they're still getting that performance level. And that's why I see performance specs all the time. Yeah, exactly — that's why it's in there. Yeah. So at least, if it doesn't go our way, then we can rely on that life cycle analysis and everything else that we did to build that performance-based specification. So collaborative construction, right? I mean yeah, big time. I think architects are designing so

48:37many different aspects, and if they can bring on someone to assist with this, why not? And in some cases there are so many guys getting into these offices and pitching different products and stuff like that — when I first started I was kind of running into that, oh yeah, another roofing guy in here, kind of thing. A big thing for me is — I hate to say it, I don't know how else

49:08— is being a roofing nerd, in a sense. I really like to get into that. That's your job. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I like to go a little bit farther than just, here's one of our products and how it differentiates from the other products — more the building science side. Yeah, exactly. So when I get into the factory and actually see them mixing the modified bitumen compounds — I want to know what the fillers are, how it affects the elasticity, the low-temperature flexibility, all that stuff — and the

49:37reason is, and specifically for architects, when I walk into their office we're not just pitching Garland as an organization or our individual products — yeah, that's part of it — but at the end of the day we want to actually be that resource. So if they're working on a project that's not necessarily Garland-related, I can be that technical resource that they call: hey, Matt, I'm working on this and I need to know something I don't know about — yeah, exactly. And that's where it comes

50:04around. And that's really my journey with architects — has been just that: go in, try to do the our-products thing, don't really hear back from them, and then out of the blue — everybody's doing that, yeah, exactly — and then out of the blue, just struck a chord with someone, get a call about a technical question, help them out on something here, help them out on something there, and then eventually build that relationship to where there's a lot of trust and value out of what I'm

50:31offering, to get to the point of, hey, I'm working on a project and I'd like to bring you in because it kind of fits the Garland model, kind of thing. So it's been about three years, actually, to kind of work up to that process with just two or three different guys. But there's so much value in that, and having — for us as an organization too — having another third party working and having eyes and ears and those technical resources, not even just

50:59from a building envelope perspective, but they've got engineers for a variety of building components, and it just makes the project go so much smoother when you have all of those resources under the same hood, kind of thing. So yeah, for sure. I was going to ask too — on the roofing nerd side of things — what are you seeing now currently for Garland's supply of materials to contractors on these different projects that you're working on yearly? Like, is it mostly

51:27mod-bit? Is there EPDM? Is there different things happening? Is there some newer stuff like liquid-applied stuff coming into play? Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, that's a good question too. So I'll kind of take you through a bit of the journey through the industry. Today — present times — a lot of what's going on in Atlantic Canada in terms of roofing is a two-ply modified bitumen, which is an asphaltic system that's typically being torch-applied. So a guy's got, you know, big roofing torches and

51:56they heat up the rolls and then they roll them out — the bitumen is hot and it lays into the roof and it's fully adhered to whatever the substrate is made out of. Probably the most prominent and the most popular type of roofing out there. Of course there are tons of different roofing systems — more or less you talk about single-plies versus multi-ply systems. Your single-plies being your EPDMs, PVCs, TPOs, kind of thing. And Garland sells all that stuff, and I have a pitch for that

52:26stuff and I have a pitch for the asphalt stuff. At the end of the day, again, I try to stick with a very straight-and-narrow message and process. I personally don't feel that single-plies work well in our climate because there is so much expansion and contraction and seasonal environmental effects. But that's not to say it doesn't have a place in our market — it's just not what me, as part of Garland, is dabbling in frequently. Our most popular products are your two-ply

52:57materials — that would be the bulk of our work that we're doing locally in terms of roofing. And then there are advancements in just those compositions as well. So what about the sustainability aspect of getting away from torch-on stuff? Is there — yeah, that's an incentive too. Yeah, that's been a big thing, because with torch there's more risk of fire and things like that. But, you know, this is all considerations that we're evaluating in the design process in that good,

53:25better, best process. So yeah, of course, if they can afford it, I'd love to move more towards cold-applied, which the industry is slowly moving towards. And the thing is, it's more labour for the guys — they've got to either trowel it on or pour these buckets out and squeegee the material on and then roll their rolls into it, kind of thing. Great systems, because there's just, like traditional asphalt roofing and felts — you have a lot of plies there, and a lot of asphalt, a lot of

53:55waterproofing. That's probably more expensive too. But yeah — the labour is probably 60-some percent, 70 percent of these, yeah, exactly. So because there's a little bit more labour involved they can be a little bit more expensive. So that's why the industry is slowly moving in that direction — just like technology, as the cost comes down, it'll be more

54:15accessible. The big thing that's happening in the industry right now is the various compositions of modified asphalt that they're using. There's all different types of asphalt — SBS, SEBS, SIS. What is coming into play now is coatings are becoming really popular. So we're doing a lot more restoration projects. There's a lot of metal — old prefabricated metal buildings, the Butler buildings kind of thing. You drive through Burnside, tons of metal roofs there that are again getting to that age where they're getting old and rusty and have corrosion and holes and

54:48things like that. Well, we're doing some restorative treatments — we're putting waterproofing coatings on top. It's about a third the cost of ripping off the roof or replacing it, and you're extending that life another 10, 20 years depending on the products that you use. That's probably an option that comes up a lot of times, right? Yes. Existing older buildings — we don't have to replace your roof if the foundation's good, then why tear it all out? Yeah. So those coatings are slowly transitioning into

55:17modified bitumen or low-slope roofing, and we can now give 20-year warranties on low-slope roof coatings, as long as it's nice and dry below the membrane, kind of thing. But the cool thing is, the technology in those coatings — polyurethane is now working its way into the asphalt side of things as well. So now we're actually offering polyurethane-modified asphalt, and that's your 50-year warranty. And there's an R-value in that, right? If it's polyurethane — is that how that works, or — well, it affects a

55:48variety of performance characteristics. Polyurethane — really, during the aging process, again just like our roads — as the roads get brittle and water and all the traffic and things like that cause that asphalt to break up, that's where you're getting your potholes. Well, by implementing a polyurethane or polyurea into the asphalt, it becomes extremely durable and very stable as well. So it slows down that aging process, and that's why we're able to give such a long-term warranty on those roofs specifically, because there's

56:21polyurethane in a lot of spray insulations that are — yeah, exactly — exterior envelope, right. Yeah, exactly. So it's becoming implemented in more things. And that's kind of where our technology is going. Your traditional roof would be a 20-year warranty, and then — yeah, I don't like to say your Lamborghini and Cadillac when I'm talking about high-performance roofing. We're talking about — an F-150 would be your traditional 20-year warranty versus — a transport truck? Yeah, yeah, exactly. But versus a

56:52big Mack truck would be your 50-year warranty — like, that thing will run through anything. What's the R&D situation with Garland? That must be a really big part of the business with all these chemicals and keeping up with the times. Yeah, we have such a huge R&D division. And it's the same thing with companies like Soprema, you know, like that. Yeah, exactly — it's the engine that drives everything. Yeah. So when I think of it — this is my personal opinion, I'll

57:22profess it that way — but when I think of innovation you can think of it a couple of different ways in terms of roofing specifically. There's innovation in: I have a product, how can I make this more affordable to a larger market — it may be eliminating some performance characteristics slightly, making the cost of it cheaper so that it's more available. And you see that in technology — the cheaper products are not lasting as long. And I think of it

57:52that way in roofing as well. And when I think of Garland — and this is such a sales pitch, I know — but when I think of Garland's R&D, we're taking a good product, regardless of how expensive it's going to be later, and our R&D is making good products better. So that comes when I talk about polyurethane-infused asphalt — Garland has a patent on that technology, we're the only ones that can offer that right now. There's polyurethane, as you said, in tons of products elsewhere, but in

58:18terms of a 75-square-foot roll of roofing — we're the only ones with that product at the moment. Nothing wrong with a good plug. No, yeah, exactly. So our R&D does a really good job at providing technical education to our sales force so that we're actually aware of those different characteristics and what they're working on in terms of innovation within Garland. And I know innovation is kind of a buzzword, but a cool thing that I like about

58:47Garland — and I published a study about this last year, actually — is that our R&D department accepts one-by-one core cuts from anywhere throughout Canada — the United States as well, but we have a Canadian-specific division in Toronto. So if your roof is, you know, getting towards the end of its life expectancy — we do a visual inspection — sometimes even if it's not leaking and it's towards the end of its life, the big question that I get is, well, how much life do I have left in this roof?

59:17And that can be a really tough question to answer based on visual inspection alone. Because if you say it should have another three, four, five years left in it, and then we're in that scenario where it's leaking again next year — it can be really tough to have to go back to that owner and explain why it's leaking. And a lot of times, weather isn't really a great excuse. So to answer that question, what I do for my clients that I work with is, as

59:44part of their roof management program — I'm doing a one-by-one core cut of their roof, regardless of its composition, like single-ply, multi-ply, whatever it is. I repair it myself, I send that core to our laboratory in Toronto, and then they physically test it. They'll use chemicals to break down the asphalt to see what it's made out of, they'll delaminate the plies, see if there are bubbles or anything in between the plies that had been affecting the adhesion — maybe that's why the roof is failing, or something like

60:13that. But the big thing is they do tear-and-tensile strength, which in roofing is the largest indicator of overall life expectancy. So if you have a high value, your roof is technically going to last a longer time than a tear-and-tensile strength value that's lower. So when we can come and test cores of roofs that are 20 years old — if they still have a really good tear-and-tensile strength — that is a much better indicator than visual inspection of saying, yeah, you've probably got five, ten years left in this

60:42roof. Versus a roof that's 10 years old that's failing — we send that core into the lab and they say, yeah, it's toast, there's no tear-and-tensile strength left in this at all. Then you have a physical report showing, yeah, we've done the actual testing on the roof membrane. I'm sorry, Mr. Customer, but we're at the end — I can't guarantee that this will fix your leaks. As I've been saying, we'll fix your leaks, but I can't guarantee that this thing's going to last much longer. Building science is so fascinating, like,

61:08as you're talking about. So what happens in the testing in your labs and stuff makes you think of the crash-test dummy videos, you know, for the automotive industry — yeah, exactly. But I know Roxul does some stuff where they'll set a piece of cavity rock on fire — yeah, exactly — and they'll show how the burn time works and stuff. I think those kind of things would be so cool for marketing — just showing the testing that's being done.

61:31And it is really cool. And when I first started — I don't have a construction background per se, and I don't have a roofing-specific background until I started with Garland — so there was a steep learning curve there. So every roof I was getting on, to be able to answer those questions about their roofs, I was doing core cuts, sending them to our lab — it takes a couple of weeks, if we've got the time, why not — and getting those results, and then actually being

61:57able to talk proficiently about what's going on on the roof. And it's not just my personal opinion on visual inspection. You know, a lot of people will — they want to get a contractor or whoever, or a lot of times it's just the maintenance guy that goes up and takes a look at the roof. Yeah, it's not leaking, don't see any huge holes in the roof — he's not going to, yeah, exactly. So to be able to go up and say, yeah, we're doing a little bit more

62:24than just a visual inspection to uncover what's happening with the roof, and actually providing that information — and it goes both ways. I'm surprised by roofs that I look at and think, this 30-year roof needs to be replaced, and it's got great strength. And then I'm getting calls for roofs in that 10-year range — you know, that's an unfortunate conversation sometimes. But tell us about your BOMA membership — Building Owners and Managers Association. Are you a member of that? Yeah, I've dabbled into it

62:53a little bit. Yeah, it depends — a lot of people in your space are kind of in that realm just because, I mean, that's where you're going to find your building asset owners and groups and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of the cool thing about stuff like what you're doing, right — we have a fairly niche message, we want to get it out to the people that actually work in the space or that could use our materials. Kind of — if it's not public, I

63:17mean, your private targets are, yeah, exactly. The other thing is a lot of these associations are expensive. And when I say I try to run our Atlantic region as my business, it's because I'm paying for this personally today — I'm paying for the BOMA subscription, I'm paying for that CANS membership, I'm paying for, you know, there's a certain amount of expenses that I accumulate that I'm not being paid back by Garland, just to get some exposure, kind of thing. So yeah, I said I

63:48dabble in it a little bit — go to some events, when you certainly haven't been doing events lately. Yeah, exactly. So I try to — and I always tell the new guys that I work with too — to really get as involved in their industry as possible and make those connections and meet the right people. But yeah, it can be a little bit expensive, and it's tough to be able to kind of go out, and you're busy too. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean,

64:13there are so many things you can take part in too. So yeah. Yeah, even if you're a CANS member — and CANS is great, everyone that comes on our podcast talks about CANS — it's yeah. And there's stuff that they hold all the time and it's like, yeah, exactly. Part of BOMA as well, maybe something else — there's all these different things happening, you've gotta pick and choose. And so I've been pretty lucky, actually. The past three years Garland in the Atlantic region has consecutively — even through the pandemic —

64:37had the best years in our history in the region. And that, you know, is partially just because there's been a boom in infrastructure as well — I think our market is doing really well, all of our contractors are busy, and that helps out everybody. And I'm just trying to keep the train moving, kind of thing. So we have been able to establish a pretty solid foundation, and now rather than use a shotgun approach — like going through an organization to meet the right people — we're

65:08maybe using a bow-and-arrow, in a sense, of just trying to get some face-to-face meetings with the right people. Not as spread out as I used to be, but rather identifying people that really align with what our program offers, trying to get into their office and be efficient with that. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's a double-edged sword. Yes, I'd love to just meet someone and create that relationship and start — yeah, exactly. So it works. This has been great. I

65:38mean, I'm sure we could continue on here with all the different topics and building science and learning about Garland — just how unique it is and just how much value it must bring to those target markets, whether it's public and then dealing with architects and the full process. It's really unique. I know I've learned a lot just chatting with you. Any final things you want to mention? Yeah, you know, I will say I'm happy to do this —

66:05I'm glad I didn't really have anything prepared; it was kind of off the cuff and it's always best to just let it flow. You know, we hit a lot of really good points, and in my head I had kind of like an organized format and we kind of hit all the points but in a different way, which is — yeah, I think it was great. I really appreciate being here. I think at the end of the day we have a really great program. I'm more than happy

66:27to put the message out there — I'll meet with anyone that needs some help or is interested in learning more about our program, kind of thing. Like I said, I leave no stone unturned. Exactly. We'll get that face-to-face and we'll figure out if it's going to work to continue working together or not. I love meeting new people as well. So yeah, I believe in the Garland program, and more than that I actually have a lot

66:53of fun doing what I do. So yeah, you can tell your passion. I believe in my personal program that I run in the Atlantic provinces, and like I said it's been successful. So I'm just trying to do what the other successful guys are doing — just try to keep working hard and having fun, kind of thing. So yeah, again I really appreciate you having me on, I was really excited, and yeah, still just really happy with how everything went. Yeah, thanks, man. It's

67:18always a pleasure to talk to people who are knowledgeable and passionate about what they do. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do, so thanks so much. And yeah, you too. Cheers! Cool. Thanks. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to follow us on any podcast platform you use. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to send us a comment or a review — we'd love to engage with you.